ST. LOUIS — At Mayor Lyda Krewson’s request, a city panel on Wednesday voted to cut spending on the city’s controversial medium-security jail to free up money to hire mental health and social workers to aid police.
The $860,000 shift by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment is in addition to previous plans to reduce outlays on the Hall Street facility, often referred to as the city workhouse, to $8.8 million from $16 million as prisoner counts decline.
But the move falls short of the goal of some criminal justice activists’ demands to close the workhouse, which the mayor and her public safety team insist is still needed.
The board made the decision as it endorsed a long list of amendments to the proposed city budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. An aldermanic committee will consider the proposed changes Thursday.
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The board also:
• Approved spending $1.7 million on the first year of a five-year body camera contract for city police. The first of the 800 cameras are expected to be deployed by the end of July.
• Agreed to Comptroller Darlene Green’s request to shift $2.6 million from police overtime to neighborhood revitalization and workforce development programs, despite concerns expressed by Krewson and Budget Director Paul Payne.
• Endorsed a list of nonbinding “police accountability†steps sought by Green, although Krewson voted against one that backed “the equivalent of ending qualified immunity†for police. The mayor said she wanted to first run that issue by lawyers for the city.
Krewson said the new police program she requested aims to help officers deal with those 911 calls that she said “could benefit from or even be better served by a response from a social worker or mental health worker.â€
“This will be a help to de-escalation†of potential violence, Krewson said. “I think we can wring the money out of the (workhouse) budget to do it.â€
She said plans call for the program, dubbed Cops and Clinicians, to be used at first over the next year in the police department’s 1st and 6th districts on the city’s far south and far north sides.
She said smaller pilot projects for a couple of months each had been “as successful as could be on a very, very limited basis.†She said those had been funded by noncity sources.
Krewson was joined by Green and the board’s third member, Aldermanic President Lewis Reed, in backing the plan. The total cost of the program is $864,500.
All three also voted to support the spending on the first year of a five-year, $5.8 million body camera contract.
“It’s been a long time coming and I’m really, really happy that we’re finally there,†Reed said. He pointed out that it has been a topic of debate at City Hall since after the 2014 killing of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer.
The $1.7 million approved Wednesday covers the cameras, data storage and other first-year costs; that amount is from the budget for the current fiscal year. In addition, the board added $900,000 needed to hire new police employees to run the system.
Green made her proposal to shift money from police overtime to employment training and neighborhood revitalization after reading several letters from residents requesting a reallocation of money now spent on policing to other programs.
Krewson, who ended up voting for the change, said she worried about cutting police overtime allocations because it’s needed because of the city’s continued inability to hire enough officers.
“We are continuing to see very large overtime bills because we’re short,†she said. Payne, the budget director, said he expected that if the cut was made now, the city will have to consider adding money back later in the year.
The money is unspent workforce and neighborhood funds from this year’s budget that Payne had wanted to use to help balance next year’s budget amid steep tax revenue shortfalls due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Green introduced her police accountability resolution in response to the protests against police brutality here and around the country since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
Krewson questioned the provision calling for an end to qualified immunity from prosecution for police because that really needs to be done at a higher level of government.
She said she also opposed removing immunity for police but leaving it in place for prosecutors and judges. Green said “the people deserve to know who we are and where we stand, period.â€
EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this article included an incorrect amount of money that would be shifted from the city workhouse to the new police program.