(CNN) — Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best announced her retirement Monday night, shortly after a city council vote to cut nearly $ 4 million from the department’s budget.
“I want to thank Mayor (Jenny) Durkan for her continued support through good times and hard times,” Best said in a letter to members of the Seattle Police Department obtained by CNN. “I am confident that the department will get through these difficult times.”
He said his retirement will take effect on September 2.
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best announced her retirement.
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Durkan said that the city is losing an incomparable leader.
“His courage, grace and integrity have inspired me and made our city better,” Durkan said in a statement. “These last few months, I learned that Chief Best was the person who would guide our city through these difficult times, to reinvent policing and community safety.”
Best’s announcement came on the same day that the Seattle City Council approved a mid-year budget that cuts nearly $ 4 million from the Seattle Police Department’s $ 400 million budget for 2019-2020.
The city council rebalanced the budget in light of the economic crisis triggered by the covid-19 pandemic and calls to redistribute funds from police to community programs in the wake of protests that followed George Floyd’s death, said the Seattle City Council President M. Lorena González in a statement.
“Reducing the budget of the Seattle Police Department is a response to calls to advocate for racial justice and investments in the BIPOC communities (acronym for Black, Indian and People of Color),” said González.
The reduction to the police department’s budget will amount to $ 11 million over the course of a year, González said, an amount that is far less than the 50% budget cut that has been discussed.
The budget reduction calls for eliminating 32 patrol officers, reducing specialized units and administrative costs, cutting training and travel expenses, transferring victim advocates to the human services department, and removing two officers from the 911 emergency call center.
Calls to the city’s 911 involve criminal activity 56% of the time, and Gonzalez said resources and funds can be better allocated if other services are involved.
“What we can do is allow our police to focus on what they are trained to do and fund service providers that address the most complex issues of housing, substance use disorder, youth violence prevention, affordable healthcare and more, “he said.
The budget has yet to go to Durkan, who can make it law, not sign it and allow it to become law or veto it, spokeswoman Kelsey Nyland said.
In June, Durkan asked the council to cut about $ 20 million from the police department’s budget to address a city deficit of $ 378 million stemming from lower tax revenues and increased demand for services during the pandemic. of covid-19. The proposed cut to the police department was the largest reduction in the mayor’s budget proposal.
At the time, Durkan asked the police department to make plans to cut up to 50% of his spending in next year’s budget.
CNN’s Joe Sutton and Jennifer Henderson contributed to this report.
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