Arizona legislators move to bar cities from cutting police budgets

PHOENIX — It hasn’t happened in any Arizona city.

But that didn’t stop a Senate panel from voting Wednesday to financially penalize any city that cuts funding for law enforcement.

What it came down to is a claim by the bill’s sponsor, Rep. David Marshall, that it could happen here.

The Snowflake Republican told colleagues to look at what happened in prior years in places including New York, Seattle and Portland.

“They allowed all these different groups to run amok and terrorize their towns,’’ he said.

Marshall said the result was many of these communities reduced the funding for their police departments. Some of those departments have yet to get back to their original strength, he said.

As to why he’s pushing House Bill 2221 in Arizona: “We have a lot of activists that are still screaming about defunding the police here in Phoenix, defunding the police in our state,” he said.

He said that is occurring as many police agencies are operating below authorized capacity, including the Department of Public Safety, which he said is 500 officers short.

“If we defunded the police in our state, we would be in the same position, the same condition, a lot of these other states such as New York, Chicago, L.A., Seattle,’’ Marshall said, saying he is taking “proactive’’ action.

HB 2221 would enforce its provisions through a financial hit. It would cut an offending city’s state aid by a dollar-for-dollar basis equal to whatever cut the city made to its police budget.

That concerned Marshall Pimentel, a lobbyist for the League of Arizona Cities and Towns.

He told lawmakers he didn’t want the opposition to be construed as opposition to police.

“But we do view this as a fundamental issue of local control,’’ Pimentel said, saying it undermines the ability of cities “to responsibly manage their public safety budget.’’

“Local officials are in the best position to assess community needs and make budgetary decisions that balance public safety priorities with fiscal responsibility,’’ he said.

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Beyond that, Pimentel said there might be reasons it makes sense to reduce a police department’s budget.

For example, he said, some cities have civilian employees within the department handling everything from code enforcement to public records and community outreach. Pimentel said there might be legitimate reasons to move those workers to another agency with the commensurate shift of their costs out of the police department.

He also said there could be “technology-driven efficiencies’’ that would result in the need for less money for the department without affecting staffing levels.

And then, Pimentel said, there’s the fiscal reality that public safety is the largest portion of any city’s budget.

“Local officials must have the ability to adjust spending based on actual community needs, just as the Legislature does when crafting the state budget,’’ he said.

Marshall said his legislation does have an escape clause of sorts for cities in financial trouble.

“What it says in the bill is that if you’re going to be cutting budgets, that you cut the budgets equally,’’ he said. “But we ask, in this bill, that you cut law enforcement and fire last. That is our front line to crime in our community.’’

Democratic Sen. Lauren Kuby, a former member of the Tempe City Council, asked Marshall whether there was really a need for Arizona lawmakers to enact a new law, with financial penalties, when there is no evidence of a problem here.

Marshall never got a chance to answer, as Sen. Jake Hoffman, who chairs the panel, responded instead.

“He said this is a proactive bill, looking across the country at trends that have occurred and the damage that it’s caused,’’ said the Queen Creek Republican.

“Because there are activists advocating for this, including some city council members, he’s trying to be proactive here,’’ Hoffman continued. “Our job is to look across the country and see where the political wind’s going, what’s good, what’s bad, what the worst practice, and then view those here so that we don’t run into issues that other people have seen.’’

The measure, already approved by the House, now awaits action by the full Senate.