St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) FY Budgets

Please start by viewing and reading the documents with Mapping of Officer Assignments, then progress to the City Budget Allocations by Department.  All SLMPD Budget Workbooks with Line Item Detail were obtained by Sunshine Requests. 
GRAM’s Introduction to the Budget (click to read) : RELEASE OF THE FY2018 AND FY2019 PROPOSED BUDGETS OF THE SLMPD

In a Human Rights centered approach to governance, decision making in the allocation of finite budgetary revenue and resources would be weighted such that the health and welfare of its residents is the overriding priority.  Likewise allocation of budgetary revenue would flow toward departments that provide these services. Any applicable governmental decision-making that does not alleviate conditions that arose due to past or continued oppression would be discarded. This principle would be applied to all expenditures, from public education to the “gifting” of  TIFs and Tax Abatements, in that they should be provided in an equitable manner, with the wealth distributed across the city/governmental boundary.

In the past these principles have not guided the City of St. Louis Budgetary spending and they certainly don’t today.  In fact, if the city government made this their number one priority there would be a fundamental shift in the programs which the city chooses to allocate money.  

Previously, GRAM discovered that while the Board of Estimate and Apportionment (Board of E&A) knows details of the yearly Saint Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) Proposed Budget, including line Item details, the Alders of St. Louis pass the budget without this knowledge.  In fact the Alders’ knowledge of the budget is largely limited to the broad and opaque general categories as created by the Budget Division of the City of St. Louis (the same information released to the general public).

GRAM’s purpose in obtaining the SLMPD line item budget was centered on the fact that the city spends over 26% of the general fund on law enforcement.  The Infrastructure built around law enforcement receiving over 26% of the budget is known as the Arrest and Incarcerate system (except in the rare cases where there are diversion programs).  The percentage of the budget spent by the city for its Arrest and Incarcerate System is the city’s contribution towards Mass Incarceration.  This amounts to a whopping 269 Million Dollars a year, over 52% of the City’s budget*, or $750,000 dollars a day. (The 52% of the Budget allocation includes the 26% allocated to the SLMPD as well as cost associated with the court system, the Medium Security Institute (aka Workhouse), etc.)  In contrast the value that the city places on programs provided under Health and Human Services is a mere 1.55 Million Dollars or $4,252 dollars a day.

None of the details of the proposed SLMPD Budget have ever been available to the public.  This matters because such knowledge includes details of proposed programs as well as the costs. This is knowledge that the public can use to examine whether the proposed programs would actually solve the “public safety” problems confronted in the city.

For instance, the Alders and the public might want to (and should) ask if there are other programs outside of law enforcement that would solve some of the age old problems of the city with more effective, humane and healthy programs.  Such programs exist and are successful outside of St. Louis but unfortunately are not considered for funding by the current and past administrations of the City of St. Louis.

GRAM, Organization for Black Struggle (OBS), and Coaliton Against Police Crimes and Repression’s (CAPCR) attempt to influence the Fiscal Year 2019 (FY2019) budgetary priorities of the Board of E&A toward violence prevention programs and away from the SLMPD.  This attempt may have been the actual cause for the delay by the SLMPD in releasing their FY2019 Budget to GRAM till well after the June 30th Board Of Alderman budgetary approval deadline.

Details:

By a Sunshine Request GRAM attempted to obtain the line item details of the FY2019 SLMPD Budget shortly after it was submitted to the Budget Department of the City but before the Board of E&A meetings, where they present the budget to the public.   

From previous Sunshine Requests, it was known that the SLMPD submitted a nearly complete version of their budget to the City for the Fiscal Year near the end of February.  

2/28/18:  GRAM submitted the Sunshine Request for the SLMPD Proposed FY2019 Budget (based on when the proposed budget of FY2018 was released in the previous year).

4/6/18:  GRAM made a required payment of $180.00 to the SLMPD with the SLMPD’s promised release of the budget by June 8th.  This would have allowed GRAM, OBS, and CAPCR sufficient time to convince the Board of E&A and the Board of Alders to reconsider re-allocating money in the FY2019 Budget. (GRAM had hoped that the SLMPD would have favored transparency and public awareness of the line item details in the SLMPD budget and released it before the first E&A meeting.)

4/20/18:  The public hearing of the City of St. Louis Fiscal Year 2019 Annual Operating Plan, where the Board of E&A answered questions from the public regarding their proposed budget.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU FOR THE DEDICATED WORK OF MACARTHUR JUSTICE CENTER OF MISSOURI FOR REPRESENTATION IN OBTAINING ALL SLMPD BUDGETARY INFORMATION, INCLUDING LINE ITEM DETAIL OF FY2015-2019 BUDGETS (obtained through Sunshine Requests).

Mapping of Officer Assignments by police district using FY2018 Budget Data (clickable map)

Analysis of city demographics and officer assignments based on police districts using the FY2018 budget data.  Mapping data and analysis performed by Andrew Arkills.

https://public.tableau.com/profile/andrew.arkills#!/vizhome/PoliceDistrictMapping/Dashboard1

FY2021 City Budget Allocations By Department and the Department of Public Safety Allocation of Funds (Please Read)

The following documents are excerpts from Budget Documents provided by the Budget Division of the City of St. Louis.  They were chosen to demonstrate the disproportionate amount of money the City allocates to the Police Department and the Department of Public Safety at the expense of all the other departments and services provided to residents.  
Allocating resources to support the concept of police-centered “public safety” ignores the basic services and needs of residents.  Public safety would be better served if these funds were reallocated with an emphasis on community service and public health/well-being. For example, social workers with training and experience would better serve those suffering mental distress; social work services would also be a more economical and efficient use of time.  To find out more about Re-Envisioning and Re-Investing in Public Safety please visit CAPCR’s webpage:

https://www.capcr-stl.org/r-e-a-l-p-u-b-l-i-c-s-a-f-e-t-y


FY2021 City Budget By Department:

FY2021-General-Fund-Budget-By-Department

FY2021 Public Safety Budget:

FY2021-Public-Safety-Budget

For the entire Fiscal Year Operating Plans of the City of St. Louis please visit the link below:

https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/budget/documents/fy2021-annual-operating-plan.cfm


The effort to Re-Envision and Re-Imagine Public Safety has been a multi-year endeavor pursued by activists across the country and in St. Louis.  It has gained broader interest and support in the ongoing but recent incidents of police brutality and violence resulting in the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.  In advocating for a vision of public safety for community well being, it is important to listen to the voices of the black and brown communities that have unjustly and disproportionately experienced the injustices of our current system of public safety.   

Other Sources of Information on Police Expenditures

The following is an RFP for HK416 A5 Machine Guns found by Jessica Payne and is quite disturbing to think of HK416 machine guns in the hands of anyone but military personnel.

Procurement order for “Skunk” by the City of St. Louis for use by the SLMPD. It was first reported on 
SKUNK.pdf

SKUNK


The procurement of SKUNK by the SLMPD was originally reported in this article:
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/08/after-ferguson-unrest-st-louis-police-bought-stink-weapons-launch-protesters/119044/
 Below is a description of SKUNK as found on wikipedia:
“Skunk” is a malodorantnon-lethal weapon used for crowd control by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and marketed to militaries and law enforcement around the world. It was developed and is manufactured by Odortec, with two supporting companies, Man and Beit-Alfa Technologies.[1] The liquid’s strong odor is marketed as an improvement over other crowd control weapons (CCWs) such as rubber bullets and tear gasused by the IDF against Palestinian protestors. The IDF is criticized for its tactics during deployment, including common use against people, businesses, and neighborhoods not involved in protests as a form of collective punishment.[2]