Mayoral candidates discuss plans for funding

BUDGET ALLOCATES NEARLY50━MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR, TOTHE POLICE DEPARTMENT.*CRIMEHAS BEEN THE NUMBER ONECONCERN FOR VOTERS INBALTIMORE CITY, AS THEY TRY TODECIDE WHO TO VOTE FOR IN THEMAYOR'S RACE..

S━ DO THE TOPSIX CANDIDATES IN THE RACEHAVE ANY IDEAS ON*CUTTING THEAMOUNT OF MONEY, THAT THE CITYSPENDS ON POLICING?

CHRISTIANSCHAFFER OF GOOD MORNINGMARYLAND, ASKED THEM...questio━"can policing inbaltimore city be done forless money, than whatcurrently allocated in thecitynumber that it leaves less foreverything else SHEILA ISALREADY SUPERED dixo━"when iwas mayor we were able toreduce crime as well as lowerthe overtime budget and thepolice department's budget.everybody in this process,because of what we're goingthrough, is going to have totake a hit.

But we also haveto look creatively and utilizeother police forces to help usin this effort" thiru━ 37━50 thir━"we spent 4━ milliondollars on police overtime, inpart, because we don't haveenough police.

We canactually, at a lower cost,have more police officers.we're just being reallyreckless and irresponsibleabout this.

We've put out aplan that pledges to getmurders below 200 without massincarceration, withoutmandatory minimums, but doesit in a way that shows thatprosecutors and police canwork together" 56━ 1:13mayo━"under my leadership, wehave cut the police overtimesignificantly.

And beforeanybody started talking aboutpolice overtime, when i wasthe budget chair, when i was acouncilperson and as thecouncil president that's oneof the things that iconstantly was talking about━why are we paying all thisovertime to our policedepartment and crime is stillat the same rate.

So, we havereduced that overtime in agreat way and we will continueto reduce overtime" TJ SMITHIS ALREADY SUPERED tj smit━"idon't know if it's aresponsible conversation atthis point in time, wherebaltimore is in the midst of apandemic━ a world emergency━yet our murders are stilloutpacinng last year at thistime when we weren't in apandemic.

That should scarethe crap out of anyone.

Sowhen you look at where we needto go, reducing the policebudget might not be one of thethings that we should belooking at on the front end"1:54━ 2:14 mille━"we need tobring our spending on publicsafety down, and i think wecan do that through bettermanagement, more leadership,better use of technology.

Andredeploying police officers towork in communities to reducecrime before it even begins.so the answer is yes, i don'tknow that we can do itovernight, but that is thegoal because we've got otherpriorities in this city thatwe need to get after" BRANDONSCOTT IS ALREADY SUPEREDbrando━"we can have moreefficiency, more effectivenessin that department, to makesure that we can build a planof how that department'sbudget can responsibly, over aperiod of time, go down.

Sothat the school system, recand parks and our healthdepartment can go up.

Has tohappen.

Because we can't keepbudgeting the way we have inbaltimore.

We have toreimagine the way we budget.we've been investing in thefailure of baltimore's youngpeople, instead of investinbgin their limitless promise"2:47━ 3:03 standup ta━"wehave*much longer versions ofthe candidates' responses tothat question about the budgetfor the city policedepartment, up on the web siteright now.

We have a specialsection set up, where you canclick on that question or anyother one you're interested in,and then the response from thecandidate or candidates you'dlike to hear from.

Just go towma━━new━do━co━slas━2━2━mayor━ race.BALTIMORE IS EXPANDING I