Use the public safety program approved by your instructor that has recently undergone a significant budgetary change. For example, suppose a state cut funding for a domestic violence program. What possible changes in public policy and the political process could have led to this decision? What may be the result?
Approved Public Safety San Jose’s Police Department in California
Ace my homework – Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper about how the political process and changing public policy at the federal, state, and municipal levels influence budgeting. Get custom essay samples and course-specific study resources via course hero homework for you service – Include details on how the change came about and its effect on the resulting program. Ensure you:
Identify political, economic, social, and cultural influences that caused the change in the budget.
Identify the interaction among the federal, state, and municipal levels with regard to your selected program.
Specify the limits of the agency budget office and how they may try to compensate for those limits.
Identify some strategies and agencies politicians might use to justify increasing or decreasing the budget for the program you selected.
Format your paper according to Ace homework tutors – APA guidelines.
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Public Safety San Jose’s Police Department
According to San Jose’s fiscal year 2020-2021 budget city documents, the proposed budget for the San Jose Police Department was reduced by $15 million from the current year. The city leaders considered budget cut of over $10 million on public safety which was approved. The budget cut would influence the process of hiring police officers and firefighters, and the reduction of access to community services. In the budget cut, includes also a delayed expansion of a fire station in the city. The situation has been fueled by a combination of social, political, cultural and economical factors.
The death of George Floyd fueled the budget cut call for the police departments in the incident was a black Minneapolis man killed by a white police officer who kneeled on his neck for nine minutes. The death of Floyd sparked protests and national reckoning that focus on racism and police brutality. It also raised questions on the responsibility of police officers in handling calls such as mental health crisis and nonviolent crime. Majority of the lawmakers focused the debate on the issue of defunding and the drastic relocation of funding from police budget to other programs.
San Jose Mayor focused on the relocation of $150,000 in police overtime wages to the police auditor that would work in activities involving community engagement. The budget change has a reflection of the reallocations of funds from some services that include the Housing Trust, Essential Services funds and the CARES Act that seeks to reinvigorating the economy. The budget change also fueled by the economic constraints brought by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Major San Jose reallocated millions of dollars to resident and small business assistance including at least $ 7 million in federal CARES Act to fund the Silicon Valley Strong initiative. The budget change set aside $ 1.5 million for loans and grants for home-based childcare that serve needy families. In terms of the economy, the budgetary priorities were influenced by the duration of our purgatory ahead. The economy faces two recessions which resulted to painfully elevating unemployment rates and severe budget-slashing that followed the initial downturn.
According to the city documents, the one-time funding of Sworn Hire Ahead Program amounting to $7.2 million was eliminated as a key budget action. 8.0 Community Service Officer and 2.0 Senior Community Service Officer position were eliminated which were vacant which has no immediate service impact, however, reduces the number of calls the Community Service Officer can respond to. A portion of the Department’s non-personal/equipment allocation was reduced to respond to the determination of the efficiencies gained and the expenses that could be reduced.
The approved budget cut on Public Safety in the San Jose Police Department as an effect lead to the increase in crime rates and increased 9-1-1 response time and the general quality of life for the residents of the city would deteriorate eventually. Detrimental impact of budgeting shaving will influence directly the ability for the police department to meet the emergency response time goals. Generally, the action on budget seeks to reallocate funds on other services but reducing funds on public safety will increase the likelihood of petty crimes such as car break-ins and burglaries and other more serious offences.
The approval of the budget change on public safety in the San Jose police department involved the interaction of federal, state, and municipal levels. The municipal level in the city council considered budget cuts on public safety on the San Jose police department. The city council conducted budget sessions to address the city budget which was caused by the pandemic. From the federal levels, San Jose received a total of $178 million from the Care Act. The municipal level sought clarity from the federal government while advocating for more additional funding to assist in the reduction of service cuts and service workers layoffs.
The agency office limits the budget cuts to the elimination of a one-time funding of $350,00, $600,000 from the Downtown Foot Patrol program, a $1.4 million from the Community Service Officer Program and the huge $7.2 million from the City’s Sworn Hire Ahead program. Dealing with the limitation, the city manager added 20 sworn officers to current budget authorization which sought to expand the Street Crimes, sexual assaults and domestic violence investigations and the traffic enforcement unit. A compensation plan also involves the application of a federal COPS Hiring Program grant that help in providing substantial one-time funding and mitigating the General Fund impact.
Strategies agencies used by politicians to justify the increase and decrease of budget in the Public Safety Program in San Jose include target cut strategy, process and technology driven cut strategy and across-the-board budget cuts strategy. Target cuts budget by leaders begins with the search of excess funding that is not entirely necessary to maintain the programs and services at minimally acceptable level. This strategy may involve the making of higher-impact decisions such as the closing of programs and cutting back on support services. The essence of the higher impact decisions is to result to larger reduction in costs which comes together with higher cost in organizational morale and external relations.
The process and Technology-driven Cuts strategy analyzes the processes and identifies ways to change the procedures and the technology applied to reduce the amount of work required. The change of processes and technology applied in a process allows the leaders to be in a position to find the costs to be eliminated. It is important to understand when you cut the budget that gives the organization to lower the expenses which is not the same as cutting costs. Therefore, using the reduced budget, additional policies and procedures are necessary to enforce the lowering of expenditures. The politicians adopt a participatory approach that involve more cooperation and voluntary sacrifice towards achieving budgetary cuts. Consequently, the leadership must involve a group of staff that may try to find opportunities of cost reduction.
In conclusion, the state and municipal political process and changing public policy basically starts with budget proposals that are reviewed and then debated and revised. After that the articulation of the proposed changes the state law is passed and approved. Performance budgeting influence the increase and decrease of budget according to the level of overall resource without the consideration for inputs needed to achiever desired. The approval of the change of budget in the San Jose Police Department resulted from a combination of social, political, cultural and economic factors. The key influence of the high-impact decision comes from the death of George Floyd and the corona virus pandemic affecting the economy.
References
2020-2021 OPERATING BUDGET MAYOR’S MARCH BUDGET MESSAGE. (2020, March 17). COVID-19 Response | City of San Jose. Retrieved from https://www.sanjoseca.gov/home/showdocument?id=58326
Chohan, U. W., & Jacobs, K. (2017). Public value in politics: A legislative budget office approach. International Journal of Public Administration, 40(12), 1063-1073.
Trujillo, D. (2020, May 15). Budget deficit forces San Jose to consider cuts to public safety. NBC Bay Area. Retrieved from https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/south-bay/budget-deficit-forces-san-jose-to-consider-cuts-to-public-safety/2291303/
