Antioch Police services are just 27.3% of overall city budget, not 62%
From page 55 of the City of Antioch’s Adopted Budget for 2019-21 (page 70 of the overall document).
With total annual budget revenues of $158 million the City of Antioch spends $43 million on police services.
By Allen Payton
This is in response to public comments during the Antioch City Council meeting on Tuesday, June 9, 2020 which included calls for the defunding of the police department claiming it takes up 62% of the city’s budget. In addition, copies of the city’s General Fund pie chart were distributed to participants during a Black Lives Matter protest held in Antioch on Tuesday. Hopefully, this will help educate them so they make policy suggestions in the future based on the facts, not rumor and misinformation.
From page vi of the City of Antioch’s Adopted Budget for 2019-21 (page 10 of the overall document).
What all of those people didn’t do was their homework, which could have been accomplished with a simple online search to learn about the actual details in the city’s two-year budget for the 2019-2020 and 2020-21 fiscal years. Please click here to view and see pages vi (10) and vii (11) of the 330-page document that can be found on the Finance Department’s page on the City’s website. (NOTE: This last sentence has been corrected. The previous pages referred to the June 25, 2019 Antioch Council meeting agenda in which the proposed two-year budget was included for council adoption and was 776 pages long).
In the current 2019-20 fiscal year ending on June 30th, the General Fund makes up just 44% of the city’s overall budget. That figure is projected to rise slightly to 44.1% in the next fiscal year beginning July 1st. Of that 62% was spent on police and public safety this year and 62.1% is budgeted in the 2020-21 fiscal year. So, that means only 27.3% to 27.4% of the city’s budget was and will be spent on police services during the current two-year budget cycle.
From page vii of the City of Antioch’s Adopted Budget for 2019-21 (page 11 of the overall document).
What the people who spoke during the council meeting also don’t seem to understand, remember or be aware of – most likely because they are young and couldn’t vote when the ballot measures passed or don’t live here – is that the voters of Antioch voted twice to pass a sales tax increase and spend most of the additional revenue on more police and public safety.
As a result, the City of Antioch has been hiring more police since 2013, and just last year, finally fulfilled the promise made in 2013 by the then-mayor and council members of 22 more police officers, immediately. That was when there were 89 sworn officers on the force and Antioch now has 115 sworn officers.
Then, with the passage of Measure W in 2018, increasing the sales tax to one percent, the voters told the council to spend most of the funds to “restore the number of police officers patrolling City streets” and “to increase investment in code enforcement, clean up blight, road repairs, support youth and senior services, and attract new business and jobs to Antioch.” The priorities for use of the Measure W sales tax funds are as follows:
- Continuing to maintain 911 police response and restore the number of police officers patrolling City streets
- Ensuring water quality and safety
- Maintaining Antioch’s quality of life and financial stability
- Cleaning up illegal dumping
- Restoring after-school and summer programs for youth
Going back to the City’s original formation documents in 1872, the City of Antioch was incorporated for the purpose of “police and other matters.” Police services and public safety have always been the number one reason the city government exists and the top budget priority. But, it does not make up more than a majority of the City’s overall budget. It’s closer to one-fourth.
the attachments to this post:
City of Antioch Expenditures 2019-20 and 2020-21
City of Antioch Revenues 2019-20 and 2020-21
City of Antioch General Fund Budget 2016-17 thru 2020-21
