Dear Speaker Johnson and Members of the New York City Council,

As current and former staffers of the New York City Council, we write to express our outrage at the police killings of Black people George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Eric Garner, and many others across this country and in our city, and call on you to #DefundTheNYPD by not passing a budget without significant cuts amounting to $1 billion or more to NYPD.

We have watched in horror as many of our friends and loved ones have been intimidated or attacked on the streets while protesting for justice. We have watched many in the districts we serve routinely be harassed, surveilled, and arrested for being Black or brown. Like the rest of this city, we’ve had enough.

It is important the Council serve as a counterbalance to the Mayor’s regressive policing of protesters and refusal to pursue any kind of accountability for the many people who have been brutalized in the city by the police. The actions of the Council must meet the demands of the day, and frankly, the reform most required by this moment is a stark and drastic reduction of the NYPD budget.

We call on you, as New Yorkers, as people who work for the people of this city, who see the importance that social services and government services play in the lives of our neighbors and constituents. At a time when crime rates are at a record low, and social services like the Summer Youth Employment Program and schools are being cut deeply, the City cannot afford to keep NYPD’s ginormous $6 billion budget intact. Much of that funding must shift to services and resources that serve our City’s most marginalized residents, especially during a pandemic where housing, food, healthcare, and safety is in jeopardy for many.

The Council as a body has been an important counterweight to the Mayor, and it is this time that requires a real departure from the Mayor’s callous policies against Black people and people of color. It is not enough to participate in the symbolic gestures that have gotten us not much further from where we were a decade ago, but to break with the failures of the past and do something that makes a real impact on the day-to-day lives of Black and brown New Yorkers.

We call on the Speaker and the Council to:

1. Reduce the NYPD operating budget by $1 billion in Fiscal Year 2021, in alignment with the demands of the NYC Budget Justice campaign. This includes, but is not limited to, a hiring freeze, cancellation of incoming cadets, removing police from schools, homelessness outreach, and mental health co-response teams, and sharply reducing the NYPD’s public relations and surveillance budgets.

2. Reallocate savings from NYPD to essential social services, including rent relief, housing, food assistance, health care, youth programming and other frontline services, in alignment with the demands of the NYC Budget Justice campaign.

3. Push the Mayor to immediately fire all NYPD officers found to have used excessive force—or to have covered their badges—at protests.

4. Push the Mayor to release the names and official disciplinary records of all NYPD personnel who have been accused of using excessive force, covering their badge numbers, or other misconduct.

As public service employees, we work every day to serve the people of New York City, to make our City a more equitable and just place. Please stand with us to make the above changes that Black organizers and activists are calling for that will actually have long reaching effects on our City.

In memory of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and Eric Garner, and many others.

Current & Former Staffers of the New York City Council