Aldermen worry about adequate funding for Chicago police oversight agency (Uncut version)
Every year, a Chicago mayor proposes a budget. And, after it’s released, the City Council holds hearings for every department, asking questions and making requests. It don’t usually matter that much -most years, the budget gets approved without any significant changes. But, for those who have time to attend these hearings, it offers a great window into the finer details of how the city spends its money - and what aldermen from various parts of Chicago want.
Last year, I was able to attend most of those hearings because, well, the only paper I was writing for was Austin Weekly News, so I had plenty of free time on my hands. These days, I’m writing for 3-4, so that didn’t really work out. But I did make a point of attending two hearings that, I figured, would interest Austin Weekly News’ audience - police department and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the new police oversight body that didn’t fully start get going until September.
Only the article about COPA wound up getting published. And, as it’s often the case, things were cut. I could deal with removal of most references to non-West Side aldermen. I could deal with some other stuff getting cut. But there was one issue that bugged me.
When it comes to budget, I gave the whole numbers instead of trying to round them down. I wanted my readers to be able to do the math themselves, and if I round it off, that math gets thrown off. But I couldn’t have necessary minded my editor rounding it off to, say, the nearest million… if my editor didn’t screw up the decimal points in the process.
At this point, I didn’t feel like complaining to him - the article already saw print. But I wanted to make sure there’s a version online that gets those numbers right.
With that in mind - here’s the article as it was originally sent (minus a few typos I caught while copy-pasting it)
A sign spotted at the 2016 Chicago Black Friday protest
Several aldermen sounded the alarm at the fact that the proposed budget for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability is less than the legally required one percent of Chicago Police Department's budget.
This requirement was put in place under the ordinance that created the police oversight agency. COPA has been phased in gradually over the course of the past few months, officially starting operations as a full-fledged agency on Sept. 15. 2018 will mark the first time it will have a budget for an entire year.
During the Nov. 1 City Council budget hearing, city officials claimed that the amount budgeted is based on CPD funding that doesn't include grants. However, if one takes out the grant funding, COPA's budget still comes up $1,280,277.72 short.
As previously reported by Austin Weekly News, COPA was created on Oct. 5, 2016 to replace the Independent Police Review Authority as a civilian police oversight body. Like IPRA, it has the power to investigate complaints against CPD officers. But unlike its predecessor, COPA can investigate allegations of illegal search and seizure, as well as domestic violence complaints - both of which were previously investigated by CPD's Internal Affairs. It was able to hire its own attorneys instead of relying on city attorneys the way CPD did. Finally, it has the power to look for patterns of misconduct and make legally binding recommendations for addressing them.
According to the amended ordinance SO2016-6309, COPA's budget must be no less than one percent of “the annual appropriation of all non-grant funds for the Police Department contained in the annual appropriation ordinance for that fiscal year.” The proposed FY2018 budget sets the total appropriations for CPD at $1,492,916,072, while setting total appropriations for COPA at $13,289,393. Looking at those figures, one percent of CPD's budget is $14.929,160.72 - over a million higher than what COPA got. However, when subtracting the $35,949,000 CPD is expected to receive in grant funds and the grant funds that will carry over from FY2017, the CPD total budget drops to $1,456,967,072. One percent of that is $14,569,670.72 - which is still a little under $1.3 million more than what COPA actually got.
In her opening statement to the aldermen, Judge Patricia Banks, who serves as the agency's interim Chief Administrator, said that the proposed COPA budget was based on “our considered judgment on how to efficiently and responsibly run COPA as a a new 'best in class' police oversight agency.” She said that the agency's major priorities would be to train investigators and legal staff, build a new process to make it easier to assess the agency's investigative files and allow civilians to keep better track of investigations, establish four satellite offices “in neighborhoods where there is high volume of police interactions” to make it easier to file complaints, addressing the backlog of investigations COPA inherited from IPRA, and do extensive community outreach to educate residents about COPA's mission.
“We are dedicated to contributing to comprehensive police reform in this city and fully committed to delivering excellent quality services to the community and [police] department members at minimal cost to taxpayers,” Banks concluded her statement. “We believe that each of these aspects of the budget is critical for COPA to be able to fulfill its new, broader mandate and continue on a path to success in he city.”
During last year's IPRA/COPA budget hearing, Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) and Ald. Christ Taliaferro (29th) raised concerns that COPA wasn't hiring enough African-Americans, especially black men. According to a statistical breakdown provided to this newspaper during this year's hearing, Out of all new hires, 36 percent were African-Americans, 50 percent were white, three percent were Asian, 10 percent were Hispanic and 1 percent was “unknown.” Looking at gender, out of 41 newly hired African-Americans, 14 were male and 27 were female.
When it came time for questions, Ervin, Ald. Emma Mitts (37th) and Ald. Michael Scott (24th) pressed Banks on the locations of the satellite offices. The interim chief said that some locations are under consideration.
“We have identified locations,” she said. “When we move in those locations, we'll be able to share them.”
Scott then asked whether there would be one location per side and, if not, how were the neighborhoods determined. Once again, Banks declined to elaborate.
“What we are going to do is make sure those satellites are placed appropriately in places where they do most good,” she said, adding that, once the locations are nailed down, she will inform Scott and other aldermen.
As previously reported by the Weekly, COPA already did some outreach through community meetings organized by Ervin and Taliaferro, among other aldermen. Scott said that, while those are helpful, he felt that sending some information to ward offices directly would help even more.
“What you're suggesting in terms of reaching out and dealing with aldermanic offices - that's what we do,” Banks replied. “It's a proper way, and I think its most effective way of reaching out to citizens of Chicago.”
Ervin said that he was concerned about the mediation program Banks mentioned in her opening statement, saying that if felt like officers were “coping a plea.”
The interim chief replied that she felt that mediation was a good thing in cases that don't involve “very serious” allegations.
“In some instances, what we'd like to do is parse off some of the cases that are more “minor” in nature,” Banks said. “Our goal is that, in conclusion of that mediation, both parities will go with better understanding of what did or didn't go wrong. Officer might walk away from it saying 'maybe I shouldn't have said what I had.'”
Ald. Joe Moore (49th) noted that one of the complaints against IPRA was that complaints took years to investigate, and wondered what COPA would do differently. Banks responded that they have “layers and layers of supervisors” to move investigations along, and that the agency would be looking at why some investigations are taking longer than others and what it could do to change that.
Moore also said that there's been criticisms that IPRA police shooting investigations ever found officers at fault, and asked Banks to respond to that.
“It's not IPRA- it's COPA, and COPA is moving forward, and we're going to do what we need to do to reach conclusion to those investigations,” she replied. “If the facts fall on [the side of officer's guilt], we want t back this finding up. If it's not sustained, we got to back this finding up.”
Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd), Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th), Ald. David Moore (17th) and Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) raised concerns about the COPA's budget shortfall.
Banks replied that she was relying on the city budget calculations.
The aldermen urged her to be more proactive in demanding the money COPA is owed.
“You can go back to budget office and say - 'my office is not adequately funded',” Waguespack said. “This is not what we agreed to, and this has to change before we come back and vote on this budget.”
“Don't be afraid to ask [for] what you're owned,” Lopez said. “That can make or break your ability to - one, carry out your mission effectively, do it in timely fashion and [two], following our commitment to putting our money where our mouth is.”
“Ald. Lopez, thank you for your support and concern,” Banks replied. “I, too, as head of this agency, would like to get budgetary entitlement we're entitled to.”
Lopez also asked whether the funding the agency is expected to get would be enough.
“At this point in time, based on what we're doing, I feel that we're adequately resourced,” Banks said. “But, as we grow and develop, we will need to speed up processes in terms of investigation and support and personal. And technology is going to require additional funding.”