Police improvements highlighted in Council budget hearing
April 08, 2025
The Philadelphia Tribune: “Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel heralded his department’s success in reducing crime across the city while executing Mayor Cherelle Parker’s vision of more community engagement. He told City Council’s Committee of the Whole that the collaborative efforts and investments have created better results and improved morale among officers.
The PPD have proposed a fiscal year 2026 appropriation just over $872 million. That number is about $5 million less than the $877.4 million allocated for the current fiscal year, with only $852.1 million expected to be used. The proposed budget is about $1 million less than was spent in FY 24.
While over 90% of the money budgeted for this upcoming year will go to personnel, which will be nearly $22 million more than the department is estimated to spend this fiscal year, there are still about 1,500 vacancies in the full-time staff. Currently, the police are training 40 new recruits every six weeks to join the ranks. Bethel said he’d like to see 75 in each class to fill the shortfall. Recruits are now given more opportunities to pass reading and physical tests. Bethel also said he’d like to hire more psychologists to speed up the screening process for applicants….
Devren Washington was there representing the ‘Fund the People, Not Cops’ coalition. They support the ‘Fund the People’ budget, which wants 1,000 of the vacant positions left unfilled, citing the reduced crimes rates achieved while the PPD is short-staffed. The coalition of groups suggest reallocating nearly $200 million in city money from the police to violence prevention, mental health mobile crisis units, and restoring the safe syringe exchange that was cut last year. The alliance also wants the PPD to not work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, along with ‘no funding for racist & harmful surveillance technology’ including drones the police testified have helped with crowd management at Eagles games and other large events, and automated license plate readers, which SEPTA will add to their fleet for bus lane enforcement.”