AUSTIN, Texas — Slamming the Austin City Council for cutting millions of dollars from its police budget, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas proposed legislation on Tuesday that would punish any Texas city that does the same by denying it the power to increase property taxes.
“Any city that defunds police departments will have its property tax revenue frozen at the current level,” Governor Abbott told reporters on Tuesday. “Cities that endanger residents by reducing law enforcement should not then be able to turn around and go back and get more property-tax dollars from those same residents whose lives the city just endangered.”
The move, which the governor announced alongside other top Republican leaders at a news conference in Fort Worth, comes as a number of major cities around the country are overhauling policing and shifting resources and responsibilities away from the police to other city agencies, in response to public protests over police brutality and other abuses.
The proposal escalates a continuing showdown between the Republican-led state government and the leaders of some of the state’s largest cities, most of which lean Democratic.
The Austin City Council recently approved $21.5 million in immediate budget cuts to its police department, and a redistribution of current police functions that, if fully implemented, would shift away an additional $130 million.
Mayor Steve Adler of Austin said the city has made a “transformative move” that would help make the capital city “even safer.” But it ignited a storm of opposition from the governor and other Republican officials.
“When crime is on the rise, the last thing we should do is defund law enforcement, and yet that is exactly what Austin did,” Mr. Abbott said at the news conference, which also included Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick; Dennis Bonnen, the speaker of the Texas House; and Mayor Betsy Price of Fort Worth.
Mr. Patrick, who presides over the State Senate, said he would make the property tax freeze bill a top priority when the Legislature convenes in January. And he said that lawmakers would also seek to roll back Austin’s cuts.
Mayor Adler said in a telephone interview that the city was not cutting public safety as drastically as state officials say, and was simply transferring some police functions to other departments.
“It seems to me that the purpose of the press conference was to make people scared and to make people afraid,” he said. “And unfortunately, we’re going to see more of that as we get closer and closer to November.”
The political conflict in Texas is one of a number unfolding across the country as cities re-examine policing in the wake of protests over the death of George Floyd, who died during an arrest in Minneapolis in May.
Protesters have demanded fundamental changes, substantial budget cuts and transfer of responsibilities that could more appropriately be handled by social services departments.
More than a dozen cities, including Minneapolis, have considered substantial cuts to their police budgets, but some have since faltered.
Calls to defund the police contributed to a shift of roughly $1 billion away from the New York City Police Department. In Los Angeles, the City Council approved the reduction of $150 million from police budget for reinvestment into social programs. But in Seattle, talk of drastic cuts to the police budget prompted Chief Carmen Best, the first Black woman to head the department, to resign in frustration.
Many of the proposals have met with opposition from local and state politicians like Mr. Abbott, who say the changes could impair the ability of the police to fight crime and protect property.
At the news conference in Fort Worth, one of the most conservative cities in the state, Republican leaders applauded city voters’ recent renewal of a half-cent sales tax that provides long-range financing for the police department.
“For me, and most mayors, public safety is Job One,” Mayor Price said.
Details of the proposed property tax freeze will probably emerge before the next session of the Legislature, but Mr. Abbott said that his intention was that cities “will never be able to increase property tax revenue again if they defund police.”
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Texas Governor Proposes Freezing Taxes in Cities That ‘Defund’ Police - The New York Times
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