Hodges' Budget Focuses On Public Safety, Equity

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges delivered Wednesday the 2017 budget for the city, focusing heavily on public safety and improving equity.

The budget speech also brought a proposed property tax increase of 5.5 percent. Previously, the mayor's office and the city council had anticipated a 4.9 percent increase for 2017.

The 0.6 percent tax increase would help pay for a list of public safety initiatives. These include $1.3 million for hiring 12 new community police officers and three mental health co-responders, which will be part of a police/mental health pilot program.

Other public safety investments would include $500,000 for a community-driven program to combat areas of high youth violence, $400,000 to hire five full-time firefighters, and more than $1 million to develop a pathway for more people of color to become police officers.

There will also be additional resources for police body cameras.

"We need a police department. We are going to have a police department," the mayor said in her speech. "What we get to have, however, is a 21st-century police department that is rooted in 21st-century policing, built on a foundation of trust and dedicated to transforming police–community relations."

Hodges says her office is trying to address the city's well-documented equity issues. Her 2017 budget would fund programs designed to curb education gap and provide $14.5 million for affordable housing.

Meanwhile, the mayor is also focusing on making sure the city has the infrastructure it needs as it continues to grow as a metropolitan area. She is also putting money on the table to attract talent to the public sector and develop effective public workers.