New York City budget shifts $1 billion from police to community programs, but no one is thrilled with it

New York City's new budget is getting some mixed reactions.

On one hand, the $88.1 billion budget shifts $1 billion in New York police department funding to community programs, a victory for those who want to reform and defund police. But advocates still protested that the cuts didn't go far enough, while even those politicians who wanted to see police reforms worried funds shouldn't be reduced while crime is on the rise, The New York Times reports.

A total of $1 billion will be taken from the NYPD's current $6 billion funding under the city budget the New York City Council passed early Wednesday. The NYPD will skip its next class of recruits, resulting in a cut of about 1,160 officers, to make up the gap. Monitoring of street vendors, homeless people, and schools will be shifted to different departments and agencies, and an overtime budget of $352 million was also slashed. But the budget also came with cuts to plenty of other city services due to a $9 billion revenue shortfall stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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City Council Speaker Corey Johnson acknowledged protesters may be "disappointed that we could not go further," and said he "wanted us to go deeper." But councilmember Donovan Richards, who heads the committee overseeing the NYPD, said he voted no because "a $1 billion budget cut can't address the racism that runs rampant in the NYPD," he said. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio meanwhile brushed off critics of the budget, saying "some people are never happy."

President Trump, meanwhile, had this to say about the cuts. Kathryn Krawczyk