Senate considers bill to prevent Arizona cities from ever being able to defund their police

Protesters at the beginning of the march to protest police Brutality against Black people in Tempe, Ariz. on June 11, 2020. Photo by Chloe Jones | Arizona Mirror

Four years after activists led calls to “defund the police” during nationwide protests of systemic racism and brutality, Arizona lawmakers are working to make sure that won’t ever happen in Arizona. 

A bill now being considered by the state Senate would prohibit cities and towns from decreasing the annual operating budget for law enforcement from the prior year’s budget. If a city does reduce police funding, the state treasurer would be required to withhold that same amount in state dollars from the city until the law enforcement cuts are restored.

“For the past three years now, from the east coast to the west coast, all these cities have defunded their police departments. Crime has risen, towns are a mess, criminals are being let back out on the street without being charged or without bail.” said Rep. David Marshall, a Republican from Snowflake, the sponsor of House Bill 2120. “This bill is to prevent this from ever happening in our state, within our cities.”  

Marshall acknowledged in the Senate Military & Public Affairs committee on March 13 that there are no cities in Arizona that have shown any intention to defund their police departments. Instead, the bill aims to prevent activists from even trying. 

“Do we have an issue here in Phoenix? Right now, no we don’t, this is a proactive bill… taking care of the issues before they occur,” he said. “There’s activists within the district that are still trying to defund our police department.” 

The bill is similar to one that was introduced last session,  but has some minor changes as this year’s version gives some flexibility to cities if they haven’t experienced any population growth, lack the money to uphold the previous year’s budget, or if they received a grant or approved only a one-time increase in funding for only the year prior.

If police funding must be reduced, HB2120 would require other departments, like transportation and community development, to receive similar budget cuts.

“If the city has a budget shortfall, this doesn’t affect them,” Marshall said. “All we ask is that if you’re going to take money from departments in your city, the police department will be the last department that would be defunded.”  

Marshall said cities like Portland, Oregon have become hotspots for crime due to the policy. Portland became a poster child for the movement when it reduced some of its police funding and explored initiatives to modernize policing following the protests. 

“If you look at what’s happening within those jurisdictions, they are losing businesses, crime is running rampant, there’s no consequences to the crimes that are being committed, and people are leaving,” he said.

However, it is hard to draw a direct link between activists’ calls for reform and an actual uptick in crime, as protests calling for police reform occurred at an unprecedented crossroads between social unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic that had a unique impact on crime nationwide. 

Though the Portland Police Bureau experienced a dip in funding during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, the cuts were minor and followed by a dramatic increase in the years following — as was the case in most major U.S cities that made budget changes in the time following the 2020 protests, despite right-wing claims of a nationwide “gutting” of police departments. 

Law enforcement budget cuts also came at a time as lockdowns left many cities and states facing severe shortfalls while also dealing with a public health emergency. 

In 2020, local officials in Austin,Texas, reduced their police funding by a third of the previous year’s budget in order to reallocate funds to initiatives like COVID-19 medical services, community medics, mental health first responders and more. Though these budget cuts reflect some of the most dramatic funding changes in the nation at this time, the next year’s budget showed Austin police funding surpassed that of 2019 by over $10 million after the Texas legislature passed legislation similar to HB2120, setting a budget minimum. 

Marshall attributed the shortage of people who want to become police officers to the fact that law enforcement has been “demonized for no reason whatsoever.” 

“They can’t even hire officers because of what’s happening to law enforcement today across our country,” he said. “There is no respect, they have been demonized by the media, by their own officials.” 

Protests over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers led to an increase in public distrust of law enforcement by shedding light on larger issues surrounding modern policing. 

A 2020 Associated Press poll found that more than half of Americans believed that police violence against the public is a “very” or “extremely” serious problem. 

Police killed more than 1,200 people in 2023, making last year the deadliest year for civilian deaths caused by law enforcement in over a decade. At the same time, there was an unprecedented decline in nationwide homicide crime rates.

Long standing patterns of racial disparities seen within police brutality statistics have also contributed to the wounded reputation of law enforcement in many communities. Black people made up 27% of those killed by police in 2023, despite only comprising 13% of the nation’s population. 

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, Black Americans are 12 times more likely to experience police misconduct than their white counterparts. 

The public’s unease in relation to policing and how much public money goes toward law enforcement has worsened as multi-million dollar police training facilities, dubbed “cop cities,” have emerged in cities across the country like Gilbert. 

Nonetheless, the issues police departments are facing when it comes to recruitment and retention are not unique, as data also shows a growing trend away from all government jobs — a trend that predates the 2020 protests against law enforcement. 

Marshall Pimentel, a lobbyist for the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, told lawmakers during the Senate Military & Public Affairs committee meeting that HB2120 poses a threat to local control, calling budget authority a core function of local government. 

“We view this bill as a fundamental issue of local control. Just as state voters elect you all to craft a budget that will work for the entirety of the state, they do the same thing with their council members who craft a budget that will work for their individual communities,” he said. 

Pimentel said that, because police budgets often make up large portions of municipal budgets, there could be unintended consequences if cities are forced to make cuts across the board in order to reduce their police budget. 

Tom Dorn, a lobbyist for the City of Phoenix, told lawmakers that 70% of the total Phoenix budget is allocated to public safety. 

“In the last decade, the City of Phoenix has increased their police budget by 53%. The 2023 budget allocated $1 billion to the City of Phoenix’s police department,” Dorn said. “The City of Phoenix has never ever moved to defund the police, our budget shows that.” 

When Committee Chairman David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, asked why the city opposes the bill if it doesn’t intend on defunding police by, Dorn echoed Pimentel’s concerns around the effect the bill would have on local control and discretion.  

“If we were swimming in cash, it might be a different discussion, but it’s also the local control issue,” he said. “The government closest to the people is the best…Let (city officials) do their job.” 

The bill next heads to the full Senate for consideration. 

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