Transforming Rochester - Budget Deficit and Stimulus Package

How much of a projected budget deficit is there for Rochester, NY and what should we do about it.  The next stimulus package could help our City, if we use it right.

 

 

Transforming Rochester - Fines, Evictions And Reporting

Are fines the way to change residents' behavior?  Evictions are happening in Rochester.  What should we be doing about it?  A for-profit company really wants us to "donate" to them to save jobs.

-Photo from City-wide Tenant Union of Rochester, NY  https://www.rochestercitywidetenantunion.org/  

Transforming Rochester: November 19, 2020

Designing City, Incentives, Winter Housing for Homeless

Transforming Rochester - RORE & Reopening Schools

Recurring guest, Dave Sutliff-Atias, this time representing RORE, Rochester Organization of Rank and

File Educators, talks about why the City School District should open remotely and how meaningful education can happen from there.

Transforming Rochester - City Council & School Reopening

 

What's City Council going to be voting on in August?  Schools will be reopening soon.  Should kids go to school or should we do distance learning?  What if we change the entire school calendar and focus on outdoor education?

Transforming Rochester - Curfew and Rent

The Mayor's curfew is not only unconstitutional, but won't do anything about the shootings in Rochester.  Again, we need to address the root causes.  Rent has been out of control for Rochester tenants.  What should we do about it?

An Intial Plan to Defund RPD

This is what defunding the police could look like in Rochester:

Presently we have 13 personnel working as security guards in schools. The RCSD is returning these and the mayor does not want to provide them so that would be $1.4 million.

We also have 23 officers in the community policing division which are the officers in the NSC. Two studies have identified these are not only failing to reduce crime but serving no measurable community value. So this is another $2.8 million.

Then there is the management level of the RPD. Presently more than 1 in 5 officers are management. This is crazy. It all starts with the Sergeants who have only 5 officers under them. If this number was expanded to 10 that would reduce 70 supervisors and free up at least $12 million.

Then there is the whole car problem. Studies have shown that car patrols have no effect on crime. None! As we require 2 officers to respond to any incident there is no reason to have only 1 in a car. This would free up more than $1.5 million in car purchases every year. It would also save gas and maintenance to the tune of around $2 million, all without hurting response time or public safety.

So all told this would save at least $19.7 million and would have no effect on public safety.

This would provide the money to allow every library to stay open until 9pm and have Saturday and Sunday hours which would cost around $700,000.

Having all Rec Centers stay open until 9pm Monday to Thursday and until midnight on Friday and Saturday with 6 hours on Sunday would cost around $1.2 million.

Then to increase the number of summer jobs form 900 to 3600 would cost $3 million. This totals $4.9 million which still leave money to hire 140 employees to do social work, drug treatment, anti-gang outreach, and domestic violence intervention. I am sure this would do a better job of reducing crime than the police do.