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Norman City Council Passes 2022 Budget Without Cuts To Police Department

Quinton Chandler
/
StateImpact Oklahoma
Protesters interrupt the Norman City Council chambers, Tuesday, June 9, 2020, in the hopes of hearing the discussion on defunding the Norman Police.

Ending just before 3 a.m. Wednesday, Norman city council members unanimously passed the Fiscal Year 2022 budget with no cuts to the police department. 

The city council approved an amendment 5-4 to allocate $500,000 towards a mobile health crisis response unit, but the money will not come from police funds as originally proposed. Instead, the money will be sourced from the city's general fund.  

This comes after there was an error made concerning the fire department's budget.  Councilors discovered a double dip in the fire department funding totaling approximately $1 million.

Those funds were redirected into the city's general fund. The council chose to use $630,000 of that money to fund the mobile health crisis response unit, which will be used to respond to mental health and non-emergency calls.

Councilwoman Brandi Studley introduced the original proposal to cut $500,000 from the police budget, which police said would have led to staffing cuts.

Council members say they don’t know what this new 'mobile crisis response program' will look like just yet.

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Nyk has worked in radio since 2011 serving as a board operator, on-air announcer and production director for commercial radio stations in Iowa. Originally from the Quad Cities area, Nyk joined KGOU in 2018 as a practicum student studying Creative Media Production at OU. Upon graduating the following year, he became part of KGOU’s staff and is now the local Morning Edition host. When not on the air, Nyk likes to read, listen to music and follow news about the radio industry.
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