[TRU Research] Cutting the cops

[Stephen DeSanto]

Here's a link to a chart for the view of what you've requested, using the
city's own service:
https://data.seattle.gov/dataset/Approved-Budget-by-Dept-over-Time/dzzg-4w3c

The numbers behind this chart are here:
https://data.seattle.gov/Finance/Approved-Budget-by-Department-over-Time/453y-h2ti
Also attached as a CSV, if that's easier to work with.

And the total city budget data, again:
https://data.seattle.gov/dataset/City-of-Seattle-Operating-Budget/8u2j-imqx

The city's page does not indicate anything about inflation, so I assume
that the numbers are exactly the numbers approved each year by the council,
i.e. not adjusted. I'm not a mathematician so I'm not sure how to adjust,
if that's easy or complex, etc. :)



On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 5:33 PM Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org> wrote:

> Thanks Stephen! For starters it would be useful to have a spreadsheet with
> just the headline data corresponding to that graph: annual dollars for
> police, housing, and human services, for each year from 2010 through 2020.
> That way, in addition to the visualization, we can say things like “the
> human services budget fell X% from 2010 to 2012, and it didn’t recover to
> 2010 levels till 2017 (or whatever) and by 2019 it had only grown by Y%
> since 2010, adjusted for inflation…” etc. (I’m assuming this data is not
> inflation-adjusted btw, but it would be good to confirm that.)
>
> On Jun 6, 2020, at 3:41 PM, Stephen DeSanto <rachidian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Katie. I found it a little easier to go to the data source here:
> https://data.seattle.gov/dataset/City-of-Seattle-Operating-Budget/8u2j-imqx
>
> I also found their data visualization tool difficult to work with (and it
> wouldn't let me save my work), but maybe we can export the data to a
> different environment (e.g. Tableau, python) to make it easier to sort
> through the budget data.
>
> <image.png>
>
> The raw numbers live in the data set linked above. I was able to get them
> to show up in the graph, though it's hard to read.
>
> As far as a more detailed breakdown of how money is being spent, you might
> have to be a CM to get answers, if at all:
> https://twitter.com/eyesonthestorm/status/1269061348144513024
>
> Let me know if there's something specific you'd like from the data set and
> I'll see if I can pull it out.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 8:54 PM Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Just to give an example: After a few minutes poking around in the site I
>> was able to get this graph, showing how the police budget didn’t get cut
>> during the great recession, whereas human services and housing did, and
>> human services in particular took a long time to recover to 2010 levels,
>> whereas the police budget just kept going up (presumably much faster than
>> inflation).
>>
>> But I can’t figure out easily how to get the data set so that I can see
>> the actual numbers. I know you can download all the data on the site but
>> it’s not immediately obvious to me how to isolate just the data for this
>> graph.
>>
>>
>> <Screen Shot 2020-06-05 at 8.49.43 PM.png>
>>
>> On Jun 5, 2020, at 8:48 PM, Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hey data & research folks,
>>
>> Anyone want to do some digging into the police budget?
>>
>> https://openbudget.seattle.gov/#!/year/default
>>
>> I’m in touch with some of the people who are thinking seriously about how
>> to cut the police budget & we have a chance to help out with this in a
>> number of ways.
>>
>> Katie Wilson
>> General Secretary
>> Transit Riders Union
>> https://transitriders.org
>> 206-781-7204
>>
>> *The Transit Riders Union is a democratic organization of working and
>> poor **people, including students, seniors, and people with
>> disabilities, taking control over our own lives, and building up the power
>> we **need to change society for the good of humanity and of the planet.
>> We will **fight to preserve, expand, and improve the public
>> transportation system in **Seattle and beyond, so that every human being
>> has access to safe, **affordable, and reliable public transit.*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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