[TRU Research] Cutting the cops

[Jim Walseth]

I'll take a stab at this with Tableau some time today.
Jim

On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 9:26 PM Stephen DeSanto <rachidian at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.transitriders.org/pipermail/research/attachments/20200607/4f2324f6/attachment.html>