A proposed amendment to Denver’s 2025 budget reducing the police budget by $3.2 million, eliminating one of three cadet classes for next year, failed after councilmembers said reducing the police pipeline would do little to improve public safety in the city.

The amendment was proposed by Councilmember Sarah Parady.

Reducing the academy’s cadet classes would actually worsen Denver’s public safety situation according to Kevin Flynn, one of the council’s longest-serving members. Despite budgeting for three classes in previous years, the department has still seen a shortage of about 157 officers because of retirements and other departures, he said.

This is despite budgeting for three recruit classes last year, accounting for about 527 new recruits, which the proposed 2025 budget also does. If all 527 slots are filled, roughly 60% will find their way to the active force, according to Parady.

Using these numbers, a full class of 527 would only graduate about 316 cadets. Denver would need to budget at least one more police academy class in order to fill its shortfall of sworn officers.

Further, Flynn and other councilmembers said response times have gotten longer. Some people who have called 911 were told to make a report at a police station or told that no officers could come, which Flynn said is not an acceptable level of service “to me or anyone in the city of Denver.”

“Eliminating one-third of our recruit capacity next year is simply unsustainable to meet the need,” Flynn said. “The people of Denver do not want to defund the police, they’ve made that quite clear. If we cut this class… (New recruits are) going to go elsewhere and we’ll have to start over.”

But Councilmember Shontel Lewis pushed back on his claim that the $3.2 million reduction was an effort to “defund the police.”

The movement to “defund the police” took hold nationally and in Denver after the George Floyd protests. In 2021, advocates gathered outside the Colorado Capitol building calling for the abolition of police departments.

Their effort failed, however, and in recent years people have wanted to see better policing as opposed to more policing, according to previous coverage by the Denver Gazette.

Following a police pullback in 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, a University of Colorado study found that, on average in 78 Denver neighborhoods, property and violent crime reports increased 27.1% and 14.3%, respectively.

“I want us to be very thoughtful and careful with our words about what defunding the police is and what defunding the police is not,” Lewis said. “What I heard from Councilwoman Parady is not any of the pillars (of defund the police) that incredible, inspiring and thoughtful leaders worked on, but it was her saying ‘It’s important for us to take a pause to see if we might be able to readjust so we can have outcomes that are better for communities.’”

The amendment failed 10-3, with only Parady, Lewis and Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez voting in favor.