(The Center Square) – The city of Flint has repeatedly made media lists for being among the most dangerous cities in America, and its been under a gun violence emergency since June 2021.
The federal government and a non-profit have pitched in with millions of dollars to boost funding for the city’s police department.
Flint’s police have been one of the most-funded operations in the city, costing almost twice as much as any other department. The city’s taxpayers, among the poorest in the state, support two separate millages to fund police. The federal government and a non-profit have given the city an additional $4.85 million for policing activities in the last year.
The city council rejected in July spending $400,000 in overtime from federal American Rescue Plan funds to get more police in neighborhood hot spots.
Yet, police arrests and traffic tickets are a fraction of what they were a decade ago.
From 2013 to 2022, physical arrests dropped from 3,744 to 756 and traffic violations dropped from 6,318 to 4,988. That’s been a nationwide trend seen in many other cities.
As of June 2022, the city had 127 sworn police officers according to the audited budget report. In 2015, the Michigan State Police were called into aid Flint in responding to calls.
Flint is one of the poorest cities in the state with 36% of the city’s residents living at the poverty level and a median household income of $32,358. Yet city taxpayers support two millages for police – a 6.0 mill for public safety and another 2.0 mills for neighborhood patrols.
Police services cost $26.3 million to the city’s general fund in 2021-22. That was double the second most expensive department, the fire department at $13.1 million. The city projects police spending to increase to $28 million in 2023-24.
In July 2022, the city received an $850,000 grant from the non-profit Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. That money was to be used for the city to offer a “gun bounty” program where it would buy privately owned automatic weapons from citizens for cash on the spot and no questions asked, according to a city press release. The grant would also fund three positions in the police department and create a drone fleet.
The city received a $4 million federal grants in October 2022. One grant is for $1.5 million and was to be used for crime prevention strategies. The other grant was for $2.5 million to help the city process sexual assault kits.
The city is increasing its enforcement efforts.
The city stated in a July media release: “Since January 2023, the Flint Police Department has confiscated about 300 illegal weapons, adding to 2,088 that had been confiscated from 2019 to the end of 2022. The Flint Police Department works in partnership with the Michigan State Police to incinerate weapons.”
The city is also cracking down on reckless driving. The Flint Police Department has made 3,582 traffic stops from January through July this year.
