Minneapolis mayor pushes 70% cut to violence interrupters following critical audit
Frey pushes for major budget cut to violence interrupters
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is pushing for a major budget cut to violence interrupters. FOX 9 Investigator Paul Blume has more.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Millions of taxpayer dollars spent on violence prevention efforts in Minneapolis are facing deep cuts following a critical internal audit.
Inside the Proposed Cuts
What we know:
During a City Council budget presentation on Tuesday, Neighborhood Safety Director Amanda Harrington confirmed Mayor Jacob Frey's plan to slash spending on the Violence Interrupter program by 71%.
The proposed cuts would reduce the program's coverage from five city hot spots down to just two.
The Violence Interrupters—often recognized by their colorful, matching shirts—typically walk the streets in teams through high-crime neighborhoods to mediate conflicts and de-escalate tensions before they turn deadly.
Harrington testified that the reduction is based on a policy choice by the mayor.
Frey is looking to shift away from some nonprofit contractor work, that is more difficult to track, toward a "more coordinated and deployable model" that utilizes two dozen in-house city Safety Ambassadors to fill the gap in non-police outreach.
"Exactly what the [Violence Interrupter] services look like is yet to be determined. We are working with the contractors to determine . . . what's most effective for their specific communities," Harrington said about next year’s impact on the embattled program. "It may involve having smaller teams, covering a smaller geographic area, fewer community events. We are still working out those details."
Council Demands Answers
Dig deeper:
The proposal set off a contentious showdown at City Hall as Council Member Jason Chavez questioned why non-traditional violence prevention programs are being slashed while the Minneapolis Police Department is in line for a bigger budget.
"It is hard to hear this recommended proposal from the mayor that cuts violence prevention, violence intervention services, while MPD continues to overspend and continues to lead to cuts in services and programs for our neighbors across the city of Minneapolis," Chavez said.
Council Vice President Jamal Osman demanded evidence to justify the cuts, pointing to the city's own administrative failures.
"What evidence are we justifying for the cuts?" Osman asked. "Is it because the model has failed, or is it because the city failed to provide sufficient oversight and performance measurement as the audit continue to talk about that? I'm just trying to figure it out."
Audit Corroborates FOX 9 Investigations
Big picture view:
The proposed cuts come against the backdrop of a recent internal audit that exposed major City Hall oversight failures, corroborating nearly two years of reporting by the FOX 9 Investigators.
The audit found the Neighborhood Safety Department failed to properly oversee millions of dollars spent on violence prevention efforts.
Auditors warned that "there is increased risk that the city is subject to fraud, waste, and abuse in contracts where there is no sufficient reviewing of invoices and supporting documentation."
Those findings mirror previous FOX 9 investigations that exposed significant flaws in how this work was monitored, including uncovering groups that double-billed the city and failed to turn in receipts or basic documentation to explain exactly what they were doing to prevent violence on the streets.
READ MORE: Minneapolis failed to track millions in violence prevention funding. It just approved even more.
Previous public records requests by FOX 9 revealed one contractor billed the city over $270,000 for personnel, rent, and food without providing a single receipt.
Mayor Frey said the critical findings were expected and helped guide his budget decision-making.
"The findings are not entirely surprising really at all," Frey said. "We've known the shortcomings of the whole framework for quite some time."
While Frey acknowledged that some groups and leaders did great work to build relationships and keep people safe, he said the city ultimately could not justify the spending without better documentation.
"We've recognized that there was difficulty both in tracking compliance and also tracking the causal connection to results," Frey said.
The Source: This article pulls information from the audit into the City of Minneapolis, an Oct. 6 Minneapolis City Council meeting and past FOX 9 reporting.