Austin is Stupid.

You remember not three weeks ago when Austin approved $4M to buy a few new Police cars because they are going out of style production? Yeah, so Austin is as broke as the rest of the left-leaning municipalities around the nation. Today, they have announced that the Austin Police Department needs to find out where to cut out up to $4M to meet budgetary needs.

Yes, Seriously.

Hold on there.

Do you remember when Austin said they were going to spend $50M on helping non-English speakers in the government schools, then they said the same week that AISD was $92M shy on the budget? Yes, this is the same city. Chief Acevedo says there is nowhere else to cut but the personnel budget. I say to the chief: What about those new hot rods? How about that $180M specifically dedicated to salary and benefits? How much does it save if your TWO cadet classes next year go in with the expectation of a less-generous benefits package? Is it possible to defer payments to the ol' collectively-bargained retirement fund?

Some small cities have entirely disbanded and outsourced their Police departments. I don't suggest that is even close to what the APD needs to do, but cutting low-single-digits of percent out of ANY budget after the last "boom" decade is very likely to be only a matter of not doing the things we like to do. We'll see.