Hearing Youth Voices organizes for a “People’s Budget” in New London
In the summer of 2020, Hearing Youth Voices, a youth-led social justice group in New London, campaigned for the city to divest from the police budget and reinvest into education and social services. They were told it was too late to change the city’s 2020-2021 budget.
Now, as the 2021-2022 budget is being discussed, their People’s Budget NL campaign is gathering broad-based community support to create change this time around.
"We have a lot of problems here, and lack of opportunities, and a lot of that is because of the city budget,” CJ Parker, an apprentice organizer at Hearing Youth Voices, said. “We’re working to have a more equitable budget—what the people of New London actually want.”
On April 1, the mayor released a budget proposal that is “nearly identical to the one released the year before” in terms of the proportion of funds allocated to each sector. Like the current budget, the police department would receive more funds than public works, the recreation department, the public library, human services, and the senior center combined.
The People’s Budget campaign demands that 35% of the police budget be reallocated to those other areas—education, human services, recreation, the public library—and an additional $1 million be moved from the police budget to the “struggling” education system, Parker said.
These changes would also be in keeping with other towns in Connecticut, Parker said—currently, New London employs dozens more police officers and spends millions more on its police department than similarly sized towns.
These demands are supported by a survey of more than 1,000 New London residents, conducted by the group. Residents’ main concerns were wanting more funding for the education system and for the recreation department. Overall, they showed concerns that were “right in line with what we were doing” all year long, Parker said.
“We're not just running a campaign against police,” Parker said. “We're running a campaign saying we have needs that need to be met.”
In addition to the survey, Hearing Youth Voices—composed mostly of New London high school students—has been testifying at Board of Education meetings and the biweekly city council meetings to drive their multifaceted demands home.
Frustrations aren’t uncommon. At one school board meeting, more than twenty people “from all walks of life” testified against having SROs in schools, Parker said, and Hearing Youth Voices had gathered more than 8,000 signatures on a petition calling for their removal. Only one person testified for keeping SROs in schools—a white city counselor who didn't send any of his own children to New London schools. The board ultimately decided not to vote on the issue, and instead to move forward with a memorandum of understanding.
But Parker said the People’s Budget NL proposals have met little resistance so far within meetings, and he has hope some of their demands might go through. On March 1, the city council voted to repeal an ordinance requiring the staffing of 80 police officers at all times, which “could free up budget space,” Parker said.
In the meantime, Parker encouraged people to get involved by looking into their own city budgets and participating in any community efforts to make them more equitable and supportive of all residents. “The budget says a lot about the city,” he said.
Those who are interested in supporting the People’s Budget NL campaign can:
Follow Hearing Youth Voices on Instagram, where they post updates and information about community meetings to attend;
Watch this video on the campaign and share it with friends
Attend New London city council meetings on 1st and 3rd Mondays at 7pm on Zoom to listen in and voice concerns
Written by the ARTLC Team