If I read this article correctly then the author's point is that simply the passage of a bill to be enacted in the future is the cause of increased crime in the present, which seems like a shaky argument to me.
Also I'm noticing that the ABC7News article says
>More than $17 million will be diverted from the police to violence prevention and other services not involving police. Another $3.6 million will be put into the new MACRO program which will basically be a civilian crisis response program within the Oakland Fire Department addressing those in mental health crises.
This means that even assuming this is a net decrease of $20.6 million to budget, this is still giving back only ~half the net increase from this year's budget. So we should still be up $16 million or so vs. 2020
Sorry I don't seem to understand your argument. You're comparing the budgets in nominal terms without accounting for inflation. For example the $630 million this year won't be able to fund as many officers and services like the year prior due to inflation. Budgets are typically increased across the board to account for inflation.
Slight correction. The bill didn't redirect funds, it proposed redirection of funds. In reality, Oakland's police department is getting a larger budget [0].
If I read this article correctly then the author's point is that simply the passage of a bill to be enacted in the future is the cause of increased crime in the present, which seems like a shaky argument to me.
Also I'm noticing that the ABC7News article says
>More than $17 million will be diverted from the police to violence prevention and other services not involving police. Another $3.6 million will be put into the new MACRO program which will basically be a civilian crisis response program within the Oakland Fire Department addressing those in mental health crises.
This means that even assuming this is a net decrease of $20.6 million to budget, this is still giving back only ~half the net increase from this year's budget. So we should still be up $16 million or so vs. 2020