The time is now for the Louisville Metro Council to separate LMPD’s budget from the city’s overall budget. Despite over 34 million dollars in liability settlements in the last 6 years, being federally investigated, and the murders of Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, and countless other Black people, their budget has increased by over 30 million dollars in 5 years. LMPD's budget alone is over one quarter of the city's overall budget.

Here is how the budget process works; the city budget, in general, is a package. All of the government departments are tied together. If we want to hold one of those departments accountable, we can do it through the budget process, but at the end of that process, when the Metro Council actually has to cast a vote, they can't vote against one department's budget, without voting against all the others. So, if the Metro Council votes "no" for the LMPD budget, they have to vote "no'' for everything, including the essential services needed to run our city government. We are demanding a new practice. We need to separate LMPD’s budget from the rest of the city budget. The Metro Council already did it for TARC’s budget, so its not that big of a deal. Separating the budget means we can view it with a much more critical eye and hold them accountable for all of the injustice that has occurred over the last few years. After the federal government finishes their investigation into LMPD, Louisville can't go back to the way things were before, when LMPD did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, to whoever they wanted to do it to. This small change in the budget review process would be a big change for accountability.