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bb2018

I think the chart is misleading for those just seeing it in isolated form on social media. It doesn't include education budget because that is not discretionary. The school budget is 4x the police budget. I'm not exactly sure the right way to show what to include and not to include - but think it is a bit misleading to represent it this way.

If I was running a company and didn't show the cost spent on salaries or office space it might look like we were spending a ton of money on coffee.

(I am in favor of reducing militarization of police - just offended as a statistician!)

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Frankly the fact that education is only 4x the budget of the police force is depressing in itself.

Again - I think this is misleading and I should have specified. In California, most of the money for schools comes from the state.

So, when I say school budget from LA is 4x the police budget, that is just covering the 21% and 12% part of this graph. Doubling the LA school budget would only increase the total school budget about ~33%

Again - if I was in charge I probably would lower police budgets and raise school budgets - but I think those sharing the slices without being informed are doing a disservice.

Source: https://ed100.org/lessons/whopays

I would love to be corrected on some of these issues, but in general looking at just discretionary funds from a city and ignoring all other funds will lead you to some wild conclusions.

Depending on the state, education might not be the city's job at all. It might be a separate level of government entirely.

It's hard to make comparisons like this because obligations and reporting methodology can vary wildly.

as you may be alluding, i suspect the education budget is even more bloated than the police budget. it could probably be reduced 80%, and if done sensibly, have no measurable effect on educational outcomes. a lot of that budget is probably spread across administrative overhead, security theater, and bandaiding other societal problems (food aid, healthcare, social/psychological services, etc.)

i'm not suggesting we shouldn't help the disadvantaged, but that it's inefficiently misallocated under education, masking the severity of those issues in some cases.

I'm really not suggesting education should be cut! I just think the chart is silly because it pretty much finds the smallest subdivision of the budget that includes all of the police budget but doesn't include things like education. The desired effect of the chart is clearly for people to think "Damn - half my tax dollars are going to the police and nothing to health services" when that isn't close to being true.

Additionally, while Los Angeles in particular could increase its budget for homeless shelters and a few particular resources, I don't see it as the city's job in particular to cover all social problems that can be better handled at a state or national level. Police everywhere are largely funded locally so again it is a bit comparing apples to oranges.

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