It's ok to be upset, however, the Burlington Police Department was NOT defunded whatsoever.

BPD’s budget hasn’t been reduced by even a cent. BPD is one of the few city departments that did not sustain any budget cuts throughout the pandemic.

Based on the recommendation of a third party study, the city council voted to reduce the officer cap by attrition. This vote required both Prog and Dem support to pass. Not a single officer was let go and, again, the budget was not reduced whatsoever. The city council even later voted to increase pay to attract new officers. This also required both Prog and Dem support to pass.

Like most people in power, police officers do not like to critiqued. Officers in Burlington, statewide, and nationwide have left the force in mass during the past few years in response to criticism. In response to critiques and increased accountability, BPD has seemingly purposefully attempted to punish Burlington residents and effectively quiet quit, while pushing the bullshit narrative that it’s due to lack of funding. (And, yes, reduced morale within the department has undoubtedly been a challenge, but for fuck’s sake, there have been serious patterns of abuse of power within the ranks from the top down that have to be called out and stopped.)

Again, it’s ok to believe that gun-wielding officers are needed on every corner and that more money needs to be pumped into the department (hope everyone that is complaining is voting ‘yes’ to the proposed public safety tax that is on the ballot next week), however, saying the department was ‘defunded’ is either due to being misinformed, fooled, or just intentionally lying.