The Omaha Police Department spends nearly 40% (37.9) of the City of Omaha’s General Fund budget. We spend 5.3% on parks, 5.1% on Public Works, 3.3% on Libraries, 0.3% on Human Rights and Relations. (1)

Excluding the Omaha Fire Department, all other parts of our city’s budget combined still do not equal the budget of the Omaha Police Department. $158,027,506 is dedicated to all other services (excluding OFD); $159,056,130 to the police department. (1)

48% (Nearly 80 million dollars) of the OPD budget is dedicated to Uniform Patrol. (2)

The City of Omaha currently faces an $80 million budget shortfall due to COVID-19 response. The Mayor’s suggested plan for handling this budget shortfall can be found below. (3)

• If we were to take that $80 million from the OPD, they would still have the most funding of all budgets within the general fund (aside from the Fire Department.)
• Even after an 80 million dollar reallocation, OPD would still have nearly 4x the budget of the third highest line item, which is Public Works.

References:

1. Drazdys, D., Hicks, A., Makinejad, S., Roh, S., Parker, A.,… Leimer, T. City of Omaha (2020). Annual Budget For Calendar Year 2020, pg. 38.
2. Herink, A., Drazdys, D., Hicks, A., Makinejad, S., Brott, A., … Leimer, T. City of Omaha (2019) Annual Budget For Calendar Year 2019, pg 281.
3. Stothert, J, City of Omaha Finance Department. COVID-19 Expenses: March 1, 2020 through May 31, 2020.