Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn says it could cost up to $41 million a year to pay for the U.S. Justice Department’s proposed remedies to curtail excessive force in the city’s police department, but an influential City Council member and a federal official challenged the figure, calling it inflated, the Seattle Times reports. “So this number is frankly, shocking,” McGinn said of the $41 million figure during a morning interview on KUOW radio.
The city’s confidential memorandum acknowledged the financial numbers were an estimate produced by the Police Department that had not been verified by city budget analysts. Among the costliest items would be the promotion of 54 officers to sergeant to satisfy Justice Department concerns over adequate supervision. Councilmember Tim Burgess cautioned that the $41 million estimate had not been vetted by the council or the city budget office. “Some of these numbers are scare numbers,” said Burgess, the former chairman of the council’s public-safety committee.