The LA City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee recently held the first budget hearing for a $14.89 billion spending plan proposed by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. According to MyNewsLA, her plan calls for hiring over 500 new police officers, resulting in approximately 47 million dollars channeled toward their salaries. This proposal has sparked opposition from several individuals, including assistant professor of social welfare at UCLA David C. Turner III.

Turner used survey data from over 35000 individuals from the past six years to highlight that many individuals do not want to invest money into law enforcement,

“We want to invest in things like housing security, and things like food security, economic assistance, public health and health care, child and youth development, environmental justice and climate change,” Turner said.

He argued that the $47 million could be used to help nearly 6,000 domestic violence victims and individuals looking for employment. “You have police doing things they don’t even want to do,” said Turner, “but yet, we continue to make them do that because they’re our most funded resource.”

The budget hearings are expected to conclude on May 15, after which the proposal will be passed on to the City Council.