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Portland to examine disparity in police, health spending

Portland to examine disparity in police, health spending

Photo: 560 WGAN Newsradio


PORTLAND, Maine (AP) Portland’s city council will examine spending trends in the city’s police and public health budgets in a meeting Wednesday.

The Portland Press Herald reports the city’s spending on policing has increased almost 40% since 2010. Spending on public health has decreased by more than 50% in the same period.

The budgets are drawn from different sources, and a city hall official tells the newspaper some grant funding for public health decreased under former governor Paul LePage.

A weeks-long encampment of activists and homeless people outside Portland’s city hall has driven the demand to transfer funds from the city’s police department to social services.

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