The city council is proposing a massive budget cut to the NYPD as demands to defund police departments continues to grow across the nation.

The City Council is proposing to cut $1 billion to the NYPD's budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins next month. The cuts include reducing officer ranks from 36,000 to 33,000 through a hiring freeze and no longer replacing officers when they retire. The Council also proposes cutting overtime and shifting some duties away from the police.

In a joint statement, Council Speaker Corey Johnson and the black, Latino, and Asian caucus said they will work together to limit scope of the NYPD and move away from the failed policing policies of the past. Mayor de Blasio says he supports reallocating police funding but has backed away from massive cuts.

Police union president Pat Lynch responded by saying “every time a city agency failed at its task, the city's answer was to give it to the NYPD. If the City Council wants to give responsibilities back to those failing agencies, that's their choice."

The city is already facing massive budget cuts due to the loss of tax revenue from the pandemic, however, cuts to the police budget of this magnitude are unprecedented.