How Do California Cities Spend Money on Policing?

The primary focus of the project was to show what percentage of their municipal budgets California cities were allocating to their police departments. We used the California State Controller's Finances Data to find each city's total and police department expenditures from 2017. By dividing the police department expenditures by the total city expenditures from this year, we were able to create a map visualizing what percentage of their budgets 472 California cities were spending on policing.

With nearly 500 incorporated cities, California is by far the most populated state in the entire country. Most municipalities have their own police departments and create an annual budget determining what percentage of it their police department will receive. Below is a map visualizing how 472 different California cities spent their municipal funds on policing in 2017. The variability in police spending across the state is quite surprising. While some municipalities spent less than 5% of their budgets on policing, others allocated more than half of their budgets to their police departments.

Explore the map or search for a city and click on it to see just how much they spent on policing in 2017.

Southern California is home to some of the state's most populated cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego, and Long Beach. However, in Southern California, a city's population size is not an indicator of what portion of their municipal budget is being used to fund their police department.

San Bernadino County

Take Adelanto, for example. With a population slightly greater than 34,000 in 2017, Adelanto spent nearly 35% of their city budget (or $164 per capita per year) on policing.

San Diego County

Roughly 100 miles south lies San Diego. Even with a 2017 population of over 1.4 million, San Diego allocated 14% of their budget (or $299 per capita per year) to their police department.

The San Francisco Bay Area houses over 7.5 million people across nine counties. City spending on police shows a level of variability comparable to that of Southern California, and how suburban or urban a city is doesn't seem to change this trend either.

Marin County

As of 2017, the small town of Fairfax had a population just shy of 8,000 people. Interestingly, Fairfax spent 31% of its budget (or $410 per capita per year) on its police department that year, illustrating even tiny suburban municipalities may allocate a large portion of their municipal funds toward policing.

San Francisco County

Twenty miles south over the Golden Gate Bridge, the City of San Francisco had an estimated population of 874,000 in 2017. Although, San Francisco, the urban center of the Bay Area, spent 5% (or $597 per capita per year) of its city budget on policing that year, this represented one of the lowest percentages in the entire state.

The variability in police department spending can also be seen between municipalities near one another in the same county.

In Northern California, the City of Redding and the City of Anderson are only separated by a short stretch of the Sacramento River. However, they tell two very different stories about how police department funds are prioritized within their city budgets, despite both being in Shasta County.

In 2017, Redding spent 8% of their municipal budget (or $314 per capita per year) on their police department. In contrast, Anderson spent 30% of their budget (or $392 per capita per year) on theirs, nearly four times the amount of Redding.

Two municipalities, Lakeport and Clearlake, each occupy a portion of Clear Lake's waterfront. But, they too speak to the vast disparities in police department spending that exist between neighboring cities.

While Lakeport and Clearlake are both part of Lake County, Lakeport allocated barely 1% of its total municipal funds (or $401 per capita per year) toward policing in 2017, whereas Clearlake allocated fifty times that amount, spending half their budget (or $252 per capita per year) on their police department.

Why some cities spend considerably more on policing than others remains a tough question yet to be fully answered. Even socioeconomic factors, which vary significantly throughout the state, do not explicitly explain these patterns of inconsistent police spending in California. These maps visualize just how complex police department spending and annual allocation of municipal funds can be. However, there is more work to be done to further assess these disparities.

 California State Controller's Cities Finances Data, 2017 (City and police spending information) 

 California Department of Transportation (California City Boundary Map)