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Minneapolis City Council leaders advanced a proposal Tuesday to eliminate the city’s Office of Community Safety as part of a sweeping public safety restructuring, citing poor management and financial oversight concerns.
Mayor Jacob Frey warned the move could jeopardize critical services.
According to The Star Tribune, the office was created by Mayor Frey in 2022 in response to calls for police reform after the death of George Floyd.
The proposal marks a significant reversal for a city that reorganized public safety operations after Floyd’s death.
Frey, who established the office in 2022, criticized council members for seeking to dismantle a structure some had previously championed.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, the mayor warned that the proposed elimination could threaten existing public safety programs.
“This office — one that these council members advocated for — manages services like mental health response, violence prevention and police reform. If council members want these services in jeopardy, that’s on them. This wholesale elimination without a plan, combined with other proposed cuts to MPD, is not a serious proposal when it comes to public safety in our city,” Frey said.
According to the City of Minneapolis, the Office of Community Safety oversees five departments: police, fire, 911, emergency management and neighborhood safety.
The office was designed to coordinate public safety services, improve communication between departments and establish a unified chain of command and accountability.
The proposal comes amid mounting scrutiny of the city’s violence prevention spending.
A recent Minneapolis audit identified serious deficiencies in the Neighborhood Safety Department’s oversight of community-based violence prevention contracts, including inadequate documentation and financial controls that increased the risk of fraud and misuse of taxpayer money.
According to the investigation, the city failed to properly oversee millions of dollars awarded to violence prevention organizations.
The audit examined a system that has directed more than $36 million to five major violence prevention programs since 2023.
Payne defended the proposed restructuring as a way to preserve services while reducing administrative expenses.
“These proposed changes to the government structure ensure that progress on issues such as public safety and racial disparities is not impacted by unnecessary costs and bureaucratic bottlenecks,” Payne told FOX 9.
“Now more than ever, our city government must be responsive to the needs of residents, and its structure should reflect that.”
The city’s published 2026 public safety budget allocated more than $16 million to the Office of Community Safety, nearly $10 million to Neighborhood Safety and more than $225 million to the Minneapolis Police Department.
It remains unclear how much money eliminating the office would actually save.
Wonsley defended the proposal in comments to Fox News Digital, explaining that key non-police programs that continue to show success, such as the Behavioral Crisis Response team, predated the Office of Community Safety and would continue to operate without it.
“The Office of Community Safety became administrative bloat that was a barrier to creating and expanding alternative responses rather than leading the development of a comprehensive public safety system,” Wonsley said.
She argued the $2 million office had become a “bureaucratic barrier” plagued by mismanagement by Mayor Frey and said taxpayers have paid the price.
“The city can advance a comprehensive safety system and support police reform much more efficiently without unnecessary bureaucratic layers that have proven to be ineffective,” Wonsley added.
“Residents should not anticipate negative impacts because OCS was never able to effectively manage or oversee programs and services. The proposal does not eliminate any violence prevention or public safety programs that produce results. It simply removes administrative bloat.”