The financial impact of the solution, mainly the payment of settlements from police department budget and not city budget, on the police department is stated below. NYPD is examined as an example. NYPD had a $5.44 billion proposed spending budget in 2022 fiscal year, with 92% of that budget being allocated to salaries, wages, and overtime for its workforce.
The New York City has paid $205 million in settlement against NYPD in FY 20. That was a 9% decline from FY 19, where they had to pay $225.2 million, and a 39% decrease from the $338.2 million paid in FY 17.
Based on the trend of red line from 2017, we can predict that there would be a lower settlement amount in 2021. In fact, based on the trend from 2017, we can expect the FY 21 settlement amount to be $150 million.
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If we consider this payment to be compensated solely by the NYPD due to police misconduct based on new policies, that would Make up 3% of their budget for FY 22.
The other approach may be that through the use of our solution, due to ease of use and the recording witnesses and evidence, the number of complaints with practical evidence for court would increase substantially. This may cause a exponential increase in the settlement payment, similar 2016 and 2017.
However, whichever prediction actually occurs, with this solution, one element is certain short-term: there would be a negative impact on NYPD budget in short-term, with 3% being the minimum.
Similarly, one trend is certain for the future: through police officers and departments keeping each other accountable and stopping the use of abusive force that the allocation of budget to settlements would decrease.
Although 3% and presumably a larger proportion of the NYPD will have to be allocated towards paying settlements at the beginning, the only trend that possible exists for the future 10-20 years includes a decrease in police misconduct and similarly, settlement payment. This means that by FY 2030, less than 1% of NYPD budget will go towards settlement payments only due to few extremely unlikely scenarios.
It has to be noted that the figure would be different for other police departments. NYPD has the largest police department budget nationally, other police departments will have lower budgets. However, they may have the same or more lawsuits and claims against the police departments. This means that the amount of settlement may be the same. Based on that, it is indicted that larger percentage of that police departments budget would go towards settlement payments.