Minneapolis City Council is set to scrap its Office of Community Safety after years of overspending and weak results under a post-George Floyd public safety overhaul.
The council will hold a public hearing on October 27 on a proposal to eliminate the office, which city leaders created in 2022. Daily Mail reported the push follows claims the office failed to produce meaningful outcomes.
Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette has run the shop since 2023. He oversees police officers, the fire department, and 911 calls. He is the city’s highest-paid employee, with pay near $350,000. He plans to step down in December.
Mayor Jacob Frey created the office and later renominated Barnette. The council rejected that renomination earlier this year. Now the same body is moving to wipe out the office itself.
Council President Elliott Payne did not mince words in an April statement. He said Barnette fell short on the job.
Payne stated:
"To put it plainly, in his time in this role, I don't believe Toddrick Barnette has met the mark."
He added that Barnette was often missing from the work that mattered.
Payne said:
"In my experience, Mr. Barnette has been far too absent and often disconnected from the role."
Other council members raised the same problems. They pointed to Barnette and his staff skipping important meetings. They also cited weak transparency and poor communication from the office.
Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai hit the numbers hard at a news conference. She said departments under Barnette blew past their budgets again and again.
Chughtai said:
"While Commissioner Barnette has served in this role, multiple of the departments that he has overseen have repeatedly overspent and exceeded their budget, some by tens of millions of dollars."
That kind of overrun is hard to defend when taxpayers foot the bill. The office was sold as a smarter approach to public safety. Instead, council critics describe waste and weak delivery.
Not every council voice lined up against him. Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw praised the ties Barnette built with her constituents.
Vetaw said:
"The community that I represent is saying how connected they feel to you and to public safety because you're in this position."
Barnette himself struck a personal note when he held his own press conference. He left his next steps open while stressing his attachment to the city.
Barnette said:
"I don't know what's going to happen; I just really love the city of Minneapolis."
Mayor Frey pushed back hard against the elimination plan. He reminded the council that members once backed the office. He listed the work it handles: mental health response, violence prevention, and police reform.
Frey said:
"This office, one that these council members advocated for, manages services like mental health response, violence prevention and police reform."
He framed the proposal as reckless. Frey argued it dumps the office without a replacement plan and stacks that move on top of other proposed cuts to the Minneapolis Police Department.
Frey said:
"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."
The mayor’s defense puts the fight in plain view. One side says the office never delivered. The other says killing it now will gut real services residents still need.
The Office of Community Safety grew out of the turmoil after George Floyd’s 2020 death in Minneapolis. City leaders stood up the office in 2022 as part of a broader public safety overhaul. Barnette took the reins the following year and became the face of that effort.
By 2025 the political ground had shifted. The council already blocked Barnette’s renomination. Payne’s April critique put absence and weak communication on the record. Chughtai’s budget attack put large overruns on the record. The October 27 hearing now tests whether the whole office survives.
Barnette’s planned December exit adds another clock to the fight. Even if he leaves, the council still has to decide what happens to the structure he leaves behind. Frey says mental health response, violence prevention, and reform work sit inside that structure. Council critics say the results never matched the promise or the price tag.
Minneapolis taxpayers have watched this experiment for years. They paid top dollar for a commissioner who oversaw police, fire, and 911. They heard claims of connection and reform. They also heard of missed meetings, thin communication, and departments that overspent by tens of millions.
The council’s next step is the public hearing. After that comes the vote to keep or kill the office. Frey wants it saved. A majority of the council appears ready to shut it down. The gap between those positions is the story now unfolding in Minneapolis.
Cities that replace core policing with new bureaucracies still owe residents results, not just new titles and large salaries. When the outcomes stay thin and the overruns stay large, voters eventually demand the experiment end.
