The office designed to help aldermen keep tabs on how the city spends tax dollars detailed a proposal on Thursday that would cut $55 million from the Chicago Police Department’s $1.7 billion budget in 2021 to help fill Chicago’s massive budget shortfall.

The recommendation is the first from Kenneth Williams, who was named to lead the City Council’s Office of Financial Analysis in May after aldermen expanded the office’s power in an effort to provide a counterpoint to the annual budget proposal from the mayor’s office.

Williams said he went through the department’s budget to find savings by cutting “perks” and things that are “nice to have, but not need to have” and identified savings equal to about 3% of the 2020 departmental budget.

The city could save $30.5 million by cutting tuition reimbursement programs and uniform allowances for police officers and commanders and another $23.5 million by cutting quarterly payments to sergeants and to those assigned to special units, according to the proposal. Another $1 million could be saved by reducing spending on police at O’Hare and Midway airports.

