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Drivers heading south on U.S. Route 183 in Austin, Texas, have become familiar with a billboard urging city police officers to relocate to Spokane, Washington, to become deputy sheriffs and collect a $15,000 bonus. The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office has targeted Texas’ capital city, already in a personnel crunch as the homicide rate reached a record high, along with other jurisdictions that recently slashed police budgets. Amid the “defund the police” movement in 2020, the Austin City Council cut the police budget by about one-third and eventually lost 150 officers. In August, shortly before the city reached its all-time record for annual homicides, the council restored the funding. “Austin is an incredibly fast-growing city. So we have more people coming in. We are losing about 15 police officers a month,” Lars Trautman, national director of the Right on Crime program for the Austin-based think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation, told The Daily Signal. Join your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW, and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic.https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/10/01/heres-what-happened-to-murder-rates-when-texas-capital-defunded-police/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/seattlerealestatepodcast)