Public Safety Bureaus Asked to Explore Budget Cuts Similar to Other Bureaus’

At the tail end of the seven-hour inaugural meeting of the new Portland City Council on Thursday afternoon, City Councilor Sameer Kanal raised the possibility of asking the city’s public safety bureaus—including the police and fire bureaus—to prepare the same budget-cut proposals that all the other city bureaus are being asked to draft in preparation for next year’s tight budget.

“I want to make sure that previous government’s choices to not have shared sacrifice when there are cut years is not maintained just because that’s how it has been,” Kanal said from the dais.

The Portland Police Bureau, Portland Fire & Rescue, and the Bureau of Emergency Communications have been exempt in recent years from budget cuts that other bureaus have been asked to make, including in last year’s city budget, when bureaus were asked to make 5% reductions across the board. Bureaus are being asked this year to prepare budgets with both 5% and 8% reductions.

Indeed, it soon became clear that public safety bureaus are also expected to prepare similar belt-tightening proposals—which was news to bureau and union leaders.

In response to Kanal’s comments, Mayor Keith Wilson—on his second day in office—said he’d heard a similar query from other members of the 12-member council. Wilson deferred to interim city administrator Michael Jordan to elaborate.

Jordan told the council: “We now are hearing, both from you all and from the mayor, that at least we would like to understand the impacts of cuts across public safety also. Having the ability to have the information and understanding of what that means across some of the public safety programming, is an important aspect of your decision-making as you get the budget. We’re working on that right now.”

The two minutes of brief public dialogue between Mayor Wilson, Councilor Kanal and city administrator Jordan caused immediate ripples of panic through the three public safety bureaus and their unions. Various bureau and union leaders called one another to say this was the first they’d heard of potential cuts to the police, fire and 911 dispatch bureaus.

In an email to city employees across the three bureaus Friday afternoon, the deputy city administrator overseeing the city’s Public Safety Service Area, Mike Myers, wrote: “Right now, these cuts will not affect the Portland Police Bureau, Portland Fire & Rescue, and the Portland Bureau of Emergency Communications. However, there is now a request from Council to explore 5-8 percent cuts to these bureaus. We are working to learn more about what this means and will be in close contact with leadership at [those bureaus].”

Myers wrote that the three bureaus would prepare budgets that reflect 5% and 8% budget cuts for city leaders to look at—though he added he had no indication that the public safety bureaus would actually have to make such cuts.

The fire and police unions say public safety bureaus should not be subject to budget cuts at a time when one of Portlanders’ top concerns is safety. Portland’s 911 call response times continue to remain far longer than the national standard.

Aaron Schmautz, president of the Portland Police Association, said in a statement: “Our strained system faces catastrophic cuts when vulnerable citizens need more help. Fewer dispatchers and officers would lead to longer response times, less crime prevention and investigation, and fewer officers patrolling districts to build community trust.”

Isaac McLennan, president of the Portland Fire Fighters’ Association, said in a statement that the “City Council’s new request to see what a 5% to 8% cut looks like to Portland Fire & Rescue will only mean one thing: less firefighters in Portland....We currently don’t have enough firefighters in Portland, and making these cuts would only make the situation worse.”

The police and fire bureaus have spent a record amount on overtime in recent years. From 2018 to 2023, the fire bureau’s annual overtime costs skyrocketed from $12 million to $22 million. From 2022 to 2023, police overtime spending increased from $18 million to $22 million.

Mayor Wilson’s office did not respond to a request for comment.