The Portland City Council voted down a proposed $18 million cut to the Portland police budget 3-2 on Thursday, nearly five months after they approved rerouting $15 million slated for the police budget to other city programs and initiatives.
The majority of the council called for more comprehensive discussions of how to best reform public safety in Portland and expressed concerns over the layoffs that could result from a cut of that size.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, Commissioner Amanda Fritz and Commissioner Dan Ryan, who voted no, all said significant changes need to be made to the Portland Police Bureau and the county’s criminal justice system. But they said taking more money away from the bureau without a more thoroughly developed plan is not in the city’s best interest.
“We must remember that cuts happen quickly, but building new resources that achieve proven results takes time and intention,” Ryan said, urging the government body to move forward “methodically.”
Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who proposed the cuts to the police budget and voted yes, noted the funds would have been reallocated to community needs such as food assistance and legal defense for Portlanders facing evictions. They said the cuts would have shown that the city’s elected leaders were responsive to the scores of residents who’ve called for alternative methods of enduring public safety that involve less policing.
“It’s disappointing that the status quo will reassert itself in this process,” said Hardesty. "We’ll continue to talk about Black lives, but we won’t actually do anything to make Black lives better. We’ll keep talking about transformation, but let’s talk about it first and about who didn’t come to the table.
“These tables have been open and expansive and all of you have been invited and you’ve chosen not to come.”
The $18 million police cut and another proposal by Hardesty to keep $2.1 million in funding for the alternative first responder program Portland Street Response were the only proposed changes to the city budget out of nearly two dozen that the council rejected Thursday.
Wheeler put forward an alternative use for $2.1 million, urging that it be rerouted to keep open three temporary emergency outdoor camps for at least 135 people experiencing homelessness and to maintain portable toilets and hand-washing stations around the city.
Wheeler and other city officials said that money, although set aside for Portland Street Response through June, wasn’t on track to be spent. The program, which will dispatch a paramedic, community health worker and mental health crisis worker instead of police officers to certain non-emergency calls, is not on schedule to start until the first quarter of 2021 and even then at a limited level.
More than 150 people testified last week about proposals for changes to the city’s budget. Most said they were in favor of the $18 million budget cut.
Among the proposals the council approved Thursday were $1.75 million for the Oregon Worker Relief Fund, more than $22,000 to cover protest-related damages to city park property and new positions in the Office of Equity & Human Rights, Office of Violence Prevention and Office of Government Relations to help address racial and inclusion equity as well as gun violence.
The City Council will vote to formally adopt the budget changes next week. Portland’s overall budget was adopted at $5.6 billion in June, with the Police Bureau getting $229.3 million of that. It was $241.5 million the previous year.
The $15 million the council subsequently cut included funding for the gun violence reduction team, school resource officers and Portland police’s stake in the regional transit police division. There were no employee layoffs associated with those cuts. The millions were diverted to the Portland Street Response, a city leadership program for Black youth that hasn’t started yet and other initiatives.
-- Everton Bailey Jr; ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 | @EvertonBailey
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