Portland funds three PBEM positions aimed at updating plans, expanding training and improving alerting

Portland’s Community and Public Safety Committee on July 15 heard details about how three newly funded positions will be used at the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management to update emergency operations plans, expand training and exercises, and manage the city’s alert and warning systems.

The bureau’s chief resilience officer, Richard Narwal, told the committee the additions are intended to address critical capability gaps identified in an internal assessment that benchmarks bureau programs against Emergency Management Accreditation Program standards. "Many of the plans that we currently have are out of date and require substantial revisions," Narwal said, and the new planner will focus on revising the city’s basic emergency operations plan and other operational guidelines.

PBEM presented the hires as a targeted step to make progress on multiple functional areas of emergency management: operational planning, training and exercise, and communications and warning. The city budget added roughly $483,000 to support two full-time positions the council authorized; a third position was in the mayor’s proposed budget, Narwal said. The bureau said the new training position will expand what it now runs at about 0.2 full-time equivalent into a full program to credential staff and exercise updated plans under National Incident Management System and National Qualification System standards.

PBEM officials emphasized the hires will not instantly close all gaps. Narwal said the alert-and-warning position will "manage city’s emergency management alert and warning operations," including current systems such as Everbridge and coordination on state alerting templates, but he cautioned: "We still will not have a 24 7 capacity to issue an alert. It's a position that will help us maintain the program better." He added that the hiring process will take a minimum of four months and could take four to six months before candidates start.

Council members asked for clarification about what would be required to move the bureau from a critical (red) rating on some functions toward an operational (yellow) level. Chris Carey, PBEM’s preparedness and response manager, said incident management improvements will require additional staff and administrative systems. Carey said, in rough terms, "at least four to five positions" would be needed in operations to reach a comfortably functional incident management level and that an ultimate green rating for a city the size of Portland would likely include a 24/7 watch capability.

Committee members and PBEM staff said the three positions were a partial recovery from years of cuts: the bureau’s internal exercise identified roughly 50 or more positions needed to fully restore capabilities, and the three positions represent a fraction of that total. Narwal said the bureau will use EMAP standards as a long-term benchmark and will report progress to the council.

PBEM provided a timeline and a side-by-side assessment showing where the bureau expects improvement by June 2027 in the functional areas funded by the positions. The bureau also said its work on the City’s continuity planning is unlikely to be a first priority for the new planner, because several higher-priority operational plans already need revision.

Committee Chair Christopher Kanal praised the comparative slide format and said the staffing topic will return to committee as hiring and program development proceed.