Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Safety topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
McMinnville police to lose positions in proposed FY26 cuts; chief warns of slower response and fewer programs
Summary
Chief Cord Wood outlined proposed reductions that would remove several sworn positions and support staff from the McMinnville Police Department in the proposed FY26 budget and described likely impacts on response times, traffic enforcement and community programs.
McMinnville Police Chief Cord Wood told the Budget Committee on May 20, 2025 that proposed FY26 reductions include the elimination of several sworn and civilian positions and that the changes would likely reduce traffic enforcement, community policing programs and public access to services.
"We had a big hill to climb, and unfortunately, at the police department, I can't cut enough stuff to get to the point that we needed to be at. So we're look we had to look to position reductions," Chief Cord Wood said. He listed the positions shown on slides: three patrol officer positions, one detective position, a middle‑school school resource officer, and one administrative support position. Chief Wood described that the eliminated positions correspond to “roughly about 11 and a half percent of my sworn law enforcement staff.”
Chief Wood estimated the personnel and associated reductions at just over $1 million for the coming budget cycle. "Total in, people and things come to about 1 point, or just a little over a million dollars," he said.
He said specific operational impacts would include reduced dedicated traffic enforcement, delayed responses to non‑emergency and potentially emergency calls at times, reduced public reception hours and reduced community‑policing programming. "We're gonna have to reduce the reception hours to the public. We're gonna have to reduce our community policing programs," he told the committee.
The chief also described changes to the department’s reserve program and training lines: a small budget line (about $30,000) that supports recruiting, training and equipping reserve officers was recommended for reduction; he said reserves provide value but participation is low and full‑time officers are more consistently schedulable. Committee members asked for related data including recent overtime totals and vacancy histories; staff said they would provide those figures at a subsequent meeting.
Chief Wood noted the department would revert toward staffing levels last seen in 2015 and that some specialty units that had been eliminated earlier (narcotics detective, park ranger, community support coordinator) have not been restored, making the reductions more consequential. He asked the committee to consider alternatives during deliberations.
