Portland committee debates mayor’s public-safety budget; Novick proposes police cut, boosts for emergency management

The Community and Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, May 13, spent the bulk of its meeting reviewing the mayor’s proposed budget for the public-safety service area and aired competing proposals for how to use limited general-fund dollars.

Committee members opened with technical questions about bureau budgets, grants accounting and overtime controls, then debated two amendment concepts introduced by Councilor Nick Novick. Novick proposed cutting $3 million from the Portland Police Bureau and shifting some welfare-check responses to unarmed responders, and separately proposed moving roughly $3.3 million from council office budgets to expand the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management’s (PBEM) capacity, including a 24/7 watch. No formal votes occurred at the committee meeting; the items remain under consideration during the budget process and at forthcoming work sessions.

Why it matters: the committee’s discussion laid out the tradeoffs facing Portland as it manages 1‑time versus ongoing funding, seeks to reduce overtime costs in police and fire, and weighs investments in emergency preparedness after years of staffing and funding fluctuations. Committee members pressed bureau leaders on how grants are tracked, how overtime is monitored, which calls could be reassigned to non-sworn responders, and what a modest increase in PBEM staffing would buy.

Committee members and city executives described several operational and accounting practices that underlie the proposed budget. DCA Myers (Deputy City Administrator for Public Safety) and budget staff said monthly “accounting period” meetings that include bureau leadership and the City Budget Office review overtime and personnel trends and produce projections; those meetings have been expanded to include the mayor’s office. Nathan (budget staff) told the committee the service area submitted 28 grant applications across bureaus this year and that the timing of award notifications — especially federal grants — explains much year‑to‑year variability in intergovernmental revenue. DCA Myers said a February 2025 ordinance requires the city manager to notify council when grant revenues materialize; the office also enforces internal spending guidance that routes requests above $25,000 through the DCA for approval.

Grants and transparency drew sustained questions. Councilor Savvy Smith asked whether $144,419 listed in the budget for an intergovernmental agreement with the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office (to fund a neighborhood DA position covering parts of East Portland and Rockwood) is binding and whether the city can reassign those dollars; Stephanie Howard, community safety director, said the IGA funds a portion of a neighborhood DA who works out of the East Precinct and that the IGA is contingent on adoption of the city budget. Several councilors pushed for clearer, itemized reporting of grant inflows and how one‑time federal dollars (notably past ARPA awards) replaced local general‑fund dollars in prior years.

Overtime monitoring and staffing: bureau leaders described steps to control overtime, but flagged long hiring pipelines. Nathan and other budget staff said the monthly oversight meetings have driven “pay period” targets and transparency that have reduced overtime for some bureaus. At the same time, bureaus cautioned that hiring and training pipelines take months to more than a year: the fire bureau’s recruit-to-seat pipeline is shorter than police’s (police cited an 18–24 month pipeline), so near‑term overtime reductions from hiring will lag. The mayor’s proposed budget includes a mix of ongoing and one‑time allocations intended to stabilize service levels while seeking overtime reductions; staff told the committee these one‑time plugs keep operations whole this fiscal year but would require replacement in future budgets if the underlying cuts remain ongoing.

Call allocation and alternative responders: a call‑allocation working group (including BOEC, police, PBEM and others) is drafting recommendations intended to reassign some call types to non‑sworn responders. Nick McDonald, performance analyst, said study work is expected to yield recommended changes by the end of the calendar year; three priority areas under review are burglar alarms, unattended deaths, and welfare checks. Police leaders and some councilors stressed bargaining and legal constraints on who can be dispatched to which calls: for example, PS‑3 responders currently do not go to welfare checks in all circumstances, and the Portland Police Association has indicated some of those changes could require bargaining.

Councilor Novick’s proposals: Novick said police spend roughly 6% of their time on welfare checks and argued many of those calls can be handled by Portland Street Response (PSR) or PS‑3 responders at lower cost. He proposed cutting $3 million from police discretionary funding — a conservative estimate of potential savings if some welfare checks are reassigned — and using the money for parks maintenance. Chief Day (Police Bureau) warned that a $3 million reduction would reduce services and “collapse” units recently restored (he listed detective and specialty units as examples) and said any cut would result in fewer officers available for calls for service.

Novick also proposed funding a significant PBEM enhancement — including a 24/7 watch and additional planning, operations and training staff — by cutting council office budgets by about $3.3 million. PBEM leaders described a prioritized list of needs: a 24/7 watch (estimated about 6 FTE to staff continuously), three FTE for coordination and response, a software manager for a citywide incident management system, two FTE for planning and preparedness, one FTE for training and exercises, and roughly $400,000 estimated as additional rent/space costs for added positions. PBEM leaders told the committee that the mayor’s budget includes funding to procure incident‑management software and an alert/warning position; PBEM said the bureau remains “bare bones” and that any incremental FTE would help but that full restoration of the bureau would cost substantially more.

BOEC/telecommunicators and Portland Street Response: committee members asked Director Kazi about converting eight limited‑duration BOEC telecommunicator positions to ongoing status. Kazi said the bureau needs roughly 40 certified call takers on average across seasons and that converting limited‑term positions to permanent status would better align staffing with demand; BOEC seeks to leverage overtime savings to convert about four positions this year. Councilors also pressed for ongoing funding for Portland Street Response (PSR) and discussed whether some PSR activities could ultimately be Medicaid‑reimbursable; PBEM and fire representatives said further analysis is required on potential Medicaid reimbursement.

Other budget details: the committee heard that the mayor’s proposed budget contains $1.4 million in ongoing funding for the police body‑worn camera program (to support contracts and operations after initial federal or startup grants), and small adjustments to School Resource Officer line items (an increase tied to vehicle IMNS charges). Councilor Marillo raised the $1.1 million expense the service area incurred to purchase munitions, shields and training last year in preparation for protests that did not materialize; DCA Myers acknowledged responsibility for the preparedness decision and said the purchases were made to ensure readiness.

What the committee directed or decided: no formal amendments were adopted at this meeting. Members sought follow‑up memoranda and documents (for example, the DA IGA and background studies) and signaled additional amendments might be posted ahead of the full Budget Committee sessions and the next public‑safety work session (scheduled May 28). Staff committed to provide the requested IGA language and background on the neighborhood DA funding, to continue accounting‑period reports on overtime, and to return with further detail about grant revenues and the status of the call allocation study.

The committee will continue the budget review during the remaining budget process; members noted some adjustments may be made between the May 21 committee approval and the June final adoption schedule.