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Mayor: Keizer faces budget shortfall that imperils police staffing
Summary
In her State of the City address, Mayor Kathy Clark said Keizer faces a projected $1.65 million budget shortfall driven by reduced state distributions and rising costs, and she previewed a comprehensive police staffing study recommending phased funding strategies.
Mayor Kathy Clark said Keizer faces a budget shortfall of about $1.65 million as the city prepares its 2026–27 budget, and that underfunded mandates and reduced state distributions are hampering efforts to fully staff police and other core services.
Clark, speaking at the Keizer Chamber of Commerce’s State of the City event, said an in-depth police staffing and funding study led by city staff and public safety leaders analyzed current staffing levels, retention pressures and the cost to provide modern public-safety services. "Recommendations on how to pay for services and planning for service needs now and going forward will come to city council shortly for consideration as well as be used in the upcoming budget process for ’26 and ’27," Clark said.
The mayor told the audience that fiscal pressures include a roughly $200,000 annual reduction in liquor tax distributions that previously flowed to cities; Clark attributed that loss to recent statewide OLCC spending she described as reducing city distributions. She noted the typical fully equipped cost of a Keizer police officer is about $231,000 and said recent retirements and broader labor-market shifts have increased staffing challenges.
City staff reported one-time savings of about $1.2 million in budgeted expenditures, Clark said, but that still leaves a near-term gap. "Those dollars are the ones that we use to pay the bills from July to October since property tax revenues don't arrive until November. So that's not a great idea long term," she said, urging a combined review by staff, council and the community on revenue and cost options.
Clark said the staffing analysis will present modest, well-considered asks for staffing and funding that city leaders will bring forward during budget deliberations. She emphasized the city aims to preserve services while keeping Keizer among the region’s lower-fee, full-service cities.
What happens next: Clark said council and staff will use the study to form budget recommendations in coming weeks; the city has not yet proposed specific tax or fee changes in the address.
(Reporting based on Mayor Kathy Clark’s State of the City address.)
