Council-Requested Poll Shows Portlanders Overall Would Prefer Cuts to Police Over Parks and Fire

A poll commissioned by two members of the Portland City Council shows that Portlanders would prefer that budget cuts be made to the Police Bureau and homeless services rather than parks and firefighters.

Some of the results of the poll, conducted by DHM Research and commissioned by Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney and Councilor Steve Novick, are sure to rankle the Police Bureau and its union, which have consistently said the public wouldn’t stand for cuts to public safety.

The results of the 600-reespondent poll have been released as the city stares down a roughly $60 million shortage in its general fund in the upcoming fiscal year.

The poll also comes less than two weeks before Mayor Keith Wilson is expected to release his proposed budget. And those familiar with his plans say that he’s homed in on parks maintenance in recent weeks as the primary city function to cut in order to narrow the budget gap—a desire that may be quelled by the results of Wednesday’s poll.

The poll shows 42% of respondents approved of cutting the police budget, while 55% disapprove; 38% of respondents approved of cuts to housing and homeless services, while 60% disapproved.

Respondents were much less approving of cuts to the parks and fire bureaus. Only 28% of respondents approved of cuts to Portland Parks & Recreation, and an even smaller portion of respondents—17%—approved of cuts to Portland Fire & Rescue.

The poll focused on those four service areas—police, fire, parks and homeless services—because they’re the four areas that draw the vast majority of the city’s general fund.

The preferences of respondents get wonkier and more nuanced, though, in more in-depth questions about funding priorities.

For instance, respondents from Districts 1 and 4 were far less supportive of making cuts to police first than Districts 2 and 3. (That tracks: Districts 1 and 4 are less left-leaning than Districts 2 and 3.) The polling shows that preferences about cuts varied demonstrably between the more left-leaning and right-leaning districts.

For instance, 38% of District 4 respondents approved of cuts to police compared to 51% of respondents in District 3. Similarly, 34% of District 4 respondents approved of cuts to parks compared to 22% of District 3 respondents.

President of the Portland Police Association Aaron Schmautz says the poll actually reaffirms “what we’ve seen over and over and over again.”

“Once again, we see that people the most impacted by crime—the people asking for help the most, the most underrepresented by our city—they do not want to cut police,” Schmautz said.

Perhaps most confusingly, respondents overall said police and homeless services should be first in line on the chopping block, but “when asked which service should be safeguarded from reductions, more Portlanders say that police services should be protected more than other services (34%),” DHM wrote in its summary. “Housing and homelessness services are the next highest to protect from cuts (27%).”

Pollsters say that’s because people have strong opinions on police. “Because both police and homelessness services have a core of strong support,” DHM wrote in its summary, “fewer people list fire and parks as services to protect from cuts.”

The poll also drilled into how respondents felt about specific cuts within those service areas.

For instance, the poll found that respondents would first eliminate police welfare checks, then reduce shifts and overtime, and then buck specialized missions if they had to choose specific services to cut within the Police Bureau. What to shave first, though, depended on the respondents’ district.

When it came to the parks bureau, 56% of respondents said they’d prefer the closure of a community center over cuts to maintenance at nearby parks. Only 12% of respondents said they’d support cuts to maintenance at outdoor parks. Those results, too, varied by district.

Fifty-six percent of respondents said they’d prefer to close fire stations during low-call volume times than cut funding to Portland Street Response and the CHAT program, which sends two-person vehicles to low-acuity medical calls.

On homelessness, DHM wrote that responders were “conflicted about where to cut housing and homelessness services.” Some districts preferred cuts to homeless camp sweeps, while others preferred cuts to the city’s tiny pod villages.

An entire section of the poll asked respondents to choose between services in different bureaus. For instance, the poll asked about cutting after-school programs versus cutting funding to nonprofits that work with families affected by gun violence. Another question asked about cuts to community centers versus closing a tiny pod village.

The full memo about the poll can be found here.