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Portland City Councilor Candace Avalos shared her proposed amendments Monday to Mayor Keith Wilson’s proposed city budget.
Among them is a proposal to reduce the police staffing budget by $1.9 million to offset cuts to outdoor parks maintenance proposed by Wilson.
That make Avalos the fourth member of the City Council to propose an idea to avert cuts to parks maintenance.
Councilor Eric Zimmerman last week proposed cutting the Urban Forestry division’s regulation team from 37 employees to five. Councilor Steve Novick recently suggested shifting $2.6 million from the Police Bureau to decrease cuts to parks maintenance, savings he says could be made possible by not dispatching sworn officers to welfare checks and instead sending public safety support specialists, or PS3s. And Councilor Mitch Green has floated borrowing $10 million from the Portland Clean Energy Fund, then repaying the money before it is spent on climate-related projects.
Another proposal Avalos made is to place 75% of the police and fire bureaus’ overtime budgets—which in recent years have consistently topped $30 million—into a City Council-controlled fund from which the bureaus could seek funding through formal requests that are “subject to council approval or delegated criteria set by the City Budget Office.”
In a memo to colleagues, Avalos wrote that it would “allow council to exercise better fiscal oversight, align overtime spending with citywide priorities, and create more accountability for how and when these dollars are used.”
The two bureaus’ high overtime costs have been a stubborn, ongoing issue in recent years. Last fiscal year, Portland Fire & Rescue spent $24 million on overtime, and the Police Bureau spent $21 million.
The city auditor has flagged the issue before, writing in a 2012 audit of PF&R that the “culture we encountered at the bureau and that was described to us did not reflect a consistent commitment to limiting their use.”
Jamey Evenstar, Avalos’ chief of staff, said in a statement to WW that “putting overtime funds aside helps the council track and discuss more frequently with the bureau what the overtime and staffing needs truly are. They would be asked to come to council with anticipated needs, which allows the council to better understand staffing issues over time.”
Police Bureau spokesman Mike Benner said the bureau would reserve comment “until the budget process has fully played out” and “out of respect for Mayor Wilson and the tireless work he has put into his proposed budget.”
A fire bureau spokesperson also declined to comment.
Avalos’ other amendments include shifting money from within the parks bureau to ensure youth-training programs in East Portland aren’t cut; moving $400,000 from a pilot program in the Portland Housing Bureau to help affordable housing providers participating in the North/Northeast Preference Policy program keep their tenants housed; and using $1.5 million from the city’s Opioid Settlement Fund to provide gap funding to Fora Health, which has long planned to open a new treatment and recovery center in East Portland.
Members of the City Council begin discussing changes this week they want to see in Mayor Wilson’s proposed budget, which largely shields public safety bureaus from cuts. Instead, it focuses on trimming Portland Permitting & Development and Portland Parks & Recreation, particularly outdoor parks maintenance.