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The Portland Police Association, the union representing sworn police officers, has contributed $793,532 to the political action committee behind a hotly debated ballot initiative that would use revenues from the city’s climate tax to hire some 400 additional police officers.
That makes PPA by far the PAC’s biggest donor, making up over half of the $1.4 million it has raised so far.
PPA has made three separate contributions over $100,000: for $150,000, $250,000, and $300,000. Those are the three largest contributions anyone has made to the Community Safety Coalition PAC. Only two other donors have given over $100,000. Jeff Swickard, the auto dealer who owns the U.S. Bancorp Tower, or “Big Pink,” contributed $250,000. Tim Boyle, president and CEO of Columbia Sportswear, gave $100,000.
“Portland police officers through their union are stepping up to fix this public safety crisis with their donation,” Elise Haas, a spokeswoman for the PAC, wrote to WW.
The initiative is controversial because it would reroute 25% of the city’s Portland Clean Energy Fund—a sales tax on large retailers doing business in Portland that was championed by progressive activists in 2018—to hire more police officers, a long-standing wish of the politically moderate and law enforcement. The initiative would require the city to maintain a police-to-civilian ratio of 2 per 1,000.
PPB cannot adequately fulfill its responsibilities due to staffing shortages, a new report by the deputy city administrator for public safety has found. (The City Council requested the report in February.) The bureau cannot afford to fill all of its authorized positions, which have a vacancy rate of roughly 10%, and is heavily relying on overtime to meet basic operational needs, according to the report.
Even as high-priority dispatch calls have fallen 31% since 2018, the average response time for such calls has risen to 20 minutes—a number several reports have previously shown. The response time goal for such calls is seven minutes as of April 2026. (This comes as the city auditor released a report last week finding that 911 call wait times had fallen from an average of 77 seconds in 2022 to 18 seconds in January 2026.)
Furthermore, the report found, the vast majority of child abuse, domestic violence, and property crimes receive little or no investigative follow-up.
If it continues meeting its projected hiring rates for FY2026, the report says, PPB will fill 238 positions over the next decade—that expanded workforce will bring an annual cost of about $37.3 million above current levels. (PPB has hired 38 officers so far this year.) The report makes clear, however, that it does not endorse “any particular staffing target or policy option.”
The public safety administrator’s report is only one of a slew various city departments have released on public safety in recent months. In April, a city 911 work group released a report recommending that “where there is no evidence to suggest a concern about the safety of the public, responders, or a criminal nexus, alternative responders can and should be the primary response.”
Specifically, the work group called for PPB to move some 14,000 of its approximately 23,000 annual welfare check calls to Portland Street Response over the next five years. The city administrator’s June report cited that recommendation as a way to reduce PPB’s workload.
That seems to run counter to the proposed ballot measure, which would only require hiring police officers.
Some city councilors weren’t happy with the news of PPA’s donations.
“When voters passed the Portland Clean Energy Fund, they did so with the intention of promoting projects that would address the existential threat of climate change,” Councilor Angelita Morillo wrote in a statement to WW. “It’s not lost on me that the police union has to resort to two things people hate about politics to try to pass their ballot measure: monied interests tipping the scales, and outrightly deceiving voters.” (Morillo appeared to be referring to the allegations from some Safer Portland canvassers, reported by the Portland Mercury, that they have been trained to mislead voters and say that the ballot initiative will directly address response times.)
The police union has ramped up its donations as the July 6 deadline to collect the 40,437 signatures needed to place the initiative on the ballot approaches. Haas tells WW that Safer Portland “won’t give out the exact number until July 6 when all signatures are collected,” but that the initiative will “be submitting tens of thousands more than the 41,000 signatures required.”
PPA made its first donation, of $25,000, back in October 2025. Its second donation came in late April, for $68,532.89. But in just the last two months, PPA has made its three largest donations, for a total of $700,000.
