City should prioritize public safety in budget decisions, PPA president says

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the new City Council are facing a potential $100 million budget gap. As they consider where to cut, where does public safety fall?

Portland Police Association President Sgt. Aaron Schmautz returned to Eye on Northwest Politics to talk about what cuts could mean to the police bureau and for all Portlanders.

City administrator Michael Jordan is asking all city bureaus to submit budgets with 5-8% cuts. As this could be almost $20 million out of the Police Bureau, Schmautz said this could exacerbate existing staffing and inability to adequately respond to cases involving human trafficking and domestic violence.

“In terms of investment, the City of Portland invests less than any city our size in the country, just in dollar amount as a comparison,” he noted. “The city of Boston – they’re about the same size -they invest twice what we do. Monetarily, from a staffing standpoint, the national average is 2.4 per 1,000. We’re just hovering around one. Our ability to respond to calls is crippled right now.”

PPB racked up $17 million in overtime this past year. Schmautz said two things can account for this and there’s a way to solve that problem.

“One, when we have large public order events, it is crippling to our budget – millions of dollars – and it’s unexpected revenue or unexpected expenses. So those events, every time they happen, it impacts Portland directly,” he stated. “Secondly, it’s backfill for overtime. At a recent presentation for City Council, BOEC displayed that they had decreased their overtime significantly, and it was through a very, very robust hiring practice, and they’re down to nine vacancies. When you’re paying just one person one salary instead of 1.5 all the time to keep people safe, your budget goes down.”

With President Trump cracking down on immigration, there’s a bill in the legislature that would require police to ask the immigration status of people they arrest if they have a firearm. Schmautz stated that, to his knowledge, police officers in Oregon cannot ask questions beyond the scope of the stop they are engaging in.

“You could ask questions about the firearm, but you cannot ask questions judicially about any other thing, including status, which is something that the federal government is responsible for,” he added.

Recently, PPB Chief Bob Day apologized for the police misreporting information in a shooting at a protest at Normandale Park about three years ago. In response, Schmautz argued these are conversations that should continue to be had.

“Having spoken to the chief about this, the reality is if the community is negatively impacted by law enforcement, we should be better about having those conversations,” he said. “It shouldn’t be controversial. Just because someone makes a mistake doesn’t mean that they should be fired or punished, but it very well may be that we could do better.”

As the police budget will be determined sometime this summer, Schmautz further emphasized the need for the bureau to be fully staffed in the long-term in order to give timely responses to those in need.

“We need to quit pretending that one group is better than the other. At the end of the day, we have a mandate to provide public safety,” he stressed. “Our members don’t want to wonder about which portion of their work is going to be cut this year or the next year. We need a trajectory that is a 10-year plan to improve public safety in the city.”

Watch the full interview in the video above.