Portland’s new city budget office this morning has released copies of every city bureau and office’s “requested” budget—the starting marks in a long race for cash that ultimately will be decided by Portland City Council later this spring.
The city’s budget deficit, so far, is $25 million. As I noted last week, every bureau has been ordered to find cuts that go several million bucks beyond that.
Cutting 10 percent from general fund budgets will actually shave $38 million in total spending—more than the deficit the council needs to close. Which means, after going through their budget-cutting exercise, bureaus will be left to fight for their shares of just more than $13 million in scraps.
It’s an exercise in pain, and we’ll start by looking at the police bureau, the largest taker from the city’s general fund.
The bad news? Cutting 10 percent from the police bureau means laying off dozens and dozens of cops. And where would those cops come from? Sensitive places. Like the gang enforcement unit. The family services unit. The old-timey and inexplicably beloved mounted patrol. School police. Traffic cops. Etc.
Those cuts at the same time as the US Department of Justice settlement has piled on million in new costs for the bureau. The bureau has ranked the cuts in order of what it believes would hurt most—and it’s looking grim. Especially if no new revenue or labor contract savings emerge. Even if the council lets the police bureau off the hook with just a 4 percent reduction—saddling nearly every other bureau with the full 10 percent reduction to make it pencil out, the bureau will still likely have to shed officers.
Hit the jump for some of the bureau’s list.
Why don’t the police just better manage their ridiculous overtime in which highly trained and heavily armed officers are playing flagger? Isn’t this just theater to make City Hall balk at budget cuts for the police and take them from elsewhere? They must think we’re pretty dumb.
Cut the dumb ponies.
And their poop.
Let’s start with laying off Kruger, not only do you save his salary but also the lawsuit money…
I hope Kruger makes the list too, but we all know that’s not going to happen: the top brass loves his Nazi ass. They seem his as the model of policing, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in for another promotion.
Regarding the mounted patrol unit, that particular unit already receives private funding, on the order of 6-figures I believe. I think their horses are entirely paid for, it’s just the officer’s time that we would be cutting. I’ve been hit by those goddamn horses more than once, so I’m fine with them being gone. Most of the time I just see them standing around in a park doing nothing.
School Resource Officers contribute nothing to our students besides elevating minor issues to criminal ones. Cut those bastards. A kid doesn’t need to leave in handcuffs for having a couple grams of pot on them, or a small pocket knife. This is a dead-end job for cops, creep perv cops who want to harass and hang around with high school kids. I believe schools employ security guards beyond police officers, so their benefit is redundant.
Perhaps the most nefarious and unruly component of Portland police is the Gang Enforcement Team. They drive around and specifically target young Black kids. The Black community hates them for just reasons: it’s the Gang Enforcement’s job to harass young people and circumvent the law by labeling kids as “gangs” without a trial or jury.
Not listed on this block is the Criminal Investigations Division – they are the ones with spies. The spies infiltrate political groups (hello, Occupy!) and have absolutely nothing to do with public safety. Take my word for it: none of the radicals in this town are terrorists or a threat to anyone, more than half are offended by the thought of owning a gun. That doesn’t stop the cops from watching and accumulating information on the “radicals”: communists, anarchists, environmentalists, animal rights activists, and college kids – but this is redundant to what the FBI already does.