Members of Portland’s new police accountability system are speaking out amid a proposed supplemental budget ordinance that could draw money from the Office of Community-based Police Accountability to repay contingency funds borrowed from the city’s general fund.
An ordinance from Council Vice President Olivia Clark, along with Councilors Steve Novick, Loretta Smith, and Elana Pirtle-Guiney, proposes saving 30 city jobs in public safety, the parks bureau, and city operations using nearly $10 million in general fund contingency. The ordinance’s sponsors are hoping to use a routine budget adjustment process next spring to help restore the contingency funds using “underspending” in the Office of Community-based Police Accountability (OCPA), accrued interest in the city’s clean energy fund, and other sources with leftover funds.
On Monday, six members of the Community Board for Police Accountability (CBPA) wrote to Mayor Keith Wilson and Portland city councilors, formally objecting to the ordinance being proposed.
“Regardless of Councilors’ intent,” the letter reads, “this ordinance has both the appearance and the effect of eroding that independence and limiting the board’s power just as the CBPA has finally been established—six years after Portland voters mandated its formation.”
The CBPA acts as an independent governing body for the Office of Community-based Police Accountability, which was established by a voter-approved ballot measure in 2020. The measure created a new, civilian-led independent police oversight body tasked with investigating sworn employees of the Portland Police Bureau, with a budget equivalent to 5 percent of Police Bureau’s annual budget. The budget will cover the cost of a full staff, which includes professional investigators and a director.
The CBPA members’ letter asserts the ordinance, which targets police accountability funding as a potential means of restoring budget cuts to the Police Bureau, undermines the new accountability system.
Councilors sponsoring the budget ordinance argue it won’t have that kind of impact.
“This plan will not delay, defund, or interfere with the OCPA in any way,” a joint statement from Clark, Novick, Pirtle-Guiney, and Smith states. “Portlanders voted for strong police oversight and accountability and we will deliver it.”
But the letter sent to Wilson and city councilors Monday tells a different story.
In their letter, the oversight board members cautioned that moving funds from OCPA would violate the city’s charter and could invite legal challenges by using police accountability funds for purposes outside the scope of that office.
“This ordinance is now the third effort led by Councilor Clark to remove OCPA funds without consulting with the CBPA in any official capacity,” the group wrote. “The Portland City Charter requires that the OCPA, including the CBPA, retains decision-making powers independent from the City government, including in budgetary matters.”
The letter was signed by CBPA members Madeline Carroll, Tim Pitts, Ash Jimenez, Murtaza Batla, Tisha Pratt, and Dina Ross. The board members said they weren’t speaking for the CBPA as a whole, because the board never had a chance to discuss the issue.
They worry the ordinance constitutes Council interference in CBPA activities and serves to erode the board’s independence.
“If this ordinance passes, it will set a dangerous precedent for undermining the new police accountability system regardless of where the removed funds are spent—but transferring them in part to the police bureau looks especially bad and will further deteriorate public trust on this issue,” the letter reads.
The ordinance, announced in a June 25 press release, would supplement the 2026-27 fiscal year budget to stop significant cuts to public safety services, and extend benefits to city staff who are slated to be laid off in the coming weeks.
“Our mandate is straightforward: restore the critical services Portlanders depend on,” a statement from the councilors reads. “Properly train our police officers to ensure they meet the high standards we expect of them. Preserve the future of the PS3 program. Restore life-saving PF&R Rescue teams. These are not budget line items; they are lifelines for Portlanders when they need them most.”
As a basis for bringing the supplemental budget, councilors said new information since the budget was passed necessitated the changes. It is unclear what new information became available, and Clark and Novick’s office did not answer the Mercury’s questions asking what specific information came to light.
Councilors failed to come to an agreement on multiple budget amendments that could have done similar things prior to the June 17 budget adoption. During those discussions, some councilors and city union employees warned that Wilson’s proposed cuts could negatively impact services if layoffs moved forward without properly vetting the positions.
A proposed amendment from Councilors Mitch Green, Candace Avalos, and Angelita Morillo aimed to save 103 jobs by pausing layoffs for a year using Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) interest accrued over the past year, but failed in a 6-6 tie along moderate and progressive ideological lines. Another, proposed by Clark, alongside Councilors Pirtle-Guiney, Novick, Smith, and Councilor Dan Ryan, would have similarly moved money from the police accountability office, but that vote also failed in a 6-6 tie..
If passed, the new proposal would appropriate nearly $10 million in contingency funds, and over $2 million in other funds, including water funds, sewer and transportation funds, as well as the PCEF interest. It would also return $1.75 million to a business reserve fund, which was reduced during the Council’s budget season.
Addressing concerns from the CBPA members, Councilor Clark’s office reiterated the source of the funding for the supplemental budget.
“As the councilors made clear in last week’s statement, any funds drawn from the General Fund contingency would be repaid through anticipated underspending identified in the Spring Technical Budget Adjustment, which could be from several sources, including the Office of Community Police Accountability and accrued interest in the Portland Clean Energy Fund,” Jimmy Radosta, a spokesperson for Clark’s office, told the Mercury on Monday, insisting OCPA’s budget will “remain intact.”
What would it pay for?
If passed, the budget changes would preserve 30 positions across the city, including in transportation, water, parks, and environmental services. Most of all, the ordinance would restore eight public safety support specialist positions—unarmed police officers who respond to low-priority 911 calls—and six of their vehicles. It would also add $3 million for training, certification and professional development for Portland Police Bureau, and $1.65 million for Portland Fire & Rescue units, and pay $3.26 million to restore targeted positions “identified by both labor and the administration as posing significant risk if not continued for an additional year,” according to the ordinance text.
The announcement comes on the heels of another ordinance proposed by the Council’s progressive block—a pared down version of their budget amendment to save more than 100 jobs. The competing ordinance would spare at least 27 jobs in the city’s parks and police bureaus, as well as a program for seniors, and three Portland Fire & Rescue life support vehicles. That ordinance, proposed by Councilors Avalos, Green, Morillo, Sameer Kanal, and Tiffany Koyama Lane, represents a compromise of previous attempts to pause a layoff process, and save jobs for a year by using the same PCEF interest, as well as sewer, water, and transportation operating funds.
Councilors may find themselves in a familiar position, as the two ordinances will compete for a seventh vote to pass. While the government charter does not allow the mayor to break a tie on budget amendments, Wilson could play the role of tiebreaker in this case because the shuffling is through an ordinance. That means Wilson may cast a deciding vote to reallocate funds to jobs he first proposed cutting in his own budget.
