Okay, thanks for this, Bob.....but I don't see any numbers attached.
Are you suggesting no cuts to public safety? Do you want to restore all of the public safety reductions? How much would you restore?
And how much would the city save by cutting the communications/equity/engagement staff that you mention?
As a private citizen, this is so difficult to track. I appreciate your attempt at "don't cut this" and "instead cut this" but I don't know if your idea fiscally balances out.
As I said, it was an initial review of budget. Cutting the 3 areas I mentioned plus other positions added in city hall in recent years, would go a long way to restoring a good portion of most if not all of the cuts in the mayors budget. We have 57 communications staff despite a new centralized office, vs 28 in 2011 and 22 in 2003. Meanwhile the number of police has decreased (held steady in proposed budget to be clear).
There are other places, I suspect many, that could be cut. City spends many tens of thousands on things like facilitators for meetings that the $6 figure managers in the various bureaus should be able to run.
Kara, Bob is not responsible for fleshing out an alternative city budget! He is just pointing out a clear problem with the current one: the cuts need to come in the bloated city bureaucracy rather than in vital services. The administrative part of the city's budget seems impervious to change. This is simply wrong in a period of budget cutting. Would i rather see cuts to permitting or to public relations or to neighborhood liaison rather than to police and fire services? A thousand times yes!!!!! The city "silos" are totally out of control and Wilson simply can't rein them in and WE can't vote them out!!!! I am so discouraged by this situation.
I think you made a good point with the 21st & Hoyt emergency that this is how it should be. No argument there. As you’ve stated, even now with vastly improved response times there is still a lack of staff to provide this consistently. That constant short-staffing leads to increased burnout as well as increased overtime costs.
That doesn’t even count non-emergency situations where a public safety response is necessary. I made a call to the appropriate party the other day for someone that I deemed to have a non-emergent issue. I was on hold for over 20 minutes and eventually gave up.
Certainly this is an n of 1 but I know in hearing from others it is not something I experienced that was unique.
I look at all of public safety as not only handling emergencies but also providing preventative services so it doesn’t get to that point. When you cut funding you move right back to a purely reactive model with not enough resources to cover it. Then you return to 2022 when you had an ambulance service meeting their required response times only 62% of the time.
To me this is outside of the parks vs police budget arguments that came up not long ago. This is purely about public safety, which isn’t isolated to PPB. I’m not saying there likely isn’t room to trim in those budgets, but big cuts will lead to a decline that we’re only just starting to get out of.
At this point we’re not good, we’re better. With the upcoming budget crisis I’ll settle for better but bringing it back to worse is not healthy for either the city or its current residents.
Yes, to cutting any bureaucracy that is bloated. Can we do better with less? Probably. I am glad that he is not cutting police officers. People want the basics. The police to show up and arrest people who commit crimes. The prosecutors to try them. And judges to punish those who are found guilt. As your article shows, we all need rapid response from police and Fire and EMT's. Some people who are severely mentally ill need up to six weeks of care in local community hospital psychiatric units with a judge overseeing and authorizing treatment decisions. Housing severely mentally ill people is going to balloon the deficit and is ridiculous since the severely mentally ill people need treatment first, and some housing later by philanthropic efforts unfunded by the city. Wilson is denying like many people the tremendous power that illness has over human behavior when it comes to mental health. The foundation of mental health treatment for the severely mentally ill requires an immediate capability for hospital care. Superficial plans to house those with mental illness first will lead to disaster both financially and in human terms with an expansion of unregulated drug abuse and behavioral disturbance in housing provided. People around the country are giving up on this simplistic idea of housing without treatment but not Portland unfortunately. The single best thing Oregon State can do to help would be to stop needle and drug paraphernalia distribution which was made legal in 1989. We have facilitated and incentivized the very problem we are trying now to treat.
Okay, thanks for this, Bob.....but I don't see any numbers attached.
Are you suggesting no cuts to public safety? Do you want to restore all of the public safety reductions? How much would you restore?
And how much would the city save by cutting the communications/equity/engagement staff that you mention?
As a private citizen, this is so difficult to track. I appreciate your attempt at "don't cut this" and "instead cut this" but I don't know if your idea fiscally balances out.
As I said, it was an initial review of budget. Cutting the 3 areas I mentioned plus other positions added in city hall in recent years, would go a long way to restoring a good portion of most if not all of the cuts in the mayors budget. We have 57 communications staff despite a new centralized office, vs 28 in 2011 and 22 in 2003. Meanwhile the number of police has decreased (held steady in proposed budget to be clear).
There are other places, I suspect many, that could be cut. City spends many tens of thousands on things like facilitators for meetings that the $6 figure managers in the various bureaus should be able to run.
Thanks, Bob. I appreciate your insights.
Kara, Bob is not responsible for fleshing out an alternative city budget! He is just pointing out a clear problem with the current one: the cuts need to come in the bloated city bureaucracy rather than in vital services. The administrative part of the city's budget seems impervious to change. This is simply wrong in a period of budget cutting. Would i rather see cuts to permitting or to public relations or to neighborhood liaison rather than to police and fire services? A thousand times yes!!!!! The city "silos" are totally out of control and Wilson simply can't rein them in and WE can't vote them out!!!! I am so discouraged by this situation.
I think you made a good point with the 21st & Hoyt emergency that this is how it should be. No argument there. As you’ve stated, even now with vastly improved response times there is still a lack of staff to provide this consistently. That constant short-staffing leads to increased burnout as well as increased overtime costs.
That doesn’t even count non-emergency situations where a public safety response is necessary. I made a call to the appropriate party the other day for someone that I deemed to have a non-emergent issue. I was on hold for over 20 minutes and eventually gave up.
Certainly this is an n of 1 but I know in hearing from others it is not something I experienced that was unique.
I look at all of public safety as not only handling emergencies but also providing preventative services so it doesn’t get to that point. When you cut funding you move right back to a purely reactive model with not enough resources to cover it. Then you return to 2022 when you had an ambulance service meeting their required response times only 62% of the time.
To me this is outside of the parks vs police budget arguments that came up not long ago. This is purely about public safety, which isn’t isolated to PPB. I’m not saying there likely isn’t room to trim in those budgets, but big cuts will lead to a decline that we’re only just starting to get out of.
At this point we’re not good, we’re better. With the upcoming budget crisis I’ll settle for better but bringing it back to worse is not healthy for either the city or its current residents.
Yes, to cutting any bureaucracy that is bloated. Can we do better with less? Probably. I am glad that he is not cutting police officers. People want the basics. The police to show up and arrest people who commit crimes. The prosecutors to try them. And judges to punish those who are found guilt. As your article shows, we all need rapid response from police and Fire and EMT's. Some people who are severely mentally ill need up to six weeks of care in local community hospital psychiatric units with a judge overseeing and authorizing treatment decisions. Housing severely mentally ill people is going to balloon the deficit and is ridiculous since the severely mentally ill people need treatment first, and some housing later by philanthropic efforts unfunded by the city. Wilson is denying like many people the tremendous power that illness has over human behavior when it comes to mental health. The foundation of mental health treatment for the severely mentally ill requires an immediate capability for hospital care. Superficial plans to house those with mental illness first will lead to disaster both financially and in human terms with an expansion of unregulated drug abuse and behavioral disturbance in housing provided. People around the country are giving up on this simplistic idea of housing without treatment but not Portland unfortunately. The single best thing Oregon State can do to help would be to stop needle and drug paraphernalia distribution which was made legal in 1989. We have facilitated and incentivized the very problem we are trying now to treat.