Director’s Desk | Proposed city budget maintains PSR’s $7.4 million funding, moves it under new Public Safety Division
M ayor Ted Wheeler proposed to stabilize Portland Street Response’s future by designating ongoing city funds and relocating it under the city’s newly created Public Safety Division.
Yet the mayor’s proposed budget, which City Council will finalize in June, still doesn’t expand Portland Street Response, instead maintaining its current service level.
Wheeler committed nearly $6.5 million of ongoing general funds in his proposed 2024-25 city budget. Adding in one-time grant funds, he budgeted a total $7.4 million for next year, maintaining current service levels. It’s important to note Commissioner Rene Gonzalez’s February 2023 hiring freezes defined those service levels — even though the city budgeted $10 million for PSR last year.
Gonzalez recommended cutting another $3 million from PSR’s budget in February.
Wheeler intervened with over $3 million from the city’s general fund.
I expect the reverse order in the city budget process. City commissioners are often ambitious for the programs they oversee, and it’s the mayor who scales back those ambitions when he pulls the whole budget together.
Such was not the case with Gonzalez, who was consistent in his efforts to starve the public safety program he inherited.
The mayor patched together this year’s $7.4 million with one-time federal grant funds from the American Rescue Plan, cannabis taxes and opiate settlement funds, along with nearly $3.5 million in general funds.
Wheeler indicates that $6.5 million of ongoing general funds are committed to Portland Street Response, but that nearly $3.5 million were “called back” to use elsewhere in the city budget. This slightly confusing budget note appears to be a savvy method of designating a baseline for ongoing Portland Street Response budgets.
Wheeler used another budget note reorganizing city structure to stabilize Portland Street Response. A Division of Public Safety will now encompass Portland Fire and Rescue, Portland Police Bureau, Bureau of Emergency Communications, Bureau of Emergency Management and smaller programs such as Portland Street Response.
No longer grafted unto Portland Fire and Rescue, the burgeoning program has its own soil to grow in. At the same time, organized under the same division as other first-responder bureaus, Portland Street Response will share some resources and systems, including 911.
Wheeler assigned a city administrator — the future Public Safety deputy city administrator — to oversee Portland Street Response and come up with recommendations for more ongoing outside funding by next January, just when the new city government begins.
This includes unlocking Medicaid funding made possible through the federal CAHOOTS Act that Sen. Ron Wyden stewarded. It’s a difficult process to achieve this funding, and important that a city administrator be assigned to make this happen.
The catch-22 is the program must operate 24/7 to qualify for Medicaid funding. City Council would need to fund it at $16 million to expand to 24/7 operation, according to an estimate provided by Shah Smith, Gonzalez’s chief of staff.
The longer the city delays funding PSR to dispatch 24/7, the longer it punts the promise to further reduce 911 calls sent to police for crises PSR is better trained to handle. Most PSR calls reduce the police call volume.
The Public Safety deputy city administrator will also be tasked with defining the program’s mission and scope. The program was developed through deep input from people who often need its services, so the community must demand this process is transparent with strong community input.
This is the last city budget Wheeler will prepare as mayor, and he appears committed to building a future for Portland Street Response.
Wheeler traveled to Eugene to learn about the then-30-year-old White Bird Clinic CAHOOTS, a model for PSR, in January 2019. After Street Roots proposed PSR in its March 15, 2019 issue, community members attended city budgeting sessions, campaigning for PSR. Wheeler committed $500,000 in the 2019-20 budget to create the pilot.
Now, five years later, Wheeler is stabilizing PSR with ongoing partial funding while situating it more firmly in the city government structure.
Given the precarity the program experienced under Gonzalez, these are important gains.
Still, it’s not enough for PSR to tread at its current service levels. At the very least, City Council should budget another $3 million of ongoing funds to be at the same level as last year's budget.
Better yet, it should allot $16 million for 24/7 operations. Crises don’t just happen during daytime hours.
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