My name is Robert King and I am the President of the Portland Police Association. I am here to give you the lay of the land as to how things stand with your police officers.

I’ve been a police officer in Portland for 19 years. I can tell you honestly that I’ve never seen morale as low as it is at present. It’s the combination of a several things that has gotten us to this stage.

First it’s staffing. Cities of Portland’s size have, on the average, 2.5 officers per 1,000 citizens. In Portland, we’re well below 2.0 per thousand. We need to hire at least 300 officers to even approach appropriate staffing levels. When you add in the fact that we try to follow a community policing model that’s very officer-intensive, we’re out there every day trying to do too much with too few officers. Today, we only have 380 officers assigned to routine street patrol duties in a city that’s approaching a population of 600,000. Our officers are tired and they’re worn out.

Second, it’s pay. Every officer working for you knows about the recent Seattle police settlement that has Seattle officers receiving at least a 25% pay raise over a 4-year contract. That will put Seattle’s starting pay at $64,000 a year, and its top officer pay at $90,000. Portland will be more than $20,000 below these numbers. There have been several police wage settlements in the same range. Long Beach recently settled for a 24% pay raise, San Francisco for a 21% pay raise, Oakland for 22%, and Honolulu for 24%, all over four years. Phoenix just gave its officers a 13% raise over two years. Until recently Portland was the highest paid police agency in the state but this is no longer true and our members know it. We already can’t recruit enough officers, even after lowering our educational requirements; we’re facing a recruiting crisis in the future.

Lastly, we’ve had some serious working condition issues arising in the Bureau. We learned only 2 weeks ago that the Bureau was adopting what it called an “optimal staffing” program, something that really translated into denying officers many of the already limited vacation days they can take off in the summer. The Bureau didn’t involve us in any discussions of the issue, and we only found out about it after the fact when our officers started angrily calling us. We have approached the Bureau about making changes to improve working conditions like a sleep deprivation policy, fixing the court scheduling and notification system and dealing with the parking problem for central precinct officers, but no one has been willing to talk seriously with us about implementing these items.

All that to say we need your help and support, we know that you’re working on the vacation issue, and we appreciate your efforts on that front. We hope this effort signals a new willingness to listen, care and act to support us as we deliver critical police services to Portlanders. You have a brave, committed and professional men and women keeping our community safe but they need your support and encouragement at the highest possible levels. There’s a serious problem in the Bureau, and unless you act, it’s only going to get worse.