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As city budget season approaches and Portland Fire & Rescue faces a funding gap, city budget director Tim Grewe offered some tough love in his Feb. 23 budget memo.
While he had many suggestions, the main thrust of Grewe’s memo is that the fire bureau must cut down on overtime and, if possible, find alternatives to avoid slashing the budget of Portland Street Response, the non-police response program to mental health calls that operates under the bureau. (Fire officials have warned they may need to slash PSR’s budget to sustain emergency response times.)
Fire Chief Ryan Gillespie took umbrage with Grewe’s recommendations. In a March 8 response, Gillespie wrote that he wanted to “correct numerous errors, omissions, and false assumptions” in the budget director’s memo.
The chief wrote that Grewe’s recommendations for balancing the budget “each will result in station or apparatus closures, immediately resulting in reduced on-duty emergency response staffing, reduced community and firefighter safety, and increased response times.” Gillespie added that “only the status quo full funding scenario and the Fire proposal will maintain our current level” of response.
WW previously examined how the fire bureau’s contract with the firefighters’ union has resulted in abundant opportunities for overtime (“Paying Extra,” Jan. 10).