The cost to Portland taxpayers for security guards to maintain order at City Hall has increased more than fivefold in less than two years, a review of city financial documents by The Oregonian has found.

The central reasons for the increases: more “protests and uncivil outbursts at City Hall,” an “upsurge of city business disruption incidents” and “enhanced needs” identified by the mayor’s bodyguards, city budget documents say.

The increase in frequency and intensity of protests and disruptions at City Hall, and the resulting steep increase in the number of contract security personnel posted there, coincides with Mayor Ted Wheeler’s time in office. He was sworn in Jan. 1, 2017.

In a statement, Wheeler’s office said the increased spending is to protect elected officials, employees, dignitaries and other visitors to City Hall, and is necessary given the escalating number of protests and direct threats to Wheeler.

The mayor considered installing police officers at the building, the statement said, “but when he saw the exorbitant cost, he opted for private security” because that option is cheaper.

In 2016, the annual cost for City Hall guards and the mayor’s security detail was $175,811. This year’s security costs, by contrast, ballooned to $847,034 with a July vote of the city council. With the same vote, the council set aside another $400,000 for “unanticipated events” requiring security through May 2019.

At the time, Wheeler, Commissioner Nick Fish and David O’Longaigh, the city facilities manager, said the added funds were to pay for cost-of-living raises for the guards. That was misleading.

Along with raises, the vote helped expand the roster of guards for City Hall and the mayor to 18, with 11 at full-time status. Records indicate there were three guards stationed there in 2016 and seven in 2017.

“The question today is simply whether we’re going to grant a cost-of-living increase. … That is correct?” Fish asked O’Longaigh during the July meeting.

“That is correct, along with some other measures,” he replied.

O’Longaigh said Thursday that cost-of-living raises negotiated by the guards’ union constituted an “enormous” portion of the July budget increase. Those raises made up $581,000 of the $2.9 million increase, about 20 percent of the total.

When residents testifying about the proposed increase veered into criticism of the company that employs the guards, Wheeler admonished them to stay on topic.

“This is about the cost-of-living adjustment for the employees, so please keep your testimony focused on that,” the mayor said. (Guards are employees of mammoth private security firm G4S Security Systems, not city employees.)

Officials further expanded spending on guards in 2018 even as the number of protests dropped off.

“Year to date security incidents at City Hall appear to have fallen” compared to the spike in 2017, a city budget analyst wrote this year. The analyst said it was unclear if the drop off was due to the additional guards or “external factors.”

Officials had to dip into rainy day funds to pay for the additional armed and unarmed guards and their supervisors.

Beefed-up security “may be warranted to ensure both tenants and the public’s sense of safety when accessing City Hall,” the analyst wrote. Yet the increase “is too substantial to be covered by the City Hall operations and maintenance budget,” the analyst said.

Officials approved spending reserve funds earmarked for building upkeep to help pay the guard bill.

City Hall is quiet most days. Uniformed and plainclothes guards watch City Hall entryways, monitor security cameras and wave people through turnstiles after a bag search and scan with a metal-detecting wand. Other guards follow the mayor wherever he goes.

Turnstiles were first installed more than a decade ago during Mayor Tom Potter’s tenure. Mayor Charlie Hales took them out; Wheeler brought them back and instituted the metal detectors and bag-check policy.

The increasingly uncivil unrest at City Hall has led city employees and, privately, elected officials to report they feel unsafe at work. One aide to Fish even said he retired because the protests set off his post-traumatic stress disorder.

When the occasional protest erupts at City Hall, the guards are empowered to do little else than tell the unruly to leave or call the police.

Consider the bedlam on Aug. 8. Left-wing protesters upset over police conduct stormed City Hall as the council began a meeting. One man, wearing a baseball helmet and a black bandana over his face, repeatedly smacked a security guard in the head with a megaphone. Police soon arrived, but no one was arrested for the assault, which was caught on video.

City officials went to lengths to keep information about spending on City Hall security from public view.

After The Oregonian inquired about spending for the mayor’s bodyguards, Heather Hafer, an Office of Management and Finance office spokeswoman, said the information is not public. She directed the reporter to file a public records request, though The Oregonian had not asked for documents.

“Simply put, we cannot release this information due to security concerns,” Hafer said.

The reporter insisted the information is in fact public. Hafer responded in an email, “We will not disclose information about the mayor’s security detail, nor are we required to.”

The reporter then filed a public records request for budget records related to the mayor’s security detail. In response, the city released 91 pages of documents.

But one file was missing: a detailed document called a rate schedule, which shows number of guards, weekly hours each is to work and the hourly wage agreed to in July, when the city council added $2.9 million to the contract for security at City Hall and more than a half dozen other city buildings. The page where it should have been was blank except for “Insert rate schedule here.”

A reporter filed a subsequent records request for the document, but Hafer said the information likely was not public. A reporter then emailed Michael Cox, Wheeler’s chief of staff, and Tom Rinehart, the city chief administrative officer, to say he would file a public records appeal with the district attorney. Hafer released the rate schedule the following day.

Hafer later said the city’s intention was not to withhold public documents but to protect confidential information.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com