Portland's City Council on Wednesday voted 4-to-0 to create a deputy police chief's job that new Chief Danielle Outlaw requested.

Outlaw last served as a deputy chief for the Oakland force before starting in Portland on Oct. 2 and is most comfortable with that management structure, said Berk Nelson, the mayor's senior adviser, and Anna Kanwit, the city's human resources director.

Now the city must figure out how to cover the estimated $346,000 annual cost for the new position, plus another administrative assistant. The cost includes salary and benefits.

Outlaw will consider internal and external applicants and intends to keep the assistant chiefs who will report to the deputy chief. She plans to fill the job quickly, said the mayor's spokesman Michael Cox, but he didn't offer a time line.

"For her to succeed, she's asked for this one position to be created so she could be the best possible chief for the city of Portland,'' Nelson told council members.

Outlaw is out of town attending the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Philadelphia. Mayor Ted Wheeler, who serves as police commissioner, was on vacation and didn't vote.

The council could grant one-time funding for the job from an estimated $5.9 million available to city bureaus this fall from last fiscal year's surplus due to higher revenues or underspending. The council also could direct the bureau to find money in its current budget. That decision is expected Nov. 8.

Beyond the deputy chief's job, police want a one-time green light to hire 50 officers above the bureau's authorized strength of 945 and fund 35 two-year jobs for veteran cops who retire but choose to return to work on limited-term contracts. That would mean the City Council would have to set aside for police $3 million ($1.6 million for the 50 officers and $1.4 million for the 35 rehired retirees) in their fall budget adjustment process.

The bureau also asked the city to set aside another $6.9 million to support future annual costs for those 85 positions, as the fall budget adjustment request would cover only part of a year.

Police supervisors say the additional positions will allow the bureau to get "ahead of the curve'' by hiring and training recruits in anticipation of a wave of retirements over the next five years. It takes about a year and a half from hiring to get a new officer trained and riding alone on patrol. The bureau, for example, expects 50 to 60 retirements in fiscal 2020-2021.

City budget advisers, however, have cautioned the City Council not to consider multi-year annual funding during the fall adjustment. Police long-term staffing decisions should come during next year's budget season because the money sought for the added jobs would reduce money available for other city priorities or drive cuts to other city bureaus, they said.

Instead, the city budget office has recommended that the council next month place $900,000 in a contingency fund for the police to use in the coming year to hire 10 officers beyond the bureau's authorized strength. The council granted that over-hire ability to the bureau last year but didn't provide money.

The city budget office also recommended that the council set aside $1.1 million to support 10 limited-term jobs for rehired retirees as part of the fall budget readjustment.

The mayor supports the bureau's bigger request. "They need more positions. We want to help them. We're on board with this,'' said Cox, Wheeler's spokesman.

Wheeler also takes the recommendations of city budget analysts seriously, Cox said. "Over the next two weeks, we will continue to do the work necessary to get the Police Bureau what they need in the context of a limited resource environment,'' he said.

Officer Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association, criticized the bureau's proposals as a one-time Band-Aid approach to a longstanding staffing problem. If the mayor and council recognize the bureau's needs, the council should increase its authorized strength, Turner said.

Commissioners Amanda Fritz and Chloe Eudaly said Wednesday they supported creating the deputy chief's position, but both expressed concerned about the police bureau's requests for significant funding this fall for the hiring of additional officers.

Fritz said she understands that it's important for the new chief of police "to have somebody you can trust in command, who has your back.''

Commissioner Nick Fish said it's not so different from deputy director's jobs in other city bureaus. Often, there's too much of a burden placed on a director, and someone is needed to delegate certain functions to, Fish said. A deputy chief's job also could be a leadership opportunity for someone who could be trained to one day succeed the chief, he added.

Kanwit said a deputy chief would help city officials and officers in the bureau know who is in charge when the chief is out of town or not available.

Several members of the public, who addressed the council, questioned why a deputy chief is needed if there are already three assistant chiefs who report to the chief. When a chief is out of town, one of the assistant chiefs now is tapped to serve as an acting chief.

Of the bureau's 945 authorized jobs, there were 18 vacancies as of last month, but the numbers constantly fluctuate. The bureau expects to fill the vacancies by the end of June.

About 375 officers are on patrol, but bureau supervisors recommend at least 390 to 400 officers on patrol. They note officers' slower response times to priority emergency calls – an average 6.55-minute response in fiscal 2016-17 compared with the 5.92- minute average the year before.

The bureau has hired 99 new officers in the last 18 months, according to spokesman Sgt. Chris Burley. But most of them are either still in training or riding with a field training officer and on probation. There are currently 17 retirees who were hired back on two-year contracts, and 12 retirees hired back on six-year contracts.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian