The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-05-07
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
On May 7, 2025, the Portland City Council convened as the City Budget Committee to review the Mayor's proposed FY 2025-26 budget. A budget overview was presented outlining a total proposed budget of roughly $8.5 billion, with General Fund Discretionary resources near $803.7 million, and reductions and one-time resources aimed at closing a general fund gap that was described using inconsistently stated figures ranging from $93 million to $120 million. The Mayor's budget message emphasized public safety, "back to basics" service delivery, homelessness response, and green leadership, while noting reliance on one-time and external funding sources. Council members raised questions and concerns spanning one-time versus ongoing funding, state and county revenue reliance, parks and permitting cuts, staffing reductions, equity and communications services, transportation revenue, and police bureau funding levels. Several council members previewed potential amendments or budget notes on topics including parks maintenance, tree code enforcement, homelessness services, transportation funding, community policing oversight, and labor contract settlement. Following the discussion, the meeting recessed and reconvened for public testimony, during which dozens of community members, city employees, and organizational representatives spoke on topics including police funding, homelessness services, parks maintenance, labor contract negotiations, noise control, permitting, tribal relations, and community programs. Formal votes occurring during this session are recorded in the vote ledger.
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0 Oh oh. Shoot, I gotta, I gonna.
1 Go. I.
Procedural episode · turns 2–10
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2 Good afternoon. It is 205. I am convening the Portland city council as the city of Portland budget committee. Mr. Taylor is going to look at me and shake his head vigorously. If I said that wrong. Okay. We're good. Keelan, could you please call the roll. Canal here?
3 Ryan. Koyama Lane here. Morillo here. Novick here. Clark. Here. Green. Here. Zimmerman. Avalos.
4 Present.
5 Dunphy. Here. Smith. Here.
6 Pirtle-guiney here. Colleagues, we are going to hear first today from dca jonas beery with an overview of the city's budget. The mayor will then join us to read his budget message. We will then have about 90 minutes for discussion with the mayor and our budget team. Oh, I'm sorry, mr. Taylor. Do we need to read the rules of decorum in order? And then I'll finish the overview?
7 Yes, please.
8 Go right ahead.
9 Welcome to the Portland city council convened as the budget committee. To testify in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at w-w-w. Portland council agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over, the presiding officer preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should please address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
10 Thank you, mr. Taylor. Apologies, councilors. The last piece of that overview is just that we'll have about 90 minutes for discussion, which is about 7.5 minutes each. When we get there, I'll ask folks, when you're in the queue to keep your comments to three short questions or comments, or if you have a longer question or comment, something equivalent to that. And then if we have extra time, we'll have folks get back in the queue with additional questions and comments so that we can make sure to hear from everybody. We'll then continue the meeting to Thursday for additional work with prosper Portland. With that, mr. Berry. Mr. Mayor, would you like to join us?
11 Great. Thank you. Council president and councilors for the record, jonas berry, deputy city administrator of budget finance and chief financial officer I'm going to preview. We have just a very, very brief couple of slides. Council has already received this information. It's posted publicly, but we wanted to tee up for community members who are here in the room and online so that we're all starting with some very basic same grounding. Next slide please. So as the next slide is coming up, it's just a reminder of where we are in the process. And hopefully it's coming up here in a minute. But we'll we had the city administrators recommendations that came out in February. The next key step is where we are today. Right now the mayor's proposed. And then obviously is as we know, this will lead into some work sessions and ultimately council action on the budget in may and in June. And I just want to check on the. Presentation before I get too far ahead. Okay.
12 Looks like it's great.
13 So yeah, that's that's just a quick process. Let's go ahead and move on to the next slide please. So the next three slides will just show very high level kind of three different lenses on how to look at the city's budget. The pie chart here is the total proposed 2526 city budget of around 8.5 billion, which is a total increase of 33.1% over the prior adopted 2425 budget. This number includes operating and capital budgets in all funds citywide. Whether those funds are flexible, like the general fund, or restricted to specific uses such as water, sewer, water and sewer funds or other examples. This very large number also includes transfers in and out, which may include in one bureau and out to another bureau. It includes debt service, and it includes things like fund balance and contingency. Next slide please. Another lens on a piece of the budget that gets a lot of talk. Is the general fund discretionary, the city's most flexible pot of dollars for the 2526 proposed that total general fund discretionary is eight 803.7 million, which is an increase of just over 1% from the 2425 amount of this discretionary amount from 462 million, which is just under 60% of the total goes towards public safety. Police, fire 911 and emergency management. The next largest category here is the bucket of things under the city administrator's office, though, it is important to call out that approximately two thirds of the amount reflected there, just over 90 million is for what we call fund management. Things like the contingency and transfers out. So the general general fund operating portion of that city administrator's budget is much lower than the number reflected here. The third largest category is community and economic development, which receives general fund dollars to fund things like support for the housing bureau, certain programs managed by prosper Portland and the bureau of planning and sustainability. I will also flag on this slide the portion of general fund discretionary to public works is predominantly for two areas support for public for Portland bureau of transportation received general fund discretionary resources to support portions of active transportation and safety, asset management, and other livability program. Newly reflected here is that parks is now included within the public works service area, and so this also includes the portion of general fund discretionary that goes to Portland parks and recreation. Next slide please. Lastly, this chart uses a lens of looking at the total operating budgets within each service area. So excluding capital expenses and things like fund management and fund balances. So again those same kind of categories just looking at operating only. And then last just a couple of things. In summary, the mayor's proposed budget identifies 26.3 million in proposed general fund expense reductions, as well as one-time resources to fund the full budget gap and produce a balanced proposal. The proposed budget also identifies resources to help reduce prior gaps in transportation and in parks. And while those areas will still experience budget reduction, the mayor's work has significantly reduced the number of potential job losses and limited potential service reductions. I would say as chief financial officer, I applaud the work the mayor has done to understand the wide range of city programs and budget details, the hours that we spent together with finance and budget staff, with dcas and bureau leaders, and listening to input from labor partners and from the community. This commitment has allowed us to put forward a balanced budget package that addresses the economic revenue realities, while doing our best to maintain community priorities and position the city to benefit from future growth and opportunity. Lastly, I wanted to mention we do have a number of process improvements underway and so I look forward to continued conversations as we go through this budget process, and look forward to hearing your input about what the budget communicates well and what it doesn't communicate so well. So I hope that's part of our conversation so we can implement improvements in future cycles. One thing I would also flag is the city budget office just today put a pin in and published a kind of more user friendly dashboard tool that's available on the proposed budget section of the city website. If you scroll down, there's a bar that says dashboard. I forget exactly what the title is, but a very helpful summary level. So I'd encourage folks in the room and online to check that out. Lastly, just a huge shout out and thank you to budget director ruth levine and to the entire team at the city budget office to staff across the city who put in long days, nights and weekends to get us to this important milestone. And with that, with the council president's pledge, I'll defer to the mayor.
14 Thank you very much, mr. Mayor. We're glad to have you today.
15 Thank you. Good afternoon. Council president, vice president and councilors, thank you for this opportunity. For the record, my name is keith wilson, the mayor of the city of Portland. I'll take a few minutes to step through an abbreviated version of my mayor's budget message, which can be found published in the fy 2526 proposed budget document that is available online on the city budget website at Portland.gov. Backslash. My proposed fy 2526 budget is balanced, forward looking and a clear reaffirmation of our city's values and priorities. Again and again, portlanders have demonstrated undaunted faith and optimism that our city should lead on public safety, compassion for our most vulnerable, equity for the marginalized, and environmental stewardship. Our final budget must reflect these values. I've released my first city budget proposal into a challenging environment, defined by national uncertainty and a financial gap widened by expiring one time funds slipping, regional economic competitiveness, slowing property tax revenues, and the staggering cost of the humanitarian crisis on our streets, I've explored every avenue to blunt the impact of the coming budget reductions. I've sought out external funding, drawn forward, unspent and one-time funds, and reestablished financial partnerships with state and regional governance. While I have been successful in these fundraising efforts, many of the solutions included in my budget will not sustain us in future fiscal years beyond fy 25 and 26, and additional efforts and decision making will continue after July 1st. The city of Portland owes the public a high performing, fiscally sound organization. My budget implements a long term operational redesign to accelerate both effectiveness and fiscal sustainability. We will balance our current resources, limitations against requirements and best practices to maintain adequate financial reserves and protect the city against future financial risk. We will also work with city leaders to identify additional financial solutions for fy 26 and 27, in advance of next year's budget development, including further streamlining and reprioritization of core internal services in regards to operational excellence. Accomplishing the task before us requires a city government dedicated to rebuilding the trust with the public and proving we can deliver purpose and impact with every dollar we spend. Accordingly, my budget prioritizes basic services, civic assets, public safety, and Green leadership. Our community has spoken. They want city leadership to provide basic services to unlock housing, prioritize economic opportunity for all portlanders, and set us forward on a clear and decisive path to end unsheltered homelessness. Historically, portland's government and its bureaus often competed in lieu of cooperation. Permitting often took too long and accomplished too little. We allowed our first responder arrival times to slip and our crime rate to spike citywide. Over the next fiscal year, we will work to redesign and streamline our communications, equity, community engagement, financial management, procurement, human resources, and information technology functions. We are setting a reduction target of 20%, half of which would be realized in the next fiscal year by feathering in the adjustments over the course of the year, we will minimize layoffs as much as possible and examine reducing external contracts and other spending. We will work with the bureau of human resources to ensure we have career transition support, to retain as many employees as possible in new roles in the city, as the city services realign. We are also closely examining management and supervision duties and evaluating organizational structures and efficiencies, while also ensuring supervisors are overseeing the city's minimum requirement of four employees. Regarding public and community engagement, I'm grateful to the city budget office and the office of civic life for seeking to improve opportunities for meaningful public engagement and for continuously seeking community input throughout this budget cycle and into the future. Their work to solicit and capture community engagement and input on public priorities through listening sessions, online input, and other forms of direct communication has been invaluable. Regarding city workforce. The city of Portland relies on the grit, the passion and the know how of approximately 8000 employees. The resilience made a once in a generation realignment of city reorganization possible, while simultaneously continuing to provide portlanders with the services that we expect. We face difficult staffing decisions, a process that is challenging for workers, for their families, and our organizational culture. Like many local governments in the region, the city of Portland will experience layoffs. We will inevitably lose highly experienced individuals who have given much for those who will be impacted by these layoffs, please know that these decisions are the result of a fiscal situation beyond your control, and not a reflection on your capability or contributions for which we are grateful. In terms of Green leadership, Green leadership means restoring the original promise of the Portland clean energy fund and not tapping it for an unrelated crisis, or using it as a shortcut to hike taxes. Our voters remember the promise made with this fund a cleaner, greener, more equitable, lower carbon Portland. If we want our cities to follow our path, we must lead by example. In terms of public safety, this is difficult to share, but the public safety reports I receive can be heartbreaking. Can you imagine the grief of a mother arriving on the scene of her son's shooting, or despair of a small business owner who can't muster the funds or the faith to replace yet another broken window after the latest burglary or vandalism? Crimes? Our dedicated officers often do not have the resources to pursue. We have to offer offer more than small business repair grants. We must address the root cause in your time of greatest need. You deserve a fast, capable response, and my budget is a key part of rebuilding our public safety infrastructure. Our first responders must arrive rested and ready when called, and I've asked to mitigate expensive overtimes as well. That said, our response times human trafficking crimes and theft rate remain at unacceptable levels, and the 19.5 million I proposed to invest in fire psr community health assess and treat teams, and law enforcement funding reflects the need to turn the tide on the issues we face. Regarding parks. My budget stands behind youth programing in our community centers. Every cent that goes into youth programing and community spaces activates volunteers. It frees up parents to provide for their families while knowing their children are safe and changes young lives. In terms of transportation, the bureau of transportation has a long term revenue sustainability issue due to legacy tax structures. This budget seeks resources to address potential reductions through a mix of revenue sources, and I anticipate working with the bureau over the next year to address long term funding model challenges, modest increases in parking fees in line with peer cities, reinstating leaf cleanup fees and rideshare fees will allow us to double our investment in pothole repair and increase resources for street cleaning, graffiti removal, and towing derelict rvs. In terms of housing and homelessness, the fastest method to build housing for every income level is to unleash the pent up capabilities of our private sector. Without this comprehensive strategy, pressure will continue to mount on our limited affordable homes, putting them out of reach for those who need them most. Though this will not have a direct impact. I've partnered with governor kotek to ask our city council to waive system development charges for the next 5000 housing permits for housing of every income level. I will work with our city council to identify long term cost benefit trade offs and incorporate them into future budget actions if needed. Finally, our most recent mayoral election was a powerful referendum on the most pressing issue our city faces today our unsheltered homelessness crisis. Every dollar we spend on unsheltered homelessness must restore quality of life for all, reduce the burden on our public safety system, and unlock portland's true economic potential. Given our current fiscal situation, I set forth to relentlessly raise funds from outside sources for my plan to end unsheltered homelessness. In this effort, I was successful in securing critical commitments from county, metro, and state levels. Revenue. While the long term financial stability of the city of Portland may require adding, changing or otherwise exploring revenue increases, my proposed fy 25 and 26 budget will not rely on new taxes. It will, however, include modest proposals to increase in fees for parking, parks, permitting water, sewer, stormwater, utility fees, rideshare fees and short term rental fees to bring us in line with peer cities. And as a conclusion, as my first annual budget. As the mayor of Portland, I believe we have an opportunity to solidify and expand our gains in public safety, our equity goals and Green leadership, as well as return to proven strategies on unsheltered homelessness. I'm grateful for the role and responsibilities of the city council as they discuss, they debate, and they ultimately pass our next budget together, we will leave a profound impact on the future of our city. I'm grateful for this opportunity to serve in this crucial democratic process on behalf of Portland. That concludes my mayor's message, and I'm looking forward to the discussion with my colleagues on council and hearing feedback from members of our community. Tonight, I again want to echo what cfo berry had noted regarding our director of the city budget office, the dca's, who are sitting behind me the countless hours during the day, at night, at weekends, as well the city as a whole for their messages. And to the 12 of you for the hours that you've also spent in the evenings and on the weekends, talking, deliberating, collaborating on what is the result of this budget before you now, I'd like to thank the portlanders who are testifying today and also express my gratitude to those who've really put their time into this. Again, for those interested in reviewing the full proposed budget, please visit the city budget office website. And with that, I'll hand it back over to you, council president, and thank you for this opportunity.
16 Mr. Mayor, thank you for bringing your budget message to us today and to your entire team for the work that was put into coming up with this recommended budget. Councilors, now is when we get to start our deliberation on the budget. So I would ask that if folks have questions, statements you'd like to make or suggestions for amendments that you join the queue, and these could be directed to the mayor, to dca, to our budget director. We're going to try to limit pulling too many different people up stick. Hopefully we can get this done with the three of you, but if you need to call up somebody else, we understand and we will hopefully get through everybody with three questions, comments or suggestions. And then if we have time, we will loop back around. Councilor Novick would you like to kick us off?
17 Thank you, madam president. Mr. Mayor, I appreciate your mentioning that you're alluding to the fact that your budget relies significantly on one time funding that we can't count on next year. I guess it's possible that metro might give us 15,000,002 years in a row, but I was curious specifically how much state one time funding you're relying on, because that I think we can guarantee we won't get next year because the legislature only meets every two years.
18 You know, I don't know the exact amount, perhaps.
19 So the total external funding. So. There's a couple of different places where external funding comes in. But I think if you're referring specifically to the shelters, primarily the total external funding for those programs combined is 58.8 million. I will note, however, that there's 13.3 million in the budget for srv and tasks. That is part of a biennial amount of about 26 million.
20 Okay, so of that 58 million. All right. How much of how much are we relying for this year from the state that we don't expect to get next year from the state.
21 From the state alone? I'd have to do the math on that one separately and get back to you.
22 Okay. Mayor, one thing in your one item in your budget that we've talked about is allocating $3 million, approximately of general transportation revenues to street sweeping. I'm always concerned about spending general transportation revenues and anything other than street repair, given our massive street maintenance deficit. Can you explain what the kind of sweeping you're talking about? And in particular, could you say, to what extent is it sweeping of bike lanes, which, you know, bicyclists are concerned about, as opposed to sweeping of general streets, which there might not be the same concerns?
23 Yeah. So currently over the last several years, we've been cutting back on street sweeping to the point where we're sweeping only main arterials right now. So we removed from residential streets. And so what this would do would add back street sweeping throughout the entire city. It may not be at the same extent it was several years ago, but that all the streets, or I should say improved streets would receive street sweeping.
24 So not just bike lanes.
25 Not just bike lanes, no, but bike lanes are significantly affected by the lack of sweeping. And I think we see that. I see that as I ride down the road using bike lanes.
26 And finally, mayor, this might seem like a rhetorical question, but you referred to your budget as a back to basics budget, which kind of implies that the city was involved in some lines of business that were beyond what cities normally do, and you're terminating that. And I was trying to think of what that might mean. And I think some people might think that, like repealing the arts tax might be part of a back to basics approach, but obviously we haven't done that. I was just curious what non-basic things was the city doing that you're having us cease doing that?
27 I'm so sorry. I heard that as would cease doing or what we doing?
28 Yeah. What non-basic things are you are we now doing that you're saying we need to stop doing?
29 Not that we're.
30 Stopping to do, but we're going to increase or add back.
31 I infer back to basics. Meaning there's non basic stuff that we're doing and we should stop doing it. So I want to know is there some non basic stuff that we were doing but not in your budget because you want to stop it.
32 I think I want to turn that question around councilor Novick and I appreciate the question, but I want to really talk in terms of what we were trying to do. Community health and safety was our vision. Back to basics was restoring street sweeping throughout the community, plussing up potholes plussing up graffiti plussing up abandoned car removals and rv removals so we can really create that livable community. So it's something that we really didn't see in a ubiquitous manner years ago, and it's just really trying to reset that city back to that, back to basics, if you will. So if there's a context there, I understand that, but that's what it was. That's what we were meaning.
33 Okay. So you didn't mean eliminating some things that the city was doing that you thought it shouldn't be?
34 Well, unfortunately by plussing up those, we did have to remove other areas or reduce the expense in certain areas.
35 Okay.
36 Thank you.
37 Councilor. If you I just have the number from that prior question.
38 Thank you. Please.
39 15.8 is the state funding, is the number of state funding that is going towards both s.r.v tasks and the new overnight shelters. That is expected to only be one time.
40 Thank you.
41 Councilor Novick. Thank you for that example of succinct questions. Councilor Zimmerman.
42 Thanks, mayor. I was hoping you can talk a little bit about your philosophy. More as it.
43 Relates to some of the structural reductions. You targeted 20% in your comments over the next year. You know, in my support for mr. Jordan as our city administrator, my comments were about making the toughest decisions regarding that before the end of the year so that the next city administrator, the permanent city administrator, does not have to start, I think, in a relational deficit, which is having to make those calls. So this seems not aggressive enough to me. And I am not seeing a budget that reflects an organizational chart that both admits duplicative positions or services and reductions to an enterprise model, which you talk a lot about. So help me out. Why? Why should I not make a more aggressive amendment or budget? Note? Because this is a very long glide path that you've laid out for these structural differences, and I don't understand it.
44 Right.
45 So one of the key framing we had to pursue was how do we maintain the culture, focus on high standards and maintain a or ensure workplace safety. So if we were to make these cuts on July 1st, it would be a tremendous shock to the organization without us knowing what positions, because with removing certain service areas and moving, then merging them into other service areas, you have feathering of staff, you have bumping all those things that go along with it, and it takes time to do it right. We didn't want to do it fast. We want to do it right. So k jordan and I were talking along with our teams. We approached this in three phases. First phase was looking at enterprise efficiencies. How are we going to address those core services that go across the other service areas. The second was span of control. We had to look at and see where we were with managers to staff ratios, which we see ourselves as as an opportunity. And third and fourth was reorganizing and reducing service areas so we could have or improve line of communication and chain of command. So we could be a high performing organization that was a learning organization without duplicative services. Now that's a tall order. When we worked with our dca, sarah morrissey, she and tracy warren, who's our director of hr, plotted out, how can we do this reasonably responsibly with affecting as few people as possible, because any layoff is difficult, and then to layoff people prematurely and then having to have huge service gaps affects all of us and the city at large. So it was threading the needle, threading a needle without a doubt. But it's a 20% at the end of that fiscal year, with a 10% expected this fiscal year, allowing us to already prepare for fy 2627, which we expect to have challenges with as well. So it starts us on the path of continuous improvement from day one through day 100. Day 366.
46 Thanks, I, I appreciate that. I'll just remind folks that the city moved into the transition position on July 1st of last year. And so while we all may feel new to this, this organization has been in this structure for much longer than we all have. And so I just I will continue to push for a far more aggressive I think we have strung out some painful conversations that are not going to be helpful by making them happen later rather than tomorrow. You laid out a pretty aggressive sheltering plan to us, and significant amount of services that used to be funded or provided by Multnomah county due to our iga for what used to be called the joint office. But now we are taking that on where in the budget can I find? I think it's about 31 million that we send the county. Where can I find that in the budgets and then do my investigation of what is the point of that money now, since we have taken on the role of all the stuff we pay them to do?
47 It's in the Portland. Housing bureau's budget.
48 Thanks. And I'm monitoring my time, so I appreciate that. So it's in the Portland housing bureau budget. And mayor, do you have any opinions right now with whether or not we should continue with that payment toward the iga, with Multnomah county for these services?
49 It is something we're going to look at in the new fiscal year. The challenge was this significant gap required all of us to look at that. We had robust discussions with the county regarding those funds, as well as our expected receipt for the srt and the test sites. We had to address this crisis, and that's what our team set out to do. And we did. And that's a conversation we expect to have in another day.
50 Thanks, mayor. And then lastly, I just want to I want to make sure I heard correctly, but the amount of park maintenance that is reduced in your proposed budget is what number again. I think it was around six point something, but I was just doing a check to make sure that what I saw in the preliminary is what's made it to here, because I don't have a printed budget in front of me here.
51 Yes, it's $6.3 million, okay. Which combines both general fund and parks levy resources.
52 Great.
53 Sorry. Can I also flag, I think the 6.3 million number that you're referring to includes a handful of things, of which maintenance is a component. So it's the majority.
54 Of it broadly construed.
55 Yes.
56 I just want.
57 To make make clear.
58 That I'm getting a colleague who's shaking his head vigorously. I'm curious.
59 My understanding is there was 6.8 million. That included a couple things that were part maintenance and part not in 6.3 is what's.
60 Really used.
61 Phone a friend.
62 Thank you.
63 We're off to the start of a very clear budget season, obviously. So councilor Novick, if I could just give you a second, can you describe what you just tried to share? It would be helpful.
64 My understanding is that there's a list of cuts to parks, which is mostly maintenance. That adds up to 6.8 million, which is mostly maintenance, but includes a couple of items that are not not all maintenance. And if you subtract the non maintenance parts of those parts from the 6.8, you get about 6.3.
65 Okay.
66 With that, colleagues, I'm going to offer up an amendment for discussion at a later date. But let me read these both in and I'll just, as we say, put it on the chalkboard. Right. So first amendment is, you know, the tree code enforcement branch. So this would be tree code or, excuse me, tree regulation in urban forestry currently has 37 employees. That's far more than any other code enforcement wing in this government. And the program utilizes six point, excuse me, 6,917,769. My amendment is to remove the program from the parks bureau and transfer the title 11 duties to code enforcement in the property compliance division of the community development and service area, to reduce the program from 37 fte to no more than five fte, which I estimate to be tree inspectors and tree inspectors senior and reduce the budget allocation from 6.9 to $800,000 to cover that part of the most egregious tree regulation. That's amendment one that I'll be proposing the offset here, and where the additional savings of the tree regulation program will go, is to utilize the remaining 6.1 million that I estimate out of that remaining general fund and levy, and to restore the park maintenance fund as it has been proposed today. And that park maintenance fund nearly makes the program whole. And I would encourage the parks bureau to use that money to fully invest in a park attendant program so that we can introduce and start working from an ownership model at our parks. So those are my two amendments. They are generally in an offset, and the detailed numbers are with the budget office right now for the final polishing later this month. Thank you.
67 Thank you, councilor, councilor Clark.
68 Thank you.
69 Madam president.
70 Mr. Mayor, thank you for getting back to basics. That's a message I really appreciate and I appreciate you keeping the police department whole and sprinkling sprinkling some additional dollars there. But that was a high priority for me and I very much appreciate that. And if I had to, if I didn't have an opportunity to offer up amendments, I'd vote for your budget today. But we have an opportunity to weigh in. So I'd like to do is just signal some amendments that I may be coming forward with and or at least budget notes, if not amendments, and actually riffing off of what councilor Zimmerman was saying. I'm very interested in the parks and the cut that you're proposing in parks maintenance. And what I would like to do is offer up a concept which I haven't fully fleshed out yet, which is really to bring back. As councilor Zimmerman said, the park attendants, volunteers encourage offloading some of our assets to volunteers or to community based organizations, neighborhood associations, and I'm working on that, and I would be interested in taking your temperature on something like that.
71 One of the things when we evaluated the budget and we were listening to the community, the emails from all of you as well, is we saw a significant reduction in volunteers because of COVID, and we have not recovered yet. And when we looked at that, we saw that as if we removed programs. We were going to step over the dollar to get to the nickel with the city and the community and our youth being harmed. And so we wanted to maintain all volunteer programs and really start growing that. And we're getting we're getting better. We're getting back. And so your amendment is consistent with what our overall goal was. And again, the mission was community health and safety. It's consistent. It would be welcome. And we'd love to supercharge volunteers in the community writ large.
72 I appreciate hearing that. And maybe if we actually adopt some of councilor Zimmerman's cuts, we'll be able to finance a program like that. The second thing I wanted to mention was there's nothing in the budget that touches on the cei hub. And we had quite a conversation as a council or quite a presentation was given to us. And we asked the question, where's the table? Is there a table or is there is Portland taking the lead on creating a table and bringing everybody to that table to talk about this impending disaster? And ideally, perhaps having talked to one of my cohort here that would come from the governor at the state level, because there's a state interest in this. But in any event, I'll probably offer up an amendment around trying to put some resources into creating that table of cei table. Do you want to react to that?
73 No, I look to this council's leadership. I think the cei is something we, if I might add, I thought all of us were interested in addressing in this budget, though, because the county is in such a difficult situation and Portland was as well. We saw the county taking the lead, and they have a, I believe, 1 or 2 programs that they're looking on, whether it was insurance and then making sure that they could mitigate the risk. It was more or less a divide and control approach to let them handle that particular larger lift. But I look to whatever lead that these brings forward to support.
74 Great. Thank you. And just one one last thing. I think I'm under my seven minutes transportation. Thank you for being creative. I thought you did a great job in trying to manage what's really a horrible situation that we've been cutting the PBOT for at least six years. This is really untenable. And if we're going to get back to basics and we're going to really take care of the assets that we own, we do need to look into the future. And we've talked about that, what those options might be. I may very well have a budget note addressing that. If that's, I would love to hear your thoughts about that. As we look forward to, how can we build up the PBOT budget?
75 I agree it.
76 Is without a doubt a structural deficiency that is affecting the overall community's health and safety. Councilor I look forward to partnering with you. I believe you're the chair of the transportation infrastructure. I look forward to working with your committee in a robust sense. Director williams is going to partner with us, and we need to have a really robust, comprehensive review about what we're going to do in Portland to address and then reverse this structural decay that we're experiencing right now.
77 Thank you, mr. Mayor.
78 Councilor Smith, would you like to go ahead?
79 Yes, ma'am. Thank you, madam president. Congratulations, mr. Mayor. Thank you. Congratulations on balancing the budget. I congratulations on getting the $80 million for the ADA ramps. And I also passed cip, so I look forward to partnering with you. So this is I want to get clear on exactly what's happening. What was the gap that you were trying to close? I want to know the actual number that you closed. And the second piece to that question is, did you cut more than the gap that you were trying to close?
80 So the original gap that kate jordan had presented to you in February was 92.8, was $93 million. In our negotiations with other jurisdictions, we had expected certain income from them, and those incomes were not received. So the gap was 120 million at the beginning of March. And so the team and I went to work, and that's where the long weekends and everything played out. A lot of discussions among the 13 of us as well. But we closed the gap. And I.
81 You close the $120 million gap.
82 Close the gap. And then I think you said, could we have closed it more.
83 Close more than one than 120 million?
84 You can always do that. But the pain that the enterprise would experience is significant. I will tell you, when we got down to that last 10 million, that was the hardest. And we spent three weeks on that alone, because that was when the real cut list was painful. And unfortunately, you've had to experience some of that with the budget you have right now and you have a difficult job as well.
85 So here's here's what I was trying to figure out. Where did you find those cuts? Because we you give narratives in your budget and you say you may have cut 20% or you increased this but didn't exactly tell, or you increase something and then you decrease something, but you didn't tell what that number was. So it's really hard for me to tell, actually, if we close the gap that you were looking to close.
86 You want to handle it. And I mean, it's. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. You can.
87 Let me tell you what I'm looking at. 2024. We had a beginning fund balance of 95,000,306 890. So I'm looking at the proposed balance beginning fund balance is at 39. So did you take 50 million out of that beginning fund balance to help you close that $120 million gap.
88 So we did take some out of it. The math, the numbers you just referenced are a little bit different for a couple of reasons. And we can I'm happy to sit down and walk through the whole thing separately. But the 95 million was before we went into the fall bump in in the fall of 2024. And so that beginning fund balance number was adjusted in the fall, bump and money was put into contingency and the like. So the.
89 That means you use some of that 95.
90 Some of.
91 It was put in other places because we got increased revenue during the fall. Bump.
92 Correct. What what I and yeah, what I will. So what we did do though in the proposed budget that I think you're trying to get at is the we did pull forward a about $33 million of things essentially that are either in contingency in the current were in contingency in the current fiscal year, and we put them in what we call budgeted beginning fund balance for 2025, 26. And then we also adjusted a few reserves a little bit with from where there was excess reserve funding. So the reserve and contingency draws from in the proposed budget are just over $28 million. And then in the spring technical adjustment ordinance, there were just over $5 million in what we called general fund returns, where bureaus said, hey, we're not going to spend this this year. And we also counted that 5 million towards budgeted beginning fund balance for next year. So we did use budgeted beginning fund balance as a tool to help balance the $120 million gap.
93 So you used that $50 million in addition to the ten, 10% restraint that you asked bureaus to meet.
94 So we used we ended up using 33 million of budgeted of for those types of draws. And then the reductions total about 26 million. And that's a mixture of different things. Some of it is from the original 8% guidance that mayor wheeler gave last year. But then there's other reductions as well in there that are were decisions that were made over the course of the last couple of months to figure out how to balance the budget. So it was a mix. And then, of course, in that 120, there's 61 million of outside revenue. So some of that is the state and. County money.
95 Add this in public. In my head, that sounds like more than $120 million. It seems like you cut more than $120 million to meet this goal. And I just wanted I want two columns with the $120 million that you were trying to meet. And how did you meet it? Where did you cut it from? I just want I just want to know where it came from. And I understand. And I've talked to jonas weekends, nights trying to figure out a line item. And he said, and I guess I'm just coming to the knowledge that maybe you all really don't have it because he's saying we don't have that granular of a line item at the city of Portland. We don't do that. But there is a tool in Multnomah county uses that tool that you can line item everything. And so that's why I'm having such difficulty of figuring out what you cut and what was the gap. So are we using? Was that gap include the 120 million? Was that including your wish list or was it actual operating funds? Because I'm not clear on on the two.
96 It includes. So it includes two things that I can send this all to you in writing. And we can go through the spreadsheet. We do have line item details. There's several hundred decision packages that line item out what all the changes are and including the reductions. So we can go through that. But the two, the way I have at a high level categorized these is the forecast gap, which was a little under $21 million. So that's just the like if you just continued exactly what we did last year and increased it for inflation, that's it. And then there's additionally $100 million of new adds. Now that includes the sheltering plan and save and tax that would have otherwise.
97 Villages were 38 million. And we had expected that the joint office would pay for that. And then we had Portland solutions. That was at roughly 41, 43 million. And then we had the 28 million. That turned out to be 24.5 million that the mayor wanted for overnight shelters, am I?
98 That's roughly right. Although I'd have to check the Portland. You might be double counting some of the Portland solutions money, but yes, roughly speaking, that's right.
99 Basically. So that's that's what it is. Commissioner Zimmerman councilor Zimmerman brought up the fact that we in addition to that, because I'm going to have to take you back because I signed the first iga with the joint office and the city of Portland that said that the joint office would only do the homeless services. We know we've gone back and forth over the last 5 or 6 years. There were some things that were not getting done, but we continued to pay our 2025 million, our 31 million to the joint office. And my concern is that all of this homeless stuff, we're breaking our own iga, we're doing homeless services in a big way. I like what you're doing at the safe rest villages. I like what Portland solutions are doing. And then your idea. I'm very inspired by trying to figure out where do 1500 people go at night. They don't have to be housed totally, but they just need a place to go. I get that because it's inhumane to keep people who live in this city on the sidewalks, but I'm trying to figure out who's breaking the iga because it appears that Multnomah county is possibly breaking it, and it appears that we are totally breaking it. We're doing homeless services, and I don't like it, because if you're talking about going back to basics, we do infrastructure. We do kind of like fish, water, streets and trees and parks, right? That's what we do. That's what you that's what I interpreted when you said, get back to basics. Let's do our book of business infrastructure, streets, street lights, sidewalks, that kind of stuff. That's what I it was just a generalization. I understood what you meant. I think you meant. But right now I'm really having a tough time grappling with this $120 million and grappling with the fact that in addition to the 38 million, in addition to the 41, in addition to your to your wish list of $25 million for overnight shelter that we're paying 31 million to the joint office. And I know it's hard to back out of that right now. I do, but I'm trying to figure this thing out because we would not be in an operating deficit had it not been for our dabbling in homelessness. We either need to get it right and say, we're going to do homelessness too, and y'all do what y'all do, and we're going to do what we do over here, right? That's that's the way I see it, because it's really frustrating for me as a counselor to say that right now, I'm going to put all this money in the safe rest villages. I know I'm going to have to support it next year, too, because it's going to be an ongoing money, and I can't tell where these programs are. What's safe rest villages put in the ongoing money west Portland solutions put into ongoing money. I have nothing that shows me where that happened at. Or, you know, is your $24 million for the for the shelters? Is that in one time only money? I have no one pager that shows me where that is. So I'm frustrated right now. I'm I'm inspired. But I'm also frustrated by the fact that we keep doubling back into homelessness. If we're going to sign the iga and say the joint office is going to do homeless services, then we need to do that. We need to hold them and make them honor that, that they have to pay for this stuff. So that's that's my frustration. Mr. Mayor. A couple of things happened earlier this this city council meeting. We went once again for the fifth time, six, six. And in my reading of the charter, if there is a vote to be broken, you have to break it. We went on advisement of the city attorney that you couldn't break it. So my first amendment is going to be to take $5 million out of the city administrator's budget and ask for a legislative council that will be run out of council operations, because I believe that we need council to direct us in addition to when they're when they're discrepancies on how to interpret the charter. That's a problem because we now and it's and the reason why I'm taking this to heart because every last one of those six, six votes was something that I put forward. And I don't like it because I interpret it a different way. There was no exceptions put into the charter. There was no extra paragraphs and go see, you know, section 253.567. It just said the mayor will break the ties. It didn't have an exception. So I believe that there is a there is a there is no statutory reason that you should not have broken any one of those ties. I don't see a statutory reason going back to the original ballot measure saying that that was the intention. That's not good enough for me, because the language in the charter does not make this anything else other than what it is. It's plain language. So that's why I'm doing this. The second one, the second amendment, I'm going to take 1.6 million. That's in the contingency budget from the opioid settlement. An additional 1 million will go to summerwork, and an additional 600,000 will go to the workforce apprenticeship programs. And so you all can look forward to that. That is my last question, but I would appreciate, ruth, if you could give me a one pager on what the what the gap was, how you paid for it, because really trying to go through all of those decision packages and seeing what that looks like, it appears to me that it's more than $120 million. Thank you.
100 Thank you councilor.
101 Councilor Morillo.
102 Thank you, madam president, and thank you so much, mayor, for being here and for sharing this with us. I feel like you've been very proactive about getting our feedback throughout this process, and that means a lot. I don't think that's how it used to be. So it's a big difference. And it's noted. I have a few questions, but first, I definitely want to echo councilor Smith's statements. I do feel like there was a lack of clarity on how the shelter investments are going to be allocated and executed, and I was wondering if there's a detailed spend plan for staffing time for the shelter investments. So, for example, when is a when will new staff be onboarded? Will that all be funded? Will all of that be funded fte. Will they be hired in online by December? And if so, are those positions going to be filled, funded for two years, or are they going to expire at the end of fy 2526.
103 So we are going.
104 Through our weekly meetings right now, kind of building what the process will look like once the budget is completed, making sure that the funding is consistent and the shelters and or the longevity will go from six months to a year and perhaps longer, and they'll be funded through a variety. It could be through a contract, an RFP or a grant, depending on what the facility or the contractor will allow. So it's really they will be full time jobs, though. And we were just having that discussion on Monday about actually hiring staff earlier to allow them to get plenty of training before we open up a new facility so we can make sure that we're not just opening with the guests being cold and uncertain and a staff being uncertain of where. And so it's a real proactive response that skyler brock was just noting on Monday, addressing the weakness, which I think you just brought forward. And we appreciate that. And we see that as a weakness, and we're going to neutralize that weakness.
105 And so for clarity, if it's so it hasn't been secured for two years ongoing. So how does the city plan to prevent immediate service disruptions or potential shelter closures at the end of the fiscal year?
106 Yeah.
107 I just want to know what she is violating. I know.
108 You are right. Much of the funding is going to be one time. But with what we do have as far as ongoing, we will use that for a longer term. But you are right. You know, the overall goal is to flex up and flex down. So long term contracts isn't something we're really looking for. But we do know that with the providers we have, we'll be able to assure them services and may not be at the exact facility that they begin with. But our contractors have been very resilient and flexible to work with us, recognizing the crisis that we're addressing.
109 That makes sense. But will we be provided a spend plan that we can look at and give feedback on for this?
110 Yeah.
111 And we have a clear spreadsheet on that. Happy to provide that to you.
112 Okay. Yeah. This council loves a spreadsheet. So I think we'd all like to see that. And also want to commend you for even closing that gap and getting that funding from external sources. I know that wasn't easy and you really hustled for that. So thank you for doing that on behalf of our city. Thank you. My other question is, I've heard that there is a forecasted gap of around 21 million, and that 100 million is based on other policy decisions. How many jobs does this budget cut and how many of them are due to the forecasted revenue gap versus the need to backfill the $100 million policy decisions? And how many more positions do you anticipate will be lost due to your efficiencies package?
113 I can take at least part of that, and then I'll I'll kick it over. So in terms of the position changes. So this is citywide. So one thing just to note on that, on that $120 million gap. That's just talking about the general fund. And so the citywide position changes include the biggest ones are actually outside of the general fund. So I just want to note that's like a little misaligned. But as a overall as a whole there are there's a reduction of 186 fte and then an increase of 157 fte in this budget. There's the this is very confusing and it's very difficult to explain, but the positions that are being reduced are not necessarily the same as the positions that are being added. And so we're working on exactly what the actual like individual level impacts will be of this. But we don't fully have that information gathered yet. But just as an example, the single the bureau with the single largest reduction is in Portland, permitting and development, where they're reducing 65 positions and adding two positions, areas where there's fte increasing are things like Portland street response, the tent. There's position authority for ten new firefighters. There's some positions being added that are supported through PCEF, and there's some positions being added for like shelter and outreach. So that gives you a little bit of a sense of the different areas in terms of how many would have been cut. I don't have the number off the top of my head of if we had, if we hadn't done anything else in this budget, if we had only continued exactly what the council approved, adopted in 24, 25, how many positions would have been lost to fill that 20.8? I don't have that number off the top of my head. We could get you like a an estimate, but it's kind of a counterfactual that's a little hard to pull out of the data, if that makes sense. But we can we can try and get you something, but I'll have to follow up on that.
114 Okay, I appreciate that. I think in the past, cbo's office has done a little bit more comparisons. This was separated out into three different packages in a way that we had to go through where there wasn't. That same comparison is why some of this is difficult to parse. So for future commentary, maybe in the next budget cycle we can have some of that. I I'll ask one more question and then I'll move on. The proposed budget includes a $9.5 million placeholder for enterprise efficiencies, but I see roughly $5 million in line item cuts to the decision package. Is that correct? And for the remaining 4.5 million, what processes and criteria will the city use to identify these cuts, and how will council and the public be involved in approving them?
115 So just on the first piece of that and I'll kick it over to the mayor. So the 9.5 is what is currently reflected citywide in the budget of that 3.8 is general fund discretionary. But the 9.5 is based on the sort of half year amount. So I'll let the mayor talk about kind of the process a little bit more.
116 So there's.
117 Certainly that 9.5 that we are taking in fy 25, 26 of which we expect it to be doubled in fy 2627. It's going to be a series. So through dca, sarah morrissey, we're looking at three ways that we're going to address this. Not just the individuals in the organization, which of course will gain additional attrition, retirements, departures for moving out of town. But we're also looking at span of control. The efficiencies will gain there, which we're looking at closely. We know we have 80 staff members that are below the 1 to 4 ratio that we are setting out there three or less reporting to a manager there, but there's also contractors that we're looking at. It's difficult to several relationship with the contractor on July 1st. So it's going to take some time. Our managers are going to be set up with the expectation to look at how do we feather these reductions. But it's not just city staff. We want to look at overall costs. So we're really looking at spending. We want to see a 20% reduction in spending, and we're going to charge our managers with producing it in the in the most equitable way possible, knowing that contractors often are the most expensive part of our city, as opposed to sometimes they have to be done. They're experts, but for the most part, we want to bring that spend in-house and maintain as many staff as we have. So it's a real challenge throughout the arc of that 12 months.
118 Okay. Thank you so much. Out of respect to madam president trying to facilitate this meeting, I will stop asking questions now.
119 Thank you. And councilors, if we have time at the end, you are all welcome to jump back in for more questions, councilor Greene.
120 Thank you, madam president.
121 I am setting a timer. Mayor, I want to commend you for bringing forward a balanced budget that reflects the broad priorities of portlanders, which is hard to do. It's we have a diverse set of opinions here in this city. I think it gives this body a firm foundation from which to make amendments that reflect the values of those who elected us, to give them proportional representation. So it's a good place to start. I have heard from portlanders that we want safe and livable communities where families can thrive. I see that with your commitment to partially restoring psr and for keeping community centers open and keeping programs going through the summer, and your willingness to go bold on accelerating housing production and tackling unsheltered homelessness. I have also heard loudly from portlanders that public safety depends upon a foundation of strong and healthy communities, where we reaffirm our commitment to fully funding parks, open and activated spaces, tenant stabilization and opportunities for families to recreate and play and learn. So that's the lens I'm going to bring to this amendment process, period. I'll start with a specific question. Then I'm going to introduce some amendments. Colleagues, aside from the overall cuts and parks and rec mayor, it looks like there was a reallocation away from represented employees, flsa exempt employees to non rep and nonexempt employees in this in this budget for example, I count we've added seven ftes that are non rep in parks and rec. But we've reduced 14.5 ftes that are repped. We've added ten and a half flsa exempt employees, but we've reduced 17 nonexempt fte. So I wonder if you can kind of speak to that, that motivation there and help me understand that that decision.
122 You bet. If that is.
123 The case, and I applaud you for looking at the numbers and I appreciate that, that's something we'll have to look at. It was not intentional. It was just a process of the cuts and where they were taken. But to look at the second chapter of that and to key off of what councilor Morillo had noted, councilor Green was that we're looking at span of control, and we've seen an opportunity with span of control to look at it and dig deep, because we've seen an increase in rent control over time, not a decrease with efficiencies and technology. So I have a meeting next week with dca, morrissey and director warren to specifically look at what you're talking about. So while this budget may have missed that, we're not missing it in the ensuing next 12 months. And again, it's going to take time to do this in a measured, methodical, clear eyed, think slow and then act fast manner.
124 I appreciate, and I look forward to working with staff as we go through. I want to echo what I've heard from my colleagues, that it's pretty important that we restore funding or provide funding in this trade off process funding for parks maintenance. And that's going to be a lens through which I look at that. I think the parks attendant idea is great. I hear that from everyone. But also restoring those liuna 43 eight cuts is going to be important to me. So my priorities as I approach this, I support permanent reform. I was really glad that when you you announced the 5000 home challenges with the governor. That's bold. I've been on record supporting sdc waivers, and I think that's going to help us get across the line. I don't know if it's appropriate for the budget amendment process, but I'm going to intend to attach to that ordinance that makes that waiver force of effect an associated temporary suspension of the design review process, where appropriate, as well as an acceleration of implementing the inner east side for all code change campaign that was approved by the planning commission last year. I understand the community economics service area is going to be bringing forward to council a package of code reforms, and so I just want to make sure this budget is going to have the resources to get that done swiftly, because I think if we're going to suspend sdcs for two years or three years, I forget exactly how long it was. We'll miss an opportunity to make hay while the sun shines. If we're not also being a lot leaner on the design review and zoning pieces. That being said, I have some specific amendments to add, so I'm going to add an amendment. Colleagues for a for the Portland housing bureau for $465,000 as a subsidy to the tenants at everett station lofts. I've got a newspaper in front of me by street roots. I've also, you know, it's been in the mercury's reporting that these tenants were told that their rent was going to be one level based upon the Portland housing bureau's understanding of the regulatory agreement. And there's three years left on that regulatory agreement. This budget ad would make those tenants whole in terms of that. And I think it's a small a small cost to keep some of our vulnerable tenants housed in my district. Another ad I'm going to add request that we add $1.5 million into this fiscal year budget or, I'm sorry, next fiscal year budget for the james beard market. I think my understanding is they need 1.5 more million dollars. It's not already allocated to get that thing open by spring and full capacity, and that will be a catalyst for downtown, and that will help us grow our revenues to pay for these bigger budget gaps that we've all been talking about. So we got to do it. And then finally, we've talked a lot about public safety or, you know, the role of investing in public safety a lot. Throughout this entire last several months, we've talked about it here. I'd like to introduce a public safety set aside of $3 million that is to be used for filling ftes that become possible in this budget year, and that could be used for any bureau. Portland street response, police, fire and boec and pbem. Frankly, and I think the idea here is that there are different bottlenecks and constraints at which these bureaus are able to execute their hiring. And so rather than earmark specific dollars to a bureau, I say, let's put it in a set aside, and whoever can hire first can get that money. That's $3 million for that. I'm paying for this. In part, this is the part that's less fun. I want to applaud you for. I got 17 seconds. You've raised golf fees by $1 per nine hole round. I'm a golfer. I can afford to pay more than that. So I'm amending that to say that we're going to raise that by $5, that will increase it by another $2 million. Okay. And then there's your budget depends upon raising tnc transportation network fees by $0.65 to a buck 30. I'm just going to make it an even two. You're not going to notice it at two versus a buck 30. That will probably raise another $6 million. So I'll stop there. Colleagues, we've got some we've got some ads and we've got some some revenue sources. Thanks.
125 Thank you. Counselor, I think you came in just on time, counselor Dunphy.
126 Thank you, mr. Mayor. I also just want to commend you for your commitment to keeping community centers, son, school, after school programs and recreation funded. These programs are crucial for our young people, not just for education and enrichment, but as vital tools for community safety. Folks know that I started my career in the david douglas school district doing gang prevention in a middle school, and I have seen firsthand how a good kid with nothing to do after school can make really bad choices by preserving these programs. This will save lives. I maintain that every dollar we spend on recreation is $10. We don't need to spend on public safety. So thank you. I also deeply appreciate your focus on operational efficiency and fiscal stewardship, your commitment to focusing on service delivery, reducing duplicative costs, and streamlining city operations is exactly what Portland needs right now. We should never let a good crisis go to waste, and this budget takes a 100 year old institution that did not function effectively and moves us toward a modern and justifiable service model. And when our revenue sources are more secure, we need a more efficient city to use these funds well and to expand the impact of our work. As part of that effort to modernize our outdated systems, I want to preview my intention of looking deeply at the funding for our broader creative economy, including moving some functions from prosper Portland directly into the city's office of arts and culture under the community and economic development service area. I believe we need to reverse the trend of outsourcing core government service. For example, if the city directly funds community event grants, we can partner more efficiently with permitting and with parks, the parks department. That means more public spaces activated with music, food and art, building community, enhancing public safety, and keeping the spirit of Portland alive and well. Portland's music, arts, and food and nightlife are the heart of our economic recovery. And by supporting these elements, we aren't just preserving culture. We're building a stronger, more connected community. And that is how we achieve real community safety and economic development. I want to be clear east Portland must be held harmless in this budget as we navigate through all these decisions. We all know that equal cuts citywide don't equate to equitable outcomes. East Portland has historically faced underinvestment, and we have to be intentional about not widening that gap. It's more than a lack of sidewalks. We have fewer fire stations, parks and community centers. And when the mayor proposes spending $6 million to bring street sweeping back to the entire city, please remember that only streets that have a curb can be swept, which means that streets without sidewalks will continue to be filled with leaves and trash. That doesn't mean the rest of the city gets each district. District one share of that funding. When we talk about reductions, we have to look where else where these cuts are landing. For east Portland, that means protecting critical services and ensuring that investment continues to flow to the neighborhoods that need it the most. I'll be looking at the impacts of every change in this budget through the lens of how it affects east Portland, and I'll be offering amendments to anything that disproportionately impacts my neighbors east of I-205. And lastly, I don't think we're done with our revenue conversations for the 2526 budget. And I do not mean rating PCEF dollars, but as my as councilor Green mentioned specifically, I want to look at additional fee increases for things like rideshare and golf tee times, keeping the vital services operating requires all of us pitching in, and small increases in revenue are an important part of that as we look into our long term revenue questions. So thank you.
127 Thank you councilor.
128 Thank you councilor. Mr. Mayor, any response before we continue?
129 No, I think what you had said was.
130 Spot on. I look forward to supporting, especially a full review of our arts, our departments and how we can really get the most out of that very important segment.
131 Councilor Avalos.
132 Hello. Thank you. Ditto to all the pleasantries. Appreciate your time. Mayor, I want to talk a little bit about the proposed cuts across the board to critical citywide services in communications, equity and engagement. I think ultimately, you know, how I'm feeling about this is that this type of sledgehammer approach to these departments is just. Makes a deeper cut to these bureaus. Right. These services are really critical to the functioning of our city, especially at a time when we need to increase our commitment to transparency and public participation and equitable service delivery. So let me start by just asking, you know, you've proposed a 20% across the board cut to critical citywide services in communications, equity and engagement. So can you explain what analysis, if any, was done to determine how these services should be performing before deciding that they should be reduced at that scale?
133 Sure. Let me give you two anecdotes.
134 First one would be equity. So over this past four months, I've been meeting with as many director heads, dca's community members, you and the council passed commissioners from not only just the most recent past, but two and three terms prior. And I wanted to understand the function of how do we operate then and where are we at right now? And one example was equity. When I had jeff selby in my office on a Saturday, he and I were going through the org chart and I wanted to know, how are you embedded in the operation? And his response was, I really don't have command control over equity or the best practices because each bureau director was hiring their own equity officer. And so there was no centralized approach with a one Portland. It was a we had 26 different perspectives on equity. And I know that that's probably a sweeping statement, but jeff didn't have operational control or best practice control over the other 26 bureaus. And so what this will do is, is by elevating and creating a center, a citywide services, jeff and or our chief equity officer will be able to determine a single best practice for the city and then deliberate efficiently throughout the 26 bureaus. We may have to raise up some equity officers up to the service area dca, but it allows us to have one voice distribute throughout the city to build one culture instead of 26 different cultures. Now that's more the communication. The other item I looked at was procurement and I looked at this with each and every single one of them. We had 26 procurements through the bureaus, and we had one central procurement. And then I started finding out where we had two bureaus that signed mous with the city to pull out of our central procurement, essentially reducing and removing and adding more cost and duplicating this cost. And so when I saw that, I realized we really have to rein that in. We lose technology benefits, we lose that learning organization. I can't have police learn from fire. I can't have fire learn from water. Right? It's cloistered, it's siloed, and it's everything we needed to get away from. So those are two examples of specifics. And the beauty of doing that is, is we'll be able to do more with less in that regard.
135 Yeah, I understand that there are difficult budget trade offs for sure. I just believe that any cuts to these services need to be evaluated very carefully. Absolutely. I'm not suggesting that we avoid streamlining. I think you have the right mindset on that. I just want us to do it thoughtfully, and I want the new officers also to have an opportunity to create a strategic plan and reform package so that we can ensure that we're protecting these services that have historically been underfunded, and they're needed more than ever for our communities. So that brings me to another question on that, which is, you know, more broad, but what safeguards are in place to ensure that these proposed cuts don't disproportionately harm the very communities we claim to prioritize, especially as we're transitioning into a new form of government that demands more, not less, public facing work.
136 Yeah, and that is a great question. Dca sarah morrissey, who will be taking point on that, recognizes the very heavy lift. And then director warren, in charge of human resources, are going to be intentional with that. Sticking to our core values and the cuts that may happen in hr will be positioned at the very end of the cycle, not at the very beginning. So we're keeping our experts and that efficiencies at the very end, because of those very reasons, we have to stick to our best practices and make sure that we have clear goals on what our expectations are and then making sure we manage it well. Specifically, I didn't outline any specific one, two, three sort of codes or expectations, but I'm relying on our existing structure to do that and do it well.
137 Okay. I've got many, many, many more things, but I'll bring them at future meetings. But I just wanted to flag one thing because councilor Green, you mentioned it. I too am intending to offer an amendment to support the everett loft tenants. However, I'm only proposing 100 because I think they only need 100 per year for the next couple of years. So we can talk offline about what that looks like. But I do think that's an important investment to protect those tenants. So just flagging that that will be coming from me as well. We can partner on that. Councilor Green, thank you.
138 Thank you.
139 Thank you, councilor, councilor Ryan. Yes, thank you, madam president. First, thank you for your hustle. Mr. Mayor. It's your focus on building support with other jurisdictions has been really refreshing to witness, and I'm not surprised. So. Bravo. Keep it up. Keep it up until the money's in for some promissory notes there.
140 So true.
141 So moving on from that, when we have our next session, joint session with the county on may 23rd, I begged of the former mayor and I mentioned it to you. I mentioned it to council president. Can we please have a focus on public safety so we can work out the roles and responsibilities since we share this important responsibility, the public assumes we are invested equally in the region. Safety. Our first responders are challenged with each incident at the city on where do they take this person? The county is in charge of treatment centers. They're in charge of corrections, prosecutions, trials. As such, this tension that we're hearing about between the da and the chair is also our concern. And so this needs to be lifted in a transparent way, so the public can finally know that the two of us are equal in our responsibility for public safety. With this in mind, before. Well, could you agree to that?
142 Yeah.
143 Councilor Ryan, yesterday we had a meeting with the governor, the chair and I specifically on that, and covered a lot of those details, because you're right, it's not just a point, fingers. It has to be all of us collaborating together because we all have unique resources.
144 Thank you, I appreciate that. I think that's a transparency. The public's been deserving for some time. With this in mind, before we look to staff up Portland street response, can we finally publicly distinguish between the county's behavioral health first responder system and project respond versus the city's Portland street response? Efficiency must be a driver for all decisions in local government. I know there's distinguishing factors, but again, we've never been able to really hold that in a transparent way for the public to look at. And I want to make sure that the chat program is funded at current levels. I know I've witnessed it so many times on how they really have saved lives, and I don't know what we would do without it. This program has a successful track record of serving the vulnerable and underserved people in our community who are experiencing chronic, lower acuity medical issues, who have historically used the hospital emergency departments for their primary care. This does save money. Chat provides services so that individuals medical issues are managed to not escalate, and therefore will avert reliance upon, again, those emergency rooms. I would like to prioritize that. We continue to support the programs that have this type of proven success. We don't need alternatives, in my opinion, to police, but we need fully staffed, properly trained police bureau and additive keyword between alternative and additive. Additive support from those unarmed services to deal with our humanitarian crisis that's been building for decades. In other words, when we're working with the county, let's finally really bring that to light so that we can get to the bottom of this and not create new systems with new silos. Let's integrate.
145 Yeah, I.
146 Agree, I think our org chart judgment call that I recall that you made a one decision. If you're. Could you explain this one. If you're supervising under three then you're no longer in that category and you're vulnerable for a cut. Is that what I heard?
147 Not for a cut, but it's.
148 A reassignment, if you will.
149 Or will.
150 Have additional staff added or reassignment. Or you may go from a supervisor manager to staff level and become a represented versus a management staff.
151 I think that starts to get at more of the nuances that councilor Zimmerman was trying to put words in your mouth, but I think when we when we're bringing in mike jordan for this duration, we really wanted that pruning to be really daylighted so that we can get to the bottom of it. I think one that always has driven me nuts is we have engineers planning architects on the staff that are working on projects that we don't have money for, and we want to have money for it for a while. So I would be like, we need back to basics people on the ground filling potholes. And so we might have some clutter up there. And I'm I'm not seeing it so far, but I haven't dug through the newly the new version that we just got that was all printed out for us. I'll see if it's in there. Do you have any thoughts on that?
152 On the latter point? I don't think I really tracked that. Well, forgive me, councilor Ryan.
153 I think we have people that work at the city that are currently doing planning, visioning for some for items that we're dreaming about, but we don't have money for it. And so if we're if we're in a back to basics budget, I probably wouldn't want to sustain those professionals, but I, I would I would repurpose them perhaps kind of like your word from earlier. I would like to hear some thinking on that from our city administrator and from all of you making these big decisions in the enterprise.
154 You know, I can't.
155 Speak to that specifically, but I like what you said. And the answer would be yes. We're going to be looking for those efficiencies. Why would we be working on something that isn't going to be manifested in the nearer or, you know, if it's something that we actually have a focus on and a funding for? Yes, by all means, we should be in the middle of it. But one of the more exciting things is, is beginning in q3 with this new budget or q1 for the budget is we have service area meetings where the mayor or the ca, the dca and all the bureau directors are there in a weekly meeting talking about the metrics. Where are we at, where are we going and where are we at today, if you will. So that's an exciting point. We get so much efficiencies by just communicating well and having a chain of command. I mean it is really an exciting time to be at the city and the roles that we all have right now.
156 And so with amendments that we're all starting to offer in our own various ways at this moment, it's been really fascinating and I'm enjoying this quite a bit. I'll have to rewatch this meeting. I'm exploring with the discipline. There's a discipline that I'm asking for from myself first and from all my colleagues, which is not to bring anything forward without a corresponding cut, ensuring that my amendments will keep the budget balanced. I'll expect the same of my colleagues, and I'll probably be a no unless someone can demonstrate that the ones that I'll have to prove that for is looking at how we can bring more storefront business support. That's what I'm hearing the most from constituents the last five years. Those that are surviving have hung in there. We need to take care of and grow our local businesses and our storefronts at this time. They need support, and I'll have a budget amendment to this concern. Virtually all of them want an increase of staffing of our Portland police, and they are all spending too much on private security, which has increased costs because of vandalism. Break-ins graffiti, along with managing extreme spikes to their insurance rates. In fact, many of them now don't have insurance because of this. These survivors, as I like to call them, have similar challenges that deserve our increased attention and investments. And I want to thank them all for hanging in there. We need to start doing you right. Safety on public transportation I often hear about safety concerns, riding public transit. In all fairness, my spouse where one car family takes the max every day, so I hear about them almost daily. I'd like to implement a safety initiative in partnership with our regional transit authority, TriMet. I don't want to read the annual article that says, once again, our ridership is down by 30% or more, and the number one factor is public safety. Without a direct impact on the main causation of that decrease of ridership. This is good for everything. It's obviously good for livability. It's good for the elders on my street who won't take the max anymore because of safety concerns. And it's obviously good for the environment because we'll see a decrease in fossil fuels. And the last one is continuing to improve. Permitting this budget proposes significant cuts to the permitting department during a crucial time of reform. I will support permitting policy changes that allow for self-certification of building plans. This will streamline and speed up processing times, freeing up limited staff availability. Finally, thank you to all the public servants in the city of Portland. I can only imagine how uncomfortable it is to watch this meeting. And please know you're in our hearts, and I want to thank you for your service to our city. Thanks.
157 Thank you.
158 Councilor Ryan.
159 Councilor Kanal.
160 Thank you, madam president. Thank you, mr. Mayor, for being here, for your proposal, for listening and taking the time with me and my colleagues. I appreciate it. I think you've done a good job. On the whole, I particularly want to praise you for your work on Portland street response, which is an alternative responder. Yes. And that is something this community desperately wants and needs, but also eventually a core part of an integrated public safety response system that is both fully functional and sends the right responder to each call or responders before getting into it. I also want to dovetail off of what councilor Ryan said, and speak to any employee who's currently bearing the tag of possibly affected. Some of you have been in limbo since since February. I had this experience in 2022 and 2024 with months of uncertainty and frankly, dread. I spent months last year reading through them 330 page document, trying to see if I was in it or not. I think I cannot today promise you an outcome, but I can promise you this, that I see you. I've been where you are. I want to reduce the impact on employees to the degree that we can. And while I can't promise I'll oppose all reductions, I want you to know that we're always going to be considering how this has the human impact of what we do to save time, I'll shout out some things my colleagues said that I agree with. This isn't everything I agree with, but it's some I agree completely with councilor Smith's concerns about needing line items and detail with councilor Dunphy's point about outsourcing, outsourcing, city core functions, as well as the film and events office with councilor Avalos about the three specific services which are unique, I think of equity, engagement and communications, and in particular at a time when the federal government is taking a wrecking ball to the concept of equity as well as funding for it. We need to support equity here. Cutting funding is not a requirement for your very important point about elevating equity to the service area level, and I strongly oppose a one size fits all approach to engagement citywide, and I intend to make some amendments later on these two topics. And finally, I agree with councilor Greene's point about a personnel set aside. This will also have the benefit of ensuring that these dollars are used for personnel or not at all. Not as a fund that bureau directors or dcas can use for a purpose outside of council authorization because they're labeled vacancy savings. Moving into my three questions, one of the 66 votes was on an amendment I put forward on the technical adjustment ordinance, which would have added into carryover. It 100 k did get into the contact survey pilot survey pilot proposal. The other was $737,000 for fire training and recruitment. Can you speak to whether on page 208, adding either the ten firefighter position authority or converting six limited term firefighters to ongoing. If that was addressing that concern, you said that it would end up in the proposed budget. And then, relatedly, can you speak to what the $6.5 million for capital in the fire budget are earmarked for?
161 Okay, I can speak to the 100,000.
162 Yes. After the technical adjustment, I added that back in or we talked about it and it was a it was a good program and we wanted to make sure it carried forward. I can't speak to the other 700,000 or the 6.5.
163 So the fire budget is basically includes enough for 2526 to backfill the one time that would have expired at the end of 2425. So it doesn't add an additional 700,000 on top of that. But it would have been carryover. And so yeah, I mean it I think you can see it either way. It I think it basically comes out in the wash, if that makes sense. Because they wouldn't have had it this year. They would have carried it forward. And so it it functionally is the same as it would have been in 24, 25.
164 Thank you. And great. I also just on while we're on fire, I'm intending to propose an amendment to replace some of the one, some of the one time funding for chat with a mix of ongoing and one time funding to help give some certainty to those employees into this program, as well as to help us convince our partners to keep funding this program. Second question on the Portland bureau of emergency management, we're seeing reductions of three positions, one ongoing and two limited duration positions. While I support adding an alert warning coordinator, I'm concerned about the emergency management disaster planner being cut, as well as an emergency operations coordinator. So I'm going to say this. And my question is if you have an immediate reaction, in addition to supporting the budget, note that councilor Clark discussed on the psi hub, I'm intending to put forward an amendment that would add a psi hub planner for pbem, as well as restoring restoring the continuity of operations staff capacity, which was cut in previous years, and adding 24 over seven duty officer staffing as well. And just wondering if you had any thoughts or reaction to that.
165 Now I'll I'll track what your suggestions are, but I do want you to know pbem for the fiscal year 2627 is something we've already started talking about. We feel it needs to be elevated in the enterprise. If we are and have or suffer a catastrophic event, we need a pbem to really take over and activate the city at large. So we feel that we have a weakness in our bureau of emergency management. What that looks like. We need to do a more robust, comprehensive review if you're going to do a particular change. I understand it, but I would say it would be a one off in an otherwise focused. We have to look at pbem as activating it to take over all bureaus in the event of a catastrophe. So happy to entertain what you have, but I think we need a much larger discussion with pbem.
166 I agree, and I'd love to be a part of that in my role as co-chair of the committee. But I also know that we have some needs that are are not able to wait. So there's a couple specific things. And then final question under general fund requirements on page 62, you've listed the office of community based accountability as required to have $2.1 million. The charter requires an amount proportional to 5% of the PPB budget for the cpa. Your proposal of $318 million for the police bureau converts to $15 million $15.9 million as a requirement for the cpa. Why is this requirement on page 62 listed in a way that's out of alignment with the charter? And where are the $13.8 million?
167 Certainly.
168 I can speak to that. So, yes. So the oversight system as a whole, the funding for that is proportional to 5% of the police bureau's operational budget. And that shows up in a couple of different places. The independent police review budget is counted towards that total. The amount you noted for the office of community based police accountability of 2.1 million. And then there is a policy set aside amount of about 10.4 million to get you the rest of the way there.
169 Where is that 10.4 million?
170 Where is it document? It shows up in contingency. I'm not sure exactly where it is in the document, but I can follow up with you.
171 Yeah, I'd love to see that spelled out because that's and both from the perspective of councilor Smith's point about line items and transparency, but also to make clear that we're complying with the charter, which, by the way, says funding for the board, not for the old legacy oversight system. Ipr is not something that the charter says is included in that. And I want to make sure that we're we're following the charter on this particular point and intend to ensure that. Would love more info on the overall number of policy set asides, not just this one.
172 Yeah, sure.
173 Thank you, madam president.
174 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane.
175 Thank you, madam president. Thank you, mayor wilson and your whole team for all your hard work in developing and presenting this budget. I really do appreciate your thoughtful approach, the way you've spent time listening to all of us and to community members. I sat next to you in some of those listening sessions and saw you taking notes. Can you remind us of how many millions of additional funds you secured for us?
176 Generally, it's going to be about. It depends on what you would consider, but on the high side it would be 42 and then certainly lower. If you didn't count the general fund from Multnomah county and such.
177 I just want us not to rush past what a big deal that is. I like how councilor Ryan phrased. I appreciate your hustle. I know fundraising is not easy, and I think you did a really great job. And I know while a lot of them are one time funds, they will at least allow us to have more time to make the hard choices needed to address the structural challenges we're facing now and in the future. As many of my colleagues know, I framed my interest in this fy 26 budget in terms of values and haven't made a ton of, you know, specific, haven't talked about specific programs or funding requests. I don't know, I might be one of the only people that didn't. I know you've heard and honored the value that I stressed with you to prioritize community facing programs. I see it in the way that you've prioritized things like sun programing, golden ball programing for kids, Portland street response, and more. And I want to flag that. I'm interested in offering two potential amendments as budget notes that I hope will be included in the fy 26 adopted budget. They're the same ones I've already told you about on our recent walk in district three, so I'm not surprising you. One is around vision zero. This is an area of deep interest for my constituents. For many of us up here, we're approaching the ten year anniversary of portland's commitment to vision zero, and we still have a lot of work that we need to do. And while I don't expect new initiatives to be launched given budget challenges, I do really want to make sure that we're still moving forward on our already established priorities that we have established as a city. Many of those, you know, they're rooted in research and pbot's equity matrix. And a lot of these don't necessarily have price tags. So a few important ones are increasing the frequency of reporting on relevant progress milestones as we approach the end of the 2023 2025 plan time frame, commitment to disaggregate all vision zero data collected and analyzed by race ethnicity, as well as location of equity matrix zones, not simply at an overall level. So, for instance, pedestrian and bike crash reductions data commitment to using equity matrix as a component of decision making for new investments, and then also making sure that that the funding ensures that PBOT can both meet critical bureau needs and continue its work on vision zero and progress milestones. And then the other piece that we spoke about is tribal relations. I've heard from native leaders in Portland that this is an area that I want to make sure we revisit, and making sure that we have something formalized, possibly in code, not simply engagement, but making sure that we are consulting the tribal nations. And so at this point, I'm thinking about proposing these issues as budget notes rather than requesting specific amounts of funding, not because I believe that they are necessarily budget neutral, they're going to be costs associated with taking some taking these actions. But in order to make time in the coming fiscal year for designing how to address them collaboratively, collaboratively with city bureau workers in a way that allows to be thoughtful and to really understand the associated research and resources needed for the design. And want to clarify, do you hold the right to make a different choice? As I learn more about the budget process and engaging and. But I would love to hear what you think might be possible around these topic areas at this point in the process.
178 Certainly, I encourage those budget notes. I think you and I are in partnership on that. Vision zero has been something that's been really important to me over many, many years, and I look forward to working with you and really supercharging it here in Portland. Road fatalities are. Unnecessary, and if we work and work hard and change certain things, we can reduce it significantly. And I'm confident we will, as a group, do that. On the tribal relations I, I agree with you 100%, and I'm really excited about the omsi project because they're bringing in a tribal affairs convening location. They're going to offer a building there, and we will be the 57 nation central point of the region. Really exciting. And I met with chair kennedy of the grand ronde and invited her into the city. And I think you and I need to really talk to government relations as well, dust off some of those agreements and activate them, and then activate our culture in the city. I look forward to partnering with you in this new year.
179 Thank you, councilor. Mr. Mayor, congratulations. Putting together your first budget is a big deal. Thank you. Especially in a cuts environment like this. And we appreciate all of the work that you put into it, and also your work to keep councilors updated on things that you knew we each individually cared about along the way. I really appreciate that. I do have a couple of questions. And the first, I understand if you want to defer to one of your budget staff on this, I am wondering what the one time funding cliff is in your budget proposal.
180 Sure, I can speak to that. Sorry. One second. Let me pull up the answer. So the I just want to clarify one thing that when we talk about a cliff, it depends a bit on how much the thing would cost next year. And some of that depends on how much we spend of the one time money this year. But in total there is $50.8 million of one time general fund resources. And then there's the 58.8 million of external funding supporting the shelters collectively next year. Of that, I mentioned, 13.3 has does have funding for next year, but is one time in nature. There are other one time grant funds in the budget. And again I can provide this all in writing to do all the math. But. There's the there's 1.8 of opioid settlement funds in the budget. There's still $2 million remaining of American rescue plans as well, rescue plan funding as well. And then, you know, there's other grant resources outside of that, but that may not be considered a cliff. So that gives you a general sense of where we are.
181 Thank you. And what was the one time funding cliff that we came into this year with? Or better put, I guess, what was the one time funding cliff in the 24, 25 budget?
182 Yeah, again, it depends a little bit on when.
183 You close as apples to apples as you can get in terms of number comparison.
184 Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms of what we were looking at a year ago today, essentially, I think we were thinking it was roughly in the $100 million range. We had the some of the some similar programs were supported by one time funding the general fund. One time in last year's budget was about $60 million. So that number has shrunk a little bit. But because we have a little bit more in that external funding, that number is a little bit bigger.
185 We're essentially looking at carrying over that same level of fiscal cliff to decisions that will have to make for next year's budget for 26, 27.
186 In terms of magnitude. Yeah.
187 Okay. Thank you. You got a question already, mr. Mayor, about some of that state money. And I just want to clarify, to make sure I have these numbers written down correctly. Are we looking at $15.8 million of state money that we have received, that we are using in the first year? Meaning, because the state has a biennial budget, we should not expect to have those resources next year. Is that the number or is the number higher than that?
188 That's the number that's right for the shelter programs.
189 And are there additional state resources that we are using only in the first year of their biennial budget, in other program areas that we should know about?
190 Not that I'm aware of. I'll include it and follow up. If something somebody brings something to my attention.
191 Thank you. I have a question about how things change if outside funds don't come through, because we do have a lot of outside funds that you've managed to bring into this budget proposal, some of which we haven't secured quite yet, because everybody's schedules are a little bit different for their budget work, the way that the city budgets appears to be at a fund level, it's a relatively high level. So if we don't receive some of the funds that are budgeted, mr. Mayor, in your budget, what type of flexibility does your team have to change what is funded and what is not without council approval? And I can give a specific example if that's helpful or if it's easier to talk. So I know some of those state dollars are going into shelters. So I'll use that as an example not to pick on your your program, but because it's an easy one. If, for example, we don't get the state dollars that you have assumed for overnight shelter, do you have the authority to decide that instead of overnight shelter, you are going to take that cut in, say, pmo or our ptas and s.r.v shelters instead of on the overnight shelter side without coming back to council? Or would council legally need to be involved in any decision making of shifting what programs are funded if state or other outside resources don't come through?
192 I'll give you a general overview. And then, robert, if you want to fill in on the technical aspects, so far as I know, upon the approval of the budget, when the budget goes into a bureau, the bureau allows the administration to functionally move those funds around if they are not restricted. And so given that notice, if pmo had 4 million and we specifically we reduced camp removal from about 23 million to 16 million with the expectation of having shelter. If we did that wrong, we could ostensibly grab $1 million from pmo, which is, I believe, 4 million, and put it into camp removal if we needed to increase it by a million because our numbers were wrong. That's why, as a bureau side, it allows you the functionality of moving things around because we're not right on any particular spend to the dollar. It allows that flexibility as the administration sees the ups and downs of that particular fund.
193 Thank you. Counselors. I'm flagging that I will likely be bringing maybe one, maybe a couple of budget notes specifying that if some of those outside dollars don't come in. There are specific places where we want to ensure funds are protected so that programs that are important to this council don't get cut without us having a say over that. I'll also flag today, and I will have a number of other amendments that I'll be bringing forward in later sessions. But because this came up in earlier conversation, there are significant cuts to Portland permitting and development. I will be bringing an amendment for a policy set aside so that when certain triggers are met, money becomes available out of policy, set aside out of the general fund to hire back up in Portland permitting and development to ensure that staff in that area are not a limitation to the speed at which we can permit housing and move forward. Addressing the crisis before us, I am working with folks still on what the correct triggers are, but I will have that language for an amendment as we move forward. Mr. Mayor, thank you. That gets us through everybody's first turn. Councilors. We only have six minutes left. So rather than keep going, I want to pause and see. Mr. Mayor, if you have any closing remarks.
194 Just as a note to that point you just made regarding permitting, the good thing about permitting is, is that if they're permitting, they're gaining fees, if they're gaining fees or gaining fees. So it's a natural both that rises as we as a city continue to raise up and build more housing. That's a good thing. With this moment. Council president, I would just simply thank all of you, madam vice president, it was a Friday night. You had called and you wanted to talk. I've spent the weekends with each and every one of you, and I appreciate your time. When we had questions, you answered your phone. When I needed more information. Councilor Kanal in specifics. Late nights, just talking about and going through the budgets over the last several years and the why of public safety. Really appreciate that. Councilor Ryan, you and I have had so many conversations over many, many years, but this really spans all 12 of you. I want to thank each and every one of you. And I noted in my state of the city that this isn't a new budget for you. You really know what's in it, because in some cases, your dna was there. I really wanted to set you up for success. Are there missing items in there? You bet. And I'm confident that you're going to find those and make everything that I've just brought forward better. And collectively, at the end of the day, I think the 13 of us are going to be very proud after the work that you produce and then you eventually approve. So thank you for this opportunity. It's been my pleasure, my honor.
195 Thank you, mr. Mayor. Councilors, rather than pick and choose only one person to move forward, I think what we're going to do is take our half hour recess four minutes early. We are scheduled to come back for public testimony at 430. So we will take a 34 minute recess and then be back here to hear from community members about their thoughts on the mayor's proposal. Thank you all.
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196 Sameer. Well done. Sorry.
197 You know, in real life.
198 Good evening. Afternoon. I think we're still at afternoon. Good afternoon. Welcome back. We are reopening our budget committee work, our budget committee session today in order to hear public testimony on the mayor's proposed budget. Counselors, we have two hours set aside for public testimony. I believe we have a little over 70 people signed up to testify. And we have posted tonight's testimony for two minutes. A person, we will get through as many people as we can if we are not able to get to you, I apologize. We will have some other opportunities for discussion, but let's start out and see if we can make it through the whole list. Keelan are you planning on calling people up a few at a time to help us move a little more quickly?
199 Yeah, I'll call up the first three and then I'll call up the next three as well. So everybody can kind of be prepared.
200 Perfect. And I believe because we were just recessed, we don't need to take roll again. But robert, do you mind rereading our rules of decorum and procedure just so that everybody has that fresh in their mind as we go into our discussions? I'm sorry I put you on the spot there.
201 Welcome to the Portland city council meeting as the budget committee to testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at wwe. Council agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should please address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifier should please unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
202 Thank you robert. With that keelan, if you could invite up our first folks who are here to testify, that would be great.
203 Thank you. First up, we have kim mccarty, brian orndorf, and joseph perez, followed by annette ramirez, jana tessman, and sabina lara.
204 Thank you. Go right ahead.
205 Okay. Good afternoon, Portland city council and honorable mayor wilson. My name is kim mccarty. I live in district four. I'm the executive director of the community alliance of tenants. Cat is a tenant led renters rights organization that started in Portland in 1996. We serve thousands of tenants annually with education and referral services, most here in the city of Portland. I want to thank the city of Portland for the support of the community alliance of tenants and our education programs, our renters rights hotline, our culturally specific programing and education workshops, and tenant advocacy. I want to let you know that because of the issues that tenants face, Multnomah county recently eliminated their eviction prevention program. This definitely has impacts on on cat and the eviction prevention and homelessness prevention work that many advocates are doing here in the city. And so we urge you to support eviction prevention programing. Our members, who are largely low income tenants, are experiencing an eviction crisis, and they want the city to prevent homelessness. The number of eviction notices have exceeded historic levels, and they show no sign of slowing. As of April, there were over 11,000 evictions in Multnomah county that were filed, most of those in Portland. And this is a large increase from last year. Most evictions were for nonpayment of rent. And most of those, as I said, took place in the city of Portland. That's close to 1000 people per month going to eviction court. And this does not capture notices of termination. So we urge you to support homelessness prevention and do all that you can in this regard.
206 Great. Brian orndorf, a proud resident and business owner in district four. Mayor, thank you so. Much for all your hard work. This you pulled a rabbit out of your hat. I appreciate that and city councilors, I appreciate all the hard work you're about.
207 Ready to get into, and I love.
208 Hearing all the.
209 Suggestions you had.
210 These are.
211 All great things.
212 Law and order is the foundation.
213 Of any functioning society. They ensure.
214 Stability, promote justice, and protect the rights of property of individuals, ultimately fostering.
215 An.
216 Environment where equity and peace.
217 Can thrive.
218 A stable legal environment.
219 Is essential.
220 For economic.
221 Growth.
222 Attracting investment.
223 And ensuring businesses can operate with confidence.
224 Portland is.
225 At a.
226 Critical juncture. We cannot ignore the impact of the rising tide of mental health crises.
227 And substance. Abuse that many.
228 Individuals. Including those from out.
229 Of.
230 State.
231 Bring to our city. The decisions.
232 Made by our.
233 Leaders in Salem.
234 Metro.
235 Multnomah county.
236 And Portland city hall.
237 In the next two months will determine whether Portland emerges stronger in three. Years or.
238 In a face, a future of.
239 Stagnation.
240 Or.
241 Worse, continued decline.
242 The time to.
243 Act is now.
244 The path forward.
245 Must prioritize establishing law and order, which can only be achieved through increasing police force. This is.
246 Not a matter of rhetoric.
247 It is a matter.
248 Of safety of.
249 Every Portland resident. In my opinion, your budget decisions need to be focused on these four pillars.
250 Of. Recovery and back.
251 To the basics of delivering city services one. Safety. Adequate funding for police, fire and Portland street response and. Keeping all community centers open. Addressing mental health, substance abuse, disease and unsheltered homelessness. Economic development. Retain existing and.
252 Attract new. Companies to. Portland for housing, both market rate.
253 And affordable. I'm calling on each.
254 Of you to recognize the gravity of the situation.
255 Portland is on the brink. Blight, a state of destruction and decay.
256 Has already begun.
257 To creep into certain neighborhoods.
258 We cannot allow.
259 It to spread. I strongly encourage you to make budget decisions based on the four pillars of recovery. Together, we can build a safer Portland, one where families, businesses, and communities can thrive. The future of greater Portland and the entire state of Oregon depends on the decisions city council makes on this budget. Please make the right choice.
260 For our.
261 Collective future. Thank you.
262 Thank you. Go right ahead.
263 Thank you. My name is joseph perez and I'm speaking today on behalf of myself. We need a 2% sales tax on items over $2,000. We need the transportation utility fee returned to the Portland bureau of transportation. I did the math with the projected av and rmv numbers from the city of Portland economist. This year, there is going to be a projected increase of 28.8% in property tax rate for fire and police disability, retirement from one point from $1.18 to $1.52 in fiscal year 2026. Similarly, in a few more years, the projected increase is 55.9% from fiscal 24 to fiscal 2030. That's from $1.18 to $1.84 55.9%. The astonishing thing is this increase is required by law and can only be done by a vote of portlanders. So please refer the Portland fire disability retirement to the ballot. Portlanders have recently said they want better transportation systems. And thank you, mayor mayor wilson for doing that. And this is over and ahead of police overtime. People who leave their home want to return safely there at the end of the day, and our transportation system is not safe and it's not as safe as it can be. Safety is not exclusively the job of the police. Safety is also vision zero, as mentioned earlier, and modal shift. The city of Portland should be choosing safety over speed and modal shift and convenience should be subject to community. Look at other cities that are eating our lunch and increasing bicycle ridership like paris, london and new york. We need car free streets, meaning modal filters like barcelona, ghent and groningen. We need to invest and encourage kids to ride bikes to school. There is no way that building more freeways is going to work. We need to build housing and attract more people to live in Portland, enrique penalosa said. We need a city not for business or automobiles, but for children and for people. Instead of building highways, we need to restrict car use. We need to invest in high quality sidewalks, pedestrian streets, parks, bicycle paths, libraries. We need to plant trees. All of our everyday efforts should have one objective happiness. Thank you.
264 Thank you. Next.
265 Next up we have annette ramirez, jana tessman, sabina. Lara. Followed by connor anderson, glenn devitt, and andrea gets. Go ahead.
266 Hello. Good afternoon. One second as I pull it up. Hello. My name is annette ramirez. I'm the organizer of the city of Portland professional workers union. I'm a payroll analyst. And if my team was forced to go on strike, the city would be out of compliance for state and federal labor laws due to having inaccurate and incomplete payments issued each pay period. We ensure policy compliance for time and pay that protects the city from violations and fines, and we ensure that employees are accurately compensated for the work that they do each pay period. We help process employee movement. We schedule new hire meetings to complete I-9s and process separations. If we strike, new hires will be dropped from payroll due to not having an employment eligibility verification form completed. If we strike, the city will be in violation for not providing final paychecks to separated employees and the required time frame per bully law. Administrative and office work has historically been undervalued and under-compensated, but we are essential to city operations. Prioritize your staff during this budget and prioritize finding finalizing a contract with cfpb so that staff can continue providing these essential services. Thank you.
267 Thank you. Go right ahead.
268 Hi, I'm jana tessman. Thank you for having me. Mayor wilson, I see you I see that you're building a legacy. You've taken on a huge goal and rallied many to work towards it. But I don't think your sights are set high enough. I think you could house everyone not on cots, but in real beds, behind doors, in real housing. And you could do it. Maybe not this cycle, maybe not this term. But if you want this city to thrive, to really fully flourish with funded services, you must raise revenue. And you must doing it by taxing the rich. The only way to do that has been preempted many times over at the state level. So I need all of you to use your popularity, your your pulpit right now to rally all of those people that you got to endorse you to say, yes, we need to end unsheltered homelessness to better footing the bill and go to the state and look at the preemptions for why we can't raise enough revenue as a city to cover our basic needs and say that we have to tax businesses, we have to tax the rich, and we have to tell the state to stop preventing it. Thank you.
269 Thank you, thank.
270 You both for being here.
271 Sabrina lara is joining us online.
272 Good evening council members. My name is sabrina lara and I am an active community member in portland's district three. And thanks to prosper portland's entrepreneurial development programs. A proud business owner for the past eight years, most of the time I'm happy to call Portland my home. But today I'm speaking as a concerned citizen who's deeply disappointed in the mayor's proposed budget release may 5th. While I recognize the challenges of managing a $93 million budget shortfall, the decision to increase the police budget by $12 million while cutting essential community services such as the inclusive business resource network, prosper, portland's office of events and film, and other programs that strengthen our community, sends a troubling message about our city's long term priorities. These are the very programs that prevent crime, support our youth, create jobs, and keep our neighborhoods safe and thriving. Replacing prosper portland's ongoing funding with one time funding is a dangerous game that will significantly reduce services to portland's job seekers and small businesses, as quoted from the mayor's budget notes. Slashing career coaching programs like next gen and the economic opportunity program eliminates employment pathways for primarily bipoc and low income communities and undermines public safety in the long run. As councilor Eric Zimmerman stated in an interview with opb, we don't have a budget problem. We have a priorities problem. As a reminder, portland's strength comes from its people. It's small businesses, families and youth, not from swelling a police budget while stripping away community resources. I urge you to rethink these cuts, restore funding, and commit to continue funding these vital programs. Investing in the future we deserve. Budgets are moral documents. Show us where your values really lie. Thank you.
273 Thank you.
274 Next up we have connor anderson, glenn devitt. Andrea gets followed by mary sipe. Jay. Amaechi and kevin lock.
275 Good afternoon, council and honorable mayor. My name is connor anderson. I live in portland's buckman neighborhood. I'm employed as a business relationship manager in the bureau of technology services. Our business engagement and technology strategy division. That is quite a mouthful. And you're all justified in asking, mr. Anderson, what exactly do you do for the city? The mayor himself has given a very good summary of the job description of me and my five colleagues, all of whom are members of the city of Portland professional workers union, on pages 15 and 16 of the proposed budget. He describes our jobs in some detail when he outlines the steps that the pts and the city administrator should be taking to develop a multiyear plan to invest strategically in citywide technology goals. These unified technology goals that the mayor has outlined are good public policy and are in line with industry best practices. My colleagues and I have been trying to achieve many of these goals for years, often against the institutional inefficiencies of our old government system, and we are eager to get to work with the support of the mayor and the council behind us on these. But those goals will not be achieved without the nearly century and a half of combined industry experience that my colleagues and I bring. Some of my colleagues have worked for more than a decade for nothing more than a 2% cola and a little merit pay here and there. Some of us can no longer afford to live in Portland without a fair contract that pays us commensurate with the value of the work that we provide for the people of Portland. We urge the council to give the city labor relations the authority to settle cbp contract, so that there are no interruptions in our daily work to make the city of Portland work better for its employees and for the people of Portland. Thank you for your time.
276 Thank you, council.
277 For this opportunity to testify. And mr. Mayor as well. My name is glenn devitt. I'm a proud member of the Portland city of Portland professional workers union. I've worked at the Portland bureau of emergency management for seven years, where I coordinate our neighborhood emergency team volunteer responders. Mr. Mayor, thank you for being one of our volunteers. It was a pleasure to have you in class. I'm also one of ten on call duty officers as a duty officer at pbem. I'm scheduled on call 24 over seven for one week at a time. That means I'm required to answer my phone around the clock and immediately respond to any emergency, as required by our operational guidelines or our bureau directors. Leadership's direction for duty officer. That means a week at a time of not going to the movies, not having dinner with friends, no weekly trip to the grocery store, curtailing time with kids and family, and skipping some holiday celebrations. We do this in public service. Last year I was on call for eight weeks. That's two months of last year. I'd like to illustrate that with these three numbers. So 2040 is the number of hours that 40 hour employee works. It's what I worked last year and paid for last in 23 1024 is the number of hours I was on call without compensation. Zero is the number of dollars that I received for that on call time. Other duty officers in the city are paid for their time, be paid police, paid, fire paid, public information, officers paid. And they should be. That's proper and that's right. And we support that. But during contract negotiations, pbem leadership has stated that there is no justification for paying pbem duty officers for being on call. Meanwhile, in budget hearings, the same bureau leadership presents grand plans to this council in this room about expanding our operations 24 over seven further citywide. Whether that's wise is a conversation for another time. Meanwhile, I ask in good conscience how we can ask the people currently do that work to not get paid for it. Please settle tp contract now and reasonably compensate the people who keep the city safe and running. We're here for you. We're here for the public, and we're asking you to be here for us. Now, I need to go prepare for my next week long duty officer shift, which will last approximately 7000 times as long as my testimony here today. Thank you.
278 Andre again, is joining online.
279 Hello. My name is andrea. I'm a small business owner and resident of portland's woodlawn neighborhood in district two. I'm here to share my disapproval of any increase to ppb's already outsized budget. I'd first like to state that none of us who are against this increase are blind to portland's issues. We simply know that our city's issues cannot be fixed by policing alone, and it's clear that the investment of our tax dollars into police has already failed. Reactive and downstream responses to our city's challenges have already failed. How can throwing more money at an old failed tactic be considered a solution? We need to set a new standard and lead with a human centered approach. When I see our mayor wilson aligns with, as he states, equity in marginalized communities, those most often harmed by police as his focus in the first pages of the proposed budget. If we want to see Portland progress and thrive, we need to think upstream. We need to strengthen, not cut, the critical social and community services our people rely on and deserve. We need to tackle our community's challenges head on, rather than send more militarized troops to clean up our messes so that we can continue to ignore the root causes of our problems. I think of it like this continuing to fund police is like trying to fix a leak in your ceiling with a bucket made of gold. It's a needlessly expensive, hard to move and catch all response in the face of doing the rational thing and fixing the roof. Our city deserves this head on approach, and our community leaders paving the way need to be heard. In today's political climate, we cannot risk unleashing and perpetuating more harm to our vulnerable communities. Passing this increase in any form ignores the voices of the marginalized communities, who have been screaming for generations to be heard. Because of this, I cannot support any increase to an already outlandish budget which has proven to disappoint and harm portlanders time and time again. Thank you very much for listening, and I hope to see the city rethink its investments in these fields.
280 Thank you to all three of you for being here tonight.
281 Next up we have mary sipe, j. Amaechi, kevin black.
282 Good afternoon. I'll just go ahead and jump right in. My name is mary sipe, and I am testifying as the chair of the city's noise review board. Our city's noise control program is in serious danger of being completely eliminated. Currently, the noise control program is staffed by just three positions, down from 5 to 6 full time staff in the 70s and 80s. Under the mayor's proposed budget, two of these three positions will be eliminated due to inadequate general fund support. As a result of these recommended budget cuts, the city's noise control program will cease to exist as we know it. Noise enforcement is not a cost recovery service and cannot rely simply on citation fees as revenue. Environmental noise pollution is a serious threat to health and well-being. It's more severe and widespread than ever before, and it will continue to increase in magnitude and severity because of population growth and urbanization. The world health organization considers noise to be a leading environmental cause of health problems, second only to air pollution. In 1976, the city of Portland adopted the city's noise ordinance title 18, which was the first comprehensive urban noise control code in the nation. Our underserved communities will be the most impacted by these recommended budget cuts to the noise control program, the American public health association reported in their 2021 policy statement that low income and minority communities are more likely to be exposed to environmental health hazards, placing them at high risk of poor health and performance outcomes. Sources of noise pollution tend to be located in or close to poorer communities, and factors for this may be zoning and land use decisions that favor the wealthy and take advantage of differences in political power defined by race and socioeconomic class. Please go back to the drawing board and figure out how to properly fund this vital program. Do not make Portland the first and only city of its size to eliminate its noise control program. Thank you.
283 Janet.
284 Hello, mayor wilson, city council community members. My name is jay mckee. I'm the organizing director at unite Oregon. And first, I just want to say very happy about the passing of the sidewalk improvement and paving program. I wrote testimony on that this morning, so I just want to slip that in. But, mayor wilson, you say you want to go back to basics in the budget. And for me, back to the basics really means safe sidewalks or elders and children can walk without fear of tripping parks with working bathrooms, clean pathways, maintain Green spaces not just one time improvements, but sustained care housing that's affordable, child care that's accessible, schools that are funded, community led mental health support, expanding things like Portland street response instead of sending armed officers to address mental health or poverty and diversity, and civic leadership programs that equip organizations like unite Oregon with the resources needed to make sure the most marginalized communities, including immigrant refugee communities and bipoc communities, are engaged in civic processes. So I understand that, you know, we have this basically budget deficits and systemic crises like racial inequity, houselessness, these are problems that resist easy fixes. These are not puzzles to be solved with a single policy, but layered injustices require sustained, requiring sustained investment. A deficit forces us to prioritize wisely. Do we pour resources into a punitive system that perpetuates harm, or do we fund the programs that prevent crises in the first place, when every dollar counts, doubling down on policing and institution that drains public funds to manage the symptoms of poverty and trauma, and only deepens the cycle of disinvestment and harm wicked problems, demand courage to break from failed approaches, not retreats to the same costly, oppressive tools. All that's to say, we can't possibly afford the proposed increase to the police budget, especially considering ppb's overall budget is a staggering $318 million. And this is unconscionable. Unconscionable. Just this morning, I saw in the council agenda nearly half $1 million settlements for civil rights violations and bodily injuries against PPB. And because police are not and never have been effective responders. So the science is clear, safety is built through investment in people, not police. Thank you.
285 Thanks.
286 Good evening, councilors and mayor wilson. My name is kevin block. I'm a coordinator two in the bureau of planning and sustainability and a proud member of cpi-w. Like many of my colleagues, I wear multiple hats in my job. One of the most crucial is my work for the franchise utility program. That program is the third largest source of revenue for the general fund. The dpw workers and my team ensure the millions in payments to this critical source of revenue are processed in a legal and timely manner, and paid in the correct amount. If the city forces us to go on strike, payments to this program will be delayed and may even need to be returned if they aren't processed correctly. One of the other hats I wear is that of chief steward of cpp, also known as the first person. Our members call when the mayor's budget indicates that they are going to lose their job. I hear the things our members are too afraid or unable to tell you. Mr. Mayor, when interviewed about the cuts to personnel and paddy, you said that by pressuring the system, we will create efficiencies. Let's be clear about what pressure you're talking about, the pressure that comes from finding out you might lose your job when your second child is due in a month, or your student loan forgiveness program has been canceled, or your firstborn is starting college and the payments are starting to, or you're actively recovering from a serious medical procedure, the same pressures that the wealthy have been using to force the working class to work for more, for less. For centuries, cpp has been bargaining in good faith for over a year. Our bargaining team comes prepared with good proposals, on par with what other unions have, and the city side says they don't have the authority to get the deal done. Give your bargaining team the authority to get this deal done. Thank you.
287 Good night.
288 Next up we have. Justin calloway, david mcelhatton and ross taylor.
289 Hi there I'm david mcelhatton. I'm a portlander who's lived here since 2012. And I'm concerned and disappointed that portland's elected leaders are considering an increase to the police's budget. While we're in a nearly $100 million deficit, and when community services are facing severe cuts. I'm a homeowner in Lents, where I witnessed how ineffective police are at addressing poverty and responding to mental health crises. And yet, I regularly see my neighbors do far more to protect each other and contribute to community safety. My neighbors share food, share resources with each other, take each other to the hospital, watch each other's kids returning each other's dogs when they get out from the backyard, and keep an eye out for each other. These are all things that help keep us safe. The instances of struggle and conflict in my neighborhood are routinely are routinely resolved without police, unless police show up and escalate. And we know that police are primary source of violence for communities of color, for immigrants, for trans and queer people, for poor people and many others. We know that communities are not safer with more police, but with more resources, with housing, with education, and with better health care. So Portland is full of neighborhoods like mine, and imagine what Portland could do if we actually funded housing, health care, including mental health and recovery services, provided a living wage, food, education and child care. Instead of continuing to pour money into a system that we know simply does not work, we're in a moment where the federal government is slashing the already limited services that it provides for the public good, and Portland has an opportunity to actually embody its values and to do something different and lead with a budget that invests in community based and peer led services and resources, not police. Thank you.
290 Mayor and city councilors. I am ross taylor. I live in the johns landing neighborhood in south Portland. I'm a member of showing up for racial justice Portland surge pdx. I was very disappointed to see that the mayor's office did not seem to pay attention to the input from the district listening sessions that were held in the district for meeting that I attended, as well as another my friends attended. The vast majority of speakers asked for a budget that maintained non-police services as much as possible. In district four, only three speakers asked for more police. Many more than that called for cutting the police budget. The mayor's proposed budget goes against these priorities. Parks and recreation are being cut by 20% in the general fund and more. Overall, the funding for the housing bureau is being cut by 27% at a time when the lack of affordable housing is a major crisis for the city. On the other hand, the Portland police bureau is not being asked to cut their budget. Instead, they are being given a proposed $10 million increase. And I think I may have here another number. Somebody has said I may have done my math wrong. This is particularly ironic when the mayor's opening statement stresses how anti-racism is a core Portland value. The Portland police have a long and continuing history of racist attitudes and actions, continuing up to the present day. The police do not solve problems. They deal with problems after they occur. The priorities of the police need to be examined so that they can respond to priority calls in a timely manner. Some examples of the misuse of police time that I'm aware of are. During several of the recent peaceful protests, the police have harassed the people who are keeping the peace and protecting the protesters by directing traffic around the protest. The police have ticketed these people, called quakers, and subjected them to large fines. This harassment appears to be focused on protests led by nonwhite people. The police have been an uninvited and intimidating presence at town halls held by the councilors, who are prioritizing police accountability. Also, I don't think coincidence nonwhite councilors.
291 Thank you.
292 Justin callaway is joining us online. Justin, you can unmute.
293 And then camera. Okay. Sorry. Thank you for the council clerk for accommodating me with my disability request. I worked in PPB internal affairs. I was retaliated against for reporting a recall level cover up by the city of federal, state and local fraud. I am now unemployed. I have long COVID from an inadequately investigated workplace exposure. I reported coordinated conduct between ia sergeants, ia investigators and PPB sworn members to ia captain pashley regarding COVID safety violations of the federal doj agreement, state and local ordinances. When investigations were being conducted with three PPB members, all participating in disciplined behavior. This compromised all investigations performed this way and subsequent PPB nia work. There are interview recordings that can demonstrate when this occurred. Mayor wilson and city manager johnson know this to be the case, and the relevance of my testimony from an email on four 2125. Similarly, my three district councilors were provided many more details on two 1925, prior to council voting unanimously to confirm PPB chief day directly involved. Did they share this information with all councilors as risk management? Rosalia reported to the eoc on 708 24. Pashley sent two emails and posted a sign. This is an acknowledgment of the conspiracy that existed and was inadequately investigated. Professional standards. Investigations into all sworn and non-sworn employees were required immediately, were not, and introduced liabilities to all administrative and criminal work by ppd. Today, serious appeal rights for victims and criminal defendants. I help facilitate police accountability for all city employees and members of the public. Under the 2014 court ordered us, doj federal court ordered us doj agreement with PPB. I have been denied the very investigations by ia and ip. I should have been guaranteed as an employee and citizen. All taxpayers deserve these investigations. I've never received a single acknowledgment letter like I used to mail everyone else. I am considered a vulnerable adult.
294 Ask me. I'm so sorry, but we need to make sure we have time for everybody today.
295 Ask me in ppr.
296 Thank you.
297 Next up we have maureen murphy, Olivia hazekamp, and corinne frechette.
298 Good.
299 Hi everyone. My name is Olivia hazekamp. I live and teach in district three in Portland public schools. Yes, I am also here as a member of critical resistance Portland. And I would just like to start by saying thank you for the steps that you have taken to keep youth programing to expand less punitive programs like Portland street response, and to listen to your constituents. However, I am also disappointed in the mayor's decision to expand and increase funding to policing when we know that it is actually not the police who truly keep us safe. We know that the communities with less police are those with the most resources, and we know that we are more safe when we have our needs met and when we are allowed to thrive amid a large budget deficit. It is also illogical and irresponsible to fund police with more money than they've ever had. I know that many of us testified last month that we would rather see our general fund dollars go towards housing, parks and childcare and the police budget always increases and somehow it is never enough. This is because policing, as many of you have already said, was never meant to serve the people. It serves the wealthy few and is an existing legacy of and tool of white supremacy. There is enough money, and it's time to interrupt this system of white supremacy and invest in people, not police. Thank you.
300 More, more, maureen murphy. Olivia hanson I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Corinne frechette. Michelle miller.
301 Okay.
302 Well, thank you very much for being here.
303 Thank you.
304 Hang on a second. Okay. Corinne frechette is joining us online.
305 Hi there.
306 I don't know if you can hear me. Hopefully you can.
307 I can.
308 District four, and I'm actually calling in from old town where I'm a longtime volunteer to the houseless community. And I just want to thank the mayor greatly for overnight shelter. The people that are behind me don't get to come to city hall. I hope you can see them. They suffer greatly every day. And like the mayor said, if we want to be able to house people, people got to be alive. And so that's our first step. I've done this for 30 years, almost 30 years. And so I've seen a lot of people not make it overnight. Shelters are priority before we can house people. Number two, thank you for funding pb, particularly for the human trafficking unit with five people on the unit, all those people that are suffering cannot be served. Thank you for funding pb for the bike squad, which we rely greatly upon. A lot of my coworkers and co volunteers can't be here because we're inside the walls, but I speak on their behalf and please keep on doing the right thing. Thank you mayor for funding. Pb. Thank you mayor for funding overnight shelter. Thank you so much.
309 Thank you michelle.
310 Good afternoon councilors. Thank you for your hard work, mayor wilson and team on this budget. My name is michelle miller. I'm a resident of the stadium neighborhood district four. I support the mayor's budget because it strengthens what's essential. And that means fully funding the Portland police bureau and Portland street response not as opposites, but as complementary tools in public safety. I also support increasing staffing for safety teams. We need people on the ground who can meet urgent needs while keeping our neighborhoods livable. I support responsible fee increases, preserving community programs and activating our Green spaces in the absence of sufficient city services, residents in my community have taken it upon themselves to clean up biohazards left behind by harm reduction groups, scrubbing graffiti off walls and hauling trash out from the parks and sidewalks on a daily basis. These aren't volunteer projects. They're acts of necessity carried out by my neighbors. If the trade off right now is a safer and cleaner city, many of us are willing to do our part. But that's not necessarily sustainable either. Putting the burden on us. It's easy to cut what you can quantify, and as councilor Ryan pointed out, how do you measure the cost of people avoiding public transit when they no longer feel safe? How do you calculate the impact of a parent who no longer lets their kids play at couch park or walk to lincoln high school, or the small businesses that are shuttering their doors after their third, fourth, fifth break in and in as many months? I wanted just to say, police keep us safe. Let's bolster community policing this budget season. We urge city council to walk the neighborhoods, talk to the residents, ask the people who made, ask the people who stayed, what they've already lost and what will unravel next if more is taken away. Thank you.
311 Next up we have ian wood, lance orton, and marsha gulick.
312 Thank you. Go right ahead. Please go right ahead.
313 Okay.
314 Good afternoon, mayor wilson, council president, vice president and members of the council. My name is lance orton. I'm the executive director of city team Portland, a homeless shelter and drug and alcohol residential recovery program in Portland since 1998, of which I'm also a former shelter guest and graduate in 2019. In addition, I served to on the board for the central eastside esd and the old town community association. I want to begin by expressing my strong support for the proposed budget, investments in homeless services and public safety. The 24.9 million allocated to shelter expansion, district based day centers and managed outdoor spaces represent not just good policy, but real hope for our unhoused neighbors. At city team Portland, we witnessed the need every day, and this kind of investment matters deeply. We stand ready to play our role. I also commend the continued support for both Portland police bureau and Portland street response. These services are complementary and essential, ensuring both safety and compassion in how we respond to crisis. This budget shows that Portland is rising, not just in vision but in action. My concern, however, I must raise some concern about the proposed budget cuts to the Portland permitting division. Formerly, bts city team is in the middle of converting a vacant old town office building into a 27,000 square foot residential recovery center. It's one of the first projects of its kind in the city. This project got off the ground because of the extraordinary work of the ppd staff, especially alice nielsen and brett holstrom, who played us an amazing role in securing our permits quickly and professionally. Their dedication was more than just process. It was a partnership with the waiving of sdc fees, which should increase project permit applications. And in a moment where Portland needs projects like this to move fast, I fear these cuts could seriously delay future vital development. I urge this council to reconsider the depth of those cuts, or at the very least, to preserve the capacity of permitting teams that are already delivering excellence under pressure.
315 My name is marsha gulick. I live in the downtown area and I regularly am a pedestrian in old town and also in the business district. I'm here to support the mayor's budget. I have seen the police act respectfully and firmly in arresting people on the safeway. By 11th and columbia. I've seen the officers on bicycles provide safe passage for participants during the Portland state university demonstrations just last week on may 1st. I look forward to the 80 bed shelter that will be built in my neighborhood, saint stephen's shelter. I look forward to having a partnership with the people there and getting the people out of the tents that are sleeping on sidewalks, on hard ground, with just a tarp over their head, or just lying in the grass in the parks. In terms of infrastructure, I think it's also important to talk about filling potholes for pedestrians. I've had friends turn their ankles in crosswalks due to the poor conditions, so I'm very much thank you for cyclists and pedestrians, potholes should be a priority. I spent two weeks, two weeks, two hours every week in the south park blocks working, cleaning up trash, working on the turf and the roses. And I received compliments all the time from people about how beautiful the park is, and they thank us for what we're doing. But we say we do it for the love of our city, and I think that's important for the parks to be open so that people can have pride in them and enjoy them as individuals. So those are three things I firmly support in the mayor's budget. Thank you.
316 Thank you so much.
317 Next up we have well let's ian would and then nicholas boehm david dixon anna. So. David is joining us online. David you're muted.
318 Hey my name is david dixon and I would like to direct my remarks to the one area which portlanders have consistently and overwhelmingly rated as portland's number one problem homelessness. In addition to the human suffering that portlanders see every day, homelessness has brought with it a toxic mix of problems that have resulted in a diminished reputation and quality of life for the city we love. My plea to mayor wilson and the council first, I support the commitment to homelessness in the mayor's budget. But don't try to fight this battle alone as a city. Look to your partners. Look to over 90 neighborhood associations to help identify sites for indoor and outdoor night shelters. They will help you if you ask. If you don't ask for their help, they will fight you. But even if you have enough night shelter beds to house thousands of unsheltered portlanders, that is only the first step. Bybee lakes hope center founder alan evans estimates that 70% of unsheltered portlanders are capable of a job and economic independence, given proper training and support. Ask for help from community colleges, work systems, inc, and organizations like central city concern to recruit unhoused portlanders to be trained as students for jobs that could bring self-sufficiency and self-esteem to thousands. For those whose addiction and mental illness is more severe, partner with the county and the state to increase treatment and urge Oregon legislators to lower the bar on civil commitment so that our community and families can get people into treatment who are incapable of making that choice for themselves. This will save lives. Last but not least, just as fdr challenged industry to build an arsenal of democracy to defeat hitler, the council needs to give mayor wilson a bully pulpit, to challenge industry, to build housing and ask wealthy and generous portlanders to make voluntary gifts. The city can't end homelessness alone. It will take an entire community. Let's give mayor wilson, let's ask mayor wilson to lead the charge and get this job done.
319 Thank you. Go right ahead.
320 Good evening, mayor wilson and Portland city council. My name is anna. So I live in district two and I work in health care in east county. I have lived in Portland for 18 years, and I'm here today because I care deeply for this city and the people here. I'm very concerned about this proposed budget and the prioritization of funding for the Portland police bureau over funding for city services and resources that people in our communities actually need right now, in this time when the current federal administration is on a mission to criminalize more and more people, black and brown communities, people of color, immigrants, queer and trans people, people trying to access health care, people without housing and people demanding an end to a genocide, the city increasing funding for policing and hiring more officers will make our city more unsafe for so many who live here. The American public health association's policy statement on law enforcement violence as a public health issue points to the physical and psychological violence of policing, leading to poor physical and mental health outcomes and negative outcomes for community health overall. As a city, we cannot afford to waste millions of dollars of our collective resources on something that will harmfully impact our communities. In this way. A city audit released in April showed that Portland has chronically underinvested in routine and preventative maintenance of its infrastructure for years, leading to the need for urgent repairs that would cost the city over 1 billion a year in order to address safety and environmental issues, please reduce the proposed police budget because we need to invest in our city fund, parks and community programs, fund housing, transportation, basic needs for our communities and other resources that will help build a truly safe, thriving, and vibrant city. Thank you for your time and working on the budget. Thank you for listening.
321 Thank you so much.
322 Next up we have Steve herring, anna brown, alan combs.
323 Good evening. My name is Steve herring. I am the ceo of living room theaters here in downtown Portland. I am a lifelong Portland resident, which is seems to be hard to find these days. The last time that I was in this room was your inaugural city council session, and I came here with a bit of optimism with this new form of government that perhaps we could get something done with not having the bureau system that we used to have. And I have to tell you, my optimism has evaporated. I see a city council like the people testifying here today, very divided on the direction of council and the direction for the city. There's a lot of people who are here. I see at the committee hearings that come, obviously at the invitation of various council members, to provide testimony for public hearings that are only advertised or posted the day before. So the testimony that's presented is very one sided. I'm going to call out councilor Dunphy. He was here and wasted 33 minutes of the public safety committee's time introducing a noise ordinance measure, which then got passed on to the full city council. I'm sure you'll see it. I say all this because here we are with the budget, you all need to determine what makes most sense to get the city forward. At a time when we are declining, the city of Portland is losing residents. We're barely staying in business in downtown. Many businesses aren't even open past 8:00 anymore. I thank the mayor for including the Portland police budget as it is, I looked up the budgets of cities across the west coast, san diego, los angeles, sacramento, san francisco, seattle, Portland. We have the lowest police budget of any of those major cities on the west coast. We also have one of the highest city budgets of any of the cities on the west coast, were third on per capita spending in this city. And you have to ask the question, where is the money going? You know, a lot of the things that the mayor has prioritized, I'm very proud that you made it into office. And the detail that you show in what you're doing shows that you understand the issues. The question is, can all of you work together to get to a place that solves some of our problems? Thank you.
324 I'd like to ask everyone to please remember that.
325 We need to keep to silent support. Jazz hands. Thumbs up, thumbs down. All fine. Thank you.
326 Okay.
327 Hi. My name is anna brown, and I'm a community engagement coordinator with Portland parks and recreation, represented by the city of Portland professional workers union, or cp. I lead the community engagement for the steel bridge skatepark project, a $15 million effort in old town. And I'm also planning the grand opening events for mill and park Lane parks in the next month. I'm here to raise concerns about the city's budget decisions and their impacts on the communities we serve. Cp represented employees like myself worked to connect with portlanders, especially those who distrust the government or have been historically excluded. We've spent years building relationships with immigrant and refugee communities, people with disabilities, people, communities who face systemic barriers, and many more to ensure they have a voice at the table. Our work isn't irreplaceable, isn't replaceable. It's essential. Us, excluding us from budget decisions means less communication, more confusion and eroding trust. We've spent years building with community. If cuts go through, portlanders could miss critical information. Relationships may disappear and deeper distrust may be sowed. If we go on strike. Key community events like long awaited park openings could be delayed or canceled. We want to keep doing the work that that is vital, but we need your support. I urge the council to involve us in the decision making, remove barriers and settle our contract. We're ready to continue collaborating, not waste more time and tax dollars fighting for a fair contract. So I ask, how will you ensure that the people who have the deepest community connections are part of the decision making processes? And how will you ensure that our contract is settled so we can keep doing the work that we love serving portlanders?
328 Thank you both for being here.
329 Alan is joining us online. Alan you're muted. Alan go ahead and unmute.
330 Okay.
331 Go ahead. We can hear you.
332 All right. Just try to figure out how to turn on the camera. All right. Well my name is alan combs. I'm a longtime eastside resident of Portland. I appreciate the opportunity to give testimony on the city budget. And I very much appreciate the leadership of the mayor for presenting a balanced budget that makes hard tradeoffs, but also delivers on the basics for funding public parks safety and addressing our city's ongoing addiction and shelter crisis. I support the budget's maintenance of 24 over seven emergency service providers, police, fire, psr, and emergency communications for police. It is particularly important that the department maintain its momentum to recruit, hire, train and onboard new officers. The mayor's budget will reduce overtime and bring to the community officers that reflect the community and enforce laws using anti-racist practices. All of you recognize that psr and violent reduction programs cannot work without the police, so the mayor's program will strengthen these programs, not weaken them. I'd like to reflect on a couple of statements I heard today, for which I suggest further thought is required. I heard councilor Statements in favor of protecting portland's clean energy fund. Mayor wilson, you in particular indicated that you don't want to use it as a shortcut to a tax hike. Please remember that when PCEF was approved by voters, we were told that it was expected to raise $30 million a year. In fact, pcf is collecting far more. It is trending to over $200 million a year, nearly seven times the originally advertised amount. It is already a tax hike, and also climate change is already here impacting all our residents. Please keep the 1% tax on larger retail sales on the table as a tool for keeping our city climate resilient, safe and clean. Oppose its use as a slush fund that goes to unaccountable ngos. I heard a desire to stick to the basic city services and questioning the city's contribution to the list from the council included fish, water, streets and trees. You forgot to mention public safety. And if you want to clear our streets, you need shelters, not just the police. With that, I'd like to you to remember that empathy needs to be given to our victims and in the city, and not just the employees. Employees. I feel your pain. I've been laid off before, but the city residents come first. Thank you.
333 Next up, we have vadim mazursky, Loretta guzman and chris gustafson.
334 Hello, mayor and city councilors. My name is vadim, and I'm here to urge you to support your neighborhood associations and the district coalitions that provide needed services to those neighborhoods and directly to your neighbors. Your local neighborhood association is one of the few organizations that anyone that lives or works in the area can join to directly make Portland a more beautiful, welcoming, and thriving place to be. I know that many of you visited neighborhood associations when running for office, participated nonpartisan debates and candidate events, and have joined these neighbors in street cleanups, community walks, and homeless outreach outreach efforts, and met locals and visitors alike at street fairs, neighborhood picnics, and other local events. From these events, you must realize that the large return on investment for every dollar the city spends to support its neighborhoods. As you know, neighborhood associations are staffed by volunteers, but those volunteers rely on a relatively small amount of funding from the city for the same cleanup efforts. Outreach and public events that connect neighbors and benefit small businesses. And year after year, the budget for civic life has dwindled, support staff have been reallocated, and this budget we. And in this budget, we face a drastic reduction in the grants that allow your neighbors to work directly to benefit the city. We are here. We hear often about the need to revitalize the city, but that can't happen if we lose sight of the real need to revitalize our neighborhoods. Therefore, I ask you to not reduce the district coalition budgets and the grant programs that make your neighborhood feel like home.
335 Loretta.
336 Hi, my name is Loretta guzman. I am the owner of bison coffee house. I live in district two and my business is also in district two. Public safety is what I'm here about. It is really needed. We have gone long enough without it. My business has suffered with broken windows, paint sprayed from the front to the back of the to the back of my shop. My insurance canceled me after one incident, which not all was covered in the loss. One of my long term employees passed away after someone gave her one of the blues. My nephew I raised was shot and killed and no accountability. I closed my business earlier because of safety for my employees and customers. Do not feel safe in the evening. We need law and order with the accountability on every drive to and from work, I see drug abuse along with mental illness. It's inhumane to leave these people on the streets. We once had public safety, law and order and accountability. So we all know what works and let's bring it back. Keith wilson wants to raise our water and electric after it's already been raised. I do not agree on this. These are the little things that matter in my day to day life. And a lot of the other people just like trying to live. So I just ask that you do not let our our testimonies fall on deaf ears, and that you just listen to us and make our city safe. I just it's not safe. I've had I've dealt with a lot of unsafe stuff, and there's places I cannot even take my little kids to anymore because it's so unsafe here in our city. Thank you.
337 Chris.
338 Go right ahead.
339 Hello, president pirtle-guiney and members of the city council. Honorable mayor wilson, I am grateful for the opportunity to. Address this distinguished body today. I am chris gustafson. He him pronouns. In my professional capacity. I am the accounting lead for the Portland housing bureau. In my spare time, I am the treasurer of the city of Portland professional workers union. Today I am testifying on my own behalf. Mayor wilson. Great job on the revenue side. I'm going to be critical about the expense side. One of my key professional responsibilities is ensuring compliance with the federal regulations for community based organizations that are subrecipients for federal pass through funds. These include homeownership retention and homeownership access programs, and these provide home home repair and down payment assistance loans. This is a complicated process that requires a specialized understanding of both federal regulations and the city of portland's systems. Failure to ensure compliance risks. The loss of all of the city of portland's HUD funding, which would be catastrophic to our community partners and would absolutely cause folks to lose their homes. Losing my skill set creates an immediate material weakness in financial controls for the city. Which leads me to pdx doge or the 20% reduction in core services. This proposal is not based on budgetary need. It's a policy decision that's based on a 20% number that's pulled out of thin air. A couple of points. The work we do is not optional. It is legally required or demanded by best practices. We can't stop doing it. Layoffs will result in decreased capacity to do the same amount of work. This is the opposite of efficiency. This will result in the necessity of engaging expensive, stopgap solutions, particularly contractors. The policy decisions to lay off dedicated public servants is a choice to inflict misery on the members of the organization you lead. Each one of those positions represents a family unit that will be affected, at least with anxiety and uncertainty. But given the current situation with government employment, there's a likelihood some of these folks will have challenges finding new employment, some will lose their homes, and some may end up homeless. This policy seems very inconsistent with the principles of a leader that has previously mortgaged his own property to avoid layoffs. Thank you, mayor wilson.
340 Thank you.
341 Next up we have michelle carter, stacy brewster, greg raisman.
342 Sorry.
343 Okay. Hi.
344 Thank you.
345 So much for the opportunity.
346 To testify.
347 I very.
348 Much. Appreciate all.
349 That you.
350 Leaders are doing.
351 For our city.
352 I love.
353 Our city deeply. And have a lot.
354 Of hope and.
355 Pride about what our future.
356 Will bring. My name is greg raisman.
357 I live off.
358 Hawthorne boulevard.
359 In. District three.
360 I began as a as.
361 A.
362 Temporary employee.
363 For the Portland bureau.
364 Of transportation.
365 In 2001. I have extended my stay.
366 And I.
367 Work on.
368 A lot.
369 Of things that build community and resilience in our city. Since 2001, I've been involved with the.
370 Artistic street painting.
371 Program, starting to manage it in 2004. So I've been involved with about three quarters of 1,000,000ft■!s of community building and crime preventing projects that we see all over our neighborhoods and city that provide beautification and bring people together to watch out for each other. I also work on our pedestrian street plazas in the city, such as ankeny alley, concordia commons, rainbow road, saint john's plaza. I've really appreciated all the involvement that we've been getting from council, especially. At ankeny alley recently. 503 day was an incredible moment for our city, and I look forward to being involved with those kind of things in the future. I also do things that are not so fun. You know, when we have crime happening in our plazas. Last year, there were a couple murders, for example, outside ankeny alley as a coordinator. One, I am the liaison to police and the businesses and work together to create strategies to help solve these kind of problems. I do a lot of other things. We're running out of time, so I have some other points to make. Over my 25 year career, I have seen a very consistent pattern when it comes to labor relations. The city and the unions don't come to agreement. There is not a lot of movement from the city side until the very end. We're about to go on strike. I have a strike pledge and I plan to strike if needed. Please give authority for the bargainers to bargain. Thank you.
372 Thanks.
373 Stacy.
374 Good afternoon.
375 Councilors. Mayor.
376 My name is.
377 Stacy brewster. I'm a.
378 Resident of district three and a member of cpi-w and currently serve on its board. I worked at the city for 17 years, ten of those here in city hall. The rest of the Portland bureau of transportation. Pbot, where I'm currently a coordinator. Two on the communications team. I'm here urging this council and the mayor to give the city's bargaining team all the power and budget authority they need to settle our contract. It should be off your plate and ours so you can focus on the massive budget puzzle before you. After more than a year of bargaining in good faith, our nearly 800 members deserve dignity and fairness. We are ready to work with council and this administration to do the people's business to kick off this boom, but it is increasingly hard to do that without a settled contract. It's extra hard when we face uncertainty around cuts to core services like equity, public engagement and communications work, which I do the work of cpb members like analysts, coordinators and admin specialists may not always be as visible to you, but it's no less essential. I used to work in television. Your favorite tv shows don't just show up in your feed because of famous actors, writers, and directors. They happen because of the labor of thousands of union craftspeople and specialists. During pre-production on set, in post production, accounting, marketing, you name it. If the city forces us to strike, you lose everything that happens in the background. To make this city run, you lose all the connective tissue between the city and the public, and you lose the support we provide to more visible frontline workers. Simply put, your favorite show never makes it to air for the work I for the work I do, a strike would mean losing staff who push out vital information to the public during an emergency, like a landslide, flood or ice storm. We're the ones letting people know road conditions and closures live on television through our website, email lists and social media. We're the ones helping the public travel safe, guiding them to where help is needed and when to stay off the roads so our field crews stay safe and can do their job to keep our city moving. Again, I urge you to help settle our contract and to look closer at who we are, the work we do, and what will be impacted by across the board cuts to core services. Thank you.
379 Thank you both very much for being here.
380 Michelle carter. Joshua dunham, brian kotlov, thad fusco. Good.
381 Good evening. My name is the reverend joshua dunham.
382 I am.
383 A.
384 Born and raised portlander.
385 The pastor.
386 At covenant. Presbyterian church, a member of the east county ministry.
387 Alliance, and a resident of the wilks neighborhood in district one. I come to you with deep concerns about the mayor's proposed budget because I have a child who attends school in.
388 The reynolds.
389 School district. She attends a school that is beautifully diverse. Our multicultural night is one of the most amazing experiences because of the vast number of cultures. Represented and celebrated that evening. Though attending this school has its challenges too. The reynolds school district has a high level of poverty and a lower than average median income from the rest of Portland. Like other east Portland school districts. Because of those factors, every student is on free breakfast and lunch. And right now, the reynolds school district is looking at a severe funding deficit for the next school year and beyond. And that's before we even consider the craziness going on at the federal level. If the city of Portland chooses to cut programs such as our parks and other things used by children and families in my neighborhood, as this budget proposes, it will greatly hamper our districts from providing adequate education and care for our children and families. I consider it a great moral failing. If, as this budget proposes, we increase the funding for our police department at the expense of services for children and families, this is just the wrong way to think about the role of government in a just society. Where we spend our money says a lot about our values, and if we are spending more, more on police than and less on schools, children and families, sorry, my screen, it says a lot about what our priorities are. I implore you, as a longtime citizen and a person who loves my community, that you not cut funding for children and family services and instead make cuts to the police budget. We know, and they know too, that police cannot handle every issue, and let's stop funding them like they are supposed to do that. Thank you.
390 Thank you.
391 Brian is joining us online.
392 Good evening.
393 My name is brian kotlov.
394 I'm a resident.
395 Of district four, and.
396 I'm here to.
397 Voice my support of the mayor's budget.
398 I want.
399 To acknowledge that I'm speaking not just for myself, but for many portlanders. Especially parents who can't be here tonight. These parents are still at their jobs, working, picking up their children from daycare, or sitting in traffic on the way to their kids baseball practice. These are common sense people who represent the vast majority of the city's population, even if they're not always in this room. And despite the fact that they can't be here this evening, their voice matters. I support the mayor's call for increased funding for the Portland police bureau, Portland street response, and expanded homeless outreach staffing. These are table stakes to ensure that a rising Portland continues to do so. I also support increasing fees to help grow our revenue in limited yet responsible ways. While I support the mayor's core proposal in this budget, I am concerned about cuts to park maintenance. In particular the core services like bathroom cleaning and trash collection. This is contradictory to the.
400 Back to the.
401 Basics values that we are trying to reflect. Councilor Zimmerman has put forth a common sense proposal to shift the enforcement arm of urban forestry to code enforcement and redirect those $6 million in savings to the back to basic services like cleaning and park maintenance. Every counselor should get behind this proposal and support clean park bathrooms above a bloated tree enforcement budget. Lastly, I want all of you, all councilors and the mayor to know that despite all of the varied opinions here this evening, we are all rooting for you. We all know it's not an easy job. There are no simple decisions, so thank you for all the work that you're doing.
402 Thank you very much.
403 Thank fisco aaron milano, nicole taylor, charlie. Michele. Wesley. Go ahead.
404 Go right ahead.
405 For the record, aaron milano.
406 District three I'm.
407 Not I'm not paid.
408 To be here.
409 I don't.
410 Work for some big mega company.
411 I'm just.
412 Concerned citizen of the city.
413 First, I want to recognize all.
414 Of. You for your participation.
415 In the.
416 Community listening sessions. I know.
417 There was a lot of work.
418 For you and your staffs late nights. Thank you for doing that. Mayor. I want to commend you, the budget office and the staff for threading a very difficult needle this year. The back to basics focus on safety, cleanliness and livability demonstrates that we can both be both compassionate and pragmatic. Exactly what portlanders have been asking for. I support the overall proposal before you tonight. Mr. Mayor, I strongly encourage continued partnership with county commissioner Jvp to ensure public safety is fully funded across jurisdictions so our da can adequately support your team and prosecute those who threaten our community's well-being. Second, I strongly oppose councilor Novick's proposal to increase the Portland clean energy fund tax by 33%. Portland already has the highest combined state local business tax burden of any u.s. Metro area, at 21%. The proposal ignores the economic reality that businesses make location decisions based on the total tax environment, as evidenced by the alarming departures and substantial reductions of major employer employers from our city in recent years. This includes sorrel, rei, nike, hoffman construction, us bank, unitus, kindercare, wells fargo, starbucks, walmart, target and more. When these businesses leave our community, it means decreased access to valuable services like pharmacies, financial services, grocers. It means fewer jobs and longer commutes. For Portland residents, it means diminished business and property tax collections overall, which is a big issue of why we've been here today and less competition and higher prices. Please, let's not pursue this any further. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today and good luck over the next few weeks.
419 Thank you mayor.
420 I'm charlie.
421 Michelle wesley.
422 Of a. Local tribe. Confederated tribes of grand ronde.
423 This testimony.
424 Reveals the.
425 Void of a.
426 Plan to address police violence.
427 Too often.
428 This topic. Is dismissed, a form of extreme white. Discomfort about the topic of race.
429 We carry.
430 The wisdom. Of our overpolicing and skin color. Targeting does to our bipoc communities. When you.
431 Don't listen.
432 You miss a transformative opportunity, a term you use before you were elected. This courageous opportunity to buck the status quo and create police accountability will benefit both the police and community. Instead of allowing the city who continues to get really good at the wrong things. Friday night I heard you say this budget must reflect portland's values and commit to restoring public safety. Public includes those who have given up hope on ever feeling safe from police violence, and pledging more cops equates to more targeting and more black lives taken. We need you to live up to the city value of anti-racism, which is not happening, and your candidacy statement letting people suffer and die on our streets is unacceptable. I know you meant the unhoused, but surely this applies to those lives taken by public safety in this awesome book, my grandmother's hands by rosa minicom. It has a compassionate, blame free approach for whites, blacks, police, and even mayors. It states most law enforcement are not trained to deal after a traumatic event, nor is there support for their self-care and healing. And they suffer from a variety of physical and emotional health issues. One result is that when police patrol black neighborhoods, it is often a case of repeatedly traumatized bodies confronting other repeatedly traumatized bodies. And when trauma lives and breathes in those bodies, almost any encounter could lead to tragedy. This budget void is a moral injury, one being you vowed to deal with property damage, not address systemic issues of racially targeted, deadly police violence. This void simply condones it. Thank you.
433 Nicole taylor. Lance orton, brooke gardner, Ryan sotomayor.
434 Go right ahead.
435 Hello.
436 Mayor, councilors, council clerk. And any city administrators listening. My name is brooke gardner, and I have worked at the city for over seven years. Currently in water operations and as a member of city of Portland professional workers union. I'm here to ask that you settle our contract so we can continue to focus our energy on the work we do. When I moved to Portland 15 years ago as a community college transfer student, I fell in love with the city. And every day as a city employee, I feel the pressure knowing how big an impact my work has and the ramifications there would be if it's not done accurately or on time. I'm the only timekeeper for 150 employees and ensured the city is following its labor agreements. I make sure these employees get paid what they are due. I'm also a family and employee medical leave coordinator. I implement federal, state and city leave policies for 250 268 employees. There are hundreds of employees like me in cp who are dedicated, highly skilled, have valuable institutional knowledge, and are exceptionally effective in their roles. Simply put, the city does not work without us. Timekeepers and leave coordinators must complete their work within required time frames, and if we don't, the city would face severe risks. Without us, employees don't get paid and the city violates federal and state law, resulting in fines and penalties. If we are forced to strike, represented, staff will not have their time and pay processes completed and will result in the city violating union contract obligations. The city would have several other operational failures, and no one wants to see the city try to function without us. The best way to show us you value the critical work we do is by using your authority to ensure the city acts in good faith at the bargaining table, and come to agreement on our contracts that we won't have to witness. Appreciate you.
437 Being here tonight. Thank you so much.
438 Next, Ryan sotomayor is joining us online.
439 Go right ahead, Ryan.
440 Good evening. Council president pirtle-guiney. Members of.
441 The council.
442 Mayor wilson, we really.
443 Appreciate the. Work that.
444 Has gone.
445 Into trying.
446 To.
447 Balance the budget.
448 We want.
449 To acknowledge that everyone has a difficult job. We appreciate. All the work and the energy.
450 That's gone into. Problem solving.
451 To.
452 Work with community.
453 Partners.
454 To work with.
455 People at the state.
456 To work.
457 With people at county, to. Work with people at metro, love all of that. What we need you to do is keep going. So we have the same request that we did at the bustling budget listening sessions.
458 No layoffs.
459 To represented workers, particularly. Laborers local 483 members, particularly in parts maintenance, particularly in recreation. When we're talking about wraparound services. For the houseless community, which we support, by the way, we need that for our communities. We need that for the city. We need everything. So difficult decisions, we acknowledge that. But when we're talking about wraparound services, if you eliminate summer camps, if you eliminate job opportunities for teenagers and for young people, if you eliminate hours at community centers and you eliminate programing, you will not solve the homelessness crisis. You will see more people in crisis. So we need everything. We need all of the services for Portland parks and recreation, for transportation, for infrastructure, for safety, for all of the things, 43 members will be coming to all your offices. We appreciate you communicating with us. We appreciate you opening your spaces so that we can continue to have dialog. We want to thank you for supporting individual members that are having difficulties with their employer, which is you all at the city of Portland. And last but not least, please settle the cpp contract for all of our sake. Thank you.
460 Thank you.
461 Next up we have jessica Green. Jamie doescher, tori moore.
462 Good evening, councilor, president. Councilors and mayor wilson, I'm jessica Green, I'm the executive director of the Portland parks foundation. This is a challenging moment for the city budget and for Portland parks. I'm here today to remind you that parks and recreation is not a nice to have. It is a need to have for a safe, healthy, livable city. Our research shows that over 50% of portlanders visit one of our parks every week in over 70%, at least.
463 Once a month.
464 But the share of the general fund budget going to parks continues to decline year after year, even as both internal city costs and external material costs continue to climb. We are also distressingly behind in addressing capital maintenance needs. We currently spend only 5 million per year addressing these issues, a fraction of what is needed. The longer we wait to address this, the more likely it is that they close forever. Now we are forced to ask ourselves, as I've asked so many of you already, what kind of parks do we want and what can we afford? We understand that these are nearly impossible choices. The mayor's budget emphasizes programs and community center access over operations and maintenance and eliminates 47 positions, many of them field workers. This will mean dirtier bathrooms, needles and trash and playgrounds and wildfire hazards in our natural areas. We cannot go on like this. Portland's parks and recreation system is not discretionary. It is essential. In the short run, we need to look at additional funding to ensure that our parks are healthy, clean and safe. And we encourage the mayor and city council to look at the best levy package that can be brought to voters in November. And at the same time, we need to move with urgency to find a more sustainable way to fund our parks through efficiencies and stable revenue. And we need a plan to make significant capital improvements to our failing buildings, pools and playgrounds. We will need leaders and champions to chart a new course, both in this building and in our community. This budget is a challenge, but we also believe that it can be the start of a new commitment to our parks and portlanders who love them.
465 Jessica.
466 Thank you.
467 Jamie is joining us online.
468 Hello everyone. My name is Jamie doescher and I'm the president of laborers local 43. We're a union representing workers at parks and rec. Bts PBOT. In my day job, I also work for Portland parks at east Portland community center. Compared to many other cities in Oregon and other states, Portland parks offers more. So many more programs, especially summer camps. These camps provide affordable child care each summer, spring and winter breaks and offer employment opportunities to hundreds of young people, many of whom go on to be come full time city employees. Mayor wilson, if you want to make Portland more affordable, removing the affordable child care that we provide in the summer is not a way to do it. Parks and recs provide free and incredibly affordable, safe public spaces, access to fitness facilities, and support communities across age and socioeconomic groups. Times are tough right now, and this is exactly when we need parks most. The current proposed budget will result in serious cuts, and the more we neglect now, the more we will lose and the more it will cost later to regain it, or to clean it, or to fix it, or to bring it back. Closing facilities early, reducing efforts to keep parks clean and safe, and foregoing beloved programs is not the way to foster a thriving parks and rec system that portlanders love and deserve. I urge council to keep looking for, or to continue looking for additional revenue to keep Portland parks and recreation whole. Thank you.
469 Next up we have tori maurer, dimitri finch brown, melina romero, alex riedlinger. Dimitri is joining us online.
470 Go ahead. While we wait for dimitri to unmute.
471 Go ahead. Okay. Good evening. Councilors. Mayor wilson, for the record, my name is alex riedlinger. I'm here, I'm a registered lobbyist, and I'm here representing the coalition of communities of color on behalf of the diversity and civic leadership program grantees, we request that Portland city council maintain current service level funding for the civic life, for civic life, diversity and civic leadership program. Any cuts will have detrimental impacts on communities of color and immigrants throughout Portland and fundamentally contradict portland's stated values of anti-racism and equity. Since 2006, the dcl program has met the city's goal of bringing the voices of black indigenous people of color and non-citizens into decisions that affect their lives. Dcl was designed to change the relationship between underrepresented communities and government by providing leadership development, culturally relevant community building, and new ways to connect with city officials to shape public policy. Urko urban league to unite Oregon and latino network are grantees of the dcl program, so these cuts directly harm bipoc communities, immigrants, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ to a+ folks, a reduction of this scale will cripple the capacity of grantees, each of which will no longer be able to sustain even one fte program coordinator. Under the proposed budget, Portland will soon transform into majority nonwhite city. Therefore, it is more important than ever that we invest in the leadership of bipoc portlanders to ensure our city governance reflects this shift. As the federal government persecutes immigrants who exercise their first amendment rights. As the courts erode at the voting rights act and the intention of enfranchising black voters and a state's gerrymander their districts along race, bipoc and immigrant communities must be engaged in public policy and understand that their voices and sense of belonging in civil society matters. We call upon city council members to commit to maintaining current service level funding for the office of community and civic life, diversity and civic leadership program. Thank you.
472 Dimitri.
473 Hi.
474 Is dimitri finch brown and constituent services and public records coordinator.
475 And cpi-w member. I was born and raised.
476 In Portland.
477 I am a.
478 Wife, a mother of.
479 Four.
480 And a career long city employee of 27 years. In fact, I come from and married into.
481 A.
482 Family of city workers. Between my husband, myself, and both sets of our parents, we have served the city of Portland for 142 years total. This is not just a job, it's our legacy. My life at the city has been full of budget cuts, and here I am again, fighting for a place with the city that makes their employees feel like they are just numbers with dollar signs in front of them. No face, not a name, just a position. I have handled more than 209 public records requests for PBOT since July. These requests are complex, spanning multiple projects, staffs and at time bureaus. These are high public interest. There's a high public interest for records from our constituents and the media, such as private for hire, public works compliance, sidewalk repair, ADA curb ramps and signals, and street lighting, just to name a few. I consistently meet strict statutory public records deadlines and provide records as efficiently as possible. I work extremely hard every single day and pride myself on being one of the top records responders in the city, and the only one for PBOT. Pbot is a big bureau and coordinating responses from multiple staff and projects, many of which I am not directly involved with and may not have firsthand knowledge of, makes this work even more challenging, and to expect that you can just pass this along to another employee that is already overworked or do away with this position overall is not acceptable. My job is to keep litigation risk at bay with the city, and for my years of transportation, I have done just that. My position. If my position was to be cut, it would put the city at severe litigation risk, a risk that we cannot afford. I work hard to serve my community that I grew up in. My job is to protect the bureau and everyone within it. Every bit of what I do is led with respect for all portlanders, and I always lead with grace. I ask that you do the same when considering cutting our jobs. We are not just a number with a dollar sign in front of it. We are the portlanders that have chosen to protect and serve our neighbors and our city that we love. Thank you so much.
483 Thank you.
484 Melina romero, james o'loughlin, aubrey chen, stephanie lamonica.
485 James.
486 Please go right ahead.
487 Yeah. Sorry about that. Good evening, mr. Mayor.
488 Council.
489 I appreciate the time.
490 My name is.
491 James o'loughlin.
492 I'm a district.
493 Two resident in university.
494 Park, where I live with my wife.
495 And.
496 Two children.
497 A longtime city worker eight years now. And a.
498 Field representative with liuna for three. I'm here to first.
499 Applaud the budget process. That you all have had, walking.
500 Into a. Truly insane circumstance.
501 As the.
502 City reformatted. Itself and the dedication I've seen.
503 To this.
504 Open, engaged process with the public is.
505 It's really inspiring and I appreciate.
506 The values.
507 The mayor is centered in.
508 His proposal.
509 But I.
510 Have to say that there are.
511 Still some.
512 Line items.
513 In there.
514 Where the.
515 City is being.
516 Penny smart.
517 Pound foolish by harming city workers that perform essential work in a way that's going to cost the city.
518 More money than it saves.
519 One example of that is cuts to the park technicians and utility workers.
520 Who maintain our parks.
521 As has been expressed earlier, these people keep feces and hypodermic needles out of our playgrounds. I view that as a fairly essential service. We're also looking at more than 20 cuts to sewer cleaning and repair in PBOT, where that's funded by beis, which is currently created. New supervisor positions that would be generously described as unnecessary. This is. This is all funding that can be achieved with some pretty reasonable adjustments on revenue and other reductions. So please reach out to your workers. Reach out to your unions to try and correct these things that I see as just mistakes in what is a strong moral document.
522 Thank you. All right. Ahead.
523 Ready?
524 Hi. Good afternoon.
525 Mayor wilson. Good afternoon. Councilors.
526 My name.
527 Is stephanie lamonica. I'm from district two.
528 I've been a portlander.
529 Since 1993.
530 And the.
531 Last five.
532 Years I.
533 Have.
534 Helped steward a 75 acre. Public Green.
535 Space as.
536 Vice chair of.
537 Friends of.
538 Pier.
539 Park in.
540 Saint john's, north Portland.
541 And I'm also a participant.
542 In the.
543 Citywide coalition of.
544 Portland parks alliance.
545 I understand.
546 The.
547 Difficult choices that. Have gone into balancing this year's budget, and commend you on what has been left intact. However, I'm very concerned.
548 About the.
549 Proposed budget that.
550 Significantly reduces maintenance.
551 Across our parks system. When we underfund parks maintenance, we undermine the very foundation of Portland.
552 Parks and recs core.
553 Mission of providing welcoming spaces with programs and services that strengthen and improve. Community and environmental. Health. Without adequate. Maintenance and upkeep, we cannot have those clean, safe, welcoming, accessible spaces. Garbage will build up, trails will erode, restrooms will close, and natural areas will become overgrown and hazardous, and people will just stop coming. Families, children, they just won't feel safe. And especially those who don't have access to their own private Green spaces won't have a place to go without maintenance and services. And the employees who. Perform those services for park programing, no matter how the programing in the parks, no matter what we have, the risk will become that the facilities will become inaccessible and unsafe and people will. It won't matter that we have the programing if we don't have the park maintenance. This makes underfunding, maintenance and equity issue a safety issue, a public health issue, a livability issue and an environmental issue. And deferred maintenance leads to even more costly repairs later on. So I urge you to reconsider these cuts and keep sustainable funding on the top of your mind. And together, let's keep Portland a national model for equity focused, climate smart community first parks and rec. We all depend on it. Thank you.
554 Good afternoon.
555 Or good evening.
556 My name is aubry chen. I use.
557 She her pronouns.
558 And I'm an lgbtqia to.
559 Plus policy analyst.
560 At the office.
561 Of equity.
562 And.
563 Human rights. About three. Months ago, I received a.
564 Voicemail from a constituent, something.
565 That.
566 I'm sure.
567 That you've.
568 All experienced.
569 Someone very. Passionate called, and.
570 They were talking.
571 About how.
572 They.
573 Wanted to know what.
574 The city was.
575 Doing to support.
576 Lgbtq folks.
577 In. The wake of these.
578 Federal attacks.
579 On the transgender community.
580 They were scared. They were angry, and they wanted to know what we were doing.
581 So I called them.
582 Back.
583 And I think they.
584 Were surprised.
585 And I shared what our small.
586 Two person team was doing. I talked about.
587 How we were.
588 Drafting transgender sanctuary.
589 City language, and how we were working.
590 On.
591 How we could be the best in the country in terms of protecting our communities. I talked about our work at the state level, and how I was so excited for the first time that we could support something like the right to read bill, which would help make sure that LGBTQ stories would stay in schools and libraries. I got really wonky and nerdy, and I started talking about title 14, a 0.50.110 misconduct.
592 In a.
593 Public restroom, which still has outdated language regarding bathroom usage that can be used to harm the trans community that I would love to see fixed. And then I started talking about my public service, about the fact that I was proud to be a trans woman here, and I was proud about our city's dedication and investment in defending our basic human rights and the city budget. I'm just a limited duration analyst, one I exist in the space between a one and a zero and a line item, and I want to say this, I think as a cpdp member, we deserve a fair contract. But more importantly, I want to make sure we have a city budget that supports the basics for all portlanders, especially our most vulnerable ones. So thank you.
594 Thank you for being here tonight.
595 Next up we have jackie yearby ac Smith.
596 Council president pirtle-guiney council vice president Koyama Lane. Members of the Portland city council, mayor wilson and fellow portlanders. My name is jackie yearby. I'm feeling a little emotional about the last testimony. Safety needs to encompass.
597 All of us.
598 I use.
599 She her pronouns.
600 I live in district two, and I'm on the board of Portland for all, and I'm part of the core team for friends of Portland street response. Mayor wilson, I want to begin by thanking you for recognizing the important role that Portland street response plays as a first responder for people housed and unhoused experiencing a behavioral health crisis. As governor brown's behavioral health policy advisor, I know how critical it is to have this kind of unarmed response by professionals trained in building trust with vulnerable people and in de-escalating behavioral health crises. Thank you for funding 14 additional positions within Portland street response and ensuring that psr has the budget and resources that it needs to be effective. The 12,000 people who signed our petition to save Portland street response want to ensure that there is a plan and ongoing funding to staff up to 24 over seven. We also need to ensure funding for independent evaluation and culturally specific community education, so that all portlanders understand what psr is and how to access it. We look forward to council taking up the Portland street response resolution at a future council meeting to ensure that psr's role in the first responder ecosystem is clear going forward. I have one more paragraph. Mayor wilson, you have said that a budget is a statement of our values, that it's about restoring community health and safety. Please recognize that safety is about so much more than the number of police officers. Please recognize that well-maintained streets, including street cleaning, contribute to people's sense of community health and safety. Please recognize that well-maintained parks where people can gather and access restorative benefits when more sentence of nature are also important elements of community health and safety. We are safer when we are connected to each other. Thank you.
601 Hello.
602 My name is a.c. Smith and I'm.
603 Testifying today.
604 As.
605 A member of critical resistance.
606 Portland, a.
607 Resident of.
608 East Portland.
609 Someone who works.
610 In downtown. And a woman of color who is called Portland home for over a decade now. I am deeply disappointed to.
611 See that.
612 Mayor wilson's proposed budget increases the Portland police bureau share of general fund dollars to $12 million.
613 Creating a.
614 Total policing budget. Of 318 million.
615 The largest.
616 I've seen.
617 In my ten over ten years here in Portland. And although I'm disappointed, I can't quite say I'm surprised, given some of the extremely troublesome and emotionally manipulative talking points mayor wilson shared during his state of the city address last week. Primarily the idea that black portlanders are dying or experiencing violence at increased rates due to the abolition of the gun violence reduction team in 2020. Attempts to launder the targeted policing of black, brown and low income portlanders through public safety programs like cease fire have not gone unnoticed, and research has shown time and time again that policing does not prevent harm or violence from occurring. In fact, police often target vulnerable communities for harm when they're already struggling and in need of assistance. What is needed is systemic change to decrease poverty and social inequality and increase access to health care, housing and education. That is what makes Portland safe and livable. With this, with these facts in mind, I can't help but ask why I'm looking at a decision package that cuts over $6 million from the Portland housing bureau, while allocating 12 million to PPB. It's unconscionable and illogical, given your statements on your values informing the city of portland's budget. I urge council and the mayor to reduce the PPB budget, reject any increase in the number of officers, and invest in people, not police. Thank you.
618 Thank you.
619 Good morning. Joining us online is sophie sherlock, followed by rachel white and sid davis. Go ahead sophie.
620 Thank you.
621 Hi.
622 My name is sophie.
623 I'm currently in the 2024.
624 To 2025 fiscal year budget. Portland already spends a record breaking 295.06 million on the Portland police bureau, hereafter referred to as the PPB. And if I'm understanding councilor Kanal question correctly, the mayor is proposing 318 million for the PPB for the coming fiscal year, an increase of about $23 million. Not just, quote, sprinkling a few extra dollars in. As councilor Clark put it, while this budget cuts, funding cuts funding to things that actually help people, given that I just heard the proposed 318 million figure today, I hope you'll forgive me for using the current fiscal year's budget from my calculations, which only makes them more salient. 295.06 million divided by $2,545. The amount per bedroom built with housing bond money approved by voters in Portland, rounds down to 115,937. Even subtracting the 15.4 million we spent this fiscal year on the police retirement system payments 200 279.66 million divided by $2,545, rounds down to 109. Sorry, 109,886. The city of Portland could build 109,886 bedrooms. With the money it is spending on active policing this fiscal year alone, even using central city concerns figure of 30,000 people affected by homelessness in the city of Portland every year, the highest number I could find. This is clearly ample money to end the city of portland's homelessness crisis with a housing first approach. This leaves plenty of money to bolster the Portland street response and community health assessment, treat or chat with fleet expansion and staff for 24 over seven service, and for other services that actually help people. We can do better. Homelessness is a political choice, and we can stop making it with the city budget by defunding the police. I believe in a Portland based on care, not cops. Do you? Thank you.
625 Rachel.
626 Thank you.
627 For.
628 This opportunity to testify on the. Proposed budget. My name.
629 Is rachel.
630 White, and.
631 I am here on behalf of the nonprofit. Friends of mount tabor park.
632 As well.
633 As the Portland parks alliance for the past 25 years.
634 Friends of mount tabor has been mobilizing volunteers to sustain mount. Tabor park as a healthy, beautiful. Public space.
635 For all. We offer free outdoor education programs.
636 Pick up.
637 Litter and report problems. Remove invasive plants, and welcome visitors.
638 To mount tabor.
639 In 2024, our 900.
640 Volunteers spent nearly 7000.
641 Hours.
642 Providing these services.
643 This includes picking. Up over 400 bags of litter.
644 And hosting 61 invasive weed pulling. Events that.
645 Build community and connect students and other urban dwellers with nature.
646 Friends of.
647 Mount tabor park is.
648 Strongly opposed to.
649 Cuts to parks maintenance. We believe approaching parks as a. Luxury is imprudent and inequitable. Parks are the soul of our city. They nurture all members of our community. They are one of the major factors affecting our city's livability and represent a vital component of the city's public health infrastructure, especially for those who otherwise have limited access to Green.
650 Spaces and nature.
651 Our parks maintenance budget is already stretched far too thin. Any further. Cuts will be detrimental to portland's quality of life and will quickly become highly visible. We ask our city leaders to think long term. Neglecting maintenance now will only incur much larger costs social, ecological and financial. Down the road, we recognize that the city is in a budget crisis.
652 But we are.
653 Concerned that the decades long failure to keep up with parks maintenance is unsustainable. We will continue our work in service to the park and our community, and we stand ready to do more if we are supported to do so. Thank you.
654 Said hi. Thank you, said davis. I'm. I live in district one and I just want to say thank you to all the councilors and the mayor for working together to put this to this budget together. I have done some volunteer work with several homeless organizations, and as I've gotten to know the workers, I've brought up the issue of police and what they thought of whether or not it should be funded. And it was pretty universal across the board. They would say, we can't do what we're doing if the police aren't there. They were also very positive towards street response. So I just wanted to come on and share that the people I know who are doing the work are very much in favor of how this budget has been put together. Thank you.
655 Thank you very much.
656 Next up we have Jamie and isaiah young and georgina moran.
657 Go right.
658 Hello I'm isaiah.
659 Hello all.
660 You all know that. We got this. Budget for. The parks. You're gonna be paying. You're going to be paying more money in the future right.
661 I.
662 I work with black.
663 Disenfranchized youth have been for.
664 A while. And most of them are on the east side. They don't get much.
665 Time outside and.
666 Green and.
667 Blue.
668 Spaces. And so it affects their mental. Health quite a lot. They deal with depression.
669 Their schooling.
670 Already isn't.
671 That great because they're not as funded, not.
672 Funded as well.
673 And so they get.
674 They get kind.
675 Of stuck.
676 They lose passion.
677 They don't get. Great jobs as a result.
678 And it.
679 It makes crime worse.
680 And that's.
681 Something that as.
682 A social worker, I deal with.
683 And I help.
684 Prevent it.
685 But the more.
686 Cops we have and the less money that goes to parks.
687 And recreation.
688 Which is a third space, as we all know, not many of those at all. We're going to be seeing more of it. So not so we can talk about deferred maintenance that comes out of, you know, little issues with, you.
689 Know, bathrooms.
690 But we can also talk about deferred maintenance where we. Have this crime and we're dealing with it with cops when we can attack it at its core. But also, I'm not saying much that hasn't already been said. So what I can say is, a very wise man once said, if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change. Y'all know that one. So just think about that when you're making this decision. Looking look at this. Look at this little mirror here. Right. Look at you. You're in the mirror. You're the man in the mirror. So you can make that change. All right. Thank you.
691 Thank you.
692 Jamie. Anya. Georgiana moran. Zephyr w e. Anna miller. Hakim collier.
693 Go right ahead.
694 My name is anna miller. I currently reside in downtown Portland. I'm a social work student at Portland state university, and I'm a skills trainer at a youth focused residential mental health facility. Unlike so many of the talented speakers today, I'm not here on behalf of grown ups, nor am I here to shove numbers in your face. I'm here on behalf of children and their experiences as we await the destruction of the oppressive systems that harm marginalized and powerful individuals alike, we must survive and thus we must cope. Humans are incredible and resilient if they are given the chance to be so. But unfortunately, our systems do not offer the majority of people that privilege. My work is to empower children with the knowledge and skills to autonomously mitigate harm. I don't tell the kids that things are good because they're often not, and I don't tell the kids that the world they live in will get better or change, because for them, it's possible it won't. Despite all of this, children utilize the parks and recreation department's programs, resources, and locations to persevere. I cannot demand or force you to invest in these youth in the present. It's not in my power. If you choose to invest the same amount of money into policing their behavior later in life, so be it. But I choose to believe that humans deserve care and that rehabilitation is more worth our efforts and our resources than policing them and hurting them more. Thank you.
695 Go ahead.
696 Go right ahead.
697 Greetings.
698 Madam president. City councilors, honorable mayor. My name is hakeem collier. I'm the civil rights and ADA compliance coordinator at Portland permitting and development. A proud cp w union member and a graduate of jefferson high school, class of 1985. But today, I speak to you as a community advocate. I'm deeply concerned about proposed budget cuts at pmd, especially eliminating vital civil rights, ADA compliance, and language access roles. My position directly supports portlanders like elizabeth, a grandmother who sought our assistance navigating zoning rules about her daughter's fence height in district two. A necessary accommodation to protect her grandchild with disabilities. Our coordination was crucial in helping resolve her violation situation, ensuring ADA compliance for pmd under title two, the provisions for public services. Similarly, district one erika has recently reported a discrimination complaint against the city as she seeks our assistance securing accessible entryways to her home. We also help residents like thomas, whose disability necessitates reliable TriMet lift access, something affected by unresolved neighborhood nuisance issues. Small business owners and community members also depend on us to ensure city process permitting process remain transparent, equitable and compliant with civil rights and ADA laws in collaboration with the community engagement liaisons sells apano latino network. Other community advocates. We further enhance critical language accessibility across portland's permitting system. These cuts aren't just about numbers. They represent a retreat from our city's commitments to equity, accessibility and inclusion, eliminating dedicated civil rights and ADA resources risks regulatory noncompliance, diminished public trust, and harms portland's most vulnerable residents. Thank you.
699 Thanks for being here.
700 Zephyr is online.
701 Hello.
702 My name is zephyr w e they them. I am.
703 A resident of district.
704 Three, a wellness.
705 Access specialist with transition projects and.
706 A steward of acm.
707 Local 88.
708 Portland needs.
709 Funding for social.
710 Supportive services.
711 Public defenders.
712 Supported by case management.
713 Services. Infrastructure upgrades.
714 City parks and.
715 Investments in.
716 Portland families and eviction defense.
717 So all residents can.
718 Retain their homes and we can house.
719 Those who are.
720 Currently on the streets. This is only.
721 Possible with.
722 Funding that is being allocated.
723 For.
724 Policing communities that would be better served with comprehensive support.
725 Services.
726 Park workers.
727 Mental health workers. Community health workers. Case managers.
728 Should.
729 Not fear for.
730 Their jobs, quote.
731 Unquote, public safety.
732 Officers who constantly cause.
733 Harm.
734 To this community should.
735 Today alone, the city council approved. Nearly half $1 million.
736 In settlements in.
737 Response to abuse.
738 Harm and racist actions taken by the Portland police bureau.
739 Pbb needs to.
740 Be held. Responsible for these actions, not only socially, but financially. As all these settlements currently.
741 And. Moving forward.
742 Come out of the general fund and not the police budget.
743 A police.
744 Budget increase.
745 And.
746 Continuing to. Preemptively allocate general fund dollars.
747 For future litigation.
748 Is irresponsible.
749 Without addressing.
750 The social impacts.
751 Of ppb's, abuse.
752 Of power and targeting of unhoused.
753 And.
754 Historically and currently marginalized communities. Instead of criminalizing vulnerable populations, we need to.
755 Continue supporting.
756 And. Building community.
757 For those with.
758 Barriers to access.
759 Not furthering. Penal and carceral.
760 Systems that divide families.
761 And.
762 Pose the ultimate barrier to forming community.
763 Thank you.
764 Christopher willis.
765 Go right ahead.
766 Thank you council.
767 Thank you.
768 Mayor.
769 I'd like to start.
770 Off by saying happy. Mental health for our military service.
771 Something that's.
772 Not brought.
773 Up very often. I don't think anyone's ever. Mentioned veterans recently.
774 I like.
775 To also.
776 State that veterans make up 3.6%.
777 Of our.
778 Population in Multnomah county, while other. Excuse me a little bit, it hurts a lot. I almost walked away because I just I have a hard time speaking at these things, but I would.
779 Like to ask that.
780 Perhaps the city council thinks about budgeting a little bit more for veterans themselves. I've heard a lot about putting a biopic communities. I've heard a lot about lgbt communities, and they make 38 point something percent of our community here. While veterans who have fought and died only make up 3.5% of this community, and not one person here has mentioned veterans, people who have died for such things. They're veterans right now that are dying in shelters, dying alone in a shelter. You know how horrible that is. That hurts. In the past decade, in my experience as being an advocate for veterans, I have seen veterans die in shelters, and it hurts. And the saying is suffer in silence. I don't think we need to suffer anymore. I am here to ask and beg and plead. The city council thinks at least thinks, about the 3.5% of this county that is sacrificed. Everything. We don't have a voice. We don't have funding. We don't have a month. We just have veterans day and memorial day. Thank you council.
781 Thank you.
782 Thank you for being here. Councilors. It is 632. We were scheduled until 630 and I know a few folks have hard outs now or in the next couple of minutes. We do still have some folks signed up to testify, and what we can do is it sounds like, I believe, a dozen or so. I believe we have at least one person per district who is able to stay for a little bit longer. So what we can do is offer to folks who are here to testify that you could meet with councilors from your district to make sure that your representative councilors still hear your concerns and ensure that our colleagues who need to step out can do so. I'm sorry, I believe it's 10 or 12 who are left.
783 With nine.
784 With nine left. Okay, I'm hearing that, folks. It sounds like we can keep a quorum for nine more. Are you okay with that? Keelan. Okay, let's do it then.
785 Next up we have marielle eaton online, followed by jacob and madeline feig.
786 Hello, my name is marielle eaton. Can you hear me?
787 Yes. Go ahead.
788 Great. I am in district four. Cops don't do much at all in healthy cities and societies where basic needs are being sufficiently met. I've been in Portland for 20 years. It's a city that's been widely considered a bastion of progressivism. That is an illusion. In my opinion. True progressivism would bring people affordable housing, access to wellness resources, and healthy social safety nets that would improve the quality of life in Portland. In order to lift the masses out of houselessness and would ensure that those with housing aren't priced out entirely from the city. True progressivism would put the bulk of our funding into upstream preventative solutions, placing even more money into our police's city budget is an absolute insult. In light of the massive budget shortfall, this is the fourth time I've done a testimony like this. We have watched our police become far more militarized in the last decade, as their budget has become more bloated. Cops do not deescalate. They escalate. How logical is it to say, giving more money to an already militarized police force focused exclusively on force and order will solve our city's problems? Perhaps instead, for once, we should finally change course and listen to the myriad experts that say that the problems we're dealing with would best be solved with preventative, upstream solutions. People have talked about residents leaving and about businesses closing. That's the wealth gap increasing. We are getting priced out. If you increase the police budget, what you're actually doing is robbing necessary funds from those who can actually bring needed solutions. I've worked in enough organizations to know the true change makers are continually starved for necessary resources. I've worked primarily in shelters and in interpersonal violence survivor advocacy, and I've seen what happens when the month's funds dry up during just the second week of the month.
789 Please do budget.
790 Thank you.
791 Jacob.
792 Hello.
793 City council. Mayor wilson. My name is jacob. Happiness I.
794 See in pronouns.
795 I'm one of the members.
796 Of.
797 Sunrise pdx. I'm here talking on behalf of.
798 The youth led.
799 Climate justice movement here in Portland.
800 We had our.
801 Meeting last.
802 Night where we looked at the. Budget and kind of deliberated.
803 And we were mostly.
804 Confused at.
805 Seeing a police budget increase for the city. When we're.
806 Seeing huge slashes in our. Housing and parks bureaus.
807 We see so.
808 Many problems.
809 Housing crisis, a budget.
810 Crisis, a climate crisis. But at no point.
811 Do we see an.
812 Expanded police force as a solution to those problems.
813 Cops do not keep.
814 Us safe fighting poverty.
815 Through rental.
816 Assistance. Fighting poverty through affordable housing, through affordable grocery groceries, through.
817 Healthcare for all after school.
818 Programs, child care, well-paying jobs. All those things are what keeps us, keep us safe. Our city is paying millions.
819 In police.
820 Overtime and have millions more available for openings in the police bureau that they cannot and have failed to fill. There are over $300 million budget, does not need to hoard any more city wealth that will not be used in the next year. While our youngest generation struggled to afford rent or planned for a future free from climate disasters, we do not need more money going to our cops. Let's take that funding for police overtime and have it actually serve our community. Sunrise wants to see the city budget fund more rental assistance, complete hours for community centers, park maintenance, affordable housing development, 24 over seven Portland street response, renters, legal defense fund, after school programs. The list goes on and on. Climate resilience projects that fight the existential climate crisis, and just so much more. At the very least, we at sunrise pdx believe that our money in this budget should not be going towards cops. That money that's currently being proposed should be redirected towards our parks and housing bureaus. Thank you so much.
821 Thank you.
822 Madeline bag. Jessie dreyer joining us online.
823 Good evening council.
824 Thanks for extending.
825 My name is jessie dreyer. I'm a resident of district three in the Montavilla neighborhood, and a proud member and the electoral. Co-chair of Portland. Democratic socialists of America. Our city's budget crisis is reflective of the crisis in the broader capitalist order. In these moment, in these moments, the establishment only ever has one idea austerity. Cutting public services is an age old failure because it creates a negative feedback spiral. I commend councilor. Green's amendment to increase rates at publicly owned golf courses, as a way to raise an estimated $6 million. I haven't heard many other measures to increase revenue rather than establish cuts. One force remains unaffected by the austerity mindset currently endemic in much of the council. The Portland police bureau is given $12 million in budget increases, while the council squabbles to the dollar over whose neighborhood will go without community centers or road improvements for safer streets, big business and the wealthy went all in to block. Big business, in the wealthy went all in to block our new voting system, and the left wing candidates who swept the last election. Incumbency is over. How can anyone who supports austerity, instead of taxing the rich, expect to return to the dais after the next election? There is no base that supports these cuts. Working class families want to live in a city where their needs are top priority, not shortsighted demands of police or the business lobby. Thank you.
826 Thank you.
827 Next up is albert kaufman. Jeanette decastro. Adriana a jeanette is joining us online. Go ahead. Jeanette.
828 Thank you. Good evening, mayor.
829 And council.
830 My name is.
831 Jeanette decastro.
832 My pronouns.
833 Are.
834 She and they. I'm here.
835 As an individual this evening.
836 I'm a union steward with. Protech 17. Protect 17.
837 Has workers.
838 Throughout the city.
839 I've been in PBOT. Employee since 2017. Including in permitting, construction, inspection and capital project contract support. I've had the true gift.
840 Of working.
841 With many hard working city of Portland employees.
842 I'm incredibly.
843 Happy and thank you to see the proposal for 14 more Portland street response positions. My union siblings and psr are doing incredible work, and I'm thrilled and grateful for the support. I am also intensely disappointed that the proposed budget assumes that the transportation package will pass the state legislature. We won't know that until late June. So after a couple of years of imminent layoffs, we now will wait and we will watch to find out if the city of Portland will need to continue to gut its transportation budget. I consider myself a member of the Portland community, even though I live in Clackamas county. I will invite us to recognize how connected we all are in the region. Like mayor wilson, I grew up in north Portland. Please, all of you continue to find resilient funding, stable funding for our transportation, water, infrastructure, parks permitting, high grossing businesses rely on all of these public goods just as much as individual portlanders. And to conclude, I echo the message to settle the cpp contract, and I thank you all for keeping Portland a union town.
844 Albert kaufman adriana a. Joel thorsen. Andrea haverkamp. That completes testimony.
845 Okay, I'm glad we stayed. Thank you to everybody who came to share your supports, concerns, thoughts about the budget proposal with us tonight. This is an important step as we move into our own deliberations over the next few weeks about what budget council will support. I appreciate everybody who was with us, folks who are there online. Please know that you can also, of course, reach out to your councilors. If you weren't able to make it onto the sign up list tonight. Councilors. With that, I will close tonight's budget committee hearing. We will be back here for a council meeting, followed by a meeting of the council as the prosper budget committee tomorrow at 2:00.