The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-02-24
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (10,247 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council Finance Committee met on February 24, 2025, with roll call confirming attendance before proceeding through three agenda items. The first item covered an overview of opioid settlement funds, including background on how the city receives and appropriates grant funds, the number of settlement agreements, and discussion of variability in payment timing and amounts, with staff agreeing to compile further detail in an upcoming report. The second item addressed proposed mid-year budget adjustment actions for fiscal year 2024-25, including discussion of technical adjustments, program carryover, policy set-aside allocations, and a proposed timeline for a "spring bump" process, which the committee acknowledged without a formal vote. The third item concerned adoption of a budget calendar for fiscal year 2025-26, including discussion of policy committee work sessions, additional budget work session dates, adjustments to meeting start times, and coordination with an associated ordinance needed to modify council meeting times. Multiple amendments were proposed and discussed regarding specific dates and scheduling conflicts, including references to district-based community listening sessions with tentative dates mentioned. Votes occurred on amendments and the resolution as amended, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting adjourned after closing remarks.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
0 Hey. Good afternoon. It's February 24th, 2025. And the meeting of the finance committee. Keelan, can you take the roll, please?
1 Avalos.
2 Present.
3 Pirtle-guiney here. Novick here.
4 Green. Here. Zimmermann.
5 Here. Finance committee in session. Chris, can you please read the statement of conduct?
6 Welcome to the meeting of the finance committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at. Portland. Gov. Council agenda. Finance committee or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee 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, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifier should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
7 Thank you. So today, colleagues, we're going to have three different presentations with two presentations three items. First will be on the opioid settlement funds. Second, about some mid-year adjustments. And then as we discussed last meeting adopting or excuse me, recommending a budget calendar to our whole council. If I could invite the city staff up who will be on opioid funds. But as we go through this, I just before I have the clerk read the notice, I just have folks as a sense of way making if you will way finding is that. How we approach new funds that come into the city is a question that this council and this committee will, will need to figure out what is the best way for us to hear it and then send it to our colleagues. What is the best way for the executive branch to realize funds and then execute funds? And recognizing we're in the first eight weeks of a new system and understanding those roles, we've got a little bit of, of, I think, sense making to do for our entire council. And so I hope that our mind will kind of stay to that as as jonas and his team present today. So, clerk, if you could, with the first item.
8 Item one opioid settlement funds overview.
9 Great. Thank you, chair and committee, for the record. Jonas berry, the city's deputy city administrator of public budget and finance and chief financial officer. And I'll just acknowledge we have a very short presentation, just kind of a few talking points, and we have staff in the room to open up for questions as much as possible. I know this was a topic of discussion at council last week as well, so we'll try to connect some tissue there. Just to start with some sort of basic kind of background and facts. So we're all working from the same information and compliance with state budget law and city charter. City council appropriates spending of grants funds as part of each year's annual adopted budget or in a mid-year supplemental budget action or grants related ordinance. Appropriations are also compliant with any specific terms or requirements of those grants. Under article four of the city charter, the mayor has authority to sign grant agreements and contracts, or can delegate such authority within the appropriation limits for the purposes as approved by city council. All of the city's grants undergo an annual external independent audit, alongside and as part of the city's annual comprehensive financial report. The city's received a clean grants audit for at least the past five years, including the most recently completed fiscal year 2324. The city has settlement agreements with eight entities to provide opioid dollars over many future years through fiscal 3839, though the actual amounts and timing of that receipt is not predictable. Since 20 fiscal year 20 2223, the city has received 8.3 million in total opioid funds. The total allocated and proposed amount through fiscal year 2425 is approximately 6.8 million, which has been contributed to programs that support opioid recovery and community impacts. Programs such as Portland street response, community health assess and treat program or chat fentanyl emergency short term housing, Burnside recovery center and the fiscal year 2425 proposed by be lakes program, along with other programs, which means 1.5 million in opioid funds are expected for appropriation in a future budget action. The mayor has previously suggested that a portion of these funds could be targeted towards supporting operations at bybee lakes for an additional year, subject to future council approval. Future opioid settlement amounts amounts, I.e, amounts above the 8.3 million received so far, will be presented to city council for future appropriation. Lastly, in response to the resolution passed by city council on Wednesday, February 19th, the city administrator is working with the grants management division to prepare a report further detailing grants, appropriations and expenditures. And we expect to be able to provide that report in advance of the April 21st deadline identified in that resolution, and we'd be happy to open up to any questions.
10 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
11 Dea, when you said that future amounts will come to council that we haven't received yet. Will those come to council? When you are looking you on behalf of the executive of the city, when you are looking to have them allocated like the 1.5 million that are waiting for allocation, or will we receive notice that those funds have come in and are available for allocation before we get an ask for allocation?
12 That is a good question. In the current process. Let's say prior to today process. Typically those would come in and they wouldn't necessarily be highlighted as coming in until there's a budget request moment. And in the past. And we're going to talk about a budget adjustment process here on another agenda item. In the pas, there were sort of less frequent opportunities to have those budget discussions under the new alignment. Not only are there potentially more frequent opportunities, for example, monthly, to have a potential budget adjustment ordinance if we choose that path, but also committees like this and other conversations to highlight receipt of those funds prior to something coming forward as a budget, a formal budget action.
13 Chair, I'd like to request, as we think about over the.
14 Interim, what the budget process looks like moving forward in a year round cycle, that we get notification of any funds coming in, as well as requests from the executive branch to use those so that as councilors are thinking about the work that we are doing in the policy asks which with budget implications that we might have, that we have those funds in mind.
15 Great.
16 Other questions from the committee. Mr. Berry, in terms of how we approach ongoing versus one time funds. I'm familiar with both. But a fund that seems to be one time every year for almost 20 years is inaction. It seems kind of like an ongoing fund. So going up until budget year 3839, can you help me understand why we don't consider it ongoing until, let's say, the 36 year?
17 Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, typically grants are not very few. Grants have an ongoing component. They're typically one time each year. And then there's a reapplication process. So typically grants would not be categorized as ongoing. There may be some that uniquely have multi-year elements. So that's just one information point. The other thing I would flag is that because we don't have really any lens on the dollar amounts or timing that would be coming in, it would be really difficult to say, well, we got 1.5 million coming in this year. Let's assume we have 1.5 million coming in every year and contribute that to an ongoing cost, when in fact it could be widely variable year over year. It is, to your point, chair, not optimal to have these sort of ongoing one time decisions. But that is fundamentally the reason why that occurs. Thank you.
18 Help me. Maybe I missed this and I'm sorry if I was writing notes. So the variable amount each year. Can you talk about that. Why that is the case versus.
19 Yes. Staff up to help address that. Thank you.
20 Thanks.
21 Hi, sheila craig grant manager. We have projected out what we think the amounts are going to be every year. But the organizations have the option of paying ahead. So for example, distributors I think we receive three payments in one year from them. So it's really hard for us to identify like will they pay up front and pay all in the first five years. And those funds also like some of the larger companies, organizations, their settlements are larger. So as we get toward the end of 2039, is that what I said? It's reduced significantly. So those larger payments are coming in over the next, you know, probably five years, and then we're projecting out. But we just have no way of knowing when they're going to come in or how much they're going to be. We have an idea, but nothing concrete.
22 Okay. Thank you. Jonas, I'm curious if you have. Actually, I'm sorry. I've seen some of my colleagues have jumped in. I'm going to go to councilor Green, please.
23 Thank you. Chair. Just on this idea of the variable. Variable and lagged nature of these grant payments. So you said you have an idea is do you have any sense of in your modeling and your in your sort of forecasting. Can you can you put ranges around either volumes or time horizons on which you would expect to see the grants? I mean, because I know, you know, we want to be careful on designing ongoing, you know, obligations around this sort of lumpy grant payment. But we surely could could come up with a sort of like up or down high low type of concept. And then we would just, you know, adjust it in our accounting if we get that early.
24 And we do have that and we have a spreadsheet where we have it going out to 2039 and what we anticipate the payments are going to be through 2039 by company, by settlement agreement.
25 Okay. That's great. So I hope that would then flow into this broader discussion that we're having around transparency.
26 And I can include that in the report that we're working on.
27 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
28 Do we have do we know what total.
29 Amount we will be getting in from each company, from each payer, so that we know we have 8.3 million out of x already? Or is what you have a rough sense of what we might be getting from whom, when, but not a clear sense of what the total amount is that we could expect to budget from.
30 We have a rough sense by organization business, and the spreadsheet shows that it shows the settlement agreement and it shows going out by year what we anticipate we're going to receive by year.
31 But do we know the total amount?
32 And we have what we think those amounts are going to be the projected amount by business by settlement agreement.
33 But they are just projections. We could be off, as we're thinking, if we were to think about this as a big bucket, and if we were to say, there's going to be this much money over this many years, how much of it could we use for perhaps, maybe not ongoing, but multiyear programs because we know it will come in. How much do we need for one time programs? We don't actually know what the total amount is.
34 Let me agree to research that and include that in the report.
35 Thank you.
36 Any other questions from the committee at all? I know both of our topics are kind of blending together today, a little bit based on last week's actions. Okay. Thanks. I think we have some kind of lumping in how do we want to approach the opioid funds for the coming decade and a half. Half that, not just the five of us, but I know that each of us have probably gotten some questions from some colleagues about the best way to realize these, ensure that they're used in alignment with their intended use, and getting some sense of predictability around it that we're all just getting oriented to. So thank you. And I certainly think the piece that councilor Green and sheila, that you talked about, including it in the other report upcoming. So thank you. Clerk. We can move to the next item then.
37 Item two fy 20 2425 mid-year budget adjustment actions.
38 Good afternoon. For the record, my name is ruth levine. I'm the budget director. I'm going to introduce yourself.
39 I'm anthony loch, budget analyst and supplemental budget coordinator.
40 Thank you.
41 So I'm going to. Sorry. I should have done this before. Try to join the meeting so I can share my screen. Apologies. I thought this would be. Why is this? Sorry.
42 Oh. Yeah. Okay.
43 Kind of like doing math in public. It's awful.
44 It's really awkward. Sorry.
45 Technology presentation in public is always rough. So we're okay. You just take your time. No worries. I'm there. I'm just filling the space.
46 Okay. All right. Great. That was easy. So we are giving you a very short presentation just to provide a little bit of context and background about what the city has, how the city has done supplemental budgeting in the past, and then a proposal for you to consider about this spring. And then we'll open it up for questions. So the city has historically, or at least in recent history, done three organized supplemental budgets. In the fall, we have done a supplemental budget that's been used to true up beginning fund balance based on year end actuals. In the spring, we have done a supplemental budget that is does a couple of things. It was the point to kind of project year end spending, particularly in the general fund. And then make necessary adjustments to bureau budgets to sort of true up budgets to actuals. And then we also did it for doing fiscal carryovers across fiscal years. So we can talk about this more. But essentially we would take the money out of the fiscal year we're in and then move it to the next fiscal year for things that were delayed or otherwise needed to cross fiscal years. And then the third is an overexpenditure ordinance, which is really narrowly focused just on ensuring that no fund ends the year out of balance, which it can't do, and doing any interfund loans or other things to avoid that. So that's the kind of high level. And we can talk about each of these more. This was the sort of calendar we've used in the past for doing what we called bumps. And so the fall would happen roughly in sort of September, October, time frame, spring, March, April time frame. And then at the very end of the fiscal year is the overexpenditure ordinance in June. So now we get to this fiscal year, and I can give you a little bit more context. And I know for those of you who have budgeted and other governments, you may have questions about why we do our supplemental budgets this way and that. Those are probably reasonable questions. I think for this fiscal year, what we've found, and anthony can speak more to this in working with bureaus, is that there is a need to do, at the very least, some technical adjustments just to be able to keep paying the bills, essentially. I think, you know, part of this is, is driven by the sort of level at which we budget. Not being able to do all of it, you know, administratively, not being able to make all those changes administratively. So that's kind of the first item on this list is the technical adjustments. It's, it's and we have a slide on what that means in a second. The second would be to appropriate general fund program carryover. We'll talk more about that. The third would be to allocate policy set aside. So in the fall this year the prior council allocated amounts to contingency, which we talked about earlier in January. But so there are amounts sitting in contingency that either are needed for this fiscal year to finish the year in balance or could be used to essentially, you know, buy down cuts in in next fiscal year or to solve the gap. And so it will be it would be helpful to have those figured out sooner rather than later, so that we know what that number is. And then we also do what's called like a general fund return. So actually figuring out what is the real number that we could take from general fund bureaus that aren't, isn't going to be spent before it shows up as ending fund balance. And then it would not allow for new general fund requests. So this slide is just a little bit more detail to provide some examples on each of those things. So the first one you know, sort of moving money between extra materials and services and personnel to prevent overexpenditure. The policy set aside account for example, there's a line item in there for costs of health benefits, which is a longer conversation about how we budgeted health benefits this fiscal year. But if there are bureaus where they are going to overspend, but because they're sort of health benefits are coming in above budget that would be used for that purpose or could be used for that purpose if council directs it to be the general fund program carryover. The sort of classic. There are a couple of versions of this, but, you know, one is there's a thing that actually happens across fiscal years, right. Like in our bureau we have the insight survey and it happens every other year. So we need to move money from one year to the next. Or you might have a project that was one time funded. That is not done because there was a procurement challenge or something. And so if council wants to shift that to next year, you can and we would just move the funding to do that. And then the last is the general fund return. So this is a proposed timeline for this. Don't. Hopefully we can discuss this. This is for discussion here. So this is just to kind of show you what it would look like. I think that the advantage of this slide is just to give you a sense of what has to happen in the background in order to bring something to council. The idea behind doing these is that we cbo collect all of the things that need to happen in one ordinance and, you know, so that we don't you don't have ten different things coming to you separately. And so in order to do that, we just need some time to kind of allow people into our budget system and enter those things. And then we kind of review them, make sure they're technically accurate, and then bring forward what, you know, what those requests are essentially. I'll stop there. I know that was a lot.
47 What questions go back one slide please. Excuse me. Two slides. There we go. So given that timeline would be relative to this slide in terms of what we're trying to achieve.
48 Correct. Yes. So we would be collecting sort of all of those first four bullets. And I think we can talk more about kind of what that looks like. This is an option. It doesn't you know we yeah. I'm just we're just sort of putting all of this on the table right now for discussion.
49 But great. Councilor Green.
50 Thank you chair. On this slide when it says not allow new general general fund requests is that speaking to the staff side the bureau side department side. Or is it intended as guidance to city council.
51 Yeah I mean I think it's it would be speaking to the staff side. I think what we have found in the past is that there there were times, especially during the pandemic, and folks can speak more to this when there were requests coming in the spring. It's nearly impossible to stand up any new thing in the last three months of the fiscal year, while people are also trying to pass a budget for next fiscal year. And so it ends up just getting pushed into the next fiscal year anyways. So I think it's prudent to kind of be realistic about that, regardless of who is thinking about doing it. But that was certainly the experience of it when we had bureaus kind of requesting money at the end of the fiscal year for a new thing. It's just like it happens the next fiscal year anyways, results in kind of confusion and extra work.
52 Other questions from the committee. Going back to the timeline slide, if we could. This is one of the unfortunate aspects of it. Right. This timeline is very much similar to the timeline we're going to look at in the next item, which is about passing our budget and just integrating and how they work together. So I'm trying to, in a very real sense, if we can get an idea for, okay, this spring, technical bump is allowing and it is at the same time, it is basically crafting so that we're starting from the right ledger for our budget process. Is that a fair way to categorize that?
53 Yeah. For the. Yes okay.
54 And noting that it would be it would be complete on this timeline about two weeks or give or take maybe three weeks before the mayor's executive budget is released.
55 That's right.
56 Okay. And so is this then a recommendation to this committee to send to the council for do we would we need to adopt this timeline or is this a timeline that you're just doing a check in if it works for us if you will?
57 Yes. I don't believe that we need to adopt a timeline for this year. For this, you may want to, in the future, adopt a sort of supplemental budget calendar resolution at some point, but given the short time frame here, I don't think there's no requirement, certainly, that you send it as a resolution. It would just be a heads up. And then what you would put the council items and this committee's items on your calendar officially in that way.
58 Great. I'm going to go to councilor. Pirtle-guiney, please.
59 I'm just thinking about what our action is and what this leads to. And is it helpful, ruth, for you, if what you hear today is. Yes, that works. And this committee will push for. Our chair and then the council president for full council meetings to make sure we stick to this timeline. Or is there another ask that you have for us?
60 I think if we have in this venue clear assent from you, essentially, that tells mike and the mayor, I think the next step would be mike will move forward and tell bureaus, okay, start working on this. This is happening on this timeline so that they're all aware, but just wanted to since it's ultimately council. Obviously that will be hearing it. Make sure that it fits with your timeline and not get bureaus working on something on a short time frame that then you all say, oh wait, no, let's do this some other way. So that's that's the hope here.
61 Thanks. And looking around, I'm not seeing no other comments. Colleagues, I think my recommendation here is that we have now heard this, that we not with a vote, but just a head nod of give, give. We've been informed and as a team, I would recommend that we go through this spring bump process with the technical process that exists for the city as it stands. And when we get into our next topic regarding the overall budget, calendar and budget work sessions, I would actually recommend this to the finance staff, as well as council president who will be presiding over the budget committee process. That how we tackle budget modifications in the future should be one of our topics for the budget season. And I say that as a person who has lived a long time under the individual basis bud mods and one who's lived under the city's use of lumping them together as as a bump, as we use the technical term, there's give and take to both of those, and I, I think it would be good for our whole council to hear some of those gives and takes, and that way our council will be informed and in our budget process, I think we can we can either give direction or set policy in how we want to do that. So that would be my recommendation. And unless there are any other questions, I see one more question for the staff. Councilor pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney please.
62 Just a comment actually related to this, as I'm hearing us talk about the broader budget calendar and the way that staff interact with that for adjustments. I'm also thinking about how counselors bring forward throughout the year, resolutions and ordinances that may have a fiscal impact, and I think it would be helpful at some point to have some members of this committee and some members of the governance committee sit down together to talk about what the process is for ordinances from counselors with the fiscal impact that come outside of the normal budget season. So just a note there as we talk about these related topics.
63 Yes, certainly. Agree, ruth. Anything else from your team?
64 No thank you.
65 Okay. Thank you. With that, I'll go to the next item. Sure. Oh, I'm sorry, counselor Green, please.
66 Sorry. Just to riff on that. So, council president, is your thinking, like, if we're introducing ordinances throughout the year, we would want the finance committee to inform the rest of the body who may be voting on those ordinances.
67 My thinking is merely that we should have a process for what happens if you or I or any of our colleagues introduced an ordinance with a fiscal impact in, let's say, September, which was not accounted for in that fiscal year's budget, and I think we could all come up today with proposals on what that process should be. But I think that some conversation between members of this committee and members of the governance committee is probably the best place to start the conversation on, on what we think as a body. That process should look like.
68 Sounds good.
69 Council member.
70 I agree with everything substantive that's been said here. I just wanted to warn my colleagues that I am going to propose that whenever we approve a spring or fall bump, we need to invoke van halen and use the phrase we might as well bump.
71 Up.
72 I'm not sure if I hope or am fearful if I know the meaning there, but okay. Thank you. Councilor Novick. Okay. Madam clerk, I think we'll move on to item three. And just for my colleagues, we are ahead of time. So if you've got discussion on this, this we've got plenty of time.
73 Adopt the budget calendar for fy 20 2526.
74 Thanks. So we've got the staff up here I, I just want to make a couple of. Just in terms of, of place setting here. So we are going to I'm asking the team based on what we heard two weeks ago and what we've heard last week in council, is that one of the actions that the city council has to take is adopting a budget calendar, and that to go through the finance committee is a recommendation from us to our colleagues. And with that, I actually I'm going to ask the staff to do any introductory remarks they have. And I will just note for the committee, I do have some amendments to this that I'm going to make. And because they've been a bit on the fly, I'm going to use that time to make sure I've got them in order. So it's more clear to everybody. But with that, jonas, please, any introductory remarks or moments you want to share?
75 Yeah. Great. Thank you. Chair, again, for the record, jonas berry, dca of budget and finance and city's chief financial officer. Just a couple of very brief introductory points and then really aim for this to be an open discussion. So the calendar that's in the resolution that was posted online is sort of our best attempt to align all of the critical dates, which sometimes are sort of legally and statutorily mandated to align those within the braiding, those within the context of other council priorities that are already kind of scheduled and on the radar and acknowledging the critical role of transparency, public engagement and listening sessions and potential work sessions. So this is our attempt to do that with some exceptions. There are a couple of dates on here that I think are pretty much hard mandated dates. There is some malleability in the way some of this gets aligned, so we're happy to walk through that. And then the other thing I'll just flag and happy to cover this is I know there was a request from the committee at our last meeting to come back with some specific dates around the district listening sessions, and so that still remains a little bit of a work in progress. I just actually about two minutes ago, before I walked up here, got an update on some potential dates. So happy to share that information now in detail, or can do that when we get to that point of the calendar. And I don't know, ruth, if you have any. Yeah.
76 Great colleagues within your packet. You've got exhibit a that shows all the calendars. You also have b which talks about a change, a couple of technical changes. With that though, I want to make an amendment. And this before I read the amendment, I just want to get at the some of the discussion that has happened regarding how will our policy committees weigh in on their various policy areas, and what I'm hoping is that this language will encapsulate some of the feedback that we heard last week, but also allow the council president and the finance staff to craft and be flexible enough to meet the needs of each of the policy areas. And so in that vein. How how we hear about various bureau budgets and, and, and topical areas and keep the city council when it's convened as the whole budget committee moving forward, is going to be a very big lift. We have a lot of a lot of work and not a lot of days to meet. On very detailed budgets moving forward. So I say that and I'll make an amendment to add at the bottom of our whereas clauses to add. Whereas the city council established policy committees and the ability of those committees to hold budget related work sessions is encouraged. Simple language. And actually I need to look to the clerk or my colleagues. I have other amendments that are related to this document. I need to understand if I'm making them as one full amendment, or if these are all individual.
77 Are any amendments related?
78 They are all related to the document. It's the whereas. And then I have some new dates to propose. I think they're all related enough to be a single amendment.
79 If it if it makes sense that you would have a single vote on those, then you could bring them as a package.
80 Okay, I'm going to bring them as a package and then I'll be open to discussion if that's a problem. Looking at exhibit a, these are all dates and these are additions. So additionally amended is that the date of may 14th from 2 to 5 p.m. Is a budget committee work session. May 15th from 2 to 5 p.m. Is a budget work session. May 21st, from 9 to 1 p.m, 9 a.m. To 1 p.m. Is a budget work session may 28th from 930 to 12 p.m. Is a budget work session and June 4th, from 2 p.m. To 5 p.m. Is a budget work session. Colleagues, I recognize that that's a lot of dates that those dates are intended to be the maximum grab for council time needed to deliberate over this. Our very first budget and our in coordination with the council president's office. Some of those supplant holds that we have on our calendar for regular scheduled council meetings. Others are in addition to or morning sessions or afternoon sessions. My intent here, after having done a number of municipal budgets and getting a feel for how our council likes to deliberate on items, is that we will need a more aggressive budget, work session calendar as a whole. And that's why I have put this many new dates on the calendar. I also think that these dates allow the council president and the budget staff maximum flexibility, so that they it is much easier to cancel an unneeded meeting than to call a necessary meeting. And so I think that flexibility will be well worth our time. And it allows our colleagues to schedule out far enough that we can get things on the on the agenda. And lastly, just editorially in this, not in the amendment, the way in which this document is printed up for its final use is looking at all of these as budget work, budget committee work sessions with then designated topics. Right. And I think the calendar can be a little bit weird to interpret for all of us for our first time, but I think that's an appropriate way to view our work, is that when we convene as the budget committee, we'll have certain topics we're hearing. But everything is so, so to speak open at that point. Is there any discussion at all? Councilor pirtle-guiney.
81 A technical question, and I'm not sure if the clerk can answer this or if we need one of our attorneys in the room. But if we are adding additional dates, do we need to make amendments to exhibit b, which is the ordinance that allows us to change our schedule? Or are these special meetings that we can add without having to change the ordinance?
82 If I heard right, these are all work sessions that are being proposed. So I don't believe that we'll need to amend the ordinance. I don't think there is a conflict with those proposed dates in the ordinance, and I don't believe we'll need to schedule a special meeting because these are work sessions.
83 Perfect. Thank you.
84 Councilor Green.
85 Thank you chair. Some also technical process questions, but also broader comments. So I did review this in advance. Well first of all just say I support your amendments. I didn't I wasn't able to write them all down, but I assume it's reasonable. I'll get that later. I think it's I think it's important and priority for us to be able to talk together as a full body. And there's no other way to do that other than to have these extra meetings. So I support it. I don't really understand, and maybe it's a lack of my it's just my own ignorance. But I don't understand why this drafted ordinance is part of this resolution. So if you could say a little bit about that exhibit. Yeah. The yeah, there's a non referenced exhibit in the draft ordinance.
86 Certainly. In fact I'm actually going to let our council president since it refers to council meetings address that.
87 Our code.
88 States when council meetings should be held. And a few of the things that are listed on exhibit a affect council meeting times, not just work sessions. And because they don't add just work sessions or special meetings, but they actually change. For example, on may 21st we have a 6 p.m. Council meeting. According to code, we have meetings once a month at 6 p.m, and we are changing that to 3 p.m. In order to have time to begin the budget work recess so folks can grab some dinner, come back, finish budget work, and also have time. If there are any other pressing issues that can't wait to address that day to adjust the start time of that meeting, we actually have to have what is essentially the equivalent of a saying, notwithstanding what's in code, we actually need to do this at a different time on this date. We have to have an ordinance to do that because of posting requirements, this ordinance wasn't drafted in time to post separately. So it's coming as an exhibit to the resolution. And if we choose to move it forward, it would then I believe and I'm going to look to the clerk for the technical pieces here, be passed as a resolution to become an ordinance somewhere between here and the council meeting. Is that correct? Keelan how are we dealing with the actual passage of the exhibit, or do we need to turn that into an ordinance today?
89 So what's going to happen? My understanding is that you'll vote today to refer this committee or this resolution to the full council. That action then will allow us to pull out that emergency ordinance and create a separate item that would get filed by the filing deadline, if that makes sense.
90 Thank you. I think I'm following it. So this is just a way to conform with our code. So that way we're following procedure so we can hear both the ordinance and the resolution before the full body.
91 Yes. And the ordinance turns into I would recommend an emergency ordinance so that these two things can travel together. If it's an ordinance without an emergency clause, it would need to come before two committee meetings. But we need this ordinance in order to actually implement the calendar in the resolution.
92 Great. That was helpful. Councilor Novick.
93 I just wanted to be sure. I think that my calendar is inaccurate, but I want to be sure you check to make sure that these dates didn't conflict with any committee meetings. I think that I've got extra committee meetings in my calendar and it shows some on the on may 15th. So I wanted to be sure that you've checked with the real committee schedule, and there's not a conflict. Or if there is, we figure out some way to deal with it.
94 We have not done a 100% scrub councilor, and what I would ask councilors who are who are chairs of those committees is that if there is a deep reason that perhaps a committee should happen instead of the whole budget committee, that that case be made to the council president. But this allows that time to be used for a budget committee, if it can be. But yes, that conflict does exist, and I am sure it exists, and I think that it should probably exist just given the season. But we wanted to highlight the maximum number of potential budget committee sessions in order to give flexibility. Depending on this animal we are about to wrangle here.
95 Got it?
96 I councilor Pirtle-guiney.
97 To councilor.
98 Novick's point. I believe on the 15th there's a committee that ends at two and no committee after that. And if you might change your amendment to have the meeting on the 15th begin at 230, we could fully avoid that conflict. Otherwise, we can ask that committee chair to either cancel or end her committee early.
99 I'm perfectly fine with the friendly adjustment to 230 on may 15th as a start time instead of two. As I read in the original record. Thank you for that suggestion. And then councilor Avalos. Questions? Comments?
100 Yeah, I'm just following.
101 This thread here about the way that it could conflict with committees, I guess. I guess I would just state I think it's I get that this is an important full council need and we have to add in more dates. I just also would flag that part of at least my goal in my committee in that time is to talk budget. So I guess I'm saying I would not prefer that a bunch of our committees have to get canceled, because we already have so few of those, and I'm scheduling time to talk budget in that time. So it's not it's going to be relevant, but I would just, I guess, advocate that we do we actually do go back and make sure that it's not in conflict. I'm not really in a place prepared to be canceling any kind of committee meetings right now. So.
102 Thank you, councilor. With that amendment, I would ask if there could be a second.
103 Second.
104 Any further discussion on those dates and that single whereas.
105 Chair sorry if I may, I just want to make one clarification on the may 14th date. There's currently in the attachment optional work session in the morning. Are you proposing an additional work session? Yeah, great. Thank you. I just want to clarify that. Thanks.
106 Yep. Thank you. That's exactly right. I will just for my own experience of sharing with colleagues, I found a lot of value in those work sessions where we've got it scheduled and we do a check in, and sometimes those check ins are very much needed and we use the whole time. And other times there's such a quick thing and we see budget staff go back. They finalize some stuff, they get things in order, and then that second session can be a good check in before the end of the day or the end of the week. And so that was the intent here. Thanks for bringing that up, councilor Green.
107 Thank you to councilor Avalos. Concerns raised about the scheduling. I do intend to support this amendment. And I think between today and when it's heard before the full body, we have time to kind of scrub our calendars and take a look at that and then offer further amendments at the dais in that council meeting.
108 Council's councilor Avalos.
109 Well, I guess to that last point that councilor Green is making, is there some kind of release valve? If we go back and see that something is in conflict, like, are we going to need to come back here and re approve or can it I don't know if what the flexibility of the ordinance is great.
110 That's a great question I appreciate it. So after after our action today, just to remind folks, our action will be to recommend from the finance committee, recommend adoption by the whole council. So this will come back to our whole body. And what I think is possible at that point is to councilor Green. And your point is that if, if any one of our 12 see a serious conflict or this is too many or not enough, that we can always make an amendment when we actually pass it? Right now this is just coming out of committee to the whole council, kind of utilizing our new process. Other discussion before we vote on the amendment. Okay. Clerk, can we do a vote on the amendment, please?
111 Lewis.
112 To be clear, this is the amendments to the dates, not the full resolution.
113 And the whereas clause that I read in.
114 And then after this we're going to take another vote.
115 I have another amendment that'll be separate. Yep.
116 Okay.
117 Wait. So is this vote on the new whereas and the new exhibit or the updates to the exhibit a.
118 Whereas and the dates. Yes.
119 And then you just said you're going to introduce another one after this. Yes. Okay.
120 Okay.
121 I pirtle-guiney. I Novick. I Green. I Zimmerman.
122 I thank you for that support colleagues, I just noted that I had another amendment. So if you're looking at the other exhibit regarding what councilor Green noted earlier about the change of times in the now, therefore, the council directs paragraph a states a 3 p.m. Start time instead of a 6 p.m. Start time for that council meeting. I'm I'm moving to amend that that become a 10 a.m. Start time for that council meeting instead of 3 p.m. The reason I'm making that amendment to this is that this many years of budgeting, I'm very cautious to start a budget council meeting or any sort of action that late in the day. I see that budget budget adoptions need full days sometimes, and so I think we have available time that day. And I think your support would allow the council president all the time she needs to get us through the actual approving of that budget. So I hope you'll support that amendment. I'd be looking for a second from 3 p.m. To 10 a.m. Second.
123 Any discussion on this from the committee? Okay. Councilor Avalos.
124 Am I missing? Oh, I see.
125 Councilor Green.
126 I would just say I support that. I mean, we can always just call a recess if we need to reconvene later, have staff do some work, give ourselves a break. So yeah.
127 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
128 I believe that we just amended exhibit a to start our meeting at 9 a.m. To have a rather a 9 to 1 work session that morning. And we're now backing up the 3 p.m. To 10 a.m. For the meeting. So I think that we either need to have that 9 to 1 morning session, be a council meeting, not a work session, and change it to a 10:10 a.m. Start, or change this to a 9 a.m. Start so that those two things speak to each other.
129 Thank you for that catch. My apologies. You are correct. 9 a.m. And that allows council president the flexibility to change that, to use that dates meeting time and morning as she needs. Thank you for that catch.
130 And do we need to make any changes to the prior amendment? Was that noted as a 9 to 1 work session on the 21st, and do we need to change that to a council meeting, or does the change in the ordinance supersede the work session and allow us to move forward?
131 It doesn't supersede. So, no.
132 So we need to also amend in exhibit a, where we had created a 9 to 1 work session and change that to a 9 to 1 council meeting with a recess to then actually it just would be 9 to 6. So we need to change where it says 9 to 1 work session and then 3 p.m. Council meeting to a 9 a.m. Council meeting on the 21st.
133 Where are you looking when you say 9 to 1? What are you looking at? Am I looking at the council schedule ordinance on?
134 I took notes on the prior amendment that councilor Zimmerman had proposed and wrote in that there was a proposal for a work session on may 21st, from 9 to 1 9 a.m. To 1 p.m, and then we had two hours and then the council meeting that was listed in the original exhibit a, started at 3 p.m. If we're now changing this to a 9 a.m. Start time for a council meeting on the 21st, we need exhibit a to conform with that.
135 Okay.
136 Okay, so I would ask for continued support for the change to the council meeting. And then I will propose that. Amendment adjustment on the resolution.
137 I'm sorry to complicate things.
138 Hey, this was fast and furious and it's a first schedule that was put out in order to encompass 12 different people's inputs. So there's a little bit of movement in the in the moment. Any other comments on the council meeting on may 21st? Moving from 3 p.m. To 9 a.m. Seeing no other comments, we'll have a roll call on this amendment, please.
139 Avalos I.
140 Pirtle-guiney I.
141 Novick I.
142 Green. I Zimmerman.
143 I the amendment passes colleagues I propose an amendment to exhibit a. That we remove the budget work session on may 21st from 9 to 1 p.m. Can I get a second?
144 Second?
145 Any discussion? Clerk, can we please have a roll call?
146 Vote I'm lewis.
147 I'm trying to I'm going to get to I. But I need you to say it again. What we're voting on.
148 I am making an amendment to remove the work session on may 21st.
149 Getting rid of entirely.
150 Because we have instead a full council meeting during that time.
151 Point of clarification. I believe we need to replace that with an amendment to exhibit a that begins the action to approve city and prosper Portland budgets at 9 a.m. As opposed to 3 p.m. I think there's two parts.
152 I think that's why I'm confused. I'm and I didn't take I didn't catch the note. So I am not looking at at the same information. But it says may 21st the city in Portland. So where does that fall into?
153 So that is already on. That is already a council work session. This action to approve. We can only take action at a council meeting. Right. So that is already. This. This budget calendar does not only talk about budget meetings, it does have council meetings in it. Or we'll be taking yay nay votes. I think that what we're trying to indicate to just be clear and not overprocess it, is that it will be a council meeting. And since our ordinance requires us to say when we're meeting as a council, which is already editorialized a silly, a silly ordinance, we have to take this action to be clear that we're going to meet at 9 a.m. As a council in council session and not in a budget session. And then during that, the intended action that day would be action to approve city and prosper Portland budgets. Okay, I'm sorry for the jumping around, folks.
154 Okay. So that day this amendment is to approve moving the making the meeting, making it a meeting instead of a work session starting at nine. And we're going to, at that meeting, do this approved city and prosper Portland budgets on top of all the other things we're going to do until the evening or something.
155 Until complete.
156 Yeah. Okay. Okay. Then I vote I.
157 May I may I clarify. Thank you. On may 21st on the exhibit original exhibit, we have a line item action to approve city and prosper Portland budgets that start at 3 p.m. Do we need to strike at 3 p.m?
158 Yes, it would say 9 a.m. Now.
159 Okay.
160 Okay. That helps. Thank you. Pirtle-guiney.
161 Thank you for clarifying the amendment I.
162 Novick I.
163 Green. I Zimmerman I.
164 That amendment passes. Okay. Thank you. So with that and I will just say thank you to my colleagues for that much moving around to get this document in order, I want to open it up for any other discussion, but some key learnings from our last finance committee meeting and from last week as a as a city council, what the folks who helped put this together have tried to build in is maximizing the days available for community input for budget work sessions as an entire budget committee and enabling the policy committees to do deeper dives in specific subject areas. I've heard that time and time again from from our colleagues. This is also something that's quite new and is something that we're all working through. And so it took an aggressive set of amendments to achieve that. And so I appreciate the support to do it. I, I'm looking forward to with the staff and the civic life who's helping you figure out the district based community listening sessions, which I'm very excited about, I think are going to be very valuable and something that portland's public is expecting now that we are in districts that we have a line item to, to our elected representatives. There is, you know, nothing to say that all 12 wouldn't show up to a district based listening session. I, I intend to make as many as possible. I hope I can make them all, but also it allows, you know, we may not be able to, but I think that's the nature of this community listening session spirit is that we're able to make our priorities as a community known to as many elected officials as possible. And so we've built that into this schedule we have given, I think, the mayor ample time to hear the community and the council's work sessions, to hear about priorities before we have an executive released budget, so that if the mayor is able to take that input from the community and from councilors, we have a real chance at having a proposed executive budget, that is passed at a significant level, very close to what is proposed. And I think that that's something in a year like this, that was a goal. And then. Building in, I know that there are councilors who have thoughts on how do we make amendments, where do we have our priorities take place? And I think we've now built in plenty of opportunities for councilors to learn their first budget and input, put inputs and amendments as necessary if they see large, large holes in priorities. And so with that, if there's any other discussion, I'll take a look. Councilor Green.
165 Thank you, chair, and thank you for your leadership on getting this going. This is a lot of work and a lot of critical thinking. And you clearly partnered you two partnered together on this. It's we're creating a new system of government. And this is like one of the very important details. But maybe it is not as flashy as some other things. So it's it sets us up for success. I just wanted to kind of use the space to say, when I look at this, I don't see just a week of community engagement. I see it starting on February 28th and running all the way through, well through the end of it. But informing the mayor's budget on may 5th. So I intend to kind of use, you know, my office's communications. I intend to use my industry days to kind of do my own kind of town hall and around this budget, because I think we need to really maximize the opportunities for our, our constituents to, to engage in this. And so every time council meets, every time we have a work session, that's an opportunity for folks to come in and participate.
166 On the budget committee. Question.
167 Thank you, councilor. I appreciate that. We tried hard. We tried hard. So I appreciate that before we take any votes, I do want to look to ruth and jonas. If there's any comments or or notes that you all would like to make.
168 Just thank you all for this great discussion. Appreciate getting to a more robust calendar and just acknowledging. Typically, this is a conversation that we'd like to facilitate in the fall so that we know going in to the start of the process how this all lays out. And obviously we couldn't do that this year. So appreciate the time as early as we can in the new alignment to get that pinned down. I did want to just double check on the question on the district chair. How'd you say it? Perfectly. District based community listening sessions.
169 There you go.
170 A couple more practices. I'll get that down. Just wanted to confirm the couple of dates. There's still locations tbd, but in working with the office of civic life and our community partners, the couple of options that we have avoiding the week of spring break, the kind of optimal. Maybe that's a subjective term, but maybe what we would recommend is session for district three on March 18th, district one on March 20th, district two skipping the week of spring break, district two on April 1st, and district four on April 3rd. There were a couple of date options that were provided. Two of them are during the week of spring break, so we knew we wanted to try to avoid that and then trying to compress all of them. Being that that same week of March 31st, that would be our initial proposal. We don't have to sort of nail it down immediately, but we do need to get sort of a general nod that we should go ahead and work with the community and our partners to get those locations pinned down and scheduled.
171 Thanks for getting those into the record. Here's what I would recommend. Assuming that this passes and it goes to the full city council, is that between now and then, you and I, the team, we work on locking those in, and then I'd be happy to make an amendment to this for our full council and get those into the into the record, and we can work with those districts to give them a heads up already.
172 Fantastic.
173 I think that'd be a great way to still move this forward.
174 Great. Thank you.
175 Okay, I'm seeing that we've got some testimony. And so I will turn to the clerk.
176 Thank you. First up we have john wesley pimentel. John wesley. Next we have Ryan sotomayor. Ryan. Okay.
177 Okay. I'm sorry that our amendments were so boring. We lost you and whoever needed to comment. Like we said, there's going to be plenty of opportunity for additional public comment on our city budget. So with that clerk, I think we are ready for a vote on this item.
178 So this is the vote on the resolution as amended. Avalos I pirtle-guiney. I Novick. I Green. I Zimmerman. I and then chair Zimmerman. May I just also clarify that this is a vote to pass the resolution, as amended, to full council for consideration?
179 That's exactly correct. Thank you.
180 Thank you.
181 Okay. It has been passed. So thank you everybody for that flexibility I appreciate it. And then I would also hope that we can have discussions within our districts to just help our colleagues who are not on this committee just understand kind of what's coming, the intent. And as you hear from your colleagues that we can make this better, I please bring that back into this room and we can always work to incorporate, you know, finance policies moving forward. With that, I'm going to hold off on reviewing future topics as we are in the midst of figuring out what timing and what makes this committee stand out from being the budget committee as a whole. I'm trying really hard not to have the finance committee step on the toes of the entire city council as the budget committee, which is very important. And so while I realize that I've gotten some comments from the public and even staff and colleagues about the finance committee serving as the budget committee, I want to say it here and at this committee, it's very important to recognize that the entire city council serves as this community's budget committee, and that our structure is set up. This committee is a, I consider, a support function and one whose work will be policy based and detailed based, similar to some of the reports we heard earlier in a support function to that larger budget committee. And just setting expectations is always important. Looking my colleagues, have any last comments or closing comments before we adjourn? Okay. Thank you everybody. We are adjourned.
182 Ruth.
183 Can I grab you outside?
184 Thanks.
185 Yeah. Of course. So.
186 Are you. Watching this, I think. So.