The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-05-28
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (30,890 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 held a work session on May 28, 2025. The meeting opened with discussion of consolidating overexpenditure ordinances related to office budget carryovers, with a proposal to bundle them for a future vote; a proposed carryover of funds toward parks maintenance was also introduced. The council then reviewed numerous budget notes and amendments, including proposals addressing police special revenue and asset forfeiture funds, a possible asset forfeiture fee, rate design study for public works bureaus, Vision Zero transparency and task force coordination, parks fundraising and volunteer programs, tennis program partnerships, workforce development coordination, long-term vacancy fees on residential and commercial units, package delivery fees, employee healthcare contingency funding, communications strategy, and 311 service evaluation. Discussion touched on whether certain notes should instead be amendments, and on combining related proposals before the June 11 meeting. A break occurred for a presentation by visiting Rose Festival Court representatives. Later, city budget office and public safety staff, including the police chief, addressed questions about police bureau overtime, staffing vacancies, and one-time versus ongoing funding, with figures on overtime hours and staffing levels stated inconsistently among speakers. No votes were taken during this session; any future outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger.
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 Got invited to whatever the not.
1 But usually I think the other.
2 Morning it is 930 on Wednesday, may 28th. I am calling to order this work session of the Portland city council.
3 Colleagues.
4 I want to start by just thanking you all. We had a good discussion last week. It was long, it was hard, and it was productive. We still have over 85 amendments and budget notes, and I assume, frankly, that we are not going to discuss them all, that there are some that are just going to fall by the wayside. But I also know that there are many more that folks do want to discuss. And I appreciate the flexibility with pivoting today so that we can try to use this time to get us ahead on a few things so that we can use our time on the 11th as productively as possible. As you saw in your inboxes last night, we're shifting the agenda a little bit. I know that there are folks who are concerned about the overexpenditure ordinances, the oios that your office has put forward, and I want to give us a chance to just see if there's any concern with potentially bundling those. I'd like to talk through budget notes with the goal that potentially some of those could be bundled, or we can get through any questions about them today to ensure that folks know what those are and we can move through them pretty quickly on the 11th and essentially set us up so that on the 11th, we're spending the bulk of our time on the meaty money affecting budget issues that are left. If we have time today, I'd also like to talk through where there are some buckets of similar amendments and ask folks to work on those together to see if they might be able to be combined. Before we come back on the 11th, I can share an example of what that looks like. And if time permits, we do have some updates on public safety based on questions that were raised at our last meeting. I will, before we get any farther, just pause to give a big thanks to our budget team who have continued to work on all of the details behind the scenes. I know some folks have amendments that they are still polishing. I know there have been conversations about some of the questions where numbers didn't align between our public safety service area and our budget team, and there's been a lot of work. So. Jonas. Ruth, owen, haley, thank you for your continued work supporting our budget process. With that, councilors, I want to jump in on the first thing on the agenda, which is the over expenditure ordinances. And I know there are a few folks who have asked that their office budgets be put toward other items through amendments in this budget process, and I am wondering if anyone has concerns with batching those together. If there are any questions that you have for each other. We obviously won't be voting today, but if there aren't questions or concerns, that'll give me a signal that we might be able to do those quickly at once. At our next meeting. Councilor Clark, did you have your hand up okay? You sure?
5 I think you answered my question. I'm interested in the bundling.
6 Great. So if anybody has any questions about the amendments that are related to other councilors office budgets, this is not reductions in budgets moving forward. This is amendments that folks have brought forward about their budget from this fiscal year. If anybody has questions about those or concerns with the idea of bundling those, when we come together on the 11th, go ahead and put yourself in the queue or shoot some daggers at me so that we can have that conversation. Yeah. Councilor Koyama Lane.
7 I don't have any concerns about anyone else's, but I have one that is not pre filed, but I have it here in writing and that is I'm bringing forward Koyama Lane seven motion to amend the budget to carry over councilor Koyama Lane office under spending for parks maintenance. So to add 60,000 in 1 time general funding to parks budget for maintenance in fy 2526 from councilor Koyama Lane program carryover in the fy 2425 budget. And that is adding on to what my other colleagues in district three have very generously rolled over already from their budgets. Great.
8 Thank you. And if you send that to our budget team, to haley and ruth, they can get it written up. And then if you're comfortable sending it to me, if I do end up making a batch of all of these as a new amendment that is all together, I can make sure to include that as well.
9 Great.
10 Thank you. Councilor Morillo.
11 I just wanted to double check while we have the budget folks in the room. A few weeks ago, I moved some of my office funds towards fixing parks, bathrooms, and making sure that they're usable and I don't have to produce an amendment for that. Right. If it's already been moved by ben west.
12 So there are a few different ways that budgets move between between fiscal years and depending on how you are hoping to do that, it may be captured already and it may not. Ruth, do you want to help us on this one? Or if this is one that you all should take offline, that's fine.
13 Yeah, I can just speak generally because I don't know about your specific case, but the there was an email that went out a couple of weeks ago and basically the if there's underspending that you have in your office budget this fiscal year and you want to spend it on something in the current fiscal year, you can just move that funding in the current fiscal year and work with with elizabeth hilt or ben Smith on doing that. So if it was spent or like if you already sent it to parks, then you don't need to produce an amendment to do that. Where the reason we would need amendments is if you're wanting to spend it next fiscal year, then it needs to be reflected in the budget for next fiscal year. So that's where we would need. And then the over expenditure ordinance is basically the cleanup in the current fiscal year from like if you're like, okay, I want to take this under spending and spend it on parks next year, then we just kind of clean that up in the overexpenditure ordinance to reflect what happened in the 2526 budget. Does that make sense?
14 Yeah, that makes sense. Great, I think I already did it. So you have one less thing to look at. Fantastic.
15 Councilor Green.
16 Yeah, generally I, I just leave to the discretion of the councilor on how best they want to do that. I'm not really inclined to say yes or no to anyone. So I would highly advocate that we do a one package up or down vote. But I am curious how many of those do we have? Do you have that number on the top of your head?
17 I you know, I can look through here and find them, but it might be faster if anybody who has one in raises their hand. I think there's a few more than that. I think I saw five in there. Maybe. Okay, so I'm going to.
18 This guidance has gone. I have no idea.
19 Okay. Thanks. That's it for me.
20 Councilor Ryan?
21 Yeah.
22 On this practice of taking our unspent council money from this fiscal year and moving it forward to one time projects, I think, or to one time spending. Right. This is this is a little band-aids that we're passing out. If we could have them all bundled together, at least with some clarity, for the public to understand, and I know I'm going to return mine to the general fund. And I just would like to know where people are choosing to spend their money in a transparency for transparency sake.
23 Absolutely. And those are right now filed throughout in people's amendments. But it sounds like there's not pushback. So what I will do is pull those all together. I believe it will be pirtle-guiney 14 is the number that I'm at. So I'll pull those all together in a new amendment so that they're all visible in one place. And we can just do a quick vote at the beginning of the 11th to move them forward.
24 Okay. And I personally just question if this is a good idea, but that's just my own personal opinion. Yeah.
25 Understood. Okay. Councilors seen no concerns with that. I'll be bringing forward a bundle of all of those. And if you do have overexpenditure and overexpenditure amendment that you'll be bringing forward that has not been filed yet, if you can make sure that that's on my radar so that I can include it, that would be helpful just in keeping us more efficient. On the 11th, I would like to have us turn to budget notes. We made the decision an hour or so into our meeting on the 21st to hold on budget notes, since we needed to get through some of the big money items, and I know that there are a few budget notes that people want to make sure we have an opportunity to talk through before we pass the final budget, and what I'd like to do, rather than go through each one, which I think could take a while, is, say, if there are budget notes that folks have looked at, because you've read through the stack and you have questions about or if you have a budget, note that you think is particularly complicated and might need some explanation. Go ahead and get in the queue and we can talk through those. And then my hope is that we can start to get a sense of whether there are some budget notes that have broad agreement, or whether we're going to need to take these all individually and ideally cut down on the amount of time that we spend on budget notes on the 11th. I'd like us on the 11th to really be able to focus on things that move money. Some of these we probably won't pass. Some of these might be able to be done outside of the budget process, but if we are going to include some in our budget work, given that our time is limited, I'd like to be as efficient as possible with them. Councilor Clark.
26 Are you ready to start that process?
27 Fantastic. Yes. Go right ahead.
28 Because it's a little more complicated than that in that I have budget notes that are backup to an amendment. If my amendment doesn't pass, then I'd like to have the budget note passed at the very least. So I don't know if you want to proceed with those mean grouped.
29 Maybe flag, which those are, so that councilors know. So that as we think about our conversation, folks know that you have budget notes that are that are those fallbacks.
30 Okay. So I think I have two groupings. One is on the cei hub. I have an amendment to ask for positions on the cei hub, and then I have one without positions. If we can't find the money to pay for two fte on the cei hub.
31 Are those clerk one and two.
32 Yes. Thank you.
33 Okay, great.
34 And then another bundle I have is clerk three and. Four. And where's the other one? Hold on. Well, there's three that are related to volunteerism. Seven is the other one. And what I'm recommending here in that we are not we're not going to have enough money to do all the things that we want to do. And I want to encourage more public private partnerships and more volunteer activity, particularly with parks, but all the other bureaus as well. So I recommended in clerk three is a community partnership framework that would go to the public works service area. And I'm asking that in an amendment that we provide one fte. And if that doesn't pass at least the budget note pass, and the third one on seven is really asking the parks to develop volunteer metrics. So those are all in a in a group around being more intentional around public private partnerships and volunteerism.
35 So councilor, it sounds like three is the fallback if four does not pass, is seven also, if four does not pass, or is seven something that you would bring forward regardless of whether 3 or 4 pass?
36 Yes. And I think really three and seven go together.
37 So seven is not a standalone. It's only a four does not pass.
38 No. It could be a standalone. Thank you.
39 Councilor Morillo.
40 Thank you council president. Yeah I have two budget notes that might be there a little bit lengthier and more detailed. So I recommend folks read through this before next time. But it would be budgets notes seven and 17. So budget note seven directs the police bureau to use $1 million of their $9 million special revenue fund to contract with academic researchers to do evaluations of their programs. This is a pretty standard practice across police bureaus to ensure that we are doing data driven policing. The special revenue fund is not a contingency fund, and it's not necessarily a supplanting resource either. It has to be used very specifically. So it's comprised of funds that pbb receives from the federal department of justice and state governments through asset forfeiture. And the doj has actually told the Portland police that they need to spend these funds as they've been sitting idle for a really long time. So otherwise the federal government just gets to take those back. So that is a source of funding that we have not talked about and not really tapped into. And we need the police bureau to actually find a way to address that. And then Morillo 17 is a budget note that directs the city budget and finance service area to study what what fees on asset forfeiture might look like. And asset forfeiture for folks who don't know, is the seizure, seizure of money, property, or other assets by law enforcement in connection with alleged criminal activity. And so, you know, that raises significant concerns around due process, racial equity, etc. And while we have those funds, the police bureau should be using those things to make our policing better in the city of Portland. So this note essentially asks the budget and budget and finance to present options to council for a fee that aims to entirely deter the practice of asset forfeiture, or a fee that aims to maximize net revenue for the city. With funds explicitly earmarked for community based programing, including housing stability, legal defense services, youth programs and other restorative justice initiatives.
41 Thank you. Councilor, councilors, I'm going to pause this for just a minute because we have some guests who have just joined us, the princesses from the rose court are here visiting city hall today, and these are some of our future community leaders. These are representatives from schools across Portland and then also around our surrounding communities, who are chosen by their peers and panels of judges to represent their schools based on the work that they do in their school and in the community, based on their leadership. So I'd like to just offer a few minutes if you all would like to introduce yourselves. And thank you for being here to visit with us today.
42 Yes.
43 Welcome. Would you all like to just go through and introduce yourself and let us know what schools you're here from?
44 Yeah, just just introduce ourselves. Yeah. Okay. We'll start.
45 Hello. We are the 2025 rose festival court. We'd like to introduce ourselves and tell you what's happening during this year's rose festival event.
46 Hi. I'm event. I'm a senior at parkrose high school. In my spare time, I love doing puzzles, which is why I'm excited to tell you about one of the coolest traditions of the rose festival, the annual treasure hunt. This fun and exciting event has been a part of the festival since 1983. Clues are posted on the rose festival website. That's rose festival, so be sure to check it out and see if you can find the hidden treasure this year.
47 Hello, I'm.
48 Jaden, I'm a junior.
49 At david douglas high school and one of my favorite places in Portland is downtown. I love the energy of the city, the busy streets, the great restaurants, and all the cool shops. That's why I'm excited to one of my favorite rose festival events, the grand floral parade, is coming back this year in downtown. Mark your calendars. It is happening Saturday, June 7th. Can't wait to see you there celebrating with us.
50 Esther.
51 Hi, I'm esther.
52 I'm a senior at saint mary's academy. Hi, I'm esther, I'm a senior at saint mary's academy outside of school. I love cooking and crafting. These are some of my favorite ways to unwind and get creative this year. I'm looking forward to checking out the city fair craft corner. It's so exciting to see that the festival support local artists by giving them a showcase and to sell their handmade goods you can visit city fair at craft corner starting may 23rd through June 8th.
53 Hi, I'm issa. I go to franklin high school and I'm a junior and one of my favorite places in Portland is Sellwood riverfront park. I've made so many great memories there on the Willamette river, and an exciting event happening during this year's rose festival on the Willamette river is our dragon boat races. So come on down and cheer on the racers as they bring the river to life with an exciting event full of tradition and culture. On Saturday, June 7th and Sunday, June 8th of.
54 Hi, I'm avery, I'm a senior at lasalle high school. I've been fascinated by boats made out of unusual materials ever since I heard about the concrete canoe engineering challenge at my aunt's college. That's why my favorite rose festival event is the royal rosarian milk carton boat race. It's fun, creative, and totally unique. Join us on June 22nd at the casting pond in westmoreland park. You won't want to miss it.
55 Adeline.
56 Hi, I'm adeline and I'm a junior at century high school. My favorite rose festival event has always been the care Oregon starlight parade, because I went almost every year with my nana, and those memories are some of my favorites. I still remember the excitement of playing in the street before the parade, cheering on the runners in their wild costumes, and once the sun went down, watching the dazzling floats. This year's parade will be on Saturday, may 31st, and I hope you'll come out and enjoy it with me.
57 See you. Yvonne.
58 Hi, I'm yvonne and I'm a senior at ida b wells high school. I've always loved nature and the unexpected things you can find. So if you're looking for a way to connect with nature right here in the city, then check out this year's bloom tour. It's part floral show, part walking tour, and it's all about highlighting portland's unique restaurants, shops and hotels, so be sure to check it out from may 20th 3rd to June 8th. We hope to see you there!
59 Marali.
60 Hi.
61 I'm marali, a senior at central catholic high school. I stay pretty busy after school, but one of the activities that means a lot to me is volunteering at Oregon food bank. Volunteering has shown me the importance of community support in Portland. Rose festival would not be possible without its amazing community volunteers. If you are interested in getting involved, head over to rose festival.org to learn more and see how you can make a difference in our community.
62 Ava.
63 Hi, I'm ava and I'm a senior at lincoln high school. I love expressing myself through art, drawing, sewing, painting. Creativity is a big part of who I am, and that's why I'm so excited about one of the creative highlights of this year's Portland rose festival. Local businesses in downtown Portland and in the hollywood district are joining the fun by decorating their storefronts with rose festival spirit. It's a great way to bring community, celebration and art together, so be sure to check them out.
64 Gloria.
65 Hello! My name is gloria and I'm a senior at roosevelt high school. One of my favorite rose festival events has always been the city fair. It's the perfect mix of everything. I love delicious food, great music, and nonstop excitement. This year, the city fair food court is back and better than ever, with vendors serving up everything from vietnamese street food to barbecue. You'll also find seafood, boba, churros, and of course, all of your fair favorites. So bring a friend and come join the fun. You won't want to miss it.
66 Janiya.
67 Hi, I'm janiya, a senior at jefferson high school. I love events that offer a vibrant mixture of new experiences and adventures. One of my favorite at the rose festival being the arrival of the fleet ships. Each year new ships are brought into Portland, making it a fresh and exciting experience every time. You never know what you'll get to see, so make sure you don't miss your chance to catch something new this year.
68 Brenda.
69 Hi, I'm brenda, and I'm a junior at benson polytechnic high school. My favorite rose festival event has to be the fred meyer's junior parade. I still remember the year I participated in a band. It feels like it was just yesterday. I was so excited to be walking the same route as many others before me. For a moment I felt famous. Come and join the fun and be part of the largest and oldest children's parade in the nation. This year it's happening on Wednesday, June 4th. Don't miss it.
70 Eleanor.
71 Hi, I'm eleanor, a junior at grant high school. Throughout high school, I've made it a priority to embrace new opportunities and try new things. And that's why this year I'm especially excited about something new. Coming to the rose festival. An actual wedding on parade route. This year's grand floral parade will feature one lucky couple in the love on parade trolley. So join us Saturday, June 7th to be a part of the magic. Sabrina.
72 Hi, I'm sabrina, I'm a junior at cleveland high school. After moving from austin, texas to Portland, I made it my mission to build friendships and a sense of community at my new school. That's why I'm so excited about this year's rose festival theme, all together now, as it's a beautiful reminder that no matter where we are, we can always find people to lean on and build memories with.
73 Kathleen.
74 Hi, I'm kathy, I'm currently a junior at mcdaniel high school. I believe that portland's natural beauty is truly unmatched. I mean, especially when I'm biking through the tree lined streets. That's why I'm so excited that this year's queen coronation will be taking place at one of portland's most iconic spots, the Oregon square park. Don't miss out on the long standing rose festival tradition on Friday, June 6th.
75 Thank you for hosting.
76 The 2025 rose festival court. We look forward to seeing you at the rose festival.
77 Thank you all so much for that amazing overview of our city's festival, and for being here with us this morning.
78 Thank you.
79 So much for one picture.
80 Councilor Avalos are you going to make a play for one of those purses?
81 You do have councilor Avalos signature color purse there.
82 Thank you. Thank you.
83 Have a great meeting. Thank you. There you go. That way. Now that you've lost.
84 Now that we've lost counselors Avalos and Zimmerman and I to the rose festival court and replaced us with three of the princesses. Councilor Morillo, I believe you were through your budget notes. Is that correct?
85 Yes. Wasn't sure if anyone had any questions. Happy to answer them.
86 Were there any questions for counselor Morillo? Counselor Zimmerman, go right ahead.
87 Thanks for these. And I'm just reviewing them and I'll do a more in-depth one. But I will say they are notable just in their length. Councilor. And one of the one of the things that I guess causes me a little bit is I'm wondering if generally a note is more broad, and it seems like this is very targeted for a certain outcome. And I'm just curious, like why these are multiple pages rather than like a paragraph. And what what your intent was with these notes?
88 Well, I like to do my due diligence, and I knew you'd have a lot of questions specifically, so I just decided to outline it all for you. But no, all kidding aside, I think that there is a I think the asset forfeiture fees and what we can and can't do with them tends to be pretty complicated legally. And so I think outlining exactly what what we can do with them and working with city attorneys on it, we wanted to make sure that it was just clear to people what we were trying to do here. So I guess the length is an attempt at clarity, but you'd have to read through it all.
89 Councilor Zimmerman, any follow up? Does anybody else have questions? Councilor Ryan, go right ahead.
90 Yes. Sorry, I don't have the paper that that you spoke of. Councilor Zimmerman. Can you tell me councilor Morillo how what the total dollar amount is?
91 Yes, I believe one fund. Don't quote me. I should find it in this document, but I think it's between 9 million and 6 million.
92 Okay. And the source.
93 So it's the forfeiture fees that the police bureau gets from the federal government when they seize assets during a crime. So if there's like a property or a vehicle or anything like that, that goes into a pool of money that's given to PPB by the federal government, and it can be used for things. The specific number that we're asking for in budget, note seven would be $1 million from this fund.
94 But okay, in the total 6 to 9 million. And that would come out of police resources.
95 The police special revenue fund, which has remained untouched. It's not like police resources that are currently existing. So it wouldn't remove anything. It's just sitting there right now being unused. And if we don't use it, it will just go back to the federal government.
96 We'll need council president to hear from the bureau itself if that's actually accurate, because I we need that verification. Yeah.
97 You're welcome to also contact the city attorney's office and ask them those questions.
98 Councilor.
99 Now or do you want to wait?
100 Let me let me see what councilor Clark's question is. And then I believe we have some folks here from the service area who might be able to answer questions.
101 I think it's important in real time that we get all the information out.
102 So I would love to hear from the city attorney's office, because I thought most of asset forfeiture was governed by state law. I wasn't familiar with the federal relationship. So just maybe a little context on that would be helpful.
103 So there is a state and a federal pool. This amendment or budget note is asking for 1 million. The police special revenue fund is $9 million. Total 6.5 million comes from federal and state asset forfeiture. This is not part of pbs's base budget, so it would not be tapping into that. And as I said earlier, you can't always supplant a police budget with it. So that's part of why the budget note simply directs the bureau to start looking into how they can legally use these funds. It is not something that's going to happen immediately. I think the deadline listed was December councilor.
104 I have asked if we can get somebody from our attorney team here to answer any legal questions, and we do have chief day available. So, chief, would you like to introduce yourself and let us know what the bureau's plans have been with this money and any other context that we need to know as we think about this budget note.
105 Yes, certainly. Good morning everyone. Bob day, chief of police. So councilor Morillo adequately explained the assets forfeiture fund. These are funds that are returned to the bureau through seizures. And there is a state forfeiture process. And then there's a federal forfeiture process. I would also agree with her assessment that it's very complex, and we work closely with the city attorney's office on making sure that we are spending properly within the guidelines. We don't get to pick and choose what that is. The funds get dictated that we are, in fact, being audited this year by the federal government. We're audited every few years, so there's a high degree of oversight and accountability to make sure that they're spent consistently and within the guidelines. I can tell you, since 2022, we have requested or spent about $4 million of that fund for various reasons. Typically, it's when things come up towards the end of the fiscal year and we don't have the money to purchase equipment, go to a mandatory training, do things like that. So we have used that money consistently to offset. I don't have the balance in front of me. I don't think 9 million is would be high, but I would have to go back and get the number. But we are spending that money and we do use it to fill in the gaps. But it is clear and I think councilor Touched on this, that we can't build a budget with the expectation that this money is going to fill it. It can't be seen as something to supplant, you know, probably one of our biggest expenditures was in 2023, where we spent, you know, almost $1.8 million to replace tasers because it wasn't in our budget. So it is money that we're using to offset those costs for not being adequately funded with our regular expenditures. Nathan, anything you want to add to that? Sure.
106 Nathan, I manage the team that does budget strategic planning and performance management for the public safety service area. We currently have eight different funds that are subfunds around asset forfeiture, some of which are state, some of which are federal. They total to just under $8 million in terms of how we budget for them each year. We cannot spend dollars that we do not budget. So typically each year we budget as a plug the entirety of those dollars so that there is that flexibility to be able to spend those dollars as need be. The spending, of course, needs to go through the federal process of getting approval from the bureau itself and then from the federal government before spending can take place with federal dollars, and then a separate but similar process for the state dollars. So those dollars are included in the total budget for the police bureau. At this point in time, though, it is not expected we would actually spend all 8 million of those dollars in the coming fiscal year.
107 And councilor, I'd like to invite robert taylor up as well, just in case there are any legal questions here. I apologize, mr. Taylor, for dragging you up here. We're having a discussion about the. Morillo amendment seven, the special revenue fund that she's put forward, and then Morillo amendment 17, which is the asset forfeiture fee, focusing primarily on the special revenue fund. And there was a question about whether there were legal limitations to how that fund was used.
108 Thank you. For the record, robert taylor, city attorney. And I.
109 Think the discussion.
110 That I've heard is accurate, that the funds there are state funds, there's also federal funds. There are separate but similar limitations that apply to both of those streams of revenue. And the basic concept is you have to use those funds for new items, and you can't use them to backfill or supplant cuts.
111 When you say new items, does that imply that this is something tangible that's a one time fee, or could it be new ongoing expenditures?
112 I think it could be either either of those. And so for the example that councilor Morillo has put forward about using those funds to pay for consultants to do a study, we've looked at that specifically. We think that would be an allowable use of the federal funds. And then, as the bureau has talked about, there's a process to go through with to kind of get approval of that.
113 And I'll say for ongoing expenses, city financial policy says that ongoing positions have to be funded with ongoing funding. These dollars are received on a one time basis. It's sort of rolling. Money comes in, money goes out. So while there has been a balance ongoing for years, there have been dollars spent every year in the time I've been with the bureau for the past five years. And there have also been dollars that have come in. So it's not a reliable income stream that could be connected to an ongoing position. We have, in addition to spending money on extra materials and services, you know, physical goods, we do also have the option to spend on overtime and sort of personnel, unexpected expenses that come up like that.
114 Yeah, we use some of this funding to fund the overtime for the inauguration. So we recognize that we didn't have that in our budget and filed the paperwork and said, hey, this is a significant event. So that $600,000 came out of the asset forfeiture fund. It did not come out of the city budget, so to speak. As nathan mentioned, it's in our budget. The two things that I would highlight one, the inconsistency of it in terms of how much is or in and out. So we have carried a balance over the years so that we have that buffer. For example, when we had to we had to buy the tasers at 1.8 million and the money wasn't in the budget. And, and then we typically use it to purchase, you know, tangible items of immediacy, you know, maybe a piece of equipment, as I mentioned, or we can even use it. We have used it to support vehicles when the vehicle replacement fund is inadequate and a vehicle needs to be replaced. We have used it to purchase that as well. So that's kind of how we've managed it in the past, and we always do it in conjunction with business services to make sure that, you know, we're we're staying in our Lane with how it's being spent and what it's being spent for.
115 Thank you, councilor Morillo. I think you had a response. And then I think councilor Kanal and Ryan are in the queue with questions here.
116 That's the one that brought them up.
117 So yeah, I appreciate that. I think everything that was said up there says exactly what I said. So I appreciate that clarification. And I think that we really need to make sure that we're moving towards evidence based policing. And so these funds are perfect for new studies that need to be done. Studies would be done by contractors. And these are one time expenses as far as evaluations go. So, you know, these evaluations are just as much of a priority as getting new equipment in order to ensure that we're actually spending our money wisely and doing the best that we can with the budget that we have. So this isn't just a contingency fund that can be used for anything. This is supposed to be making our policing better. And that's part of what this amendment is for.
118 Thank you, councilor. Councilor canal.
119 Thank you, madam president. Thank you for being here. Everybody. I just want to follow up on you said it's in the police budget. Would this be part of the interagency revenue? Is it already counted within the 316?
120 It is counted within the 316 where we budgeted. I can I can look up and get back to you.
121 Okay.
122 So the assumption is you effectively drain this fund every year, bring it into the police budget. It gets filled by new asset forfeiture related and other funds over the course of the year. And that's how it sustains a balance. Is that correct?
123 No, not exactly. So instead, in order to be able to spend dollars from a fund, we need to have budgeted spending from that fund. So we know we are building an unrealistic budget in that we are over budgeting for the spending so that there is flexibility to spend from that fund. So. The two processes are sort of independent of one another, you know, from a legal perspective, from the city. We need to be able to build a budget that. Is accounting for that flexibility. So the bureau, if it during the course of the year, has one of the unexpected needs come up, they wouldn't need to come to council to ask for budget authority to say, hey, we didn't budget for this thing. That authority has already been given in the adopted budget. By budgeting the full amount, then dollars come in, dollars go out at the course of the year. We then usually report at the end of the year, hey, we budgeted we're going to spend the whole amount. We actually spent a fraction of it, $1 million that came out last year. Perhaps. Then that rolls over to the next year to say, well, you know, money came in, million dollars went out. This is what the new starting place is. We then would typically budget for the whole of the budget. It's a pretty different process than what we do for general fund, general fund dollars. We accurately budget to what we think we will spend, because that is the revenue that we're getting in. Some grants will operate a little bit like this. You know, some grants are very specific that you know what dollars are coming in for that year. You know what dollars are going out. Other grants have more flexibility. So you may over budget for a grant that you know that over the course of five years, you're spending $5 million for a grant. You'll budget sort of that first 5 million the first year, and then you'll sort of narrow it down as the grant is spent down. So it's a bit more analogous to that as a restricted fund that we're we're tracking year over year.
124 Okay. And so in the actuals for this this year or sorry this is last year 2324. It shows that we started with 10.3 million sorry starts. We started with $9.9 million in the fund. We ended with $8.4 million in the fund. And so obviously that's about a net of 1.5 million shows. We bring in 400 something in revenue and spent out 1.9. That's how we get the net. That makes sense to me. My question is more was actually put into the police budget and then some was returned. And therefore we can expect that some portion of our current. Fund balance would do the same for this year, right?
125 Yeah. We will have a beginning fund balance of whatever is not spent from the fund this year.
126 Okay. Can you estimate roughly how much of is going to be in is part of the police's the standard budget? Over on page 204202, whatever that is.
127 I believe we budgeted for what we projected, the beginning fund balance to be around that 8 million between the state and the federal copy.
128 Thank you.
129 Councilor. I want to make sure we get to other folks who are in the q councilor We'll get back to you, councilor Ryan.
130 Yeah, thank you for coming up. I appreciate it. In your knowledge, have council ever tried to do a budget note that went at these funds before these restricted funds?
131 Not that I'm aware of. No.
132 Okay. And I just want to say to my colleagues, there's a pattern right now of looking at raiding restricted funds with specific purposes to do one time fixes to our budget. And I just caution us to continue on this, whether it's golf or police restricted funds. And it's very confusing to me that this has become a standard practice during this budget process. It feels new to me that that this is a pattern. Are there other amendments that councilor Morillo you had? Were there three amendments or one that you mentioned? So I didn't have a paper here. I thought we were having a public safety work session. So I'm a little I'm catching up.
133 So I guess I want to respond to you, because what I'm proposing here in my budget note goes directly towards what the funds are supposed to be used for. This is the doj's guidance on the use of the funds. So this is not using the funds in a way that they're not supposed to be used. It's supposed to be one time funding. It can be contracted out. It certainly can be used to buy police toys and robot dogs and pepper spray, or it can be used to do studies to make our policing informed by, you know, information that will actually make our policing better. And the doj specifically said that studies are a top priority to ensure that our policing is more ethical over time. So this is not going against the purpose of these funds. But as far as the budget notes that I'm bringing forward that have to do with asset forfeiture and special revenues, it's seven and 17.
134 That's where my point was that the council's choosing to be micro in terms of telling the police exactly how to spend these funds, as opposed to what I've experienced, which is here's the emergencies that we're in, here's the issues of the day that we want to settle, here's the innovation that we're that we're thinking about. And I'm well aware of the work with the doj. We self appointed ourselves to be in that system so we could be the most accountable police force in the country. And I know that you continue to make those types of decisions. I would love you to reply to what you all heard.
135 Can I can I add one more thing?
136 Just a moment. We have other folks in the queue to. If you all have a response to some of what you've heard, that's fine. But we do have a lot of other budget notes. So I would ask you to make sure that we're leaving time for the at least two other people. I think 3 or 4 other people who have put hands up to talk about this topic and the many other things that we still have to discuss.
137 I want to say one thing quickly.
138 Councilor we will get back to you, but you are not.
139 Consistently spent the department.
140 Of justice. You have colleagues who would like to speak to this. Also, some might be speaking in support, but I want to make sure we give everybody an opportunity. Did you all have anything to add before we move to the next councilor?
141 Just in response to councilor Ryan's question, I think we've articulated that these are complex, have a lot of different competing interests and points of view. And, you know, regardless of what the budget note is, we're going to be bound by both the legal recommendations from the city attorney's office and by our federal and state partners. So, you know, I think we can look at all of that is my point. But I can't commit because I don't know what those outcomes, what those decisions will be at this point.
142 Thank you. Chief councilor Clark, were you in the queue on this?
143 Yes. Thank you, madam chair. I just have a couple more questions for councilor Morillo. So I'm just reading this long and involved overview, and I'm noticing that the application review committee has to be established and that that is appointed by the city auditor. This is pretty complicated. And it's a ten member body. So the million dollars that you're recommending come out. And that's currently in the police special revenue fund. Are there administrative costs for the auditor's office or the police bureau to administer this, or is it all supposed to be used for the outside experts?
144 Councilor would you like to respond to that?
145 Yeah, thanks for this question. This is mainly going to be used for the outside experts that are going to be contracted out to do this new work, because it can't, again, can't be used to supplant budgets. It has to be new contracts that are executed.
146 Just one other question. Is this a model that another police department around the country has used?
147 I believe so, but I can't name which one off the top of my head.
148 Okay, thanks. Thank you.
149 Perhaps the council can get back to you offline about that. And councilors Green and Smith, I'm assuming that you are both in the queue to bring up additional budget notes. Is that the case, councilor Green nodding. Yes. Councilor Smith, were you in the queue to weigh in on this and I skipped you? I apologize, I thought you were in the queue previously to bring up your own topics. Go right ahead, councilor Smith. You're on mute.
150 Yeah, I was in for both. Council president. Thank you so much. So I want to go back to councilor Murillo's. Is that a budget note or a amendment?
151 Thank you, councilor Smith. They're both budget notes. It's budget notes seven and 17.
152 Okay. So I mean, I, I hear what councilor Ryan is saying. I think that this what you put forward is probably more in line to doing a budget amendment because it's very involved. And it's also identifying monies that should be moved. So that should probably be an amendment. And this kind of goes back to my to my budget. Note that I'm going to talk about.
153 Councilor. Can I have yeah. Can I have you hold.
154 On introducing your budget note until we finish the discussion on this one okay.
155 Okay. So that's that's my concern. I think it would be better served if, if you put it in as an amendment instead of a budget note, because that's only going to last a year. And if you want this to be ongoing, you should probably actually take it through committee.
156 Can I clarify something, councilor Smith?
157 Councilor.
158 Thank you. So this is not an amendment because it's not moving funds. It's directing the use of established funds. That's why it's a budget note. And the department of justice specifically has directed local governments to use the power of the purse that we have in order to direct how these funds are used. I will also add that in the past few years, these funds have not been taken down to zero the way that they're supposed to be. So the department of justice actually had to let us know, you got to spend these funds or we will take them back. So again, this is not moving funding. It's just directing a bureau, an agency for how to consider using these funding sources through some evaluation.
159 Yes, but it's directing funding. What to do with funding. So I mean.
160 I think that there may be a number of questions, counselor, about whether this is best served as a budget note, budget amendment or as a policy discussion outside of the budget process. And I hear you bringing that up and saw a few of your colleagues around the dais nodding. Councilor zimmermann.
161 Thanks. I'm actually going to redirect us to motion or excuse me, Morillo 17. This one is titled motion to add a budget note for development of an asset forfeiture fee. So I just have a I'm trying to understand what I'm what I'm taking from this councilor is if Portland police bureau seizes assets, I'm trying to understand what what is the fee? Does Portland police pay a fee then to the general fund for relative to the value of that asset? I'm a little confused on what it is.
162 Councilor would you like to respond?
163 Sorry, I'm confused by your confusion. Can you rephrase it.
164 So I'm layperson interpretation is Portland police interdict a drug operation? They seize the car, the gun, the truck, the trailer that are used, and those things are sold off, I'm assuming. And they take some revenue from that. But what I don't understand in this is what is a fee, what who is paying a fee and where is it going and what's it for.
165 So. This is getting the fees that PPB gets from the asset forfeiture. And it's directing finance to develop a proposal on how to use those funds.
166 Okay. That isn't how this reads though. It says by imposing a fee on each instance of asset forfeiture conducted by PPB or city affiliated law enforcement entity, the city seeks to realign fiscal incentives, deter unnecessary and unjustified seizures, and ensure that the economic benefits derived from such actions are redistributed transparently and equitably to the benefit of the public. So I guess I thought if we if we seize a car, we sell that car for 10,000 bucks on the market that goes into the fund. That's what asset forfeiture is on the on the kind of the high level scale. What is the fee though, that that's what I'm missing here. In terms of this note.
167 It's asking them to consider a fee.
168 Against who and for what.
169 For every instance of forfeiture.
170 But who pays the fee?
171 It would go to our fund.
172 It would go to.
173 This fund, or it would come out of the fund that exists, that asset forfeiture money goes into and into a different fund.
174 Is it is.
175 This a portion of the money that's received through asset forfeiture, which would then be transferred to a new fund, councilor.
176 It would go towards the general fund.
177 So it's a portion of the funds from asset forfeiture, which would then be shifted to the general fund.
178 So okay. So the way I.
179 Would I.
180 Want to clarify is that is that what you're doing here. Yeah okay. Thank you.
181 The way I interpret that is if you essentially the fee would be a setting based on this language that's in here through one, two, three and four with all their subparagraphs is that there would be some sort of if you take in $10,000 as a bureau, maybe there's a 10% fee on top of it, which means a thousand bucks goes to the general fund and 9000 goes into the asset forfeiture fund. And I'm using those numbers without the I know those are not in your document. I'm just trying to understand if that's what we mean by fee, which is the cream off the top.
182 Yeah. It can be designed as a flat fee or a percentage. Again, this is directing them to kind of put together a plan for usage. So and to develop a proposal to develop a fee that pbb has to pay for every instance of forfeiture.
183 So I think colleagues, I guess I actually think that this budget note is far more alarming even than the other one, because there are some structures in this budget. Note that talk about incentivizing asset forfeiture, and that is basically telling folks who are involved in criminal activity that they have one less very expensive thing that is involved in their criminal activity, which is the loss of their assets. And I think that that's an important incentive, incentive for. Not conducting criminal activity. And so there has been long held and I think very good use of if you are running and gunning, you're going to lose more than just jail time. You're also going to lose your car, you're going to lose other stuff. And a lot of areas we want to use that as an incentive against additional criminal activity in this budget. Note, alarmingly, goes the different direction because it talks about not incentivizing this and policy goals evaluation. That's paragraph number two, subparagraph a, options that are designed to deter asset forfeiture activity by making it financially disadvantageous unless clearly justified. That is that is something I think we should be very focused on in 11. Excuse me, in Morillo 17, which is a level of scrutiny for budget. Note that I'm not used to, but this is a significant budget note. Thank you.
184 Can I ask a response question? Raise your hand on the dais if you knew what asset forfeiture fees were before this discussion, because I have a guess that. Councilor I have a guess that people who are committing crimes don't know what the hell asset forfeiture fee is.
185 They don't know what asset forfeiture is. Nobody knows what an asset forfeiture fee is because it doesn't exist yet.
186 Councilors well established precedent of councilors.
187 I'm going to move us on in this conversation. It sounds like there's a policy difference here. Budget notes often are narrow directions, and this one takes on a policy discussion. That's a policy discussion that we can have moving forward. But I want to make sure that we hear from others who are in the queue about this. And I'm just noting that this sounds like it's a budget note that does get into a policy change that folks may want to discuss further. Councilor Kanal are you in the queue to discuss Morillo 7 or 17? Yes, go right ahead.
188 Thank you. Before getting into this specifically, I just want to float this concept that there is a difference between asking because there's a lot of budget notes that are asking for information about potential policy changes, but don't necessarily make the policy change themselves. And I'm curious if our intention here is to spend the time and debate the budget. Note, in light of what the policy that might potentially change based on the information the note might get is, and that that's confusing to me. I think the question is if this if this is something we never want to do, then it doesn't make sense necessarily to pursue it. But if it was something that is within the realm of possibility, that, does that make sense?
189 It does. And I appreciate you bringing us back to what the budget notes actually do. And we have a wide range of budget notes before us, some of which are your more traditional hey, bureau, make sure you do this thing, and some of which are are broader. And in this case, you're right. These ask for reports and information about things that we might have further debate about. And I think as a council, we will need to decide if that's something that we want to do through a budget, note or not. When we go to vote on these on the 11th, we don't vote today. But this is giving me a sense of, as we plan out for the 11th, where there might be some things that that are easier and where there might be some things that take a little bit more time.
190 Thank you. And for the you know, just to clarify, that applies to 17. I don't think it applies to seven. Yes. But I'm inclined personally that if any of my colleagues wants to create a request for information about a policy they're looking to, you know, potentially pursue based on what that information is, I'm inclined to support it. Unless the way in which we would get that information is unduly onerous to the to the bureau or bureaus in question. So that that's my inclination here. There's a couple from other colleagues that I'm not really sure about, but I'm inclined to say we can have the argument about whether the policy should change when we're having the argument about whether the policy should change. So that that's sort of my general approach to this with relation to seven. I'd love to ask if you could, nathan in particular, get some more information for me and maybe some colleagues about effectively, what to what degree based on your modeling or based on the last few years, you could expect that this money would be used or returned. And if used on what? And I think I know you well enough to know that you have the records of at least the last five ish years on how this has been used, and that that would be really helpful to me to understand. Is there an opportunity cost to this money, or is this money that would just be back in a fund at the end of the year?
191 Yeah, I mean, I can provide some detail. You asked previously sort of what percentage of money is coming falling for balance. So we have $8.1 million that are budgeted for this year. Of that, 7.4 is a beginning fund balance. So that's money that was not spent in this current year's budget. And we think will be available next year's budget. Then got about $600,000 that we expect as new revenue for next year. That will be coming in to help build that up. So that perhaps provides a little bit of context and sort of the ins and outs. My understanding is that when asset forfeiture dollars are received, it's not the city seizes the car and we sell it tomorrow and we've got the money instead, is a multiyear process, oftentimes with the federal partners, where we know a case is going through the courts, we know that we'll get this revenue 2 or 3 years down the line. So a lot of that is dependent on what cases the city is taking on and what assets they have seized and what will be coming in. My understanding is that we expected there would be a little bit of a slowdown in terms of money coming in over the next few years based on the cases that we have open, but the chief might be able to talk more about that in terms of the spending. Some of that is discretionary. It I will say when I started in this role, on the budget side, we were had a lower balance and the desire from council and for the bureau was to sort of build this up. So there would be flexibility to take on some of these new expenses. We perhaps built up too high of a balance. I was involved in the audit that took place and received that note from the federal government that said, we give you this money to spend it. It's reasonable to want to have some cushion. We think you've gotten too much cushion. Please develop a plan to spend that money down. So we have begun to develop a plan to spend that money down. We do not have a dollar for dollar accounting that says, you know, this is the date that that will reach zero. But there are items that the bureau has and a list of sort of unfunded needs of desires that they expect they would spend this money on in the next few years. You know, I think to your point about sort of providing policy direction, if part of the direction here is, you know, the bureau should come back to council with what that plan would be, if we know with a forecast what some of the revenue is in future years, we know what some of those unfunded needs are. We could work with them to develop what that plan could look like over the next few years. To build that out with sort of the caveat that one of the advantages of fund like this is it does provide some flexibility when there are unexpected costs, so that is always, as a finance person, nice to have flexibility in a place where oftentimes we don't.
192 Yeah. So oh sorry chief. Go ahead.
193 I just want to affirm everything nathan said. One we did allow the fund to grow to, you know, it should have been used. Having just finished ezra klein's book abundance, I think we were operating from a position of scarcity. And that doesn't mean that, you know, just we're wide open now, and we want to just be frivolous in the spending of it. But we have begun since January, a real approach to try and spend this down. And we do have a significant list of unfunded needs that, you know, we can attribute this money to assuming that it meets the category. And also, I think nathan said it well, but just a reminder that it's a multiyear process that we especially on the federal side, some of these cases can take two, three years to adjudicate and then another year or two to get the money. So it's never something that we count on or plan on, but we can kind of guess. And then the third thing I'll say is in talking with, you know, my partners around the country, the uncertainty in the federal government right now and its approach to funding. We have money that we are expecting that we have been told we'll receive. But frankly, we're not counting those right now because of all of the uncertainty that's happening at the federal level and trying to just make sure that we're being consistent in what we do.
194 Yeah. So just to kind of close this out, I want to make sure other colleagues have a chance. I'm very interested in seeing the plan and also just the list of unfunded needs. I think I've asked from a lot of bureaus that I'm committed to trying to look through that and see what we're able to get, because there's a lot of long term needs that have been left unfilled for years. At this point, we should try to fill some of them that are, you know, possible and useful. I also am very mindful the other opportunity cost, which is the idea that the doj might take some of this back. That's a very compelling argument to me as well. And in closing, I just wanted to note that this, as far as I'm aware, has nothing to do with the doj settlement agreement. This is just generally department of justice policy around asset forfeiture. Okay, great. Thank you.
195 Thank you. Counselors. Councilor Koyama Lane, were you in the queue on these budget notes? Go right ahead.
196 Thank you, madam president. And thank you everyone for this discussion in the back and forth. It's actually been very helpful for me to understand this a little bit better. And I just want to confirm, because I see a lot of words in councilor Morillo budget note like develop, you know, a set of policy options and just want to confirm and have a little bit more explanation about is this more equivalent to a study to get more information, or would this budget note actually is the hope that changes are made specifically to this budget? Note can you explain a little bit more?
197 Thanks for that question, councilor Koyama Lane. Yeah, this is you know, I think we've kind of devolved into debating the merits of asset forfeiture, and we're not going to change that today. This is not really up for debate as far as if asset forfeiture is good or not. There's a lot of people who think it's pretty bad actually, because it is very inequitably applied. What we are doing with this budget note is submitting a request for information and a proposal that is standard for a budget note, and the length and detail of that note ensures that we will be able to get the details. We need to inform any policy debate on the subject. So this is not, as I stated earlier, part of the reason it wasn't an amendment is because we're not directly moving funds. We're asking for an assessment of current funds that exist for the purpose of doing studies, evaluations and other things. With regards to the police bureau that we have been mandated by the department of justice to use. So that is all that this is doing. And I will say, I think if I had made this more simple, I would have gotten the critique that it's not very clear. And that's something sneaky was going on with that regard. And if I make it detailed, I get a different critique. What you should do is you should read it thoroughly before the 11th, ask my office any questions that you have, because what I'm offering is actually something that will help the police bureau, should they wish to take it.
198 Thank you. Councilors. Councilor Zimmerman, are you in the queue on this topic or can we move? Okay, go right ahead.
199 Thanks. I want to generally agree with counselor canal in terms of request for information is important, and I. I agree that budget notes should generally be supported from that. But that line thickens when that request for information causes either a change of the normal course of work or costs. And I think that these are both kind of bumping up against that. And so not all budget notes are budget neutral. And so to your point about about request for information, I am strongly in support of that. And also just noting that, like most budget notes, become policy at some point. And so there can be a expensive investments and they're worthwhile going down. And so I just think there is a lot here. I also I think it's important it sounds like we're kind of combining two different types of programs, because I think seven is really about forfeiture. We get from federal government, which I'm assuming is their cases. And then 17 looks like it's more about our cases. But I, I was hoping to understand that a little bit better. Is that the federal government do they dictate Portland police bureau case or forfeiture use for your cases, or are we talking about they dictate the stuff they give us from their federal cases. I'm a little bit confused on how we're using this language a bit.
200 And councilor I'll have to get some clarification as well. I understand where you're going. As I mentioned at the beginning, the complexities of these, because sometimes we do, you know, a case with numerous agencies, for example. And, you know, certainly our federal partners as well. So there are each case is unique in terms of how it's decided about how that's going to be broken up. But I can get you some detailed remarks about, you know, kind of how that falls to us.
201 I appreciate that, and I think. To that end, I mean, I think that I would agree with councilor Morillo about let's make sure we're using these funds so that we don't risk them leaving. I'm I'm fully in support of that. Right. We should be aggressive in that. And there may have been a reason why we built up the fund at some point. But there are uses and there are reasons to I'm not sure we have to have, I think in combined total of the two of these, it's like five pages worth of two budget notes to get there. But I think we can spend those more aggressively. It sounds like you've already developed that plan. Thank you.
202 Thank you.
203 City administrator jordan, at one point you had a hand up here, and I wasn't sure if you had something you needed to add that we should all know.
204 Thank you, madam president. I think the discussion has moved beyond what I was going to comment on. Thank you though.
205 Thank you. Councilor Morillo. Did you have any other budget notes that you wanted to flag today?
206 No, those were my only budget notes.
207 Councilor Green.
208 Thank you, madam president. I have two budget notes. But before, I just want to kind of make a general comment that I've heard that, you know, these notes and this level of detail and specificity is unprecedented and it's confusing. But I would just say that I really appreciate the level of detail that's in some of these budget notes. We are the budget committee for the city of Portland, and we are legislators, and this is how we legislate. And so I think this is a new this is a good development in this, this city's history. And so I'll be very interested to look at everyone's budget notes very carefully. Okay. My budget note Green seven motion to amend attachment d and add a budget note for the city administrator to explore rate design changes within the next fiscal year. It's one paragraph. One sentence really no two sentences. It says the city council directs the city administrator to convene a working group in fiscal year 2526 to evaluate the current rate design structures within relevant public works bureaus. The working group shall explore potential alternatives and improvements to existing rate frameworks, with the goal of informing future rate setting practices. Colleagues. This budget note comes out of some conversations that have had we've had in the transportation infrastructure committee, as well as the finance committee. What we get as council is oftentimes the opportunity to review the rates themselves and comment on on whether they are sufficient or not. I think it's time to have a deeper dive into rate design. And, you know, getting to the sort of finer details of who pays, what cost in the total public works portfolio. This is pretty standard practice in utilities. And so I think and I think I've gotten support from dca, donna paul to have that discussion. So that's all this budget note is doing, is formalizing and bringing to the full council some of those discussions we've had. So I'll take any questions on that one. If folks have have one.
209 Thank you. Councilor does anybody have questions about Green seven? I'm not seeing anybody new jumping in the queue. Councilor Koyama Lane are you in the okay, councilor Smith, do you have any questions on this? I know you're in the queue separately. Okay, councilor Green, you may have found something that's either so boring or so non-controversial that nobody, nobody has comments.
210 They won't.
211 You have one more though.
212 I do. It's it is extremely boring. But it it may become controversial depending upon the outcome of the working group.
213 So I think it might. I'm looking forward to it.
214 That's great. Okay. The other one is actually something I think I would like. I hope to combine with dunfee eight, which was a budget note that was related to the prosper Portland amendment that we introduced last week. It did not carry, but I think the note still is worthwhile to essentially express council's expectation that we are going to have a sustained commitment to inclusive and equitable growth in the next in the next budget cycle. That's Green eight. Green eight is the budget. Note. I think the intention on this was to provide a little comfort when we were trying to sort of zero out the ongoing contribution from the general fund to prosper Portland, to say, look, promise you it'll be back next year. That is largely a moot point. But I do want the note to carry, which gets to the sort of conversational piece to guide this investment council will convene and facilitate a discussion during fy 2526, in partnership with the deputy city administrator for community and economic development, service area and relevant stakeholders to determine funding strategies and programmatic priorities. So it basically just is an expression of the time. Frankly, what I heard from a lot of my colleagues is that it may be premature to vote on a budgetary impact for prosper Portland, but we should talk about what the future of economic development looks like in the city. And so this budget note says, let's do that, and let's let's have it be led by danny olivera. That's basically the, the intent here.
215 Clarifying its Dunphy nine.
216 Its Dunphy nine. Okay.
217 Thank you.
218 So we're looking at Green eight and Dunphy nine. And one of the things that I was going to ask toward the end of our meeting was that if folks have budget notes or amendments that are substantially related to your colleagues, to perhaps spend the next week doing some work on seen if those could be taken together on the 11th and bring forward a joint proposal. I'll offer as an example that councilor Koyama Lane and I have started that conversation around. I believe it's Koyama Lane four and pirtle-guiney 12, so this may be an opportunity for the two of you to work together between now and our next meeting. Colleagues, does anybody have questions about Green eight and or Dunphy nine? Councilor Ryan, is that why you're in the queue?
219 No.
220 Okay. Councilor Smith, do you have any questions? I see you in the queue. Councilor Koyama Lane, did you have questions on this one? Okay, colleagues, I don't see any questions on these, so we'll move on. Counselor Green, did you have any others?
221 You know, I may have a I think there's one that was written, not pre-filed related to anti-displacement. It's not in my pack here, so I won't talk about it today.
222 Okay, great.
223 We'll know that you have another one potentially coming. Councilor Smith, do you have budget notes you'd like to flag for your colleagues?
224 Yes, ma'am.
225 Go right ahead.
226 Thank you very much. This is kind of goes in line to, I think, to the spirit of Morillo seven. In the interest of promoting fiscal transparency and ensuring responsible governance, I motion to add a budget note, adopting a requirement that the mayor and city administrator disclose all contracts, agreements or commitments exceeding $50,000 prior to their approval of execution at any city council meeting. And basically, this measure is intended to provide the city council with clear and timely insight into the liabilities and fiscal obligations that the mayor has entered on our behalf. For the city of Portland, for fiscal year 2526, requiring such disclosure disclosures will facilitate enhanced oversight, support informed decision making, and uphold the public trust by ensuring accountability for substantial financial commitments. And on June 11th, I will respectfully request that the council consider and incorporate this requirement into our upcoming budget process to strengthen our oversight capacity and reinforce transparent governance.
227 Councilor this, I'm.
228 I'm watching people around the dais look for this. Is this one that you've pre filed or is this something new that will be coming on the 11th? Okay.
229 It will be Smith 11 okay.
230 Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that for folks who were looking. Go right ahead I apologize for interrupting.
231 No no no that's I was at the end. But but but what I'm hearing here, this is really. Informational about the forfeiture. I didn't know that they were holding money and then choosing to determine what they did with those funds without council approval. So that's concerning. Had we had my budget note, we would have known how much money had come in that fiscal year for the police or any other agency. We're still not getting the information. So when we apply that to my 912 plus this budget note about contracts, because the current the current charter allows the mayor and the city manager to execute contracts without our knowledge at all. They don't have to tell us what's going on or who they're who they're contracting with. So I think that that is a very dangerous place to be for council. And not knowing what's really going on. And you know what money they're pushing out. So for me, I would just urge my colleagues to support that because before in the old council they would have to get permission. I'm not asking for permission, I'm just asking for disclosure before you execute.
232 Thank you. Councilor colleagues, are there any questions for councilor Smith about the budget? Note that she'll be bringing forward on the 11th. Okay, I'm not seeing anyone new in the queue. And councilor I'm not seeing anybody raising their hands around the dais. So I think folks have the information they need. Thank you very much. Councilor Koyama Lane.
233 Thank you. Yeah, go right ahead.
234 I would like to speak about two budget notes. I'm bringing Koyama Lane five and Koyama Lane six. They're both related to vision zero. I want to point out that Koyama Lane five, I didn't get to choose the naming the title for this, and it actually shouldn't be called restore funding for vision zero. That's not what this is. It is a motion to add a budget note for increased transparency regarding vision zero program. So these two are connected. I had I got the I got to visit community and public safety's committee yesterday. Thank you so much for having me and got questions about vision zero. So I brought a quick one pager printed those out for you. We also have the vision zero lead here. If anyone has questions. Koyama Lane five focuses on how we are reporting and what access we all have and the community has to the data and the work of vision zero. So I don't know if I should read through all of this. I feel like I've read through it a few times. To all of you.
235 Why don't we see if there's questions on it? Okay, because there may not be. You want to talk about Koyama Lane six first.
236 And Koyama Lane six came out of a request that the chair of the transportation and infrastructure committee made from the resolution that we are all co-sponsoring as the transportation and infrastructure committee chair, Clark asked that I make sure there is something in writing as a budget note for a plan for if we do reconvene this task force that was disbanded, that there is some sort of plan for any extra work that would come from that. Speaking with the different dca's that would be involved in this, it sounds like it would be very minimal. Maybe a. 1.5 fte could likely be basically says that we would direct those dc three dca's involved in the task force to create some sort of plan by September 1st, to figure out who would take on any administrative tasks needed. Happy to answer any questions.
237 Councilors are there.
238 Councilor Zimmerman, go.
239 Right ahead.
240 Thanks. These are great. I do want to. You mentioned that you didn't pick the name, and I just want to ask how that name was developed because I think I've had a similar experience. So if you could share that a little bit, councilor.
241 I believe that was when I submitted my budget notes and amendments to the budget office. They were named for me. Yeah. And also kind of ordered weirdly too, because I've had some questions from other councilors because I like number Koyama Lane three, five and six. All are about vision zero, and Koyama Lane four isn't. So now I know in the future I might be a little bit more direct about how I'd like those ordered.
242 Yeah, I appreciate you highlighting that. I had a similar experience. In fact, last week we passed amendments. One amendment had multiple actions to it, but when I submitted mine through the budget office, I was told I had to break it up into what turned in to be like four different amendments. So I reject that I'm not playing that game anymore. I think that was wrong. I think it overcomplicated things. And then we were allowed as a council to take action on items that were much more clear. So I think there are a number of amendments and notes that were either retitled, reordered or broken up to confuse the process. And, and I think we need to really reject that as it occurred. And if you've got amendments, I know I do that I will be introducing as a single line, and I will read it in to be a single paragraph or a single note, to get a little bit more clear, and that those types of, of, I guess I'll say I was willing to make some alterations in a new system for me. Right. But it has not been adhered to. It's not been advised across the board. And clearly we took action last week that didn't live up to it. So I just appreciate you saying, like, I didn't pick the name here because the name that you just applied is a lot more clear than what this was, because that was the one note I had about your budget note. So thanks for clarifying it, councilor.
243 Councilor no councilor Novick are you in the queue on these budget notes?
244 Yes.
245 Go right.
246 Ahead. And councilor Koyama Lane, one thing here that gives me pause is identifying revenue that ensures PBOT can meet its critical bureau needs and continue its work in the vision zero action plan, including restoration of cannabis funding. Because when I say identifying revenue, that ensures PBOT can be this critical bureau needs, that to me means identify at least $6 billion. So that seems like a bit grandiose for budget note, but with all respect.
247 Councilor, would you.
248 Like to respond to that about your intent?
249 Yeah, I think my intent is basically that the word and there is kind of in all caps that there is work to constantly be identifying revenue that makes sure that we're we're doing critical bureau needs and the big stuff, and we're also making sure that we are not losing sight of our work on vision zero. Does that clarify it at all?
250 Yeah, I just I might suggest a modification to say, as PBOT seeks to identify revenue, that to meet its critical bureau needs, it should include trying to find revenue to continue work in the vision zero action plan or something like that.
251 I would welcome that.
252 Thank you.
253 Change.
254 So it sounds like we may have an amended version of this coming back to us.
255 Yep.
256 And that's Koyama Lane five.
257 Madam chair, I just add really quickly that there is another budget note that I have on directing PBOT and all of us to study alternative revenue for transportation. Just thank you. That will be covered.
258 Is that Clark eight just so folks are following along. So okay. So Clark eight explore PBOT funding options is somewhat related. Here is what I'm hearing okay thank you councilor.
259 Councilor did.
260 You have something to add? I just want to go through and make sure folks aren't in the queue to talk about this as well.
261 I was just going to say councilor. If councilor Clark wants to talk about combining at all, we can have that conversation. Yeah.
262 Keep vision zero. Okay.
263 Keeping vision zero separate. Councilor Kanal were you in the queue to talk about these amendments?
264 No.
265 Okay. Councilor Ryan, were you in the queue to talk about these amendments? Councilor Dunphy, councilor Avalos okay, councilor, I'm not seeing any other questions or controversy around these. Thank you for bringing them up for folks today. Councilors, I'm going to skip over myself to make sure we have time for everybody. Councilor Avalos, did you want to talk through a couple of your amendments?
266 Yes. Thank you.
267 So I have three budget notes. Avalos eight, nine and ten. The first one is about budget notes to ensure that we are setting aside dollars in the next budget to make sure that we are not furthering our cuts to health care. So, you know, our city services are only as good as the people that provide them. And I'm really hoping that this $15 million budget note contingency just demonstrates our commitment to our employees. I, as you all know, was pretty upset and voted no on the vote to reduce the healthcare or cut the packages. I know that we were in a crunch, but at the end of the day, I believe that we can make we should be prioritizing our employees and their healthcare, especially in these times, especially as other stressors are being put on our employees. I think we need to protect their future healthcare. So this is essentially just a note that directs the mayor to, in the next budget, be more thoughtful about setting aside more dollars. You know, the city always budgets for potential increases. But as we saw, that was not enough this past year. The premiums continue to grow exponentially. And so I want us to be prepared to meet those increases so that, again, we're not furthering those cuts. So that's what Avalos eight is about. I'll just keep going if that's okay. Avalos nine is this amendment is about making sure that we're taking a strategic approach to the comms engagement and equity work. And so identifying the outcomes that we need to achieve before making big decisions about the infrastructure. This for me really is directing the executive branch to just have a process that is looking thoughtfully at what is what are the strategic outcomes we are wanting from these bureaus. And at the end of the day, you know, from a resident's perspective, it doesn't matter which bureau is communicating to them, they just need clear and accessible information about our city services. The insight survey shows very profoundly that portlanders feel that they are not being reached in the ways that benefit them. And so I am asking that we ensure that we are making any of those cuts thoughtfully and with the intention of a unified strategy that I know that the mayor is trying to accomplish. But a unified cut is not the same as a unified strategy, in my opinion. So that's how this is. That's how I'm lining that up. And then nablus ten is about doing some more intentional work around our 311 system. This is supposedly our front door to city government for many residents, and we have put even more emphasis on 301 being the place that we are directing residents to get in touch with us to access services. And so I'm asking for an evaluation that will hopefully provide some data about how well that front door is working. Where is there room for improvement? What resources are needed to serve portlanders effectively, especially for east portlanders who are way further away from city services? Or they face transportation barriers? Three and one is a really important link to them to city services. And so I want this evaluation to examine whether that current system adequately serves our district's diverse communities and identify where there can be improvements. Those are my three amendments. Happy to take any questions.
268 Thank you. Councilor I don't see anybody new jumping in the queue, but for folks who are in the queue. Councilor Koyama Lane did you have questions here? Councilor Dunphy? Did you have questions here? Councilor Ryan.
269 Actually I do, yes. Councilor Avalos and would see which one was it? Number eight. Yeah, yeah, I heard your sentiment. I respect that, but did you identify, did you say 15 million?
270 I did. Source I was basing that based on how much the packages, when we were being shown how much it would cost to increase it, to kind of maintain it was, you know, it was a round number. So it's more than anything, I'm just saying that the 8 million that we had set aside was not clearly not enough. And I want to make sure that we're setting aside more to prepare for that so that if the increases are another ten, 12, 15%, that we have a little more wiggle room in our budget, and we're not having to make that harder choice of where else can we cut. So I'm asking that he be intentional, the mayor be intentional about putting setting aside that money ahead of time.
271 So are you asking for seven more to get to 15.
272 I suppose, yeah.
273 And did you identify a source?
274 No, this is just a budget note and this is for the next budget. So it's not even for this budget. This is what when I talked with the office, they said that I could do it as a note to signal to the next process that we want to make sure that that gets included in the first round, if you will, of the budget. Does that make sense?
275 No.
276 I just had to ask clarifying questions because I said I would. At the very beginning of this, when someone puts out a dollar amount, I'm just always going to ask where you think the source is. Yeah, yeah.
277 And like I said, the what the budget office advised me, they said that it would be. Yeah, there's no source for it. It's more so a like a signal that we want the mayor to identify dollars in the next budget. So that's how I was explained to me, would be the best way to approach it.
278 I understand what you're getting at now.
279 Councilor canal did you have questions here?
280 Yes. Thank you, councilor Avalos, for adjusting. I think you adjusted the word to unified on on Avalos nine, and that is significant for me and my ability to support it now. So I wanted to appreciate that. Also very supportive of the idea of looking into 311 more. And for those who were not at the public safety committee meeting yesterday, we did have michelle north, the manager of that program, come in and talk and really give an idea of sort of the budget part of it, but but the long term move towards having three, one, one be a be that front door and be the other number, you call for things that don't go to 911. So I'm very appreciative of that. I am curious about eight as it relates to whether this is essentially asking to change the level of inflation that we assume will happen, and having that better reflect the reality of nationwide healthcare.
281 That's exactly it.
282 Okay.
283 We've just been, in my opinion, under assuming like we're like, oh, it'll go up five, 8%. But over the last couple of years it has been over 10%, 15%. So I just want us to up that assumption.
284 Thank you.
285 Councilor Morillo were you in the queue for questions here?
286 Go right ahead.
287 Thank you. My question is specifically for amendment eight. I guess I am supportive of this in spirit. And I think something that we talked about during our executive sessions was that when there's an increase here, that means there's going to be more layoffs because there's not a big pool of funding to play with. And we've discussed that. It sounds like our next revenue year is going to be even worse than this one. So I just have some concerns about that. And I think that. I think I hope, I guess I hope that as a city council, we are ready to be really ambitious with our revenue raising. If we really do want to pursue things like this. I hope that when councilor Novick brings up his ceo tax, which I am hardcore campaigning for, that we are going to be ready to push it forward, because the reality is that without some really intentional revenue raising, some of these things can't happen. And I and I want them to happen. So I hope that I guess I'm just telling all of you that you should support councilor Novick cbo revenue raising tax when he brings it forward.
288 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Zimmerman.
289 Yeah. Also on number eight, I just I don't think this is a budget note, right. When a budget note says to allocate one time resources of $15 million, this is an amendment. And so I think that councilor Canal offered some advice in terms of the spirit or using a different rate of assumption in future inflation projections. But as this reads this, this is a requirement to set aside $15 million. And so I think that you've been led astray in terms of whomever helped you develop this. And I think that it does have budget consequences. And I and I think that it's okay that we have previously set aside eight and that it, you know, it wasn't on target, but I don't think that it was ever developed from a perspective of eight is designed to encompass any and all costs. It's a it's a management of given all the costs of the city. There are some there are some things that we're going to be able to cover 100% and others not. But the intent of this is quoting the intent of this set aside is to reduce the burden on health care. So this is a budget amendment. Next sentence appropriate this contingency to make recommendations. So I don't think this is a note councilor. And I would I would encourage you to seek some additional legal guidance before we passed it. Thanks.
290 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Clark.
291 Thank you, madam chair. Councilor Avalos, I appreciate the spirit behind this very much, but I would be more interested in a budget note that explored alternative ways of providing health care to our employees. In fact, I've talked to several of the our union representatives about that issue. Could we set up our own urgent care or some other way to provide health care, as opposed to just feeding cash to insurance companies or whatever? So just a thought, a long range thought about how we might approach health care for our employees a little bit differently. I know it's not free, but it might be. It might be worthy of exploration in the future. Thank you. Councilor.
292 I know that you did talk to our budget team about that budget note. Is it helpful to have ruth or robert talk through the thinking there, or do you want to just move on?
293 I will just take that offline and talk with cbo and see if I need to adjust it to make sure that the intent I'm going for is being reflected. So I'll work on that between now and the 11th.
294 Okay.
295 Councilors, I don't see any other questions in the queue for councilor Avalos. Councilor Avalos, did you have anything else you wanted to bring forward?
296 No. Thank you. Okay.
297 Councilor Dunphy.
298 Thank you.
299 Thank you, madam chair. I colleagues, I'd like to discuss two specific budget notes that I have. Dunphy, ten, and Dunphy, 11. Dunphy, ten is my effort to hold east Portland as harmless as possible. As we know, east Portland has fewer parks, parks, facilities, less infrastructure, fewer sidewalks. We have heard directly from park staff that the more than half of the projected parks to no longer receive maintenance are exclusively in district one, including the new mill park and park Lane parks. The ones that we are literally opening right now will not receive maintenance once they are open. This is my effort to try and hold on to what little we do have. As we also discussed previously, the increase in the mayor's budget towards street sweeping will not be felt equally in district one because we don't have as many curbs. So Dunphy ten, is an attempt to, where possible, through the bureaus specifically of transportation and parks and rec, use some discretion and try to not let those things disproportionately fall on those in our community who have the least. So that is Dunphy ten.
300 And you wanted to bring up Dunphy 11 as well.
301 I also wanted to bring up Dunphy 11. This is in response to our labor and workforce committee. We've been having some really great conversations. This is a as with many things in our system, every bureau, every outreach group, every different parts of our system is trying to meet an end without a lot of central organization. And this is an attempt to try and centralize a lot of that and understand who is on first when it comes to not only broadly, the workforce development component of what we're trying to do in the community, supporting young people, trying to find new careers, but also understand how are we building that pipeline into our own employment. This would direct bureau of human resources and other bureaus to come together to say, what are you all doing? And help our offices understand better how to interact with and improve our workforce development? So those are my two budget notes.
302 Councilor Novick did you just jump in the queue to discuss these?
303 Yes.
304 Go right ahead.
305 Councilor Dunphy. I'm just looking at the second sentence of Dunphy. Ten bureau shall ensure that essential services in east Portland are maintained without reduction. That sounds to me more like an amendment, because it seems to be actually directing the use of resources.
306 You're right. That is pretty strong language there.
307 Thank you.
308 Just to clarify, that is my intention that we do understand that the bureau directors have a fair amount of discretion over some of it, some of it not. It is my intention to encourage that discretion is used to district one's advantage.
309 Councilor Ryan, did you have comments.
310 On this? No. Okay.
311 Councilor Kanal is not here. Councilors. Any other questions for councilor Dunphy? Councilor Dunphy I'm curious about Dunphy 11. Which I'll just say, because we've had a lot of conversation about what is and isn't a good budget. No. Seems like exactly what we should be using budget notes for. So thank you. Is this report something that your committee has talked about, or that councilor Smith's committee, I guess, has talked about, or is this report just building on the conversations that you've had there? I'm trying to understand if this is something that the committee has asked to move forward, or if this is something that you've brought because of.
312 It is in response to my conversations. But it is not explicitly a committee driven request.
313 Okay.
314 Thank you for clarifying, councilor Green, did you jump in to ask councilor Dunphy a question? Go right ahead.
315 Thank you, madam president. You've opened up a light bulb for me, so I think in our most recent labor and workforce development committee, we had a an exchange with prosper Portland around the capital, set aside the 1%, which I think is for workforce. It's part of the regional workforce equity agreement. Do you think this budget note kind of gets close to answering that kind of a question that we brought up?
316 That is absolutely my intention. Yes. That was what I was aiming, at least in part aiming for. Not not only is it things like workforce or work systems and some of the summer internship programs, but also explicitly where, for example, our utilities have set aside those dollars to invest in workforce. And we've partnered with prosper Portland to implement that. And there are some disparate parts that are moving in different directions, and we need to understand who is on first and what is actually happening.
317 Great. I support Dunphy levin.
318 Thank you. Councilor.
319 Okay. Councilor Dunphy, did you have anything else to add?
320 That is everything on my end.
321 Okay. Councilor Ryan, go right ahead.
322 Thank you, madam president. Budget notes I had two. One actually was approved. I think it was the last one we did on the 21st in the budget note category. That was on the grants having an evaluation of the grant system and how we can improve that those guidelines. The second one, budget note two, directs park leadership, the city administrator and the cfo to coordinate a meeting with the united states tennis association, pacific northwest nonprofit organization, to consider expansion of partnership to support the city's tennis program and making investments in tennis infrastructure. The note directs the meeting to occur before September 30th, 2025, and a subsequent report to council is due before November 15th of 2025. As stated earlier by councilor Clark. I'm just kind of piggybacking on that. This expands public private partnerships with a nonprofit who is willing to provide 1.5 million for parks asset maintenance.
323 Thank you. Councilor, did you say that you had a second.
324 Budget note that you.
325 Wanted to?
326 I said that the other one, I realized was the last budget note we approved before you decided it wasn't a good idea to keep doing that. In that lovely day we had last. When was that? Wednesday. Yeah, well.
327 It was a day. Councilors. Does anybody have questions on Ryan five.
328 Boring is good. All right.
329 Councilor Kanal go right ahead.
330 Thank you. So I guess this has to do with a comment that we were talking about with relation to one of the previous notes as well, which I think is effectively, are we using a note to imply that we know the answer to the question that the note is asking? So my question for you, councilor Ryan, is, you know, because it says at recommendations of how to proceed with this partnership and the partnership, as far as I understand it, is effectively privatizing the tennis center. Is that accurate read of the sort of intent behind this?
331 It's an attempt to take the business model and to look for creative ways in which we can partner. Partner. It's not a total takeover of private privatizing, like you just said, and it's an opportunity for that asset, which is an important one to this city, to have a willing partner that could actually help with that. It's also a partner that in your hometown, Vancouver, Washington, has been very active and has been able to really transform their tennis programing over in the city of Vancouver with getting excellent outcomes. So when we're trying to be creative on how we move forward, parks is definitely the area where where we have the most opportunity to think out of the box. And so I think it's an opportunity to look into that, and I would hate for us to squander and dismiss a willing partner that's at the table.
332 Yeah, I'm not not saying that I'm supportive or oppositional to this. I'm trying to understand it because the previous briefing that we got with it was a pretty involved arrangement. And so I for me, just that last six or so words there, how to proceed with this partnership implied that that there's sort of already a decision made on it. And that's what I was trying to.
333 Imply, that we should meet and not be a bureau of no and not listen to willing partners that come to the table to offer helpful solutions on how to continue to provide a service such as tennis, and also to just take advantage of the fact that they've really getting great results with neighboring jurisdictions. And it's been well received by the residents in the city of Vancouver. It was great. And you were in the same meeting listening to their equity results. And what I didn't want is for us at a time where we need to think out of the box on how to move forward, to dismiss that willing partner at the table.
334 Thank you for answering.
335 You're welcome.
336 Counselor Clark, were you in the queue with question here as well?
337 Yes, madam chair, thank you for this. Budget note. I think it really falls in line with the desire I have to explore public private partnerships, and it doesn't mean that we give up ownership at all. It means that we look at the costs and the benefits of some sort of a public private partnership. And I think that's what you're getting at here. I don't know if you'd be willing to change any of that language if it's that important to proceed with exploring the costs and benefits of a public private partnership, which is maybe a little softer than how to proceed. I don't know if you're open to that, and I don't know if that would address councilor Canal concern.
338 Councilor Ryan.
339 I will totally reflect on that offline with you and with councilor Kanal. But most importantly, I just wanted to make sure that we didn't allow this to not take place. It's like we've got to think out of the box and especially in parks when if you've noticed it, it helps solve the problem about our fiscal challenges, as opposed to taking more money out of another program or something. So that's why it's a budget note, because it's not creating other coffers. It's actually adding investments into the city, which we desperately need.
340 And your your comment about the city of no, I think we really want to be the city of yes and explore all those opportunities.
341 So thank you. Portlanders love their parks and they would like to be included in the journey on how to improve them.
342 Councilor Koyama Lane. Did you have a question here?
343 Kind of. I have a little bit of a comment. Is that okay?
344 Go right ahead.
345 All right. I know something, council president that you and I have talked about as having young children is how challenging it can be to find summer camps that are affordable and available. And I just wanted to share. I don't know about all the pieces here, but I my interest is piqued because I do remember a couple years ago that my family couldn't afford many summer camps for my children, but the Portland parks and rec tennis program, and I believe because they've been working with usta, provided extra camps that were available and affordable. And so my children have really enjoyed those camps, and I have appreciated having access to them.
346 And I'll just add a comment as well. Councilor I, I'd be curious to see how the conversations go with you and counselor Clark and councilor Canal. I'm sometimes skeptical about how our assets will be maintained, how affordability will be maintained when we enter into some of these public private partnerships. And I know that the results have been positive with this organization in particular elsewhere, I would want to make sure that if we move forward with this, we are leaving room to ensure that we had similar results and that the city maintains the public interest in the bottom line of what we do. But if this amendment language were were something that ensured that we could continue to get those results that councilor Koyama Lane were talking about, I definitely think we need to be doing more with our assets as it relates to parks and rec, and not less.
347 Thank you. So noted. And please know my I'm willing to work on the language change. I'm just trying to save us some time and not spend time on the floor doing edits at this moment. But I heard you. Yeah, absolutely.
348 Thank you. Councilor councilor Canal, are you in the queue to describe some of your budget notes to your colleagues?
349 Yes.
350 Go right ahead.
351 First, thank you to councilor Clark. That would address my concern, so I appreciate it. I look forward to working with you on that golf. Yeah. So I have I, I originally pre-filed seven budget notes one canal eight was already approved. I'm just going to note a few of them. And then I'm going to talk about 12 and 13 canal nine is paired with the amendment which is canal three on council operations and community engagement. It's really part of the same conversation around civic life that I know a few of us are going to be talking about. Canal ten is paired with canal five, which is about overtime directing prioritization of overtime usage at PPB. And I can talk about that when we talk about that amendment. I am going to withdraw and possibly resubmit canal 11 because it was paired with an amendment that did not pass, and it kind of doesn't work the way it's worded without the other. I'm also going to withdraw and potentially resubmit canal 14 with just some more information there. But the two that I want to talk about today are 12 and 13. So budget note proposal canal 12 is to study long term vacancy fees. This is to understand with information from the housing bureau as well as the community and economic development service area on the residential and commercial sides respectively. To report back to council by the date that we are anticipating the. The city administrator will have their recommendations for next fiscal year. Concept structures, implementation and projections for what a vacant residential fee, long term vacant residential fee and long term vacant commercial unit fee would look like just kind of giving us an idea of what are we talking about here? Is this something that would theoretically raise $5 a year, $5 million a year, $50 million a year? And also, if we can get an understanding of if it would have its its any incentivizing effect on reducing rent and filling vacancies. Again, the housing bureau is on the residential side. The community economic development service area is on the commercial side. There's been some conversations here about what the length of time is as well. So this would allow for different time concepts to be a part of that analysis. Canal 13 is a note regarding a package delivery fee. This would be a last mile delivery fee, so it wouldn't affect deliveries from businesses to retailers, and it would be on a per delivery basis and exempt prepared food deliveries. It's the same timeline as the other one. February 28th is the rough estimate of when the city administrators recommendations would come out. Colorado and minnesota have both implemented statewide package delivery fees. This is a way of helping to both adjust the getting folks to pay in on the use of roads, as well as to help incentivize getting bundles of deliveries done together. If you've ever ordered five items on amazon and been given the opportunity to have them delivered five different ways so that you can get the first four a little earlier than the one that would take the longest. Or you can wait to have them all delivered together. That's five times the wear and tear on our roads. That's five times the traffic impact. So the idea behind this would be to look at it on a per delivery basis. So those are the two. Again there's no intention I've tried to write it without any statement of like we're definitely going to do it a certain way on any of those just to try to understand, is this something that's even worth pursuing and is there any what's the rough idea of the budget impact that could occur? Thanks.
352 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Clark, are you in the queue to discuss these two amendments?
353 Yes. I just like to ask the councilor, are we definitely preempted at this point? Do you know?
354 So there's a state report on this? I can't remember the name of the acronym of the task force that did it that that says that we might not be preempted. We might be preempted. Depends on how you do it. And I'm looking forward to, you know, in partnership in parallel, I should say, with the fiscal side of this, which is the budget notes, to do the legal side and talk to the city attorneys. I think having it go sequentially will make it take years as opposed to months.
355 Are there other cities that have this.
356 In Oregon? No, there are at least 20 other cities around the country that are in the process of implementing it or have proposals put forward on it. I don't have the exact details on terms of the list, but I can get that.
357 That's intriguing. Thank you.
358 Councilor Green.
359 Thank you, madam president. Councilor Kanal, can you run through your list of things you're withdrawing again? Just I think I missed them.
360 I'm withdrawing 11 and 14.
361 Okay.
362 And I may resubmit slightly different versions of them in the especially in the case of 14. But yeah, just I want to I'm referring it back to my office effectively.
363 Okay. That's that's good. I', I have I have intentions around 14 just for the normal book of work next next year. So let's work together on that.
364 I would love to work with you on that.
365 Thank you. My question about canal 12. So as it's written it, you're dividing the work between the Portland housing bureau for residential and then just the community economic service, community economic, etc, for the for the vacant for the commercial one. I mean, they're both under that service area. I think as I read it, if someone had qualms, you could almost divide the question on this. Was that kind of what you were thinking about? It's like if someone was like, oh, I don't like this for residential, but I do like it for commercial. Would you would you be open to someone dividing that question in this? And do you think that that undermines the spirit of what you're trying to do here?
366 That's a great question. My intention is to do both of these, but I think either one stands alone. This was another thing. And I just that previous conversation around titling and bundling, and I've had the same experience as councilor Zimmermann and Koyama Lane on it, I think. And also, I've had this experience with my documents that I put forward for through to file with council. It's not just one team. I think there's just kind of at the last second, oh, we didn't have this title. Let's just give it a title sometimes and it's not a big deal. But I for me, I, I have some notes that are bundled with amendments that got separated. This one is designed to be the way it is. But if it ended up either either option, splitting it and having separate votes or having just it be under sets for both, it would be fine. I think I was more certain that it would be the housing bureau that should lead on the residential side than any particular part of the service area for the commercial side, if that makes sense.
367 It does. Yeah, I just kind of wanted to anticipate in case that that was controversial and like how we might approach it. I think this is a I am prepared to support this budget. No, I, I think it's an opportunity for us to pull into the public, record the facts. You know, we've we have a low vacancy rate for residential units in the city. But then sometimes I hear that we have got tens of 10,000 units empty. And so what what's what's true and you know, what's how do we understand that that this study, I think, will help establish that because you would be able to ascertain the effect without understanding your vacancy rates.
368 So yeah. And it's kind of like in the unemployment rate, not having people who aren't seeking work sometimes you see, oh, it's low because the people seeking work are finding jobs. But there's a lot of people outside the labor market. We also have some units that are outside of the market altogether that aren't necessarily captured when a renter is looking for their next home.
369 Yeah, and I think the budget note specifies a time horizon, which is also important to note because you need some vacancy in your housing stock to accommodate churn and people who want to live here. So I'll stop talking about housing policy ideas and just say I my answers are questions or my questions are answered. Thank you.
370 Thank you, councilor, councilor Morillo.
371 Thank you, madam president. Yeah, I really like both of these. I will be supporting both of them. I think that getting more information so that we can make informed decisions about some of these tough budget questions that we have are, is going to be really critical. I think, you know, the question that councilor Clark posed is exactly the type of thing that would come up in a study. They would put that together for us and get that information so that we can make those decisions. And I want to point out that this is not particularly different than the asset forfeiture fee that I brought forward. As far as asking for more information and getting a study right. The difference is the passion with regards to the topic. And so I hope that as we're analyzing, when we're getting more information and not necessarily making a policy directive, but trying to get more information so that we can craft policy later, that we are viewing it through that lens.
372 Councilor Novick.
373 Councilor Kanal I'm curious that you instruct the housing bureau and said said to study vacancy fees, whereas you instruct the revenue division and the city attorney's office to study package delivery fees. It seems to me that I would want to probably want to start with the city attorney asking what kind of vacancy fee is legal. And as the revenue grow, what how would we go about collecting it? And maybe the housing bureau and said comes into play in discussing it. But anyway, that's my reaction.
374 Yeah.
375 Can I respond to that, madam president?
376 Go ahead councilor.
377 Thank you.
378 Because of the speculative aspect of that task force report in which speculative is harsh because of the task force reports that have said that there is a possibility that certain designs of a package delivery fee might be preempted under Oregon state law that needed to be done. The method by which it's collected affects the legality. So that's why that one's focused on the revenue division and the city attorney's office. That hasn't come up in the same way. As far as I'm aware, for the long term vacancy fees. And so it feels more of a implementation question. Of course, the relevant leads on this in those two areas could ask the revenue division for more information. And of course, the city attorney's as well.
379 I mean, I think that at a minimum, I think that there is some legal question as to whether you have a vacancy tax. So at a minimum, you'd want to evaluate what kind of thing, what kind of fee would be immune from the argument that it's actually a tax, which theoretically could violate state law on uniform real property taxation?
380 So just to.
381 Clarify, is your suggestion of adding the city attorney to the to 12 or. Yes. Okay. Copy that. Thank you.
382 We'll wait to see if you bring forward a changed version of 12 or not. Okay. Councilor Ryan, did you have questions?
383 Yeah. Thank you, madam chair. I, I had to step out by a break and I came back to hear discussion about vacancy taxes. So. And I did understand how to decouple the two. I think that was a smart conversation because they are different. I'm going to focus on residential. Have you ever talked to somebody who owns a building that has vacancies, that doesn't want to rent them out?
384 As a renter, I talk to people who own buildings all the time. I talk to people just about every year when I'm considering moving. So I think I would posit that between myself and councilor Morillo, we've spent more time talking to people who are renting out units than anybody else. But in terms of the specific question, which was people who don't want to loan it out, that's obviously not the bulk of people who rent out space, either on the residential or commercial side. At the same time, we're seeing reports that there are thousands of units vacant, some of which we manage or own in terms of our affordable housing stock as well, by the way, which is also a key point of emphasis for me. But so in terms of talking to the people, that's more of an anecdotal thing I have the data on. There's thousands of units that are vacant according to multiple reports that have come out. So yeah, I'm not sure I'm confused by your confusion.
385 I'm confused about this solution. Looking for a problem. I have not met anyone that is, that's trying to rent out units in their building that is thrilled that they're still empty. They want to rent them out. So you want to tax them for the fact that they're struggling to get it rented out? I'm confused on at a time where we have businesses leaving our city, where we have no one wanting to really turn dirt to build more units, we're sending them another signal that we want to tax them and do more fees. I'm could you could you point out, I thought that we want more housing for portlanders?
386 Yeah. I'd like to ask if councilor Ryan could point on the page where the word tax appears.
387 Well, I guess the word fee. Can I just say the word fee, which to some people lands as a tax?
388 I think if there's elected officials that are conflating the two terms that might land that way, that's true. But a fee is not a tax. It actually helps to ideally direct behavior. In my perfect world, this would be a structure that we implement that collects $0 and instead of incentivizes people to lower the rent and fill their vacant units. Because I can tell you as again, as a renter, the rent is really high here and it's growing at a significantly faster rate than wages. And I think there's a part of that that has to do with the fact that there are thousands of units vacant, and I'd love to have this conversation in a in a broader sense, too. But in order to do that accurately, I think it's helpful to have data. And that's what the budget note asks for.
389 As a renter for much of my adult life, I understand as a as somebody that is now an owner of a home, I understand as somebody that's been in dialog with many people who actually provide housing. I'm continue to be baffled by why this is a solution. Looking for a problem? I'll just say I'm voting no on this clearly, and I hope that you will entertain dialog with those who are actually trying to do all they can to build units of housing in this city.
390 And those people would not be affected by any potential vacancy fee because their units would not be vacant.
391 Thank you. Councilors. Councilor Dunphy, did you have a question for councilor Kanal?
392 Yeah, I did.
393 Councilor, in your envisioning of this, would you include things like vacant land or which is not a problem broadly in the city, but is a problem in east Portland and also airbnb units? We know that there are thousands of illegal airbnb units in apartments that could otherwise be rented, and for the purposes of tenancy, those are vacant units. And additionally, is your is your intent to ask or to have a broader sense of what it would take to be able to. To answer this question, I've heard specifically that our landlord registry is insufficient right now. So is that envisioned as part of your your amendment?
394 So in terms of the vacant land side, I would be happy to learn more about the east Portland conditions from east portland's elected representatives, but also to adjust, if that, if that's something people wanted in it. That was not part of my original thought process. This is a vacant units on the residential or commercial side, and I think the airbnb conversation is a broader policy conversation that was outside the scope of this. But I'm also not dogmatic about the exact scope of this. I think it's important that we look into getting the information and a broader net, but I also don't necessarily want to have this talk about a small piece of the airbnb conversation and then sort of subsume or replace a broader policy conversation.
395 And just to follow up with councilor.
396 Ryan's question, I.
397 Have met.
398 Landlords who are willfully and intentionally keeping their vacant units vacant, predominantly south waterfront. Some of those towers pencil at like 75% occupancy. And I have been told explicitly that there are units in some of those newer towers that have truly never been tenanted, and that for some developers, there's no intention of renting them. So I have I have seen that.
399 Councilor Smith, did you have questions for councilor Kanal?
400 Yeah, I would like to really look at this a little bit deeper in my labor and workforce committee or even the economy committee, because I would like to better understand those 5000 units that councilor Kanal is talking about, and have those folks come in and identify what are some of the challenges for them to, you know, renting out their their units? Because if they don't rent them out, they, they can't pay the mortgage. So I don't know that people are just holding on to units just because because they're losing money. But if you know, in, in conjunction with this, I mean, I just think, you know, some of the things that councilor Ryan talked about in terms of putting a fee on. Is it's like a tax. And I would say, let's let's bring them in, in, in either one of those two committees before we start a mandate that is going to cause some unintended consequences, you know, for, for folks moving out of Portland.
401 Yeah, I'd welcome having that conversation. I think arts and economy does make sense. I think housing and homelessness makes a lot of sense as well. On the residential side, after we get some time with the data that this budget note would, would provide, and maybe at that point, if there is a proposal which I'm not committed to necessarily doing, I think that's what the data is for, is to inform whether or not there is a proposal and if so, what it is. I think those are the two committees that make sense.
402 Okay. Thanks.
403 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green, have you had an opportunity to speak here? I don't think you have.
404 Not on this issue.
405 Okay. Go right ahead.
406 Thank you. So if this budget passes, I think we definitely can make time in the arts and economy committee schedule to have the public conversation. If the as the as the relevant bureaus are doing the work, I just I would note, you know, I'm personally a little dubious on the preponderance and the, the likelihood that you'll find any of those vacant units on the residential side. I know the anecdotes exist. In fact, both of my neighbors have houses that are empty, like one. One house has been empty for almost two years. The other house is empty just because they're not motivated to rent it out, and they're not quite sure what they're doing yet. And there's a lot of those properties around the city. I'd like to know what the number is, but the purpose of the fee is to internalize an external social cost. So when you are and I see you getting giddy over there, from the standpoint of the individual balance sheet, it does make sense to say I'm not lowering my rent, but I will engage in a negotiation to see if we can do a discount on the back end. That's price discrimination. You should be doing that from your own profit seeking perspective. But when everyone does that, it raises it passes a cost on to the community. That's unacceptable. And we're seeing it most acutely in the commercial sector, property owners, if they would accept a lower asking rent, not final negotiator but but lower asking rate, we would see entrepreneurs, we would see creatives want to come take advantage of the glut of commercial and office space downtown. So this is a conversation we definitely need to have. And if the fee is grounded in a data driven approach, there will be no impact on those who are trying to do the right thing. So this actually might be a nice little market signal. Organizational approach. So. I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops.
407 Yeah. And on the I think the residential side works a little differently of course, because of their different rules already in place. And, and the overwhelming majority of landlords follow them. Of course, on the commercial side, I mean, every, every your conversation about entrepreneurs, I would also add in, you know, the food industry, every restaurant just about that you've loved that has closed in this city is because of the rent. Foundationally, that's that's the primary issue, that there are other issues, of course, that that contribute. But the rent has closed a lot of my favorite places in Portland over the years, and, and a lot of the restaurants that I know that have still been around, despite some really difficult times, are the ones that actually own the building. And so. Yeah, sorry.
408 Councilor Koyama Lane did you have questions?
409 I have heard from small business owners in district three who are really struggling and are have specifically pointed out that there are commercial properties that are vacant and that the rent is not being dropped at all. And I have some constituents who email both me and the mayor every single week and ask what I'm doing about this. And so I'm bringing it up right now. But this is something that is that we're seeing, like directly on Hawthorne, a lot of vacant units. And it's something that our constituents really want us to act on. So I appreciate this being brought forward as something to look at.
410 Councilor. Councilor Smith, have you spoken to this?
411 Yeah, but I have another comment in regards.
412 To this. I'm going to jump in with a comment since I haven't spoken, and then I'll come right to you. Councilors. I just want to share that I get requests for us to do something like this a lot, and I'm not sure yet. Councilor if I want to do it in a budget note, or if it's something that I think needs more discussion and more work before we start to even do the study and a planning, or decide if we want to move in that direction. Because I do think even doing a study sends a lot of signals, but it is something that I just want to add my voice into. Those who have said, I hear about this a lot. I've had, I think, three different neighborhood association meetings where folks have asked if we can do something like this, and it's probably something that we need a broader discussion about whether there are pros and cons to many policies, and whether the pros and cons on this one are worth it or not. So thank you for at least raising the conversation so we can start to dabble in it. Whether or not we do so through a budget note or through further conversation in committees or or if we decide that it's not worth it. Councilor Smith, go right ahead.
413 Thank you, madam president. I was also thinking about along those lines, councilor Kanal about small business assistance. We were talking about that in my office last week about there's a lot of assistance, a lot of our dollars go to rent assistance for residential, but there's nothing for commercial rent assistance for the small little guy who's, you know, storefront. They, you know, they're small restaurant. They can't keep their their doors open because of the rent is so high because they have to pay their, you know, employees and payroll taxes. So I just wanted to get a sense is if this is very similar, a very similar note that could be put together or is this totally separate?
414 I think it could.
415 So it sounds like we have another place for folks to work together over the next week or so. Councilor Ryan councilor Ryan. Go ahead.
416 Yeah. No thank you. Councilor Kanal I have to I can't let some of your comments sit without this opportunity to remind us that on may 9th, you were there with me, with commissioner Singleton, we listened to dozens of storefront owners in saint john's ask us, begging us to do something about their concerns. All of the concerns that they mentioned at that meeting were about public safety concerns. It was very descriptive language about what they've been going through. It was very clear they didn't want any cuts to police. They wanted to increase response times. And it was really crystal clear that we needed to listen to them and react. There was nothing about the topic that you're bringing up at this moment. So I just wanted to remind you, you were at that meeting and we that's what we listened to. And the save our storefronts amendments are all in response to that, because our office has been out in all of our main street neighborhoods, listening to storefront owners on what they want, and they want some help. They're spending so much of their tiny profits on public safety issues themselves, and they'd like the city to play their part, and they are threatening. And they're many of them haven't made any profits for some time. They say things like the next broken window will bankrupt me. And so I just want to remember that that meeting took place recently and you were there. And so I just had to put that out into the dais at that time, based on the comments you made earlier.
417 Yeah, thank you for that. And I'll just clarify a that my comment earlier was primarily around the food industry, restaurants and bars and things of that nature. And a lot of the folks who are bringing that up are not in that industry. I do support, as you know, the vast majority of the things you put forward on the support our storefronts side. And if we're talking about the town halls that we've had with business owners, I definitely want I appreciate you bringing that up. And I'd like to invite you to the renters town hall that's happening this weekend in district two on Sunday, June 1st, and ask you if you'd be willing to come and listen to the renters talk about whether they support a vacancy fee or not.
418 Councilor should we move on?
419 Yeah, we can move on. I'm not talking about my Sunday schedule at this time.
420 No councilor Morillo.
421 Thanks. I guess I just really feel the need to emphasize yet again, that we are not here to debate the merits of the policies that we are asking for research on this is asking for studies so that we can then engage with the merits based on data. Otherwise, we're just having anecdotal and very personal fisticuffs happening up here. And I also want to remind everybody that we don't get to tell everybody else how to govern. With ranked choice voting, you have different constituencies, you're representing different types of people. And that's the beauty of the new government system. But again, I think if we go through every single budget, no, or amendment and say that a study, if we want to debate the merits of each study that is happening based on the policy that it's asking about, then we're never going to get anything done. So we either want data driven approaches or we don't. That's really all it's about. All this budget amendment no is asking for is for a study on fees and information on that. And I think that we should have that information so that we can base our arguments on actual information and data and not on personal attacks. Thanks.
422 Thank you. Councilor, councilor Dunphy.
423 Yeah, three very quick notes. First of all, I really appreciate this conversation. Colleagues, I do want to note that there is a difference between property owners and business owners. Most business owners in the city do not own the property with which they operate. Two I heard specifically from the saint john's boosters that in their attempt to try and activate a problematic saint john's plaza, they have been trying to work with the vacant storefront owners in saint john's to try and activate that space, and were explicitly told, I like the tax write off I get for keeping my storefront vacant. I will not participate in the boosters program. And the third is that beyond the conversation around budget notes, I will note that I have an amendment that is Dunphy number two, which is focused explicitly on storefront improvement, activation and downtown and in business corridors. So if we wanted to find an extra 1.5 million in here somewhere to put our money where our mouths are, I am absolutely ready to have that conversation.
424 Thank you, councilor Dunphy. Councilor canal I don't see anybody else in the queue. Do you have any other amendments you'd like to bring forward?
425 No, thank you, madam president.
426 Okay, councilors, I have a few amendment or budget notes. I apologize, I keep mixing up language today because we're talking about amending budget notes. I have a few budget notes that I just want to flag and get any questions out of the way today. Pirtle-guiney six. The naming of it, I think was a bit confusing, but the intent here is to actually, it wasn't the naming of it, it was the way that we had to word it. We had to word it. Talking about external materials and services. The intent here has nothing to do with things that you hard goods that you purchase from other people. The intent with pirtle-guiney six is to say that where we have, we know that there are layoffs coming. We know that there are budget cuts in this budget and where we have employees and contractors doing the same work. I'm asking that we direct our bureaus to look to retaining those employees and to cut contracts. First. Contracts are under the external materials and services line within our bureaus budgets, which is why this budget note is worded that way. I know that that created some confusion. I wanted to make sure to flag that for folks today. Budget note 11 goes back to the conversations that we've had about how we maximize program and create a little more accountability within our parks system. Our parks bureau used to have an extensive fundraising program for summer, free for all sponsorships which they no longer have, and this would ask them to bring us a plan. I believe September 1st is the date in there by September 1st. On how they might bring back that sponsorship program. If that's a plan that requires positions and costs money, we will know that as we build the next budget. If that's a plan that they can implement immediately, we will know that and can decide if we'd like them to do that or not. If we see the plan and decide that it's actually not a path we want them to pursue because it doesn't pencil, we'll be able to make that decision, but it asks them to bring us a plan for what it could look like to move back in that direction. Pirtle-guiney four and five are about accountability for dollars in our shelter system, where there's a lot of outside dollars and therefore a little bit less influence that council has. Pirtle-guiney five I've been talking to the mayor's office about because the way it was originally written was not achieving the intended results, so I'm not going to go into that today. Pirtle-guiney four simply says that if we don't get all of the state money that is currently in the mayor's budget, we will prioritize current program, current shelters that are open before expanding into new shelter types in as much as we're able to. There are obviously different funding sources earmarked for different things, but I had heard from many of you colleagues that we wanted to make sure to retain our current shelter system, even as we pursue some new ideas. And this budget note was to ensure that if there were cuts in the state funding that comes to us, given the budget situation that the legislature is looking at, that we were able to retain our current shelters. I'll just note again that pirtle-guiney 12, I'm working on potentially combining with councilor Koyama Lane. So I'm not bringing that up for discussion today. But if folks have any questions or concerns that you want to flag on pirtle-guiney six, 11, or five, I'd love to hear those. Councilor Morillo are you in the queue for these or okay, councilor Novick.
427 I'm not in the queue for these.
428 Okay. Councilor canal.
429 Yeah, thank you, madam president. I'm broadly supportive of all four of these. I wanted to and in particular the I love the focus that three of the colleagues here have had on terms of helping get outside funding volunteers to help shore up our, our park system. And I know that that councilor Ryan, you worked on that as a commissioner in the old form of government as well. My question about foreign, I guess potentially the. Intent behind five was there are a couple things that are scheduled to close this. Would this change that or is the idea that just anything that's not already on the docket would be preserved?
430 The intent is that anything that is on the docket for continuation would continue. I am happy to ask the attorneys offline if I need to do any polishing of the language to ensure that that's the impact.
431 Great. That's my just a word in question. I'm, as I said, broadly supportive. Thank you.
432 Thank you for that question. I appreciate it, councilor Clark.
433 Yes, thank you, madam chair. On pirtle-guiney 11. Yes, I wholeheartedly support this, but I was wondering why you limit it to summer. Free for all.
434 Summer free for all is what parks used to do. Extensive fundraising for. And so I was asking for them to tell us what it would take to return to that work. I guess presumably we could ask them to broaden what they fundraise for. But I was I was trying to focus on what we had lost. That was done well in the past.
435 I see. Well, let me think about that, about broadening it potentially. I, I now I understand where you're coming from.
436 I'm happy to have that conversation offline. And we could talk about whether it's worth broadening or whether we would want to maintain this, but embark on a broader conversation with parks, either one.
437 Thank you.
438 Councilor Ryan.
439 Thank you, councilor Clark. And thank you, madam president. So the intent you're getting at is prior to the bond that was passed in 2020, parks had an active unit within parks that was raising money that was working to steward volunteers. In my 18 months over at the bureau, I saw that eroding. And they didn't keep that up after the levy passed, which was a mistake. And so as we explore going forward, we must insist that that the bureaucracy of parks figures out how to have those professionals once again, as part of the culture. Is that what you're getting at here?
440 That is precisely.
441 What I'm getting at. Thank you so much for summarizing.
442 Well, as in many meetings, saying this to a leadership at parks for 18 months. So I guess my voice is pretty clear on this one. Thank you.
443 Thank you councilor. Councilor Dunphy.
444 Yeah. Following up on councilor Ryan's comments as well, I agree pirtle-guiney 11 is something that's really important for me. It was also something that was really important for my old boss, nick fish. He was one of the largest political drivers of that fundraising. And I think that also, this is a really good next step because as we know, a lot of times one of us will get really excited about something and invest a lot of energy. But then when we leave, that program will die. And unfortunately, when commissioner Fish passed away, there was not that that it just didn't it didn't continue in his absence. And so trying to move this into a place where it is not reliant on political input is, is important. So I think that that's a great next step. I also really appreciate your other budget amendments here as well. Our budget notes as well. Also, I just am realizing that that sounded like I was sliding councilor Ryan and I really was not trying to slight you if that if that hit wrong, I apologize.
445 That was so thoughtful of you, councilor Dunphy. I appreciate it because many of us did try to get that back. Yeah.
446 Thank you, councilor, and I'll note on pirtle-guiney 11 that this is also a way to ensure that our business community is supportive of our park system. And at a time when there has been some discussion lately about our business community support for our parks system as it relates to the levy, I think ensuring that we have continued touches around support for our park system, from the families that use our parks to our community leaders in our neighborhoods, to our businesses who rely on a city that has strong parks in order to have customers and employees who want to live here, it's important to make sure that we are increasing as many of those touch points as often as we can. Councilor Novick do you have budget notes that you're hoping to put on the table today?
447 I do, first of all, I should say that Novick budget note seven is withdrawn because it was associated with Novick amendment six, which was withdrawn Novick two would amanda would add a budget note that directs the bureau of human resources to begin bargaining with relevant labor units, with the goal of reassigning welfare checks from police officers to unarmed responders, including public safety support specialists. And this has not been pre-filed. But I intend to add a note which has would have the bureau periodically report, perhaps in a four month basis, about progress towards having welfare checks taken by people other than armed officers.
448 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Dunphy, are you in the queue for questions here? Councilor canal.
449 Yeah. One quick question. Could you councilor Novick speak to. Is that that four month reporting timeline that you just mentioned, is that going to be part of the same note? And if not, why not?
450 Actually, I, I suppose it could be a good idea.
451 Any other questions for councilor Novick? Okay. Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue, I really appreciate this. My hope is that when we come in on the 11th, we won't start with budget notes, but when we get to budget notes that we won't need to repeat a lot of this conversation because questions have been asked, conversation has been had, and that we can all quickly say our piece and move to votes on these. We've also identified some places where folks can work together moving forward, and we can maybe clear up some needed changes before we get to our budget committee meeting on the 11th. I. Want to just flag one other thing. The third thing that I had said, we could try to talk about, that I don't think we should go into in detail today, but I just want to note is that we heard a few places where counselors on budget notes have committed to working together, and there are amendments that similarly have alignments. We heard some of those come up on the 21st, and I'm sure more will come up on the 11th. It would save us a lot of time if folks can work through whether those can be combined or compromises can be reached in advance. And please consider this my strong encouragement to do that. I know that there has been some conversation about whether that could happen around some of the civic life work. I know that started before but wasn't able to continue. I know that there is a lot of overlap around some of the amendments, not the notes, but amendments in the parks and rec space. And if we can try to come in on the 11th with some pre-work done amongst counselors who are all trying to do predominantly the same thing, that will be really helpful for our conversations. I had shared with a few folks that my goal was to save us 20 to 30 minutes at the end for some updates on public safety, because there were some questions at the end of our day on the 21st around budget numbers and some disagreements around budget numbers, that folks started yesterday in the public safety committee to get some clarity on. And I wanted to try to reserve us some time to get that clarity here as a full council so that when we start our work on the 11th, we have common understanding around some numbers, and we are at 1201 so councilor Kanal, as long as you are not in the queue for something on any of the previous three agenda items, did you have something else before we move on? Okay, I'm going to invite ruth from our budget office, and I don't know if the right person today is our dca or elizabeth, if that's you, or if we should have the police chief come up just to answer some of those questions about numbers and public safety and give counselors an opportunity to make sure we have the clarity we need. Dca myers I see you online with us. I think I'd like to kick us off.
452 Sure. For the record, my name is mike myers, the deputy city administrator for public safety service area. I think it would be best if nathan lamey and Ryan, which I think took their seats, would best be able to help clarify some of the questions from the other day. So thank you.
453 Perfect. Thank you so much. Dca myers. If you all would like to introduce yourselves and share with us where we've gotten to on some of that budget information, that would be great.
454 Sure. I'm ruth levine, I'm the director of the city budget office.
455 Nathan lee, manager for budget strategy for the public safety service area.
456 Ryan zubieta I work as the bureau's budget analyst.
457 So there were some questions on the 21st about specifically canal five. But I think more broadly around some of the information we were hearing about what were ads and what were cuts in public safety and what would happen if funds were shifted around. And there was a difference of opinion about impact between what we heard from the public service, the public service, public safety service area, excuse me, and our police chief and what we heard from our budget office. Do we have clarity now around what the impacts would be and what the budget numbers look like?
458 Yeah, I mean, I can try to take a take a first pass and then pass it to you all and try to clarify a few more things. So, I mean, I think the thing that everybody agrees on, I guess, is that there is sort of. There is not enough money in the budget to pay for both. All of the authorized positions, the, the costs for those positions, salary benefits and the like, and to pay for overtime at the level they have been using overtime for the past couple of years. So I think that is a widely agreed upon statement. I think in terms of the confusion around one time and ongoing, I'll I'll reiterate kind of something I tried to say on Wednesday night, eight hours into that meeting, which is that. The police bureau uses some of their anticipated vacancy savings every year, or at least most relevantly, this year in 2526, to cover some of their expected overtime. It's not the full amount of their expected overtime, but it is a decent chunk of the amount of their expected overtime. And what that means is, if the bureau were to then staff up some of the positions that they currently have vacant. So by hiring more people than are retiring or the like, they would need to reduce overtime, their overtime expense in that future year in order to be able to pay for those underlying positions, because, like I said, they can't afford to do more of both. And so what that that gets at kind of the distinction between the ongoing and one time because although it is true that they have one time funding, supporting their overtime, supporting their budget, the idea is that if they staff up, they would be able to reduce the overtime, and that would allow the math to work out so that they would be able to afford their their the number of officers that they have hired. So even though there is a one time funding cliff, there is. The idea is that the overtime would have to come down in order to be able to afford additional sworn officers. So I guess I'll stop there and pass it to you and see if there's anything else that you'd like to clarify.
459 Yeah, I think the.
460 Please go ahead and introduce yourself.
461 Nathan lee. Me, I manage the budget, strategy and performance team for the public safety service area. Agreed with what ruth shared. I think additionally, I'd build on that, that one of the complicating factors for the police bureau is that it has an extensive probationary period for new officers that are hired. So when an officer is hired, it typically takes 18 months to two years for somebody to begin working independently as a police officer. So much of the overtime that the police bureau currently has is backfill over time. So it's filling in for positions we have for precincts for regular patrol that just aren't filled due to vacancies, that we have positions that are authorized but not filled, or for folks who are out on vacation or other types of leave. In addition, there are parts of our overtime that are around special missions. Things that had in the past, in the past decade have been done on straight time, but are now done on on overtime. So that big chunk of overtime we have, because you won't start reducing that overtime for two years. And after you've hired somebody into a role, there's going to be this sort of rolling need that the bureau will continue to need to have overtime, even if the bureau were to magically fill all of its positions tomorrow, there would still be a two year waiting period before those folks would start reducing that overtime. So that will keep rolling for some time. That gets complicated for doing some of the forecasting that, you know, the number of positions that are filled, as well as all the other pressures that exist on the budget, mean that it hasn't been a consistent amount of one time dollars that the bureau has been asking for year over year. As those things have changed and there have been fluctuating needs based on external conditions about what's going on in the city, with crime rates and requests from current and previous council about what they do for special missions.
462 And I think just one more thing to add. Thank you, is that that was part of the logic behind doing the one time increase in the mayor's proposed budget. Was that the idea of taking back the ongoing 2 million in ongoing, but then adding 4,000,000 in 1 time was the recognition that in order to get to a sort of more sustainable, steady state, there would need to be a one time bump in order to account for some of that backfill overtime due to training. Now, how will that how will that math work out in a year from now? You know, we will have to see. And I think that the idea was that there would be close sort of that there would be a lot of points to check in and see what is the overtime being used for, how much overtime is being used, how many officers are retiring and how many are being hired and the like that there's a lot of variables in there that impact their actual use of overtime. And so this team does a great job forecasting that overtime use and you know and the decision you all would have to I mean there's the decision in the budget process is to try to figure out what's an appropriate sort of target point. And then we have to adjust based on how the conditions actually play out with all those different variables.
463 Building on that, I would say in terms of when, when does the chicken come home to roost? You know, the bureau currently has vacancy savings because it has vacant positions. At one point, if the bureau is able to retain officers retirement slow, it continues to hire. We will be able to fill positions and there will be a squeeze point where the bureau would then not have enough ongoing resources to be able to both fund the overtime it has, as well as the positions it has. There's a question during the previous council session that asked, you know, would there be a requirement to eliminate positions or convert positions to limited term? If we did a swap out for ongoing and limited term, that wouldn't have to happen immediately, but it would eventually need to happen when that sort of pressure comes through. When will that pressure come through? We do not know. It will depend on on those hiring components. It will depend on this and future councils of whether there are one time resources available in future years to be able to sort of let that transition continue to take place. But what we're in alignment on is that if there are fewer ongoing resources, it will make that issue worse. There will be more positions that would need to be cut in the future. When that crunch eventually does take place.
464 So just to clarify that last piece, you said from a budgeting perspective, this would not lead to changing positions to limited term now. But if we did not replace that one time with ongoing in the future and essentially reverse that change, you're saying that it would.
465 Eventually, if the bureau were to hire up to its authorized count.
466 Right. And I was just going to add one other caveat to that, too, which is that it also depends on how much overtime is used, and that there are multiple reasons that the bureau uses overtime, not just backfill overtime. And so there are choices that can be made. So as I said on Wednesday, it is both a choice about the use of overtime. And it can be a choice for this body in a year from now, in two years from now, about how much funding the bureau should have in that year.
467 Thank you. And in terms of that split, it's approximately half as related to vacancies. Half the overtime is related to vacancies. About half is more sort of operating over time that there are court appearances, you know, late nights due to a shooting, those sorts of components. So some of those operational elements wouldn't go away even if we hired more officers. Just do the flexibility that we get from overtime. Some of the, you know, questions around overtime that's needed due to those vacancies, there is some discretion on that. We could reduce the staffing levels. We could change the number of missions, some of that we would have to do if we get into a place where there's not enough budget.
468 And council president, I'll just say this. Myers again, I think this morning, chief of staff for the councilor Should have received a slide deck that outlines some of the clarification that you're requesting today. We are certainly available to present that this morning. Zubia is here. If that's something that you desire.
469 I think if folks have that, let's prioritize questions. And if questions start to get to a place where we need to pull that up to make to help clarify more, we'll go there. But I think a few folks may have seen it from their chiefs this morning. Are you all ready for us to turn to questions from council? Fantastic counselor Zimmerman.
470 Thanks. So that was a remarkably confusing answer. So we are in this conversation because at the heart of it, I think there was deep disagreement about 17.5 fte related to canal five. And so I'm trying to make sure I'm still talking about the same thing you all are. But the way that I read that amendment was the fourth bullet point says convert 2.5 million in ongoing general fund for overtime within the police bureau to one time. I guess my question here is, is there 2.5 million that is designated by line item in the police budget for overtime?
471 Yes.
472 It says for overtime.
473 There's about 20 million in overtime in the police budget, of which about 14 is ongoing.
474 Okay. And so help me understand then why we considered this part. Well, first two things. Why why do we do ongoing for overtime instead of generally, governments usually put their overtime budget in one time only, but also what the response was about the 17.5 fte. I think we just need to be specific here. So you had fte assigned to a line item that said overtime. I need to understand that.
475 So would you like to start? Sure.
476 I think part of that is the way the overtime, the 20 million is currently sourced. We have about half of it roughly coming from one-time resources. And then the other half ultimately came from the vacancy savings.
477 All right. So there we go right there. So we just said there's a $20 million line item for overtime in our budget. But what we're actually saying is that we are going to spend $20 million of overtime, but it's revenue is coming from other places that already exist in the same document. I want to make sure that we are we are recognizing the double count here.
478 Yeah. I mean, in terms of how the budget is technically built, you know, from the bureau side. Step one bureaus receive their cal target if their general fund bureaus, that is a lump of money that is developed by the city budget office based on the prior year's revised budget, inflationary factors, a couple other changes. And they say, here's a lump of money. This is what you would have for next year. Cal targets are not intended to cover current service levels. They are a formula that is in policy that lays out this is what your target is, nothing more. It says we start with last year. We make some adjustments. That's what you have for next year. We then in the bureaus say, all right, that's our starting place, is that we know that large lump of revenue. And that's by far the largest portion of revenue for the police bureau. We then calculated the other revenue pieces that we expect, you know, fire, police, disability retirement fund. That's a very large one. Grants, other components, asset forfeiture. Those all add in. That's the revenue side. Then we start having to ask what are the expenses? What are mandatory expenses. We have, you know, a lot of the first ones we get are going to be interagency agreements that we have with other parts of the city, that the police bureau has to pay for its vehicles through fleet. That's to pay for buildings, through facilities, all of those components. So we as one of the first processes, there's PCEF is the system within our budgeting software that develops the first estimates of how much would it cost to have the staff that you have. So we receive that estimate from the city budget office that says if you were to fill all these positions, this is how much it would cost. We know we're not going to fill all those positions, so we manually remove those dollars from what would have been salaries and put them into overtime bucket, because we know we're.
479 Going to cut you off. Right there is where those dollars stop being overtime. And they are now one time only for that given year. Right. The fte authorization remains, but as soon as a bureau director chooses to use a vacancy savings, which is a very responsible use, I get it. But as soon as it's used for a one time use of that year, it is. Yes. In your revenues. It is. It is ongoing. But then it is moving into one time only. And I'm sorry, folks, but I'm holding up the budget. This is the extent of what we got for the police budget. There is no line item here that says overtime. And this is this is what I'm feeling. I'm feeling frustrated because I had some initial support for canal five, and then learned that it was going to lead to a reduction in fte. That made me feel like I got bamboozled, and I don't like that. And so part of it is we've got to be clear about the terms we use for types of revenue and types of uses of revenue. And I think when you describe what you're describing, you're describing a one time use, which is one is overtime use using ongoing dollars. And that's fine. But but that is not coming off the pages in our documents here. And I think that that has led to the first time in my career where I've got different parts of the executive office saying it's going to have different effects. So I am I am trying here and I feel like I'm pretty in depth on this, and I'm having a tough time following your narrative, and I want to give some other time to other people.
480 Council president. We spent some time putting a clarification presentation together. It might be beneficial for people to see that first, because I just feel like we're going to continue to ask questions and not be able to get to the point.
481 So why don't you pull it up then? We've got about ten minutes left in this meeting. If we can run through the most important parts, that would be great. Counselor Zimmerman, I appreciate you bringing up the lack of detail. I know we've talked a few times about the fact that the way budgeting has been done in the city of Portland served the last form of government and may not serve this form of government. And there will be a lot of conversation about what we need differently moving forward. But we're working with what we have right now. Can I.
482 Can I make a quick point of clarification just on that specific point? The overtime is budgeted as a commitment item, which is just a little bit lower detail. We do have, and we've provided to all of council a spreadsheet that has that level of detail. So it is there. It's just not printed in that specific book. And we do have, I think, on our city budget office website, there is a dashboard where you can click down into the bureau and you can see more specific expenditures within their different program offers as well. So I just want to point out that there is a little bit more detail out there.
483 Thank you for pointing folks to those resources, I appreciate it.
484 I don't I don't need a reframing. All right? I don't need a decoder ring to figure out the city of portland's budget. As the finance chair, I am highlighting this difference. And, madam president, I recognize you're trying to reframe and move us on, but we are going to make serious decisions this year and we are going to do it with one, if not two, hands tied behind our back. I have to highlight this problem. I have.
485 To, in fact, emphasizing the problem, not reframing it. Do we have the presentation ready? I still don't see it up on our screens.
486 Yeah.
487 Ryan, I'll share screen in a moment.
488 While we wait for the. Okay. Perfect. There we go. And keelan, I don't know if it's possible to put this on the big screen for folks or not. Thank you.
489 Okay.
490 So just sort of recapping where we started. Pb does not have funding to fill all of its sworn positions and staff. The level of overtime it's been working vacancy savings and continued one time funding allows the bureau to maintain levels of service, and maintaining levels of service is a key note. Over the past couple of years, previous councils have directed that's what the bureau should be doing and aiming for. So if the bureau were magically at full staffing tomorrow, and even if all those officers were available to patrol and offset some overtime, there would still be a gap of dollars available for overtime and just maintaining those levels of service. So any reduction in ongoing budget is ultimately tied to, we're saying, the vacancy savings. To cbo's point, there is no mechanism that says if ongoing dollars are swapped out, it has to come from those vacant fte. It's just the most straightforward place for the bureau to take dollars from. Should I go to that next one?
491 I think we can skip that one. So I guess in terms of the information we were hoping to share today, I think that's one chunk of things, you know, inherently replacing ongoing dollars with one time means they would be replaced for next year, but there would be no guarantee in future years that they would be replaced or that they would be backfilled again. So in some ways, it's kicking the can down the road of, you know, councilor a year from now would be asking the question of what does it cost to have overtime? That was a question I'm sure council would take on, but would create greater insecurity within the bureau's budget as a whole. One of the other pieces that was asked during the session was, what would these resources go to? What would be the plan for additional resources? The police bureau had put together a recruitment and hiring support plan. As mentioned, one of the key issues here is that there are a high number of vacancies within the police bureau. There have been for several years now, changes needed in order to start shifting that course and to be able to fill those roles. So this is the sort of basic layout of what they'd expected to be spending about a million of those dollars for, with the other million going towards special missions, which is laid out in the next slide.
492 So before the amendment, a couple weeks ago at $20 million, that was about enough for pbb to maintain its current levels of service into next fiscal year. You'll see, this year in fy 25, we're projecting about 230,000 overtime hours worked with 20 million coupling in inflation, cost of living adjustments that provided about 225,000 hours of overtime. Post the amendment, and maintaining the hiring plan to affect some level of change there in staffing. The bureau would then have to reduce its overtime budget to 204,000 hours. We shared this with the committee yesterday. Here is one of those reduction options that allows the bureau to absorb $1.9 million of overtime reduction. These are some of the missions and projects that would take anywhere from a 5 to 100% cut. And this is highlighting exactly what the million towards staffing and retention revamp needs to address. With its current resources, Portland police is able to maintain levels of service, but it can only hire against attrition at the moment. That's why we see the ratio of, or the overall levels of staffing remaining stagnant from about the end of 2022 to present, and further worsening. That is the ratio of officers in training unable to provide patrol services has continued to increase. There's been an increasing gap there.
493 In terms of hiring pipeline. These are some real numbers from last year. There's discussion of do folks still want to be a police officer in the city of Portland? Many people do. The police bureau received over 1500 applications last year. One of the issues at hand is that while a lot of people want to be a police officer, not everyone is qualified to be. So there's a fairly steep drop off. Only about 5% of folks who initially apply will eventually make it to be offered a role and accept it. In addition, one of the issues is that there are more wash out once somebody has been hired in. Once somebody starts going through training, about 22% of them will realize this isn't the role for me, or they will be told as such and they'll separate before they finish the probation. So there's a very steep drop off there. That's been one of the main issues that the police bureau has had in terms of getting enough folks in the door to keep up with the large number of separations and retirements that have been taking place over the past few years.
494 Finally, we just wanted to highlight the what staffing looks like in a typical day across the precincts. This is from may 9th, one of the evening shifts, and even with overtime augmentation, the staffing for all three precincts on this evening it was below targets. And then we're also highlighting the 911 call volume between emergency and non-emergency that came through each hour. On this day.
495 Thank you. So I think there was a lot more information here than just the narrow topic we were talking about. And councilors, I think there were things that were responding to a few different amendment proposals, not just a single one. So I just want to make sure that we're all looking at the looking at this, not conflating different pieces of it. We are set to end at 1230. I know a number of folks have places to be, and there's a number of folks in the queue. So what I think we have to do is get questions out and ask you all to respond to us. Unfortunately, in writing as quickly as possible so that we can work with that information and still get folks to their next their next events and meetings. Councilor canal. Go ahead.
496 Thank you.
497 So on the.
498 Table, yeah. So what we've learned today is that none of the presenters up here are saying that that 17.5 positions would need to be converted over to as a result of canal five this this year. We've also learned, I'll quote here, there is no mechanism that says if ongoing dollars are swapped out, it has to come from those vacant fte. It's just the most straightforward place for the bureau to take dollars from. That is not the decision that I made when I proposed this amendment. That's something that staff commented that they would do, and that's notable. And I'll also note that slide ten says that there's nothing is conflating two amendments, because it says that it does not specify that money would come out of overtime. And you could see at the bottom line of canal five that it does say explicitly that that money would come out of overtime. The last thing, and this is my question, is if you could verify what ken lee brought up at the February. I can't remember the date off the top of my head, but I'll get you it. Meeting of the labor and workforce development meeting that 15,002 hours of overtime was spent on the two weeks of election day protests, which yielded zero arrests. And that and this was in response to councilor Greene's question for the video, that overtime is scheduled to the amount that is budgeted. And the second part of that question is if you could verify that the special missions and the discretionary portion of overtime includes first amendment response includes community presence, which is often labeled as community engagement, and not just the human trafficking and the other things that I understand people like to put up as the national monuments here. Nobody's trying to cut that. But if you could verify that, it also includes the community presence. That is the only thing a majority of portlanders said they'd prefer to see cut in our budget reduction exercise. Thank you.
499 Councilor Novick.
500 Yeah, I just wanted to note that the memo on recruitment that the chief sent out yesterday, I frankly thought was much more useful in getting a picture of what the recruitment issues and plans are and what additional resources would be used for than the document that was presented today. So I recommend that everybody read that memo.
501 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Ryan.
502 Thank you, madam president, and thank you for allowing the bureau to actually give their presentation at this meeting this morning. I just want to ask that we all really look at the page that you highlighted about services. So on there, I saw things like street racing, something that we approved a few years ago. Took a while to build it. It's starting to really get the results we need. And if I looked at that document correctly, those are the services that could be cut. Is that true?
503 They were options. Yes.
504 And retail theft, which were just building that system because we're building back after 2020, we had such a drop in applications and recruitment. It just plummeted. And we're trying to we're trying to build back the sophisticated responses that is required in a big city. And so I just wanted us council members to acknowledge that page. And I know I'd like to make sure I amplify that page. It gets the heart of the matter of what portlanders are asking is, how will this impact services? Thank you.
505 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Green.
506 Yes, very briefly, I was going to ask. I don't really have time for the dialog, but in the budget, in the 2526 proposed budget, there's a note on the additional overtime by $8 million, net of net of amendments. And it says relative to the base budget. And so my question would be, does the base budget include last year's budgeted overtime?
507 Know each year we start fresh with all the dollars in assigned to positions, and then we recalculate based on what is current staffing, what are hiring projections, where do we think we'll land with fte at the end of the next year? And then we move dollars over to the overtime.
508 But the $8 million is an increase in that overtime from last year.
509 Can I can I think the answer to that question, I think what you're referring to is the $8 million is one time that's in the proposed budget that replaces one time that's going away at the end of this year. And so the reason it's not in the base budget is because the current appropriation level is just based on the ongoing funding that was appropriated by council. And since that was one time funding, it goes away. That means it's not in the base budget for next year. So the $8 million is a one time add to partially replace ongoing funding that would be going away.
510 Okay. And just for I know we need to move on. For reference, this is page 221 in the budget. Thanks.
511 Thank you. Councilor, councilor Clark.
512 Thank you, madam chair. I just want to make a comment that I think this has been very valuable information clarifying things. It's incredibly complex. I'm not sure I can hold on to all of it. There's so much I would call you. The harry houdini of bureaus. The contortions that you have to do is kind of amazing, but it's been very helpful. And I, I would just echo what our my fellow councilor said, that knowing where the cuts would come from is, is, is invaluable to me from what I hear from constituents. So thank you for thank you for this presentation and your work today. And thank you, madam chair, for making time for it.
513 Councilor Zimmerman, are you back in the queue?
514 I know.
515 Councilor Ryan. Are you back? No. You're gone. Okay. I believe that's all the questions that we have. There's a lot there that needs responding. And if you could get those responses to the full council so that we all can benefit from them, I think that would be helpful. We're trying to get everyone on the same page with a common understanding. Councilors, thank you for going a few minutes over. Thank you for your flexibility on the shift today. Hopefully this cuts down some time. We need to take on other things as we move forward. And with that, I will close our work session and we will do this again soon.