The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-11-03
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (7,655 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council Finance Committee met on Monday, November 3, 2025, continuing discussion of an item to adopt the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Fall Supplemental Budget and make other budget-related changes, following roll call showing one member absent. The Chief Financial Officer presented background on the technical adjustment ordinance (TOR) process, timeline, and prior work sessions, emphasizing it as a technical rather than policy-development tool and expressing support for the package as proposed. Discussion covered encumbrance carryover funds, including a detailed review of purchase orders related to graffiti removal and sidewalk cleaning services, with clarifying input from budget and program management staff regarding contract distinctions and funding impacts. One proposed amendment, described as reallocating funds from encumbrance requests toward business and worker stabilization programs, was read into the record but did not receive a second. Further discussion addressed concerns about budget process transparency, the practice of carrying over encumbrances, and the need for clearer guidance in future budget cycles. The committee took a recess before reconvening for additional comments on fiscal responsibility and committee roles. A motion was made to pass the item and send it to full council with a recommendation of "do pass"; votes occurred, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting closed with a remembrance of a community member who had passed away.
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 Yeah. We have a lot of amendments today.
1 All right. Good afternoon. It's 12:00. I'm calling the meeting of the finance committee to order Monday, November 3rd. Clerk, can you please call the roll?
2 Good afternoon.
3 Green here. Pirtle-guiney here.
4 Novick here.
5 Zimmerman here. And clerk, I want to make sure we do not have councilor of us online. Is that right?
6 Councilor is absent today.
7 Okay. Thank you. Christopher, if you wouldn't mind, please read the statement of conduct.
8 Welcome to the meeting of the finance committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance in the committee agenda at ww. W.gov. Council agenda slash finance committee or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Thank you.
9 Great. Okay, colleagues, as you know, this is a continuation of the last time this item was opened. So I'm going to have the clerk read it back in. And we took comment previously. So, clerk, if you could read the next item and we'll jump right back in.
10 Item one, adopt the fiscal year 2025 2026, fall supplemental budget and make other budget related changes.
11 Thank you. I see we have our cfo, mr. Berry, up at the mic. I'll hand it over to you.
12 Great. Thank you. Chair. Good afternoon. Committee. For the record, jonas berry, the city's chief financial officer. We're here once again to present the fall technical adjustment ordinance. And before moving to discussion, I'd like to just frame up quickly kind of where we've been and what's coming next. So reminder again of the reason for the tor. The technical adjustment ordinance is intended to be just that technical adjustments to align the budget to fiscal year end results, to correct errors, and to align to details or actions that become known subsequent to budget adoption in mid June. As a technical adjustment, the tor does not include a process for community engagement and is not intended to be a moment for policy development. That is the case, as is the case for the larger and longer annual budget discussion. City staff spent a lot of energy assessing and preparing all the technical information to submit an adjustment package that meets all requirements and allows the city to effectively and efficiently manage through the remainder of the fiscal year, and to do so in compliance with budget law. Excuse me a little bit about the timeline to get here. So this work really begins in July. The fiscal year ends. We begin closing out the books, closing out invoices, purchase orders, fund balance, accounting, etc. In August, and really in September, city budget office staff gather data and information to inform the required and recommended adjustments. On October 16th, the city budget office published a memo which is included as exhibit seven to the ordinance package describing the key changes. On October 20th, we presented the proposed ordinance to this committee, and that's carried over to today on October 22nd, conducted a council work session which included over two hours of discussion and conversation around the fall tor. Subsequently, the city budget office received and responded to approximately 80 questions from council offices, some of which were very complex. In addition to the conversation today, we have over 12 hours scheduled with council offices to review the tor and discuss any questions council offices may have. So we'll be proceeding today with the benefit of all that additional transparency and more robust discussion. A couple other comments I'd like to make, if I can. First, I've heard language suggesting that there's an attempt to game the numbers or to produce a shadow budget, and I want to be state as directly as possible that that is absolutely not the case. Our objective and professional mandate is to provide transparency and factual information, and to recommend actions to remain in compliance with state budget law and budget best practices. Our commitment to transparency is evidenced by the additional hours staff are committing to respond to questions from council offices, and the pages and pages and pages of additional information provided. There's no question that budget work is complicated and complex and not always intuitive. I hope that city council and the public are appreciative of the high degree of professional expertise in managing the city's budget and finances. I'm grateful to the city budget, office staff and to other financial subject matter experts across the city who are trained and committed to monitor the technical facts and to vet assumptions, and who dedicate their lives to perform that work for the city. I want to again thank those individuals for their expertise, their dedication and their continued professionalism. Second, the package is presented in the ordinance has my full support as chief financial officer and the designated financial leader of the city. It reflects my advice and recommendations to navigate the city's legal requirements to remain technically in balance, to minimize the financial and operating risk to the city, and to best position the city to responsibly manage the upcoming fiscal 2627 budget conversations. While I wholeheartedly support vigorous due diligence and additional questions, my strong recommendation is that the ordinance move forward as proposed. So what's next if if committee passes the ordinance today, we expect it will be on the council agenda for November 12th. If the city does not pass the ordinance, the consequences will be uncertain, but certainly not good. We know that state budget law requires truing up fund balances to actuals. We also know that some bureaus and programs will be working with adopted budgets that do not match reality, which makes it harder to be efficient, transparent, and accountable. Lastly, we cannot build the base budget for fiscal 2627 until we correct for the current year. So failure to act on the tor delays our ability to make progress on the budget, development and process improvements for fiscal 2627. Thank you for that few minutes, chair, and I'll hand back to you.
13 Great, I appreciate that. I think that we, having sent this forward, having heard this previously, before that work session, I'm curious, mr. Berry, in terms of then going to the work session you mentioned in your in your opening comments, you had about 12 hours worth of scheduled time with individual council offices. I think there were something, something like 80 questions that you guys were running to the ground. So since that work session with the whole council, are you noticing either a trend or a correction of numbers that seem to be where people have gotten off or where concerns lie, or is it really an across the board, just different people are coming to the budget with different levels of concern. I'm just this experience is new for everybody.
14 Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate the question. It is new for for all of us going through this together this year. I don't know that I can say there's a trend. I think again, it's fair for for additional due diligence and for questions. There seems to be, I think still some continued misunderstanding of what encumbrance carryover is and what the trade offs might be required if we were to change those, those recommendations, for example, as we've said in prior forums, almost exclusively, those are to pay for things that we've already done. And so there's not a lot of discretion in in changing the things we've already done or that we're obligated to do, either through contract or through through existing agreements, etc. So that's maybe a little bit of a theme chair that I've, that I've heard, but there really are, I think, a wide range of, of interests and questions, as you would expect from, from a large council. And just to be clear, those responses were provided to all council offices Wednesday last week with sort of a second follow up. Bachelor was provided over the weekend as staff continued doing that due diligence and work.
15 Okay, so for today's session, I'm looking to you and to our budget director. If you would prefer that we move into any discussion of amendments that might have been sent to the committee or are standing on the committee now, or if you'd like to kind of recap the major movement items that are in town. What how do.
16 You I think we're here just to address questions. There's nothing different from what's been discussed at finance committee previously and at the work session previously.
17 Okay. So colleagues at the work session, I mentioned that I would read into the record and have up for discussion any amendments that were submitted. There were no amendments that were submitted that that I can see. So I'm also opening it up. If there are any amendments from the dais that people would like to read into the record, I know that there was what seemed to be a significant amount of conversation at the work session, but I am starting to think perhaps the extra amount of time has maybe changed some of the amendment thoughts that we were at least hearing explored in the work session. But I do want to keep that promise to the council that if there are any to be discussed today, that they be allowed to be discussed, that we have a good discussion for for a vote up and down so that we can send a balanced tao forward to the council for adoption. I would look to colleagues first if there are any amendments, and then we can move into further discussion. Councilor Green.
18 Thank you. I didn't file an amendment prior to this. I did have the budget office score, something that I may or may not file after this event, decided not to file it because I, I didn't think it was necessarily something that I, I was particularly ride or die on, as they say. But I think what I wanted to really understand was if we're going to do these amendment processes at all, there are some complexities with the interplay and all the funds. And so my, my staff did go through some exercise to understand certain impacts. And where we focused was the income or I'm sorry, the impact reduction program and the lens that we wore, the the lens that we, you know, we took was to say, okay, well, there's a budgeted number of campsite clearances in the budget. It was 5000 for this term. And so based upon the the cost of delivering that service, it looks like we're going to exceed that by, by our calculation, something like 4 to $5 million. And so I didn't file that for today. But I did want to give this committee some indication of, of my thought process. As we as you know, as I make the decision on this budget leading into the subsequent discussions at full council, I did receive an email from director levine over the weekend. It was a very detailed spreadsheet that which I'm really grateful for. That gives some line by line purchase order information. And while I appreciate your comments, jonas, there are still some areas that I'd like a little bit more understanding on, which is I don't want to go through everyone, but the intent is to sort of make sure that we are paying our bills and we're we're living up to the terms of our contracts from a previous fiscal year. There are a number of areas in there that there's no transactions on the books to date, or at least to the date of the report, that are substantial, like there's a graffiti abatement contract purchase order that has $0 spent, or maybe it's as much as 5% by November 12th is the estimate. And so those are the sort of areas that I think as we get a very constrained budget, it seems to me that those are the opportunities to say this is not money we need to incur or realize from the previous fiscal year, because our trade off and setting aside any programmatic priorities, it seems to me that we are paying for all of this shortfall through the compensation set aside. And so I'm really trying to understand if it's prudent to to cut into that bucket now, knowing that it's going to leave us with an equivalent deficit unless something changes on our revenue side in the spring. And so I wonder if it's useful for the committee to discuss those, those sorts of ideas and willingness to, to engage or if any other offices have thought about that or hear from your staff directly.
19 I'm going to pause. I have been informed that there is one amendment that we are going to read. But before I do that, I want to just look to mr. Berry. If there's any part of that you'd like to respond to yet or initial thoughts, or we can move to the amendment.
20 I guess. Just one thought. So thank you, counselor, for for the digging and due diligence. I know we do have folks in the room who did that deeper dive analysis, the budget office, and I think there might be some program managers who are able to answer questions about those contracts, those obligations, or the impacts of making that that change. So if we'd like to do that, we can have those folks come up or happy to, to move on. Chair.
21 Councilor Green.
22 Yeah, just if someone looks like it's pmo, I think I think I see an or skylar back there. Or maybe it's director levine, but you know, I just by way of an example, there's there's a purchase order for graffiti removal, and there's a request for $338,000 carried over from the previous fiscal year.
23 So let's go ahead and have the team that can answer some of these questions. Come on up. I'll do it from the perspective of I know that nothing has been seconded at this point, and there is no amendment on the table, but the more we can put meat on the bones here in finance, I think it's a more fruitful conversation than trying to bring 12 people up to speed on what are quite detailed pieces here. So okay, I see the finance and budget team has taken the table and they are clearly supported by the pmo team behind them. Okay, why don't we take it away?
24 For the record, I'm ruth levine, I'm the budget director. Just one clarification on the graffiti work that's actually housed in baps that encumbrance carry over. So it's not Portland solutions encumbrance carryover item. But if you can speak to it.
25 So just to clarify, I see that also in the service area tab there's a purchase order. Gosh. You know it's 223564540020. And that shows up in the city administrator's worksheet. And that's an amount of 338. But there's also another contract in for a similar dollar amount, but it's a different purchase order if I'm not mistaken. So there might be some redundancies happening. Yeah.
26 Hi. Go ahead and introduce yourself and take it away.
27 Hi. My name is ann hill. I'm the director of the public environmental management office. The wb family construction, otherwise known as grs graffiti removal services. They do several different services, so they remove graffiti, but they also power wash with an enzymes to remove urine smells. So with a contract there's a I believe there's a separate contract for the graffiti abatement from the work of the sidewalk because it's different. It's a different set of. Services. And so because of that, you're correct. There is a what we usually do is within the city as staff is I believe there is a contract with a graffiti abatement that the graffiti team at bts has, which you talked about. Sometimes we can internally behind the scenes, we can use that contract and then we have our own task orders to be able to budget against it. So for example, maybe a portion of this $338,000 is money that we know will spend this year on certain graffiti abatement that maybe isn't being covered by matt's office. That money is also used for sidewalk cleaning. So we are doing sidewalk cleaning across the city in isolated areas. So for example, dawson park apartments or we were doing it around the the preschool next to dawson park. We were also doing it out in east county, I mean, in east Portland. So that's that's what that 338,000 is.
28 Thank you. And so but that would be to the two distinct categories of money. So they'd be budgeted in the tau as a sum. Right. So otherwise we're double counting. Right.
29 Right. So I'm just I'm looking to my colleagues because this is why they're here. Because I can think dream big. And then I use the technical folks to help me actually budget the money. So my understanding is that a purchase order, this purchase order that's six for five for is for sidewalk cleaning and the biohazard enzymes application. That's why that shows up. I think that other purchase order number you were using was for graffiti abatement.
30 Okay. And that's helpful. So what I'm trying to establish is that I'm reading the accounting correctly, that those are two separate purchase orders. And they may be used for different reasons, as you say. But that's a bucket of money. Yes. My second piece and I it's really nice to have the notes to say like what would be the impact if we didn't approve this? So these carryovers are from the previous fiscal year budget. These are encumbrance carryovers. I'm sure that I know that we put money in the current fiscal year budget for similar activities, but in the kind of comments where it says, what would be the impact if we didn't fund it, this would sort of in some sense take resources away from this recently announced sidewalk cleaning initiative, which is a which is a new program. Right? So it's a new program announced, but it is based upon old money. And so what I'm trying to understand here is, is that something that we agreed to in the past that we need to make good on, or are we just trying to make sure that we're, you know, funding a new a new initiative that was recently announced?
31 So if the $2 million doesn't get approved, I'll have to go back to my entire budget, right, to to figure out where that money, how we would adjust accordingly. Right. So because many of the things we're doing are ongoing. So we've got ongoing projects. Murals are half painted, fences are half up, you know, different just different lights are up in the trees. We have to maintain them when it comes to a contract that we have, where we have a clause in the contract, right, that we just signed with central city, that would probably be the easiest place. Instead of trying to unravel where we could say we're going to have to adjust down to accommodate these, these cuts or the well, I don't even know if it's a cut, but a smaller budget. So because we're going to have to, I would have to go through each one of these and see where we are with each project, where we are, and then be able to cut back on those. Right. And then figure out how to move forward. So the money that was used for the central city, the new contract is out of the discretionary one time funding that we received this year. Right. So we got that money in July, and then it took until October to get that contract moving right, to get the contract negotiated and signed, and then for them to get people hired. So it took from July to October to get that going. So that's why that's a new program based on that. The new budget, right.
32 It's paid for with old money. It's paid for with the previous fiscal year's money, not the current fiscal year's money.
33 No, it's paid for. No. It was this.
34 Because it just started.
35 But I mean, but what I'm seeing in the spreadsheet, it says if we don't approve the carryover encumbrance, which is prior fiscal year money, then it will have the impact of cutting this new fiscal year initiative.
36 So because if you look great. So if you look at the the the $2 million, right, that we're talking about right now. So we have gray bar, there's $600,000. There's Portland straight alliance 398,000. So all of these there are within all these there are pieces of work that are currently happening that I would have to pay for out of. So I'd have to use my the sorry, just I use the right term, the general. I would have to use my current discretionary one time funding that you voted on in for July 1st to pay for those costs, because I'm not going to have the other money there. Right. So that work that that's currently in process, I'd have to pay for.
37 I understand I get that and I appreciate that. What I'm trying to do, though, is make sure that I've got, as a member of city council, which sets the budget a clear understanding of the cut points on when we make decisions on how to use our resources, because what I'm seeing here is we've got current obligations for programmatic work, but we are going to rely upon an old practice of encumbrance carryovers to pay for that work. And if that's not an accurate reflection, please let me know and correct me. But that seems to me like writing a check that you can't cash yet because you don't have the money in the bank.
38 So so.
39 From a from a staff, from a director's standpoint, when the budget, I think it's that period of time, especially when you have one time funding. So I don't have the budgets decided. Right. You are all having these sorts of hearings and deciding on the budget, let's say, in April and may. Right. And it gets voted sometime like may or June. Right. For the next year, where we don't have a trued up. I don't have a trued up like how much I've spent until halfway through July because I'm waiting for invoices to come in. Did things get was it too rainy? Could we not finish things? Was there a backup of whatever, whatever the reasons are? So I don't have an end of year, so my end of year doesn't true up with when you're voting for the budget. And that's why there's this 2 million that gets then carried over until the next year. So in the future, I'm sure there might be other ways to make that more transparent to the council, but that that's what that money is.
40 Okay, I it's possible we might be talking past each other, because what I'm trying to say here is when we set a budget for 25, 26, we set it based upon decision packages that outline the connection between the resources that that budget provides in that fiscal year and the work that it funds. But what I'm hearing is that there's this interstitial period where there is work that's happening that is going to rely upon some expectation of carryover to fund that, in addition to the thing that we're planning. And so that is a gap, and it's not a dig on any staff, but it's it's sort of it makes me feel uncomfortable to, to approve a net sum of $18 million in encumbrance carryover. That then is going to dip into a contingency fund. You know, that's that's where I'm going with this. And so I think I'll just leave it at that, because I think I've taken up a lot of air time on this, but I might return back into the queue.
41 I think you councilor You you are. I think we have a very tangible topic and and example of what has looked like as a city practice. And I'll just remind we as a body and I don't know that the mayor, none of us gave new guidance in the last fiscal year to not continue that practice. And so I share some similar concerns based on my professional places that I've worked, have done it slightly differently. I'm also for this town, more willing to to accept the practice as it was because the last budget was developed. I think in this I'm not sure the word you used, but this whatever period of time, that's a great word. But but I think in order to in order to attack the idea of whether or not we use one time funds as pilots and the amount what what is reasonable is something that I think that we should give guidance in the development of this next budget about how much is appropriate, is 100% appropriate. Does it all go back to beginning fund balance? Those are questions, but I don't think we did that. And so for me this time, in order to keep the operation operating, I'm I think I'm more flexible. And I understand where many of the bureaus have developed this because they developed as they always have. And so I see this. I also, you know, I think that chemo is an interesting dynamic because that group was set up kind of on the backs of one time money to very much begin with, because they've always been a pilot office. It was what is needed now to try it out, to see if this grows into something else that will grow into the bureaus eventually. So but I just I say that because I want to remind us that we owe a set of budget formulating policies to the body. If we're going to then push back a little. So I just I just offer that up. I want to go to councilor. Pirtle-guiney you have your hand up, I think it might be to introduce an item.
42 It is okay.
43 I'm happy to do it if you have to. I know you have an absence. You have to get.
44 I do. I have to step out for about a half an hour. Colleagues I apologize. Councilor Smith forwarded an amendment to my office that I just wanted to put on the record for her. I don't believe that it is fully through the process yet with the budget office. But in order to make sure that if there is discussion, we have time to have that today, I wanted to share it for her. This doesn't indicate necessarily my support for it, but as a professional courtesy, I wanted to make sure we had it. What she is working on right now with the budget office, I believe, is removing $6.1 million. I'm using round numbers here. Of the 18.5 million encumbrance request funds striking just under $5 million of that from the city administrator. Encumbrances specifically in the shelter services program, street services coordination center and impact reduction program, and an additional $1.1 million from the bts encumbrances. Specifically, the community technology program, which is a $55,000 line item, external vendors for planning a $408,000 line item, and the $650,000 for graffiti removal work that I believe councilor You were referring to as well. She then redirects that money to a business and workers stabilization decision package, directing 1 million in contingency for an east Portland seed fund, 1 million to the glitter program, 2 million additional dollars to a storefront support program. Just over $1.1 million toward rent assistance, $1 million access to business capital forgiveness loans over five years, and the remaining $12.3 million would stay in the general fund to cover debt. I believe addressing some of the questions that you raised councilor Around continuing budget holes and how we're addressing some of those pieces, not cutting, not cutting other programs, but removing money from encumbrances which would then force unspecified program cuts in order to cover some of that debt. So I wanted to put that on the record. As a professional courtesy, I am going to step out for half an hour, chair, and I am going to hand that to you for discussion sake.
45 I appreciate that. Do you know if councilor Smith wanted this moved and seconded for.
46 I don't believe.
47 I don't know if she wanted it moved and seconded. I believe she has staff in the room and I don't know. I would look to our our professional staff in front of us to see if this has been through all of the processes to be ready to be moved.
48 Okay, so sticking to my word from our work session, I'm going to move Smith one to amendment so that we can have a further discussion for this. So I've moved that.
49 Just a point of information. So we're going to move this as an amendment to the table in its current form.
50 Yes.
51 Okay.
52 Let me be clear I, I made a commitment to everybody that we would we would hear what comes in as this is written. I don't see that I would be supportive of this, but I wanted to keep that. I actually expected a lot more amendments to come based on our work session. This is the only one that this was not even sent to me. It was sent to somebody else. But that's why I'm moving it.
53 I think, if I may, I'm just it's going to be challenging. I may I may agree what she's selling, but I think it's going to be challenging because I think my experience from the first budget process is it's really important to get the the math right and kind of go through the due diligence. And so if I'm going to vote yes on a towel that comes out of this committee, in some sense, I'm putting my name on that towel to say this is something I think should be considered by the full body and amending the towel at this level of detail doesn't feel right. I do support, I think it's good actually, to read the concept into place and we can have a discussion around it, but that's that's why I'm not seconding at this time. That's okay.
54 Okay. Without a second that amendment. Okay. Moving on then. I want to get a sense from. The rest of the committee where where else you are in need of information. Before we were to move this to council or if additional. Either amendment development is happening or what your needs are as committee members.
55 Okay, okay.
56 Okay.
57 I, I suspect we're going to hear more about the towel between today and the next time we talk about it. You know, I don't know else to say.
58 That's fine. Clark, I'm going to put us in a recess for 45 minutes. Okay. With that, we are recessed until 115.
59 Testing. Closed captions.
60 Testing.
61 There we go.
62 Okay. We're coming back from recess. It is 116. It's still Monday, and we're still in the middle of a towel. Discussion with that, looking at colleagues, I think at this point I'm going to look if there's any more discussion. Councilor pirtle-guiney, please.
63 Yeah. I just.
64 Want to say a couple of things about this before we move to some sort of action. And the first is that I was frankly concerned to hear our cfo say that staff recommendations were being ignored. There are times where we'll disagree with staff recommendations, but if you are getting the impression from colleagues that we from my colleagues that we don't value the work that your team is doing and that we don't value the expertise that your staff bring to the table. I want to put my apology for that on the record, because that is not how this council should ever be approaching the work of any of our staff. We may disagree with recommendations. That's different from ignoring the good work that's been done. So I am very sorry that that's happened. That causes great concern to me, and I'm happy to talk to any of my colleagues about that. We can talk about that offline if appropriate. I'm also concerned that we don't have amendments yet, because we told our colleagues that we would be meeting today. We added this meeting to the calendar. We asked our staff to be here to support this meeting so that we could consider amendments before this comes to full council. And we received one amendment and that's it. And that's concerning to me because we need to take this process seriously. We have spaces to discuss and debate things, and we can't do that if folks haven't put in the time to get us the information that we need to be able to discuss and debate different options, my colleagues to the left and right of me had a discussion earlier this afternoon about our budget process, and I agree that we need to make changes to our budget process. Still, we need to have a better sense of what is moving through to the next year's budget and whether that's moving across because there's a bill that wasn't paid or because there's a program that wasn't fully implemented, and we ought to consider program changes, I'm willing to continue moving forward with the previous direction for now, but I want to note on the record that I do think over the next year to two years, we need to make changes to how our budget processes work so that there is more transparency, both for the 12 of us who sit up here, but also for our constituents, for portlanders who don't understand all of those nuances, there are always going to be bills that have to be paid in the next year. But we're program is carrying over. We need to have a more thorough look at that, just like we do any other program that we're funding in the new budget. And I hope that we continue to make the changes that we need to and how our budget process works as we move over, move through the next year or two. I don't want to hold anybody to standards we haven't laid out for this cycle, but I do think that we can start changing the direction as we move forward. I also think it's really important as a city that where we have budgeted funds, where we have committed money, where we have accrued bills, even if it's just internal, even if it is between bureaus, we pay those bills. So where there are funds that the general fund has committed to other parts of the government, where there are funds that have been committed to specific programs, we can't ever expect anybody to rely on the program we put forward. If we don't continue to honor those commitments that were made, what I had hoped we would be able to discuss through the tor process was whether there were funds that programs that hadn't yet been fully implemented, that we needed to scale back. Now, given that we know that we will have a cuts budget next year, given that we know that we have pressures on the budget that we're looking at through the tor process and whether we should be using one time funds now or making cuts now, and what the most responsible way to budget was. Unfortunately, it seems as though we have been so distracted with other things that we don't get to have that discussion. I'll move forward with the recommendations as they have been brought to us today. I intend, unless I see amendments that allow us to think about long term fiscal responsibility, to continue moving forward with the recommendations from our staff, and I hope that we continue to focus on good governance and how we can use our budget process to have the best possible services and the most responsible budgeting with taxpayer dollars. Thank you. Chair.
65 Thank you, vice chair. Okay, any further discussion? Counselor greene.
66 Thank you, mr. Chair. You know, I also think it's inappropriate to insinuate that there's been some misdeeds in the budgeting process. So if anyone's any of my colleagues have been saying that and ascribing bad faith, that's I condemn that as well. And I would apologize on their behalf. I think there's a difference between that and asking questions about the information being presented in a way that sort of grants good faith on part of staff, but asking a policy question, because I know that the policy big policy items are set in the main annual budget. But this is this is a tool that moves a lot of money around. And we are in a we're in a bit of a fiscal crisis. And so I think my vote today and my view on this process is, is I don't want to leave us in a situation that leaves us worse off in spring than we are today. And I think to to your your point, council president, about honoring the commitments we've made, I think that's also true when we get to spring where bureau is going to say, well, where's my compensation set aside money because I don't have money anymore to pay pay the bills. And then I think we'll be forcing a situation, some very severe cuts, or I should say, I'm very worried that we're going to be in a situation this spring where we're going to force like cuts that need to be realized over the course of three months instead of, what, nine months? So that's that's really hard, you know, and that's we're in a challenge here. You know, I, I think I'll just leave it at that and say it does take time to engage with the with the staff to ask, get these questions answered. And I think it's, it's going to be best practice to use this committee for amendments and that sort of work. But I think in the constraints that we're facing, you're going to see some amendments come forward from some offices that missed that deadline because they just haven't finished their work on that. And so I'm also willing to extend and grant some faith to our colleagues in that regard. But yeah, here we are. Thanks. World of second best. As they say in economics.
67 Thanks, councilor Green sharing some sharing some similar thoughts. You know, I think that the the line that we toe between fiscal responsibility being a budget committee, as a council, being the elected representatives to ensure that our tax dollars fund our community's priorities. It can be challenged when we. Go into the details of, I'll say, the small invoices, it doesn't mean that we abdicate our role or our responsibility. But I think for an elected body of an 8.5 plus billion dollar budget, the way I approach this is that I certainly want to support the city's administration in developing policies, accountability, protections. If we see wrongdoing, if we see. Mistakes, which I think in budgeting, mistakes happen all the time. And that's that's not overly concerning, but having a mechanism to correct those, having a mechanism to which I think the tao is to say, hey, this is the thing that I need us to do in order to be in line with Oregon budget law, because we've noticed this detailed moment, this, this either this invoice issue, I think that's important. What I don't want to be is a city councilor of a community this big who has to inspect invoices, right? I don't know that my job exists at the $23,000 level in terms of understanding the way that a bureau delivers their services. What I do want to talk about is, are those the services that I believe a bureau should deliver? And so what I'm seeing here is it is continuing what I think that is the correcting of of things along the way in the in the budget process, the the technical adjustments, if you will. But also it's I'll be supporting this because of this. Tao. As far as I read, it still continues the support of the services that the city council passed, and the city administration has asked for the funds to complete those tasks. It's a it's a tough balance because we'll hear about a person. People will reach out to us, or we'll hear about moments where things maybe go awry, where an invoice or a spending doesn't meet our level of. Expectations in terms of either when it was executed, how it was executed. And we should correct for those. And we should always have a feedback loop that helps us improve. But I still want this body, and I hope that this committee continues to operate at the. Accountability for the overarching overall trend instead of the one off. And I think that that's an important whereas the one off I consider to be within the bureau and the professional staff's level of authority, and I have faith that the city administration will, will put in place those policies. But I also think that we are learning here in terms of what the what the bureaus need from us about expectations. I think we owe them as we go into the next year's budget process. We owe them our expectations for what the role of a beginning fund balance is, what a role of an encumbrance is, what a role of any rollover funds are. If we do that, then our expectations are met more clearly next fall. Tao. And I think that that's an important role, and I don't think that that work is done yet. What I do appreciate is that a significant number of the city administration staff have been willing to have that conversation with me as the finance chair. And and I think we still owe that product. And so I think all of the discussion we've had here has been very helpful for me to understand, like, what are the different priorities and motivating factors? What are the things we hear about from our districts as we sit the finance committee. And so this I think, is making us as better at this. But I also I continue to hope that this body has the ability to work with our colleagues who don't sit, finance who we have a duty to them in terms of what we learn because of our relationships and our knowledge of the finance committee to support either the staff package or say, hey, we have a concern right now. I don't have a concern with the staff package. I'm going to be supportive of it. But I think that we all play different roles for the 12 overall, that I hope that we don't abdicate that and that we take seriously our access to information, our ability to have this conversation and to keep this government rolling through into the new calendar year. But I think that that is how important a technical adjustment really is. We have to set this at this time, and I do hope that we pass it and that it is passed unamended at the November 12th meeting as well. Thanks, colleagues. I appreciate you putting this extra meeting on your schedule. Councilor Novick.
68 Mr. Chair, I just wanted to express my appreciation for an agreement with what you just said.
69 Thank you. I'm not seeing anybody else in the queue. If I can get a motion to send this to pass this and send it to the full council with recommendation of do pass, I would certainly entertain that.
70 So moved.
71 Second councilor Novick moves councilor Pirtle-guiney seconds. And with that clerk I'll have you call the roll, please.
72 Green. No pirtle-guiney. I Novick. I Zimmerman. I with three yeses. The motion carries.
73 Okay, colleagues, this was our only item for today's agenda. Our next meeting will be November 10th, which? Will deal with most of the items that were intended to be today. I do want to take a moment of personal privilege. And just announce the passing of a giant in portland's community, bill dickey, and my thoughts are with his friends and family. Bill was a great portlander, a great Oregonian, and somebody that we're all going to miss. Thank you. With that, we're adjourned.