The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2026-01-05
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council Finance Committee met on 2026-01-05 (though the meeting was called to order referencing "December 8th" and later participants referenced "happy 2026," indicating some inconsistency in dates stated during the session). Roll call showed the body present, and a statement of conduct for testimony was read. The committee approved minutes from a prior session by unanimous consent, then heard a presentation from the Chief Financial Officer on the city's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, and a related Plan of Action addressing a material weakness finding by outside auditors, including discussion of PBOT capital asset figures that were described inconsistently across the discussion. Questions covered staffing capacity, budget prioritization, and closeout of capital projects. Votes occurred on accepting the financial report and approving the plan of action; outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger. The committee then reviewed and amended a proposed Fiscal Year 2026-2027 budget calendar, discussing public engagement, committee versus full-council budget presentations, and scrivener's errors in the document; votes occurred on amendments and adoption, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The Portland Housing Bureau presented on land banking strategy and affordable housing portfolio stabilization. The session closed with an announcement of a new financial policy working group.
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.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 Okay. Good afternoon. I'm going to call the committee. The finance committee to order. It's Monday, December 8th at 12:03 p.m. Clerk. If you could please call the roll.
1 Good morning. Avalos. Present. Pirtle-guiney here.
2 Novick here. Green here.
3 Zimmerman.
4 Here. Christopher, if you could read the statement of conduct. Thank you.
5 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 wwe council agenda finance committee or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person, testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will results and 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 if testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. State your name for the record. If you're a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
6 Great, diana. If you could go ahead and read item number one.
7 Item number 1st November third, 2025 to November 17th, 2025. Finance committee minutes.
8 Thanks. The first item is the approval of the minutes from our committee in the previous, previous month. Give me one second.
9 To sign on my phone. That's.
10 Councilor. Novick needs a gen z.
11 We need. We need bts sign on on your phone. You can switch from here. So why don't you open up? Okay. Let's open up zoom, and then you can just switch it. All right. Thanks.
12 All right. Okay, let me restart the. The next item is the approval of our committee. Minutes held in November. These minutes are available online as part of our agenda. If there's no objection, the minutes can be approved by unanimous consent. And I'm seeing no negative head nods. And so, hearing no objections, the minutes are approved. If we can go to item number two, please.
13 Item number two accept the city annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025.
14 Great. We have our cfo, mr. Beary, here. I'll remind folks that we heard from the auditor and our contracted firm. And this is phase two of that, if you will. So, mr. Beary, please go ahead.
15 Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, chair and committee members. Happy 2026 for the record. Jonas berry chief financial officer and I believe there's two separate items on the agenda. We read one. I'm going to speak if it's okay, chair, to both the report and the resolution on the plan of action.
16 That's great. So I'll pause. Actually, if you could read item number three and open that as well. Thank you, mr. Berry.
17 Item number three approve plan of action as required by the Oregon secretary of state to finding by outside auditors of material weakness in the fiscal year 2024 2025 annual comprehensive financial report.
18 Okay. Go ahead, mr. Berry.
19 Great. Thank you very much. So here today to move forward, those two items, as you mentioned, chair, these were discussed at a prior city council meeting on December 18th. So this is phase two of moving those forward. I'll quickly reiterate those proposed actions. For the record, the first item is a simple and straightforward report from the chief financial officer, myself, and a request for city council to accept the city's fiscal year 20 2425 financial audit, or annual comprehensive financial report, or acfr, for short. As a reminder, that acfr was published on the city website the week of December 15th, it has been said that a financial audit can be a document only an accountant can love. And while the city's financial audit abides by a complex set of rules that is often not totally logical to an accountant. So to some degree that's true. But the acfr is a very important document for transparency and communication of city financial data and indication of the city's financial condition. It's a critical tool used by members of the public, by city investors, by bond rating agencies, and by other city partners and interested parties. I reiterate my appreciation for auditor rede and her team, for the city's external auditors, baker tilly, and to the city's accounting division and the dozens of employees citywide, who use their professionalism and expertise to gather information and do the work year round. That supports preparation of the final audit. The second item before you is a request for council to approve the capital p plan of action related to material findings by the external auditor. The plan of action must be approved by the elected body and submitted to the Oregon secretary of state, as discussed with city council in December, part of the external auditors role is to identify potential weaknesses in city accounting controls, procedures and outcomes. While it's frustrating that these deficiencies exist, it's also a good wake up call to the realities that result from underinvestment in staffing and resources to do the essential behind the scenes work. While we're working to shore up these gaps, the budget constrained environment may mean we continue to struggle to meet expectations for accuracy and timeliness. As chief financial officer, I bear that responsibility, but I cannot make meaningful improvement alone. I look forward to council support and recognizing the challenges and helping to streamline priorities so we can deploy resources towards these critical needs and in allocating, eventually allocating financial resources to ensure a sustainable funding model. I am pleased to say that the actions that actions are already underway to address the root causes of the weaknesses that have been identified, we're assigning additional staff resources, enhancing training and instituting opportunities for communication between bureaus and central accounting to correct the existing deficiencies and to avoid recurrence in the future. Indeed, last year's audit identified a similar deficiency for PBOT capital assets, which totaled at that time over 260 million that had not been appropriately addressed. The city prioritized action, staffing, training, communication and in the current year audit, that number for PBOT has been reduced from 260 million to only 14 million. So we're still not quite where we want to be, which is zero, but we're obviously moving soundly in the right direction and expect to make that progress here in the coming fiscal year. If you're interested in additional detail on the plans of action that will be submitted to the Oregon secretary of state, the full text is included in exhibits a and b to the resolution. And with that, I'll stop for any questions or thoughts.
20 Councilor Green. Go ahead.
21 Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you. Jonas, I hope that you had some kind of rest over the break, but it looks like your team was working since December 18th and now on on making sure that we advance on this. So I'll just be really quick on. Has anything materially changed since we we got the briefing.
22 Nothing's changed.
23 Great. So I think I'll just reiterate what I said at that time, colleagues, which is really appreciate the report. I want to acknowledge that resources you get, what you put into the machine. And under investing in our financial analysis capabilities and our budget office has has huge risks for our city. So I'm going to support any effort to make sure that we're going to beef up the resources that we need to do this good financial oversight that portlanders deserve. So thanks again for this. Prepare to support the.
24 Thank you, counselor.
25 Yep.
26 Vice chair pirtle-guiney.
27 Thank you. Chair. Jonas, I'm going to ask a couple of questions that are a bit of a leading question, and I apologize for that. But you and I have had a number of conversations over the last 6 to 9 months about the work that we need to do as a city to align our fiscal practices across bureaus and across service areas. And what I see here is a pattern of a problematic practice that keeps popping up in different bureaus and service areas. And just as you were getting it under control in one area, popped up in others. If we are able in the next year to move forward on actually better aligning our fiscal practices and getting to a place where council can have the oversight we need, you can have the oversight and visibility you need. Our cbo office can have the visibility they need into bureaus. Will it help us ensure that this doesn't happen in other bureaus?
28 Yeah. Councilor great. Great question. Yes. In short, I mean, to the extent that we can prioritize focusing in on both the the I call it the root causes of the problem, which are somewhat a legacy legacy issue, that the new alignment will absolutely put us in a better position to help. Monitor, manage and be transparent about those facts.
29 And will that help us make sure that we can resolve these issues more quickly as well?
30 Yes it should.
31 What do you need from us as a council to help get us to the point where we can do that? Because what we have before us are action plans for the bureaus to take for the administration to take will approve those action plans today. But it seems like there's another step we need to take, which is how do we make sure we have better practices, not just in this area, but across our city moving forward. So I just want to give you the opportunity for a minute or two to tell us what you need to make sure that we stop these things before they start in the future.
32 Yeah, that's I mean, that's a great question. It's a really big question. And I know we're going to have a series of conversations probably over the coming months about budget development, which will be one opportunity to start to to rectify this. Fundamentally, the challenge with that is illuminated by these audit findings is one of resourcing. And as I've said multiple times, sitting at this table over the last 12 months, that is a kind of a normal practice that as we go through cycles of budget reductions, the folks who are often invisibly doing that work behind the scenes feel like they're the easiest to reduce. And so we've continued to over multiple years, not the past 12 months, but multiple years deemphasize and deprioritize resources towards that work. So that is one thing that that we can do is is realigning to make sure we're providing human capacity, which is both the humans to do the work, but also resources for appropriate training and support systems so that we have people optimally equipped to do that work. That being said, we know we're likely entering a very constrained environment again. And so I just want to be transparent that that's ultimately what this will take is both the alignment kind of work and re-organizing to be more efficient. It's already underway, and it will take deploying additional resources. And we're entering an environment where deploying additional resources may it will be will require some very difficult trade offs. I do think last thing I'll comment is I don't know if this is what you're asking, but but since you gave me the floor councilor, we have been spending a lot of time spinning doing work that's pretty low value and high effort. And so I think that is something that this committee can, can, can work on supporting and the broader council can work on supporting is giving staff and the administration space so that we can do the high value work and not invest so much time on some of the little things that that have been kind of preventing us from really getting progress on those really big changes.
33 Thank you. I really appreciate that.
34 Yeah.
35 Councilor Avalos well, that last point is interesting to me. I guess I'm curious if you are able to give some examples of what that means, like high value, low value. I mean, how and how are we supposed to know what those things are?
36 Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I'll I don't know if I can identify specifics councilor Off the top of my head, but I'll just say I from the seat I sit in, there have been feedback that I've given and that others have given related to kind of policy implementation. We passed this council, passed a ton of budget notes, and those all require lots of work. I know that I have communicated at this table to this committee and to council, that there's cost and tradeoffs to doing some of that. And so those say broadly, without picking on anyone initiative, the volume of things that come through are not sustainable. We don't have the human capacity to sustain that work. And so if we're serious about making progress on sort of rebuilding that underlying administrative infrastructure, we have to give space to do that. And that's going to be one of the tradeoffs might mean being a little bit more intentional and diligent about when we pick those actions to assign, whether it's to I can speak for my, my team and myself, you know, we have more than we can catch. And so just look forward to council support and helping manage that going forward.
37 Yeah, I understand where you're coming from. I guess my only thought about that is we're trying to balance our need to get the kind of information that we need so we can write these bills and these budget notes and these policies. So I think there's definitely some wrestling with that that we need to do is capacity. The main thing is it just that we need more hands in the budget office. Do we need like is that the main problem or is there some other problem with this like high low value kind of thing?
38 Well, again, councilor, I mean, it's a very difficult circumstance, as I've said dozens of times before, I also want to be able to gather and provide additional information more timely with more accuracy. And and some of that is a human bandwidth capacity issue. If I had 15 analysts on my team, I could put folks full time on doing this project. I have zero, and so we utilize the resources that we have within the city to try to make progress on those things, but that also means we're taking somebody off of another assignment so that they can do a new priority that bubbles up. And so what happens is we get these backlogs of things. So my point in all that is it's not one or the other. Right. We have to kind of figure out a way to work collaboratively as a city to identify where is the highest priority. I'll tell you, my highest priority is getting this council information. And I have almost zero time in my day to to prioritize that because of the small fires and emergencies that I'm fighting nonstop. I would love to have additional resource, but I also recognize that that we're entering an environment where we're probably going to be even additional resource constrained. And so I don't know that it's a valid strategy for me to ask for additional resource, even though that would help be one way to help address the challenge.
39 Thank you. I think I'm also just going to think out loud here for a moment and say that I wonder if there is a way for there to be added capacity within council operations, whether it's we need to fund another position that helps us, that liaise with the budget office. Like I'm wondering if there's something in council ops that could be helpful because I know I have a lot of questions coming into this year about how we can maximize the very capable hands in council ops that I think I know they have their hands full. I'm not saying that they don't, but I think there's also some more potential for us to use them more strategically aka like analysts, more strategically. So maybe that's something we could talk about. But I guess also, what do you see is the responsibility of who to fix it. Right. Because are are you going to the city administrator and the mayor to say this organization, the way that our duties are assigned is not working for the capacity needs of council? Are you coming to us and saying we just need more dollars to add more capacity? Hands. Do you see what I'm asking?
40 Yes. Councilor for sure. And and I mean, I am often the squeaky wheel, I think, at least behind the scenes, trying to advocate for exactly what you described as being more diligent about prioritizing and whether that's, you know, decisions that are coming out in the form of new policies, budget notes, etc. Or prioritization. We're doing on the administrative side and being more clear and transparent about those, those trade offs. You've you've all the five of you have certainly heard me sit up here and make these statements in the past, and I will continue to do so. Just calling out I you know, it's going to take all of us.
41 Okay. Thank you. I'm asking all these questions because I'm hearing the pinch points, and I'm trying to figure out who is responsible for solving them. Like is it a budgetary issue? Is it an administrative issue? I mean, it sounds like it's both, but this is what I'm wrestling with because my ultimate goal, like my colleagues, is that we are getting timely information that we feel like we're not overburdening you, but also that we have the space to receive the kind of information we need to to respond to our community needs. Right. So that's why I'm asking these not to, you know, put you on the spot, but genuinely just trying to figure out where who are the decision makers to fix the the pinch points that you're identifying. Other than that, I think my last question is just how do you plan on updating us as these? You know, we've you've heard my colleagues talk about their concerns about some of the things, and you have talked about the changes that are being proposed. What is your plan for communicating back to us how those changes are working and are they sticking?
42 Yeah, I mean, I'll say specific to these two actions and specific to the audit finding, we're looking at developing sort of a metric tracker so we can identify how many projects are we closing on a monthly basis. What's the remaining outstanding value that we can see. So whether that's something that gets reported in the city administrator report or another forum at least specific to this, that's how we're intending to to address that. And then I would just say more broadly, you know, I think that's an approach we're taking, looking to take with regard to any other ongoing actions is how can we have those forums to have regular reporting. And this obviously, the monthly report is a good example of something that already exists. We don't have to stand up something new. But but of course, it takes effort to to gather that data and put it in there in a way that's meaningful and approachable.
43 Thank you.
44 Thanks. Mr. Berry, I had some questions. A lot of the recommendations, like they start off in terms of they have a concern about projects being closed out. And I am hoping you can illuminate for me a little bit about what the implications are of a project not being closed out. That's being a trend that came up in a lot of areas. There is the part of me that cares if we're spending right, wrong, smartly, stupidly. The other part of me is like, did somebody just forget to lock the door when they left and turned off the lights? And it's I can't quite tell from some of these findings, but it matters, obviously, because this is not my first act for but it is my first in this government, and it is my first in. I'll just say this has been the least collaborative act for I've ever been a part of. And so these questions haven't been able to be kind of worked and massaged to get a good understanding for them because, you know, the auditor is not here. So tell me a little bit about what does the closeout mean and why is that a trend that I'm seeing in all these recommendations. And what should I take from that.
45 Yeah. Well hopefully the takeaway is that we've identified it and resolving it. But but what it means is that the the reason it's a negative, that it's a weakness is it means that when we do that annual reporting with the auditor and external auditor, one of the important things that that communicates is the financial condition, right? I mean, kind of think of it balance sheet and sort of pnl profit and loss, so to speak. And if we are not closing out those assets and we're not beginning to depreciate them, then we're mis reporting on the actual financial condition of. And so that's the shortcut version of why this is important to get this done, work to get this work done timely and accurately. And again, I think the last year was a big eye opener. That size of that gap last year, 200 plus million or whatever it was, was very, very large. And so the fact that we've now narrowed that down to just a few million is still not okay. It's not immaterial, but at least getting close enough to where, you know, we're always going to have these little small moments, but hopefully those get to amounts that are immaterial and don't fundamentally misstate the financial condition of the city.
46 Okay. Thanks. That that helps me kind of see why it matters. It keeps me in the realm of it's important. So you can start calculating your depreciation. It's not important from the perspective of and I say this because I think sometimes the public, we all of us, we hear words like auditor and it's about good spending, bad spending. But this is about whether or not we're capturing certain value and where we're depreciating it and treating an asset correctly. That's hard to do if you never closed it out. So okay, I appreciate that. I. You know, having having done a number of these in other places, I will say, I guess I'm hoping that this process, the acfr, has been more collaborative, internal within the executive branch than it has felt from the legislative branch. Because this this has been this has left me wanting for a lot with respect to the role, how to proceed, how to work with the executive branch, the auditor, the contracted service provider in this case, which used to be called. But it's now it's called something else. Has it been as much of a hot potato on your side of the dais as it has felt from my chair, as the chair of the finance committee, because it feels like a hot potato of not my problem.
47 Yeah, good. Good question, chair. And for the record, baker tilly is the current name of our formerly firm.
48 Different name. Correct. Rebranding. It's 2026, correct?
49 I think purchased by a by a larger firm, baker tilly. But so it has been very collaborative. It is very collaborative work between the external auditor, between the city auditor's office who manages that contract. And then our accounting staff. This year has been like a little bit of a broken record. This year was a little bit of a of an anomaly, both in learning how to kind of navigate, getting things onto council agendas and committee agendas, and an anomaly in that we had both the material finding that required the plan of action, and that was kind of identified later than we would have ideally liked in the process. And so those two things kind of bumped up against each other very, very late in the calendar year. And so we've learned from that. We will you know, we don't ever anticipate a plan of action, but an a material finding. We've now been through two years of of having that. So we'll be more prepared next year and thinking ahead about what if so that we can start getting that, that organized. And then of course getting kind of visibility onto committee and council agendas a little earlier, even if we don't have the complete information at that at that time. So, so a little bit of a learning curve this year.
50 I appreciate that. I, I'm happy to hear that. I'm happy that it was collaborative, that it was working. I recognize some change in government allows for some bumps along the way, because what it left me a month ago with was the perspective that perhaps I have to go hire moss adams to do this ourselves. And that really worried me, because that's that's how disparate the information was. Given that a different branch of government pays for it and wouldn't talk to this branch of government. That really bothered me. And so to be a good financial steward, I am aware that the acfr has to be achieved and that we've got to be able to put plans of action apart when we have material findings. And yet I was to the point of having to figure out, do we even get to use the product? And it sounds like we will. So I'm going to go ahead and put it in the category of water under a bridge. But my eyes are noted for this upcoming year. And so I look forward to recommendations on how that can go better. I appreciated some of the questions from my colleagues. About, you know, how do we how do we get to the point of of staffing up or providing enough resources or calling the question for what is a council direction and what is a single councilors direction? And where we spend our time is the executive branch. And when you all make decisions, I'll say, I think I'm on month nine. Maybe I'm on month ten of saying that I expect the city administration to come with a very aggressive budget package. They didn't do it last year. I expect it again this year. That centralizes the employees who who play budget and finance roles throughout the bureaus into a much larger, centralized position. I do not believe, I do not agree with, and I will not stand for bureaus having larger financial staffs than our entire city, centralized staff. I think that is a lot of the capacity question when when we when we come to it, when there's a request from a councilor, the fact that an $8.6 billion budget requires the cfo himself to be the one doing the policy work is a little alarming to me. And yet I think you have a lot of brainpower across the city who have not been detached from the bureau that hired them, nurtured them, bathed them, and they're still loyal to. But they have to remember. We work for one city now and one city only. So I'm saying it because we are on. I think we're on day seven of a new city administrator. I see our deputy city administrator for operations sitting in the room today. And so the bully pulpit is mine to say, that's what I expect to see in a budget proposal, is the reorganization that we should have seen last year, because I think it will get to the questions that councilor Avalos and others asked in terms of how do we get time and resources and information and not be a burden if we can't talk about that seriously as a city administration, then nobody in city administration is worth their skin for it. So that's where I'm hoping to see a lot of a lot of work. And it just comes from a position of I, I truly believe and it's why I wanted to share this, this committee is that the back of house work, the. Operations, operative operations, operationalization, operationalization of back of house work is what lets us be really good at front of house on the service delivery with portlanders want. And here every day we get really bad at service delivery. When back of house is messed up. The model is not any different at a restaurant than it is in the government. And so that's where I'm coming from. I really am glad that councilors and others are taking indicative to me of fraud or all those other bad words. But what they are indicative of is a system that needs a little attention. And that's where the capacity building in your, in your wheelhouse is going to be. I think it's going to pay spades for us. So thanks, mr. Berry. It's been it's been good working through this with you. Councilor I councilor Novick are you no longer okay? Any closing comments from the cfo on this?
51 Appreciate your attention and questions.
52 And so for today then we have actions to adopt. Then I want to make sure I've got we've got two items open. Make sure we've got the right actions in front of us here. So we're going to accept the annual comprehensive financial report. And then we're going to approve the plan of action. Does that sound right, mr. Berry?
53 Yes, I believe that's correct. And then the they'll both go to council, the upcoming agenda.
54 Great looking and seeing no other comments. If we could go ahead and have a motion to accept the item number two, the annual comprehensive financial report.
55 So moved.
56 Second.
57 All right. Councilor Green moves and vice chair pirtle-guiney seconds. And do we have any public comment at all?
58 No one signed up.
59 Great. Thank you. If you can go ahead and call the roll, then.
60 Avalos. I pirtle-guiney I Novick. I Green. I Zimmerman. I and with five eyes the motion to refer report document number 2026 001 to city council with a recommendation that it be accepted has been approved.
61 Great. Thank you. With that, the approval of the plan of action is required by the Oregon secretary of state is also up for hours. So I'll take another motion to approve.
62 So moved second.
63 Okay. Moved by council vice or. Excuse me, council president. Vice chair of this committee. Pirtle-guiney and seconded by councilor Green. And we have nobody signed up for comment. If we can go ahead and call the roll.
64 Avalos I. Pirtle-guiney I.
65 Novick.
66 I.
67 Green Zimmerman. I and with five eyes the motion to refer resolution. Sorry. The resolution document number 2026 002 to city council with a recommendation to be adopted has been approved.
68 Thank you, mr. Barry. Appreciate all your work on that. And, clerk, if we could open and call in item number four.
69 Item number four, adopt the budget calendar for fiscal year 2026 2027.
70 All right. Staff makes their way up. I'll just remind colleagues we do have some public comment on this item. And so we should have a good discussion here. Let's hear from our budget director. And don't let me move on without hearing from that public comment, okay, miss levine, take it away.
71 Great. Good afternoon. Councilors. My name is ruth levine. I'm the budget director. For the record, I have a very short presentation for you today, and hoping to ask you all some questions and get you to weigh in. We did file a resolution that is before you with a sort of draft proposal for the budget calendar, with a few questions that are still outstanding. So I think before it would move to, well, I don't know, up to you how you want to how you want to address those outstanding questions in the resolution itself. So just as a reminder, this slide is what we presented to you all back in September with kind of the the milestones that are required in the budget process. I'm not going to go through them all again, but what we're doing here is kind of filling in the in-between between those milestones, because as you can tell, there's quite a bit of a gap between mid-december and the requirement for the proposed budget to come out by may. So what's on this slide is essentially what we filed. We had two I don't know if they're scrivener's errors or not errors, which I've I've circled the ones that are the corrections on the slide. But I'm just going to go through this pretty briefly. And then on the next two slides I have highlighted the lines where I have questions for you all and propose some questions to discuss. So there's at the top is kind of the process for gathering information administratively from bureaus and service areas, both about their current service level budgets and the and forecasts. So the difference between the revenues we're expecting and the expenditures that would be required to maintain current service levels. There's a proposal to have a public information session at the beginning of February that would be very high level budget 101 type information, not specific cut conversation. And then the there's the due date for service area reduction concepts to be submitted at the beginning of February. That's kind of a recent update. And then we'll be releasing the sort of current service level gaps and forecast information in mid February. That's all kind of the administrative work, I guess, somewhat behind the scenes in terms of how are we gathering information centrally from bureaus, then we move into more kind of information sharing and conversation with council beginning in February. And this is I'll get into some questions for you all around this, but currently have a work session proposed in February and as well as committee and council presentations going into the beginning of March. Then we start transitioning into the more formal series of actions that happen in beginning in April. So right now the utility rate hearing is is listed as tbd in April. Last year was April 16th. I believe the and then the proposed budget is planned to come out on April 20th. There's then a required step where council acts as the budget committee to hear the mayor's message and have a hearing on that. And then there's a optional work session related to that. Prosper is proposed to follow the same timeline as as the rest of the city here. And then we really move into council's role as the budget committee, going from the proposed budget to the approved budget. And so that's where there's a lot more kind of leeway to you all to decide how you want to run that. And we'll talk more about that in the discussion. The. Approved budget must be complete by may 20th, because we need to submit our materials with the approved budget to tcc by may 21st. That is in order to have that's kind of already a condensed timeline in order to have a hearing on June 10th, and then the first reading of the adopted budget. Sorry. Tcc on June 9th, first reading of the adopted budget on June 10th. That is, in order to get us fully complete by June 18th, so that we have the time to enter it into the system and be ready to go on July 1st. That's the quick overview. I'm sure there's lots of questions. I'm just going to this is the same information, but I've highlighted the areas where there's sort of options and discussion room for discussion with you all. And then on the next slide and apologies for not getting this sooner. I was out last week, but there are some discussion questions. So I'm going to run through these. And then I'll go back a slide so you can see the dates again. So I've kind of bucketed them into the the prior to the proposed what do you want to happen. And then between the proposed and the approved what do you want to happen. So prior to the proposed I've, I have had conversations with a majority of councilors at this point individually about kind of how you want to see it. And so this I should have said this at the beginning, this sort of compiles all of that as a recommendation to you, all based on those conversations. Some of those conversations are happening this week, but the this is based on what I have heard so far. This reflects sort of a majority opinion or attempts to. And so the, the so the first question is around a work session on kind of the current service level and forecasts with so that that gap between what we're forecasting for revenue and what it would require to continue our current service levels, that could happen in February as a work session. And then there could be either committee or, and or full council presentations that I think would be a little bit more detail around the bureau level, kind of here's what's in our budget. Here's information you should, you know, understand when you're going through each bureau's budget specifically. So that would be all prior to the proposed before. You've seen what the how the mayor plans to close the gap and then between proposed and approved would be kind of digesting the mayor's proposed and what you all want to put forward for amendments. And so historically, we have had a work session on the proposed in addition to a hearing last year. We did those on the same day. The hearing is legally required, but the work session is not. And so there's a question for you all about do you want to do it on the same day like we did last year? Do you just want to have a hearing and then have the work sessions kind of come later in bite sizes? How do you want to do that? And then the follow up to that is the work sessions themselves. You know, we have historically done some more like bureau groupings, which would now be service areas. I think that's more similar to how other governments do it as well. And then another question that's come up is the approved budget hearing itself. Do you want to have that on a single day, or do you want to plan to have that over multiple days? Just for planning purposes? Since we have to end on the 20th, just need to know when it begins for for lots of reasons. But among them we have to notice it. So those are the those are the questions. I'm going to go back to this slide maybe. Yes. And kind of turn it over.
72 Those are great prompts I appreciate it. Before we open it up, I just want to remind folks that there's an importance about. We can be information gathering prior to a mayor's proposed budget. And so as you put your feedback into ruth, remember that because we are not debating in or out of the budget until we actually have a budget to debate, which is in and out. So when he comes out with his proposed, we're very much in budget sessions, debates, et-cetera before that. It is informational, it is learning. It's realizing the challenges or in some years the successes, whatever that might be. So as you give feedback, just keep that in mind that where we find where we truly enter the budget season and the legal parameters is when the executive proposes that budget, and that looks like that is the 20th. Anything after the 20th of April and before that is, or whatever date we land on before that is information gathering. And maybe priority explaining is a good way to put it. With that, let's go to councilor Novick.
73 So I'm glad you raised the sort of the legalities of what we can talk about when when I look at this, this looks great. It looks like we're getting a whole mess of information early on. What I would like to see added is this is an internal council thing. Between March 9th and March 20th, work sessions where councilors discuss what cuts are acceptable or unacceptable and what revenue options might be acceptable or unacceptable. Because I think that we should start thinking about, you know, at least in broad terms, or maybe not so broad terms, what will be willing to do and what we won't be willing to do. And that should help guide the mayor's proposed budget. Actually, I mean, to give an example, last year we could have had a discussion about whether money should be added to police when money was being cut from parks and whether that we could have had that discussion before the mayor had his budget. So I know that we can't, like, do a balanced budget before x date. Et cetera, et cetera. But so my question is partly for ruth and the lawyers. Can we have conversations where we say, well, I'd rather close a few fire stations than, you know, kind of police and things like that.
74 Yes. You can you can have priority conversations. You just can't get into the sort of line item detail of like, I think this should come from this budget over here, and it should be added to this budget over here or whatever you can talk about. Yeah, I'd rather do x before y at, at a high level and that.
75 So I mean just before we get to public testimony, just to highlight the amendment that I'm planning to offer that we should have March 9th through 20th work session, parentheses s and n parentheses where council discuss acceptable slash unacceptable potential cuts slash revenue items. That's all I have to say.
76 Okay, I have a question. Can I ask you a quick question.
77 When you say so I'm looking at the calendar. So because I see February 23rd and March 6th as council and committee presentations and budgets yada yada, the next thing isn't until April 16th. So is that like you're talking about this gap, right? Yeah. So why is there a gap. Did we did I miss that. Like why is there such a big no reason in particular.
78 Just no. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.
79 Please go first.
80 No reason in particular. I hadn't, I guess gotten feedback on anything of this kind yet. So there's no it's not it's totally possible.
81 And can you say your councilor.
82 The other point there is that the after March 6th, I think it bleeds into councilor Novick pieces. That is the those those few weeks between March 6th and April 20th or whenever we stop these discussions, as councilor Novick mentioned, that's when the mayor's finally putting the ink instead of the pencil to paper, making those decisions. And generally, governments put a few weeks into that so that they can he can finally put the product together, so to speak, before it's released on the 20th of April.
83 Okay. So then my last question to you, councilor Novick. Can you just restate how the amendment is going to sound?
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84 Yeah, what I would have is March 9th 20th, 2026 work session. Parentheses in parentheses where councilors discuss potential budget cuts which they find, and or revenue enhancements which they find acceptable or unacceptable.
85 Okay. Thank you.
86 Thank you. Councilors. Councilor Green, you're next in the queue.
87 Thank you. Chair, I wonder if it's beneficial to go to the public comment at this stage, because I do have a broad set of questions I have for the committee and also ruth, but I'd be curious to know what the person from the public would take.
88 Anybody have any objection? Go to public comment at this point. Great. Let's go ahead and go through public comment. Good suggestion councilor.
89 We have one person signed up, janice thompson. You can come up to the dais and give your testimony. Thank you.
90 Hi. Thanks for coming. Go ahead and introduce yourself when you're ready.
91 Sure. If I can corral the chair. Hi, I'm janice thompson, a long time observer of the city's budget process, live here in Portland, and I have three suggestions kind of related to the calendar. One is that education about the city's core functions and budget basics is really vital. So my first suggestion is for councilors to share the budget 101 info that is going to be, you know, developed for the city wide February info session at their many, you know, let's talk you know in district sessions. I mean I recognize this is an obvious suggestion that's probably already planned by councilors, but I mention it because far more of these community based sessions with three councilors per district are providing far more opportunities to share and gather information than occurred in the past. This is clearly due to the multi-member district charter change, and I just want to note that beyond what's in the calendar, that change, I think, enhances getting public input from a broader range of portlanders. Two is to require, or at least request that budget. Note topics from a counselor first be discussed at a council policy committee. Given the larger council and last year's very truncated timeline for budget development, it wasn't surprising that many note proposals received little or no discussion at the committee level. Without committee vetting, a budget note goes directly to the administrative branch. Review of a budget note topic in a policy committee, however, facilitates broader input from community groups and other experts. This would enhance the content of the budget note and probably facilitate more effective city staff responses to a note. Committee level vetting could also increase by in from fellow councilors, and the likelihood of securing enough votes to actually adopt a note. Now, given demands on committee time. I realize that this requirement could be challenging, but I appreciate your taking a long term view of this suggestion, because it could be several budget cycles to realize the full potential of this idea. After all, committee vetting wouldn't have to occur just during budget season and could and could be integrated into the council's kind of broader, more ongoing oversight role. Three is to celebrate improvements and give yourself time for future improvements. For example, even with new elected officials and an especially tight timeline, last spring's budget hearings were far more transparent and robust than what I saw occurring during the in the past during the commission form of government. For that reason, I found some of the media and public discussion about long meetings lacking in historical context and inappropriately mocking. My hope is that this calendar timeline is conducive to a little less fraught process than last year's. And for this, I think folks who have brought the calendar before you today and certainly welcome improvements along the lines that have been discussed here,
92 Apologies, but our timer is the ding isn't working.
93 Finish your last thought and then we're going to have to move on.
94 Sorry.
95 You're I I'm right there. I was waiting for.
96 Oh the ding failed. It's still on christmas break. I think.
97 That's what I was waiting for. Sorry.
98 We're here with you. Go ahead and finish your last thought.
99 No, no, no, it's I'm. I'm right there. So I also anticipate future improvements, as has been discussed, you know, kind of already at your earlier agenda items. So it's just like give yourself time for these adjustments, especially since it still isn't. Right. Kind of complaints from outside of the building could continue. Coming from this mocking angle, without any historical context, rather than really being offers of constructive criticism. So thanks for your time today and all your work for Portland.
100 Thanks so much for coming. Anybody watching watch those last three minutes. That's how to do public comment. Thank you so much. Great suggestions and very much appreciate your involvement with that. Let's go back to councilor Green.
101 Thank you. I'm actually really glad that I remembered to remind you about because it, it it affects what I was going to say but reinforces it a little bit. I appreciate the new schedule. I appreciate the hard work that went into trying to find a little bit more time for us to engage and learn from last time. I don't think any of us want to necessarily reproduce exactly how things went last time. And I also recognize the constraints that we're facing. A couple of high level observations. It looks like we still really only have about three weeks to to react to the mayor's proposed by my count. Is that is that about right? I think last time was two weeks and now it's like three weeks. So we got we got an extra week.
102 Should be four.
103 It's okay. All right. Well maybe I maybe I'm still on vacation. My math part of my brain. But so if we need our amendments in by the 13th then oh yeah the 14th. And then we get it on the 21st. It seems like three weeks to me.
104 That's just. If you want cbo drafting.
105 Oh okay. So that's a so that's like the soft deadline. The hard deadline comes later. But the best practice really is to hit the soft deadline. I think we should have a amendment scored by the cbo whenever possible. Which leads me into why I do support councilor Novick suggestion to amend this. To add in a little bit more formality without running roughshod on the budget law to sort of signal earlier on what it is that we want to want to do. And I guess I'm just a little bit stuck on the law on this, because on any given point, this council can adopt an ordinance that changes our budget for any year, whether that's next year or 2 or 3 years out. And so in that sense, you know, if it's a policy related issue that we think that we want to change, irrespective of any analysis that's going to go on in any forecasting, we we can be free at any point to sort of say, look, we we do know that there are structural problems in our budget. We know that there are some prioritization issues that we need to do. I'd like to first broach this conversation, colleagues in the relevant policy committees. And so I think kind of pursuant to janice's testimony, I think what my team is going to be focusing on between now and, you know, really for the rest of time, I suppose, but really in advance of this budget, this budget process is to start thinking about what it is that we think that we do need to cut or opportunities to raise revenue. And to the extent that that's allowable in the context, I guess we'll work very closely with with you, ruth, and the city attorney's office to make sure we're not getting too close to that space to even just provide a directional kind of like not binding necessarily. Maybe it's a resolution. I don't know exactly, but but the idea is to bring forward some of these items that cannot be viewed as or shouldn't be viewed as like hastily drafted and didn't be weren't vetted through a policy committee, because I do think that was a fair critique of some of my stuff last time, because we only had two weeks to do things right. And so I want to make sure I don't do that next this time. And so I guess what I'm I guess I'm asking my colleagues, like, how do you how do you expect to receive that sort of policy making through our committees? And I guess that'd be a question as well to to you, ruth, you know, how how early is too early to start this thinking? I do note that we're going to get some sort of first estimate of what our current service level gaps are going to be somewhere mid February. So we have about a month and change. But I mean, whether your deficit's $100 million or $20 million, your costs are relatively known. So I guess that's kind of where I'm starting.
106 Yeah, I can answer the sort of my piece of it. So I think it's great to start thinking about options now and to and you know, as I've said, you know, we have an analyst who's starting to work directly with council. So as you have questions, he can support you all with any analysis around those. I think the where the state budget law constrains what you can do is actual language around budget adjustments. So I do want to be super careful. You know, we budget one year at a time. You council can with appropriate noticing and the like can amend our current year budget. We do not currently have a budget for 2627. We have base budget assumptions, but we don't legally have a budget for 2627, and you legally can't do anything that would be like amending a non-existent budget until the the proposed comes out, at which point you are amending the proposed budget so that that's the constraint. There is like resolutions indicating legislative intent are fine. You know, communicating priorities and interests in either what you want seen in the proposed or what you anticipate bringing, you know, kind of regardless of where the proposed lands, those are all allowable. It's it's when you get down to the language of like, I want to see x million dollars allocated to this thing in in 26, 27. That's where state budget law provides a constraint. And then and you know, council can't bind future councils. So you can again you can indicate intent. You can have ongoing allocations in the budget. But you can't say like in 2930 you should budget x, y, z. Because that's the decision of that council at that point. So it's it's just the line of indicating intent and having a majority support, a resolution that says we, you know, directionally do this, that is allowable. It's more when you just can't get into specific things that sound like a budget amendment.
107 I appreciate that, but I mean, I guess it would also be probably correct me if I'm wrong here, but at any point we can say, look, there's there's this big chunk of work, this big programmatic area of stuff that we do in the city that we don't think is a high priority right now, given our broad constraints, irrespective of what budget you're talking about. We could bring that forward and say, let's have that discussion council, and we wouldn't be ascribing any dollar amount that would go into a future budget. We're just basically saying we think we should sunset this work. That's that's something we're allowed to do.
108 I think. So without getting into the specifics of what you're talking about. Yes. Saying, you know, we no longer want to do x legislatively, I would imagine that's fine. And then we would budget accordingly. Likewise, you know, if you had a revenue proposal or something like legislative work that has a budget implication is obviously allowed. It's just that it's not it's not making the budget action at that moment.
109 I've got you. I've got you very clearly. Thank you on that. And, colleagues, I just want you to know how I'm thinking about it right now, because, you know, if we have to make some big dramatic cuts, there's a there's a graph where you can charge the chart, a relationship between the the gravity of it and how controversial it might be, and having time for the public to engage it and also our colleagues to engage it is is really what I'm trying to get a better understanding on. Thanks.
110 Thanks, councilor. Let's go to vice chair.
111 Councilor. You have a graph.
112 Where we can chart the gravity of something and how controversial it will be.
113 I can I can draw a line in two spaces. Any any two variables you want. I can do this all day.
114 Perfect,
115 Ruth, thank you for bringing this forward today. I have just a couple of thoughts. The first is my gratitude that you have time on here for a hearing on the revenue forecast. That's not something that we've consistently scheduled in this year. We've had it on some and not others. And I think it'll be really important for us to do that this spring. I also just want to offer up my gratitude to the mayor for agreeing to get his budget proposal out sooner, because the legal amount of time that we have with the budget hasn't actually changed. We just were able to successfully ask him to get us his proposal sooner so that we have more time to work with it. And I think that's going to allow us to create a better budget for the city. So I'm appreciative that he agreed to that. I'm looking at the budget 101 piece at the top, and I don't have any concerns with what's on the page. But last year, I know I had a number of constituents who came to that, thinking that that would be an opportunity for them to share their thoughts about budget priorities. And I think we actually have a really important period of time before any of the the gap information, the forecasts, the proposed solutions from service areas are presented where portlanders can share with us their priorities in a proactive way, as opposed to reacting just to the cuts on a page and can really share with us beyond a couple of proposed cuts, what they think the city needs to focus on. And I am wondering if your team has put any thought into how we might be able to do budget 101 differently, where we can actually get a sense from portlanders about what the priorities are in the city, knowing that they're different. Everybody has their own priorities and take advantage of that time to not just do the sharing of information, but the intake of information as well.
116 Yeah, thanks for that. We have done some initial thinking, and given that February is in a few weeks, you know, I don't know how far we are going to be able to get, but we are actively working on mocking up a tool that would be kind of like a dashboard almost, where you could toggle something up or down and see what kind of gap it creates, or, you know, and you can see these online. There are a couple like the federal government has one that you can kind of play around with. That's a software that we don't currently have and take some time to kind of stand that up fully. But we're working on a pretty simplified version that would allow folks to kind of just play with a few variables. It wouldn't be the entire city's budget. It would probably just start with discretionary funding only. So we are working on that. And that's the main kind of piece that we're I mean, we've thought about various other options and are totally open to any input folks might have around how to do that. Well. But for starters, that's that's what we're thinking of doing would be kind of a dashboard application that folks could access and and play around with it.
117 That's fantastic. I'd hope we could have something exactly like that last year. I love hearing that you'll have that this year. I think if we do that and then also have a way of maybe collecting. Some amount of incoming information, even if it's just people writing on note cards, here are three things I want to make sure that we maintain this year. Or here are two things that I think we could cut this year at those one on one sessions. That would be fantastic. I just think it's a missed opportunity to not allow portlanders that proactive as opposed to reactive. Time to talk about our budget. I really appreciate the changes that we're going to see this year. Final question on the exhibit a that is posted online, the line about the utility rate review still says April 16th on the documents before us, it says tbd. Are you asking that we amend that before we pass it today?
118 Yeah, I, I believe that just didn't get updated. I think it still had 2025 in it in the document that was posted.
119 Okay. But you are asking for us to amend that before we pass it.
120 Yes. That and the the the second line below where it says may 14th, 2026 also had 2025, which was truly just a scrivener's error.
121 Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you chair.
122 Great. Okay. So given that and before we move on to councilor Avalos, the intent last year, the 16th I think was the Wednesday. So your intent is the 15th. So tax day all right.
123 Yeah. Yeah.
124 Just because we will be I will be asking shortly for some proposed amendments here. So we can just put this thing to bed. And then the other may 14th. So may 13th then.
125 I think I did may 14th intentionally. That's a Thursday.
126 That's a Thursday.
127 Yeah. That would just. Be the Friday.
128 Year 26. Got it. Okay. I'll chalk those up to scrivener's errors. I don't think those are problematic amendments. Thanks. Okay. Councilor Avalos.
129 So first off, thank you. I think that a lot of the things that I have been asking for and talking about throughout this year, I'm seeing throughout the calendar, but there are a couple noticeable things that I'm not understanding or seeing. So let me start with the. City wide public info session, yada yada line item. So that is the where the public is engaged. From what I'm hearing you say, and I don't see anything that's district specific. So that's my first question. But then also is that the only public facing thing on this calendar or am I not reading this right.
130 Yeah. Good question. So what I did not add any district listening sessions in here because I, I think there are differences of opinion among councilors about how those should be run. So this is not at all to say those can't happen or shouldn't happen in any way, just that we haven't gotten any. I don't have like folks might have widely varying like they want to do them every week or they want to do one of them or, you know, like there's it's hard to capture kind of a one size fits all approach. And so that's where I think it's more up to you all to to kind of decide on what that would look like. And then we can obviously add it. I should have said at the beginning that the budget calendar is not a binding. There are things in here that are legally required to happen on certain dates, but it's not like we can change it. It's just intended to communicate publicly and to everybody in the city that what the plan is. And then we can deviate from that plan. So this is that was not intended. That was not intended to say those should not happen.
131 So understood. So then these items with the asterisks which say council convenes as budget committee under state law. But is that a specific also deadline because it's like that action is required, but it's not necessarily required by that day. Or is it.
132 Correct that that is true? So like for example, the the mayor's message and hearing on the city budget, the mayor's message and hearing are required by state law when the mayor delivers the proposed budget to the budget committee. It's just that but but under charter, that's not required until may 5th. The proposal is to have it on may on April 21st. It's just that that's just intended to say, like, those are the moments when you're formally sitting as the budget committee.
133 Yeah, okay. I understand. So back to the district specific things. I mean, I guess who do you expect to lead on that? Like, are you waiting for council offices to lead? Is the chief engagement officer leading on that? Who is making those decisions?
134 Yeah, I was looking to see if she was here. So I think I'm I'm not in the lead on it. I would say the chief engagement officer has been very clear that she's and her team are are available to support, and we are available to support with the sort of budget 101 information and whatever you all need. I think it will be continued conversation between her, our office and your offices on what you want to do, and we're certainly available to support, but we're not telling you this is when it's happening. Show up here on this date. So it'll just be continued conversation.
135 Okay. Well, I'm sure we'll talk about it as colleagues, but I definitely have some thoughts on that. And I will be launching an east Portland budget survey in the next couple of weeks. So that's my way of trying to get to my constituents what their priorities are. But I'd be curious what the standard is that we all expect from each other, from the budget office, from the chief engagement officer. And so I think one of the remaining things that I have been asking for, I'm not clear, I'm seeing well in this is like I've talked a lot about how I don't want I want to get the information the mayor is getting when the mayor is getting it right. And I don't expect that it would look necessarily you would necessarily see that in the calendar. But I guess I want to ask, like, what is the way in which you hope to get us information at that time? Like, because what's the mayor's timeline, right. Because he must have his own calendar leading up to his April 20th. Like, what are the briefings that the mayor is getting on the certain bureaus? Right. Are those happening at the same time as us, or are we just getting those way later? Does that does my question make sense?
136 Yeah it does. I think, you know, by and large the February date. So the January 23rd is when the sort of forecast information, current service level information is due. And then the February date is when the the actual concepts are due. And so the the next two lines that are highlighted are intended to be that moment where that information is shared out formally with council as a whole. Now that and that is not very different than when the mayor will be getting that information, because bureaus are are working hard on that right now. And so but but I think in addition there is opportunity for other, you know, whether it's through one on one briefings or the like. It's just it's really hard to corral all of the bureaus and all of the 12 councilors and get everybody the information you need. And of course, do it transparently in a public meeting in a way that earlier than February. And so that's just given the, the the concepts aren't due until February 9th. That is that is the soonest we can kind of get it in front of everybody. That again, that doesn't preclude kind of smaller meetings from occurring in the meantime. And of course, if you have questions, we can be responsive to those.
137 Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I think what I'm looking for and not just of you, but also, I guess of council leadership of this committees leadership, like, what is it that we need to do to create those spaces so that I'm not hearing it not only at a different time than the mayor, but I'm also like, what? What's different about how the mayor is receiving the information versus us? Like, that makes me uneasy and is a core problem that I have been trying to figure out how to fix. And so I just feel like maybe this proposed amendment that councilor Novick has put forward, maybe some of those sessions could be geared towards that. I'm just trying to understand, like in what ways council can feel more empowered to have information at a time where we can have it early enough so that we can also make those trade offs, because I don't what I don't want is another like, well, the mayor made all these decisions on all these trade offs because he got these briefings and he got this information and he talked to bureau heads. And I don't have the luxury of being able to weigh those things either. So then I'm kind of left with these very surface level decisions. And that's how I experienced being as councilor During last year's budget and what I'm trying to correct. So this I don't necessarily expect you to have an answer right now, but it's I guess I'm naming. It's a glaring thing that I still don't feel has been resolved, and I don't expect it to be resolved right away, but I do want to see us working towards that. I think there could be some ways that we're working towards it, by just creating more space for some of these presentations, but I just want to be extra clear that that is missing for me and I don't. I need a resolution, so I'll keep working with you on that. But I wanted to flag it. I think my last comment is, you know, I hear I'm hearing you say that, you know, you and the budget office aren't necessarily leading on like the public engagement front. And so I would love to maybe we could bring the chief.
138 To talk.
139 About it. Okay, good. So that we could just talk more about who is leading. But I really would love to see some more cohesion because and just in general, I think what I'm also capturing from this conversation is like, well, and then we could do one on ones here and we could do that. And I'm like, I kind of am trying to avoid that. Nebulousness I want to create a little bit more cohesion amongst how we're getting information and having some kind of standard, and I feel like we're still not there. So other than that, very grateful. I think this is good work, and I think it does start to get at some of the concerns I had earlier this year. So I'm grateful. Thanks.
140 Thanks, councilor. I appreciate your comments because it highlights some of the areas where I feel like rubs existed, and a lot of your requests. I think it's really important that you understand that those are by the grace of the mayor, right? So your request to have information when he gets it, the only person who can grant that to you is him, right? Because everything from April 20th and earlier, those are actually none of those are things where we have authority. In fact, we could actually probably not have it on this list because those are all. How will the mayor make decisions? That's what that category of dates really exists with. Now it sounds like he is. And I think he's heard from us, which is be more transparent. But our role and our official ability to kind of keep the timelines and set dates really is April 20th until adopted. And so I, I don't know that it is possible and perhaps even appropriate for the statement of I want to get the information when the mayor gets it to be achieved. And so I think that's a balance to have with the mayor. And it goes into my next point that I just want to make for everybody, and I hope we'll share this with our colleagues. Is that now and through the 20th is the time to be having your conversations about your priorities, your, you know, your your, your notes, your initiatives, whatever it is that you think is most important right now and during this early part of this calendar is the time to have that conversation. I think first with the mayor, secondly, the city administrator, and definitely anybody in the budget office or cfo's office to help you polish ideas so that they are ready for debut, if you will, but also to see if the mayor might pick them up. Right. That's budget 101 should be how to convince the executive to put your stuff in there before it gets released. That's budget 101. So so that's the other part that I want to share. And then getting to the community engagement, having been highly involved with with last year adjusting last year's. I'm one of the people who asked the cfo's office and the budget office to keep this calendar more specific to the required work of passing the budget, and that the individual councilors, because we've heard so many like your example of a survey for east Portland, I think is a great example of why 12 different people and maybe even 13, if you include the mayor, are doing and and approaching it differently. Not everybody likes the district based public sessions. Last year, some people really liked them. Some people wanted to just do more of them. Some it sounds like this year, some are doing surveys. And that's where my advice to ruth and I'm one of them, is what I think the budget office should actually pull out from that. It's unfortunate that our community engagement director is not here, but I think it is a big part of it. But it is something that council leadership outside of the budget team should articulate more about how we do it. And that's there's two areas where that also fills everything after March 6th, I think is designed for more community engagement time and then everything, frankly, before even February 23rd is designed for that. So I really appreciate also that we do not have whatever it was last year that occurred. The city administrator's, whatever budget that I think caused so much stir last year, I'm really glad that that's not part of this plan, because I liked the district district budget hearings a lot last year I went to all of them, but because the city administrator had released a preliminary look, it focused the public on the three things that seemed like they were at risk instead of the broader topic. By not doing that this year, one of my hopes is that if we do have district hearings or district listening sessions, that we hear a broad scope and not just the most organized of of different games, which was a lot of what we heard last year. So I do appreciate that change here. My question really to council members, council president, I'm coming from this perspective and I'm curious what your thoughts are is last year we attempted to put budget hearings or budget presentations by bureaus into the committees that they were assigned or that here's their topic. I think it was a flat failure because the budget committee is all 12 and only all 12. It's not a sub. And so my my thoughts this year is that all budget presentations should happen to the entire full budget committee, that I think it was a valiant effort that we tried to do it at committee. I just don't think it worked. And so there was a recommendation from the public about budget notes being heard at committee that I find fascinating and very interesting as a way to at least put one lens of decision making on it or scrutiny on it before it comes. That I thought, was a very attractive suggestion. And so I say that with budget notes in one hand, and because last year budget notes felt a little bit reactive, a person would be irritated about a thing that happened, and the next day we'd see a budget note about that irritation. I want to avoid that. And I think the committee suggestion that we got from the public was a grand suggestion, but I, I don't think our committee structure of this government is mature. And I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. I don't think we've got our sea legs yet in terms of having those budget presentations happen at committee only. So I would encourage the council president to have budget sessions for everybody's budget presentation with the full budget committee. Ruth, my question to you. Optional approved budget work sessions April 22nd to may 12th. You don't have those asterisks, meaning they're not considered convening of the budget committee. And I think they should be. And I and I want to make I want to understand that issue there because those to me are places we're going to to have some debate about stuff. We won't be voting on things, but we may hear proposals about different amendments and things of that nature. Can you talk about that a little bit? It's approved budget work sessions April 20th 2nd to may 12th. It's not an asterisks, but the asterisk means this is us convening as the budget committee.
141 Yeah, I'm. I would defer to a lawyer, but I think I, I'm using budget committee kind of strictly as what is in state budget law. Like what is required under state budget law. And those work sessions are not required under state budget law. But I think functionally, you're right that that would be like your, you know, kind of.
142 I think we should think of them that way.
143 I think it's just important what you noted that you can't actually vote on anything. Obviously, that that would have to be, you know, if you wanted to extend the approved budget hearing over multiple days, then you could be doing that. But if it's a work session you're just discussing, great.
144 So, colleagues, the county, for instance, one of the things that they'll do in a budget work session is council commissioners may propose an amendment, and all they're doing is putting it on the whiteboard. There's they're not debating it. They're not voting on it. It's just we're getting a topic. We're getting briefed by, you know, for them, the health department. I'm going to put this amendment about the health department up. And it basically goes into the whiteboard to be debated and voted on at a later date when you finally go into the actual hearing. But they definitely consider all of their work sessions to be convening of the budget authority that that I think works. And I think in practice, we pretty much did that last year. And and, you know, the asterisks may not be important. I. Okay. I guess I, I do want to just take one minute to if there's any feedback on the thought about should budget presentations happen with committees or should they happen with full budget committee. And if you have a thought on that, I would certainly welcome feedback. Councilor Avalos.
145 Yeah, thanks for bringing that up because I was one of the things I forgot to mention. I was going to respond to you, councilor Green, about that. I think in general, how I feel about policy committees and doing budget things. I agree that I like the idea of having budget notes go through committee. I think that's reasonable. I think I would be more comfortable with the concept if it was clear to me how I could talk about things on committees I'm not on. That was my main issue with the whole committee process was then it was unclear to me if I had something in safety committee or transportation, how I was supposed to bring something forward. There was no like system around that. So that would that is what is missing for me to feel comfortable with the concept of going back to committee. So I wanted to state that's my hang up. But I think overall I feel it. We should in general be bringing everything to full council and we need to have more of those work sessions. And I, you know, that concept of like, let's just get it on the board. Like we just didn't have enough time to do that and now we can build in that time. So we should take advantage of it.
146 Thank you. Counselor. Anybody else?
147 Counselor Green.
148 Yeah. I just want to say that I strongly support the idea of having the full body be the place where we hear the the budget calendar related stuff for all the reasons you already outlined and, you know, just just to respond to councilor Avalos here, I think my intention is going to be, you know, as early as February 13th, we're going to get our current service level gaps. We're going to know what we are missing in terms of money to sustain the current level of our service. And I'm going to start talking to my constituents about that immediately. And I like your idea about like, let's do a survey. But I'll do I'll do mixed methods, like I'll do a survey. I'll also ask them at town halls. I'll ask them at coffees, like, are you comfortable with this gap? Is this a priority for you? So so based upon those conversations, I do think it's good to bring it forward potentially to the relevant policy committee. Say, I'm hearing that we may need to cut deeply in this area. That's not a thing that I think I can I don't think I can pull that off in a full council meeting once we've convened as a budget committee, because we were going to have three weeks. And I think, you know, I have been part of those types of amendments. Some of them have successful, some of them have failed. But I think like a really good example would be the prosper Portland budget amendment that I championed with councilor Dunphy last time. That was very controversial, and it did not succeed. But there could have been a world where there was a lot less confusion and threat around the nature of it. Had I been able to talk to prosper in the arts and economy committee, have some of those conversations, have some of those, you know, we didn't do that. Lesson learned. And so I feel like if there's going to be another and I got props for sitting back, don't worry, I'm not going to come after your budget this time.
149 But you heard it here.
150 You know. But there's gonna be other areas. There will be other areas. We are not going to be able to avoid some cuts in this next budget around areas that we love deeply. And so if it's transportation related, for instance, need to have that conversation in tni. And in my view, it won't become policy though unless it goes to the full council. So like I think as far as I'm concerned, like I'm still grokking how to make that effective for the next budget cycle, because it's there's a bit of a strange boundary issue for me, and I don't want to like, do willy nilly proactive ordinance development just because I'm worried about a potential budget deficit. So that's that's a challenge I'm still thinking through.
151 But I'm going to wrap you up, counselor.
152 Okay, thanks. I'm done.
153 No. On overall budget. Gotcha. Thanks. Sorry. Any other strong thoughts from the two of you about committees with with presentations or full council or full committee?
154 Yes. What I agree that the whole council should hear the budget presentations. Also, it is my assumption that by March 6th, we will have gotten all the information that the mayor has by March 6th. And what I was actually envisioning is that what we might do is, first of all, have between March 9th and March 20th, have councilors talk about the kinds of cuts they may or may not be comfortable with, the kind of revenue that may or may not be comfortable with. And having had that conversation in full council, what we might do, and I don't think we should write this down anywhere, but I think what the committee chairs could then decide whether they want to do is okay. Here's a concept that some people are interested in. Maybe we should devote some committee time to sort of fleshing that out and understanding better the policy implications of that. And obviously the committee members will be involved in that. But whoever the councilor was that proposed the idea could be there. I mean, you know, within the context of like quorum rules would be there to like, be part of the conversation. So that's part of the reason I'm suggesting have those, you know, councilors in the full council talk about their priorities in early to mid March, so that subsequently we, the committees can follow up on anything? It seems like anybody should be following up on. And also, by the way, just as long as I've got the floor. I mean, I agree with councilor Zimmerman. I think that it's incumbent on us as councilors to do public outreach in the way we think is best and the the executive is there to support us, give us the information we need, etc. But I think we I think that is a responsibility. And frankly, I thought we were pretty good at it last year.
155 Thank you.
156 I really appreciate hearing everybody's thoughts. What I remember from last year is that we did have a period where council received information from everybody, and that's that February 20th 3rd to March 6th from all of the service areas. And last year, because we were new, it was a lot of foundational information, and I think we can receive more instructive information about this year's budget during that period of time and use that time much more effectively. I like the proposal that my colleagues here just, I think, collectively laid out of how we take that and move it into committees for some of the deeper conversations, but we certainly need to start with those conversations at full council, where everybody has the opportunity to weigh in. I do want to note that we have had many successful opportunities over the last year for councilors to committees weigh in on that they're not a part of, by signing up for public testimony, or by working with chairs to get something on the agenda that they wanted to bring forward, even on a committee that they're not on. And it might be worth suggesting to all of our committee chairs that they actually schedule committee time to hear proposals on on changes to the budget that councilors could come and present to, even if they're not on that committee. And the committee could then have a conversation about. So I do think that there's a a way that we have already laid out this year that we could move into a budget scenario to make sure that we can do that.
157 Thank you, vice chair. So I'm going to take care of a couple housekeeping items because we are getting very deep in time here. So I think everybody will agree with me that the utility rate review first reading April 15th, 2026 and the council amendment proposed deadline for cbo drafting may 14th, 2026 are both scrivener's errors in exhibit a, and I am looking to see if I have consensus on that, that we move and adopt that as a unanimous amendment, that scrivener's errors. Okay. Seeing no no objections. So noted for exhibit a, we are only talking about the year 2026. Okay. Councilor Novick to your point, does just changing the March 6th on this calendar to March 20th, does that actually create that space in a way where those presentations and information occurs, or are you looking for a separate. But you had mentioned an amendment that you're looking at?
158 No, I mean, my I'm assuming that we get our presentations on the budget by March 6th, that we get the information we need in the budget by March 6th. And what I'm anticipating is then we add, we commit ourselves to between March and March 9th and 20th. Then we in work session start identifying what our priorities are, what in general terms we think acceptable, unacceptable cuts are, etc. So that by.
159 March a good name for it. So March 9th to March 20th March council budget. Strategic direction setting.
160 Strategic priority work.
161 Session I well I mean I but the amendment that I proposed was work session parentheses s in parentheses where councilors identify acceptable or unacceptable budget cuts or. Revenue measures.
162 I think we have a great council ops person who wrote it up as at a work session to the council calendar for March 9th through 20, 2026, titled budget cuts and revenue options council finds acceptable or unacceptable.
163 I would say councilors find acceptable or unacceptable because I don't know if we have agreement.
164 Did it say work. Sessions in there?
165 Yes it.
166 Did.
167 And I'm going to get rid of a ad work sessions between March 9th and 20. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The councilors find acceptable or unacceptable. I think that captures your intent, councilor. Can you. So. All right, so you've moved it. I'll go ahead and second that. Any more discussion from the committee? Okay. Clerk. If we could call the roll on this amendment, please?
168 Sure. Avalos. I pirtle-guiney. I Novick. I Green. I Zimmerman. I the motion to amend the calendar as described before passes with a vote of five eyes.
169 Thank you, councilor Novick. Thank you, mr. Hair, for that language. Jerry rigging there. Good job. Okay, councilors, I know there were a few more in the in the body to speak, but I think we do need to move on. I think. Ruth, any closing comments or last questions that you feel we have not tackled for your needs for this before we move to adopt?
170 No.
171 Okay. Appreciate the evolving nature of this. It's year two for us and we are getting to do it far earlier than we started last year. So we are already off to the races. And with that clerk, if we could call the roll on adopting this budget calendar and sending it to the excuse me, if I could have a motion to adopt this budget calendar and send it to the full council with a recommendation to be approved.
172 So moved.
173 Second councilor Novick moves councilor Pirtle-guiney seconds. And with that clerk, if you could call the roll.
174 Thank you.
175 Avalos I. Pirtle-guiney I. Novick I. Green I.
176 Zimmerman I.
177 The motion to refer the resolution as amended. Document number 2026 003 to city council with the recommendation be adopted, approved by five eyes. Thank you.
178 Thank you. With that, colleagues, we've got 25 minutes and I'm going to ask. We have two items left. I'm going to ask that the Portland housing bureau step forward while the clerk reads item number five.
179 Item number five, Portland housing bureau land banking funding and affordable portfolio stabilization discussion.
180 All right, go ahead and take it away. Introduce yourselves. And actually, before you take away, let me just I've asked them to come today just because land banking is one of the conversations that I'm hearing in a lot of corners of city hall and the community and our housing bureau has some experience in that. And because a lot of these will come through finance, I wanted to take this opportunity as well as the affordable portfolio stabilization. Recently, we've heard about affordable units that may be vacant. And sometimes if you go in depth there, you hear about, well, that's because it's at a certain ami there are other buildings that are other amis, and how do you get the right renter to the right unit? And I think that the housing bureau team can help us get into that topic a little bit, that if you are not in that world, seems a little off putting.
181 Sorry.
182 All right. Go ahead.
183 All right. Thank you. Chair. Zimmerman. Councilors michael bowen, interim director for the Portland housing bureau. As chair, Zimmerman said, we have two discrete topics for you today, and we sort of geared our presentations so that the powerpoint could be sort of a leave behind as reference for you, since we won't have too much opportunity to go super deep, but we'll do our best and talk quickly. And of course, we can follow up on any additional information that you need. So as we are working through getting the powerpoint up, I'll tell you, we are kicking off the conversation about land banking. And just as a to sort of set a frame around it. Most often I think when we talk about land banking, we talk about it as a verb, as in we acquire a piece of land and we hold it for development. A land bank is also a noun. So we at the city do the verb. We have not yet created a land bank, and that is work underway that tanya is leading to develop a proposal so that we have an opportunity to do that in potentially a more strategic way in our future. So with that, it looks like we're ready to kick off.
184 Okay.
185 Hi everyone. My name is tanya wolfersberger. I lead the development and housing construction services team at the housing bureau. It's great to be here today. I am going to talk a little bit about land banking, and specifically our land banking strategies that we are just embarking on as part of our social housing study and is also part of our housing production strategy goal, which I'm sure many of you have seen. So as director buonocore has kind of set up, is that what we have been working on is pursuing the study and a recommendation for a land bank, which is very different from a land banking program. The city has endeavored on several different land banking program activities over the past. Those include goals and priorities that have been embedded in tif district action plans and the Portland housing bureau. Portland housing bond program had land banking goals, and we pursued those activities and opportunities and purchased land under those programs. We also do a lot of work in partnership with community land trust by providing funding to community land trusts to to fund development. And those are not land banks, but they kind of act like land banking programs in as much as they permanently control what the development of that land is going to be going in the future. So I just wanted to kind of frame what we're talking about today. Land banks versus land banking programs. Our land banking strategy is going to be making recommendations on what that's going to look like for the city, what the city would like to pursue in terms of what type of entity, what type of government structure, and what type of funding that that will look like. So leading up to that land banking strategy, some preliminary work that we did previously was in 2023, we conducted a public land inventory that was directed out of a council resolution in 2022. We worked with a consultant group and many of and a group of city bureau staff across across the city to help us identify currently owned land from the city that would be viable for affordable housing. So we went through a methodology to help kind of prioritize and filter based on our goals and values of what we look for when we're acquiring land. We talked with many city owned, owned land owning bureaus to get a better understanding about the land that they had available, whether it was truly vacant, whether they had plans for that land in the future, what whether it was suitable for housing development. So out of that, we identified some top sites that would be most suitable for housing development. And we also kind of included some assumptions and estimates about unit counts, bedroom sizes, density maximization, etc. To kind of get a sense of how many units. In an ideal scenario, if funding wasn't an issue, how much housing we could produce out of those top sites. So those sites produced about 18 sites altogether that were owned by various bureaus. Those included sites that Portland housing bureau currently owns. Some of those sites include the mount tabor annex, which is we're preparing to release under a solicitation this quarter, also 102nd and Burnside, which is a currently adjacent to Multnomah county facilities in the gateway tif district. So we have resources identified for that site, which is really great, and we will be including that in a RFP that will be releasing shortly. We also, through the city surplus property disposition process, we acquired a site from the water bureau referred to as the menlo park water tank. We are in negotiation and collaboration with habitat for humanity to dispose of that site for their development. They own an adjacent parcel, so it makes a lot of sense for those parcels to be combined, and that will allow habitat to develop some homeownership units out in east Portland. Some other examples that you are probably well familiar with that were included in those top sites were the broadway corridor. Fb owns one parcel in that corridor currently, and we have awarded development rights to home forward for one of the first buildings that will be developed for affordable housing there. There's other parcels, of course, that prosper is working on to develop. We have another parcel six, I believe, that will be developed by related northwest as a mixed use affordable housing development. And then there's the sears armory in southwest. There's currently hosting a safe rest village that's a very large parcel of land. I believe it's owned by fleet and facilities. It it is very viable for future development. But again, there's no agreements in place to move forward on that at this point. So other key opportunities.
186 At about ten minutes for.
187 Other key opportunities that were discussed, not included in the land inventory, but discussed as part of that work was the ellington apartments. That is a big 263 apartment complex on ten acres in northeast Portland that the housing bureau purchased under the housing bond back in 20 1617. It is in need of reinvestment and redevelopment, and we have been working to explore what that means financially in order to improve that, the amenities and the infrastructure on that site, there's potential to increase the density of that development by quite a bit, almost double if we wanted to pursue that. As we've been looking at our kind of preliminary financial feasibility, we've estimated that it would take at least 70 million in fb resources or city resources to provide a subsidy to redevelop that entire ten acre site. It's about 355 million for total development costs. Just to kind of put that in perspective. And then other opportunities, of course, are the upcoming action plan priorities for the new tif districts and other master plan areas such as omsi and lloyd center and lower albina. So I'm going to pass it back over to director bunker.
188 Right. Affordable housing stabilization. So the headline here is that affordable housing in our community is reflected in the sort of the national state of affordable housing, which is near crisis, if not full crisis related to a number of factors that have sort of collided into each other. So in the past few years, we have seen and experience this from our affordable housing providers in the community. We've certainly heard it both anecdotally and seen it in evidence, in the way that we regulate our portfolio. And so as we have done work to be responsive to situations as they arise, we also recognize we need sort of a portfolio level view of what the issue is so that we could work to develop a portfolio level strategy. So the first piece of that work was to contract with housing development center to do an assessment of our portfolio that was completed this summer, just sort of to capture it. In a nutshell, between 2019 and 2023, operating expenses increased by about 7.1%. The average increase in gross potential rents was 4.3%, which already is trouble. But then, in fact, because of issues such as nonpayment of rent by existing tenants and high vacancy rates, really the net income growth was only 2%. So we see a widening gap in the financial viability of our partners ability to manage their properties. A few more bits of information from that study. Out of the total properties with much pay with must pay debt, about a third in 2019 weren't generating enough income to pay their operating expenses and mortgage, and by 2023, that increased to over half of the properties. And as much as we talk about vacancies, which are a significant issue, bad debt is really what is driving a lot of the problem for folks. So when you combine bad debt increases in taxes and insurance, utility costs, maintenance and turnover, you just have this confluence of issues that is hitting folks really hard. Next slide please. So again we are working to help with the resources that we have, both with policy levers and funding available. We have. Recently invested to buy down rents at two pipeline projects. So their rents will be instead of 50 to 60% down to 45%. We provide gap funds for projects to help support appropriate operating expenses. We've recently piloted something called stabilization mous with individual affordable housing providers, wherein it's a an agreement that we're going to work together in good faith so that when we do pull some of the levers, we are also influencing their ability to think strategically about how they're positioning their portfolio. And that includes things like supporting the restructure of debt, giving them flexibility with how they use their property reserves and other things. And then at the portfolio level, as I said, we've been working with the housing development center to understand the issue. We are currently engaged in strategies to help support driving down vacancy levels and affordable housing developments, and we have recently awarded $2.5 million for safety and security enhancements, which can help both with the marketability of properties and also the insurability that we see as reflected in higher insurance rates. So that is the lightning round version of what's going on out there.
189 Thanks to both of you for putting this together quickly. These are hot topics right now, so we appreciate it. Councilor Green, your first in the queue.
190 I want to be mindful of the time. I recognize we only have 11 minutes left, so I'll just be really appreciate the presentation. I've been thinking a lot about this. I'll probably follow up with you offline to to know more, but can you just define what is rent by down mean specifically? Is there is there a contractual element to this? Like what is the expectation when you do a rent by by down? Thanks.
191 Yes. Potentially getting a little over my skis here. So I'll put it in very simple terms. It's a buying down of the loan on the property, which allows everything to sort of operate more economically and for the rents to be lowered. And there are formalized agreements that define how that works. And we, you know, when we invest at any degree in an affordable housing property, we enter into a regulatory agreement. So we have no regulatory oversight and can enforce, you know, adherence to the agreements that we make.
192 Thank you. That that does it for me. Thanks.
193 Councilor. Novick.
194 Yeah, I just wanted to mention that last Friday had a meeting with rob justice, the guy who's built a heck of a lot of housing around this town. And he told me something interesting, which is that he and other folks put together a proposal which they sent to the mayor's office a few months ago, might have also shared with the housing bureau to take colwood golf course and build take part of it and build like 650 to 700 pods and take the other part of it and put in 650 to 700 400 square foot park model manufactured homes. And both the two parts of that interested me. One councilor Morillo and I are both on record saying that although we have a housing crisis in the city, but not a golf crisis, so we should be considering converting some of the golf courses for housing. So I was wondering if you thought of putting the golf courses into your land inventory. But the second question is, are you thinking in terms of park model manufactured homes when you think about development? Because, I mean, there are a hell of a lot cheaper than traditional 500,000 or 16 million a piece, whatever it is, affordable homes. And I do think that we've reached a point where it seems unlikely that over the next 15 years we'll have enough sort of like traditional homes for everybody. So I was just wondering if you thought about the manufactured park model home option as something we might use some of these, put in some of these inventory spaces.
195 It's certainly not out of the question. And in the context of the social housing study that's underway, we're looking broadly at what are what are the kinds of housing that we want to develop. That is not the same sort of formula that we've used in the past. And there's a piece of that work around cooperative ownership models. I know, you know, in in the past, when conversations about sort of existing mobile home parks come up, the community has a lot of energy around the ability for folks to have an ownership stake in that, in those opportunities. So I think just broadly, we're open and we may, you know, sort of see some tangible ideas coming up, coming soon about how we might make that work.
196 Thank you.
197 Council president.
198 Thank you. Chair.
199 Thank you so much for being here today. I have a lot of questions that I think veer into the homelessness and housing committee world more than the finance world. So I'm going to try to keep it to just 1 or 2. When you look at future need, especially engaging in the current social housing study and think about the need not just for land, for housing, but other needs in our community as we become a denser community. And you look at the cost of property now and projections for that to increase, do you see this as a time when we should be investing more in public ownership of land? For some of the things listed here, whether that's partnership with community land trusts or land banks or land banking program, or do you see some other point in the near future as a better time to start making those investments?
200 A couple of thoughts. One is, in terms of public ownership of land, it's something it's a it's a commonly understood component of social housing. And so we're thinking about ways that we might deploy that, even if it's not sort of a what might be thought of as a purely social housing model, but that we when we are putting properties out for RFP, perhaps instead of fully awarding ownership of the property, we retain public ownership of the land and provide a ground lease. So that's a that's a way to sort of use it in, in our existing model of how we do business in terms of that as a strategy. And please tell me if this doesn't quite answer your question. I think it's an important one. It'll be, again, a component of the social housing study. And I think really a question for all of you, a difficult question in terms of your how you prioritize budgeting resources for a recognition of the sort of the immediate situations that we have in front of us versus the importance of a long term strategy. And we'll sort of we'll do our best to advise you and provide the information you need as you make those choices.
201 I'll take that as a starting point.
202 Okay.
203 We're short on time today. Thank you.
204 Great.
205 Okay. I'm not seeing any other questions in the queue. I appreciate you all coming forward. I think that there are some. This is one that I think straddles two committees. And we're lucky that councilor Avalos sits on the other committee. Who who I think the straddles from a policy version versus the money we put toward it. So thank you for coming today. And with that, I will close us out and have us go to item number six. Please appreciate it.
206 Item number six, finance committee discussion.
207 Okay.
208 Thanks folks. I put this on the agenda and I thought it was appropriate that we gave more time to the budget calendar. So thank you for your time on that. So this will be a little short. My intent behind the the committee was to do a little bit more of a discussion post budget, calendar adoption about some of the financial policies and directions we want to go. I'm going to amend that and put that at a later date. So it's a more full, full conversation. But I did want to just announce to this group that I'm going to convene what I'm calling the chair's working group on positioning the city's financial direction with, I think, some of the damning news that we're going to be getting and that we have gotten over. It just seems to keep on hitting us, right. Revenues are not coming in the right way. Bit is an issue. Property taxes are not coming in the right way. How will we make the bills of each of each year? One thing, one of the parts of this job that I don't feel like I have been able to deliver. Is a set of well thought out, worked with the administration, financial policies that have been developed with this new government in mind to get us set up for the future, both in current tactical options but also in longer strategic options. And so I wanted to tell you all that because I've asked councilor Green his interest to sit with me as another member of this committee, and I've asked and gotten the mayor's approval to have our cfo bring together some other financial and potentially operational, but mostly financial employees within the city and maybe some others to kind of get our heads wrapped around a coherent. And I think, collective approach to some of these bigger questions, so that if this council has to make really difficult financial choices in the future, that the first time they get them is not out of a vacuum or from a vacuum from the administration, that there has been some way in which councilor Green, this working group, and I can bring it together and bring it to finance in the future. So this is still growing and we're still just out of the gate in terms of what it will be. And so I invite conversations in the offline with you about what your thoughts might be on that, but I did want to tell you about it so that I think we're going to have a tough couple of months coming up. And I think we've got to get proactive. And so this is me trying to take that prerogative and and be proactive and councilor Novick I see your hand.
209 This is only partly tongue in cheek. I was glad to hear you talk about tactics, not just strategy, because it seems to me that politicians are always talking about strategic this and strategic that and tactics get ignored. So I appreciate that.
210 As a as a lieutenant colonel, I may be I may be one of the people who has to know the difference. And so I do use those words very deliberately. They do mean something different. Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green, anything you want to add since I've asked you to join me. And I appreciate that deeply.
211 No, I really appreciate taking the, you know, seeing the urgency of the moment. We have we have five person policy committees, which means three people can't talk about finance related issues without a quorum. So makes a lot of sense that it's a two person work group. I appreciate that you value my input into this, even though sometimes we have ideological disagreements actually, probably most of the time. But there are areas like this is the meat and potatoes of the city and just excited to work on these issues with you.
212 Thank you. Councilor. Since this chair prerogative, this was just an announcement. There's no adopting or anything of that nature. But I do commit to continue this item or put it again on this item, because I do want to hear about either your concerns, priorities, etc. Which was the larger intent if we had the time for it. But I think we used our time well with with ruth, so thank you for that. I don't see any other comments. And with that, I'm going to adjourn this meeting. Our next meeting will be the 12th.