The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2026-06-03
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (25,449 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
This work session of the Portland City Council, held June 3, 2026, focused on preparation for the adopted budget's first reading, with the body reviewing scheduling changes, a filing deadline for budget notes and amendments, and a round-robin discussion in which councilors previewed proposed budget notes and amendments. A significant portion of the session concerned a proposed package intended to restore over 100 positions across bureaus—including public safety, parks, janitorial services, 311, and a new immigration office—funded through Portland Clean Energy Fund interest and contingency balances; figures describing the total cost and position counts were stated inconsistently across speakers. Extended discussion addressed concerns about future-year budget deficits, reliance on one-time funding sources, the core services realignment process, layoffs versus vacant positions, and consultation with labor and bureau directors. Additional topics included council office budget levels and comparisons to other cities, potential cuts to council or administrative staff to fund fire rescue units, a proposed minority municipal bond manager pool, budget notes on healthcare costs, homelessness governance, contracting practices, utility rate studies, and a proposal to revive citywide budget mapping tied to district-level outcomes. Votes on some prior amendments were referenced as having occurred; specific outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger. The session adjourned with logistical announcements about an upcoming dragon boat event.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
0 Hot diggity. Good afternoon everyone. I'm calling to order this work session of the Portland city council. Kind of a weak little gavel. I'm gonna try it again. Yeah, there we go. Thanks for everybody watching at home, colleagues, as you know, we are headed towards the first reading of the adopted budget a week from today. At that hearing, we will have the opportunity to make further, though limited amendments to the budget, and we can introduce budget notes. Today we're going to go round robin 12 minutes for each councilor to talk about the work on to date, on notes and further amendments. I know it's not much time, but this is an intent. This is intended to give us an opportunity to introduce ideas and take the temperature of our colleagues. When I first presented this budget calendar and this process back in March, I said that I wanted to provide so much time for deliberation that we would feel like we had too much. Whether anything can feel like there's enough time in a year this difficult. With the improved but still largely inadequate budget detail that we got available to council, I. It's hard to say, but certainly I have heard from some of you colleagues that you would like to have had more time. However, we did triple the amount of all council work session time from last year, and we scheduled and spent as much time in the approved hearings this year as we did last year in both the approved and adopted together. Next Wednesday, we have four hours for the adopted hearing scheduled from 11, I'm sorry, from 9:30 a.m. To 1:30 p.m. At the request of several colleagues. We will also be canceling the committee of the whole on Thursday morning and holding a 930 to 1230 session that day as an as needed continuation of the adopted hearing. This change requires that we file a special meeting which requires the signature of seven councilors. So I will be circulating this document for you to sign off on it if you are open to that. Looking ahead, the deadline for filing notes and amendments with cbo for feasibility review is 10 a.m. This Friday, you are requested to file all budget notes, all new amendment concepts and any amendments filed for the approved that you are bringing back for the adopted with cbo by this date. Cbo will file all such pre-filed notes and amendments with the clerk at 10 a.m. On Monday, June 8th. Contrary to last time, the cbo will seek your final approval on new amendment concepts before filing your items with the clerk. So that is shifting from an opt out approach we did last time to an opt in approach. Please make sure you're available to give cbo your final approval, and your items or your items will not make it into that filing at 10 a.m. On Monday. We will know how much work is before us for the adopted, and my team will begin creating an order of business. During the approved budget hearing, my team took what I would call an aggressively generous approach to the order. As promised, we made hearing councilors top priorities our top priority, grouped items together thematically to save time, and used the ratings poll to make decisions on the margins next week. If the proposed business exceeds the available time, I'm going to be a bit more blunt. If proposals do not have a path to seven votes, whether they come from the right or left or center of this body, they are in the practice of making politics but not policy making. Politics has its place. It was place was in may. I do not anticipate bending over backwards to make time for it in June. Today I'd like to go by district alphabetically by councilors within the district so that we just going as I said, we're going to go round robin to talk about budget notes or additional budget amendments, and I'll call on folks, but I'm going to start just for fun. I'm going to start with districts four, three, two and one, and I'm going to start with vice president Clark. If you have any budget notes or amendments that you'd like to discuss.
1 Thank you, council president. I don't, but I'm anxiously awaiting reviewing everybody else's and crushing them.
2 Thank you, councilor Clark, vice president Clark, councilor Green.
3 Thank you. Thank you, council president. I do I hope not to be crushed, but in the spirit of transparency, you all bear witness. If I do so, I am working on an amendment that is new with councilors Avalos and Morillo, which seeks to sort of address a lot of the pieces that failed last time, a lot of the positions that we want to restore. So I'll just run through it at a high level. I can distribute the more detailed language that we're going to get to the budget office to help us get this scored. But the basic idea is it's a package that will keep whole, not cut 103 different positions across the city of Portland using currently accruing Portland clean energy fund interest accruing to the fy 2526 budget year. And it also relies upon $44.8 million of the restricted fund contingencies that we're going to be previously funding positions prior to the core realignment that are that in the mayor's proposed just go to contingency. And so the way what it will do, what it will fund is as follows. It pauses the realignment. It uses $8.8 million for realignment. Pause. So and that's for the 46 ftes. 3.2 million of that comes from the pcf interest and then relies upon $4.8 million of the contingency balances across the bureaus affected there. The second part is it restores two of the als teams. So the two of the fire rescue trucks, it's $1.65 million, I think actually it's all of it. It's the entire cut. It gets. It restores those. It restores 26 ftes in the using $3.45 million of the public safety public support the PPS three in the Portland police bureau.
4 How many did you say?
5 26. Victims services units. It restores two ftes at $302,000 in parks and recs. It restores 22 ftes across maintenance and programing, using $6.12 million restores cuts to one of the. The relay janitorial services contract at an order of $261,000. That's for the Portland building, and I think this building as well, it establishes the immigration fte office that councilor Avalos attempted to establish, but it creates the funding to do that without taking it from the mayor's office. That's the that's the innovation here on that one. And then finally, it it restores six of the identified cuts in 311 at an order of $888,000. So in total, this racks up a draw on the sff interest balance for fy 2526 at a total of $16.5 million, and then relies upon $4.8 million of the newly established contingency balances in the home bureaus that were a result of the realignment. Pause. So that's a lot. I'll pause there. I'll see if there's any questions. I probably already burned up my time council president, but councilors Morillo and Avalos are my co-sponsors on this. I don't know if it makes sense for them to speak to it now or if. Okay, sure.
6 Happy to.
7 Happy to give them time to discuss as well. And we'll jump to the queue.
8 I will speak, can I speak on it when I just do my 12 minutes, if that's all right.
9 Absolutely.
10 Thank you.
11 I'm happy to speak to it. Now. I don't have much more to add. I would just say colleagues, you know, we're obviously making very difficult decisions during this budget cycle. And to me, this is sort of a last hail mary attempt to save some of these services. We had a labor rally last night, and we had most of our city unions come and attend. And I know other folks are in support who weren't able to be there. But the reality is that if we are going to be doing this realignment process, we really need to make sure that we get it right. And I think something that really stood out to me from what rob martino said when he attended as a representative of afscme, was that we are establishing a government for the next 100 years or longer, god willing, and we have to actually make sure that we are doing our due diligence. So this is going to give us the time to actually talk to all the city employees, make sure that we're doing this the right way, make sure that we're not accidentally letting go of people that we're going to have to hire back later. Because when we're talking about creating efficiencies, we have to understand that efficiency doesn't mean that you are laying people off. And then it turns out that you need to hire them back later. That costs money, that costs time. And there's a very good chance that we are going to lose the institutional knowledge that these employees have accrued with us over the years as they have served the city. So I think that if we really want to be a council that is dedicated to good process, we need to approach this with a scalpel and not a hammer. And I think that preserving these services is going to be really critical because once we lose the public trust, because these services stop working in the ways that they should, that's going to be incredibly difficult to earn back later. So I hope that this is a helpful compromise. We have tried to structure this in a way that we think will be beneficial, and that people across the board on this council will like. And so I look forward to getting to discuss that with you. Thank you.
12 And council president, if I have any time left, I have.
13 You're only at 5.5 minutes. Okay. You're good.
14 Thank you. Councilor Morillo. I do have intention to clean up the budget note that passed as sort of a strange artifact of, like, Green one failed, but Green four passed. Green four references. Things that would have happened in if Green one had passed. So I'm going to want to clean that up. Preserve the intent of having the city administrator look at opportunities for management span of control adjustments, but I. As it stands now, it's awkward. At this time, I don't think I have any other further intentions for budget amendments at this time, and I'll just I just wanted to note, I, you know, a large priority for me is making sure that we we're preserving this public public safety component that I saw in a lot of different amendments. Councilor Clark, you'll see a lot of inspiration from yours in here. So just uses a different funding source largely. And that's kind of what what we're hoping to pull off in this. And we would invite any co-sponsors on this from this dais to, to join us in this. Thank you.
15 Thank you, councilor Green. Colleagues, go ahead and jump in the queue if you want to discuss this. Vice president Clark.
16 Thank you. Council president, councilor Green, can you talk a little bit more about those 103 position restorations, or how many of those are actually real people that are filled right now and how many are vacant?
17 I'm actually going to kick this over to councilor Morillo, because I think her staff member has the the specific number.
18 Sorry, put you on the spot.
19 That's okay. Let me get that number and get back to you. Okay. Oh, sorry. I'm hearing that all of them are currently filled positions.
20 Okay. Councilor. Novick.
21 Thank you, mr. President. Councilor Green, how much PCEF interest money were we already relying on in this year's budget?
22 We approved a budget that used 26 million, I think was the number that accrued during the 24. 25 budget year.
23 So you're talking about relying on $42.5 million of PCEF interest, right?
24 You could say that.
25 Yeah. And how much interest do we expect that we'd have next year after that's done?
26 I mean, I'm not the forecaster here, but I can say that we can probably if the current balance is somewhat around $21 million in that fund, we should probably expect it to close out somewhere close to where it was this year. But I know where you're going with this. You're suggesting that it's imprudent to draw down what would be available for future years, and I can speak to that argument if you want to have that debate.
27 Yes, I am saying that I checked with cfo biery and he said that right now he thinks we're looking at a $75 million deficit next year. And I, I mean, I think that we're looking at a at a tremendous cliff. And what we've been doing is relying on last year's PCEF interest. Now you're talking about also relying on this year's piece of interest, and then next year, we won't be able to rely on the the following year's piece of interest. So why isn't what you're proposing just a matter of giving us a huge clip to cliff to fall off next year?
28 Excellent question. So earlier in this process, I suggested amendments that would have found the savings for some part of the things I want to restore by quote unquote, chopping from the top councilors didn't have appetite for that. I did have a conversation with the city administrator who recognized that we need to have that span of control study, and he wants to be a thought partner in that. I think the message has been sent. We adopted a budget note to that end. We also had a conversation with our labor partners who all agreed that they they recognized that there are some cuts that need to happen. And so I'm thinking if we can use this balance that exists today to show portlanders that we are not decimating our public safety apparatus, that we recognize that that is a urgent core need, that they feel using money that we have right now, that buys us the time to have this more deliberate and, frankly, more careful approach where we have a shared set of cuts across the organization. That's the faith that I have in the city administrator. That's the faith that I have in our labor partners. But I don't think that we need to get in the habit of saying, well, we've used staff three years in a row. We're just going to assume that it becomes part of the mayor's proposal, because I don't know what the mayor's proposed budget priorities are going to be, but I know what mine are right now.
29 Has the pccep committee signed off on your idea?
30 We emailed the subcommittee last night, and we have not received a response yet. But they we've shared this with stakeholders who. We always talk to when it comes to PCEF.
31 So are you saying that next year we'll have 20 million. You hope that we have $20 million of chop from the top in order to make up for all the money we won't have.
32 That's not what I said. I said that between the management, identification, the span of control adjustments and also the conversation with our labor partners that we were all part of last Wednesday, I heard a commitment to work together to identify the positions that we need to cut and the places that we need to have consolidation and that, yeah, that's going to have to total up. But, you know, there's also an opportunity to raise new revenue, which I haven't yet talked about.
33 So can you tell us the 4.8 million of contingency balance? How much of that is general fund?
34 None of it.
35 Okay. Yeah. And have you talked with the bureaus and with cfo biery about, you know, the wisdom of cutting that far into contingencies?
36 I believe that my staff had a brief conversation with cfo biery on Monday, and I don't think we've had an opportunity to talk directly on this yet. But we've talked with the cbo pretty extensively about it.
37 So you're saying basically that we you want us to spend 16 million extra in PCEF interest this year, hoping that next year we can somehow make enough cuts that we're not going to need sff interest next year.
38 What I'm saying is I'm listening to my labor leaders who say they want to be part of a conversation to identify these cuts, and I'm saying that for me, when I make my risk analysis as a counselor, I think it's more hazardous to cut 26 public safety specialists to advanced life support trucks or three trucks, than it is to hold on to PCEF interests that may or may not be as important as those things a year from now. That's what I'm saying.
39 And but you have I mean, as I recall, your shot from the top initiative, how much money did that raise? Like 3.5 million or something? Yeah. So you're it sounds to me like you're imagining the next year somehow you have a chop from the top and then from the middle initiative that raises 20 million.
40 What I'm saying is between the span of control cuts that I'm hoping the city administrator can help us lead on, and also the partnership with our labor unions to identify opportunities to realize savings through attrition, through consolidation that we can we can close that gap. It won't be dollar for dollar, but we have other parts of the budget that we can prioritize as well.
41 So under your proposal, would there be no layoffs at all this year?
42 Under my proposal, there are 103 positions that have previously been identified as layoffs. That would not happen.
43 So no layoffs at all this year. And we hope that we don't have to lay anybody off next year.
44 I don't think that there's no layoffs this year, but I can say that there's 103 positions that we are. We are buying a time, buying a year to have a more deliberate conversation so we don't break our city.
45 So some of us have been having conversations with labor and with the administration about going through the core realign positions and trying to identify some positions that are that it's particularly risky to let them go and trying to come up with, can we do an amendment that addresses things that are particularly risky? Is your position that all of the positions are equally risky, that we shouldn't be doing that? More detailed analysis.
46 I support that analysis, but I, I want to say that I'm not interested in picking winners and losers on a ten day timeline. I think that we've got a commitment to have this conversation over a period of time to work with our dca of operations, the city administrator and labor to figure out how best to move forward with realignment. And so, no, I'm not going to I'm not going to say whether or not I think, you know, they're they all have the same level of risk to the city of Portland. But the fact that we can't we can't know for sure. This juncture, I think, is highly suspect.
47 But some of us have have been having those conversations about specific positions. And at some point you're saying we will have to we will. I mean, if I hear you correctly, either we're going to come up with some bunch of magic money next year, or at some point there are going to have to be layoffs and we'll have to decide about specific positions. Is that right?
48 I mean, of course I said that from the start, but there's going to have to be rob martino said himself in that labor meeting, which you were in, that we recognize there needs to be cuts. I think carrico said the same thing. We recognize there need to be cuts. I heard the same thing you heard. What I'm saying is it's better to have that conversation with labor from the ground up and the administration over a course of a year, than to try to do it inside of ten days. That's what I'm saying. And as far magic money. I mean, if we keep promising hundreds of millions of dollars to the moda center and there's no there's no source identified there. And so I don't know if this is a rounding error compared to that.
49 Well, actually, 16 million is more than a rounding error compared to 75 million. You know, you're talking to one of the people are who is very skeptical of putting moda center money in, but I just I mean, it really seems to me that you're you're saying we should spend spend as much money as possible this year with a hope and a prayer that it won't result in a disaster next year. So that's what I'd say.
50 Thanks.
51 Thank you. Councilor. Novick. Councilor. Morillo.
52 There is very often at this council this all or nothing approach. And I can assure you that for someone who is going to get to keep their job for an additional year, that's going to be incredibly helpful and necessary for them and may in fact, also prevent some of our own city employees from ending up on our streets to act like having an additional year of time at your job and to get paid is not a massive benefit, I think is a disservice to what it means to people to have employment at this time. I think councilor Greene covered it well, but I'm just going to reemphasize the same point. These. The cf interest is one time dollars. This will be used as a one time thing, and labor is very aware that there will probably be cuts later on. What labor has come to us and asked us is we have not been. I'm paraphrasing what I've heard from them. We have not been consulted enough. We would like to be a part of this process that is going to be happening from the ground up, from the city employees who are informing us about where those cuts and efficiencies can be made, because right now we pretty much had an outside consultant do the majority of this. It was not something that was really inclusive of the people who have the most knowledge, who are on the front lines about what can be cut without breaking the system. And that is, I think, what's really critical about this. We have one opportunity to get this realignment done really well, and we can take the additional time to do that. We don't want to consult with labor unions for ten days before we make these massive cuts. I know some folks have had a few conversations, you know, over the course of a few months. So have we. But it has not been a a completely involved process. And that's what we're getting at here. So I hope that this actually buys us time to do our due diligence. And I know that this is a council that really does care about labor. So anyone who's willing to join this amendment is welcome to.
53 Thank you. Councilor. Morillo councilor Pirtle-guiney.
54 Thank you, council president. A lot of what councilor Novick was asking about covered some of the questions that I had. But councilor Green, one of the things that we've talked about as a body and that, frankly, we heard asked as a question in that summit about is that what we called it, a summit about core realignment? Was the idea that more spending up front sometimes leads to more layoffs later. And I'm wondering if, as you have looked at these funding sources and the true numbers around what we might save with some of these things, are you worried that we will be looking at more layoffs next year? And I don't mean to councilor Morillo point, somebody has their job for an extra year but will be laid off next year. I mean, are you worried that we will have to dig deeper in terms of layoffs for city employees? And with that reduction in services for portlanders? If we pause everything as opposed to just stopping some of that core realignment work, which is, I think, part of the conversation that we had at that summit, do we pause everything, or do we quickly identify the areas that are clearly problematic? Yeah, I'm just I'm wondering if you have thought about that piece of it and what what you're doing to try to mitigate that, or if that's not something that you're focused on or worried about at all.
55 I mean, I think it's a reasonable question. I always worry about what are the unintended consequences and risks of every decision. I think where I'm at right now is because this money doesn't come from cutting somewhere else in the contemporaneous period, that it's not directly going to lead to a higher level of layoffs than all else. Constant. What I worry about in the context of that conversation we had is that if we rush through the process, and I know that there's maybe an idea that we can trim and scalpel to identify like some areas of restore and hold harmless and others to get rid of that, that will still result in a less optimal and a less efficient set of outcomes that will then require us to spend a lot of money to try to bring capabilities back that we have lost, and that we won't know we've lost it until it's too late and things start breaking. And that then comes at the expense of things we want to fund in the future. I also don't know what our blt revenue forecast will be. We know it's a highly volatile source of income. And so sort of predicting to the fte, fte level is pretty hazardous, especially when you hold that part constant. And we also don't know what the plans are for this fund balance. Now, we don't know that the mayor is going to put this into the next budget. There could be other opportunities for that PCEF balance that has nothing to do with funding general fund obligations. These are all unknowns. What we do know is it's there now, and we have we have a series of positions that threaten to cut into the bone, frankly, of our public safety system. Obviously, there's all the rest of the core services realignment aspect, and I've been convinced that there's there's frankly, too much risk of, of moving forward with that. And I, I don't see how a sort of selective pause can work. I have seen an email from kerry on that, but I think you get in a situation where now you've got to talk to the other folks who are laid off and say, sorry, you're losing your health care on June 30th instead of August, because we thought that you were less risky than these other ones. That's how it feels to me. And so that's, that's a huge risk that I'm not willing to, to, to sort of like roll the dice on, so to speak. And so I have thought through it. I'm not concerned that using the funding source in this amendment presents an immediate risk, that it's just going to create more layoffs in the future.
56 Thank you. I think I am still concerned about that. I appreciate you sending this out. I think if it were something scaled back, that might be interesting, but at this level, I've got some concerns. I'll look forward to reading over. You sent things out earlier today. I'll look forward to reading them over in more detail, but I'm a little skeptical about this setting us up for some even deeper cuts to services portlanders rely on in the future. Thanks for working on it, though. Thanks, council president.
57 Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney councilor Novick. I'll come back to you and go to counselor Smith first.
58 Council president, could you go to him? I'm waiting for some documentation to come.
59 Thank you, councilor Novick.
60 Thank you, mr. President. Councilor Green, you said that you recognized in the future, there are going to be layoffs. You've been here for, what, 17, 18 months? You have said that you think that we should lay off about $3 million worth of managers. But beyond that, are there any layoffs which, based on your 18 months of experience here, you think that you'd probably be okay with now?
61 Yeah, I think that's an unfair question. I think I've said it from the beginning that I want labor to lead that question, that process. We, you, you created a summit and we had that conversation and we heard very clearly from those folks that they are willing to engage this process with the city administrator and the mayor and their counselors. They want the time and the respect to do so. I'm curious to see what they come up with in that conversation.
62 So you are putting it on labor to come up with the layoffs that they think that we should make.
63 No, I'm inviting labor to sit at the table with us and help us figure this out. I'm not putting it on labor.
64 Okay. But again, as of now, other than the cuts that you have proposed to management, you have no cut. You have no layoffs that you personally would be comfortable with.
65 Not not at the time, no.
66 And but you're confident that a year from now you will have a bunch of them you're comfortable with.
67 I am confident that we confirmed an excellent city administrator, and I'm confident that we have some of the best labor unions in this country. And I think that if we work together, we create the space for them to work together. They can deliver us a budget that meets our needs.
68 I agree that we should work with labor. I have a lot of faith in labor organizations too. I would just be very surprised if anybody is able to come up with a palatable list of $20 million worth of people to lay off that everybody would be happy with next year.
69 Thank you. Councilor Novick councilor Morillo.
70 I just want to make it very clear that this isn't an ask that originated from councilors. You guys created a labor summit, which is a fancy word for a meeting where we had a meeting with labor people. It actually needs to be far more extensive. It actually could be a real summit if we want to talk about whatever the heck summit is supposed to actually be. But city employees are the ones who are coming to us when they are allowed to talk to us, by the way, and they are telling us that they want to be more involved in this process. So they are willing and capable of identifying efficiencies that we don't comprehend because we are not on the front lines. We don't actually, these people have worked here, some of them for 30, 40 years. They know things that we don't know. And I think that it's pretty arrogant for us to pretend that we don't need their input right now. So I just really have to say like, this is coming because city staff are asking to consult with us as the managers of the budget, and we should take that feedback. We should get as much information as we can about these decisions. And if we have the opportunity to use one time funding to buy us time to do this the right way, then we should take that time.
71 Thank you, councilor Aye, Morillo. Okay, colleagues, we are at 20. We're at 27 minutes right now. But this is a big beefy conversation and that's totally okay. Also, councilor Clark seated her time by telling us how she's going to slam all of our. So councilor Ryan and then Smith, and then I'm going to move us to the next speaker. Oh, and then can. And then I'll move to the next speaker.
72 Thank you, council president councilor Greene, you sent out some amendments this morning, but it wasn't about what you're speaking about at this moment.
73 No, I need to get those sent. My staff working on.
74 Getting those flying. I'm flying with no details here. So that's why we're asking so many questions. This is and it was a bold statement that you made, which I, I respect that. So I hear this, the slowdown of the core realignment as this is not perfect and this fluid process needs improvement. I think that's been discussed with all of us. And I actually thought that cea lee was very forthright in understanding that sentiment and that they were constantly trying to improve that process. Would you agree with that, that that took place? And when we're having discussions, or did I just only hear.
75 That I.
76 I agree that c a lee has offered commitments to be deliberate. He's also told me I'm five months on the job. And so in response to my sort of I need I know we need to cut into the management ranks, he said. I recognize that and I agree with you. Please give me the space to do that. I think that he heard pretty loud and clear the conversations that we had, labor partners. And that's why I do place so much faith in him to help us lead in this moment. And I just think we're going to have a better outcome. Councilor if we give ourselves more time to do this nine months a year, then than if we tried to just barrel forward with what we have here, which is my primary motivation.
77 And then some would say they have been working on it for quite a bit of time. And, and so there's that. I do think it's been more of a scalpel than it has been a hammer. It's been it's a hard thing to do. But we all knew this day was coming. I remember those conversations and sessions when we were talking about approving contracts and such. As of now, there's no forecast that says we'll have a positive revenue forecast that would that that would come from our solid bread and butter revenue streams like business license tax. We haven't heard anything that would indicate that that's going to be on the big increase. Right. Have you heard anything that indicate that I see more for lease signs going up than I see them coming down?
78 I mean.
79 We've got our city economists here, but we're way ahead of his forecasting schedule. It's a it's a very volatile income source. I do note that last week, I think the Oregonian reported that in Oregon, corporate profits are at an all time high. And so our business license tax is a function of net income and profits. I would expect that to be a tailwind.
80 That said, though, you said that what is the revenue stream that will avoid more layoffs if it's not business like say they just stay flat. That wouldn't do it. So what is this revenue stream that you that I think you have in your head that would suddenly come about, that would allow us to not lay off more employees? You mentioned that you had an idea.
81 I out of respect for my out.
82 Of respect like that idea councilor Because we're having a very serious conversation. These are people's jobs. And so I don't want to mislead anybody. So I just want to hear like, what is that? What is it?
83 I'm going to tell you right now that I'm not going to share that concept with you at this time, but that I do know that we've got, I think that we've got tailwinds on our blt as it stands.
84 Right? That didn't say anything. So you don't want to expose what this other idea is.
85 I'm working with a colleague on an idea, and I have not received buy in to share that at this time.
86 Okay. We're all we're all waiting. Thanks.
87 You'll hear it here first.
88 Thank you, councilor Ryan. Councilor Smith.
89 Thank you, council president, this is a very interesting conversation because I am really concerned right now, and I need some level setting from the administration in terms of how many jobs are actually going to be lost with our current adopted budget from last week that we budgeted for, because I'm hearing 46 people, and then I'm hearing 100, and I don't like what I'm hearing because we're going to have the same problem next year. We're going to either have to cut or do something. And there are a lot of people on the front lines who who are going to lose their job in less than 30 days. And I'm really concerned about this. I thought we would be able to get this under control, but we had some layoffs in with the ps3's, with the fire and rescue that I was not happy with, that we couldn't get past. And so I'm wondering if it would be prudent thing to do is to hold off on, on the realignment. So question thank you so much, ruth, for coming up. How many jobs are being lost with the adopted budget that we had last week?
90 So as of right now, our estimate and, you know, things change a little bit between bumping and obviously people may leave the city, but for other reasons. But as of right now, our estimate is that 99 is the number for all of the reductions citywide. As of last week, as of the approved budget, of those, 46 are related to realignment.
91 46 are realignment. The other is because of layoffs. And so I don't know how you can say to me which one is a layoff and which one is a realignment, because there's no difference.
92 So the sorry, the ones that are related to realignment are positions that are being reduced, that were identified as part of what we call the core services realignment process. Not that they're realigning from bureau a to bureau b in the budget. They're reductions. They're they're reductions of positions all across the city. And then and.
93 To be able to meet the gap that we had the $169 million gap. Right?
94 Right. So realignment was a portion of that. And I'm saying of the total 99 positions citywide that would are filled and are being reduced as of right now, 46 of those were a result of the process that we called core services realignment.
95 And I wasn't here earlier. Could you still stay there? I wasn't here earlier. Councilor greene, you don't have a detailed copy of your proposal, but how much are you? Can you give me a ballpark of what your what your how much money you're talking about? Because I found another account.
96 Yeah. I am working on sharing it. I'm sorry, from some tech challenges here because I'm also responding to everyone, but it's a total of $16.5 million from the pcf interest fund.
97 Okay. Is that is that what you need to get the realignment to keep everybody to keep their jobs?
98 That's what this whole thing does. That's the whole package. It's a total of 103 positions.
99 Okay. So. Director levine, can you tell me I'm looking at the grants fund under external materials and services, there's $138,543,764 in that account. Can we take that money out of that account and pay for this.
100 From the grants, funds.
101 From the grants fund, and under external materials and services? It has 100, and actually it has $141 million in there.
102 My guess is I'd have to go pull out more detail, but that much of that is restricted for that we receive as grant revenue for specific purposes. And so we couldn't reallocate it to other uses. We'd have to dive in more into, you know, what all is in there.
103 Because I imagine some of that can be used for general fund.
104 It really just depends on what revenue, what grants we're receiving. Many of them come with more restrictions.
105 Yeah. Councilor just add to that. Sorry. For the record. Jonas biery chief financial officer sitting in for city administrator. Typically, when the city receives those grants, they do come with strings attached. And so even if it's general fund, it may be general fund that has to be used for specific outcomes that I would guess are likely not necessarily aligned with the reductions we're talking about.
106 Okay. It doesn't have to be aligned with the reductions we're talking about, because we took money out of the golf fund to pay for elections. So we know we can match general fund to general fund. So I'm also looking at the facilities services operating fund. There's $53 million in the contingency amount, and that's general fund.
107 It's not all general fund. So the facilities fund.
108 There's $16 million at least in that 53. Right?
109 Right. The facilities fund is a separate fund. So it's not in the general fund. And it consists of contingencies for specific facilities. And so, for example, if p, p and p, p, and d pays into that for part of the 1900 building. Right, right. And so that that is specifically for their facilities. In contingency.
110 It's not their reserves.
111 No, but it's in, in contingency for if the elevator breaks in the 1900 building, they would use those funds to fix it. Yeah. And so they're restricted because they're for a specific purpose and they come from restricted funds.
112 And I've been looking at this for the last two years. It's been here. There's not been an emergency. We have an emergency right now. We have folks who are going to be losing their jobs in less than 30 days. And I know I can go through all these funds that I'm having that I'm talking to you about today, and you'll give me a great answer and of why we can't do it. But I'm telling you, we can. And I know for a fact I tried to have a meeting with 26 bureau heads before this process came. And some of of our bureau heads called ca and said, councilor Smith is asking for a meeting. What do I do? So he called me and he asked me, what are you doing? And I told him what I was trying to do. And I said, I need to know what's in all these restricted funds. What is this money in here for? There is some general fund money places that we don't know. There are counselors and probably money in there from vera katz that she put aside that we don't even know. And y'all don't even have a running list of when these dollars were put in. So for you to tell me off the top of your head that we can't use it, I'm not buying it. Because guess what? The same amount of money was in there last year. It was $138 million in the grants fund. Now there's 141. So no we can take $16 million from somewhere to help people save their jobs. Until we figure out what's going on. And people feel comfortable. People are not comfortable right now. People are going to lose their, their, their health insurance. And so I'm saying I am open to taking some of this money from contingency. It's not reserves contingency from the city fleet operating 35 million and from the grants fund. And after I told ca lee what I was trying to do, he said, I'm trying to do the same things. I said, I need to find out if there's general funds in these restricted funds. He found $9 million that he told us about, I don't know, there's millions of funds in here, but I'm looking at some right now that I think we need to take a look at, because I don't think that that we had a comprehensive enough overview of what realignment really meant and what it's going to really mean to this community, because if we're going to end up back here at the same place next year, which we are, we may have some debt service that's going to come back in anywhere between 20 and $30 million next year, but we're going to be in the same situation if we try to pay for what we're paying for right now, we're going to have another $169 million. So we got to have a real conversation right now and cut everything that we need to cut at the time that we need to cut it instead of playing these games every year. Oh we have $169 million because I am tired of asking the answering the question, what are y'all doing? Y'all mismanaging money over there at the city? They don't know the difference between housing, money and transportation or restricted money and general fund money. All they see is a headline that says city of Portland has a big gap. And why is that gap there? I told y'all before, I am so irritated right now. We used ARPA money to pay for ongoing programs, and we did not cut those programs when the ARPA money went away. So we still have the same problem. If we're going to try to get this budget passed again next year. So we need to start talking fast to me, because I have totally changed my mind about what's going on here, because I'm not trusting the process. I feel like labor should have had a seat at the table when we were talking about this. Directors should have had a seat at the table. We should not have had someone from the administration to tell us who was going to be let go. The directors are best suited to do that. Labor is best suited, and that's why you're having and it's not you. I am talking to the mayor right now and I am talking to our folks because it has gotten to the point where there's nowhere to hide on this. We got to be clear about what we have, and to think that we're going to be able to save this budget after the budget. We need to work on this and say we need to hold serve, and we need to find some of this money. And if it has to come out of this $35 million in contingency in the in the city fleet operating fund, or you give me a good reason why we should not. That's all. That's all I want to know. I have not committed to anything, but I am concerned and I am upset right now because it is. It's a it's a bunch of shenanigans and foolishness going on, and you cannot expect me to go through this same kind of heartbreaking trauma of letting people go who are going to lose their good benefits. They have spouses who need surgeries. They have kids who need to go and get their immunizations and everything. It's just it's all a whole new world. We can sit up here if we want to and act like it's okay to cut 100 jobs, but that's too much. And how they were cut is an issue for me. And I think that's why labor is upset right now. That's why they're ringing the bell on this, because it was how it was done. It's not what was done. And my mom always say that it's not what you do, it's how you do and how we did this wasn't right. So we better get together and we better huddle up and figure out what to do. I don't know nothing about that labor summit that y'all had, but I should have been there. Thank you, mr. President.
113 Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Morillo. And then we'll move to the next amendment.
114 I'll pass.
115 Okay, councilor Greene, any further? Okay. Councilor Zimmerman, thanks.
116 In terms of things that I'm still looking at, the decision to close the city team shelter on grand and for the city to pay for a shelter in the pearl district for more money. And almost the same amount of beds is one that's giving me a little bit of heartburn. So I just want to make you aware of that, that I'm looking at directing, that we keep the city team one open, which we currently are operating. So that's essentially a it would result in a little bit of a surplus back to the general fund. Another amendment. I'm looking to see what support exists, but given what was discussed in the previous is about a partial 311 restoration, and I'm awaiting the administration's preference. But given the turnover in civic life, one thing that remains very concerning to me is that the culture within civic life seems to continue to be at odds with the neighborhood associations. And I think that's even. Supported, frankly, in the. And I very much appreciate the interim director's letter about things that are on hold when it comes to any changes and putting contracts out, but I am looking for an administration's preference for where else the neighborhood program and its staff can live outside of civic life, because I think there might be a cultural, bureaucratic, bureaucratic issue within civic life. And given that there's no permanent leader there anymore, I'd either want to remove that program from it, or I'm going to bring an amendment to dissolve the bureau and put all offices somewhere else. And so I would like to see the administration's preference, if there is one, with respect to that. And ultimately, I think, you know, these are tough conversations, but I remain focused on budget budget amendments, an overall budget that is focused on public safety, livability and housing development. Those are my three kind of watch words as we go through this. And I think I've been a fierce advocate for anything that helps our neighborhoods clean up or deal with the problems that are coming to their feet. So anything that gets in the way of forward progress is something that I probably am going to be. You've all seen me do that. I'm going to defend. I'm going to defend Portland solutions and trying to keep our shelter numbers up and, and making sure that if there is a route towards some of those public safety restorations that we that we find it. I also just going to say I'm, I'm governing for the 670 000 people who call Portland home. And that can be very hard when the closest people to us day in and day out sometimes are. Some of these realignments and some of these these these cuts, I get that, but I just want to comment, since there was such a long discussion on on your proposal, councilor Green, more than the details of it, the thing that gives me the greatest pause, and I asked this to, when I was briefed months ago to various bureau directors, I am, I said, because one of them had the same number of reductions that they proposed with respect to their realignment reductions, was the same number of vacancies that they had. And I said, that doesn't seem like a very proper realignment. That seems like you avoided hard conversations. And so to pause a realignment only based on the fte that are currently filled, tells me that it's realignment was okay unless it was a filled position. So that's giving me some pause in the way that you've laid out your piece. But I think we're going to obviously have more conversation with it, because there's more than just 46 positions that are being realigned. It's just 46 that are filled. And so I'm trying to understand like. What if we govern from the highest level of the organization and not at the detailed level? I'm just I'm wrestling with that. So I was mostly just listening to that last several half hour. But anyway, that's where I'm looking at my, my amendments are quite minor, frankly, that are coming forward. Thanks, councilor.
117 Thank you, councilor Zimmerman, colleagues, any discussion of councilor Zimmerman's. Okay. Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Oh, councilor Smith.
118 I.
119 I have a comment, but it's not about councilor Zimmerman. It's so that I'm clear. I think we need to bring our streets back. We need to have public safety brought back. I think we need to make all of our public safety agencies whole. We need to bring back the the rescue services at the fire department. I was on hayden island on Friday and looking at the burnt houseboats that were down there. Again, that is not my district, but the rescue units for east and north for east and north Portland. They were defunded. And so think about this. This fire happened at 4 a.m. In the morning. If we fund the current proposal in the way that we have it today, there would be no one to go and go down to hayden island at 4:00 in the morning, because we won't have 24 hour coverage. So think about that. Those folks are more at risk on that, on that water and those water home boats down there. It's crazy. So I'm concerned about that and I'm concerned about I'm concerned about the people, the 46. But you brought up something, councilor Zimmerman. So what you're saying is there were more than 46. I thought there were more than 46 actually realigned. But they're in empty ftes now. How many is that? So that's concerning to is that another 150?
120 I can't remember the exact number, but it is significant. Right. We had something like 22 in public works hr people just alone. Right.
121 So that are unfilled.
122 No, I'm just saying in in general, when you got the briefing about the types of realignments, there were significant numbers across many places, but I think it was briefed to us by our dca ops is that it was 46 are filled.
123 And so if we're going to continue with realignment, wondering if the plan is. I don't see tracy warren here. If the plan is to take those unfilled ftes off the books next year to to decrease the gap again, we're going to go through another alignment. And so so now we're going to have to deal with the unfilled ftes. So it's a lot of smoke and mirrors going on around here. And we need to figure this thing out clearly so that we have an understanding. Because I'm going to tell you, when we get back here this time next year, it's going to be the same thing. It is going to be the same thing.
124 Yeah, it's quite challenging. And the realignment numbers, the layoff numbers due to budget cuts, I think it's important that we think of those as very different, right? Budget cuts, constrained budget versus realignment. Those are different pots so to speak, in terms or those are different reasons. Why is a better way to put that. And then.
125 But the people don't know that they think just because.
126 They're being laid.
127 Off, because it was realigned. Because we we did realignment and they had a big gap that they had to fill. And so that's, that is the, the question that that people have been this last, this, this last few days have been really challenging for me to listen to all this extra conversation that I didn't have prior to this. I want to make sure that we have enough people to cover the services that we're offering those core services. And I want to make sure that these frontline folks, that they get a chance to keep their jobs, they're they're the most vulnerable in our ecosystem. So, mr. President, that's what I was trying to trying to find out what what that un number is about the ftes that the absent or the vacant ftes, what that number looks like. I don't know if tracy can get that to us later, but that's that's an important number.
128 And councilor, I believe dc warren is on is available online.
129 Okay.
130 I'm not sure if the answer is handy, but but tracy, if you're online and have an answer, that'd be great.
131 Absolutely. Hello, councilors. For the record, tracy warren, deputy city administrator for city operations. I apologize for being online. I would normally be in person, but I'm not feeling well. Happy to provide some more details. I will say that the numbers that I have do not reflect the changes that were made and amendments. My understanding is there's roughly around 20 positions overall that have been amended through the adopted budget or the approved.
132 Of the 46.
133 Core service realignment, there was a total of 91 positions reduced. And of those, 46 were filled. And so that's just for position reductions. We have several positions that are slated for moves as part of the realignment, which means they are moving from their currently assigned bureau into an embedded service team or into a core service team. And that number is larger. I think it's roughly we have about 200 or so in scope between procurement, hr and it. So 36 is just those reductions that are layoffs.
134 I'm going to ask you this question dc a warren, if we were to pause realignment during this budget cycle, what would that do?
135 Well, I have not seen the language that is under discussion, so I don't know how it differs from the prior language around pausing, but it it could be problematic. One, we are working through a process to realign the other folks in order to meet the service needs that we've identified that we would have in this new service model. So if we're pausing it all together, my assumption would be that we would not be moving into this new realigned state. We would not be providing services under the future model, which means everybody would continue to do work as they've been doing. And then I would ask the council to consider that if that is the choice you all are making because you are unhappy with the realignment activities that have occurred, knowing that we do not have capacity, we will continue to not have capacity. And so if you are not adding resources to help with change management, to help support a different process, I don't see how time is going to be effective.
136 Well, I'm trying to figure out how we're adding more services when we're cutting folks, how we're adding more services to the city of Portland. If we're cutting folks.
137 Yeah, we're not adding services. We're realigning the way in which we provide those services. So, for example, where you had services that were very bureau specific, like they had a dedicated person in the bureau. Instead, we will have teams that are dedicated to the service area that will provide across the service area. So the reductions are being made in areas where we saw there was lower risk associated with the reduction. So, for example, we have, you know, several positions who have maybe mixed responsibilities. We saw that maybe out of all of those, you know, three, we'll just say three positions out of those three positions. We really needed to cover one position that could support all of the critical needs. And then the other pieces that were additional duties could either be reassigned within the bureau or stopped.
138 Right. But those folks who used to do the work, who was going to do that extra work, that we may have had three people doing the work for, and I guess, tracy, the other thing is. I don't get the sense that the directors and the bureau heads were consulted on who they thought. I think that was a top down kind of thing. And I need to feel more comfortable with that.
139 Yeah, we did have several conversations with the d, c, a s and the directors where they were able to provide input into where they saw the risk, to the point where we did change direction and go, okay, we won't reduce this position. Instead, we will reduce this one. So we had a lot of engagement with pcas and bureau directors.
140 Okay. Thank you.
141 Thank you.
142 Thank you, councilor Smith.
143 Council president, if I might add an anecdote to that.
144 Sure.
145 And so this is just something for the councilors. And I've been sharing this with each and every one of you for 12 months. When we came into office, we looked at the core realignment as a way of unlocking efficiencies as well. We know that PBOT had an mou for their own purchasing department, and we know that parks had an mou for their own purchasing department. We hired sylvester donelson as our chief procurement officer, who sits in city operations, to take control of our entire purchasing system. So we didn't have 27 different purchasing programs with a host of different items that we were purchasing. So we have one set of tools, and sylvester was going to manage it. Those mous are going away. That's the efficiencies and that's part of the alignment we're bringing forward. We're able to reduce staff, unfortunately, but we're improving and unlocking the abilities for having one person centralize it over the 27 different bureaus. And that's an anecdote that I share just on those two mous that were outside and part of the siloed system that we didn't have control over. So we're trying to gain control of the entire city, and the realignment is allowing us that tool to do it.
146 Thank you, mayor councilor Morillo. And then we're going to move to the next councilor.
147 Thank you. I just kind of quickly wanted to answer some of the things that councilor Zimmerman brought up about the saving the filled positions versus the vacant ones. And I think the rationale for that there was really that the positions that are already vacant, many have been vacant for a few years. So that's not capacity that we're losing. That's capacity that we have already been straining against and have struggled to work around. And frankly, I think I think the vacant positions also need to be looked into as far as like, what are the ones that we really do need back? Because I think there have been places in the city where we don't have them, but that capacity is already not present. So that is why the filled positions were selected from an efficiency standpoint. And then also just from a human standpoint, like to be frank with you, I yes, I would rather preserve a position where a person is there so that they can keep working. And also because I think that we've all discussed this, I don't think that there are positions that are unneeded at this point. We are a very slim operation here, and so just wanted to share some of that rationale. Thanks.
148 Thank you, councilor Morillo. Okay. Councilor Koyama Lane coming to you for any new budget notes or amendments.
149 Okay.
150 First, colleagues, I want to say that I am I feel proud of us for getting to this place in the budget process. I know we're not quite done, but we're almost there. We're close. And a big thank you to council president and your whole team for the work that you've put into this process. Good work. I plan to bring three budget notes and two amendments that I'll brief you briefly walk you through. I'll share the problem that it's trying to solve, approach that I'm proposing and how it's tied to the budget. So the first one is around contracting. The first budget note directs the mayor's next proposed budget to include some clear reporting on fy 2627 fte costs and operations around our hiring of outside contractors. It requires bureaus to identify opportunities for cost savings by reducing reliance on external contractors and seeing if it makes sense to bring work back in-house. If that seeing if that makes sense financially and operationally. Currently, we don't have clear information on the number of outside contractors that the city has hired and don't know if these temporary contractors are doing work that could be converted to in-house city jobs. And this information could help us make decisions in our next budget. So this budget note requests a report on contracting staff across all city service areas, including fte duties, costs and length of service. And it also asks for details on professional services contracting, such as facilitation, strategic planning and consultation. And the hope is that by getting transparent data and concrete recommendations, we can better shape the next budget to support efficient, sustainable staffing and possibly a smarter use of external contracting dollars. At the very least, I think it's important to have that information. The second one is about the utility rate study. So water and sewer rates and all related fees are adopted every year. Right now we don't have a currently have a clear, consistent way for council to track how those rates are being studied, redesigned or modernized. And we need to maintain and invest in our aging infrastructure. And also affordability for our constituents is a big concern. So water and environmental services are conducting a comprehensive public utility rate study starting next fiscal year. And this budget notes budget note directs cbo and city administrator and the dca for public works to report to us quarterly on the comprehensive utility rate study, which is already budgeted and is happening in the next fiscal year. And those updates can include process status, community engagement, transparency efforts, and progress towards building a more equitable rate system. And yeah, those utility rate studies outcomes will directly shape future water and sewer rates that households and businesses play. Pay and regular reporting will make sure that we understand how things like modernization efforts, like smart meters that we've talked about in public works, fit into the broader redesign. All right. My last budget note is around budget process, and I also want to take some time to appreciate our former and current council presidents. Cbo city admin, who I know have put in a lot of time and work to support us through the budget process better and better. I have seen improvements, and I know that we'll continue to iterate and improve and appreciate that. What I hear from many is that there's always room to make this process better and better. And at the same time, we've heard feedback from community and how some of our own feedback also around the budget process. I've heard things like an ask for shifting of timelines to make sure that community members have some more time to review our budget amendments before providing testimony, or that it would be helpful to see within the mayor's proposed budget, specifically, where feedback from community has shaped the budget, which I know it has, because, mr. Mayor, you chose to protect the mount tabor son program. I know that that was directly from working with community. Not everyone knows that could be helpful to see how how those those that feedback ends up in your budget. So this amendment directs the city budget office, city administrator, and city leaders to provide an administration side after action report after after this budget is over on this process. So it would include perspectives of what went well, what we could improve, recommendations for next year's cycle. There's a reference to priority based budgeting and exploring how we can make budget decisions and allocate funds based on outcomes, not just individual line items or program offers. I'd like it to be easier for the community to understand the link between dollars we're spending, and real results, and reviewing the budget process will work best. Working on this with a variety of viewpoints. So if anyone's interested in collaborating on this budget note, please let me know. All right. I have to introduce an amendment that's a technical amendment to change the funding source for the Montavilla park picnic shelter. So the original amendment drew $755,000 from the parks levy contingency. And I'm going to try to briefly explain how this project exists in an odd bureaucratic limbo or bureaucratic purgatory. The shelter was torn down in 2021, and building a new shelter would be considered a new asset. Because the shelter is a new asset, it does not qualify for the parks levy capital funding, which is for maintenance of existing assets, and now this project does not qualify for sdc funding, which funds new assets because the shelter existed when the sdc rate methodology was adopted in 2015. So it's listed as an existing asset. And because of that quirk, the shelter would also not qualify for sdc capital funding for new assets either, unless we make some changes. Huge thank you to ruth and sonja for working on this and helping tackle this quirk to make sure that the shelter has a path to get rebuilt, and we expect to adopt new sdc methodology next year. And when we make those revisions, we'll be able to fund the project with sdc funding. So for now, the city budget office recommends that we use parks general fund for fy 2627 and then can replenish that balance in fy 2728. When we have revised sdc methodology to make sure that this project doesn't get lost in the metaphorical couch cushions. And then the last amendment that I've been working on is around station 19, the rescue there. I know that there are other folks that are focusing on the rescues. And so this is a backup amendment. If we get to the place where we have not funded it yet, I will look to see how we can use some of our council budgets. I've given the city administrator ahead, heads up, that I would look to reduce his chief of staff position, and every office besides the office is in d1 would contribute. So we'll see if we get there. And I will say I have been someone that has felt like the city administrator needs to be fully staffed to do his work and didn't I didn't I don't know if I quite realize he currently has three positions and then we are adding in three more. So I do support him in getting extra support. But I asked him which of those new three adds would he choose to cut first? And he had said that chief of staff position. So that's why I'm contemplating that one. And that's it for me.
151 Thank you. Councilor Koyama Lane colleagues. Discussion to councilor Koyama Lane proposed budget notes and amendments. Councilor Green.
152 Thank you. Councilor Koyama Lane really appreciate you bringing forward a budget note on the rate setting process. You know, that's something I care a lot about. We've talked about it in the committee, so I'm going to be supportive of that, supportive of pretty much all of yours. But I missed one detail. You said something about asking offices not in d1 to contribute to something, but I kind of zoned out for a minute. Can you can you restate that one that you're talking about and what that does?
153 Yeah.
154 It's this.
155 Yes. Thanks for the question. I'm talking about the rescue at station 19.
156 Thank you. And that's a backup.
157 That is a backup. Yeah.
158 Thank you. Councilor Green council vice president.
159 Clerk thank you, council president councilor Koyama Lane the on the station 19 are you thinking about drawing funds from d2d3d4 offices? Can you tell me how much?
160 Well, if we were to remove the addition of the city administrator chief of staff position, each office would need to contribute, contribute 90 about 98,000. And if we would make a reduction to both the city administrator's chief of staff and the analyst that's being added to the d c of operations, that would mean each office would need to contribute 78,000, specifically 78,541.
161 Thank you.
162 Thank you, vice president, clerk, counselor Ryan.
163 Thank you, council president, that came up quick. Thank you for daylighting your amendment Koyama Lane I you haven't sent this. I've seen the details of this. Okay, good. That means I'm free to ask open ended questions. So your theme of your first one that I heard was bring work back inside. That's kind of the overarching theme. And asking for a budget note that studies all outside contracts. Now first is that just looking at the general fund specifically, or are you talking about the entire city in restricted accounts and such?
164 That's city wide.
165 Okay. Citywide, I got that part. But is it the general fund? Like how we're spending money in the general fund, since that's where the heartache is on all these cuts.
166 All contracts citywide? Yes.
167 So it goes beyond general fund. Yeah. Okay. And I assume outside contractors means all outside contractors. So that would include the nonprofit sector.
168 Yes.
169 Okay. Thanks.
170 Can I clarify one thing, councilor? I'm not sure if the the ultimate decision is that we shouldn't have contractors, but do believe that this information would be a good start to just understand and be able to answer some of the questions that I do get around this.
171 Thanks.
172 Thank you, councilor Ryan councilor Kanal.
173 Thank you, council president, just two questions. One, a rescue unit costs $550,000 to restore. And if we were to cut 98,000 hypothetically per office for nine offices, that's a little less than 900, $882,000. So is the reason for that additional money? The wastage issue, where money gets sent to all the other accounts?
174 Yes.
175 Okay. So overhead dollars when when reduced, which is what council budgets are, we get to use about half of it. The rest gets sent to a bunch of other accounts around funds around the city. So I'm not sure about that pairing of the funding source and the and the expenditure. I'll be talking about rescues again when it's my turn, but I do appreciate the focus on on that rescue as well as the other two as well.
176 Thanks. Yes.
177 Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. And that's something that I'm looking at thinking about the overhead piece. And if if the rescue is funded in another way, it might be possible that some of this some of this funding could also go towards something like the 311 or the pbem positions.
178 Thank you, colleagues.
179 Councilor Smith and then councilor Zimmerman.
180 Thank
181 You. Thank you. Councilor. Koyama Lane. I just want to say, I don't think council offices should backfill staff cuts from the mayor's budget. I'm looking at the technology services fund, and there's $42 million in that fund. We have to be very surgical. You can't make all these complete all these gaps with our small budgets. There's $42 million in there, and then there's $33 million of external materials and services that's just been passed over. We have to not be lazy about how we're taking cuts and don't do the easy thing. I don't know, somebody must have told a memo, must have went out that said, if you cut from the council offices, you'll get reelected. That's not true. You got to be smart about what you're doing. And we cannot shortchange our looking at the budget. It's an $8.6 billion budget. If you're going to put something forward, look through that $8.6 billion budget and quit looking at the low hanging fruit. Our offices are low hanging fruit. We have the lowest budgets in the entire city. So to think that you're going to pay for everything that you want to pay for from our budget, it's not responsible and it's unreasonable. I want to get those things back as well. And again, if we talk about some of these pots of money that have these big, huge external materials and services budget, we need to start there in order to do change management. Our city administrator is going to need all his people. You can't take stuff out of his office before he gets a chance to even make a difference in what's going on over here. So I would encourage you and urge you and I have a couple more. Places that you can look at money to take from. If it's just one of those things, it's performative. You want to say, I'm going to take from council budgets. Councilor Elana pirtle-guiney. She's already taken from budgets. Councilor. Novick. He's taken from budget. I mean, what are you going to get us down to the nub so we can't do anything so that we cannot go out in the community and meet people where they're at, that we can't pay for our offices? I pay for an office. It cost me $75,000 to have my second office. I did what you all said we were supposed to do with our office money, and I'm doing it. And I heard you say that we would be eliminated, but that's not cool. And that's not right. Everybody needs to have the same budget. If you want to use your own personal budget to pay for those things, go ahead. I urge you to do that. But I also urge you to be a little bit more strategic and look through that entire budget, not the thing that you can put on social media and say, this is what I said, but it's not reasonable. I understand the ask and I support you with the ask, but I would like you to look a little bit deeper. Thank you.
182 Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Zimmerman and councilor Morillo and we'll move to the next councilor.
183 Thanks. I think that the overhead conversation and the conversion of dollar to dollar does make this part kind of tricky. I have never worked in a government where we funded different, equal electeds differently, so I'm not actually sure how upstanding that would be. And I say that with the fact that half of us are term ends at the end of this year, and we're talking about a budget that will be the beginning fund balance, if you will, for a new set of electeds to kneecap. Some of those six of the nine. Frankly, in the proposal, because three would be would be allocated the normal amount. I actually don't know how legally defensible that is. And so I also just think it's a bad precedent now. In this group of 12, most of this conversation just level set a little bit. Most of this conversation is because it sounds like we've we've largely agreed that district one opening of an east district east Portland office makes some logistics sense, some community engagement sense, but that was a determination that those three members made at the beginning of that conversation last year, members in d three, I know that you guys at different times had thought about would we open, wouldn't we not open? You all made a decision. I'm actually not even sure. I don't think. Did you you opened a you got a nice cheap one, right. And that was good. My point here isn't so much about speaking for like how you're approaching it. It's speaking that setting a precedent. And I agree with councilor Smith of like, sometimes we go with the closest thing that we know and we go with that. But there's a whole lot more in terms of strategic decision making you can make. But also, we've done one thing already that went by with, I think was not a good practice. It will probably not have a huge impact, but it was a bad practice. We removed all the money for transition and having spent a lot of time at Multnomah county, I know how much they rely on budgeting and transition because it is a significant thing, and the public of that district deserves that. Their new elected is able to hit the ground running transition dollars, help do that to now also take a hit at council budgets and say some districts will be funded at a higher level or lower level based on where they are geographically. I just I think we would be dipping into an area that I wouldn't be supportive of, but I do believe that all of the things and I appreciate that you said they're kind of backups on a few of your items, because I think that's a great way to think of it. I have a few of those as well, and it's like, can we get there in another way? But I'm not going to take any votes right now in support of funding different of the 12 different levels. Similarly, I'm not going to be voting to reduce the mayor's budget. And we said that last time on a debate on one of the positions, I think that his elected office, your elected offices, my elected office should all be treated equally in their budget. How how we spend is a determination by those electeds at that time, and there's no guarantee we'll all be here. But I have never worked in a government that said certain offices would get different levels of funding, and I don't want to start here either. Thanks.
184 Thank you, councilor Zimmerman, councilor Morillo, and then also council aye, Morillo. You're the next to share your amendments. So two and one.
185 That's nice. I'm actually making it easy on all of you this year. And it's just the one that councilor Green Avalos and I co-introduced. So I don't have anything further to add after that. Councilor Koyama Lane, I really like most of your budget notes. And so I want to start there. I think I will be voting for most of them. I wanted some clarity just to make sure I heard you correctly. So the to fund some of the rescues you wanted to cut, I know some city administrator positions and then potentially one of the council ops positions with that. Or could you remind me what it was? Sorry.
186 Yeah, I've looked at different options. So. Just using our office funds, districts two, three and four councilor Novick you can help give the number is 142,140 2146. If you remove the city administrator's chief of staff, then between those three districts, it's 98,797. And if you reduce the city administrator's chief of staff and the analyst three, add in the dca of city operations, then each of those office council offices would chip in 78,541. These really are backups. I have made a promise to fire that I'm going to try my best to make sure that we fund some or all of these rescues, and so I have these as backups, but hope that we don't get to them.
187 Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. That's really helpful. Clarity. I think you said all of that clearly at the beginning and then in the course of conversation, just forgot some of that. Colleagues, I'll just say I would very much me and councilor Smith can agree on something today, and I will very much caution against us cutting our office budgets for a few reasons. I think that we've talked about this before, but I just want to reemphasize it that while we do have a solid budget for our offices, our offices are also different than they are in other comparable cities because in other comparable cities or forms of government, they have a really robust, centralized task force to help them in a way that we don't. Frankly, we haven't beefed up council ops. They do fantastic work, but they haven't been beefed up enough to actually help us in the ways that you see in other forms of government. So like when I worked at the state legislature, if you were creating a bill, you would have an entire research team to help you with that budget. They could give you independent advice. You could have an entire legal team giving you more independent advice here. It's a little bit different. So our staff are kind of jack of all trades. I mean, I know that my staff are basically budget analysts. They are constitutional law researchers. They are policy researchers. They do everything they do community organizing, outreach. They have to be everything at all times in order to create and pass the policies that we do. And so it's not an apples to apples comparison of how our governments function. And so I would just caution against that. I appreciate that this is a backup, and I just want to reiterate that part of our effectiveness is in our ability to have capacity. And this form of government requires, I think, an extensive people expect extensive outreach from us. I mean, I get hundreds of emails every week. At minimum. People want us to be really in the community they want. They expect a lot of engagement in ways that they don't expect from their county commissioners. Or even if you look at the news cycle for our local news, they barely cover what's happening at the state legislature. What they do cover is us every single day, multiple times a day. So the the level of outreach and scrutiny is just different. And so that's all I will say there. But thank you so much. And I will be supporting all the other budget notes and thinking very hard about this because it is a tough question. Thank you.
188 Okay.
189 Thank you. Councilor Morillo councilor Smith, did you have a last.
190 The last note? Our city workers are made up of different labor unions, and our staff have voted to have a have a staff that is labor. We have to save money for that because we don't know what that's going to cost us. So we have to really be thinking about that as well. And so I just want to level set expectations. Okay.
191 Thank you. Thank you, councilor Councilor Novick.
192 Thank you, mr. President. I'll talk about one conceptual amendment I plan to offer and one that's more specific. Conceptually, I'm looking to find a way to preserve positions affected in core realignment that have been identified in discussions with both labor and the administration is really risky to cut. And so and also, I think that for people who are being laid off, which at least try to find a way to extend their health insurance for a couple of months. So I am trying to cobble together a proposal that will do those things, but I don't have the details yet. One thing I will say is, well, I'll get this this in a minute. I like councilor Koyama Lane have a proposal to save rescue 19 by cutting council office budgets. I would propose cutting council office budgets, excluding district one by $142,146 a piece. That would still leave us hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Multnomah county commissioners, hundreds of thousands of dollars more than seattle city councilors. And I suspect that they get emails from their constituents, too. $600,000 more than more than denver city councilors. And I suspect they get emails from their constituents, too. I do not think that there is any justification for us having council office budgets of 1.45 million apiece under the old form of government, when there were only four councilors that had represented the whole city and who councilors ran bureaus and most of their staff were bureau liaisons, they got 1.6 million. So overall, we were spending $6.4 million on council office budgets two years ago, and now we're spending 17.4. And I don't think that that's what the voters had in mind when they voted to change the form of government. So I think that, by the way, 142,000 is not all a cut. In fact, it's only $92,000 cut, 50,000 of it is an increase because last year we made a one time cut to office budgets of $50,000, which is being restored in this year's proposed budget. So it would really only be a $92,146 cut. I also want to note that, as councilor Green has said, and I'm sure that dca will confirm at some point we are going to have to make real cuts. And if we're at some point, we have to make real cuts. I suggest that we start now with an area where we are obviously overspending, and I think the public is watching, and the public expects us to show some discipline, and I think the public would appreciate us showing some discipline when it comes to our own office budgets. The last thing in response to councilor Koyama Lane, I want to note that I, too, think that the city administrators budget could afford to be cut. I don't want I think that we can cover the rescue. 19 with a reasonable cut to office budgets. I think that I might be asking for some of the city administrator's budgets to address core realignment or other needs, and. Let's see, what the heck was I going to say? So, and I do think that there's a reason to treat district one differently, because it is much harder for people to get from district one down to city hall. It's the time and transit are easier in the other districts. So I don't think that that's an unreasonable thing to do. So that those are the two things that you can expect to see from me. And again, we'll have more detail on the first one later.
193 Thank you. Councilor Novick colleagues. Discussion of councilor Novick amendments or budget notes. Councilor Zimmerman.
194 If you want to do that, then set a rent for them that they can only use it that way. But operationally, all 12 offices should be funded exactly the same way because they could make a different choice. One of them could choose one space versus the next, and then they have a funded advantage over all others. So no, if you want to set aside $250,000 for make believe rent, do that. But this idea that because council office budgets are at the discretion of the councilor, the idea that they can then have a a higher percentage budget is is a wrong step in the wrong direction. I would encourage you not to cut anything, but if you're going to cut all 12, take the cut. I don't think having three stand aside is a thing. If those three offices want to rent some vacant space in Multnomah county or in the city of portland's building, by all means. But this idea that they will have a different beginning fund balance. No. And I think that councilor Smith nailed this. This is. I think councilor Morillo made excellent points. And I say that because it's not great to be up here defending this. But frankly, having worked in Multnomah county for ten years, this is an inherently different job for councilor Novick for you to lay out denver, seattle and make all these numbers and blah, blah, blah tells me that this is rooted in something else, and I'm just kind of done debating it. I will never vote to make three of you stand aside and stand differently than the remaining nine of us. I'm not going to do it if we all take a hit, okay? But if we want to play games, Loretta Smith and I are ready to play games. Let's play games. But I don't think we want to. I think councilor Morillo nailed it and she is correct on this. She has been in that role. She is now in this role. I have been in that role of fielding these things. I'm now in this role, and this is the kind of, oh, the only thing you want to talk about somebody who can't see an organization for the woods or whatever the damn saying is, they can only talk about administrators and councilors. Talk to me about PBOT. Talk to me about how many program specialists are doing this type of work. Talk to me about a budget, you guys. I said last time, they are laughing at us in the bureaus. My staffer, he was like, gosh, I wonder who does a certain job at the city of milwaukee? It was one of the jobs we talked about a while ago. And he goes, I'm probably going to have to call somebody or find a way to figure that out in five minutes. Getting on google, he found milwaukee city budget. He found the budget. He found how many employees did that thing? He found? What paid for it? Was it general fund? Was it fees? Was it special levy dollars? Can't find that on our budget. So we are making decisions. And I'm sorry for getting animated, but we are making decisions because the only numbers we truly know are the ones we are most familiar with. And I reject that type of decision making. I want to be able to make decisions. Maybe this is the budget note. Frankly, y'all need to just adopt it. We will not pass a budget next year for you, mr. Mayor. If the budget process doesn't change, I need to be able to make decisions like what does a four fte reduction mean relative to the size of that program? But in the budget documents that are provided, that information is not available. And so we have councilors who are scraping at the thing they know, which is the closest thing that they know, which means that we are not looking at the entire 8.6. We are not looking at all programs across the organization. We are inherently systemically broken from a decision making relative. How does this fit into the community perspective? And I really need your help, mayor. We made it one year. I took that one on grace. This year I'm going to take this one holding my nose. But we like this is a serious, serious problem. And and it doesn't matter what the excuses are. We cannot make decisions if we are going to have to make these types of cuts again, with as lacking of relative information to one thing over the next. So we need help here. But because when I hear 12 people and all their amendments have to do with this, the closest thing you can grab. No, that's just that is just bad decision making at any organization, any corporate structure. So I'll get off my soapbox. I'm sorry. Councilor Novick you just you got under my skin on that one because it's like, wash and repeat. Here we are. We'll wash and repeat for the thing we know that's closest. So no, I won't ever be voting to make three of you stand differently than the other nine of us.
195 Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Councilor Kanal.
196 Well, most of my comments just got said by councilor Zimmerman, so thank you. I'll just add one additional thing that hasn't been mentioned yet. In addition to the ditto to councilor Morillo, the ditto to councilor Smith and the. Ditto to councilor Zimmerman, which is there's a lot of analysis showing that that when we cut council budgets or I should say, we cut legislator budgets, is primarily state legislator where the analysis has been done in journals, and I can send this around and I'll probably post it on social media, since it's become a topic of conversation when you cut them. It's not the councilors who benefit, it's not their staff who benefit. It's not the people who send an email to benefit. It's not the executive branch who benefits. It's not whatever else might get funded because it's such a small amount of money that we're talking about here that benefits its lobbyists, that benefit because there's no independent analysis being done here. And you just get the thing that the lobbyist gives you as a legislator and put it forward because you don't have the capacity to do anything else. So it's it's a question about, and I've said this before, this is these investments are not extravagances. They are investments in democracy. You cannot have it be underfunded and still have independent thought, still have elections, matter, still have a functional, representative government. That is not to say that there are not adjustments, tweaks here or there that could be made better. I actually like the idea of a rent fund or something like that. That's a good one. We should talk about that after the budget, for example. But I also would encourage everyone to look up the seattle city council central staff. I would encourage everyone to look that up for for denvers. It's it's very helpful as well to, to just level set on that. And I do hope we invest dramatically in our council operations team and make it something that can help us where our staff are not necessarily the best thing to have 12 individuals do it, but the things that are best to have a council do it as a whole. And I also think that, by the way, everything that was just said applies to the auditor and mayor's offices as well, and ensuring that they have enough staff to do their jobs. Are investments in democracy to. Thanks.
197 Thank you. Councilor Kanal colleagues, I just want to note, we are a little bit more than halfway through our time, and we're just a little under halfway through councilors, I'm going to get to a councilors Morillo, Novick and then pirtle-guiney. And then we're going to take a quick break. So. Morillo. Novick. Pirtle-guiney.
198 I think the dead horse has been beaten, so I will stop. But what a beautiful unholy alliances between Sameer, Eric and I tonight. Wow.
199 We're very holy.
200 Yeah. But I think something I think about often, like at some point, I would love to see an analysis to between the different number of emails and contacts that our offices get. Because I remember a few months ago, councilor Novick, actually, as we were talking about security concerns, you were like, we don't need any security at all. I don't get any. And then I was like, you should look at my inbox. And I think that different offices receive different types of attention, contacts from the public and just general, you know, it can be very different for each of us independently. And so I think that we need the ability to move differently where we can. And it's not like we are hoarding these dollars to later line our own pockets or something. It's not like corruption. We we funded the bob stacey elevator together to make sure that that gets done in our district. We funded to save parks, bathrooms in our district, we funded porta potties at the right to dream encampments, things that will actually help with public safety and health so that people aren't going to the bathroom outside. So I just want to be clear that it's not like these extra dollars are going to our paychecks or something. They go back directly to our districts for things that are needed. And again, I just want to emphasize, I, I want to see an analysis at some point because I know that poor meredith is out there answering 10,000 emails, and I kind of think it's my fault because I have a little bit higher of a social media presence, but I just suspect that some of the outreach that has to happen for different offices really varies office by office, and, and that needs to be accounted for. So I'll stop there.
201 Thank you. Councilor Morillo. Councilor. Novick. You get security threats, you were willing to cut your security budget, and I'm just asking you to apply the same generosity to cutting your staff budget. I also just have to say that if we were spending twice as much on our police as the city of denver was, I think that there's at least six people in this room that would say that makes it obvious that we're spending too much on police, but the fact that we're spending twice as much on council office budgets as councilors in denver does, that's just to be dismissed.
202 Thank you. Councilor Novick councilor Pirtle-guiney.
203 Thank you, council president. I just am going to jump in on this course as Morillo referred to it. That's being beaten pretty badly, because I think it's important that we're getting all of the perspectives out there. I need every single one of my staff members. And if we had funds for unlimited staff, I know that there are amazing things we could all do organizing our communities and getting folks involved. So I don't look at a cut to our staff or to the city administrator's staff lightly, but I do think they need to be on the table right now, not because we're too lazy to look anywhere else, not because the work that any of those individuals do, or the individuals that the city administrator is looking to add would do aren't important. But because we're asking for portlanders to accept cuts to frontline services, and sometimes we have to say, if we can't cut any deeper in those places, if we can't ask for portlanders to accept less service or city employees to do even more with even fewer coworkers sharing the burden, what else can we do? And how can we step up and help some? And I think it's incumbent upon us, given where our budget is right now, not necessarily to make that decision, but to consider amendments that ask for that, both from us and from the higher level folks within the administration as well, because we are in that type of dire budget time, and it's not a lot of money. And the grand scheme of the budget, but it can help with some really important things. So I hope, as we have the conversation about these amendments, that we keep that context in mind as well. Thank you. Council president.
204 Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney councilor Ryan, last word to break. I'll jump in. Yeah. I'm pretty comfortable not knowing exactly where this is going. But we've been talking a lot about comparing. And so since we're comparing, I thought I'd look at some facts as they appeared in the voter's pamphlet in 2022. And the city's budget office estimated the cost of implementing the measure to re do the government, which is what we're a part of, of course, is between 900 k and 8.7 million, according to the budget document. Of late, we're spending 19.5, which is 6.7 million more than we did in the last government. So those are just some facts. We totally went above and beyond what was advertised in the charter that people voted on in 2022. Am I saying that we got here and we notice things and we wanted to adjust that. I'm not dismissing that. But for us to not be honest with the voters, that this is, in fact, what's happened since we've been in office. I think it's important to to level set that. Thanks.
205 Thank you, councilor Ryan. I'm going to give us a 15 minute break. We still have six more colleagues to get through. I will go last in case we run out of time. Please be back at 4:00. Next. Coming back to you. And we are back, folks. Councilor Kanal.
206 Thanks, everybody. I'll. Let me start by saying I'm glad we were able to work together on committee. The whole rescheduling for next week. I know we have plenty of work to do in that committee, but I'm happy to ensure we have more time for budget enough this year. Just quick clarification here. We voted on one, two, three and five of my six amendments. Four was an alternate. We didn't formally propose it with not refiling the remaining one, which was a related to the city administrator's budget, and the deputy director at ogr to try and save a position because a couple of things changed with it. So I'm proposing a lesser one of that lesser in the sense of smaller dollar amounts and fewer positions affected, and I'll get to that in a second. Foundational principles remain the same. First, public safety being prioritized first and foremost, a holistic, prevention focused public safety system. Second, trying to ensure our organizational chart remains a pyramid, not a pillar. And that we're not only not cutting more of the rank and file than of management, but actually undoing some of the past few years restructuring, which has made our organizational chart narrower. And finally, and most importantly, protecting the will of the voters. I'm working on one, possibly two budget notes. The the one that I'm sure I'll be proposing is an updated version of the one that this council passed last year to direct PPB to prioritize overtime spending on things like street racing and human trafficking, and not on wasteful protest responses at the ice building this past last year. I think it has a path council president to passing this year as well. Secondly, and I'm not sure if a note is the right way to do this, I'll be reaching out to to understand it a little bit better, but I'm. I am considering proposing a note that would prevent the use of any allocation from creating a net reduction in city run public restrooms. So whether it's the Portland loo or replacement with porta potties in a temporary state, ensuring that we're not reducing our sanitation capacity at the city is really important to me. And this is just based a little bit off the morning's discussion. So I'm firing from the hip here on the city administrator's report. I have one amendment that I want to explain in detail. And then a couple other things that I wanted to just kind of lay out as concepts. When Dunphy four passed, it freed up some money that was not immediately allocated to any particular purpose. I would like to use $142,500 of that to restore one of the three positions being zeroed out at boec. Bureau of emergency communications has two telecommunicators and one supervisor position being eliminated. This would restore one of the two telecommunicators. And again, this is money that Dunphy for freed up that did not immediately get put towards a particular purpose. I also have several amendment ideas that I'm making sure the math checks out on before I pair the two sides of the ledger together. In addition to that boec telecommunicator. My intention is to try to restore all three of the fire rescue units, which are currently being reduced from 24 over 7 to 12 hours a day in east and southeast Portland. All the remaining filled positions at pbb in both the admin groups and in victim services. Three of the four positions being cut at pbem and 311 each is losing two positions. I'm interested in restoring them. I don't see that the funding source will be able to fund all four. So I think we be looking at three across those four positions, one position at the office of government relations, the international program staff member. And this is the one that I mentioned, is a smaller version of what was Kanal six. I'm hoping to replace the chief of staff position. Add in the city administrator's office with the funding to up class, an existing position, which was created last year as a chief of staff position but not fully funded, and the savings from that would be sufficient to create the the funding to, to, to, to restore the international program staff member. And it actually saves a little bit more than that, but I'm not exactly sure how much right now. Also looking to restore both of the two positions that we discussed at parks that are not that were not restored in may, that's the eastern half. Activities lead eastern part of the city and the community engagement staffer. I can also identify two of the funding sources that I'll be looking at. There's a partial reduction to the north Portland task site expansion. Right now. Roadway is being closed and all of the the pods are being moved into the north Portland task site. This will involve a near doubling of the size of that site. I have no problem with the idea of being efficient with resources. I do have concerns about individual sites being very large, especially given the ongoing conversation around urban alchemy. We did not manage to pass anything that would address that yet I'm hoping that colleagues might be interested in, in continuing that conversation, either through the budget or through the committee of the whole or both. And I'm I guess the housing committee might also be an option. So I'm interested in that. And then there's remains a conversation to be had. I think about the the PCEF money that is in pmo right now. We I think 11 of us voted in favor of one of the one of the two amendments that moved that money out. I see grounds here that can be ripe for some sort of compromise on this, because I think the one that just took the money straight out failed six six. I think the one that took out 80% of the money and backfilled it entirely with general fund dollars failed either six 6 or 5 seven, I can't remember which. And there was no overlap. So I do think there's a grounds for that there. And so while I don't have an amendment that I'm immediately floating on that I am asking at this time if sometime in the next day or two colleagues who might be interested in trying to solve that problem can can come together and reach out to me and we can see what we can do there, because I think there is an interest in solving that without necessarily 100% reduction in the dollars that are going to pmo, but with something that relates to color of money. So that's a that's what I'm laying out at this moment. I do think that there are I haven't yet found a funding source, but I am going to also try to to save those two admin positions at fire. But that one is further away at this moment, just because I thought I had a funding source and I was. There was a restriction I was not aware of. So as we keep looking for things to do and ways to save it, if there's a way to get $285,000 for the two positions at the fire bureau that are in the administrative side being zeroed out, I am hoping to do that. I'll stop here and see if there are any questions. Thanks.
207 Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Smith.
208 Thank you, council president. I will be bringing a couple of amendments, not amendments, but budget notes, just just in terms of process, very similar to councilor Zimmerman in regards to.
209 We're debating.
210 To oh.
211 His his first.
212 Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.
213 We'll come to you.
214 And come back later.
215 Absolutely. Councilor Green.
216 Thank you. I entered the queue because I am interested in bringing it back with respect to that piece of color money thing, I'm curious to see what you're you're cooking up there. I'm supportive of seeing if we can come to a solution on that. I don't know what exactly you're going to do, but I'm signaling publicly my willingness to to be open to that.
217 Thank you, councilor Green. Colleagues. Any further, councilor Ryan.
218 Councilor Kanal, as always, much of where you want to land, the investment, I'm totally supportive of it. It's usually the source that you want to pull it from, like just with station 22. I voted yes on three amendments. You voted yes on two years passed. Congratulations. The good news is we restored station 22. I am cautious that we're dipping too far below our suggested reserve accounts and our contingencies, and I'm worried about the impact of that in upcoming years. So when I was listening, there was a lot of what you said. Of course I want to restore funding, especially in fire and police. I'm thrilled that some members of this council are speaking to rps three today, and that's been a rather heartwarming actually. I do think on the bigger picture with urban alchemy, this council with the county needs to have a conversation about what does success look like if we continue to think that low barrier shelters are the answer all the time, they're messy, they're challenging. And I just think we have to make sure we frame that conversation about what low barrier shelters success looks like. I'm always an advocate for that. We need more people to go into recovery services, and we need more people into workforce, or they're never going to get out of chronic homelessness. And the facts are that urban alchemy has had better results getting their participants into recovery and into workforce than the other ones that we've contracted out with. So it's like, it's a messy, it's messy work. None of us have been on the front lines doing it. And every time I've leaned into it, it's just so incredibly messy. Recovery is messy. There's it's not a linear path. People have relapses. So what was urban alchemy standard when they discovered that someone had a relapse? How did they handle that? Every employer in the country struggles with that because there's a lot of people in that situation. So I just hope that as we do this investigation and oversight, we look at the bigger picture. And I just thought I should say that since it's getting a lot of airtime. Thank you. And I'm open. I'm just not one to say that I want to have answers before investigation. Thanks.
219 May I? Yes, thank you for that. And I think there's and I it sucks that we're talking about just one provider because I think it's been pointed out that there are problems with other providers too, or at least allegations of problems. I, I will say that I spoke to to some folks from urban alchemy last week, I, I'm open to continuing conversations with anybody on, on any issue. And I think this is a really good one where we should speak directly to folks. My concern is that any large scale shelter where we're talking about going from 150 units up to 300, just about it's a little short of that starts to create some challenges with not only security, but with some of the internal issues. And I know that if we were to ask, you know, would we prefer a provider where there are no reports of sexual assault, no reports of theft, no reports of robbery, or would we prefer a provider with a higher placement rate into job programs, into long term housing? Et cetera. I think all 12 of us would agree that the or shouldn't be there, that we want somebody that can do both. And so I think what we're looking at is how do we put our contracts and our, our city staffers that coordinate this in a position to succeed by not creating some of the circumstances that can that have a higher correlation with higher rates of problems. And so I fully acknowledge that some of our providers, including urban alchemy, has one of the highest rates of success in terms of getting folks the highest. Yeah. So I'm not this is not a concern there. I'm just looking at how do we not expand a site that is so to the point where it's too large to, to have that level?
220 I think I have my time here. I think what we need is that for the mayor's and his team to provide for us, what is the cost savings of closing down roadway and expanding the site out in far north? I haven't heard that, and I haven't seen any numbers that justify closing. Roadway will actually save us x amount of money. I just need to see that I'm very concerned that our partners, if we could call them that at the county in terms of working on this humanitarian crisis, why they went two years ago where shelters was their number one, number one goal, their number one priority to abandoning that. And it's those kind of fits and starts that are driving voters and taxpayers crazy. It's hard for them to see how we're ever going to get results. When we keep changing what our focus is. Thanks.
221 Thank you, councilor Ryan councilor Koyama Lane.
222 Councilor Kanal, thank you for your focus on supporting community and public safety. And I just want to say on the record that if you are moving forward with anything to restore some or all of the rescues that I would love to support in, in any way that I can and would love to be able to push. If you have a funding source that is not council budgets, because I would love to try to do that. Thanks.
223 Thank you, councilor Koyama Lane. Yes.
224 Yeah. So I want to be clear that last time in may. I appreciate the comment. Councilor Koyama Lane last year in the may budget conversations, I proposed an amendment which would take money from opioid settlement, dollars from shelter, and allocate them to fire to backfill the rescues. And what we were told there was that that that would defund bybee lakes and grand recovery and would reduce the number of recovery beds. That is information I learned at the dais that it would be presenting that way. So after and part of the issue is, you know, where we get information, who's answering what questions. So fundamentally, the problem that I've been trying to solve and that I am close to solving, but not yet ready for prime time on it, is how to do that, but also backfill the money for bybee lakes and grand recovery so that their whole fire rescues are whole. And there's a different thing, which is what I'll be putting forward, which is actually taking the the reduction. So I just want to be clear that it is similar. It's just that it adds a second step to ensure, not with a note, but with an amendment that bybee lakes and grand recovery remain whole, because that was never an intention to reduce. And this will guarantee that they stay whole regardless of what happens with either the rescues or this other sources. Thanks.
225 I would be very supportive. Let me know how I can help and if you would have me, I would even co-sponsor.
226 Thank you. Councilor. Koyama Lane. Okay. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney. Turning to you.
227 Thank you, council president just starting with a bit of a principle, I'll continue to look at our budget amendments as we move forward through a long term lens. How how can we make sure that we're not kicking the can down the road? How can we make sure that we are investing in the things that will help our city in the long term? And how do we make sure that the fiscal sustainability of things like our parks levy and our reserve funds are being maintained, even as we know that in hard times, we need to dip into some of those reserves, not the levy. We need that to last. To make sure that we can provide the services that portlanders rely on. Councilor Kanal, I was heartened to hear that you are also looking at those PCEF dollars in pmo. I saw the same thing you did. We had six people who said very clearly, we don't want the cip changed. We had six people who said very clearly, we don't want pmo to be completely defunded here, not defunding all of pmo, but the hole left from pulling out all of the pcf dollars without a replacement. So I've also been looking at some possibilities there. It would be great to partner with you. I will be bringing back a slightly changed version of my budget note that goes with the core realignment work, so that if we do continue to move forward with core realignment, we are ensuring that that does not lead to contracting out, that we are using fall tor as an opportunity to address any additional changes that need to be made, and that we are giving some direction to the city administrator, where over the next few weeks, as this all shakes out, any additional changes are needed. Following the work with labor and the city administrator and mayor around realignment, I have been looking at some specific positions that labor has raised as very concerning, and how we might be able to restore those conceptual right now, but I will be looking to bring something forward that addresses those highest level concerns that our labor partners have brought up. I also, during our former budget work, had said that I would be happy to work with councilor Avalos on funding for ems for immigration. We weren't able to come to an agreement there, but I do have some work that has been done that I may bring forward on ensuring that our current immigration staff person has the ems necessary to bring together community members and ensure that we are actually providing the support to our community that's needed. I also am glad to hear that many people are looking at ways that we can restore, I think on a targeted basis, we certainly can't afford to restore and then retain moving forward all of the cuts in this budget, but looking for ways that we can restore on a targeted basis some of those additional cuts that we were talking about through the last iteration of our budget work, looking at the ps three, the rescues, and a few other key positions there. So I'll be bringing forward a couple of things in those areas, and look forward to seeing the details of everybody else's as well. Thanks, council president.
228 Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney colleagues, any discussion of council pirtle-guiney priorities. Council. Okay, well well explained. Councilor councilor Ryan. Well, no. This is to see if you have any budget notes or amendments. It's your turn.
229 I do not. Okay at the moment.
230 Thank you very much. Councilor Avalos.
231 All right. It's my turn. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Just got back to my desk. So good timing. Apologies. I've had some personal business. Okay. Thank you, council president. Before I begin, I also want to thank you, president Dunphy, for your leadership throughout this budget process. As someone who has consistently advocated for a stronger role for council in the budget process, I really appreciate the improvements that we've seen this year. We obviously still have work to do. It's only our second year in our new form of government standing up this process, but I do believe we're moving in the right direction. And just based on what I've heard just today, but also I've heard in the last few months, I'm just really glad to hear that so many of my colleagues are fired up to demand that we receive our charter given budget, authority rights. So I look forward to seeing how that materializes. I think there is some there are some policy choices that we could do in the coming months to strengthen our budget authority. Now, as far as my notes, I'm going to be previewing two budget notes and then I'll share my thoughts on services. First, thank you also to councilors Green and Morillo for being able to offer the context and respond to our colleagues questions. I appreciate you all doing that so far today. So first budget note is healthcare. It is the exact same one that I brought last year. I am bringing it back because my concerns have not changed. Health care costs continue to rise. Federal tax on health care continue to grow. And I believe we have a responsibility to protect the workers who keep the city running. This note asks that the administration come back with information on projected health care costs, available reserves and options, options to mitigate future benefit reductions. And I think the goal is just simply transparency, planning and protecting our workforce. And also, we heard from the lmc and from the police union. They a couple weeks ago, when we were talking about health care, that my budget note that the same one from last year really helped save employees health care this year. Without that note, we would have had more cuts to their health care. So I think it's important that we pass this again, especially because again, those those costs keep rising. And it's also, you know, just to interject into the conversation about council budgets, that's another cost that we need to make sure we're considering not just cola for our staff, but also the health care costs that is really eating up into our budgets more and more. So I am not going to be voting to be cutting anyone's budget, even if you're excluding d1. I think we need to protect that. And I agree with the arguments that we need to stop looking at the low hanging fruit. This is a an enormous budget. There are a lot of efficiencies that need to come, and that is how we can realize those savings, not by shortchanging ourselves and future electeds, by not giving them resources that they need that are different. Every elected has a different need. But that was just a quick side tangent. But back to my amendment. So that's the health care one. The second one, I'm sorry, my note. The second one is homelessness, governance and accountability. You know, I brought it the last time I tweaked it a little bit. And the reason I'm reintroducing it is because commissioner Singleton is bringing forward a similar proposal at the county, because this work needs to happen together. Over the last year, I've heard growing frustration from portlanders about homelessness. Obviously, we all have. And. But earlier today, I participated in a regional polling briefing that reinforced what many of us already know. And just a flag for housing committee. It's my intention to bring that briefing to a housing committee meeting in July, because I think there's a lot of valuable information about how people's what the public's perception is about the way that we are handling homelessness. People want homelessness addressed. They want to support investments in housing. And, you know, people have repeatedly voted to fund solutions, but they are increasingly questioning whether government is producing the outcomes that they were promised. And that should really concern all of us, especially as we need to have hard decisions about next year's budget. We need to have hard decisions about where we're going to find more revenue, and we need to continue to show the public that we are meeting the moment and delivering on the outcomes that they expect, not just visibly, but also in what they see in their day to day. You know, my neighbors, we've been rallying around a man that has ended up homeless and he's living on our street, and I have all the resources of a counselor. And I have encountered so many darn barriers, so many duplicative things, services, so many ways that the bureaucracy is not no longer helpful, no longer about accountability. Now it's just hurtful. And we need to stop duplicating our services. So this budget note directs Portland solutions to and the city administrator and relevant partners to evaluate opportunities to improve coordination, reduce duplication, clarify responsibilities, and assess whether our homelessness response infrastructure is producing the outcomes portlanders expect and deserve. This is not about blame, it is about accountability, and it's about rebuilding trust. And as chair of the housing committee, I housing and permitting committee, I intend to spend significant time this year focused on oversight, performance and outcomes because portlanders deserve these results. And then lastly, colleagues, the question of public trust is exactly why I support the services first package. You know, I came into this budget prepared to make difficult decisions. What I wasn't prepared to do was continue balancing budgets by cutting the very services that portlanders rely on. I've heard, you know, I think ultimately services first is a compromise. This is an opportunity that councilor Green, councilor, Morillo and I came together to build a package focused on protecting services, workers and community priorities. We've already talked at length, I think, about what this all does, but to reemphasize that it is saving jobs, it is restoring parts position. It's restoring ps three, restoring fire rescue capacity, janitorial services 311 and creating portland's first office of immigration affairs. And so, you know, last year, council, including me, approved transferring PCEF interest because we were told that those dollars would help protect core services. And instead we saw services cut, we saw parks cut, we saw frontline positions cut, and we saw additional staff dollars that were redirected away from climate and environmental justice priorities. The mayor had money available and services were cut anyway. That is the contradiction. And I think that ultimately we need to protect these services because we are protecting not just the services of to delivery to portlanders, but also the frontline workers who are, are, are many are our constituents as well. We need to protect the services that portlanders are relying on. And so I'm proud to support that and grateful to my colleagues for their partnership. They have all said, and I'll just say one more time, this is our last chance. This is our last chance. Because if we do not reverse these cuts, I fear we are going to have much, much bigger problems than the obvious problem we're already going to have next year, which is more budget woes. But this is we're losing valuable institutional knowledge. We're spending time hiring people, training them up, only to release them shortly after. That is wasteful. That is government waste and services first response to that. So those are my amendments or I'm sorry, my budget notes. I'm happy to take questions on any of that. Thank you.
232 Thank you, councilor Avalos colleagues, to councilor Avalos, amendments. Councilor Smith, thank you.
233 This is legacy.
234 Oh, you are you are next. So great. Councilor Novick.
235 I just have to respond to councilor Avalos comments and say I think normally actually one does start with low hanging fruit when you're trying to do something. And also I would say that I people talk about I'm picking on this one thing out of a big budget, but I haven't seen many of my colleagues identifying like big things in the big budget to cut. I mean, last year that counselor Smith is waiving waiving your document. But last year I joined in the cut to the $2 million police increase. That was $2 million wasn't a big dramatic thing. We've heard people suggest that councilor Greens chop from the top proposal, which isn't really a programmatic thing. It's sort of assuming we can reduce a certain number of managers. That's a few million dollars. We've heard about a few million dollars in cuts proposed for camp removal and cleanup, but we've been here for 17 months, and I don't think I haven't seen anybody come up with a grand idea to save lots of money by cutting some big program, and I doubt they're going to be able to do that by next year either.
236 Thank you.
237 Thank you for your comments. Yeah, I, I do think you are being a bit pedantic and we're just going to have to disagree. But I disagree also that we are not taking big swings. And I think you heard clearly from us, many of our colleagues across this dais, that we still do not have the tools, the resources, the information to make, the kinds of big swings, to make those, to inform those decisions. And so that continues to undergird this conversation. It cannot be ignored because that is the frustration that you're feeling. I think this effort that we are doing is, you know, a, I think a, a compromise that builds on the fact that there was dollars that were sitting that we were not aware of. And that's just there's so many instances of that. And again, we're not trying to point a lot of fingers. We know that this city is trying to move the organization after 100 of years. But at the same time, we need to demand that we continue to assert our budget authority. I think services first is a good example of that. Thank you.
238 Thank you, councilor Avalos. Colleagues, any further comments? Questions for councilor Avalos? Okay. Thank you very much. Councilor Avalos, councilor Smith.
239 Thank you, council president, I have one budget note. It is the establishment of a minority municipal bond manager pool to direct the city administrator to expand equitable access to the city's municipal bond underwriting and investment opportunities. Council directs the city budget office in coordination with the office of management and finance and the city treasurer, to develop and implement a program establishing a pool of qualified, minority owned municipal bond managers. And the purpose of this pool is to ensure that minority owned firms have structured, transparent pathways to compete for bond management, underwriting and advisory work associated with the city's debt issuance.
240 Thank you, councilor Smith. Colleagues. Discussion of councilor Smith's proposal.
241 Interesting.
242 Seems not terribly controversial to folks. Excellent. I guess so on this dais, usually silence does seem councilor Green.
243 Thank you for daylighting that councilor Smith. I've heard you raise that in lines of questioning, I think, over the last past few months. So I'm excited to see that kind of come together as a formalized proposal. As a budget note, I'll be looking forward to kind of seeing the language and, and kind of contemplating what, what it means between now and is it a week from now, the 10th, but what is time? But thanks for daylighting that I'll I'm open. Thanks.
244 Okay. Thank you, councilor Smith. Okay, colleagues, I am last in this queue. I am going to be proposing one budget note. And specifically I'm bringing a budget note forward to restore and strengthen a program that the city used to have called around citywide budget mapping. Budget maps are a geographic visualization of where and how our dollars are being spent across the city. Portland used to produce these reports annually, but with the government transition that stopped, that work stopped. I would like to bring it back and align it to our districts, because I think that when it is designed well, it's a genuinely powerful accountability tool. So my budget note asks the city administrator to work with cbo, the district coalition offices, and the east Portland action plan group to build a tool that accurately reflects what residents experience from city investments. I want to avoid another static dashboard that looks information informative but isn't actionable. So I'm asking that we work with community, some community organizations to land on a focused data set and design and design that treats kpi integration as a requirement from the start, so that this tool connects what we spend to the outcomes that residents actually care about. I know it's important to all of us that we deliver more accountability to constituents, showing how public dollars are spent. I feel like this is especially important for east Portland, which is home to nearly a quarter of our population. The city has invested over $1 billion in east Portland since 2011, but per capita investment has flatlined since 2021. And so right now, there's no consistent way for residents or, frankly, for us to see what that spending is actually produced on the ground. Bringing back a better version of budget mapping will give us the data we need to track the impacts of spending to see those trends. Like, did more sidewalks get built, our parks being maintained, being better maintained? Did housing become more stable? I want the city to create something that's useful because when it means it's going to be an iterative process. So the note, this note directs the work to start with a planning group to coordinate by September, who will report a concept and minimum viable product by the end of the year and launch a pilot model by July of 2027, and time to integrate with the 2829 budget cycle that is ultimately about giving every district an honest accounting of what we're getting. And so I'm happy to take any questions if anybody has any councilor Novick.
245 I have no questions. I'm just I applaud the idea. We had budget mapping when I was here before people complained that the data wasn't good enough. We didn't do a good enough job, but that's not a reason not to do it. We should just try to do it better. So I think this is a great idea.
246 Thank you sir. Vice president Clark.
247 Thank you, council president, you and I had an opportunity to briefly discuss this. I think it's a very interesting idea, but I assume that the planning group or whoever puts this together, it also will have caveats in that, you know, district four has some of the oldest infrastructure. In fact, we just learned that there's a sinkhole on dodge road that's very dangerous. Just happened just now. We have water mains breaking all over the the d four. So I'm hoping that the planning group will somehow be able to factor that in, that we we have certain different kinds of needs and d4 then you have in in d1, I think that's going to be important to note that there may be certain kinds of infrastructure investments in d4 that you won't see comparably in d1 or d2, maybe. I'm not sure.
248 Absolutely. Specifically, we are asking up to have aged infrastructure as a factor in this so that we can understand the cost differentials. Thank you, vice president Clark and councilor Kanal.
249 Thanks. So first, I love the idea. My comment is sort of a launch off of that a little bit. You mentioned kpis. And I think this is something we need to have a conversation about. I have three quick things I wanted to mention. One is kpis, and I'm going to use one that I found particularly absurd. And I want to note that this predates everybody in the role in the roles related to this bureau. But there there are performance metrics in the budget that I don't think we've ever weighed in on as a council or necessarily aligned to anything. And I'm gonna use the office of equity as an example, the office of equity and human rights. Their performance metrics for the fiscal year are very specific to output, which is a conversation we've had as a council before. Are we measuring output versus outcome. So it's number of technical advisement analysis services offered, number of city employees who receive trainings, things like that. So it's very, very granular. And it doesn't necessarily measure anything about are we more equitable than we have been? And then we go to performance metrics on the calendar year, which is the exact opposite. These are the two metrics that are in there. It's page 150 of the proposed budget average rate of portlanders, who believe that Portland is a city where everyone can succeed and thrive regardless of their identity, which we don't have data on for 2022 or 2023. We only have 2024 data on it, and the number there is 3.09. Out of what you are, your guess is as good as mine. And then the other metric is the racial and ethnic diversity of the population percentage of portlanders who identify as bipoc. I have no idea how we're going to hold the equity officer of the city responsible for that, given the century plus of of what has led to our population being what it is. But I think we have work to do to measure the. And by the way, I picked this bureau because these are the both extremes and because we know they do good work. I just don't know that we're measuring it. And I want to make sure that we have metrics that that accurately reflect that. The second thing I wanted to to talk about was just to clarify, I you mentioned that silence in this chamber might generally mean assent. I think that we had a sort of working knowledge last year that notes were generally something where if there wasn't a reason for, for to not do it, we should we should try to get to a yes on it last year. I think that worked very well. I hope we continue that this year, even if maybe amendments end up being on the side of leave. The way things, the way they are notes can be different. So I just wanted to flag that. And then the third and final thing I wanted to mention, just to it was a, a conversation around the fire bureau there. Councilor Ryan and I just wanted to know, are splitting the cost of repairing a fire boat at hayden island, which has not had maintenance in a number of years and which has been I've written, I've been I don't ride along on it. It just kind of putters along in whatever embarrassing way you're kind of thinking about right now. They have a few boats there. The others are in good shape, better shape anyway. And so these are the sorts of things that I think we should be looking to, to do and looking to, to support around the budget and through our own budgets, to be able to put things back in the district. And so I wanted to flag that as well. If anyone's looking for another place to put your end of year leftover, if you have any leftover, there's a couple other riverfront ones in shared between d3 and d4. So I just wanted to flag that as well. Thanks.
250 Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Novick councilor Kanal.
251 I just wanted to strenuously disagree. I think that any equity officer can increase the percentage of the population identifying as bipoc by 5% a year, is not worth their salt and should be canned.
252 Thank you, councilor Novick vice president Clark.
253 Thank you. Thank you, councilor. President, I just wanted to make a little statement about budget notes. I think last year was our first time around. We had lots of budget notes. I had budget notes, everybody had budget notes. And I realize now in retrospect that some of those were unfunded mandates that I asked bureaus to do things, that there was no money attached to it. And, and, you know, some of them contacted me and said, hey, we got to scale this back because we don't really have the resources. And I just think we all need to be really sensitive to that. And I didn't listen to these closely enough to know if there are unfunded mandates, but just to be aware that we're asking bureaus to do things that they may not have the resources to do.
254 Thank you, vice president Clark councilor Kanal.
255 Yeah, I appreciate that. And that's that's a fair point. I hope that the way we've changed what we're using notes for addresses that concern, and I appreciate the guidance we've gotten on that. I, I think that if we're able to say this is it's really guidance on how you spend or it's information attached to sort of give information on how an expenditure is, is used, I think that's something or an allocation. Then I think we're, we're, we'll be in better shape if we're following that rule and avoid the even having to, to vote on, on whether or not to adopt an unfunded mandate. Thanks.
256 Okay, colleagues.
257 Oh, councilor. No, councilor Ryan.
258 I didn't track all of the details of your amendment. I know my office gave some feedback. Staffers did. But it made me pause to think about a practice that's missing. And that is when we look at ordinances, especially and even with some of our budget ordinances, we're lacking a deeper economic impact analysis. And since our economy is in the tank, let's face it, like every indicator, we're struggling compared to every market in the country. And so this council's got to become more focused on economic development, period. And when we also pass ordinances, we talk about kpis. But and you can even include that in the in the economic analysis. So what are three indicators that you're measuring if you're measuring success, what are those three. And we should actually deliberate that and discuss that while we're passing. Otherwise we're always going to be stuck in that government habit of measuring inputs as opposed to outcomes. And so I just think that it's our own discipline that we can improve upon in working with the administration. And in every conversation I've had with you, mr. Mayor, and also with ca lee, I know that that would be welcomed and wanted. So I hope that we just consider some of what you're talking about as improved practices. I say it a lot. I'll say it again. I think we're policy rich and practice poor and we're system poor, in other words. And so systems improve when you improve practices. The great state of Oregon has more policies passed that haven't been implemented than I think any state. So we're good at that. And let's stop being good at that. Thanks.
259 Thank you, councilor Ryan. Colleagues, we have successfully made it through our final budget related work session. I appreciate everybody having a conversation about this to air our last amendments and maybe save us some time on debate. We have very limited time Wednesday and Thursday. Thank you for extending into Thursday. Thank you, councilor Kanal, for sacrificing the community, the whole slot. Colleagues, between now and next week, I encourage us all to talk to each other. These are now out there publicly and we can have conversations with each other. Find your seventh votes, improve them, collaborate and we will be back here next week on this topic. But we will be back here tomorrow at 2:00 for the remainder of our recessed meeting. I'm going to let councilors Avalos and then Clark have the final word, and then we're out of here. Avalos.
260 I just.
261 Want.
262 To thank you. I just wanted to confirm. So is then tomorrow canceled tomorrow morning? Canceled since we finished early.
263 Tomorrow morning has been canceled. There is no committee of the whole meeting. Tomorrow at 2:00. We'll continue our recessed city council meeting.
264 Okay. I knew there was no committee hold, but we had time reserved, so I don't have to wake up early tomorrow. Yes.
265 You do not have to wake up early tomorrow. Thank you.
266 Thanks.
267 Councilor Clark.
268 Well, thank you, council president, I think this has been a really good process, and I appreciate your kind of putting sideboards on everything and helping guide us. I just wondered again, who and how are we going to get the compiled list of all of these.
269 So we are going to be we're asking if you are looking for to formally get your budget notes or amendments written up through the cbo to submit those by Friday. We just sent out a memo explaining the process from my office as well. We will be distributing or publishing those and then distributing them on Monday.
270 Thank you.
271 I have something really quick.
272 Sure. Councilor Ryan.
273 Yeah. I just want to thank all of the councilors and staffers who have been doing dragonboat practices, our final practices today at 530. Mr. Mayor, you've recruited a heavyweight team, and I'm okay with that. We're we're mighty. And that's what matters. And we're skilled and disciplined and that matters. And our good friends from kaohsiung city council will be arriving there, probably in the air right now, or arriving as we speak. And they're serious. And so public is I just know there's so many people watching this meeting. The the challenge
274 Cup is Saturday at noon down on the waterfront, and it's between whatever that team's called, the mayor's team, the paddle forward. What's the name of your team?
275 Mayor.
276 Mayor. Mayor. The current mayor.
277 The current be with you.
278 All right. That's cute.
279 You should lose for that. Ours is.
280 Ours is paddle forward. And I have no idea what the team is. But a big thanks to will misspelt in my office for being the leader. And he has been so patient with all of you. The attendance has been horrible, but will has kept on us so that we continue to have a coach. I hope to see everyone there. So we finally have a full boat because trust me, it's really hard to move that thing when there's only ten of us. So please show up. Thanks. Bye.
281 Thank you. Councilor. Ryan. Councilor Green. Last word.
282 Yeah. I just want to say that I will be there on Saturday to paddle in the same direction. I think is the name of the of the team. I would be there for practice tonight, but I have to represent the regional water providers consortium board meeting. I'll just note that I have a natural affinity and athleticism when it comes to paddling, so I'm not worried. You're on notice, mr. Mayor.
283 Okay, so you're one you're one. Practice is just fine.
284 It's good. All right.
285 With that, I am adjourning this work session of the Portland city council. Thank you so much, everybody.