Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Jamie Dunphy
Welcome, friends, to the work session on the afternoon of Thursday the 25th.
I don't know if I'm supposed to gabble, but I'm gabbling.
We are meeting to discuss— the first meeting to discuss budgets.
And the budget process and where things start.
And I just want to start before we dive into the meat and I invite our invited guests.
Colleagues, on your desk in front of you is a draft of a calendar.
This is a draft.
There's a lot of detail in here.
Please do not treat this as gospel, but this is reflective of both the upcoming outline roughly for the months of March, April, May, and June with regard to the number of work sessions, committee meetings, council meetings, evening hearings, hearings, all of the things that we will be doing.
I— it is my intention to have everybody on this council have so much information and so many opportunities to talk about this budget that I am hearing from all of you that I— you are bored and that you want your time back.
That is my goal.
Short of that, um, this is an opportunity for us to be really try to get as much decided ahead of time, um, Before we actually have to vote on the final votes.
I think everybody understands we want a good process this year and we know it's going to be a bad budget.
So a lot of the information on here, including specifically on here the outline of committees, is just draft form.
This is not finalized.
We are still working with Council Clerk and Council Ops to finalize the schedule of those components of it.
You, in fact, will even see on this calendar, for example, the 3rd week of May, there's some either— or second and third week, there's some either-ors about whether that's a committee or a work session.
I'll work with each of you to make sure we land this without also trapping us in this room for hours and hours and hours every day.
But just wanted everybody to have a copy of this to understand that we are talking about process.
And again, if you can look at this across the top, my staff very helpfully wrote the word draft like 15 times.
So with that, I am going to turn it over to the main event, CFO Jonas Biery.
Thank you, Mayor.
Budget Director Ruth Levine, you are both here.
This is your show.
Oh, before, Councilor Zimmerman, did you have any— okay, sounds good.
Take it away.
Floor is yours.
Jonas Biery
Great.
Thank you, Council President.
Good afternoon.
For the record, Jonas Biery, city's Chief Financial Officer.
As was teed up, this is sort of the quasi-formal kickoff here on February 25th of the '26-'27 fiscal '26-'27 budget conversation.
I will be running the office pool on the over-under of how many councilors claim to be bored during this upcoming 4-month budget conversation.
So if you have predictions, happy to accept those.
I would guess pretty low.
It's gonna be a little spicy here as we go through the next few months.
This work session today, a couple of key topics, and I think we've got a presentation maybe coming up here.
So yeah, so just to introduce what we're gonna talk about today.
Again, first discussion of what will be, we expect many over the next few.
This particular session, Will first be to share information about the current service level or CSL analysis.
We expect to have space for questions and feedback on that scenario or that, the CSL scenario, and then look to use an hour or so at the end of the agenda for a conversation about process and next steps, including the information that Council President mentioned.
And Council President, look for your assistance in making sure we keep space at the end of the session today for that.
So I'm gonna do a quick tee-up here and then mostly the main event will be CBO Director Ruth thank you, Councilor Herbold.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, Councilor Herbold.
Thank you, Councilor Levine, talking about the current service level scenario.
Quick reminder for everyone here and for folks watching online that the presentation that we're looking at now is posted alongside the work session agenda and the documents.
And was also— this presentation, I believe, was distributed to council yesterday afternoon.
The full current service level documentation was published February 18th, and that information, along with all of the fiscal '26-'27 budget development information, is available on the City Budget Office So next slide, please.
So a few just tee-ups on the purpose of the work session, as has been stated previously, but I'll reiterate here.
Major priority of the City Administrator, of the City Budget Office, of myself as Chief Financial Officer, is to make sure that we're building trust and transparency with Council, with the community.
So we really want to take space and intention around that.
Today we want to provide a starting point for that '26-'27 budget discussion.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Jonas Biery
Session compared to last year that we all experienced.
It is a huge benefit to have space right now in February to start a little bit more of a deeper dive conversation and to have more, both robust in volume and hopefully in content, capacity to engage in these conversations earlier together.
And then I would also just note that this continues to be an evolving and continuously improving process.
We'll talk a little bit about that here in a moment.
Raymond C. Lee
Thank you.
Jonas Biery
Thank you.
Would also just make a reminder that this year's process was developed with the benefit of having additional feedback from Council, kind of the conversations we had after last year's cycle.
We started a little bit over the winter, so we just weren't allowed to have that in last cycle.
I anticipate that will provide us some, a little bit more comfort and ability to manage through this difficult process this cycle.
Greatly appreciate that collaboration to help this process evolve.
Expect to receive additional feedback as we go through this process.
And learn through this next iteration together.
I wanna talk a little bit, and Ruth will talk more in detail, but I wanna talk about the process of developing the current service level budgets.
While it may not feel terribly different, that is actually something that budget development concept does mark a fundamentally different approach for this city with a CSL scenario, current service level scenario, and multiple potential reduction scenarios.
Raymond C. Lee
Thank you.
Jonas Biery
Just to give a little more context, prior to last year, so prior to the change in the form of government, bureaus submitted fairly detailed requested budgets, what were formerly called requested budgets, that were published in February with specific line item changes and potential add packages, et cetera.
And while these budget requests were never really final decisions, they often functioned very much like final decisions, that they had been developed by a commissioner in charge and was not—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah.
Jonas Biery
Atypical that the final budgets that passed were ultimately assemblages of that with some changes around the edges by the mayor and City Council.
Last year, we attempted to shift to an enterprise approach by publishing the city administrator recommendation in February to replace that former kind of bureau-centric request strategy with an enterprise-level strategy.
That document was never intended to present a budgetary decision, but was certainly perceived that way, and I think fairly perceived that way given the benefit of hindsight.
And certainly didn't present the opportunity for discussion of options the way that we had intended it to last year.
So learning from that, this year approaching differently again by preparing multiple scenarios that are intended to identify potential trade-offs with the goal of facilitating these kinds of discussions, which will ultimately provide more robust inputs and collective thought around what ultimately ends up in the mayor's proposed budget in April, and then ultimately—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Jonas Biery
In the council-adopted budget in June.
I'd also just note that this different approach requires a different way of thinking.
The information— sorry, managing this process and the information that's collected has kind of stretched the limits of what our budget systems are intended to accommodate.
That's both the technology and kind of the legacy culture and DNA of how we've prepared budgets.
So that's been a fairly heavy lift.
And I just wanna call that out because it may not feel like that as we're talking about the output, but it has been.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Jonas Biery
It has been a fundamentally different workload and a different approach to get us to this point.
I'm greatly appreciative of city leadership, including City Council, and especially of staff for their willingness to kind of jump into the deep end as we continue improving that process to support Council and support Portlanders.
So I wanted to give that little tee-up.
Ruth's going to talk more in just a moment about the why of using that CSL lens and how that shows us the true cost of prior budget decisions in a way that maybe we haven't been able to really illuminate before.
Thank you, Mayor.
Another reminder, the CSL scenario concept that we're talking about today came out of the mayor's '26-'27 budget guidance, which directed preparation of 3 general scenarios.
Current service level, which is kind of the high-end bookend.
What would the budget be if we didn't change a single thing and just kept doing the same things in the same way we've always done it?
A 10% reduction scenario, which is kind of the other bookend.
What if we had to do very deep level reductions citywide.
So kind of the other bookend.
And then a 3% reduction scenario that reflects kind of a midpoint of what might that look like.
So we can have discussion about that range of scenarios.
And then technically there's sort of an asterisk scenario for rate charging bureaus that they did this current service level and a 5% reduction as kind of just the midpoint rather than the 3% and the 10%.
Mitch Green
Okay.
Jonas Biery
So let's see.
So that's kind of, I think, where I'll stop with the introduction.
And then I will just flag, we're gonna start to share information today.
I think primary intent is to start to both collect questions, whether those might be things that we can respond to in writing shortly thereafter as we've done in the past, or start to tee up for the future work session discussions that we have.
And so I wanna acknowledge here in this last slide that I'll hit, we do have other conversations scheduled with you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Jonas Biery
We're at this first one here on February 25th.
We'll have a couple of deep dive work sessions specific to service areas, maybe medium dive.
So I wanted to highlight that.
So as you're thinking about questions, some of what you might choose to highlight are things that we can work on bringing back to you in those work sessions.
We also have via CBO working on individual briefings, I think district-oriented briefings with councilors over the next few weeks or weeks in March.
And then we'll have another work session towards the end of March that's sort Sort of topical TBD based upon how the conversations go and where council's priorities lie here.
We do, lastly, reminder that we do have kind of the closing today to talk about what happens after March, including in there an implicit question that the council president's already previewed about how we structure those conversations in April and May.
So that's my tee-up, and I'll pause and maybe just let Ruth move on to talking a little bit about the current surface level.
Ruth Levine
Great.
And for the record, I'm Ruth Levine.
I'm the budget director.
And yeah, thanks, Jonas, for that tee-up, and thank you all for this first work session.
So I'm going to jump into the current service level.
Jonas kind of highlighted that this is a shift in how we have done things.
I'm going to get a little bit more into the details on what we're looking at.
So the current service what level is based on the we used to do and what we have done this year.
So the math at the top is meant to show you how it used to work.
So we would start from the prior year's adopted budget, anything that was ongoing.
We would add standard inflation factors for things like COLA, you know, PERS rate increases, benefit increases, and the like, standard economic inflation factors, and that would equal the current appropriation level in the general fund.
I will just note that CAL is like a general fund-specific thing, but obviously every fund goes through a similar process of, you know, identifying how much— what the baseline would be for their budget for the next fiscal year.
So transportation has a similar process, but CAL refers specifically to the general fund.
And then the sort of mayor's guidance would direct if there was a cut target, what that cut target would be, and it was like a number.
So, you know, Ruth, your target is, you know, X millions of dollars.
And then plus or minus add and realignment type decision packages.
So any— the mayor's guidance usually said, you know, we have this much money.
And then we would have a discussion about that.
I'm looking for.
And then the bureaus would put that all together, and that would equal the requested budget that they put forward that the commissioner in charge would ultimately transmit to the mayor.
So that was the old process, and that's kind of what a requested budget looks like with that kind of math.
I will just call out the city financial policy actually directs how we do that.
So the city's financial policy CBO sets CAL because we are kind of the managers of the general fund, and it explicitly says to set it based on the adopted budget ongoing discretionary funding plus inflation.
What has happened over the last 5 years, and part of the reason for I think some of the pain in our budget process, not to mention our budget math, is that CAL has fallen behind true costs.
Growth over the last 5 years.
There are a couple of reasons for that, but the largest in dollar terms is the fact that there was a lot of one-time funding available due both to things like grants but also just to the nature of our general fund revenues over the last 5 years with the sort of post-COVID corporate profits and the like.
And that in some cases that one-time funding was allocated to things that weren't really one-time things, ongoing, you know, programs within police, fire, other parts of the city.
So that has been the primary kind of disconnect between CAL, which explicitly says look at ongoing discretionary funding, and the actual fact of what's going on and what the city is funding.
There are other things, particularly around internal materials and and services growing faster than our economic inflation rates.
And I'll talk more about that later.
But those are kind of the main things.
Just in general, our expenses as a city have been growing faster than those underlying inflation factors would predict.
So we're— I think there is a multi-year effort in place Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
So we have a lot of work in front of us to try to kind of fix this and make it a little bit more clear and make the trade-off decisions clearer for you all and for Portlanders.
One part of that is this current service level budget concept.
So overall, what is a current service level budget?
How much would it cost next year to do the same exact thing the city is providing right now.
So it wouldn't account for cost changes due to kind of predictable things, right?
Salary increases, benefits, the like, planned capital projects, debt service falling off, reasonable expectations for a hiring plan, and those kinds of things.
It doesn't reflect any policy decisions about, you know, we're not— we don't really want to do this anymore, we want to do this.
It doesn't include any of those things.
And we'll talk more as I get into the numbers, sort of how that shows up in the tables.
I'll pause here for a second.
I see some quizzical looks.
Jamie Dunphy
You want to jump in now?
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
And just real quick, colleagues, if you have technical questions or clarifying questions, feel free to jump in the queue and I'd like to bigger questions, let's hold to the end of the presentation.
Evan Jundev-Hofer
Okay.
Mitch Green
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
So just to clarify on this particular slide, this doesn't include any distinction between ongoing and one-time then?
Ruth Levine
It doesn't include a distinction right now, no.
What—.
But it does— anything that is truly one-time in nature and is ending would end, so it wouldn't be reflected in kind of the current service level baseline.
But it is really tied to what was communicated.
Was this communicated as a one-time program that's truly one-time in nature?
Either it's a capital expenditure or it's something we said, hey, this is a project that has an end date of 2025, then it wouldn't show up in the next fiscal year.
But if it is a program that a Portlander would expect to be ongoing because it doesn't make sense that it would stop without, you know, some act policy choice being taken, then it's included.
Sameer Kanal
So who makes that decision?
I'm thinking about, you know, we, we may— council decided to put one-time dollars towards many things.
Yeah, last year that, that was a decision that those programs would end absent a secondary decision, right?
Ruth Levine
And so I think this is intended to show what would happen if it's— again, it's not saying like this is what you should do.
Certainly we can't afford it, so that's one problem.
But, um, it's just intended to say like if we did all of the stuff that we are currently doing, recognizing that yes, in fact, some of it was intended— like some of it was funded with one-time funding and it was expected to end if there wasn't additional funding.
This is just the kind of scenario of what would happen if you continued those things.
Like, how much would it cost?
Sameer Kanal
Okay, I'll have some specific— okay, is it in, is it out later.
Jamie Dunphy
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I was actually going to ask 2 specific is it in, is it outs right now because you, um, you teed it up there.
So as we think about the difference between— I think you said a nuanced thing that I want to just make sure I fully understand, which is if it was a project with a discrete end date, not in CSL, if it was something that we paid for with one-time funds, but one could reasonably assume that there's an ongoing need in CSL.
Ruth Levine
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So there's 2 things I have in mind that I suspect fall on different ends of that, but in order to help me really understand the difference, I'm wondering if we can explore them a little bit.
Candace Avalos
Sure.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
The first is the funding that we pass on a one-time basis for violence prevention programs.
Would that be in CSL as something that we could reasonably assume continues or out of CSL as something that we have funded every year as a one-time project?
Ruth Levine
That is in.
So it's an example of a kind of thing that, you know, it has been funded with serial one-time, but that but it acts at this point as an ongoing program.
Candace Avalos
Correct.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
The second is the shelters that the mayor has opened over the last year.
We used external resources for most of that funding.
They were one-time resources, but it's a program that there is still a need for.
Are you calculating that in CSL or out of CSL?
Ruth Levine
Yeah, great question also.
And you'll see, well, I wanna not go down this particular rabbit hole very far right now, But it is in with some sort of asterisk, and we pull out in different ways because it's a little— it is—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Some of it's in, some of it's out?
Ruth Levine
No, it's all in.
Angelita Morillo
Okay.
Ruth Levine
But I'll talk about kind of how that shows up in the numbers as we get to those slides.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
That helps me better understand that gray area.
Raymond C. Lee
Yeah.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Okay.
Thank you.
Ruth Levine
I said a second ago that this is sort of a multi-year— part of a multi-year effort, and I do want to recognize this because I know not everyone's going to be 100% satisfied with what we have here today, and I wanted to kind of situate it in the context of what are we looking at moving forward.
Ideally, we would have a sort of citywide forecast that shows based baseline what is our gap between revenues and expenditures or our surplus.
And it reflects a reasonable set of assumptions.
And I think in order to fully get here, we're going to probably be looking at some financial policy changes, but I wanted to give you a bigger picture of kind of like what are the different pieces of that.
One is we talked a little bit about this internal materials and services issue and the fact that the, the growth, the rate of growth in that area has not been fully reflected by underlying inflation factors.
They ideally, we will just shift that process a little bit earlier so that we can have actual numbers inform the sort of base budget development process.
So that's one kind of pillar.
The next is on citywide forecasting.
We have this kind of awkward timing misalignment between when the general fund information comes out and when other funds information come out.
And so that causes confusion, I think, for the general public who doesn't necessarily care which kind of money pays for a thing.
So we need to align all of those so that they come out all at the same time and also align some of the assumptions that are built into those.
And then the third pillar is this, what I was just talking— what we were just conversing about with the kind of one-time revenue for ongoing expenditures.
I think we need to make it clearer, and I think there are other local governments that do a better job than we have done about making it clear when a program is expected to be one-time and end, and when it is expected to be ongoing.
And even if we're using bridge funding, Thank you.
So if we're going to be using that one-time to address what is truly an ongoing problem— or program, excuse me— we need to actually be transparent about that.
And there's different ideas about how we could do that, but recognizing that we are not all the way there on that.
So just wanted to flag that.
Okay, so just— Jonas hit on some of this, but to just give a little bit more color to how we got here.
Evan Jundev-Hofer
Thank you.
Ruth Levine
Starting in November, the mayor's budget guidance was released saying to do this current service level budget scenario as well as those other reduction scenarios.
And then we still went through a process of developing CAL, and as Jonas also hinted at, this has definitely stretched our technical and human systems for doing the budget.
And so there's pieces of this that will continue to follow into place over time.
But we developed CAL, and we said— so that's again that general fund number that said if you just had your ongoing revenue, here's what it would be for next year.
And we shared that with all of the general fund bureaus, which has been our normal historical process.
We also worked with the city operations team to set the IMS rates for next year, where they go through every single thing that is in that that the city pays for, for technology and for risk and for all of those things and said, here's exactly how much they all cost next year and here's the bill.
And then we also look at personnel benefits, salaries, and the like.
That all got put into our budget system in the beginning of December.
And then bureaus go in and develop their more detailed base budget.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yes.
Ruth Levine
And there's a lot of technical work that goes into that.
And then they also, through that process, identified these gaps in the current service level.
So they went, they basically had Cal as kind of a data point and then said, what's kind of not covered by that?
Another way to think about the one-time and ongoing is like there are a lot of programs where there are full-time, not term-limited employees.
Those are kind of just like in your base budget.
We build a budget around those.
And then if there were limited-term staff, those might get tacked on as like, if we were to keep doing this, we would need more money to pay for these limited-term staff.
And then we received all of that at the end of January and spent a few weeks reviewing, analyzing, making corrections where they were needed, and and then writing that current service level report that came out last week.
Sameer Kanal
All right.
Ruth Levine
Now I'm going to dive into the numbers.
So this is the— this slide and the next are directly from that report that we released on the 18th.
A couple of things as we get into here to remember.
One, again, this does not include any potential solutions.
This is just current service level.
And the other thing I want to talk about has a call-out on the slide here, which I know is confusing.
So when the general fund forecast came out in December, it stated the gap of $66.9 million, of which there was $13 13.6 of a one-time gap that was actually from this fiscal year.
And normally when the forecast comes out, any change in revenue for the current fiscal year that we're experiencing from the forecast would be rolled into the next fiscal year.
It's typically quite small.
The, the, the 13.6 6, we actually pulled out, and that's what we came to you to talk about at the end of January, and we're going to come back again next week.
So we've just separated it out because, because of the size of it, we can't just sort of punt it to next fiscal year, right?
We have to address it this fiscal year.
So for the purposes of this report, we're actually like taking it out of next year's gap and putting it into this year's gap, which I know is confusing.
Angelita Morillo
That's right.
Ruth Levine
But we don't want to double count it, essentially.
And then what we did in the next line down is say, all right, if you took all of our general fund expenses under the current service level methodology, which again takes all of those programs and says, what if we kept doing these next year, how much would it cost, and we add up all of those expenses, you get to $912,000.
$912.6 million.
And then what's the difference between that and our general fund forecasted revenue for '26-'27?
That's how we got that gap number.
So I will pause there because I'm sure there are questions.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, I just wanted to know where the other $1.1 million is, uh, because the $66.9, you pull that forward, that, that would get you down to $53.3.
Ruth Levine
Great question.
Um, this was a footnote in the report.
I can Peter can come up and talk about it.
Essentially, they're like minor adjustments of things we just got wrong back in December that we have to fix going forward, just if you want more detail.
Sameer Kanal
Oh, that's good.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Okay, thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Appreciate it.
Ruth Levine
Sorry.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So to put a finer point on this, when we saw the budget gap skyrocket from $50 or from $60-something million to $160-something million, That is not because anything changed with our budgeting in terms of bigger gap identified, less money available, new programs brought in.
It is literally just because we switched from looking at a current expenditure level to a current service level.
Ruth Levine
Yes, thank you for asking that question.
Yeah, some of the press coverage I think didn't, pull this out, but I literally wrote a sentence in the introduction that said this is not an increase in the deficit, we're just measuring different things.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
But this is the different thing.
Ruth Levine
This is the different thing we're measuring.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Switch from Cal to CSF.
Ruth Levine
Yes, correct.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah, thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Council President.
Um, thank you, Ruth, this is really helpful.
Um, so does the movement of this $13.6 million mean that the current year shortfall of $22 to $26 million is increased by an additional $13 okay, you're shaking your head no.
Ruth Levine
No.
Angelita Morillo
So that the $13.6 million is part of the projected shortfall for the $22 to $26 million, correct?
Ruth Levine
Yes, correct.
That we're gonna come back and talk about more next week.
Yeah, it— the timing of how that all got released made it confusing.
That's why I wanted to like specifically call it out here of like, no, we're sort of not counting it for next year, we are counting it for this year.
Jonas Biery
Yeah.
And I If it's helpful, the way I would think about it, Councilor, is we're solving for the $13.6 million in the actions that we're going to start talking about next year and implement in the spring TAO.
So it'll be solved this fiscal year, ergo not part of the gap for next year.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, that's very helpful.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Um, and just for our edification collectively, uh, just please state again the difference between, um, current service level and current expenditure.
Ruth Levine
And, and Cal?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the difference is that the current allocation level only looks at adopted ongoing discretionary funding increased by inflation.
That's what the financial policy is.
And so that's a pretty narrow definition.
And then the current service level is what if we Councilor Smith.
If we kept doing all of the services that we're doing right now with some reasonable assumptions about that and we paid for them next year, how much would it cost?
And so it's just— there is a mapping between the two, and that's where I'm going to talk about it in a couple slides here of like what's the difference.
The differences are what inflation counts.
That's one difference.
That's— but that's relatively small magnitude in comparison to the use of one-time resources in the current fiscal year that support things that might be considered to be ongoing in nature.
Jonas Biery
Got it.
Mitch Green
That's, that's extremely helpful.
We're just basically taking a more transparent and honest look at it, um, very early in the process.
I see the value of the new approach.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks.
Jonas Biery
Yeah, and Councilor, if I can just add to that too, because it's really the primary topic of today, but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that as we've evolved this conversation, as we're evolving processes, as we're having this dialogue, it really is valuable in daylighting where those policy changes will need to come.
I know we've had other conversations in this room, in Finance Committee and other forums about having maybe a package of financial policy changes, and this would certainly be in that package once we can get through this particular cycle and have space to do that.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Thank you for putting this together.
Um, I'm not understanding how we use current service level.
Uh, this new accounting suggests that we have unlimited general funds to pull from.
I think we need to do this like we do our monthly budget at home.
How much money do we bring in?
And then you budget from there.
This current service level suggests that we can just pull money from someplace.
You have $912 million, but the question is, that's way more than Peter forecasted.
So my question is, can Peter come up?
This is how I budget.
How much money do we have forecasted for next year?
Jonas Biery
Um, $743 million.
Loretta Smith
Okay, that's where we need to start.
And if we don't have that money, that means we have to start cutting.
This way suggests that we can just give a current service level dollar amount that we don't even take in.
That's craziness.
And the other thing that it doesn't account for— thank you, Jonas, CFO Biery.
I want to know how much— and I got your email today— how much general fund do we have in the restricted funds?
Jonas Biery
Yes, sir, Councilor.
A couple— thank you for that question, for highlighting this.
I wanna be careful that we're not thinking about the CSL as a target, right?
It's a data point of what would be required if we didn't change anything.
I mean, to use the example, I'll see if I can do this in real time, but to use the example of the way a family budget would work, if we just stayed where we were and I don't know, we've got a pool in the backyard and we keep paying the pool person to maintain that.
We can't afford it, right?
I mean, I don't have a pool.
I don't know who does in Oregon.
But so it's not intended to be a target that we're solving for.
It's just intended to be a signal of maybe how much work we have to do to get to the solutions.
So in the context of sort of the bracketing, right, or the bookends example, this is the far bookend.
We can't achieve this.
The revenue-constrained number is the number ultimately that we'll have to solve for, the number that Peter mentioned.
Loretta Smith
Well, it's kind of disingenuous too because the public is looking at this and they're going to look at this and they're not going to see what we're forecasted for to know that we can't possibly do $912 million in current service level.
And so I don't want you to give me a pie in the sky.
I mean, I really want you guys to do your job.
Mitch Green
Yes.
Loretta Smith
Look, how much are we bringing in?
And that was the number.
That was a small— smaller number than the $169 million gap.
So we don't have a $169 million gap.
We have a different gap.
You're basing this based on if we could have— you know, I could create myself a budget to pay for a big house, to pay for a big car, to pay for extravagant vacations, and I could put that down.
But if I don't bring that kind of money in, I can't budget for that.
So for me, there's 2 things.
You're only giving us the general fund buckets.
I want to know how much money in general fund money do we have in the restricted pots, because some of those projects were identified by, uh, councilors in, in a different form of government for projects that they will never do, and we have not gone back and looked at those.
And I'm not confident that we don't have more money than you say we have, especially after what happened with the Housing Bureau.
I'm just not clear yet.
So until you can give me a number of the general fund, how much general fund is in our restricted funds, you, you can't possibly give me this number and expect me to, to accept it because I don't.
Ruth Levine
Yeah, can I just Councilor Smith.
I just noticed a couple of other things that I should have said when I presented this slide.
One is this does not all represent reductions that need to be taken.
So there are a number of choices that can be made.
One of them is ending programs.
I mean, I think what we're trying to convey is that if you— if there are amounts that aren't funded within this, it will be So it's a reduction in the amount of revenue that we receive.
Sameer Kanal
Right.
Ruth Levine
So it would be perceived as a reduction, and that's what we tried to— we did vet the things that went into it.
We didn't put the pool and the fancy car in it.
We made sure that it was only the things that we are currently doing.
So I do think that it is a reasonable set of assumptions to have made.
But it doesn't— but there could be other revenues that could be used to pay for some of these things, and there could be— there be services that, that you all decide not to do.
What we are trying to do is put all of the information forward because you are the decision makers.
And so we're not trying to assume anything about what services do or do not go forward.
I'm just trying to say, like, is your math reasonable about what you're putting into that bucket?
And then we hand that over to you.
So, um, I don't know if there's—.
Loretta Smith
Thank you for saying that, Ruth, because I was going to tell you, you've made some decisions, you've made some council decisions that we should be making and assuming this is the route where we're going to go.
But I think it's so important that you include some other things.
You've got to include that forecasted number from Peter.
Jamie Dunphy
And again, they still have more presentation to go.
We have—.
Loretta Smith
I looked through the whole forecast yesterday, so I already know what it says.
They don't have it in there.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah.
Jonas Biery
And if I do want to, if I may just acknowledge that I hear your question, Councilor, on the funds.
That is work that we're doing.
So that's not part of the work session material today.
But we are gathering that specifically, that fund-level information, so that we can provide that to council either at one of the upcoming work sessions or an email as that becomes available.
So just wanted to acknowledge we are in fact working on that.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Mitch Green
Councilor Green.
Thank you.
I just wanna be clear that what we're looking at that is the product of what this body asked Jonas and Ruth to bring us, which was a very early, clear-eyed understanding of if we changed nothing at all from the decisions we made last time as a body, that we're either able to pay for it or we're not.
And that's what this is.
This is not a budget.
This isn't a set of choices that's been made for us.
When I look at this, I see very clearly that if we do nothing differently, and just roll over our budget from last year, we've got to somehow find $169 million.
That's what that tells me.
That's actually how I do my budgeting too at home.
So I, I think it's really unfair to say that Jonas and Ruth haven't been doing their jobs.
You're doing exactly what we asked you to do.
Last time we got a different type of presentation.
It was pretty late, and then we were mad about that too.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Mitch Green
So I just had to say that.
Jonas Biery
Thank you, Councilor.
You're welcome to come sit in my chair anytime you'd like.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I should have said this when I first asked some questions.
Thank you so much for bringing us a CSL.
It was so difficult for me last year looking just at the current allocation level and trying to understand how to extrapolate that out and what our trade-offs really were.
And seen that high end, that high mark, which I actually would say is not the high mark because there are other things people want to do in the city that that doesn't account for.
But to see what our choices are with respect to what we are doing today is really helpful for me.
Thank you for this shift in how we are doing budgeting.
I think there will be growing pains, especially as we move through this period of people having seen a $60-something million gap and now seeing an almost $170 million gap.
But it will allow us, I think, as we get used to this new way of doing things, to do much better budgeting and to have a much better understanding of what that gap is every year so that we can start extrapolating out better.
So thank you for that change.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor and colleagues, remember, we still have more presentation to get through.
But I do have a couple more councilors in queue.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
So just so that I'm clear, you put this $912 million number out here.
If we don't bring in $912 million, we can't—.
Ruth Levine
That means we have to cut or find other revenues.
Loretta Smith
But where are we going to find other revenues?
We don't bring no more revenues in.
Raymond C. Lee
I would chime in on this.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Loretta Smith
Okay, exactly.
So what I am saying— thank you, Councilor Green, um, that is your perception, but my perception is different.
Um, we are not given the restricted funds.
We have general fund money in the restricted funds, and you all won't tell us what that is.
And I could tell you, well, maybe we'll take $100 million from the restricted funds that has general funds that we set aside for a future match on a federal project or a state project.
We got those dollars in those 90 funds that you sent us.
So we need to look through those to see if those, those projects that were previously put forward, if they're still going on.
And so if they're not, then that's where we can get the money from.
But other than that, we have to cut, Councilor Green.
And it's just simple as that.
Jamie Dunphy
Again, we are, we are on slide 9 of 17.
We've got, we've got a lot more information in here to, to share.
So go ahead, team.
Angelita Morillo
Great.
Ruth Levine
Um, so, uh, I just wanted to break out some of the additional detail on this, um, and we can dive into some of the specifics here if you'd like.
Um, so that, that forecast the forecast revenue gap from the previous slide is that $54.4 million.
We talked about the $13.6 million.
The expenses above standard inflation, so the amount that, like, the true— what's truly ongoing, but it just— Cal didn't quite match what we think it's actually going to cost.
That gap is $11.5 million.
And again, a lot of that is due to the inflation factors for internal materials and services not reflecting how much they're actually growing by.
And then the rest of it, $105 million basically, is because things are being paid for with one-time funding.
And so that's where we've pulled out that sheltering number for $53.6 million.
I want to be fully transparent right now.
I don't know if there's a right way to treat that amount.
I think it's a good amount.
I just— we just picked it and we said, okay, we're gonna put it here.
We're trying to be fully transparent about this.
It was— it's different from the other things, and that's why I've pulled it into its own line on this slide, because it was paid for by other non-general fund revenues in the current fiscal year.
And so it's not implying anything about what is going to happen with that.
Whether it continues or doesn't continue and how it's paid for if it does continue.
It's just saying, hey, this is a thing we paid for with one-time funding.
I'm trying to treat it the same way we've treated everything else, but it is a little unique.
The rest of Portland Solutions is less unique because it does have one-time general funds.
So that's the PMO, IRP, SSCC, the outreach, and, and the like.
That has more similarity to the rest of the budget, and so that is Public safety has almost $30 million of one-time funding.
That includes all— that includes community safety.
So fire, police, PSR, CHAT, OVP, everything public safety is in there.
There's the risk fund reimbursement.
And then there's a bunch of smaller things that add up to $4.5 million.
So that gives you a little bit more of a sense of what's going on.
Councilor Herbold.
Picture of what is going on in that very large number.
Some of it is what we, what we knew about back in December, and then the rest of it is, by and large, it is stuff we funded this year with one-time funding.
This just breaks that out by service area, and it also adds in the non-general fund piece.
So I have been talking thus far just about general fund, and that is where the largest gap is.
But that yellow bar on the right in public works is mostly transportation, and that is really tied to the gas tax referral and the sort of uncertainty around that revenue.
The community economic development one, that yellow piece is basically permitting, is the continued gap around permitting revenues not keeping up with expenses there.
And so essentially everything else is what I just talked about on the previous slide.
Okay, how does this all stack up to the sort of gap-closing scenarios.
I want to be a little careful here.
We call them reduction scenarios, and there are three and ten percent reduction scenarios on the table.
The goal behind this slide again: we're not getting into like what do these options mean, but I'm just trying to give you a sense of how the magnitudes compare because back in November when that guidance came out, you know it was a bit of a we didn't have all of the information.
Raymond C. Lee
Yes.
Ruth Levine
At that point, and that's always true when the mayor's guidance comes out, by the way.
We don't know what the actual gap is going to be.
And so we said, all right, well, 3 and 10 in the general fund, that gives us a pretty wide range.
And that was part of the justification between putting out those 2 different data points.
So essentially you can think of it as like if you had that $912.5 million $1.6 million.
How much would it take to get down from that to what Cal was, and then from that down to 90% of Cal?
And when you add up that whole— all of those, like, gap-closing options, this is what you get.
This is just general funds, so I didn't put transportation and permitting on here.
So what this tells you is we're basically at that upper limit of— and this is excluding the $53 million for shelter.
So I took that out because there's other scenarios for that, but it just is a little bit unique because it doesn't have general fund discretionary in it.
Loretta Smith
But it—.
Ruth Levine
I think that's a good point.
Shows what are the scenario— what would the magnitude be for making reductions or closing the gap in each of these service areas, and how much does that add up to total.
So these are what you see on here is like all of the scenarios for closing the gap put together.
You add them all up in the general fund, but you set aside shelter.
Okay, stop there and answer questions.
Questions, if there are any.
Loretta Smith
Point of information, you're using a 3% and a 10% scenario, but didn't the mayor ask for a 20% scenario too?
Raymond C. Lee
No, you're going towards the realignment work.
Loretta Smith
So how am I supposed to understand what you all are doing in realignment and see, to see how this is gonna, how this is gonna math out with what you're doing under the CSL or CAL.
Ruth Levine
No, that's a great question.
The realignment, the 20% from realignment is actually not listed on here because we're still working on that and it's still in the works.
So that would be sort of an additional amount that would get put forward on top of all of thank you.
Candace Avalos
Yeah, good question.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
As a follow-up to that, and I apologize if this is already in the slides further ahead, but when is council going to be able to review the bureau scenario packages for CSL realignment and the reductions?
Ruth Levine
Yeah, so we're going to be— bureaus will be presenting on those in the upcoming work session.
Starting on Monday on the 3rd and then on the 11th, and the realignment will be part of the 11th conversation.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, thank you.
Ruth Levine
Yeah.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Jamie Dunphy
Oh, Councilor Green.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Mitch Green
I just wanna make sure I understand clearly.
What do you mean when you say except for shelters?
Can you explain that a little bit?
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Ruth Levine
So again, sorry, there was really no good way to deal with this.
So basically the 3% and the 10%, the way the 3% and the 10% were structured, at least like technically how we translated the guidance into what we put in the budget system, is it was from Cal.
So we said, here's Cal, give us 97% and 90% of Cal as your scenarios, but shelter doesn't the sheltering programs currently don't receive general fund, and so they're just this like large—it's a large bucket of money that sort of isn't wasn't covered by that in the way we implemented it.
Now, I could have manually added it into here, and oh, we did.
Sorry, we did manually add it into here.
We just put it on the the line below.
So those, rather than being reduction scenarios.
It's, it's— they just didn't show up as 3% and 10% scenarios because they don't fit into that mold of like, here's your general fund, now show us what it looks like if you reduce that.
Mitch Green
That's helpful because I see it in there and that's why I was confused.
And then also what you're describing is a very technical— we're doing this in the system to get reports.
Ruth Levine
Yeah.
Mitch Green
You're not saying we're, we're keeping the shelter system as precious from this large body of consideration?
Ruth Levine
No.
And we— sorry.
And so we did— it is all on here.
It's just It's broken out from the first line because it's a little bit just a different flavor than the rest of them.
Yeah, thanks.
Jonas Biery
Councilor Morillo, are you still in the queue?
Jamie Dunphy
Okay.
Yeah, okay.
Ruth Levine
All right, we're going to change gears a little bit, but we have hopefully time at the end if there are additional questions around CSL.
So we have this— next few slides are on process, and then we're gonna turn back to that calendar that Council President's office put forward.
But wanted to give you a quick update on where we are with communications and engagement around the budget.
So what we have already done is on this slide, we had a budget learning session a couple of weeks ago, and the slide is linked and it has all of the information that's on our website if you want to see it.
But we have some good videos that our comm staff put together that are really basic explainers of the budget, the city's budget, how it works.
And there are a series of videos that are about 2 minutes each for a total of 8 minutes.
And then we also— Councilor Herbold.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Ruth Levine
A person on my team put together a budget balancing tool similar to balancing act software that other governments have.
We built it ourselves because we don't have any money.
And I think it's cool.
You can go on there and play with it.
It just gives you a general sense of what it's like to balance the budget.
It's not— it doesn't have all— doesn't have trade-off information in there.
It doesn't It's not intended to be precisely to the dollar.
It's just to give folks a feel of kind of the magnitudes of the budget.
So we introduced all of that information to the public, and that was a virtual meeting.
And then there was an employee town hall that City Administrator Lee had yesterday.
And then looking forward on communications, any engagement.
We're taking the materials that we sort of piloted, I guess, a couple of weeks ago to community partners to do sort of meeting-in-a-box pilot sessions.
So kind of, you know, trying to help meet folks where they are with community partners and figure out how, how we can make these resources helpful to them.
And so we're meeting with them in the middle of March.
And then in process, our engagement officer is working with, I think, you all and the mayor on developing district-based listening sessions.
And sort of details are in the works.
And then there are ongoing opportunities.
We have budget priorities form that's kind of paired with that balancing tool that folks can enter information into.
And then on our website, on these links that are sort of highlighted here, you can see what people have submitted.
So I think we've gotten a couple already, um, and we will keep the, the sort of join webpage open, so there's always that ongoing opportunity in addition into regular council meetings and the like.
So I'm going to keep going if there are no questions.
The other kind of process update we wanted to give you is around the general fund forecast.
So in the past, we— Peter's released the general fund forecast the last week of April.
The main driver around this, of course, is tax day being April 15th.
The city gets in most of its revenue in the last 2 weeks of April.
And so there's always this like awkward timing between what's the latest possible date that you can issue the, the April forecast and when does the proposed come out.
And, um, we're proposing to shift this slightly so that there is an update, an initial update in March before we get that tax day data in, and then the final update is in early May.
And so that would be right as you all are really digging in on amendments and the like.
So I will pause there if there's any questions on that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Jamie Dunphy
Not seeing any.
Ruth Levine
All right.
And so this— I put up the sort of known milestones, but we can also turn to this calendar.
And I don't I don't know if you want to take it over or— come on up.
Evan Jundev-Hofer
All right, um, so, uh, you all have a draft calendar of what the whole process beyond these 4—.
Jamie Dunphy
Evan, can you introduce yourself for the record?
Evan Jundev-Hofer
Yes, thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Evan Jundev-Hofer
Evan Jundev-Hofer, Policy Advisor for Council President, he/him.
So you all have printouts on your desk ahead of you, and we're sharing a draft calendar of what the process moving forward in chambers might look like.
Really, it gets interesting.
So the rest of March, we'll be doing this series of 4 meetings, and then it gets interesting in April.
On the 20th, the mayor's proposed budget will be released.
And then on the 21st, we'll have hearings on that proposed budget and on the Prosper proposed budget in chambers.
We have space held for one possible work session ahead of that here on April 15th.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Evan Jundev-Hofer
Moving after that date, and well, and for the sake of it, leading up to the mayor's proposed budget being released, we understand that the mayor is planning on having community listening sessions out in the field to understand what people are talking about.
And after the mayor's proposed budget comes out, us councilors, you councilors will be planning on doing listening sessions on that proposed budget in district as well.
When we move from April into May, we are holding a significant amount of time for potential work sessions outside of regular council.
There will be a joint county work session on the 28th, and we're holding time later that week for further work.
Then when we get into the 2 weeks leading up to the major hearings, You'll notice here on May 14th is the drop-dead due date for amendments to get to CBO.
So our anticipation is ending both of those weeks with a budget work session to work through amendments so that they can be surfaced, deconflicted between multiple offices that may be working on similar items, and to try to limit the overall scope.
We hope by having a chance to discuss them in advance.
We will have an early revenue forecast update here on Monday the 4th and the final revenue forecast on Wednesday the 6th, after which point the numbers we have there will be what will be considered in the budget moving forward by CBO.
Then, of course, on the 20th and 21st, we arrive in the morning and leave as bats at night.
That's right.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Evan Jundev-Hofer
And after that point, things are relatively more boilerplate.
There's things we must do.
It'll go to TSSC and then onwards.
So we can just take a look at that.
Your TSSC hearing is here on June 9th.
We have our first reading the following day on the 10th and second reading on the 17th, at which point the budget is adopted.
As Council President said, the goal of this approach is to ensure a maximum amount of time for items to be surfaced, for conflicts, for duplication to be reduced prior to the moment when we're all in the room and have a deadline of midnight before we again turn back into mice.
And of course, this is a proposal for the Council to respond to.
Is that enough?
Jamie Dunphy
I think so.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Evan.
So colleagues, uh, we have a lot of work ahead of us in the next few months here, and hopefully enough time to do that work and also not drive ourselves crazy, um, or to also be able to be as transparent and clear with the public and to build in time to, uh, To address meaningful amendments where we need them.
My hope is that a significant amount of the work is done before amendments and that we can all work towards a budget that we're just tightening at the seams.
But this is a time now for us to discuss both substance and style, timing and the schedule.
So if anyone has any thoughts, comments, concerns, or—.
Loretta Smith
I have a question.
Jamie Dunphy
Feel free to jump in the queue.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor President.
Thank you, Eben.
Thanks, uh, for the presentation as well to our staff.
I'll start with just the calendar.
In, uh, the budget calendar we approved, um, earlier, it talked about doing May 18th through 20th for the action to approve the city and Prosper Portland budgets, and I'm seeing here that we're on the 20th and 21st.
It sounds like approved budget submitted to TSC I was curious why it's only 2 days and not spread out over 3 as we had approved in the ordinance previously, or resolution previously.
I think it's a resolution.
Jamie Dunphy
Item.
Yeah, the item.
Yeah, currently we built this around the existing scheduled council infrastructure, you know, the dates that we are currently having.
But you're right, we did include that in there.
That is something we can absolutely include in the future.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, my interest, just to be transparent here, is I think we talked last year about trying to do more of the amendments before TSCC if possible in the approved phase before we get to the adopted phase.
And also maybe we could get out at 11 instead of midnight.
So that's just a goal.
But I think that was the first question that came to mind.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Jamie Dunphy
We will revise.
Yeah.
Jonas Biery
Council President, if I can add just a comment on the amendments, and I think it's relevant, Councilor Kanal, to your sentiment.
You know, I don't want to lose sight of, you know, there is a much different opportunity this cycle to talk about amendments.
I know it was really difficult last year because collectively, we didn't have a lot of the information and we had a very compressed timeline.
We have an opportunity, I mean, I think I said this as far back as December, to talk about those priorities and potential amendments right now.
Now I know we can't, we don't see that, right?
We don't see that need until the mayor's proposed is published on April 21st.
But we have an opportunity to have dialogue about the priorities that individual council members or groups of council members have.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Jonas Biery
Right now, and we don't mean this afternoon, but, and whether that's through one-on-ones that I've been promoting that the mayor scheduled with you, and hopefully between city administrator, myself, and Ruth, we can also be available to support those conversations through conversations directly with me to help see what I can do to facilitate those in, and obviously through CBO.
So I just don't want to miss that we have an opportunity over the next 2 months to have that dialogue.
In multiple different forums and meet, address the needs that councilors may feel are very important in the budget without having to wait and feel compressed.
We will still have things, I'm quite certain, in that window.
But I just want to call out that that is an opportunity we have right now that we just didn't have last year.
And so I would vociferously support taking advantage of that opportunity.
Sameer Kanal
Just to follow up on that, Yeah.
I imagine that at least some of the amendments, given how many likely cuts will be proposed in the mayor's proposed budget, just because they have to be, will be reversing cuts to something that a councilor or more than one councilor feels shouldn't be cut in that way.
And it's kind of impossible to react to that until we know what those are.
I imagine if there's something that would be new or changed or something like that, that makes sense.
Is that in line with how you're—.
Jonas Biery
No, Councilor, you're absolutely right.
I guess my experience, I'll say at least from my personal experience last year, that there was a lot of things that I think probably could have been resolved and reflected in the mayor's proposed.
We just didn't have space for that dialogue.
We collectively didn't have enough conversation, enough comfort and knowledge about what was in there, and really enough space to make those So it will be both, right?
I mean, it will certainly be— there will be things that need to be amended per this council's will, no doubt.
My hope is that many of those things that we experienced last year can be pulled forward and actually dialogued in advance and just reflected in the mayor's proposed—.
Raymond C. Lee
That'd be great.
Jonas Biery
When it comes out.
So it's— I'm accused often of having impossible dreams.
Maybe this is another one.
But we do certainly have the opportunity to make a lot of progress.
To do that if we choose to utilize it.
Sameer Kanal
It is rare to find someone who's in a CFO type of role who's a dreamer as well.
Jonas Biery
So don't get used to it, Councilor.
Sameer Kanal
But I would love to also know in terms of Cal and CSL, the likelihood— I mean, we're basing the reduction scenarios that were asked in the mayor's budget guidance off of Cal, right?
So I guess it's been implicit, but I would love to get To be a little more explicit, the idea is not to replace CAL with CSL, right?
These are just 2 parallel concepts that help us understand better.
Is that correct?
Ruth Levine
Yeah, I mean, I can pull back up that slide that I had at the beginning maybe and just kind of give you a sense.
I think there are, pieces of it that—.
Slowly—.
That we will probably want to replace.
So I think aligning the internal materials and services rates to what we think the rates actually ought to be, and how does that compare to— you know, it's not to say throw everything in there, but like, what, what is a reasonable set of inflation factors?
And then how do these actual rates compare to those reasonable set of inflation factors?
But if we can just do that earlier, then we don't have this, like, this change, right?
Um, and then on the one-time versus ongoing, that's obviously the kind of big nut in the dollar term for this year.
You know, my hope is there are a couple of different ways that we can start to be more transparent about things that have— that are ongoing in nature but that are funded with one-time dollars.
You know, one idea I put on here is to kind of estimate the out-year cost at adoption.
I don't think we're going to be able to do that this year, but, you know, something we could look at for future years.
So I think there are So I think there are kind of— there's value in both sets of information, I think.
And I think there are things we could do to just improve the way we currently do the expenditure forecast.
Sameer Kanal
That makes sense.
And I know there's been several requests to improve CAL over the years and how it's calculated.
It makes sense.
I guess what I'm trying to avoid is a situation where we are using CSL as the baseline for guidance.
And I have a lot of questions about how the budget guidance process works anyway.
But yeah, because I'm concerned that what we were asking, if we were to hypothetically ask for that based on CSL, we'd be asking the bureaus that got money in the ongoing budget to take hits to maintain things that were by design one-time.
Because there are many things which are correctly ongoing and correctly one-time.
Candace Avalos
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
Even though I agree with your assessment right.
About much of it being one time that's— or funded one time but actually ongoing.
And the other, the last thing, I just, I don't know if this is a question or just a thing to look back into, but I don't like the phrase multi-year on this slide.
I don't think we can wait to rein in IMS costs for multiple years.
I think it's got to be months.
I think a council president before he was president noted moving desks across about as far as we are from each other right now being quoted $25,000.
That's not— I don't know how— I would like to maybe take big swings now and then fill in the gaps later, but that's just not rational.
And so I want to make sure that we're not waiting until the end of a process to get any savings because it's out of control.
And I know that's not on you.
So, and I appreciate, you know, nobody up here is responsible for any of that for the rest thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Thank you for the, uh, calendar, Council President.
So I was— as I was looking at the, um, calendar, a couple things that I talked to you all about last year about this previous budget cycle was the fact that there were a lot of budget amendments that did not get entered into the official document or even be heard, um, because we introduced them in work sessions.
That is not legal.
I think that we need to change some of these, uh, budget work sessions to official budget council meetings so that we can effectively drop our budgets in an official meeting.
Because when you drop it in an official meeting, that means you have to deal with it.
You have to get to it on the agenda.
Raymond C. Lee
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
And the other thing is, if we change some of those work sessions to official meetings, could we have service area days?
Like, for example, DCA Donnie Oliveira, he can have his service day.
So any budget items under his service area would be submitted on that day.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
Loretta Smith
And then if we go to the public works, any public works issues, or if you're trying to take your money, um, last year we had a lot of people dropping budget items.
They didn't have no idea where to get the money from or how to get the money.
But you have to know when you drop a budget item, where are you planning to get the money from?
So if that particular budget area is in transportation or public works or in parks, Yes.
You drop it during that day.
It will make things a whole lot simpler, and it will give us an opportunity to at least have our budget items heard.
Because that— what happened last year was craziness.
Um, no, some of those budget items didn't get heard at all.
But if we know a specific day in that particular budget work— not a work session, a council meeting— then we know that that's when those— it's not saying that you can't do it at others, But that is the most ideal time to drop your budget amendments, and that, that will give people an understanding of how to do these in a way that's, that's meaningful and not just dropping them in work sessions and just assuming that they're going to be heard.
Because when we were up against the timeline, um, Council President had no choice but to say, I can't hear anymore.
But in this, in this, what I'm trying to suggest to you, you can't do that.
You have to hear them.
Just your thoughts about that.
Jonas Biery
Councilor, if you're asking me my thoughts, I think that's a fine idea.
I think having it as— I defer to this body as to if you'd prefer to have it as a service area alignment.
I think they're designed now with open flexibility.
I think I would support forums to have amendments daylighted as early as possible.
I think what I may be a little less I'm less passionate about whether it's a work session or a formal meeting, so defer to this body on that.
Loretta Smith
Great.
Jonas Biery
The one thing I would note is that, and I think you acknowledged this, Councilor, in your comments, that it probably can't be exclusive to those moments because there will be, I expect, amendments that impact multiple service areas.
Angelita Morillo
Right.
Jonas Biery
And so that's just a reality that, but I think that's a fine suggestion if this council chose to take that approach.
Wouldn't have any issues.
Loretta Smith
That's kind of how we did it a bit at Multnomah County, because then you would know what's going on.
And we had several times we had empty chairs up there, and there should be not an empty chair, because when that DCA from that area, they have to defend the mayor's budget items, so they should be sitting up there and why this is important.
Um, and so I don't I don't want to go through another budget cycle talking to empty chairs.
Jonas Biery
One other suggestion that just dawns on me is because we are having the next 2 work sessions are at least packages of service areas, where it's not one per service area, that may be also an opportunity to get a little more intel and sort of thought about where are the service areas where there's most interest.
So I'm just thinking out loud here with you that I think that getting through those next couple work sessions may be a helpful guidepost in identifying where that heavier priority might lie.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, I think that would be great too.
But what I'm suggesting is that all the budget items be introduced at a council meeting, not a work session.
We can talk about those things, but not drop them.
They have to be dropped at a council meeting.
Evan Jundev-Hofer
I would— I'll also—.
Loretta Smith
And they have to be heard at a council meeting.
Evan Jundev-Hofer
I'll speak to the first part, which is one thing we did consider as putting together this draft proposed schedule, draft, draft, draft.
Looking at the first 2 weeks of May, on May 5th and 12th, we questioned whether to include ongoing policy committees or not during that period of time.
With the smaller number of policy committees that are broadly centered on service areas.
That seemed like perhaps a value of a place where some of those service area-specific questions could be hashed out and then brought to the council meetings later, the work sessions later that week.
So that is ideally a feature.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, we tried that last year and it didn't work.
And what I'm suggesting to you again is I'm not trying to go to another side meeting.
I need these amendments to be heard in absolutely, Councilor.
Evan Jundev-Hofer
Understood.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Uh, thank you.
So looking at the calendar here and look at the information that we have in front of us, I mean, we're going to have to start— unless we just want to wait for what the mayor is going to give us and say, I guess this is what we get.
We're going to have to start offering our own concepts early.
I hear everything you're saying, Councilor Smith, about the legality.
I think one of the points— there are 2 styles of opposition I got to my amendments last time.
One was on the substance of what it did, and that's fine.
But there was another one which was like, this is a policy change and you have not had an opportunity to engage your colleagues on it, which I think is actually that's pretty fair.
And so what I think we're going to need to do, or what I'm intending to do, is take what I have now and through the month of March work on some items that are not— it's not an ordinance, it's not an amendment of any kind, but it is a sort of, hey, Owen, help me calculate the impact of a change relative to what we see in the CSLs.
This is what those impacts would be.
What do we think about this?
Does anyone want to work with me on that?
Because if we can have those conversations up front, we can maybe address some of the policy nits and gnats of it.
So that way, when we, we get the precious few weeks we're going to have to respond to the mayor's proposal and say, you know what, it looks like he did not incorporate the things that I've been talking about, then I'm dropping it.
And then we will be able to, you know, voterama.
I think that's a great idea.
Basically.
And so we don't stay up until 11 PM.
Jonas Biery
2 AM.
Mitch Green
Well, we can go 24/7 if we need to.
But, um, but anyway, that's, that's, that's— again, I've said that a few times, but I think it's gonna be absolutely necessary.
I want to uplift, uh, what Councilor Avalos has been doing is she's been circulating a survey to her own constituents, and I've been pretty inspired by that.
So I'm going to see if I can put that into play just because because it helps to see what your constituents want to see happen here.
So like, we can ground ourselves then a lot in that as well.
Finally, you know, the data is really sobering.
It's going to be really unfortunate no matter what your policy area of choice is.
I mean, there's only a couple areas.
I mean, I look at the total stack of net resources required, net of the scenarios, that's $150 million.
Yeah.
$157 million that needs to be identified in cuts, essentially.
And $134 million of it is the shelter system and also public safety.
And if we hold those out of play and out of consideration, we have to distribute $157 million of cuts to city operations, elected offices, public works, And then there's still not enough because there's— you can't cut anymore.
So we're gonna have to pull money from reserves.
We're gonna have to figure out how to, you know, God forbid you try to raise golf fees again.
I mean, but, but that's where we're gonna go if we don't touch some of these categories that are, that are precious.
And we need to start priming that conversation now because if I come in after April 20th and say, you know what, I think we have to cut some part of Portland Solutions, I'm going to get beat over the head with a big email list because I'm like, you know, trying to defund the sweeps or whatever.
But at the end of the day, if we talk about that stuff now, then we have an opportunity to have honest conversations with clear eyes and say, okay, we recognize we're going to have to have some cuts in play here.
What's an appropriate level?
And are we hearing from our constituents?
So that's— I don't see any way around some of those tougher conversations that we have to have to have before April 20th.
And, um, you know, uh, Jonas, I have Steve Novick tonight here to do this, so I have to do it.
You said you may be a dreamer, but I just say you're not the only one.
Jonas Biery
Hey, well done.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Steve's here.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Um, I, I don't disagree, uh, at all in terms of, um, whether or not it should be work sessions or or full budget meetings.
I think I'll defer to those who are more interested or lawyers on it as well.
But my— I did want to say that I'm okay if the conversation is limited to the people that are elected, that we should have the fact-finding portion of our work be comprehensive and then the decision, because the decision be us.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
Because what we saw last year in some of the conversations was that we spent more time in the engagement across this space when it was decision-making time than, uh, when— than we, we should have.
I, I would love to have an opportunity to ask questions of everybody necessary, and then when it's actually time to debate, um, that we, we are comfortable with the, the chairs on that side being empty at that time.
Um, it took far, far too long to get through some of these because we had colleagues who would effectively vicariously filibuster through, uh, bringing up people to answer questions that were really just, I oppose this amendment.
And so in that event, I, I think that's fine.
We should do the fact-finding, and if you oppose an amendment, people can oppose an amendment.
But I, I definitely want to make sure that we are, uh, having council exercise its budget authority, authority as council.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks.
I want to clarify something I heard.
Did I hear that you are now proposing that some budget presentations will happen at committees?
Jamie Dunphy
We were saying, suggesting, and leaving it at the— on the draft position that at— in that, uh, 2-week period where there are committees scheduled, that that would be an appropriate place for councilors to have some discussions about okay, very different question though.
Eric Zimmerman
I'm asking, are you directing—.
Candace Avalos
No.
Eric Zimmerman
Like we did last year, which I think we've collectively said is a bad idea, Bureau A, B, or C, you shall give your budget presentation to this committee?
Candace Avalos
No.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, good.
That would be a disaster again.
Raymond C. Lee
Agreed.
Candace Avalos
Okay.
Eric Zimmerman
You know, in terms of, in terms of the, you know, work session council, I guess I'm trying to understand if, if as people are talking about these topics, you know, I, I just keep on going back.
I am a fan of the Multnomah County system where throughout the budget work sessions, which means when we're all in together as a whole and convened, whether it's a budget work session or a budget hearing, that any time during those that councilors are able to propose an amendment, but at that moment it is not debated and it is not voted on.
It's just proverbially put on the whiteboard for discussion at a later date.
But what it actually does, it allows councilors to have conversations with their peers of like, do I have support for it?
Do I sense that it's even got legs on it?
But it's up there, it's clear, everybody knows, like, Like Kanal 1, and that means this.
But I, I hope we're still leaning in that versus a debate every time somebody puts up an amendment, because I could see that being quite interrupting, or like to the flow of trying to get through a system.
That wouldn't make sense to me.
And I also think it's— I welcome the put up an idea on the board, and then as that goes through the next week or so, it, it evolves, or it, it— or we know it has legs or it doesn't have legs, and then eventually we get to the point where we, to we vote on it.
Um, but I, again, I'll say it's, it, whenever we're in a hole is when those can be proposed.
Um, you know, I think, uh, I agree with Councilor Green, right, right now is the time to be telling the mayor what you really hope to see in your budget.
I'm working with the budget staff already on some things that I'm sure I'm sure won't be, but I'm going to still hope he puts them in there.
And I'm working with the budget staff so I have good numbers and good facts that if I decide to drop those in as an amendment, that they are rooted in, in substance and correct substance, hopefully this year.
Um, I think that's the right, the right method, and, and starting to socialize those with our, with our colleagues is important.
Um, I also, you know, I appreciate that Councilor Avalos is doing the survey.
She brought that up during the finance meeting when we kind of Councilor Smith.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Eric Zimmerman
I think it's important that we reflected on last year's process, and all of us having different ways in which we engage with our public is important, right?
I enjoyed going just not only to my own district but to all 4 districts' budget listening sessions, and I know those didn't meet everybody's needs, but I liked seeing the different topics that came up from the public.
I wish that more members of the public had been able to access that.
I think there's been some discussion about, for those who are inside of our workforce, how do we have that session?
And I don't know if we've landed on it, but it was unfortunate that that took up so much space of what I think was designed to be people who do not have one of these, right, a pass to get in and talk to us.
Not, not less important, but access is an important part of community meetings.
And I hope that we can find an offshoot for that so we can still hear from the employee base.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
Who's gonna have concerns without sacrificing the public base.
Because I actually think hearing the same thing from the same speakers, not because the topic resonated across 4 districts, but when the same speaker signs up at all 4 to make their point over and over, that tells me they understand the system of signing up better than others, or they monitor the list better than others.
Passionate, yeah, but maybe wasn't the point.
So I, I— those are the areas where I felt like I had some good feedback loops from the public last year, and we can do better.
And I, I sense that some members are trying their individual methods for that.
And I, and I do like that we won't be taking budget meetings in committee.
I think that would put us off to the right— uh, wrong start.
So I have appreciated working with your team, uh, Mr. Beery, Ms. Levine.
I think It's just been, been helpful to kind of reflect on last year.
It was a very honest conversation over this last year, frankly, in finance with y'all and with your staff.
So, uh, I would love to say I'm looking forward to it.
I'm not.
I mean, I love a budget season, but y'all are difficult.
I'm difficult.
This was a challenge last year.
I love a budget season, and I'll drink one down with you at the end of June, but until then, we're in battle mode.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
No, not let's go.
Um, can I— I'm going to ask you, the city administrator is not here, but I have been looking at his, um, March report and he has $566.9 million in grant funding under his purview.
309 Of active federal grants and $222.9 million in non-active federal grants.
And then they have a footnote that says the city currently has been awarded $76.3 million in grant funds that have not yet been formalized through agreements.
So that's almost $650 million that the city administrator has yes.
Access to.
And I think— and we talked about this too, CFO Berry— if we have a better understanding of what those actual dollars can be used for, we can plug and play.
If we're talking about bringing in new revenue to meet that $169 million gap, I bet you some of those dollars can help meet that gap.
But I don't know, and I don't know if my Resolution or ordinance is still in play, the 9/12 I did last year that said when new money comes in, you have to bring it to council.
And I haven't seen $76.3 million brought to us yet.
So that's concerning that that has not been brought to council to actually amend, or they're going to put it in the towel in the spring.
I don't know.
But there's a lot of money that the city administrator has access to and that he only knows about.
We need to know about that money.
And the question that I'm asking you, that $600-some-odd million, is that in your, your budget?
Because some of these are restricted funds, some of them are not.
So how can we really have a true accounting of what we need if we don't know those dollars in the city administrator's report are not a part of our, you know, larger equation of how we're figuring out where the gap is?
Because I bet we could fill some gaps with some of that money.
Jonas Biery
So thank you, Councilor, for highlighting that.
I think, I mean, the question is, is that $600 million reflected in the budget?
And my answer is yes, it either is or will be.
Those dollars have to be appropriated in the budget to be spent.
And I'd say is or will be because, and I only say that 'cause I'm not tracking, I'm trying to find the numbers here, so I don't want to be, I'm not tracking exactly.
City Administrator's report.
But we have to have those numbers appropriated in order to spend them.
And we have an obligation to inform council, no doubt.
Often those grants, typically I should say, do come with specific boundaries around how they're used.
We receive them because they're for So I wanna acknowledge that.
Often they're over, they may be over multiple years so that there will be fund balances because they may be grants that are received and have multiple-year expenditures, which means it doesn't go all out the door, but it is in fact committed to the thing that the grant was awarded for.
And then the third piece is, as I mentioned earlier, we just had a conversation, Ruth and I, and I think it was just Ruth and I.
No, sorry, Tracy, City Administrator of Portland Bureau of Transportation.
Yes.
City Operations with the grants manager so that we can also assemble that information in the context of the broader fund reporting that you've requested and we've talked about previously at this meeting.
So we are working on that.
As I've said before, there is no intent by myself or this administration to have hidden dollars.
Our objective, as I started with the very first comment I made, was to be transparent.
And so we are working actively to be that.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, and I appreciate your plans, but that often does not necessarily have to mean that that's the folks who are above you who are directing how these numbers are being counted.
I just want to make sure, I want to put on the record, this $600 and some odd million, I don't know what is the problem.
People don't have a habit of going, bringing it back and say, let's do a budget modification.
I think that's a good point.
Every time you bring money in, we have to do the budget modification.
And the reason why we don't know about it is because it hadn't been authorized.
And so people are spending money, putting out RFPs for money that we didn't even know we had.
So how can we know if— how do we find it if you never authorize it?
I mean, I don't know if this is a— Council President, I don't know if this is a thing where we just say, look, all new monies yes.
Whether it's private, federal, local, when you get it in after the budget, get a budget mod.
I, I mean, I, I, I don't know.
So this money has been sitting here for a long time.
It was, it was sitting, uh, a good— at least half of it was sitting here when, when Michael Jordan was here, and none of this money got— none of it got identified in our, um, in our budget.
So I have no idea the uses of it.
Or, or how we do it.
But we need to— now that you all know that I know that we need to make sure that when you calculate stuff, that it includes this money and that it is included in the TOW, in the spring TOW, that we have it.
Because we've— we're having a bad habit of just doing general fund money.
Some of these restricted funds you have to do too, um, Ruth.
Jamie Dunphy
Yes.
Loretta Smith
So that we know what's going on.
And then you won't have these problems like the $62 million of restricted money that was in the Housing Bureau that we found, and then the other $41 million that was in the rental assistance category in the tenant services.
I'm just saying there's some real simple accounting things, and just because we've been used to the city administrator controlling all of this, And not telling it to council because they either did or did not want to know about it.
But now that we're looking at a 30,000-foot level with all the dollars and we're not siloed in, um, in different, you know, commissioners in charge or any of those things.
And so next year, I'm really not going to be, um, too happy about hearing the excuse this was a relic from the past.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Because if we don't get those restricted dollars and identify those, those general funds and the restricted dollars and identify this money that's under the city administrator's purview into our budget and understanding what it is and how you can use it, there's no more excuses as far as I'm concerned about that.
So we need to handle this and handle it this year.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Colleagues, I put myself in the queue.
I'd like to talk about 2 things.
2 broad subjects, specifically amendments and the general process for outreach.
First, philosophically, daylight is the best disinfectant.
The sooner we can get our priorities out there, the sooner we can introduce what we are hoping to see reflected in the mayor's budget and what we are going— what hills we are going to die on, the better for the public, the better for this body.
I really believe in the principle of no vote.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
I am trying to be as transparent in my attempts to approach this process, and I hope that my colleagues will similarly identify your processes, your priorities early and often and loudly.
With regard to amendments broadly, I— Councilor Zimmerman, I really appreciated everything you were saying about let's float it out there where we can and work with each other behind the scenes and in the community and in the public.
I think that's a great idea.
To right-size these things to make sure that this budget reflects our priorities.
I will be prioritizing— there will be a priority setting exercise ultimately for amendments.
I don't know that we will be able to hear every single amendment, especially if all of us introduce 100 amendments, which I of course intend to do.
I will be prioritizing though amendments that have co-sponsors and have been thank you.
I will be prioritizing the oldest amendments that have been identified.
I am hoping that colleagues will get these— this information out as early as possible, even if it is iterative, even if it is early.
And further, in terms of process, when we do get to amendments, I will be limiting the amount of time that individuals can debate on individual amendments.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
To one time, because we have a lot of the notes to get to.
With regard to budget outreach, we need to be reaching out to our communities early and often because this is going to be a cut budget no matter what we do, and we are choosing to— we have to reflect from the community what we are sacrificing.
I agree that I was personally frustrated by the amount of public employees coming to advocate to ultimately their bosses to save their jobs.
Um, in my, uh, District 1 budget listening session, um, we had one of the smallest turnouts.
We had so few people show up that we ended early, and still a significant amount of them were people who did not live in District 1 and were city employees advocating for their jobs.
I fully understand that.
I love Golden Ball.
I love the pools.
I love thank you.
I think that's the beauty of almost every service that we offer as a community, because that's why it's there.
That is not the venue for you to defend your job.
We must create a space for that venue to exist, but that is not it.
That is a unique opportunity, especially— I mean, and I can only speak for my own district, but District 1, we only had— we had less than 100 people show up at this.
I know that if 100 people showed up at a District 4 town hall, something would have been dramatically wrong in the advertising.
100 was pretty good for us.
So I'm really interested in making sure that each of those folks get a chance to be heard.
And again, while we will work with the mayor's— the mayor's office is working to have early outreach and community listening sessions ahead of his proposed, and we will work to ensure that there are district councilor-based or councilor-focused listening sessions as well.
I really encourage each councilor to try and do something on their own as well, the way that Councilor Avalos has begun and I will, again, my commitment is to each of you to be as transparent in this process, to be as accountable in this process, and to get each of you as much information as soon as we can so that we can, as Councilor Zimmerman said, all go get a drink as soon as we're done with this.
But until then, yeah, it is going to be a brawl.
So, Councilor Zimmerman.
Thank you, Mayor.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks.
You know, your points are well taken, Council President.
I, I want to offer up, you know, um, I hope you'll reflect on those kind of those, as you said, how you'll prioritize things.
And I just give this example, um, it is likely that the first amendment in the queue will have to do with whomever got scheduled first.
I'm not sure that that's a reasonable reason for it to then be the one that you prioritize for later debate.
I think it is.
So I could articulate that on a variety of the things you mentioned in terms of more sponsors, less sponsors.
I hope you'll reflect on that because while the thoughtfulness is welcome, you are certainly setting up some policies and some levers.
And this is, you know, certainly the first government that I've worked in where all amendments that had been proposed didn't didn't get a chance to even be, uh, moved.
And that was a really unfortunate thing last year.
So, um, and I actually think that maybe the thing that put the budget process— it went from important to, uh, extremely adversarial— was when people who thought they were going to get a chance to read didn't get to.
So I would just caution caution on that and think about it, because I don't know who you'll schedule first, but if you schedule the area last that I think has the most important need for an amendment, I don't know that that makes it a less worthy amendment because it was scheduled last.
So just, I hope you'll think about it, because I do think you're being incredibly thoughtful on this.
Um, you're in a new chair now, and, uh, Thank you.
I hope that the weight of that and the power of that is taken seriously.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Council President.
Really appreciate this presentation today and us kind of hashing out the details of our expectations and needs moving forward.
I think it'll really help us in the months ahead.
I want to talk a little bit about both employee and public engagement because thank you, Mr.
Loretta Smith
Mayor.
Councilmember Smith.
Ruth Levine
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Angelita Morillo
My question is, it seems like the way that we're framing this is, yes, of course, there are certain people in the community who know more about how to access public meetings, but it also seems like the way that we're talking about it is that we are going to punish people for being well organized.
And I think that is very silly when some community members are very well organized.
They do know how to knock on their neighbors' doors.
They do know how to get people to show up for a thing that they care about.
And those people aren't always lobbyists.
Like, sometimes they are just regular people who did a tenant union, for example, right?
They're representing themselves, they're doing something, they're showing up, they're telling us what they need.
And I think that shows a commitment to the thing that they care about to show up as well, right?
It's a show of effort.
I think it is important to maybe do a sort of separate hearing for city employees to tell us their concerns.
I think that makes perfect sense.
But I also want to point out that our city employees, many of them, apart from certain bureaus where the majority of them don't live in the city of Portland, Most of our bureaus have people that live within our city, and they also probably elected us or didn't elect us.
And so we also need to hear from them.
And just because they work at the city doesn't mean that their input about what the city needs is any less than.
And it was also incredibly helpful, I think, last budget cycle for me as a councilor to hear from, for example, certain parks employees.
They talked to me about programs that, as a person who's childless, I never would have known about some of these programs.
I never had a reason to interact with them, but they were able to inform me about why they were important to the community and sort of give me some of that background.
So that was invaluable in my decision-making as far as thinking about what the priorities are for the community and what the services are that we're going to keep and cut.
And I just want to ground us in that.
And part of the reason that all the unions in the city exist Councilor Smith.
I think that the highest risk for our city employees is for them to advocate for their workers.
So I think we should expect that they're going to do that.
You're not going to modify human behavior and human need.
You have to create a place to hold all of that human behavior and need.
And I think that certain unions and certain employees are treated differently when they advocate for their bureau than others.
I think the police bureau, for example, essentially gets to run media campaigns the entire year about how they need funding and no one questions that.
But if the parks employees say that they need something, then that's something to be questioned or to sideline.
So I just hope that we're like taking all of that into consideration, that there's sort of an equal process for everybody regardless of what employee or bureau they're a part of, and that we keep in mind that when people are well organized in their neighborhoods, that's not something to look down on, that's something to uplift.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Good points, Councilor Murillo.
Thank you.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
I think I've said some of the similar things to both what Councilor Zimmerman and Councilor Murillo said, and I think there's a lot of structural work to do that we're in the process— I hope everyone is in the process of doing by district with their Office of Community Engagement.
I wanted to ask about budget notes, and one of the things that we talked about was trying to bucket them in some way.
This is several months ago.
In terms of having them go through committee, maybe a consent agenda type of formulation, budget notes were not— were mostly not that controversial.
I think some, there were questions and explanations that needed to happen.
Some were a little controversial, but certainly less so than if they had dollars attached to them.
So I think there's a question around those notes, which are— I think the question is, Inexorably tied to an amendment, but for those that are completely separate, was there a thought process that's already happened, or is this conversation ongoing around your intent for how to handle those?
Jamie Dunphy
I have not given much specific thought to that at this point.
I am very open to process.
I'm very open to suggestions.
And yeah, absolutely.
I'm not sure.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, well, I think Councilor Smith.
We sort of had a, I would say, informal understanding that I— maybe I'm just reading into this in terms of what I saw on the dais, that unless there was a problem with something, because it wasn't cutting money from anywhere to fund something else, that there was somewhat of a deference.
And then if I needed to know more, we'd ask.
But it didn't feel as controversial on the whole.
So I think it's okay.
But from a time savings perspective, It might be helpful to have a separate area of time for that.
And I also believe that they generally don't have to be scored the same way as— and I would love a clarification on that.
When we did notes, most of them did not need to be scored, right?
Ruth Levine
That's correct.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, so then we might actually be able to do that even the week of the 11th through 15th or something to start getting— clearing some of those.
Although, of course, some of them are going to be dependent on the amendments.
So I'm not saying it'll be 100%.
The rest, I think I would love to talk about what is the ideal way in which we talk about our priorities, because it's easy to say no cuts to X, no cuts to Y, or something like that.
Ruth Levine
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
But if we're talking about very specific things, it's not as though we have a whiteboard yet.
I mean, we could get a literal one in here or something, but I'm curious what the— how that can be done without saying everybody use your own personal social media or whatever.
Jamie Dunphy
My intention is to build as much time into these work sessions for specific targeted conversation about that, to give councilors the ability to raise specifically, these are my priorities, and talk about them.
So that staff can hear that ahead of time.
Again, very open to suggestions on how to do that or what the process might look like, whether that is through an actual council meeting, whether that is a work session or committee of the whole or whatever it might be.
I have not settled on a process for that.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, and then the last thing, I just wanted to second one part of Councilor Smith's comments.
It would be great if alongside all of this there was just a single table with all of the things that we're talking about in terms of funds.
I think that the expectation that those are just available is going to vary, right?
Some funds, it's the RSO situation.
Most, it's waiting for a very specific, very restricted purpose or whatever the grant was authorized for.
But I think it's helpful.
And I also think it'll start to help educate the public and the media because, for example, last year this came up, the same thing happened.
The CSL thing is not the reason why we're seeing the media report on $169 million or whatever.
We had the exact same thing happen last year with the budget where it was originally $20-something million and all of a sudden we're hearing in the news it's $100 million.
And it was for the exact same reason, effectively, slightly different actually, but about there were one-time dollars expiring and then all of a sudden we're now being told that that's a deficit we have to make up.
That was a narrative.
Angelita Morillo
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
It was shifting our assumptions from we're going to maintain what was funded to we're going to maintain what we do.
And the one-time piece of that, and some of that is very justifiable.
I'm a big believer, as is my District 2 colleague, in funding the Office of Violence Prevention.
Those are funded through one-time dollars right now.
CHAT, funded through one-time dollars right now.
We need to fix that.
But in the meantime, there's going to be these differences, and I think helping educate with more information is going to be really important.
Jonas Biery
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Is, is always better.
So I'd love to see a table of the sorts of things that, um, were brought up earlier.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Connell.
Councilor Avalos.
Candace Avalos
All right, well, I'm just absorbing all the things.
I'm really grateful for this conversation.
I just wanted to add my voice to the discussion to, you know, second some things that I've heard and offer some ideas.
Um, first, I think that definitely the idea— I think Councilor Zimmerman's brought it up a couple times around like the whiteboard ideas.
We talk about it, like whatever that looks like, however we operationalize that, I think is great.
And seeing the calendar and the amount of time that we've dedicated to just being with each other to talk through that, I think is also good.
I don't know if it's come up yet, it just occurred to me.
I don't know what role in this calendar we see Committee of the Whole having.
Obviously that's where we're planning to have a lot of those discussions, but As I say that out loud, like, is it— are we expecting that all of the committees of the whole during this period are going to be about budget?
Or I guess talk to me about what you think that role that's going to play.
Jamie Dunphy
I've at this point left it relatively vague and sort of tried to pencil this in to base it off of both the interest, the conversation of where our work sessions go, the volume of things, and the formality that we need To, to address this.
Whether an informal or formal conversation is the right venue for XYZ discussion, I'm not clear at this point.
And I'll just, again, I'll extend this to all my colleagues.
I have never run a budget process before.
So if anyone has specific ideas or processes, and again, also to the administration, you know, to— very open to how to do these things and would love to either discuss it more in this through this venue or directly?
As I really don't have strong opinions added right now.
Candace Avalos
Well, you're looking at the former student government advisor running the $13 million student fee committee process every year.
So trust, I have lots of ideas.
And we really worked through that over the years.
I mean, it was very fascinating to learn about budget politics in that time.
I know it's student government, it's a small pot of money, it's the same dynamics.
It's all human stuff.
And I feel like we really over the years built in calendar, structured feedback space, structured conversations, having these— a big area that I'm hearing in how these folks at the table are describing what they're going to be asking of the bureaus, right?
Because we would be like, you need to show us these different scenarios and you need to explain why.
And that's something I've been telling Jonas a lot of like, I just want to be able to feel informed on your vision as a bureau director for what you want to do with your budget, right?
It's one thing to look at the numbers and to say, oh, we're—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah.
Candace Avalos
This is the program and this is how much it costs and all that.
But I want to hear from the bureau directors, like, what's the goal of your bureau?
How are you accomplishing that overall goal?
And then we talk about the programs and the money.
So that's one thing I want to just elevate as a priority for me in this process.
It sounds like maybe when we have some of those work sessions with the different service areas or whatever, that we could get to that.
But just flagging, like, so that the bureau heads know that that's what I'll be asking questions about.
Because I really want to enter this budget discussion of like, what are we trying to accomplish for Portlanders instead of getting, you know, bogged down and like, we're in debt and we have no money and we have to make cuts.
Like, obviously that's— we, we know that we're going to have to do that, but I'm hoping we can bring the discussion a little bit higher level and then we have more of a values discussion, um, that will at least inform how I make decisions.
Um, uh, as has been said, I'm doing a budget survey.
We've got already almost 200 responses, which is crazy, uh, because this it's just for East Portland, so it's great to see East Portlanders showing up.
And I just— a little tidbit, my staff printed off some of the responses to the answer of like, what do you like about your neighborhood or about East Portland?
And overwhelmingly they say that they like their neighbors, they like trees, and they like parks.
And I think that's very cute and wholesome.
But I think it's really just what I'm hoping I can learn from this process and that I can bring back to the group.
Because I know we did like a budget survey last year, and I maybe I missed that.
Are we doing another— are you guys doing another budget survey or insights survey?
Ruth Levine
So, um, yeah, the insights survey runs every other year, so we're running it shortly in the next couple of months, but the data won't be back until to inform the, um, '27-'28 budget process.
So we won't have that information for this budget cycle.
Candace Avalos
But I thought there was a separate budget there was the Insight thing, which is like part of the— right, didn't we do another survey?
Ruth Levine
There was the survey that was sort of part of those district listening sessions.
Is that what you're referring to?
I think so, yeah.
Yeah, and I think— I don't think Amanda's here, but I don't know where they are in terms of planning what those future events will look like.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Hi, Amanda Garcia-Snell, the Chief Engagement Officer, for the record.
Um, so the survey, I, I think if you're referring to the tool, the exercise that we used last year, we're not repeating that this year.
We are looking at a couple of different things.
One is the budget balancing tool that the budget office has created that Ruth mentioned earlier includes a link to the ongoing community input form that is always on the budget office's webpage.
So we're pulling the information from that.
We're also promoting that more in other spaces as part of the Budget 101 effort.
So this community partner piece that we're about to launch with kind of a train-the-trainer meeting in the box will have that input form as part of it.
In terms of just a broad survey, I think we've— I don't think that's part of the plan, and we're still in those planning processes for what might be ongoing.
There is some consideration of something like a virtual open house, which would also serve to collect information from people in that digital space.
Candace Avalos
Great.
Yeah, and, you know, the way that I've approached this survey, it's a pilot.
You know, I don't know that it will have the outcomes I'm looking for.
I'm just kind of testing it out.
And I talked with, you know, budget folks.
I talked with a bunch of different experts to help me craft the questions to try to get to the outcomes I was seeking.
But I don't know.
I don't know if it will work.
So that's what I hope to bring back to the group and just kind of share what I learned.
And maybe that's something we could take up in the future if that felt, uh, helpful.
Um, uh, so thank you.
And then I— while you're up here, um, I'll just say as it relates to the district listening sessions, I agree that it was— I also went to all 4 of them and it was really interesting to see how each district talked about their needs.
It definitely, you know, was was very centered on like the Golden Ball thing, the whatever, which I think is great.
And I agree that people organizing, yeah, you should organize.
Like, that makes sense.
But it definitely, at least for District 1, felt like we couldn't really hear what was happening for our district because we only had one community center.
So it's like, you know, it's kind of hard for us to hear people talk about losing things when we don't have many of those things.
So I think that was a little bit difficult for us to try to glean from our constituents in our budget session.
Councilor Smith, than what District 1 needed.
So just flagging that as we are structuring a similar thing, that I think it would be good to— and maybe the councilors can think about like what are some specific areas of questions that we can ask for our district, right?
Because I think again for District 1, like parks is a big thing that they want to talk about and they want to talk about community space.
And so maybe we could shape them a little bit per district.
I don't know, just throwing the idea out there.
We can keep talking about that.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
But I do, I definitely want to be a part of, um, designing that, so we can talk more.
Thank you, Amanda.
Um, a couple of other thoughts as it relates to employee engagement.
You know, I, yeah, I totally agree with Councilor Morillo's point of like, let's not forget that many of our employees are our constituents, right?
They are, they also live in the city.
Um, and, uh, I know it's complicated, right?
Because I think it creates this dynamic of like, oh well, who gets right.
Is it just the managers?
Is it just the DCAs?
Or is it the frontline people that are doing the work?
Can they offer perspective?
So just want to lift up what others have said, that I definitely would like to see some intentional employee engagement.
I see that as a city administrator role to, you know, and I missed his town hall yesterday, but I think if he can create more spaces like that for employees to just talk through, you know, what they're experiencing, what they're seeing in the budget, I would really value learning from our employees, their perspectives.
2 more thoughts.
What's funny with all the drama that happened with the slow the inflow, let me just note that the original intent of slow the inflow was actually not about those housing dollars.
It just happened to turn into that.
My original intent there was actually to create a process by which we as councilors could put some stakes in the ground of what we thought was a priority that we could then pass and then say to the mayor, this is what we want to see in the budget.
We want to see more dollars for renter stabilization and eviction prevention.
Again, it was like that was what it was going to be, and then the money came out, and then we changed the purpose.
That's why it was a resolution, because we just kind of adopted the thing, um, we absorbed it.
But I just want to flag that for folks because I still think there's some room here for us to create some more intentional process, especially as the council that but ultimately we get to decide.
Yes, the mayor gets to write the first version of the budget, but we are the ultimate deciders.
And I would like to have more structure than just, we're just all going to talk to the mayor.
I know for me personally last year that was not very fruitful.
In fact, I was told, oh, you're too late.
Or, you know, it was like, well, what is the process?
And then when I finally put my stuff together, it was like, it's too late.
So I was like, that just didn't feel like it was equitably applied that everybody could have a real say in their priorities in the mayor's budget.
So I, you know, when I was putting together that resolution, the goal was like, what does it look like for us to say, like, how do we communicate to the mayor as a group, right?
Like, this is what we want to see.
And then if you don't put it in there, then you'll see that at least 7 of us voted for this resolution and want this intention.
And if you don't put it in your budget, then that's a signal to the mayor that we're not going to support things that don't show that or don't reflect it in the budget.
So just letting you know, like, that was my intent.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
It got a little bit derailed, but I do want us to think through that in the coming months.
It doesn't necessarily have to happen this year, but I would love for us as a council to feel empowered and to be able to, with not necessarily one exact voice, but with a somewhat unified voice, share early what those priorities are with the mayor in a way that's public, in a way that's informed by community, informed by our priorities, and again, can put clear stakes in the ground.
Ruth Levine
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Lastly, you know, I think Councilor Morillo was bringing this up.
I'm curious, and now that you're back, City Administrator, I'm curious what it looks like for what the direction the bureaus receive for how they can speak to the media about the budget.
Because I think that there were some bureau leaders who were on the news every 5 seconds talking about their budget needs.
There were others who were in budgets and then it seemed like they got punished for that.
It's very complicated.
I know it's touchy, but I have to raise it because I want to make sure that there's some protocol coming from you of like, if you're a bureau director and you're talking to the media every 5 seconds about what you need in your budget, that obviously skews perception, that skews everything.
And I would hope that there's some kind of baseline.
So that there's not, you know, bureaus that have advantages of the public narrative because they've been given free rein to talk to the media about their needs, whereas others get punished for it.
So do you have any comments about what that could look like to create some standardization?
Raymond C. Lee
Yes.
Majority throughout my career, as we go through budgeting process, we always had a criteria for any executive and kind of what that conversation is with the media as it relates to their budget.
We don't want It to be a public outcry from a director to the media to try to get the community support on their side as it relates to any future or proposed budget cuts that may impact their operation.
So that is something that we'll roll out.
That's something we also want to make sure that we're keeping communication at a higher level within our organization.
A lot of times I would like that information to come either from me or the mayor.
Yeah.
If we're going to do any kind of media outlet as it relates to what the mayor's proposed budget is and what we foresee as the impacts to that proposed budget, that council will be taken under consideration and deliberation before it's adopted.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Great to hear.
And then I think you were coming in as I was saying the point, so I'll just say again, I would love for you to create some intentional space for employees to share their thoughts about budget so that you know, it doesn't have to spill into all these other spaces.
I miss your town hall, but I think that could be a good space for that.
Raymond C. Lee
Yes, and we'll continue to do the town halls.
One thing that I committed myself to the employee workforce is to be transparent with them, and some of that is actually sharing some information before it actually comes here.
So they're not hearing it either through council or through the media of anything that is being recommended in the mayor's proposed budget.
And this is conversations that will continue through this budget process.
It may take on different themes as we continue to have the conversation as it relates to the budget.
But I just wanna make sure that the workforce is well aware and they're not just having to tune into these meetings or come to these meetings to actually know what's happening with the city and the direction that we're heading.
Candace Avalos
Great.
Love to hear that.
And that's all my comments.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Ruth and Jonas.
This is really helpful.
And thank you just for all of the ways you've supported over the last year.
I can see as we go through each process that things are getting clearer and we're getting more of a heads up and we're kind of finding more of a groove.
I know I've been invited to have various conversations with both of you and give feedback.
And I also see that feedback being taken and see you all running with things that council is asking you to do.
So I want to name that.
You know, for example, like this budget tool was something that I was really talking a lot about and a couple other councilors last time, and now we actually have it.
Conversations around like, what happens if we— can we have like a 5-year budget planning kind of conversation?
And I know that those types of conversations are starting to happen.
So thank you for leading that.
Raymond C. Lee
Thank you.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And for being responsive.
I appreciate Council President Dunphy.
I don't even— I'm sure I don't even know how much work your team is putting in, Evan and others on Team Dunphy.
But even just looking at that calendar, I can tell it's a lot.
As you were talking about Council President being open to suggestions, one thing I'm wondering, thinking about our Governance Committee, we've been able to lean on yes.
GTAC, the Government Transition Advisory Committee.
And I think it could be interesting to look into a little bit more if we haven't, what are some of the other practices from other cities to get suggestions, ideas.
And we have a whole crew that will also go do some research if we want them to from GTAC.
In terms of, yeah, so if you want me to help with any of that, happy to.
So Terry Harris, if you're listening, we maybe will have you bring the crew together.
In terms of constituent engagement, I'm looking forward to these next engagement meetings.
Thank you to Amanda Garcia-Snell and your team.
I appreciated that District 3 councilors got a chance to come together and reflect on the last meetings, those engagement processes, and think about how we might want them a little bit more tailored and a little different.
And I know that you've been doing those with every district.
So thank you for letting them be a little bit more district-specific too.
I like the idea of employees being able to come and have a district-specific conversation.
And I also hear what some of my colleagues are saying too, which is just that a lot of us wear different hats.
And I think it could be helpful to clarify or ask people to clarify which hat they're wearing.
So if they're at an employee one, that's definitely a place where they can focus on that.
But, you know, as was said, a lot of— someone might be a City of Portland employee and a union member and a parent and a volunteer.
And so there are lots of different ways then, lots of different hats.
Let's see.
And I do— I would love, if possible, and I got to say this in my District 3 briefing with the other councilors and their team, If folks are open to sharing, this is the part of the district I'm in, when they come to our District 3 conversation, that's great.
I was just looking at your survey, Councilor Avalos, and you have that in there too.
People can put their neighborhood, but that is helpful for me to just kind of map and also think like, okay, which neighborhoods am I not hearing from and which ones do I need to go reach out to to make sure that I'm hearing things?
Thanks.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness, Council President, in just thinking about amendments.
I think that, you know, last year we were just doing our first budget and trying our best, and so it makes sense that we'll, you know, try to improve it.
I appreciate there being thoughtfulness in which amendments are prioritized.
I believe it was Council Vice President Clark, who had said something about like how it could be interesting or could be nice last year if everyone got to— there's 12 of us, there's a lot of us— got a chance to bring one amendment to start with.
Like, what is one that you really want to bring forth?
So I do support these different things that you're saying, you know, having other councilors co-sponsor, that's a priority.
You know, did you do your prep work?
Did you get it in early?
That being a priority, but also— I think it's important to So maybe even giving a chance for every councilor to have a chance, just something to think about.
I know there's a lot to balance and trust that you will figure that out.
And then one other thing, I think this might be more for the mayor or city administrator.
I don't know what the right way is, what exercises are best to have bureaus go through, but I can share that some feedback that I'm— that I've been hearing, and specifically from in the Fire Bureau is, you know, that it can make sense to have— I understand having every bureau go through certain, you know, here's the percentage, the 3%, 10%.
But for some bureaus where, like, they're already running bare bones, like, sometimes those exercises can feel really harmful or not great.
And what would it look like if there was even a chance to do, like, a A plus 3% option.
And so I did promise that I would say that, that I think even if there's an intent to be fair and have everyone do something, that sometimes it can be really bad for the morale too.
And there can be some unintended consequences of having folks go through those different exercises.
So that's just something that I promised that I would say.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Ditto, ditto, ditto, Councilor Koyama Lane.
And even understanding we have to keep, um, the executive and the legislative offices— they're, they're separate.
They don't— the mayor gets the first shot at it, and how he comes at it is— that's his thing.
But I have a question for you, um, Deputy City Administrator Donnie Um, uh, Ruth, in that budget that you gave us that was in the presentation, does that include, um, the emergency money that, that council gets every year?
Ruth Levine
Sorry, I'm not tracking.
What emergency money?
Loretta Smith
So, so there's an emergency fund in the charter that council has, an emergency fund of $5,000.
So let me look.
Ruth Levine
Sorry.
Loretta Smith
In the— that's okay.
In the City of Portland Charter, it authorizes $5,000 in the emergency fund for council intended for public welfare.
I know you know about it.
You were the chair of the, of the charter.
Jamie Dunphy
Oh, sorry.
Loretta Smith
So I just want to make sure that we didn't spend that $5,000 last year and that when we— when you line item it this year, that it has $10,000 in it?
Owen, sorry, do you know what I'm talking about?
Jonas Biery
Yeah, I'm Owen Saitz, budget and policy analyst with CBO.
Yes, that's in the charter.
Ruth Levine
We include it in every year's budget.
Loretta Smith
So it is in those— it is in that number that they gave us today?
And so when you make sure, can you line item it out so that the mayor yes.
So that the mayor line puts that out, that— and I don't know where it's going to sit.
I don't know if it's going to sit in the budget office, but just make sure that there is a specific line item for the emergency fund so that we know.
No, it's, it's only $5,000 per council.
And it's like, let's, for example, let's say someone from the community, um, they need a funeral or something, and we say okay.
We have to do actual ordinance to approve it.
We all have to approve it.
Something like that.
Something that's for the community welfare.
If there's something that happens that's an emergency, say we have some kids who go to another country and they get stranded and they need plane tickets to come back home.
You see what I'm saying?
Something that is of the public welfare.
Uh, that's the way it's cited in the, in the charter.
Uh, it has to be of public welfare, and we have to put an ordinance forward to be able to spend it.
But I just want to make sure that, that, that, that does not go away, that it just builds up.
So we should have $10,000 in that emergency fund when it's budgeted.
Jonas Biery
Um, yeah, I'll have to check on that.
I'm not sure.
Loretta Smith
It may be budgeted as $5,000 okay, so since we didn't spend it, we didn't spend it this year, so what happens to it if we don't spend it?
Raymond C. Lee
Typically, it would probably just go back into the general fund if it wasn't expensed.
Loretta Smith
Um, I don't know if people knew about it.
Um, I knew about it, but I just didn't have a use for it.
But I'm just saying, we should either do it— it builds up, it should build up if we didn't spend it.
Thank you, Owen.
I'm so glad you knew about it.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Uh, thank you, Council President.
I got in the stack a long time ago because we were talking about budget notes, and now it's time for me to speak.
And that's just one of the features of this form of, of, um, stack.
And, um, so I hope we can remember that conversation.
I think Councilor Kanal was raising up I think some pretty, pretty good things for us to think about.
I've thought about the budget notes we did last year a lot, and I guess what I would offer and urge my colleagues to do is to say, if you're going to do a budget note as if it's a resolution, just do a resolution.
Just write a resolution and refer to the, the right policy committee so we can talk about it at any, at any time that we meet as policy committee.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Mitch Green
I think the appropriate use of a budget note is to provide guidance for the budget amendment that you've championed.
Like, I think that's what it's really for.
Obviously, we can do budget notes and they carry the same force as a resolution, so we can all make our own decisions on how to do that in the context of what we think is most appropriate.
But I just— it's sort of an appeal because there's 12 of us.
I think that's what I'm saying.
And if we all do multiple budget notes, then we've expanded the number of guidance posts for the city administrator and the deputies to then say, okay, how do we execute to this new guidance in this same budget while we're also telling them to do other things at the same time?
And so I, I guess it's like, it's just me asking nicely now, let's try not to do a lot of those unless it's really just sort of to provide clear legislative intent to the way that we're appropriating funds in the next budget.
And I'll leave it at that.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you so much, Council President.
First off, thank you to our budget team and to your office for all of the information today.
I think this is an important level setting as we enter budget cycle.
I'd like to note just a couple of things since since you asked and our budget team also talked about what the process might look like and some priorities.
The first is I want to second what, or maybe third, but I think a few of our colleagues already talked about having time for questions and learning and having time for a debate on priorities.
I do think it's always important to have our service area experts here even during that debate on priorities because questions do come up.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
But we didn't get to debate last time.
We were frankly learning the budget up until the bitter end.
We need that space to do both this year.
And as you build the agendas for the holds that we have on the calendar, I hope you'll think about that.
The second thing I want to note is that last year we were not able to get to the point of We're stuck because we need more money for X and we're not sure how to do that and if we should prioritize that or not, versus the mayor thinks this is a priority but council disagrees, versus council is actually split on something and needs to figure out where the majority is.
And as you, Council President, are prioritizing amendments to debate, I think it's important to note that.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I think that there is a value in taking up like amendments together, or competing amendments perhaps I should say, together, and things that are standalone in that category of, eek, we want more money but we don't know how to do it, on their own.
Otherwise, we see the first amendment on a topic gaining the most weight instead of having the the space to have the conversation about trade-offs.
And the more we can be having those conversations about trade-offs, I think the better.
Um, the fourth thing that I want to note, Mr. City Administrator, is that you guide the administration that has a careful balance in the budget process.
Because once that mayor's budget comes out, you will get a lot of questions about the budget.
Yes.
Raymond C. Lee
Councilor Smith.
Candace Avalos
Councilor Smith, you have the floor.
Councilor Smith, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mayor.
So, you know, I appreciate the fact that you have a very clear line between council and the mayor's budget.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And you will want the bureaus and the service areas to fall in line behind the mayor's budget and not speak against it.
But if they are advocating for the mayor's budget before council has had an opportunity to weigh in, they are potentially advocating against us.
We are not a form of government where the administration reports solely to the executive.
That is a form of government, but it is not our form of government.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And so I would ask you to make sure that as you give direction to the bureaus and the service areas in that in-between period, that that direction allow us the space to debate the merits of the proposed budget as opposed to fight against the administration if we need to make changes to the proposed budget.
I think that's important in this form of government.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
2 final things.
The first is we've had a lot of debate about our own employees, and while I agree that we need space for Portlanders who don't have other ins to the system, and we also need our employees to be able to advocate for what they see separately from management, it's hard to find that balance.
So I just want to offer an invitation to our labor partners that I am open to any conversations formally or casually that they need to have in order for us to be able to hear from our employees.
I think that's an important role that our labor unions can help to play.
And I'd like to just, Council President, mention one thing on budget notes.
I hear a lot of our colleagues are not interested in creating space for budget notes during this process.
I think that budget notes can be really important and not just budget notes attached to amendments.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Thank you.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Many of our budget notes last round were not unique to the budget.
They were things that folks wanted to see from the administration that were not budget related.
And I agree, those can be resolutions.
We do not need to take up space in the budget process.
But there were also budget notes we never got to that did things like said, don't spend this part of the budget until this thing happens.
That is not a resolution.
That is a true budget note that is not related to an amendment, but is providing guidance to the administration on priorities that we have that must be part of the budget conversation.
So I would disagree with our colleagues and ask you, Council President, to make space for budget notes that are truly about the budget, even if they are not about budget amendments, so that we can provide direction for how we would like the budget to be spent to the administration.
Thank you, Council President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
Uh, first, I forgot to mention this earlier, but I, I do think for the Office of Community Engagement that building the long-term, uh, plan in such a way that, that D1 is expected to have as many people is a long-term goal, I think, of, of all 12 of us.
Um, I, I want to just get into this conversation because I've been one of the people suggesting, uh, that it is a challenge to have, uh, city employees beg for their jobs at thank you.
I want to say that's not for us, although it is— that's a secondary reason.
The primary reason is I don't think that's fair to employees.
I think it's the fact that we have not created a space for city employees to be able to advocate.
We have not created a space for city employees to be able to speak anonymously to us, which is a long-term goal I would like to have figured out, to have a pathway for that information.
I also completely agree with Councilor Murillo's point that many of our employees do live in the city.
I talk to folks in District 2 who are city employees all the time, and I also think that there are advocacy roles outside of the context of people's jobs because they're also people who live in our community.
And I think there's a distinction there that we can— I want employees to be able to speak as employees in one space, but they're also residents of a district, speak in another space.
And I think as opposed to talking about how do we exclude people, it's who do we prioritize?
Because the other 3 districts did run out of time.
And so I want to make sure that if you live in District 2, that you get to go before someone who doesn't at the District 2 listening session.
And I think that's the tension.
I've already mentioned this to our chief engagement officer, but I wanted to sort of daylight the nuance here.
I agree with everything Councilor Avalos said about I think it's important that if the bureau director believes that the goal of the bureau is to do A, B, and C, and we think it's only A and B, or vice versa, that we're able to talk about that because it will affect every other budget decision on the granular level.
And this came up quite a bit, but we didn't have space to talk about it last year.
I also wanted to second the conversation that Councilor Avalos started about bureau directors and the media and just ditto everything Councilor Pirtle-Guiney said about that.
It's really important.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
And it was intentional to build it that way.
And it's been challenging.
I would also say that it's not just bureau directors.
It's also, I think, where we figure out who's speaking for the administration is key.
And being a subject matter expert is important.
Obviously, there's going to be some biases towards one's own bureau always.
But I think where— I would love to have clarity, not necessarily the same apply, but clarity on what applies to DCAs as well, just so we know what to expect there.
There was a conversation around guidance and what we've asked our bureaus to do, and this is for next year, I think, and I want to talk about this in the Committee of the Whole.
But guidance should also be shaped by council because the detail that happens in those scenarios is really valuable for us.
And I think we should always include an add scenario, as Councilor Koyama Lane said, always include a cut scenario.
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
Always include a hold scenario.
Maybe in up years you get 2 adds at various levels, and in down years you get 2 cut scenarios to put forward.
But both for the perspective of morale and from the perspective of even in a down year, there may be something you want to add to 1 or 2 bureaus.
Even in an up year, there may be a cut you want to make to a bureau.
And we don't get that level of detail with when we get these guidance, uh, which is shaped without our input.
Furthermore, there's the mayor doesn't yet know our priorities for the year when he's asking for— when he's putting out the guidance in the late portion of the preceding calendar year.
And finally, as it relates to notes, I want to allow the paired notes and budget amendments to be proposed together.
They can be divided, but that was something that we were trying to figure out last year.
I think that would really help.
Secondly, I think there are things that are budget-related but not amendment related, as Councilor Pirtle-Guiney put it, some of the things we were talking about where, especially when the amendment failed and it was kind of originally planned to be paired, it ended up being something that was a request for a study or request for a report back to us or something like that in the context of a future budget decision.
And I think that it was in some ways cleaner to do it that way than do what Councilor Avalos was talking about with the original version of the slow.
The inflow, just in terms of how long it takes to get something done in our filing system and going through eCouncil and all of that.
So I think there's a tension there because it's also, I think, more comprehensive the way that that was originally written to talk that through.
And maybe that's the difference between something that is really a bigger picture value statement as to how we want to approach dealing with homelessness versus something that is really about how many deputy directors do we have.
Ruth Levine
Councilor Smith.
Sameer Kanal
And so, or which, how big does a bureau have to be to have a deputy director?
So I think maybe there's some space for nuance and maybe some things that could fit into either.
But I just, I definitely want, I think it'll cut down on the time if we allow paired notes and budget amendments to stay together unless someone wants to divide them.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Excellent.
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Colleagues, fantastic first conversation about this and some ground setting.
I hear loud and clear from everybody that the more we can do ahead of time, the less we do from the dais the day of, the better for the good of the city.
To that end, I have been— I hope I've been very clear on this, but I am not wedded to any specific process, and I am eager to hear from each of you over the coming weeks and months how to do this better.
I actually, if you'll note your email, I sent We sent a copy, a digital copy of the calendar.
If you have proposals of ways to change that, I would be very open to you presenting that to me at a one-on-one or a future conversation.
If you have ideas, if you have if you want to write a memo on how we deal with budget notes, I am very open to that, and I will be as collaborative in this process as I can because again, everybody has some really good ideas on how to do this, and we can collectively.
Work together to make a deeply unpleasant process slightly less unpleasant.
I will ask, and this is perhaps foolish, but I will ask also to colleagues, let's try and approach this process in good faith.
There are legitimate debates to be had in this building.
There are legitimate trade-offs that will have to be made, and there are good policies to debate.
In an ideal situation, we're not cutting anything, and we're not in an ideal situation.
How do we collectively move this city forward, recognizing the hand that we have been dealt?
There are good reasons to have passionate arguments about that.
Let us do our best to approach those arguments in as good of faith and with as much transparency and collegiality as we can.
And I appreciate each of you.
Thank you for walking us through this.
Ruth, Councilor Herbold, Ruth, Jonas, Eben, City Administrator, everybody, thank you all for the beginning of this process.
And with that, we are adjourned.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.