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.
Millicent Williams
Good morning.
Loretta Smith
I'm calling to order this.
Jamie Dunphy
Work session on the morning of April— Thursday, April 30th.
Loretta Smith
We are adjourned.
Jamie Dunphy
We are meeting— adjourned, that's not the right word.
We are convened is the word.
Thank you.
It's going to be a long day.
Um, yes.
Colleagues, we are here this morning to have a work session on the Public Works Service Area, specifically Parks and PBOT.
Um, And with us, actually, I'm not sure who's presenting this morning.
DCA Priya Dhanapal.
Also want to welcome all of our, uh, littles who are visiting today for Take Your Kiddos to Work Day.
Hi guys, glad to have you in City Hall.
Priya Dhanapal
All right, our team is trying to share slides at the moment, Councilor.
Jamie Dunphy
No problem.
Dan Ryan
That's really cool.
Priya Dhanapal
Good morning, Councilors.
Uh, for the record, my name is Priya Dhanapal, Deputy City Administrator for Public Works.
I'm joined by, uh, Sonia Schmansky, Interim Director of Portland Parks and Recreation, And Millicent Williams, Director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
Each director will walk through the proposed budget and highlight the key proposals for the respective bureaus.
Our finance leads are also in the audience and are available to answer questions as needed.
We will move through the presentation quickly today to allow ample time for your questions.
Next slide, please.
The Public Works Service Area will present across 2 work sessions.
Today's presentation focuses on PBOT and parks, and we will return on May 14th to discuss the proposed budget for the utility bureaus, water, and BES, as well as for the budget for the Office of the DCA.
Next slide, please.
The proposed budget for the Public Works Service Area includes approximately 3,000 staff and $4.8 billion in total budget.
Public Works manages essential infrastructure systems that support drinking water, stormwater, wastewater services, transportation, as well as parks and recreation.
These systems protect public health, support the city's daily life, as well as its economic vitality.
Next slide.
Public Works primarily includes 4 bureaus: Parks, Transportation, Water, and Bureau of Environmental Services.
We also have the Enterprises Services Group that supports the service area by providing shared, shared functions across the 4 bureaus.
It also oversees the service area and citywide programs including the Unified CIP and Vision Zero.
Next slide, please.
The Public Works service area is facing rising costs that are outpacing available revenues.
The cost of operating and maintaining these large aging and aging systems is growing faster than the revenues that support them, creating a structural gap between expected service levels and available resources.
So when developing the budget, we prioritize maintaining essential infrastructure and meeting regulatory requirements while aligning service levels with available resources.
Where feasible, the budget pursues new revenue while maintaining affordability.
It also minimizes reductions that would create near-term service disruptions and increase long-term system risk.
And these trade-offs are reflected in the proposals presented today.
Next slide, please.
The charts here show the total expenses by bureau and the funds across Public Works.
A few key points here.
First, the expenses largely reflect the cost of operating and maintaining the core infrastructure systems.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Priya Dhanapal
Second, the increase that you see in the last couple of years is primarily in the Water Bureau, driven by the Bull Run Filtration Project.
That capital investment temporarily increases the expenses, but the costs will stabilize once the project is complete.
Third, outside of that major capital investment, the inflation in labor, materials, and other costs is affecting all public works bureaus, with operating costs rising faster than our revenue sources.
And finally, most of our funds are restricted to specific infrastructure purposes, meaning they cannot be easily redirected to other— to close other budget gaps.
Next slide, please.
This slide summarizes position changes within Public Works as a part of the core services realignment effort.
Overall, Public Works decreases staffing decreases from 231 FTEs to 159 FTEs, driven by 62 reductions and some limited additions and realignments.
The rightmost column, which is the realignments, you would see some negative numbers there.
The negative realignments reflect the positions shifting out of Public Works to centralize citywide functions rather than being eliminated.
We are not going to further details on the slides today as this information will be covered during the service— core services realignment work session.
With that, I will turn it over to Director Szymanski to discuss Portland Parks and Recreation proposed budget.
Sonia Szymanski
Okay, good morning.
I'm Sonia Szymanski.
I'm your interim director for Portland Parks and Recreation and very happy to be here with you today.
We have about 15 minutes of presentation, about that many slides, and then we are looking forward to talking with you about your questions.
Portland Parks and Recreation is a large bureau managing nearly 12,000 acres of land in Portland and providing programs across 11 community and arts centers, as well as partner-managed facilities.
Next slide.
This and the next slide are more for your reference than your retention.
This is an overview of all changes to the bureau's budget, including additions, reductions, and realignments.
And specifics are in upcoming slides.
Next slide.
This too is an overview of all changes to the bureau's position counts, in this case again including additions, reductions, and realignments, and again with details on upcoming slides.
Next slide.
Our team's goal this budget cycle was to preserve core city priorities and avoid immediate significant community impact.
Our process was developed and led by our equity manager and facilitated by our equity manager and our finance manager together.
We reviewed the bureau's work against considerations like levy commitments, legal requirements, city leadership direction, community input, and alignment with our Healthy Parks, Healthy Portland community framework.
We ranked it to differentiate between less and more discretionary activities.
And then we used lenses informed by city core values, staff expertise, and our advisory bodies to prepare reduction scenarios for city leadership consideration.
This helped us avoid across-the-board cuts and align our recommendations with our core mission.
And it produced scenarios that avoid closure of any parks or community centers, prioritize our most basic services, which you see referenced year and limit programming impacts.
In the next slides, you'll see more than 50 packages, which is a lot but significantly fewer than last year, represented across 7 broad categories.
And while this presentation is higher level, we have tried to be comprehensive and specific and clear about impact.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Next slide.
Sonia Szymanski
So this is the format of the slides that there are about 7 of, and we're going to go through them category by category.
This category, daily care of parks and natural areas, reflects 4 reduction packages.
Elimination of 1 of 17 turf maintenance technicians, which is 1 of 2 dedicated to athletic field turf maintenance and associated materials and supplies.
This position performs tractor-based work like— and this, you won't know these words, but just to illustrate the technical nature of things— aeration, overseeding, fertilization, top dressing, rolling, and verticutting.
You may have known some of those.
And the reduction was put forward because it will not disrupt weekly mowing, which is really important on athletic fields.
Next, reduced irrigation on passive turf areas.
Not sports field or recreation turf areas, passive turf areas.
Third, a 10.5% reduction in materials and services funds for horticulture.
That's plants and landscape management and turf care.
This means proportionally less money for things like plants, grass seed, mower parts, and small equipment.
Finally, elimination of one of 6 botanic technicians working in our natural areas elimination of the sole botanic trainee position and a 10% reduction in associated materials and services.
Those positions provide natural area maintenance and trail work like invasive plant removal, erosion control, trail repair, and so on.
Those materials and services funds are used for plants, minor equipment, and activities— occasional activities like large-scale cleanup.
Thank you.
Overall, you'll see this at the bottom of the slide, these 4 packages would eliminate 3 positions and leave overall capacity of just over 35 positions in those cost centers, which is our unit of analysis for this exercise.
Next slide.
This category includes 10 packages, mostly in our recreation division, across what we broadly consider programming.
Thank you.
And this is the longest of the slides.
These packages will close community centers on federal holidays for savings just over $110,000, eliminate private personal training, the senior center project, phase out the free lunch and play mobile program and free lunch and reduce free lunch and play locations from 23 to 22.
Thank you.
And reduce summer programming at Community Music Center.
Those together total about $310,000.
Regarding those packages, a large variety of group fitness classes will remain, and the 21 senior center program participants will be helped to transition into programs provided by other organizations.
The Free Lunch and Play mobile program, created to bring meals and activities to park-deficient areas, is down from an original 10 sites to 2, largely because since the program began, the city has built 5 new parks in East Portland and expanded the free lunch and play site-based locations.
The 2 remaining have the lowest participation across all 25, and this is a natural evolution of that program.
A related package would eliminate, as I referenced, one of 23 free lunch and play sites.
And associated fleet vehicles and a quarter FTE.
Summer programming at Community Music Center and partner library sites will be reduced.
9-Week classes will become 7 weeks.
Private lessons will be eliminated July through September, and free drop-in lessons at the 2 libraries would be reduced in summer months.
Importantly, summer camps provided in partnership with Youth PDX in East Portland would be unchanged.
Quantified, this reduces group class hours by 60, private lessons by 500 hours, and library drop-in lesson hours by 40.
Continuing, splash pad hours will be 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM as they were in years past.
That's a 2-hour reduction, and it's a savings of $50,000.
Thank you.
For water.
Continuing.
One package eliminates the position which coordinates community garden activities with partners, eliminates funds for part-time seasonal maintenance work based at the Native Gathering Garden at Colley Park, eliminates some community garden amenities like sheds, beds, and boxes, and locks, and raises community garden plot fees by 20%.
This would take a standard plot fee from $66 to 79.
And I want to note that the access discount option remains, providing up to a 90% discount.
We saw in 2025 over a third of community gardeners use that program.
So this will not create a barrier to participation for gardeners with low income.
We're getting there.
One package eliminates one of 2 FTE supporting volunteer coordination and the seasonal position supporting An array of administrative coordination functions in our land stewardship group.
While this will reduce capacity to coordinate volunteer events as we're currently structured, we will seek to sustain volunteerism within our current resources, anticipated resources.
And finally, one package reduces non-park use permit program staffing by half an FTE out of 1.5.
Thank you.
These permits are used by partners doing work in our parks, either for their purpose or to improve or expand park spaces for community use.
This reduction will limit capacity to process these permits and to provide hands-on process support to partners.
While this is a broad array of reductions, all major programs are preserved: swim lessons, summer camps, art classes, summer concerts, Meals for students during the summer break and community center drop-in programs.
And as I mentioned, these reductions— I think I mentioned this— these reductions are informed by usage data and availability of alternatives, primarily supporting the goal of minimizing impact.
Next slide.
This category reflects 6 packages related to maintenance and repair across the system.
The largest item is roughly $760,000 and eliminates what has been discretionary funds in the director's office that have been used in recent years to support unanticipated major repairs.
You can think of pool boilers in that category.
The next largest item is just under $500,000 and eliminates a planned but not yet created or hired 3-position team that would have added off-hours maintenance capacity.
Other cuts totaling about $510,000 are to materials and services associated with these repair and maintenance activities, representing an overall reduction of just over 18.3%.
Next slide.
This category includes 2 reductions.
The first eliminates contracted security for our field locations.
Thank you.
Our 3-person facility and asset security team will continue to provide facility security coverage, and there are no cuts to our park ranger program, which also provides some presence at these field locations and at partner-run facilities.
The big ones here are Mount Tabor Yard and Delta Park.
That contract value is just over $516,000.
The second item is included here because it relates to unanticipated and sometimes emergency maintenance needs in our parks or natural areas or facilities.
It's an EMS cut of 18%, which equals just over $55,000 and reflects recent average underspending.
It is not a reduction to materials used in emergency response.
It's a reduction to supporting information, things like materials testing following fires near our property, engineering studies supporting major and regular maintenance.
We don't have expertise or facilities to do this kind of testing in-house, and as it's highly variable and hard to predict what the need will be, it isn't efficient to build a staff structure around it.
And lastly, we do look for ways to use technical expertise in other bureaus, but that It's largely contracted out in other places as well for the same reasons.
Finally, here, as we manage budget through the year, we will of course prioritize emergency response with the remaining overall EMS funds.
And as you see, no positions are impacted here.
Next slide.
We have 3, 3 more of these.
This slide describes 18 packages which together reduce costs but do not change service levels.
You'll see here that up to 10.5 FTE would be eliminated across the packages.
Those positions provide general administrative engagement and GIS support.
It includes a high-level management role, and it includes 6.5 FTE based in community centers.
Those community center-based positions support teen outreach, arts recreation, after-school programming, and provide general staffing coverage for the centers.
While the positions here will be reduced or eliminated, service levels will not be affected.
The other primary change here will close community centers once a month in what we consider the off-season for programming, which is October through May.
It's off-season for use generally.
This greatly simplifies logistics and scheduling for activities like large team meetings and required trainings and saves costs by reducing the overtime needed to provide coverage when those things happen while the center remains open.
Again, finally, these changes reduce costs but won't impact service levels.
Next slide.
We also looked for opportunities to free up general fund by changing fund sources where appropriate, by strategically increasing revenue, by expanding our partnership with Multnomah County as a Preschool for All provider, and by potentially expanding our partnership with the United States Tennis Association Pacific Northwest Chapter for tennis programming.
Our goal in the USTA conversation, which began with a budget note last year and which is informed by preliminary analysis CFO Biery shared with the Arts and Economy Committee late last year, is improved stewardship of the Portland Tennis Center and continued accessible tennis programming for Portlanders.
We are in active conversation with USTA colleagues and happy to follow up with individual briefings, which we've done some of already.
For those of you who are interested in this partnership, city-provided tennis programming would be discontinued and the four positions supporting Portland Tennis Center operations would be eliminated.
We are, of course, working with our Bureau of Human Resources to make sure all available supports would be offered and available to those team members in the event of a transition.
A new paid parking program.
We'll expand our current paid parking from 6 locations to potentially 30-ish out of 76 total sites.
This is primarily a parking management tool, and we would focus on lots where there are known issues or we've received complaints about people not using the park taking spaces for large portions of the day.
And I'm pleased to I'm really pleased to be able to mention here our partnership with Multnomah County.
When Preschool for All launched, our team identified an opportunity to update our preschool program to match that model and to become an official provider, which comes with funding, which stabilizes our funding so we can continue to predictably provide this valuable service to Portland families.
This coming year, we plan to expand and serve more kids.
Thank you.
At the bottom, the 5th position that's referenced eliminates a vacant capital-funded position and moves a filled position to that funding source, which achieves general fund savings and preserves staff capacity.
Next slide.
Additionally, there are 2 one-time adjustments that reduce cuts— reduce cuts— allow us to take fewer cuts in the upcoming fiscal year.
They adjust the future funding source for operations and maintenance in the first year of the North Portland Aquatic Center.
That's $4 million.
And draw down the Portland Parks Memorial Fund— excuse me— for $800,000.
Regarding the aquatic center adjustment, mechanically what's happening is that the budget is assuming a new revenue source to support O&M beginning in fiscal year '30, and because that assumption frees up levy money in the future, it allows for general fund now to be captured in the next fiscal year.
And finally, next slide, look at our financial forecast.
While we manage expenses across 9 different funds, our daily operations, as you know, are mostly funded with general fund discretionary, parks levy, and a relatively small amount of earned revenue.
Because parks levy is the last dollars in, that fund is the key indicator for our financial plan.
To maintain fiscal health for the bureau, we work toward 2 things: a positive ending balance in the last year of the forecast and no deficit in the final year of the forecast.
This graph, which I think you've seen before, shows where we stand as of the proposed budget and shows that both objectives are achieved.
We end the forecast period with a reasonably healthy balance in blue and a balance also between current expenses and revenues in that year, which is good, reflected by the orange line being just about at zero.
Below zero would represent a deficit.
Our finance team, led by Claudio, monitors upsides and downsides 24/7 throughout the year, even when they're sleeping, always working to identify and mitigate out-year deficits or risks.
Thank you.
I'm going to highlight a couple of risks before I close this out.
As you know, any reduction in general fund affects this forecast, of course, unless we make corresponding reductions to expenses.
And as you know, cost growth.
This year we set a gap-closing target of $7 million to address growing costs, which are primarily internal services and healthcare.
While we believe both of those were one-time in scale as we aligned our forecast with more realistic assumptions.
There is also future labor costs to think about.
The current forecast does not assume or quantify any contract changes.
It assumes only CBO personnel inflators.
Third, as I mentioned, the assumption of a new revenue source to support O&M beginning in fiscal year Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
So, Councilor Smith, I'm going to turn it over to Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira.
Thank you, Mayor.
So, Councilor Smith, as Mayor Keith Wilson mentioned, we are in the midst of a 3-year capital program, which will run from 2023 through 2030, which is year 3 of this forecast.
Finally, zooming out, by the time we're at the second node on this graph, city leadership, including you, will be considering long-range funding options for the Parks Bureau as directed by last year's levy referral.
We are getting our new administrator up to speed on this work, and we look forward to connecting with you about it later in this And that is the close of our presentation.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Director Schimanski.
All right, colleagues, we are going to move into— we have a full hour before, uh, for specifically to discuss parks.
So, uh, jump in the queue.
Councilor Murillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Council President.
Um, thank you guys so much for this presentation.
First, I want to say, obviously we're in an incredible, incredibly difficult budget season, and it's very clear to me from the way that this was done that it was done trying to strike a very delicate balance and making sure that we're not closing entire programs or resources.
Like, I thought it was really smart to close community centers on certain days for federal holidays rather than closing something down entirely.
And at the same time, I'd also be remiss if I didn't say that the parks levy that we passed guaranteed voters that it would maintain parks.
And I say that because I think that there was more nuance in the news articles that came out about the parks levy that explained what it was actually going to do at the current rate that we passed it, which was $1.40.
That's not enough to actually maintain things.
But the ballot language itself, it says, maintain safe parks, nature, affordable recreation through the 5-year levy.
And the language, if you read it throughout in the summary as well, talks about maintaining parks operations.
So the feedback that we received in a lot of our District 3 events was, I voted for that levy assuming that it's going to maintain all services, that nothing from parks is going to be cut if we pass this.
And we got very strong feedback during our District 3 town hall that we just had last Sunday where people were saying, if you guys don't maintain every single part of parks, We will never trust you to vote for another thing again.
It was very firm feedback.
And I'm just saying that here for my colleagues so that they know.
I know that we all voted to pass the parks levy.
And so that's a critical promise that I think we have to try to keep for voters if we can, knowing that there are very difficult things.
Did you wanna respond to that quickly?
Sonia Szymanski
Yeah, happy to.
You know, we have a top 10 parks system.
You didn't hear it here first, but the next ranking will be out the day that you approve the budget.
So please stay tuned for that.
Yeah, that's been a difficult conversation to have with people.
The conversation last year about the levy will sustain current services if general fund is sustained and costs don't go up, that's a lot to ask people to understand and track and remember.
Our process was designed, as you referenced, to minimize impact, to protect those levy commitments.
The most quantified commitment in the levy language was around daily bathroom cleaning and trash pickup in parks, and that's the last thing we would cut.
So that is protected, and I'm really confident that this budget supports there is not.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, that's helpful.
Thank you for this presentation and really thank you for striking a very delicate balance.
And I hope that I can work with my colleagues to preserve some of those other parks things that are going to be cut.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
You mentioned that the lunch and play that was going on, I think you mentioned that East Portland has some park expansions and there was a natural yeah, Free Lunch and Play is as it says.
Sonia Szymanski
It's free lunch and recreation options for kids in parks.
It— a mobile version of it was in.
Since then, a handful of new parks have been built in East Portland, and the place-based programming has expanded.
Over that time, the number of mobile locations has shrunk from 10 to 2.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay.
Sonia Szymanski
So the reduction here would close out the last 2 across all of the mobile and fixed site programming.
Those 2 are the least attended.
So I characterize it as a natural evolution of the program.
Eric Zimmerman
So the least attended, and so we're keeping those alive.
What's the— I'm just trying to better understand like what that means.
Normally we cut like the least attended program, and in this case you're saying you're keeping it open?
Sonia Szymanski
The 2 that would be eliminated here are the least attended across all of the city.
Oh, okay.
Eric Zimmerman
I was understanding it the wrong way.
Sorry.
So what kind of locations for them?
I mean, I think it's great.
I just, I'm learning about it here.
So what kind of locations, if there isn't a park that they're going to, what types of spaces do they go?
Sonia Szymanski
I'm learning too.
I know they're in parks and they're in community centers, and I can call somebody up, or I'm happy to follow up with more details about it.
Eric Zimmerman
I won't belabor it.
It was just more of an interest.
I think it's one of those early things that I worked on at Multnomah County was, you know, getting the Oregon Education Department to help us put schools— school lunch programs in the Rockwood Library.
And so it just, it reminded me that I was trying to understand a little bit more.
The—.
I understand the closing of community centers on the 11 federal holidays.
It's one of those like tough choices, but I get it.
Thank you.
I wanted to ask though, in particular, these last couple of years I've just noticed how hot it is around Labor Day.
And so spaces like the Sellwood Pool, does that fall into this category or that stays open?
Okay, that stays open.
Great.
I also just, you know, I— what I think I'm seeing here is some tough choices, but some definite threading of the needle, and I very much appreciate that.
What I see is that parks are going to continue to get cleaned up every day, mowed weekly, or whatever the right space of mowing is, that bathrooms, uh, will actually get attention and be a place that we don't try to avoid when we have our kids with us, uh, or we're taking our nieces and nephews to places.
So you know, getting those bathrooms open and cleaned has been a priority just because I think it's one of those symbols of a system that is or isn't working.
I know it's so funny to talk about a bathroom, but there's just some key indicators.
And for me, I think you've threaded a very, very tight space here.
And so while many of the cuts are very hard to stomach, I do see the line of direction and thank you.
While I expect that there will be individuals who express dismay of a program or an hours situation being cut, this program offer does not lend me to think that we'll have widespread experiencing of something closing or something being diminished in a way that would really send a ripple through the community.
And I think that's it.
Those are different types of pushback that the community can give us.
And, um, we have always unfortunately disappointed individuals on individual program offers at different times, but I don't think that we're doing that in broad swath here.
So, um, for a difficult budget, I wanted to say appreciation to y'all.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Vice President Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, uh, Council President.
Thank you for the presentation.
I think I would just echo some of Councilor Zimmerman's comments that you've done a great job threading the needle.
Um, I appreciate you and Claudio very much.
Um, and it's very— under very difficult circumstances.
And I think there is a lot of cognitive dissonance that's going to happen around the levy that we mentioned earlier.
People are going to— we're going to need some talking points on that.
Sonia Szymanski
Um, but I did want to raise that concern I have.
Olivia Clark
Well, 2 things.
Just, uh, the cuts To facility repair, obviously I'm concerned about the way we deal with our assets and the repairs that are necessary and the future liability that we may incur.
And I just wonder if you're thinking about under what circumstances we would close a park or close a facility because it's in such disrepair that we do have a huge liability issue.
And you don't have to answer that right now, but that's something that I I would like to talk to you about that later because I know that there are bridges and there are all kinds of things that are falling apart that could cause a cost to us in the future if we don't close it.
My other issue is about adopting a more entrepreneurial approach to our parks.
This is not necessarily a current budget issue, but looking into the future, and I know we've talked about that before, To increase volunteerism.
I had a budget note about that.
To pursue sponsorships, to pursue philanthropy.
I don't know if there's a unit inside of parks that's looking at how, what the mayor likes to say, making our assets sweat.
Whether that's bringing small businesses into the parks or rental fees or anything we can do to increase our entrepreneurship, if you will, I think is really important.
And I know that you have engaged in that, public-private partnerships.
We're talking about that.
But I don't know if there's a group or a unit or anybody inside of parks that's looking at those kinds of things, those future opportunities.
Sonia Szymanski
Thank you for asking about that.
Because these are key changes, a budget-neutral position creation is not reflected here.
There is a new position established in this proposed budget to conform with your direction last year in the levy referral that it would support a partnerships lead position.
That's work being done by Kelly Torres, who some of you have been briefed by.
We have a lot of things in motion.
I would be really happy to give you kind of a current status report about things that are done or contemplated or coming over the horizon.
So that's definitely a direction we're moving in.
Olivia Clark
Great.
Sonia Szymanski
And that's a centrally located position with a very small team, but a very mighty team.
Great.
Olivia Clark
Well, thank you for that.
I would appreciate a briefing on that later.
I do think that this is important to the future of parks, how we make those assets sweat, if you will.
So thank you.
Thank you for the good work that you've done on this budget.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Council President.
Director Szymanski, I have a number of questions.
I will try to do them in order of the slides.
Some of them I've previewed for you.
Hopefully that helps.
The first is on the daily care of parks and natural areas variety of packages.
There's a lot in there.
That I couldn't tell as you were describing the changes in our natural areas if these are things that will drive up our long-term costs because there will be more work to do in the future and we're putting things off, or if these are things that are okay for the medium term, they won't drive up our costs as long as we get back to current budget level eventually, but can take us 3 or 4 years to get there and we'll be okay, or if these are cuts that are okay for the long term and we're actually going above and beyond what our natural spaces at a minimum need to be sustainable in, in their care.
So help me understand what to expect a few years from now as the impact of these cuts.
Sonia Szymanski
Yeah.
Minimum is really yours to define.
I would say there aren't obvious places in the bureau where we're routinely able to go above and beyond.
And I also don't know what the impact of 1 of 6 fewer botanic technicians would be.
I know they do good work all day, but marginal reductions like these, a 10% reduction in EMS Over the course of one year, it's not evident to me what the impact of that will be.
Of course, we'll be watching.
Of course, we'll be ready to talk about it with you next year.
What I know is the activities that they do, and what I have confidence in is the expertise of people on the ground and their leadership who proposed these options.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So the folks on the ground are comfortable that you are not going to be coming to us in a year saying actually costs have skyrocketed because we haven't maintained our natural areas, and therefore our turf fields are falling apart and will have to be replaced sooner, or our natural areas are overgrown and it will be harder to get them back to where they were, things like that.
We're not expecting those types of impacts.
Candace Avalos
I—.
Sonia Szymanski
Well, I don't want to speak for anybody in particular on the ground, so I should be careful.
We don't anticipate anything catastrophic occurring as a— on the impact side as a result of these reductions.
Okay.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
It sounds like we may need to build back in some of the cuts that you're making in the long term.
Over the course of a couple of years, we won't see increased costs because of these cuts.
Is that a fair—.
Sonia Szymanski
Our charge is to watch carefully through the year so that we can come back to you and answer that question as well as possible next year.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, thank you.
I'll be ready to ask how it went.
I want to ask about the holiday closures, and I— that may be the best choice, but I also know that there are federal holidays where our schools are not in session and many parents are working and community centers are safe places for kids to go.
You talked at the beginning about really looking at areas of the least use and focusing cuts there, and I appreciate that.
I think that's what we absolutely have to be doing in our parks and rec system when we talk about having to make cuts at all.
What do we know about who uses community centers on our federal holidays versus an average Tuesday.
For example, do we have more teens in community centers on holidays, and maybe there are fewer total users, but it's the space that kids are going to be safe?
Or is this actually a least impact cut in terms of the users who might need that space and not have other spaces to go?
Sonia Szymanski
I think it's actually a least impact cut.
We have a little bit of data, and we have a lot of anecdotal, like, long-time earned expertise informing this.
The data that we looked at that we think is most germane is about Teen Force Pass scans as a sort of proxy for how many young people are using community centers day to day.
So we did a poll of that data, and what we saw is that on a federal holiday when there's no school, which which is probably all of them.
There's about a tenth as much of that traffic as there is on a choose-your-other-day of normal-level programming.
And we don't see that the centers, which, by the way, I think are mostly or entirely closed on some holidays already and offering reduced programming already, so it's really oriented to drop-in on those days.
Yes.
We, we don't see that the centers are providing a unique or particularly important service to Portlanders, families, kids on those days.
Okay.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And on the rolling closure days, the, the one a month during the offseason, if you will, will those closures affect after-school programs and preschool programs, or do those just affect classes and drop-in hours?
Sonia Szymanski
I don't know the answer to that question.
Would you like it right now?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Um, if we have it now, great.
If not, if you can get it to us.
What I'm worried about are our community centers that provide after-school programming, usually through contractors, and those Preschool for All programs, and making sure that we have consistent care for kids whose parents are at work on those days when community centers are closed for other uses?
Sonia Szymanski
It turns out we don't know the answer to that right now, so we will follow up with you quickly.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, it would be good to know the answer to that.
And if you are currently considering canceling those programs on those days, it would be helpful for me to understand what the cost increase would be to add back in access just for those limited programs, preschool and after-school programs, on the days when community centers are otherwise closed so that you can have those staff meetings.
Okay, thank you.
Um, also on the programming slide, you talked about, and I noticed in the budget documents, the cut of a volunteer coordinator position at a time when council has been asking for the last year to increase volunteerism and partnerships.
So I know you've added a partnership position, but we're cutting a volunteer coordinator position.
Help me understand how that is not a loss of momentum.
Sonia Szymanski
That's one of 2 positions that are in our land stewardship division, so kind of in the field-based part of the operation.
They're doing quite a lot of internal coordination with those staff.
And they're doing some outward-facing liaison work with friends groups.
This would reduce one of them.
And you may know we've been hard at work with our friends groups learning how that experience is going for them, where we can support it, where we can support it differently or better.
We have our work cut out for us making sure that if this position is reduced, we, as you said, don't lose momentum.
We have a lot of experts in the bureau who are working with community, who are supporting volunteerism.
And I feel confident that we can manage through this without losing— I know we're counting by the hour, so we definitely feel accountable for the level of volunteerism that's happening and doing our best to, as you said, keep momentum.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
I'm concerned about that one.
I don't know if there's room in the budget for us to restore it or not, but that caused me some pause as you were going through things.
Council President, I'm trying to prioritize.
Maybe I'll ask one more and get back in the queue later.
The—.
No, I'm going to ask 2 more first.
I'm sorry.
Good.
I'll save some of the smaller ones.
You mentioned on the lunch and play programs, and one of the things that I think was very important as we were talking about the levy, we promised the bathrooms and the, um, the cleaning, but we also talked a lot about the program side and summer programming.
So are we— there was a A bit of an awkwardness with the budget last year.
Summer programming was cut, but then for last summer was restored.
Are we at that restored level?
And by that I mean not the budgeted level of summer programming, but the programmed level from last summer in this budget?
Sonia Szymanski
Yes.
With the offering adjustments.
I described private personal training, but the level of programming is the same.
Okay.
And broadly, all the categories are in there as they were last year.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So the only cuts to summer programming are the things like those lessons, the music lessons we heard about, not ideal, but focused mainly on the private lessons, the private training, And then those 2 changes to lunch and play.
And I do have a question about that, which is you talked about the mobile sites.
I understand why you're making changes there.
That makes sense to me.
You said you're cutting 1 park site.
Sonia Szymanski
Correct.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
What park is that?
Is it a low utilization?
How was that decision made?
Are there other areas close by that kiddos will be able to go to?
What is the loss going to be like there?
Sonia Szymanski
Maximo Behrens, our Recreation Services Division Manager, is here to answer your good question.
Thank you.
Uh, is it a lower used or the lowest used spot?
And then what would be the nearest alternative?
Eric Zimmerman
Yes.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, so hi, I'm Maximo Behrens.
I'm the Recreation Services Manager.
Hello, Council President.
Hello, council members.
So the location from 23 locations for our summer free lunch and play program to 22, it has not been identified yet.
We will look at the information of attendance, location, and proximity to other potential locations that could be available, as well as our engagement with other partners.
That we work with and be able to follow up with the best site that identifies the least amount of impact, being able to work with those factors.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, colleagues, Councilor Zimmerman was asking some about these programs and saying he was just learning about them.
I have seen firsthand the magic of Summer Lunch and Play.
I have taken my kids to the park as Summer Lunch and Play is happening and seen kids from the neighborhood who don't have parents home walk to the park with their older siblings, get a nutritious meal, have older teens or adults on hand that engage them in activities from sports and athletic activities to board games, to some reading and learning time, to engaging with nonprofits in the community to learn art skills and music skills.
It is an incredible program, and for many kids who don't have a lot going on during the day, it provides the structure for their day.
And for the most part, the way we've designed our park system, we want everybody in our city to be able to walk to a park.
Most kids can't walk to two parks, so I'm very concerned that with a very few exceptions where I know we have some programs near to each other, losing a park means losing access.
And in some cases, these are kids like mine who have nutritious meals at home also and don't have to be there, but love going to the park when there are things going on.
And it's kids who are.
Driving there, and maybe kids who don't have access to food at home but whose parents can drive them to another park because they do have car access.
But in some cases, it's kids on their own.
And so I am very concerned that this is going to have an impact that we can't make up for.
And I just— I want to share that as we're thinking about these cuts, because I may be one of only a few people up here who's actually seen the magic of these programs firsthand.
I've seen them many times.
So thank you for the information.
Um, last thing that I just want to say as a warning because I'm worried about— I know we've been studying the USTA transfer, and then when that was brought to council, it was brought as a, we're going to learn about this and council will make a decision later.
It sounds like the decision is being made through this budget to move in that direction without any independent conversation.
So I want to say this now: when we contract out work that we have been doing to save funds, we either save funds because costs go up or because pay for the workers goes down.
And in this case, we are changing unionized jobs from our parks employees to non-union jobs with USTA.
That doesn't necessarily mean a reduction in pay and benefits, but it often does.
So if we are going to approve this change in this budget, I would like to ask that we get information as council about what USTA USTA's plan is, how cost access will change, if cost access for folks who are relying on the sliding scale payments will still have access to that, how much costs will go up at the top end, and whether we are in that contract requiring that— in our contract with USTA requiring that they honor and grandfather in the union agreements for the people who work there or not, and if not, what the change in pay and benefits will be for those employees.
I think those are important things for us to understand as we understand how they will be making cost reductions for this program.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, and thank you for asking a bunch of the questions I was going to ask.
Councilor Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Apologies.
Thank you.
Um, I have a couple of comments, and then I might pick up where, um, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney was leaving off.
Um, so yeah, first, I appreciate the presentation.
Thank you.
I wanted to start by grounding us in something that I hear constantly from constituents in East Portland, that people experience public safety councilmember Herbold.
Sonia Szymanski
Thank you, Mayor.
I want to thank the City of Portland for hosting this public comment session.
Candace Avalos
I think it's really important to recognize that Portlanders experience safety and quality of life through the condition of their neighborhoods and public spaces every single day.
It was the number one thing I heard in my District 1 budget survey.
And they experience it through whether parks are maintained or community centers are open, sidewalks are safe, potholes get filled, all of that, right?
Youth programs, whether families feel that public spaces actually belong to them.
So while we often talk about community safety very narrowly during the budget season, I think this presentation is a reminder that these bureaus are also really core safety bureaus, parks workers and maintenance crews and transportation staff, etc.
I also want to acknowledge the tension in this budget.
I appreciate that the bureaus are trying to preserve core services and avoid the kinds of catastrophic cuts that we've seen proposed elsewhere, but at the same time, I worry that we are increasingly balancing budgets through deferred maintenance, fee increases, staffing reductions, privatization, and one-time solutions that are going to create larger inequalities and liabilities down the road.
I also know that there are often calls for parks to become more entrepreneurial.
I heard your discussion with Councilor Clark, and I respectfully really disagree.
I think that, um, if we're going to rely more heavily on things like volunteerism, I deeply value volunteers and community stewardship, but I want to be careful about normalizing a model where core public services increasingly depend on unpaid labor or private fundraising capacity.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
Which is why some of my questions about the tennis center, because the reality is that wealthier neighborhoods are often better positioned to supplement public investment with donations and organized volunteer networks or private partnerships.
And many of the families in my district do not have that capacity, and they're taxpayers too.
They voted for the parks levy too, and they deserve clean, safe, and maintained parks and functioning community spaces without having to privately backfill basic city operations themselves.
So particularly in East Portland, where residents already feel like they've spent decades receiving less investment, these smaller reductions can have an outsized impact on community trust and daily community life.
So my questions are really about what residents are actually going to experience under this proposal, who's bearing the burden of these choices, and whether we're preserving public infrastructure as a true public good, or if we're slowly moving toward a system where access and quality increasingly depend on someone's ability to pay, to fundraise, or volunteer to maintain what they deserve and what they pay for.
So I will continue to be vocal about that.
I find the— I, like my colleagues, very much understand the dire financial situation we're in, and yet we have to make these choices.
And some of these choices disappoint me because they continue to hurt East Portland.
I am not happy about, for example, one position that is dedicated specifically to East Portland volunteerism and working in community.
That position got cut, but the other one got saved.
Councilor Smith, I'm not happy about that, and I plan to restore that.
Um, I think that, you know, the presentation emphasizes that parks and community centers are going to remain open, but, you know, hearing about reduced maintenance and fewer staff and reduced splash pad, for example, hours, longer repair timelines, I think that in practice residents don't experience parks as truly open if the bathrooms are closed, if trash is piling up, if programming disappears.
Or spaces no longer, no longer feel welcoming or cared for.
So talk to us a little bit more about how the Bureau evaluates the real community impact of these reductions, particularly on low-income families, on youth, seniors, communities that heavily rely on public recreation and free public space, and geographically, which neighborhoods, especially historically underinvested ones like East Portland, are expected to feel the greatest impacts from these changes.
Sonia Szymanski
Great questions.
Thank you.
And big policy hydraulics for you all to be in dialogue about regarding parks and all the parts of the city.
A couple things come to mind.
In the packages that were proposed, our team focused really strongly on what is the daily experience of a visitor to a park.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
I have a question for the City of Portland.
When we talk about parks, we talk about parks as a public service.
We talk about parks as a community center.
And how do we keep that whole as a basic service?
When people come to a park, can they get into it?
I'm sort of exaggerating to make the point, but are all of the parks open?
Are all of the restrooms taken care of every day?
Is trash picked up every day?
Is the field where they play soccer in the afternoon available because it's been mowed?
Are we taking care of the plants?
Is there a ranger available if something happens and you know about that resource and you call?
We worked hard to protect those things.
If you're going to a program and you can't pay, is the access discount program still there and still offering you up to a 90% discount?
Those were kind of, as I said, central to our thinking.
Those things are preserved and protected in the budget.
In terms of geography, there are no significant place-based reductions.
And I heard you on the volunteer position.
I'll speak to that.
And we did an admittedly rough analysis of the reductions before you, looking at which could be yes.
We're not able to be more focused geographically in implementation to avoid impact in certain areas, which it's important to note would focus it in other areas.
But with things like the materials and services cuts and some of these other pieces, we probably can.
I don't want to overstate the opportunity there, but we probably can have some geographic emphasis in how we implement.
Volunteerism capacity that you mentioned, that's one of those places where we can continue emphasizing certain parts of town for service.
And lastly, I mentioned we're working with our friends groups, and your, your point about capacity to volunteer is well taken, that it's not often a matter of interest or will, but about just literal practical ability to participate in that way understood.
And kind of adjacent to that, we're working with the friends groups and with other partners to talk about how we might take infrastructure that's been built in other places, capacity that's been built, lessons that have been learned the hard way, and share that broadly across town so that thank you.
I think that's a great idea.
I think that's a great idea.
And I think that's a great way to make sure that people who want to start a friends group or start some kind of a partnership with the city don't have to start at zero.
And maybe we can provide mentorship or technical support or other ways, not because we're going to require people to do that, but because I want that to be available for people at the lowest possible barrier.
So that's kind of a grab bag of thoughts.
And I'll close by saying, again, I mentioned some specifics that we sought to preserve.
The overarching goal was to avoid immediate significant impact and really protect that day-to-day experience.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
I think as it relates to things like friends groups, I agree that, you know, it— you know, the bureau should provide that kind of technical assistance and guidance for people that want to, that are being proactive to, you know, start those groups.
But I would also maybe share an idea that it would be great if, you know, if I live in a wealthier neighborhood and I want to help parks, that maybe I'm not putting all of my energy into just my park.
Like, if you got time and money, can you bring some of that over to East Portland?
So like, what does it look like to make it— if people care about parks, I want them to care about all the parks, not just the one that's right next to them.
Because again, that is what disadvantages East Portlanders who don't have the time to put that kind of care and resource into their parks.
So I would encourage you, as you're standing up these programs and volunteers, that you look more holistically at the whole city so that people that do have time could hopefully offer that in places for communities that don't.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Sonia Szymanski
Yeah, that's on our mind as well.
I didn't mention it, but thank you.
Candace Avalos
I'm struggling with the decision to increase community garden fees by 20% during a cost of living crisis, especially when many Portlanders are already using community gardens as a food security resource.
So how did the Bureau determine that this was the appropriate place to increase costs on residents right now?
Sonia Szymanski
Why this and not one of the hundreds of others, I can't speak to precisely, but I'll say again, it goes from $60-something to $70-something in dollars, and that's a real amount of dollars for people.
Some people, many people who are community gardeners— access discount still allows that to be bought down by 90%, so it would go from $6-something to $7-something for a plot for the year.
And in our observation, that's not a barrier to okay.
Candace Avalos
Lastly, as it relates to the tennis center, so I have heard from constituents— and apologies, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, I was distracted so I didn't hear all your line of questioning, so if I'm repeating myself, apologies— but I heard from constituents about how important the tennis center has been, especially for low-income families and Black youth who have accessed scholarships and reduced-cost programming in a publicly owned recreational space.
My understanding is that the center currently generates revenue for the city, and now that major repairs are needed, operations are being transferred to the USTA while the city still retains major maintenance responsibilities.
At the same time, there are concerns about rising costs and reduced affordability.
So can you explain the long-term public benefit analysis here?
How are we ensuring that this remains a public-serving asset and not effectively a privatized amenity supported by public infrastructure?
Sonia Szymanski
Yeah, the— I should say one thing to clarify the budget.
It anticipates that we'll transition operations halfway through the year, so end of December, but it does not require that we do that.
And if there is not a deal to be had that satisfies city leadership, then there's not a deal to be had.
We're talking with USTA, and the values that you referenced are ones that are central to our conversation.
I mentioned better stewardship of our asset and continued accessible, like, broadly interesting programming that is building a pipeline of tennis players.
We know there's a lot more interest than there is availability.
Things that point toward that are immediate investment that would be made by the partner in the building.
There are some immediate needs thank you.
So that's the immediate needs that they would be paying for.
Longer-term liability, it is an older building, so we do know that there are costs out there at some point.
And we— I've been encouraged that we have a lot of programming partners in common with USTA, and we would be looking in the agreement to do everything we can to preserve what's working well and what's bringing more people into tennis.
We are mission-aligned on that goal with the organization.
So we're in conversation now.
And like I said, and I think you requested, happy to provide a fuller briefing soon.
Candace Avalos
So that is a decision that ultimately will come here for us to approve, kind of like the Sellwood House?
Sonia Szymanski
That is a great question about delegation of authority that I don't know the precise answer to.
But certainly this began with you, and we want it to be informed by you as it is being now.
We will certainly come back to council with more details on the USDA.
Priya Dhanapal
We are right now in the negotiations and we can come back with more information.
Candace Avalos
If the center is creating revenue, is it not expected that that revenue would be able to address this maintenance issue instead of having to then push it off and privatize it?
Sonia Szymanski
I think, Claudio, you get to join now.
Claudio Campuzano
Sure.
Claudio Campuzano, Finance Property Technology Manager for Public Works Business Services.
Services.
So the center right now has a budget of about $1.6 million, and it earns about $900,000 in revenue.
So the rest of that is made up with parks levy and general fund.
So all of that goes towards operations.
And with regard to capital, the bureau only has a little bit less than $5 million of capital total to manage our overall system.
And that's the general fund allocation that we get for capital.
So those 2 sources tend to be separate.
Sonia Szymanski
Okay.
Claudio Campuzano
But so yeah, so $1.6 million of expenses supported by about $900,000 of revenue and permits.
Candace Avalos
But I guess I'm trying to understand the timeline here.
Are you in this budget budgeting for that transfer and therefore, but if we're not having that conversation about the transfer until after the budget cycle, help me understand the financing here.
Okay, um, all right, I'll leave it at that for now.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Uh, colleagues, we have about 22 minutes left in this section and we have 5 more folks in the queue, so please try to stick to about 5 minutes worth of questions.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Council President.
I'll keep my comments relatively brief for questions.
Uh, Some of my colleagues already hit on some of my questions.
On the summer lunch and play, you know, I don't have children myself, but I have— I've toured these sites with the parks employees.
I've seen these in action.
I'll note that I think it's a huge, huge piece of the upstream development in the whole child and broader kind of broader social impacts that yield benefits for generations when we have that sort of opportunity.
In my part of the district where I live, I live right along basically Barber Boulevard, and that's where all the naturally low-income— naturally occurring low-income housing exists in District 4, more or less.
And so you have some kids who don't really have a lot of support at home.
And I've met a kid who developed a very strong bond with his mentor that's an employee of that program, and I can tell that that's going to be very critical in the development of that child into a person that's going to have opportunities they would not otherwise have.
So I— Thank you.
I share your concern, Councilor, and I'm worried about the loss that we might see there.
Others have raised my questions about the tennis center piece, the privatization piece.
I'll just note that this practice of putting something in the budget assuming that Council will then make or later make a decision to validate that, it's not good budgeting practice.
And so I think if we do think it is a good thing to pursue on its own merits, then we need to find the money to keep our existing thing in place now.
And so I'll be working to try to find an amendment that does that.
Um, the budget notes that—.
Jamie Dunphy
Point of order.
Dan Ryan
We did have this conversation.
Mitch Green
Councilor, councilor, I have the floor and I'm about to finish my point.
Dan Ryan
Okay, just want to remember that this was discussed at Arts and Economy.
Mitch Green
Uh, but I was going to continue to say that this came to the Arts and Economy Committee on December 16th with a memo that said that this will have to come back for council decision and consideration.
So the budget note required the city administrator to look at this and to consider and propose next steps.
And in those proposed next steps, it says the council will ultimately make this decision.
So this is not a decision we made in the budget note, and it's not a decision that the Arts and Economy Committee made for the city council.
This is a decision that will then yet have to come before council on whether we think this is a good thing to do.
Councilor and so that's something that we're going to have to do.
And it may be the case that this body chooses not to go down that road.
So I just needed to name that.
I want to speak on volunteerism.
You know, public-private partnerships are a spectrum.
So I'm skeptical of privatization.
But it can also be about unlocking volunteerism.
It can also be about getting out of the way of folks who want to take their resources and put them into the community.
Thank you.
And invested in the community so the public sector doesn't have to.
I think that's good.
And like, we're aligned on that.
To note, there's 2 opportunities I want to flag.
There's residents in our district, Councilor, in Southwest Portland who desperately want to— and I'm just getting familiar with this sport— but they want paddle courts.
That's sort of a hybrid between squash, tennis, racquetball.
They want those courts in Willamette Park.
As far as I can tell, there's space in Willamette Park for something like that.
And they're they're ready to fundraise for it.
They're ready to bring the resources for it.
They're being told by the Parks Bureau that they can't do that.
So I think when we make opportunities like that, I am sympathetic to the councilor's arguments from District 1, but I think that if we can let some of our wealthier residents kind of invest in assets, that frees up scarce resources that we'd have otherwise wanted to invest with public dollars that we can then provide for other districts that are less affluent.
Thank you.
And then finally, mountain biking.
We've had— Northwest Trails Alliance has been trying to see if the city wants to partner with them for a long period of time to unlock spaces where they can build trails with their own labor, with their own volunteer army.
They note that mountain biking is a very popular sport in this region, but they can't do that in the city of Portland.
So that means they go to other cities, they go to other parts of the region, and they bring their dollars with them when they do that.
So when we think about economic development, we think about unlock— like leaning into our comparative advantage of a region.
We're known for our natural spaces.
We're known for our kind of sports and athleticism.
Really do think that we should be— and I know we've had this conversation, Director.
So to the extent that there's resources in this budget period to continue this work and trying to figure out what a partnership with that organization might look like to maybe look at some of that land that we've acquired next to Riverview Cemetery, this could be an opportunity for us to do something transformational for our city there and not spend a lot of money of our own.
You know, let's see.
I want to— I know I'm low on time.
I do have a question though.
Are we—.
Every year we set a budget based upon revenue that we expect from fees for parks programming.
Do we generally hit that expected revenue or do we undercollect?
Claudio Campuzano
We typically hit that revenue.
Mitch Green
Okay, that's good to know because it sort of assuages a concern that I'd had that maybe there might be a practice of not really just kind of giving everyone the low-income discount whether or not they need it.
Um, I've heard that as a vignette and as an anecdote, and I just want to make sure that's not a widespread practice.
Um, because if there are people with means to pay, they should pay the full rate, because otherwise we have to cut service and then we're starving our community We're sort of doing a disservice to that low-income program discount.
I have constituents that have a hard time getting kids into swim lessons.
They tell me that they'd be happy to pay more if it meant their kids could get into swim lessons.
And so some solutions that have been offered is pursuing maybe a sort of lottery-based system for signing up for a class for that flat-rate tranche where it's like everyone pays the same amount.
Yeah.
That way it's fair, it's randomized, and then there's an option to pay a higher rate to kind of hire that surge instructor capacity to fill extra capacity.
That, I mean, that's a way that I think would be aligned with our kind of progressive income distribution ideals where it's like those with the ability to pay, pay more, and then we've created a fair access point for those who don't.
So just an idea.
Obviously, we're just talking in a budget that's that's more or less baked.
But these are the opportunities I have to talk about kind of the connection between revenue and what we get for that revenue.
I think I'll leave it there for now.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
And I look forward to talking with you about mountain biking at Rocky Butte.
So Councilor Koyama Lane.
Oh wait, I'm sorry, the queue changed.
I'm going to still call Councilor Koyama Lane, but I think Councilor Novick next.
Sorry, go ahead.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Council President.
I do want to start— thank you for this presentation.
I want to start by thanking Director Szymanski for your leadership and your responsiveness.
I see the engagement you're doing with the community.
I see you at meetings that I go to talking to folks that care a lot about our parks.
On the parks levy, I'm also hearing what many of my colleagues shared that Portlanders supported that levy with the understanding that it would be— it would fund maintenance, natural areas, community programs.
And a lot of constituents are really confused now, and they're really concerned to see that they're paying more, but that we're reducing what we're putting into the general fund alongside that levy.
And I think it makes sense that they feel like—.
I think that's fair.
They're putting in more while overall support for parks feels like it's going down.
I also wanted to flag what Councilor Pirtle-Guiney said, which is she talked about the community center closures on federal holidays.
And I'm wondering beyond that teen force data, are there other ways we can utilize some sort of usage patterns on those days and figure out outside of the teen force?
Teen force is great.
Yeah.
But are there other things that we can look at to see how those closures could affect the community?
Sonia Szymanski
I suspect that there are.
I suspect that if we piece them together, we'll still not have a complete picture.
It was Teen Force that came first to mind as an okay proxy to start getting at that.
So we'll follow up and see what else we can look at to get a picture.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Great.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I also wanted to ask about the Portland Tennis Center, which, just to clarify for everyone, is in District 3.
Because when I did reach out about this about a month ago, because I was getting quite a bit of concerned constituent outreach, it was kind of— it was clarified that these operational changes are moving forward and that negotiations have been happening with USTA.
And a big thing that constituents are asking about is about that all-access pass and whether or not USTA is going to honor that.
And if a lot of the people that rely on that pass and use that space are going to be able to use it.
Are there any updates on that?
I know I'm one of the councilors that has asked for a briefing, so we've talked a little bit about it, but are there any updates?
Sonia Szymanski
Not beyond what I've shared here, although I've heard clearly here a particular interest in an access pass, access discount pass equivalent being part of future programming.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
So I appreciate and colleagues, I am going to share that I'm seeing the need to be very careful about how I vote on resolutions.
And because I'm seeing how some prior resolutions are being interpreted, it's seeming like this one, and we'll get to it later, the storefront one, they're seen as almost green lights to move full forward, full steam ahead.
I'm keeping that in mind.
Councilor Smith.
My last thing I wanna talk about is I wanna acknowledge concerns that I'm hearing from many, including people on the Portland Parks Board and the Urban Forestry Commission.
They're flagging that after last year's cuts and changes, service levels are already really strained, and tree permitting wait times have gone from about 2 weeks to now closer to 8 weeks.
Wow.
Residents are letting me know that delays are leading to people skipping permits altogether.
Staff are encountering more sites where trees have already been removed before permits are issued, which means that we're heading in the opposite direction of increasing our canopy.
There's concerns, I know we'll talk about this when we get to another work session, but that PP&D has not filled several tree permitting vacancies and is now proposing further cuts.
And from what I'm hearing, this raises some real questions about whether tree permitting is being prioritized.
And without consistent implementation of regulations, we're not going to meet the Portland Urban Forest Plan.
I'm also hearing that we might not be fully utilizing resources like the Portland Clean Energy Fund to support this work.
And I've heard a lot of ideas of how that fund can be used, and this seems like the one of the best ways.
I know that accessing those funds can be complex, but also that Portland Parks and Rec is used to accessing those funds.
So I'm taking these concerns that I'm hearing seriously, and I'm exploring potential amendments.
And we'll— I'll leave it at that.
Priya Dhanapal
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
First of all, I just have to respond I just want to respond to what Councilor Lane just said, and it's not that I'm disagreeing, but this council voted to cut the pre-permitting staff last year.
I opposed that cut.
I said at the time that all the— yes, thanks, Councilor Lane— that although I think the intent was to curb rapacious urban foresters, the actual effect would be to increase permitting time and reduce customer service.
So that's a decision a majority of this council made last year.
Thank you.
I too want to join in commending the Parks Bureau for this presentation and for the careful choices that I think that you have made in difficult circumstances.
And I also want to remind everybody that the general fund pays largely for police, fire, parks, and other public safety programs like PSR.
So if we are going to keep parks completely cut free, which I agree, the voters might have thought was what we're obligated to do given the levy, that that means more cuts to public safety.
There's one maintenance question I have, and I think I know the answer and that it's a good answer.
But last year when we were talking about cuts to maintenance, one of the things that was raised was we might cut maintenance of like playground equipment, like swings, jungle gyms, slides.
Yes.
Which could present safety concerns.
So I did not hear that we were making any cuts to that kind of maintenance.
I just want— but I just wanted to make sure we're not doing that.
We're not going to have unsafe playgrounds.
Sonia Szymanski
We're not doing that.
Steve Novick
Okay, thank you.
I share the concerns about cutting a volunteerism position because last year we were hearing that parks had become less open to volunteers than in previous years.
So I'm glad you're talking to the friends groups, but that, that is something that, that's worrisome.
Um, uh, we have heard from some parks employees that they feel like management positions have proliferated over the last 6 years, and they see some instances where you've got more expensive managers overseeing one program and less expensive overseeing other programs.
They don't want to know why that is.
So I have separately asked to take a look at the org chart for 2019 compared to the org chart for today and see if there's some argument that some management positions, the management positions have proliferated and should be limited.
So if you have anything to say about that today, please do so.
But I know that's a request I just made a few days ago, so don't necessarily expect a full-scale response to that now.
But one thing I did want to get a response to is we heard again parks employees concerned about a high-level position for public-private partnerships because we already have public-private partnerships that are sort of engaged in by, you know, people who aren't highly paid parks employees.
And I wanted to say that my assumption when we voted last year to say that we should expand personnel dedicated to developing public-private partnerships, is that in a context where we have these huge maintenance deficits and we don't want to go back to the voters for more and more money, I think that parks are an aspect of the city where there is the potential for some private investment.
And to me, the model for that is New York City, where Central Park actually does not take any more taxpayer resources.
It's sort of run by a foundation organization that's funded by private resources.
And what that does is free up the tax money that New York City has for parks to invest in lower-profile parks, such as like the New York equivalent of District 1.
So what I was hoping that we were doing in establishing that position is sort of thinking in terms of like a moonshot that we want somebody to be thinking about, are there ways we can in higher profile parks, as in New York City and other cities, get significant private investment which will free up our public money for less profile parks?
So I just want to sort of confirm.
Yes.
Is that the idea here?
And that's why we are paying a high-level person to do— to expand our interest in public-private partnerships?
Sonia Szymanski
That's an idea and it's in the mix.
What we're doing now includes things like that, although I wouldn't put them at the moonshot scale.
There is pent-up interest in talking with us about partnerships, so we are mostly receiving ideas at this point.
And I think you're referencing the park administrator model that's in pretty broad use out in New York.
We have talked about that.
We've looked about that.
That would be a much more significant change in how we're structured and how we run things here.
But like I said, it's, it's on the list to look at.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
Um, thank you, Parks, for giving us this, um, very interesting presentation.
I wanted to go back and talk to you about the cuts in permitting, uh, positions.
I think that was 10.5 FTEs.
Can we go back to that slide?
And I'm really concerned that, um, that we're reducing the community center programming, especially in East Portland.
I know last year— I do agree with my colleagues that last year I was not in support of cutting our permitting department, and we cut that, and And we kind of contracted out to the state of Oregon.
And now my fear is that if community organizations, if there's no person or ability to request the use of our parks, who's going to do that work now?
How does that work get disseminated through the park system?
Priya Dhanapal
The community has to let the Department of Transportation know.
Sonia Szymanski
So a few things come to mind.
Our own permitting staff, you call, you reserve for your wedding, you call, you get your permit.
There are no changes to that.
The permitting folks just mentioned, you'll hear more about from the Community and Economic Development presentation.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
And the reductions referenced here, while numerous, will not reduce okay, so the work that's being done by the 10.5 FTEs that are being reduced, who's going to do that work now that they were doing?
Sonia Szymanski
What I understand from managers who, you know, we have a lot of 30-year people in this bureau, and, and the only people who love Parks and Recreation more than the people who are providing it here are the people who come and use it.
I have great confidence when they tell me we can make these marginal adjustments system-wide, big system, and we won't lose programming service levels.
Individual changes I can't speak to in great detail, but like I said, I have faith in that analysis.
Loretta Smith
Okay, and you're absolutely right.
When I was chairing the Labor Committee, we found that there were over 400 people who were working at the city who had 30 years or more and they weren't retiring.
Uh-huh.
And so that is the issue that I haven't heard throughout this, um, conversation about our budget.
But there are people who can retire, uh, with full benefits.
Um, the, the second thing that I was going to ask you about is the summer lunch program.
And, um, as, uh, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney talked about, I'm familiar with the summer lunch program too with my grandkids and kids.
Um, I wanted to find out, are we partnering with the Department of Agriculture, the federal Department of Agriculture?
They do a summer lunch program and they reimburse, um, community-based organizations and governments, uh, for the school lunch program.
And I just want to know, do we have a partnership with them right now?
Claudio Campuzano
Yes, that's how, that's how our summer lunch program works.
We are the summer provider where schools are the provider during school time.
Loretta Smith
Okay, perfect.
I just wanted to make sure that we were not leaving any money on the table.
Um, the budget.
So let's get to this USTA.
How much are we expecting from them that we put in this year's— next year's budget, the '26-'27?
Sonia Szymanski
What we're talking about with them would not have any money going either direction between us.
It would be a lease of the building.
What it would do is it would bring in some near-term immediate investment in the building, and it would take the operating cost— Claudio mentioned about $1.5 million a year—.
Olivia Clark
Off our books.
Loretta Smith
So have you taken those operating costs off the books for '26-'27?
Sonia Szymanski
Half.
We have kind of put a plug in the budget.
Loretta Smith
So then we would be short $750,000?
Sonia Szymanski
The budget reflects that the programming would come off our books at the end of the calendar year, halfway through the fiscal year, so end of December.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Sonia Szymanski
That's an assumption for purposes of the exercise.
If that doesn't turn out to be true, then we'll need to adjust, and we're prepared for that.
Loretta Smith
I don't see any people from the budget side here.
Uh, we did this last year.
We did this last year with— not you, not you, not you— um, with, with the, uh, overnight shelters.
We were expecting $15 million from the governor.
We didn't get it, and we actually put it in our budget.
So when we had the TAO, we had to make up for that money that we thought we were going to get.
And I raised a big stink about it last year.
I said we cannot do this unless the money is in the door.
We cannot yes.
Put it in our budget.
Now this year I'm going to do the same.
When I see folks are putting money in the budget and saying that it's a balanced budget, if those dollars are not expected to be here by the first part of June, I am not voting for this budget.
I'm not voting at all.
You're going to have to find yourself a secondary form of paying for your budget because we cannot come back year after year and then say, oh, we'll make it up in the fall TAO, and then, oh, in the fall TAO The forecast says that we're not having as much money, so we have to go into our reserves.
We have to go into a contingency.
And it's always a big thing.
It's a big thing.
And so I don't want to get us into the practice of putting money in our, um, in our budget and saying it's a, it's a balanced budget if we do not have those dollars right now.
And this is as much for you as it is for the mayor.
We can't do it anymore, Mayor, because it causes too many issues when we have to come back during the TOW instead of doing a file bump, we have to go in our other sources, whether it be the city, the CORF, and find some ways in which to plug that hole.
That's not a good thing.
So the other piece about the USTA, you said that they're— with this new money, they're going to take over 4 FTEs?
Sonia Szymanski
We would stop doing programming.
So our— the associated FTE on the city side okay.
Loretta Smith
So do you have a contingency plan if we don't get that money?
And when are we expected to know if we're going to get the money?
Sonia Szymanski
We know that they would need to do work on the building before they opened it.
So we're, we're trying to get clear pretty quick here.
So that there would be sufficient time for that, which means we'll be back to you soon with an update.
Loretta Smith
So you know now that I am the vice chair of the Public Works Committee, and under that Public Works Committee is Parks, Water.
And I will be expecting you to get on our calendar to talk about this in the Public Works Committee before we bring it to the BIC Committee so that we can work out some of these things and understand fully exactly what's going on with this, um, with this whole relationship with USTA.
Um, I'm excited about the relationship.
I'm excited about the partnership.
I think there are ways in which we can partner, just like the Sellwood House, um, that I was very much in support of, and we, um, we brought that through the committee.
But I think that, um, going forward with budgets being so tight, we don't have any room for error.
Councilor Smith, Or that we can just, you know, we put the FTEs down by 200.
I mean, I don't think there's any more room if we go with existing operating expenses, and then it causes us a problem.
So I want to prevent a problem before it even starts.
I'd like to hear about it.
I want it to come through the committee before we bring it to the BIC Council so that we can work out some of those things and be very clear on what's happening.
Councilor Smith.
The other issue is, tell me more about your relationship with Youth PDX in East Portland.
Sonia Szymanski
I don't have a lot of personal experience with that, and I actually don't know the details of the relationship.
I know it's good.
I know in the current year we've done some kind of special one-off Sponsorship of their programming, and that what they do with the Community Music Center in the summer will be preserved in the budget.
Loretta Smith
And just curious, how many tennis courts do we have in East Portland?
Sonia Szymanski
We might have to send you that.
Loretta Smith
I don't know that we have any.
Sonia Szymanski
I think we have about 100-something citywide.
And I can—.
Loretta Smith
But they're mainly in District 2 and 3, if I remember the map that I saw previously.
And, and, and the reason why I'm asking this, if we're going to talk about vulnerable populations, I'm not happy with, with the cuts that's happening to the park system, um, in East Portland.
And I'm going to be doing a parks tour, um, in the next month where I'm going to go to every single park in, uh, East Portland.
Thank you.
And if I get a chance before the end of the summer, I will be going to the other parks citywide.
But I want to make the point that parks are important to us in East Portland too, that programming is very critical to us in East Portland.
And as you're thinking about, you know, where to put our resources, think about those vulnerable places first.
And I guess yes.
If you're talking about disparities, you can actually come up with every issue, and I bet you East Portland would be at the top of every disparity, from crash corridor to parks to not having enough tennis courts in East Portland.
And when you're talking about that relationship and building that relationship, I want you to ask them on how do they plan to put more tennis courts in East Portland?
Because I don't think they have that many.
And those are the kind of things that we have to ask.
We have to put an equity lens on everything that we do.
Um, if we're not doing that, then we're not doing our job.
So thank you very much.
Thank you for the presentation, and I look forward to, to seeing what that relationship is going to look like going forward.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Colleagues, we are We are currently over our time, so let's, uh, we've got 2 more colleagues in the queue, 3 more colleagues in the queue.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Very briefly, thank you, Council President.
You mentioned a cut to service for the, um, the garden at Kelly Park that was created in partnership with the Native American community to have native plants.
Have you been socializing that cut with NEA and other partners, or will this come as a shock to them when they hear this council meeting or work session today?
And what has their reaction been?
Is there a plan to ensure that that stays— that space stays maintained?
Sonia Szymanski
I don't know what the communication has been.
I know that the seasonal work is what you might imagine— mulching, general tending care of the space— and I know that that is a signature, highly valued community space.
Um, did I say I can't speak to what the communication has been?
I'm not sure what it has or hasn't been, but I take your point.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Could you get back to me?
And my D2 colleagues may be curious about this as well, and let us know what has been socialized and where partners are at.
I suspect that we will end up having some conversations with the community about that.
I'd like to make sure I know what work has been done.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
And, uh, if this has already been asked when I had to step out for a minute, just tell me that and I'll, I'll catch up on the video.
But, uh, first, just to signal, I, I agree on the conversations we've heard around USTA.
I also agree about prioritizing volunteerism as well as private dollars.
I hope this has been mentioned elsewhere, but if not, I think, um, one of the, the really valuable things we can be doing to kind of piggyback off of Councilor Smith's point about more tennis courts is partnering with major sports organizations to have more basketball and soccer facilities available too.
And I'll just note here that in North Portland, there's a Portland Timbers-funded soccer field that, you know, is a good example of that.
And it— but it's not currently managed in the parks context.
And I think that's a good opportunity to ensure our facilities are there.
The Culley Garden cut came as a shock to me.
So I'd love to know how much money that quote unquote saved to make that adjustment.
I don't know if anyone has that number or a rough estimate.
Sonia Szymanski
Roughly, not a lot.
Sameer Kanal
Like a 5-digit number?
Sonia Szymanski
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, that's helpful.
I think even just knowing that much is super helpful.
Let me ask, in the summaries of the overall budget, we talked about about a 12.5% cut.
To parks, broadly speaking.
Is that still an accurate number, or is there— was there context that was being missed there?
Claudio Campuzano
So I think that there's a lot of different ways of looking at it.
We've got our whole fund, our whole budget, which is just under $500 million, and then we've got our general fund budget.
The general fund budget goes down by about $7.2 million.
And so that when I say general fund budget, That is the general fund levy and earned revenue all for general operations.
So 7.2% is probably the figure that you're looking for.
It's that sort of non-golf, non-PIR, non-capital sort of operating reduction.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, and that's about a 12.5% reduction from current service levels?
Claudio Campuzano
No, it's 7.2% is the total reduction in expenses okay.
Sameer Kanal
Maybe I'll skip ahead then because I was a little confused.
I was going off of that number and comparing that number to the 10% that I know bureaus were asked to put up as a cut reduction.
My question is not actually for staff, but I wanted to understand.
My assumption has been if there is a 10% cut scenario that was offered by the bureaus and anything greater than that was put in the mayor's proposed, that some identification process happened for those further cuts.
And so I wanted to give the mayor actually a chance to speak to that thought process because I don't think we've heard that yet, and I think that's probably beyond the scope, if my assumptions are correct, and if not, I'd love to hear that.
I think that's maybe beyond the scope of what the staff was originally asked to put up, and I understand it's a tougher budget.
I'm not faulting you for the choice.
I just want to understand it.
Keith Wilson
Yeah, thank you.
And Claudia was right, there's so many different revenue sources in the park.
It's, it's just determining how do you get to a particular number.
The way I asked Sonia and the team to set it up was really driven based on where did the levy delta come in.
So we and this council supported the $1.40 As opposed to $1.60 for current service level.
That $160 to $140 is a 12.5% reduction.
And so we approached this with, on our general fund, which is generally about the same amount as the levy, it's just pure coincidental, we took a 12% reduction in the general fund, which is about $12 million, maybe less.
Yeah, $10 million.
And that was about the same amount that we reduced the levy.
So it was numbers, but by doing that, we turned to Sonya and her team.
We're not gonna take any additional cuts at all.
So while the 10% guidance was there, we didn't take any material reduction except for the delta between the 160 and the 140 for the ballot measure.
So I know that, and you are right, and Claudia was right, when you add the general fund and the levy, it's only gonna be 5 or 6% overall.
That's right.
But we only had the general fund in which to work in.
So I appreciate the conversation, but in the end, we did not take any mayor's guidance, 3% or 10% cut to parks.
We just right-sized it based on the levy and the reduction in what we should have gone to the voters if we wanted to do current service level.
But I think that this council made the right decision by focusing on affordability and lowering the rate.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Keith Wilson
And we made some material changes which we hope aren't going to be fatal to our parks system.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks, Mayor.
I appreciate that.
And I appreciate you being here.
It's very helpful to be able to ask you that.
The—.
I guess the only other thing that comes to mind is sort of where those— and this is, I think, related to what Councilor Murillo said very early on about there sort of was a little bit of a uh, simplification of what the levy would do in the ballot text that maybe created a higher expectation, um, in some spaces than what the levy amount might have been able to do.
And I want to make sure that we're fulfilling our obligations to the voters.
And, and so my question there was, most of what was in the ballot language was about services and, and sort of the recreation side.
And so I'm, I'm trying to understand why the, the reductions are not more tailored on the natural resources side relative to the services and the recreation side.
I would have expected more on the natural resources side based off of the pledges we made to the voters in the levy conversation.
Does that make sense?
And maybe you can speak to why that balance turned out the way it did.
Sonia Szymanski
Yeah, and Sarah Huggins can recite those commitments if you want.
As I've mentioned, we worked really hard to reduce, to minimize impact to the day-to-day experience of being in our parks and in our programs and in our buildings.
The reductions on the programming side, as well as the reductions on the daily care and maintenance side, were really geared to keep all of those commitment categories, and that's the level they were in there at, categorical, whole.
Okay, thanks for that.
Sameer Kanal
And I appreciate both Sarah and Maximo being here often.
Thank you.
Parts of the system that don't get as much focus as they should.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Council President.
First of all, thank you, Sonia, and your team.
Um, these are hard decisions, and I appreciate your leadership.
Um, I just wanted to touch a little bit on something that's big picture.
We listened to a national group present to us a while ago now— was before we made decisions on the bond and the levy.
And they ranked us with other top-tier parks.
And we punch up in terms of being a smaller city that's in the high rankings of top 10.
So congratulations.
The area where we were lower, like the bottom, dead last, was around earned revenue and partnerships.
And when they compared us to other cities, it wasn't even close.
So I heard that as a member of this council and wanted to advocate To improve that data point.
And I'm really glad that we put into the budget, or we put into the budget, 'cause that position was taken away after the last levy, which I think was a mistake, and now was put back in to focus on partnerships.
So thank you.
My point is we then had an opportunity to look at some instant wins in that regard.
I was inspired about—.
Thank you.
I'm looking into the USTA because I have a history of knowing about the tennis center that they transformed in Vancouver.
And I encourage my colleagues to go see that.
It was kind of in bad shape like ours currently is, and it's been transformed.
Their scholarships have gone up, their impact has gone up.
Everyone that I would talk to in the community that actually plays tennis was thrilled with was it rough to get it in the transition?
Absolutely.
But it seems like this is a step that we should have the courage to explore because when we hear— and thank you, Councilor Smith, for remembering the meeting that we were both in with Councilor Green and Councilor Clark.
Were you in that meeting too?
It was the Arts and Economy meeting.
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Priya Dhanapal
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
And the $1.5 million in annual savings yes.
Was discussed.
Also, the deferred maintenance that we failed to do for over 2 decades, that roof often leaks and there's many days of closure of the tennis center.
And they're going to focus on that nearly $3 million capital investment of our own deferred maintenance.
So I hope that we can take a breath here and listen to the findings and see why this administration has leaned into this and decided it was a good move to improve services.
And I want to just put that into the record.
And I'm— I think in this form of government, we sometimes struggle because we'll have thoroughly vetted conversations in a committee and then they don't get socialized to the whole council.
And that's something we have to keep looking at, which is why I'm not really a big fan of committees.
So I just want to put that into the record, and I look forward to more information on it myself.
Thank you.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you so much.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Thank you, team, for the presentation.
We are going to take a 10-minute break.
Everybody please be back here at 11:30 for our PBOT presentation.
Sonia Szymanski
What about this paper?
Okay, thank you.
The things I kept looking for, I didn't have.
Mitch Green
Um, I'd be curious—.
Steve Novick
I don't know, I think that it goes to the taxpayer.
Jamie Dunphy
And we are back.
Welcome for chapter 2, and we're going to hear from transportation.
Take it away.
Priya Dhanapal
Thank you, Council President Dunphy.
For the record, I'm Priya Dhanapal, Deputy City Administrator for Public Works.
We're here to walk through our I'm here with Millicent Williams, Director of PBOT, as well as Jeremy Patton, our budget and finance lead for the bureau as well as for the service area.
I want to briefly begin with gratitude for the City Council.
Yesterday, the council approved the transportation utility fee to help fund the basic maintenance and safety of the city's transportation system.
This would have been a very different conversation today If not for that approval.
This is a historic moment for PBOT as well as for our city.
After 7 consecutive years of reductions, this decision has created a path towards greater stability and a more sustainable funding source for our transportation system.
I have my sincere gratitude for the leadership of Councilor Clark, Mayor Wilson, CA Lee, as well as Director Williams and her incredible team.
Who did rigorous analysis, had difficult conversations, and steady persistence behind the scenes.
Um, we will now turn to the work ahead.
We will focus on delivering on this investment, which will require the same amount of focus, care, and collaboration from our PBOT team.
And with that, I will turn it over to Director Williams to walk over the proposed budget for PBOT.
Millicent Williams
Thank you, DCA Dhanapal.
For the record, I'm Millicent Williams, the director of thank you.
Our vision for Portland's transportation system is simple: to have a well-maintained transportation system that services all needs and that allows all users to travel the city safely and efficiently, whether walking, rolling, biking, taking transit, or when operating personal or freight vehicles.
The vision is realized through a $585 million budget and, more importantly, through the hard work of the over 1,000 positions within the bureau.
Next slide, please.
This table provides a high-level overview of all the changes to the bureau's budget, including additions, reductions, and realignments.
The specific changes included in each of these categories is explained in more detail in future slides.
Next slide.
Similar to the budget slide we just covered, this table provides a high-level overview of all the changes to the bureau's position counts, including additions, reductions, and realignments.
Again, the specific changes included in each of these categories is explained in more detail on future slides.
Next slide, please.
The proposed budget allows us to preserve PBOT's core services at current service levels with some limited expansion.
We are preserving pavement maintenance, including work like pothole filling, base repair, and preventative maintenance activities.
We are preserving and expanding our work to maintain clean streets.
And finally, we are preserving traffic safety programs, including 823 Safe and small capital safety improvements.
Next slide, please.
A grateful bureau thanks you, Portland City Council.
Mayor Wilson.
Thank you, Mayor Wilson, City Administrator Lee, for your support of the transportation utility fee.
This funding will allow us to preserve core services and continue to show up with excellence for Portlanders this coming year and for the future years.
Your vote speaks to the confidence that you have in the ability of the bureau to deliver, and we look forward to meeting the challenge of the moment.
Many of you know me to be fairly unemotional Thank you.
I also am rarely at a loss for words, but over the course of the past several weeks, this council, this mayor, the city administrator have shown up in ways that have left us speechless.
The number of pinch marks we have on our arms at the bureau demonstrates Both the excitement that we had about what has been happening over the course of the past several weeks, and the joy that we have based on the decisions that were made.
We cannot thank you enough.
We recognize that it was a challenging decision.
We recognize, however, that it was a really important decision, and the Bureau looks forward to showing you that we can do the things that we've been talking about wanting to do for many.
Many years.
Thank you for your leadership.
Thank you for your commitment.
Thank you for your trust in our ability to demonstrate to Portlanders that the Portland Bureau of Transportation sees you and is going to meet your needs.
As has been discussed with this body previously, the transportation utility fee will not go into effect until January 1st, 2027, which means we will only see half a year's worth of revenue during the 26th the mayor's proposed budget recognizes the ongoing revenue of $23.35 million for this year and $46.7 million thereafter from the implementation of the transportation utility fee.
Based on the council's vote yesterday, this will be adjusted to be allocated as the ordinance prescribes, with 75% toward maintenance, preservation, and rehabilitation activities and 25% towards transportation safety, including 12.5% for sidewalk and alternative pathway— pathways projects aligned with the SIP program, and 12.5% for Vision Zero projects.
This funding will provide us with stable, dedicated funding that allows us to preserve assets and maintain a safe system and maintain existing staffing levels for the bureau.
Thank you for seeing us.
Next slide.
Thank you again, Council, for your support of the street damage restoration fee.
Another moment when we were all very, very pleasantly surprised but excited to get to work.
This package recognizes ongoing revenue of $11.1 million starting in fiscal year 2024.
Thank you.
The city will receive $10 million in revenue bonds for fiscal year 26-27 and up to $20 million per year thereafter from the implementation of a street damage restoration fee, which will be commonly called the SDRF.
The SDRF is assessed on permitted construction activities that impact city streets, providing a dedicated funding source to repair damage and maintain safe, reliable transportation assets.
These funds will enable the bureau to expand the annual number of preservation paving projects to minimize long-term pavement degradation and extend the life of pavement assets in good condition.
The revenue also supports compliance with regulatory and policy requirements related to street use and construction impacts, ensuring accountability and sustainable management of city transportation infrastructure.
Next slide, please.
The proposed budget initiates 3 actions regarding PBOT funding sources to assist with citywide balancing.
The first eliminates all ongoing general fund support going to the bureau totaling $1.3 million.
The programs supported by these funds include street sweeping, paving gravel streets, some sustainability policy work, and a portion of Sunday parkways.
These programs will, however, remain intact through the allocation of general transportation revenues or the reallocation of workload amongst other staff.
The second reduces the streetlight replacement reserve by $7 million and transfers those funds to the general fund.
The original source of these reserves is general fund discretionary dollars that were transferred by the bureau in previous years for the future— transferred to the bureau, excuse me, in previous years for the future replacement of LED bulbs.
The final action next slide, please.
The reduction eliminates all cannabis tax support for the Vision Zero program, which totals $1.2 million.
The program, however, will remain whole, no reductions to services, through the allocation of new general transportation revenues.
Next slide, please.
The fiscal year '25-'26 adopted budget directed the bureau to initiate a residential street sweeping program.
This package includes thank you.
PBOT is requesting $1.1 million in new ongoing general transportation revenues, $1.3 million of a one-time set of resources, and 7 additional positions.
With these additional resources, PBOT will be able to sweep 2,300 curb miles 4 times a year, flush 1,200 non-curb miles twice a year, add 4 dedicated parking enforcement officers to allow curb-to-curb sweeping.
We're adding parking enforcement because We will need to work with community to ensure that they move their vehicles, and that's the mechanism by which we help to support that communication.
And then expand everyone's favorite holiday, Leaf Day, throughout the entire city and create a citywide communications plan by the end of fiscal year '27-'28.
Next slide, please.
This package allocates $1 million of ongoing general transportation resources to support the towing and demolition of derelict RVs from Portland streets.
For 4 of the past 5 years, the bureau has relied on one-time general fund resources to supplement general transportation resources allocated to this work to ensure that program goals could be met.
Starting in fiscal year 26-27, all efforts will be supported by general transportation resources.
These resources allow the bureau to maintain towing about 800 without the resources, the bureau would only be able to tow approximately 515 RVs per year.
Next slide, please.
The mayor's proposed allocates $500,000 for the sidewalk improvement and paving program.
This will allow the bureau to identify scope— to identify scope and begin projects to repair, maintain, and expand sidewalk thank you.
And road infrastructure.
We also acknowledge that while the mayor's proposed allocated $500,000, the transportation utility fee ordinance that you all approved yesterday allocates 12.5% of the TUF revenues, which would be closer to $3 million.
Amendments will need to be made in the approved budget to align this investment with recent changes.
Next slide, please.
This package assumes the creation of new fees for development-related work and eliminates the interagency with Portland Permitting and Development that funded this work in previous years.
The new fees will fund permitting work related to encroachments of the right-of-way, sidewalk and driveway permitting, sewer inspections, grade and gravel program, temporary street use development review, and public works design projects.
No new services or positions are created through this package.
It is only a change in revenues supporting existing work.
Next slide, please.
And this is our final slide.
We've updated our 10-year general transportation revenue, or GTR, forecast based on decisions within the proposed budget.
The implementation of the transportation utility fee provides immediate relief to the GTR forecast by moving some maintenance and safety expenses to this new funding source thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
As shown in the graph, GTR resources are now higher than expenses in the first 5 to 6 years in the forecast and then are aligned with expenses after that.
These higher resources in the early years are allocated to eliminating the one-time GTR shortfall of $45 million and then are set aside in balancing reserve to help help smooth out the forecast in future years.
One key item to note is that the ADA ramp funding plan assumes $5.9 million in additional ongoing general fund resources starting in fiscal year '28-'29 to fund a second issuance of bonds.
The second issuance of bonds would require future council action and authorization.
In the event these resources are not available in the general fund, alternative other half of the future bond issuance are included in the PBOT forecast shown.
On a positive note, there are also potential opportunities that are not included in the forecast, including a passage of a state transportation package and potential changes to how parking citations are collected to allow the city to receive greater revenue.
Thank you.
If these resources materialize, there will be an opportunity to invest these new funds in additional programs and services.
Next slide.
We thank you for your time, and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have.
And I hope we're able to make up for some of the time that we were able to spend with Parks and Recreation.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Director Williams.
Colleagues, we have 45 minutes for public comment.
That means I'm hoping colleagues will please try to keep your comments and questions to about 5 minutes apiece.
Councilor Morillo, kick us off.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you guys so much.
Really appreciate this presentation.
We are big fans of PBOT on the City Council, and I think that the TUF was a difficult decision but a necessary one, and it's going to help fund SIP.
So, you know, it's important that we keep in mind that when we are saying we want to fund sidewalks, that we We have to make those tough choices and expend our political capital to actually vote through the things that are going to fund SIP and other infrastructure things.
So I appreciate you highlighting that, and I'm very grateful that there's such a good partnership.
I've been here before when there wasn't as much with council, and so I really like seeing that change.
I have a few questions, and I'll go through them quickly.
Regarding the PBOT and PSF funds that were transferred to PMO, Can anyone speak to what PBOT would have to cut in their CIP to accommodate the reduction of PSF funding for PMO?
Millicent Williams
The reallocation of funds is coming out of—.
We have several ways that PSF is investing in PBOT, but one of those is through a lighting program as well as the lighting program that was highlighted through the presentation.
So it would come from that allocation.
So no staff would be impacted.
It would be a reallocation of the lighting funding that has gone to the bureau.
We are continuing to have conversations about how on the back end of that 5-year CIP period we'd be able to realize how we can fill that gap.
But we recognize that the priority is to ensure that the ways that the reallocated funding would go to support a different type of lighting is important in this moment.
And so we wanted to be able to be supportive of that.
Steve Novick
Gotcha.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Angelita Morillo
Thanks for that clarity.
There wasn't really outlined before, so that's really helpful.
Sure.
Moving on, I have a question about PBOT revenue.
There were some changes for Vision Zero programming.
So from what I see, the cannabis recreation tax fund is seeing declines in revenue, and Mayor, you're now using that for funding for PSR and PROSPER and having removed funding for PBOT and housing.
So Vision Zero is now being replaced with interagency revenues instead.
Is that an interagency agreement with PBOT, or who is now picking up that roughly $200,000 cost?
Jeremy Patton
Yeah, so there's Jeremy Patton with Public Works.
There are 2 issues on the Vision Zero piece.
There is the dollars going to PBOT currently, and then there are the dollars going to support a position in the DCA's office.
I believe you're referring to the position in the DCA's office, and that position is being backfilled by the 4 bureaus that currently support the DCA's office within Public Works through an interagency agreement.
The funding that is going— that would've went to PBOT is now being backfilled with general transportation resources.
Angelita Morillo
Gotcha.
And could you remind me what position in the DCA's office that would be in?
Is it for which DCA?
Priya Dhanapal
This is the citywide Vision Zero lead position who is in the Public Works Service area, but technically serving the entire city.
Angelita Morillo
Gotcha.
And that came— was that from the amendment from last budget cycle?
Priya Dhanapal
Correct.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, that all makes sense now.
Thanks for clarifying that.
Last question and then I'll be done.
This is regarding the PBOT reduction of streetlight replacement reserves to increase funding in the general fund.
As a council, we often talk about how bad our maintenance log is, especially for PBOT.
Could someone help me understand what the impact would be on the streetlight replacements that are set to begin in 2027 and 2028 if we reduce these reserves by $7 million to fund other one-time needs in the general fund?
Millicent Williams
There wouldn't be an impact to the operations in '27-'28.
It's for the out years.
There's a larger sum that has been allocated to that line item.
$17 million, correct, Jeremy?
Jeremy Patton
The total general fund set aside is $17 million.
Millicent Williams
Yeah, the total set aside is $17 million.
We would not see the impacts of that reduction right away.
We will need to talk about what that needs to look like in the out years.
But today, The streetlight replacements and in the coming years, in the foreseeable future, the short term, that does not change our ability to make those changes.
Angelita Morillo
And do you know how many lights would eventually not get replaced?
Sorry, this might be getting a little too in the weeds.
Millicent Williams
Yeah, we have our traffic engineers here, but that is a little weedy.
We can find out how much each bulb costs, the labor associated, and figure out what that impact would be.
Angelita Morillo
I see weedy, but not the fun kind of weedy.
Okay, we can look into it later.
Millicent Williams
I don't know anything about that.
Sonia Szymanski
Great.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Appreciate your answers.
And again, thanks to all my colleagues who voted in favor of the TUF so that we can fund the SIP program.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Mr. President.
Um, I just want to recognize that, you know, this budget's tough.
There's a lot of painful aspects about it, but I think the bright spot in it is the decision, um, that we made to pass the TUF and the street damage restoration fee.
I want to— I really want to take a moment to thank the mayor, uh, Vice President Clark for your leadership, Director Councilor Novick, Councilor Wilson-Williams for your leadership.
It is a really challenging thing to do.
It takes a lot of courage to say this is what we need for our city at this time.
Echo previous comments by Councilor Novick that our— if we didn't pass this, then our city would literally die.
So I want to also thank my colleagues who had the courage to vote yes for that.
It made possible the SIP that we had no funding for.
And so I want to also thank the mayor for putting in some resources to get the planning component piece going.
Even before the revenues flow.
That's going to make possible the necessary design and kind of scoping work that we need to do so that we can have this conversation around how to bond for it perhaps or something like that.
So I'm really excited about this piece of the budget.
Less excited about every other part of the budget, but that's, you know, we're all on that same page.
I do have a question though about— you mentioned a SIP amendment.
You said that it might be necessary to do an amendment in this budget for can you just kind of talk me through how that might work?
Because I had been thinking about it as after we've adopted this, at some point we might need to have to do a supplemental budget ordinance and consider a bond or something like that.
So curious to hear what you say.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Sure.
Millicent Williams
In the mayor's proposed, there was the allocation of $500,000 that was set aside for us to begin that critical planning coordination work to ensure that we could hit the ground running, as it were.
Um, with the amendment that attended the ordinance, there's an increase in the amount.
So it's no longer just $500,000 that's been dedicated or allocated specifically to SIP, but per your guidance now it's $3 million.
And so we need to go back to revisit what that means and how we would apply that.
$3 million, which would not necessarily need to all go toward that same effort.
So that's why there's an adjustment that's technically— would potentially be needed, because we won't need $3 million to do planning.
We'll need a portion of that, and then some of that could go into the actual work that will be put in the ground.
Mitch Green
That's perfect.
Thank you.
That clarifies for me.
Sure.
Thanks so much.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Vice President Clark.
Sonia Szymanski
Thank you, Council President.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
It's okay to smile now.
Hi.
Uh, appreciate your work.
I also want to give a shout out to your staff, Shoshana Cohen and Mark Lair and their team, who just did yeoman work to get us to this place as well.
I don't want to rain on the parade, but I am going to say that we have a lot of work ahead of us before we implement these things.
We have a lot of work to do, particularly on the commercial and the multifamily side.
Okay.
So let's not forget that it's not going to rain money.
We have a lot of work to do to get there.
The second thing I wanted to say is that, um, on the street damage restoration fee, in the long run, uh, ideally we won't have it because we'll be more coordinated.
So I could see that in the future this source of revenue will diminish, ideally.
Um, I just had a question on the, uh, I know that we had a reserve fund at one time that we tapped into deeply to get us through the last 7 years.
How do we restore that?
How does that work, restoring the reserves?
Jeremy Patton
So I can answer that question.
So there are 2 sets of reserves basically for transportation.
We have our official transportation reserve fund, which has about $15 million sitting in it.
That has not been tapped at all.
And the reason that we don't typically tap that in the 5-year forecast is once we take revenue from that, We have to repay it within 3 years.
And so when you're looking at a 5-year balancing, it doesn't make a lot of sense to try and use that to balance your forecast.
It's more for an immediate cash flow from year to year.
There are also other reserves within transportation.
So we did have a sizable reserve of an additional $60 million or so, which has been actually reduced down to below zero.
Mm-hmm.
And we're— this forecast right now, when we talk about adding funds to smooth out in the future rates when those become available, that will start rebuilding that immediate kind of cash flow.
And maintaining the transportation reserve fund that's legally required as well.
Olivia Clark
So we will start to rebuild that and then—.
Jeremy Patton
Starting about year 6, yeah.
Olivia Clark
Okay, thank you so much.
And thanks again everybody for all the work you did.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
I am looking at the performance metrics over fiscal year and It's a good start.
I wish that we would— maybe I'm missing it, but I would expect normally we'd have a projected what we hope to do.
So it's got previous years, and I just want to point to the pothole repair activity.
The count 2 years ago was just under 15,000 repaired, and that dropped to just over 11,000 in '24-'25.
I think that's a good start.
I'm curious in terms of what do you expect that to be both in the '25-'26, but also moving forward with the current plan that you're putting forward?
Millicent Williams
Sure, I'll ask that Jody Yates, who is the Maintenance Operations Director, come forward to answer in greater detail.
I will share, however, that while it appears that the number of potholes was repaired, uh, was reduced, it was because we changed the methodology by which we filled potholes.
And instead of doing it pothole by pothole, we did swaths of, uh, pavement so that we could hit more than one at a time.
And so—.
Eric Zimmerman
So 23rd could be considered one big pothole.
Millicent Williams
Could be considered one big pothole.
Steve Novick
Because they all touch each other at some level.
Millicent Williams
And it's getting repaired right now.
So we're excited about that.
Eric Zimmerman
Um, you should give yourself a premium then when you do the groupings.
Well, Jody, go ahead.
Millicent Williams
Thank you, Councilor.
But Jody, go ahead.
Jody Yates
For the record, my name is Jody Yates, Maintenance Operations Group Manager.
What she said, so we've changed our fundamental how we're approaching if we're getting an area with multiple potholes, going in and doing the, not just filling a pothole, but repairing the pavement, and it's resulting in this approach, we started doing this about 18, 20 months ago, and it's actually resulting in fewer repeat offenders.
And Monday we will start doing the grind on Northwest 23rd from Lovejoy going north to Vaughn, and that is one of our repeat offender areas as well.
But you should, should be seeing this activity throughout the city hitting smaller block segments.
Maybe it's only half a block long and doing targeted either digging out and repairing the street and not just filling the pothole.
So we're taking a very different approach.
Takes a little bit more time, but it's resulting in lower overall numbers and smoother pavement for our people.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Eric Zimmerman
I think it's worth talking about, right?
I think it's one of those maybe the metric is not hitting the right way, and I'm sorry that for whatever reason the current year and the next year aren't in this document, but are we doing more or less is the important thing, I think, for Portlanders.
And so that's great.
I hope I can drive the grinder maybe on Monday.
I don't know if you need some help on Monday to start the 23rd project, just give me a ring, okay?
Millicent Williams
We can schedule all types of grinding, paving, striping, pothole filling.
We have activities for everybody.
Eric Zimmerman
I think I have a license for that from the military somewhere.
Um, I, uh, in terms of when we talk about like what we expect to get done in terms of paving for— I'm going to say the neighborhood roads and not our larger, more known corridors.
Um, do we have an estimate for per year we try to get about this many done, or do we do it purely based on a, um, you know, if, if, if this— any neighborhood roads fall into this category, we put them as that we got to get them done?
I'm trying to understand how we, how we tackled that part of it, leaving off the Lombards and the Barbers and the 23rds.
Jody Yates
Yeah, thank you for the question.
Uh, in about 2009 or '10, uh, Thank you.
The bureau and the city took an approach of not doing any pavement repair and maintenance on our local roads.
So for the last 15, 16 years, the only repairs have been pothole repairs.
However, with this new funding, we are changing our approach and we're going to actually be bringing back into the space of crack seal and slurry seal for our local roads.
And it'll be in the next 5 years, we hope to actually start bringing that approach in.
We'll bring that framework forward to the City Council at some point if they would like to see what we're going to be doing with that.
We are actively working on that now.
Millicent Williams
Jodi, can you speak to the pavement list that we develop each year though?
Jody Yates
We— thank you.
We have an annual pavement list, and that right now really just speaks to our grind and pave program.
We are changing that to our pavement maintenance program.
So that'll include our crack seal, slurry seal, grind and pave, base repair where we're working throughout the city.
And we're right now developing 2027's list.
And then my pavement manager is working on a 5-year outlook.
Millicent Williams
Thank you.
Jody Yates
So we're going to have some of these answers for you in the near term, probably within the next 6 months.
We should have much better lists for all the program and prevent the pavement maintenance program that we'll be doing.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay.
I think that's notable, right?
15 Years of not doing pavement in neighborhoods.
So we did talk a little bit about the cut restoration fee, et cetera.
But if you were to pave a street, just your average everyday street, what is the bureau's expectation for how long that should go before you have significant need for either pothole filling, slurry sealing?
You used another term that I am forgetting right now.
But me— and I say that with a— when we get to a neighborhood, how long should we expect that a neighbor could say, oh good, we're good now for 5, 10, 15, 20 years?
Jody Yates
Should be in the 20 to 25.
If we did a paving project, it should be 20 to 25 years.
Slurry seal is a good treatment, 8 to 10 years before we would return.
Yeah.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks for sharing that.
I think it's important as people take a look at what to expect and how often, what are the norms, right?
But to hear we didn't do any for 15 years, quite the backlog, but once we get there, we hope to not have to see you again for quite a while, is the idea for a neighborhood street.
Um, okay, uh, like Parks, I think you guys have thread a difficult needle.
I appreciate it.
Um, I'm going to hold now for sake of time.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
Um, with regard to the last exchange, I just want to go back to this I appreciate that.
I was struck by the statistic that y'all gave me, which I keep on quoting, which is it'll take an additional $45 to $50 million a year simply to keep the major streets from further deteriorating.
So I actually didn't know that we were going to start doing repairs in the neighborhood streets again.
And that leads me to reiterate my request that we periodically update, you know, here's how close we're going to get to keep the major streets from deteriorating, and here's choices we're making that might result in them continuing to deteriorate.
I'm not asking for a response to that.
I just wanted to note that.
I want to add again my appreciation for all the work that you did educating the council and the public about the needs of the transportation system.
One kind of academic question.
When you say that the budget of PBOT is $584.9 million, I vaguely recall that maybe that that's not necessarily money that's spent in a given year, that some of that budget includes like pots of money that are in the budget but carried from year to year for long-term projects.
Am I right about that?
Millicent Williams
I'm sorry, I was looking at the $5.9 billion.
Can you repeat your question?
Steve Novick
When you say that $584 million is the budget of PBOT, is that all money that's going to be spent this year, or does that include some pots of money that are sort of part of the budget but carried over from year to year because they're part of long-term budgeting for long-term projects?
Millicent Williams
So Jeremy's going to answer that more holistically.
I got stuck because you were talking about the $5.9 million and then you talked about the $585 million.
Jeremy Patton
So it does include about $82 million of contingency funds that are saved for future years.
That's in that $584 million.
Steve Novick
But the rest of it is actually spent in the course of the year?
Jeremy Patton
It is budgeted to be spent.
I will say, if you look at like our CIP spending, we typically do not spend our entire CIP, although we budget $200 million or so.
We're probably spending in the $130 range or so on a year-to-year.
Steve Novick
Okay, that's what I think I was remembering.
Yeah, the CIP money, it might be budgeted but might not actually be spent.
Candace Avalos
Correct.
Millicent Williams
And that's because the CIP projects, the phases, we pay for the projects in phase.
So it's plan, design, and then the majority of that funding comes in construction, which is in the last year of a project.
And some of those projects are 4, 5, 6, 7 years long.
Steve Novick
You mentioned improving parking citation collection.
I was just curious as to how you were thinking about doing that.
Millicent Williams
Oh, we are back at the lab crafting some ideas about how we might be able to work in greater collaboration with our partners at the county and the state regarding the collection process, and we'll We are working very closely with the city administrator and mayor to look at some different strategies.
Right now, though, the collection rate is abysmally low relative to the number of citations that we actually issue on an annual basis.
Steve Novick
And I can't remember, there was a discussion years ago about, as a last resort against repeat violators, we would tow vehicles, and we were talking about going back to booting them instead.
Where are we in the booting, towing conversation?
Millicent Williams
We do tow.
There are a number of citations that one would need to receive prior to getting towed.
We also need to, when towing, make sure that folks aren't just paying to get the car out of the tow lot, but actually paying for the previous citations.
That was a practice that had been paused for some time, not at our choosing, but others were making that choice.
So we do have booting capability.
We don't do that a lot, but there are some boots out there from time to time that we are able to help people to understand the need to pay their parking.
And so we boot.
The broader question that you asked, however— I'm sorry.
We do boot.
We do tow.
It takes 5 tows, Wendy?
Sonia Szymanski
I think it's 5 tows, $600.
Millicent Williams
5 tows, $600 in fines.
The challenge we have right now is that there is not a strong incentive for people to always pay for those parking citations that they may receive based on the fact that there is currently no doubling.
Steve Novick
The reason we were talking about going back largely to booting some years ago is that booting is just sort of less expensive all around.
It's less expensive for the person paying the citation.
So, and I have to say, based on my own experience as a sometime parking misread in Salem in the late '90s, it's highly effective.
Millicent Williams
Shame is a great motivator.
Steve Novick
So another question I had was, I was having a conversation with some city employees about core realignment the other day, and they were talking about one or more employees within PBOT who were slated to be eliminated as part of core realignment.
And I said, well, PBOT now has some more money.
Was there any consideration of using that to save some of these positions?
And I was told, well, they think that their understanding was that decisions to make cuts related to core realignment are sort of made in a bubble and not really in consideration of funding sources available for individual positions.
And also they were making the point that it actually, you know, DCA Warren has said previously that the core realignment changes are in many cases actual cuts.
It's not just efficiencies.
So I just wanted to know if— I'm sorry to spring that on you, but I just wanted to know if you have any thoughts about that.
Millicent Williams
The bureau is working in coordination, collaboration with regard to the core services realignment process.
And so there will potentially be some impacts to the bureau based on some of those decisions that are made.
We're working right now to make sure that the impact to the bureau is as minimal as possible.
But we also acknowledge that even though we have a sustainable or stable funding source, that the goals around the core realignment services efforts is separate and apart from that.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
I think it's important to note that these exercises are separate from the general operations of the bureau.
We need to make sure that we're doing things in collaboration and coordination, but the goals are different for those exercises.
And so as we seek to identify efficiencies and root out redundancy across the city, the bureau recognizes its need to be a part of that conversation.
Priya Dhanapal
So there may be some impacts to the bureau, but we're working to make sure that we're and if I might add a final point to it, the City Operations Service Area, especially the Core Services Realignment, is working together with all service areas, including Public Works.
And we, you know, in the process of the realignment, we've had staff from Public Works work together in groups and subgroups along with the Core Services Realignment core team.
And so we have shared our concerns from Public Works to the Core Services Alignment Group, and several of the risks identified, especially in the high-risk category, have been mitigated.
But there is still some more work to do, and we will continue to have conversations between Core Services and Public Works in this regard.
So it's an ongoing conversation, and I look forward to you know, I think the core services realignment conversation is happening on May 8th, and we look forward to continuing that conversation here in council as well.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Finally, I just wanted to say that as a fan of the Industrial Workers of the World's old slogan, one big union, I'm pleased to hear that the potholes of the city are uniting in one big pothole.
Millicent Williams
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, President— Council President.
Thank you also, and good morning, Director Williams.
Good morning, Finance Lead Jeremy Patton.
And also, of course, Deputy City Administrator Dhanapal.
Thank you for your time.
According to the adopted budget in the CBO webpage, in 2015-16, PBOT had 785 employees.
And so 10 years later, we have 1,002.
Yes.
And so that's a $217 increase, so 28% from where it started.
Um, my question is, what are the new services that PBOT takes on?
I assume it's new.
Did the scope of the work increase by 28%?
In other words, when I go out to meetings across the city, people just scratch their head because they think it doesn't It seems like there's enough employees to do what they used to do.
And so they were confused on like where we're at and what the— and how we deliver our— the scope of the work with these employees that was probably different than say 10 years ago.
And I think that's the big picture conversation that PBOT has to keep explaining to the community.
Millicent Williams
You want to answer that or you want me to answer it?
Um, or do we want to attempt to answer that?
We might need to get back to you.
We probably need to get back inasmuch as I think neither Jeremy nor I were with the bureau in 2015, 2016, but I do know that since that time, the bureau has undergone a couple of realignments, reorganizations, not necessarily to identify ways to increase the number of staff, but to be realistic about the amount of work that they have to do.
Okay.
Of effort it takes to actually deliver on the things that we deliver on.
I will use as an example a ramp crew, something that Councilor Zimmerman might be interested in hearing about.
I think people are surprised at how many people it actually takes to do a full corner.
I was surprised and didn't understand until I was out there watching it happen and videotaping.
That if in fact there isn't a concrete finisher in place when the concrete is poured to ensure that the concrete is smooth within the number of seconds that it has to be worked within, then we run the risk of needing to look at a different alternative.
So by having one fewer staff, one less maintenance team member in place, We compromise the integrity of us being able to do the best job that we can.
Now, that's an extreme example, perhaps not the example you're necessarily looking for, but I think often people see the work that our team is doing and they see people standing around.
They say they're standing around, they're not doing anything.
They're waiting for their moment to get in there and do that thing, and then they get out.
And we're pretty efficient in that.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Millicent Williams
I think that there is an underestimation, however, overall about what it takes to deliver on the work that we deliver on on a daily basis.
And in order for us to do it well, we need to make sure we are appropriately staffed.
So is it safe to say that the work of the bureau has expanded?
There are some things that we're doing now that we were not doing before.
But I would need to look at the exact numbers in terms of the 20% increase.
I think that's a fair statement.
In staff to be able to speak to more specifically your question.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Yeah, because when I look at the numbers and it's a 217 FTE increase and there seems to be less satisfaction, it's hard for me to explain.
Sure.
And so I didn't get the explanation today, but it would be helpful for us as public servants to understand that.
Millicent Williams
Absolutely.
We'll provide that for you.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Smith.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
Uh, thank you all for the presentation.
I, um, I was very, um, pleasantly surprised when I saw that there was like cannabis money in the, in the transportation, uh, budget.
I didn't know that.
Um, what did you use the, the cannabis money for in transportation?
Millicent Williams
It was used for Vision Zero work.
Loretta Smith
It was?
Okay, okay.
And that would, and that would make sense.
And so it's all— I mean, I think we kind of get backstopped to the $800 million that we have to figure out where those resources go in general fund, and then the other $6.6 million we just say, oh, those are restricted funds and people don't want to talk I think it's very important to talk about because we have general fund monies that were sent over to these reserve funds, not just in transportation but in other funds, 3 councils ago, 4 councils ago, and people have forgotten about what they are.
So one of the things that I'm going to be asking DCA Jaya Paul and I, I held off because we have a new city administrator, and he asked me to cancel my appointments because I had appointments for 26 bureau heads because I wanted to know what is exactly in these reserve funds.
We have hundreds of millions of dollars in these reserve funds.
I need to know what they are after the budget.
Councilwoman.
I want to know, particularly for the utilities, what it's for, when is it planned to be used, because I think we've forgotten, because we don't have councilors over bureaus anymore, what those funds are in there for.
And I can't— I want to be able to go to a list, a spreadsheet, and say, oh, this is expected to be used on Project AZ for 2028 to 2032.
I have no idea, and I don't think the city administrator has any idea.
Millicent Williams
I do.
Loretta Smith
What those funds are in there for either, because there's 70 of them.
So how can you know everything about everything?
But I want us to drill down, Vice President Olivia Clark, because we got to know what's in there.
Because as we, we see today, I'm looking at the citywide balancing support and transportation.
We had quite a bit of general fund money in those places that we could have gone for.
Millicent Williams
Yes.
Loretta Smith
And we've had 2 TOWs, and budget office, CFO, they said this is— we don't have any other monies, all those are restricted.
Well, that's not necessarily so, because I'm looking at about $9 million worth of general fund money that we could have used for some other things earlier in the year.
So I'm just saying, information is king around here.
Yes.
And if we don't have information, accurate information of what can be used for, we're depending upon somebody else's opinion on what is doable or takeable.
And I think that that is something that we are finding out over these last couple of years.
I want to leave bureaus with enough money to do the things that they are charged to do.
If I would have known this money was in here, I would have took it out and put it in the budget office.
Yes.
And give them some more budget people so that we don't have to go through a lot of the changes that we're going through.
That would have been my priority.
I do support the mayor's budget, but I want to make sure that we are being very transparent in the funds that we have, particularly in transportation.
It is a large— it is a large budget.
Water is a large budget.
We have a big $2.5 billion project Yes.
That's on the line.
And that's coming up.
I don't even know where to start on this, but that's the public works piece of it.
I also want to say for the record, I do support the TUF.
I got confused up here last week— I mean yesterday— and didn't know what was going on.
So many amendments going on, and I didn't know what was underlined and what wasn't.
But at any rate, I support you.
I think that this is going to be great to be able to put our resources to fixing our streets.
That's like having good shoes on.
If you don't have good shoes on, your feet are going to be messed up.
And our feet are going to be messed up with all these potholes, particularly in the high crash corridors.
The top 30 high crash corridors are in East Portland.
I wish that Councilor Kanal was here.
He has a lot of high crash corridors that he talks about too in District 2.
And this is going to be good for all of us.
And I think I'm looking forward to us not only— I don't have a problem with the FTEs, but I want to make sure that we're building partnerships within communities to make sure that those small businesses who are wanting to do business with the City of Portland yes.
That they can, um, get their, um, their apprenticeship programs going.
They can get new workers in so they can get journeymen and all those things that happen when you have healthy, um, infrastructure budgets that you can go out and do projects.
So I'm really excited.
And the last thing, um, Mrs. Yates, she came up here and she talked about slurry seal and total paving.
So next time when you come to the, um, Public Works, uh, session, I want to see what a slurry seal is, uh, what's the difference between a slurry seal and a total paving, so I know what that looks like.
Because I was like, I don't know what the difference between the two is.
Um, having some slides on that, that would be great.
Millicent Williams
Happy to do that.
Loretta Smith
Um, and thank you, thank you for what all you— you've been through a lot this last 6 months trying to get this over the finish line, and I think that it's going to be good.
The other question is are we even figuring in that we might get money from the state?
Is any of those dollars in this budget this time?
Are we even fantasizing about that at all?
Millicent Williams
That would be a wonderful windfall.
We have not planned— we're planning conservatively with this budget.
We are planning on what we know we are going to receive.
Loretta Smith
So we're not, we're not projecting that we're going to get that money.
Thank you so much.
Um, I appreciate it.
Thank you for the work that you and your team have been doing.
Millicent Williams
Thank you, Councilor.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Colleagues, we have about 9 minutes left.
Uh, Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Um, thanks for clarifying that, Councilor Smith.
I was also confused.
I was like, I thought you were supporting this thing, but—.
No, I'm sorry.
I want to take this as an opportunity because we're going to find out from our constituents, they're going to ask questions about the street damage restoration fee.
They're going to say, isn't this just going to be passed on to ratepayers?
And I'll just remind folks that a utility needs to make the case to the regulatory commission that they can pass on costs to the ratepayers.
And they do that through the Oregon Public Utility Commission.
Thank you.
Costs need to be reasonable, and if they are avoidable, then they are discretionary and oftentimes unreasonable.
And so when we make that case, that happens through an evidentiary hearing where you'll have to present evidence.
The Oregon Citizens Utility Board is an intervening party as a standing matter at OPUC, and so you can be sure that they are going to be defending ratepayers when ultimately PGE, Pacific Power, whoever they are, try to just pass this on blindly without recognizing that it's in the record, it's in the legislative intent that we designed the street damage restoration fee as a price signal so they can avoid it, so they can work with us as partners in helping us extend the life of our assets.
So I'm not going to want to hear that from the utilities running around saying, hey, we're just going to pass this on.
And it's really important for the public to hear that because they're not going to be told that to them by their utilities.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
First of all, I want to thank Councilor Smith for her metaphor.
I spent 4 years trying to think of metaphors for transportation issues, and I didn't come up with having a good street is like having a good shoe.
So thank you.
And in response to Councilor Ryan's comments about why do people feel more increasingly dissatisfied with the state of the streets, I think that's because as I've said before, it takes a long time for disinvestment in streets to become visible, and we've been neglecting the streets for 40 years.
So there's people who are upset about the condition of their street, and the reason their street is in bad condition is that Vera Katz didn't repave it in 2004 like she should have.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Colleagues, seeing no one else— oh, Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
I appreciate that, and I believe you.
I just wanted to get to the heart of the matter that we have 217 more employees, and I think we need more explanation on what that means.
And if there are services that we're providing that I didn't hear about today that I could speculate about, I think that's just important to get in the transparency of the public record.
Jamie Dunphy
Fair?
Thanks.
Councilor Thank you very much.
All right, colleagues, with that, I'm now going to adjourn our work session.
Thank you very much for the presentation, and we'll see you all back here at 2 o'clock.
Millicent Williams
Thank you.