Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Jamie Dunphy
Good morning.
It is 9:32.
I am calling to order this meeting, this council work session on— what is it— Wednesday, 9— uh, it's 9:32, I already said that.
May 6th is the word I'm looking for.
Colleagues, today is the first budget work session related to the Community and Economic Development Service Area.
Our second work session will be held on May 17th.
Work session in the series is tomorrow, Thursday, May 7th.
Today's work session focuses on housing and permitting matters within the service area.
We will be starting with Portland Permitting and Development, move on to the Portland Housing Bureau, and finish with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
Within the Planning and Sustainability Bureau— Bureau of Planning and Sustainability— we'll be focusing on planning specifically.
We have over an hour set aside tomorrow to discuss sustainability issues and specifically the Portland Clean Energy Benefits fund.
So hold off on those comments until tomorrow, please.
This is a service area with a lot of programs, and so today and tomorrow we have many presentations with a relatively tight timeline.
I will be watching the clock.
Specifically, I'm asking colleagues to keep their questions to 5 minutes per time.
You're always welcome to get back in the queue, but we got a lot of folks to get through and a very tight timeline.
Please consider what's best for the body and the city as a whole by being brief and to the point with your questions so that everything and everybody can be heard today.
With that, I'm going to turn it over to DCA Donnie Oliveira.
Loretta Smith
Welcome.
Donnie Oliveira
You can join us.
Jamie Dunphy
Oh, and we will be holding questions until after the presentation.
And colleagues, for this first section, uh, we have about 40 minutes to ask questions for permitting.
All right, take it away.
Donnie Oliveira
Thank you, Council President, Vice President.
Good morning, City Council.
My name is Donnie Oliveira, Deputy City Administrator for the Community and Economic Development Service Area.
I'm joined by Directors Eric Engstrom, Michael Bunnecourt, and Eric Kooch.
Next slide, please.
I will flag that, as the council president focused on, we're going to target these 3 bureaus today, with coming back with a whole different suite of topics for you tomorrow.
Next slide.
All right, so the city's Community and Economic Development Service Area focuses on housing, Planning, climate, culture, art, and economic development.
Together, we make Portland's community and built environment more vibrant and sustainable.
We focus on delivering programs and projects that create efficient, transparent, and just solutions to the issues we face.
The service area leans into its stakeholder engagement efforts to work with our communities along the way.
Our best policies and programs are those that center collaboration with the people we serve.
One note for council on this particular slide: the number of FTE is inclusive of Prosper Portland staff, and while they are not formally city Portland employees.
They are every bit a part of the service area team working in collaboration and partnership to meet our city's goals.
Next slide, please.
And just another way to look at it, uh, the service area is made up of the bureaus and offices you see represented on screen.
Uh, we've highlighted again Prosper, um, to denote the distinct reporting relationship with the city.
But again, while not a formal city bureau, their efforts supporting our small business community, activating economic and real estate development, and functioning as the stewards of the city's economic development strategy, Advance Portland, are significant.
Next slide, please.
So as a service area, our mission is to ensure Portland's future is resilient, sustainable, equitable, and prosperous.
We are both designing and planning for the future while providing resources and tools to deliver the results.
Importantly, 70% of our operating budget goes directly to community through grants, loans, or other forms of support from our various funding streams.
Across our bureaus and offices, city leadership worked hard to build a responsive responsible budget proposal, ensuring that our cuts prioritize core and mandated requirements and the priorities of the executive and legislative branch.
At the same time, the past few years have been very difficult when it comes to managing our general fund dollars because over the years we take— we've been taking cuts and that's reduced the percentage of overall higher discretionary dollars.
Next slide, please.
The last slide that I'll walk you through briefly before we get to the, the core details from our our directors, is the breakdown of bureau by bureau and by fund of the service area.
Substantially, PCF makes up a significant portion of our budget, but that includes the, the reserve contingency budgets that are planned for out years.
You may notice a drop from this year's revised budget to, to this, which is just sort of a function of the developing budget as we know it today.
Last, I'll just say for your just situational awareness, is as we look at these dollars, as a reminder, some of them are dollars that are programmed for future years, whether that be in, in TIF or some of the conversations we had around the Housing Bureau dollars.
Uh, not all the $1.2.4 proposed is, uh, designed to be spent in '26-'27.
All right, and we're going to— the order of the, the presentation is we're starting with permitting development and the housing and BPS.
And so with that, I will turn it to Director Eric Kooch.
Eric Kooch
Thank you, Donnie.
Good morning, Council.
My name is Eric Kooch.
I'm the Director of Portland Permitting and Development.
Today I'm here to walk you through PP&D's proposed budget and how we're working to preserve core services in a challenging environment.
At a high level, PP&D plays a critical role in supporting development and economic activity across the city.
And like most service-based organizations, our ability to deliver on that responsibility comes down to our people.
Without adequate staffing, we cannot provide timely, predictable permitting for customers who are trying to build in Portland.
At its core, this budget is about maintaining staffing so we can continue delivering the level of service our customers and this council expects.
Next slide, please.
At a high level, what this budget reflects is the reality of the resources available to the bureau.
Most of the impacts you'll see are within the tree permitting program.
That's where the available funding does not fully support maintaining current service levels.
As a result, the changes reflected in this budget are driven by those funding constraints.
I'll walk through what that means in terms of real impacts in just a moment.
Next slide, please.
This budget proposes 300.9 positions, down from 337.9 in the current service level.
That change is driven by 2 factors.
First, 23 positions are being realigned as part of the core services realignment.
Second, 14 positions are being reduced within the tree permitting program due to resource constraints.
Of those 14 positions, 6 are currently filled and 8 are vacant.
One is a supervisory position and the remaining are non-supervisory.
It is also important to understand how these positions are funded.
These positions are not funded by general fund dollars.
12 Are supported by PSF funding, which while not reduced, does not fully cover the cost of those positions, especially when factoring in inflation.
The remaining 2 positions were supported through a previous interagency agreement with Parks.
So when you step back, what you're seeing here is a funding structure that does not fully support maintaining the current level of service.
Next slide, please.
That context really drives the approach behind this budget.
Our primary objective going into this cycle was preserving core services.
Over the past several years, the bureau has taken on additional responsibilities while also reducing staffing, all within a slower development environment.
Despite that, we've continued to make progress improving our processes and maintaining performance.
But after multiple years of reductions, we are now at a point where additional cuts will have noticeable impacts.
The reductions in this proposal will have an impact on permitting timelines, and any further reductions would make it harder for us to keep projects moving efficiently through the process.
That is why preserving core services is so important.
It allows us to maintain stability now and to be ready when development activity increases again.
We are also continuing to support key customer-facing programs, including process management, which provides a single point of contact for complex projects.
Simple bathroom permits, which offer expedited permitting, and the Empowered Communities Program, which supports historically underserved customers navigating the permitting process.
In addition, we continue to provide early assistance and consultation services to help customers before they submit applications.
Next slide, please.
The most significant impacts in this budget are within tree permitting.
This program was transferred from Parks to PP&D over the past 2 years.
What we've seen is that both the fee structure and the funding that came with the program do not fully support the level of service expected.
As a result, this budget reduces the program by 12 positions to better align staffing with available resources.
Of those 12 positions, 6 are currently filled and 6 are vacant.
One is supervisory and the remaining are non-supervisory.
This is a significant reduction and will have real impacts.
We expect longer permitting timelines, Next slide, please.
Given those constraints, the city may also need to evaluate how the tree code is implemented moving forward, including potential prioritization or future adjustments.
Next slide, please.
In addition to that, this budget also reflects the elimination of interagency support from Parks.
Historically, A portion of this program was subsidized through Parks General Fund.
That subsidy is being removed as part of the mayor's proposed budget.
As a result, this budget includes an additional reduction of 2 positions, both of which are currently vacant and non-supervisory.
This further reduces the program's capacity and adds to the impacts we just discussed.
Next slide, please.
Stepping back, all this is happening within a challenging development environment.
Construction activity declined during the pandemic and has not fully rebounded.
We are seeing the effects of high interest rates, lower investor confidence, declining property values, and broader uncertainty in the markets.
There's also an ongoing perception challenge around building in Portland.
At the same time, our costs continue to rise.
This budget is designed to maintain service levels where possible by aligning fees more closely with the cost of providing those services.
As you know, those fees have not yet been approved, which is why they are not reflected in this budget summary.
I'll walk through that proposal next.
Next slide.
At a high level, the fee proposal is structured to be both balanced and targeted.
Most programs will see a base increase of about 5%.
Some programs are higher where there are clear gaps between costs and revenue, and others are unchanged.
Thank you.
Programs with no increases include facilities permits and cannabis licensing.
Programs with the base 5% increase include electrical, plumbing, field issuance remodel, site development, zoning enforcement, land use services, neighborhood inspections, and signs.
Building mechanical is proposed at 9% due to reduced cost recovery tied to fewer larger projects.
Environmental review, water review, and urban forestry are also at 9% because they are below cost recovery.
Transportation review reflects a larger increase due to a shift away from interagency funding and toward a fully, a fully self-supported model.
Accessory short-term rentals are proposed to increase by 26% and noise by 41%, as both are currently below cost recovery.
Next slide, please.
Finally, this slide provides a comparison of our fees to other jurisdictions.
While no comparison is perfect, it does provide a consistent point of reference.
One important, important distinction is that Portland funds more of its permitting work through fees than many other jurisdictions, which rely more heavily on general fund support.
So to keep the comparison consistent, this focused specifically on building permit and plan review fees.
Using a typical single-family project, Portland falls within the range of comparable jurisdictions and in some cases below them.
We understand the importance of keeping fees reasonable so they do not become a barrier to development.
At the same time, predictability and permitting timelines are just as important, if not more important, for project feasibility.
Our goal is to strike the right balance between those 2 priorities.
We look forward to continuing this conversation with council.
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
So would we rather get through all the presentations and do it all, questions at once, or do you want to stop and go?
Donnie Oliveira
I think if you have questions for specifically for PP&D, it would be appropriate right now, and we just manage time.
Great.
Jamie Dunphy
Let's— colleagues, uh, we have a few minutes here to talk about questions, and we can also ask more questions after all the presentations are done.
But for now, Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
So I'm going to focus on tree permitting.
And I'm confused in a number of ways.
One is that if we gut the tree permitting program, then it seems to me that we've got all sorts of permit requirements out there that people are supposed to follow in terms of like cutting down what they think are dead or dangerous trees on their property.
But when they submit their permit request, it'll take years for them to actually get it acted on.
Is that right?
Eric Kooch
What's your question again?
Steve Novick
I'm saying that I mean, the permitting requirements will still exist.
Eric Kooch
Correct.
Steve Novick
So people will still have to get a permit to remove what they think is a dead or dangerous tree, but they'll submit the permit request and it's going to take forever for you to get it processed.
Eric Kooch
It will take longer due to the cuts, correct.
Steve Novick
Okay.
Yes.
So I wonder if you've given any thought— it seems to me that if you're going to gut a program like that, then it should probably go along with the suggestion to eliminate the underlying requirement.
Did you consider that?
You're saying people can cut whatever trees they want?
Eric Kooch
Yes, Councilor, we are looking at the, uh, the code and the regulations around Title 11 to see if there's anything, you know, any changes we can make, uh, to help, uh, offset the, the additional time that'll come along with the, uh, the cuts in those positions.
Steve Novick
Okay, but it kind of seems to me that if— that those two should— I'm not saying it's a good idea, but it kind of seems to me those two should go together if you're saying that you're gutting the permitting program, then the proposal to offset that by reducing some of the permitting requirements should go along with it.
The other thing is, this seems like pretty PSF-y work, and I don't understand why the administration hasn't given more thought to using PSF to fund this work.
And I'll just be blunt and say that if we think we've got $75 million of PSF money to spend on the Moda Center, I don't understand why we don't have $2.9 million to maintain these jobs.
And I have been, I mean, I am looking for a source of PSF money that either I think is inappropriate or underspent to offset this and fund these jobs.
But that's been a bit of a frustrating process because I've asked both PSF and Jonas's office to identify PSF programs that are underspent where it looks like we might have extra money.
And they said they're not really in a position to identify that yet.
So that's just sort of a generic complaint.
But I just— I'd actually like to ask the mayor this question.
If we have $75 million of PSF money to spend in the Moda Center, why don't we have $2.1 million to spend maintaining the pre-permitting program?
Keith Wilson
I think that's a false choice if we're looking at that, Councilor.
We have to look at funding our tree program, which is PCF-driven.
But if we're looking at the Moda Center, we're looking at the upgrades that are focused on making that platinum LEED to make it a state-of-the-art facility.
I think we have to look at both, uh, together.
I, I don't, I don't think that that's a I think that's a matter of let's look at what funding we have, value the Moto.
We have to renovate the Moto one way or another.
Let's look at the available funding and capital we have to get that project going.
Steve Novick
But Mayor, you have made that choice.
You have said that you want to spend $75 million of PSF money on the Moto Center, but you have not proposed spending $2.9 million of PSF money to continue the tree permitting program, and you're proposing slashing the tree permitting program.
So I Submit, sir, you already have made that choice.
Keith Wilson
Right.
This council last year determined to move the tree program over to Eric's shop.
So we're following that through.
There was some funding disparities there that we're trying to fix.
We don't have all the money to do it.
Let's go back to the MOTU though.
I've contemplated ways that we can fund the renovation.
This council will be the arbiters and the final decision makers.
What I'll provide to you is a discussion point and an opportunity for you.
I'm not proposing that you take it or leave it.
I'm asking for partnership with this council to find a way to renovate the Moda Center.
That is one of the funding methods, but I'm absolutely open to any method that DCA Oliveira and this council chooses.
My overall focus with Moda is let's renovate the Moda and get that project moving forward.
Donnie Oliveira
Okay, Councilor, may I—.
Steve Novick
Yes, thank you.
Donnie Oliveira
May I respond to the specific to the tree program related to PCF?
Is that okay?
Is that okay?
Because I think it's a fair question.
Just for context for everybody here, we got the directive, uh, through the last budget to move the program over.
Uh, the teams at Parks and, and PP&D, I think, did a great job of landing that plane with, with sort of constraints around the funding that only came over was PCF, right?
There was a much more complicated braiding of funding that the Parks was managing for.
Totally understand that.
To answer your question, why didn't we add PSF dollars to make that whole?
Frankly, because Parks also is sort of the manager of the PSF funds related to urban forestry.
And to their credit, they have been looking at ways to move some of those dollars from PSF— or excuse me, from Parks that are PSF funding to PP&D.
That's just going to take a little bit more time.
But as we were building the budget, it wasn't appropriate to go into Parks and pull out resources for programming that was staying behind, right?
So when we moved the program over for permitting and enforcement for Title 11, right.
$3.5 Million, I would say roughly, was what came with it.
And we did our best with that dollar amount.
Steve Novick
But you don't need Parks' permission to say that PCF money should go— I mean, I'm addressing this more to the mayor— to say that PCF money should cover something.
I mean, I don't think that it did.
You're talking about moving PCF money to PMO.
I don't think you needed the permission of the bureaus that money would come from in order to do that.
So I don't understand why the same procedure couldn't have applied.
Jamie Dunphy
And Councilor, you're at 6 minutes right now.
Steve Novick
How many do I have?
Jamie Dunphy
You're at 6 minutes already.
Steve Novick
Okay, I'm done.
All right, thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Eric Kooch
Welcome.
Steve Novick
Cool.
Jamie Dunphy
Vice President Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor President.
Just a quick comment on your comparison chart on page 15.
I really appreciate that you did that.
And I'm just wondering, this does not include the fee increase does it?
This is the current?
Eric Kooch
Correct.
Olivia Clark
It would be helpful to see, you know, if we change the fees, what the comparison would be.
Do we still rank in the middle like that?
Eric Kooch
Councilor, the, the issue— the reason why we weren't able to do that is we don't know if the other jurisdictions are going to change their fees as well, so we wouldn't know where their numbers are at currently.
Olivia Clark
Okay.
Well, in any event, I, I really value that comparison.
Sure.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Council President.
I have a couple of questions, maybe going back even before the line of questioning that Councilor Novick was on about the tree permitting program.
It sounds like what happened is we didn't move enough funding over last year.
Is that correct?
We thought there was enough funding there and there was not?
Eric Kooch
Yes, Councilor.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Separate question, and then I'll ask about the funding.
How much of a delay should Portlanders expect with this level of reduction?
Eric Kooch
That's a, that's a great question.
I don't know the exact, the exact additional time it's going to take, but there will be increases in the amount of time for customers to get a permit.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Are we talking about an increase of a week or 2, or an increase of a month or 2?
Eric Kooch
I, I don't want to lie to you and give you incorrect information, I was trying to have that information in front of me before today's presentation.
Unfortunately, we're still working on that, but if it's okay, I can provide that information to you at a later date.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
It would be helpful to have that before we make our final budget decisions, because if this is a matter of a week or 2, I'm frankly less concerned.
If this is a matter of 2 or 3 or 4 months delay, then I get a little bit more concerned about the program actually working and Portlanders being able to move forward with their plans.
Eric Kooch
Yes, Councilor, we'll, we'll get that over to Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Um, on the funding side, I, I know I have other colleagues who are going to be going to dig deeper into what our possibilities are here, but I want to understand a little bit more what went wrong.
So we thought that there was enough money moving over.
There wasn't.
Was that because we did not take enough PCF dollars, or was that because there were more funds of other types supporting these programs?
Um, what happened?
Eric Kooch
Yeah, that's a great question.
To my understanding, what happened, Councilor, is that whenever they decided to send those PCF funds along with the positions, they only included the amount that the positions would cost.
They didn't include our indirect costs so, you know, for example, the overhead that's calculated as well into those positions.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
What are those indirect costs?
Eric Kooch
It'd be things— it'd just be, you know, typical things in our overhead.
So it'd be like, you know, the cost of maintaining our facilities, you know, electricity for the building, things like that.
I could get you a more detailed list later when we send you that other information.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So do you split the way that you budget at PP&D?
Do you split things like the cost of electricity in the building per person working in that building as opposed to having a separate line item for facilities costs?
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, if I just jump in, uh, thank you for the question.
The fundamental, like, step that happened is when council adopted the amendment that moved the program over isolating PCF, that wasn't the full funding for the whole program.
So Parks had other resources that supported the full suite of, of funding budget needs, right?
So whether it be general fund— and actually, uh, Director Szymanski's in the office, in the room, to maybe help out here.
But the bottom line is what landed in terms of resources was just the PCF amount.
And so because they're— uh, PPD is a fee-based, uh, bureau, they didn't have like the sort of discretionary dollars to make the whole system whole.
Think about office space, vehicles, all the things the staff need to do their jobs, right?
So there's a— there was just a fundamental, like, difference of how the accounting landed at PP&D.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
What I'm trying to understand is we worked pretty hard last year to make sure we had the right number here, and there were a lot of iterations of this amendment and some back and forth to get those dollars right.
I think I'm hearing that we did move over enough funding for the positions, and I'm trying to understand what the other funding is so that we can think about if we want to address this, how we do that.
Because if this is a matter of electrical costs, I'm a little bit confused of how moving a new unit increased those electrical costs, and I'm wondering if we're subsidizing between divisions in a different way than we had before.
If the issue is vehicles and vehicles didn't get moved over with the positions, that we might address differently.
So understanding if we moved over enough money to fund the positions, why we don't now have enough money, where it is that that gap is, is helpful.
Donnie Oliveira
It was about the— the answer is PSF was predominantly funding personnel.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Donnie Oliveira
So the dollar— the money came over for the personnel, but all the associated costs of running that program did not.
And those for the notes, we're generally general fund and parks levy dollars at parks.
So when— if hypothetically a scenario would have looked like if you were going to move the program, you would have taken all the PCF dollars and general fund and parks levy and moved it all with to make them keep the program whole at PP&D.
But because PCF is the only amount that came over, we were left to manage the program just with PCF dollars.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So we're cutting personnel so that we can cover those other costs that are non-personnel related that are essential to do the work, right?
So if we want to restore this, we need to either think about restoring positions or think about, as we think about buckets that can cover different things, funding for what?
Cars, office space, electricity?
Donnie Oliveira
If you're talking about funding the program, we would be adding resources to keep the staff, but inclusive of all the tools they need to do their jobs.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Donnie Oliveira
We'd really want to shy away from isolating staff and space and computers and vehicles, the tools they need.
If you just fund the staff but they don't have the tools, then we don't have a program either.
So basically, what you're asking me is the resources, the gap that we have now is all-inclusive of the thing we need to run the program.
Loretta Smith
Holistically.
Jamie Dunphy
And, Councilor, you're at 6 minutes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thanks, Councilor President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Uh, thank you.
I'm going to pick up where Steve Novick left off.
Um, Councilor Novick, apologies.
Steve Novick
Um, Novick is fine.
Donnie Oliveira
Novick.
Mitch Green
Um, so when council made that decision to move these people over from one part of the city to the other, The intent was not to erode a program capability.
The intent was to sort of say, and maybe it was a bad idea, but the choice that we made was to say, we think it should be in a different part of the organization for reasons that are about management, oversight, control, and all that.
The intent was never to say, well, we also want to envision fewer people operating at a lower level.
I think that's what we're hearing.
And I'm extremely troubled to hear that our solution to this might actually be amending Title 11 code to take away some of the compliance requirements.
And so that's going to be a non-starter for me.
I will note that this council also approved an amendment to the CIP earlier this year, just maybe a month or 2 ago, that increased the funding allocation to Strategic Program 22, which is the Green Stormwater Infrastructure and Watershed Plan.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
Shed Health Program by $5 million, $5.5 million roughly.
That's the program here that envisions things like Natural Systems O&M program manages over 800 acres of natural areas and stormwater facilities, planting millions of trees, other plants that significantly contribute to carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and on and on and on and on.
So this bucket of money, which is now a total of $75 million, envisions taking care of trees as part of our BES system.
Now, what the mayor has done in the budget is take that $5 million and move it to PIMO.
And I'm not sure that the intent was to raise this by that much so you can then move it to PIMO, but that's what happened.
And so the idea that we're going to cut the tree code, which is a direct nexus to Strategic Program 22, which has PCF money for it, while also making an extremely strained argument of a connection to this program to PMO is frankly egregious.
And so as we approach the budget amendments, colleagues, this is an area that we need to be looking at very closely.
I'm not going to tolerate cuts to the tree code people in this budget, and we have money in the PCF fund to do that.
So we'll be looking at an amendment there.
I think that's about all I want to say right now.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Keith Wilson
Council President, may I?
Councilor Green, thank you so much.
I'm gonna just talk about high level and then Donnie, correct me if I'm wrong, but Portland Solutions will have this in there.
I believe the PMO is being funded through Package 2, Revitalizing Urban Walking Routes.
And the 3 particular tranches are pathway and sidewalk lighting enhancement, Green space cleaning and urban realm activations and biking and walking.
Donnie, can you correct me or do we defer?
I just wanna make sure we correct the record.
I don't think it was SP22, but I just wanna make sure that we're providing the right information.
I noticed Sam's not here, so.
Donnie Oliveira
I'm looking, I'm pulling it up right now.
It is predominantly coming out of, SP language— excuse me, out of funding from BES and PBOT related to SP5.
There's a portion perhaps.
I'll have to get back to you, Councilor.
Keith Wilson
Yeah, let's provide that information so we're really consistent.
This is obviously going to be a germane topic, so we want to make sure—.
Mitch Green
That'd be helpful.
I didn't see that description in the program offer and decision package, and so all I had to go on was the documents that were released on April 3rd.
Which were the original concepts that did reference Strategic Program 22.
So it's going to be really important that you guys update that for the public.
But nevertheless, if it's not coming from '22, that means there's $5 more million there now than there was last year.
And so, colleagues, we have money in this budget to allocate to these positions being cut.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Donnie Oliveira
No, actually, Councilor Mayor, I do have the answer.
So broadly speaking, and I want to just acknowledge that we're still working with CBO to get this actual information to you.
So the draft understanding is the $5.x million would roughly come from SP32, SP22, and SP31.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Council President.
I'd like to know how often the permitting bureau accesses or pursues funding through the Portland Clean Energy Fund.
So like, what capacity or experience does, um, this department have in navigating that process?
Eric Kooch
That's a—.
Michael Bonaccor
Sorry.
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, uh, thanks for the question, Councilor.
Uh, in the past, there has been a program that BPS worked with PP&D on a solar, like, efficiency, like, to improve solar permitting.
But this is the first time that PP&D has received PSF dollars.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Okay, thank you for clarifying that.
And, um, thinking about Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's question about the funding and how we're in the place that we're at, how much of us making the cut to those, I think it was 10 FTE before moving them over, how much of that plays a role in where we're at right now?
Donnie Oliveira
In a role, can you clarify, Councilor, a role of in terms of our gap in permit timelines?
Angelita Morillo
Yeah.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yes, and not having the right funding.
Donnie Oliveira
Oh, that's— I mean, we are— the proposal in front of you is directly correlated to landing the program in the Bureau and the results of that.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
So I do share concerns that my colleagues shared about how it just makes so much sense because PCEF has so much alignment with canopy and equity goals that I'd like to see all these positions fully funded through PCEF and hope to see a plan and timeline to help make sure that does happen.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, thank you.
And I, I just want to reiterate, I want to give Parks leadership a lot of credit.
They have been leaning in to figure out how they help us bridge this gap.
They're aware of it too.
It impacts them as well.
But again, you know, a lot of the resources from PSF 4 or the urban canopy live with Parks because they do most of the planning.
I mean, most of those dollars that went to Parks wasn't for regulatory elements.
It really was to, you know, have people protecting the trees, planting trees, Maintaining.
So the portion that was PSF-funded that was on the regulatory side moved over to PP&D, which was a very small percentage.
But kudos to Parks and their willingness to partner with us to figure out how to get more of those dollars over to help.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I'm glad they've been great partners.
And it makes sense to me that it's been challenging just moving that part out of it.
And Director, I just wanted to make sure that I clarify, I recognize that you are very new here and appreciate you, appreciated you coming to our committee yesterday and hope you know none of this is a referendum on, on your work at all.
Eric Kooch
Thank you, Councilor.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, President Dunphy, and thank you, Donnie, and permitting Eric for this portion of the presentation.
Um, looking at the staff reductions and hearing most are from tree permitting and core service alignment, then I look back at the slides that compare us to other markets and Oh, it's up on this screen right now.
So, you know, it's tolerable.
And when you look at it this way, but we all know that time is money and you mentioned that.
I do wish there could be another data point next to it that has something that could measure time, like issuance of permits to whatever, apples and apples with the other markets.
'Cause I know there's several data points after that.
Anyway, my question is this, when it comes to staffing, the reason why—.
Yes.
After going back to the last century, people being very upset with Portland in terms of customer service for permitting.
And then we started a very difficult reform journey.
It was the first one that's been successful after several failed attempts from previous councils.
And one reason that we're— I know the reason it worked.
It worked 'cause we put staffing into the equation.
So we had a continuous improvement staffing led by Terri Tyson and her team.
And that's the reason why we've seen movement.
Thank you.
Over the last 3 years.
That's exactly why.
It wasn't because of elected officials.
We passed policy before, but nothing ever moved.
So the culture change was because we had those patient and persistent professionals working with those folks in permitting.
Is that team going to remain intact as we go forward?
Eric Kooch
Well, that's an excellent question.
We're actually working on Cap 2, and Cap 2 kicked off last Would you explain that acronym?
CAP2.
Jamie Dunphy
Code Alignment Project.
Eric Kooch
Yeah, Code Alignment Project.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
People do ask me all the time, what does that mean?
Thanks.
Eric Kooch
You're welcome.
And yeah, like I was saying, so we're looking to build on that momentum with CAP2 to continue to better our processes and looking at areas to right-size our code.
Dan Ryan
That's exactly what I'm asking.
The question.
So you have staffing so that can continue to build, that momentum can build, and we could continue to get results that go the right direction?
Eric Kooch
We, uh, we, we plan on going to council later to ask for funding to, to build a team, uh, that we can, uh, have help support Cap 2.
Dan Ryan
Um, have a team, but we're going to eliminate a team, and then you're going to ask us to rebuild that team?
Loretta Smith
I'm confused.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, sorry, to clarify, I have 5 minutes, so that's fine.
Sorry, real quick.
So we have staff at BPS who are leading Cap to staff that came from the PIT team.
They're coordinating, but it's actually going to be a multi-bureau effort.
So we have staff at PBOT and Water, Parks, PP&D, and BPS that are all working on Cap 2.
What the director's referring to is we're working with the council president on a resolution that will look to broaden beyond Cap 2 the scope.
Dan Ryan
Oh, I'm getting involved in that resolution.
That's why I'm kind of asking the question.
And I realize that's separate, but I just don't want us to get rid of the Muscle memory, if you will, and strength that we've built to do this culture change work.
Donnie Oliveira
We definitely have.
We've maintained momentum on the code alignment work.
Absolutely.
That has not stopped.
Dan Ryan
The answer to my question though is those positions have been eliminated.
Angelita Morillo
Yep.
Dan Ryan
That's what I was trying to get at.
Donnie Oliveira
No, sorry, Councilor.
They've just been dispersed in different places.
So there's a position in PP&D.
The code leadership is at BPS now.
They're just not at the service level.
That's what changed.
Dan Ryan
Okay, can I get more information offline on that?
Sure.
It's not making total sense.
And I'll go ahead and stop at 3:33.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Council President.
Thanks for this presentation.
I wanna follow a little bit on the line of questioning that Councilor Novick had and Councilor Koyama Lane had.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yay, District 3.
Angelita Morillo
Can you describe the impacts to the cuts in urban forestry that we had last year, specifically on customer service, tree canopy preservation, that sort of thing?
Eric Kooch
So the question is, how did the cuts to tree permitting last year affect our timelines?
I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?
Angelita Morillo
Yeah, I think I want to hear about the impacts of the amendments to gut urban forestry, how that has impacted us now that we've had time to take a look at it on customer service, how quickly people are getting their answers, tree canopy preservation, the whole point of the program.
Eric Kooch
Gotcha.
So I will say that since that program has moved over to PP&D, the timelines have increased.
But what I want everyone—.
Angelita Morillo
How much?
Eric Kooch
I don't have those numbers in front of me, but they have definitely increased.
And what I will say, though—.
Angelita Morillo
And he said 2 weeks to 8 weeks.
Where'd you get those numbers?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
2 Weeks to 9 weeks.
Eric Kooch
I think one important thing to remember is that within tree permitting, there's multiple programs.
So I wouldn't know, you know, what those 2 weeks to 9 weeks numbers, which program in tree permitting that is.
What I wanted to say real quick, Councilor, is that, you know, I've been a part of multiple permitting bureaus or permitting centers where we've had realignments where outside disciplines have had to come in.
And that process is never perfect, right?
You're bound to have some hiccups along the way.
So while, you know, those timelines have increased, we are working to improve them.
And I know that within the next year we can continue to improve those timelines to make it better for our customers.
However, with that, these cuts, you know, will make it more difficult to improve those timelines.
But anyways, I hope that answers your question.
Angelita Morillo
It doesn't, but I suspect you will find me more details later.
And that's not— I want to be clear, that was a council decision that you were forced to live with.
I personally did not approve of gutting urban forestry.
So this is more of a caution to my colleagues about us bringing amendments and drastically changing thank you.
I am also keeping an eye on the cuts to our urban forestry programs because the reality is the reason when people come to Portland, they talk about how verdant and beautiful our city is and how green and lush, and that is in large part because of the work that urban forestry does.
So I am having an eye to those cuts as well, and it is not lost on me where we are choosing to use PCF dollars and what we're choosing not to use it for.
So thanks for your time.
I hope that we can get more specific details on how, what the long-term impacts of that change was.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, sorry, I do have an answer for you now.
And I just wanna preface it by saying we are general— what I'm generalizing here is all types.
There's various types of tree permits and actions.
So this is just a generalized number, but it is accurate.
Prior to the move to PP&D, a turnaround time for an inquiry was about 2 weeks and we're closer to about 6 to 7 weeks now.
Angelita Morillo
That's a terrible change.
Um, Councilor Koyama Lane, did you have something to add?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I just wanted to share that we have a letter from the Urban Forestry Commission about some of the impacts that I am happy to forward to you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Maria.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you for the, um, presentation.
I'm looking on slide 4 and it says Community and Economic Development, 695.3 proposed staff with a $1.235.5 million proposed budget.
I imagine that that should be a billion because I cannot imagine that we're paying $1.2 million proposed budget for 695 employees.
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, Councilor, thanks for the question.
That, that represents $1.2 billion, um, but that's inclusive of all the resources in the service area, including, uh, PSEF, ART tax, children's levy, uh, fund balances that we won't spend next fiscal year, um, that are just, you know, in our balanced budget.
We, you know, we show them.
Loretta Smith
So the reason why I, I wanted to see specifically how much were we spending in the community and economic development, um, that $1.235 needs to be changed, and I'm sure the public will look at this and say, how are they paying for 700 employees with $1.2 million?
Do you see this on, on slide, uh, 4?
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, we're looking at it.
Loretta Smith
Uh, that doesn't make sense to me.
It doesn't add up.
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, that—.
Loretta Smith
I can barely pay for my 5 employees with, with $1.2 million.
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, Councilor, that, that number is representing $1.2 billion.
It's just framed in millions.
Steve Novick
But you're right.
Loretta Smith
So it's wrong.
It's not $1.2 million, it is $1.2 billion.
Can y'all, can y'all go back and change it?
That's what I'm asking you because—.
Donnie Oliveira
I would prefer to see you up there in the room.
Loretta Smith
This is the second day, this is the second day that we have wrong information on our, on our documents that are seen by the public.
And it is the second day I still can't item— see the itemized cost of a bureau in an Excel spreadsheet so I can see what was paid for the year before.
I know, uh, our budget office and our CFO is in here.
This is why we asked for this, because it, it makes it clear on what we did and what we took away.
When you have these narratives that you put up here, it is so hard for us to understand— not to understand.
Um, I have a lot of questions about what we did with the the Forester stuff, and, and my colleagues have— they have asked the right questions.
Um, and my issue was, going back to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, was, is it the materials and services budget that didn't come over with those employees?
That's what it sounds like to me, that the material and service— and why didn't it?
You know, why did it not come over?
Um, and the thought that you all are going to present us with something— and Eric, is that, is that your name?
Eric Kooch
Yes, Councilor.
Loretta Smith
Good to meet you.
Eric Kooch
Nice to meet you.
Loretta Smith
And to think that Eric is saying that we're going to put one thing forward and then you're going to come back and ask for more money, and I'm trying to figure out where you going to do that from.
Are you talking about the TOW?
Is that what you're expecting, to get additional resources from the TAO?
Donnie Oliveira
No, no, no, Councilor.
The one of the slides conveys the, the proposed fee schedule that would be an increase to sustain, uh, service level, um, and then in the fee, um, programs.
And then the other conversation around urban forestry is just a proposed cut, so we weren't asking for resources for that at this moment.
Loretta Smith
Okay, but I know he said something, we'll come back, we're going to have a group, and then we'll come back and get some more money, as if we're going to have a bump or something somewhere.
Eric Kooch
I was, um, whenever— I think what you're referring to is whenever we're speaking about Cap 2, which is a, uh, a separate initiative.
Um, and I probably kind of, uh, jumped the gun on that one a little bit.
Um, but essentially, we, we already have a team in place that's driving Cap 2 right now, right?
So I misspoke a little bit, but, um, in order to implement a resolution, if it does move forward, we would need, um, a larger team to help drive that progress.
Eric Engstrom
Right.
Loretta Smith
And so you said you were going to come back, um, and get the money.
Were you thinking that was going to be in the TAO, or were you thinking later in this budget session?
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, we're working with the council president's office on that, and we'll, we'll work with them to contemplate a strategy for resources.
Loretta Smith
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
TCA Alvarado, no, no, no, you do not get to isolate everybody else and say you're just going to work with the council president's office when we're talking about the budget right now.
Donnie Oliveira
Sorry, Councilor, I, I was only— the project that the director was referencing is something that's in the future.
It's not, it's not, it's being drafted.
Loretta Smith
Not going to happen in '26-'27?
Donnie Oliveira
It may happen in '26-'27.
The details of that resolution are directing the bureaus to come back with a plan, and that plan would likely need resources.
We haven't gone— we haven't gone that far yet, Councilor.
This is—.
Steve Novick
We're—.
Loretta Smith
I, I don't know.
Donnie Oliveira
Very much in draft.
Loretta Smith
I don't know how y'all think y'all going to talk about something dealing with money and, and put it in a resolution, and it's not in our budget document, unless you're doing something outside of this that we don't know about.
And, and it's not—.
Olivia Clark
DCA Oliveira.
Loretta Smith
You know how I am.
Donnie Oliveira
Yes, ma'am.
Loretta Smith
And you can't do that.
It, it is— you, again, this, this particular bureau has a history of spending money before it is authorized.
And I'm going to go back to it again.
Yes, yes, yes.
Don't, don't give me that look like you don't know what I'm talking about, because we just finished a TAO where we spent $56 million that had— that was hidden by the Portland Housing Bureau.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, for the record, this is the Permitting Development Bureau.
Loretta Smith
I know, but it's over the whole thing, and you give me this look like as if—.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor, we're at 6 minutes now.
Loretta Smith
Yes, but, um, please bring us something forward and stop doing stuff offline.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Hey, good morning.
Uh, apologies for being a little late through your presentation.
I'm had to deal with a personal matter, but great to see you all.
And I just want to, I appreciate the presentation.
I appreciate the direction you're taking the Bureau in terms of permitting development.
It seems that, and I too, I share it with my colleagues, seems some confusion around the tree code changes, right?
I just wanna reiterate what we did last year, which—.
Yes.
Moved the 27 FTE and the $3.6 million that the Parks Bureau, the Parks Bureau told us was what paid for the tree code compliance staff, right?
We don't make up those numbers.
We took that from the Parks Bureau, the people who are sitting in the back right now who are not sitting in the hot seat right now.
So I'll just remind folks.
So we used their numbers that they articulated in their budget last year that 27 full-time employee equivalents and $3.6 million of PCF money moved fully over to PP&D.
All right, so I say that because, uh, that $3.6 million— because the Parks Bureau said that's what it takes to run this aspect of the program.
And I think that I agree with some of the comments were said, and I know there's, there's disagreement on whether it was a good move or a bad move, but the idea was that code compliance needed to happen in a larger code compliance atmosphere.
And it goes to the idea, if, if you're a hammer, you only see nails.
And so the idea of code compliance is a holistic look at everything, and we have different codes.
And since PP&D takes care of so much of that code compliance, that was really important.
So using Parks Bureau, their words, their dollars, their numbers, their FTE, and moving it over.
Thank you.
I just wanna— I'm not sure how many members of the council are aware that in August of last year, the city administrator, not our current one, but the last one, the PP&D staff and the Parks Bureau staff came to me hat in hand, deeply embarrassed that they had wrong numbers.
That when they said 27 people got paid for by a certain fund, they forgot to count.
Dan Ryan
Okay.
Eric Zimmerman
And so I want to highlight this.
It's a great example for a first-year city administrator to understand that when you hear frustration, Mr. Lee, about, uh, what numbers are or are not accurate and whether or not we have spreadsheets or don't to look at this, this is the type of thing that, that bubbles up and becomes frustrating.
And so So this is a great example where, you know, Eric and Donnie, frankly, in my opinion, taking on the move that we passed as a body with the best knowledge that we had and the best information we had, but at the end of the day, we were given bad knowledge, bad information, and a director, I think, pretty much is not here anymore because of it.
So here's the better side of it.
You all are problem solving to figure out what do we do.
What I'd like to know is of the $3.6 million, and this year it's growing to $3.8 million of clean energy fund that was designed to be part of the tree code enforcement, is that still in PP&D?
Eric Kooch
Yes.
Dan Ryan
It is.
Eric Zimmerman
And how many FTE does it pay for now?
Eric Kooch
So right now that is funding, um, 14, um, FTE.
Eric Zimmerman
Will it continue in the upcoming budget if we pass this?
Eric Kooch
No.
Donnie Oliveira
Okay, so yes, yeah, yes it will.
If you, if you pass this budget, the $3.8 million is still in place.
Eric Kooch
The funding still continues, yes, if the budget passes.
Eric Zimmerman
Yeah, so it'll be 14 people who are part of that I'm sorry, I misspoke, Councilor.
Donnie Oliveira
So sorry about that.
Eric Kooch
I, um, I'm looking at, um, trying to find the total positions in, um, tree permitting, and I apologize if it's okay, I'm going to phone a friend real quick.
Eric Zimmerman
That's okay.
Another reason, Mr. Lee, why when we look at program offers, a basic function of budgeting should be how many employees are to each program offer.
And yet I have to go back to page 1 for the entire service area.
Oh, that's what happens when you put the mic too close.
I have to go back to page 1 to see the service area, to see how many employees.
And so from a decision-making perspective, I will continue to highlight that we do not have a centralized budget office that has the tools to show us per bureau, per program, per program offer, how many employees are associated to the funds that we're being asked And in no government that I've ever worked has this gone on this long being unaddressed.
So marching orders if I've ever said marching orders.
Donnie Oliveira
So, Councilor, it is 14 staff that are in the budget funded by $3.8 million.
And just to be really clear, I just want to acknowledge part of the challenge of the transfer is that Parks is a general fund bureau, right?
So their structure is different than PP&D's, which is a full cost recovery model.
Loretta Smith
Sure.
Donnie Oliveira
So what was probably legitimately coming from Parks, accurate about what it cost to run the program once it landed in a different financially structured budget looks different on paper.
So I just want to acknowledge that we got the information that you all adopted and we landed the program in PP&D to the best of our ability, which resulted in 14 FTE.
Eric Zimmerman
I'm not actually— I'm not taking any hits at PP&D on this.
What I am going to highlight is if a program cost Let's just use round numbers here, $1 million in one bureau, but it costs $2 million in another bureau.
The normal guy math starts to get real drunk real fast.
Eric Kooch
Right.
Eric Zimmerman
And so I highlight that as when the Parks Bureau says, I have this many employees, if you'd like to move them to another bureau, this is the money that we allocate for them.
You can move them with funding attached, not being fee-based.
There's some basicness that needs to happen as we move across bureaus.
So I think I have beat this horse, others have beat this horse.
There's strong opinions, but I want to end on a high note.
Let me, let me say this: 2 weeks to 6 weeks, 2 weeks to 8 weeks, that is certainly a metric we can talk about, about whether or not we are doing Title 11 at its, at its highest and best use.
I want to add another metric that's really important and is actually about the heart of the matter.
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Eric Zimmerman
And why we moved.
For this last 8 to 9 months, my interactions with people who interact with the tree code compliance branch of our government now are reporting deeply improved customer service interactions, a highly improved philosophy and approach to how they do their work.
And that was largely the point insofar as— Thank you.
There is an expectation when we work with our public and the way that our code compliance works with our public that is about problem solving.
And I think that the tree code compliance has deeply improved from where it was a year or 2 ago.
And I don't think we'll see as many terrible media stories about what I editorialized were abusive practices.
And so I'll take 8 weeks with a path toward improving that.
If we are doing it in a more respectful way, in a way that meets Portlanders' needs better, in a way that y'all can take a look at how does code compliance in our community happen in a way that can be more working with the public.
Because that was the grand concern that I had last year was that tree code compliance was operating in a way that I think had been hamstrung, frankly, by a certain director's perspective.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Eric Zimmerman
On the, the other aspect of urban forestry, which is really, really important.
And by the way, we touched not at all all the planting and the science.
Jamie Dunphy
I got it.
Dan Ryan
We're at 8 and a half minutes.
Eric Zimmerman
What was our number?
Michael Bonaccor
5.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, great.
That's why I was late, so I didn't have to hear you say that.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, there you go.
Eric Zimmerman
Um, I'll, I'll wrap up.
No, but I just, I want to end on that high note.
Tree code compliance is going better.
The interactions with the public is better, and I appreciate it.
I want to make sure that PCF dollars stay with these employees and stay with this program.
And if there's anything I can do to make sure that the PCF always does, I absolutely will.
Thank you.
Sorry, Mr. President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Point of information, Council President.
The decision package from the mayor on page 138 says there are 26 FTE positions, and then the mayor's proposed is reducing it by 12 FTE.
Donnie Oliveira
Okay, so 14 will remain.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
So 14, but right now we have 20.
Loretta Smith
26.
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, Councilor, some of those are vacant positions.
We can get you the exact number that's actually in the, the, the program right now.
Eric Zimmerman
People were mad that they had to move, so they just quit.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Okay, clarity on those numbers would be great.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Uh, Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
I have a couple questions, uh, and I, I also apologize, I was a little late.
I think I— this wasn't in there, but I'm, I'm just Just check in.
23 Positions being realigned from PP&D is 6.8% of the workforce.
30 Positions from BPS is 18%.
That both seems like a lot.
Where are they going?
Can you speak a little bit more to the particular places they're being realigned?
Donnie Oliveira
Thank you, Councilor.
I, you know, for realignment questions, definitely wanna defer to my colleagues at Business Ops.
But there are—.
Sameer Kanal
Wait till that work session on Friday.
Donnie Oliveira
Yes.
Yeah, thank you.
But a couple, there are things that are outside of the realignment project.
That are happening.
So for example, so a couple positions as a part of the creation of the data office are leaving BPS, as an example of some smaller things.
But yeah, the other, the larger realignment stuff will be covered by Business Ops.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
This may be hard to answer on the fly, so let me know if you need to get back to me.
The turnaround time for an inquiry going from 2 to 7 or 8 weeks, can you speak to what portion of that has to do with the workforce reduction And what portion of that has to do with the physical bureau it's in question.
I think that's an important distinction here.
And I don't know if we've teased that out.
And I imagine it's a little bit of both at least, but if you can speak anything to that or get back to me, it's fine.
Eric Kooch
Yeah, if it's okay, I'd like to get back with you with more data behind that, just because I'd like to better understand the numbers fully with how many staff that they had prior to the move to now so that we can quantify it.
So if it's okay, I'll get you those, the data behind that at a later date.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
One other question is just to what you just said here, and then I have a comment.
There's 27 positions got reallocated in the amendment, and you just said that there were 26.
What happened to the 27th position?
Donnie Oliveira
That's a good question, Councilor.
We'll have to figure out where the math landed on that.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
I appreciate that.
I just think that that highlights sort of the— and I'll note last year we had tables in the budget that had the FTs at the beginning, what was added, what was removed, what was being realigned, and what the proposed budget would do by classification.
The rows were classifications.
And this year, most of the tables I'm seeing is classifications and number if you accept the budget.
But there's not all those other columns.
So we're getting less information.
Even as the budget has nearly tripled in length.
And we talked about the narratives there too, but I agree on all the issues about tables, math, numbers, spreadsheets.
I do want to take a moment to defend the Zimmerman 15 amendment from last year, which is the amendment we're talking about here.
That amendment had some consequences we anticipated and some we didn't.
We are talking about some of the negative consequences here, reducing from 37 to 27 number of treat code enforcement personnel.
Thank you.
The negative outcome regarding the move to PP&D from Parks.
But I don't think it's been mentioned yet that there was a cut of 10 FTE to Parks maintenance in the mayor's proposed last year, that the Zimmerman 15 Amendment saved those jobs.
And these are the people that plant and help trees— I'm, I'm oversimplifying here— planting and helping trees grow.
And that also involved reducing the tree code enforcement by At least as far as we knew at the time, 10, maybe 11 positions.
We picked winners and losers.
That was, I think, last year I used the quote that our job is in large part to pick winners and losers.
This is a compelling argument to me about our not just ability, but frankly responsibility to make a decision like this and not solely defer to the administration and the mayor's proposed about it.
And I think that was a decision we had to make as council.
We could say it wasn't our responsibility.
The mayor put forward the proposal.
Mayor had to make tough cuts.
Steve Novick
It's—.
Sameer Kanal
He has the, the sort of misfortune of being the first to take the crack at it, and we had to then react to it.
Um, I'm really glad that based on the information we had, there wasn't a net reduction.
But I, I do want to just point out there are 10 people who are unemployed now because of that decision, and there are 10 other people who are employed now because of it.
Um, and that's a really important piece of this conversation.
Don't get me wrong, I don't wanna cut further.
I do support the lines of questioning around PSF money being here or instead of areas that I agree are stretching like PIMO.
But I just wanted to make sure that that other consequence, the positive consequence, was also discussed there.
And I'm looking in parks, in urban forestry.
Steve Novick
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Knoll.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Council President.
I have 1 minute and 30 seconds remaining in my 5 minutes, so I thought I'd get back in.
And go back to the conversation about how we can continue to improve customer satisfaction.
One reason why Councilor Zimmerman was able to make that comment is because of the hard work that was done starting in 2021.
That was the focus.
In fact, that was the number one issue that came up.
In addition to thinking it's wise to have some internal cat herders, continuous improvement people, it also was so important that The DRAC board and external partners that are high users of our system were at the table.
That table of active advisors was the main reason why we had some tension to get started and allowed our culture to be shook up a bit to focus in a different way, to listen in a different way.
And so I urge you, as you're working with the council president, I'm trying to get on board to be A co-sponsor of this, to make sure that you lean into that.
If you dismantle your internal cat herders and if you dismantle the external feedback loop that was very active in this process, you will not see these reforms implemented.
We all know this will take some time.
It took us decades to get to this place.
It's going to take us a little while to get out.
We're on year 5, so I'm attached to it, obviously.
It was really important that the last council was able to bring in each office.
Thank you.
And made this an all-in effort.
All right, thanks.
Eric Kooch
I just want to say I agree 100%, Councilor, and we'll definitely continue to engage with our external stakeholders as we move forward.
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
That was me to shut up.
Donnie Oliveira
All right, Council President, I have the answer for both Councilor Koyama Lane and Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Kanal, the 26 versus 27, you are correct, uh, the original number was 27, but upon further analysis It was only 26 that moved over.
One position stayed at Parks.
So that was the decision.
It was basically an understanding of people's roles, like what was appropriate to move over.
So that was the difference between 27 and 26.
Councilor Koyama Lane, today, as we sit here today, of the 26 that moved over, there are 20 positions that are filled, 6 are vacant.
And so in the proposed budget for next year, there would be 14 filled positions, 12 would be cut, 6 of which are filled positions.
Thank you.
So those are the numbers to, to close that gap.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Donnie.
Uh, Councilor Smith, and then we're going to move to the Housing Bureau.
Loretta Smith
Okay, thank you.
So I don't know if you all heard about, uh, Chris Bolton.
He was in the paper a few days ago, and he lives in my district on 89th Street and Southeast, and he was complaining about a lot of tents and trailers outside of his house.
And he was trying to get some support.
And then he reported this, and I don't know if it was someone from PP&D who came out or from the— somebody cited him from the City of Portland and said that he needed to cut down his hedges.
Can someone explain this to me?
Eric Kooch
Uh, Councilor, I'm not familiar with that, that particular issue.
I would need, um—.
Loretta Smith
It was a mastic article, and, uh, he was on the front page.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor, my understanding is that that was, uh, a citation from the Bureau of Transportation.
Loretta Smith
Oh, okay.
So that's what I wanted to find out, if, if there was a permit who came from your office, but it wasn't.
Dan Ryan
I thought it was all integrated.
Jamie Dunphy
Oh, it could be PYI.
Loretta Smith
I don't know.
Dan Ryan
It was integrated.
Loretta Smith
It was all integrated.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
So I'm just— I want to follow up offline because I know we don't have enough time.
And I'll shoot you the newspaper article, but it was disturbing to me that someone tries to get help and get those unsanctioned homeless shelters that they have outside of people's houses and camps, and then they get cited and have to spend a lot of money for some— basically, we just ignored what their concern was and then gave them a bill.
So that was a problem.
Eric Kooch
Councilor, I look forward to working with you to help resolve this.
Loretta Smith
Excellent.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
On to the Housing Bureau.
Director Bongcar, I want to start by thanking you for your service here in the city in the interim role.
And we understand that, you know, you'll be leaving us soon to go fix another problem somewhere else.
So thank you for the time you've given to us and take it away for the presentation on the Housing Bureau.
Michael Bonaccor
Thank you, Council President, Vice President Clark, councilors.
Good morning.
My name is Michael Bonaccor.
I am— I remain the interim director of the Portland Housing Bureau for another week and a half.
It's a pleasure to be here this morning.
The mission of the Housing Bureau is to foster an inclusive and sustainable city by creating stable and long-term housing opportunities for Portland.
We fund affordable housing, ensure protection for renters, preserve existing homes, and create homeownership opportunities.
The Housing Bureau regulates a growing portfolio of 19,000 apartments of affordable housing throughout the city with a dedicated team of 86 professionals.
Our proposed budget is $276.3 million.
This is an all-in number that includes $86 million planned both for committed and planned future investments beyond the upcoming fiscal year, which will be categorized in the budget as contingency.
Next slide.
So forgive me, I'm going to jump past this slide and then we'll come back in just a minute.
So next slide, please.
So the big takeaway as you look at this slide is that the general fund continues to comprise a relatively small proportion of PHB's overall budget.
That's the $1.2 million shown as a reduction which means that we'll be able to absorb that loss without layoffs or reductions in services.
And I'll provide more information about that in the slides ahead.
The number you see for the reduction related to realignment largely reflects the pass-through of funds that has typically gone to Multnomah County Homeless Services Division, and this year will go to Portland Solutions.
So this has no impact on PHP.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Michael Bonaccor
Next slide.
With respect to staffing, we have the movement of 3 FTE from the bureau to the service area under core services realignment, 2 in comms, 1 in community engagement, and the cut of 2 vacant positions, which I will describe in a moment.
Next slide.
As I mentioned earlier, all of Portland Housing Bureau's existing services will be maintained in the upcoming budget year, and the work we do falls broadly into the 4 buckets that you see in front of you: affordable housing development, renter protections and stabilization, homeownership access, and home repair and safety programs that help Portlanders stay in their homes.
So now if we could jump back to slide 17, with apologies again.
So here you see some of the impact thank you.
So this is a summary of our impacts through our proposed budget.
About 85% of our budget directly supports housing investments and services.
In the upcoming year, we are looking at investing in 18 projects representing more than 1,800 apartments and homeownership opportunities.
We will provide education and counseling to about 1,000 households, landlord and tenant education referrals to more than 6,000 folks, legal services for more than 1,500 households, and again, $86 million that is categorized in contingency.
And again, those are for committed and planned future investments, not technically contingency.
That's just the accounting label that we use.
So if we could now jump a couple more to—.
Steve Novick
2.
Dan Ryan
Yes.
Michael Bonaccor
So now we will talk about the various reductions.
So again, there's a reallocation of the pass-through that has traditionally gone to Homeless Services Division at the county.
So that will now, in addition to elimination of $263,000 from the recreational cannabis cannabis funds support Portland Solutions.
And again, there's no— this historic pass-through has happened for many years and there's no impact to the Portland Housing Bureau's service delivery and no expected staffing impact.
Next slide.
Reduction of external materials and legal services.
So this is— This removes general fund that previously supported legal services.
There will be no reduction in the legal services that support the Bureau.
We'll just use other funding sources to make up for that reduction and reduction in things like supplies, meeting costs, advertising.
We will also decrease the discretionary external materials and services budget, again, all without affecting core services or service delivery.
And with no expected staffing impact.
Next slide.
We are proposing to reduce funding in our agreement with BTS that will remove one embedded BTS applications analyst at the Bureau.
That person supports some of our specialized software solutions related to our loan subsidiary portfolio.
And so we will lose that embedded employee through this cut.
Next slide.
And then the elimination of 2 vacant data analyst positions.
So the Bureau currently relies on a small team to provide data analysis that supports multiple high-priority policy initiatives.
We'll be able to maintain our current service levels with the existing team.
This is more of an opportunity cost in terms of how much bandwidth we have for research or analysis on new policy initiatives.
But again, no loss in the current capacity.
And I believe that is all.
Next slide.
Yes, those are all.
That's our presentation.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you very much.
All right, colleagues, feel free to jump back in the queue.
Councilor Green, kick us off.
I'm ready.
Okay.
Councilor Kanal.
Okay.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Council President, if this is not an appropriate time, I don't have to ask this now, but I want to use the opportunity because of something in one of these slides to ask the city administrator a broader question.
Sure.
So, Mr. City Administrator, one of the things that Director Bonaccort said he's cutting is advertising.
And there are a lot of bureaus that do a lot of advertising and sponsorships and things like that.
And some of those things are recruitment opportunities for new staff and making sure that members of our community know the city is a great place to work.
And that, that's a good thing.
Some of those opportunities sponsor community events that many of us up here and many community members members absolutely love and events that depend on city sponsorship in part to be able to move forward.
But I don't know that we've asked any questions about this before, and I'm wondering if at some point we could get some information about across bureaus how much is actually spent on advertising and event sponsorship where we have 4 or 5 bureaus all sponsoring the same community and that looks like about half the sponsorships for that event.
Um, if we're really looking under every couch cushion and turning over every rock and trying to not cut a fire engine and frontline services, could we get some broader citywide information about this?
Donnie Oliveira
Yes, we can.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Is that something we should expect in time for this budget, or is Or is that something that will take a little more time and we need to ask you to do a deeper dive over the next few months?
Sameer Kanal
I would want to do a deep dive on that, but let me get back to you and see if it's something we can talk through this budget cycle.
But I have a feeling this is a much bigger topic.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And I recognize there may be some impacts to asking this question that we don't want to see and that could concern a lot of folks in the community.
I'm not asking for any big changes, but it seems like a space that we need to understand.
Most definitely.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council President, for letting me take that tangential opportunity.
Eric Engstrom
Absolutely.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks, Michael.
My questions really just kind of go to, you know, given a budget moment that we're in and where everybody else is taking significant cuts.
You know, I think the last time we spoke from the dais, I said I would be comfortable with you if you cleaned house in that bureau.
And what I really want to understand is, given the challenges that we've seen come out of that bureau and the way that they have or not administered programs, is this not an opportunity to dig deeper and maybe reset?
I think that's a great question.
In ways that can be foundational in terms of where the Housing Bureau goes in the years to come?
Because if this is that moment, I don't see that reflected in the budget.
I kind of see a status quo, and there may be no bureau that I'm more uncomfortable with status quo than the Housing Bureau after these last 6 months.
And so I just want to give you an opportunity.
One, you could say, You know what?
No, Councilor, we're on the right track.
We're going in the right direction.
That's why I'm doing minimal amounts of cuts.
Or perhaps you'd like to, you just don't know that since you were in the interim role, it would be good to propose it.
I'm just trying to understand because frankly, I would've expected to probably see a more aggressive realignment, reapproach, redesign for a bureau who frankly has only existed since 2009.
Which by the way is when Portland kind of stopped building housing.
So that correlation causation, I'm not gonna try and make a connection that's not there, but there's, I have deep concerns that whether or not the Bureau has been built on a correct foundation to be successful by 2030, 2035, and 2040.
Dan Ryan
Thoughts?
Michael Bonaccor
Yes, thank you, Councilor, for the question.
I appreciate it.
Maybe I'll start with the idea that the Bureau the Bureau has been in existence since 2009.
The Bureau has in fact gone through a number of evolutions and its current existence is a breaking off of being part of sort of a larger entity that was the Bureau of Housing and Community Development.
So, you know, I think that's reflective of— the Bureau of Housing and Community Development.
A number of transitions that the Bureau has gone through over the years, including a very intensive period of years recently in which there has been a high degree of turnover at the executive level.
And this, as we chatted informally about, any organization can't sort of go through that degree of upheaval at that level and not expect to see implications on how it's functioning and its ability to sort of be fully accountable when folks are understandably asking questions from the dais that I have a 6-month perspective on.
That's really challenging and that's not just, Me.
Me.
That's the shallowness that has been there from the beginning.
As all of that turmoil has happened, what I have seen my first time around and since I've been back is that the folks who keep the Bureau running and the reason that there aren't more challenges is that the staff of the Bureau do exceptional work.
And they have, again, thank you for this opportunity because they have heard in the press and in these conversations, you know, questions about their competence and whether the Bureau is, you know, sort of doing its work appropriately.
And anything that has gone well, I think, deserves a lot of credit to the represented staff who show up every day and keep their heads down and are listening to all of these conversations in their earbuds as they do their work.
I do believe there's a good deal of internal stabilization and some structural realignment in the Bureau that has to happen periodically no matter what, and especially because it needs leadership that has the ability to settle in and really focus on that.
And I think the, you know, this construct and the accountability that is driven by needing to demonstrate all of the funds to Council and not just sort of what we're asking for in a given year, Like, these are all steps that are going to shore up the Bureau's ability to like really do the work that's needed.
But I'll say it a third time.
The Portland Housing Bureau staff have been waiting for someone to kind of stand up for them and say they are an exceptional group of professionals.
They have my support, and I will pass that on to whoever the next leader is.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks.
I had a feeling you might say that, and I'm glad that I'm glad that you had the opportunity to say it.
And it is, and I agree with you, and I think that it is just foundational, bolded, underlined, italicized that the need for deep visionary, but also Type A leadership to come into the Housing Bureau as you step away to go resuscitate another failing organization is so needed.
And so for the city administration leadership that's in the room, I agree.
I hope that we really grab the words of the director that he just shared with us because, you know, there is taking care of stuff behind the scenes.
There is bailing water out to make sure the ship doesn't sink.
But all of that is fruitless if nobody is giving orders from the deck, right?
In terms of what— where are we overall?
What are we doing?
Where are we going?
What is the overall plan?
And I think that we have largely been bailing the water out for a while without an idea of are we gonna hit land soon?
So I really look forward to bolstering what can be possible in the Housing Bureau with clear-eyed leadership who knows that the most important thing that we do is we create an environment for more housing to exist, that we create an environment that enables all types of housing to exist, and that creation of housing is first and foremost, and everything after that is a byline.
So thanks for your work.
I know you're in the last few days, weeks of your interim position here.
And to the Housing Bureau employees, I hope that you have heard what your director just said because I think he nailed it on the head.
So thank you for that.
And I appreciate the budget presentation.
It was less important to me than having an opportunity to hear from you directly.
So thank you.
Michael Bonaccor
Thank you, Councilor.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Yes, thank you, Council President.
Hi, Michael.
I want to— I'm looking at slide 17, explains what Portland Housing Bureau does, and it's really missing something that's become painfully aware thanks to some investigative reporting by the Willamette Week.
Where's the oversight part of this bureau and where is the longitudinal data that we must look at?
So when we build something, we help build something, when we're the leaders of that, Where's our responsibility to have metrics that follow for 3 years?
How many people are living there?
What's their satisfaction?
What are the challenges, which we're hearing many about?
Like, where is that oversight?
And where— I know I couldn't attend the meeting that I'm not a member of anymore yesterday.
Maybe we got at some of this, but I think it's strange that's missing from what the Housing Bureau does.
Michael Bonaccor
Sure.
And these are absolutely you know, just sort of high-level outputs as opposed to outcomes, I would say, is a great question in the context of, you know, the reality that we will eliminate some data analysis capacity.
You know, what we are able to do in the Bureau is particularly make sure that the funds that we are investing in capital projects, as it, you know, as it relates to folks' housing, Councilor—.
Councilmember Herbold.
That money is being sort of diligently tracked and expended as it's meant to, and that there is compliance with the regulatory agreement on the other side of completion of the property.
We don't have any capacity to do more evaluation-based work.
We do have a renter hotline in which people can call in and—.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Yeah.
Michael Bonaccor
Express concerns that we can sort of help route and follow up on.
But in terms of, you know, sort of what is the quality of life of folks' experience in the housing that we help fund, that's not a line of, you know, sort of outcome measurement that we currently provide.
But in terms of our ability to provide a deeper level of what sorts of things do we track, you know, There's opportunity to present more on that.
Dan Ryan
There is opportunity.
I think Councilor Zimmerman spoke to that.
There's an opportunity to rethink the structure of this bureau, and we have enough information to realize that this is a need.
There's so many reasons for that.
What is the vacancy?
What are the major maintenance issues?
What's the quality of life for residents?
We should be tracking that for at least 3 years, and it's not just it's the Home Forward issues that keep coming up in District 2.
It's with others.
So we were at a budget hearing on Monday night, and I had the 3rd person from a unit explain to me very similar stories of what we're reading about some of the units and some of the buildings at Home Forward.
This is yet another elder who says they don't feel safe in their building, and they pay their fixed income is given to this organization so they can live there, and they assume there could be a high quality of life.
So I think that we really need to get to the bottom of this, and we need to be proactive and not continue to look like it's not our issue when it is.
I'm curious about a couple other things.
One is I appreciated when Chair Avalos in early this year had— we had a great discussion about the roles between the city and the county.
Yes.
And we kind of landed in some places.
The city's about building.
The city's about building.
That came up over and over again.
The county's more about rent.
The irony of that is then we listen to advocates say they want rent vouchers, and then after 2 minutes of discussion, that passed 3 to 2 that we should do what we said.
We really isn't our role clarity.
But anyway, I'll try to get over that.
My point is, what is our role?
And this is a time maybe to rethink that.
Thank you.
That because the county exists and so does the city, and we're duplicating some of our efforts, and we don't have time for that now with the, with the reality of the local budget crisis because of the lack of revenue that's coming into both the city and the county.
I was curious about the $234K from the cannabis fund going away.
Where's that going, or is there just not enough money in the cannabis fund coming to us anymore?
Do you know the answer to that question?
Michael Bonaccor
I do believe it's a reduction in revenue that's available, but yes.
Donnie Oliveira
That is correct, Councilor.
Dan Ryan
And so I wish it was there 'cause actually I think it's going to some strange places now.
I think that if the Housing Bureau was using it for behavioral health specialists in these same units where everyone's complaining those services were promised but they're not receiving them, that would be a start.
Thanks.
Michael Bonaccor
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Yeah, thank you so much, Director Bonaccor.
Thanks for your service as well.
Um, wish you, uh, all the best into your, into your next very difficult, um, job.
Uh, just very briefly, I just was hoping to get some sense of whether or not these 2, um, cut vacancy positions, um, are going to impact the, um, Unified Housing Strategy work and the social housing work.
Michael Bonaccor
Thanks for the question, Councilor.
Again, I think it's more of an opportunity cost.
I think if there was more, if those positions were there, our ability to do more would exist.
But we're not in a position where we're saying the Unified Housing Strategy can't be supported by the Bureau or the Social Housing Study can't be.
And I think hopefully you're seeing good progress on both and we feel like we can You know, continue to stay on that track.
There could come moments depending on what the next iteration of work looks like or what implementation looks like that in future budget cycles we might say if we're going to pull this off, we would need X.
But as it stands now, that work, you know, we're staffed to continue moving that work forward.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Mitch Green
I needed to hear that.
Michael Bonaccor
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Michael, for all the work that you've done for us.
I worked with you when I was a Multnomah County Commissioner, and I appreciated your work.
Um, but as for this budget, I want to know more about the Home Share program.
Um, there was $500,000 put in the budget for 20— what was it, '25-'26?
And I believe we, we're also putting another $500,000 in.
Eric Engstrom
No.
Michael Bonaccor
Uh, so the, the the initial $500,000 rolls— is requested to roll into this budget year.
Loretta Smith
It will be the leftover money?
Yes.
And so with the mayor's budget, he's asking to have that rolled over to be able to pay for it.
So tell me what happened.
Why didn't that program get off the ground in a year?
Michael Bonaccor
It did get off the ground in a year.
So there was a process of designing the program, finding platforms that could sort of make the connections between renters and homeowners, sort of developing the policy of how that works, legal review.
So some of the, you know, what we wanted to be sure of here in Portland was this program work, you know, is in other markets, but are the sort of protections that folks will have adequate as they are in other places, or did, you know, are there other pieces that need to be put in place?
So the program's up and running now, and homeowners and renters can now be matched.
Loretta Smith
How many renters will we help with that $500,000?
Michael Bonaccor
I believe there is funding for up to 350 renters.
Loretta Smith
Who actually does that program?
Who's the coordinator or director of that program?
Where does that program— who does that?
Michael Bonaccor
Sure.
That is under the direction of Josh Roper, our Policy and Planning Director.
Loretta Smith
Policy and Planning Director.
That was one of the new programs that I was really excited about in terms of making sure that people got into homes.
And that was something different from what we were doing.
Will you all, because I know it started, the process in February and it was approved in June.
But I'm just trying to— I, I'd like to have a report.
I know you're not going to be here, but it would be great to have a report out on— in the Housing and Permit or in the Committee of the Whole, just, you know, what's going on with it.
What kind of folks are we putting in?
Are these people from shelters?
Who, who are the folks that are using this particular program?
Michael Bonaccor
Yes, absolutely.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Colleagues, no one else in the queue?
I'm going to give us a bathroom break.
I thought I was.
Oh, Councilor Ryan.
Then we're going to go bathroom break.
Dan Ryan
40 Seconds.
Question, what was the FTE of the Housing Bureau before the 2016 bond?
What was it at peak of the bond?
And what is it today?
Michael Bonaccor
We will get you factual answers to that question, Councilor.
I can tell you what I understand anecdotally is that as resources swelled into the bureau, there was not a significant increase, if any, staff to manage those resources.
So we haven't seen—.
Dan Ryan
You're telling me I'll see numbers for FTE prior to the bonds similar to the number of FTE FTEs during the bond, the peak of the bond.
Michael Bonaccor
You know, honestly, actually, Councilor, forgive me, I was thinking of the ARPA resources and not the bond.
So we'll just get you that, we'll get you that information.
Dan Ryan
And you can include ARPA.
My point is we had those FTE rate prior to, during the peak, and then you could tell me the sources and then where we are today.
I think I'm looking at what is the Housing Bureau today Post-bond.
And of course, I'm advocating for more oversight with metrics so we can be more accountable to the good people in Portland that are living in the units that we help build.
Michael Bonaccor
Understood, Councilor.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Okay, colleagues, we're going to take a quick 15-minute bathroom break.
Back here at 11:15, we'll come back and finish the planning section of Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
See you at 11:15.
Well, that's 12 minutes.
It's 12 minutes, but I know everyone's gonna roll in at 11:20, so it's and we are thank you very much, friends.
I'm going to, uh, we're now turning over to the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, where— correction, we're not just talking about planning.
We are also talking about everything in the Planning and Sustainability Bureau except for PSEF.
So hold your PSEF questions till later.
But otherwise, I'm going to turn it over, back over to DCA Oliveira and Director Engstrom.
Donnie Oliveira
Thank you, Council President.
Actually, you said the thing that I was just going to say, so I'm just going to kick right over to Director Engstrom.
Dan Ryan
Perfect.
Eric Engstrom
Good morning.
For the record, my name is Eric Engstrom.
I'm the director of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
BPS collaborates with partners, organizations, and community to help design and implement the next generation of urban strategies to achieve our citywide goals.
BPS's work is externally facing and fundamentally about setting direction for the future.
The bureau includes urban planning, climate and energy programs, solid waste and recycling, franchise utilities, and the Portland Clean Energy PSEF is being discussed tomorrow, so today we're going to focus on the rest of BPS.
PSEF is more than 90% of BPS's budget.
Next slide, please.
So I'm going to help you understand what you see with it.
This is the whole bureau when you see this slide, but I'm going to walk you through what the elements of the non-PSEF parts are.
Again, 90% of the bureau's budget is PSEF.
That's a lot of money.
This total includes roughly $425 million.
That's PCF's ending fund balance, or future year CIP spending, if you want to call it that.
Without that fund balance, the bureau's budget is closer to $300 million.
And without PCF, the budget for planning, community technology, and waste programs together is about $41 million.
A chunk of that is in the general fund and a chunk is in the other funds.
The general fund is about a third of BPS's non-PCF funding, which supports planning, community technology, and graffiti abatement.
Other revenue comes from the Solid Waste Fund, intergovernmental agreements, the state, and some grants.
Urban Planning is primarily funded by the General Fund with some secondary grant funding.
The Climate and Energy programs are supported by PSEF and the Solid Waste Funds.
Community Technology, the largest component of which is the franchise utility team, is funded by the General Fund and historically with some interagency revenue from the Mt.
Hood Cable Regulatory Commission, and we'll discuss The franchise utility program, just a reminder that that brings in about $90 million annually into the general fund.
It's one of your primary revenue sources through franchise that we grant to private utilities to operate in the public right-of-way.
This includes things like power companies, the gas company, pipelines, and telecommunications.
The solid waste and recycling utility is funded by the Solid Waste Management Fund, which is generated when you pay your garbage bill, and we'll discuss the waste rates in a moment.
Thank you.
A little bit later in this presentation.
BPS also supports its internal service functions with an overhead pool that includes contributions from all these sources that I just mentioned, including PSF and waste.
That pool pays for things like communications, HR, procurement, tech services, engagement, finance, and the director's office.
That pool is shown on this chart as part of the general fund budget because that's where we budget it.
But some of that revenue, I just want to note, is coming from PSF and waste.
So the actual general fund total is a little bit less than what you're seeing there.
The general fund column also includes some one-time money going to graffiti.
Next slide, please.
Most of, as you can see here, one of the biggest changes in our FTE count is through the broader citywide internal services realignment.
Most of that team is being realigned to join the CEDSA internal services team now serving PP&D housing as well as BPS.
And you'll learn more about that with the realignment discussion in a few days, I believe.
But that includes our HR procurement tech services and engagement teams.
2 Other positions, as was noted earlier, are being realigned to support the new city data and privacy office as well.
That's within that realignment number.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Next slide.
Eric Engstrom
So despite this being a difficult budget year, BPS will continue to prioritize working with other bureaus, especially PP&D and Public Works, to streamline and improve regulations that apply to development.
In coordination with Portland Permitting and Development, we will be launching several regulatory improvement initiatives in the coming year.
You already hear a little bit about the CAP 2 project being one of those.
Portland also has a solid, world-class solid waste and recycling service, and we're well positioned to continue making that better.
Our biggest push this year will be aimed at apartment buildings as we evaluate options to improve recycling and composting services for those customers.
Finally, although the Chief Sustainability Officer is now housed with the City Administrator, we continue to be one of the key pillars in the city's climate work, including supporting energy efficiency in buildings, Supporting the development of a city energy strategy, managing the renewable fuels transition, and engagement with energy utilities working towards a cleaner grid.
And of course, promoting sustainable development is inherently connected to our land use and comprehensive planning functions as well.
Next slide.
These next few slides describe the places where we're going to be doing a bit less.
One of the mayor's guidance encouraged us to look at specific functions rather than just thinning the soup across the board, and we took that to heart.
Thank you.
Area planning is one of the functions where the proposed budget will leave us with fewer resources.
This is the team that does area-specific neighborhood planning.
This team has been an important part of the Bureau for many years.
Recent examples of their work include the, the Lower Southeast Rising Area Plan, the Southwest Town Center Plans, our work to support the Albina Vision Trust, and the Montgomery Park Area Plan.
Thank you.
In this coming budget year, we're gonna prioritize delivery of the Inner East rezoning project, which you all have talked about.
I know it's a council priority, but we're gonna not have as much capacity to do other things within that team.
Next slide.
A second area of cuts is pausing our outgoing Digital Inclusion Grant Program in community technology.
This is one of the larger buckets of general fund money within the Bureau's budget.
That does not— is not all staff.
So that's one of the reasons that cut was taken.
Next slide.
Third, we'll be cutting the remaining general fund support from our climate team.
This was money we used for contractors to provide technical expertise that we don't have as much of in-house.
This is going to reduce our ability to support— provide technical support to customers and realtors who are fulfilling the home energy score requirements.
It's going to reduce our ability to do some climate-related technical analysis, and it's going to affect our participation in some peer city networks.
While we're reducing our reliance on contractors with this cut, and we will need to rethink some of these programs or do less with those programs as a result, in addition to the general fund reduction, this team is losing an ongoing grant-funded position.
Because we came to the end of a long multi-year grant that we had over the last decade.
And so that ongoing position was cut as a— not as a result of the general fund cuts, but as a result of the grant running out.
Next slide.
I'm gonna talk now about the Mt.
Hood Cable Regulatory Commission.
As you all have heard before, the number of people who have cable television subscriptions is declining and is expected to continue declining.
Thank you.
This means that cable franchise revenue is declining, making the existing Mt.
Hood Cable Commission structure unsustainable.
And accordingly, as I've talked to you all before, the city has signed a dissolution agreement with other member jurisdictions.
That happened in 2025.
The mayor's budget includes several technical decisions related to that dissolution, including recognizing cable revenue coming to the city rather than flowing through the Mt.
Hood Cable Commission, redirecting some staff funds that had previously gone to the Mount Hood Cable Commission that would now go to BPS, and then reassigning some council-specific open signal funding from BPS to council operations.
That's related to your broadcasting funding.
Essentially, the city will continue to have a cable franchise, but the dissolution of the commission and the budget decisions we're making here mean that we'll be directly managing that work rather than relying on the Mount Hood Cable Commission.
Next slide.
I'm now going to pivot to our waste and recycling rates.
The waste and recycling utility is divided into 2 primary systems, residential and commercial.
The residential waste system generates about 1/3 of all the waste we handle.
The commercial system, which includes businesses, apartments, and deconstruction waste, generates about 2/3 of the waste.
The city has waste-setting authority over the residential system but not the commercial system.
The residential system is a franchise utility where private companies provide the service on our behalf, assigned to specific geographies.
The city sets the overall rules and the types of services that must be provided through franchise agreements.
And as a reminder, the rate formulas are driven by those franchise agreements, which are negotiated every 5 to 7 years.
Thank you.
Council reviews the rates annually as we're doing starting now.
But this is— there's not a lot of discretion in this process.
There's an agreed-to formula in the franchise agreements and deviating from that would put the franchise agreements and services in jeopardy.
Per the franchise agreements, the residential rates are based on the cost of service plus an allowance for a target operating margin and incorporation of the city's franchise To break that down a little bit more, about 39% goes to the cost of collection, 25% is related to the cost of disposal, 19% is company administrative costs, 9.5% is the operating margin, and 8% is the city's franchise fee, which goes into the solid waste fund and supports the BPS solid waste programs.
The 9.5% operating margin, by the way, is used to establish the rates at It's not a guaranteed rate of return.
Again, in contrast, the commercial system is a free market system.
There's not assigned geographies.
The city sets the overall rules and establishes a per-ton tipping fee, but customers may choose their haulers and we don't set those rates.
Next slide.
Here you can see how our rates compare to other cities on the West Coast as well as some neighboring cities.
We kind of fall in the middle of that range.
Where it says equal, it means that they provide an equivalent level of service as us in that category.
Where it says less means either less often or fewer services.
And where it says more means that they handle more or do it more often.
And generally, the cities that provide higher service have higher rates than the cities that provide equal or lower service have lower rates.
Next slide.
This slide shows our proposed rate changes this year.
The rate review process begins in January when we receive detailed cost reports from each hauler.
We then send those to a CPA to vet them.
We receive adjusted costs from those— from that CPA, and then we work with an economist to implement our rate model and come up with the numbers that you see in front of you.
In early April, we met with haulers and we also hosted a public information session for general public interest.
I want to highlight here that one component of the cost in disposal is Metro's disposal fees.
And in prior years, we would use actual Metro fees as the calculator there, which don't become available until May.
In order to create more time for you all to consider the rates, we are pivoting this year to a system where we use an assumed Metro rate based on the prior year plus a cost escalator.
If Metro's rates then come in differently than what we predicted, that will catch up in the following year.
So other cities in the region do this backward-looking rate calculation instead of forward, and we're going to pivot to that this year because it allows us more time and we're not going to force you into an emergency ordinance at the end of the year.
Thank you.
The proposed rates, as you can see, are a modest increase this year.
Drivers of the higher costs include wages, benefits, and fuel, and increased disposal costs, as I just described.
Those are partially offset by declining recycling costs, which are in part due to the Statewide Recycling Modernization Act and some of the subsidies that show up there.
The rate increases are very modest, and this is actually the smallest increase we've proposed in recent years.
Thank you.
We're not proposing any increase to the commercial tonnage fee, so I'm not even showing that on the chart.
And that is within our discretion to— and is a slight deviation from our 5-year financial plan.
But given the city's budget situation, we chose to not move a rate increase on that forward this year.
If you look at the rates adjusted for inflation, the waste rates overall have been flat for the past 2 decades.
This means your garbage bill today is similar to what it was in 2012, adjusted for inflation.
And finally, a reminder that last year we implemented a financial assistance program for qualified homeowners that comes to a discount of about $22 per month at the 35-gallon service level.
And since the launch in November, we have 900 customers now enrolled in that program, which is linked to the Water Bureau discount program.
Discount thank you, Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira.
Program.
We are working now on ways to expand that eligibility to low-income renters.
That's a little bit more technically difficult just because a lot of times they don't hold the garbage bill, but we're working on that.
We also launched a standardized rate for bulky item disposal this year.
Previous, each hauler had different rates, or sometimes they didn't even advertise their rates.
We now require a consistent rate for that, which which we hope will help folks understand how they can properly dispose of bulky items instead of just dumping them in a ravine or something.
And that concludes my presentation.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay, thank you.
Colleagues, let's get into the queue.
Councilor Smith.
Okay, Vice President Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Council President.
There's a lot here, Eric.
I appreciate Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
I appreciate the information, but I just want to briefly ask you a little bit about under what you're preserving on slide 28, just about the waste and recycling services that you have.
You have a project underway to improve multi-dwelling recycling and composting services and develop a low-income rate for renters.
Eric Engstrom
Can you talk a little bit more about the yeah, this is a significant project, and we're actually looking at the whole commercial system, the part that's not part of the residential franchise, which again includes apartments, commercial services, and construction waste.
And this is an opportunity to look holistically at the structure of that service and figure out whether we want to do it differently.
Hypothetically, you know, should should multifamily properties be folded into the residential system, for example?
That's a potential question to ask.
Olivia Clark
Are they commercial now?
Eric Engstrom
They're part of the commercial system now.
So property managers of larger multifamily buildings, more than 5 units, can choose their hauler.
And that leads— that has led to a little bit spottier service from the end user's perspective.
If you're an apartment dweller, You know, you're moving from place to place, you're going to experience slightly different levels of service as you go from building to building and hauler to hauler because it's less regulated and it's not as consistent.
Sometimes the composting might be missing from your service, or they might not have as much space in an older building for disposal of recycling goods.
So it's a big project.
There's going to be public involvement with both property managers and renters.
Thank you.
It's going to take us much of the next year or 2 to work through, but we will be bringing proposals back for changes to that system.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, may I just want to offer, because this project started when I was back at BPS as well, but the question we're contemplating is what would it look like in Portland if everybody, no matter where you lived and what type of building, had access to the same level of service?
And that is not true today.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, no, I really appreciate that because I am a condo dweller also.
Um, you didn't mention the haulers.
I imagine you have the haulers involved in this project.
Absolutely.
Okay, and I'm just thinking that at some point, Eric, you'll maybe bring this for a preview to the Public Works Committee.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, we've, we've talked about a potential check-in.
We're developing the, the objectives for the we project right now, don't and we're going to bring it back to the Public Works Committee.
Have objectives for the project right now, and we were thinking that we would bring the objectives to vet through a committee sometime this fall.
Olivia Clark
Okay.
And I would just imagine that you might want to talk to PBOT since we're also looking at a different way of dealing with multifamily on the TUF, that there's some synergy between Water, Public Works, and your bureau as well.
Okay, thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Uh, thank you, Director Engstrom, for the presentation.
Uh, I want to kind of narrow in on the franchise utility program for a second.
Um, it is a pretty important revenue stream for the City of Portland.
It's not the biggest, of course, but it's a pretty foundational one.
And I'm looking at the proposed budget, um, and it looks like it's just 3 FTEs in the franchise utility Um, I might need to get—.
Eric Engstrom
I think there's some partial people who are split, but approximately 3 or 4.
Mitch Green
Okay, that would explain maybe, because what I'm seeing in the position report is 1 analyst 4 and then 2 analyst 2s and then some vacancies.
Um, and the Analyst 4 is like under range for that job class, and so I, I, I'm trying to understand.
Maybe they're—.
Eric Engstrom
It's a small team.
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
Yeah.
Mitch Green
Okay.
Um, you know, we're not in an ad year, of course, but I'm thinking when we think about where the resources go in the budget, um, I'm a little bit apprehensive, and maybe you can tell me why I shouldn't be apprehensive, but that we have such a small team managing such a large, uh, revenue center for the, for the city.
And is that a thing to be worried about?
Do, do we need to think about Is there a strategic vision on the horizon that I shouldn't be aware of?
Eric Engstrom
I agree with the sentiment that you want to be careful about cutting programs that are generating revenue, and we did not cut core staff in the franchise utility program.
We—.
The larger Community Technology Division did take a cut, in part related to the Mount Hood Cable transition and in part due to the transition of the city's by unwinding the Digital Inclusion Grant Program.
Those are in the same general program, but we didn't cut the core team that's working on the franchise utility revenue.
And I will say that the team has been doing a great job.
They've increased the general fund revenue in the last couple years by more aggressively going after people who haven't paid their franchise bills.
Mitch Green
Yeah, and I want to recognize that.
I've heard that in other settings.
That's kudos to that team.
Let me ask it a slightly different way.
I have been talking about rate setting as a more sort of deliberate practice across the city, a little bit closer to a hearings process.
With this staff, could you accommodate requests for different rate design proposals and different ways of thinking about the franchise utility approach, or would that be too burdensome for that staff to accommodate?
Eric Engstrom
No, we have done that.
Just a couple years ago, we rewrote the right-of-way code, which governs the franchise utility system, and that moved us away from individually negotiating franchises to more of a standardized license approach.
And then we are currently doing a project right now to modernize their technology, the portal that the customers use to pay their franchise system.
So the 2 things part of the team's work is sort of system improvement and contemplating improvement.
Mitch Green
I appreciate it.
Donnie Oliveira
Hey, Councilor, may I offer this to the question about the strategy?
Yeah.
I think the point is salient in that, and it's maybe a cautionary tale for all the other conversations we've had earlier about moving programs from one bureau to another.
The franchise utility team came from another entity that moved into BPS a few years ago.
And so It's largely still landing in the bureau.
It's—.
The team's doing great, to your point and to Eric's point, but we haven't had that time to do that strategic planning yet because we're still stabilizing them as an entity in the bureau.
So that work is certainly due.
Mitch Green
I appreciate that.
And, you know, as I look at this, the position report here, it looks like the most senior person in that group is an Analyst 4.
Are they the sort of supervisor?
Correct.
Okay, thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
So it's my understanding, based on 60 years of consumption of popular culture, that the mafia is traditionally heavily involved in waste management.
And this is really a question for the city attorney, I guess, but are we under any legal obligation to consult with the mafia before changing policies and practices relating, relating to waste management?
And if so, have we discharged that obligation?
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, we'll defer that to the city attorney when they, when they're available.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
I'll follow up.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Council President, I don't think I can follow that.
No, I don't think so.
Um, 2 questions.
The first one is very small, but because you brought up the work around improvements for multi-dwelling recycling and composting services.
Would that change the, the way that we regulate multi-dwelling units and align pickup days with residential units, or would the multi-dwelling, the commercial side, retain separate pickups?
Eric Engstrom
That's all on the table as options to discuss.
But yeah, one of the options would be to align with the residential system.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
As we have more multi-dwelling units in residential neighborhoods with small streets, I occasionally hear from constituents about the impacts there.
Eric Engstrom
And that's one of the logics of doing this project is over the years we're becoming a more multi-dwelling city as our land use processes play out.
And so So that's— we're shifting more of our waste stream and more customers into that commercial system.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So let's talk about land use and planning.
Thank you for that transition.
You're cutting 2 staff from the area district planning team and moving 2 others to specific projects.
That planning work is part of what has made our city the way that it is.
How many staff are retained on that team?
Eric Engstrom
I may have to get back to you with the precise number, but it's few.
It's around 7 or 8 total.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So we're cutting about a third of the team?
Eric Engstrom
A quarter maybe.
Yeah, something like that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
And you said that other than the Inner Eastside for All work, there is not a lot else that that team will be able to take on over the next 6 months to year with that type of reduction.
What, what are we losing?
What are we losing in this decision package?
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, we're losing flexibility to take on new projects.
I think— I feel pretty confident that we can manage the InterEast project and finish the projects we have underway.
As you mentioned, some of our— as we've lost general fund in previous years, we've had to cover staff with grants, and so that that tends to lock them into a project because the grant is what it is and we have to pay them with it.
And so it takes them off the board in terms of staff I might assign to a project that council might come up with next year.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
As we think about loss of production, and I— this is a cuts budget, but I want to make sure that we know what we're getting.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Eric Engstrom
To give you a concrete example of that, as the designs of the latest iteration of the Interstate Bridge come towards a conclusion, it's been in our mind that we're gonna have to do an update to the Jensen Beach plan.
That would be the kind of work that this team would do.
And right now, I don't have a way to start in on a project like that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
That's a great example.
So as we think about that project, um, when would that be able to come online?
How long will that take?
Are we getting ourselves— I guess what I'm trying to understand is, is 7 or 8 staff the place where we can really only do one thing at a time?
So if we have to do the Jantzen Beach project, something that my colleagues in D1 would love to do, but that we're not being forced to do by outside pressures has to wait, or will we still be able to do 2 or 3 things at a time, but maybe not 5 or 6 things at a time?
Eric Engstrom
It's correct.
It's— you're gonna— the wait time for us to start a new project that council might want us to do, it will be longer and we'll be able to manage fewer of them at once.
And the Inner East example is a pretty significant amount of work, and I know council wants us to move fast, so we're gonna put a lot of resources into it.
That means we probably can't do other things at the same time.
Okay.
With a previous team, with a larger team of 8 or 9 people, we can manage multiple streams of work.
But with the team we're in now where we have— again, I have to get back to you on the exact number, but let's say we have 6 and 2 of those are funded by grants that have to work only on those grants.
That leaves me with not very many people to do that work.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I've had conversations about other parts of the budget where I've asked folks, you know, what are the things that we can cut and we probably— it'll change what we do, we don't like it, but we can move forward?
What are the things that we absolutely cannot cut without major impacts?
And what are the things that we can cut and be okay muddling through for a year or two, but in the long run we might need to add them back?
This sounds from what you're saying like in that latter category, which is actually the middle category.
Is that an accurate assessment?
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, that's one of the reasons we made the decision to make cuts here is in other teams we have regulatory requirements coming at us from above, like the code team with regulatory improvement.
That's clearly also a council priority.
We did not cut there.
Our environmental team is already tiny and has mandates related to floodplain and endangered species and things.
So yeah, we're looking at trying to maintain core capacity to do regulatorily required work.
And the area planning is important, good work, but there aren't necessarily external drivers forcing us to do it.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, there have been times in the past though where we've had external directives like the director mentioned IBR.
If several of those come at once, we will ultimately have to come back to council when that time is appropriate to ask for resources.
And that has happened in the past.
That's not unique to a budget cut scenario.
It's just if the program load becomes overwhelming and we have must-haves to do, we'll look to, look to the council for resources to deliver.
Eric Engstrom
That's a good, a good example is large transportation infrastructure projects tend to need a land use partner in the work, and that tends to come from our area planning team because those projects are geographically based.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I consider myself now on notice that we'll need to add something here at some point in the next couple of years.
Thank you, Council President.
I think that's probably my time.
Is that right?
Jamie Dunphy
That is.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you much, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
First, just 2 questions related to that last line of questioning on Jantzen Beach Plan.
Obviously want to make sure all 3 of us are consulted on that.
People in Hayden Island are very interested in the future of their neighborhood, and I want to make sure that we're able to represent that.
Where is the full list of every plan?
Is there a single place that's extant?
Because every now and then we'll find a— be referencing a plan I've never heard of.
Eric Engstrom
There is.
There's a planning library on our website that gives you all the different area plans, and there's a map you can click to see where they are.
And then all of our current planning projects are also in the planning portion of our website.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, great.
I will follow up and make sure that that is known to constituents as well.
Can you speak a little bit more to Smart City cuts specifically?
I want to make sure that there's no impact to the surveillance and privacy work that's being done there.
Is that something that will be affected by this reduction?
Eric Engstrom
No.
What you see is the Smart City program offer is actually a combination of the Smart City team and our digital inclusion program.
When, when we absorbed the Office of Community Technology a number of years ago, we merged those 2 teams together, and the cut we're taking is more on the digital inclusion side with that grant program.
The, the Smart Cities program, um, a lot of that funding is being transferred with the realignment to the Data and Privacy Office with that decision package.
Sameer Kanal
Great, thanks.
On waste and recycling, I know there's been some interest in the idea of doing commercial franchising, which among other things is more climate-friendly when you make areas served by a single company more compact.
And I just wanted to understand if there's anything, any new updates, anything that you can share on that conversation.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, we are jumping into that project and there is work going on right now with stakeholders to identify and solidify the objectives of that system review.
And so our intent is to come back to a council committee in the fall and give you an opportunity to look at what we're mapping out as the project objectives.
Loretta Smith
Great.
Sameer Kanal
I want to reiterate my interest and commitment to continuing our work to allow renters to directly ask for a different size garbage bin that that fits their needs and a different cadence as needed as well.
This is something that is a really, really small thing that doesn't affect a ton of people.
You know, single-family renters are still a significant population, but has a significant impact on their lives and seems that it should have been done before.
But I'm glad we're working on it.
Just wanted to get that on the record.
I also want to continue to express concern about launching a financial assistance program for qualified homeowners without simultaneously supporting renters.
I know better late than never, but I, I think we should always be starting with the people who need the help most, and that is renters.
Uh, I'm not really sure why that, that went that way.
What is the timeline on that?
Eric Engstrom
We're working on that right now, and, um, we, based on some discussions we've had with a number of you, we know that there's, there's a few of you interested in that topic, and so we're trying to accelerate that right now.
Sameer Kanal
And will that apply to multifamily renters or single-family renters or both?
Eric Engstrom
Don't know yet, but that's part of what we're looking at right now.
And, um, I— my hope is we can bring you back something within this next fiscal year.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
Uh, and I just want to close by saying I, I agree with everything Councilor Clark talked about with relation to collaborating with PBOT, BES, uh, water, obviously thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Council President.
Good to see you, Eric.
At a time when less money is coming into government from our bread and butter revenue streams due to our low-performing economy, people are asking for reforms from government right now.
They're really asking for us to really lean in and look where there could be a new way of thinking in terms of delivering customer service.
On that note, would you say that your bureau specifically works closely with Metro?
Eric Engstrom
Yes, we work with Metro closely on both the land use side and the waste side.
They also have a role in the disposal of waste, and then we work with them a little bit increasingly.
Dan Ryan
They're getting into the climate what'd you say at the end?
Eric Engstrom
On climate, they have some climate planning happening as well.
Dan Ryan
And I think that's what people are telling me, that they see that coordination, and they also see sometimes duplication.
Have you— are you having conversations with people at Metro where in fact there's some overlap and there could be some new ways of thinking about the service delivery, just like the city has to constantly do with the county?
And of course, we can improve upon it for public safety and for housing.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, I think in both the land use sphere and the waste side, Metro's role is at that policy larger scale, and we are more the direct implementers.
Dan Ryan
The bureaus are the direct implementers?
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, we— the bureaus in the city are the direct implementers, both in waste and land use.
The spaces where there is often an interaction where we have to work out whose lane we're in There is always an active conversation on the waste side about Metro's role with disposal and whether they own and operate facilities or whether they have private companies doing that.
That's an active conversation that the city has opinions about from a waste perspective.
On the land use side, sometimes both Metro and the city are involved in pushing forward strategic projects like Metro Park.
Yeah.
Metro, for example, gave grants to Albina Vision Trust, and we're also in that space.
And so working out who's doing what between Prosper and us and Metro can sometimes— when Metro dives into a very highly local project, that can be a little bit—.
Dan Ryan
I appreciate your honesty.
I think that a lot of people are seeing that, and I think now is a really good time to keep having those meetings with your partners at Metro to find who's on first where.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, overall I would— I want to say Metro is a good partner, but there are points there that we're—.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, everyone's a good person.
Everyone just needs to see that there's efficiency that we're trying to get out of it, because people tell me they feel like they get one answer there and one answer here, and it gets confusing, I think, when it comes to land use.
So, um, that's all on land use.
I think that maybe the theme I'm getting when it comes to East Columbia and Hayden Island, uh, our north thank you.
Thank you.
One of the things that I think is really important with waterfront that we neglect quite a bit at this city is that there's a frustration that decisions seem to be made by sitting at home looking at graphs and charts and such and not enough walking the land.
Like, they tell me, I've never met anyone from BPS, but here's the new code that they want to deliver.
And then when I hear about cuts, are you cutting those type of positions, or do the job descriptions those positions positions, not ask them to actually go out and walk the land and connect with those that are impacted?
Eric Engstrom
No, I mean, unfortunately, the area planning team is the team that's most likely to be out walking.
The environmental team, which I think is the one involved in the East Columbia planning, does of course spend a lot of time in the field too, because you can't do— you can't understand environmental resources without walking the land, literally.
They're out in the field quite a bit, but the area planning team is also out in the field a lot.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Dan Ryan
And I think some people perhaps don't realize that they have been walking because they perhaps haven't been having dialogue with those folks.
Code clutter, as you know, has been a big topic of mine for some time because you can't do permitting reforms without it.
And after the lack of someone picking up the phone and doing customer service with frustrated folks trying to work with us on permitting, that that's a good point.
The second one was about code clutter.
They would say they would get advice about a code from 1992, and then they find out another person that it's handed off to wants them to deal with a code that was passed in 2012.
And then the third person talks to them about a code passed in 2022.
That's not right.
So I'm starting to get impatient with this project that I know started quite a bit ago.
Quite a while ago about how BPS is helping out the permitting bureau to actually get into there and really scrub some of those codes that are no longer relevant, but they're still on record.
And so it confuses and slows down time for those trying to do permitting.
Any response to this?
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, and as you know, Councilor, I've been involved in the space of code improvement for many years and have a lot of ideas about that.
I'm very excited to be working with Eric Kooch to to ramp up our efforts around regulatory improvement.
And that means staffing CAP adequately and moving those things forward.
It means continuing to work at the— with the DCA to understand what the overall city priorities are for regulatory improvement and streamlining.
As I said in my remarks earlier, we're going to be taking on a number of projects.
We are bringing the latest iteration of RECAP to Council next month, and we will continue to do that kind of work as well.
So I'm looking forward to bringing you a more holistic view with Eric and Donnie on what our next few years of regulatory improvement, what our roadmap is.
Dan Ryan
As we're working on that legislation, I'll have definitely a lens there.
I want to end with saying that it makes me sad what's happened to Hayden Island and the North Shore of our city in general, the North Waterfront.
I lived in the mobile home court in high school out on Hayden Island, so I know it well with my mom.
And the neglect that has taken place over time is really sad.
It looked much better in the late '70s.
And then you contrast that just for our economic development.
When you come across the current interstate bridge, you see such a contrast from Vancouver and the way the state of Washington and their WDOT or whatever they call it, the Washington Bureau of Transportation takes care of their roads in the way— welcome to Oregon, the land of like abandoned hotels and weeds.
It's just not okay.
And so I'm hoping that we as a city, maybe the 3 of us will do a garden party with residents out at Hayden Island to help with that.
But my point is, I hope that this city in its planning stops neglecting thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thanks.
I want to first start by wishing everyone a happy Older Americans Month.
We'll be honoring this more next week.
But with that in mind, Director Angstrom, can you speak to how this— the proposed budget cuts to BPS could impact our capacity to prioritize and support age-friendly initiatives to advance work aligned with our ADEN project, Age and Disability Inclusive Neighborhood project.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, I'm familiar with that effort.
That document was produced, as you I'm sure know, with help from a one-time position we had in BPS for a number of years.
The late Commissioner Fish had put in the budget some funding for us to pilot an age-friendly cities staff position, which we had from, I think, around 2019 or '18 and through 2021-ish or so.
That position was the victim of a prior year budget cut.
It was essentially a cut year, and we never had the opportunity to ask for a continuation of the one-time position, and so it ended.
I was involved with helping to oversee that work when it was in the Bureau.
It's important work.
It's not currently funded within the Bureau.
So that's— it does relate to a lot of the work we do in terms of land use and the built environment.
So I appreciate the work, but I want to be clear, it's probably not within our current FTE.
Keith Wilson
And Councilor, I think I think one of the things—.
Michael Bonaccor
Yes.
Donnie Oliveira
Because I was at BPS when that report was completed as well, one of the things, the key lesson was some of the key priorities out of the research that was done led us to think that it was broader than just a planning land use lens to approach the work.
So where else in the city could we activate resources and partnership to further advance sort of age-friendly policies?
And so I think if we were going to evaluate next steps for that, it would probably work with the city administrator and my colleagues to See what kind of team can we put together to really advance that work?
'Cause land use is an important tool, but it's probably not the only one that we want to do to address— use to address age-friendly policies.
Eric Engstrom
I also wanted to just say we are working on some of the action items in that plan that continue to happen.
So we didn't put it on a shelf.
There are a few things that have moved forward since that report was written, but it's kind of slow incremental work rather than a dedicated position.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And when you're saying there's not capacity to really dig into this, that's at where we're at currently?
Eric Engstrom
That's before the cuts, yeah.
The cuts don't really directly affect our capacity to do this work, but doesn't help.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And then what would the capacity need to be to be able to focus on this more?
Eric Engstrom
At the time, we had one FTE devoted to age-friendly cities work, and that That was at the time, it was thought of as a pilot project and we just never got to move beyond the pilot stage because of funding.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
I forgot that I actually had a serious question, which is about the cutting the funding for the climate team and particularly the home energy score program.
And I would actually just ask you to like Remind people what the Home Energy Score program is and what would be the effects of that cut?
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, the Home Energy Score is a code requirement that when you sell a home, you have to get an energy score, essentially kind of like what you'd see on a washer and dryer if you bought a new washer and dryer.
I went through that actually myself last year when I sold a home and sadly got a poor rating.
It was an older house.
But essentially, the realtor has to hire someone who writes a A report that's a few pages about the— they go out and do a test of the home and look for energy leaks, and they look at your windows and things.
And it's a— so it's a code requirement.
It's implemented by the private sector.
But the funds that were cut are to a consultant contract that was providing technical assistance to the realtors.
So it was like a helpline that you could call to get help with the technical work to comply.
So the code continues to apply.
We didn't— we're not proposing to—.
Okay.
Delete the code from the city code, but there would be fewer resources for technical assistance with this cut.
Steve Novick
And how well utilized was this technical assistance?
Did a lot of realtors call up to ask questions?
Eric Engstrom
I will have to get back to you on the volumes.
I'm not sure.
Steve Novick
Because, I mean, this is of concern to me if we have reason to think that it would undermine the program not to have this technical assistance available.
And I think that actually, I think Vivian Satterfield just sang to me recently that she thinks the Home Energy Score program has been really effective.
I'd like to see if it really is going to have impact.
I'd like to see this cut avoided.
And actually, this is another example of where I think PSEF funding would be appropriate and it'd be reasonable to look for PSEF to make up a rather small amount of money.
Thank you.
Eric Engstrom
I can look into it.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Yes, thank you.
Uh, I didn't ask this one question, and it's something that since we've moved to this form of government, we have more time to listen to neighbors.
And one consistent theme is they start off by saying, I'm all in for density and housing, and my street's only this big, like it's narrow.
And when you put these complexes in with no parking and you have parking on both sides in the road, a little car can barely get through, let alone kids on bikes and roller skating.
And then if there is a fire, how are they— how's the emergency trucks going to get in?
So I just keep hearing about this over and over again.
And these again are people that are not your typical, I don't want— like they'll say, can there just be 4 units instead of 8?
Like, can we maybe consider one lane, one side of the street for parking?
Yeah.
So it makes me think, are you working with PBOT when you're doing the planning?
When we're doing code work, are we getting outside of the building but actually looking at the right-of-way and knowing that in Portland you can go one block over and it's a completely different street size?
And everyone knows that in both and throughout the city.
So I'm just starting to wonder if we're looking at it big picture, which is why I put an amendment in recently for the Inner East Side to make sure that we're yeah, PBOT is an important partner in most of our area plans, and the Inner East is an example of that where they're going to be a critical partner.
Eric Engstrom
At the stage we're at right now, we're still talking about conceptual zoning bubbles and general direction, but when we actually produce a zoning map, we do start thinking of it on a street-by-street basis, and it's not uncommon That we will get testimony about things like dead ends without turnarounds or narrow, particularly narrow streets in some cases.
And that's the kind of situation where we do fine-tune the zoning map and consult with fire and PBOT and others around some of those potential constraints.
I recall during years ago when we rewrote the comp plan and remapped another part of town, there being examples where we exempted certain— call this— or certain streets from the increased density because of the lack of a turnaround or things like that.
So we, we do work in that way and, and try to fine-tune the proposal.
Dan Ryan
Always respect authority.
So who on your team— and if it's you, that's fine— can we guide constituents that have those concerns when a project's going in?
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, I mean, with any given project, we'll have a contact point, and that's the appropriate person to talk to about it.
Dan Ryan
Okay, thank you.
It just keeps popping up.
Eric Engstrom
In the case of Inner East, it's Bill Cunningham.
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah, all right, thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Just wanted to use my last minute here to build off of 2 things Councilor Ryan said.
One, uh, with relation to Hayden Island and East Columbia, I do think that the capacity being, uh, retained for actually walking around makes sense.
I was doing some tours out there with relation to the proposed E-Zone, um, changes out there, and it— there's nothing like seeing thank you.
And so getting out there in person is, I think, really helpful.
As for the other piece around density, I think I would love to hear when we get into that conversation, not now, how we're not only connecting with PBOT but also the conversation around transit broadly.
Because the density to parking issue does not get solved until we have the real conversation we have to have around transit as a city.
And one of the challenges we're facing is, of course, that we don't direct Oh, the ones like a block from a bus.
Yeah, so that's another conversation as well, is to what degree can it not just be street by street, block by block, though obviously it is, but sort of the middle layer of what's the distance from the nearest MAX stop, right?
And you see how that has played out in other cities based on major arterial roads from a driving perspective.
But I think if we're able to do that and scale it to distance from a MAX stop, for example, that's going to have better impacts for us and allow for that density increases without seeing as much of a strain on parking.
Thanks.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, we actually have 2 bites at the apple as a city, right?
So we have the area planning that BPS leads, but also we have the transportation system plan that comes out of PBOT, and they're actually in the process of looking holistically at our 2045 vision where they'll contemplate those very things like what is the appropriate distance for Density to transit access, like a bus stop.
All those sorts of ideas are contemplated in the TSP.
So they kind of set the citywide parameters for that, and then BPS will implement locally in an area plan.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, and I would— it's hard because there's a lot of things that could go in the TSP, but I think the big one there, and thank you for bringing this up, DC Oliveira, because it relates to BPS too, we don't have the density for the number of road miles.
We just don't.
Yeah.
Especially as material costs go up and weight goes up and the wear and tear goes up.
We do not have density for the number of road miles we need to maintain, even after all the, the TUF and all that other good work that's been done to help stabilize PBOT's funding.
It just is— it, it's out of sequence.
So out of proportion, I should say.
And so as we get the density increased over the course of the next, I guess we're looking at what, 19 years, that, that's going to be something where we are also assessing that relationship, um, and, uh, also looking at where we can depave, um, or do something maybe a little less drastic than that, like car-free streets.
Steve Novick
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kamelane, is that a legacy hand?
Okay.
I have a question that is not strictly budget related, but, uh, Eric, maybe you can help me out with this.
When, when your teams are going through, like, thinking about the, the area planning team As they are creating their plans, is there a cost as a consideration for the final regulations?
Meaning, like, I was sort of riffing off what Councilor Ryan was saying, like thinking about site-specific problems or unique challenges.
But do we also have like, here's the bells and whistles version of it, here is a bare bones like kind of area plan?
How do we think about that?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Michael Bonaccor
Yes.
Eric Engstrom
To give you an example, when we did the Southwest Town Center, as you probably all know, that's a challenging geography with a lot of unpaved streets and lack of stormwater systems.
Sidewalks don't exist.
It's a challenging place to put a town center, but it is a town center on the Metro plan.
When we developed the plan for that town center, we had to think about several different options because the gold-plated town center was was gonna be very expensive.
And we have to think about that in terms of the timescale and what kind of capital improvements might be possible within a 20-year period.
And that's where the TSP and the land use plan are critically linked together because we need to make assumptions in the land use plan that are backable by a financially realistic TSP.
And so in that case, we rezoned some land and then we left some land that we might want for higher density in the future, but we didn't immediately rezone it.
We gave it a comprehensive planning designation, and that was a signal that we want to go there in the future, but we don't have the resources yet to build those streets.
So, um, yes, that is important.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Donnie Oliveira
And Council President, we'll also add on a project like something like significant like the residential infill project, right?
We're working with our partners to see like what we're designing, is it even buildable?
Can we actually, you know, like, so if you look at some of the— this is really wonky, but humor me for a second.
When we started looking at some of the FAR bonuses for affordable housing, we worked with our nonprofit developers to ensure that we were creating a product that they could actually get the pencil out, right?
So those are different kind of economics, but they are meaningful because what's the point of going through the process if we build a tool that won't get used?
So we'll also look at that level of granularity as well.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Green.
Donnie Oliveira
Thank you.
Mitch Green
I'm back in the queue to ask a— I guess it's not necessarily related to this specific budget, but it is about A lot of times, you know, you'll see a city say, hey, we're rolling out this new initiative to— we're going to waive this, we're going to do a temporary waiver on a certain set of permit and code requirements to try to accelerate housing production.
You've heard some councilors talk about that.
I've talked about that at times.
Is it—.
Is the—.
What position does that type of code update work, that sort of strike team work?
Loretta Smith
Is it a permit and code department?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
It's a permit and yeah, code department.
Eric Engstrom
That's been typically the BPS code development team, but we work closely with PP&D staff as well because they have the direct front counter experience that will understand how it will get implemented.
Mitch Green
That's exactly where I was going to go next.
So really at your level, DCA Oliveira, it's like if we were to— it's probably not this budget, but if we were to contemplate right.
Like a, um, I'll just give you an example.
If we wanted to expand our book of pre-approved plans that are just off the shelf, self-certified, let's go, and we want to take it from just 4 ADU designs to like a whole menu of stuff, like I would imagine you'd need to get a term, like a 5-year LTE kind of position, set of position descriptions, and it would be sort of matrixed between BPS Yes, and PP&D.
Is that the right way to think about that type of thing?
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, Councilor, and I just want to echo something Councilor Ryan had said.
When the permit improvement team that was started in the old form of government was successful in the new because we kept it at the service level area, mainly because so many different bureaus have to contribute, right?
And so even in your example that you framed, yes, it'd largely be led out of BPS and PP&D, but we might want— need to bring in Fire, we might want to bring in PBOT to ensure that from their line of sight we're hitting all the notes that they want to hit.
And then again, just to share this, if we're looking at broader, larger reform, absolutely we'd want to be at a higher level for 2 reasons.
One is when we tap staff that have ongoing work plans, we're taking them away from their core functions to do something new, which is important.
But by creating a new team that's distinct, we can really isolate them from a perspective of work creep to work across the city.
So I think you're touching on something.
Yeah, if we were going to do something significant like that, We would create it at a service area level.
Mitch Green
I appreciate that.
And that's something that I'm kind of signaling to maybe the next budget.
That might be a budget note that we try to craft or something going forward.
But I wanted to make sure I talked to you guys.
You're in the trenches, so.
Donnie Oliveira
And Councilor, the model that's been working really well, and I've said it in many spaces, so broken record for those who've heard it, is the Vision Zero structure that's been led by a staffer out of the Public Works Service Area, but they coordinate across all the bureaus that are engaged.
And that seems to be a model that has engagement from the DCA level, directors, and of course the staff that are doing the work.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, I just want to get this question in.
I, first of all, colleagues, I think it's fine when we don't just talk about line items, but that we look at the function of the bureau.
What are our priorities in '26-'27?
If you know what that is, then we adjust FTEs accordingly.
And so with that question, I'm always curious going 10 years back.
So in '26-'27, we're projecting 139.5 FTs according to one of your charts, right?
I got this from you.
Eric Engstrom
That's correct.
Dan Ryan
All right, so yes.
And then I would like to have information on where you were 10 years ago in 2016, 2017.
Eric Engstrom
Sure, we can get that.
Follow-up information.
The 2 trends I would say in that response is that we have— we are bigger than we were then, but most of that is PCF growth.
PCF didn't exist in 2017 and now it's close to 50 people.
Dan Ryan
And that would be helpful to have that really clear in the comments.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, the general fund programs have faced some percentage cuts almost every year since 2017.
So most of those are going to be a third smaller than they were at that point.
And the waste functions, I think, have been fairly stable, although we had a lot of turnover during the pandemic, but that wasn't necessarily budget related.
Dan Ryan
Give us some vision on what are the big projects that BPS is working on that Portland's known to— it used to be known for doing bold things that others would want to study years later.
What is that today?
Eric Engstrom
I think the Inner East project is exciting and bold.
We continue to work in partner— the Inner East zoning work is one of our priorities.
We continue to work in partner with Prosper and Housing Bureau on various central city strategic projects, whether it's OMSI or Albina Vision Trust, the Broadway corridor projects.
Those are important in terms of Portland's image and economy.
On the waste side, the, the, this commercial system overhaul is an opportunity to significantly improve recycling and composting across the city.
And so that's a big deal.
We're supporting the Chief Sustainability Officer in the next generation of the Climate Action Plan.
That's huge.
And of course, PSEF is doing at least 5 or 6 big visionary things right now, and we'll talk more about that tomorrow.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
Victor, I'm glad you brought up Olmsted, Broadway Corridor, and the— you didn't say Montgomery.
Maybe I missed it, the Montgomery.
Eric Engstrom
I didn't, but that's in that category too.
Angelita Morillo
And—.
Dan Ryan
Those are on the tip of my tongue 'cause that's been what we've been focused on for over 5 years.
And so I'd hope that we're persistent in focusing on such big projects like those 3.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, and in fact, I think PP&D is now working in the early stages of permitting assistance for the first building that's coming into the Montgomery Park project area.
So that's exciting.
Dan Ryan
When people hear about these big projects, they get excited, and it's— then they start to say, well, you vision and you plan a lot, but what's happening?
Like, what's going on at Broadway Corridor?
What's going on with OMSI?
So anyway, it's important for us to continue to help constituents see that we're not just planners, but we also do things.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, and we are trying to— as a group of directors that are involved in development review, we meet monthly, and one of the things we talk about in that meeting is accountability for those major projects, so we're just not forgetting about them, that we're asking about what the status is and what the— what's, what's hung up, what, what's the bottleneck right now on any of those.
Dan Ryan
That's fair.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue— is that Councilor Green?
Is that a legacy?
Okay, okay.
All right.
That concludes all our questions from our councilors.
Thank you very much, staff, for all the great questions and answers.
Colleagues, we are adjourned.
We'll see you back here at 2:00 for our regular meeting of the City Council.
Eric Engstrom
Thank you.