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.
I am now calling to order this work session of the Portland City Council.
It is Thursday, May 7th at 9:30 a.m. Bing!
Colleagues, we have a tight timeline today again, as we do, well, every time we show up on this dais.
We're going to be hearing from the second part of our Community and Economic Development Service Area.
As I mentioned, we have 3— well, we have 4 big areas to get through today.
We have the DCA's office, the Spectator Venues, Arts Prosper, Children's Levy, and Portland Clean Energy Fund in 3 separate presentations.
Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira.
Thank you, Deputy City Manager Tracy Warren, for those presentations.
There is— I'll be direct, there's not enough time for everyone to speak on every topic today.
This service area is too large and too diverse to be handled in 2 days, at least not with its current organizational chart.
So you all have the agenda which shows the timelines.
You should have the agenda.
Dan Ryan
I don't know that you do.
Jamie Dunphy
We need to finish our work today, so please maintain situational awareness so we can collectively do the work we need to do.
So I'm going to welcome up DCA Donnie Oliveira.
And as we've done, uh, Donnie, would you rather do all the presentations and then Q&A, or would you rather do presentation, Q&A, presentation, Q&A?
Donnie Oliveira
Thank you for the question, Councilor— Council President.
It's—.
Raymond C. Lee
I would say do all the presentation, then go to Q&A.
Get it all out the way.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay, let's do that then.
So we're going to hear all of our presentations, and then we will jump in.
So take it away.
Donnie Oliveira
All right, thank you.
All right, Council President, Vice President, Donnie Oliveira, for the record, this is part 2 of our service areas presentations to you all.
Next slide, please.
All right, just go to next slide.
Let's get through this part fast because we have a lot to cover.
So, councilors, you saw this slide yesterday, but I want to acknowledge that we have updated this slide to shift from showing our proposed budget in millions to billions.
Per Councilor Smith's request.
So just acknowledging that.
And once again, just for the, for the public who are tuning in today, that 695-person number reflects the full service area staff, including Prosper Portland staff, who are a vital part of our service area but are not technically city staff.
Next slide, please.
Again, just showing our organizational structure.
I'm just noting that Prosper Prosper Portland is noted distinctly here to reflect their unique partnership with the city.
Although they are not a city bureau, they are essential to the work that the city does to deliver community economic development goals and strategies and directions from this body.
Next slide, please.
I also shared this slide yesterday, but again, it's important just to reflect for those watching that a significant portion of this service area's budget goes directly to community, whether it be through the children's levy, the Clean Energy Fund, arts tax investments, our tax increment financing investments from Prosper and the Housing Bureau.
The point is, is that we have a lot of different resources through grants and loans, direct investments that really deliver a resilient, equitable, sustainable, and prosperous future for the City of Portland.
Next slide, please.
And again, this slide was shared yesterday, uh, just sharing our financial overview by both bureau and by fund.
Uh, obviously the most significant portion here is in BPS, which reflects the full balanced budget of the Portland Clean Energy Fund.
Okay, next slide.
Okay, this is first new slide of the day.
This reflects the changes to our service area's staffing capacity through the core services realignment.
You'll you'll notice that the most significant transfer is in the technology area, which is largely coming out of permitting development and BPS.
A majority of these staff though will stay in their home bureaus to support the specific needs of the bureaus.
But this is a part of the citywide strategy to gain more efficiency through realignment and a core services model.
I think what we're looking for here, and we've seen this already through communications, which has already been implemented, is a chance for us to balance our resources where they're needed at any particular time.
Okay, next slide, please.
All right, so this is the beginning of our content, and I will take this one to start before handing it over to the directors to cover their respective areas.
So the Office of the Deputy City Administrator is my shop that provides the overall service area guidance on policy and project coordination.
Focusing on, on the ability to work with you all in your offices to get things through council, whether it be your policy agendas, whether it be new programs that we're briefing you on.
We coordinate that out of the service area.
The proposed budget is inclusive of smaller programs that make up the Office of the Deputy City Administrator.
Note the proposed staff includes the FTE as a part of the core services realignment.
Not all those staff report up to me.
That's—.
Those are just We're just capturing that to show that the staff that are moving from the bureaus to the core services out of business ops are just captured in this, in this particular way for this slide.
Next slide, please.
For our particular budget, a significant portion of the funds that you see here are coming from other funds, and we make a very modest amount of general fund, just making up about $2.5 million for the staff and the internal services that make up our service area.
The key takeaway here is that, you know, when we think about these roles and what we're doing here, it's really in support of our coordination with council and ensuring the bureaus are working on the same page.
It's the idea of a one-city model starts with the office of the DCA and so forth.
Next slide, please.
And again, this is just the FTE summary.
We'll flag again just for situational awareness that that large FTE number reflects the realignment positions, and really the core group of FTE in the DCA's offices is 6.
All right.
Next slide, please.
Okay.
Now we're into the decision packages.
We wanted to start with this one since it gained some interest.
The Downtown Marketing Initiative is a component of a coordinated multiyear recovery strategy focused on downtown.
This is focused on overall reputational improvement.
It funds several different programs in the downtown this has been an ongoing initiative.
This is not new.
In fact, this is in our current budget that was adopted by council.
It has a long history going back to funding from PBOT.
Where you see it like in this way today is a chance for us to daylight it.
It used to be in a special appropriation, so it was largely not as explicit as a decision package.
So this year for increased transparency, we brought it up.
And so you can see it in this way as a decision package out of the service area.
It would be implemented by Prosper Portland.
But we wanted just to daylight that for you here.
Next slide, please.
And this one is more administrative but important just to continue the work of our Permit Improvement Team.
This was a group that we spoke quite a bit about yesterday, but as Councilor Ryan mentioned, the prior form of government created the Permit Improvement Team to work across the service areas to it says in the name, improve our permitting processes.
This is a request to carry over the remainder of that funding, which is $120,000, that specifically focuses on the Digital Services Division at PP&D.
This is us improving our technology systems and how we do our intake for customers within PP&D.
All right, next slide, please.
Okay, so now we're specifically talking about spectator venues here.
It's a small but mighty team of 3 that focuses on the oversight of our largest venues.
It works on supporting travel and tourism and visitor development efforts.
Collectively, these venues that are overseen with overseeing the Spectator Venues Program attract millions of visitors every year and generate millions of dollars that support our local economy.
The team is led by Carl Lyle, who's our Spectator Venues Program Manager, and supports the operation of the city-owned sports venues through long-term agreements that are tailored to each specific venue.
So think Providence Park, Moda Center, et cetera.
Generally, the city pays for some facility capital costs and debt service associated with major renovations and receives revenues from ticket fees and parking in the city's garages.
The Spectator Venues Program also plays an active role in supporting travel, tourism, and economic development through partnerships with our partners at Travel Portland and Sport Oregon.
Next slide, please.
So this is a breakdown of the fund.
It's funded through the Spectator Venues and Visitor Activities Fund with the revenue originating from ticket fees, parking parking revenues and an allocation from the Multnomah County Visitor Facilities Trust account, which is funded by a 2.5% transient lodging tax surcharge and a 2.5% vehicle rental tax surcharge.
The program is maintaining about a $30 million base budget.
You'll notice that this particular program does not have any decision packages.
It's largely self-sustaining, although it did incur a $287,000 realignment cost, which was fully offset by the contingency from the fund.
Next slide, please.
And this just shows the, once again, uh, mighty team of 3 at the Spectator Venues Program.
All right, next slide, please.
Within the Spectator Venues Fund and Activities Program, staff will continue providing oversight and planning for the future of the city's venues, including Providence Park, BOTA Center, and the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
The team manages the Spectator Venues Fund to collect revenues from event activities and meet all city financial obligations, including debt service and repair and replacement expenditures.
The last phase of the VMC renovation project will be completed this fall, which we're very excited about.
And if you haven't had a chance to see the, the recently remodeled and renovated building, it's spectacular.
Highly encourage it.
The team is working with the Portland Timbers about sustaining investments in the stadium, which turns 100 years old this year, and in ways to support their efforts to bring more summer concerts to the venue.
The goal is to continue to support Providence Park.
It's, uh, it's in excellent condition, uh, today, but we know that we need more investments to continue to make it viable through the length of that lease agreement.
We also want to acknowledge that as a, as a stadium that is largely dependent on people getting there by transit, uh, continuing to support activation around the park is, is highly important to the sustained success of both the Timbers and Thorns and of course any concerts that may be hosted there.
And last, of course, and not least, this team is leading the work to negotiate a new lease with the Portland Trail Blazers at the Moda Center.
And that— with that, I'm going to turn it over to Director Montez to talk about the Office of Arts and Culture.
Cherity Montez
Thank you.
Good morning, councilors.
For the record, my name is Cherity Montez, and I'm the director of the Office of Arts and Culture.
The Office of Arts and Culture is another small but mighty team of 5 with a vision of arts and culture at the center of public life in Portland.
We support this vision in several ways.
First, we tend to the impact of the arts tax, which you heard all about yesterday.
We support arts education coordination and help expand access to arts learning for students across Portland's public schools.
We provide grants and sponsorships to Portland-based arts organizations, individual artists, and community partners who create public programming, performances, exhibitions, and cultural experiences across the city.
We also steward some of the city's key cultural assets, including the city-owned Portland Five Centers for the Arts, the city's public art collection of more than 1,700 works, and the Portland, Oregon side trademark and licensing program.
Together, these programs support Portland's creative economy, expand access to the arts, and help ensure that arts and culture remain visible and accessible in neighborhoods, schools, public spaces, and our civic life.
The proposed budget totals approximately $10.6 million to support this body of work, which I will detail in the next slide, please.
So this slide provides a high-level overview of Arts and Culture's budget.
The top line shows the current service level totaling approximately $11.2 million, and the bottom line shows the proposed budget of approximately $10.6 million, which reflects reductions and realignments that I will walk through in the next few slides.
Next slide, please.
This slide shows the Office of Arts and Culture's FTE summary.
The proposed budget does reflect a change to one vacant coordinator position that was moved through the city's realignment project, but the office remains a 5-person team responsible for arts education coordination, cultural planning, grantmaking, public art stewardship, Portland Five oversight, and the Portland, Oregon Sign Licensing Program.
And we work really closely with the office, the Grants Management Division, on all of our grantmaking.
Next slide, please.
So this budget preserves several core services that are central to the Office of Arts and Culture's mission and important to Portlanders.
First, the office is preserving unrestricted grants for established nonprofit arts organizations through our Operating Support Program.
Operating support grantees demonstrate artistic excellence, provide public programming, serve K-12 students in underserved communities, support creative workers, and contribute to neighborhood vitality.
Maintaining this grant program helps provide stability for arts organizations that Portlanders rely on for performances, exhibitions, arts education, and cultural programming throughout the year.
Second, although there is a reduction in the number of awards, the office is preserving our small grants program that serves individual artists, emerging arts organizations and arts collectives, culturally specific programming, and community-based arts activity.
The small grants program is key because it provides critical resources for individual artists, and that's not something that all cities provide.
It also creates an entry point for artists and groups that may not have the scale, staffing, or operating history to participate in larger institutional funding programs.
It helps support public-facing arts experiences that are often neighborhood-based, culturally specific, and directly connected to community.
Third, this budget maintains general fund resources for our public art program.
This funding helps preserve our ability to steward public art as a core public service.
That includes maintaining the city's public art collection, which includes works like the recently reinstalled elk statue, as well as supporting public art planning and capital improvement projects as required by our Percent for Art code, advancing community-informed projects, and ensuring that public artworks remain accessible, Public art is especially important because it reaches Portlanders outside of traditional arts venues.
It shows up in our parks, in civic buildings, in our streets and rights of way, in libraries, neighborhood gathering places.
It's one of the most visible ways that a city can invest in arts access for the public.
Next slide, please.
So first decision package in the fiscal year '25-'26, budget process, bureaus were directed to take an 8% reduction to ongoing general fund resources.
The Office of Arts and Culture inadvertently received a double cut during the transition from the Vibrant Community Service area to Community and Economic Development.
The proposed budget restores $357,184, which represents the portion of the reduction that was applied twice.
And this restoration supports grants, public activations, and the office's ability to provide direct community-facing arts and culture services.
Next slide, please.
And then our second decision package for fiscal year '26-'27, the proposed budget includes a $373,384 reduction in general fund resources.
As I mentioned earlier, the office is preserving our small grants program.
However, this reduction will reduce the number of small grants and events sponsored this includes a reduction of approximately 15% to the small grants program.
We estimate this reduction will result in approximately 45 to 55 fewer publicly accessible performances, exhibitions, or other works of art available to the community via grantees.
And this budget will also result in approximately 5 to 10 fewer community event sponsorships or activations, which is about a reduction of about 35% compared to previous years.
Councilor Herbold.
Overall, this reduction means fewer opportunities for Portlanders to experience arts and culture in their neighborhoods, fewer opportunities for artists and small arts organizations to receive support, and fewer cultural activities that contribute to Portland's creative economy.
At the same time, the proposed budget preserves the Office of Arts and Culture's core functions: arts education coordination, cultural planning, grantmaking to individual artists and arts organizations, sponsorships, and stewardship of the city's cultural infrastructure, including our public art collection, our performing arts venues, and our iconic Portland, Oregon sign.
Thank you for your time this morning.
That concludes my remarks, and I think I turn it over to Director Wesley.
Cornell Wesley
Good morning.
My name is Cornell Wesley.
I serve as the executive director for Prosper Portland.
As presented on April 21st, Prosper Portland's fiscal year '26-'27 proposed budget includes $202 million in planned expenditures across all funding sources.
The budget incorporates the mayor's proposed general fund of $13.1 million in ongoing and one-time funding and $3.2 million in recreational cannabis tax supporting the Inclusive Business Resources Network and Reimagine grant program.
Total staffing is proposed at 94 positions.
Next slide.
Prosper Portland current service level for general fund is $13.4 million.
However, this included $2 million in one-time funding that replaced ongoing funds last fiscal year.
The mayor's budget includes an additional $1 million in one-time funding for the Storefront Program and net reductions of $1.9 million in one-time funding.
And ongoing funds from current service level that we'll discuss in the next slides.
Next slide.
Total FTE in the current year is 104 positions.
Expiration of one-time general funds, ongoing spend-down of existing TIF districts, slower deployment of SIF, and delays on new TIF factored into our recent reduction in force that is reducing total positions by 10 for fiscal year '26-'27.
This includes 13 existing positions across the agency, 9 filled, 4 vacant, and adding back several new positions to reconfigure the work.
The 3 new positions are in HR and IT, replacing several other positions in those areas, and 1 new position, resource development, to support new grant and revenue-generating approaches to improve long-term financial sustainability for the enterprise.
Next slide.
Of the 94 positions funded in next year's proposed budget, 33 are funded via general fund and RCT.
This includes the Office of Small Business, the Business Advancement Team, Office of Events and Film, Inclusive Business Resource Network, Reimagine grants, as well as lending and small business tenanting support and related back office staff.
Also, 40 positions are funded by TIF districts, including Residential District Program income.
10 positions are funded via PSF agreements.
7 positions are funded by SIF investment earnings.
3 Positions are funded— 3 positions are funded by other funds such as E-Zone or other contracts.
Overall, of the 94 positions, approximately 63 are budgeted as direct program delivery and 31 as administration and indirect.
Administration and indirect includes HR, finance, policy, IT, procurement, and a significant portion of comms, legal, exec, and overall department management.
Next slide.
The general fund reductions focused on maintaining the following: the Office of Small Business, a new office that has successfully addressed community needs for centralized intake, navigation, and resource support.
With strong momentum and scaling, this small team of 4 has worked with nearly 700 companies in their first year.
Secondly, the Office of Events and Film, critical to leveraging private investment in foot traffic and economic impact around cultural events and film production.
In 2025, provided support for 43 events, which drove more than 782,000 visits and leveraged more than $9 million in industry investment.
In fiscal year '24-'25, Film Navigation provided support for 107 productions and generated $191 million in local spend.
As compared to arts and culture event support, the Office of Film Events and Film provides both technical assistance via grants and technical assistance via permitting navigation to event and film producers.
We prioritize activations in the Central City and neighborhood business districts that stimulate small business spending and other economic activity.
The office leverages corporate and other private sector engagement.
Technical assistance on the event side can also include facets of event support from initial event planning and site logistics, coordination with city partners, event promotion and marketing, and impact tracking post-production.
Thirdly, the Business Advancement Team.
Continuing to build industry ecosystems is essential to population growth and quality job creation.
Our priority industries are major employers and contributors to the city's GDP and to our tax base.
Over the last 2 years, the Business Advancement team has supported our targeted industry clusters to achieve 52 retention, expansion, or recruitment projects, over 600 new living-wage jobs for Portlanders, and $240 million in new private investment into our city.
Next slide.
$1 Million added as one-time funding in the mayor's proposed budget will support implementation of the Storefront Prosperity Investment Program grants citywide.
The funds implemented across Portland will complement Prosper's existing TIF district programming for PIP grant in TIF districts and through the use of some allocated program income in the new TIF districts.
The funds provide matching funds for tenant improvements, including downtown.
Grant funds can support both facade improvements, including signage, and interiors such as paint, flooring, and shelving.
$800,000 Of this funding will go to these tenant improvements.
And would provide up to $100,000 for grocery stores, $50,000 for new restaurants, and up to $25,000 for other retail businesses.
$200,000 Of this funding will be reserved for ongoing repair grants.
Grant funds can be used for both external and internal repairs, such as window and door replacement, as well as security prevention and insurance premium increases.
This strategy captures the vision of activation and the ongoing commitment to reactivating our commercial spaces across Portland and supporting our small business community.
Some staffing impacts expected.
The Workforce Program Delivery Add-Back will provide some resource support to support implementation.
Next slide.
With the expiration of $2 million in one-time funds, the mayor is requesting an add-back of $1.03 million in ongoing funds to support the adult and youth workforce development programs.
The remaining $1.08 million of expiring funds is part of the recent reduction in force that is reducing 10% of Prosper's workforce supporting economic and urban development activities.
Next slide.
Reductions to existing ongoing funding include impacts to workforce development and small business technical assistance for $798,000.
A $260,000 reduction is with workforce A $532,000 reduction is with IBRN.
However, when combined with other expiring one-time funding from '25-'26, the net impact to workforce programming will be closer to $445,000, eliminating service to an entire program or reducing service in all 3 programs.
Currently, the total number of participants served by each program are 600 adult Economic Opportunity Program participants, 500 youth participants through NextGen, 250 adult workforce participants through the Community Workforce Navigator.
Now, since the release of the mayor's proposed budget, we are working with our partners at Work Systems about how to minimize the programmatic impacts of a budget cut of this size.
Next slide.
The $532,000 reduction to IBRN would eliminate 2 to 3 partners from the network, reducing community-based capacity for business advising and technical assistance, and likely affecting partner staff.
The reduced capacity from fewer contracted partners would eliminate technical assistance and business advising access for 175 small business owners from the 600 total currently served each year across the network.
I will now pass to Director McElroy.
Meg McElroy
Thank you, Director Wesley.
For the record, my name is Meg McElroy.
I'm the interim director at the Children's Levy.
I use she/her pronouns.
And I want to take a moment of gratitude before I get started with my formal comments to say thank you to the councilors and city staff who extended yesterday's City Council meeting to hear testimony on Ordinance 2026-132.
Thank you.
The Portland Children's Levy works to increase opportunity for Portland's children.
Its goals are to prepare children for school, to support their success in and out of school, and to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in their success and well-being.
As required by the authorizing legislation approved by Portland voters, The Children's Levy grants funds to specific program services for children prenatal up to age 24 and their families in 6 areas of focus: afterschool, child abuse prevention intervention, early childhood, foster care, hunger relief, and mentoring.
For context, in fiscal year '24-'25, the Children's Levy grant-funded services reached over 20,000 children and their families.
The Children's Levy fiscal year '26-'27 budget includes 6.9 FTE to implement the functions of the levy which are grantmaking, grants management, community engagement, and administration of the levy.
The total proposed budget for fiscal year '26-'27 is $33.8 million.
Next slide, please.
The Children's Levy fiscal year '26-'27 budget of $33.8 million includes all costs associated with current multi-year grant obligations and contingency for pending allocation committee grant decisions that are being considered by City Council through Ordinance 2026-132.
It includes costs for grants management and community engagement, and the budget also includes administration such as levy financial management, oversight, and staff supervision.
The Children's Levy does not receive any funding from the general fund.
All resources and grants— excuse me, all resources for grants and administration are under the Children's Investment Fund, which was established in 2003 to account for all revenues and expenditures related to the Children's Levy.
Revenue from the levy is legally required to be spent on grants that support children and families and cannot be used for other purposes.
Next slide, please.
All FTE who support the Children's Levy are funded by the levy.
As shown in the table, under the core services realignment, the change in current service level is 1 FTE.
The levy communications director FTE is now part of the city communications office in the city operations service area.
Thank you.
And the position remains embedded in the Children's Levy Bureau.
While that position is no longer budgeted in levy personnel, the costs associated are part of the levy budget contingency.
As we understand it, a cost model is being developed for bureaus to contribute towards centralized realigned services.
Next slide, please.
As required by the levy authorizing legislation, the Allocation Committee is presenting grant recent grant decisions to City Council for consideration.
Budget decisions by the Levies Allocation Committee continue to support community priorities for children's programming in the Levy 6 program areas that I mentioned earlier.
The levy does not have any decision packages for City Council as part of this budget process.
Children's Levy fiscal year 26-27 budget, as I said, includes contingency for pending Allocation Committee grant decisions being considered by Council through Ordinance 2026-132.
Thank you.
And again, the Children's Levy does not receive general fund.
All resources used by the levy are from the Children's Investment Fund.
I'll now pass it over to Director Engstrom.
Eric Engstrom
Thank you.
Excuse me.
Good morning.
Again, for the record, my name is Eric Engstrom.
I'm the Director of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
And as you all know, we talked about the rest of BPS yesterday, so I'm going to skip over some of the overview about what the Bureau does and dive right into PSEF.
As I do that, I want to say one thing up front about terminology.
You're going to see me refer to the PCEF core administrative team a few times in the presentation, and what I mean by that is that that's the core team within BPS that's managing the overall program.
That does not include folks in other bureaus that are doing PCEF work.
It doesn't include PCEF-funded positions or work in the CSO's office or other BPS PCEF-funded activities like our bureau administration or our climate team, which receives yes.
So I want to just get that clear about terminology.
And then also want to acknowledge that depending on how you query the system, you may get slightly different answers in terms of how many FTE or the overall PCF budget.
And the difference, the range there is because if you query just the PCF program, you'll get one answer.
But if you query the PCF-funded activities, you'll get another answer.
And so when you look at the FTE numbers, you're going to see here it In BPS, the PCF numbers range from 47 to 55 FTE, and that's because depending on whether you're looking at that core team only or the PCF-funded positions.
And then similarly with the overall budget, you're going to see numbers in various places that range from $695 million to $712 million.
Same explanation, it depends if you're looking at the core PCF program or if you're including all PCF-funded activities.
So I just wanted to start with that because it's— it can be confusing.
Next slide, please.
As I said yesterday, PCEFF accounts for about 90% of BPS's budget, around $700 million.
That—.
I also want to make it clear that that number includes the roughly $425 million fund balance, which is the set-aside for future years.
It's the ending fund balance, the unallocated balance.
It's what's set aside for future years of the CIP.
That we have in hand.
So the actual budget for the year, you have to subtract that.
And again, this is the overall BPS budget, what you're seeing here.
Next slide.
So diving into specifics of PSEF, this, given the broad collection and long-term commitments of the Climate Investment Plan, this is a complex budget.
The budget shown here includes current and the future years as I mentioned, it subtracts out also some direct payments we make through the Water Bureau and Bureau of Environmental Services.
Those transfers function slightly differently than some of the other bureaus that receive PSEF money that receive the money directly into their budget because of the ratepayer nature there.
So those are in BPS's budget, but I'm not— I've excluded them from this slide.
Thank you.
So again, it's around $695 million inclusive of the $425 million of future year work.
Next slide.
So this shows all of BPS and the PCF-specific funded staff.
Again, that's all the staff in BPS that are PCF-funded.
It includes some of the folks that are in our bureau administration, and that's largely the realignment you're seeing there.
The reduction in staff.
The reduction is that there was one communications staffer in our PCEV program that was realigned and cut in the communications realignment that occurred earlier this year.
So the rest of the realignment PCEV is shown there, the 6.
This includes staff from HR, tech services, communications, finance, and our director's office.
That was the subject, obviously, of the realignment work.
Thank you.
The additions— the proposed budget includes a package to add 4 FTE to the PCF administrative team, the core administrative team, and then there's 1 FTE in that decision package additionally that is for bureau administration.
And again, the people that are being realigned will be embedded and still within the overall service area internal services team that Donnie spoke of earlier.
So they'll still be serving the, the CEDSA team overall, including some that are dedicated to PCEF.
Next slide.
So this dives more into BPS's operating budget for PCEF.
Again, if you exclude the $425 million that's set aside.
I left that off this chart so you can see more accurately what's actually being spent this year.
This does show the $26 million going to the general fund from interest in the green.
This will require, by the way, code action, a code change, as you did last year in order for it to be implemented.
Although the PCF staff team has grown in recent years, it remains fairly small.
As a proportion of our overall spending, that's in the dark blue there, the $9.5 million.
PSF codes limits us to 12%, I believe, as the administrative overhead, and we're tracking at 8% something right now, so we're well below that.
The contracts and IGA portion includes funding for the Collaborating for Climate Action grants, strategic programs, and capacity building support.
This is the gold and largest portion.
Examples of the kinds of things that are being covered this year under that include the agreements with the school districts, which are now getting underway, our contract for the e-bike program, which has also launched several fairly large contracts that were launched last year for building energy programs, both the single-family retrofits and the affordable multifamily retrofits.
The other category there, the $44 million in TAN, includes— that's the miscellaneous column— that includes transfers going to Prosper, which are treated a little bit differently because Prosper is outside so those have to be shown in our external or as an IGA essentially.
And then this includes some Bureau of Fleet and Facilities for the Cutter Garage, administrative functions, including the overhead and things like that that they're paying into the city and BPS.
Next slide.
So again, you all know this, but the Climate Investment Plan is the roadmap that drives of our overall investments over the 5-year period, including allocations to the various bureaus and grant programs, outcomes and goals that advance climate action and resilience across Portland.
The funding pathways in the CIP include the Collaborating for Climate Action grants, the strategic programs I've talked about, and then the community grants, and of course the direct funding to the bureaus.
The CIP, as you know, is updated annually to be responsive, accountable, and aligned with community needs and program performance.
And updates are recommended by the PCEF Committee to City Council.
And as you wrap up this budget process, we will be launching the next 2026 CIP amendment process this summer with the goal of sending the next set of recommendations to you at the end of the year, end of the calendar year.
Next slide.
You've seen this before in some form.
This shows the current distribution of the Climate Investment Plan funding across our primary funding areas.
As defined by code.
These buckets were determined by the community through their input into the CIP.
As you've discussed a number of times, they're not necessarily exactly matched to the percentage of our carbon emission sources.
And as you know, the CIP was assembled in several stages.
So I know a number of you have pointed out that there hasn't been that holistic look of how that all aligns.
And the next CIP will give us that better view, I think.
Thank you.
As you can see, over half the CIP's resources are allocated for renewable energy and energy efficiency, followed by transportation and green infrastructure investments.
While this chart reflects where we are today, we know that you have interest in seeing PCF's transportation decarbonization investments better reflected given the scale of emissions in that sector.
And as we consider future adjustments in 2027 and 2028, we want to be thoughtful about not only where the additional investment is needed, but where the projects can be realistically delivered.
Thank you.
Within the current investment period through June 2029.
And again, the next CIP will allow us to step back beyond that.
We're going to continue to work with Council, the PSF Committee, and Bureau partners to identify opportunities that are climate-aligned, equity-centered, and feasible and responsible to fund.
Next slide.
This is by the breakdown by the implementer, and as you can see, As you can see, PCF contributes to many services within the city.
And I want to take a moment to just thank the community for their vision that allows PCF to contribute to these ongoing core city services where there is clear alignment with the PCF mission.
If not for that, that many core programs and functions would go unfunded.
To call out a few programs that fit within this, it's where we fund the Housing Bureau to make sure affordable housing developments are energy efficient and more sustainable.
It's also where we fund PBOT to make investments in safer cycling and pedestrian infrastructure.
It's where we fund urban forestry to do groundbreaking work to taking on the management of the city's street trees to remove that burden from residents.
We talked about tree permitting yesterday too, but PCF is also making a large direct investment in actual tree planting and tree care.
Thank you.
And you can see significant investments in our community grants, externally managing— managed contracts like the e-bike program and the schools, school districts, and TriMet.
Next slide.
This slide summarizes the decision package I meant— I mentioned earlier to add 4 positions to the PCF administrative core team, and as noted earlier, one overall goes to bureau administration.
These positions overall will strengthen PCF's infrastructure as the program continues to grow in scale and complexity.
And I want to emphasize that this is planned growth as we scale up to match the scale of the community's investment.
Remember, we started with one staff in 2019.
As we move into 2027, we are getting closer to our intended long-term sustainability.
Thank you.
The 2 of these new positions will support our internal operating standards and provide a clearer structure for PCF reporting, and while also serving as leads to start developing the next CIP beginning in 2027.
The other 2 positions will expand grants and contracts administration capacity to support timely, consistent, and accountable implementation.
Next slide.
I want to just take a moment to remind you what the core next slide.
So PCEF will continue to grow in the coming year.
This is a tremendous amount of work that goes into assuring accountability for that level of outgoing funds.
Next slide.
So PCEF will continue to grow in the coming year.
The slide reflects examples of of PCF-supported projects that will continue.
The Community Grant Program, the heart of PCF's work, will continue to award and fund projects led by community-based organizations.
The recently launched e-bike program will scale up this year and get more low-income Portlanders navigating our neighborhoods, businesses, and workplaces in ways that are cleaner and more affordable.
We'll continue to make efficient home upgrades for vulnerable and low-income Portlanders to scale up our clean energy infrastructure investments across Portland school districts.
That work is just now getting underway, which I'm very excited about having school-age kids.
Agreements have also been signed for the affordable multifamily program, which will launch this fall, and that's an important element of our overall effort to decarbonize multifamily buildings and provide more comfortable housing and more affordable utility bills for renters.
Round 1 of the Clean Industry Hub grants will also launch this fall.
And as I noted earlier, PCEV committee will grapple with another annual CIP amendment process starting this summer.
That concludes my remarks.
Donnie Oliveira
Council President, that's a wrap for us.
So we're open to Q&A.
Jamie Dunphy
Fantastic.
Okay, colleagues, let's hop in the queue.
Colleagues, I'm going to ask you all to keep to 5 minutes.
You're welcome to jump back in the queue after that.
Mitch Green
Thank you so much, Donnie, and the rest of the team for the update.
I know there's a lot.
You have a very large service area.
I guess I just have one question.
As I'm digging through these position reports in this proposed budget, I just— I'm curious, in the spectators function, is there a reason why that— the leader of that group is a Manager 1?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Donnie Oliveira
Great question.
Mitch Green
There's 2 direct reports there.
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, great question, Councilor.
It's sort of a product of a team that existed in the old form of government that got separated.
Arts and Culture—.
Sorry—.
And Spectator was once one unit, and it made a little bit more sense, and then we separated those 2.
And it is— you were touching on something that hopefully in the next fiscal year we'll be able to work with the city administrator on, is is addressing some of the smaller units and the appropriate size of what that means.
But that's a function of— I'm just going to use his name because you mentioned it.
It's Carl Lyle, who's the spectator venues manager.
He's been in Manager 1, and we haven't adjusted that with the change of government.
Mitch Green
I appreciate that answer.
I mean, obviously it's awkward when you're talking about a specific person, but I do note that, you know, in the City of Portland, there's 198 Mm-hmm.
And in this proposed budget, there's only one reduction at a Manager 1 level.
And that's beyond the scope of you.
This is the citywide thing.
But I'm, you know, talking about it in the context of the choices we've had to make in this budget.
Meanwhile, we did cut 34 public safety specialists.
And so I'm just airing that out.
It was helpful for me to hear from you that this is just sort of a legacy of You know, that sort of a role to me seems like it should fall in an analyst series because it's a, it's a may supervise, not a must supervise.
So I think that was my one question on, on your presentation, and I'll let it go from there.
Dan Ryan
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Good morning.
Thank you for the presentation.
I had a question about Summer Works, uh, and NextGen.
Um, NextGen, you are funding, and I'm wondering, is that a work systems for the apprenticeship programs, or is that something else?
Cornell Wesley
So NextGen is, is in partnership with our workforce systems.
It's the youth-focused workforce program.
Fiscal year '24-'25, 84% of the participants were considered low income and 67% were BIPOC.
Of these participants, 193 received employment opportunities and 359 completed their GEDs for high school diplomas.
Now, both EOP and NextGen programs use city funding through PROSPER combined with other federal and state resources.
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Okay, so I just wanted to go for the record— thank you for that— um, that I'll be proposing an amendment to the mayor's budget for Summer Works, which faced drastic cuts in this budget.
It reduced its funding from $776,000 to $244,000, and I believe that this vital program not only offers critical work experience for BIPOC youth, Thank you.
This program not only employs youth and from low-income families and neighborhoods, but also places many of our participants at City Hall and City of Portland bureaus.
Last year, we passed the resolution to designate programs like Summer Works as a priority in our budget and workforce development initiatives, and I propose funding for this amendment to come from the million dollars in the cannabis revenue allocated within the transportation Department that was in the restricted funds that was moved by the mayor to close the gap of $171 million.
Allocating these marijuana funds to Summer Works, it will ensure that we continue to support underserved youth and communities effectively.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
I've got about 5 questions, and so I'm going to— in order to get them all out in 5 minutes, I'm going to ask each of you to, like, give me the short answer, maybe give me the long answer later.
One is in terms of the tree permitting program that we have, tree strategic programs within PSEF.
So I just want to know if consideration was given to taking some of the money from the current tree program and Yeah, thank you for the question, Councilor.
Donnie Oliveira
I'll take a stab first, and Eric, please contribute.
Councilor, when we moved the program from Parks to PP&D, the emphasis was landing on the directive of Council, right?
So we didn't start to contemplate a different funding model.
We took the resources that were directed with the responsibilities, and we said, this is the program we can build.
Now that we know what the gap is, we're going to continue to work with the city staff to Absolutely.
And I think I alluded to this yesterday, but PP&D and Parks staff have started having the conversations about are there resources that Parks can send over in addition to the approximately $3.8 million that is now at PP&D.
And there's the last thing I wasn't able to say yesterday that I wish I would've.
The trade-off, of course, is a substantial part of the urban forestry investment from PCF was to both the planting of new trees and the care of trees.
So it was really emphasis on And while obviously the Title XI support and the permitting is incredibly important, we're talking about trade-offs of planting less trees for more regulation, which is important.
I just want to say that's a conversation that the bureaus are going to have to have to right-size that.
Steve Novick
I really appreciate that.
Now, last year we had a CIP amendment come to us that was basically, well, there's some programs that are underspending, so the committee looked at that and decided to shift the money to somewhere else.
And then I came in saying, well, what about other places you could spend it?
And I was told, well, these decisions have already been made, the community groups have been promised the money, et cetera.
Now, it may well be that I should have known to insert myself into that discussion earlier.
So, but I just want to be sure that in this next year, as we lead up to CIP amendments, as you and the PCF staff identify, here are things that— here's potentially available sources of money that the committee, the PCF committee is going to start considering.
Yes.
You let the council know, hey, here's what— here's potential sources of money because of underspending, so you can think about it along with us.
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, Councilor, and on behalf of the City Administrator and CFO Biery, Director Levine from CBO, and our team, absolutely.
As soon as this budget process is over, we're going to jump in earnest to calibrating that underspend so that before we even get into the next EAP, there's situational awareness of what we're working with.
And I also just want to use this moment because it comes up a lot An underspend isn't always a bad thing.
There are scenarios where the underspend was part of the plan.
Just because it hasn't— a dollar hasn't been spent yet doesn't mean that's— that something's wrong, right?
Steve Novick
Totally.
Donnie Oliveira
I mean, we're gonna capture that too.
Steve Novick
Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
Um, finally, I just want to once again express my frustration over the idea— I mean, the idea that there— the idea has been floated of $75 million in PSF dollars, uh, for the Moda Center.
And I asked, well, have— I asked the mayor's office, have you identified which PSAP programs that's going to come out of?
And I was told we're working on that.
And obviously, if there's $75 million that the administration thinks could reasonably be diverted to the Moda Center, then council, I think, should know where you think that money might come from so that we can think maybe there's other ways to spend it.
Thank you.
So the impression I have, and this, this is really on the mayor, frankly, the question of the mayor, is it true that at this point you have no earthly idea where within PSF that $75 million for the Moda Center would come from?
Keith Wilson
I'm going to refer that question to my team.
Eric Engstrom
Councilor Novick, I think the answer is the same as the last question, which is that we're working I'm working closely with the city administrator and the CFO to examine where our underspending is right now.
Steve Novick
Actually, I'm sorry, that really is a question for the mayor.
Is it true that at this point you have absolutely no idea within PSF where that $75 million might come from?
Keith Wilson
You know, I work with my team, Councilor Novick, to determine and contemplate areas in which we can find the financing for There are significant amount of improvements that we can do that are emissions reduction focused.
I'm gonna turn to my team of experts on how we move forward.
And I've been having conversations with all the councilors on how we can address that using PSEF to determine how we're gonna renovate the MOTA and make it obviously LEED Platinum going forward.
But PSEF does have a nexus, I believe.
Steve Novick
But in the end, these 12 councilors will determine whether that nexus Mayor, I take that as confirming that, frankly, I mean, no disrespect, but all the money has been allocated.
So the $75 million would have to come from somewhere.
So I take your answer as meaning we do not in fact have any— we floated this idea of $75 million, but we have no idea which piece of strategic programs that would come from.
Finally, I've got a question that probably can't be answered right now.
Renewable energy and energy efficiency are grouped together in the CIP.
I think that when the ballot measure was passed, people probably had the idea that most of the money would go to actual renewable energy projects like solar panels and things.
So I'm curious, can you break out how much of the money has been spent on renewable energy as opposed to energy efficiency?
Eric Engstrom
Off the top of my head, I can't, but I will get back to you on Okay.
Steve Novick
Finally, how many core administrative staff do you have in PSEF now?
Eric Engstrom
The core team is around 47, and then when I mentioned the 55 number, that includes some PSEF-funded positions in the BPS administration and our climate team as well.
Steve Novick
I just wanted to say that actually sounds to me like a very modest number of people to manage a program of this magnitude.
So the idea that you're adding 4 people to help manage this multi-hundred million dollar program Sounds to me eminently reasonable, and it's quite possible it's not, not enough.
So thank you.
Eric Engstrom
I'll just add that that number includes 4 or 5 vacancies right now too, because we're actively trying to hire, which as you can imagine is tricky right now with layoffs happening at the same time.
Raymond C. Lee
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Morillo.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Angelita Morillo
Um, I just have a few questions here for the Office of the regarding the spectator venues, it looks like 2 positions are transferring out of BPS into the DCA's office.
What will their new roles be and what is the impact expected to be on BPS?
Donnie Oliveira
Thank you, Councilor.
I'm gonna, um, so one of the positions that are going to be moving over or have already been functioning in the, um, the service area, they're going to be providing service area-wide support.
So one of the staff, for example, is the person who handles all of the council filings.
We're a very active service area at council, as you all know.
So this is the person that collects all the information, working with the bureaus to get it filed, make sure everything's true to form, works with our city auditor's office.
It's a pretty heavy lift for us.
They do all of our service area public records requests and function as like sort of our council coordinator for that perspective.
And I believe the second person Is our finance, our service area finance person.
Given the wide range of funding sources that we have in the service area, we're very dynamic in that way.
And having somebody who can coordinate across the service area, especially when you think about the arts tax and PSEF and all the funds, of course, and the Housing Bureau, just given the nature of the distinct funding type that we have, having a person who's able to coordinate that on behalf and in partnership with the CFO and CBO was pretty essential for our service area.
It's—.
I don't know if it's unique to us, but it was definitely a glaring need.
And then I'll let Eric kind of describe how that's landing for BPS.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, well, those 2 people in particular still serve us essentially.
So there's just a change in the context of where they sit, but we're largely still— those functions are still being provided to us.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, thank you.
We also keep hearing about how the City Budget Office needs more staff, but I see that an Analyst 4 is moving from CBO into the DCA's office.
Can you tell us more about why that's happening, what their role is going to be?
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, Councilor, that's the position that functions as the CBO rep in the service area, so it's consistent across all the service areas.
So this person functions as a CBO analyst distinct for the service area.
So our financial analyst works hand in hand with the CBO analyst to both trip the budget with our larger funding structures.
So it's a— they're a team essentially within the service area to support that.
But that person functions as a CBO person.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, so we're not gonna lose them as another analyst?
Donnie Oliveira
No, not at all.
In fact, it's gonna help with, we hope, and the person has been working with in this capacity already and he's been a great asset to us navigating the budget process and we'll continue to improve that.
But the idea is that it'll allow for CBO to have line of sight and more granularity into the functions of the bureaus.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, thank you for that.
Um, I have 2 more questions, sorry.
My next question is around the Prosper Portland recreational cannabis tax funds.
Um, can you tell us a bit more about their support for Prosper?
Steve Novick
Yes.
Cornell Wesley
So the record— the total amount of recreational cannabis tax totals around $3.1 million and is broken out to support 4 programs, that being their Reimagine Oregon program, which receives around $2 million, the IBRN, Inclusive Business Resource Network, which is just above $1 million, My People's Market, which is around $56,000, Mercatus Directory, So those— that's how— that is how it's broken out, and it's through those particular lanes, specifically 2, that serves the cannabis community.
The Reimagine grant is where you can apply, and through our partnership with affiliates and IBRN is how we extend those resources as well.
Meg McElroy
Gotcha.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, thank you, because I think, you know, when we talk about those cannabis tax dollars, I think there was a lot of discussion during 2020 about making sure that they're going towards Um, undoing harm for the Black community that's disproportionately incarcerated for this.
So I think we want to make sure that that continues to be a focus.
Um, my next question is for the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
Do we have any data that shows how we remediate graffiti at a property and then have to go back and do it again?
Um, because I feel like we spend millions of dollars sometimes getting rid of graffiti and then doing it multiple times at the same location?
Are we looking at any other options?
Eric Engstrom
Thank you for the question.
Yeah, we could get some data on that.
We do— there are instances where we go back.
I will say that a repeated cleanup can have a deterrent effect over time.
If we continue to clean it up, the taggers will sometimes not return.
I also want to make it clear that the graffiti program also distributes the request for work to a variety of bureaus.
And so we're the keeper of the overall database of where the complaints and graffiti instances are.
And that's a key— coordinating that is a key element of— we coordinate with the police bureau with that data, and that's a core element of what they're able to use in their enforcement actions as well.
So it's not just that the money is going to cleanup.
There's some of these resources going to actual coordination and then a reminder that the money is going to small businesses, so it's not city cleaning up city offices.
It's, it's being spent with small businesses.
So if you want to look at it that way, it's a— we're helping small businesses survive during what might be otherwise a difficult time.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, thank you so much.
That answers all my questions.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Councilor Avalos.
Candace Avalos
All right, so let's start with the DCA office and realignment.
Looking at the scale of the realignment within the DCA's office, especially the jump from 6 to 58 positions through transferred functions, I want to know what the long-term governance vision is here, and specifically, how will this improve communication, transparency, and responsiveness between bureaus and council?
Because frankly, from the legislative side, many of us are experiencing the The opposite.
We are experiencing less access to information, less direct collaboration with bureaus, more centralization occurring during a major, major structural transition.
And in fact, via the news on a records request, DCAs are telling their employers not to work with councilors, uh, and that's very frustrating.
So how will you assure that this scale-up in bureaucracy will not further decrease councilors' access to information that we need to make budget and policy decisions?
And this is to you, City Administrator.
Thank you.
Cornell Wesley
Councilor Sameer.
Raymond C. Lee
I think in any situation where we have a change in form of government, where we're trying to scale an organization to be more responsible, more accountable to the changes that are happening in the organization, you see these type of expansions in staffing to assure that we have proper span of control as it relates to the functions that we're being asked to respond to overall.
When we look at a communication to council, from my perspective, I've been very transparent with council as it relates to information and responsive to any inquiries that council may have of me.
And that's the same thing that I'm requiring of our DCAs as well.
If there are situations where you're— you feel as councilors that you're not getting that type of responsiveness, I would implore you to please let me know so I can work on those type of situations to address those things so council is being responded to in a timely fashion with accurate information.
Donnie Oliveira
And Councilor—.
Candace Avalos
I appreciate that, but I feel like we have been talking about this.
I haven't seen a change, and it is continuing to be frustrating to me, especially as I'm entering a budget cycle where I'm being told council has the final say, we have the final say.
I'm sorry.
Meanwhile, you've already shaped the budget through a lens that is, in my opinion, trying to put blame on council.
And I'm pretty annoyed right now.
I'm on one because I've been sitting through these presentations and I do not feel that we have been given the tools to be empowered to do our jobs.
And I don't need an answer to that right now.
My next question.
I continue to hear from East Portland constituents that they don't feel that downtown-centered recovery strategies reflect their lived experience or priorities.
Many residents are asking for investment in neighborhood commercial corridors, community gathering spaces, safer streets, and basic infrastructure.
So why is the city prioritizing an additional $200,000 toward downtown marketing and reputation management?
And how are we evaluating whether these recurring downtown-focused investments are producing meaningful public benefit versus subsidizing older economic patterns that may need to adapt to new community realities?
And that's a question for Prosper.
Cornell Wesley
$200,000 Marketing.
Donnie Oliveira
That's the DMI.
Loretta Smith
Hmm.
Cornell Wesley
Well, Councilor, you're correct that these are very challenging times.
The $200,000 in terms of marketing in downtown specifically, our GDP resides within our Central Business District.
The bulk of our impact resides there.
That is a lived reality, and it's important It's important that while we are using all of the tools available, because the $200,000 is just one tool, we have many other tools that are being used to target and address needs of the east side of our city.
And so this is one small pocket, but it is one important piece to generate interest in the assets that generate the most amount of income and impact for our city.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Smith.
Candace Avalos
Well, on that note, the reduction to the small business support is projected to reduce technical assistance access for about 175 small businesses and eliminating several community-based partners from the Inclusive Business Resource Network.
So can you explain how we arrived at cutting community-based entrepreneurial support while simultaneously increasing funding for broader economic marketing and recovery strategies?
And how are we prioritizing between direct neighborhood-level stabilization versus macro-level branding and attraction efforts?
Cornell Wesley
So it is not an easy task, and I appreciate you calling that out.
But we have to be able to be targeted where we can see the most impact in the shortest amount of time while we are generating and building a broader scope or a broader strategy to impact our city at large.
Again, we have to use every tool that's available to us.
And I hear you when you call out the reduction in IBRN.
These decisions did not come but we had to be married to where we could see, given the reduction in force, the talent we have, and the resources, even if they are shrinking, where the impact can reside in the shortest amount of time, given that we're in recovery.
Candace Avalos
Are you answering my question by saying that you all believe that the direct impact, or the thing that— the areas of the budget you believe give the most return are the areas that are not on the east side?
Because that's how it's feeling in the public.
Raymond C. Lee
I think that's fair.
Cornell Wesley
No, that's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying I'm truly honoring the fact that this isn't easy and that impact and reductions in programming is not something or a space that any of us want to be operating in.
So these are very difficult decisions, and the choice between particularly operating in recovery is where can we get a quick return to hope, in hopes that there's impact that can be received and experienced across the city.
Councilor Smith.
Candace Avalos
Where is the quick return?
When you say the quick return, what do you mean?
Cornell Wesley
What I'm defining quick return is in terms of impact.
If we are married to data and we can see that $1 can turn into $1.50 in this area, then that has to be a focus in times of recovery.
Candace Avalos
I don't agree with that strategy, but I'll leave it at that.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Council President.
I have some questions about PSEF, and so I think I will need Ruth or someone else from CBO for my questions to be available.
Thank you.
Ruth, can you help clarify the relationship between Proposed staffing changes, reductions across the different bureaus, some that we've heard about today, and the connection to PCF, specifically where programs or positions have been supported in whole or in part by PCF.
And can it be clarified if where we're seeing those proposed reductions or cuts, are those funds now being moved to other priorities within the mayor's proposed budget?
Yes.
Like where we see the money for PMO.
Can we get really clear on that, please?
Ruth
Sure.
Well, I'll try.
We might need to follow up.
But I think the 2 sort of places to talk about, we talked a lot about tree regulation yesterday.
So that's obviously the PCF dollars for that program moved from Parks to P&D in this in the '25-'26 budget.
And so I think you're kind of asking about what is sort of— if those are PSF-funded positions, why are some of them going away, which is similar to Councilor Novick's question and sort of the—.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I think I understand that situation a little bit more, but we're looking at some other PSF positions in today.
Ruth
Okay, so then other— got it.
So then the other main changes the changes around PSF in the proposed budget are the shift from— of about $5.8 million into Portland Solutions, into primarily the PMO program in Portland Solutions.
And those are coming from 3 strategic programs that are in BES and PBOT.
The details on the BES The BES program, I don't have the position, like if there are any positions funded by that.
I'm looking back to see if anyone knows.
I don't know.
So we will follow up on that if that would have any position impacts of sort of taking that money out.
The LED streetlight program is not funding positions.
So I think we'll just have to get back to you on that BES program.
Does that answer your question at all?
Meg McElroy
Yes.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yeah, I mean, for example, I have an email this morning from a constituent that is saying PSF allocated funds in a certain way and now the mayor's moving those to other priorities.
That is accurate?
Ruth
Just the $5.8 million, yeah.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Okay, thank you.
Ruth
Sorry, just to be clear though, it's all within the CIP, so it's the same It's aligned with the programs that were initially funded through the CIP.
It's not changing the CIP allocations.
It's kind of saying instead of delivering this through BS and PBOT, it's being delivered through Portland Solutions.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you.
Meg McElroy
Yeah.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Donnie, you've got some interesting stuff in your portfolio here as a service area, but I'll take it, the fact that Prosper, who has its own independent board, still submits a budget to us that has to be approved by us.
I'm getting a nod yes, that we can change it.
Yeah, I think there's pretty broad agreement about that.
But it often comes up because the other group that's sitting up here is PSEV.
It often comes up that for some reason the City Council isn't the budget authority for PSEV.
Yes.
And I don't know why that continues to be this lagging concern that if a group of community members say so, that it just shall be.
Why do you think that continues to plague this discussion?
Has something happened at the staff level in the way that they train the advisors, or what is it that leads to this?
'Cause I don't get this in other areas as much.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, I'll do my best, but I wanna acknowledge the question's highly speculative.
I don't want to— I'll just say what our relationship with, with the fund as, as a service area, as a bureau program, is to work within the confines of the Climate Investment Plan, which was definitely community-led and involved and informed, ultimately adopted by council and continues to be amended by council.
And that is the overarching framework.
But every single year, this body is the ultimate decider on how those dollars are appropriated and operated.
And of course, there's some mechanics between what you decide, if we have to go back and clean up the CIP to reflect that.
That's a thing.
But at the end of the day, it is absolutely true that this body is the ultimate decider for the budget.
Whatever narrative may be in the zeitgeist about how PSUF is programmed or spent, I'd like to balance that with what the truth is.
And the truth is we have a very complex program with a lot of initiatives.
Thank you.
That take a lot of staff time, not just at BPS but across the city, to deliver on.
And I think it would do everybody— and I'm just going to riff here because the question, uh, you know, framed it this way— is for us to be disciplined enough to allow the teams and the bureaus to deliver on the SPs we've committed to.
We have had, uh, since day one of PCF— I'm just going to riff now if you don't mind.
Um, since PCF's inception, the scrutiny and the armchair quarterbacking that's gone on has been— and I was there from day I've never seen a program in all my professional years nitpicked at the way this one has been.
And the hardest part is the staff working with community, working with electeds, are doing their best to deliver on what they think the intent is of direction.
And that gets really murky when we have an investment plan and a budget process.
But at the end of the day, they are delivering on what you all determine is appropriate in your budget process.
Thank you.
That really is the facts.
And again, if we— if you decided to make a change that wasn't aligned with CIP, we would go back and update the CIP to reflect that.
So that just shows how much agency you all have.
Eric Engstrom
Well, not only the budget, but you're the final authority on the CIP itself too.
So I think from a staff perspective, our interest is to have an orderly process that's regular and happens each year and that is informed by analysis.
But we completely acknowledge that that decision is council's at the end of the day.
Eric Zimmerman
Yeah, so thank you.
I agree with you, and I find it to be at times the third rail for unnecessary reasons that it's reasonable to have a conversation about the, you know, the right place or the right program to deliver on one of those initiatives from the CIP is an okay thing to talk about.
Going into, I just want to make sure because, right, Eric, you presented for several slides today, but I'll just say as far as I can tell, there's only one thank you.
I'm going to go ahead and start with the program page for PSEF in the budget that I was handed.
So there's a lot in your budget, but let's just go over some numbers so that we can be kind of clear on what we're talking about.
So in 2024 actuals for the revenues by fund, I'm going to circle here that PSEF was at $167 million.
In '25-'26, it jumped to $848 million.
And in the proposed budget, it's $701 million.
And in the program expenses, In 2024, it was about $51 million.
In '25-'26, it's $500 million.
And now in this proposed budget, it's $233 million.
So there's some big changes here.
And last year we got into a conversation about contingency versus reserve allocated for out-year programs and things that we know are like 5-year implementations.
And so we're sitting in the position where we have some money in the bank, so to speak, because we know we need to spend outward.
But we've got some broad jumps here.
But am I, am I reading correctly that the, the staff that works at PSEF is essentially putting out $233 million worth of work this coming year as the proposed?
Thank you, I'm getting a nod.
Eric Engstrom
That's right.
Eric Zimmerman
And in the bank account though, we'll draw against $701,000 that we're expecting to have in the bank account.
That is the reserve.
We've changed from contingency to a reserve.
Eric Engstrom
$425,000 Is the stuff we're not allocating this year.
That is the leftover at the end of the day.
Okay, and that's what's in the bank for the future year investments.
Eric Zimmerman
Yep, yep.
So exactly.
So drawn against the expenses, we get to that $701,000.
Eric Engstrom
2 other things I want to say about yeah.
One thing, and I'll look to the CFO to acknowledge this, but I think we changed where we put that future year reserve a couple years ago, and so it wasn't in the same place in the budget.
And so that's partly why the numbers jumped.
Eric Zimmerman
I'm acknowledging that.
Eric Engstrom
The other thing that is going on there is this last year was the first time that we actually spent are spending more money than we took in because it took us a couple years to really ramp up the spending.
We launched a couple very large contracts this year for the multifamily and single-family energy, the e-bikes program.
So yeah, the, the program is now operating at full speed, and that represents some of the changes you're seeing there.
Eric Zimmerman
That is good news, and I'm happy to hear it.
Eric Engstrom
And that's what keeps me up at night, is us not spending this money appropriately.
Eric Zimmerman
6 and a half okay, so I would love a proposal given the— given that the shenanigans that have gone on with the Parks Bureau and what PCF did or didn't cover with respect to tree code compliance.
I would like the assistance and I'll offer it now to consider an amendment to this budget to use additional PCF dollars to preserve the tree code compliance officers that were moved to PP&D.
So in an effort to use y'all's work and your numbers so that they can speak for themselves like Parks did, I will request your support in drafting that amendment to bring that forward.
With $500 million in the bank, I do believe that we can probably squeeze out a couple of FTE to keep that program as it is.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.—.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Council President.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
First of all, we have some more detail in this presentation than in others, specifically around how realignment is working, and I appreciate that.
I also really appreciate having Prosper here so that we can talk about economic development holistically and not what are we doing within city bureaus and what are we doing as Prosper.
So I don't know if that gratitude goes to the city administrator or the DCA or the council president.
But whoever made those calls, I appreciate that that's how we're having the conversation today.
I would like to understand what's going on with our workforce programs in the Prosper budget.
There are a lot of moving pieces.
I got some additional information from Prosper staff, and I still want to make sure I know what's happening here because it seems Thank you.
It seems as though we are cutting pretty deeply into our workforce supports, which is a lot of what we've depended on for economic development in our city in the past.
So as I understand it, there are 3 different things happening with our workforce programs.
There were one-time resources added to workforce programs last year that have expired and are for the most part not being backfilled.
There is some backfill though of those programs.
There is an additional cut outside of those one— that loss of one-time resources of about $260,000.
And then there is maybe some money moving around in the backfilled dollars that are going in and a different split between grant dollars going out of the door and staff at Prosper to maybe administer those grant dollars, but maybe do your own workforce programs within Prosper.
It's not totally clear because it looks like it's more staff than you had doing that work previously.
So can you help me understand, at the end of the day, what does this look like for So the bottom number that you—.
Cornell Wesley
That is the real net is the $445,000 that's been mentioned.
Now I can back up and say, you know, the $2 million, if you want a historical, what walkthrough of the $2 million in one-time funding and how we arrive at the $445 million, or do you want to just start at the $445 million?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Let's start at the $445 million, but what I'd like to understand in the historical net is the impact of service delivery.
I don't need to walk through the numbers, I just need to know then compared to now, what are we doing and what are we not doing?
Cornell Wesley
So in simple terms, we're adding back a million that will support adult and youth workforce, and that's money going out the door in grants.
That's correct.
And there's a portion of that to help in a limited-term capacity implement that program.
So that will present itself in the form of a person.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Why do we need funds to implement that in a limited term if these are grants going out the door to a single service provider who we have worked with extensively in the past?
I assume these are dollars going to Work Systems.
Cornell Wesley
So how it goes to Work Systems, systems, but there's additional resources, or rather talent, that's required to administer that relationship.
So staff time still is embedded there in that partnership.
While we are not the direct provider, there's still staffing that's time dedicated to it.
And currently, with that reduction in force, we don't have that in place.
So it's really trying to continue doing the work we're already doing, And replacing it, leveraging this financial tool.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So did we have that staff person doing this work last year, or are we adding a new staff person to do this work as we are cutting the amount of grant dollars going out the door?
Cornell Wesley
We're doing more with less, and that's what we've been doing.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Now, hopefully, under this current structure, we will be able to have some relief to the team So my concern is that we're cutting the dollars that go to actually support individuals in our community in workforce programs at the same time that we are adding a staff person to administer those programs.
And I'm trying to understand if that's what's happening here.
Cornell Wesley
Well, I think the mayor is very clear about his commitment with $1 million going back into it, with intent is.
Uh, we're just trying to do our best job to, to operate within the spirit of that intent.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I hear that.
I understand that.
And I, I understand that folks might make different decisions on what we want to do, but practically, are we sending less dollars out the door in grants and therefore supporting fewer Portlanders in workforce programs while adding a new staff person who we don't currently councilor, we're sending less money out the door across the board.
Cornell Wesley
And, and, and so that answer would be yes in several programmatic lanes where we can cover and, and, and try to right-size the implementation and operation of those and/or, and/or the facilitation of those relationships is what we're trying to accomplish.
But we are reducing resources across the board.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And you're saying, and we're in a cuts budget, but are we adding a new internal position, or is this a position that exists?
Cornell Wesley
It is a position that has been cut, and we're trying to bring additional support in.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Was it cut in this budget but it existed last year, or was it cut in last year's budget and we have not had that position for the past year?
Cornell Wesley
Let me get some historical context on that for you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, that would be great to understand.
It looks like the bulk of Prosper's cuts are in workforce and IBRN, and then there is a shift in what used to— there was $1 million in repair grants last year, and there's a shift now to reduce that to $200,000 and put some of those dollars toward the recruitment of new businesses.
Is that a fair way to summarize the main changes in the Prosper Portland budget?
Reductions to workforce.
Workforce reductions to IBRN, and then that shift in the supports that are available for storefronts?
I'd say that's mostly correct.
Okay.
Council President, I may get back in the queue, but I want to pause there and ruminate on those things.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Colleagues, I'm going to give us a— I'm going to say 13-minute break.
I'd like everybody back here at 11:10, please.
Thank you.
And we are back.
We are going to jump back into councilor questions.
There's at least— actually, I'm going to put myself in the queue.
Councilor Clark, kick us off.
Vice President Clark, kick us off, please.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, President Dunphy.
Uh, thank you everyone.
It's been a good discussion.
I've really enjoyed the give and take, and, um, I want to say to, um, DCA Donnie that I really appreciated that riff It is murky.
It's going to get murkier, I'll just bet you.
But I really appreciated that.
I just have a couple of comments and questions and observations.
Just on slide 22 about the reduction of art small grants for artists and event sponsorships, this is kind of concerning to me.
I'm just wondering, I'm going to overuse this phrase about pennywise.
But can you talk a little bit more about the— how this is going to affect downtown activation and how it might impact P5?
Is there a connection here?
I'm just concerned about what you're saying is approximately 45 to 55 fewer publicly accessible performances.
Is that something you can just give me a little more detail what the impact would be?
Sure.
It's concerning.
Yeah, it's, uh, slide 22.
Cherity Montez
So when we talk about our small grants program, the awards range from $1,000 to $5,000.
So they're very small grants.
So we're talking about awards for individual artists, arts collectives, emerging arts organizations, or organizations that are not eligible for our operating support grants.
They're really like project grants.
And there is oftentimes, you know, that's where some of our small grants for musicians go.
And there is a nexus.
They do have oftentimes a public performance or an exhibition or some publicly engaged way that that art is available.
But it does not impact these— this reduction would not impact— would not likely impact any of the kinds of performances that you would see at Portland 5 Center.
I follow your logic.
Olivia Clark
Okay, that's really helpful, Charity.
I really, I appreciate that response.
Um, then on to slide 28, um, the investment program.
First of all, I just want to say I really support the small business program.
Um, I've had contact with it, uh, put the office in touch with some of the small business associations in my neighborhoods, and I, I really appreciate that work.
I hope we can continue and, and maybe even eventually strengthen and I wanted to address that focus on the downtown because to me it's very, very important, the downtown.
I think we, we tend to forget that so much of our property taxes that fund the programs that we want citywide come from the downtown.
So anything we can do to activate it, to change that reputation, I think is very, very valuable.
I did have a question.
I do have a question though about the grants that you talked about, that the mayor has talked about, the $100,000 for grocery stores, the $50,000 for restaurants.
Are you targeting those in districts, or how is that going to work?
Cornell Wesley
Yes, so there is still obviously some formation taking place on how you program, and we want to honor the spirit of data and geographic priorities.
Areas.
But full stop, you know, as the mayor has indicated, we want to be first money in.
And so we will obviously market this opportunity extensively and measure those who illustrate interest based upon the impact that they propose.
It's limited resources, and so we have to go with the highest amount of impact with the limited amount of resources that we have.
But we also have obviously some logic in how we approach that work.
Olivia Clark
Well, do you have any idea when that might hit the streets, so to speak?
Cornell Wesley
Well, contingent upon this council's approval of the budget, we will work efficiently as fast to get that resource deployed.
Olivia Clark
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
Well, the first thing I think about when I think about grocery stores is I think about Gateway.
I think about District 1.
And even though I'm— I represent District 4, I think there's a real need on the east side for some of these dollars.
Okay, great.
And then lastly, um, thank you for that response.
Yes, ma'am.
I just had a comment or question about PSF, back to the murky.
Um, it just seems to me that— and I'm not an expert in the CIP, and I know we're going to have an that'll be really interesting.
But it seems to me that the MOTA, if there are emissions reductions and we're looking at a LEED Platinum, that it would fall under energy efficiency, renewable energy, or even green infrastructure.
It just seems like there's a— there is a nexus there for the MOTA.
And I know I'm jumping ahead, but— I think that's a fair point.
But it just seems that that's a logical connection.
I don't know if you want to comment on that murky area or—.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, thank you for the question.
And I just, I want to acknowledge, because it's come up a few times around the relationship between the motor renovations and potential use of PSF dollars, while we think there's, as the mayor said before and we've said generally speaking, there's a potential for the fact remains, as we sit here today, we have not dove into anything that even looks like final blueprints or plans or engineering for us to even contemplate what eligibility would look like, if there's existing SP or strategic initiatives, or there need to be amendments to the CIP.
That work's going to come very shortly.
But first things first, we actually have to have something to work off of.
But to acknowledge this, when we are looking at the Moto renovation, it's already been operating as a LEED Platinum facility.
We think we can go above that, especially during the renovation.
There's opportunities to look at everything from further investments in localized solar, but also battery storage, increased transportation demand strategies, et cetera.
The point is there's a lot of opportunities of developments of this scale.
So there is a nexus with emissions.
Okay.
Us landing it specifically to the So that's up to PSIF and the CIP as work to be done over the summer.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Sure.
Olivia Clark
I appreciate that.
I really do.
I just thought it just made logical sense to me in the big picture.
And you mentioned transportation demand management, and I see that TriMet received $55 million plus.
Is that for the 82nd Street bus rapid transit?
Correct.
That's exclusively for that?
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
I think those are my questions.
Thanks very much, Council President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Okay, colleagues, I'm going to make sure I can prioritize folks who have not asked first.
So I'm going to go— next 4 is going to be Kanal, Ryan, Novick, Zimmerman.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
Thanks everybody for the presentations.
I got a bunch of questions.
I'll try to pick and choose and then get back into the queue.
I did— I'll close with something up there.
I do want to talk about uh, slide 7, there's a question around, um, Prosper staff in a previous work session where we heard that Prosper was losing 2 equity positions.
DC Oliveira, you said that the presentation includes Prosper staff, but slide 7 shows no reductions to equity.
So can you briefly explain if this slide is an exception to the rule, if there's more info out there?
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, thank you, Councilor.
I appreciate that distinction.
I was specifically referring to that slide that showed the full FTE for the service area.
In this particular case, these are only city employee Uh, machinations because they're moving from bureaus into the business ops service area.
So this is specific to city employees, not Prosper.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thanks.
Um, let's go to— and this is a question for the mayor.
It's about slide 18, and it's about the Arts and Culture Office.
There's $4.2 million in general fund here, and Mr. Mayor, I know that in a lot of other places in the budget where there's braided funding, you have reduced or eliminated general fund allocations to groups that have other sources of funding.
And I would just like to understand the rationale for when that was used and when it wasn't.
I think this applies to PROSPER as well, but specific to arts and culture, when sometimes general fund remains and when it was removed, like with PBOT, for example, is removed.
Cherity Montez
Councilor Herbold.
Keith Wilson
And I'm gonna ask Donnie, I'll let you take point in this, but let me understand.
Sameer Kanal
You were talking generally about how we moved funds around or how we stopped putting general fund into bureaus that had other sources.
Keith Wilson
When we looked at the global view of how we set the budget up, we looked at general fund going to restricted bureaus, restricted revenue bureaus, for instance, water, sewer, Transportation had rate-based, fee-based, or different revenue sources.
And that's really what we looked at for the nexus.
And then when it came to PBOT specifically, yes, we had seen a degradation of their revenue every single year except for the TUF.
And I'm grateful for you that you passed the transportation utility fee.
We built the budget based on the hope that that would get passed, and it did.
And so we pulled all the general fund into— all the general fund out of Transportation into the general fund to distribute.
Arts and entertainment is different though.
Do they—.
Donnie, I'm gonna turn to you as far as what revenue-generating opportunity they have, but they are a general fund bureau or program.
Sameer Kanal
It was the arts tax is the question.
Keith Wilson
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Sameer Kanal
Well, related, the rest of it I imagine is the arts tax.
Is that—.
Cherity Montez
If I could answer the question, part of it is the arts tax and part of it is the Percent for Art Fund.
And both of those are very so the arts tax funds that come into our office can only be used for arts education coordination, which covers our arts education program manager and coordination work with all of the 6 school districts and oversight of our— of the Arts Access Fund Oversight Committee.
And then grantmaking out cash that goes out to arts organizations per the code.
And then the other piece is the other piece is just for Percent for Art projects.
So those are required by the Percent for Art code and in capital improvement projects with our Infrastructure Bureau partners.
And those are often over many years because they're— it's things like the North Portland Aquatic Center, which is going to take a couple of years to build.
And that would have, you know, that has Percent for Art funds that are shown in those other funds, but we can't use that for anything else.
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thanks.
Slide 34, there was a question about how this comms person is funded.
That didn't make sense to me.
Is it funded now out of general fund or levy dollars?
Meg McElroy
It's funded currently out of levy dollars.
Sameer Kanal
And that'll remain either way regardless of where it lives?
Meg McElroy
My understanding is no.
In the realignment, the amount that had been budgeted for that position was moved to the general fund.
The amount we spent or are spending, for example, in this current fiscal year—.
Sameer Kanal
I just, I just need a yes or no.
I'm sorry, I'm running out of time.
I, I just need a yes or no.
Meg McElroy
The levy is not being asked to pay for it for next year.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Um, okay, with relation to visitor activation portion of spectator venues, um, because I don't want to get into too deep into MoDA, that's a whole— if there's time, I'll come back to it.
But, um, the lease goes till 2032 in Providence Park, is that accurate?
Donnie Oliveira
I believe 36, Councilor.
Sameer Kanal
36, Thanks.
What is the condition of naming rights for P5 right now?
Are we able to talk about reselling and renaming those venues?
Donnie Oliveira
Thanks for the question.
So for specifically for the Portland 5 venues, as a reminder, they're still under the operational management of Metro.
Yeah.
And we'll working on the process to on July 1st, 2027 to take that responsibility back over, whether directly or through a third-party management company.
And we'll be able to contemplate those sorts of like interventions around naming rights for those venues at that time.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
I know we've had a conversation about Providence Park breaking even or not.
Does VMC also have the same conditions?
Is Veterans Memorial Coliseum, is it also breaking even or is it subsidizing others or being subsidized by that ticket fund?
Donnie Oliveira
Great question, Councilor.
VMC is part of the RIP City management oversight of the Rose Quarter.
So it's part of the Rose Quarter blend, including the Moda Center.
But generally speaking, the VMC, it's part of Rose Quarter, is breaking even from an operational perspective.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, but it's lumped in together in one—.
Donnie Oliveira
As one.
All the funds, excuse me, all the revenues go into one fund, spectator fund.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, and then the other last question I think I have time for here, I actually have 2.
Does the program oversee PIR?
Just a yes or no on that.
Is PIR part of this too?
No.
Is there more you can give us later in terms of the program offer side for what that program does with relation to the non-spectator venue side?
Because the spectator venues and visitor activation—.
Donnie Oliveira
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, because that's a piece that I think has gotten lost.
I'll get back in the queue.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, President Dunphy, and good morning everyone.
Thank you, esteemed panel.
Thank you, Donnie Oliveira, for being here.
Thank you for being so candid this morning.
I really appreciate it.
You've been up here a lot this week, so I wanted to acknowledge that.
It's always good to see you, Charity.
I have a big picture question to start off 'cause I've been on a theme about where we were 10 years ago with FTEs.
And so it says we have 130.45.
I don't think I've seen a 45 very often in my life.
And now, where were we in 2010?
130.
15-16 Says 99.12.
So I guess there's always some fascinating numbers after the decimal.
Does that include PCEF, the current number of 130.5 acres?
Is that a BPS question?
Pardon me?
Eric Engstrom
Are you asking about BPS?
Dan Ryan
I'm asking about the entire work area.
No, no, BPS.
Sorry, I meant BPS.
Sorry about that.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, 10 years ago that would not include PCEF.
The current number would.
Dan Ryan
It does.
Okay.
You could send me an email that just shows what it would look like without PSF in the 10-year comparison.
Eric Engstrom
Yes.
Dan Ryan
Or you could tell me right now.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, we've actually been working on that based on yesterday's conversation, so we'll get that to you.
Dan Ryan
Okay, thank you.
I know that we've been asking those questions.
I appreciate it.
I wanna acknowledge that the P5, so that when we were talking about spectator venues, that was clear, but P5 is now in the Arts Office, correct?
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, that's the current plan is we're still working on the machinations of it, but yes.
Dan Ryan
Okay, and I think it's important to just make sure we're all listening to that because Metro and MERC have been operating P5 even though it's a city asset.
So I think it's been a slow journey to try to get the operations to the city for P5, and it does make sense of course, I think to eliminate some of the bureaucratic clutter at the top when it's an asset of ours.
So since we're stuck with the responsibility on our general ledger, gee, maybe we should also have some more control over the operations.
Who, if that's moving to Arts Office, what's the— that journey's been going on a while.
Can you tell me the timeline now?
Anyone, please?
Cherity Montez
Thank you for the question.
We have 419 days until till Metro no longer manages the venues.
And so—.
Dan Ryan
No, that was a great answer actually.
I think I got enough information.
And which committee would be looking at, let's say City Life would like to be updated on that journey, okay?
Absolutely.
Does that make sense, Chair?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I'm happy to make sure we have time for that, yes.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
It's a big deal.
Now moving along, The events conversation's fascinating to me.
I'm looking at both you, Cornell, and Charity, because I was here in 2021 when no one was downtown.
I mean, it was really sad.
And we wanted to ignite foot traffic.
So there was a push to get events.
And we had events in Mart's office.
We had events at Prosper.
You could say we had a lot of events.
Sometimes there were more staff at the events than people.
But we spent a lot of money to try to get energy back downtown, especially.
When you made the decisions to eliminate some of this, did your 2 offices work together to look at where I do think there was some overlap and how we could make sure that we're having the best impact with this decision?
Cornell Wesley
I would say the entire service area has worked collaboratively in this exercise.
Dan Ryan
I hope that you continue to do that.
I just think that we sometimes do high or somewhat high visibility with little impact with some of those events.
As in my career, I couldn't wait to not be a special events person anymore.
And I've done a lot of work to try to get development departments, if you will, to not do so many events 'cause they are a lot of work and not a lot of impact.
And so I'm hoping that we continue to look and study what that impact looks like.
Are the retail outlets around those areas getting more— are they getting more sales on those days?
With the big events, I don't question that.
I hear that from Nordstrom's.
The night we have a concert at Pioneer Square, that's one of their best days of the week for sure.
So I think we have ways to figure that out.
And I'm kind of looking then to you, Cornell, to say that I just keep wanting to hear what are the big rocks you're pushing up the hill.
Yeah.
And how the heck are you going to do that when you have all this stuff to do?
And so when I think of OMSI corridor, when I think of the OMSI district, when I think of the Broadway corridor, when I think of Montgomery, those ones that we've been working on for now up to a decade, who's working on those projects that prosper when I look at your chart?
Raymond C. Lee
Yes.
Cornell Wesley
So uniquely, you know, we have several different lanes that prosper that are led by our amazing we have an executive team, and so what you're speaking about is development investment, which is currently being led by Amy Nagy, who's our interim director.
But then she has amazing support right underneath her as well, names like Sarah Harpole, who are, you know, everything you want to know about Broadway Corridor.
So we're well positioned and thoroughly immersed in the work.
Obviously, we're doing more with less.
So yes, you're right, we have to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time.
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, and I think part of that exercise is knowing what we don't need to do anymore.
Yes, sir.
And because I think this is high yield and I don't think the city can move forward without that focus.
On PSF, I'll just have a question, and that is we've had some hard conversations about PSF.
I really appreciate what Director Oliveira said.
I've experienced everyone weighing in very loudly, and I've also experienced the journey from should we invest in our bureaus when they're having impact for green infrastructure?
I was really comfortable with that, supportive of that.
That was the journey from just doing nonprofits to looking at bureaus.
Then we had the conversation about, will we do investments for construction for high-energy projects, high energy efficiency for schools?
Not in our portfolio, not a part of our general assets.
But I got there.
Pretty easy for me to get there being a schools advocate my thank you.
So I do question why we're being so resistant to the honest conversation that we can have about our premier asset in the activation of sport in our region.
That would be the Moda Center, which we have an opportunity to use PSF Large S eventually to invest in that facility that would make it the premier green efficiency facility in the country.
Facility in the association.
So I think that if we're not going to consider that, then we probably have to stop considering giving investments to schools.
So let's know that that is in our asset.
That's a portfolio.
That's in our portfolio.
So I hope that when we have the conversation of how we use PSF assets, that we look at it holistically, that we look at the journey that we've already been through, and if in fact it's okay to do it, because we own it, that we own that.
The person who just bought the franchise does not own that.
The city owns the Moda Center.
Angelita Morillo
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Yes, I just wanted to go back to the issue of graffiti.
Councilor Morillo was saying, are we just removing graffiti that pops back up the next week?
And I'm just curious, how are decisions made about what graffiti to remove?
Because what's happening is the city's going around seeing graffiti and saying to the building owner, Hey, you want us to remove that graffiti?
And the building owner says, sure, it'll just come back next week, but knock yourself out.
No skin off my nose.
That is wasteful.
But if we're being asked to remove graffiti, that's a bit different.
So I'm just curious, how are those decisions made?
Eric Engstrom
We take in reports of graffiti and we reach out to those businesses.
And again, I'll remind you that the BPS money in graffiti is primarily focused on In addition to the small amount we spend on staff, on the remediation on the small business side.
So businesses under a certain number of employees are eligible.
When we hear of a graffiti report, we offer that funding to eligible businesses.
They usually take us up on it for the reasons you stated.
And I'll just reiterate that a lot of our staff time is spent actually on the coordination of the data that we generate from all this and the coordination with So if a business did say, yeah, sure, knock yourself out, but it won't make any difference, then we probably wouldn't do it.
Again, I think we have observed, and I can get you follow-up on this, but we have observed that there is some deterrent effect on cleaning it up.
Dan Ryan
Okay.
Steve Novick
No, but I'm just asking if this is something we're forcing on the businesses or whether the businesses are willing they're to do it.
Donnie Oliveira
I think it's a voluntary thing.
Eric Engstrom
Generally welcoming.
We're not forcing it on them.
If they say no, they're still responsible to clean it up.
It is a— there's a code requirement to clean it up.
And so we're approaching them from that perspective.
Cherity Montez
Okay.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Hey, I'm staying on the same topic.
I was actually going to be very complimentary and thank you, Mayor, for including a graffiti abatement budget.
You know, for those of us that have worked in it, I'll say from a world of where the city has a lot of authority to tell private property owners you must clean up your graffiti, this may be one of the most work-with-the-owner programs I've ever experienced.
And I think that the way that that work happens is really good.
So if you're unaware, this budget helps with things like the community groups who want graffiti abatement kits.
Yes.
And they exist all over the neighborhoods, by the way, particularly in your small business districts, the little micro downtowns where the community has asked and Portland has funded the abatement kits.
And in every situation I've ever worked in, the business owners have said, thank you for helping me get ahead of this because it is a huge cost.
It is a huge distraction, and I know I'm out of code compliance when I get tagged all the time.
And an interesting thing about the graffiti industry is that, you know, this is why we do so many murals, right?
There's a code within that culture, if you will.
But I just want to— it is easy to cut dollars like this, Mayor, and you did not because it gets straight to the livability, it gets straight to small business support, it gets straight to neighborhood enhancements.
And I am just very glad you kept it in your budget.
So thank you.
Thank you.
And Eric, for your team who administers it, also very good.
I did want to— our timing today is so funny, so we're all trying to get things in quickly.
It makes us a little bit more abrasive or abrupt, but I did want to really appreciate the work that is continuing on the design reform packages that we have and the briefing that your team gave to me on a one-on-one in my office, just in terms of the history of and what design review's intent is and how it goes forward.
If anybody wants to know how to brief me, that was the standard.
That was the gold standard, and it was very appreciated.
And so thank you for that.
I know the work is continuing forward as your bureau tackles a lot of what Portland's future will look like.
Again, Mayor, I want to compliment you for keeping the downtown initiative alive and well.
Right.
I think thank you.
I think that we can thread this needle of individual support in small business as well as the large economic impact, knowing that certain areas, the ROI affects and helps us enable programs across all neighborhoods, all districts, and downtown serves as one of those for us to pay for a lot of things across the entire city.
So I want to give you compliments, Mayor.
For keeping an eye in a tough budget on— it can't all be about belt tightening.
It does have to be about enabling the market, the public, the private sector, the neighborhoods, others to go forth and conquer.
And I think that's a lot of our job, and I see you threading that needle in this, so I want to commend you for that.
You know, this is, this is an area where we have a lot to be thankful for.
We have a lot to be thankful for in terms of what the arts program puts into our community.
What it keeps bolstered, what our children's program is able to enable that, as Councilor Dunphy says, and I have now completely stolen, the 3 o'clock to 8 o'clock timeframe is one that it just matters a lot.
And when I look at the programs out of the children's levy, I see that enhancement.
So not an easy budget, a lot of confusing stuff in terms of documents, but in the explaining and going through it, we're in a change year.
We're in a—.
2024.
Consolidation year.
Some of those are general funds, some are not.
I appreciate working through those details.
I think that you have successfully talked about consolidation, not just as— for whatever reason, there's a little bit of this idea that consolidation or centralization has to do only with budget cuts, and therefore if you're not a general fund bureau, you're immune to it.
And that's just simply not the case.
And I think that this service area has done a good job of kind of showing the direction.
Thank you.
You know, good, bad, or indifferent, but you have an idea where you want to go and you're requesting the funds to do that.
And so you'll have my support in that.
And then I'll reiterate that I'll work with you a little bit to see what the last couple percentage points or tenths of percentage points exist to help us make sure that the tree code movement is finalized and brought healthy forward so that that team has what they need to do our job.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Um, put myself in the queue.
Um, I have 2 questions for Director Wesley.
Uh, the first is about, uh, the Office of Small Business grants.
Um, is it the— my understanding is that the grants right now are, are primarily, if not exclusively, reimbursement only.
Is that still intended to be the, the model going forward?
Dan Ryan
Yes, sir.
Donnie Oliveira
Got it.
Jamie Dunphy
That's my whole question for that one.
Uh, my second one is with regard I have a question with regard to the grocery store incentive program.
I'm very excited about it.
I mean, you and I have had a number of conversations about it.
I will continue to talk about Gateway and the perils of getting groceries in East Portland.
Yes, sir.
But I was made aware that in 2011, then-Mayor Sam Adams and the then-Portland Development Commission pulled together a workgroup on grocery store incentivization.
And the outcome of that was that there was nothing that the municipality could do in order to incentivize grocery stores to come to East Portland.
That was the official report, was that they could not find anything within the power of this to actually incentivize this.
This is a 2011 report.
Do we have different information at this point, 15 years later, that we think this program will work?
Have we talked to grocery stores directly to see if this is the kind of incentive that they actually are looking for?
Sameer Kanal
Yes.
Cornell Wesley
So from a data perspective, I'm going to lean heavy on my lived experience and having crafted incentives.
I've worked in many different roles.
And understanding the industry itself, the thin margins that are embedded within it, slip and falls can make a big deal.
And so when we're thinking about the new model of a grocery store, the shrinking of the square footage, a lot of the days of 150,000 monstrosities are not as efficient.
So you're seeing grocery stores move to 50,000 square feet.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Cornell Wesley
It takes resources to renovate those spaces to those smaller suites, and that's the role we can play.
That's where we can incentivize that behavior and supercharge them occupying, occupying spaces in a very different way.
So I've seen this, I've done this, it works.
We just got to be ready to deploy.
Candace Avalos
Perfect.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you very much.
That's my questions.
Moving to Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Mr. President.
I'm back in the queue because I wanted to pick up on this downtown advertising line item.
And I'm not sure who the correct person to ask.
Maybe it can be a tag team effort between DCA and Director Wesley.
But so this is another $200,000 in this budget.
I don't know that it was there last time.
It was?
Okay, so it's a continuation.
It's been there.
So my question is, so the Clean and Safe contract that we have with the city that we collect rates on behalf of ratepayers for that ESD outlines that this is a core function of that, of the services they do.
They describe it as Visit Portland or Visit Downtown.
So there's, there's an ongoing advertising budget.
Do we have any metrics on whether or not the spend on that advertising has actually resulted in an incremental uptick in business activity and space activation?
And I ask that because I don't see that in the annual reports from Downtown Portland Clean and Safe, and I don't see that anywhere in our stuff.
Candace Avalos
So—.
Donnie Oliveira
Councilor, thank you for the question.
We have asked to get that data for you.
It was a little cleaner last year when the ESDs were in the service area as well.
Those have since moved to Portland Solutions.
It's a little bit more line of sight, but in partnership with Prosper, we can definitely get you the information, both where the money went and how it was spent, and then the outcomes of those investments.
Mitch Green
That would be helpful.
And I'll just note that there's not a '24-'25 annual report posted to Downtown Clean and Safe's website.
If that doesn't exist, or if it does exist, they should put it up on the website.
The other piece is that we did raise rates for that ESD.
In 2024, I believe it was.
And that was about 11% increase on the rates.
And so that had a forecasted increase in revenue of roughly $300,000 for this next fiscal year.
And so I'm just wondering, why not just pay for this out of the rates that are already collected, that are growing and have expanded?
And I know it's awkward for you, DC Oliveira, because this is a Portland Solutions thing now, but But, you know, this is— you're presenting it today, so.
Donnie Oliveira
Yeah, no, I appreciate the question.
Happy to, uh, it's one team working on here.
So, uh, the, the $200,000, just, just to offer this for just general awareness, it goes a little bit beyond just Downtown Clean and Safe's work.
Um, there's a lot of investments in some of like the bigger, you know, initiatives and activities in downtown.
So I think Winter Light Festival or the, the Portland Staycation events that we've been hosting, that was resourced by this.
So the money is often activating more campaign work, like how do we get, you know, feet on the ground downtown.
But absolutely got your questions and we'll make sure we get back to you on how those additional revenues are working and how they're distinct from this $200,000 amount.
Mitch Green
I'd appreciate that and the ratepayers of the ESD will appreciate that as well.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
Okay.
Just wanted to quickly touch on a few things.
I appreciate Councilor Green's questions too.
As it relates to Councilor Novick, I did want to say that I think councilors having to go through— this is all primarily PCF-related except for the second one— that the hoops that we need to go through to get something even into the CIP conversation are frustrating, but they're fine as long as it applies equally to all electeds, and it hasn't felt that way.
I also think I agree with Councilor Councilor Novick, that if we're asked to commit on any number of dollars for anything outside of what has traditionally been funded after a CIP has been approved, that we have very clear numbers on what is currently funding so that we know what we'd be moving money from and to.
As it relates to Councilor Avalos's question on the realignments, realignment to the service area is something that my experience on the other side of the street thinks is a really good idea.
Thank you.
I don't support realigning all those positions to the central operations side, but to the DCA's office and the service area makes sense.
But having said that, Councilor Avalos's point about not feeling like we're getting the information is accurate to my experience as well.
I think many councilors are not feeling informed and not feeling access.
Let me ask you this to follow.
And by the way, this is not specific in any way to DCA Oliveira.
You just happen to be here today.
Let me ask you this, CA Lee.
There's a news article that shows that a DCA Specifically said in email that communication with council wasn't allowed.
Given what you said to Councilor Avalos, and excluding any potential discipline or personnel issues, focusing on practices or management philosophy, what are you currently doing with relation to the phenomenon of denial of information to council?
Raymond C. Lee
I think in any situation, as we work towards communicating to council, we want to have an open and transparent line of communication as it relates to that information.
I believe the article, and I haven't read this article that you're referring to completely, is referring to as it relates to budget during the budget timeframe of requesting meetings with directors at that point in time.
At that point in time, we were still gathering information as it relates to the budget information and what would be potential proposals that would be moving forward in that process.
And we wanted to hold off on that meeting before we had a full comprehension of what those proposals might be, because bureau heads didn't even know at that point in time what those proposals that may potentially be moving forward in the mayor's proposed budget.
Now, anytime we have any type of communication of a councilor reaching out, trying to get information, I want to make sure we're getting that information to them.
And that's the stance that we'll continue to have.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
So does that mean that that email is no longer in effect right now?
Raymond C. Lee
No.
Sameer Kanal
No, it does not mean that, or it's no longer in effect?
Raymond C. Lee
It's not in effect.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
All right, I want to speak to PCF, um, on the interest question.
There's $26.89 million that is being moved.
That's about 10% of the total spend this year.
That's interest that's in the proposed budget going to the general fund.
It's a pretty big chunk.
Um, that's accruing largely because of the The way the CIP is structured and the level of expenditure you have now.
There have been some proposals to change how PCF has what it's able to fund, including putting fairly large, more than 10%, new expenditures on its ledger.
If those happened, is it safe to say— and this is a series of questions, so keep them brief, please— is it safe to say that we wouldn't have money left over to accrue interest if we had a giant new line item put on the PCF budget?
Eric Engstrom
The interest is a function right now of 2 things.
The interest rate is, I think, higher than what we originally forecast when we estimated the total 5-year amount, just because of interest rates being high.
And then our spending rate has a direct impact on interest rates too, in the sense that if we— if our fund balance is higher than we thought it would be, it's generating more interest.
So our interest—.
Spending went up very significantly.
Spending has gone up.
So already has gone up.
And so yes, if you add a big line item in spending, of course that reduces the interest that we might get next year or the year after.
Sameer Kanal
From an accounting perspective, is it safe to say that when a dollar goes to the general fund, we can consider it as being split proportionally among all the things the general fund spends on?
This is probably a Ruth series of questions now that I think about it, or Jonas, sorry.
Eric Engstrom
Yeah, hi, Councilor.
For the record, Jonas Biery, Chief Financial Officer.
Donnie Oliveira
Um, yeah, so when a dollar goes into the general fund, it goes to that general fund, um, and it's not directly allocated necessarily to a specific thing.
Um, it goes into the bucket, and then the bucket is sort of distributed among all of the things that the general fund pays for.
Sameer Kanal
So from an accounting perspective, If a bureau's getting 1% of the general fund and a dollar is added to the general fund, we can safely say, or a dollar is part of the general fund, can safely assume 1 cent of that went to that bureau?
Dan Ryan
I guess that's a way of looking at it.
I don't know if that's the way it's tracked in the accounting of it, but yeah.
Sameer Kanal
And when doing that, is it fair to divide among the whole general fund of $917 million or just the $798 million?
Eric Engstrom
In this case, if we're putting these—.
Donnie Oliveira
If you're talking about the PSF interest that comes in, then it would be applicable to the discretionary.
Sameer Kanal
Discretionary only.
Okay.
So I'm going to just look at these big chunks: parks, police, fire, and shelter.
You know, and of the general fund money, $267 million goes to police, just as an example.
That's 33.5% of the general fund discretionary.
So right now, Given what we just heard, about $9 million of that interest goes to police.
And maybe a better example is fire, which gets about 21% of the general fund discretionary, which means about $6.64 million goes to fire.
And I'm bringing that up to state that in the hypothetical where we added a large new expenditure to PCF's budget, that would not create that interest going forward.
I wanted to just highlight that that's actually taking $7.8 million away or $6.64 million away.
And I wanted to just walk through the logic of that.
To Councilor Zimmerman's questions earlier, I wanted to just follow up on the PCF conversation and say, I know Councilor Novick expressed this too, I don't think the question around PCF, the budgetary authority is about the members of the committee or about the staff.
I think you're often put in the middle of the sort of frustration there, and I want to just acknowledge that when it relates to people trying to make a change and the question of when you should be involved or not.
I think there's a very, very small fraction— I want to stress a fraction— of the people who are receiving PSF funds that are actually pushing the narrative that council has no role in it and the mayor might not have a role in it because they perhaps think that the committee is more favorable to their work than council or mayor.
Thank you.
Might be, and have come to us and said you have no right to make changes.
And I wanted to appreciate you all for clarifying that this is incorrect and that we have the right and frankly the responsibility to exercise budgetary authority.
Having said that, I also think we have the responsibility to work with community, in particular those community members.
And so the only thing that relates to this conversation on the staffing side is a request to please help us— and I think you've talked about this, DCA Oliveira— please help us be involved at the Mm-hmm.
Because getting a— and this is true for, I think, your entire service area— amendments to a large technical document at the time it comes to us on council is not the best way to go about it.
And this past year, it was the only way we were given to go about it.
Mm-hmm.
And so I think the way to get around the sort of metaphorical timeline posing a gun to everyone's head and the desire to be involved is if— and so my request is if you can help us be involved at the right time for this year, because I think Councilor Novick's point about talking about whether or not transportation should be a greater part, for example, is a worthwhile conversation to have that we're not able to have effectively at the time it comes to us at the end.
Yeah.
And so I, I think similarly, the mayor's request on, um, office-to-residential conversion is another example.
We did not really have time to have a full conversation around that.
And so So the degree to which we have time for that is, I think, the helpful piece of this.
I can go further.
Steve Novick
I'll stop.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you.
A question about the downtown marketing.
Director Wesley responded that right now there is heavy reliance on downtown for tax dollars, which is true.
I hear colleagues bring that up often.
But what I'm not hearing as much about is how we can be moving away from that.
And I know there's been some work done on planning to redevelop areas like Gateway into an uptown that might reduce our reliance on downtown, and I'm wondering if someone can speak to that.
Cornell Wesley
Absolutely.
You bring up a great example, the efforts that are taking place currently in Gateway.
Currently we have We have, without giving too much away via nondisclosure agreements, but we have some pretty robust interest and a pretty robust pipeline that quite candidly will result in some short-term transactions here, hopefully within the next 12 months.
We're also, as you've heard the mayor talk about the grocery store initiative, we are prepared to unveil with our board support a community health initiative.
Of which will include an additional incentive for grocery store activations, namely identifying the Fred Meyer end gateway.
There's a lot to that.
There's a lot of interest happening currently on the east side.
And so as we are still doing the work that we have to do around the Central Business District, we are leveraging our TIF resources and even our CIP resources to other areas of the city.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Camille.
Councilor Murillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, everyone.
Um, I just wanted to quickly go back on the Moda PCF discussion and put this on the table.
The reality is that the decision for the city to purchase the Moda Center for a dollar was done in 2024.
There was only one member of that council, uh, that is here today, and that was a deal that, that was, you know, designed to be a gift to community, that we were going to get to do something.
And it is not lost on me that immediately after that purchase, and now with the new council, after we have been forced to inherit what I think is a very bad deal to maintain an asset that we don't have the money to maintain, now we are getting blackmailed by a billionaire who is threatened— threatening to remove the Blazers if we don't do everything that he asks with regards to that building.
So when we talk about whether or not PSF dollars should be used on an asset that we own, we have to also talk about the history of that deal and why that came to be.
Because this city council body has frankly inherited a lot of bad deals.
We also inherited the 10-year Clean and Safe contract that we cannot change now.
And this history of saying this is going to be a community asset that we are Thank you.
Councilmember Herbold, I think that's a great point.
If we are going to be purchasing for a dollar, that means that we as a council body have a duty then to get as many community benefits out of it as humanly possible if that deal is going to be made.
And the tangential ties to PCF dollars, just because they might use LED lighting or change random upgrades, that could apply to literally any building.
With any building upgrade, any new building that is being constructed now you could argue that technically it is a more clean energy building because it will be more energy efficient.
That is not enough of a metric for us to say that we should be using these dollars for that renovation while we are not funding transit, we're not able to fully fund clean energy housing.
We are making incredibly difficult decisions here at the city about which employees we're laying off, which core services we are cutting, and PSAB already backfills a lot of those bureau projects as well.
Are tied to those programs.
So I just want to be very clear that we are in a very bad deal, and it is not the fault of most people on this council because we did not agree to purchase the Moda Center for a dollar, uh, to now be blackmailed by the billionaire owner of the Blazers.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, President Dunphy.
I wanted to loop back because I didn't get to say a few things.
Children's Levy.
Meg, thank you so much for you and your team's service.
You are mandated at 5% admin, which is a discipline that other offices and bureaus don't experience.
And so you do so much with, with not much money.
So, and also we lost our long esteemed leader Lisa Pellegrino, and I just want to acknowledge and thank you for your extra hours that you put in as the interim.
Um, I also think it's great Great.
Well, of course, I'm personally attached to this.
I advocated hard for the— to go up to age 24.
I've been an advocate for that most of my life because it's a fake cutoff at age 18.
And we know this from the foster system.
We know this from any family that doesn't have resources.
And because families with resources definitely are engaged with their children's investments, at least till age 24 is what I've always heard.
And when I do think there's opportunity with Cannabis Fund and the workforce funds that are going, like, say, to Portland Youth Builders.
There's a way for Children's Levy and Prosper to work together a little bit more on that, especially through the investments that come through cannabis.
And a little bit more on that, in my career, I've spent a lot of time in trying to get kids to go into the trades.
Thank you.
Because our school system, quite frankly, the cultures of schools just forgot about that for a couple decades.
And so we're trying to bring that back.
And the biggest hurdles— this is from people in the industry— were math and weed.
So poor math scores and the fact that they were showing that they were using cannabis were the 2 reasons why many were eliminated from that.
So there's also an organic connection there.
So I hope the 2 offices can work together.
Thank you.
So thank you, Portland Children's Library.
Prosper Portland, when it comes to the investments for storefronts, I do want to say that the $200K— what did we spend last year in repair grants expand, or the year that we're currently in?
Does anyone know that figure?
Cornell Wesley
I'll get you that exact number shortly.
Dan Ryan
It seems like this might not be enough, but I'll tell you what, I think what is also frustrating from every storefront owner I've met is they don't see this as a grant because they're so cash poor.
They leave their windows boarded up because they can't do the down payment.
I see.
And so I think it should— I hope that your customer service can lean into being more of a grant and less of a reimbursement.
I'd like to have you please consider that as soon as possible, especially as you take in partnership that you're working with us on storefronts.
Cornell Wesley
Well, it— while it is a reimbursable model, I put an asterisk with there because we will allow direct payment to those vendors if they supply.
So a qualified contractor can submit that invoice and we'll pay them directly so that that owner does not have to even be involved in the transaction.
We have about $220,000 remaining.
That we can, and again, we can pay a contractor directly.
Dan Ryan
Listen, how much last year were we— did you get designated for that?
I know it started at one number.
Cornell Wesley
The full year budget was about $1 million allocated, which about, and again, we have about $220,000 of that remaining.
Dan Ryan
Okay.
I know, I thank you for listening.
I believe you, but I don't think the storefront folks understand that, what you just said to me.
They see it as a reimbursement and it's cumbersome.
Cornell Wesley
Well, I want to reiterate to all those who are listening that we will work directly with the contractors and we will execute payment directly on their behalf.
Dan Ryan
Okay, thank you.
I'll share that when I listen to them as well.
I hope also, Mr. Mayor, and Prosper Portland, as we develop the storefront program— well, first and foremost, if we have cuts to police and fire, this is going to be pretty frustrating for all of them because they've been at the front of the line saying we can't do this.
We can't experience more cuts from police and fire and continue to think it's a good idea to re-sign our leases.
So that's what I hear from every corner of my district and also when I'm around Portland prior to this.
But I do know that it's going to be real important for us not to just do new money just to get people to sign leases, but we've got to have some support for those that have been hanging in there who don't even have money to get to To reimburse their window or to put the down payment on the window.
They're barely paying themselves enough to live on and it's hard for them to pay.
They're paying their employees, but they're not paying themselves through much of the last few years.
So I hope that we lean into those that have been signed up on their lease for 5 to 10 years.
And I just wanna make sure I keep reiterating that point.
And are you working with Bricks Need Mortar as an organization?
Cherity Montez
Yes.
Cornell Wesley
I'm unfamiliar with that organization.
Dan Ryan
Their name says a lot.
So Brick, Steel, Mortar is a connection with small businesses and storefronts specifically.
Cornell Wesley
Yes, I have recently been in contact with them.
Dan Ryan
Yes, I have.
Utilizing that partnership is going to be very important for this to be supported for the longer term and for the grassroots to feel like they're connecting with this program.
Cornell Wesley
Councilor Heron, you're absolutely correct.
I just want to leave you with protecting what we have is extremely important to us as well.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
Thank you for hearing that.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Knoll.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you for that question, Councilor Ryan.
I appreciate it.
Sounds like we might need to help with— looks like we'd need about $600,000 more than the $200,000 currently penciled in to maintain the current service level for that program, the grant program.
Unless people stop breaking windows.
Well, yes, uh, of course.
And, uh, Please, Portland, stop breaking windows.
The other thing I just wanted to mention, there was a comment earlier that we can't revisit.
I think the example was used for Clean and Safe, but I think this is a conversation that's broader than that.
We can reevaluate contracts in the context of them crossing a fiscal year.
We've been told that on the dais.
This is not about Clean and Safe at this moment.
I want to talk about, we just got the first big look in our Thank you.
I appreciate that again.
And one of them was Urban Alchemy.
And I think there's a conversation to be had about when are we going to start looking at the $8.1 billion contracts collectively, of which $3+ billion remain yet to go in contracts that cross the fiscal year.
And so I just wanted to get that on the record that there's a conversation that needs to happen Not all of those have anything to do with the service area or this portion of it.
But, you know, we're hearing about that.
There's a new contract I just saw a news article about to do design work on the waterfront from Parks.
These are big contracts, some of them.
Some of them are smaller.
Some of them don't cross a fiscal year.
Some do.
Some of them are good.
And I want to be clear about that.
But I do think that there's a function that council has Not yet exercised that we're aware— we've become aware that we can.
So, um, I, I look forward to having those conversations when people do bring up contracts.
I think I, I will say I'm interested in looking at Urban Alchemy, uh, specifically, but for the rest, I'm, I'm currently just wanting to note that that option exists, um, and, and get that on the record.
Uh, one last thing.
Councilor Ryan is correct, it was one, and, and so is Director Wesley, was one million last year.
It was Ryan 1, uh, and I appreciate again getting to work with you on that.
Um, so if we use $780,000 this year and there's $200,000 penciled in, that's where I'm getting the— that's $580,000 as a gap.
That's where I'm getting the $600,000 figure, just for, for transparency.
Cornell Wesley
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
And Councilor Knell, I think you'll enjoy our work session tomorrow because it includes conversations around contracts.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Mr. President, I just wanted to follow up on Councilor Ryan's comment about the departure of Lisa Pellegrino.
When I was here 10 years ago, we had 2 incredibly talented and valuable Pellegrinos, Martha and Lisa.
And I think it's— it does not escape my notice that the city seems to have gone downhill a fair bit since we lost our first Pellegrino.
And I am concerned that if we have no Pellegrinos at all, we'll be entering a Pellegrino deficiency doom loop.
So I would suggest to the city administrator and all of the bureau directors, if you have an opportunity to hire a Pellegrino, please take it.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
I just wanted to, in the context of the, uh, conversation around reputation and downtown marketing, I did want to point everybody to the Thank you.
Thank you.
So I want to talk about a Conde Nast Traveler story that I think— I see nods, so you're already aware of it.
But Rose City is Better Than Ever is the headline.
And one of the great things about this article and so many of the others that talk about Portland, descriptive of what the experience is like of visiting Portland, is it highlights the neighborhoods.
And I want to— we talked about this earlier.
It talked about the Alberta Arts District.
It talked about the Central East Side.
It talked about St. Johns.
It talked about Boise.
It talked about Sunnyside, right?
Um, you can come here to Portland, and I hope you do come downtown if you do, but one can have a good week in Portland without ever visiting downtown.
Um, again, please do come downtown, but there's plenty to do.
Obviously, uh, St. Johns and Boise and Alberta Arts District are in my district, so I gotta plug them, and I spend a lot I'm not going to spend a lot of time in all of them, in particular Alberta.
But I did want to mention that we need to get into a place of talking about what we are and not what trailing indicators— like, you know, when the president sees a 5-year-old video to say Portland's on fire, we're doing the equivalent of that if we're saying that there's still this major reputational narrative.
When people come here once, they tend to be able to communicate back to their networks in other cities about what they've experienced, and that disabuses them of the notion that are fed to them by conservative media around the country.
And I wanted to highlight that.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, I just want to acknowledge I love that article as well.
And it did make me think, where's Travel Portland on that, on the downtown contract?
Are they part— are they one of the partners?
I didn't see them listed.
Donnie Oliveira
We can follow up.
We can follow up.
I'm not sure that they are, but we can ask about their nexus 'Cause they kind of help feed these articles to national magazines.
Dan Ryan
So I thought, oh yeah, where are they on that?
So I appreciate that.
That's all.
I just wanted to make sure that Travel Portland got into that conversation.
Thanks.
And I'm supportive of the investment for downtown.
I still think the funding formula of the downtown used to be known as, and all great cities have a robust downtown, and it's like a turnstile of currency.
And then we pump that money out to the rest of the city.
And I haven't seen an operational model for a city not include that.
And so I really do hope that we can continue to do that.
And I want to also acknowledge the investments in impact reduction and graffiti abatement all have been a big part of the renaissance of Portland.
And if we cut those programs, I think we'll see some backpedaling.
So thank you, Mayor, for including that.
Thank you.
Those very important investments that allow us to have articles that Councilor Kanal mentions.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Colleagues, no one else in the queue.
We have concluded our work session.
Don't worry, we have an executive session this afternoon and we also have a work session tomorrow morning.
So with that, we are adjourned.
Thank you all for being here today.