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.
Calling to order this meeting, this work session of the Portland City Council.
It is Friday, May 8th.
This morning we're going to hear from the city— well, we're going to hear about 4 different presentations, largely three.
But around core services realignment, we're going to hear about contracting within the city, and we're going to hear about span of control.
I believe I'm welcoming DCA Tracy Warren to the dais.
Tracy, I'm not sure how you all had planned this, whether it was presentation Q&A, presentation Q&A, or if you want to just get through everything and.
Have Q&A at the end?
Dan Ryan
What would you prefer?
Tracy Warren
Goal was to have, uh, Q&A in between each presentation so that folks could ask questions while the material is fresh.
Jamie Dunphy
Great.
We will, uh, let you get through the first presentation.
We will pause.
Colleagues, I will, uh, hold us to the same 5-minute timeline for each, uh, time we get to ask questions, and then we will get through all 3 presentations today.
So Tracy, take it away.
Tracy Warren
Thank you, Council President.
Good morning, Council.
Good evening, Council President, Council Members, and City Administrator and Mayor.
Thank you for the opportunity to present to Council the core services realignment.
I'm Tracy Warren, the Deputy City Administrator for City Operations.
We are presenting this budget proposal— oh, I'm sorry.
Give me just one second.
Apologies.
I had a little bit of my talking points from the last time we were here.
Olivia Clark
That's okay.
Tracy Warren
Last week we ran out of time to present and thank you, Council President Olivia Clark.
Today we are here to discuss the core services realignment.
I want to thank you all for making time for an additional work session.
I know that time is limited, especially during this season, so that's greatly appreciated.
We have time today to discuss 3 different topics.
We'll talk about the core service realignment now, we'll do question and answers, and then we'll move on to span of control and then contracting out with the same format.
Before we begin, I want to acknowledge the moment we are in and thank the many employees and leaders who worked incredibly hard to develop this proposal under difficult circumstances.
The teams involved approached this work with clear focus on minimizing impacts to both people and services while still addressing the significant financial challenges before us.
This was no easy task.
We also know many employees, some of which who are sitting behind us today, would like to have had more time engagement and discussion throughout the process.
We hear that feedback and we understand it.
The reality is that teams worked within very compressed timelines and had limited resources while also continuing to deliver critical day-to-day services for the organization.
These decisions were not made lightly, and we recognize that there are very real impacts.
That will be had on employees, teams, and the services our bureaus rely on every day.
This proposal reflects a careful and deliberate effort to balance significant financial constraints while preserving the core internal services necessary to continue serving Portlanders effectively.
And while this proposal represents an important step, this work is not done yet.
There's still more work ahead as we continue refining how we deliver services, support employees, and build a more sustainable internal services model for our future.
I'm going to kick off the realignment presentation with Human Resources, Procurement, Information Technology.
I'm joined here today by Chief Communications Officer Laura Oppenheimer, who will briefly discuss the communications realignment before handing it over to Chief Engagement Officer Amanda Garcia-Snell.
To walk through the engagement and equity services.
Next slide, please.
We last presented information on the realignment project during the March 11th work session.
The work is focused on transitioning key administrative functions to a more centralized enterprise model to better support the city's new form of government.
The goal is to reduce duplication and improve consistency across the organization so that we are better aligned with our new next slide, please.
The 6 groups listed on this slide submitted packages as part of the mayor's proposed budget.
While communications is listed on this slide, and we'll touch on it briefly, we did implement realignment of the communications function in January of this year.
Additionally, you'll see the budget and finance group is not represented on this slide.
I know this came up during our budget conversations last week and the prior work session.
They paused their work to focus on budget development, but plan to continue this work after the budget process.
Next slide.
This slide shows the general staffing model for the centralized service delivery.
Each service is led by a director or a chief officer that oversees a core team and embedded teams who are then assigned to support service area.
Across the enterprise.
The next couple of slides will provide more context into what it means to be part of a core and embedded team.
Next slide.
The core team within the bureau office are primarily focused on governance, strategy, and standardization.
They provide services that are enhanced through standardization and require stricter oversight to mitigate risk.
Elise Rosenberg
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
For example, administering employee benefits, cybersecurity, or capital projects contracting.
Next slide.
Embedded teams are the vehicles by which services guided by the core teams are delivered throughout the enterprise to support customer bureaus.
The embedded teams are able to learn and navigate the intricacies of the customers they serve in alignment with the standards set by the core service bureau.
For example, entering time codes or processing personnel actions or supporting applications and desktops.
Next slide.
This table shows current and future staffing levels within each core service area along with implementation status.
Overall, we are reducing from 798 FTE to 729, a net reduction of 69 positions across core services, with the largest reductions being made in technology and human resources.
Next slide.
This slide details total position changes within each of the service areas.
The City Administrator's Office and the core or existing groups providing services today.
In this chart, City Operations refers to all of the other bureaus and offices and programs that sit within the City Operations service area, excluding HR, procurement, and IT.
Similarly, the City Administrator's Office core in this table refers to all other bureaus and programs, excluding equity and engagement.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
The row titled core references the total number of staff performing engagement, equity, human resources, procurement, and technology work in those bureaus today and in the future state.
We laid the table out this way so that you could see all of the dynamics taking place within this realignment.
Reductions, additions of new positions required to support new service structures, and lastly, realignment to demerge demonstrate the rebalancing of existing staff by moving positions into and out of bureaus or service areas to provide more consistent service delivery across the enterprise.
Next slide.
With that, we're going to focus on 3 services that comprise the city operations realignment efforts, which is HR, procurement, and IT.
Next slide.
I wanted to provide more information and context around the project timeline.
The next couple of slides will provide a high-level overview of the activities the team has accomplished so far.
This project was assigned in late 2024 and began in January of 2025.
The DCA at the time brought on Next Strategies to assist with a Phase 1 and a Phase 2 of the project.
Phase 1, the primary focus was on understanding our current environment.
Next Strategies assessed existing reports, available performance data, processes, and administrative documents, and conducted stakeholder interviews to better understand existing service structures and challenges.
They engaged a total of 46 participants, including the city administrator, the Assistant City Administrator at the time, the majority of the Deputy City Administrators, as well as directors and high-level managers overseeing these functions across the enterprise.
In their Phase 1 report, they identified key challenges and opportunities for shorter and longer service delivery improvements and proposed a service model to facilitate those improvements.
Laura Oppenheimer
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
In phase 2, we convened subgroups to explore how we could better leverage the service or area model to improve responsiveness, consistency, and performance.
62 Employees were identified by deputy city administrators to serve on the 9 subgroups to further discuss identifying opportunities for improvement and to develop a framework.
The group was nearly even split 30/32 for managers and non-managers performing and overseeing these functions.
As part of phase 2, the report phase, NECT strategies recommended phased transition, targeted improvements by function, and 4 foundational needs: clarity in roles and processes, consistent standards, role-specific training, and greater transparency around timelines, criteria, and workflows.
In late May, the budget and finance track of this project was assigned.
Those 2 subgroups kicked off in late summer with 25 participants, but that project track paused to allow members to focus on budget development.
With phase 1 and 2 project complete— of the project completed, we briefed councilors, the mayor, and the city administrator and directors.
On the project and the next steps.
Angelita Morillo
Next slide.
Tracy Warren
The next phase of the work was done without consulting support and completed with existing staffing resources.
In fall of 2025, we worked with the DCAs to identify business operations leads to represent each service area and selected shared service managers to drive the project for each function.
This team worked together to gather data and ultimately develop our proposals for realignment.
Through fall into winter, we provided updates to labor partners, directors, and hosted our first webinar for employees across the enterprise who perform HR, IT, and procurement work to update them on the project.
In January, we returned to labor partners and council with our realignment proposals and met with each service area to discuss proposals and revise concepts based on their feedback and to reduce risk during realignment.
Those risk mitigation concepts were what I presented to council in March of this year.
At the end of March, we provided informal notifications to employees who had been potentially impacted if we were to go with a 20% reduction scenario for these services.
Elise Rosenberg
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
At the end of April, we began notifying employees whose positions will be moved as part of realignment.
And as of now, these teams are working to roll out function-specific onboarding.
We are coordinating with service areas to identify, draft, and revise any existing service level agreements.
Next slide.
Now I'll walk through the HR, procurement, and technology-specific realignment proposals.
Next slide.
Starting with human resources, this slide highlights a $4.2 million savings, which reduces staffing from 184 FTE to 159 FTE.
With this realignment, we will be reorganizing services like hiring, payroll, and employee training into a central reporting structure.
While we are in the process of transitioning, some aspects of service delivery may be slower as we prioritize higher-risk functions like payroll, labor relations, and compliance-oriented work like benefits and leave administration.
Angelita Morillo
Next slide.
Tracy Warren
This slide format will look familiar to you from the briefings that we've held in the past.
It reflects the cost savings of the reduction as well as the net FTE reduction.
In the case of human resources, there are a total of 39 reductions, but they are creating 14 positions, which creates a net FTE reduction of 25 positions.
This slide also breaks down where reductions are being taken by service area and demonstrates changes to the managerial footprints in the future state.
The table in the bottom right corner breaks down the reductions by position type, and the furthest right column names the net impact to that position type, accounting for positions that would be created by this realignment.
For human resources, 14 management positions will be reduced or reclassed, creating a span of control of 1 to 8.
Olivia Clark
Next slide.
Tracy Warren
This slide details a table that focuses on position changes related to human resources.
The largest shift you, you can see here is the increase from 100 FTE to 115 FTE within the Bureau of Human Resources, reflecting the move to a more centralized service model.
For example, we've had fragmented responsibility for administering our employee protected leave programs with a small central team supporting reporting to some bureaus and other bureaus having staff that report to them doing the work as well.
Almost half of these are a reflection of moving this work all to one team for shared knowledge, workload support, and greater consistency for employees accessing these resources.
Overall, this table reflects both a reduction in total positions as well as a rebalancing of where positions sit to perform work.
The increase in capacity within the central team will benefit the entire enterprise as they provide support across the city.
Next slide.
Even in this challenging budget year, our prior— our priority remains delivering consistent, high-quality services to our employees.
First, we are preserving embedded HR support where proximity matters most.
Ensuring bureaus still have direct relationship-based support for day-to-day needs.
We are maintaining strong recruitment and hiring services, which are critical to attracting and onboarding the workforce the city depends on.
Employee relations support remains a priority, providing guidance to both managers and employees and helping maintain a stable and effective workplace.
And we are continuing to deliver essential compliance and personnel services, including labor obligations, leave administration, and required personnel processes.
Overall, while the structure is changing, these services remain in place because they are essential to supporting our workforce and in turn serving the public.
Next slide.
We're now going to move on to procurement.
There is a savings of $669,900.
In '88, which represents a total reduction of staffing from 78 FTE to 77 FTE.
We are applying a similar approach— contracting, purchasing, and grant administration— which will now operate with a more unified, centralized structure.
As with HR, there may be some initial adjustments, including longer timelines as we prioritize compliance requirements and major projects.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
While the staffing impact is relatively a small change, it includes important realignments into centralized enterprise teams and identifying designated capital project support.
Next slide.
In procurement, one position is being reduced within the existing procurement team.
You'll see a slight reduction in their managerial footprint as well, creating a span of control of 1 to 6.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
Next slide.
This table details changes within procurement with a small net reduction from 78 to 77 FT. Again, this table does not capture total support for each service area.
That said, it does show a rebalancing of existing resources across the enterprise.
We see movement into areas like community and economic development and public safety, while public works see a slight decrease as roles are distributed.
The core procurement team remains relatively stable, reflecting continuity in central operations while still supporting enterprise-wide coordination.
Angelita Morillo
Next slide.
Tracy Warren
As with HR, procurement will be focused on preserving the services that are most critical to operations and service delivery.
First, we are maintaining embedded procurement support where specialized needs require close coordination with bureaus.
This ensures complex or high-touch work remains well supported.
We are continuing timely purchasing and contracting services, which are essential to keeping city operations running without disruption.
Compliance remains a top priority, ensuring procurement meets processes, meet legal requirements, maintain competitiveness, and uphold transparency.
At the same time, we are strengthening centralized expertise to improve consistency and efficiency across the city.
Overall, while the structure is evolving, these core procurement services remain in place to support bureaus and service areas and maintain effective operations.
Next slide.
We're now moving on to technology services.
There's an estimated savings of $13.1 million, which represents a total reduction of staffing from 394 FTE to 363 FTE.
As part of the technology realignment, the BTS core group will be responsible for cybersecurity, technology infrastructure, and managing enterprise systems.
Roles supporting business applications, data and spatial analysis, and technology endpoint and license management are being realigned from bureaus to support service areas through embedded teams.
Next slide.
Of the $13.1 million cost savings, Technology Services was able to achieve $7.1 million in savings through non-personnel changes.
There are a total of 37 reductions as part of this realignment, both in core BTS and Public Works.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
Of the 37 reductions, 23 vacancies were cut.
Technology also has a reduction in their managerial footprint, creating a span of control of 1 to 8.
Next slide.
Once again, this table details position changes related to technology services.
As you can see, the most significant reduction is in the public works service area.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
Where most positions are being reduced and some positions are being shifted to other service areas to even out service delivery.
Sylvester
Next slide.
Tracy Warren
One of the things that the technology group was able to achieve that is unique within their realignment is they were able to achieve a significant reduction that was not related to personnel.
This slide breaks down the series of non-personnel reductions which target duplicative tools, Underused or unsupported devices, and increasing the replacement cycles for laptops at the city.
While these reductions do carry risk as bureaus transition into enterprise tools, it will provide long-term benefits for service support and strategic purchasing moving forward.
Next slide.
Mirroring HR and procurement, IT will provide embedded support to service areas where proximity to the day-to-day business is important.
Elise Rosenberg
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
A primary focus will be providing secure and reliable support for computers, phones, and key business applications.
And finally, we will strengthen technology governance and standardization by strategically modernizing our technology portfolio.
Managing fewer, more connected systems increases efficiency and security.
Council will see future discussions around investment in more modern payroll, HR, and finance systems.
As well as upgrading our vital public safety communications infrastructure.
With that, I will hand this off to Chief Communications Officer Laura Oppenheimer to talk to you about the previously implemented communications realignment.
Laura Oppenheimer
Thanks, Tracy.
Good morning, everyone.
I'm Laura Oppenheimer.
I use she and her pronouns, and I am the city's Chief Communications Officer.
You heard from DCA Warren about the integrated approach to realigning the technology, human resources, and procurement functions.
Similarly, we see communications, engagement, and equity as a closely integrated suite of core services.
By building a shared foundation for those services, we have the opportunity to improve outcomes for community and improve the way we work within the organization.
Next slide, please.
As a reminder, we initiated the communications realignment last November in the fall technical adjustment and we implemented that new structure in January of this year under the umbrella of the City Communications Office.
However, the technical adjustment ordinance does not enshrine changes in the city's ongoing budget.
So you will see some of those actions reflected in the fiscal year budget as well to solidify the new structure.
The $800,000 savings listed on this slide reflects the reduction from this year's current service level budget.
However, total savings from the communications realignment are more than $1.5 million per year, taking into account steps that were completed last fall and do not require additional action in this budget.
Next slide, please.
This organizational chart gives you a picture of one realigned core service in action, and I'll just briefly walk through how that's the Central Communications team operates citywide communications channels, resources, and strategy.
This is the group that runs primary City of Portland social media accounts, the Rose City Connection newsletter, the communications equipment library, and leads citywide media response.
The Communications Leadership team, comprised of the manager overseeing each embedded team, drives strategic initiatives and ensures consistency across the organization.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Laura Oppenheimer
Projects underway include streamlining the city's social media ecosystem, improving the visibility and reach of news content on our city website, and improving emergency communications preparedness and content.
Embedded teams focus on the day-to-day needs of bureaus and service areas in alignment with citywide approaches.
This is where the majority of the content creation, media response, graphic design, public records response, and other ongoing work takes place, leveraging the subject matter expertise and working relationships of the embedded staff.
Change takes time and we're just 5 months into it, but hope this is able to provide a little bit of a picture of where we're headed with realignments.
Now I will turn the mic to Amanda Garcia-Snell, our Chief Engagement Officer.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Thanks, Laura.
So switching gears to engagement, which is one of the core service realignments, as mentioned, is intended to align practice across the organization so that we can provide more effective, equitable engagement opportunities to community and use our resources more effectively.
This timeline is a snapshot of the work and various touchpoints with staff and others for the engagement realignment.
Although the engagement realignment conversation began with previous projects and in some ways was connected to charter reform, The effort to create centralized staffing structure and organizational structure and meet budget realities really began in early 2025.
There were many efforts and existing reports prior to that time, and this work built on those, and I'm happy to share those if folks are interested.
In beginning in 2025, we conducted an inventory of staff capacity across I was able to meet with staff across the organization and immediately recognize the complexity of this work.
Given that there is no job family, it took quite a bit of time to really understand who is working in engagement and who should be considered an engagement professional.
And I'll say that that work continues to this day.
Between August and November, I conducted several meetings with leadership and staff.
We did a couple of info sessions, and some of those those were very well attended with 88 staff in attendance at informational sessions.
Next slide, please.
Most of the time during this calendar year has been spent in conversations and refinement with leadership, the budget office, human resources related to the organizational structure and really wanting to make sure that we are— that we're covering all the bases, that we're able to provide quality service to community and that No piece of work is falling through the cracks.
The biggest shift in the engagement realignment came after our presentation to you all in March with the determination that engagement realignment really needed to be split into phases.
This was to address some of the risks, and that's why you'll see some differences between what was presented in March and what is presented now.
Next slide.
Tracy Warren
Thank you.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
So under the new model, teams embedded within bureaus and service areas will really serve as spokes, similar to some of the— what you have seen with the previous presentation.
The Chief Engagement Officer and the core strategic team would be the hub of that larger wheel.
We're designing a system that improves the consistency and quality of engagement and ultimately improves the experience for community.
The budget amount looks different than what was presented in March this is due to a couple of factors.
As I mentioned, as we talked more about risks and identified those and understood those better, it really illustrated the complexity of this effort and prompted the need to split it into phases.
And so this first phase has a smaller FTE footprint than initially planned.
There are still challenges in parsing out this deeply integrated work.
This is really related to the way that the city has historically conducted engagement in some bureaus.
We also realize that some of the positions initially identified in the engagement structure were also in other realignment lists or identified in other bureau reduction scenarios, and so that also affected the total FTE impact.
Next slide, please.
So the realignment process for engagement continues to be dynamic and iterative.
This table shows position changes with engagement with a small net reduction, and this table shows positions with a net reduction.
Of one FTE.
Laura Oppenheimer
This—.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
We're still working with— on some of these pieces, and there will potentially be some different shifts in the future as we have more conversation about this work.
You'll see that the biggest staff impact is in the first phase and in Civic Life as that team transforms to be a more strategic-focused equitable engagement team that can support staff across the entire organization with consistent delivery of equitable engagement practices.
You'll also note that there are an additional 25-ish positions that we'll be working on in Phase 2.
Those positions were identified as more discussion needed to really understand, you know, how much or how little those positions should be considered in the larger structure of engagement professionals.
And of course, it's important to note that this is budget data.
It's not full organizational data.
And so it may not include every employee contributing to engagement across the organization.
And we'll continue to have those conversations as we determine what that total universe really looks like.
Next slide, please.
So this chart shows some of the changes within the service areas and the core team.
The realignment process for engagement— oops, sorry, I just said that this is dynamic and iterative, and I can't say that enough as we continue to work on this.
So this demonstrates the, again, the complicated nature of this effort.
The primary change here in realignment is position shifting across service areas to better balance workload and support a more centralized model.
Next slide, please.
As we move to the new model, we are committed to leveraging things that are working well.
We are also committed to putting the community experience first by reducing burden on the community and our partners that we create by not being internally coordinated.
Engagement is about making space for community to participate in government decision-making, and the realignment will help provide consistency across the organization to get there.
Next slide, please.
So shifting into equity, similar to engagement, equity has one core office, the Office of Equity and Human Rights, and while most staffing and decision-making has resided in bureaus, for equity we're just taking the initial steps toward realignment and allowing the new Chief Equity Officer to shape their team, their team, their system, and strategy.
The proposed budget eliminates 6 positions across the organization while leaving the remaining capacity to be shaped into a cohesive system.
Outside of the realignment, there are no additional cuts to the Office of Equity and Human Rights to ensure that we can retain the capacity for vital ongoing work related to civil rights, language access, digital access, and other obligations.
I'll just mention that those 6 positions are primarily vacant positions.
Similar— oh, next slide, please.
Similar to engagement, this slide is a snapshot of FTE reductions and shifts.
Again, this is— it may not capture every employee that's contributing to the work of equity across the organization.
Councilmember Herbold.
And as a reminder, those— the reduced positions proposed for reduction are primarily vacant positions.
Next slide, please.
So this chart illustrates the change in FTE, again, by reducing those primarily vacant positions.
The realignment process for equity as a whole is still in its infancy, and like other processes, will be dynamic and iterative.
Thank you.
We do imagine that under the new Chief Equity Officer, who will start on Monday, there will be further conversation and planning to level the remaining capacity across the service areas organization in the organization.
We I will note that there that there are a couple of corrections that may be needed as as we.
Some positions may have been erroneously slated for reduction.
So that's why you'll see one in city operations, there will be a correction that we're working with the budget office to determine how that should go forward.
Next slide, please.
As we move to a new model, we're committed to leveraging things that are working well, continuing to maintain the core citywide functions that provide people with these essential protections and preserving embedded expertise and specialized knowledge that staff working in these areas provide.
Internal support that helps bureaus navigate requirements, uphold standards, and continue to deliver inclusive services.
We're focused on the foundational work that keeps the city compliant, accessible, and aligned with the core values and commitments.
Tracy Warren
And with that, I'll hand it As we started out, we talked about, you know, this being a challenging process under tight timelines.
And I think even if we were in a situation where those things didn't exist, when you're talking about the complexity and citywide nature of this realignment, there's going to be challenges that we're going to need to continue to work through, and we're going to need council support.
To adjust to ensure that we have the support needed to deliver key services.
We've been working to review our budget proposal submissions for accuracy and have identified a handful of adjustments that need to be made within the packages.
I think Amanda just alluded to one of those.
While some adjustments require longer-term system changes for how we budget, Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
Over the next year, we'll assess whether staffing levels align with services— service demands and make adjustments to address any gaps.
We'll continue to test and refine the funding approach to ensure transparency and flexibility so staff and resources can shift as priorities evolve.
And service areas and the needs of the broader organization also evolve.
Elise Rosenberg
Next slide.
Tracy Warren
We wanted to provide an example of the type of things that we're looking at that will need to be adjusted.
We have different avenues for making those adjustments, and some of these things you may see as we move past the fiscal year and need to come back for the fall for a technical adjustment.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
Of the list, the most important changes would be a handful of position reductions that we would seek a reversal on through this process.
As you know, you know, we had a tight timeline.
Things were being entered very quickly across the city for a lot of changes, not just the changes represented in the core service realignment.
And with any budget process, there are errors that we need to make sure that we review and do our best to correct so that we can continue to deliver services that we've promised.
Next slide.
This slide talks about what you can expect to see in future engagement with staff, with leaders within the organization.
You'll notice that there's one summary area that talks about the different activities over the next several months between now and the new fiscal year.
And then to the right, you're going to see that there's different folks tagged in.
And the reason for that is that we've had— we've been on slightly different tracks, and so there's been different level of engagement and activities.
And so this is to call out where we have some uniqueness and where there will be opportunities for I appreciate your time.
I think before we jump into questions, I'd like to invite up the directors who have been supporting this project so that they're readily available to support questions from council.
Elise, Ron, Sylvester.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Oh, we got another chair.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay, everybody, distinguished panel, thank you very much for the presentation.
We're going to jump into questions.
I'm going to start with Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Council President.
I want to start by just noting, thanking the staff whose work is affected by all of this realignment.
Um, we are asking many of our city employees to go through a substantial period of instability, especially as we do this during a cuts budget where we're looking at sheets that show reductions Councilor Loretta Smith.
Elise Rosenberg
Thank you, Mayor.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We are making reductions and additions and realignments, and that means that we have staff who are looking at job reductions, job additions, and job realignments all at the same time.
And that is a lot to ask of people who still have, in many cases, far more than 40 hours of work to do a week, as well as navigate through all of this.
And I just— I want to start there because I think it's important to ground us in the fact that while this is important work and while it is important that we can say in good faith to Portlanders that we are being as efficient and effective as we can with their tax dollars, we're also talking about people who do really important work for the city.
So I want to ask a couple of questions about what this looks like as we move forward.
You talked a little bit about examples of true-ups needed, but as we move forward past this budget process and we start to realize that we got it wrong, either a position shouldn't actually have been realigned because it was providing that support that needed to happen at a service area level, or something was cut that shouldn't have been, what is the approach going to be, and are we doing anything to try to catch those before we lose good people out of our city?
Tracy Warren
I'll answer that question.
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
I would say that we are working currently to identify where there are critical risks and folks may be on a list for reduction, and we are trying to work through how do we make changes and are there ways to mitigate that risk, right?
Additionally, we are looking to, you know, a future state where we have a governance model where we are identifying the needs across the city and we have Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
I think the goal is for us to have broad engagement and input into where we come to council to prioritize those needs, recognizing that we are on a path of stability and that we are likely not to be in a better financial situation the next fiscal year.
So the goal is for us to start talking about this more broadly, prioritizing our needs across the organization, and investing where we need to invest to deliver the services that council has set that they want Portlanders to receive.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, I'll come back to that in a minute.
I noted as we went through these sheets that in all but one of the areas you talked about, there were reductions in supervisory and represented staff, but additions in non-represented that could on the surface look intentional.
I am assuming that it is not, but I am hoping that you can explain to us why that is so consistently seen across these areas of realignment.
Tracy Warren
Yeah, I'm happy to address that.
Um, it is not, and it is not, uh, It is intentional in making sure that we are classifying work appropriately to our classification structure and that people who are doing the same work are classified comparable to one another.
One of the examples that I provided was in the human resources function where I talked about half of those positions being classified as a positions that are being realigned to the central team deliver leave administration.
We have a team of leave administration— leave administrators within the core human resources team that are classified as human resource analysts.
Those are non-represented positions.
When you look into the market and you see who is performing leave administrative type work, you see that they are entry professional level analysts that are in human resources specialty field.
So this is a goal to classify those people who are doing that work appropriately.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
That makes sense, and it makes sense to me that we want those people all in the same place and not spread out through bureaus.
We want to make sure that our city employees know what to expect and leave is administered consistently.
It stands out to me that the places where we are centralizing that work happen to be non-represented places, and the places that we're taking them from happen to be represented.
And I, I hope that that just has to do with where unions have been active in the past and not anything else.
Councilor Smith.
Colleagues, I want to share, because this came out of a budget presentation originally, and I am doing this knowing that folks are wary of budget notes, but I am likely going to be bringing a budget note forward for us to consider during our budget process that addresses some of the realignment work that's happening.
I am concerned that as we catch those, um, spaces where we got it wrong, that in the short term we may look to contracted services to provide that work.
I'm going to be bringing something forward asking us to make sure that we are approaching this work deliberately and carefully so that we don't get things wrong, and that if we do, a proposal is brought to council to add positions back.
Rather than a choice made to contract out work that was previously done by city employees.
We're still working on the details of what that will look like.
I should have something that I can share within the next week, but I wanted to flag today that I will be bringing something forward there.
I do believe it's an appropriate budget note because it has to do with how we implement the reductions that are being made in the budget.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thanks, Council President.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Councilor Dunphy.
Thank you all so much for your presentation today.
I know that you have been working extremely hard to get us information under a very difficult circumstance, and I have a lot of comments about this, and I want you to know that it's actually not directed at you.
These are comments, frankly, for Mayor Wilson and for the City Administrator.
This has been a very difficult process, and I have a lot of concerns about core realignments.
In charter reform, Portlanders voted for 2 very specific things: a larger council to expand representation and a city manager to employ a professional to lead operations.
The executive branch has used these 2 changes to push the idea that we must wholly reform and realign our operations largely in service to finding funding for work the city has never directed before, like the mayor's shelter plan, but not because anyone in leadership studied our operations and concluded with evidence that this was necessary and achievable without breaking down services.
The process that has been undertaken to effect these changes is incomplete at best.
First, I am deeply concerned about the lack of transparency broadly and the lack of involvement from any level but people who work at the very top, including in some cases bureau directors themselves, and more importantly, the individuals who are closest to and do the work.
Just under $1 million has been spent on a contract with Next Strategies.
The contract notes 5 tasks and deliverables, which include strategic analysis, planning, and advising, change management capacity building, organization development consulting, strategic stakeholder engagement, and decision-making framework and support.
I've been told directly that there has been zero evidence of strategic stakeholder engagement across all area of core services, and I'm really concerned that members of leadership have told me that they have not had any support in this change management.
Those who know most about the work have been left out of the process, and those with the difficult job of finding these efficiencies have, despite a $1 million contract, been set up to fail.
This process has and will continue to lead to long-term damage to employee morale and distrust in leadership, unclear roles, and confusing reporting lines.
So I am left wondering, has this $1 million achieved any—.
Achieved?
And what can we get copies of the outcomes and the deliverables in the contract?
Why have we insisted on not involving those closest to the work?
And what has the criteria been to select positions for layoffs?
Councilor Loretta Smith, Second, I am really concerned about the actions taking place within realignments that seem counter to achieving our goals while also preserving as many jobs as possible.
91 Jobs are being lost at the same time that 15 full-time employees are receiving promotions, and there are separate unrelated decision packages in the budget that also request funding for promotions.
23 FTE are being added, where sometimes the added position mirrors a job class that was cut and is now being added back.
50 Positions need to be trued up.
The packages that we have been presented are flawed to begin with, and we found this out last night.
So our amendments are due in less than a week, and we have to completely recalculate the amendments that we are bringing forward in my office.
Leadership is currently unsure if staffing levels will continue to meet in the coming months.
Councilor Smith, The last thing or area that I want to talk about is the fact that council has been put in a terrible position.
While organizational management may fall under the purview of the city manager and administrator, the implications of and costs related to your actions come to this council for approval, especially when they are in service to the mayor's policy goals.
Councilmember Loretta Smith.
So it is incumbent upon this body to fully contemplate the potential outcomes of these actions.
And our ability to do this has been hamstrung.
We only just received detailed information on this budget 2 days ago.
All of the decision packages related to this have the exact same copy and pasted information, leaving position changes without any context.
We have no idea when a position went from one hierarchy to a different one.
We can't see that stream of change over time.
That leaves us 2 days to unravel a year's worth of work.
That's 2 days to seriously sit with the data and contemplate a change that guts staff and asks many to fight for their own jobs.
And thank you to those of you who are here today to give us your feedback.
Any briefings received up to this point have been so high level that they were unactionable.
This council has repeatedly asked for budget documentation to be clear, Because imprecise or incomplete information inhibits our ability to advance our charter-assigned duties as the budget authority.
How much are we advancing that legislative budget authority when we twice have been given a few weeks to process a proposed budget that guts core services in part to advance the executive's policy priorities, all for undefined efficiencies and in service of a policy priority from the executive, not the legislative body, which is us, Council?
Is this the serious data-driven policymaking that I am often told we need to be pushing?
Because our charter authority in action is that we are rubber stamping someone else's budget because we don't have the information required to make the changes that we need.
I'm going to close now by saying that our ability to fully identify and understand all of the nuances from this proposal have been tenuous at best.
I am currently awaiting some additional data, but intend to spend the next week, much like the vast majority of the city's frontline staff, processing the extent and implications of this massive reorganization.
Portlanders deserve well-run services, and we can't do that without the heart of the city, which is our city employees.
And if we're enacting the Doge version of the city of budget, we will not be able to do Portland, that.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Angelita Morillo
Then we need to seriously reconsider what it is that we have brought forward.
I think it's unacceptable that we are receiving updated information about positions while we are actively drafting amendments, and our budget amendments are due in 5 business days.
Do you think that your colleagues— do you think that you're going to accurately calculate out your budget amendments with this level of information?
Because I don't feel like I can.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
Um, DCA Warren, I appreciate your starting in the beginning saying that, um, this work has been done without as much, uh, discussion with frontline staff as you would have liked.
And as Councilor Morillo just indicated, frontline staff are really upset about that.
I mean, and, um, they said they haven't been involved in the process.
There's been little to no communication.
I also appreciate the fact that in briefings before, you've acknowledged that the idea that we're going to save 20% is dangerous.
And the last question I'm going to ask you is, what about these proposals keeps you up at night?
Before that, though, I want to follow up a little bit on what Councilor Pirtle-Guiney was saying and just note that we heard from CPPW.
You talked about human resources systems analysts.
Elise Rosenberg
Yes.
Steve Novick
And gave some explanation as to why they were being reconfigured.
But CPBW also said that other examples of positions that are currently represented and they're going to be replaced by non-represented positions are multiple family medical leave analysts.
Maybe that's too much in the weeds, but if you just had a response to that quickly, I'd appreciate it.
Tracy Warren
Yeah, I'll try my best.
I think your last question was, and please correct me if I But I think your last question was, are those multiple changes the family leave specialists?
Steve Novick
Yeah, I mean, what's the explanation for those being converted from represented positions to non-represented positions?
Tracy Warren
Because when you look to the market, those are done by human resource analyst 1s, and those are currently non-represented classifications within the city.
So we're aligning it with the classification structure and what you would see for talent in the market.
Steve Novick
Does that cost money or save money?
Tracy Warren
It's neutral.
Steve Novick
Okay.
Tracy Warren
There are currently administrative specialist 3s, I believe, that are doing leave administration in bureaus, which is the same pay scale as human resource analyst 1s.
Steve Novick
So if it's— there's not any change in the amount of money it costs, is it— seems kind of abstract.
Tracy Warren
Well, the goal is for them to all feel a sense of unity, all be classified the same, have the same expectations within their job description, be able to see the work that they're performing identified within the job description.
I think it would be challenging when you look at the Administrative Specialist 3 class, it is very broad and general and is typically focused on administrative tasks, whereas the HR Analyst 1 is specific to HR-related functions and specifically calls out leave administration.
Steve Novick
Okay, thank you.
We've heard various concerns about technology-related positions.
I think that So a number of GIS positions are being eliminated, some are being centralized.
And question is, I mean, do we really think that the work of those folks can be done by fewer people?
And does it make sense to move people from the bureaus to the DCA's office or elsewhere if it's specialized work?
They're going to be doing the same work as they were Thanks for that question.
Elise Rosenberg
Good morning, I'm Elise Rosenberg.
I'm the Chief Information Officer and the Director of the Bureau of Technology Services.
So I think there were a couple of questions in there about GIS specialists.
Does it make sense to centralize them?
How do we think that the work will be performed, or do we think it will be performed at the same level or at the same level of specialty?
I think the answer to that is yes.
So I'll just start with the challenge of centralizing while also trying to achieve a double-digit budget cut is real here.
And this is a good example of where that sort of duality comes to play.
What we were trying to do with all of the realignments is establish a scalable model for how service areas could be supported with parity across the organization, but recognizing the level and the complexity might be different across the different service areas.
And so with GIS, the intention is to have a central group within the Corps that owns the infrastructure, that owns the city's relationship with the vendor with whom we— for whom we contract GIS services, and that would own the primary tools or artifacts that folks would use, the map of the city, for example.
Laura Oppenheimer
Okay.
Elise Rosenberg
And then folks within the service areas to work together to do the more specialized work that's in support of that service area.
So right now we might have folks in bureaus that are making maps or using datasets to solve similar problems differently or duplicatively.
I think there is some risk with the layering of centralization and of a budget cut.
Tracy Warren
Thank you.
Elise Rosenberg
That we will have to negotiate a different level of service.
But the intention is to try to have parity across service areas, to have sort of localized work more local to that service area, and to minimize duplicative efforts.
Does that make sense?
Steve Novick
Yes.
From what you said though, I mean, you talked about the dual charge of centralization and saving money.
So that kind of suggests that we're doing things that if we weren't under a mandate to save money, you probably wouldn't do.
Elise Rosenberg
I'm not sure I would do them at the same level or with the same speed.
I do think that there is efficiency or there's a different operating model to be achieved here.
I would probably be making different recommendations about the timing and the level of reductions after some study.
But given the charge, again, of realigning and of reducing budgets for this fiscal year, we've done the best we can.
And we are— DCA Warren talked about some of those risk mitigation options.
This type of work is exactly some of the risk areas that we've been talking with bureaus and with service areas about.
And so one of the reasons we presented a lower—.
Jamie Dunphy
I'm sorry.
Elise Rosenberg
Reduction scenario option in the March work sessions was to mitigate some of this risk by adding back positions.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay.
Steve Novick
Does that mean the positions would be cut first and then added back?
Elise Rosenberg
Is that the idea?
So in the present— in the proposal that you have in front of you as part of the mayor's proposed, there are fewer positions reduced than in the 20% scenario.
Steve Novick
But if there's capacity for future mitigation, as you another concern I've heard is that there's folks in the technology area that they work within the bureaus with arcane specialized software systems that we don't have the capacity to replace.
And they'll be doing this— I mean, and that work will have to continue to be done by the same people that know those systems.
And I think that's a good point.
So again, moving them into— there's no savings from centralizing them because they still have to do the same people doing the same arcane systems.
So just curious your reaction to that.
Elise Rosenberg
2 Layers there.
You might recall from the presentation that a little over half of the reductions we've proposed are non-personnel related.
They are trying to get us off some of those arcane systems onto more centralized supported technology.
That absolutely takes time.
And some investment and training to make that change.
But one of the efficiencies we're hoping to achieve with a more centralized service area model is to have fewer of those individual points of failure or individual risks where there's one person who knows that one thing in that one system.
Whereas if we can be more strategic about having more centralized data sources, more standard tools, we get more efficiency, we get more depth of coverage, and we get more ability to leverage skill sets.
Steve Novick
This might be unfair because— but I'm asking it in the context that Councilor Morillo raised.
We've got 5 days to do amendments.
I mean, could you— not right now, but could you sort of sketch for us, here's how you would've approached some of these things differently if you weren't under the gun to say I'm happy to follow up with DCA Warren and colleagues to put some thoughts together.
And Mr. President, am I out of time?
Jamie Dunphy
Dramatically, yes.
Steve Novick
Okay, thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
That was an appropriately dramatic response to that, Council President.
Thanks for the information today, and obviously it's Probably the least pleasant part about this entire conversation.
I just have a few questions on this part of the presentation.
I'll have more as we get into span of control.
But if you can go back to your slides for a minute, I was having trouble following the reduction plan summaries.
I think that began on slide 14.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Thank you.
Mitch Green
This is it.
Dan Ryan
Yeah.
Mitch Green
So if we look— this— so this is for Bureau of Human Resources.
I'm having trouble with the last table that sort of summarizes the position type supervisor.
It's the bottom right of the slide.
Steve Novick
Yes.
Tracy Warren
So for—.
Mitch Green
If we just go line by line, in supervisor position types, there's a 9 FTE reduction with a net impact of -10.
Help me understand that.
I don't understand the connection between those 2 pieces there.
Tracy Warren
I believe what it is, and I believe what it is, is that you have movement out of— you have a net impact.
Is that a data error?
Ron Zito
No, I don't think so.
There are a number of non-rep supervisor positions that will be cut as a part of this realignment.
In terms of the net impact, I think was the question?
Mitch Green
Yeah.
So for any— so whether I'm looking at supervisor, non-rep, ASPME, CPPW, There's the FTE reduction, percent of cut, and net impact columns.
And I, I don't know what it means to say that there's a 9 FTE reduction for supervisors but a net impact of -10.
Tracy Warren
I can answer that.
It, it has to do with, um, someone who was supervising being moved out of supervisory, so they will no longer be supervising, but the position itself is not being reduced.
Mitch Green
Okay, so So in that sense, for a supervisor, if we're cutting 9 TEs, then that means we're leaving one in a sort of a may-supervise role and not a must-supervise role?
Tracy Warren
Or a represented role.
So we did have shifts from non-represented to represented.
Mitch Green
Okay, that's a little— well, at least gets me to understand a little bit.
I still don't know largely how to parse this, because like the non-reps, negative 4 FTE reduction, but then the net impact is plus 4.
Ron Zito
Yeah, Councilor, maybe it's helpful to hone in on for the HR realignment.
The biggest impact is our embedded services group.
This is this new shared services model, and what we're doing is standing up a number of supervisors to oversee each service area's support team.
And so we have folks that will become Supervisor 2s or slot into those roles.
And then we've got others that, in this case, I think the, the delta of one is going from a supervisor into a represented role as a part of that embedded team, into a different classification altogether.
Mitch Green
Okay, um, I'm going to move on, although I don't really— I can't— I'm missing some data here to, to track that, to get a fuller picture.
Tracy Warren
Yeah, it's pretty challenging to summarize the movements and the changes into one slide.
You know, when we were doing this work, we had, you know, a large spreadsheet for all of the different areas where we were like, this is a move going here, this is a reclass, this is, you know, a cut because we have particular bargaining language where we can't just reclass and grant status.
So we have to—.
Olivia Clark
Right.
Tracy Warren
Cut the position and create the different position and then go through a process.
So it was a fairly complex process that folks engaged in over several months.
So it was fairly challenging to describe in one slide.
So I apologize for that.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
I acknowledge it can be challenging to display multi-dimensions of data in a single table.
So then the other piece of highlight on this slide is what you're saying is part of this core services realignment, the existing management footprint in human resources goes from 35 sort of, are these managers, are these supervisors?
Like anyone who is supervising, is that?
Okay.
So it goes from 35 and then it goes down to 21.
That's if we adopt this budget as presented, correctly?
Tracy Warren
That's correct.
Mitch Green
Okay.
Okay, that is helpful for orienting myself.
The other piece I want to ask just broadly about the core services realignment project, I echo a lot of what I've already heard up here.
Those were some of my concerns.
I don't need to sort of reproduce that from my microphone, but I do want to ask, as you know, in the '25-'26 budget, there was a budget note for human resources that yes.
That required the city administrator to instruct the Bureau of Human Resources to review and reevaluate the deputy director positions and classifications, as well as bureau director classifications and pay scales, to reflect duties that have changed in this new form of government.
So that was a budget note that we adopted.
Was that work part of the core services realignment, or is that different work that we're doing?
And did that work happen during that fiscal year?
Tracy Warren
That is not part of the core services realignment.
One of the presentations that we'll give after this is a span of control presentation that will give some span of control information.
And then we are engaged in a classification and compensation study currently that we are looking for input into how we're structured, how that aligns to other areas and what we may need to refine or change based on our change in government.
Angelita Morillo
Okay.
Tracy Warren
For those executive positions.
Mitch Green
That feeds the span of control update that we'll talk about later in this—.
Olivia Clark
That's correct.
Mitch Green
Work session.
So I want to make sure I understand.
So the budget note that we adopted was directing work to happen in this fiscal year.
Now that work has started on the deputy directors, but that work is not complete.
I've done the read-ahead on that, so it looks like you're starting this work.
But we did rush this core services realignment piece.
And I'm just flagging that one piece of this feels fast and rushed, and then another piece of this feels deliberate, slow, and patient.
And the deliberate, slow, patient part is at the deputy director and above.
Is that a fair characterization?
Tracy Warren
No, I don't believe that it is.
I think that we worked with the 2 different timelines that were provided.
So the timeline for the core service realignment was being driven by the budget process and needing to be able to have numbers and concepts and proposals in for the mayor's proposed budget for councilor decision-making.
Where the budget note is requiring us to do a study and to present information, but isn't necessarily being driven with a need to submit a proposal.
So what we've talked about with the class compensation study is that they're going to give us recommendations.
Those are not likely to be ready in this process.
And so we would need to come back to council if there was changes that they wanted to adopt.
Angelita Morillo
Okay.
Tracy Warren
That are compensated relation— or compensation related for those positions.
So I don't think that there was a choice made to rush one and not the other.
It was more of we had different forces driving a need for the core service realignment to be ready for this moment in time based on the financial constraints.
Jamie Dunphy
And Councilor, you're at 8 minutes.
Mitch Green
I'm over?
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah, we're at 8 right now.
Mitch Green
Okay, I, I'll leave it there.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Feel free to jump back in the queue, colleagues.
Remember, we're trying for 5 minutes where possible, and you're always welcome to jump back in the queue afterwards.
Vice President Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Council President.
Um, my apologies for being late.
I had, um, something already scheduled when this was rearranged, so all my apologies to you, DCA Warren and, and team.
I missed the presentation, so hopefully, um, my comments and questions won't be Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
I don't want to be too repetitive.
I just want you to know that I understand we're undergoing a huge culture change and moving from one form of government to another.
I understand that we're looking for increased standardization across the 26 bureaus that all operated independently.
I get that.
I, I support that.
I know there was tremendous variation and freedom between the 26 thank you.
So I appreciate the coming together and really, as I like to say, becoming a grown-up city like so many other— the rest of the nation's cities with a different operation.
And I appreciate the fact that you clued us in early.
We had some early meetings on this, and I think I expressed my concern at that point about how Public Works was taking the bulk of the core alignment.
And that's clearly the area that I have the most interest in just because of my committee assignment.
So I wondered if you could just talk a little bit more.
I'm sorry I missed this.
You probably went over it.
In Public Works, there is no general fund impact here.
I understand that we're aligning things, but could you address that for me just very briefly, the rationale, and also whether or not— I've looked briefly at the materials, but I don't quite understand the phasing of the implementation.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Olivia Clark
In Public Works, and those are primarily coming from HR.
The, the bulk of the, uh, the realignment and the loss of positions in Public Works are 30 of the 59 are coming from Human Services.
Could you just talk a little bit about that?
And thank you for not doing the procurement, because I think in as much in Public Works, that's incredibly important.
We have very complicated capital projects.
So I appreciate that.
But could you just talk about the— this is not a general fund issue.
We're not benefiting the general fund by these cuts in public works, the HR component, and the phasing.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
Tracy Warren
One of the things that we talked about as the added drive to look for cost savings as we realigned, right?
When we initially started this, When we initially started this project in early 2025, end of 2024, the goal was not to make reductions.
The goal was to realign services, find some efficiencies across the enterprise, and ensure that we were able to deliver consistent, credible services to all of our customers, both internally and externally to the city.
Which we, you know, everybody is providing really good services and they provide valuable services, but it doesn't always happen consistently and equitably across the city.
So that was one of the primary goals when we started out.
We then layered on top an unknown future fiscal constraint, right?
And the goal was for us to take reductions across okay.
Across the enterprise proportionately, not to focus only on the general fund and not to focus only on other funds or rate-driven funds.
And so that's how we approached the project.
We were under the understanding that there would be pressures within those other areas for rates, for, Thank you.
We had added personnel expenses and that we needed to apply this evenly.
And I believe that as we've moved through the budget process, there has been remedies to some of the financial constraints.
But I believe that we are still in financial constraints across the city.
And so we've continued to move forward based on that understanding.
So that's my response for the, you know, why this and not that.
And then, you know, for the, you know, the phasings, one of the things that we did, and it was in our project timeline, is, you know, after we developed the proposals, we met with, you know, the DCAs and the directors of those areas and senior managers, and we talked through the plan.
And we talked through reductions, and they provided us with really good input around where they saw potential risk to services and the ability to deliver.
And they talked about where there might be key areas where it might actually increase costs for the city if we were to make reductions in those areas.
And we listened very carefully to them, and we revised our plan based on that.
And so, you know, when we talked about the human resources function, I think is what what you noted, we didn't make as many reductions there, or we didn't make as many risk mitigation moves there because we were able to mitigate the risk without doing additional things.
Olivia Clark
Well, thank you for that explanation.
Can I just ask further on the phasing?
Are you looking at phasing this implementation?
First of all, and secondly, how will we be able to evaluate the impact of the core alignment?
And forgive me if you've already addressed this.
Tracy Warren
No, we have not.
So your question is great.
Thank you, Councilor Clark.
So we will be doing some phasing.
You know, the reality is, is this is a big lift, and we've been driving to get to this moment so that you all could have enough information to make thank you.
So we will likely see immediate, some immediate moves where we have folks who will mostly continue doing what they're doing.
We will also see some areas or pockets where we will take longer because the risk is greater and we need more time and we need to make sure that we are slow and thoughtful with it.
And then we will have areas that we find out through this process that we didn't all realize we needed to slow down.
And it will be our responsibility to make sure that we're paying attention and that we're saying, whoa, here's an area that we need to slow down on, take our time, make sure that we have the appropriate things in place.
Laura Oppenheimer
Thank you.
Elise Rosenberg
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
And then as far as how we will evaluate effectiveness, you know, one of the things that we recently started doing, and I think we did all of our conversations last week, but we're doing a monthly customer forum with each of the service areas where we come together and we talk about the realignment, we give updates.
The goal is for it to be a fluid conversation where we are working as a team to talk through the new service delivery model, where there's challenges, where we need to continue to put resources and effort so that we can ensure that we're able to deliver the services.
Additionally, I think I talked early on around wanting, after we get through the fiscal year, some of the initial onboarding, to start thinking about a governance model for our internal services and how we get cross enterprise-wide participation and input so that we're not making decisions in a vacuum and that we're thinking about the priorities overall for the city.
Olivia Clark
Is it— this might be an unfair question, but where do you see the highest risk being right now?
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor, we're at 8 and a half right now.
Steve Novick
Oh, I am?
Olivia Clark
Oh my gosh.
How unusual.
Tracy Warren
So I think I would look to the directors to answer that question.
Ron Zito
Happy to start.
Thank you for the question, Councilor.
I would say from an HR perspective, our biggest risk would be potentially in compliance-related training, safety training, as well as within the processing of payroll.
Those are areas that we just can't fail in either of those.
We do think that we've, we've got a proposal that we can continue those services, but it is still an area I guess I'm next.
Sylvester
Thank you, Vice President Clark, in terms of your question.
Procurement, I believe that it's the standardization of an understanding of statutes, rules, and policies.
Because of the decentralization, we've lost a lot of opportunity, including spend analytics and controls, and being made more aware in terms of commonality of systems.
So the risk is not knowing.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Sylvester
So I think that that's really important.
I think that there's an opportunity for a tremendous amount of savings and controls and standardization in procurement for us to be the best in the breed from beginning to end in the systems.
So this would be a benefit, wholly a benefit to procurement, the core service realignment.
Elise Rosenberg
I think for technology, it's that connection to the services that we provide to Portlanders.
And as we're moving both in terms of changing our operating model and the way that we staff those services, as well as, as we're moving to standardized systems, those are all tied to business processes that result in service.
And so the speed and the sort of lack of detailed visibility with moving pretty quickly could have service impacts.
And that's where I think the risks are.
And I think, again, those exist both in terms of the staffing movement as well as in terms Yeah, I really appreciate that.
Olivia Clark
I understand that there's a lot of change management going on here, and it's very difficult for everybody to go through this culture change, but I appreciate your intentionality and the work that you've put into this.
And I'm really hoping that we do become one city and that we can benefit from this core alignment.
So thank you very much.
Sorry I went over time.
Jamie Dunphy
All good.
Thank you, Council Vice President Clark.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
I'm going to go as quickly as I can, and I'll, I'll just, uh, ask that if I do ask a question, the, the answer be very brief.
I want to start with 2 big framing points.
One is, uh, that you've now heard those in the chamber, and this is not about this presentation alone, but from Councilors Zimmerman, Green, Murillo, Smith, and myself, that there's less information about the budget in this year's budget than there was in last year's budget.
And that's really important to note, especially to any editorial boards that may be watching, that this is not coming from any one group of councilors.
We don't all agree on a lot of things.
We agree on this.
And it's an important thing to bring up.
The second thing, for any manager or supervisor class people out there, Canal 08, the budget note that has been used to cite doing a study about manager and supervisor classes, does not say a word about managers.
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Mayor.
I have a question for Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira.
Sameer Kanal
To reflect duties that have changed in the new form of government, the review should ensure that director-level positions are commensurate with the size of the unit.
The expectation is that this review will result in pay and position reductions that result in cost savings for the city.
So this had absolutely nothing to do with commissioning a study, class comp, any of that.
It was to look at the specific six positions: Director One, Two, Three, Deputy Director One, Two, Three, and I just really need to set the record straight on that.
I'm going to smash the co-sponsor button on the budget note that you said, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
I agree with everything Councilor Morillo said.
No notes.
I'm aware there are major constraints on the staff who led this realignment, and I don't think it's fair to blame you for the imperfections of this process.
But I do think it's fair to look at the overall statement of that, that the cord has not done enough engagement with staff nor done this in a fair way.
Because when I was in the PSSA and we did realignment to the service area, It was imperfect, but we didn't have this end goal in mind of a 9.5% or 10.5% reduction.
In fact, it built in that there would be a little increase because when you bring in Analyst 2s to— and Analyst 3s doing the same type of work to the same place, you often have to reclass to get those 2s up to the 3 level before you get the cross-training benefits, before you get the attrition over time that yields the efficiency and the savings.
I want to commend you for moving away from hiring a contractor.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Morillo pointed out a $1 million contract.
I'll also note that the comms realignment, which appears to have not used that contractor, was done significantly faster than the one— the 3 that did use the contract.
Broadly though, it does seem that the HR procurement technology piece have been going well other than the staff engagement.
And I also appreciate all the information distinguishing core and embedded teams.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
It's really important, and I'm broadly supportive of the service area level realignment and less on the— and I've been saying it for a year— on the core side.
I also think it's misleading to point out that there are vacancies when there was a hiring freeze.
I think if there were vacancies in a normal context, it might mean that we're just getting by without that position filled and we can eliminate it if we need to.
But sometimes it just means retirement occurred and management wasn't allowed to fill the role.
That doesn't necessarily mean that there's a vacancy.
Councilor And finally, I want to note that there's a lot of keep us aligned, keep us in compliance, keep us engaged.
We're not doing well at some of these functions now.
We might be keeping it at a B level or a B-minus level, but I don't think it's fair to say we're going to keep it at an A level if, if before the reductions we haven't been great at it.
And I think the engagement is a place, and equity is another place that I think we have not been successful at.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
This is not about the people in the roles now or the people starting next week.
Okay.
Eric Zimmerman
Wow.
Sameer Kanal
I'll note that in slide 27, it talks about— you mentioned feedback from councilors on the realignment of communications.
I'll note that some of that feedback wasn't taken.
I've noted many times that we are not connecting the service area well enough on public safety.
That slide shows public works as well.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
I think in particular in public safety, if we were realizing the communications savings that we've said we're going to find elsewhere, we might save a victims advocate at PPB or a chat staff member in fire or a front desk staffer at PPB.
And instead we're keeping a fairly large communications team in the bureau instead of doing the realignment.
Slide 30.
So here are my questions.
Slide 32.
Can you tell me what the 2 new non-rep positions are and what the 3 reduced CPPW positions are.
And I'll just tell you the other 2 clarification ones just while— so that the other folks might get ready for it.
I want to know on slide 33 if the core reductions include elimination of the ABC program staff, and on slide 36-37, what the 2 positions being reduced in equity and public safety are.
Those are my 3 clarification questions.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Okay, so for this slide, I'm sorry, could you restate your question about this particular slide?
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, what the 2 non-rep positions, these are all the bottom right, the 2 new non-rep positions and the 3 reduced CPPW positions.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
So the 3 reduced CPPW positions are vacant positions that are in, 2 of those are in Civic Life and one of those I believe is in the, Uh, city— sorry, the Community Economic and Development Service Area.
Sameer Kanal
In terms of the non-rep positions, this is another zero and two, I think, Councilor Green's question, kind of.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Yeah, I, I would, I would refer— defer to the budget office around that analysis there.
I under— I Because I don't want to misspeak about what was— how that was determined.
I know for the supervisor position, I can speak to that.
The—.
Elise Rosenberg
We—.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
One supervisor classification is reduced in Civic Life, and one manager position is being proposed to be created in the Public Works.
Dan Ryan
Okay.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Service area.
That's the only manager classification in the whole organizational— in all of those 38 positions.
And most of the management positions are in the analyst and coordinator buckets.
Sylvester
Okay.
Tracy Warren
One other thing.
Dan Ryan
Sorry.
Tracy Warren
I can add a little context there just to—.
Sameer Kanal
If it's not on the manager, that's good.
I only am curious about the CPV.
Okay.
Jamie Dunphy
I was—.
Tracy Warren
Yeah, I was going to address the non- But that's okay.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, so the— is the ABC program staff being eliminated?
Amanda Garcia-Snell
That position, yes, but the proposal is to create a different classification of position that serves that program better and the implementation of the enhancement efforts across the organization.
So currently the The position that serves the ABC program is a classification that I don't believe meets the need of implementing those enhanced— the enhancements that you all agreed on in code to add that chapter into code of the advisory body enhancement project.
I don't believe that current classification meets the need of that.
Sameer Kanal
What classification is the new position?
Amanda Garcia-Snell
That is something that's being determined by HR in terms of the class and comp analysis.
I believe it's a Coordinator 2 or an Analyst 2 placeholder, but I can— we don't know yet what that will be determined based on the position description and the skills needed to implement those enhancements.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
On the very next slide, it says that we're centralizing engagement efforts to improve coordination across bureaus and effectiveness in community.
Broadly speaking, that feels like wishcasting, um, because, of course, one of the, the parts of our engagement system that are working well are the parts that are tailored specifically to what they're engaging about.
Um, and the ABC program is basically the only place so far that has done the coordination across bureaus to get some level of continuity and, um, and similarity to how we do things.
So I'm concerned about not only the broad idea that that would be how it would work, but also how that particular position fits into that.
I'm not going to ask the question about equity because I know I'm over time, but I did want to say I am very, very concerned that equity is being reframed as compliance.
And there are people who— that is a part of it, right?
ADA compliance, Title VI compliance, and all of that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
That's not what the core values of the city say.
And so we can't both call it compliance and say we are fulfilling the core values of the city.
And if you look at the equity core value, which is the second one, or the anti-racism one, which is the first one, we just skip over that right now pretty much every time when we talk about these core values.
There is a very clear connection between proactive work that the staff not only should be doing, and that may be going away, but already are doing.
And there are equity staff across the entire city, 2 of which are being reduced in public safety in this budget.
That's a 33% reduction to the staff that are focused on equity and public safety, which is unconscionable.
But there is work that is already being done that will not be being done, and we're simultaneously being told there's no service impact.
Sylvester
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Because the only service we're measuring is the compliance piece.
And that is really concerning to me.
And we have a new equity officer coming in, and I'm willing to be— it's a very big hire.
It's your first big hire, as you pointed out, CA Lee.
And I'm very excited about that, and I'm optimistic about that.
But I think you cannot succeed at what you don't measure.
And right now, if all we're measuring is compliance with the ADA and Title VI and other specific laws, we are not going to even know in a public-facing way what it is that we are losing.
And I think that's a very important point.
Thank you, Council President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Colleagues, it is currently 11 o'clock.
We are halfway through our work session for the day and we have 2 more presentations still.
So I'm gonna have— we have Councilors Novick, Ryan, and Zimmerman in the queue, and then we're gonna take a break and then come back and do our last 2.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
Quick question to which you've probably already given us the answer and I don't need it right now, but I am curious, of the savings contemplated from core realignment, how much of that would be in the general fund?
Tracy Warren
Yeah, I'd— we'll follow up with the budget office, but I believe it's somewhere between $3 to $4 million.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, President Dunphy.
Hello, Tracy, and the esteemed panel.
And the hardworking public servants in the council chambers this morning.
Thank you for being here.
I'm well aware we are talking about you.
It must feel personal, and I'm deeply aware of that.
Big picture is we moved from 5 commissioners with limited capacity to oversee 26 to 27 bureaus and offices.
Now we have removed the elected officials from that daily oversight, with the exception of the mayor, and now we have 3 layers the top is the central administration.
The middle is the work areas that we're speaking of, that DCAs oversee.
And then we have the bureaus and offices, those closest to the ground, engaging with Portlanders to provide service.
And so we have moved the city away from those 5 silos, which were wildly fluid based on commissioners' assignments, to this, to this new day.
Voters wanted to have our operations under a city administrator.
And the world is your oyster, City Administrator, to restructure our city.
And so this is exactly the type of tough, necessary work we're supposed to be doing.
I hope we make decisions based on the service to Portlanders.
It mentions with that consolidation, some of the work is going to be prioritized over others, and with a smaller staff capacity, some services and functions therefore will be slower.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
Can you briefly explain the functions and bodies of the work and how they were prioritized in this realignment?
I don't know if that's for Tracy, City Administrator.
You've been here just 4 or 5 months, but this has been going on much before you arrived.
Tracy Warren
Yeah, I think that our next presentation on span of control, we have some information related to our Okay.
That has to do with executives.
And so I think that that will help inform more information related to how we compare to other cities.
Dan Ryan
Can we repeat this question?
Tracy Warren
Yeah, absolutely.
Dan Ryan
Absolutely.
Okay, I have, and I, then I'm gonna zip, zip, zip, zip, zip.
Okay, finally, we've had conversations about non-represented employees.
And I recall it was on January 1st, 2025, I asked that question.
And at that time we had 700 of our 7,000, so 10% of our city was non-represented.
Has that number changed?
Ron Zito
And forgive me, Councilor, I think even last year in 2025 we were around the same number, which is roughly—.
Dan Ryan
That was in January.
That was the number I had.
Ron Zito
Okay, was around 700 you say?
Dan Ryan
Yeah.
Ron Zito
And we can follow up with the exact numbers as of January 1st, 2023.
Dan Ryan
It's important, I think, for us to know that denominator when we make— when we ask questions.
Um, not knowing the details of my fellow D2 colleagues' budget note, I am also supportive of the idea of having agile responses as we do change.
That's so important.
So you've been doing the planning.
It's plan, do, and the doing is what we're talking about right now.
And then there's the and then the study part, that's when council should have the opportunity to have oversight and engagement.
But I also really want to stress this.
When you're doing continuous improvement work, it must include the employees on the ground.
They have to give— they have the wisdom.
They're there.
They're the ones facing Portlanders.
So we have to figure out how to have that communication loop from them as we study this implementation.
And then we recast, redo is the last part.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
And I think we need to have that culture throughout the city, and the council oversight should always be in that study.
So I hope that we're moving into a continuous improvement, all one city environment.
I'm really comfortable with change.
It's been often a main title in my job description.
And so I know our goal is to help improve services for Portlanders.
Again, that's why people voted for the charter change in 2022.
So please include those work teams on the ground so they're engaged.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
Which also can include engagement from the public.
I have to say that slide, the total position change across 5 core areas, it was like one of the first ones.
So the first one's really easy.
The second one, City Administrator, there are 3.
After, there's 1.
Reductions, 1.
So I could get to why the final number was what it was after FTE.
But I got to tell you, I'm usually really good with numbers and charts.
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
It was really hard to figure out.
Maybe it's the slashes and the realignments part, but I have to spend a little more time to understand.
And this is kind of like the big picture data points.
And so I don't wanna go further into this without understanding this slide.
Does that make sense?
Elise Rosenberg
Yes.
Dan Ryan
Okay.
And if I'm the only one that is struggling with this, I'd be shocked.
So anyway, I think my time is up.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
No specific questions with regard to the brief.
I just want to talk a little bit about kind of a culture.
And I think one of the— if we're going to go through significant change, an area that I hope that I can flag both in terms of my own expectations, but also where I think we need some attention.
Steve Novick
Right.
Eric Zimmerman
So I think one of the great indicators of a good or a bad boss yes.
Is whether or not they have tough conversations with their employees themselves or if they have HR have that conversation.
HR is a crutch for really bad leaders.
And when we're talking about realignment, and in this last several months, I'll just tell you, Mr.
Administrator and Mayor, I think that you've got a challenge in front of you because I think that there are aspects of, I'll say, the broader leadership team who've let it come into our organization that somehow realignment was just about general fund or just about money and it wasn't about the overall direction of this government and that we all work for one city administrator now.
And so I think that's allowed some unfortunate cultural rifts to occur that I think need some attention.
You know, in no world does anybody in the City of Portland believe that we need 27 versions of HR, procurement, or IT, right, from our old version of government.
But also what I'm not getting is a significant amount of leadership at the— again, I'll just say the broader leadership level of the city administration at many levels of of supervisory manager, director levels of buy-in and of articulating the vision.
So I offer that because if you're a bureau director or a deputy director or a manager who's going to come in front of the City Council and talk about a realignment, what we really need is that you have command of the information, that you have—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Eric Zimmerman
A vision for the direction that you're taking your bureau, that you have an idea for how to accomplish the mission, so to speak, and that you are projecting leadership in that space.
If you're unable to articulate how your bureau is going to accomplish a job, don't be afraid to say that is not something the bureau will be taking on in the future year.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
Or articulate how you plan to adjust how we've done that mission.
But the soft language, the wishy-washiness, the I'm not sure-isms does nothing to project leadership, both to me as a, as a councilor, but really having been through a situation like this as an AFSCME member, as a new employee a long time ago in the Great Recession.
Councilor Smith.
We as employees can get through hard things if we have a leader who can articulate the vision and the direction and the path that we're about to walk on together.
That is so much harder if we don't have faith in the people who are speaking for us at just our next level above us.
And so I would encourage all levels of, of our non-represented workforce who are coming to convey a budget message, a realignment, et cetera, that you really think about what do you want to articulate for your office or your bureau, your service area, how it's gonna work through these changes and how you're working with your employees to project a vision, right?
Realignment shouldn't be a flat-footedness and a ho-hum, we just have to do it.
Because when you start with ho-hum, we just have to do it, People need meaning around our hardest conversations, and the meaning is going to matter here.
And I don't know that we have done a great job down through the organization to do that, and it has allowed a bit of a crutch to start to form underneath the arms of some, of some topics, some areas that I, I think should be avoided, avoidable and avoided.
So I appreciate the work.
It is difficult work.
Ron Zito
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
And, and I know there will be more to this, but for those who are going to face some very difficult conversations, I hope that the most senior leaders, the 2 that are sitting across from me, can project down your expectations of your subordinate senior leaders and, and how they should be having these conversations with their, with their teams, those who may be leaving us and also those who will remain here and what we're going to do to build a single one city, like one water, like one road, like one city of Portland.
And I think you both have that vision.
You've both talked to me about it.
And you need some help at the levels below you, the people who are closest to our employees and to our neighborhoods.
So I appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Colleagues, it is 11:15.
I'm going to give us a 10-minute restroom break and we're going to come back.
I'm going to ask I'm going to ask Tracy if we can do both the presentations at once so we can have, uh, the rest of the meeting.
Everybody please be back here at 11:25.
Elise Rosenberg
Thank you.
Tracy Warren
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
And we are back.
So thank you, friends.
We have 1 hour left and 2 full presentations still to get through, so I'm asking our staff to please go ahead and just do back-to-back presentations on this.
We'll handle all the rest of our questions and we will get out of here at a reasonable time.
Tracy Warren
Tracy, please take it away.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Angelita Morillo
Absolutely.
Tracy Warren
Actually, I'm, I'm going to be here in a supporting role, so I'm going to turn it over to Director Zito.
Jamie Dunphy
Take it away, Ron.
Ron Zito
Good morning, Mayor, councilors, Council President, Vice President.
For the record, I'm Ron Zito.
I'm the interim director of the Bureau of Human Resources.
I'm joining you today to provide an overview of a topic that I know is of interest to many as we navigate this year's budget process, and that concept is span of control.
For some, this is maybe a term that's unfamiliar or even feel like organizational management jargon.
So let's start by defining what span of control refers to.
Next slide, please.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Ron Zito
In its simplest form, span of control refers to how supervisory responsibilities distributed throughout our organization, and in general, it speaks to the number of staff a supervisor is responsible for.
Now, in our city, we have classifications who may supervise staff depending on the nature of the assignment, and there are classifications who must supervise to adequately meet the criteria of that classification.
By way of a quick example, an Analyst 3 may supervise staff, whereas a Manager 1 must directly supervise a minimum of 4 employees.
And may indirectly supervise staff assigned to other subordinate supervisors.
Now, available literature on the topic consistently indicates that there is no single target span of control appropriate for all situations and every team.
An optimal span depends on multiple factors that can be difficult to quantify, may even change over time.
However, this is not to say that span of control doesn't matter or have a real impact on our organization, our staff, or service delivery.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Ron Zito
Next slide, please.
Again, while there's not a single ideal span of control for all work in an organization, generally a smaller span of control can support closer oversight, coordination, and consistency within a team, whereas larger spans require clear delegation of authority and effective decision-making processes to avoid bottlenecks.
While larger spans are often associated with greater efficiency and less hierarchical structure, Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
As Deputy City Administrator, I'm pleased to present the recommendation for the City of Portland's new policy on span of control.
As Mayor Wilson mentioned, span of control is a critical component of effective management.
Without a clear understanding of span of control, managers may not be able to effectively manage their departments or employees.
Without a clear understanding of span of control, managers may also present problems or challenges related to consistency, clear communication, and accountability.
Perhaps said more simply, no one wants a manager they can never reach to support them or is too busy to provide for an adequate employee experience.
And alternatively, no one wants to be micromanaged or see budgets drained by unnecessary or burdensome oversight.
Ideally, span of control should be determined by the nature of the work, operational complexity, and tailored to the organization's needs.
And before we look at the data, I'd be remiss not to acknowledge that employees with supervisory responsibilities also perform non-supervisory work as a part of their classification.
In fact, in most instances, non-supervisory duties make up the majority of a supervisor's overall workload.
Next slide, please.
And here's just a quick visual example to set the tone for the next few slides and to hammer home the terminology we're going to be using.
In this example, this supervisor has 4 direct reports who directly report into them.
And 3 indirect reports who report to subordinate supervisors.
Therefore, the span of control for this supervisor is 4 direct reports to 1 supervisor, or we may refer to it as 1 to 4.
Next slide, please.
So what is our average span of control within the City of Portland?
Using a recent report from April of this year that I believe was sent to councilors last night, we find that excluding police, It is 1 manager for every 7.7 direct reports.
Now, that's up from 1994 where we had 1 manager for every 6.5 direct reports, and that also excluded police.
And I should say police is considered separately due to their unique rank-based and organizational culture and structure, which would likely overstate spans.
But as you can see here, averages vary widely across service areas, with public safety being the highest span of 1 to 11.
Elise Rosenberg
Thank you.
Ron Zito
And to be clear, this is addressing those directly reporting to that manager, not the total number of indirect reports.
This also does not include casual staff who might report to that manager as well.
Next slide, please.
Now, since 2020, we have seen some growth in all positions, the largest being those positions which may supervise, and that was 73%, where again supervision is optional rather than required within those classifications.
It's also important to consider that supervisory classified positions represent a smaller share of the overall workforce, so percentage increases reflect more modest changes in the total number of positions than the rates alone here might suggest.
However, overall supervisory classifications did grow faster than non-supervisory over the review period.
And as of March 2026, we have about 905 managers who must supervise out of a total non-casual population of 6,695.
Next slide, please.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Ron Zito
Now, as mentioned earlier, classifications who must supervise staff, with limited exceptions, are expected to supervise at least 4 direct reports, and that's defined in our classification specifications.
As of March 4th, 2026, 57 supervisors in those must-supervise classifications had fewer than 4 direct reports.
This represents approximately 8% of supervisors in classifications subject to that minimum.
In March of last year, 2025, bureaus were surveyed and provided context regarding these types of positions not meeting that 4-person standard.
And as you can see here on the slide, the majority of responses reflect that the bureau did not believe the positions should be required to meet the minimum standard due to the nature of the work As we discussed earlier, and we will again here, the city is currently conducting a classification and compensation study for its non-represented classifications, which is primarily including manager and supervisory roles.
As a part of that effort, options will be developed to crosswalk some of these scenarios with existing manager and supervisor positions that do not meet the span of control standards into more appropriate classifications where warranted.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Ron Zito
In fact, we met with Evergreen just yesterday to review some of their preliminary recommendations.
We look forward to bringing those to you in the future.
Jamie Dunphy
Next slide, please.
Ron Zito
And so shifting slightly, another influence on span of control includes the number of organizational layers we maintain and where most staff fall within that hierarchy, meaning how many layers of management are between maybe elected officials and staff.
In other words, our city administrator and DCAs would account for layer 1 of an organization.
If, for example, I'm a director reporting to a deputy city administrator, I would reside in layer 2 of that organization.
And if I report directly to a bureau director, it's likely I reside in layer 3, and so on and so forth.
As, as of March 2026, the city's organizational hierarchy reached up to 9 layers, and the majority of staff reside within layers 4 through 6, which is typical for an organization of our size.
The drivers of these layers include charter reform as well as other reorganization efforts that we expect will also impact these layers as we move forward.
Next slide, please.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Ron Zito
Now, another area of particular interest may be span of control in our senior leadership roles.
So let's double-click here for a moment.
As you are aware, our city's service areas are led by deputy city administrators.
Olivia Clark
Yes.
Ron Zito
City bureaus are generally led by a director, and some bureaus establish a deputy director position to break large spans and better support bureau leadership.
As we look across these senior levels of leadership, the city administrator, deputy city administrators, and director positions all meet that minimum span of control of 4, with a few exceptions in the deputy director classification, and those generally fall in relatively small bureaus with complex missions, for example, PBEM, government relations, All right.
So again, slightly changing gears.
Recently, using data from our 2023 market study for DCA positions, we were able to determine that the average salary for a DCA position the city operations team began assessing leadership structure across comparable cities.
And this research is ongoing, but we did want to share some of the high-level findings with you today as it relates to span of control.
So I'm going to jump through these next few slides fairly quickly, but I just want to call out the main points.
So this first chart shows total population across a number of cities.
As we look at comparable-sized cities across the U.S., that includes Portland, Seattle, for instance, Phoenix, Arizona, on the far left of this chart, with approximately 1.6 million residents, and Orlando, Florida, on the far right, which is close to 400,000.
The average population here is approximately 740,000, and you can see Portland sits close to the middle of this pack at around 650,000.
Next slide, please.
This next slide speaks to total number of employees within those cities, with an average of of 8,150 staff.
And while this has some very small font, so forgive me, you can probably see Portland is just upper middle of the pack with a seasonal high of approximately 8,786.
And that does include casual staff.
That puts us right in line with cities such as San Jose, Charlotte, Columbus, and Atlanta for comparison.
And then next slide, please.
And this slide compares total city budget and reveals Portland is most similar to cities such Phoenix and Seattle, but across the group we see an average of about $3.58 billion as a budget.
And it's probably fair here to say that not every city has the same structure and the same breadth of services.
Some have separate utilities that they break out or specialty districts, so I just want to call that out as well.
Finally, this slide reflects the number of deputy city administrators across those cities.
With the average being 4.7.
And Portland is again just about middle of the pack with 5 DCA roles.
Again, as we went out to market on this, other titles might include city manager, assistant city manager, et cetera.
And then lastly, this— I'm sorry, if we could jump.
Dan Ryan
Yep.
Ron Zito
Lastly, this slide, this chart reflects how many departments report to each DCA position.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Ron Zito
And what we see here is an average of 5 departments to 1 DCA.
This is also the average we see in our city, as well as others such as Charlotte, Oakland, Austin, and Raleigh.
Jump to the next slide.
And finally, as it relates to the city's budget, I just want to summarize what we've covered in some of the previous slides, and that is span of control is only one of many factors to consider when assessing organizational efficiency.
Like I said earlier, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and as we move through the various realignment efforts taking place in our city, such as core services, engagement, and equity that you heard about earlier, we'll continue to monitor and make adjustments to spans of control.
And as previously mentioned, our intention is to use data from our non-rep class comp study currently underway to appropriately classify and consolidate positions that do not meet the minimum standard of 4 direct reports.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Ron Zito
And next slide, please.
And in conclusion, as we look at next steps, we have actions already underway such as completing the non-rep class comp study, including director and deputy director positions.
We also have future actions to consider, such as perhaps developing a citywide administrative guideline for span of control.
And finally, we have ongoing monitoring that could be beneficial, including publishing span of control metrics periodically as a part of the budget planning process.
I'm going to take a deep breath there and say I know I moved very quickly through those slides.
There's a ton of information, but I thank you for your time and allowing me to walk you through this.
And I think we're going to jump to contracting out before we address questions.
Sylvester
Good morning.
Good morning, Councilor— Council President Dunphy, Council Vice President thank you, Council Vice President Clark.
Mr. Mayor, Mr. City Administrator, community partner, community labor partners, as well as city staff.
Contracting is one of the city's most effective tools in maintaining operational flexibility and agility and meeting our regulatory obligations, our values, and ensuring that we can deliver services to the community without interruption.
Next slide, please.
When used appropriately, contracting strengthens, not substitutes, our workforce by providing targeted support for defined projects and time-limited needs across our bureau spaces.
Across the organization, the city holds multiple different types of contracts.
Today we're focused on just 2 of those services.
There's professional services and design services.
This is a category— these categories are often used to supplement our internal capabilities and needs.
These contracts provide access to expertise and capacity that allows our bureaus to continue delivering services efficiently and effectively.
Examples of professional services includes auditing and technology project support.
Examples of design services includes architectural and engineering work.
Right now, contracting information is dispersed across the decentralized system, detailed are embedded within individual bureaus, limiting our visibility into work that is performed externally and preventing a holistic strategic view of our contracting landscape and also aligning with our values as well as transparency.
As we move forward to a more centralized procurement model, we have significant opportunity to improve oversight, strengthen governance, gain clearer insight into services that the city is relying on external partners to provide.
As we transition into this new model, we will conduct a comprehensive assessment of our existing contracts, develop recommendations to support stronger alignment, strategic decision-making, as well as aligning our values.
Over the last 3 years, our contracting needs have included project management for major technology initiatives, system testing support, and specialized expertise for surge capacity.
Capacity for critical infrastructure projects, illustrating a breadth of work and contracting enabling us to accomplish in service to our community, as well as supporting our grants operations as well and regulations.
These 2— next slide.
Ron Zito
Sorry.
Sylvester
These 2 line graphs show 3 years of trend data for professional services and design services.
On the left, you see year-over-year decline in total contracted amounts for professional service and design— professional and design services.
On the right, you see the corresponding decline in payments made for work performed under those contracts.
Together, these trends show a significant reduction in the city's use of professional and design services over the past 3 years.
Next slide.
Slide 4.
This slide shows aggregated contracting data for professional services and design services over the same 3-year period.
On the left, you see the total contracted amounts.
On the right, total payments for work performed.
For professional services, the city contracted $230.1 million and paid $86.6 million over 3 years.
For design services, the city contracted for $123.1 million and paid $20.8 million.
Contracted amounts represents the maximum authorized value of a multi-year not-to-exceed agreement, while payments reflect only the work actually completed and is invoiced as well.
It is normal and appropriate for these payments to be significantly lower than the total contracted amount.
Next slide.
Allowable contracting for professional services before you, you'll see a list of the allowed categories of examples that consist— constitutes the allowable use of contracting.
This contracting for outside services is limited both by the state rules, example given Oregon Forward, and the city's labor agreements.
It is governed by clear requirements, and we use it only when it's allowable and appropriate.
These categories outlined in the slide represent the most common allowable reasons for engaging in external support for the city's labor agreements includes cost savings, emergencies, statutory requirements, extreme risk, capital projects, warranty work, proprietary systems, urgent need, limited scope work, peak load staffing, as well as grant alignment.
It is important to note that not all labor agreements allow for services listed here.
Reference would be AFSCME labor agreement Section 6.3.
Next slide.
Contracting supports multiple core operational needs for the city, particularly in areas where capacity— internal capacity cannot reasonably flex to meet that demand.
For capital projects, staffing needs significantly shift throughout the construction cycles.
There are moments when we simply need more inspectors, engineers, technical support than we can maintain as permanent staff.
We also rely on contracting to access specialized technology skills, technical skills, and expertise the city needs only intermittently, that are only intermittently, such as cybersecurity, SAP development, financial advising, geotechnical support, and/or targeted legal support, highly specialized and not required for full-time levels.
Finally, Certain work is regulatory and compliance-driven and must be performed by certified external providers or independent evaluators.
Examples include assessments, background checks, right-of-way acquisition, professional appraisals.
In these cases, contracting is not just practical, it is required to meet legal and regulatory obligations.
Examples: capital— not just about capital project works— specialized technology, experience specialized technology systems development and evaluation, specifically the SLAMTECH assessment for PCEF, regulatory compliance-driven auditing outside, for example Moss Adams, and our requirements, requirements as it relates to our annual audit.
Next slide.
Community partnerships, community partnerships and temporary staffing.
Some of our contracted services reflect longstanding community partnership delivery models that are central on how the city engages with the public.
These include— related to these, these works include public space management, arts and culture, community outreach, and the stewardship of natural areas.
These are mission-aligned collaborations designed to extend the city's reach in the community.
Finally, as we use contracting in a limited way to meet temporary or thank you.
Next, we have the temporary staffing ordinance.
This ordinance provides for transitional staffing needs.
These include short-term support during major system rollouts, emergency backup staffing to ensure continuity of operations, project-specific administrative support.
In these instances, they are intentionally time-bound and to provide targeted capacity when internal staffing is not immediately available or when need is too short-term to justify a permanent position.
Example, community partnerships, BES watershed agreements, temporary transitional staffing, DPI staffing contracts, as well as Oregon Forward agreements that work primarily— it goes individuals with disabilities as well.
Next slide.
Contracting and good— with good governance.
As I outlined how contracting is strategic tool enabling the city to remain flexible, meet the regulatory obligations, as well as delivering services effectively.
When governed well, it strengthens, not replaces, our workforce by ensuring continuity across bureaus while operating within established rules, agreements, statutory requirements, and our values.
Effective governance begins with clarity of authority, roles, decision rights, and clearly defined responsibilities consistently applied and accountability sits at the appropriate leadership level.
Strong contracting governance also ensures alignment with labor agreements, procurement policies, legal requirements, and again, our values.
It supports cross-bureau collaboration, promotes transparency, reduces the risk of delays, disputes, or rework.
Standardized processing, common templates, workflows, approval pathways make contracting predictable scalable, while performance and oversight ensures contractors are delivering against— delivering against expectations through metrics, reviews, data-driven decisions against time, terms, and conditions.
In our next slide, contracting upward processing process improvements.
In our future state, post-COVID-19, service realignment.
Contracting will be realigned to support, to support fully the city's core services model, creating a more centralized, transparent, strategically managed system in alignment with our values and community requirements.
By consolidating authorities, standardizing processes, strengthening across-bureau coordination, we will gain a clearer oversight of contracted work and ensure it directly reinforces our operational priorities.
This realignment will enable us to deploy contracting more intentionally, focusing on essential expertise, compliance-driven needs, flexible capacity, while maintaining strong governance and workforce alignment.
Together, these changes position the city to operate with greater consistency, accountability, and long-term effectiveness.
That concludes my presentation.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you all.
Now we're going to jump into questions, colleagues.
We have about 37 minutes left.
Councilor Kanal, take us on.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you for the presentation.
I, I wanted to say I really like the idea of using organizational layers as a thing we look at, but not necessarily something to use as a goal.
And what I mean by that is I think degrees of separation is a maybe better way of of thinking about it where CA Lee is 1 and everybody that reports to him is 2.
And that can mean his EA or a DCA, right?
And we're looking at how many layers we've got.
I think 1 through 9 seems like a lot, but it's actually more if the DCAs and CA are both in layer 1.
And there's— I understand why police is different.
I'm not sure why fire isn't also different, but I do get that.
I'd love to see the direct report number because I think that illustrates it.
Councilor there are people— I've been in a role, and I've related to roles where much of our time we're paying a city employee to manage contracts to do work that might actually just— I'm thinking in the engagement space where you're managing a couple contracts to do engagement work that one could do themselves.
And it's not a full-time FD.
It's not a 1-to-1 ratio.
It might be 1 to 0.5, but I just wanted to flag that.
Elise Rosenberg
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
And we'll get to that.
But in the— in the— some of those roles have a supervisory component too, and that's why it's related to this.
Just trying to understand how we can— I'm using degrees of separation as sort of a colloquial term.
I'm sure there's a corporate speak word for it somewhere.
But, uh, yeah, something that, that does that.
Does that make sense in terms of like framing?
Ron Zito
It does, Councilor, yes.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, because you can actually see that in the address.
Book.
Like, you can actually go to somebody in the address book on our systems and see who they report to, who they report through.
So it's also easier for us to just quickly find that information.
And that, I think we could get to a goal of saying this should be X number.
I'm not sure what it should be.
And I want to speak candidly about this.
I was an Analyst 3.
In 2022, I was promoted to a Manager 1.
I should probably have not been a manager.
I should have probably been a supervisor.
Sylvester
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
Supervisor 2 is the same pay scale as a Manager 1, so I'm not sure that it would have made a financial difference.
Kind of like analyst and coordinator, there's one rung apart on the ladder, and, you know, 2 is a 1 here, or 3 is a 2.
But I do think that evaluating that is important, and we've often erred on the side of when there's a disparity, just taking it up to the higher point.
So if there's a— as we consolidate, if there's an Analyst 3 doing the same thing as an Analyst 2, then we're going to go with 2 the higher point.
Over here, we would never consider taking the Analyst 3 down to a 2.
We would take the 2 and put it up to a 3.
And I get why, but I think it's worth, uh, considering as we, as we talk about this from a—.
Sylvester
The—.
Sameer Kanal
Especially on the management level, but I think it applies everywhere.
Um, is the statement that there are 5 DCAs an acknowledgement that Portland Solutions is a service area and that Skyler Brocker Knapp is effectively a DCA?
Or on the other hand, is it a forward-looking anticipation that the ACA will be a DCA if we approve that position?
We have 4 DCAs, uh, currently listed.
I think that's including our CFO, uh, because of the classification level is at the DCA level.
Okay, CFO.
Okay, if we were to bring back the ACA position, I believe before it was not classed at the same level as the DCAs, and it was classed a little lower than that.
I believe, and I'll have you correct, I believe it was classed at the same level as the DCAs.
Tracy Warren
That's correct, it was.
Sameer Kanal
And it would be again if it's brought back now?
Tracy Warren
That's correct.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
Um, just again wanted to note before I move on to contracts, we again never asked for a study in Canal 8 just to reduce the expense on deputy directors and directors, while noting of course that every bureau needs a director and the only role on that side is 1 versus 2 versus 3, but that some bureaus don't need deputy directors at all in addition to the 1 versus 2 versus 3.
Moving to contracts, thank you so much for that.
And I really wanted to commend you as someone who's been talking for over 2 years about— actually longer than that— about the need to reduce professional services contracts specifically, which is not a perfect analog, but very similar to the way I've framed it of contracts where we pay people to think for us.
Versus contracts where we pay people to do for us.
We don't own a construction company yet, but until then, we're going to need to pay people to build things.
But the thinking side has always been kind of frustrating.
So I just wanted to commend you for that reduction.
That was more stark than I had anticipated.
So wanted to start with that.
Elise Rosenberg
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
I wanted to ask about the project management side as well.
And just see, you know, we have this, we have project managers at the city.
And so is that a focus area for you?
Do you have focus areas in terms of the subcategories of the, I think it's 538,000 or whatever that code is, that professional services, like there's subcategories under it though.
Sylvester
There are.
And I would, with the project management, management series, in terms of speaking to that, it's more of a personnel space.
I would rather not speak for the entire organization, but we'll say that I will monitor that more with the centralization and also have those kinds of conversations with my counterparts at the director level, but also having those conversations probably with the DCAs as well in terms of how does that work in terms of future leaning.
I've actually engaged my So we're working to kind of give more transparency as we're centralizing.
We'll be able to give you those types of numbers at that level, the project management level, or even others as well.
So we're working on that in terms of giving you business intelligence.
I recognize that's I'd not necessarily rather what you're asking for, but not that's what we're just working on.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Sylvester
Say data because it's business intelligence for you to make business decisions.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor, you're at 6 minutes.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, I'll just make the wrap-up comment here and then I have a question for later.
The, um, I had a position, I had a function that I needed to do when I was at the Portland building where we had a court that told us we needed to increase our capacity and we had the money to do it, but we were not given the position authority to do it, uh, for 3 years, and we contracted it out.
Um, and we got— it was the same amount of money because that's the budget we had, but we would— we got less service as a result for contracting it out than we would have otherwise.
And, uh, it was the old mayor's office that was preventing us from doing that.
And on day one, uh, Mayor Wilson let that position get created.
It took a while to get filled, but day one he fixed that problem.
And I, I really want to commend you for that again.
Um, But I wanted to indicate how the hiring freeze and the position authority conversations often force contracting.
And because you can put the money in EMS more easily and then use it for contracting out some of the work when you can't get the position authority or you have the position authority, but you're not allowed to hire it.
So I just wanted to flag that as a thing to consider.
Thanks, Council President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you very much, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thanks, Council President.
Um, just want to be mindful of my time.
I'm setting my stopwatch here.
Um, so appreciate the span of control discussion.
Elise Rosenberg
I—.
Mitch Green
The, the report that was sent out ahead was— is very useful.
I appreciate that thinking.
So the first question I have is, the proposed budget that we're considering, um, the data that's in this— in, in the span of control document, does that analyze the city as it was in April, or does it also have these proposed changes in it?
Tracy Warren
No, it's, it's the time and place in April, so it does not include the considerations that you all are making.
Mitch Green
Got it, that's helpful.
Um, my second question, I want to go back to the sort of different levels of hierarchy conversation.
Um, I'm kind of struck by this idea that the DCAs are in the same level as the city administrator.
Typically, the way I think about an org chart is your C-suite has your chief executive, then you've got, you know, your CFO, your chief operating officer, you've got, you know, some of those folks.
But the way that we've constructed it with these DCAs and these service areas seems to be that those are executive vice presidents of a particular function of the city.
When you pulled Jonas out and made him a CFO and put him up at that level, that to me was moving him to level 1 of the organization and out of level 2.
And so I kind of pushed back, and I don't, I don't think the DCAs are in level 1.
I think they're in level 2 of the organization, and I think most people would probably agree with that.
Then from there, you've got bureau directors, And then deputy directors.
So that's 2 more layers.
And then I think manager 3 is where you get your first executive management classification.
So to me, that's like, that's 4 layers of executive leadership below the CEO.
Is that— am I missing something?
Ron Zito
No, Councilor, I think you're correct.
I do think going back to Councilor Kanal's degrees of separation is kind of a nice that's a nice way to look at it, and it could be degrees of separation from the community, from a council, from the CA, or from how we did in this report, a bucket of executive leadership which includes CA plus the DCA.
So I think there's probably room to make arguments either way of what layer is 1 versus layer 2.
Mitch Green
But that's, that's good to hear because I think it's a little more fluid than, than that.
Um, thank you.
So if I were to look at I've got just in the Bureau of Human Resources is just a sort of entry point here.
Just as there's a total of 115 positions in the proposed, and there's one Director II, that's probably your position because DCA Warren's in an interim DCA role.
And so they've got— I've got a Director II, there's a manager— there's one Manager III, one manager— no, you know, 7 Manager 2s, 3 Manager 1s, and an Analyst 4.
Is the span of control the director, and then under that, that is a Manager 3 who then manages the, the 2s, or are they all pointing to the director independently?
Ron Zito
Currently, the Manager 3 position is vacant.
Director 2 that I sit in as an interim today has 12 direct reports.
Those direct reports are a mix of administrative support staff as well as managerial staff that oversee functional areas.
Mitch Green
That's helpful.
And if you were to click into some of the functional areas, I'm looking at employee and labor relations.
There are 3 manager 2s, 2 manager 1s.
So do all of those managers report directly to you?
Ron Zito
No, there's a senior manager for employee relations.
There's also a labor relations manager.
2 Roles do point into myself.
I would say that labor relations and employee relations, probably some of the more complex work within our bureau.
And so therefore, the span of controls there are pretty narrow.
Mitch Green
I understand that.
I just— I think I'm running out of time here.
And I raised some of these concerns in the earlier part of the presentation.
But, you know, when I was at the Bonneville Power Administration, which is a federal institution, not a you had 3 tiers of management.
You had the administrator, and then you had the executive vice presidents, and then you had the managers.
I was a non-supervisory GS-14 because I did very complex region-wide work for rate setting.
I was paid the same as my manager.
And so I think what we've got in our city is we've got a structure where it's like we've created these roles that are not really real.
Olivia Clark
I think that's a good point.
Mitch Green
Because you need to pay that person more than the people they supervise.
And with 9 layers of levels in the organization, we've ended up with 33 Manager 3s across the entire city.
Sameer Kanal
Manager 3s.
Mitch Green
Yeah, Manager 3s.
So that's 33 executives before you even get into directors and deputy directors and deputy city administrators and the like.
And so as we're looking at the budget choices we've made, you know, we're We're closing down a fire engine to keep 33 executives before you get into bureau directors.
And I just kind of think that that's a challenge for me in this budget.
I'm out of time, so I'll leave it there.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Council President.
My questions are going to be focused on span and control.
And so, yeah.
When you say bureaus, you mean bureaus and offices, right?
Ron Zito
That's correct, Councilor.
Dan Ryan
Okay.
And what is the total of bureaus plus offices?
Some people say 25, some people say 28.
I say 27 because I say something in between.
I've literally tried to count.
Ron Zito
I don't want to misspeak, but typically in the past we've referred to 26 bureaus.
Jamie Dunphy
But I'd want to—.
Dan Ryan
Let's use that as a working definition.
Olivia Clark
Okay.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
And I think it's important that we say bureaus/offices, because when we're in this conversation of span and control, there's differences when you look at the two.
A big bureau like Parks has more supervisors, probably more coaches on the ground.
And so I just think that it gets— it's minor, but I think it's important that we get consistency on that.
And when you speak of reporting relationships, which I think of span and control as how many people you're responsible for.
How many people do you coach?
How many people do you care for?
How many people are you supervising, advocating for?
Um, do you take into consideration those who staff volunteers from commissions and advisory boards?
Ron Zito
We do not, not in this report, Councilor.
Dan Ryan
Ooh, let's let that settle for a second.
Yeah, in my career I've done a lot of, um, staffing of boards, um, people who are really busy that expect a lot of professional service.
And it takes a lot of time, and you got to do it right.
And I think sometimes culturally we have a challenge at the city because we, we have so many of these, which we know we're trying to figure out the efficiency there as well.
But that's a high-level service that you're providing when you're stewarding volunteers, whether it's at the commission and supervisory or at the advisory level.
But then I also think we have to have conversations about those, like say in parks, that have volunteers that want to help maintain nature trails.
That's also a responsibility.
When I say I want us to engage more volunteers, I don't say that to say that we're going to replace them with workers.
I'm saying that we're expanding our impact because we have employees who have the skill sets to to help manage and supervise and coach those volunteers.
So I hope that that becomes part of the equation as you continue to do this work.
The comparable city charts, I think, get us in trouble, and you've tried to explain that.
The apples and oranges are tough to define.
And are all the ones listed, the 12, are they separate from county?
Is it city only, not city and county?
I noticed San Francisco wasn't included unless I could I didn't see it, but they are merged, the city and the county?
Ron Zito
Yes, I'd have to look close.
Are they all cities?
Dan Ryan
They're all city purely, not city-county?
Tracy Warren
That's correct.
Well, they're, they're all cities.
I don't know if some of them have a county structure.
Dan Ryan
Okay, it would be interesting to do that as well, then look at the ones that are merged, and then take City of Portland and Multnomah County and look at our combined budget and those that are similar scope that are merged.
I'm a big fan of merger.
Just thought I'd say that for the 100th time.
I also think that the way we talk about our budget gets us in trouble.
When you go out in the community and they have every right to say it's an $8.6 billion budget, because all they have to do is Google and AI tells them that.
But I ask them to know that we're talking about our general fund.
Like, our engagement with them right now is about our general fund.
And that's so much less, right?
It's roughly, what is it, $806 million was the last time I saw a number that kept being repeated.
I wonder in the comparison here where we really stick out, if those, like in other cities that are of comparable size, let's say Oklahoma City, I wonder if they take out those utilities that are separate.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
And I know there's like an accountant will give me a really long like interpretation of why the legality of that.
It doesn't translate to your average human being that's trying to understand what we do and have, I think, some pretty extreme complaints about us because of the way we report this.
Ron Zito
I would agree, Councilor.
I think this was a preliminary look at some comparable cities.
Now that we're living into this new structure.
I do think there's more work and analysis to be done, particularly on the granularity that you called out in terms of county versus county and city and some of how they break out their work.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, we just get beat up when we go out in the community and they look at a chart like this.
And then I don't have enough to counter all their arguments.
I do have enough to say, well, our general fund is this, and it does calm people down a bit and they're ready to listen and not just show up to attack the fact that we have a bloated budget compared to others.
But I don't know if we're translating this very well from a communication standpoint to people who are trying to lean in and understand how we do our work.
Ron Zito
Appreciate it.
Dan Ryan
I just think that we have to continue to think about that.
All right, I've made that point.
Okay, I'll stop because I'm supposed to.
It's 5:20.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Vice President Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Council President.
Just a couple quick questions.
If I wanted to find out what contracts were in, for example, Public Works service area, is there a place online I can go look at those?
Sylvester
If you— if you get— the parameters are set, we can actually pull that for you and report that for you.
It's a link on our— actually our annual report.
I mean, our usual CPO report.
You can click and you can actually set some parameters yourself.
However, my staff can actually send it over to you as well.
Olivia Clark
Okay, thanks.
I'll follow up with you.
You know, we have a lot, a lot of large capital projects.
I assume, you know, we have to contract out certain areas.
I just wondered if when we have an owner's rep for a big project, is that a contracted out function?
Sylvester
It's very likely that that is included in the construction costs in the contract.
Olivia Clark
And I was interested to see you had the category community partnerships because I imagine that we have a lot of little teeny contracts I wouldn't say the dollar, but there are very much—.
Sylvester
There's task order contracting as well, which we don't have a lot of visibility except at the bureau level.
We would like to pull those in.
Then the centralization of that and core service realignment will allow us more visibility in that area as well.
But those are very different.
Those are real estate contracts.
So you're saying that the and those would not be considered services.
Because you mentioned leasing.
Leasing is actually a real estate contract.
Olivia Clark
Oh, okay.
So that's not considered a contract.
If we're leasing the Fulton Community Center for $1 a year, that's a real estate issue.
That would be real estate.
Sylvester
That falls within real estate.
Olivia Clark
And can I get a list of those by bureau?
Is that possible?
Sylvester
I would work with the appropriate bureau for that and can get that to you as well.
Olivia Clark
I see the— Bureau Director back there.
I'm kind of interested in the list of those real estate relationships, particularly the dollar-a-year leases.
Thank you so much.
A great presentation.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
I have a very quick question, Tracy, to follow up on something you said to Councilor Kanal.
I understand that the proposal for an assistant city administrator in this budget is for a classified position as Deputy City Administrator under our job classifications.
But we do have a separate class title for Assistant City Administrator with a significantly lower pay salary range.
Why are we— if we have that classification, why are we using a different classification to create this position?
Tracy Warren
Happy to answer that, Councilor.
When we initially when we initially began the new form of government transition, we went out and we did a market study and we created classifications based on what we thought we would need, based on how we were thinking the organization would be designed.
As we started to live into the new structure, it became apparent that we needed to have comparable for those roles to be comparable to one another.
It didn't make sense for the assistant city administrator to be paid much lower than the deputy city administrators when the assistant city administrator is frequently stepping in for the city administrator directly, is also overseeing several offices, and has a large responsibility comparatively to the deputy city administrators.
So that's why we just leveled it out.
Jamie Dunphy
At some point, will we be doing a code cleanup to get rid of that classification if it's not going to be ever used again?
Tracy Warren
Yeah, we would likely, if we decided we were never going to use that classification, we would abolish it from our classification and compensation plan.
Elise Rosenberg
Yes.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Councilor Knell.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
First, I wanted to thank Councilor Ryan for recognizing thank you.
Thank you, Mayor, for recognizing the work of those who support volunteer boards and commissions.
I think that that's something that being on that side of the dais for a few years was not always clear, and I hope that everybody who does that work in the city heard it from him, and I certainly stand by it as well.
I wanted to get into the governance questions that were in the last couple slides on procurement.
What rules govern what you evaluate in procurement processes?
Is it entirely administrative rules, or are there resolutions, ordinances, code that— in terms of what constitutes the factors and the scoring?
Sylvester
It could be a multitude of things, everything from Commerce Code to the actual codes in terms of our equity goals as well, our former equity goals.
So there is a multitude of statutes that come into play.
For me to name them all would probably take some time.
I don't want to eat away at the time.
I'm not trying to be flippant.
Tracy Warren
No, no.
Sylvester
I just want to be very respectful of time.
Everything from ORS to federal grant requirements as well.
I just want to name them all as well.
But there are, depending upon the function and what the work is going to be, what the work is going to be, it can be a magnitude, a magnitude of rules.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, so I just want to— this is outside, maybe outside the scope of the budget conversation for this year's budget.
It might affect it a little bit, but I just wanted to sort of signify an intent, uh, to look at that because there are a few factors that, um, I'm not sure are weighted at all or weighted heavily enough.
And I think you administer the rules in your bureau the rules as they are very well.
So I don't— I think this is more about what are the rules we're asking you as a council to look at.
I think when we look at nonprofits, and especially this came up in last year's conversation, I know I'm not gonna— I'm gonna scare anybody by saying last year's conversation about the children's levy, but the conversation around when we ask for an organization that we're contracting with or granting money to, to serve a particular community, do we even ask about whether or not any of the members of the board or the senior leadership are members of that same community or not?
Whether or not that's weighted or not, I'm not getting into, but whether that's a factor.
I think the same thing applies here, that when we're looking at who we contract with, asking certain questions might be helpful for I'm interested in whether or not we should be contracting— we should look at the CEO salary or the executive director's salary.
I think there's been a lot about nonprofits that are getting money in the affordable housing space with $500,000, you know, executive directors or CEO pay.
And I'm interested in having that be a detrimental factor for the contracting process.
I'm very interested in local procurement.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
Procurement.
We know about the multiplier effect of, uh, dollars that are spent on local, um, organizations and feeding that money back into our community and not into— I don't want to name another part of the country and single them out, but somewhere far away, uh, that where the money doesn't circulate in our economy multiple times.
And that's for when we have to contract out work.
Um, so I, I would love to work with, with you on that.
Um, And try to, try to figure that out.
The other question I had related to contracts is where, where, um, are we at in terms of reducing or eliminating sole source contracts?
Sylvester
I am—.
That's probably one of the biggest crusades I've had over my career.
Sameer Kanal
I remember you bringing this up at the dais in the old—.
Sylvester
So yeah, um, we are doing much better than we have done, I would say, considering the structure of procurement as it is today.
However, I would like for it to be, quite frankly, zero in a perfect world.
We have full competition and we have a supported supplier diversity environment, and we are actually procuring that allows for us to get out of the proprietary space.
So I'm working very hard with my thank you.
I think we need to have a better scope of work.
We need to have a better scope of work and a better procurement team in order to do that.
So it's one of my professional crusades.
But also, I'm more going back to what your previous statement— the scope of work decides and defines some of the triggering and some of the governing rules as it relates to procurement.
The better we are with our scope of work and responsible and aligning with our values, that's legally permissible, we can definitely align and with their organizational goals.
I think it's very important.
It shows identity in our procuring.
Sameer Kanal
So yeah, and I think you're highlighting this last bullet point on the good governance slide around partnership with bureaus.
It's not realistic to expect procurement to know the details of the work that a different bureau is contracting out.
So that's the— there's sort of 3 parties.
There's a contractor there, or bidders, I guess.
There's the the bureau that's asking for work to be done, and then there's sort of the procurement check on it.
Sylvester
Correct.
Sameer Kanal
As part of the realignment, how are you approaching the issue of when a contract is being developed, or, or I should say an RFA is being developed, RFP, which procurement is being the check on it?
So to be specific, We had bureau or service area procurement and central procurement that were both weighing in.
And as part of the realignment, is that part of what's changing?
Sylvester
That will be the biggest change, actually.
It will be a standardization of that activity, providing good governance as it relates to RFP development, RFX development, and scope of work, responsible scope of work.
The bureaus as well as core procurement are now going through a series of training that aligns us with the national standards, and that includes how procurement works.
It was something that was initiated as part of my ability to try and be able to give the standardization and evaluate how effective we are in terms of how we're meeting the requirements to the community, to council's values and objectives, as well as the executives.
So it's trying to create a value value-add and strategic partnership in developing everything from the scope of work to vendor performance.
Sameer Kanal
Great.
And I, so I think that the performance piece, I'd love to hear more maybe in the Committee of the Whole or something about how we, what the nature of the division of responsibility is there between the procurement core, I guess, at this point, or core embedded will be aligned if not necessarily the same, and the bureau that's actually doing the contract.
Sylvester
Absolutely.
I consider it a partnership, a very cohesive partnership in a perfect, perfect sense.
But also, I realize that I have a lot of training to do because procurement can be nebulous and it can be quite frustrating at times because we have compliance as well as performance.
Sameer Kanal
One last question.
When we get to the stage of establishing panels to review the bids, and, and this may come up earlier in the process on the decision point on whether or not to contract in the first place, but I don't think there's a formalized structure for that.
Do we have a standard practice, or could we start one of inviting representation from the relevant labor partner to be part of that?
Sylvester
That would be something we can, uh, talk about later.
Maybe I should try and investigate the legalities of that.
I would rather not say yeah, I appreciate that.
Sameer Kanal
Sorry to put you on the spot with that.
That was not one of the prep questions.
Thank you so much, Council President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you very much, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Yeah, I just— and I don't expect anybody to have this detail in front of them, but I just did want to note that we have been told by city employees that there are some contracts where contractors are doing the same work as city employees side by side.
For years.
One specific example we've been given is construction inspectors.
So I just wanted to flag that.
Sylvester
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Yeah, thanks.
Um, I didn't really have a chance to ask questions about the procurement slide, so I appreciate the updates, uh, Sylvester.
Um, can you— on the slide that had the roll-ups on, um, there was that first chart, and I think I think it was slide 3 that talked about the sort of decline over time.
Yeah, this is helpful.
I think this is at the aggregate level.
I would love to see sort of some detailed data on that.
That would be helpful for my office.
I suspect that some contractors are different than others and some program areas are different than others.
I think in particular, if you go to the next slide, This piece is something I've thought a lot about, which is if we're going to use contracting for cost efficiency purposes— I mean, there's a lot of different reasons we use it, but if we're going to do that for cost efficiency purposes, like, what is the ratio between what the bid for the contractor was and what was their total cost through change orders and the like?
And I think that I'm thinking more in terms of capital project contracting than I am other procurement stuff, but I I see you're sort of smiling on that, so I think you know what I'm talking about, right?
Sylvester
That's another crusade, a professional crusade of mine, so thank you for bringing that up.
Dan Ryan
Yeah.
Sylvester
Being a public administrator student, I think that's one of the biggest, one of the bigger things that we probably can quite win, probably be quite a big of a win if we are able to do that, and having some sort of financial engagement with some financial analysts.
Probably, um, on procurement, on our procurement team, to be able to really kind of, for lack of a better term, count the beans.
And I think that's really important.
So thank you for bringing that up.
It's one of the bigger things that I'm actually interested in.
Mitch Green
I'm glad to hear that.
Yeah, I think when we think about, similar to Councilor Kanal's question, when we think about our, um, our sort of unbiased, our ranking system for how we would award a contract, we come up with like clearly identified metrics.
A metric that sort of looked at how often your change order came in above your initial bid and being dinged for that could, could level the playing field, I think, for some contractors who, um, who are trying to do it right.
Dan Ryan
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Colleagues, anybody else, uh, wanting to get into the queue?
All right, looks like that concludes all councilor questions.
Thank you all so much for these presentations.
There's a lot of information.
Colleagues, thank you for all your thoughtful questions on this and for sticking us on it.
We're getting out on time.
That concludes this work session of the Portland City Council.
Thank you.
We are adjourned.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.