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.
Loretta Smith
I'll let you talk again.
Jamie Duong
Good morning.
Dan Ryan
I—.
Sameer Kanal
It is, uh, going to call to order this meeting of the Committee of the Whole of the Portland City Council.
It is June 25th, 2026 at 9:31 AM.
Diego, would you please call the roll?
Mitch Green
Good morning.
Steve Novick
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Here.
Sameer Kanal
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Absent.
Sameer Kanal
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Angelita Morillo
Murillo?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Here, and dealing with some chronic pain stuff, so I'm going to be camera off.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Novick?
Steve Novick
Here.
Loretta Smith
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Here.
Loretta Smith
Green?
Mitch Green
Here.
Dan Ryan
Zimmerman?
Loretta Smith
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Present.
Dan Ryan
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Here.
Jamie Dunphy
Dunphy?
Here.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Here.
And Christopher, would you please read the statement of conduct?
Dan Ryan
Welcome to the meeting of the Finance and Governance Committee of the Whole.
To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda/committee-whole or by calling Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link.
Sameer Kanal
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.
Dan Ryan
In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard.
Robert Taylor
If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the Chair states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The Chair preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption results in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Christopher.
So today we have 3 items on the agenda.
We'll probably spend the bulk of our time in the middle one.
The first item is a chair update, which is what you're used to now, I guess, from the last couple weeks.
We'll do that in just a moment.
The second item is an annual budget process discussion.
So the idea behind this one, colleagues, is that we are looking at We're looking at not the content of our budget.
We'll have plenty of time to discuss that, I'm sure, in other contexts.
But to look at what could be made better from the start of the process all the way through to that final vote that occurred in this year's process last week.
We are looking for something that is the beginning of a conversation that will eventually be actionable and allow for allow for conversations to evolve and eventually lead to changes in the budget process.
I think there's probably something that every person up here would like to talk about.
I have some discussion questions, but I wanna make sure to just give some space for that conversation to start while things are fresh in our mind.
After that, time permitting, this might get shortened, we'll have a conversation possibly about the follow-up to last year's budget note, Murillo 11, which had to do with transparency and information access and creating a framework for that between the, The various branches of our government.
So, uh, are there any requests to amend the agenda?
Seeing none, with unanimous consent, we'll move into the chair update.
I'm getting printouts, so apologies if, uh, no one has that yet, but I— it is posted online.
So I'll just quickly run through what we're looking at here.
The, the big takeaways from the first part, which is upcoming meetings, is that We have next week the council recess.
After that, we have July 9th is our next meeting.
That's a Thursday.
We'll be doing a discussion on Home Forward.
There were planned to be, and there may still be— oh, I'm sorry.
Diego, would you please read item 1?
Item 1, document number 2026-219, committee chair updates.
Great.
Yeah, so July 9th, we'll be talking about Home Forward.
There were planned to be appointments to the Home Forward board.
Those have not been filed yet by the thank you.
So they're still a little up in the air, but in terms of agenda items, we had, um, promised that spot would be available if so.
If not, we're still going to have the discussion on Home Forward in early July here.
Uh, July 15th, as you'll see in the report online, the chair's update online, there are a lot of potential items that could get discussed there.
Um, the one that is confirmed is appointments to the Portland Utility Board.
Vision Zero and appointments to the Prosper Portland Board of Directors are on July 23rd.
The report says Council President, I believe, had said that there's a work session the week before that, July 23rd, something like that.
So there'll be a work session of the full council followed by July 30th, which we anticipate being primarily public testimony, followed by council discussion and potential referral to the full council on August 1st.
Councilor Smith.
August 6th in the committee.
And I could go into more, but everything else is pretty tentative.
When you get to page 2, there's a lot of items that have been floated now for Committee of the Whole.
I've just started putting them here for transparency in our 4 major issue areas of governance, finance, oversight, and emergency response.
If we get to other items as assigned by Council President leadership team, those will be listed here too.
But right now there's nothing on that list.
Getting to the third part, and the fourth part is our update from this week, the Community and Public Safety Committee.
But the third part, we are going to do something kind of modeled off of what Councilor Zimmerman did as chair of the Finance Committee, ask for small groups for the— of the council to help develop options for the full Committee of the Whole on the council leadership election process, which will be coming to council yeah, uh, it's coming to council in the summertime.
Um, and, uh, and then also to ask if any councilors would like to help me plan the run of show for the fire and police disability and retirement.
So this is the top of page 3 now that everyone has the printout.
Um, councilors, uh, Council President Dunphy and Council President Emerita Pirtle-Guiney, would you like to join the Council President Election Process Workgroup?
I want to give you that first right of refusal there.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Happy to.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, Councilor Avalos as well.
I don't know if you are interested in that, but I wanted to offer that to you as well.
Candace Avalos
Sure.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, all right.
Is there one other councilor that might be interested in joining that?
I see— okay, we'll chalk it out, we'll figure it out, and then we'll, we'll get back to you on that, Councilors, uh, Smith and Koyama Lane.
Um, with relation to planning the run of show for future Committee of the Whole conversations on fire and police disability and retirement, are there any councilors that would be like to help out with planning that discussion out?
Seeing Councilor Green.
Yeah, go for it.
Mitch Green
Go, go.
Sameer Kanal
Oh, sorry, go for it.
Mitch Green
Yeah, thank you.
I just wanted to clarify, so the leadership group on the council leadership is about electing the council president and vice president, not the sort of other leadership group that the current council president has convened?
Sameer Kanal
Yes, it is about the election process for the January elections of council president and vice president as well.
Great.
Mitch Green
I've got some ideas about that, but I don't need to be part of that work group.
Looks like you got some great I definitely want to be part of that.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, everybody should feel free to weigh in on that.
But the idea behind this group is to kind of assess what options exist without evaluating them and be able to bring them forward so that we have a preparation in place for a conversation that's not completely starting from scratch.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I'm also happy to step back if Councilor Smith is interested and just kind of share my thoughts with the group.
And I don't need to be in the group, same as thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Novick, you also have your hand up.
Steve Novick
Yeah, I just wanted to state my preference that future 6-6 council president deadlocks be resolved through paper, scissors, rock.
Jamie Duong
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
And any other ideas are also welcome to be given to the group.
We'll definitely list out all the different options there.
On fire and police disability and retirement, other than Councilor Green, is anyone else interested?
In helping plan that run of show out.
We can circle back to you and ask for more volunteers later, or you can follow up with me also.
Okay, and with that, I will pass it over to Chair Novick of the Community and Public Safety Committee to give an update on his committee for transparency for the councilors that are on it and for the public.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
Um, one thing that we've been doing in the committee is just bringing forward people and units of the committee— of the city to explain what they do.
Um, we did that with thank you.
We did it with CSPIRE and then we did it with the FITCOG, just having them talk about their work.
Next week we may have discussions about 2 things that have already come up.
One is Councilor Dunphy's proposal to ban firearms from public buildings.
We had an interesting discussion about that last time.
Councilor Zimmerman brought up the fact that the legislation as filed would make it a felony to bring a firearm into a public building.
So we had a discussion about, wait a minute, do we really want to do that?
Are there other sort of exclusion mechanisms that we could rely on and only in extreme cases might somebody be prosecuted?
So I was hoping that Councilor Zimmerman and I think President Dunphy would be able to talk about that, but Zimmerman's been out.
So that discussion may or may not be revived.
And we had a conversation a couple of weeks ago about whether to pass legislation saying that enforcement of the law against use of psychedelics should be deprioritize in the Police Bureau.
The Police Bureau said that's already not a priority, but the advocates said that it'd be nice to send a signal to people out there that it is not a priority.
And then there's a question of whether to add an advisory committee, have a city advisory committee on psychedelics.
Some of us had some questions about that.
Councilor Kanal is always concerned about, are we, you know, what are we asking people to do in these advisory committees?
I'm a little worried about— I think it's a good idea.
Does the city really have the technical expertise to select an advisory committee in psychedelics?
Isn't that more like a county thing?
So that's a discussion I think we're going to have.
Also next week, we're going to hear the 6-month report from the PSR committee, which is their— which is what they're slated to do.
I've been trying to arrange for some discussions with the county about their connection with us on public safety issues.
I've been trying to get them to come over and talk about the relationship of the ambulances to fire and rescue.
Haven't been able to schedule that yet.
I'm talking to Denise Peña, who's the head of community corrections, about how community corrections fits into the public safety system and with the police.
So those are some of the things I'm trying to get online.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Chair Novick, um, any questions or on for either, uh, myself or for Councilor Novick on this?
I guess we did it together again.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Uh, thank you, uh, Council Chair and Chair.
Um, I think you're right.
I think, uh, we should involve the, the county in, um, Any discussions, but if we have it on our, on our docket and our agenda, we should have the— if we have the expertise to put it on our agenda, we should have the expertise to come up with an advisory committee for, for psychedelics.
Particularly if you're working with advocates who want that.
Somebody asked for it, so I'm sure we could get some expertise from out in the community.
The other piece that I wanted to also report that it's going to come through our committee too is the report on police staff recruitment goals and costs.
Um, I will be, um, actually unveiling the findings at my Coffee with a Cop tomorrow morning.
And so if you'd like to come, you've been there, um, you're more than welcome to, to come.
And we're going to have the police there, we're going to reveal the report and its findings and, and get some feedback from the community.
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Councilor.
I'm actually going to be at the Firefighter Memorial tomorrow morning, so another public safety-related thing.
I think that, um, I can't— that, um, the Bureau wasn't ready to give a presentation on the findings.
You didn't have the right people there for the next Public Safety Committee meeting, so hopefully we can do that like later in July or thereabouts.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, that's— that's— excuse me, can I— yeah.
And that's, that's one of the reasons why we're unveiling it.
People know about it, the press has it, people have been calling me about it.
So we thought since I asked for the resolution and we got that passed, that I should actually unveil the findings because some of those people at Coffee with a Cop were the ones who actually urged me to do it.
So I wanted to make sure that I gave them copies of it and that they knew what was in it and what we found out.
So thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Chair Novick, seeing no one else in the queue, we'll end this chair's update and move on to the next topic.
Diego, will you please call item 2?
Olivia Clark
Item 2, document number 2026-220, annual budget process discussion.
Sameer Kanal
All right, so colleagues, while it's fresh in our mind, um, and while we, I think, are able to meet the needs of Portlanders by being able to narrowly discuss the process of the budget and not relitigate the content of it in this meeting.
Wanted to have an opportunity for people to react to some questions that had come up in the discussion, as well as just their feedback and thoughts on the budget process.
What we're first going to do today is hear the brief update on the legally required parts of the budget process.
This is a streamlined version of what you've heard before.
It'll be from our City Budget Director Ruth Levine.
We'll then have— I'll make some space for the council president past and current to review their experiences if they'd like, and then kind of go through the questions, but also just give you a chance to give any feedback on the process.
The goal of this is to start a conversation.
We're gonna accept non-closure again, but to start a conversation that can eventually yield improvements to the budget process.
And we'll pick up again on this in a month or two, and I'll definitely be in communication with the council president's office for how best to schedule that.
But with that, I'm going to pass it over to— thanks for being here— to City Budget Director Ruth Levine.
Ruth Levine
Great.
Thanks for having me.
Again, Ruth Levine, for the record, City Budget Director.
I'm going to share one slide and— sorry, this should look basically familiar.
Candace Avalos
See if that works.
Ruth Levine
There we go.
Okay.
So I presented something very similar to this back in the fall as we were thinking about the '26-'27 budget process.
But this just at a very high level outlines the process from November to June and then highlights the portions that are required under either state budget law or charter.
So the first column I've grayed out 'cause they're not required under state budget law or charter, but they are sort of a required starting point of the process and they happen in early December, which is sort of building of the base budget for the next year and the forecast updates.
And while they're not required under state budget law, there are reasons why they happen in December.
In particular, the timing of the receipt of some of our major tax revenues like property tax and business license tax.
So, and then the— so the most open sort of time with no requirements is between December and May.
That, and charter requires that the mayor provide the proposed budget by May 5th.
And then that under state budget law, that has to be sort of delivered to the budget committee under state budget law.
So that is council serving as the budget committee.
And then from there, the requirements under state budget law are that the budget committee approves the budget and passes it to the TSCC in, in Multnomah County.
The dates, the exact dates vary a bit because from year to year, obviously, and because we typically ask for, or at least in recent years have asked for a slight extension from what's required under state budget law, but we can only ask for so many days extension.
And so it has worked out to be roughly May 20th.
Okay.
And would continue to be that in upcoming years.
And so the requirements there are the budget is completely balanced.
And then after that point, as you're all familiar with the sort of 10% rule, the appropriations in any given fund can't increase by more than 10% of that fund after that point.
And appropriations is— there are a couple of different definitions of what expenses are under state budget law, so that gets a little tricky sometimes.
But, and then of course the last phase in the process.
So after the approved, the budget committee is done with their work and you go back to being council and the adopted budget has to be heard by roughly June 18th so that we have time to—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Ruth Levine
Get it into the system by the end of the fiscal year.
So that's it on the summary.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you so much, Ruth.
I don't know if there were— if Councilor Smith, if that was a question for Ruth that you wanted to ask or if it was a legacy hand.
Okay, go for it, Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
I don't know if this is a technical thing or not, and I appreciate the December start time, but I actually think with all the— and I know you need time to gather yourself, but I think I think even before December, we need to start in July, August, because it will give us a better— even September after the TAO, because there, there were so many different, um, issues with what was in the budget and how the budget is reviewed that I think we need a little bit more time to, um, to get this together because it's It's a new government, a new thing, and it's not working like clockwork in terms of how we get the information and what it looks like and what it's going to look like in the future.
I still would like to have those things that I gave you in that format.
It's so easy.
The format that it's in right now is not quickly readable.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Smith, we're getting a little ahead of where this is coming up, about to come up.
I just want to clarify, I asked Budget Director Levine to give the legal requirements only so that what we have to do, we're about to get into the what we should do part.
And I just want to make sure the only reason other things are not on here is because I asked for them not to be on here to give us just the parameters of the conversation, which is what are the legal requirements and give space after in a moment when we're done getting the report from Ruth to ideate and to start the process of sort of imagining what a future state could look like.
I will ask one other question that is just a technical one.
Might be a 2-parter actually.
Who does, for the early December, that's the CAL, right?
The inflation adjustment?
Ruth Levine
Yeah, it's a number of things, but that's a big piece of it.
Yes.
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
And then these are done by the budget office, the 2 on the left?
Anonymous, I think, too.
Ruth Levine
Not entirely for every fund.
So every fund has to build their base budget.
We load CAL, which is only for general fund bureaus, and then we do a few other funds as well.
And then there are other forecasts.
So the internal service funds have to build their rates, which is a large and technical process.
And other funds like transportation has their base budget.
And so they're putting that into the system.
So there are a number of technical things that sort of hinge on that early, late November, early December timeframe.
But the biggest time constraint really is around property tax and the sort of, there's a date in, October for business license taxes too.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Any other technical questions for Ruth?
Councilor Wright?
Dan Ryan
Yeah, thank you, Chair Kanal.
I really appreciate this.
This is what— these are the requirements, and I think that the adopted budget deadlines all make sense.
I think we have to just accept that and live with it.
And I also think the ones at the end of the approved budget in May we have to live with.
So a little bit of wiggle room here It's not really a question, but it seems like the only place we have creative license in terms of dates would be the date of the delivery of the mayor's proposed budget within what I'm looking at here.
Ruth Levine
Yeah, I mean, the only requirement is that it's not later than May 5th.
Obviously, the mayor delivered it early this year.
Dan Ryan
And that was appreciated.
How much earlier was it?
Ruth Levine
About 3 weeks.
Dan Ryan
3 weeks earlier.
Ruth Levine
April 20th.
Dan Ryan
It was 3 weeks earlier.
Okay.
And even though it's not on here, I find the most fruitful discussions being the work sessions.
And especially, Mr. Mayor, when you're in the room with us, that's our time to ask more open-ended questions, get to more of the bottom line, understand operations better.
So when we're making decisions up here, we understand the flow of how it hits on the ground.
So I think sometimes those could start earlier, even though it's not in here, because those are really time-consuming.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
And they're so helpful.
And I think we do those perhaps too late.
And so then it feels really rushed after those when we jump into the response to the mayor's proposed.
That would be my one feedback on that.
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
And then since we're just kind of pivoting, I'll let Ruth step off the dais.
Thank you so much.
Colleagues, I gave a discussion question guide out.
Feel free to kind of use this as a rough starting point.
I broke up the questions and I'm going to read them for the audience even though they're posted as well online just so that people understand.
But that first yes.
So the first round, and I'm going to try to say, like, pick and choose how you want to cover this stuff.
I'll give— try to keep it to about 8 minutes in this round and use your time how you want.
But basically, the first part is up to the content of the budget.
That's this round.
The second round is the actual council part of this process.
And the third round is how we do after-action on an approved adopted budget.
So these questions, by the way, were sourced from your comments during the end of the last budget process.
Questions that were raised in the budget note proposal from Councilor Koyama Lane and a couple other places from the previous year as well.
So what should the start of the budget process look like?
Guidance to bureaus on their budget requests.
What should happen between bureau budget request submissions, which is something that we currently do, again, not legally required, but something that's been happening forever, and the mayor's proposed?
The third is what does adequate sequencing look like for a budget calendar?
What items are dependencies?
What items can be done concurrently or completely independently of each other?
So what's a budget calendar look like for the mayor's proposed work sessions, as Councilor Ryan was just alluding to, council consideration and the TSCC?
And finally, what content is needed and/or required for council to make informed decisions?
And this has to do with the content of the budget, which I think Councilor Smith was getting started on.
So these are, and then there's some ideas below that.
We talked about budget content.
We talked about how we make things visible, linking the FTE with what programs they work on, things like that.
How do we make sure we have access to information as a council?
Equivalent to that of the mayor?
And how should the budget be presented in terms of its format, visuals, readability?
So these are open-ended questions.
I think you get an idea of what chronologically we're going for.
So I'm just going to open up the queue and say, you know, please take, uh, however you want to focus on this, please, um, take about up to 8 minutes on it, and then we'll move on to the next round after that.
So we'll go to Councilor Smith first and then Councilor Novick.
Yes, point of information.
Candace Avalos
So just so I'm clear on how to approach the first round.
So the first round is the first chunk of questions?
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, those first 4.
Candace Avalos
And I guess we don't have to do it by that exact— because I kind of wrote my thoughts and it's one big thoughts.
And then I— so I just want to make sure I'm following your directions.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, it's basically through the receipt of the budget by council, everything from as Councilor Smith pointed out, now to the receipt of budget is sort of the timeframe we're looking at here.
And you don't have to talk about these 4 questions.
It's just kind of, those are sort of starting points.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Point of information on that before we all get started.
Steve Novick
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Kanal, is the 8 minutes that you suggested we each have split between the 3 rounds or per person per round?
Sameer Kanal
Per person per round.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, thank you.
Sameer Kanal
It'll be shorter for the other 2.
But you'll get to that.
Steve Novick
It's—.
Sameer Kanal
This one's kind of open-ended more so.
Yeah, um, and that's just to make sure we have time for everybody to get a chance to speak.
Uh, any other points of questions before— okay, Councilor Smith, take it away.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Chair.
Um, I think there are 2 things that we need to do before we can even have this discussion.
I think we need to have a work session on how we break ties, because a lot of our problems through the budget came with 6-6 ties.
We need to get a declarative judgment on what the charter says so that we can effectively have a budget and have not so many 6-6s, and we can get work done.
Because a lot of our work is piling up because we don't have a, uh, a 7th vote.
And I think we need to have a work session so that the public can weigh in on whether or not we have the mayor break all ties or just the underlying.
Councilor and that needs to happen ASAP.
I don't know if it's in this particular committee or if it's something that the council president needs to put forward, but we have to have that.
There's no conversation that can be had because a lot of our problems stem around this 6-6, and we need to get it taken care of.
It is in the charter.
The charter says the mayor breaks all ties.
We have illegally put it in our code that he doesn't.
And so we need to figure out how we're going to deal with this because that is our problem, the 6/6.
I really don't have any other discussion points about this at this time because I think that's what I, I, I want, some kind of commitment from you or from the council president to say we're going to have a, a work session on this so the public can weigh in because I think I think part of the public's frustration through this whole budget process was us not having a tiebreaker.
And so we use the charter when we want to make a point, but we don't use the charter to say, yes, the charter says the mayor breaks all ties.
So we can't use the charter when we want to, when it's convenient.
And so I'd like some kind of, uh, response from you or the council president to be able to put this on, because this is just going to go on.
And then the conversation— and the reason why I want to be in the president's conversation, because we really can't have that conversation because we don't have anybody to break the tie.
And that's, that's at the crux of all of what we're talking about and where the frustration comes from.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
With your indulgence, Councilor Novick, I skipped a step I did skip a step in this and I apologize.
So I'll pick up the queue where we left off.
But I did say I was gonna ask the current and former council presidents to kind of give their feedback before we got into this, and I accidentally skipped that.
Loretta Smith
So my apologies.
Well, can you go back to answer my question?
'Cause I had the—.
Sameer Kanal
I, I, okay.
I don't have a plan for that at this moment.
Okay.
But I'm happy to discuss it with the council president and see whether that conversation fits better here, there, both, either.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Something that— it's a big elephant in the room that people don't want to discuss.
But, um, it's hard for me to take anything else that this council does seriously if we don't follow the charter on everything but just the things that you want to put forward.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Um, I don't know if Councilor— Council President Dunphy, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, who wants to go first, but I want to give you some space to just give your, your experience.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
You choose if you want to go first or second, Council President.
Jamie Duong
Um, I'll go first, just briefly, I don't want to say a whole lot because I actually made a pretty comprehensive statement at the TSCC hearing.
I have a copy of those remarks if anybody wants to see, but I don't want to take that time.
I just want to very briefly say that, you know, my goal at the beginning of taking my responsibility as council president was to provide this body with more time to get information and ask thank you.
For more time for us to be at the dais processing and deliberating, as much advance notice about process as we could get, and to try and leave as few amendments unheard on the cutting room floor.
If you look at the dates and count up the hours that we spent at this dais working on this budget, we did meet all of that.
And yet it still did not feel like it was enough time, and it still did not— we still ended up with unfinished work.
So I have 3 big things I want to say about this.
We roughly tripled the amount of work session time from last year.
But like Councilor Zimmerman said, the legislative branch of this body never fully had access to full and clear program financials.
The decision packages indicate that the administration has granular detail into the maintenance team or what's doing what, but we don't really get to see that, and that continues to be a big frustration.
Thank you.
The process for council learning how these process— how these programs work was really us asking Owen to go and figure out how it worked.
And there are 12 of us, and I cannot imagine the stress that that put on poor Owen.
No matter how much time I tried to commit this body to work sessions, it was never going to be enough because we are sucking information through a tiny straw.
Thank you.
Council, I, I, I— we, we filed a lot fewer amendments this year, and I think that— I hope, I believe that that was partially because people had better information and felt like they were, uh, able to understand what we were doing, but also because there were fewer good options and there were fewer couch cushions for us to check.
Um, I don't know what to do better around the amendment process.
It felt better this year, but still did not feel sufficient.
And I'm not exactly sure how to fix that.
And I'm really open to this body giving me your reflections on what could be done better next year under the next council president.
And my third thing I will just say is CBO needs more staff and council needs additional budget staff specifically too.
We need some dedicated staffing around— I mean, both both budget staff capacity and I believe some independent legal counsel.
So I'm going to leave it at that and I'm going to turn it over to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thanks, Council President, and thank you, Chair Kanal, for giving us all the opportunity to dig in on this and for allowing the Council President and I to share our perspectives.
You know, as I reflect on this budget process and how it related to our first budget process, I was thinking about all of the times that our work has been described as historic and unprecedented, and the fact that I think, Council President, you and I both have stated pretty clearly over and over that that does not give us the space to do anything other than continue to bring the most fair and accessible processes forward that we can.
And 2 years ago, I looked to other bodies, cities' past process, to really think about what we could do and how it could work, and brought us a process with 3 distinct sections of the work that, Council President, I think you built on this year in a way that was very helpful to this body.
Have we been completely successful last year or this year?
Certainly not.
I certainly have a lot of should have, would have, could haves as well, but I think that the continued iteration has been really helpful.
So as I look at our budget process, I see this 3-part process.
Process, the work sessions to dive deep into the budgets with bureaus and service areas, time to lay out the bulk of our amendments, to debate and vote, and then time after the approved and before the adopted to return to the work, pick up loose ends, refine and address things that we didn't quite get right the first time around.
I think that third section, um, is where we can use additional refinement.
And I, I have a specific proposal I'll bring up when I'm in the queue, I think in our second round of questioning.
But as I think about those 3 sections, that's where there's a lot of work to iterate from my perspective.
This council has generally looked for ways to restore critical cuts, and we have shown some areas where we all come together.
We have supported targeted reinvestments in economic development and work workforce.
We've supported parks, both rec programs and maintenance.
We've supported safety and resilience.
And those areas where we come together give us an opportunity to think about how we work in the future.
This year, Council President Dunphy, your work to have us rank and prioritize in advance I think helped to pull these items out and to pull out those areas of agreement.
But I don't think we quite got to the full benefits that yet.
I think there's more work we can do there.
And from my perspective, there is a key reason why.
We spend a lot of time debating packages, weighing our proposals against each other's, and missing opportunities to move forward where there's clear consensus about a problem but not about the solution.
I want us to mull on that some as we go through this process and think about how we iterate for next year.
I also would lay out a few questions for us to think about based on what I've seen over the last 2 years that I think could help us look at where we want to go.
I hope that we consider through this process and the, the future processes that I know the council president has been talking to the administration about for our, our after-action as well how do we want to divide our time between hearing from bureaus and debating with each other?
And where do those things overlap?
How much do we want bureaus answering technical questions while we debate versus really separating those 2 sections of our work?
How do we balance the need to have time with the budget before we start debate for those work sessions and time for debate itself?
And how far can we ask the mayor to push to give us more time before, Mr. Mayor, your proposal is actually less meaningful because you haven't had sufficient budget forecast to work with?
Because we know if we push you back too far, we push back against those forecast dates where you get the information that you need to bring us a realistic proposal.
So how do we want to balance those pressures on time.
What are the pros and cons of balanced amendments versus cut and add concepts separately?
I also would raise that in some bodies, a small group crafts a proposal using the input from their colleagues.
That doesn't work for us for a variety of reasons, but it does allow for— I would suggest that while it has less power for some members of the body, it provides more power to the legislative branch vis-à-vis the executive branch.
And so are there lessons, even if that model doesn't work for us, that we should look to and learn from bodies that operate that way?
And then finally, are we better off addressing the easy things first, risking using up funds that we could have put toward bigger things, or are we better off addressing the big controversial things first, risking running out of time for smaller changes where there might be consensus?
And those are the places that I really struggled with as I thought about how do we put this process together, and that I saw pop again this year.
And I think that the opportunity for this to continue to be an iterative process is really important.
Council President, I think the budget process this year, the way the way that you built on the framework we put together and made some significant improvements was really important, and I hope we continue to do that.
We are working on creating something that will eventually look like institutional knowledge, and I don't think we're in a place where we need to make big wholesale changes that start us over at zero.
But I do think there's more work to do in considering those questions.
So thank you, Chair, and I'll turn it back thank you, Council President.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President Emerita.
We appreciate the feedback and the experience that you both brought to it.
And I'm going to— I'm writing down some questions that I can circle back in from both of your notes.
Resuming the queue on that first round of discussions, I'll pick up where we left off.
So Councilor Novick, please feel free to take it away.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
To me, the beginning of the budget discussion should come well before the budget discussions, the official budget discussions.
And I would like us to make an effort in November or December to hear presentations from at least some of the bureaus, the ones we tend to argue about the most, at least from police, fire, and parks.
And I think probably PBOT in particular because they're funding, you know, because partly because of the increased funding they're getting.
Thank you.
Where they just explain to us, here's what our budget is, here's how much is personnel, here's how much is EMS, here's various types of EMS.
And I know that the members of the council, some more than others, have said in the past, well, we just don't have enough basic information about this bureau's budget.
I would like to, before we get into March, have the bureaus make those presentations and have councilors say, okay, I don't think you've given me enough detail on this.
Can you give me more detail?
Ruth Levine
Thank you.
Steve Novick
So that by the time we get to March, we all should have a pretty good working understanding of the major budgets.
And because any year's budget is— the starting point is the last year's budget.
So I mean, one thing I want to do is avoid the Washington Monument problem, because if councilors don't have a good understanding of the budget, they think any cut proposed is a Washington Monument.
And And if— and also, but also they might be, you know, less willing to accept, and they're also not in a position to say, well, no, you shouldn't cut the Washington Monument, but here's— you should cut the Jefferson Memorial.
Here's what it is.
So I just think that that basic understanding, I mean, have all of us go into January with a basic understanding of the budget and, or at least an opportunity to have asked those questions.
Would be very valuable.
And then, because I don't want to get to a situation where we're going through the budget process and people are saying, well, for God's sake, this budget is not— I mean, these budgets are not transparent at all, I don't have the spreadsheets, etc., etc.
I'd like to have had those conversations on November and December 1st.
Candace Avalos
Mr.
Loretta Smith
Chair, point of information.
Candace Avalos
Yes.
Loretta Smith
Can we do that before the mayor actually drops his budget?
Can we actually do that?
Because we don't know what he's gonna put in his budget.
So how can we talk about a Washington Monument if we don't know what's in it?
Sameer Kanal
So first, for the record, point of information is about the process, not about the content.
But I'm gonna let—.
Loretta Smith
Well, I'm talking about the process of the budget.
How can we do what he suggested?
Sameer Kanal
I'm gonna let the city administrator, 'cause yeah, give a brief comment on that, then we're gonna go back to the queue.
But yeah.
It would just be an overview if we did this of kind of where we are right now.
And there's gonna be some thought and consideration yes.
To moving back to a CA potentially producing a report before the mayor's budget comes out to kind of give that preliminary overview of what's happening from a budgetary standpoint with the city.
It won't be a balance because by law we're not— we can't give a balance, but it will give some— it could potentially give some insight to the council of what we're looking at from an operational standpoint.
From a financial standpoint and what service delivery we're looking at that will help really set up the mayor's proposed budget.
So we're talking through that now.
We're still in just our infant stages of kind of debriefing on our standpoint of what that will look like.
But a lot of cities in this type of form of government have a kind of preliminary budget that is produced before the mayor's recommended budget comes out.
Okay.
And I want to look at that to see how that may work into this timeline.
And it could set up for Councilor Novick kind of conversations that he's referring to.
Thank you, CA Lee.
And Councilor Novick, you saw the floor actually.
Steve Novick
Yeah, I just want to respond to that.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I mean, I think that would be useful too.
What I'm talking about is us simply having a conversation where we get a better understanding of what this year's budget is.
And I don't think there should be any legal barriers to having that discussion.
One thing that was valuable to, I think, Councilor Murillo and other— and me and other members of the Climate Committee was that in the Climate Committee, we had extensive discussions of the parks budget.
So we thought we had a pretty good handle on that going into the overall budget discussions.
I would like the whole council to feel like, you know, before the budget process starts at all, like, okay, I know how the police spend their money.
I know how parks spends its money.
I know what fire spends its money.
That's what I'm talking about.
Not a preview of the coming budget, just a better understanding of the current budget.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
We'll go to Councilor Clark, followed by Councilor Avalos.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Chair Kanal.
I think this is going to be a really rich conversation, and I appreciate the way you've set it up.
I think it's very hopeful, although I know we're going to skip around.
I also really want to appreciate our president and past president.
Really appreciate how we built on what you did, Councilwoman.
Great comments, really resonate with me.
I want to also thank Ruth and Owen.
You must have the patience of Job, Owen, for what we put you through.
Just a couple comments, and I certainly won't take 8 minutes.
I didn't think that the Bureau presentations were really helpful, uh, at the level that we received them.
It was— it almost seemed like a token.
Um, and I think one of our major problems is that the budget is so difficult to understand.
It's so difficult to get through it.
It's difficult to track things.
And I know that, uh, councilors, uh, Smith and Zimmerman have repeatedly referenced the Multnomah County budget as a different way of doing things.
So I hope that the administration looks at a different way of doing things to make this more accessible to us, more easier to understand.
And I think that is then linked to the sequencing, that if we had a budget that's easier to understand, then the time frame might be okay.
I think they're— I think they're linked.
That would help.
I also am curious to know how our priorities that we established at that one-day retreat we had are going to fit into this?
Are you going to pay any attention to the things that we said at that priority-setting session?
That seems that ought to offer the administration something.
Let's see, what else do I want to say about that?
I just, I think that the different format of the budget is really, um, a basic to part of our problem here and getting our head around it.
I think that would be really helpful.
I'll just stop there and, and reserve the right to say more later.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Clark.
Councilor Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
So yeah, I have a lot of thoughts.
I'm going to try to put them into this category for now, but I think the main thing that I have reflected on after the last 2 budget cycles is that I keep coming back to this one idea that the quality of our decisions are only as good as the quality of the information that we receive.
I think that's what we're all saying in different ways.
So I just want to add my voice to that because I feel like it's hard to do anything without the proper information.
And that goes beyond the budget.
I think the modus Center stuff is another example of us not receiving enough information in time to make good decisions.
So I think that we need to build a pre-budget process that's also grounded in evidence and transparency and in long-term planning.
I think we've had a lot of short-sighted discussions, understandably given the you know financial constraints that we have in the.
In the next coming years, but I really hope that we can start to build our muscle of looking more long-term as we're doing our annual budget process.
I think that the process should begin with a shared understanding of the city's financial conditions.
So we should be receiving things like a 5-year outlook early, and that should include things like structural deficits, reserve strategies, one-time funding cliffs, Second, I think that before proposals become part of the mayor's recommended budget, they need to be stress tested.
And what I mean by that is we need to be talking with bureau experts, frontline employees, and labor partners to understand operational risks and unintended consequences.
And if there are mistakes or better alternatives, then we should discover those before the budget is As it relates to sequencing, I think we found ourselves learning critical information really late in the process this year and last year.
I agree that the— I'm grateful that we were able to triple the amount of time in, you know, discussion with each other in the, like, work sessions and all that.
But the content of the work sessions were not very fruitful.
I agree.
I think that we continue to get a lot of narrative and not numbers.
And we also just— what I didn't like is we were approaching every discussion with the Bureau from a, what are we cutting?
Here's just what we're cutting.
We didn't have a discussion about what are the services we're trying to deliver?
What are the expectations for each budget and each bureau and how they respond to Portlanders' needs.
So it just felt like a very narrow conversation.
And again, brings me to that, like, how do we get to that longer-term planning, that bigger picture look, so that we're not just kind of mirrored in these, like, little details of what line items we're cutting, and instead can make broad decisions as a legislative body?
And I just think we need to front-load all of that work so that by the time that the budget thank you.
So that when the budget, the proposed budget reaches council, we've already had a rigorous analysis and enough time to digest all of that information.
Finally, I think that the single biggest improvement that we could make is requiring position-by-position service impact analyses before major reductions.
That was very much for me a huge issue in this last budget.
Before we eliminate a position, we should know exactly what work that person does, whether that work will continue, who's gonna perform it, What are legal or contractual implications?
And most importantly, what are Portlanders going to actually notice in those changes?
Because Portlanders aren't thinking in terms of FTEs.
They think in terms of who's going to answer that 311 call or their parks getting maintained or are emergency response times increasing?
So I think that if we can connect dollars to real-world outcomes and provide council with the complete information that we're all desperately asking for before decisions get made, then we'll be able to build back some public trust in the process and make better budgets as a result.
I have a lot of other general thoughts as it relates to governance and this conversation about the ties.
I mean, I feel like I've been over and over, I've stated what the intent was.
So I'm not gonna relitigate that right now.
But I do think that at the end of the day, Um, we need to hold ourselves accountable to getting to a 7.
Like, it's not about the tie, it is about what it takes to win.
Even if it's a non-even number of members, you still need to get to a win number.
So, um, I think that we are getting bogged down by this whole tie thing, and it's a distraction from the real governance that we need to do, which is build proposals along, uh, coalitions across this dais so that we can get to yes and get to that 7th vote.
So I am not interested in going back and forth about the tie.
I think that is a, um, short-sighted view of our big governance problems that we need to have a discussion about.
Dan Ryan
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Next up is Councilor Ryan, followed by Councilor Green.
Dan Ryan
Thank you so much, Chair, and this is a great process.
Uh, I would start— I agree with many things being said.
I'll try to weave those in.
I would ask that City Administrator Lee, that you would do a similar debriefing process like this with your team and the staff.
I think it will be important for us as a council to hear what your findings are of that conversation so together we can keep moving forward.
Does that make sense?
Jamie Dunphy
Yes.
Dan Ryan
Thanks.
Um, in terms of the sequencing, I would say that the— to Councilor Clark's point, I think that the council priorities conversation we did in March was a good start.
I think we should try to go deeper with that and we should do it in the fall.
And again, the more we're in a relaxed setting without devices in front of us, but actually learn how to listen and talk to each other about what our priorities are would really be helpful.
I think we landed one in this last one, for example, and that was we wanted to improve response times, emergency response times.
And kind of then to your point, I think it's to your point, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, that would've distinguished like a big rock issue that we could've dove into deeper, and that was a priority.
And Mayor and all, I would say that then you wouldn't have cut anything from public safety if there was 100% clarity that that was one of our priorities.
Then we wouldn't have had to spend so much time trying to build that back.
And so that was the one I recall that we had some pretty clear agreement on.
And I even think with with 6 to 6 votes, I found that we were scratching the surface of finding where those priorities could come together.
And we might have different nuances and amendments within them, but still, let's try to do that again.
I think that would be really helpful and save us a lot of time when we get to that.
I think economic forecast and for all of us to really understand our revenue so we go into the budget season with so much knowledge and An understanding, a shared understanding about what our revenue is so that we know if we're looking at a surplus or if we're looking at a deficit and what is that.
So it just trains our brain going into it, some acceptance.
If it is this much of a deficit, that means that there will be layoffs.
And let's just like kind of accept that and then make sure that we do our diligence.
I hope the day will come when we see our business licenses tax revenue increase again and we start to see surpluses, and that will be obviously more fun.
But trust me, I've been on both sides.
That's also quite stressful, and it's quite a frenzy because a lot of people come to the trough once they hear there's a surplus.
So the economic forecasts, I think, could be more consistent, and I think we could take them more seriously and spend more time with them.
I thought the work sessions were wildly improved, and I want to say thank you to that.
I hope again we can look at more relaxed settings than being by the I thought they worked so much better in my experience when we were around tables talking about these issues.
And to Councilor Avalos's point, to really understand what are the priorities of service delivery.
So we start to listen to what the bureau and the work area's priorities are and for them to be more confident about that.
Because she was right that we were too much in a deficit mode.
So when we'd go into the meetings, we were just listening to what they were cutting.
So it wasn't a conversation that was telling us what are you for, what are your have-tos, and we didn't really get to hear that.
It got too micro in my opinion too quickly.
I think the mayor's proposed budget should always come out in mid-April, and then that would allow us as a council to, I think, improve our timeline on when we put all our amendments out.
And so that we give the public not a half a week, but at least a week and a half.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Yes.
Dan Ryan
Of time to organize and think what their response is to all of our amendments.
I think the coming out on Friday and having all of the people be here earlier in the week was just really hard.
It was like a long weekend.
That was about it.
And I know that President Dunphy, you did your best to not allow that to happen, but I think we could be more disciplined on making sure that we have more time for that.
I will just say that the conversations on the tiebreaker are, I think, necessary to your point, Councilor Smith.
I think that we are clear about ordinances, but I think the budget amendments are something we need more dialogue on 'cause those amendments are high-dollar amendments.
And I think that to not allow that to be a tiebreaker is where I'm feeling the most frustration, which is why the public look, I've done 2 work sessions, or sorry, neighborhood meetings since.
And that was the number one thing they wanted to talk about.
Why couldn't the mayor break the tie when you were doing all those amendments?
So it seems like that is something that's out there and people that voted yes on the charter are asking that question.
So I think we do need to spend more time on that.
I agree with you, President Dunphy, about the legislative budget shop.
I think that's really smart.
It seems like it's under capacity.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
And it's a system that we have to figure out how to build.
Anyway, I do think we made progress from last year to this year, and I just want to acknowledge that.
And, uh, I hope that this conversation, which was wise to have, will help us continue to make that improvement.
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Uh, Councilor Green is next in the queue.
Mitch Green
Uh, thank you, Chair Kanal.
Uh, I just want to begin by saying I really I really appreciated the opening comments by our current and previous councils— council's president— council presidents that, you know, we're building something new here.
And I just think that while it has been frustrating both years in a row, the obligation to do it and to do it right is an extraordinary toll.
Thank you.
And so you both have done an admirable job in building an institution and we're learning from each other.
And so Council President, you've built upon Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's work and I think that that's how this body builds its institutional strength.
So thanks to both of you and I really appreciate your framing comments.
I wanna stick to the sort of structure that you've tried to give us here, Councilor Kanal.
What should the start of the budget process look like?
I'm going to go back to— we floated at times sort of obliquely this concept of a biennial budget process.
This is something we've actually talked about in the Financial Stability Workgroup that has people outside the City of Portland, people in business, people in nonprofits.
And the reason why I say this is because we do have a lot of volatile revenue.
And that's the business license tax.
It is the source of— it's probably the single largest source of the volatility in our revenue.
And so if we want the priority-setting exercise that we have, which I really supported, if we want that priority-setting exercise to lead towards priority-based budgeting, then it's very difficult to do that inside of one fiscal year.
I think that we might want to consider adopting a 2-year budget cycle where every other year, the off year is where you do the big supplemental budget adjustments.
And, you know, I understand that there's forecasting recency bias stuff going on.
Like, you do want to build a budget with the best to-date information that you can, but it's always a bit of an arbitrary cutoff.
And so we have a very capable city economist, and I think that if you're saying, look, we've adopted priorities for the City of Portland that we know we don't want to change much over the next 3 to 5 years because these are pretty core, then you should be able to build a budget around funding those priorities.
That probably does require a little bit of a conservative forecasting methodology, but then if you get a windfall or if you get better revenue than you expected, well, guess what?
That can accrue to reserve funds.
That can go to pay off outstanding debts or to sort of like invest in some future thing like our asset management backlog.
And so that's probably where we need to go to build the space to have kind of the more thoroughgoing conversations.
I really like the idea of— I've been struggling with like, how do we bring some of this stuff into the committees more?
And with our current existing timeline, it's not possible.
Like, you can't really have committee hearings around budget amendments because there's just not time to receive the mayor's proposed budget, which is when budget season really begins, when you can actually actually talk about that legally in some sense.
But to follow on Councilor Novick's suggestion, if we're starting kind of asynchronous in some sense by having kind of budget-based hearings for the current existing extant budget where we can get into some of the meat and potatoes of these bureau operations and we've adopted a biennial budget process, now you do have space to have committees talk about how that budget for that bureau is either setting them up or undermining or having a blockage for the kind of long-term priorities that we've adopted as a council and that presumably the executive is in partnership with.
So we might want to think about distinguishing like a medium-term budgeting process from some of that near-term more flexible work because you do have to be flexible with changing conditions and that's what a supplemental budget process process is for.
So that's just one idea.
I do think it's probably not feasible to like, you can't flip a switch and adopt a biennial budget process.
That's going to take a little time to think through what the impacts are and what resources we need to establish.
So I support starting the budget process in November or December by having kind of, I would say, still formal discussions with bureaus to talk about, okay, we've adopted a budget, you're a few months in, Let's get into the weeds here.
Is your budget aligned with our priorities?
I think that'll help us.
I support, you know, the city administrator bringing forward kind of like a kind of pre-budget report, so to speak.
But the other thing I want to kind of flag is I think it needs to be a little bit more clear when we talk to budget or talk to bureaus and talk to kind of service areas who the decision maker is.
Robert Taylor
Yes.
Mitch Green
Is it the bureaucrats?
Is it the technocrats?
Is it the city administrator's delegated deputy city administrators?
Or is it the mayor?
These are important questions because from council's perspective, from an independent budget committee perspective, a legislator's perspective, I want to know what the technocrats need to tell me.
And I want to know if they're free to tell me what they need to tell me or whether or not they're subsumed under a sort of one-voice message that that may or may not be consistent with, you know, the long-term priorities of the city.
So that's, you know, that requires more conversation.
But, and then finally, I think the CBO, I think we really should return to an independent CBO.
I understand that there's a hierarchy of reporting and accountability, but that doesn't mean we should have a CBO kind of subsumed underneath the executive branch.
Thank you.
The way that it is currently.
We used to have a very independent CBO that evaluated the suitability of anyone's budget, whether you're the mayor or a city councilor.
And so that's going to require more resources, no question.
But I think to the extent that we can adopt a code change to make that a little bit more explicit, we should.
And this is what they do in other governments.
I mean, the federal government famously has an OMB, which is an independent scoring agency.
So we need to have that.
Let's see.
Finally, I think the— actually, there's other stuff I can get into round 2 and 3.
So maybe I'll leave it there for now.
Dan Ryan
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Koyama Lane, and then it'll be Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Chair.
And I did want to start with thanking you for putting thought into this and putting this and I know this is something you've been thinking about for weeks.
And thank you, Vice Chair Ryan.
I know we've had some preparation, some conversations just about governance.
How can we make sure this runs more smoothly?
I echo what Councilor Green was sharing about our 2 council presidents and the building upon previous years.
And I hope that continues and agree with that.
I appreciated A little bit more focus on timekeeping this year.
I really appreciated a suggestion from AFSCME President Martineau about— I think it was him— who asked that we take our names off of amendments.
So this is not so much as it's one councilor's amendment, you're going to need 7 people to pass it anyway.
I would like to see us consider that next time.
I liked— I'm not sure if we do this the same way, but I like the idea of ranking and prioritizing some of the different amendments and budget notes.
And I can just say this here, one of my biggest things for that workgroup around voting for our next council president and vice president is how can we maybe even think about doing some of that if we want to, like, have different slates as options, president, vice president, and think about how there's some sort of prioritizing there too.
So we're not sitting there going 6-6 in public.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Over and over again.
You know, as I learn more about going through the budget process, I understand that there are certain due dates and things that, you know, the mayor has to wait for until he knows exact numbers, and you have to kind of get to tax day.
And there— I would love some clarity on what can we do based on timelines.
There's some work that we could just— we can start right now.
We can start some things around process and engagement.
And what are some of the things that you really have to wait for?
What are some things you can kind of do and then you can fill in the numbers later?
But would love to understand a little bit more what is possible starting July 1st and what needs to wait.
I appreciate the different experiences that folks bring up here on the dais, and I do continue to hear from especially 2 of my colleagues who have experience at the county who keep saying, you know, their experience at the county is quite different.
They would get different spreadsheets, and I'm seeing nodding.
I don't know exactly what that means, but when they talk about that, I think, oh, that sounds really interesting.
I would love that.
I would love to see that.
So please ask them what they're talking about and what they got at the county, because I— because, yeah, and I saw some examples like that.
Rather than getting a narrative, I would love to see that.
Thank you.
I, you know, I'm— maybe we'll get overwhelmed and have all these like numbers.
And, um, but I think I, I would— I'm really interested in what that process is and what we can learn from that.
Um, let's see, I'll talk about that one on the next item.
You know, I, I have said this before, I do appreciate Councilor Smith thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Dan Ryan, for your tenacious tenacity.
I think we're going to keep hearing about the 6-6 tie-breaking thing for a long time.
For me, I do feel like it's pretty settled.
I know it's not for everyone because we have heard from our city attorney.
And also, I understand that there are times that it's appropriate to push back on the city attorney and have those questions.
But we did vote on some code there, and I'm almost wondering if we're trying to I think it's a way to solve some issues in maybe some wrong ways.
Like, we tend to be deadlocked.
There tends to be friction there at times.
You know, I'd say on amendments, not necessarily— we haven't had it yet on a full item.
And so that does seem like a fix.
I'm almost wondering if some of the councilors that are really wanting another opinion.
I mean, we have these big council budgets.
Like, can you pay for some outside counsel to give an opinion?
I'm wondering if that's an option, because it almost seems like there's frustration over some of our challenges to figure out how to negotiate, to get past those 6-6 on amendments at times.
And that seems like one option.
It almost seems in the same category as when Councilor Novick kind of jokes, but not totally is joking about like, let's get a 13th councilor.
Olivia Clark
Yeah.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And then my opinion is actually we vote someone off the island instead, and then we get an odd number that way.
Um, also mostly joking.
Uh, and then I, I do want to say, um, around the budget, the mayor does actually break the tie in a de facto way, because if it fails 6-6, then we revert to the mayor's proposal.
Um, so.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, and then I'm next in the queue.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Chair Kanal.
So a couple of thoughts here.
First, you asked the question about what the guidance to bureaus should be.
And I want to be careful in answering that because I do think that that falls clearly within the mayor's prerogative.
But Mr. Mayor, I would very much request that in any budget scenario, cuts or an adds budget, we are asking bureaus for both cuts and add packages.
For us to fully understand not just here's where we're at, how do we make the least amount of adjustments possible, but here's where we're at and how do we get to our goals.
We have to look at what bureaus would propose to cut to meet the current budget scenario and what they think they must add to meet the values of our city.
And it may be that we say we can't do any of those adds, but it may be that we say we're willing to cut a little deeper in something else in order to get at that.
Those are things we as the council don't have a sightline into unless you ask that question during your budget guidance to the So I would ask that that just become a common practice in a cut or an add budget scenario so that we can get the best budget to meet our goals and not just the budget that addresses in the least— the way of least changes our budget scenario.
Mr. City Administrator, I am going to strongly ask you to not put out, a city administrator proposed.
And there's a reason for that that gets to an answer in round 2, but I'm going to say it now because I think it is so important and so tied to the second question that Chair Kanal asked.
This year we were able to have 2 rounds of outreach to Portlanders, one before there was a proposed and one in response to the mayor's proposed.
And they were very different rounds of outreach.
Outreach.
Because once Portlanders see a proposal, they are reacting to that.
Once we see a proposal, we are reacting to that.
And I really value an opportunity to hear from Portlanders neutral of a proposal that they're reacting to, but simply reacting to their experience on the ground living in this city under today's budget, what they think we need to invest in.
More in and what they think we might be able to do less of.
And if you put out a city administrator proposal before we have that round of feedback from Portlanders, we won't get clean feedback.
We will only hear reaction.
I do think there's value in seeing what flat even cuts would look like.
If we take this cut across the board, that would be X percent from each bureau, and therefore Y number of dollars from each bureau.
Here's what that looks like in comparison to the programs that they run.
We're not weighing in on any specific program that would get cut.
We're just showing you the breakdown of what this bureau does, what each of the broad-based programs cost, and how much they need to cut if we cut evenly, knowing that we're likely not going to cut evenly, but it gives us an understanding of scale and scope in the budget.
Something like that.
Thank you.
That is technically balanced, so we need to not call it a budget proposal, but that shows us what we're looking at in each bureau could be very helpful.
But anything where we start to pick winners and losers before we can hear neutrally from Portlanders, I think puts us— I think takes a step backwards from the process that we had this year.
I want to I want to speak to question 4, Chair Kanal, because I absolutely believe we need to budget at a more detailed level.
Not just see the budget at a more detailed level, but budget at a more detailed level.
When we budget at a funds level, there will always be questions about, well, what is this actually and where does it actually get and I want to be clear, I am not asking that council budget per position.
I understand that bureaus need some flexibility, conditions on the ground change.
We allow double fills and other things like that for a reason.
But there is a lot of space between what we do now and a per position budget.
And we have to find somewhere that we land within that space.
That to me drives how we get information.
Because right now we can't actually budget at that more specific level because we do not have the information to do that.
I also feel very strongly that I need both information about cost and program impact.
So when I ask for what is being cut, I want to know how much money is being cut, and I want to know what programs or positions that means we're cutting.
And I hear a lot of conversation about one or the other.
Well, we gave you the information about the positions, but we want the spreadsheet.
Well, we gave you the spreadsheet, but how does that line up to the positions?
No, this is not an either-or, folks.
I can't make good decisions for Portlanders unless I understand what the cost is and what the program impact is.
So however we get that information, Thank you.
There are good examples at the county.
There are good examples at the state.
I am sure there are good examples in other cities in our region, but it needs to include both program impact package, program packages, and dollar impact in a way that lines up where I'm not on a treasure hunt saying this document shows me these positions, this document shows me these program packages, and this I think that's just a really critical piece of our ability to do business.
The final thing that I will note in this section is that a few people have talked about better support from the budget office, and I really value the suggestion to have a budget analyst who is a neutral budget team.
I don't want to spend our limited resources recreating a legislative budget office separate from our executive budget office, separate from an administrative budget office.
We just do not have the resources to do that.
But if we can ensure that that team has the staff they need, that that team has staff who are dedicated to working with council, That, that team is neutral so that everybody, whether they are working with council or spending most of their time on the mayor's proposed, is in a position of offering neutral information and not supporting one proposal over another.
I think we can get the work done.
I've really valued the time we have gotten from Owen.
I really valued the extra time we got with him this year.
If we are asking too much from one person, let's make sure we can get a second person helping us.
I don't think we need a full office year-round.
I do think we need a neutral office serving us all year-round.
I'll save my other remarks for rounds 2 and 3.
Thank you, Chair.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
I'm next in the queue, and then we'll go back around to second rounds, starting with Councilor Smith.
Make sure I time myself here.
So I really appreciate everyone's comments on this.
The things that I sort of prepared on each of these, I want to start with one of the things, the biggest things I noticed at the start of this process, the idea of annual budget guidance from the mayor that changes so much year over year and mayor to mayor stresses out not only the leadership and bureaus, but also the unions.
And I noticed it was not legally required in the slides.
And if Dana, if you can share that slide again for like 30 seconds just to show that, I'd appreciate it.
I respectfully disagree that this is the mayor's prerogative until and unless I see a legal requirement, and I've asked for it for months now and not received it.
I can share that too.
Please do.
I'd like to change to the idea of council guidance, either through a form of a yearly resolution to give guidance to the bureaus or through the form of parameters within which the mayor's guidance can live.
And for the same reasons, actually, that Councilor Pirtle-Guiney mentioned.
Even in good years, we should hear cut options.
There's always room for potential efficiencies, and I think we all agree on that.
Even in bad years, we should consider increasing each bureau's budget.
That doesn't mean that we're going to increase them all.
We should at least know how it would happen.
We could cut $100 million around the city and also add $1 million to a specific bureau if needed, or vice versa.
I'd love to see either something like that annual resolution where we start with the previous years and adjust, or a code where we say something like, Like every bureau must give a cut package of 3%, an increase package of 3%, a 0% change, and a 4th scenario that mirrors the fund change.
Like the general fund is going up by 6%, this year we put up 6%.
Long story short, we need to have the information we need at the end of the process, but also throughout it.
This is the biggest place that that information is created.
So we should collaborate with the mayor to ensure that our needs are reflected in bureau requests up front.
I'm not ready today for a biennial budget, but I do like the idea of discussing it further.
I like the idea of reducing the number of adjustments, and I'll add that we should say technical if and only if it's technical.
And I also agree with Councilor Ryan about understanding the revenue side up front.
No notes on that.
I agree.
On the second question, between the bureau budget request and the mayor's proposed is when I think we should have the work sessions.
I agree with Councilor Ryan that earlier is better.
I also agree with Councilors Clark and Avalos that the content was not helpful on the whole.
I do think there were some major improvements this year in consistency and presentation.
But I'm not interested in hearing the narrative of yes, we're making cuts, but no, there'll be no reductions in service from every bureau when at best that's difficult to do and requires no explanation, and at worst it's magical thinking.
We need the bureaus to give us information before they have to defend the mayor's choices in the proposed budget.
One thing I do want to really commend in this period is the mayor's one-on-ones with councilors.
The mayor has not always made the proposals that I would have you know, suggested.
But for 2 years running now, I have personally felt very listened— I've listened to during those processes and I felt heard as well.
On the third part about adequate sequencing, I don't have much to change here.
I thought the calendars were pretty good on the whole, and I want to thank Councilor Zimmerman for putting that first one together last year, and then we kind of iterated on it.
The only thing I'd ask for which relates to it is a return to the city administrator's recommendations.
Okay.
I must respectfully disagree with Councilor Pirtle-Guiney on that, although I do agree with the flat even cuts info.
I thought that was really good.
I don't view it as a proposal.
I view it as informational.
And 2 years ago when we used to get 26 unevenly sequenced bureau requests PDF combined into a single document, that was helpful.
But this is— that was such a huge change from '24 to 2025.
So yeah, I think if we iterate off of CA Jordan's version last year, we can make it better.
And I'd like to talk more about that.
On the last question in this round, I could probably spend an hour on this, and this was the big question, but I just, I'll give the highlights.
I want to switch from major object budgeting to commitment item budgeting.
Personnel versus EMS versus IMS is not detailed enough.
That's all we technically budget.
The rest is effectively supporting those numbers.
But not themselves the number.
I think it provides too much flexibility throughout the year to bureaus.
I've also heard line item budgeting, which I think provides too little flexibility to the administrative side and the bureaus.
And there, there are middle layers in the way we break down the budget.
I think there are 6 levels of the way we calculate appropriations.
I imagine on the budget side it's a different number, but I know there's a middle ground there and I'd like to find it.
I'd like to switch to program offer budgeting from decision package budgeting, both from the perspective of finding where the original idea was.
You have to know the first year we made the program happen and the decision package to create the program.
And for this program, it might be 2007, and for this program, it might be 2015.
So you have to find 2 different budgets to really dig into the details of it.
Otherwise, we only evaluate it when the mayor proposes the change, and I think we should evaluate everything the mayor proposes changing, but also broaden it.
And I think having the program offers makes it more complete.
I also think that having consistency in that scenario is important.
For example, some this year, some of the equity impacts sections were about the equity impact of the program, and some of them were about the equity impact of the change proposed to the program.
And I think you can see that difference throughout the 1,100-page budget, which leads me to— I'd like to shorten the length of the budget.
Thank you.
This year it was something like 1,100 pages.
Last year it was 400-ish pages.
This year had less detail, less narrative, more spreadsheets.
We've talked about this a lot.
And for anyone who doesn't have the privilege of normally sitting next to Councilor Smith, when she had the spreadsheet physically in her hand, take a look at that physical county spreadsheet because I kind of agreed in a theoretical sense.
And then I saw it and I was like, oh, this is the thing.
This would be a lot better.
So I really appreciate that opportunity to—.
Thank you.
The last thing I want to mention, it's not related to one of the questions, but I will say I recognize other people might have different experiences, but I'm just going to give my experience.
My experience is that the CBO is already neutral.
I have felt adequately served by them.
I think they are understaffed, and I think that because they have to do the particular things they have to do in supporting the creation of the budgets, and then they don't necessarily have as much time to do the work that they need to do, much capacity for everything else and everyone else.
I can see how that would be perceived as you don't have time for my idea, but you have time for the mayor's.
I will say I, I have felt very, uh, well served given that constraint.
That's my experience.
I recognize others might have other ones, but I wanted to make sure that I got that on the record.
Um, all right, next in the queue is Councilor Smith, followed by Councilor Clark.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Could I have Robert Taylor come up to the—.
Sameer Kanal
And, and just to be clear, the part about council consideration, which would include the tiebreak, is technically part of the next thing.
Loretta Smith
I'm not, I'm not talking about that, sir.
Sameer Kanal
All right, go for it.
Loretta Smith
Okay, um, I just want to go back to a couple things.
And first, I want to say this year's process in having more work sessions It was amazing and outstanding.
It was great.
And I'd like to see more of that.
That was really good.
And having the numbering of priorities through the amendments, that was really good to be able to look at those.
I don't want to take people's names off of stuff.
I think people need to own what they put forward.
Thank you.
The reason why I want you up here, Robert, because I heard a couple things, and I know the state does a 2-year budget, which is, which is fine.
But as I'm looking in Article 1, Section 2-128 of the city budget in the Portland Charter, it says, it says that the mayor must submit a proposed budget to the City Council by May 5th of each year.
The City Council serves as the budget committee and is responsible for approving the budget.
That means each year.
And then city funds may only be expended in accordance with a budget approved by council.
So my question to you is, there are a lot of ideas about how we do the budget and if we do the budget, you know, every 2 years.
According to charter— and I'm, I'm saying this, trying to say this with a straight face— according to the charter, can we as council change code and make it so for 2 years?
Doesn't that have to thank you.
Robert Taylor
Robert Taylor, City Attorney.
I agree with you.
I think the charter does contemplate an annual budget, both in the language that you quoted and then elsewhere in the charter where it talks about the mayor and administrator preparing an annual budget.
So the charter does contemplate we do a in annual increments.
I do think that there are ways to comply with that charter provision where we do an annual budget and also try to do more longer-term planning.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, that's good.
And I think that's appropriate for the administrator and the mayor.
I just don't want us— I think we are, as a council, we have a lot of great ideas.
And, um, we're, we're doing this work in real time, but I think we're, we're doing administrative overreach, and that overreach is sometimes going into the, uh, city administrator's box, and then it's going into the mayor's box and telling him how to do.
We have that ability, but not before he has to drop that budget first, and then we can give him direction.
We can't give him direction right now and tell him how to do this.
He has that That sole prerogative.
And I want us to stay in our lane.
I want us to be policymakers.
We are not over budgets.
We can't review those and tell them what to do because they report to the administrator and to the mayor.
They don't report to us.
And so as we're talking about this, and I think because of our long history of the previous government, Yes.
That we sometimes forget what our new role is.
And I would appreciate if you, as you're listening to this, if you and your staff could identify some things that we're talking about that we want to do in terms of changing the budget and how it is presented, how it was received, how it is lengthened, how is it shortened, how we do it every 2 years.
I think it would be— if you would do a little cheat sheet.
Okay.
And say this is outside of the lines and say this is your role, this is the role of the mayor, this is the role of the administrator, this is— this cannot be changed unless it is changed in charter.
Because I think we get beside ourselves and then we get on social media and we start talking about things, and then the public thinks we have that ability to do it, and then they get, you know, they get all riled up and say, well, why can't you do that?
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
So that was the reason why I wanted us to have a work session on the budget and in particular the TAI, um, because I'm going to be the same way all the time.
I'm— when somebody says something, I'm going to go to the charter and look and see if that's something we can do.
What does it say?
What's the plain language?
I'm going to do that.
And I think that it is really helpful when we're having these conversations that particularly in the Committee of the Whole that we have a lawyer sitting up here all the time because it's like almost like a council meeting because we're talking about things on a 30,000-foot level.
And if you don't read the charter regularly or refer to it regularly, we think we can say things as long as we put it in code, it's so.
And that's not true.
Charter's first, and we change our code to match the charter, not the other way around.
So I want to be clear on that.
Thank you.
Um, thank you, Mr. Taylor.
If you want to add to that, is that something that you can do?
Can you come— can you come up with a document?
And as you listen to this, to say what is doable and what is not doable?
Robert Taylor
Yeah, I'd be happy to, happy to help with that.
I, I do think that there are some things that are out of bounds, but I also think there's a lot of area where the council and the mayor can work together to try to develop a budget that— and a budget process that works for both bodies.
Loretta Smith
Right.
Robert Taylor
And, you know, there's this discussion about should we budget at a commitment item level?
Should we change the way we budget so it looks more like the way the county does it?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Robert Taylor
And I think all the— none of that's out of bounds.
Loretta Smith
You should probably have the county come over and just show their spreadsheet on the board.
Robert Taylor
Yeah, so I think there's a lot of— and I— and, and from my perspective, I'm happy to say if I think something is in bounds or out of bounds, but I, but I also really think that As has been discussed, this council is building on its experience and learning how to do it, finding out what works, what doesn't work for it.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah.
Robert Taylor
Providing that feedback to the mayor.
And, and you need that freedom and flexibility to be able to develop a process that works.
And, and you are learning now what works and what doesn't work.
And, and I think it's important that you all have that space to have that conversation.
Loretta Smith
That's key to finding out if that's our aim, to find out what works and doesn't work.
But if what works and what doesn't work is out of bounds from the charter, we are not going to do it.
Steve Novick
True.
Loretta Smith
Because I'm going to bring it up.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
We're going to go to Councilor Novick, then Councilor Green, uh, and then we're going to take the restroom break and come back with the next round.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr.
Loretta Smith
Chair.
Steve Novick
Um, 3 things.
One, I just want to point out that even aside from my idea of having sort of budget discussions as a group in November or December, all of us can ask questions about the budget now.
And I would suggest that, I'm sure some people have already done this, that if you have questions that came up during the budget process that you feel weren't answered and you're still gonna wanna know those answers next year, go ahead and ask them now.
Ask CBO, ask the bureaus.
Also, I tend to agree with Councilor Green that it'd be nice if the CBO was independent again, although I also kind of agree with Councilor Kanal I don't feel like they've been bad about giving us information.
But I wanted to note that one of the arguments for having large personal council budgets is that we don't have a big enough staff of people that serve the legislature as a whole.
So it may be that there is a discussion to be had about having a revenue— a cost-neutral shift of council office budgets whether it's to having an increased CBO or a separate legislative council or something like that.
I just, I think that that should be on the table.
And also, I have to respond, although she's not here, to Councilor Avalos's comment about it's our obligation to get to 7.
And I need to point out that if 5 people always vote together as a bloc, then the other 7, the only way that they have 2 choices, either always concede to what those 5 want or get consensus among 7 other councilors, which is hard to do consistent with public meetings law.
So I have to say frankly that when I hear Councilor Avalos say that, I basically think she's saying it's you guys' job to just concede to what the peacocks want.
So I just wanted to get that out in the open.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Oh boy, uh, I'm gonna stay focused on what I wrote down.
Dan Ryan
Good job.
Mitch Green
So just on the tiebreaking, I will note that in the bud— like, actually, the 6-6 problem really only exists in the budget and in the council president discussion.
There are other areas where you see amendments fail because you couldn't get 7.
Fine, good, actually.
If you cannot get a majority, your amendment should fail.
You should move forward.
I think I think we clearly need to adopt better rules of procedure, but also be willing to actually abide by them, right?
We have rules of procedure that require you to keep your decorum, require you to stay on timer, and require you to honor your place in the queue.
And not everyone at this dais has done that.
That has also extended our time and raised the sort of temperature at this dais.
So that's something that we are entirely in control of just as people.
So that's one piece.
But the other piece is I just have to say that it's— I think it's kind of absurd to think that the— in the budget process where council is responding to a mayor's proposed budget, that you would want the mayor to break a tie on a thing that changes his own budget.
Like, I think that that's a frankly strange way to think about things.
I would— I'll say some other things about— I'm probably out of time for this round, actually.
Sameer Kanal
15 Seconds.
Mitch Green
The council also has enumerated powers in the charter, and council's primary charter power is to pass legislation, and all funds are appropriated by legislation.
So whether or not we're in the budget, the formal Budget Committee mode or not, City Council at all times has the power to change budgets, whether near-term or long-term.
And so that's, that's something that's important.
And if you look at the city administrator's duties under the charter, the city administrator also has a duty to make sure council is apprised at all times of the budget.
So I think there's a very clear charter indication that city council can engage in the budget whenever it wants, just as long as it doesn't violate state budget law, which is a very specific prescribed process.
Sameer Kanal
All right, that's thanks, Councilor Green.
We're going to take a 10-minute restroom break, come back and give everybody about 6 minutes on round 2.
Jamie Dunphy
Be right back.
Sameer Kanal
11:18.
11:18.
Councilor Morillo online?
Just verifying.
We have one online.
Dan Ryan
Yes.
Loretta Smith
Yep, I'm here.
Great.
Sameer Kanal
We'll come on back.
We're now moving into the second round conversations, and just in the interest of time, try to keep it to 6-ish minutes this time.
This is sort of the council discussion point.
I know it's maybe a bigger conversation, but it's also less time may be okay because you can kind of reiterate a point that you probably made before.
A lot of us have 4 questions here, and I'll add a couple things from Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's comments earlier because I think they're relevant.
Council consideration process.
If you have any notes or thoughts on budget notes, I didn't really have a question there, but just wanted to float it as a topic.
The budget advisory process and committees, which is something we used to do and have discontinued despite requirement to do so.
And what would good community engagement look like?
And I've got some sub-questions there.
I'll also note Councilor Pirtle-Guiney mentioned, you know, the split of time between hearing from bureaus and debate during council consideration, the ballot.
Of time with the budget before we get into the debate.
Separation of the concept, or should we continue doing sort of consensus or requirement around budget-neutral amendments versus cut and add packages separately, and whether or not we're better off doing small things first that maybe have more agreement versus the bigger things to avoid using up some revenue sources that might be necessary for those bigger swings later.
All right, we'll get into the queue.
Councilor Councilor Smith is first in the queue.
She's out of the room, so we'll go to Councilor Clark and then Pirtle-Guiney.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Um, I'm mostly interested in, uh, question 8.
I'm just going to address that.
And I'm, I'm also very interested in hearing what other people have to say about budget notes, etc.
But I just want to say that, um, the D4, uh, budget hearing in the community was horrible.
And I don't know what happened.
It was just not very well attended, and which is really weird for D4.
So I'm thinking that perhaps per some other, other my colleagues' recommendations that we, if we follow talking about goals and service delivery instead of cuts, maybe we'll attract more people.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Olivia Clark
Um, maybe we'll attract people that are just not just organized advocates or the city unions, which is pretty much what showed up to D4.
Um, I also really like what Councilor Ryan said about, um, having another council priority setting session or some sort of session.
Um, and, uh, maybe that would lead into whatever CA Lee has planned for strategic planning because he's going to have So that's of interest to me.
But I'm interested in hearing what other people have to say.
I did appreciate the CBO scoring.
I thought that was beneficial for all of us to go through that process and have them give us feedback.
And then for us to rank our priorities, I thought that was really helpful.
So thank you, Mr.
Loretta Smith
Chair.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Clark.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, and then I'll come back to Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Chair.
A couple of things that I thought worked really well this year: the budget note scoring, the ranking with the ability to also list your priorities so that if an individual had a priority that didn't matter a lot to others, it didn't get lost in the, in the other pieces, and the strict adherence to budget notes needing to be budget I thought were all really important to keeping the process running smoothly.
I also mentioned in round 1 that engagement before there is a proposal on the table is really important from my perspective.
It is where we hear from Portlanders what their priorities are as opposed to reactions to somebody else's prioritization.
I actually thought our budget engagement process in District 2 went pretty well.
Thank you.
I thought we had better— we had a wide variety of people turn out.
We were very hands-on in planning what those events looked like and in pushing on what the turnout looked like.
And I think it's really important to both have the city administrator and the mayor in the room and have us all hearing the same thing, but also to allow the councilors in each district to create their outreach session based on the needs of each district, which is a little bit different.
So I'd encourage whoever is council president next year— Councilor Dunphy, I know you don't like us to say this to you when we say things like this, but I will because you are council president— let's make sure that that happens again, that each district is able to really craft their outreach sessions, but that we have partnership from the administrative and executive branches as part of it.
I want to raise an idea here that I hope that we consider next year.
And I said in my introductory remarks that I see our budget process as a 3-part process.
We have that work session time, we have the time between the mayor's proposed and the approved, when we're really talking about big packages of amendments and kind of doing some positioning, bringing forward how we want to define ourselves through this budget and raising the most important issues in our districts.
But there's a lot that, that is aired during that period of time that helps us, I think, get a pretty good understanding of what everyone's top priorities are and what we really need to accomplish.
And there is a lot this year that was a top priority for everybody that did not get accomplished.
I wonder if we could do that third section differently.
I wonder if between the approved and the adopted, if we could actually let go of balanced amendments for just a minute and say we've heard all of these issues now.
Maybe folks have raised programs that— I know a few times this year you all raised programs in your amendments that I hadn't thought to look for that actually became very important to me once I realized that they were on the chopping blocks.
Maybe somebody's identified a funding source that others didn't ask the right questions to find.
So given everything that's aired, what if we had everybody at that point do a bit of a different prioritization process and say, what are the top things that you need to see bought, restored, added to, to be able to support this budget?
And what are the top either funding sources, cuts, pots of money, new revenue, ways to fund those things that you are willing to consider?
And if the council president or their designee yes.
Took that information from every councilor and brought forward that ranking for that second, second series.
Maybe we still have balanced amendments also.
Maybe we actually take those rankings and try to work off of them.
Frankly, maybe we fight it all out and can't come to consensus still, but it's got to be better than what we've been doing.
And it would give us the opportunity to really say, of all of these what are the things that people absolutely think we must do?
What are the places people are willing to pull the money from?
And is there a way to line those things up better than competing amendments?
So I just want to put that on the table.
Folks can spend the next year completely picking it apart, but I hope that whoever is designing our next budget process considers that or some other creative way to get at those pieces that we lose, even though everybody wants to do them.
And I think that's probably my full 6 minutes.
Thank you, Chair.
Sameer Kanal
You actually still have a little bit left, but I can come back in the queue.
Councilor Smith, followed by Councilor Green.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair, and thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
That's a good idea, but we're going to go back to the same thing, we're all going to be at a 6-6 tie.
So it's going to do the same thing.
Um, y'all get tired of me talking about this until we change it.
But, um, at any rate, what I think is also missing from the budget process is the defense.
I think this would make it a whole lot easier if we go by Um, DCA, uh, district area— areas.
Have the DCA for Public Safety come up and all those folks, and they have to defend what the mayor has put forward.
And if you want to amend it, that's when you put your amendments in.
That's what we did at the county.
If you want to amend it, then if you want to put something in its place, then you use the money that the mayor used to, to, to defend his new, um, additions or his subtractions.
That's how you do it.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Find money.
It's already there.
He has it.
If you don't like what he's doing, take it out and put your own thing in.
Um, it's just easy.
Um, sorry, Mr. Mayor, but if we're making it so hard trying to find a spot for money and if the mayor and the administrator would come forward, say, this is the reason why we put this forward, this is the reason why we're adding this new program, this is why we want to help with housing, we want to have this rental housing thing, that's why we're doing it, we're carrying it over.
And so we're all looking at a spreadsheet of that particular area with the number of FTEs that are going to be in it, the number of FTDs that were there the previous fiscal year, how many he's planning to take out, and which which funding source did he take it from?
It makes it so much easier.
You know, we get narratives, we get storybooks, and of what the budget is, and I don't work well with that.
Those narratives can be talked about in the conversation when we're having budget conversations, but that's the time you need to drop your budgets.
That's when we would drop our budgets.
If our budgets have something to do with something we're hearing yes.
Then we drop an amendment right there.
So I've said enough about that.
Lastly, the one thing that I would change, and it happened for this year with this president and it happened with last year's president, if you put an amendment that we're supposed to hear on the agenda, my opinion is you do not finish, you do not close budget until we hear every single one.
It was closed this year.
We didn't get to hear everything that was put on the agenda that was on the website.
If you put it on the website, we have to stay here until we hear every single thing.
Now we're going to hear every single testimony that was added for this Lloyd Center today, but we didn't have the same courtesy for ourselves.
The previous year when, um, we had our previous president, same thing happened.
She cut off debate.
We couldn't listen to, we couldn't have all of our amendments.
And I, and I recognize there were a lot, but if you put it out there publicly, the public is expecting to hear about it.
And if we don't hear every single one, it's not doing ourselves a service.
If, if you're going to allow all of those to come up, then you need to allow them to be heard.
Uh, we never did that at Multnomah County.
I'm tired of talking about Multnomah County.
I know y'all tired of hearing about it, but when we put it forward We didn't finish until we finished.
And so when you arbitrarily finish, when you say, oh, time is up, 12:30, bye-bye.
No, that's not the way that works.
You work until the work is done.
So that would be my only concern that was different.
We did have a lot of upgrades in this new budget cycle that I really appreciated, and the information and all the In the beginning when we got the whole rundown of how we were going to do it, that was, that was great.
I may not have agreed with it, but it was great to have it in writing.
And I think that we need to keep some of those things with the following year.
But we have to— if you put it on that agenda, we have to hear it.
And if we don't, we're doing ourselves a disservice that we put a lot of time and energy in putting these amendments forward.
And if we don't get a chance to hear them, And then the public is looking at them and they're expecting them to come and they don't come, and it looks as if whoever's in charge is really being a hater and cutting off, uh, contact.
So I just think that we just need to do what we say we're going to do, especially if it's, it's, it's reported.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Green is next, followed by Councilor Novick.
Mitch Green
I think we might need, in addition to the shot clock, we might need a haterism index.
Um, I, I like some of what you said there, Councilor Smith.
I like the part around having the bureaus or the service areas say, this is what I wanted, and then this is what the mayor did.
So that's a very clear distinction, because then that shows us kind of what, like, you know, what we can actually go after or have a conversation around.
I think that's a good point.
If I understood that correctly, but, um, no, I didn't.
Loretta Smith
That's not what I said.
Mitch Green
Okay, well, that's what I like.
Loretta Smith
They have to defend the mayor's budget and say why they did something.
Mitch Green
Yeah, well, what I'm saying is, uh, it'd be very interesting for me to know what the bureaus really wanted, and maybe that's a requested budget is posted ahead of time, it's public, and that sort of a thing.
So yeah, I recognize putting them up there and having them go battle with the mayor is probably inappropriate, and I Yes.
I got you.
Um, I think what I wanted to say here is on council consideration process, um, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, I like— I'm intrigued by what you have raised.
I, I think that's an interesting way to think about, um, a challenge and then a potential way to navigate that solution.
I mean, I, I think that we're going to continue to find some things where there there's a common set of interests, but maybe a disagreement on how to pay for it.
I mean, I feel like I'm feeling that right now.
I think we all are.
So that might be an interesting way to do it.
I strongly reaffirm that I think the CBA scoring and the kind of ranking piece was a really nice innovation.
So we should keep that in play.
I think the budget note process that we adopted this time was good.
I do think that we still have some room for councilors to think about whether or not they're pursuing a resolution or a budget note.
And just if you want to do a resolution, do a resolution.
I can't wait to have a vote on a resolution.
So we've improved on that as well.
I guess I'll come back like, you know, I sort of agree.
I think I'm mostly in favor of Councilor Smith's other sort of suggestion that we should just hear everything that's been posted.
But I think that there are practical limits.
And if we're going to make that possible, I agree.
We really need to hold ourselves accountable on getting to the point and getting to the vote.
Like, we cannot— I mean, Council President did his damnedest to get us to sort of stick to a timeline that we failed to deliver to.
That's on us.
And if we're going to hear even a quarter or a fraction of the amendments that we heard the first year that we did this work and still not get through it, that means we have to move more quickly through our business.
And I think that we might be able to do that if we can kind of integrate some of the insights that we had in the earlier part of this discussion where we start having these conversations earlier about what we currently fund in our existing and adopted budget now, and then we can talk to our communities about whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing.
So that way, when we then step into the budget and respond to the mayor's proposed then folks do know what we're going to be doing.
And— or we can say, this is great, the mayor has adopted the priorities of the community, A+.
And so I think that allows us to have a little bit of that time back in some sense because we've done that work up front.
It does really rely upon us finding ways to find resources and time for the administration to give us those levels of thank you.
So it's all connected in my view.
I do think that— I think some folks who were really frustrated by the turnaround time, and I've already heard it here, between when City Council has to then file its amendments and then when they have to sign up for testimony, that was like less than one working business day.
It was a weekend.
That was driven in part because like our last work session where we could inform our amendments was the day thank you.
And so all of this is integrated in terms of the calendar.
How do we shift things forward?
But in terms of council consideration process, I do think that we should adopt the piece of the code revision that puts the 24-hour shot clock on the amendments.
I think that helps us considerably.
And if we do that before next time, we will have serve Portland well.
But that's not the only fix.
There are other pieces, and I've already heard some stuff up here, and I wanted to reaffirm that.
So thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Novick, followed by Councilor Ryan.
Steve Novick
First of all, on the budget— we used to have budget advisory committees, and I thought they were useful 10 years ago.
I'm not quite sure why they were dropped.
So I think we should have a session where we talk about how they used to work, hear from some people who were on them, and hear the rationale for why they were dropped.
My tendency is to think that it would be good to restore them, but I maybe could be convinced otherwise.
I felt pretty good about the budget process since last time.
My one real disappointment was that I had an amendment that without counting votes, I thought probably had the votes to pass.
And we didn't get a vote on it and we moved on to budget notes instead.
And I think the council president made a sort of an on-the-fly judgment, hey, this is a part of a group of things I know we're gonna fail 6-6, so why bother?
So I mean, maybe there's— maybe we won't always be able to get to everything.
I would suggest we try to get to the substance amendments before we get to the budget notes.
But at a minimum, we could like establish a practice, sort of a good faith thing where the council president checks with people and says, Hey, I think this is probably just going to die.
Do you really, really think it has a chance?
To give that councilor a chance to say, no, I really, really think it has a chance.
And speaking of really, really, I think it would be great if the bureaus could tell us what they want.
We could have a session and call that the Spice Girls session.
Tell us what you want, what you really, really want.
Whether it's possible to do that with the bureaus' answer to the mayor, I don't know.
But I'd actually kind of like to ask the mayor absolutely.
What do you think about that, just off the top of your head?
Sameer Kanal
I would say it's not customary.
The bureaus and the directors work at the pleasure of the mayor.
The vision and the mission is outlined, and I talk to each and every one of you throughout the course of that 3 months prior and I explained what the framing is and what they're going to deliver for you.
Dan Ryan
It doesn't seem like it would be proper.
Sameer Kanal
I think it would be putting them in an untenable situation.
While I appreciate the opportunity to mention, I'm happy to reflect on it, but my first initial reaction, it would put an awful lot of pressure on them.
And I just don't think it would be fair to them.
Dan Ryan
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Novick.
All right, thank you, Councilor Novick.
We'll go to Councilor Ryan, followed by Councilor Koyama Lane.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Chair Kanal.
I'll just look at the questions quickly.
Question 5, I think the clock ran out at times, and I think we all experienced some confusion with that.
And I respected why the clock would run out, but I think Council President and Council Vice President, there were a few times where I couldn't understand why the Council Vice President just didn't take over the gavel.
And so that was my question on that.
And I was confused about that 'cause I know we had a lot of robust conversations about that the year before.
So I think we just need to get more comfortable with the Vice President taking on that duty if possible, or at least have that conversation.
Budget notes.
If we had a robust council priority session, which I think we should do, of course, in September, October, Then I think it gives us a lot of vision on what we should do with the clocks running out on, say, budget notes.
And those that come under the council priorities should go to the front of the line.
Budget advisory process, I agree with Councilor Novick.
I found some of them were effective and helpful, kind of dependent on the leadership of the bureau, and then some were not.
So I've missed that.
And I think we have an opportunity to reimagine that in the work areas.
Thank you.
With the DCAs.
So under each DCA, there could be that community accountability and helpfulness that you get from those at a higher elevation that aren't in the city every day, but are out there representing life and understand how Portland should work.
So I think we're missing out on that type of system that we had in the old form when there was way too many bureaus and way too many of these.
So I think we could—.
Thank you.
Tighten this up and maybe reimagine it.
And I hope that that's something that would be considered in each work area.
Question 8, I would agree with much of what was said by my mate in District 3.
I really found both of them helpful.
So I do think we're onto something with doing one before the mayor's release and then after.
And they're really different.
The first one, what was great is there were hardly— the people that attended that I never see in Council Chambers.
And that's important because a lot of people can't get here.
And so going out to the community and having those big conversations and listening to that feedback was really exquisite.
And they kind of told us what their priorities were.
And your office in particular, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, really helped with working with that engagement.
So just having the artifacts of them going on the big sheets of paper and writing down their priorities, It's like we took photos of those.
I know we all did.
And those are really helpful guiding lights because we're in an echo chamber in here a lot of times, let's face it.
And so then you go out there, it's like, oh, these people exist in Portland and they have a different opinion than what we might be hearing in the council chamber.
You start hearing from households, not organizations, is basically the summary of that.
The second one started to have more organizations because there was more clarity about what could be on the chopping block that might affect them.
So people were singing for their supper more and coming to the So those are always gonna be different, and that's why you need one on each side.
So I think we're onto something, and I really wanna say thank you for the listening.
I thought the engagement that we had was authentic, and I felt that— I think we all felt listened to, and they were really much better than in the past.
Okay, that's it.
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Koyama Lane, followed by Green.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Chair.
I would like to clarify first First, is Robert Taylor here?
I think he might be behind that pillar.
Robert Taylor
Hello.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I'm just wondering if you can clarify.
I heard from Mr. Mayor that bureau directors work at the pleasure of the mayor, and I'm wondering if you can clarify if that is accurate and that's what our charter says, because I've thought that the bureau directors work for the city administrator.
Robert Taylor
Uh, yeah, great, great question.
The, the, uh, under the charter, the mayor appoints the administrator subject to confirmation from council.
The mayor can remove the administrator.
Council with 9 votes can remove the administrator.
All the directors report to the city administrator, so goes mayor, city administrator, directors.
So I think if— and I—.
Dan Ryan
Aren't you missing— I'm sorry, I have to ask, what about the DCAs in between the bureaus?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I actually have the floor right now.
Dan Ryan
I realize that.
Robert Taylor
Correct.
Yeah, the— yeah, in, in my, in my description of that, the DCAs are the, uh, in, in the director category.
And I would imagine that the mayor and the city administrator work closely together when they're deciding whether or not to retain or and maybe it's too tricky for you to answer, but is that accurate that our directors work at the pleasure of the mayor?
Well, I think the way I've always thought about that is that the mayor is the head of the executive and administrative branch.
And the city administrator works for the mayor.
And so if the mayor tells the administrator to do something, I would assume that the administrator would do something.
So whether you— the mayor directly makes that decision or instructs the administrator to make a decision, I think you can, you can sort of split that hair however you want to, but I think that's how okay, thank you.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I might have more questions about that later.
Um, I wanted to point to this packet that Chair Kanal, um, passed out, and the one with staples shares, um, what we the chairs have talked about as different agenda items.
And so in there, under Issue Area 2 in Finance, we have the budget advisory process in there.
So I am excited to Um, dive into that.
And then I will say, in terms of, um, our engagement in District 3, I was— I felt a little jealous of District 2.
I think you all plan— got to like plan yours a little bit more.
I was disappointed ours, um, because ours was the one at the school, right, Councilor Novick?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And it really was like folks didn't really get time with us.
We like spoke a little bit and then they were I really appreciated more the one that I think we put on ourselves at Mount Scott Community Center.
I think we did that on our own where folks actually got to give testimony.
Steve Novick
Mr. Chairman, can I respond?
Dan Ryan
Go for it.
Steve Novick
I actually thought that the— I liked the first one because we were just from spending time milling about with people.
People were like grabbing me and bringing things up.
And it was sort of more spontaneous.
So I actually thought that that was pretty valuable.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And preferable to the letting people give testimony, or just you saw value in that one also?
Steve Novick
I saw value in both, but I have to say I kind of intuitively liked the first one better.
But I think that if you're gonna do that, you should sort of tell people in advance, hey, the councilors are gonna be milling around, buttonhole them.
And tell them, you know, don't take too much of their time.
But I thought that that was, was a more honest, interesting— well, maybe not.
I'm not saying people are dishonest with their testimony, but sort of a more organic discussion than when people are giving testimony.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
That's helpful to hear.
And I really see this position that we created a year ago in our last budget, which is someone that's supposed to be helping with community engagement on the council side.
I am— I think it's pretty unbelievable that that position is not filled yet, and I hope that is ASAP because it's been over a year now.
But I think that person can be doing some more of that work to make sure that We can have these conversations.
And thank you for that, Councilor Novick.
And also thank you for respectfully asking the Chair to be recognized before jumping in.
I appreciate it.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Green is next, and then I think I'm next in the queue.
Mitch Green
Yeah, thank you.
I just got back in to sort of respond to this, I think, really important question about the division of authority and duties by charter and what the— where the bureau of directors really kind of fall in terms of sort of serving at the pleasure of the mayor, so to speak.
I mean, I think it's very clear to me that the city administrator is, of course, appointed by the mayor, confirmed by council, but the city administrator has an enumeration of duties.
And generally you read these duties as sort of like in order of importance in some sense.
Not always.
The duties are, you know, top of mind.
It's proper and efficient administration of all city affairs.
Execute and enforce all laws adopted by council.
Elsewhere in the charter, it describes council powers to create or abolish offices if it finds it necessary to align with the broad missions of the city and for economic efficiency.
So I think this idea that I think that we are condensing into whether or not the mayor has the power to hire and fire bureau directors.
The mayor certainly has the power to hire and fire bureau directors, but whether or not everything is subsumed under the prerogative of the mayor, I don't think that's what the charter says.
I think it's the city administrator who has that independent executive authority, and what we— what the charter is envisioning is for the mayor to use his judgment to find a good city administrator, which you have done.
Loretta Smith
I think that's what the charter says.
Mitch Green
I've been nothing but pleased.
I think what I'll note is when you— if you look at the— what is it— Charter Section 2-406, which describes the city administrator's responsibilities, the very last thing that's described after enumerating all other duties is to perform such other duties as may be directed by the mayor or prescribed by his charter or city code.
And so I think it's quite appropriate to contemplate this idea of the, of, you know, the initial sort of premise that Councilor Novick had raised, I don't think it puts them in an awkward position because they serve at the pleasure of the mayor, unless, unless there's this idea that if I'm honest with the council or we have this conversation honestly, that I might lose my job, which is a different problem.
And I hope that that's not kind of what the thinking here is.
But if you go back to 2022 when folks, when there was a Charter Commission in the first place and we're starting are starting to contemplate what this type of government is.
I think it was very much a strong city administrator government with a council as an independent body and a mayor who has the ability to hire and fire a city administrator and provide executive leadership, not a strong mayor system.
So I had to say that.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Smith, I see you're in the queue.
You're overtime, so if you could be brief, please.
Okay.
Yeah, then I'll take—.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
I appreciate that, Councilor Green, and I want to go back to the charter and go to Section 2-401, Duties of the Mayor.
And the last one, everything that's not mentioned in here that you talked about, it says the mayor has all other executive and administrative powers not conferred elsewhere by this charter, which means do not get these folks in trouble and thinking that they don't have to listen to the mayor.
And that they don't serve at the pleasure of the mayor, because you're wrong.
It says it in Section N of this.
They know it, the city administrator knows it, and the mayor knows it.
So for us to come here and try to recharter the charter is wrong.
And I advise— and I think they know enough about how governments work yes.
Not to, uh, try to, to, to do anything different.
So, I mean, you need to give a directive on, on the executive powers of the mayor.
Um, we, we actually shouldn't even be talking about this, but since we are and it, it's relating to the budget, and if they can give us information, sometimes they will say, you know, I, I would have liked to have had more external materials and services budget, but the mayor didn't put it in.
But I'm okay with that because I put it forward, because I don't think they understand the process.
The bureau directors give the mayor what they want to cut, and he looks at those based on what they give to him and the city administrator.
So to have this idea that they can single-handedly go out and do something different and come and talk to the councilors that would be out of order.
That would be out of bounds.
And that would be putting them in a position that I don't think they want to be in.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Smith.
Robert Taylor
The— just thank you, Robert Taylor, City Attorney.
Just to kind of— since we're talking about the budget specifically and how does the authority flow from the mayor to the administrator to the DCAs and directors.
So it's in 2406.
One of the duties of the administrator is to prepare an annual budget under the direction of the mayor for the mayor's submission to council.
And so the administrator prepares the budget.
DCA's directors work for the administrator.
They're doing that under the direction of the mayor.
It's the mayor's budget.
So that's how the authority flows.
And then I think to this question of what is the role of a director?
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Robert Taylor
When asked questions from council is, do you agree or disagree with what the mayor did in the budget?
And I think it is true that that is putting that director in a very difficult position because part of the director's role is to, you know, they're looking out for their program, their bureau, their office.
And they may have a disagreement with what the mayor did or what the administrator did, but it's the mayor and administrator's job when they prepare that budget from their executive perspective to try to balance those competing interests.
And I know they cut my budget 2 years in a row.
I didn't love that, but they made a decision that other services were more important than that, and that's their prerogative when they prepare that budget, just like it's your prerogative to pass the budget and make a different decision if you want.
So I think that's where I— if I was asked, City Attorney, what do you think about what the mayor proposed or the administrator proposed in your budget?
That puts me in a really hard position because I don't want to advocate against what the mayor or the administrator did.
I definitely do not want to advocate in favor of my budget to the detriment of my sibling bureaus.
Sameer Kanal
I—.
Robert Taylor
That's a hard thing for me to do.
I don't want to do that.
Um, and I think that's why the mayor has suggested that's not a great position to put those folks in.
So thank you for letting me say my, my piece on that.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, City Attorney and Bureau Director Robert Taylor.
Um, I'm gonna go next, and then we'll let Councilor Novick wrap us up, and we'll move on to the 3rd block here.
The only thing I want to say on this subject is I, I think we've, we've had a lot of speculation about how many branches of government there are, and this conversation has made it clear that at least the way that it's been described is that there are 3 branches, not 4, of this government.
There's the mayor and administrator together, there's the council, and there's the auditor.
And I think it's been offered by other people that we have 4, that there is some sort of separation of the executive and the administrative branches, and the interpretations we've been hearing today do not, do not back that up.
And so I think we have to have that conversation and be mindful of it.
Um, and I'm not saying have the conversation in the sense of relitigate.
I'm saying having the conversation in the sense of inform our other conversations based on that.
Um, in terms of the questions, I think the council-approved timeline was good this year.
I'd have loved more time to file amendments, but I think the council president and mayor worked well on maximizing what we could do scoring worked well too.
I think the 2 places I'd comment on were that the adopted timeline was actually shorter at council than last year was, and ideally it wouldn't need to be because we had— would have resolved everything big in the approved.
But because of how bad the budget was, both in terms of a bad year with more cuts to consider restoring and in terms of insufficient information, we needed more time in the adopted than we ideally would have needed where we could figure things out in May in the approved.
The other thing is testimony.
I think we need to schedule enough time to have everyone get their 3 minutes, but also chunk it better so it's not a 6-hour day.
I know both council presidents have talked about how hard that is with committee chairs like myself not wanting their committees canceled, but it's something we might need to figure out.
I agree with Councilor Pirtle-Guiney about the exercise between approved and adopted.
I really like that idea.
Council President earlier mentioned that there were fewer amendments filed, and he hopes it was because we had better information.
For me, it was actually the I had 3 or 4 amendments I did not file because I did not have the information necessary to make proposals regarding Portland Solutions.
That is in part because the work session was delayed until the date of the filing deadline, and that denied us the information necessary to do that.
I also agree with Councilor Smith.
Councilor Zimmerman has mentioned this as well, that everything gets heard or the clock strikes midnight and that's when we end.
If it's been filed, I think that's the job.
With relation to question 6, I think the budget notes guidance this year, I was skeptical about it.
I think in retrospect it worked pretty well despite being inconvenient for me personally.
I think some of the other interpretations of what we can do through amendments and notes were a little more problematic, but I think there's some small details to work out as opposed to big picture.
I also think we might have benefited from keeping a work session for budget notes to try and chunk them together and sort of consent agenda them at the real meeting.
With relation to budget advisory committees, as, as Councilor Koyama Lane pointed out, it is on the list of things for this committee in the future.
We have Resolution 36347 from 2005, which required the creation of a community budget advisory board, which was active through the pandemic, and then terms were allowed to expire.
We also have budget guidance from Mayor Adams in 2007 or '08 to create bureau budget advisory committees.
Thank you.
We need those structured advisory processes.
By the way, that resolution is still in effect, and only part of the guidance was updated in 2024 by Mayor Wheeler, um, to when the budget advisory committees, the bureau ones, were, were, uh, suspended.
I personally staffed the Police Budget Advisory Committee briefly in my previous job.
I think there is a lot of things that we can learn from them, things that were really good, and the volunteers obviously put in a lot of time, and some, some systems to improve.
It needs to be something where it's not bureau directors picking people to comment on their ideas, but an independently chosen board.
It needs to be active the whole year so it's not just after the fact, but actually helpful in creating those budget proposals and requests from the bureau.
I'm interested in council discussing how to do this better in the future.
And then finally on the 8th question, which is the one about community engagement, I agree with Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
I thought ours I really appreciate both the mayor and City Administrator Lee being at our first one, which Councilor Ryan talked about why that was so good.
The second one was also, I think, pretty good.
The places that I'd point out, one is that we kind of forced our way into having that conversation.
And I think this is where the idea of council having its own community engagement staffer is so important.
One thing that has really struck, I'm gonna mention this more in the next the next round of questions.
One thing that's been really frustrating to me is when council votes to create a position and then the people responsible for filling it don't.
So we've talked about this with PBEM.
We created a CEI hub planner last year.
It hasn't been filled.
We also created a community engagement position in council operations, and I'm frustrated that that wasn't filled.
And so I'd like to have that lead for us because otherwise we were forced to talk to the executive/administrative Chief Engagement Officer, who I still think that work should be under council, by the way, but in the way that it has been structured, that was really frustrating because we had to force our way in.
Having said that, it did work.
And so, and then we were heard and we did make a good couple events out of it, but the outreach was worse and the attendance was worse as a result, especially on that second one.
And I think that's a thing we can work on and iterate better.
And I think this also relates to the testimony piece as well and how we do that.
I'm going to stop there and pass it to Councilor Novick for the last word on this round.
We'll go to the next round after that.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
I just wanted to go back to say I perfectly understand that we can't ask bureau directors to come up and criticize the mayor's budget.
What I was thinking about was more maybe it's something that maybe doesn't belong in the budget process, maybe doesn't I don't know if it would belong in public.
Maybe it's in individual conversations, but I was just thinking it'd be nice to hear the bureau directors say, here's my vision for what we could do with this bureau if I had the resources I would like to have.
That I think I would like to hear.
I would hope that the mayor wouldn't object to us individually asking bureau directors to spell that out.
And maybe it's something to be— I mean, and then there's a question of whether it's something worth doing in public.
I think it's a good question.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
I hadn't seen Councilor Avalos's hand and she hasn't spoken yet, so she'll actually close us out.
Candace Avalos
Thanks.
And close out on this section and then what's the last section?
Just so I'm—.
Sameer Kanal
The post, how do we track how the budget was implemented?
How do we track how it's going?
Steve Novick
Round 3.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, the round 3, the third.
Candace Avalos
Okay, sounds good.
So I think what I'll start by saying is that I think that we need to treat the budget process Thank you.
So I'm glad that we're having this discussion.
It's clear that we have a long way to go in implementing and asserting council's powers in the budget process.
And I think too that this year really showed that process is policy.
So if we don't build enough time for deliberation and negotiation, amendment development, we don't just get a round Yes.
We get different outcomes.
And so I'd really encourage us to revisit the calendar and ask whether we're creating the conditions for our best work.
And I have a lot of ideas about the calendar that I will share at a later date.
I also think that as it relates to the budget notes, rather than seeing them as placeholders, we should use them as a place, a chance to answer the questions we couldn't answer during the budget season.
Build a stronger record for the future.
So I think that they should be actionable and measurable and tied to decisions that we know we're going to have to make.
So I like the kinds of notes where we're asking for information to get ahead of the next budget cycle, because we can use that as a way to, in that moment, learn, you know, what we need to make a better decision next time.
And I think the notes should be a way to do that.
I know that there's a lot of discussion about like Like how, you know, if the notes need to be monetary versus policy.
And I have a lot of— I think that's something that we need to continue to suss out.
I know that we received particular guidance this year, but I don't agree with all of it.
So something that I want us to just discuss on how we make, again, those budget notes a tool for enhancing the next budget cycle.
And I think another lesson too is that the expertise that we need to make decisions exists all across the city, not just at the executive level.
So I think a lot of people have alluded to this already, but frontline employees and labor partners and bureau staff and community members, they really need to be meaningfully involved in this process.
And I think that that definitely starts— I see that as a city administrator duty because his job is to oversee the bureaus.
Yes, the mayor oversees the city administrator, but the city administrator oversees the bureaus.
Technically.
And so I really would love to see there be more effort made in creating opportunities for staff to come talk to us about the impacts of their work and what, if we make certain changes to the budget, how that's gonna affect the work.
Bringing back to my earlier point of like Portlanders don't experience the budget by line item or by FTE, they experience it by the outcomes that they receive.
And I just think that we're missing a big group of people that we should be leaning on their expertise more before we make drastic cuts.
You know, for community engagement stuff, I mean, there's a lot of work that we have to do on that front.
I think that the District 1, you know, roundtable type thing with the tabling and all that, It had some benefits.
I think I talked to a lot of people that came.
I had a couple people that came prepared with specific ideas and handed me pieces of paper with their ideas.
And I would love to create more space for that.
I want to be able to invite Portlanders that do have specific ideas to bring those to us.
And one thing that I shared at that community engagement too is that we also can't expect Portlanders to be in the weeds of the budget.
So we need to propose these engagement opportunities in a way that, again, helps them get at their experience.
And then we need to translate that into policy.
That's our number one goal, our number one job, I mean, as electeds is to hear experiences and turn it into the policy solutions.
And I just don't think we had enough time to do that.
And the constrained environment didn't make that as fruitful.
But I do agree that, like, we're making strides.
And it was— we'd had quite a big turnout at that one, so I thought that was good.
And I do like— I liked the tabling aspect of people being able to go up to bureaus and ask them questions.
But, you know, since I can't be everywhere at once, I don't know how effective that felt to Portlanders.
But on its surface, I thought that was a good opportunity for them to talk to bureaus directly.
So So I do like that in general.
And I think we just need to build in more time for the community engagement process.
I know that there were, like, I did a survey.
We obviously had like city, well, actually no, I guess that was last year we did the citywide survey.
And then I think a couple other offices did surveys.
And I also think like, how can we as offices collaborate on digesting that data better?
Obviously, the surveys that— the responses we all got were very often specific to your district.
And I would have loved to be able to share a little more about what I heard from East Portlanders and learn what we're hearing across the city so that we can find those threads and then again make policy decisions based on what Portlanders are telling us directly.
So more opportunities like that are great.
We just need to make the information digestible for the public.
And I think we have a lot to go on that, but I like the direction we're headed and I just want us to do more of that.
Ultimately, success for me in all of this isn't just adopting a balanced budget.
It is creating a process where we have the information we need, the public understands the trade-offs, and everyone can see that decisions were made deliberately and transparently.
So I think that's the overall outcome that I'm seeking in the process.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thanks.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
We're about to move to the 3rd round.
And just quick, quick programming note, for a variety of reasons, including a need to wrap this meeting up and, and not have it interfere with the start time of a long council meeting, as well as, uh, due to who's here and who can stay, um, we're going to probably not get to the 3rd agenda item today.
We'll just carry that over to a future meeting.
Appreciate everyone's patience on that.
We'll move to the 3rd round of discussions and give everybody Uh, a few minutes on this as well.
Um, again, we do need to wrap up on time.
Um, I want to thank the mayor for being here as long as he could be here.
I appreciate that as well.
Um, so the third round is how should the budget refer back to council priorities?
This can include some of the concepts we brought up like strategic planning session, uh, budget mapping, council interest areas, uh, and more.
And the other question is how should we track outcomes from the budget?
So we talked about the KPIs in the budget document, But also after review, did we achieve those?
How do we report back on that?
Also, this is a good time if there's anything I didn't ask, because we did, you know, try to capture all the things that have been discussed before, but maybe you had an idea that you didn't bring up in some place we could track.
So everybody, we got time for everybody to have about 3-ish minutes on this one, but maybe it'll be a little fluctuating.
So we'll have Councilor Koyama Lane start us off, followed by Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Chair.
I'm going to say this is in the other discussion questions, that category.
I just wanted to underscore that I really enjoyed what Councilor Pirtle-Guiney said and agree.
I like the idea of having there being some sort of scoring or some way to do a Venn diagram or figure out how we can think about what things want to be restored and then also what funding sources are you willing I thought that was one of the best things I heard.
Loretta Smith
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, followed by Clerk.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
I want to talk about one thing and only one thing in this section, and that is KPIs or KPMs, those key performance indicators or measures.
During the Thank you.
In the work sessions, we got a little taste of what that could look like from our bureaus and service areas.
We had this, like, what are we actually trying to do here portion.
That was great.
That was dipping our toes in the water.
I would like to see us move toward a system where there are true KPIs or KPMs that are adopted for each bureau or service area as part of the budget, that along alongside their budget, we are adopting performance indicators or metrics, that those are amendable by council so we can make sure that those bureaus are moving toward the work that we want them to accomplish, and that they are meaningful.
And by that, I mean we are looking at KPIs or KPMs that are outcome-based, not process-based.
Then I would like to see us get a written report as part of the TAO process twice a year on how we're doing meeting those performance measures or indicators so that as we are asked to shift some money around through the TAO process, we have in mind whether bureaus have the budgets necessary to meet those performance metrics or not.
When you don't meet a performance metric, sometimes it means you're not doing a good enough job and sometimes it means you weren't funded properly to be able to meet it.
And the TAO is when we can evaluate that.
Then in the work sessions the next year, when we hear from the bureaus and the service areas, I would want us to get included in the other work that they do a report on how they did in meeting each of those performance metrics.
I think that should be part of our cyclical budget work.
I think it needs to be tied to meaningful outcomes, and I think it needs to be something that helps to guide how we evaluate whether our budget is in the right place or not.
It may take us a couple of years to get there, but I would like to see us continue to move every year in that direction as we update the budget.
Thank you, Chair.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Councilor Clark, followed by Green.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
I agree with you, Councilor.
I think this is a part of the culture change and the change in government that we're going through.
Holding the bureaus more accountable.
But it's a good thing that we gave CA Lee some staff because this is a lot of work.
And I think, okay, how's he going to do all that?
But I— my original comment was on discussion question 10.
I just thought that it was really incumbent on the bureaus to come back to The specific committee with— in our oversight function is, okay, have you done the things that we ask you to do in the budget or otherwise?
We've done some things in the Public Works, formerly T&I Committee, that we definitely have to have oversight on, but there are budget issues as well.
They're kind of connected, but I just assume that would happen mostly in committee.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Clark.
Councilor Green, followed by Dunphy.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
I think mine, just briefly, is sort of in reference to discussion question 10.
Um, I would like to see, uh, some sort of, um, re-engagement to say how much of the work that we are doing in this current fiscal year is paid for by the budget that we authorized in this current fiscal year versus any sort of a carryover or any sort of other funds that were kind of intermingled, because we need to get a better handle on what we pay for, like what are we getting for what we pay for in a given fiscal year?
So we've had some of those conversations more informally, but getting that into a practice I think will help us when we go into mid-year budget adjustments.
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks, Councilor Green.
Council President Dunphy, followed by Councilor Ryan.
Jamie Duong
Thank you.
With regard to mostly question 10, tracking outcomes from the budget, colleagues, you may have noticed that in the budget note process, I held myself to the same standard and And when my budget note, the one note that I introduced, was flagged as more likely to be a resolution, we pulled it.
And actually, we are currently filing it as a resolution.
And that one budget note was around budget mapping.
That is a thing that this city has done historically.
It was aligned with the 7 different neighborhood coalition offices at that time.
And now that we are in district, in theory, there's only 4 of them.
So I want to bring that back.
I think that it's really good for us to be able to see where are our dollars going.
Thank you.
Where are they?
Where's the impact and what are the differences?
And it's always nuanced and there's no one tool to be able to show accurately what that investment looks like.
You know, for example, if we had done budget mapping in 2024, it would've looked like the city was spending a wildly disproportionate amount of money in District 1 because we opened Park Lane Park and the city wasn't doing much else elsewhere.
But I still think it's a really valuable tool.
This is also the second year in a row where I have I have had an amendment that I titled Hold East Portland Harmless and trying to get into that nuance.
And so I will be bringing that resolution forward, and I think it's a tool that we really need in an ongoing way.
It's not the panacea.
It's not going to solve all of our problems, but I think extra data to be able to visualize will be really helpful.
Loretta Smith
So thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
Councilor Ryan is next.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Chair.
Yeah, number 9, I've tied an improved process back to the improvement process of their entire budget to leaning in more to the council priority process.
And I think if we continue to try to take that seriously, it will really help us with efficiency and focus.
What I hear out in the community is the council lacks a vision.
And with the council priority process, and if we streamline that into the budget process, they will start to understand That as a body, even though we have some differences, there's a vision, there's a focus that they're desperately wanting to know about.
And so I think that that is why I wanted to remind everybody that that's council priority, strategic priority process that we can do in the fall would really be helpful.
On number 10, I just think we're in the infancy of using outcome data to drive our work and our operations.
And I've experienced that slow, very slow-moving process.
Thank you.
I came from a shop that was all about continuous improvement, was nationally involved in that work.
And it's not easy, but it means that you have to be dispassionate and honest about the data.
So it's like, it would be refreshing.
And I think under your leadership, I really do trust that you get this, City Administrator Lee.
So I think that next year's process should have your influence on it.
Thank you.
So because the data says— basically, data should drive the work.
Less emotion, more data.
It's like the data doesn't lie if we do it right.
And so the data is showing us that this is working and this isn't.
What's hard for leaders or the entire organization is to see something that we thought was a good idea, but it's not working.
And so we need data to see that, and then we can adjust our resources based on what the data tells us.
So I'm hoping that with more outcome data, you can streamline that in the culture of all your DCAs to work with their bureaus to, to allow us to experience that as councilors.
And I trust that you're all on that.
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Um, unless anyone else would like to get in the queue, I'm going to limit the queue with the unanimous consent.
Okay, so then I am last in the queue.
I'm last in the queue here, uh, so I'll just say 4 quick things.
On Council— on question 9, uh, I agree with the conversation around how we do amendable KPIs.
I think that's really vital to have, um, conversations about finding the, the right space for that.
I, I think right now we have bureau directors stating what the purpose of their bureau is, and that can change thank you.
Dan Ryan
—Too rapidly.
Sameer Kanal
Sometimes we agree with those, I'm sure.
Sometimes all 12 of us might agree with the purpose of a bureau as a bureau director sees it.
Sometimes they don't.
And I think that's really important to get a council— we create the bureaus, we budget for the bureaus, we should be directing the bureaus through that process.
And so I really want to have that be something that we define.
Additionally, I pointed out the Office of Equity as sort of the the, the most absurd, where it's how many trainings did you give and what's the population of the city that's BIPOC as their KPIs, and nothing in the middle ground that is probably how most of us would consider, are we being more equitable as a city government and how can we hold— it needs to obviously be something we hold them accountable to, which that's hard to do, but I think there's some space there.
Um, and I think having the amendable, uh, KPI list or KPM list would be great.
In terms of the tracking outcomes, I do think circling back and having the oversight function be a part of it is really important.
I also think the— we might need to communicate more closely with the auditor and/or third-party evaluation to figure out how we get that sort of more dispassionate evaluation of it after the fact.
And I just wanted to flag that.
The third thing I wanted to point out just pushing back to a previous conversation around the role of the administrator.
Everything that was said is true.
I just add one thing, which is that in the event that the mayor chooses to remove the administrator, which I hope is nowhere near his brain right this moment, must advise the council before removal is also in the charter.
And I think that that's a really important piece of it.
That's not an email.
That is a process.
If you look at how that that word is used in other places.
That is a process of conversation.
We are a part of that process, and it needs to be pointed out.
The other thing on an unrelated point, but I just wanted to mention it since if you— I scrolled down trying to find something in this chapter and found this other thing instead that relates to our conversations this week.
Section 2803, the city officers responsible for property management shall keep a record of all property owned by the city and the income derived from it.
Thank you.
I think that relates to asset management.
I think it relates to MODA.
I think it relates to a lot of other stuff, and I'd love to get back into compliance with that.
All right.
Olivia Clark
Chairman, can I just tell you that there is a 10-year-old document that lists all the pieces of property that the city owns.
It has not been updated for 10 years, so we're going to get on that.
Sameer Kanal
Well, hallelujah that that exists, and I love to see it.
All right.
That's going to conclude this thank you.
This is the 3rd part of the 3-part series that we're doing here.
This is, you know, we talk about accepting non-closure.
One of the big conversations we have here is going to take multiple rounds.
This is— the budget's a big deal.
It's not going to get resolved in a 3-hour meeting.
So I look forward to maybe in a month or 2 circling back on this again.
I'll work with Council President on that.
I'll also work with his office on tracking everything that was said here and making sure that it's given to the relevant people in this process.
Olivia Clark
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
Including the questions raised.
And finally, I wanted to mention, because we are continuing this item over, that that Murillo 11 budget note from last year and that item might be on the July 9th agenda or a subsequent one, but we'll circle back and update you as soon as possible.
With that, we'll adjourn this meeting of the Committee of the Whole at 12:23 PM.
Thanks, everybody.