WEBVTT 1 00:06:39.740 --> 00:06:41.706 Cool. 2 00:06:42.351 --> 00:06:43.045 Good afternoon. 3 00:06:43.158 --> 00:06:45.995 I'm calling to order this work session of the Portland City Council. 4 00:06:46.060 --> 00:06:48.321 It's hello, friends. 5 00:06:49.411 --> 00:06:54.283 Welcome, colleagues and folks watching at home. 6 00:06:54.797 --> 00:06:55.742 Does anyone watch at home? 7 00:06:56.079 --> 00:06:56.543 I don't know. 8 00:06:57.505 --> 00:07:00.005 Usually they watch at home, and when I say something dumb, they let me know. 9 00:07:00.086 --> 00:07:03.341 So, uh, hopefully that won't happen today, or it might have already. 10 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:07.252 That's right, that's right. 11 00:07:07.940 --> 00:07:13.471 So, um, welcome to what we're— you know, welcome to the adventures of what will be happening with the budget next year. 12 00:07:14.192 --> 00:07:18.767 CFO Biery and Budget Director Levine are here to be leading a presentation and a Q&A. 13 00:07:19.425 --> 00:07:22.314 I'll be running the queue, keeping us on time and on topic. 14 00:07:23.165 --> 00:07:28.576 You know, we've already had quite a lot of after-action and some postmortem discussions about what happened with this year's budget. 15 00:07:29.346 --> 00:07:38.271 Our goal today is to begin to translate some of our concerns and our desires into a set, a concrete set of deliverable priorities for staff to execute for us. 16 00:07:39.057 --> 00:07:42.732 Our job is to be as clear to these amazing professionals. 17 00:07:43.709 --> 00:07:51.708 As we— and to tell them exactly what it is we want to see and where there is limited capacity, what we want for them to do first. 18 00:07:52.365 --> 00:07:55.507 Where there's a misunderstanding or confusion, for us to find a way to clarity. 19 00:07:56.165 --> 00:08:00.973 CBO is going to be on deck to begin communicating with new expectations to bureaus very soon. 20 00:08:01.021 --> 00:08:04.211 So it's up to us to get those expectations solidified. 21 00:08:05.141 --> 00:08:11.137 The staff presentation today is going to lay out some key areas that council has taken interest in with some options for how we could approach each. 22 00:08:11.858 --> 00:08:13.444 And I'll let them do their full preamble here. 23 00:08:13.702 --> 00:08:21.108 But to frame today, I want to talk a little bit about where I think we are and the clear changes that I know I'd like to see come about next year. 24 00:08:22.891 --> 00:08:29.781 In general, I'm relatively happy with the way that we managed things this year between the mayor's proposed budget and the end of the fiscal year. 25 00:08:30.505 --> 00:08:33.765 The introduction of the current service level budgeting was a huge benefit. 26 00:08:33.991 --> 00:08:49.456 However, when we cut the city administrator's report and the early year budget work, we created a situation in which the mayor's proposed the proposed budget appeared to come out of a black box, and much of our legislative time was spent trying to decode what was in the proposed and to access the information used to craft it. 27 00:08:50.322 --> 00:08:55.644 I would like to see us return to public work sessions on the budget prior to the CA report and the proposed. 28 00:08:56.350 --> 00:09:02.712 These should be fundamentally about what the bureau is doing now, a clear and rational look into what we are currently spending our resources on. 29 00:09:03.643 --> 00:09:23.370 We should expect that bureaus come to the table with concrete ways for decision makers to understand the program commitments of bureaus and have insight into what comprises bulk thank you. 30 00:09:23.370 --> 00:09:32.330 I'm interested in understanding the increases and decreases, but not as keenly as I want to make sure that we clearly see what our government is actually doing today. 31 00:09:32.990 --> 00:09:42.809 That way we'll be able to understand what a bureau is and what it does so that we can have the decision packages on the table and we can understand them in the context of the work of the enterprise and make informed choices. 32 00:09:42.809 --> 00:09:46.691 Yes, no, or have you thought about a third thing. 33 00:09:47.525 --> 00:09:52.315 I want to see that happen in public with council, the mayor, and city administrators sitting side by side to receive it. 34 00:09:52.506 --> 00:10:00.658 We all play our roles in shaping the budget, and the process of communicating what that task should start with is us all at the same table with the same information. 35 00:10:02.385 --> 00:10:03.386 We're a government in transition. 36 00:10:03.934 --> 00:10:09.629 The city has a longstanding practice of using bulk appropriations and non-standardized budgeting practices across bureaus. 37 00:10:10.226 --> 00:10:21.106 In a world where commissioners were the executives in small portfolios of bureaus where legislative and executive actions were mixed and there was not really a single central city, this was problematic but at least natural. 38 00:10:21.604 --> 00:10:36.731 And here on council, I think we have a lot of agitation about missing information that— about missing information that is that the budgeting practices have not really changed, but the law controlling how the legislative and administrative— administration communicate very much has. 39 00:10:37.389 --> 00:10:39.571 We haven't created norms that serve us adequately. 40 00:10:40.614 --> 00:10:47.207 It's also worth saying that the city administrator is trying to centralize and standardize how bureau budgets— bureaus budget and report. 41 00:10:47.592 --> 00:10:50.080 But this work also has not been completed yet. 42 00:10:50.865 --> 00:10:59.721 Sometimes when a councilor does not know what something in the budget means or does, what does the enterprise service line in Bureau X or Y actually mean? 43 00:10:59.769 --> 00:11:01.230 The city budget office also doesn't know. 44 00:11:02.256 --> 00:11:08.498 I want to remind us all that this is what we're solving for, in addition to shaking out the relationship between the executive and the legislative branches. 45 00:11:08.625 --> 00:11:11.476 So As always, let's keep it clean. 46 00:11:11.686 --> 00:11:13.378 No slide tackles, hands above the waist. 47 00:11:13.442 --> 00:11:14.279 Let's have fun out there. 48 00:11:14.715 --> 00:11:15.714 Ruth and Jonas, take it away. 49 00:11:17.299 --> 00:11:17.575 Great. 50 00:11:18.224 --> 00:11:20.414 Thank you, Council President. 51 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:23.465 We'll keep our yellow cards handy if necessary. 52 00:11:24.618 --> 00:11:27.562 For the record, Jonas Biery, the city's Chief Financial Officer. 53 00:11:28.419 --> 00:11:29.794 And thank you, Council President, for the introduction. 54 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:37.798 I'm going to kind of expand on, I think, a lot of what you said about the process to get here and kind of set the stage a little bit as we launch. 55 00:11:39.341 --> 00:11:43.206 So as you mentioned, why are we having this work session? 56 00:11:43.333 --> 00:11:50.211 Over the last 2 months since adoption of the '26-'27 budget, we often think of it as a pause. 57 00:11:50.724 --> 00:11:51.332 We didn't pause. 58 00:11:52.070 --> 00:12:05.455 We immediately, as soon as that ink was dry, began doing robust and intentional after-action activities so that we could try to identify the opportunities to present to you today for potential budget process improvements. 59 00:12:05.936 --> 00:12:24.330 We received feedback from council, from community members, and from internal technical budget So the information presented today is kind of our attempt to synthesize that feedback that we've collected for feedback, for consideration and discussion and feedback from Council. 60 00:12:25.299 --> 00:12:39.730 I think some— the good news side of this equation is that that additional coordinated dialogue has helped us identify opportunities that we think generally align for Council, for the public, and for the administration. 61 00:12:39.730 --> 00:12:40.789 We'll talk about that in a second. 62 00:12:40.789 --> 00:12:55.774 I'd say in particular, the work that we've done with the City Budget Office, In particular, largely hearing a request for consistency in process and in expectations, which will then enhance accuracy, will enhance timeliness, and ultimately support decision-making all along the chain. 63 00:12:56.431 --> 00:12:59.620 And so I think that'll be an important kind of baseline. 64 00:13:00.519 --> 00:13:07.701 And I want to acknowledge that, as you know, we're also working on developing actions related to broader financial stabilization. 65 00:13:07.749 --> 00:13:12.365 More info will be coming to you on that in a couple of weeks at a future work session on September 23rd. 66 00:13:12.974 --> 00:13:21.727 But I do expect and anticipate that the ideas that are bubbling up today will align and relate to recommendations that'll come forward in that work. 67 00:13:22.772 --> 00:13:27.961 So maybe less good news, and you alluded to this, Council President, is that we can't do everything all at once in one budget cycle. 68 00:13:28.620 --> 00:13:32.220 Some things will need to occur in phases or in successive order. 69 00:13:32.783 --> 00:13:37.346 Others will be constrained by limitations on time or limitations on financial resources. 70 00:13:37.796 --> 00:13:40.285 So it is critical for us today to get your thoughts and input. 71 00:13:40.350 --> 00:13:40.495 Thank you. 72 00:13:41.025 --> 00:13:46.277 Because we really begin the preliminary work on the '27-'28 budget right now. 73 00:13:46.826 --> 00:13:52.485 A lot of the work that happens behind the scenes and under the ocean really does start in September. 74 00:13:52.566 --> 00:13:58.566 And so it's really critical that we have your perspective as we begin doing that work, getting ready for spring. 75 00:14:00.668 --> 00:14:05.114 So the agenda today, kind of run of show, is that I'm going to provide some quick background. 76 00:14:07.216 --> 00:14:13.244 And summary of just the general feedback, and then we'll get to the meat of the presentation, which is really discussing possible process improvements. 77 00:14:13.773 --> 00:14:17.620 We'd love to make sure we make space at the end, and I think one more slide ahead, Ruth, sorry. 78 00:14:18.037 --> 00:14:19.078 I don't—. 79 00:14:19.078 --> 00:14:19.303 Cool. 80 00:14:19.976 --> 00:14:24.192 Make space at the end to talk about next steps so we can really move things forward. 81 00:14:25.506 --> 00:14:26.148 Couple of notes. 82 00:14:26.854 --> 00:14:32.176 One is we were so excited to talk to you that we didn't factor in time for a break, but we certainly expect to do that. 83 00:14:32.303 --> 00:14:38.735 And so at some point we'll look, I think there's a natural breakpoint here after the second theme, but look to add a break thank you. 84 00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:40.076 I just wanted to break in for sanity. 85 00:14:40.595 --> 00:14:47.839 The other thing I wanted to note here is that the kind of byline at the bottom, I want to direct attention there both for council and for the public. 86 00:14:49.916 --> 00:15:01.710 While it's an imperfect resource, the CBO, the City Budget Office, does produce a budget dashboard that has really good kind of digestible snapshots of city bureaus and programs. 87 00:15:02.433 --> 00:15:05.864 It's certainly not perfected yet, but it is a really valuable resource. 88 00:15:05.975 --> 00:15:08.294 And one of the things that we've learned over the last couple months is that many people don't know that that exists. 89 00:15:10.393 --> 00:15:17.129 And so I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight that for folks today, and we'll probably continue to highlight that as we go forward. 90 00:15:18.572 --> 00:15:27.076 The presentation cadence will be that for each of the 4 themes, which I'm gonna present in a moment, I'll provide a general introduction to the feedback and the theme. 91 00:15:27.510 --> 00:15:32.451 Ruth will discuss some potential improvements, and then we'll look to get feedback from you. 92 00:15:33.082 --> 00:15:39.529 Each option, each— within each theme, there'll be a series of options that you've probably seen if you've seen the presentation. 93 00:15:39.628 --> 00:15:48.567 Each option will include information It'll include an indication of who we think would be in the lead to implement that. 94 00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:58.951 It'll include information about who we believe key implementation support partners are and an indication of whether we think it's a task that's easy, challenging, or maybe somewhere in between. 95 00:16:00.793 --> 00:16:03.964 We do need to get through all the content today, as I said, so we can move forward. 96 00:16:04.028 --> 00:16:07.553 So we'll look to Council President and look to all of you to help manage that time. 97 00:16:08.072 --> 00:16:11.875 We've set it up so there's around 30 minutes collectively for each theme, which will allow us to get through everything today. 98 00:16:11.924 --> 00:16:19.325 And, Carl, I will be holding us to those times, limiting colleagues to 5 minutes per councilor. 99 00:16:19.485 --> 00:16:22.886 And that means that obviously not every councilor will get to talk on each of the 4 themes. 100 00:16:22.934 --> 00:16:25.308 So please, let's be as succinct as possible and get through this. 101 00:16:25.566 --> 00:16:26.128 Great, thank you. 102 00:16:26.207 --> 00:16:30.234 And then the last few introductory points before we move to the real content. 103 00:16:30.860 --> 00:16:36.940 I want to acknowledge that many of the options that we're going to review are interactive and interrelated. 104 00:16:37.437 --> 00:16:51.490 And so these are not organized in a I want to sort of reiterate that a chosen path in regard to one option may impact another option. 105 00:16:51.590 --> 00:16:52.929 This is not all or none. 106 00:16:53.350 --> 00:16:53.990 It's very dynamic. 107 00:16:54.330 --> 00:16:58.389 I think of it more as a kind of choose-your-own-adventure opportunity we have here. 108 00:16:58.389 --> 00:17:01.590 We're going to obviously look to continuously improve. 109 00:17:01.789 --> 00:17:06.529 Thank you, Council President, for acknowledging the improvement last year, and I think we'll continue to see that. 110 00:17:06.529 --> 00:17:06.589 Thank you, Mayor. 111 00:17:07.288 --> 00:17:12.261 I also want to note that nothing that's presented here should be interpreted as being unanimous feedback. 112 00:17:12.983 --> 00:17:14.557 There will be things that are less clear. 113 00:17:15.310 --> 00:17:22.115 I expect there will be disagreement about where some of the suggestions may lie, and that's part of the reason, the value and reason for this conversation. 114 00:17:22.531 --> 00:17:23.606 We will catch all that feedback. 115 00:17:23.672 --> 00:17:29.641 We'll work with council leadership and administrative leadership to prioritize improvements for '27-'28 as best we can. 116 00:17:30.652 --> 00:17:37.118 Lastly, by design and by intention, you'll notice that nothing in here is identified as a recommendation. 117 00:17:37.214 --> 00:17:37.278 Yes. 118 00:17:38.586 --> 00:17:46.871 While Ruth and I, and certainly everyone here has opinions, we're really looking today for your input so that we can develop actions. 119 00:17:47.016 --> 00:17:52.602 So I want to be really clear that we're not presenting these as recommendations from the CBO or the CFO or the administration. 120 00:17:52.957 --> 00:17:57.201 It's just a synthesis of the feedback that we've heard so we can receive your input. 121 00:17:57.974 --> 00:17:58.201 All right. 122 00:17:59.714 --> 00:18:13.202 So just to summarize what we've done last year, as you recall, we pursued one-on-one conversations with councilors, We had some other kind of interspersed input, and that guided some good improvements. 123 00:18:14.037 --> 00:18:24.044 I think with a couple years now of experience, we hope to really accelerate, to use these conversations to accelerate that continuous improvement process for the next budget cycle. 124 00:18:24.717 --> 00:18:32.238 This year, we expanded our efforts to collect more robust input and kind of 3 legs, so to speak. 125 00:18:33.056 --> 00:18:40.212 The Finance and Governance Committee of the Whole Chair, and initiated committee conversations about the budget process, and we've listened to that dialogue. 126 00:18:40.309 --> 00:18:42.010 So that was really important input to this. 127 00:18:42.750 --> 00:18:49.364 The City Budget Office pursued a survey for council offices, and then we again pursued one-on-one conversations with each of you. 128 00:18:50.150 --> 00:19:05.415 Additionally, and this was a really enhanced piece over prior years, is we undertook additional information gathering on the administrative side, including a survey, an after-action retreat for the humans who do the technical side of the budget work, and a focused conversation. 129 00:19:05.480 --> 00:19:05.625 Thank you. 130 00:19:06.268 --> 00:19:08.789 With the CA's executive leadership team. 131 00:19:09.561 --> 00:19:18.069 And again, I would just reiterate, I think one of the values that I've found in that is that there are many, many things that we are aligned on and that we all want to see. 132 00:19:18.167 --> 00:19:19.364 So I think that's been really valuable. 133 00:19:21.406 --> 00:19:30.387 So these are how we've kind of bucketed the themes in the kind of categories that we think were universally shared. 134 00:19:30.781 --> 00:19:32.174 The outcomes are better earlier. 135 00:19:32.240 --> 00:19:32.337 Yeah. 136 00:19:33.575 --> 00:19:41.893 Information and shared access to that information, better decision-making supports, improved community engagement, and improved budget accuracy. 137 00:19:42.631 --> 00:19:49.487 So with that tee-up, we'll now move straight into talking about the themes and improvement possibilities. 138 00:19:49.551 --> 00:19:57.516 And reminder, I'll tee up a theme, Ruth will talk about the options, and then after we talk about the options, we'll pause for some Q&A on each theme. 139 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:04.025 So the first theme is around information and access. 140 00:20:04.617 --> 00:20:23.775 And within this theme, the general feedback was a desire for information to be shared with council earlier in the process, efforts to improve visibility into program changes and funding, including breaking out one-time versus ongoing funding and year-over-year changes, expanded access to financial data, and staff support for council. 141 00:20:25.218 --> 00:20:36.917 More consistent reporting on equity impacts and performance measures, and providing both narrative information that has both less dense narrative and more detailed spreadsheets. 142 00:20:37.335 --> 00:20:43.490 And so that's the quick summary of that general feedback that's informed the possibilities that Ruth's gonna now walk through. 143 00:20:44.146 --> 00:20:44.323 Great. 144 00:20:44.612 --> 00:20:49.084 And just a quick reminder, these options aren't mutually exclusive. 145 00:20:49.180 --> 00:20:50.382 They're also not exhaustive. 146 00:20:50.478 --> 00:20:54.888 So interested in any additional ideas you all have here today when we get to the Q&A. 147 00:20:56.003 --> 00:21:01.663 So for this one, and this is probably the most robust theme, so we put it first, but the information access. 148 00:21:01.743 --> 00:21:03.363 So the first— thank you. 149 00:21:03.896 --> 00:21:05.662 Also for the record, Ruth Levine, Budget Director. 150 00:21:06.180 --> 00:21:06.972 Haven't been here in a while. 151 00:21:07.930 --> 00:21:13.845 So the first one is really around program offer data and reporting. 152 00:21:15.676 --> 00:21:24.857 And some of the pieces of this that we could, I think, improve include better breaking out of one-time versus ongoing funding within a program offer. 153 00:21:24.971 --> 00:21:26.166 That's a little confusing. 154 00:21:26.279 --> 00:21:29.509 It's mostly an issue in the general fund, but it comes up in a few other places as well. 155 00:21:31.420 --> 00:21:41.663 Performance measures that are tied to specific program offers and potentially also to the bureau as a whole or the service area as a whole. 156 00:21:42.299 --> 00:21:49.994 And then consistency in the equity, we call it impacts, but it's really considerations or objectives within a program. 157 00:21:50.886 --> 00:21:59.704 And then continuing to improve on format and tone and, you know, what type of information is included. 158 00:22:00.026 --> 00:22:02.366 You know, we've talked about introducing character limits, for example. 159 00:22:03.232 --> 00:22:05.958 So that's the kind of thing that would go into that bucket. 160 00:22:06.454 --> 00:22:10.095 And then just a note here that this is probably a multi-year plan. 161 00:22:10.303 --> 00:22:21.079 The piece that I just wanna highlight for you that's probably not obvious from where you sit is that these are all connected to financial data in SAP and they have, There's like multiple layers of it. 162 00:22:21.208 --> 00:22:33.343 And so combining programs, renaming them, getting rid of old ones, that's work we can do, but it takes a lot of time and effort and many people across the organization, not just budget staff. 163 00:22:33.423 --> 00:22:40.663 So that's part of the reason this needs to be a multi-year effort is kind of the first step is really a triage and figure out what needs to be done. 164 00:22:40.711 --> 00:22:46.698 And then the second step is take the most high-value ones and work on those, and then we'll eventually work through it. 165 00:22:47.067 --> 00:22:49.571 So just wanted to flag that. 166 00:22:49.636 --> 00:22:53.125 That's why it's kind of listed as medium and there's quite a few other people involved. 167 00:22:56.169 --> 00:22:56.442 Sorry. 168 00:22:57.909 --> 00:23:02.693 The next, Council President spoke about this in his introductory remarks, but work sessions earlier. 169 00:23:03.144 --> 00:23:07.102 This kind of just shows you the trade-off of earlier versus later. 170 00:23:08.599 --> 00:23:21.955 You know, more likely you'd end up somewhere in the middle, but the, you know, the earlier, obviously we have It would be basically focused on the current year's budget data and what do the bureaus do and how do they deliver their services. 171 00:23:22.308 --> 00:23:32.167 The later would obviously include more information about what the options are to expand or reduce services and what would that look like. 172 00:23:32.520 --> 00:23:36.807 Somewhere in the middle, you could get a mix of both depending on exactly when it happens. 173 00:23:41.022 --> 00:23:42.357 Improved budget book materials. 174 00:23:43.273 --> 00:23:48.550 This is listed as easy, but that's just to say we will improve the budget book materials. 175 00:23:48.663 --> 00:23:50.681 But I think the question is really how. 176 00:23:51.008 --> 00:23:53.443 We heard a lot that we want to make narrative more concise. 177 00:23:55.093 --> 00:23:56.891 I think that's fairly easy to accomplish. 178 00:23:59.740 --> 00:24:02.719 Reporting budget decisions at the program offer level. 179 00:24:02.768 --> 00:24:19.636 This ties to the program offer piece, but, you know, So what is currently delivered, what would be changed by a particular decision or set of decisions, and what would the resulting program look like if those decisions were approved by council is the kind of information that I hear you all saying you want. 180 00:24:19.958 --> 00:24:22.846 That's a little bit more challenging, but I think we can make progress on that. 181 00:24:23.167 --> 00:24:32.943 And then the third one I think we can certainly do and improve is providing a spreadsheet with, you know, prior year's budget by program offer. 182 00:24:32.992 --> 00:24:33.136 Thank you. 183 00:24:33.539 --> 00:24:41.332 Sort of base budget changes, budgets before proposed changes, and then changes and the resulting total by program offer. 184 00:24:41.412 --> 00:24:45.765 And we can certainly provide that in a way that's hopefully easier to digest. 185 00:24:48.645 --> 00:24:54.049 The next one is around expanded staffing and data access. 186 00:24:54.471 --> 00:24:57.400 On the staffing front, there's sort of 2 flavors that I see. 187 00:24:57.464 --> 00:24:59.674 One is more people during the peak. 188 00:24:59.740 --> 00:24:59.788 Yes. 189 00:25:00.337 --> 00:25:09.942 Season in April, May, and the second is more, more like lengthy or constant support throughout the year. 190 00:25:10.584 --> 00:25:19.482 And then on the data side, um, you know, there's ways to give council staff view-only access to budget data. 191 00:25:19.708 --> 00:25:25.271 You know, I want to make sure we would provide the appropriate trainings to do that so that you're understanding what you see. 192 00:25:25.961 --> 00:25:31.903 Um, and then obviously there's sort of considerations with that, potentially, depending on which way we go. 193 00:25:33.797 --> 00:25:35.237 So that was theme 1. 194 00:25:35.414 --> 00:25:37.551 These questions are just to get you started. 195 00:25:37.599 --> 00:25:41.209 Obviously, you can go whatever direction you all want. 196 00:25:41.323 --> 00:25:41.420 The—. 197 00:25:41.662 --> 00:25:45.589 These— for each section, we've highlighted the questions where we have the most uncertainty. 198 00:25:46.898 --> 00:25:52.420 And so the first is around budget work sessions, and the second is around staff support. 199 00:25:52.871 --> 00:25:54.175 But feel free to take it away. 200 00:25:54.402 --> 00:25:54.563 Thank you. 201 00:25:54.723 --> 00:26:00.664 And colleagues, both in your inbox and on your desk in front of you, there is a draft very, very, very much so draft. 202 00:26:00.712 --> 00:26:10.511 This is something my staff threw together of a potential calendar of what the year might look like, just so you can physically look at it, but also interested in just getting folks' feedback. 203 00:26:10.577 --> 00:26:12.376 So folks, feel free to jump into the queue. 204 00:26:14.589 --> 00:26:15.123 Councilor Maria. 205 00:26:16.788 --> 00:26:17.903 Thank you, Council President. 206 00:26:18.179 --> 00:26:24.695 Thank you both so much for being here and for being willing to talk even more postmortem about the budget and what we can do differently this time. 207 00:26:25.227 --> 00:26:26.125 I agree. 208 00:26:26.207 --> 00:26:29.678 I think that this year's budget cycle was a lot better than the first time around. 209 00:26:29.741 --> 00:26:33.903 And so I think there were already huge improvements made from our user standpoint. 210 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:40.009 And I think having shared information as councilors, I took a lot of notes on this prior. 211 00:26:40.089 --> 00:26:50.519 And I think one of the things that we heard a lot of feedback on from the past meetings is that a lot of us want information by bureau, by program for the final adopted budget. 212 00:26:50.935 --> 00:26:59.183 And I bring this up because the first request has the goal of grounding ourselves in current service levels before budget development and budget work sessions. 213 00:26:59.311 --> 00:27:01.991 So I think that would be a more helpful breakdown. 214 00:27:02.826 --> 00:27:10.607 I think this could also be accomplished by returning to the publishing program offers the way that we used to have in the prior form of government. 215 00:27:11.074 --> 00:27:18.182 The adopted budget used to include a whole volume that was dedicated just to the program offers that we no longer do anymore. 216 00:27:18.374 --> 00:27:24.411 And I think that's I think that's just limited our ability to see what different things are available to us. 217 00:27:26.459 --> 00:27:40.403 I also feel like the prior program offers were a really good place to start, and I think that they could also provide more information if we wanted to enhance that, which could include descriptions on sources of revenues and the kinds of expenses incurred in the course of regular business too. 218 00:27:43.532 --> 00:28:02.056 And as far as timing goes, I think it makes sense for us to have those after the mayor has proposed in order to understand the changes that are being suggested, but only if we receive this other adopted baseline information in the fall, because council and the public need to have those available if we need to make those decisions. 219 00:28:03.819 --> 00:28:15.473 So is it possible or feasible for you guys to reestablish the program offers that existed before, or is that I can speak to that real quick. 220 00:28:15.555 --> 00:28:17.791 So we do have program offers in the book. 221 00:28:17.872 --> 00:28:21.219 They are just incorporated because we have a new budget book software. 222 00:28:22.534 --> 00:28:29.909 So the printed volume has 2 volumes now, but the online version doesn't have volumes just because it's on a website. 223 00:28:30.789 --> 00:28:31.891 So the program offers are there. 224 00:28:31.955 --> 00:28:39.614 They have changed slightly since the before times, but we are also totally open to changing what information is in there to help you yes. 225 00:28:39.727 --> 00:28:40.664 Get what you need to know. 226 00:28:40.858 --> 00:28:49.038 I think, so, you know, encourage folks to obviously look at the adopted budget book online and look at the dashboard. 227 00:28:49.104 --> 00:29:13.185 But also I've set up 2, like, workshops, I think I called them, on the 21st and 22nd of this month for council staff and for council and staff to look at, like, hold up program, hold up whatever piece of information it is, and we can talk more in detail about what what it is that you're not finding in there, just so that it's easier to have a conversation about it offline. 228 00:29:13.474 --> 00:29:14.549 So hopefully that's helpful. 229 00:29:15.498 --> 00:29:22.611 Yeah, I know that they're incorporated into our books, but they're very different than how they used to be, and they don't have that same amount of information. 230 00:29:22.659 --> 00:29:28.006 So maybe we can connect one-on-one after this to talk about the types of information that we need. 231 00:29:28.102 --> 00:29:32.919 But I think that that would help address a lot of the issues that people have right now. 232 00:29:33.950 --> 00:29:34.226 Thank you. 233 00:29:34.290 --> 00:29:35.736 Thank you, Councilor Morillo. 234 00:29:35.833 --> 00:29:36.855 Councilor Pirtle-Guiney. 235 00:29:38.413 --> 00:29:39.534 Thank you, Council President. 236 00:29:41.710 --> 00:29:49.759 Um, first of all, I want to start with a thank you to our budget team for including that current service level identification this year. 237 00:29:49.855 --> 00:29:51.432 I think that fits within this category. 238 00:29:52.029 --> 00:30:06.753 That was really helpful for me in understanding not just what the across-the-board increased— increases in costs are but what we have been doing and how, how we're going to be able to budget to do that again. 239 00:30:06.882 --> 00:30:13.852 So I hope that we can stick with the current service level, whether it's alongside or instead of the current allocation level system. 240 00:30:15.702 --> 00:30:25.477 Not an answer to the questions you have, but just a piece that I didn't see anywhere in the presentation here or to follow that I want to make sure we're not losing. 241 00:30:26.303 --> 00:30:40.105 And that is that we have had conversations about the level at which we budget and that idea of bulk appropriations versus line item budgeting versus position budgeting or something in between. 242 00:30:41.244 --> 00:31:05.576 And I know it will take us a few years to get to the right level, but I don't want this theme to drop off of our to-do list or out of our conversations because I do need to— I do think that we need to move away not just from listing our appropriations as bulk appropriations in the budget book and the information that's publicly available, but from budgeting in bulk appropriations. 243 00:31:06.451 --> 00:31:13.567 I think a position-by-position budget is too heavy-handed and too detailed. 244 00:31:14.196 --> 00:31:26.000 We need our bureau directors to have the flexibility to do the work that we are asking them to get done, and we need to understand that sometimes midway through the year there are changes in priorities that they have to be able to carry out. 245 00:31:27.329 --> 00:31:46.855 But there has to be a level that is somewhere in between the bulk budget appropriations and that position-by-position budgeting that allows Council, and by extension Portlanders, to have confidence that the priorities we lay out are what is actually going to be enacted. 246 00:31:48.170 --> 00:32:00.171 Once this budget moves through the different layers of folks who have been paying attention to what we say at the dais, to the folks who are actually implementing on the ground and making sure those programs work for Portlanders. 247 00:32:01.551 --> 00:32:19.519 And so if that's not in here because not enough people said it and it's not a this-year priority or because it takes too much effort to put into place, I understand, but I'd like to make sure that it continues to be part of our record and our discussion of the types of changes we need to make broadly over the next few years. 248 00:32:21.714 --> 00:32:23.286 Can I just add one quick thing? 249 00:32:24.022 --> 00:32:25.770 Didn't exclude it on purpose, one. 250 00:32:26.138 --> 00:32:27.486 Two, so thank you. 251 00:32:28.270 --> 00:32:34.586 Two, I just, in part for folks who are listening, I think there's maybe a little bit of confusion, at least in the difference in the way people talk about things. 252 00:32:35.740 --> 00:32:43.210 The appropriation schedule that you all adopt is set by the categories that are laid out in Oregon budget law. 253 00:32:43.433 --> 00:32:46.655 So program expenditures, contingency, debt. 254 00:32:48.227 --> 00:32:51.641 We obviously budget at the commitment item level. 255 00:32:51.833 --> 00:33:06.756 And the question is, what are the rules and really what are the policies and potentially code that govern when can the administration change that and when do we have to come back to council for approval? 256 00:33:07.092 --> 00:33:18.345 So we do budget specific positions, but we have a position management, it's an HRAR, Policy that governs when and how those can change. 257 00:33:18.393 --> 00:33:23.442 So I think it's the connection between— there's the appropriation schedule. 258 00:33:23.570 --> 00:33:27.433 Yes, that isn't likely to change because it's sort of set by budget law. 259 00:33:27.513 --> 00:33:35.961 But then there's other rules that govern how do we change, because we can't obviously cross categories within the appropriation schedule. 260 00:33:36.330 --> 00:33:41.557 But within that, how do we— when and how can the administration change things, I think is what you're getting at. 261 00:33:41.684 --> 00:33:41.941 So just for—. 262 00:33:41.941 --> 00:33:42.005 Yeah. 263 00:33:42.165 --> 00:33:45.218 For budget folks who are listening, we're like, we do budget people. 264 00:33:45.394 --> 00:33:46.357 That's, I think, where the—. 265 00:33:47.644 --> 00:33:48.864 What you're talking about. 266 00:33:49.009 --> 00:33:51.740 Yes, and thank you for parsing it in the right words. 267 00:33:51.884 --> 00:33:53.201 I'm not using the right words. 268 00:33:53.329 --> 00:33:55.771 And it is, it's outside of the budget calendar. 269 00:33:55.836 --> 00:34:00.125 It's a conversation we don't have during budget time. 270 00:34:00.269 --> 00:34:09.297 It's a conversation we need to be having now and over the next 3 months and next summer around those budget policies. 271 00:34:09.474 --> 00:34:24.253 And so I I understand it's not how does our actual budget process work, but it is a theme that comes out of these after-actions every year that I want to make sure we don't lose as we are talking about how we build the budget for next year. 272 00:34:24.317 --> 00:34:41.891 And Councilor, I might add to take this opportunity so I don't have to say this like 20 times today, but bring that energy as well when we talk about financial stabilization, because I think there'll be a close connection to thinking about how we recraft those policies in the context of the stabilization actions that's very closely related. 273 00:34:41.956 --> 00:34:43.722 And so I think that will occur a lot today. 274 00:34:43.898 --> 00:34:47.463 I'm not going to say it 20 times, but wanted to take this opportunity to drop that. 275 00:34:47.672 --> 00:34:57.449 I'm very excited for us to get to the conversation around financial stabilization, and I'm looking forward to seeing what my colleagues who have been working with you on that are coming up with. 276 00:34:58.798 --> 00:35:01.190 Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney. 277 00:35:01.304 --> 00:35:01.833 Councilor Smith. 278 00:35:05.557 --> 00:35:05.976 Thank you. 279 00:35:06.344 --> 00:35:07.853 Thank you, Council President. 280 00:35:08.994 --> 00:35:10.742 I just have a couple of questions. 281 00:35:10.840 --> 00:35:11.978 You know what I, I want? 282 00:35:12.139 --> 00:35:35.585 I want some spreadsheets, and I want the spreadsheets to include the document that I gave you from the county with the year over for the last 2 years, which, um, funding is— which program is being paid for with, um, restricted dollars, um, general fund dollars On one page so that I can see if this is a new program or old program. 283 00:35:36.193 --> 00:35:46.481 I, I— it's really difficult for me to have a, a story, and I keep saying the same thing, having those stories, um, it just only irritates me. 284 00:35:47.907 --> 00:35:49.958 I don't need a story for you to explain. 285 00:35:50.135 --> 00:35:50.967 I just need a spreadsheet. 286 00:35:51.416 --> 00:35:53.981 Let me see what— what did we have this program last year? 287 00:35:54.077 --> 00:35:54.750 How much did we pay? 288 00:35:54.862 --> 00:35:56.688 How many FTEs did we have? 289 00:35:56.753 --> 00:35:56.929 Councilwoman. 290 00:35:57.900 --> 00:35:59.563 How many FTs are we losing? 291 00:35:59.855 --> 00:36:03.570 I can see the up and over, so I can see where the changes are. 292 00:36:04.458 --> 00:36:10.416 It, um, it is distracting to have everything in paragraph form. 293 00:36:11.219 --> 00:36:13.036 It would make our lives a whole lot easier. 294 00:36:13.791 --> 00:36:24.041 And I would challenge you all, and I wouldn't mind taking a road trip one day and just going over and getting the, the last year's budget of Multnomah County and us sitting through it and going through it so you can see it. 295 00:36:24.137 --> 00:36:24.235 Thank you. 296 00:36:26.389 --> 00:36:27.880 I don't want to keep saying it 20 times. 297 00:36:28.009 --> 00:36:28.835 I don't have anything else. 298 00:36:28.898 --> 00:36:34.224 I love this, this, this new way you all changed things around. 299 00:36:34.500 --> 00:36:38.251 Council President had some suggestions that were really good in terms of what we hear. 300 00:36:38.606 --> 00:36:40.255 And so I'm good with it. 301 00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:46.300 I think a lot of this will be solved if you just give us a spreadsheet. 302 00:36:47.333 --> 00:36:48.788 I know the mayor uses a spreadsheet. 303 00:36:48.867 --> 00:36:51.226 He's getting a spreadsheet of some stuff, but we're not getting the spreadsheet. 304 00:36:51.273 --> 00:36:51.759 I'm going to get you a spreadsheet. 305 00:36:51.849 --> 00:36:51.961 Yes. 306 00:36:52.443 --> 00:36:59.365 So I just want to see how many, how many, how many, um, FTEs are we cutting this year so I can see directly. 307 00:36:59.414 --> 00:37:00.664 Go to it, go to the page. 308 00:37:01.161 --> 00:37:08.438 It just makes it easier because when we have to keep coming back to you and reading through all this stuff and say we took 24%— that's the other thing, you all use percentages. 309 00:37:09.094 --> 00:37:10.056 Don't give me a percentage. 310 00:37:10.152 --> 00:37:14.400 Tell me in dollars, in cents, how much are we reducing. 311 00:37:14.463 --> 00:37:22.403 When you say we're reducing this by 24% and then don't tell me what that reduction— what number that reduction is, That's a problem. 312 00:37:22.969 --> 00:37:31.554 It's— I don't— the storybooks, the percentages, just give me a spreadsheet and all of our lives will be much better. 313 00:37:32.427 --> 00:37:32.768 Thank you. 314 00:37:34.773 --> 00:37:35.550 Thank you, Councilor Smith. 315 00:37:36.050 --> 00:37:37.005 Councilor Green. 316 00:37:37.750 --> 00:37:38.978 Yeah, yeah. 317 00:37:39.141 --> 00:37:40.831 Thank you, Council President. 318 00:37:41.501 --> 00:37:42.467 Thank you, Council President. 319 00:37:42.532 --> 00:37:43.235 I've started my timer. 320 00:37:44.659 --> 00:37:45.532 Um, uh, thanks so much. 321 00:37:45.597 --> 00:37:45.943 I just—. 322 00:37:45.943 --> 00:37:48.197 I'm going to echo some things for the sake of brevity. 323 00:37:48.697 --> 00:37:52.007 I echo that it was an improvement from the first year. 324 00:37:52.777 --> 00:37:55.476 I really want to laud the diligent work that y'all are doing. 325 00:37:56.777 --> 00:38:06.445 My office, when we had questions, we got answers to those questions, but that interaction is under-resourced relative to the demand of the questions. 326 00:38:06.510 --> 00:38:20.510 And so I'm glad to see on one of the slides that you guys are grappling with the challenging sort of feedback that how do we get It's important to be honest that there are constraints. 327 00:38:21.190 --> 00:38:28.869 And if we have to talk about how to resource to invest in those, that's what we need to do as a budget committee. 328 00:38:31.050 --> 00:38:41.269 I would like to think that we could front-load this more, but I think at the end of the day, we're always going to have a situation where we respond to the mayor's proposed budget because Oregon budget law sets a certain thing. 329 00:38:41.269 --> 00:38:41.389 I think that's a good point. 330 00:38:41.949 --> 00:38:49.983 And so I want the next proposed budget to contemplate an investment in our ability to staff up that capability. 331 00:38:50.418 --> 00:38:52.215 And if it's in the CBO, that's great. 332 00:38:52.947 --> 00:38:58.827 If it's contemplating training council operations staff or some FTEs that have the right skill set, that's also fine. 333 00:39:00.927 --> 00:39:07.221 I think that maybe some training— I think it's mentioned here, but some training for councilor staff Mm-hmm. 334 00:39:07.396 --> 00:39:13.125 To, to engage in that SAP query on a standardized basis so we can trust each other when we do that work. 335 00:39:13.188 --> 00:39:18.563 Because some of our offices do that, but I think it's like if it doesn't come from the CBO, then it's not real. 336 00:39:19.188 --> 00:39:21.949 Uh, so I want to get away from that place of skepticism. 337 00:39:22.429 --> 00:39:25.172 So I support kind of taking this on. 338 00:39:25.221 --> 00:39:29.440 I recognize it's going to take some work and it's going to take some decisions from this body to resource that. 339 00:39:30.179 --> 00:39:32.585 Um, I've got 2 minutes left. 340 00:39:35.315 --> 00:39:43.706 I also want to lend my voice in support of moving to a more granular level of budgeting. 341 00:39:47.079 --> 00:40:00.851 I think one of the things I'm— well, I won't spoil the story on the financial stabilization stuff, but I think when we go into the community and we talk to Portlanders, there's a desire to have a clearer understanding of what we're spending our money on. 342 00:40:00.900 --> 00:40:01.028 Thank you. 343 00:40:02.097 --> 00:40:05.896 And that, that exerts itself in a lot of different ways that we have those experiences. 344 00:40:05.945 --> 00:40:24.364 And I was, I was doing some reading on previous councils because I like to do a little history work on this, and I came across an article where Tom Potter, Dan Saltzman, Eric Sten were at a community budget listening session, and everyone was thrilled because they got a printout of line item expenditures, and they were just having really honest conversations. 345 00:40:24.876 --> 00:40:38.789 And so I think that if we can give councilors the rough kind of spreadsheet-level, commitment-level data presentation, the kind of stuff that Councilor Smith's asking for, the stuff that we've gotten kind of as we've asked for it ad hoc through our offices. 346 00:40:38.949 --> 00:40:45.786 If we can do that after the proposed, I think we can probably do that with our current budgets as adopted. 347 00:40:47.543 --> 00:40:53.246 And just lastly, on— like, with the caveats that this is all rough, this is all as it is now. 348 00:40:53.391 --> 00:40:53.699 These are not—. 349 00:40:53.699 --> 00:40:53.764 Right. 350 00:40:54.293 --> 00:40:55.208 Necessarily proposals. 351 00:40:55.257 --> 00:40:56.172 This is all going to change. 352 00:40:56.221 --> 00:41:07.322 But just being able to be radically transparent with Portlanders, I think, is, is something we can and we should do because it'll allow us to talk to them at a higher level of detail than, than saying, well, it's complicated. 353 00:41:07.369 --> 00:41:11.177 You see, there are these categories and this is service area, this is restricted, that's not restricted. 354 00:41:11.242 --> 00:41:12.896 That doesn't land well with our communities. 355 00:41:14.293 --> 00:41:18.213 And so to the extent that we can pull that off easily, I, I'm going to advocate for that. 356 00:41:19.016 --> 00:41:25.641 And lastly, I, I think that when should we— the question is, when should we start to talk to them? 357 00:41:26.971 --> 00:41:31.137 I think that, that should start in late January, early February. 358 00:41:31.280 --> 00:41:33.268 I know that the forecasting work is not done. 359 00:41:34.277 --> 00:41:35.751 It's always a bit of a cutoff point. 360 00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:41.632 You have to pick and choose your trade-off between precision forecasting versus like how early you can start talking about this. 361 00:41:41.777 --> 00:41:53.784 But again, I think if we can say this is our best guess today, recognizing things will change, Gives us more time to talk to our constituents so that way they don't feel blindsided. 362 00:41:54.682 --> 00:42:00.599 And, you know, 3 weeks for councilors to respond to the mayor's proposed— you know, I don't think it's nefarious. 363 00:42:00.873 --> 00:42:05.298 I just think that that's the time constraint that happens, and we need to be able to start talking to them earlier. 364 00:42:06.148 --> 00:42:07.384 So I think those are my suggestions. 365 00:42:07.447 --> 00:42:11.697 I really want to say you guys are doing hard work, and you need more help. 366 00:42:12.097 --> 00:42:13.268 So we need to give them more resources. 367 00:42:13.333 --> 00:42:13.429 Thank you. 368 00:42:14.007 --> 00:42:14.262 Thanks. 369 00:42:14.824 --> 00:42:15.530 Thank you, Councilor Green. 370 00:42:15.947 --> 00:42:16.509 Councilor Novick. 371 00:42:17.054 --> 00:42:18.418 Thank you, Mr. President. 372 00:42:18.659 --> 00:42:24.706 Um, following up on what Councilor Green just said about communicating with the public, but I think this would also help communicate with us. 373 00:42:25.556 --> 00:42:35.695 What I would love to see is for each bureau, like a one-pager that says here's what percent of the budget goes to personnel, and then maybe a few examples of what those personnel are. 374 00:42:35.840 --> 00:42:40.981 Like with the police, here's patrol, here's investigations, here's other people. 375 00:42:41.952 --> 00:42:50.505 And then an explanation of what do we spend on materials when we're actually buying stuff for maintaining stuff. 376 00:42:51.250 --> 00:42:57.364 Like for the Friar Bureau, it would be maintaining the stations, buying new vehicles, maintaining new vehicles. 377 00:42:57.802 --> 00:43:03.532 For parks, it might be paying for water, the Water Bureau for water, like paying for fertilizer, etc. 378 00:43:04.179 --> 00:43:17.487 And then the external services part, To the extent that we're paying people to do people-type stuff as opposed to just buying stuff, have a line for that and give some indication of what that might include. 379 00:43:18.050 --> 00:43:20.811 I realize that it might not be possible to divide it up that way for some things. 380 00:43:20.860 --> 00:43:26.768 Like, it occurs to me, I think that PBOT uses contractors to— maybe they don't— to do paving. 381 00:43:27.347 --> 00:43:30.927 So it might be hard to, you know, break out the asphalt from the people. 382 00:43:31.875 --> 00:43:38.590 But I think that just having that would be useful just so that we can tell people you know, here's how much the budget for this bureau goes to people. 383 00:43:39.248 --> 00:43:41.402 Here's how much goes to like buying material stuff. 384 00:43:41.820 --> 00:43:44.476 Here's how much goes to paying other people to do stuff. 385 00:43:47.958 --> 00:43:48.282 Thank you. 386 00:43:48.914 --> 00:43:49.822 Thank you, Councilor Novick. 387 00:43:50.081 --> 00:43:50.681 Councilor Ryan? 388 00:43:50.940 --> 00:43:52.155 Yes, thank you, Council President. 389 00:43:52.559 --> 00:43:53.617 I like that we have timers. 390 00:43:53.894 --> 00:43:55.980 I think it'd be great if we had a visual up there for all of us. 391 00:43:56.338 --> 00:43:56.858 Working on it. 392 00:43:56.989 --> 00:43:57.965 Yeah, let's work on that. 393 00:43:59.922 --> 00:44:09.867 Answering your questions that I see here, Yes, I want to hear about the work areas before, and before we go into the proposed. 394 00:44:10.012 --> 00:44:21.335 And I think adding on to what Councilor Novick said, I think them coming with a standard one-pager is a really good idea, and we'll figure out what that looks like. 395 00:44:21.961 --> 00:44:27.728 But in that, include the money that goes both to our private sector and our nonprofit sector partners. 396 00:44:27.793 --> 00:44:27.905 Thank you. 397 00:44:30.168 --> 00:44:39.940 I think that 1-year look back is necessary, but as a trained executive, I always wanted to see the 5- and 10-year patterns because that tells me a better story. 398 00:44:40.769 --> 00:44:44.289 And so I think at least you should try to have the decade back look. 399 00:44:48.172 --> 00:44:50.423 Is that it? 400 00:44:51.646 --> 00:44:54.188 I agree so much with what I've been hearing from others. 401 00:44:55.775 --> 00:45:00.914