In Tuesday’s special election, Portlanders voted to increase the independence of the city auditor. The ballot initiative passed with an overwhelming majority, garnering 86.42 percent of the votes as of Wednesday morning.
The city auditor is an elected official whose duties mostly revolve around transparency and oversight of the rest of city government.
Mary Hull Caballero is the current auditor for Portland and championed the ballot measure. She believed the way things were organized gave the rest of city government too much power over the office that might investigate them. And so she made a proposal, one that voters in Portland overwhelmingly approved, according to early election returns.
"I am very gratified that the voters took the time to appreciate the problem that we were trying to solve and embrace the proposal that we put forward," Hull Caballero said Tuesday night.
Hull Caballero advocated for the measure earlier this month on OPB’s "Think Out Loud": “The power of the auditor’s office is its independence from the rest of city government,” she said. “And if we have these situations where there are the appearance that we are beholden to the people that we audit and investigate, it hurts the credibility of my office.”
The measure will amend the city charter to give the auditor’s office more independence from other areas of city government. It allows the auditor’s office to make some hiring and budget decisions without the review of some of the offices that the auditor is expected to oversee. The auditor will also be able to seek outside legal counsel, avoiding potential conflicts of interest that could have come from going to the city attorney.