Portland City Council scrambles to balance budget in marathon meeting

Portland’s new city councilors tentatively passed their first budget Wednesday in a unanimous vote that came after a far more divisive debate.

The vote wrapped up a monthslong process that tested the new 12-person council’s ability to work together. Ending in a tense showdown between weary councilors, whether or not they succeeded at this test is unclear.

“This is sort of a learn-as-you-go experience,” Councilor Olivia Clark said during the marathon council meeting that preceded the vote.

The Wednesday meeting, which began at 9:30 a.m., stretched nearly three hours past its scheduled 6 p.m. finish. Yet councilors, wading through nearly 130 budget amendments, were still crunched for time. Many proposals were left on the cutting room floor.

“I had four more things that will not be heard and I wanted them to be heard,” Councilor Loretta Smith said at 8:45 p.m. or so. “But right now we’ve gotten to the point that we’ve been here too long.”

Cheers broke out in the council chambers when the city’s budget team confirmed that, after more than 12 hours of debate, the council had approved a balanced budget.

The $8.6 billion spending plan restores some funding for threatened programs, supports councilors’ pet projects, and reflects last-minute negotiations to produce a balanced budget. And, in its passage, the plan highlights the council’s clear political division.

Mayor Keith Wilson introduced his proposed spending plan in early May. That plan worked to cover a $65 million revenue shortfall and $25 million in new costs to pay for Wilson’s plan to open 1,500 new shelter beds by December. To get there, Wilson proposed pay freezes, fee increases, significant cuts to parks and permitting bureaus, among other things.

Adjustments to public safety funding, parks

The Wednesday vote came roughly three weeks after councilors’ first round of negotiations on the spending plan, which ended in a climactic vote to move roughly $2 million that Wilson had earmarked for the Portland Police Bureau to the Parks Bureau.

That decision sparked outrage among Portlanders who support increasing the city’s police force, including local business associations and neighborhood groups. Wilson also opposed the decision.

This was enough to inspire Councilor Steve Novick to introduce a new proposal this week, one that would use nearly $2 million in money unspent in PPB’s current budget to cover overtime expenses and staff recruitment. Councilor Mitch Green successfully replaced this proposal Wednesday, with Novick’s approval. Green’s plan instead directed the $2 million in unspent PPB dollars to all public safety service agencies, which includes PPB, the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, Portland Fire & Rescue and others. The money is meant to be spent on recruitment work for any bureaus under this umbrella.

“Public safety is more than just police, it’s this whole service area,” Green said. “There are other elements that need capacity-building resources.”

Bob Cozzie, interim deputy city administrator for public safety, said he appreciated this move.

“This helps build a training pipeline for all public safety bureaus,” Cozzie said. “It also will help with recruitment efforts across the board.”

Councilors rejected another proposal that tinkered with PPB funds. The amendment, introduced by Councilor Candace Avalos, would have required that the Police Bureau receive council permission to use money for overtime. While the proposal failed, Avalos said she’s committed to finding new ways to hold police accountable for sprawling overtime spending in the coming year.

“Taxpayers deserve transparency on how these expenses are spent,” Avalos said.

Councilors did approve one new rule related to PPB overtime. The budget note, introduced by Councilor Sameer Kanal, directs PPB to prioritize using overtime hours on programs focused on human trafficking, gun violence reduction, retail theft, and other smaller police programs — as opposed to time spent responding to demonstrations.

Councilors attempted to patch the nearly $7 million cut in parks maintenance included in Wilson’s budget.

Councilor Eric Zimmerman successfully passed a proposal that moved $2 million meant for the Parks Bureau’s tree regulation program into the bureau’s maintenance department. Another proposal moved $1.25 million from the Parks Bureau’s golf fund into a broader parks operations and maintenance fund.

Amendments approved at the May meeting also raised parks maintenance funds by nearly $3 million. It’s not clear if these funds, paired with other smaller money moves, fully restored all parks maintenance cuts made in Wilson’s budget.

Getting back in balance

Councilors approved a number of other substantive budget amendments Wednesday, including plans that pay for around 45 addiction recovery beds, restore funding for several emergency management staff, and increase funding for the office that oversees the administration of council meetings.

But the real showdown came at the end of the night, when beleaguered councilors grappled with a proposal that had unexpectedly left the budget with more than a $700,000 hole.

This hole came from a proposal introduced by Green, which cut 2% of all contracting expenses across bureaus (aside from public safety departments). That estimated $1.8 million in savings was intended to be divided up to fund a number of other councilors’ proposed projects, including funding to support arts and the city’s management of liquid fuel storage tanks in Northwest Portland.

Only after voting to approve this amendment Tuesday did councilors realize it was unbalanced.

This realization rankled Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney, who has presided over the budget negotiations.

“We have to understand the consequences of our votes,” she said late Wednesday afternoon, looking at Green. “I would like us to act more responsibly in the very short amount of time that we have left today.”

Green said his unbalanced amendment was askew due to hastily approved funding adjustments made on the fly by different councilors during the previous day’s budget meeting. Several of his colleagues came to his defense, after Pirtle-Guiney’s admonishment.

“This feels more like a personal punishment rather than good governance,” said Councilor Angelita Morillo. “I don’t know why we wouldn’t work together to just correct this.”

After a round of negotiations, Green successfully advanced an updated version that trimmed some of the proposed funding for renters, arts programs and budget staffers to balance the spending package.

But that’s not where the meeting ended.

Another 11th-hour curveball

The rush to conclude the meeting on time led Pirtle-Guiney to limit some of the final, less-substantive amendments. One of those amendments left on the table: a proposal authored by Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane to take a Portland Bureau of Transportation position that addresses road safety and place it under the office of the deputy city administrator who oversees PBOT. While a minor adjustment, Koyama Lane was rankled that she was kept from bringing it to a vote.

“I asked you multiple times,” Koyama Lane told Pirtle-Guiney.

Her allies on council backed her up. After a vote on a final amendment package that ensured the budget was balanced — a move that signaled the meeting was winding down — Councilor Sameer Kanal was given the floor by Pirtle-Guiney. He yielded to Koyama Lane, who introduced her amendment.

“I believe there are times to not be rigid,” said Koyama Lane, speaking to Pirtle-Guiney. “I would like to just move this through.”

Three other councilors — Avalos, Green and Morillo — voted to overrule Pirtle-Guiney’s objection. The amendment passed, but not without several icy glares shot across the room.

“There are so many amendments across this entire dais that were put down and did not get heard,” said Councilor Eric Zimmerman. “This is discourteous.”

This wasn’t the first time the council’s more progressive wing used the last minutes of a budget meeting to fast-track a colleague’s policy. The previous council vote to fund parks maintenance with $2 million Wilson had flagged for police followed a similar late-stage tactic.

That meeting, which had a strict midnight cutoff, ended with Kanal derailing Pirtle-Guiney’s attempt to conclude the meeting by yielding the floor to Avalos, who successfully advanced the parks proposal around 11:45 p.m.

The six more progressive members of council — Koyama Lane, Kanal, Morillo, Avalos, Green and Councilor Jamie Dunphy — haven’t hid their intent to work as a team on the newly expanded council. In April, the six released a joint statement, writing that they were committed to “uplifting each other’s voices, helping each other navigate complex and often obscure systems, and figuring out how to embed their shared values in everything they do.”

While the six others on the council have often supported each other’s council proposals, they have not established a similarly intentional voting bloc.

Zimmerman, who is characterized by his colleagues as one the least progressive members of council, didn’t hide his disdain for his colleagues’ technique Wednesday.

“This is twice where gamesmanship has happened at the last minute,” he said. “Believe them when they show you who they are.”

Councilors will hold a final vote on their budget on June 18. Councilors will be able to introduce final amendments at that meeting, but they must have the support of at least nine councilors. If the budget vote ends in a tie, Mayor Wilson will be asked to cast a tie-breaking vote.