Disagreement over how to use a unique city funding source left Portland City Councilors unable to save public safety jobs slated to be cut in Mayor Keith Wilson’s budget.
FILE - From left, Portland City Councilors Elana Pirtle-Guiney of District 2, Council Vice President Tiffany Koyama Lane of District 3, Angelita Morillo of District 3 and Steve Novick of District 3 at a Portland City Council meeting on Nov. 12, 2025, in Portland, Ore.
Eli Imadali / OPB
After two hours of back-and-forth, councilors rejected three budget amendments to restore public safety and parks jobs — among other things. It was likely the final opportunity for councilors to save public safety jobs from Wilson’s suggested chopping block.
“I think that it would be a dereliction of duty to Portlanders if we failed to find an opportunity to find the compromise that we need at this moment,” said Councilor Mitch Green, who sought, and failed to pause Wednesday’s meeting to hash out a proposal all councilors could agree upon.
Inability to find common ground has become a theme of this year’s budget talks.
Wilson’s funding package suggests cutting nearly 150 jobs and slashing public safety and homelessness programs to fill a roughly $170 million shortfall.
That includes eliminating most of the unarmed Public Safety Support Specialists who respond to low-level calls. Several police administrative staff, 911 operators and Portland Fire & Rescue employees will also lose their jobs. Wilson’s budget also cuts dozens of so-called “core services” jobs, a blanket term for roles that exist in most city bureaus, like technology, HR, and communications.
Councilors attempted to restore some of those job cuts Wednesday, looking at a relatively new funding source: future interest generated by the Portland Clean Energy Fund. That is a tax on large corporations intended to pay for climate-related projects that has brought in millions more than initially anticipated, garnering significant annual interest.
The interest generated by that tax has been tapped by previous councils to solve budget woes. Since 2024, the city council has voted yearly to allow a one-time transfer of that interest from the previous year into the city’s general fund. This year, Mayor Wilson’s budget proposes using $27 million of PCEF interest accrued in the previous fiscal year — between July 2024 and June 2025 — to patch budget holes.
But councilors were instead eyeing the projected PCEF interest coming for the current fiscal year, which ends this month. Wednesday’s disagreement was over how much of that projected fund to tap.
Three of the council’s more progressive councilors, Mitch Green, Candace Avalos and Angelita Morillo, proposed using $16.5 million of that coming interest to save some 100 jobs in public safety and parks from Wilson’s cuts. Two councilors who are considered more moderate, Elana Pirtle-Guiney and Steve Novick, asked for just half that amount to pay for roughly 15 positions and threatened public safety programs. Both plans would have restored more than a dozen public safety support specialist jobs, several police administration positions and Fire Bureau response teams.
But, because the PCEF interest fund has become a reliable way to patch annual budget gaps, councilors were wary of taking any dollars from the current year fund that could help with next year’s funding woes.
“This amendment does kick the can down the road and avoids making the executive-level budget decisions that Portlanders expect us to make,” said Councilor Dan Ryan. He and others suggested that using future dollars would only mean deeper cuts to staff in the coming years.
The progressive-led amendment failed 6-6. The slimmer package, brought by moderate councilors, failed 9-3.
Some members of the public Wednesday discouraged city councilors from using the PCEF interest to pay for non-climate-related programs and jobs. While the funding plans failed, the debate around PCEF’s use is far from over. This November, Portland voters may be asked whether to use PCEF funding to pay for police officer jobs. The climate fund is also potentially a major source of spending on Moda Center renovations.
Councilors rejected another proposal Wednesday to restore threatened public safety jobs introduced by Councilor Olivia Clark.
Few councilor budget tweaks have managed to get enough traction among councilors to advance this year. Wednesday’s meeting follows a drawn-out May council debate over more than 40 budget amendments. Most of the proposals failed after disagreements that ate up hours of meeting time.
Councilors will continue to debate other small budget amendments Thursday. They will vote June 17 to adopt the final spending plan. The budget goes into effect July 1.
