The Novick Newsletter - May 28th

Portland's Budget

Last week – May 21st – the City Council, in a marathon session, approved the first version of a balanced budget. Arcane budget laws tell us we have to produce a first version on May 21st, to be reviewed by something called the Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission. But we pass a final version on June 18. (Actually, we are supposed to have it pretty much done on June 11, with the 18th being a kind of ministerial ‘second reading’).

The Background

The most basic thing to know is that the vast majority of the City General Fund budget goes to a few things: police, fire, other public safety programs including Portland Street Response and the Bureau of Emergency Management, homeless services, and parks. So, if you’re going to make cuts, most of them will have to come out of that group. 

Among those four competing service areas, nobody has an appetite to cut Fire - and for good reason. Fire funding is critical to maintaining each of Portland's 31 geographically dispersed stations. While some of these stations get a lot fewer calls than others, if you close a station, you’re taking a big risk - one that most people aren't willing to take.

As for homeless services: The Mayor thinks he can end unsheltered homelessness in a year by setting up a bunch more daytime and nighttime congregate shelters. I am quite skeptical of his plan but, given our collective failure to make progress on the homeless crisis, I am willing to give Mayor Wilson a chance. 

Police and Parks

The Mayor decided to balance the budget largely by cutting parks, especially outdoor parks maintenance, which he proposed cutting by over $6 million. I started out very concerned about that approach, and a poll Council President Pirtle-Guiney and I commissioned showed that Portlanders agree. The poll showed that more Portlanders were willing to cut police than parks. In particular, more were willing to cut police shifts than parks maintenance.

Meanwhile, the Mayor proposed increasing the police budget by $2 million. Now, I don’t think the police bureau is swimming in money; I’d like to add resources for things like a dedicated burglary investigation unit. But they and the Mayor painted a very vague picture of what the $2 million could do. And I think the Bureau could save at least $2 million by ceasing to send armed officers to 25,000 “welfare checks” a year and sending unarmed personnel instead. (A large percentage of ‘welfare checks’ are along these lines: 911 gets a call, “there’s a guy lying on the ground, I wonder if he can take care of himself.” “Is it a medical emergency?” “Well, no real sign of that, but I think someone should check him out.” “OK, we’ll send a police officer.”).

In light of those factors, I was willing to support a proposal to shift the $2 million increase from the police budget to help cover cuts to parks maintenance. I am also submitting budget notes designed to push the police to transfer responsibility for “welfare checks” to unarmed personnel.

It may be that on June 11th, in one way or another, the $2 million for police might be restored. I have been talking to Police Chief Day about getting better clarity on how the $2 million might be spent. If a good chunk of it can be spent on improved recruitment efforts, that would make sense to me. Right now, the police have a lot of unfilled positions, which they make up for with overtime. The more people they hire, the less overtime, and the less expense, they incur. I shared with the Chief my favorite police recruitment tool – this video by the New Zealand police department.

TNC Fees

If you've driven around Portland lately, you’ve likely noticed our streets are in rough shape. Cracks, potholes, and years of underinvestment have left us with a growing maintenance backlog. That’s why I introduced an amendment to increase the fee on Uber and Lyft rides, with the additional revenue dedicated specifically to road repairs.

When I was a City Commissioner in 2015 and Uber and Lyft were first trying to gain a foothold in Portland, I was the swing vote that gave them access to our city. At the time many environmentalists thought those services might actually increase transit use, being used to solve the “last mile” problem: instead of driving for a whole trip, people would take transit most of the way but take a Lyft to their final destination. Instead, having Uber and Lyft around just increases the number of trips people take by car, undermining our climate goals. I figure, at least we could get some money out of them to address our needs.

Cutting Council Budgets

I also introduced an amendment that would reduce each Council office’s budget by $300,000 – saving over $3 million for the city. In a time of citywide belt–tightening, it's simply unfair for Council to exempt itself from the same fiscal discipline we're asking of every bureau.

Each office currently receives over $1.5 million annually. That’s insane. Salaries for three staff people (so far I only have two, but might add a third) and myself, plus the “rent” the City charges each office for office space and incidentals, adds up to about $1 million. That leaves $500,000 for … what, exactly? Some people want to establish district offices, but how many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year should that take? Most Council offices haven’t even come close to spending their full budgets this year, and several are reallocating unused funds back into community programs. I opposed the original Council budget expansion because the proposed increase was excessive – and the data supports that.

Although we did pass a small cut, I'm disappointed that Council didn't pass the full amount. I had planned to use the additional money to fill glaring holes in the Bureau of Emergency Management budget, so that we would be a little better prepared when disaster – such as the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake - strikes. 

P.S. I used a portion of my excess office funds to fix park bathrooms in District 3. 

Next Steps

As noted above, the Council will take up the budget again on June 11th to vote on our remaining budget amendments and tie up any loose ends.

Please feel free to reach out to our office before then and let us know what you think about the current budget. We want to ensure the community has every opportunity to be involved in this budgeting process and to make their voice heard. 

Connecting with the Community

View full size image of Multnomah Arts Center Exterior

As you may have heard last week before our budget meeting, I put forward Amendment 45, which would have closed the Multnomah Arts Center and the Community Music Center. I want to make it clear that I am no longer considering these amendments and would like to acknowledge that I should not have put it on the table without first discussing it with supporters of the MAC and CMC. 

I initially put this amendment on the table for a few reasons. First, the mayor’s budget proposed drastic cuts to outdoor parks maintenance that I just could not stomach - reductions would result in restrooms covered with graffiti, with broken windows and moss sodden, or collapsing, roofs. Picnic tables and benches rotten or graffiti covered, playgrounds that are unsafe for children to play in, with syringes on the ground and deteriorating equipment. 

Second, a recent poll showed that a majority of Portlanders, given the painful choice, would prefer cuts to community centers to drastic cuts to parks maintenance. So I thought that was something we need to consider. I also knew that Parks has said without a huge increase in funding for major maintenance – there' a $600 million backlog - 1 in 5 parks assets will have to be closed within 15 years. My thought was “maybe we need to bite the bullet and close the facilities that are in worst shape now.” When I asked Parks which community centers were in the worst shape, they told me the three places at the top of the list were MAC, CMC and the Southwest Community Center. So, although I did not expect the amendment to pass, I thought at a minimum it would touch off a conversation about our city's massive maintenance backlog that needs to be addressed.

What I, unforgivably, was not thinking about was the impact on supporters and users of these community centers. I should have realized that I would be causing great anxiety and grief by scheduling a vote so suddenly without enough community conversations. Intellectually it all made sense to me – parks maintenance is a priority for a majority of voters; the money needs to come from somewhere; I can only get so much from the police budget; etc. – but I displayed a spectacular lack of emotional intelligence.

I do hope that people will begin having bigger discussions about the need to invest in maintaining our park assets, but I hope we can have these conversations in a more thoughtful way in the future. 

Town Hall Today

Novick in the News

I've had a lot in the works over the past few weeks including a number of budget amendments and a few larger revenue proposals. You can get a picture of what I've been up to and a preview of some upcoming proposals below: 

• Councilor Novick on the CEO Tax - OPB
• Balancing Law Enforcement Equation - KOIN
• Mayor Cutting Parks Maintenance - Axios
• Timbers and Trailblazers on Public Safety - Willamette Week
• Council Offices are Flush with Cash - The Oregonian
• Novick Apologizes for Proposing Arts Center Closure - Willamette Week

Make sure you follow me on Instagram to get the latest Novick News!