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Label:
Ordinance
Approve funding recommendations of the Portland Children’s Levy Allocation Committee for July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2029
Passed
The City of Portland ordains.
Section 1. The Council finds:
- The City proposed and voters approved a local option property tax levy at the November 5, 2002, general election and created the Portland Children's Levy (PCL) to make targeted investments in proven programs for Portland children.
- On February 15, 2023, Portland City Council passed Resolution 37610, which referred local option Portland Children's Levy to the May 16, 2023, Special District Election ballot. Resolution 37610 included ballot language for Measure 26-240 and implementation requirements in an Act.
- On May 16, 2023, voters reauthorized the PCL from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2029, to invest in proven programs in the areas of early childhood, child abuse prevention and intervention, foster care, after-school, mentoring and hunger relief. A five-person Allocation Committee continued to have responsibility to develop grantmaking processes, make grant funding decisions, and monitor Levy performance.
- During the preceding levy period from July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2024, the Allocation Committee launched two new efforts in response to community engagement feedback and a grantmaking improvement study in 2018-19. The efforts were a community advisory body and a small grants funding process. The advisory body, called the Community Council, consists of 11-13 volunteers to advise PCL's Allocation Committee and staff on funding processes and policies.
- In response to community input to increase small organizations' access to PCL funds and to strengthen their capacity to serve children and families, PCL launched a small grants funding process in 2020. The first cohort of small grants were unanimously approved by City Council in December 2020 for $1 million to 8 organizations over 3 years (Ordinance 190237). One grant recipient opted to decline its grant before entering into contract with the City, and in August 2021, City Council unanimously approved distribution of the declined grant funds to the remaining 7 organizations (Ordinance 190535). In November 2023, City Council unanimously renewed the 7 small grants for an additional 18 months (Ordinance 191513).
- On June 25, 2025, the Portland City Council unanimously approved Ordinance 192080 accepting the Allocation Committee's 3-year funding recommendations for 94 large grants worth $64,976,000 to programs for children and families in the Levy's 6 program areas. The Allocation Committee's recommendations were the result of a 2-year funding process, including extensive community engagement from over 700 community members in 26 languages; involvement of 91 community volunteer application reviewers; and the entire process shaped by the Community Council.
- During 2025, PCL launched its second small grants process to increase equity in access to Levy funding for smaller organizations. On June 24, 2024, and again on October 6, 2025, the Allocation Committee voted unanimously to set aside $1.5 million toward small grants based on revenue projections from the City economist in 2024.
- In December 2025, the City economist revised revenue projections for the Levy's future fiscal years compared to the forecast provided December of 2024. Other future revenue increases resulted from passage of the Parks Levy in November 2025 and Council resolution 37710 including a requirement for the Park Levy to reimburse the Children's Levy for future property tax compression impacts. At the same time, actual Levy collections for FY 2024-25 exceeded projections, future interest on the fund is projected to increase, and some grantees underspent their grants that ended June 30, 2025. The combination of stronger tax projections, compression reimbursement, actual tax collections, projected interest, and underspending by grants that ended June 30, 2025, all result in increased overall projected funding available for PCL grantmaking.
- On January 27, 2026, the Allocation Committee voted unanimously to spend the projected future revenues to increase the total 3-year funding available for small grants to $2.5 million and to provide an equal 8-percent increase to the 94 three-year grants approved by City Council in Ordinance 192080.
- On February 23, 2026, the Community Council voted to recommend 12 small grants applications to the Allocation Committee for funding award decisions.
- On April 7, 2026, the Allocation Committee voted to fund the 12 applications, as set forth in Exhibit A.
- The 8% increase to the Portland Children's Levy 94 large grants are set forth in Exhibit B.
NOW, THEREFORE, the Council directs:
The funding recommendations made by the Children's Levy Allocation Committee described in Exhibit A for small grants are approved. The Director of the Office of the Portland Children's Levy is authorized to enter into agreements, which shall be effective as of July 1, 2026, awarding grants substantially similar to those proposed in the Allocation Committee funding recommendations to the organizations identified in Exhibit A.
In the event that any small grants grantee becomes unwilling or unable to use City grant funds in a manner consistent with a grant agreement that is authorized by this ordinance, the Director of the Office of the Portland Children's Levy is hereby authorized to terminate the grant agreement in accordance with its terms. The Director is further authorized to execute a new grant agreement to a different grantee, or to amend existing grant agreement(s), provided that (1) the funding allocated is equal to the amount of unspent funds allocated by this ordinance for the terminated agreement, and (2) the new or amended agreement(s) include a scope of work that is substantially the same as the scope of work in the terminated agreement.
The funding recommendations made by the Children's Levy Allocation Committee in Exhibit B for 8% increases to current 3-year grants are approved. The Director of the Office of the Portland Children's Levy is authorized to amend current agreements to increase funding amounts up to those proposed in the Allocation Committee funding recommendations identified in Exhibit B, with amendments effective July 1, 2026.
Exhibits and attachments
An ordinance when passed by the Council shall be signed by the Auditor. It shall be carefully filed and preserved
in the custody of the Auditor (City Charter Chapter 2 Article 1 Section 2-122)
Passed by Council
Auditor of the City of Portland
Simone Rede
Impact Statement
Purpose of proposed legislation and background information
The purpose is to allow the Children's Levy to award a total of $2.5 million to small grants as outlined in Attachment 1: Request for City Council Approval and Exhibit A: Portland Children's Levy Small Grants Funding Allocations July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2029, and to increase 94 current grants by 8% over their 3-year awards as outlined in the same memo and shown in Exhibit B: Portland Children's Levy July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2028, Large Grants Funding Allocations, amendments effective July 1, 2026.
Financial and budgetary impacts
There are no costs to the City general fund. Children's Levy revenues are generated by a local option property tax levy, and the proceeds of the levy will fund the proposed allocations. The current levy runs July 2024 through June 2029.
The legislation will result in 12 new grant agreements with non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporations, and it will amend Children's Levy current 3-year large grants to provide 8% increase in total funding for each grant.
This legislation will not change staffing capacity at the Children's Levy. The additional grants and increase to current grants are within current staff capacity.
Revenue from the voter-approved Children's Levy is legally required to be spent on grants that support children and families and cannot be used for other purposes.
Economic and real estate development impacts
This legislation will support, in whole or in part, over 500 jobs at grantee agencies to provide services to children and families. This legislation does not directly affect household income, other businesses, or the feasibility of housing production and real estate development projects.
Community impacts and community involvement
Portland children, youth, and families, including those facing disparities in education, health, and development outcomes, gain access to responsive program services funded by the Portland Children's Levy (PCL). All services contribute to achieving established Children's Levy goals outlined in the table below and support children, youth and families to achieve positive outcomes. In FY25, among the thousands of children served in programs supported by PCL, over 85% of children served are from families earning low incomes, 73% identified as Black, Indigenous or people of color, 48% reside or attend school in East Portland (east of 82nd Ave.), 31% speak a primary language in the home other than English, and nearly 20% have a disability, qualify for special education and/or have a 504 plan. PCL's annual performance reports provide more data on community impacts of currently funded programs.
Children's Levy Goals
- Levy-wide
- Prepare children for school.
- Support children's success inside and outside of school.
- Eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in children's well-being and school success.
- Early Childhood: Support children's early development and readiness for kindergarten.
- Child Abuse Prevention and Intervention: Prevent child abuse and neglect and support vulnerable families.
- Foster Care: Support the well-being and development of children and youth in foster care.
- After School: Provide safe and constructive after school and summer programing that supports children's well-being and school success.
- Mentoring: Connect children and youth with caring adult role models that support their well-being.
- Hunger Relief: Expand access to healthy, nutritious food for hungry children.
Community Involvement
Please see the explanatory memo submitted for more detail. Briefly, in FY 2023-24, PCL worked with Camille E. Trummer Consulting and PKS International Community Engagement Liaisons to conduct a community engagement process as required by the Levy ballot measure and Act (Resolution 37610). Engagement activities were designed to identify community funding priorities in PCL's 6 program areas. The 5-month effort engaged over 700 community members in 26 languages through surveys, focus groups and interviews. Participants engaged in the process in 26 languages, and included youth and parents with disabilities, foster youth and foster parents, immigrants and refugees, and people who identify as Black, Indigenous and of color.
PCL's 13-member Community Council helped design the community engagement process and distill the funding priorities based on the results. They also worked with staff to develop the small grants funding application and scoring criteria. Lessons learned from the first small grants process in 2019-20 were integrated into the current small grants funding round, including offering a storytelling video component to the application in addition to the written component. Drafts of the application and scoring criteria were shared with potential applicants for feedback during summer 2025, prior to publishing the application in October 2025.
PCL received 55 total applications for small grants, requesting $10.4 million over 3 years. This is more than $4 requested for every $1 available. Applications for after school services had the highest demand among PCL's 6 program areas: over 40% of all applications received and dollars requested.
A team of 12 people, 3 PCL staff and 9 Community Council members scored the applications. PCL's Community Council met on Feb. 23, 2026, in a public meeting to recommend applications to the Allocation Committee for funding. They considered policy frameworks such as score order, the high number of after school applications, and balancing across all 6 program areas. Members of the council voted individually on 12 applications from all 55, and their collective results formed the funding recommendations. Community Council voting results favored highest-scoring applications.
Staff sent the funding recommendations to applicants and the Allocation Committee in early March. Applicants had the option to submit written testimony to the Allocation Committee by mid-March.
In December 2025, while small grants applications were being reviewed and scored, PCL received updated revenue projections for future fiscal years through FY 2028-29. Projections in December 2024 were used to determine the available resources for grantmaking in spring 2025. The projections from December 2025 show higher forecasts compared to 2024. Based on the economist's projections and other factors, PCL has an additional $6.2 M in projected revenue for grants over the next 3 years (approx. $2M/year).
One month later at the Jan. 27, 2026, meeting, the Allocation Committee voted unanimously to use the money to allocate:
- An additional $1M to the small grants fund bringing the 3-year total to $2.5M for FY 2026-27 – FY 2028-29, and funding up to 12 grants. This is an increase from the original allocation in October 2025 of $1.5 M for 6-10 grants.
- Additional $5.2M to 94 current 3-year grants. This would be an 8% increase to their total 3-year awards, for use in FY 2026-27 and in FY 2027-28.
Rationale for the small grants increase include:
- Meet more of the demand in the applicant pool.
- Fund grants as close as possible to their full funding request.
- Strike balance between funding more grants that need high support and PCL staff capacity to support them.
Rationale for the large grants increases include:
- Efficiently move future resources into the community as quickly as possible - amending current grant agreements for increase effective July 1, 2026.
- Support for COLA for current grantee partners.
- Stabilize services for children/families served by organizations facing other federal, state, and local funding cuts.
- Mitigate impact of 21% reductions PCL made to grant funding in spring 2025.
These allocation decisions overall honor PCL's community-centered funding processes implemented over the past 3 years.
The Children's Levy staff assumes that small grants applicants and organizations that have current PCL large grants may testify before City Council regarding this item, but staff does not have specific knowledge of who or how many.
Feedback from the large grants process improvement report was also used to shape the FY 2025-26 small grants funding round. PCL leads a quality improvement process after each round of grantmaking. After the recent large grant funding round, PCL gathered feedback through an applicant survey, reviewer survey, and individual interviews with Community Council and Allocation Committee members. The report is available on PCL's website. Surveys had strong response rates and representative samples.
Key findings indicated specific areas of strength in the funding process:
- Integrating community voice
- Staff support for applicants, reviewers and community council
Areas for improvement:
- Funding recommendations: Applicants want individual communication to each applicant that better explains rationale for the funding recommendation.
- Decision-making: applicants want more clear rationale from Allocation Committee for decisions; Community council members and applicants indicated need for improved preparation by City Council for its decisions.
The small grants process built on PCL's strengths of community voice in process design and review of applications. Changes to the process included the Community Council members choosing specific applications to recommend to the Allocation Committee for funding. In addition, staff created customized materials for each applicant about their application's funding recommendations.
During the Allocation Committee meeting on April 7, staff explained the methods of facilitation they would use to help the Allocation Committee discuss and make decisions on the small grants. In addition, staff facilitated each Allocation Committee member to share their individual reflections on the policy rationale for their decisions. The Allocation Committee unanimously voted to fund the 12 applications recommended by the Community Council, totaling $2.5 M for FY 2026-27 through FY 2028-29. The Allocation Committee's funding decisions were based on application scores, Community Council recommendations, written testimony from applicants, and policy considerations, including program areas and funding priorities, service array, location, and cost to support a balanced and integrated citywide system of services.
PCL staff will conduct a similar quality improvement process with small grants applicants, reviewers/Community Council, and Allocation Committee.
100% renewable goal
Not applicable.
Economic and real estate development analysis
Analysis provided by Prosper Portland
An Economic and Real Estate Development Impact Analysis was not submitted for this proposed action. Pursuant to City Council Resolution 37664, Prosper Portland staff has reviewed the action and agree that it does not require an Economic and Real Estate Development Impact Analysis.
Document history
Document number: 2026-132
President's referral: City Life Committee