My proposed FY 2025-26 budget is a balanced, forward-looking vision and a clear reaffirmation of our City’s values and priorities. Again and again, Portlanders have demonstrated undaunted faith and optimism that our city should lead on public safety, compassion for our most vulnerable, equity for the marginalized, and environmental stewardship. Our final budget must reflect these values.
View the FY 2025-26 Proposed Budget
We must also be realistic about the current fiscal environment. I have released my first City budget proposal into a challenging environment defined by national uncertainty and a financial gap widened by expiring one-time funds, slipping regional economic competitiveness, slowing property tax revenues, and the staggering cost of the humanitarian crisis on our streets.
I have explored every avenue to blunt the impact of the coming budget reductions. I have sought out external funding, drawn forward unspent and one-time funds, and established financial partnerships with state and regional governments. While I have been successful in these fundraising efforts, many of the solutions included in my budget will not sustain us in future fiscal years beyond FY 2025-26, and additional efforts and decision-making will continue after July 1.
Long-term fiscal sustainability relies on a healthy, vibrant local economy. Due to global events, national trends, and local issues, our shared prosperity has faced headwinds in recent years. We’re now experiencing the consequences of a tax base impacted by declining commercial real estate in our urban core, fewer businesses and new arrivals, and economic policies that have too often taken job growth for granted.
Returning to a state of financial stability will demand we make difficult decisions. There are no easy answers when facing an unprecedented shortfall in our general fund. After examining the budget on a line-by-line basis, I sought out areas where spending spiked and promised impacts were not realized.
It is time for Portland to follow a “back to basics” approach on fiscal responsibility and long-term sustainability. Prioritizing a safe, clean, welcoming, and economically vibrant city will place our community on sustainable financial footing and position us to return to national leadership on the social issues that matter most.
Fiscal Responsibility & Sustainability
We are no longer in a position where we can cushion ineffectiveness with excess funding. The cost of systems inefficiency has been high, which is why I’ve made operational excellence and high-performing organizational practices a central focus of my budget.
My office will lead from the front with a 12% cut to the mayor’s budget. Accomplishing this across the organization will require reorganizing City bureaus into a system that shares resources and better supports our workforce. Line by line, I will promote streamlined systems and processes, eliminate duplicative efforts and costs and prioritize the City’s workforce.
The City of Portland owes the public a high-performing, fiscally sound organization. My budget implements a long-term operational redesign to accelerate both effectiveness and fiscal sustainability. We will balance current resource limitations against requirements and best practices to maintain adequate financial reserves and protect the City against future financial risk. We will also work with City leaders to identify additional financial solutions for FY 2026-27 in advance of next year’s budget development, including further streamlining and reprioritizing core internal services
Operational Excellence
Accomplishing the task before us requires a City government dedicated to rebuilding trust with the public and proving we can deliver purpose and impact with every dollar we spend. Accordingly, my budget prioritizes basic services, civic assets, public safety, and green leadership. Our community has spoken: they want City leadership to provide basic services, unlock housing, prioritize economic opportunity for all Portlanders, and set us forward on a clear and decisive path to end unsheltered homelessness.
Historically, Portland’s governmental bureaus often competed in lieu of cooperation. Permitting often took too long and accomplished too little. We allowed our first responder arrival times to slip and our crime rate to spike.
I believe our equity, communications, and community engagement goals will benefit from a hybrid model designed to better share resources across the enterprise. Structurally, our staff will be empowered to wield far more organizational influence to support historically marginalized, underrepresented, and immigrant communities despite performing these crucial duties with reduced resources. A thriving Portland that meets our equity and anti-racism goals is a Portland where employees, residents, and visitors feel seen, heard, safe, and valued, and maintain a healthy relationship with their local government and each other.
Citywide, over the next fiscal year, we will work to redesign and streamline our communications, equity, community engagement, financial management, procurement, human resources, and information technology functions. We are setting a reduction target of 20%, half of which would be realized in the next fiscal year, by feathering in the adjustments over the course of the year. This budget includes total reductions of $9.5 million citywide, with $3.8 million of that savings in General Fund. We expect additional savings to be incorporated in the FY 2026-27 budget.
We will minimize layoffs as much as possible and examine reducing external contracts and other spending. We will work with the Bureau of Human Resources to ensure we have career transition support to retain as many employees as possible in new roles at the City. As we undertake this process, we will continue to work with labor partners to identify where we can find savings in the organization that could improve efficiency and retain jobs.
As the city services re-align, we are also closely examining management and supervision duties and evaluating organizational structures for efficiencies while also ensuring supervisors are overseeing the City’s minimum requirement of four employees.
Public & Community Engagement
I am grateful to the City Budget Office and the Office of Civic Life for seeking to improve opportunities for meaningful public engagement and for continuously seeking community input. Throughout this budget cycle and into the future, their work to solicit and capture community engagement and input on public priorities through listening sessions, online input, and other forms of direct communication has been invaluable.
This proposed budget also:
- Utilizes scientifically valid Portland Insights data to inform priorities and strategies on areas to expand and/or cut
- Assesses and continuously improves community engagement processes and methods
- Deploys technology to increase engagement while reducing costs
- Focuses on community engagement opportunities in advance of FY 2026-27 budget, a campaign that will begin Summer 2025
City Workforce
The City of Portland relies on the grit, passion, and know-how of our approximately 8,000 employees. Their resilience made a once-in-a-generation realignment of City organization possible while simultaneously continuing to provide Portlanders with the services we expect.
Due to budget constraints, salary increases for our non-represented workforce will face targeted restrictions for FY 2025-26. To reduce ongoing cost and ensure sustainable salary growth, we are reducing the COLA award for those who make over $100,000 and will not provide merit to non-represented employees. We also face difficult staffing decisions, a process that is challenging for workers, families, and our organizational culture. Like many local governments in our region, the City of Portland will experience layoffs. We will inevitably lose highly experienced individuals who have given much. For those who will be impacted by these layoffs, please know these decisions are the result of a fiscal situation beyond your control, and not a reflection on your capability or contributions, for which we are grateful.
Green Leadership
Green leadership means restoring the original promise of the Portland Clean Energy Fund and not tapping it for an unrelated crisis or using it as a shortcut to hike taxes. Our voters remember the promises made with this fund: a cleaner, greener, more equitable, lower-carbon Portland. If we want our peer cities to follow our path, we must lead by example.
Public Safety
This is difficult to share, but the public safety reports I receive can be heartbreaking. Can you imagine the grief of a mother arriving on the scene of her son’s shooting? Or despair of the small business owner who can’t muster the funds or the faith to replace yet another broken window after the latest burglary or vandalism, crimes our dedicated officers often do not have the resources to pursue? We have to offer more than small business repair grants, we must address the root cause. In your time of greatest need, you deserve a fast, capable response, and my budget is a key part of rebuilding our public safety infrastructure.
Our first responders must arrive rested and ready when called, and I’ve asked to mitigate expensive overtime. We’re investing in a citywide incident management system for coordinating on extreme weather events, disasters, and other citywide emergencies through the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, increasing Portland Street Response by 14 full-time positions to expand the program’s operating hours. I am supporting the Office of Violence Prevention and Ceasefire as well as retaining our police oversight systems. Our fast-declining homicide rate isn’t a sign that our violence interrupters or police are no longer needed, it shows they’re working as intended.
That said, our response times, human trafficking crimes, and theft rate remain at unacceptable levels, and the $19.5 million I propose we invest in fire, PSR, Community Health Assess and Treat teams, and law enforcement funding reflects the need to turn the tide on the issues we face.
Community Livability
According to the Portland Insights Survey, our most scientifically valid window into the feelings of our community, residents reported high satisfaction with the outdoors and natural areas, amenities, arts and culture. Perceptions of downtown, and our City as a good place to raise children received lower marks. Homelessness was identified as our community’s most pressing issue by over 85% of respondents, followed by cost of living and public safety.
Accordingly, these community livability issues should continue to remain a key priority for our region. To support livability, we will support the Portland Environmental Management Office that deals with neighborhood graffiti, illegal dumping, and abandoned auto issues, and expand their mission to include sidewalk cleaning outside shelters.
I further call to increase our derelict RV removal budget to $2.5 million, expand graffiti removal, and add new funding to remove abandoned autos and clean streets.
Parks
My budget stands behind youth programming and our community centers. Every cent that goes into youth programming and community spaces activates volunteers, frees up parents to provide for their families while knowing their children are safe, and changes young lives.
A “back to basics” approach on our parks will reduce underutilized building hours, nonessential property upkeep, arborist hours, facilities cleaning, and non-critical maintenance. The tradeoff for this decision supports critical maintenance, community centers, youth programming, and SUN schools. In addition to trimming recent additions and spending increases, we’ll increase golf fees, sell or share expensive, low-mileage vehicles, and reduce staff to close the funding gap.
Transportation
The Bureau of Transportation has a long-term revenue sustainability issue due to legacy tax structures. This budget seeks resources to address potential reductions through a mix of revenue sources. I anticipate working with the bureau over the next year to address long-term funding model challenges.
Modest increases in parking fees in line with peer cities, reinstating leaf cleanup fees, and rideshare fees will allow us to double our investment in pothole repairs and increase resources for street cleaning, graffiti removal, and towing derelict RVs.
I also support State legislative action to provide transportation revenue and offset the unsustainable structure of our current gas tax, the funding shortfalls of which have already and will continue to force reductions in the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
Additionally, this budget assumes we will finance a portion of the City’s legal obligation to build and replace ADA curb ramps across the City. The financing strategy will help fill a potential project gap, while also producing near-term cashflow savings to relieve immediate pressure on transportation revenues and on the General Fund.
Housing & Homelessness
The fastest method to build housing for every income level is to unleash the pent-up capability of our private sector. Without this comprehensive strategy, pressure will continue to mount on our limited affordable homes, putting them out of reach for those who need them most.
Though this will not have a direct budget impact, I’ve partnered with Governor Kotek to ask our City Council to waive System Development Charges (SDCs) for the next 5,000 housing permits for housing of every income level. I will work with our City Council to identify long-term cost-benefit tradeoffs and incorporate them into future budget actions, if needed.
Finally, our most recent mayoral election was a powerful referendum on the most pressing issue our city faces today—our unsheltered homelessness crisis. Every dollar we spend on unsheltered homelessness must restore quality of life for all, reduce the burden on our public safety system, and unlock Portland’s true economic potential. Given our current fiscal situation, I set forth to relentlessly raise funds from outside sources for my plan to end unsheltered homelessness. In this effort, I was successful in securing critical commitments from county, metro, and state levels.
We’ll spend these funds with purpose, pragmatism, and compassion. Key areas of focus include:
- Continue the utilization of Temporary Alternative Shelter Sites, which serve over 800 people at a time across eight sites
- $24.9 million of external funding for 1500 shelter beds by December 1st, supported by day centers and storage units, representing the City of Portland’s share in the overall effort to end unsheltered homelessness in our city
- Funding for 50 shelter beds at the Bybee Lakes Hope Center using opioid settlement dollars, $1.3 million
- Retaining our current four outreach workers and adding an additional 10, for $3.36 million
- Instantly add deeply affordable housing using an innovative “Homeshare” pilot program, funded by $500,000 of one-time General Fund
Revenue
While the long-term financial stability of the City of Portland may require adding, changing, or otherwise exploring revenue increases, my proposed FY2025-26 budget will not rely on new taxes. It will, however, include modest proposed increases in fees for parking, parks, permitting, water/sewer/stormwater utility fees, rideshare fees, and short-term rental fees to bring us in line with peer cities.
With the support of City Council and other regional partners, we will continue to analyze potential future revenue opportunities. These may include updates to the upcoming Parks Levy renewal request, future charges to offset the Flood Safety Benefit Fee, transportation charges, and other avenues to provide resources to address targeted priorities identified by Portlanders.
Conclusion
As my first annual budget as Mayor of Portland, I believe we have an opportunity to solidify and expand our gains in public safety, our equity goals, and green leadership, as well as return to proven strategies on unsheltered homelessness. I am grateful for the role and responsibility of City Council as they discuss, debate, and ultimately pass our next budget. Together, we will leave a profound impact on the future of our city. I am grateful for this opportunity to serve in this crucial democratic process on behalf of Portland.