At a community information session on July 27, Portlanders had a chance to understand the details behind upcoming structural changes that are under discussion by bureau leadership and elected officials. The conversation will continue at a second session on a related topic, titled City Council Organization and Procedures Listening Session, on August 8. All are welcome to attend to learn about the ways Portland’s city code will be updated to help city government conduct business in 2025.
The City Organization and Future Improvement projects are part of a much larger body of ongoing work led by the City of Portland Transition team to implement the charter reform approved by Portland voters in November 2022. Together, the projects focus on two major tasks: The City Organization project will develop a recommended organizational structure that reports to a new city administrator, and the Future Improvements project will identify additional organizational, structural, and process improvements to improve the delivery of city government services to Portlanders.
To build understanding about how Portland City government can improve its delivery of services, last week’s session featured a project overview and a report about what the City has learned from years of community engagement surveying and research. At the session, the Transition team highlighted how it intends to use the community outcomes information to help make decisions about changes to the way city government is organized.
“As Portland’s current chief administrative officer, over the next few months I’ll gather all of the information from the employee groups working in the various service areas, the public, the current commissioners, bureau leadership and information from the Community Outcomes Report to synthesize that feedback into a set of recommendations that will go to the current council in October 2023 for consideration and approval,” said Chief Administrative Officer Mike Jordan, lead sponsor of the Transition project. “We will begin implementation of that new structure to hand off to the new mayor and council in January 2025. The reason we are going to council this October is because of the need to prepare the City’s next budget based on the new structure for the next fiscal year. The structure must be known before the budget can be built.”
Watch last week’s information session
When asked about the development of a new job description for the future city administrator role, Mike Jordan explained that a job description has not been completed yet, but that for several months now, his team has been interacting with the International City and County Managers Association and the National League of Cities as well as with a number of cities who’ve gone through similar changes to help develop the job description. The job description is necessary to classify the job within the City’s human resource system and to assign a pay range.
The role of an equity tool
The City will use an equity tool to help prioritize decisions for the City Organization project which will focus on centering the city’s core values and priorities identified through the community outcomes report and feedback from employee survey responses. The team will respond to a list of equity questions about the process and analyze areas of alignment, limitations, and areas of agreement or differences of the project throughout its development.
What will be different in the new mayor – council form of government?
Currently in Portland, the Mayor and four commissioners have the dual roles of setting policies and oversee portfolios of city bureaus. The leadership of those bureaus report to their assigned commissioner. Developing and setting policy and operating bureaus can sometimes be more siloed in our current structure, as it occurs across individual leadership offices who each have their own priorities and processes for operating.
As we transition away from the commission form of government, it provides the opportunity to take a whole-city approach to systems thinking and problem-solving. In the new form of government, the district-based city councilors will no longer directly oversee city bureaus. Council will work together on setting policies to achieve desired community outcomes.
The citywide elected mayor will no longer serve on council. The future mayor will appoint, and the council will confirm, a professional city administrator. The mayor and city administrator will work together to implement policies and manage city bureaus. The new city administrator will oversee city offices and bureaus.
The city is researching best practices in peer cities and working together with leadership and other subject matter experts to determine the effective options for our city’s new structure.
Timeline highlights steps towards a new government in January 2025
- August to September 2023: Develop recommendation for new government structure.
- October 2023: Current City Council considers and votes to approve recommendation.
- November 2023: Begin implementation and budget design for new structure and begin Future Improvements project.
- January 2025: New elected officials begin terms to complete implementation.
Background
In November 2022, Portland voters approved Ballot Measure 26-228 that directs the City of Portland to implement these three connected changes by Jan. 1, 2025:
- Allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference, using ranked-choice voting.
- Establish four geographic districts, with three city council members elected to represent each district – expanding city council to a total of 12 members.
- Establish the city council to focus on setting policy and engaging with community, transitioning day-to-day oversight of bureaus to a mayor elected citywide and a professional city administrator.
Resources
- Register for the August 8 City Council Organization and Procedures Listening Session.
- Visit Portland.gov/Transition or employees.portland.gov/transition to learn more about this project.
- Send an email to transition@portlandoregon.gov to ask a question or submit a comment.
- Visit portland.gov/transition/updates to subscribe to the monthly Transition e-newsletter.