The Portland City Council failed to find a compromise this week between the council’s two factions that could have saved a number of city jobs slated for elimination under Mayor Keith Wilson’s proposed budget.
The council’s progressive caucus backed a proposal on Wednesday that would’ve prevented 103 layoffs across parks, police and internal services using $16.5 million in interest accrued by the Portland Clean Energy Fund and an additional $4.5 million from other contingency funds. The proposal, backed by the labor unions representing workers slated for layoffs under Wilson’s proposed budget, died by a 6-6 vote.
A pared-down proposal from moderate Councilors Elana Pirtle-Guiney and Steve Novick proposed using $7.8 million in PCEF interest to restore cuts to the public safety support specialist program, some cuts to Portland Fire & Rescue and and other cuts to administrative jobs, some of which overlapped with the restorations sought by the progressive councilors in their failed amendment. Councilor Mitch Green, who was one of the sponsors of the progressive caucus’s failed proposal to prevent layoffs, warned that he couldn’t support Pirtle-Guiney and Novick’s amendment as written. He proposed recessing the council meeting so the two factions could find a middle ground overnight…