With Portland facing a $160 million shortfall for the coming year, pain was always going to be the theme of budget discussions. Portlanders will feel it in reduced public safety workers, parks maintenance cutbacks and fewer shelters for those who are homeless. But several of the changes that Portland city councilors made to Mayor Keith Wilson’s proposed budget last week may extend that pain for years to come.
Despite the city’s chief financial officer warning councilors against diverting money from depleted contingency and reserve funds — money set aside for emergencies — a majority of city councilors passed several amendments that did exactly that, as The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Shane Dixon Kavanaugh reported. They also voted to tap Portland parks levy dollars to cover extra expenses on the assumption that the bureau can find the savings to do so.
Such short-sighted finagling means the city will use one-time dollars to fund a range of ongoing needs, from a fire engine in St. Johns to the city’s small donor elections program that issues campaign contributions to candidates — including many serving on City Council. At the same time, a majority killed more defensible efforts by Councilors Steve Novick and Dan Ryan to trim their own and fellow councilors’ $1.45 million budgets which, Novick noted, exceed the budgets of each of the five Multnomah County commissioners. A proposal by Councilor Olivia Clark to backfill public safety cuts by using $10 million of police accountability commission funds — money that will likely go unused as the program is in its infancy — also couldn’t muster the votes to pass…