Mayor Sam Adams has been meeting this afternoon with the heads of all city bureaus, and the bosses of unions, too—inside the cave at the Portland Building. It’s a very grim budget picture, and he’s been preparing everyone for job cuts.
“Since World War Two, this has been the toughest recession on Portlanders,” he said. “Thirteen straight months of double digit unemployment.” “The items at the bottom of your list that are furthest away from your mission are the ones that should be considered for cuts.”
Last year, $17million in one-time funding filled gaps in the city’s budget. But not this coming year.
“It doesn’t look there’s going to be that level of one-time funding,” said Adams. “So if there are programs on that list that a member of city council wants to continue to fund, you need to begin to prioritize your thinking around one-time requests, or find a way to fund that with your reduced, existing revenues.”
“I want to continue to emphasize the preservation of front-line services,” said Adams. “The possibility of job cuts is really disruptive, but it’s really important to me that we redouble our public service ethos, and our mission on folks that are struggling in the community and for businesses that are struggling as well.”
Mayor Adams said he didn’t want to tap the city’s reserve fund, because he wants to keep the city’s AAA bond rating—an indicator of how it can pay back its debt.
Adams said furloughs, four day weeks, and pay freezes are another possibility, too. “Believe it or not, we’re more fortunate than a lot of other locales,” he said.
“Mayor, perhaps you can explain that the police bureau is not going to be $5million over,” said Police Chief Rosie Sizer.
“Right now we’re looking at approximately a $1.3million overspend, and the bureau is taking steps to reduce that to nothing,” said Andrew Scott with the Office Of Management and Finance.
Funny, I wonder what made them finally admit what most working people in the city have been SAYING TO THEM FOR YEARS.
Plus the word ‘redouble’ is redundant.
If Adams would pull his head out of Unzipped Magazine every now and again he may have known that things have bee pretty fucking bad for a long time.
A real leader would have planed accordingly.
@Scam Adams
You mean one like Tom Potter who was mayor when the national economy started going into the toilet?
Hey BlackedOut: Potter wanted to increase the rainy day fund and put aside budget surpluses, but was overruled by the rest of City Council. [COMMENT EDITED: UNNECESSARILY AGGRESSIVE LANGUAGE.]
200K so the symphony can play at Carnegie Hall?
Although it is sad to say, $200k doesn’t go very far. It would be a good chunk for a small group but what good could it do in the long hall. $6 million to repave one road? That $200k might help off-set a few days work and materials.
Also it is easy to blame the head but it was the body with hands in the cookie jar that made us fat and lazy. I doubt Mayor Adams has enough power/authority/influence to be the party responsible for us being so far in the $#!tter.
James,
Potter called for increasing the rainy day fund quite a bit but never actually put it in the budget as I remember. You know…putting his money where his mouth was so to say. I do remember Sam wanting to increase the rainy day fund for things like the transportation budget when he was Commish. By the bye thanks for calling me an asshole you’re a real peach.
My point is blaming Adams for our country’s economic meltdown is as stupid as blaming Tom Potter or Bud Clark for that matter. Surprisingly Portland is in a lot better shape than a lot of other places around the country.
“Mayor, perhaps you can explain that the police bureau is not going to be $5million over,” said Police Chief Rosie Sizer.
The return of Voodoo economics YAYS!
The problem is everyone is their own special interest group. Examples of some of the things people want and have lobbied for either directly or indirectly: more arts, more after school activities, more community college scholarships, more housing, more local supermarkets, more bike lanes, more streetcars, more bioswales, more walking trails, more freeway lanes, wider streets, more traffic calming, etc.
The problem is we all need our basic services. We need to ensure that basic food, clothing, and shelter is available to everyone (for more information, refer to Maslow). Without basic transportation, we don’t have a way to access jobs, educational facilities, libraries, shops, parks, hospitals, etc. Without somewhere for plumbing to go, things get very messy real fast. We need to have fire and police services (although some major changes need to happen to the latter) to respond to emergencies. All of this makes sure that we have a quality of life in this city and region.
Instead, this is coming after the city council decided to spend $20 million of sewer money on an unrelated project, and in a budget year where millions are being doled out to appease multi-millionaire sports team owners. And, rest assured, special interest groups continue to push for more of the same in the future.
When you vote this election, make sure to consider not only if the candidate is an incumbent who had the opportunity to vote against special interest spending, but also how much money each candidate has raised and how that money could’ve instead been used if each contributor instead donated to local non-profit or charitable causes. Heck, they could even donate the money to their favorite city bureau or city debt service. I hear there’s even someone in the election with a last name pronounced just like Barbur Blvd. that’s received $0 in contributions, and instead thinks people should make philanthropic contributions instead of political contributions. 😉
How will this affect private agencies set up by the city, like Travel Portland? I have never been clear on how these publicly-funded, yet free-from-oversight organizations operate under budget cuts.
LIKE B.O’H
I TOO WONDER:
Is Fishy’s housing bureau public-privater partnerships see: http://www.housingconnections@org a publicly-funded yet privately free-to accept-discriminatory-source-of-income-section 8 rental ads a separate budget line item ir is rolled into the bureau?
Does anyone know HOW MANY OF THESE PRIVATE-PUBLIC entities – like TP and hc – are currentLy operational AND FUNDED ?
When is Merc gonna pdf post Sam’s budget?