Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for the City of Portland Will Leave in February

Carmen Merlo, deputy chief administrative officer at the Office of Management and Finance, will leave her job at the city of Portland on Feb. 1, just as that office undertakes the enormous task of remaking Portland’s government.

Merlo, who’s been with the city for 16 years, tells WW the decision was a personal one.

“It really is a personal decision that I made quite a while ago. When [chief administrative officer Michael Jordan] took over in May, I let him know back then that it was my intent to leave at the end of the year, and then I did extend it primarily to help out with the budget,” Merlo says. “I just felt that, for me to continue to grow in my career, I needed to leave. There was nothing else higher for me in the city.” (Merlo says she never wanted to be chief administrative officer.)

The Office of Management and Finance, long known as the catch-all of unwanted offices and divisions, has a daunting task over the next two years: transform the city’s form of government and elections at the behest of voters, who voted handily in November to redo entirely how the city functions.

Merlo says it’s going to be the two toughest years the bureau has ever had.

“Part of me is somewhat wishing that I could see it through, but I honestly just don’t have it in me,” Merlo says. “You can’t have a script for this. This is completely unscripted. As you know, Portland is in its own beast. No other playbook is going to be able to tell us what to expect or what lurks around the corner.”

In an email to colleagues Monday afternoon announcing her departure, Merlo wrote that “this feels like the right time for me to step aside and make space for new leaders. It’s also the right time for me to explore the next chapter of my career. And I am ready.”

Merlo’s departure comes a little less than three months after the November election, which determined that the city will take a radically different approach to governance than it has for decades, a change that will take hold in 2024 but which OMF will transition to for the next two years.

Her departure also comes a little less than a year after Mayor Ted Wheeler gave former chief administrative officer Tom Rinehart the boot—a decision bemoaned by many city employees. (Merlo says her decision to leave has nothing to do with the change in leaders.)

Rinehart was replaced by Michael Jordan, who served as the director of the Bureau of Environmental Services at the time.