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Portland city administrator Mike Jordan released preliminary recommendations Friday morning to narrow the city’s $93 million general fund shortfall, not to mention an additional $65 million in shortfalls in the parks, transportation, permitting and water and sewer bureaus.
In a surprising development, Jordan suggested only $32 million in reductions from the general fund, just over one-third of what the city will have to eventually cut to write a balanced budget.
That introduces a new anxiety to an already fraught budget cycle: City councilors will have to find about $60 million more in cuts this spring, guided by a menu that Jordan presented of politically unappetizing choices.
The $32 million in recommended cuts Jordan released this morning suggest the biggest cuts in Parks & Recreation, a total of $5.6 million, and then piecemeal funding cuts across city bureaus save for the police, fire and emergency response bureaus. The recommended cuts also include 275 staff reductions, not all of which are filled positions.
Cuts that are separate from the general fund—about an additional $65 million in shortfalls—will be felt most acutely in the transportation, parks and permitting bureaus. Recommended transportation cuts total $22 million, parks $18.6 million, and permitting $16.2 million. Those bureaus are primarily funded by sources other than the general fund.
Jordan also listed cuts that the City Council can explore when figuring out how to fill the remaining nearly $60 million gap in the general fund. Most notably: $35.7 million in cuts from the fire, police and emergency communications bureaus.
But he stopped short of recommending those $60 million in cuts, leaving a set of politically hazardous decisions in front of the new council.
It became clear Friday morning just how differently Jordan is approaching this especially difficult budget season than in prior years. Typically, the city administrator released a list of recommendations that could fully fund the budget gap.
This year, Jordan released recommendations totaling only about a third of the total general fund shortfall.
“We’ve decided this year we’re going to go to the public with the tipping point questions that we’d really like their feedback on. If we have to cut a budget, which one would you cut? Where would you tolerate a reduced service, if you had to?” Jordan said, noting that the city will hold listening sessions with Portlanders across all four voting districts in the coming weeks and months.
Jordan also noted that a new City Council of 12 members will hotly debate what to cut in the coming fiscal year.
“We have a new council,“ Jordan said. ”They feel very strongly 12 ways.”
Members of the City Council are already sending their frustrations to Jordan.
“I need to express my significant concerns regarding the ‘unbalanced’ information you have provided to the council and the public,” Councilor Loretta Smith said in an email to Jordan on Thursday evening. “The data shared is both incomplete and inadequate. Without a comprehensive understanding of our operating budget, which exceeds $8 billion and includes all revenues and expenses, we cannot effectively evaluate or respond to the decision packages [in your] report.”