City Worker Town Hall Leaves Employees Frustrated

A virtual town hall this week attended by more than 1,000 city workers laid bare rising tensions between Portland’s top administrators and its workforce.

Three themes dominated the questions posed by employees in the chat: impending layoffs, the increasing salary of city administrator Mike Jordan as the rest of City Hall faces substantial budget cuts, and how the city found itself in such a dire budget hole.

City employees asked dozens of questions in the chat. The city administrators on the call selected which questions to address, partly based on how many city employees “liked” each question.

For the most part, city administrators on the call, including Jordan, provided canned answers about the impending layoffs, offering few concrete details about when those layoffs would happen and whom they would affect.

Jordan earlier this year warned that substantial layoffs would happen over the next year (at least 275) due to the city’s budget shortfall, and as the city transitions to a new organizational structure in its new form of government. It’s not yet clear whether those layoffs will target management or frontline positions, though members of the City Council have made it clear they want the city to trim what they see as a management-heavy organization.

As has been extensively reported, the city is facing a general fund budget shortfall of $93 million. (That amount includes a $28 million request from Mayor Keith Wilson to stand up nighttime shelters. Critics say that falsely inflates what the city’s budget deficit actually is.)

Several employees asked about the inclusion of Mayor Wilson’s funding request in the city’s reported budget hole.

“Does $40 million-plus in proposed new expenses really qualify as a ‘funding gap’? Can we get a commitment that new expenditures on the mayor’s project will be funded from new external monies and not lead to lay off existing staff?” one employee asked. ”What is this new spending intended to cover and why are we cutting staff and harming our dedicated public servants for these ill-defined expenditures?"

Others inquired about why the budget hole numbers have continued to fluctuate—by large amounts—in recent weeks. Jonas Biery, the city’s chief financial officer, explained that the updated budget deficits were a result of constantly evolving tax revenue information, freshly negotiated labor union agreements, a clearer picture of rising health care costs and Portland City Council’s decision to increase its own staffing budget.

“The thread got a little frayed with miscommunication about the size of the gap,” Biery explained.

Others asked why COVID-related federal relief funds were used to create permanent programs, which, once those funds ran out, created a funding cliff. Federal relief funds primarily went to programs addressing livability issues such as increased camp sweeps, public space transformations, and the city’s tiny pod shelters.

“Can it be explained why the one-time COVID-era funds were folded into permanent programs? It was understood at the time that these allotments were temporary when disbursed. It is difficult for some of us to square why this seems to have challenged our administrators, and why this remains to be a talking point.”

Jordan defended the city’s decision to use those federal relief funds on livability and homelessness.

“With 20/20 hindsight, you can say, ‘You never should’ve done that,' but anybody who was around here [at the time] would say it was a huge problem that needed someone to address it,” Jordan said. “The City Council at the time decided to do that. And we find ourselves here. And we’re trying very hard to both think about what reductions in service could be managed and not have huge impacts on the public and staff, and what other sources of revenue could be looked at from the state, Metro, and our relationship with [Multnomah County] is a dynamic one.”

A handful of questions were directed at why Jordan, who’s received three raises since becoming the city’s top administrator, has continued to take those raises even as the city faces a financial crisis.

Jordan did not address the raises. The Oregonian reported on Jordan’s raises last month; he currently makes $312,500.