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Portland Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong proposes cutting 156.7 school-based positions from the district in 2025–26 to address a $40 million budget deficit.
The latest draft of Portland Public Schools’ proposed budget will also see a reduction of 85.5 central office and administrative full-time equivalent positions, Armstrong told the School Board on Tuesday night. Those positions include layoffs, vacant positions that will remain unfilled, and positions people are vacating at the end of the school year, whether that be through retirement or resignation. (There are about 8,000 staff across the district, according to a June 2024 handbook.)
“This is a defining moment when we’re making choices about what we’re reducing in schools,” Armstrong said at a Wednesday morning press conference. “What we won’t compromise, though, is the academic success of every single one of our students in our schools.”
But here’s what those cuts may look like on the ground: PPS will sunset the International Baccalaureate program at the elementary level, blend some classrooms in the fourth and fifth grades, have class-size minimums at the secondary level (so classes will not be offered unless they enroll a minimum number of students), reduce dual language immersion staffing at middle schools, and reduce some contract work.
PPS’s latest budget draft comes after months of discussion around the initial budget proposal in January. It will now include slicing about $17 million from central services and administration, and $23 million from school-based budgets. (That’s compared with the $12.2 million and $29.1 million, respectively, that district officials initially floated. This is the first year school-based cuts will outpace central office ones.)
The draft is still tentative and will undergo discussion with the community and School Board members, though some district staff have already begun receiving layoff notices. The School Board will vote to approve the budget May 19, and the final budget will be adopted June 10.
The district is running on a slightly higher general fund budget this year: $868.58 million compared with $853.1 million in the 2024–25 fiscal year. Michelle Morrison, the district’s chief financial officer, said on Wednesday that the increase in revenue does not help the district keep up with its expenditures. “That’s due to inflation for everything from utilities to supplies, equipment, and of course, our staffing as well.”
PPS has faced budget deficits for three consecutive years, caused by rising costs and limited revenue. Those costs have been amplified by a number of things, including a new contract with its teachers’ union following a strike last fall and increases to pensions in the Public Employees Retirement System.
Armstrong says the district anticipates it will face at least another $30 million deficit in 2026–27, as the district has spent some one-time funds to alleviate the deficit (for example, spending all its reserves for PERS) and will not have those savings to address budget crises in years to come.
But perhaps the most impactful contributor to the district’s budget deficit is its declining enrollment, which has been a sore point. PPS is losing students faster than other districts statewide (enrollment is down 10.8% since 2019–20, compared with 6.5% statewide), and is therefore also losing money. That trend is in line with more rapid declines in other urban cities.
In March, PPS quietly started launching a Recruitment, Retention, and Recovery campaign to build family trust and bring students back into the district. Candice Grose, the district’s chief of communications, tells WW the district is analyzing enrollment trends, identifying the ZIP codes with the sharpest declines, and determining where students are going when they leave PPS. The district will launch a public-facing campaign, emphasizing the “long-term” value of a PPS education, in stages through summer, Grose says.
“It’s about reminding all Portland families what PPS can offer: academic excellence, cultural relevance, community pride, and a place where every student is seen, supported, and celebrated,” Grose says.
District leaders emphasized their desire to work more closely with the broader community during the budget process this year. An example of how that’s been reflected: smaller class sizes. Dr. Renard Adams, PPS’s chief accountability and equity officer, said on Tuesday night that 98.7% of all elementary school classrooms—738 of 748—are projected to be below the district’s class size targets (24 in kindergarten, 26 in first to third grade, and 28 in fourth and fifth).
The average elementary class size, Adams said, is expected to be 23.4 students. Education experts tell WW that lowering class sizes is an expensive intervention with minimal effects on improving student outcomes, though it’s a rallying issue for parents because it’s something their kids see and experience every day.
In a follow-up interview with WW on Wednesday, Adams said there were conversations about whether the district needed to increase class size, which officials decided against after considering impacts to schools directly. (Class-size cuts could result in fewer teachers.)
“We decided to do other strategic staffing moves because class size is very important to our teachers, it’s important to our administrators, it’s important to our families,” Adams says. “It is our intention to use that as a last resort measure to help us with our cost cutting efforts.”
On Wednesday, district officials stressed that the budget is a plan, and that PPS is ready to respond to potential federal cuts. The district receives about $15 million directly from the federal government and another $40 million from the Oregon Department of Education, which redistributes federal funds. Armstrong says the district has held back 25% in Title I funds (meant for low-income learners) in anticipation of reductions, among other measures.
One other place where planning might go a longer way? Contracted work. At the School Board meeting on Tuesday night, board member Julia Brim-Edwards noted the district spent double on its contracted printing budget than when it ran a print shop in house.
Armstrong said the PPS team is looking at how to emphasize efficiency during these times, and is taking a closer look at how it’s been spending money.
“We want to make sure that we are not only benefiting from our return on investment, but that we’re being strategic in programs and services,” she said on Tuesday.