It’s official: After months of tense negotiations and fiery debates, Portland has a budget.

Portland City Council voted to adopt the $8.6 billion spending package Wednesday night with a 11-1 vote. (Councilor Jamie Dunphy said he supported the budget, but abstained to avoid the perception of conflict of interest, as the budget puts money toward a nonprofit where his spouse works.)

It’s the first budget introduced by Mayor Keith Wilson — and the first adopted by the city’s newly expanded city council.

Councilors noted the historic moment. They also celebrated the hard-fought path to a final vote.

“This budget process has been hard and messy, but that mess was democracy in action,” said Councilor Candace Avalos, who represents East Portland in District 1. “I am proud that Portlanders witnessed our different opinions play out in public because that tension caused by deep diverse representation is good, actually”

The Wednesday vote comes after two lengthy, tumultuous council meetings on the budget, where councilors proposed ways to tweak or reinforce Wilson’s initial plan. Through those discussions, councilors were able to secure funding for pet projects, save programs at risk of defunding, and set the course for future policy debates.

But the final plan isn’t drastically different from the spending plan Wilson unveiled in early May.

The plan manages to both pay for Wilson’s key campaign promise — a $25 million plan to open 1,500 new shelter beds by December — and keep the city’s lights on by filling a $65 million revenue shortfall. But to reach that point, Wilson introduced significant layoffs, program cuts, new fees, pay freezes, and a reliance on temporary funds from the state and other local governments. Much of those remain. However, a number of councilors were able to reshuffle city dollars to successfully fill Wilson’s proposed $7 million cut to Portland Parks & Recreation’s maintenance budget.

The budget’s biggest impacts are to the Parks Bureau and the Permitting and Development Department. Parks cuts will lead to shortened hours at some community centers, reduced youth summer programs and 42 job cuts, while around 60 permitting jobs are on the chopping block.

On Wednesday, Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney, of District 2 in North and Northeast neighborhoods, acknowledged the coming layoffs.

“This is a bit of a somber vote for me, because this vote finalizes job cuts for many of our city employees,” she said. “And that’s the nature of public sector work.”

The plan also includes higher fees, like a 25% increase in parking meter rates, and a plan to hike the city’s fee on rideshare companies from 65 cents per ride to $1.30 per ride. Wilson initially proposed new fees on city golf courses, but councilors replaced that plan with a blanket $1.3 million cut to the city’s golf program — leaving it up to program managers to decide how to make the change.

Along with testing the new councilors’ ability to balance their checkbook, the weeks of budget negotiations further defined the politics and priorities of the council body.

“We’ve been on rather an emotional roller coaster,” said Councilor Olivia Clark, who represents Southwest Portland’s District 4. And we’ve been revealing our differences and our commonalities. It’s been a good process.”

The public got a front-row seat to these dynamics. One example: The council’s six-person so-called “progressive caucus,” used their understanding of council meeting rules to coordinate down-to-the-wire wins that rattled their peers. The six are all considered the most left-leaning councilors on council, with four of them members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Councilor Dan Ryan, who also represents District 2, criticized the priorities of the new caucus, which he called a “political insider group” before voting Wednesday.

“There’s a disconnect that is formed between this elected body and the people we serve,” he said. “Please tell me, is Portland the testing site to eliminate capitalism in favor of socialism?”

Caucus member Councilor Angelia Morillo, of Southeast Portland’s District 3, was quick to respond.

“We were elected by Portlanders, we were elected to represent certain types of people who are asking for certain types of things,” Morillo said. “There is nothing stopping my other colleagues who disagree or who have center-right politics from organizing collectively and getting the wins that they want.”

Through the budget process, the public also saw how outside pressure from the powerful local business lobby (and police union) nudged councilors to find a way to give a few million dollars more to the public safety bureaus to step up recruitment efforts.

The lengthy meetings also tested Pirtle-Guiney’s ability, as the council’s first president, to steer the 12 councilors through their first budget document swiftly, fairly and with adequate public input. Several councilors have questioned her leadership in the process. Notably, Council Vice-President Tiffany Koyama Lane, another District 3 representative, accused Pirtle-Guiney of being unnecessarily “rigid” in how she shepherded through councilors’ amendments. Koyama Lane, upset that an amendment she had proposed was brushed aside by Pirtle-Guiney, responded by reintroducing the amendment in the final minutes of last Wednesday’s council meeting.

This year’s budget process was uniquely challenging. That’s because it was the first time the city drafted a budget under its new form of government and the job to draft the budget fell on a slate of elected officials after just a few months on the job.

On Wednesday, all councilors shared hope for a less rushed, more organized budgeting process next year, with more time for public input.

“I think that if we do that,” said Councilor Steve Novick, the third District 3 representative , “then we will have fewer mistakes, less confusion and fewer hard feelings.”

The budget goes into effect July 1.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/19/portland-councilors-adopt-frist-budget-under-new-form-government/