On Wednesday, Portland City Council finalized a city budget totaling over $8 billion in spending for next year. It includes more funding for alternative shelter sites and an expansion of Portland Street Response, but it also makes cuts to the office of Civic Life and less funding for the Portland Police Bureau than the mayor had requested.

Mayor Keith Wilson joined OPB’s “Think Out Loud” to discuss his plans for executing this final budget.

The following excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.

How the new budgeting process went

“We need to start earlier. By charter, I’m mandated to present it to council by May 5. I believe we delivered it to them just a day or two prior to that. It just simply wasn’t enough time for them to go through hundreds of pages and an $8.6 billion budget, and for them to make more in-depth comprehensive review and amendments … So we’re going to do better next year.”

On the parks department

“We started with a $23 million hole in parks, and so when you think about it, I was able to deliver the budget with a $7 million hole on a $170 million bureau. We were pretty darn close. [City Council] really wanted to focus on maintenance programs, community centers and such, which I had already addressed. They made some changes to tree enforcement in other areas, which I thought were wise.

“It’s their prerogative, the area they really want to focus on, and I applaud them for that.”

Public safety in the new budget

“I had budgeted in $2 million to public safety, which was primarily for police. But we’d already increased the funding for Portland Street Response. We’re adding 14 more individuals there to go to two full shifts. We added more funding to [the Fire Department] to add 10 more officers.

“We really needed to focus on police to continue their progress with staffing. That was taken away, and in turn $2.2 million was added to the public safety service area for recruitment. While it’s not all for police, it’s for all the different departments. I’m happy with it.

“We still have to go back and ask for allotments now, which is gonna be a challenge as we move forward to continue that recruiting for police.”

Portland councilors adopt first budget under new form of government

Budget helps fund 1,500 new shelter beds by December

“We’ve essentially fully funded the plan … I’m happy to say we have multiple shelters getting ready to be opened now, and our target is 1,500 beds by Dec. 1. We have 164 days left.

“We need to make sure that we’re not going into winter with people suffering on the street. If a person wants a bed, we need to have a door ready for them. We are enforcing our no-camping codes, but it’s in an ad hoc fashion.

“Now, if an outreach worker isn’t able to get through to somebody sleeping in a business corridor, officers are there to roll by and help. But the goal is not to arrest our way out of this, because that’s a false narrative.

“Up until just a few weeks ago, Multnomah County was handing out tents. In a person’s worst time of need, we were fostering the behavior that we’re trying to end. I’m happy to report that they’re no longer doing that.

“We cannot continue to go year after year with families leaving and businesses failing and think that we can have thousands of people living on our street.”

Portland police’s role at ICE facility protests

“If we saw probable cause with criminal activity, you saw our Portland police officers go in and make targeted arrests. But then we pulled back. We aren’t going to be at that front line separating our federal protective services and the peaceful protesters. But if we see criminal activity, we are interceding.

“Once we [declared a] riot, by the way, we saw something really special. The crowd temperature went down and stepped back, in a way. It’s changed since 2020. We see an opportunity where we respect people’s ability to peacefully protest, and they’re doing it more so now than ever.

“But that excessive force or standing in between the federal buildings and the protesters, we’ve stepped back from that, and frankly I’ve been impressed with how we’ve been able to get through these very difficult days.”

On the possibility of National Guard troops in Portland

“That would be an overreaction. It would, without a doubt, be overreach.

“When we look at what’s going on in Portland, we’re talking about a two-block area. Do we really need the National Guard to be deployed in that sort of way?

“I mean, we’re being very clear. We want the federal government to commit to not deploying troops on Portlanders or on Oregonians, on Oregon soil … We have everything under control.”

Portland mayor waves off federal help after Saturday protest at ICE building

On federal immigration enforcement in Portland

“We’re alarmed. We see the reports where people are being apprehended at our courthouses and on our streets.

“What I can focus on is that we’re a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state. What I can commit to you is we’re prohibited from assisting federal immigration enforcement, and we’re going to not assist them. When there’s overreach, when they go too far, we’re going to fight them in the federal courts.

“We’re not going to walk away from the laws we have and we’re going to hold the Trump administration accountable to those laws.”

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson spoke with “Think Out Loud” guest host Geoff Norcross. Click play to listen to the full conversation:

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/21/portland-mayor-budget-protests-national-guard/