Portland Mayor Keith Wilson has proposed cutting nearly 150 jobs and slashing public safety and homelessness programs to address a significant budget shortfall.

“The stakes are high,” Wilson said in a statement shared with media Monday. “This year, our budget must stretch farther, carry more weight, and bridge a deeper chasm.”

Wilson’s proposed spending plan for the budget year, which starts July 1, makes cuts across most departments. But he does make sure to protect fire stations, community centers, and parks from closure. Wilson also prevents job cuts to police officers and investigators.

This is Wilson’s second budget as Portland’s top elected official. The former trucking executive called this year’s budget writing process the “hardest thing he’s ever done” in his career.

The city is facing an anticipated $172 million budget shortfall due to a number of familiar factors: inflation, expiring pandemic-era federal funding, declining tax revenues and rising health care costs for staff, to name a few. That budget gap also includes costs for current programs that don’t have a dedicated long-term funding source, like the money needed to keep Wilson’s overnight homeless shelters running a second year.

The $8.5 billion budget — roughly the same size as the current budget — includes discretionary and non-discretionary funds. Non-discretionary dollars make up about 90% of the entire budget and come from grants, utility fees, contracts and other revenues that have to be spent on a specific service, such as water and sewer utilities. Discretionary funds, which come from license fees and taxes, have fewer restrictions on how they can be used. This year, the city has an estimated $743 million in discretionary general funds to spend.

Here are the basics on how Wilson proposes balancing this year’s budget.

Homelessness

Last year, Wilson turned to other governments – Multnomah County, Metro regional government, and the state – to pay for his expansive shelter program. This year, Metro, Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties all declined to hand over shelter money when he asked. But according to the draft budget, the state has offered nearly $3 million to pay for shelters.

Wilson has also proposed hanging onto $31 million that the city has historically given to Multnomah County to pay for homeless services. Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson already anticipated this cut, according to spokesperson Denis Theriault, and has factored it into her proposed budget plan.

Regardless, he’s proposed cutting the city’s shelter budget by around 30% to save money – one of the largest department cuts in the budget. It’s not clear if that means city shelters will close.

Public safety programs

Wilson is proposing a 6% reduction to the Portland Police Bureau’s budget.

While it keeps all officer and investigator positions whole, it makes notable cuts in other areas, like cutting administrative staff by 50% at police bureaus – meaning 11 layoffs.

It also makes hefty cuts to unarmed public safety programs, including 34 Public Safety Support Specialist positions (which are unarmed officers who respond to low-level calls) and four positions in Portland Street Response. Wilson’s plan also makes cuts to the city’s gun violence prevention program and crime victim services program.

Wilson pledges to keep all 31 Portland fire stations open. But, if adopted, the cuts would be felt elsewhere.

His plan suggests getting rid of one fire engine, cutting the cost to replace other aging fire trucks, and reducing some medical response programs that could decrease emergency response times.

Cuts to parks and transportation

One of last year’s biggest budget fights in City Hall centered on parks maintenance funding. Councilors may be seeing a sequel this year, just months after voters passed a parks levy that raised property taxes to pay for parks’ maintenance.

Wilson’s budget proposes cutting maintenance at Portland parks by nearly $3 million.

“Ultimately, our parks will feel less welcoming and safe,” notes a budget summary.

The proposal also includes axing about 46 Portland Parks & Recreation jobs. While it doesn’t close any community centers and parks, the plan introduces some new holiday closure dates and reduced hours for some community centers, park splash pads and summer kids programs.

Wilson’s plan uses new and unfinished revenue proposals to fill the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s $25 million revenue shortfall. That includes a new fee adopted by city council last week, which charges utilities that cut into city streets, and a pending monthly street utility fee that residents and businesses may be required to pay. Council will consider adopting this second revenue source later this week – and Wilson’s budget counts on it passing.

Wilson’s plan expands a program that has long been in higher demand: street sweeping. The proposal would increase the frequency and scope of street sweeping, and expand the leaf collection program citywide.

But the spending plan also includes 53 job cuts across PBOT.

Portland Clean Energy Fund

Wilson has suggested using a familiar source to patch some gaps in his budget: the Portland Clean Energy Fund. That fund is meant for programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but has historically been used to fill budget shortfalls. Wilson suggests using the $27 million interest generated by the PCEF fund to do just that this year.

While the specific breakdown is hard to pin down, his budget suggests splitting that money among programs that clean up graffiti and trash, offer laundry services to people experiencing homelessness, support small businesses, replace city cars with electric vehicles and other priorities.

Broad staffing cuts

The city employs more than 7,000 people.

In all, Wilson suggests cutting 203 jobs, while adding 58 new positions, resulting in a net loss of 145 jobs. It’s not yet clear how many of these positions are currently vacant, and how many cuts would actually result in layoffs. These cuts touch nearly every bureau, but focus largely on human resources, communications, technology, and community engagement positions.

Unions representing city staff have spent the past few months lobbying the mayor’s office to avoid cutting union jobs to balance the budget. Last year, the city trimmed more than 100 positions to cut costs. Unions, like the City of Portland Professional Workers and AFSCME Local 189, have specifically urged Wilson to address what they call “administrative bloat” in certain departments, where the number of high-paying non-union middle management positions has grown as lower-level union positions have been chopped.

Wilson knows they’re concerned. During his State of the City address Friday, he made a point to acknowledge city staff.

“Do you know who keeps the promises of renewal, of prosperity, of safety, and a better future?” Wilson asked the crowd. “It’s not the mayor, it’s not me. It’s our city of Portland employees. It is a profound honor to serve as your mayor.”

Wilson will hold a town hall with city employees next week to discuss his spending plan.

Unions have already announced plans to rally outside of Portland City Hall at a Tuesday morning budget meeting.

Now what?

Wilson will present his proposed budget to the City Council tomorrow morning. Councilors will have a little over a month to suggest changes to the budget.

Last year, councilors proposed more than 100 amendments to Wilson’s budget, spurring hours-long, contentious budget debates. Ultimately, their tweaks to the spending plan didn’t change much about Wilson’s baseline budget. Perhaps most significant was a plan to reshuffle a collection of funds earmarked for police, golf courses, and a tree program and use them to fill a proposed $7 million cut to parks’ maintenance.

Councilors will vote to adopt the budget, with any approved changes, on June 10.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/04/20/portland-mayor-wilson-budget-deficit-cut-jobs-programs/