After spending 27 hours debating the mayor’s budget this week, Portland City Councilors late Wednesday tentatively approved only minor changes to public safety and parks funding, along with other small adjustments.

The budget discussions, which stretched over three days and left many public concerns unaddressed, demonstrated city councilors’ continued resistance to find common ground in their sophomore year.

“Compromise is not ‘Do it my way or else,’” said Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney, chiding councilors for failed attempts to find consensus on budget issues during the meeting. “We need to actually start figuring out where we can come together to do the things that are important. Instead of just demanding that people come to your side.”

The budget discussion comes as the 12-person council has struggled to make progress under the new form of government. Half of the council is up for re-election in the fall. Recent polling has shown that councilors’ approval rating is far lower than the mayor’s, and new analysis from Rose City Reform, a nonprofit focused on civic engagement and Portland’s new form of government, shows Wilson has been more effective at passing legislation than councilors.

The council’s first budget vote, last year, was a thorny, exhaustive process which ended in hurt feelings, public scolding and, ultimately, a deeply divided legislative body.

Now what?

Councilors still have a chance to introduce smaller financial tweaks before the budget is adopted. Those can be proposed at the next budget meeting on June 10.

The council will hold its final budget vote on June 17. It goes into effect July 1.

Councilors’ debate this time around reflected little growth. As Wednesday’s meeting stretched into the evening, councilors traded barbs over policy choices and pet projects.

“You are out of order, councilor,” Council President Jamie Dunphy told Councilor Loretta Smith when she interrupted his critique of one of her policy proposals.

“You’re out of order,” Smith responded, speaking over him. “Make me stop. Make me stop.”

Anger over disagreements faded into apathy and defeat as the meeting wore on.

“Let’s just get this over with,” said Councilor Candace Avalos, before proposing an amendment that swiftly failed.

What passed

Councilors introduced and discussed roughly 40 amendments to Mayor Keith Wilson’s budget proposal, introduced last month. Of them, only 17 were adopted.

The approved proposals largely focused on restoring cuts to public safety and parks programs Wilson had suggested cutting.

One green-lit plan cut $2.5 million into councilors’ security budget to restore positions within two unarmed public safety response teams, Portland Street Response and Community Health Assess and Treat. That package also funds the city’s free summer lunch program within Portland Parks & Recreation and violence prevention programs.

Another approved proposal returned funding to keep a fire engine at the St. John’s fire station, and another restored 14 positions in the city’s Urban Forestry program. One plan restored 5 desk clerks at police bureau precincts – among other positions – by limiting annual raises for non-unionized employees who make over $100,00 per year.

Another plan that advanced cut $1 million from the city program that removes homeless encampments, and puts that money toward programs that run laundry services, trash clean up, and other cleaning work. These specific programs offer job training to people experiencing homelessness.

In all, the approved proposals did little to significantly change Wilson’s overarching $8.5 billion budget, which relied on hefty cuts to public safety programs, homeless shelters and city staff to fill a $171 million budget gap.

The debate left a lot of the public’s top concerns unaddressed.

Larger cuts to public safety, staffing left untouched

On Monday, councilors heard nearly 6 hours of testimony from members of the public about Wilson’s budget plan. Some of the top concerns came in response to Wilson’s proposed public safety reductions and cuts to staff.

Councilors were unable to address many of those issues.

Specifically, city union leaders and others spoke out against Wilson’s proposal to cut “core service” positions, an umbrella term for roles that exist in most city bureaus, like technology, HR, and communications staff.

“Balancing the budget on the back of workers is wrong,” said Jeannette DeCastro, a city transportation employee and union member, speaking to councilors on Monday. “It means fewer services for Portlanders. Please stop.”

Several progressive councilors attempted to pause and reconsider those cuts and layoffs, but the proposal failed on a 6-6 vote. Other proposals to make equitable cuts to upper management positions also failed.

Wilson’s proposal also defunds 34 Public Safety Support Specialists, or unarmed officers who respond to low-level calls. Paired with cuts to 911, public safety staff testified that these reductions will impact emergency response times.

“This budget will negatively impact Portlanders’ access to service on their darkest of days,” said Aaron Schmautz, president of Portland Police Bureau’s rank-and-file union, on Monday.

Numerous amendments that attempted to restore those positions fizzled. A proposal successfully passed by Dunphy, the council president, did save one support specialist position.

Much of the three-day meeting focused on where councilors disagreed.

Dividing lines

The majority of budget proposals failed, dividing councilors along familiar political lines.

The six more progressive council members largely voted in alignment, with the six more moderate councilors sticking together – a pattern that’s become commonplace over the past 12 months.

Under council rules, a budget amendment fails if it’s tied with a 6-6 vote. (Those rules also prohibit the mayor from casting a tiebreaking vote on amendments.) That led to the demise of several significant spending proposals.

For example, Councilor Olivia Clark’s plan to use $10 million reserved for the city’s new police oversight board to pay for police and fire positions failed with a tie vote. But the six more progressive councilors in opposition called the proposal an insult to the 82% of voters who approved the oversight program in 2020.

After Clark’s amendment failed, Pirtle-Guiney suggested using a smaller portion of the oversight board’s budget to pay for public safety positions, calling it a compromise. But any cuts to the board’s budget were a non-starter for half the council. Pirtle-Guiney’s pitch failed.

Another attempted compromise to fill funding gaps on housing construction projects also fizzled with a tie vote.

Moderate councilors rejected a $2.5 million plan from Councilor Sameer Kanal to tap city financial reserves for the funding gap, considering the move risky.

Kanal returned with a proposal to instead use another cache of housing money to cover the costs. But the shift revealed a deeper quarrel with the proposal: Councilor Smith accused Kanal of trying to “undercut” her separate, monthslong attempt to fund these programs.

Smith’s five more moderate councilors took her side; Kanal’s compromise failed.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/05/21/portland-politics-city-council-mayor-keith-wilson-oregon/