Portland Mayor Charlie Hales temporarily assigned all city bureaus to himself, which he plans to keep during the initial stages of drafting next fiscal year’s budget.
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales temporarily assigned all city bureaus to himself, which he plans to keep during the initial stages of drafting next fiscal year’s budget.
Hales said the move is necessary to discourage the other members of the council from protecting their turf within the bureaus during the budgeting process. Portland is one of the few cities in the country where council members oversee bureaus assigned to them by the mayor.
According to Hales, the council is facing funding challenges this year that require the council to be objective about the budgets of all bureaus. City finance officials are already projecting a $25 million shortfall in the approximately $500 million General Fund portion of the budget. Hales says the actual shortfall is even greater because the U.S. Department of Justice is requiring the city to hire additional police officers, among other things.
Read more at The Portland Tribune.
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