City – County financial relationships

The City of Portland has a projected surplus of $39m in the budget currently being finalized, while Multnomah County is faced with cutting $15m next year. Willamette Week‘s James Pitkin wrote a good editorial explaining why the City has a surplus while the County is cutting again – basically, the County gets much of its money for healthcare from federal sources like Medicare, and for public safety programs from the State, neither of which are providing funding that keeps pace with needed services. The City gets a greater percentage of its money from fees and business taxes, both of which are doing quite nicely, thank you, compared with the County’s greater reliance on Measure 50-capped property taxes.

Ryan Frank on City Hall blog provides the text of a Letter to Chair Wheeler from Mayor Potter, responding to the request that the City to pick up costs for programs currently funded by the County and slated for cuts, such as the “sobering tank” for people who are drunk. Chair Wheeler requested $2,643,000 – $2.1 million ongoing; $500,000 in one-time money. The $2.1 “ongoing” request is especially significant, since it represents permanent transfer of ongoing funding responsibility for designated programs. The Mayor said, pretty much, “No”.

Let’s back up, since I know many readers of this blog haven’t been in Portland very long. Resolution A, passed by the Multnomah County Commission in March 1983, dealt primarily with ceasing to provide urban services to unincorporated areas in mid-Multnomah County. County roads within Portland were transferred to the City, and residents of mid-County were given the option of annexing to Gresham or Portland, or not receiving urban services. Some East Portland residents remain bitter about the process by which they were forced to annex and pay for things like sewer connections, to this day. But also in Resolution A is the following:

“WHEREAS, the first priority for the available resources of Multnomah County shall be for those services available to all residents of the County, such as Assessment and Taxation, Elections, Corrections, Libraries and Health Services; and

WHEREAS, “municipal services” is defined as governmental services usually provided by city governments and shall include but not be limited to police service, neighborhood parks, and land-use planning and permits, …”

In a city like Portland, where all but about 1100 residents live in Multnomah County, this division of responsibility was and is important, to make the lines of accountability clear and to avoid duplication of services. Portland’s Charter, as some of us know much better now than we did three months ago, also contains a list of 65 Specific Powers of the City Council – which can also be seen as specific responsibilities. They run along much the same lines as the areas assigned to the City in Resolution A, giving further evidence the current Charter stands the test of time well.

As I said in the comments on my Hempstalk post yesterday, I find clear, objective standards in government rules easier to deal with than vague goals and guidelines. I believe Resolution A should continue to be honored and built upon as a cornerstone of city-county structure and division of responsibilies.

Over the past several years, the lines set by Resolution A have become increasingly blurred. Please chime in with your suggestions/observations on when the fuzziness started. It became impossible for me to ignore when the City of Portland passed the Children’s Investment Fund in 2002. Funding worthy projects helping impoverished children and families at a time when the state, county and city budgets were being cut, it was surely A Good Thing to do. The major problem with it was and is that the programs it funds should properly be County responsibilities, not the City’s. The County Board should have referred and managed it, not the City Council. It wasn’t done that way for several reasons, including the mid-County residents outside of Portland being unlikely to pass it.

More recently, the City of Portland chose to pay nearly $2m annually to fund 57 jail beds for drug abusers suspected of crimes. The money is for short-term stays, ignoring the fact that even the Bush Administration’s Federal Drug Administration site says incarceration makes no difference in recidivism unless it’s for more than three months.

Back to the present: Ryan Frank today posts a report on last night’s City Budget Forum at Robert Gray Middle School, at which an organized group of County social service clients asked for the City’s help. Commissioner Leonard is quoted as calling this advocacy, “irresponsible”. To me, it seems not only responsible but expected, that citizens would seek help wherever the funding might be, when the Council has fudged the lines between city and county responsibilities so much in the past few years.

Once the ridiculous Charter change campaign ends next week, I hope the City Council and County Commission will find time to meet and reassess their jurisdictions’ commitment to Resolution A.