News Portland Streetcar has collected a little over half the fares it projected when it installed $1 fare boxes along its lines last fall. The lack of fare revenue means the Portland Bureau of Transportation faces a shortfall in funding the streetcar's $8.9 million annual operating budget. That analysis comes from the City Budget Office, which released its analyses of all 27 city bureau budgets yesterday."The ...   More

News Mayor Charlie Hales is entering city budget season facing a much-publicized $25 million shortfall. But the hole could be bigger than that.Last year's city budget included $13.7 million in one-time funding for a swath of projects. "One-time funding" doesn't mean a project isn't coming back for another round of money. It just means the expense isn't factored into the general-fund budget each year.Last ...   More

News UPDATE: The Parks Budget Advisory Committee released its slightly revised list of proposed cuts Thursday afternoon. Notable changes include moving the closure of Hillside Community Center to the 6 percent-cut scenario and the cut to parks workers into the worst-case scenario.It’s possible that next August, when families flock to Portland’s parks to play, picnic and cool off, they may have to use ...   More

News Raising their fists and chanting, “Good jobs for all, ” about 2,500 Oregon union members and their supporters packed Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square today to protest stagnant job growth and government budget cuts. Organized by Portland Jobs with Justice, the “Jobs, Not Cuts” rally is part of a larger campaign by local and national unions demanding wealthier Americans start paying their ...   More

News Portland Public Schools' Superintendent Carole Smith will go before the PPS board of education tonight to propose a number of cuts that she says will preserve school days this year. The district is currently facing an immediate shortfall of $14 million. Among her proposals: • An increase in the district's staffing model. The increase will have the effect of widening the student-to-teacher ...   More

News Local mental health and addiction services and state prisons aren't the only potential budget cuts that could make life more brutish in Portland. The potential loss of several key programs at the state Department of Human Services is truly sobering. Following is a list of six programs that would be lost from DHS' addictions and mental health division in a worst-case, 30-percent-cut scenario: • ...   More

News Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler this morning is wheeling out his $883 million proposed 2009-2010 budget. WW got an advance look at which programs he wants to save and which he'd cut as the county struggles under an estimated $42 million budget shortfall. The district attorney's office, Northeast Portland parents and public-safety advocates are all likely to be pissed off by Wheeler's proposed ...   More

News The community immunization clinic for Multnomah County will move from Northeast Portland to 426 SW Stark Street downtown and reduce its walk-in hours from two days a week to one day a week. The Health Department's Immunization Clinic, now at 5329 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. will join some of the department's other offices — starting June 22 — on the third floor at 426 SW Stark ...   More

News Superintendent Carole Smith announced this afternoon that Portland Public Schools won't have to make as many cuts next year as the district had feared. That's thanks to the promise of new federal funding, which the district says will save many of its previously imperiled teaching jobs. Now instead of $19 million in cuts, PPS must make $13 million in reductions next year -- 52 positions in the ...   More

News Portland Public Schools has released the details of Superintendent Carole Smith's plan to reduce spending at the district's central office. Those cuts (released Friday and posted above) will save $3 million a year and are part of a $13 million reduction in spending due to statewide budget cuts. The school district's general counsel would not provide a list of the proposed cuts until after the ...   More