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LLEWELLYN ELEMENTARY COOLS DOWN: The Portland School Board approved a major remodel to Llewellyn Elementary School’s schoolyard on Oct. 28, authorizing a project that will overhaul much of the school’s blacktop. Like many buildings in Portland Public Schools’ aging portfolio, the Southeast Portland school doesn’t have air conditioning and heats up rapidly on warmer days, resulting in some school closures. The mass of blacktop around the school reflects heat into classrooms, says principal Diana Collins. And the school’s proximity to the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge means that its status as an urban heat island directly affects the larger ecosystem. In recent years, Llewellyn parent and horticulturalist Kristin Pool Cohen says runoff from the blacktop has fed algae blooms in the refuge. A team of parents and school staff secured $579,486 from a Metro Nature in Neighborhoods grant, which is meant to fund projects that preserve or restore local habitats while increasing access to those natural spaces. The plan is to replace blacktop with native plants and species to cool down classrooms, expand the variety of activities in the schoolyard, and fold in learning opportunities at the environmentally focused school. Parents hope the project will benefit both students and the broader neighborhood. “Anything we can do on this piece of property to cool and filter our water is going to help make sure that Oaks Bottom is a more resilient ecosystem,” Pool Cohen says.
BUDGET FRUSTRATION BUBBLES ON CITY COUNCIL: A meeting of the Portland City Council’s Finance Committee turned awkward Oct. 3 when only one councilor brought an amendment to the technical adjustment ordinance. (That ordinance is how the council changes the budget midyear to correct any errors.) Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney said she was frustrated that only one of her colleagues produced an amendment, especially after councilors spent hours on the dais last month questioning budget staff about recommended adjustments. “We told our colleagues that we would be meeting today,” Pirtle-Guiney said. “We added this meeting so that we could consider amendments before this comes to full council. And we’ve received one amendment, and that’s it. And that’s concerning to me because we need to take this process seriously.” (Councilors can still bring amendments to the full council Nov. 12, and it’s likely some will be proposed then.) At the top of the meeting, chief financial officer for the city Jonas Biery made pointed remarks to the committee, alluding to the barrage of questions received by budget staff from councilors in recent weeks. “I’ve heard language suggesting that there’s an attempt to game the numbers or produce a shadow budget,” Biery said. “I want to state, as directly as possible, that that is absolutely not the case. Our objective and professional mandate is to provide transparency and factual information and to recommend actions to remain in compliance with state budget law and budget best practices.”
PPS FACES $50 MILLION SHORTFALL IN 2026–27 BUDGET: Portland Public Schools preliminarily forecasts a $50 million shortfall in its upcoming budget, chief financial officer Michelle Morrison told Portland School Board members Oct. 28. The district has faced cuts since the 2022–23 fiscal year because of limited revenue and rising costs, including for pensions through the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System. It also continues to see declining enrollment. PPS lost another 753 students for the 2025–26 academic year, though it outpaced kindergarten enrollment expectations for the first time in more than a decade. There are also factors the district cannot forecast, including uncertainty of federal and state funding sources, which might also affect its already approved 2024–25 budget as Oregon feels the brunt of cuts to the Oregon Health Plan and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The district will have to hack away at a budget that has already stripped its central office and many of its student-facing positions and resources. Though smaller than initially anticipated, the upcoming budget shortfall is thus “very, very significant,” Morrison told board members. “We’ve started some early internal work to see how we can address that while still remaining focused on students.”
FOOD ASSISTANCE STILL HELD UP: As the federal government shutdown drags on, funding for a key food program remains in limbo even after the courts intervened to order release of the money, meaning about 750,000 Oregonians were still awaiting benefits that would have normally arrived at the beginning of November. The Trump administration had earlier said the month’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits would not be released to states until Congress ends the shutdown by approving funding for the government. Half the country, including Oregon, sued to pressure the administration to tap emergency funds, and multiple courts ordered it to do so. On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sent states a memo directing them to issue 50% of each household’s normal monthly SNAP benefits. Yet at press time, the Oregon Department of Human Services said the feds had still not released funds to the states, and that it had no timeline for when the money would come. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, also on Tuesday, seemed to contradict his administration’s own memo: SNAP benefits, he announced, would not be distributed until the federal government reopened.
