Murmurs: Deborah Kafoury Will Leave PPS

DEBORAH KAFOURY WILL LEAVE PPS: Deborah Kafoury, chief of staff for Portland Public Schools, will leave the district Jan. 4. Kafoury, who took the role shortly after departing her previous job as Multnomah County chair, was Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong’s first hire as she readjusted to Portland. Kafoury’s resignation, first reported on wweek.com, comes at a tumultuous time for the district, as it looks to close up to 14 of its elementary and middle schools, and as the Oregon Department of Justice has engaged a criminal investigation into PPS’s controversial $61.5 million contract with Procedeo, a Texas-based construction firm, currently overseeing bond program management services for the district. An explosive external bond audit released last month specifically detailed the risk of favoritism and bias in the procurement process as the district engaged Procedeo, singling out Kafoury’s involvement. The chief of staff was on the evaluation panel for the contract’s solicitation, but the audit found she had been “part of multiple interactions with Procedeo about the role Procedeo would take on as part of bond program services before the firm was under contract.” In her Oct. 27 resignation letter to Armstrong, obtained via a public records request, Kafoury wrote that she had planned to step down late this year, but pushed back her departure to early January to complete some key projects. “I wish the district, its leadership, and our entire community the very best moving forward,” Kafoury said.

SCHOOL DISTRICT BEGS STATE FOR BAILOUT: Portland Public Schools is not, in fact, anticipating the very best. Instead, it is staring down a $65 million deficit in the 2027–28 school year. At a Nov. 2 press conference, district leaders attributed two-thirds of that shortfall to a historic increase in pension rates. The district anticipates closing that gap will require cutting up to 450 full-time positions, including 223 school-based ones. PPS officials are looking to the state for relief, as legislators weigh whether to tap an Education Stability Fund that holds more than $1 billion (the fund is meant to fund public education through economic instability), asking that state leaders pull out $500 million to provide pension relief to districts. In an email shared with WW, PPS chief financial officer Michelle Morrison said that if the state provided such relief, the district’s budget gap would shrink to $42.7 million. The district has already taken cost-cutting measures, including through contract renegotiation and changing “the way we operate or do our business,” Morrison said Nov. 2, but she added that rising pension costs meant uncertainty for budgets in upcoming years. “We will have to take it a year at a time for now.” Morrison also shared that the district had taken additional steps this year to fend off additional unexpected midyear shortfalls. Last year, PPS officials shocked families and staff when they revealed the district was facing a $22.5 million midyear shortfall; patching it required that employees take several furlough days. It’s not immediately clear whether that $22.5 million gap was fully closed. Morrison did not answer WW’s questions about how much might be left of the unexpected gap, or if leaders would have to tap the district’s reserves, already at the 5% board-approved minimum, to patch it. That information, Morrison said, would be available later this month.

OHSU UNION OBJECTS TO C-SUITE EXIT PACKAGES: Under a deal that went into full effect early this year, Oregon Health & Science University’s new research workers union secured base wages of at least $23.18 an hour, with some union members earning far more. Another benefit: a $50,000 hardship fund to help members in financial distress. Between June and September, 140 members of Research Workers United collectively sought more than $77,000 from the fund, union leaders told the academic medical center’s board last week, and they appreciated OHSU releasing the next tranche of money early. “Our review of applications revealed how meaningful even modest assistance can be,” the labor leaders wrote. “Against that backdrop, it was difficult to learn that OHSU paid a $1.8 million settlement to Alice Cuprill Comas upon her departure. That amount is equivalent to providing a $600 payment to 3,000 employees.” As wweek.com reported Oct. 2, Cuprill Comas, the former chief lawyer at the institution, received the funds—equal to two years’ pay—as part of a severance package tied to what OHSU described as a retirement. And this was not the only recent payout. The university says longtime chief information officer Bridget Barnes elected to retire Sept. 11. On Sept. 25, Cuprill Comas’ former deputy in the legal department, Emily Shults, left too. Separation agreements obtained through public records requests show both received the equivalent of nine months’ salary. An OHSU spokesperson did not respond to questions about how much those salaries were, but prior records indicate Barnes made about $631,000 in 2023. Neither she nor Shults responded to requests for comment. OHSU says it is continually looking at ways to invest in its employees, and one way it does this is to ensure they are paid competitively.

OREGON TURNS OUT FOR MIDTERMS: Turnout ahead of this week’s election was on track to break records for a midterm in Oregon. As of 6:43 am on Election Day, the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office reported ballots had been received from 1,505,694 Oregonians or 48.3% of registered voters. That’s higher than the Oregon voter turnout rate in the prior midterm with one day remaining (45.2%). That election had a final rate of 62.3%—a record slightly higher than turnout for the 2018 midterm. With one day remaining in this election, Multnomah County trailed the state average with a turnout rate of 43.3% while highly rural Gilliam, Grant and Wallowa counties led the way with pre-Election Day turnout rates north of 60%. This election season has been characterized by President Donald Trump’s efforts to assert more federal control over elections and undermine mail-in voting, a system Oregon has used exclusively in national elections since 2001. Trump has dispatched Department of Justice election monitors to counties in all 50 states, including Multnomah, and made nontraditional demands of state officials, which have elicited sharp rebukes from Oregon’s top elections official, Secretary of State Tobias Read. So who won? Read full coverage of results and reactions at wweek.com.