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Earlier this month, the Portland City Council voted to reject 94 grants across 64 nonprofits slated to receive money from the Portland Children’s Levy beginning July 1, citing concerns about racial equity during the selection process.
Instead, the council voted to extend all existing PCL grants by one year to ensure money wouldn’t stop flowing into the community for critical services.
The abrupt decision by the council to wholly reject the $70.9 million in recommendations, vetted and chosen over a two-year process, left PCL staff dismayed and alarmed.
In a June 18 meeting, PCL staff rebutted point by point each of the concerns councilors had raised in meetings on May 21 and June 4. Staff noted that organizations not recommended for funding had gone through the same voting and scoring process as those recommended for funding; previous grantees not recommended for renewed grants had serious performance issues, staff noted. The five-person PCL Allocation Committee, the final layer of vetting for grantees before the package is delivered to the City Council for the final stamp of approval, ripped into the council’s decision.
A handful of councilors who voted for the full remand reportedly regretted their decision soon after the vote, council staff told WW. And though over the past two weeks councilors have considered a number of options for damage control, it appears they won’t be considering a revote.
One of the options on the table, which would likely come to the council only after the new fiscal year beginning July 1, is to find money somewhere in the budget to fund the 36 organizations for one year while the City Council decides how it wants the PCL to change its selection process. By that time, had it not been for the remand, the nonprofits recommended for funding would have started to see the money flow.
Correspondence obtained by WW shows that in a May 30 memo, PCL director Lisa Pellegrino addressed councilors’ concerns that had been raised during a May 21 council meeting, including questions about specific applicants, point by point.
PCL staff laid out why some current grantees were not approved for funding in the upcoming cycle due to falling deeply short of performance goals.
On May 21, Councilor Sameer Kanal brought up one nonprofit not recommended for funding, Equitable Giving Circle. PCL staff noted in the memo that EGC, which is Black-led, had scored last—23rd out of 23—in organizations applying for a hunger-relief grant. “No application that scored last in any program area was approved for hunger,” staff wrote. They noted that four other Black-led hunger relief organizations were approved for funding.
PCL staff also noted that Self Enhancement Inc., a Black-led nonprofit and a current PCL grantee, had “missed the goal for home visit provided by more than 50%” and “missed all outcome goals for participants.”
Pellegrino’s detailed memo, however, did little to appease the council on June 4. It voted to remand the entire package anyways.
Those familiar with the situation say a handful of councilors soon after expressed regret about their vote, and, in the days following the June 4 meeting, scrambled to find a way to make amends.
That’s reflected in a June 10 email from Pellegrino to the City Attorney’s Office, in which she asked about the process of calling a revote. “We are getting a significant number of inquiries asking if there is any way that City Council would reconsider its June 4 decisions,” Pellegrino wrote. (The answer: It’s complicated.)
Nothing came of it.
Council Vice President Tiffany Koyama Lane’s chief of staff, Mary Li, tells WW that the councilor is “aware of the unintended consequences of the council’s actions related to the Children’s Levy” and that “there is continued discussion among the council to identify potential options to mitigate that impact.”
Councilor Candace Avalos, who voted for the remand, says she stands by her vote.
“I’m not backpedaling,” Avalos says. “I see the impact and it sucks, but I made the decision that I could best make in that moment. Every decision I’m going to make is going to have some sort of uproar.”
The other five councilors who voted for the remand did not respond to WW’s request for comment.