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The Portland Metro Chamber is threatening to sue the city if the City Council makes changes to the city’s Arts Tax without voter approval.
The Chamber wrote to the council in a May 13 letter that it had “serious legal concerns regarding the proposal by the Council to amend, expand, increase, restructure, or otherwise materially alter the voter-approved Arts Tax without first obtaining authorization from Portland voters.“
The Metro Chamber wrote that, if the council proceeds with changes to the Arts Tax, the chamber “is prepared to pursue all available legal remedies on behalf of our members, including formally challenging the legality of the City’s actions under the Charter and applicable Oregon law.”
The much-maligned Arts Tax—which is $35 per person per year—was first approved by voters in 2012. It pays for art teachers across local school districts and provides grants to arts nonprofits. Three councilors—President Jamie Dunphy, Elana Pirtle-Guiney and Tiffany Koyama Lane—are leading an effort to reform the tax.
The reform efforts come after years of grumbling by residents that the tax is onerous and that the money is not spent effectively or well, a sentiment that was partially vindicated by an audit of the program earlier this year.
The three councilors are seeking to install an income threshold for the tax so that only those who make at least $20,000 per year—or $40,000 for joint-filers—must pay the tax. They’re also seeking to raise the annual tax from $35 to $50.
“This tax hasn’t been working the way it should, and in many ways, it was flawed from the beginning,” Dunphy said in a statement earlier this year. “It hasn’t been accountable or transparent. Plus, it’s always been really annoying to pay.”
The Chamber attached an analysis of council’s legal ability to make changes to voter-approved taxes that it commissioned in 2025 “The legal framework, supported by case law and constitutional principles, makes the answer abundantly clear — it cannot," the paper states, which was authored by a legal consulting firm and a local government affairs firm.
Dunphy declined to comment, and Koyama Lane and Pirtle-Guiney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
