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The Board of County Commissioners wants a bigger role in overseeing Preschool for All.
An Oct. 9 proposal by Commissioner Meghan Moyer seeks to give county commissioners greater control over the program’s advisory bodies and the scope of work those committees do. It follows a heated summer for Preschool for All, Multnomah County’s initiative to offer universal preschool by 2030, marked by a sharp warning from Gov. Tina Kotek about its fiscal sustainability and the resignation of its director.
The board currently has little oversight of the program’s implementation, which has been rocky at times for both the people it’s meant to serve and the private child care providers whose seats the county is relying on converting. Moyer’s proposal comes as the county quintupled the number of advisory groups overseeing the program to five for the 2025–26 school year. (Three of those groups are appointed by County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson’s office, and two are appointed by the Department of Preschool and Early Learning.)
“I believe it is our duty as a board to be involved in the implementation of Preschool for All in a greater way than we are currently included,” Moyer said at the meeting. “This will help build public trust in the process and result in a better program for our residents.”
Moyer has been one of the loudest voices defending the Preschool for All program from the skepticism of the governor and state lawmakers who would like to reduce the tax burden of the county’s high earners.
For now, Moyer’s proposal is merely that, and commissioners voted to table it indefinitely. But they did so with the guarantee of a Nov. 6 work session, where commissioners will discuss the best path forward for broader involvement on their end. Specifically, Moyer wants a stake in choosing advisory committee members, shaping the work of advisory groups, and approving contracts for outside consultants or other related work exceeding $100,000.
“If we cannot be more involved in shaping the advisory and work policy, I’ll move to ask for a first reading of the PFA board oversight ordinance,” Moyer said.
The proposal follows some pointed comments by Moyer back in August, when commissioners considered whether to index the Preschool for All tax to inflation. The majority of them decided that, without a foundational understanding of how changes in revenue might affect the program’s implementation, they could not move forward with indexing.
At that Aug. 21 meeting, Moyer expressed a particular lack of faith in the technical advisory group, or TAG, a body of economists, demographers and policy experts who are meant to advise on a planned tax increase. (The previous board voted to delay that increase by one year.)
Moyer took issue with the economic consultant guiding the TAG’s work, ECOnorthwest, and accused the firm of doing work with the Portland Central City Task Force, a group convened by the governor to aid in Portland’s economic recovery from the pandemic. The Central City Task Force had recommended in August pausing preschool tax collection while the program underwent “comprehensive review.”
ECOnorthwest replied that one of its economists had worked with the governor’s task force as an independent contractor to the Oregon Business Council, but not as an ECOnorthwest employee, and that none of its staff was involved in any way with the task force’s most recent report.
Since then, pressure from the governor seems to have also expanded the TAG’s role. The group is currently defining its scope of work and seems poised to advise on a number of the program’s revenue-related issues.
Moyer also wants the county’s Preschool and Early Learning Division and Preschool for All advisory committee to deliver a full implementation plan for universal preschool at the Nov. 6 meeting. That report, she said, should include details about how many more private slots the county needs to convert from existing providers, demographic projections, and ongoing program operation costs. Only with a full understanding should commissioners “ask the TAG to report to the board with a recommendation regarding the increase toward the future revenue requirements to ensure the program’s full funding,” she said.
Commissioners were all on board, emphasizing more public updates and involvement in Preschool for All would be key as the program moves closer to 2030.
“I was prepared to support the ordinance first reading…and I will support bringing the ordinance back if that’s what’s necessary,” said County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards. “Without it, I feel like we’ll just be continuing to operate in an environment in which the commission is not fully informed.”
Vega Pederson said the work session would be “really important” in increasing public support and trust for the program. “I look forward to continuing to work with this board on all of that, and doing so in a public way, in a way that brings together all of the voices of this community,” she said.
