Skip to main content
New population estimates presented to Multnomah County commissioners July 21 dramatically alter the financial outlook of the county’s universal preschool program.
Preliminary data from Portland State University’s Population Research Center indicates the program needs about 3,000 fewer seats than it had previously estimated it would need to reach universality, county economist Jeff Renfro told commissioners.
The county will need “just above 8,000 seats” in population scenarios that assume low and baseline growth, Renfro said. That’s thousands fewer than its original assumptions that it would need to provide 11,200 seats by 2030 to give a seat to each 3- and 4-year-old who wanted one.
The new estimates assumed a 77.5% participation rate, accounting for federal and state subsidized preschool programs that operate locally. And it took into account the Portland metro area’s flatlining population. (It should be noted that in a high population growth scenario, PSU estimates that the county could see close to the original 11,200, but county officials did not yet have a strong understanding of that forecast. The full PSU report will be released in August.)
The new population estimates ease county officials’ fears that the program won’t have enough money from a tax on high earners to robustly fund all the needs of preschool providers.
Even if the county were to delay a planned tax rate increase and incorporate new, higher reimbursement rates per seat based on a true cost of care study, modeling indicates that the program’s fund balance would only dip to about $250 million in fiscal year 2031, before recovering to just under $750 million by fiscal year 2039. (This scenario models the program’s financials based on recommendations from the Technical Advisory Group, a group of economic, demographic and policy experts who convened through spring to discuss the program’s financial future.)
“The thing that really moves our expenses assumptions is the number of seats we’re providing and how expensive those seats are,” Renfro said. “So when we decrease the number of seats we need by 3,000, it has an enormous impact on our assumptions going forward.”
This story will be updated with more information.
