Skip to main contentWith $63,000 from the city's housing bureau, Outside In collected more than 400,000 dirty syringes last year, safely discarded the needles and started the process of offering drug counseling to addicts who wanted it.
Now the needle-exchange program is just one of dozens of programs whose funding is threatened as City Hall leaders start budget talks this week. But the threat doesn't come from the controversial nature of spending taxpayer dollars to give free, clean syringes to drug users.
Instead, the threat comes from the recession, which is depressing revenues from business license fees and hotel taxes in Portland and forcing city bureaus to cut their spending as they work toward a final 2009-2010 spending plan. But budget forecasting is not an exact science. When times were good, as in recent years, Portland had budget surpluses. Anticipating a recession, it also set aside millions in so-called one-time money—that city officials guessed would not be available this year. Last year, that one-time money amounted to $25 million out of a total budget of $530 million.
This year, there's less food at the buffet but roughly the same number of guests. (Forgive us our metaphors!) And Portland's one-time money is expected to be less than one-tenth of last year's, for a total of about $1.8 million. In yet another sign of how hard the budget talks will be, city bureau directors want $16.5 million in one-time money to fund everything from needle exchange to Portland's day laborer center to "Vision in Action" grants.
Below is a look at those three programs dependent on one-time funding, who's fighting for their funding next year, and WW's forecast of the likelihood of their getting it.
"Given the state of the economy and every report about the economy…there are no guarantees," says Kathy Oliver, executive director of Outside In. "But I'd hate to see cuts."
WWeek 2015