Newsletter: Oversight works – here’s what we learned

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Neighbors,

Yesterday, on April 23, the City Council convened not just as lawmakers but as an oversight body for the first time in our city's history. This represents a historic first exercise of a critical responsibility under our new charter, and one that many other cities already routinely exercise.

The focus of this oversight hearing was how $12 million in housing funds went undiscovered and unbudgeted for months. I brought forward this resolution alongside Councilors Avalos and Morillo so we could better understand what happened and prevent this from happening again in the future.

So, here's what we learned.

Back in August, before the fall budget adjustment, top city officials, including the former Housing Bureau director and our Deputy City Administrator, had already identified $11.75 million in unspent housing dollars. The Director sent an email recommending that council be made aware of this money during the fall budget cycle, to be used for critical priorities like rent assistance and eviction protection.

Yet, when the Council adopted the reconciled budget in November, Council still had no idea this money existed.

As a result, Council made critical budget decisions during the Fall Technical Ordinance Adjustment (TAO) without the full picture. In fact, we were operating under the assumption that we had a $16 million budget shortfall - that's a serious problem. If we had known the truth at the time, our decisions might have looked very different, and more Portlanders facing eviction might have been able to stay housed.

Ultimately, we learned that a lot of people in the city knew for months about funds that could have been used during the fall budget amendment (TAO), but that information was not shared with council. Both the CPO and the Head of the Housing bureau made specific recommendations that these funds could be used in the TAO, but those recommendations never made it to us.

This is what accountability looks like. It's not comfortable, it's not neat, and it often reveals uncomfortable truths. But it's how we earn back trust and ensure that Portland's government works for you, the public, in public, not behind closed doors.

Oversight has never been more important, and it definitely won't be the last time we have such a hearing. We've seen reports of backroom deals involving NDAs on the Moda Center deal, failure to establish a required fiscal oversight committee for the Bull Run water filtration project, and skepticism over an investigation into Zenith Energy's fuel terminal operations.

Had council started performing oversight long ago, getting clarity on questions about how information flows from bureaus to the administration, and to the Council, there likely wouldn't be a "Project Mt. Hood," a secret NDA, or a dubious land use permit granted to Zenith.

Thanks to the kind of frank and public conversations we started having this week, council can now begin taking concrete steps to ensure that decisions over public dollars are made in public view, and for the public good.

In solidarity,

Councilor Mitch Green