FY 2025 Adopted Budget

View of downtown from Hawthorne Bridge

Multnomah County Board of Commissioners approves $3.96 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2025

Spending plan reflects Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and Board of Commissioners’ commitment to improving conditions on the street and community safety

Multnomah County, Ore. (June 6, 2024) — The Board of Commissioners today approved a $3.96 billion balanced budget that holds Multnomah County services and staff steady for the coming year, while adding critical resources to improve living conditions across the community.

The Fiscal Year 2025 budget funds Chair Jessica Vega Pederson’s intense efforts to increase homeless and behavioral health services. It fully funds the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, and the County’s specialty courts, jails, and adult parole and probation programs. The budget also supports core County programs serving people from infancy to old age to improve their lives and create a more equitable and fair community.

“What do we want our community to be?” Chair Vega Pederson asked. “I believe we want a County where people both feel safe and are safe. Where our neighbors are housed. Where people both in and out of crisis have access to the services and support that they need to be healthy and thrive. Where our kids have joyful preschool experiences and our schools unite our neighborhoods. This budget is our vision and this Board’s commitment to getting there. And it directly responds to our community’s call.”

Developing the 2025 budget was particularly challenging, as federal COVID-19 dollars ended, state funding shrank, City of Portland funding for the Joint Office of Homeless Services was reduced, and personnel and other costs rose.

The Chair hosted a budget town hall in February to gather community input, and the Board held more than 60 hours of public meetings in 21 public work sessions and three public hearings where dozens of people testified. More than 1,000 people completed an online budget survey, identifying the following issues as their highest priority:

Homelessness and behavioral health services
Mental health and substance use supports
Multnomah County Sheriff Office’s role providing public safety
Positive impacts of Preschool for All for youth and families
Value of Library services

Most of the County’s nearly $4 billion budget comes from funding sources that must be used for specific purposes, such as road funds. The Board’s months of consideration largely focused on how the County should spend its $889 million General Fund — the largest pool of discretionary funds that Commissioners can allocate. The General Fund has remained steady, even as community need has continued to grow.

Beginning Thursday morning at their regular weekly meeting, Commissioners worked through 57 proposed Board amendments to the proposed Executive Budget released April 25. The Board approved 38 amendments, accommodating requests and adjustments brought by every member. Amendments discussed are here.

Adopted Board amendments include:

Commissioner Sharon Meieran’s amendments restore $350,000 for STI Clinic services and $150,000 for mitigating toxic algae blooms.
Commissioner Jesse Beason’s amendments cover $185,000 for the County’s public records program staff and $325,000 for Project Reset, a partnership to help residents remove barriers to housing and employment through fee waivers and expungement services.
Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards’ amendments add $907,741 for deputies and human resources staff to assure adequate staffing in County detention facilities, $782,000 for additional legal and data staff in the District Attorney’s Office, $50,000 for economic development and assured $150,000 for permitting and planning to deconstruct the blighted Hansen Building in southeast Portland with a $550,000 earmark of General Fund contingency for additional work and $1 million for shelter expansion.
Commissioner Lori Stegmann’s amendments provide $100,000 for the development of the Vance property, $180,000 for food security in East County and, with Commissioner Beason, $330,000 for the Department of Community Justice’s Community Healing Initiatives Early Intervention program...