You can read a recap of the adopted budget here.
Letter from the Chair on the FY26 Adopted Budget
When I proposed my executive budget on April 24, I laid out the values and framework that has guided my decision making throughout this process. I began with a belief in a Multnomah County where all our welcome, racial disparities are addressed head on, everyone has a place to call home, and families and children are safe, healthy, and thriving.
Yet our community faces a grim economic forecast this year and likely in coming years, with fewer dollars to spend on the things our families and neighbors need. That’s why our Board has put such a focus on protecting direct services. We are ensuring our resources go to the people who rely on them most and whose needs we must prioritize during challenging times.
While declining revenue led to a budget discussion dominated by cuts, our final $4 billion budget – adopted by unanimous vote – remains a significant investment in the well-being of everyone in Multnomah County. Doing more with less will not be easy, but it’s what this moment demands.
Maintaining Core Services
Our adopted budget will continue to support tens of thousands of our residents in the most vulnerable situations and provide critical services that benefit everyone. From shelter to housing, addiction treatment to mental health support, a fair justice system to deflection, preschool to SUN school services, libraries to sustainability – these are not just line items in a budget, they encompass a coordinated safety net that’s there for each of us when needed. These investments are lifelines and opportunities. As a direct result of a deeply engaged board and community, we have adopted a budget that combines investments big and small to do just that.
Board Collaboration Improved Our Budget
For the past few weeks, our board has conducted 23 public work sessions, spending over 70 hours together diving deep and deliberating into every aspect of our budget. I’m grateful for the contributions from each Commissioner who brought their unique perspectives, expertise, and district lens to help us adopt a balanced budget.
The vast majority of budget amendments proposed were passed unanimously by our board. I’m appreciative of where we’ve landed, with a budget that restores 4 clinicians to our School-based Mental Health program and restores our STI clinic.
Funding was restored for employment services for people experiencing homelessness, as well as increased resources to legal services that help prevent evictions. We also enhanced our permanent supportive housing investments, responding to community feedback that we need a more balanced system.
We started with a very strong position in our ongoing investments in community safety and have strengthened that even further with an additional investment to continue funding for Retail and Auto Theft Task Forces in the District Attorney’s office. We’ve also increased our commitment to violence prevention by adding to the SummerWorks youth employment program.
Funding was restored for after hours emergency medical care for animals.
These decisions involved deepening administrative reductions made in my executive budget to improve efficiency and reduce overhead.
We know it’s not possible to make cuts to this degree and not have it affect the services we provide. Still, as a Board we’ve maintained the programs and services where we’ve seen progress in recent years. Investments that have led to reductions in violence and crime. Initiatives that have been successful in helping tackle the mental health and addiction crises. Investments in health and human services that provide a way forward for so many. A system of homeless services that is sheltering, housing, and preventing homelessness for more people than ever before.
I believe the budget we’ve adopted today reflects the needs our community has shared over the last several weeks. Thank you to every single individual who attended our budget town hall, took our budget survey, showed up to testify, reached out to make sure your voice was heard and invested time and energy in this process. You make our county a better place and our budget is stronger because of you.
Local government is more important today than ever – our nation, our democracy, our values are under threat and we must respond. We all know that our world is in flux, and that this is likely to be our reality for the foreseeable future. Under the leadership of this Board, our community can trust that the County will continue to prioritize and center people who face the most challenges in this moment and in the year to come.
The fact that we have these services in our community is a testament to the power of our representative democracy and that makes me proud, as it always does, to be a part of this process.
JVP