Chair unveils proposed budget for fiscal year 2015

April 25, 2014

Multnomah County Chair Marissa Madrigal on Thursday unveiled her proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, saying her plan would fund current service levels for most programs with modest increases in key areas that have gone underfunded in years past.

She credited past county boards and staff for laying the groundwork for financial stability and foresees a balanced budget for three years with fully funded reserves and contingencies.

That stability, in turn, Madrigal said, allows her to propose a budget for the 2015 fiscal year that begins to address long unmet needs after a decade of cuts that she said had “forced county leaders to continually choose the least-worst option.”

“The budget is like a puzzle where we are taking our resources and trying to match them with our community’s critical needs,” Madrigal told her board colleagues and the audience gathered at the board’s regularly scheduled April 24 board meeting.

“In the end, you have a proposal that tries to make our community better,” she said.

The chair highlighted proposals to add 10 schools to the Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) program with the city of Portland and local school districts.

And she cited new investments in mental health treatment that aims to treat people experiencing mental illness rather than sending them to jail.

She also highlighted planned capital investments from a new headquarters for the county Health Department to the replacement of the county’s central courthouse.

Madrigal also stressed that the proposed budget was shaped by community input from four public workshops and the county’s Citizen Budget Advisory Committee.

And that attempt to be transparent and accountable will continue to be shaped by a robust schedule of public meetings in the weeks ahead.

“Community members believe that government can, and should, invest its resources in ways that help people,” she said. “I was moved and concerned by residents who said that while many members of our community have recovered from the effects of the recession, others struggle in stubborn pockets of poverty."