Multnomah County’s Board of Commissioners on Thursday adopted the county’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year beginning July 1.
Chair Marissa Madrigal proposed the budget last month, saying then that the plan would fund current service levels for most programs with modest increases in key areas that have gone underfunded in years past.
Among the highlights in the chair’s budget were proposals to add 10 schools to the Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) program with the city of Portland and local school districts; new investments in mental health treatment that aims to treat people experiencing mental illness rather than sending them to jail; and planned capital investments from a new headquarters for the county Health Department to the replacement of the county’s central courthouse.
At the board’s May 29 meeting, commissioners agreed to adopt several amendments to the fiscal year 2015 plan. Among those amendments were ones:
- to add $1 million from the county’s general fund contingency for culturally specific programs modeled after the federal Promise Neighborhoods Initiative.The expanded capacity will help nearly 400 at-risk young people in the county (proposed by Commissioner Loretta Smith)
- to add $10,000 in additional funding for Street Roots to produce 15,000 additional Rose City Resource Guides (proposed by Commissioner Liesl Wendt)
- to earmark $100,000 in contingency to evaluate current efforts and further investigate opportunities for mental health jail diversion efforts (proposed by Commissioner Judy Shiprack)
- to earmark $60,000 in contingency for the restoration, outreach and cleanup efforts in the Sandy River delta (proposed by Commissioner Diane McKeel)
The board also passed several budget notes that will guide departments’ actions with report and review guidelines throughout the fiscal year.
“I’m really confident that we’ve arrived at a responsible and compassionate budget,” Commissioner Shiprack said.
The May 29 meeting marked the penultimate board meeting for Chair Madrigal and Commissioner Wendt, who have been serving as interims since last fall. Commissioners McKeel, Shiprack and Smith all praised their departing colleagues for stepping up to serve.
Next month, Deborah Kafoury will be sworn in as the new chair and Jules Bailey will be sworn in as the replacement for Wendt in District 1. Voters elected Kafoury and Bailey to those posts in the May 20 election.