Portland City Council lays groundwork for increasing city budget by $4.6 million via contingency funds

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland City Council held a meeting Wednesday night to discuss the potential for increasing the city budget by up to $4.6 million.

The council voted to pull that extra money immediately from the city's contingency funds.

The council is still early into 2025, marking the early stages of the newly restructured form of government. During Wednesday night's meeting, it's obvious the relatively new city council with 12 members was still figuring out how to work together cohesively.

Starting at 6 p.m., the meeting stretched on for hours late into the night.

The new Portland City Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney brought up the idea of adding about $4.6 million dollars to the councilors' budgets altogether to bring more staffers to help with their already busy jobs.

There was some confusion about where that money would come from until the end of the fiscal year.

When the discussion started, there was a lot of back and forth — and a lot of confusion, in general — as to what decisions needed to be made to ultimately approve that money.

All said and done, that $4.6 million is now coming from the city's contingency fund, which currently sits at $13.8 million.

There was also some confusion regarding whether or not the funds for the increased budget could come out of key services, like the city's Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program. Despite a memo that went out about the meeting indicating this may be the case, Pirtle-Guiney said that's not a possibility.

Wednesday night's meeting marks the second ever with the new Portland City Council. Like the first meeting on January 2, there were many contentious moments amongst the city councilors as the newly elected officials worked on their collaboration process.