Portland-area workers sound the alarm on Mayor’s proposed budget cuts

PORTLAND, OR – As Mayor Keith Wilson unveiled his plan for the $160M in budget cuts for the next fiscal year, workers represented by Oregon AFSCME Local 189 (City of Portland), Local 88 (Multnomah County), and Local 1790 (shelter, social service and behavioral health workers) showed up in droves to testify on behalf of the direct services that they provide to the entire city. Directly impacted city employees and contracted shelter staff highlighted just how irresponsible some of the proposed cuts will be to the community.

“We have serious concerns about any proposal that would reduce the critical front-line services AFSCME members provide for our communities,” says Rob Martineau, President of Local 189 and a 26-year City of Portland worker. “While we appreciate the Mayor hearing us on management staffing ratios, it’s unclear if that will go far enough to protect these vital services and reduce the harm massive cuts would have.”

“We knew that the cuts were coming, but the choice to defund housing and homelessness initiatives by one-third is absolutely reprehensible,” says Misha Litvak, President of Local 1790 and a Case Manager at Sunstone Way. “The Mayor is also trying to hide the fact that he is saving his own overnight shelter, a pet project that has created more problems than it has solved, by consolidating the budget with other shelter services, which is disingenuous at best.”

The budget shortfall has prompted over 6,000 union workers from AFSCME locals across the Portland Metro Area to band together for the Save Our Services campaign, which is focused on finding more strategic cuts that will allow more direct services to be preserved, including:

• Increasing the ratio of staff to management, and cutting costly high-level salaries in favor of retaining frontline workers.
• Identifying redundancies in contracted services between Multnomah County and the City of Portland, and bringing as many services in-house as possible.
• Protecting contractors that have represented staff and/or culturally appropriate services
• Holding contractors accountable for public dollars by requiring more deliverable outcomes for each grant and each granting cycle, and ensuring that a higher percentage of each grant is dedicated to direct services.
• Making more strategic closures of shelters based on value and sustainability for the community.

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The Save Our Services campaign is made up of Oregon AFSCME Local 189 (City of Portland), Local 88 (Multnomah County), Local 1790 (Behavioral health and social services), and Local 3769 (Prosper Portland). Our goal is to ensure that necessary City of Portland and Multnomah County budget cuts do the least harm to our most fragile populations by protecting public services and the workers who provide them.