Portland City Hall and the Fall ‘BuMP’

Your Local Advocacy Matters!

No, ‘BuMP’ is not mis-spelled. It’s an acronym around Portland City Hall for budget adjustments, formally known as the Budget Monitoring Process (BuMP). There can be three bumps per year. City Financial Policy and state budget law allows the ability to allocate or request new resources to address urgent and unforeseen needs that come up during the fiscal year that cannot be funded through existing resources. These changes, or bumps, are usually one time in nature. Why is the Fall bump important to ORLA and its Portland area members? Because, thanks to increased business license fees and tax revenues, the City of Portland found itself with an additional $62 million in surplus revenue. Multnomah County is flush with an additional $30 million in surplus revenue. That is a significant amount of money to invest directly into the area’s most urgent needs – policing, public safety, mental/behavioral health, and homelessness. Portland desperately needs to be cleaned up, and that includes its damaged reputation.

The Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association (ORLA), representing the Portland Lodging Alliance (PLA) with 60 area hotels, and the Portland Kitchen Cabinet (PKC) with 220 area restaurants, participated in a number of roundtable meetings with City officials and monitored City Council during a series of Fall BuMP discussions. ORLA, PLA and PKC made their voice heard by submitting a written Comment Letter and providing verbal testimony. ORLA, PLA and PKC are generally aligned with City Council’s intended investments and have consistently reinforced a sense of urgency for City leaders to forcefully and finally act.

How does Portland spend an additional $62 million? This list is not complete but includes:

• Four more Navigation Teams (direct engagement with homeless citizens and those needing extra help finding assistance and wraparound social services) • Vector control (rodents and infestation)

• Expanding the Impact Reduction Program (campsite removal)

• Increasing trash pick-up (focus on sloping and more dangerous terrain)

• Increasing personal property storage and hygiene services

• Better coordination of street level services (services and shelter bed availability)

• Hiring, retaining, recruiting more social service providers

• Enhancing behavioral unit and mental health support services

• $18 million to increase transitional shelter bed capacity city-wide (including real-time shelter availability tracking)

• City-wide expansion of Portland Street Response (medic and/or mental health specialist dispatched for lower risk 9-1-1 calls)

• Hiring, retaining, recruiting more armed police officers and unarmed peace officers (prevention and intervention)

Actively participating in the political arena is not everyone’s cup of tea. That’s for sure. But you, ORLA’s members, have a front row seat to the most urgent needs in your very own communities. You are the owners, operators, employers, neighbors, friends, and volunteers that knit your special community together. Elected officials at all levels of government need to know your story, understand your challenges, and hear your creative solutions. As an Industry Advocate, ORLA will work with you on how you prefer to connect with your elected officials. Maybe that’s writing a compelling letter or making a personal phone call. Maybe you would like to join ORLA professional staff and fellow operators for an in-person meeting with an official. Or maybe you want to try your hand at speaking and testifying at a City/County Commission meeting or State Legislative Committee. Whatever your level of comfort, ORLA has an advocacy role for you to play.

ORLA encourages you to become a Hospitality Industry Advocate (bit.ly/ORadvocate). After you sign up to be an Industry Advocate, please be sure to opt-in for text updates, too, by texting the word ORLA to 52886.

The hospitality industry needs your voice.  TOM PERRICK, ORLA

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