City of Portland: Digging into the finances

Count on Amanda Fritz to actually read the latest report from Portland's city auditor -- and then helpfully provide an executive summary of it. It's a ten-year summary of everything that's happened to the City of Portland's finances.

Of course, we'll excerpt her summary here to give you a taste. Be sure to go read the rest of Amanda's summary (unless you're planning to read the whole 20-page report [pdf].)

A few of the highlights of her highlights:

Our city's population increased 11% over the ten years, giving us about 15% of Oregon's total residents. The city has about 439,000 jobs, a number which has stayed about the same. Unemployment went up over the ten years, but is now at 5.2% on a downward trend. ...

Property values increased a whopping 69% over the ten years, but assessed value went down 4% due to Measure 50. ...

Average employee compensation rose 6% over the ten years, but wages/benefits for public safety employees rose 12% while that of all other employees went up only 1%. Over ten years. One percent over ten years is not very much.

Seriously, go read the rest of Amanda's cliff-notes. Otherwise, we'll assign you the whole thing.

Discuss over there.

April 30, 2007 Posted in elsewhere.