Multnomah County has an ongoing budget crisis. Increases in materials and payroll costs are outpacing property tax revenues. This year, for the second year in a row, the county is laying off employees to offset a projected $10.5 million 2026-2027 budget shortfall. The county is expected to make cuts in future years as well.
Roughly 4,000 of the county’s 6,000 workers are represented by AFSCME Local 88. The Labor Press caught up with Local 88 President Jackie Tate to get the story.
Conor Kelley: It’s been tough to find accurate information. Originally it was reported 190 positions would be cut, then the final number ended up being 158.
Jackie Tate: When we started the layoff committee, we actually had over 200 positions potentially getting cut, and that included both management non-represented positions and AFSCME-represented positions.
Can you ballpark the number of actual layoffs, not vacant positions closed? And what will future years look like?
I don’t think more than 30 people are going to be laid off [this year]. So, far less than what we started with. But we don’t want to see any staff leave. I know what that’s like. In 2008 and 2009 we had very bad layoffs, and I was a part of that. I was able to find a job [eventually], but it was very hard because we had a first layoff in 2008 and by 2009 all those vacancies that had existed in 2008 had been filled. So, in 2009, the cut was much deeper because there weren’t any soft places for the majority of people to land like there had been in 2008, and I fear that that’s what we’ll face here. This year, even though it was horrible and we had so many people impacted, even if you were staying at the county, you were impacted. You work at the county to provide a service to the community. You’re committed to that work, and then even if you’re still working for the county, you may have lost that thing that was really important to you, coworkers that were important to you, clients that were important to you, work that you trained for. So, there’s all these small deaths that happen in this process for people directly impacted and for the people around them. There’s insecurity. You’re saying goodbye to coworkers. You’re expected to do the same work with less people.
Are there any specific county services that you’re concerned these cuts will impact?
We were able to save some folks who do eligibility work in the county’s aging services. Those folks help people look at their Medicare health plans, review what the plan is going to actually pay for their prescriptions, and determine which plan is going to have the smallest copay for them. It allows a lot of [older] people to be able to stay in their homes. It allows them to afford their medications and stay healthier. Those positions were on the cutting block, and we were able to get them back funded.
It says a lot, what we prioritize and what we don’t. What about the county commissioner’s recent pledge to use Multnomah County money to help fund the Moda Center renovations?
I think this Moda Center funding proposal happening at the same time as our structural deficit is a coincidence. But I do think we need to look at the public good. There is a public good to having the Trail Blazers in our city. But if you transfer public funds to this, what happens to the public safety net? What happens to the money that should go to our bridges and our roads? What happens to the money that helps people who don’t go to the Moda Center because they can’t afford to spend $200 for a concert ticket or a Trail Blazers ticket?
The county derives very little benefit from the Moda Center, unlike the city. And the county is tasked with providing the social services safety net, and serving our most vulnerable folks as well as bridges and roads, things that are really important to all of us. And I think on one side, you can’t say we have a structural deficit, and things are going to be hard, and we’re going to have to be really lean, and we’re going to lose people who do really important services, and then say, “Oh, but we have this found money, this you know, $101 million that we can just give to the Moda Center.” I was talking to the chair about it, and I said it’s like asking kids for their lunch money while you’re buying a rich guy a steak.
Take yourself back to 2008 and 2009, when you were facing a layoff at Multnomah County like this. If this Moda Center funding idea was presented at the same time, what would you have thought? Maybe I should go work on my jump shot?
I always go back to asking, what is the core responsibility of the county? Say you support [the Moda Center public funding plan] and you’re concerned about these folks who live in Albina who have been historically displaced because of Moda and other developments in that area, the freeway going through, all these different impacts. But these people are also highly impacted by services provided by the county, right? You can’t take the money for services that assist people in that community, and say, oh, but we’re going to make sure the Trail Blazers make some promises to help people in Albina in the future. That’s not a certainty. But an older adult in that community who gets Medicaid services through the county, they will be impacted by funding cuts — that’s a certainty.
