Novick Says Survey “Proof” of Need for Road Repairs

Saturday, November 07, 2015

GoLocalPDX News Team

Commissioner Steve Novick

In a statement commenting on the 25th annual Community Survey released by City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero, City Commissioner Steve Novick said the report is “proof” that Portland needs to make investments in streets and other infrastructure.

“The Auditor’s Community Survey shows a big slide in how residents rate street maintenance, from 35 percent rating the service as very good or good in 2011 down to 28 percent in 2015,” Novick said. “This is proof that we need to make a real investment in all of our public infrastructure — including streets.”

As GoLocal reported, the City Auditor’s Survey revealed that more than 50 percent of Portlanders are unhappy with their city services. Residents were particularly unhappy with planning and street maintenance services. The report also showed that congestion and traffic on major streets has grown during all hours of the day.

“This survey shows that Portlanders value city services — as long as we make the critical investments we need to maintain those services,” Novick said. “For example, the survey shows a big increase in good ratings for sewers, which have benefited from costly but critical investments in recent years.”

In his statement, Novick lamented the lack of funding that street maintenance receives, blaming it for the service’s low rating from residents.

“Portland Parks and Portland Fire & Rescue, which receive significant funding from the City’s General Fund, scored the highest approval ratings of all city bureaus,” Novick said. “On the other hand, street maintenance receives very little General Fund and lacks the funding necessary to keep up with basic maintenance."

Investments Needed

Novick said that in order to meet street maintenance targets, the city would need to invest as much as $118 million over the next 10 years. While he admitted that the figure was a substantial amount, he disputed claims that the bill was too large to deal with.

“As a community, we have made commitments on this scale before to pay for services we really care about,” Novick said. “For example, the Bureau of Environmental Services released a report in 2011 that summarizes a partial list of sewer expenditures over 20 years totaling $1.3 billion. In 2010, Portlanders voted to support a $72 million bond to pay for aging fire and emergency response vehicles; this bond is on top of the $91 million Portland Fire & Rescue receives every year from the city’s General Fund. Not surprisingly, Portlanders highly rate the fire and sewer services we’ve prioritized for funding.”

This is not Novick’s first attempt to raise funding for street maintenance and repair. As GoLocal reported, he plans to introduce a ballot measure during the May 2016 elections that would establish a gas tax to help pay for the street repairs.

Novick’s proposed tax would bring in a projected $58 million in revenue over the course of four years. In a previous interview with GoLocal, Novick acknowledged that the gas tax alone would “only cover a fraction” of all the street repairs needed in the city.

“The City of Portland has known for 30 years that it has a problem with this,” Novick said, “but they haven't done anything to raise revenues. Even if this only solves a fraction of the problem, something is certainly better than nothing.”

Related Slideshow: Ways To Fund Street Repairs Without A Street Fee

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Portland Gas Tax

Currently, there is a $.03 Multnomah County gas tax. The tax revenue is split about 20 percent to Multnomah County and 80 percent to the city. Every $.01 increase in the tax would next about $1.36 million to the city, according to PBOT’s budget. Given that, the City of Portland has the power to levy its own gas tax.

The Politics: Hugely unpopular for not a lot of cash, but perhaps less unpopular than an income tax.

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Dynamic Pricing

Seattle and San Francisco use “dynamic pricing” on their parking meters. That means that the price to park goes up depending on the time of day and the location of the meter. For instance, if you are parking right in front of the Schnitz at 7 p.m. on a Saturday night, it’s going to cost you more than a $1.60 an hour.

Portland’s current meters could be programed for dynamic pricing, according to experts, and with 9,000 meters in the city, that could add up.

The Politics: Despite some grumbling, the city doesn’t need anyone’s permission to raising parking meter fees. Parking revenue is completely unrestricted, meaning it can be spent anywhere and on anything.

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License Registration

With 692,201 registered vehicles in the county in 2013 a $20 vehicle license registration fee, with a 20/80 split to the county (like with the current gas tax), could generate $11 million for the city every two years.

The Politics: This would have to go through the Multnomah County Board. The county doesn’t really need cash for infrastructure at the moment, as it has a few big federal grants lined up to pay for upcoming bridge repairs. The challenge would be offering the commissioners a deal sweet enough for them to take the political hit.

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More Parking Meters

A parking meter costs about $1 an hour to operate. So at $1.60 and hour, about $.60 is pure profit. More meters are already in the works for Northwest Portland. Meters in all major shopping districts from Southeast Hawthorne, Division and Belmont Streets to Northeast Alberta Street to North Mississippi and Williams Avenue could raise money for improvements in those areas.

The Politics: Neighbors and businesses would whinge endlessly. But many studies say that parking meters benefit businesses by keeping spaces turning over. Residents could be issued parking stickers to exempt them from charges.

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Raise Smart Park Fees

The city controls 3,800 spaces in six downtown garages. Smart Park cost about $11 million a year to run, according to PBOT’s budget. All told parking charges from meters and Smart Park brings in $45 million a year but the system is not operated to maximize revenue. Dynamic pricing might be hard to implement at the garages but the city could raise the rates.

The Politics: Downtown business interests might complain that raising parking rates would stop people from shopping and visiting downtown. The public interest would have to decide if that’s a risk to take, given the alternatives are an income tax or tattered roads.

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Shift SDCs from Parks

System Development Charges are fees that different city bureaus level against new construction projects in Portland. Parks, PBOT, the water and environmental services bureaus can all level SDCs at developers.

The rationale is, if new development puts a strain on city infrastructure, like roads and sewer lines, then it should pay extra to upgrade the systems. However, most SDCs get charged to developments in the city’s center, while the revenue goes to pay for projects all over Portland.

Over the last four years, Parks & Rec has averaged about $9 million a year in SDC revenue. The city could pull the bureau’s power to charge and let PBOT charge more.

The Politics: It would be a fight with parks supporters. Parks has said it needs $49 million a year just for new parks acquisitions. But it might be more logical to raise that money through bonds, or repurposing taxpayer-owned golf courses, especially ones in park-starved parts of town.

Photo: Berkeley Park in SE Portland, via Wikimedia Commons

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Raise Retirement

Raise police and fire reitrement.

Police Chief Mike Reese announced his retirement this year at the ripe old age of 55. But he qualified for retirement much earlier, at age 50. Putting five years on the clock would certainly save the taxpayers some cash that could be used on roads or anything else.

The Politics: You’d have to face the union and that wouldn’t be pretty.

Photo: Former Portland Police Chief Mike Reese

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Reform Retirement

Portland’s Police and Fire Retirement Fund was set up by voters in 1948 and has resulted in a huge hole the public must now dig itself out of. Despite voter-approved reforms in 2006 and 2012, the obligation is still a fiscal time bomb. As of June 30, 2012, unfunded liability in the fund was in the neighborhood of $2.9 billion.

The Politics: Public employee pension obligations are the stuff of municipal bankruptcy court. It’s a hard fight, but reforms were suggested by Portland’s City Auditor’s Office as recently as Jan. 2013.

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Fix Tax Compression

In 1996, Measure 50 cut and capped property taxes across the state. It froze the assessed value of homes at their 1995 level and limited growth in value to three percent a year.

In Portland, the result is a system in which homes that have increased in value rapidly pay very little taxes and homes that haven’t increased in value much can pay sky-high taxes. The short hand for the squeeze in tax equity is “tax compression.”

The city loses about $24 million a year due to tax compression, according to the city auditor. If the city, county or state could figure out a way to fix the issue there could more money for everyone: They’ve had 20 years to think about it.

The Politics: There has been endless talk about tax reform in Oregon. The Governor put it as a major priority of his fourth term. All the old tax-revolt warriors have long since left the scene, but the political will to do much more than talk will be hard to find.

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Stop Urban Renewal

About $.25 of every $1 that the city gets in property tax revenue goes to pay down debt on urban renewal projects. Mayor Charlie Hales has talked about sunsetting urban renewal districts.

On the immediate horizon, the Eastside Industrial URA has the power to issue new debt up until 2018. One step forward would be to stop that right now.

The Politics: Urban renewal is a cash cow for commissioners and their pet projects. No one really wants the system to change. But if it’s a choice between taking a hit on pet projects or a city tax revolt, commissioners might support clipping their own wings a bit.

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Put PBOT Out to Bid

Private companies can pave roads and clean them too can’t they? What if they could do it for less money than the city? PBOT could put services like street repair and cleaning out to bid.

It might not save a lot of cash, but it might win trust with the voters by showing them that the city was trying to get the best price for the public’s money.

The Politics: “Privatize” is dirty word in liberal Portland. But then, "income tax" might prove to be even worse.