May I suggest a radical idea? How about reducing the taxes so that the fund does not have more money than it knows how to spend?
The last time the county had more money than it knew how to spend was a couple of years ago when the Supportive Housing tax gave the Joint Office of Homeless Services more money than expected. Sharon Meieran (county commissioner at the time) said "They have more money than they know how to waste". She was wrong, they went ahead and wasted it.
Because property and income taxes on those who live in Portland / Multnomah County, combined with one of the highest state income tax rates in the nation, have driven so many of us out of Portland to the suburbs where tax rates are lower, why not simply reduce the taxes that led to the excess in this pre-school fund? If Multnomah County wants to generate more tax revenue to support its basic services, it needs to consider overall tax burdens and make adjustments if it wants to (re)attract higher income residents and businesses that are responsible for a disproportionate amount of tax revenue.
Some may see this as conspiracy theorizing, but I see the connection between the County Board, especially the Chair who runs it, and the Peacock Coalition on the Portland City Council to sell tax initiatives to an overwhelmingly "progressive" electorate in Multnomah County and the City of Portland and then use those not to solve the problems they were intended to solve, but to advance an ideology that exceeds the progressive nature of most voters. We are compassionate. We want to address homelessness, untreated psychosis and addiction and lack of preschool for all. We recognize that wealth and income disparity does have much to do with opportunity. But we voted "yes" to solve the problem, not to change our commitment to serve everyone.
Look at what has happened with behavioral health and homelessness initiatives we are funding in part with similar taxes. Homelessness continues to grow based upon the new PIT count while the share of homeless with behavioral health mental health illnesses and drug addiction continues untreated, despite millions in expenditures for the County's Deflection/Sobering Center. All the while, other Metro counties are taking actions that are starting to solve their problems while the County Chair defends the status quo of Housing First in favor of treatment. The Peacock Coalition wants to stop homeless "sweeps" designed to get people into shelters and treatment and deflect funds from public safety and liability. The result is a flow of needed income tax and hospitality revenue from Portland and Multnomah County to other Metro Counties and to other states, gradually diminishing the needed revenue to actually solve behavioral health and homelessness and to help Portland's recovery from the economic effects of the Pandemic.
Multnomah County voters voted to provide funds to solve homelessness and behavioral health problems. They voted to provide Preschool for All. They did not vote for Redistribution of Wealth and Defund the Police as policies. They voted for Portland for All to solve problems for all. That includes the wealthy donors who funded the expansion of the Portland Art Museum. That includes the wealthy households and high revenue businesses that pay the Supportive Housing and Preschool for All taxes. That includes all of us property owners and individuals who pay the second highest marginal tax rate in the nation in Portland and still live here because we love what the City can be. That includes small businesses in the Central City that have borne the brunt of the post Pandemic ills. And it includes the Eastern neighborhoods that have been discounted in the past. We can't solve Portland's problems without bringing new prosperity everywhere and we can't do that by pitting one faction against the other.
We will see what they really think in the November election, but I have confidence that Portland voters will vote for practical solutions to the real problems we have.
Thanks for the thoughtful article. It was really infuriating to see JVPs and others response when Kotek pushed to revisit how PFA should be managed. The pushback saying that indexing to inflation would lead to bankrupting the program was particularly galling when they had such a surplus. I absolutely support PFA but the unwillingness to objectively review how it’s going is crazy.
This is what a political machine always does: steal. A lot. And use the money to cement a political relationship.
This was a slush fund (aka "pork barrel") from the get-go: funds for friends under the guise of "something nice for the kids." A plucked heartstring leads directly to your wallet...and others'.
If anyone thinks the average Portland voter will learn from this fiasco, I have a bridge to Vancouver I'd like to sell them.
With apparent poor results in our primary and secondary schools, we think the answer is preschool now? Let's fix what is dysfunctional and unsatisfactory about our primary and secondary schools before we export our mistakes to younger and younger future citizens.
An Alternate Interpretation of the $610 Million “Preschool for All” Fund
Bob Weinstein raises important questions about the size of Multnomah County’s Preschool for All (PFA) fund balance. His concerns about transparency and broader budget pressures merit discussion, and the facts he cites are not in dispute.
I would contend, however that PFA was intentionally structured to save heavily in its early years to cover later deficits as the program scales to universal preschool by 2030.
County audits and fiscal presentations indicate that as enrollment expands and educator wages rise, PFA is projected to run multi-year deficits beginning around FY 2027, drawing down the reserves now being accumulated. Long term modeling even shows the fund dipping below zero in the mid-2030s under current tax rates. In that context, the $600 million balance is not idle cash but the front-loaded cushion needed for a program whose costs grow far faster than its early-year spending capacity.
It is worth remembering that PFA is funded through a high-earner surtax. Income over $125,000 for single filers (or $200,000 for joint filers) is taxed at 1.5%, rising to 2.3% in 2026; income over $250,000 (single) or $400,000 (joint) is taxed an additional 1.5%, increasing to 2.8% in 2026.
Because these revenues comes almost entirely from a small group of high-income households whose earnings fluctuate with markets, it is the county’s most volatile revenue source. With collections capable of swinging by tens of millions of dollars in a year, a substantial reserve is essential to avoid sudden cuts or emergency tax hikes.
PFA’s underspending also reflects genuine capacity limits in the preschool sector—limits that predate the measure and were intensified by COVID. Enrollment has grown from roughly 1,400 children to nearly 3,800 in two years, but expansion is constrained by the availability of trained educators and suitable facilities. The unspent funds reflect system-building lag, not intentional stockpiling.
PFA dollars are legally restricted by the 2020 voter-approved measure for preschool access, equity goals, and early-learning workforce development.
Redirecting these funds, even temporarily, would compromise voter intent and erode trust in future dedicated tax measures. If tax adjustments such as inflation indexing are needed, those should be prospective policy decisions—not grounds for repurposing funds already committed to a long-term statutory mission.
Comparing a one-year General Fund shortfall to PFA’s multi-year reserve seems misleading. The $10.5 million FY 2027 gap has no fiscal relationship to PFA. The real question is whether the program has more than it needs to meet its long-term obligations. County modeling indicates it does not: PFA will require today’s reserves to manage revenue volatility and sustain universal preschool into the 2030s.
A reassessment of indexing or long-term targets may be appropriate. But any recalibration should be grounded in the full life cycle of the program—not a single year’s balance sheet—and must preserve the promise voters endorsed: universal, high-quality preschool for every child in Multnomah County.
I would love to see this money go to our K-12 schools where teachers and programs are being cut year on year. Apply some common sense. It would stay in education.
May I suggest a radical idea? How about reducing the taxes so that the fund does not have more money than it knows how to spend?
The last time the county had more money than it knew how to spend was a couple of years ago when the Supportive Housing tax gave the Joint Office of Homeless Services more money than expected. Sharon Meieran (county commissioner at the time) said "They have more money than they know how to waste". She was wrong, they went ahead and wasted it.
Not a good precedent.
Because property and income taxes on those who live in Portland / Multnomah County, combined with one of the highest state income tax rates in the nation, have driven so many of us out of Portland to the suburbs where tax rates are lower, why not simply reduce the taxes that led to the excess in this pre-school fund? If Multnomah County wants to generate more tax revenue to support its basic services, it needs to consider overall tax burdens and make adjustments if it wants to (re)attract higher income residents and businesses that are responsible for a disproportionate amount of tax revenue.
Some may see this as conspiracy theorizing, but I see the connection between the County Board, especially the Chair who runs it, and the Peacock Coalition on the Portland City Council to sell tax initiatives to an overwhelmingly "progressive" electorate in Multnomah County and the City of Portland and then use those not to solve the problems they were intended to solve, but to advance an ideology that exceeds the progressive nature of most voters. We are compassionate. We want to address homelessness, untreated psychosis and addiction and lack of preschool for all. We recognize that wealth and income disparity does have much to do with opportunity. But we voted "yes" to solve the problem, not to change our commitment to serve everyone.
Look at what has happened with behavioral health and homelessness initiatives we are funding in part with similar taxes. Homelessness continues to grow based upon the new PIT count while the share of homeless with behavioral health mental health illnesses and drug addiction continues untreated, despite millions in expenditures for the County's Deflection/Sobering Center. All the while, other Metro counties are taking actions that are starting to solve their problems while the County Chair defends the status quo of Housing First in favor of treatment. The Peacock Coalition wants to stop homeless "sweeps" designed to get people into shelters and treatment and deflect funds from public safety and liability. The result is a flow of needed income tax and hospitality revenue from Portland and Multnomah County to other Metro Counties and to other states, gradually diminishing the needed revenue to actually solve behavioral health and homelessness and to help Portland's recovery from the economic effects of the Pandemic.
Multnomah County voters voted to provide funds to solve homelessness and behavioral health problems. They voted to provide Preschool for All. They did not vote for Redistribution of Wealth and Defund the Police as policies. They voted for Portland for All to solve problems for all. That includes the wealthy donors who funded the expansion of the Portland Art Museum. That includes the wealthy households and high revenue businesses that pay the Supportive Housing and Preschool for All taxes. That includes all of us property owners and individuals who pay the second highest marginal tax rate in the nation in Portland and still live here because we love what the City can be. That includes small businesses in the Central City that have borne the brunt of the post Pandemic ills. And it includes the Eastern neighborhoods that have been discounted in the past. We can't solve Portland's problems without bringing new prosperity everywhere and we can't do that by pitting one faction against the other.
We will see what they really think in the November election, but I have confidence that Portland voters will vote for practical solutions to the real problems we have.
Thanks for the thoughtful article. It was really infuriating to see JVPs and others response when Kotek pushed to revisit how PFA should be managed. The pushback saying that indexing to inflation would lead to bankrupting the program was particularly galling when they had such a surplus. I absolutely support PFA but the unwillingness to objectively review how it’s going is crazy.
This is what a political machine always does: steal. A lot. And use the money to cement a political relationship.
This was a slush fund (aka "pork barrel") from the get-go: funds for friends under the guise of "something nice for the kids." A plucked heartstring leads directly to your wallet...and others'.
If anyone thinks the average Portland voter will learn from this fiasco, I have a bridge to Vancouver I'd like to sell them.
With apparent poor results in our primary and secondary schools, we think the answer is preschool now? Let's fix what is dysfunctional and unsatisfactory about our primary and secondary schools before we export our mistakes to younger and younger future citizens.
An Alternate Interpretation of the $610 Million “Preschool for All” Fund
Bob Weinstein raises important questions about the size of Multnomah County’s Preschool for All (PFA) fund balance. His concerns about transparency and broader budget pressures merit discussion, and the facts he cites are not in dispute.
I would contend, however that PFA was intentionally structured to save heavily in its early years to cover later deficits as the program scales to universal preschool by 2030.
County audits and fiscal presentations indicate that as enrollment expands and educator wages rise, PFA is projected to run multi-year deficits beginning around FY 2027, drawing down the reserves now being accumulated. Long term modeling even shows the fund dipping below zero in the mid-2030s under current tax rates. In that context, the $600 million balance is not idle cash but the front-loaded cushion needed for a program whose costs grow far faster than its early-year spending capacity.
It is worth remembering that PFA is funded through a high-earner surtax. Income over $125,000 for single filers (or $200,000 for joint filers) is taxed at 1.5%, rising to 2.3% in 2026; income over $250,000 (single) or $400,000 (joint) is taxed an additional 1.5%, increasing to 2.8% in 2026.
Because these revenues comes almost entirely from a small group of high-income households whose earnings fluctuate with markets, it is the county’s most volatile revenue source. With collections capable of swinging by tens of millions of dollars in a year, a substantial reserve is essential to avoid sudden cuts or emergency tax hikes.
PFA’s underspending also reflects genuine capacity limits in the preschool sector—limits that predate the measure and were intensified by COVID. Enrollment has grown from roughly 1,400 children to nearly 3,800 in two years, but expansion is constrained by the availability of trained educators and suitable facilities. The unspent funds reflect system-building lag, not intentional stockpiling.
PFA dollars are legally restricted by the 2020 voter-approved measure for preschool access, equity goals, and early-learning workforce development.
Redirecting these funds, even temporarily, would compromise voter intent and erode trust in future dedicated tax measures. If tax adjustments such as inflation indexing are needed, those should be prospective policy decisions—not grounds for repurposing funds already committed to a long-term statutory mission.
Comparing a one-year General Fund shortfall to PFA’s multi-year reserve seems misleading. The $10.5 million FY 2027 gap has no fiscal relationship to PFA. The real question is whether the program has more than it needs to meet its long-term obligations. County modeling indicates it does not: PFA will require today’s reserves to manage revenue volatility and sustain universal preschool into the 2030s.
A reassessment of indexing or long-term targets may be appropriate. But any recalibration should be grounded in the full life cycle of the program—not a single year’s balance sheet—and must preserve the promise voters endorsed: universal, high-quality preschool for every child in Multnomah County.
I would love to see this money go to our K-12 schools where teachers and programs are being cut year on year. Apply some common sense. It would stay in education.