A varied park system with a $494 million all-funds budget. Start with its strengths and funding context, then explore who decides, who does the work, where the money comes from and goes, what the auditor found, and where a resident can be heard.
Every number links to a public record · about two minutes a section · seven companion pages go deeper
An independent analytical resource. Public records establish some inputs; each decision also needs operating knowledge, community priorities and evidence the Atlas does not yet have.
Compare documented operating examples, public benefits and responsibilities that need agreement-level confirmation.
Limit: Full City costs, access outcomes and comparable alternatives are not yet established.
Next input: Start with one agreement, one completed fiscal year and its public-access requirements.
Locate published assessments by asset family and property, with assessment dates and coverage visible.
Limit: Condition alone does not establish safety, consequence of failure, cost or the best next investment.
Next input: Start with one asset family: stable IDs, current assessments, repair scopes and cost basis.
Explore the locations of documented amenities and the Atlas’s access and eligibility assumptions.
Limit: Missing records are not confirmed absence. Geographic coverage is not demand, equitable access or project feasibility.
Next input: Validate entrances and hours, then compare population served, barriers, staffing and lifecycle cost.
Meeting-informed examples: Tennis Center affordability and operations · Pool service and lifecycle costs · Board actions and open questions.
Request a small, useful sample · Evidence standards and corrections
Start with the context
An exceptional public asset, a varied land portfolio, and a funding structure that requires continuing decisions.
9th
Portland ranks ninth among the 100 largest U.S. cities in Trust for Public Land’s comparison. A strong citywide system can still have local access gaps.
TPL · 2026 ParkScore →5,200 acres
PP&R describes a forest with more than 80 miles of trails. Its scale brings recreation, habitat stewardship, invasive-species management, and continuing care.
PP&R · Forest Park →5 years
The voter-approved 2025 levy begins in FY2026–27. It provides vital funding for a limited term; different revenue sources also carry different spending restrictions.
PP&R · 2025 Parks Levy →A recurring challenge
The 2019 budget review documented a $6.3 million revenue–expense gap. More recent reports identify ongoing General Fund reductions. The causes differ across years.
City Budget Office · FY2019–20 review →The all-funds total includes operating and capital budgets; it is not a pot of freely spendable money. Parks draws on General Fund allocations, time-limited levies, fees, and other sources with different purposes. A construction allocation does not automatically fund staff or lifelong upkeep.
Follow the funding sources →The $6.3 million shortfall reflected several causes, not simply a General Fund cut.
Budget reviewPP&R reports ongoing General Fund reductions of 5% and 8%, respectively.
Levy annual reportVoters approved five more years of support beginning FY2026–27.
Levy termsSources checked September 11, 2026. Published figures can use different boundaries and definitions from the Atlas’s GIS records. Understand the property counts.
Since Portland replaced its commission government in 2025, parks report to appointed administrators. Council decides the budget and what goes on the ballot.
Elect the Mayor and Council. Approved the parks levy 53–47 in Nov 2025 — the tax now carrying roughly half of daily operations.
Proposes the annual budget and sets bureau cut targets. For FY 26-27: three scenarios, up to a 10% discretionary cut.
Adopts the budget and refers levies to the ballot. Does not manage the bureau day to day.
Runs the whole city government (confirmed December 2025). City code, not the charter, sets PP&R's shape — so the administrator can reorganize it as needs change.
PP&R's direct boss, alongside Transportation, Water, and Environmental Services. The role itself is in transition — the current deputy departs September 4, 2026, with a national search underway.
Approves fees, budget proposals, repair reallocations, and levy oversight appointments. Interim since July 2026.
For youBudget and levy questions belong at Council's Public Works Committee; fees, programs, and repair priorities belong at the Parks Board, which advises the Director.
Portland replaced its commission government on January 1, 2025. Before that, an elected Commissioner-in-Charge ran PP&R and had the final say on capital investments. The City Auditor's October 2025 audit records the change: the Director now reports to the Deputy City Administrator for Public Works.
PP&R exists under City Code Chapter 3.26, not the charter, so the City Administrator can reorganize it as needs change. The bureau's home moved twice: into Vibrant Communities in 2024, then into Public Works from July 1, 2025.
At Council, parks items have gone to the Public Works Committee since March 2026; before that they went to the Climate, Resilience & Land Use Committee.
The previous director concluded six years of service in July 2025, and two interim directors have led since while the City runs a national search. Long-range plans need durable leadership to land. A levy campaign, a reorganization, an audit, and two budget cycles have all happened in the interim.
Source: City Code Chapter 3.26 · Parks Fiscal Management audit, October 2025 · City and PP&R announcements for names and dates
The budget counts 723 career positions. The people you meet — lifeguards, camp leaders, summer maintenance crews — are mostly among 2,147 part-time and seasonal workers.
47 parks technicians, 32 horticulturists, 25 utility workers, plus carpenters, electricians, plumbers, a welder
Coordinators, leaders, 14 aquatics leaders, 12 preschool teachers — the people who run your programs
Analysts, coordinators, accountants — 35 Coordinator II positions is the single biggest desk-job class
1 director, 8 managers II–III, 19 Manager I, 74 supervisors — about 1 for every 6 line FTE
Includes exactly 1 Rose Garden specialist, 1 Arboretum specialist, and 1 pest-management specialist for 11,677 acres
30 Park Rangers answered 5,783 calls for service in FY 2024-25 — unarmed, education-first
30 arborists + 4 tree inspectors; tree permitting itself moved to a different bureau in Oct 2025
19 capital project managers steward a $201M five-year construction plan
22 greenskeepers for 6 courses — fully paid by golfers, not taxes
For youThe lifeguard or camp leader you meet is most likely seasonal; the public record counts all 2,147 of them as one number.
Budgeted career positions went from 854 in FY 24-25 to 723 for FY 26-27. Most of the difference is work that moved to other bureaus; 16 positions were eliminated this year.
Solid = actual · outlined = budgeted
Source: Park system by the numbers (headcount) · Parks Levy Oversight Committee report, FY 2024-25 (volunteer hours) · FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget, Vol. 2 (FTE; job families are our roll-up of its per-program job-class tables)
Where $494M comes from: a five-year levy, developer fees restricted to added capacity, climate money set aside for trees, and a General Fund share that has fallen each year. Each has rules for what it can pay for.
Only $67.4M of this is discretionary — the part the Mayor's cut targets apply to. The rest is transfers, fees, and levy pass-through.
Mostly unspent prior-year balance rolling forward — developer fees and bond money committed to projects.
The five-year voter-approved property tax. First year of the 2025 levy.
New climate money — nearly all of it building free citywide street-tree care.
Enterprise operations paid by users, not taxes.
Friends groups, foundations, and four tiny endowments (one exists to give out rose-gardening awards).
A five-year property tax pays for about 40% of current operations. It passed in November 2025 and expires June 2031.
$1.40 per $1,000 assessed value · ≈$456M over 5 years · $0.03 of the rate for capital repairs
Before the vote, Parks told Council the rate sustains services only if the General Fund and internal costs hold steady. Neither did.
PP&R's Sustainable Future page reports about 40% of current operations. The May Board presentation used approximately half; those periods and denominators should be reconciled before comparing them. The long-range financial planning discussed in May addresses service levels and funding, with a deadline before June 30, 2028.
System Development Charges fund capital projects that expand capacity, including at existing parks and facilities. They do not provide general operating or routine-maintenance funding. Other capital funds have different rules.
Qualifying new housing permits · temporary exemption, Aug 15, 2025–Sep 30, 2028
The statute restricts these fees to eligible capital purposes. PP&R describes acquisition, new facilities and expansion of existing facilities as eligible examples. A repair project must be evaluated against the applicable rules; existing location alone does not make it ineligible.
The temporary exemption applies to newly created housing units under specified conditions. Lower receipts can change which growth projects are affordable; it is not an exemption for every type of development. Check the City's eligibility requirements.
Facility and amenity maintenance, community programs, aquatics, visitor services and rangers, natural areas, arts, planning, asset management and more.
For youThe current levy expires in June 2031. The financial plan must connect service goals to ongoing operations, capital renewal and possible funding choices.
The May Board discussion proposed comparing anticipated funding, maintaining existing services, and advancing service goals. This is a planning structure, not an adopted funding mechanism or a completed forecast.
What services would remain available as costs and renewal needs change?
Inputs needed: Existing revenue forecasts, cost growth, asset failures and the resulting service reductions.
What additional resources would preserve the current service baseline?
Inputs needed: A defined baseline, recurring operating costs and funded renewal of the assets those services need.
What would it cost to close agreed gaps in access or service?
Inputs needed: Community and Council goals, alternatives, population served, delivery capacity and ongoing obligations.
Cost operations, capital maintenance and capital growth separately, then check restrictions and recurring obligations. The Atlas priority model does not yet cost these scenarios. PP&R identifies a long-range plan deadline before June 30, 2028.
May transcript, M0130, M0171–M0180 · PP&R Sustainable Future · Planning context and open questions
The Adopted Budget organizes PP&R into 18 program offers. The two largest are infrastructure: Business Services carries the bureau's central costs, utilities, insurance, and fund transfers, and Capital Development is construction.
Source: FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget, Vol. 2 (funds and program offers) · 2025 Parks Local Option Levy (rate, term, oversight) · ORS 223.297–223.316 (developer fees) · PP&R SDC explanation · Sustainable Future (operations share and plan deadline)
Over the next five years the capital plan puts $152M into new assets and $23M into major repairs. The known repair need is about $759M.
“Let's say someone wrote us a check for $600 million today. We would still see failures.”
A check pays down today's need. The reported estimate increased by $156M between these fiscal years. That change may include wear, inflation, changed scope and reassessment; their shares are not established here.
The auditor's words: the gap “is beyond the current organizational capacity to manage.” Money can't be spent faster than staff and contractors can do the work.
As of September 2024, 86% of assets were reported in poor or very bad condition. Assets past their design life fail on their own schedule, whatever the budget.
Restricted to eligible capacity expansion at new or existing facilities.
The audit sample found missing lifecycle funding plans; it cannot establish the rate across every project.
Five cost estimates in an eight-project audit sample: about $4.7M annually, with funding unidentified.
Older assets wear faster than repair money arrives, so the need grows and the next levy asks again.
For youSDC funding supports added capacity at new or existing facilities and cannot fund routine maintenance. Other capital funding has different restrictions. City policy calls for planning the ongoing costs of new investments.
The five-year figures are the Growth Program ($152M) and Major Maintenance Program ($23M) lines in the FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget's capital plan. The need series is the bureau's unfunded-maintenance estimate in each year's budget, and its public page as of August 2026.
The 1.1% and 14% figures are the bureau's own performance measures for FY 2024-25. The $2.5B is the reported replacement value of the portfolio.
“86% in poor or very bad condition” is the bureau estimate reported in the October 2025 audit. Its inventory scope, dates and weighting have not been reconciled with the Atlas. Our condition atlasshows published assessment records with each family's survey date; it is not a like-for-like verification of that estimate.
Source: City Auditor, Parks Fiscal Management (Oct 2025) · PP&R, A sustainable future · FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget, Vol. 1 (capital plan) and Vol. 2 (performance measures)
This year it closed a $15.1M gap through a published triage. What it kept and what it reduced shows its priorities in practice.
Divisions rank, leadership prioritizes, advisory bodies react. The Director and the Deputy City Administrator hold the pen.
Fifteen years of PP&R surveys give one top reason people don't use park services: they don't know they exist. The outreach program built to fix that is a live test of the tiers.
Mobile outreach in food-bank lines and Head Start classrooms; materials in 15 languages; paid community partnerships at $5,000 each. Year one: about 277,000 touch points through 144 organizations.
Paid partnerships fell from 14 to 8 to 4. A realignment took one of three coordinators. Planned growth money did not arrive.
Requests from community groups more than doubled year over year, largely from the communities the equity framework prioritizes.
Staff asked the Parks Board to help write criteria for when to decline a community's invitation.
The tiers rank programs. They do not yet say what to do when a working program gets more requests than it can meet. Staff asked the Board for that rule.
For youIf a cut touches something you use, the reason is on the list above, and the Parks Board takes comment at every meeting.
Equity asks who loses access and in which district. Fiscal responsibility asks whether a cut costs more later. Antiracism, collaboration, transparency, and communication are applied as screens on each package.
Divisions rank their own programs first. Leadership sets priorities across divisions, advisory bodies including the Parks Board review the criteria in January, and the Director and Deputy City Administrator submit the list in February.
Source: PP&R FY 2026-27 Budget Updates deck (Feb 19, 2026) · FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget, Vol. 2 · Parks Board, April 2026
What you see at your park follows rules you can read: a levy promise, a state law, a scoring formula, a budget line. These are the six you meet most often.
Daily restroom cleaning is a written levy commitment. 17,729 staff hours went to restroom care last year, up 21% since the levy.
Published capital prioritization criteria include likelihood and consequence of failure alongside an equity index (youth, poverty, race in the service area). Project rankings also need scope, cost, and current condition evidence; a neighborhood label alone is not a priority score.
Developer fees (SDCs) support capacity expansion at new or existing facilities. They do not fund routine maintenance; capital renewal depends on other eligible sources.
FY 26-27 reductions: splash pads went back to 2022 hours, and community centers now close on federal holidays plus 8 training days. Garden fees rose 20% (a standard plot was $66).
30 budgeted Park Rangers are unarmed, education-first public-safety staff. They answered 5,783 calls for service last year, and the count is rising.
FY2024–25 recorded 397,283 volunteer hours, about 191 full-time equivalents of time. The 2026 Council presentation reports 485,391 hours; its period and growth baseline need reconciliation.
For youLook up your park in the atlas for its conditions, events, and the groups already working there.
Restroom hours, ranger calls, and volunteer hours are the bureau's FY 2024-25 performance measures, published in the Adopted Budget. The 191 full-time equivalents is 397,283 volunteer hours divided by a full-time year.
The repair need (≈$759M) is the bureau's own August 2026 estimate. The repair formula and this year's reductions are in 05; the developer-fee rule is state law, explained in 03.
In October 2025 the City Auditor published a systemwide review of how parks are planned and paid for. The bureau accepted every recommendation; this is where each fix stands as of August 2026.
For youEach fix has a holder and a status on the roadmap page; that is where to watch delivery.
The October 2025 audit found no comprehensive level-of-service plan integrating assets, condition, cost and affordability. Existing standards and the bureau's project-prioritization process cover parts of the question. The May 2026 financial-plan discussion proposed comparing service scenarios.
Reviewing the Council record, the auditor found no systematic accounting of savings efforts presented before the levy request. That information would help voters weigh the next ask. The Parks Board's financial-sustainability working group began drafting components in spring 2026.
The auditor documented two projects, in 2022 and 2023, that entered the pipeline without the Director approval PP&R's own process called for at the time. SDC-funded projects could also be committed without appearing in the budget. The 2025 charter change consolidated project selection under the City Administrator.
Of 8 recent capital projects reviewed, none had a maintenance funding plan. Five had cost estimates totaling about $4.7M annually for major maintenance and lifecycle costs. City policy already requires these plans; the gap is in practice, not intent.
Source: City Auditor, Parks Fiscal Management (October 2025), with the bureau and City Administrator responses of October 10, 2025.
These are the bureau's own performance measures, FY 2022-23 to FY 2024-25. What Portlanders experience directly is improving; the condition of the assets underneath is not yet.
For youThe two plans that would move the second column — level-of-service and long-range financial — are agreed to but not built; the roadmap tracks both.
These are the measures the bureau publishes in each budget book, the closest thing to a public scorecard. Read together: as a service, Portland Parks is performing. As the steward of $2.5 billion in public assets, its condition and backlog measures are flat or worsening.
The backlog has moved again since: the bureau's August 2026 estimate is ≈$759M (see 04). Worker injury claims per 100 FTE rose from 6.2 to 9.2 over the same two years.
Source: PP&R performance measures, FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget.
This collection brings together selected budget cycles, Council actions, plans and reporting from 2016 to 2026. Its coverage and conclusions require source-specific review.
The register contains 296 candidate targets from 24 plans. Earlier delivery grades are withheld while adopted targets, funding status, baselines, deadlines and comparable outcomes are checked. Tree stocking and canopy coverage, for example, measure different things.
The 2014 ADA Transition Plan commits Portland to clearing park accessibility barriers by 2035. At current funding, the bureau told the City Budget Office it will miss that date by more than 45 years.
For youInspect the target, reporting period and evidence before drawing a delivery conclusion. Follow the commitments page.
A decade ago the City Budget Office reviewed Parks and found the same structure this page describes. Over ten years, it wrote, Parks would need $713 million. Its major maintenance allocation, SDC revenue, and the 2014 bond were expected to provide $165.2 million — 19%.
The major maintenance allocation was $1.7M a year against an estimated $5–15M annual need, on top of a $14M annual maintenance backlog. Development fees were funding new East Portland parks while adding $500K–$1.5M a year of maintenance that had no funding source. Every current official inherited this.
By FY 2020-21 the bureau had cleared 2,458 of the 7,229 barriers due by then, against more than 17,000 documented barriers system-wide. As of FY 2024-25, 20% of Transition Plan barriers have been removed.
Source: CBO FY 2016-17 budget review of Parks & Recreation (the 2016 finding).
Source: CBO FY 2022-23 budget review of Parks & Recreation (ADA) · barrier-removal metric from the FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget · commitments from this atlas's ledger.
Budget dates change from one cycle to the next. The FY 2027–28 planning options are below, with the completed FY 2026–27 cycle kept separately for reference. Use the official calendars and agendas to find confirmed meetings and testimony opportunities.
Sources checked
FY 2027–28 · planning examples
The September 10 presentation offers two example calendars. These are planning options, not an adopted schedule or confirmed public hearing dates. No calendar was adopted at that work session.
Check the City's budget eventsBudget guidance in both examples.
Forecasts; either early work sessions or early community engagement.
Internal submissions; work sessions continue in the early-session option.
Input for the Mayor’s proposal; either an administrator’s report or budget work sessions.
Decisions on the Mayor’s proposal.
Proposal on April 21; Council engagement.
Budget approval by May 20.
Tax commission hearing June 8; adoption readings June 10 and 17.
FY 2026–27: adopted, then amended. Council adopted the budget on June 17, 2026, for July 1, 2026–June 30, 2027. The July supplemental budget changed it again; those changes are separate from the adopted book.
Source: Adopted budget and July supplemental changesThese dates describe the completed cycle. They are not upcoming deadlines and do not repeat automatically each year.
Follow these links for confirmed dates, changes and cancellations. Meeting dates are not inferred from a recurring pattern.
Advises on bureau priorities, budgets and major projects. The August Board Affairs report describes 13 appointed members. The Board invited a Levy Oversight representative for a one-year ex officio term; acceptance and later roster changes need confirmation. A working-group merger was discussed, not approved in that regular meeting.
To take part: Public comment opens and closes every meeting. Agendas, minutes, recordings, and how members are appointed are on the Board's page.
Since March 2026, the Council committee that oversees parks, urban forestry, and open space. Levy reports, budget presentations, and parks policy items are heard here before they go to full Council.
To take part: Committee meetings are public. Agendas and meeting details are posted on the Council's committee page.
Five members, selected from an open public applicant pool and appointed by the PP&R Director for two-year terms. The committee reports annually on whether levy money is spent as voters approved; its FY 2024-25 report was accepted by Council on Feb 25, 2026.
To take part: Seats are filled from a public applicant pool. Recruitment for the 2025 levy's committee ran in spring 2026, with members onboarded by July 1, 2026; the levy page carries the committee's materials.
Anyone may request City records under Oregon public records law. This project keeps a ready-to-adapt request covering the parks data the City does not publish, grouped by priority so a narrow request can go first.
A way to take part that is missing here, a meeting we should list, or a date that has moved — every item above traces to a source, so a better source changes the page.
Send an idea →For youCheck the City budget calendar for confirmed hearings, and the Parks Board agenda for opportunities to comment on bureau priorities.
The Parks Board is advisory and says so: issues it cannot resolve are referred to Parks staff. Its recommendations pass by a modified consensus vote.
Five working groups do the substantive work: Board Affairs; Land Use & Infrastructure; Community Engagement; Culture, Nature and Recreation; and Financial Sustainability. The Financial Sustainability group began drafting components of the bureau's long-range financial plan in spring 2026; the plan is due before June 30, 2028.
The levy oversight committee's annual report is presented alongside PP&R's own levy report. The 2025 levy resolution also requires a performance audit, to confirm levy-funded services stay consistent with voter intent. The levy's term is FY 2026-27 through FY 2030-31.
Meeting links lead to the official schedules. Check the agenda for the date, location, cancellations and whether your item accepts testimony before making plans to attend.
Read the Board record and follow-up questions. The August chair introduced time to consider public comments and possible responses; the meeting did not adopt a universal response deadline. Use the appropriate channel for Board advice, service requests or formal land-use testimony. August transcript, A0018–A0039, A0241–A0247.
FY 2027–28 example dates are from the September 10, 2026 work-session presentation, slides 29–30; they are not an adopted calendar. Historical dates use PP&R’s February 2026 deck and the City’s updated FY 2026–27 development and adoption pages. Meeting times are from the Parks Board page and the Council policy committees page. Levy oversight details are from the 2025 levy page and the FY 2024-25 oversight report.
Budget books, the audit, board packets, City Code, and news coverage have been searched; these are the nine gaps that matter most. Each links to the draft records request that would close it.
The newest published chart is from December 2022 — before two reorganizations and three directors.
In the records requestComparable baselines, deadlines and outcome measures are needed to assess the candidate targets in the commitments register.
In the records requestThree-quarters of the people are one number with no breakdown by job, season, or hours.
In the records requestBudgeted positions are not filled positions, and no published figure says how short-staffed any crew is.
In the records request“What does Laurelhurst Park cost to run?” is currently unanswerable with public data.
In the records requestEvery repair request lives in an internal system; its release would show real response times by neighborhood.
In the records requestThe $550–800M figure is Parks' own estimate, with no published methodology and no independent audit of the number.
In the records requestThe formulas that rank your park's repairs and pick new projects have never been published in full.
In the records requestLevy and General Fund dollars are blended by design, so no one can say exactly what the levy alone buys.
In the records requestFor youAnyone may request these records under Oregon public records law, and the draft here is grouped by priority so a narrow request can go first.
The list is longer than nine. Also not published:
Two gaps are already on a schedule. The long-range financial plan is due before June 30, 2028, and the bureau is procuring a new work-order system to replace the current one.
Official sources also differ on a few counts; the differences are recorded here rather than reconciled.
Corrections, a document we missed, or a number that's changed — every claim on this page traces to a source, so a better source changes the page.
Send a correction or a source →Figures from the City of Portland FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget (Vol. 1 & 2), the October 2025 City Auditor report "Parks Fiscal Management," PP&R's levy reports, board packets and system pages, and certified November 2025 election results; compiled 2026-08-30. The workforce roll-up starts from 723.22 authoritative FTE, and the staffing series uses each year's own adopted budget. The ten-year record and commitments ledger were compiled by an automated sweep of public records and spot-checked; follow each entry's source link before quoting.
Read the explainer for the shape of things. The models show what a set of values would do. The record shows what happened. The sources show where every number came from.