Research notes, sources and corrections.

1. Where PP&R sits in the City
2. Who runs it
3. How the bureau is divided up
4. The workforce: how many of each kind of employee
5. The money: every fund, every source
6. How decisions get made
7. Who gets to weigh in
8. What is not public
9. Source list

PP&R exists by ordinance, not by charter. City Code Chapter 3.26 establishes the Portland Parks & Recreation Bureau and states that the bureau "consists of a Director and other employees as the City Administrator may provide," operating under the City Administrator's supervision. The chapter assigns the bureau administration of Title 11 (Trees) and Title 20 (Parks) of City Code, plus operations, maintenance, capital improvements, recreation programming, aquatics, golf, Portland International Raceway, land stewardship, and urban forestry.

Two consequences worth stating plainly:

• The internal structure of PP&R is not fixed in law. The City Administrator can restructure it at will, and did — twice — in the eighteen months to mid-2026 (see below).
• Council does not manage the bureau. Council approves the budget and refers bonds and levies to the ballot. Everything else runs through the administrative chain.

Portland voters
      │
      ├── Mayor (Keith Wilson) ──────────► proposes the annual budget
      │
      └── City Council (12 members, 4 districts × 3)
                │  adopts the budget; refers levies/bonds to the ballot;
                │  Public Works Committee is the standing policy committee for parks
                ▼
          City Administrator — Raymond C. Lee III (since Dec 2025; Michael Jordan through 2025)
                ▼
          Deputy City Administrator, Public Works — in transition (Priya Dhanapal departs Sept 4, 2026;
          Millicent Williams named interim)
                ▼
          PP&R Director  (interim: Art Pearce, from ~July 2026)
                ▼
          Division managers → supervisors → ~723 FTE + ~2,100 part-time/seasonal

Portland replaced its commission government on January 1, 2025. Under the old system a single elected Commissioner-in-Charge ran PP&R and had the final say on capital investments. The City Auditor's October 2025 audit is explicit that this mattered:

"Parks is led by a Director who reports to the Deputy City Administrator for Public Works. Prior to 2025, the Director reported to an elected Commissioner-in-Charge who also served on City Council in the previous form of government." — Parks Fiscal Management audit, p. 3

The service-area home then moved twice:

The March 31, 2025 centralization announcement consolidated six service areas into four and moved PP&R — plus the Vibrant Communities support-services team — into Public Works, rolling out in phases beginning July 1, 2025 and completing through FY 2025-26.

Council restructured its policy committees on February 19, 2026, cutting three committees; the new ones first met at the end of March 2026. Parks moved with the restructure:

The Public Works Committee is chaired by Olivia Clark, with Loretta Smith as vice chair, plus Sameer Kanal, Tiffany Koyama Lane, and Mitch Green. It meets the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

This is where levy reports, budget presentations, and parks policy items are heard before going to full Council. The FY 2024-25 Parks Levy annual report, for example, was heard by the Climate, Resilience & Land Use Committee on January 29, 2026, referred unanimously, and accepted by full Council on February 25, 2026.

DCA Priya Dhanapal said the City had "already initiated a national recruitment process" with a public launch planned for summer 2026. As of August 30, 2026 no permanent director has been announced. PP&R has therefore been led on an interim basis for roughly fourteen consecutive months, spanning a levy campaign, a government reorganization, an audit, and two budget cycles.

Named in the February 2026 Parks Board packet (the most recent public roster we could find — the City does not publish a current org chart):

The FY 2026-27 budget puts one Director III and five Manager III positions in the bureau — a small executive layer over a 723-FTE organization.

There are two different structures and they do not line up. This trips people up constantly, so it is worth being precise.

This is how staff are actually organized and managed. The last published org chart is from the FY 2023-24 Requested Budget (December 2022): a Director and Deputy Director, an Equity & Inclusion function reporting directly to the Director, and five divisions —

• Operations & Strategies — finance, technology, workforce development, performance and analysis, customer service, Park Rangers, property/business development, emergency preparedness, communications, volunteer program, SDC administration, levy coordination
• Land Stewardship — all land management at developed parks and natural areas, split into a Westside unit, an Eastside unit, and City Nature (natural areas, environmental education, community gardens, ecologically sustainable landscapes, integrated pest management), plus Land Services (turf, irrigation, horticultural services, trails)
• Recreation Services — community and arts centers, aquatics, sports, teen programming, SUN Schools, adaptive/inclusive recreation, Summer Free For All, plus Golf and Portland International Raceway
• Urban Forestry — tree maintenance, 24-hour tree emergency response, Title 11 regulation and enforcement, science and outreach, the Urban Forestry Commission
• Assets & Development — planning, capital projects, construction management, the Parks Bond program, the Asset Management program, and Professional Repair & Maintenance Services

The 2026 leadership roster above shows this skeleton is broadly intact — Recreation, Land Stewardship, Urban Forestry, Assets & Development all still have named division managers — but two large pieces have been carved out of the bureau entirely (Part 3c).

This is how money and positions are counted, appropriated, and reported. The FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget organizes PP&R into 18 program offers. This is the authoritative, current, machine-readable picture of the bureau:

Source: FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget, Volume 2, pp. 937–1046.

Read that table carefully and the bureau's recent history is visible in it: the old "Maintenance" offer (107 FTE) was dissolved and redistributed into Parks Maintenance, Facility/Amenity Maintenance, and Natural Area Maintenance; Tree Regulation went to zero; Business Services lost nearly half its positions; Tree Maintenance nearly doubled on the back of Portland Clean Energy Fund money.

What each program actually does (condensed from the budget book's own descriptions):

• Parks Maintenance (141.3 FTE) — daily operations at 156 developed parks and 3,600+ developed acres. Cleaning, safety checks, turf, ornamental planting, irrigation and water management, trash, vegetation management on 30+ miles of regional trails. "Parks Maintenance staff are typically the first to discover, address, and report issues requiring skilled trades or larger responses."
• Facility/Amenity Maintenance (77.75 FTE) — the Professional Repair & Maintenance Services (PRMS) trades shop: mechanical, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, alarms, signage, playground equipment, carpentry, locksmithing, welding, painting, graffiti removal, paving, fleet, emergency and inclement-weather response.
• Tree Maintenance (75.34 FTE) — tree work in parks, on City property, in the right of way, and on private property; 24-hour tree emergency service; Heritage Tree maintenance; pest/pathogen management; "developing a program to maintain Portland's 330,000 street trees."
• Business Services (74.6 FTE) — now largely the Public Works Business Services group (formerly PP&R's Operations & Strategies): workforce development, finance, accounting, stores, technology, safety, emergency management, performance and analysis, plus bureau-wide central costs (utilities, insurance, facilities) and all funds-management activity. Also collects and allocates SDCs and runs Parks Levy reporting.
• Community and Socialization (59.33 FTE) — 11 SUN Community School sites, 11 Preschool for All classrooms at nine community centers, after-school programs, camps, community gardens, environmental education, Summer Free For All Free Lunch + Play, facility rentals, summer youth employment.
• Sports and Games (49.5 FTE) — sports leagues and classes, Portland Tennis Center, and the enterprise-funded Golf program and Portland International Raceway.
• Visitor Services (46 FTE) — three teams: Reservations & Payments (the Customer Service Center: phone/in-person/email, outdoor facility permits — events, sports, picnics, weddings, commercial use, docking), Inclusion Services (ADA accommodation requests), and Park Rangers (30 FTE; 5,783 calls for service in FY 2024-25).
• Recreation Facility Operations (41.33 FTE) — running nine community centers, three arts facilities, and Gateway Discovery Park: front desk, registration, scheduling, seasonal hiring, cash handling, cleanliness, safety response.
• Aquatics (34 FTE) — 11 aquatics facilities (four indoor community-center pools, seven outdoor) plus 19 interactive and decorative fountains.
• Natural Area Maintenance (32.2 FTE) — ~8,000 acres across 90 natural areas and nature patches, 120 miles of soft-surface trail, the Natural Areas Stewardship volunteer program (37,000 volunteer hours/yr), the Protect the Best wildfire-risk/vegetation program, and Renew Forest Park (5,200 acres).
• Capital Development (26.3 FTE) — three components: Capital Growth, Capital Renovation (delivered the 2014 Parks Replacement Bond; delivering the 2019 Metro Bond Local Share, Major Maintenance, ADA, and Play Piece Replacement programs), and Engineering & Construction (including Environmental Compliance & Health).
• Community Engagement (21.5 FTE) — the bureau engagement team plus TeenForce, Lifelong Recreation (older adults), and Adaptive Recreation.
• Arts (11.91 FTE) — Multnomah Arts Center, Community Music Center, Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center (artist grants and residencies).
• Urban Forestry Science and Outreach (10.66 FTE) — tree inventory and canopy analysis, forest health assessment, standards and specifications, Heritage Tree program, education and volunteer programming.
• Leadership and Advocacy (7 FTE) — the Director, the External Affairs & Partnerships team, and three support positions. Directs division managers and convenes the Senior Management Team.
• Asset Management (6 FTE) — six people responsible for $2.5B in assets: condition assessment on a five-year cycle, the Major Maintenance Backlog dataset, the capital major maintenance project selection process, work-order system administration (and building its replacement), utility-locate screening, and PP&R's workspace program (800+ FTE across 50+ staff-occupied locations).
• Planning (4.5 FTE) — the Healthy Parks, Healthy Portland framework, long-range and site planning, grant-seeking, the annual prioritization and selection of projects for the five-year CIP, level-of-service goal setting, developer agreements for new parks and trails, zoning and code advocacy.
• Property (4 FTE) — now delivered by Public Works Business Services – Real Estate Services, in four teams: Contracts & Property; Reservations & Payments; Public Events; Transportation & Parking (including 230 parking lots).

Three separate transfers moved substantial capacity out of PP&R between 2025 and 2026. Any comparison of "PP&R headcount over time" that ignores these is wrong.

1. Tree Permitting → Portland Permitting & Development. Approved in the FY 2025-26 Adopted Budget. The program was first cut from 37.0 to 27.0 FTE inside Parks; then on October 1, 2025, 26.0 FTE transferred to PP&D (20 filled, 6 vacant), joining PP&D's existing urban forestry review group to form a new Tree Permitting Division. In the budget tables the Tree Regulation program falls 30.0 FTE (FY 2024-25) → 1.0 (FY 2025-26) → 0.

2. Operations & Strategies → Public Works Business Services. PP&R's central-services division became a shared Public Works function. The Business Services program offer drops from 143.71 FTE (FY 2024-25 actual) to 74.60 (FY 2026-27 adopted). Real Estate Services went the same way; the Property program falls from 10.0 FTE to 4.0.

3. Core Services Realignment (citywide). A citywide centralization of Communications, Engagement, Equity, Human Resources, Procurement, and Technology into enterprise teams — 68 position reductions and $19.3M in savings citywide ($3.9M General Fund, $15.4M non-General Fund). Public Works service-area core-service staffing drops from 231 to 160 FTE. Inside Parks specifically: 30 positions realigned and 16 eliminated, −$4.9M. Communications centralized January 2, 2026; the rest was still being implemented at adoption.

Two different counting conventions are in play, and both are correct:

So the bureau is roughly one-quarter permanent full-time staff and three-quarters part-time and seasonal people by headcount. The seasonal workforce — lifeguards, summer camp leaders, seasonal maintenance workers, seasonal park rangers, youth employment positions — is the single largest bloc of people in the organization and the least visible in the budget, because it is purchased in FTE-fractions and hourly dollars rather than counted as positions.

Youth employment alone grew from 1,047 positions (FY 2021-22) to 1,753 (FY 2024-25), funded by the Parks Levy.

Total FTE fell −130.78 (−15.3%) between FY 2024-25 actual and FY 2026-27 adopted. Most of that is the transfers in Part 3c rather than pure service reduction, but not all of it: the FY 2026-27 budget itself eliminates 16 positions via Core Services Realignment, plus 9.5 FTE in "Operational Efficiencies and Realignments," 3.0 FTE in "Programming Reductions," 3.0 vacant FTE in "Repair and maintenance," and 1.0 Turf Maintenance Technician.

Derived by aggregating the "Positions by Job Class" table published for each of the 18 program offers in the FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget, Volume 2. The bureau does not publish this roll-up itself. Class-name line wrapping in the source PDF introduces roughly ±1.5 FTE of noise; the authoritative total is the budget book's own 723.22.

Grounds, maintenance and trades — 206 FTE

(The 24 maintenance supervisors who lead these crews are counted under Management below.)

Horticulture, ecology and natural resources — 62 FTE

Portland employs a dedicated Rose Garden botanic specialist and a dedicated Arboretum collection specialist. It employs exactly one integrated-pest-management specialist for 11,677 acres.

Urban forestry — 34 FTE

(Plus the forestry botanic specialists above. The City Forester classification and most Tree Inspector positions moved to PP&D with Tree Permitting in October 2025.)

Recreation delivery — 130.32 FTE

Golf — 22 FTE

Six municipal golf courses are maintained by 22 budgeted greenskeepers, funded entirely from the enterprise Golf Fund.

Public safety and visitor services — 35 FTE

Capital delivery, planning and engineering — 30.5 FTE

19 capital project managers are responsible for a $91.9M FY 2026-27 capital program and a $201.0M five-year CIP.

Professional, analytical and administrative — 102.9 FTE

Management and supervision — 102 FTE

That is 102 supervisory and managerial FTE against 621.2 non-supervisory FTE — a ratio of about 6.1 to 1. Before counting the ~2,100 part-time and seasonal staff those same supervisors direct, which makes the real span of control considerably wider.

The FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget publishes position counts by class but not salary ranges. The most recent PP&R budget document we found with a full class-by-class salary table is the FY 2023-24 Requested Budget (pp. 23–26). Illustrative FY 2023-24 ranges, which are now three years stale but establish the shape of the pay structure:

The bureau's FY 2023-24 total for 761.28 full-time positions was $58,005,531 in salary (excluding benefits). The FY 2026-27 personnel line for the whole bureau — salary, benefits, and part-time/seasonal wages — is $141,161,691, or 41.5% of Bureau Expense.

Labor cost pressure is the dominant budget story: PP&R reported labor costs rising 35% per hour over three years during the FY 2025-26 cycle, and the FY 2024-25 Parks Levy annual report cites 41% labor cost increases over four years. For FY 2026-27, Health Fund charges to bureaus rose 22% in a single year and internal service fund charges (fleet, technology, facilities) were forecast up 9% annually.

PP&R employees are spread across at least five bargaining units. The suffixes on classification names in the budget book are bargaining-unit markers: -CL = Portland City Laborers, -CPPW = City of Portland Professional Workers, -E/-NE = exempt/non-exempt.

Two details matter for understanding PP&R's labor history:

• Local 483 organized the recreation workforce in 2016, after a decade-long campaign and an arbitrator's finding that the City was assigning bargaining-unit work to low-wage non-union rec-center staff. Council approved the agreement in February 2016, bringing roughly 130 previously unrepresented workers to $15/hour with job security. Local 483 also represents seasonal Park Rangers and seasonal maintenance workers under letters of agreement.
• CPPW is the City's newest and one of its largest bargaining units, ratifying its first contract on June 18, 2025 — which is why a large share of PP&R's professional classifications carry the - CPPW suffix in the FY 2026-27 budget for the first time.

Legal compliance with "labor agreements and workforce requirements" is one of the four criteria that makes a program offer Tier 1 / Non-Negotiable in PP&R's budget prioritization framework (Part 6).

The January 2026 monthly report notes the 2025 OSHA 300 log showed "a significant increase in recordable injuries from 2024," with the Director "directly engaged to ensure leadership prioritization."

On composition, the FY 2023-24 budget stated that 32% of PP&R workers are Black, Indigenous, or people of color. We found no more recent published figure.

Total resources: $493,724,866 across ten funds. This is a decrease of $62.6M from the FY 2025-26 revised budget, driven mainly by a smaller capital carryover balance.

Where it goes:

2020 Parks Levy (Measure 26-213): $0.80 per $1,000 of assessed value, ~$48M/year projected, FY 2021-22 through FY 2025-26. In Year 4 (FY 2024-25) PP&R spent $63.77M of levy money — $51.18M of collected revenue plus $12.59M drawn from accumulated fund balance, i.e. it was already spending faster than it collected. That spend split into:

Against 15 voter commitments, Year 4 delivered 13,740 swim lessons; 122,019 free meals; $4.7M in Access Discount financial assistance to 18,844 users (26% of registrants); 4,502 trees planted (3,002 in priority low-canopy neighborhoods); 1,093.5 acres treated for invasive species; 409,598 staff park-maintenance hours (up from 272,803 pre-levy); $2.66M in grants to 26 partner organizations; and 397,283 volunteer hours. An independent performance audit by Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting (December 2024) found levy funds were used in compliance with voter commitments and issued no recommendations.

2025 Parks Levy (Measure 26-260): approved November 4, 2025, roughly 53%–47% — a narrower margin than 2020.

How dependent is PP&R on it? The sources disagree, which is itself worth recording: PP&R's Sustainable Future page says the levy funds "roughly 40% of operations," while Volume 1 of the FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget says "our parks levy supports about half of Portland Parks & Recreation's operating budget." Either way, a five-year temporary tax is carrying somewhere between two-fifths and one-half of a permanent public service.

The Leveraged Funding Model. An October 2022 joint memo from PP&R, the City Budget Office, and the Chief Financial Officer to Council reviewed and recommended PP&R continue using a "Leveraged Funding Model" to maximize levy service-level impact — i.e. levy dollars are deliberately blended with General Fund rather than firewalled. This is efficient and it is also why "what does the levy pay for" is genuinely hard to answer at the margin.

SDCs are one-time fees on development. PP&R describes eligible uses as capital projects that expand capacity: acquiring land, developing facilities or expanding existing parks and facilities. They do not provide general operating or routine-maintenance funding. An existing location does not by itself make a capacity project ineligible, and SDC restrictions should not be generalized to every capital funding source. PP&R's SDC explanation.

Mechanics:

• The city is divided into two sub-areas — Central City and Non-Central City — with a portion of collections staying local for neighborhood parks and the rest funding citywide assets (regional trails, natural areas)
• The state framework is ORS 223.297–223.316 (Oregon's 1989 SDC statute): improvement-fee revenue may fund only capacity-increasing improvements on a published project list — the restriction on growth-related capital funding, rather than a general repair fund
• Rates are indexed annually, effective July 1, per the method in the Parks SDC Code (City Code 17.13)
• City Code requires PP&R and PBOT to review and update SDC methodology, rates, and project list every 10 years; PP&R's update was scheduled for completion by summer 2026
• A temporary exemption for qualifying newly created housing units applies to permits issued August 15, 2025 – September 30, 2028, subject to the City eligibility conditions
• PP&R maintains a 20-year list of eligible capacity-increasing projects

PCEF money entered the Parks budget in FY 2025-26 ($19.0M) and grew to $26,873,718 in FY 2026-27 — larger than the entire Golf enterprise. It funds PCEF Strategic Program 34 — Tree Protection, Care, and Workforce Development, under which Urban Forestry is standing up City-provided street tree care citywide, taking maintenance cost and permitting burden off property owners.

An early pilot launched January 2026 with contractor Honl Tree Care, removing selected dead street trees at no cost and with no permit required in low-canopy, low-income neighborhoods. This is what drove Tree Maintenance from 43.33 FTE (FY 2024-25) to 75.34 (FY 2026-27) and its budget from $11.3M to $33.9M.

Reported PCEF commitments to PP&R over five years — $100M for street-tree canopy management and funding to plant at least 15,000 trees — come from a non-City secondary source; we could not confirm the multi-year total in a primary City document (see Part 8).

FY 2026-27 capital spending is $91,928,057; the five-year CIP through FY 2030-31 totals $201,044,177.

The single most important ratio in this document: over five years the CIP spends $152.4M building new things and $23.1M on major maintenance — a ratio of about 6.6 to 1 — while the bureau simultaneously reports a $747M–$759M unfunded capital maintenance backlog. That is not incompetence; it is largely the SDC restriction plus bond and grant conditions working exactly as written. It is, however, the mechanism by which the backlog grows.

Capital funding sources for the Parks CIP Fund: System Development Charges; annual General Fund major-maintenance allocation; local, state and federal grants; the 2014 Parks Replacement Bond; the 2019 Metro Parks and Nature Bond Local Share and Trail Program; Build Portland bond funds; and Portland Parks Foundation donations.

• Golf Fund — six courses, fully self-supporting from greens fees, cart rentals, driving range, lessons, food and beverage, and retail. FY 2026-27: $24.4M resources, $18.5M bureau expense, $4.4M contingency. Notably, the FY 2026-27 budget transfers $450,000 out of the Golf Fund's major maintenance reserve to the Small Donor Elections Program — golfers' greens fees funding campaign finance.
• Portland International Raceway Fund — $4.2M, self-supporting from events and user fees. The budget flags that "major maintenance reserves are insufficient to maintain the program's capital infrastructure."
• Portland Parks Memorial Fund — $21.8M; grants and donations, typically restricted by purpose and period. FY 2026-27 draws it down as part of a $4.8M "One-Time Gap Closing" package.
• Parks Endowment Fund — $227,604 total across four named endowments: the F.L. Beach Curbside Rose Award Trust (1975), the Parks Maintenance Endowment (FY 2002-03), the Washington Park Children's Playground Endowment (a $75,000 Portland Rotary Club gift), and the Dietz Fountain at Wallace Park Endowment (FY 2003-04, original gift $4,500).

The adopted budget closed a $15.1M gap (an 8.2% overall reduction) in named packages:

Council later restored some of this: a Frontline Worker and Service Restoration Package ordinance appropriated PCEF interest income and other resources to restore frontline positions, adding 1.0 FTE back to PP&R, and a July 2026 supplemental budget restored a Community Engagement Specialist focused on East Portland Parks.

PP&R redesigned its budget process for FY 2026-27 and — unusually — published the machinery. This is the clearest public account of how the bureau decides what to fund.

The trigger. On November 21, 2025 the Mayor issued guidance requiring every bureau to build three General Fund scenarios: status quo, 3% General Fund Discretionary reduction, and 10% reduction. PP&R's targets:

Citywide guidance was explicit: clean up, combine and realign rather than cut across the board; no across-the-board reductions; consider vacant positions before filled ones; and produce "the most realistic, least painful cuts, and clearly outline service impacts."

Step 1 — reorganize the budget into five categories Portlanders recognize. Rather than defend line items, PP&R translated its entire General Fund budget into five service categories:

1. Parks & Natural Areas — day-to-day care of parks, trails, natural areas, outdoor amenities
2. Urban Forest & Tree Canopy — planting, maintaining, regulating, educating
3. PP&R Programs and Services — programs, classes, activities
4. Built Assets — planning, development and upkeep of structures, facilities, capital
5. Support Services — leadership, planning, compliance, administration, workforce supports

Step 2 — sort every program offer into three tiers, with published criteria:

Tier 1 — Non-Negotiable (goes into the base budget)

• Strategic Alignment (required): aligned with at least one Healthy Parks, Healthy Portland outcome; delivery model equitable, cost-effective, aligned with quality standards
• City Mandated & Voter Approved: necessary to achieve at least one Parks Levy commitment; aligned with Mayor's direction, ordinance, rule or directive
• Operational Baseline: necessary for basic maintenance and operational integrity; required for emergency response and solely provided by PP&R
• Legal Requirements: required for compliance with federal and state law, labor agreements, and workforce requirements

Tier 2 — Critical (reducing it significantly impacts service delivery)

• Strategic alignment (as above), plus:
• Community & Workforce Needs: identified as a priority in the 2025 Community Needs Survey or the 2025 PP&R Employee Survey
• Responsible Stewardship: necessary for stewardship of facilities, natural areas, trees; prevents higher future costs or anticipated risk
• External Commitments & Leverage: part of an externally funded obligation or approved citywide plan

Tier 3 — Important (consider for reduction before higher tiers)

• Strategic alignment, plus Strategic Enhancement and Capacity Building: evidence-based practice supporting workforce excellence and well-being; foundation for future partnerships

Step 3 — apply a values lens to the trade-offs. Six City Core Values, each rendered as concrete questions:

Step 4 — run it through four phases with defined owners and dates:

Then it leaves the bureau — completed FY 2026–27 dates, checked September 12, 2026:

Sources: adoption ordinance and hearing history, City budget development milestones and adopted budget and July supplement. These are historical dates, not recurring deadlines.

For FY 2027–28, the September 10, 2026 presentation offers two example calendars, not an adopted schedule. The interactive budget section separates those planning options from this history. Confirm actual meetings at the City budget events calendar.

Note what this structure does and does not do. It gives the Director and the DCA the pen. Advisory bodies are consulted in Phase 3 — before leadership's final prioritization, not after — and their decision protocol is that "any significant change or proposal will require a modified consensus vote to be added to a final list of recommendations." Council reviewed service-area scenarios in March, before the Mayor released the April proposal.

The Asset Management program (6 FTE) leads capital major maintenance project selection. The scoring formula, per PP&R's own Sustainable Future page and the Asset Management program description:

priority  =  likelihood of failure
           × consequence of failure
           × equity index

where the equity index "considers service area demographics like percentages of youth, people of color, and households experiencing low income."

Asset Management maintains the Major Maintenance Backlog dataset by "assessing, recording, and analyzing asset conditions on a five-year cycle." The program is also standing up a new PP&R work order system to replace the current one.

The Auditor's description of how new assets get chosen:

"Parks' process for funding new assets begins when project managers submit potential new asset projects. Parks managers then score projects based on criteria, such as the percentage of youth and people of color living near a project location. Several Parks committees review the list of projects and make a final recommendation, historically, to the Commissioner-in-Charge, who had the final say."

The Planning program (4.5 FTE) "manag[es] the annual prioritization and selection of projects for PP&R's five-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP), including maintaining and improving demographic-equity and data-informed prioritization criteria."

PP&R told the Auditor that over a dozen factors influence what gets built: the 2022 level-of-service guidance, community input, recreational trends, leadership direction, individual park master plans, and the 2008 skatepark system master plan, among others. The Auditor's judgment on that:

"With so many factors, it's not clear how investments are prioritized between factors... there's a risk that any new investments can be justified if they are part of one of the existing plans."

The October 2025 performance audit — Parks Fiscal Management: Systemwide goals and sustainability strategies needed to ensure parks for future generations (Simone Rede, City Auditor; KC Jones, Audit Services Director; Mason Atkin, Performance Auditor) — made four findings.

1. There is no level-of-service plan. Instead there is limited guidance created in April 2022 covering community desires for thirteen recreational assets and how far people would travel to reach them. It falls short because it: did not account for all system assets (irrigation, open space, benches are excluded); did not assess condition or maintenance costs of existing assets; did not set condition goals and had incomplete quantity goals; proposed no strategy for affording the desired system; and never asked the community what it is prepared to pay for. PP&R also "reported it was not required to follow the limited guidance," and the Auditor "saw evidence that it was not followed."

2. There is no fiscal sustainability plan. PP&R has taken steps — a 10-year financial plan the audit did not evaluate; six funding options presented to Council in 2019; LED retrofits; transferring costs to community partners; a worksite hoteling policy to cut office rent — but without systematic identification and evaluation of strategies, "Parks cannot demonstrate whether it has pursued all viable cost-saving options." The audit is pointed about the timing: the public "received a request for renewed levy funding without evidence that Parks had systemically pursued savings."

3. Investment decisions have been vulnerable to political pressure. Two documented examples: in 2023 the Commissioner-in-Charge directed staff to invest in University Park, which staff had not identified for investment; in 2022 the Mayor allocated $500,000 to build skatepark assets and pickleball courts near Laurelhurst Park to deter camping. Neither had the Parks Director approval that PP&R's own process required at the time.

4. New capital projects are built without maintenance funding plans — in violation of City policy. City Financial Policy 2.03 requires bureaus to estimate and identify funding for ongoing operations, major maintenance, and lifecycle replacement before approving new capital projects. Of eight new capital projects reviewed:

Three of the eight — Creston Skatepark, North Park Block Extension, University Park — had no estimates because they were unannounced projects selected by the Commissioner and funded solely by SDCs. Under the old form of government the Commissioner could decide whether to announce SDC-funded projects, so money could be committed without ever appearing in the budget.

A Parks manager told the Auditor they do not create funding plans "because no funding source exists for major maintenance or lifecycle costs" — Councils have repeatedly waived the policy that set discretionary revenue aside for infrastructure.

The six recommendations (Parks 1–5; City Administrator 6):

1. Develop a fiscal sustainability plan with the CFO, City Budget Office, City Administrator and Council
2. Communicate the scope and impact of cost-saving actions to the public
3. Develop a level of service plan in partnership with Council
4. Base asset investment proposals on the systemwide goals in that plan
5. Create funding plans for estimated major maintenance and lifecycle costs when approving new capital projects, as City policy requires
6. (City Administrator) Update City Financial Policy 2.03 to require a funding approach that considers current asset condition and systemwide goals

City Administrator Michael Jordan and Interim Director Sonia Schmanski both agreed with all recommendations (responses dated October 10, 2025). Jordan's response is notably candid about the prior era — "chronic insufficient levels of investment for capital maintenance, and capital investment decisions led by successive Commissioners-in-Charge" — and points to two in-flight remedies: DCA Dhanapal's Unified CIP initiative across the Public Works service area, and a Citywide Asset Management Strategy.

PP&R's Sustainable Future page states a long-range financial plan is to be developed before June 30, 2028.

Under PRK-3.06, program-specific cost recovery goals, rates, and cost of service are set through standard operating procedures approved by the PP&R Director under authority of City Code Chapter 20.08. Program staff and the finance team set prices, balancing affordability against budget allocations, market economics, and cost recovery goals. The policy deliberately does not fix tiered cost-recovery percentages in the policy itself.

One exception: Urban Forestry fees require City Council approval under Title 11.

Affordability is delivered through the Access Discount (up to 90% off for Portlanders with financial need), free programming, fee waivers, and community grants. Eligibility rules and discount levels live in individual program procedures. In FY 2024-25 the Access Discount provided $4.7M in financial assistance to 18,844 users, 26% of registrants — and PP&R's own survey still found 23% of Portlanders say cost is a barrier, disproportionately people of color and East Portland residents.

PP&R operates under 30+ binding city policies, which is where a lot of the "who decides what" actually lives:

• Park uses (PRK-1.xx) — non-park use of park property, Springwater Corridor non-park uses, park officer designations, prohibited conduct at Director Park, closure hours and speed limits, boat launch and moorage rules, geocaching, Washington Park parking and transportation rules, dog off-leash area rules, motorized wheeled vehicles, recreational metal detecting, Forest Park mitigation funding
• Urban forestry (PRK-2.xx) — Urban Forest Plan, tree review/inspection/permit and enforcement fee schedule, replanting requirements, tree proposals in development situations, Title 11 waiver guidelines, reduced minimum planting size, attachment of objects to City or street trees, street tree planting standards
• Administration (PRK-3.xx) — accepting gifts and memorials, Adopt-A-Bench, sponsorship and naming policies, reviewing citizen requests for park improvements, volunteer installation of play equipment, cost recovery, dogs in natural areas, asset pre-disposition, neonicotinoid prohibition, park rule compliance, enforcement and civil penalties
• System Development Charges (PRK-4.xx) — SDCs for residential additions

Adopted 2023, HPHP is the framework every budget item must align with to reach Tier 1.

Mission: "to provide equitable access to welcoming places, programs, and services that improve community health and our environment."

Values: Equity and Anti-Racism · Stewardship · Safety and Belonging · Connection · Accountability.

Structure: Mission/Vision/Values (purpose) → HPHP Outcomes (what we're aiming toward) → Strategy & Performance (how we get there), across four areas of primary responsibility: Parks and Natural Areas; Urban Forest and Tree Canopy; Programs and Services; Built Assets.

The first HPHP report was released July 17, 2023. Community engagement under HPHP explicitly centers Black, Indigenous and people of color, immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities, LGBT2SQIA+ people, youth, older adults, and people earning low incomes.

The budget publishes these bureau metrics. The bureau also keeps a public ClearImpact scorecard; see the note after the table.

The scorecard, and one discrepancy. The bureau's ClearImpact measure Percentage of portfolio value spent on capital maintenance states an established target of 3%, an industry-practice range of 2–3%, and an FY25 actual of 0.35%, computed as capital-maintenance dollars recorded in SAP as a share of total asset value. The budget table above reports 1.1% for the same year. Both are the bureau's own figures; the budget table does not state its method, and the two have not been reconciled. The explainer shows both, and the register lists the reconciliation as an open item.

Read together: use is up, volunteering is up, ranger calls are up, restroom hours are up — and asset condition is flat at 13% good-or-better while the unfunded backlog jumped $156M in one year. The bureau is running harder on a deteriorating base.

Established 2001 to keep the Parks 2020 Vision at the forefront of park discussions. The August 14 minutes describe 13 appointed members during the Board Affairs discussion. Jessica Green represented the Foundation ex officio. Jacob Karson became chair and Matthew Shipkey continued as vice chair following the June election, effective in August. The Board approved inviting a Levy Oversight Committee representative for a one-year ex officio term; the invitation does not establish an accepted appointment. June minutes, p. 1 · August minutes, p. 3.

The usual schedule is the second Tuesday, with a July recess; August's regular meeting occurred Friday, August 14, before the retreat. Check the official Board schedule for changes and participation details.

The Board advises on Parks issues and discussed how that role connects to the new City government. It does not itself adopt the City budget. August introduced time to discuss public comments and potential follow-up, not a universal response deadline. August transcript, A0018–A0039, A0125–A0145.

Five working groups reported in these meetings: Board Affairs, Land Use & Infrastructure, Community Engagement, Culture, Nature and Recreation, and Financial Sustainability. Combining Community Engagement with Culture, Nature and Recreation was proposed for retreat discussion; adoption is not established by the supplied regular meeting. August minutes, p. 3.

See the Board record for actions, attributed concerns and unresolved follow-up. Public access, funding, service continuity and implementation capacity cut across these discussions.

Five members, selected from an open public applicant pool and appointed by the PP&R Director, serving two-year terms. Meets quarterly. Produces an annual report to City Council alongside PP&R's own levy annual report — the two were presented together to the Climate, Resilience & Land Use Committee on January 29, 2026 and accepted by full Council on February 25, 2026. The 2025 levy resolution also mandates a performance audit to confirm levy-funded services stay consistent with voter intent.

An 11-member body that meets at least ten times a year. It helps develop and periodically update the Urban Forest Plan and submits updates to Council for approval; reviews plans, policies and projects affecting urban forestry; and advises the City Forester, the PP&D Director, the City Administrator, and the Citizens' Budget Advisory Committee on the annual forestry budget request. Where tree code amendments touch development, both the Planning and Sustainability Commission and the Urban Forestry Commission make recommendations to Council.

• 200+ Friends and Partner groups (the FY 2023-24 budget's figure). PP&R's partnerships team has separately used a "~700 partners, ~250 core with a formal agreement" framing.
• 26 partner organizations received $2.66M in PP&R grants in FY 2024-25.
• 397,283 volunteer hours in FY 2024-25 — the equivalent of 191 FTE, or about 26% of the bureau's entire budgeted FTE, contributed for free.
• The Portland Parks Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3), not a City body; it holds an ex-officio seat on the Parks Board and funds capital and program work the City cannot.

• Community Needs Survey (2025) and PP&R Employee Survey (2025) are named criteria for Tier 2 budget status
• Public comment opens and closes every Parks Board meeting
• Community engagement is a budgeted program (21.5 FTE) with its own bureau-level team
• Capital projects run listening sessions and community gatherings (e.g. Steel Bridge Skatepark, Feb 15, 2026; North Portland Aquatic Center, Feb 17, 2026)
• Community-led project proposals are an explicit responsibility of the Planning program

Everything below was searched for in City budget books, the Auditor's reports, PP&R's published pages and board packets, City Code, and news coverage, and was not found. Items marked [PRR] are candidates for the draft public records request.

1. A current organizational chart. The most recent published PP&R org chart is in the FY 2023-24 Requested Budget (December 2022) and shows a director who has since left, a deputy director position, and a division that no longer exists inside the bureau. No chart reflecting the July 2025 move into Public Works, the Business Services carve-out, or the Core Services Realignment has been published. [PRR]
2. Headcount by division. The budget gives FTE by program offer, not by the operational divisions people actually work in. The two do not map one-to-one.
3. Any breakdown of the 2,147 part-time and seasonal employees — by job type, division, season, average hours, or duration. The figure appears as a single number with no as-of date beyond the page's May 6, 2026 update. This is the majority of PP&R's people and it is effectively invisible. [PRR]
4. Current salary ranges by classification. The FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget publishes position counts by class but no salary table; the last one we found is FY 2023-24.
5. Vacancy counts and rates. "Vacant" appears as a pseudo-classification in the FY 2025-26 revised column (19.00 FTE in Aquatics alone, 107.70 across Business Services' history) but is zeroed in the FY 2026-27 adopted column. No vacancy rate is published. [PRR]
6. Turnover and retention by division, overtime hours, or use of temporary/casual labor. A turnover metric appeared in the FY 2023-24 budget's measure list but no values are published by division.
7. Current workforce demographics. The "32% BIPOC" figure is from the FY 2023-24 budget; no newer figure was found.
8. Who is assigned to what — crew rosters, maintenance zone or route maps, which parks a given crew covers, staffing ratios per park or per acre. [PRR]

9. The capital growth scoring rubric itself — the actual criteria list, weights, scores, and the ranked project list. The Auditor describes it in summary; PP&R has not published it. Which "several Parks committees" review the list is also not named. [PRR]
10. The capital major maintenance scoring detail — how likelihood of failure, consequence of failure, and the equity index are each measured and combined, and the resulting ranked list. [PRR]
11. Work order data. PP&R tracks program outputs "through PP&R's work order system" and is procuring a replacement, but no work-order dataset is published. [PRR]
12. The itemized deferred-maintenance backlog behind the $550M–$800M / $747M / $759M figures, and the cost-estimation methodology. Covered at length in the atlas's backlog pages. [PRR]
13. A level of service plan — the Auditor found none exists. The April 2022 "limited guidance" for thirteen recreational assets is the closest thing, and we did not find it published in full. [PRR]
14. A fiscal sustainability plan — none exists. The 10-year financial plan referenced by the Auditor (and not evaluated by them) is not public. The long-range financial plan is due before June 30, 2028. [PRR]
15. Maintenance and lifecycle funding plans for new capital projects — the Auditor found zero of eight reviewed projects had one.
16. Director-approved standard operating procedures for fees and cost recovery under PRK-3.06, including cost-recovery targets by program and Access Discount eligibility rules. [PRR]
17. Per-park or per-acre operating cost. Nothing in the budget structure supports asking "what does Laurelhurst Park cost to run?" [PRR]
18. Contract and vendor spend. External Materials & Services is $114.6M — 34% of Bureau Expense — with no published breakdown by vendor, contract, or purpose.
19. The internal allocation of General Fund vs. levy dollars by program. The Leveraged Funding Model deliberately blends them; the blend ratio per program is not published.

20. No permanent PP&R director. National recruitment was to launch publicly in summer 2026; no appointment has been announced. The bureau has had interim leadership since July 2025.
21. The 2026 SDC methodology update, due for completion "by summer 2026," was not located in published form.
22. PCEF's multi-year commitment to Parks. The FY 2026-27 allocation ($26,873,718) is in the budget book. The widely reported $100M over five years for street-tree management and the 15,000-tree planting commitment come from a secondary (non-City) source; we could not confirm the multi-year totals in a primary City document.
23. The 2025 Parks Levy's specific voter commitments, in the itemized form the 2020 levy's 15 commitments took, had not appeared in a published Year-1 report at the time of writing. FY 2026-27 is Year 1.

Recorded here rather than silently reconciled, because they affect any number you quote:

Primary — City budget

• FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget, Volume 1 (fund overviews, capital plan; Parks at p. 374)
• FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget, Volume 2 (bureau and program detail; Parks at pp. 937–1046; Core Services Realignment at p. 16)
• FY 2026-27 Budget Development · Adopted
• Council adopts final budget for 2026-27 (June 18, 2026)
• Frontline Worker and Service Restoration Package
• PP&R FY 2023-24 Requested Budget (last published org chart; class-by-class salary table)
• PP&R Budget Process

Primary — audit and oversight

• Parks Fiscal Management audit, October 2025 · release page
• Citywide Asset Management audit, April 2025
• Parks Levy Oversight Committee Annual Report FY 2024-25

Primary — PP&R

• PP&R FY 2026-27 Budget Updates deck, February 19, 2026 (prioritization phases, tiers, values lens)
• Parks Board Packet, February 2026 (leadership roster, minutes, monthly reports, budget slides)
• Park and recreation system by the numbers
• A sustainable future for our park and recreation system
• 2025 Parks Local Option Levy · 2024-25 Parks Levy Annual Report
• Parks System Development Charges
• Healthy Parks, Healthy Portland
• Portland Parks Board
• PP&R ADA Title II resources

Primary — code, policy, labor

• City Code Chapter 3.26 — Portland Parks & Recreation Bureau
• City Code Chapter 17.13 — Parks and Recreation System Development Charge
• City Code Chapter 11.20 — Urban Forestry Program
• PP&R binding city policies (PRK-*) · PRK-3.06 cost recovery
• Current City labor agreements · CPPW · CPPW first contract ratified
• LiUNA Local 483 / PP&R agreement · 2016 recreation-worker agreement

Primary — governance and transition

• Portland advances centralized organizational structure (March 31, 2025)
• City Organization / transition
• Council policy committees
• Adena Long resigns as Director (July 16, 2025)
• PP&R moves forward with critical repairs at Southwest Community Center pool (August 26, 2026 — Art Pearce as Interim Director)

Election

• Ballotpedia: Measure 26-260 · Multnomah County ballot measure page · Mayor's statement

Secondary (corroboration only)

• Portland Mercury: Parks and Recreation Interim Director Will Exit at End of June (June 2026)
• Portland Mercury: Council votes to reshape committee structure (February 2026)
• KOIN: Measure 26-260 parks levy passes · KOIN: director severance
• OPB: What to know about Portland's Parks Levy ballot measure
• Bird Alliance of Oregon: PCEF climate investments (the $100M five-year street-tree figure)

Compiled August 30, 2026 for the Portland Parks Atlas. Corrections welcome — every claim above should be checkable against a link in the source list.

The Council document review adds the FY2025–26 progress report and 2026 presentation. PP&R reports 100+ organizations engaged through agreements, 40 site partnerships, a launched Get Connected volunteer database, and planned common reporting and a centralized partnership database. Its roster of partnership staff does not supply FTE or funding amounts and is not added to the adopted-budget headcount.

The presentation reports 485,391 volunteer hours and $16.9M in estimated community value, with 22.5% annual growth and 7.3% growth over FY2019. Exact reporting dates and valuation method are absent; the 22.5% growth does not reconcile exactly with the historical 397,283-hour FY2024–25 series above. Keep both observations separately labeled. New source mentions expand the park-partner map and identify four Everybody Plays parks; they do not establish new project costs, completion dates, or avoided City spending. The review answers all eight Council questions with an explicitly proposed framework for public benefit, asset models, responsibilities, risk, valuation, equitable access and easier intake.

September 12, 2026 review. The Atlas is an independent analytical resource. A public-data prototype does not establish City adoption, professional inspection, financial savings or completion of an audit recommendation.

• Geography: council assignments now use the official Council boundary layer, retrieved September 12, 2026. Primary district is greatest overlapping property area; property pages retain other intersections. East Portland remains a geographic filter, not an equity measure.
• Condition: the earlier explanation of the bureau’s 86% figure and claimed independent validation of the backlog estimate are withdrawn. The populations, dates, definitions and cost methodology have not been reconciled. Map labels now describe the share of rated assets rather than assert safety or operational risk.
• Partnership accounting: unverified asset-value amounts and their derived ROI are withheld. Requested grants, awards, project costs and remaining funding gaps are separate measures. Spending, subsidies, historic capital investment and public benefits cannot be added without checking overlap and periods.
• Plan targets: earlier completion grades and the 295-entry scoreboard are withdrawn. The current register has 296 candidate table entries across 24 plans; these are not certified, deduplicated commitments. Delivery judgments require adoption/funding context, exact targets, baselines, deadlines and comparable outcomes.
• Dates and activity: contract expiration is distinct from activity. An empty event join means no listings were captured and matched; it does not establish that a property is unused.
• Models: allocation weights are transparent proxies for published gaps and operating-cost flags. They do not measure people-hours, lifecycle return or project feasibility. Proposed audit-support components and sequences describe Atlas work, not City compliance.

For each decision-driving measure, record its source and page/table/record locator, reporting period, unit, denominator, calculation and verification date. Label source-reported facts, Atlas calculations, illustrative assumptions and unresolved information separately. Keep essential limitations beside the result. Missing values remain unknown; comparisons require compatible scope and periods. Source citations identify evidence to inspect, not blanket certification of every claim on a page.

The partnership case reviews apply this approach to source-reported examples, open questions, alternative decisions and proposed success measures. The records guide begins with small samples rather than a systemwide data request.

The Board record adds the supplied minutes and caption transcripts from May 12, June 9 and August 14. It separates formal actions, reported concerns, proposals and follow-up that remains unverified. This review does not cover the later August retreat or subsequent meetings.

• Financial planning is underway: the May discussion proposed three service/funding scenarios. A balanced operating forecast assumed reductions and cost inflators; it is not proof of unchanged services or funded capital renewal. May transcript, M0110–M0116, M0130, M0171–M0173.
• The bureau already has a prioritization method: its public capital-maintenance approach considers likelihood of failure, consequence and equity. The Atlas should help connect data to that process, rather than imply no process exists. PP&R Sustainable Future.
• Partnership delivery requires operational evidence: the Pittock report described approval challenges and helpful City support; the Tennis Center discussion sought comparable access and assistance measures. June transcript, J0235–J0245 · August transcript, A0163–A0196.
• Participation is not a count of listings: the Nature Day Camp report described waitlist administration as a constraint. Geographic access, registration, affordability and actual use require different evidence. May minutes, p. 2 · May transcript, M0109.
• Current project notices supersede meeting expectations: the Tennis Center's later FAQ gives an estimated phased closure; Columbia's study is not a funded reopening; Harborton has a scheduled hearing and unresolved land-use review. Tennis comparison · Pool options · Harborton record.

The neighborhood-parks/displacement study and retreat outcomes still need underlying records. These meeting recaps do not establish causal research findings or later Board decisions. Focused follow-up samples.