Chair Jessica Vega Pederson Releases $3.96 Billion Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2024-2025

In the first budget she has led from start to finish, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson today released her Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. The proposed budget includes a 24% increase in homelessness spending, a $29 million substance use and recovery package and an $800,000 partnership with the City of Portland to continue successful task forces that have helped reduce retail and auto theft.

The proposed budget also promotes community safety and accountability by fully funding the County’s specialty courts, jails, and adult parole and probation programs. It commits the County to covering daily operations at the peer-led downtown Behavioral Health Resource Center, which houses a day services program, behavioral health shelter and bridge housing program. And, it directs a 3.3% cost of living increase to the County’s Health and Human Services contracted service providers in an effort to address workforce barriers and continue increasing basic wages for their critical efforts.

“My budget addresses some of our greatest community and workforce challenges, but it also draws on our greatest strengths: our employees, our partnerships and our shared efforts to meet these challenges,’’ Chair Vega Pederson said.

The County’s annual budget funds the work of 11 County departments and 5,966 full-time positions as well as the work of public offices led by three independently elected officials: Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell, District Attorney Mike Schmidt and Auditor Jennifer McGuirk. It finances operations from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025.