Portland’s Parks Bureau has no plan to pay for reasonable parks upkeep, even as the bulk of its assets continue to crumble and the agency remains without a long-term solution to cover day-to-day operations, the city’s elected watchdog said Wednesday.
A new report from City Auditor Simone Rede found that Portland Parks & Recreation lacks “a systematic approach” to save or raise enough money to care for all its parks, endangering a beloved city resource.
Rede urged parks and other city leaders to reverse course and commit to better management practices.
“Without clear systemwide goals and fiscal sustainability strategies, Parks’ funding gaps will continue to grow, resulting in less services for Portlanders today, and dangerous conditions tomorrow,” she said in a statement that accompanied the findings.
The new report comes as voters weigh a November ballot measure that would raise Portland’s existing parks levy by 75%, from 80 cents a year per $1,000 of assessed property value to $1.40.
Money from the existing levy, set to expire at the end of the year, is used to spruce up parks and natural areas, pay for outdoor and community center programs and provide greater recreation access to low-income residents.
The significant property tax increase, city leaders say, is necessary just to sustain current park operations, due in part to inflation, rising wages and declining city revenues.
Yet city auditors found that the Parks Bureau, which they said has no fiscal sustainability plan to speak of, has struggled to demonstrate strong financial stewardship or show the public what cost-savings measures it has pursued as it asks taxpayers for more money.
“The public received a request for renewed levy funding without evidence that Parks had systemically pursued savings,” auditors wrote. “Parks risks not providing the public with important data to inform their decisions by taking this approach.”
City auditors also pointed to the bureau’s deepening infrastructure crisis as a byproduct of operating without clear financial management strategies. According to the report, 86% of the Parks Bureau’s playgrounds, restrooms, tennis courts and other assets were in poor or very bad condition and would cost between $500 million and $800 million to repair.
“As of July 2025, Parks’ maintenance backlog was so large that assets will fail regardless of how much money the bureau raises,” city auditors said.
Compounding the bureau’s financial challenges are city and state rules that require the Parks Bureau to spend millions of dollars it collects in fees from developers on new infrastructure projects instead of maintaining current assets, city auditors said.
In addition, the report found that the bureau failed to identify funding sources for operations and maintenance of eight new capital projects, a violation of city policy. Auditors determined that five of those projects — which include Mill and Parklane parks in east Portland as well as a new skatepark in Old Town — would cost the city an estimated $4.7 million annually to keep in shape.
“Parks did not create funding plans or receive major maintenance funding for these projects, which means the city added nearly $5 million of unfunded annual costs,” the report reads.
To spur better fiscal management, Rede recommended that parks officials work with the city’s chief financial officer, budget office, city administrator and City Council to develop a fiscal sustainability plan and communicate the scope and impact of cost-saving actions to the public.
She also said the bureau needs to create plans to pay for maintenance and upkeep when approving new capital projects plus establish clear service level targets to guide how the bureau prioritizes future expansion of its parks.
In response to the audit recommendations, City Administrator Michael Jordan and Interim Portland Parks & Recreation Director Sonia Schmanski said they would work to implement all of them.
Schmanski said the bureau aimed to launch a new website detailing cost-saving actions as well as create new capital project funding plans by the end of this year. As for a fiscal sustainability and service level plan, the Parks Bureau would seek to have those in place by June of 2028.
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