Why are we wasting taxpayers dollars by duplicating services and personnel between City bureaus?
ARGUMENT IN FAVOR PORTLANDERS TO REFORM CITY HALL The independent Charter Review Commission members learned a lot in their 15 months of research about how and why Portland is run the way it is. And they learned how much it costs taxpayers to continue with a form of government that has not changed since 1913. They learned that Portland is the last big city in the nation where politicians are in charge of multi-million dollar, highly complex bureaus. And they learned that taxpayers foot the bill for our politicians’ inexperience. They also learned that our current government breeds inefficiencies and duplication, and limits coordination and oversight. Audit exposes $ 10 – $ 15 million wasted annually. One independent audit in 2006 estimated that the City is wasting $ 10 – $ 15 million a year. The cost of this uncoordinated, haphazard approach to running our government is more than we can afford. That’s why the citizen led Commission recommended a package of reforms to: • Provide more com
