September 26, 2022

Dear Portlanders,

At last week's City Council meeting, city staff offered a Communication entitled: "Fiscal Impact of the November 2022 Citizen Initiatives and Charter Commission Proposals". Here it is: Fiscal Impact Memo.

Understanding the anticipated costs of city ordinance, and/or Charter changes is important.
It's required at the state level - and I think it should be at the local level, too. 

At the state level, as a Citizen Initiative is being prepared - and even before petitioners can seek signatures of support for inclusion on a ballot, "Petition forms include the full text of the legislation, a fiscal impact statement provided by the Legislature’s Office of Fiscal and Program Review (OFPR), summary of the legislation, date of issuance, instructions to signers, circulators and registrars, a section for the circulator’s name and a unique number for each petition that is assigned by the circulator, and sections for the Circulator’s Oath and Registrar’s Certification." (quote taken from the report linked, below.)
Notable: the State of Maine requires that citizens are informed of anticipated fiscal impacts before signatures are obtained.
(This is a useful resource to understand the state's process, and also analysis for some improvements...Maine’s Citizen Initiative and People’s Veto Process–Trends in Activity and Characteristics and Potential Opportunities for Improvement _June 2021)

Broadly - the fiscal impacts for the proposed changes to Portland's Code and Charter shake out like this:
"In total, we estimate the cost of all of the Charter Commission proposals to be an estimated $1,000,000 annually.  The cost of all of the citizen initiatives is estimated to be more than $5,500,000 annually.  The total estimated increase to the City budget required for both the Charter Commission proposals and the Citizen Initiatives would be in excess of $6,500.000.  The costs included in this total are based on current staffing levels, pay grades, and construction/material costs. The costs also include the loss of revenue."

The analysis is focused fully on the impacts to the City of Portland's annual operating budget - it does not contemplate impacts to Portland businesses or organizations.

I hope this information is helpful to you as you prepare to vote early - absentee - or in person on November 8th. 

Sincerely,
Kate Snyder

PS - As always, please feel free to forward or share this email.