County Tax Report:
$53 million in Portland tax money
goes to Urban Renewal in 2002-03

$53.5 million to urban renewal in Portland - money that otherwise would have gone to general government including police and fire. Here's proof.: The 2002-03 annual TSCC report shows this total at the bottom of  page 40: "Actual Taxes Imposed" as $53,565,012 (we boxed this column for emphasis in the linked document) . This is money that goes to the urban renewal agency, instead of to government services. See bottom right of page 18 for a description of urban renewal area taxing.

The above statement is based on information from page 40 of the 2002-03 annual report prepared by The Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission, an independent, impartial panel of citizen volunteers established to monitor the financial  affairs of local governments. It was verified by email (see below)

Get the whole 265 page report from the county's TSCC web site.  

List of the Urban Renewal Districts and their diverted taxes Column 8 shows the amount diverted to the urban renewal district. (this is an XLS file from Multnomah county, converted to HTML by Quattro Pro)

Here is an excerpt from an email from the TSCC verifying the interpretation of the above figure:

1. Page 23 says: (under "Urban Renewal Taxes")

"For 2002-03, the total tax increment taxes increased to $39.1 million from $34.7 million while the total imposed special levy from existing plan areas increased to $14.4 million $13.1 million in 2001-02."
.  .  .  .

Can I add these two numbers together to get a total ($53.5 million) into urban renewal, that otherwise would have gone into general government? ANSWER: Yes this is the amount that went to urban renewal this year.


complete email with all headers:

X-Sendmail-Id: h1LM9iP5013487
Received: from no.name.available by [159.121.4.169]
via smtpd (for mail.ipns.com [208.187.227.1]) with ESMTP; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:09:44 -0800
Received: by bluejay.isdmig.co.multnomah.or.us with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
id <FF8R0LPH>; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:09:43 -0800
Received: from seagull.co.multnomah.or.us ([172.20.199.18]) by cardinal.co.multnomah.or.us with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2653.13)
id 16XJNAN9; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:09:25 -0800
Received: from isdexch-1.co.multnomah.or.us (unverified) by SEAGULL.co.multnomah.or.us
(Content Technologies SMTPRS 4.2.5) with ESMTP id <T608d206af5c0a8010e850@SEAGULL.co.multnomah.or.us> for <IMCEASMTP-jkarlock+40ipns+2Ecom@multhub.co.multnomah.or.us>;
Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:09:32 -0800
Received: by ISDEXCH-1 with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
id <FKDRW697>; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:09:28 -0800
Message-ID: <9D07D10FA5CAD21192620008C7B14D29013DB489@ISDEXCH-1>
From: BURGLEHAUS Linda I <linda.i.burglehaus@co.multnomah.or.us>
To: "'jim karlock'" <jkarlock@ipns.com>
Subject: RE: Need help understanding your report
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:09:27 -0800
Return-Receipt-To: BURGLEHAUS Linda I
<linda.i.burglehaus@co.multnomah.or.us>
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
Content-Type: text/plain
X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS-ng (Milter interface)
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=1.6 required=5.2
tests=EXCHANGE_SERVER,SPAM_PHRASE_00_01,US_DOLLARS_2,
US_DOLLARS_3,US_DOLLARS_4
version=2.42
X-Spam-Level: *
Status:

Jim I have inserted my answers below.

Linda Burglehaus

-----Original Message----- From: jim karlock [mailto:jkarlock@ipns.com] Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 4:34 AM To: TSCC Subject: Need help understanding your report

I have downloaded & printed your 2002-03 Annual report. Would you be kind enough to verify a few things for me:

1. Page 23 says: (under "Urban Renewal Taxes")

"For 2002-03, the total tax increment taxes increased to $39.1 million from $34.7 million while the total imposed special levy from existing plan areas increased to $14.4 million $13.1 million in 2001-02."

ANSWER: Great typo here "from" should be added before the $13.1!

Is this the amount of tax money that went into urban renewal, that otherwise would have gone to general government ? ANSWER: Yes basically, but you could make the argument that if urban renewal was not there then the value would not have grown and therefore these taxes dollars wouldn't be going to anyone.

Can I add these two numbers together to get a total ($53.5 million) into urban renewal, that otherwise would have gone into general government? ANSWER: Yes this is the amount that went to urban renewal this year.

2. Page 40 lists $53,565,012 as the 2002-03 "Actual Taxes Imposed". Is this the same money as in my question 1 above. ANSWER: Yes

3. Page 34 , under PORTLAND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION, lists "Urban Renewal - Special Levy 14,410,793". Is this money above and beyond the monies that I asked about in question 1 and 2? ANSWER: This is the $14.1 in question 1. When Measure 50 passed urban renewal agencies were given the ability to impose a whole dollar amount special levy over all property within the activating agency (in our case the City of Portland). For 2003-04 that levy when calculated turned out to be $.4151 per $1,000 of Assessed Value.

4. Page 34 , under PORTLAND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION, lists "Urban Renewal - Divide the Taxes (4) 39,058,858". How does this entry relate to the items in the above 3 questions? ANSWER: This is the $39.1 in question 1. This is the amount PDC got from taxes calculated on the growth in assessed value since the plan was activated.

5. Do I get the total taxes going to urban renewal (and not into general government) by adding the items 1-4 above? If not, how do I get them from this document? ANSWER: By adding the amounts in questions 3 and 4, the divide the taxes or increment taxes and the special levy amount.

Thank You Jim karlock