Three members of the Portland City Council are exploring a potential increase of a tax on large retailers that bankrolls the city’s lucrative clean energy program in order to plug an estimated $93 million budget gap in the city’s general fund.
Councilor Steve Novick told The Oregonian/OregonianLive on Thursday that he and Councilors Angelita Morillo and Jamie Dunphy want to raise the current 1% surcharge to 1.33% and divert the surplus revenue to core city services.
So Seattle tried this. It didn’t work. Unsurprisingly, major retailers (like Amazon) simply left Seattle rather than pay the tax.
By doing so, Novick said, Portland leaders could stave off potentially devastating cuts to parks, public safety and homeless services — all of which are primarily or entirely supported through the city’s general fund.
So the plan is to use the city’s clean energy program tax to fund things that have nothing to do with why the tax was approved in the first place.
The proposed increase would generate an estimated $66 million a year in new revenue, Novick said. Portland’s climate tax, first approved by voters in 2018 and imposed on big retailers like Walmart and Target, already raises more than $200 million annually.
Guess who will be leaving the City?
Money from the fund is intended to finance projects that aim to reduce carbon emissions, create jobs, promote workforce training in the clean energy sector and help vulnerable residents who face some of the most severe impacts from climate change.
An Oregonian/OregonLive review found that, despite surging revenues, the fund remains unlikely to meaningfully cut the city’s carbon pollution or help it reach net-zero by 2050.
And the coup de grâce: The fund doesn’t work in the first place.
Yet another exhibit of progressive Portland governmental dysfunction.