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EPNO, EPAP face cuts LEE PERLMAN THE MID-COUNTY MEMO Is east Portland better or worse after three and a half years of East Portland Action Plan actions? In anticipation of a substantial revenue shortfall, Mayor Charlie Hales' budget edict - that each City bureau submit a draft 2013-14 budget that is 10 percent below the current year's - means many beloved City programs are in financial jeopardy. The East Portland Neighborhood Office is no exception. The Neighborhood Small Grant program, which allows EPNO and the other six district neighborhood offices to fund special projects, is on the chopping block. So, in theory at least, are the activities of EPAP, including coordinator Lore Wintergreen's position. The annual cost for her job is $111,000 ($75,700 in salary, the rest in benefits and employer costs). The budget includes personnel cuts equal to one full-time position, but EPNO Executive Director Richard Bixby says no one will be let go; the staff of four, already working part-time, will share fewer hours and less pay. At press time, Hales' budget includes funding EPAP for $280,000 one more year, and then that's it. The budget of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, EPNO's main funder, calls for slashing the funds for neighborhood communications, a staple item since the bureau was created in 1974. In EPNO's case, most of this is spent on the group's own newspaper, the East Portland Neighborhood Association News. Carry-over from the current fiscal year (2012-13), allows EPNO to publish four editions of their newspaper as they have before, but unless there is a funding increase next fiscal year (2013-14), there are funds for only a single edition in fiscal year 2014-15. |
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