The ordinance sets rates and charges for retail and wholesale customers of the Portland Water Bureau for FY 2025-26.
Official proposal and impact statementOrdinance2025-132
Should Portland adopt rates and charges for water and water-related services for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026?
The ordinance sets rates and charges for retail and wholesale customers of the Portland Water Bureau for FY 2025-26.
Official impact statementSee the official legal title
Adopt rates and charges for water and water-related services for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026
Next appearanceFinal action is posted; watch for implementation updates.
Follow this matterWhat this proposal would actually do.
Plain-language orientation first. Every substantive statement below links to its official basis.
The reviewed sources do not clearly identify every existing policy, service, contract, or obligation that would remain unchanged.
Official matter recordThis proposal concerns transportation & public works and requires action through Portland’s public legislative process.
Official matter classification and recordThis ordinance will increase charges to all customers. The water utility rates and charges are designed to generate revenue to cover the cost of providing water. The costs are determined by the budget, which was reviewed by the Portland Utility Board (PUB), an eleven-member citizen body created to strengthen oversight functions for the City’s water, sewer and stormwater services. PUB provided input for the FY 2025-26 budget and rate proposal. Their recommendations were considered in creation of the FY 2025-26 Requested Budget. Additionally, all relevant documents were provided to the public on the Water Bureau website and information was shared through social media platforms
Official community impact statementWhat the record establishes and what it does not.
Votes show choices. They do not, by themselves, prove why a member made that choice.
Final Council action
Passed · 11–1
Read the exact motion or vote question
Final action on 2025-132: Adopt rates and charges for water and water-related services for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026
Rationale review not yet published
We will not turn the roll call into invented arguments.
The vote above establishes who supported or opposed that exact motion. A source-validated account of the competing reasons will appear only after human review of the meeting transcript and documents.
Retail rates are expected to generate approximately $262.7 million in water sales revenue in FY 2025-26. Retail customers are also expected to pay $2.5 million in customer late charges. FY 2025-26 wholesale revenues will be $27.7 million. The proposed overall average effective retail rate increase is 6.3 percent in FY 2025-26. With a retail rate increase of 6.3 percent, the retail commodity rate will increase from $7.559 to $8.141, and the base charge will increase from $68.59 to $73.87 per bill (the billed base charge varies depending on the number of days in the billing period). The “typical” residential water customer using 5 hundred cubic feet (ccf) per month will now pay $65.33, up 6.3 percent from the FY 2024-25 “typical” bill of $60.66. The “medium” commercial customer using 100 ccf per month will see a water bill increase from $824.49 to $887.97; an increase of $63.48 or 6.3 percent.All revenue and expenses are included in the FY 2025-26 Water Bureau Requested Budget.
Official financial impact statement- The source-linked record has not yet received a human review of competing arguments. A yes or no vote alone does not establish a Councilor’s rationale.
- What implementation evidence will show whether the intended result occurred?
Can residents still participate?
Official testimony on this decision has closed. Residents can still contact their district Councilors about implementation and follow-up.
Official Council agendaInspect the complete research record.
Official text, source files, exact motions, roll calls, provenance, and the technical completeness check remain available without crowding the explanation above.
Official documents1 sources
Final legal actionOrdinance 192056
The operative official record after Council action.
Open at Portland.govRead the full official text
The City of Portland ordains.Section 1. The Council finds:Pursuant to Section 11-105 of the City Charter, the Council has determined revenues are needed to cover Portland Water Bureau costs.The Portland Water Bureau has recommended rates and charges sufficient to meet the Bureau’s revenue requirements for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025.This ordinance has been approved by the Office of the City Attorney.NOW, THEREFORE, the Council directs:That the rates and charges in Exhibit A for use of water and water-related services during the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026, are hereby adopted.That this ordinance is binding City policy, as that term is defined in Code Section 1.07.020.That all water rate ordinances now in effect conflicting in any manner with the provisions of this ordinance are hereby repealed on and after July 1, 2025.
Meetings, motions, amendments, and votes4 meetings · 3 votes
Passed as amendedAgenda item 10
Passed to second readingAgenda item 25
ContinuedAgenda item 15
Referred to City Council as amendedAgenda item 2
Recorded amendments
Motion to amend Exhibit A such that it restores a rate schedule that would have been consistent prior to the Mayor's guidance to adjust downward the rate increases by 5%: Moved by Green and seconded by Novick. (Aye (5): Pirtle-Guiney, Novick, Green, Avalos, Zimmerman)
Read all 2 exact motions
Motion to amend Exhibit A such that it restores a rate schedule that would have been consistent prior to the Mayor's guidance to adjust downward the rate increases by 5%: Moved by Green and seconded by Novick. (Aye (5): Pirtle-Guiney, Novick, Green, Avalos, Zimmerman)
Motion to send the Ordinance to the full Council for consideration with the recommendation to pass it: Moved by PIrtle-Guiney and seconded by Green. (Aye (5): Pirtle-Guiney, Novick, Green, Avalos, Zimmerman)
Final Council action · May 21, 202511 yes · 1 no
Final action on 2025-132: Adopt rates and charges for water and water-related services for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025, and ending June 30, 2026
Meeting-level motion or recommendation · Apr 7, 20255 yes
Motion to amend Exhibit A such that it restores a rate schedule that would have been consistent prior to the Mayor's guidance to adjust downward the rate increases by 5%: Moved by Green and seconded by Novick. (Aye (5): Pirtle-Guiney, Novick, Green, Avalos, Zimmerman)
Meeting-level motion or recommendation · Apr 7, 20255 yes
Motion to send the Ordinance to the full Council for consideration with the recommendation to pass it: Moved by PIrtle-Guiney and seconded by Green. (Aye (5): Pirtle-Guiney, Novick, Green, Avalos, Zimmerman)
Data quality, timeline, and provenanceRules v2
Why technical findings are hidden above
Unreviewed keyword matches and machine-extracted fragments are not presented as authoritative findings. Only 0 human-reviewed findings are available for this matter.
Technical information-completeness check · Ready With Caveats
This checks whether decision-relevant categories appear in the published packet. It does not recommend approval or opposition.
Decision definition
CompleteThe official title and operative text identify the requested action.
Official legal text
CompleteOfficial text was found. This check does not certify that every referenced exhibit is complete.
Financial impact
CompleteThe official impact statement includes financial information.
Funding source
CompleteThe impact statement identifies funding information without an explicit unresolved-source qualifier.
Supporting documents
UnknownNo linked attachments were found on the official page.
Referenced exhibit integrity
UnknownThe text references exhibits. This guide has not yet automatically verified that each referenced exhibit is present, populated, and internally consistent.
Counterparty acceptance
Not ApplicableThe reviewed action is not expressly identified as a non-binding agreement.
Implementation
CompleteA direction, reporting requirement, or deadline appears in the official text.
Document stability
UnknownStability requires at least two observed snapshots; the system will update this after another ingestion.
- First discovered
- Aug 13, 2026, 1:14 PM PDT
- Last checked
- Sep 14, 2026, 2:23 AM PDT
- Evidence hash
- 295ade53a21cd4b7
- Guide status
- Deterministic baseline
- SOURCE UPDATED
Passed as amended by council
- DOCUMENT PUBLISHED
Observed in the official source.
- Council Action
Passed as amended
- Council Action
Passed to second reading
- Council Action
Continued
- Council Action
Referred to City Council as amended