Portland City Administrator 'addict for public service'

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- As Portland transitions to a new form of government in January, perhaps no person is more important to that process than Michael Jordan.

Not that Michael Jordan.

Portland City Administrator Michael Jordan is charged with leading the transition, overseeing the bureaus and working with Mayor-elect Keith Wilson to develop a budget for the city.

Serving as Portland's Chief Administrative Officer since 2022, Jordan previously was Chief Operating Officer for the State of Oregon and Metro regional government. He's also been city administrator for the City of Canby and Clackamas County commissioner.

Jordan returned to Eye on Northwest Politics to discuss his decision to stay in the role of City Administrator through 2025.

"Why did I agree? Because I'm an addict. I've been an addict for 40 years and I love public service," he said. "I've obviously become pretty invested in this transition with the City of Portland and I really want to see it land well and get off to a great start. So that's why we're here."

The 12 Portland city councilors who will take office in January were sworn in on Thursday and their first meeting is January 2. They come from varied backgrounds, from experienced elected officials - such as Steve Novick and Loretta Smith - to newcomers. According to Jordan, they are already deep in the onboarding process, getting to know each other and gathering an understanding of their service areas. But it won't stop there.

"Those sessions will go on through January and February," Jordan said. "We have them scheduled for multiple work sessions on briefings, on certain topics, on certain parts of the organization. They've got sessions where they'll actually take tours and go to all of our different facilities. So their onboarding will continue in earnest through, I would say, probably the first quarter of 2025."

The new city councilors have also been briefed on most recent budget forecast, which shows the city facing a $27 million budget gap beginning July 1. This could also mean the new City Council will have to deal with cuts and/or layoffs, according to Jordan.

"We will start with vacant positions and then we'll be looking at limited duration positions, those that were scheduled to end on June 30 this fiscal year. And only after that will we go to regular, full time positions and start to look at those," he noted. "But it is going to be a very challenging - quite frankly - number of years, not just this year, because we have some structural challenges in the budget that are going to take time to work through."

Despite this forecast, Jordan maintains confidence that the transition to the new government will "be as smooth as it can be."

"I think from what I have learned from all the players, councilors, mayor-elect, staff, everybody is set up to make this a success for Portland and so everybody wants that to happen," he emphasized. "Will there be ambiguity in the new system? Will there be disagreement? Of course, that's, you know, that's politics, that's democracy. But I have great faith in this group of electeds and I have great faith in the staff."

Watch the full interview in the video above.