BEND, OR -- Bend’s City Council is prepared to approve its next budget Wednesday night. The $1.3 billion budget is much larger than the last two-year cycle. "We’ve met already through a Budget Committee and made some changes to the budget," City Manager Eric King tells KBND News, "Including some general fund allocations towards affordable housing, as well as helping to decrease some of the pressure on our permit fees, particularly planning fees."

However, the budget does not include money to operate homeless shelters opened in the last two years, "The total operations of and acquisitions and renovations of shelters, about 3% of those funds have come from the general fund. So [we’ve] really tried to avoid that as much as possible and we’re going to continue to do that into the future." King adds, "The budget really does reflect the assumption that there are state and federal revenues that will continue to help provide assistance in operating the shelters. We have increased some subsidy to our affordable housing, but we’re really avoiding the general fund contributing to a core service that’s just not part of a city function." He says Bend is not alone, "This is the plight that many cities are in."

King says such a large increase over the $919 million 2021-23 budget wasn't easy, "So, the committee kind of wrestled with the budget and now it’s in front of Council for formal adoption, along with our goals. We have goals that really help inform the budget; all that gets packaged and voted on."

The 2023-25 budget cycle begins July first.