WashCo planners are funded by development fees (insert your joke here.)

Metro planners (and staff) are largely funded by waste disposal and property tax revenue (insert your joke here, too.)

City of Portland planner funding is a bit more involved, but it's similar to funding for City agencies as a whole--if I understand correctly.

Planners in the COP that review development proposals are paid mostly by development fees. It is my understanding that the Building Bureau has been cutting back on all jobs thought attrition as development has slowed.

Planners who do long term planning are paid for through the General Fund. Whether any of these jobs are eliminated in the coming merger of the Planning and Sustainable Development Bureaus should come out in the coming budget process.

Eco....your phrase, "as a whole" aptly says it all.

Touche`!

Supposedly COP will be eliminating 50 jobs (out of 300) from BDS - Not sure if the folks are classified as planners or not.

"COP will be eliminating 50 jobs (out of 300)"

Considering the work load is 1/3 what it was 2 years ago, it's a start.

My guess is they'll be re-assigned. Myabe they'll have TorridJoe jobs where they can blog all day about great Randy and Sam are.

Too bad they aren't eliminating about half of those jobs tomorrow. It would be interesting to see how many of them would find out what their "comparable worth" really is in the private sector.

It'd be really nice to see if someone would go into BDS and actually make it efficient. Having dealt with them it is getting slower and slower because:
- So many new unnecessary rules and changes you have multiple layers of people needing to buy off on plans
- When things were busy they didn't have enough people so it takes longer
- When things are slow now you have people stretching out the available work to make themselves look busy.

You do not dare complain, because then it will take twice as long to get approved if you make any trouble. Welcome to Randy-land.

Having spent 27 years there before retiring .....

- So many new unnecessary rules and changes you have multiple layers of people needing to buy off on plans

Welcome to the world "sustainable Portland". (PS BDS doesn't make any of the rules it's just charged with enforcing them. Or not depending on whose ox is being gored.)

- When things were busy they didn't have enough people so it takes longer

You can make much more money (so long as you have a job) in the private sector so it's hard to hire remotely qualified individuals when the economy is going good.

- When things are slow now you have people stretching out the available work to make themselves look busy.

Why would anyone want to make themselves redundant in this economic environment? Not the "PC" answer I know but a realistic one.

Lastly, no one and I mean no one in government is interested in efficiency. After all if you get yourself in trouble it's not for going to slow but going to fast and then finding your decision being second guessed by some "neighborhood" group screaming about behind closed door deals. Think about it.

given that most jobs at BDS and BES are what we call in the private sector "admin" jobs--that is, shuffling papers, processing forms, writing memos--they're not the kind of jobs you easily find in the private sector. they're *government* jobs, of the bureauratic kind mostly found there.

in other words, being a "grants coordinator" like Lisa Libby was will get you a mediocre nonprofit job, at best.

who doesn't know that most of these government jobs don't exist in the real world?

First, BDS job cuts may be closer to 50 PLUS 25-30 unfilled positions.

And, as a BES employee I take offense to ADP's comment - I bet the 100+ employees that process your sewage would take umbrage that their positions are administrative in nature - nor the electricians/mechanics who keep nearly 100 pump stations running. Engineering staff, who design, supervise and see to it that sewer infrastructure gets built, and done so correctly so hillsides don't slide out when pipes are underneath. (And who could make considerably more money in the private sector.) How about those who are working on watershed enhancement so fish might actually survive the Willamette - and restoring wetlands (such as Johnson Creek) which don't actually flood near as much as 20 years ago.

BTW, I'm not a PR person for BES, either.