The City purchases, restores, builds and repairs assets and infrastructure (e.g. buildings, wetlands, trees, parks, water pipes, fire hydrants, roads) to provide community services. Best practices designed to achieve the most benefit from these assets at the lowest risk and cost to the public is a goal of asset management. Asset management is a professional discipline, like accounting or engineering, that many city employees work at every day.

The City measures the cost to replace assets to calculate how much we should be investing in our assets each year. The City forecasts how much should be invested in systems over 5 to 20 years. Best practice is to invest 1% to 3% of total replacement value each year to keep assets in good condition.

Calculating the gap between how much the City has available and funding needed to achieve best practice helps City leaders decide how to fund this investment, like borrowing money or using cash on hand. Every city faces the same challenge of working within a limited budget and balancing other city needs with asset management.

In 2023, the approximate additional annual funding needed to maintain assets and infrastructure in fair or better condition is approximately $1.5 billion or approximately 2% of the total replacement value of city assets. The city currently (2024-2025) invests approximately $1 billion (or about 1% of the total replacement value of city assets) each year repairing and replacing assets and infrastructure. This gap is driven by rising construction costs, the age of existing assets and limited funding.

To better address this funding gap, city staff and leaders invest in new technologies, preventative maintenance to help assets last longer at lower costs and balance borrowing and cash on hand to pay for projects. A portion of every dollar collected through gas tax, property tax, water and sewer usage fees and other fees goes towards funding asset replacement projects respectively.

To help close this funding gap, City leaders also review other funding sources like grants, special tax districts and the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) initiative passed by 65% of Portland voters in November 2018. PCEF provides a consistent, long-term funding source to ensure our community's climate action efforts are implemented to support social, economic and environmental benefits for all Portlanders, particularly communities of color and people with low incomes. PCEF invests in projects that meet the following priorities: clean and efficient energy, decarbonization, climate change resiliency and green infrastructure (like natural areas dedicated for river overflows to protect homes and provide wildlife sanctuary). City staff and leaders consistently seek for opportunities to fund more asset management programs for community benefit.

The annual Citywide Asset Report explains the ways each bureau measures the funding gap of the assets they manage.

The best resource to find more information about the condition and funding of all city assets is the annual Citywide Asset Report. These reports also describe the coordinated efforts across all departments to improve how we manage our assets to achieve the most benefit for the lowest total cost.