Portland Mayor Sam Adams on Wednesday ditched a controversial plan to tap water and sewer money to pay for community college scholarships.
Adams first proposed the strategy a year ago and hoped to implement it this week. But growing public skepticism over how water and sewer money is used, and uncertainty among Portland City Council members threatened to postpone approval of the program.
Instead, Adams opted to pay for the program exclusively from the city's discretionary general fund.
"It's important to me that we move this project forward," Adams said before the council unanimously approved the program. "I don't want the debate -- which I think is also important -- about funding sources to cloud or slow down our effort to get scholarships out to up to 200 applicants."
Adams first proposed the strategy a year ago and hoped to implement it this week. But growing public skepticism over how water and sewer money is used, and uncertainty among Portland City Council members threatened to postpone approval of the program.
Instead, Adams opted to pay for the program exclusively from the city's discretionary general fund.
"It's important to me that we move this project forward," Adams said before the council unanimously approved the program. "I don't want the debate -- which I think is also important -- about funding sources to cloud or slow down our effort to get scholarships out to up to 200 applicants."
See PRESS ROOM for full story
No comments:
Post a Comment