Updated at 10:30 a.m.

Portland leaders failed to fully deliver on promises they made to voters as they implemented arts, cannabis, affordable housing, and street repair programs funded by voter-approved taxes and bond measures, according to a city auditor’s report released early Tuesday.

The audit focused on measures and taxes passed in 2016: the 3% tax on recreational marijuana, the $258.4 million affordable housing bond, and the 10-cents-a-gallon tax to raise money to repair roads over the next four years. The audit also analyzed the 7-year-old Portland art tax for schools and nonprofit programs that assesses a $35 charge per resident annually.

City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero’s report detailed a number of shortcomings. The city has used vague language when laying out commitments to voters, doesn’t consistently determine how realistic it is to keep promises made, lacks consistent monitoring to make sure commitments are delivered on and has diverged from some voter promises due to bureau leadership changes and the city’s commission form of government.

“Following through on commitments is key to retaining voter trust," Hull Caballero wrote in a release detailing the report. "If the City continues to ask voters to fund city services through new taxes, it needs to deliver fully on its promises or voters may not oblige.”

The report recommends city officials determine the costs to implement accountability measures to confirm they’re practical and keep track of the meaning and intent behind them, make sure promises to voters are specific, achievable and possibly have a deadline in mind by the time they are discussed in ballot measure titles and explanatory statements, and establish who is responsible for monitoring commitments to accountability.

In a joint statement, city council members thanked the auditor’s office for the report, saying the recommendations were "thoughtful and well‐reasoned,” and would help them make sure future accountability measures are more clearly defined.

“We are pleased to see that recent city‐referred measures are generally delivering on commitments about how new tax and bond revenue will be used,” city leaders continued in a letter to Hull Caballero. “And we appreciate that commitments about accountability, cost, and deliverables should be clear and realistic. Both the Council and voters should understand what they are being asked to consider so that they can make informed, appropriate decisions.”

The report said the city generally delivered on promises made to voters about how revenue from the arts, gas, and cannabis taxes and the housing bond would be used, but voters’ expectations based on how the ballot titles and explanatory statements read may have not been met.

City leaders, for example, promised to use cannabis tax revenues to pay for drug and alcohol education and treatment, public safety, and to support for neighborhood small businesses. In reality, nearly 80% of the tax revenue was spent on public safety in each of the first two years, the audit found. None of the funds went to drug and alcohol treatment during one year.

The cannabis tax revenue allocations were about $3.6 million in the 2018 fiscal year and $4.6 million in 2019.

On the oversight front, the city established volunteer committees related to the arts tax, gas tax and housing bond. But the Bureau of Transportation consistently didn’t give the gas tax oversight committee up-to-date and accurate information and the arts tax committee received limited support from city staff, the audit said.

The report also found that while the city committed to providing annual public reports related to all four measures, reports on the housing bond and gas tax were late and one for the cannabis tax was never produced.

-- Everton Bailey Jr; ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 | @EvertonBailey

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