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Mayor Ted Wheeler takes the oath during his ceremonial inauguration at Jason Lee Elementary in Northeast Portland on Jan. 4. As of today, he is in charge of all 27 of the city's bureaus.

(Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian)

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler took over all 27 of the city's bureaus Thursday and will run them until the city budget is approved. He took the action via an executive order that took effect immediately.

Wheeler will announce his budget proposal Monday, after which the City Council will hold public budget hearings and work sessions to determine where the city's dollars ultimately go. A budget committee will approve the budget May 17, but the City Council won't adopt the budget until June 8, after a tax hearing and utility rate reviews.

Former Mayor Charlie Hales took over all of the city's bureaus for at least four months during his first year, and later reassigned them to many commissioners' displeasure. Hales' office struggled to manage all the bureaus, said Commissioner Nick Fish. His staff lacked the capacity.

Wheeler's approach is different. He asked that commissioners continue to work with the bureaus he assigned them in January, according to an email obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The mayor's director of bureau relations, Kyle Chisek, emailed commissioners and their chiefs of staff on Thursday asking them to work with the bureaus "in conjunction with our office." The mayor will assign one contact in his office to each of the bureaus with whom commissioners' offices can coordinate, Chisek wrote.

Overseeing citywide bureau management for three weeks makes more sense, Fish said.

The announcement comes as no surprise. Wheeler said before his term that the bureau assignments he would assign Portland's four commissioners and himself were only temporary.

The ability to assign bureaus at will is one of the few powers granted exclusively to the mayor under Portland's commission form of government.

"Given our unique structure of government, the budget process can become siloed," mayoral spokesman Michael Cox said. "The mayor would like the City Council to approach the budget with an enterprise-wide mindset, focused on prioritizing limited dollars to fund core city services like infrastructure, public safety, housing and homelessness."

Assignments can sometimes be seen as political statements and lead to tension with commissioners who are responsible for overseeing whichever office the mayor assigns.

Commissioner Amanda Fritz in January said she was "quite miffed" to lose management of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, which rookie Commissioner Chloe Eudaly was assigned to oversee. Eudaly ousted the bureau's former director Amalia Alarcon de Morris about two months after receiving the bureau.

Wheeler retained control of most city bureaus, including the police department, when he gave each of his fellow commissioners two bureaus to run.

City officials say Fritz is still unhappy about losing the neighborhood office because she launched her political career by working in neighborhood associations. They say she is still angling to get the bureau back.

Fritz's chief of staff Tim Crail denied that Fritz is trying to get the neighborhood office back. The commissioner and her staff have had no conversations about getting the office back since the mayor assigned the bureaus, Crail said.

"Amanda accepted the mayor's decision and accepted that that would be the way things are for at least the next two years," Crail said.

The mayor will reassign the bureaus to commissioners once the approved budget is passed.

"We fully expect the mayor will reassign ONI to commissioner Eudaly when he reassigns the bureaus," Crail said.

Wheeler and Cox have given no indication whether or not they will return the bureaus to the commissioners who had them between January 3 and now.

"I want to see progress and clear progress in terms of accomplishing the goals that I've laid out for my administration, and the goals that they have laid out for themselves," Wheeler told The Oregonian/OregonLive in December.

Proposing the city's budget is also among the few unique responsibilities granted to the mayor.

This story was updated to include comments from Tim Crail, chief of staff to Commissioner Amanda Fritz.

--Jessica Floum

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