Mrs. Laquedem, given to good works, notes that the budget of the City of Portland for fiscal year 2006-07 ($2,933,560,038) is larger than the budget of UNICEF, which operates 126 offices worldwide. She also wants to know where that extra $38 is going.
Mrs. Laquedem also points out that the 2008 budget of Chicago, Illinois is twice the size of Portland's current budget, weighing in at a hefty $5.9 billion, but then, Chicago's population is five times the size of Portland's, suggesting that Chicago, known as "the city that works," manages despite its colorful city history to run its government at less than half the cost per resident of Portland's government. Chicago's city government costs its residents about $2000 each per year, and ours costs about $5000 per resident per year. Let's look around town for that extra $3000.