FINANCIAL STATEMENT The Drainage Districts have operated since 1917 using one system or another for determining budget and making assessments. Currently, the system for adopting a budget is established under ORS 547 and ORS 554. The Districts are not compelled to comply with State Budget Law choosing, instead, to focus on developing a good budget and adopting it. Each district holds at least one budget workshop in the first half of the year, sometime from mid-April to mid-June. These are open to the public which may ask the Board questions and review the priorities for funding. The districts’ goals were adopted at Board meetings held earlier in the year. The budgets are adopted in late-May and June, and are based on standard fees for maintaining the levees, ditches and pump stations for which it is responsible. The variable is capital projects for the district. A five to ten year capital projects schedule has been, or is about to be, established for each district to act as a guide for the Boards in their deliberations. Once the budget is adopted, it is time to translate that into assessments for the landowners. Each district has adopted its own assessment for how its landowners are to pay for the annual work plan. Peninsula Drainage District #1 has the simplest form of assessment based on acreage. The budget is divided by the number of acres held by each owner. Multnomah County Drainage District #1 has the more complicated of the systems based on levee, ditch and pump station maintenance costs, and also using impervious area to determine the assessment. Those with the most impervious area pay more because of the impact on the system. Each line item of the approved budget is broken down into which amount of what it supports, which is then applied to the assessment formula. Budgets for the four districts for 2009-2010 (rounded off) are as follows: TOTAL BUDGET AMOUNT FROM ASSESSEMENTS
PEN 1 - $ 175,760 $ 172,260
PEN 2 - $ 584,565 $ 570,565
MCDD - $ 3,096,921 $ 2,533,290
SDIC - $ 254,276 $ 154,200
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