Should city pay employees for volunteer work?

PORTLAND, Ore. - A 20-year vision for Portland's future was laid out on Wednesday and one of the goals outlined in the plan may prove to be controversial.

The plan, dubbed visionPDX, was one of Mayor Tom Potter's big campaign goals. The idea was to get feedback from the community and come up with a vision for the city's future.

One of the goals is to give city employees four hours of paid leave every month for community service, essentially using your tax dollars to pay for them to do volunteer work.

Do the math and you can see how that would quickly add up - 6,000 employees at four hours a month for each of them equals a lot of money each year.

But for some, the cost is not so much the problem as is the idea of it all - paying city employees to volunteer when so many others do it for free.

When KATU News asked the mayor if he thought it was a good idea, he said yes.

"We want employees to accomplish the goals of the citizens," he said. "This is one of those goals. They're going to be doing the work of the city."

Others disagree, however.

"It's just one more brick in the wall between efficient government services and the rest of us," said Steve Buckstein with Portland's Cascade Policy Institute.

Buckstein said paying city employees to volunteer will not make getting city services any faster, either.

"Wherever there's a line, wherever people are complaining 'gee, I had to wait three weeks to get my permit,' now they'll have to wait three and a half weeks because people are off volunteering," he said.

And what about volunteering for a non-profit church organization at taxpayer expense?

Eric Brown, an unpaid volunteer, said the whole idea of paying city employees to do what he does just because he cares just does not seem right.

"Well, you'd like to think that anybody who would approach volunteering for any cause, that would speak to them directly, would do so because they want to do it," he said. "The sort of thing that separates a job from volunteering is the paycheck."

If you think the vision would leave City Hall with Mayor Potter, not necessarily.

The city has hired a staff person to push the plan forward, even after the mayor leaves office. In theory, that staffer would get paid to volunteer too.