A grassroots effort for Portland families
Repeal Portland
Preschool For All
End Portland's war on middle class families
The numbers don't add up
Preschool For All was sold as a tax on the wealthy to help families. Here's what it's actually doing — straight from the county's own figures.
Up to 3.8%
Automatic increase for PFA taxes, on top of state & SHS taxes.
Double-pay
With long waitlists and limited seats, families often end up both paying for preschool out of pocket and footing the steep tax.
$125K
The single-filer income threshold — never indexed to inflation, pulling in more middle-class workers every year.
Up to $2B
What the program's reserve fund could grow to over the next two decades if nothing changes, county economists project.
Preschool for some, a tax on us all
Every family deserves affordable, high-quality childcare. We share that goal. But Multnomah County's Preschool For All program — and the tax that funds it — is the wrong way to reach it.
It's a tax on working families, not the wealthy. The income thresholds were never indexed to inflation, so ordinary raises push more middle-class workers into the tax every year. Dual-income parents and long-time homeowners get caught first. A tax that quietly widens its own net each year isn't the narrow tax on the rich it was sold as.
Families pay twice. Because the program serves only a fraction of eligible kids, thousands of families pay the tax and still lose the enrollment lottery — owing the county and paying out of pocket for preschool. Even families who win a seat keep paying the tax, and at six hours a day it isn't full-time care. Commuters fund it through payroll and can't enroll their children at all.
It's hoarding money it can't spend. PFA has collected hundreds of millions beyond what it budgeted — a reserve county economists say could approach $2 billion. That money is walled off from the general fund, so it sits unspent while Portland's schools face closures and transit, parks, and libraries go without.
And the tax base is leaving. Multnomah County now has roughly the second-highest top income tax rate in the country. Independent researchers, Governor Kotek, and her own tax advisory group have all warned that the burden is driving people and revenue out of the county — even as some local officials dismiss it as a myth.
Portland can do better: repeal this tax, account for the money already collected, and build a childcare solution that doesn't drive away the very people who make our city work.
The warnings are piling up
I am troubled by the overall decline in the total number of taxpayers filing for the PFA tax, a drop of more than 1,700 total filers since 2021.
I ask for your consideration of approaches that ease the current tax burden even if doing so may slow the timeline toward achieving universal preschool in Multnomah County by 2030.
If the erosion of Portland's taxable capacity continues, it will constrain the resources needed to serve those who rely most on public systems.
Add your voice
Repeal happens when enough Portlanders speak up. It takes five minutes to email your elected officials — and we'll show you exactly what to say.