Finding Hidden Funds Gets You Fired. Hiding Them Gets You a Promotion.
Jonas Biery is Portland’s Chief Financial Officer. In his own words, written in comments on a draft press release, he and Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira “provided direction to hold off on informing council” about $21 million in unspent housing funds — while City Council was cutting its way through a $16 million budget gap and people were being evicted across the city.
That is not negligence. That is a documented, deliberate decision, made by the man responsible for managing Portland’s public finances, to hide money that belonged to tenants from the people elected to spend it.
The woman who found the money and tried to surface it got fired. Biery kept his job. And the councilors who found out one hour before they voted on the cuts chose to go ahead with the vote anyway. People lost their housing because of these choices. Councilor Sameer Kanal said it plainly at the oversight hearing five months later: “There’s a number of people that have probably been evicted in the last six-ish months that wouldn’t have been otherwise.”
This is a story about a CFO who should never have been appointed, a whistleblower who was punished for doing her job, and a council that chose the easy path over the right one when it mattered. All three parts matter.
The Timeline
In July 2025, Portland Housing Bureau Director Helmi Hisserich initiated an internal audit of the bureau’s rental registration fee account — fees paid by landlords that by law were supposed to fund tenant protection services. She found a significant balance sitting untouched since 2021. By August 26, she had identified roughly $12 million and sent Oliveira a memo recommending the funds go to council in the fall budget adjustment. Her email was explicit: “We believe Portland Housing Bureau can jumpstart critical initiatives over the next 2-3 years with the funding. This expenditure plan will need to be approved by councilors in the fall.”
Oliveira’s response, according to Hisserich’s account: the funds were “a big PR problem” and nobody would really care why they were unspent. He told her not to disclose the findings.
By early September, Oliveira had briefed Mayor Keith Wilson, former City Administrator Michael Jordan, and CFO Jonas Biery on the $12 million. None of them told City Council, which was simultaneously trying to close a $16 million budget gap through cuts, layoffs, and service reductions.
Between October 5 and 9, the City Budget Office recommended in writing that the funds be included in the fall Technical Adjustment Ordinance — the budget vote coming in November. Biery and Oliveira responded with written direction to hold off. “Donnie and I provided direction to hold off on informing council given the continued uncertainty,” Biery wrote in comments on a draft press release. That comment was later obtained by council through a public records request.
On October 30, Mayor Wilson and Oliveira placed Hisserich on administrative leave without cause. She was told to hand over her computer, her badge, and her phone, and to leave through the back door without speaking to anyone. The same period, City Council was debating budget cuts.
On November 13, administrators learned that OPB had filed a public records request that would expose Hisserich’s August memo documenting the unspent funds. The next day, November 14, Oliveira notified Wilson’s office. Not the council. The mayor’s office — six days before the vote.
On November 17, Oliveira learned the total had grown to $21 million.
On November 20, one hour before City Council voted on the budget adjustment to close the $16 million gap, Wilson made the call to inform councilors. Not because the numbers were ready. Not because transparency demanded it. Because OPB’s records request was going to expose it anyway.
Council had more than enough money to cover the entire shortfall sitting in a Housing Bureau account. They were told this one hour before the vote. They passed the cuts and went home.
What Happened to the Person Who Found It
Helmi Hisserich found the money. She documented it. She sent the memo. She pushed to have it disclosed. She was told it was a PR problem and to stay quiet. Then she was walked out the back door.
In a December letter to councilors, Hisserich wrote that the administration used her discovery as a smoke screen to remove her, and that the real motivation was her council-approved work on a social housing study that Wilson wanted killed. She said she had been systematically excluded from housing-related meetings among top city officials since Wilson took office.
The city administrator said the two issues — the hidden funds and her firing — were “not necessarily related.”
Hisserich resigned November 20. The same day council passed the cuts.
The person who tried to get the money to the people who needed it lost her job. The people who buried it kept theirs. If you want to understand what accountability looks like in Portland city government right now, that is it.
The Conflict That Should Have Disqualified Biery Before Any of This
Jonas Biery’s official city bio says he “guides the city’s work to manage money transparently, responsibly and sustainably.”
Before being appointed to his current role by Mayor Ted Wheeler in May 2024, Biery spent four years as Vice President of Public Finance at D.A. Davidson & Co., a firm that structures public financing deals between governments and private development interests. He has over 200 financing transactions on his resume as issuer, banker, or advisor. He currently sits on the board of Oregon’s Infrastructure Finance Authority.
This is someone who built his private sector career helping private interests access public money. Placing that person in charge of Portland’s public housing budget, with no independent oversight structure, was a foreseeable problem before a single dollar went missing.
What makes it worse: while Biery and Oliveira were giving direction to hold off on telling council about $21 million in housing funds, those same two men were holding weekly secret meetings — code name “Project Mt. Hood” — to negotiate a $400 million public financing package for the Trail Blazers arena. The meetings included Biery, Oliveira, and Mayor Wilson’s chief of staff Aisling Coghlan. They had been running since at least early November — the same weeks the housing funds were being buried.
The same person who documented his decision to hide tenant protection money from elected representatives was simultaneously in weekly closed-door meetings engineering the largest public subsidy for a private sports team in Oregon history.
That is not a coincidence. That is a set of priorities.
What Council Chose
When councilors received that one-hour notice on November 20, they had a genuine choice. Stop the vote. Demand a full accounting. Refuse to pass cuts while an unknown amount of housing money sat unallocated. They didn’t take it.
Then it happened again. In February, after the total had ballooned to $106 million, an eight-member majority led by Council President Jamie Dunphy voted to table action on spending the funds indefinitely — postponing it without a set date while people continued to lose housing.
Then it happened a third time. At the April 23 oversight hearing, councilors heard Biery’s own words read back to them — “Donnie and I provided direction to hold off on informing council” — and let it go. Council President Dunphy called it a case study, not a shame study. Councilor Dan Ryan said the focus should be on best practices going forward. Councilor Eric Zimmerman praised the professional instincts of the interim director brought in after the person who actually found the money was fired.
Not one councilor called for Biery’s resignation. Not one demanded Oliveira’s.
The easy path and the right path were not the same. Council chose the easy one three times. People were evicted while they did it.
What Needs to Happen
Biery needs to resign or be removed. His own written words confirm he made the decision to hide housing funds from elected representatives during a budget crisis. His background in private development finance created a visible conflict of interest before he was ever appointed. And he has been running secret arena negotiations while telling the public there was no money for housing. There is no version of “transparent, responsible, and sustainable” financial management that covers what the record shows he did.
Mayor Wilson, who made the call on when to tell council and who signed off on firing the person who found the money, owes a direct public accounting of his role in this.
The councilors who covered for this administration — who voted to table, who called this a learning experience, who let Biery walk out of that hearing with his job — have elections coming. Every one of them should be asked publicly and by name why they chose to protect the people who caused this instead of the people who suffered from it.
Make those questions loud. Post them. Film them. Show up to the budget hearings happening right now — the FY 2026-27 budget is being finalized this week — and ask them on the record. Tag their accounts. When they say they take housing seriously, point to November 20 and ask them to explain the vote. When they say they believe in transparency, ask them why Jonas Biery still has his job.
The whistleblower is gone. The money is only partially allocated. The CFO is still in the building. The new budget is being voted on now.
Nothing has been made right. Make that politically costly.
Sources: Portland Mercury — Oversight hearing · KATU — Oversight hearing, Biery “hold off” quote · Willamette Week — Hisserich letter to council · Portland Mercury — Hisserich account, “big PR problem” · OPB — Housing funds reach $106 million · KGW — Council punts on housing funds · OPB — Council approves $56 million plan · eClips / OPB — Project Mt. Hood confirmed · Portland.gov — Jonas Biery appointment · Portland.gov — Biery biography · Councilor Green oversight resolution
If we got something wrong, missed something, or would like to add supporting context, reach us at signalfirespdx@protonmail.com
