Portland school board considers whether to pay themselves monthly stipend

The Portland Public Schools board could become the first in the state to give themselves a roughly $500 monthly stipend, allowed under a 2023 law that lifted a statewide ban on compensation for school board members.

In Oregon, school board members are unpaid volunteers. In a larger, metro-area district like Portland, the job typically requires anywhere between 10 to 30 hours per week of work, depending on the time of year, the volume of school visits, community events and constituent emails and the breadth of a member’s responsibility.

Board members will weigh approval of the stipends at a public work session Tuesday. Indexed for inflation, the stipends would start at $527 a month. If all seven members accept them, the stipends would cost about $33,000 a year, or .003% of the distric