A perceived lack of leadership has animated most of the public debates in the city of Portland during the last few years.

That’s what drove the successful campaign to add an elected mayor to the council/manager form of government that had run the city for nearly a century.

This budget cycle, the lack of leadership is not just a perception, it’s a fact.

In November, the voters approved a charter change that will result in the direct election of a mayor, but not until late this year. Then, in February, longtime City Manager Joe Gray retired, and his permanent replacement won’t be hired before this summer, long after this budget has to be approved.

Without these two key architects, it’s hard to see how the city can expect anything other than a caretaker budget that keeps services in place and minimizes tax increases until the new system takes hold.

Interim City Manager Pat Finnigan has presented just such a budget blueprint. To avoid layoffs, it would increase spending, a departure from recent budgets that cut positions and costs. It also calls for a 2.2 percent tax increase.

The City Council’s finance committee will have an opportunity to tweak the budget and find savings that would minimize the tax increase, but it is too much to expect the kind of restructuring that would be required to really cut spending.

The search for a new manager and the election of a mayor provide an opportunity to discuss what kind of services Portland residents expect and how much they want to pay for them.

It’s just that the fruits of that debate won’t be realized until budgets of the future.