City Staff Publishes Proposed Budget Balancing Plan

The City Council will hold a special meeting to address its budget this coming Tuesday, February 16 at 5:00 p.m. Today the city finally announced the meeting and posted both the agenda and staff’s related report.  You can read here how staff proposes to close the FY 2009-2010 general purpose fund budget gap, which has now grown from $10.4 million to a projected $15.3 million (with only $51.5 million from which reductions can be made).  The solutions, in a nutshell:  use $1.9 million in one-time funds, eliminate 20 positions, bring in another $500,000 in revenue, do some bookeeping maneuvers, and sell $12.3 million worth of property, most of it to the Oakland Redevelopment Agency (i.e., the city sells the property to itself).

And what are staff’s  initial thoughts for the 2010-11 deficit, now grown to $32.7 million?  Sell Kaiser Auditorium and another $2 million in property, and bring in $12.6 million from some a parcel tax or other new levy.  Of course, to do any good in FY 2010-11, the new tax would have to go on the ballot this June.  With the new Ranked Choice Voting system, the city was supposed to save money because it would not have a primary election in June.  The cost of adding any tax measure to the ballot — whether the tax measure wins or loses — is apparently about $800,000.

In its recent letter to Council concerning budget balancing, MOBN! urged the following:

  • Hands off the police department;
  • Budget problems can’t be solved with program eliminations;
  • Council cannot balance its budget on the assumption that a ballot initiative will pass;
  • The city cannot continue to balance its budget through the use of one-time income sources, hoped for revenue, or unspecified departmental expense cuts;
  • Council must show it is serious by cutting its own expenses and those of the Mayor’s office;  and
  • Oakland’s employees are overpaid, and Oakland must balance its budget with significant, across-the-board reductions in personnel costs in every non-public safety function.

Staff’s current proposal conforms to MOBN!’s position on the police department and program eliminations, but is deficient in all other respects.  We will be at Tuesday’s meeting to tell the Council just that, and urge all Oaklanders to attend and do the same thing.

Make Oakland Better Now!

OakTalk Here is the blog of Make Oakland Better Now!, an Oakland community grassroots group of a grass-roots group of voters, volunteers, and policy advocates committed to improving the City of Oakland by focusing on public safety, public works, and responsible budgets. Founded in 2003, we’ve researched, lobbied, and successfully campaigned for a number of new, impactful policies, including the city’s Rainy Day Fund, Measure Z and Operation Ceasefire.

This Post Has One Comment

  1. CitizenX

    I’m confused. The letter calls for across the board (non-safety) personnel cuts, yet you do not want program reductions. So, once you cut the people, exactly who will be running/providing the programs?

    I agree that salary/benefit plans are overly generous. They are also subjects of collective bargaining, so the Council can take no unilateral actions. The Council does need to address this issue, but to date have shown little backbone, when it comes to dealing with the City unions.

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