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Part Two: Why MOBN! Supports Measure Z

This is the second in a series of posts on Measure Z, which is on Oakland’s November ballot and which we support. Last time we talked about why police matter. This time we talk about Measure Z’s minimum staffing requirement.

Measure Z Has A Real, “Boots on the Ground” Police Staffing Requirement

Measure Y, passed ten years ago, required that the City budget for at least 803 police as a condition to collecting the taxes, but had no requirement that any particular number be actually hired. So the City budgeted for 803, but only actually hired that number for a brief period in 2009. Then, the City stopped hiring police and then laid off 80 officers. This reduced the number of police into the mid-600’s. After that, the voters passed Measure BB, eliminating the threshold altogether.

Although it’s a lower number than 803, Measure Z reinstates a hiring threshold, requiring the City to immediately budget for at least 678 police, and hire and maintain that number as soon as practicable (and no later than mid-2016). Here is what it says:

Upon passage of this Ordinance, the City shall maintain a budgeted level of no fewer than six hundred seventy eight (678) sworn police personnel (including those sworn police personnel funded by this Ordinance) at all times, and shall hire and maintain no fewer than 678 sworn police personnel as early as practicable after the passage of this Ordinance and at all times after July 1, 2016.

Further, “The City shall be prohibited from collecting the taxes provided for in this Ordinance at any time that” it fails to meet these requirements, with certain limited exceptions.

Furthermore, as the City Auditor has observed, to maintain a floor of 678 police, the City has to budget for at least 700 officers, and probably more. As the number of officers fluctuates up and down, the number will often be more than 700. And while there are a few exceptions to the requirement, we are convinced those exceptions will be very hard – and in some instances impossible — to establish.

Is 678 police – or 700 – enough? Of course not. MOBN! has long taken the position that Oakland needs at least 900 police, and a resource allocation study to show how many we need and how they should be assigned. But getting to that number will have to be for another day. Meanwhile, a reduction of 52 to 59 officers resulting from defeat of Measure Z will surely make things worse – likely reducing police staffing to a number below 600. Oakland voters should not make things worse.