Oakland Passes New Budget That Keeps Fire Station Open, Boosts Police Staffing

Updated 3:04 p.m.

Oakland city council just passed a spending plan for the next two years, weeks ahead of the July 1 deadline.

In a process virtually unrecognizable from last year’s amendment marathon, the city’s budget team approved adjustments after just one meeting — with a goal of preserving the essential services Oaklanders want while addressing a major funding shortfall.

Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, who co-chaired the budget committee, said the quick work was the result of newfound collaboration amongst city leaders.

“Things are looking up for Oakland,” she told KQED. “It’s not just bickering and fighting, there’s a sense of cohesion and shared core values on this council.”

Representatives conceded that the budget, which closes a $265 million deficit over the next two years, makes difficult cuts.

“In past budgets, the city of Oakland has unwisely tried to be all things to all people,” said Councilmember Zac Unger, who serves on the ad-hoc committee with Ramachandran, Rowena Brown and Charlene Wang.

“We simply don’t have the money to do that anymore,” Unger said, announcing the amendments Tuesday. “The first rule of getting yourself out of a hole is that you have to stop digging.”

The amended budget passed with six yeses, with Carroll Fife excused and Noel Gallo casting the sole no vote.

Ramachandran credited Councilmember Kevin Jenkins, who proposed the original budget while serving as interim mayor before Barbara Lee’s inauguration, for giving her team a realistic and workable starting place.

The amendments announced Tuesday removes the final fire station closure in the two-year budget, reverses employee layoffs and pads a reserve of $3 million to shield the city against likely state and federal funding cuts.

“Despite a $265 million shortfall, we are proud to have come up with creative solutions to invest in the basics, invest in core and essential city services,” Ramachandran said Tuesday. “We want public safety. We want clean streets. We want economic revitalization. This is what our residents are telling us, and our budget amendments [do] exactly that.”

Among the biggest changes to the budget proposed last month by then-interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins is a reallocation of police funds to try to increase the number of sworn officers with less money, cutting one of six police academies planned for the next two years, while increasing the department’s budget for recruiting prospective officers and funding to expedite hearings for officers placed on administrative leave.

Oakland is well below its baseline staffing level of 700 sworn officers, which was set by November’s Measure NN. If the department fails to meet that level, its ability to collect parcel tax and the parking tax revenue the following year is reduced.

Currently, the department has about 675 officers, about 100 of which at any given time are on leave.

The city could struggle to even maintain current staffing levels in the coming years after canceling two training academies scheduled for 2025 due to budget cuts this spring. According to the police commission, OPD loses about five officers per month to attrition.

But Ramachandran said that even with one fewer academy class, Oakland can take a smarter approach to increasing police staffing.

“The city of Oakland hasn’t been able to actually ever put on six academies in decades,” she said. “It’s a lofty goal, but at the end of the day, we want solutions that are actually going to work, not just throwing money at a problem and hope that magically increases the police number.”

In the last five years, the average graduating class size for OPD academies has been 22. Last May, the graduating academy had just 12 new recruits.

“Yes, it’s natural that you’re going to have recruits dropping off, but to start at 22 instead of 42 and to end up with 12 [officers] for $4 million doesn’t make sense,” Ramachandran said.

While cutting one academy, the budget amendments would also add $220,000 to outreach efforts for police academies to help increase class sizes in a more cost-effective way, she said.

The councilmembers believe OPD can also increase the number of officers in the field by speeding up Skelly hearings, which officers have to go through when placed on administrative leave before they can return to the job and to determine whether they will face disciplinary action.

In March, there were 149 pending hearings and 42 officers on administrative leave, according to police commission reports. Eleven officers have been on administrative leave for between one and two years, which has cost the department nearly $3 million annually.

The budget also now allocates $10 million more to the Fire Department’s budget to stop a rotating station brownout, which would have continued one of the most controversial budget cuts made in January after the city implemented a contingency budget to make up for unrealized revenue from the stalled sale of the Oakland Coliseum.

For the first time in 20 years, all 25 of the city’s fire stations have been open for the last month. Before that, three stations, including two in the fire-prone Oakland Hills, had been shuttered throughout the year due to the budget cuts.

With the additional funding, the only necessary brownout would be for a three-month period this winter.

The amendments’ impact on labor partners is more of a mixed bag.

While the councilmembers’ proposal would reverse eight layoffs and salary reductions planned across various departments, it also proposes budgeting lower starting salary steps for some city positions, predicted to save about $5 million.

Ramachandran said it’s common for new workers to come into the city making more than the minimum required by Oakland’s deals with labor partners. The amendment requests roles be budgeted based on the salary scales agreed upon, and that new recruits to non-exempt roles not come in at a starting salary that doesn’t exceed a certain step three on the salary scale, Ramachandran said.

The budget also focuses on clean street efforts, sideshow prevention and building up economic zones and new businesses – interests shared by Lee, who took over the office shortly after Jenkins’ proposal was released.

While Jenkins said during his budget briefing last month that Lee had not had much input in the spending plan, Ramachandran said she has been supportive of the council throughout the amendment process.

“The overwhelming majority of her priorities overlap with ours, and she’s being creative on her own on how we can try to seek and obtain money from the outside, which is her area of expertise coming into this process,” said Ramachandran, who frequently sparred with former Mayor Sheng Thao before her recall in November. “This is a process of shared respect, which was glaringly absent under the Sheng Thao administration.”