Layoffs averted in budget of $4.2B

Some departments to be merged and services squeezed

The city's new $4.2 billion budget will require no layoffs, bringing relief to thousands of city workers reeling from a major ransomware attack amid an uncertain economic climate. But the budget will merge some departments and squeeze a number of other services, including those dealing with violence prevention, to close what officials have described as a historic deficit.

And despite amendments to relieve some of the burn, the cuts and mergers proposed by Mayor Sheng Thao led to a fractured City Council vote, with three of the eight City Council members declining to sign off on the final approved budget Monday night.

After the dust settled, Oakland had closed its $360million shortfall for the immediate future, though officials warned that another deficit looms two years from now when the next budget will be wrangled.

Thao, in a statement following the meeting, said the budget “preserves jobs, delivering quality City services to residents and businesses; makes the largest investment in affordable housing in the City's history; and centers our youth, families, and seniors.”

Among the main sources of discontent in the public hearing was that the budget squeezes the outside contracts to the Department of Violence Prevention, built to address the core social problems that lead to gun and gender-based violence.

Members of the nonprofit Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice said at the meeting that the cuts would hamper their work to combat cycles of violence in Oakland, particularly in communities of color.

The budget will also keep hundreds of city jobs frozen, including the equivalent of 120 full-time police officer positions, though the overall Oakland police budget increased slightly.

And several city departments that deal with housing, family support and economic development will be merged, though the effect this will have on the departments' services isn't fully clear.

The apparent lack of clarity drew the ire of Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, who said the council, by approving the budget, was effectively boarding a “Titanic submarine” without doing its research, a reference to the deep-sea submersible that imploded last week in the Atlantic Ocean, a high-profile event that led to scrutiny of the vessel's design.

“If we're going to vote on department mergers today, when we'll only get a study of the feasibility of those mergers a year from now, (it) makes no sense,” Ramachandran said.

After Ramachandran's motion to divert money from other departments to prevent the planned mergers failed, she abstained from approving the final budget. So did Councilmember Treva Reid, who wanted more consistent city staffing to maintain city services.

The lone dissenter, Councilmember Noel Gallo, unsuccessfully pushed to give more money to the Department of Violence Prevention for keeping youths in school.

“If I'm not in school, where am I?” Gallo said. “It's really important with our violence prevention staff members that we focus in on high schools and get our youngsters to be more productive.”

He also worried that the budget allocation for five police academies, an issue of past contention on the council, may not generate officers to cover the rate of attrition as police leave Oakland for other jobs.

Over 100 people from the public spoke at Monday's council hearing, with some workers from the affected departments pleading for fewer cuts.

But the bulk of the public's input came from the city's unions, which largely praised Thao for sparing Oakland from layoffs.

“Even in the face of challenging shortfalls, the mayor's budget prioritizes important city services that our members are proud to provide,” said Felipe Cuevas, union president of Oakland SEIU 1021. “The budget values our workers, and it doesn't impose cruel cuts that hurt Oakland residents and put our members out of work.”