Oakland's council, city administration, and labor leadership are locked in a game of misinformation to advance their narrow interests. It may result in total fiscal collapse.
Another devastating, brilliant analysis. Particularly appropriate for those of us about to send our hard earned property tax payments to the lovely bandits pictured above. Every taxpayer needs to read all of this and share their thoughts about it with at least 5 people; council people, union leaders, friends, etc. It will take new leadership and constant vigilance to clean up this mess. Thanks for showing us the path.
After reading your piece today, I'd say CM Bas and her progressive colleagues at City Hall think the voters are stupid.
The majority of Oakland voters are not stupid, but they are badly underinformed by the media and misled by elected officials.
Other than Kanitha Matury and myself, none of the many candidates for local office this past November made any reference to our fiscal disaster other than my opponent for D1, Firefighter Union prez Zac Unger's "We'll have to make some tough decisions"; and another candidate for at large who promised to "apply for more Fed, State, and County grants."
I’m not sure Bas and her colleagues are wrong. Voters keep making the same bad choices: Bas herself won “promotion” to the Alameda Board of Supervisors, and a public employee union president beat you for District 1 council seat in a landslide.
Democracy works. Voters are getting exactly what they asked for.
Excellent article. A couple of items... 1) The pernicious impact of closing the city jail on police efficiency is not just the drive time - officers also have to spend time at Santa Rita while booking and intake are finished which can be delayed. Additionally ANOTHER series of reports must be filled out. 2) Bankruptcy is indeed complex and impacts cannot be controlled. Another solution is state bailout, with state oversight taking over all the financial functions of the city council/admin. Similar to OUSD bailout process. This would be a good thing IMO HOWEVER when the state does this bailout, legislators must consider the precedence for other mismanaged cities - think Los Angeles...
I thought I had found an objective source of information for the City of Oakland. One that proposes solutions, rather than critizing specific members of the City Council or the outgoing mayor. Your article, while includes some facts, amplifies a lot of untruth and spins some truth. I am a finance professional and understand the allocation of costs among various funds (including salaries and benefits) that benefit those funds, based on a reasonable basis! Therefore cutting administrative and social services salaries is not the solution, neither is drawing attention to restricted funds without mentioning that their purpose is not to fund the activities of the general fund (i.e. 65% police and fire departments). Given that $115M in projected deficit is in the general fund, there are very few solutions that can be implemented in 6 months. That is what your article should focus on and recognize that the solution has to be a longer term solution. Why not advocate for change in the future rather than finger pointing to past mistakes. You also talk about social services, as if that is not necessary! Social service programs are determintal to helping the police in long-term. What we should do is look at the other cities closeby and see what makes them successful rather than critizing one person or one group!
In one of your articles you pointed out to the cost of benefits. That may be a place that your future articles should focus on.
I very much appreciate what you are doing and hope that future articles will be less "fox", "msnbc" news and more like the good old unbiased news!
Hi Ghaffari, thank you for the feedback and constructive criticism. We hope that you will review the evidence and data for each of our points (all data, docs, and calculations are linked in the article), and call out any errors and omissions if you find them.
We value your disagreement. The information upon which we base our conclusions are made available as objectively and transparently as possible -- within the limits of what we can obtain from the city sources. It is why we provide them for you to inspect and challenge.
But the interpretation and conclusions of that information is, by definition, subjective. This is why the article is listed as a Perspective. Regardless, a perspective still needs to be based on cited and verifiable data -- so that debate can at least work from that common foundation.
Also, the article does not suggest social services are unnecessary, nor does it suggest they should be cut exclusively without any cuts to public safety. It does not suggest that non-GPF spending be used for purposes other than those allowed by the restrictions (even though this is what the city council has done for the past two budgets).
Besides the potential solution of spreading budget cuts more evenly across departments (a solution you may disagree with), we have also highlighted other potential solutions in our prior articles -- though some are near-term impact (months), some are longer-term impact (1-3 years) that would be aimed at stabilizing Oakland for the long-term future.
You can read these articles under the "Oakland Budget" tab. And of course, please leave comments with any challenges and disagreement.
The Oakland Report is aggressively pro-police and anti-left. It's not objective in the least, although it's an informative read for keeping up with what the reactionaries of Oakland are trying to achieve.
What are you trying to achieve, and I ask that seriously. More crime? More blight? Fewer business? Worse schools? Lower tax revenue? Worse fiscal shape.
Seriously, what progressive or "left" benefit has Oakland seen comparative to the region TODAY? Or do you just care about ideology, and throw the city and the poor/working class to the wolves for your ideology?
I'd like to see the Oakland budget spent on anything besides the only police department in the nation that has been under federal more than two decades due to its history of brutality and abuse. Public housing, public education, non LEO intervention for distressed nonviolent individuals, parks and recreation, road repairs, infrastructure improvements, and social services would all be better use of our funding. And I hate to burst your bubble, but crime is trending down in Oakland despite its "understaffed and underfunded" police department. It's almost as if OPD is useless one way or the other.
I'd like to fly. Your dream state is not reality. The federal oversight has been an attack on OPD. A dozen chiefs an attack on OPD. Civilian oversight...So what do you get? Crime. Blight. Then what do you get? Business leaving. Then what do you get? Real estate taxes going down. Then what do you get? A town collapsing like Oakland.
Crime is trend down BECAUSE OF MASSIVE CHP intervention by the governor. Without that the bipping, stolen plates/cars, and shooting were going BUCK WILD.
So like for Xmas, you write a wish list? I get you are young, but you have to make hard choices and compromises to get to success. Oakland progressives have ZERO ZERO successes here. You can bloviate about public this, public that, but a dysfuntional city gets you ZERO
Whats most insane about your post, is that many folks agree with you. They are the most damaging force to working class, poor, and people of color.
What Oakland needs is a VIBRANT ECONOMY. Have the most crime filled town in the region IS NOT THAT. That is not equity. That helps no one and hurts the folks, that may not look like you, the most.
Progressives in the city are dead wrong. Dangerously wrong. The city needs revenue, a growing tax base, and business moving back in small/large. With serious crime like progressives allow, that is a fugitive.
What we DONT need are more non-profits and progressive fools in charge.
Well done. I hope Empower Oakland and other groups that want to improve conditions i Oakland are reading this. It is so obvious that the city is pursuing what used to be called "Washington Monument strategy," pursuing budget cuts to valued and well-known items which will create an uproar so that the mere mention of budget cuts goes away. Except now, with the huge deficit, they won't go away.
Since municipal bankruptcy seems inevitable, what would that look like for the City of Oakland? Reorganization bankruptcies generally involve the restructuring of debt; how much of Oakland’s cash flow is currently consumed by the sort of debt service that could be reduced or eliminated in a Chapter 9 filing? Could city pensions be reduced also? Could labor contracts be unilaterally renegotiated?
And what are the political ramifications of bankruptcy? Are the elected officials responsible for the current problem looking forward to bankruptcy as a tactic to avoid responsibility for painful choices?
Bankruptcy is a federal proceeding and it empowers a federal judge to mediate between the city, its creditors, and the employees to which it has long-term obligations. That also means arbitrating among creditors and employees themselves who are not likely to be fully compensated for the debts they are owed, or the contractual commitments the city made. Affected elements will include third-party contracts, pension obligations, wages, loans, ... basically everything. And the judge will consider both the seniority of debt and obligations, was well as the arguments of the parties in mediation.
It would appear to be a long and difficult process for all, including residents who will see real impacts from the decisions made.
State law governs the process per section 53760 of the CA Government Code
thank you. that's good. but i still feel that this is something that obviously has to addressed, now. but it's all in hush-hush distant vague terms. I don't get it.
What possible reason is there to imagine that higher tax revenues would also not be misspent? Oakland’s voters routinely approve any new tax put on the ballot. Every one of these new taxes includes supposedly legally binding obligations that the revenues can only be used for specific purposes—until the City declares a “fiscal emergency” and does whatever it wants with the new money.
Any of the present and past mayors and councils for the past 20 years could have prevented the slow fiscal train wreck.
Our city union leaders could have told the officials their money got into office to please look five, ten, and fifteen years into the future and not assume we'll grow our way out of our structural deficit, which kept growing.
In that sense, they were all jointly and severally responsible.
It got harder and harder to fix, but it could still have been fixed at lower pain even if done a year ago before the situation became so bad we only had a month to develop fixes.
Instead of fixing the structural imbalances, succeeding mayors and council members added to the problem by giving the unions raises and benefit increases that exceeded revenue growth.
Excellent article, Tim. Thank you for the insight!
Amazing work
Another devastating, brilliant analysis. Particularly appropriate for those of us about to send our hard earned property tax payments to the lovely bandits pictured above. Every taxpayer needs to read all of this and share their thoughts about it with at least 5 people; council people, union leaders, friends, etc. It will take new leadership and constant vigilance to clean up this mess. Thanks for showing us the path.
Thank you Tim. Information is power!
Sadly we didn’t vote for enough change in the last election. The CC I fear will continue on the same loosing tack
Another insightful and helpful report that is extremely thorough and also to the point. Thank you!
After reading your piece today, I'd say CM Bas and her progressive colleagues at City Hall think the voters are stupid.
The majority of Oakland voters are not stupid, but they are badly underinformed by the media and misled by elected officials.
Other than Kanitha Matury and myself, none of the many candidates for local office this past November made any reference to our fiscal disaster other than my opponent for D1, Firefighter Union prez Zac Unger's "We'll have to make some tough decisions"; and another candidate for at large who promised to "apply for more Fed, State, and County grants."
I’m not sure Bas and her colleagues are wrong. Voters keep making the same bad choices: Bas herself won “promotion” to the Alameda Board of Supervisors, and a public employee union president beat you for District 1 council seat in a landslide.
Democracy works. Voters are getting exactly what they asked for.
Does Oakland have any leaders that aren't part of the financial scam?
Many thanks for the Oakland Report!
Thank you for this. Required reading.
Excellent article. A couple of items... 1) The pernicious impact of closing the city jail on police efficiency is not just the drive time - officers also have to spend time at Santa Rita while booking and intake are finished which can be delayed. Additionally ANOTHER series of reports must be filled out. 2) Bankruptcy is indeed complex and impacts cannot be controlled. Another solution is state bailout, with state oversight taking over all the financial functions of the city council/admin. Similar to OUSD bailout process. This would be a good thing IMO HOWEVER when the state does this bailout, legislators must consider the precedence for other mismanaged cities - think Los Angeles...
I thought I had found an objective source of information for the City of Oakland. One that proposes solutions, rather than critizing specific members of the City Council or the outgoing mayor. Your article, while includes some facts, amplifies a lot of untruth and spins some truth. I am a finance professional and understand the allocation of costs among various funds (including salaries and benefits) that benefit those funds, based on a reasonable basis! Therefore cutting administrative and social services salaries is not the solution, neither is drawing attention to restricted funds without mentioning that their purpose is not to fund the activities of the general fund (i.e. 65% police and fire departments). Given that $115M in projected deficit is in the general fund, there are very few solutions that can be implemented in 6 months. That is what your article should focus on and recognize that the solution has to be a longer term solution. Why not advocate for change in the future rather than finger pointing to past mistakes. You also talk about social services, as if that is not necessary! Social service programs are determintal to helping the police in long-term. What we should do is look at the other cities closeby and see what makes them successful rather than critizing one person or one group!
In one of your articles you pointed out to the cost of benefits. That may be a place that your future articles should focus on.
I very much appreciate what you are doing and hope that future articles will be less "fox", "msnbc" news and more like the good old unbiased news!
Hi Ghaffari, thank you for the feedback and constructive criticism. We hope that you will review the evidence and data for each of our points (all data, docs, and calculations are linked in the article), and call out any errors and omissions if you find them.
We value your disagreement. The information upon which we base our conclusions are made available as objectively and transparently as possible -- within the limits of what we can obtain from the city sources. It is why we provide them for you to inspect and challenge.
But the interpretation and conclusions of that information is, by definition, subjective. This is why the article is listed as a Perspective. Regardless, a perspective still needs to be based on cited and verifiable data -- so that debate can at least work from that common foundation.
Also, the article does not suggest social services are unnecessary, nor does it suggest they should be cut exclusively without any cuts to public safety. It does not suggest that non-GPF spending be used for purposes other than those allowed by the restrictions (even though this is what the city council has done for the past two budgets).
Besides the potential solution of spreading budget cuts more evenly across departments (a solution you may disagree with), we have also highlighted other potential solutions in our prior articles -- though some are near-term impact (months), some are longer-term impact (1-3 years) that would be aimed at stabilizing Oakland for the long-term future.
You can read these articles under the "Oakland Budget" tab. And of course, please leave comments with any challenges and disagreement.
The Oakland Report is aggressively pro-police and anti-left. It's not objective in the least, although it's an informative read for keeping up with what the reactionaries of Oakland are trying to achieve.
What are you trying to achieve, and I ask that seriously. More crime? More blight? Fewer business? Worse schools? Lower tax revenue? Worse fiscal shape.
Seriously, what progressive or "left" benefit has Oakland seen comparative to the region TODAY? Or do you just care about ideology, and throw the city and the poor/working class to the wolves for your ideology?
I'd like to see the Oakland budget spent on anything besides the only police department in the nation that has been under federal more than two decades due to its history of brutality and abuse. Public housing, public education, non LEO intervention for distressed nonviolent individuals, parks and recreation, road repairs, infrastructure improvements, and social services would all be better use of our funding. And I hate to burst your bubble, but crime is trending down in Oakland despite its "understaffed and underfunded" police department. It's almost as if OPD is useless one way or the other.
I'd like to fly. Your dream state is not reality. The federal oversight has been an attack on OPD. A dozen chiefs an attack on OPD. Civilian oversight...So what do you get? Crime. Blight. Then what do you get? Business leaving. Then what do you get? Real estate taxes going down. Then what do you get? A town collapsing like Oakland.
Crime is trend down BECAUSE OF MASSIVE CHP intervention by the governor. Without that the bipping, stolen plates/cars, and shooting were going BUCK WILD.
So like for Xmas, you write a wish list? I get you are young, but you have to make hard choices and compromises to get to success. Oakland progressives have ZERO ZERO successes here. You can bloviate about public this, public that, but a dysfuntional city gets you ZERO
Whats most insane about your post, is that many folks agree with you. They are the most damaging force to working class, poor, and people of color.
What Oakland needs is a VIBRANT ECONOMY. Have the most crime filled town in the region IS NOT THAT. That is not equity. That helps no one and hurts the folks, that may not look like you, the most.
Progressives in the city are dead wrong. Dangerously wrong. The city needs revenue, a growing tax base, and business moving back in small/large. With serious crime like progressives allow, that is a fugitive.
What we DONT need are more non-profits and progressive fools in charge.
Thank you, you saved me the time responding to his anti intellectual take.
What errors or omissions did you spot? Or is this ad hominem/ strawman attack with anti intellectual energy?
Thank you for posting this article.
Well done. I hope Empower Oakland and other groups that want to improve conditions i Oakland are reading this. It is so obvious that the city is pursuing what used to be called "Washington Monument strategy," pursuing budget cuts to valued and well-known items which will create an uproar so that the mere mention of budget cuts goes away. Except now, with the huge deficit, they won't go away.
Since municipal bankruptcy seems inevitable, what would that look like for the City of Oakland? Reorganization bankruptcies generally involve the restructuring of debt; how much of Oakland’s cash flow is currently consumed by the sort of debt service that could be reduced or eliminated in a Chapter 9 filing? Could city pensions be reduced also? Could labor contracts be unilaterally renegotiated?
And what are the political ramifications of bankruptcy? Are the elected officials responsible for the current problem looking forward to bankruptcy as a tactic to avoid responsibility for painful choices?
That's a good and complicated question. This NPR post form 2012 on Vallejo's bankruptcy outlines it a bit (the linked articles are also good):
https://www.npr.org/2012/07/11/156621232/what-happens-when-a-city-declares-bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a federal proceeding and it empowers a federal judge to mediate between the city, its creditors, and the employees to which it has long-term obligations. That also means arbitrating among creditors and employees themselves who are not likely to be fully compensated for the debts they are owed, or the contractual commitments the city made. Affected elements will include third-party contracts, pension obligations, wages, loans, ... basically everything. And the judge will consider both the seniority of debt and obligations, was well as the arguments of the parties in mediation.
It would appear to be a long and difficult process for all, including residents who will see real impacts from the decisions made.
State law governs the process per section 53760 of the CA Government Code
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&division=2.&title=5.&part=1.&chapter=4.&article=5.
I don't understand why there isn't some kind of realistic discussion of increasing revenue.
See here for some discussion: https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/we-can-balance-oaklands-budget-without
thank you. that's good. but i still feel that this is something that obviously has to addressed, now. but it's all in hush-hush distant vague terms. I don't get it.
What possible reason is there to imagine that higher tax revenues would also not be misspent? Oakland’s voters routinely approve any new tax put on the ballot. Every one of these new taxes includes supposedly legally binding obligations that the revenues can only be used for specific purposes—until the City declares a “fiscal emergency” and does whatever it wants with the new money.
Will bankruptcy provide some chance of a more equitable fix to Oakland’s budget without reliance on City Council?
Any of the present and past mayors and councils for the past 20 years could have prevented the slow fiscal train wreck.
Our city union leaders could have told the officials their money got into office to please look five, ten, and fifteen years into the future and not assume we'll grow our way out of our structural deficit, which kept growing.
In that sense, they were all jointly and severally responsible.
It got harder and harder to fix, but it could still have been fixed at lower pain even if done a year ago before the situation became so bad we only had a month to develop fixes.
Instead of fixing the structural imbalances, succeeding mayors and council members added to the problem by giving the unions raises and benefit increases that exceeded revenue growth.