Thanks Tim for another great report. I'm not surprised by the incompetent and corrupt CM Fife. Keep up the great work and hopefully these reports on the state of Oakland will make headlines in the local news.
Oakland doesn't deserve you Tim... your posts are so consistently researched & cited, that it's difficult for anyone with a working brain to dispute what you're writing about. Thank you for all that hard work, and please know we are extremely appreciative of you and grateful for all your time & effort.
Oakland Voters need to be educated on the fact that the people we've been electing, as well intended as they may be, are actually hurting our city & it's residents with policies like this.
This was an outstanding and detailed report. Thank you so much for putting this together! What an incredible service, this is the information residents and voters need to understand why things are as they now are, and how we got here. Can you tell us where the money that wasn’t spent as it was supposed to be? Has much of that been reallocated as has happened with money for police? I see no surpluses from the most recent fiscal year. If the money wasn’t spent, wouldn’t we see a huge surplus in 2023? It seems to me we ak and have no money left, so ‘unspent’ doesn’t seem to be a thing in Oakland!
Great question. As of January 2022, there appears to have been about $100M left of the Measure KK funds. Had the City kept up the work, they would have spent those out by mid-2023. But they didn't keep up the work. I would estimate $40M of those are still left, plus $290M of Measure bond funds allocated to paving, plus additional local, state, federal monies. So >$330M of funding sits available and unspent.
This money is restricted though, they cannot shift that money outside of the purposes voters approved in Measures KK and U. Nor outside the purposes of State or Federal grants. So in theory they cannot use it to plug the budget gap or fund pet projects of the council -- like the $450K they recently handed to the Interfaith Council of Alameda for parking spots with no plan or objectives, or the $600K ($3.5M total since 2021) they recently gave to the "Beautification Council" with no plan or objectives.
However, I have not read the full text of the Measures KK and U. So I don't know if there are loopholes that allow them to shift the money to purposes outside the intent approved by voters. There can be weird provisions around emergencies and other things. This, BTW, is why the City still has an AIDS state of emergency active -- so they can continue to pass out drug needles which would otherwise be illegal.
Also BTW, the City is facing a 15% budget deficit this coming year due to the declining business tax revenue. And they spent out their reserve funds last year. So there is going to be some serious wiggling this year. And probably a push from the council to tax the residents even more. Note the City already has substantially higher revenue/taxes per resident than any other similar sized CA City. See page 14 of the Auditor's report here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14BRSpqvNPg6_15edgXnqSZzu8NFud8yh&usp=drive_fs
Thank you. Does this money show up on their end of fiscal year report? Why not? I am dubious of the idea they didn’t actually spend the money elsewhere, that is what they have done time and again. That money should be somewhere that shows up on a report of what you are saying is true, shouldn’t it? I understand that holding it for the intended purpose is what they are supposed to do, but that would be very out of character and I find it hard to believe that is the case. Unless we can see it as a line item reserve account, why is there any reason to believe it’s being held over?
You say:
So in theory they cannot use it to plug the budget gap or fund pet projects of the council
I say they do not typically follow the theories. If the money isn’t showing up in a report, I bet it is spent
But they are mostly aggregate financials statements. While they do show fund balances and such (including Measure KK and Measure U), it's basically impossible to tell which City fund is being used to pay for which City project or General Fund Expenditure. While the finance department surely tracks that in their General Ledger, it would require a public records request and a specific analysis of the inflows/outflow for the Measure KK and Measure U funds.
You can try a CPRA request - but they almost never fulfill them. You might have more luck making friends with the Budget Advisory Commission (citizens) -- who has greater access and might work with you to answer such a question. https://www.oaklandca.gov/boards-commissions/budget-advisory-commission
But I can tell you - the City finances are Byzantine - and more complex than a typical company financials because of all the rules and restrictions.
I will ask them, thank you. Given your reporting your chances of tracking this down are far better than mine. Isn’t that a critical question? It seems to me the single most important unanswered question after your wonderfully thorough and enlightening report.
Insane. Not surprising at all, but insane. "race" is increasingly used as a social lever to hoard funding that would much more appropriately be distributed on the basis of economic class. I don't understand how, given the CRA and Supreme Court rulings, California and all its major levers of power (government, universities, etc) get away with all of these explicit racial preferences. It's maddening and, as you rightly point out, not really helping anyone in general.
Thanks Tim for another great report. I'm not surprised by the incompetent and corrupt CM Fife. Keep up the great work and hopefully these reports on the state of Oakland will make headlines in the local news.
Thanks for doing all this research. Too bad Oakland doesn't have a local newspaper...
Oakland doesn't deserve you Tim... your posts are so consistently researched & cited, that it's difficult for anyone with a working brain to dispute what you're writing about. Thank you for all that hard work, and please know we are extremely appreciative of you and grateful for all your time & effort.
Oakland Voters need to be educated on the fact that the people we've been electing, as well intended as they may be, are actually hurting our city & it's residents with policies like this.
This was an outstanding and detailed report. Thank you so much for putting this together! What an incredible service, this is the information residents and voters need to understand why things are as they now are, and how we got here. Can you tell us where the money that wasn’t spent as it was supposed to be? Has much of that been reallocated as has happened with money for police? I see no surpluses from the most recent fiscal year. If the money wasn’t spent, wouldn’t we see a huge surplus in 2023? It seems to me we ak and have no money left, so ‘unspent’ doesn’t seem to be a thing in Oakland!
Great question. As of January 2022, there appears to have been about $100M left of the Measure KK funds. Had the City kept up the work, they would have spent those out by mid-2023. But they didn't keep up the work. I would estimate $40M of those are still left, plus $290M of Measure bond funds allocated to paving, plus additional local, state, federal monies. So >$330M of funding sits available and unspent.
Simple breakdown of the Measures is here: https://www.spur.org/voter-guide/2022-11/oak-measure-u-affordable-housing-and-infrastructure-bond
This money is restricted though, they cannot shift that money outside of the purposes voters approved in Measures KK and U. Nor outside the purposes of State or Federal grants. So in theory they cannot use it to plug the budget gap or fund pet projects of the council -- like the $450K they recently handed to the Interfaith Council of Alameda for parking spots with no plan or objectives, or the $600K ($3.5M total since 2021) they recently gave to the "Beautification Council" with no plan or objectives.
However, I have not read the full text of the Measures KK and U. So I don't know if there are loopholes that allow them to shift the money to purposes outside the intent approved by voters. There can be weird provisions around emergencies and other things. This, BTW, is why the City still has an AIDS state of emergency active -- so they can continue to pass out drug needles which would otherwise be illegal.
Also BTW, the City is facing a 15% budget deficit this coming year due to the declining business tax revenue. And they spent out their reserve funds last year. So there is going to be some serious wiggling this year. And probably a push from the council to tax the residents even more. Note the City already has substantially higher revenue/taxes per resident than any other similar sized CA City. See page 14 of the Auditor's report here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14BRSpqvNPg6_15edgXnqSZzu8NFud8yh&usp=drive_fs
Thank you. Does this money show up on their end of fiscal year report? Why not? I am dubious of the idea they didn’t actually spend the money elsewhere, that is what they have done time and again. That money should be somewhere that shows up on a report of what you are saying is true, shouldn’t it? I understand that holding it for the intended purpose is what they are supposed to do, but that would be very out of character and I find it hard to believe that is the case. Unless we can see it as a line item reserve account, why is there any reason to believe it’s being held over?
You say:
So in theory they cannot use it to plug the budget gap or fund pet projects of the council
I say they do not typically follow the theories. If the money isn’t showing up in a report, I bet it is spent
Financial reports for the City are here: https://www.oaklandca.gov/topics/financial-reporting
But they are mostly aggregate financials statements. While they do show fund balances and such (including Measure KK and Measure U), it's basically impossible to tell which City fund is being used to pay for which City project or General Fund Expenditure. While the finance department surely tracks that in their General Ledger, it would require a public records request and a specific analysis of the inflows/outflow for the Measure KK and Measure U funds.
You can try a CPRA request - but they almost never fulfill them. You might have more luck making friends with the Budget Advisory Commission (citizens) -- who has greater access and might work with you to answer such a question. https://www.oaklandca.gov/boards-commissions/budget-advisory-commission
But I can tell you - the City finances are Byzantine - and more complex than a typical company financials because of all the rules and restrictions.
I will ask them, thank you. Given your reporting your chances of tracking this down are far better than mine. Isn’t that a critical question? It seems to me the single most important unanswered question after your wonderfully thorough and enlightening report.
I work the space as a project manager. This is outrageous. This is straight up corruption masquerading as social justice.
Insane. Not surprising at all, but insane. "race" is increasingly used as a social lever to hoard funding that would much more appropriately be distributed on the basis of economic class. I don't understand how, given the CRA and Supreme Court rulings, California and all its major levers of power (government, universities, etc) get away with all of these explicit racial preferences. It's maddening and, as you rightly point out, not really helping anyone in general.
Of course CM Fife is currupt.