Thread: 1/25 Finance Committee. 1st Finance Committee of year; members Bas, Thao, Reid, and Kaplan, Committee Chair. On agenda: accepting 10 million in unanticipated funds from Coliseum, report back on budget deficits by City, legislation to appropriate funding for OFD #oakmtg 
A procedural motion to covene as a full mtg. That has to be done whenever there's more than 4 council members present at a mtg, even if just speaking, due to Brown Act. At least Kalb will speak at this mtg, tho not on the committee
At Public Comment, Michael Patterson, electrician with City who maintains street lights and signals: We cant have cuts to staff and that not affect services. We've talked to the City at looking at other ways to save money but met with same answers about concessions right away
When street lights are out, if we're laid off it goes from 3 days to repair, to 5-7 days. These have direct impact on services the City provides, including increased crime. He asks the City to " not come to us with concessions right off the bat."
Steve Lavon, a City librarian. Echoes Patterson's concerns. Seems like every time there's a budget crisis, the workers are the first thing to be cut. The City has reserves and other resources before it has to do that.
Lavon says he is also hearing the City wants to use parcel tax funds that were meant to help library being used to patch other budget problems.
Rachel Beck asks what City services Mr. Reiskin advises should be cut to expand Police budget, as the City maintains should be done in June, despite unparalleled budget cuts. She says she wants an honest response from Reiskin at the meeting.
Zac Unger, Local 55 President, thanks community, labor reps and city employees that spoke out to refund cuts to OFD fire engines. He also asks when new $$ comes available, should be prioritized for service to residents, and providing security to workers who provide service
Laura Takeshita, of IFPTE says she sees Mayor balance budget on workforce time and again. She says constituents and workers continue to suffer from layoffs from recession period.
Chaney Turner of Oakland Cannabis Commission says police don't keep people safe. She says that attempts to increase police budget during deficits is unacceptable. She says City needs to prioritize funding that keeps Oakland safe during pandemic not for police
Caller says that she's worried about the enforcement for the Oakland Tobacco ordinance enforcement, which is enforced through ABAT. She says its a self-funded enforcement fund, and shouldn't be cut. One of Reiskin's budge balancing acts is to cut ABAT.
SEIU researcher lists areas of work that SEIU would like Finance Committee to explore: More civilianization of OPD, overhead, reduce outside contracting, follow up on new revenue options and even hold a special election this year to get more revenue into City [ballot measure?]
Lots of calls from City union reps and actual city workers today, asking the City and the Finance Committee to lay off the idea of cutting back City workforce asking for concessions. They want the City to look for other places to cut, and to use all of its revenues.
Julian Weir 18 yr City worker. Says City Administrator has been implementing cuts w/out Council approval, while ignoring IFPTE complaints and solutions. Weir says that the City ended with a 45 million reserve balance that must be kept for rainy day fund, and says Covid qualifies.
IFPTE in particular has been asking the City to use its 7.5% reserve fund, which is over 40 million dollars which the City does not count in the GPF. The laws around using the reserve allow Council to use the fund upon a declaration of an economic emergency.
The City has two sets of reserves. One is the Vital Services Stabilization Fund, which the City used in part to balance budget in June. But it hasn't brought up using the 7.5% fund, despite requests from the unions, a GPF piggy bank. The law would seem to allow during a pandemic
Several callers are worried about Reiskin's action to suspend the OPD ABAT unit, which enforces Oakland ordinance that bans flavored tobacco being sold to minors.
Felipe Cuevas of SEIU 1021. He says Labor sees lack of transparency, honest communication and a lack of opportunity to meet with the City before it makes cuts. He asks City to not balance budget on backs of City workers. Cuts to public sector will make crisis worse and longer
Peter Maziak Field Director for SEIU: the Mayor/Admin wants community and labor to shut up and let them cut what they want. He says Council and people deserve a voice into the process. He says the OFD brownout decision was made without public/labor input.
Maziak asks who is ultimately accountable? Who made the decisions to let OPD go so far overbudget and to lay temp employees off the week before Christmas?
A TPT library aide asks the City to stop treating TPT employees like line items to be dismissed. She says they're janitors that keep workplace safe during Covid, and at libraries are offering sidewalk services.
She says that the City TPTs were laid off at the beginning of the pandemic and then when they expected they'd get their jobs back, they were told they would not get their jobs back at all.
As a sidenote, TPTs make up the majority of SEIU's workers at the City, as the City has taken more and more permanent jobs and sliced and diced them into smaller stacks with fewer rights that can be laid off at will.
Gabrielle Halland of SEIU says that the City missed the opportunity to put an increase to corporate gross receipts tax on the ballot, and releasing TPTs and cutting fire services. They say this looks like a lack of planning and rushed decisions, things out of a GOP playbook
Halland says that its time to take from the rainy day fund. If this isn't a rainy day, with a global pandemic, what would qualify?
Kaplan is asking Committee to take the acceptance of the 10 million from the JPA/Coliseum, item 7, first because it is time-sensitive, as it needs to be communicated to JPA at meeting in February
Kaplan explains the origin of the money. During the Warriors suit, the City/County banked debt payments in case they lost. But now that the case is won, they're available.
In her comments, Bas noted that the entire Council may be on the call to comment.
Thao notes that passage of this item and directing it to Council for vote, won't itself allocate the money. This is the vote to seek and receive it. Then it would be voted on in a separate item to allocate it.
Accepting the ten million was, not surprisingly, unanimously approved by the Finance Committee for forwarding to Consent Calendar at next city council meeting, 2/2
Kaplan says that Item 8 probably won't be considered today. It would have allocated the 10 million, but Kaplan says there needs to be more info before its deliberated
They are on Item 3, sort of the main event today. City Admin will respond to Council questions on the Admin's unilateral budget cuts, and fiscal health of the city. At Reiskin's request, Item 4 will be heard concurrently. Questions on OPD effects on budget
Reiskin's presentation, mostly directed at Item 3. He prefaces his report with an expression of sympathy, saying we "have fewer revenues than we have expenditures". I did not come into public service to figure out how to reduce public service. [arguably Admins do]
Reiskin says that the deficit is related to the public healthcare crisis AND the public safety crisis. It's impacted our revenues and expenditures. Very carefully avoiding saying police here, as I noted in my article yday.
Reiskin is taking advantage of confusion around Vital Services Stabilization Fund and the GPF percentage fund and says they tapped that already. This isn't an honest answer and it should be followed up on.
Reiskin says that the City had presented a pessimistic scenario due to Covid in June, but that they collectively chose the more positive assessment.
Reiskin says that the gap is created by over-expenditures, and this time specifically mentions expenditures in the OPD. He says he takes accountability for that. But says that the spending rate of OPD has been consistent over many years with full understanding of Council.
But Reiskin follows up saying that the over-expenditure is actually due to Council's failure to give OPD a larger budget. He says that above-projection revenues have been hiding the over-expenditure. [But it's also true that OPD's expenditure was higher than any other year.]
Reiskin has begun using the word "right-size" as a way to talk about adjusting the OPD budget.
Reiskin talks about the moves he's already made to cut budget: freezing "pretty much" all vacant positions, releasing TPTs, and releasing another category of unrepresented temporary employees.
Reiskin says that despite the measures he's taken [which saves about 29 million], there's still a 33 million dollar gap to close. He calls this a "very deep hole".
Reiskin has handed it off to Finance Director Margaret O'Brien to answer questions brought forth by Council since December.
O'Brien says that the City Administration has the duty to "control and administer the financial affairs of the City". O'Brien conflated OFD and OPD cuts by calling them the public safety cuts. Really obscures the issue.
City Admin and Finance Director are now taking questions directly from Council after their brief presentation. Bas goes first.
Bas says that austerity thinking has prompted the City to act as if there's no money, prompting the City to cut services to maintain public safety. She says that its important to get responses from the City in a prompt and transparent manner.
Bas said that they Mayor can tap her contacts, including "her personal friend" in the White House, lol. Did I hear that right?
Bas says that report on frozen vacancies 89 positions for 11.7 million, but savings from freezing vacancies is about 5 million, she wants to know the reason for discrepancy. Bas says she's concerned workforce enforcement and workforce IG are frozen, but they're voter initiatives
Reiskin responds to Bas' question about Ballot measure mandated positions that are vacant. Reiskin says that he isn't sure the DWS Deputy Director position is mandated. He also says that the IG position shouldn't be frozen, and it was, its a mistake that will be remedied.
City Attorney: Dept of Workplace Employment Standards has a charter designated director, but there's a question of whether that can be frozen, regardless. He says that the IG is also a Charter created position, but its not ready to be filled anyway. [that's my understanding]
Bas is asking to clarify the 7.5% mandated reserve.
Reiskin: say consolidated fiscal policy mandates City has to put 7.5% of its GPF into reserve, and that's $48 mil. money put aside had to be bumped to 48 to prevent it going to negative. But she didn't ask, and he didn't answer why they can't use it [CFP seems to say they can]
Here is the Consolidated Fiscal Policy again. It clearly states they can use it if they officially declare a fiscal emergency, which they keep unofficially doing to excuse cutting workforce and services.
Carroll Fife asks Reiskin where in the Charter the responsibilities for Council and Admin for fiscal emergencies are enumerated.
Fife asks where she can find the definition of a fiscal emergency? FD rep says that's in the consolidated fiscal policy. Again, below:
Fife also asks where the City Admin's authority to make the budget cuts are. She says that what seems to be amendments to the mid cycle budget have been made without Council approval.
CM Reid says she's in awe of the financial crisis they're in, facing insolvency.
Reid is straddling both sides of the conversation asking very generally for better and more information, but nothing specific. She says she wants to see the details of future budget projections.
Reid says she was surprised to hear how many TPTs were affected without full transparency. Reid asks specifically about the WPAD fund and ABAT policing. And asks for specifics of FEMA repayment. Reid also asks for clarity about why OPD OT hours decreased, while OT $$ increased.
Reiskin responds the ABAT services has been restored. Reiskin also says that FEMA reimbursement process can take years, and they can't be expected this FY. He says they don't know how much they'll get. Reiskin mentions FEMA re-imbursability from 75 to 100% in recent WH action
Reiskin thanks Reid for bringing up the fact that OPD overtime hours have gone down, and that the benefits and salary increases have increased the cost. But his response is in general about all employees, not OPD.
Kaplan says that the OPD raise was recommended by Admin, but that the Admin then request an OPD budget that didn't reflect the increase. Reiskin fumbles a bit when it comes to assigning blame for who didn't ask for more OPD money to cover the Admin requested OPD salary increase
Thao asks for how the lay offs of TPT register on issues of race and equity. [I can tell you most TPTs are of color poor people]
Thao also asks for readable budget reports for transparency before the public.
Reiskin says that most TPT's are from Library and Parks and Rec, and says that most of the services have been cut anyway. He says they've relied on full time staff to do the lower level of work.
Reiskin also said that in the best years, the City has been working in an austerity pov trying to close budget gaps. Keep in mind, the City asked Council to give OPD five years of raises during this austerity period, and Council said yes.
Kaplan says that digging into why OPD spending was greater this past FY than previous is important, mentions policing protests. She also mentions the idea that the Admin didn't include raises for OPD in their budget requests.
Kaplan says that she doesn't want to blame individual police when they were directed towards possible protests on election night, while an organized crime wave swept through east oakland. It was management that made that decision.
Kaplan says that Fund 2415 Development Service Fund has a huge budget surplus 149.4 million. She wants to know whether the City can use that money.
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