LWV Statement requesting the Council to preserve transparency

For a couple minutes last night, I stepped out of my blogger role and put on my League of Women Voters of Oakland pin. I read to the Council a statement from the League objecting to the proposed cuts to open government and transparency functions. Many thanks to LWVO member Rebecca Saltzman for leaving a party that I’m sure was much more fun than the budget meeting in order to come cede me time!

A number of people asked me about it afterwards, so I thought it might be of interest to you guys too. Here it is:

The League understands very well the overwhelming financial difficulties facing the city. We also understand that in a time of budget crisis, transparency, sunshine, and the public’s ability to scrutinize the actions of city government become more essential than ever.

We strongly object to the proposed reduction of the Public Ethics Executive Director position and the proposed elimination of the Public Ethics executive assistant. Since its creation in 1997, the Public Ethics Commission has been severely understaffed, operating with only two employees, a fraction of the support staff afforded to similar commissions in neighboring cities.

Any further reduction of Public Ethics staff would render it impossible for the Commission to fulfill its charter mandated duties, which include administration and enforcement of the Sunshine Ordinance, the Campaign Reform Act, the Lobbyist Registration Act, and campaign public financing, among others.

Additionally, the League strongly objects to the proposed reduction of the number of public meetings broadcast by KTOP. These recordings play a critical role in ensuring transparent government, as they are often the only opportunity for citizens to witness the public decision-making process. Meeting minutes are not an adequate substitute, as they record votes only, and provide no information about the substance of discussions.

Again, we appreciate the difficulty of the choices before you. But reducing transparency and obliterating enforcement of open government laws is unacceptable. Limitations on the city budget do not eliminate the public’s right to know.

A budget compromise

Noting the many common elements between all budget proposals, District 4 Councilmember Libby Schaaf suggested a compromise that incorporated some elements of all the different plans.

Here’s what it looked like. Remember, all of this is changes to the Mayor’s Scenario A. This document (PDF) lists all the proposed cuts and additional revenue measures in the Mayor’s Scenarios A, B, and C. This document (PDF) compares the three different proposals from Councilmembers (thanks to Matthai Kuruvila from the Chronicle for sharing).

Additional Expenditures versus Mayor’s Scenario A

The total cost of these add backs is $12,439,756 in FY11-12 and $13,898,150 in FY12-13.

• Transfer 2 FTEs from Council offices to redevelopment (would count towards already budgeted 15% reduction)
• Do not delay opening of East Oakland Sports Center
• Maintain library services
• Keep Main Library open during Winter Break
• Preserve 9 Neighborhood Service Coordinators, eliminate 1 vacant NSC position
• Maintain 85% of cultural arts grants funding
• Preserve 2 Information Technology FTEs by moving them to the Library and funding them with Measure Q surplus
• Preserve 1 FTE Oakland Film Office
• Maintain 85% subsidies to Oakland Zoo, Vietnamese Senior Centers, Symphony in schools program, AIDs initiative, Women’s Business Initiative, Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland Asian Cultural Center & Peralta Hacienda
• Maintain 100% of Eden I&R 211 Information & Referral funding and move to Library GPF budget
• Keep all fire stations open
• Preserve programming at Manzanita, San Antonio and Poplar Rec Centers
• Civilianize police internal affairs
• Hire back 44 laid off officers immediately (increasing sworn strength by 22 officers)
• Preserve 3 gardener II positions
• Retain one tree trimming crew, move that and three gardener positions and one gardener crew supervisor position to LLAD
• Freeze 5 FTE Information Technology positions previously proposed to be restored for one year, all positions are currently vacant
• Preserve 1 HR & 2 Accounting positions
• Restore Principal Financial Analyst and Payroll Personnel Clerk III in treasury division
• Downgrade one Principal Financial Analyst to Senior Human Resources Systems Analyst
• Downgrade one Payroll Personnel Clerk III to Payroll Personnel Clerk II
• Contribute whatever savings we have at the end of the day to reserve
• Restore hazmat pay to firefighters

Additional Savings

The total amount in additional savings and new revenue (again, compared to the Mayor’s Scenario A) is $14,576,227 in FY11-12 and $21,897,000 in FY12-13.

• Cost Savings from Labor agreements
• Move some money from Kaiser Arena sales proceeds away from accelerated negative fund payment and put it in general fund reserve
• Shift some Kaiser Center sales proceeds from 2nd to 1st year
• Adjust OPD attrition assumption rate from 3.3 to 4 per month

New Revenue

• Convert 580 Underpass Lot to 169 meters

The tweets!

I was delighted last night to see a number of new people tweeting the Council meeting! Below, I’ve collected some of the highlights of the Twitter coverage. If you want to see all of it, just search #oakmtg on Twitter.

matthai: hundreds have poured into Oakland CC budget meetings, but tonight is relatively tame. No pitchforks or chainsaws tonight. #oakmtg

dto510: Current speaker helped me file my taxes two years ago. I agree that revenue-generating positions should’t be cut. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: Former Ethics Commissioner Barbara Newcombe speaking, objects to cuts to Public Ethics dept., KTOP programming. #oakmtg

dto510: West #Oakland er says new youth services agency isn’t doing a good job, CM Nadel no longer represents area, to applause. #oakmtg

matthai: can we take an #oakmtg poll? What % chance do you think the council will actually vote on the budget tonight rather than push it off?

dto510: @matthai 25%. It’s not yet the last minute. #oakmtg

dto510: Library worker tells a touching family story “through the library, the internet and Google.” #oakmtg

matthai: @vsmoothe, on behalf of LWV, criticizes council proposals to cut Ethics Commission & KTOP broadcasts. #oakmtg

matthai: … @vsmoothe: “limitations on the city budget do not eliminate the public’s right to know.” #oakmtg

anca: Thank you League of Women Voters for standing up for transparency. #oakmtg

dto510: Next speaker expounds on idea of “creative taxes,” says Council should focus on national issues like bank bailouts. #oakmtg

dto510: IFPTE 21 rep decries sorry state of City technology infrastructure, wants preservation of Oaklanders’ Assistance Center. #oakmtg

mcplanner: Fun Sanjay Facts: 20% of Oakland hotel rentals are prostitution. Ticket cyclists as revenue source #oakmtg

dto510: “Pat Kernighan loves bicyclists… & stops Oakland from holding (them) accountable.” – Sanjiv Handa. Not the advocates’ perspective. #oakmtg

dto510: Handa calls out Mayor Quan for sending fundraising plea to email addresses gleaned from non-political events. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: Speaker now objecting to police use of mind control technology. Um… #oakmtg

dto510: While #Oakland City Council listens to the public b/c of that pesky Brown Act, State Legislature blows thru budget bills. #oakmtg

matthai: A 360 degree view of council chambers tonight. Wish I’d done this when we had pitchforks. http://bit.ly/iQkgqe #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: Speaker: Our librarian doesn’t deserve to lose her job, she deserves an Oscar. #oakmtg And that’s it for public comment!

oaklandscene: Between the call for an investigation of CIA mind control and speaker talking & also breast feeding at things are a bit surreal. #oakmtg

eastbaycitizen: Reading my Twitter timeline is quite riveting with tweets from #CAbudget, #oakmtg and #CARedistricting happening all at once.

Vsmoothe: CM Brooks now presenting her team’s budget. If you haven’t seen the budgets, they’re all available on http://t.co/hAIdtdA #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: CM Brooks: Council offices + Neighborhood Service Coordinators can handle job of Oaklanders Assistance Center. Already take calls. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: I have an idea! If they do the same thing, how about we keep the Oaklanders Assistance Center and cut Council staff to pay for it? #oakmtg

dto510: CM Brooks says despite new funds, still need for cuts and new revenues for the next budget process. #oakmtg

MarleenLee: Oh. So part of the police proposal is to give them a raise in 2014? Interesting. #oakmtg

dto510: CM De La Fuente says OPOA contract makes problem worse b/c trades 9% pension contribution for a 4% raise, 2x sick days. #oakmtg

dto510: CM DLF: We’re ignoring $138m debt on funds, half-billion-dollar PFRS liability, $43m payment next month. #oakmtg

MarleenLee: Pat Kernighan admits that the budget proposals are nothing more than band-aids. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: CM Kernighan: “In two years when this budget is up, we will again be in difficult straits.” #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: Is that a joke? I will be FLOORED if they make it through December without having to open up the budget and do this all over again. #oakmtg

oaklandscene: Fiinal budget vote looks remote especially when council members are still questioning city staff about proposed budget components. #oakmtg

dto510: Consultant defends changing revenue collection, says model data-mining program exceeded revenue targets by $3.2m. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: Staff spending ridiculous amnt of time explaining to the Council they’re using computers now instead of people with pens and paper. #oakmtg

anca: Hmm, some councilpeeps seem awfully ignorant about the Revenue Dept’s IT improvements, which replace antiquated manual processes #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: Or is it me? Am I missing something here? This whole discussion seems ridiculously stupid. #oakmtg

DIYGene: @Vsmoothe “so explain these computer things…” #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: I really wish they would stop talking about this. This discussion is boring and repetitive. #oakmtg

MarleenLee: I think this discussion on the revenue collection is an excellent way to cut down on public speakers-new way around Brown Act. #oakmtg

DIYGene: #oakmtg let’s talk about the budget proposals, shall we? #facepalm

Vsmoothe: I think Council is trying to drive everyone away w/this inane discussion so nobody sees what they say about the rest of the budget. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: OMG Thank goodness! It’s over! Now CM Brunner asking about rehiring officers. “Where is this money coming from?” #oakmtg

OaklandBecks: CM Brunner – We need consensus. We can keep giving speeches, but that’s not going to bring us to consensus. Agreed. #oakmtg

anca: I can’t believe that we are counting on selling off city property (which does not have a buyer) as a way to solve budget problems. #oakmtg

matthai: Gang of 4 budget assumes cops cost $149k/yr. Avg cop in Oakland previously stated at $188k/yr. #oakmtg

OaklandBecks: Budgeting by magic! RT @matthai Gang of 4 budget assumes cops cost $149k/yr. Avg cop in Oakland previously started at $188k/yr. #oakmtg

chuklessmith@OaklandBecks I didn’t read the 7th Harry Potter book, but I expect it ended with him slaying Voldemort, not balancing the Oakland budget.

Vsmoothe: CM Nadel: We wanted to wait for negotiations before having a proposal so it wouldn’t get out that libraries might be closed. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: WTF? Has she been living in the same city as I have for the last two months? #oakmtg

matthai: Nadel says budget proposals delayed so advocates wouldn’t be pit against each other. But that’s exactly what happened for 2 months. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: CM Schaaf: We’ll have no new information on budget Thurs that we don’t have tonight. Delaying costs money! Must pass budget tonight! #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: I am curious where this sudden sense of urgency is coming from, when the Council went 2 months without saying a word! #oakmtg

dto510: They’re getting down to brass tacks. CM Schaaf says her team will accept parking meters under 580 but not in Eastlake. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: CM Schaaf moves adoption of a combination of her team’s budget and the other budgets, CM Nadel seconds. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: CM Reid asks @jeanquan to respect Council and let them discuss budget w/o interruption. She interrupts: “I’m not a typical Mayor.” #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: CM Brunner: This is not a real compromise, I would need to see something in writing. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: CM Brunner: I am not comfortable with spending one time money on ongoing operations. CM Brooks also wants to see it in writing. #oakmtg

OaklandBecks: Looks like we might have a #cabudget vote tonight, but clearly there will be no Oakland budget passed tonight. #oakmtg

Vsmoothe: #oakmtg isn’t over, but I’ve had enough! Goodnight!

matthai: Council will vote on budget on Thursday — last day of fiscal year. Council proposals might be posted online tomorrow #oakmtg

Gcrime: I should have gone to #oakmtg instead of obsessing over gamer serial killers on British television

Vsmoothe: Now for the best part of #oakmtg. The glass of wine afterwards!

matthai: Oakland Council turns down their salary increases. #oakmtg

DIYGene: given pushing everything to Thursday #oakmtg i wonder if anyone will show up for the opening of the EO sports center

DIYGene #oakmtg votes 8-0 to accept contract for EO sports center as-is, rather than do 6 months and re-evaluate. made CM reid happy

amymartincomics: Reid is cranky, and he just said “my sugar is up.” #oakmtg

amymartincomics: CM Brooks thinks fees are “way too high” for E. Oakland Sports Ctr?.. erm, kind of late to bring that up, isn’t it? #oakmtg

OK folks–here it is. It’s time to let you all in on the contract that Local 55 (fire) has negotiated with the city. Ready? Go!

As you know (hopefully) Local 55 is already paying 13% of our salary towards PERS. This is far over and above any other bargaining unit in the city. And we’ve been doing it for years, saving the city lots of money. We also reduced the amount the city paid for our medical coverage two years ago. Next, two years ago we agreed to work four hours per week for free. We’re still doing that. This was effectively a 7% cut in pay. I’ve heard a lot of people say that that isn’t a cut to work four hours per week for free. But imagine if you are a 40-hour per week employee and your boss told you that you had to come to work every other Saturday, all day long. For free. It would probably feel like a cut.

Anyhow, that’s what we did before. Here’s what we’re proposing now:

• Three year contract
• 8.85% pay cut
• Give up 2 Vacation days per year
• Freeze the city’s contribution to our dental plan
• New hires go to 3% at 55 for pension

An 8.85% cut plus a loss of two vacation days is equivalent to 10% of our total compensation, or 9.57 million dollars. Two vacation days might not seem like a lot, but we work 24-hour days. Most folks in the dept get either 7 or 9 days, so a loss of two days is a significant chunk.

So there you have it (for the first part at least; there’s more). Ten percent. Boom. In the form of a 9-ish percent cut and two vacation days. This is on top of the 13% contribution to PERS and all that other stuff. It saves the city 30 million over the life of the contract, and the change in retirement calculation saves millions more down the road.

But wait, there’s more…In the second year of the contract we give the city the option of browning out two companies. The city is quite eager to close/brownout firehouses. We insisted that each neighborhood share the pain. So to that end the brownouts will roll through the entire city. We have 32 rigs and 2 will brown out each day, beginning July 2012. Essentially, each company will be closed one sixteenth of the time. This saves the city 4.4 million dollars per year.

So there you have it. A 10% cut directly out of the firefighter’s pocket. Ten million bucks a year. And two years of brownouts. It’s not anybody’s dream, but it’s a solid concession and we’re proud to do our part to help the city through this rough patch. I also feel compelled to point out that this concession far exceeds what any of the council members asked us for in their budgets. Going off of V Smoothe’s analysis, IDLF wanted 3.7 million from us; the Kaplan team wanted 12 million from ALL UNIONS COMBINED; and the Reid group didn’t really seem to be asking for any concessions at all. At any rate, we tripled the concessions that IDLF asked us for, and his seemed to be the most concessions-based budget.

Bottom line is that it’s a solid deal in a shaky time. We hope all of the other bargaining units will make similar concessions so that we can get this city moving again. It’s a pleasure working for/with all you fellow Oaklanders and I hope you feel OK about this deal.

And now: fire away! I’ll take your questions.

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s a comparison of the budget changes in the Mayor’s three budget scenarios (PDF).

Proposal from Ignacio De La Fuente

And here’s the budget proposal from Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente (PDF). It maintains library services, as well as cultural arts funding and Neighborhood Service Coordinators. In the accompanying memo (PDF), he notes:

Of particular significance is my proposal to impose 20 furlough days for police. I differ from my colleagues and the Mayor and City Administration in that my proposal does not use gimmicks or revenue projections that are not real. This proposal lives up to the expectation that every sector of the City provides their fair share to balance this budget.

So here’s what it looks like.

Added back to Mayor’s Scenario A, totaling $10,532,406

• No fire station closures: $310,000
• No reduction in library staffing: $5,447,340
• Film office staffing, add back 1 FTE
• No Rec Center reduction programming at Manzanita and San Antonio: $184,963
• Council Offices: move 2 FTE from General Fund to Redevelopment: $252,182 (plus other “alternative reduction”, for total savings of $378,856)
• Opening of East Oakland Sports Center: $500,000
• Maintain minimal funding at Zoo: $150,000
• Neighborhood Service Coordinators: $1,000,000
• No Parking Division Reorganization: $617,237
• No Reduction in Accounting, Treasury, and Admin Positions: $1,000,000
• Cultural Arts Grants Funding: $730,000
• Peralta Hacienda: $54,000
• Asian Cultural Center: $60,000

New revenue, totaling: $8,266,340

• Additional 5 days of Mandatory Leave without Pay for police, bringing total to 20: $2,300,000
• Firefighter union concessions: $3,700,000
• Convert 580 underpass lot to 169 meters: $483,340
• Reinstall 200 meters at East Lake: $660,000
• Transfer Tax from sale of The Landing at Jack London Square: $973,000
• Sell former Champion Street Fire Station: $150,000

New savings, totaling $2,299,336

• Eliminate City Attorney legal communications officer: $164,448
• Eliminate Neighborhood Law Corps Director position: $161,451
• Eliminate Misdemeanor Prosecution Program: $297,662
• Eliminate Half-Time Executive Assistant to the Public Ethics Director: $51,240
• Reduce Public Ethics Director Position to Half Time: $75,862
• 12 Yearly Closure Dates and PWA Savings at the East Oakland Sports Center: $500,000
• Administrative Assistant to Mayor: $82,184 (NSD)
• Eliminate Program Analyst III (NSD): $134,134
• Eliminate Police Service Technician II (NSD): $87,002
• Eliminate Administrative Services Manager II (Parking Division): $178,494
• Eliminate Administrative Assistant I (Parking Division): $76,261
• Reduce Parking Enforcement Supervisor II to Parking Enforcement Supervisor 1: $33,136
• Reduce Accountant III to Accountant II (Parking Division): $19,436
• Parking: Reduce Accountant Clerk III to Accountant II (vacant): $37,470
• Freeze Parking Meter Repair Worker (vacant): $76,806
• Freeze Parking Meter Collector (vacant): $71,568
• 1 FTE Film Office from General Fund to Redevelopment: $100,000
• For Public Works: Add back 3 FTE Tree Trimmers ($333,199), 1 FTE Tree Supervisor ($132,844), 2 FTE Gardeners II ($177,794), Eliminate $350,000 newly proposed Emergency Tree Contract, Eliminate newly proposed Program Analyst II ($102,950), Eliminate Management Intern Facilities and Environment Division ($83,000), Eliminate Account III – Fiscal Services ($128,000), Utilize LLAD Operating Surplus ($44,439)

I’ll update this post with other two Council budget proposals when they appear.

Proposal from Councilmembers Nancy Nadel, Pat Kernighan, Rebecca Kaplan, and Libby Schaaf

And here’s the budget proposal from Councilmembers Nadel, Kernighan, Kaplan, and Schaaf (PDF). Strangely, although it continues to rely on the sale of the Kaiser Convention Center for an absurd price, it conditions the sale on “modified purchase sources” and the immediate issuance of an RFQ. It’s unclear what these purchase sources are — a different Redevelopment Area (as proposed by Brooks, Brunner, and Reid)? Or a private party, which is what the reference to an RFQ seems to imply? If that’s the case, it does not seem realistic to me at all. Selling it to ourselves for so much money was bad, but the idea that anyone else would buy it for the amount budgeted is just laughable.

Additional Expenditures versus Mayor’s Scenario A, totaling $20,131,037

• Maintain library services: $5,450,000
• Keep Main Library open during Winter Break: $50,000
• Preserve all 9 Community Policing Neighborhood Service Coords: $829,929
• Maintain 85% of cultural arts grants funding: $620,602
• Preserve 2 Information Technology FTEs by moving them to the Library and funding them with Measure Q surplus: $240,000
• Preserve 1 FTE Oakland Film Office: $98,543
• Maintain 85% subsidies to Oakland Zoo, Vietnamese Senior Centers, Symphony in schools program, AIDs initiative, Women’s Business Initiative, Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland Asian Cultural Center & Peralta Hacienda: $799,615
• Maintain 100% of Eden I&R 211 Information & Referral funding and move to Library GPF budget: $100,000
• Keep all fire stations open: $320,000
• Preserve programming at Manzanita, San Antonio and Poplar Rec Centers: $299,393
• Civilianize police internal affairs ($1,340,000 in savings in FY12/13, none in FY11-12)
• Hire back 44 laid off officers immediately (increasing sworn strength by 22 officers): $3,271,478
• Preserve 3 gardener II positions: $257,000
• Preserve 5 Tree Trimmers + 2 Tree Supervisor 1s: $705,174
• Preserve 5 Information technology FTEs: $705,174
• Preserve 1 HR & 2 Accounting positions: $325,000
• Contribution to Reserve: $6,050,000

Additional Savings, totaling $20,140,000

• Cost Savings Goal from Labor Agreements: $12,200,000
• Move $1.3 of Kaiser Arena sales proceeds from accelerated negative fund payment to general fund reserve: $1,300,000
• Shift Henry Kaiser Center sales proceeds from 2nd to 1st year: $5,100,000
• Adjust OPD attrition assumption rate from 3.3 to 4 per month: $1,200,000
• Draw Measure Q surplus to preserve library services and dedicated Library Technology staff: $340,000

Total savings: $20,140,000

Cost Neutral Proposals

• Reject current reorganization proposal of parking division. Direct staff to return with a new cost-neutral proposal that maintains Parking Director position.
• Adopt City Attorney’s proposal to add 6 Attorney and 3 Support Staff positions funded by Self Liability Insurance fund 1100 in Non-Dept. and reduce liability costs by same amount. Require study 9 months after implementation to evaluate promised cost savings.
• Support 5 day reduced hours at Senior Centers.
• Condition sale of Henry J. Kaiser Center on modified purchase sources and issuance of RFQ asap.
• Restore as many Gardener II’s as possible through savings in LLAD realized by labor agreements

Future Revenue Ideas

• Lease Miller Library
• Sell Chabot Golf Course
• Seek WIB funding for Second Start Literacy Program
• Seek Redevelopment funding for Tool Lending Library
• Explore revenue generation through fees or membership program at AAMLO Museum

Proposal from Councilmembers Larry Reid, Desley Brooks, and Jane Brunner

Here is the budget proposal from Councilmember Reid, Brooks, and Brunner (PDF). It’s extremely similar to De La Fuente’s budget, except with fewer sources of new revenue and it does not restore the proposed cuts of gardeners and tree trimmers or the cultural arts grant funding. It also eliminates the Oaklanders Assistance Center. Both this budget and De La Fuente’s budget gut the Public Ethics Office, eliminating the part-time assistant entirely and reducing the Executive Director (the only other Public Ethics staff member) to half-time.

Added back to Mayor’s Scenario A, totaling $10,448,405

• No fire station closures: $310,000
• No reduction in library staffing: $5,797,340
• Film office staffing, add back 1 FTE: $100,000
• No Rec Center reduction programming at Manzanita: $400,000
• Council Offices: move 2 FTE from General Fund to Redevelopment: $378,856
• Opening of East Oakland Sports Center: $500,000
• Maintain minimal funding at Zoo: $400,000
• Neighborhood Service Coordinators: $1,000,000
• No Parking Division Reorganization: $562,199
• No Reduction in Accounting, Treasury, and Admin Positions: $1,000,010
• No elimination of 0.50 FTE Revenue Assistant or 4.80 FTEs Tax Enforcement Officer II positions: $562,199

Alternative to Mayor’s proposal

New revenue, totaling: $2,140,000

• Convert 580 underpass lot to 169 meters: $483,340
• Reinstall 200 meters at East Lake: $660,000
• Transfer Tax from sale of The Landing at Jack London Square: $973,000

New savings, totaling $2,299,336

• Eliminate City Attorney legal communications officer: $164,448
• Eliminate Misdemeanor Prosecution Program: $297,662
• Elimination Oakland Assistance Center: $251,151
• Eliminate Half-Time Executive Assistant to the Public Ethics Director: $51,240
• Reduce Public Ethics Director Position to Half Time: $75,862
• 12 Yearly Closure Dates and PWA Savings at the East Oakland Sports Center: $500,000
• Eliminate Neighborhood Service Director (Administrative Assistant to Mayor: $82,184 (NSD)
• Eliminate Program Analyst III (NSD): $134,134
• Eliminate Police Service Technician II (NSD): $87,002
• Eliminate Administrative Services Manager II (Parking Division): $178,494
• Eliminate Administrative Assistant I (Parking Division): $76,261
• Downgrade Parking Enforcement Supervisor II to Parking Enforcement Supervisor 1: $24,514
• Downgrade Accountant III to Accountant II (Parking Division): $27,597
• Freeze Assistant Controller: $105,386
• Eliminate Administrator Analyst (new proposed budget position): $95,627
• Transfer 1 FTE from Film Office from General Fund to Redevelopment: $100,000

If you’re just tuning in, the proposal is basically to close 14 of OPL’s 18 locations entirely. The remaining four locations (the Main Library, Rockridge Branch, Dimond Branch, and the new 81st Avenue Branch) would be open for only limited hours, and only 2 or 3 days a week. There would be no more e-books, no more databases or other electronic resources, no more programming, no more storytime, no new materials purchases — you get the idea. Library Director Carmen Martinez summed it up at a Council budget hearing earlier this month like so:

Library services as we have provided and enjoyed them all these years would cease to exist.

I don’t want to live in a city that doesn’t have a library. I can’t imagine who would. And if you feel the same way, I strongly encourage you to check out Save Oakland Libraries, an organization that has formed to protest these cuts and remind the Council that libraries are a core service, and an essential part of quality of life in Oakland.

On their website, they have a toolkit offering flyers, petitions, fact sheets, and sample letters to help you raise awareness and support among your friends. With the Council’s budget vote fast approaching, it is really important to demonstrate as much support for the library as possible in the next few days. For regular updates, you can follow Save Oakland Library on Facebook and SaveOPL on Twitter.

One of the reasons I’ve been so delighted with the efforts of Save Oakland Libraries is that they’ve been doing a lot of really creative and fun events to raise awareness of the proposed cuts. Yes, they’ve turned out lots of people at Council meetings, like every other group that’s ever protested cuts to their favorite city service, but they’ve also done a lot of fun, non-Council meeting stuff, like a storytime in front of City Hall before the last Council meeting, a zombie crawl up Telegraph, and a funeral procession for the Oakland Public Library system (complete with coffin) during the Art Murmur a couple of weeks ago.

So today I wanted to highlight a couple more upcoming events in support of the library, both of which I think sound really fun.

Save Oakland Libraries Bike Ride

This coming Saturday, June 18th, there’s going to be a Save Oakland Libraries Bike Ride. They’re going to start downtown and ride through Oakland stopping at several of the branches slated for closure:

Meet at Frank Ogawa Plaza (steps of Oakland City Hall) at 10am. From there, we’ll head to (in order) AAMLO, Asian Branch, Cesar Chavez, Melrose, MLK, 81st Ave and end at the Elmhurst Branch grand re-opening party.

The route is approximately 10 miles: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/36150834.

The ride is designed to be a fun, family friendly event. We will stop near or at several BART stations for those who do not wish to ride the entire route. Folks can also choose to meet up at any of the above branches and join up with the larger ride as we pass by (think pied piper). For timing reasons, we won’t stop at each branch for very long – save the Cesar Chavez Branch and Elmhurst.

We encourage you to:

• Bring music! (Speaker bikes, boom boxes, etc.)
• Decorate yourselves and your bike!
• Please tell your friends, your family, and your co-workers to join us. The more people we have riding with us, the more powerful our statement will be: WE WILL NOT ACCEPT THE CLOSURE OF OUR LIBRARIES!

Here’s the map of the route:

Get more info and updates on the Facebook event page. Then, on Monday…

14 Hours, 14 Branches: A Read-In to Save Oakland Libraries

I think this is such a cool idea. Next Monday, June 20th, library supporters will be demonstrating their opposition to the proposed evisceration of the Oakland Public Library system by reading out loud continuously (in 15 minute shifts) in front of Oakland City Hall from 6am to 8pm — one hour for every branch the Mayor has proposed shutting down. More info, from the Facebook event page:

14 Hours, 14 Branches is a 14 hour read-in being held on Monday, June 20, to raise awareness that 14 of 18 Oakland’s branch libraries (including AAMLO and the Tool Lending Library) will be eliminated under the current budget Scenario A. City Council presents their budget recommendations on Tuesday, June 21, and we want to have our voices reading for an uninterrupted 14 hours the day before to send our message loud and clear: save ALL of Oakland’s public libraries.

People will read in 15 minute slots continuously from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm on Monday, June 20 in front of City Hall. We’re having children’s storytime (and possibly some other themes) but ultimately want people to be able to read anything that is meaningful to them. The spectrum of books read will reflect the depth and richness of resources available at all branches of the Oakland Public Library.

And they have a seriously impressive lineup! Plenty of library staff and devoted library patrons will be reading, as well as all these great local authors — Mac Barnett (Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem, The Clock without a Face), Annie Barrows (Ivy + Bean, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society), Shirin Yim Bridges (Ruby’s Wish, The Umbrella Queen), Jennifer Holm (Turtle in Paradise, Penny from Heaven), Kathryn Otoshi (Simon & the Sock Monster, What Emily Saw, One), Gennifer Choldenko (Al Capone Does My Shirts, Louder, Lili), Harriet Rohmer (Heroes of the Environment), Lissa Rovetch (Hot Dog and Bob), Dashka Slater (The Wishing Box, The Sea Serpent and Me).

Plus Charlie Haas (The Enthusiast), Jeff Chang (Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation), Shailja Patel (Migritude). AND, most exciting for me, Frank Portman (of The Mr. T Experience fame, and author of King Dork, Andromeda Klein)!

And of course the blogoaksphere will be represented. dto510 is reading from 2:45 to 3:00 pm, and I’m scheduled for 6PM, immediately following Dr. Frank! 1:15 to 1:30pm. [Updated: I ceded my primetime spot to someone more famous. -V] I haven’t decided what I’m reading yet, so I’m open to suggestions in the comments. I was thinking maybe something from Thucydides? Following me Starting at 4 will be several hours of local writers and celebrities. [Updated: Including Ishmael Reed!]

Anyway, it’s totally worth checking out if you work downtown or live downtown or even pass through downtown on your way to or from work. If you have kids, consider bringing them down after work. There’s a lot of children’s authors on the list. Plus, it’s never too early to teach the virtues of civic engagement! I think the whole event is going to be super fun.

Here’s the Facebook event page for more information and updates.

On Monday night, June 6 (PDF), Oakland Redevelopment Agency (ORA) staff presented to the Central City East Redevelopment District Project Area Committee (CCE PAC) a proposal for ORA to buy the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center from the City for $29 million [6/14/11: Added the word "million" for clarity, thanks livegreen -V]. The reason for the deal is obvious: Redevelopment has money; the City needs money. CEDA Deputy Director Gregory Hunter made an eloquent case for ORA taking charge of this landmark building and turning it into a productive cultural resource for the City, like the Fox Theater. The proposed deal was for the Central District to pay $13 million and CCE to pay $16 million. The Kaiser Center lies in the Central District. Laney College, just south of the Center, is in CCE.

CCE PAC members were unreceptive to the idea. Some PAC members have been working for decades to improve their neighborhoods, and were distressed that, now that we had money to accomplish some of their goals, that money was being snatched by the City. They did not see how the proposed purchase would benefit CCE. The claim that any development that draws positive attention to Oakland helps all of Oakland did not comfort. The PAC rejected the proposal 13-1.

But the PAC is only advisory to the City Council. The Council was reviewing the proposal as part of the ORA budget the next night. PAC Chairperson Gloria Jeffrey, heading up a delegation from the PAC, spoke passionately against the proposal. Others spoke individually, including myself. I questioned the price.

The $29 million tab is based on the replacement value of the Center (PDF). When the City buys or sells a property it is required by law to pay or receive fair value for the property. Fair value is the value that a willing buyer would pay a willing seller in an arms-length transaction. This is not an arms-length transaction, since the City Council decides both for the buyer and the seller. Therefore the valuation price demands special scrutiny.

When an oil tanker explodes and destroys a section of an overpass, the fair value of the overpass is the replacement value. The overpass must be replaced. There is no choice. In the current economy, would the City feel absolutely compelled to replace the Kaiser Center with a similar building if the building were lost? Clearly not. The building has sat vacant and locked for years, and the City has not sought money to bring it up to code. Replacement value is arguably not fair value.

There are two other ways of valuing a commercial building: comparable sales and cash flow. This is a unique building; there are no comparable sales. The alternative cash flow method asks what the building is worth in terms of the stream of income it could generate. Gregory Hunter told the PAC that the appraised cash flow value of the Kaiser Center was $14 million. It could be used by the East Bay Symphony, Oakland Ballet, Laney College and others. I told the Council that I might be persuaded to support a deal, but not at $29 million.

Mayor Quan was present at the meeting, and caught up with a group of the PAC members on our way out. She explained that if the Council did not come up $29 million here, they would have to find it in additional cuts to libraries, senior and youth programs, arts programs and such. She foresaw that the Council would avoid such cuts by pushing through this deal.

I asked the Mayor why $29 million, when the next day the Center would only be worth $14 million to ORA. The issue, she explained, is in the hands of the City’s bond underwriters. She told us that the Kaiser Center is collateral for some of the City’s outstanding bonds. If the City treated the fair value of the Center as $14 million, they would violate the bond covenants. The Mayor hinted that an alternative would be to transfer the collateral to City Hall, but she didn’t want to put City Hall in hock.

So there it is. In order to avoid a lien on City Hall, ORA is compelled to go along with the legal fiction that the Kaiser Convention Center is worth $29 million. While the Center might generate a stream of income worth $14 million, the remaining $15 million is simply an overpayment and is irrecoverable to the two redevelopment districts. It is an unwilling gift from the people of the Central and East Oakland flatlands so that the City can balance its budget this year.

I don’t recall anyone coming out and saying what they think would make for reasonable concessions. There were, however, a couple of comments suggesting that concessions should be whatever it takes to close the budget deficit.

So I played around with the numbers a little bit yesterday. It’s difficult to get a firm number for total employee costs, since, as I’ve noted before, the Mayor’s budgets omit most of the information contained in normal budgets, such as the employees by position by department and fund, and personnel versus non-personnel costs by program. However, from what I was able to cobble together from various sources, it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of an 85% reduction in compensation (including benefits) to close the $58 million General Fund deficit only through concessions of non-sworn workers.

How much do City workers cost?

The chart below shows the average total personnel costs to the City for police, firefighters, and civilian employees, as explained in the budget facts (PDF).

Police, on average, cost $191,390 a year: $104,026 for salary, $43,164 for health benefits, and $44,200 for pensions. Firefighters, on average, cost a little bit less than that, $185,703 annually: $109,196 for salary, $48,150 for medical, and $28,367 for pensions. Non-sworn workers costs an average of $99,870 per year: $63,634 for salary, $22,040 for health, and $14,196 for pensions.

What do the unions say?

Anyway. It seemed fair, if we’re going to be discussing compensation, to include the union perspective in the conversation. The videos below show testimony from representatives of the City’s civilian unions at recent City Council budget meetings.

One thing that I think is important to note is that the testimony seems to suggest that negotiations are not going well at all. I have heard a lot of people, including Councilmembers, say that we basically don’t need to worry about Scenario A because it assumes no concessions from the unions and of course there will be plenty of concessions. I don’t feel nearly so comfortable making that assumption.

The position being expressed by the civilian unions at this point is basically that they are willing to give more in terms of concessions than they have over the last few years, but only if sworn employees take equivalent cuts. It’s a reasonable position, but one that makes me very nervous for the City, considering how things worked out last year.

Here’s one from last Thursday:

There’s a lot of budget facts floating around here right now. I’m here to connect the dots for you, the City Council, our City staff, and the residents of Oakland, and put a face on what your decisions mean for those of us who live in and work for the City of Oakland.

To repeat some facts: 54% of non-sworn staff live in the City of Oakland. 7% of Oakland Police Department officers live in the City of Oakland.

Non-sworn staff earn, on average, $75,000 in salary and benefits. OPD officers earn, on average, $150,000 in salary and benefits.

Approximately 66% of the City’s budget is paid to police and firefighters — where the budget deficit is.

City of Oakland residents have generously approved numerous property tax increases over the last few years, including myself. And you are currently considering asking residents to approve yet another $80 parcel tax to provide continued support to the City’s General Fund.

…

In 94605 area code, where I live, 40% of the homes in my district that are up for sale are either in foreclosure or short sale. That includes my home. 15% in salary cuts combined with 20% combined increases in mortgage, property tax, and insurance costs are forcing me out of my home.

We who both live and work in this City are paying at all ends. Cuts in income, higher housing costs, and continuous asks for more property taxes. And OPD is still not willing to pay a penny. Fair share!

Here’s one from the May 5th budget meeting:

Local 21 has a long history of making contributions to the City in times of budget crisis. In 2003, before we had even signed our recently negotiated contract, the City came to us seeking concessions and threatening layoffs because of projected budget shortfalls.

And although we had just agreed to increase employee retirement contributions by 3%, we then agreed to increase them by an addition 3% for another two years. That agreement included a pledge by the City to require all City employees to contribute the equivalent of either the 3% retirement contribution or 12 furlough days per year.

However, the City did not honor this agreement, and while civilian unions were required to make contributions or take cuts, sworn employees were not required to make any contribution at all.

…

Since the current economic crisis began, we have made substantial contributions to the City. In Fiscal Year 2008-09, the union agreed to the imposition of 12 shutdown days, of which all but one occurred after the last week of December, and, in effect, our members suffered a 10% loss of pay from January 09 through June 2009.

And then in our most recent contract, we agreed again to concessions of 10% by increasing our retirement contribution to the full employee rate of 8%, 12 mandatory business shutdown days per year, and one-third reduction in management leave. As a result, our cost of living increases for 2005 through 2007, when we last got one, were largely eliminated, and today we are making less than we made six years ago. In 2010, the City unilaterally and without meet and confer eliminated free parking for a number of members, effectively resulting in a further loss of pay.

All of these concessions came on top of substantial reductions in force without a corresponding elimination of programs or reduction in work. Today, our members are working harder for less pay.

…

Let me remind you that 56% of civilian workers live in Oakland, while only 22% of firefighters and only 7% of police. Put another way, when you look at those Oakland City employees who live in Oakland, 94% of them are civilians. We live here, we pay taxes, we vote. We are committed to this City. And we share the pain when vital community services are cut.

Time and time again, our experience has been this. Civilian employees are the first to make concessions to help the City’s budget. And we end up being the last to do so. This cannot continue.

We are all aware that nearly 75% of the City’s General Fund goes to police and fire, and much of what’s left goes to debt service and and mandated programs. There is no mathematical way to balance the City’s budget on the backs of civilian workers.

We understand that the City will be seeking further sacrifices from our members, and we understand that the wage concessions you will be seeking will be in addition to staff reductions and departmental reorganization and consolidation.

In other words, more layoffs, more cuts to essential quality of life services in Oakland, and a rollback of our compensation to an effective rate equal to where we were at in 2001, 10 years ago.

…

There is a limit to what our members can afford to give. Many are barely making ends meet as is. Many have partners or spouses who have lost work or income, compounding the pain. And some of our members, including some of the people who are currently at the bargaining table, are at risk of losing their homes. Basic fairness dictates that the cuts you make must be proportional to the cost of different bargaining units within the General Fund.

And given our past experience, we need to see contributions from other employee groups before we can agree to make our contribution because past promises to secure equivalent contributions have not been honored.

Let’s be clear. We are not saying that we can’t make a contribution. In fact, we could have been done with the bargaining process already, since you know we have offered for the last six months to roll over our existing contract and continue the concessions we have been giving for the past two years. That offer was not accepted.

What we are saying is that we are not willing to simply offer up concessions without seeing real contributions from those who constitute the bulk of the costs in the General Fund.

And another from last Thursday:

We have proven our willingness to sacrifice for this City, not just in the quality of our work life, but in our paychecks also. It hasn’t been easy. Many 1021 workers are the sole breadwinners in their family, some have lost their homes.

But now, during these difficult contract negotiations, our members are being asked to give too much. The proposals from the City equal over 25% of our incomes, and growing. Even so, our side is ready to roll up our sleeves, move forward, and negotiate, to mitigate our losses and to try to negotiate a contract that will save our services.

Unfortunately, as a member of the negotiations team, I have to report that your City negotiators seem intent on giving very little in terms of cooperating to improve our working conditions and to maintain the workforce in a humane way. It’s disgraceful in with as much humanity and compassion as Oakland that management has to treat its dedicated and most devoted workers with so little respect and care.

If the public saw what is going on in negotiations, they would understand. We’re being put in an impossible place. It’s like a mugging in slow motion. There is no give and take, the City is all take and take.

We aren’t asking for raises here. We’re seeking solutions to problems that negatively affect our work and services. The City workers are your partners and allies in a crisis that is not our fault. We’re not your scapegoats or your low-lying fruit. We are your workers and we work hard. Have some respect.

What would the Mayor’s budget mean for the library?

Most people I run into around town lately seem to be aware that the Mayor’s proposed budget closes libraries, but very few appear to be aware of the severity of the proposed cuts. Even those who have followed the budget in some detail are often fuzzy about just what these proposed cuts would mean.

This is probably because the Mayor’s budget summaries say simply that under Scenario A, four libraries would remain open (Main, Dimond, Rockridge, and 81st Avenue) while fourteen locations would be closed. That’s horrible on its own, of course. But a lot of people, after seeing the summary, seem to be left with the impression that at least those locations would continue to operate in the same way that they do now.

This is not the case.

Under this scenario, the Library’s allotted staff would decrease from the current 215.04 FTE to a mere 22.8 FTE (PDF). That is a nearly 90% staffing cut, which clearly does not leave enough staff to operate the Library’s four largest facilities at the same level of service currently being provided.

In the video below from last night’s budget meeting, Oakland Public Library Director Carmen Martinez outlines the severe impacts to services at the library under the Mayor’s proposed budget Scenario A:

To maintain minimum library services at the four remaining libraries, we would need to really work with the City Administrator to reduce the services that we currently offer or to just eliminate many of them. We’d have to eliminate days and hours open to the public. 22.8 FTEs don’t allow us to run four buildings in the manner we run them now.

We would lose public access to community meeting rooms, we would not be able to purchase books and materials. The City would not have access to the entire system’s collection, it would only have access to those four branch collections. There would be limited access to public computers and technology, and community programming, including everything we do now from Lawyers in the Libraries to all of our wonderful children’s and teen programs would be severely reduced.

We would close the Oakland History Room, the Teen Zone, and the Children’s Room at the Main Library, and public access at the Main Library would be limited to the first floor, requiring the move of the Magazine & Newspapers, Children’s and Teen’s collection all to the first floor so we could manage one floor at a time.

The last slide is just to remind Council that library services as we have provided and enjoyed them all these years would cease to exist under Option A, but be maintained under Options B and C.

A FAQ prepared by the library (PDF) notes additional service impacts, such as the discontinuation of electronic services like databases and downloadable e-books.

Scenario A and Measure Q

The reason our libraries are facing such drastic cuts under Scenario A is because that the majority of the Library’s funding is currently provided by a parcel tax, Measure Q. This tax, which passed with a 77.2% yes vote, goes only to fund the library, and requires the City to give the library a minimum contribution of $9,059,989 from the General Fund (the same amount it got from the General Fund in 2000) in order to collect the tax.

Mayor Jean Quan’s Budget Scenario A would reduce the library’s General Fund funding (PDF) to less than four million dollars, forcing the City to give up Measure Q. That means sacrificing nearly $14 million of dedicated funding to the library, and cutting the library’s budget by almost $20 million in order to get a savings to the City of roughly $6 million.

The Mayor’s proposed Budget Scenario B, which assumes employee concessions and no parcel tax, proposes to keep library funding at the Measure Q mandated minimum, allowing us to retain library services without new taxes.

However, some Councilmembers seem to have either failed to notice this or don’t believe it. Indeed, even the Mayor herself appears to have forgotten this detail. I have seen at least two Councilmembers respond to constituent messages protesting library cuts by saying that if they want to keep the libraries open, they need to support the parcel tax. At the Library’s author talk with Isabel Wilkerson the other night at AAMLO (made possible by the wonderful Friends of the Oakland Public Library), Oakland Mayor Jean Quan told the crowd that the “only way” to protect Measure Q was to pass her parcel tax.

Public testimony in support of the Oakland Public Library

Below, I’ve highlighted some of the public comment from last night’s meeting, most of it from library staff, about the importance of libraries to Oakland, and especially to Oakland’s youth.

Here’s one from an employee at the new 81st Avenue Community Library in East Oakland, talking about how library staff serve as mentors and positive role models to the next generation of Oakland youth:

Although it’s not part of our job description, as library staff, we are mentors, we are building relationships and modeling positive social skills with our community and most importantly, young people. As a man working in East Oakland, and as a man without a gun working in East Oakland, I’m overwhelmed by the impact that myself and my colleagues have on the lives of young men who use our libraries.

I know that I speak for all my colleagues when I say that we have a passion and a commitment to bettering the lives that we serve. The fifth grade boys I work with today, the two schools next door to the 81st Avenue Branch, are the next generation of 17 to 24 year old men of color in East Oakland. We have an opportunity to shift the need of policing this next generation and giving them skills to thrive and reflect and make good decisions that make our community healthier for all of us, including them.

In this one, a Children’s Librarian from the 81st Avenue Community Library talks about how children in the neighborhood seek out the library as a place of solace and escape from tragedies in their lives:

In this video, an Oakland Children’s Librarian presents the Council with 5,511 signatures from Oakland residents on a petition expressing outrage at the proposed closure of libraries, and speaks about the economic returns of money invested in library services:

But one thing that hasn’t been discussed so far is the fact that libraries bring economic value to communities, and I’d like to take a moment to talk about that. This is something else that I’d like to show Council, this is just one of a number of studies that have been conducted throughout the United States. This latest one is from Wisconsin, there’s the bibliography that lists about forty other locations that have done studies.

What these studies have found is that for every dollar that is spent on library services between four and five dollars of returns come into the city economically. How do these benefits come? They come through salaries that are paid, and there are over four hundred part time and full time staff that are at Oakland Public Library right now.

They come with taxes that are paid, and sixty five percent of Oakland Public Library employees are City of Oakland residents. They come from vendors and contractors, many of them local, that sell items to Oakland Public Library. They come from neighboring businesses who generate income from patrons who are using the library. This is particularly critical in Oakland where we need retail businesses. Library locations such as those at Cesar Chavez, Piedmont Avenue, Rockridge, Dimond are located on Main avenues and people who use the library bring in business.

They also bring in economic business for the cost of services if the public had to buy them. We’re talking about buying books, DVDs, computer time, and programs. This is the May calendar of events for the Oakland Public Library, and I counted the number of programs we’re offering this month — two hundred twenty five. Additionally, OPL offers computer skills and resources for people searching for jobs. We offer free legal help, we offer free tax help, and free financial help.

Cutting any sort of libraries, as my mother would have said, may be penny wise, but it is pound foolish.

In this video, an East Oakland librarian discusses the importance of public libraries for Oakland’s youth in light of the lack of school libraries at Oakland public schools.

Our school’s libraries are already decimated. There are currently 7,500 OUSD students without library services this year. That number will not be smaller next year. As of last week, when almost all OUSD funded librarians were laid off, there are only two professional librarians paid for currently by OUSD. Now we are threatening to take away these students’ public libraries too. What does our city’s future look like when our children lose access to books and research help, when our job seekers lose access to computers and resources, and the number of community funded safe spaces lessens to nearly none?

Here’s a teen library patron discussing the importance of libraries for Oakland youth who wish to attend college.

We all lose if libraries are cut, but the city’s teens and children will lose the most.

This one isn’t from last night, it’s actually from the May 12^th meeting. An Oakland Children’s Librarian discusses the importance of libraries for children in Oakland.

The major social problems our city faces are all predicated on kids success in school. The National Center for Education statistics shows that reading success is positively by access to public libraries, not only through materials, but through programs. Recent research shows that literacy behaviors learned in the first three years of life are the crucial building blocks to later reading success.

All of these behaviors are modeled in our libraries storytimes, which we offer twenty-six times weekly throughout the city, in addition to any scheduled on request by teachers. My office also coordinates a corps of volunteers who provide weekly storytimes in dozens of Head Starts and CDCs. If we can get to them at age zero, we can keep them for life.

This doesn’t happen by magic. It happens because the city’s voters made overwhelmingly clear in passing Measure Q that they wanted a full-time children’s librarian at every library.

You can view more videos of speakers in support of the Oakland Public Library below. This album isn’t at all exhaustive — there were many speakers who came to talk in support of the Second Start Adult Literacy program, the African American Museum and Library, the Tool Lending Library, and the library system in general. I didn’t have time record them all. Even doing these ones took a couple hours.

How you can help

If you want to get involved with the campaign to protect Oakland’s libraries, visit the Save Oakland Library website to find a toolkit for action and a list of volunteer opportunities. You can also get updates from Save Oakland Library on Facebook and SaveOPL on Twitter.

And stay updated about all the cool events going on at OPL with the Oakland Public Library on Facebook and @oaklibrary on Twitter.

They never managed to schedule the special election — Oakland Mayor Jean Quan had failed to adequately notice the item in compliance with Oakland’s Sunshine Laws, and then she tried to schedule another meeting about the special election, but botched the noticing of that meeting as well. Oops!

But the Mayor did not give up on the idea of the parcel tax, and when time to release her proposed budget rolled around, she choose, instead of releasing a real budget for the city, to use the opportunity to continue to press for a new tax.

District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan and District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel seemed to like that approach, and have been responding to constituent pleas to not shutter the library system by saying that if people want the libraries to stay open, they need to support the new parcel tax. I found that curious, since the Mayor’s Scenario B manages to keep the libraries open without new taxes, but of course, pointing that out probably wouldn’t do much to generate support for the tax.

Anyway, the issue of a special election came up again at Tuesday’s Council meeting. District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan, a strong proponent of the parcel tax, proposed scheduling a vote to schedule the special election on June 21st, with a second reading on July 5th, and the Council agreed to do so.

Why wait that long? Explaining her reasoning, Kernighan offered “by June 21st we should have some idea of what the unions have done in their collective bargaining with us” and “by having the second reading on July 5th, it gives us a couple of weeks to do something different if we need to,” although how that impacts whether or not we’re going to have a special election for a parcel tax that she’s already insisted we need under any circumstances in unclear to me.

When the election would actually happen is yet to be determined, although Kernighan noted that she had been thinking of the first week in November.

What else will be on the ballot?

At-large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan pointed out that a secondary benefit of scheduling the vote a month in the future is that it gives other Councilmembers a couple of weeks to put forward their own proposals of things they’d like to see on the ballot.

District 6 Councilmember Desley Brooks, who has opposed the parcel tax, explained that she would be open to a special election if it included options on the ballot besides the tax, such as a vote on the new City Attorney and charter clean-up measures.

The reason that I have not supported putting a parcel tax only on the ballot is because that is not the only solution. I personally don’t support a parcel tax, but I think that we should not just put on those things that we agree with to the exclusion of those things that we don’t.

And the Mayor has consistently touted the parcel tax as if that’s the only thing we can do. There are charter clean-ups that could be put in that will save us money that have not been considered and not been brought forth for the public to even hear.

And so, we need to have a full conversation, and it needs to be more than just those things we agree with. I support the public’s right to make a decision on items, and have always supported that. But I don’t support us picking and choosing what things we’re going to allow to get on the ballot.

I think that if the City Attorney’s position – I am supporting that rather than appoint somebody for the City Attorney’s position that we do an election for that. And so I don’t want to piecemeal anything.

And I’ve said to the Mayor, I’ve said to her staff, I’ve said to the City Administrator that you bring me a comprehensive package, I will support all of those things — whether or not I support them personally — to go on the ballot. That’s what we should do.

And so for us to pretend like the only thing we can do is a parcel tax, and to tell constituents to write in and say shame on you for not supporting a parcel tax so you can keep my library open is disingenuous. And so, let’s provide the community with all the facts to make an informed decision about how we can move forward.

Mayor Jean Quan responded that she has no problem with people putting their own additional measures on the ballot, but that “I don’t have time to work on charter changes at this point,” and is planning “to appoint a group of people to look at the entire charter” after the budget process is finished.

Now, while the Mayor herself may be busy with the budget, presumably her charter review committee would include persons other than budget staff, so I don’t see any logical reason, if that’s what she wants to do, to not have appointed them to start reviewing things already. Furthermore, the whole notion just seems so labored and unnecessary. Is this charter review group going to come up with anything better than the last charter review committee? After eight years on the City Council, you would think Quan would have a firm grasp of where the charter creates problems for the city’s ability to operate.

What else should go on the ballot?

So while Councilmembers are welcome to, and probably will, submit additional measures to be considered for the special election ballot, the timeline is not long enough to allow for any kind of meaningful public input process about what those measures might be. I find this sad, but not surprising. Brooks is right that we should offer the voters real choices, but a city committed to participatory government would draw on the wealth of knowledge and ideas from its people to help determine what those choices should be.

Here are a few ideas I’ve heard tossed around related to potential charter amendments:

• Outsourcing clause: The City Charter currently prohibits the City from contracting out services currently performed by City employees (Section 902e). Complaints about this provision are nothing new, although the idea of changing it seems to have gained some popularity in recent years.

  Oakland City Attorney John Russo, back in Feburary at the Overhauling Oakland’s Budget event sponsored by Make Oakland Better Now! and the East Bay Young Democrats suggested that the problem could be addressed by adding a line to the Charter that says “notwithstanding any other language in this document, the City of Oakland shall not be prevented from coordinating with or contracting with volunteers, non-profit agencies, and business improvement districts for the provision of municipal services” (skip to 4:45 for the part specifically about contracting out). That seems like a good solution to me, although I would add to his list “other public agencies”, which would give the City the option of contracting certain services to the County.

• Pension reform: Another idea for a Charter amendment that people talk about a lot would create some sort of restrictions on employee pensions, likely in the form of prohibiting the City from signing a contract with employee unions that contains a pension plan in excess of some specific formula or amount.

  One variation of this, suggested again by City Attorney John Russo at the Overhauling Oakland’s Budget event would be something commonly referred to as 50/50 pension contributions. Russo suggested the phrasing “The City of Oakland shall enter into no new contract whereby the City of Oakland is responsible for a pension premium cost that exceeds that paid by the employee.”

• PFRS: Make Oakland Better Now! has offered some ideas about how the City Charter could be amended to lessen the burden the obligations of the old Police and Fire Retirement System places on the budget. This post at their blog, Oaktalk explains the specifics.

• Rainy Day Fund: Make Oakland Better Now has also proposed a Charter amendment mandating the establishment of rainy day fund to help the City through hard times. Read more about that on this post on Oaktalk or watch this video presentation.

I would add for consideration:

• Repeal of Kids First: I don’t see how we can have a serious conversation about all possible ways to address the City’s budget without at least considering the elimination of the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth.

  This section of the charter, added by voters in 1996, then amended in 2008 and 2009, requires the City to set aside 3% of unrestricted General Fund money to go to youth programs (PDF). That’s roughly the same amount of the General Fund that goes to Parks and Recreation, and more than goes to fund the Oakland Public Library. While I don’t dispute that the special programs funded by Kids First provide a valuable service, it’s a legitimate question whether those services, which are available only to a relatively small number of children, are more important that citywide education and recreation services that are available to everyone.

  Since the repeal of Kids First is a charter amendment, it takes only a 50% vote to pass, a significantly lower threshold than the 2/3rds vote needed to pass a new parcel tax.

Would the Council be willing to place any of these options on a ballot? I don’t know. Probably not. But if we’re going to have an election anyway and since we’re talking about other things besides the tax that might get placed on the ballot, I don’t see any harm in suggesting that these options be placed before the voters. The worst thing that could happen is the Council won’t place them on the ballot, which is the same result as we’d get if nobody brought them up.

So if there’s something you’d like to see put before the voters, e-mail your Councilmember and ask them to consider it. And if you have other ideas for Charter amendments or other ballot measures you think could help the City, please share them in the comments.

Video of the whole special election discussion from Tuesday’s Council meeting is available below:

Make Oakland Better Now! (MOBN!) has combed through these documents, and still has many unanswered questions. The answers may be available, but as far as we can tell, they don’t appear in the budget documents. In the coming days, MOBN! will raise some of these questions and try to explain why the answers matter. Future posts will appear at MOBN!’s blog, Oaktalk.

How Did The Mayor Set Priorities in the Three Scenarios?

Part One

Whether written in a strong economy or in hard economic times, all budgets show priorities. MOBN! strongly favors the Budgeting for Outcomes means of budgeting described in David Osborne’s The Price of Government. Under this model, a city determines the most cost-effective and efficient way to provide desired levels of each potential service, prioritizes those services and allocates sufficient funding to each of the services in order of priority until all resources are exhausted.

This is the complete opposite of how Oakland and most other cities budget. Instead, the usual process is to take last year’s numbers, determine how they should be adjusted for changed circumstances (e.g., contractually required cost of living adjustments, known price changes, losses of funding sources, etc.) and then make cuts until expenses match revenues. The result is often a budget that waters down all city services and trains citizens to continually lower their expectations about city government.

Unfortunately, the Budgeting for Outcomes approach takes approximately a year to execute and we are far too close to the start of the 2011-12 fiscal year to consider it. So, if we must have the Death by a Thousand Cuts method of budgeting, those cuts must be made in a way that consistently and coherently tracks city priorities.

The mayor’s budget documents and transmittal letters send decidedly mixed messages about the City’s priorities. The Mayor/Council Priorities at the beginning of each scenario (which is identical to the list submitted with the 2009-11 budget) tells us that everything is a priority: public safety, sustainable and healthy environment, economic development, community involvement and empowerment, public-private partnerships and government solvency and transparency.

Some of the detail shows us that this is more of a wish list than a realistic set of priorities. For example, the detail for public safety–in a city that has seen its sworn police staffing drop by about 150 officers in the past two years–urges “an adequate and uncompromised level of public safety services to Oakland residents and businesses. . . .” And one of the sustainable and healthy environment bullet points is “Infrastructure: Provide clean, well-maintained and accessible streets, sidewalks, facilities, amenities, parks, recreational facilities and trees.” This language precedes a budget that eliminates tree trimmers, and anticipates very little street repair. Acting City Administrator Lamont Ewell estimates a capital improvement need of $1.6 billion.

Mr. Ewell identifies seven Budget Balancing Principles, two of which reflect at least some prioritization:

• Principle 2: Give highest priority to protecting the most essential City services. (Although he does not commit to what the most essential city services are); and
• Principle 4: Minimize the negative impact on Oakland residents, businesses and employees.

Mayor Quan identifies her overall approach to budgeting as “an attempt to be fair to all groups while trying to reduce the impact on our most vulnerable citizens, especially low income seniors and youth”. This begs another question: Is being fair to all groups a budgeting priority for Oaklanders?

Perhaps a better way to identify the city’s priorities is to look at how it actually spends its money and where it makes its cuts. Interpreting the three scenarios for this purpose; however, presents several challenges. MOBN! will dig deeper, and look at those challenges, in our next post, at www.Oaktalk.com.

The Committee got an update from staff on the City’s budget situation for this year. In addition to next year’s $58 million or whatever the number is today for the expected deficit, it had been looking like we were also running short on money for this fiscal year which runs through June.

At the meeting, staff explained that they had identified a solution to the year-end deficit. It turns out that the City has spent less on medical costs than we had projected, and therefore had some extra money in the medical account lying around. It turns out that the extra money in that account ($9 million) is very close to the shortage the City was facing ($8 million). So instead of making more cuts to close out the year, the City is simply no longer having departments pay into that fund. And it all evens out and everything is dandy through the end of June.

After listening to the description of this solution, District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan observed that it was like “magic,” but then quickly corrected that term to the less desperate sounding “lucky.”

District 5 Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente was not amused by the characterization, and went on a little rant about how terrible it is that the Council is always doing tricks with the budget that we know won’t work out in order to put off the day of reckoning.

District 6 Councilmember Desley Brooks was not about to let that go by without comment, and went on a rant of her own about the City’s budgeting process

It’s worth watching the whole thing, but here are some of the highlights:

I think our budget strategy is luck. You know, we pray for, we hope for that we’re going to find the money like we did this time, and purely by luck instead of a thoughtful process.

We find nine million dollars, but that’s like putting your finger in a gaping hole and trying to plug the leak.

We have serious structural deficits. We have a systemic problem with our budgeting process. And we will never get to where we need to be if we continue to manipulate the reports.

We know that this is a shell game. And we’ve got to stop.

Then, later:

Luck should not be a strategy for budgeting in a municipality, and that’s what we’re doing right now. The importance of understanding the information before us is that we can’t look for just cuts. We can’t look for just cuts. If we don’t change our budgeting process, we are going to bankrupt this city. Because we are at a point where we no longer have anything to sell, we have limited bonding capacity, as so there’s no place else to get it from. And so unless we change structurally how we do business, then we’re forever going to be looking for these one time cuts. We’ve done them all.

She’s right, of course. But I have been watching most of the Council say pretty much the same things over and over again for years. Yet somehow, the budgets always end up being balanced through trickery or one time solutions. Even the Mayor, who has talked about how she’s ending the reliance on one-time solutions every time I’ve heard her speak about the budget, “balanced” her proposed budgets on phantom property sales.

So when will it end? Who knows. Either when we go bankrupt or the Council finally acknowledges that we simply do not have enough money (and will not at any point in the forseeable future) to provide all the services and grants we want to provide and has the stomach to make the necessary long-term cuts.

You can watch video of the whole discussion below.