Mission Statement

Envision, plan, build, operate and maintain a transportation system for the City of Oakland—in partnership with local transit providers and other agencies—and assure safe, equitable, and sustainable access and mobility for residents, businesses, and visitors.

Learn more about who we are and what we do here.

SERVICE IMPACTS &

EQUITY CONSIDERATIONS

Enhancements 

Clean, Healthy, & Sustainable Neighborhoods

1. Add ADA Architecture/Physical Access Coordinator to the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) team to bring much needed capacity to the City's existing ADA Programs Division, which has been severely understaffed for years (currently has only 2 out of 4 FTEs filled). This additional staff capacity will help bring the City into compliance with ADA regulations, improving access for all Oaklanders, especially Oaklanders with disabilities and/or who are seniors, while helping prevent future ADA lawsuits against the City.
   • Equity Consideration: Adding this position helps bring the City into compliance and will also increase access for people with disabilities and seniors who live, work, or visit Oakland. This position's work will result in tangible positive outcomes for people with disabilities and seniors, especially low-income people, people on fixed incomes with access needs, and those who are homeless or face becoming unhoused. Increasing access for people with disabilities and seniors also increases access for all Oaklanders, especially families with small children, people with temporary access needs, and older adults who wish to age in place in their community and not become displaced from Oakland. This position will help perform important ADA project reviews for physical access and conduct site evaluations to ensure ADA access is in accord with federal, state, and local requirements.
2. Increase staffing in engineering services, survey, and inspections team to address the backlog of plan review, map review, permit review, and inspections (cost recovery positions).
   • Equity Consideration: Increasing the capacity of the engineering services, survey, and inspections team will improve City services, code compliance, and project delivery, while also generating revenue. This will help Oakland Department of Transportation (Oak DOT) more proactively ensure safety within City Right of Way (ROW), which will benefit all Oaklanders, especially those who have more limited mobility options such as Oaklanders who are low-income, have disabilities, and/or are youth/seniors. This proposal also supports timely delivery of capital projects in priority neighborhoods. Revenue generated by this position may be budgeted to support other projects advancing equity throughout the City.
3. Fund a dedicated Public Information Officer (PIO) to serve the Department of Transportation (DOT) as its staffing and responsibilities continue to grow. Currently DOT and Oakland Public Works share one PIO.
   • Equity Consideration: The City of Oakland is an ethnically and culturally diverse City, which underscores the need for culturally relevant and multi-lingual public outreach and communications throughout the City. Doubling OakDOT's staff capacity dedicated to public information could be a tremendous opportunity to support more proactive, meaningful, and inclusive engagement with communities in high priority neighborhoods that have historically been excluded from public outreach efforts, lacking resources to go out of their way to seek engagement opportunities.
4. Add staff, merge Signals and Streets Lights, and integrate into the Safe Streets Division. This provides opportunities for cross training, efficiencies in budget and staffing. Adds 1.0 FTE Engineer, Transportation Supervisor, 1.0 FTE Electrical Engineer III (as Fiber Maintenance Position) and adds $50,000 in funding for on-call fiber support.
   • Equity Consideration: OakDOT's Electrical Division has been understaffed and has had vacancies for years. This has limited the City's ability to maintain, upgrade, and expand lighting assets throughout the City. Improved traffic signals as well as pedestrian-scale street lighting have been identified as priorities for many Oaklanders, especially BIPOC Oaklanders who live in priority neighborhoods, live or travel within the City's High Injury Network, and/or experience community violence. This budget proposal is intended to increase staff capacity to plan and implement new streetlight and signal projects.
5. Add funding for Intersection and Traffic Safety: Violence Prevention
   • Equity Consideration: This is a council amendment approved at budget adoption and an equity statement was not developed for this item.

Good Jobs & Vibrant Economy

1. Add 1.0 FTE Accountant III to the fiscal team to support the timely processing of contract payments related to the delivery of capital projects, infrastructure improvements and maintenance. Add 1.0 FTE Management Assistant to Human Resource (HR) team to support human resource functions of OakDOT’s growing organization structure by providing comprehensive oversight of established personnel processes to recruit and fill OakDOT vacancies that provide direct service delivery of capital projects, infrastructure improvements and maintenance, equitable parking, mobility, and pedestrian safety programs.
   • Equity Consideration: Without additional support and capacity, the OakDOT HR team (and OakDOT, by extension) will continue to experience negative short- and long-term effects of understaffing. These hires are likely to have a direct positive equity effect since prior OakDOT hiring analyses have shown that the majority of OakDOT employees in HR and Admin-related job classifications identify as BIPOC; and indirectly have a positive equity impact since it supports adding capacity to deliver infrastructure and services to Oaklanders living in priority neighborhoods via capital projects, infrastructure improvements, and maintenance.
2. Unfreeze 1.0 FTE Senior Public Service Representative, 1.0 FTE Public Services Representative, 1.0 FTE Office Assistant II, 1.0 FTE Public Works Maintenance Worker, 1.0 FTE Parking and Mobility Division, and 1.0 FTE Administrative Assistant II. These positions in Parking Citations Assistance Center and Great Streets Maintenance unit were previously frozen due to financial impacts from the COVID-19 Health Emergency.
   • Equity Consideration: Unfreezing positions will increase internal staff capacity in the Parking Citations Assistance Center, Streets and Sidewalks maintenance, and the Parking and Mobility division to better serve Oaklanders, especially BIPOC Oaklanders who live in priority neighborhoods or live or travel within the City's High Injury Network.
3. Implements a realignment of positions to restructure the Parking Management Bureau Organization Chart to better align current needs. Adds 3.0 FTE Police Services Tech II to support Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s) at vehicle encampments, 1.0 FTE Parking Meter Repair Worker, 1.0 FTE Program Analyst III and 1.0 FTE Public Service. Unfreezes 1.0 FTE Public Service Representative, Senior Effective January 1, 2023. Deletes 1.0 FTE Cashier, 1.0 FTE Revenue Operations Supervisor, and 1.0 FTE Administrative Assistant. These staffing additions, deletions, and upgrades will support the transfer of traffic, transportation, and vehicle related functions to the Department of Transportation from the Police Department and the Parking Citation Assistance Center from the Finance Department, a recommendation of the Reimagining Public Safety Taskforce. The deletions are in work areas that are redundant and are offset by staff additions. It also adds capacity to the Parking Enforcement team, which will help to monitor new parking meters while generating revenue for the general fund. Additional staff will also be added to help address the growing number of cases of vehicle encampments in a humane manner.
   1. Equity Consideration: These staffing changes help fulfill a recommendation of the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force and help to consolidate these related functions within DOT and increase operational efficiency and customer service capacity. Improved customer service will be available to better assist low-income Oaklanders who have a more difficult time paying their citations or must pay in-person due to lack of credit or internet access.

Reductions

Good Jobs & Vibrant Economy

1. Freeze one vacant Parking Meter Collector position due to decreased demand for coin collection.
   • Equity Consideration: By eliminating this position of low need, resources are freed up and may be re-directed to better serve underserved communities.

SIGNIFICANT BUDGETARY CHANGES

FINANCIAL INFORMATION

POSITION INFORMATION