In full consideration of the City of Oakland’s commitment to the Council Priorities, the following service enhancements and reductions are included in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-25 Adopted Policy Budget. The Adopted Budget enacts a reorganization of City Departments in its Second Fiscal Year which begins July 1, 2024. Service Impacts are listed based on the Departmental Organizational Structure in the first fiscal year, FY 2023-24.

HOUSING SECURITY & HOMELESSNESS SOLUTIONS

Department: City Administrator

• Adds 2.0 FTE Assistants to the City Administrator and deletes 1.0 FTE Deputy City Administrator. Two Assistants to the City Administrator can perform the required duties and provide the level of support needed in the Homelessness Administration Unit, and hiring at this job classification level will reduce staff costs in this Unit without negatively impacting the City’s homelessness administration or encampment services. The 2.0 FTE Assistants to the City Administrator will continue to advance the City’s efforts to address homelessness and provide services to unhoused residents, particularly to Black residents who are unhoused and who are disproportionately represented within the total population of unhoused residents in Oakland.
  • Equity Consideration: The Homelessness Administration Unit will get two additional staff to support the City’s work of addressing the affordable housing and homelessness crisis, which disproportionately impacts Black Oakland residents. An estimated 70% of people experiencing homelessness in Oakland identify as Black compared to 47% of the overall County’s population experiencing homelessness and 24% of the City’s population. These positions will support the City’s efforts in encampment services and exits out of homelessness for Oakland’s BIPOC unhoused residents.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Project Manager III. This position will serve as the Housing Development Officer. This role would help lead the City’s housing development strategies and coordinate directly with the Mayor’s Office, departments, developers, and other government agencies to implement process improvements and/or policy changes to accelerate housing production, particularly housing designated for low, very low, and extremely low-income individuals. This position will also work closely with the newly created Citywide Permitting Ombudsperson to identify and implement enhancements to further streamline the City’s permitting processes.
  • Equity Consideration: The addition of this position will support Mayor Thao’s FY 2023-25 Budget Priority to streamline permitting processes and accelerate housing production. It will directly lead the City’s work of addressing the affordable housing and homelessness crisis, which disproportionately impacts Black Oakland residents. An estimated 70% of people experiencing homelessness in Oakland identify as Black compared to 47% of the overall County’s population experiencing homelessness and 24% of the City’s population. With this position added to give oversight to the City's housing development process, this will improve the City's affordable housing pipeline, which will directly benefit Oakland's low-income and unhoused BIPOC residents.

Department: Housing & Community Development

• Dedicates $216 million in capital funding for the FY 2023-25 budget for affordable housing construction and acquisition/rehabilitation projects through the following funding sources: $120 million from Measure U (5340), an estimated $41 million from the California Housing and Community Development (2144) Homekey grant, $31 million from loan repayment proceeds in the Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Asset Fund (2830), $12 million in anticipated impact fee revenue, $7 million from Affordable Housing Trust Fund (1870), and $4 million in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) - HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) grant (Fund 2109).
  • Equity Consideration: The City’s 2018 Equity Indicators Report and its HCD 2021-2023 Strategic Action Plan identify housing affordability as a central issue in Oakland. Oakland’s lowest income households are experiencing the highest rent burden with approximately 60% of Black renter households being rent burdened and about one-third severely rent burdened — the highest rate of any racial/ethnic group in the city. Homelessness also disproportionately affects Black residents, which represent 68% of Oakland's unhoused population. The additional funding will advance the City’s racial equity goals by facilitating the development of housing units serving low, very low, and extremely low income households, many of whom are comprised of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) household members.
• Adds $8.9 million over both years from Affordable Housing Trust Fund (1870) and Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Asset Fund (2830) to create a Rapid Response Homelessness Housing Acquisition Fund. This funding will be added to HCD's capital budget to increase the number of affordable housing units targeted to people exiting homelessness.
  • Black and BIPOC residents are disproportionally represented in the homeless population and impacted by the current housing crisis. According to the 2022 Point-In-Time Count, Oakland has 5,055 unhoused residents- 59% of those unhoused residents are Black, although only 21% of Oakland’s general population is Black. This disproportionate representation means Black unhoused residents are most in-need of housing. The creation of a fund to rapidly acquire buildings and create homeless housing means unhoused residents could become rehoused more quickly.
• Adds 4.0 FTE positions, temporarily funded by the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and reimbursed by Measure U when the bond funds are available, to ensure that the Housing Development Services unit and Housing Community Development will be able to provide a high level of service to fund the construction and acquisition/rehabilitation of affordable housing units in the City over the next four to six years.
  • Equity Consideration: HCD’s process for funding affordable housing construction and acquisition/rehabilitation advances the City’s racial equity goals through facilitating the development of housing units serving low, very low, and extremely-low income households, many of whom are comprised of BIPOC household members who have disproportionately high rent burdens and are subject to displacement pressures. These affordable housing units have long-term affordability restrictions that keep them available as a community resource for fighting displacement pressures for a minimum of 55 years. This will bring the City closer to meeting its goal of having at least 10,000 new and rehabilitated affordable housing units by the year 2030.
• Adds $1 million of Affordable Housing Trust Fund one-time funding to provide tenant legal services and eviction prevention. This Council budget amendment moves funds previously earmarked for HCD's homeless prevention pilot which means that the data-driven, research-supported initiative may not be able to scale up and sufficiently prevent the inflow of new residents into homelessness.
  • Equity Consideration: The majority of Black and Latinx Oakland households are renters at 69% and 71%, respectively. Further, 62% of Black and 54% of Latinx Oakland renters are rent burdened. Funding for legal defense typically comes from the County, so this $1 million aims to supplement that original investment. This means additional tenants at-risk of eviction, which may be disproportionately Black and Latinx, and low-income, could be served. Though this is a population in need of services, it is not aligned with Oakland's homeless disparity data. The homelessness prevention pilot targeted those most at risk of becoming homeless as evidenced by the Point-In-Time Count data, specifically low-income Black men coming out of the criminal justice system with prior experiences of homelessness.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Housing Development Manager, 1.0 FTE Project Manager, 1.0 FTE Administrative Analyst II, and 1.0 FTE Program Analyst II. Deletes 1.0 FTE Development/Redevelopment Program Manager, 1.0 FTE Program Analyst I, 1.0 FTE Community Development Program Coordinator, and 1.0 FTE Employment Services Supervisor. These positions will support the construction and acquisition/rehabilitation of affordable housing units in the City. In addition, these positions will allow HCD leadership to strengthen its ability to apply and receive State and local funding, increase policy and data analysis capacity to measure departmental impacts, and assist departmental initiatives including but not limited to implementing and monitoring compliance with the City’s Housing Element.
  • Equity Consideration: Black residents are disproportionately affected by the pandemic, the affordable housing crisis, and homelessness crisis. These Add/Deletes will help enhance the City’s efforts to provide permanent supportive housing and housing targeted to extremely low-income and homeless households, as well as anti-displacement, housing stability and homelessness prevention services.
• Adds $1.2 million from accumulated loan servicing fees to update HCD’s obsolete electronic equipment and enhance effeminacy and effectiveness for services provided.
  • Equity Consideration: Black residents are disproportionately affected by the pandemic, the affordable housing crisis, and homelessness crisis. This technology upgrade will increase the capacity in the department to provide permanent supportive housing and housing targeted to extremely low-income and homeless households, as well as anti-displacement, housing stability and homelessness prevention services.
• Adds $100,000 in FY23-24 from Affordable Housing Trust Fund to increase the amount of funds for predevelopment costs such as appraisals, seismic assessments, or environmental reports for affordable housing development projects. Additional funding for predevelopment removes barriers to develop housing that would otherwise lengthen development timelines and increase costs. These increased costs could result in less affordable housing built, so removing barriers to predevelopment funds may result in affordable housing projects delivered faster.
  • Equity Consideration: Black and BIPOC residents are disproportionally represented in the homeless population and impacted by the current housing crisis. The additional predevelopment funding can help increase the number of units acquired for affordable housing.

Department: Human Services

• Adds 3.0 FTE to the Community Housing Services division . This additional staffing is required to improve overall data quality and accountability, fiscal management, and effective contract monitoring of providers.
  • Equity Consideration: Housing market failures, homeless system challenges, and long-standing discrimination have produced a crisis in affordable housing and homelessness, which has significantly impacted low-income people and communities of color in Oakland. An estimated 70% of people experiencing homelessness in Oakland identify as Black compared to 47% of the overall County’s population experiencing homelessness and 24% of the City’s population . These positions are intended to better gather and collect data around the City’s homeless services. The main role of these positions will be to provide accurate information to better portray the homeless situation and the impacts of the services provided to Oakland’s unhoused residents.

Department: Planning & Building

• Adds 1.0 FTE Business Analyst III dedicated to PBD Accela implementation which will allow for more expedient implementation of enhancements to the digital platform. The Accela platform is a critical component of the City’s permitting and land use management processes, allowing residents and businesses to apply for permits and submit code complaints online, enabling department staff to review and track each stage of the application and inspection process, and facilitating payment of fees and inspections scheduling.
  • Equity Consideration: The addition of a Business Analyst III has the potential to increase racial equity by enhancing PBD’s ability to provide easier and more transparent access to services through our digital platforms. Reducing these barriers is likely to help Oakland’s lower income and BIPOC communities.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Public Services Representative and 1.0 FTE Senior Public Services Representative. Deletes vacant 3.0 FTE Office Assistant II. The Public Service Representative positions will be interacting with the public face-to-face around issues of code enforcement, permitting, and code inspections.
  • Equity Consideration: The addition of a Public Services Representative position and a Senior Public Services Representative has the potential to increase racial equity by enhancing PBD's ability to effectively serve Oakland's BIPOC residents by answering questions, assisting with applications, and scheduling code enforcement inspections.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Planner III and deletes vacant 1.0 FTE Planner III, Historic Preservation. The Planner provides recommendations regarding land use, zoning, urban design, environmental impact, and community needs.
  • Equity Consideration: The addition of a Planner III position to replace the Planner III Historic Preservation position has the potential to increase racial equity by providing recommendations of land use that will benefit Oakland’s BIPOC communities.

Department: Housing & Community Development

• Adds $820,000 in O&M to Fund 1885 and transfers 0.55 FTE and 2.48 FTE for FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25, respectively, out of Fund 1885 into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (1870). This staffing transfer was done to ensure the department’s administrative costs are in compliance with bond spending. It amounts to $820,000, which is the same amount as the O&M increase. No staffing costs will be allocated under this bond fund until after FY 2024-25. While this transfer will reduce resources available for Affordable Housing services in Fund 1870 by $820,000, Fund 1885 will have an increase in O&M for the same amount that can be used on Affordable Housing, resulting in no significant service impact.
  • Equity Consideration: Black residents and other residents of color residents are disproportionally impacted by the current housing crisis and represented in the city’s homeless population. This balanced transfer will increase HCD's ability to produce and preserve affordable housing, with a priority towards permanent supportive housing for people exiting homelessness.

Department: Housing & Community Development

• Transfers 1.70 FTE for FY 2023-24 and 6.90 FTE for FY 2024-25 from various grants to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (1870) for a total cost of $2.5 million over both years. This transfer will reduce resources available for affordable housing services to cover existing staffing costs.
  • Equity Consideration: Reduced funding for affordable housing construction will decrease available affordable housing for BIPOC residents who are disproportionately displaced in Oakland. However, in order to stay within grant compliance for the various federal grants the department receives, HCD staff need to be moved into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Retaining these federal grants will maintain the City’s ability to provide anti-displacement services and homeless protection services to Oakland’s BIPOC communities.

Department: Human Services

• Reduces Lake Merritt Lodge’s funding by $1.1 million in FY 2023-24 and $850,000 in FY 2024-25. Lake Merritt Lodge serves as an emergency homeless shelter for some of Oakland’s most vulnerable residents. A reduction in funding would potentially result in less beds and services being available to unhoused residents.
  • Equity Consideration: Lake Merritt Lodge provides 92 Year-round shelter beds for those who are homeless, typically Black seniors and those with serious medical conditions from the city’s over 5,000+ homeless population.
• Reduces Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) funding for FY 2024-25. The City is slated to receive $26.8 million in HHAP funds for FY 2023-24 from the State of California. However, there is currently no additional round of funding identified for FY 2024-25 related to HHAP. This funding is instrumental for the City to provide homeless assistance and prevention services for the city’s over 5,000+ homeless population.
  • Equity Consideration: Housing market failures, homeless system challenges, and long-standing discrimination have produced a crisis in affordable housing and homelessness, which has significantly impacted low-income people and communities of color. An estimated 70% of people experiencing homelessness in Oakland identify as Black compared to 47% of the overall County’s population experiencing homelessness and 24% of the City’s population. HSD will leverage this $26.8 million in one-time grants to provide a variety of homelessness interventions to unhoused residents, who are overwhelmingly from Oakland’s BIPOC communities. Additional funding will need to be identified in Fiscal Year 2024-2025 or the City will need to make significant cuts to homeless assistance and prevention services.

COMMUNITY SAFETY, PREVENTION & HEALING

Department: City Administrator

• Adds 1.0 FTE Assistant to the City Administrator and deletes 1.0 FTE Project Manager III. Replacing the vacant PM-III with an Assistant to the City Administrator position will support ongoing CAO operations at an appropriate classification level. The work this position will do includes supporting the Privacy Advisory Commission and supporting the Neighborhood Services Division’s NEST program’s work in areas of Oakland most impacted by crime and chronic disinvestment, particularly West and East Oakland. The Neighborhood Services Division currently has 5 Neighborhood Services Coordinator vacancies out of 10 positions total, which has significantly impacted the division’s capacity to support neighborhood councils and engage with neighborhoods/communities of greatest need. An Assistant to the City Administrator position can increase staff capacity and benefit the division’s operations by supporting data tracking and analysis, policy development, program evaluation and communication/outreach efforts.
  • Equity Consideration Through the creation of this position, the Neighborhood Services Division can improve data tracking and evaluation and thereby incorporate data more consistently when making programmatic or operational decisions. This has the potential to positively impact these groups by enabling Neighborhood Services Division to modify its operations and/or (re)allocate resources to serve residents in targeted areas more effectively based on findings and trends in the data and metrics.
• Adds 1.0 FTE City Administrator Analyst to be CAO’s Grant Writer for pursuing holistic grants around community safety, children and youth development, and improving public spaces like parks. This new position will support the CAO in applying to more grants that the City could be eligible to receive, but hasn’t had the staff bandwidth to submit applications. This position is also intended to support citywide efforts to track and monitor its external grants across departments.
  • Equity Consideration: Depending on the grants the CAO prioritizes, this position could support the City in drawing down more federal, state, and County dollars to enrich services to current residents and advance racial equity efforts within departments. Given the historical divestment Oakland’s BIPOC residents have faced in their communities for various services from all levels of government, acquiring more federal and state funding could support the City in reducing the racial inequities impacting the quality of life for its BIPOC residents.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Project Manager II. This role will review prior Internal Affairs cases to mitigate risk and facilitate the civilization of Internal Affairs.
  • Equity Consideration: BIPOC people, particularly Black people, are likely to be victims of police misconduct. Additional review of these cases will help to ensure police misconduct will be addressed.

Department: Fire

• Appropriates $11.8 million in revenue and expenditure to hire an additional 35.0 FTE new firefighters and/or firefighter paramedics through the SAFER Grant in the Federal Emergency Management Agency Fund (Fund 2124). Transfers the expected costs of these new hires from the General Purpose Fund (Fund 1010) to the SAFER Grant in the amounts of $2.9 million for FY2023-24 and $8.9 million for FY2024-25. As a result, the SAFER grant allows the City to restore 1 Fire Engine company and avoid a rotating fire engine brown out. The SAFER grant is distributed through the federal agency FEMA to enhance the local fire departments' abilities to comply with staffing, response, and operational standards established by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). These additional 35.0 FTEs will support the department’s ability to maintain its existing public safety services, without additional cost to the General-Purpose Fund during the three (3) year performance period.
  • Equity consideration: Without this additional funding, the Fire Department would have had to initiate a rotating fire engine brown out, which would have led to a reduction in emergency medical and fire response services that it could offer citywide. This funding supports the Fire Department in maintaining its current existing services. A high percentage of the emergency calls for service come from areas that are facing higher levels of poverty, violent crime, and historical and multigenerational health disparities. In particular, Oakland’s BIPOC residents and aging elders who need enhanced medical care in East and West Oakland benefit from the Fire Department being able to maintain its current staffing levels.

Department: Police

• Restores 2.0 FTE Police Officers to the Homeless Outreach Unit. The addition of police officers will enable the homeless outreach unit to provide escorts for the encampment cleanup crews for Public Work and ensure worker safety.
  • Equity Consideration: This investment fulfils a request by City worker labor representatives. The increase presence in the Homeless Outreach Unit can lead to better communication, understanding, and de-escalation when interacting with the unhoused BIPOC Community.
• Unfreezes 2.0 FTE Police Services Technician II positions in FY 2024-25 and reclassifies them to Civilian Police Investigators. Civilianizing eligible job classifications supports the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force (RPSTF) objective to identify positions where civilians can do the role rather than Sworn personnel. These Civilian Police Investigator positions would be responsible for assisting with missing persons and vehicle collision investigations.
  • Equity Consideration: Civilian Police Investigators will be provided with training that allows them to approach citizens with empathy, professionalism, and perspectives that will allow them to build rapport to better align themselves with the BIPOC community.

Department: Police Commission

• Civilianizes 16.0 FTE Sworn Police Positions in the Oakland Police Department’s (OPD) Internal Affairs and moves them to the Police Commission’s Community Police Review Agency (CPRA). This transfer supports the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force (RPSTF) objective to have more independent review of OPD police misconduct.
  • Equity Consideration: CPRA investigates allegations of misconduct against OPD officers. The activities of those officers disproportionately affect Oakland’s BIPOC communities, especially Black residents. CPRAs investigations directly address a core inequity in existing City performance. The additional positions will allow the agency to better identify, assess and investigate police misconduct, thereby serving the City’s equity goal of reducing police misconduct towards Oakland’s BIPOC communities.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Public Information Officer II to Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Also adds $35,000 in O&M in FY 2023-24 and $38,000 in FY 2024-25 for auditing software. The new Public Information Officer II would increase the office’s capacity to engage and communicate with the public on high-profile police misconduct issues and OIG’s initiatives. O&M for auditing software will expedite the office’s work at a significant decrease in cost. It will also assist in producing reports and support the office’s data management.
  • Equity Consideration: The OIG is also required to produce deliverables such as annual reports that are mandated by the enabling ordinance. The addition of the Public Information Officer II and O&M to purchase auditing software will support the office in streamlining its communications and administration. The added capacity will also support OIG in its various public initiatives to engage and educate the public around police misconduct, which directly benefits Oakland’s BIPOC residents who have historically been impacted by police misconduct and those awaiting OIG deliverables.
• Adds $100,000 for a staffing study of the Oakland Police Department (OPD). This OPD staffing study will evaluate multiple factors in OPD’s current services and analyzes if they are being prioritized appropriately to ensure safe and efficient operations.
  • Equity Consideration: This study supports this department’s monitoring of OPD and addressing racial disparities in OPD’s response to BIPOC and historically underserved and disenfranchised communities. The finalization of this study’s report and findings derived from it will help to guide OPD and policymakers in improving OPD’s response to service requests .

Department: Violence Prevention

• Increases Case Manager I from partial FTE to 1.0 FTE. DVP responds to all homicide scenes in Oakland within one hour of the incident occurring to provide support for grieving family members and peers, interrupt plans for retaliation, communicate information between law enforcement officers and community members, and help manage scenes in a way that promotes dignity and respect for victims. The DVP currently employs three staff members who perform this role, ensuring that the DVP can respond 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One of these positions (a Case Manager I classification) is currently funded by a state grant that ends in June 2023. If this Case Manager I position is not fully funded in the FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25 budgets, DVP will be unable to respond 24/7 to homicide scenes in Oakland.
  • Equity Consideration: More than half of homicide victims in Oakland each year are Black, and therefore services provided through the DVP’s homicide response activities primarily support Black residents who are family members, peers, or potential future victims.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Program Analyst II. This position will administer grants and contracts for consultants.
  • Equity Consideration: All the department’s work is related to advancing equity by working with departments to examine policies, programs and procedures for elements that might contribute to racial disparities in outcomes, or to identify missed opportunities to design equity in where it has not yet been taken into consideration. This position is new and will be filled as soon as it is fiscally possible to advance racial equity for Oakland’s BIPOC communities.
• Adds Gilead Foundation grant amount of $450,000 in FY 2023-24 and $600,000 in FY 2024-25. The grant funds two family coaches to deliver a six-month intensive coaching intervention with middle school students who are at high risk for violence and their families. It also funds a DVP Planner to oversee Town Nights community events, with a focus on fundraising and development. Lastly, it provides funding for DVP to develop violence prevention and intervention media awareness campaign materials that will be publicized at school sites and Town Nights events. All activities supported through this grant aim to reduce network-related violence and gender-based violence impacting young people in Oakland.
  • Equity Consideration: The Gilead Foundation advocates for health prosperity and health justice for all. They seed innovative approaches to complex social issues, with an emphasis on achieving health equity through educational equity. Receiving this grant enables DVP to focus on violence prevention, systems change, and community connection for underserved students in Grades 6 through 12.
• Maintains staffing for Triangle Incident Crisis Response Overtime. DVP responds to all homicide scenes in Oakland within one hour of the incident occurring to provide support for grieving family members and peers, interrupt plans for retaliation, communicate information between law enforcement officers and community members, and help manage scenes in a way that promotes dignity and respect for victims. DVP currently employs three staff members who perform this role, ensuring that DVP can respond 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Since the time of homicides and shootings is unpredictable, this additional funding will allow staff to work outside of their set hours to respond to shooting incidents.
  • Equity Consideration: More than half of homicide victims in Oakland each year are Black, and therefore services provided through the DVP’s homicide response activities are primarily provided to Black residents who are family members, peers, or potential future victims.
• Maintains staffing for the Gender-based Crisis Response programming. Funding from the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation grant currently funds 1.0 FTE Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Direct Services Coordinator and 1.0 FTE Family Systems Liaison through September 30, 2024. This additional funding will maintain gender-based violence crisis responders until June 30, 2025. Both positions provide gender specific support to the Triangle Incident Crisis Response strategy.
  • Equity Consideration: GBV disproportionately impacts people of color in Oakland. Efforts to expand and strengthen GBV services funded and delivered by the DVP will disproportionately benefit people of color.
• Increases DVP grants by $300,000 in FY 2023-24 to address sex trafficking crisis. Gender-based violence (GBV) has historically been under resourced and underrepresented in violence prevention activities in Oakland. Funding will allow the department to prioritize increase resource to address sex trafficking in Oakland.
  • Equity Consideration: GBV disproportionately impacts people of color in Oakland. Efforts to expand and strengthen GBV services funded and delivered by the DVP will disproportionately benefit people of color.

Department: City Administrator

• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Neighborhood Services Coordinator (NSC) and continues to freeze 1.0 FTE Neighborhood Services Coordinator from the FY 2022-23 Midcycle Budget. The Neighborhood Services Division currently has 5 Neighborhood Services Coordinator vacancies out of 10 positions total, which has significantly impacted the division’s capacity to support neighborhood councils and engage with neighborhoods/communities of greatest need. Services have been impacted from this division’s understaffing and freezing these positions will not decrease current service levels as the division still can hire 3 additional NSCs to provide outreach to the community.
  • Equity Consideration: Understaffing of NSC positions impacts Neighborhood Services Division’s capacity to engage and support neighborhood councils and communities most impacted by violence, crime, and chronic disinvestment, which historically have been Oakland’s BIPOC communities.

Department: Fire

• Freezes 1 Fire Engine in each fiscal year through freezing a combined total of 19.0 FTE vacant Sworn positions. The frozen Fire Engine is Fire Engine 25 which is new and has yet to be activated due to ongoing firehouse renovations. The City’s 25 fire engines are located to ensure sufficient span of control to allow for prompt and sufficient response for all call types. Delay of bringing a 25th engine company online will mean Fire’s emergency response will stay at its current service levels.
  • Equity Consideration: When implementing a “brown out” where fire engines are temporarily shuttered to reduce service costs, the locations that are chosen to have shuttered engines matter because nearby residents have less options and receive slower responses. The neighborhood around Fire Engine 25 will be delayed in seeing an active engine in their immediate service area for as long as this Fire Engine remains frozen. However, this Fire Engine was chosen to be frozen to avoid the City having to do a rotating “brown out” through its existing Engines, which would have had a higher disparate impact on the department’s current emergency response citywide.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Battalion Chief (80 Hr.) that would represent the department on the City’s interdepartmental Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) project. The CAD system will allow Oakland’s public safety operations and communications to be augmented, assisted, or partially controlled by an automated system. Without this position, the workload will be passed to Department Management to ensure that CAD’s planning is not compromised.
  • Equity Consideration: Oakland Fire and all first responders will rely on a reliable CAD system for years ahead to facilitate incident response and communication in the field, ensuring prompt effective responses to our most vulnerable community members who rely on Fire and EMS response often as a critical care provider in place of traditional health care options. Department Management will provide oversight in the CAD design to ensure its planning considers the needs of Oakland’s BIPOC communities in emergency situations.

Department: Police

• Freezes 93.0 FTE vacant Sworn positions, which will reduce the department’s Sworn authorized staffing to 712.0 FTE positions. The 712 Sworn police positions funded in FY 2023-24 are 14 fewer than the 726 Sworn police positions funded in the FY 2022-23 Midcycle Budget. Patrol makes up the majority of OPD’s operations and will have 29.0 fewer funded FTEs, but other units that will experience their funded FTE decrease are: Criminal Investigations (28.0 FTEs), Crime Reduction (21.0 FTEs), Traffic (14.0 FTEs), and Community Resources (1.0 FTEs).
  • Equity Consideration: Black residents and other residents of color are disproportionately impacted by violent and serious crimes. The loss of police officers may result in significant increases in response times to Oakland residents, depending on the involved police unit.
• Freezes 19.0 FTE vacant professional staff positions, which will reduce the department’s professional authorized staffing to 332.5 FTE civilian positions. These vacant positions are 1.0 FTE Account Clerk I, 4.0 FTE Account Clerk II, 1.0 FTE Administrative Assistant I, 4.0 FTE Complaint Investigator II, 1.0 FTE Complaint Investigator III, 1.0 FTE Crime Analyst, 1.0 FTE Criminalist II, 1.0 FTE Latent Print Examiner II, 2.0 FTE Payroll Personnel Clerk III, 1.0 FTE Police Communications Dispatcher, Senior, 1.0 FTE Police Evidence Technician, and 1.0 FTE Police Services Technician II. This freeze lowers staffing in Internal Affairs, Human Resources, Fiscal, Patrol, Crime Analysis, and the Crime Lab. With the department unable to hire and fill these vacant positions, these units will have to handle their ongoing workload with current staff capacity. Depending on the volume of work, this freeze may result in an increase in the amount of time it takes to complete internal investigations, slower processing of DNA and sexual assault kits, fewer analysts who are able to provide tactical overviews of problem crime areas, and a slower internal response to personal-related matters for OPD employees.
  • Equity Consideration: Black residents and other residents of color are disproportionately impacted by violent and serious crimes, especially unsolved crimes. The reduction in possible staff dedicated to solving these crimes will lower the department’s capacity to support these residents and their families.
• Reduces OPD’s Sworn overtime budget by 15% across the entire department. Patrol makes up the majority of OPD’s operations and uses most of the department’s overtime budget, but other units that use overtime and will be impacted are the homeless outreach unit, human trafficking operations, and violence prevention. Overtime is primarily used to support staff changes between shifts or cover the additional time major crimes take from responding police officers. It is also used for other patrol-related and mandatory administrative tasks for both Sworn and civilian staff, including following up on leads, surveillance, writing warrants, attending special events, completion of public records requests, attending recruiting events, and more. The department will be monitoring its OT use and what units it authorizes for OT to ensure that it meets this reduction.
  • Equity Consideration: Reduction in overtime may result in an increase in police response times to calls for service. Vulnerable populations, including Black and Brown people in the areas most impacted by violent crime, small business, and unhoused residents, will be impacted the most from a slower police response. The area that has had the most prostitution activity, or the “Blade,” is Beat 19, which was the most violent beat in the city in 2022.  Human trafficking was one of the major drivers of this violence. Reducing overtime will impact the department’s ability to respond specifically to incidents that occur in Beat 19 while also covering the rest of the city. Department Management will be assessing and prioritizing its OT usage to provide OT to the most critical functions, including combating the violence that occurs around human trafficking because that is a major racial equity issue in Oakland.
• Reduces the number of police academies in FY 2023-25 to three (3) in FY 2023-24 and three (3) in in FY 2024-25. With an average monthly Sworn attrition of five (5) police officers, a reduction in academies increases the possibility may result in OPD falling below the number of officers needed to address the public safety needs in Oakland. However. current projections estimate that the number of filled Sworn positions will be higher over the Biennial Budget than in the current fiscal year. In prior years, the department has had a minimum of two police academies a year but has budgeted up to four police academies a year.
  • Equity Consideration: Depending on the department’s ability to retain its current police officers, having less police academies could impact OPD’s day-to-day operations. Newly graduated police officers tend to work in Patrol. With fewer academies, the risk that OPD may not be able to keep up with its monthly attrition grows as does the possibility of increased response times for calls for service because less police officers are on duty. Due to violent crime occurring disproportionately in the most under-resourced areas of the city, response times to critical incidents is the primary way that OPD can most directly address the safety of Oakland’s BIPOC residents.

Department: Police Commission

• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Project Manager III. The Project Manager III/Deputy Inspector General position would have assisted in managing the distribution of work and the day-to-day operations of the office. This position would have been designated the hiring manager for the OIG, assisted with budget, procurement, facilities management, and provided strategic planning and high-level reviews of all work products for accuracy and scope. With the absence of this executive management personnel, many of these functions will fall on the Inspector General with some being delegated to the Chief of Audits and Evaluations.
  • Equity Consideration: This staff freeze will impact Oakland’s BIPOC residents who have historically been impacted by police misconduct and those awaiting OIG deliverables to see if OPD provided services in accordance with policies and the law because the office will be working at a lower capacity.
• Freezes 1.0 FTE Complaint Investigator III. While the Complaint Investigator III position is still necessary for the long-term operation of CPRA, the organization can operate with one less Complaint Investigator III for now in light of the City’s overall budget shortfall and the cost savings associated with freezing this position.
  • Equity Consideration: CPRA does not believe that freezing this position will negatively affect the City’s equity goal of reducing police misconduct in Oakland’s BIPOC communities.

Department: Violence Prevention

• Reduces contracts by $800,000. Through its existing 67 grant agreements with community-based organizations, DVP is projected to fund critical violence prevention and intervention services for 11,500 individuals in Oakland annually. This reduction would result in approximately 550 fewer individuals being served annually through programs DVP funds.
  • Equity Consideration: The majority of individuals who access services DVP funds by identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Any reductions in funding to DVP’s service contracts will cause a commensurate reduction in the number of people of color who are able to receive needed violence prevention and intervention services.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Public Information Officer III. DVP does not currently have a Public Information Officer. The primary task would be to communicate to the general public on complex, high-profile violence prevention issues and initiatives. Freezing this position will reduce the department’s capacity for communication on violence prevention issues.
  • Equity Consideration: The position was intended to bridge the communication gap with City staff and the public around the topic of violence prevention. Increasing the general public’s understanding of the City’s violence prevention programs and services furthers the City’s racial equity goal of supporting safe communities in Oakland neighborhoods.

GOOD JOBS & VIBRANT ECONOMY

Department: Auditor

• Adds 1.0 FTE Performance Audit Manager and $27,000 in O&M for the purchase of computer equipment. Voters passed Measure X in November 2022, which requires the addition of 3.0 FTEs to bring the Office to a total of 14.0 FTEs. Due to the fiscal emergency, 2.0 FTEs were frozen. This additional 1.0 FTE Performance Audit manager supports the Office in its workload for increased mandated responsibilities compared to current service levels, but not as far as intended through Measure X.
  • Equity Consideration: In keeping with City-wide priorities, the City Auditor's office has included equity as one of its core values in its Audit Manual and annual risk assessment, further solidifying its commitment to performing work that might directly impact Oakland's most vulnerable populations. In planning performance audits, the Office of the City Auditor’s team considers equity issues to address in the audit objectives. This position will support the Office in its increased oversight of how public dollars are spent, for the benefit of Oakland’s most vulnerable populations getting the services they need.

Department: Economic & Workforce Development Department

• Adds 1.0 FTE Program Analyst III. This position will be funded via state cannabis grants to manage state grants for cannabis and equity programs. This position will administer grants, administer contracts for consultants, lead stakeholder meetings, and draft reports; all of which are critical ongoing functions needed to implement the City’s cannabis and equity programs.
  • Equity Consideration: Adding a permanent position will ensure stability and staffing to process funding and other programming for the cannabis equity program, which provides equitable business ownership and employment opportunities for Oakland’s BIPOC communities.
• Increases Funding for the Façade and Tenant Improvement Program by $200,000 per fiscal year. The Façade and Tenant Improvement Program (FTIP), which provides funding for small business owners and property owners to improve their ground floor commercial spaces, was relaunched in Fiscal Year 2022-2023 through a City Council resolution. Resolution 89239 C.M.S. made several changes to the program guidelines intended to remove barriers and facilitate equitable access to FTIP funding for small businesses and property owners, such as expanding program eligibility citywide and making grants of up to $25,000 available at no cost to the grantee.
  • Equity Consideration: Additional funding to FTIP will flow to commercial properties in historically underinvested commercial corridors. The FTIP equity scoring criteria, new in the past year, prioritizes businesses located in Priority Neighborhoods as defined by the DOT Equity Toolbox.
• Adds $1,000,000 per fiscal year to support the Community Ambassadors/Safety Improvements for Business Corridors. This funding allows for the City to design a community ambassador program aimed to close the service and communication gaps between the business community and City services.
  • Equity Consideration: Funding for Community Ambassadors and Safety Improvements for Business Corridors supports the development of a culturally responsive, timely, and relevant program through providing ambassadors to build relationships, coordinate communications, and respond to the diverse needs of our neighborhood business corridors/merchant communities and their BIPOC residents.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Real Estate Agent and adds $50,000 to appraisals for potential land sales, development, and acquisition. The additional personnel and funding for appraisals will enable the Real Estate Division of EWDD to more rapidly support City and third-party efforts to acquire, preserve, and develop affordable housing. It will also allow the Real Estate Division to more expeditiously address the full spectrum of the City’s real estate needs.
  • Equity Consideration: The additional personnel and funding will facilitate the provision of affordable housing to those communities which are homeless, housing insecure and otherwise economic distressed, which are disproportionately Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities.
• Adds $234,393 to the Lake Merritt Vending program. This funding covers technical assistance and management of a vendor marketplace along El Embarcadero for 2023, at least until the City gathers more revenue from new parking meters along Lake Merritt to fund this service.
  • Equity Consideration: Virtually all vendors at Lake Merritt represent historically marginalized communities. Funding for the market will low barriers of entry for vendors to operate a compliant market. An organized and well-advertised vendor marketplace at Lake Merritt can provide a regular source of income for historically marginalized BIPOC entrepreneurs.
• Adds $153,976 per year to the Cultural Grants program. The Cultural Grants provides grant funding to Oakland-based art and cultural activities that reflect the diversity of the city.
  • Equity Consideration: Expansion of Cultural Affairs grant funding amount will allow the Division to continue to support grant making opportunities for historically underserved communities of color and increase its available grant funding to eligible organizations.

Department: Finance

• Adds $400,000 per year in O&M for purchasing and maintaining grants management software. The City does not have a software system that has the capability of being a grant management database, nor does it have a systemic way of identifying and applying for grants. This O&M line will support the City in procuring a software system to support City Management in identifying, applying to, and reporting back to eligible grants.
  • Equity Consideration: Applying to possible federal, state, and private grant opportunities supports the City in drawing down money to spend on its residents. This is a good investment that enables the City to create more services while leveraging external resources for its residents, especially for Oakland’s BIPOC communities.

Department: Human Resources Management

• Creates a Vacancy Strikeforce by dedicating 2.0 FTE Senior Human Resource Analysts and 2.0 FTE Human Resource Analysts to filling the over 340 vacant positions in Oakland Public Works, Housing and Community Development, Planning and Building, and the Department of Transportation. These positions will be funded outside of the General Purpose Fund and exclusively committed to improving staffing in these departments.
  • Equity Consideration: Oakland's Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by understaffing in services such as illegal dumping, graffiti abatement, traffic safety, and affordable housing development. Committing resources to staffing improvements in these areas will enhance service quality for vulnerable communities while providing high quality City jobs for Oakland residents. City residents will be prioritized and given extra consideration in the city’s hiring process and the majority of vacant jobs are entry level or do not require a college degree.
• Commits $250,000 for a study of salaries and compensation for all City workers to assess if the City is competitive with other neighboring public agencies.
  • Equity Consideration: Studying salaries and compensation of the City's workforce will assist in making Oakland a more competitive employer. Currently, the highest rates of job vacancies are experienced in departments staffed by City workers who are majority BIPOC and majority Oakland residents.
• Adds $100,000 for City job fairs focused on Oakland residents with the highest rates of unemployment, highest rates of youth unemployment, and the lowest rates of workforce participation as outlined in the City’s most recent Equity Indicators Report.
  • Equity Consideration: These job fairs will provide an opportunity for the City to partner with local community colleges and high schools to host recruitment events and to connect our most vulnerable residents with opportunities to build a career in public service. It will also enhance services for residents and promote a vibrant local economy as hundreds of City jobs are filled.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Supervising Human Resource Technician in the Recruitment, Classification, and Benefits division, and deletes vacant 2.0 FTE Senior Human Resource Technician. The Employee Relations division supports all City departments through providing employee relations and labor negotiations support.t II will balance the current workload so that everyone has the capacity to offer the highest level of service to the City staff.The Supervising Human Resource Technician will support the six (6) recently hired Human Resource Technicians in the Recruitment Classification, and Benefits Division. This role is needed as a part of the reporting structure of the division, which manages the recruitment and classification efforts citywide.
  • Equity Consideration: The services provided by the Recruitment, Classification and Benefits division impacts staff throughout the organization and members of the public, specifically Oakland’s BIPOC communities through its recruitment efforts. It’s essential that the division be appropriately staffed to provide support for the various recruitment and classification services. The services provided by the Employee Relations division impacts all City departments, through resolving grievances, handling labor negotiations, and assisting in interpretation of labor contracts. It is essential that the division be staffed with administrative support to assist the department’s efforts.
• Adds 2.0 FTE Senior Human Resource Analyst. These positions will support The Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland Program (MACRO) and the Planning and Building department hiring.
  • Equity Consideration: These positions will support the city’s efforts to staff the MACRO program, which is designed to provide responses to non-violent, non-emergency 911 calls, which will reduce police response, increase access to community-based services and resources, particularly in BIPOC communities. These positions will also support the Planning and Building department to fill positions that will provide services and housing to the city’s underserved BIPOC community.

Department: Human Services

• Adds 24.0 FTE for Oakland’s Head Start & Early Head Start program. Head Start & Early Head Start provides free education & child development services for up to 674 children, 0-5 years old, and expectant mothers from low-income families to prepare them for kindergarten. Six Early Head Start Centers will open 10 hours a day and will operate within underserved neighborhoods of Oakland. Adding these additional positions also qualifies the program to meet the service expansion needs as outlined by the CCTR Grant administered by the State of California.
  • Equity Consideration: While Centers hours have been operating full days from 8:30am-4:30pm, many of the parents and caregivers of Head Start children are considered “blue-collar” and/or essential workers who work at jobs with schedules that are not during standard business hours. Expanding existing Center hours to 10 hours a day and the days of service to 240 days out of the year will provide the flexibility that families who work past 5 pm need in order to see that their children receive early education and attentive childcare while they’re at work. This expansion of Head Start and Early Head Start supports the City in advancing racial equity in Oakland’s BIPOC communities through giving eligible families access to early childhood development educational programming.

Department: Workplace & Employment Standards

• Increases the contract with Fair Labor Oakland (Centro Legal De La Reza) by $43,000. Centro Legal de la Raza is a legal services agency protecting and advancing the rights of low-income, immigrant, Black, and Latinx communities through bilingual legal representation, education, and advocacy.
  • Equity Consideration: This funding will preserve services to Oakland workers directly impacted by wage theft and sub-standard workplace standards, specifically women and the BIPOC community who are disproportionately represented in low-wage industries.

Department: City Administrator

• Continues to freeze vacant 1.0 FTE Assistant to the City Administrator. The position was designed to evolve the City’s performance management strategy, establish data standards and governance, and support City staff with data transparency, data storytelling, and analytics – with the overarching goal of supporting the City in closing equity gaps. Without an individual permanently in place to lead/guide the City’s efforts implementing comprehensive performance standards, each department will continue to face the same challenges in terms of lack of capacity or standards to consistently track data and make data-informed decisions. As a result, the City will be unable to accurately measure and fully understand the impacts of some programs and services over time on different groups throughout Oakland, which will make it more difficult to appropriately respond and address negative/harmful impacts.
  • Equity Consideration: This position was frozen during the FY 2022-2023 MidCycle Budget. As stated above, a dedicated centralized position is essential to building an ongoing culture of performance improvement throughout the organization and bridging the City’s siloed data efforts. Without a strong analytics program and standards in place Citywide, individual departments that do not already have systems, processes, or staff expertise to collect, track and apply data in decision-making are at risk of harming or adversely impacting Oakland’s low-income and disenfranchised BIPOC communities, because the department is unable to measure or track the impact of its programs and services in these communities. This may further exacerbate existing disparities in Oakland’s population based on race, geographic location, socio-economic status, and other factors. This position was intended to compliment the work of the Data Analyst III in the Department of Race and Equity which is also frozen in this budget.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Equal Opportunity Specialist. Understaffing in the Employment Investigation and Civil Rights Compliance Office may impede the City’s ability to provide timely responses to allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination by employees based on their protected status. The City is required to conduct these investigations as a matter of state and federal law, and not filling this position would increase the City’s reliance on contractors for services which is currently estimated at two to three times the fully burdened cost of staffing this position. Staff are currently overwhelmed with the number of complaints/investigations. Lastly, this is the only job classification in the City that is assigned to do this work; therefore, it is not possible to combine these responsibilities with the work of other job classifications.
  • Equity Consideration: Understaffing of this department may impede the City’s efforts to investigate claims of sexual harassment and discrimination filed by employees and applicants to the City based upon Age, Disability, Gender, Genetic Information, Nationality, Race or Ethnicity, Religion, Sexual Orientation, as well as Veteran Status and increase the City’s potential risk exposure to litigation.
• Continues to freeze vacant 1.0 FTE Accountant III. This position was frozen in the FY 2022-23 Midcycle Budget. The City Administrator’s Office (CAO) has not had a designated Fiscal Manager since 2018, while the need for this support has increased as the CAO’s operations continue to expand and develop since that time. Continuing to freeze this position will impact CAO operations by requiring existing staff to dedicate significant time towards these processes and/or rely on other departments to provide this support on a part-time (sometimes inconsistent) basis. Without dedicated fiscal support and oversight, it is difficult for the CAO to implement and maintain department-wide budgetary strategies, priorities, or policies or consistently manage the department’s spending comprehensively across all units.
  • Equity Consideration: In the event of a budget-related issue, such as overspending, mistaken transfer or commitment of funds, or other error, significant staff time is often required to correct the issue, which can lead to interruptions in services or programming the CAO manages. As a result, BIPOC, low-income residents and other groups who access these services may be negatively impacted from these interruptions or delays in service.

Department: Economic & Workforce Development

• Eliminates the $400,000 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza activation budget, which will reduce the City’s ability to subsidize activities taking place in the plaza.
  • Equity Consideration: This reduction in the budget may reduce activity in Frank Ogawa Plaza and may discourage people from working or visiting downtown, which in turn reduces the amount of tax revenues received by the City to fund programs for Oakland’s BIPOC residents.
• Reduces the Special Events Subsidy by approximately $300,000 per year. The Special Events Subsidy is used to subsidize fire inspection and application fee discounts for community events that are free and organized by non-profit or small organizations which take place in under-resourced areas or at least half of the vendors are from under-resourced areas.
  • Equity Consideration: Permitting fees, particularly hourly fire inspector fees upwards of $600 an hour, present a barrier to lower income communities holding permitting events. In the FY 2022-2023 Midcycle Budget, the City Council introduced a $500,000 subsidy to cover the reduced $100 fire inspector fee for community events. In July 2022, City Council also approved a 50% discount on special event application fees for community events. However, for the FY 2023-25 Biennial budget, the subsidy was reduced to support unfreezing personnel in EWDD. Without having access to this subsidy, it may be more difficult for BIPOC residents and BIPOC-led small organizations to run community events in Oakland.
• Freezes vacant 0.60 FTE Urban Economic Analyst IV PPT and freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Development/Redevelopment Program Manager in the Public Private Development Division starting Jan 2024. Freezing these positions will decrease personnel available to work on disposing City-owned land for development of affordable housing, as well as other priority projects, such as development of a mixed-use project at 2100 Telegraph Avenue or the rehabilitation of the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, which creates jobs for Oaklanders and support local businesses.
  • Equity Consideration: The City’s 2018 Equity Indicators Report and its HCD 2021-2023 Strategic Action Plan identify housing affordability as a central issue in Oakland. Oakland’s lowest income households are experiencing the highest rent burden with approximately 60% of Black renter households being rent burdened and about one-third severely rent burdened — the highest rate of any racial/ethnic group in the city. Homelessness also disproportionately affects Black residents, which represent 68% of Oakland's unhoused population. Freezing these positions will slow down the production of affordable housing on City-owned land serving Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) residents.
• Reduces one-time workforce grant funding by 50% in the General Purpose Fund. This funding provides programs and services that address disparities in access to employment and related services in Oakland’s historically underserved populations.
  • Equity Consideration: Oakland’s Workforce Development system prioritize services to targeted populations (Black and Latinx) and geographic areas of Oakland (East and West) that have the highest numbers of residents who face disproportionately high levels of unemployment. Less available funding means that less services can be provided to Oakland’s BIPOC communities.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Marketing Program Coordinator and reduces the Marketing Program budget by $95,000. The workload related to the marketing program and communication services will be absorbed by existing EWDD staff, diverting resources from other core EWDD program support for small businesses and economic development.
  • Equity Consideration: Freezing the Marketing Program Coordinator and reducing the marketing budget will limit resources for effectively communicating with and promoting all of Oakland’s commercial neighborhoods and businesses, including the time and budget previously devoted to printed materials and translation, which are valuable particularly for limited English speakers and Oaklanders that lack ease with or access to digital/online doe resources, and those that lack visibility and access to promotional opportunities.
• Reduces Measure C TOT Cultural Grants contingencies by $17,048, online database by $12,000, and professional services by $5,000 in FY2023-24. The Cultural Grants budget provides grant funding to Oakland-based Art and cultural activities while the online database and professional services support the grant’s application process.
  • Equity Consideration: The services to Oakland’s historically underserved BIPOC communities will be impacted by the diminished grantmaking capacity of the division.
• Continues to freeze vacant 1.0 FTE Student Trainee. This position was frozen in the FY 2022-23 Midcycle Budget. This position would provide support to small business development programs including the Neighborhood Business Assistance program (NBA), which provides counseling services to business owners in locations throughout Oakland’s neighborhoods, and the Façade and Tenant Improvement Program (FTIP), which recently relaunched and will award an unprecedented volume of grants in the next year for small business owners and property owners to improve their ground floor commercial spaces.
  • Equity Consideration: This position was frozen in the FY 2022-23 Midcycle Budget. Continuing to freeze the Student Trainee position will disproportionately impact business owners in underserved BIPOC neighborhoods that won’t receive additional support. The NBA locations were selected based on equitable access for previously underserved neighborhoods. The FTIP equity scoring criteria, new in the past year, prioritizes businesses located in Priority Neighborhoods as defined by OakDOT Equity Toolbox.
• Continues to freeze vacant 1.0 FTE Student Trainee. This position was frozen in the FY 2022-23 Midcycle Budget. Not having this position decreases EWDD personnel available to work on disposing City-owned land for development of affordable housing, as well as other priority projects, such as development of a mixed-use project at 2100 Telegraph Avenue or the rehabilitation of the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, which creates jobs for Oaklanders and supports local businesses.
  • Equity Consideration: The City’s 2018 Equity Indicators Report and its HCD 2021-2023 Strategic Action Plan identify housing affordability as a central issue in Oakland. Oakland’s lowest income households are experiencing the highest rent burden with approximately 60% of Black renter households being rent burdened and about one-third severely rent burdened — the highest rate of any racial/ethnic group in the city. Homelessness also disproportionately affects Black residents, which represent 68% of Oakland's unhoused population. Freezing the Student Trainee position may slow down the production of affordable housing on City-owned land serving BIPOC residents.
• Continues to freeze vacant 0.60 FTE Urban Economic Analyst (UEA) IV PPT in Business Development to support Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). This position was frozen in the FY 2022-23 MidCycle Budget. Continuing to freeze this position will require that staffing of the BID program continue to be absorbed by existing EWDD staff, diverting resources from core EWDD program support for small businesses and economic development. The BID program is a Council authorized contractual obligation that supports 11 BID Districts and successfully leverages over $6.5 million in private funding supporting safety, marketing, cleaning services, and community event programming that is above City baseline services in BID districts.
  • Equity Consideration: The freezing of this position would remove staffing resource to a critical commercial neighborhood support program that improves neighborhood conditions. Freezing this position will restrict resources from being allocated to business and development support programming in East and West Oakland, where the majority of Oakland’s BIPOC residents live.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Administrative Analyst I. This change will preserve a greatly needed Program Analyst II position that is focused on providing technical assistance to partner organizations, process contractor invoices, and ensure partner organizations are serving communities in most need. Freezing the Administrative Analyst I will impact EWDD’s ability to review and process contracts and payment requests in a timely manner.
  • Equity Consideration: Retaining the Program Analyst II will allow EWDD to continue to advance its efforts to serve communities of East Oakland, Fruitvale and West Oakland, where a high number of Black and Latinx residents live, are unemployed at higher rates than the general population. This will provide access to workforce services and improving the employment outcomes for BIPOC residents in zip codes (94621, 94603, 94605, 94601, 94607) with the highest unemployment rates.

Department: Finance

• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Assistant Revenue & Tax Administrator for FY 2023-24, vacant 1.0 FTE Tax Enforcement Officer II and vacant 1.0 FTE Revenue Operations Supervisor in the Revenue Audit Unit, and vacant 1.0 FTE Tax Enforcement Officer II in the and vacant 1.0 FTE Office Assistant II in the Business Tax Unit. The Assistant Revenue & Tax Administrator position was intended to oversee deployment of outreach programs for Oakland residents and business owners on their tax liabilities and the exemptions and extensions that are available to them. This position was also going to support the structured audit program for all sources of revenue, which will otherwise be delayed and will result in a loss of revenue which reduces funds available for much needed City programs. Without the two positions in the Revenue Audit Unit, the Unit will not have as much staff capacity to identify non-compliant accounts, which results in lower revenue for the City and would result in decreased funds to provide services for Oakland residents. Less staff support in the Business Tax Unit impacts current staff capacity because they’ll be redirected from doing administrative tasks to supporting business tax customer service.
  • Equity Consideration: Fewer positions in these units results in decreased revenues that provide services for Oakland residents as well reduced outreach to Oakland business owners on their tax liabilities and how to avoid penalties for late payment. However, these positions were chosen because they are unfilled and the department has been functioning without most of these positions for some time. By freezing currently vacant positions, existing jobs are preserved. Recruitment, onboarding, and training take up a lot of resources. By retaining existing staff and only recruiting when funds are available, resources are preserved that can be used for direct service to Oakland residents and business owners.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Public Information Officer III. The Finance Department does not currently have a Public Information Officer, whose primary task would be to communicate to the public on complex, high-profile Finance issues and initiatives. This position would also oversee the department’s website. Freezing this position will reduce the department’s capacity for communication on key fiscal issues as well as result in longer timeframes for updating the Finance Department webpages and intranet site to make them more usable for the public and City employees.
  • Equity Consideration: The position was chosen because the position is currently unfilled. By freezing vacant positions, existing jobs are preserved.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Principal Financial Analyst in the General Ledger Unit. This position can assist the Controller and Assistant Controller in producing the ACFR as well as producing other complex financial reports. Without this position, the Controller and Assistant Controller must take on these duties which can slow down the process of getting the ACFR ready for publication and available for the public to review. This position would also provide more oversight and analysis to the public about city finances in key areas of equity concern such as the contracting process. Freezing this position reduces the City’s ability to receive financial information in a timely manner and more in depth analysis on issues of equity.
  • Equity Consideration: The position was chosen because the position is currently unfilled. By freezing vacant positions, existing jobs are preserved.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Financial Analyst in Treasury. This position provides support for the City’s debt management and issuance to ensure the City stays in compliance and maintains its current bond rating. This position has been unfilled for some time, so freezing this position is not expected to have a negative impact on the unit.
  • Equity Consideration: The position was chosen because the position is currently unfilled. By freezing vacant positions, existing jobs are preserved.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Business Analyst III in Payroll Unit. This position would respond to public information requests for payroll information and supports documentation for department payroll clerks to efficiently process employee pay items. Freezing this position increases delays for both processing public information requests around City payroll and processing employee pay items.
  • Equity Consideration: The position was chosen because the position is currently unfilled. By freezing vacant positions, existing jobs are preserved.

Department: Race & Equity

• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Data Analyst III. This position is responsible for establishing baseline disparity data, creating a system of equity data collection and analysis, and providing technical support for equity work in departments to create targets, benchmarks, and processes to track and report equity outcomes. Freezing this position means the City will have a less robust implementation of equity framework and longer horizon for taking equity impact analysis work to scale in the near term.
  • Equity Consideration: All the department’s work is related to advancing equity by working with departments to examine policies, programs and procedures for elements that might contribute to racial disparities in outcomes, or to identify missed opportunities to design equity in where it has not yet been taken into consideration. This current position is vacant but should be filled as soon as it is fiscally possible to advance racial equity for Oakland’s BIPOC communities.
• Reduces department’s consulting budget by $60,000 in FY 2023-24 and $40,000 in FY 2024-25. The department’s consulting budget was intended towards the creation of a data collection and reporting system. Reducing this budget means the City will have a less robust implementation of equity framework and longer horizon for taking equity impact analysis work to scale in the near term.
  • Equity Consideration: This cut was identified as the least impactful because it is not obligated and can be postponed.

Department: Workplace & Employment Standards

• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Contract Compliance Officer and vacant 1.0 FTE Contract Compliance Field Technician that support enforcement of local measures on wages. Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Assistant Contract Compliance Officer who would oversee the compliance programming for Local Business Enterprises/Small Local Business Enterprises (LBE/SLBE) and data collection to assess equity outcomes for the compliance programming. The department currently has 8 vacancies and is offering its services at a lower capacity. Freezing these positions at this point will not impact the department and its current services, but could contribute to limited capacity in the future if the department hires all its existing vacancies.
  • Equity Consideration: This department is responsible for increasing job opportunities for Oakland residents, preventing wage theft, and increasing contracting opportunities for Oakland businesses through supporting them in acquiring various designated business statuses. Due to the high vacancy the department is already experiencing, freezing these positions will not have an undue impact on Oakland’s BIPOC communities.

CLEAN, HEALTHY, & SUSTAINABLE NEIGHBORHOODS

Department: City Administrator

1. Transfers the Summer Food Program from the Human Services Department (HSD) to the City Administrator’s Office (CAO), which includes 6.5 FTEs that cost approximately $600,000 to run the Summer Food program.
   • Equity Consideration: The federal Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) delivers free snacks and lunches during summer break. Approximately 33,000 children in the Oakland community depend on free and reduced-cost school meals during the school year. However, most families struggle to replace those meals for their children during the summer months. The City’s Summer Food Service Program bridges the meal gap by providing access to nutritious meals at convenient locations throughout Oakland while school is out of session. This program increase services to Oakland’s BlPOC communities that support their health and reduces health disparities.

Department: Library

• Adds 1.0 FTE Program Analyst III. The Program Analyst III will be the Library’s Safety and Security Manager responsible for leading security, safety and preparedness efforts in order to better respond to violent incidents with patrons in the library. This role will manage the Library’s traumatic incident response and post-incident debrief and action plan. This position will also establish and maintain partnerships with MACRO, OPD, and social service agencies.
  • Equity Consideration: Many library employees experience verbal and physical assault while on the job. Frequently, these attacks involve expressing violence and hatred toward the employee’s race, gender identity or sexual preference. The creation of this new role will help to reduce the trauma, or at least better respond to the trauma, experienced most frequently by the Library’s BIPOC, female and transgender workers. The Program Analyst III will lead the delivery of actions in Oakland Public Library’s Racial Equity Action Plan regarding revisions of OPL’s patron behavior guidelines and policies with an equity lens and provide adequate training and staff support, including to contract security guards. This will also lead to an increase in alternate responses to calling OPD to remove or arrest library patrons.
• Adds 2.6 FTE Full-Time and Permanent Part Time Library Custodians per TPT Committee recommendations. Additional custodians to support Oakland Public Library’s eighteen (18) locations will ensure that facilities are more sanitary, clean and appealing to library patrons.
  • Equity Consideration: Many custodians are temporary part-time, BIPOC and/or speak English as a second language. Creating more permanent positions will allow some of these unbenefited employees the opportunity to advance to permanent employment. Also, a greater pool of custodians will keep library facilities in Equity Priority Neighborhoods clean and reduce closures caused by soiled public restrooms or other biohazard mess.
• Adds $100,000 O&M funds for outdoor programming supplies. These funds will be used to purchase outdoor programming supplies and equipment, such as canopies and chairs, to ensure that library programs may be offered outdoors to vulnerable populations when COVID-19 infection rates rise.
  • Equity Consideration: As noted on the National Institute for Health Care Management’s webpage, COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted vulnerable populations and communities including access to testing and with increased risk of infection. Providing outdoor library programs will allow participants to spread out and congregate in a safer environment with increased ventilation, thereby reducing COVID-19 transmission to people who live in Equity Priority Neighborhoods.

Department: Non-Departmental

• Adds $13.9 million in O&M funding per year for Measure Y expenditures. Measure Y was the ballot initiative voters passed in November 2022 to dedicate more funding to Oakland’s Zoo.
  • Equity Consideration: The equity impact of this Measure is unknown, however, it was also voter-backed so the expenditures are mandated to be spent per the language of the Ordinance.
• Adds $183,375 in O&M funding per year for the Traffic and Safety management at Lake Merritt. These funds are intended to support OPD in responding to more serious public safety issues as they arise such as the sales of alcohol and drugs by street vendors, or sideshow type activity.
  • Equity Consideration: Improved traffic management measures can make Lake Merritt a safer and more inclusive public space. This benefits all residents particularly those from historically marginalized communities who may have felt unsafe in the area and contributes to an improved quality of life for residents in underserved neighborhoods where access to safe public recreational spaces may be limited.
• Adds $750,000 in grant funding per year for City Council’s Citywide Community grants. Historically, City Council awards grants to community-based organizations (CBOs) as a part of the budget process. This money is being set aside for the anticipated RFP process the City will initiate to distribute to the finalists for these grants.
  • Equity Consideration: The equity impacts of this budget allocation will depend on whether the RFP process will involve the applying CBOs to indicate how they will advance racial equity with this funding.

Department: Parks, Recreation, & Youth Development

• Adds $150,000 in personnel costs for additional Park Steward hours for Lake Merritt. These additional staff hours will help to increase accessibility and security at Parks and provide greater access to information provided by Park Services.
  • Equity consideration: This may not have a known equity impact.
• Adds 3.0 FTE Full-Time Pool Managers positions. These additional staff will improve and increase services at the three pools that the Pool Managers will be designated to oversee year-around. The three pool managers will split time between two pools in each OPRYD Unit: East (East Oakland Sports Center, Fremont),; Central East (Lions and Live Oak), and Northwest (DeFremery and Live Oak).
  • Equity consideration: The City’s pools provide programming for youth year-round. The vast majority of the youth who participate in programming are races other than white and reside in the immediate area of the pool. The department provides relevant equitable programs and services through intentional engagement and by removing the barriers that prohibit equitable participation. These additional Pool Managers will support the department in its mission to provide high quality services to communities accessing these pools.

Department: Public Works

• Adds $150,000 from the revenues generated by the Lake Merritt Parking Management Plan to be allocated toward funding park maintenance at Lake Merritt.
  • Equity Consideration: Lakeside Park is a region-serving park offering recreation free of charge to residents from all over Oakland, and this allocation will enhance the ability of Park Services to maintain safe, clean and beautiful spaces for residents throughout the city.
• Adds 2.0 FTE Tree Workers which allows the Tree Services Division to increase its ability to provide necessary tree work citywide. The increase in staff will bring the total number of Tree Workers from 3.0 FTE to 5.0 FTE. The Tree Worker job title is an entry-level position that provides both opportunities to enter the field of arboriculture without previous experience and a pool of potential internal candidates for future Tree Crew and other specialized City positions when job openings occur. The 2.0 FTE Tree Workers will specifically be tasked with maintaining the 700 trees planted in parks within disadvantaged census tracts for the City’s existing grant from the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection (CAL FIRE).
  • Equity Consideration: The job activities and tasks for the 2.0 FTE Tree Workers will focus on trees planted in parks in Oakland’s flatland communities that are in census tracts designated as “disadvantaged” by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s (OEHHA) CalEnviroScreen map. These locations are designated as disadvantaged because of higher pollution burdens and vulnerability of the people who live there. These census tracts overlap with neighborhoods that were previously “redlined,” a discriminatory practice enacted by the Federal Housing Administration in the 20th Century that discouraged investment and loan opportunities in neighborhoods with residents who were Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and/or low-income. Adding these 2.0 FTE Tree Worker positions also helps meet goals of the forthcoming Oakland Urban Forest Plan by providing entry-level jobs in tree-related work.
• Adds $300,000 for resurfacing of basketball courts and bathroom maintenance. Allendale Park and the Recreation Center provide a variety of services to neighbors and parks users as a recreation and programming space. Addressing deferred maintenance at the park will enhance vibrancy and functionality of the site and satisfaction of residents and neighbors. Repairing the courts will also provide health and safety benefits.
  • Equity Consideration: The specified budget will allow the City to address deferred maintenance of the basketball courts and improve the interior of the bathrooms at a community park in a Medium Priority Disadvantaged Index census tract and provide neighbors and residents surrounding the park a safer place to gather and recreate.
• Adds $250,000 for installation of vehicle barriers at certain entry points into Arroyo Viejo Park. There have been vehicles entering Arroyo Viejo Park from several entry points and causing damage to the park facility. The new bollards will be installed to ensure future vehicle access will be prevented. The fencing repairs for the ballfield will restore the proper and safe function for users. As one of the largest parks in East Oakland, the park and recreation center is a hub for the community and provides amenities, resources, and programs to the surrounding neighborhood. Ensuring that the park does not further deteriorate and exacerbate deferred maintenance will enhance this community hub.
  • Equity Consideration: The specified budget will allow the City to address damages to the park, health and safety, and deferred maintenance at a significant community park in a High Priority Disadvantaged Index census tract and provide neighbors and residents surrounding the park a safer place to gather and recreate.
• Adds $60,000 for lead paint abatement at Maxwell Park. The Peter Pan Cooperative Nursery School has been providing childcare (2-6 years of age) services to the community and neighborhood since 1947. Lead abatement will allow their community service to continue and ensure children are safe from impacts of lead paint in the facility.
  • Equity Consideration: The specified budget will allow the City to address lead removal of the building for the health and safety of participants and deferred maintenance at a childcare facility in a Medium Priority Disadvantaged Index census tract and provide neighbors and participants a safer experience.
• Adds $179,798 for park maintenance and improvements at Clinton Park, for park maintenance and improvements. The specified budget will allow the City to address deferred maintenance at Clinton Park, which is in a Medium Priority Disadvantaged Index census tract and provide neighbors and community members a safer place to gather, recreate, and seek services.
  • Equity Consideration: The specified budget will allow the City to address deferred maintenance at Clinton Park, which is in a Medium Priority Disadvantaged Index census tract and provide neighbors and community members a safer place to gather, recreate, and seek services.
• Adds $179,798 for deferred pool and park maintenance at Defremery Park. DeFremery Park and Pool serves as a recreation, programming, resource, and social gathering hub for the West Oakland community. Addressing deferred maintenance at DeFremery will enhance vibrancy of the site and satisfaction of neighbors, residents, and users.
  • Equity Consideration: The specified budget will allow the City to address damages to the park, health and safety, and deferred maintenance at a significant community park in a Highest Priority Disadvantaged Index census tract and provide neighbors and residents surrounding the park a safer place to gather and recreate.
• Adds $179,798 for Josie de la Cruz Park to repair damages and address security concerns in the park. Josie de la Cruz Park and the Carmen Flores Recreation Center serves as a hub for the surrounding school and neighborhood. The improvements to the park will enhance the safety for users and allow better programming and services to the Fruitvale community.
  • The specified budget will allow the City to address deferred maintenance at Josie de la Cruz Park, which is in the Highest Priority Disadvantaged Index census tract and provide neighbors and community members a safer place to gather, recreate, and seek services.
• Adds 2.6 FTE Full -Time and Permanent Part-Time Library Custodians, per TPT committee recommendations. The addition of Custodian positions results in enhanced cleanliness and maintenance at Library locations within the City, resulting in safer spaces for patrons.
  • Equity Consideration: Libraries often serve as vital community hubs, offering resources and programs for underserved populations. Adequate custodial staffing ensures that these spaces remain safe and clean, particularly important for vulnerable communities relying on library services.

Department: Transportation

• Adds 10.0 FTE needed to deliver already-committed capital projects. These additional positions are needed to deliver grants, totaling over $180 million, that OakDOT has already been awarded for various capital transportation projects. These projects will deliver critical safety improvements to Oakland streets, primarily in high priority neighborhoods. Without additional staffing, OakDOT will have inadequate capacity to deliver these grant-funded projects by its committed deadlines. The potential consequences of failing to meet these deadlines include: (1) losing multi-million dollar regional, state, and/or federal grants, (2) needing to return/pay back grant dollars already spent, (3) decreasing the likelihood that OakDOT would be considered for future grant opportunities, (4) delaying the delivery of critical safety improvements to Oakland’s transportation network, and (5) perpetuating burnout and hindering retention efforts in the current OakDOT project delivery teams.
  • Equity Consideration: OakDOT’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) prioritization tool places equity as the top consideration when determining which capital projects to prioritize for grant funding. By adding these new positions, this proposal would support timely delivery of infrastructure improvements to underserved Oaklanders in neighborhoods that continue to experience the impacts of historical disinvestment, which are predominantly Oakland's Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities.
• Adds more than $6.1 million in programs to calm traffic, improve intersection safety, and provide safe routes near schools to help reduce traffic violence and save lives. It also includes $1.6 million over the next two fiscal years to implement the City’s bike and pedestrian plans.
  • Equity Consideration: Supports a safe city by assessing traffic safety issues identified by the public based on safety history and socio-economic factors with emphasis placed on residential neighborhoods in BIPOC communities and school areas. Advances and improves Oakland’s bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure to promote equity and sustainability. Data indicates that just 6% of Oakland's streets account for over 60% of severe and fatal crashes across all modes. Nearly all high injury streets are in medium- or high-ranking "Communities of Concern" a term used regionally to describe communities experiencing high rates of poverty, people of color, people with disabilities, zero car households, and English as a second language. This includes Black Oaklanders who are 2 times as likely to be killed or severely injured in a traffic crash of any type and 3 times more likely to be killed or severely injured while walking as compared to all other Oaklanders. 30% of streets in majority Asian census tracts fall on the City of Oakland Pedestrian High Injury Network - the highest percentage of any ethnicity. This includes Chinatown, where every street is a high injury corridor. Older Oaklanders (65+) are more than 2 times as likely to be killed in a crash compared to all other Oaklanders; the majority of senior traffic deaths occur while walking. For younger Oaklanders (age 1-17) traffic crashes are the second most common cause of death for this age group in Oakland. Oaklanders with disabilities also have a significantly higher mortality rate when involved in crashes.
• Adds roughly $500,000 in ongoing expenses to support the new smart parking meters, including maintenance, enforcement and transaction fees, for a combined net gain of $1.4 million annually. By making further investments in smart parking meters, in particular pay-by-plate kiosks and Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) enforcement, OakDOT is enhancing the parking system throughout the City, by providing easier alternatives to pay, thus reducing barriers to accessing parking spots near commercial centers. Expanding the smart parking system helps with gathering data to better understanding the parking demand and create supporting programs accordingly.
  • Equity Consideration: Meter parking supports the City in better managing access to high demand public spaces. Regulating parking duration can help the City address inequities. By not charging for the private use of public space for car storage/parking, the City incentivizes driving, which provides ease and access to those who are affluent enough to afford cars, often at the expense of low-income communities and communities of color that live near freeways and heavily trafficked streets. Affluent drivers can also afford electric vehicles, which don't generate greenhouse gas emissions but also contribute less to the gas tax, which funds street maintenance. Lastly, parking meters can discourage driving, reducing unnecessary congestion throughout the City, which can contribute to decreasing the pollution burden of Oakland’s BIPOC communities that live near freeways.
• Increases revenue $850,000 annually through increasing parking citation fees by 5%. In FY 2024-25 increase parking citation fees an additional 5% will increase revenue to $1,700,000.
  • Equity Consideration: This will align Oakland’s parking citation fees with those of similar jurisdictions in the area. The potential impacts may significantly harm car¬-dependent, low-income BIPOC Oaklanders. Parking citation fees are regressive in that they are the same regardless of one's income level; therefore, these fees disproportionately harm people who are low income. For some Oaklanders, increasing the citation fee could be the difference of losing their vehicle, job, and/or home. At the same time, street sweeping is a good stormwater pollution prevention practice as it removes waste and debris that would otherwise impact water quality. If practiced with an equity lens, it can make a meaningful difference in the cleanliness of every neighborhood in the city and decrease the likeliness of unwanted pests in the streets. Dirty streets are a common complaint from communities in high priority areas, shared via the CIP engagement process.
• Adds $100,000 in discretionary funding per Councilmember for traffic safety projects, for a total of $800,000 taken from available fund balance in Measure BB Local Streets and Roads Fund (Fund 2218). Split equally among the eight Council offices (seven geographic districts and one citywide at-large office), this would provide $100,000 per Council Office for Councilmember-identified high priority traffic safety projects.
  • Equity consideration: The equity impact is likely negative as this discretionary approach avoids going through the City’s adopted Capital Improvement Program (CIP) prioritization process and OakDOT’s traffic safety request prioritization process. Both the CIP and OakDOT traffic safety prioritization processes place equity and safety as top considerations when determining which priority projects to advance. It is unknown whether or how Councilmembers will consider equity for determining their projects, but the residents who will likely most benefit from these projects are those who are well-organized and/or politically connected to their respective Councilmember. In contrast, high priority equity communities prioritized through the CIP and OakDOT traffic safety prioritization processes will be disadvantaged from this funding allocation because Councilmember-earmarked projects draw upon limited staff resources, which can shift efforts away from projects with clearer ties to safety and equity. In addition, many past Councilmember-earmarked projects have not fallen on the City’s High-Injury Network, a data map that DOT uses to determine what projects to prioritize.
• Adds $770,896 in funding for OakDOT’s pilot violence and sideshow prevention program from available fund balance in Measure BB Local Streets and Roads Fund (Fund 2218). These programs implement pilot engineering treatments at locations heavily impacted by sideshows and locations where illegal/undesirable activities have frequently resulted in violence. Locations for the pilot were identified in collaboration with the Oakland Police Department, Department of Violence Prevention, the City Administrator, and other relevant entities. This additional funding will provide more resources to extend the duration of this pilot program, as the City currently works to roll our five locations per phase.
  • Equity Consideration: Oakland’s BIPOC communities were specifically considered for the initial pilot. With this additional funding, OakDOT can create more traffic calming features to benefit the personal and collective safety of Oakland’s BIPOC residents.
• Adds $100,000 for traffic safety improvement projects around Lake Merritt. According to the ordinance, the priority areas of these funds allocated for traffic safety improvements are Lake Merritt and neighborhood parks citywide. Traffic safety improvements include quick-build and relatively low-cost improvements—typically using traffic signs, pavement markings, and small-scale traffic calming devices—to improve traffic safety by reducing traffic speeds and calming driving behavior.
  • Equity Consideration: OakDOT will prioritize these funds for improving pedestrian safety surrounding parks at high-risk locations determined by both safety and equity data informed by the OakDOT Geographic Equity Toolbox and the Traffic Safety Request Prioritization Model to create traffic safety for vulnerable populations, especially pedestrians, bicyclists, people with disabilities, children, and seniors.

Department: Library

• Transfers 19.5 FTE Library workers out of the General Purpose Fund and into the Library’s Measure-backed Funds 2241 and 2243. This transfer of positions is cost-neutral because it is being balanced through freezing part-time library worker positions in these Measure-backed Funds, which amounts to 31.38 FTEs. This transfer of Library workers was necessary to support the City to balance its budget deficit. They will not result in any service impacts to Oakland residents because the part-time library worker positions are vacant.
  • Equity Consideration: The transfer of Library workers out of the General Purpose Fund (1010) allowed the City to protect and safeguard other positions in 1010 that provide valuable services to Oakland’s residents, including and especially its BIPOC communities.

Department: Animal Services

• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Animal Control Supervisor and continues to freeze vacant 1.0 FTE Animal Control Officer. Also reduces O&M budget for external veterinary care by $210,000 over the two years. The Animal Control Officer position was frozen in the FY 2022-23 MidCycle Budget. With one less Animal Control Officers (ACOs), services will remain at the current level, with the office possibly not being able to respond to reports of unconfined stray animals during standby hours (9:30pm-7:00am). Freezing the Animal Control Supervisor will result in less direct support for the Animal Control Officers. While the O&M budget is designated for external veterinary care for spaying and neutering, staff have used this budget to support low-income residents, including unhoused residents, in getting other types of care for their animals.
  • Equity Consideration: Maintaining the current capacity of the Animal Control function at Oakland Animal Services may result in staff not being able to meet higher demands for services from Oakland residents. Requests for animal control predominantly come from Oakland neighborhoods that are majority Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Reducing the O&M budget would result in the office reducing or eliminating the community support it offers to low-income and unhoused residents in getting free care for their animals.

Department: Fire

• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Assistant Sworn Fire Marshal in the Fire Prevention Division. This position plans, organizes, assists and directs day-to-day activities within the Fire Prevention Division, which is responsible for fire prevention, investigation, and commercial inspections. Without this position, Department Management will have to work with existing staff to ensure inspections are proceeding in a timely manner.
  • Equity Consideration: This position oversees the work of The Vegetation Management Unit (VMU) which serves to inspect properties in the Oakland Hills to identify and mitigate hazards that could contribute to the spread, growth, and intensity of a wildfire. The Oakland Hills are the geographical part of the City where the least amount of Oakland’s low-income Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) residents live, so freezing this position will not create a negative equity impact on Oakland’s BIPOC communities.

Department: Human Services

• Reduces the Kids First allocation for FY 2023-24 by $1.8 million based on a decrease in General Purpose Fund unrestricted revenues per the City Charter and reduces funding for FY 2024-25 by approximately $875,000. The reduction of the Kids First contracts to outside organizations will reduce available funding for these organizations to provide services to children.
  • Equity Consideration: This reduction impacts vulnerable children in Oakland's BIPOC low-income communities. Oakland Kids First works with 125 core youth leaders and 3,400 additional high school students each year across programs. Kids First programs advance safe and caring school cultures, support youth to advocate for their needs and priorities, and improve educational equity, racial justice, and academic outcomes for low-income students of color. A reduction in funding could potentially cause these programs to be reduced, paused or eliminated within the community organizations that rely on Kids First funding.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Program Analyst II, PT position for Aging & Adult Services Division. The Program Analyst II, PT is responsible for executing and managing professional service agreements, grant agreements, and purchasing. Freezing this position will impact existing staff who will absorb the work typically assigned to the Program Analyst II , PT. Without this position, Aging Services may not have the capacity to facilitate community grants, contracting outside of internal grant programs, or purchasing equipment and supplies for Senior Centers.
  • Equity Consideration: This impact will slow down the contracting process for community partners that provide support services to low-income Oakland Seniors, who are primarily Black and Asian residents.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Office Assistant I, PPT. The Office Assistant I, PPT is responsible for performing a range of office support activities in the Human Services Department. The freezing of this Office Assistant I, PPT position has the potential to reduce services to the public. Existing staff will absorb the work typically assigned to the Office Assistant I.
  • Equity Consideration: While there is a service impact, this freeze does not have a discernible equity impact.

Department: Parks, Recreation & Youth Development

• Reduces the department’s transportation budget by 50%, which comes out to $225,000 per year. The department uses this funding to shuttle participating youth in its programming between its recreation centers to its various enrichment programs and planned field trips. The department’s intended use of this funding was for the purchase of low and zero emission passenger vans. The loss of this funding will impact program participants who rely on the department’s transportation.
  • Equity consideration: Oakland’s Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities have historically had less access to greenspaces and programs. Additionally, these communities have higher percentage of "zero-car household" or caretaker schedules may not facilitate safe and convenient pick up/drop off to park programs. The loss of this funding for the department’s transportation program could create a participation barrier for vulnerable children in Oakland's BIPOC low-income communities who relying on this transportation to reach programs in a safe and organized manner.
• Freezes 2.0 FTE vacant positions in OPYRD’s administration, specifically a 1.0 FTE Administrative Analyst II, and a 1.0 FTE Account Clerk III. These positions would support the overall management of the department if filled, however, the department has been managing the impact of these vacancies through distributing their workload to existing staff. Freezing these positions will mean that the department will continue to operate with a lowered capacity in certain administrative functions, specifically fiscal management, communications, and reporting.
  • Equity Consideration: While there is a service impact on the department’s ability and capacity to perform its administrative tasks and duties, this freeze does not have a discernible equity impact on services to the Oakland community.
• Reduces the department grant subsidies for its longstanding community partnerships with 5 community-based organizations (CBOs) by 20% each year. The 5 CBOs are the Chabot Space & Science Center, Fairyland, Asian Cultural Center, Hacienda Peralta, and the OPR Foundation. These reductions were made to redirect General Purpose Fund dollars to other essential services in the City. The 5 CBOs still have 80% of their grant subsidy from the department.
  • Equity consideration: The equity impact for this budget action is unknown as these organizations are external entities outside of the City that maintain their own finances and programming.

Department: Public Works

• Freezes vacant 2.0 FTE Street Sweeper Operators. This will cause street sweeping routes to be interrupted and impact staff capacity, possibly resulting in poor sanitation conditions for the community at large. This may further contribute to the existing impacts and disparities of illegal dumping and the homelessness crisis within the City.
  • Equity Consideration: Oakland’s Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities have been disproportionately affected by blight on the streets and in the City right-of-way.
• Freezes vacant 4.0 FTE Public Works Maintenance Workers. Freezing these positions will not impact the maintenance operations that are already currently impacted by a vacancy crisis. Currently this job classification has 8 vacant positions. Less workers on the frontlines can result in maintenance tasks such as trash pick-up or graffiti abatement being left undone.
  • Equity Consideration: Oakland’s BIPOC communities have been disproportionately affected by blight on the streets and in the City right-of-way.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Street Maintenance Leader. Currently this job classification has 2 vacant positions. This freeze may cause additional strain on KOCB’s maintenance operations that are currently impacted by a vacancy crisis.
  • Equity Consideration: Oakland’s BIPOC communities have been disproportionately affected by blight on the streets and in the City right-of-way.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Administrative Assistant II position. This freeze will not impact current service levels in the Environmental Enforcement Unit which operates with minimal administrative support. Much of the administrative work is currently performed by Environmental Enforcement Officers, which diverts staff time from performing direct frontline work such as illegal dumping citations issuance, blight remediation, and educating resident on litter issues.
  • Equity Consideration: Environmental Enforcement Officers will continue to spend less time deployed to target eradication and enforcement in communities and areas where abandoned waste is most prevalent, which is disproportionately in Oakland’s BIPOC communities.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Electrical Painter. The freezing of this position will have little to no service impact as it has been frozen since FY 2021-22.
  • Equity consideration: There is no discernible equity impact from this action.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Gardener II. The freezing of this position will have little to no service impact.
  • Equity Consideration: There is no discernible equity impact from this action.

Department: Transportation

• Freezes the vacant 4.0 FTE Private Sidewalk Crew. In 2021 when Council chose to add a sidewalk crew, these four positions were initially funded by gas tax fund balance and were dedicated to performing sidewalk repairs that homeowners would be responsible for paying. Staff have started to stand up this process through using contractors to perform the sidewalk repair work. Given the extremely high vacancy rate in the department's core sidewalk operations, this internal crew focused on private repairs would not likely be staffed quickly even if not frozen. Therefore, the department does not see freezing these positions as having a significant service impact. The program will continue, using contractors.
  • Equity Consideration: This proposal would not have a significant service impact and is not anticipated to have any external equity impacts. The positions cannot be sustainably funded with ongoing transportation resources, therefore, staff proposed freezing these positions until DOT can show it can recover sufficient costs from homeowners to cover the cost of the staff.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Transportation Planner II. Freezing this position will impact the department’s ability to actively manage parking prices and adjust them to reflect demand for parking in commercial districts. Current staff do not have capacity to respond to requests from Business Improvement Districts and others for comprehensive parking and loading improvements.
  • Equity Consideration: This position would ensure that parking prices are actively managed and that requests from the public are responded equitably throughout the City. As a result, the department anticipates that commercial districts in high equity priority areas, such as Fruitvale and Chinatown, may not have their needs for parking price adjustments and loading improvements met.
• Freezes vacant 11.85 FTE in the Parking Meter & Vehicle Enforcement units in FY 2023-24, of which 2.0 FTE will be unfrozen in FY 2024-25. The department currently has 36.85 FTE vacant positions in these units, so this freeze will not impact current service levels as the department is already operating with a lower staff capacity.
  • Equity Consideration: There is no discernible equity impact from this action.
• Freezes 0.25 FTE Electrical Engineer III in the Street Lighting Administrative Unit. The department currently has 2 vacancies for this job classification and is maintaining its existing service levels without them. Freezing this position does not have a service impact.
  • Equity Consideration: here is no discernible equity impact from this action.

OTHER IMPACTS & CHANGES

Department: City Attorney

• Adds 3.0 FTE Deputy City Attorney positions to the Affirmative Litigation, Innovation and Enforcement Division. This division is comprised of three (3) units: the Neighborhood Law Corps, (“NLC”), the Housing Justice Initiative (“HJI”), and the Community Lawyering and Civil Rights (“CLCR”) units. These units bring civil lawsuits and other enforcement efforts to enforce important local, state and federal laws and to secure justice for Oakland residents. Over the past half-decade, the City Attorney’s affirmative litigation work has been far-reaching and impactful and has included successful litigation against targets ranging from multinational corporations (e.g., lead paint companies, Monsanto) to large landlords who systematically abuse their tenants’ rights to owners and operators of illicit massage parlors engaging in human trafficking. At present, the majority of the attorneys in CLCR and HJI are not funded through the City budget. Instead, they are in limited-duration (“ELDE”) positions funded through attorney’s fees recovered from successful lawsuits that are restricted to affirmative litigation purposes. Permanent positions are necessary to ensure the Team’s sustainability and to take on the highly complex, important, and challenging enforcement issues facing the City and its residents.
  • Equity consideration: Given how these roles are funded and that they are temporary positions, these attorneys: (1) lack any guarantee of continued employment with the City; (2) receive lower salaries than budgeted Deputy City Attorneys (“DCAs”) with equivalent experience; and (3) lack union representation, a salary range, and opportunity for promotion. Although these attorneys have accomplished remarkable feats while being paid as much as OCA can fund using grants and the available affirmative litigation attorney’s fees alone, this structure is inequitable, risks losing most or all of the attorneys who do the critical work of defending Oaklanders’ rights, and makes it very challenging to hire attorneys to perform this work. Regarding equity impacts on Oaklanders, one example is OCA’s lead paint lawsuit that led to $14 million for lead paint abatement, including the possibility of programs such as proactive rental inspection for tenants in older housing stock who are disproportionately lower-income and BIPOC. Another example include several NLC and HJI enforcement actions that have led to the preservation of affordable housing in the City where low-income BIPOC-identified tenants were at imminent risk of displacement due to unlawful landlord harassment.

Department: Information Technology

• Transfers 4.0 FTE in the Accela Administration Team and funding associated with these positions and related contracts from the Planning and Building Department (PBD) into the Information Technology Department (ITD). The Accela platform is a critical component of the City’s permitting and land use management processes through allowing residents and businesses to apply for permits and submit code complaints online, enabling department staff to review and track each stage of the application and inspection process, and facilitating payment of fees and inspections scheduling. Consistent with the findings and recommendations of the Reimagining One-Stop Permitting (ROSP) project, this cost-neutral transfer from PBD to ITD continues the progress achieved to date by centralizing the management and strategic planning of the Accela platform within the purview and expertise of ITD.
  • Equity Consideration: Transferring the Accela team to ITD will allow for greater communication and coordination for maintenance and support of the Accela software system. Additionally, this transfer will allow for greater citywide involvement in overall systems contracts and strategic planning related to this project team. This transfer will positively impact City residents, businesses and staff that rely on the Accela team and system for permitting and land-use management issues by providing easier and more transparent access to services through our digital platforms. Reducing these barriers is likely to help lower income and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities because it will increase the transparency and access to various City services around permitting.
• Adds $9.5 million in funding over two years to support cybersecurity infrastructure upgrades. The City of Oakland depends on technology to not only complete critical job functions for City staff, but also implement the applications, programs and policies that reach all Oakland residents. Aging infrastructure and outdated security measures are increasingly problematic, and the $9.5 million in ongoing funding will begin to address those deficiencies and strengthen Oakland’s network and cybersecurity tools. Additional funding will allow ITD to initiate these critical standards.
  • Equity Consideration: An increase in cybersecurity funding will benefit all City employees and residents. As the security footprint of Oakland’s network is enhanced, the result will be infrastructure that is more resilient and robust so that the City’s day-to-day operations and service delivery can continue and improve.
• Adds $2 million in FY 2023-24 from Measure U dollars (5340) to ensure the affordable housing units have the broadband lines to connect to OAK WiFi, which is Oakland’s initiative to provide universally accessible internet access to all City residents.
  • Equity Consideration: Universal access to reliable internet service is imperative to ensuring equitable connectivity across Oakland. OAK WiFi reaches the underserved and unconnected in our community and adding broadband capacity to new affordable housing units across the City is a critical commitment to equitable service access.
• Adds 1.0 FTE Management Assistant and deletes 1.0 FTE Account Clerk II. With increasingly complex financial and contract needs within ITD, the addition of a Management Assistant will allow the department to increase capacity to work both internally and externally on critical acquisitions for the City.
  • Equity Consideration: This position addition will have a positive impact on City ITD staff, other department staff, and residents who rely on the City to provide high-level IT services and programs. Ensuring smooth continuity with contracts, purchasing and internal/external vendor issues will provide a more seamless interface with City platforms for all residents who utilize them.

Department: Public Ethics

• Adds $77,500 per year to the support the department’s current public financing program for elections. This funding will enable the department to continue to do work around the City’s elections while building up towards the launch of the Democracy Dollars program.
  • Equity Considerations: The Democracy Dollars Program is designed to address disparities across income and race produced by the traditional campaign finance system. This funding will support the department in developing its current public financing programming, which does not have the same scale of impact as the Democracy Dollars Program but still supports this larger aim.

Department: City Attorney

• Continues freezing vacant 1.0 FTE Agency Administrative Manager. This position manages the Office’s Public Records Unit including advising and coordinating responses to public records requests, prepares annual reports, and updates and maintains the City Attorney website.
  • Equity Consideration: This position was frozen during the last Biennial budget cycle FY 2021-2023. In the interim, the work has been assigned to another employee who has taken the public records act work on in addition to their full-time responsibilities, which diminishes the Office’s capacity for transparency and open government and community engagement.
• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Public Service Representative. The position covers the general office telephone line and front desk and freezing it could result in potential delays in responses to inquiries made to the general office telephone line and front desk.
  • Equity Consideration: . Freezing this position may cause delays in responses to inquiries made to the general office telephone line and front desk, impacting the Office’s responses to all members of the public. This position is public-facing and it is important that in-person, telephonic and email communications are handled professionally and equitably.
• Freezes 1.0 FTE Legal Administrative Assistants and continues to freeze 1.0 FTE Legal Administrative Assistant from the FY 2022-23 Midcycle Budget. These positions support the Office in performing critical clerical and administrative support duties. Freezing them potentially delays attorneys’ completion of briefs, legal opinions, scheduling of meetings and finalization of legislation and other documents.
  • Equity Consideration: While there is a service impact, these freezes do not have a discernible equity impact.

Department: City Clerk

• Delays funding for 1.0 FTE Administrative Analyst and 1.0 FTE Executive Assistant to the Director for six months in FY 2024 and continues to freeze 0.5 FTE Cable TV Stage Manager from the FY 2022-23 Midcycle Budget. These positions support the Records Department which provides mandated service according to the Public Records Act, The Maddy Act, and the Brown Act. Delaying the hiring of these positions will require the current staff to fill in the deficit.
  • Equity Consideration: The Clerk’s office provides legally mandated services to members of the public, City staff, and other government entities. This includes providing legally mandated information across all access points (in-person and/or use of technology) and striving to provide information in various languages to ensure all residents have access to information. Having access to government, including well-publicized and accessible public meetings, is a racial equity issue because Oakland’s BIPOC communities face numerous barriers to be civically engaged in local government.

Department: City Council

• Freezes 1.0 FTE Principal Budget & Management Analyst. Council has a vacant Analyst position intended to support them with their budget and policy analyst. Freezing this position means Council will not have their own dedicated and independent staff person to analyze ongoing budget and policy issues.
  • Equity Consideration: There is no discernible equity impact from this action.

Department: Information Technology

• Freezes vacant 1.0 FTE Help Desk Specialist which will reduce the first line of technical support for City staff. This position monitors for irregularities on the network and is integral in tracking, monitoring, and repairing issues with staff computers, applications and network issues. The level of service is unchanged since the position is currently vacant. The workload is and will continue to be passed to the other Help Desk specialists to ensure that City staff will be assisted. This additional workload results in slower response time and reduces the department’s ability to rapidly troubleshoot and resolve system-wide issues, which impact the City’s day-to-day operations and service delivery.
  • Equity Consideration: Continued understaffing of key technical positions in the City will keep the City at risk for network outages and cybersecurity incidents which threaten the ability of the City to function. This could negatively impact Oakland residents who need services provided by the City that are vulnerable to technological disruptions and delays.

Department: Public Ethics

• Reduces Measure W’s Democracy Dollars Fund by $1.8 million in FY 2023-24 and deletes the entire $2 million budget for FY 2024-25. Limited funds will be available to disburse to candidates for the 2024 election cycle. In addition, Measure W’s decreased campaign contribution limits will go into effect for the 2024 election, which will reduce candidates’ fundraising ability without a public funding option also being available. The City at this juncture due to the fiscal emergency cannot fully implement the Democracy Dollars program, and as such has delayed full implementation until the following Biennial Budget cycle.
  • Equity Consideration: The Democracy Dollars Program is designed to address disparities across income and race produced by the traditional campaign finance system. Postponing program implementation will result in an opportunity loss particularly for candidates lacking connections to personal wealth or wealthy donor networks due to historical and ongoing effects of racism.
• Deletes Measure W’s O&M start-up funds of $2.4 million in FY 2023-24 and $1.3 million in FY 2024-25. While a portion of the Measure W’s O&M budget has been preserved to support the acquisition of software to continue developing the Democracy Dollars program for the subsequent election cycle, there will be no funds to implement the program for the 2024 election cycle. As a result, Democracy Dollar vouchers will not be distributed to Oakland residents in 2024 and postponed to the following election cycle. Major outreach and engagement activities to raise awareness and participation in the program will be postponed until the 2026 election cycle.
  • Equity Consideration: The Democracy Dollars Program is designed to address disparities across income and race produced by the traditional campaign finance system. Postponing program implementation will result in an opportunity loss particularly for candidates lacking connections to personal wealth or wealthy donor networks due to historical and ongoing effects of racism, as well as residents from low-income communities of color the program is designed to draw into greater civic engagement.

Department: Non-Departmental

• The Consolidated Fiscal Policy (CFP) requires the City to maintain a rainy day fund to support the City when it goes through economic downturns. That fund is called the Vital Services Stabilization Fund (1020), and the CFP requires that 25% of the revenue generated from the Excess Real Estate Transfer Tax gets allocated to the Vital Services Stabilization Fund (VSSF) for specific uses. In this FY 2023-25 Biennial Budget, due to economic conditions, the City's required contribution to the VSSF has been suspended and the existing balance is being used to balance the City’s overall budget. In this budget, the City is adding $10.3 million in FY 2023-24 to help balance the City’s overall budget.
  • Equity Consideration: The purpose of a rainy day fund is to prevent the unnecessary loss of services when and where possible. The VSSF’s current fund balance is being utilized to ensure that the City maintains its existing services without laying off any staff. Maintaining current service levels after the pandemic for all Oakland’s residents is a critical component of supporting the local economy recovering as well as ensuring Oakland residents are getting the essential services they need.