Finance & Management Committee - Special Meeting

Good morning and welcome to the special finance and management committee meeting of Tuesday, 04/21/2026. The time is now 9AM and this meeting may come to order. Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker cards for items on this agenda. If you're here with us in chamber and would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative no later than ten minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record. Registering to speak via Zoom is now due twenty four hours prior to the start of this meeting time. This meeting came to order at 9AM, and speaker cards will no longer be accepted ten minutes after making that time 09:10AM. We'll now proceed with taking roll. Council members Brown? Present. Unger?

Here. Wong? Present. And chair Ramchandran?

Present.

Thank you. We have four members present. And before we begin And before we begin, chair, do you have any announcements at this time?

No announcements. We have a big agenda. Looking forward to getting through everything. Thank you.

Okay. Reading in item one, as today is a special meeting, there are no minutes to be approved. Item two, determination of schedule of outstanding committee items, and we have one speaker that signed up to speak.

Go ahead. I just wanted to advise that at rules a week or so ago, I had identified I would publish the council policy directives on the city administrator's website this week, or I was supposed to do it last week. I'm a little behind, so it'll occur this week. But it'll be available for the public to consume this week. Thanks. Thank you.

Colleen, the public speaker that signed up to speak on item two, missus Sato Olabala.

I do have several concerns, but I'm only say one because of the agenda being so tight today. I'm gonna mention that you had a process involving $700,000 for the Oakland Roots project related to the world football event for which you, helped to fund the renovation of the field or whatever was going on. That project was supposed to be in combination with the city of Alameda and the city of Berkeley. I saw last summer that the city of Alameda dedicated a $150,000, the total from the three cities was supposed to be $700,000. And we we provided the whole payment for the dedication of what happened to get prepare that site for training.

And how did that happen? And what I'm saying in one example is are we fiscally responsible when we make decisions about money spending? And I'm saying we are not, not all the time. So I would like to see a report on that $700,000 whether we committed to spend the whole 700,000 or was Alameda and Berkeley supposed to be in partnership to make the total payment from the three cities?

Thank you for your comments, chair. That concludes all speakers on this item.

Okay. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Second. Thank

you. We have a motion made by council member Unger, seconded by council member Brown to accept the determination of schedule of outstanding committee items as is. On roll, council members Brown. Aye. Unger. Aye. Wong? Aye. And chair Ramachandran? Aye. Thank you. Item number two passes with four ayes to accept the determination of schedule outstanding committee items as is. Reading in item three, adopt a resolution initiating the fiscal year 02/2627 assessment process for the city of Oakland landscaping and lighting assessment district and authorizing the city administrator to order a preliminary engineer's report, and we have one speaker that signed up to speak.

Okay. To the staff, please go ahead.

Good morning council members. Through the chair, I'm Jose Seguada, principal budget and management analyst in the finance department. The city

of Oakland's Landscaping And Lighting Assessment District also known as the LAAD was established in 1989 to fund the maintenance of landscaping, lighting, and related public improvements. It operates under the California Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972, which governs how local agencies finance these services. Under proposition two eighteen, we can levy the LAT assessment amounts annually, but we cannot increase the rates without going back to property owners for approval. The last time the assessment rates were updated was in 1993. This resolution being presented today initiates the annual process to levy the assessments for the lab for fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven.

This action does not increase or approve assessments today. It simply initiates the required process and technical analysis needed for future council consideration. Specifically, it authorizes the city administrator to request the start of the corresponding preliminary engineers report.

This is step one of three in the legally required annual process to let you the assessments. It initiates the process with the approval of this resolution by ordering the preparation of the preliminary engineers report. The second step at a future council meeting will present the engineers report and city council will declare the intent to levy the corresponding assessments and set a public hearing date which will be the third and final step at a subsequent council meeting, which will confirm the report and approve the assessments at that time. The assessments must be submitted to Alameda County for inclusion on the fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven property tax roll by August 10. We have our consulting assessments engineer, Francisco and Associates available through Zoom and we can take any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. No questions from me. This comes to us every year, and I appreciate the timeliness of bringing this forward. Colleagues, any questions? Council Member Wong. Thank you.

How much is the tax for this?

So the assessments have been completed. This initiates the process so that our assessment engineer can analyze and determine what the assessment rates will be this year. I know that roughly it generates about $19,000,000 annually.

Okay. And what's the current rate before we do the newest, new evaluation? I just couldn't find it in the report.

I

don't Okay no worries.

I'll follow-up afterwards. I guess my main concern is really just that I've noticed that there's been some diminishing services on the street lighting side. Like I'll take for example the necklace of lights around Lake Merritt. That was something that we had wanted to get fixed and urgently so because there's safety implications and whatnot around the park. And as I understand it there's only one lighting engineer who is actually working on these things.

I see lights flickering. Actually the lights are finally on but now they're on during the day time too which is like I'm pretty sure they weren't like that before. So I'm just noticing that there has been issues with our lighting services lately. And I keep on hearing from constituents too about street lights, they can't get fixed and it takes months to repair them and I'm wondering if that's a budget issue given what we've talked about with HR or is this the the positions have been budgeted for, we have requisitions for them but we just haven't filled the positions.

Through the chair of council member Wong. So the LAD pays for both lighting and landscape services across the city. The, there are three different zones, and there's different assessment rates within the three different zones if you wanna know that sort of as a general way it's set up. So zone one, zone two, zone three, there are slightly different assessments that are proxying that. What Mr. Sigura mentioned earlier on, this tax has not had an increase since 1993. The value and it does not grow year to year. It's the same sort of flat amount every year. The value of services we're able to purchase for it erodes every year. So we may have cost increases for staff.

Ladd also is responsible for paying things like electricity and water. It keeps up with none of those costs because there is no CPI escalator in the LAD itself. LAD does pay for lighting. I will note that.

And it pays for the salaries as well, sounds like?

Lighting, it's any of the operations. So it can be water, power, the lighting, the repair of it, and a lot of it is part though, is also park maintenance and other things related to that as well. So it is an eroding resource. And I would say, just for clarity, it pays for street lighting. Traffic signals are a separate topic. So those are two different services, street lighting versus traffic signals, just in that space. And as we go through your mid cycle budget process and as you hear your two next reports on LAAD because LAAD is a three part process in order to initiate every single year, you will get more information on what it does and what it pays for.

Okay, okay great. And this assessment should actually evaluate what is the level of service that is needed and therefore the assessment that needs to be levied?

It's not how that works unfortunately. It is noting what is, because what is eligible, we will go through the process as is noted under the California code but the assessment that we can levy is capped.

Okay. Councilmember Brown.

Excellent. Thank you so much. I guess my first comment just to Councilmember Wong, you should meet with Michael Patterson who is kind of over like some of the things that you mentioned and he'll share some of their staffing challenges. It's just something to keep in mind. I had a quick question about the timeliness of the engineers report.

I don't believe that I was on finance committee last year during this time and so I did a little bit of research as far as like when the engineer's report kind of came to this body. It looks like it was on the 05/06/2025, agenda. And so I was curious, I guess through the chair, or to through the chair to the administration, is this, will we be able to generate this engineer's report within like, I guess the next thirty days or when is this due back? Our

current intent is to bring the second report which is the intention on May 12. So it would just be one week behind last year's schedule. And we do have built into the schedule where we do anticipate that we'll bring out three reports prior to the fiscal year

concluding. Okay. Excellent. Thank you.

Okay. Any public speakers?

Calling in the name that signed up to speak on item number three, miss Asada Olubala.

Does does this include traffic lights? No. Okay. So the report written identifies that this involves a property tax. US council members have to at some point evaluate the weight of property tax as it contributes to the revenues of this city.

There is a imbalance of responsibility of people who live in this city, who own property, taking care of providing revenue for this city and it's unfair. So here is another property tax to finance our city parks grounds, our landscape mediums, open space, pools, custodial services. Now where I have issue is in your race and equity statement, you say that you provide improvements to all residents and non residents parcels. There is if anyone would go out and evaluate how parks look in this district, how mediums look in this district, when I say this district I'm talking about mine 6 And 7, there is no comparison. You have some areas that are well kept and some are not.

Some are almost if you go down Bancroft where my church is, it's ridiculous how the medium looks. It's ridiculous how we have overgrowth. We have is this responsible for cutting trees as well? No? Yes. Just just nod your head. Yes. Okay. I had a tree fall on my car, $700 worth of damage, one of your trees. Okay, two or three years ago.

So we do not have we have trees that are leaning or going up Keller and we do not have equity and fairness as it relates to this. And you can't put it on paper that you are doing a where all residents and nonpartial residents maintain safe, well kept streets. That is not true.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments, miss Olubala. That concludes all speakers on this item.

Alright. I will entertain a motion.

I'll I'll move the item.

We'll second that.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Wong to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the 05/05/2026, city council agenda on roll. Council members Brown? Aye. Unger? Aye. Wong? Aye. And chair Ramachandran? Aye. Thank you. The item passes with four ayes to forward this item to the 05/05/2026, city council agenda on consent.

To the to madam city clerk, for the next three items with the budget advisory commission members like to make a joint presentation on on all three items.

Okay. Should I read

Or and if so, we can read them all in together if BIC members are present.

I'll read them all together but we just have to take

a separate vote on each one. Got it. Thank you.

Okay. We're reading in items four, five, and six together just noting that we will require a separate vote on each item. Item four, receive an informational report from the Budget Advisory Commission on the recommendation to amend the consolidated fiscal policy to re redefine excess, excess real estate transfer tax revenues. Item five, receive an informational report from the Budget Advisory Commission assessment and recommend recommendations of the fiscal year 02/2027 city budget process. And item six, receive an informational report from the Budget Advisory Commission on the proposed $202,640,000,000 dollar, parcel tax measure to support essential city services and fiscal stability, and we do have a number of speakers on each item.

Thank you. And to the commissioners, do you have PowerPoints for each of these or will this be an oral presentation? I

do have a PowerPoint which we can use for items four and six. I think item five, the budget recommendations are just oral presentation. Can I send the PowerPoint somewhere to get it uploaded? Is that ktopoklynca? Great, I'll do that right now.

Whenever you're ready.

Did you get it? Not yet. Alright. Well I'll go ahead and get started and we'll wait for the presentation to come through. It's all just more material from the memo just pulled out to make it a little bit easier to read. So I'll be talking

I first apologize. Before you begin, would a total of fifteen minutes be sufficient?

Five minutes prior?

That's sufficient. Flexible. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. So my name is Ben. I'm the finance and management liaison from the Budget Advisory Commission. Thank you for taking the time this morning to hear our recommendations on the amending the consolidated fiscal policy to redefine excess real estate transfer tax, our recommendations on the budget process as well as our recommendations on the previous discussions around a June $2,026.40000000 parcel tax. Speaking to the first item, item number four, the proposed amendment to the CFP to redefine excess real estate transfer tax.

A little bit of background material for anybody listening. Oakland levies a transfer tax on all real estate transactions. Up to 40% of this transfer tax revenue each year is derived from commercial and multifamily real estate. At the bottom of Page one in the memo, top of Page two, you can see a table showing the fiscal year twenty nineteen-twenty twenty revenue amounts by transfer tax band. So you'll see that for properties under $300,000 the statutory city rate is 1%.

There are about $53,000,000 worth of sales in that band in FY twenty nineteen-twenty twenty. And the real estate transfer tax revenue from that year was $540,000 You'll notice that the bulk of the revenue from the real estate transfer tax comes from properties in the $300,000 generated $46,000,000 in transfer tax in 1920, and in the May plus band, which is 2.5% rate generating $36,000,000 The real estate transfer tax is highly volatile. It varies a lot year to year. Thank you, we can go to slide three here. Highly volatile year to year due to variability, especially in commercial and multifamily real estate property sales.

Thank you. So you might recall from the last slide we had about $46,000,000 in, I want to call it single family home sales revenue. And then it was $10,000,000 I'm sorry, it was $36,000,000 in multifamily or commercial real estate property transactions. This is twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. In FY twenty twenty three, twenty four, we saw a slight downturn and single family homes jumped by about $39,000,000 so about $7,000,000 drop.

But the large properties, the $5,000,000 plus dropped by almost $20,000,000 into $10,000,000 in total revenue. So 80% of the volatility in real estate transfer tax revenue is due to changes in high value property sales, namely commercial real estate, multifamily. And this happens during economic downturn because those buildings are worth a lot less. Following COVID, we have something like a 30% office vacancy rate. And so office vacancies are high, commercial real estate is worth less.

Similarly, apartment rents have not been increasing as much and so those property values have gone down a lot. The city of Oakland first adopted a real estate transfer tax policy in June 2009 during the Great Recession when they realized that that transfer tax revenue was gonna was dropping a lot, and they defined any excess transfer tax as any amount greater than 40,000,000. This is back in 2009. In December 2014, that excess amount was redefined as 15% of general purpose funds. And in eleven of the fifteen years that followed, the real estate transfer tax has fallen short of that 15% of the general purpose fund threshold.

So in most years, the city has no excess real estate transfer tax available under the current policy because the current policy is set up in such a way that what's excess is a really, really high threshold. So our recommendation is to basically go back to the style of policy that Ridge Open first adopted which is to amend the CFP to define excess real estate transfer tax as anything greater than $70,000,000 adjusted for inflation. This recommendation is based on sort of two key considerations. One, as mentioned, basically all the real estate transfer tax funds right now are budgeted in the city's general fund revenue, expenditures and programs and plans. And that means when you have an unexpected shortfall due to a pandemic or just changes in activities in Oakland, you have to cut programs and services.

And that's never any fun, as I'm sure you've all experienced, and it's not a desirable outcome. It's also a critical equity issue because people come to rely on those programs and services that are funded by this inflated real estate transfer tax revenue, and we cut them back at times people are most in need, it makes it a lot harder for people to cope with that. And then the other issue is that there's no excess real estate transfer tax available to replenish reserves. When we draw down reserves in a fiscal emergency, we need to replenish them when times are good. And the times are good when real estate transfer tax is high and so we really want to be able to use some of that excess higher level transfer tax to replenish reserves, build up the reserves in order provide maintenance and stability during those downturns.

So this chart shows what it would look like under the two scenarios since 2011. You can see the green line is the actual realized real estate transfer tax revenue. That's the green solid line. The orange dashed line is the current consolidated fiscal policy threshold, the 15% of general purpose fund revenues. And then the dashed and dotted purple line is the recommended threshold based on our proposal here.

It's slightly higher than was originally adopted in 2009 because I think it was 2017 or 'eighteen Oakland moved to a tiered transfer tax structure, so there is more revenue overall available than was originally available in 2009. But this approach would help make sure that revenues are stable, in line with current budgeted plans and policies, and then there's excess real estate transfer tax revenue available to replenish reserves and build up a healthy fund balance in order to maintain services during downturns. I believe the next steps for this is that we've understand that finance is working on other updates to CFP coming later this year. So no action is required right now, but we will expect to work with finance department on this, among other proposals, to be come back to you for a more consolidated update later in the year. Happy to take any questions now or we can wait until the end of the presentations?

Wait until the end. Sure. Sounds great. Okay. And then we're going to go ahead and jump to item six or do you want to? Going item six while I'm up here and then we'll switch to Larissa to talk about the budget process overall. So the next one is recommendations on the June 2026 $40,000,000 tax measure. We understand that FMC previously considered a $40,000,000 parcel tax for the June 2026 ballot discussed in September and October 2025. While Oakland is no longer planning to put forward a measure on the June 2026 ballot, there's been a citizens initiative put forward. These recommendations were prepared in December and are still relevant for future measures and other considerations.

So I'll go over them briefly here. So the recommendations we had for future taxes, which I think apply broadly, are to look at progressive ways of tiering the tax structure. So rather than a flat tax that applies to all households equally, look at ways to consider things like parcel size or improved square footage or for multifamily properties, number of units to have different breakdowns for, for example, larger homes or larger multifamily buildings have a higher tax rate than smaller ones. Since you can't do an actual market value, this is sort of a proxy for that. Looking at independent oversight, I think this wasn't discussed in the city's original proposal.

The Census Initiative included it, and we would recommend generally looking for an independent oversight approach with any new tax, either a new or existing commission doing oversight. For civic engagement, we thought it was especially important for any June measures that are coming out at the same time as the city's budget to be very aligned with civic engagement around the budget process because we imagine that as citizens are being asked to pay for a new tax, they're also looking carefully at the budget coming forward and thinking how are these going to work together, what's going on here, they're paying a lot of attention. And then the other suggestion we had was to make sure that any funding you're using as it's coming from a given measure is also aligned with other goals. So one example was we considered suggesting lead based paint abatement as a postponential use of funds for the parcel tax as a safety and health and safety improvement. We were thinking about whether ADUs or new construction ADUs should be exempted from the parcel tax to avoid discouraging new housing construction, those kind of considerations.

We also had a couple of future considerations for the city to look forward overall in terms of either future measures, ways to improve the budget overall, or other improvements to the city processes. So looking at whether square footage parcel taxes could be feasible to do in the future more broadly. There may be some data updates required for that. You you need to have improved square footage data from the assessor's office or locally collected, which might be challenging to collect but may be worth the investment, enable more progressive tax structures in the future. We want to recommend looking at ways to make existing funds more efficient.

So we heard an item earlier this year about, I think it was the Children's Youth Fund. And just generally we recommend evaluating earmarked funds and maintenance of effort requirements to ensure those voter approved measures, which may have been from decades ago, still align with current budget priorities and community needs, and consider ballot measures to go back to the voters to adjust to those either allocations or maintenance of effort requirements where you think that the city should spend its money differently without raising new taxes overall. And then another future consideration here was to streamline procurement to increase competition and bidding and reduce cost to the city, leaving up more money for other opportunities. And then we had one more general set of considerations about growing the tax base overall. We had some concerns that City Of Oakland has a lot of missed opportunities with all the vacancies, vacant storefronts, not much housing development going on right now.

And so looking at ways to increase economic development to provide a larger tax base to begin with, generating more revenue without needing to raise new tax rates. Looking at ways to relax restrictions on new businesses such as through zoning changes, fast tracking permitting, investing in neighborhood centers and business improvement districts, and then expanding a calendar of only in Oakland events to promote vibrancy, attract visitors and reduce tax leakage to other neighboring jurisdictions. I'll pass it off to my colleague Larissa who will talk about the recommendations of budget process and then we'll take any questions. Thank you.

Good morning. So my name is Larissa, and I'm a member of BAC and also a member of our Ad Hoc Education and Engagement Committee. So just gonna provide a little bit of context on what I'm doing here today. As you know, the consolidated fiscal policy mandates that the back provide the city council and city city leadership with an assessment and recommendations on our, city's budget process. We give you all feedback, evaluate the the outreach, and information by the city based on 10 specific principles.

These principles are on the second page of your memo, the memo in your packets. And these principles include inclusive design, authentic intent, transparency, inclusiveness and equity, informed participation, accessible participation, appropriate process, use of information, building relationships and community capacity, and evaluation. So these are the 10 specific principles that we looked at when we assessed the, budget process, of the city. So wanted to let you all know each commissioner attended at least one budget town hall, and several of us attended more than one town hall. We attended the informational budget forums, and several of us also presented at and participated at different community meetings around the budget.

The back also solicited feedback via email from residents about their own experiences around the budget and the budget process. And we also hosted a community meeting, a commission meeting at the eighty first Avenue Library where residents came and also gave us feedback on the process. So our recommendations reflect that feedback. So overall, the 2527 process was a significant improvement. And I have to share one story about one of our commissioners who came and shared with us that when they read the interim mayor's budget summary, they said that they were almost moved to tears, quote, unquote, because the summary was really honest and very direct about our budget deficit and seriously felt like the information in the budget could be trusted and felt like the city was being very direct about what was happening.

So that was a huge improvement. One of our recommendations in the former cycle, the 2325 budget cycle, was to inform residents of the process prior to the mayor's budget actually being released. And, really, I think this was a significant improvement because this actually did happen. BAC was able to participate or partner with the city administrator's office as well as Spur and the League of Women Voters and hosted two informational budget forums, one at the main library and the other at 81st Avenue. Well attended, well received.

Information was really great, you know, translation, participation. There was a lot of participation. There was a timeline around the budget process. And more than anything, residents had a lot of questions about the budget deficit and what was going on. And there was a history and background that was offered at those informational forums and that was really great.

And the city did a really great job of updating its information on the website. And several staff from finance department as well as the city administrator attended those forums and were there and answered every question. And I think that that really reflected very well on the city. So that was really great. Was very proud.

I the the back was very proud to be part of that process and those forums. So areas of improvement. So we know that residents are really feeling a lot of they're increasingly disconnected from their government, elected representatives. You know, we know that this is true especially for BIPOC communities. And it's critical that we demonstrate through our actions the residents' voices are generally being heard and valued.

And I share this, you know, because it's really important that we listen to what residents are sharing with us. So areas of improvement. Begin community engagement earlier. Even though we started the budget process in March and April, we should begin it earlier. Town halls, the district town halls should be made accessible by default, provide interpretation by default, offer flexible scheduling.

A lot of them are in the evenings, really hard for families and seniors to attend. Host multiple locations per district. Our districts are really large. I know my district is both in the hills as well as the Flatlands and it's really hard sometimes for folks in the Flatlands to actually go to the hills especially if they're transit dependent and vice versa. So think about possibly hosting multiple town halls per district. Share budget materials in advance so residents can come prepared. Allow direct dialogue between residents and city council members. So at the town halls, really great work. They were all consistent, same agenda. Everyone knew what to expect.

There were small groups and pair activities, wonderful. Community building, great. But not everyone had an opportunity to actually share their own priorities directly with their city council member. And so we heard back that residents really wanted to have that direct dialogue with their elected official. People felt that there were index cards and, you know, you shuffle through the index cards.

Don't want to ask the same question five times, but from the resident's perspective, they felt like they were being censored. So, you know, folks want the mic and they want to hear have their voices heard literally. So we heard that multiple times. Communicate clearly about how resident input is gonna be followed up on. Use brief surveys after each event to capture real time feedback.

So this could just be like a postcard with a couple of questions. And then lastly, we heard quite a bit feedback about the budget being approved three weeks before the deadline. And understandably, this was both, you know, on one side of the coin, it was celebrated as a wonderful thing that happened. And on the other side of the coin, residents felt like the budget had already been predetermined, didn't feel like they had access to their elected representatives, and had planned on communicating with you all in those three weeks about their budget priorities and felt like that opportunity to participate in the process had been cut short. So that is that.

Let's see. So overall, it was really, great. A lot of, progress was made in informing residents. I think our challenge collectively and our goal is to really move beyond informing residents and really including residents in the budget process and in budget decisions. Our ad hoc committee, the engagement and education committee will be sharing information throughout the year about the budget. We're in the midyear cycle, so no rush. We're planning another community meeting at the 81st Avenue Library to get input from residents again, And we're gonna be beginning to work on our survey as

you want.

One moment through the chair to the presenter. The fifteen minutes is up. Would you like to extend the time?

Actually, we added three more minutes. Oh,

I'm almost done. But just to I'm done. Just to say that, you know, our work is always done is best when we do it together and collectively. And so I'm happy to take any questions you might have.

Thank you. Firstly, I appreciate the Budget Advisory Commission. You are all volunteers to the city, and the amount of time and effort you put into trying to improve our budgeting process, make information more transparent, and solicit community feedback is very much appreciated. One of the things that I wanted to make a point of doing differently last year, and I really appreciate your feedback, compared to the year before's budget process was not having the BAC's presentation come on the day of the final vote at the very June, which is what happened the year before. So last year, structuring the process so that BAC members were present at town halls as well as giving reports to council before the very June and being able to have those written materials as well was something that I certainly found helpful and I believe all of us all of us on the budget team right here had had found helpful as as well.

A couple of questions going well, just commenting on the last item. I appreciate the feedback, and it's it's very heartening that one of your commissioners felt very felt that it was refreshing how honest this process was, and I have to give a lot of appreciation to our finance department, our city administrator for bringing in for ushering in a new era of transparency when it comes to our budget realities. And I think that helped instill a lot more confidence than in past years, at least since I've been in this role, about where we are and where we have to go with the limited funds that we do have. I also wanna appreciate the mayor's office for helping the whole town hall's process be a little more interactive. There's, with such little time and limited attention spans of everyone everyone participating, I know there was we wanted to do so many different things.

And I fully hear that even with limited time, how can we build in more time for direct community feedback? I think that's something to consider in the future. Or longer town halls or part ones and part twos. Again, I know this is the finance department primarily that puts on these presentations, and their time is limited. But I think, you know, with limited time and resources, these are all very important things to consider moving forward in this year's mid cycle process, and specifically, the next year's biennial process where there's typically more structural town halls in the two year budget process.

Going back to the first part of the presentation with the RETT recommendations, I again, I think this is very valuable feedback, and that historic context is very helpful. I did want to ask without putting our finance director on the spot too much if you have an opinion on this. Well, when is the consolidated fiscal policy coming back and is the RETT is changes to excess RETT something that you're considering?

Thank you, chair. We did have a chance to evaluate the BAC's proposal. I don't, we would like through the policy evaluation process to be able to bring you several options related to RETT but that is definitely a topic we'll want to look at. I do think ensuring that we are fully funding our rainy day fund, which is funded through this along with providing extra resources to pay down long term liabilities is a key space. And moving to a flat number might be a more stable way of predicting that in the future.

So it's definitely an option that we'll look at as we go to that. We are looking to do the CFP revision this fall along with lots of other ones. So this is a topic I would note for everyone to be aware of related to REGT. There is a qualified statewide initiative that would potentially hamper our ability to collect this revenue source in general. And so we need to also give consideration as we're developing a policy what would our both overall budget pool but also our resource for funding our rainy day policy and our unfunded liabilities look like in absence of this mechanism in total so that's part of a broader analysis that we need to look at.

Thank you. Colleagues, Councilmember Brown.

Excellent. And so to not to go too far off of what our administrator Bradley was mentioning, is there a timeline that we would be receiving some of this feedback?

Again, we're targeting sort of the October time span. And if this body is interested, the foundation for what we'll be looking at are the informational updates that were brought to this body two years ago on updates to the CFP there were a number of items that were done at an informational basis. That is our starting point. So we're looking at October though.

Excellent. Thank you so much. So through the chair onto our amazing BAC members, just thank you. I can't emphasize enough just how how much gratitude that I have for your volunteerism. I think that, you know, this commission is definitely one that the impact and and also the work, it's it's very high level and so I'm just so grateful for all of the work that you all put into ensuring that both community feedback comes forward as well as what are some of the recommendations that the commission is working on.

And so just really value the feedback. I just wanted to highlight that you know I've had the opportunity to kind of take in the budget process both as a community member, as a staffer, and then now as an elected official. And I think it was interesting in 2025 keeping in mind that know that year was just it was such a unique year, right, with just leadership within the city of Oakland and just the changes that all of us new council members really had to come into. And so even in all of that I feel that the feedback was positive in a way and also definitely value the recommendations that you all kind of are put, that community members provided us. And then I also just want to give you know amazing kudos and think I've mentioned this before but kind of what council chair Ramachandran mentioned around just the support from the office of the mayor, finance department, the administration in order to really like bring us all up to speed in what was needed.

And so can't, you know, can't thank everyone enough. And I think that just the feedback that was mentioned in the report around ways that we can continue to improve the process. I hope that we're able to incorporate those whether that's even putting on some virtual town halls. I think that that could be a tool that we should utilize as well because kind of to to the the reports point around, you know, folks not really feeling comfortable to come out in the evenings, right, and just the the difference between different areas both in the Flatlands, downtown, etcetera. Really wanting to make sure that we have a truly engaging process.

So I really appreciate that feedback for sure. And then the one question that I did have, I think you mentioned briefly that there is a community engagement session to the eighty first Avenue Library. I was curious if you had the time and date for that.

We don't don't have the time or date just yet, but we'll definitely let, city council know.

Excellent. Thank you so much.

Er Unger, then council member Wong.

Great. Thank you for this work. I am also frequently moved to tears when Bradley presents me with his budget numbers. Some questions about the CFP. Once we put something in the CFP, how do we I mean if we then have to make changes later, is that via resolution? Is that something that looks bad to rating agencies if we're constantly going back and forth?

That's correct. So there's two elements to, there's the CFP itself and changing it. And consolidate fiscal policy to not use the acronym too much is an ordinance that governs your structures, your budget process, your reserve policies. And so changing it is an ordinance that requires two readings. Within the CFP itself, you have the ability to waive provisions and that's typically by resolution at the time.

So changing the CFP, changing your definitions within it, the kind suggested by the BAC regarding RTT is an ordinance change. And no, you would not want to change your policies frequent basis which is why we want to look at them collectively this fall and sort of take one stab at updating them all across the space, strengthening them which can be a buff to us going into the rating process can be helpful. And should you choose to waive them due to circumstances at a time, the provisions for doing that are spelled out in the policy itself.

And then, I mean, obviously I completely agree with the philosophy of not using one time revenues for ongoing expenses. Is putting that in the CFP just a way of sort of saving us from our future selves? I mean we could do that without putting it in the CFP.

That's, I would say, is an accurate statement as to why it sits there. Okay.

Mean generally in budget making flexibility is more, I mean from my perspective, probably from your perspective you would like us to be less flexible. I would prefer us to be able to have some flexibility. Can you imagine a situation in which sort of limiting ourselves in this way ties the hands of budget staff or you?

So depending on the context of how one would change, if we're speaking specifically around the RETT policy to use the example that was brought up by our BAC commissioners, were you to have that, staff would have to construct budgets based upon whether or not policymakers want to live in accordance with that structure or waive it. So you do and we have waived even the 15% threshold policies. Like we have gone through the process of waiving them. I think Mr. Gold mentioned that we were under the threshold 11 out of fifteen years.

But if you look at the four years we were there, I think in many of those years, we may have waived the provisions that were tied, that would have tied our hands in those years too. So those are two different categories. As a rule around flexibility regarding both the CFP and your voter approved measures which is in the second report that BAC gave, the finance department's position is that you should always have a mechanism by which to have flexibility should you need it because we cannot perfectly predict the future. So in any revision to the CFP or anything coming forward, we would imagine that we would recommend a mechanism by which you could waive its provisions. But what the provision itself should be to maximize stability in normal years is a separate question and that's one we'll want to evaluate along with the side of the commissioners.

Okay. And then just one sort of requestchallenge for the Budget Advisory Commission. In that one of your final slides was about growing the economy and ways we can do that. And I would just ask that the more specificity we can have the better because people always come to me and say, hey, we should grow the economy. And I say, great, I love it. But like what does that actually mean? And so I think one way that you could be helpful to us is as you look at other cities, if there are policies that you think we can adopt I. E. Steel, I'm happy to do that. So specificity the more helpful the commission will be. Thank you.

Councilor Merrwonk.

Yeah, want to just echo my colleagues comments on the amazing job that you guys have done. Really thoughtful recommendations here. One thing that I had noticed in one of the attachments is the recommendation to explore, I believe you're saying existing ballot measures to adjust some of the earmarked funds allocations. And as I understand it, director Johnson or is it administrator Johnson? What's the okay. Director. As I understand it, we can adjust those fund allocations without going back to the voters as long as we're not raising taxes. Correct?

It depends on the specific specificity of the ballot measure itself. So on a legal basis, some of your ballot measures, and we I would defer to the city attorney, have requirements that are built in non severably to the measures where you cannot adjust them. Some of them are more flexible. Some of them, it's a matter of interpretation as to what the restrictions of the ballot measure means. What I think, though, the BAC is referring to is regarding the maintenance of effort requirements in those ballot measures, most of those would require you to go back to the voters to adjust. So utilization of resources is a separate question, sort of MOEs. I think the BAC was speaking about some of the MOE provisions as well, and a little little of both. Got it.

Yep. Is that what you all were referring to?

So I can stick to this. There we go. Without making specific recommendations here on the dais, we have identified areas which are worth further investigation as to whether council wants to maintain the current ordinances and structure or whether it's worth asking the voters. A few examples. I believe the 1997 Children's Fund measures is a charter item which requires 3% of the general purpose fund to be set aside for children's related programming.

There are a lot fewer children in Oakland today than there were in 1997 and our general fund has grown faster than inflation. So we are now spending a lot more per child than we were in 1997 which is maybe not aligned with the original intent of the measure. Another example is the two partial taxes for libraries libraries plus the maintenance effort requirement, meaning we spend about $50,000,000 a year on libraries. Other cities like Sacramento and Long Beach which are bigger cities spend about 25,000,000 a year on libraries. So we spend more on libraries than some of the cities of similar size.

And there's some other similar items I think like that where it's maybe worth considering are there ways to deliver similar or better services at lower cost? Are the measures that were passed ten, twenty, thirty years ago no longer aligned with what they originally intended to do? Would the voters like services reallocated within the city without paying higher taxes as an opportunity to consider saying, hey voters, you approved this tax twenty years ago. Maybe we should have spent it on this instead of that. Better meet your goals without changing taxes at all. So we think it's worth discussing and considering this for the future without making any specific information about anything I just said. Those are just things we've seen that suggest there could be opportunities to look at this further.

Yeah. And I completely agree and those examples are helpful. And then the other question I had was just around the progressive parcel tax structure. I know that last year, director Johnson, I did ask about this and I think in your report since I had wanted to know about what a progressive parcel tax structure looks like. You had broken it down by single family homes versus multifamily versus non residential units in a recommendation.

I was wondering, you know, the square footage based parcel tax structure. Is that something, it sounds like Berkeley has done that. I think in their report they mentioned it would just require some technology. Does that match up with your own assessment of what is required to implement a square footage progressive parcel tax structure?

So as it relates to doing a parcel tax allocation on the basis of square foot, Berkeley does do that. We've gotten some caution from city attorney around whether or not pursuing that is in is our our most secure mechanism. So I would I would note that probably not for this space to have that conversation. However, exploring alternate mechanisms that are eligible within proposition thirteen and twenty six for parcel taxes is something we would look at. It would require additional information and potentially additional cost to administer.

So that was one of the things that we would want to make sure we're aware of and looking at too. And should we decide on a mechanism to change that similar to what mister Gold was stating as it relates to looking at both the spending elements and MOEs for a prior ballot measures, it's also a question as to whether or not you would want to harmonize your prior ballot measures as well in terms of their collection methodology. Having desperate collection methodologies does create sort of additive cost and enforcement issues across them. And that's a similar conversation I would have for you around exemptions related to the ballot measures and a similar sort of thing. So that's, I would suggest that if you were going to have a conversation around the ideal structure, there's a legal question, there's an administrative implementation question, there's a question of whether or not you want to harmonize them both on the collection methodology and the exemptions.

Okay. That is helpful. Okay. And then one other question I have actually to the Budget Advisory Commission. Have you ever seen where in progressive parcel tax structures especially, I think I have as much as I'm a proponent of it, I also have some worries that for example people living in multi family unit apartments that the taxes can be passed on in the form of rents to tenants. Have you seen that happen?

Yes. So Oakland's rent stabilization ordinance I believe generally precludes the ability of landlords to raise their rent. However, due to Costa Hawkins with vacancy control, rents return to market basis when people leave. Additionally, rate, sorry, non rent controlled units like new buildings we see in downtown and so forth are ordinance. And so parcel taxes whether progressive or flat likely generally end up being passed along to renters in some way shape or form eventually.

Whether it's not usually itemized as the we're gonna raise your taxes right now because a new process has passed. Usually even if it's a few $100 a unit over the course of a year, it's not a significant increase in rent overall. But they do generally, they're considered generally to affect the market for rents. So yes, that's part of the reason we recommend a structured approach. And one of our considerations that we included in the memo was that looking at for instance, if you're doing a flat parcel tax, you can structure it so that you have a different rate for small one to four unit buildings versus larger, let's say 50 plus unit buildings for instance, right? Which are generally reflective of older rent controlled buildings versus more modern market rent So that was more of a consideration even if it's a flat rate structuring it like that. Is that the question? Okay.

It does. Thank Thank you. We can move to public comment. And since we were having three items together, if depending on the number of items you signed up for, you were allotted that amount of time.

Calling in the names that signed up for items three sorry. Four, five, and six. Kevin Dally, I have you signed up for three of the items. You'll get a total of six minutes. Missus Sato Olduvalla, I have you signed up for three of those items. You'll get a total of six minutes. And David Boatwright, I have you signed up for two of those items. You'll get a total of four minutes. In no particular order, you guys can come up to the podium and make your comment.

I appreciate the presentation today. There's one issue of tax. It's state tax and income which we haven't been looking up. I brought it up in front of council member Wong last week in the ILC. That's the gas tax.

And as we're moving to more electric vehicles, the number of of gallons sold year over year is dropping. There's a bill a b fourteen twenty one in the state assembly, which is looking at the vehicle miles traveled tax. And I think Oakland needs to follow that closely and find out how to move it forward. It has another advantage that as Waymo is coming into the city, Waymo has a habit of driving around empty in San Francisco. There's no way to legally tax a Waymo that's empty as long as it's running on electric fuel, but this would allow possibly taxing the vehicles as they drive around if we don't do the network tax on all Uber, Lyft, Waymo type vehicles, but that requires a vote.

Thanks for looking into that.

David Boatwright, District four. I just like to say the BAC is a very knowledgeable group. I go to a lot of of these commission and board meetings and I've never seen anybody dig into the details like they have and be able to speak so spontaneously as they have. Y'all did a great job. The other the only other thing of substance I have to say is these forums before the budget is approved are very very very important for each district.

And I would support a 100% that those are continued and that there is more interaction as the BAC recommends more opportunities for the residents to participate in those meetings and get information before the meeting so they're fully educated when they come to the meetings. Thank you.

So I don't know if you are aware, but when people in the community try to participate at meetings, sometimes that participation becomes very limited. And one way it becomes limited is there's a presentation, there's an opportunity for questions and answers, but that process of questions and answers can be limited. And how that happens is this way, you are required in some cases to submit your questions ahead of time. If that doesn't happen, you are required to write your questions down on a piece of paper or a card, and when they do that, you can see people going through the cards picking out the ones they want to answer, and not necessarily just piling them in and at will giving them out. And that selective prejudice process needs to be eliminated.

So, if you want participation by people, it should be a fair process and not one where you control the participation and the the kinds of questions you want to deal with. Now, the question is resident and citizens, this keeps coming up, you choose to use resident and replace citizen, and you have to qualify what is a resident. The state of California said you have to live in the state at least a year. You give out an I D card for residency in Oakland after a couple of weeks. I'm not gonna go into detail, but you are sought in and engaged with illegal immigrants having an opportunity to participate in in the city, that you take all kind of shortcuts, including the school district where they don't allow for background checks for volunteers in their schools.

So, what is this ballot measure e, as it relates to a citizen's initiative? One of the things is this petition process, somebody has got to take the time to inform people who are signing these petitions what you should be prepared to do. One of the things you should be prepared to is to ask them to see the official top funders sheet that is supposed to be on every petition, because you want to see who is given the money for this petition, and people don't know this. Another thing is you ask, is this, are you a volunteer or are you being paid? Another thing is the full text must be available.

When people come up to me for a petition, I ask to see the full text. They never have it to give it to you. And that's required by State California law. Another thing is, measure e is not a citizen's initiative, or it could be a citizen's initiative, if you determine that being a part of a union can also be classified as a citizen's initiative. And if that's the case, corporations can put on initiatives, or they or they can do citizen's initiatives too.

So measure e, and I'm surprised this group of people didn't take issue with the union funding it is is completely legit. That's a historical piece that unions fund initiatives. But to call a union a citizens initiative when people who are in the union are not not all of them are citizens, not all of them are residents of Oakland. So is the definition of a citizen union initiative, is that a percentage of your what is the qualifying there's something called the ballot measure qualifying process, qualification. What is the qualification for a union to put a measure on the ballot?

I can't find it anywhere. But one thing is for sure, everybody in that union has to be a citizen. Everybody in that union has to live in Oakland because that is a crucial piece of what identifies as a citizens initiative. You have used trickology by the unions putting this on the ballot for the 50% plus one requirement rather than the 66% if you would put it. This is a city of Oakland measure, a conniving measure, a sneak through measure that you all should have addressed.

It's not fair that we continue to have property taxes on the back of how we fund the city of Oakland. And sometimes the budget committee needs to address ways in which other citizens or residents in this city can take responsibility for creating revenue and not necessarily on the backs of property owners at this time. So my time is up. No, it's not, but I'm finished.

Thank you for your comments, chair. That concludes all speakers on three items.

Okay thank you. Is there a motion?

Move approval of all three items. Is that sufficient?

We'll do three different votes.

Okay. Sounds good. Okay.

For item number four, we have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Wong to receive and file this informational report in committee on role. Council members Brown? Aye. Unger? Aye. Wong? Aye. And chair Ramachandran? Aye. Thank you. Item number four passes with four ayes to receive and file this informational report in committee. On item five, that was a motion made by council member Brown, second by council member Wong. To receive and file that informational report in committee on roll, council members Brown? Aye. Unger? Aye. Wong? Aye. And chair Ramachandran? Aye.

Thank you. Item number five passes with four ayes to receive and file that information report in committee. And item on item number six, we have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Wong to receive and file this information report in committee on rule council members Brown. Aye. Unger. Aye. Wong. Aye. And chair Ramachandran. Aye. Thank you. Item number six passes with four ayes to receive and file this information report in committee. Reading in item number seven, receive an informational report on the results of the salary serve survey for for city jobs city job classifications earning less than $25 per hour and we have two speakers that signed up to speak on this item.

Thank you. To the staff please go ahead.

Good morning chair and members of the committee. Jamie Pridgett principal HR analyst human resources management department. Today I'm providing an informational update on city classifications with at least one salary step below $25 per hour. This report is strictly informational and does not include conclusions or recommendations. As requested, human resources reviewed all city classifications and identified 39 active classifications with a minimum rate below $25 an hour.

These include roles such as crossing guard, library aid, recreation leader, and lifeguard. Across these 39 active classifications, the city employs eight ninety eight employees. That includes 42 full time, two permanent part time, and eight fifty four temporary part time employees most of whom are represented by SEIU Local ten twenty one. A large portion of these temporary employees support seasonal programs, recreational activities and trainee level positions where staffing needs may fluctuate throughout the year. It is also important to note that while all 39 classifications have a minimum salary step below $25 per hour, 28 of them have a maximum step at or above $25 per hour.

This means that although these roles start below the threshold, a significant portion, approximately seventy two percent progress above it with tenure and experience. Typically when a salary study is performed, the focus is on the top of the range and that is because employees generally spend most of their tenure at the top of the range. In this case, counsel did not specify whether we should focus on the top or the entire range or the entry step. To ensure we met the intent of the request, we identified classifications that had any step below $25 per hour. For the market review, the study examined 24 unique titles across 13 agencies based on external comparisons where available.

Of the 24 titles, 10 had enough external matches to summarize compensation trends while 14 did not have sufficient matches for meaningful comparisons. Looking at the salary data overall, overall, we found a mixed picture. Some classifications fall below market rate at their starting steps. However, there are also several classifications where Oakland is at or above our peer agencies. For example, roles such as lifeguard, recreation leader two, and park attendant compare competitively or better than the external averages.

Overall the results show a varied landscape. This report is intended only to present data as requested. Any further analysis would require additional research. That concludes the informational update, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. I will pass it to my colleague, council member Brown, in just a second since the two of us were especially interested in this item. $25 an hour is not a living wage in Oakland. It's not anywhere near that. And while other cities, corporations, etcetera, nonprofits all need to catch up to is a living wage, is far beyond that.

I think that when it comes to hiring and outcomes for a number of these positions that serve key community groups, it is important that we're able to hire quality folks who can use this to support themselves as a living. And I give the example of the issue that I took with probably my third month into this job three and a half years ago, and that was head start workers. The fact that you can make more money at Panda Express than as a head start instructor is unacceptable, and partly one of the reasons why it's hard to recruit. I know HR does do continuous recruiting for these Head Start instructor positions, but I think the fact that we offer such low salaries, pretty much minimum wage as the starting salary, shows why we have limited capacity to fully staff up our Head Start program, which is why they're leading to underenrollment despite there being so much need in the community. I think there's different arguments for part time seasonal positions, and and I hear what what you're saying of the comparability with other jurisdictions, but it doesn't matter if you're a library aide, a firefighter trainee, a van driver, or a head start worker, you deserve to be able to get close to a minimum to a living wage working with the city of Oakland.

And I hope that in our in in the in our budget process in years to in the next few years, we can start to raise the minimum for all of these positions to at least $25 an hour, but certainly more as the starting threshold. I don't I I appreciate that you did look into comparisons with other jurisdictions, but I think the city of Oakland can do better than the market oftentimes for these positions because no one can live off of $17 an hour and almost no one can live off of 25 either, but we should be setting an example for jobs that are able to fund people's livelihoods, which for 900 employees of the city, they're not. Councilmember Brown.

Excellent. Thank you so much, chair. Thank you to the HR department for putting together this comprehensive report. I'm not remembering the exact item that was before us where we kind of had this Well I had this larger question of how can we get a clear picture of how many employees in our city are making 25, you know below 25 an hour. And so I think that the agenda report that was put together and everything that was shown very comprehensive and I think it provides us a clear roadmap of where we should go as a body.

I know that we are facing some budget challenges but similar to what council member Ramachandran mentioned I think that I mean we know 25 you know making $25 an hour is really just kind of the standard. If I had to choose between working at In N Out or being a library aide maybe I would choose a library aide, right? And so I think that it Oh and then also I had this thought around like ensuring that we're attracting Oaklanders to these roles. And I think that the best way that we're able to do that is by paying a decent wage and so I hope that you know either if it's all of us who are on the budget team again or I hope that in the future we can begin to create a pathway so that all of these positions at minimum are 25 and up. I think that there's another initiative being led by I think some Oaklanders around $30 being a livable wage.

And so I think that we have to begin to move in a much better direction around how much we are paying folks for these amazing jobs that we have within the city of Oakland. Thanks so much for providing the data around how many total. I think it was a little over 800. I know this isn't in the report and I hate to put you all on the spot but I like to the way my mind thinks is like in percentages. And so how many total employees do we have in the city of Oakland?

Through the chair we have approximately 5,000 employees.

I see. And so of that 5,000 a little over 800 are making less than 25 an hour. So hopefully we can make some do have some positive steps to to change that. So thank you.

Council member Wanck.

Thank you. And and thank you, to my colleagues for, bringing this agenda to this committee. I am just wondering what what are the steps to actually adjust these? Is it through the department heads? How do these salaries actually get set?

Through the chair. The conversation about amending compensation is most often held at the bargaining table through negotiations And so I would defer to the council and the administration to have those kinds of conversations and then sort of subsequently direct staff to either provide research and analysis and make recommendations or even perhaps enlist the use of an external consultant for additional survey work. So there are multiple options ahead of you. Procedurally, it would come before you as a salary ordinance amendment, which you see this come from our department periodically to amend the ordinance one two one eight seven. But that can only occur following necessary mandatory bargaining obligations and satisfying any and all sort of meeting obligations.

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And then I would say one of the positions or two of the positions rather that really stuck out to me were the firefighter trainees. I think it says here the paramedic trainees make around $22.83 and I'm seeing from our peer cities, you know, hourly rates of, you know, $44 to, you know, upward of $50 to even $60 per hour.

And then for the trainee $19 per hour versus again like 44 to $50. And were you able to see like are we hiring like that's a significant difference of magnitudes. Can you comment on that? That one was the biggest delta in my observation.

Sure, through the chair. What we found at many other agencies is that the firefighter trainees lead into, they're actually a sworn position so they actually come in as a firefighter and they have that sworn designation. Where for our particular they are not sworn until they graduate from the academy and then enter their firefighter probationary positions.

Okay. And so you're pointing out that perhaps a fair comparison is the salary they make after they graduate.

Potentially or for us to just divide the data so you can see which ones would be in a sworn capacity versus a non sworn capacity.

Okay, I would like to see that since I at least want be working with a fair apples to apples comparison. Thank you.

We can move to public speakers.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number seven, Kevin Dally and missus Sato Olabala.

Kevin Dally, is cochair of the policy and legislative committee of the Bicyclists and Pedestrian Advisory Commission. We visited Oakland Fire Station 17 and to follow-up on council member Huang's, comments. We did hear that the trainees spend a substantial amount of time with low income, and that can be a challenge, especially if we want to convince the trainees to stay in Oakland or move to Oakland and stay there as we continue. Well, as we go through emergencies, whether it's fire, earthquake, or just the day to day emergencies, which they deal with all the time. So thanks for looking into it.

I'd like to see a report on all salary that is under the banner of incentive pay. So I know it exists within the police department that if you I think if you speak a language other than English, you get incentive pay. I know that people who work under the translation banner is some kind of incentive pay. So where else do we have incentive pay? Where we need incentive pay is with our police department.

If you are a police officer living in Oakland, we give you incentive pay. We have to do something to work on or 90% of our police officers don't live in Oakland. That is a serious safety concern. Any kind of emergency where you need everybody on board, we got people that live up in Sacramento, some even have people that don't even live in the State, in the fire department, as well incentive pay to live in the city. So I don't know this overtime issue has to stay on the agenda as far as how we are creating ways to control overtime, what are the recommendations from staff.

We keep getting reports that is going on, but we haven't had what is a recommendation to control overtime. I haven't seen it, but I have seen repeat repeatedly it's a problem. But I would like to say that it is unfair that you can work at McDonald's And what is it now? Is it 25 or $30 an hour? And we had an initiative on the ballot for people who work in our

Thank you for your comments.

Okay. Thank for your comments, chair. Chair, that concludes all speakers on this item.

Okay. I will entertain a motion

And would that be to receive and file? Yep. Okay.

I'll second that.

Sorry one moment. Sorry. We have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Wong. To receive and file this information report in committee on rule council members Brown. Aye. Unger. Aye. Wong. Aye. And chair Ramachandran. Aye. Thank you. Item number seven passes with four ayes to receive and file this informational report in committee. Now reading in item number eight, receive an informational report from the city administrator on their or their designee on the special revenue collection project including hiring and activating the work to bring in additional revenue from nonfiled businesses, and we have three speakers that signed up to speak.

Good morning, Nicole Welch, revenue and tax administrator. I will bring to you an informational report in response to a request from council member Brown and Ramachandran, chair Ramachandran, regarding the statistical data that supports the special revenue enhancement collections. As of the date, we are on target to bring in delinquencies. However, going to the report page two, in 01/20/2026, we brought, 2,269 accounts for property, which resulted in liens of $5,583,524.10. We have also engaged with out front media with digital and static billboards to inform the residents of Oakland about their obligation to file and pay Oakland business tax.

This was specifically targeted towards the business tax renewal, and then we've actually pivoted to landlords advising them of their obligation to if they are renting out their property to register and pay Oakland business tax. We've followed that effort up with sending out 75,000 postcards. I believe that a lot of you have probably received that informing you as a PSA if you are renting your property in Oakland, you are required to have a business tax license. We are currently on target for the delinquency, which notices will be going out on May 5 for property owners advising them that we are now at the delinquency part. And then it will be followed up for non property accounts that will be coming around June.

The reason why those dates are not here is because we are dependent upon our vendor to solidify those times and those dates, but those are on target that it's actually happening. And that completes my report.

Thank you so much, administrator Welch. I really appreciate, the deep dive that you've all taken in the past year to get to get money owed to us from business owners. I've seen you know, I regularly complain about the lack of marketing and outreach, but I have to say I've seen quite a lot of the message pay your business taxes out there, and I greatly appreciate that. And I had a quick question. I see the amount that's been leaned for property related business taxes. How is the other side of collections going for nonproperty?

We have actually wrapped in because of the timeline in December. We opened up the business tax renewal on 12/10/2025. We rolled in the delinquencies for the previous years into this so that we can do it in an all encompassing process. So that will begin in June. So right now, we're at the process of, I would call it a term of dialing for dollars.

So we're we're actually calling property owners and business owners and advising them that they need to, if they are still operating, pay their business tax or close it out. We have seen with our efforts, I would draw your attention to page three, that with our outreach, we have received an increase a triple increase in property owners who have registered their properties. So we've gone up significantly from one fiscal year to the next fiscal year, so is actually increasing. We have actually gone out and this will be part of the next report as a task force with and this speaks to council member Wang's concern about businesses who are operating. We went out as a task force with the ABAC unit, the state of board equalization, I believe they have another name, but we are and also the Alameda County Department of Health.

We went out last Thursday to inform, educate, and also in some cases cite business owners who had been warned previously. So we are actively in the community and

that is

where we're we're at right now.

Great. A quick question and a comment. So as of if I remember the timeline correctly, as of March 15 sixteenth, businesses are delinquent. So or or March 2. I I forgot. Okay. Yeah. And then they can apply for an extension till the March or something like that?

The if you are going to request an extension, you would have need to done that before March 2. The extension date was April 15. That's when you would have to have filed. We sent out reminder emails, postcards, telephone calls to all of the affected businesses who did have an extension. Fortunately, at that time when I did speak to you in November, there were only 59 businesses that requested an extension. So the number has decreased significantly and the reason why is because there is an ability to actually renew online.

Great. I appreciate that and having these notices go out so quickly compared to in years prior, it'd be a months long process is much appreciated to really show we're firm on collection of taxes owed. And I just wanna point out the numbers in table two. The rental applications going from 288 to 900 in this past fiscal year just compared to two years ago, That's not the number of property owners all of a sudden tripling. This is clearly people registering and listening and consuming information that's being presented of we need to register as a business and start paying and that's substantial and I look forward to the revenue that that's gonna help generate for the city.

So thank you. Councilmember Brown.

Excellent. I'll be brief. Thank you so much for the written report and just really appreciative of the ability to track the progress here. And so just wanted to express that. And then I guess on that note can you share when the next update will come to us on this? I know you gave us a good timeline of notices going out May, June. When can we expect some more like follow-up on how the progress is going on this?

I believe that it would be the chair it would be under your direction of when you would like the next report to come.

Okay. Excellent. That sounds good. And so I guess to the chair on this item I guess I have two notes. Can we, if we're able to bring this back again can we change the title ensuring that I'm also kind of a co author on instead of former council member Kaplan. And then maybe we can have this come to us in the fall if that seems most appropriate.

Through the chair my recommendation at this time would be to receive and file this report and then schedule a new report as needed in the fall or put that on the pending list for a new item just to close out the prior iteration of this version of the information report. We can also update the sponsors at rules, but at this point it seems like it's it's time for a new item.

Okay. Sounds good. Thank you.

I would be supportive of both of those things when this comes back to to rules. Yes.

Would be

happy to work with you guys on the title for the update report and timing so that we can get it appropriately agendized at the right time.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Mubank.

Hi. I would just request in the next upcoming report because just reading this, I see that we have the total value of the liens that we also see the delta in additional revenue being collected. So that would be super helpful but also want to commend you on the work seriously in carrying this out.

We will have in any of the revenue that would be recognized will be in the third quarter revenue and expenditure report. So I did not want to deflect away from that report that will be coming to you in May.

Okay. Okay. Whatever notes can be added within that report just on what difference you're seeing as a result of these efforts would be would be great. And then just so I understand this, I see the single family residential being noted. Is this essentially properties that are being rented out for the purpose or just rented single family residential? This is what that is?

Yes.

Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Okay. We can go to the public speakers.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number eight. David Boatwright, Asada Olubala, and Kevin Dally.

This concept of looking at additional revenues is real important. So, I just wanna say we got one of those postcards and the first thing that came out of my mouth is who's gone voluntarily admit if they haven't been doing it in the first place. They just say, oh, now I got the card. I'm gonna go ahead and admit that I'm not paying my business tax. And I know people are not paying, not for any other reason except they just can't pay.

They they just don't have the money. So additional revenues. I'm gonna give you an example of additional revenue. There's something in the state of California called the, two plus one rule. It's the occupancy rule that you have to follow based on the fact it has to do with the number of people living in a residential setting can create if not minimize health and safety issues, healthy for the person's health codes violations and so forth.

We are not enforcing any type of residential occupancy and it is a issue. And it it comes out even with the the amount of illegal dumping that you see on the streets. Most of those are kitchen items that people don't have they have so many people living in a house that they don't have room to put their waste in a can so they throw it out. Another occupancy, additional revenue process. You got so many illegal vendors out on the street who haven't obtained the proper business license.

If it's food vending, they don't have the health license. They are violating the sidewalks, that's a fine. You got a lot of ways that you can create license plates in the front of the car. After the first warning, that's a penalty from a 190 to $200. And go go check out the Teslas. None of them have license plates in the front or very few of them. My time oh, I did it good. I stopped. I was looking at the clock so you wouldn't have to say it.

Kevin Dally. I do appreciate that you guys are working on getting other landlords to pay their taxes. I've managed to do it for a few decades now. It's not that bad, but the website does need to be improved a bit. It's sort of looks like it's from twenty years ago and it is a little bit difficult to figure out how to modify things.

I had to call in to figure out whether I needed to make some modifications. Then I want to move on to the penalties for and fees for fire inspections which are still not being collected. I know the city auditor last week said that this said that there is a movement to collect the fees. But the city has an Acela portal that lets me look at all types of things, permits, fees for fire inspections, whether or not they pass. I looked at two local CVSs that I've been trying to get them to fix violations for about five or six years now.

I can see they still owe hundreds of dollars. No. Not tons of money, but if I can see the fees, I hope that the city administrator can see the fees as well and get them paid. Even better would be to get get the violations corrected whether or not it charges additional fees. You know, fire exits have not been opened in five, six years. It's a potential danger. So it's not just $500 fees, it's also risk of people's death if there is a fire. Thanks.

David Biltwright. On the executive summary for the report associated with this item, there is a reference to hiring the annuitant. And I must have missed it. There was no discussion of whether that position has been fulfilled or what it was. But I would sure appreciate it if that could be explained a little better and why it has to be an annuitant and not a new hire. I guess I have experience but I'd like to hear why that term was used. Thanks.

Thank you for your comments. Sure, that concludes all speakers on item eight.

Okay. I will make a motion to receive and file noting that we will schedule a new item at rules to come back in the fall.

Thank you. That was a motion made by chair Ramachandran, seconded by council member Brown. To receive and file this informational report in committee on roll, council members Brown. Aye. Unger? Aye. Wong? Aye. And Chair Ramachandran? Aye. Thank you. Item number eight passes with four ayes to receive and file this informational report in committee. Moving on to open forum, we have three speakers that signed up, David Boatwright, Asada Olubala, and Kevin Dali.

So money is important and how we spend the money is important. And we're making decisions about spending money that I don't think we we're being fair. We're being political about spending money. In other words, you have your political reasons to spend money. Democracy dollars.

Democracy dollars, it originally was created based on a a model in Seattle where citizens would be able to create or have access to funding supporting of their candidates. You had a group of citizens who and residents who came to meetings and and push for not being citizens but being residents. That meant more money had to be spent. And you're in that predicament now. Not a good choice.

Why? Politically, you wanna push the the narrative that we are not about citizenship, we're about residency and everybody being accommodated. Just happened last week, you having to give up, I think, $1,600,000 to the Lake Merritt Lodge owner because the property wasn't maintained. We're losing money, we're not getting the deposit back. We have other issues where having to do with our homelessness.

The Lake Merritt tiny homes, the West Oakland tiny homes, all of them had to be destroyed because the cons the consortium of the East Bay management group didn't do their job, and I've actually to look into that. We have this issue with the tree, 2021, 2022 violation, we just weigh in on a fine in 2026, and we still haven't worked that out. That's money we haven't gotten because staff didn't do their job. The only way that came forward was with planning department when a developmental plan was applied for. They notified

Thank you for your comments, miss Olavala.

Kevin Dally. This weekend, I was personally hit by the lack of hours and the lack of funding for the parking enforcement call center. It parking enforcement call center well, this has affected the ability for my mother-in-law to get around my neighborhood in Lower Glenview in District 4. The call center is only open Monday through Friday and closes afternoon. Doesn't open again till next Monday.

So good news, lots of curb cuts in my neighborhood now so we can get the wheelchair when when my mother-in-law needs it off of the sidewalk and onto the street. Bad news is there's cars parked blocking the curb cuts. So on Friday evening, reported the problem to see click fix and was informed, which I knew of course, that the call center would be back operating on Monday. So from Friday evening to Monday morning, there was no no one handling the call center. If I wanted to report that my driveway was blocked by a parked car, c click fix encouraged me to call the police nonemergency number.

But if it's only a pedestrian being blocked, that doesn't warrant it. I know I could call it, but I also know it probably wouldn't be handled. So I encourage let's fund the call center. Parking funding is parking policy. Let's also keep it at Oak Dot if we can. Thanks.

David Boatwright. Grants. This city lives by grants, it looks like, other than property taxes. And it's amazing that there aren't any more post appraisals done of any of these grants regardless of how many dollars are associated with them. And I think that's something that this council needs to look into and establish some post appraisal requirements for all these grants that are going out.

It's it's tens of millions of dollars at least a year. And I can only remember one post appraisal that was done and that was done by the city auditor and it didn't turn out well for the person who received the grant. We're gonna live and die by grants, and I hope we don't die. But we need to do something about this uncontrolled issuing of grants to many, many different organizations in the city. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Cher. That concludes all speakers on open forum.

Okay. Thank you, everyone. The meeting's adjourned.