Finance & Management Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning and welcome to the Finance and Management Committee meeting of Tuesday, May 26, 2026. The time is now 9.30 a.m. 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 10 minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record, whichever occurs first. Registering to speak via Zoom is now due 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting time. This meeting came to order at 9.30 a.m. and speaker cards will no longer be accepted 10 minutes after making that time 9.40 a.m. We'll now proceed with taking roll. Council Members Brown, present. Unger.

Here.

Wong. Wong is walking through the door. Council Member Wong, for attendance? Present, thank you. And Chair Ramachandran? Present. Thank you, we have four members present. Chair, before we begin, do you have any announcements at this time?

No, we're gonna keep two minutes per speaker, but if you are with a group of people, if you're able to jointly make comments, that is an available option.

Okay, thank you. Starting off with item one, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting of May 12th, 2026, and we have no speakers on this item. We just need a motion.

Second.

That was a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Unger to approve the draft minutes from the committee meeting of May 12th, 2026. On roll, Council Members Brown.

Aye.

Unger.

Aye.

Wong. Aye. And Chair Ramachandran. Aye. Thank you, item one passes with four ayes. Reading in item number two, determination of scheduled outstanding committee items, and we have no speakers on this item.

Anything from staff?

Nothing at this time, thank you.

All right, I'll entertain a motion.

I move the pending list. Second.

Thank you, that's a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Unger to accept the determination of scheduled outstanding committee items as is. On roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Unger. Aye. Wong. Aye. And Chair Ramachandran. Aye. Thank you. Item number two regarding the determination of scheduled outstanding committee items passes as is. Now reading in item number three. Receive an informational report on fiscal year 2025-26, third quarter revenues and expenditures, results and year-end estimates for the general purpose fund and select funds. And we have a number of speakers on this item.

Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Chair, members of the committee, Brad Johnson, Director of Finance. Before I use a report on our third quarter revenue expenditure report, I'd ask KTOP to get the presentation going. Good morning, this is our third quarter report. So this is with information through the beginning of April of the current fiscal year. As you're all aware, the revenue expenditure reports provide information on the city's expenditures year to date in the general purpose fund and many other funds. Today, we're gonna give you a background on the report. go over some key results for the general purpose fund, including revenues, expenditures, and fund balance, and provide some high-level information, as usual, on our ongoing pressures and opportunities. This report is provided, again, per your consolidated fiscal policy. It presents and outlines the items required by that policy, particularly the performance of the general purpose fund in order to perform ongoing monitoring for the city's fiscal health and ensure transparency. Let's not bury the lead. The city's general purpose fund is expected to end the end of the fiscal year at a healthy level. This is roughly $32.32 million at the end of 26-27 as projected. This is an increase of $15.45 million from the year-end fund balance of $16 million roughly at the end of last fiscal year. That fund balance is equal to roughly 4% of the general purpose fund's expenditures. So walking you through this high-level chart, again, we don't want to bury the lead here. We began the year at an audited fund balance exclusive of all carry forward of $87 million. We're expecting an operating deficit of $53 million, which is primarily due to the use of fund balance from items carried forward from the prior year. The net when we remove restricted settlement revenue is again a $32 million end of the year balance. So that is not a surplus, but an end year balance of $32 million. Again, walking through at a high level. The city's adopted budget for the general purpose fund was $791 million beginning of the year. It grew via the adjusted budget to $847 million. Again, this is primarily due to use of fund balance, support carry for expenditures. You can see our actuals year to date. And you can see our projected year end numbers. And again, you can see what that operating balance looks like at the end of the year. Again, $55 million of the reason why you see the difference between these two numbers is the inclusion of carry forwards, which draw from fund balance. And so that is one of the reasons why, again, you see that operating shortfall.

I just want to use my discretion. Can you clarify these numbers again? Absolutely using ice and demand speaking a little closer to them Looking up.

Sorry, no worries. So to be very clear here the city has an adopted budget and which was adopted by the council at the beginning of the current fiscal year. That adopted budget is adjusted by council actions and carry forward actions that happen after the end of the fiscal year. In this case, it's the carry forward of roughly $55 million which are supported by use of fund balance from the general purpose fund. So to define what carry forward means, when expenditures for council approved items in the prior year are not expended, those items are moved forward potentially into the coming fiscal year, and the resource that funds them are that prior year's revenues. So again, you have your adopted budget, you have your adjusted budget, and then you see these variants is from that. The structural imbalance or the deficit within the operating year is, again, the difference between the revenues and expenditure actuals over the current year. But that includes use of fund balance. So to the extent that carry forwards are not included, you would see a different operating picture, which is why, again, going back to the prior slide, we began with a little bit louder. Sorry, our clicker's not working here again. There we go, going back to the prior slide, we're noting again that the end year number for the General Purpose Fund is expected to be $32 million over at the end of the fiscal year in the black. To go through the details of our revenue, I'm gonna hand it off to Jose Segura from our Revenue Bureau to talk through our details.

Good morning, through the chair, Jose Segura with the finance department. Third quarter projections expect that fiscal year 2025-26 will lend approximately 59.9 million or 7.1% below budget. However, as Director Johnson just alluded to, about 55.3 million of that variance is attributable to the planned use of fund balance to support prior year carry forwards. When we exclude that planned use of fund balance, Project that general purpose fund revenues are estimated to come in approximately 4 million below budget or about one half of 1% overall. The shortfall is primarily concentrated in three major revenue categories, property tax, sales tax, and utility consumption tax, which we will review in the next slides. Starting with property tax, coming into fiscal year 2025-26, assessed valuations in the city had been growing at an average annual rate of roughly 6% over the past 30 years. In developing the current budget, we already anticipated a more moderate growth of approximately 4%, reflecting slowing market conditions. However, Actual assessed valuation growth for fiscal year 2025-26 came in at just 0.8%, which represents the third lowest annual growth rate in the past 30 years for the city, with the only two years immediately following the 2008 recession recording lower growth. The slowdown is primarily driven by Proposition 8 reductions, which are concentrated mainly in the commercial property sector. Prop 8 allows temporary reductions in assessed values when market values fall below previously assessed valuations. Turning to utility consumption tax, over the past decade or so, electrical utility rates basically doubled, which contributed to strong year over year growth in utility consumption tax revenues for the city over that time. However, as shown in the graph on the screen, utility rates have now stabilized. And through the third quarter, utility consumption tax revenues were trending essentially flat compared to the same period last fiscal year. And revenues are now projected to finish the year approximately at the same level as fiscal year 24-25, rather than continuing the growth trend that had been anticipated in the adopted budget. Sales tax collections are administered by the state and reporting lags behind other revenue categories. At this point, detailed reporting is available through the second quarter of fiscal year 2025-26. And through the second quarter, Oakland sales tax receipts were on average approximately 3.5% below fiscal year 2024-25 levels over that same period. It's important to note that sales tax now includes revenues from the new measure A sales tax, which went into effect on October 1st at the start of the second quarter of this fiscal year. And now I will hand it off to the budget team who will present the expenditure portion.

Daniel Mariano, budget analyst. For the general purpose fund for expenditures, they are currently projected to end the year $6.74 million under the adjusted budget, or just about under 1%. Comparing just the second quarter, this is an improvement of about 1.5%, or $11.6 million. A more detailed breakdown of these figures are shown by department over the next two slides. The majority of departments are projected to end the fiscal year under budget, with most of them having spent three quarters or less of their budget through Q3, as shown on the status bar with the far right. There are a handful of departments on both slides that are shown projected to overspend, and as we explained previously in the Q2 as well, the reason for this is due to the one-time adjustments that were due to the bonuses that were paid out earlier this year. Without these adjustments that are currently unbudgeted, all departments in the general purpose fund would have been projected to come in under budget. I will now pass it back to Director Johnson to finish off the rest of the presentation.

Thank you, Daniel. Again, returning to our year-end fund balance to reiterate this point. At the beginning of the year, without including carry-forwards, you began the year with $87 million in the bank and the general purpose fund. That number, including carry-forwards, was only $16 million. However, when we now include carry-forwards within your budget within the current years, and we project those out, we're showing an operating deficit of $53 million. and once we reduce restricted legal settlement revenue, we expect your year-end available balance at the end of the fiscal year to be $32.2 million, which is a slight and modest improvement over last fiscal year. I should note that we're getting to this point was difficult over the course of 24-25. The city adopted many, many policies to bring that year's budget in alignment. And as we continue to, in our efforts to control expenditures, we're seeing slight improvements again in that general purpose fund in-year balance. As both Jose and Daniel noted, we're seeing both revenues and expenditures coming in under budget in the general purpose fund. Again, your revenues are under budget primarily due to your property tax numbers, your UCT numbers, and your sales tax numbers. And we're seeing reductions, sorry, underspending in just about every single general purpose fund department compared to its budget. The city is in compliance with its mandated reserve policies including its emergency reserve and our OMERS reserve. So you're seeing full compliance with those policies per our consolidated fiscal policy. The city does not have any resources included in its rainy day or vital services stabilization fund. Knowing some other key funds, the city is expecting underspending in its Measure HH and self-insurance liability fund this year. That latter one is primarily due to lower settlement activity. It's expecting slight overspending in its affordable housing trust fund, slight overspending in its Measure BB related funds, slight underspending in its gas tax fund, underspending and parks measure Q primarily due to staffing concerns underspending in lad equipment and facilities and again, these are all factored into your year in estimates and As we look forward, the city continues to face ongoing financial pressure in several key areas. These are things that I've mentioned to you in the past, but I'll mention to you again. Our increasing cost for PERS, health, healthcare, and insurance. Uncertainty regarding what the federal government may do at any point in time. The Measure E elements that are on the June ballot. Restoring our ballot measure MOEs and if we and MOE in this case stands for maintenance of effort as we may recall We've added a report to this committee back in February noting our process for getting back into compliance with this maintenance of effort requirements Key needs as we're noting in our budget presentations regarding equipment and facilities including replacing vehicles technology and there are a number of funds which remain negative which must be resolved eventually and The city does have opportunities to mitigate these impacts, again, to build on our improved collection practices regarding revenue performance. We've done a lot more in terms of collecting business tax, maintaining discipline and spending. As you know, every department, including our two largest departments, being police and fire, are expected to come in under budget in the current fiscal year, so maintaining that fiscal discipline is critical. Having a positive beginning position, again, starting behind the eight ball is really, really difficult when one is dealing with ending, trying to end in a positive place. And again, we successfully accessed the bond market this past fiscal year and we need to continue to do that as being able to invest in capital improvement does lower maintenance requirements in the long run. Key takeaways for RR&E and Next Steps, there's a projected positive ending fund balance of $32 million. Again, that's less than 1% of our general purpose fund expenditures, but it is a positive number that we wanna end with. We are projected to end with an operating deficit, that's revenues, less expenditures of $53 million. Again, this is primarily due to $55 million in carry forward being supported by prior year revenues. With a balanced mid-cycle proposed budget release, the city will continue to work on correcting our structural balances over the long term to bring revenues on an ongoing basis in line with expenditures. And the city must continue to exercise ongoing fiscal prudence to ensure our long-term fiscal health. With that, we'll take any questions you may have.

Thank you. I will start again with clarifying those numbers. I'm pretty sure I understand the interest clarity. We have three numbers that show what we're ending the year at. There is $53 million, which you said is the operating deficit, but there's also the $6.3 million figure, and then there's the positive ending fund balance. So how do we have a negative operating deficit but a positive ending balance? Absolutely. What is this $6.3 in between, which I feel like is an important number to...

Absolutely. So the easiest way to think about this is with your own bank account. When you have, let's say you ended last month with a positive balance in your account, but you had planned to do expenditures in the next period. You had already planned, you'd booked airfare, but you hadn't booked your hotel yet to go on a vacation. You're committed to doing something. And so you need to carry forward the obligation for that next period of expenditures. And so when you look at that next month, you'll see that you spent more out of your account than you took in terms of your salary. And that's that negative $55 million operating deficit. Again, you're drawing on a planned expenditure from the prior year. So did you actually have an operating deficit in that next month period? Absolutely you did. Income minus expenditures is a negative number. However, because you plan that, what you actually care about in the long run is do you have a healthy balance in your account? And that healthy balance in your account is the $32 million, right? So you actually spent a little bit less on that hotel that you planned to do, and so you actually grew at the end of the prior month the balance where you thought you'd be. And so you can both have in a period an operating deficit and be moving toward a fiscally healthy position. So you're seeing both of those things happen simultaneously. And as the chair mentioned, you also care about your performance based on what you expected. Did you take in as much in terms of your current year period as you thought compared to what you allowed yourself to budget and what you thought you would do? And in the current case, the city is both under collecting on its revenue, mostly due to, again, property tax, sales tax, and UCT. but it's also underspending its budget. So this might imagine if you're a worker that works for tips, your tipped wages might be a little bit lower than what you thought you were working on, but you also managed to economize a little bit on your grocery bill. And the net of those is still toward the positive in terms of your imbalance. And so this is a little bit more of a complicated and mixed story than sort of the clear space we were in last year or a clearly positive space where you might see growing across the board. The city is growing its year in bank account number, which if you track year to year to year, that's the number you actually care about. You need that number always to be positive and ideally to be growing very slightly. But we do have this ongoing fiscal pressure of within the current period, we are spending more than we had revenue coming in. But that, again, was due to prior year planned expenditures and was anticipated and expected. So this is not aberrant. We should not be surprised by this. And again, if you compare to your budgetary projections, both your revenues and expenditures are both coming in under with expenditures coming in a little bit more under than your revenues.

And the 6.3 million, what is that?

If I remember correctly, your 6.3 should be your revenue number compared to budget. If I remember correctly, your 6.3 would be your underspending on revenues. If I'm catching your drift, Chair. Sorry. If you're talking about the percentage, that would be your the underspending as a ratio of your budget. So again, it's the $53 million as a comparison of the total number, right? So if I look at that $53 million on a percentage basis, we spent about $6.3 million in the period more than we expected. But again, that is primarily due to the inclusion of that carry forward balance and the drawing down of that. So again, positive performance on the year in number, more spending in the period than revenues. However, that was planned. And when you look at your, compared to your budget, you're seeing slight underperformance on both ends.

Thank you, colleagues. Council Member Wong.

Hi, yes, thank you. Always helpful to get these. I have a couple of questions. So just a first clarifying question on the property tax slide. I think this is slide eight. So we know that we have... Basically, we're going to be we're ten million dollars under the projection. Can you really break out like that graph since Just to understand because I think I want to really understand what is driving the reduction in property values and is it mostly the downtown area like what is happening and

Absolutely. So there's this, and if Kitap would pull up the presentation again, I'd happily put up that slide so that you can see what we're all referring to.

And what is this parcel add drops net change? If you could explain that particular metric.

Absolutely, so this is the slide you're referring to. So when we look at the change in our assessed valuation of property year to year, it is governed under the state constitution by Proposition 13. A property that in normal circumstances where you have an inflation rate greater than 2%, which is traditionally true in California, normally every property will grow by a 2% valuation. That's normally your baseline. However, in spaces where the assessor thinks, where there is a property that changes hands, either do a market sale, it resets at that time span to the new market value of whatever the sale is. In time spans where the assessors of each of the counties across California note that property values are assessed to be lower than the market rate where they were required for, there's this thing called a Prop 8 reduction, which allows the assessor to reset properties, not just below the 2% gain amount, but to what they think the estimated market value would be based on comparables. And taxpayers apply for these. These Prop 8 reassessments for the city of Oakland are primarily happening with multifamily properties, both apartments and condominiums.

So multifamily is captured in commercial, actually, not residential, just to be clear?

It would be residential. But if you're asking what's driving it, it's multifamily residential and heavily commercial in our downtown corridor. Those are the two things that are driving those reassessments. so to sort of answer your question the reassessments again of prop 8 in the downtown corridor due to office vacancies is huge a huge component of this but we're also seeing a lot of weekend weakening primarily um in our in our multi-family residential market a lot of that is condominium actual properties there's a lot of information around condominium sales in oakland being down so it's that multi-family condo space is really a space where we're seeing weakening Related to your single family market, that continues to hold relatively steady. So this is primarily multifamily, residential, and again, commercial.

Okay, great. My other question is, can we get written justifications going forward from these reports on why certain departments went over budget and why also the budget had to come from the general fund? For example, I noticed that IT went over budget significantly. But you know, we are working with, in my opinion, dinosaur age technology here in the city of Oakland. So maybe there are legitimate reasons that they went over budget, but I would just want to see why it is and for any department, I'm not picking on it. But any department when they go over, I'd like to see the reason why.

So we normally would provide, per your CFP, we provide a breakdown if at the Q2 or Q3 we have an over 1% spend over budget. You'll get some variance compared to budget almost in a year. But the reason why you see overspending in all of these departments has to do with the year-end bonus. So let me explain that detail. When the council adopted its budget, adopted a balanced budget across all of its funds, and there are a number of departments that don't have funding primarily in your general purpose fund. however we adopted labor agreements with our non-sworn unions that contributed a three thousand dollar one-time bonus and that was predicate and that was based on revenue that was received in the general purpose fund we did not re-budget those departments for receipt of that bonus so while we agreed to labor agreements that included it you never had a budget reopen that provided budgetary resources to all of those departments to include that bonus. And so they will spend that money because their employees would receive it, and they're gonna spend it from the general purpose fund because that's where the revenue supporting it was received, even if they didn't have a budget from you to get it. And so these smaller departments where you see that happening, this overage is primarily due to the artifact of that one-time bonus. This is not within these departments' ability to control. It's kind of an aberrant thing happening this year, and that's why you see it in places like IT which is primarily not in the general purpose fund. It's in an internal service fund and several internal service funds. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Okay, thanks. And then a question for the chair, actually. Do we get a similar report for non-general fund revenues and expenditures through this committee? Or if not, can we get some version of that?

this is that same report um we provide a more detailed report uh in your attachment a that provides all the detail the uh related to expenditures and projections for all those if you read through the attachment a you'll find projections for every single one of the city's budgeted funds okay it's in the it's in the back end of it yep okay thank you and i'm looking at attachment a now there is there's quite a lot of detail fund by fund um consumer brown the number excellent

Well, thank you so much for the detailed report, as always. Just a couple questions. I feel like you slightly answered my question that Councilmember Wong had around just the overspending from various departments. For example, I was looking at Oakland Public Works, and I guess I was assuming that maybe it had to do with some of the illegal dumping surges, and maybe that contributed to the overspending. But I think from your response across all of the departments, it has to do with the one-time expenditure there. Okay, and then my other question was, what is our plan to come into alignment with the overspending around Measure B, BB funds?

Absolutely, so that overspending we will be trying to address through your budget process I should note it's that projected overspending may or may not Be realized within the current fiscal year I would describe it more of his over commitment of resources You have a lot of capital projects allocated to BB the same is true with your affordable housing trust fund We may not expense all of those within the current period and so as we're going forward to monitor we all want to make sure that our fund balance has moved toward health in terms of our year in number and I don't expect, again, a fully drawn on fund balance. I expect it to be over obligated at the end of the year, which is really what you're seeing here.

Thank you for the report. So last year's contract negotiations with the non-sworn folks had two components. There was a one-time non-pensionable, non-PERS-able bonus, and then there was a trigger component if certain milestones were met that that a raise of a certain level would be triggered. My understanding is that with this report, We know where that stands. I've seen a lot of reporting out there, I should say faux reporting, saying that the raises have already been awarded, that they will already eat up some portion of Measure E should it pass. Did those raises get triggered?

Thank you, Council Member Unger. No, they did not. The information regarding that particular contract version is noted in detail on page five of your report. So I actually extracted all of your contract language, so should you want to read it. The way that contract was negotiated Revenues above the adopted budget and I should say that's the adopted budget not the adjusted number and there's a table below breaking that down Less property sales settlements and insurance proceeds for every dollar above that hundred fifty thousand dollars above that there would be an additional ongoing Cola awarded to your non sworn units Right now, we are projecting that total number to be negative, and so the COLA awarded would be zero. There is the opportunity and there's the possibility that we will end up seeing a COLA because there's two time periods in which it could be realized. The first is, but I should say both of those periods are based on the current fiscal year. They're not based on next year or the year after, they're based on the current year. The first opportunity was again here at the Q3 based on our projections. And those COLAs, were they to be awarded, would have been awarded at the end of May. The next opportunity is at the end of the closing of the current fiscal year. And so should we between now and then find that either our projections off or that we receive unanticipated revenue in one of the eligible categories at the end of the fiscal year, we would see COLAs triggered in January at the beginning of the next calendar year for that same period. so we're not seeing it based on the q3 i should note to everyone uh last fiscal year we did receive a single rett transaction of 26 million dollars i should note that if we got the same level of transaction we would go from no cola to a full cola that same level of variance and again that was a unanticipated transaction at the end of the year should we have that same kind of occurrence you could see a swing on that basis based on our projections but we're not anticipating it at this time and we wouldn't know if there's something large like that that would occur So again, there is no, it's all based on the current fiscal year. I'll note specifically related to Measure E because I knew that is a point of confusion that we're trying to clarify as we go out in the budget. Measure E is both not a general purpose fund revenue, it would be in a special fund, nor is it in the current fiscal year. So it lacks, it is neither the time period nor the right fund source that would trigger a COLA per the civilian MOUs. So it has neither of those characteristics.

So these raises were always conditional, and those conditions have not yet been met. So the chatter that there was a large raise last year is false.

There was civilian employees received no ongoing wage increase last fiscal year.

Okay. And going forward, there is a completely separate negotiation process ongoing, which does not relate to the previous one.

Yes, there is ongoing negotiations that are being held at the table with all six of the city's bargaining units currently.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, we can move to public comment.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number three in no particular order, you can come up to the podium. If you do have someone ceding their time to you, please let me know so I can adjust the timing and the person ceding their time to you must be present to acknowledge that they are ceding their time. David Voltright, Kevin Dahle, Chase Fowler, Cody Meshberger, Heidi Giancola, Michael Ford, Andrea Ramirez, Ruth Meza, Noel Ponduchek, Rain Robichaud, Elliot Goodrich, Dr. Sean Jones, and Jean Tran. Please state your name before beginning.

Morning, my name is Chase Fowler. Cody Meshberger is ceding his time to me.

Okay, give me one moment to adjust your time. Is Cody present? Thank you. Okay, you can go ahead and begin. You'll get three minutes.

All right, thank you. My name is Chase Fowler, and I'm a proud member of IFPT Local 21. My colleagues and I love working for the city of Oakland. We do what we do because we are lucky enough to have the opportunity to make Oaklanders' lives better in meaningful and tangible ways every single day. but the administration's actions consistently demonstrate that its priority is not providing services for Oaklanders. Despite inflation rising to nearly 4% over the last year, today the city administration confirmed that they will not be providing a cost of living adjustment to its civilian workers. It is getting more and more and more expensive to live in Oakland every year, and yet by failing to pay its workers fair wages, the city administration has demonstrated that providing basic services for Oaklanders is not a priority. The last time the city did a wide-ranging salary survey was nearly a decade ago, back in 2017. If you can't pay your workers a fair living wage, you'll continue to lose workers and the workers that you do have will be forced to move out of Oakland. The administration preaches fiscal responsibility as an excuse for not paying its workers fair wages, but OPD overtime spending remains as high as ever. Despite making noises about improved overtime controls, Overtime and spending is actually projected to increase from last year, $17 million over their overtime budget. We're told there's not enough officers on the street, and yet crime has continued to go down anyways. We're told there's not enough officers on the streets, and yet it is our bargaining unit that has a 25% vacancy rate in hundreds of vacant positions. We're told there's not enough officers on the streets, and yet city administration can't take basic steps towards civilianizing desk jobs that cops are doing. And despite the city auditor making clear, identifiable, and reasonable recommendations on changes to OPOA's contract, the city administration has given no indication that they plan on prioritizing these needed changes. It is up to city council to hold the administration to account for these things. Make the HR department report out on the vacancy rate every month. Make administration give monthly status reports on civilization. Direct city administration to implement the city auditor's recommendations. Direct city administration to do a salary survey so you actually know what your workers are getting paid. Fight in action with transparency and accountability. Those are your strongest and most powerful tools. Thanks for your time.

Can you hear me? Good morning council members. My name is Noelle. I'm a Local 21 member. I'm here because Oakland residents deserve a city workforce that is fully staffed and fully able to deliver safe and reliable public services and that depends on providing fair compensation for workers and reining in OPD spending. Right now, like Chase said, our unit, Local 21, has a 25% vacancy rate, meaning nearly one in four positions is unfilled. Residents experience those consequences through delayed projects, slower response times, reduced access to critical services. In transportation, where I work, these staffing shortages directly affect public safety. When departments are understaffed, it becomes harder to move safety projects forward quickly and respond to community concerns, makes it harder to coordinate improvements and maintain the work needed to make Oakland Street safer for everyone. The rising cost of living in the Bay Area makes it harder for public employees to afford to stay in Oakland, and without cost of living adjustments, vacancies and turnover will just continue to grow, and as was mentioned, we did not receive a COLA in this last contract. This instability impacts the city's ability to retain experienced staff who understand Oakland's infrastructure, communities, and safety needs, and it makes it a difficult choice for staff to stay. The city should continue to look for long-term structural savings, starting with the department with the greatest cost to the general fund, OPD, which is budgeted for 43% of general fund spending, more than all other non-fire departments combined. We need to be looking at implementing some of these fiscally responsible measures, like civilizing police department positions. Cost of living adjustments are not just about workers. They're about protecting residents' access to safe streets and functioning city services. If we want Oakland residents to receive the level of service and safety they deserve, the city must be able to recruit and retain the workforce needed to provide it. Thank you for your time.

Good morning, Elliot Goodrich and Rain Robichaux is ceding her time to me.

Sorry, Elliot, who was ceding their time to you?

Rain Robichaux.

And Rain is present. OK, perfect. Thank you. Give me one moment to adjust your time. You can go ahead and begin.

Good morning, Elliot Goodrich, transportation planner in the paving program at Oak Dot, Oakland resident. Today's presentation painted a picture of a budget that is plagued by persistent problems. Every non-police and fire department under budget. This is not good news. The anti-measure e-flyers I've been getting indicate that Oaklanders are frustrated that they are not receiving the services that they pay for. I don't blame them. I also see persistent problems with the city's lack of spending on core services. These problems are various, but let's look at which persistent problems do have immediate solutions. Well, the city auditor's report to you all on April 14th detailed the status of 300 recommendations the office has made since 2014. Only 19 of those recommendations are labeled as not implemented, and of these, over a quarter are from 2019 related to police overspending. These are persistent structural problems with the OPOA MOU. No other open recommendation is older than 2024, and no open recommendations pertain to issues with any of the civilian MOUs. All of these recommendations say that the city administration should consider this recommendation during its upcoming labor negotiation. That negotiation is happening now, and the target date listed in the auditor's report is right now. We have received no indication whether or not the administration is considering these recommendations, but you as council do have the power to ensure that these persistent budget problems are solved. It is your job to certify that the negotiations were undertaken in good faith and in the best interests of the city when you approve the final contract. Please start thinking about the gravity of this duty and what you would do if a contract is presented to you that does not address these persistent problems that have been lingering for seven years now. Thank you.

Oh, I'm so short.

Hi, my name is Jean Tran and Dr. Shawn Jones has offered to cede his time to me. Hello, my name is Jean Tran. I come to you as part of Local 21, but also today as an Oakland City resident. And I know we're looking at these numbers in this report and we saw that property tax is down 3%. And what we need to notice is that that estimated revenue is almost two and a half times more than the next category, which is business tax licenses. And it's four times more than the next one down, which is sales tax. So our property taxes being down is a problem and it affects our revenue and it affects our budget. And a lot of that, I think, has to do with our failing infrastructure. Like our city, in order to attract new residents, in order to attract new businesses, and in order to attract, you know, retail and like spending in our city, we want to have a city that people want to come to. And when our infrastructure is failing and you can look around and like we are getting emergency sinkhole repairs, we're getting all sorts of potholes. Like we have not invested in our infrastructure in years because we keep putting it off and it is now coming due. And this can be our inflection point where we can take this money, take this budget, reallocate it. And I know you guys have a very difficult job. There's always the give and the take of what do you spend on? Do you try to do the thing that makes us feel better now, get that instant gratitude now, or are we going to invest in some long-term gains that will make a difference? Because that's a lot of what we're looking at is that a lot of this overtime spending is very reactionary. And we need to take a moment to look at moving toward the future so that we can build that better future. Because when we have great infrastructure, we have all the waterfall effects. Our property values will go up. More businesses will want to be here. We'll have more people coming to our city because it is an incredible place to be, but it's starting to slip. And I know you guys have seen it. And so a lot of that is investing our infrastructure, putting aside that money, but also investing in us, your public service workers. Like we are doing so much with so little and with our vacancy rate, it is a struggle. And I, unfortunately, in my short time here, have seen people leave because of burnout. Because sometimes it's not worth. A lot of these people have fought for many, many years. And it's just sometimes you hang up the towel because they don't feel like they're being heard. They don't feel like they're being supported. They don't feel like the city cares about the things that they do, which they are doing selflessly to build this city into something great. So I ask you guys to consider having that budget, talk about that COLA and help make our infrastructure better. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Ruth Meza. I'm a proud member of Local 21 and an Oakland resident. I'm here to ask council to prioritize essential city services by holding the city administration accountable. Police overspending remains high. OPD is projected to blow their overtime budget by 17 million. Civilianization is not advancing, and the city administration has given no indication that they plan to prioritize necessary changes to OPOA's contract. We need to be clear that OPT's overspending comes at the cost of other services. This is not a new issue. Over the past decade, the department has outspent their budget by tens of millions all but one year, and we need to recognize the cumulative effect of overspending of this magnitude by a single department. This has prevented the city from building up reserves during economically good years, Excuse me. Instead, we spent savings to balance overspending in the police department. That has left us with little financial cushion. Since 2008, OPD overspending has cost the city $236 million. Consider the cushion we could have had recently that prevented layoffs and also prevented service cuts to Oaklanders. City council needs to hold the city administration accountable for providing much needed city services by actually reining in OPD overspending and budgeting for fair wages for civilian workers. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Michael Ford. I'm an Oakland resident and a proud member of local 21 like others I'm here together with my colleagues to ask City Council to hold this city administration accountable For delivering the basic services that Oaklanders deserve as we've heard OPD is projected to exceed overtime budget by 17 million this year Civilian ization is not advancing And as we've heard, that overspending is not abstract. It directly comes at the expense of the services that civilian workers and Local 21 workers in particular provide every day. Last week I learned that yet another experienced member of my team was making a lateral move to another municipality offering approximately 20% more in pay. The city has not conducted a wide-ranging salary survey since 2017. It doesn't even know how its own wages compare to the market. Public trust in Oakland's government is low. That is not on civilian represented employees. It's on city leadership for writing a blank check to OPD while failing to invest in the workforce that also delivers essential services. Committee, city council, please rein in OPD spending and budget fairly for your civilian workers. Thank you.

if you still wish to speak on this item please come up to the podium

kevin dally i appreciate the union thoughts that we've been hearing i'm also concerned i also wonder how much of our good budget apparently good budget is due to the lack of hiring and the freezing of positions both formal and informal freezing I noticed, particularly I've noticed Oak Dot because I care about Oak Dot. There are so many vacancies. Of course it saves money, but it means that we don't actually get things done. I am, I'd like a clear statement. You know, in the past year, finance department has often made it difficult to hire. i'd like to hear a clear statement from the new finance director johnson that the finance department will not slow down hiring going forward glad to see that parking fine revenue has increased now that we have hired more people to to find people and increasing on evening and Sunday parking. I'd also like to see parking enforcement dispatch positions hired. Those are the ones that if I see someone blocking the curb cut so my mother-in-law cannot get a wheelchair onto the sidewalk, That's a number I need to call. Those haven't been hired in years. I'm now told that I have to call the police department. Not civil civilianization. We need to make enforcement positions whenever possible, move away from police and have the police officers do things that they are experts on not ticketing. It'd also be nice to add evening and weekend positions for the dispatch people, people, block weekends and evenings also. Thanks.

Last call for Heidi Giancola, Andrea Ramirez, and David Boatwright. Thank you. At this time, Chair, all names have been called.

Okay. Sorry.

Mr. Boatwright, did you still wish to speak on this item? No. Okay. All names have been called.

Okay. Thank you. I will entertain a motion. Oh, sorry. Director Johnson, did you have anything to say? No.

I do just want to confirm that the city is not currently in a hiring freeze for any positions and positions are moved forward through finance as fast as they can be approved.

Thank you. I will entertain a motion. So moved.

Thank you, that was a motion made by Council Member Wong, seconded by Council Member Brown. To receive and file this informational report through the chair to the maker of the motion, is this in committee or to forward this? To receive and file in committee or to? Okay, thank you. Sorry. Again, that was a motion made by Council Member Wong, 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 three passes with four ayes to receive and file this informational report in committee. Noting that item four regarding the amending Oakland Municipal Code chapter 4.56 was withdrawn from this agenda and scheduled to the Finance and Management Committee pending list under no date specific. Reading in item number five. Adopt the following pieces of legislation. One, a resolution adopting the City of Oakland investment policy for fiscal year 2026 and 2027. And two, a resolution pursuant to government code section 53607, delegating investment authority to the Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency to the agency treasurer for fiscal year 2026 to 2027. And we have one speaker that signed up to speak on this item.

Good morning chair, I'm a child and fellow Council members. Max Kumar, Treasury Bureau finance Department. The resolutions in front of your for adopting the annual city of Oakland investment policy for the upcoming physical year 2627. They were just minor legislative changes. State bill 595 made of the state code. to reflect the changes to the commercial paper maturities from 270 days to 397 days. Also extended 40% of the portfolio cap for commercial papers until January 31. This bill also extended zero interest rate accrual to January 31 as well. Aside from this, there's just minor edits and day changes to reflect the coming fiscal year, 26-27. This investment policy will cover both the city and successor agency portfolios and the current portfolios in full compliance with this policy. The goal of this investment policy remains to effectively manage for safety, liquidity, and yield. With this, I'll be happy to take any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll just want to make a note that we do bring back your investment policy every year to reaffirm it. That is a best practice for GFOA insurers, as Max stated earlier, that we are in compliance with all current federal guidelines. And as we go out toward the financial markets to look to borrow, having a recently adopted investment policy is one of the things that the market looks to.

Thank you. Colleagues, questions? We can move to public comment.

Calling in the name that signed up to speak on item number five, Mr. Kevin Daly, who I do not see in chamber. Chair, all names have been called.

Thank you. Thank you. To the administration, is this requested to go to full council?

Yes.

I will entertain a motion for this to move to full council at the June 2nd meeting on consent.

So moved. Second.

Thank you, that was a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Unger. To approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the June 2nd, 2026 City Council agenda on consent, on roll, Council Members Brown? Aye. Unger? Wong. Excused. Excused, and Chair Ramachandran. Aye. Thank you, item number five passes with three ayes, one excused. Wong to forward both pieces to the June 2nd City Council agenda on consent. Now reading in item six, receive the informational cash management report for fiscal year 2025 to 2026. Third quarter ended March 31st, 2026, and we have one speaker that signed up for this item.

Good morning chair, I'm a charter and and a fellow council members, Max Morgan, Treasury Bureau, finance department. The report in front of you is informational cash management report for the third quarter ending in March 31st, 2026. Highlights are listed on page one of the report. The portfolio had a quote and balance of 2.25 billion dollars. The days to maturity of the portfolio was very short. The yield was at 3.65%, daily liquidity of the portfolio was at 16.78%, and 180-day liquidity of the portfolio was at 60.02%. The portfolio is in full compliance with the city's investment policy, and the portfolio is invested for safety, liquidity, and yield. With this, I'll be happy to take any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. And is this increase consistent with the last few years?

uh correct there's a um it's about five percent march from last year to this year it's pretty consistent okay thank you colleagues i just want to ask you to emphasize again the sort of seasonality of this report there had been some reporting earlier some faux reporting earlier in the year where they compared one quarter to the previous quarter as opposed to comparing one quarter to the same quarter in the previous year what is the correct way to do comparisons in this

through the chair to the council members. So year by year is better, quarter by quarter. We could put that if you want to in the next reports. But as far as the seasonality is, the city's portfolio balance will drop starting July all the way to December. And then from December all the way to June is where the portfolio balance will increase. And this is basically due to the first property tax that we get in December and that we get the business tax and then the second portion of the property tax. So historically, the city will get revenues in the second part of the year. And I'll defer to Brad if he wants.

To directly answer your question, Council Member Unger, you can think of the city's cash position a little bit like the weather. It can be hotter or colder, but we care about the long run trends in climate change, not actually whether or not it's cold outside. As Max mentioned, it's typically warm for us in the spring, starts to get cool in the summer until it gets to December and we get our resources in. I will note that actively managing this is a key component of what the Treasury Bureau does. In order to help management that manage this at your council meeting We are asking you to go through various steps to prove temporary revenue Anticipation notes or trans which do help us smooth our cash flow over the course of the years So it's not just that we manage it in the direct way now But we actively manage it by going to the market to ensure that we always have sufficient liquidity for the city's imports assets Hey

Hi, I'm just wondering, what have we done to explore just increasing our yields? I was doing a little bit of reading, and for example, in San Francisco, they have a higher yield than we do. They're at 3.85% compared to us, and it seems that part of what they did is they made a deliberate investment decision to move towards I'm and I'm not a financial investment expert here, but I'm just pushing some of these questions around negotiable CDs and commercial Commercial paper and they actually in terms of the federal bonds They're capped at 44 percent whereas we're doing more of the investments on the federal side of things So just wondering if we've explored this

Sure. Through the chair to the council member. So we are very hesitant to compare different cities because different cities have different reserve balances. They have different cash flow needs. So that's be, you know, comparing apple to oranges. However, city and county of San Francisco has a roughly 10 billion portfolio and we have a 2 billion portfolio. We do have a location in knowledgeable CDs and commercial paper, but we are very cautious of corporate names. know that fit through our um you know ordinance and resolutions um and it just depends on liquidity liquidity needs for the city we feel that this is a very safe portfolio in any you know economic downturn with credit rating downturn federal agencies are pretty much next to treasuries was very safe. So I'm in the yield is not that much a difference. Plus the yield is just dependent on our cash flow needs. City of Oakland historically, you know, spends a lot of money, you know, operating here and we do have not that much of a larger fund balance, uh, reserve fund balance. Excuse. So That's one of the reasons we're not that far apart from 3.65% to 3.8. It's only a 25 basis point. But in our short-term needs, I cannot speak for the city of San Francisco. However, our long-term and short-term rates will follow basically what the Fed calls the discount notes. um and also the uh the level set at the uh federal reserve which is between uh 3.75 and 4 right now i understand but it looks like if we you know because we are at the point in time where we need to like you know

search the couch for you know you know for for coin so to speak and so i'm just asking these questions since even though that's just 0.2 of a difference it could make a difference in terms of bringing maybe a couple million dollars of extra gpf to the city and you know we are operating in a deficit so my other question is just um around something called a um like our local government investment uh pools so beyond our investments in laif i understand that there could be opportunities to pursue investments in joint powers of authority or county pools is that something that we're looking into yes is there something we're looking at uh we're having actually the city's attorney's office taking a look at this right now they have a specific agreement

And, you know, we'll be looking into putting some money in that camp once the city attorney reviews all the documents.

Okay, good.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. If there are no other questions, we can move to public comment.

Calling in the name that signed up to speak on item number six, Mr. Kevin Daly. Thank you. All names have been called, Chair.

Okay, I will entertain a motion to receive and file this report in committee. If that's okay with staff, okay.

So moved. Does it need to be a full council? We can stay in committee then.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Unger, seconded by Council Member Brown to approve the recommendations of staff and to receive and file this informational report in committee. I'll enroll Council Members Brown. Aye. Unger. Aye. Wong. Aye. And Chair Ramachandran. Aye. Thank you, item six passes with four ayes to receive and file this informational report in committee. Moving on to open forum. Calling in the name that signed up to speak, Mr. Kevin Daly. Okay, Chair, that concludes all speakers.

OK, thank you. This meeting is adjourned.