Finance & Management Committee - Special Meeting

Hear me? There we go. Welcome to the Finance and Management Committee meeting of today's date, Tuesday, September 30. The time is now 09:32AM, and this meeting has come to order. Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for all of the items on this agenda.

If you are here with us in chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card, please fill one out and turn into a clerk representative or myself before the item is ready to record. Speaker cards were due twenty four hours prior to this prior to the start of this meeting, making that time yesterday at 09:30AM. This meeting came to order at 09:32. Speaker requests will no longer be accepted ten minutes after the meeting has begun, making that that time 09:42. With that, we will now proceed to take role. Councilmember Brown.

Present. Present.

Thank you. Councilmember Unger.

Here.

Thank you. Council member Wong? Present. Thank you. And chair Ramachandran?

Present.

Thank you. We have four members present. And before we begin, chair Ramachandran, would you like to state any announcements you have for us today?

Yes, please. Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to our regular finance committee meeting sorry, special finance committee meeting. Just a quick note that we're gonna hear item two and three is scheduled, and then we're gonna jump to item eight and then return to the rest of the order. And that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair Ramachandra, noting items will go out of order will go in the order for two and three, then we will take item eight, and then the rest of the agenda will be as ordered. Item one, because this is a special meeting, there are no minutes to be approved. Moving to item two, that is determination to schedule outstanding committee items, and that is also known as your pending list.

Is there anything from administration?

Nothing at this time.

Thank you. Okay. I will entertain a motion.

I'll I'll move the item.

Second. Thank you. That is a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Unger to accept the termination of schedule outstanding committee items as is. On the roll, council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Ramachandran? Aye. Thank you. We have four ayes to accept the termination of scheduled and outstanding committee items as is. Moving to item three. Received an informational report regarding OPD overtime.

And you do have two speakers three speakers for this item, excuse me.

Good morning, chair and members of the committee. Larasha Marshall, fiscal services manager for

the Oakland Police Department. Before you is the fiscal year twenty twenty four through '25 overtime report covering the data through the third quarter. This information does not include the fourth quarter or current information.

At the start of the fiscal year, City Council approved an adopted budget for overtime allocation for 44,600,000.0. In September 2024, under the city's contingency plan, the department was reduced by 1,700,000.0. In December 2024, the amended budget was approved, an additional 20,000,000 reduction, further reducing the overtime to 22,800,000.0, a 51% cut from the adopted. At the time of the December reduction, the department had already spent 27,100,000.0 exceeding the new allocation by 4,300,000.0. To align with the budget debt to align with the budget reductions in December 2024, the department implemented a 20% reduction in overtime spending, a new target of 10,300,000.0 per quarter.

In the third quarter, the actual overtime totaled 7,900,000.0 which was 2.4 under the target. Despite this improvement, year to date spending still projects the overtime overage of 26,600,000.0 based on the amended budget. Factoring in reimbursements, at the end of the third quarter, the department received 6,000,000 in reimbursements and anticipates receiving a total of 8,100,000.0 which will help reduce the net projected overtime overage approximately to 18.5. Additionally, the report includes supporting tables that display key overtime drivers, budget allocation versus actual expenditures and details on the top divisions contributing to overspending. This concludes the informational report for fiscal year twenty twenty four through '25 through the third quarter.

Thank you. I welcome any questions.

Thank you council colleagues. Council member Unger, are you unmuted?

Thank you. So could you just highlight for me one number? What is the projected amount we're gonna go over the overtime budget?

So if you factor in reimbursable overtime, it's 18,500,000.0.

And have we put so we had put some controls in place prior that brought that number down.

Correct.

So why is that number going up and over again?

This is for the third quarter twenty twenty four. So we implemented a 20% reduction in December which we actually stayed in within that for the third quarter so that shows great signs. But I think it was because of the 20,000,000 reduction that happened in December as well. So we were already over in December.

I see. But I'm sort of more interested in not the end result, but the processes that help us manage our overtime. We had and maybe the the chief is a better

Yes. I will defer to DC Tedesco.

Thank you, chief. I'm curious about sort of what processes we put in place to help us manage our overtime and help us prevent going over our budget going forward.

So in the third quarter of last year, 2024, in the early fall, the police department canceled all discretionary overtime across the entirety of the police department. And so that's why you can see we were already over at the start of Q3 and it trended flat after that. What that discretionary overtime is made up of is things like an area captain who wants to deploy high visibility resources, say, in the downtown area. Or if they wanna do a special project, they want to do some kind of enforcement a different space. If they want to use one of our crime reduction teams or a CRO team on a special project that's going to go over regular hours, they can no longer do that without submitting a plan that goes up to the city administrator's office for approval.

Now this this doesn't cancel all overtime in the police department, and it didn't in the third quarter, and it still to this day, it does not. So we have things like vacancies in patrol where beats go unfilled, and there is overtime used to backfill so that we have a beat officer. We still have the mandatory sideshow weekend deployments to deal with the sideshow. We have other holiday plans and other pieces that are all done in conjunction with the city administrator's office and the mayor's office for things where we have to deploy just to provide basic safety to the community. But discretionary over time, things where you would have seen, say, high visibility deployment in your area previously, we canceled that as of last year.

Excellent. Thank you so much. I do think that my first question is when can we expect to have the fiscal year Q4 and Q1 report around overtime? And then I have a handful of other questions too.

So good morning everyone. Deputy Director Keanna Suttle. The fourth quarter information is ready but based on the way the committee has scheduled the meetings that's why manager Marshall presented information from quarter three of last fiscal year. And I think it's also important to note that the initial adopted budget of 42,800,000.0 once it was reduced twice in December 2024 OPD had already exceeded the new number. So there was no way that our department was going to be able to come under or even at that number when at the time it was reduced we had already exceeded that amount.

So based on the reductions that the department made including eliminating to the extent possible or significantly reducing any discretionary overtime, leaving overtime basically for backfill and extension of shift because as we all know that if an officer is on the scene and his or her shift is ending, it's not a regular nine to five where you can just say oh okay, I'm off at 05:00, I'm gone. They have to stay at that scene and so for OPD to have exceeded its budget by what is it, 18,000,000? I think when you look at had the budget remain the same our department would have been within that budget. So I think that is an important distinction that we need to make. Excellent.

Thank you so much.

And so I understand needing to bring this report at this time but definitely really focused in on when we'll kind of get more of the up to date overtime information and I know that the the captain mentioned some of the special operations that OPD is engaged in. Just curious if you and I heard about the sideshow detail and I think maybe in more recent weeks, months, there's been a little bit more work around, like, managing, like, our the nightlife here in the city of Oakland downtown area. Just curious if you know if there's going to be any potential impacts to overtime as it relates to that detail.

The sideshow mandatory overtime continues and will continue for at least a few more months depending on the activity, that we see from Sideshow. Traditionally, see a slowdown in the winter and rainier months with Sideshow, so we'll scale back at that time depending on what we're seeing. For the downtown deployments that you're that you're talking about, these are done in conjunction with the city administrator's office, the mayor's office, and by request of the police department to fulfill. What we are seeing is that because of the number of vacancies in patrol and the backfill combined with our operational strength being in the low five hundreds, we are having difficulty filling overtime assignments throughout the police department. So many of these assignments such as the downtown coverage and even even special events, holidays.

If it isn't a mandatory assignment, we're having difficulty filling it. So we're having to be creative with the patrol division and with our special resources in order to provide coverage where we really need to have it.

I see. Thank you so much. And then I guess maybe lastly there was a recent report that the police commission received that kind of outlined the current staffing levels and various areas of opportunity. It outlined the amount of Skelly hearings that are still kind of in queue and pending and I guess as I was kind of reviewing that report that the police commission received I think it was the twenty fifth I think I'm just curious if you if you wanted to speak to maybe that up to date report around staffing folks on medical leave those who are going to be retiring soon and just so that you know all of my colleagues can also understand kind of what's like what are some of the impacts that will be coming with some of the and how that may impact you know over time?

Certainly. My most up to date staffing numbers are of the ninth as of the nineteenth. We had 641, at the police department permanently assigned, with a 101 on some kind of long term leave and 24 on a transitional assignment, leaving us with an operational strength of 516. So to put that in context, a fully staffed patrol division with officers, sergeants, and lieutenants is in about the 330 range. So the huge majority of the police department is within the patrol division.

Then you have our CID, our criminal investigations division, our ceasefire, our internal affairs, and our what's left of our special resource units, our CROs and our CRTs. We are down to one squad of CROs citywide. We're down to 11 foot patrol officers. Citywide, we're down to about 15 crime reduction team officers citywide. Our ceasefire team is, not quite three squads.

Normally, it's over four squads with with the crime gun intelligence team. It's closer to 40. It's in the high teens. And our patrol division has multiple shifts that are staffed well below the allotment. So we're looking, I think, at one of the watches has only 38 officers assigned when they should have 48.

And that creates vacancies that have to be backfilled. So it impacts our overtime, in that we are backfilling beats every single day. And it also leads to higher toll and burnout for the officers who have to come and fill these overtime assignments. And it's hard for the people that are there, because there isn't adequate staff to cover the beats and the calls for service volume doesn't change because of that. So it is a difficult cycle that we're in right now.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Are there any areas where you see there are areas of low hanging fruit to reduce over time? I'll give an example where I have observed that for example there was the night market in my district, Chinatown night market and don't get me wrong I really appreciate the officers that were there but are there ways that for example with the special events that private security we can have event organizers use private security for example. I'm just, what are some thoughts that you have Chief Tadesco or Assistant Chief Tadesco?

Much of the third party overtime, and I think Manager Marshall outlined that, that's reimbursable overtime. So we're talking about these private events, to the extent that we're able to staff them. The city is getting reimbursed for those funds. And we're talking about events at the Colosseum. We're talking about First Friday.

We're talking about many different positive events for the city. We can do less of those events. We can permit less of those events. There isn't necessarily a savings there because there is those are reimbursable. The question is, I I think, then goes to staffing.

If we're struggling to staff those events, can we safely permit them? There are, I think, reductions that can be gained from private security, but it's not a perfect substitute. If there is an act of violence that requires police response and there is no police presence, it's gonna pull from the patrol division. And depending on the size of the events, I think that First Friday is a great example. It's a it's a awesome event.

We love having it. But there's 10,000 plus people that are in attendance. And currently, the PD staffing for that is allotted eight officers to sergeants and a lieutenant. That is far below what can be used to manage a crowd of that size. So I'm not sure that there's much more opportunity for reduction in events like that besides simply just not permitting them at all.

Do you have ideas then where the reductions are? I will say that I noted in this report that the communications division is an area that seems to be a big driver of the overtime. As you know, I've been really focused on recruitment on officers but this report also notes the understaffing in the dispatch center and that we need a lot more of these folks too. How can we as colleagues be supportive? What kind of qualifications are you seeking so we can help put out the word to the community that we need? These are the type of qualifications for dispatchers and we need more.

I don't think it's a secret that our dispatch center is understaffed and and needs more hiring. I think the number one way that we can reduce over time in in communications and throughout the police department is hiring and hiring to the staff that's adequate to complete the jobs and the expectations of the police department. But that does take time. I think that, perhaps, director Suttle could speak to it better than me, but we do have a number of people in background for communications. Do hire. It's just a difficult job with a pretty high turnover.

So to add with to what deputy chief Tedesco said, right now there are nine vacancies in our dispatch center and so a lot of the overtime is supplemented by salary savings and we are working closely with the recruiting and background unit to be able to increase like marketing media so that we can attract more talent but as he said it is a very difficult job and we're seeing a high number of trainees who don't make it through the complete one year academy. So, we're also working with our training program to see how we can customize our training with more of a focus on retention, but it is a lot of memory and we're seeing that a lot of the newer dispatchers that come in, they struggle with memory because when you have your cell phone and you're not forced to remember anything and you can just type in anything you want, this job you have to remember penal codes, you have to remember our 900 codes, you have to the interviewing skills are are very very difficult because people call the police department at the worst possible times, so you have to be able to extract that information for them and we see a lot of people who fell out in the interview portion of the Dispatcher Academy so we are working with several sources including Merritt College so that we can number one recruit more but number two tailor our program so that there's more of an emphasis on retention.

Okay and it sounds like an understanding of the penal code is actually

I part of mean but that's all part of the memorization and so we're finding you know it's it's there's a lot to remember at one at one time so.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Firstly, I want to appreciate the work that you've done in comms recruitment on the website. Now I see that dispatchers are a featured job position from being not there at all to being featured, and I think that's a great start in getting those nine positions filled and we certainly know there is a lot of interest in these positions. I personally know a couple dozen people who who've applied and I know the criteria is rigorous but there's lot of interest in the city of Oakland for individuals wanting to be both dispatchers and apply to the police academy.

So I think that that that's great that we have, you know, really thousands of people in the city interested in these public safety jobs. I did have a a couple of questions. So when it comes to council member Wong mentioned special events and reimbursable positions, in our master fee schedule, I think it's a little over 100 an hour is what we get per officer for things like special events, but I'm really thinking about like, you know, if a PG and E type of entity hires officers, they get re we get reimbursed at that master fee schedule rate, but in reality they're on overtime. So do we get reimbursed at the overtime rate?

So reimbursement for third party events is at top step for a police officer. So when you reference the $100 an hour, we bill at top step.

So how much is that?

137.

I understand, but those officers are largely overtime. So are we billing them for that times 1.5?

The city is billing accounting for the overtime and accounting for additionally, I think the burden of deploying that person and all of the other pieces of support that go with that. So the city is accounting for the burdened cost in that circumstance.

I think I just wanna understand if we're subsidizing these officers who work on overtime and only getting a portion of the cost back.

Hi.

We're not subsidizing the cost, we're actually charging top step even if it was an officer that was on step one, we're still charging top step plus central service overhead cost associated with it.

Okay. I would like to follow-up offline because I think there's some discrepancies. I understand that you're hiring at Top Step, but if there's an officer that's already at Top Step or close to Top Step that's doing, you know, five hours of overtime work, that's what I'm concerned that we are subsidizing for these outside agencies like a PG and E or whomever that's or that's doing this work. So I would like some follow-up information on it because I understand I'm not gonna get the answers right here today, but I would love some more information about the rates we charge out and if that fully compensates officers working on overtime.

I think to to help clarify on that piece, that $100 that was mentioned, that is the overtime rate. So that's That's not the normal salary rate. That's the overtime rate. So that adjusted cost that we talked about covers the overtime rate plus additional costs for support. So it does, we are not subsidizing the costs.

I will continue with my questions. So in the in the report it mentions over time on training. I think your presentation was very clear on the issues that we have over time needed on the sideshows, special operations, all of that. But it's a little perplexing that we go over time on training when those are costs that seem like they could be anticipated into the original budget. Could you explain why and I know this is not the first year of since I've been on council.

It seems like we go above in training time. Why are we not accurately budgeting the training amount since that's pretty set in stone unlike some of the other things like sideshows?

The training budget in the current circumstances are result of the need to now up staff training based on the cycling of academies. When we don't have academies, we don't have a fully staffed training division. We shift people to the training division when we have police academies. The police academy covers more subjects than just the training staff can handle. They have subject matter experts.

They have range staff. They have multiple different pieces that require other subject matter experts to be brought in. Those subject matter experts are coming from places like Patrol. They're not permanently staffed in the training division.

Also I would like to add when we went through the contingency plan, the $1,700,000 that was the reduction that happened that actually happened that impacted the training division because there was the reduction of academies. So it looks like they overspent a whole lot because $1,700,000 was reduced from the training division.

Thank you. And if we know there have been vacancies in this training division, is it possible in future budget cycles to account for that? So that's one of the overtime expenses we don't have to consider.

Again, think the issue will be is if we staff the training division such that they don't need to use any overtime, we'll simply be at this moment creating vacancies in another place where you'll see reciprocal overtime needs to backfill spaces. Again, our criminal investigations division is staffed around two thirds, just over 60%. Our patrol division is staffed below just the filling of the beats. Our ceasefire division is filled just about 70%. So if we if we staff up training, there isn't a place to take them from that isn't currently understaffed.

So we will either give up a service to do that, or we will take from patrol.

Thank you. I have just one more question about since this is all related to recruitment and I know there's a number of efforts underway to fill the five academies that we've budgeted. Has the department utilized the $250,000 we put in to support with marketing for the academies?

So our recruiting and background unit is currently working with vendors so that we can start the RFP process. So we have gotten three bids, but I think the key thing to understand is when the academies were canceled, that meant all of the funding for the academy including recruiting and backgrounds was also canceled. Our recruiting and background unit could not attend recruiting events that were not free because there was no money in the budget, so everything came to a halt. So when the money was added to the current fiscal year's budget, it's like we're starting from scratch And so we have to work our way to getting there, but yes, the recruiting and background unit, they are working right now so that we can utilize the funds that were added to the budget. And I've said previously that even if we were to start a marketing campaign today, we would not see the fruits of that effort for the next academy, the 01/1996 because it takes time.

It's about a six month process from the time that someone submits their application to the testing, to the background check, and so it's gonna take some time for us to get to where we need to be. But canceling the accountants, it really did, it literally almost shut down the recruiting and backgrounds operation.

Thank you. And let me just be clear, that was not an action that any of these council members took. That was because the previous a majority of the previous council, five council members chose to use Coliseum money to fill the budget. That's not something that any of these council members chose to do. My last question is about overtime funding that was put into the budget around human trafficking efforts. The $750,000, is that currently being utilized to support human trafficking efforts?

Yes. Our special victims unit and our vice human trafficking unit do operations, do weekly operations in conjunction with our crime reduction teams and our community resource officers in areas where there is significant human trafficking. They do that every week.

Thank you. And is additional work being done currently as we budgeted more more funds for this?

Those operations continue. Device human trafficking unit, combined with staffing can't support more operations than what we are currently staffing. And those are that's an additional overtime operation every week. So in addition to the normal work, they're doing an additional overtime operation each week to use funds. At at some point, they just can't work any more hours.

I understand. So those funds are not being utilized then currently? Those that $750,000?

My understanding is that we are using

They are being those funds

to the extent possible.

Okay. Thank you. And what is sorry. One final question. What is the maximum number of overtime hours an officer can work?

We have a policy that requires that an officer take at least eight hours off between shifts and they have to take at least one day off in a work week. We really that's the absolute ceiling and we really would like to people to not reach that ceiling.

Thank you. Councilmember Brown.

Just to for your last comment, is that kind of recommendation, like, is it actually upheld around the eight hours in the one day off? And how is it tracked?

If a every two weeks time cards are approved. They're highly visible to the police department as to who worked how many hours. In addition to that, the fiscal provides a report. So we can all see what the the command can see, what hours people have worked.

I see. And is that a report that the city council ever sees?

I don't know the answer to that. No. Okay.

And okay. And so then the report is generated, and so who's having a look at it?

The direct supervisors and commanders of the officers that are working those hours. And it it mean it it has happened. Not recently, but it has happened. And officers are retrained and corrected for working over hours. So it's something that we're required to check if an officer has an extension of shift that is unexpected.

They are required to take that time off even if it goes into that time off goes into their next regular shift. So if they had an extension that takes them, say, all the way up to the beginning of their next shift, they're required to take time off so that they can get that eight hours.

Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Okay.

Colleagues, I will entertain a motion to either to to the parliamentarian or clerk, do we receive to either receive and file or to continue if colleagues would like any additional information?

I'll move the item to receive and file this report in committee.

Second.

Moving to our public speakers. Wanna call your name. Please approach the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hands. You're easily identified. Miss Asada Alobala, Kevin Dolly, and Jennifer Findlay.

Kevin Dally from Transport Oakland, and of course I want to note that due to public comment regulations, I'm required to make a decision before I hear the presentation, so I decided to sign up for this. I'd like to encourage evaluation of non overtime assignments for the police department as well. So I know a lot of council members won't agree with this, or at least would be concerned, but traffic enforcement has recently been eliminated, at least the patrol has been. And studies show that traffic enforcement is not correlated with fatalities and severe injuries. So when we increase traffic enforcement or decrease it, that's not what changes fatalities.

The no. For the one to two hours in officers on duty, guess what? Violations decrease. As soon as they leave, unticketed violations increase again. The best way to decrease injuries and fatalities is by traffic calming. And, I know traffic enforcement is popular among residents, I know it's popular among a lot of council members because it's showy, but it doesn't work. And, we should look at other areas where the police department, because we're short on money, look at the most effective use of the money we have for the non overtime use, as well as the overtime use. Thank you.

The Federal Labor Standards Act, it's been stated that, and I don't know if it's still like this, but Oakland's formula for calculating overtime pay for its employees, including police officers, has found to result in higher payouts than what would be paid under the FLSA calculations. Is that still an issue? Audits by the Oakland City auditor reveal failures in tracking overtime and enforcement policies with a significant number of overtime authorization forms missing from the Oakland Police Department. Is that still an issue? If you do have extension of shifts, it's because a 2025 independent study in April recommended that you need eight seventy seven police officers for Oakland.

And you have overtime because you don't have the recommended number of officers. You also have the ability to stop having these reports with report in file and coming up with some solutions. Ask the department to present the next time what are the solutions that we can bring down over time. And what are your solutions? I have my solutions. Ceasefire. Ceasefire has two components. One of them is police enforcement, where if you don't agree to be a part of ceasefire, they go after you, and they sit and wait for you to commit a crime. That's not necessary. Put all of those ceasefire officers back on patrol.

See ROOs working in the community. Suspend that until we get control, get those 11 officers on patrol. It's good that they can meet with the community, but the higher priority is we need them on the streets. So what are some of your solutions, council members? Stuck

that concludes your public speakers for item three. We do have a motion by council member Brown, seconded by council member Wong to receive and file this in the finance and management committee. On roll, council member Brown? Aye. Thank you. Council member Anger? Aye. Thank you. And council member Wong? Aye.

And chair Ramachandran? Thank you. We this motion passes with four ayes to receive and file this in the FMC committee. Moving to item eight, receive an informational report with a list of options to raise an additional ongoing 40,000,000 in general funds purpose fund revenues via an ordinance to adopt or increase a tax effective 07/01/2026 to provide ongoing resources for public safety services to maintain key equipment, IT, systems, and nine eleven investments. And you do have two speakers for this item.

You. Welcome back, members of Finance Committee. Brad Johnson, your Budget Administrator. Before you is a report detailing the various items, and options you would have for a June special election, special primary election parcel tax or other tax measures should you choose to elect it to put on the ballot. We did budget for an additional $40,000,000 in the second year of our two year biannual budget.

And this report is designed to outline for you the various options on the revenue side one would have in terms of raising that $40,000,000 As you can see via the number of options, not many of them are viable. There is a reason why we have tended to do sort of the same approach consistently. But we did want to make sure that that information was clear and present for you in order to further that conversation in making that decision. The taxes explored in this item were obviously a partial tax, which has been our default in terms of raising initial revenue. Dollars 40,000,000 would require a $223,000,000 partial tax.

Also explored were options which are not available to you, which would be a property tax as that is banned under Proposition 13 a local option sales tax, which after Measure A, we are at the state cap and require state legislation to raise and then our various other local taxes. Related to RETT, there's a proposed structure, given our structure is already progressive that would raise $40,000,000 There's also proposals for business tax, parking tax, transient occupancy tax and utility consumption taxes, which are our sort of local options for tax increases. Again, the idea of this report is to present to you what the composition of a tax could tax measure could be. You can blend measures in the same measure. That is a thing that can happen.

But we wanted to make sure that we had this information to you as soon as possible to further the conversations we know that you may be having around how we would move toward a $40,000,000 revenue measure for next June. This is really for your information. There's no action required of this body on this item and we'll continue the internal process for ballot measure development. I will note that we are, right now, planning to release our RFQ for polling services related to ballot measure by this Friday. That is our current timeline. So we're actively in that internal process of development as well. Happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you.

Yeah. So I wanna highlight what you said there about blending because this is presented as sort of an all all or nothing either or. If you wanna get 40,000,000 through parking, you have to do this. If you wanna get but in measure NN, I believe it was a parcel tax plus an increase in some parking tax. So it is allowable to blend if we if we wanted to?

Yes, it is.

Okay. And just sort of talking about the sort of general state of taxes and assessments in Oakland. Can you talk a little bit about the PIFRS tax and the state of where that is and what that does to people's tax assessments?

Absolutely. And so we're and I should say we're also in the process of a deeper analysis and evaluation of what that will look like in the coming years. The city is one of the only cities in the state to have a tax override ad valorem amount that funds our closed Police and Fire Retirement Obligation System or PFERS as we talk about it here just for the public's sort of broader information. That is a levy that's been placed on our on taxes for the past thirty, thirty five years or so. That amount will be dropping substantially as we PFERS is to be fully funded by the 2026, and we do think we have the resources to ensure that that happens.

And so the need to levy that full rate in future years will fall. This will result in, for the average property owner in the City Of Oakland, a reduction in their taxes. And so one of the elements that would be considered as we're looking at any new tax measure is that tax reduction would be potentially offset by any new measure this body proposes to put on the ballot.

And has some of that PFERS assessment already rolled off?

Yes. We've already reduced in the, I believe, the taxes that were paid in fiscal 'twenty four, 'twenty five, there was a reduction in rate. So people would have already seen a reduction on their property taxes on that line related to the tax override. It's an item that says Oakland would have dropped a little bit. It was in some sense offset by some of our bond measure actions, but ceteris paribus, have a lower tax rate than we otherwise would have.

And we have seen the rate fall from our total top rate. Treasury Administrator wants me to mention that the POBs, which are the debt instruments that are supported by that tax override, are maturing this December. And so the debt obligations against the system will be gone away with as well.

So it's really tricky for me to figure out sort of what the PFERS assessment is to see it on my tax. Is Is there any way you could come to us with a report of sort of take a hypothetical property assessed at $1,000,000 and show us what its PFERS assessment has been over the past couple years and will be over the next couple years so we can see sort of what has happened? So because if we're talking about taxes going down and taxes going up at the same time, I wanna make sure we understand sort of what the hypothetical not the hypothetical, what the real amount of taxes that have gone off of our rolls at the same time we're talking about what's going on. Does that make sense?

That makes sense. So I think to restate, to make sure I understand the question, there's a informational request from at least one council member which we can look at, need to coordinate some staff to provide something. But an informational request to look at a sample $1,000,000 property as a general space and to look historically over the last several years to note the changes in its ad valorem tax rate due to the 1%, due to PFRS tax coming off and then what the impact would be of a parcel tax of that amount so that you guys can sort of see them together on the same line.

Together or so, I just want to see what PFRS has done over the last couple of years and what we expect it to do over the next couple of years for a $1,000,000 property just to Understood. Keep the math

I can't necessarily comment on timeline, but we can that's the kind of information we can provide.

Yes. Great. Thank you.

And just to chime in on that, I would be interested in that information too because I'm looking at table three. And if the amount of the proposed increase for a single family home, for example, is $224, and that's close to the amount you would we properties would no longer be paying due to PFERS winding down, I think that makes a convincing argument to go with that option. Would you be I know we have more questions to go, but would you be willing to provide a supplemental to this report with that information?

I'm not sure we can get it done given everything going on this week for a supplemental. If it were to go to council next week, we would need some I would need some time to make sure we could figure out and the terms of delivery of that information.

The past David Jones, treasury administrator. The past couple of years, we've reduced the fee first rate. We used to levy at point 1575%, which is the maximum. Past couple of years that we practically cut it in half to point I think it's off the top of my head, point 1075%. So, it's been drastically reduced and as I mentioned, the debt service on the bonds matures this December.

Thank you. What if we held it in committee for one more

Again, without consulting with staff, don't want to promise necessarily a timeline for delivery. I'm happy to bring a separate report if that's the desire. We can also, if you're amenable, release information and information memorandum, which might be faster. Whenever we get it done, we release it and then bring it subsequently to committee. But I'm at the I don't have all the information right now to tell you I can I can necessarily make that timeline with it?

Okay. I will hear from the rest of my colleagues, but thank you.

Through the chair, is this list totally comprehensive of all the tax options available for us? I think one that I was in particular curious about was our options for like vacant retail storefront taxes which we know is is actually driving some increased economic activity in San Francisco and it is part of like a blended tax that we would put forward. So that is one one that I'm curious about and just wondering if there's any other taxes that are not reflected on this in this report.

So in the state of California as a charter city, we have broad taxing power. There are other items that we could look to tax as a general space. Those items, these are all the major ones that California cities have provided outside them being sort of in a niche space. So if you go down to Anaheim as an example, they have some pretty niche taxes around tourism that simply wouldn't raise any revenue here. So we've avoided any of the ones that are sort of like, well, you could do that, but it's not gonna raise anything.

Related to your question on vacant storefront taxes, we have a vacant vacancy tax already, and it is actually a type of parcel tax. That is the way to actually think about it. It's a parcel tax on a specific type of parcel. And so if there's a question of what number of parcels are commercial storefront that are vacant, I don't know that off the top of my head. As a rule, I would imagine that's not a very large number given the vacancy tax for all vacant properties including residential properties.

It raises, I think, around $7,000,000 and that's every single parcel at a high space. So I imagine and most of the parcels that are vacant in the city are residential parcels and whatnot. And so I would have to get the analysis as to how many of those are commercial and related to retail storefront vacancies. But I'm not imagining that the number is very high.

No. And I I that's why I wouldn't recommend it as the sole, you know, means by which we would raise $40,000,000 but I think in San Francisco they structure it differently instead of a just a parcel they do it by the the the the sorry, the the front like footage. Whatever that term is but that's how they structure that vacancy tax. So I would just be interested again as part of a blended model how we might be able to achieve that within this this $40,000,000. That's all my questions for now.

Thank you. I'm trying to put who's next in the queue. Oh, okay. Colleagues, no other questions, then we will move to public comment.

Thank you, chair Roma Chandra. When I call your name, please approach the podium. If you're participating via Zoom, once again, please raise your hand so you're easily identified. State your name for the record and you have two minutes. Ms. Asada Lalwala, Derek Barnes and Kevin Daly.

Hi, this is Kevin Daly from Transport Oakland. I appreciate mister Johnson's presentation. There's one tax that I did not see mentioned that I think is worth considering. That's a transportation network company user tax, TNC. So Uber rides, Lyft rides, Waymo rides could all be taxed.

Council member Kaplan has brought this tax up before the council a few times over the last few many years, so we we do have something already prepared. Other cities across The US and in California have passed the tax. Closest one Berkeley collects about a million dollars a year from the transport network company tax, and Berkeley's less than a third the population of Oakland. San Francisco passed Measure L in twenty twenty four November, which would have been a TNC tax, though it was overridden by Measure M, which received more votes. We have a list of other cities that have implemented the tax and we could share other plans.

It would be great if the TNC tax would go to transportation issues, but I know requiring that would be a two thirds vote and realistically, I think we want a majority vote before on the June ballot. Other quick item, progressive parking fines do not need a vote from the population. Certain vehicles, certain drivers are responsible for a very large number of repeat fines. If we increase that fine every time a given vehicle has the same violation, bump the level of the fine up. Make it painful for businesses to violate the law, and that will raise some money though I don't know how much.

Thank you.

So OUSD is exploring a ballot measure to address its severe funding issue. The State of California is put and that's for the 2026 potential putting something on the ballot. The State of California is considering a Bay Area regional sales tax for transit, and you want to take and put something out there to have people produce more money. Partial tax increase got to come off. Have you looked at you need to look at the average partial tax payments that are coming from the single fund, multiple residents, non residents, and what people are paying.

Some people are paying more partial tax than they're paying their mortgage. Some people are paying higher insurance, particularly fire insurance. They're having trouble getting fire insurance. Some people are paying more utilities. That's going up. PG and E is going up. Y'all gotta sit down and think through this stuff. And some people are moving out because they can't handle this. Then people have you have to respect that the way you did measure aid, that transaction and sales tax and now you got on the businesses sales tax. You didn't put sales tax on there.

You got the vacancy property tax. It should have been the vacancy partial tax because property means the tax is based on the value of the property. And now you say, oh, it's property, but it's really partial. How you do your business is we don't trust you. Okay? Measure NN, measure AA in the courts because you tried to sneak it in when it required 60%.

That concludes your public speakers for item eight.

Thank you. Through the chair some more questions have come up for me. So on the utility tax and and this is I would say this applies to the parcel tax too but for the utility tax your report notes that it would be a regressive tax and I'm I'm wondering are there ways that we can structure

utility tax to be progressive so we're charging people more who have either higher incomes, higher usage

I'm and similarly what would it take to make a parcel tax to also be scaled per like square footage or something that would account for larger parcel size to be taxed more?

So related to your vacancy tax, we I have to I would want to confer with the city attorney's office around whether or not parcel taxes can be scaled necessarily that way as being I imagine you could do it proportional to the frontage itself, which would then scale with the frontage sides. I think that would be legal. As it relates to your UUT tax, we are not allowed in the State of California to directly or indirectly tax income. That's a, like, major no no. We're not allowed to do that.

And so you can't scale it directly on the income of the resident. You could scale it on usage where a higher user, there's like a progressive rate structure but it would be progressive on usage, not progressive on the income. And what that effectively would mean is bigger users would pay more. Example, institutional players would be the ones who would end up paying more. The city is one of the biggest users, for instance, of electricity in the city as an example. The school district's a big one. And so bigger users would pay more with a progressive structure. It wouldn't necessarily be higher income users if that makes sense.

Okay. Thank you so much. I'm through the chair to Bradley. I think I just want to kind of piggyback on what council member Wong kind of brought up. It's my understanding that other jurisdictions in the state in the state of California have actually increased their utility tax on natural gas and decreased their utility tax on, like, electricity. So I guess I'm curious if that could actually way

here.

We would have to model that delta and change and then you would obviously have a change in behavior that would relate to that. You would see some you'd see some leakage change in behavior which would be difficult to model. I don't think we've separated out the energy component because how because it's charged, I believe, per dollar, if I remember correctly. We'd have to disaggregate them. And I would note if we're going to change the underlying existing general tax, that's a little bit of a different process than levying additionally on top of it.

So one could increase only the amount on natural gas, if that makes sense as a part of a special tax and leave the other element of a loan. I'm not sure how it would interact with the general purpose fund to lower one and increase one with a inherently a special measure since we're considered taking this at the statewide primary in June. If it were a general tax measure put on for the November election, the elements of that are a little bit different under state law. And so there's a little bit of a legal what can we do at what time element of this. Both could be done. It's just a matter of that timing and again I would want to talk with the city attorney's office about the specifics of that. A lot of that is really fast moving case law so I want to make sure I'm giving you the right information.

Okay. That that definitely makes sense. I would like the opportunity to send you a few notes around a couple ideas that I that I have. In addition, I also think that we should be leading leading out around the the p first and wanting to get a little bit more around the like a report on that. So I I am kind of in alignment with council member Ramachandran on that And I I understand that you're not sure how soon you can have that completed, but I do think that it is an important factor.

Thank you, colleagues. I will make a motion to hear this in about a month at the October. We are, of course, interested in a supplemental about PFERS And if members of the committee in the next few days send some ideas to the finance department of other things they would like to see in a supplemental, would sending things by the end of this week give enough time before

That would that would be helpful. Yes.

Okay. Absolutely. We'll move forward just so that we can get a better menu of options. Just personally speaking, I think, taken alone, none of these options are palatable to voters, to us. But in conjunction, especially with a discussion of how much people might save with PFERS, we can minimize the impact to any given thing with kind of a menu of things that we take and vote on, you know, that voters could vote on together. So that's, I think, where the direction this committee seems to be interested in. But colleagues, please feel free to send ideas by the end of this week. Council member Brown.

Yes. I'm happy to second that, and I just had a really quick question. Just want to ensure that nothing will even though we're scheduling this for about a month from now, you'll still continue with the scheduled polling?

Oh, yes. No. We're all of the other items that are on the administers that are also full speed ahead at the same time.

Okay. Excellent. Perfect. Thank you.

To clarify my motion, it is to continue this item to the FMC on October 28 with a supplemental to include a discussion of PFERS and how much and the reductions that, voters are, that parcels are paying into, PFERS over the last year, over the last few years. Okay. Okay.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member chair Ramachandran, seconded by council member Brown to continue this item to the October 28 finance and management committee meeting with request for a supplemental to be included regarding PFERS and how much of the reductions of the parcels are paying into them as well over as well as the PIFRS over the last few years. On the roll, Councilmember Brown. Aye. Thank you. And Councilmember Unger. Aye. Thank you. And council member Wong? Aye. And chair Rama Chandra?

Aye.

The motion passes with four ayes to continue this item to the finance and management committee meeting on 10/28/2025 with request to have a supplemental as stated on record. Moving to item four, adopt a resolution establishing appropriations limit for fiscal year twenty five twenty six pursuant to article 13 b which in normal Roman numeral, thank you, of the California constitution. You do have two speakers for this item.

Thank you. Since just as a note, we have four items to cover in the next fifty minutes. So if we can keep presentations on the shorter side, that would be great. Thank you.

Certainly. Good morning. My name is Britney Hines, assistant to the finance director. Before you today is the appropriations limit. This is a resolution that we provide to the council each year that establishes a limit on the appropriation of tax proceeds.

This year the limit for fiscal year 2526 is $1,210,000,000, but the adopted budget appropriated the limit at or the adopted budget appropriates only 1,020,000,000.00. Therefore, we are $186,000,000 underneath the limit. This year's calculation includes the GAN limit override that was graciously adopted by our voters through measure d and measure n n, which allows the city to continue to spend our tax proceeds revenues generated by several voter approved measures that help fund essential services such as libraries and emergency response and violence prevention. So today we're asking you for approval of this resolution so that we ensure compliance with the state constitution and also reaffirms our commitment to a transparent and fiscally responsible government. We request that this item be forwarded to the October 7 city council meeting on consent.

And if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer those.

Thank you. Colleagues, questions or I will entertain a motion.

And, this is Malia McPherson with the city attorney's office. I believe this is going to the October 21 city council meeting on consent for noticing purposes.

It was published, timely. So we were

Do we have a fifteen day notice for it did get that.

Okay. To my knowledge, yes. But if we would like to be safe we can schedule it to the October 21 that's fine too.

We will schedule out rules and we'll confirm this item does have a fifteen day noticing so we'll just confirm at rules.

Certainly.

Is there I will move the item to the October 20 it's October 21 council meeting, and if needed, that can be changed at rules.

Second.

Moving to our public speakers, missus Sala Alobala, Kevin Dolly, and Derek Barnes. If you are here with us in chambers, please approach the podium. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified. Thank you.

I just want to speak to how I have a problem with every one of these taxes. Measure Q is supposed to be park and rec as well as the homeless. Something's wrong if you have the tax and today you're going to be reducing services to the homeless. Measure NN, the component of ceasefire and how you have not legitimized ceasefire even though people like you say it is working, there is no supportive data to say that and you're willing to say it's working without the proper data and evidence of it's working. Measure AA.

Measure AA had to go to court because you needed 60% of the vote and you went against that and put it in front And right now the oversight group is not Committee is not even functional. Measure W, the vacant property tax, which is really a partial tax. If it was supposed to be partial, you should have put it on the ballot partial. Since it legally says property tax, you have to have the value of each piece of property in order to tax it. Measure why.

Why are we supporting anything related to the independent Oakland Zoo that makes a whole lot of money without us, but we are we are through a tax supporting an independent group. Measure U. $32,000,000, Wayne, of Measure U went to your supposedly group that says they would build the Lincoln Rec new center independently, and then Bass got in there and took money from Measure U, $32,000,000, that we could be using for our homeless community, that you are reducing services to them and sites for them to have shelter today. So you need to speak to that. Okay?

The transaction and use tax, that tax is now being represented as a part of it being a sales tax. And you didn't put it on the ballot as a sales tax.

That concludes your public speakers for item four. We do have a motion by made by chair Ramachandra and seconded by council member Brown to approve the recommendations of staff, and this is to be forwarded to the October 21 city council agenda on consent on roll. Council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Ramachandran?

Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the October 21 city council agenda on consent moving to item five. Adopt the following pieces of legislation. First legislation, a a resolution adopted in the city of Oakland investment policy for fiscal year 2526. Second legislation is a resolution pursuant to government code section five three six zero seven, delegating investment authority Oakland Redevelopment's successor agency to the agency treasurer for fiscal year twenty five-twenty six. And you do have two speakers for this item.

Good morning, chair, Ramesh Chandra and fellow fellow committee members. I'm David Jones with the Treasury Division. Before you this morning are two resolutions to approve the City of Oakland and successor agency investment policy for the fiscal year 2526. The California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission, better known as CDIAC, revises its local agency investment guidelines to include statutory changes to that affect local agency investments. And this year, there was only one change, and it was related to chapter two thirty nine statute of 2024 a b six eighteen that was signed by the governor on September 14, 2024.

And what this particular provision does is it just basically extends the date of the current portfolio of the concentration of limit to 50% from 40% for surplus funds that local agencies invest in depository institutions that use like a, I guess like a private entity to make the investment for, but we don't here at the city we manage all of our investments in house but I just wanted to add that to this year's policy and I'm available to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you, colleagues. Any questions or comments? Thank you. I just have one question.

Sure.

As far as our investment policy goes, do we have anything in writing that that talks about the city's refusal to invest in things like private prisons or

Well, we have a couple of different resolutions. One is tobacco divestiture. Another one is guns and ammunition, as well as there's a tobacco ordinance as well. So over the years and also just to, you know, for everybody's knowledge, the city cannot invest in treasuries because there was an anti nuclear ordinance or resolution that was approved many many years ago. So there are several resolutions or, you know, divestitures that, you know, prior council members have have wanted to to have done and if you know that's something that you know this particular committee is looking at I would you know highly encourage you to take a look at it and and bring it forth and we can incorporate it into the investment policy.

Thank you. You were you just referenced the treasury policy, revisiting that. Is that what you were Say

that again. Couldn't hear you.

Could you explain the one policy you Oh,

okay. The nuclear free. So years and years ago, investing in US treasuries was considered investing in the nuclear program cause it was funding that particular program. And so that means that the city cannot invest in US treasuries at all. Now there is a stipulation and it's only happened once since I've been here, where we can have, I think it's a sixty or ninety day period, if for some odd reason we did have to invest in US treasuries, but it it really is a pretty strict guideline.

The only other city in the state that has that particular restriction is the city of Berkeley. And I've spoken at many conferences in the past and explained that we can't invest in US treasuries, and people find it a very interesting topic.

Thank you. Definitely something to consider. Colleagues? Okay. Nothing. Oh, council member Brown. I promise I'll get the hang of the system.

No worries. Take your time. Through through the chair, thank you so much for presenting this report. I did just want to take a moment. I know both myself and my colleagues as we've been out in community at the various events There's been, you know, folks that have approached us around various like divestment and encouraging the city of Oakland to divest in various operations and I'm just kind of making certain claims around kind of our investment policies.

And so I guess I am curious just kind of based on like past divestment efforts. Can you share any kind of insights around any potential fiscal impacts around like some of the divestment initiatives or just any information that you have around like our portfolio as it relates to just some of the claims that we're hearing in community that the city of Oakland is potentially investing in things that maybe our support that potential things that could not be supportive of like our values.

Sure. Through the chair. Yes. We've had these particular divestment resolutions but I haven't noticed any fiscal impact with the implementation of those and if you look at the report I'll bring back to you in a few minutes is that a large chunk of our portfolio is invested in government agencies such as Federal Home Loan Bank, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, things along those lines, as well as money market funds. So we really don't have any, you know, exposure into like corporate bonds or medium term notes to any effect. And we're pretty cognizant of, you know, the political will, if you will, of the constituency here in the city of Oakland. So we monitored and take it very seriously.

Yeah. My my questions were on on a similar line of thought as my colleagues. So it sounds like you're saying that because we are hearing out in community just questions around our investment policy. You said government agencies or anything that we're investing related to the military for example?

No direct investment in the military and like I said

Or weapons manufacturing?

No. No. No. No. We are very cognizant about that as well. But if there's you know some particular industry that this committee is very adamant or strong about, what I would recommend is work you know with my department as well as the city attorney's office to, to, craft fire alarm to create a divestiture, ordinance of resolution.

And some of these past efforts to divest have there been financial impacts to the city after the City Council passed

those ordinance? Not not to my knowledge. No.

Okay. No. Alright. Thank you.

Since we're on that topic I was gonna ask you about the LAF later but can we do that now?

Sure.

LAFE is the local

Local Agency Investment Fund is the city's pool. Mean excuse me the state pool. So practically every city and county that I know of in the state invests in it. It's a non rated pool. I know there's been some discussion around that particular pool having you know direct investments to support Israel, if you will. And the city of Oakland has, know, we invest in late, but it's an indirect investment. So what I would say is that if your constituency is really worried about something along those lines, really reach out and talk to the state treasurer's office.

So we don't choose stocks in the way?

No. No. No. We cannot invest in stocks at And the

so it's where we keep sort of short term money that

we preserve.

So if we if we can't use treasuries Mhmm. And I mean, the LAEF provide a a higher return than the money market?

It lags the market. Okay. So LAEF is a really weird so in a rising interest rate environment, LAEF will lag in inversely so. Okay. Okay. And it's like I said, it's a non rated. So you know, you would expect a slightly higher rate of return plus their WAM or their weighted average to maturity is longer than our portfolio because our portfolio is I think two twenty two days right now.

So it's a better vehicle for you than Yes.

And like I said practically everyone in the state you know I'm not saying that's the reason to invest in it but practically everyone in the state invests in Leith.

Got it. Thank you.

Moving to our public speakers, missus Sala Alobala and Derek Barnes. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hands. You're easily identified. Thank you.

So you have the sanctuary investment ordinance where you don't do business with companies that help to build the wall near the border, but you do business with Israel. And you you were made aware by me some investment with the police department involved a company from Israel and you ignored it. You also have the capacity to deal with the port requesting that you do not allow shipments of weapons to be released from the Port Of Oakland and you're gonna sit on your behinds and do nothing about that as well. So management responsibility is identified that you will have the management responsibility under the wing of the city administrator or designee. So what is the criteria, if any, for the individual whose management is qualified to do it?

If you simply put the language designee. You also have investment operation manager. Who is that? Who is the investment operation manager may execute investment transactions? Okay?

Then you say in this document that you created in a report that the city is utilizing best practices and sound financial management, not according to the grand jury report that you have to respond to at some times about not having sound investments. Okay. You you say that you have a policy that establishes sound management when you're not supposed to be engaging and pursuing bonds because of your lowest credit rating, but you're doing it anyway. So where where is the existence of this sound management that you're talking about? When will we see it?

Because we're not seeing it. Okay. And lastly, if you have an

That concludes your public speakers for item five.

I will entertain a motion.

I'll make the motion to move this item to the October 7 city council meeting.

On consent. On consent.

Second. We have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Unger to approve the recommendation staff and for both pieces of legislation to the 10/07/2025 city council agenda on consent. On roll, council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger? Aye. Council member Long?

Aye.

And chair Ramachandran? Aye. This motion passes with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward both pieces of legislation to the October 7 city council agenda on consent moving to item six. Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to execute a two year agreement with Fusion BI Inc. To provide Oracle business intelligence analytics consulting services in the amount not to exceed 210,000 with the option to extend for two years in the amount not to exceed a 105,000 per year, And two, waiving the competitive multi step solicitation process for the city's local business enterprise program. And you do have one speaker for this item.

My name is Helen Cherkis. I'm in finance department. I'm a project manager and I'm actually here to introduce David Hsu, who's the information systems manager. He will be presenting on this item.

Good morning. Good morning, chair and members of the finance and management committee. My name is David Sue, and I'm the city's Oracle IT manager at the city of Oakland. I'm here today to present the proposed resolution authorizing the city administrator to execute a new two year agreement with Fusion BI for Oracle Business Intelligence and Analytics Consulting Services in an amount not to exceed $210,000 with an option to extend for an additional two years at $105,000 per year. So also, as mentioned, this resolution requests a waiver of solicitation process and the local small business enterprise program due to the highly specialized nature that these local vendors cannot provide.

Fusion BI has provided specialized consulting and technical support for the city's Oracle Business Intelligence Platform since '20, 2023 and ensured system stability and continuity for key financial operations. With that said, the finance and information technologies department jointly recommends continuing this partnership to maintain consistency and avoid service disruptions to our core financial systems. Approval of this item will allow the city to continue reliable financial reporting and data analysis in support of citywide operations. Therefore, the staff respectfully recommends that the committee forward this resolution to full city council for adoption. Thank you.

And, we can answer any questions if you have any.

Colleagues, questions, comments? Okay. Then we will move to public speakers.

Wanna call your name to approach your podium, Ms. Sada Olabato.

Madam Clerk, one minute please so you all can get out of here. I don't see the sense of extending the contract for two years when you don't know what the funding source can be. Why can't you wait till the time of the ending of the contract and then pursue if funding is available. Why are you doing it this way? Look at the number of times during the course of the day that you are waiving the local business and waiving the solicitation process.

This is a contract from 2002. How many evaluations of performance have been presented to this body since that time period of 2002? Are we just rubber stamping again? Okay? So based on criteria approved by consultants, saying that this body, Oracle I remember when I was in New Orleans, we always had problems with Oracle over and over again. So I don't know if they fixed their problems or what. Thank you madam clerk.

You're welcome miss Lassada and that concludes your public speakers for item six.

Thank you. I just have one question. I know we have many great issues with our Oracle systems. What aspect is this consultant aiming to tackle in improving Oracle our use of Oracle?

So, this consultant brings specialized Oracle BI knowledge that our current in house staff doesn't have. And it will prevent disruptions

disruptions to what?

Disruptions to financial reporting, citywide financial reporting.

Reporting. Okay. Thank you. Any do we already motion? Okay. I will entertain a motion.

So moved. Second.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Uncker, seconded by council member Wong to approve the recommendations of staff, and this is to forward to the October 7 city council agenda on consent on roll. Council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Roma Chondran?

Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes. To approve the recommendations of staff to forward this to the October 7 city council agenda on consent moving to item seven. Receive an informational cash management report for the fiscal year twenty four twenty five fourth quarter ended 06/30/2025, and you do have three speakers for this item.

Good morning again, chair Ramachandran and fellow committee members. David Jones with the Treasury Bureau. The report in front of you is the informational cash management report for the fourth quarter of ending 06/30/2025. The highlights on this particular report is the portfolio had a balance of approximately $2,200,000,000 as of June 30. The days to maturity of the portfolio is two twenty days.

The portfolio had a yield of approximately 4.03%. The portfolio had a daily liquidity of 19% and a hundred and eighty day liquidity of 65 and a half percent. The portfolio is in full compliance with the city's investment policy and the portfolio is invested for safety, liquidity and yield. And this is a quarterly report that we bring every quarter and available for any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Any questions, colleagues or comments? If not we'll move to public speakers.

Thank you. Wanna call your name please approach the podium. If you are participating via Zoom please raise your hands. You're easily identified. Miss Asala Olopala.

Miss Asala passes. Derek Barnes and Kevin Dolly. Kevin passes. That concludes your public speakers for item seven.

Okay. I will entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second.

We do have a motion by council member Unger, seconded by council member Brown to receive and file this in the finance and management committee. On roll, council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Roma Chandra?

Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes to receive and file this in the FMC committee moving to open forum. When I call your name, approach the podium. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hands so you're easily identified. David Boatwright, Miss Asada, Derek Barnes, and Kevin Dolly.

One minute, madam clerk, please. Thank you. The grand jury report on Oakland's budget problems means that no bonds for cities needs should be pursued. Oakland stopped using bonds because, this is the report, because of concerns about its ability to do so in its current financial condition. There's a structural deficit in the city.

All of this is from the report. I'm reading directly. The city's general purpose fund, the city council has disregarded the warnings. The sale of Voter approved infrastructural bonds will is not possible in in the short term, and it's not possible potentially in the long term to come. The city's ability to see bonds has been the result of negative ratings. From three different bond agencies, you've got negative ratings. So I don't know why you're doing it, and I'll see what your answer is in the grand jury report.

David Boatwright, District Four. The city website needs to be reviewed. There's some very incorrect information. For example, the committee chairperson's assignments include four chair members or council members that no longer on the council. And the emails for y'all are really suspect. I've talked to Sean Mayer and he said he would get it corrected, but after six months it hasn't been corrected. And there's probably other things that need to be reviewed. So if you all would ask whoever's responsible for the website to make a review of the basic information there. Thank you.

And that concludes your public speakers for open forum.

Thank you. This meeting is adjourned.