Finance & Management Committee - Regular Meeting

Online speaker requests were due yes twenty four hours prior to this meeting. Making that time yesterday at 09:30AM, the meeting came to order at 09:30. Speaker cards will no longer be accepted ten minutes after the meeting has began or if the item has been read into record, whichever comes first, making that time 09:40AM. With that, we will now proceed to take roll. Council member Brown?

Present.

Council member Unger? Here. Council member Wong? Here. And chair Roma Chandra?

Present.

We have four members present. And before we begin, chair, do you have any announcements for us today?

No announcements. Look looking forward to getting through our seven items, and I believe this is the last committee of the year. So looking forward to this being productive. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Yes. It is in the holiday spirit. We would start with our first item of the day, and that's approval of the draft minutes from the committee meetings that was held on 10/28/2025 and the special meeting that was held on 11/18/2025. And we do not have any speakers for this.

We'll entertain a motion.

I will move approval. Second.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Anger, seconded by council member Brown to accept the draft minutes of the committee meetings on 10/28/2025 and the special meeting on 11/18/2025. As is on roll, council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger? Aye. And councilmember Wong?

Aye.

And chair Womachandran? Aye. This motion passes with four ayes to accept the draft minutes of the committee meetings on October 28 and 11/18/2025 as is. Moving to item two. This is determination to schedule outstanding committee items. This is also known as your pending list. And we do have one speaker for this item.

Thank you. To the administration, any changes? Nothing at this time. Thank you. Okay. We can move to public speakers.

Thank you. Calling our public speakers miss Asada.

I'm calling for a report on the $400,000 that was allocated for the World Cup. The reason being that in July 2025, the Alameda City Council met and agreed to through the hotel transaction tax to fund a $150,000 for as a part of the $700,000. So you already had a $150,000 from the city of Alameda committed to the 700,000. And I'm gonna talk about this in open forum with more detail. But it looks like you took on the whole responsibility of funding for the World Cup, the $700,000, when it was written that Alameda County, the city of Alameda, the city of Berkeley, and the city of Oakland, along with the roots organization would be responsible for financing.

And that didn't happen. So I need a report on how we got to fully fund everything when the city of Alameda already funded in July a $150,000. So this trickology and this mismanagement that was identified and the grand jury reporting is this is one example. So we need a report on how we got to take the full responsibility for funding this.

Thank you for your comment miss Lassada. And that concludes your public speakers for item two.

Alright. I will move the item.

I'll second that. Thank you. We have a

motion made by chair Roma Chandra and seconded by council member Unger to accept the termination of scheduled outstanding committee items as is on roll. Council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And Chair Roma Chondren? Aye. This motion passes with four ayes to accept the termination of scheduled outstanding committee items as is, also known as your pending list. Moving to item three, receive an informational report on the city auditor, on the audit of Kids First Oakland Children's Fund for fiscal year 2018 through 2019 through fiscal year twenty three through '24, and you do have two speakers for this item.

Thank you if the city auditor is here to present we will hear you. Thank you. And, auditor Houston, will six to eight minutes be sufficient for your presentation?

I could try. Okay. So, good morning committee members, staff, and members of the public. Michael C. Houston, the city auditor.

I'm here to present the results of our audit of the Kids First Fund for children and youth. Okay, so I will skip that slide and introduce the audit team. It consists of Assistant City Auditor Eduardo Luna, Performance Audit Manager Stephanie Noble, who is here with me today, and senior performance auditor Mark Karnes. Our audit objective is established by the Kids First Oakland Fund for Children and Youth Act, which voters first passed in 1996, and is codified in section 1,300 of the city charter. The objectives of the audit were to verify that the city correctly calculated and set aside the appropriate amounts to the Kids First Fund as required by the Kids First Oakland Fund for Children and Youth Act.

And to verify that the city met the baseline spending requirements. And, I'll more fully explain these requirements shortly. The city auditor's office is meant to review the set aside for the Kids First Fund and minimum spending requirements every year. But the previous city auditor did not keep up with the annual audit requirement due to competing priorities and limited resources in the city auditor's office. So, to become current on the audit requirements, this audit report covers fiscal years eighteen-nineteen, nineteen-twenty, 2021, twenty one-twenty two, twenty two-twenty three and twenty three-twenty four.

We issued this audit report on November 6, but that was actually a reissuance of an audit report that we issued back on 04/03/2025. The 04/03/2025 audit report had the same general findings and recommendations, but with a much larger impact to the city's general purpose fund and the Kids First Fund. Shortly after April 3, we internally identified a potential error stemming from the scope of the audit, and we pulled it from our website, replaced it with a notice stating that it had been pulled, and notified the original recipients of the report, which advised recipients including members of this committee, that we were determining whether to perform additional audit work. We ended up performing additional audit work, and confirmed that we had made an error in initial, initially released audit report, and made changes outlined in the errata section on page seven. In summary, the audit report that we initially published mischaracterized some 2,018, 19 transactions as errors instead of late true up transfers for periods as far back as fiscal year twelve, thirteen.

So, our office, we follow government auditing standards which requires us to pull reports and correct them when needed, and publish changes. We strive to report results accurately, and we publicly acknowledge and correct our errors when the circumstances warrant it. So, thank you for your patience and understanding. So, a little bit of background. The Kids First Fund was established by the Oakland The Kids First Oakland Fund for Children and Youth Act, which originated from Measure K, which Oakland voters passed in 1996.

The act was reauthorized and extended for an additional twelve years effective 07/01/2021 through 06/30/2033. Our audit tested the city's compliance with two separate requirements outlined in the Kids First Oakland Fund for Children and Youth Act. The left shows the set aside requirement based on unrestricted general purpose fund revenues. Each year, the city must set aside 3% of its actual unrestricted general purpose fund revenues and designate it to the Kids First Fund. This is a restricted fund for the sole purpose of supporting children and youth services as outlined in section 13 o one in the city charter.

Money cannot be used for services that only incidentally benefit youth. The human services department manages the Kids First Fund by awarding grants to nonprofits to Oakland Unified School District or other agencies that provide programs for children and youth. Errors in calculation for a fiscal year shall be corrected by the adjustment in the set aside depending upon whether the actual unrestricted general purpose fund revenues are greater or less than the estimate. The greater or less underscores that the 3% set aside must be exact, not 2.99, not 3.01. And, there's a spending requirement as well.

This is shown on the right. The act requires the city to spend an amount at least equal to 5.35% of the city's actual general purpose fund expenditures on services for children and youth. Specifically, this minimum expenditure requirement is for sources outside of the Kids First Fund. Expenditures that can be counted toward the baseline spending requirement include programs such as Head Start, internships, mentoring, and after school recreational activities. The 5.35 represents the level of spending spent on children and youth services back in fiscal year nineteen ninety five, ninety six when the act was initially passed.

Importantly, this spending requirement is for funds other than the Kids First Fund, but not necessarily the general purpose fund. Because set aside and baseline spending requirements are to be based on actual revenues and expenditures, the finance department makes initial estimates each budget cycle and then makes adjustments following the close of the fiscal year when the city has information about actual amounts as confirmed by the city's audited financial statements. Adjustments then appear in the following year's budget, two years after the initial estimate. As an example, we are in fiscal year twenty five-twenty six, staff began preparing the fiscal year twenty five-twenty six budget in the spring and issued a biannual budget covering this fiscal year in June 2025 at the end of fiscal year twenty four-twenty five. For the twenty five-twenty six budget, the administration projected what revenues it had anticipated receiving by July 2026.

Based on that estimate, the staff then set aside 3% of the anticipated unrestricted general purpose revenues. Staff will not know how much money the city actually earns in unrestricted general purpose revenues until after the fiscal year closes. Usually, happens a few months after fiscal year end, then the city's when the city's books are audited, wherein there may be adjustments in advance of the release of the annual comprehensive financial report.

Auditor Houston Sorry. Is another five four and a half minutes okay?

Yeah. I could be that was probably the chunkiest slide.

Okay. Okay.

Sorry. We just have it's our last meeting And of the

the summary is it's a long process. Right? Lots of steps. So, found the audit found the city did not always meet the 3% set aside requirement. Over the six year audit scope, the city overpaid the fund in three years and underpaid the fund in three years.

The adjustments made did not match the amounts owed based on our calculation. Based on the requirements of the law, to correct for the cumulative differences, we recommend that the Budget Bureau make a one time adjustment from the Kids First Fund back into the general purpose fund. This is appendix b, which shows the two year adjustment cycle that I was just explaining. It's extended out because the scope of our audit beginning in 1819 actually had some late adjustments dating back to 02/1314. So, basically just kind of details, won't get in, I won't try to explain it, it's in Appendix B of the audit report, but it does show like the historical true ups or adjustments made of transfers between the Kids First Fund and the General Purpose Fund.

The bottom right corner shows $203,973 which was the amount of transfers that the general purpose fund is owed based on the six year audit scope. The act is complex. It applies to multiple funds, requires estimates and adjustments based actuals and timing necessarily results in adjustments in subsequent years to ensure compliance. And also requires ongoing legal interpretation to determine which revenues should be restricted. Staff have drafted guidance which director Johnson included in the response to the report.

We recommend that the finance department consult with the city attorney's office to finalize and adopt formal guidance and document the methodology for future reference. The audit also found that the city met or exceeded the baseline spending requirement for the period reviewed. Again, the city's required by the act to spend an amount equivalent to or greater than 5.35%. The city met or exceeded the baseline for all the fiscal years. It cleared the requirement by as low as $571,000 in twenty one-twenty two, and as high as $29,300,000 in twenty three-twenty four.

The 5.35 is at least, it's not exact like the three point zero set aside. So that takes us to recommendations. First, that the finance department should finalize and adopt formal guidance for adjusting set asides, calculating baseline spending on eligible expenses, defining the timing of true ups for the two year adjustment cycle and validating interpretations of restricted general purpose fund revenues. And then we recommend that there be transfer made to correct for the pass over and underpayments between 1819 and 2324. And, that this one time correction is documented for future reference.

The administration agreed with the recommendations and their formal response and implementation plan are included at the end of the audit report. This audit report, with all of our others, is posted on our website. This is our contact tree link that takes you to all our various sites and platforms. I'd like to thank the staff from the Human Service department, the finance department, the city attorney's office, and the city administrator's office for the insight and cooperation throughout this audit. And, thank you members of the committee for your time.

Thank you. Colleagues, questions? Council member.

This sort of, percentage based budgeting strikes me as trying to meet a moving target because the amounts of revenues are changing year to year. Can I ask you to pull back a little bit and tell me your opinion of this general theory of percentage based budgeting and whether it's a good idea for us?

Very interesting question, council member. Yeah. It well and I'm it's interest by I have a lot of feelings on this because we just audited this. And it's as you can tell from my really verbose explanations, first of all, it is really complicated. So when you have those kinds of specific percentages, it's really taxing on the organization.

Right? And, you know, it's for the last as many budget cycles as I can remember, we're looking for every penny. Right? So when you have something that's fixed, particularly if it affects like this supposed unrestricted general purpose fund, that could be, you know, they could limit the city council and the city administration's ability to consider where it needs to make difficult decisions. Right?

That said, this is up, you know, this is something that can be amended. It has on two previous occasion in 2008 and 2009. And the city council actually just renewed it for 2123. But it could be amended with the by taking it to the voters. All that said, it's something that it wasn't just it didn't just materialize. It came from something. So, this was a policy decision that was made back in the day.

Is it typical of other cities?

I I haven't seen anything like this.

You. You.

Council Member Wong.

Thanks. Through the chair. I just following up on my colleague's questions, I'm just curious if too since many of these funds are being then given to nonprofit organizations to deliver services for children and youth, does this type of model create uncertainty for them? Like when we have corrections for overpayments or underpayments, does this have impacts on the providers or is that, do we have methodologies within the finance department that ensures that the providers are not feeling the impacts of our miscalculations?

Yeah. I think that's a good question councilmember. Thank you. I think the people who question would be the OFCY staff at Human Services because but what you said makes sense to me. And I know we worked closely with them through the audit process and I know that they were awaiting the results of our audit. But I don't wanna speculate or speak on their behalf.

Okay. No worries. And then just my other question is for exhibit two, you had noted that 2023 to 2024, there was the high of spending of 29,300,000.0. Do you all know what in excess of that bar that you have on the chart what that money was spent on?

Yes. So that was attributed $29,300,000 over the requirement Mhmm. Was due to the infusion of funds from the Oakland Children's Initiative, measure AA, passed in 2018. So for operational uses, it started in 2223. So that's when we first started seeing that Measure AA funds hit in 2223. And you could see how much more money was spent.

Right. Okay.

Alright. That's the end of my questioning. Thank you.

Councilman Brown.

Yep. Thank you so much to the auditor's office and team, for the follow-up report. I know I had the opportunity to meet with, you and the team a couple of times. So most of my questions have been answered. I did have a question similar to council member Wong around impacts to any of the youth serving organizations and so I'll just ask, I'll follow-up with OFCY on that and then I guess for this item, is this just a motion to receive and file?

I defer to the city auditor's office but I don't see a requirement in the charter that this go to the full council. So the preference of staff and the committee.

We're happy to present everywhere, but these are two recommendations focused to the finance department.

So.

Okay. Do you have

My preference.

Okay. I'd like it to go on consent to the next council meeting.

Okay. So I'll make that motion. I believe that that is the Tuesday, December 16 city council meeting.

And I'll second that. I have two questions. Firstly, thank you for the report and for clarifying the differences between the original report presented. I have two questions. I don't know if that's more for you or administration. But so the $204,000 that you're recommending goes back to the general fund. Has that already happened as a one time fund, one time transfer? I mean, I know it is already in the general fund, but in the from the Kids First bucket to otherwise.

I I think I should defer to our finance director, mister Johnson.

It'll be reflected in 2627 true up.

Okay. Thank you. And then I'm looking at the table you presented that's also in the report on page four when it comes to the spending. I realize that this is a very convoluted formula and definitely upon expiry, I think, warrants some revisiting about how we structure this. But the I'm I'm curious as to why there was significant overspending in the last fiscal year in in 2324 compared to the other years. I mean, if 40 something million dollars is what we were required, we spent over 70 something million. Do you have an explanation or understanding of why the departments chose that?

Yeah. Council member, it's the measure AA funding that hit beginning fiscal year twenty two-twenty three. Which, yeah, that's a parcel tax. Might hand the microphone to performance owner manager Stephanie Noble. Who works on this.

Thank you for the question council member. Yeah. So it is measure AA. The spending requirement, unlike the set aside requirement, is for all funds outside of the Kids First Fund. So when there are new sources of revenue that are dedicated to spending for children and youth that then goes towards that spending requirement, you'll note that we had the general purpose fund separate from that. So that was the infusion of new revenues directed towards kids spending.

We could completely eliminate the amount of money coming from the general fund if measure a funds fill that gap in the next few years?

I would also direct that to our Yeah. Finance director.

Thank you. Brett Johnson, director of finance. So the 5% 5.35% baseline spending requirement is across all services for youth. So the fact that we're over that spending requirement due to the infusion of AA funds doesn't mean that general fund support for things like Head Start or parks is like not what we're using the resource for. We are over that baseline spending requirement because of AA existing, but it does not mean that because AA exists, you don't have a service demand for the other services that come out of the general fund.

So it's a service question. We wouldn't violate the charter requirements if we were to for instance reduce spending on Parks and Recreation or Head Start because of AA. So we wouldn't violate the charter requirements, you would still have the service impact from that. And that's distinct, as I think the auditor was saying, from the baseline spending requirement is distinct from the 3% set aside, which is not above a number. It's exactly a 3% number, which is why you have the $200,000 adjustment. So that's a precise number versus a minimum. And so we can be as far above the minimum as we want provided it's the right basket of services within the restrictions of funds, but the 3% is supposed to be exactly the 3% and then trued up.

Thank you.

And just for clarification, measure AA also has non supplementation requirements. So the interplay between the two measures is more complicated than it might seem.

Got it. So for example, measure A cannot fund Head Start, is that correct?

The language of measure AA is specific but it generally has non supplantation for prior allocated spending. It is allowed to supplant funding that is lost from external sources. So specifics on head start are more complicated, but there is a general prohibition on non supplantation of AA funds that the finance director can also weigh on.

Accurate statement. These are all, I think to the point that council member Unger was bringing up earlier, all of our ballot measures, this measure AA interact with one another. So they're complex because it's not just one and then the other. There's these interactions that we have to measure and ensure we're meeting all of the requirements sort of collectively and together along with the service needs and demands and policy priorities that this body sets.

Okay, thank you. If there are no other questions, we will move to public comment.

When I call your name, please approach to podium. You do have two minutes, Mr. David Boatwright and Ms. Esada.

David Boatwright, District 4. This audit obviously covers important and necessary funding by the city. However, it only addresses obligations and doesn't comment on the specifics of how the money was spent and who benefited. I would think that when an average of $67,000,000 per year is spent that it would be important to say how the funds were administered, that is who received how much in grants and what the grants were spent for and what groups benefited or if they were not all grants then the same information for the administering entities involved. Also, how much of the funds were spent for administrative and other things the youth did not directly benefit from.

This type accounting should be done for all grants and significant funding for all city spending for all benefiting groups who deserve to get the maximum benefit from such funding. I hope the city will require such record keeping when any future funding is authorized. As for the future city measures, the requirement for similar accounting needs to be very explicit as without that, the city auditor has less compelling reasons to perform thorough audits. Another thing is when you put the the the comments on this, you can't see all the exhibits. So it's cutting off the bottom portion of the of the information and it would help if Keytop could do something to move those, that translation to some other place.

One clarification.

Intent to

not have any heat in this meeting all day because I'm getting sick in here. Somebody needs to answer that question.

I don't know the answer. It could

Okay. We need some heat.

I heat would as well. It's freezing. We'll talk to facilities to make sure the room is at an appropriate temperature.

First and foremost, I need to thank the auditor for a very thorough report. I'm concerned that we have not done a collaborative working with the OUSD budget issue. And what we should be doing is look at what they're gonna have to do in terms of elimination of services and resources and back up if we can using kids first funding for things like after school programs. That's how you work and that's how it should be done, but I don't know if you all are going to do that. But pay attention to the budget tomorrow to see if we can use Kid First money to cover anything that they had to eliminate.

It says in the report that you did not always meet the set aside requirements. It says in the report that the Budget Bureau's corrections were not always accurate. It says in the report that the Budget Bureau provided partial documentation, not full documentation. It says in the report that the city staff expressed some uncertainty relating to Kids First requirements. And the most important thing in my from my point of view is that you need to create policies and procedures for cultivating the kids first set asides.

So I wasn't paying attention because I'm over there freezing to death, which you said, but I hope some of these areas were covered in the recommendation about policies and procedures and some of the missing components as far as what has happened. And lastly, I cannot see how we have the managing of the money coming from the Human Services Department when we haven't had a Human Service Director. And we put the former employee who works in workforce and economic development in human services to run the

Thank you for your comment, miss Asada. That concludes your public speakers for item three. We do have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council chair, Ramachandra, to receive and forward this to the December 16 city council agenda, and that is on consent. On roll, council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger?

Aye.

Council member Wang? Aye. And chair, Ramachandran? Aye. This motion passes with four ayes to receive and forward this item to the December 16 city council agenda, and that is on consent.

Moving to item four, adopt the following pieces of legislation. One, a resolution recommending the civil service board of exemption of the classification of payroll administrator from operation of civil service. Two, a resolution recommending the Civil Service Board to exemption of the classification of a procurement of contracts administrator from the operation of civil service, and three, an ordinance amending the salary schedule ordinance number one two one eight seven. Two a, full time classification of payroll administrator. B, full time classification of procurement and contracts administrator, c, amend the salary of full time classification of park equipment operator, and d, to amend the salary of part time classification of senior aid part time insurer compliance and with the city Oakland's minimum wage ordinance.

And you do have one speaker for this item.

Alright. Go ahead.

Morning, J. R. R. Chandran, Janie Kixon, principal HR analyst for human resources management. The item before you today is a routine maintenance action for the city's classification plan.

Human resources management brings items like this before you approximately two to three times per year. And these items usually result in creating new classifications or making amendments to existing classifications. I'd like to cover the items in reverse. I'll go ahead and start, excuse me, I'll start with the increase to the temporary part time senior aid classification. This adjustment will bring the salary rate into alignment with the new minimum wage ordinance that the rate that's taking effect for calendar year 2026.

HRM performs an analysis each year once we've been provided with the new minimum wage ordinance rate and we determine if there are any classifications that need to have their salary rates amended. In this case the only classification that requires an adjustment this year is senior aid. The new rate is $17.34 per hour and this reflects an increase of $0.45 over calendar year 2025 per hour. Regarding the park equipment operator classification, we recommending a change to the salary to bring it into alignment with other similarly situated classifications in the city. The Oakland Public Works Department purchased new equipment and it has resulted in a change to the gross vehicle weight rating as regulated by the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The new equipment exceeds the Class B requirements for commercial driver's licenses. Therefore, we needed to adjust the qualifications for the classification to bring them into alignment with the Class commercial driver's license requirements. Given these new requirements, we are going to align this classification with the pay rate of other similarly situated classifications that require license. This will ensure proper compensation for the necessary qualifications and ensure compliance with DMV regulations. Lastly, we are proposing the creation of two new administrator positions within the finance department.

There are two new bureaus being created to house payroll operations and procurement and contracts operations. Because we are creating these new bureaus, we need to create new bureau head positions. We are proposing the creation of a payroll administrator and a procurement and contracts administrator. These classifications will align with the pay rate of existing bureau head classifications that already exist in the finance department. This includes the controller, the treasury administrator, the revenue and tax administrator, and the budget administrator.

Advancing the exemption resolutions to the civil service board will ensure that these classifications are properly allocated in the city's classification plan. Per section 9.02 f of the city charter, these classifications are recommended for exemption based on their position in the organization, their scope of authority and responsibility, their independence of action, and their consequence of error. Staff recommends advancing these different pieces of legislation to the full council. I am available to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. I will start with a question. I don't have a problem with increasing any of these specific roles ever so slightly. I do have a question about the senior aide position. What what does that position do?

Through the chair. They provide light clerical support. It is for senior citizens seeking to remain in the workforce, and that is the exact kind of part time work that they're providing.

Thank you. I know we have a recruitment issue in the city of Oakland for a lot of positions and find it very concerning that we're recruiting at pretty much exactly minimum wage. And to me, this is the same problem in Head Start and other positions. When you can make far more money per hour working in fast food or anything else, why would you do a strenuous but important job of working with either our youth or seniors? Would you contemplate raising that from what you're proposing here to even a little higher? Because it just seems patently unfair that we won't get a qualified set of applicants with the rate so low.

Through the chair, if I may respond. We are aware of various salary concerns throughout the city and our pay structure and this is information again that's not new to us. We would have to contemplate a salary survey to look at the external market. We'd also have to work closely with HRM administration and the budget bureau to determine if this is something that would be within our means to propose changes in the future.

Thank you. And would you be able to do that by the next finance committee meeting, even if it's just slightly more? But, I think it's gonna be very difficult to support and if this is a position that's gonna be proactively recruited, because I also know we have lots of positions that just fall by the wayside in HR and don't have the time to actually be recruited. But if we're actively trying to recruit for this position, I think it's gonna be really hard to get qualified people to do it for something so low. So is it possible to bring this back to the next finance committee meeting with the slightly even ever so slightly higher salary?

If I may enlist assistance from my HR director, Mary Howe, or the finance director in terms of next steps.

Good morning finance committee members. This is Mary Howe from the HR department. So I think that this is a representative classification and if so then that would be subject to collective bargaining. So I think that yes. We wouldn't be able to we could probably talk about ways that we can possibly survey for this classification by the next meeting, but we wouldn't have any results to report back. And again, if it's a representative classification, would all be subject to collective bargaining for any additional wage increases. But we are trying to meet the city's minimum wage ordinance with this.

Thank you. And how long would that take? Which one? The collective bargaining process for this

Well, one

we are open with all of our contracts with all six groups. Their MOUs expire on 06/30/2026. So it would be rolled into that process as we talk about wages.

Okay. Well, is it possible to bifurcate this position and vote on the others that are not even anywhere near minimum wage so that could that item can come back early next year sometime?

I mean, sir I'm I'm sorry. I guess I I'm not quite understanding how does that how would you contemplate having the item come back?

The same resolution but just the one position that requires bargaining to raise the to raise the salary?

Well, we recommend that we definitely not violate the city's minimum wage ordinance by moving it up now. And any future increases, we recommend that it be subject to the entire bargaining process.

Okay. So another question I have. Realistically, are you gonna be advertising this position on the website anytime soon? Because if it's gonna take another year for this to go on the list of priorities, well, there's time to increase the salary. But I I I just think it's not fair as a city to be putting out important public facing service positions saying that we're advertising it at minimum wage or barely above. Oh,

it's another one. So I was just informed that we have four incumbents. So this is not necessarily for recruitment purposes, but this is to make sure the incumbent's rate of pay keeps pace with the city's ordinance.

So we're currently paying people below minimum wage?

Because they've because the city's minimum wage ordinance will adjust in 2026. This is to make sure that it is effective 01/01/2026.

So right now, as we're contemplating this, can we increase that to from $17 to $19, for example?

We recommend that that be surveyed before we take any sort of unilateral action. And I was just informed, so I correct my earlier statement, this is an unre unrepresented classification, so not subject to collective bargaining, but we still recommend that it be reviewed as part of a salary survey process which is consistent with how we adjust other classification wages.

Thank you. And I'm I will hear from my colleagues in a minute, but since we have the power to do this as this is not a represented position, my personal preference is to move that number from 17 to 20. I find it highly unlikely that that alone is gonna create a significant budgetary impact. But we do need to recruit quality people for these positions and pay those who are doing these important jobs well. But I will hear from my other colleagues. Councilmember Ankur.

Yeah. On that age position, I doubt whether they're repped or unreped, I doubt you'll receive any pushback from the incumbents or the bargaining units on raising their wage. You know, in the report that you state that there is a restructuring of payroll going on to centralized payroll. Has the city noticed the affected unions of the intent to restructure and centralize?

So this action occurred I think with the mid cycle adjustment for twenty fourtwenty five. Is that correct, Finance Director Johnson? Okay. So it's already been in the budget, but in terms of actually effectuating the process. So Local twenty one, for example, is the largest affected group and they aware. But they've been waiting on the city to come up with a plan because in order to meet and confer in good faith, we would have to describe how the centralization process would work.

So is it your intent to create the position before a meet and confer process about what the position would entail and whether it would take jobs away from represented units?

We are not taking there is a current excuse me, payroll manager in place. This is to upgrade that incumbent's classification. It's also unrepresented because we need to create the structure in order to kind of bring in all of the decentralized payroll functions.

But you're creating two new positions, right, in No, just one. I'm sorry, one at an unwrapped management role.

Is currently an unwrapped management role and we are changing it from a manager to an administrator to be on par with the other bureaus in the finance department.

Will this change anything about the working conditions of other payroll people who are represented?

No. This just affects that that administrator position.

But you have not done any meet and confer with Local twenty one above?

We have not because the finance department is still in the process of creating the structure in order to bring in all of decentralized processes.

It feels a little bit like putting the cart before the horse to me. Think we need to if we're gonna be restructuring central payroll, I feel like that is something that the bargaining units need to have some meat and confer over.

Disagree on that. I disagree on that. I don't think that, I think how we structure our operations as a management right. I think that the effects of the centralization of payroll would be based on reporting structure, work location, work hours, work schedules, etcetera. Those would be the things that would be within the realm of our meet and confer obligations, not about the structure itself within payroll. Payroll, this is a management structure. So we are trying to create the capacity in order to bring in the payroll functions.

But with the centralization, people would be moving from department. You'd have like maybe a police payroll person who would be moving to central or a fire or

HR? For example, yes.

And that's the changing of people from one department to another is not something that should be met and conferred over?

That's exactly what I just described. So in order to bring those would be the impacts that we would be discussing in meet and confer.

Okay.

But right now we are creating the structure and the capacity because in the existing structure right now it would be one payroll manager overseeing 30 or 40 payroll representatives and that does not work. So we are creating the necessary hierarchy in order to welcome in those staff.

Okay. I think it's the wrong order but I appreciate your discussion.

Okay, thank you.

Colleagues, other questions, comments?

Compliance with the minimum wage ordinance, is this the only position that or are there other positions in the city that are poised to also we need to bring into compliance in 2026?

This is the only one and I think this is also consistent with the item that we brought before this council or and also this group last year, this committee last year. This is an annual adjustment that we bring to you pretty much. So, this is not new.

And can you also elaborate on why is it important to do the market survey instead of, I mean I think council member Ramachandran's request seems reasonable to do a minor adjustment that could be meaningful. So what would the market surveys purpose serve?

So through the chair, I think doing a market survey before we adjust wages is a consistent practice. We want to make sure that we are keeping pace with our neighbors, with our competitors. And sometimes we don't find comparable classifications in which case then we would have to make certain decisions about how to adjust this appropriately. But I think that we just recommend that we be consistent and not take this out of an ordinary process that we undertake for all classifications.

Okay. And so just to be clear, so this is the only position that then consistently each year is at the bottom of the minimum, basically at our minimum wage and needs to be adjusted each year

or is it It is at

or close to minimum wage and it's affected by the annual adjustment to the city's ordinance.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I have a question to the finance department. If we bring this back to the next finance committee meeting at the start of the year, I wanted to I know that we can do retroactive wage increases. And can I clarify that that could happen if we passed this early next year?

Could we retroactively increase the salary actually, I think we technically can. I would look to HR as to whether or not that is sanguine under our legal set with But there's no reason we couldn't do a retro payment in terms of technically perpetuating it.

Okay. So retroactive to what date?

I think, yeah, think what the chair is asking is if we were to pass this ordinance as is right now and then they were to retroactively increase the salary for the job classification, could it be retroactive to January 1 and then us permit a retro pay? We can do that technically. I don't know if there's some other HR principle or rule we'd be violating in that but technically we can handle it.

Okay thank you. Any other Councilman Brown.

Excellent. Really appreciate the dialogue that we've been having. I guess I have a couple questions and or comments so through the chair to our finance director. I guess I'm curious what type of precedent we would be setting if for example for this you know singular position we were to because I definitely agree we should be paying livable wages but if for the singular position we decided to switch it to $25 an hour how does that come into play with maybe any of the other positions that are probably at that 17 you know close to that $17.34 wage?

I mean I would concur with our HR director that the best practice is to do a market survey and go through that process. I would note that the senior aid positions are considered to be part of a program by which we're employing people that are at retirement age to come in and work. They're not sort of a normal job class with the city and that's why they've been closer to the minimum wage line. It originally started with the federal assets program. That's the sort of the origin of this space, which is a federal program to get seniors who want to earn extra income into the workforce and that we're a participant in that.

So it's a little bit different from a lot of the job classes. That's why it's a non represented position as opposed to it being a normal sort of represented and recruited for classification. It's not a best practice, as our HR director said. But it is unrepped. So it is not, we don't have the same vulnerability we would have if this was a represented job classification.

I see. And then when was the last time that we actually completed a salary survey of you know some of the positions within the city to ensure that we are you know I guess paying a livable wage and I hear you Director Howe in saying that you know this is the only position that you know we're trying to get folks up to speed on but I feel like maybe an ask that I have is to have that verified, verified, right? To make sure that you know genuinely this isn't the only one.

Through the chair to council member Brown certainly we can do a second verification but this is the classification that we bring to this committee on an annual basis to adjust because it is the one classification that is right there at the minimum wage mark. And thank you for the history Director Johnson. And in terms of when we conduct salary surveys, we generally conduct surveys of our benchmark classifications when they are being affected by successor negotiations. So, we do work with internal staff as well as our external contractors to conduct that salary survey because this is a very arduous, it's a very comprehensive survey look.

Yeah, I imagine so. I guess like I'm thinking about you know I guess yeah last year I was working in the the state legislature and they went through a whole change around their salary especially like entry level staff and working to bring everyone up to like livable wages and so I you know I guess I'm curious as we approach the mid cycle what does it look like to actually begin such a survey within the city of Oakland so that we are actually bringing folks up into you know more of a what we genuinely think is a livable wage kind of based on the number that you know council member Ramachandran threw out there. But I feel like we would want to at least have that verified.

So if I may seek clarification what is considered I mean I guess what number are we targeting as a livable wage? Because So for a lot of our entry level classifications they are represented and they're represented most likely by SEIU. And so if that's the case then that would be part of an entire bargaining strategy that we would be bringing before your counsel. But we have yet to develop that strategy and so if that is something you seek for us to consider we can certainly add that to the calculus.

I see. I guess you know to the chair in this moment I recognize that you know staff is telling us that you know this is the singular position that we need to ensure kind of meets the 20 Oakland standard for 2026 as far as minimum wage. But I guess to the chair you know is is there an action that potentially we could take we would want to take as far as like a report or a report back on something more specific to really try to you know have more of an analysis on how we should be increasing like the wages versus it just being singular for just one position?

Yeah. No. I I appreciate everything that's been said. I think that we absolutely need a comprehensive salary survey, but it doesn't really take that much to say we're increasing the salary from $17 to $20. I don't think we need a survey to do that because $20 is not a per hour is not a living wage.

$25 per hour is hardly a living wage. I think in the upcoming budget cycle, we should address all of the positions that make under $20 an hour and at least standardize it to 20 or something something above close to minimum wage. But because we have this in front of us, my understanding is this is an ordinance that already requires two readings. So once this goes this passes, we'll already be into the new year. So I don't think there's a since we're already going into 2026 timeline, I am open to this coming back to the next finance committee and then having its two readings since we're already missing the mark for the end of this year.

If that gives you more time to increase it to $20 an hour for this specific position, or I'm happy to move ahead and make that amendment today, and then we can also reassess in the upcoming budget cycle what all positions make under $20 an hour.

So, chair Ramachandran, it is our recommendation that this move forward today so that we can ensure that we keep pace with minimum the minimum wage ordinance that's effective 01/01/2026. And, and I think that in order to afford staff adequate time, to look into this matter, we recommend coming back to the finance committee in January.

So then my recommendation will be today, we move forward with in with increasing that specific role to $20 an hour. And then early next year, we can request a report for all the other positions that make under $20 so we can standardize that and identify which of those positions need to go into bargaining.

Yeah. I would say my concern with doing I I get that, overall, we practice to do these surveys but when these are such, when they're low wage jobs and we're slightly increasing the salary, I mean what is the cost of doing a survey? Do we wind up spending more on studying the issue when it could literally the cost of conducting the survey overrides the cost of just raising somebody's salary, you know, I think. So with that I'll second the amendment. But I think sometimes we just have these trade offs and especially for the lower wage jobs. But just out of curiosity, how much does it cost to carry out a survey? So through the

chair to council member Huang, would be staff, our internal staff conducting the survey. So, are already being paid for our work. So, we would be doing that. And, I think the other thing too is that we don't generally, when we look at salary increases, we look at salary increases as it affects the entire organizational structure. And so to sometimes pluck out unique classifications and increase their salaries, there's a compaction issue that could occur.

And so going upwards because we have built in structures that say you're maybe the person, the classification that supervises you. If we bump you up then we have to bump up that your supervisor and your supervisor's supervisor and on up the chain in order to mean a certain percentage cushion that is within best practice as well. And so I think that that is the other reason why we recommend a salary survey to determine this, but certainly we defer to your committee if if you seek to do a different action.

Okay. Thank you.

Can you clarify what your second was to, council member? Okay. Thank you. So I will clarify my amendment. That is in the legislation to the legislation specific to part three of the rules that are being the salary schedules that are being amendments, section five.

The following classification is amended as of 01/01/2026 in ordinance number one two one eight seven, CMS in unit u j one point seven five point zero zero one pay grade table to read as follows, senior aide PT class p p one four two. The minimum moving currently reads as moving from 16.89 to 17.34, and my amendment is from moving to 16.89 to 20.

And do we have public comment?

Moving to our public speaker, miss Asada.

So this discussion on the minimum wage. The minimum wage for persons who work in the fast food industry in California is 25. The minimum wage for Oakland's hotel employees is $18.36 per hour if you provide health benefits. If you don't provide health benefits, it is $24.48 per hour. And California State law minimum wage for health care employees is $25 per hour.

So our minimum wage is really below what it should be, very much so. So thank you for bringing the point up, but we got to work to get it better than what it is. I know OUSD's minimum wage for staff who work in custodial is $17 per hour. Lastly, I want to thank Ms. Wong, your assistant, Mr.

Michael. He's a very intelligent, effective individual. I had the honor of having a conversation with him, and you're blessed to have him in your office. Okay. Thank you.

Also, to clarify, thank you to Building Services for turning the heat on. I know the room's already getting warmer.

Thank you. We have a motion made by have a motion made by chair Ramachandra, seconded by council member Wong to approve the to approve as amended the recommendations of staff and to forward all pieces of legislation to the December 16 city council agenda and that is on consent.

Consent. Yeah. Council member Brown.

And so I just, really quick question. So I just wanted to double check, will we be moving forward with an expedited salary survey or what is the status of that because I think I'm still insistent on I think in this moment we are working to change one single position and my concern is ensuring that we are, you know, taking care of everyone that would fall under this umbrella.

I my plan is and I'm happy to work on with you on this, is to bring a request for an informational report and schedule it the fur at the first rules committee of next year to conduct a survey of how many of what all classifications make under $25 an hour, which of those positions are represented and require bargaining, which of them don't, and see if an expedited salary survey can be done specifically to those positions that make under $25 an hour.

Okay. That sounds good. And then council member Anker.

I'd prefer to go to non consent so we can address the labor concerns that I have.

Thank you. I'll restate the motion. We have a motion made by chair Roma Chandra and seconded by council member Wong to approve as amended the recommendations of staff and to forward all pieces of legislation to the December 16 city council agenda on nonconsent with the amendments made to the third piece of legislation, which is the ordinance with the amendments as follows to page two, section five, raising the rate to $16.89 to $20.20 dollars. And with that, on roll, council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Ramachandran?

Aye.

The motion passes with four ayes. To approve as amended, the recommendation is a staff and to forward all pieces of legislation to the December 16 city council agenda on nonconsent with the amendments as stated earlier to the third piece of legislation, which is the ordinance. And we do have staff for comment.

Yes, I'm sorry. If I may, to the extent that we may be discussed, this may be part of labor strategy. I request that this matter actually be addressed in closed session versus in a public session. So please place that under consideration for future discussions about wages for represented classifications.

Thank you.

You. We are now moving to item five. Adopt a resolution waiving the competitive multistep solicitation process for IT contracts and local local small local business enterprise program requirements and authorizing the city administrator to execute a five year professional service agreement with HDL software in the amount not to exceed 1,670,000 for the provision of technical support, ongoing maintenance, and software upgrades for local tax software solution and printing mailing service. And you do have one speaker.

Good morning, committee members. My name is Hewie Dang. Thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today. So before you this morning is staff recommendation that will allow the department to end the current software contract with a company called HDL Software LLC one year early and into a new five year agreement starting next month and ending in January 2031. There are a couple of reasons for this and they basically have to do with the need to integrate the current caching system that Citi implementing is currently implementing and there's a need to do that in 2026.

So, we definitely need to do that with the current software that we have. And of course, due to the current contract expiring by January 2027, we would then need to basically incur additional costs if we were to go out and solicit for a new software contract, not only the cost to integrate the software, but we're also going to be incurring costs to basically redo the entire system from the scratch. So, that's the reason why the staff is making the recommendation to you to simply allow us to end the current contract and into a new contract starting in January 26 with a five year new contract. Obviously, there's a benefit to the city for doing this. HDL, the company that actually provide the software also benefit from as well.

Our staff clearly provided in the staff report. So, with that staff basically make it is requesting for two actions. First, we request that you waive the comparative bidding process and the local small local business enterprise program, given the uniqueness of the software that we have had since 2016. Second, you authorize the city administrator to execute a new contract for five years starting next month and ending in 2031. The total compensation including licensing, maintenance support, and of course, the printing and mailing services, the total five year contract is not to exceed $1,670,000.

With that, staff and I are having, our answer, already answer any questions that you might have. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And, I have had the opportunity to be briefed on this in more detail, and I appreciate your department's efforts to proactively see how we can extend a contract before it expires and to try to negotiate, you know, positive developments from the city. I know this there's a lot of aspects of this software that we can tap into to improve our efficiency, so I am supportive of this. Colleagues, any questions, comments?

Public comment?

Miss Asada?

This is a good thing when you can perceive that you can do better or you have a need for which this current contract doesn't provide. But are there any negative fiscal consequences when you end a contract you are not going answer me before the expiration date? If it's not a fiscal consequence, any consequence at all, and if that's the case. And then waiving the competitive bid process, you can guarantee that this vendor is the best vendor and no other vendor exists that can provide better services? Is that why you're waiving the process?

Would be my question, if you could answer it, but you can't. But thank you anyway. I'm still freezing over here, and I'm gonna say that all day. My hands are cold. Is anybody on the podium gonna do anything?

The I was told the heater was turned on. I'm feeling a little bit of heat, but perhaps not the level that both me and you would like it to be. That

concludes your public comment for item five.

Thank you. And just my comment about this is that I I do believe this company has the potential to do quite a bit to positively benefit the city of Oakland, and I've dug a little bit into what they can provide, what they provide other cities, and I think that this is a good opportunity for the city. And I will make a motion.

Second.

Thank you. We have a motion made by chair Ramachandran, seconded by council member Unger to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the December 16 city council agenda and that is on consent. On the roll, council member Brown. Aye. Councilmember Unger? Aye. Councilmember Wong?

I will vote aye, but I had a quick question I actually wanted to ask of the finance department on this item. So this is related to, in short, I'm dealing with a lot of nuisance businesses in District 2. This is related to human trafficking and all that. Brought this up a few times. Sorry.

What I've observed with just some of the issues like administratively in the city is that there's like, you know we've got Ricardo Salas who does some intake. We have you all who work on, we have a lot of unlicensed businesses too. They're just straight up unlicensed. We sent over that list to you so thank you for looking into that. But could this software, is it possible for us to have these integrations?

Because what I'm noticing is whether it's EWD, planning and building, OPD and the ABAT team and you all were all working on these fractured systems, People have their own spreadsheets and if there's a way for people to be, on the same page for these things to be integrated and flagged so we can shut down these nuisance businesses that are hotspots of trafficking and all types of other things.

To the committee, Nicole Welch, revenue and tax administrator, I would love a CRM database for the city. That is what if we're asking for all of our actual systems to talk to each other, we would be talking about an overhaul of what we do as far as the city. And that would be a customer customer relational management database where all of the individual systems would actually you would have one portal that you would walk into and you would actually look at that. As it stands right now, we do have a cooperation. We are setting up a tip line.

So that will be an actual thing that will be happening. I'm working with telecom to get that happening so that if people have tips of businesses that they are they suspect are not operating, they will be actually able to give a tip over, leave a voice mail, and we'll go from that point on. But we are actively in the field. We are actively looking at different businesses. We're looking at the data.

We will be sending out just an an FYI, 74,000 postcards to all parcel owners in Oakland, advising them that if they do, are renting out their location or anything like that, that they are required to have a business license. So the outreach is happening. The annuitant, as she loves me to call her, is actively educating. There will be billboards. So we are out there. We are going we're going to oversaturate Oakland letting them know that are required to have a business license.

Okay, wonderful. And this future CRM system, it should be accessible not just by the finance department but other departments It across the

it would be something that would be, it is not I I what I was saying is that ideally that is what you would have.

Right.

We do not have that. I'm not in IT. I don't know what the plan is on that one. So that is would be on a high level if you would like all of these individual systems to talk to each other, that would be something that would be, the best tool to have. I don't know if that's happening. I'm just giving you how it as and how it happens in other jurisdictions jurisdictions that that there there is is an an actual actual CRM, CRM. And that would be something that would be created, but it would not be initiated by finance.

Okay. Understood. Thanks for that helpful explanation.

Thank you. I know we do have to restart the vote. So if you have questions, please make sure we get them before the vote's called. And if for some reason I forget to recognize you and I don't see it on time, just flag me down or yell my name out loud, please, so I can make sure we get to everyone before the vote's called. I think we're now ready to vote.

Thank you, chair Ramachandra. We have a motion made by chair Ramachandra, seconded by council member Unger to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the December 16. City council agenda on consent on roll. Council member Brown? Aye. Council member Unger? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. I will unmute you once we do the vote. Thank you. And chair Ramachandran? Aye. Thank you. The motion passes with four ayes.

To approve the recommendation of staff and the fourth this item to December 16, city council agenda on consent. We are now at item six, Adopted Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency resolution approving the submission of recognized obligation of payment schedule and Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency administrative budget for July through 06/30/2027, and transmission of the both in the countywide oversight board, the Alameda County auditor controller, and the state department of finance for approval. And you do have two speakers for this item.

Alright. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Britney Hines. This is into the finance director. Before you today is our annual report for the redevelopment successor agencies, ROPS. This year, we have, as of 11/01/2025, there's 268,900,000.0 in total outstanding obligations with $33,800,000 in enforceable obligations through the end of fiscal year 2627.

I do wanna point out we will be we will be submitting a supplemental report to include one additional line item. That'll be line item number 75, which is the Uptown Prop one c grant. We have accrued some additional interest from this grant. It is eligible to be transferred over to the city to go over to some project costs for reimbursement. We've discussed this with the attorney's office, and they recommended for us to submit the supplemental along with the packet for you for consideration when we take this over to city council.

This line item will actually be managed by the economic and workforce development department because we're doing a doing a really good job of winding down all the ORSA development functions here in this last few weeks. So we're appreciative for them for being able to bring that to our attention. In some for the most part, this year's ROPS is primarily debt service, which will obviously go out to 09/01/2041. There is also $607,000 in administrative costs for this year, Project staff costs and then also the $200,000 in grant interest for the Uptown Prop one C grant. So I'll pause there if you have any questions over the ROPS. We happy to address those for you.

Thank you colleagues. Questions? Okay. Seeing none public comment.

Calling our public speakers David Boatwright and miss Asada.

David Bowright, District 4. If we're talking about item six, I can't hear what's going on out there if people don't speak into the mic and make themselves heard. So and you speak very softly and that's okay, but you have to get your mouth closer to the mic. If this is item six, if I understood this report correctly, the city has an outstanding debt of $268,000,000 associated with this former redevelopment agency. Is that amount decreasing or increasing and at what rate?

I also did not see anything other than general categories that these payments go for and if these payments impact the city's budget in any way. I think the public deserves to know more about this obligation and how it impacts the city's finances. As an aside, I tried calling the person designated as a contact for questions on this item, but that person's voice mailbox has not been set up. It was impossible to reach her. Thank you.

They're freezing me down here at Sunny Hall and to call my doctor because this is ridiculous. Y'all y'all think it's funny. I'm serious. I'm anemic. This is ridiculous.

So I don't understand this part about bad debt of $3,300,000 will not be reimbursed by the RRPTIF. So are we saying that we're going to be losing $3,300,000 in some way with the inability to get get it back on whatever. I'm not understanding it. I read it. Sometimes these reports are not clear enough for the everyday person to understand what you're saying.

And then the race equity statement in this particular report. A racial equity analysis has not been conducted. Are you saying that it was supposed to be conducted and you didn't do it? Or you voluntarily didn't do it because it wasn't required? I I I don't understand that.

A race equity analysis was not conducted. For what reason was it not conducted? And somebody needs to say that. And then race equity is a issue at parks and public facilities and streetscape. So I know without the answer being given to me that a race equity analysis should have been conducted.

Thank you for your comments and that concludes your public speakers for item six. Is there a motion?

I will make the motion. What do we need to do with this to full, does full council need to hear this? Yeah. Yes sir. So I would send it to full council on consent for the sixteenth.

Second.

We have a motion made by council member Unger, seconded by council member Brown to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the December 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 December 16 city council agenda and that is on consent. Moving to item seven, adopt a resolution authorizing a professional service agreement with Francisco and Associates for engineering services for various local measures of the City Of Oakland Oakland Landscaping and Lighting Assessment District for a three year term effective 01/01/2026 through December with an option to extend two additional years without returning to council for a total contract amount not to exceed $550,000 and waiving the local small local business enterprise requirements. And you do have one speaker for this item.

Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning council members and members of the public. Through the chair I am Jose Segura, principal budget and management analyst in the finance department. Today, I'm presenting a resolution requesting authorization to enter into a contract with Francisco and Associates Inc to provide ongoing professional services I'm sorry, ongoing professional engineering services for management of the city's special assessment and parcel tax district. The current contract for these services expires at the 2025. Tasks include parcel identification, land use and rate determination, annual role preparation for the county assessor and support for inquiries related to the landscape and lighting assessment district also known as the LAD and various voter approved measures.

Furthermore, state legislation requires that a certified engineer prepare the LAD's engineer report. The contract also includes a grand total of $50,000 for as needed or ad hoc analysis such as evaluation of potential new measures. The annual fee of approximately a 100,000 aligns with recent budgets with an impact of $11,000 per fund on average. The various assessments in fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty six are expected to generate approximately a 196,000,000. So the annual fee represents approximately 0.05% of the corresponding revenues. Revenues support essential services, revenues

from

the assessments of the work being done by the engineering support essential services including emergency dispatch, paramedics, children services, libraries, support police, fire, recreation, homelessness services, water quality and litter reduction amongst others. The selection was made through an RFP process. The RFP was issued in September 2025 per city procurement requirements. The RFP was advertised in in the Oakland Tribune, Oakland Post, and El Mundo. Notices were also sent to all vendors with a relevant industry classification who registered in the city centralized vendor database.

And availability analysis by the Department of Work Place and Employment Standards found no certified local slash small local firms able to perform their required services. And therefore, they set the local small local business enterprise requirements at zero percent because the local small local business enterprise requirements were set at 0%. We were advised by the office of the city attorney that there is no need to request a waiver of the local small local business enterprise. Therefore, we are proposing to strike out the last portion of the title which reads as follows. Quote, and waiving the local small local business enterprise requirements.

End quote. As well as the second resolve clause which reads as follows. Quote, further resolved that the city council hereby waives the local small the l slash s l b e requirements for this contract. And so staff recommends that the city council adopt a resolution authorizing a professional service agreement with Francisco and Associates Inc. For engineering services for various local measures in the City Of Oakland Landscaping And Lighting Assessment District for a three year term effective 01/01/2026 through 12/31/2028 with an option to extend for two additional years without returning to council for a total contract amount not to exceed $550,000.

Thank you. Colleagues, any questions or comments? Council member Wong.

Hi. Yes. What is the relationship with the county assessor in this process? Why couldn't they be doing this type of work?

I'll defer to the finance director.

Thank you. The chair to council member Wong. The county assessor is responsible for ensuring that the assessment rules created in every county, all local jurisdictions are required to submit their own assessments, their own partial taxes to the role for levy. So this is not assessor work. It's not assessor work here or any other county in the state. That's why there's a state code that requires an engineer being included in the submission. This is standard practice for every municipality. It's not assessor's work.

Okay. As long as we're not taking on things that the county could be doing. I'll motion to adopt staff's recommendation.

Second. Okay. Do we have any public speakers?

Moving to our public speakers. Miss Asada.

I see staff when the public has concerns. They don't have to do that for them to step to help us understand what's going on. I don't know the young lady's name but thank you. I think that we have to be extremely concerned when we have a document that says without returning to counsel. If you looked at, if you heard the list of areas that this money or this item is gonna be covering particularly homelessness, homeless services.

I want it, anything that comes up with homeless services I want it to be brought in front of this body. You're not taking enough initiative to prioritize homelessness from my perspective. And then the last thing I want to mention is this this is a landscaping and lighting component. And, I don't know if the lighting issue covers the fact I go up Keller and at night the lighting is not available, the lighting is there, but the trees have surrounded the lights. So, you really don't have access to the lighting of the street on Keller.

So, does this cover the maintenance component where you have to eliminate blockage of lighting, is that a component of lighting services, or does that even exist? Shake your head, please, let me know. They don't have to know, just shake your head. Yes or no? Potentially. Okay. Thank you, sir.

That concludes your public speakers for item seven. We do have a motion made by council member Wong, seconded by council member Brown to approve as amended the recommendations of staff, and this to be forward to the December 16 city council agenda, and that is on consent with the amendments as follows, striking the last portion of the title of the legislation title, which states waiving the local small local business enterprise requirements, excuse me, and striking the second further resolve clause that states further resolve that the city council hereby weighs the l slash s l b e requirements for this contract. On the roll, council member Brown? Aye. Thank you.

Sorry about that. Council member Unger? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Ramachandran?

Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes. To approve as amended the recommendations of staff and the four decide on to the December 16 city council agenda on consent with the amendments that stated earlier. Please note that item eight regarding the information report on ratings for GO Bond series twenty twenty five twenty twenty five was withdrawn from this agenda and rescheduled to the 01/27/2026 Finance and Management Committee agenda. Moving to open forum. When you call your name, please approach the podium. We only have two speakers, miss Asada and Kevin Dolly.

From from Transport Oakland. I have great respect for a new finance director, Bradley Johnson, but I don't think he should be the one establishing parking policy for the city of Oakland. There's a move from the city administrator to move transportation, sorry, parking policy from transportation to finance. Deborah Edgeley, twenty years ago parking was under the city administrator. Same time this book, High Cost of Preparking, was published, and that is Change Parking Policy.

We have it in transportation now for a reason. Our people are well informed about parking policy. We can optimize parking occupancy, turnover, and merchant visits. City Council established Department of Transportation, we should only change it through the City Council. Thank you.

As I said earlier, I'm very much concerned about the $700,000 that has been allocated for the World Cup. And, there's a document that says that the city of Alameda will fund 120,000 and the support for the project will come from Alameda, the City Of Alameda, Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda County, and the state of California. But, we're providing a whole 700,000. I'm concerned that I just read something that says that you're hiring a democracy dollar program manager and the minimum salary would be $149,409.72. This hire is not a priority.

You do not have a director for the department I'm sorry, department head for human services and it is it is time for you to realize that the purse one person cannot have oversight of the Oakland Public Works and Transportation Department. You need you need someone. The person who's over transportation can stay in that position Thank

you for your comment, Ms. Ostado.

Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you, ma'am.

You're welcome.

That concludes your public speakers for open forum.

Alright. Thanks, Meeting's adjourned. See you next year.