Good morning and welcome to the Finance and Management
Committee meeting of Tuesday, March 24th, 2025
or 2, 2026.
The time is now 9:31 a.m. and this meeting may come to order.
Before taking role, I will provide instructions
on how to submit speaker cards for items on this agenda.
If you're here with us in chamber would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative.
No later than ten minutes after the start of this meeting.
This meeting came to order at 9:31 a.m.,
and this and speaker cards will no longer be accepted.
After 9:41 a.m. will now proceed with taking roll.
Council members. Brown. Oh.
Sorry. One moment.
Present.
Ungar. Here. One present and chair.
Ramachandran. Present. Thank you. We have four members present before we begin.
Chair, do you have any announcements at this time?
Yes. We are
changing the order of the items that will be heard.
We will be starting with item number seven, the Q2 report.
Moving to item four,
the, citywide staffing report, then item five,
the informational report on the salary survey for job classes under 25 an hour.
Then item three,
which is amendment to the salary ordinance.
And then finally item six, which is six, which is the P for
his portfolio. And I believe there is a change to item
three and I will pass it to staff
to explain it.
Thank you. Chair on and around. And Brad Johnson, director of finance for item three, will be,
removing the listed item
one of parking administrator and delaying that to a future,
discussion of the civil service and salary ordinance.
So staff expect during that item to pull that particular element of it.
But wanting to continue to move forward with the placing administrator,
the assistant director of Human Services, positions.
Thank.
Thank you. So, just to reiterate, we will be hearing the other two salary classifications,
not, that part one that's listed here.
Of course, folks can still make public comment if they choose, but,
that's not going to be voted on today.
And that's, okay.
Thank you. Just noting the changes made to the order of the agenda to hear item seven, four, five, three and then six.
Now proceeding with item number one,
approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on March 10th, 2026.
And there are no speakers on this item.
I'll entertain a motion.
Move. Approval. Second.
Thank you. We have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Ungar,
to accept the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on March 10th, 2026.
Honorable Council members. Brown I, Ungar I, Lang
and Chair. Ramachandran I thank you.
Item number four passes with four eyes to accept the draft minutes from March 10th, 2026.
Reading in item two determination of Schedule,
not standing Committee items and we have no speakers on this item.
Thank you. Is there anything from staff?
Okay, I will move the item.
Thank you, thank you. We have a motion made by Chair Ramachandran
and seconded by Council Member Brown to accept the determination of schedule
about Standing Committee items as is on roll Council members.
Brown I, Ungar I, Wang I and chair.
Ramachandran I thank you.
Item number two passes with four eyes to accept the determination of schedule about Standing Committee items.
Reading in item number seven.
Receive an informational report on fiscal year 2025 to 26,
second quarter revenues and exponentials
results and year end estimates for the general purpose
fund and select funds. And we have two speakers that signed up to speak.
Thank you to staff at the presentation.
Thank you. And up. We do have a presentation.
We'll get it started up.
Staff can come to the podium please. So I'll give you guys a little bit
of background on this report. This is our second quarter revenue and expenditure report.
As you are all aware, the city provides
a quarterly revenue and expenditure reports throughout the course of the fiscal year to provide
updates on our revenues and expenditures.
You can click over to report background. Please. Would say.
The context of this report is it will is in alignment
with our consolidated fiscal policy and will inform you
on the status of our general purpose fund,
along with some other significant funds over.
And we do this over the course of the year. The upshot of this report
is the general purpose fund budget is holding steady.
While we're a little bit under on revenues and expenditures,
the budget is in alignment within 1% of what we expected.
Our expectation is that we will be able to in this fiscal
year, in roughly the same financial position
we started with, which, if I can recall you all back to the Q4 report,
after a lot of movement last fiscal year, we did end up
in a positive position over the end of the Q4.
And so I believe we will be able to maintain that position,
with plus or -1% through the end of this fiscal year.
I handed over to Joseph Sagara to go over our revenue results.
Thank you, Director Johnson, through the chair.
My name is Joseph Segura, principal budget and management analyst in the Revenue Bureau.
Through the second quarter of fiscal year 20 2526,
we project that general purpose fund revenues will come in
below the adjusted budget by about 59.9 million, or 7.1%.
However, that comparison includes a planned use of fund
balance to cover prior year carryforwards.
If we set aside those One-Time Uses of Fund balance and focus
only on the actual revenues, the shortfall is projected
at just under 1% below budget.
The shortfall is concentrated in a few major categories,
which are property tax, sales tax and utility consumption tax.
These are three of the city's largest revenue sources,
so even small percentage changes can have a noticeable impact on the overall budget.
This slide completes the GG revenue by category table, with the overall totals shown here
excluding the anticipated one. Use of fund balance revenues are projected
to end the year about 7.4 million, or 0.94% below budget.
And I'll go into each of the key drivers in more detail,
starting with property tax.
Property tax revenues projected at 312.3 million,
which is about 10 million, or 3.1% below budget.
Historically, property tax revenue has grown around
6% annually over the past 20 years.
Coming into this fiscal year, the city had already anticipated
that property tax growth would slow compared to recent trends.
The five year financial forecast in the budget assumes growth
of about 3% for fiscal year 2526, assuming proportionally
fewer property sales and corresponding reassessments.
However, actual growth came in significantly
lower than expected, with assessed taxable values
increasing by less than 1% this year in the city.
This was largely due to prop eight reductions,
which temporarily allow for lower says values.
When the market conditions decline,
commercial properties were affected the most.
Utility consumption tax revenue was projected at 70.3 million,
which is about 5.4 million, or 7.1% below budget.
While the budget projected continued growth
in utility rates through this fiscal year, rates have instead
stabilized at a relatively high level
following several years of increases
over the past decade, the revenue grew significantly, largely because of utility rates,
especially, Electricity rates have been rising quickly.
This year, however, rates have started to stabilize.
According to the California Public Utility Commission 2025 Q4 report, the sharp increases
in utility rates we saw in prior years have leveled off.
As a result, revenue growth has also slowed.
In fact, year to date collections for utility consumption tax
is slightly below last year's level through the Q2,
and the year end estimate now aligns with last year's totals.
Sales tax revenues projected at 81.2 million,
which is about 3 million, or 3.6 below budget.
This includes an estimated 21.8 million in measure
A revenue which took effect in October of 2025
and will be in effect for three quarters of this fiscal year.
The most recent detailed data available through Q1
shows that different sales tax categories were, on average,
about 4.5% lower,
than at the same time last year. In terms of gross receipts,
with the biggest declines projected in general, consumer
goods and fuel and service stations.
And I will now hand it off to the budget team
who will present the expenditures.
Daniel Mariano, a budget management analyst, for a job purpose fund expenditures.
They are currently projected to end the year $4.91 million over the adjusted budget.
And over these next two slides, that number will be broken down by department.
A majority of departments are projected to end at FY 26
under budget, with most of them having spent 50%
or less of their adjusted budget through the second quarter,
as shown on the right side of the slide,
HR at the bottom, and a handful of other departments.
As you can see on the next slide,
are projected to overspend. Unfortunately.
Now, the primary reason for this projected overspending
is due to the adjustment related to one time bonuses
that were paid out to employees earlier this year,
along with additional possible carryforwards.
Now, however, without these adjustments, all departments in the general purpose fund,
what are projected to come in under budget. So if restricted, looking at it on an operational basis,
departments are still underspending with their budget.
Pass it back to Director Johnson and finish off the rest of the presentation.
Absolutely.
I want to highlight before Daniel moves off of that slide that, the your two largest departments
and the general purpose fund, police and fire are both
projected to be under budget. That's not something we traditionally see.
So I want to call that out. That's not a small feat of achievement.
And as Daniel mentioned, the key driver of overspending
is the fact that we did issue one time bonuses entirely out of the general purpose fund,
and we did not budget those departments
to have bonuses from the general purpose fund.
So you see, in some departments, like public works or human resources,
which are mostly not general purpose fund funded,
they have this bonus expense, but no budget for it.
They're coming out of the general purpose
fund that out of their budget. But we have the resources to cover that from last year's,
fund balance. So that's kind of an artifact of this presentation, as Daniel mentioned.
Aside from that, everyone would be under budget.
Moving on to our fund balance. And this is the takeaway slide.
If you guys can recall back to last fiscal year, we ended just above, just below
$17 million to the positive and your general purpose fund.
We're expecting to close out this year roughly 20 to the positive, roughly a $3 million bettering
it's halfway through the fiscal year. $3 million or $900 million is a very, very small margin.
It's less than half a percent of that margin.
So effectively, your biggest takeaway on your general purpose fund is
we are exactly where we thought we would be.
Your budget is holding Pat again.
You're a little low on little low on your departmental expenditures.
Little low on revenues. Both are coming in. But that's lining out
and in in you about $3 million to the positive.
We are maintaining compliance with our reserve policies.
As you know we ended last year with an intact emergency reserve.
We remain intact for that.
And we do not have any money in our rainy day fund,
but we didn't have any last year. That has not changed.
And we're in compliance with our Omers reserve policy as well.
Use some other key funds that are notable here.
We have some positive projected balances across a number of fund sets,
and we'll be addressing them as we come into our budget cycle and refine our projections.
This affordable housing number is probably the one mostly of concern to us.
I do think that we will cure this over the course of a couple of years.
As we continue to generate revenue in the source.
I'm not super overly concerned, but I do want to point this out
to you in terms of its balances.
And again, we're projected to be positive in your internal service funds
moving forward. The city does continue to face some key pressures.
I want to know that we have,
continued increases in our CalPERS and health care
and insurance costs.
Federal government remains a source of uncertainty
for us, both in terms of what they fund directly and the actions they take and how those affect the economy.
We have to consider that we need to, move into compliance
with the restoring about measure moves.
We have negative funds. We have a ballot measure on this June's ballot,
and we have significant deferred costs for equipment, facilities and technology.
We have opportunities from last year to continue
to build on revenue collection performance.
One of the things that was not underperforming this year was your business tax.
And we continue to do well in terms of trying to drive in that resource.
We need to continue to focus on other resources
within the general purpose Fund, where we can continue to drive revenue improvement.
We had a positive beginning position. We did have a successful, access to bond market.
And we have been pretty good at maintaining spending discipline, as shown by
if you remove out that sort of contribution
of the one time bonuses, every department
in the general purpose fund coming in under budget.
With that, I will pause,
and note again these key takeaways,
but take any questions that you might have.
Thank you. Director Johnson and the entire finance team.
I think this is a great indication that we're on our way
to continue to be on stable footing.
Less than half a percentage point plus or minus.
And our general purpose fund is. Seems very good news.
And, you know, a big thanks to our revenue division
in particular for working very hard to collect
previously uncollected business taxes and to try to get as much revenues as possible.
And I have just two questions.
One about what are the realities?
That's kind of outside the city of Oakland's control,
which is primarily property taxes.
Our other city is experiencing this as well in the region.
Yes, absolutely. So what Jose mentioned in terms of prop eight reductions
is a factor that you're seeing throughout
Alameda County and the Bay area in general.
As we all know, the office market has been
one of the places where it's been harder hit come pandemic.
Under California law, a taxpayer has the ability, if they feel like they're paying
above market value, to ask the assessor,
who's an elected official, to reassess their,
property tax down. The assessor does key work,
and makes that determination based on what they see.
The market at whenever possible. We do try to provide input whenever we can to mitigate that
if it's going to be an impact to the city.
But that is something we're seeing across the county.
And across our region. So it is not an Oakland specific factor.
We do have the biggest downtown in Alameda County.
So in terms of commercial properties, we tend to be affected a little bit more compared
to our other, compatriot cities in the county.
But you would see a similar factor happening in San Francisco
and in Santa Clara County with San Jose. That's not an unusual trend.
The nice thing about prop eight reassessment is
should the market take off again, instead of growing 2% per year to get back to where they were,
the assessor can reset them all in one go to that prior value.
So should the market come back, we can.
This can be a faster increase back to where we were to.
So it falls faster based on the market, but it can come back faster.
So we're continuing to watch and monitor for that.
Thank you. I think that's great news. And can you differentiate again how we're doing on
the residential assessments versus commercial.
It's clear that commercial property values are down in the region.
But how are we doing on the residential your as your residential market continues to be?
I wouldn't say great gun strong but robust, stable.
We continue to get our 2% growth rates
out of our normal residential properties.
Your property market is fairly stable. The only thing that I would be concerned
about on the residential market side is
and it's less to do with your property tax, more to do with your REIT.
Right? Interest rates remain fairly high compared to our recent trends.
That high interest rate does, discourage a lot of people from getting into the market.
And so when we have, better market going,
you get more property turnover, which means you get more reassessments
to market rate value, which tends to drive your property tax number a little bit higher than it would normally.
But what you're seeing right now is a healthy continuing real estate market on the residential sector side.
And hopefully as we get some development projects built, we will continue to see growth in that space.
Great. And just one more question.
Clarifying that the estimate at the end of that fiscal
year, we're anticipating to have a surplus of 20 million.
Is that. That's right. So your bank account at the end of last year,
if you think, the difference between your,
paycheck, your expense bills and what's in your bank account,
what you're seeing is your bank account growing from
just under $17 million to just over $20 million.
That's what we're projecting. So that's, again, a very, very small marginal increase
on your general purpose fund. That's $800 million, right?
That's but marginal increase is good to go.
That's what we want to see. Less than half a percent again, meaning
that based on all the things we're seeing right now,
we are trending almost exactly where we were given.
We're half a year into the end of the fiscal year.
So this is very positive. There are lots of things that are unexpected
and could happen. I should note when we did this report,
at the time we were doing this data, we were not in the war in the Middle East.
That wasn't true at that time. There are things that can occur.
But, in terms of our internal management
of both our revenues and expenditures were exactly where we thought we would be. Great.
Thank you. Councilmember Wong,
thank you. Through the chair.
Sorry. Can you just explain? Because I'm seeing in table one a lot of numbers in the red
and where the year end estimate is 77878 4 million
for revenues and 849 for expenditures.
How is it that we're not ending the the year and the deficit?
I just absolutely yeah. So a key unbudgeted expense
are the one time bonuses for civilian employees.
So while we agreed to that in labor agreements, we did not budget for that.
It came after budget.
Those expenses come entirely out of your general purpose fund,
regardless of where the department is
funded normally. So you'll find a department that has no general purpose fund
with potentially a general purpose fund expense,
if that makes sense. And so they could actually be over in some space,
but that we all planned to cover that expenditure
out of the unrealized resources at the end of
or the excess resources from the Kaiser sale, Kaiser
building sale from last year. So we have those resources in there.
Again, Unbudgeted we have the expense Unbudgeted,
which is why I'm going to call you to that fund balance table at the end,
which shows that slight increase.
We're doing a little bit. We're in very, very marginal improvement on last year.
If you do a budget actuals comparison, which is the standard way, if you're doing this report,
you'll find these unbudgeted expenditures coming up.
But again, the performance of our departments, as if we had not had that bonus is such that everyone
would be under budget and that under budgeting, compared to our slightly lower
than slightly lower revenue connection
would actually be a slight positive number, a slight improvement about $3 million.
Okay.
Gotcha. So it's these were unbudgeted, but
that we would see in the actuals is essentially exactly.
Okay. Okay. Unbudgeted but anticipated we anticipated this.
This is not different than our and our trend.
We expected this.
But it is not formally budgeted.
So we have to show you a budget, actual comparison
to your formerly adopted and adjusted budgets.
Okay. Okay. Gotcha.
And I was just curious, there were a couple of expenditures
that were, over budget.
They were the Nonpermanent report
as well as the Human Services department. What was driving those? Sure. Yeah.
So on the non-departmental port side, that's primarily, again,
some of our sort of resources that were that are driven
from the last fiscal coming forward,
along with non-departmental receives the recoveries from expenditures
and other funds related to federal grants.
We are not doing as you might imagine.
We have some continuous issues with the federal government
regarding our grant expenditures. One of the things that gets recovered for
non-departmental is actually the administrative side of those grants.
And so you see, that is actually an offset
in your non-departmental space. And if we're not getting those offsets
because we're getting we're not getting some of those grants in, or we have issues in terms of the drawers on them,
it's going to show, as a, as a problem expenditure space.
We are working to rectify that. Again, I don't expect it to be a problem
at the end of the fiscal year. Okay. And the human services department,
that's primarily human services. It's mostly non general purpose fund funded,
has a lot of staff. You're the vast majority of
if you look at I'm going to pick a program set.
For example, if I look at our homelessness services unit within Human services, a lot of that is in measure.
Q A lot of that is in measure.
Vacancy tax, some of it is in federal and state
grants like Hap, and Cdbg and, hawala and whatnot.
And so what you're seeing is those sources are not actually paying for the one time bonuses.
The general purpose fund is and the Human Services
Department was again, not developed. A general purpose fund budget for those.
But we are charging them out of there because that's actually where the resource sat
at the end of the last fiscal year, per hour, per what we saw.
So you'll see that a better example on that.
Again, if you look at human resources or planning and building,
those are over budget planning buildings, almost not almost entirely not in the general purpose fund,
but again has an expenditure now. And so that's what you're seeing in terms of that dynamic.
Okay. Gotcha. Helpful. Thank you.
Before I move to Councilmember Brown, just one other positive
I'd like to highlight and ask about is for the first time,
I feel like since I've been on council, OPD seems to be under budget.
Is this what is this a result of?
That's. Absolutely. So I want to commend former Chief Mitchell and current Chief
Bere for their active work in aggressively managing,
the overtime to deploy it primarily,
I would say exclusively when necessary.
I will note that,
they are doing a very, very active job of trying to manage that both on the PD
and I should mention on the fire side as well.
I do have to caveat we have,
both PD and fire could be required to respond
to a major event,
and we haven't had a really significant major event this fiscal year yet.
So should something come up
potentially due to the federal level, potentially due to something else
that occurs, there might this might be a trend that changes.
But again, sort of good news on no major events.
Thus far.
But again, we're at war in the Middle East.
It's really, really warm outside right now, which will lovely for our weather
is not super good for our fire season.
Things could occur. We have to continue to monitor that,
but in sort of normal space, as both,
chiefs are doing a very, very active job with managing their overtime budget
and maintaining expenses within it.
I will say some credit is also due to this body
for ensuring that the budgets that were adopted for PD
and Fire are reasonable and are something
that actually sort of aligns with the resource,
spending pool that they're going to have out through the year.
We do have from many,
many years ago an audit finding saying that one of the things that council needs to do is provide
a reasonable budget for police and fire
that they actually can live within. And that is something that we adopted in our biennial
budget of last year. So it's both good management, good budgeting practice.
And hopefully it's something that we can continue through the end of this fiscal year.
Thank you, Councilmember Brown.
Excellent. Thank you so much.
Through the chair to our finance director,
you know, thank you to you and the team for such a comprehensive report on my question.
Has to do with slide number 14.
It's my understanding that, from the last time
we had this report presented to us, it appears
that fund 18, 1770, the negative balance continues to grow.
And I know, you spoke,
very quickly about this item, but I wanted to ask
more specifically, what is the plan to bring this fund, into a positive balance?
And I guess I'm also curious.
I guess, you know, what is contributing to the net
negative fund balance? And then also, is this also a fund that
actually, the dollars come from the general fund?
I was trying to, recall the exact
methodology of, like, how we fund this.
And then I guess my last question is, is,
are there is there staff, that are paid out of this fund?
I will answer all of those questions. I'll take the middle one first.
So the origin of the resource for 1870, 1870,
is a city's as a city fund that is set up
from 25% of the former redevelopment money
that came back to all taxing entities
following the dissolution of redevelopment.
So when we dissolved the redevelopment agencies,
when the state did that back in January of 2012,
resources were given back to the taxing entities
of which the city was one. The city's elected to put 25% of that resource aside
in an affordable housing trust fund.
The city also originally used this as the fund for receiving
its affordable housing and jobs housing impact fees.
That was the original source that was happening here
in over the course of the last sort of three years.
There are two major developments.
One, the council has an, policy to balance last year's budget,
adopted a policy by which we could divert
resources out of that on a temporary basis
because it is general fund money to help balance the general purpose fund.
And so that did drive you negative going into last year
until we brought it down. So it came in a little bit under
in terms of fund balance last year. And that's the majority of what
we're continuing to see this year. And a second practice that we moved is we created
designated funds for 1870, and they're 1871 and 1872
for your affordable housing and jobs, housing impact fees.
And so we did a reconciliation by which we removed the fund
balance attributed to those two
and move them to their own separate funding sources. And so the upshot of all that is this fund,
it ended up a little bit negative. The other two funds are actually positive.
And so net together they're all positive.
This fund is so this is an active practice where we have to manage this.
The biggest thing you'll see here is our expected unit.
Expenditure projections are almost $34 million
compared to a revenue number.
Of about 14. This is mostly carry
forward expenditure for existing projects.
So actually most of what you spent out on this is pre existing projects.
This $34 million may not actually all be spent this year
because it takes a while to actually do these projects
on a cash basis. We actually have a balance in this fund that's positive.
But if we spent if we spent everything
we're authorized to spend, we were able to complete every single one of those projects this year,
we would go negative. And so that's what we're saying with this -5 million.
If you look at that 14 that you're beginning balance,
there's actually a positive balance. And to start it that's the dynamic.
So I don't actually expect to project
to spend everything out of this fund in the current year.
But for conservative ness sake, we do forecast it that way
and we can resolve this,
sort of what we would call a negative appropriation balance
with careful budgeting over the course of the mid cycle.
One action you could take is you could reduce any reliance.
The general purpose fund hasn't moved back to the 25% allocation.
The other thing that we're likely to see is we do have vacancies in this fund.
This does fund a lot of affordable housing staff.
And so we're going to see some natural result resolution of this with vacancy savings.
The other thing will be working with housing to do is
see if any of the projects that are funded out of 1870 or more properly moved to 1871
or 1872, where we have positive balances,
we can shift where the project funding sources
if it's eligible for affordable housing or drop impact
fees, and sort of equalize across the funds
to make sure that they're all in a positive position.
So again, I don't think this is a major concern in the long run.
It's not cash negative to start, and it probably
will not be cash that I give it at the end of this year. And we're actively trying to manage it.
Any other comments?
Okay. We can move to public comment.
Actually I'm sorry, I have one more question.
And that's the positive balance on measure Q
so the estimated, positive balance, about 14 million.
Is this primarily due to hiring and not being able
to hire for budgeted positions?
That's that's absolutely it's primarily driven
by salary savings from prior from both the prior year
and in forecast in the current fiscal year. That's exactly what you're saying.
Okay. Thank you. Move to public comment,
calling in the names that signed up to speak on item
number seven, David Boatwright and Kevin Dally.
And David Boatwright, district four.
I have a lot of confidence in our finance director.
He is so knowledgeable. It's unbelievable.
But there's something in this report that really confused me.
And it was on page eight, first paragraph on that page.
And it says that because of the energies
on revenues and the overages on expenses,
approximately 64.84 million operating deficit will occur.
I know y'all don't answer questions,
but it's in your report. So it ought to be something that that somebody can address.
Thank you.
All right. Kevin Daley, also from district four,
I want to call out one part that I think
is interesting, attachment A page eight.
The parking fines and penalties have come in 6.1 above budget.
So they are collecting more fines
and penalties than what's budgeted.
And this is with the current parking and mobility
team as it set up at present.
There will be increased enforcement in April, expanding to Sunday enforcement in depth.
That's also noted in this attachment.
So I think we'll see more increases.
And I'm looking forward to more parking enforcement, including Sundays.
I also want to thank again,
the bond sales have been wonderful.
Street paving. It's done a fantastic job.
My ride into City Council today,
one small, one more small street.
It's nice and smooth and no longer bumpy
and I'm looking forward to more being done. Thanks.
Thanks for the bond sales.
Thank you for your comments. Sure. That concludes all speakers on this item.
Thank you. Is there any comments from the finance departments at all?
So I will just clarify
for the for the record that we are expecting
to end slightly better in the general purpose fund
at the end of this fiscal year than we ended last year.
And that should be the key takeaway from everyone on this body.
Okay. Thank you. Is there a motion to,
receive and file this report?
So moved. Second.
Thank you. We have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Wang, to receive and file
this informational report in Committee on Roll.
Council members. Brown I Ungar I I'm sorry.
Wang I and chair. Ramachandran.
Thank you. Item number seven passes with four eyes to receive. And while this informational report and committee.
Now reading in item number four.
Receive an informational report on citywide staffing
from the City Administrator regarding citywide vacancy rates
and status of. As of February 1st, 2026.
Budgeted vacancy rates for fiscal year 20 2526.
The vacancy rates for regional local public
entities, recruitment, outreach and community engagement,
and the the analysis of the city workforce
and recruitment conditions. And we have three speakers that signed up.
Thank you. Please go ahead. I have a presentation.
All right. Hello, everyone. My name is Elaine Reyez.
I'm a supervising personnel operations analyst in the recruitment classification operations
division of the Human Resources Management Department.
I'm here today to present an overview of the citywide staffing report.
As of February 1st, 2026.
Just to give you a little background, over the past several years, Hfm has prepared a report assessing vacancy data
for city positions, analyzing several key staffing factors,
including recruitment improvements, retention trends, and employee tenure.
Today's presentation will highlight key data points and observations from the report,
and we'll also include information as set forth by Assembly Bill 2561,
which is a California state law requiring agencies to publicly report on job
vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts annually.
Before reviewing the data, I want to clarify how vacancies
are defined for the purposes of this report.
For this report. Oops, sorry.
Did it go for this report?
Vacancies are defined as non encumbered and unfrozen.
Non encumbered positions are available to be filled
and are not being held vacant for any other purpose.
And positions on the other hand are tied to funding
for overtime, temporary staffing under filled positions or acting assignments.
Frozen physicians are roles that exist in the budget
but are not currently available to be filled.
Positions may be frozen due to budget constraints, strategy,
or strategic or operational realignments,
or pending decisions about the future of the role.
Because these positions are not available for recruitment or hiring,
they are generally excluded from the vacancy count.
As of February 1st, 2026,
the city had 4,264.17 full time equivalent positions.
This is includes full time and permanent part time
positions, with some positions funded at less than one FTE.
Of those positions, 839.75 positions were vacant,
which calculates to 19.69% as our vacancy rate.
Something to note about the positions
that were included here. We did identify a few that don't fit the general description
that we normally include. We identified some positions that were authorized
and frozen, as well as unfilled, unauthorized,
and unfrozen positions. There were also a couple of encumbered positions
that were authorized but frozen.
We included these exceptions to provide an accurate
a more accurate snapshot of the city's staffing levels.
Now, with that context, let's take a look at how this compares to historical data.
This chart here shows the historical vacancy rate
since 2020. Overall, the vacancy rate
increased significantly after 2021
and have remained consistently high since then, generally hovering between 18 and 20%.
This suggests the city has been operating with a structurally higher
vacancy level for the last several years.
For your reference, last year reported a vacancy rate of 17.94%.
So although vacancy levels have increased, the city's authorized positions have also gone up.
The vacancy information was analyzed in several ways,
one of which was by department.
This chart here highlights the top five departments
with the highest vacancy rate. Percentages.
Looking at percentages helps to show the relative
staffing impact within each department.
As shown here, you can see that West has the highest vacancy rate at 55%, followed by HCM
with 45, Police Commission at 39% and DVP at 37.
Public ethics also made the top five. However, if you take a look at the data,
it looks like they only have four vacant positions out of their relatively small total FTE of 12,
which results in a higher percentage of 33%.
And for that reason, we should also look at the data
by the total number of vacant positions.
And we look at this data this way. The total number of vacancy shows
where the largest staffing gaps exist across the city.
The departments with the highest number of vacancies were fire,
Department of Transportation, police,
Public Works and Human Services.
Next, we can take a look at how the data was broken out by Union.
This shows the vacancy rate broken down by each of the six unions that the city has a memorandum
of understanding with, or otherwise known as an MOU.
You can see here that local 21 holds the highest percentage at 24.62.
Local 21 also has the highest number with about 350 vacancies.
Now, within each MOU for each union,
there are multiple bargaining unit.
And this table here shows the top nine bargaining units
with the highest vacancy percentages.
These were identified as being subject to additional
reporting as required by Assembly Bill 2561,
because 20% or more of their positions
in their bargaining unit are unfilled.
The Assembly bill requires agencies to provide
detailed information, such as the number of vacancies
which you saw in the previous slide. The number of applicants for those vacancies.
The average number of days it takes to complete the hiring process from when it's posted,
and opportunities for improvement.
We looked at data collected five years back,
so from February 1st to 2021 through February 1st, 2026,
with the bargaining units identified that had at least one active vacancy.
This table shows the number of applications received
and the time to hire,
which considers the total average number of days from the hiring process took.
Breaking it down into two stages, posting sorry job
posting to eligible list and then referral to hire
only recruitments with complete data for both stages were included to ensure accurate time to hire.
Reporting.
As mentioned, the hiring timeline was measured in
two stages. Is responsible for activities during stage one
from when announcement is open to when an eligible list
is established. Whereas hiring departments are responsible
for activities during stage two, for
when a candidate is referred up until a hire is made.
Here's a visual representation of the data from the previous slide.
Broken down into the stages
for classifications represented by local 21.
The departmental hiring phase out averaged four weeks
longer than a recruitment phase.
For classifications represented by SEIU,
the timelines for both stages were nearly identical.
H.R. has implemented several strategies
to reduce time to hire, such as improved coordination
with departments to streamline hiring processes, including
creating an operations team to enhance departmental support.
We're also looking at strengthening recruitment, planning and leveraging digital tools
to reduce administrative delays.
Now we're going to take a look at each vacancy
status on February 4th, 2026,
to review the vacancy status of all 851 positions.
Each vacant position was categorized into a status
as shown here, including how it compares to last year's report.
Some notable observations.
Of the total vacancies, 426 do not have a requisition
submitted by the department. Aid department.
This represents 50% of all vacancies, compared to 59% last year.
Without a requisition, no action can be taken to fill these positions.
Additionally, of these 426 vacancies, 116
or 14% of the total vacancies have an eligible list available.
This means Hrn previously established an eligible list,
with qualified candidates available to be interviewed.
However, the department has not yet submitted a requisition to begin their hiring process.
Throughout this process, atrium also identified
a few instances where eligible lists were not utilized before expiration.
To support proactive workforce planning.
We implemented distributing a monthly report
to departments to encourage timely use or extension of active eligible lists.
23% of vacancies are currently in progress to be filled.
Departments are in either the interview process or have identified a candidate.
This has been increased from 19% last year.
HR is currently assigned to work to fill 20% of the total vacancies.
5% are pending. HR analyst assignments.
That's a jump from 10 to 40.
We're also actively working on 11%
of the vacancies, compared to 6% last year.
That's an increase from 49 vacancies to 92 vacancies.
And in addition, compared to last year, there's been a significant increase in vacancies
resulting from class specification and title changes.
That number nearly tripled from last year from 11 to 40
since the last staffing report in 2025.
We strengthened on our classification
and recruitment capacity through training and expanded
responsibilities amongst the team.
Another way we slice the data was to look at sworn versus
non sworn positions as compared to last year's report.
Non sworn decrease from 23.5 to 22.11%.
Whereas there was a large increase in sworn from 5.15
to 13.55%.
Looking at separations for the past ten years,
in FY 2425, total separations increased by 45.6%.
And then looking at that, you may think there should be more of a pressure on recruitment
and the need to outpace operations with hiring.
However, if you look at the reasons for the separations, there was a 55.8% in retirements.
Retirements are more predictable than resignations
and can result in the loss of institutional knowledge.
Technical expertise and supervisory capacity.
This increases the need for supporting internal advancement
and enhancing workplace engagement.
With the hope that it will result in long term retention.
Police recorded the highest number of separations,
representing 30% of the city's total separations. Fire
followed at 13%, with public works close behind with 12%.
When looking at this data, police of plays are leaving
well before retirement eligibility, suggesting
retention and engagement challenges and challenges.
Police may benefit from targeted retention efforts.
In contrast, fire and public works operations were largely retirement
based and more predictable. These departments would benefit from succession
planning and knowledge transfer initiatives.
Employee tenure has been slowly increasing,
with a 0.9% increase from 2023,
I'm sorry, 23 to 20 4 to 2425.
So far, we've seen an increase of 14.5
for this fiscal year.
As far as data collected from our regional comparator
jurisdictions, this information has
been collected since May of 2022.
The city is most in line with Hayward and Richmond in terms of our vacancy rate.
In summary, HCM is committed
to not only strengthening hiring but also retention.
We're looking to continue to partner with departments
to streamline hiring processes and reduce time to fill
and support departments in attracting and retaining talent
while adapting to evolving workforce needs.
In partnership with the Department of Race and Equity,
we are embedding equitable practices in recruitment and employment.
And additionally, I do want to point out that recruitment classification does not
is not alone in this effort. Our Organizational Development and Training division
also shares a strong commitment to strengthening retention through employee development,
career growth and support for supervisors and managers
and also equipping leaders with the tools and skills
to foster engagement and a high performing workforce.
That's all I have for today. Any questions? Thank you.
I appreciate the presentation and some of the slightly
positive numbers that you made in comparison to last year.
But to be frank, I think that it's shameful
that we have 840 vacancies.
But when someone goes to the City of Oakland job websites, as of this morning, there's 40.
And of those 40, only 20 are full time positions.
A year ago, after this annual report came out,
I talked to residents about this and the number one,
this is the way that the city is perceived with the public
that we are not trying to hire
that departments or HR have their own reasons why
they don't want to hire or they only hire their friends.
This is the very real perception of how we are treated.
I appreciate that there are some minor improvements,
but these numbers are the worst in four years and other cities.
We cannot keep talking about. The pandemic has
hindered progress because other cities have caught up.
It's understandable in 2020 and 2021, even 2022,
if our numbers were down. But it is 2026 and we have a 20% vacancy
rate for key public service delivery roles.
I don't back in 2020 3rd June, my first budget cycle,
we had found money and passed the addition of two tree
services workers essential positions
to keep our communities
free from trees falling on the ground, fire safety, a whole bunch of other things.
It's 2026 and they're not hired.
There are so many positions frontline service,
delivery positions, street sweepers, sign painters,
engineers, things that affect every day public life
that all qualified Oakland residents want
to have as a jobs, and they're not even on the website.
So I know that there's some modest increases being made,
but how can the HR department have 35 vacancies
if we're trying to increase the speed of
getting these things out there? And there's only so much you can blame departments.
I know that there's some numbers of requisitions that haven't been submitted, but
what about all the ones that have been submitted?
I think this is frankly disgraceful and I wouldn't
I don't even have concrete questions because this is this was shocking to me
to see the numbers increase from last year, that it's been the highest
since the pandemic, and I don't know what to do,
but the public see the public of those Oakland residents who want to work for the city,
see as us as an ivory tower that doesn't want to give jobs
to Oakland residents. And I think that perception
can only be changed when there is proactive hiring,
proactive outreach to the community,
telling Oakland residents the city has 800 jobs available to you, and you should apply.
With your colleagues. Councilmember Wong,
I, I completely agree with the chair.
I would just to start off on a good note, I will say this report is very thorough.
So thank you for putting it together.
But I think it just really it's concerning.
And I think the thing that really sticks out to me is
what is going on with the HR department itself,
because the vacancy rate is really shocking,
and it seems like filling the HR department would ensure
benefits across the city to fill all these vacancies.
And it was noteworthy that for many of the vacancies
that there was no requisition.
And so that's a department issue.
But for
for HR, I assume that you all need to fill your own requisition.
So why hasn't there been done? I don't see on the website
any posting for the HR analysts that are needed to fill so
many of these other positions. And so that is just one that I,
I read that and I'm just deeply concerned through the chair.
Amber Lytle, human resources manager. So a couple points on her address.
First, with the vacancies within. Those were added in January of this year.
We did just close the senior analyst posting two weeks
ago, the assistant analyst posting last week.
So we are in the process of filling those positions.
But some of those positions are newly added to the budget, so we haven't had
the opportunity to fill them. We are actively working on it, but that contributes to our
vacancy rate. In the additional positions that were added this year
regarding our postings, one announcement can cover multiple jobs.
So just because, you know, you only see 20 at a time,
that could fill 60, 80 jobs.
So it is a little bit deceptive when you look at it that way.
It doesn't indicate how many jobs per posting.
How long does it take? Once a budget.
Once a position has been budgete
It all depends on the department's participation.
But once they've submitted a requisition, our time to hire
is less than three months. We've significantly decreased that time frame.
And one of the things that Elaine had pointed out,
our time, the time versus the department time, the department time
should be down to about 60 days.
And they are far exceeding our timeline. So that's where we really need to partner with our department
to submit those requisitions. And then once they get those names to act upon that.
Okay. What about the HR analyst positions, since that's one that you don't need to
there is no dependency on the departments.
That's just an HR thing. How long the how long has that taken to to post after the.
But it was budgeted for.
So when they were added in January the postings went live in February.
Part of the process. So we do have to get budget approval. So even though they are added into our budget,
we still have to submit the requisition and it goes through a level of approval.
So it starts with the department head, then it goes to budget to approve
and then it goes to equal access.
So there's a few steps along the way. It's not just submit a requisition.
It's approved the next day. And some of them budget
takes a little bit of time to make sure. Yes, it's in the budget, but can we actually fill it?
So that contributes to the timeline as well.
Okay. Thank you.
Councilmember Unger.
Did you want to answer that question first?
I'm sorry. Did you want to answer that question before?
Did you have more to add? I. Well, I just have some actually a different comment to make.
But you go ahead, Councilmember.
If you if you're still on.
Go ahead. Oh,
good morning, Mary Howe HR director.
I think I just want to,
make sure that we are focusing in the right number of members
of the finance and Management Committee.
So I think that we had a similar
situation last year where we reported a very stark high number of vacancies,
because that's an actual count of positions that exist within the city.
But I think what we did this year in the report was to highlight for you that 51% of those positions
are 431 of them actually have no activity.
We are not able to act on that because they're either no requisition
or they're on hold for by the department for various reasons.
We have 197
that are an active recruitment process, but because they still are not encumbered,
they have their report as a vacancy. So they're in somewhere
during the interview process or backgrounds or other hiring processes.
And so the the last four items in the chart
that Miss Reyes showed you, totals roughly 25%
of those 851 classifications, excuse me,
positions, that require some sort of action.
So I think I just want to make sure that the members of this committee,
are focusing on the right sort of breakdown of the statistics
rather than the big number, because that big number exists
because they are not encumbered, but there
but half of them there is no activity.
And we're not able to act without a requisition.
Thank you.
Thank you all for being here. And I understand how difficult this is. You know, I've worked for the city
for almost 30 years, and HR and hiring has been the choke point in the bottleneck
and the department with the most difficulty
for as long as I remember. And so I think that, you know, we're all trying to be,
as gentle as possible with, with everyone.
You know, I saw a lot in the report blaming some of the delays
on the departments, and that may be the case.
I think we need to
get a lot better at really calling out where the choke points are.
And let's cut through the, the niceties.
And I would hope that in future reports,
you really highlight where those bottlenecks are, because I still can't entirely tell where the bottlenecks are
if it's the departments. And let's figure out how to make the departments better. If it's HR,
if it's budget, if it's finance, like, I still can't tell where the bottlenecks are.
And that is what I've been trying to cut through for for years.
I mean, do you could you could you rank the three
bottlenecks for me or the top three?
I think if I had two off the top of my head, I think it really falls
when the names are referred to the department.
How long it takes the department to fill.
So I can give you an example.
There was a position that was available. The department requested to use
acting pay to fill the position and exempt position, and I.
Why don't you just fill it? You have the names.
Well, it's going to take this like three weeks before we can assemble an interview panel.
We told you in advance where we were working on this process.
We told you we're going to establish that eligible is. Why aren't you ready?
So what we've done within him is we've created
a departmental personnel support team,
and the team is really focused on
how can we enhance these processes for the department, and how can we better support the department.
So we can do the blame game, but we really need
to step back and say, what resources can we provide to the department so that we can help them fill these positions?
I'd like to see when we come back in future reports, how that's working.
Like specifically like we we need to
we need to stop sort of lamenting the fact that it's a problem and actually getting at the
at the nub of it.
One specific thing I noticed
is that I think over the period you,
assessed, which was five years, there were 87
incidents, instances where people died on an active list.
And so my understanding is that is a time when we had an open position,
we had a person on a list who was qualified and ready
to take the job, and that list expired before we can fill it.
Why have we had 87 lists by the department since I met requisitions?
So it could be there's multiple instances, but let's say that
one department has a vacancy. They submit the requisition and we create the eligible list.
But a different department also has a position that same classification.
If they don't submit the requisition
they're not going to use the eligible. So one department might initiate the recruitment process.
And there's a list available. But the other departments aren't somebody
in the requisitions to utilize them.
You also have to remember we have restricted list and open list. So that's a combination of the fact you
we might have only used a restricted and never touched the open different instances.
This seems to me like the lowest hanging fruit. These are situations where we have
somebody who wants the job. We have the job that's open.
Let's put those two together and make a beautiful marriage.
And we do have our principal analyst. They meet with our departments either
monthly or biweekly, depending on the size of the department and their needs.
But we go through and say, here's your report, here's your available positions.
When are you going to submit the requisition? Please submit the requisition.
So we do actively work with the departments,
but we can't submit it on their behalf. They have to prioritize what they want to hire for
and submit those requisition so we can support them.
What do you all need to make this better?
Because I think you can sense from everyone on this committee
that this is something we're all really concerned about. What what do you need to fix this problem?
The department heads need to authorize the submission of the requisitions
and then the departmental sparks would submit those
so that we can start that recruitment process.
Do you feel like the department heads know what they need to do? Not necessarily.
I don't know if all of the department heads are communicating with their
single point of contact regularly
to the city administrator, how can we help the department heads get to understand what
they need to do? You know, through the chair to, Councilmember Ungar, I think one of the things that we're talking about here, there is a lot of emphasis
placed on the human resources department, and I think they've own the areas in which
they need it to improve.
The other reality is your human resources department has also taken onus
and responsibility of making sure that they're centralizing the spot duties to make sure
that there is some centralization in how we process a lot of this information.
And with that being said,
we also have to factor in the fact that your department
heads are also having to manage to a budget.
And so they're trying to strategically hire
and within a time frame to make sure they're staying within the budget.
So I'm not going to be one that to speak out both sides of my mouth to, to to elevate
how well we're doing fiscally.
But on the flip side, we're aggressively pushing hiring because that's our our highest cost.
So we gotta have an honest conversation here about
what are we doing with respect to how and when we hire and prioritize that hiring.
But the human resources department is doing a very good job as quickly as possible
to centralize a lot of duties. I think we all can attest
to the fact that there have been some issues.
The even how we move forward administratively,
you know, in my office, in this body
and trying to make sure we're cleaning a lot of that up.
With that being said, though, to answer your question more directly,
I will actually seen you take some time and spend that time with,
with you, director, how to make sure we articulate
what that process is and make it clear, because we do have quite a few new directors as well,
that may not be fully aware how the process works,
or that they're trying to figure this thing out. And some folks may be,
you know, your director, Lester, he's new to this thing,
and he probably realized there was a list
that was available with respect to certain positions that he may want to hire, but may not be fully aware of that.
So I think it's really,
important for us to have this honest conversation.
I think some of the questions that you all have asked
are very spot on and very fair questions,
and we certainly want to make sure we bring that information back.
But I also want to acknowledge the reality that you human
resources department is doing a lot of work
to address a lot of the issues and some of those new positions that,
Miss Lytle mentioned,
now feeding into the human resources department
to move these processes along a lot faster than we have.
It's going to bear a lot of fruit. But I just appreciate the fact that they realize
this is a choke point and an issue. But we're happy to bring something back to while
so that you fully you all are fully aware on how the improvements are working
and if it's not working, we'll pivot, adjust, and,
you know, make the requisite changes. We need to thank you for that.
And I appreciate how hard you're all are working and I am
apologize for my frustration. I think that, you know, every email
I get from a constituent or from somebody in the city,
I could send the same answer, which is, we can't do that because we don't have the staff.
And, you know, I could from everything from policing to potholes to
anything like that could be my response.
And we are just
trying to figure out how to crack this nut. So thank you for working with us on that.
Thank you. Before moving to Councilmember Brown, I just don't think it's fair to blame department heads
because in the past, back early 2024,
I did a deep dive on some of these non sworn positions and other civilian roles
and when you changed your policies
on asking departments for a list of top five positions
to rank, order where you can submit
many departments didn't know this box.
Didn't know I was engaging with with these people.
And there is miscommunication. So it's not just departments
not sending you the requirements one way. It's also communication back
the other, which seems to be broken.
And I would love to see changes when it comes to that,
but also, yes, there for various reasons.
Miscommunication, two sides not talking to each other in the same city.
There's 400 requisitions not submitted.
What about the other 400? There's so much that can be do outside of that.
So I do hope to see that as well.
And thank you, Chair Ramachandran for your comments.
And so of the 851 431 have no activities,
197 are in some active recruitment process,
including interviews and backgrounds. And so that leaves us a net of two 223 that
we are focusing our efforts on. And I and I, and I believe that for the past couple times
we've been here, we've addressed your concerns about the top five that no longer exists.
I don't know where the top five came from.
My staff and I've been here two years. My staff, has said that they understand
through the folklore, the oral tradition that once upon a time, maybe there was some mutterings of the five top five.
But now we actually sit down. We meet regularly with our departments
and we ask them, just give us your list and rank order
of what your priorities are. If feeling, if the employees.
If you need employees to fill potholes, tell us you know
what is it that you need? We do not limit them to anything.
So I do want to dispel that myth. I don't know, I do want to respectfully dispel
that myth because that does not exist. But we have different versions of the truth, which is fine.
We're not going to debate that right here. But it is very clear in conversation that I have had
with department heads, with staff, with sparks,
that that was certainly not the case two years ago, but we can move on.
Thank you. And so, yes,
I think as the department actually does the work, I think that, we
respectfully disagree with that myth, but yes, let's move on.
All right. Councilmember Brown.
Right. Well, thank you so much.
To to my colleagues and on the HR department
for this, comprehensive report.
I am personally focused. I,
you know, I recognize everyone is extremely frustrated.
And I think in this moment, I'm really focused in on,
the how we can innovate as a city and how technology comes into play here.
And this conversation, even if we don't focus on the amount of,
you know, job, open positions that have not received the requisition.
And even if we focus on the ones that have, I am curious.
The report states on page 18, there's a category under technology and process.
And I guess I am curious, with the I guess
with the vacant positions that HR has,
is there a specific position that is focused in on,
actually meeting Aucklanders, like where they are?
And this is outside of kind of what was listed in the report, where it states
all of the various community engagement activities
that the departments went to job fairs, etc.,
but also recognizing that a lot of people look for jobs online.
And so if, for example, all the job
classifications aren't listed on the website,
and I think occasionally I'll see on the city of Oakland,
maybe like the LinkedIn, sometimes on social media,
I'll see one offs where it's like, oh, we're hiring for
you know, a director position or something like that.
But I guess I'm more interested in, like, what is our actual like?
I think I would love in this report to see something
that's like, hey, what is our social media plan?
Right? Because there are all there are so many ways that,
community members and especially, you know, folks
who are kind of like up and coming, maybe just graduating from from college.
There's different ways that we should be engaging with them.
And it may not necessarily be,
you know, at a random career fair that you may see the day of
and honestly, you can't make it. And so I guess I am I'm interested in like what one
have we hired someone in a role that actually manages,
hiring in the HR department for technology?
Like, do we have that?
Not specifically. No. And so I guess, like through the chair
to the administration, maybe potentially
that could be something that we consider for the future
that so that we can, just really put a plan in place
to make sure that we are engaging with Aucklanders so that there isn't this,
this, perception that we are trying.
Right. I know that,
the second that, you know, I posted an open position
within my office, you know, I received 54 shares
within 30 minutes. Right?
Like it was very quick. And so I imagine that that same type of engagement,
we will get that same type of engagement, even if we break it down where it's like,
you know, Oakland Fire Department hiring the following positions. Right?
Maybe that's what we're posting about week one, week two hr, so on and so forth.
And so I think that there are some tools at our disposal
to actually help get the word out and actually do some, some,
maybe more innovative, recruitment,
to help support departments in filling these positions.
And then we can further,
you know, eliminate this,
this misconception that we aren't hiring.
So I will, I would love to, to have someone
kind of speak to that.
Yeah. So we can absolutely work to partner with, PIOs to get things out.
You know, a little bit better. But I do want to say our numbers of applicants are not hurting.
We get lots of people that are applying to the jobs.
It's after the process.
You know, where does somebody want to ultimately work?
But we do get high numbers, so we are advertising
as the jobs come available.
We've implemented a few different things. So one of the things I'm happy to report,
we actually have two our staff members, they're at a career fair right now.
We have, we've been doing, various events.
One of our, senior analyst, Harry Stanley,
did a great presentation last week at the library.
I think we had 300 people attend,
where he talked about how to apply for a job. Where are the pitfalls that we're seeing
in the applicant application process?
So, you know, people aren't filling out their application correctly and they're falling off the how can we help the public?
So we are actively working on recruiting for our jobs.
We've also implemented a few different things that help us internally.
So we got new software in our applicant tracking system.
So additional modules that will help us to hire faster.
So we just implemented that. We're going through an implementation process
with Neil Gove or government jobs is what the public sees.
And so that is supposed to be fully implemented
and ready to go by June 5th. So our team is working on that.
So we have a lot of things that are happening on the back end.
We are a very small team, and so we are trying to not only
fill our own positions, but to help fill positions citywide.
Absolutely. And that makes sense.
And I hope that, you know, the open positions that you all have an HR,
those will be a priority to fill. And then also at the same time,
I know that a lot of times the community feedback that we receive
is that it takes so long to actually get hired
with the city. And so I hope that,
I guess to the administration supporting the department
that we could help to really like set,
a very strong goal of like,
you know, by the time someone applies to the time
we actually fill the position, like what?
What is that time frame that we are actually striving for so that, you know,
if there was 30 applicants that applied for that one position,
then those those 29 who don't get the job can move on to
maybe something else that's posted as well,
so that we are in general losing all 29.
Right.
And then potentially that would help to fill some of the, the vacancies
and through the chair, we have several council members
that are actually working to fill their own positions.
So I've been able to work with several of you one on one.
And I think you've seen some of the processes
once somebody selected and, and onboarding,
there's still the payroll paperwork
that has to be filled out. There's still the, you know, I-9 process, and the person has to come in.
So there's those other pieces that wanted transfers
from the department back to HR, back to payroll.
So there's those things that we're working very closely,
with the payroll manager, to make sure that we're helping to streamline those processes so we can get people onboarded as quickly as possible.
And just a comment. You're absolutely right, Amber.
It's been a delight working really closely with both of you and Anjali.
With onboarding. And so I'm really grateful for your support.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. And I did want to second my colleague's comments on using social media, and just I think we have to meet,
you know, 20 year olds and 30 year olds, the next generation of public
servants, that's where they're at.
I just really want to understand this whole requisition issue because I,
it's a little jaw dropping in terms of the vacancies
that don't have a requisition submitted.
Can you walk us through exactly what that looks like?
And why so many department heads have not submitted it?
Is that something that if we really focus on hiring up more HR analysts,
that the HR department could then support department
heads in submitting it? Is it a highly technical or convoluted process?
So yeah. So I'll I'll start off and I'll hand it to Director Johnson.
Part of those additional positions that were added to our budget
were to help with submission of the requisitions.
One of the key things, though, is we don't want to just submit requisitions for every position that there is.
So the department has to decide where are their priorities.
You know, we submit it for the office assistant, but they really needed to do the sweeps. Street sweeper.
First. We want to make sure that they're prioritizing
where their needs are. So we don't want to just submit every requisition without the department actually letting us know
what are the priorities for our department?
Especially if, you know, you want to hire the supervisor
before you fill the position that there will be supervising.
You can't hire the incumbent and then have no supervisor.
So it really is a strategic process on how the requisitions are submitted.
But the actual process of submitting a requisition is very easy.
It takes a couple of minutes. But it really is the whole thought
process behind submitting the requisition
to turn it over to the director. Thank you for that.
I'd like to pass to see Administrator Johnson and just a friendly reminder. We have 45 minutes to finish three items, one
that has significant public comment. Thank you.
Thank you to the chair. Councilman Wang, I know you have probably have
a couple more, questions that you'll want to ask.
But but I want to be mindful of the other items that we have.
If it if it is helpful, happy to sit down and walk you through this.
But the process actually is, which is very consistent amongst
you Mississippi politicians across the country. So happy to make and carve out that time.
But I just want to be cognizant of the other items that we have.
Coming up. Okay. Yeah. That's fair.
I'll just finish with this comment, which is like there are positions like
code enforcement position that have been highlighted as a priority, discussed
with the department had they agree it's a top priority.
Other departments even say this position is needed.
And then I look on the website and it's still not listed.
And so this is the kind of stuff that I just really need
feel like we need to dig into.
Okay, that's it.
Thank you. Public speakers
calling in the names that sign up to speak on item number four.
In no particular order. You can come up to the podium set earlier, David Boatwright
and Kevin Daley, David Boatwright, district four.
After this bloodbath that y'all have carried on here,
I think it's obvious that there's been
a lack of communication, both by the council,
human resources and all the departments.
There's no reason why there should be so many,
requisitioned.
Positions. Now, my comments,
unexplained in this report shows, four
frozen positions that were failed and 69 unauthorized positions that were filled,
except in departments where there is a clear
need for hiring, for example, OPD, 911 street
repair, street paving, safety related infrastructure,
and where significant revenue generation
has been proven, departments where significant non
general purpose fund bond spending is available
and jobs where future experience loss can be predicted due
to retirements and replacement, hiring is difficult.
The city should not be budgeting for new positions that do not meet these criteria.
We still have a budget problem.
Why are we hiring 800 people if we've got a budget problem?
Positions where solid, factual, results driven, results
driven reasons cannot be proven, or jobs
this city cannot afford to fail, pure statistics
should not be the only justification for hiring.
I'm not going to finish the rest of this, but,
basically we ought to look back at what happened since two,
2019 when we started hiring like crazy through the,
pandemic. And, this city has grown in size so much.
We need to look at what happened then and reconsider those jobs.
There's just too many.
Seth, all your president.
Oakland firefighters. I just want to say thank you for the report. That's incredibly, informative and for the entire council's
work to try and staff up Oakland.
Just speaking for the OFT and open firefighters perspective, staffing levels
for my membership as of is approaching an all time low.
Council Member Unger can attest to this. There were some times we were down in the high 300,
so we're approaching 400 members at this point.
And as far as we're aware of, we're the only department
that has a minimum staffing agreement that guarantees that there must be this many
fire engines and trucks on the city every day
with as many people. So we have a set number of seats
that we have to fill contractually every day
that is set in order to guarantee safety levels for Oakland ers and for Oakland firefighters.
That's 141 per day.
There are three shifts. That's 423 butts that need to be in seats every day.
And we're under 420 members total right now.
We're at 418, is my recollection.
So that doesn't account for any day off, any sick days, any vacation, any anything.
My membership is at the breaking point, and we're at the point
now where,
people are having to choose between their families and their oath,
and they're going through divorces. They're going through and contemplating suicide.
We're we are in extremis, the the the time is now.
Actually, the time is passed to do something.
So I'm calling on this board
and this body to do something, please, to help my membership in Oakland.
We need to do a lateral firefighter class. We need to do a lateral pay for,
firefighter paramedic class immediately.
A 17% vacancy rate is just abysmal.
And it's unsafe, and Aucklanders deserve better.
You know, the the last thing I want to say is just what I'm hearing from H.R.
is that there, ready to work.
And they need requisitions.
They're ready to hire. So let's do it.
You know, we're at 418 people plus or minus,
and we're authorized for 500. I'd love 2026 to be the year that we hit that number.
Thank you.
Kevin Daley,
I've also heard when I attend the Bicyclists
and Pedestrian Advisory Commissions,
often Odot mentions problems with hiring.
And I think from various departments, I've heard versions of the top
five rule. If you give a chart too many positions to fill at once,
some of the some of the important positions
will be dropped. I'm hoping the city administrator can work with
all of the departments who are having trouble hiring
and with H.R, and figure out how we can move forward and
improve hiring. Thank you.
Thank you for your comments, chair. That concludes all speakers on this item.
Thank you. I will entertain a motion to, forward this to the,
April 14th City Council meeting as a public
hearing.
Will move approval second.
Thank you. We have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Wang, to approve the recommendations of staff
and to receive and forward this item to the April
14th Special City Council Agenda at 3:30 p.m.
as a public hearing on roll, Council members Brown,
Ungar I, Wang I
and chair Ramachandran I thank you.
Item number four passes with four eyes
to be forwarded to the April 14th Special City Council
agenda at 3:30 p.m. as a public hearing
reading in item five, receive an informational report
on the results of the salary survey for the
port city job classifications earning less than $25 per hour.
And we have one speaker that signed up to speak.
Thank you. In the interest of time, myself and coauthor Council Member
Brown would like to postpone this item to be heard
at the next kind of, finance committee
meeting on April 21st.
But we are open to taking,
public comment, and we'll have to vote on it. Been postponed as well,
calling in the name that signed up to speak on item number five, Kevin Dally,
who has just left the chamber.
Mr.. Dally, would you still like to speak on.
Okay, chair, that concludes our names.
Thank you. I will make a motion to postpone this to the next FMC committee
on, April 21st.
To the second. Second.
Thank you. That was a motion made by Chair Ramachandran, seconded by Council Member
Wang to continue this item to the April 21st
Finance and Management Committee. Agenda on roll.
Council members. Brown I, Ungar I, Wang I and chair.
Ramachandran I thank you. Item number five passes with
four eyes to be forwarded to the April 21st
Finance and Management Committee. Agenda reading in item number three,
reading all pieces of legislation noting that portion one was withdrawn.
Adopt the following pieces of legislation
A resolution recommending to the Civil Service Board
the exemption of the classification of Parking
Administrator from the operation of civil service,
noting that one was withdrawn, and two a resolution
recommending to the Civil Service Board the
exemption of the Classification of Constitutional policing,
administrative for the operation of civil service, and three
a resolution recommending to the Civil Service Board
the exemption of the classification of Assistant Director, Human Services, for the operation
of civil Service, and for an ordinance
amending the salary Schedule of Ordinance Number 12187
CMS and sorry to a at the full time
classification of parking Administrator and be,
the full time classification of Constitutional Policing
Administrator and c at the full time
classification of Assistant Director, Human Services,
and amending the salary of the full time
classification of neighborhood law courts.
Attorney. And we have a number of speakers on this item.
Monica Davis, Deputy City Administrator
I did want to clarify the administration's request
on amending the full component of this agenda item.
So for item three, withdrawing part one, as the clerk mentioned,
but also in part for updating the title of the ordinance to strike part A,
that says, add the full time classification
of parking administrator and in the body of the ordinance
to remove section two, the following classification
is added an ordinance number 12187 cms in the unit
UK 275 026 pay grade table to read as follows.
Classification title. Class member step, salary, parking, administration details
and then also updating the related attachment
A to remove the parking administrator. On page 118.
Thank you. Thank you colleagues. Any questions? Councilor Unger,
just so I'm clear that that removes all of the
references to parking. Yes, I probably should have said that up front. Yes.
For removing that parking administrator component of this agenda item.
Thank you.
Okay. We can move to public comment. Oh, sorry, I can't see.
I did have just just one very quick thing. I just want to, highlight the salary increase
for the neighborhood law court attorneys here.
I think that this is an an incredibly
skilled group of folks who are working,
at a level sort of way below they could of the money
that they could make in the private sector.
And I just appreciate their work and say, this is well deserved.
So we agreed on the neighborhood law court
position, very well deserved increase.
Colleagues. Okay. Public comment.
Calling in the names I signed up to speak on item number three.
In no particular order. You can come to the podium, state your name. For the record.
If you are ceding time to anyone, please be sure to,
be here in chamber to acknowledge that you are setting time to that person.
Kevin Dally, Keith Schultz,
Ben Benfica's Cyrus, Michael Ford
I see people who have seated time to you, Douglas Mount
and Tammy Bird.
Kirby Olson I see people have ceded time to you,
Phillip Sweet,
Ben, Matt Law, Lakisha montalvo,
Chanel Smith,
Sarah Fine.
Collins, Heath and
Monica Lee.
Please state your name for the record before beginning your comment.
Good morning Sarah. Fine, I have time seated to me by Colin Beatty and the mission.
Thank you. You will have an adjusted time of four minutes.
You can begin. Okay. Sarah. Fine. Department of Transportation and Local 21 member,
I'm here to present a letter on behalf of nearly 1000 members citywide,
vehemently opposing the creation of the parking administrator classification,
opposing the transition of a protected
civil service position to LB will employment
opposing the Finance Department's takeover of the parking Division
and denouncing the administration's misuse of general purpose funds to facilitate the takeover,
despite historically low parking staffing levels due to budget
cuts and delays in hiring, the city has seen increased parking revenues.
Just as we are concerned about how revenues are collected,
we pay attention to how they're spent.
We oppose the creation of this position because it wastes taxpayer money.
The parking administrator would uplevel the existing manager,
but have less staff reporting to them,
so your responsibilities and would do less work.
Why is the administration suddenly excited to give someone less work for more pay?
How will the administration pay for this person who does less work for more pay
with a general purpose fund? Of course, the same GPF
that was 12 months ago, so strapped for cash
that this administration felt it necessary to send layoff notices to more than 60 union members,
the same GPF that was so tapped out every city worker
except sworn police was told there was not enough
for a guaranteed cost of living increase.
This year, we accepted maybe money in our contracts
for this administration to turn around and throw GG at a brand new corner office.
This is waste and we oppose it.
And speaking of corner offices, the staff report fails to mention that this report this role
would be among the 30 highest paid positions in the entire city of Oakland.
Whoever's selected for this role will make more
than the Assistant Director of Planning and Building, the assistant director of okay,
the assistant director of public works, but also the director of Public Ethics
Commission and the director of Race and Equity.
If our budget is a statement of values,
the statement clearly says, we got it all wrong.
Finally, we stand for protecting civil service
because it is a bulwark against cronyism and nepotism,
against corruption and compromise. Ethics from the federal government
to local government, civil service means you must be hired through
a competitive, merit based, qualifications based system.
It means you cannot be fired because you refuse to do someone's bidding,
and it means you don't
get the corner office just because your friend has the other one.
We oppose the administration's proposal to replace an existing civil service
protected role with a new role exempt from civil service and at greater cost.
And so should you join us in rejecting
the administration's meritless proposal to add a wasteful, exempt
executive position to our top heavy tree?
Hi, I'm Keith Shaw, time with Oak Dot.
I've worked for the city for 26 years this year,
for the last eight years with Odot.
I'm basically coming to reiterate a very simple, simple question
why are you paying more money
for less work,
more money for less work?
That makes no sense.
And after listening to the reports today and having my jaw hit the floor
many times, I'm starting to see a pattern of nuttiness here.
Please, please say no to the insanity
and start the process back to responsibility.
I so want to point out that if you're concerned about revenue,
please come and talk to the staff
about increasing revenue and ideas for that.
We have plenty of ideas. All of the people here who work for Odot
have ideas about increasing revenue,
and I would love to sit down with city council staff
and go over ideas that we have batted around
for years to increase finance and revenue.
Thank you so much.
For the record, Kirby Olson, I have two people seeing their time.
To me, they are.
Their names are Philip Sweet and Ben Matlock.
Right.
So for the record, my name is Kirby Olson. I'm here today speaking as a local 21
union member and concerned Oakland resident,
thank you to the administration for removing
the parking administrator from today's item.
But I just want to generally speak,
against that position,
and urge the committee members to reject the creation
of the parking administrator position, whenever it comes back to you,
creation of the parking administrator position
would all but ensure
that the finance Department's hostile takeover of OKC's parking division will happen.
That proposal was presented to the Public Works
and Transportation Committee twice, where both times it faced deep skepticism
from committee members and an overwhelming display of opposition from staff.
The local 21 and SEIU unions, business improvement districts,
transportation advocates, and the bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission.
The reorganization proposal has not been vetted by the full council,
and is not currently scheduled to be vetted
until such time as that proposal has been heard and approved
by your colleagues on the full council. It is immature and irresponsible to approve the creation
of this new position. We know that as soon as this position is created,
finance will use ad deletes and other financial trickery to fill it.
Council members. The city administrator has told you that he has full authority to execute the reorg,
and you are helpless to stop it. And yet, what he hasn't told you
is that you have in your power the ability to reject the creation of this position,
which is in fact the linchpin of the entire reorganization.
He also didn't tell you that creation of this new position will cost $550,000 fully loaded per year
from the general fund, and be completely redundant
to the award winning parking division manager that you are already employing at the Dot,
and who will continue to be employed
regardless of the reorg.
The stated rationale for this reorganization is that finance
can better handle collections and citation payment plans.
Collections account for less than 1.5%
of total parking revenues, and finance has not stated what they would do to improve them.
By their own admission, they have not identified
any new revenues from the reorg, nor any salary savings.
The rationale is so flimsy
and so baseless that we have no choice
but to assume that the real reason for the entire proposal
is so that they can hand this very well-paying,
appointed position to one of their friends.
That level of nepotism is sadly not surprising given
the track record of the people pushing pushing this proposal.
But we need to do better as a city. This isn't 2008, and we don't need
to go back to those dark days.
We already have an award winning division manager
in Michael Ford, who can lead the parking division once again
as soon as the administration drops this terrible proposal.
Committee members, I ask you not to sit back and let this corruption unfold.
Assert the authority that the people of this great city have given you.
Show us that you are not a rubber stamp for this administration.
Reject this redundant and costly position until such
time as the full council has heard the parking reorg
and given an opinion one way or the other. Thank you.
Good morning. Michael Ford and I have two people, sitting me to me, Doug Mount and Tammy Byrd.
So thank you again. Michael Ford, local 21 member,
resident of district two. And,
for for ten years, I had the honor of,
leading the city's, parking and mobility
division within the Department of Transportation.
And, I'd like to,
just share a little bit about,
just get personal for a minute, and reflect on what,
it's been like since October 3rd, when I was told on my birthday that,
the city was taking away my division
and that I was instructed not to question it.
And I want to thank,
council members Unger and Brown for bringing, the resolution
or the, the request to the city administration to bring an information
report to the Public Works and Transportation Committee.
It's been very, very important.
I am so proud of the employees,
in the Department of Transportation, Parking
and Mobility Division from SEIU and local 21 who have stuck together.
We've cried together, we've organized together.
We've come in to this chamber multiple times to express
our concern about this parking takeover.
And, I feel that
the, the actions today, by the city
administration to withdraw this item gives us more room.
As we've repeatedly said, we're not being confrontational.
We're trying to be constructive. We just want the best thing for the city of Oakland.
Which also means the best thing for our staff
in 2016, members in this room,
went to council and asked to be part
of the new Department of Transportation
parking enforcement asked to be reworked from the police department
to the new Department of Transportation.
Now they're asking to stay in th
You've heard several times that this parking reorg would involve
the creation of a new parking administration position.
The administration has also said repeatedly
that the customer service center, our parking and mobility
assistance center, deserves a dedicated supervisor.
I couldn't agree more because I've been holding
that role for three and a half years.
While it's been frozen.
So in effect,
I have been doing two jobs for three and a half years,
and I'm not complaining.
But this reorg would create two new positions,
one of which would be getting 20% more than me.
That's $45,000 a year more for doing 60%
of what I've been doing for the last 4 or 5 years.
That's that's I, that's unconscionable.
I just can't I can't understand why you would do it.
So the last thing I would like to say,
and in support of the position that you're hearing from staff,
and that is don't fix it if it ain't broken,
is that if the city were very serious about
wanting to ensure that we're maximizing revenue,
the proposal should be to staff the front line.
Not not add expensive managers.
So that's that's my recommendation.
Let's staff our front line. Let's keep our capacity to delivering essential services
like automated speed enforcement and the future red light camera programs.
And let's, let's get back to business.
And so I just want to thank you.
Lakisha montalvo. And I'm ceding my time to Chanel's mayor.
I do want to take one minute, and I just want to say
thanks for the withdrawal. Can you please put Michael back?
And Dottie and Keith. Sorry.
To the member of the public. If you're stealing time, you're not allowed to
use your time anymore. Sorry.
Thank you. My name is Chanel Smith. I've been employed with the city for over 37 years.
I wanted to thank you all for taking a moment,
a pause in this decision, and listen to what we have to say.
What we're telling you is that we don't need reorg.
We need re staffing
for years. For years we've been understaffed.
And the parking mobility division, they used to have 14
people there. Now they have two.
We don't need new org. We need re staffing.
We don't need reorg. We need this restocking
and meter collections. They used to have ten people.
Now they have to they don't need reorg.
They need re staffing. And this is how this happened.
And parking enforcement. Our stats went down from 50 parking enforcement officer
to about 20. So if I'm not out there patrolling the streets again
those citizens who won't pay won't pay.
So there's no need for a meter collector to come by
because there's no one paying the meters.
If I'm not out there issuing citations,
there's no one to go to the P Maxx to pay a parking citation ticket.
So the system is sabotaged from the bottom from
when we're out there. And like I said before,
this is the city from Embarcadero to Grand Avenue.
There's about ten sections where ten different officers should be out there.
Since the pandemic, it's been like two.
So that's where our breakdown is.
And parking control. We don't need reorg.
We need re staffing and the DLT.
We don't need any reorg.
We need restarting. And if any of you have taken a moment to look at this,
where is OPD? Where is OPD saying that.
Oh no, we're going to welcome this group.
We're gonna encourage this group. We're going to do more with this group than they're doing.
And Dot, we have not seen that.
We have not seen them say, come, welcome aboard.
What we have seen as deal, the police department
lay off officers and send them over to DLT.
This is the strongest unit we have going in the city.
D.O.T. can bring money to the revenue.
We're asking you to not reorg us, restore us, restore
our growth, and let us continue to produce for the city.
Let us continue to produce for the residents of Oakland because they see us there
watching what you do in this process.
We don't need reorg. We just need to be restored.
And we need someone like Michael Ford, who's been leading and guiding our group
not only for the expertise that he brings to our group,
but the boots on the ground that he brings to our group.
Like you said, he's been doing the job and he's been doing the job and being you.
He's hanging signs. He's not only been the boss, he's been a coworker.
He's encouraging us to do more and to do better.
And we're thriving under this leadership.
It's easy to have someone give you directions, but it's great.
All right. Kevin Daley,
I'm also thanks to the city administrator for pulling
the parking administrator from today's agenda.
I'm looking forward to having the item permanently removed.
I appreciate Council Member Ungar
and Brown for sponsoring the informational report
from the city administrator. It's come to
come to public works and transportation
over and over again without really getting
a sufficient explanation for why we need to do the reorg
before we establish new positions.
Let's decide whether the council is supportive of reorg.
The council does have the right to specify
bureaus and divisions within a department.
This has been done before.
Many years ago, the council decided to trust the city administrator to follow
good faith reorganization and allow the city administrator
to organize departments without council requirements.
But the council can come back and require
bureaus and divisions again if need be.
I'm also looking forward. Yeah, it's Michael, Ford said.
Let's get the parking mobility team back to issuing tickets,
bringing up the new speed camera program,
bringing back red light cameras, and one of my favorite new
things, having the AC transit bus
cameras automatically ticket
people parked in bike lanes.
That's a potential revenue source.
AC transit is probably going to be willing to go along with
this being it is now legal under state law.
Sacramento is already doing it.
Thanks. Let's get rid of this position.
Thank you.
Nico's Cross Local 21 member
work in the Department of Transportation in the Parking and Mobility Assistance Center.
So I just again want to speak to the fact that
the problems that we're facing is because we're severely understaffed, like we have four people right now.
And the ability to I'm just impressed
with what we've been able to do with our current staff level.
If we had more people, we wouldn't have the constraints
and the criticisms that have been leveled against this wouldn't be,
we need more people. And I find it very ironic that the criticisms
that have been leveled against us
when we were part of the Revenue department, the same criticisms were leveled against us.
These are the complaints that have always been
historically discussed about my group,
and it really frustrates me that now all of a sudden
finance is saying, oh, we have the solution.
We can solve everything. But the problems in my staffing level started
when we were part of the Revenue Bureau.
The ad deletes the number of positions that are on my team, shrank,
began when we were part of the revenue. And so I don't understand how all the side now
that can be the solution. There's they have the solution to fix our problems.
What we really need is staffing.
That's the fundamental thing we need to staffing.
And under Michael Ford's leadership,
what we have been able to accomplish again.
With our staffing, I am very impressed with what my team has done
and what I and I don't think that this reorg is what we need.
It's it's equivalent to asking for a heart surgery to to remove splinters.
It's not what we need. We need staffing.
And again, under Michael Ford's leadership,
we have done great things.
And I and I believe we will continue to do great things
and we will continue to innovate and continue
to push things forward in a positive manner.
I don't think that this regard is what we need.
What we need is more people.
Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Share. That concludes our speakers on this item.
All right. I will entertain a motion to forward this
to the next council meeting on consent.
April 14th. So moved. Second.
Thank you. We have a motion made by council members Ungar and Council member Brown to.
Sorry. Give me one moment.
Sorry to approve the recommendations of staff, as amended to forward
this to the April 14th special City Council agenda,
with the following amendments.
Sorry for item three, withdrawing part one, in part
for updating the title of the ordinance to strike part A
that says at the full time classification of Parking Administrator
and in the body of the ordinance to remove section two, the following classifications
in added in Ordinance number 1 to 1 eight
seven cms in the unit K to seven.
Sorry 275026. Pay grade table to read as follows.
Classifications. Title, class number, step, salary, parking, administration details
and updating the related attachment eight to remove the parking administrator on page 118.
On the roll. Councilmember Brown I, Ungar
I, Wang I and chair Ramachandran I thank you.
Item number three passes with four eyes to forward
this item, as amended to the April
sorry, April 14th Special City Council Agenda at 3:30 p.m.
on consent
reading in item number six. Now.
Receive an informational report on the Oakland
Police and Fire Retirement System investment
portfolio as of December 31st, 2025, and actual
valuation report as of July 1st, 2025.
And we have no speakers that signed up to speak.
Good morning, committee chair and members of the committee.
My name is Taylor Jenkins.
I am the investment and operations manager for the City of Oakland
and the Police and Fire Retirement system,
known as papers. We'll keep our presentations short.
Just the purpose of this report is to provide you an update
on papers, investments as well as actuary.
You guys should all have the package that was passed out earlier.
To assist me in presenting this information.
I have the papers, investment consultant David Sands,
with some Makita investments, as well as a paper's actuary,
Graham Schmidt of Kiron.
Just a reminder, papers is a closed system.
At this, at that after after. In 1976, everyone was transferred to CalPERS.
Papers currently has a membership about 577 individuals as of December 31st.
And we have an investment portfolio of about 500 million,
based on the most recent valuation report, the plan was fully funded and,
just a quick note that the funds are the 500
million is specifically dedicated towards papers and
is funded by a dedicated funding source to the PTO fund.
With that said, I will, pass it over to David Sands, which,
to discuss a little bit more on the investment.
Thank you.
As usual, I will be short and to the point.
You've had a long meeting today, and at least you'll, hit a
another good point here, which is the portfolio continues
to perform. Well, as of December 31st, it had over $500 million in assets.
As through the end of February, it was up to 512 million.
The assumed rate of return on this portfolio is 5%
for a fiscal year period to the end of February.
That fiscal year return was 10%. So we've more than doubled the portfolio's return expectation.
We've also de-risked this portfolio. About 60% of the assets are in fixed income,
and everything continues to perform,
as expected for the most part. There are any questions?
I'll turn it over to Graham Schmidt, the actuary.
Thanks. Thank you. Banking on David's good news
from an actual perspective, things are, really good.
Plan, achieve full funding, year ahead of schedule.
So it's supposed to be funded by June 30th of this year.
If you looked at the market value of assets as of last year, June 30th, 2025,
the plan had already achieved that full funding target.
No contributions are expected to be required
for the fiscal year that begins July 1st.
So good news report.
Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Colleagues.
Any questions? Any public speakers?
Okay. We can,
make a motion to receive and file.
So moved. Second.
Thank you. We have a motion made by council members. Brown, seconded by Council member Ungar to receive and file this informational report
in Committee on rule. Council members.
Brown I, Ungar I1I and chair Ramachandran. Hi.
Thank you. Item number six passes with four eyes to receive and file this information and report in committee.
Now moving on to open forum calling in the names
that signed up to speak, David Boatwright and Kevin Dally.
A couple of newspaper articles from
this one from May 8th, 2019
San Francisco Chronicle film a tier.
Though cranes are rising across the skyline and Oakland's
revenues are growing at a steady rate
due to the strong real estate market, the city's expenses
continue to rise faster than revenues.
Everybody was warned in 2019
and August of 2020.
Another article, the Oakland City Council,
a unanimous unanimously agreed July 28th to form a task force
that will work on a plan to reconstruct public safety
in Oakland with the goal of reducing the police department budget
by 50% over the next two years.
Mission accomplished.
Thank you for your comments, Mr. Boatwright.
Last call for Mr. Dali.
Chair. All names have been called. All right.
Great.
Oh, we don't have a, This meeting is adjourned.
Thank you. Everyone.