Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

The budget passed by the Oakland City Council last night in a 7-1 vote contains $83 million in cuts, but it doesn't mean the city's out of the woods just yet with respect to its $100 million projected deficit. If employees don't take the 10 percent pay cut that's part of the plan in the case of the police department , layoffs will take place. Moreover, the proposed 10 percent ticket surcharge on Coliseum event tickets is being challenged by the County of Alameda, which threatened a lawsuit. Someone in the City of Oakland should have called the Coliseum Authority before installing that plan. The lawsuit threats a reflection of lack of communication. More soon.

The City of Oakland is laying people off. This sad news comes from the Oakland Tribune and will take place this week in the wake of the massive City of Oakland budget shortfall projected to go to as much as $100 million. The departments impacted include Parks and Recreation, finance, human services and others. In total the Mayor's budget calls for 250 people to be let go.

In today's SF Chronicle, Chip Johnson explains that the City of Oakland is considering a number of solutions to the estimated $100 million budget shortfall, just not the ones Mayor Ron Dellums has suggested, like borrowing $24 million from the city's reserves. I'm surprised the Oakland Redevelopment Agency Budget's not a target for borrowing. Hmmm..

More at Inside Bay Area : “OAKLAND — City officials will be swimming in red ink once again when they return to business after the New Year. Mayor Ron Dellums released a budget report this week projecting a general fund deficit of $50 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2009, and $58 million the year after that. The bleak projections are due to an economy in recession and expected increases in spending on children's programs and employee benefits and pension obligations, among other things, Dellums' report said. The mayor will meet with the City Council on Jan. 12 to begin hammering out a spending plan for the two-year period beginning July 1 and to take stock of the city's fiscal picture over the next five years. "Most public agencies nationwide, as well as private businesses large and small, local and global, face a daunting financial future," Dellums said in a statement. "The city of Oakland is no exception. The economic downturn that we face is u

More at SFGate : “Dellums said the city's deficit, which was $42 million this year, could balloon by 2012 to nearly $113 million, with revenues that year projected to be $456 million and expenditures at $569 million. The city has relied heavily upon property transfer taxes which have dwindled with the mortgage meltdown. Retail sales taxes are floundering while the costs of providing police and fire service and maintaining parks and other basic city services are rising.” -- This is a great time to create new Redevelopment project areas, if only to capture whatever property tax revenue we can, otherwise it had to be shared with BART, AC Transit, and other entities. Regardless, the zero-sum game is not fun and will lead to their loss. The end answer is a going to be a total bailout by the Federal Government, in some kind of way.

The main question is why can't Oakland streamline its spending to smooth these wild swings in surplus and deficit? Are they conducting decent forecasts? I guess not. Oakland looking at budget shortfall City projected to be $13.5 million in the red for next fiscal year By Heather MacDonald, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 03/23/2007 02:53:16 AM PDT OAKLAND — Less than a year after reveling in a $16 million surplus, the City Council must grapple with a projected budget deficit of nearly $13.5million. At a daylong retreat Monday at the Joaquin Miller Community Center, the council began working in earnest to craft a spending plan for the next two years. In addition to the deficit projected for 2007-08, the shortfall for 2008-09 is estimated to be $8.8 million. The council spent the surplus on a host of programs, including tree-trimming and roof repairs. In addition, each council member got $250,000 to spend as they wished on projects and programs in their districts. That windfal