City Councilmember, District One City of Oakland To: Hon. Mayor Sheng Thao, Interim City Administrator Steven Falk From: City Councilmember Dan Kalb CC: Finance Director Erin Roseman; Bradley Johnson; Rina Stabler Date: March 15, 2023 RE: FY 2023-25 Budget Expenditure Priorities Thank you for taking the below priorities into consideration when crafting the Administration’s proposed FY 2023-25 Budget. I look forward to working with you and my colleagues on the Council to achieve a budget that prioritizes those most in need, ensures fiscal stability, helps the city recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and funds vital public safety efforts. I am submitting the following budget priorities pursuant to the Consolidated Fiscal Policy. That said, I may subsequently update my expenditure priorities during the budget process as additional information becomes available. Top Expenditure Priorities: • VIOLENCE PREVENTION AND PUBLIC SAFETY • Department of Violence Prevention (DVP) – Fund all DVP priority strategies. Support reauthorization of Measure Z with additional funding for DVP strategies. Not cuts to DVP strategies! • Civilian Crisis Response – Expand our innovative MACRO program to facilitate 24/7 citywide coverage. • Transition Internal Affairs Division Responsibilities – Begin the transition of moving Internal Affairs responsibilities to the Community Police Review Agency (CPRA), thereby making a number of sworn officers available for redeployment to other police responsibilities such as investigations of serious and violent crimes, and CeaseFire.
Kalb FY 23-25 Budget Priorities 2
• Criminal Investigations – Enhance OPD’s capacity to investigate and solve serious and violent crimes by filling any vacancies among police evidence technicians and crime lab analysts, and by fully staffing our criminal investigations division. • Ceasefire – Fully fund and expand Ceasefire program if at all possible. • Police Commission – Ensure sufficient funding for Oakland Police Commission including a robust Office of Inspector General. • Expand Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, whenever feasible. • HOUSING AFFORDABILITY AND HOMELESSNESS Housing Affordability: • Protection: Provide sufficient funding for Rental Adjustment Program to carry out its mission—including enforcement, counseling and education, and the new rental registry. § Property Tax Rebate: Consider creating a temporary property tax rebate for discounted rental housing geared toward Oakland Public School teachers. • Preservation: Allocate funds to purchase naturally occurring affordable housing and other existing buildings so they are managed and maintained as affordable for the long-term. Work with community land trusts and affordable housing operators. • Production: Identify and provide increased funding for new affordable housing projects. Allocate in advance our Measure U affordable housing funds to help kick-start affordable housing projects. • City Services: Ensure that the City has sufficient number of staff to be able to provide timely approvals and permits for housing projects, with priority given to affordable housing and accessory dwelling units (ADUs). Ensure City has sufficient staff in Code Enforcement. Homelessness: • Prevention: Maintain funding for Keep Oakland Housed program services, emphasizing those services that are most effective in preventing people from falling into homelessness. Fund support services for tenants to transition for when the eviction moratorium ends. • Encampment Management Services: Increase funding for trash collection and deep cleanings, sanitation, and contracting for regular porta-potty servicing.
Kalb FY 23-25 Budget Priorities 3
• Outreach Services: Grow funding and capacity for city outreach teams in order to be able to visit more locations, build more trusting relationships, and provide more wrap-around support. Work with County on outreach to people at encampments based on specific needs. The County should be providing more resources for drug dependency treatment. • Interim and Long-term Housing: Purchase buildings to convert to transitional and permanent extremely low-income housing for unhoused residents. Work closely with County to assist with operations at some of these facilities. Additional budgetary priorities: • Equitable Climate Action Plan and Green New Deal – o Implement near-term actions in adopted Equitable Climate Action Plan (ECAP). o Develop local, implementable Green New Deal with stakeholder, expert and community engagement. • Disaster Emergency Response and Wildfire Prevention– o Implementation of Vegetation Management Plan, which is likely to necessitate the re-creation of a Wildfire Prevention Assessment District. o Development of Comprehensive Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan that includes CERT/CORE training, evacuation procedures, emergency shelters and access to survival resources, roles of city employees and electeds, restoration of essential utilities and services, etc. • Workforce Development and Small Business Recovery – o Increase vocational training for key populations (homeless, reentry, high unemployment neighborhoods). o Help our struggling small businesses with recovery and security as needed. • Arts and Culture – o Maintain funding for Cultural Affairs including grant and assistance programs and technical assistance. o Increase access to accessible arts and cultural spaces. • Libraries – o Ensure library hours are maintained. o Fund next steps in creating a new Piedmont Avenue Branch Library.
Kalb FY 23-25 Budget Priorities 4
o Explore equipping selected Oakland’s library branches with access to city/county social services. • Pedestrian and Traffic Safety – We must prioritize our dedicated transportation dollars to improvements that will make our streets and neighborhoods safer for pedestrians, cyclists and those traveling to and from schools. o Implementation of Oakland Safe Streets Initiative. o Implementation of Pedestrian ‘Oakland Walks’ Plan and Bicycle Plan. • Food Distribution – o Seek additional funding for expansion city’s food distribution efforts to those in need. • City Parks – o Upgrade and improve city park infrastructure including both o Fund Resiliency Hub community centers. o Improve playgrounds and increase accessibility for young children and children with special needs. o Increase attention to Illegal Dumping. • Reduce Staff Vacancies and Promote Employee Retention – o Fund necessary positions in Human Resources to enable hiring to fill budgeted vacancies. o Increase compensation if possible for selected classifications to help with recruitment and retention. Revenue: I support new Administration and Council efforts to increase revenue into our city in order to better provide vital services to our residents. This should include general purpose fund revenue and capital funds to enable more affordable housing. We should also seek philanthropic partners to help with top priorities. I will be holding a North Oakland Budget Town Hall in May. Details to follow. I look forward to hearing from residents and engaging with my colleagues to craft and adopt a final FY 2023-25 budget for Oakland.