THE OAKLAND CITY COUNCIL ADOPTED a two-year, $4.3 billion budget this week that eliminates a massive deficit and protects many core city services without requiring layoffs.
The spending and revenue plan, dubbed “the nobody’s happy budget” by Councilmember Zac Unger, passed on a 6-1 vote Wednesday and closes an estimated $265 million deficit by eliminating hundreds of unfilled city positions while anticipating tens of millions of dollars in new income over the next two years.
What we really tried to do with this budget is focus on the core essentials,” Unger said. “There are a lot of things that I would like to do on this budget, there are a lot of things that I would like to spend on that we simply don’t have the resources for.”
The budget was an amended version of the one proposed by Councilmember Kevin Jenkins when he was serving as interim mayor following the recall of Sheng Thao and prior to the inauguration of new Mayor Barbara Lee.
The amended version was proposed by the “budget team” of councilmembers Unger, Rowena Brown, Janani Ramachandran and Charlene Wang.
It eliminates more than 400 mostly vacant city jobs, along with one $3.9 million police academy and two managerial positions in the city’s Cultural Affairs and Finance departments that add up to a combined $630,000 savings.
It also includes $7 million in savings via reductions to the city’s fund for settling lawsuits, $5.4 million in savings from lowering incoming employees’ initial salaries and $3.1 million from the transfer of money from various city funds with healthy balances, among other things.
‘These were not easy decisions’
The approved 2025-2026/2026-2027 budget also anticipates new revenue in the form of a potential $40 million parcel tax or other type of income measure on the June 2026 ballot, bond sales of $180 million for affordable housing investments and $15 million each year for street paving, as well as an estimated $2.3 million in revenue from a new billboard agreement.
“This not a budget that we designed in a time of surplus, with a particularly functional federal government,” said Wang. “These were not easy decisions to make.”
Still, the budget manages to keep all 25 of the city’s fire stations open, except for 90 days this winter, and includes money for 678 sworn police officers, as well as police overtime funding in the amount of $33.6 million in year one and $38.2 million in year two — a reduction from a recent high of about $50 million in one year.
Lee said she worked closely with both Jenkins and the council’s budget team to ensure her “10-point plan” priorities were included.
“It allocates funding for clean streets, reliable fire protection, and decisive blight and illegal-dumping cleanup — echoing point five from that plan, which called for strengthened blight crews and aggressive action with the (district attorney’s) office,” Lee said.
The council held several town hall and budget briefings around the city prior to the vote Wednesday, but many observers were shocked they approved it so quickly, seeing as the deadline for passage is June 30.
“The community is surprised by the swift decision to pass the budget yesterday,” officials from the advocacy organization East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy said in an email Thursday.
“There was limited community engagement, and a budget study session was still scheduled for June 17,” said EBASE officials, who cited a need to reduce police spending and increase funds for arts and cultural programs. “We expected more opportunity to engage with the City Council and share insight on important topics related to the city’s needs.”
Ramachandran noted Wednesday that the City Council can reopen the budget at any time after it passes to accommodate new revenue or federal and state funding cuts.
Also, a year into the two-year budget cycle, the council enters into regularly scheduled “mid-cycle” budget adjustment discissions, which can change the budget in large or small ways in its second year.
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