CED and Life Enrichment are pretty impacted and there’s a lot of reports here, OO can’t go through all of them unfortunately, but I’ll at least list everything of public interest here, with drill downs on some exceptionally noteworthy items:
Finance
OPD Overtime Report
While its not what the public demanded, OPD’s new overtime report still has plenty to be alarmed about. In the aftermath of a shocking report about officers/OPOA board members’ half million dollar overtime pay, Public Safety Chair Charlene Wang initially sought to schedule a report from the City about practices—she then cancelled her own request and urged concerned residents to instead attend the Finance committee's regularly scheduled quarterly OPD overtime report. In a PSC meeting, Wang mentioned the reporting, and said that the Finance Committee would be the place to hear answers about it.
The report has only abbreviated information about OPD’s overtime oversight and practices that comes at the end of the document—a short summary of its half-analog paper system wedded to online Telestaff system and a network of individual and general reports on personnel spending that has allowed the abuses. OPD promises to improve data collection through a sustained "technology modernization effort", but since no specific problem is highlighted in the report, it's not clear how. The report notes that backfill and extension of shift are the highest vectors of overtime, but does not go into detail about how those are recorded and justified. Some specific tasks driving overtime are noted, such as Internal Affairs, homeless encampment and sideshow enforcement, but without specific data points. But the report does not focus on any significant abuses of overtime, documented or suspected.
The report, however, does show that like most fiscal years except for 24-25 during the contingency budget, overtime spending is way over budget. By the half year mark, OPD had already spent nearly ¾ of its overtime—about $25 MM. About $4 MM of that is reimbursable. Thus, OPD is likely to exceed its overtime budget again by around $10 MM. OPD now argues that the salary savings from its over-funded personnel funding will pay down the overtime overage. OPD was funded at 678 officers, about 61 more than it had any hope of hiring this year given the last five years of recruitment data. The additional tens of millions for officers that don't exist will absorb the costs.
Measure Q
There’s no report here, so it will likely either be pulled or will be oral–-so look for the live reporting during the meeting.
Public Works/Transportation
Headliners here are the BART economic situation report back and continuing report back on the City’s proposed transition of parking from OakDOT to Finance and OPD. The City initially sought to carry out the change without much public scrutiny, but SEIU and IFPTE came in pretty hard and forced a public stage, where it has not performed well.
Big state grants for Liberation Park and 12th St affordable housing developments will also be reviewed.
There's also a delegated maintenance agreement for Cal Trans and Oakland for work that will be completed around the freeway junction of the Alameda-Oakland tubes. The MOU will assign responsibility for homelessness and cleaning in the new areas, it's not that controversial and years off, but CM Wang has requested more information.
Community and Economic Development
The HCD’s anti-displacement strategic action plan will probably be a big focus of the meeting. The HCD presentation paints an alarming picture of housing instability, especially in Oakland’s Black community. HCD’s plan seeks to mitigate some of the harms, and reduce and reverse some of the impacts that have created an increase of Black homelessness and exodus from Oakland. HCD proposes to continue strong tenant protections, and focus specific efforts on rent support, eviction defense and housing support for homeowners.
CED will also accepting and appropriate federal lead mitigation grant of $4 MM for its lead abatement program. There's an attendant contract for the management provider, Habitat for Humanity
Life Enrichment
The HHAP 6 grant and the City’s homelessness strategic action plan will likely be the big items of discussion here. I reported on the latter here, when it was presented to the Homelessness Commission, and previewed the HHAP 6 from a previous agenda it was pulled from a few weeks ago.
Contracts for Oakland Library that waive L/SLBE requirements may also bring in some discussion, given recent procurement disparity studies.
Public Safety Committee
While Finance fields the OPD overtime issue, the Public Safety Committee will deliberate accepting 900K in funds for OPD's "cadet" program. It's the only thing on the agenda.
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