Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Hear me?

There we go.

Welcome to the Finance and Management Committee meeting of today's date, Tuesday, September 30th.

The time is now nine thirty-two AM, and this meeting has come to order before taking roll.

I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for all of the items on this agenda.

If you're here with us in chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card, please fill one out and turn into a clerk representative or myself before the item is ready to record.

Speaker cards were due twenty-four hours prior to this prior to the start of this meeting, making that time yesterday at nine thirty AM.

This meeting came to order at nine thirty-two.

Speaker request will no longer be accepted ten minutes after the meeting has begun, making that not that time nine forty-two.

Thank you.

Council Member Wong.

Thank you.

Yes, please.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome back to our regular finance committee meeting, sorry, and then we're gonna jump to item eight and then return to the rest of the order.

And that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair Ramachandra, noting items will go out of order.

We'll go in the order for two and three.

Then we would take item eight, and then the rest of the agenda will be as ordered.

Item one.

Because this is special meeting, there are no minutes to be approved.

Moving to item two, that is determination to schedule outstanding committee items, and that is also known as your pending list.

Nothing at this time, thank you.

Okay, I will entertain a motion.

I'll move the item.

Second.

Thank you.

That is a motion made by Councilmember Brown, seconded by Councilmember Unger to accept the termination of schedule outstanding committee items as is on roll.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

I.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Aye.

Thank you.

We have four ayes.

To accept the termination of scheduling outstanding committee items as is.

Moving to item three.

Oh.

Receive an informational report regarding OPD overtime.

And you do have two speakers, three speakers for this item, excuse me.

Good morning, Chair and members of the committee.

Laraja Marshall, the fiscal services manager for the Oakland Police Department.

Before you is the fiscal year 2024 through 25 overtime report covering the data through the third quarter.

This information does not include the fourth quarter, our current information.

At the start of the fiscal year, City Council approved an adopted budget for overtime allocation for 44.6 million.

In September 2024, under the city's contingency plan, the department was reduced by 1.7 million.

In December 2024, the amended budget was approved, an additional 20 million reduction, further reducing the overtime to 22.8 million, a 51% cut from the adopted.

At the time of the December reduction, the department had already spent 27.1 million, exceeding the new allocation by 4.3 million.

To align with the budget to align with the budget reductions in December 2024, the department implemented a 20% reduction in overtime spending, a new target of 10.3 million per quarter.

In the third quarter, the actual overtime totaled 7.9 million, which was 2.4 under the target.

Despite this improvement, year-to-date spending still projects the overtime overage of 26.6 million based on the amended budget factoring and reimbursements.

At the end of the third quarter, the department receives $6 million in reimbursements.

It anticipates receiving a total of 8.1 million, which will help reduce the net projected overtime over approximately to $18.5.

Additionally, the report includes supporting tables that display key overtime drivers, budget allocation versus actual expenditures, and details on the top divisions contributing to overspending.

This concludes the informational report for fiscal year 2024 through 25 through the third quarter.

Thank you.

I welcome any questions.

Thank you, Council Colleagues.

Councilmember Unger.

Are you unmuted?

Thank you.

So could you just highlight for me one number?

What is the projected amount we're going to go over the overtime budget?

So if you factor in reimbursable overtime, it's 18.5 million.

And have we put so we had put some controls in place prior that brought that number down?

Correct.

So why why is that number going up and over again?

This is for the third quarter 2024.

So we implemented a 20% reduction in December, which we actually stayed in within that for the third quarter.

So that shows great signs, but um I think it was because of the 20 million reduction that happened in December as well.

So we were already over in December.

I see, but I'm I'm sort of more interested in not the end result but the processes that help us manage our overtime.

We had maybe the chief is a better.

Yes, I will defer to DC to Desco.

Thank you, Chief.

I'm curious about sort of what processes we put in place to help us manage our overtime and help us prevent going over our budget going forward.

So in the third quarter of last year, 2024, um, in the early fall, the police department canceled all discretionary overtime across the entirety of the police department, and so that's why you can see we were already over at the start of Q3, and it trended flat after that.

Um, what that discretionary overtime is made up of is things like an area captain who wants to deploy high visibility resources, say in the downtown area, or if they want to do a special project, they want to do some kind of enforcement in a different space.

If they want to use one of our crime reduction teams or CRO team on a special project that's going to go over regular hours, they can no longer do that without submitting a plan that goes up to the city administrator's office for approval.

Now, this doesn't cancel all overtime in the police department, and it didn't in the third quarter, and it still to this day it does not.

So we have things like vacancies in patrol, uh, where beats go unfilled, and there is overtime used to backfill so that we have a beat officer.

Uh, we still have the mandatory side show weekend deployments to deal with the side show.

We have other um holiday plans and other pieces that are all done in conjunction with the city administrators' office and the mayor's office uh for things where we have to deploy uh just to provide basic safety to the community community, but discretionary overtime, things where you would have seen say a high visibility deployment in your area previously, we canceled that as of last year.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Um, thank you so much.

Um, I do think that my first question is, you know, when can we expect to have the physical year Q4 and uh Q1 report around overtime, and then I have a handful of other questions too.

So good morning, everyone, Deputy Director Kiana Suttle.

The fourth quarter information is ready, but based on the way the committee has scheduled the meetings, that's why Manager Marshall presented information from quarter three of last fiscal year, and I think it's also important to note that the initial adopted budget of 42.8 million, once it was reduced twice in December of 2024, OPD had already exceeded the new number.

So there was no way that our department was going to be able to come under or even at that number when at the time it was reduced, we had already exceeded that amount.

So based on the reductions that the department made, um, including eliminating to the extent possible or significantly reducing any discretionary overtime, leaving overtime basically for backfill and extension of shift, because as we all know that if an officer is on a scene and his or her shift is ending, it's not a regular nine to five where you can just say, Oh, okay.

Um, I'm off at five o'clock, I'm gone.

They have to stay at that scene.

And so for OPD to have exceeded its budget by what is it, eight eighteen million?

I think when you look at had the budget remained the same, our department would have been within that budget.

So I think that is uh an important distinction that we need to make.

Excellent.

Um, thank you so much.

Um, and so I understand um needing to bring bring this report um at this time, um, but definitely really focused in on when we'll kind of get more of the up to date um overtime information.

And I know that um the the captain uh mentioned some of the special operations that um OPD is engaged in.

Just curious if you and I heard about the side show detail.

And I think maybe in more recent weeks, months, there's been a little bit more work around like managing like our the nightlife here in the city of Oakland downtown area.

Just curious if you know if there's going to be any potential impacts to overtime as it relates to that detail.

Traditionally we see a slowdown in the winter and rainier months with Sideshow, so we'll scale back at that time depending on what we're seeing.

For the downtown deployments that you're that you're talking about, these are done in conjunction with the city administrators' office, the mayor's office, and by request of the police department to fulfill.

What we are seeing is that because of the number of vacancies in patrol and the backfill combined with our operational strength being in the low 500s, we are having difficulty filling overtime assignments throughout the police department.

So many of these assignments, such as the downtown coverage and even even special events, holidays.

If it isn't uh a mandatory assignment, we're having difficulty filling it.

So we're having to be creative with the patrol division and with our special resources in order to provide coverage where we really need to have it.

I see.

And I guess as I was kind of re reviewing that report that the police commission received, I think it was the 25th.

Um I think I'm just curious if you if you wanted to speak to maybe that up-to-date report around just staffing, um folks on medical leave, those who are gonna be retiring soon, and just so that you know all of my colleagues can also understand um kind of what's like what are some of the impacts that will be coming with some of the um and how um that may impact you know overtime.

Certainly.

Um my most up-to-date staffing numbers are of the night as of the 19th.

Uh, we had 641 uh at the police department permanently assigned with a hundred and one on some kind of long-term leave, and 24 on a transitional assignment, leaving us with an operational strength of 516.

So to put that in context, a fully staffed patrol division with officers, sergeants, and lieutenants, is in about the 330 range.

Um, so the huge majority of the police departments within the patrol division.

Then you have our CID, our criminal investigations division, our ceasefire, our internal affairs, and our what's left of our special resource units, our CROs and our CRTs.

Uh we are down to one squad of CROs citywide.

We're down to 11 foot patrol officers citywide.

We're down to about 15 crime reduction team officers citywide.

Our ceasefire team is not quite three squads.

Normally it's over four squads with um with the uh crime gun intelligence team.

It's closer to 40.

It's in the high teens, and our patrol division has multiple shifts that are staffed well below uh the allotment.

So we're looking, I think at one of the watches has only 38 officers assigned when they should have 48, and that creates vacancies that have to be backfilled.

So it impacts our overtime in that we are backfilling beats every single day.

Uh and it also leads to higher toll and burnout for the officers who have to come and fill these overtime assignments, and it's hard for the people that are there, because there isn't adequate staff to cover the beats and the calls for service volume doesn't change because of that.

So it is a difficult cycle that we're in right now.

Thank you so much.

Uh thank you.

Um are there any areas where you see there are areas of low-hanging fruit to to reduce overtime.

I'll give an example where um I I have observed that, for example, there was the night market in my district, Chinatown night market, and uh don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the officers that were there, but are there ways that, for example, with the special events that private security, we can have event organizers uh use private security, for example.

I'm just um, what are some thoughts that you have, Chief Tedesco, or Assistant Chief Tedesco?

Um much of the third party overtime, and I I think Manager Marshall outlined that that's reimbursable over time.

So we're talking about these private events, um, to the extent that we're able to staff them, the the city is getting reimbursed for those funds.

Um, and we're we're talking about events at the Coliseum, we're talking about First Friday, we're talking about you know, many different positive events for the city.

Um we can do less of those events, we can permit less of those events.

Um there isn't necessarily a savings there because there is those are reimbursable.

The question is I I think then goes to staffing.

If we're struggling to staff those events, can we safely permit them?

There are, I think, reductions that can be gained from private security, but it's not a perfect substitute.

If there is an act of violence that requires police response and there is no police presence, it's gonna pull from the patrol division.

And depending on the size of the events, I think that First Friday is a great example.

It's a it's an awesome event.

Uh we love having it, but there's 10,000 plus people that are in attendance, and currently the PD staffing for that is allotted eight officers to sergeants and a lieutenant.

That is far below what it can be used to manage a crowd of that size.

So I'm not sure that there's much more opportunity for a reduction in events like that, besides simply just not permitting them at all.

Do you have ideas then where the reductions are?

I will say that I noted in this report that um the communications division is an area that seems to be a big driver of the overtime.

Uh, as you know, I've been really focused on recruitment on officers, but this report also notes the understaffing in the dispatch center, and that we need a lot more of uh these folks too.

How can we, as you know, colleagues be supportive?

What kind of qualifications are you seeking so we can help put out the word to the community that we need um these are the type of qualifications for dispatchers and and we need more?

Uh I don't think it's a secret that our dispatch center is understaffed and and needs more hiring.

I think the number one way that we can reduce overtime in in communications and throughout the police department is hiring and hiring to the staff that's adequate to complete the jobs and the expectations of the police department.

But that does take time.

I think that uh perhaps Director Suttle could speak to it better than me, but we do have a number of people in background for communications.

We do hire it's just a difficult job uh with a pretty high turnover.

If you want to add into comms, and so to add with uh to our deputy director, I'm sorry, deputy chief to Desco say it.

Right now, there are nine vacancies in our dispatch center, and so a lot of the overtime is supplemented by salary savings.

Um and we are working closely with the recruiting and background unit uh to be able to um increase like uh marketing media so that we can attract more talent, but as he said it is a very difficult job, and we're seeing a high number of trainees who don't make it uh through the complete one-year academy.

So we're also working with um our training program to see how we can uh customize our training with more of a focus on retention, but it is a lot of memory.

Um, and we're seeing that a lot of the um newer dispatchers that come in they struggle with memory because when you have your cell phone and you're not forced to remember anything and you can just type in anything you want.

This job you have to remember penal codes, you have to remember our 900 codes.

You have to um the interviewing skills are are very very difficult because people call the police department at the worst possible times.

So you have to be able to extract that information for them, and we see a lot of people who fell out in the interview portion of the dispatcher academy.

So we are working with several sources, including Merritt College, so that we can number one recruit more, but number two, tailor our program so that there's more of an emphasis on retention.

Okay, and it sounds like an understanding of the penal code is actually a part of that.

Yeah, I mean, but it that's all part of the memorization, and so we're finding, you know, it's it it's there's a lot to remember at one at one time.

So okay, thank you.

Um thank you.

I have a couple of questions.

Firstly, um, I want to appreciate the work that you've done in comms uh recruitment on the website.

Now I see that dispatchers are a featured job position from being not there at all to being featured, and I think that's a great start um in getting those nine positions filled, and we certainly know there is a lot of interest in these positions.

I personally know a couple dozen people who who have applied, and I know the criteria is rigorous, but there's a lot of interest in the city of Oakland for individuals wanting to be both dispatchers and apply to the police academy.

So I think that that's great that we have, you know, really thousands of people in the city interested in these public safety jobs.

Um, I did have a couple of questions.

So when it comes to council member Wong mentioned special events and reimbursable positions, in our master fee schedule, I think it's a little over $100 an hour is what we get per officer, um, for things like special events.

But I'm really thinking about like you know, if a PGE type of entity hires officers, um, they get re we get reimbursed at that master fee schedule rate, but in reality they're on overtime.

So do we get reimbursed at the overtime rate?

So reimbursement for third party events is at top step for a police officer.

So when you reference the 100 dollars an hour, we bill at top step.

So how much is that?

What is it 100?

Uh 137.

I understand, but those officers are largely overtime.

So are we billing them for that times 1.5?

The city is billing, accounting for the overtime and accounting for additionally, I think the burden of deploying that person and all of the other pieces of support that go with that.

So the city is accounting for the burdened cost in that circumstance.

So I think I just want to understand if we're subsidizing these officers who work on overtime and only getting a portion of the costs back.

No.

Hi.

Um we're not subsidizing the cost, we're actually charging top step.

Even if it was an officer that was on step one, we're still charging top step plus central service overhead costs associated with it.

Okay.

I would like to follow up offline because I think there's some discrepancies.

I understand that you're hiring at top step, but if there's an officer that's already at top step or close to top staff, that's doing you know five hours of overtime work.

That's what I'm concerned that we are subsidizing for these outside agencies like a PGE or whomever that's or that's doing this work.

So I would like some follow-up information on it, because I understand I'm not gonna get the answers right here today, but um, I would love some more information about the rates we charge out and if that fully compensates officers working on overtime.

I think to help clarify on that piece that $100 that was mentioned, that is the overtime rate.

So that's not the salary, that's not the normal salary rate, that's the overtime rate.

So that adjusted cost that we talked about covers the overtime rate plus additional costs for support.

So it it does, we are not subsidizing the costs.

Okay, um I will continue with my questions.

Um in the report and mentions overtime on training.

I think your presentation was very clear on the issues that we have overtime needed on the um side shows, special operations, all of that, but it's a little perplexing that we go over time on training when those are costs that seem like they could be anticipated into the original budget.

Could you explain why?

And I know this is not the first year of since I've been on council, it seems like we go above in training time.

Why are we not accurately budgeting the training amount since that's pretty set in stone, unlike some of the other things like side shows the training budget in the current circumstances a result of the need to now upstaff training based on the cycling of academies when we don't have academies, we don't have a fully staffed training division.

We shift people uh to the training division when we have police academies.

Can handle, they have subject matter experts, they have range staff, they have multiple different pieces that require other subject matter experts to be brought in.

Those subject matter experts are coming from places like patrolled, they're not permanently staffed in the training division.

Also, I would like to add when we went through the contingency plan, the 1.7 million dollars that was the reduction that happened that actually happened that impacted the training division because there was the reduction of academies.

So it looks like they overspent a whole lot because 1.7 million dollars was reduced from the training division.

Thank you.

And if we know there have been vacancies in this training division, is it possible in future budget cycles to account for that?

So that's one of the overtime expenses that we don't have to consider.

Again, I think the issue will be is if we staff the training division such that they don't need to use any overtime, we'll simply be at this moment creating vacancies in another place where you'll see reciprocal overtime needs to backfill spaces again.

Our criminal investigations division is staffed around two-thirds, just over 60%, or patrol division is staffed below just the filling of the beats.

Our ceasefire division is filled just about 70 percent um so if we if we staff up training, there isn't a place to take them from that isn't currently understaffed.

So we will either give up a service to do that, or we will take from patrol thank you i have just one more question about since this is all related to recruitment and I know there's a number of efforts underway to fill the five academies that we've budgeted um has the department utilized the 2500 we put in to support with marketing for the academies so our recruiting and background unit is uh currently working with vendors so that we can start the RFP process so we have gotten three bids but I think the key thing to understand is when the um academies were canceled that meant all of the funding for the academy including recruiting and backgrounds was also canceled our recruiting and background unit could not attend recruiting events that were not free because there was no money in the budget so everything came to a halt so when the money was added to the current fiscal year's budget it's like we're starting from scratch and so we have to work our way to getting there but yes the recruiting and background unit they are working right now so that we can utilize the funds that were added to the budget.

And I've said previously that even if we were to start a marketing campaign today we would not see the fruits of that effort for the next academy the 196 because it takes time it's about a six month process from the time that someone submits their application to the testing to the background check and so it's going to take some time for us to get to where we need to be but canceling the account is it really did it literally almost shut down the recruiting and backgrounds operation.

Thank you and let me just be clear that was not an action that any of these council members took that was because the previous a majority of the previous council five council members chose to use Coliseum money to fill the budget that's not something that any of these council members chose to do my last question is about overtime funding that was put into the budget around human trafficking efforts the $7500 is that currently being utilized to support human trafficking efforts.

Yes our special victims unit and our vice human trafficking unit do operations do weekly operations in conjunction with our crime reduction teams and our community resource officers in areas where there is significant human trafficking they do that every week.

Thank you and is additional work being done currently as we budgeted more more funds for this operations continue.

The vice human trafficking unit combined with staffing can't support more operations than what we are currently staffing and those are that's an additional overtime operation every week so in addition to the normal work they're doing an additional overtime operation each week to use funds at some point they just can't work any more hours.

I understand so those funds are not being utilized then currently those that 7500 my understanding is that we are using those funds to the extent possible okay thank you and what is sorry one final question what is the maximum number of overtime hours an officer can work we have a policy that requires um that an officer take at least eight hours off between shifts and they have to take at least one day off in a work week we really that's the absolute ceiling and we really would like to people to not reach that ceiling.

Thank you.

Councilmember Brown just to for your last comment, is that um kind of recommendation?

Like, is it actually upheld around the eight hours in the one day off?

And how is it tracked?

Uh, if a every two weeks, time cards are approved.

Uh, they're highly visible to the police department as to who worked how many hours, in addition to that, the fiscal provides a report so we can all see what the command can see what hours people have worked.

I see.

And is that a report that um the city council ever sees?

I don't know the answer.

No.

Okay, and okay, and so then the report is generated, and so who's having a look at it?

The direct supervisors and commanders of the officers that are working those hours, and it I mean it has happened not recently, but it has happened, um, and officers are uh retrained and corrected for working over hours.

So it's something that we're required to check if an officer has an extension of shift that is unexpected, uh, they are required to take that time off.

Even if it goes into that time off, goes into their next regular shift.

So if they had an extension that takes them, say all the way up to the beginning of their next shift, they're required to take time off, so that they can get that eight hours.

Okay, excellent, thank you.

Okay, colleagues, I will entertain a motion to either um do uh to the parliamentary or clerk.

Do we receive and file to either receive and file or to continue if colleagues would like any additional information?

Um I'll move the item to receive and file this report in committee.

Second, moving to our public speakers, want to call your name.

Please approach the podium.

If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hands.

You're easily identified.

Ms.

Sada Al-Obala, Kevin Dali, and Jennifer Finley.

Uh Kevin Daly from Transport Oakland.

Of course, I want to note that due to uh public comment regulations, I'm required to make a decision before I hear the presentation, so I decide to sign up for this.

I'd like to encourage evaluation of non-overtime assignments for the police department as well.

So I know a lot of council members won't agree with this or or at least would be concerned, but traffic enforcement has recently been eliminated, at least a patrol has been, and studies show that traffic enforcement is not correlated with fatalities in severe injuries.

So when we increase traffic enforcement or decrease it, that's not what changes fatalities.

The you know, for the one to two hours and officers on duty, guess what?

Violations decrease.

Unticketed violations increase again.

The best way to decrease injuries and fatalities is by traffic calming.

And I know traffic enforcement is popular among residents.

I know it's popular among a lot of council members because it's showy, but it doesn't work and we should look at other areas where the police department because we're short on money, look at the most effective use of the money we have for the non-overtime use as well as the overtime use.

Uh thank you.

The federal labor standards at been stated that, and I don't know if it's still like this, but Oakland's formula for calculating overtime pay for its employees, including police officers, has found to result in higher payouts than what would be paid under the FLSA calculations.

Is that still an issue?

Audits by the Oakland City Auditor reveal failures and tracking overtime and enforcement policies with a significant number of overtime authorizations forms missing from the Oakland police department.

Is that still an issue?

If you do have extension of shifts, it's because a 2025 independent study in April of this year recommended that you need 877 police officers for Oakland.

And you have overtime because you don't have the recommended number of offices.

With report in file and coming up with some solutions.

Cease fire.

Ceasefire has two components.

One of them is police enforcement, where they if you don't agree to be a part of ceasefire, they go after you and they sit and wait for you to commit a crime.

That's not necessary.

Put all of those ceasefire offices back on patrol.

CROs working in the community.

Suspend that until we get control, get those 11 offices on patrol.

Chair, that concludes your public speakers for item three.

We do have a motion by councilmember Brown, seconded by Councilmember Wong to receive and file this in the Finance and Management Committee on roll.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Thank you.

Councilmember Onger.

I thank you.

And Councilmember Wong?

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Thank you.

We this motion passes with four eyes to receive and file this in FMC committee moving to item eight.

Receive an informational report with a list of options to raise an additional ongoing 40 million in general funds, purpose fund revenues via an ordinance to adopt or increase a tax effective July 1st, 2026, to provide ongoing resources for public safety services to maintain key equipment, IT systems, and 911 investments.

Thank you.

Welcome back, members of the finance committee.

Brad Johnson, your budget administrator.

Before you is a report detailing the various items and options you would have for a June special election, special primary election parcel tax or other tax measures should you choose to elect it to put on the ballot.

We did budget for an additional 40 million dollars in the second year of our two-year binnial budget, and this report is designed to outline for you the various options on the revenue side one would have in terms of raising that 40 million dollars.

As you can see via the number of options, not many of them are viable.

There's a reason why we have tended to do the sort of the same approach consistently.

But we did want to make sure that that information was clear and present for you in order to further that conversation and making that decision.

The taxes explored in this item were obviously a partial tax, which has been our default uh in terms of raising initial revenue.

40 million dollars would require 223 million dollar parcel tax.

Also explored were options uh which are not available to you, which would be a property tax, as that is banned under proposition 13, a local option sales tax, which after measure A, we are at the state cap and requires state legislation to raise, and then our various other local taxes related to RETT.

There's a proposed structure, given our structures already progressive that would raise 40 million dollars.

There's also proposals for business tax, um parking tax, transient occupancy tax, and the latility consumption taxes, which are our sort of local options for tax increases.

Again, the idea of this report is to present to you what the composition of a tax could tax measure could be.

You can blend measures in the same measure.

That is a thing that can happen.

Um, but we wanted to make sure that we had this information to you as soon as possible to further the conversations we know that you may be having around how we would move toward a 40 million dollar revenue measure for next June.

This is really for your information.

There's no action required of this body on this item, and we'll continue the internal process for ballot measure development.

I will note that we are right now planning to uh release our RFQ for polling services related to ballot measure by this Friday.

That is our current timeline.

So we're actively in that internal process of development as well.

Happy to take any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I want to highlight what you said there about blending, because this is presented as sort of uh an all or nothing either or if you want to get 40 million through parking, you have to do this.

If you want to get um but in measure N, I believe it was a parcel tax plus an increase in some parking tax.

So it is allowable to blend if we if we wanted to?

Yes, it is.

Okay.

Um and just sort of talking about the sort of general state of taxes and assessments in Oakland.

Can you talk a little bit about the PFERS tax and the state of where that is and what that does to people's tax assessments?

Absolutely.

And so we're and I should say we're also in the process of a deeper analysis and evaluation of what that will look like in the coming years.

Uh the city is one of the only cities in the state to have a tax override at valorum amount that rel that funds our closed police and fire retirement obligation system or PFERS, as we talk about it here, just for the public's sort of broader information.

That is a levy that's been placed on our on taxes for the past 30, 35 years or so.

That amount will be dropping substantially as we PFERS is to be fully funded by the end of 2026, and we do think we have the resources to ensure that that happens.

And so the need to levy that full rate in future years will fall.

This will result in for the average property in the city of Oakland, a reduction in their taxes.

And so one of the elements that would be considered as we're looking at any new tax measure is that tax reduction would be potentially offset by any new measure this body proposes to put on the ballot.

And has some of that PFERS assessment already rolled off?

Yes, we've already reduced um in the I believe in the taxes that were paid in fiscal 24-25, there was a reduction in rate.

So people would have already seen a reduction on their uh property taxes on that line uh related to the uh PFAS tax override.

It's an item that says Oakland would have dropped a little bit.

It was in some sense offset by some of our bond measure actions, but setter is parabus.

We have a lower tax rate than we will otherwise would have, and we have seen the rate fall from our total top rate.

Our Treasury administrator wants me to mention that the POBs, which are the debt instruments that are supported by that tax override, are maturing this December.

And so the ob the debt obligations against the system will be uh gone away with as well.

So it's really tricky for me to figure out sort of what the PFERS assessment is to see it on my tax.

Is there any way you could come to us with a report of sort of take a hypothetical property assessed at one million dollars and show us what its PFERS assessment has been over the past couple years and will be over the next couple of years so we can see sort of what has happened so because because we're if we're talking about taxes going down and taxes going up at the same time, I want to make sure we understand sort of what the hypothetical, or not the hypothetical, but what the real amount of taxes that have gone off of our roles at the same time we're talking about what's going on.

Does that make sense?

That makes sense.

So I think let to restate to make sure I understand the question.

There's a informational quest from at least one council member, which we can look at uh need to coordinate some staff to provide something, but an informational request to look at a sample one million dollar property as a general space and to look historically over the last several years to note the changes in its ad valorum tax rate, do the one percent, do the PFERS tax coming off, uh, and then what the impact would be of a parcel tax of that amount so that you guys can sort of see them together on the same line.

Together, I just want to see what PFERS has done over the last couple years and what we expect it to do over the next couple of years for a $1 million property just to understood keep the math easy.

I can't necessarily commit on timeline, but we can that's the kind of information we can provide, yes.

Great.

Thank you.

Um, and just to chime in on that, I would be interested in that information too, because I'm looking at table three, and if the amount of the proposed increase for a single family home, for example, is two hundred and twenty-four dollars, and that's close to the amount you would we uh uh properties would no longer be paying due to PFARs, um winding down.

Um, I think that makes a convincing argument to go with that option.

Um would you be I know we have more questions to go, but would you be willing to provide a supplemental to this report um with that information?

I'm not sure we can get it done given everything going on this week for a supplemental.

If it were to go to council next week, we would need some I would need some time to make sure we could figure out and to the terms of delivery of that information.

So uh the past David Jones, Treasury Administrator, the past couple of years we've reduced the PEFERS rate.

Um we used to levy it.1575%, which is the maximum past couple of years that we uh practically cut it in half to what point I think it's off the top of my head, point one zero seven five percent.

Uh so it's been drastically reduced, and as I mentioned, the uh the debt service on the bonds matures this uh this December.

Thank you.

Um, what if we held it in committee for one more uh again?

I without consulting with staff, I don't want to promise necessarily a timeline for delivery.

I'm happy to bring a separate report if that's uh the desire.

We can also, if you're amenable, release information in informational memorandum, which might be faster.

Whenever we get it done, we release it and then bring it subsequently to committee.

But I'm uh at the I don't have all the information right now to tell you I can I can necessarily make that timeline with it.

Okay.

Um I will hear from the rest of my colleagues, but um thank you.

Uh through the chair, um, is this list totally comprehensive of all the tax options available before us?

I think one that I was in particular curious about was um our options for like vacant retail storefront taxes, which we know is um is actually driving some increased economic activity in San Francisco, and um it is part of like a blended uh tax that we would put forward.

Um, so that is one one that I'm curious about and just wondering if there's any other taxes that are not reflected on this in this report.

So in the state of California, as a charter city, we have broad taxing power.

There are other items that we could look to tax as a general space.

Those items, these are all the major ones that California cities have provided outside them being sort of in a niche space.

So if you go down to Anaheim as an example, they have some pretty niche taxes around tourism that simply wouldn't raise any revenue here.

So we've avoided any of the ones that are sort of like, well, you could do that, but it's not gonna raise anything.

Related to your question on vacant storefront taxes.

Uh, we have a vacant tax vacancy tax already, and it is actually a type of parcel tax.

That is the way to actually think about it.

It's a parcel tax on a specific type of parcel.

And so if there's a question of what number of parcels are commercial storefronts that are vacant, I don't know that off the top of my head.

As a rule, I would imagine that's not a very large number given the vacancy tax for all vacant properties, including residential properties, it raises, I think around seven million dollars, and that's every single parcel, uh a high space.

So I imagine, and most of the parcels that are vacant in the city are like residential parcels and whatnot.

And so I would have to get the analysis as to how many of those are commercial and um related to like a retail storefront vacancies, but I'm not imagining that the number is very high.

No, and I I that's why I wouldn't recommend it as the sole, you know, um means by which we would raise 40 million dollars.

But I think in San Francisco they structure it differently instead of a just a parcel, they do it by the the uh this the um sorry, the the front like footage, whatever that term is, but that's how they structure that uh vacancy tax.

So I would just be interested again as part of a blended model, how we might be able to achieve that within this um this 40 million dollars.

Um that's all my questions for now.

Thank you.

Um, who's next in the queue?

Okay, colleagues, no other questions, then we will move to public comment.

Thank you, Chair Ramachandran.

Wanna call your name?

Please approach the podium.

If you're participating via Zoom, once again, please raise your hand so you're easily identified.

State your name for the record, and you have two minutes.

Ms.

Sada Obala, Derek Barnes, and Kevin Diley.

This is Kevin Daly from Transport Oakland.

I appreciate Mr.

Johnson's presentation.

There's one tax that I did not see mentioned that I think it's worth considering.

That's the transportation network company user tax, uh TNC.

So Uber rides, Lyft rides, Waymore rides could all be taxed.

Uh Councilmember Kaplan has brought this tax up before the council a few times over the last few uh many years.

So we we do have something already prepared.

Other cities across the US and in California have passed the tax.

Closest one, Berkeley collects about a million dollars a year from the transport network company tax, and Berkeley's less than a third the population of Oakland.

San Francisco passed Measure L in 2024, November, which would have been a TNC tax, though it was overridden by Measure M, which received more votes.

We have a list of other cities that have implemented the tax, and we could share other plans.

It would be great if the TNC TNC tax would go to transportation issues, but I know requiring that would be a two-thirds vote, and realistically, I think we want a majority vote before on the June ballot.

Other quick item, progressive parking fines do not need a vote from the population.

Certain vehicles, certain drivers are responsible for a very large number of repeat fines.

If we increase that fine every time a given vehicle has the same violation, bump the level of the fine up.

Make it painful for businesses to violate the law, and that will raise some money, though I don't know how much.

Thank you.

And that's for the 2026 uh potential, putting something on the ballot.

The state of California is considering a Bay Area regional sales tax for transit, and you want to take and put something out there to have people is produce more money.

Partial tax increase got to come off.

Have you looked at you need to look at the average partial tax payments that are coming from the single fund, multiple residents, non-residents, and what people are paying?

Some people are paying more partial tax than they pay in their mortgage.

Some people are paying higher insurance, particularly fire insurance.

They haven't trouble getting fire insurance.

Some people are paying more utilities, that's going up.

PG and E is going up.

Y'all gotta sit down and think through this stuff, and some people are moving out because they can't handle this.

Then people have you have to respect that the way you did measure A, that transaction and sales tax, and now you got on the business's sales tax.

You didn't put sales tax on there.

You got the vacancy property tax.

It should have been the vacancy partial tax, because property means the tax is based on the value of the property.

And now you say, oh, it's it's uh property, but it's really partial.

How you do your business is we don't trust you.

Okay, measure NN, measure AA in the courts because you tried to sneak it in when it required 60%.

That concludes your public speakers for item eight.

Um thank you through the chair.

Um some more questions have come up for me.

Um so on the utility tax.

Uh and and this is I would say this applies to the parcel tax too, but for the utility tax, your report notes that it would be a regressive tax.

Um, and I'm I'm wondering, are there ways that we can structure utility tax to be progressive?

So we're charging people more who have either higher incomes, higher usage, and similarly, what would it take to make a parcel tax to also be um scaled per like square footage or or something that would account for larger parcel size to be taxed more?

So related to your uh vacancy tax, we I have to want to confer with the city attorney's office around whether or not parcel taxes can be scaled necessarily that way as being, I imagine you could do it proportional to the frontage itself, which would then scale with the furniture size.

I think that would be legal as it relates to your um UUT tax.

We are not allowed in the state of California to directly or indirectly tax income.

That's a like major no-no, we're not allowed to do that.

And so you can't scale it directly on the income of the resident.

You could scale it on usage or a higher user.

There's like a uh a progressive rate structure, but it would be progressive on usage, not progressive on the income.

And what that effectively would mean is bigger users would pay more.

Example institutional players would be the ones who would end up paying more.

The city is one of the biggest users, for instance, of electricity in the city as a as an example, the school district's a big one, and so bigger users would pay more on it with a progressive structure.

It wouldn't necessarily be higher income users, if that makes sense, yeah.

Yeah, I would like to work with that.

Okay, um, thank you so much.

Um, through the chair to um Bradley.

I think I just want to kind of piggyback on um what Councilmember Wong um kind of brought up.

Um, it's my understanding that um other jurisdictions in the state in the state of California have actually increased their utility tax on natural gas and decrease their utility tax on like electricity.

So I guess I'm curious if that could actually be like a pathway here.

We would have to model that delta and change, uh, and then you would obviously have a change in behavior that would relate to that.

You would see some you'd see some leakage, uh change in behavior, which would be difficult to model.

I don't think we've separated out the energy component because we how because it's charged I believe per dollar, if I remember correctly, we'd have to disaggregate them.

Um I would note if we're going to change the underlying existing general tax, that's a little bit of a different process than levying additionally on top of it.

So one could increase only the amount on natural gas, if that makes sense as a part of a special tax and leave the other element of a loan.

I'm not sure how it would interact with the general purpose fund to lower one and redu uh increase one with a inherently a special measure since we're considered taking this at the statewide primary in June.

If it were a general tax measure put on for the November election, the elements of that are a little bit different under state law.

And so there's a little bit of a legal what can we do at what time element of this?

Both could be done.

Um it's just a matter of that timing.

And again, I would want to talk with the city attorney's office about the specifics of that.

A lot of that is really fast moving case law.

So I'm not, I want to make sure I'm giving you the right information.

Okay, that that definitely makes sense.

Um I would like the opportunity to send you a few notes around a couple ideas that I that um I have.

Um in addition, I also think that um we should be leading leading out around the PIFERs and wanting to get a little bit more around the um like a report on that.

So I I am kind of in alignment with Council Member Ramachandran on that.

Um, and I I understand that um you're not sure how soon you can have that completed, but I do think that it is an important factor.

Um thank you, colleagues.

Um, I will make a motion to hear this in about a month at the um October 28th counts uh FMC meeting.

Um, we are of course interested in a supplemental about um PIFERs, and if members of the committee in the next few days send some ideas to uh the finance department of other things they would like to see in a supplemental, um, would sending things by the end of this week give enough time before that.

That would give that would be helpful, yes.

Okay, absolutely.

We'll move forward just so that we can get a better menu of options.

Just personally speaking, I think um taken alone.

None of these options are palatable to voters to us, um, but in conjunction, especially with a discussion of how much people might save with PIFERs.

Um, we can minimize the impact to any given thing with kind of a menu of things that we take and vote on that voters could vote on together.

Um, so that's I think we're the direction this committee seems to be um interested in.

Um, but colleagues, please feel free to send ideas by the end of this week.

Councilmember Brown.

Um yes, I'm happy to second that, and then I just had a really quick question.

Um, just want to ensure that nothing will, even though we're scheduling this for about a month from now, um, you'll still continue with the uh scheduled polling.

Oh, yes, no, we're all of the other items that are on the administrators that are also full speed ahead at the same time.

Okay, excellent.

Perfect, thank you.

Um, to clarify my motion, it is to continue this item to the FMC on October 28th with a supplemental to include a discussion of um PIFERS and how much uh and the reductions that um voters are um that parcels are paying into um PFES over the last year, uh over the last few years.

Okay, thank you.

We have a motion made by council member chair Ramachandran, seconded by council member Brown to continue this item to the October 28th finance and management committee meeting with requests for a supplemental to be included regarding PFES and how much of the reductions of the parcels are paying into them as well over as well as the PIFERS over the last few years.

On roll, Councilmember Brown.

Thank you, Councilmember Auger.

I thank you, and Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran.

I.

The motion passes with four eyes to continue this item to the finance and management committee meeting on October 28th, 2025.

With request to have a supplemental as stated on record.

Moving to item four.

Adopt a resolution.

Establish an appropriations limit for fiscal year 2526 pursuant to Article 13B, which a normal Roman numeral.

Thank you.

Of the California Constitution, and you do have two speakers for this item.

Thank you.

Um, since just as a note, we have four items to cover in the next 50 minutes.

So if we can keep presentations on the shorter side, that would be great.

Thank you.

Certainly.

Good morning.

Um, my name is Brittany Hines, assistant to the finance director before you uh today is the appropriations limit.

This is a resolution that we provide to the council each year that establishes a limit on the appropriation of tax proceeds this year.

The limit um for fiscal year 25-26 is 1.21 billion dollars, but the adopted budget appropriated the limit at or the adopted budget appropriates only 1.02 billion.

Therefore, we are 186 million dollars underneath the limit.

This year's calculation includes um the GAN limit override that was graciously adopted by our voters through Measure D and Measure N, which allows the city to continue to spend our tax proceeds revenues generated by several voter-approved measures that help fund essential services such as libraries and emergency response and violence prevention.

So today we're asking you for approval of this resolution so that we ensure compliance with the state constitution and also reaffirms our commitment to a transparent and fiscally responsible government.

Um we request that this item be forwarded to the October 7th City Council meeting on consent.

And if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer those.

Thank you, colleagues.

Questions, or I will entertain a motion.

And uh this is Malina McPherson with the city attorney's office.

I believe this is going to the October 21st City Council meeting on consent for noticing purposes.

It was published timely.

So we were doing a 15-day notice for it.

To my knowledge, yes.

But if we would like to be safe, we can schedule it to the October 21st.

That's fine too.

We will schedule out rules and we'll confirm this item does have a 15-day notice, so we'll just confirm our rules, certainly.

Is there I will move the item to the October 20 October 21st council meeting, and if needed, that can be changed at rules.

Second, moving to our public speakers, Mrs.

Salah Alobala, Kevin Dali, and Derek Barnes.

If you are here with us in chambers, please approach the podium.

If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified.

Thank you.

I just want to speak to how I have a problem with every one of these taxes.

Measure Q is supposed to be Paul and Rec as well as the homeless.

Something's wrong if you have the tax, and today you're going to be reducing services to the homeless.

Measure N.

The component of ceasefire and how you have not legitimized ceasefire, even though people like you say it's working.

There is no supportive data to say that, and you're willing to say it's working without the proper data and evidence of its working.

Measure AA.

Measure AA had to go to court because you needed 60% of the vote, and you went against that and put it in front.

And right now, the oversight group is not a committee is not even functional.

Measure W, the vacant property tax, which is really a partial tax.

If it was supposed to be partial, you should have put it on the ballot.

Partial.

Since it legally says property tax, you have to have the value of each piece of property to in order to tax it.

Measure why.

Why are we supporting anything related to the independent Oakland Zoo that makes a whole lot of money without us?

But we are we are through a tax supporting an independent group.

Measure you, $32 million, Wayne.

Of measure you went to your supposedly group that says they would build the Lincoln Rec new center independently, and then Bass got in there and took money for measure you, $32 million that we could be using for our homeless community that you are reducing services to them and sites for them to have shelter today.

So you need to speak to that.

Okay, the transaction and use tax.

That tax is now being represented as a part of it being a sales tax.

And you didn't put it on the ballot as a sales tax.

That concludes your public speakers for item four.

We do have a motion by made by Chair Ramachandra and seconded by Councilmember Brown to approve the recommendations of staff, and this is to be forwarded to the October 21st City Council agenda on consent on roll, Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran.

I this motion passes with four eyes to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the October 21st City Council agenda on consent.

Moving to item five.

Adopt the following pieces of legislation.

First legislation, a resolution adopting the City of Oakland investment policy for fiscal year 25-26.

Second legislation is a resolution pursuant to government code section 53607.

And you do have two speakers for this item.

Good morning, Chair Ramashandran and fellow fellow committee members.

Before you this morning are two resolutions to approve the city of Oakland and successor agency investment policy for the fiscal year 25-26.

Revises its uh local agency investment guidelines to include statutory changes to that affect local agency investments, and this year there was only one change, and it was related to Chapter 239 statute of 2024 AB 618 that was signed by the governor on September 14th of uh 2024.

And what this particular provision does is it just basically extends the date of the current portfolio of the concentration of limit to 50 percent from 40 percent for surplus funds that local agencies invest in depository institutions that use like a I guess like a private entity to make the investment for, but we don't here at the city.

We manage all of our investments um in-house, but uh just wanted to add that to this year's policy, and I'm available to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you, colleagues.

Any questions or comments?

Thank you.

I just have one question.

Um as far as our investment policy goes, um, do we have anything in writing that talks about the city's refusal to invest in things like uh private prisons or well, we have a couple of different resolutions.

One is uh tobacco divestiture.

Uh another one is um guns and ammunition, as well as there's um a tobacco ordinance as well.

So over the years, and also just to you know, for everybody's knowledge, the city cannot invest in treasuries because there was an anti-nuclear um ordinance or a resolution that was approved many, many years ago.

So there are several resolutions or you know, the vestitors that um you know prior council members have have wanted to to have done, and if you know that's something that you know this particular committee is looking at.

Um, um I would you know highly encourage you to take a look at it and and bring it forth and we can incorporate it into the investment policy.

Thank you.

You were you just referenced the treasury policy, like revisiting that.

Is that what you say that again?

I couldn't hear you.

Could you explain the one policy you suggested?

Oh, okay, the nuclear-free.

So years and years ago, um investing in US Treasuries was considered investing in the nuclear program because it was funding that particular program, and so that means that the city cannot invest in U.S.

treasuries at all.

Now there is a stipulation, and if it's only happened once since I've been here, where we can have, I think it's a 60 or 90-day period, if for some odd reason we did have to invest in U.S.

Treasuries, but it really is a pretty strict uh guideline.

The only other city in the state that has that particular um uh restriction is the city of Berkeley.

And I've spoken at many conferences in the past and explained that we can't invest in U.S.

Treasuries, and people find it a very interesting topic.

Thank you.

Definitely something to consider.

Um colleagues.

Okay, nothing.

Oh, council member Brown.

I promise I'll get the hang of the system.

No worries, take your time um through through the chair.

Thank you so much for um uh presenting uh this report.

Um I did just want to take a moment, um, I know both myself and my colleagues, as we've been out in community um at the various events, there's been you know, folks that have approached us around various like divestment um uh and encouraging the city of Oakland to divest in various operations, and I'm just kind of making certain claims um around kind of our in investment policies, and so I guess I am curious um just kind of based on like past um divestment efforts.

Can you share any kind of insights um around um any um potential fiscal impacts around like some of the divestment initiatives or just any information that you have around like our portfolio as it relates to just some of the claims that um we're hearing in community that the city of Oakland is um potentially um investing in um things that maybe are support that potential things that could not be supportive of like our values?

Sure, through the chair, yes, we've um you know had these particular divestment resolutions, but I haven't noticed any fiscal impact with the implementation of those.

And if you look at the the report I'll bring back to you in a few minutes, is that you know, a large chunk of our portfolio is invested in uh government agencies such as Federal Home Loan Bank, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, things along those lines, as well as money market funds.

So we really don't have any you know exposure into like corporate bonds or medium term notes uh to any effect, and we're pretty cognizant of you know the political will, if you will, of the constituency here in the city of Oakland.

So we monitored and take it very seriously, yeah.

My questions were in on a similar line of thought as my colleagues.

Um so it sounds like you're saying that because we are hearing out in community, just questions around our investment policy.

Um you said government agencies, or anything that we're investing related to the military, for example, no direct investment in the military, and like I said, uh or weapons manufacturing no, no, no, no, we are very cognizant about that as well.

Um, but if there's you know some particular industry that this committee is very adamant or strong about, what I would recommend is work, you know, with uh my department as well as the city attorney's office to uh to uh craft, fire alarm, to create a uh divestiture uh ordinance or resolution, and some of these past efforts to divest, have there been financial impacts to the city after the city council passed his ordinances?

Not not to my knowledge, no.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Since we're on that topic, I was gonna ask you about the LAF later, but can we do that now?

Sure.

Um the the LAFE is the local local agency investment fund, it's the city's pool.

Uh I mean excuse me, the state pool.

So practically every city and county that I know of in the state invests in it.

Um it's a non-rated pool.

Um I know there's been some discussion around that particular pool having, you know, direct investments to support Israel, if you will.

And um the city of Oakland has, you know, we invest in LAFE, but it's an indirect investment.

So what I would say is that if your constituency is really worried about something along those lines, really reach out and talk to the state treasurer's office.

So we don't choose stocks in the LAF.

No, and no, no, no, we cannot invest in stocks at all.

Okay and the um so it's where we keep sort of short-term money.

Exactly.

Exactly, exactly.

So if we if we can't use treasuries, and I mean, does the LAFE provide a higher return than the money market?

It lags the market, okay.

So LAFE is a really weird, so in a rising interest rate environment, LAFE will lag and inversely so.

Okay, okay, and it's like I said, it's a non-rated, so you know it you would expect a slightly higher rate of return plus their wham or their weighted average to maturity is longer than our portfolio.

Because our portfolio is I think 222 days right now.

So it's a better vehicle for you, then yes, yes, yes.

And like I said, practically everyone in the state, you know, I'm not saying that's the reason to invest in it, but practically everyone in the state invests in LAFE.

Got it.

Thank you.

Moving to our public speakers, Mr.

Salah Al-Obbala and Derek Barnes.

If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hands here, easily identified.

Thank you.

So you have the sanctuary investment ordinance where you don't do business with companies that help to build the wall uh near the border, but you do business with Israel, and you bought you were made aware by me uh some investment with the police department involved a company from Israel and you ignored it.

You also have the capacity to deal with the port requesting that you do not allow uh shipments of weapons to be uh released from the port of Oakland, and you're gonna sit on your behinds and do nothing about that as well.

So um management responsibility is identified that you will have the management responsibility uh under the wing of the city administrator or designee.

So what is the criteria, if any, for the individual whose management is qualified to do it?

If you simply put the language designee, you also have uh investment uh operation manager, who is that?

Who's the investment operation manager may execute investment transactions?

Okay, then you say in this document that you created in the report that the city's is utilizing best practices and sound financial management, not according to the grand jury report that you have to respond to at some times about not having sound investments.

Okay, uh, you say that you have a policy that establishes sound that management when you're not supposed to be engaging in pursuing bonds because of your low uh credit rating, but you're doing it anyway.

So where is the existence of this sound management that you're talking about?

When we'll see it, because we're not seeing it.

Okay, and lastly, if you have an that conclude your public speakers for item five.

I will entertain a motion.

I'll make the motion to um move this item to the October 7th city council meeting.

On consent.

On consent.

Second.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Brown, seconded by Councilmember Unger to approve the recommendation staff and for both pieces of legislation to the October 7th, 2025 city council agenda on consent on roll.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong?

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and to for both pieces of legislation to the October 7th City Council agenda on consent moving to item six.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to execute a two-year agreement with Fusion BI Inc.

to provide Oracle Business Intelligence Analytics Consulting Services and the amount not to exceed 210,000 with the option to extend for two years and the amount not to exceed 105,000 per year, and two waiving the competitive multi-step solicitation process for the city's local business enterprise program.

And you do have one speaker for this item.

My name is Helen Cherkis.

Um I'm a fine in finance department, I'm a project manager, and I'm actually here to introduce David Sue, who's the information systems manager.

He will be presenting on this item.

Good morning.

Good morning, Chair and members of the Finance and Management Committee.

My name is David Sue, and I'm the city's Oracle IT manager at the City of Oakland.

I'm here today to present the proposed resolution authorizing the city administrator to execute a new two-year agreement with Fusion BI for Oracle Business Intelligence and Analytics Consulting Services in an amount not to exceed 210,000 with an option to extend for an additional two years at 105,000 per year.

So also, as mentioned, this resolution request uh requests a waiver of solicitation process and the local small business enterprise program due to highly specialized nature uh that these local vendors cannot provide.

So also Fusion BI has provided specialized uh consulting and technical support for the city's Oracle Business Intelligence Platform since 20 uh 2023 and ensure system stability and continuity for key financial operations.

With that said the finance and information and technologies department jointly recommends continuing this partnership to maintain consistency and avoid service disruptions to our core financial systems, approval of this item will allow the city to continue reliable financial reporting and data analysis in support of citywide operations.

Therefore, the staff respectfully recommends that the committee forward this resolution to full city council for adoption.

Thank you.

And uh we can't answer any questions if you have any.

Um colleagues, questions, comments?

Okay, then we will move to call your name to approach your podium, Mr.

Salah Olabala?

Madam Clerk, one minute, please.

So y'all can get out of here.

Um I don't see the sense of extending the contract for two years when you don't know what the funding source can be.

Why don't why can't you wait to the time of the ending of the contract and then pursue if funding is available?

Why are you doing this way?

Look at the number of times during the course of the day that you are waiving the local business and waiving the solicitation solicitation process.

This is a contract from 2002.

How many evaluations of performance have been presented to this body since that time period of 2002?

Are we just rubber stamping again?

Okay, so uh based on criteria approved by consultants.

You you're seeing you're saying that this body, Oracle.

I remember when I was in New Orleans, we always had problems with Oracle over and over again.

So I don't know if they fixed a problems or what.

Thank you, madam clerk.

You're welcome, Mr.

Sada.

And that concludes your public speakers for item six.

Thank you.

I just have one question.

Um I know we have many of great issues with our oracle systems.

Um what aspect is this consultant aiming to tackle and improving Oracle or use of Oracle?

So this consultant brings uh specialized Oracle BI knowledge that our current in-house staff doesn't have.

And it will prevent uh disruptions to uh financial reporting that finance needs.

Could you repeat that prevent disruptions to what?

Uh disruptions to financial reporting, citywide financial reporting.

Reporting okay, thank you.

Um, did we already motion?

No, okay.

I will entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Unker, seconded by Councilmember Wong to approve the recommendations of staff, and this is to forward to the October 7th City Council agenda on consent on roll.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong?

Aye.

And Chair Rama Chandran.

Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes to approve the recommendations of style to forward this to the October 7th.

City Council agenda on consent.

Moving to item seven.

Receive an informational cash management report for the fiscal year 24 25, fourth quarter ended June 30th, 25, and you do have three speakers for this item.

Good morning again, uh Chair Ramashandran and fellow committee members.

Um, David Jones with the Treasury Bureau.

Uh the report in front of you is the informational cash management report for the fourth quarter of ending uh June 30th, 2025.

Um the highlights on this on this uh particular report is the portfolio had a balance of approximately 2.2 billion dollars as of uh June 30th.

The days to maturity of the portfolio is 220 days.

The portfolio had a yield of approximately 4.03 percent.

Um the portfolio had a daily liquidity of 19% and 180 day liquidity of 65 and a half percent.

Um the portfolio is in full compliance with the city's investment policy, and the portfolio is invested for safety, liquidity, and yield.

And this is a quarterly report that we bring um every quarter and available for any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Any questions, colleagues, or comments?

If not, I'll move to public speakers.

Thank you.

Want to call your name, please approach your podium.

If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hands.

You're easily identified.

Mr.

Salah Olopala.

It's okay.

Ms.

Asana passes.

Derek Barnes.

And Kevin Dolly.

Kevin passes.

That concludes your public speakers for item seven.

Okay, I will entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second.

We do have a motion by Councilmember Unger, seconded by Councilmember Brown to receive and file this in the Finance and Management Committee.

On roll, Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes to receive and file this in the FMC committee.

Moving to open forum.

Want to call your name, please approach the podium or participating via Zoom.

Please raise your hands here, easily identified.

David Boatwright, Masasada, Derek Barnes, and Kevin Dolly.

One minute, Madam Clerk, please.

Thank you.

The grand jury report on Oakland's budget problems means that no bonds for cities needs should be pursued.

Oakland stopped using bonds because this is the report, because of concerns about its ability to do so in its current financial condition.

There's a structural deficit in the city.

All of this is from the report.

I'm reading directly.

Will is not possible in the short term, and it's not possible, potentially in the long term to come.

The city is ability to see bonds is been the result of negative ratings from three different bond agencies.

You've got negative ratings.

So I don't know why you're doing it.

And I'll see what your answer is in the grand jury report.

David Bowery District 4.

The city website needs to be reviewed.

There's some very incorrect information.

For example, the committee chairperson's assignments include four uh chair members or are uh council members that no longer are on the council.

And uh the emails for y'all are really suspect.

I've talked to Sean Mayor and he said he would get it corrected, but after six months it hasn't been corrected.

And there's probably other things that need to be reviewed.

So if y'all would ask whoever is responsible for the website to make a review of the basic information there.

Thank you.

And that concludes your public speakers for open forum.

Thank you.

This meeting's adjourned.