Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Oakland City Administrator Sabrina Landreth present the 2019-2020 Budget for the City of Oakland, moments ago. It includes just $55 million for affordable housing, which includes $30 million from Measure KK funds; in 2011, when Oakland had an active Oakland Redevelopment Agency, the affordable housing budget for that year, alone, was $111 million. Thus, at a time when it should be double that, it’s roughly half that.
Here’s the full release as sent to Zennie62Media.
Joint statement re: 2019-21 Budget from Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and City Administrator Sabrina Landreth
“The Fiscal Year 2019-21 Proposed Policy Budget meets our financial obligations and reflects our shared values and priorities as Oaklanders.
“The $3.2 billion plan makes unprecedented investments to address our homeless crisis, build affordable housing post-redevelopment, strengthen anti-displacement efforts, and pave our roads.
“This budget also makes an ongoing commitment to paying down the City’s retiree medical unfunded liabilities, which combined with pension unfunded liabilities, totals more than $2.7 billion.
“This budget was also able to close a projected $93 million gap by growing revenues, right-sizing fees and successful advocacy for grant funding.”
Here are the key investments included in this budget to address Councilmember priorities:
Councilmember Expenditure Priorities – Allocations in FY 2019-21 Budget
Homelessness – $21.3 million
Affordable Housing – $55.4 million
Investments in Children / OUSD – $74.5 million
Street Paving & Transportation – $110.6 million
Fire Prevention & Emergency Services – $16.2 million
Economic and Workforce Development – $2.9 million
We present the Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2019-21 Proposed Policy Budget, a spending plan that totals more than $3.2 billion over the next two years that meets our obligations and reflects our shared priorities and values. This two-year budget seeks to confront some of the greatest challenges facing our region – from addressing the humanitarian crisis of homelessness, to protecting our residents from displacement in an increasingly expensive Bay Area, to creating an adequate amount of affordable housing, to making our streets safer and cleaner, to preventing violence, to better enforcing workplace protections and better protecting against increased fire risk – all needs which have grown exponentially.
Key highlights of this budget include:
• In addition to the $55 million that was already allocated, this budget devotes $30 million from Measure KK for new affordable housing developments to keep working families in Oakland, as well as $18.6 million towards construction of 465 units at Brooklyn Basin;
• Invest $110.6 million (all sources) in transportation-related capital infrastructure over the biennial budget, including $75.8 million on citywide street resurfacing to pave roads across Oakland so that residents across all neighborhoods, can get to and from work safely. This investment is the single largest paving effort in Oakland’s history;
• Adds 11 new positions in the Fire Prevention Bureau to keep Oaklanders safe from fires, effectively doubling staff levels in the Fire Prevention Bureau compared to three years ago;
• Creates Oakland’s first-ever Commission on Homelessness to lead the City’s fight against homelessness and secure housing for its most vulnerable residents who are living on our sidewalks; and,
• And for the first time ever, Oakland will implement a long-term policy to address underfunded retiree medical liabilities.
The full 504-page PDF file of the budget is available here at this link.
Stay tuned.