Oakland officials say next week's finance meeting may detail possible budget cuts

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- "The Coliseum sale is not the silver bullet to a decades old, fiscal issue that we have here in the city of Oakland. That's an issue that is decades old. What it will help, is soften the landing," says Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who answered questions on ABC7's Midday Live.

The city is now operating under a contingency budget, which was triggered on Oct. 1st, due to a change in the Oakland Coliseum sale.

But on Tuesday, Oakland City Council Member Janani Ramachandran spoke to ABC7 News after a special finance meeting was canceled.

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"This is the third time that myself, Council Member (Treva) Reid and Council Member (Noel) Gallo, have attempted to schedule a special meeting to give the public a sense of transparency, on where we are with our budget," says Ramachandran.

A special meeting scheduled for Tuesday was canceled because the city says staff is still pouring over the result the fourth quarter revenue numbers, which has always been scheduled for discussion on October 22..

Ramachandran says several attempts were made to schedule a meeting to discuss the Coliseum sale and related budget cuts throughout September. When those went unanswered, according to Council Member Ramachandran, they made three attempts to schedule a public meeting: Oct. 7, Oct. 15 and Oct. 22.

However, Mayor Thao, responded, saying: "This is a normal process. I know that some council members want to politicize things because it's an election year, but at the end of the day, it's normal. We wait for the Q4 and Q1 so we have the information, we can then come back and make adjustments to our budget."

At the Oct. 22 meeting, discussion will begin about possible cuts, which will likely be phased in.

In the meantime, the Oakland Police Officers' Association issued a strongly worded statement raising concerns that the budget deficit is likely "far high than known."

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During her State of the City address, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao took time to talk about some of the city's most pressing issues, including safety,

That's true, according to an Oct. 10 informational report put out by the city's finance department. It shows an operating deficit of almost $80 million dollars. But that report also states that $30 million dollars in overspending is, "driven by spending in public safety departments."

An overtime spending report prepared by Oakland Police Chief Floyd Mitchell will be discussed at the Oct. 22 meeting. It shows that OPD has gone over its overtime budget by almost $26 million.

"We are at 683 officers. And that number is totally not what we can handle with the volume of calls that come to our city," explains Sergeant Huy Nguyen, president of Oakland Police Officers Association.

Sergeant Nguyen says a staffing study is expected to be released later this year, which will highlight the problems caused by continual staffing shortages. He argues the city using overtime also saves money by not paying benefits for new officers.

Mayor Thao says since March, the city has frozen all hiring and limited staff travel.