If council members approve her proposed budget, they will sacrifice the city’s future to prolong uncontrolled spending.
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024-25, which starts July 1, does not try to fix the ongoing deficit. It aims to postpone the fiscal reckoning another year and close the two-year deficit with a patchwork of one-time maneuvers that sacrifice the city’s future.
Oakland’s leaders have avoided fiscal responsibility for years. Now they want residents to pay the price.annually since 2021. The city Finance Department has been shouting about this, but city leaders, including the previous and present administrations, ignored the problem. They defied fiscal reality by spending one-time state and federal COVID relief money to cover the ongoing budget gap. That relief money ran out this year, leaving the city with a two-year projected deficit ofBut Mayor Sheng Thao’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024-25, which starts July 1, does not try to fix the ongoing deficit. It aims to postpone the fiscal reckoning another year and close the two-year deficit with a patchwork of one-time maneuvers that sacrifice the city’s future.
If passed by the City Council this month, the proposed budget would plunder city assets using the one-time proceeds from thefrom taxpayer-funded ballot measures that were intended for libraries, parks, addressing homelessness and blight reduction and instead spend them on baseline city expenses. It wouldthe city’s unused fund balances that could be used for service improvements. And it would slash public safety staff.
Tim Gardner is a 16-year Oakland resident. He has a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, served on the faculty of Boston University, founded a research and development software company and now leads strategy for Cytiva, a global provider of biopharmaceutical manufacturing technology.
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