Thanks for sharing this important analysis. I don’t support deceptive measures that purport to be for one thing (public safety) but are really to pay for union wage increases. I posted a link on next door. Really hope the word gets out!
@Eric - Thank you for your additional comment. That's not what the new contract says (that the pay raise is actually a cost-of-living increase). What it says is that the promised pay raises are tied to the city achieving budget surplus by the end of this fiscal year -- after the vote on the proposed parcel tax increase.
By comparison, SEIU's previous three-year contract in 2022 awarded a total of 14% in cost-of-living-adjustments (5% the first year, 5% the second year, and 4% the third year) that were not contingent on the city achieving budget surpluses, nor on any other contingency. It also awarded a "pandemic service stipend" in the form of five new vacation days, enhanced benefits, and $1.5 million more to covert part-time staff to full-time.
Those raises capped off twelve years of compensation increases that added $411 million in costs to the city budget since 2013. The raises also exceed inflationary cost of living adjustments (COLA) by $184 million. As a result, Oakland city employees became paid far more than similar-sized California cities as well as San Francisco.
The current one-year contract is none of those things. It is a straight cash bonus up front, and the promise of another pay raise if the city increases revenues to close the budget deficit by the end of the year, primarily by passing the new parcel tax the unions are now campaigning for (and that SEIU has donated $200,000 toward so far).
Thank you again for the discussion; it is appreciated!
@Eric, thank you for your comment. As noted in our article, the union pay raise is characterized in the new contract as a "triggered wage increase" that is contingent on the city achieving a budget surplus by June 30. Nothing in the contract ties the pay raises to the cost of living or inflation. The "triggered" pay raises financially incentivize unions to campaign for the new parcel tax in order to help achieve the surplus by raising taxes -- which they are now doing.
The slow 911 response times are an embarrassment and even the subject of a civil grand jury investigation. It is pathetic that they now use them to try to get this ballot measure passed. City employees are already some of the best paid in the Bay Area (as reported by Oakland Report) and yet The Town looks dirtier and more run-down than ever. Misplaced priorities.
I am not sure if the priorities are misplaced because the results are driven by policies. Moreover, these policies are failing yet, our "leaders" have not stopped to make adjustments to the policies. Instead, they have doubled-down on the failed policies and are now asking for more taxes from us.
There was a table in front of my local supermarket with a sign saying "Sign a Petition to Keep our Firehouses Open." I assume that "petition" is the signature campaign for the parcel tax ballot question.
I would like to see a list of the previous revenue measures (like NN) that asked us to approve a tax increase for the same things this one is offering us (better 911 times, police and fire, etc). It would be instructive to see how often we've agreed to pay more to fund the same items (that should be basic, first priority city services, by the way).
Doug, thank you for your comment. Oakland Report will be taking a closer look at all of the City of Oakland’s many property-based taxes in the coming weeks, including instances in which multiple taxes are imposed for the same or very similar purposes such as public safety -- which as you point out, is a fundamental service that other cities provide without imposing additional special taxes.
Sean, this is the best, most detailed, most complete analysis of the deep corruption at the heart of Oakland’s failure to deliver basic services to its residents. Most older Americans learned a deep, emotional connection with ‘unions’ going back decades (even centuries.). That has allowed the public employee unions to deceive us all for decades that their corruption and looting of Oakland’s tax revenues were ‘fighting bosses to protect workers.’
The political problem going forward is to convince voters that their public unions are destroying the city to reward their members handsomely. And that if developers can’t lobby council members to steal city assets, then public employees shouldn’t be able to do the same.
Oakland voters might not agree with SEIU that their members should be paid ‘what they each need’ not ‘what their jobs are each worth in the competitive market.’
Thanks for this reporting. It seems critical for the public to understand whether the city has truly achieved a budget surplus or remains in deficit while generating the appearance of a surplus to trigger pay or benefit increases. Two additional pieces of information would help the public understand more fully: First, who is accountable here? Is this an action by city staff, for which the mayor is accountable, or would the city council be required to affirm the existence of a surplus? And speaking of accountability, how about reminding everyone how much money the public sector unions contributed to the most recent election campaigns of the mayor and council members? (as dollar amount and percentage of total contributions)
We may never know the real accounting of the Oakland city budget. Take a look. It is purposely inscrutable and misleading to prevent anyone from getting a complete picture of what is happening. Smoke and mirrors. Delays in reporting. Millions suddenly ’found’! Follow the money? How? Look at summary pages of city budgets for any large midwestern or southern city. Clear, understandable. Then look again at the Oakland budget and explain it.
The "raise" the union negotiated is just a 3% COLA to offset inflation and the parcel tax isn't a new tax it's just replacing an expiring parcel tax. This is pretty disingenuous reporting.
Eric, thank you for your comment. As noted in our article, the union pay raise is characterized in the new contract as a "triggered wage increase" that is contingent on the city achieving a budget surplus by June 30. Nothing in the contract ties the pay raises to the cost of living or inflation. The "triggered" pay raises financially incentivize unions to campaign for the new parcel tax in order to help achieve the surplus by raising taxes -- which they are now doing.
Well, the "triggered wage increase" is capped at 3% and 2024 CPI was 2.9%. So it is, in fact, a cost of living adjustment. The union essentially agreed to a pay cut in real terms if the city didn't meet revenue targets. The fact that it's a "triggered" wage increase was a concession by the union.
Thank you for your additional comment. That's not what the new contract says. What it says is that the pay raises are tied to the city achieving budget surplus.
By comparison, SEIU's previous three-year contract in 2022 awarded a total of 14% in cost-of-living-adjustments (5% the first year, 5% the second year, and 4% the third year) that were not contingent on the city achieving budget surpluses, nor on any other contingency. It also awarded a "pandemic service stipend" in the form of five new vacation days, enhanced benefits, and $1.5 million more to covert part-time staff to full-time.
Those raises capped off twelve years of compensation increases that added $411 million in costs to the city budget since 2013. The raises also exceed inflationary cost of living adjustments (COLA) by $184 million. As a result, Oakland city employees became paid far more than similar-sized California cities as well as San Francisco.
The current one-year contract is none of those things. It is a straight cash bonus up front, and the promise of another pay raise if the city increases revenues to close the budget deficit by the end of the year, primarily by passing the new parcel tax the unions are now campaigning for (and that SEIU has donated $200,000 toward so far).
Thank you again for the discussion; it is appreciated!
There is no other mechanism to ensure wages keep pace with inflation. If the union negotiates a 3% wage increase while CPI increases 2.9% that is a de facto cost of living adjustment regardless of the language in the contract.
Public sector unions generally back new taxes anyway because tax revenue funds member salaries. This trigged wage increase doesn't really change that dynamic.
Eric, thank you for your additional comment. By the same reasoning you are using -- which is flawed -- one could also assert that the SEIU contract is "effectively," "de facto," a payout to financially incentivize the unions to campaign and pay for the "citizen-sponsored" parcel tax increase. Except that our assertion is supported by the actual language in the contract, the city council's authorized budget which includes the new tax, the city administrator's "roadmap to fiscal health" defining the criteria for the new tax, the language in the union's ballot measure the echoes those criteria, the unions' campaign finance statement demonstrating their financial support for the new tax, and other evidence as outlined in our article. Thank you again for the discussion.
If a 3% pay increase, when the most recent CPI increase is 3%, is an unacceptable "payout" to unions, how are public sector workers supposed to prevent their salaries, in real terms, from being eroded by inflation year over year?
What is the average annual salary before and after? Is it a reasonable amount to live in Oakland? What are the knock on effects of raising public employee salaries?
This is more disingenuous reporting. The 2013 starting year is cherry picked because it misses the fact that salaries lost ground to inflation between 2008 and 2013.
Let’s be clear it’s not the overtime costs from the miscellaneous employee unions like SEIU and IFPTE that are creating the city’s deficit. Need to focus on Police and Fire!
Sorry, but if you divert too much of the budget away from Police and Fire, they have no choice but to work overtime to maintain public safety. But it allows the SEIU to blame police and fire overtime and distract us from who is really bankrupting the city.
Increasing the number of OPD officers is one way to reduce over-time but this is something that you and your friends are against.
Please, be gone! You stand in the way of residents that want a better and safer Oakland (and no, MACRO and "community programs" are not going to achieve this alone).
Police and fire services in Oakland consume approximately 70% to 75% of the city’s General Purpose Fund (roughly $860 million annually) as of late 2024, with a large portion dedicated to officer and firefighter salaries and benefits. 3/4s of the General Fund for 1/3rd of the staff. It is difficult to see how this is sustainable.
Thanks for sharing this important analysis. I don’t support deceptive measures that purport to be for one thing (public safety) but are really to pay for union wage increases. I posted a link on next door. Really hope the word gets out!
@Eric - Thank you for your additional comment. That's not what the new contract says (that the pay raise is actually a cost-of-living increase). What it says is that the promised pay raises are tied to the city achieving budget surplus by the end of this fiscal year -- after the vote on the proposed parcel tax increase.
By comparison, SEIU's previous three-year contract in 2022 awarded a total of 14% in cost-of-living-adjustments (5% the first year, 5% the second year, and 4% the third year) that were not contingent on the city achieving budget surpluses, nor on any other contingency. It also awarded a "pandemic service stipend" in the form of five new vacation days, enhanced benefits, and $1.5 million more to covert part-time staff to full-time.
Those raises capped off twelve years of compensation increases that added $411 million in costs to the city budget since 2013. The raises also exceed inflationary cost of living adjustments (COLA) by $184 million. As a result, Oakland city employees became paid far more than similar-sized California cities as well as San Francisco.
The current one-year contract is none of those things. It is a straight cash bonus up front, and the promise of another pay raise if the city increases revenues to close the budget deficit by the end of the year, primarily by passing the new parcel tax the unions are now campaigning for (and that SEIU has donated $200,000 toward so far).
Thank you again for the discussion; it is appreciated!
@Eric, thank you for your comment. As noted in our article, the union pay raise is characterized in the new contract as a "triggered wage increase" that is contingent on the city achieving a budget surplus by June 30. Nothing in the contract ties the pay raises to the cost of living or inflation. The "triggered" pay raises financially incentivize unions to campaign for the new parcel tax in order to help achieve the surplus by raising taxes -- which they are now doing.
The slow 911 response times are an embarrassment and even the subject of a civil grand jury investigation. It is pathetic that they now use them to try to get this ballot measure passed. City employees are already some of the best paid in the Bay Area (as reported by Oakland Report) and yet The Town looks dirtier and more run-down than ever. Misplaced priorities.
I am not sure if the priorities are misplaced because the results are driven by policies. Moreover, these policies are failing yet, our "leaders" have not stopped to make adjustments to the policies. Instead, they have doubled-down on the failed policies and are now asking for more taxes from us.
There was a table in front of my local supermarket with a sign saying "Sign a Petition to Keep our Firehouses Open." I assume that "petition" is the signature campaign for the parcel tax ballot question.
I would like to see a list of the previous revenue measures (like NN) that asked us to approve a tax increase for the same things this one is offering us (better 911 times, police and fire, etc). It would be instructive to see how often we've agreed to pay more to fund the same items (that should be basic, first priority city services, by the way).
Doug, thank you for your comment. Oakland Report will be taking a closer look at all of the City of Oakland’s many property-based taxes in the coming weeks, including instances in which multiple taxes are imposed for the same or very similar purposes such as public safety -- which as you point out, is a fundamental service that other cities provide without imposing additional special taxes.
Sean, this is the best, most detailed, most complete analysis of the deep corruption at the heart of Oakland’s failure to deliver basic services to its residents. Most older Americans learned a deep, emotional connection with ‘unions’ going back decades (even centuries.). That has allowed the public employee unions to deceive us all for decades that their corruption and looting of Oakland’s tax revenues were ‘fighting bosses to protect workers.’
The political problem going forward is to convince voters that their public unions are destroying the city to reward their members handsomely. And that if developers can’t lobby council members to steal city assets, then public employees shouldn’t be able to do the same.
Oakland voters might not agree with SEIU that their members should be paid ‘what they each need’ not ‘what their jobs are each worth in the competitive market.’
Thanks for this reporting. It seems critical for the public to understand whether the city has truly achieved a budget surplus or remains in deficit while generating the appearance of a surplus to trigger pay or benefit increases. Two additional pieces of information would help the public understand more fully: First, who is accountable here? Is this an action by city staff, for which the mayor is accountable, or would the city council be required to affirm the existence of a surplus? And speaking of accountability, how about reminding everyone how much money the public sector unions contributed to the most recent election campaigns of the mayor and council members? (as dollar amount and percentage of total contributions)
We may never know the real accounting of the Oakland city budget. Take a look. It is purposely inscrutable and misleading to prevent anyone from getting a complete picture of what is happening. Smoke and mirrors. Delays in reporting. Millions suddenly ’found’! Follow the money? How? Look at summary pages of city budgets for any large midwestern or southern city. Clear, understandable. Then look again at the Oakland budget and explain it.
Sean, who is leading a clearheaded movement for citizens to fight back?
The "raise" the union negotiated is just a 3% COLA to offset inflation and the parcel tax isn't a new tax it's just replacing an expiring parcel tax. This is pretty disingenuous reporting.
Eric, thank you for your comment. As noted in our article, the union pay raise is characterized in the new contract as a "triggered wage increase" that is contingent on the city achieving a budget surplus by June 30. Nothing in the contract ties the pay raises to the cost of living or inflation. The "triggered" pay raises financially incentivize unions to campaign for the new parcel tax in order to help achieve the surplus by raising taxes -- which they are now doing.
Well, the "triggered wage increase" is capped at 3% and 2024 CPI was 2.9%. So it is, in fact, a cost of living adjustment. The union essentially agreed to a pay cut in real terms if the city didn't meet revenue targets. The fact that it's a "triggered" wage increase was a concession by the union.
Thank you for your additional comment. That's not what the new contract says. What it says is that the pay raises are tied to the city achieving budget surplus.
By comparison, SEIU's previous three-year contract in 2022 awarded a total of 14% in cost-of-living-adjustments (5% the first year, 5% the second year, and 4% the third year) that were not contingent on the city achieving budget surpluses, nor on any other contingency. It also awarded a "pandemic service stipend" in the form of five new vacation days, enhanced benefits, and $1.5 million more to covert part-time staff to full-time.
Those raises capped off twelve years of compensation increases that added $411 million in costs to the city budget since 2013. The raises also exceed inflationary cost of living adjustments (COLA) by $184 million. As a result, Oakland city employees became paid far more than similar-sized California cities as well as San Francisco.
The current one-year contract is none of those things. It is a straight cash bonus up front, and the promise of another pay raise if the city increases revenues to close the budget deficit by the end of the year, primarily by passing the new parcel tax the unions are now campaigning for (and that SEIU has donated $200,000 toward so far).
Thank you again for the discussion; it is appreciated!
There is no other mechanism to ensure wages keep pace with inflation. If the union negotiates a 3% wage increase while CPI increases 2.9% that is a de facto cost of living adjustment regardless of the language in the contract.
Public sector unions generally back new taxes anyway because tax revenue funds member salaries. This trigged wage increase doesn't really change that dynamic.
Eric, thank you for your additional comment. By the same reasoning you are using -- which is flawed -- one could also assert that the SEIU contract is "effectively," "de facto," a payout to financially incentivize the unions to campaign and pay for the "citizen-sponsored" parcel tax increase. Except that our assertion is supported by the actual language in the contract, the city council's authorized budget which includes the new tax, the city administrator's "roadmap to fiscal health" defining the criteria for the new tax, the language in the union's ballot measure the echoes those criteria, the unions' campaign finance statement demonstrating their financial support for the new tax, and other evidence as outlined in our article. Thank you again for the discussion.
If a 3% pay increase, when the most recent CPI increase is 3%, is an unacceptable "payout" to unions, how are public sector workers supposed to prevent their salaries, in real terms, from being eroded by inflation year over year?
What is the average annual salary before and after? Is it a reasonable amount to live in Oakland? What are the knock on effects of raising public employee salaries?
The pending wage increase is just a cost of living adjustment capped at 3%.
Nope. https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/20260222-parcel-tax-union-payout/comment/218586928
"...just a cost of living adjustment..."
Please educate yourself and compare the wages in Oakland against neighboring cities, including San Francisco.
https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/oakland-employee-compensation-grew
This is more disingenuous reporting. The 2013 starting year is cherry picked because it misses the fact that salaries lost ground to inflation between 2008 and 2013.
Let’s be clear it’s not the overtime costs from the miscellaneous employee unions like SEIU and IFPTE that are creating the city’s deficit. Need to focus on Police and Fire!
Sorry, but if you divert too much of the budget away from Police and Fire, they have no choice but to work overtime to maintain public safety. But it allows the SEIU to blame police and fire overtime and distract us from who is really bankrupting the city.
Increasing the number of OPD officers is one way to reduce over-time but this is something that you and your friends are against.
Please, be gone! You stand in the way of residents that want a better and safer Oakland (and no, MACRO and "community programs" are not going to achieve this alone).
There has been no proven relationship between staffing and overtime
Police and fire services in Oakland consume approximately 70% to 75% of the city’s General Purpose Fund (roughly $860 million annually) as of late 2024, with a large portion dedicated to officer and firefighter salaries and benefits. 3/4s of the General Fund for 1/3rd of the staff. It is difficult to see how this is sustainable.