Iris, thank you for your comment. As others have mentioned, this analysis does factor in the increase to the cost of living over time -- and the data shows that city's employee compensation has increased at a much higher rate, in addition to now being more than double the median income of everyday Oaklanders.
Regarding your comment that city staff reports were only 5 pages long back in 1992 -- let's assume for the sake of discussion that is true. That was before the era of widespread word processing, electronic file storage, the internet, cloud computing, and a host of other revolutionary productivity improvements that have dramatically reduced the time and effort it takes to research and prepare documents. I would add that writing staff reports is hardly a fundamental or significant portion of public service delivery like emergency response or filling potholes are.
Finally, the analysis does consider the impact of public employee compensation -- of which police compensation is a part. That is, in fact, one of the article's main points, supported by extensive evidence.
Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
Kyle, thank you for your comment, and for pointing out that the article omitted employer benefit data for non-governmental workers.
According to data from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census, approximately 55% of non-government full-time workers in Oakland receive employer-paid benefits valued at approximately $25,000 to $30,000 per year.
So, an apples-to-apples comparison would put adjusted Oakland household total compensation closer to $130,000–$140,000, at least for the roughly half of households that have employer-paid benefits.
The fundamental finding that city employee compensation significantly exceeds and has grown faster than resident incomes overall remains true, but the magnitude is somewhat smaller than the article originally stated. We have added that information along with a correction. Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
If you don’t see the tax, you’re more likely to vote for it. If you feel the outcome, you’re already paying for it.
This article raises a bigger structural question. A local tax is most legitimate when the people paying it, voting on it, benefiting from it, and living with the result are largely the same community.
Parcel taxes complicate that. Many renters don’t see the direct bill, but they still pay through higher rents, fewer improvements, and reduced investment across the city. The cost doesn’t disappear; it becomes less visible.
When a union or business association becomes the effective sponsor of a new tax and a significant share of its members or beneficiaries live outside Oakland, that alignment breaks down further. The measure may still be legal, but it becomes less resident-driven and more institution-driven. In those cases, the Mayor and Council shift from representing residents to managing competing interests where Oakland residents and taxpayers become secondary.
Voters should be told clearly: who is sponsoring it, who stands to gain financially, what portion of those beneficiaries actually live in Oakland, and whether the service promises are enforceable this time.
If this measure does not increase Oakland’s tax base, reduce the city’s budget burden, and provide a clear path to lowering parcel taxes within the next election cycle, it should not be supported.
No increase in the tax base, no reduction in the budget burden, no path to lowering parcel taxes next cycle, then no vote on Measure E.
Thanks for this reporting. Compensation and our taxes are certainly out of whack considering services we get, inflation and benchmarking to other cities.
I am curious to hear more about what is happening with hiring for open positions. Recently Jiani Ramachandran noted her concern/disgust (?) with the 839 open, approved city positions which have not been filled in Oakland. In turn, very few positions have been posted much less hired for. HR blamed the departments for not completing recs while the departments seemed to blame lack of clarity for funding. Recall several years ago 911 staffing was very low and HR had not processed over 1000 applications. At the same time Thao and Kaplan put in around $1MM to promote these positions – not knowing HR sat on these applicants. Now – per Oaklandside- Rowena Brown suggests “HR invest in a social media plan to attract new talent to Oakland.” Why would you spend money on a PR campaign when the hiring system is so dysfunctional?
Considering the noted $237K average per employee this equates to nearly $200MM in salary + benefits for positions. Where is this money going in the meantime? In turn, what is the City Manager (total comp $498K in 2024 per Transparent California) doing about the services which were approved yet have no action on staffing?
Asking for more money for services when the city is not even fulfilling what is already approved makes no sense. There needs to be more transparency and accountability. The city is certainly failing on delivering to its residents.
How can a City which is in a huge deficit fill all those positions without going even deeper in to debt? The bottom line is that Oaklands current budget doesn’t even cover all the costs for current services and staffing. As the article points out and previous articles from this publication point out, Oakland promised its staff a pay raise this year they can’t afford and the coming ballot measure to increase taxes so that the city doesn’t close currently open fire stations depends on that tax passing as does the promised pay raise (which in the MOU is referrered to as a bonus!)
Another great analysis - thank you Sean. In technology, there is a concept called "enshittification". This originated to describe how software platforms decrease in quality while increasing in costs over time. We have the public service version of this here in Oakland. The city is not concerned about efficiently providing high quality basic services to the public. These are just poster issues to create funding to funnel into their pockets. If you have any information as to what ratio of our richly compensated city employees actually live in Oakland, that would be interesting to know. I suspect a large percentage, if not a majority, do not live here; and hence have no concern about bleeding us out.
That is a good catch: "Lost in these transactional politics is a key data point—only 32% of city full time employees are residents of Oakland. While there is nothing unreasonable in employing the best workers from anywhere in the region, it sets up a perverse incentive to abuse Oaklanders’ interests. Those workers and their union leaders can maximally extract Oakland resources for their benefit, but personally avoid the negative impacts associated with the decline of city services." NO KIDDING!
Amazing works, as always Sean and The Oakland Report.
Extremely well researched and ends with a clear message; it's time for accountability and a honest account of Oakland's finances from our elected leaders and public servants.
Just looking at CPI between 2006 & 2026 shows it can account for the majority of the cost increases (CPI would put it at $1.45).
On the income side, your own source 4 explicitly includes a line about this - "Oakland’s revenues have grown significantly, though when adjusted for inflation, the growth is not as pronounced and fluctuates based on the strength of the housing and real estate markets"
The changes to add additional measures are because of Proposition 13 which is designed to do just that. So of course specific funding for specific programs is requested - otherwise they'd largely be operating with the 1978 budget on 2025 costs, which is truly a "shrinkflation" scenario.
Only having 39% of the budget as unrestricted directly limits the cities ability to balance the budgets (also in source 4), and limits what it can do on individual programs.
Employee compensation point is also disingenuous -> you're also comparing total compensation (salary PLUS benefits) of the city employees vs JUST the salary portion of Oakland residents. Of course that is going to look vastly different - you're excluding healthcare/retirement/pension/insurance/etc. that private employers provide as benefits compensation, which can be a huge percentage of overall compensation packages, which makes it an apples to oranges comparison. Rising costs of employment ARE a problem, but the comparisons aren't 1:1, and ignore the challenges in managing the pension system.
Even comparisons to CPI aren't realistic, as ECI isn't always 1:1 with inflation, and has slightly outpaced it:
Oakland need more employees, working less overtime, to reduce the cost per-employee & raise the level of services they can each provide. New employees would also be cheaper pension liabilities, given the reforms in 2013. It also needs to reassess some of the operational expenses & identify ways utilizing state/county resources instead of duplicating efforts.
Kyle, thank you for your comment, and for pointing out that the article omitted employer benefit data for non-governmental workers.
According to data from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census, approximately 55% of non-government full-time workers in Oakland receive employer-paid benefits valued at approximately $25,000 to $30,000 per year.
So, an apples-to-apples comparison would put adjusted Oakland household total compensation closer to $130,000–$140,000, at least for the roughly half of households that have employer-paid benefits.
The fundamental finding that city employee compensation significantly exceeds and has grown faster than resident incomes overall remains true, but the magnitude is somewhat smaller than the article originally stated. We have added that information along with a correction. Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
There are so many opportunities for deeper dives in this article. I like to say I know a little bit about transportation and math. I am ignorant in the other topics. So, I stay in my lane.
As the pothole guy, our team has done an amazing job building an operation that can repair 50k potholes per year (even though this is not really a solution to poor pavement condition) and can pave as much as 60 miles per year (which is a partial solution). We have great people doing great work. Some live in Oakland. Some don’t live in Oakland. The team works hard and delivers for the residents of Oakland. With our present staffing demands, I don’t care where anyone lives as long as they help us deliver.
It seems the city made a strategic decision about 20 years ago to stop doing maintenance - on anything, to accept the consequences of failed infrastructure, and to pay the associated legal settlements. If you don’t believe me, look at the data for sidewalks uplifted by tree roots and the associated lawsuits. Those sidewalks didn’t just elevate themselves. A lack of maintenance led to larger, heavier trees. Nature responds by developing a larger root system. The new “pothole” is tree trimming.
The real discussion here is why does a city have so much pavement damage that its pavement crews can repair 50k “potholes” per year and never get caught up. The first answer is they aren’t “potholes.” The damage is generally due to insufficient drainage and/or high water table. Here goes Josh with the boring nerd speak. What does that mean? It means a city asset (asphalt roadways) that are designed to last 25-30 years will probably last 10-15 years. To pave every street in Oakland would cost roughly $1B. Within this 30 year window, we would replace everything twice instead of once - a $2B cost.
There is another discussion that needs to be had regarding the cost per resident - what does it look like over the next 10-15 years. The city has moved beyond infrastructure asset maintenance (roads, parks, trees, buildings, equipment) and is now in the phase of major replacement. Ask someone how many lightning loaders are broken for KOCB; how many sewer flusher trucks are down; how many additional police and fire vehicles are needed; how many elevators are broken; etc. It’s not an encouraging story.
The “potholes” are a good indicator of historic maintenance activity. Again, a street should last 25-30 years. For many years, Oakland had the dubious distinction of the worst pavement in America. With Measure KK and U, we have been able to rebuild about 35% of the streets since 2017. Prior to that, the city paved less than 10 miles per year. Another way of looking at it is we paved our streets once every 83 years - a 30 year asset discounted to 20 year due to insufficient drainage. The pavement needed to be addressed 4x in 83 years. We didn’t touch it once.
It might be a worthy exercise to look at deferred costs. It might just surprise you. Lastly, please stop measuring “potholes.” It’s meaningless. A slightly more refined metric would be miles paved per year. If you want to play at the advanced levels, ask what is being done about the storm drainage - miles added, repaired etc.
So a government by and for the all powerful unions? Hard to change that huh. Until the limits to growth and energy decline kick in, forcing Oakland and other cities into bankruptcy and reinventing itself, it is hard to see how this can be changed.
Meanwhile, rather than collect business taxes and all the other ways to increase revenues the Oakland Report has suggested since its inception, the city wants to Uglify Oakland with 2-sided digital billboards on scenic highways 24 and 13 in a NON-COMMERCIAL AREA ZONED RESIDENTIAL on PG&E property, as well as telegraph between 56th and 57th streets on the UPS site. This is a time when we need to be consuming less, not encouraging products made out of finite resources and a lot of petroleum and natural gas plastic and energy to make them. If only to help the billions in the third world affected by the Iran war who have no cooking gas in cities and are scavenging every piece of wood and coal they can get their hands on. Not to mention climate change, biodiversity loss and dozens of other polycrises caused by Buying Too Much Stuff.
I hope the Oakland Report can summarize their recommendations of how the city could bring more money in without doing forcing drivers and neighborhoods to see blaring ads that pollute the sky at night. Why subject people picnicking and hiking at Lake Temescal Park to blinking advertising signs? The meeting to vote on this keeps getting delayed to get around the Brown Act with special meetings requiring just two days notice and lessen public protest. Whatever happened to Limits to Growth, to the environmental movement, to not allowing corporations to mess up our lives? Oakland used to be an ecological epicenter! And Charlene Wang, sponsor of the digital billboards, is in the Sierra Club leadership (https://www.sierraclub.org/sfbay/leadership-roster). Go figure.
What a narrow view, and yes I see your objective here. Yes, 2 decades of rising cost- and what element of our society hasn't had rising costs? If you are interested in fair reporting, you should add in the cost of living the price of gas and the price of housing over 20 years for comparison.... Have you factored in the tremendous and increasing amount of public comment and the cost of staff and resources required to address all of these issues? The time it takes Council to resolve these issues? In 1992 a staff report was 1 - 5 pages. Also, I still don't see any mention of the Police Union's role in pushing and achieving ever larger salaries and pension benefits, which are promoted through scare tactics (the same kind that you examined in the fire union's strategy). And the role of Police overtime and lack of accountability for that...
Iris, thank you for your comment. As others have mentioned, this analysis does factor in the increase to the cost of living over time -- and the data shows that city's employee compensation has increased at a much higher rate, in addition to now being more than double the median income of everyday Oaklanders.
Regarding your comment that city staff reports were only 5 pages long back in 1992 -- let's assume for the sake of discussion that is true. That was before the era of widespread word processing, electronic file storage, the internet, cloud computing, and a host of other revolutionary productivity improvements that have dramatically reduced the time and effort it takes to research and prepare documents. I would add that writing staff reports is hardly a fundamental or significant portion of public service delivery like emergency response or filling potholes are.
Finally, the analysis does consider the impact of public employee compensation -- of which police compensation is a part. That is, in fact, one of the article's main points, supported by extensive evidence.
Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
I see what you’re trying to do here — broaden the conversation until the core point disappears. But the math ain't mathing. I'll refute your comment point by point below:
Yes, costs have gone up everywhere. Gas, housing, groceries — we all live in the same reality, city workers and residents alike. That’s exactly why the comparison matters: Oakland’s tax burden didn’t just rise with the cost of living — it blew past it. Conflating inflation with bad governance is problematic.
And despite all that additional money? Residents aren’t seeing it where it counts:
Fewer police officers
Flat emergency response outcomes
Declining permitting and housing production
That’s the point. More money in, same—or worse—results out.
Now on the “staff time” and longer reports — respectfully, that’s not a defense, that’s part of the problem. If government has become so bloated and process-heavy that it costs significantly more to deliver the same services, that’s not a justification rather than evidence of inefficiency.
On the police union — the article makes clear that rising compensation across the entire system is eating the budget — negotiated deals, approved by elected officials, cycle after cycle. It looks like YOU are the one with an agenda with this ad hominenm approach. Also, lack of proper staffing leads to massive police overtime. Don't like it? Staff up.
At some point, we have to stop explaining away the outcomes and defending bad behavior and start owning them. Because right now, the reality is simple:
This piece does compare to the CPI. Whether the CPI reflects the cost of living in the Bay Area is debatable but it's a useful yardstick. "That’s over 6 times higher than the increase in the cost-of-living, as measured by the consumer price index, over that same period.2"
"and the role of Police overtime and lack of accountability" Another very small news outlet, Oaklandside, brought police overtime to light recently. And only then the mayor promised to fix it (and why didn't she have access to that data already?) : https://oaklandside.org/2026/01/29/oakland-police-overtime/
Blame the cops - the standard trope - but who is in charge of the police department? No one says they are without sin, but why are you not mentioning SEIU, AFSCE & the IBEW? What about firefighters? Gosh, what about people working in, say the city's transportation department? No conflict of interest or cherry-picking facts there, right?
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that shrinking the police force will cause an increase in overtime. Does the police union want a smaller force in order to spike their overtime? I have no idea; but the city government is certainly at fault for not properly allocating the taxes we have paid over and over and over again to maintain a higher level of police officers.
Unfortunately, we have folks like Millie Cleveland that put all of their might to keep shrinking the staffing levels of OPD and believe, actually believe, (1) that a much smaller OPD force wouldnt need overtime and (2) crime would decrease.
It makes me very angry and depressed that there are people like this with voting power in our city...
Oakland never had 1-5 page reports in 1992. I served on the City's Budget advisory Commission and we saw plenty of reports that were longer than that on a variety of topics. City staff are paid to perform services for the benefits of residents and businesses, and that included time to resolve issues. That has not changed in 35+ years. What has changed is that Oakland's staff benefits and salaries, while at the high end in the 1980s and 1990s, accelerated in the 2000s, and are now far beyond what similar jobs are in the private sector.
Iris, thank you for your comment. As others have mentioned, this analysis does factor in the increase to the cost of living over time -- and the data shows that city's employee compensation has increased at a much higher rate, in addition to now being more than double the median income of everyday Oaklanders.
Regarding your comment that city staff reports were only 5 pages long back in 1992 -- let's assume for the sake of discussion that is true. That was before the era of widespread word processing, electronic file storage, the internet, cloud computing, and a host of other revolutionary productivity improvements that have dramatically reduced the time and effort it takes to research and prepare documents. I would add that writing staff reports is hardly a fundamental or significant portion of public service delivery like emergency response or filling potholes are.
Finally, the analysis does consider the impact of public employee compensation -- of which police compensation is a part. That is, in fact, one of the article's main points, supported by extensive evidence.
Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
Kyle, thank you for your comment, and for pointing out that the article omitted employer benefit data for non-governmental workers.
According to data from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census, approximately 55% of non-government full-time workers in Oakland receive employer-paid benefits valued at approximately $25,000 to $30,000 per year.
So, an apples-to-apples comparison would put adjusted Oakland household total compensation closer to $130,000–$140,000, at least for the roughly half of households that have employer-paid benefits.
The fundamental finding that city employee compensation significantly exceeds and has grown faster than resident incomes overall remains true, but the magnitude is somewhat smaller than the article originally stated. We have added that information along with a correction. Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
If you don’t see the tax, you’re more likely to vote for it. If you feel the outcome, you’re already paying for it.
This article raises a bigger structural question. A local tax is most legitimate when the people paying it, voting on it, benefiting from it, and living with the result are largely the same community.
Parcel taxes complicate that. Many renters don’t see the direct bill, but they still pay through higher rents, fewer improvements, and reduced investment across the city. The cost doesn’t disappear; it becomes less visible.
When a union or business association becomes the effective sponsor of a new tax and a significant share of its members or beneficiaries live outside Oakland, that alignment breaks down further. The measure may still be legal, but it becomes less resident-driven and more institution-driven. In those cases, the Mayor and Council shift from representing residents to managing competing interests where Oakland residents and taxpayers become secondary.
Voters should be told clearly: who is sponsoring it, who stands to gain financially, what portion of those beneficiaries actually live in Oakland, and whether the service promises are enforceable this time.
If this measure does not increase Oakland’s tax base, reduce the city’s budget burden, and provide a clear path to lowering parcel taxes within the next election cycle, it should not be supported.
No increase in the tax base, no reduction in the budget burden, no path to lowering parcel taxes next cycle, then no vote on Measure E.
~d
Thanks for this reporting. Compensation and our taxes are certainly out of whack considering services we get, inflation and benchmarking to other cities.
I am curious to hear more about what is happening with hiring for open positions. Recently Jiani Ramachandran noted her concern/disgust (?) with the 839 open, approved city positions which have not been filled in Oakland. In turn, very few positions have been posted much less hired for. HR blamed the departments for not completing recs while the departments seemed to blame lack of clarity for funding. Recall several years ago 911 staffing was very low and HR had not processed over 1000 applications. At the same time Thao and Kaplan put in around $1MM to promote these positions – not knowing HR sat on these applicants. Now – per Oaklandside- Rowena Brown suggests “HR invest in a social media plan to attract new talent to Oakland.” Why would you spend money on a PR campaign when the hiring system is so dysfunctional?
Considering the noted $237K average per employee this equates to nearly $200MM in salary + benefits for positions. Where is this money going in the meantime? In turn, what is the City Manager (total comp $498K in 2024 per Transparent California) doing about the services which were approved yet have no action on staffing?
Asking for more money for services when the city is not even fulfilling what is already approved makes no sense. There needs to be more transparency and accountability. The city is certainly failing on delivering to its residents.
https://oaklandside.org/2026/03/25/oakland-is-struggling-to-hire-city-workers/
How can a City which is in a huge deficit fill all those positions without going even deeper in to debt? The bottom line is that Oaklands current budget doesn’t even cover all the costs for current services and staffing. As the article points out and previous articles from this publication point out, Oakland promised its staff a pay raise this year they can’t afford and the coming ballot measure to increase taxes so that the city doesn’t close currently open fire stations depends on that tax passing as does the promised pay raise (which in the MOU is referrered to as a bonus!)
Another great analysis - thank you Sean. In technology, there is a concept called "enshittification". This originated to describe how software platforms decrease in quality while increasing in costs over time. We have the public service version of this here in Oakland. The city is not concerned about efficiently providing high quality basic services to the public. These are just poster issues to create funding to funnel into their pockets. If you have any information as to what ratio of our richly compensated city employees actually live in Oakland, that would be interesting to know. I suspect a large percentage, if not a majority, do not live here; and hence have no concern about bleeding us out.
Search and you will find "only 32% of city full time employees are residents of Oakland" in the below article (2024 but still)
https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/oakland-leaders-perpetuate-misinformation
That is a good catch: "Lost in these transactional politics is a key data point—only 32% of city full time employees are residents of Oakland. While there is nothing unreasonable in employing the best workers from anywhere in the region, it sets up a perverse incentive to abuse Oaklanders’ interests. Those workers and their union leaders can maximally extract Oakland resources for their benefit, but personally avoid the negative impacts associated with the decline of city services." NO KIDDING!
Thank you for all your work documenting and reporting this subject.
Amazing works, as always Sean and The Oakland Report.
Extremely well researched and ends with a clear message; it's time for accountability and a honest account of Oakland's finances from our elected leaders and public servants.
Besides the higher taxes Oaklanders pay, we also pay more for our garbage than neighboring cities:
"The city charges $110 per month for a 64-gallon can, compared with roughly $50 in the nearby cities of Emeryville and Fremont."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/us/oakland-california-trash-garbage.html
Just looking at CPI between 2006 & 2026 shows it can account for the majority of the cost increases (CPI would put it at $1.45).
On the income side, your own source 4 explicitly includes a line about this - "Oakland’s revenues have grown significantly, though when adjusted for inflation, the growth is not as pronounced and fluctuates based on the strength of the housing and real estate markets"
The changes to add additional measures are because of Proposition 13 which is designed to do just that. So of course specific funding for specific programs is requested - otherwise they'd largely be operating with the 1978 budget on 2025 costs, which is truly a "shrinkflation" scenario.
Only having 39% of the budget as unrestricted directly limits the cities ability to balance the budgets (also in source 4), and limits what it can do on individual programs.
Employee compensation point is also disingenuous -> you're also comparing total compensation (salary PLUS benefits) of the city employees vs JUST the salary portion of Oakland residents. Of course that is going to look vastly different - you're excluding healthcare/retirement/pension/insurance/etc. that private employers provide as benefits compensation, which can be a huge percentage of overall compensation packages, which makes it an apples to oranges comparison. Rising costs of employment ARE a problem, but the comparisons aren't 1:1, and ignore the challenges in managing the pension system.
Even comparisons to CPI aren't realistic, as ECI isn't always 1:1 with inflation, and has slightly outpaced it:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ECIWAG
Oakland need more employees, working less overtime, to reduce the cost per-employee & raise the level of services they can each provide. New employees would also be cheaper pension liabilities, given the reforms in 2013. It also needs to reassess some of the operational expenses & identify ways utilizing state/county resources instead of duplicating efforts.
Kyle, thank you for your comment, and for pointing out that the article omitted employer benefit data for non-governmental workers.
According to data from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census, approximately 55% of non-government full-time workers in Oakland receive employer-paid benefits valued at approximately $25,000 to $30,000 per year.
So, an apples-to-apples comparison would put adjusted Oakland household total compensation closer to $130,000–$140,000, at least for the roughly half of households that have employer-paid benefits.
The fundamental finding that city employee compensation significantly exceeds and has grown faster than resident incomes overall remains true, but the magnitude is somewhat smaller than the article originally stated. We have added that information along with a correction. Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
There are so many opportunities for deeper dives in this article. I like to say I know a little bit about transportation and math. I am ignorant in the other topics. So, I stay in my lane.
As the pothole guy, our team has done an amazing job building an operation that can repair 50k potholes per year (even though this is not really a solution to poor pavement condition) and can pave as much as 60 miles per year (which is a partial solution). We have great people doing great work. Some live in Oakland. Some don’t live in Oakland. The team works hard and delivers for the residents of Oakland. With our present staffing demands, I don’t care where anyone lives as long as they help us deliver.
It seems the city made a strategic decision about 20 years ago to stop doing maintenance - on anything, to accept the consequences of failed infrastructure, and to pay the associated legal settlements. If you don’t believe me, look at the data for sidewalks uplifted by tree roots and the associated lawsuits. Those sidewalks didn’t just elevate themselves. A lack of maintenance led to larger, heavier trees. Nature responds by developing a larger root system. The new “pothole” is tree trimming.
The real discussion here is why does a city have so much pavement damage that its pavement crews can repair 50k “potholes” per year and never get caught up. The first answer is they aren’t “potholes.” The damage is generally due to insufficient drainage and/or high water table. Here goes Josh with the boring nerd speak. What does that mean? It means a city asset (asphalt roadways) that are designed to last 25-30 years will probably last 10-15 years. To pave every street in Oakland would cost roughly $1B. Within this 30 year window, we would replace everything twice instead of once - a $2B cost.
There is another discussion that needs to be had regarding the cost per resident - what does it look like over the next 10-15 years. The city has moved beyond infrastructure asset maintenance (roads, parks, trees, buildings, equipment) and is now in the phase of major replacement. Ask someone how many lightning loaders are broken for KOCB; how many sewer flusher trucks are down; how many additional police and fire vehicles are needed; how many elevators are broken; etc. It’s not an encouraging story.
The “potholes” are a good indicator of historic maintenance activity. Again, a street should last 25-30 years. For many years, Oakland had the dubious distinction of the worst pavement in America. With Measure KK and U, we have been able to rebuild about 35% of the streets since 2017. Prior to that, the city paved less than 10 miles per year. Another way of looking at it is we paved our streets once every 83 years - a 30 year asset discounted to 20 year due to insufficient drainage. The pavement needed to be addressed 4x in 83 years. We didn’t touch it once.
It might be a worthy exercise to look at deferred costs. It might just surprise you. Lastly, please stop measuring “potholes.” It’s meaningless. A slightly more refined metric would be miles paved per year. If you want to play at the advanced levels, ask what is being done about the storm drainage - miles added, repaired etc.
So a government by and for the all powerful unions? Hard to change that huh. Until the limits to growth and energy decline kick in, forcing Oakland and other cities into bankruptcy and reinventing itself, it is hard to see how this can be changed.
Meanwhile, rather than collect business taxes and all the other ways to increase revenues the Oakland Report has suggested since its inception, the city wants to Uglify Oakland with 2-sided digital billboards on scenic highways 24 and 13 in a NON-COMMERCIAL AREA ZONED RESIDENTIAL on PG&E property, as well as telegraph between 56th and 57th streets on the UPS site. This is a time when we need to be consuming less, not encouraging products made out of finite resources and a lot of petroleum and natural gas plastic and energy to make them. If only to help the billions in the third world affected by the Iran war who have no cooking gas in cities and are scavenging every piece of wood and coal they can get their hands on. Not to mention climate change, biodiversity loss and dozens of other polycrises caused by Buying Too Much Stuff.
I hope the Oakland Report can summarize their recommendations of how the city could bring more money in without doing forcing drivers and neighborhoods to see blaring ads that pollute the sky at night. Why subject people picnicking and hiking at Lake Temescal Park to blinking advertising signs? The meeting to vote on this keeps getting delayed to get around the Brown Act with special meetings requiring just two days notice and lessen public protest. Whatever happened to Limits to Growth, to the environmental movement, to not allowing corporations to mess up our lives? Oakland used to be an ecological epicenter! And Charlene Wang, sponsor of the digital billboards, is in the Sierra Club leadership (https://www.sierraclub.org/sfbay/leadership-roster). Go figure.
Oakland does not have a revenue problem. Oakland has a severely bloated spending problem.
What a narrow view, and yes I see your objective here. Yes, 2 decades of rising cost- and what element of our society hasn't had rising costs? If you are interested in fair reporting, you should add in the cost of living the price of gas and the price of housing over 20 years for comparison.... Have you factored in the tremendous and increasing amount of public comment and the cost of staff and resources required to address all of these issues? The time it takes Council to resolve these issues? In 1992 a staff report was 1 - 5 pages. Also, I still don't see any mention of the Police Union's role in pushing and achieving ever larger salaries and pension benefits, which are promoted through scare tactics (the same kind that you examined in the fire union's strategy). And the role of Police overtime and lack of accountability for that...
Iris, thank you for your comment. As others have mentioned, this analysis does factor in the increase to the cost of living over time -- and the data shows that city's employee compensation has increased at a much higher rate, in addition to now being more than double the median income of everyday Oaklanders.
Regarding your comment that city staff reports were only 5 pages long back in 1992 -- let's assume for the sake of discussion that is true. That was before the era of widespread word processing, electronic file storage, the internet, cloud computing, and a host of other revolutionary productivity improvements that have dramatically reduced the time and effort it takes to research and prepare documents. I would add that writing staff reports is hardly a fundamental or significant portion of public service delivery like emergency response or filling potholes are.
Finally, the analysis does consider the impact of public employee compensation -- of which police compensation is a part. That is, in fact, one of the article's main points, supported by extensive evidence.
Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
I see what you’re trying to do here — broaden the conversation until the core point disappears. But the math ain't mathing. I'll refute your comment point by point below:
Yes, costs have gone up everywhere. Gas, housing, groceries — we all live in the same reality, city workers and residents alike. That’s exactly why the comparison matters: Oakland’s tax burden didn’t just rise with the cost of living — it blew past it. Conflating inflation with bad governance is problematic.
And despite all that additional money? Residents aren’t seeing it where it counts:
Fewer police officers
Flat emergency response outcomes
Declining permitting and housing production
That’s the point. More money in, same—or worse—results out.
Now on the “staff time” and longer reports — respectfully, that’s not a defense, that’s part of the problem. If government has become so bloated and process-heavy that it costs significantly more to deliver the same services, that’s not a justification rather than evidence of inefficiency.
On the police union — the article makes clear that rising compensation across the entire system is eating the budget — negotiated deals, approved by elected officials, cycle after cycle. It looks like YOU are the one with an agenda with this ad hominenm approach. Also, lack of proper staffing leads to massive police overtime. Don't like it? Staff up.
At some point, we have to stop explaining away the outcomes and defending bad behavior and start owning them. Because right now, the reality is simple:
Residents are paying more.
And getting less.
And being taxed AGAIN, while being LIED to.
Put that on MOMMA!
This piece does compare to the CPI. Whether the CPI reflects the cost of living in the Bay Area is debatable but it's a useful yardstick. "That’s over 6 times higher than the increase in the cost-of-living, as measured by the consumer price index, over that same period.2"
"and the role of Police overtime and lack of accountability" Another very small news outlet, Oaklandside, brought police overtime to light recently. And only then the mayor promised to fix it (and why didn't she have access to that data already?) : https://oaklandside.org/2026/01/29/oakland-police-overtime/
Every news outlet in the Bay Area has reported OPD overtime. Oaklandside never mentions anything that doesn't fit its ideology. Same as Fox News.
Blame the cops - the standard trope - but who is in charge of the police department? No one says they are without sin, but why are you not mentioning SEIU, AFSCE & the IBEW? What about firefighters? Gosh, what about people working in, say the city's transportation department? No conflict of interest or cherry-picking facts there, right?
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that shrinking the police force will cause an increase in overtime. Does the police union want a smaller force in order to spike their overtime? I have no idea; but the city government is certainly at fault for not properly allocating the taxes we have paid over and over and over again to maintain a higher level of police officers.
Unfortunately, we have folks like Millie Cleveland that put all of their might to keep shrinking the staffing levels of OPD and believe, actually believe, (1) that a much smaller OPD force wouldnt need overtime and (2) crime would decrease.
It makes me very angry and depressed that there are people like this with voting power in our city...
Oakland never had 1-5 page reports in 1992. I served on the City's Budget advisory Commission and we saw plenty of reports that were longer than that on a variety of topics. City staff are paid to perform services for the benefits of residents and businesses, and that included time to resolve issues. That has not changed in 35+ years. What has changed is that Oakland's staff benefits and salaries, while at the high end in the 1980s and 1990s, accelerated in the 2000s, and are now far beyond what similar jobs are in the private sector.