Oakland Report Podcast

Oakland Recap provides summaries of public meeting proceedings that catch our attention. In this installment, we review the comments made by members of city union International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 21 at this morning’s city council special budget meeting. ‘I stood in a photo with you before I knocked doors for Measure E.’City Council special budget meeting, June 1, 2026.This morning, representatives from Oakland public employee union IFPTE Local 21 demanded that the city deliver promised pay raises, abandon proposed benefit changes, fill vacant positions (around 25 percent of IFPTE-represented positions are vacant), and extend work-from-home policies.The union members also demanded that the city convert sworn police positions to ‘civilianized’ roles that would be filled by IFPTE union members.Over a series of comments, IFPTE union members reminded the city council of their union’s support for Measure E. IFPTE has donated over $120,000 to the Yes on E campaign, and its members have assisted with campaign rallies and door-to-door canvassing efforts.“Mayor Lee, council member Wang, council member Ramachandran, I stood in a photo with you before I knocked doors for Measure E on Saturday. Will you stand in actual solidarity with us now, with your workforce? “To the other council members who have received support, endorsement from the city's unions, will you stand in solidarity with us? Your actions are what matter now.”— Elliot Goodrich, city transportation engineer and IFPTE Local 21 member, June 1, 2026Don’t miss a beat. Subscribe for free to Oakland Report.“Labor organizations have worked really hard to help elect many of the people sitting around in this room.”IFTPE union members also reminded the mayor and council members of the union’s past political support for their election campaigns.“Many of you have described yourselves as labor-friendly leaders, and labor organizations have worked really hard to help elect many of the people sitting around in this room. “We're asking you to demonstrate that commitment by standing with the workers who keep this city functioning every single day. “I'm asking council to direct the city's bargaining team back to the table with a serious commitment to retaining workers and reaching a fair agreement.”— Noel Pond-Danchik, transportation planner and IFPTE chapter membership director“Whispers of the S-word: strike”One of the union members issued a warning that the union is so disgruntled about the city’s negotiations over the upcoming union contract renewal, that there are “whispers” of a union strike.“As of late last week, the city administration's bargaining team has requested that Oakla

Mayor Barbara Lee, city council president Kevin Jenkins, and firefighters union boss Seth Olyer held a rally today with public employee unions to gin up support for Measure E. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.oaklandreport.org

'There is a plan that is a plan.' Mayor Barbara Lee, city council president Kevin Jenkins, and firefighters union boss Seth Olyer held a rally today with public employee unions to gin up support for Measure E. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.oaklandreport.org

Oakland Recap provides summaries of public meetings that catch our attention.‘It’s not about what we say, it’s about what we do’ Council public works and transportation committee, May 12, agenda item #5.Yesterday the council public works and transportation committee voted to advance a proposed illegal dumping expenditures action (‘IDEA’) plan to the full city council on May 19.Two committee members whose neighborhoods are heavily impacted by illegal dumping — Ken Houston (District 7) and Noel Gallo (District 5) — expressed their frustration with the proposal.Their remarks appeared to be directed at times to city staff, to committee chair Zac Unger seated to their right, and to former councilmember-turned-illegal dumping project manager Rebecca Kaplan, who was seated in the audience.Houston and Gallo’s remarks focused on what they described as yet another plan — and expense — that was long on policy talk, but short on practical solutions to the city’s chronic illegal dumping challenges.Help us reach our goal of 10,000 subscribers. Sign up for free to receive Oakland Report in your inbox.Committee member Charlene Wang (District 2) and council member Rowena Brown (at-large, not a committee member) focused their remarks on technocratic questions about the plan.Council member Carroll Fife (District 3) — who does not serve on the committee, but whose district is significantly impacted by illegal dumping — expressed thanks and commended Kaplan for her work.Committee chair Unger (District 1), who co-sponsored the Apr. 14 legislation with mayor Lee, offered no remarks.Editor’s note: See above for the video and below for a transcript of Houston’s remarks. See below for the video and a transcript of Gallo’s remarks.‘Where is that money going?’: 20 years of spending, 20 years of ever-growing trashOn April 23, Oakland City Auditor Michael C. Houston released a 56-page performance audit that found Oakland’s spending on illegal dumping has climbed nearly fivefold over two decades while the volume of dumped material has continued to rise. The audit issued 17 recommendations; only four were marked as “Complete.”As Oakland Report documented in our reporting on former council member Rebecca Kaplan’s long involvement in the city’s illegal dumping activities, the city administrator hired Kaplan shortly after she left elected office — without a public recruitment or hiring announcement — as an “illegal dumping project manager” paid $149,410 per year plus benefits.Read this related article:The $1.1 million ‘IDEA’ plan does not address the audit’s primary recommendation: renegotiating Oakland’s $1 billion Waste Management hauling contract, in whic

Editor’s note: Our thanks and appreciation to news anchor Andre Senior and KTVU for having us on their Take 2 in the Morning show on April 17, 2026. Video courtesy of KTVU.TranscriptKTVU - “Take 2 in the Morning” April 17, 2026ANDRE SENIOR:We’ve all talked about it: Where is my tax money going? People drive around their towns. They know they pay taxes. They’re not necessarily opposed to it because that is how your local government operates. But in Oakland, one Oakland resident has been tracking how your tax dollars are being spent. In other words, people are being asked to approve these measures that come up on the ballots, and they vote for them to improve roads or do whatever the case is. But then it seems as though an audit was done and some of the tax money, the promises that were made, where this money was going to be spent, is not necessarily ending up doing the job that it’s doing in the time that people would like to see it.Sean Reinhart with Oakland Report, he joins me now. He is a resident of Oakland and, of course, a concerned citizen and a former city worker himself in another city. So, of course, he keeps track of all these things. Sean, thank you so much for joining us this morning.SEAN REINHART:Thank you for having me, Andre.ANDRE SENIOR:All right, so, Sean, we’re kind of getting to the bottom of this here. There’s some numbers that came out that looked at, hey, voters approved these measures to tax, to use that money to be spent on certain things. And a report came out that shows that there has been a shortfall. What did you find?SEAN REINHART:Yes, well, actually, this was the city’s own report. Back in February, the city administrator of Oakland issued a report called, “Multi-Year Plan to Meet Voter-Mandated Staffing and Service Levels.” And what that report basically confirmed was that the city of Oakland broke its promises in three out of the last four parcel tax measures, including the most recent one passed in 2024, Measure NN, which was passed on the promise of providing improved public safety, in particular police officers.Thank you for reading Oakland Report. Subscribe to receive new articles in your inbox.Measure NN required the city to maintain a minimum number of 700 sworn police officers. However, the city immediately violated that minimum. The city currently only budgets 678 police officers. Because of administrative leaves and other things, currently the city’s down to an active force of about 500 officers. So the city broke its promise there. And actually, there’s a history of that going back around 20 years, and this is all according to the city’s own reports. We have it all on our website for folks to have a look at, to be informed abou

This six-minute video explainer is based on our parcel tax exposé, “44% of Oakland’s proposed $34 million tax increase would go to union payouts,” published on February 22. We invite you to check it out, and share your thoughts.A full transcript of the video is also provided below.Thank you.— Oakland Report editorial boardYou can read the full text and primary source evidence in our exposé here:Video transcriptWelcome to the explainer.Today we are digging into a really puzzling situation unfolding in Oakland, California. It’s a story about a city surplus that, well, might not be what it appears to be, and it involves a new tax that could hit every single homeowner.All right, let’s just jump right into the heart of the matter, because this is the paradox we need to unpack.How on earth can the city of Oakland be telling its residents two completely opposite stories about its finances at the exact same time? It just doesn’t add up.So on one side, you have this big announcement back in February of a $73.6 million surplus. Sounds great right?But on the other side, the city is still operating under an official declaration of “extreme fiscal necessity.”A surplus and a state of emergency at the same time? You have to ask yourself what is actually going on with the city’s money?To really get this, we’ve got to go back a bit to the union contracts that were signed in September of 2025. This right here is where the whole thing kicks off.So right out of the gate, those contracts handed out over $10 million in cash bonuses to union employees. And that money, it came directly from taxpayers. But believe me, that was just the start.Now, here is the real kicker. An even more substantial amount of money. We’re talking almost $15 million in raises was also put on the table, but this one had a catch.This payout was contingent. It would only get triggered if and only if the city officially declared a budget surplus at the end of the fiscal year on June 30th.And that brings us right back to our big question: The city’s been forecasting deficits. So how did they suddenly conjure up a surplus just in time to maybe trigger these raises?Well, the evidence in the public records suggests it’s not because the economy is booming. It’s because of some very clever financial engineering.So take a look at this breakdown because it’s pretty revealing. This surplus wasn’t built on things like growing tax revenue. No, a full 60% of it came from one time cash infusions and another 31%? That came from raiding restricted funds, something the city is only allowed to do because it’s declared that state of “extreme fiscal necessity.”You see, the emergency itself is what lets them move money around to create this surplus on paper.This timeline really lays it all out, doesn’t it? You can see the dominoes falling one b

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This is a complete transcript and audio recording (12 minutes) of the presentation by Budget Administrator Bradley Johnson at yesterday’s special meeting of the Oakland City Council. Mr. Johnson summarized the state of the city’s finances and urgent actions required to address the fiscal crisis. He notes that $115M must be cut from spending this year, and $140M from next year’s (FY25-26) budget to avoid insolvency.Thank you. Director Roseman, Brad Johnson, budget administrator.The report contains detailed information on our projected expenditures in the General Purpose Fund for city departments. In total, the General Purpose Fund is expected to exceed its now-adjusted budget by $93.4 million, which is 12% higher than that adjusted budget number.The largest contributors to that overspending, and the two largest departments in your General Purpose Fund, are your Fire Department, which is projected to overspend by $34.5 million, or 21% of its budget, and your Police Department, which is expected to overspend by $51.9 million, or 16% of its budget.Again, overspending in total is $93.4 million. Detailed information on those departments is available in the report. I would recommend everyone, as opposed to looking at the screen, look at the detailed report for that information, and information on all other departments is noted.Discussing where we are projected to end the current fiscal year: we ended last fiscal year in a negative position. This is one of the first times ever we have seen this actually happen. That negative position last year was driven by an operating deficit of $80 million, meaning that last year we took in $80 million less in the General Purpose Fund than we outlaid.This year, we are projecting our operating deficit to be $93 million. So, consistent with that last year's $80 million operating deficit, we are seeing a $93 million operating deficit this year.After we note some excess fund balance coming back from our equipment fund and reserves required amounts for legal settlements and the expended, already carried forward allocations, we are projecting to end at roughly $115 million in the negative at the end of this fiscal year, if no action is taken.I want to be clear about what this number means. These are trends based on your actuals. This already incorporates the fact that we have many positions in the General Purpose Fund vacant. It already incorporates the revenue trends that Director Roseman mentioned. It already incorporates the reimbursable reimbursements for OPD overtime that was mentioned at the Finance Committee earlier.Based on our current trend, if we do not change course, we will be roughly $115 million negative.We mentioned we ended last year in the negative position. That negative position was substantial enough that the city is now, when combining its undesignated fund balance in the General Purpose Fund—this is still an unaudited num

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Last month we published a deep dive on Oakland’s pension debt problems which are costing the city $450M a year. It’s a 30-60 minute read. And that’s a blocker for most folks with little free time.So we’re trying out a new format—one friendly to driving and dog walks. It’s a short podcast that distills the article’s key findings into a 12 minute conversation.Podcast generated by Google NotebookLM. Reviewed by Oakland Report for accuracy. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.oaklandreport.org