Oakland must begin to make hard choices to right its financial ship.

This was the message Sunday afternoon at the joint meeting of Make Oakland Better Now! and the East Bay Young Democrats.

Joining the gathering at the Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church was Oakland City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, City Auditor Courtney Ruby and City Attorney John Russo, all of whom said that high civic participation is critical in instituting changes needed to both sustain the city in the short term and to make sure it can navigate out of the choppy financial waters it created.

“It’s not going to be easy,” De La Fuente said to the crowd of about 40 residents. “It’s difficult for bureaucracies to change.”

De La Fuente urged the audience to focus its energy on making changes at the city's core.

“Go to the source, the city charter,” De La Fuente said. The councilman added that only through revisions to Oakland’s charter can residents really begin to see real fundamental change connected to the city’s finances.

Oakland’s financial situation is in dire straits. In the last 20 months, the city was forced to bridge $170 million in budgetary shortfalls, largely through furloughs, service reductions and layoffs.

Over the past five years, general fund revenue for Oakland has plummeted from $476 million to about $407 million. This coming fiscal year, Oakland is facing a $42 million budget shortfall that it has to plug. A reported $62 million deficit is expected for the following fiscal year.

While the Sunday meeting briefly touched on last year’s police officers pension issue, which led to the layoff of 80 officers, organizers and residents had another immediate issue on their minds - the old police and fire retirement system.

That system, PFRS, will cost the city $45.6 million at the beginning of the new fiscal year in July.

In 1997, the city put in place a bond deal for PFRS that led to a "contribution holiday" until 2011. Now, that money is coming due.

According to a recent report from Ruby’s office about PFRS, the 1997 bond initiative ended up costing taxpayers $250 million dollars, in part because of the unexpected decline of the stock market during the Recession years.

TODAY, Feb. 22, the City Council's Finance and Management Committee will meet at 11 a.m. and discuss possible payment options for the PFRS.

The city staff will likely recommend a solution that involves issuing more bonds, with balloon payments in the hundreds of millions of dollars coming due starting less than 15 years from now.

Both Ruby and Russo have been publicly vocal in the past about the city's finances and the need for reform. Ruby has called for local elected officials to begin discussing ways to identify core services in the wake of declining government revenue. Russo, a Council member in 1997, voted against the pension bond initiative.

On Sunday, Russo said that Make Oakland Now! must get political in order to see change. He said the “culture” at City Hall is one that is broken.

“I am urging you to become political,” Russo said. “These things will not be changed by going through City Council.”

Russo also advocated for a change to the city’s charter that would allow volunteers and nonprofit organizations to help the city with some of its municipal beautification services, including litter removal.

“Here’s how it is,” Russo said. “Effectively, we’re broke and we cannot continue to operate as we have.”

In her speech to the audience, Ruby cited Atlanta and Baltimore as examples of municipalities that are implementing effective financial reform efforts that are results driven.

“What we are talking about is completely redefining our government priorities,” Ruby said. “We need to be realistic about where we are.”

MOBN also addressed other solutions needed for Oakland’s financial management system, including the establishment of a rainy day fund.

Rebecca Saltzman, president of the East Bay Young Democrats, said that young Oaklanders will be heavily impacted by current financial decisions.

“There’s a budget crisis today,” she said. “But a lot of these issue will also need to be dealt with in the future."

Read more at Oaktalk ands see video here.

About Jennifer Inez Ward

A writer and photographer, Jennifer Inez Ward has been documenting Oakland neighborhoods for more than 10 years. A graduate of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, she focuses on the uniqueness and beauty of everyday life in a city that is too often overlooked for its treasures and pleasures. Throughout the years, Jennifer has had the honor of showcasing her work at a number of venues, including a permanent loan of images that are displayed on the front wall of Barnes and Nobel in Jack London Square. Jennifer is a featured artist documented in “Images of America: Black Artists in Oakland."