Four Oakland lawmakers and the mayor traded criticism this week, just over a week after the City Council passed an amended budget that diverted almost $18 million in police spending.
Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas and Councilmembers Dan Kalb, Carroll Fife and Noel Gallo on Thursday wrote in a letter to Mayor Libby Schaaf and Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong that they should stop characterizing the city's recently passed budget as "defunding" the Oakland Police Department.
"This is misleading and an exaggeration at best; the budget Council just passed increases OPD's budget by $38 million from (the last two years) to (the next two)," the four lawmakers wrote.
Mayor Schaaf's proposed city budget would’ve given $57 million more to the police department over the next two years, the lawmakers said. The amended budget, spearheaded by Fortunato Bas and her colleagues, instead directed nearly $18 million from Schaaf’s proposed police budget toward the city's Department of Violence Prevention and other social services.
In a response Friday, Schaaf wrote in a letter that she "will not tolerate false accusations that slander me or our dedicated professional staff."
Both Schaaf and Armstrong criticized the budget shortly after its passage. Just this week, Armstrong claimed in an interview with KCBS Radio's Jeff Bell and Holly Quan that the budget doesn’t enable the department to handle the city’s recent uptick in violent crime. He also said in a press conference this week that responses to 911 calls will be slower.
The mayor and police chief took issue with the adopted budget funding four police academies over the next two years rather than the six Schaaf's called for. It also freezes 50 vacant positions within the department.
Schaaf and Armstrong have said that the approved budget will slow down 911 response times, but Fortunato Bas, Kalb, Fife and Gallo wrote Thursday that the two additional academies the mayor proposed wouldn't have graduated any recruits prior to the start of the next fiscal year.
"While one year from now, on July 1, 2022, the impacts of the Budget may indeed be felt, this should not impact response time for priority one calls for service now," they wrote.
The four lawmakers also argued that the budget's direction to have other departments, including the Fire Department's MACRO unit and the transportation department, handle "non-violent, non-emergency calls" could improve 911 response times beyond this year.
Schaaf, for her part, wrote on Friday that she still considers the passed budget "defunding" the police department. The mayor said inflation and the "rapidly increased costs of living" in the Bay Area means the department "must spend more money every year to deliver the same service."
"You mislead the public by highlighting a total police department budget increase whenever you fail to acknowledge the actual significant reduction in police officer services," Schaaf wrote.
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