OAKLAND, Ca. (KCBS RADIO) – The Oakland City Council is considering where it needs to make cuts amid a multi-million dollar budget shortfall.
In a Tuesday meeting, the city’s budget administrator, Bradley Johnson, told the city council Oakland is providing more services than it can afford to provide.
“That is the factual statement of where we are as an organization,” Johnson explained to the council. “The hard decisions that we will need to make are which services, at what level, we will no longer provide.”
The city has already overspent its budget by $63 million, requiring immediate cuts.
One area that could see cuts is within the Oakland Fire Department – where fire stations could be closed. Fire Chief Damon Covington told the council the city would be vulnerable if another fire like last week’s Keller Fire were to happen again.
“That’s eight engines that would have been further to that fire, very little math would tell you that we probably would have lost those homes on Campus Drive at a minimum,” Covington stated at the meeting.
As it was, only two homes were damaged.
Oakland’s current budget crisis is partially due to the delayed sale of its part of the Oakland Coliseum, which it was relying on to cover the deficit gap.
The council will decide which services to cut at its November 19th meeting where fire and police are expected to see reductions in services.