By Yana Singhal
OAKLAND, CA – Months before the mid-cycle budget decisions, “(C)ity Administrator has reported that the city is facing a $177 million dollar budget deficit (because of) $25.6 million in police overspending, and revenue shortfalls across several funds (because of) unauthorized overtime abuse,” charged the Anti Police-Terror Project last week.
According to James Burch, deputy director of the Anti Police-Terror Project, “Nearly every year we are told that the police have overspent their budget by tens of millions of dollars” but Burch’s group would rather “invest in services (the) city truly needs.”
However, City Administrator Jestin Johnson, the Anti Police-Terror Project stated, said, “city departments were instructed to propose their lowest priority services for ‘reduction or elimination’ in anticipation of the adoption of midcycle budget amendments in June of this year.”
Because “the City faced an even bigger budget deficit that forced drastic cuts to essential services — but notably it refused to rein in OPD, which saw its budget increase by $20 million…$325 million from the fund out of their approximately $360 million dollar total budget” for OPD, added Anti Police-Terror Project in a statement.
“Over the coming weeks and months, as the city looks to cut vital public services served by city workers who don’t carry a gun, we will be aggressively advocating for the city to put the people of Oakland first – and not continue to provide the police department what amounts to effectively a blank check without the necessary audits or accountability,” said the Anti Police-Terror Project.
