OAKLAND – Mayor Barbara Lee is poised to have one advantage in taking on the city’s deep financial woes: she will have much more money to spend than her predecessor.
City officials are deciding on a new two-year budget that would pad the new mayor’s office budget with an extra $1.7 million, or a 42% increase. The spending boost would contrast sharply with the steep cuts — including possible layoffs — facing other city departments.
After taking office last month, Lee is in the process of hiring the equivalent of a dozen full-time staffers, slightly more than what was given to Sheng Thao, the ousted ex-mayor whom Lee, a famed former congresswoman, was elected in April to replace.
In a twist, each one of Lee’s staffers is slated to be promoted to the highest possible job classification: Special Assistant to the Mayor III. It is another change in direction from the Thao administration, which staffed a range of both junior and senior direct reports.
As a result, Lee’s entire office will earn a much higher salary range — $150,000 to $250,000 a year, plus benefits. Due to their elevated rank, however, the staff won’t be eligible for representation by the city’s public labor unions and can be fired any time without cause.
Traditionally, there’s a chief of staff, a communications director, a scheduler and various policy advisors, among other positions in the mayor’s office.
In a report published last week, the city’s Budget Advisory Commission suggested that spending for the mayor’s office be re-assessed for its “appropriateness,” noting there was “no justification offered” for the promotion of Lee’s staff.
City Councilmember Kevin Jenkins, who served as interim mayor until Lee took office, proposed the $4.36 billion budget that lasts through June 2027. The City Council can amend it before giving final approval by the end of this month.
Former Rep. Barbara Lee poses for a photo with Interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins, to her left, and others, at City Hall after Lee filed paperwork to run for mayor in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. To the right is Fluid 510 bar owner Richard Fuentes and to the left is Chinatown Chamber Of Commerce President Carl Chan. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Jenkins said Thursday that past mayoral administrations saw “everyone doing high-level policy, communications and community work” despite being paid differently and holding titles that varied in seniority.
“Moving everyone into this top grade offers continuity and allows us to recruit competitively in a region where cities like San Francisco, Sacramento and the private sector go after the same talent,” Jenkins said in a statement provided by Lee’s team.
“This was about clarity, parity and recruiting top talent to support the mayor,” he added.
Oakland is expected to balance a two-year budget shortfall that the latest available data projects to be $245 million. Even then, the city will outspend revenue due to rising pension costs through the end of the decade.
Lee promised to address the budget crisis head on during her campaign, which focused more on boosting the city’s revenue streams than cutting costs. She has been a champion of labor unions across a long career in politics, including 26 years in Washington, D.C.
Representatives for the city’s largest public-employee union, SEIU Local 1021, did not respond Thursday to interview requests about the plan to eliminate union jobs.
Mayors often employ “at-will” staff who serve at their discretion, hired outside the city’s ordinary recruitment process for open positions. Oakland, meanwhile, has not filled a lot of jobs lately, frozen many and plans to possibly lay off workers to address the budget crisis.
Thao, who was slated for a pay increase in 2023, earned some praise from her peers for accepting the lowest possible wage bump after her critics had raised hell.
In Lee’s case, the proposed budget for her office struck former city officials Thursday as surprisingly high, even for a mayor who has a political resume that extends to Congress.
“That’s a lot of money,” said Dan Lindheim, a former city administrator who served under the late Mayor Ron Dellums — himself a retired congressman when he took office in Oakland.
Lindheim added, however, that the $1.7 million increase isn’t so much that it would make a dent in the overall budget deficit.
“If you could get better people for $100,000 more,” said Lindheim, now a professor in the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, “that’s not a bad thing.”
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at [email protected].