Oakland Bureaucrats Feast During Financial Famine

Some upper-level bureaucrats in the Treasury Division of the Finance and Management Agency have reached the top of their salary ladder of almost $88,000 per year. That is not enough to satisfy their greed, and the head of the division is pushing both an upgrade in their job classification and an increased pay scale through the city council.

Specifically, the language of the proposed ordinance reclassifies Treasury Analyst to Treasury Analyst III, raising the salary schedule of the latter. The staff in question are not near retirement.

Why? The justifications are long-winded generalities, no surprise coming from experienced bureaucrats. "The Treasury Analyst III will now be required to provide lead direction to subordinate staff, perform a higher level of analysis, and is responsible for processes with a higher level of direct accountability such that the consequence of error is greater." No specifics to support these empty claims was provided in the memos to the city council. (Supplemental Report, Nov. 8, 2011, signed by human resources director Andrea R. Gourdine, p. 2)

In addition, as the favored staff move from the Analyst to the Analyst III job title, the salary range of the latter will be raised to avoid "compactions between the classifications in the series." In other words, that guy over there got his pork, now I want mine.

We're Treasury analysts. We do a higher level of analysis.
Now go vote for the Measure I parcel tax. Oink.
 

No evidence about difficulty of hiring was presented to the finance committee of the city council. If anyone in the meeting room thought that perhaps the City could get qualified people at comfortable but not extravagant pay, he kept his mouth shut.

Nor was there any investigation of how many Treasury staff Oakland needs to manage its cash and bank accounts. Could we work as efficiently as other cities? Let's not even ask.

Where will the money come from? The Treasury department "will convert funds from an Operations and Management account to personnel expenditure accounts." Maybe the rank and file clerical staff will work with old computers and be crowded into less office space. Maybe hours of service to the public will be cut. The opaque language reveals nothing.

The creeping shift of City funds to fatten upper-level bureaucrats is ingrained at City Hall. That's why, compared with a decade ago, for example, there are fewer police in the neighborhoods, more car-bouncing potholes in the streets, and more trash in the parks. Rank and file workers are laid off or not replaced; managers prefer to add office minions to their immediate staff, performing "a higher level of analysis."

While City employees as a whole must take mandatory furloughs, losing 12 days of pay a year, while they kick another three or four percent of their paycheck into pension contribution, while they get no pay raises – the elite grab more.

Mayor Quan set a fine example of overpaying at the top. When she hired city administrator Deanna Santana, Quan agreed to give her a boatload of perks, including 380 hours of phantom sick leave and a $10,000 allowance to relocate from San Jose. No wonder Treasury division chief Katano Kasaine gets away with a steal for her favorites.

The Treasury Division's plunder ordinance is set to go to the full city council on Nov. 15, 2011.

Oakland mayor Jean Quan had a big job when she took office at the start of 2011. Structural budget deficits are pushing the City toward bankruptcy. A major overhaul is necessary, focusing on basic services and shaking up the way that the City provides them.

Mayor Quan could not do it. She delayed presenting a budget in the Spring, then she tossed out a one-page chart of three "budget scenarios" and asked the council to make a choice. In desperation Quan pulled off a smoke-and-mirrors accounting trick, the sale of the Kaiser Center. The City owned it; the City's Redevelopment Agency purchased it at a price millions of dollars higher than the facility will ever command on the open market. By siphoning $28 million out of the agency, the City proclaimed that its budget was balanced. That was a one-time shuffle. How would mayor Quan deal with the untouched structural deficit next year – if she happens to survive the recall movement now underway to remove her from office.

Oakland voters are returning mail ballots on Quan's proposed parcel tax on homes and apartments, Measure I, due Nov. 15. The measure has no binding language on specific use of the tax revenue. Voters can reflect on the inflation of Treasury Analyst to Treasury Analyst III when they decide whether to vote for yet another tax on themselves.