Last year, Oakland leaders balanced the city’s budget by making an unusual bet: that voters would approve a new parcel tax, generating tens of millions of dollars a year.

Betting alongside the City Council were the city’s major employee unions. They spent months gathering voters’ signatures on petitions, and a few weeks ago, this coalition moved forward with the gamble by placing Measure E on the ballot for the June 2 primary election.

Measure E would impose an annual parcel tax to fund police, fire, and homelessness services, as well as programs that keep public spaces clean and accessible. If approved, the measure would impose an annual $192 levy on single-family parcels, with exemptions for certain low-income households, seniors, and others. For owners of apartment buildings and other multiple residential unit properties, the tax is $131 per unit. For non-residential parcels, including commercial buildings, the tax will vary based on the size of the property.

This new tax would provide Oakland with roughly $34 million in additional revenue every year for nine years. The measure also calls for the creation of an oversight body to make sure the money is spent appropriately and require a biennial audit by the City Auditor. The ballot initiative says the tax revenue can only be used for expenses related to objectives in the measure. These include reducing gun violence, improving 911 response times, maintaining police patrols and investigations, funding solutions to the homelessness crisis, and addressing illegal dumping.

Measure E requires a simple majority vote to be approved. But will a majority go for it? Or are Oakland voters feeling tax fatigue?

City leaders and unions say Measure E is needed to pay for critical services

Oakland’s unions are the major promoters of Measure E. A union-backed political committee spent over $500,000 on a signature-gathering campaign to put the initiative on the ballot with the support of nearly 30,000 Oakland voters. In recent weeks, labor organizations launched a campaign to promote Measure E, which has also received the backing of Mayor Barbara Lee and members of the City Council.

Supporters argue the tax is critical for achieving Oakland’s public safety goals. Oakland has spent several years reeling from a budget crisis that has forced city leaders to slash funding for core services, and city officials recently announced that the city turned a massive deficit into a small surplus at the end of the last fiscal year, thanks in large part to a major real estate transaction involving PG&E. But staff cautioned that Oakland still suffers from a structural deficit, where its ongoing expenses grow faster than revenue.  

Seth Olyer, head of Oakland’s fire union, said he understands that Oaklanders are frustrated with their government and with the burden of a new tax.

“But what people are more frustrated with is paying more and getting nothing back,” Olyer said. “I think everything this ballot measure supports are services that Oaklanders deserve and desperately need.”

Olyer argued that a selling point for Measure E is that a different tax that helped finance an underfunded police and firefighter pension system is expiring. As a result, according to a union-backed website, local taxes for a majority of Oakland homeowners will drop, even if voters pass Measure E.   

Opponents say Oakland residents are overtaxed and underserved

A coalition of organizations is opposing Measure E, arguing that Oakland hasn’t fully delivered on services paid for through previous tax measures.

Empower Oakland, an advocacy group founded by former Councilmember Loren Taylor, is urging voters to reject the parcel tax. In its voter guide, Empower Oakland says that voters approved Measure NN in 2024 to raise $30 million annually to support public safety services, including a mandate to maintain 700 police officers. However, the city’s current budget only funds 678 officers, and many of those positions are unfilled.

“Yet Oaklanders are still paying that tax, even though the promise was never kept,” Empower Oakland argues. 

Measure E will be no different, the group contends. Empower also argues that Oaklanders already pay the highest taxes per capita of any city of comparable size in the state, and that this tax will fall hardest on the people struggling the most with Oakland’s high cost of living.

Empower Oakland’s Executive Director, Gagan Biyani, also noted that Oakland has over 800 vacant staff positions. 

“Perhaps we could get better service if those vacancies were filled and no new taxes would be needed at all,” Biyani said. “We can’t keep approving new taxes unless and until Oakland leaders start putting the money they already have to work.” 

An official argument against Measure E that will appear in voter guides makes similar points. The argument, whose author is redacted, claims the tax measure was conceived of and funded by officials with SEIU Local 1021 who are angling for pay raises, and that Measure E is just “another blank-check tax.”   

Oakland Report, a nonprofit publication skeptical of the city’s financial management practices, has posted multiple articles that echo many of the same arguments, including the claim that Measure E is a regressive tax that will hit poorer Oaklanders harder. One of its main concerns is that Oakland has failed to meet minimum requirements for three recent tax measures approved by voters. Oakland Report has also accused Oakland’s firefighter union of leveraging the threat of fire station closures to secure support for tax measures.

The initiative has also drawn opposition from real estate interests in Oakland. The Bridge Association of Realtors recently set up a campaign committee called “Neighbors for an Affordable Oakland” to oppose Measure E. 

A key city voice weighed in on the measure

Oakland’s financial crisis — along with other scandals — has undermined the confidence of many voters in their government. According to a survey conducted last year by the Oakland Budget Advisory Commission, about 75% of Oaklanders somewhat or strongly disapproved of the overall job performance of the city’s government. A poll conducted in October by the Oakland Chamber of Commerce found that 79% of likely voters ranked the city’s financial instability as an extremely or very serious problem — higher than illegal dumping or the cost of living.

Public safety services and emergency response times remain the highest fiscal priority for voters, which the Budget Advisory Commission reported as a positive indicator that residents would be willing to support a parcel tax focused on improving public safety. But the report noted that voters may have concerns about impacts to local businesses. The commission also warned of a “significant risk” that voters won’t trust the City Council “to implement and oversee the measure appropriately,” especially because of past tax measures where promises about staffing or how money would be spent weren’t kept.

The commission recommended that the city develop a progressive parcel tax to make sure the levy doesn’t harm small businesses and landlords. The commission also noted that while it shares concerns about over-taxation, it does see Measure E as an opportunity to generate revenue without “meaningfully increasing the overall tax burden,” citing the wind-down of the PFRS levy.

“The parcel tax proposal seems to be the most feasible and reliable option,” the commission noted in a report submitted to the City Council.

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