Berkeley approves budget with service cuts, layoffs

Berkeley firefighters campaigned against cuts to their department. Credit: Kelly Sullivan

Berkeley will close most of its $30 million deficit by cutting services and laying off staff under a budget approved by the City Council Tuesday night, though officials preserved funding for nine positions in the fire department that had been on the chopping block.

Now it will be up to voters to decide whether the city must cut deeper. The two-year budget plan banks on Berkeley residents approving a measure on the ballot this November that would raise sales taxes by 0.5%, generating $9 million per year in new funding. Without that money, city leaders have said they could close Fire Station 4 on Marin Avenue, cut jobs in the police and fire departments and slash popular summer and after-school programs.

The council also narrowly voted Tuesday night to direct $1.3 million from a separate pool of affordable housing funding to a program that helps local land trusts buy apartment buildings and convert them into dedicated below-market-rate homes.

Firefighters and affordable housing advocates applauded the late budget moves, while council members said the process had been a brutal but necessary exercise that would set Berkeley on a more stable financial path after years in which the city patched over a growing structural deficit with one-time fixes.

City Manager Paul Buddenhagen said during a presentation last week that 20 current employees were facing layoffs, though officials were looking to see if some of those workers could transfer to other funded but open positions within city hall. The equivalent of more than 100 full-time jobs that are currently vacant will also be eliminated.

The planned cuts will land particularly hard on programs serving homeless residents and community health initiatives. The city plans to discontinue a winter homeless shelter and shut down a crisis unit that responds to mental health emergencies; funding for grants to local arts organizations will also be cut by 10%.

“These are not easy decisions,” Mayor Adena Ishii said shortly before the council voted unanimously to adopt the $917 million budget. “None of us got elected so we could cut positions — it’s incredibly painful.”

One union cheers budget deal, another calls it an ‘austerity plan’

Thomas Gregory, an Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator for the city who spoke on behalf of a unit of Service Employees International Union Local 1021 where six workers are slated to lose their jobs, called the budget a flawed “austerity plan” that would result in unwise cuts. Gregory said the city should use one-time measures, such as its reserve fund, to maintain those positions for another year, or move to cut more vacant positions, rather than laying off workers.

“Unlike staff, vacancies cannot achieve any positive outcomes for constituents,” Gregory said, “and unlike staff, vacancies don’t have mortgages to pay or family expenses to cover.”

Other public speakers called on the council to reconsider cuts to arts funding.

But much of the council’s discussion Tuesday night focused instead on how Berkeley could fund the nine vacant positions in the Fire Department.

The union that represents Berkeley’s firefighters mounted a campaign over the past several weeks against the proposal to eliminate the jobs that have been kept open since the city instituted a hiring freeze last year, which included five firefighters, three paramedics and a fire inspector. The union argued the cuts would continue staff shortages that strain firefighters and make the city rely more on overtime.

Stephen Gilman, the vice president of the International Association of Fire Fighters district that includes Berkeley, told the council that when local voters approved two measures in recent the years to fund the city’s fire department, “They trusted that this council would match their commitment with action.”

Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani proposed ahead of Tuesday’s meeting that the city partially fund the positions using $200,000 from Measure U1, a tax that was pitched to voters in 2016 as a funding source for affordable housing, though the money it raises goes into the city’s general fund and could be used for other purposes. Other council members said they were wary of that strategy, which the body used last summer to balance Berkeley’s current budget, warning that doing so would be a breach of voters’ trust.

After a lengthy recess Tuesday night, Ishii put forward a proposal to fund the positions using nearly $1 million in projected new revenue from the city’s share of fees charged for ambulance trips.

Melissa Male, a spokesperson for Ishii, wrote in an email that the revenue would come from higher fees — the council voted to increase rates for ambulance trips last year, and officials plan to propose another increase at a meeting July 7. The city also took over billing from a third party, which Male said has further increased revenue. She did not say how much fees would be increased to fund the positions, and spokespeople for the city did not immediately respond to a message asking about the proposed change.

The Berkeley Fire Fighters Association wrote in a statement Wednesday that the council’s move “significantly reduces the impact of the proposed cuts,” and pledged that the union will “actively support” the November sales tax measure as part of the funding agreement.

Still, Ishii acknowledged the action wouldn’t be enough to save other positions being cut in the budget.

“I recognize that we’ve had conversations with some of the other unions and folks who will be upset by this decision, and I really want to say that I’m sorry,” she said.

A view down a driveway that is lined with single-story cottages and trees A local land trust hopes to buy this 23-unit complex on Sacramento Street using city funding. Credit: Hope Muñoz/Berkeleyside

Program that buys apartments for affordable housing gets $1.3M

Elsewhere in the budget, the council signed off on proposals from Ishii to carve out funding for a handful of line items, including:

$1.3 million funded by the city’s settlement with UC Berkeley to launch design work for the stalled proposal to ban private cars from Telegraph Avenue north of Dwight Way, turning those four blocks into a plaza-style street dedicated to pedestrians and buses.

$200,000 to fund the gun violence prevention program Live Free.

$236,000 to save the job of a business outreach worker in the city’s Office of Economic Development.

The most controversial move in Ishii’s budget proposal was her call to direct $1.3 million to the housing acquisition program known as Small Sites from Berkeley’s Housing Trust Fund, the pot of money developers pay into if 20% of the units in their projects aren’t dedicated as affordable homes. A local land trust wants to use that money, plus another $2.5 million the council budgeted for the program in prior years, to buy a 23-unit apartment complex on Sacramento Street that was put up for sale earlier this year. The property’s longtime tenants fear they could be pushed out of the apartments where they pay rents far below market rate.

Supporters of Ishii’s proposal, including residents of other buildings that were preserved as affordable housing through the Small Sites program, told the council the strategy helps prevent displacement and ensure longtime residents have stable homes amid the Bay Area’s housing crisis.

“My family’s story should not be considered lucky or exceptional in Berkeley,” said April Victoria King, who lives in a South Berkeley building that was restored using money from the program. “What the Small Sites program makes possible is permanent affordability, resident power and preservation of Berkeley’s neighborhoods.”

Critics of the program argue Berkeley’s affordable housing money would be better spent building new below market rate developments, since those projects typically receive far more funding from the state and federal government, which have not made substantial investments in housing preservation. Councilmembers Rashi Kesarwani, Brent Blackaby and Terry Taplin proposed the city redirect both the $1.3 million in new Small Sites funding Ishii proposed and the $2.5 million previously pledged for the program, and instead make it available to new developments that need money to break ground.

“Do we want to preserve housing,” Blackaby asked, “or do we want to match that money to drive more affordable housing?”

Other council members argued the city should fund both new construction and acquisition programs as part of its housing strategy.

“Berkeley’s naturally occurring affordable housing is disappearing faster than we are replacing it,” Councilmember Igor Tregub said. “Our goal must be to use every effective tool to keep Berkeley neighbors housed … and preserve the diverse community we all value.”

A vote to adopt a modified version of the proposal from Kesarwani, Blackaby and Taplin, in which the Small Sites program would retain the $2.5 million from past budgets but not the new $1.3 million allocation, failed with those three members casting the only votes in favor. Councilmember Mark Humbert abstained, while Ishii, Tregub and Councilmembers Ben Bartlett, Cecilia Lunaparra and Shoshana O’Keefe voted against it.

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