{"id":317330,"date":"2026-05-15T15:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/317330\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T15:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:01:08","slug":"proposed-oakland-tax-may-present-a-key-policy-test-for-mayor-barbara-lee-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/317330\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed Oakland tax may present a key policy test for Mayor Barbara Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND \u2014 Ahead of a budget process that may be a key policy test in Barbara Lee\u2019s shortened term in office, the mayor is urging voters to approve a new tax in June<\/a> that would generate roughly $34 million in revenue, promising the money will allow the city to hire nearly two dozen new police officers and replace old trash pickup vehicles, among other services.<\/p>\n

In the coming days, Lee is expected to present a more specific spending plan for the parcel tax, which will appear on ballots as Measure E and would cost the owner of a single-family home an additional $191 annually.<\/p>\n

Her plan for raising the number of budgeted police officers from 678 to 700 \u2014 the actual number of sworn officers at present is 604 \u2014 and keeping all the city\u2019s fire stations operational, which before last year had rarely been the case in Oakland.<\/p>\n

She also plans to propose two sets of budget adjustments for the Oakland City Council\u2019s consideration: a set of spending decisions that assume the parcel tax is approved, and a contingency plan if the tax fails on the June 2 ballot.<\/p>\n

The ballot measure may prove to be a referendum of how much the council is in step with Lee at a time when Oakland\u2019s leaders are contemplating how the city\u2019s divisions of power could be reshaped<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am less than one year in office,\u201d Lee said Thursday at a news conference, \u201cand it\u2019s crystal clear to me that we as a city do lack the resources that residents need and deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staffing reductions have helped the city avoid a revenue deficit in next year\u2019s budget, officials said. But a report published last year forecast future shortfalls that are projected to range into hundreds of millions of dollars<\/a>, mainly due to rising pension costs.<\/p>\n

The budget proposal that will be released by Lee on Friday is unlikely to address the longer-term deficit. Her spending proposal includes boosting the number of planned homeless shelters and keeping local senior centers open four days a week, instead of three.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must take steps to resolve these deficits that are impeding our ability to adequately serve our residents,\u201d said City Administrator Jestin Johnson at Thursday\u2019s press event.<\/p>\n

If history is any indication, the parcel tax measure on the June ballot has a good chance of being approved. The majority of Oakland voters consistently sign off on new taxes<\/a>, particularly when the term \u201cpublic safety\u201d appears in the ballot language.<\/p>\n

Measure E has another advantage: only one vote more than 50% of voters need to approve it for the tax to pass, a much lower bar than the two-thirds threshold ordinarily required for new parcel taxes.<\/p>\n

The difference comes from a state Supreme Court decision in 2017 that lowers the threshold for tax measures that find their way to the ballot via citizen petitions instead of a legislative body\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n

In the case of Measure E, city officials appear to have benefited from a loophole in that precedent, having budgeted $40 million in revenue from an unnamed parcel tax last year. Later, a group of civilians gathered the necessary petitions with heavy financial backing from Oakland\u2019s public labor unions.<\/p>\n

The measure has already invited a lawsuit by local attorney Marleen Sacks, who is seeking city records that would illuminate how the tax made it onto the ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you balance a budget on a non-existent tax and then basically do nothing to actually draft the measure?\u201d Sacks said in a recent interview. \u201cThat\u2019s the part of the story that makes absolutely no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the council seems to have no obligation to actually follow Lee\u2019s guidelines, or even to strictly follow the ballot language. There are no legally binding terms associated with Measure E that enforce how city leaders spend its revenue, since it deposits into the unrestricted General Purpose Fund.<\/p>\n

On occasions, the council has invoked Oakland\u2019s financial struggles to legally bypass the terms of some taxes \u2014 such as Measure Q, which was meant to fund park maintenance \u2014 in order to patch up deficits in that general fund, which mainly pays for worker salaries and other operational costs.<\/p>\n

In past years, city leaders have also declared a state of \u201cextreme fiscal necessity\u201d so that they could suspend a key provision of another parcel tax, Measure NN, that requires Oakland to budget a minimum 700 police officers at all times.<\/p>\n

Despite declining police staffing, however, Oakland\u2019s leaders sought to remind the public Thursday that crime has fallen since the COVID-19 pandemic\u2019s worst days, with investigated homicides down 39% from this time in 2025.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s overall homicide count was the lowest since 1967.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis (tax) is the difference,\u201d Lee said Thursday, \u201cbetween maintaining the status quo and actually moving the needle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at\u00a0shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 Ahead of a budget process that may be a key policy test in Barbara Lee\u2019s shortened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[389,184,387,7,332,181,100,143,145,144,13,1970],"class_list":["post-317330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda-county","tag-bay-area","tag-business","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-politics","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}