Oakland Halts Plan to Close 4 More Fire Stations Amid Budget Crisis

The city of Oakland won’t close four additional fire stations as previously planned, according to city officials, as city council members push to reopen the three that remain closed due to an ongoing budget crisis.

Bradley Johnson, a budget administrator, told the finance and management committee last week that Oakland’s total projected budget deficit shrunk to about $89 million, thanks to funding cuts and revenue increases made since implementing a contingency budget after the stalled Coliseum sale in September.

The changes will allow the city to halt its plan to close four fire stations this month and reduce the number of staff laid off across city departments.

Still, Johnson said the fiscal situation is “tenuous.”

“We have to continue to keep our foot on this problem throughout the end of the fiscal year to make sure it remains a resolved problem,” he said.

The budget team said it had reduced about $2.6 million in expenditures by terminating some citywide grants and is counting on about the same amount in savings from contract terminations that are in progress. It also received a nearly $2.6 million subsidy payment from the Coliseum that wasn’t previously budgeted.

City Administrator Jestin Johnson said the number of parking tickets given out had risen by about 20% in recent months compared to the same time last year, and annual revenue from the citations is expected to exceed earlier projections by $3.39 million.

Additional money from parking enforcement and Coliseum funding was included in an $8.75 million proposal to ward off the firehouse closures by Councilmembers Janani Ramachandran, Zac Unger and Rebecca Kaplan last month.

Their resolution goes before the council on Tuesday. Despite the city’s announcement that it would not close the stations last week, Ramachandran said she still believes it is an important vote.

“Because this [announcement from the city] came as a surprise, I am looking for clarity tomorrow and a strong statement that makes clear that they’re keeping these stations open,” she told KQED. “Administrative actions can be rescinded at any time and don’t have to go through the public process in a vote the way that council budget actions do.”

The resolution also uses money from the city’s self-liability and transportation funds to keep the stations from closing — and reopen two that were browned out in the first phase of budget cuts in January before the end of the fiscal year. It’s unclear if that funding could be used to reopen the shuttered stations more quickly.

Ramachandran said that during the meeting, the council members plan to amend the resolution to add reopening the city’s third shuttered station — Station 10 — which was closed in 2022 for construction and has remained that way since repairs were finished because of funding cuts.

“We’re hoping to vote on $2 million to open these fire stations before the end of the fiscal year,” Ramachandran said.

The resolution doesn’t put a timeline on the reopenings, which Ramachandran said gives Fire Chief Damon Covington more flexibility to open them when it makes the most sense for the department.

She is eyeing May as the ideal time when all services could be restored.

“Whatever it takes to get to the ultimate goal of keeping every Oakland fire station open, I’m ready to pursue,” Ramachandran told KQED.

The city isn’t out of the woods completely. The report also showed that Oakland is still facing a $140 million ongoing structural deficit.

“We cannot continue to run an operating deficit forever,” Bradley Johnson said. “Our city’s structural budget issues will continue to carry forward into future years.”