City of Oakland Changes Parking Rates & Enforcement Hours Measures Designed to Help Address $83 million Budget Deficit

of California—recently faced its worst financial crisis ever. The economic recession, the implosion of the national and regional housing market and an associated steep downward spiral in consumer spending led to a $51 million drop in revenues and an overall deficit of $83 million for fiscal years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011.







In fact, this was the third deficit the City addressed in the past 12 months. In October 2008, the City closed a $42 million hole, and in June 2008 it closed a $19 million shortfall. Cumulatively, over the past year the City has addressed a $144 million budget deficit and eliminated more than 350 jobs.







Since June of last year, many budget-balancing measures have been employed to address the City’s massive deficits. The City cut employee pay by 10 percent, significantly curtailed travel and other nonessential expenses and made huge reductions to services such as park maintenance, tree planting, street maintenance, litter enforcement, library hours, and custodial and maintenance services in public facilities.







Still, these service and payroll reductions were inadequate to close the deficit without finding ways to generate more revenue. Last year, parking meters and fines generated nearly $32 million in revenue. The extension of parking meter hours and fine increases recently enacted are projected to generate an additional $4.5 million in revenue. Without this additional revenue, the City would be forced to further reduce public services such as libraries, senior centers or police. To put this in perspective, $4.5 million in parking-related revenue is equivalent to the cost of paying 18 police officers.