Fiscal Year 2013-2015 Special Budget Meeting

POLICY TRADEOFFS & SERVICE BUYBACKS POLICY TRADEOFFS--FUNDING OF PRIORITY SERVICES Similar to restoring some of the expenditure cuts in the FY 2013-15 Proposed Policy Budget discussed above, the City Council might wish to consider expanding funding for certain key services beyond the levels included in the proposed budget. Since there are no revenues associated with these proposals, they are policy tradeoffs for the City Council to consider against the policies funded in the Proposed Policy Budget. Some prominent service areas for consideration include the following: 1. Head Start Early Childhood Development 2. Graffiti Enforcement and Abatement 3. Street Patching 4. Rainbow Teen Center/Digital Arts and Culinary Academy (DACA) and West Oakland Teen Center Staffing 5. Taxicab Vehicle Permit 6. Affordable Housing 7. Additional Police Sworn Staffing 8. Additional Police Civilian Staff 9. Maintenance of Former Redevelopment Parcels 10. City Attorney Positions 11. Repair and Replacement of City Facilities 12. Additional City Vehicles 13. Additional Information Technology 1) Head Start Early Childhood Development In FY 2012-13, the City of Oakland's Head Start and Early Head Start programs will serve 1,778 children ages 0 to 5 with high quality early childhood education and comprehensive family support. Research on child development and academic achievement clearly shows the long-term benefits of these services. Due to federal sequestration cuts and rising operational costs staff anticipates reduced funding of $1.7M for FY 2013-14. This will require reducing staff positions, the number of days of service at Head Start and Early Head Start sites, and eliminating 102 half day classroom slots for new families (closing the San Antonio CDC site that serves 68 families and reducing Eastmont Town Center by 34 families, when there are already 396 families on the waiting list for these slots). The FY 2013-2015 budget proposal includes backfilling with the General Purpose Fund $184,000 of lost federal funding, which could sustain one part day classroom at Eastmont Town Center for 34 families ($114,000) and restore one Family Advocate ($70,000) to support the parents and siblings of Head Start children. The City Council could chose to make the following additional restorations: Family Advocate ($70,000); 15 days for Head Start full day sites ($153,000); restore San Antonio CDC site ($421,446); 15 days for Early Head Start services ($58,020); Head Start/Early Head Start mental health and support services contracts ($77,884); Head Start service area coordinator ($105,159); food service worker ($60,000); Early Head Start administrative assistant ($92,000); and miscellaneous other O&M restorations ($480,000). TOTAL COST $1,516,000 A - 4