Oakland Settles on Layoff Number

In the past couple of weeks we have been talking a lot about the possible layoffs in the city of Oakland. A lot of the talk was about how many workers were going to be cut was going on. The city initially said 400, and then downgraded the number to 200. Some analysts were projecting numbers as low as 80. Then earlier this week the city sent out layoff notices to 1000’s of workers, causing a new bought of worry about how many people would be out of a job. For those of you who missed the earlier coverage here is an excerpt :

“Things are getting hot for many of the workers in the city of Oakland, as many more of them than needs be have to wait and find out if they are going to be the ones out of a job, or if they are among the lucky ones who get to stay. The city has given layoff notices to about 2,500 workers, despite the fact that they only need to layoff about 105 workers in order to make ends meet, and recoup for the significant amount of funding they have lost due to a recent court decision on the state level.

For those of you who have missed our earlier coverage of this issue here is an excerpt from our earlier coverage that will help to get you up to speed on the situation that the city, and its workers, are facing at the current moment:

“Until last month the state of California was paying cities in the state to help build affordable housing for residents of the state and to help fix blighted areas of the state. The state-subsidized redevelopment program was cut short by a California Supreme Court ruling that was made last month.
That ruling basically eliminated the program, cutting down the funding to cities sharply, and forcing them all to reconfigure their budgets. Oakland has been particularly hard hit by this change, because the city has about half of its area designated at redevelopment zones. The funding from those designations was being used to help pay for the salary of a number of staffers who work for the city.
Exactly how much money was cut from the city?

The estimated amount of funding lost is about $26 million. That money was used by the city to pay for the salaries of about 160 workers, all of whom were full time. That money includes the salaries of 17 police officers and almost 100 of the employees who work in the city’s Community and Economic Development Agency. Since the police officers cannot be eliminated, thanks to a union contract, the 17 jobs will need to be cut elsewhere.’…”

Well it looks like the city has finally settled on the number of jobs to be cut, now that the City Council . The city of Oakland will layoff 80 workers, but eliminate a total of 105 positions. The remaining 25 positions will be cut be simple attrition.

The layoffs will happen in the middle of next month.