Shoshana Walter/The Bay Citizen

Oakland city administrator Dan Lindheim and Council president Jane Brunner at Thursday news conference

The Oakland Police Department is about to receive another shakeup – and it may make some residents very unhappy.

The passage of Measure BB Wednesday means residents will see the continuation of Measure Y programs and soon see the reinstatement of 60 problem-solving officers (PSOs). But those officers, city officials said Thursday, will come from within the department. 

Measure BB, also known as the “Measure Y fix,” removes the minimum police staffing requirement established by Measure Y. That fix, in turn, allows the city to resume collecting the $88 parcel tax that funds many of the city’s violence prevention programs.

Measure Y, also known as the Violence Prevention and Public Safety Act of 2004, is credited with helping to decrease violence and increase employment among youth and young adults in the city. It originally required the city to maintain a minimum of 739 officers in order to collect the funds.

But City Council president Jane Brunner and City Administrator Dan Lindheim said Thursday that the fix does not free up any more funds to hire back some of the 80 officers who were laid off over the summer.

That means staffing at the department will remain the lowest it's been since 1994, and the PSO positions will be staffed by current officers, which places another burden on the police department to do more with less.

“The police department’s been studying this for the last three months,” Lindheim said at an afternoon news conference, referencing Chief Anthony Batts’ calculation that the department needs more than 900 officers to operate most effectively. The department currently has about 690 officers.

“The chief is thinking about…how do you staff it in a way that protects the citizens of Oakland?” he said.

Brunner said one idea is to have the PSOs begin responding to 911 calls within their beats. The department is also discussing ways to implement community-oriented policing practices into regular patrol duties.

Such changes are likely to further pre-existing challenges for problem-solving officers. An independent study commissioned by the city last year found the position had a high turnover rate, a lack of uniformity and that PSOs were frequently assigned regular police work. 

“It wasn’t always very clear what the PSOs were supposed to be doing, anyway,” Brunner said.

If Don Perata becomes mayor of Oakland, he has promised to rehire the 80 laid off officers. But Brunner said Thursday she does not know where he would find the funds.

“There’s no money in the general fund,” Brunner said, adding that the 80 officers would cost almost $14 million. “If a new mayor knows where [the funds] are, that’s going to be fantastic news for the city.”

Brunner said the city is exploring the possibility of paying for some officers with redevelopment funds, some of which are already used to pay the salaries of 16 officers.

The city would also save about $7 million if police officers began paying 9 percent of their salaries into their pensions, the sticking point in negotiations over the summer that resulted in the layoffs. The Oakland Police Officers Association has agreed to return to the negotiating table, but Brunner said the city would still not accede to the union’s previous demand – assurance of no layoffs for three years.

It is possible more layoffs and changes at the police department are coming.

“I don’t think, in this economy, we can guarantee a no layoffs clause,” she said.