Oakland police oversight in peril as city faces dire financial situation

OAKLAND, Calif. - As departments across the city of Oakland face dire cutbacks, two police watchdog agencies face extreme budget cuts that supporters say will violate the city charter and also jeopardize the city's ability to ever free itself from court-ordered federal oversight. 

The Oakland Police Commission's Office of Inspector General, which audits and reviews OPD's policies, and the Community Police Review Agency, the investigative arm of the police commission, are facing a potential of millions of dollars in cuts to already meager budgets. 

Any more cuts, they say, and neither agency will be able to do their basic functions. 

Empty cubicles, no auditors

On a recent tour of the Inspector General's office at 250 Frank Ogawa Plaza, almost every cubicle was empty. 

"Empty cubicle here," Inspector General Zurvohn Maloof said while pointing to vacant desks on his right and on his left. "There should be an auditor working there."

He continued walking down the aisle.

"Another empty cubicle here," he said. 

As it currently stands, the OIG's annual operating budget of $2.4 million is slated to be cut in half – to $1.2 million.

If that happens, Maloof argues, not only will police oversight be under fire, but the reduced budget action will be in violation of a section of a city ordinance established by Measure S1, which 81% of Oakland voters approved in 2020, albeit without any funding mechanism. 

"Clearly, it looks like the city is not prioritizing over oversight," Maloof said. "When you have massive cuts where a department like mine cannot even function, then it looks like it's not a priority. We don't have the staff to do the work that the ordinance requires us to do." 

Maloof currently has a staff of four, which includes a communications director. 

But he has zero auditors – the civilians who are the ones to actually do the monitoring of the Oakland Police Department's policies, practices and procedures and recommend how police can ensure compliance. He is supposed to have three. 

"We need auditors to do audit work," he said. "So, we're not a skeleton crew. We're beyond a skeleton crew." 

For example, the OIG team recently discovered that OPD had no sexual misconduct policy. 

Another OIG recommendation is that the police department's Internal Affairs Division and Community Police Review Agency immediately discontinue their practice of sharing draft reports. 

Other departments face cutbacks, too

It's not as if the Office of Inspector General is alone.

Many departments are facing cutbacks as Oakland faces a $130-million shortfall. 

This month, 100 people were given layoff notices, including 26 from Public Works, 19 from OPD, three from the city administrator's office, and two from the city attorney's office. 

More than a dozen nonprofits, including those that serve Oakland's low-income elderly, are also facing cuts following the city administrator's notification that their grants will be terminated at the end of the month. 

Fire stations were temporarily closed. 

And this week, Oakland city union workers who received layoff notices rallied outside City Hall, saying the cuts will have harmful impacts on public services. 

What the city says 

City spokesman Sean Maher told KTVU that the situation is a "significant, immediate challenge" and "immediate action" was needed to stabilize the city's finances and bring the general fund into balance.

While he didn't specifically address the two police oversight questions, Maher said that in general, "each individual expenditure reduction is being considered – the shortfall requires an all-hands-on deck approach and every department is stepping up and participating in this challenging process."  

OPD did not respond for comment and the police union declined to speak about the issue with KTVU.

Cuts to the Community Police Review Agency

The Community Police Review Agency, which investigates public complaints against police, uses of force, in-custody deaths, and racial profiling, is also facing cuts: Specifically four staff members.

According to the city charter, the agency, known as CPRA, must have no fewer than one investigator for every 100 police officers. By this calculation, the agency should have at least seven investigators. Currently, there are five. None of the investigators are licensed attorneys, and the law requires that at least one should be. 

Last month, Mac Muir, the executive director, told the commission he's already operating with fewer investigators than required by the city charter, The Oaklandside reported. 

Muir said his agency was supposed to have an $8.2 million budget this year, but that was reduced to roughly $5.2 million. 

In light of the city's budget crisis, Muir told the commission he is currently operating on a budget of roughly $4 million. 

The city now wants to reduce his agency's budget to $2.4 million. 

City obligated to fulfill oversight duties 

Oakland Police Commission Chair Ricardo Garcia-Acosta brought this matter up at Thursday's meeting, saying that the city is obligated to fulfill these police oversight duties because of a court-ordered Negotiated Settlement Agreement, referred to as an NSA, over the police department, put into effect more than 20 years ago because of the police Riders scandal.

The city will be forced to fund the police commission, Garcia-Acosta said, or continue to pay the federal court monitor.

"The commission cannot function, let alone satisfy its charter and federal court-mandated responsibilities, with the currently proposed funding level," he wrote in a public letter. 

Shortsighted to cut these budgets 

Millie Cleveland, an activist with the Coalition for Police Accountability and who helped write the ordinances to put the OIG and CPRA in place, said it's shortsighted to cut the budgets of these two agencies. 

Because both agencies are supposed to oversee the Oakland Police Department, the prevailing sentiment is that they will both one day take over the federal court oversight of the police department, which it's been under for more than two decades because of the Riders scandal.

That oversight, referred to as the Negotiated Settlement Agreement, costs about $1 million a year, and since it's been in effect, Oakland police have paid very little in excessive force and wrongful death suits than other agencies, a KTVU analysis showed. 

She also pointed out that the police department's Internal Affairs is only cutting four intake workers, which is roughly a 13% cut from their unit. 

"For all their whining about the cost of the monitor, the purpose of the OIG and CPRA is to take over," Cleveland said. "Gutting the OIG leaves all the work to the federal monitor. Eliminating the watchdog is not saving money." 

OaklandOakland Police Department