On November 16, 2023, the Berkeley City Council passed a budget referral on the consent calendar that doubled the authorized number of staff for each council office: from one full-time employee (FTE) to two FTEs per office. The item was authored by Terry Taplin with co-authors Kate Harrison (who subsequently resigned from the council) and Ben Bartlett.
The item's justification explicitly acknowledged that "half of Council Offices now maintain more than one Legislative Assistant" — meaning it institutionalized and funded a staffing practice that had already informally taken root, rather than evaluating whether that practice was appropriate given the fiscal environment. The immediate budget referral added up to $219,080 (via the Administration and Operations process). The recurring annual cost of the expanded staffing baseline across all council offices was approximately $442,000 above the prior authorized level.
The item was placed on the consent calendar — Berkeley's block-vote mechanism for items deemed non-controversial — which means it received no floor debate, no alternatives analysis, and no cost-benefit consideration relative to competing budget priorities. At the time of the vote, Berkeley's City Manager had already documented a structural fiscal deficit described in budget messages as "not sustainable." The structural deficit has since grown.
Three compounding problems make this item more than a routine budget adjustment. First, a $442,000 recurring annual increase in the cost of governance was passed as a consent item — the mechanism designed for uncontroversial ministerial actions. Recurring spending decisions during a structural deficit belong on the action calendar, with deliberation and an alternatives analysis. Placing it on consent allowed the recurring expansion to pass without floor debate, alternatives analysis, or an explicit comparison with competing needs.
Second, more council office staff does not reduce the structural deficit; it increases the ongoing cost of governance. No analysis accompanied the item connecting the added capacity to any improvement in core service delivery or fiscal management, and none has been identified since.
Third, the item explicitly justified the staffing expansion by citing that offices already had more than one assistant — institutionalizing existing informal spending rather than evaluating whether it was appropriate. When a council member's justification for spending more money is that the money is already being spent informally, the question of whether it should be spent was never asked.
Bartlett co-authored the item, lending it the formal endorsement of the council's longest-serving member — which carries weight on consent calendar items precisely because other members may rely on experienced co-authors' judgment that an item is appropriate for block vote. His score is lower than Taplin's because Taplin authored the item and is responsible for its framing; but co-authoring a consent calendar spending expansion during an acknowledged structural deficit is a judgment call that warrants accountability.