Oakland leaders have signed off on a plan that could put city officers on security duty at the Super Bowl and World Cup in Santa Clara, even as the department leans heavily on overtime and grapples with bare-bones staffing at home.
This week, the Public Safety Committee voted to let the Oakland Police Department send sworn officers to Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl LX and multiple FIFA World Cup matches in the South Bay. The agreement would allow OPD to provide off-duty, overtime details in Santa Clara, with the city reimbursed for officers’ pay and travel. The move comes amid blunt warnings from the police union and ongoing budget pressure tied to OPD’s chronic overtime use.
Committee signs off with a staffing caveat
The Public Safety Committee backed the staff recommendation but added a safeguard meant to keep Oakland from thinning out its own ranks on game days, according to The Oaklandside. The new resolve clause says deployments to Santa Clara cannot push patrol or specialized units below OPD’s operational baseline.
Committee minutes show the item was sent to the full City Council for a Jan. 20 hearing. Councilmembers pressed staff on how the city would avoid hollowing out neighborhood shifts while officers are working major regional events down the freeway.
MOU spells out pay, travel time and event dates
The draft municipal agreement lays out the fine print on pay and logistics. It explicitly allows 1.5 hour travel time from Agency to Levi Stadium and another 1.5 hours back, and lists Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8 along with multiple World Cup matches at Levi’s Stadium in June and July. The contract sets overtime rates by rank and requires the City of Santa Clara to reimburse Oakland for officers’ pay, travel time and authorized equipment, according to the City of Oakland MOU.
The agreement also references mutual-aid protocols and makes clear that the Santa Clara police chief will have the final say on staffing levels for each event.
Who will go — and who pays
City staff and reporting by The Oaklandside indicate OPD plans to send roughly two dozen officers to Santa Clara for the Super Bowl, with additional details for selected World Cup matches.
Those officers would be off duty from their regular assignments and paid at overtime rates while deployed, with Santa Clara picking up the tab under the MOU. City staff have framed the deal as a temporary, fully reimbursed detail that contributes to a broader regional security effort while letting Oakland recover personnel costs.
Union and staffing numbers raise alarms
The Oakland Police Officers Association is not exactly cheering. The union has warned that staffing is "dangerously low," with union president Huy Nguyen telling KTVU that only about 515 officers are actively working beats while roughly 130 are out on leave.
Local reporting has put the number of officers on long-term leave in the low hundreds and the number available for full, unrestricted duty at roughly 510 to 520, fueling concerns about patrol coverage. A 2025 staffing study commissioned by the city estimated OPD would need about 877 sworn officers to meet baseline workload demands, a reminder of just how far current ranks fall short of recommended levels.
Overtime is already straining the budget
City financial reports and local coverage show that OPD has routinely blown past its overtime budget by tens of millions of dollars. In recent years, overtime costs have hovered in the roughly $50 to $60 million range, repeatedly outpacing what the city set aside. That runaway spending has been flagged as a key driver of Oakland’s broader fiscal strain, according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Supporters of the Santa Clara deal argue that full reimbursement should cover event-related costs and might even soften the overall overtime hit. Critics counter that the arrangement only throws OPD’s deeper recruitment, retention and budget troubles into sharper relief.
What’s next
The committee has forwarded the MOU to the full City Council for consideration on Jan. 20, with the legislation file and attachments posted on the city’s agenda pages. City of Oakland documents show the item listed on the council calendar.
Councilmembers, the police union and community groups are expected to press staff on one core question as the Super Bowl and World Cup approach: how Oakland will keep neighborhood patrols covered while its officers are working some of the world’s biggest games in another city.
