The overcast blustery day outside was no match for the dark clouds inside the Oakland City Hall Monday as Mayor Jean Quan and City Administrator Deanna Santana rolled out a new amended budget proposal for the city.

A minimum of 105 full time positions will be cut as a result of the elimination of the city's redevelopment agency, far less than the loss of several hundred jobs that the city predicted earlier. Oakland officials say they expect that as they finalize the budget proposal, the number of positions eliminated will likely be higher, but not go beyond about 200. Sworn police and fire employees are exempt from layoffs due to a no-layoff clause in their contracts that is effective until 2015.

Because the state of California is dissolving all of its redevelopment agencies, Oakland is challenged with filling the $28 million budget gap caused by that action.

To achieve a balance budget, the newly proposed budget eliminates $8.2 million for the remainder of fiscal 2011-12 and $20.3 million for fiscal 2012-13.

Only last week, city officials were predicting that hundreds of jobs would be eliminated, sending out 2,500 layoff notices to employees. But because of a proposed major reorganization of city services, Quan said they were able to save most jobs.

"We realized that we just couldn't cut in the regular way, trim a little bit here, a little bit there," she said. "We had been planning to reorganize the city - to merge departments, to cut administrative levels (and) look at how we could do things differently."

Under the budget proposal, both library services and the city's human services department have been left untouched.  But most other city departments will see a major reorganization.

"It has not been easy," Quan said about amending the city's budget. "City staff has been working day and night and coming in on weekends."

Under the budget proposal, the city would dissolved the Community and Economic Development Agency. CEDA's Planning and Building Services Division would merge and the Housing Services department will convert to an Office of Housing and Community Development. About 44 positions are proposed to be eliminated from CEDA.

The Parking Division would be decentralized and reconfigured under Quan's proposal and the Office of Parks and Recreation would merge with the Department of Human Services. The proposal also decreases by 40 percent the annual subsidies for the Oakland Zoo, Children's Fairyland and Hacienda Peralta. The subsidy for the Jack London Aquatic Center is being eliminated entirely.

Reductions also are proposed for the mayor and City Council offices, the City Clerk and the City Attorney.

Public Works also will be hit hard under the proposal, with 23 full-time positions potentially cut. In addition, the department will reduce its service calls for illegal dumping.

Unlike normal budget seasons, there has been no time for mayoral town halls or weeks of debating. Instead, there are stark numbers and hard choices that must be made in order to meet the state's deadline of Feb. 1 for the redevelopment agency to be fully dissolved. City officials acknowledge that they also were not able to include labor union officials in on developing the amended proposal.

"I met with labor over the weekend when I came back from Washington and they wanted to play a larger role," Quan said. "But to be honest, we hadn't even finished our proposal until midnight last night. And so as soon as it became available today we offered to meet with all of the labor groups."

Quan said she plans to meet with labor leaders today to go over the amended budget.

"I've made a commitment to the labor groups that we'll have a committee that will meet on what the proposal are and we'll listen to (all) alternatives."

The next step will come on Wednesday at a special City Council meeting which begins at 5:30 p.m. Council will make a final decision on the proposed budget, including what jobs will be eliminated, on Jan. 31.

The city's redevelopment agency will be dissolved on Feb. 1 and layoffs will take effect a couple of days later on Feb. 3.