Mayor Daniel Lurie dropped his long-anticipated budget proposal on Friday, proclaiming that more than 1,400 San Francisco government positions would be eliminated in an effort to close the city’s $781.5 million two-year deficit.
Of those, around 1,300 positions are vacant thanks to a January hiring freeze and the city’s glacial hiring process.
“A budget crisis of this magnitude means we cannot avoid painful decisions,” Lurie said during his budget remarks.
A closer look at budget documents, however, reveals that the true number of consequential eliminated positions is much lower: Some 470 positions.
That’s according to the proposed “Annual Appropriation Ordinance,” which allocates the amount of money each department can spend on funding job positions (those are listed in the “Annual Salary Ordinance,” essentially a menu of job positions available to each department and their respective pay rates).
According to these underlying documents, all of this wrangling only results in a net change of some 470 budgeted positions. The savings represented by eliminating them will, naturally, be smaller than anyone seeing the Mayor Lurie’s 1,400 figure would’ve initially assumed.
It is not yet clear how much this cost-cutting measure will save the city. The mayor’s office did not respond to requests for more detailed information.
Labor sources previously told Mission Local that they were informed of projected savings of $40 million over two years by eliminating the non-vacant positions. (That tracks with the average salary and benefits earned by a city employee: $222,242.) Only 100 or so of the jobs are actually occupied.
“It’s like throwing a penny down the hallway,” bemoaned Rudy Gonzalez, secretary-treasurer of the city’s Building & Construction Trades Council. “How much are you saving?”
The unions representing city workers are staunchly opposed to any layoffs. “We believe that there is no reason for the layoffs to have to occur,” said Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council. She added that the city has the ability to make up the funding gap elsewhere.
The unions are currently gearing up to make their case to the Board of Supervisors, “to see if they are going to stand with working people or stand with DOGE-style tactics,” said Tavaglione. The supervisors can decide to reallocate some funds during the add-back process.
Nonprofit and unionized workers are pledging to attend a rally at City Hall tomorrow before swarming the Board of Supervisors Budget Committee meeting.
Laying off workers is one piece of Lurie’s cost-cutting puzzle. Mayor Lurie has also proposed slashing allocations to nonprofit contracts by $200 million over two years and increasing charges for some services.
Meanwhile, some core functions will sustain, if not see an increase to, their budgets; namely, the police and sheriff departments, the fire department and street cleaning services.
Is the make-work Urban Alchemy program funded to the tune of 42 million taxpayer dollars per year and headed by a thankfully ex-Mayor Breed pal with a $200,000+ salary chopped? It should be. It contributes nothing to the city.
This article poses as clever but stops a bit short of being useful.
It would be helpful if it offered some sense of scale. How many total positions are there in SF city government? How many are full vs. vacant before any cuts?
It would also be great if it were more clear on what all the numbers mean. If 1300 of the 1400 roles on the chopping block are vacant, does that many only 100 living humans will actually experience being laid off? What’s the 470 number? These points are not explained well.
The idea that any layoffs are “DOGE-style tactics” is absurd. But knowing more about how deep the proposed cuts are and where they are concentrated is necessary to engage in a conversation about whether this particular proposed layoff is indeed DOGE-style.
For what it’s worth, Google tells me there are about 35,000 (thirty-five thousand) employees of SF. If that’s correct, the proposed cut is 4% at most (if you count all 1400 roles as cut).
Thanks for reporting
Reality is no money no job
There are jobs in other places join the military
Move .
That is what friends have done
They need to go where the work is and not expect the taxpayer to take care of them
Sf cannot survive being a welfare city
Get it cleaned up
Support business and get conttol
Of the drug scene
Then people and business will return
SF is not able to even control the drug sales yet
33% is a Huge savings. Be thankful for it.
Uhh, I was working for the County since 19 and 73. This dance has been going on at least since then.Its part of fiction that “painful job cuts” are going to solve the city,s budget deficit. Horse manure! It’s a Elon style bloodletting that allows the department shot callers to eliminate some positions but eventually game some back through soft federal and state money.mayor Lurie should mind the upward grade drift starting with his “non Deputy” assistant mayors”
Is it any surprise that the labor council cares to push back against job cuts? Residents and visitors to San Francisco can see that public worksites have excessive numbers of standing bodies; and, basic public infrastructure is grossly overpriced. Obviously, a certain degree of fat must be carved out of the budget, if that touches a nerve with some groups, that probably can’t be helped. Costs should be made rational, on an economic basis, at present there seems to be excessive entitlement and grossly exaggerated costs.
Do you have any idea what is at stake with these cuts? Public services from Muni to building and restaurant inspections. Food pantries and emergency aid to seniors, the disabled, and homeless. Health services. The public defender’s office. Job loss for people who invisibly keep this city running.
If you want to see what a true doom loop would look like in SF, you’ll get your wish if the mayor’s corporate-friendly budget passes on the backs of working people.
You support giving away a bunch of free stuff while the city is billions of dollars in debt. Any action our leaders take to reduce the debt is “corporate-friendly at the expense of working people”. It is beyond sad how much liberals who dont understand economics have destroyed what was once the greatest city in the world.