The most recent union contracts with San Francisco’s police officers and firefighters will cost the city an additional $100 million over the next two years, and over $300 million over the next four years.
That’s according to a memorandum of understanding between the city and both departments discussed today at a Board of Supervisors committee meeting.
San Francisco is currently facing a $634 million budget deficit over the next two fiscal years — an improvement compared to the $936 million deficit predicted in December 2025, but still one of the largest budget shortfalls the city has ever faced.
The shortfall is partly due to federal and state healthcare cuts, and partly due to the city’s own free-spending practices during more fiscally abundant times. In Mission Local‘s guide to city spending published in summer of 2025, the San Francisco Police Department had a budget of $822.8 million for the 2024-2025 fiscal year (4.45 percent of the city budget) and the fire department had about $530.8 million (2.87 percent).
Departments across the city have been asked to make cuts toward reducing $400 million in general-fund expenditures in preparation for this summer’s budget process, which culminates on June 30.
According to the controller’s office, the $634 projected deficit already includes some of that $100 million, because the office assumed that the new union contracts would include cost-of-living raises. The numbers discussed today are higher and will add about $2 million to those projections.
Once approved by the Board of Supervisors, the contracts will go into effect on July 1 and be non-negotiable until the next contracts. That would be June 30, 2030, when the proposed contracts end.
At Wednesday’s meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee, discussion of the contracts was positive.
“If I had to pick a couple of words to characterize what these agreements are really about, it would be that they provide both stability and certainty for the city over the next four years as you’re approaching, I think, a very difficult budget cycle over the next two years,” said Carol Isen, human resources director for the city.
The city’s team negotiated the contracts with the unions “at Mayor Lurie’s direction” as part of “extensive good-faith negotiations between the city and our labor partners,” Isen said, adding that over 95 percent of the police and firefighters voted to ratify the new contracts.
“We really believe these agreements are fiscally responsible for the city,” said Ardis Graham, employee-relations director for the city and county of San Francisco, emphasizing that the pay raises and other benefits in the new contracts are necessary to deal with the police department’s staffing shortages.
“I certainly have prioritized this police understaffing in San Francisco,” said Supervisor Matt Dorsey to Graham. “Where are we with fire staffing? Are we in good shape?”
The fire department is fully staffed, said Wong, and does not appear to have a recruitment problem.
The agreement includes a 14-percent pay increase for members of both the Police Officers Association and International Association of Firefighters Local 798 over the next four years.
Police officers will receive additional raises once they reach eight and 10 years of employment. This is critical, Graham added, for discouraging officers from leaving the department once they have acquired some experience.
“I’ve been around for 30 years,” said Louis Wong, president of the Police Officers Association. “I believe this is the best contract I have ever been a part of.”
Police recruitment is up, Wong said, and the contract was going to make it even better. “It’s going to make a big difference if you do pass this tentative agreement.”
The negotiating parties were sensitive to the city’s budget shortfall, Wong added. As a sign of that concern, he added, the negotiators had focused on a four-year contract, instead of a more typical three years.
“We understood,” Wong said. “We want to help the city out.”
Overall, Wong said, it was a remarkably convivial process.
“I don’t think we had any conflicts during this. We didn’t even have one little dispute,” Wong continued. “This contract — it’s not just for the police and for fire. It’s for the citizens.”
Correction: An earlier headline stated the new contracts would add $100 million to the deficit. The contracts would cost $100 million over two years but, because some of those costs were built into deficit projections, they will only add about $2 million to those projections.
This is ridiculous. As it is right now in San Francisco a rookie cop straight out of the academy makes barely $22,000 less than a top paid teacher with years and years of experience and extensive extra schooling and just over $15,000 more than the average teacher in San Francisco. Any place that pays its cops more than they do their teachers is an extremely backwards society.
Couldn’t agree more. We have retention problems in so many other parts of the city as well, where are our raisers to reduce turnover? There is absolutely no retention issue with firefighters. Why not use some of that money to retain city services that people will surely miss?
Perhaps it’s because so much of the square footage in this city is owned by corporations so they’re willing to use tax payer money to have firefighters protect their property as well as having police physically restrain the people who are policed more often in poorer neighborhoods while the police act like personal security in the wealthy areas. As long as the coming recession due to the widening wealth inequality doesn’t affect the lives of the rich people in their ivory towers, they can continue to post on social media, the mayor’s street parties while the riot police earn their overtime by breaking up the unsanctioned parties of the poor neighborhoods. They may be getting 14% raises but they will have to work for it by betraying their working class roots and upholding the unequal social order.
It is quite an eye opener to visit DataSF’s spreadsheet on retirement compensation. Sort on the “Retirement Benefits Paid in Tax Year, descending, to see what we’re paying for SFPD and SFFD spiked retirement:
https://data.sfgov.org/City-Management-and-Ethics/Retiree-Pensions-Annual-Benefit-Received/84zg-myyk/data_preview
Wow isn’t that surprising. The overpaid rightwing unions are able to get a good contract for their “apples,” but OCEIA for example has to lay off low wage workers.
Tax the poor. Feed the rich. Police everybody except the rich
It is the same for most major cities. Oakland spends a staggering percentage of its budget on cops and fire – 75% or so, I read somewhere.
The voters are sanguine about spending on public safety as it is deemed the one critical core service of any city. Everything else is a lower priority.
Oink oink oink 🍩🍩🍩