The San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ budget committee finalized the $16.9 billion city budget at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, a shockingly early conclusion to budget negotiations that often last until the wee hours.
The supes restored funding for Free City College, HIV prevention services, and support for seniors, among other changes to proposed cuts. Those “add backs” reshuffled only a small portion of the city’s budget: $28.5 million over two years. But city grants are often a large portion of a nonprofit’s budget, which means that groups are desperate for cuts to be reversed.
The money for reallocation came from trimming elsewhere in Mayor Daniel Lurie’s proposed budget. For example, the supervisors decreased the money earmarked for pickup trucks after finding out that the trucks could be bought for less.
Lurie released his two-year budget proposal, which closed a $643 million deficit, on June 1.
On Thursday morning, there was already a sense that negotiations might conclude early. Anya Worley-Ziegmann is an organizer with the People’s Budget Coalition, which advocates for add backs. “I feel really happy about this list [of add backs] and that’s unusual for this point in the process,” she said at 11 a.m.
At around 12:30 p.m, Board President Rafael Mandelman also expressed optimism that negotiations would wrap quickly. “I just think there’s been less to fight about this year,” he said.
Mandelman said that was partially because there have been so many cuts to the budget in past few years. That means it is harder for the supervisors to find places to cut more money so they can reallocate it.
“The ground to fight feels like it has shrunk,” he said.
Also, very few layoffs were on the table. Last year, negotiations to stave off dozens layoffs took time. But this time, instead of negotiating layoffs as a part of the budget process, the mayor laid off 127 workers preemptively in April.
Supervisors also credited the leadership of Supervisor Connie Chan, who chairs the budget committee, for creating a process that led to an early consensus.
“Budget chair Chan did a good job of hearing everybody out,” Supervisor Matt Dorsey said. “Everybody seems to be working together.”
Lurie celebrated the finalized budget, particularly in the face of a deficit worsened by federal cuts. “Last summer, just as our city was getting back on track, the federal government cut hundreds of millions of dollars from healthcare and food assistance that San Franciscans rely on,” the mayor wrote in a statement. “Facing those cuts and threats of more, we chose to strengthen the social safety net and invest in our LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities.”
The Board of Supervisors restored funding to many organizations and services in the final budget, including:
- Case management, where workers connect residents to city services like food and housing assistance
- Free City College, where cuts to grants for low income students had been on the table
- HIV prevention services for at-risk populations
- Paid city internships for youth
- Social programming and support services for seniors
“Given the context of it being one of the worst budget years when we were starting out, now it’s one of the best that we’ve ever seen,” Worley-Ziegmann said. “We got back 90 percent of what we were fighting for.”
But there are still organizations that will face cuts, including workforce development programs and certain kinds of legal aid.
A Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights program providing free legal services to small businesses, for instance, did not have its grant funded.
“We’ll have to severely cut back the program,” said Executive Director Rachel Sheridan, explaining that her lawyers help businesses avoid mistakes that can lead to closure. “We’re looking at not serving about 150 small businesses annually.”
