SF approves city's largest budget ever while closing $642 million deficit

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to approve a $16.9 billion budget deal, closing a deficit of more than $640 million while avoiding many of the most painful cuts labor groups and nonprofits had feared. 

The board unanimously passed the spending plan, nearly a month after supervisors negotiated more than $28.5 million in funding restorations for social services, including for HIV prevention services and a City College program that provides cash grants to low-income students. 

This year's budget negotiations proved markedly less contentious than other recent budget cycles, and community advocates have celebrated the city's final two-year budget deal as a win for service providers and the vulnerable San Francisans they serve. 

Supervisor Connie Chan, the board's budget chair, urged her colleagues to vote in favor of the package on Tuesday and thanked other budget committee members for their work negotiating the final package. 

The deal preserved $1.3 billion in cash reserves, including $400 million set aside to guard against federal funding cuts. Already, Trump administration changes to food assistance and health care programs have hit San Francisco hard. 

Chan also reversed roughly 20 proposed layoffs, including at the 311 call center and Laguna Honda Hospital, according to Robyn Burke, one of her legislative aides. Mayor Daniel Lurie began laying off 127 city workers in April, but his budget proposal largely avoided making additional sweeping job cuts. 

Anya Worley-Ziegmann, a coordinator for the People's Budget Coalition, previously told the Chronicle the finalized deal was one of the "best budgets" in recent years. 

Lurie also celebrated the final plan as a reflection of "what is possible when we work together" during remarks at last week's board meeting. 

"We are protecting the services that San Franciscans depend on and continue to drive a durable and broad recovery," Lurie said. 

Tuesday's vote marks the first time in recent years that the budget passed with unanimous support from the board's 11 members. Former Supervisor Dean Preston, a progressive, voted against every budget during his four years on the board in protest of city funding for the police department. Last year, Supervisor Jackie Fielder cast the lone ‘no' vote against the budget deal, saying at the time she could not support the cuts to services for the city's most vulnerable. 

This year, Fielder voted in favor of the package.

"In a year with looming federal cuts and no easy options, this board held the line on critical safety net programs that tens of thousands of San Franciscans depend on," Fielder said, critical that the budget expanded the Police Department's funding. 

The District 9 supervisor had missed the bulk of negotiations over the budget while on a leave of absence following a mental health crisis. On Tuesday, she thanked her colleagues and her aides for their work representing her constituents during negotiations. 

"The diligence with which this board worked through such a difficult budget is a testament to the collaborative leadership of Budget chair Chan and the commitment of the entire board," Fielder said. 

Negotiations over some parts of the budget continued after Chan announced the funding restorations at the end of June. Last week, Supervisor Chyanne Chen announced that she had secured funding for 50 medium- and long-term housing subsidies for families living in cramped single-room-occupancy housing.

The change will tweak how the city spends its Our City, Our Home fund, which is funded by a voter-approved tax on big businesses. 

"My office heard from many providers and community stakeholders concerns about the lack of additional long-term subsidies," Chen told supervisors last week. 

Jennifer Friedenbach, the director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said the subsidies help families living in SROs move into more stable, long-term housing.

"The impact on parents is transformative in terms of having space to cook food for your children ... all that stress of being in overcrowded situations improving," Friedenbach said. "Suddenly you have the regular things that are very important to flourishing in life." 

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