The deficit for San Fran is $780 million—and growing. The article talks about decreased revenues, increased expenditures—not a word about closing a deficit.
“The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to approve a spending package that closes a $780 million two-year deficit created by San Francisco’s economic struggles following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite its fiscal limitations, the budget still amounts to a record level of spending — a jump of 4.2% over last year’s all-time high — as The City’s expenses outpace its revenues.
If a real CPA did this, they would go to jail. Instead the people of San Fran will continue to elect those who have destroyed their city and is about to create an economic collapse. This is also happening to the State of California.
SF supervisors adopt $14.6B budget, close deficit
By Adam Shanks, SF Examiner7/18/23 https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/politics/sf-supervisors-pass-146-billion-budget-for-breed-signature/article_b5cd0814-2023-11ee-b011-cf5ca6700fd5.html
The City is poised to finalize a $14.6 billion budget.
The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to approve a spending package that closes a $780 million two-year deficit created by San Francisco’s economic struggles following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite its fiscal limitations, the budget still amounts to a record level of spending — a jump of 4.2% over last year’s all-time high — as The City’s expenses outpace its revenues.
As always, the mayor’s initial budget proposal sparked debate, but this year’s process was relatively smooth.
Supervisors touted their efforts to stanch many of the cuts to social programs proposed in Breed’s budget.
“When we first got that budget from the mayor, I could not see how we were going to solve it,” Supervisor Hillary Ronen said Tuesday.
Supervisor Connie Chan, who chairs the committee that reviewed the budget, told her colleagues ahead of Tuesday’s vote that the spending plan was both fiscally responsible and will help create a “more equitable San Francisco.”
Supervisor Dean Preston was the only member of the board to vote against the budget.
Public safety
With public safety top of mind for San Franciscans, the budget made healthy investments in police and the community ambassadors that patrol city streets.
The major outlays in the budget include nearly $63 million in additional funding for the police department. The increase is largely due to a newly signed contract with The City’s police officers, who received significant pay increases and new retention bonuses.
The budget also includes funding to implement Mayor London Breed’s plan to hire 220 new police officers over the next two years in response to a persistent shortage and extreme reliance on overtime.
Under the terms of the budget, community ambassadors for organizations such as Urban Alchemy will continue to be deployed on city streets.
Homelessness, child care compromises
The spending plan also marks a shift in The City’s approach to homelessness by funding Breed’s proposed expansion of San Francisco’s emergency shelter network by 600 beds.
The budget up for adoption by supervisors next week funds positions to establish a new Office of Victim and Witness Rights, which was the thrust of 2022’s Proposition D
The change in approach required a compromise between Breed and legislators, who sought to ensure the expansion of shelter would not come at the cost of funding for young adult and family housing as initially proposed.
Breed also sought to divert child care funds into food security programs as federal COVID-19 funding ran out, sparking outcry from advocates for early child care.
In both cases, Breed proposed tapping into money set aside by city voters for specific purposes and diverting it elsewhere. And in both cases, supervisors struck compromises that placed limits on Breed, but allowed her to move forward with her immediate nutritional assistance and homelessness funding plans.
Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who mediated negotiations on child care funding, credited advocates for rallying at City Hall and holding “us accountable to the will of voters,” who established an early education and child care fund through 2018’s “Baby” Proposition C.
The resulting agreement, Melgar said, will “ensure that we protect Baby Prop. C so we can actually achieve the goal of universal child care in San Francisco.”
Downtown
The City also hopes to lure new businesses back to its downtown, which emptied at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and has not recovered.
As part of her budget proposal, Breed introduced legislation offering tax incentives to companies that open new offices in San Francisco.
The Board of Supervisors budget committee amended the proposal to apply only to companies that open an office in ZIP codes in and around downtown San Francisco. The adjustment reduced the expected impact on the City budget from $37 million to $25 million over the next two years.
The future
Despite closing a deficit of more than $200 million this year and $780 million over the two-year plan, the hard work is yet to come.
Downtown has long been a driver of The City’s tax revenues, but the shift to remote work during the pandemic has left San Francisco’s economic center largely empty four days of the week. Those ripple effects are expected to continue for at least the next several years.
The City’s projected deficits only increase through the remainder of the decade, and elected officials are already girding for difficult conversations next budget season.
“We have a tough road ahead of us,” Chan said.
