S.F. budget soars nearly $1 billion
San Francisco’s $11.05 billion budget for the coming fiscal year will be the largest in the city’s history. That’s a 9.3 percent — or $937 million — increase over last fiscal year’s budget, which came in at $10.11 billion.
City officials said a handful of one-time capital projects, like street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs and park improvements, coupled with the growth of departments like the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the Municipal Transportation Agency were the reason for the spending growth.
Mayor Mark Farrell will present his proposed budget to the Board of Supervisors on Friday. From there, Budget Committee Chairwoman Malia Cohen will lead the board’s two-month review and propose changes. According to the City Charter, the budget has to be completed and signed by the mayor no later than Aug. 1.
In recent weeks, Farrell has rolled out a number of budget announcements reflecting his stated priorities
of tackling homelessness, cleaning the city’s streets and increasing public safety.
But the notion that officials have more than $11 billion to play with is something of a misnomer. The city’s so-called enterprise departments, like the airport, the SFPUC, MTA and the Port of San Francisco, take up around half of the overall budget. Those
departments, which generate some of their own funds, have $5.54 billion allocated to them next fiscal year.
That will leave the city with a $5.52 billion general fund. Items like the city’s 19 voter-approved budget set-asides for transportation and libraries and other nondiscretionary costs like Medi-Cal expenses amount to $3.3 billion in the next fiscal year. And as the only combined city and county in California, San Francisco is also responsible for funding and operating jails, courts and hospitals.
The $2.2 billion left in the city’s discretionary general fund also has to pay the salaries of the city’s 31,000 workers, including police officers and firefighters. — Dominic Fracassa Fair pay: The vast amounts of campaign cash flowing on behalf mayoral candidate London Breed forced the San Francisco Ethics Commission to again lift the cap on the amount of money her two closest
rivals in the race may spend.
Breed, Mark Leno and Jane Kim all qualified for the city’s public financing program, which provides candidates with city money to help offset campaign costs.
Candidates who qualify for the program must abide by an initial $1.475 million spending cap — unless significant amounts of money pour in from outside groups, like independent expenditure committees, which can raise and spend unlimited funds but aren’t permitted to coordinate with candidates. The cap has been raised several times already.
To keep things fair for candidates who aren’t backed by the same level of outside spending, the Ethics Commission raises the cap based in part on how much money flows in to support and oppose each candidate.
Because of the amount of money spent supporting of Breed and opposing Leno and Kim, the Ethics Commission announced Tuesday that Kim’s campaign may now spend $3.175 million, up from $2.975 million. Leno’s campaign may now spend $3.075 million, up from $2.875 million.