Agreement reached on $13.2 billion city budget

The Board of Supervisors and Mayor London Breed reached an agreement on the city’s $13.2 billion budget Tuesday evening after more than 30 hours of negotiations.

The budget includes an unprecedented investment in addressing homelessness — more than $1 billion over the next two years. It prioritizes support for economic recovery, rent relief and marginalized communities in the wake of the pandemic. It also focuses on public safety, balancing the hiring of police officers to keep up staffing levels with investing in policing alternatives to homelessness, mental illness and the drug crisis.

Supervisor and Budget Committee Chair Matt Haney said in the committee meeting just before 8 p.m. that the agreement reflects what government can get done collaboratively.

“Last year was one of the hardest in the history of our city and the residents who were

impacted, every single one of them, deserve a recovery budget that seriously and directly meets their needs,” he said. “What we have in front of us today reflects that purpose.”

Breed said in a statement Wednesday that she appreciated the collaboration with Haney and was proud of the agreement that “will tackle the challenges confronting this City.”

“We are providing badly needed immediate support for our residents and our City while still maintaining our reserves for the inevitable turbulent times that lie ahead for us,” Breed said. “This is a budget that will benefit all San Franciscans.”

The committee meeting to approve the final details started Monday morning and continued off and on until Tuesday evening between negotiations among the board and with the mayor. The committee finally voted on the amended budget after 8 p.m. It will now go to the full Board of Supervisors, where it’s expected to pass, and then to the mayor for a final signoff by Aug. 1.

Haney said the process took longer than normal because of the significant investments and needs.

“I don’t think it’s because we were being contentious,” he said. “We wanted to get it right.”

Budget Committee ViceChair and Supervisor Ahsha Safaí said, “The budget process always gets heated at the end.” While there were some “hiccups,” supervisors “were able to build consensus” among themselves and with the mayor, he said.

San Francisco went from facing a pandemicinduced deficit last year to debating how to spend new revenue from federal stimulus packages and voterapproved tax measures in this budget cycle.

The amended budget increased the mayor’s $13.1 billion proposal in early June by $123.5 million. The additional money was a combination of savings identified elsewhere in the budget, new revenue and pulling from the fiscal reserves for what the supervisors and mayor deemed urgent priorities.

The mayor agreed to change her proposed plan to include funding for more 24hour public bathrooms, waiving firstyear fees for new small businesses and $32 million for rent relief, and other priorities, Haney said.

The budget also fully funds a tenant right to counsel that became law in 2018.

One of the other budget priorities is public safety. The plan will increase the police budget over the next two years, which some supervisors and advocates opposed, to account for salary increases, hires to maintain staffing levels and new equipment. The increase is lower than the mayor initially proposed and the police chief wanted.

The budget also expands the MidMarket safety initiative, which puts more officers and community ambassadors on the streets, deeper into the Tenderloin, and invests in victim services.

As the pandemic wanes, but its impacts remain, the spending plan pumps $477 million into economic recovery. The majority of the money will be spent on the city’s continuing COVID19 response, including sustaining the city’s homeless hotel program until the beginning of 2022, and food security programs, vaccinations and testing.

The plan also puts money behind two potentially big changes in city government.

The first is $6 million to fund the transition to split Public Works in two and create a new Department of Sanitation that voters approved in the wake of the former department head Mohammed Nuru’s fraud allegations.

The second is $375,000 for a business plan to create a San Francisco Public Bank.

The plan continues the $60 million annual investment in the Dream Keeper Initiative, which supports the city’s Black community.

It further invests in food security, legal defense for immigrants and arts and culture for the Latino community. It also funds a guaranteed basic income program for transgender or gender nonconforming residents.

The state’s budget, which was passed Monday evening, also invests in San Francisco. Most notably, it includes $4.2 million for a meth sobering center, Sen. Scott Wiener (DSan Francisco) said on Twitter.