San Francisco Passes $16 Billion Budget Amid Backlash

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s nearly $16 billion budget has gotten the stamp of approval from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

The $15.9 billion budget, meant to cover fiscal years 2025 through 2027, passed by the board in a 10-to-1 vote and is headed to Lurie’s desk with an Aug. 1 deadline to sign it into law, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The budget cuts spending across the city in an effort to close an $800 million budget deficit.

Though the final vote passed the budget easily, it didn’t come without criticism from unions and community groups opposed to funding cuts and Board of Supervisors members concerned about their constituents. Lurie campaigned on slashing wasteful spending and ended up reducing funds to nonprofits and various city departments, laying off about 40 employees and eliminating over 1,000 vacant positions in the process.

Last week, when the board first voted to pass the budget on its initial reading, Lurie called it “a series of major legislative wins” for his agenda.

“They voted unanimously to cut red tape for small businesses through our PermitSF legislation, and approved a real plan to support families living in [recreational vehicles],” Lurie said. His wide-reaching PermitSF initiative includes allowing office buildings zoned for ground-floor retail to allow amenities for tenants in those vacant spaces instead.

Supervisor Jackie Fielder, the lone dissenter in the final vote, blasted the budget as it made funding cuts to programs that serve the city’s most vulnerable.

“I cannot in good conscience vote in support of this budget,” Fielder said before the vote, per the Chronicle. “I will be voting no with disappointment, with frustration but also with clarity about the kind of city we are fighting to become. We owe our residents more than austerity.”

Partially at issue is how Lurie’s budget will spend revenue from Proposition C, a 2018 tax increase to fund homelessness initiatives. Advocates for homeless people staged a silent protest at City Hall on the final day of voting.

In total, 21 departments across the city will see funding decreases under the budget, the San Francisco Standard reported. That includes a nearly $104 million cut to the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Other cuts to social services and public-interest agencies include $57 million from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and $26 million from the infrastructure-focused Department of Public Works.

— Chris Malone Méndez