Balanced city budget would restore $25 million to health and social services

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Supervisor Sean Elsbernd said San Francisco’s budget plan does nothing to solve long-term fiscal problems. Photo by Kevin Hume/SF Public Press.

City leaders Thursday got closer to bridging a $483 million deficit. The Board of Supervisors budget and finance committee approved a plan that uses savings from across city departments to restore proposed cuts to health and human services programs. It also retains city workers whose jobs the mayor wanted to contract out.

After recessing twice Wednesday without agreeing on a spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year, the committee reconvened Thursday night to pass an additional $40 million in additions to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s spending plan.

In the approved plan that will now go to the full board for approval, $25 million of the newfound money will be used to blunt cuts to human services, youth programs and public health. The new budget plan calls for $11 million to keep city jobs targeted by the mayor for private-sector replacement.

The savings came from a variety of sources. These included reduced spending on the city’s information technology infrastructure and salary reductions across city departments. The supervisors themselves are taking a collective $60,000 pay cut.

John Avalos, chairman of the budget committee, said it was very difficult to balance a budget in the face of a $483 million deficit — the same challenge as last year’s. “This has been quite a ride,” he said. “There’s still work to do.” 

Though the budget is balanced, many youth and family programs, about $7 million worth, rely on budget savings and revenues that the supervisors identified at the last minute but that still need to be finalized.

On the revenue side, the supervisors found extra money in the real estate transfer tax. Because of recovery in the local real estate market, more than $13 million extra came into city coffers in June than the controller had predicted. Yet the supervisors’ budget analyst will still have to nail down suspected savings in other departments to make the larger transfers work. The final plan will be approved by the full board in two weeks.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, the only one of five members of the committee to vote against the proposed budget, said the plan does not help solve any of the city’s long-term budget problems and is going to make future budget years even worse.

“It’s one-time revenue, going to upcoming expenses,” he said. “It won’t be there next year.”

The committee also rejected the mayor’s proposal to allow more housing units to be converted into condominiums for a $20,000 fee. That reduced potential city revenues by an estimated $8 million for the upcoming fiscal year. 

The ultimate shape of the budget will now be determined by the full Board of Supervisors. The mayor can still veto the final product.

 

Where the $40.3 million of newfound savings and revenues is going

Budget line items restored and new items:

  • $3.8 million is being restored to the Human Services Agency. Its funding is still being cut by $17.8 million.
  • $6.8 million restored to the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families. Its funding is still cut by $20.8 million.
  • $6.2 million restored to the Department of Public Health. Its funding is still cut by $23.9 million.
  • $1.5 million for the public defender’s office. Funding for the office has now increased by $2.1 million compared with the just completed fiscal year.
  • $839,000 to new programs such as workforce development in Chinatown, language access and translation outreach, reproductive health services and HIV-AIDS for the trans-Latina community.

Costs of rejecting mayoral savings:

  • $13 million to maintain some city employee positions instead of contracting out, including $950,000 for reinstatement of overtime for sheriff security services.
  • $8 million reduction in general fund revenue due to rejection of the mayor’s legislation that would have allowed more housing units to be converted into condos for a $20,000 fee.

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