San Francisco Mayor London Breed signed a $14.6 billion budget at City Hall on Wednesday, emphasizing the need for economic recovery and fiscal accountability.
Through the approved budget, the city plans to cut unsheltered homelessness in half in five years and bolster funding for police, education and more.
The Board of Supervisors gave final approval of the budget Tuesday, committing $14.61 billion in funding for the 2023-24 fiscal year and another $14.57 billion for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
"This has been a challenging budget year and the work is not done," Supervisor and budget and finance committee chair Connie Chan said in a news release. "Today we can celebrate this milestone. Tomorrow let's back to work. We have a tough road ahead of us."
Safety and Health
Public works, transportation and commerce are receiving the biggest chunk of funding, more than $5 billion in total. About $3.2 billion is being put toward community health resources each fiscal year.
One of Breed's major goals was to rebuild the San Francisco Police Department, which has seen staffing levels decline in recent years. The budget makes room for 220 more officers over the next two years and puts more resources toward alternatives to policing, according to a news release from the mayor's office.
Breed called the budget's commitment to behavioral health and shelter beds, as well as permanent housing, a "game changer" at Wednesday's budget signing.
The budget funds the city's strategic homeless plan to cut unsheltered homelessness in half over the next five years. The city aims to create 600 new shelter beds, 1,055 new permanent housing placements and 1,650 rapid re-housing placements for the newly homeless. The funding also includes staffing positions to "ensure the city has the capacity to execute the ambitious five-year plan," the mayor's office said.
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The city is also addressing open-air drug markets with funding for the Public Works department's street cleanup crew, overdose prevention services, wellness facilities and 400 new treatment beds.
Education
Another part of the budget, the Children and Family Recovery Plan, supports childcare vouchers, boosts compensation and recruitment for early educators and funds childcare facilities and after-school and summer programs.
The San Francisco Unified School District will also receive more funding as part of the Student Success Fund passed by voters in 2022. The proposition requires the city to fund grants for academic achievement and emotional wellness programs at schools each fiscal year.
Economic Recovery
Breed's message to the city on Wednesday largely revolved around economic recovery.
"You know, it's been a really difficult couple of years," Breed said. "More recently, I've been out in the community meeting with businesses, talking to people and reminding the public of who we are, San Francisco, because I think we can't forget what San Francisco has done in the past."
The mayor's Roadmap to Downtown's Future outlines strategies for clean and safe streets, transportation, equity and local businesses.
While part of this plan is to convert office buildings to housing, the budget also adds a tax incentive for businesses to fill these vacant office spaces, among other tax reforms.
"Our economic recovery definitely depends on some reforms to our taxes," Breed said. "Over the past five years, we've introduced 14 taxes and what businesses have said to me time and time again is, 'Stop changing the rules in the middle of the game.'"
The budget also calls for waiving city fees for new small businesses the first year they open as an incentive.
"It's going to be hard, but we live for hard," Breed said. "San Francisco isn't called a resilient city for nothing."
The new budget also eliminates the city's current $780 million deficit. But going forward, Breed emphasized the need for more accountability and wise spending from city departments.
"Every dollar that each and every one of you are responsible for, make sure it does not go to waste," Breed said. "People are counting on us to make this budget live up to what we're promising."
