City leaders are in a heated battle in San Francisco over a plan to fund new police recruits and fully staff SFPD.
The original author of the plan says he can’t support the plan after it was amended Monday because it will likely require new tax dollars that San Franciscans won’t be willing to pay.
The city needs about 400 new police officers to be fully staffed, but filing those vacancies has been a challenge.
District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey introduced a plan to return to a staffing mandate, requiring the city to have just shy of 2,100 officers.
“So, I proposed a charter amendment that would enable voters to prioritize their existing tax dollars to solve, over a period of five years, our police staffing crisis,” said Dorsey.
With crime on the rise and businesses and consumers leaving the city because of it, City Hall has been scrambling for solutions. And Dorsey said his plan would pay for a fully-staffed police department without new taxes.
“Unfortunately, some of my colleagues in City Hall feel like, 'no we’re not going to give voters that right,'” said Dorsey. “'We’re going to make sure the only way they can do this is to pay us more taxes.'”
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And when his plan was amended in the rules committee to include new taxes as a possible funding source, Dorsey took to social media and posted, “As expected, Supervisor Ahsha Safai’s ‘cop tax scheme’ was voted out of committee today … This hijacked SFPD staffing measure aims to manipulate voters’ fears about public safety into support for new taxes … don’t buy it.”
“I think it’s a little absurd to tell people that they need to pay more taxes, they have to pay extra dollars, just to have the basics of government,” said Dorsey.
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“We don’t have to create a new tax for this. That’s incorrect,” said Supervisor Ahsha Safai.
The District 11 supervisor said voters will ultimately decide in March how to fully fund police, and the money could come from a variety of sources, not necessarily just a new tax.
But he said Dorsey's plan was fiscally irresponsible because it didn’t have a dedicated funding source.
“And if you’re taking from one thing, you’re hurting someone else, so the idea is, I am for this, I’m for funding 100% police staffing, but I want to do it in a fiscally responsible way,” said Safai.
He took a jab at Dorsey saying he lacks the experience needed to understand the budgeting process.
“I think it takes a little time, again, for people to understand the process. At the end of the day, this is not a cop tax,” he said.
Supervisor Dorsey said he’s not giving up on his minimum police staffing effort, and he says he may take it to voters in the form of a ballot measure in Nov. 2024.
