by Juliana Birnbaum Fox
Deputy public defender Ricardo López, Supervisor and candidate for judge Gerardo Sandoval, an unidentified woman activist, and Salomon Rizzo, protest the Mayor’s budget. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)
Amidst strong protest from the city’s largest labor union, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approved a $6.4 million budget for the coming year by a 10 – 1 vote. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), concerned about layoffs and service cuts, voiced their opposition outside the meeting at City Hall. The budget is the largest ever for the city, and managed to avoid laying off over 1000 workers by slashing funds for a variety of city services.
In an effort to address a deficit of approximately $338 million, the budget makes significant cuts to city programs, hiking fees for many existing services and creating new ones for recreation programs, ambulance services, and health inspections. Unlike the federal budget, the city’s budget must be balanced by law.
“We put together a budget that reflects the collective compassion that is San Francisco,” Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, chair of the board’s Budget and Finance Committee, said at Tuesday’s meeting. “None of us got everything, a lot of us got something,”
Despite the cuts, some officials are already estimating that next year’s budget will be another $250 million short, a figure which could rise higher if state or federal lawmakers take more dollars away from San Francisco than city leaders are estimating. In November, city voters will decide several measures that also will impact the number.
Supervisors rejected Mayor Newsom’s plan to hire private security guards instead of city-employed ones at San Francisco General and Laguna Honda hospitals, perhaps because of the pressure by labor unions. To make up for the $5 million Newsom ‘s security guard plan would have saved, the is likely to eliminate funding for other programs rather than dip into the pool of money reserved for emergencies.
“The money is there to fund these services,” opined Ed Kinchley, a board member of the SEIU Local 1021 that represents about 12,000 workers. “But the Mayor and the Budget Committee prefer to spend it on another 55 six-fi gure salaried executives instead.”
Approximately 140 full time positions were eliminated, but many of them were vacant. Only about 30 people would actually lose their jobs, according to the city’s human resources department.
Robert Haaland, the political coordinator for SEIU 1021, told the San Francisco Chonicle he thinks there will be a signifi cant number of employees retiring this year and that layoffs will be unnecessary.
The biggest budget beneficiary, the Department of Public Health, is to get more than $1.5 billion. Almost $2.4 billion goes toward public works, transportation and commerce service departments, including the Municipal Transportation Agency, San Francisco International Airport and the Public Utilities Commission. Public safety services such as police, fire and courts will get more than $1 billion.
Supervisor Chris Daly was the dissenting voice in last week’s vote, which will go back to the Board for another fi nal approval in the coming week. Daly criticized the process in general, saying that the mayor’s office is at odds with the board regarding many of the budget policies.
