San Francisco, CA – Today, Mayor London N. Breed signed San Francisco’s $14.6 billion Budget following final approval by the Board of Supervisors during Tuesday’s meeting. Mayor Breed was joined by Budget Chair Supervisor Connie Chan, members of the Board of Supervisors, and other City officials at a signing ceremony on the Mayor’s Balcony at City Hall.
“Our agreement with the Board of Supervisors delivers a budget that builds on the core priorities that San Francisco residents deserve, while closing a significant budget deficit. Specifically, it will deliver critical public safety support for our neighborhoods,” said Mayor Breed. “It will drive our economic recovery and revitalize Downtown. It will confront the City’s fentanyl crisis, provide support for those struggling with homelessness, and create opportunities for all San Franciscans to thrive. I want to thank the members of the Budget Committee, including Chair Connie Chan, for their work on this agreement.”
"This has been a challenging budget year and the work is not done. But let's take this one step at a time, today we can celebrate this milestone," said Budget Chair and Supervisor Connie Chan. "Tomorrow, let’s get back to work, we have a tough road ahead of us."
The City is working to implement the Mayor’s top priorities, including the strategic plans laid out in the Roadmap to Downtown’s Future, Housing for All, Home by the Bay, Children and Family Recovery Plan, and the Climate Action Plan.
Mayor Breed’s two-year Budget builds on these strategic plans in her work to deliver a clean and safe City, drive the City’s economic recovery, confront the City’s fentanyl crisis, create opportunities for all San Franciscans to thrive, and ensure people have a safe and affordable place to call home.
Key priorities funded in the Budget, include the following:
Delivering A Clean and Safe City
This Budget meets key public safety priorities proposed by Mayor Breed to make residents, workers, and visitors safe in this City. The Budget builds back the Police Force to meet long-term hiring goals, including hiring 220 more police officers over the next two years, expands alternatives to policing to free up officers to focus on crime and safety issues, and delivers more tools for accountability of open-air drug markets.
It also funds Public Works cleaning crews who power wash sidewalks, remove litter, and sweep gutters, and provides courtesy graffiti removal for storefronts and other private property in neighborhood commercial corridors.
Restoring our Downtown and Economy
The Budget makes significant investments in supporting Mayor Breed’s Roadmap to Downtown’s Future, as well as broadly supporting San Francisco’s economic recovery.
To strengthen the economy and fill vacancies in the City, the Budget is balanced assuming tax incentives to keep existing businesses stable and to recruit new businesses to fill empty offices Downtown.
The Budget funds key programs to help fill empty storefronts, including investments in the Powell Street Corridor, the new Vacant to Vibrant program, which matches pop-up activations with property owners, and First Year Free, which waives all City fees for new small businesses in the year they open.
Continuing Progress on Homelessness
The Budget makes an initial investment in implementing the City’s Five-year Strategic Homeless Plan, Home By the Bay, which sets a goal of cutting unsheltered homelessness in half over the next five years. This builds on the 15% reduction in unsheltered homelessness San Francisco has seen since 2019.
This Budget agreement delivers a key proposal to fund 600 new shelter beds, 1,055 new permanent housing placements, and 1,650 new prevention and problem-solving placements to help rapidly re-house individuals who do fall into homelessness.
To implement accountability measures and ensure the funding is deployed effectively and efficiently, the Budget funds key positions to ensure the City has the capacity to execute the ambitious five-year plan.
Ramping Up Behavioral Health Efforts
The Budget include investments in help for those struggling with homelessness and mental illness, and an increased focus on abstinence-based programs to work alongside expanded harm reduction efforts for those most at risk of overdose.
The Budget will continue efforts launched more recently, including the ongoing expansion of 400 new treatment beds, implementation of Mental Health SF, funding for overdose prevention services in high-risk settings such as single-room occupancy hotels (SRO), addiction care specialists in the emergency room at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and street outreach work.
The Budget builds on these programs with new efforts in key areas, including expanding abstinence-based programs, launching CARE Court implementation, and opening Wellness Hubs.
Supporting Children, Youth and Families
The Budget continues to fund the Children and Family Recovery Plan, including leading early childhood and education initiatives like ensuring distribution of childcare vouchers to low-income families, funding for the landmark compensation initiative for early educators, pipeline programs to support recruitment and retention of early educators, and childcare facilities construction and improvements.
The funding supports after school and summer programming designed to ensure continuous support and programming for children and youth outside of school hours throughout the school year and summer. The Budget funds the Student Success Fund, which was approved by voters in 2022. The Fund provides grants to the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and schools to implement programs that improve academic achievement and social/emotional wellness of students.
The livestream for the Mayor’s Budget signing ceremony may be found here.
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