Transcripts For SFGTV Mayor Breed On Proposed City Budget For FY 2020-21 And 2021-22 20240712

Losses. People are losing their jobs, people are losing their grip on their Mental Health. Worst of all, people are losing family members to this disease. Even as we endure these losses, im hopeful for the future. These months of Public Health crises and social unrest has shown us that when we come together, we can have the hard conversations and make the tough choices to do what needs to be done. Not just save lives but to address systemic racism head on and change society as we know it. I know today is about our budget and our path forward. As we step into the future, one that im hopeful for, is important we take a moment to recognize where weve come from. At the beginning of this year, we were living in a different world. Our Unemployment Rate was at a historic low. Tourism was at alltime high. Hotels were full, we had all plans to shape the future of this city we all love. I know i have plans to address homelessness and housing, to reimagine our Mental Health system, to improve transportation and make our streets safer and build a more equitable city. To lift up those who too often are left behind. Like i said, we had lot of plans. What we didnt have plans for was the coronavirus. It certainly had plans for us. Here we are today in a very different San Francisco with Small Businesses closing and schools struggling to bring kids back to the classrooms. With over 180 thousands san francisc100 180,000 sanfrancr unemployment. We have seen San Francisco come together in a way that makes me proud. Proud to be mayor, yes, but also proud to be a san franciscan. We Work Together to make sure thousands of people had access to medical support, to testing, food and housing. We move forward emergency policies to protect tenant and businesses from eviction. Give people emergency sick leave and keep workers safe. We raised millions of dollars in donations through give to sf to support Small Businesses, workers and vulnerable residents. We think people organized to check on elderly neighbors and deliver groceries for those who cant leave the house. While Nursing Homes across the country have been devastated by this virus, we havent had a single death among the over 700 residents at laguana hospital. Weve seen Community Groups rise up to support our most vulnerable residents in the bayview and mission and other hard hit areas. Weve seen the spirit of San Francisco rise to meet this challenge to flatten the curve and then rise once again when the virus came back the second time. Today, we are proposing a balanced budget that closes that 1. 5 billion deficit. While still meeting the needs of our city. Through all of this, we continue to protect our public workforce. Let be clear, when we talk about 180,000 san franciscans applying for unemployment, not one of those people is doing so because of city cut their job. Not one. As our economy plummeted, we wanted our city workers to focus on their health and the health of their families and on serving our residents during this crises. Not on whether or not they would have a paycheck. With the budget im proposing today, i i want to continue to prevent all layoffs. But to do that, we need our labor partners to work with us. We need them to agree to delay any planned wage increases for two years. So far, we are having good conversations with the firefighters and the Police Officers on delaying their raises im hopeful other unions will agree to do the same. I dont think this is too much to ask. Our entire city is suffering now. We all need to do our part to hair in that sacrifice. I want to be very clear, if the union dont agree to delay their raises, then we will be forced to lay people off. We will be forced to cut city services. We dont want to see those unemployment numbers go up because we are forced into layoffs. Thats not what i want. Its not what anyone wants. Im hopeful that our labor partners will step up and work with us in the coming weeks. Because there is a lot we have to do with this budget. Including continuing to fund our ongoing Covid Response. We all know we are living with covid for the next year. Likely longer than that. San francisco has been a National Leader in responding to this pandemic, thanks to our efforts to follow the data, build a testing system from scratch, create a robust Contact Tracing team and provide food, support and shelter for our most vulnerable residents. We will keep doing everything we can to get this city through this pandemic. Hopefully the federal government will continue to provide the necessary support. We know the federal government wont cover everything. Thats why we are putting 93 million from our general fund towards supporting our continued Covid Response. This is a significant investment but honestly, its not really a choice. Without a strong and sustained Covid Response our students wont return to school, people wont go back to work and our economy wont recover. Even as we continue to wrestle with covid, we cant lose sight of other key priorities. Our homelessness crises didnt go with covid. Covid has made it even more challenging. I know people are frustrated with what they see on our streets. We have had to reduce capacity in our existing shelters by 70 leaving more people out on the streets. Our outreach workers continue to do very difficult work all while practicing social distancing. We met this challenge by moving thousands of people into hotel rooms, trailers, safe sleeping site and new emergency shelters. This work took an amazing effort from city staff and nonprofit partners, work that normally take months and years in planning and implementation done in a matter of weeks. The tenderloin alone we moved over 500 people. We are expanding those efforts oeffort neighborhoods like selma and the mission. While we are seeing some progress, frankly its clearly not enough. We need more than shortterm hotel rooms. We more than parking lots for safe sleeping sites. We need housing. Lots of housing. Thats why this budget funds 1500 new units supportive housing. Which is part of our homeless Recovery Plan to move 4500 people from hotels, shelters and the streets into housing in the next two years. It will help us as a city meet the needs of the unsheltered and our residents who are frustrated by the conditions they see everyday in our neighborhoods. We also cant lose the progress weve made on improving our Mental Health system. Including funding Mental Health sf. That means adding more Mental Health beds, expanding our Behavioral Health Access Center so people can get Immediate Care when they need it and improving the system of care so that people struggling with Mental Illness and addiction. Were also creating a new Crises Response Team so that when you call 911 or 311, because someone on the street is clearly having a mental breakdown, we can send a team which includes a paramedics, clinician and Behavioral Health peer. We need to shift the burden Mental Health response call away from the police its not fair to ask our officers to do the work of Mental Health professionals. Its not effective for those in crises. This is a key piece of our Police Reform efforts. In addition to doing the work to call for service, i laid out three other major areas for Police Reform. Addressing accountability and bias, getting rid of military grade weapon and equipment and redirecting Law Enforcement funding towards the Africanamerican Community. While all are important, its the last one i want to talk about today. As a black woman who grew up in poverty in this city, Police Brutality was all too common. It was something we expected and complaints were usually ignored. Two months ago, the murder of george floyd shook this country to its core. In a way that i have never seen before. People responded like i have never seen before. Seeing people not just africanamericans, rise up against Police Brutality gave me hope that real change in this country is possible. But for those who support this movement, for those who truly believe that black lives matter, its important that we listen to black voices. Its important that we allow black people to lead this movement. Im not just talking about me or any of our black elected leaders who have been fighting this fight for generations. I mean we have to listen to the people in the community. We have to listen to the people who have seen and lived the devastation resulting from decades of disinvestment. We have to listen to the people who dont come to city hall because theyve known too many broken promises, made by those in this building who believe they know what is best for black people in this city. Thats why the first thing supervisor Shamann Walton and i said, when we announced we wanted to reprioritize funding to support the black community, was that this had to be a communityled process. Earlier this week, the Human Rights Commission released an initial report that highlighted what the Community Wants us to focus on. This report is the first step in guiding not just the investments we make with this budget but the change we need to make in the years to come. Changing the inequities in our country wont happen overnight. We wont change the fact that africanamericans have the lowest Median Household Income in San Francisco overnight. We wont change the fact that black people have the highest mortality rate for nine of the top ten causes of death in San Francisco overnight. We wont change the fact that Graduation Rates for africanamerican students in our Public School system is just 53 . We wont change that overnight. We wont change the fact that nearly half of San Francisco Police Department used to force cases involve black people overnight. We will change these facts with this budget. We are listening to the community and prioritizing investments in the Africanamerican Community around housing, Mental Health and wellness, workforce development, economic justice, education, advocacy and accountability. As a first step in this effort, we will redirect 120 million from Law Enforcement to support these priorities over the next two years. Let me repeat that, this is 120 million. Its a first step. If we are going to make real change, we need to do the hard work. Its going to take all of us coming together, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. I often talk about how i overcame poverty, despair and vince to become violence to become mayor. My goal with these investments and this change in how we prioritize the black community is simple. I want my story, my experience to be the norm and not the exception. I want black girls growing up today to rise not in spite of their upbringing here in the city but because of it. I want black boys growing up today to thrive because we chose how to change the city and how this country treats our young black men. Not as a statistic or an tragedy but as an important part of our citys future. If we accomplished nothing more than that during my time as mayor, i will leave this office proud. I want to end by acknowledging the leadership of a few of the people who are central to this budget process. First, i want to thank board president norman yee and budget chair supervisor sandy fewer to continuing to be strong and collaborative leaders. Over the coming weeks, we will work with both of them and the board of supervisors to finalize this budget so that we can continue to deliver for the people of San Francisco. I want to thank controller ben rosen field for the work he and his team has put in as well as all the city departments who worked to find ways for us to close this deficit. Finally, i want to thank my budget team. Led by ashley golfenburgering. San francisco is lucky to have these two strong smart women leading this challenging process. Now at this time, i want to introduce ashley whos going to give us a short presentation on our budget. Good afternoon, thank you mayor breed. Im the mayors acting budget director. I like to thank the rest of the mayors Budget Office team who worked so hard to put this budget together under mayor breeds leadership. Today im happy to walk you through the details of the mayors fiscal year 2021 and 2 2122 budget. The total size of the proposed budget is 13. 7 billion in fiscal year 2021 and 12. 6 billion in fiscal year 202122. The fiscal year 2021 proposely budget represents a 1. 4 billion increase over the fiscal year 1920 budget primarily driven by one expenditure related to the covid19 pandemic which go away in the second year of the budget. The total proposed budget is made up of 7. 5 billion or 54 Nongeneral Fund expenditures which include enterprise and selfsupporting activities. 6. 2 or 46 of general Fund Expenditures. It is important to note that selfsupporting and Enterprise Funding are restricted and not eligible to be used to balance the citys General Fund Budget. These includes things like operations that are airport, the Public Utilities commission, port and the mta. It is also important to note that the 3. 9 billion of the 6. 2 billion in general Fund Expenditures are restricted by state and federal reimbursements and voter mandated services for children, transit and seniors. The remaining 2. 3 billion represents Discretionary Fund budget available to pay for the Public Services san franciscans rely on. The mayors proposed budget achieved four key objectives. It balances the budget responsibly, avoiding layoffs for City Employees and Major Service cuts, it makes progress on shared priorities of homelessness and Behavioral Health. It reinvest significant resources toward initiatives that support Racial Equity and identifying alternatives to policing and it maintains a robust importance to the covid19 pandemic. The mayors required by the charter to submit a balance twoyear budget. The proposed budget utilizes variety of one time and ongoing revenue and expenditures solutions to balance this projected shortfall while also investing in shared priority areas. The may 2020 joint report projected a 1. 5 billion twoyear General Fund Budget shortfall. Driven by stark revenue losses resulting from the Economic Impact of the covid19 emergency. In july, worsening Economic Conditions resulted in a further downgrade of revenue projections for the upcoming budget period. To overcome the shortfall, the mayors proposed budget utilizes reserves, new revenue and other savings. The mayors proposed budget utilizes 340 million from the citys main economic reserves during the budget period ensuring reserve balances remain in tact to hedge against future risk. The budget assumes ongoing excess reserve from the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund or eraf to balance the shortfall. The proposed budget assumes 300 million that will become available with the passage of Business Tax Reform measure. In order to avoid layoffs and maintain critical city services, the mayor has asked the citys labor unions to defer scheduled wage increases over the period of the twoyear budget. The savings associated with that are reflected this proposed budget. Lastly, the mayors proposed budget assumed many citywide and departmental saving. It includes underfunding the citys Capital Equipment and i. T. Programs, only funding critical projects while deferring other new costs. This also includes savings offered by city departments that keep positions vacant and achieve other efficiencies all while avoiding layoffs and Major Service impacts. Taken together, these solutions equal 1. 9 billion over the two years. Despite the economic challenges we face, the mayors propose the budget is able to make over 300 million in targeted investments in priority areas. The mayors proposed budget invest general fund dollars in Behavioral Health and homelessness, maintaining the investments weve made in shelter, Navigation Centers and Behavioral Health beds while also feeding new general fund support such as the homeless rory plan and Mental Health sf which will be implemented through the passage of the november business tax measure. The proposed budget also reinvest 120 million in Law Enforcement funding over the next two years to support programs and services that benefit the Africanamerican Community and advance Racial Equity in our city. The proposed budget also seeks to prioritize youth investing 15 million in onetime support to the San Francisco Unified School District to provide needed Financial Relief and support for vulnerable students. Lastly, the mayors proposed budget maintains robust response to the ongoing covid19 pandemic. Allocated 100 million in new general fund support. The mayors proposed budget is able to close the projected shortfall without layoffs and Minimal Service impacts. However, we are just beginning to see the effects of this recession and must remain vigilant of the risks that uncertainties that lie ahead. Before the pandemic, San Francisco had approximately 1 billion in reserves. The proposed budget will utilize about half of those reserves over the coming three years, leaving the remainder to hedge against significant risk that far exceed the remaining reserves. These risks include the failure of the november 2020 Business Tax Reform measure, which should not prevail could create 300 million shortfall. The proposed budget assumes that the city continues to receive fema reimbursements for eligible covid expenditures through the end of the fiscal year. Should the federal government declare the emergency over, the city would face a significant financial burden to continue to respond to covid. A prolonged worsening of the pandemic would negatively impact the citys finances both in the form of ongoing expenditures not planned for in this budget and in worsening conditions that can further slow economic recovery. While we believe the assumptions around access eraf and other state revenues are sounds, theres risk that worsening conditions that the state level can result in further losses of state revenue. Lastly, while this budget proposed ongoing solutions, the city still faces a structural deficit and must maintain reserves. To conclude, while the proposed budget balanced it is balance end on a number of asunshines that could fail to materialize which under underscores the importance maintain reserves to guard against these future risks. Thank you. Thank you ashley. Thank you again. Nothing about this pandemic is easy. Nothing is certain. I believe that the more transparent we are with the facts and the more honest we are with the challenges we face, the better off we will all be. I know we will get this budget passed. We will continue to keep people healthy and safe and we will get through this challenging time shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their business in the 49 square files of San Francisco. We help San Francisco remain unique, successful and right vi. So where will you shop and dine in the 49 . Im one of three owners here in San Francisco and we provide mostly live Music Entertainment and we have food, the type of food that we have a mexican food and its not a big menu, but we did it with love. Like ribeye tacos and quesadillas and fries. For latinos, it brings Families Together and if we can bring that family to your business, youre gold. Tonight we have russelling for e community. We have a tenperson limb elimination match. We have a fullsize ring with barside food and drink. We ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar. Were hope og get families to join us. Weve done a drag queen bingo and were trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. This is a great part of town and theres a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. Theres a popular little shop that all of the kids like to hanhang out at. We have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies. Some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and its exciting. We even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat. Its in the San Francisco Garden District and four beautiful muellermixer ura alsomurals. Its important to shop local because its kind of like a circle of life, if you will. We hire local people. Local people spend their money at our businesses and those local mean that wor people willr money as well. I hope people shop locally. [ ]. ] chair peskin good afternoon and welcome to the land use and transportation meeting of august 10, 2020. I am chair aaron peskin, joined by supervisor dean preston. I dont believe that weve been joined by our vice chair, supervisor safai, but he will be joining us, but we have been joined by supervisor safai. Our clerk is miss erica major. Miss major, do you have any