How to keep going and growing during a tough city budget cycle was the subject of a community meeting on Monday evening.
The San Francisco People’s Budget Coalition, joined by District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen and her staff, along with representatives from many nonprofit organizations, filled the Excelsior’s Family Connections Center for a budget town hall.
Over 30 attendees heard a presentation from the coalition’s Anya Worley-Ziegmann on the challenges residents and community organizations will face over the nearly $1 billion city budget deficit, alongside ways to protect various programs and resources before the June 1 deadline.
“This is the worst budget deficit we’ve seen in almost a decade,” Worley-Ziegmann said. “The services that will get cut this year might never come back. We might lose things this year that we're not going to get back. The [budget] decisions that are made this year are going to impact our city for decades to come.”
Dealing with a tough budget isn’t new. Last year, the city dealt with similar issues with the budget, with city officials trying to tackle a $876 million deficit. Though it’s a new year with a larger deficit, the issues for the district’s community leaders remain the same.
"Anytime we are in a deficit, cuts have to be made,” Youth 1st Executive Director Renard Monroe told The Ingleside Light. “Difficult decisions have to be made. The one thing that is missed by us in District 11 is the fact that we have been the most underserved district for decades, underresourced and underrepresented, so any cuts are devastating to our district.”
Outside of funding cuts to community organizations and programs, other proposed cost-saving measures include laying off 500 city employees, 127 of whom have already been notified that their jobs will be terminated.
Jackie Prager, Chen’s legislative aide, said Proposition D, a ballot initiative on the June ballot that would increase the business tax based on the executive-to-employee pay ratio, has the potential to generate $300 million for the city’s general fund.
“We do have to find creative ways to generate more revenue for the city, whether it be taxes like Prop D on the ballot or fighting against tax breaks that disproportionately impact things like affordable housing,” Prager said, citing the Balanced Update to Incentivize Local Development or BUILD Act aims, which would give tax breaks to developers in order to accelerate housing development.
“If we're going to cut food security but offer tax breaks to that degree, we have to find a way to create balance, and that's what we try our best to figure out throughout the course of the budget process,” Prager said.
Despite this, she said there is some good news. They are hearing from the Controller’s Office that there is a projected 30% decrease in the deficit, and with the recent Airbnb settlement, tied-up funds could be used to offset some cuts.
Think Of People First
To help visualize the budgeting process, Worley-Ziegmann asked for three volunteers to build a budget that reflects their values and priorities using ping-pong balls that would be dropped into five categories: community health, culture & recreation, human welfare, public protection, and public works & admin.
Excelsior Works’ Pedro Carneiro, SF City and County employee Cynthia M., and Mission YMCA’s Laura Padilla were first asked to place one of their balls into a category that was their initial interest for investment.
“I put my first amount into the human welfare budget,” Cynthia M. said. “I put it there because I definitely believe that when we think of the people first, everything kind of falls into line, so supporting our community members by making sure that they're able to be fed, clothed, and housed before anything.”
They were then asked to place their remaining balls into the baskets. Each volunteer, without consulting the others, placed the balls into four baskets. They collectively created a budget that had 20% of funds each going to culture & recreation, community health, and public works. The remaining 40% went to human welfare, and nothing went to public protection.
“We all need access to resources like clothing, housing and jobs, but it's also important that we invest in our public health,” Carneiro said. “People sometimes don't have access to medications or doctor visits. That's something really important, even for my community, the LGBT community, so public health is a big one here.”
Worley-Ziegmann then compared the volunteer budget to the city’s actual budget, which showed 36.4% going to public protection, 21.1% to public works, 20.1% to human welfare, 16.8% to community health, and 5.6% to culture & recreation. This comparison left attendees in shock, with one audibly saying, “That’s horrible.”
“I think this was made very clear by what we just did in those pie charts, that it does need to be a big priority to take the money out of what they're just pouring into the police and just increasing it and to put that into the things we actually need to survive like health care,” said Freedom Socialist Party member Sam Rubin, who also called for a general city-wide strike. “What we need to actually cut from the police, we can bring back those other jobs and even create and fill new ones that are good non-police city jobs, kind of jobs that actually provide real, actual public service.”
Worley-Ziegmann highlighted the impact on racial and gender-based equity these budget cuts would have, from data gathered by the coalition in its weekly updated cuts spreadsheet. She said that the Filipino organizations and Pacific Islander and Transgender communities would be losing 20% of their total funding, while Black communities would be impacted by 15%.
Chen said that it’s important to continue to make sure that those seeking services in the community get respect and also have dignity. She said she is proud to be fighting alongside the community and the coalition to make sure that every single penny that is serving the district and serving the most vulnerable populations in the city is protected.
“I think our city has to really look at [District 11] and look at who we are, and we deserve a fair budget that is equitable, that is also accessible,” Chen said. “That means with trusted partners that is serving our community and also with proximity, where community safety is also about making sure that you are safely getting to know your neighbors and you are actually getting services within the community.”
The meeting concluded with remarks from representatives of organizations such as the Filipino Community Center and Performing Arts Workshop, who shared the personal and community-wide impacts their organizations have had and how cuts to their budget would impact them.
The coalition asked attendees to complete postcards with their thoughts on the budget and invited them to hand-deliver the cards to the Office of Mayor Daniel Lurie on May 12.
“District 11 is the most multi-cultural and diverse in ages and multi-generational, and we need to keep that the way that it is,” Reina Tello said. “The fabric of San Francisco is D11. We represent what San Francisco values are, and so we really need to get out and advocate.”
