Supes Redirect $60 Million Before Forwarding Budget

The Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee on Friday redirected about $60 million in the mayor’s budget proposal to housing the homeless, public safety, LGBT services, programs for at-risk youth and food security needs. The growth reflects San Francisco’s economic rebound. Since 2011-12, the budget has grown by 41 percent. Overall, the priorities outlined in the mayor’s budget are to address homelessness, violence prevention and police reform, and the reallocation largely fell in line with those goals. “This budget year was extremely challenging, given all of our dynamics on the board, but I was proud to invest in the top priorities our residents expect to see and to continue to place record amounts into our budget reserves to protect against the next economic downturn,” said Supervisor Mark Farrell, who chairs the committee. Reallocated money — about $2.5 million — will also help launch Getting to Zero, a health initiative that aims to end new HIV infections in San Francisco. “While we had formulated a very strong and innovative plan to attain those goals, the funding to implement the plan was lacking,” Wiener said. Lee said he was happy with how the committee chose to reinvest the money, like neighborhood safety and police reform. $7 million to LGBT specific services and Getting to Zero, an initiative to get to zero new HIV infections in San Francisco