Mayor Daniel Lurie recently debuted his nearly $16 billion budget for fiscal year 2025-2026. Mayor Lurie’s proposed budget will close an $800 million-plus budget deficit at the expense of the working class and the city’s most vulnerable.

The People’s Budget Committee has released a list of the programs on the chopping block. Among them are City College of San Francisco, which offers job training and a route to the state college and University of California systems for many low-income residents, will see nearly a quarter of its budget cut. MUNI, relied on by working San Franciscans, will reduce routes at a time when bus ridership has risen to pre-pandemic levels. 

The immigrant community is being particularly hard hit at a time when it is under assault from the policies of President Donald Trump. San Francisco’s Office of Civic Engagement and Community Affairs, which plays a direct role in serving immigrants, will see a 7% reduction over the next two years. The Public Defender’s Office has been denied additional funding for its Immigration Defense Unit as it braces for an onslaught in cases.

Nonprofits, serving struggling San Franciscans and with a mission broader than legal services, will feel much of the pain. The mayor has proposed slashing $182 million in contracts and nonprofit spending. For 20 years the city has offloaded essential services onto nonprofits in the name of cost-savings. It awards contracts to community nonprofits to do the gritty, exhausting and underpaid work of serving those most in need: The homeless, the hungry, the elderly and the disabled, many of whom are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, people of color and LGBTQIA+. 

At the same time, the city is facing the looming threat of federal funding cuts to absolutely vital programs like Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Section 8 and other housing assistance, education, and HIV grants and research. San Francisco receives as much as $2 billion in federal funding each year. Mayor Lurie’s $400 million set-aside will do little to mitigate the harm.

Many times, a nonprofit worker is the first point of contact for a San Franciscan in trouble. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Reina Tello, a community organizer with PODER (People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights) provided direct outreach to a growing RV community at Candlestick Point. “It took a lot of work and trust building for them to even open their doors,” Tello said. “We found that it was actually people who were working that had fallen into hard times.”

Tello eventually secured a promise for more permanent housing at a new homeless shelter in Bayview. Before the spots became available, the RV site was cleared. Now Mayor Lurie wants to eliminate overnight RV parking in San Francisco altogether, yet another assault on vulnerable communities.

While social service programs are on the chopping block, SFPD’s budget will be protected along with that of other public safety agencies. Lurie’s is an elitist view of public safety. Community safety comes from community investment.  “The real impact is an increase in poverty,” said Jose Pavona, a care manager at housing nonprofit HOMEY. “We're already seeing jails overloaded. We're going to see an increase in violence. This is not public safety. Disassembling and bulldozing the public infrastructure that the city has built is reckless and dangerous for everybody at any class level.”

PODER is one of the nonprofits in the People’s Budget Coalition calling on Mayor Lurie and the Board of Supervisors to refrain from balancing the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable and the working class. People’s Budget member and former Supervisor John Avalos says, “This year’s budget—shaped by a Mayor and Board majority more focused on appeasing the wealthy and powerful than meeting the needs of our most vulnerable — mirrors the federal government’s fascist agenda: Dismantling the public commons and shredding the social safety net to fund deportations, state repression of civil rights, tax breaks to billionaires, consolidated power in the hands of an oligarchy.”

Missing from Mayor Lurie’s budget is any attempt to increase taxes on the city’s wealthiest. San Francisco’s business leaders have been loath to foot the bill for city services. In fact, Airbnb has filed a series of lawsuits against the city, one claiming that it is owed $125 million in back taxes collected from Proposition C, the homelessness services tax. Airbnb founder and chief executive Brian Chesky is among those advising Mayor Lurie.

Another worthwhile proposal is dipping into one-time funding sources. Two years ago, San Francisco received a $230 million settlement from Walgreens for the role it played in the opioid addiction crisis. The money has gone to Department of Public Health programs focusing on those suffering from addiction, a prime example of how one-time funding sources can be effectively deployed. 

San Francisco voters elected Lurie, in large part, because he promised an end to pay-to-play politics, a malady that grew to epidemic proportions under former Mayor Willie Brown and his proteges Gavin Newsom, Ed Lee and London Breed. Now, Lurie has delivered a budget that is a gift to his wealthy friends.