While several AI companies went public and minted at least 1,300 overnight millionaires, further deepening San Francisco’s extreme wealth concentrations and inequalities, Mayor Daniel Lurie is proposing a budget that would slash programs relied upon by some of San Francisco’s most vulnerable residents. Lurie’s budget means more for the wealthy, less for the poor, and a shrinking role for the government to provide for the public good. It is said budgets reflect values, and it is now apparent those are Lurie’s.

San Francisco is undeniably in its own Gilded Age. We have the third highest income inequality in the country, and while the city is home to dozens of billionaires, more than 12% of residents live in poverty, with more than 8,000 unhoused. Inequality has only worsened with the recent artificial intelligence boom, pushing rents and evictions to unprecedented highs. While new tech wealth floods the city, San Francisco’s leadership largely resists taxing corporate wealth, and instead looks to cut programs that would counteract the affordability crisis. 

This budget is in an important sense a self-imposed crisis. Mayor Lurie joined the Astroturf Network in strongly opposing Proposition D, the labor-backed measure that would have brought in as much as $300 million a year by taxing corporations with overpaid executives. That amount happens to be around the same that the Mayor seeks to cut from the budget. While Lurie claims he would have proceeded with the cuts even with Prop D’s passage — suggesting for the Mayor, taking resources from poor people was perhaps the point — the measure would have given the city an avenue to balance the budget without slashing the social safety net. Instead, Lurie leveraged his popularity to scuttle the measure. Now, the Mayor is proposing to close the gap by cutting vital services for the homeless, seniors, students and the LGBTQ community. 

The 350-page document that is the Mayor’s Budget Book, and the Mayor’s press releases, obfuscate rather than clarify the cuts that are on the table. But the People’s Budget Coalition has mapped the damage: “More than 25,000 San Franciscans lose essential services and more than 1,500 nonprofit and city workers are laid off.”

Some of the largest and most devastating cuts are to public health programs. The Coalition finds that at least 7,000 residents will be affected by cuts to HIV and AIDS prevention services. That is in addition to the Trump Administration cuts already underway. In a city that has long been at the forefront of HIV prevention, they threaten to undo hard-fought progress in managing the epidemic. Also at risk are more than 700 youth and seniors served by clinics including the Cole Street Clinic, the Michael Baxter Larkin Street Youth Clinic, and the Southeast Mission Geriatric Clinic. In all, around $57 million is at risk for the Department of Public Health (DPH).

Beyond the health cuts, 2,600 transgender and gender-nonconforming San Franciscans will lose dedicated programs, including almost half a million for the Transgender District, heightening the pressure on a community that is facing targeting at the federal level. 

As the housing affordability crisis only worsens, some $7.5 million in cuts are proposed to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, including funds that support tenant stability, family support, youth services and neighborhood-based community organizations. While the state and city see a growing senior population at risk of homelessness — 25% of those experiencing homelessness in San Francisco are over the age of 50  — a further reduction of $8.9 million are on the table for senior and disability programs, affecting as many as 6,000 people. A June 15th rally brought dozens of seniors to City Hall to protest and deliver letters — some even dressed as Wizard of Oz characters, pleading with the city to “have a heart” and restore program funding. 

At City College, students will face reduced access to the tuition-free program, an almost 60% funding reduction that will affect more than 18,000 students each year. 

Beyond specific program cuts, the Mayor’s budget seeks to broadly freeze City Hall hiring and to eliminate vacant positions. About 400 jobs would go unfilled, in addition to 127 layoffs earlier this year, bringing the total number of lost positions to almost 550. The end result is to stymie the government’s ability to deliver essential services.

Notably spared from major cuts are the Police and Sheriff’s departments. They, in fact, are seeing substantial raises for officers, even as police overtime abuse falls under city scrutiny. Police will receive a 14% raise over the next four years as part of a previously negotiated contract, consistent with the Mayor's emphasis on policing despite the lack of connection between staffing levels and crime rates.

How the city’s budget is balanced is a political choice. Lurie and his billionaire allies fought efforts to fund services by taxing major corporations. They killed  Prop D, and with it, around $300 million in city revenue. Lurie’s record-breaking investment in his own election is paying off for him and his billionaire allies, further shifting the city’s financial burden from the wealthy to seniors, the LGBT community, students, and working families.