Breed leaves Lurie a big pile o' trouble in SF
SF Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie.
San Francisco's mayor-elect will inherit a massive budget deficit, a downtown in a Doom Loop, chronic crime and homelessness. Oh, did we forget to mention a federal branch that is probably not gonna be real friendly? SF Standard's Joe Rodriguez explores.
So, wealthy Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie is mayor-elect. His wish to lead San Francisco has come to pass, the newest ballot returns show.
Congratulations, said outgoing Mayor London Breed. Here’s the key to the broken-down house. The roof is about to collapse, there’s mold in the furniture, no one paid the electric bill, and there’s a crazy guy who just moved in down the street who’s threatening to light the whole place on fire.
To wit: Lurie is inheriting San Francisco’s $800 million budget deficit, an outgoing gift Breed wrapped in a bow and left on his doorstep.
Perhaps even more daunting: at least $400 million of San Francisco’s annual budget comes from the federal government, the purse-strings of which will soon be held by president-elect Donald Trump.
And just in case anyone hasn’t heard, he isn’t exactly the biggest fan of San Francisco.
San Francisco’s downtown offices have emptied out post-pandemic, blowing a hole in the city’s tax revenue wider than the Golden Gate Bridge. Breed tackled the budget earlier this year to much fanfare, but the devil in the details may flame Lurie from the start.
In its annual revenue letter — perhaps better known as the “we told you so” screed — the controller’s office noted much of this year’s budget “relies heavily on one-time sources to balance the budget” and that policymakers will need to “consider options for constraining cost growth.” Depletion of rainy day reserves, wage freezes, staff furlough days and service reductions are all tools in the toolkit, they said.
But, ultimately, the controller cautioned that the city’s $16 billion budget faces structural problems. Translation? We spend more than we earn. And that means an experienced budget surgeon needs to start making cuts.
While Lurie repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he is not a “City Hall insider,” he’s going to need them if he’s going to pull the budget together in one piece, Harrington said. Without experienced hands at the wheel, department heads are known to present budget cuts that they know city leaders will essentially be pressured to reverse.
In his first term in office, Trump threatened to cut federal spending from sanctuary cities, including San Francisco, which a federal court ultimately halted. He also used the specter of homelessness to threaten Environmental Protection Agency funding, crowing that used needles were polluting the ocean. Federal disaster aid was also on Trump’s chopping block.
San Francisco’s vulnerability to federal mucking is vast: The city controller’s letter from earlier this year warns of “federal revenue risk,” with $570 million of reimbursements anticipated from FEMA for pandemic relief, and $21 million incurred for 2023 winter storms.
San Francisco has another glaring vulnerability Mayor Lurie will need to watch out for: mass transit.
Large-scale projects rely heavily on federal grants, which have far more largesse than a city can muster. The Central Subway, for instance, netted nearly $1 billion in the federal new starts program. Even in normal times, that needed a political push for approval.
Read the whole thing here.
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