San Francisco budget restores $28.5 million for key services

San Francisco supervisors locked in a $16.9 billion two-year budget that restored $28.5 million in proposed cuts, preserving programs from City College to homelessness services and reversing layoffs at several city departments. The deal, approved June 25, also set aside more than $1 billion in reserves as City Hall braced for additional federal reductions.

The biggest wins landed in District 9 and the city’s safety net. Funding was restored for Free City College, HIV prevention services, senior services, immigrant services, LGBTQ+ services and homelessness programs, after Mayor Daniel Lurie’s June 1 proposal had tried to close a $642 million deficit with a mix of cuts and roughly 500 layoffs. Some of the pink slips already issued earlier in 2026 were rolled back, including jobs at the 311 call center, Laguna Honda Hospital and the Human Services Agency.

The budget fight moved quickly by San Francisco standards. Budget chair Connie Chan was credited with keeping negotiations on track and producing an early consensus, while Jackie Fielder’s office led the effort to protect District 9 programs and services. The final package came together as the city tried to reduce a structural deficit the mayor’s office pegged at roughly $300 million, while also arguing that reserves were needed to cushion the impact of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal cuts to health care and food assistance.

Organizers outside City Hall also forced the issue. People’s Budget Coalition organizer Anya Worley-Ziegmann said the result showed that “public pressure works.” That pressure had been building for months, after hundreds of protesters packed City Hall hallways and earlier rallies drew more than 1,000 people as nonprofits warned that reductions would hit food banks, language-access services, legal aid, housing and other basic services.

Fielder was the lone dissenting vote when the full Board of Supervisors approved the budget. She said, “In a deficit year, SFPD and the sheriff’s department got a $50 million increase while programs serving immigrant families and BIPOC were gutted.” Her objection underscored the central divide in the final deal: public safety agencies gained while advocates managed to claw back enough money to keep vulnerable residents and neighborhood nonprofits from absorbing the full hit.

The add-backs were substantial by budget-fight standards, but still small beside the city’s overall finances. Supervisors had also clawed back $41.4 million over two years in the previous budget cycle, a reminder that a few million dollars can decide whether a nonprofit closes a door, a clinic keeps staff, or a city call center keeps answering the phone.