A $16.9 Billion Budget, a $642 Million Hole. Cops and Firefighters Got Raises Anyway.
On June 1, 2026, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie (D) handed the Board of Supervisors a $16,900,000,000 two-year budget built to close a $642,000,000 deficit. The headline trade-off is plain in the numbers: police officers and firefighters keep a 14% raise negotiated this year, while the savings come almost entirely from jobs no one is sitting in.
Rather than a wave of pink slips, Lurie’s plan leans on attrition: roughly 550 positions disappear this budget season, but only nine of them are currently filled. The 127 layoffs already issued in the spring, plus more than 400 long-vacant slots, do most of the work.
This is a Democratic mayor of a Democratic city producing a budget that funds the badge and spares the workforce — and we report it straight. The figures below come from the Mayor’s Office, the city’s budget documents, and Bay Area outlets that read the line items. Where the math is contested — and the structural deficit ahead is large — we say so.
- $16,900,000,000total two-year proposed budget (FY2026–27 and FY2027–28) — Mayor’s Office · June 1, 2026
- $642,000,000two-year deficit the budget closes; ~$300,000,000 of it structural — SF Standard · Mission Local
- 14%pay raise over four years for police and firefighters — ~$100,000,000 over two years — Mission Local · CBS Bay Area
- ~550positions eliminated — but only 9 currently filled; mass layoffs avoided — SF Examiner · Mission Local
- $20,000,000for new police cars and fire trucks; a separate $100,000,000 housing reserve — SF Examiner · SF Standard
$16.9 billion across two years, balanced on paper. The number that gets rounded up to “$17 billion.”
Mayor Daniel Lurie (D)released his proposed budget on June 1, 2026, covering the next two fiscal years — FY2026–27 and FY2027–28. The total lands at $16,900,000,000, which several outlets, including KQED, round up to the “$17,000,000,000budget” in their headlines. Under city charter rules, the budget must be balanced; the Board of Supervisors now negotiates it toward an August 1, 2026 deadline.
The deficit the plan closes is roughly $642,000,000 over the two years. Of that, Lurie says about $300,000,000 is structural — meaning ongoing spending was permanently brought down to match revenue, not papered over with one-time money. New revenue helps: receipts from the city’s 2024 Proposition M tax overhaul and higher public-health reimbursements both feed the ledger.
The shape of the budget is unmistakable. Public safety is held harmless and even built up, while the cuts fall on vacant headcount, slowed hiring, and a contested set of nonprofit and public-health grants. That is a defensible set of priorities for a city still selling a “comeback” story — and it is also the choice that the unions and service providers on the losing end are fighting hardest.
A 14% raise locked in before the budget was written. $100 million over two years, $300 million over four.
The pay package did not start with the budget — it started at the bargaining table. In March 2026, the city reached a tentative deal giving the San Francisco Police Officers Association a 14% raise over four years, about 3.5% a year, with additional bumps for officers at eight and ten years of service. The International Association of Firefighters Local 798 landed the same headline figure. Both unions ratified by more than 95%.
The contracts run from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2030 and carry a price tag of about $100,000,000 over the first two years — roughly $300,000,000 over the full four. Because most of that cost was already baked into the deficit projection, the new contracts added only about $2,000,000 on top. On the equipment side, the budget sets aside $20,000,000 for a new fleet of police cars and fire trucks. The Mayor’s release states the budget “avoids any cuts to sworn officers.”
- →Police and fire 14% raise over four years — about $100,000,000 over the first two fiscal years.
- →Full four-year cost of the public-safety contracts: roughly $300,000,000 (contracts run July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2030).
- →Net new cost on top of the existing deficit projection: about $2,000,000 — most was already budgeted.
- →SFPD operating budget: about $822,800,000 (4.45% of the city budget). SFFD: about $530,800,000 (2.87%).
- →$20,000,000 earmarked for new police cars and fire trucks; no cuts to sworn officers.
“I believe this is the best contract I have ever been a part of.”
Louis Wong, President, San Francisco Police Officers Association · via Mission Local, April 2026
Lurie on the budget: a balanced, fiscally responsible plan that protects core services — police, firefighters, first responders — and strengthens the social safety net even as federal cuts hit the city. (Paraphrased; see linked release in Sources.)
550 positions cut. Only nine are filled. The savings come from chairs nobody is in.
The politically delicate part of any deficit budget is the workforce, and Lurie’s answer is to shrink it without a mass layoff. The proposal eliminates roughly 550 positions this budget season — but more than 400 of those were long-vacant slots the city had budgeted and never filled, and only nine are currently filled by an employee. Add the 127 layoffs already issued in the spring, and that is how the headcount comes down.
The rest of the personnel savings come from a deliberate hiring slowdown — projected at roughly $97,700,000 and rising toward $132,000,000 — plus about $80,000,000more from attrition and departmental reorganization. SEIU 1021, the city’s largest union, said it was “pleased and relieved” that the next fiscal year’s budget did not add further layoffs, even as it kept fighting nonprofit and clinic cuts.
- →~414 long-vacant positions eliminated — budgeted but never filled.
- →127 layoffs already issued in spring 2026 (pink slips sent in April).
- →9 additional currently-filled positions cut on June 1, 2026 — pending Board approval.
- →Hiring slowdown projected to save about $97,700,000, rising toward $132,000,000.
- →Roughly $80,000,000 more from attrition and departmental reorganization; ~34,000 total city workforce.
A Democratic mayor, a Democratic board, a Democratic state. The names that own this budget.
This site names the officials whose decisions the numbers describe — by office and party, whether the outcome flatters them or not. San Francisco’s government is Democratic top to bottom, and this budget is the work of that government. The choice to fund the badge while trimming the bureaucracy is theirs to defend.
- Mayor Daniel Lurie (D)Mayor of San Francisco (since January 2025)Author of the $16.9 billion proposal. Funds the 14% police and fire raises and the $20 million equipment buy while closing a $642 million deficit largely through vacant-position cuts and a hiring slowdown.
- Supervisor Connie Chan (D)Chair, Board of Supervisors Budget & Appropriations CommitteeLeads the Board's review of the mayor's plan ahead of the August 1 deadline; said supervisors would 'collaborate' with Lurie to deliver city services efficiently.
- Former Mayor London Breed (D)Mayor of San Francisco (2018–January 2025)Lurie's predecessor, defeated in November 2024. The structural deficit Lurie inherited built up over years of spending that outran revenue under prior administrations.
- Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA)Governor of California; former Mayor of San Francisco (2004–2011)State-level Democratic leadership shaping the fiscal environment; the city's budget also braces for federal cuts under the Trump administration, with a new $100 million housing reserve.
San Francisco's Democratic mayor just funded a 14% raise for police and firefighters and dodged mass layoffs — closing a $642M deficit on vacant jobs and a hiring freeze. We report it straight: the badge got paid, the bureaucracy got trimmed.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrased editorial summary; not an official Truth Social post.
A $16.9 billion budget for a city of 800,000, a $642 million hole closed mostly with vacant positions, and a structural deficit of nearly a billion dollars still waiting in the wings. San Francisco funded the raises this year by emptying chairs that were already empty. The reckoning is the next budget, not this one.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrased; composite of fiscal-accountability commentary on the SF budget. Buttonless editorial card.
The badge got paid. The nonprofits and clinics took the hit. Every budget is a list of who lost.
Holding public safety harmless means the cuts land elsewhere. The budget reduces grants to community nonprofits and is slated to close three Department of Public Health community clinics, moves the SF Standard estimates could cost up to about 1,050 jobs across the nonprofit service sector. The La Raza Community Resource Center, for instance, faced a $660,000 cut, half of which — $330,000— was restored in the mayor’s final proposal.
At the same time, Lurie preserved a sizable safety net: about $120,000,000 for homelessness prevention and legal services, $90,000,000 for shelter and housing for families and youth, $77,000,000 for drug treatment and mental health, and a new $100,000,000 reserve plus $34,000,000 set aside specifically to cushion expected federal cuts to CalFresh and Medi-Cal. The fight at the Board is over which of the trimmed grants and clinics get put back.
Lurie's budget spares city jobs this year but braces for next: nonprofits warn of up to ~1,050 layoffs among service providers as grant funding is cut, even as police and fire keep their raises. (Paraphrased; full reporting linked in Sources.)
Balanced this year. A billion-dollar gap still looms. The honest version says the hard part is ahead.
Accuracy first means not overselling a balanced budget. Lurie closed the immediate $642,000,000gap, but the city’s longer-run structural deficit was still projected to reach about $1,000,000,000 by the end of the decade before this budget; the plan brings the five-year outlook down to roughly $700,000,000, a meaningful but partial dent. The city has also flagged that future years may require cutting another $81,500,000 in salary and benefits — which is where next year’s layoff fight likely begins.
That is the fair frame. Funding raises for police and firefighters and avoiding mass layoffs is a real, defensible set of choices — and it is also a budget that spends down reserves and one-time revenue while a structural gap waits in the next cycle. Both are true. The badge got paid this year; the question the Board, and the voters, face is what gets cut to keep paying it next year. We will report that with the same numbers when it arrives.
