City projects multi-year deficits; SFFD told to plan 5% and 8% cuts

San Francisco — Deputy Director Mark Corso briefed the Fire Commission on Jan. 11 about the city’s fiscal outlook and mayoral budget instructions that will require departments to find structural reductions.

Corso said the city’s joint report projects a multi-year deterioration in revenues and benefit-cost pressures, and that the mayor’s office has instructed general-fund departments to reduce adjusted general-fund support by 5% in the first year and 8% in the second year. For the Fire Department Corso estimated the 5% reduction equals roughly $6.9 million and the 8% reduction roughly $11 million.

Why it matters: The department told commissioners that approximately 90% of its budget goes to salaries and benefits for frontline operational staff, which limits options for non-personnel cuts and raises the risk that reductions could affect minimum staffing or services.

Commissioner follow-up: Commissioners requested an early sources-and-uses spreadsheet and asked whether the city’s projections assume a recession; Corso said the current figures do not assume a recession and that additional midyear reductions could be requested if conditions worsen. He said departments typically must respond to any mayoral midyear reduction requests and that the budget schedule calls for departmental submittals in February and a mayoral balanced budget by June 1.

Next steps: Corso said further budget hearings will occur through the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee, and he offered to provide more detailed departmental information ahead of the commission’s next meeting.