A report from local think tank SPUR said the San Francisco police and fire contracts already account for a large share of the budget that’s truly discretionary, meaning City Hall has freedom to spend the money how it chooses because it’s not restricted by legal mandates.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Wage increases for the fire and police unions could have an outsize effect on San Francisco’s ability to pay for other programs — and set a precedent for the city’s remaining 31,000 employees, which will be negotiating contracts next year, a report from think tank SPUR said.
Dan Hernandez/S.F. Chronicle
San Francisco police officers are poised to get a 14% pay bump over the next four years under a tentative deal their union reached with City Hall, the Chronicle has learned.
The labor agreement was approved by the board of the San Francisco Police Officers Association on Wednesday, the same day a local think tank released a report questioning how much money the city can afford to pay police and firefighters while resolving its massive deficit.
Rank-and-file members of the police union must still ratify the contract in a vote that’s expected to be completed by April 1, according to union spokesperson Sam Singer. The Board of Supervisors will then consider the deal.
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Should the contract clear those hurdles, it will resolve one of the major labor issues facing Mayor Daniel Lurie’s administration, which is also negotiating a new contract with the union representing firefighters. But the generous terms of the deal also raise questions about how San Francisco will finance the police officer raises while preserving a wide range of other government services as the city seeks to resolve a projected $877 million two-year deficit.
In addition to the 14% pay increase, the agreement also provides a 3% retention bonus for officers who have been with the city for at least 5 years and might otherwise retire or leave for employment elsewhere, Singer said. The goal is to save the city money on recruitment costs, he said.
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“This agreement is a balanced one,” Louis Wong, president of the police union, said in a statement. “It provides meaningful improvements that recognize the dedication, sacrifice, and professionalism of our officers, while also being fiscally responsible at a time when San Francisco is facing a significant budget deficit.”
Wong said the contract also “sends a clear message that San Francisco values its officers.”
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Lurie, who made public safety a top priority in his 2024 mayoral campaign, praised the contract terms in his own statement.
“I am proud that we have reached a tentative agreement with the POA that supports our hard-working police officers and sets up our police department to continue the critical work of keeping San Franciscans safe,” Lurie said.
He said city police have been delivering “real results,” highlighting the city’s declining crime reports as an example. Lurie said the deal with police “safeguards the city’s long-term financial health” while assisting his efforts to reverse a years-long police staffing shortage.
It’s unclear what the pending deal with the police union will mean for the budget, but in its report on police and fire contracts, the think tank SPUR explained how labor negotiations with those groups will have ripple effects throughout the city’s strained finances.
SPUR said the police and fire contracts already account for a large share of the budget that’s truly discretionary, meaning City Hall has freedom to spend the money how it chooses because it’s not restricted by legal mandates. Wage increases for the two unions could therefore have an outsize effect on San Francisco’s ability to pay for other programs — and set a precedent for the city’s remaining 31,000 employees, which will be negotiating contracts next year, the report said.
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Police and fire union leaders took issue with some of the report’s findings and argued that it unfairly pitted essential public safety services against other government functions. But the report nonetheless highlights some of the difficult decisions facing Lurie and supervisors as they prepare to close the deficit in the coming months.
San Francisco has faced huge deficits in recent years as its tax revenue has failed to keep pace with rising costs, including labor expenses. Lurie is already facing tough battles with labor leaders this year over the budget and multiple ballot measures. The mayor’s office declined to comment on the SPUR report.
SPUR CEO Sean Elsbernd, who co-authored the report, emphasized in an interview with the Chronicle’s editorial board on Tuesday that the police and fire contract negotiations will have wide ramifications with unions representing the rest of its workforce.
Generous raises given to police officers could inspire street cleaners and bus drivers to ask for similar pay bumps, and City Hall may have a hard time saying no, said Elsbernd, who was chief of staff to former Mayor London Breed.
“I mean, you can’t get away with that,” Elsbernd told the Chronicle. “Nor should you.”
SPUR’s report found that, since the 2010 fiscal year, San Francisco’s overall staffing costs have doubled, while the number of employees grew just 25%, echoing the findings of a Chronicle analysis last year. Nearly half of the city’s $16 billion budget is dedicated to labor expenses.
The city spends about $1.2 billion — 20% of its general fund — on the police and fire departments, according to SPUR. But that proportion grew to about 40% when setting aside general fund revenue that’s restricted by voter-approved spending mandates, SPUR found.
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The report also found that city firefighters are among the most generously compensated in the Bay Area, while police officers are in the middle, when base pay, benefits, overtime and other factors are considered.
But the two public safety agencies face distinct staffing considerations, SPUR said in the report.
The Police Department has for several years been struggling to recruit and retain a sufficient number of officers, though that’s beginning to change. Officials have attributed an uptick in officer recruitment partly to pay incentives the city provided in the last union contract. But the department is still heavily reliant on overtime. Reported crimes are down in San Francisco this year, but the city is still hundreds of officers short of its recommended staffing level.
At the Fire Department, meanwhile, San Francisco has a mismatch between its staffing levels and operational needs, SPUR concluded. About 70% of the department’s staff work in fire suppression, even though about 70% of the department’s calls for service are for emergency medical assistance, not fires, SPUR said.
Sam Gebler, president of the San Francisco Firefighters Local 798 union, pushed back strongly on the report in an email to Elsbernd that Gebler shared with the Chronicle.
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Gebler said in his email that the report contained “significant fallacies and methodological biases” and relied on “poor comparisons and faulty statistics that misrepresent the reality of public safety operations.”
He disputed the report’s findings about the amount of discretionary revenue consumed by police and fire labor costs and said public safety staffing came with “unique risks and requirements” not comparable to other departments. Gebler also said that fire suppression units “serve a dual function” to put out fires and provide emergency medical services.
“The analogy that public safety costs necessitate cuts to other General Fund services is a false choice that pits vital life-safety services against non-critical government functions,” Gebler wrote.
Similarly, Wong, the police union president, said in a statement that the “average” police officer pay identified in the SPUR report “is not competitive when paired with the hard realities of policing in San Francisco.”
Wong said his union is also cautioning against “framing public safety as competing with other city services.”
“The city’s budget challenges are driven by a range of structural factors, including restricted revenues and rising fixed costs, not solely by police compensation,” Wong said.