San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee signed the city’s first-ever two-year budget today, which is also the largest budget in San Francisco history.
Lee signed the $7.3 billion budget at a ceremony at City Hall attended by many of the top city officials.
“Let’s get this started because everyone wants a paycheck,” he joked.
The budget closes a general fund deficit for fiscal year 2012-2013 that had initially been projected at $263 million, but was reduced to about $170 million because of better than expected revenue growth.
Lee said the budget “builds on our success,” and “invests seriously in our neighborhoods, in our small business corridors.”
The budget also includes plans to fund six new police academy classes of 50 officers each over the next two years, as well as six fire academy classes over the next six years.
The city’s Board of Supervisors had given final approval of the budget on Tuesday, and several supervisors attended the ceremony, including board president David Chiu.
Chiu called this year’s budget “fundamentally different,” not just because of its two-year vision but because the board did not have to “combat massive, half-billion dollar budget deficits” as in recent years.
Supervisor Carmen Chu, who chairs the board’s budget committee, said this year’s budget also includes more than $30 million set aside for reserves in the general fund, an increase from previous city budgets.
Chu said that shows the city is “really planning forward for the future and making sure we’re responsible for it.”
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
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