Mayor Daniel Lurie’s first San Francisco budget negotiations were not as dramatic as they could have been, despite vigorous opposition from labor unions and nonprofits over his plan to close the city’s huge deficit.
When Lurie introduced his proposal to eliminate a roughly $800 million two-year shortfall, he sought to cut 1,300 vacant jobs and about 100 filled positions. But city lawmakers on Thursday reached a deal with Lurie to prevent 56 layoffs, blunting the impact on San Francisco’s vast municipal workforce that is already one of the largest in the country. The mayor allocated funding for about 33,000 city employees next fiscal year.
Unions sounded the alarm about the budget even before it was proposed by Lurie, unsuccessfully urging him to avoid deep cuts by calling on tech companies to drop lawsuits seeking tax refunds. As the Board of Supervisors vetted the budget plan, labor groups escalated their resistance, disrupting a meeting until police removed protesting workers in handcuffs. Nonprofits also vehemently objected to Lurie’s proposal to cut about $185 million in grant and contract spending…