“Management cites a 20% fall in enrollment to justify laying off 40% of lecturer faculty. These cuts seem far out of scale and appear to be retaliatory for our union organizing,” said CFA San Francisco Chapter President Brad Erickson.

At an August presentation to the San Francisco State Budget Committee, Provost Amy Sueyoshi outlined a plan to make up for a projected budget shortfall by slashing lecturer faculty positions. Starting in the spring, administrators propose to cut 125 full-time equivalent positions which would result in the layoff of approximately 325 of the 1,084 mostly part-time lecturers across the university. Lecturers faculty make up 60-percent of the university’s faculty.

The presentation also outlined cuts of 23 full-time tenure-track faculty, and six full-time staff positions.

The overwhelming sentiment from CFA members organizing on the ground is that these actions are retaliation for urging faculty to sign commit cards in support of our transformative bargaining proposals. 

The response from members has been a surge of fury and organizing.

“We believe that the CSU management is violating our labor rights and acting in a destructive way towards organized campuses,” said Erickson. “We won’t be silenced, we are getting louder!”

At a September 11 chapter meeting, more than 100 members came ready to voice their anger and resolve. They are determined to organize in response to what they felt was a management tactic of intimidation. Members are planning protests and other meetings. There is also a petition being circulated opposing the cuts. Chapter leaders are reaching out to elected officials and union leaders to ask them to join in solidarity to oppose the cuts. In anticipation of the strike authorization vote there will be two statewide Strike Ready School workshops on October 12 and 19 that will provide a framework for union activism.

Along with the layoffs, the plan calls for canceling over 650 classes. Many CFA San Francisco members have already noted a lack of classes in the spring calendar. 

“I am bombarded by emails from colleagues, they have no classes,” said Ali Kashani, CFA San Francisco vice-president, lecturer faculty in Philosophy. “Over 300 lecturer faculty are about to lose their jobs and health care because of the cuts at SF State.”

Erickson is a lecturer in the school of liberal studies where he is seeing firsthand the severity of the cuts. “Colleagues have been told that there is nothing for them in the spring.”

A sudden loss of so many courses will make it difficult for students to graduate on time. Coupled with the recent CSU trustees’ vote for a 34-percent increase in tuition by 2028-29, these administrative decisions will disproportionally impact those who identify as Black, brown, immigrant, low-income, and/or first-generation college students.

Lecturer faculty members are noting that there is an uneven distribution among the cuts. For example, the writing program will be unrecognizable since lecturers do most of the instruction. The writing program disproportionately supports first-generation college students. Small programs that distinguish San Francisco State and support the diverse people that make up the university community are at risk of being eliminated.

In the presentation, university management claimed that they are 16-percent below the target enrollment with an accompanying budget deficit of $9 million. In response, Erickson pointed to ballooning administrative bloat and increasingly excessive managerial positions and salaries as reasons for the budget deficit.

“Instead of investing in classroom education, they are siphoning off billions into cash investments and reserves.” Erickson said.

Due to the abrupt announcement, many faculty are facing the possibility of leaving the Bay area, their lives, and communities due to the unaffordability of the region. For some, what lies ahead feels daunting. However, in organizing conversations, Chapter Membership Chair Blanca Missé reminds colleagues that now more than ever it’s important to “fight the cuts, get active with the union. “

“Organizing protects our working conditions. We organized to win in 2020 and will continue to do so,” said Missé, a French professor at San Francisco State

In anticipation of CFA’s strike authorization vote, Missé reminds colleagues that “the only thing that is going to make administrators step back is if we organize a powerful strike. When we go on strike, we are defending access to quality, public higher education.”

The post Organizing Towards Huge Layoffs at San Francisco State College appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

There has been a bloodbath of layoffs in the tech industry since last fall.

The Google parent company Alphabet has cut 12,000 jobs and thus terminated the 11,000 jobs announced by Microsoft. Salesforce plans to cut 9,000 employees while Meta parting ways with 11,000. Meanwhile, Amazon is cutting 18,000 people across the country. Yoy

The string of cuts, fueled by recession fears, could have a major impact on big-footprint cities like San Francisco, New York and Seattle, where corporate office workers make up an important part of the inner-city economy, observers say.

“This tech downturn is going to be devastating for Washington, and the long-term impact is going to be pretty profound,” University of Washington marketing professor Jeff Shulman told Bloomberg of the impact of cuts at Microsoft and Amazon. both of which have large employee bases in the state. “Tech companies have fueled so much growth and change that if they slam on the brakes and back up, everything else is in jeopardy.”

Cost-cutting at some companies like Salesforce and Meta includes explicit plans to slash expensive real estate, with the latter abandoning a recently built Manhattan expansion.

In 2022, rental demand was well below historical averages, with San Francisco’s office vacancy rate at more than 27 percent, up from 3.7 before the pandemic, and New York just 0.4 percent below the pandemic-era vacancy record of 19, 6 percent, according to a report by the CBRE Group.

Some fear the layoffs will not only reduce demand for office space, but also slow demand for housing overall.

“If people are afraid of being laid off, they will almost certainly put off making new, huge financial purchases — and buying a home is typically the largest financial transaction in most people’s lives,” said Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst at Compass , opposite The Real Deal.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that even in places like the Bay Area, just because technology is laid off, economic apocalypse isn’t inevitable.

The story goes on

“So far, the job growth is positive and the unemployment rate is really very low, although that could change in the short term,” Stephen Levy, director and senior economist at the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Mr. Levy also pointed out that some of the layoffs in the tech space have come as companies laid off additional staff during a pandemic-era boom, such as Salesforce, which nearly doubled its workforce as companies looked for new software solutions.

“So if they drop 10,000, they will still be 21,000 above pre-pandemic levels,” the economist added.

Still, landlords, from homes to businesses, could face tough times.

“It’s an extremely difficult time to be a landlord,” Ruth Colp-Haber, chief executive officer of brokerage firm Wharton Property Advisors, told Bloomberg. “All the costs of running their buildings are increasing, the cost of construction and labor is increasing. That’s all of their day-to-day costs just to open up their buildings for business. Then, on the income side, rents will fall. It’s a real witch’s brew.”

And in 2023, tech layoffs have already exceeded the pace of 2022, reports SFGate.

The post Tech layoffs trigger financial worries throughout San Francisco, Seattle, and New York appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Elon Musk became CEO of Twitter in October and made drastic changes in a matter of months. He fired scores of employees, including top executives and the team responsible for monitoring the service for inappropriate and abusive content or accounts. Employees who stayed with the company had to meet crazy schedules and, in some cases, cater to Musk’s whims, such as his desire to give his own tweets more visibility.

Twitter has experienced frequent technical glitches in recent weeks and has become a breeding ground for fake accounts and bots. The platform is also increasingly becoming the home of trolling and hateful content and “no one cares,” an engineer at the company told the BBC.

“For someone inside, it’s like a building with all parts on fire,” an unidentified BBC Twitter worker said as part of an investigation released on Monday.

The employee revealed that the San Francisco-based social media company is in a state of chaos and many of the people responsible for creating and maintaining its security features, which curbed 60% of Twitter’s trolling, have been fired.

“From the outside the facade looks good, but I can see that nothing is working. All the plumbing is broken, all the faucets, everything,” the clerk said. Because Twitter is understaffed, employees from other teams are forced to do extra work that isn’t their responsibility.

“A completely new person, without the expertise, is doing what more than 20 people used to do,” the BBC official said. “That leaves room for a lot more risk, a lot more opportunity for things to go wrong.”

Even on the content security front, many features designed to protect users no longer work the way they did before Musk became the “chief chump” because nobody’s assigned to them.

Lisa Jennings Young was Twitter’s head of content design and responsible for rolling out security features that protected users from hateful content when she was fired after Musk’s acquisition. Her team members, who have all been fired since Musk’s takeover, had developed the “Nudge” feature, which warns users if their posts contain trigger words or hateful language.

“Overall 60% of users deleted or edited their reply when given the nudge a chance,” Jennings Young told the BBC. But now things are different.

“Right now there’s nobody around to work on it,” she said.

Amid the disorderly environment, the Twitter worker who said the company was “on fire” told the BBC that when Musk is in the office he always has two bodyguards with him like in a “Hollywood movie”. They accompany him everywhere – even to the toilet.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. Musk and Twitter did not respond to the BBC’s investigation, but Musk tweeted a response to the original story.

The story goes on

More from Fortuna:

The BBC investigation is the latest to shed light on Twitter’s internal workings since Musk bought the platform for $44 billion last year. Employees have said that Twitter’s culture has taken a hit since the acquisition, as the office turned into a “ghost town” and internal communications were absent. They’ve also complained about long hours and the elimination of office perks as part of Musk’s efforts to make the social media company profitable.

Twitter’s revenue reportedly fell 35% in the fourth quarter, and on one day in January, the service had 500 fewer advertisers than on the same day last year.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

More from Fortuna:

The post Twitter engineer says layoffs created chaos and Elon Musk works within the workplace with 2 bodyguards appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Twitter has seen dramatic changes under the leadership of Elon Musk. Dimitrios Kambouris—The Met Museum/Vogue/Getty Images

Elon Musk became CEO of Twitter in October and made drastic changes in a matter of months. He fired scores of employees, including top executives and the team responsible for monitoring the service for inappropriate and abusive content or accounts. Employees who stayed with the company had to meet crazy schedules and, in some cases, cater to Musk’s whims, such as his desire to give his own tweets more exposure.

Twitter has experienced frequent technical glitches in recent weeks and has become a breeding ground for fake accounts and bots. The platform is also increasingly becoming the home of trolling and hateful content and “no one cares,” an engineer at the company told the BBC.

“For someone inside, it’s like a building with all parts on fire,” an unidentified BBC Twitter worker said as part of an investigation released on Monday.

The employee revealed that the San Francisco-based social media company is in a state of chaos and many of the people responsible for creating and maintaining its security features, which curbed 60% of Twitter’s trolling, have been fired.

“If you look at it from the outside, the facade looks good, but I can see that nothing is working. All the plumbing is broken, all the faucets, everything,” the clerk said. Because Twitter is understaffed, employees from other teams are forced to do extra work that isn’t their responsibility.

“A completely new person without the expertise is doing what used to be done by 20+ people,” the staffer told the BBC. “That leaves room for a lot more risk, a lot more opportunity for things to go wrong.”

Even on the content security front, many features designed to protect users no longer work the way they did before Musk became the “chief chump” because nobody’s assigned to them.

Lisa Jennings Young was Twitter’s head of content design and responsible for rolling out security features that protected users from hateful content when she was fired after Musk’s acquisition. Her team members, who have all been fired since Musk’s takeover, had developed the “Nudge” feature, which warns users if their posts contain trigger words or hateful language.

“Overall 60% of users deleted or edited their reply when given the nudge a chance,” Jennings Young told the BBC. But now things are different.

“Right now there’s nobody around to work on it,” she said.

Amid the disordered environment, the Twitter worker who said the company was on fire told the BBC that when Musk is in the office he always has two bodyguards with him like in a “Hollywood movie”. They accompany him everywhere – even to the toilet.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. Musk and Twitter did not respond to the BBC’s investigation, but Musk tweeted a response to the original story.

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Elon Musk became CEO of Twitter in October and made drastic changes in a matter of months. He fired scores of employees, including top executives and the team responsible for monitoring the service for inappropriate and abusive content or accounts. Employees who stayed with the company had to meet crazy schedules and, in some cases, cater to Musk’s whims, such as his desire to give his own tweets more visibility.

Twitter has experienced frequent technical glitches in recent weeks and has become a breeding ground for fake accounts and bots. The platform is also increasingly becoming the home of trolling and hateful content and “no one cares,” an engineer at the company told the BBC.

“For someone inside, it’s like a building with all parts on fire,” an unidentified BBC Twitter worker said as part of an investigation released on Monday.

The employee revealed that the San Francisco-based social media company is in a state of chaos and many of the people responsible for creating and maintaining its security features, which curbed 60% of Twitter’s trolling, have been fired.

“If you look at it from the outside, the facade looks good, but I can see that nothing is working. All the plumbing is broken, all the faucets, everything,” the clerk said. Because Twitter is understaffed, employees from other teams are forced to do extra work that isn’t their responsibility.

“A completely new person without the expertise is doing what used to be done by 20+ people,” the staffer told the BBC. “That leaves room for a lot more risk, a lot more opportunity for things to go wrong.”

Even on the content security front, many features designed to protect users no longer work the way they did before Musk became the “chief chump” because nobody’s assigned to them.

Lisa Jennings Young was Twitter’s head of content design and responsible for rolling out security features that protected users from hateful content when she was fired after Musk’s acquisition. Her team members, who have all been fired since Musk’s takeover, had developed the “Nudge” feature, which warns users if their posts contain trigger words or hateful language.

“Overall 60% of users deleted or edited their reply when given the nudge a chance,” Jennings Young told the BBC. But now things are different.

“Right now there’s nobody around to work on it,” she said.

Amid the disordered environment, the Twitter worker who said the company was on fire told the BBC that when Musk is in the office he always has two bodyguards with him like in a “Hollywood movie”. They accompany him everywhere – even to the toilet.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. Musk and Twitter did not respond to the BBC’s investigation, but Musk tweeted a response to the original story.

See more

Sorry I turned Twitter from a nurturing paradise to a place that…has trolls pic.twitter.com/HaWl1jPfOm

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2023

The BBC investigation is the latest to shed light on Twitter’s internal workings since Musk bought the platform for $44 billion last year. Employees have said that Twitter’s culture has taken a hit since the acquisition, as the office turned into a “ghost town” and with no internal communications. They’ve also complained about long hours and the elimination of office perks as part of Musk’s efforts to make the social media company profitable.

Twitter’s revenue reportedly fell 35% in the fourth quarter, and on one day in January, the service had 500 fewer advertisers than on the same day last year.

The post Elon Musk works at Twitter with 2 bodyguards and layoffs have created chaos, Twitter engineer says appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Still not many layoffs but focused on the San Francisco Bay Area. Workers quickly found new jobs, and employment in California continued to rise.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Amidst all of these breathless layoff announcements from tech and social media companies, I’ll keep an eye on actual layoffs in California as disclosed in the WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) reports. The big tech and social media companies are global companies and the layoff announcements are global and they’re just announcements and only some of them are happening in the US and they’re scattered across the US.

How many layoffs in California since July 1st?

In total, 54,679 layoffs across California have been announced in the WARN reports in the seven and a half months since July 1st, when this layoff tango began. This includes a variety of companies, from hospitals to Google, each for their own reasons.

But over the July 1-December period, employment rose by 229,000, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data (latest available), showing laid-off workers are generally being absorbed by other employers fairly quickly, and job growth continued .

Many employers, outbid for talent by tech and social media overstaffing and overpay frenzy, finally have a chance to hire staff on their terms.

The 15 counties with the most layoffs.

The table below shows the 15 counties with the most layoffs since July 1. However, here are some key points that complicate the picture:

The angel is the largest county in California with almost 10 million inhabitants. Over a quarter of California’s population lives in LA County. Many other counties are small. This is an important consideration since LA County had the most layoffs since July 1 (9,379), but was small given the size of the massive county.

But San Franciscowhich has less than 1/10 of the population (834,000), had 6,971 layoffs — even that’s a relatively small number given the size of San Francisco’s job market, but it was by far the largest layoff-per-population ratio in the state.

marine, a small-by-population county across the Golden Gate Bridge, has 578 layoffs from just one company, Autodesk, which is closing its Marin County headquarters and moving its headquarters to San Francisco. Most of its employees work hybrid from home. But it also reported 61 layoffs at its San Francisco office. The company announced in early February that it would lay off 250 of its global workforce. So it appears that Autodesk filed the WARN filing because it has permanently closed a facility, while most of the workers assigned to the Marin office will be assigned to the San Francisco office and will keep their jobs.

San Benitoa rural county south of Silicon Valley with a population of just 64,000 is at risk of losing its only hospital, Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, which may file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy and reports 741 layoffs effective Feb. 18. Rural hospitals in the US are in trouble.

The top three counties with significant numbers of layoffs relative to their populations are San Francisco, Santa Clara (southern part of Silicon Valley), and San Mateo (northern part of Silicon Valley):

In the US, even in good times, 1.8 million layoffs and layoffs a month.

Companies lay off workers for a variety of reasons, including company-specific issues. And companies are laying off workers for all sorts of reasons. This is part of the regular churn. Nobody writes about it because it happens all the time. These workers are absorbed relatively quickly by other employers and unemployment remains low.

Across the US as a whole, between 1.6 million and 1.8 million workers were laid off or laid off each month during the good times before the pandemic. And they found jobs relatively quickly.

But in the bad times, suddenly there are 2.5 million layoffs and layoffs a month, month after month, just as employers have stopped hiring and the number of unemployed looking for jobs surges as companies shut the hatches .

But that’s exactly what we don’t see yet. The total number of layoffs and layoffs in the US rose to 1.48 million in December from record lows a year ago, but remains well below the lows of the pre-pandemic good times, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Not released yet.

The WARN report also shows that some layoffs have an “effective date” in March or April and therefore those layoffs have not even happened yet, such as B. at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Intel, Wayfair and many others, including Gallo Vertriebsgesellschaft (Winzer Gallo closed his in-house wine distribution and outsourced this business to another company).

Other dismissals in the WARN report have an effective date later in 2023 and some as far as 2024.

California’s WARN Act requires employers with 75 or more employees to give advance notice to employees affected by plant closures and layoffs. With sufficient severance pay, employers may fire employees with immediate effect, but must report such layoffs to WARN.

WARN reports do not reflect layoffs at small businesses with fewer than 75 employees.

The 61 companies with over 200 layoffs in California since July 1st.

Of the 54,679 layoffs reported by several hundred companies in the WARN reports since July 1, 55% or 30,863 layoffs were reported by just 61 companies, each reporting 200 or more layoffs during that time.

Among these 61 companies are a number of hospitals, other healthcare providers and insurers.

The 10 largest layoff companies accounted for 24% of all layoffs in California. But wait…

Temporary layoffs. No. 4 on that list, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, reported “temporary” layoffs of 1,213 employees in November as it closed parts of its facilities to shift production to new facilities. Those laid-off employees returned to work in December.

Jabil (No. 3) also indicated that some of the layoffs were temporary. There are several other minor “temporary” layoffs in the WARN report and list below (displayed). The WARN report does not specify when workers will return to work.

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The San Francisco tech startup that helped popularize a push for a four-day workweek in Silicon Valley, is now laying workers off.

As first reported by the New York Times, Bolt, the payment services startup with offices near San Francisco’s Union Square, laid off around 250 of its around 900 employees Wednesday in a move to “secure our financial position, extend our runway, and reach profitability with the money we have already raised” amid industrywide financial challenges, according to a letter to staff.

A Bolt spokesperson confirmed to SFGATE Thursday that “approximately a third of the company” was laid off.

“It’s no secret that the market conditions across our industry and the tech sector are changing, and against the macro challenges, we’ve been taking measures to adapt our business,” recently appointed CEO Maju Kuruvilla said in the letter, which was made public Wednesday.

One laid-off employee, posting on the anonymous forum Blind, said that they received the news “after getting a pay-raise just a couple of weeks ago.”

The company, already dealing with a rocky 2022, now has to contend with the realities of a challenging period for fledgling tech startups.

Shortly after the wave of good press Bolt received in January for implementing a permanent four-day workweek (and, more crucially, its titanic $11 billion valuation), the company suffered a torrent of bad news. Founder and former CEO Ryan Breslow posted a fiery Twitter thread accusing notable startup accelerator Y Combinator of “Mob Sh*t” and being corrupted by “money, power, and greed.” (Breslow stepped down as CEO for the company just days later.)

In April, Authentic Brands — a fashion retail conglomerate that owns Forever 21 and Reebok and one of Bolt’s most high-level clients — sued the company for its failure to deliver on its promises for a checkout system for the brands in a timely manner.

The New York Times also ran an exposé earlier in May alleging that the company stretched the truth about its services to investors and prospective merchants.

“There’s no good way to share news of a restructure but it’s in our culture to be committed to candor and care, today and always,” Kuruvilla ended the letter. “I can’t thank you enough for all of your past, present, and future dedication to make Bolt what it is. We have an incredible team, great product, and the market needs us more than ever before. But today, my focus is on our people. Please be mindful and caring for your colleagues and yourself.”

It is unclear what severance benefits employees who were laid off will receive.

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Honor, a home care and related technology company, has laid off 35 employees at its San Francisco headquarters, The Chronicle has learned.

Jessica Gilmartin, Honor’s chief marketing officer, said the layoffs were cross-departmental, including general administrative and personnel roles. Honor plans to continue expanding the nursing workforce, she added.

“We have recently shed a small number of jobs – less than 10% of our total workforce excluding nurses,” Gilmartin wrote in an email. “These targeted reductions were made in the normal course of business and we have no further comment on why we made these small adjustments to our workforce.”

Honor was founded in 2014 and has been providing services in Contra Costa County since 2015. Today the company provides non-medical carers in the Bay Area and in more than 800 cities in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Ohio, and Michigan. The company initially hired its own home care workers and in 2016 moved them from independent contractors to regular employees with benefits and stock options. This change prevented the controversy some companies are now facing over whether their workers are being misappropriated as contractors.

Honor has been providing software and services to independent home care agencies – the former competitors – since 2017. Honor provides these agencies with technology for nurse planning, training, and performance tracking, as well as a telephone support team. Gilmartin said Honor is directly employing thousands of these caregivers and is transferring them to Honor’s payroll as employees of outside agencies. Direct caregivers will continue to be hired as well.

According to CrunchBase, the company has raised a total of $ 115 million since its inception.

News website Axios previously reported that Japanese conglomerate SoftBank waived its commitment to invest $ 150 million in Honor in November after agreeing to provide funding last year.

Gilmartin declined to comment on the report, but said the company was “fully funded”. The company is supported by Naspers Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital. CEO Seth Sternberg previously started Meebo, a messaging app, and worked at Google.

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: Chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice

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After closing two massive budget gaps this year, San Francisco will face a new deficit of $ 653.2 million over the next two fiscal years as COVID-19 soars and a severe economic shutdown continues to plague the city’s finances .

To fill that void, Mayor London Breed plans to instruct departments on Wednesday to cut costs. This could include painful layoffs and service cuts that have largely been avoided so far.

The city’s budget bureau projects a $ 411.1 million hole for the next fiscal year, which begins in July, and a $ 242.1 million deficit the following year. City officials were hoping for a stronger economic recovery at this point in the pandemic, but sales, hotel and corporate taxes have been lower than expected, while costs associated with the pandemic and expected staff increases are driving up spending.

“We need to be clear about the options if we do not address this deficit, and unfortunately every option is on the table,” said Jeff Cretan, the mayor’s spokesman. “The mayor still has the priority not to fire anyone. But we know that this deficit will require a lot of work and sacrifice and difficult choices. “

Despite the looming cuts, Cretan said the mayor’s budget priorities remain the same: helping small businesses, providing basic services, and helping the homeless and the mentally ill.

The recent virus surge has led the state and city to revert to more extensive business shutdowns. While its biggest budget hit can be attributed to falling tax revenues, the city’s economic troubles also stem from the multi-million dollar hikes promised to most city workers.

Over the summer, Breed urged the 35 San Francisco unions, representing 37,000 city workers, to postpone the increases to avoid layoffs and service cuts. In preparing the budget, the city was confident that negotiations with the unions would postpone an increase, but only police and firefighters agreed.

In August, the Board of Supervisors agreed to use $ 36.9 million in business tax reserves to fund 3% increases for the majority of unions that year. Now the city is ready for a further 3% increase from July 1st and a half percent increase on January 1st, 2022.

Increases could be delayed due to a treaty provision to postpone increases for six months if the budget deficit exceeds $ 200 million, which happened this year. However, this depends on an update of the budget in March.

At the time, the mayor sharply criticized the board’s decision to dive into the city’s reserves.

The supervisor Catherine Stefani – the only supervisor to vote against the Board’s budget proposal in the autumn – accused its colleagues of having adopted a spending plan based on reserves. She said the new budget projections were a “self-inflicted wound”.

“I am very disappointed that we got to this point,” she said in a statement. “Instead of protecting our existing services, my colleagues spent beyond our means. … We have to make painful decisions to get back on track. “

Meanwhile, COVID-19 costs are expected to pull $ 100 million out of the general fund this fiscal year. The largest costs include testing, food security programs, and running the command center in Moscone. While officials expect COVID-19 costs to fall over the next year, they won’t go away entirely. Since the federal CARES law has been used up by the end of 2020, the city plans to spend roughly the same amount in the next fiscal year.

Another unsolved issue that could have budget implications is the city’s homeless hotel program. The Ministry of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is finalizing a program that will accommodate more than 2,300 homeless people in hotels. While the city expects FEMA to reimburse the majority of the expenses – which range from $ 15 million to $ 18 million per month – City Controller Ben Rosenfield has warned that funding could run out in the short term.

The Board of Supervisors plans to vote Tuesday on laws that could lead the city to fund the program longer than currently planned.

The new deficit arises after hard-fought battles to close the deficits this year. The city closed a $ 1.5 billion hole for this fiscal year and next in October and expects to use funds from the previous fiscal year to fill another $ 116 million gap that is better than expected ended. This included revenue from a public health ministry settlement and more property taxes. The rest of the deficit was addressed by streamlining the processes in the departments.

To cope with the crisis, the city has already started reducing its budget stabilization reserves and plans to use the full amount – up to $ 500 million – over the next three years. The deficit expects about $ 100 million to be used by mid-2022 from Proposition I, a voter-approved tax hike on property sales worth more than $ 10 million, but less the next year.

Supervisor Dean Preston proposed a bill last week that will bring in more than $ 11 million in Prop. I finance this financial year for rent relief and affordable housing. If the proposal is adopted, the deficit would increase by an additional $ 11 million.

Kretan said “any decision we make about funding other programs” will affect the ability to meet the mayor’s budget priorities.

The new deficit brings more uncertainty for the struggling city authorities. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which lost 95% of its Muni tariffs, has a deficit of at least $ 68 million this fiscal year and potentially $ 168 million in the next fiscal year. The agency could lay off more than 20% of its employees and further restrict the service.

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors on Friday asking them to prioritize funding for Muni, which is vital for businesses and key workers.

“We are seeing a devastating deficit for MTA and Muni,” said Cretan. “Our transport is the definition of a basic, essential service in our city. If we lose that, it will hinder our economic recovery. It will affect our ability to move workers. As we make decisions, we need to think about the bigger picture and what it means to get this city back on its feet and moving forward. “

Theresa Rutherford, a nursing assistant who works at Laguna Honda and is vice president of SEIU 1021, which represents more than 17,000 city workers, said helping frontline workers is inseparable from the economic recovery.

“Without our input, without our work, without us making the sacrifice and sitting on the line to show up for work and take care of the city, whether it has a deficit or not, the city won’t thrive, it so will not be able to pull yourself out of the pandemic and it will only be in a worse situation, “Rutherford said. “Workers are basically some of the key resources the city needs to invest in to get back on its feet.”

Chronicle author Trisha Thadani contributed to this report.

Mallory Moench is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mallorymoench

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The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency may have to lay off nearly a quarter of its employees to meet its planned budget deficit for the next fiscal year if the agency does not receive government aid funding, agency officials said this week.

The SFMTA is currently well on its way to running a deficit of $ 68 million by the end of fiscal 2020-21. Since the fiscal year began on July 1, revenue has declined 12.7% as San Francisco residents avoid public transit during the coronavirus pandemic.

The agency has also exhausted many of their one-off tools to save money, such as: B. the introduction of a hiring freeze, the reduction of overtime and the use of federal funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

Even so, Jonathan Rewers, SFMTA’s senior budget manager, told the agency’s board of directors on Tuesday that the agency’s actual and projected revenue losses are so great that cuts in service and layoffs are on the table as a method of cutting spending.

SFMTA’s current revenue projections for fiscal 2022 show a net deficit of $ 168 million, even when factoring in financial savings such as the agency’s continuation of the agency’s hiring freeze. According to Rewers, without further federal funding, the agency would have to lay off between 989 and 1,226 full-time employees – this corresponds to 18% to 22% of its employees – in order to compensate for the projected deficit.

While the board took no action on Tuesday to address the projected deficits, its members discussed possible vacation days instead of layoffs as a possible tool to reduce revenue.

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Nearly 200 faculties and administrators at San Francisco City College are facing layoffs due to massive budget cuts in 39 departments and services that could result in City College students losing access to key programs, students and teachers said Friday.

“These cuts will destroy not only our faculty members and their families, but tens of thousands of students who rely on City College as a vital lifeline,” said Mary Braveman, vice president of the American Federation of Teachers 2121. “Our students need more opportunities, not less. “

(Kevin N. Hume / SF examiner)

The City College Board of Trustees on February 25 approved discharge notices in 39 departments and services that could be reduced or, in some cases, eliminated entirely due to a budget deficit of $ 33 million for the 2021-22 period. City College issued preliminary dismissals to 163 faculty members and 34 administrators on March 3.

“We stand in solidarity with our college community that the funding model for community colleges must change,” the City College administration said in a statement this week. “We are determined to meet the needs of our students while making the necessary changes to balance our budget and maintain our accreditation. We urge our work partners, elected officials, and the San Francisco community to work with City College during this difficult financial time. “

(Kevin N. Hume / SF examiner)

City regulators, including regulators Hillary Ronen and Connie Chan, attended events on Friday, which included a protest at City College and an art drive outside City Hall, and expressed solidarity with the group.

“After the toughest year most of us have ever had, City College has strengthened itself again and again during this pandemic, as always … when we needed you most, you were there and committed to us,” said Ronen. “And it’s the faculty, it’s the students, it’s the institution as a whole… I’m here to say it’s not okay, at the time we need City College most, even the Dismiss faculty [those] have fully enrolled the classes. That makes no sense. “

Several faculties, including some that received Pink Slip Notices, spoke about the importance of City College’s various programs, many of which are facing cuts. The focus was on the English as a Second Language or ESL program, one of those programs.

(Kevin N. Hume / SF examiner)

Fanny Law, a member of the ESL faculty and one of those who received a Pink Slip, spoke about the importance of the program in a city where 20% of Franciscans say they have limited knowledge of English.

“Like many Franciscans, I am an immigrant and English is my second language,” Law said. “I know what it is like to come to a country without knowing the language or feeling welcome. City College’s ESL program is vital for new immigrants who need our assistance in acquiring language skills that will lead them to professional programs, jobs, and transfer programs. Without a strong ESL program, there is nowhere for immigrants to start their journey to success in San Francisco. “

The law added that the program was cut by 20% already last year and will be cut another 25% if the proposed layoffs and cuts are implemented.

(Kevin N. Hume / SF examiner)

City College students and alumni also shared their experiences at the school and the way some of the programs faced with cuts changed their lives.

“When I experienced domestic violence, TSPS, which may be reduced by 40%, helped my anxiety,” said Eira Kien, a student at City College. “And when I was scared of going home, I turned to the Women’s Resource Center and Project Survive for help. To find out that the crucial faculty and department of women’s and gender studies have received pink slip-ups, the safety nets they helped set up are roughly swept away from them. “

City College student Jose Castaneda said he moved to San Francisco from Arizona after learning about City College programs and is now studying early childhood education there in hopes of becoming a preschool teacher. He said he hoped to move to San Francisco State or UC Berkeley at some point, but with the proposed cuts, he wasn’t sure it was still possible.

(Kevin N. Hume / SF examiner)

“City College has as many resources and programs for students like me as free City has EOPS, the DREAM Act, and so many other opportunities and programs for AB 540 students like me,” Castaneda said. “And they give us the chance to get higher-income, high-income positions if we want them. Disadvantaged students like me, who see the struggle, who live daily life in need, need and deserve a chance to succeed. CCSF gives us this chance and enables us to feel valued and important in a community in which we no longer really see it. “

In the zoom chat with over 800 signatures, a petition was expressed in which a vote of no confidence was expressed against the leadership of the administration of City College.

After the meeting, officials urged attendees to call regulators and local and state government officials to ask them to save City College from these massive cuts.

(Kevin N. Hume / SF examiner)

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