walton be excused until those their arrival. the vice chairman, gentlemen, i'm member sophie. suffer. you remember running. run a knight chair, champ. we have four eyes with member walton excused. thank you and the motion passes. and with that, um. i would like to quickly explain how today's agenda will run of starting from item two and onwards. we will be taking budget presentation from each city department in the order listed on the agenda you see today, uh and then some departments will have additional legislation also known as trailing legislation titled they're, actually, they're department budget. um, and so we're going to go through that. um but so when each city department that has also the trailing legislation that comes with it will also be called at the same time, a company that city department because of the trail legislation. those trail legislation will require and allowing us to open for public comment with those items. so um, of course, those chill items also have the budget and legislative analyst's report so we'll have the department, uh, presentation for their budget and then the trailing look. gestation presentation and then go to the blog report. then we can go into questions and comments and then go to public comments for those legislation. and so with that, um mr clark, please call item number one. yes madam chair item number one is a hearing to discuss the controllers. fiscal years 2023 to 2024 and 2024 2025, or revenue letter and controllers discussion have the mayor's proposed budget. how members of the public who wish to provide comment on this hearing should call for 156550001. today's meeting ideas to 5910926245. then press pound twice. and if you haven't already done so they'll start three lined up to speak. he promptly and to get that you have raised her hand. and when the system indicates you're having and muted you may begin your comments. madam chair. thank you, and we have the controller. hi we have the controller to present this item. thank you. good morning, madam chair members of the committee. ben rosenfield city controller. um, as you're aware, the charter requires the controller to review the mayor's proposed budget and provide public commentary on our findings of the reasonableness of the revenue assumptions in them. additionally the board of supervisors and mayors and mayor over time, have created additional reporting requirements on things like reserves and baselines and other compliance questions. um we rolled this analysis into a document, which we call it referred to as the revenue letter. we published it earlier this week, and it's available on our website. um and we can very briefly talk through it here today. there you go. okay. next slide, please. so i will very briefly open with the summary, and then i'll turn the presentation over to carol lu are citywide revenue manager to talk through many of the details in the report at a high level, we worked very closely with the mayor's office on the preparation of the revenue forecast in this budget , so we do find that it's reasonable. generally speaking that that economic forecast i assumes what we've been experiencing in the current year. continued slow economic recovery here in san francisco, although not yet back to the level that we were at prior to the pandemic. you see that economic growth translated until most of our economically sensitive taxes, with the big exception being the persistence of remote work and the impact that's having as a drag on our economy and uncertain tax revenues. we know that the budget is heavily balanced on one time solutions. um and that means that we should expect a lot of significant structural budget gap when we begin next year's budget process are preliminary estimate would be approximately $500 million shortfall for the year that lies just outside of the two year budget. that's here in front of you. um and then, lastly, as has been true through throughout the pandemic and recovery we need under remember that the budget is a plan. um and that circumstances will change as we go through it, and it will take active monitoring by our office and active management by the mayor and the board. in the 12 months and 24 months ahead. so that very high level opening alternate over to carol liu to go through some of the details. i'm excited. all right. um so key findings of the report, um, tax revenues or tax projections are growing. but slowly, um, has been mentioned, um in that drag is related to the impact of remote office work on activity in the city. um adjusting for rate changes. many of the economically sensitive taxes are projected to remain below pre pandemic levels, um, in the budget period, including business sales, hotel and transfer tax. um one time solutions were critical to balancing and they included $405 million of fund balance, which included $117.2 million of prior year. d appropriations. um $250 million of fema reimbursements. $172.3 million of reserve draws. $125.9 million of temporary fund shifts, and that adds up to about a billion dollars in the two year budget. um as mentioned reserves are used to balance the budget, but the city is not eligible to withdraw or deposit into the economic stabilization reserves, so those balances remain, and by the end of the two year budget, the city will have used a little bit more than 40% of its pre pandemic reserves to support ongoing operations. next slide. um this budget makes some progress towards the structural budget gap identified in the march update to the five year plan. at that time, the 25 26 deficit, which is the third year the year after the two year budget, it was forecasted to be $724 million. but given the solutions proposed in the mayor's budget, the shortfall in 25 26 appears to be over $500 million um the final budget will require active monitoring and management given the economic and financial risks. um these risks include slowing economic recovery or potentially recession delays in the re certification of laguna honda hospital and risks to state and federal revenue streams. um at the state level, they're likely to, you know, the state is likely to face the same kind of economic pressures, the city faces and um and that could result in potential cuts to cities and counties. at the federal level. our largest risk is related to the pace and size of reimbursements from fema. we've received about 40% of the total reimbursements that we are anticipating. next one. there are several notable legislative proposals assumed in the budget . that impact revenue. um the first are three business tax proposals, which, um, with the total all funds, impact of $31.8 million in fiscal year 23, 24 and $38.8 million in 24 25. so those three proposals are the commercial rents tax deduction for sub lessers. the impact is $17 million per year. the delay in grocery seats tax increases for certain businesses. the impacts there are 10.4 million and 10.6 million in the budget years and tax credit for new businesses locating into the city 4.4 million in the first year and 11.2 in the second year. so all of that's assumed in the forecast. um second, there are a number of voter adopted spending mandates that the mayor's budget office must adhere or that the final budget must adhere to, um, and those are met with temporary modifications. um to the early care and child early care and education baseline as well as changes in spending categories to the our city. our home fund, which is funded by the homelessness, grocery seats, tax. um and then, also important to note is that a number of newer baselines have provisions to suspend growth in the baseline if the deficit reported in the march 5 year financial plan exceeds a certain threshold . this threshold was met for four baselines and growth is assumed to be suspended in the budget for those baselines. um and finally another piece of legislation that increases the minimum compensation rates for nonprofit and public entities over a period of time in the budget funds. those increases next. so they all funds budget is $14.6 billion in the two budget years, and the general fund is about half of that 6.9 billion in fiscal year 23 24 and 7 billion in 24 25 and the most significant source of the junk into the general fund is our local tax revenue. um, of that we've shown the biggest sources on this table property, business , hotels, sales transfer and executive compensation, taxes and by 24 25. these taxes will make up about $4 billion of the general fund. so when you look at the growth of these taxes, pre pandemic 18 19 2 now or two through the budget years, 24 25 . you can see that our sources are expected to grow 11.5% over six years and on its face that that seems okay. but the point we want to make here is that the sources with asterisks next to them these how these are either new sources or have had rate increases post pandemic next slide. um once you exclude the impact of those three asterisks policy changes, growth falls or sorry of those three taxes growth falls to a very meager 4.1% over six years and in fact adjusting for rate changes, business and transfer tax are still performing worse in the budget years than they had before the pandemic. and the three policy changes i'm referring to are the 2020 prop f um, which expanded and changed that business tax rates 2020 prop i, which doubled transfer tax rates on the largest transactions and 2020 prop l, which taxed executive compensation. next. so here's a graphical look at some of our most economically sensitive taxes starting from 607 through the budget forecast and the dotted vertical line shows where we are estimating what our estimates are for budget. um and all of the lines you can see drops in fiscal year 2021. although transfer tax it's delayed, it's dropped his delayed, um until the current year 22 23, and then you can see the trajectory of the recovery that's being forecasted in the budget. i'm next. i'm a bit more detail about what we're assuming and property tax roll growth is assumed, um, of 4% and 2.5% a bit less than a million dollars of property tax is assumed to be diverted to support various tax increment financing districts, including redevelopment projects and infrastructure financing districts. and then we're assuming refunds of 64 million and 103 million in the two budget years will be paid when the assessment appeals board makes determinations on reductions, and this is where we capture our assumptions about reductions and values for various property types. um and business tax. this is just this is really referring to the general funds, grocery seats tax . we're assuming underlying growth of zero and 1% with remote and hybrid work continuing indefinitely. and as previously mentioned, we assume the property tax changes being proposed or passed. next. hotel taxes assumed to continue its recovery in the budget period after a more than 90% drop in fiscal year 2021. hotel taxes not anticipate to recover to pre pandemic peaks until well after the budget years. um the recovery and hotel tax so far has been led by leisure travelers and their pent up demand for travel, but to fully kind of regain our position on hotel tax will need a combination of more business and international travelers and critically convention business, which is what drives up revenue through compression pricing. um and just for context in 18 19, which was an unusual peak. there are 54 conferences with over 700,000 attendees. and in the current year we've had 26 conferences with a little less than 200,000. attendees um, depicted here is revenue per available room, which is an industry indicator that correlates with hotel tax receipts. current months of taped rev. par i am through early june is about $150, and the budget assumes annual average rev. part of 100 and $78.60 in fiscal year 23 24 and about $200 in fiscal year 24 25. and i'm just for context. pre pandemic annual rev. par was closer to 250 million, so we have a ways to go. next. with remote office work and rising interest rates. transfer taxes plummeted in the current year. the budget assumes that the current year is at the bottom of transfer tax and that we will take four years of modest growth to return to a new study state by 26 27. this is the most general funds most volatile source where less than 1% of transactions drive more than 50% of revenue. um and unfortunately , those highest value transactions have stalled out recently. um this picture shows what transfer tax would have been had the current rates been, in effect all the way back to, uh, 01. and you can see a few things. um first the huge drops during the dot com bust in the great recession, um, they're huge spikes as well. um, and so that's how you can see the volatility. um and then second, the orange shows revenue generated by sales over 25 million in blue show sales below that, the smaller the low, the smaller sales stayed relatively constant compared to orange and , um what really drives the taxes. these large transactions. thanks. alright so the comptroller's office is required to measure and report on various voter adopted spending requirements and we discussed 17 requirements in our report totally more than $2 billion, just highlighting a few key points. the budget temporarily temporarily lowers the early care and education baseline by $2010 million in the two budget years. um the budget includes $11 million.35 million dollars of new student success fund funding to support um san francisco schools passed by voters and fall 2022. um and several baselines are funded above the minimum required levels and several baselines are suspended due to the size of the deficit. as of march. up next. finally this is, uh, snapshot of our reserves. the budget uses 100 and $72.3 million of reserves on the major draws included $90.2 million draw on the fiscal cliff reserve in 23 24 and that had already been used in the second year of the prior budget cycle. um $41.3 million of the federal and state emergency grant this allowance. reserve in $29.5 million of business tax stabilization reserve. um in addition, the budget makes required deposits to the general reserve, 2% and 2.25% of projected general fund revenue and the two budget years as specified and administrative code 10.60. and finally, the budget maintains a balance of $380 million in the economic stabilization reserves, which is our combined rainy day in budget stabilization reserve and as i mentioned earlier, the city is not eligible to deposit or withdraw in the budget period. um so i think that's it. um, you have any questions? happy to answer them. thank you. i just want to quickly point to the summary that you have and i just want to emphasize that and try to die deeper into that is that, um here it talks about, you know the budget and really how we're been balancing this budget. um both this year, and next is the fact that we actually are drawing on available reserve. um, and that. i just want to make sure i understand it correctly. so while is maybe true that in two fiscal years from now we will be reducing. you know some of the stuff that we're doing right now in this budget, or the mayor's proposed budget will lead us in the space in two fiscal years from now. um that likely we have just about $500 million deficit. but even then that really require us to end in that space actually really also means that the proposed budget is using approximately 43% of our reserve . so it's 620 million out of the $1.4 million. um yeah, the $620 million use of reserve. that's over the period from 2018 19 through 24 25 the budget. the two year budget uses 100 72 million. but since the pandemic hit we've used um $620 million. and so then that means like in the two year two fiscal years from now we're down to half of that. $1.4 billion reserve. roughly half that's correct. that could carry us our form for another. if we continue this pattern since the pandemic um, if we say we're going to use up all our reserve, um as the current rates of spending, um what is the projection that were does that am i am i understanding correctly? does that mean that actually could carry us out for the next? with the remaining of the reserve. if we want to draw it down to zero, like no reserve at all that kind of carry us for another four fiscal years. um thanks for the question. we haven't done the exact analysis for that. um and i guess there's a couple things first in the kind of pandemic times there was. it wasn't just the reserves that balance the budget. there was also oh, gosh . almost a billion dollars. i think of arpaio and crf monies from the federal government. so disaster relief monies that kind of bailed out the city a bit or not bailed out but helped to balance the budget. um and i know there were other one time sources in that period. um and then the second comment i'd make is that, um, the some of these reserves, especially the economic stabilization reserves, have very specific withdrawal requirements, so revenue has to decline year over year in order to draw on them. um so i don't know we'd have to. we'd have to do the analysis to know how much how that could, how we could deplete all of our reserves. i yeah, i appreciate that, because i just i think that there's a lot of, uh, general public trying to understand. you know, when someone comes to me and asked me about well, how much is in the reserve? how do you tap into reserve? i just wanted to have a quick conversation about while we have reserves. there are different kinds of categories different ways to draw them and different threshold. and so i just want to be on the record about that about just specifically armed reserve. if i may, madam share just at a very high level. the proposed budgets draws on the reserve would leave the city with about $800 million in reserves at the end of the two year period, but not all those reserves would be available for structural problems after that, because approximately half of them 400 roughly $400 million, a rainy day reserves that can only get withdrawn effectively a foreigner recession. and so if we're we wouldn't be eligible to draw those given the revenue forecasts we're looking at here. um and if we were eligible to withdraw than that $500 million structural gap will be much higher. um so that's about half of the reserves are held for that purpose, leaving about 400 million and of that 400 million roughly 100 and 50 million is the required general reserve that has to be budgeted each year to absorb the shocks that happened within a given fiscal year. so that leaves would leave us with about $250 million of the 800 million at the end of the two year period. that mayors and boards in the future could choose to draw down to kind of softly more softly land given that $500 million forecast and i also want to add to like one of the reasons why some of the another reason, i think, um carol, you add. ms liu has also mentioned and you're welcome to confirm this is that one of the reasons another reason that we're able to land where were are at in terms of a balanced budget also is because roughly a $1 billion of federal like funding and support, so it's not only that we're dipping in travel reserve, where actually also are getting this just a large amount. i'm president amount that we would never have before from the federal government's that actually help us through the next to last fiscal years and next to that's absolutely correct. the heavy reliance on one time solutions that we reference the biggest single piece of that is federal revenue that we hope to continue to receive as reimbursement from fema. you have reserved draws, and then there's other one time solutions proposed in the mayor's budget, including some of the fund shifts, for example, that have been discussed and will be discussed. um and other and lastly, the other big piece of one time solution just to highlight is that the mayor's proposed budget reverts approximately $120 million in projects that were appropriated in prior year and uses those balances on a one time basis to balance the budget. so that means not only that we're having the federal unprecedented federal, um money and then we are dipping into our reserve. but it also that roughly $128 million of. in her words, in the mayor's words, unspent money that we now keep as not to send it out the door in order to balance it it for this at least this and next fiscal years. um would you categorize than you know, two fiscal years from now like this. the city and county of san francisco and general speaking like we're going to face of unprecedented like challenges if we do not like solve the existing structural. issues that we have with our budget as we talked about in the five year forecast that are three offices published, um you know we have budget problems right in front of us. that's the two year forecasts that you're grappling with right now is aboard. but structurally. after that deficits grow in two years 34 and five absent correction. um and so i do think budgets are going to get progressively harder for the next several years. it actually won't be two years from now that we address this because this time next year you'll be planning a two year budget. that incorporates that second year. and that that the beginning of that kind of structural gap could you help me? understand what structural what do you mean by structural gaps. i mean, in the forecast that in every year of the forecast, revenue is growing more slowly than expenditures. um and then, additionally, one time solutions that have helped carry the city this point through the pandemic and our recovery are going to be exhausted. and that means that you have kind of a growing imbalance each year. between the amount of money the city is taking in that year and the amount of money going out that year and so those will take ongoing corrections as we go. through that cycle. to the extent we use one time solutions in a given year to carry us it helps in that year, but it leaves a bigger step to take the year after, um as we work through the cycle, so i do it again. the economy is growing here in san francisco, and i was standing some of the news you might pick up these days. um but it's growing slowly. um, and we don't expect that and we expect that that will continue to drive budget challenges for the city for several years. thank you. controls and found. i don't think that's the news that any service cisco wants to hear, but i think that's the reality that we must face. thank you. i with that. i don't see any names on the roster. uh kind of depressing anyways, to continue with this. not that way. i think we've been hearing this for the last six months. i think this body understands that we've been having this ongoing conversation that the three months and the six months and the nine months report, i think that it's the reason why my colleagues are just we understand. we understand with that. let's go to public comment, mr clark thank you, madam chair members of the public who wish to speak honda controllers. revenue letter. um and our joy next impression to line up to speak now for those who have joining those remotely and haven't already done so press start three to enter the speaker line , and for those already in the queue, police continue to wait until the system indicates you have and then muted and they will be second to begin your comments. saying that one person speakers here in the chamber miss second life. it looks like we have one color. if he could meet that person, please. good morning, david pill people so first two quick housekeeping items. the committee packet in legislative for this item one is actually the packet for item two. so perhaps i could get fixed at some point and to chair chan. thank you for clarifying the expectations for today. in terms of sequence. i'm not sure that budget and finance is going to start to it, maybe sometime thereafter. but if we're walking through things in sequence that helpful. including public comment on the budget, which is unusual for today, but i appreciate that that may happen on the controllers revenue letter. i appreciate the detailed discussion. i think it's incredibly helpful. um i agree that risks here include economic recovery, including the future of downtown hotel, office and retail. plus federal and state revenues, in part due to the delay on the income tax deadlines for both federal and state. i think that in the future we should carefully review the baselines and set asides with more consistent language. um. particularly around triggers. which varies for a variety of reasons. and finally, i agree that the projections are reasonable, but i would underscore the discussion you just had on the reliance on volatile sources and the structural issues with the imbalance between revenue growth and expenditure growth. um all of those are challenges going forward. thanks very much for listening. take it to pill paul for comments. yeah. and madam chair to complete her cue. thank you see no more public comments. public comment is now close. and i will like to file this. i would like to make the motion to file this hearing 20 a second. second by vice chairman delman and roll call, please. and on that motion, seconded by vice chairman roman that this hearing be heard and filed, vice chairman norman mental men i member selfie. suffer. remember on it. ron and i remember walton walton. i chair chan. i have hobos. thank you in the motion passes. and mr clark, could you please call item two and three together? yes items two and three are the proposed budget and appropriation and proposed salary ordinance respectively. for the fiscal years ending june 30th 2024 and june 30th 2025 item two is the ordinance appropriating all estimated receipts and all this estimated expenditures for departments of the city and county as of june. 1st 2023 and item number three is the ordinance and numerator positions in the annual budget and appropriation ordinance. continuing creating or establishing these positions enumerating and including there in all positions created by charter or state law, for which competitions are paid from city and county funds appropriated in the annual appropriation ordinance authorizing appointments or continuation of appointments there to specifying and fixing the compensations and work schedules thereof. and authoring appoint authorizing employment