It was "Budget Day" in City Hall on Wednesday, and the city's supervisors were reportedly working late into the night — until around 2 am Thursday — working out the final details on next year's budget with the Mayor's Office.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced in late May that City Hall could be eliminating some 1,400 jobs in the next budget cycle, the vast majority of which were currently unfilled positions. Still, there were about 150 filled positions that he proposed eliminating, in what would have been the biggest layoff of city workers here since Gavin Newsom was mayor, circa 2010.

Those 150 jobs were whittled down to around 100, and in negotiations Wednesday, the Board of Supervisors' budget committee reportedly whittled that number further to around 40 jobs, by finding cost savings elsewhere. As the Chronicle reports, the supervisors succeeded in getting some "add-back" concessions from the mayor, including 57 jobs preserved, and the restoration of funds for homelessness prevention, housing subsidies for families living in RVs, and services for transitional-age youth.

Cuts are being made to non-profits that the city funds, however the full picture is not yet clear.

These negotiations came a week after unionized city workers stormed the board chamber to protest potential layoffs, shutting last week's Tuesday board meeting down. And workers were reportedly marching in the halls outside the chamber Wednesday night chanting, "Hold the line, supervisors, hold the line." The night reportedly ended with no one sounding particularly happy.

The board did make a final concession to the mayor, allowing him to reallocate up to $19 million in funds raised through business taxes in the Our City, Our Home program — which was approved by voters in 2018's Prop C — using only a simple-majority vote from the board. Two progressive supervisors, Jackie Fielder and Shamann Walton, voted against the concession, with Fielder reportedly making a dramatic statement in the board chamber about how "democracy can be negotiated away at 1 a.m. while San Franciscans are asleep."

Lurie had asked the board to give up its super-majority veto power for these reallocations, with the funds intended to go, generally, toward housing (50%), mental health and addiction services (25%), homelessness prevention (15%), and street cleaning (10%).

Supervisor Connie Chan, who chairs the Budget Committee, led the charge with the budget negotiations, and she assured the board that the mayor was not getting everything he wanted in this budget.

Ultimately, the supervisors unanimously voted to preliminarily approve the budget early Thursday. Mayor Lurie put out a statement Thursday saying, "When I took office in January, I inherited a city with so much potential and an historic $800 million budget deficit that was holding us back. My team got to work, and in just a few months, we worked with the Board of Supervisors and partners across the city to deliver a proposed budget that tackled that deficit head-on and prioritized core services like public safety and clean streets to drive San Francisco’s comeback."

Lurie adds that he is "confident that this final budget answers San Franciscans’ call for us to rebuild a safer, cleaner, thriving city."

“This budget takes major strides to lay the foundation for our long-term growth — bringing spending closer in line with revenues so we don’t spend money we don’t have, while focusing our resources on providing safe and clean streets, addressing the fentanyl crisis, and advancing our economic recovery," Lurie said.

New revenue sources in the budget will include those controversial new parking fees in Golden Gate Park, and higher fees for tennis and pickleball court use.

And do they even know yet how much money is going to roll in from automated speed-camera tickets? Based on warnings alone, those cameras were racking up 1,000 warnings per day in just their first month of operation.

Final adjustments to the budget could occur when the board meets on July 9, and they will be voting on the full budget at their July 15 meeting.

Previously: SF City Hall Faces First Major Layoffs In 15 Years as Mayor Lurie Proposes Cutting 1,400 Jobs

Photo: Corbin Bell