BOS Budget Committee Hearing on Early Childhood and Labor Standards - April 24, 2024
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BOS Budget and Appropriations Committee Hearing on Vibrant Public Services and Economic Security - April 24, 2024
The Budget and Appropriations Committee, chaired by Supervisor Connie Chan and joined by Supervisors Myrna Melgar, Shamann Walton, Vice Chair Rafael Mandelman, and President Aaron Peskin, held the second of three budget hearings on April 24, 2024. The hearing focused on funding for early childhood education, labor standards enforcement, and community-based services supporting caregiving and economic security. Presentations were given by the Department of Early Childhood (DEC), the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (OLSE), and community coalition members. Public comment featured dozens of speakers advocating against proposed budget cuts.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Workers' Rights and Wage Theft: Multiple speakers from the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), Trabajadores Unidos Workers United, Filipino Community Center (FCC), and other member organizations of the Workers' Rights Community Collaborative (WRCC) urged the committee to preserve funding. Workers shared personal stories of wage theft, lack of overtime pay, and language barriers, emphasizing that outreach and education are essential for immigrant workers to know and exercise their rights. Carl Kramer (Living Wage Coalition) demanded a "people's budget" and criticized Mayor Breed's proposed cuts to community services.
- Early Childhood Education and Baby Prop C: Dozens of advocates, including parents, educators, and representatives from Children's Council, Safe and Sound, and the Family Services Alliance, urged full implementation of Proposition C (Baby Prop C). Speakers highlighted the need for more infant/toddler slots, workforce compensation, facilities upgrades, and support for children with special needs. Several speakers cited a 47% salary increase for some educators and the addition of 6,000 new child care slots, but stressed that a readiness gap persists for children of color.
- Family Resource Centers (FRCs): Speakers including Jenny Perlman (Safe and Sound) and Yan Singh reported that 1.8 million dollars in enhancement grants for FRCs—funding case managers, food pantries, and mental health consultants—are at risk of cuts, which would affect 26 case managers, 10 food pantries, and 7 mental health consultants.
- OLSE and WRCC: Multiple speakers stated that the WRCC faces a proposed 50% cut (approximately 750,000 dollars) in baseline funding, which would severely impact outreach and legal services for low-wage, immigrant, and non-English-speaking workers. Juan Vilvaso (La Raza Center) noted that since July 2022, the WRCC has provided 413 legal consultations, represented 116 workers, and recovered over 1.3 million dollars in stolen wages.
- Other Community Programs: Speakers from Hunters Point Family, Horizons Unlimited, SALT Pacific Islander Association, and others opposed cuts to youth programs, services for Pacific Islanders, and nonprofit worker livelihoods. Some public commenters also linked budget priorities to foreign policy, urging divestment from military spending.
Discussion Items
- Department of Early Childhood (DEC) Presentation: Executive Director Ingrid Mezquita reported that the DEC expects no service cuts for the next fiscal year. The department, formed from a merger of First Five San Francisco and the Office of Early Care and Education, has added over 6,000 child care slots and expanded subsidy eligibility up to 110% of Area Median Income (AMI)—up to 152,000 dollars per year for a family. Over 2,800 teachers have received wage augmentations, with some seeing up to a 47% salary increase. The DEC has provided 352 grants for facility expansion/renovation. The budget allocates 75% to early learning, 11% to child and family well-being, and 14% to administration (including the 15% Prop C tax returned to the general fund). Mezquita stated that the Family Resource Center (FRC) funding is not being cut; rather, a new five-year procurement cycle has increased baseline funding from 15.5 million dollars to 18.2 million dollars annually, incorporating the 1.8 million dollars that had been temporary pandemic-era additions.
- Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (OLSE) Presentation: Director Pat Mulligan reported that OLSE has collected over 150 million dollars on behalf of workers since inception, with over 20 million dollars in the last fiscal year. The office enforces 36 labor policies and maintains multilingual staff. To meet the city's 10% budget reduction target for two years plus a 5% contingency, OLSE eliminated one vacant position, increased attrition savings, and is planning cuts to its general service contract—principally the WRCC contract. The estimated cut to WRCC is approximately 750,000 dollars (50% of the contract). Mulligan noted difficulty in assessing the exact impacts on compliance and outreach.
- Supervisor Questions & Comments:
- Chair Chan asked for clarification on cuts to DEC and OLSE. She stressed the need for transparent communication to avoid public confusion and requested that DEC provide a spending plan matching Prop C reserves with the strategic plan timeline.
- Supervisor Melgar emphasized that Baby Prop C funds must be used to build a universal child care system, including projections for workforce (1,000 new educators needed over a decade), capital costs (78,000 dollars per new slot), and the impact of state Transitional Kindergarten on the child care market. She requested a 10-year financial projection to understand the full cost of fulfilling the voter promise.
- Vice Chair Mandelman and President Peskin were absent for the final vote.
Key Outcomes
- The committee voted unanimously (3-0, with Supervisors Walton and Peskin absent) to hear and file the item.
- Chair Chan directed DEC to provide a briefing before the mayor's May budget proposal, detailing the remaining Prop C reserve funds (estimated at 400 million dollars), how they align with the strategic plan, and the timeline for spending down the reserves over the next three fiscal years.
- No formal decisions on cuts were made; the hearing served as an informational session to inform the committee before the mayor's proposed budget is released.
- The next and final hearing in this series is scheduled for the following week.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon. The meeting will come to order. Welcome to the April 24, 2024 meeting of the budget and appropriation committee. I am Supervisor Connie Chan, Chair of the Committee, and I'm joined by Supervisors Mirna Malgar and Shaman Walton, hopefully shortly by Vice Chair Ralph Almendelman and President Peskin. Uh President Aaron Peskin. Our clerk, it's Brent Halipa. I would like to thank SFGov TV for broadcasting this meeting. Mr. Clerk, do you have any announcement? Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a friendly reminder to those in attendance to please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices to prevent interruptions to our meeting, uh to our proceedings. Should you have any documents to be included as part of the file, they should be submitted to myself, the clerk. Public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda or the item on this agenda. Uh when public comment is open, please line up to speak on the west side of the chamber to your right, my left along those curtains. And while not necessary to provide public comment, we do invite you to fill out a comment card and leave them on the tray by the television to your left by the doors if you wish to be accurately recorded for the minutes. Alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing in either of the following ways. Email them to myself, the budget and appropriations committee clerk at B-R-E-N-T.jal I P A at SFGO V dot O R G. If you submit public comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and also included as part of the official file. You may also send your written comments via U.S. Postal Service to our office in City Hall at one Dr. Carlton B. Goodlick Place, room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102. And thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. And um colleagues, uh, this is the second of the three hearings to help this committee to get a head start on our budget process. Um last week's hearing addressed the city's um issues around homeless supportive housing and tenants protection services. Today we will be hearing from the Department of Early Childhood, the Office of Labor Standard Enforcement, and a presentation from our community partners who provide that work alongside these city departments. They uh provide support and services to our most vulnerable communities, and they make sure that all have access to critical services. After the presentation, I ask committee members to hold their questions until we also hear from the public. So this way our questions are reflected based on the public comments that we also hear. And uh I welcome any colleagues to have opening remarks if interested. Seeing no name on the roster, we will continue with this um presentation. And the first that we have is from the Department of Early Childhood. Oh, uh Madam Chair, I should call the I should call the item. My apologies. Let's call item number one. Of course. Item number one is a hearing on the city's uh budgetary decisions regarding funding of essential city services that prioritize caregiving and economic security, including early childhood education, family and youth serving programs and resources and supporting uh and support of economic security and initiatives reaching low-wage immigrant and nonprofit workers. Madam Chair. Thank you. Um, my apologies about earlier, but today we will have our executive uh director from the San Francisco Department of Early Childhood, Ingrid Musquita. Good afternoon, supervisor and chair Chan and members of the budget and ordinance um appropriations committee. Excuse me while I fix this microphone. I think it's been heavily used. Okay. So we forwarded also I think it's up on on the screen. Um, some of the questions that you had forwarded regarding our department and our spending plan planning regarding any of the um potential service cuts from our department. And I'm happy, very happy to say that our department expects no service cuts um for next fiscal year. We're actually a new department, um, which was a merger of First Five San Francisco and the Office of Early Care and Education. And part of that merger included expansion of services under Baby Prop C that was approved by the voters in 2018, but held up in court for several years, and finally we were able to implement the plan that we had submitted to the Board of Supervisors back several years ago.
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