On Monday night, the San Francisco Health Commission met to discuss the $17 million in budget cuts going into effect this year.
The cuts were approved last summer by the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor, as a way to address the city’s deficit of more than $800 million dollars over the next two years. Since then, the city has been working with stakeholders to determine which programs will see reductions.
Chief Financial Officer of SF Department of Public Health, Drew Murrell, presented the proposal.
He said, "our criteria were to first above all kind of avoid cuts to direct health and clinical services."
Instead, the majority of the cuts the Commission is recommending are to vocational and workforce development programs.
Many impacted organizations work with marginalized groups — like Lyon Martin, the San Francisco Community Health Center, and San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which primarily serve the LGBTQ+ community. The cuts would also impact programs serving the Black community — like the Rafiki Coalition, the Working While Black Healing Circle and Black Health Clinical Internship.
More than a hundred community members showed up to the meeting, many of them healthcare workers. They talked about how these cuts would increase workload on already strained staff, limit opportunities for future providers, and lead to negative health outcomes in patients.
J.M. Jaffe is the CEO of Lyon Martin Community Health Services. The Health Commission’s proposed cuts would end the organization’s BIPOC Healthcare Fellowship, which provides training opportunities to transgender people of color who do not have the education or employment experience to access other entry level health care jobs.
"It is a lifeline for our community," said Jaffe, "and it's essential for Lyon Martin to be able to execute it's by us for us approach."
Without funding, the fellowship would need to eliminate two paid positions annually.
"Transgender people are experiencing a coordinated systemic attack that has been described as a genocide," Jaffe continued. "These are not neutral budget decisions. It is a political act with consequences."
Residents have until the end of day on February 4th to submit written comments via email to dphbudgetideas@sfdph.org
The vote will take place on March 2nd.
