Even those bitterly divided on a police staffing measure now on San Franciscans’ ballots can agree on at least one thing: Proposition B won’t immediately serve its stated purpose of rectifying the San Francisco Police Department’s officer shortage.
Yet Prop. B appears to be coming down to the wire, with a recent San Francisco Chronicle poll showing voters nearly split on the proposal. Money has firehosed into the race, with labor unions fervently backing it and well-heeled public safety advocates staunchly opposed.
“It’s one of the most idiotic measures I have seen on a ballot,” said Supervisor Matt Dorsey.
That’s a hefty statement from Dorsey, who has been in and around City Hall for more than three decades and worked in the San Francisco Police Department prior to his appointment as supervisor in 2022. He’s also the progenitor of Proposition B but now leads the campaign against it.
Accusations of deceit and political malfeasance have been lobbed by both sides, mirroring the debate that played out similarly in 2022 ballot measures on housing policy. Progressives, repulsed by the moderates’ proffered policy, introduce one of their own. Moderates cry foul, arguing the progressives’ intent was to confuse and delay, not offer a real solution.
It’s been a rollercoaster of legislative and political maneuvering that deserves an explanation.
The birth of Prop. B
The saga began when, shortly after the high-profile closure of a Whole Foods in his district, citing safety concerns in the Mid-Market area, Dorsey introduced a proposal to require The City to allocate at least $75,000 for every officer it fell short of its stated goal.
The funds would help the police department recruit and retain officers until it reaches a set minimum. The aim was to hit 2,074 full-time sworn officers — up from the fewer than 1,600 the department currently has — by 2028.
Supervisor Ahsha Safai agreed with Dorsey on the need for more officers but excoriated his colleague for introducing a new budget set-aside — which the Controller’s Office had estimated could amount to more than $300 million over its first five years — at a time when The City’s deficit is expected to exceed $1 billion dollars in the coming years.
“The worst thing you can do during a recession is ask for a budget set-aside because we have so little money to adjust and work with to deal with all the different crises we are facing,” Safai said.
Safai amended Dorsey’s proposal with what Dorsey has described as a “poison pill.” Under Safai’s plan, The Police Commission would propose an annual budget that funds the minimum number of police officers — but only if voters pass a future measure to fund it, either through an existing tax that is restructured or with a new tax.
Proposition B would also create a recruitment fund of between $16.8 million and $30 million per year, depending on the established staffing minimum and, again, that future voters approve a way to pay for it.
And it all comes down to money.
Organized labor has poured its support behind Proposition B because it fears Dorsey’s version, which unions worry would pull money away from other city departments amid what is certain to be a citywide belt-tightening in the next few years.
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Unions and Safai shared the concern that Dorsey’s proposal dumped money into the police department but not other public-safety positions. There is also a dearth of 911 call operators, they note, but Dorsey’s idea didn’t aim to address it.
“You can’t get a cop without our 911 dispatchers, which SEIU represents,” said Kristin Hardy, SEIU 1021’s regional vice president in San Francisco.
Safai argues that Dorsey’s initial proposal was essentially an untested — but extremely expensive — approach to bolstering police staffing. Safai and other skeptics of Dorsey’s original concept note that it didn’t actually spell out a clear strategy for bolstering police staffing, yet still set aside a mountain of money to pay for it.
Dorsey told The Examiner he didn’t want to be overly prescriptive in a ballot measure. The number of officers The City needs could change, he noted, and the optimal ways to recruit officers can be handled by the department. If it fails, that’s on the department’s leadership.
Why Prop. B is on the ballot
If Safai viewed Dorsey’s proposal as fundamentally flawed, he could have rallied opposition to it among his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors and voted it down, forcing Dorsey to instead gather signatures to place it on the ballot.
Instead, he amended the measure, putting a version on the ballot that remains inherently unfinished.
Safai argues Proposition B still has value and is worthy of support, even if only to clearly signal to city leadership that police staffing is a priority. He noted The City budget sets aside only $250,000 for police recruiting.
For example, Safai points to Proposition G — a nonbinding proposal that would urge San Francisco schools to return algebra to the list of courses offered to eighth graders — as moving policymakers in the right direction.
“It has forced a bureaucracy to say we are now going to accelerate this,” Safai said.
Dorsey argues that the Board of Supervisors and its progressive majority have been unserious about robustly funding police recruitment. He said he believes Proposition B’s best bet at passing relies on confusing voters, who are deceived into thinking it will actually increase police staffing.
“The more people understand what Prop B is, the more they are against it, and I’m hoping that reason will prevail, but the path to victory here is clearly based on fooling voters into thinking this is a public-safety measure,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey might still collect citizen signatures and place his own measure on the ballot in a future election.
“People want this problem solved, and they want the games to end,” Dorsey said.
