SEC. 9.100. BUDGET PROCESS ORDINANCES.
§ 9.100
San Francisco's fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30, and the city adopts a rolling two-year budget each year. The Board of Supervisors must enact an interim budget by June 30 and a final biennial appropriation ordinance between July 15 and August 1. The Mayor and Board must establish ordinances governing budget preparation procedures, format, public participation, and separate capital and maintenance budgets.
The city's budget year starts July 1 and ends June 30. Every year, the city makes a budget that covers the next two years. By June 30, the Board of Supervisors passes a temporary budget to spend money while they finish the final one. Between July 15 and August 1, they pass the final budget for those two years. The Mayor and Board also have to create rules about how the budget gets made, what information goes in it, how the public gets to participate (including at hearings), and how capital projects (big long-term building and buying) are separated from regular maintenance and repairs.
- Complex:The section references the Charter, uses nested numbering with both numbers and letters, and interweaves interim and final appropriations timelines in a way that requires careful parsing.
- Controversial:Budget adoption and public participation procedures are subjects of ongoing civic debate in San Francisco regarding transparency, stakeholder input, and timing.
AI-generated · claude-haiku-4-5 · informational only, not legal advice.
Official text
(a) The fiscal year for the City and County shall commence on the first day of July of each year and shall end on the last day of June of the next succeeding year. The City's budgetary cycle shall be a rolling two-year cycle. Each year the City shall adopt a new biennial budget that projects revenues and expenditures for the next two fiscal years. The budgetary cycle shall commence on the first day of July of each year and shall end on the last day of June twenty-four months later.
(b) On or before June 30 of each year, beginning on July 1, 2010 with respect to those non-general fund departments proposed by the Mayor and designated by the Board by ordinance for early implementation, and beginning on July 1, 2012 as to all other City departments, the Board of Supervisors shall, except for equipment and capital improvements, enact an interim biennial appropriation ordinance and not earlier than the 15th day of July, nor later than the first of August of each year, the Board of Supervisors shall adopt the proposed biennial budget as submitted or amended and shall adopt the biennial appropriation ordinance accordingly, which shall supersede the interim appropriation ordinance.
(c) The Mayor shall submit and the Board of Supervisors shall act on ordinances with respect to the following:
1. A schedule and procedures for the orderly preparation and submission of the biennial proposed budget and for the review and adoption of the necessary interim and final appropriations ordinances;
2. A description of the form of the proposed biennial budget and appropriation ordinance consistent with the financial records required by Section 3.105 of this Charter and containing information relating the type and extent of services to be delivered or revenues to be generated to proposed expenditures in a manner which, to the extent feasible, allows comparison of revenue trends as well as expected performance and expenditures between various fiscal years;
3. A procedure to include public participation in the budgetary process which shall include public hearings conducted by the com-missions, Mayor and the Board of Supervisors; and
4. The form, content and dates of submission of the City's Capital Improvements and Facilities Maintenance Budgets. The ordinance relating to Capital Improvement and Facilities Maintenance shall minimally:
(A) Require that such budgets be prepared for more than a single year;
(B) Clearly establish distinctions between major, long term construction, replacement and acquisition projects (Capital Improvements) and short term repair, minor replacement and maintenance projects (Facilities Maintenance);
(C) Be consistent as to the date of submission with the time requirements established for the submission of the budget and appropriation ordinance; and
(D) Provide information regarding the estimated completion schedule for Capital Improvements, the funding source for each and the estimated annual operating costs thereof.
(Amended by Proposition A, Approved 11/5/2009)