Posted on 12/16/2023 8:53:38 PM PST by SeekAndFind
San Francisco’s first-ever Office of Reparations is among the programs gutted by Mayor London Breed’s budget cuts.
Funding for the office, which was set to launch this year, was erased as part of Breed’s $75 million cuts to the The City budget in preparation for a major deficit in 2024.
Though it’s just one of several planned programs that will no longer be funded, the Office of Reparations is noteworthy because its establishment came after a widely followed, yearslong process that ended in accepting a reparations plan.
The decision to pull back funding comes after Supervisor Shamann Walton fought to secure money in the budget for the office earlier this year.
Though he called the cuts “disheartening” in a statement to The Examiner, Walton didn’t dispute the mayor’s logic behind the reductions as The City faces a prolonged economic reckoning.
“I understand the importance of no cuts to existing programs, but the Black community will continue to pursue justice and equity through reparations here in San Francisco,” Walton said. “My hope is that the city’s deficit is eliminated quickly so that we can fund the Office of Reparations and fulfill the commitment made to address the historical injustices and inequities that have persisted for generations for Black San Franciscans.”
Sheryl Davis, executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, told The Examiner that despite the cuts to the office of reparations, The City continues to work on several of the reparations plan’s recommendations.
Those efforts include locating a satellite campus of one of the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities in San Francisco and collaborating with The City’s economic development staffers to utilize vacant storefronts.
“A lot of the work, it’ll be tight but we’ll leverage some of the funding we had in our budget,” Davis said.
The Office of Reparations was viewed as a key step in implementing the reparations plan, which was drafted by the African American Reparations Advisory Committee and accepted by the Board of Supervisors earlier this year. The $2 million would be used to hire staff who would begin to form and fund programs enumerated in the plan.
Everyone should have known it wasn’t going anywhere, but it got them through one local election.
gavin got anti on reparations lately, he must be running for something.
words you won’t here from democrats in the next 11 months for 500 Ken.
So... being first in line to have your budget nixed...
Is that “Equity” or “Inclusion”?
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