See our November 2024 SF Voter Guide for a nonpartisan analysis of measures on the San Francisco ballot, for the election occurring Nov. 5, 2024. The following measure is on that ballot.
Proposition J would create an oversight body to evaluate local government expenditures on programs benefiting children and youths. If the oversight team discovered inappropriate or unnecessary spending, officials could withhold funds.
The measure would also redirect many tens of millions of dollars annually to those programs, potentially drawing down other parts of City Hall’s budget if officials could not increase revenue to compensate.
Support
The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to put Proposition J on the November ballot. In the official proponent letter, signed by all supervisors but Aaron Peskin and Connie Chan, they say it would enhance the “transparency and efficiency” of how the city allocates money to help young people.
That would include better tracking of dollars that City Hall gave the San Francisco Unified School District through the Public Education Enrichment Fund, which voters first authorized in 2004 and renewed in 2014.
Proposition J “works off what the voters already passed about 10 years ago, but adds teeth with budget accountability tools,” said Supervisor Myrna Melgar, Proposition J’s author, at a July meeting discussing the measure.
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Opposition
No opposition argument was submitted to the San Francisco Department of Elections.
Campaign finance
As of Oct. 7, the Ethics Commission had reported no official campaign spending for or against the measure.
What it would do
In 1991, San Francisco voters first set aside city funding for programs benefiting children and youths by passing that year’s Proposition J. City voters have since approved similar measures that have increased the amounts that must go toward those programs each year.
As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars in annual outlays flow to various city agencies and the school district — which is largely funded by the state — intended to pay for preschool, after-school and summer programs, tutoring, social workers and many other services.
Proposition J would create an oversight body, called the Our Children, Our Families Initiative, to track those expenditures. The mayor and the district superintendent would lead the team, which would be staffed by City Hall and district personnel. It would submit annual reports to the Board of Supervisors, which would discuss them in public hearings and use their findings to make budget decisions.
The measure would increase scrutiny of the Public Education Enrichment Fund, which pays for arts, music and sports programs, as well as those supporting early childhood education. The district would give the oversight body comprehensive proposals every five years for how it would use the fund’s dollars that originated from City Hall, and yearly reports on where that money went. If spending plans did not fall within guidelines, the mayor and Board of Supervisors could withhold the city’s contributions from the fund.
Cost
Proposition J would also revise the parameters for the Student Success Fund, which voters approved in 2022 and which gives grants to schools to boost student academic performance and social-emotional wellness. The fund’s expenditures would no longer count toward the city’s annually required spending on programs for children and youths.
This bureaucratic detail would have major financial consequences, creating a spending hole that would need to be filled. This fiscal year, officials would have to siphon up to $35 million from other parts of the city’s budget, according to an analysis by the controller’s office. Each subsequent year, for 14 years, the hole would be between $35 million and $83 million.
Staffing the oversight body would cost between $140,000 and $570,000 annually, the controller said.
Interactions with propositions D and E
This November, San Francisco voters will also consider local propositions D and E, which could eliminate many city commissions and similar bodies. Either proposition’s passage could cause the dissolution of the Our Children, Our Families Council — the advisory body that now coordinates citywide spending goals for children and youth programs but does not comprehensively review expenditures. If that happened, and Proposition J also were passed, the new oversight body would assume the responsibilities of the Our Children, Our Families Council.
Votes needed to pass
Proposition J requires a simple majority of “yes” votes to pass.
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