San Francisco voters will consider changing the way city funds are distributed and monitored for schools and youth services in this election’s Proposition J.
The proposition would add a layer of oversight to youth spending to track its effectiveness by creating a panel called the “Our Children, Our Families Initiative” that would be led by the mayor and the superintendent of schools and staffed by city and school district employees.
Prop J, if passed by a majority of voters, would standardize the reporting and evaluation of youth funding to create additional oversight of how money in youth special funds is spent.
It would empower the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and mayor to withhold funding from the San Francisco Unified School District if it didn’t meet certain benchmarks. It would also restrict the city from counting the balance of one of the city’s special funds toward its other funding for youth services.
The city has three main funds that support different youth services and education: the Children and Youth Fund, the Public Education Enrichment Fund, and the Student Success Fund.
The Children and Youth Fund supports a range of youth programs up to the age of 24, including childcare, job training, health and social services, and other programs. It was established in 2022 by voters who set escalating baseline funding that levels off at $60 million in fiscal year 2026-27 and requires at least that amount through the 2037-38 fiscal year.
The Public Education Enrichment Fund pays for early childhood education programs like art, music, sports and libraries. The city is required in its Charter to provide minimum funding that is at least equivalent to what it spent on the program in 2002-03, which established the Fund’s baseline funding.
Proposition J would restrict the grants in the Student Success Fund from being used for programs in the Public Education Enrichment Fund. It would also compel the school district to enter into a data sharing agreement with the city or face a loss of discretionary funding above the minimum funding levels established in the Charter.
Controller Greg Wagner said in his analysis of the proposition’s cost that restricting the comingling of funds and the requirement to set aside youth funding in a special fund rather than allocate it annually during the budget process “would have a significant impact on the cost of government of up to $35 million in FY 2024-25 and increasing to up to $83 million in FY 2037-38 in that it would reallocate funding that would otherwise be available to the General Fund.”
All about ‘good governance’
The proposition is supported by nearly the entire Board of Supervisors, including Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who wrote the ballot proponent’s argument.
Melgar said the proposition was needed to provide more transparency and efficiency in the city’s youth services funding.
“Prop J is about good governance,” she wrote. “Prop J is about ensuring every dollar we spend on children is targeted to have the maximum results based on established outcomes.”
There was no ballot opponent argument submitted for Prop J, but the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee opposes the measure, citing the cost and other reasons.
“Good government principles call for the BOS [Board of Supervisors] to be given sufficient discretion to allocate funds without them being tied up in unneeded set asides,” the Republican Committee wrote on its website.