Pretrial Services Fight Heads to Budget Season as Committee Advances $900M in Contracts

San Francisco's Budget and Finance Committee fired the opening salvo of a high-stakes budget fight on May 27, sending a $22.5 million pretrial services contract to the full board without recommendation — a rare signal that supervisors plan to use the city's purse strings to force a policy hearing on whether to strip services from the nonprofit that has run them for half a century. Across a dense, three-and-a-half-hour agenda, the committee also approved a $1 billion office lease, advanced $466 million in supportive housing contracts, and raised alarms about $5 million in behavioral health workforce cuts with no replacement funding in sight.

• $22.5M pretrial services contract advances without recommendation as Superior Court pushes to transfer program from Sheriff to Adult Probation
• $1.03 billion, 21-year lease at 1455 Market approved to consolidate city offices and vacate the seismically vulnerable 1 South Van Ness
• $466M in supportive housing and shelter contracts cleared despite zero documented service plans at two major sites
• $5M in behavioral health workforce and prevention funding cut under Prop 1, threatening the pipeline of drug treatment counselors
• $14.5M grant closes the funding gap for the Powell Street transformation, targeting November 2027 completion
• Black community leaders demand engagement before any deal on the Ella Hill Hutch community center

The committee's longest and most contentious debate centered on a three-year, $22.5 million contract between the Sheriff's Office and the San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project — and a parallel push by the Superior Court to move pretrial services to Adult Probation.