Budget committee forwards multiple bond and budget measures, including major affordable-housing inducements and PUC bond packages

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors' Budget & Finance Committee on Wednesday forwarded a series of budget and bond measures to the full Board, including several inducement resolutions for affordable-housing projects and multi-hundred-million-dollar revenue-bond packages for transit and utilities.

Staff presented inducement and ground-lease items authorizing applications to the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC) for projects including 455 Fell (a 100% affordable family housing project), a Mission-area family housing project at 2060/2070 Folsom, Fifth & Howard, and 1601 Mariposa. The clerk read item-language setting CDLAC application caps; for example the item read "not to exceed $50,000,000" for 455 Fell, while the project manager (MOHCD) later described an application figure of $56,000,000, a discrepancy recorded in the transcript. All of those items were forwarded with a positive recommendation to the full Board after staff presentations and no substantive public opposition at the committee meeting.

SFMTA sought committee approval of a revenue-bond package to support a roughly $190 million project fund that SFMTA described as covering new light-rail vehicles (about $107 million), a VanBRT project (about $48 million) and Mission/Bay transportation capital improvements (about $35 million). Harvey Rose, the budget analyst, told the committee the estimated total debt service over 30 years for the transit bond request would be approximately $385,400,000 and that the requested bonds could add an estimated $11'$16 million in additional annual debt service. Rose recommended forwarding the measures with the analyst's report; the committee did so without objection.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission presented a package of bond and appropriation items across power, water and wastewater enterprises. The PUC asked to release roughly $2.76 million in mitigation reserves for Hetch Hetchy power matters and sought multi-year appropriations and bond authorizations that together run into the hundreds of millions. The budget analyst noted planned water-rate adjustments in the PUC financial plan (a 10% increase in 2016'17 and a 7% increase in 2017'18) to cover operating and capital costs, and recommended that the PUC be required to report back to the Budget & Finance Committee on the actual sale of bonds. PUC staff agreed to that reporting requirement. During discussion, PUC staff corrected a drafting error in the earlier presentation about power-rate changes, clarifying the planned increase was a half-cent per kilowatt-hour, not fifty cents.

Committee members repeatedly approved forwarding motions "without objection"; many items will next appear on the full Board agenda for consideration and possible adoption. The committee also continued the standing item on the city's financial position to the call of the chair.

What happens next: The measures forwarded from committee will be calendared for the Board of Supervisors for final consideration, including CDLAC application filings, bond issuance approvals and related appropriations. The PUC will return with a report to the Budget & Finance Committee on the actual bond sales as requested.