Monday, March 23, about 20 members of SEIU 1021 and IFPTE Local 21 gathered at the San Francisco Department of Public Health to present a petition signed by 1500 members to SFDPH Director Daniel Tsai calling on him and the Health Commission to propose a budget with no layoffs that would protect care.

Mayor Lurie’s administration has announced that 95 full-time positions must be eliminated from SFDPH. But the department is already short staffed; cutting positions will negatively impact healthcare for the city’s most vulnerable residents, as well as negatively impacting public health more broadly.

As the petition states: “A reduction in DPH employees and the services they provide will only harm our community. The City’s recent announcement that $120 million in tax revenue from Airbnb would be returned to the City’s General Fund makes the Mayor’s February 27 demand for the DPH to reduce staffing by $20 million (95 FTEs) unnecessary. This revenue must be used now, in the next fiscal year, to save jobs.”

SEIU 1021 member Brian Feraru, an SFDPH public health lab tech, presented the petitions to Director Tsai, who said that while he could not promise there would be no layoffs in the department, he was committed to prioritize making sure that anyone currently working for SFDPH could continue working there and to minimize impacts to the department’s programs.