Muni Budget Buys Time
PLUS: SFUSD may require full year of ethnic studies
What You Need To Know
Here’s what happened around the city for the week of April 19, 2026:
- Muni Budget Buys Time
- SFUSD may require full year of ethnic studies
- Vaillancourt Fountain Removal Begins
- 19th Avenue repaving “Carmageddon” for the next three weekends
- California Hospice Fraud Bust
Election Countdown
38 days until the June 2 SF Primary Election — the one that decides whether our commonsense Board majority survives. Read the GrowSF Voter Guide for the June election
Here’s a cheat sheet for San Francisco:
Supervisor, District 2: Stephen Sherrill
Supervisor, District 4: Alan Wong
Board of Education: Phil Kim
Superior Court Judge: Phoebe Maffei
Ballot Measures
✅ Yes on Prop A: Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response Bond
✅ Yes on Prop B: Lifetime Term Limits for Mayor and Supervisors
✅ Yes on Prop C: Decreases to Business Taxes
❌ No on Prop D: Increases to Business Tax Based on Comparison of Top Executive’s Pay to Employees’ Pay
Read all of our endorsements in the GrowSF Voter Guide.
Muni Budget Buys Time
Published April 24, 2026
The Facts
Muni avoided immediate deep cuts when the SFMTA board approved a two-year operating budget of $1.5 billion for FY 2026-27 and $1.6 billion for FY 2027-28. The plan closes a $307 million shortfall in the coming fiscal year in part with a $200 million state loan and fare and parking changes. But Rachel Swan at The Chronicle reports that if new transit taxes fail in November, SFMTA may eliminate up to 20 routes, cut evening service after 9 p.m. by up to 60%, and slash cable car, F-Market, and special-event service.
The Context
SFMTA has been working hard to trim its budget for the past year and it’s paying off. The agency already made summer 2025 service cuts to help close a $50 million gap, and city officials warned last year that the agency’s deficit could reach $322 million by July 2026. GrowSF previously wrote about that fiscal cliff, which was driven by weak parking and ridership revenue after the pandemic and the exhaustion of one-time aid.
The GrowSF Take
Muni is a core city service, and SFMTA has done real work to narrow the budget gap without immediately gutting service. San Francisco should support both the coming regional transit measure and the proposed local Muni parcel tax. Reliable transit matters for workers, students, seniors, downtown recovery, and the city’s long-term fiscal health.
SFUSD may require full year of ethnic studies
Published April 25, 2026
The Facts
SFUSD plans to auto-enroll all ninth graders in a yearlong ethnic studies course using Voices: An Ethnic Studies Survey. Because it runs the full school year, it takes up an entire ninth-grade course slot that could otherwise go to other academic or elective classes.
The vote to adopt the new Ethnic Studies curriculum will happen at the Tuesday, April 28th Board of Education meeting. However, the year-long mandate is not on the agenda and is a holdover from the School Board that voters recalled in 2022. It will remain the default unless the current Board takes action to change it.
The Context
California’s AB 101 was written so the ethnic studies graduation requirement only takes effect once the Legislature appropriates funding for it. The 2025-26 state budget did not include that funding, and EdSource reports the omission effectively halted the mandate for now. Districts are not currently bound by the fall 2025 deadline to offer the course, and the latent class-of-2030 requirement — if and when it activates — is one semester. A full-year requirement is a local policy choice, not a state mandate.
Other California districts are scaling back. Mountain View-Los Altos recently cut its required yearlong course to one semester.
SFUSD is still working through deep budget cuts and ongoing fiscal pressure. The district’s progress monitoring reported eighth-grade math proficiency at 41% in 2024-25.
The GrowSF Take
We support changing the curriculum from SF’s homegrown course to an established curriculum like Voices, but we wish the Board would take this opportunity to right-size the requirement to one semester.
SFUSD is choosing the most expansive version of a policy the state has not even funded into existence. AB 101’s eventual requirement is one semester, and right now it isn’t even an active requirement. Mandating a full year is a local choice, and it’s the wrong one when core academic outcomes — like 41% eighth-grade math proficiency — still need attention.
The full-year ninth grade mandate that students will face takes up an entire elective slot that many students could otherwise use to build skills for AP and honors coursework, start a language sequence, or explore college and career pathways. There are limited elective slots, so every required class crowds out something else.
Vaillancourt Fountain Removal Begins
Published April 24, 2026
The Facts
The Vaillancourt Fountain comes down Monday, ending the 55 year run of the icon/eyesore. It’s a fountain that some love, and some love to hate, but it’s being removed because it’s been completely non-functional since May 2024, and had been slowly degrading for many more years. (And who can forget the green water!)
An official CEQA notice says the 1971 fountain has been inoperable since May 2024 and will be moved to off-site storage for up to three years while the city decides its long-term future. (Yes, the California Environmental Quality Act requires an environmental impact study for the removal of a broken fountain in the middle of a city. California is a weird state.)
The Context
The removal is tied to a 32.5 million redesign of Embarcadero Plaza and Sue Bierman Park into a larger waterfront civic space across from the Ferry Building, funded by city bond money, private fundraising, and BXP.
On its project page, Recreation and Park describes the effort as a roughly five-acre public space. We previously covered the pending removal in August of 2025, when it was reported that repairs could cost far more than removal.
The GrowSF Take
Your author counts himself among the many who love to hate the fountain, and won’t shed a tear over its removal. The promised usable, welcoming waterfront plaza will be a big upgrade over preserving an eyesore.
19th Avenue repaving “Carmaggedon” for the next three weekends
Published April 24, 2026
The Facts
Northbound 19th Avenue will be down to one open lane this weekend as Caltrans repaves the busy route. Officials recommend detouring to Sunset or avoiding the trip entirely.
This first closure is on northbound lanes between Sloat Boulevard and Lincoln Way from 7 a.m. Friday, April 24, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 27. Southbound lanes will be closed Friday, May 8 from 7 a.m. until Monday, May 10 at 5 a.m., and both directions will be closed from Sloat Boulevard to Halloway Avenue Friday, May 22 from 7 p.m. until Monday, May 25 at 10 p.m.
The Context
Despite the big disruption, this is the fast version! The city said it pressed Caltrans to speed up the work, shortening the disruption from about 40 days to just 9. A time-lapse video posted to Reddit from the first day of closure shows how quickly crews are moving.
The GrowSF Take
The repaving was desperately needed, and the faster schedule is better than dragging this out for months. But regular maintenance is better than emergency-style disruption, and road agencies should not let major corridors wear down so badly before fixing them.
California Hospice Fraud Bust
Published April 24, 2026
The Facts
California Attorney General Rob Bonta charged 21 people in an alleged $267 million hospice fraud scheme. Unlike the child care fraud allegations now in the news, hospice fraud is one area where California and Washington are publicly aligned. Sara DiNatale at The Chronicle reports that providers still worry a broader Sacramento-Washington feud could make coordination harder.
California Department of Health Care Services Director Michelle Baass said “Our safeguards worked as designed: we identified irregularities early, stopped further improper payments, and suspended the fraudulent providers.”
The Context
This problem is not new. A 2022 state audit found California’s weak licensing and oversight created the conditions for large-scale hospice fraud and abuse. Lawmakers responded with SB 664, which blocked most new hospice licenses starting in 2022, and the Newsom administration says California has since revoked 280+ licenses.
The GrowSF Take
This alleged quarter-billion-dollar fraud against a program meant to care for people at the end of life is a huge tragedy. Hopefully the state can recover the stolen dollars.
Paid for by GrowSF Voter Guide. Committee Top Funder:
Nick Josefowitz
Not authorized by a candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate. Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.