> San Fran’s budget is/was so large thanks to sky high property taxes on property values decoupled from reality. You are mostly right with your post, but when

> San Fran’s budget is/was so large thanks to sky high property taxes on property values decoupled from reality. You are mostly right with your post, but when analyzing SF’s budget you have to remember that San Francisco isn’t just a city it’s a consolidated city and county. The way that this affects the budget is that in addition to you know, municipal services that cities are expected by their residents to deliver, San Francisco is also the unit of government that implements the local services mandates that California uses the counties as a vehicle to deliver. That’s not to say it isn’t needlessly large even given all of that, but there’s another important variable in play that would already set the floor of the budget for a city in California given its population sky high before taking into account the local political environment.