Free City: Now with more “oomph”!

Last week the CCSF Board of Trustees approved a memorandum of understanding with the City of San Francisco extending the Free City program for the next 10 years.

Over the summer, our union worked with the Free City Coalition and Supervisor Gordon Mar to use the leverage we had built with Supervisor Jane Kim around the Free City Charter Amendment and brought the Mayor to the negotiating table. Ultimately the City agreed to triple Free City funding (the amount named in the Charter legislation), starting in Fall 2019 rather than 2021, and to reimburse the college $5.4M for previous under-funding.

Free City served more than 24,000 in its first year. We are proud that SF has made education more accessible to its residents and thrilled that CCSF is free and that much more accessible to the majority of our students. Moving the start date for this more robust program forward, securing a long-term commitment to the program, and backfilling the cost overruns are significant victories and a boon for our college and our students–especially low-income students, who will receive substantially more financial support.

Nonetheless, we have serious, ongoing concerns about the Chancellor’s choices regarding program structure. The college’s own budget projections show that his new program structure will exceed the newly allocated funding, leaving the college once again to foot the bill for cost overruns. This was an unnecessary step that could put the college and the program in future jeopardy. Even after directing the Chancellor to negotiate a “cost-neutral” program, our Board of Trustees failed to hold the Chancellor accountable to their own directive.

A few FAQs:

We’ve been hearing this question, but the answer is definitively no! Free City has helped CCSF’s enrollment, which has also helped the bottom line. The 2-year 2017-19 pilot was grossly underfunded and left CCSF with a $5.2 M hole that administration was *not* counting in its $33 M budget emergency being used to justify the cuts. (And the new deal with the City repays CCSF for those overruns.)

No! There is no FAFSA requirement. However, low-income students who qualify for financial aid will also qualify for *more funding* through Free City, which is good incentive for getting money from federal, state, and city sources.

Well, not exactly. Mayor Breed has committed the City to increased funding starting at $15M for the next 10 years. But this commitment is not technically binding. Ultimately the best way to ensure the program’s continuation and success is to keep organizing and to make sure San Francisco understands Free City’s value.