Ben Rosenfield

Will Airbnb Stiff San Francisco During America's Cup?

Our across-the-hall colleagues at the Guardian have written a bit about how there seems to be a great degree of ambiguity regarding whether Airbnb is forking over the hotel taxes the city claims it owes. It's always a pressing question whether a politically connected company is paying its fair share ... More >>

America's Cup: Who's on the Hook for Private Fund-Raisers' $5 Million Loan?

For those who may or may not enjoy watching syndicates of wealthy men race boats on the bay -- but definitely don't want the city to lose money on the deal -- this has been a beguiling week. New projections put the expected public and private benefits of hosting the America's Cup way down from prior ... More >>

America's Cup: Losing Millions Is the Exact Scenario We Were Warned About, Repeatedly

The news over the weekend that the city could be left holding the bag for millions the America's Cup Organizing Committee has failed to provide is a revelation in the same sense that it's revelatory that promiscuous couples in horror films tend to be killed off. The very real possibility of San ... More >>

Clockmakers: S.F.'s Overtime Law Doesn't Reduce Overtime

The Cup Runneth Over: S.F.'s America's Cup Decision Looms

Pension Bomb: City May Be Facing Additional $100 Million Burden

​When your doctor is feeling parts of your body, squints, utters an expletive, and says "well, that's not supposed to be there," it's uncertain what the situation is. But, this much is clear -- it's not good. And that's how things stand with the city's pension plan. This week, the retirement board ... More >>

Adachi's Latest Pension Claim Riles City Hall

This will not go smoothly...​In a pension-related version of Martin Luther nailing 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, Jeff Adachi took to the steps of City Hall today. But, since this is a pension-related matter, you can substitute the theses with hundreds of millions in pension obliga ... More >>

Pensions: How Many Earn $195,000 or More?

​The Chronicle ran an interesting front-page story today acknowledging that pension reform is the dinner guest no one at the wanna-be mayoral table invited -- but can't get rid of.Our would-be leaders are grilled about their stance on runaway pensions; most of them embrace the term "negotiated dea ... More >>

Pension Reports Predict Dire San Francisco Future

Such a headache...​When discussing the city's pension morass, the preferred analogy is a bursting dam. Fair enough. But, today, we'll use different too-much-water nomenclature: In pension world, when it rains, it pours. Hot on the heels of city controller Ben Rosenfield's analysis of what would -- ... More >>

San Francisco Uses Its Good Credit To Bail Asian Art Museum Out Of Debt

Money Rescue​The financially troubled Asian Art Museum seems to have gracefully escaped bankruptcy. After a brief scare of losing its credit line and $20 million in assets, city officials have apparently worked out a better deal than the museum could have imagined -- they don't have to pay off the ... More >>

Poof, There It Goes: Up to $142 million in city revenue is "uncertain"

SF will discover, plant these​In terms of budgeting, cities and people aren't so different: you spend what you have and then you spend what you plan to have. This all rests on the notion that you will actually eventually have, and as the City Controller warned on Thursday, San Francisco is betting ... More >>

Will Muni Finally Catch a Financial Break?

Is good news on the way? ​City Controller Ben Rosenfield was strolling through the pathways of City Hall this morning with a document tucked under his arm that may or may not save Muni some much-needed moolah. He's not saying. Not yet at least. The document beneath his arm was a draft copy of an a ... More >>

Point Adachi: Controller's Audit of Public Defender's Office Bolsters Claim Farming Out Cases to Private Attorneys Would Cost City More

Richard BuiJeff Adachi survived his probing by the city controller -- and is now proudly boasting the resultsSome of you may remember the very public tête-à-tête between Public Defender Jeff Adachi and Supervisor Sean Elsbernd earlier this year. Sparked by Adachi's request to hire more paraleg ... More >>