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Mayor London Breed stands among law enforcement workers, city ambassadors and other organizations during a press conference announcing her proposed $14 billion budget at Union Square in San Francisco.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed.

Mayor London Breed wants to take advantage of some of San Francisco’s projected $75 million surplus over the next two fiscal years to help hire more police, give raises to experienced officers and boost the pay of new recruits to city law enforcement.

The plans are included in the new two-year city budget that Breed proposed Wednesday, reflecting her desire to fill vacant law enforcement jobs in response to public safety concerns raised by the San Francisco Police Department as well as many residents and business leaders. The proposed budget is $13.95 billion the first year, dropping to $13.85 billion the second — massive figures that reflect San Francisco’s rare status as both a city and county.

Breed has in recent months embraced an active role for law enforcement to address some of the city’s most dire street conditions and the ongoing drug crisis that worsened during the pandemic. Her push to bolster the police force comes despite mixed crime data — assaults and robberies are down, but shoplifting is up, for example — and as voters decide whether to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

She told business leaders last month that she would make police funding a priority in her next budget, and Wednesday’s proposal follows through on that promise.

Overall, Breed is proposing to increase the SFPD budget by about $50 million, bringing it to $708.3 million next fiscal year. Much of the budget growth reflects wage increases that the city is contractually obligated to pay starting July 1. But it is also due to new spending the mayor is seeking in order to improve police recruitment and retention.

The boost in the department’s funding comes as most San Francisco departments see a larger budget due to higher staffing costs. And the amount the mayor wants to spend on police still pales in comparison to the health department’s proposed budget, which totals about $3 billion.

Members of the Board of Supervisors may feel differently about how to spend public dollars and push for changes as they vet the budget before voting on it in the coming weeks.

Breed touted her budget proposal in a news conference at Union Square where she was flanked by police officers, community ambassadors, Public Works employees and others.

“When I traveled to promote San Francisco, people talked about the city and how much they love it and how much they want to come here, but what they also talked about is their concerns about safety,” Breed said.

Breed’s spending plan would support hiring 220 police officers through eight academy classes over two years. The new hires are intended to fill vacancies that are already accounted for in the department budget — SFPD expects to have 1,671 full-duty sworn officers and about 200 unfilled jobs when the current fiscal year ends. The department is planning for 220 new recruits because it anticipates more departures and because not everyone may finish the academies.

SFPD has said it’s hundreds of officers short of staffing levels recommended by a department-commissioned consultant — but experts disagree about how many officers the city needs.

At her news conference, Breed referenced the November mass robberies in Union Square and the police response that followed, which she credited as a success. She also said survey results had shown that San Franciscans generally “want to see more police officers walking the beats.”

“We made that happen in Union Square, and we didn’t see those mass looting situations occur since then,” Breed said.

The mayor said the department has seen hundreds of officers leave the force, “and we anticipate more to retire.”

SFPD is also battling perceptions of ineffectiveness due to reports of officers not investigating crimes properly.

Some of the extra police funding would go toward 2% retention bonuses that kick in at five and 15 years of service to discourage officers from leaving SFPD. That’s expected to cost the city $10.5 million annually. Additionally, Breed wants the city to spend $1.3 million over two years to develop new police recruitment tools and strategies. The larger budget would also help increase the starting pay for entry-level SFPD officers, but it wasn’t immediately clear by how much. Breed’s intent is to make San Francisco more competitive with other Bay Area cities that offer more attractive compensation packages for new recruits.

Police officials have said the department has struggled to attract and retain officers, as some leave for other jobs due to better pay or living conditions. SFPD is also expecting a wave of retirements.

Critics of the mayor and supporters of defunding the police have argued in the past that more armed officers won’t solve San Francisco’s homelessness, mental health and overdose problems.

“We have a pretty huge budget for SFPD already,” said former Police Commissioner John Hamasaki. “The policing-first approach taken by the mayor’s office leaves a lot to be desired. It leaves a lot of the conversations that we’ve been having nationally as far as public safety and community safety unaddressed. I see this as ... more of a political move than a substantive move.”

Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who chairs the board’s budget committees, said she would look at the mayor’s SFPD spending plans in the context of the city’s broader efforts to move some functions away from the police.

“The devil is in the details,” Ronen said. “I want to fund what’s realistic, what’s needed, understanding that I am 100% committed to transferring work away from the police that they should never have been doing in the first place. If we’re going to be doing that, then we should be expecting some shrinkage of the force over time.”

Ronen said she also wanted to take a closer look at how the mayor’s plans for police recruitment and retention compare to what other jurisdictions pay for law enforcement.

The budget proposal further envisions an expansion of hiring in the fire and sheriff’s departments, both of which have been relying on overtime pay to make up for low staffing levels, according to city officials. Breed wants to fund four extra firefighter academies and two extra paramedic academies.

At the same time, the mayor is trying to invest in alternatives to law enforcement. Her budget would allow the city to hire 10 new unarmed park rangers to improve safety in the city’s park system. Breed would also maintain spending levels for street response teams that are meant to help people who overdose or are suffering from acute mental health crises.

The mayor’s proposal would also provide $7.2 million over the next two fiscal years for a dedicated 18-person crew to clean the streets of the Tenderloin every weekday.

The mayor’s proposal would funnel nearly $49 million over two years to help the city’s economy recover from the pandemic.

The budget plan includes tens of millions to raise pay for workers in the city’s aging single-room-occupancy hotels and $5 million for upgrades and repairs following a Chronicle investigation that revealed understaffing and poor living conditions in the facilities.

The budget further proposes $7 million in capital funding to set up a new 70-cabin village of tiny homes in the Mission. And it also would allow the city to maintain operations at three shelter-in-place hotels — where homeless people were moved during the pandemic — that would have otherwise closed.

Her budget includes $160 million over two years to fund increased costs associated with employee agreements. The city has more than 32,000 employees, and the average salary is $114,420.

San Francisco’s budget surplus had been expected to total $108 million in the next two fiscal years, but the city reduced the estimate by more than $33 million due to higher projections for retirement spending and workers’ compensation. The surplus comes from a variety of factors, including lower pension contributions due to strong investment returns and a tax windfall from some major real estate deals.

The city still expects budget shortfalls in the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years, and its budget may be challenged if tourists and downtown office workers do not return in strong numbers.

The Board of Supervisors’ budget committee will hold hearings on the proposal in June and make changes to the budget before it goes to the full board, which must approve it by Aug. 1.

J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris

J.D. Morris covers San Francisco City Hall, focused on the Board of Supervisors. He joined The Chronicle in 2018 to cover energy and spent three years writing mostly about PG&E and California wildfires.

Before coming to The Chronicle, he reported on local government for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, where he was among the journalists awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the 2017 North Bay wildfires.

He was previously the casino industry reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. Raised in Monterey County and Bakersfield, he has a bachelor's degree in rhetoric from UC Berkeley.