New SF Mayor Daniel Lurie declared a City Hall hiring freeze (but not for cops or firefighters) on Day One of his administration that faces a $876 million budget deficit, and he says he’ll have his fentanyl crackdown plan ready to pass on Tuesday.

Today is the first full day of new SF Mayor Daniel Lurie’s administration after his Wednesday inauguration, and Lurie pulled all of the city’s department heads into an all-hands meeting first thing Thursday morning. And KRON4 reports he promptly informed them he was declaring an immediate City Hall hiring freeze as the city faces an $876 million deficit over the next two fiscal years.  

Lurie explains this in his Twitter video spiel above, but also sent the press an official statement from his office. “San Francisco is making a comeback, and I intend to put us in the best possible position to drive that growth,” Lurie says in that statement. “We are committed to fiscal discipline, giving San Franciscans the accountability they demand, and focusing the government on doing the core things well.”

Though that statement adds that the hiring freeze does not apply to “positions which are historically challenging to staff and that directly support public safety and health.” As the Chronicle explains, that means the hiring freeze does not apply to the police department, the fire department, 911 operators, EMTs, or nurses.

Lurie is getting a lot of press for this hiring freeze along the lines of ‘Oh look at him rolling his sleeves right away.’ But as the Chronicle notes, this is not that different from what Mayor London Breed had been doing in recent months. Breed told departments that they, in the Chronicle’s words, “should consider freezing hiring” as she demanded 15% cuts across the board, and warned staff to consider layoffs.

What may be more significant than the hiring freeze is that Lurie’s statement said that department heads were told to “realign programming and spending with the city’s priorities with a focus on evidence and proven results.” In plain English, that means the city is putting a pause on any new city contracts that are not yet signed or implemented.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has the scoop that Lurie will introduce the fentanyl emergency declaration he campaigned on before this Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, so the board can actually vote on it Tuesday. Per the Times, that plan will call for 24/7 operations against outdoor drug markets, setting up a treatment “crisis center” in the Tenderloin to substitute for jails or hospitals, and soliciting private donations for homeless shelter beds.

Though, per the Times, Lurie’s emergency plan will call for “the hiring of new city workers and the building of homeless and drug treatment facilities.” Hiring new city workers does not sound consistent with Lurie’s new hiring freeze, but we’ll wait for more details as his fentanyl plan is slated to be made public in the next couple of days.

Related: 'Safety Isn't Just a Statistic': Read SF Mayor Daniel Lurie's Inauguration Speech [SFist]

Image: @DanielLurie via Twitter