Despite a record-breaking $72.5 million spent this fiscal year on street cleaning, reports of excrement — from both man and beast — on San Francisco’s sidewalks continue to rise.

“Poop is poop, and we clean it up as fast as we can,” San Francisco Public Works spokeswoman Rachel Gordon said.

But not fast enough.

For while calls reporting tent camps dropped by nearly 10 percent in the first three months of the year, and calls about discarded needles remained pretty much the same — a drop of 0.7 percent — the poop problem just keeps growing.

The city’s 311 call center clocked 5,874 calls reporting waste on the streets and sidewalks in the first three months of the year — about 65 calls a day — a 7% increase over the same time period last year.

It’s not from lack of trying that things are getting worse. Just look at the work going into the Tenderloin.

Every morning at 4:30 a.m., Public Works crews hit the streets, their first focus to clean up tent camps.

At 5 a.m. — seven days a week — 41 blocks of sidewalks and 12 alleys are manually swept by Hunters Point Family, a nonprofit cleanup program that contracts with the city.

At 6 a.m., mechanical sweepers start cleaning the Tenderloin.

From 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., the Public Works Poop Patrol steam-cleans alleyways along lower Polk Street.

From 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., Civic, another nonprofit under contract with Public Works, manually sweeps 41 blocks in the Tenderloin.

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

Street garbage cans in the Tenderloin are emptied three times a day — more often if needed based on service requests — and staffed Pit Stop public toilets are available at 25 locations in 12 neighborhoods, daily until 8 p.m. There are five Pit Stops in the Tenderloin.

The dawn-to-dusk work represents a $32 million increase in street-cleaning spending since fiscal 2013-2014, an increase of over $6 million a year.

And the city expects to spend at least $72 million next year.

Supervisor Matt Haney, whose district includes some of the dirtiest areas, wants to spend even more.

“Everyone deserves safe and healthy sidewalks,” Haney said.

Haney wants 200 more Big Belly trash cans for his district, 10 more Pit Stop restrooms — five open around the clock — all-day street sweepers to clean 20 “micro-neighborhoods” in the Tenderloin and South of Market, and city-funded deep cleaning of sidewalks multiple times a week.

Under city law, property owners are responsible for cleaning their sidewalks, but some businesses and property owners band together as community benefit districts and tax themselves to pay for the extra cleaning services.

Preliminary estimates by Public Works put the cost of Haney’s wish list at about another $12 million a year.

“Some of these things can be done by the community benefit districts, and some of them can be done by spending our more money effectively and efficiently,” Haney said.

Street cleaners, however, will tell you that the problem isn’t cleaning the streets, but keeping them clean.

“It‘s not just about the money anymore, it’s about also needing to deal with the people who are creating the problems,” Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru said. “Cleaning the same area three, four, five times a day is not the best use of our money, but it is necessary until the behavior changes.”

Mayor London Breed, who has made cleaning the streets a top priority, agrees.

“Ultimately, we need people to change their behavior if we want to see a difference on our streets,” Breed said. “Everyone needs to be held accountable for taking care of our city.”

Police handed out 423 citations for urination and defecation in the last year, but it’s unknown how many resulted in fines or how many were dismissed, something that happens often with low-level “quality-of-life” crimes.

“It’s not the residents of the Tenderloin who are pissing in the streets. They have bathrooms,” said Tenderloin Housing Clinic Executive Director Randy Shaw. “It’s the drug dealers who don’t care about the Pit Stops — they don’t care about the neighborhood.”

Haney said bar patrons who flood into the city at night are also using alleys as toilets. Street people with drug and alcohol problems openly urinate and defecate in broad daylight — with no consequences.

“Most people who are defecating on the streets have mental problems or are sick — I’m not sure the best way to prevent them from doing that is to arrest them,” Haney said. “I’m for accountability, but I haven’t seen any plan for how to do it. The city should be accountable as well.”

Until then, the city will keep cleaning and keep spending.

Pass the wipes.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phillip Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email pmatier@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier