Good Government and Ethics Reforms

Mayor Breed delivered reforms to make government more responsive, efficient, and transparent. This work improves the delivery of basic services and builds public trust. Mayor Breed has taken significant steps to ensure transparency, oversight and accountability in the institutions of City government.

This work has taken the form of reforms to cut red tape and make government more efficient, and institute reforms to increase prevent actual or perceived conflicts of interest, pay-to-play arrangements and undue influence, and protect against corruption. By removing red tape and bureaucratic barriers, not only did the city improve how it delivers services to the public but it removed the opportunity for favoritism and corruption that can dwell in complicated city processes. By putting in place stronger administrative policies, the city has rooted out bad actors who’ve violated the public trust.

These reforms have made sure that San Francisco has high levels of transparency in government and strict ethical controls. The measures Mayor Breed has implemented include Executive Directives, legislation and department policies.

Cutting Red Tape and Improving Efficiency

Mayor Breed led major efforts across Departments and disciplines to remove barriers and inefficiencies in government to improve services for residents and ensure tax dollars were being spent more effectively. This work included hiring reforms, contracting reforms, housing approvals, and permitting for construction and small businesses.

In response to the pandemic, Mayor Breed funded a new Government Operations Recovery Team. This government efficiency team, led by the Office of the City Administrator, Controller, and Department of Human Resources (DHR) has led to significant improvements in hiring times over the last year and a half. In addition, this operation has improved contracting and financial operations, making City government more efficient and effective in delivering services for residents.

Expediting and Modernizing Hiring: The Gov Ops team led efforts to remove barriers to hiring, align rules with advancements in technology, make the examination and hiring processes faster, provide flexibility for specific recruitment needs, and provide clarity and consistency of language. These hiring initiatives by Gov Ops have led to:

• Nearly 50% increase in applicants for vacant City positions.
• More than 25% increase in hires made.
• 25% decrease in time to fill vacant positions.
• Nearly 30% decrease in the vacancy rate.

Contracting Reform: Mayor Breed issued an Executive Directive to standardize contracting practices to avoid complex and time-consuming efficiencies that may exist.

• Developed a single standardized online portal for contracting waivers and contract review/approval requests. The new portal and business process changes have reduced OCA’s approval time by 50%.
• Allow departments to split contracting staff time to increase efficiency through the Contract and Procurement Support (CAPS) team.
• Alert businesses to upcoming opportunities so they can plan ahead. In partnership with the Contract Monitoring Division, Gov Ops developed a consolidated one-stop-shop on SF.gov that links possible vendors to procurement forecasts developed by major purchasing departments.
• Sped up approvals and decreased burdens on employees in the City’s financial operations, which yields faster results for City services.

Small Business Permitting: Mayor Breed undertook permitting reform for small businesses immediately upon entering office. Her first attempt to pass legislation at the Board of Supervisors was watered down to the point of ineffectiveness. Instead of taking that defeat, Mayor Breed put together an even stronger measure then went straight to the voters to pass Prop H, which was the City’s most ambitious change to small business approvals in years. She followed this with two more major legislative efforts in City Hall, both passing to extend these landmark policies more broadly across the City.

Permit Center: The City opened the Permit Center in 2021, which offers 23 distinct service areas through the Planning Department, Department of Building Inspection, Department of Public Health, Department of Public Works, among others. By centralizing services in one place, customers can move between permitting departments efficiently, resulting in a better experience and improved government function. Since the start of 2024, the Permit Center has served an average of 191 customers per day and provides on average 531 services daily.

Increasing Transparency and Accountability

In 2020, upon learning of the disturbing allegations in the indictment of the Director of Public Works, Mayor Breed immediately issued an Executive Directive calling on the City Attorney and Controller to design and conduct a thorough and independent review of any implicated City contract or other decisions, investigate any suspected violations of the law or City guidelines, and develop recommendations on how to protect the integrity of City processes and decisions.

This review resulted in 14 comprehensive reports to address issues concerning increasing oversight and accountability in contracting practices and services at the Department of Public Works, the Department of Building Inspection, the Airport, PUC and other departments. To address the concerns raised in these reports and that stemmed from these investigations, Mayor Breed:

• Implemented 60 good government reforms to improve accountability, oversight, fairness and transparency in City services and contracting recommended by the City Controller and City Attorney as part of their multi-year Public Integrity Review.
• Issued 6 Executive Directives to prevent misconduct and ensure transparency at the Department of Building Inspection, formalize department relationships with outside supporting organizations, compliance with department gift reporting requirements, and certifying such gifts were approved by BOS as appropriate.
• Appointed good government leaders like Carmen Chu to serve as City Administrator and former City Attorney Dennis Herrera to serve as General Manager of the Public Utilities Commission, to bring leadership to our departments.
• Supported and signed seven laws to ensure fairness and transparency in city contracting and non-profit compliance, and to prevent undue influence and favoritism.
• Reformed San Francisco’s Waste Management Rate setting process by authoring and passing a ballot measure to be more transparent and better serve the public.

As a result of this investigation, the City Attorney’s Office also suspended or debarred 14 contractors from doing further business with the City (including the contractors who conspired with the indicated DPW head to defraud the City) after we uncovered that they were abusing City resources or otherwise defrauding the public. The City Attorney’s Office and Controller also made sure that contractors that acted fraudulently or negligently paid back to the City their ill-gotten gains.

Comprehensive Contracting Reform

These reforms include both new Contract Reform legislation and an Executive Directive to city departments to strengthen internal contracting processes. The legislation is co-sponsored by Supervisor Catherine Stefani.

The Comprehensive Contract Reform proposal provides additional oversight, accountability, transparency and controls on City contractors and grantees, ensures that public funds are awarded fairly and managed effectively, and protects public funds from being misused for improper purposes such as political activity or lobbying City officials.

In response to the struggles of some of the City’s nonprofit providers in maintaining compliance with the State Attorney General’s registration and reporting requirements for tax and financial information, Mayor Breed directed the Controller to implement a policy to suspend additional contracts to delinquent nonprofits and work to assist nonprofits trying to come into compliance through outreach and education.