Good morning.

The meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the November 16, 2023 regular meeting of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

I'm Supervisor Dean Preston, Chair of the Committee, joined by Vice Chair Catherine Stephanie and Supervisor Connie Chan.

The committee clerk today is Stephanie Cabrera, and our thanks to Matthew Ignao from SFGov TV for staffing this meeting.

Madam Clerk, any announcements?

Yes.

Public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda.

When your item of interest comes up, public comment is called.

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Email them to the government audit and committee clerk at alisa.org.

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You may also send your email or your written comments to us at U.S.

Postal Service in City Hall at one Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlit Place, Room 244, San Francisco, California 94102.

If you have documents you would like included as part of the file, please submit them to me before the end of the meeting.

Please make sure to silence your cell phones and electronic devices to prevent any interruptions to today's proceedings.

Finally, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors agenda of November 28th, unless otherwise stated.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Please call item one.

Item number one is a motion directing the budget and legislative analyst to conduct two additional performance audits in fiscal year 2023 through 2024 on the management of street cleaning by public works and of interdepartmental agreements citywide.

Thank you.

And also last year, with your support, we increased the BLA's capacity to take on additional audits with the goal of enacting proactive anti-corruption measures.

Earlier this year, the committee recommended an audit of the San Francisco Police Department's use of overtime.

And today I'm requesting your support to commission two additional audits by the budget and legislative analysts.

The first audit is related to something that, according to the controllers 2023 city survey, is still top of mind for many San Franciscans, and that's street cleanliness.

This proposed audit uh will survey the city's street cleaning operations for efficiency effectiveness and equity of street cleaning services, including the provision of services across different neighborhoods in the city.

This will be the first program audit uh that we're aware of of street cleaning operations in over five years.

Um should note that a vice chair Stephanie has commissioned um commissioned a policy report uh regarding costs of cleaning in comparison to other cities.

Um thank you for your your work on that.

Uh, my hope is that this audit will uh shed light on uh efficiency, but also really dig into the process in place for deploying our street cleaning uh staff and contractors so that that residents can better understand what's often uh just kind of a mystery to everyone, which is uh how the decisions are being made, uh, why we can uh clean certain areas and not other areas, just what uh what kind of processes there and with a goal I think that we all share uh and I am sure the department shares of being able to provide the best possible service to uh our constituents across the city.

Um the second audit um in uh this motion um will focus um inward on interdepartmental work orders, um, which as of this fiscal year make up nearly 100 million dollars in the general fund and a total of 251 million dollars uh in all funds.

Um I I'm sure Supervisor Chan, as our budget chair I know deals with some of this, you know, as line items uh in the budget process and is uh very familiar.

But for for everyone uh else, interdepartmental work orders are our uh budgeted items within departmental um budgets uh for services to or from other city departments.

Um the board of supervisors does not typically get much information about the nature of these interdepartmental services unless we specifically request it through the BLA or as those who watch the budget process saw when Chair Chan and others inquire very specifically about a budget item.

Some of this comes to light, but uh but only when we specifically ask about it and know about it.

Um and typically the board doesn't um have any real mechanism to follow up after that money has been uh budgeted and spent around these uh interdepartmental services and and work orders.

Um to our knowledge, this particular area has never been the subject uh of an audit, despite uh the significant amount of money uh in our annual budget uh for that, uh, and we believe that the BLA's work on this will help us ensure that our provision of services is always done uh efficiently uh or as efficiently as possible and with best practices in place to ensure accurate budgeting and delivery services.

So uh hope to have your support on these items uh and um would like at this point to uh hand it over to uh Dan Goncher, uh principal at uh budget legislative analysts uh office to uh tell us more about the proposed audits.

Um and I just want to thank you, uh Mr.

Goncher, and uh and and Lyndon as well for uh for all of your work on these various audits.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, and good morning, uh Chair Preston, uh members of the committee.

Dan Gonscher with the budget legislative analyst office.

As Chair Preston uh noted, uh the motion would add two additional audits to the budget legislative analyst work plan for fiscal year 23-24.

Uh those would be one for street cleaning programs and one for interdepartmental services.

Um as you may know, and as Chair Preston mentioned, uh the 2023 survey of city residents found uh that respondents rated street and sidewalk cleanliness lower than the previous survey in 2019 and the lowest of any metric in the survey.

Additionally, um a 2018 BLA policy analysis report that Chair Preston mentioned that was requested by Supervisor Stephanie found that San Francisco has higher per capita street cleaning costs compared to other cities.

At the time, uh it was over 40 dollars for San Francisco versus uh about $9 for the peer cities, so over four times as expensive.

I know the report did note that some of the fact some factors that may explain the higher costs, but the report did not review the efficiency with which staff is performing street cleaning services, nor analyze uh how that might affect the costs of providing street cleaning services.

And again, to our knowledge, there does not appear to have been a performance audit conducted of public work street cleaning in the last five years, if ever.

Regarding the inter departmental services or work orders as they're known colloquially colloquially.

Um as you may know, city departments perform and request services with other city departments in the current year, as Chair Preston mentioned.

Uh, approximately 250 million is budgeted citywide, with about 98 million budgeted just in the general fund.

Departments may, but generally are not required to establish with each other memorandum of understanding or interdepartmental service agreements that describe the scope of the interdepartmental services to be provided, the basis of the cost for the services, and the level of detail for any documentation that requesting department for any documentation the requesting department requires as proof that the services were actually provided.

We have heard anecdotally that in some cases performing departments may exceed their budgets for services or may not provide requesting departments with supporting documentation to back up their billing charges.

And with the city facing a substantial structural deficit, it is imperative that we take all feasible steps to reduce unnecessary spending on administrative costs, and this is one area where there may be some savings to be found.