Supervisor Jake McGoldrick: Clean Streets, Clean Government on November Ballot

I am proud to report that the SF Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 to place on the November ballot the "Clean Streets, Clean Government" proposal I introduced in May.

Voters will now have the opportunity to decide whether they want to improve critical oversight of many local programs, with emphasis on streets, parks and government ethics. This charter amendment would add the duties of a city services auditor to the controller, who will audit the level and effectiveness of services provided by city government to the public.

This proposal culminates a two-year effort by my office to increase regular audits of city programs to ensure that they are delivering the most bang for the buck. I have attempted repeatedly to increase auditing through regular board processes.

Unfortunately, the stark reality has been that in the annual competition for budget dollars, audits of departmental programs lose out to funding of direct services. The result has been that city officials rarely get the information we need to measure whether such programs are effective and efficient.

Fortunately, this year my colleagues supported putting this measure before the voters, providing the City an opportunity to provide regular audits of the many city programs that are funded annually. To ensure funding for audits, this proposal would set aside a small portion (.2 percent) of the City's overall budget for a Controller's Audit Fund, to be used exclusively to implement the proposal. Such guaranteed funding would lessen the problem of political pressures being brought to bear that could prevent audits or blunt politically embarrassing audit findings about key city departments.

The controller would be further charged with developing performance and cost benchmarks for all city departments and with conducting comparisons of the cost and performance of San Francisco city government with other cities, counties and public agencies.

The controller also would review whether and how city departments prepare customer service plans required under the Charter but seldom submitted currently. This proposal also is another step in the ongoing efforts by my office to ensure that District 1 and the rest of the City are clean and well maintained.

Last year, I secured funding for a Green Machine for cleaning the Clement Street commercial corridor in response to constituent concerns about this area. I also worked very hard this year to preserve in the DPW budget the positions of environmental control officers, who are responsible for investigating and enforcing laws preventing dumping and littering in our neighborhoods. These efforts have helped make the Richmond cleaner, but this charter amendment will help even more.

Under this proposal, the controller would conduct an annual review of the city's street, sidewalk and park maintenance and cleaning operations. All city agencies with such operations would have to establish regular schedules for streets, sidewalks, parks and facilities and provide the public with information on how they are meeting those schedules.

In this way, citizens will be able to see, for example, the SF Department of Public Works schedule for street cleaning on Geary and find out whether the department is actually meeting that schedule. This will also enable the controller to measure whether the department is actually meeting the goals it sets under such work plans.

Another part of the proposal continues efforts by my office to ensure clean government. Under these provisions, the controller would oversee the city's contracting procedures, developing model criteria and terms for requests for proposals (RFPs), auditing compliance with city contracting rules and procedures and investigating cases of alleged abuse or conflict of interest.

Moreover, the controller would investigate citizen complaints concerning the quality and delivery of government services, wasteful and inefficient city government practices, misuse of city government funds and improper activities by city government officers and employees. The controller also would maintain and publicize a whistleblower and citizen complaint hotline telephone number and website.

I hope you will review this proposal carefully. After doing so, I am confident you will come to support it as an important improvement in making the City effective, efficient and responsive to residents. I look forward to your support of this measure next November.

If you would like a copy of this proposal, please don't hesitate to contact my office at (415) 554-7410 or at jake.mcgoldrick@sfgov.org.

Jake McGoldrick is a San Francisco supervisor representing District 1.