San Francisco’s contracting system is politicized and inefficient. The status quo rewards insiders and special interests, and, at its worst, it breeds corruption. Over $5 billion in annual contracts are governed by a maze of rules scattered across more than 100 sections of code. “Procurement” and “contracting” appear more than 9,000 times in City law, and the Board of Supervisors has adopted 21 procurement-related ordinances in the last five years alone. The result is a system so complicated that the City has created 39 waivers just to allow essential purchases to move forward. In extreme cases, overlapping approvals and layered rules have driven up costs dramatically, as illustrated by the widely cited $1.7 million Noe Valley public restroom.

The proposed measure will get politics out of contracting by moving more contracting authority away from the Board of Supervisors to the independent City Administrator while preserving appropriate checks and balances from elected leaders. The reforms would:

• Empower the City Administrator to propose and modernize purchasing laws, subject to rejection by the Mayor or the Board of Supervisors. 

• Empower the City Administrator to set citywide standards, ensuring consistency across departments. 

• Increase centralization over technology and multi-department capital projects to reduce duplication and inefficiency.

• Increase the size of contracts that require Board approval to reflect inflation and reduce unnecessary delays.

• Extend the City Administrator’s term to provide stability and independence. 

The city charter has locked in a system where departments operate as independent fiefdoms instead of coordinated parts of the executive branch. Allowing the mayor to change reporting structures and reorganize departments will allow the city to move more quickly to address its problems. Specifically, flexibility in the structure of departments will streamline permitting and project timelines, rather than continuing with three separate departments that follow their own rules, give conflicting guidance, and waste taxpayer time and money.

The city charter protects the status quo and has fostered a culture of corruption. Scandals at the Department of Building Inspection are just one example. The Mayor should have greater power to hold his/her city departments accountable and remove bad actors. Currently, the Mayor has direct hire-and-removal authority over only a small fraction of his/her own department heads. This structure blurs lines of authority and makes it difficult for voters to know who is accountable when services fall short.

The proposed measure restores clear lines of accountability within the executive branch to ensure that when San Franciscans elect a Mayor, they know who is responsible for delivering results, while also preserving oversight by the Board of Supervisors. The reforms would:

• Permit the Mayor to reorganize departments and adjust reporting relationships within the executive branch, subject to rejection by a majority of the Board of Supervisors.

• Expand the Mayor’s authority to hire and remove most department heads.

• Allow most commissioners to be removed at will by their appointing authority (either the Mayor or Board of Supervisors). 

• Allow Deputy Mayors to improve oversight and coordination within departments.

• Preserve the independence of entities such as the Ethics Commission and the Department of Elections.

San Franciscans are forced to wade through bloated and confusing ballots because of the highly unusual rules set in the charter. No other city allows a minority of their city councilmembers or supervisors to place a measure on the ballot. This makes it far too easy to lobby a small number of Supervisors instead of building a broad base of support. San Francisco also has by far the lowest signature requirement, which incentivizes special interests to fight with each other at the ballot through contradictory measures meant to confuse voters. 

The proposed measure aligns San Francisco more closely with other California cities while preserving voters’ ability to participate directly in lawmaking. These commonsense improvements will encourage coalition-building, deliberation, and higher-quality measures for voters to consider while reducing confusion and unintended consequences. The reforms would:

• Require the approval of a majority of the Board of Supervisors to place an ordinance on the ballot.

• Eliminate the Mayor’s unilateral authority to place a measure on the ballot.

• Increase the voter signature threshold to 8 percent of registered voters, still below the statewide standard of 10 percent.

• Allow proponents to withdraw a flawed measure after it qualifies for the ballot.