Other city offices, including those of the city attorney and controller, have keyed in on corruption, but they do not answer to supervisors.
Kevin N. Hume/The ExaminerTaking aim at the administration, one San Francisco supervisor hopes to help stem the tide of scandal in City Hall.
Supervisor Dean Preston won $800,000 in funding — $400,000 in each of the next two years — in the city budget to expand the office of the Budget and Legislative Analyst.
The BLA does exactly what its title suggests. It reviews the budget every year, analyzes policy and reviews the performance of city departments at the request of the Board of Supervisors. With expanded funding for the first time in years, Preston hopes the office can play a more proactive role in weeding out corruption.
“San Franciscans rightfully expect elected officials and department heads to be honest stewards of public trust,” said Preston. “By expanding the board’s oversight capacity — the only branch of local government that has not been mired in scandal in recent years — we can better build trust with the people we serve.”
Most prominently, former director of San Francisco Public Works Mohammed Nuru pleaded guilty this year to a federal fraud charge after admitting to accepting gifts and other benefits from city contractors.
Harvey Rose, whose public sector consulting firm is contracted to serve the BLA, told The Examiner the role the BLA plays in tackling misbehavior really depends on the direction of the Board of Supervisors.
The beefed-up budget will effectively expand the BLA from about 10 full-time equivalent employees to 11.5, Rose said.
That $400,000 of extra funding every year will amount to 2,600 new hours of staff time to dig into just about anything the Board of Supervisors wants. At its current level, some policy analyses can be turned around in a matter of weeks, but deeper work — like auditing a department — can take months.
The BLA gets a cost-of-living-adjustment every year, but it’s been “many years” since it won a boost like this year’s, Rose said.
But the BLA is not an auditor, or a city attorney or even a controller.
“Our primary function is not to root out corruption,” Rose said.
Unless, of course, the Board of Supervisors wants it to. Other city offices, including those of the city attorney and controller, have keyed in on corruption, but they do not answer to supervisors.
That flexibility could empower the Board of Supervisors to more proactively attempt to oversee the executive branch led by Mayor London Breed.
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