Ethics Commission approves changes to public financing rules, directs staff to draft ordinance

The San Francisco Ethics Commission on Feb. 1 voted to alter several procedural components of the city—s public financing program and directed staff to consolidate the approved changes into a single ordinance for transmittal to the Board of Supervisors.

The commission approved four separate actions by roll call: (1) move the notice-of-intent-to-participate filing deadline to three days after the candidate filing deadline; (2) increase the minimum incremental adjustments to individual expenditure ceilings (IECs) to $50,000 for supervisorial races and $250,000 for mayoral races; (3) change the trigger so an IEC adjustment occurs as soon as the formula measuring opponent activity exceeds a candidate—s current limit by any amount (instead of waiting for a full increment); and (4) eliminate the program—s contingency account. The measures passed by votes of 5—0 (first three actions) and 4—1 (contingency account elimination; Commissioner Copp dissented).

Pat Ford, the commission—s policy analyst, said the package emerged from a phased review of the public financing program that began the previous summer. Ford described three…