Ethics Commission sustains executive director's finding that Alioto committee fell short of $50,000 public-financing threshold

The San Francisco Ethics Commission on May 5 considered a letter from the Angela Alioto for Mayor 2018 committee alleging that a third-party treasurer software (Netfile Professional) failed to upload supporting attachments and that Ethics Commission staff failed to notify the campaign. After more than two hours of testimony from staff, campaign representatives and public supporters, the commission voted 3 to 2 to sustain the executive director's determination that the committee did not qualify for public financing.

Executive Director Pelham told commissioners staff had reviewed the committee's April 25 resubmission and found it fell short of the statutory $50,000 threshold for public financing. Pelham said staff provided the committee a detailed spreadsheet identifying 46 instances in the April 25 filing where documentation was insufficient to demonstrate San Francisco residency; she said missing residency documentation accounted for the vast majority of disqualified items.

Sandra Rivera Speed, speaking for the Alioto committee, said Netfile president David Montgomery had notified staff on April 13 of a bug in a professional treasurer product and that the campaign was not notified that the issue had been fixed. The campaign's representatives said hundreds of volunteer hours were spent trying to "cure" what they said were vendor-caused upload failures and that the committee ultimately fell short by only a few dollars.

Commissioners questioned both staff and the campaign about whether: (1) the commission's own filing system was affected (staff said it was not); (2) the campaign had access to the supporting documents; and (3) the committee could produce a small verified subset of donors sufficient to meet the $50,000 threshold. Director Pelham and staff said they had confirmed the committee had refiled and that their review still found the resubmission insufficient to meet the legal requirements because contributors' residency could not be verified in many entries.

Commissioner Kopp moved to extend the submission deadline through noon the following day so the campaign could produce verification for 11 disputed donors; the motion failed on a 2'3 vote. Chair Chu then moved to sustain the executive director's determination; that motion passed 3'2 (Ambrose, Chu and Lee voted aye; Kopp and Rennie voted no).

The commission's action preserves the executive director's May 2 determination that the Alioto committee did not qualify for public financing for the June election. Commissioners emphasized the distinction between staff's investigatory review of documentation (a burden placed on the committee by regulation) and any separate claim of fraud that would require evidentiary discovery.

The commission record shows competing factual claims: the campaign asserts it was not informed of the treasurer-side software problem and thus spent time correcting uploads it did not need to, while staff says the committee had opportunities and that the resubmission remained deficient for residency verification. The commission did not grant additional time to the campaign and sustained the executive director's decision.

The commission did not announce any immediate remedial action for the software provider; questions about the Netfile contract and procurement were raised later in the meeting and staff agreed to provide a memorandum on the Netfile contract history and renewal.

The commission will not accept appeals of the executive director's determination in this instance and the public financing eligibility stands as sustained.