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Committee approves amended ordinance to speed SFPUC green‑infrastructure grants, requires public posting of quarterly reports
Summary
The committee voted to forward an ordinance extending delegated authority to the SFPUC general manager to sign green‑infrastructure grants (up to 20‑year terms) and approved an amendment requiring quarterly grant reports be posted publicly; SFPUC staff said the change aims to shorten application-to‑payment timelines from about nine months to roughly five months.
The Budget and Finance Committee voted to forward an ordinance that would extend for two years the delegation of authority to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) general manager to enter Green Infrastructure Grant Program agreements of up to 20 years without requiring full Commission approval. Committee members added and approved an amendment requiring SFPUC to post quarterly reports summarizing grants on a publicly accessible platform (city attorney and Budget Analyst suggested the PUC website or Legistar).
Sarah Bloom, SFPUC grant program administrator, described the program’s pilot year: five awarded projects (including Lafayette Elementary, Bessie Carmichael Middle School, St. Thomas More School, Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church and Lycee Francais), one pending project (Crocker Amazon parking lot), a program budget of about $12 million after a $4 million reappropriation, and projected removal of more than 3,000,000 gallons of stormwater annually when current projects are complete. Bloom said administrative processes—negotiation with grantees, required environmental review, and commission workflow—have stretched the application‑to‑first‑payment timeline to roughly nine months on average and in at least one case delayed school construction by a year.
To expedite projects, SFPUC proposed removing the two‑step commission approval for full construction awards and delegating final award authority to the general manager while retaining commission oversight through the budget cycle, program rules, and quarterly reporting to the Board and Commission. The Budget Analyst’s office recommended that the reports be posted publicly to ensure access; the committee adopted that amendment and forwarded the ordinance to the full Board as amended.
Next steps: the ordinance, as amended to require public posting of quarterly reports, will be transmitted to the Board of Supervisors for consideration.
