Committee backs ban on delegating mayoral contract approvals to department heads

The Government Audit & Oversight Committee on Oct. 1 voted to recommend an ordinance authored by Supervisor Matt Haney that would prohibit the mayor from delegating final approval authority for certain contracting decisions to a department head.

Haney said the change was aimed at closing a loophole exposed by the Mohammed Nuru investigation, in which a prior mayoral delegation gave the Public Works director the authority to approve high-dollar contracts and thereby removed a mayoral oversight role. "There is nothing stopping a mayor from giving the approval authority back to the department head that the mayor is designed to be overseeing," Haney said, urging passage to strengthen checks and balances.

The legislation would amend references across multiple Administrative Code chapters (including chapter 6, and references in chapters 8, 10, 14 and 21) to prevent designation of a department head as the mayor27s delegate for approvals that require mayoral oversight. After discussion and no public callers, the committee voted to recommend the ordinance to the Board (recorded votes: Peskin Aye, Haney Aye, Marr Aye).

Haney thanked the Controller for the public integrity recommendations and credited colleagues for cosponsorship. If adopted by the Board, the ordinance would make it unlawful under local administrative rules for a mayor to assign final approval authority in the affected code sections to the department head who would otherwise be subject to the mayor27s review.