Civil grand jury urges San Francisco to adopt CRV standard after finding $1.9 billion maintenance backlog

John Hoskins, speaking for the 2015–16 civil grand jury, told the Board of Supervisors’ Government Audit and Oversight Committee that the city’s general-fund facilities maintenance is severely underfunded and that the shortfall is both costly and a public-safety risk. "The amount that is budgeted for facilities maintenance is 0.2%," Hoskins said, arguing that the figure is far below standard practice and public expectation.

The grand jury presented several findings and recommendations, including adoption of a percent-of-current-replacement-value (CRV) benchmark as a starting point for negotiations over facilities maintenance budgets. Hoskins cited the panel’s estimate that the deferred maintenance backlog for general-fund departments is "$1,900,000,000," and asked the board to make FRRM (Facilities Renewal Resource Model) outputs public and to break backlogs down by district so residents can see where needs are greatest.

Brian Strong, director of the Capital Planning function, told the committee the capital plan and planning office track backlogs and have implemented tools such as a facility renewal model and a planned asset-management rollout. Strong said the capital plan has increased funding for facility renewals in recent years and that various transparency tools (capital planning committee meetings, a GOBOC oversight process and forthcoming IT improvements) are in place to help the public and the board monitor progress.

Supervisor Norman Yee read an extensive set of draft responses the board will forward to the full board and the mayor’s office. The responses repeatedly noted that many suggested budget actions are contingent on the mayor’s upcoming budget proposal; the board therefore said it "cannot commit" to specific funding lines until the mayor submits fiscal-year proposals. Nevertheless, the committee adopted the committee amendments and voted, without objection, to send Items 1 and 2 to the full board as a committee report with recommendation.

Why it matters: deferred maintenance both raises long-term replacement costs and can create immediate hazards (Hoskins cited an incident of a fallen tree that injured park users). The grand jury recommended the board adopt a CRV-based benchmark (the report suggested 4% as a best-practice starting point) and increase public disclosure of maintenance needs to spur political support for stable funding.

What happens next: The committee sent the resolution and the board’s responses to the full Board of Supervisors for consideration alongside the mayor’s future budget proposals.