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Housing Authority asks Board to waive $12.06 million in PILOT payments; committee forwards request
Summary
The San Francisco Housing Authority requested a waiver of payment-in-lieu-of-taxes covering fiscal years 1990-91 through 2012-13 totaling about $12.06 million; the Budget and Finance Committee forwarded the request to the full Board as a policy matter after the budget analyst framed it as requiring Board decision.
Barbara Smith, acting executive director of the San Francisco Housing Authority, asked the Budget and Finance Committee on Nov. 20 to waive PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) payments owed from fiscal year 1990–91 through 2012–13, totaling $12,058,935.
Smith told the committee the PILOT arrangement was established in 1965 under an agreement between the Housing Authority and the city and county to account for a 10 percent payment on rent charged to low-income residents instead of real and personal property taxes. She said the Housing Authority requested waivers previously (noted for 1981–90) and that the agency needs the resources to maintain properties and provide resident services.
Budget analyst Mr. Rose told the committee his office’s May 2013 performance audit recommended that the Housing Authority bring a waiver request to the Board for consideration. "We made no recommendation for the approval," Rose said, describing the matter as a policy decision for the Board and showing an estimated total of about $12.1 million in outstanding payments under the cooperative agreement.
Public comment: Douglas Yap criticized the idea of waiving the payments, saying that granting a waiver would "reward incompetency" and suggested that similar relief should be available to poor homeowners if the Board approves the waiver.
Next steps: The committee moved the waiver resolution forward to the full Board for consideration; the budget analyst’s office flagged the issue as a Board-level policy decision rather than issuing an approval recommendation in the audit.
