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Citizens’ Bond Oversight Panel Says Most City Bonds Are on Track, Flags Laguna Honda Lessons
Summary
The Citizens General Obligation Bond Oversight Committee told the Government Audit and Oversight Committee it has beefed up oversight—adding liaisons and more meetings—to monitor more than $2 billion in city bonds, reporting San Francisco General is on schedule while Laguna Honda faced major overruns.
The Citizens General Obligation Bond Oversight Committee (CIGOBAC) presented its annual report to the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, outlining changes to committee operations and the status of major city bond programs. Chair Thea Selby said the nine-member volunteer committee increased meeting frequency and added member liaisons to focus oversight on individual bond programs.
"We make sure that the bonds are on time, on scope and on budget," Selby said, describing CIGOBAC’s role under Proposition F and Proposition C and noting the committee now oversees roughly $2,000,000,000 in bond authorizations. The committee has shifted from quarterly meetings to six meetings a year and asked to receive change-order details in bond reports so members can track cost drivers more closely.
Selby reported that the San Francisco General Hospital rebuild is "on time, on scope and on budget," with about $667 million issued and the project proceeding toward its scheduled completion. By contrast, she said, the Laguna Honda Hospital project suffered from numerous change orders that led to cost increases, schedule delays and scope loss; CIGOBAC has pushed departments to use memoranda of understanding and better bidding and design-review processes to avoid repeating those failures.
The committee is also beginning to use a 0.1% set-aside from bond revenues to fund oversight work and research. Selby described two contracts under consideration—one on community engagement best practices and another benchmarking design-review processes—that she said could improve delivery and help keep future projects on budget. "We decided to try and start using that appropriately," she said of the set-aside.
Supervisor Kompels asked how a nine-member body can provide oversight over billions in bond funds. Ben Rosenfield of the Controller’s Office told the committee CIGOBAC is one layer of oversight among several, including individual commissions, the Board and the Mayor, and that there had not been a comprehensive review of all oversight mechanisms since Proposition F created the committee.
The committee also highlighted work overseeing the City Services Auditor and responding to a civil grand jury report on the city’s whistleblower program. Selby said CIGOBAC has expanded benchmarking to include efficiency measures in City Services Auditor reports and that the group has debated how to balance whistleblower privacy with the need for more substantive oversight information.
After the hearing, the committee voted to file the report and forward any items for the Board of Supervisors' agenda.
