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Board approves Budget and Legislative Analyst services work plan for 2012; public raises confidentiality concerns
Summary
The Board approved a motion to adopt the BLA’s 2012 services work plan, which sets performance goals and allocates hours across budget, legislative and audit work; public commenters urged removing a clause allowing small, confidential supervisor-requested analyses.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a motion to adopt the Budget and Legislative Analyst (BLA) services work plan for 2012, which establishes performance goals and sets a date for the joint office’s annual performance evaluation.
Severn Campbell of the Budget and Legislative Analyst office outlined the 2012 plan, saying it closely resembles the 2011 work plan but reflects the city’s move to a two-year budgeting cycle. Campbell said the office was not recommending major changes to performance measures and summarized the proposed hours allocation: about 3,000 hours for budget work (focused in May and June), 8,450 hours for legislative items (weekly committee reports) and 5,550 hours for audit special projects. The plan retains a provision allowing a limited number of hours to be used for special requests by supervisors that do not require a board motion; Campbell said some projects of 150 staff hours or less may be handled as confidential documents at the requesting supervisor’s discretion.
Public commenters took issue with that confidentiality provision. Derek Kerr asked the Board to reconsider including confidential, taxpayer-funded reports that can be commissioned at a supervisor’s discretion and noted the packet language indicating such reports could be confidential. “So this sounds like something that's secret, that isn't approved by the board, that isn't discussed, that is not open to public comment,” Kerr said.
Douglas Yap reiterated calls for a full audit of the Department of Public Health and additional reviews of the Ethics Commission and the whistleblower program.
Following public comment the Board moved the item forward with the recommendation; the motion carried "without objection."
