Committee prioritizes feasibility analysis of city-owned wireless network to advance digital inclusion

The Government Audit and Oversight Committee approved placing a fiscal feasibility analysis of a city-owned wireless network ahead of other audits on the budget analyst's schedule and directed staff to treat wireless as 'phase 1' of the planned citywide information-technology audit.

The clerk read Item 3 as "a motion directing the budget analyst to conduct on priority basis a fiscal feasibility analysis of a city owned wireless network to promote digital inclusion by ensuring affordable Internet access, affordable hardware, community sensitive training and support, and relevant content to all San Franciscans, especially low income and disadvantaged residents." (Clerk)

Supervisor McGoldrick introduced a motion to amend the budget analyst's audit schedule to prioritize that analysis. Deborah Campbell of the Budget Analyst Office said the office had begun the jobs-creation audit and was starting preliminary steps on the IT audit. She said the office would "incorporate the wireless as part of our IT. We'd consider it phase 1." (Deborah Campbell)

Committee members voiced support for inserting the wireless feasibility work as a prioritized phase of the IT audit and for producing a separate report on the wireless project. No formal roll-call vote is recorded in the transcript; the chair and members signaled agreement and the clerk moved the item accordingly.

The analysis is intended to evaluate financial feasibility and policy design to expand access — covering affordable service, hardware, training and content for underserved residents — and to report findings to the committee as part of the IT audit sequence.