Ethics Commission proposes modest cuts, warns 10% reduction would eliminate key staff

At the Feb. 13 meeting the San Francisco Ethics Commission received its second required budget hearing and a presentation from Executive Director Pat Ford laying out recommendations for the 2026 budget submission to the mayor.

Ford said the mayor’s office has asked departments to identify cuts to contribute to a citywide $400 million reduction target and outlined three recommended steps the commission could propose: reduce the Department of Human Resources work order by 50% (from $280,000 to save roughly $140,000 annually), charge a portion of auditors’ time to the election campaign fund (estimated savings of about $108,000 in year one and $117,000 in year two), and request small software funding (under $5,000 per year) for necessary system maintenance. Together those steps would yield about a 3–3.5% cut in the first year, Ford said.

Ford warned that a city instruction to cut 10% — which staff said would be roughly commensurate with certain mayoral targets for general-fund subsets — would force the commission to eliminate two to three filled positions and that the agency had already lost 15% of staff over five years. "If we lose a position from our very small staff, that's gonna affect everyone," Ford said, and he cautioned that a 10% cut would threaten the commission’s disclosure systems, training and enforcement capacity.

Ford presented an alternative: request restoration of one deleted 18-23 compliance position so the commission could maintain critical disclosure programs; that ask, combined with the other savings, would leave the commission roughly flat overall but would require the mayor and board to approve re-adding a position the mayor previously removed from the annual salary ordinance.

Commissioners expressed support for the conservative approach Ford recommended and asked about flexibility after August 1; staff explained positions removed from the annual salary ordinance cannot be reactivated without code changes. A caller in the public comment queue criticized the presentation’s tone and suggested commissioners should be elected rather than appointed.

Ford said staff would continue to consult with commissioners and revise the submission before the Feb. 23 deadline and emphasized that the mayor’s phase of the budget process runs through June, followed by the board phase in June–July and final adoption by Aug. 1.

The presentation and commission feedback will inform the commission’s submission to the mayor’s office later this month.