Committee divides on OPHS audit response; operational fixes approved, funding-freeze rejected

Councilor Michael Paul Hart introduced Proposal 190 after an audit identified material weaknesses at the Office of Public Health and Safety. The proposal asked the mayor's office and relevant departments to implement ethics and procurement training, establish monitoring systems to ensure compliance with city and state accounting procedures and, if benchmarks were not met, allow a conditional freeze on future funding.

Director Andrew Merkley told the committee OPHS has already begun addressing many audit findings, cited programs that have demonstrable impact (reduced homicides, food distribution and winter sheltering) and said staff are working on procurement and ethics training with city offices. Merkley said the department will provide a monthly newsletter and program dashboards beginning in July and asked the committee not to cut funding midyear: "Programs that OPHS is currently implementing are positively and demonstrably impacting our community...Halting funding now is not going to provide our neighbors the results they are hoping for," he said.

Councilors agreed on sections calling for training, monitoring and increased transparency, but members split over section 5, which would have frozen future funding if benchmarks were not met. The committee voted to divide the proposal: sections 1–4 were recommended to the full council by a narrow 6–5 vote, while section 5 (the funding-freeze provision) failed in a separate vote. Several councilors urged regular status reports, a clear matrix of findings and an opportunity for OPHS to show progress before any funding penalties were applied.

The committee left the door open to further written amendments and asked OPHS to provide a chart of findings and progress updates on a schedule the committee can monitor.