Director Aaron Ford (identified in the meeting as Director Ford) presented the San Francisco Ethics Commission’s second required public hearing on its proposed budget for fiscal years 2025–26 and 2026–27, including a 15% cut scenario and an alternative request to keep staffing and services intact.

“City law requires each department to have 2 public hearings on its budget each year,” Director Ford said as he opened the presentation and a slide deck. He told commissioners the commission’s operating budget is roughly 87% salaries and benefits and described two budget pathways: (1) a required 15% cut scenario that would reduce the commission’s funded positions from 29 to 25 (four positions) and (2) an alternative request to the mayor’s office to retain staffing and reclassify certain jobs to better align skills and pay.

Ford detailed the 15% cut plan would prioritize keeping core public-facing advice and intake services but would likely eliminate or scale back programs such as the campaign consultants registration and the major developer disclosure program. He told commissioners the cuts would likely come from one vacant Senior Program Administrator position plus three filled positions the director identified as candidates for reduction: a training design specialist, a personnel clerk, and a policy research specialist.

Ford said staff had identified some non‑personnel savings and found partial relief by allocating allowable administration costs of the public financing program to the Election Campaign Fund (up to 15% of that fund is available for program administration), reducing the net impact on staffing but not eliminating it.

Financial details presented by technology staff Stephen Massey included estimated licensing needs for the form 700/NetFile system and related software. Massey reported the NetFile/form 700 licensing currently funded by a COIT project will need new funding: “we're estimating roughly about $10,000 or so in the first year… the following year… that's around the time when the NetFile contract will also need to be renewed… we're currently estimating about $65,000.” He added other office software licensing increases were roughly $12,000 in year one and about $9,000 in year two (estimates provided in the hearing).

Public comment: Edward Diasas, deputy director of administration and finance for the Office of the Clerk of the Board, submitted and read a letter on behalf of Clerk Angela Calvillo. Diasas urged the commission to continue maintaining the Form 126 and DocuSign workflow used by the board and mayor’s office, arguing the system holds department-submitted contract and vendor data and that transferring maintenance would shift costs and workload elsewhere. “That alone is the reason why the system needs to be maintained by the ethics commission,” Diasas told the commission and noted that shifting the system could require additional DT staff and create no net general‑fund savings.

Director Ford said he had already reached out to the Clerk of the Board and the mayor’s office to give advance notice about the potential loss of the custom workflow under a 15% cut and that staff had held productive conversations with the mayor’s budget team and planned follow-up with the Department of Technology.

Request to the mayor: Ford described an alternative budget request the commission will submit seeking to reclassify several positions (including converting a training design specialist to a Senior Program Administrator and reclassifying enforcement and IS positions to reflect specialized duties) and to secure funding for NetFile licensing and certain software maintenance. He said the alternative would keep the commission’s budget roughly flat in year one and increase it slightly in year two if approved.

Outcome: This agenda item was a presentation and public hearing; no formal vote on a budget was taken. Director Ford will finalize and submit the 15% cut scenario to the city’s financial system as required and will also submit a budget memo presenting the alternative requests to the mayor’s office for negotiation.

Ending: Commissioners thanked staff for the analysis and noted the process will continue through the mayor’s proposed budget and the Board of Supervisors’ review.