Sunday, March 10, 2013

How Board of Supervisors Used $100,000 Slush Funds



The Clerk of the Board of Supervisors Angela Calvillo, in response to my immediate disclosure request for public records related to the $100,000 each member was allocated last July by the Board (how nice of them to dip into city coffers like this!) to spend in their districts, shared the three pages of documents posted here.

Calvillo was doing me a favor, since her office is not the city department that tracks how the Supervisors are spending their $100,000 slush funds or if the money is turned back to the city or simply held in reserve. It is Ben Rosenfield and his Department of the Controller that follows this money, so I'll stay in touch with his department for future updates. Rosenfield should do taxpayers and watchdogs a favor and post these documents on his site, doing away with making members of the public file requests for the info.

For fiscal year 2012/2013 a total of $1,148,000 was appropriated, $582,109 is what has been spent and $565,891 is the amount remaining to be used.

As of March 7, here's how the Supervisors used their slush funds according to the two-pages above:

District 1, Eric Mar
$5K to each of 9 schools in or abutting District 1.

District 2, Mark Farrell
$25K for Lafayette Park, $300 for neighborhood event.

District 3, David Chui
Participatory budgeting process planned.

District 4, Carmen Chu
TOTAL: $100K for Larsen Playground rebuild, $50K for Taraval St. corridor
improvements, $20K for ADA support for businesses, $20K for crosswalk restriping, $15K for N-Judah/La Playa turnaround improvements, $2K for permit fees for community events.

District 5, Christina Olague
$50K for Upper Haight Street planning, $15K for W. Fillmore volunteer and capacity building and technology upgrades, $15K for housing stability workshops, $3K for reusable bag ordinance workshops, $6K for Violence Prevention Project/Achievement Gap Resource Faire, $6K for Workforce Development Workshops and Outreach, and $5K for service project through Department of Public Health.

District 6, Jane Kim
No information provided.

District 7, Sean Elsbernd
1) $4,056.09 to DPW and $3,359 for DPW and CPC permit fees related to
Hidden Garden Steps Improvement/ beautification; 2)$133,584.91 balance
requested to REC CRPFPG/0700 for “Failing Playground” parks in District 7;
3) $66,000 back to salaries to allow new supervisor to hire 3rd aide.

District 9, David Campos
No information provided.

District 10, Malia Cohen
No information provided.

District 11, John Avalos
$35.5K for Mission/Geneva gateway and kiosk, $25K for Ridge Lane safety and
access improvements, $20K for Athens/Avalon repair and grade steps for safe
use, $5K for Ney St. greening, $5K for Excelsior Street historic street names,
$5K for Prague St. fixing stairs and community garden, $4.5K for Cayuga
Terrace Senior Community Center.


The one-pager above discloses what the controller's office knew from Campos, as of January 23:

SF Chronicle quoted him saying he wanted to spend on gun buybacks in Mission District. Have not heard from his office directly.

That sounds like a life-saving plan to best use the funds.

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