The Lurie budget is a billionaires’ budget, but it’s also, apparently, a bad cops’ budget.
Funding for the Department of Police Accountability is slashed under the mayor’s proposal—and the Sheriff’s Department Office of the Inspector General, mandated by the city charter, is essentially defunded out of existence.
“There’s an attack on any oversight for law enforcement in this budget,” Sup. Shamann Walton said.
He asked the City Attorney’s Office to let him know: “Is it legal to gut a [Charter mandated] department to where it can’t function? It seems like it would be illegal.”
The DPA budget is down 40 percent over the past five years, and it facing further cuts this year. When the department was created, in the 1980s through a City Charter amendment approved by the voters, the law set rules linking the oversight budget to the number of sworn officers—but since then, the DPA has taken on a long list of new duties, including investigating all officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths and developing policy recommendations when it turns out the problem isn’t an individual officer breaking the rules but faulty rules and training.
The DPA has also taken on the duties of investigating misconduct in the Sheriff’s Office, since the Office of the Inspector General has not been able to hire any staff.
“It seems we are trying to set this department up for failure,” Walton said.
Sophie Kittler, the mayor’s budget director, said “we told [the DPA] not to make requests” for any new staff. “We don’t believe anyone has everyone they want to have.”
That’s not true: The SFPD has everything it asked for and more.
The city has not filled the job of inspector general for the Sheriff’s Office. There is only one employee, a department secretary, and the Lurie budget essentially eliminates that position.
That means, Walton and DPA Director Paul Henderson said, that the commission overseeing the office can’t meet, and thus can’t hire an inspector general.
“Is it the mayor’s intent to make sure this department can’t function?” Walston asked.
Kittler: “We had to either cut or staff up the department, which we can’t do.”
There are serious consequences to these cuts: Without adequate funding, DPA can’t complete investigations on a timely basis, and under state law, if a case lingers for too long, it must be dismissed. Fewer officers will face discipline for misconduct—which almost always means more misconduct.
This is a huge gift to the Police Officers Association, which has tried to attack the DPA for years.
Meanwhile, SFPD presented a budget that more than doubles last year’s projection for overtime—but department officials still said it’s possible, even likely, that they will miss that target and come back for a supplemental appropriation later in the year.
This has been happening every year: The cops blow through their OT budget, then retroactively ask the supes to take more money out of the General Fund to pay for it.
Walton asked if the budget this time around would be adequate to avoid that pattern. Kimmie Wu, the SFPD chief financial officer, said she expected the department would still have to come back for more.
Walton: “You need to make a budget and stick to it … that’s unacceptable.”
So: A budget for billionaires, uncontrolled police OT, and bad cops. Not a good look for San Francisco.
