City and County of San Francisco
Ethics Commission

Date: October 19, 2017
To: Members of the Ethics Commission
From: LeeAnn Pelham, Executive Director
Subject: AGENDA ITEM 12 – Executive Director’s Report for the October 23, 2017 Commission Meeting

Summary

This report provides various programmatic and operational highlights to date since the last monthly Executive Director’s Report.

Action Requested

No action is required by the Commission, as this item is for informational purposes only.

Organizational and Staffing Updates

Since September, as part of our ongoing effort to promote employee wellness, our office has participated in a monthly seminar series called Making Work Work. As public servants, ensuring we are most effectively responding to the concerns of citizens and sustaining quality services to a broad range of stakeholders while also continuously improving can sometimes be stressful. The seminars, which are designed to support city employees with information and tools to help improve their work experience, are facilitated by San Francisco Health Service System staff. The Making Work Work series is comprised of four interactive, skills-based sessions. September’s seminar focused on effective stress management techniques, and October’s provided a chance to refresh our communication skills. In November, the session focuses on “Dealing with Difficult People,” and we’ll wrap up the series in December with a session on “Managing Your Emotions.”

On Friday, October 20, department heads will be offsite at the 2017 Mayor’s Department Head Leadership Retreat. As part of the day-long session, we’ll have the opportunity to share successes and challenges from the past year, and identify new opportunities for inter-departmental collaboration. Also planned is a session on the City’s Engineering for Equity initiative, which is designed for two purposes: to advise departments on how to recognize a variety of needs and administer services that result in equitable opportunities and outcomes for all people; and ensure community involvement in the full range of government decisions.

On October 17, I met with a delegation of 20 Chinese officials visiting San Francisco from the Shandong Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). SASAC has responsibility for drafting laws related to state-owned enterprises, appointing top executives, and approving mergers or sales of assets. The delegation asked for a briefing on the work of the Ethics Commission and our efforts to promote ethical standards in City government.

Announcements for four Staff positions were posted following the Commission’s last meeting and the application deadline for those positions will be closing soon. The four job announcements are online and were distributed broadly to peer agencies nationwide through the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL): Senior Auditor; Information Systems Business Analyst; Senior Investigator; and Electronic Disclosure & Data Analysis Programs Manager. Detailed information and the application process are accessible at https://www.jobaps.com/SF/ . We are working to post additional job announcements in early November, including for two positions on our Engagement and Compliance team. Table 1 below provides a snapshot of current hiring activities.

Table 1 -Status of Ethics Commission Positions in Recruitment

Revenues Report

Table 2 shows the revenues received by the Commission during the fiscal year that began on July 1, 2017, as of October 16, 2017.

Table 2- Summary of FY 2017-18 Revenues as of October 16, 2017

I look forward to answering any questions about this report at your meeting on October 23rd.