Anything received by a City department from a non-City source is considered a gift to the department if the department does not provide equal or greater consideration for what it received. Gifts can be monetary payments, goods, services or anything else of value. This includes rebates or discounts, unless those rebates or discounts are available to the public generally.
City departments must disclose to the Ethics Commission any gifts received by the department from any source that is not a federal, state, or local government (SF C&GCC § 3.217).
This disclosure is made by filing SFEC Form 3.217 on the Filing the Gifts to City Departments Disclosure page. If City departments have additional questions about this disclosure or how it may apply to specific gifts, they should contact the Ethics Commission for advice.
Disclosed gifts are made publicly available on the Departmental Gifts Disclosure page.
Gifts to Individuals Versus Gifts to City Departments
In general, gifts to departments are gifts given to the department for the purpose of conducting City business and are controlled by the department. This means the department controls when and how the gift is used. If the gift is a physical item, it is the property of the department, not any of the City officers or employees who may use the gift while performing their City duties.
Gifts to individual City officers or employees are gifts that provide a personal benefit to an officer or employee. Such gifts are subject to their own restrictions, limits, and reporting requirements. Visit the Gifts to Individual Officers or Employees page for more information on these gift rules. Gifts given to individual officers or employees, which are at no point received by or under the control of a City department, are not gifts to the department and do not need to be reported on SFEC Form 3.217.
In some cases, gifts can be both a gift to a City department and a gift to an individual officer or employee. In such instances, the gift would potentially need to be reported by the department and the individual officer or employee (on the Form 700 Statement of Economic Interests). Gifts that provide City officers or employees with personal benefits are often prohibited based on the source of the gift. Departments should contact the Ethics Commission for advice when potentially accepting gifts that would personally benefit their officers or employees.
What is disclosed on the departmental gift disclosure form?
Departmental gift disclosures must include the following information:
- The source, date, and value of the gift.
- A description of any goods or services received, if applicable.
- The purpose and use of the gift.
- The name of any City officer or employee who received a personal benefit from the gift or through the City’s use of the gift, if applicable.
- A description and valuation of the personal benefits any City officer or employee received through the department’s use of the gift, if applicable.
- A description of any contract that the donor has with the department, if applicable.
- A description of any license, permit, or other entitlement for use that the donor is seeking from the department or has been issued by the department to the donor within the last 12 months, if applicable.
- A description of any financial interest the donor has involving the City, if applicable.
Departments must file an amendment if errors, omissions, or if any of the information disclosed, such as how a gift was used, changes after the time of the initial filing. Amendments must be submitted within 30 days of the change, which describe the change.
Frequently Asked Questions About Gifts to City Departments
If a department receives a gift, but returns it to the sender, does the department need to disclose the returned gift?
No, it does not need to be reported as long as the gift to the department is not used is returned, donated to a 501(c)(3) organization, or reimbursement is paid to the sender within 30 days of receipt (per California Code of Regulations Title 2, Regulation 18941).
Is there a minimum dollar amount to be considered a gift?
Gifts to a department received in a fiscal year from a single source with an aggregate value of $100 or less are not required to be reported on the SFEC Form 3.217. However, if, for example, a person gives two $55 gifts to a department within a single fiscal year, both of those gifts would become reportable to the Ethics Commission upon receipt of the second gift. This is because the aggregate value of all gifts received by the department from that source in the fiscal year would be over $100.
Gifts with an aggregate value of $100 or less, however, may still be required to be reported promptly to the Controller’s Office and yearly to the Board of Supervisors (see the Other Gift Reporting Requirements section below for more information on these requirements). If a department is using its SFEC Form 3.217 to help report payments to the Controller’s Office or the Board of Supervisors, all gifts should be reported, regardless of value. Departments should contact the Controller’s Office or the Board of Supervisors with questions about their reporting requirements.
If the donor of a gift to a City department is a restricted source, such as a contractor doing business with the department, can the gift be accepted?
City officers or employees may not accept gifts from restricted sources (SF C&GCC § 3.216 and Regulations 3.216(b)-1-6)). This is true even if the gift is first given to a City department. As such, no gifts from a restricted source that provide City officers or employees with personal benefits can be accepted by the department.
However, if the gift from a restricted source is provided to the department for programmatic or administrative use and does not provide any individual officers or employees with a personal benefit, the gift is not prohibited but still needs to be disclosed by the department.
For example, it would be prohibited for a restricted source to pay to cater a department’s holiday party, as that would give a personal benefit to the individual officers and employees who attend. But a restricted source could potentially donate equipment that the department then uses to conduct City business.
More information about the restricted source gift rule is available on the Gifts to Individual Officers or Employees page.
If a gift of food is delivered to a City department’s office for multiple employees to share, would this be considered a gift to the department?
Gifts of food shared freely among staff in the office would generally not be considered gifts to the department, unless the department is directing and controlling the gift. For example, someone donating food to an event or holiday party the department is organizing would likely be a gift to the department, and the department would need to report it. (As noted above, since this type of gift confers a personal benefit to City employees, the gift cannot be accepted if it is from a restricted source.)
However, if the food was just dropped off at the office for employees to share, this would instead be considered just a gift to the individual officers and employees who consumed the food. (Again, the restricted source rule would apply). Note that it is possible that such a gift of shared food could meet the $50 reporting threshold for the individual officers and employees to report the gift on the Form 700.
What should departments do when a donor does not respond to confirm whether they have a financial interest? Is there an “I don’t know” or similar option available on the disclosure form for these situations?
Departments must disclose to the public any financial interests the source of a gift has involving the City. If the department is unable to determine if the donor has a financial interest in the City, then the gift cannot be accepted and should be returned to the donor or donated to a 501(c)(3) charity.
Departments are encouraged to implement intake procedures for gifts to the department that gathers all the information required by this rule, which includes whether the gift donor holds a financial interest with the City. Intake forms that are completed by donors can be taken at face value. Departments can rely on the answers that are provided and do not need to do additional fact checking on what the donor reports. Here is a sample department gift intake form departments may use as part of their intake procedures.
Do gifts from commissioners or managers to a department or its employees need to be disclosed?
Gifts from commissioners that are given to the department, or coordinated or controlled by the department, would be considered gifts to a department and would likely need to be disclosed.
Similarly, if a manager personally purchases gift cards to be used as prizes at a departmental event or raffle, the manager is providing a gift to the department for distribution to employees. If the total value exceeds $100, the gift must then be disclosed, including the names of the employees who benefited from the gift.
However, if a commissioner or manager takes a subordinate out to lunch, this would be a gift to the individual employee, as the gift would not be received or controlled by the department.
Departments should also keep in mind that City officers and employees may not solicit or accept gifts or loans, directly or indirectly, from subordinates or employees under their supervision, or from applicants seeking such positions (SF C&GC Code § 3.216(c) and Regulation 3.216(c)-1)).
What if a gift is received over the course of several months?
If a gift is received over the course of several months, for example for ongoing professional services, the department has some flexibility in how and when to disclose the gift. The department can either report the entire value of the gift upfront and add a note in the ‘Additional Information’ part of the form that it covers X number of months of services, or the department can report a smaller amount for each month separately that reflects the value received during that month.
Please note that if a department chooses to report the services all at once, it must be disclosed for the first month in which the department received the services; this may require an amendment if the donor ends up providing services for a period of time that is different than what was initially reported.
Would discounts from vendors be considered gifts to a department? For example, Staples Advantage provides discounts to the City on their products.
The answer to this would depend on the specifics of the discount. In the example provided, Staples Advantage would not be considered a gift to the department and would not need to be disclosed as this program is widely and equally available to all businesses. However, if the discount were not widely and equally available, it may be considered a gift to the department and may need to be disclosed.
The Give2SF program receives donations to different funds. Are these donations considered gifts to a department?
Donations received via Give2SF are considered gifts to a City department and are required to be disclosed by the department that is responsible for each specific fund.
Where will the monthly gift reports be published, and what information will be publicly available?
Information in the monthly reports will be available to the public on the Departmental Gifts Disclosure and DataSF, including the names of any individual officials who benefit from a gift to a City department. Original and amended filings are publicly available as PDFs.
Other Gift Reporting Requirements
This monthly disclosure of gifts to City departments does not replace other reporting requirements on departmental gifts. However, it may aid in fulfilling them in the following ways:
- Reporting Gifts Promptly to the Controller: Departments are required to promptly report departmental gifts to the Controller’s Office (Administrative Code Section 10.100-305(a)). If a gift is reported on SFEC Form 3.217, timely submitted, and signed, the gift does not need to be reported separately to the Controller’s Office. A department may choose to use the SFEC 3.217 form to report all departmental gifts (including those with an aggregate value of $100 or less) in order to automatically comply with the requirement to promptly report all gifts to the Controller’s Office. Otherwise, any gifts received in the fiscal year from any source with an aggregate value of $100 or less that are not reported through SFEC Form 3.217 must be reported to the Controller’s Office separately. Departments should communicate with the fund accountant assigned by the Controller’s Office to their department if they have questions about this process.
- Annually Reporting Gifts to the Board of Supervisors: Filing SFEC Form 3.217 departmental gift disclosure form with the Ethics Commission does not replace the need to report gifts to the Board of Supervisors annually per Administrative Code Section 10.100-305(c).
However, departments may wish to export their 3.217 gift data from Data SF at the end of the fiscal year to include it in their annual report to the Board. A department may use SFEC Form 3.217 to report all departmental gifts (including those with an aggregate value of $100 or less) so their department can easily download all gift data at the end of the fiscal year to include in the report to the Board. Please communicate directly with the Board of Supervisors if you have questions about the Section 10.100-305(c) requirement or how to comply with it. - Accept and Expend Process: Reporting gifts over $10,000 on SFEC Form 3.217 does not replace the need to engage in the accept and expend process with the Board of Supervisors per Administrative Code Section 10.100-305(b).
- Website Disclosure: Under the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance, gifts over $100 in aggregate must be disclosed on the public record and made available on the website of the department to which the funds are directed. Departments may wish to post the departmental gift data reported to the Ethics Commission from Data SF to fulfill their website-posting requirement.
To satisfy this website posting requirement, departments should visit the Departmental Gifts Disclosure on DataSF, create a filter view displaying only their department’s filings, and then link to or embed that filter dataset on their website. Departments may contact the Ethics Commission for advice on how to create and post this filter dataset. - State Requirements: The requirement to disclose gifts to City departments per Section 3.217 of the C&GCC does not replace any State disclosure requirements.
Filing the Gifts to City Departments Disclosure
Department heads are responsible for ensuring gifts to department disclosures are complete and timely. Department heads may delegate filing duties to a subordinate, but the department head remains responsible for ensuring forms are filed and amended as necessary if information changes or errors are discovered after submission. The department head may be subject to discipline by their appointing authority if the department head or their designee fails to timely report gifts to their department.
The SFEC Form 3.217 is filed electronically on the Filing the Gifts to City Departments Disclosure page, which also provides additional filing instructions.