Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code (C&GCC) Section 3.217
Departments are required to publicly disclose any gifts they receive, with some limited exceptions.
City departments must disclose any payments with an aggregate value over $100 received from a source that is not a federal, state, or local government and for which the department does not provide equal or greater consideration (SF C&GCC § 3.217). This disclosure increases transparency by making departmental gift data publicly accessible in a single location.
Department Heads are responsible for ensuring that their department fulfills this requirement.
Department heads may be subject to discipline by their appointing authority if gifts are not reported timely.
Disclosures must be filed by the fifteenth of each month, covering all departmental gifts received in the previous month.
Disclosures must be filed monthly through an online form developed by the Ethics Commission, titled San Francisco Ethics Commission (SFEC) Form 3.217, available on the Ethics Commission’s website. Once filled out and submitted, the form will be routed to DocuSign for the Department Head or delegee to sign. Only one disclosure report per month should be filed, containing all gifts received by the department during the preceding month.
Disclosures are due within 15 (fifteen) calendar days after the end of the month the department received the gift(s). If a deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, the statement is due on the following business day. If the department receives no gifts in a given month, no filing is necessary for that month.
Departmental gift disclosures must include information about the gift and the source, including the names of any City officials who receive a personal benefit from the gift.
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 the information required to be disclosed, such as how a gift was used, changes after the time of the initial filing.
There are limited exceptions to the Ethics Commission’s departmental gift disclosure requirement.
Payments from local, state, and federal government agencies to City departments need not be reported under this requirement. 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. Other disclosure requirements for these payments may apply. Payments for which the City provides equal or greater consideration are also not reportable.
The public may access departmental gift disclosures on Data SF and the Ethics Commission’s website.
The information in the monthly reports will be available to the public on DataSF. Original and amended filings will be publicly available as PDFs on DataSF.
There are consequences for failing to timely disclose departmental gifts to the Ethics Commission.
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.
There are other gift disclosure requirements that you should know about.
The disclosure of gifts to City departments per Section 3.217 of the Code does not replace other gift disclosures. 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 (Admin Code SEC. 10.100-305a). If a gift is reported on the SFEC Form 3.217, timely submitted, and signed, the gift does not need to be reported separately to the Controller’s Office. Your 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 the SFEC Form 3.217 must be reported to the Controller’s Office separately. Communicate with the Fund Accountant assigned by the Controller’s Office to your department if you have questions about this process.
- Annually Reporting Gifts to the Board of Supervisors: Filing the SFEC 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 Section 10.100-305(c) of the SF Administrative Code.
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. Your department may use the SFEC 3.217 form to report all departmental gifts (including those with an aggregate value of $100 or less) so your 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 SEC. 10.100-305(c) requirement or how to comply with it. - Accept and Expend Process: Reporting of gifts over $10,000 on the SFEC form will not replace the need to engage in the accept and expend process with the Board of Supervisors per Section 10.100-305(b) of the Administrative Code.
- Website Disclosure: Per SEC. 67.29-6 of the San Francisco Administrative Code, gifts over one hundred dollars in aggregate will continue to be disclosed as a public record and made available on the website for 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. We plan to provide departments with instructions on how they can display their 3.217 gift data on their websites.
- The requirement to disclose gifts to City departments per Sec. 3.217 of the Code does not replace any State disclosure requirements.
Departments must file an amendment if there is an error, an omission, or if gift information changes after submitting a disclosure report.
In case of errors, omissions, or if any of the information disclosed by the department head in the initial filing changes after the time of the initial filing, the department must submit an amendment within 30 days that describes those changes.
Paper filings are not accepted.
Original filings and amendments must be submitted electronically through the SFEC Form 3217. This online, interactive form is available on the Ethics Commission’s website.
Contact us with any questions about this disclosure requirement.
You can email the Ethics Commission at ethics.commission@sfgov.org or submit your questions through a support ticket.