In cases where there is a discrepancy between this page and the law, the law governs.
If a department receives a gift, but returns it to the sender, does the department need to disclose the returned gift?
No, as long as the gift to the department is not used and that, pursuant to California Code of Regulations Title 2, regulation 18941, is returned, donated, or for which reimbursement is paid within 30 days of receipt.
What is the 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 Ethics Commission (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. This is because the aggregate value of all gifts received by the department from that source in the fiscal year is 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. Keep this in mind if your department is using your Form 3.217 to help report payments to the Controller’s Office or Board of Supervisors. Please contact the Controller’s Office or the Board of Supervisors with questions about their reporting requirements.
Can the form preparer also be the form signer?
Yes, the form preparer and the form signer can be the same person.
Where will gift disclosures be posted?
Gift disclosures will be posted on DataSF.
Do departments need to disclose gifts received prior to November 2024?
The first filing period for the SFEC 3.217 departmental gift disclosure is November 1 – November 30, 2024. Departments do not need to disclose gifts received prior to November 2024 through the Ethics Commission’s form. Other departmental gift disclosure requirements for gifts received prior to November 1, 2024, still apply.
Do department gifts (e.g.: holiday basket) from commissioners need to be disclosed?
Gifts from commissioners may need to be disclosed, depending on the recipient of the gift. If a commissioner sends a small token of appreciation—such as a gift basket—that would be considered a gift to the individual employees. However, larger gifts that are coordinated or controlled by the department would likely need to be reported via Form 3.217.
If you are uncertain if a gift your department received is reportable, please open a support ticket with the Ethics Commission.
If a manager gave gift cards (paid out of their own pocket) to be used as prizes at a departmental party, are these gifts that need to be reported by the department?
In this example, a manager is providing a gift (e.g. the gift cards) to the department and the department is using the gift as prizes in a raffle. If over $100, this gift will need to be disclosed on the Departmental Gift Disclosure form and the names of the individual employees who benefit from the gift will also need to be disclosed on this form.
To answer this type of question for other specific examples, please open a support ticket with the Ethics Commission.
If a manager takes their direct reports out to lunch and the manager pays with their own personal funds, does this need to be reported on the Departmental Gift Disclosure form?
For this example, a manager is taking subordinate employees out to a lunch. This is not considered a gift to the department and will not need to be disclosed on the Departmental Gift Disclosure form. This scenario would be considered a gift to individual employees.
To answer this type of question for other specific examples, please open a support ticket with the Ethics Commission.
If a company or business allows us to use their space for a community meeting is that a donation to the department?
This will depend on the specific details around the space. If the space is available to the public for use at no cost, then this would not be considered a gift/donation. If the space is provided to only the department at no cost, but at a cost to the public, then this would likely be considered a gift/donation and will need to be disclosed.
To answer this type of question for other specific examples, please open a support ticket with the Ethics Commission.
The Give2SF program receives donations to different funds. Are these donations considered gifts to a department?
The disclosure requirement for Section 3.217 states:
“Any department head whose City department receives any payment from a non-City source for which equal or greater consideration is not provided by the department must disclose the payment to the Ethics Commission.”
Donations received via Give2SF are considered payments that fit the definition above and are required to be disclosed in the Departmental Gift Disclosure form by the department that is responsible to each specific fund.
If there are any questions regarding specific funds, please open a support ticket with the Ethics Commission.
Would discounts from vendors also 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. For 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.
Please open a support ticket with the Ethics Commission if you have specific questions about your own or your department’s situation.
Can you help distinguish when a gift is given to a department and when it is given to the individual?
Gifts received by City departments are used for official department business and the department head determines and controls the use of the gift. Gifts to departments are subject to monthly disclosure to the Ethics Commission through the SFEC 3.217 form, prompt reporting of the gift to the Controller, annual reporting to the Board of Supervisors, and reporting of gifts over $100 on the Department’s website.
There are only narrow circumstances where a City department may accept a gift that would benefit a City official or officials without violating any gift limits or rules that would otherwise apply. For instance, gifts to the department benefitting any officers or employees of the department that are funded, provided, or directed by a restricted source are prohibited. Permissible gifts to City departments benefiting individual officers and employees are subject to additional reporting requirements, including disclosure on the SFEC Form 3.217 of the names of the individual officials who benefit from the gift, as well as state disclosure requirements.
If you have questions that are specific to you or your department, please open a support ticket with the Ethics Commission.
If a donor has a contract with the Department, or if they are seeking or were issued a license, permit, or other entitlement for use, wouldn’t that make them a Restricted Source? We can’t accept any gifts from Restricted Sources, correct?
Restricted Source rules apply to gifts to individual officers or employees, so if a gift from a restricted source was provided to a department, which in turn provides the gift to individual officers or employees for their personal benefit, then this gift would be prohibited and may not be accepted. However, if a gift from any of these sources was provided just to the department for programmatic or administrative use and not provided to individual officers or employees for their personal benefit (i.e. the department is not being used as an intermediary to provide gifts to individual officers or employees for their personal benefit), then the gift may not be prohibited but must be disclosed. For example, it would clearly be prohibited for a restricted source to pay to cater a department’s holiday party, as that would give a personal benefit to individual officers and employees. But a restricted source could potentially donate equipment that department then uses to conduct City business.
Because advice is fact-specific, you are encouraged to reach out to the Ethics Commission if you are unsure how the rules apply to you or your department’s situation, please open a support ticket with the Ethics Commission.
If the gift to the department is food that multiple staff enjoy and it is not easily tracked, would we still have to list each staff member that personally ate it?
In general, gifts of food shared freely among staff in the office would not be considered a gift to the department but would instead be considered gifts to the individual officers and employees. It is unlikely these gifts would meet the Form 700 reporting threshold.
A gift of food would be reportable if the department is coordinating or controlling the receipt and use of the gift. If you are unsure if a gift of food is reportable, please open a support ticket with the Ethics Commission.
A department received the gift in January and distributed it in February. Can the department just go back and amend the report from the previous month in which the gift was reported?
Departmental gifts should be disclosed when the department takes possession or begins taking possession of the gift. 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.
Do you submit an amendment or a new form if you learn about a gift after the fact?
If the department did not previously submit a Departmental Gift Disclosure form for the gift that was learned about after the fact, then an original Departmental Gift Disclosure form should be submitted for the month in which the gift was received.
If the department previously submitted a Departmental Gift Disclosure form for the month when the unreported gift was received, then the gift should be added to the form via an amendment to the original form.
The department receives professional services over several months, does this need to be reported if the professional services were approved via an Accept-and-Expend resolution that was adopted by the Board of Supervisors?
A gift of professional services received by the department will need to be reported on the Departmental Gift Disclosure form. Departmental gifts should be disclosed when the department takes possession or begins taking possession of the gift.
As far as reporting this on the Departmental Gift Disclosure form, the department has a choice. The department can either report the entire value of the gift upfront and add a note in the ‘Additional Information’ text box that it covers X number of months of services, or the department can submit the amount for each month they receive the services separately.
Please note that if the department chooses to report the services all at once, it must be with the disclosure for the first month in which the department received the services; this may require an amendment if the donor ends up providing fewer months of services than initially planned.
Regarding gifts that go through the Accept & Expend process with the Board of Supervisors, where the department will not expend the funds until the Board of Supervisors authorizes it, the department should report the gift within 15 (fifteen) days after the end of the month the department is authorized by the Board of Supervisors to expend the funds. For example, if the department begins expending the funds in November, after BoS approval, the department should report it on the November form submitted by December 15.
Does this new monthly reporting requirement impact the annual gift reporting requirement to the Board of Supervisors at the end of each fiscal year?
No, the Departmental Gift Disclosure form does not replace the requirement to report to the Board of Supervisors that departments submit at the end of each fiscal year. However, it can help facilitate it since you will be able to download your submissions from DataSF. The annual report to the Board of Supervisors requires disclosure of all gifts received by the department in the fiscal year, regardless of value. Your department may consider using 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.
In addition to the forms being on Data SF do departments also need to disclose on their website?
Gifts over one hundred dollars ($100) 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.
Sometimes we don’t receive a response from donors to indicate whether they have financial interest or not. Since there is not an option for “don’t know”, how do you want us to fill it out?
Departments are encouraged to implement intake procedures for gifts to the department that gathers all the information required by Section 3.217 of the C&GCC, which includes whether the gift donor holds a financial interest with the City. This is already required under the Sunshine Ordinance (Admin. Code § 67.29-6), as departments must make public any gifts over $100 in aggregate by posting on their website the donor’s name, the value of the donation or gift, and any financial interest the donor 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.
Will individual employee names who receive the gifts be visible?
Yes. The information in the monthly reports will be available to the public on DataSF, including the names of any individual officials who benefit from a gift to a City department. Original and amended filings will be publicly available as PDFs on DataSF.
If a department receives a gift from a non-City source intended for the community members the department serves, is this a gift to the department?
Yes, these gifts should be reported on the Departmental Gift Disclosure form, as the department is initially receiving the gifts and then distributing the gifts to the community.
If a department uses an intake form, can the department rely on it? What if the donor is not being completely honest?
Yes, 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 of what the donor reports.