San Francisco's Systemic Corruption Doesn't Need More Bureaucracy

Mohammed Nuru’s arrest for accepting bribes as head of the massive San Francisco Department of Public Works four years ago opened the floodgates on repeat instances of embezzlement, bribery, misappropriation of public funds, and good ol’ fashioned greed.

While the result has been a predictable series of indictments and guilty pleas, the scope of the graft has been shocking: Although many cases relate to San Francisco’s broken housing process, others involve the Public Utilities Commission, Office of the City Administrator, and Department of Human Resources, to name a few.

Low and high-level city officials — plus plenty of consultants, contractors, and business leaders — have been ensnared in such schemes.

Within the past 10 days, a San Francisco HR manager was charged with personally selling thousands of dollars worth of government-funded cameras and electronics earmarked for neighborhood groups on eBay.

Why does it still feel like this is only the tip of the iceberg?

At the root of the problem is the governmental inefficiencies and bureaucratic complexities that enable corruption to thrive.

Slow and nontransparent bureaucracies like San Francisco are ripe for corruption because they allow officials with control over cumbersome processes to “fast track” needed resources.  In New York, for instance, slow gun license approvals led corrupt police officers to speed up the approvals in exchange for payments.  In Los Angeles, local officials targeted karaoke bar owners to compel them to pay for faster liquor licenses.

Want to predict where to find San Francisco corruption without a fancy task force or FBI investigation? Just look for any example of a city department where a license or permit is needed but takes an incredibly long time to get.

Adding fuel to the fire is any instance of de facto veto power granted to senior or frontline government employees or commissioners.  In Chicago, a city that routinely ranks among the most corrupt, a system of “alderman privilege” empowers city council members to effectively approve or block regulatory actions within their wards.

In San Francisco, the beleaguered Department of Building Inspection is the poster child for the type of corruption that festers when you give building inspectors and plan-checkers non-transparent and unchecked power.

What else causes a corrupt government culture?  Any type of artificial cap. Strict limits on the number of permits or licenses drive up their value and create fertile soil for corruption.  When The City’s Board of Supervisors voted in 2018 to limit the number of restaurants and bars in the Mission District to fight gentrification, did they consider the corruption risk?

The vote was unanimous and without debate.

An even greater risk for San Francisco is that the most popular proposed solutions to corruption can make the problem even worse.

In the aftermath of Nuru’s bribery scandal, the knee-jerk reaction was to split off a new Department of Sanitation and Streets as distinct from the Department of Public Works — a decision that was only reversed after it became apparent that the additional administrative costs of running a new agency would be $6 million annually.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned the hard way, it’s that the opposite of corruption is not more bureaucracy.

Because corruption loves bureaucracies with complex rules and regulations, typical political solutions often only lead to more creative corrupt officials.

After all, once we install a new commission to oversee, who will oversee the overseers?

Instead, San Francisco leaders could commit today to tackle corruption by removing those with entrenched power, reducing extensive individual discretion, and speeding up slow processes — and doing so in a public way that increases transparency and accountability.

“Many observers wonder if the sheer volume, complexity and morass of laws and rules – which frustrate everyday citizens and government staff alike – allow bad actors to hide in the shadows,” said San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu.  “I think most would agree that clear, bright-line rules can only help.”

Not only would this approach be more effective than pages of new regulations, but restructuring city services, making institutional reforms, and reducing government waste could go a long way to making City Hall work better for its residents — instead of the other way around.

The cost of corruption is more than just a financial or ethical loss. Along with rampant property crime and unchecked civic disorder, systemic corruption in our city has caused a crisis of confidence among virtually all San Franciscans.

As a city and community, we can’t reclaim our mojo until we fix it.

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