SIP the Poisen
• • • • • • • • • • November 2024 • • • • • • • • • •
The SFPUC (Water-Sewer-Power) Commission met this week (November 12) to “update” and bless the agency’s community benefits program, renamed Social Impact Partnership, SIP. Its predecessor, Community Benefits, got a bad name due to the corruption it enabled. Is SIP any better?
Doubtless, the agency has learned. SFPUC has some of the best and the brightest. Its leader earns more than the mayor and all the other department heads. This agency is the one and only able to float bonds without going to voters. It’s got deep pockets. Its general manager has been around for a generation, first as City Attorney; the City Attorney or representative attends every meeting of SFPUC’s Commission. These folks know how the City Family works.
And what a performance was put on for SIP! This was the first meeting for three new commissioners. (There are five commission seats.) Time to get on board! Join the team. What better way to condition and test the newbies than with SIP.
By the SIP program SFPUC promotes good works in the communities where work is done. By submitting a SIP proposal with a bid for public work a bidder may earn points worth up to five percent. Its bid price is reduced to 95%, and that lower number is compared to the bids of other bidders. SFPUC rates the bidder’s SIP proposal from 0 to 5%.
The bidder goes to a registry of accepted “partners,” nonprofits or schools or the like. These have qualified, been listed by SFPUC. The bidder then submits its plan, usually based on what the qualified partner wants to do, and what the bidder can and is willing to do.
Although the performance suggested otherwise, let there be no doubt about the cost to ratepayers. SIP is not free. Bidders can earn a 5% credit, so the lowest bidder may not get the job. That costs ratepayers. Plus, bidders put all their costs into their bid. Those include employee time doing SIP. Plus overhead.”
It’s a great deal for savvy bidders, well connected.
To the Commission meeting were brought some of the nonprofit beneficiaries of SIP. And they were good. The first gives books away to poor youngsters so they can improve reading and learn the joy of books. Interns, high schoolers introduced to engineering…you get the picture of all the demonstrated goodness SIP brings.
Participating public contractors also spoke at the meeting. One had committed $1 million, and one had $2.5 million of SIP and community benefits done. Good for morale, and helpful in getting and retaining employees, it was said.
Nary a question asked about how much the leaders of SIP nonprofits make as salary. Nor how much of their time is taken with massaging the SFPUC bureaucracy. SIP rules run to 41 pages. Nor did the meeting discuss the necessity for such a program: why don’t the companies who enroll in SIP do community volunteer work without the SFPUC rules and bureaucracy? How does adding a layer of bureaucracy and its expense benefit recipients?
While the performance to the Commission emphasized the righteous fairness and goodness of those in charge of the program–which is not questioned here—know that to such programs are attracted less upright individuals. Where there’s a built-in opportunity to do favors, eventually such will be done. Good public policy avoids temptation.
Although the performance suggested otherwise, let there be no doubt about the cost to ratepayers. SIP is not free. Bidders can earn a 5% credit, so the lowest bidder may not get the job. That costs ratepayers. Plus, bidders put all their costs into their bid. Those include employee time doing SIP. Plus overhead.
No questions were asked about prop 218, the elephant in the room. Prop 218 arose at a time when ratepayer monies were appropriated by the Board of Supervisors. Back in those more straight-forward days rates were set intentionally high, a surplus accumulated, and the BOS skimmed the surplus for its own uses. Prop 218 requires that rates be for cost of service only–for the cost of supplying water, and collecting and cleaning sewage. No more “surpluses” to be skimmed.
But politicians, ever clever, found a way around the unwelcome law. SFPUC pays for lots: Lake Merced, emergency fire protection, Treasure Island, salaries for other departments in times of need, a Community Center in Bayview (well over $100 million), and more. SIP is yet another way to do what the City Family wants to do–on the ratepayers’ dime.
Too, the meeting’s SIP performance trained up the new commissioners. What a do-good agency! We’re all part of a team here. Welcome aboard! (Later, you may enjoy other benefits, such as a vacation at Camp Mather in our Sierras watershed.) Be a good team player. The SIP item passed unanimously.
That’s how the City Family does it. What a show! Performed by the savvy. SIP on? No, thanks.
Steve Lawrence is a Westside resident and SF Public Utility Commission stalwart. Feedback: lawrence@westsideobserver.com
November 2024
