· The Planning Commission is not fulfilling three of its key State and local mandates: 1) formulating, evaluating and approving goals, objectives and plans and programs for the Planning Department; 2) setting policies consistent with the overall objectives of the City and County as established by the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors in accordance with legislation approved by the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco; and, 3) promoting coordination of local plans with the plans and programs of other public agencies

· Commission formulation and evaluation of goals, objectives and plans and programs can best be accomplished through a multi-year strategic planning process. Such a process, with linked goals, objectives and action plans and a system for measuring actual results is not in place.

· Input by the Board of Supervisors regarding the goals, objectives and policies for the planning function is limited primarily to the annual budget process and independent adoption of legislation by the Board. The Planning Department does not have a process to work collaboratively with the Board of Supervisors in developing significant planning related policies or goals and objectives with the Planning Commission. Using the budget process to fulfill this role has limitations because of the budget"s single year time frame and because of the Director"s discretion to transfer funding between projects and because of inconsistencies between the Department"s Work Program and budget structure. The Department"s accountability to the Board of Supervisors is limited because a method does not exist for reporting actual Work Program activities accomplished, projects completed or other measures of Department performance.

· Coordination of plans between the Planning Department and other agencies involved in local land use and planning is required by State law. A number of local agencies report that Planning Department coordination efforts are not satisfactory. For example, the San Francisco Transportation Authority reports that it had no forewarning of an idea presented by the Planning Department to ban vehicles on Van Ness Avenue even though such action would have significant impact on Citywide transportation projects and funding for which the Authority is responsible. A review of the Department"s accomplishment of activities specified in formal agreements with two local agencies, the Redevelopment Agency and the Transportation Authority, shows that the Department is not fulfilling its requirements in coordination with these agencies.

State law requires each city and county in the state to assign its planning functions to a planning department, one or more planning commissions, administrative bodies or hearing officers and the legislative body itself¹. The primary roles and responsibilities of the Planning Commission and the Planning Department are dictated by a combination of State law and the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco.

State mandated functions

State law calls for city and county legislative bodies to specify the membership of its commission or commissions and for each planning agency to assume responsibility for:

· Preparing, periodically reviewing and revising, as necessary, a General Plan;

· Implementing the General Plan through actions including but not limited to administration of specific plans and zoning and subdivision ordinances

· Annually reviewing the capital improvement program for the city or county and the local public works project for consistency with the general plan

· Consulting with and advise public officials, citizens, public utilities, civic and other organizations regarding implementation of the general plan

· Endeavoring to promote public interest in the general plan

· Promoting the coordination of local plans with the plans and programs of other public agencies;

· Performing other functions as provided for by the legislative body.

Charter mandated functions

Pursuant to State law, the Charter establishes a seven member Planning Commission for the City and County of San Francisco, to be appointed by the Mayor for four year terms². It does not require specific qualifications or training for the members though, as with all City and County commissions, it is to be broadly representative of the community and comprised of electors of the City and County.

The specific duties of the Planning Commission outlined in the Charter include:

· Maintain and update the General Plan

· Propose ordinances regulating or controlling height, bulk, area, set-back, location, use or related aspects of any building, structure or land.

· Approve all permits and licenses dependent on, or affected by, the Planning Code

· Hear and decide on conditional use applications

· Provide the Mayor with three qualified candidates for Director of Planning

· Approve permits and licenses governed by the Planning Code (may be delegated to the Planning Department)

· Enforce the Planning Code (may be delegated to the Planning Department)

· Appoint a Zoning Administrator to rule on zoning variance applications (to be delegated to the Planning Director)

Besides these functions specific to the Planning Commission, the general powers and duties of all City and County commissions, as outlined in the Charter, include:

· Formulate, evaluate and approve goals, objectives, plans and programs and set policies consistent with the overall objectives of the City and County, as established by the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors through the adoption of City legislation

· Develop and keep current an Annual Statement of Purpose outlining its areas of jurisdiction, authorities, purpose and goals, subject to review and approval by the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors;

· Prepare and submit the annual proposed budget

· Recommend to the Mayor for submission to the Board of Supervisors rates, fees and similar charges with respect to appropriate items coming within their respective jurisdictions;

· Submit to the Mayor at least three qualified applicants, and if rejected, to make additional nominations in the same manner, for the position of Planning Director, subject to appointment by the Mayor;

· Consider removal of the Planning Director if recommended by the Mayor

· Conduct investigations into any aspect of governmental operations within its jurisdiction through the power of inquiry, and make recommendations to the Mayor or the Board of Supervisors;

· Exercise such other powers and duties as shall be prescribed by the Board of Supervisors; and

· Appoint an executive secretary to manage the affairs and operations of the board or commission.

A review of Planning Commission meeting minutes and other Department documents and interviews with Department and other City representatives indicate that the Commission and Department could improve its performance in three key areas from the its State and Charter mandates listed above:

Establishment of goals, objectives, plans and programs

The Charter requirement that the Commission formulate, evaluate and approve goals and objectives and plans and programs consistent with the overall objectives of the City and County, as established by the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors through the adoption of City legislation can best be accomplished by a multi-year strategic planning process. Such a process should include a forum in which the Commission and Department staff, with input from the Board of Supervisors and the community, periodically assess short- and long-term planning issues facing the City, assess Department resources available, and develop short- and long-term goals, objectives and action plans to address those issues. A system for measuring results by regularly reporting on the status of the action plans and accomplishment of the goals and objectives should also be part of this system. The goals and objectives should be communicated to all staff with managers held accountable for achieving the intended results.

Currently the Planning Department does not have such a multi-year strategic planning process in place. The Department has established high level goals and objectives and does create an annual Work Program specifying how Department management proposes to allocate staff time in the coming year. However, these processes cannot be considered an integrated strategic planning process because: 1) the goals and objectives are not linked; 2) there are no action plans explicitly aimed at accomplishing the goals and objectives; and, 3) there is no system for measuring actual results to determine if the goals and objectives are accomplished.

The goals imbedded in the vision statement in the Annual Report are:

The three objectives in the Annual Report are:

Besides these goals and objectives, the Mayor"s budget for the Department includes the following performance measures for FY 2001-02:

While these goals, objectives and performance measures could be the start of a strategic planning process, mechanisms for implementing the goals and objectives and measuring actual results are not in place.

The primary forum for the Planning Commission to ensure that its goals and objectives, plans, programs and policies are carried out by the Planning Department is adoption of the Planning Department"s annual Work Program and budget. Each year Planning Department staff prepares a proposed Work Program for the subsequent fiscal year. It contains specific projects and activities for the next fiscal year for each of the major divisions of the department: Citywide Planning; Neighborhood Planning; Information Services; and Major Environmental Analysis. For each activity, a level of funding is proposed, which covers staff time and other Department resources dedicated to the activity. For some activities, objectives are also presented such as target processing time for development applications. Work Program activities are not explicitly linked to the goals contained in the Annual Report

The proposed Work Program is submitted to the Commission for approval in February each year at approximately the same time as the Department submits its proposed budget to the Mayor"s Office. The budget is subsequently reviewed and adjusted by the Mayor"s Office and then submitted to the Board of Supervisors where further review and adjustment takes place.

The key problems with using the annual Work Program as the main vehicle for the Commission to implement its goals, objectives, policies and plans are: 1) the document is not strategic; 2) the Work Program has a one year time horizon; and 3) a system is not in place to measure actual Work Program results.

The Department"s annual Work Program is not explicitly linked to the Department"s high level goals and objectives. The Work Program does not reference the goals and objectives, show which activities will accomplish which goals or show how results will be measured. The time frame of the Work Program is one year even though many of the issues to be addressed in the Department goals are multi-year in nature. Ideally, the Department should group its goals, objectives and action plans into short- and long-term issues.

An institutionalized forum does not exist for the Planning Commission for comprehensively reviewing current and anticipated trends that are and will be affecting the City and the Planning Department over the next few years and for developing goals, objectives and action plans to address those issues. To the extent they occur, review of policy issues by the Commission tend to be on a piecemeal basis at Commission meetings, often in the context of reviewing individual projects. Such policy discussions are not systematically collected and documented into a single multi-year set of goals, objectives and action plans. In interviews, a number of Department staff planners indicated that they are not always sure of Commission policies on various matters because of the unclear manner by which policies are established.

To the extent that the Planning Department"s annual Work Program does reflect Department goals and objectives, the actual level of effort expended on Work Program activities is often changed during the year by the Department"s Director. Changes in the Work Program can occur because the actual level of funding authorized for the Department is not the same as the level of funding assumed for the Work Program. It can also change because new unforeseen issues arise during the year requiring reallocations of staff and other resources. In either case, reallocation decisions are made by the Director without an overriding set of goals, objectives and priorities for the year formally established by the Planning Commission with input from the Board of Supervisors.

While Department management should have flexibility in managing the Department and the Planning Commission should not be involved in day to day operations of the Department, formal strategic goals, objectives and priorities should be in place to guide management resource allocation decisions throughout the year. For example, the Department Director announced to the Commission in November 2001 that due to mandated budget cutbacks for all City departments, long range planning efforts would have to be scaled back in FY 2001-02. This decision does not appear to be linked to goals, objectives or priorities established by the Planning Commission or reflecting policy direction from the Board of Supervisors.

Exhibit 1.1 shows the level of funding needed to accomplish the Work Programs adopted by the Planning Commission over the last five years compared to the final Department budget approved by the Board of Supervisors. As shown, changes in the Work Program were needed each year because the level of funding approved in the final Department budget was not the same as that in the Work Program. In some years, actual funding was higher than the level assumed in the Work Program. In other years, such as the current FY 2001-02, the actual level of authorized funding was less than included in the Work Program. In any case, the data in Exhibit 1.1 indicate that changes in the Work Program were necessary every fiscal year of the five presented.

Exhibit 1.1
Comparison of Budget in Annual Work Program
to Actual Approved Budget
FY 1997-98 - 2001-02

Some years the Department does prepare a reconciliation report for the Planning Commission indicating which activities from the Work Program are being amended as a result of the finally approved budget. However for the last three years, these reports did not provide details on the revised funding levels by activity to allow for comparison to the original Work Programs. Explanations of how activities were selected for reduction are not provided in these reports.

The third problem with the Department"s strategic planning process is the absence of a mechanism for measuring accomplishment of its goals and objectives. There is no formal process for evaluating and documenting the extent to which activities in the annual Work Program are actually accomplished or how hey are linked to overriding goals and objectives. Each year, a new Work Program for the next year is prepared by the Department for Commission approval but there is no comparable documentation of the previous year"s accomplishments. The Annual Report presents workload numbers for a number of Department activities but this is not the same as a system of measuring and documenting outcomes relative to goals and objectives.

Many of the long range planning projects included in the Work Programs from the current and previous four fiscal years have not been started or have not been completed by their original deadlines but are carried over into the next year plan(s) with a new, later deadline. It is not clear from the subsequent Work Programs if deadlines were extended because the original estimate was inaccurate or because the originally planned level of effort was not made to allow staff to work on other projects. There is no end of the year report allowing for a comparison of actual staff time to proposed staff time in the Work Program and explaining variances.

Board of Supervisors involvement in setting planning goals, objectives and policies

The Charter calls for the Commission to formulate and approve goals and objectives, plans and programs consistent with those "established by the Mayor and Board of Supervisors". But there is no formalized process for the Board to set objectives, transmit them to the Planning Commission and for the Commission to then incorporate them into a formal set of goals, objectives and plans and programs for the Department in a multi-year strategic plan. As a result, the Board of Supervisors relies more on the budget process and legislation to affect planning activities.

The Board of Supervisors" use of the budget process to guide the Planning Department and its activities is not optimal for two primary reasons. First, funding is authorized at the Department level, not the activity level so the Director of Planning has the authority to re-program funding to other purposes balancing total funding authorized with all department-wide needs. Second, the lack of consistency between the Department"s budget structure, the Department"s organization structure and annual Work Program makes it difficult to identify baseline funding for each program area and the net impact of the Board of Supervisors appropriating funding for a specific project.

The Department is comprised of five divisions: 1) Neighborhood Planning; 2) Citywide (Long Range) Planning; 3) Environmental Review; 4) Information Services; and 5) Administration. The Annual Work Program covers all divisions except for Administration. The Department reports that Administration costs and activities are built into the costs for the other four divisions as overhead.

The Department"s budget, on the other hand, is divided into three program areas: 1) Neighborhood Planning, 2) Citywide (Long Range) Planning, and 3) Administration. The budgets for the Environmental Review and Information Services divisions are subsumed in the three other program areas. As a result, it is not possible to tell from the budget what level of baseline funding is authorized for each division and if or how authorized funding levels will support the activities included in the Work Program. If the Board of Supervisors authorizes funding for a specific activity but the total amount appropriated to the Department is less than what the Department has requested to accomplish all Work Program activities, Department management can redirect funding between activities, possibly resulting in a lower level of funding for the activities the Board believes it has funded in full. Exhibit 1.2 presents differences between the Department"s actual organization structure and Work Program and budget structures.

Exhibit 1.2
Differences between the Planning Department"s
Organization Structure and Work Program and Budget Structures

An illustration of the problems caused by the Board"s use of the budget process to affect Planning Department activities occurred in Fiscal Year 2001-02. The Work Program approved by the Planning Commission for that year included $584,000 for General Fund Supported Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs). This funding was supposed to cover environmental review of Planning Department and Board of Supervisors-initiated projects that rely on General Fund support. The projects included a number of great interest to the Board such as: the Better Neighborhoods program; legislation to exempt floor area ratio requirements in the C-3 zoning district; the Residence Element to the General Plan; permanent zoning controls and revisions to the Land Use Element to protect historically industrial land and encourage housing development in mixed use areas; and, other Board-initiated legislation.

The Department reports that funding for these activities was included in a $1.9 supplemental budget appropriation request approved by the Board of Supervisors in June 2001 and carried over to FY 2001-02. At the time, the Department reported that the supplemental appropriation request was to primarily cover consultant work for the Better Neighborhoods project for Balboa Park and neighborhood and environmental planning in the South of Market and Mission districts. Of the total supplemental appropriation amount of $1.9 million, the Board reserved $585,000, most of which was proposed for environmental consultants for the South of Market and Mission districts, pending selection of the consultants.

Subsequent to Board approval of the supplemental appropriation, Department management decided to forego the proposed consulting contracts and to instead use most of the $1.9 million supplemental appropriation to meet the Department"s budget reduction goals necessitated by the economic and revenue slowdown of the first half of FY 2001-02. Environmental review for the projects listed above, including legislation pertaining to exemption from the Floor Area Ratio requirements in the C-3 District, was therefore postponed without any input by the Board of Supervisors.

Since the Board"s budget authority is not at the project level, and because the Board is not involved in setting goals and objectives for the Department that would govern decisions about where to make budget reductions, funding allocations and project activity within the Department are decided solely at the discretion of Department management. Further, since the Environmental Review division is not a separate cost center in the Department"s budget, it is not possible for the Board of Supervisors to determine how much funding it is appropriating specifically to that division. Or, if the Board of Supervisors adds funding for a specific purpose, it is not possible to tell if the division receiving the funding will actually end up with a net increase in funding. The funding levels for the three costs centers in the Department"s budget are all overstated since each includes some of the costs of the two divisions that are not separate costs centers, Major Environmental Analysis and Information Services.

Besides uncertainty over the level of funding actually allocated for projects, the Board receives little information during or at the end of the year regarding actual accomplishment of projects. The Department"s Annual Report provides descriptive information about the activities of the Department during the previous year. But it does not provide linkage to the annual Work Program or the budget so one could determine how actual activities and projects compared to planned and budgeted for activities and projects. Unless it makes specific inquiries or holds hearings on certain activities, there is no mechanism for the Department to report back to the Board on actual activities accomplished with the funding provided.

Impact of Board"s planning legislation

Numerous Department representatives commented on the recent increase in planning-related legislation adopted by the Board of Supervisors and its impact on the Department. A review of planning-related legislation adopted by the Board of Supervisors from FY 1998-99 through the first half of FY 2001-02 shows an increase in legislation with a particular focus during in FY 2000-01 and 2001-02 on creation of affordable housing and live/work and industrial zone protection issues. However, the Board"s interests in these areas do not seem to have been translated into Planning Department work products or actions, as they might have had the Planning Commission fulfilled the Charter mandate to formulate goals, objectives and plans and programs consistent with overall City and County objectives, as reflected in Board legislation.

Regarding affordable housing, the Planning Department identified increasing housing as one its three objectives listed in its Annual Report for FY 1999-00 though it did not single out creation of affordable housing. The Planning Commission adopted a policy in 1992 that allowed the Commission to optionally require developers of new housing developments of ten units or more subject to conditional use or planned unit development approval to provide a minimum of ten percent of their total units constructed as affordable housing. Implementation of this policy has been decided by the Commission on a case-by-case basis. Neither the goal nor the Commission policy appears to have added much new affordable housing. The Department reports that only 128 affordable units have been built under the policy since 1992.

A review of staff time records since FY 1997-98 shows that hours allocated to housing issues were primarily preparation of the Housing Inventory and work on the update to the General Plan"s Residence Element. While the Housing Inventory provides useful information for analysis of housing, including the number of affordable housing units approved and constructed in the City, preparation of this report does not result in the production of affordable housing. To create more affordable housing, the Planning Department could propose amendments to the Planning Code such as:

The Better Neighborhoods project now underway should result in some proposed zoning changes to allow for greater density in some part of the neighborhoods under review. This would be a first step in the Department taking a role in creating more affordable housing.

Regarding the second key area of Board concern as reflected in many pieces of legislation adopted by the Board of Supervisors over the last two years, the continuing construction of live/work lofts and permanent industrial protection zone controls, the Department has allocated a significant number of staff hours to this issue. However, as detailed in Section 3, permanent controls have still not been established and hundreds of live/work lofts have been built, primarily in the Mission and South of Market districts. Board involvement and collaboration with the Commission and Department on setting goals and objectives on these issues, including ongoing measurement and reporting of activity and outcomes, would most likely have resulted in a more rapid resolution to these issues such as establishment of permanent controls.

Coordination with other public agencies

One of the roles of planning agencies required by State law is promotion of coordination of local plans with the plans and programs of other public agencies. In San Francisco, some of the key agencies involved in the planning process include the Department of Building Inspection, the Department of Public Works, the Public Utilities Commission, the Port, the Redevelopment Agency and the San Francisco Transportation Authority. Each of these agencies develops plans and programs for major construction projects and plays a role in changes in use of land and buildings.

The Planning Department reports that it invites representatives from other planning-related agencies to public hearings and other forums on subjects of potential interest to these other agencies. Representatives of some of these agencies report that Planing Department participation in their agencies" planning activities is inconsistent. A number state that the Planning Department does not always keep their agencies" managers apprised of new Planning Department activities and initiatives. Specifically, agency responses to inquiries about the Department"s coordination of its Better Neighborhoods project brought these responses:

The Redevelopment Agency and the Transportation Authority have entered in to agreements with the Planning Department to better define their roles and relationships and to ensure coordination of certain activities.

The Transportation Authority as the legally designated Congestion Management Agency for San Francisco, is responsible for preparing the Long Range Countywide Transportation Plan. Since transportation is affected by land use decisions and since the Planning Department is involved in transportation issues through maintenance and updating of the Transportation Element of the General Plan, the Authority and the Planning Department entered in to a Memorandum of Agreement in 1996. The Agreement calls for the Planning Department to provide input and consultation on development of the Long-Range Transportation Plan and, more specifically, to provide land use forecasts for the Plan. It also calls for the Department to use the Travel Demand Model developed by the Authority as its primary tool for analyzing transportation impacts of plans and projects to "maximize consistency in all modeling efforts".

In spite of signing the Memorandum of Agreement, the Department has not been using the Travel Demand Model developed by the Transportation Authority. As a result, two different approaches to measuring the transportation impacts of projects are being used. In terms of provision of land use forecasts for the Transportation Plan, the Department apparently has not been providing this information because the Authority has not agreed to pay Planning Department staff time to prepare the forecasts. Unfortunately, the Agreement between the two agencies does not include a work program or specific work products that the Department is expected to produce. Whatever the reason, coordination of land use is not occurring in this area.

The Planning Department"s Master Services Agreement with the Redevelopment Agency is more specific than the agreement with the Transportation Authority. The Agreement states that the Planning Department has overall authority for land use issues, calls for community-based planning efforts, and a coordinated, multi-disciplinary approach to long range planning between the Department and the Agency regarding the City"s redevelopment areas. It states that the Department should have primary land use authority in all future redevelopment project areas to ensure consistency and a citywide perspective.

To implement these concepts of coordination and mutual assistance, the Agreement between the Redevelopment Agency and the Planning Department calls for the Department to dedicate 10.47 Full Time Equivalents to six redevelopment projects: South of Market/Mid-market; Bayview/Hunter"s Point; Transbay; Western Addition A-2; Hunters Point Shipyard; Yerba Buena Center (Bloomingdale"s); and, Mission Bay. Specific work products are identified for each project and the total cost is identified as $1.9 million, of which $1.4 is to be provided by the General Fund.

A review of Department staff hours shows that the Department is not fulfilling its obligations to the Redevelopment Agency. The Planning Department"s Time and Accounting system shows that the Department has allocated approximately 3,756 hours to these projects since FY 1999-00, or approximately 2.26 Full-Time Equivalents, far short of the agreed upon amount.

The Charter and good planning calls for cooperation and coordination between agencies involved in planning and land use issues. One of the Planning Department"s goals in its vision statement is, "Provide leadership role in collaborative regional planning and implementation activities". The Department is not implementing this goal in a satisfactory manner. This illustrates the absence of a formalized system of creating specific objectives and action plans to implement the Department"s goals and establishing a system to measure results.

Conclusion

The Planning Commission and Planning Department is not fulfilling three of its key roles mandated by the Charter and State law. Two of these roles required by the Charter are included in the requirement that all City commissions, "formulate, evaluate and approve goals, objectives, plans and programs and set policies consistent with the overall objectives of the City and County, as established by the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors...".

The Planning Commission does not engage in a comprehensive strategic planning process to set long- and short-term goals, objectives and action plans for the Planning Department. The Department has adopted broad goals and objectives but the primary mechanism for implementing these goals and objectives, the annual Work Program approved by the Commission, is not prioritized by or clearly linked to these goals and objectives. Further, there is no system in place for the Commission to obtain detailed measurement of the Department"s actual accomplishments compared to the original Work Program or to assess the extent to which the Department"s goals and objectives have been accomplished.

The Planning Commission and Department has not established a formal mechanism to collaborate with the Board of Supervisors regarding establishment of goals and objectives for the planning function. As a result, the Board of Supervisors" primary mechanisms for input are approval of the Department"s budget and adoption of legislation that can control or influence the planning process. The use of the budget for affecting planning activity and policy direction has significant limitations as appropriations are made at the department level, not by project, giving the Planning Director wide latitude in funding levels for individual projects. It is difficult to determine how funding appropriated by the Board for specific purposes is actually used as the Department"s budget structure is inconsistent with its actual organization structure and both of these structures are inconsistent with the structure of the annual work programs that details funding by individual project. There are no progress or end of the year reports showing actual work performed compared to proposed work programs, making staff productivity and accomplishment of Department goals and objectives difficult to measure.

The Department is not fulfilling the State requirement to promote the coordination of local plans with the plans and programs of other agencies. In interviews, three agencies involved in land use and planning efforts in the City report that they were not informed or invited to participate in the Better Neighborhoods program, particularly as it involves topics in their areas of jurisdiction. Two agencies, the San Francisco Transportation Authority and the Redevelopment Agency, have established formal agreements with the Planning Department to ensure coordination and cooperation of their planning efforts. Many of the requirements of these agreements have not been fulfilled by the Planning Department, resulting in poor coordination of key planning activities.

Recommendations

The Planning Commission should:

1.1 Prepare a long range strategic plan integrating a broad set of short- and long-term goals, objectives and action plans for the Commission and the Planning Department, including timetables and specific measurements of plan accomplishment;

1.2 Establish an annual process for formally receiving input from the Board of Supervisors and the public regarding goals and objectives for the planning function and incorporate them into the establishment of and annual updates to the strategic plan;

1.3 Develop a process for annually evaluating accomplishment of the strategic plan including measurements of actual performance and timetables of projects and activities included in the plan;

1.4 Require the Planning Director to structure the Department"s annual Work Program to present the link between planned activities and strategic plan goals and objectives;

1.5 Require the Planning Director to provide a detailed reconciliation between the annual Work Program and the budget each year after the annual budget is adopted and to provide this to the Commission and the Board of Supervisors;

1.6 Establish coordination and cooperation with other City agencies as a performance measurement for the Planning Director and measure actual results in this area through an annual survey of other agencies involved in planning and land use, to be presented to the Commission.

The Planning Director should:

1.7 Include supporting information with the Planning Department"s budget in order to delineate expenditures and revenues for each of the Department"s five divisions.

Costs and Benefits

There would be no new direct costs incurred by the Department in implementing these recommendations. The benefits would include establishment of a set of goals, objectives and priorities to guide Department management in allocating staff and other resources. These goals, objectives and priorities would include input from the Board of Supervisors, obtained through a formalized collaboration process. Action plans would be established that are tied to an overriding set of goals and objectives and a process for evaluating actual accomplishment of the goals and objectives would be in place. A consistent structure would be applied to the Department"s annual Work Program, the budget approved by the Board of Supervisors and the Department"s organization structure, enabling the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors to better understand the actual impact of funding of programs and activities. The Department would become more accountable for its activities through regular reports to the Commission and the Board of Supervisors showing actual projects and work performed each year compared to work planned and funded for the year. Coordination and cooperation with other local agencies involved in planning would be monitored and improved, based on the results of an annual survey of those agencies.

¹ California Government Code §65100

² While this audit was in process, a ballot initiative, Proposition D, was passed by the voters in March 2002, changing the manner in which the Planning Commission will be appointed. Effective July 2002, the Board of Supervisors will appoint three of the seven Planning Commissioners and the Mayor will appoint four commissioners.