Updated 7/17/2025 to include an exchange between Police Commissioner Cindy Elias and Interim San Francisco Police Department Chief Paul Yep at a July 16 San Francisco Police Commission meeting.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is facing backlash over his $16 billion, 2025-27 budget for significantly cutting police oversight while boosting funding for the Police Department and Sheriff’s Office by $22 million each.
The Board of Supervisors is expected to adopt the budget by July 31.
Lurie’s proposal would eliminate key roles in the city Department of Police Accountability, which is responsible for investigating civilian complaints against police officers and sheriff’s deputies — such as those alleging excessive force, racial bias or unprofessional behavior — and ensuring transparency and accountability in officers’ and deputies’ conduct. The department’s Office of Inspector General will also see crippling cuts.
The move has ignited criticism from across the ideological divide — from Supervisor Matt Dorsey, a former Police Department spokesperson, to Supervisor Shamann Walton, a strong proponent of police reform.
At a June 13 Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting, Walton pushed back against Budget Director Sophia Kittler’s assertion that, faced with an $800 million deficit, the city must cut “less essential core services.” He questioned the rationale of significantly increasing the Police Department budget considering that a recent city audit on police staffing determined that officers often claimed sick pay from the city while working security shifts for private companies.
“I mean, look — we have inflated budgets for imaginary overtime,” he said. “There are things that are non-essential that are receiving resources in this budget.”
Walton said the move to strip funding from police accountability appeared to set the department up for failure.
“It’s disrespectful to the voters who expect oversight from these departments,” he said. “Is it legal to completely gut a department — particularly a charter department — to where it can’t function?”
Deputy City Attorney Bradley Russi told Walton that he would look into the legality issues and was “happy to talk to you confidentially about it.”
Dorsey, who is on the committee along with supervisors Connie Chan and Joel Engardio, supported Walton’s comments.
“I share my colleague’s concerns, because this is a charter body,” Dorsey said, referring to a policy body established by the city charter.
Voters demanded stronger oversight
San Francisco in 1982 established a civilian police oversight body called the Office of Citizen Complaints. In 2016, voters approved Proposition G, which replaced the Office of Citizen Complaints with the Department of Police Accountability and added greater independence and expanded authority to audit and evaluate police policy and training. The measure passed amid nationwide protests against police violence and local demands for stronger oversight — particularly after controversial incidents involving the San Francisco Police Department, including fatal police shootings of Black and Latino residents.
In 2020, voters approved establishment of the Office of Inspector General via Proposition D. Unlike the Department of Police Accountability, which investigates individual complaints of misconduct, the Inspector General examines systemic issues, such as patterns in use of force, racial disparities or disciplinary failures.
The department handles more than 700 cases annually and has maintained 100% compliance with statutory deadlines despite losing 41% of its staff — down to 33 positions from 56 — according to Paul Henderson, the agency’s executive director.
Henderson underscored the severity of the proposed cuts in a presentation at the June 13 meeting of the Budget and Appropriations Committee. He said the department works with a “lean” $9.5 million budget, and warned that further staff reductions could lead to delayed resolutions and administrative bottlenecks that would compromise the integrity of investigations and strain the department’s capacity to meet legally mandated deadlines.
He also questioned why job eliminations in his department added up to as much as 3% of all cuts.
“That’s a disparate number given the size of DPA and the rest of the cuts that are being proposed in the other city departments,” Henderson told the committee.
On June 25, the committee voted unanimously to advance the proposed budget with amendments. The changes reduced job cuts across the city to 56 from an initial 103 positions.
Sources inside the Department of Police Accountability said their final losses were still unclear, but they believed the department would lose an investigator, a part-time clerk and a crucial legal expert — an attorney who ensures that policies adhere to the city charter.
Additional sources said the San Francisco Police Department may also cut the attorney tasked with reviewing Department of Police Accountability officer misconduct findings for disclosure to the District Attorney’s Office.
Under the constitutionally mandated Brady Rule, prosecutors must provide defendants any evidence that may exonerate them, for example, disclosing that an officer involved in their case had a history of misconduct or dishonesty.
In an email to the Public Press, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office stated that it received its Brady information from both the Police Department and Department of Police Accountability, and was committed to meeting its disclosure obligations.
“We would expect that any cuts to DPA would not impact their ability to execute their core functions, which would include furnishing Brady information to this office,” stated the email. “If the proposed cuts are implemented, DPA would need to figure out how to get the work done; it is not optional and must be done.”
The Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a July 16 Police Commission meeting, Interim Police Chief Paul Yep refused to say which positions within the department were facing potential cuts despite urging from Commissioner Cindy Elias.
“When the department presented the two budgetary presentations, there wasn’t any indication of any cuts to civilian or non-sworn members of the department,” Elias said. “We’ve heard it from other departments. I don’t think it’s a secret.”
“I do not think it’s appropriate to talk about budget cuts before the budget’s been finalized,” Yep said.
Yoel Haile, director of the criminal law and immigration project at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said a Brady list attorney was crucial for due process, so the position’s elimination could jeopardize the fairness of criminal trials and expose the city to constitutional challenges.
Haile said he believed the cuts serve a political agenda that deprioritizes oversight. He said the move appeared to fit a disturbing pattern that began early in Lurie’s tenure when he successfully pushed for the ousting of Police Commissioner Max Carter-Oberstone, who clashed with the previous mayor, London Breed, while pushing for police reform.
“This is deeply, deeply troubling,” Haile said. “The mayor, by increasing spending on arrests and incarceration, is enacting a budget that harms the most vulnerable San Franciscans, while eliminating many of the mechanisms through which SFPD can be held accountable for its litany of misconduct over the years.”
Zac Dillon, an attorney with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Integrity Unit, said the Department of Police Accountability is critical to upholding legal mandates.
“Less police oversight leads to more police corruption, pure and simple,” Dillon said. “If anything, DPA needs increased staffing to improve its ability to meet legal deadlines for releasing police misconduct records, as required under state law reforms like SB 1421 and SB 16.”
Senate Bill 1421 requires that certain police officer records be made publicly available under the California Public Records Act. Senate Bill 16 expanded the law’s scope to cover additional categories of misconduct.
Anticipated cuts could flout legal mandates
Another key post facing elimination is the secretary to the Office of Inspector General, on whom Police Commission members rely to issue communications, coordinate commission meetings and public meetings and organize presentations to the Board of Supervisors, among other duties.
Marshall Khine, the Department of Police Accountability staff member responsible for overseeing operations involving the Sheriff’s Office, warned supervisors at the June 13 Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting that the Police Commission would be unable to function without the secretary, potentially leading to legal violations.
“Not being able to comply with Sunshine Ordinance, as well as potentially violating Brown Act, because the board members cannot communicate with one another in order to coordinate their board meetings, as well as all of the public notices that need to go along with hosting any meetings,” Khine said. The Brown Act is California’s open meetings law.
Department of Police Accountability staff said the proposed cuts would be not just operationally and legally harmful but potentially damaging to public credibility. Vince Vila, an investigator with the department and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 shop steward, was among several staff members to speak during the June 13 Budget and Appropriations Committee public comment period.
“Further cuts will jeopardize our ability to meet legally mandated timelines under the Peace Officer Bill of Rights and ultimately our mission,” Vila said. “Civilian oversight cannot function without investigators. Cutting us further undermines public trust, transparency and accountability.”
Asked for comment, Lurie’s office directed the Public Press to a statement the mayor issued June 26 after supervisors voted to advance an amended budget.
“This budget takes major strides to lay the foundation for our long-term growth — bringing spending closer in line with revenues so we don’t spend money we don’t have, while focusing our resources on providing safe and clean streets, addressing the fentanyl crisis, and advancing our economic recovery,” Lurie stated. “Passing this budget also required painful decisions that were, unfortunately, necessary to set up our entire city for success. Leadership means making those tough decisions, and this group of city leaders did that.”
CORRECTION 7/12/25: Vince Vila is an investigator with the San Francisco Department of Police Accountability and a Service Employees International Union Local 1021 shop steward. His last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this article.
CORRECTION 7/17/25: The Brady list attorney position is housed within the San Francisco Police Department. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Brady list attorney position was part of the Department of Police Accountability.
CORRECTION 7/18/25: Cindy Elias is a commissioner with the San Francisco Police Commission. Her last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this article.
