Lurie Unveils a Major Shakeup of San Francisco Mayor’s Office

Update, Dec. 12: SF Mayor-Elect Daniel Lurie Taps Former Giants Executive to Lead Staff

In his first major announcement as mayor-elect of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie said he would change the governance structure of the mayor’s office when he is sworn in next month.

Lurie, a philanthropist with no prior experience in elected office, unseated incumbent Mayor London Breed after running a campaign focused on bringing change and stronger accountability to City Hall. On Wednesday, Lurie announced that rather than having the city’s 56 agencies report to the mayor’s chief of staff and hiring a centralized policy director, he would create four policy director positions alongside the chief of staff, all reporting directly to the mayor.

“The current way of doing business at City Hall is outdated, ineffective, and lacks focus on outcomes,” Lurie said in a statement. “The changes we’re making at the top will help break down barriers to effective governance that impact every San Franciscan.”

The four policy directors will focus on housing and economic development; infrastructure, climate and mobility; public health and well-being; and public safety. Lurie has not yet announced who his chief of staff or the policy directors will be. He is meeting with a team of advisers to craft his first 100 days in office and finalize his picks for senior positions.

Former city controller Ben Rosenfield, who is on the mayor-elect’s transition team, said the reorganization could improve issues like San Francisco’s notoriously slow permitting process.

More than 20 city departments have a role to play in building permitting, but Rosenfield said, “Flattening the org chart and asking policy directors to own portfolios of departments that they are working with … can lead to improvement in the services that San Franciscans rely on.”

San Francisco’s government structure is unique among major cities, providing both county and city services, Rosenfield said.

“The challenge that creates is the complexity of this vast array of services organized in many departments. For the last 20 years or so in San Francisco, those 50+ departments have reported to a single person, the chief of staff,” Rosenfield told KQED. “To really sustain attention and drive changes on cross-cutting department issues, it’s very challenging to do it with a structure like that.”

The restructuring drew from recommendations in an August report by Bay Area policy think tank SPUR, which found that “the lack of clear, coordinated action to address big challenges has led to a growing perception that the city government isn’t responding quickly enough to meet the growing needs of the people it serves.”

As Lurie takes on his effort to reshape San Francisco’s government, he’ll face big hurdles to delivering on his promises to improve conditions around public safety, homelessness and economic recovery — including a nearly $800 million budget deficit and expected conflicts with the second Donald Trump administration.