Committee accepts sheriff oversight reports and hears inspector general's start'up update

The Government Audit and Oversight Committee on March 21 forwarded three resolutions to the Board accepting the San Francisco Sheriff's Oversight Board's quarterly and annual reports for calendar year 2023 and heard an update from Inspector General Terry Wiley on the new Office of Inspector General (OIG).

Supervisor Shamann Walton introduced the oversight reports and invited Inspector General Wiley to report on the OIG's first months of operation. Wiley said she had completed onboarding and outreach to stakeholders including the Sheriff's Office, the public defender policy team, community organizations and the mayor's budget staff. Wiley said the office launched a new case-management system and complaint portal within three months of taking office and that the initial implementation cost was "$60,000," which she described as a modest, rapid deployment to allow complaints and case tracking to begin.

Wiley told the committee the charter requires one investigator per 100 deputies; with an estimated 600 deputies in the sheriff's department the OIG would ultimately need roughly six investigators to be fully staffed. Wiley said her office had submitted an initial budget proposal of about $2,500,000 for phased implementation and estimated a fully staffed operational budget could be in the $5'to'6 million range. Wiley also described plans for multilingual complaint access and kiosks and noted that the Department of Police Accountability (DPA) had loaned two investigators to handle the most serious complaints while the OIG hires permanent staff.

Julie Sue, president of the Sheriff's Oversight Board, publicly commended Wiley and noted that the jail population had grown substantially and that staffing should be calibrated to both deputies and the number of people incarcerated. The committee voted to forward the three resolutions to the Board with a positive recommendation; roll call recorded three ayes and the motion passed with Vice Chair excused.

The resolutions accept oversight board reporting as submitted; the OIG and departments committed to continued engagement and to return with further reporting and budget details.