One of the major complaints I hear about SFUSD’s budget is the amount of money spent on “consultants.” At Monday evening’s meeting of the Rules, Policy and Legislation Committee, Commissioners began the discussion on how we might give the public more clarity on the vast chunk of expenditures classified as “personal service contractors/consultants” in our agenda.
When you read the Board agenda, routine (“consent”) expenditures to be voted on by the Board are generally concentrated in several types of resolutions — Ws, which are related to facilities and bond-related expenditures; Ks , which are classified as “Personal Service Contractors/Consultant” contracts and governed by Board Policy P3610; and B or C resolutions, which are expenditures related to district financial management (e.g., fund transfers) and core functions like transportation (there is probably a better way to define these expenditure categories but that’s the best I can do at the moment.). After the Ws — usually large amounts of money subject to additional oversight by the District’s Citizen’s Bond Oversight Committee — the K resolutions contain the largest expenditures, and they are the subject I will be covering here.
Rachel Norton 