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Lurie Administration Cuts Six Innovation Office Staff Amid Questions Over $7M Bloomberg Grant
Mayor Daniel Lurie's administration has fired six of ten staffers in the Mayor's Office of Innovation, which was built with a $7 million Bloomberg Philanthropies grant, without saying whether the city has met the grant's conditions or received a scheduled $2.38 million payment.
Mayor Daniel Lurie's administration has fired six of the ten employees in the Mayor's Office of Innovation, the office the city created with the largest contribution Bloomberg Philanthropies has ever made to a municipal innovation team, according to multiple reports. The mayor's office did not dispute the figure but said in a statement that "no positions have been eliminated" and that job descriptions for new roles "will be posted in the coming days."
The dismissals, which took effect Friday, come after months of tension inside the office, including what a person familiar with the matter described as debilitating work-related stress among staff. None of the fired employees received severance, according to that source. The mayor's office did not answer questions about severance, notice, when the employees' city health coverage ends, or how management handled concerns about work pressures.
The grant, approved by the Board of Supervisors in February, was intended to expand the innovation team. Under a draft agreement, a second payment of up to $2.38 million, scheduled for Nov. 1, was contingent on the city meeting fundraising targets and demonstrating satisfactory progress. The mayor's office would not say whether it had received that payment.
The grant also requires the city to raise $2.33 million in matching funds, notify Bloomberg of major changes, and obtain approval for new priorities, according to documents filed with the board. The mayor's office did not answer questions about whether it had met those conditions. Bloomberg Philanthropies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The layoffs raise questions about the future of the grant and the office's ability to deliver on its mandate. The innovation office was established to bring new approaches to city government, and the Bloomberg funding was seen as a vote of confidence in San Francisco's ability to experiment and improve services. With most of its staff now gone, it is unclear how the office will continue its work or whether the city will be able to fulfill the terms of the grant.
The mayor's office has not provided a timeline for filling the new roles or detailed how the office will function in the interim. The firings also come as the city faces broader budget pressures and a mayor who has pledged to make government more efficient. Critics have questioned whether the cuts will undermine the very innovation the grant was meant to support.
The Board of Supervisors, which approved the grant, may now seek answers about the administration's compliance with the agreement. The board's budget and finance committee could request a hearing on the matter. For now, the fate of the $7 million grant and the office it was meant to build remains uncertain.