Mayor Daniel Lurie during press conference regarding his new executive directive about street safety on steps of City Hall in San Francisco on Monday, December 15, 2025.
Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle
Mayor Daniel Lurie’s signature initiative to overhaul the notoriously antiquated San Francisco permit system is running into resistance from an influential labor group at City Hall.
The Lurie administration is seeking to spend about $28.5 million to extend and broaden its contract with OpenGov, whose software the city is using to let people apply for permits online that previously required an in-person visit. That online portal is a pillar of Lurie’s PermitSF initiative, his push to accelerate and modernize San Francisco’s slow and outdated permit approval processes and improve government efficiency.
But IFPTE Local 21, a union representing City Hall administrative and technical employees, has raised formal objections to the administration’s plans. The union argues Lurie is trying to privatize work that should be done by city staff, and it views OpenGov as an overly expensive contractor unprepared to meet San Francisco’s technical needs.
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The union’s concerns further complicate Lurie’s ambitious permit initiative, which previously faced scrutiny over the way his administration chose OpenGov over a cheaper product preferred by some city staff. OpenGov had ties to Lurie: Its leaders donated tens of thousands of dollars to the mayor’s charity over the years, though city officials have said those connections did not influence their decision to pick the firm.
IFPTE’s objections also add another point of tension between Lurie and the San Francisco labor movement, which has separately decried the mayor’s moves to lay off city employees and cut services as he tries to lessen the city’s recurring budget shortfalls. Lurie and public-sector unions are also on opposite sides of a June ballot measure to raise taxes on large companies with high-paid CEOs.
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IFPTE is asking the Civil Service Commission, which monitors the city hiring system, to block a $6.5 million request Monday from the administration to expand its professional services with OpenGov. In addition, the city wants to spend about $22 million on license fees with OpenGov over the next five years, with an option to extend the contract for a sixth year. All of that spending will require future approval from the Board of Supervisors.
In a May 3 letter to the commission, IFPTE members said it became clear in recent months that OpenGov “is insufficient to support our operations, especially long-term.” More than 50 product upgrades are needed to make OpenGov’s tool equivalent to products from other vendors, and city employees are concerned that “workarounds will drown them if efficiency enhancements are not made,” the letter said.
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“We think it is reasonable to interpret this as the citizens of San Francisco paying for OpenGov’s research and development work to attempt to build a competitive product,” IFTPE members said in their letter. “Furthermore, this product is being developed to prevent staff from doing work that they are not only capable of but which is more appropriate to be kept in the public trust.”
Union members said they were leaving the letter unsigned because “the OpenGov project has created an environment of distrust where we fear retaliation.” Such fears were “particularly poignant,” the IFPTE members said, because the city could use budget-related layoffs “as an excuse to fire ethical civil servants who feel compelled to explain and object to this flagrant waste of public resources.”
Lurie’s office said the city is not retaliating against employees.
The San Francisco Standard reported Wednesday on similar concerns about the permit software that were raised both by city employees and former staff at OpenGov.
Elizabeth Watty, the San Francisco planning official overseeing PermitSF, told the Chronicle that the city isn’t outsourcing all of its permit approvals. By the end of the next contract with OpenGov, she said city staff will be able to “exclusively manage” routine adjustments to the online permit portal, though the company will continue to build more complex upgrades and provide technical support when needed.
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Watty said the city is on track to finish everything it was supposed to finish with OpenGov during the initial one-year contract.
Watty also disputed the notion that San Francisco is essentially funding research and development for a pricey vendor that’s not ready for prime time. Instead, Watty said city leaders chose OpenGov partly because it offered the best experience for users, even though it did not automatically account for certain “bespoke San Francisco processes” on the back end.
For example, Watty said San Francisco uses specialized inspectors to review permits for plumbing, electrical systems and building code compliance — jobs that in many other places are often handled by more generalized inspectors. OpenGov’s system didn’t initially account for that nuance, so City Hall asked the company to add it, Watty said.
“Their product is not about being bespoke,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a negative thing that they don’t have every feature under the sun that we can hypothetically think would be appropriate to do permitting in the most complex jurisdiction in the country.”
Watty said that when it comes to adding features, OpenGov is “pushing us to make sure that this is something that actually is a best practice and not just perpetuating bad protocols and bureaucratic norms of the past.” While it’s taking longer to roll out some features than San Francisco originally intended, Watty said the delays mostly came from requests issued by the city, not OpenGov.
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OpenGov spokesperson Alex Lin-Goldsmith said in an email that the online portal the company developed for San Francisco is successfully speeding up the time it takes for the city to process permits.
“OpenGov remains focused on working closely with City staff to meet departments where they are, adapt to the operational needs of a large and complex city, and deliver a stable, connected permitting experience that improves coordination, reduces administrative friction, and best serves San Francisco residents and businesses,” he said. The company works with 2,000 government agencies around the country.
San Francisco inked a one-year, $5.9 million deal with OpenGov that began in October. In February, the city launched the first phase of the online permit portal.
The portal was initially limited to just a handful of permits, such as those for replacing doors, windows or siding as well as for fire suppression systems. The city has added a couple more functions since then, and in the coming months officials plan to expand the portal even more, including by adding permits for re-roofing and signs — a popular request from small businesses.
The portal is working out well so far, according to Lurie administration officials, who have said permit applications are going up without a corresponding increase in complaints.
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The $28.5 million contract extension being sought by the administration would allow City Hall to expand the OpenGov system even more to encompass all of the departments that approve permits. Eventually, anyone seeking a San Francisco permit should be able to apply for one and track their progress using the online portal.
But not everyone is convinced OpenGov is up to the job.
Supervisor Connie Chan grilled the leaders of the city planning and building inspections departments about the OpenGov contract extension during a Wednesday hearing of the supervisors’ appropriations committee, which she chairs. Chan wanted to know if the city had a “backup plan” if OpenGov doesn’t work out and asked officials to report back with more details.
Chan, who is running to represent San Francisco in the House of Representatives, was skeptical of plans to expand OpenGov’s work for the city. The Lurie administration plans to seek Board of Supervisors approval of the contract extension shortly after the Civil Service Commission signs off on its portion of the agreement.
“I’m not inclined to fund the research and development of OpenGov,” Chan said. “What I’m inclined to fund is the development of a permanent permitting system that actually works for San Franciscans.”
Watty, the PermitSF chief, said San Francisco’s approach to launching the permit portal has proven valuable. By rolling out the portal in pieces, the city has been able to make adjustments as it goes that will inform its work if and when the system expands under the next agreement, she said.
“This last year has made us smarter and more strategic,” Watty said. “Each launch that we’ve done, we’ve gotten better … We should continue to learn and continue to iterate.”