{"id":213729,"date":"2026-03-10T21:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T21:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213729\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T21:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T21:57:08","slug":"s-f-ethics-probe-flags-significant-lapses-in-farrell-2024-mayor-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213729\/","title":{"rendered":"S.F. ethics probe flags \u2018significant\u2019 lapses in Farrell 2024 mayor run"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Farrell in his 2024 run for San Francisco mayor failed to report payments, misreported spending and did not properly document donations in \u201csignificant\u201d violations of state and local campaign finance laws, according to an audit<\/a> from the city\u2019s ethics commission published Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese findings represent instances of noncompliance that Auditors determined to be significant,\u201d read the March 9 audit. That determination was reached based on the \u201cfrequency\u201d and \u201c significance of the dollar amount\u201d of the transactions flagged.<\/p>\n

While the audit found that the \u201cinstances\u201d of noncompliance were serious, it concluded that \u201cexcept as noted in the audit findings sections above\u201d Farrell\u2019s campaign \u201csubstantially complied\u201d with local and state law. <\/p>\n

Violations were present only in a small portion of the campaign\u2019s $2,616,230 total revenue in 2024, it wrote, and notwithstanding the violations noted no other lapses were surfaced as part of the audit.<\/p>\n

The audit comes after Farrell\u2019s campaign was in October 2024 dinged $108,000<\/a> in a penalty that, in a highly unusual move, was issued just days before the Nov. 5 election. It was the largest penalty in the ethics commission\u2019s history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At that time, Farrell\u2019s campaign<\/a> was censured by the commission for \u201cserious harm\u201d and \u201cseverity\u201d in violating<\/a> basic donation limits<\/a> stemming from his commingling of funds<\/a> with a ballot measure campaign<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Farrell had effectively circumvented campaign finance limits and subsidized his mayoral run with money from a $2.5 million committee backing Proposition D<\/a>, a charter reform measure, the commission found in issuing that penalty.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s audit, the commission noted, will be sent to the commission\u2019s enforcement team for \u201cfurther investigation\u201d and \u201cenforcement action as warranted.\u201d That could also result in a fine.<\/p>\n

The audit analyzed filings between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2024, when Farrell unsuccessfully ran for mayor. It found lapses in properly recording payments, donor information, subvendors, and expenses, among other things.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the audit found the campaign:<\/p>\n

Failed to report spending to subvendors for expenditures like office supplies and campaign flyers in 12 percent of cases, equal to $698,476. The campaign paid $556,310 to the ad agency Canal Partners Media but did not note the television broadcasters or other subvendors that Canal Partners used for its ads.<\/p>\n

Failed to provide \u201cany\u201d records for expenses in 9 percent of sampled expenses, equal to $6,898 for spending on dinners, coffee and consultants, among other things.<\/p>\n

Recorded expenses in the wrong time period in 8.3 percent of cases.<\/p>\n

Had incomplete information for 215 donors, including missing names or addresses. That was equal to 7.6 percent of all donors.<\/p>\n

Farrell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The treasurer for Farrel\u2019s campaign, Money Wheel, LLC, issued various statements included as part of the audit. Money Wheel said it \u201cpromptly\u201d reached out to subvendors for more documentation, for instance, and said it kept proper records for the \u201cvast majority\u201d of expenses.<\/p>\n

Expenses for which documentation is missing \u201cwere for relatively minor expenditures\u201d that could be \u201ccorroborated\u201d by comparing bank statements, it said. For missing donor information, it tried to \u201cverify and correct\u201d information and also noted that the city\u2019s NetFile system did not alert the campaign to missing records and \u201cshould flag this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farrell finished in fourth place<\/a> in 2024 but benefited from tremendous fundraising. His campaign and a pro-Farrell PAC took in $5.45 million compared to London Breed\u2019s $5.56 million. Both were swamped by Daniel Lurie, who had $17.21 million behind him, according to ethics commission data<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Farrell in his 2024 run for San Francisco mayor failed to report payments, misreported spending and did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7917,98079,86640,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-213729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-campaign-finance","tag-election-2024","tag-mark-farrell","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}