S.F. is poised to spend $33M more on OpenGov. It’s still only handling basic permits.  

Almost a year ago, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office awarded a $5.9 million contract for an ambitious overhaul of the city’s archaic permitting system to OpenGov, a largely untested tech firm with connections to his former nonprofit, Tipping Point.

This occurred without a formal bidding process, and over the objections of departmental staff. 

At the time, the mayor’s office claimed OpenGov was the only vendor capable of rolling out the new system quickly enough. 

Since then, OpenGov has missed key deadlines by several months to roll out basic permits. The software Lurie championed still has limited functionality and, city workers say, is still only being applied to simpler tasks. 

Nevertheless, the mayor’s allies want to extend the OpenGov deal — currently set to expire Sept. 30 — by five years to 2031 for an additional $33 million. A preliminary vote is set for Wednesday. 

The extension would arrive before the city has created a clear plan to add in the more complex permits from additional city departments, which the system presently cannot handle, according to records reviewed by Mission Local.

And, while OpenGov is eventually supposed to consolidate the city’s permitting redundancies under one platform, three workers from different departments who spoke to Mission Local said their teams still use the old system simultaneously with OpenGov. 

That’s because OpenGov, they said, still hits snags: It cannot handle ancillary requirements tied to some basic permits and paperwork, forcing city staffers to also work with the antiquated system OpenGov was meant to supplant — a time-consuming and tedious process.  

“The city is still phasing this thing in, trying to make it work in our department,” said one city staffer who was granted anonymity for fear of retaliation, but said their experience matched that of multiple people on their team. “We’re building the plane while flying it.”

The city’s original contract included an option to extend OpenGov’s one-year deal by just two years at a more limited cost. That no longer seems sufficient for the tech firm’s backers at City Hall: Liz Watty, the head of the permit streamlining initiative PermitSF, and Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, a proponent of the contract extension.

The proposal to lock in OpenGov through at least 2031 comes after the Civil Service Commission voted in support of the OpenGov contract in a June 4-1 vote.

The proposal is now set for a vote Wednesday, Sept. 2 from the city’s Budget and Finance Committee, comprising Supervisors Matt Dorsey, Danny Sauter, and Chyanne Chen. The full Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on the request on Sept. 15.

Pay now, develop later

City workers said using both systems simultaneously — and troubleshooting the technical bugs that often show up in OpenGov — has added more work to their plates.

“Currently, the understanding is that the old system will still be around for a couple years,” one worker said. “I don’t feel it is going to become less work, but more. We’re dealing with fixing bugs as well as processing permits.”

Simple permits — like those for doors, windows, siding and re-roofing — as well as fire-only construction permits (sprinklers and alarms), special event permits, and signs and awnings permits can all presently be done on OpenGov. Those permits are easier because they can largely be done over the counter with less than an hour of plan review. 

Electrical and plumbing permits, which are far more numerous, were supposed to be handled by OpenGov by March. But an Aug. 24 weekly status report said both permit types remain in “soft launch.” City leaders hope to have OpenGov handling these, as well as kitchen and bath, solar, and fire operational permits by the fall.

OpenGov has missed previous deadlines. The original contract called for making 15 permits available by mid-March, but only eight of those have since been fully deployed, while electrical and plumbing permits are open to only a limited number of customers.

The city has yet to introduce a plan for handling more complex permits under OpenGov’s next phase involving the Department of Public Works, the Public Utilities Commission, the Port, the Department of Public Health and the Recreation and Parks Department. 

The city, in a response to a public records request, said a plan for folding those departments in will only happen after the $33 million contract extension. In their written responses, city officials said they have not determined the final number and complexity of the permits that will be managed by OpenGov.

They also could not provide an analysis on OpenGov’s fitness for the 12 additional city departments that are supposed to eventually adopt the software. 

City officials argue against abandoning OpenGov

When asked why the city would push the $33 million extension before producing a clear roadmap for OpenGov’s future, Watty said the city cannot afford to wait.

“Without a contract extension now, the project of modernizing permitting would stall and we would have to unwind all the permits we’ve launched this year,” Watty wrote to Mission Local in a statement. 

She said the city’s approach is purposeful, and that PermitSF has, since February, experienced a sharp increase in applications, such as a 42 percent increase in fire department sprinkler and alarm permits, and a 72 percent increase in door, siding, and window replacement permits. 

“Our goal is to deliver impact and results for San Franciscans as quickly as possible. This means planning and development are intentionally concurrent and iterative,” Watty said.

Another city worker, also granted anonymity, said OpenGov should have spent more time developing the new software before it went live. He added he can’t help but feel that he and other workers were used as beta testers, training a private company’s product while working on the public dime.

“You should never go live until you are fully ready,” the worker said. “We’re the guinea pigs of the whole process.”

Watty did acknowledge in an Aug. 19 presentation to the Department of Building Inspection’s commission that OpenGov’s implementation was under-resourced. She called that “our weakest link in this first year,” but said that she has since brought on a full-time project manager to fix issues.

Lurie’s office first pushed the largely untested software last year over the objections of some staffers who preferred other vendors and wrote that OpenGov’s proposal had “gaps so significant” that it “shouldn’t be considered.” 

OpenGov’s founders, its CEO, and an advisory board member were all donors Lurie’s foundation, Tipping Point Community, as reported by the San Francisco Standard.

The mayor’s ties to OpenGov sparked accusations of favoritism, which the mayor’s office denied. A subsequent city review in June of Lurie’s initial no-bid, one-year, $5.9 million contract award to OpenGov in October 2025 found that the mayor “did not conform to typical City practice or best practices” but also “did not violate city requirements.”

At the Civil Service Commission meeting in June regarding OpenGov, some staffers came to the software’s defense, arguing that it streamlined permitting workflows, increased transparency and even garnered positive feedback from frontline staff using the software daily.

District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, a key Lurie ally and former director of the Office of Innovation under Mayor London Breed, has sponsored the OpenGov extension deal. 

“Every day I hear from residents who ask me why the city at the global epicenter of tech still runs on platforms from the 20th century,” Sherrill said in a statement through a spokesperson.

“City Hall cannot be an obstacle to our businesses and residents. We need to be a partner and that must include a modern system. Open Gov is already delivering just that.”