Join the efforts of SFMTA BFPA employees by signing this petition! We need the SFMTA Executive Management to address BFPA's unhealthy workplace culture at the Agency and we need your support. You do not need to be an SFMTA BFPA employee to support. Any SFMTA employee can sign and endorse this petition to support the urgency of this matter brought forth by BFPA employees. 

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We, the undersigned, are current and past staff members of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) Budget, Financial Planning and Analysis (BFPA) team. We write today to express our concern and dismay with the health and well-being of the BFPA team and to request immediate action to restore this team to a healthy and productive state. For almost 3 years, BFPA staff have been exposed to a toxic work environment cultivated by acting Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Rewers, including, but not limited to: verbal abuse, gaslighting, chaos, burnout, inappropriate jokes, and misogyny. Staff have repeatedly reported inappropriate behavior directly to BFPA management and through formal agency grievance channels, but these issues remain unaddressed. This environment, and the subsequent inaction on the part of the management team to remedy it, have resulted in plummeting staff morale and increasing turnover.  

We urge Director Jeffrey Tumlin and appropriate members of the Agency’s executive leadership team to address the concerns listed and significantly improve the working conditions in BFPA, either through enforced and accountable remediation or a change in leadership. We care about public transportation and making a difference in San Francisco and the Bay Area at large. However, Jonathan’s inappropriate behavior and the unhealthy BFPA work environment and culture he has fostered, and his direct reports have upheld, are not something any employee should face. It is harming the mental health of BFPA staff members and has directly led to an increasingly high rate of attrition in the BFPA team.

As a group, we have met and discussed our concerns. These are addressed in greater detail, with examples, below the signature block, but there are several key themes we would like to highlight:

Culture of Disrespect: First and foremost, Jonathan Rewers does not treat staff respectfully and professionally, and he fosters an overall team culture of disrespect and fear. In addition to being unpleasant and emotionally harmful for staff, this creates an inefficient team, muddled communication, and poor accountability.

Unsustainable and Ever-Changing Workloads: The BFPA team has steadily taken on more and more work, creating an unsustainable workload and growing burnout among staff. Moreover, Jonathan Rewers actively professes a dislike for defining “roles and responsibilities,” ensuring that staff are unsure of what tasks they are assigned and who is accountable for what. This confusion often lends itself to duplicative assignments, unclear direction, and wasted effort.

Insufficient Support of Staff and Discrimination Against Women: Staff are provided insufficient support to develop their skills and fulfill their roles in the team. This creates institutional knowledge gaps, insufficient task coverage, poor morale, and attrition. Additionally, evident discrimination against women has been occurring as women are not provided the support and opportunities for growth.

Variable Performance Standards: Performance standard expectations are not applied equally across teams, races, or genders. Consequently, the leadership team is almost exclusively male, and women feel discouraged from seeking leadership.

Disregarded Feedback: Feedback solicited and received from staff by BFPA management is repeatedly disregarded and even blamed on the staff who are providing the feedback. Staff that raise issues are brow beaten and branded as “complainers,” while the majority do not speak upon fear of retaliation.

Insufficient staff and inability to recruit: Turnover has steadily increased – including 4 people this month alone, due in no small part because of the workload and the work culture. Meanwhile, several open positions have gone unfilled, due to lack of qualified interest, and in some cases active avoidance. While staff are leaving with promotion opportunities that should be celebrated, when staff separates from employment, there is no critical assessment as to why this trend is occurring or how to improve staff retention and hiring. Meanwhile, qualified staff are dissuaded from seeking promotion.

As a collective of BFPA employees, we urge that our concerns be taken seriously and acted upon by Executive Management. SFMTA staff and the public we serve deserve better. Below, we have listed out our principal requests from leadership:

1.  Respect in the workplace and a supportive work environment (in line with SFMTA’s Strategic Plan).

a.  Acknowledge and support staff, provide context and clear framework of expectations for every new assignment.

 b.  Effective and supportive management, or that the SFMTA hires senior  management that supports its staff, doesn’t utilize abusive tactics, delegates well, and gives its staff clear roles and responsibilities and the ability to do their jobs efficiently and effectively.

2.  Ensure effective organizational practices.

a.  Responsible delegation in BFPA: create a clear framework of expectations and contact points with key staff that does not require every decision to be signed off on by one member of leadership.

b.  Recognition of problems in BFPA and a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Bound) plan to change them.

c.  In line with good management practice: not changing roles/responsibilities on a whim and creating changing targets/goals without informing staff.

3.  Equity in the management of BFPA.

a.  Provide equitable opportunities for women and women of color to work for BFPA.

b.  Hire diverse candidates for BFPA management roles.

4.  Employee Retention as an added criterion for assessing management performance.

5.  Train managers on how to advocate and arrange for their subordinates to obtain acting pay, comp time, etc. when they qualify.

Sincerely,

Anonymous 1824 Principal Administrative Analyst

Anonymous Transportation Planner II

Anonymous 1824 Principal Administrative Analyst

Anonymous 1822 Administrative Analyst

Anonymous BFPA Employee 1

Anonymous BFPA Employee 2

Anonymous BFPA Employee 3

Anonymous BFPA Employee 4

Anonymous BFPA Employee 5

Anonymous BFPA Employee 6

Anonymous BFPA Employee 7