The city of San Francisco was boycotting the majority of the United States — 28 states that did not pass the city’s criterion regarding anti-LGBTQ laws, anti-abortion laws, or restrictive election laws disproportionately affecting people of color.In the intervening seven months, that tally has grown: The city presently cannot contract with businesses headquartered in 30 states, nor can city employees visit those states on official business.

“While it is difficult to measure how the City’s contracting costs have been affected … researchers have found that full and open competition for contracts can result in savings up to 20 percent,” reads today’s report.

“It’s not achieving the goal we want to achieve,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who sponsored the legislation that repealed the whole boycott. “It is making our government less efficient.”A central goal of the boycott was to put pressure on other states, but a recent report by City Administrator Carmen Chu’s office found that only one state had been removed from the list and none ever said they changed their laws because of San Francisco’s. Additionally, the report found that the law made city contracting a more cumbersome and expensive process.An earlier report from the board’s Budget and Legislative Analyst found that implementing the boycott had cost the city nearly $475,000 in staffing expenses. And the city was approving a large number of exemptions to the boycott anyway: Departments granted 538 waivers for contracts worth $791 million between mid-2021 and mid-2022, the report found.

San Francisco will no longer boycott 30 states that passed conservative laws after city officials determined that the restrictions were too costly and had little impact other than adding more bureaucracy.