Bevan,
You are quoted in Wednesday's (3/18/09) Examiner article on police failing to provide protection service for which Muni is paying. I'm sure your concern is well-placed; I have rarely ever seen uniformed police officers on the buses. Not that they are necessarily missed -- given that the police continue to arrest people for drug sales and possession, prostitution, and other bogus charges, many riders will feel safer without them around. But you're right that there is no reason for Muni to be paying the SFPD for work that is not being performed.
Fortunately a fairly easy solution presents itself -- if the Board is willing to get serious about holding the police accountable. Simply make use of the "proof of payment" that Muni demands of ordinary members of the public, i.e. require officers to save the transfers from their Muni rides and submit them once a month to an outside agency, such as the Police Commission, Office of Citizen Complaints, or the Board of Supervisors itself (or a committee thereof). Provide in the legislation that each officer must legibly write on the back of each of his/her transfers the number(s) of the bus(es) or streetcar(s) on which he/she was riding and the times of boarding and disembarking, and submit with their monthly turn-in of transfers a signed summary sheet listing which days they rode Muni, for how long each day, and on which bus or streetcar lines, along with their total hours spent on Muni for the month. Make both the summary sheets and the transfers submitted by each officer available for inspection by members of the media and the public.
I think this should go a long way toward solving your problem.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))