San Francisco has recently hired its very own art detective and announced a moratorium on public art donations to the city, all in response to claims that portions of a $90 million art collection have gone missing from the city's collection, according to a California Watch article. 

A Civil Grand Jury report released last month admonished the San Francisco Arts Commission for mismanaging the city's valuables after it discovered that portions of the 4,000-piece public art collection were nowhere to be found. The jury put a spotlight on the Commission's inventory practices, stating that the city's art remains only partially counted and exposed to neglect.

Just how large the missing portions are is unknown, but a Bay Citizen article from 2011 cites a few concrete examples of the city's loss, stating that 141 items from a 1972 acquisition of 496 pieces meant to be housed in San Francisco General hospital have yet to be located and 19 of the city's 58 pieces of modernist jewelry are tentatively missing.

The current public art collection consists of sculptures and monuments as well as 2,500 paintings and other movable works that have spent time on the facades of public buildings. With items ranging in value from Edvard Munch's lithographs to local artisan craft works, it is a vast inventory of works that has grown since the initial 1969 Art Enrichment Ordinance that mandated two percent of public works contracts be allocated toward public art. The arts commission still has sufficient funds to add to the already massive collection, yet the collection has only two staff members in charge of tending to its growth and maintenance. This, according to the Civil Grand Jury's report, may be a reason why a significant portion of the collection has gone missing.