Transcripts For SFGTV Police Commission 20240712

When connected, please enter pin number 665996976. This message will be repeated in cantonese and spanish. [speaking cantonese] [speaking spanish] great. Thank you to our translators, interpreters. I call the special meeting for wednesday, july 1st, 2020, to order. Misses could co, please have roll call. Thank you. Miss collins . Thank you. Mr. Cook . Here. Miss lamb. Here. Miss lopez. Here. Mr. Maliga . Ms. Norton . Ms. Norton . Mr. Sanchez. Here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome. Welcome to superintendent matthews, all of our board colleagues, district staff and the general public in attendance. Thank you for joining us for two important actions that we have for the 20202021 School District budget. We adopted the operations written plan in place of the lcap, which is now due in december of 2020. Thus, this afternoon the board will focuses on the adoption of two adoptions. The sacks code and the s. F. Recommended 20202021 budget. Were going to take the resolution first. And then well follow the followed by the recommended budget resolution. And we will start off with the staff presentation, then open for Public Comment and then with the discussion and any questions, final questions by the board. And lastly followed by action. And i would want to open this afternoon up with extending deep appreciation on behalf of the board to superintendent matthews, our chief Financial Officer Megan Wallace, director of Budget Services Anne Marie Gordon and deputy superintendent mi young lee and the entire budget Analysts Team for their intensive and careful work in providing us with the 20202021 budget documentation and documents overall. With that id like to begin with the special order of business resolution 20623 s02. The adoption of the fiscal year budget for the San Francisco unified School District and the San Francisco county of education in the standardized account code structure, the sacks format. The official state form prescribed by the state superintendent of public instruction, in accordance with the california education section 3129 and 42127. And it looks like at this time since we didnt have a prior motion, we will need a motion and a second to this item. So moved. Second. Thank you. And at this time id like to call upon superintendent matthews to introduce the designee for presentation and read the recommendation into the record. Thank you, commissioner lamb. President sanchez, Vice President lopez and Board Members present, commissioners present, thank you all for being here. As you have just heard, there are two items, one is around the sacks code. The second is around the budget. We have posted all documents, including a summary presentation regarding the budget, and im not sure if commissioner lamb, we posted the summary presentation. Its four slides and a cover slide. I didnt know if you wanted that at this time or if you would prefer to go straight to questions . But if you wanted the presentation, that is available. Just didnt know what your preference was. Is that for the im sorry the presentation youre speaking of for the sacks or more broad adoption of the budget . Its for the more broad adoption of the document. Lets wait until the second item for that presentation. With that presenting regarding the sacks code will be our chief Financial Officer. Thank you. Great. Good afternoon, commissioners and dr. Matthews. So for this item, this is actually my first time through here. Should i actually read the item itself to put it on the record . Yes. Requested action. Yes. Okay. Great. So this requested action is for approval of the fiscal year 20202021 adopted budgets for San Francisco united School District and the San Francisco county office of altercation and the standardized account code structure form. And as prescribed by the state superintendent of public instruction and in accordance with the california Education Code sections 33129 and 42127. And with this the board of education would approve the adoption of fiscal year 20202021 budget and we recommend moving it forward. And in terms of more specific, you know, kind of explanation of what this is, is that the California Department of education does require School Districts and county offices of education to provide our budget, as youve seen in the district format. But in the standard form so that all districts and county offices follow that standard structure. Thank you. At this time i wanted to open up for Public Comment. Again this is specifically for the item of the sacks code format. Mr. Steel, do you want to see if theres hands up . Sure will. Thank you, commissioner lamb. Please raise your hand if youd like to speak on this item. Hello, michelle. Are you there . Michelle . No. I had my hand down. Sorry. Clerk no problem. Thank you. Fy need to, ill raise it again. If i need to, ill raise it again. Clerk hello, julie. Caller commissioner haney . This is Julie Roberts fund. Just a question. Im wondering if this is the first time that our budget has been presented in sacks format . Or if not, can clarify where wed find previous versions. Im also curious if this brings us into alignment with the presentation format that other districts around the state use and if this will be a common practice for us in future years . Im wondering if well be able to get this information earlier than the a couple of days before the final budget meeting. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Hello, susan. Hello, susan. Caller yes. Thank you. Mr. Steel, so this is susan solomon, president of the united educators of San Francisco. And im addressing issues about the budget. I hope thats appropriate. I got on a little late. So before and during the pandemic, sfusd leadership and and rank and file have continuously approached contract negotiations to the length clerk susan, im sorry to interrupt. We took the second item, the special order of business first. Caller okay. I apologize. I got on a little bit late. Im happy to wait. Clerk okay. Im sorry about that. Caller no. My apologies. Clerk all right. That looks like it was for this item, commissioner lamb. Thank you. So at this time id like to open up if there are any additional questions by the board. Okay. Seeing none sorry. Gabriella, sorry. Just similar to the Public Comment that was made, how is this different, or what what introduction is new to us. If we can get a brief explanation. Yes. I can speak to that a little bit. Although i may need to lean on debby, superintendent lee a little bit more for the Historical Context with the district. But this is the standard format thats required across the state. And its really intended to create an applestoapples comparisons of budgets for all School Districts, that anyone with knowledge of how the budget is structured could look at any School District and read this document. And have some clarity of what the information were sharing. And i do know that we historically have posted this information and received, you know, approval from the board in this same resolution format. But im not quite sure how many years weve actually been required to provide it in this format. Superintendent, do you happen to know that information . I can give an approximate timeframe. The state adopted this standardized account code structure, i believe it was somewhere 20022003 or thereabouts. And that was about the that was a big transition for most School Districts, including ours. And that was the timeframe that i believe that they started requiring that districts submit budgets in this format, just to add one other point. The timing of this type of action, in prior years, has corresponded with the second reading of the budget. So thats thats not unusual, as you heard from chief wallace and others last week, when i believe it was last week. When the second reading was scheduled to take place on the 23rd. On that occasion, the sacks forms were not were planned to be lagging a bit. And not to be ready for a board vote to accompany the second reading. I think the plan was to bring the sacs forms back for another meeting on july 14th. But given that there was a delay in the actual vote on the budget, the staff worked incredibly hard over the past week to prepare the sacs forms so they could accompany the second reading of the budget. Thank you. Just a followup, given that its it is a rubric, there are pieces that arent filled out, especially on the county side. It seems like none of it is checked. Does that have any does that matter . Like what are we following how are we following up . So we are meeting the criteria. We were focused on the providing the core budget data, so you can see the sources and uses and application of fund balance to our proposed budget. But staff has continued to complete the various forms that show that were meeting that criteria. So the submission will show that we are meeting all of those requirements. Okay. Thank you. Can i also ask a question . Go ahead, commissioner collins. Thanks. Im also understanding you have been making changes based on our feedback, as of last meeting . So that would also change would that change any of the of what you were entering in the document as well, we just met last friday, right. Weve been changing it, its not like its a set budget conversation. Its been moving a lot in the last few weeks. And i just want if thats the correct thing, i also want to acknowledge that you cant give us, you know, things have been moving every week. Yes. So the sacs form does reflect the key changes that we discussed last week. And we worked to have the documents posted on boarddocs on sunday to meet the 72hour act for a standard meeting. And so as of sunday, when we posted these documents, we did reflect the learning lost revenues, as well as the reserve the covid19 reserve of 27 million and building in a place holder, approximately 22 million of savings. So we will be pursuing and further identifying. So over the course of the last few weeks, weve had a lot of conversations and staff have been working diligently to try to reflect all of those elements into the budget documents that are before you today in both items. Thank you. Soy just want to acknowledge for i mean, obviously it would be great if we could have more advanced notice for the public to review these types of documents. I also want to honor the fact that staff have been responsive and had to make changes and to get those done in order to make so because weve had input, things were changed and so now we dont have we havent had as much time to review, thats because were trying to meet these deadlines. Thank you. Any other questions . Comments . Okay. So at this time dr. Matthews, you dont have any comments . Final comments. Id like to call a roll call vote. Thank you. Yes. Mr. Cook . Mr. Cook . Yes. Thank you. Miss lamb . Yes. Miss lopez . Yes. Mr. Maliga . Yes. Miss norton . Nope. Mr. Sanchez . Yes. Great. Thank you. Our next item is the proposal 2069sp2. Recommended budget. We already moved and seconded on june 9th. So at this time id like to call upon superintendent matthews to introduce the staff designee and read the recommendation into record. As i was saying earlier, we have a presentation. If you want that, that was the question i was asking. If thats the case, we have a short presentation, very brief. And then our chief Financial Officer Megan Wallace will be reading the recommendation into the record. Yes. If we can have a review of this brief staff presentation, reading into the record and then we will open up for Public Comment. Ms. Wallace . Oh, yes. Thank you. All right. So could we go to the second slide, please, justin. Okay. So the budget before you today is based upon the final state budget. The governor gavin newsom signed the budget on monday, june 29th. And in anticipation of what that budget, you know, contains, we were able to fold in some major assumptions around revenue. So what we found is that this budget is most likely the legislatures approach, which assumes stimulus funding will be received by the state and passed along to School Districts. And in the event that that doesnt happen, the state would rely upon deferrals of apportionments or Cash Payments to School Districts. So well need to manage our cash, but its not as much of a budget problem as before, because it does restore lcff, but does not contain the costofliving increase that we had originally anticipated when we started down the path of developing our budget. So we are looking at 535 million of to yo of our local control funding dollars. And in addition to that, the state took action to provide School Districts with additional learning loss funds. Our district is anticipating just over 45 million or 45. 3 million. 23. 1 million of which is based upon our supplement funding and students for disabilities funding, thats based on our census enrollment of ages 3 through 22. As well as 8. 3 million to our district, based upon our lcff or average daily attendance with approximately with 165 per a. D. A. So while this is very good news in the scheme of things, what we have discussed over the past few meetings, is really the improved outlook does not fully cover the costs associated with our districts current budget condition. That we are seeing a lot of local loss in revenues due to covid19 impacts on our economy. And by building in anticipated cost of 27 million for reopening our schools, were actually definitely offsetting the majority of the learning loss funding that were receiving from the state. So i just i will continue to overly emphasize that we do continue to have a structural imbalance in our budget. Next slide, please. So this is the layout of our budget, prior to rolling in an offset. As you can see, with all of our revenues anticipated, as well as expenditures that the learning loss funds actually placed us in a 4. 7 million surplus, due to with that increase. Were anticipating 18. 9 million of a beginning fund balance. Thats really that were going to balance the current fiscal year to meet that 2 economic reserve. And so while that would give us an ending fund balance of 23. 6 million, well have to continue to hold back 18. 9 million of those funds in order to maintain our operating reserve. And then with the application of a 27 million covid19 reserve, which will allow us to have a bucket of funds to support additional costs, due to reopening schools, that all of those things together leave us with a 22. 3 million operating deficit. And then as you can see in the ongoing fiscal years, with that deficit continues to grow, and the key drivers of that are particularly related to our revenues, that the learning loss funds are only counted for one year. So you can see the revenues do drop significantly, going fy2122. We are anticipating costs will continue to grow. So this is where we have our structural imbalance within our budget. But in the proposed budget before you, we have built in a 22 million operating offset, that we will continue to pursue and identify savings, in order to balance. That savings is assumed to be carried on throughout the following two fiscal years. However, as you can see, we would continue to have a greater shortfall that we do need to work to resolve over the course of the coming fiscal year for those following two years, in the projections. Next slide, please. Some of the key changes that weve built in our budget, over the course of our discussions, include 7. 1 million of savings from reductions to our programming that we had to cut costs, in order to align with available peace dollars and we had built in an original assumption that we would absorb those costs within the general fund. We made the decision to just go ahead and cut those those expenditures from our budget. And transportation has a 4 million savings assumption, that a fair amount of work still needs to be done in order to implement those savings. Aligning our schedules, looking closely at areas where we may need to shift the way we deliver services to various groups of students, that we think that through a combination of those things that we will find 4 million of savings in our budget. We did end up adding 2 million of costs to our budget, by recognizing that there were staff that had been reduced from school sites, primarily that cannot be laid off, but they no longer have positions in order to maintain them. So we have actually added those funding that funding back to our budget. And then as i mentioned, the 27 million reserve for covid19 costs. Between now and the end of july, our district is going through the work of determining what the fall will look like and how we will, you know, we will reopen schools on august 17th. But what to degree is Distance Learning versus onsite and what are the variety of costs that will go into either or a combination of those scenarios, that this reserve is in place to allow us to do that planning. And know that we have resources to turn togo implement. However, the budget also includes a 22 million place holder between now and august, when staff is recommended that we actually return to this board with with an updated budget to account for our reopening plan and to show our savings, the Implementation Plan for those savings. That we will have followed for that place holder come august. Next slide, please. So just next up recommendations and next steps. Today is july 1st. Happy fiscal new year, everybody. We do recommend your approval of the budget before you. Staff will be submitting the budget to c. D. E. Today, upon your approval. But looking ahead through july and even all the way through september, we do have a fair amount of work ahead of us. Again just identifying our balancing reductions. We have a place holder. But we have work ahead of to us figure out exactly what those savings will be in july, coming back with a reopening plan. August 11th would be the closest Board Meeting to within that 45day window of of the governor something signed the budget, that we would want to bring a budget recertification for you at that point in time. And then september 30th is the deadline for School Districts to submit our learning continuity and attendance plan. We notice that comes out to lcat, the acronym, that this is a requirement for us to be able to use those learning lost dollars. So thats certainly a critical one for us to have on your radar. So with that thank you for all of the discussion that have been brought to the table. This is a very meaningful and critical conversation for us to have around our budget. And i welcome your questions at this time. President sanchez. Yes. Thank you for the presentation. I know were going to go to Public Comment. I just want everybody to understand, public, particularly a number of attached or accompanying documents, a lot of important dacs that need to be reviewed. A lot of it around Central Office cuts. Just to note that the work thats been doing to staff has been listening to the board and to the public and i think theres been some headway made in that area. So if you havent reviewed that part, you should take a look. Thanks. At this time, id like to open the Public Comment. I do want to depending upon the number of participants, wed like to also limit the Public Comment at this time. Clerk okay. Thank you, commissioner lamb. So if you would like to speak on the budget today, please raise your hand. Well kind of well wait a few seconds to get an idea of how many people are. Okay. Okay. Clerk seven right now. Eight. Continuing to grow. Okay. Lets limit to lets see. Lets do 20 minutes of Public Comment. And at this time lets do one minute. Clerk okay. Thank you, commissioner lamb. Okay. Hello, susan. Thank you. So sfusd continuously approached contract negotiations in the pandemic through the lens of whats best for our students, especially students of color, newcomer students and students with i. E. P. S. After covid hit, proposed a twoyear contract extension during negotiations. Clear, we werent asking for anything. We werent asking for a raise. We wanted to or benefit increases. We wanted to focus on our students. This was an extremely difficult decision for our membership to make, that we even had to scale back on some of our hopes and dreams for our students, in terms of increasing services for them, with what they deserve. But we know we have to weather this storm together. Thats what a community does. So instead of the district reciprocating saying lets work together, what we were hit with last week, the districts demands for huge concessions called labor contributions. Which is going to make it really, really hard to support our students. We have made enormous contributions to our students. Thats our job. Thats our passion. Its our mission. Its what we want to do. We didnt get any proposals for concessions until june 23rd. The budget numbers seem to keep changing, the concessions being propose ready huge. You know, were actually bewildered and confused. We dont know why the budget is taking the turns its taking. We want to know what the board is going to do to make sure our students receive more support and not less. Youve heard that on monday afternoon we released the petition. It already has over 2500 signatures and support of us approving an interim and final budget, thats aligned with our values of the community. So were calling on you today. Were imploring you, lets move forward together, approach this process together with more transparency, both in our public spaces like this meeting and at the virtual bargaining table. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Hello, megan. Hi. Im the analyst with the School District. I wanted to give my appreciation for all of the work thats gone into this very difficult budget process, from everybody involved, including all of the speakers that have come to these meetings religiously, to advocate on behalf of the students in San Francisco unified School District. Im sure you understand were extremely passionate about ensuring that the children we serve are served well. And to the greatest extent that we can, within the circumstances surrounding the whole world. And i urge the board and the district to continually push themselves to think outside the box, to meet our values, where we stand. Its so important that we keep students at the center. And that we keep the cuts as far away from them as we can. And i hope that as we move forward in the next month, and start planning for next year more deeply, that we can connect our values to how we balance our budget, other than balancing our budget before we understand how were going to serve our students. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Hello, jan. Hello. Im work with sfusd and the d. O. T. Tent and also the president of the local 20 protest local 21. And were concerned that any of our union staff, that might be laid off, will be replaced by outside contractors. We in local 21 have already seen so much of our work privatized, in particular, the occupational therapists. Were asking the board to save our jobs and restore to find solutions to this budget crisis, that does not jeopardize our income on or our Health Benefits during this pandemic. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Hello, joan. Hello, joan. Sorry. Okay. Can you hear me . Clerk yes, we can. Go ahead. Good afternoon, president sanchez, superintendent matthews and commissioners. I am joan helperly, uasf coexecutive director. On behalf of the united administrators of San Francisco, were asking the budget with no layoffs of educator or support staff, every school employee, as well as Employee Support schools are essential to the health and safety of our students. If you do have to make budget reductions, we want to emphasize that you start by reducing the costly outsid contracts and consultants. If its essentially to do reductions, were asking it be done in an equitable manner. Both the interim and the amended budget should reflect our values and commitment as a district and ensure the essential cuts are made for students and classrooms. We are requesting they advocate for more funding and the stakeholders support the districts quest for additional central funding. Its critical that the funding of the district deteriorateses the racial, social and emotional insubstitute for our communities. W and to create safe and secure School Communities for our children. In closing, it is impair ephiphany these values be reflected in the districts budget to support the resolution the board has adopted. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Hello, julie. Can you hear me . Clerk yes. This is Julie Roberts. I appreciate board president sanchezs shoutout to take a closer look at the Central Office staffing. The report that was uploaded to boarddocs im wondering if youre referring to something different. It did have the detail about the number of f. T. E. And the lead team removed, though. And from what i can tell, the cuts to school sites still remain the same, carver still expected to lose 2. 6 staff, drew still expected to lose 4. 8. So i would love to have more clarity on the movement thats happened between fridays meeting and this meeting. And last i want to appreciate the budget staff who are looking into the discrepancy that we discussed last week with reading elementary. We are losing 1. 5f. T. E. , even though the report that was shared shows us gaining. 5f. T. E. So im looking forward to having that resolved in a more accurate representation. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Hello, shelley. Thank you so much, president sanchez, commissioners of the board and superintendent matthews. Im shell wiener, im the sect of the sfusd chapter 1021. I would just like some clarification on the doc that was uploaded called fy20202021. On the second page, the bottom line is facilities. And it says slow cleaning cycles for sites, which we would appreciate as we represent custodial, what that means. Further, in the other document that was the concessions and adjustments made to Central Office, there are only 83 custodians listed. And it is our impression that with 163 schools, plus other sites, we certainly have well over 300 custodians and were interested in what that means. Lastly, legal is adding two manager and one executive director and were just wondering, not that we dont have plenty that we need legal for, why were adding three more positions in that department at this very bad time. Thank you so much. Clerk thank you. Hello luis. Hi. Good afternoon, dr. Matthews, president sanchez, Vice President lopez, commissioners. My name is Lewis Rodriguez and im the president of an elementary. I speak today as an administrator and a director of an executive board of the united administrators of San Francisco. Just to comment on the budget situation, the state legislature and the governor came together and found a solution to spare mostly k12 public education. Thats great leadership. The same type of leadership i think we have in our district. Therefore, the invitation is for your leadership to come through and find innovative and creative ways to avoid further cuts that may go against what we say we stand for. Every single School District employee from the classroom to the cafeteria, to the yard and even to the departments removedd from this school sites is necessary to support the academic and nonacademic growth and development of our School Communities, especially during the pandemic like the one were going through. Its unfortunate that the city and county of San Francisco does not invest more heavily on the most vulnerable and promising members of its population. Children are our present, effective and creative leadership should ensure that they are also our future. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Hello, kimtree. Hi. Thank you very much. I also want to just support what our secretary shelley wiener called in to say. And then add to that, you know, when we see theres an increase in certain departments and then one of the most important departments and services, our custodians provide, what are we doing cutting them . Especially right now. That makes no sense to me. Im a field rep for tender one, we represent custodians, School Nutrition workers. Those departments should be increasing their staffing exponentially. By the way, we still dont have a negotiated covid for hazard pay for our members. And weve debunked every excuse thats been given to us. Why cant we get this settled . It makes no sense. Weve given you every opportunity. Please give these valued members of the San Francisco unified School District community, doing frontline work, what they are due. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Hello, miss parcel. Oh, good afternoon. Just a second. Good afternoon, president sanchez, Vice President lopez, board of commissioners, superintendent matthews, our beloved esther. On behalf of the San Francisco alliance of black school educators, we appreciate the work of the Budget Committee the past couple of weeks. We especially support the concerns of uesf. And we just want to reiterate what was said in the past couple of meetings that what we call first responders, everyone you see running the schools from the principle to the teachers to the parents, the custodianses, to the cafeteria workers and everyone in between. We beg the board not to make any cuts in those areas. Theyre a group of educators theyre a group of staff who call themselves chiefs. We understand they make six figures. Ive listened to commission colleagues try to give those figures. Everything that we do is transparent. You can rarely see what a teacher makes, what our principal makes. Number one, the word chief of next school year will change that across the country. We check in with all of those offensive names. Calling our financial director chief, it really bothered me to this day. Next year we need to look at taking away that name. But also make it public. Whats that group of 12 chiefs make, so we can see their salaries. Thank you so much. Clerk thats time. Thank you. Hello, tom. Tom, are you there . Yes, im here. Clerk okay. Go ahead. Im tom, im a special educator teacher. And im this is my fifth year teaching there. I stayed there of the culture, the community, the parents. Im struggling to find where the culture in the sfusd is. I each year get parents and other teachers cut and then it falls on my shoulders. I would urge you to please, the board, consider that each person at a school site makes a difference. Their smiles, talking to students and changing lives. Were not justin just cogs in the machines. Come to the schools and youll see that each person does matter. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Commissioner lamb, that concludes Public Comment. Oh, actually. Im sorry. I missed one. Oh, no, i didnt. Hand went down. That does conclude Public Comment. Thank you, justin. So at this time id like to just ask my colleagues of the board if you have additional questions or just discussion. Sorry, i cant see your hands. I see lopez, cook and me. Thank you. I can see you all. Lets go to commissioner cook. I know he has limited time, too. I just want to say briefly, my apologies as everyone does. You know, this is still the time where we have to work. And so i have to step away at 4 00. I planned to vote yes on the proposed budget, as has been submitted. I just want to say that briefly before i stepped away. If the meeting is still going after my work meeting is going, ill be back. Ill reserve my further comments for that time. Thank you, commissioner cook. Commissioner maliga. I dont have any comments right now. Im sorry. Sorry, lopez. Commissioner lopez. Thank you. So im very grateful for the work thats been done and the unlimited amount of hours weve all spent on this, especially staff that is seen by us, by the public. And i just wanted to note that. One thing thats really sitting with me, from fridays meeting, was the fact that, you know, after a certain amount of time, given the rights that employees have, which i am also behind, we cant really make choices regarding administrative versus school site positions, right. So i think i also am going to vote on the budget, of course. But i really do want us to think about the timeline that we are limited in making our choices, when were thinking about the future. And this is like beginning in january of next year, right. And just to get that information. Im you know, i didnt have that as a commissioner. And it makes sense. I understand that process. But it does create the scenario where the people who at the bottom, who make the least, are most at risk of being let go. And i want us to just address that in the future. So im making a note of that. And i hope that given the discussions that weve had now, and the transparent process we are building out, that will be included in future conversations. Thank you. Commissioner collins. Thank you. And i do want to acknowledge, i think there was comments it has been kind of confusing budget season. I think thats true for all of us. And i want to acknowledge that that is you know, this year. It has a lot to do with covid, our economic shortfall that we had before and then after covid. And just i also think theres been changes that are positive, although stressful, due to the fact that as commissioners weve been pushing back throughout the year to ask for, you know, we revised the weighted student formula and mtss. And then there was feedback about that, whether commissioners felt that that was adequate and then the Budget Office came back with additional you know, with additional numbers. And then, you know, so theres been an iterative process. This is not normal in a lot of budget years and definitely before i joined the board. A lot of times the commissioners would get a budget and then just approve it. Thats what happened when we came on the board last year. And this year was i think, you know, multiple revisions. And so i do want to recognize that that is stressful for the public in a sense, because its its hard to keep up. And then also theres been just, you know, at the state level funding has been kind of, you know, there were threats of 10 cuts by the governor and then the legislature and then, you know, all of those conversations, all of these things are coming down to the wire. And i think i just want to commend the budget staff and recognize the fact that i do think, as a district, you know, we should continue to make things more transparent. But the amount of work that they have been doing this year, like im just thinking about the whole year, is pretty immense, considering, you know, i dont think weve ever been through a budget year. And young, you can chime in, i dont think weve been in a budget year where weve had this many changes to the way that we budget, to the way we share information about our budget and how many times we have actually, you know, the budget team has put together a proposed budget and then gone back and made a change. So i just want to recognize that. Additionally, i guess i have some specific questions. Theres 27 million for reopening schools. And i wanted to know. Nobody has ever has that ever been explained. How did you guys come up with that number, where does that come from . Im happy to address that. I dont know if this is a complete answer. But i believe in a couple of our previous conversations, weve alluded to a study that a. S. A. Produced a few, several weeks back. This is just one of several methodologies that different organizations have produced. But aasa is a National Association of School Superintendents basically. And they came up with a methodology and published a report that, long story short, estimated that the costs of reopening physical physical return to campuses would be i think it was 490 per student. And thats a National Statistic. So definitely a somewhat crude number, thats probably going to be low, right . Yes. Considering higher our cost of living is higher. Our cost of living is higher than the nationwide average. With that caveat, that figure of 27 million is approximately a little less than 500, applied per student, applied to our population. As you said, commissioner, that is probably on the low side for us. In this late stage of the budget, and as you pointed out, with all of these moving parts sitting, landing really late in the state budget and these learning loss funds being estimated or kind of taking shape really late, like literally within the past week or so, we have used this figure, this 27 million as sort of a working number for now. But for reasons that weve articulated in the past couple of meetings, it will be important, to as chief wallace mentioned in the presentation, to incorporate better information about covid costs, better information about our efforts to identify cost savings and any other material developments in the amended budget that we will be bringing back in august. So a lot of a lot of parts are still moving. And that is one of them. So just out of in that estimate of 490, does that include increased custodial costs and staffing . You know, i mean, its not just Hand Sanitizer. Im assuming thats why, you know, we have a higher cost of living. We pay staff more money, because its more expense than say, i dont know, arkansas. Thats my assumption. Is that why if we were to just take this number and say, well, you know, were assuming its going to be higher. Is that why it would be higher . That is the primary reason why it would be higher. And those are the most significant costs actually. The cost of people and whether its for physical distancing or additional, enhanced cleaning efforts. Those are the investments that i think would take the most additional costs, as opposed to cleaning supplies or Hand Sanitizer. I mean, all of those things are important and for some folks its most obvious. To tell you the truth, theyre probably the left costly elements of covid response. On the other hand, that National Statistic does not include some good news that weve received from the state, that is pitching in and providing supplies of p. P. E. And cleaning im sorry, of masks and thermometers as well and sanitizers. So there are some things that we will not be completely on our own to secure and pay for. But again its sort of a raw number and theres a bit of better news for us. But still it sounds to me like Hand Sanitizer costs the same across the country. Right. But staffing costs are different. Like it costs more here. And if so this doesnt necessarily reflect what well if we wanted to, you know, include all of those staffing costs across the board, it might be considerably higher because thats where we end up spending a lot of money is staffing costs. Is that correct . Thats correct. And commissioner, just so you know, to the extent weve been citing the report and their methanol, we have been, and their methodology, this is a National Study and we think it is probably an underestimate of actual costs that well see. Do we have a guesstimate on what would be a good conservative number for us, you know . We dont have a specific figure yet. A lot of that will be driven by, as our plans emerge. And thats going to become clearer over the next, as you know, over the next several weeks. Okay. The end of july. So knowing whether were going to be whether and to what extend were going to be discussing or youll be considering physical return to campuses in part or, you know, substantially, thats a huge driver of these costs. Right. So part of our efforts are to inform those discussions while theyre happening with cost estimates as well. So theyre both parallel discussion topics basically. So in a sense, rhyme, weve got to get this budget in. This is kind of a place holder. But as we get more information about our plans, as we hear more from the state, and get more information about what even we need to consider in our planning, thats going to basically over the next few weeks were just kind of i just want the public to know, because i wondered, you know, how did you get that number. That this is this isnt based on any specific plans. Its based on just a guesstimate from a good source. And thats why were going to be kind of reevaluating our budget and then resubmitting with a lot of other factors in the August August 11th, is that correct . Thats correct. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Also i just want so theres also for the public, i want to theres i want to recognize the fact that we have put back about 2 million into this budget, because we didnt want to cut staff. And i just want to clarify that. Is that correct . We saw that there were family liaisons and some roles that received consolidation letters and we actually put them back in the budget. We have to find a way to pay for that. But we have included that weve put them back. And so thats a recognition that we do not want to cut, what we consider essential staff and support staff at sites. That is correct, chief wallace . Yes. We did 2 million back to our budget. I think maybe to put a little bit more framing around the particular population of employees were talking about. Were looking at employees who were cut and absent, you know, we were given them opportunities to find other jobs, like rolling through the consolidation effort, looking at other openings within the district. So this pot of funds is particularly for those folks who havent been placed in another position within our district, that we would have funding to create positions and keep them employed. But it doesnt does that mean, though, that a school might lose a staff member . That was find a position some place else . I think thats where i may want to defer to deputy superintendent lee, if i may. So, commissioner, so for the time being, the fiscal team has reestablished those the costs of those positions into the budget. And have begun to engage our colleagues about the actual assignments and whether the individual positions will be, you know, centrally funded back in the same roles, et cetera. So to tell you the truth, i think we have to discuss that a bit more, in order to advise the employees appropriately. But for now weve basically taken the step for the purposes of budget to reflect the cost of those position being maintained for the current year. Okay. So thats confusing to me. Because my sense my understanding was, you know, there are staff that are really essential to schools, right, if were studentcentered. So if a school had a family liaison, i heard like at carver, the family liaison position was cut from one f. T. E. To. 85. So, you know, like my the way that ive been understanding things is like if youve got if you want to support students and you have a family liaison thats serving a specific role in the school, and then that position gets cut, then that makes it harder for that school to provide that service to students. And so i was thinking of it as service to students and kind of ensuring that those students were maintained, as opposed to i also do want to preserve, you know, i want us to be equitable in how we think about cutting staff or reducing staff and make sure that were, you know, were not just cutting the folks that are the lowest paid. You know, and so but it sounds to me like you all are saying that youre going to preserve the staff, but they may not be able to stay sayani site where theyre considered a vital resource. That seems like, for the public and for me, when i hear Community Members say, you know, we need support. You know, i have heard a teacher say i have lost paraeducaters or i have lost, you know, if we lose our family liaison, makes it harder for us to meet the needs of families, that there still may be people leaving school sites that were consolidated. So the positions that were cut, what we have done is we have put those others back. What we dont want to do is say if a site if a site says we have made these determinations, made these decisions and in many cases it was a tough decision and it was an essential resource. If they say, yes, this was an essential resource and we definitely want this resource back, then that resource will be returned. We know some sites have made Strategic Decisions and they may not. So if we have restored a person to full time, then it will be okay. Theyre halftime here, the school says that, and then we would move that other half resource somewhere else. So they so when im saying is that we put the dollars back. But a school may not we dont want to say, yes, definitely that person is going back, especially if a school made a strategic determination that that isnt how they want to best allocate the resources at their school. Does that make any sense . So say a school said, you know, we actually dont need a nurse, we want a social worker and thats just their decision, they need those those changes. Youre saying a site well, mostly principals, right. Because School Site Counsel hasnt like i heard havent all been able to meet. And so principals are kind of fighting this, is that correct . No. I wouldnt say that. Mostly where school sites School Site Council determination. Yes, if theyve made another determination, we dont want to say were going to force this back on you. Okay. So i just want that to be clear and understood for the public. That weve put the money back in to maintain positions where theyre wanted and then it sounds like principals are leading the decisionmaking around that, whether that is maintained or not. Thats not my understanding. But, yes. As i said, it was schoolsite council. Okay. But theyre not meeting right now. Its principals, right. Lets be honest. Is that theyre not meeting. Were not meeting in the summer. Right. Right now. You cant guarantee that. Right now at this time, yes. So thank you. So i would love to get followup on that, all of those positions. Id like to ensure id like to keep track of that. I think other commissioners would probably also like to see that. Lets also make that clear to our labor partners, because i want to make sure that, you know, weve worked really hard to make sure that folks, you know, we arent you know, we are cutting staff where we can. And that should be very clear to the public. So then i guess the other question is, theres i keep hearing, well, the state and the legislature came to an agreement. So theyre not cutting our budget. So why are we still making cuts. Okay. Thats a consistent question that people ask. And so i know weve presented on it and i think commissioner lamb had asked. Is there a way for us to get an f. A. Q. Or some questions. We get repetitive questions. Its been hard to follow this conversation, if you dont follow every single meeting every time. You know, you may miss it. So, chief wallace, if you could explain. My understanding is, just to restate, and you tell me. Im checking for understanding, right. If you could restate if this is correct. Were going to get basically lffs is roughly the same, but were not getting cola and thats cost of living. Is that correct . If so, can you explain what is the impact of us not getting the costofliving adjustment. Sure. Yes. You are correct. So we are getting our lcff restored to the same level as what were receiving for fy1920, the prior year. The cost 6 living railroad increase was 2. 31 of that. That would have been worth about 12 million to the district. And even when we had the higher level of lfff with that cola, we still had a deficit as a district. Without that cola, our deficit deepened and we had learning loss funds. That closed the gap. Lcff is the same. We also are getting less money in some areas, that we normally would have gotten, right. So the costofliving and also peep is another, thats city money that we normally get. And because of revenues are down, peef is going to be down. Normally we use those funds to pay for people that people think of as normal stuff so like librarians and arts programming and social workers and other things that are considered the basic things. They dont feel like extras. Just essential things. Shift some of those costs into the general fund, is that correct . That is correct. Yes. Because we had cuts to peef and we had to rebalance that bucket of funds. We also open actually the primary impact to us, as shifting costs, peef was no longer part of the solution. Part of our balancing plan to shift some of our unstricted general fund costs over to there. And to drawn down those available balances. But because those balances no longer are there, it contributed to the ongoing deficit for our district, on unrestricted general fund side. So how much less did we get, after we got i think about 80 million in peef dollars. What did we get . You know, whats the difference between what we got last year and what were anticipating in the coming year . It was just its just under 77 million. Okay. 80 before . Right. But it doesnt sound like a significant decrease yearoveryear. But we had anticipated upwards of 90 million, due to the accumulation of fund balance. You know, through and estimated growth in peef overall and the accumulation of fund balance, because we received onetime dollars of erath that came from the city. So we got extra money as well from these, you know, from previous years. Thats also having an impact if were not getting as much . Thats right. We were getting it last year. Thats right. So the overall amount has gone down yearoveryear. And were no longer getting that surplus. Really i will say because we need to use it to help us balance in fy1920. We thought that we were going to have more accumulation of funds to go ahead and apply in fy20 fy2021. So it was no longer part of the solution and we had to do some juggling around to make sure that peef balanced. I admi to make peef make more. When you look at peef, i think we were successful in realigning those expenditures so theyre more coherent. And that expenditure plan makes a bit more sense. But it is part of the overall movement that i think contributes to some of the confusion for the public. And then prop g that was another thing that we decided to spend our rainy day funds. We were spending rainy day funds on that. Weve drawn down that money, right . So we dont have that next year, like as we had a pot of money that we were pulling out of. And so next year is that gone . And, you know, is that also a part of the problem and how much is that . That covers. So we have about 34 million left in our rainy day reserve. In addition to that, the mayors budget currently includes 6 million of erath. So that will help cover approximately 40 million budget. For our living wage for educators act programming. So salary increases and professional development expenses. [ please stand by ]. Continue to engage and back to us and and prop g successful and generate and cover expenses. And advertise the future and it wont pay back any of the money that we need. And the funds and would be rolled back to the School District and we would have to pay the city back for any funds to help close the gap and overall funding of what we have over the last few years and that otherwise any surplus of funds would be restored to the raindy nay reserve and make decisions around how to expend the dollars. If i can chime in on this, i want to clarify there are two different questions related to prop g. One is about the ballot measure that will be on the november 2020 ballot. And if that measure is successful, which would require 2 3 vote, then that would basically create a Funding Source beginning fy2122 and subsequent years. That ballot measure by itself has no bearing on what happens to the already collected amounts in the three prior years. 1819, 1920, and 2021. So what i think chief wallace was just referring to is if the litigation ultimately resolved in the city and countys favor, that is active now, that there is a superior court ruling and theyre still there are still unexhausted processes that still have to be resolved if that litigation is resolved in the city and countys favor, then the revenues that have been collected over the course of three years, those would be unlocked and made available again. Just want to those would come back, but right now we are in a Holding Pattern and still have o get a budget for next fall without knowing about any of these kind of funds. And even if they are favorable, they are not coming in by the fall. They would be coming in for the next calendar year. The next fiscal year. A fiscal year, yeah, okay. I want that to be really clear for folks because i do i want to recognize the fact that i am as a board, i think we have been active in advocating for no cuts to sitebased staff and i think based and where we are at right now, i think i am going to be i am not letting the state take over our district. I am not letting i have seen oakland how that was and had a board that basically made no decisions. We as advocates are an active board and we listen and go out into the community. We are making decisions around trying to be very responsive, and none of that will happen if the state takes over. I want to make sure that we are able to make those decisions in the best interest of our community. So i think i know folks want us to say no cuts. That is not a reality at this point. I cant promise that. So at least i want to be transparent with the public. I am not going to promise something that i dont think maybe it can happen. I am going to work as hard as possible, but it would be irresponsible of me and i think it would be irresponsible of our board to not put forward a budget right now. And were going to continue to work on it, but i want folks to know that the worst thing would be if the state took over and nobody makes any decisions. Nobody gets any input. So i just want to make sha clear. Commissioner collins, thank you so much. I think that is a really important perspective. If i can, i know that president sanchez also had a comment and question and of course come back to the next round for commissioners. President sanchez. Go ahead. All right. May i add one really quick point . This is also to the question that commissioner collins asked about state budget versus other changes in other Funding Source and i also wanted to mention there is a Significant Impact on a couple of other local revenue sources, namely sales taxes and a drop off in interest earnings and a drop off in tuition payments for our Early Education programs. So all of those are total up to several Million Dollars of additional reductions and have nothing to do with the state budget. It is all other local factors, local revenues, that are also contributing to us having a larger gap than we otherwise would. Thank you. Is it possible for somebody to in a very simple way kind of put some of the things together . I think our costs are the same. Our staffing costs are the same. But our revenues have come down. And i do think it is helpful to have just year to year comparison. Those people can see that. They have a summary of the major changes and line item revenues and for the sake of the board and public to provide more details around the revenue changes. All right. With the deputy with the commissioners and concerns and that cuts need to stay as far away from the classroom as possible and as commissioner hollins just said, that may not always be possible, but we will work as hard as we can to assure that reality. And the commissioner and lopez mentioned this in the comments which is around making earlier decisions around staffing so that we protect the folks that earn the at least and have more proximity to the students. That is a structural issue that we have to address but i think we can do it. We might mean twoyear budgeting cycles to do that. So there will be a lot of conversation and a floor plan and what do all schools have to have as a with the baseline and is worth noting and commissioner collins talked about the property redo and the budget outlook is something that we all work really important and fiscal ballot measure to be concentrating on as well. The other question from the public and asked specifically around the salaries and the transparency of salaries and particularly around our chiefs and so i dont know if you can answer that now and if you can place people in the right direction about how to see those. I am pretty sure they are public. And then she did mention the problem addict term itself of chiefs and that is not germane and it is something we might want to look at and change the gnomen clay sure around. So thank you. If you could respond to that one question, that would be great. President sanchez, you are referring to the question about salaries . Yes. Or the terminology . Not the terminology. I appreciate for what its worth, i want to thank mrs. Marshall for that comment as well. Especially about the terminology. So regarding the salaries, i believe our chief general counsel is not here and every time this takes place and the salary cable is made public and the contract and the salary table is made public on board docs. I dont know if it is on board docs, but it is a public document. I think it is in the closed section documentation, but not sure if it is accessible by the public. Is the it possible to have it just easily available . Every Public California employee including ms. Marshall and every public salary is available and that is all of us, every dollar if its paid for with public dollars is available online. So to speak to that a little bit and we have it and it is broken down here. And it has all of the job codeses and all the positions and the average salaries anded the benefits. It is and i found this for 2021 and to point people in the direction of where this lives and that might help, president sanchez, but one of the questions i had is if why some positions are under Central Office and School Budget and what the difference is in that. Im sorry i jumped in, but i know that it exists, for what its worth. And so that document was created with a request to get a summary of all the salaries based on the job codes in the district. That is an information request from him and the reason there are two different columns when it comes to the budgets process and in Central Office and based on actuals and the actual salary and that is what you have to cover when you balance the budget in Central Office and for site and recognition there is a range to avoid perverse incentives of having to pay more for different teachers and depending on their years of experience and for all teacherrelated job codes with a level where every regular classroom teacher has the same salary and benefits cost with the same budget and the same rates. So that is the two columns. It was going to take a bit of time to figure out how to land on one number to get you all quickly, but that is why there are two different column. One note that i want to make in that report is a certificate job code and an example since one commissioner just mentioned this and classified chiefs and certified chiefs and i want to give you that heads up that the titles appear twice in the report. I just found it on transparent california dot com and you can look by district and the with the c. F. O. Megan wallace and the concerns about the structural benefit and looking ahead to the year in front of us that starts today and the next few years. Are there between now and august and one includes congress if they take any action, but any potential new information that would have an impact or changes to the multiyear projections . Definitely still on the state side and really understanding to be held with no cola and still not clear to me if we should be assuming and in years two and three and applied an active approach to the numbers of keeping revenues flat. As we get more news about the inflation rate will be, that will improve and also on the local side, we are waiting for the city and county which is delayed from our process and i hope we will have much more information about the local revenue projections that we will build to our final budget. And actually, sorry to hop around a little bit, but on the state side, there are many other we are gathering about and build in placeholder assumptions but we are basically putting a marker down and this is one milestone and between now and august we will be doing a lot of work to further that revenue assumption on central federal, state, and local. I appreciate that and that is something to convey to the public. And what wefsh through as a district in the last couple of months and is felt like whiplash and riding a roller coaster, at the same time it seems like we will be in this face for a moment and similar to commissioner colins to express the deep concern around fiscally not only what we are having to decide for the district and really the implycations at times that are beyond our control and curious to look at how covid continues how that will impact the economy over a Long Duration of time and longer and very cares you to see the august numbers at the state level as well as the local level. So asking the public to understand that this is going to beager this is going to be an evolving situation and with the public and staff working with this board and superintendent around how to really mind the most Sustainable Solutions while holding our students at the center. Thank you. With that, additional last, final questions. Remarks. Okay. All right. Really quickly. As far as the timeline goes, we approve this and it goes to the state and then august 1 1 is the resubmission time and having conversations and engaging with public between now and then that staff is taking time away and summer schedule and plan for reopening and restarting schools. I want to get a sense of the process and that goes to the staff as well as commissioner lam. What are your thoughts on how to continue to share information with the public . To build that resubmission plan. Go ahead. Staff wanted to jump in and president sanchez, too. We can also answer. I was going to lead with the larger planning process and figuring out what the right approach is and a large urban School District and unique needs from other districts and the other areas with the savings and to have a discussion and a number of meetings planned along those lines with our groups. So i do want to encourage us that if we do have opportunities for budget and Business Services Committee Meetings that we also have staff eager to engage in deeper dives on the budget discussions in advance of the board approval. We all know that the board is meeting in july and we have two meetings in july. We normally dont meet at the beginning of august, but we might have to as well. And obviously commissioner lam and it is true that the opening discussion is so intertwined with the budget and we wont know a lot more about what the state has in mind until basically mid august and it does a disservice to us. And we have to play by those rules. So i imagine we will have ample opportunity to meet and engage with the public on those discussions. And also wanted to note that as susan and the labor communication and that will be the continued discussion and to come in the coming months and looking at what the solutions will be to arrive at. And so thank you to everyone. Superintendent, do you have any final comments . No. Roll call vote please. [roll call vote] that is seven ayes. Thank you. Thank you. So at this time i business of the meeting is completed. We will see you at the next regular Board Meeting scheduled for july 14 and hope you all including the public please stay safe and rest and meeting adjourned. Shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their business in the 49 square files of San Francisco. We help San Francisco remain unique, successful and right vi. So where will you shop and dine in the 49 . Im one of three owners here in San Francisco and we provide mostly live Music Entertainment and we have food, the type of food that we have a mexican food and its not a big menu, but we did it with love. Like ribeye tacos and quesadillas and fries. For latinos, it brings Families Together and if we can bring that family to your business, youre gold. Tonight we have russelling for e community. We have a tenperson limb elimination match. We have a fullsize ring with barside food and drink. We ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar. Were hope og get families to join us. Weve done a drag queen bingo and were trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. This is a great part of town and theres a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. Theres a popular little shop that all of the kids like to hanhang out at. We have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies. Some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and its exciting. We even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat. Its in the San Francisco Garden District and four beautiful muellermixer ura alsomurals. Its important to shop local because its kind of like a circle of life, if you will. We hire local people. Local people spend their money at our businesses and those local mean that wor people willr money as well. I hope people shop locally. [ ] valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. The first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the Mission Neighborhood extending from market to mission street. It is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours. From 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. The mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m. T. A. To put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on valencia street within four months time. [ ] valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in San Francisco. It has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. We promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. Valencia is our mission fits our mission perfectly. Our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes. Whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. I have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. During that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. We have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber taking folks to concerts at night. One of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. The most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. We kept all the passengers the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see out here. Most people arent actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. Half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6 00 p. M. , so could be used for fiveminute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. The five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be. One of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. We worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. On this lot, there are a few schools. All these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. To address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings railings that channel channeled a designated crossing plane. We had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons . I do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. We have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the rightofway so they can cross the roadway. This is probably one of the most unique features. During the planning phase, the m. T. A. Came out with three alternatives for the long term project. One is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. A twoway bikeway. The third option is a Center Running twoway bikeway, c. Would have the two bike lanes running down the center with protection on either side. Earlier, there werent any enter lane designs in San Francisco, but i think it will be a great opportunity for San Francisco to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesnt exist already. With all three concepts for valencias longterm improvement , theres a number of tradeoffs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the intersection for signal infrastructure. When he think about extending this pilot or this still this design, theres a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. The pilot is great. It is a nobrainer. It is also a teaser for us. Once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. What were trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. The Pilot Project is one of our first major improvements. We will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. This fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. By spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about longterm improvements. I appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the Community Workshops associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. We want to see valencia become a really welcoming and comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and abilities. Theres a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. We will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [ ] what were trying to approach is bringing more diversity to our food. Its not just the old european style food. We are seeing a lot of influences, and all of this is because of our students. All we ask is make it flavorful. [ ] we are the first twoyear Culinary Hospitality School in the united states. The first year was 1936, and it was started by two graduates from cornell. Im a graduate of this program, and very proud of that. So students can expect to learn under the three degrees. Culinary Arts Management degree, Food Service Management degree, and Hotel Management degree. Were not a cooking school. Even though were not teaching you how to cook, were teaching you how to manage, how to supervise employees, how to manage a hotel, and plus youre getting an associate of science degree. My name is vince, and im a faculty member of the hospitality arts and Culinary School here in San Francisco. This is my 11th year. The policemrogram is very, ver in what this industry demands. Cooking, health, safety, and sanitation issues are included in it. Its quite a complete program to prepare them for whats happening out in the real world. The first time i heard about this program, i was working in a restaurant, and the sous chef had graduated from this program. He was very young to be a sous chef, and i want to be like him, basically, in the future. This program, its awesome. Its another world when youre here. Its another world. You get to be who you are, a person get to be who they are. You get to explore different things, and then, you get to explore and they encourage you to bring your background to the kitchen, too. Ive been in the program for about a year. Twoyear program, and im about halfway through. Before, i was studying behavioral genetics and dance. I had few injuries, and i couldnt pursue the things that i needed to to dance, so i pursued my other passion, cooking. When i stopped dance, i was deprived of my creative outlet, and cooking has been that for me, specifically pastry. The good thing is we have students everywhere from places like the ritz to we have kids from every area. Facebook and google. Kids from everywhere. They are all over the bay area, and theyre thriving. My name is jeff, and im a coowner of nopa restaurant, nopalito restaurant in San Francisco. I attended city college of San Francisco, the culinary arts program, where it was called hotel and restaurant back then in the early 90s. Nopalito on broderick street, its based on no specific region in mexico. All our masa is hand made. We cook our own corn in house. Everything is pretty much hand made on a daily basis, so day and night, were making hand made tortillas, carnitas, salsas. A lot of love put into this. [ ] used to be very easy to define casual dining, fine dining, quick service. Now, its shades of gray, and were trying to define that experience through that spectrum of service. Fine dining calls into white table cloths. The cafeteria is Large Production kitchen, understanding vast production kitchens, the googles and the facebooks of the world that have those kitypes of kitchens. And the ideas that change every year, again, its the notion and the venue. One of the things i love about vince is one of our outlets is a concept restaurant, and he changes the concept every year to show students how to do a startup restaurant. Its been a pizzeria, a taco bar. Its been a mediterranean bar, its been a noodle bar. People choose ccsf over other hospitality programs because the industry recognizes that we instill the work ethic. We, again, serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Other culinary hospitality programs may open two days a week for breakfast service. Were open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner five days a week. The menus always interesting. They change it every semester, maybe more. Theres always a good variety of foods. The preparation is always beautiful. The students are really sincere, and they work so hard here, and theyre so proud of their work. Ive had people coming in to town, and i, like, bring them here for a special treat, so its more, like, not so much every day, but as often as i can for a special treat. When i have my interns in their final semester of the program go out in the industry, 80 to 90 of the students get hired in the industry, well above the industry average in the culinary program. We do have internals continually coming into our restaurants from city college of San Francisco, and most of the time that people doing internships with us realize this is what they want to do for a living. We hired many interns into employees from our restaurants. My partner is also a graduate of city college. So my goal is actually to travel and try to do some pastry in maybe italy or france, along those lines. I actually have developed a few connections through this program in italy, which i am excited to support. Im thinking about going to go work on a cruise ship for about two, three year so i can save some money and then hopefully venture out on my own. Yeah, i want to go back to china. I want to bring something that i learned here, the french cooking, the western system, back to china. So we want them to have a full toolkit. Were trying to make them ready for the world out there. Ly app state leaders supporting us during these unprecedented and uncertain times, and thank you to the industry for your support and your continued support and for coming out with your questions and being certainly engaged in this process. So first i want to thank our esteemed guests today. We have treasury fiona mah. We have state senator scott weiner and Senior Advisor to the governor, nicole eliot, and i will briefly read their bios for you and then we are going to sort of jump into it. I know we have about an hour. I want to make sure that we use our time wisely. Im marissa rodriguez, the director of the office of cannabis. We also have eugene hillsman, Deputy Director of the office of cannabis and Jeremy Schwartz who is a permanent analyst with the office of cannabis as well. So fiona mah was elected to serve as californias 34th states treasurer. The state Treasurers Office provides financing for schools, roads, housing and other Critical Infrastructure projects that better the lives of californians. Previously treasurer mah was a member of the state assembly from 2006 to 2012 and prior to serving there, the treasurer served on the San Francisco board of supervisors from 2002 to 2006, representing district 4. Thank you, treasurer mah for being here. Its so nice to have you and its so nice to have one of our own as everyone on this call today. So if youd like to take this time to share with our community your thoughts on whats happening right now and any support for the Cannabis Community that youd like to share. Sure. Can you hear me . Our own, everyone on this call today. So if youd like take this time to share with our community your thoughts on whats happening right now and any support for the Cannabis Community that youd like to share. Sure. Can you hear and see me . I can. Thank you. All right. There i am. Thank you, marissa, for pulling us all together and for everyone whos on the call who has been staying in touch and keeping in touch and very, very frustrated during this time where the federal government is helping most everybody else except if youre in the cannabis industry, which is not very fair, as we all know. Over a year ago i testified in congress on the bill, the safe banking act as some of you remember. It finally did have a hearing earlier. I think it was was it when the democrats took over congress again and it got through the lower house, but it is, once again, stuck in the senate. I know that some have been trying to get cannabis in some of the stimulus packages or assistance, however, because cannabis is still a schedule 1 drug, they are not eligible for many of the assistive programs that are coming out of the federal government. However, california is a little different, as we all know. Not only in california can you deduct your ordinary and necessary business expenses against your income, unlike at the federal level, but we have really tried to move this Industry Forward the best that we can, at least here in california. So many of you, all of you, should be paying your tax, your sales taxings to the California Department of Fee Administration. There was a 90day deferral on paying and filing your First Quarter sales tax return. In addition, if you do need working capital, you may qualify to take a 50,000 loan and defer payment on a year. Your annual Sales Revenues have to be less than 5 million, so that may not pertain to some of the bigger companies, but some of the Smaller Companies may be able to take advantage of this. And you need to call the California Department of tax and Fee Administration and register for this program. Again, it is interest free, 50,000 loan for up to a year, and you need to call sdtfa to figure out and sign up for their instalment plan. So unfortunately thats kind of the only program that is related to some sort of relief for the cannabis industry. The ibank also has put money into a loan loss reserve for [indiscernible] however, the only way you will be eligible for that money is if your bank is accepting cannabis clients, and i know theres probably close to two dozen banks now in california that have legally applied to take cannabis clients on, so you all know who you are out there. But definitely check your the ibank. Ca. Gov and see whether your participating lender participates in that and you may be eligible and qualify to get certain loans from the ibank. So thats about all i have to report right now, and i will be here for the duration to answer any questions you may all have. Thank you, fiona. We certainly appreciate your leadership, your unwavering support of the cannabis industry. You were instrumental in this webinar happening, so i thank you for that. We are live here at the Emergency Operating Center for the city as we put this webinar out to our community. Again thank you everyone for tuning in. Next we have our senator, state senator scott weiner who was elected in november 2016, senator scott weiner represents district 11 in the california state senate. District 11 includes all of San Francisco, broadmoor, daily city and portions of south San Francisco. The senator helped to champion compassionate cannabis care programs by introducing senate bill 34 which was approved by the governor in 2019. Prior to his election to the state senate, he served on the board of supervisors representing district 8. Thank you and happy to have you on the call, senator. Thank you very much for excuse me, for having me, and hello remotely to treasurer ma and to nicole. And hello, im sorry to be here by phone, but i hope you can hear me okay. Hello to the entire Cannabis Community. Were going through some really hard times right now as a community, and we all need to look to the light at the end of the tunnel. We are going to get through this, and our goal needs to be that when we do get through it we can get both individuals and businesses back up on their feet, and so a lot of the work that were doing right now is just to try to preserve the status quo, to keep renters stable in their homes so we dont have mass evictions, either now or after the worst of the emergency when people have massive back rents that they are expected to pay right away. We dont want that. We want to make sure that were stabilizing people, and we want to make sure that were stabilizing businesses in their spaces, and nonprofits, so that we dont see permanent mass closure of Small Businesses and nonprofits, and so were working on a few pieces of legislation. On the residential side im working with someone on legislation to protect renters and im also offering legislation thats 939 to try to stabilize Small Businesses and nonprofits in their retail and Office Spaces by saying no moratoriums or no evictions, and were going to have to deal with how we look at back rent. And then were going to have to particularly for hospitality businesses, like restaurants and bars, that when they do reopen we will be required legally to have much lower capacity so that their Business Model no longer matches up with the rent in their lease, and were going to need to address that as well. So we are working on these issues. Specific to cannabis, we all advocated successfully in San Francisco, and i know in other places it happened not everywhere to classify cannabis as an essential business, and that was a real win. And im glad that it happened. But i know that the industry is really struggling right now, like all Small Businesses are. And in particular not being eligible for the federal Small Business loan, forgivable loan program. I know thats a huge hit and just one more example of the irrationality of our federal law. Cant get any of these benefits. Its not okay. In terms of the legislature this year, we are going back into session. Weve been in recess for about six weeks due to the pandemic. The assembly returns to session on monday. The Senate Returns the following monday, on may 11, and we will be pursuing a more limited policy agenda this year around covid19, of course, but also around some of the highest priority areas, like housing and homelessness and mental health, addiction, wildfires and so forth. And so were all reducing the number of bills that we have and making them much more focused. I dont know that this year is going to be a big year for cannabis. I know there are some bills that have been introduced, and im sure that some things will happen, but i was hoping that this year we would be able to, you know, finally pass the tax reductions, you know, the tax the state taxes are too high and are i think really stifling the industry and encouraging the elicit market. So thats something we have to address. Werent able to get it done last year. And then we have to deal with the issues of cities just effectively banning cannabis, and big swaths of california where its effectively illegal, and so but im not confident that either of those are going to get resolved this year because just of everything thats happening. But stay tuned. Well keep working, and again, thank you to everyone for all you do. Thank you, senator. We really appreciate that, and we certainly appreciate your continued support of the industry as well. Certainly difficult times, unprecedented times. There is no one whos immune to this, and we certainly appreciate that, and also appreciate the fact that we are deemed essential during these times. But you know, still, theres a huge impact and we want to see what ways and how we can support the industry to get through this. So thank you and we appreciate having you on this call. Next we have Senior Advisor on cannabis to the governor, nicole eliot. We know nicole very well, and we are so appreciative that you could take this call today. Ms. Eliot serves as governors Senior Advisor on cannabis. Prior to her current post, she was appointed San Franciscos first director of the San Francisco office of cannabis where she helped to set up cannabiss Regulatory Framework and permitting process. She has worked in a number of capacities with city and county with the city and county of San Francisco, including stints as a deputy board liaison and director of legislative and Government Affairs in the mayors administration. Thank you for being here. This community really values you and appreciates that you are willing to talk to us during these hard times. Sure, always happy to have these conversations, and really happy to be back with my bay area family. Thank you for putting this together and for treasurer ma as well, for facilitating the creation of this. A lot has happened since ive left. First and foremost, i had a baby. Congratulations. Thank you my first day back was the first week of the shutdown, so its been a really interesting transition back to the work environment, but we really hit the ground running starting with obviously deeming cannabis commercial cannabis as essential for the state of california, and since then have really been working with our licensing agencies, our partner agencies, like the treasurer, like cdtfa and others in trying to determine what we can do within the current framework and our current constraints to provide support for the industry, whether that be from a tax relief standpoint, which the treasurer really outlined in her opening comments, as well as from regulatory standpoint, and im sure some of you are very familiar with some of the regulatory relief that has been extended by your licensing agencies. So trying to figure out what we can do to be as helpful as we can sort of in the immediate term and figuring out what we can do in the long term to support what will be recovery, but i will quote the governor when i say that these are very sobering and challenging times. We started this year with a multibillion dollar surplus, and as he stated in his press conference today, we will enter the may revised with multibillion, tens of billions of dollars to cuts. So its a tough time for everyone. I think senator wiener really expressed the challenges that the legislature will be faced with when working through the budget, that there are a lot of priorities that we really sought to tackle this year, and on the cannabis side you guys are all familiar with those priorities, tax simplification. The governor clearly indicated a willingness to talk about the structure of tax and whether or not there should be a reduction, either permanently or temporarily, as well as consolidation. And so thats all being impacted by the environment that we find ourselves in now. So i look forward to addressing your guyss questions today. Again, im really happy to be here and happy to chat with you guys, and of course this is always an ongoing conversation. Thank you, ms. Elliot. I appreciate that. I want to jump in because i want to be cognizant of time here. I want to let folks know that, one, first of all, thank you for emailing in with your questions. They are really thoughtful, and they they are thoughtful and they span a lot of different categories, and so we broke them down by way of taxes, regulatory structure, compassion, unregulated market, the pandemic and banking. We have some general questions, we have some local questions. Because i have the privilege of being able to be in touch with our community more regularly, i will leave the local questions to the end. If we have time, we will address them. Otherwise we will send them out in a response separately. But we are going to start now, and the members of our team will take each section and questions just to keep it a little bit more lively so youre not just listening to me the entire time. Again, we are reporting we are live here from the Emergency Operating Center here in San Francisco where City Employees in San Francisco are keeping the lights on during this unprecedented time. And id like to start with the first question, and all three of you, feel free to answer this one. With the current lack of banking, covid relief opportunities for the cannabis industry are severely limited at the federal, state and local levels. While we recognize the legislature is tasked with the Economic Health of california, we would like you to talk about efforts under way by the legislature that would specifically address Economic Relief for the cannabis industry and the likelihood of those efforts being realized in the short term. Well start with the first section of this question, which is what is being done at the state level to move forward equality for cannabis businesses, specifically in regards to access to covid stimulus relief, lowering the overall tax burden, access to banking, and market rate commercial loans . And i know that the three of you did touch on some of this in your opening remarks, but if you could again just kind of share with our Community Just your thoughts and your feelings on this point. We can start with fiona ma pardon me, treasurer ma. Thats okay, call me fiona. Anyway, as you know, this has been a big priority for me, trying to get banking access since i was on the state board of equalization. Im glad to report that there are more and more banks that are willing to take on cannabisrelated clients. Of course they want to maintain some sort of balance, so many of them will have a certain amount of cultivators, distributors, maybe put folks in test, and they are also looking for other private equity folks who are investing. So they really wanted to diversify their portfolio and risk a little more, but every day more and more banks are willing and open to taking more cannabis clients. But it is slow, and i think this covid19 crisis has shown how important it is, right, with all of the social distancing and not wanting to touch surfaces, that dealing in cash is more and more probably even maybe a contributor to the covid19 spreading. So i think folks are realizing that it is so important that we try to bank this industry as soon as possible. However, we are still always stuck in the senate because the senate is republican controlled, and that is going to be the first step in november, if we really want to see changes to cannabis, we all need to figure out how to, you know, take back the senate in november. Thank you, fiona. With that, does anyone else want to respond . Well, ill speak to a couple of those points. Obviously on the federal advocacy side, our federal liaisons are doing quite a bit as behindthescenes advocacy in d. C. Around the stimulus funding to try to get cannabis involved in that and supporting the efforts of, you know, certain representatives who are pushing clarity via bills to incorporate cannabis as well. To the treasurers point, it is a big challenge to get the senate there, but weve seen a number of senators engage, including our state senator, kamala harris, our state senator, i should say, and kamala harris, who has really engaged in that space as well. So grateful for those efforts, but do know that we are definitely working on that in d. C. And then beyond that, on the taxes, i think, you know, obviously you heard earlier that the state has done quite a bit around taxes now, not speaking necessarily to changes to the overall cannabis tax structure, but really looking at the sales and use tax deferral, which the state, you know, believes applies to an extraordinary number of cannabis businesses if they are paying, if they are annual taxable sales, for instance, Something Like 77 of our retailers would likely qualify for that. So that allows for that deferral of up to 50,000 and provides a 12month payment plan. I will note that i believe cdtfa is willing to on a casebycase basis consider operators that have a high amount of sales, so i think its worth engaging cdtfa on that opportunity if you think that you are eligible or even if you feel like you might be on the cusp, do take advantage of that resource as well as you clearly now have time to file your tax via the tax extension. So to the extent that there needs to be more clarity provided to the industry on that, please do let me know because we will be happy to push out more information to you guys to make sure that all operators are taking advantage of the resources that the state is providing, that they know about it and that they are taking advantage of it where they can. And then when it comes to banks, i mean, we have an incredibly committed set of elected officials who are really clearly advocating for, you know, banks involvement in this space. The administration is also working on that, also behind the scenes, to try and engage banks. To the treasurers point about the Small Business finance center and having support to back loans that are being given by lenders, we understand that there are not very many lenders in this space, and so we are working on trying to figure out if there are institutions that are willing to engage in that space, but as you all know, thats a challenging conversation. So do know that that work is happening behind the scenes. Thank you so much. And where would you point folks to for information, the best place to start this process . So i would encourage people to visit cdtfas website as a starting point, and again, if you guys need additional information, please do reach out so that we can make sure you guys are able to access all of those resources. Thank you so much. And senator wiener, did you have thoughts on this as well . Perhaps the connection senator wiener, are you on the line still . Okay, well work on that and get back to you. And then lets talk a little bit about, you know, the industry is ineligible for federal assistance. Any talk on the state level about perhaps programs, grant assistance, that can help with Economic Relief in this space . Do you want me to take that . Sure. Okay. So again, i think i mentioned in my early comments to level set everyones expectations and unfortunately to be the bearer of a lot of bad news, you know, the state has set a budget has indicated they will be engaging in what they call a workload budget. So no new expenditures. So it is highly unlikely we will see new programs stood up, and so when i talk to operators and to additional stakeholders in the industry, i really talk about how we can leverage existing programs. But we have a very challenged general fund, and so additional money going out is going to be very hard to come by. To be completely honest. So hence really looking at working within our existing framework, things like what cdtfa has done around tax deferral. I know there have been conversations about licensing fees, on where we as a state have capital and how we can get creative with that capital that already exists. But it will be a challenge to put out an additional program. Ill just be very transparent and honest about that, while still flagging that those are ongoing conversations. Thank you so much. No, we appreciate the honesty. Thats why were here and we want to engage in this conversation. And with that, thank you. Well move now to a different topic. The unregulated market. Sure. One of the things that a number of our operators have been interested in is around additional conversations about the states plan to give legal businesses a chance to really compete against an illicit market that still controls a significant portion of the cannabis market. Can you discuss existing state enforcement efforts and how the pandemic might impact proposed efforts . We can start with Senior Advisor elliott. Sure. So existing state enforcement efforts i think were quite transparent last year the governor outlined multiple pillars for his priorities. Enforcement is one of those, and there was a stronger effort to coordinate enforcement across a number of agencies, and i mean a number. Its a large amount. To really get at the issue of the illegal market, the informal market. And so that effort will continue this year. I think our challenge will be how we do that effort within this new work construct, but that is a challenge that we are wholeheartedly embracing, as well as of course theres dollars within our budget to put towards enforcement that includes funding that will go out through the bscc, to local jurisdictions to support local enforcement efforts, and also to our department of fish and wildlife to support efforts on the rural cultivation side. But i think its the governor has made it very clear, enforcement is a top priority, thoughtful enforcement is a top priority, and so that will be something we continue to pursue and coordinate this year. Thank you very much. And now were going to talk a little bit about compassion. Jeremy schwartz here. Thank you, treasurer, ms. Elliott, senator wiener if youre still there for making yourselves available. I would like to acknowledge that in getting sportsnet bill 34 across the finish line regarding compassion programs and tax savings, to that point, ill share an anecdote which is pretty shared amongst some of the inquiries we received. So this gentleman said im renewing my medical cannabis recommendation with my physician on may 1. However, im unable to renew my state medical cannabis id card because San Francisco department of Public Health card office is closed during this shelter in place. Is there a way that the state of california could temporarily amend its regulations or otherwise allow medical cannabis i. D. S to not expire in the coming weeks with the understanding that i believe the state Vital Records Office is closed . So i know that was a mouthful, but any sense about the medical marijuana i. D. Card program . Well, i would just jump in that Governor Newsom has a press conference every noon called newsom at noon, and he takes this opportunity to talk about executive orders. I do think he has been exercising a lot of his powers in this covid19 pandemic, and certainly i think if the industry gets together like, this is the first time i heard that there was an issue about renewing your medical cannabis card, that this is certainly something that should be on his radar. But you all have to and this is why were on this webinar here today, is to really hear some of the daytoday inconveniences or barriers that you all have. But certainly that is a good point. I know i oversee Affordable Housing, and there is a process called tefra hearings that needs to be done every year, and a number of them were expiring, but unfortunately tefra hearings are mandated under the irs code, so the governor cannot do an executive order to overturn the irs, so ive been lobbying the irs to try to get them to extend the tefra expiration or hearing process because many of the local governments are closed, like you said, and therefore they are putting in jeopardy a lot of the Affordable Housing projects that are trying to continue to move through the process. So we are facing this type of, you know, issues when governments close and we still need to get certain things done. You know, what is it that government or the State Government can help with. Excellent. Thank you, treasurer. Ms. Elliott, do you have anything to add . Ill just add, i mean, i think this you know, i want to give credit to the treasurer for setting up this conversation. Shes totally spot on, that these are the types of forums that really allow for these types of challenges to be lifted up and brought to the attention of the state. And that was something that was brought to my attention yesterday. So we are running that down and hope to have an update, but were definitely looking into it. Thank you, kindly. And this is scott, i apologize, i had to jump off for something, but im back. Thank you so much. And i dont know if you were able to hear the last question. If youd like to chime in, happy to, or we can keep moving forward. Your call. I didnt hear the question, but whatever makes sense for you. No, thats fine. Well keep moving forward. Thank you so much. We saw the California Department of alcohol Beverage Control mobilize quickly to provide unprecedented relief for their licensees by issuing sweeping industrywide relief. To date, they have issued three significant regulatory relief packages, including the extension of licensing fees. Conversely, cannabis licensees seeking relief must individually request relief and oftentimes each business has to request the same relief every 30 days. Can you speak to efforts under way that would streamline and expand associated relief and associated timelines for implementation . So im happy to speak to that. The Fee Deferral Program is based on fees that are shocking to the industry, not as high as your fees, and they have the ability as a Longstanding Department or agency to weather the financial storm of fee deferrals. So it is not lost on us that that is a request of the industry. That is something we are looking into, but it does take quite a bit of analysis to understand whether or not thats something that the state can sustain, because we are working with a finite set of resources, and those resources support the work of these agencies and the legitimacy of this market. So do know that that is definitely something that we are looking into, but the abcs process is slightly different than the three Licensing Agency process. Its a bit more challenging, as you all know. Right. Thank you so much. Thank you for speaking to that. And fee deferrals, any thoughts on deferrals . Are you asking me that . Yeah, just as a followup. So thats exactly what i was speaking to. Okay, yeah. Okay. Thank you. And i dont know if treasurer ma or the senator would like to speak to that as well. Well, i would just say the squeaky wheel gets the grease, as we have seen in the last ppp stimulus package, a lot of the Small Business owners did not get any assistance, and there was a lot of folks who, you know, called their congressperson, their senators, and then now in the latest ppp round of stimulus money, they are really the banks are really focused on Small Businesses because they didnt have the chance last time because of the way the system was set up, because everything was done so quickly. So i would just say, you know, keep advocating. Reach out to your assembly members, your senators, obviously San Francisco is really small, so we know who they are. And of course the governors office, nicole, myself, so that when these issues come up we can also chime in that this was an industry that also needs to be supported during this time. Thank you for that. Eugene . Sure. We know that there was a previous announcement regarding the preexisting cannabis state licensing agencies. Question do you anticipate that the consolidation of those licensing authorities will proceed as planned . And if not, how will that affect the kind of general com Lines Associated regulatory change to improve efficiency . And anyone who has some additional knowledge about that can provide some feedback. So i know that the senator talked through some of the legislative challenges and framework that hell be working through during the budget, and that the consolidation was proposed in the governors january budget. That conversation is happening in real time. We have a may revised coming out soon, so i dont have any news to break on that, but i will say this we all know that there is a lot of work to do on the stateside around streamlining, and a lot of that work can be done administratively and will be done administratively. So if that moves forward this year, then there will be a lot of work to do. If it does not move forward this year, i know that this is a concept that the governor is very committed to, and there will be a lot of work to do. So regardless of what happens, i do think that simplification and streamlining in some form will be on our agenda for this year. Whether or not thats in the form of consolidation in statutory language by july 1, 2020 or july 1, 2021. So ill leave it at that. And im sorry, could you repeat that question . My phone was cutting out. Im having quite a day with my phone. Sure. The question was about the governors announcement about the consolidation of the state licensing agencies and whether the pandemic would impact the timelines and what are other opportunities to increase efficiencies at the state level. Oh, yeah, that sounds like more of a nicole question. I think were all always taking a look at how we can make life easier for people with various regulatory agencies that they have to deal with. I just cannot speak for this year because everything is in such tumult right now. The administration is truly Drinking Water from a fire hose on covid, and its just its too hard to predict what else will happen this year. And ill just add to that, as far as opportunities, i think what i was trying to communicate, and i hope i communicated, but i will be very direct, there is a lot of opportunity space here. We all know that, and we intend to pursue that opportunity space, whether thats done statutorily, regulatorily or administratively. It will be pursued. Excellent, thank you. And, eugene, if you would i think the unregulated market, perhaps we can shift the conversation in that direction for a moment. Sure. So you know, we talked a little bit about kind of what the potential actions at the state level and how they might impact kind of operators and the existing resources that will continue to be dedicated to fighting enforcement, and we talked a little bit, i believe senator wiener mentioned the possibility for kind of new legislation was unlikely, but there was a specific question about the jones foyer and rubio bills and what the prospects of them passing this legislative cycle. I dont know if scotts still on, but i know the assemble is going to go back into session next week, and the senate is supposed to go back the following week. As i understand, they are really going to focus on the budget and covidrelated legislation. So were not really sure what legislation will move forward. Scott, are you back on . Yeah, i am. Yes, so there i cant tell if theres going to be differences in the assembly. In the senate its been made very clear to us were not limited to only covidspecific bills. We have some covidspecific bills and obviously the budget is a high priority, as bloody and terrible as its going to be, but there are other noncovid areas where well be able to do work. And i think i mentioned those earlier on around housing, homelessness, wildfires, et cetera. The assembly is being it has been much more putting everything on the Committee Chairs so they can hear what they want to hear and prioritize how they want to prioritize. And so those bills, those are enforcement bills. I dont know whether under normal circumstances they would have Political Support to move forward. I am i assume those go to Assembly Public safety or maybe to assembly judiciary. I dont know how the chairs of those committees are viewing this, so its very unclear whether those bills will move forward. Then again, this is democracy, and the legislators are coming back, so i would encourage you to, you know, continue to advocate on behalf of the important bills that you think are gonna move through right now. Obviously not all the bills are gonna continue, but if you all as an industry can get together and prioritize, you know, these are the top three bills that we want to see, then it will have a higher chance instead of everybody just trying to, you know, support 5,000 bills. I mean, clearly 5,000 bills are not going to go through this year. We appreciate that, certainly. Thank you so much. Just to give you a sense, you know, i have and we and the senate, were not like capping members bills, like you can only two five bills or four bills or seven bills or whatever, but we have been, you know, asked to really selfedit and to move bills that are in very high priority areas, that are time sensitive, and so forth. And so i have jettisoned a majority of my bills, and these are some bills that im superpassionate about, and many of them i will reintroduce next year. But we have to be selective in what we move forward. We will have less legislative time, more focus on covid, and you know, its going to be our proceedings are going to be clunky. Like in the senate were allowing remote participation. It makes things a little bit slower. So its not going to be the as fluid and easy as previous sessions, so thats why were really narrowing the number of bills. Thank you very much. Jeremy . Jeremy schwartz here. So reverting back to banking, certainly an Exciting Development regarding the 50,000 the potential for up to 50,000 for a bridge loan. Treasurer ma certainly touched on increased operators perhaps providing some banking services, whether they are Pilot Programs initiated by credit unions. Folks are wondering what this group feels is probably one of the most viable pathways forward for access to mainstream banking, whether it is a public banking option, federal intervention or other mechanism. Well, i think during this time, you know, individual banks, as i mentioned, more and more are coming online, and many of them do have capacity. Obviously they want those customers who have had, you know, a good track record, have been filing all their taxes, have all their permits in place. Thats the easiest way for folks to get a bank account in this new environment, and it is not easy because they do do an extensive background check, and if theres anything in your history, it may kick you out of, you know, their vetting system. So i would just encourage you to talk to your bankers, talk to other members in the industry who may have bank accounts. Theres no list published. People, you know, still are being cautious in terms of how many accounts that they take, but clearly the industry is definitely moving toward opening up banking access for more cannabis companies. And i concur with that. I mean, i think if youre looking for the most expeditious pathway, it is really following the advice of our treasurer and trying to establish those relationships with banks that will learn to trust you as operators but also will want to look into every nook and cranny, just like your regulators do when they review your licenses, your applications. So being transparent on that front hopefully will at least establish a banking relationship, understanding that lending is a bigger challenge in these economic times. You know, the federal government really needs to move on that to create a little bit more, you know, legal and regulatory certainty in the banking space to facilitate things like that. So continue to push your federal representatives and, you know, try to establish those relationships with your banks. Thank you. Again, i want to thank our esteemed guests today, treasure fiona ma, state senator scat wiener and sfr advisor Nicole Elliott. We are reporting here live from the Emergency Operating Center, and we are so thankful to have this opportunity to engage with our state leaders during these unprecedented times. I know i mentioned it earlier, but no ones immune to the challenges to date and ahead. One thing i do know for sure is that the industry has always been resourceful, will continue to be, and as a community we will work through these tough times together. Its been a while since weve had an opportunity to come together and talk about the state of our industry from a local level, so i wanted to take a few minutes now that were getting to the end to talk to you a little bit about whats happening in the office. Many of you know april marked my oneyear anniversary, having taken over from Nicole Elliott, and thank you for standing up an incredible office, and its because of that hard work that i believe we will be able to make it through these tough times. We had the great advantage to be able to build upon a lot of that hard work, and this last year we had seen tremendous growth, momentum. Weve built upon that, and we are proud of our numbers. Of course we could never have imagined in a million years that today we would be sitting here telecommuting, having this webinar and dealing with a Global Pandemic that is going to impact all of us in a major way. And that means that during a time where things were booming we experienced slow process, and that was frustrating for a lot of our industry, and today that is not different. We will probably see more of that, but we will continue to work hard for the industry and to ensure that we are moving things forward. I want to take this time to thank our mayor, our city administrator, naomi kelly, our deputy city administrator for their continued support of the passion and Equity Mission of this office. And i am grateful to all of our colleagues and to our industry for all of their support. We will continue to work hard and continue to be supportive of one another. That said, well put up our first slide. Well share that for those of you who are calling in and cant see it. These are our numbers, just to get everyone caught up to date. We verified over 330 social equity applicants, which is tremendous hard work. We are very happy to announce that we met our q1 goal of excuse me, our q4 goal last year of permitting our first equity application. Since then we have permitted four. I want to congratulate our last permittee, ms. Reese benton, who i know is tuned in today. She has received her permit. That is four, and that is even during these tough times, so i know that we will persevere. We have 15 applicants through the buildout phase. This number may look familiar. The reason is a lot of our important city processes had to be slowed in light of covid, and so getting those final buildout permits signed off is not happening right now, as you all know. So as soon as the shelter lifts, we expect to see a lot of movement in that space. We have 83 applications that were formally referred to the Planning Department for land use entitlement. Thats incredible, and in fact there are six more on the way. We are able to continue to do our work. We are, as you know, six in our offi office. Three have been deployed as emergency city workers. The others are keeping the lights on. We continue to engage. If you have questions, please, dont hesitate to reach out to our office. We will have meetings with you, over the phone to ensure that you do still feel connected to our office. 83 applications formally referred to planning is huge, and we are very, very proud of that number. A year ago it was 24, and so there is momentum in that space. With our next slide. Sure. So in addition to the general development of issuing four permanent permits, the office of cannabis also has about 160 temporary permits as a part of our amnesty program, which was an effort to bring the unregulated market into the regulated market as we continue to prioritize and process our social equity applicants. In addition, there are legacy operators, medical cannabis dispensaries who are able to sell adultuse products based on their progress towards the equity plans and commitments theyve made to the city. We have also developed some Technical Assistance resources. San francisco is one of the few, if not the only jurisdiction to partner with its county Bar Association, the Bar Association of San Francisco. These fine folks panel with the bar, provide Pro Bono Legal services to social equity applicants. To date about 250 hours have been provided. In addition, our partners at the office of Economic Workforce Development have contracted with a law firm to provide additional Pro Bono Legal assistance, which has started in about january february, about 50 hours to date, for a total of 300 hours. And in addition, although there arent events at this time, we did issue a permit for cannabis sales, onsite cannabis sales and consumption at the Music Festival in golden gate park. This is a part of our Pilot Program which may be extended on a yearly basis through 2021. With that, ill kick it back to director rodriguez to close us out. Thank you so much, jeremy. I want to run through this just quickly. There were some questions on the local level for with respect to what is sort of happening during the shelter in place. People want to know whether they can have Community Outreach meetings. The answer to that is no. Through june 1, Community Outreach meetings wont be happening. After june 1 well revisit that. Theres questions about cannabis inspections, are they going to happen now. The answer to that is no. We are going to wait until the june 1 shelter lifts before we do that. Once its lifted, we will certainly start to bring up all of those things and start to see some of that kicking off and momentum picking up. There are a couple questions with respect to the grants that im going to allow eugene to answer just so you can have some more information around that issue. Sure. So i know folks have had a lot of questions about the process to [indiscernible] to our knowledge it hasnt been distributed to the city in the case of the fund, that they should be arriving any day now. Were really excited about the opportunity to provide some Additional Support to equity applicants who we know desperately need it. Were hopeful that those will start to be distributed in the summer of this year. The go biz fund which will require a resolution were currently in the process of getting all of that information together. You may have seen the safe announcements regarding an additional 5 million of support that will be provided to the city and county of San Francisco, so were really interested and excited about the opportunity to provide that money to equity applicants. We will need to enter into a formal Grant Agreement once the resolution is passed. Its unlikely that that will happen before june 1, but once the grants are dispersed, its my understanding that those funds would need to be distributed in the next year. Marisa, i cant hear you. Apologies. Sorry, i was muted. I want to give our esteemed guests an opportunity to close out, and i know theres a small surprise at the end with Senior Advisor elliott. For those of you who are tuned in visually and can see the screen. So lets start with treasurer ma, if youd like to close out. Thank you. I do have a couple more items i would just like to talk about with this group. My website, www. Treasurer. Ca. Gov has two links when you log on. One is to our covid19. Ca. Gov which is our official excuse me, state website for health and other resources. And then i have a excuse me. Covid19 resources guide that is updated continuously for Small Businesses, tax relief, food, as well as individual resources, and so please log on. If you have any questions, you can email me at askfiona treasurer. Ca. Gov and we will answer your questions as quickly as possible. Be careful of scams these days as people are thinking theyre going to get their 1200 stimulus check or other type of loans. Government will never call you and ask you for your personal Social Security number or ask you for your Bank Routing Number or ask you to pay over the phone. So those are all scams. And then if you could just take a couple minutes to answer the census questions, we count people every ten years. The federal government gives us over a trillion dollars to the states, and they allocate it based on some sort of censusrelated data, so every person that is not counted will cost us a thousand dollars per person for ten years, and we get a lot of money for everything from education to Public Safety to seniors to child care. And so please take a little time to do that. And then also the governor released this week a list of approved outdoor activities, so please google it. You will find the list. Its a pretty extensive list. I know its beautiful here in San Francisco, and everybody wants to go outdoors, but the governors really trying to make sure that we continue our social distancing so that we can continue to protect the health and safety of all the residents. So again, thank you all for accommodating us here today. I hope you all stay safe. Be well. Help each other during this time, and we will get through this together stronger. So thank you, marisa, thank you to the team and nicole and senator scott wiener and to all were doing to get through this pandemic. Thank you so much, treasurer ma. This would not have happened without your leadership, and thank you for continuing to support the cannabis industry. We really, really, really appreciate you. Thank you. Next id like to ask senator wiener to close out. Did we lose him . I know he was having some difficulty with his phone. Okay. In that case, we will go on to Senior Advisor Nicole Elliott. Thank you, guys, for putting this together, for having me. Thank you to the treasurer for supporting the development of this discussion and to senator wiener for joining and all your advocacy behind the things that we collectively care about. And to the industry, hang in there. Its going to be, you know, a challenging couple of years. The governors very clearly very committed to seeing legalization be a successful exercise, and so to the extent that you guys have more questions that we can work to answer or address, please feel free to reach out to me. I am a onewoman show, so i will do my best to respond as promptly as i can, but its nicole. Elliott gobiz. Ca. Gov. And we have a special guest who wanted to say hi to her San Francisco family. Lucy. Ah so sweet. She looks forward to meeting you all in person at some point when we are released back into the wild. That was our surprise. Thank you so much. Again, thank you, and i just want to doublecheck, do we still have the senator on the line . Looks like we have lost him, but we just want to thank you, senator, for participating and, of course, thank you to Nicole Elliott and lucy for always supporting our industry and our community, and hailing from San Francisco as all of these great leaders do, thank you all so much. Thank you for tuning in. We will have our newsletter out next week, so you will be able to get more information about the billings under the office of cannabis in addition to answers to some of the questions that we couldnt get to today. Some of them were bcc oriented, so we will point you in the right direction and get that information to you, and i also want to remind folks that now that its may and i think you can still get it, but the San Francisco magazine has a story about our Equity Program and features some of our equity applicants, so make sure you pick that up and support the community. We thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in to our cannabis webinar. Have a wonderful day