Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Govt Audits And Oversight Committee 101515 20151026

Item number 1 and 2 hearing on the recently published 20142015 civil grand jury report, entitled Unfinished Business a continuity report on the 20112012 report, deja vu all over again. Item number 1 and 2 hearing on the recently published 20142015 civil grand jury report, entitled Unfinished Business a continuity report on the 20112012 report, deja vu all over again. Thank you. Resolution responding to the presiding judge of the superior court on the findings and recommendations contained in the 20142015 civil grand jury report, entitled Unfinished Business a continuity report on the 20112012 report, deja vu all over again, and urging the major to cause the implementation of accepted findings and recommendations through his her Department Heads and through the development of the annual budget. Alegra futandi. Sorry about that. Would you please come up and present. Okay. Im alegra, a 201415 civil grand jury. We would like to thank president yee and breed for holding these hearings. The report is a continuity report on the 201112 report. Deja vu all over again. We need a culture shock. Most of the work done was done by me and marion, another juror who could not be here today. A continuity report is different from an investigative report. Basically jurors review of past investigation to see what progress might have been made in full filling recommendations suggested by, in this case, the 201112 jurors and outline what issues might exist. It does not involve a full investigation, although our report ask that a future jury look into city Wide Technology again. Since 201112 came out, there have been changes and we commend the city, county and government for making improvements. As outlined in the report itself, changes have been made in the structure and reporting relationship okay changes have been made in the structure relationship the committee on Information Technology in the Senior Leadership of the department of Technology Including the creation of new offices in the stream lining of the cia review process in more communication among departments in the greatly improved 5year plan and increased funding for technology. In the completion of the email and data center consolidation, and continuing development of an it management system. City should be commended for these improvements, sometime problems identified in the 2012 report continues to exist. We thank the mayor and others responding to our report for their movement on the restructuring of the department of technology with more emphasis on daytoday service. We also thank you for the promise of improvements to emerge people so that the skills and education of city it personnel can be recorded. We hope this skills inventory will go beyond the position that any it employee holds. Im sure many continue their education or have training and skills in areas that are not utilized daily in their current positions. The skills inventory should reflect this. However, there are still three areas of major concern. One, the disingenerous response the mayor on the Network Infrastructure has been implemented, and hiring the real funding needs. The city might be funding at a greater rate, but still not fully. As our report indicated for the Network Infrastructure alone, 15 to 20 million, more than the 6. 9 millions invested according to the mayor. The operative word is fully. An infra sfruk tour the infrastructure is vital. At the very least, the true response to our first recommendation should have been needs further analysis or even better, has not been implemented but will be implemented at a future date. Two, as a result of the 201112 report, an it hiring group was formed. This group came up with a pilot it hiring project for two job classifications. Senior and it analyst to decrease hiring times. It was determined if the pilot were successful, it would be rolled out to other positions. Jerry was told that preliminary results the pilot would be available in late march 2015. In spite of getting our hope today is that one of the supervisors will ask dhr to give us public report about this Pilot Project whether it has been expanded to other job classifications, what results have flowed from the project, how its being evaluated and if the department sees value in it. Despite the mayor saying that dhr gives reports about this pilot report, they have not done so since january of 2015. Right around the time when the pilot began. This might indicate that its results are probably lacking. Three, the jury recommended the establishment of a task force outside dhd to discussion recruiting and hiring its personnel beyond what drh is doing. In San Franciscos competitive it hiring environment, everything should be on the table. Using figures obtained from the Controllers Office, it and the department of technology at the of the report had a vacancy rate, 100 higher. The city needs new approaches. Our jury sincerely hope our report will move the city towards greater it funding and making it better across all City Departments. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, ms. Fotanadi. Right now, is suzanne guard here . Would you like to present and then after that, steve. Im with the department of technology. Ill be presenting initially first. An overview of the accomplishments weve made. Thats fine. Thank you. My name is brian, and im a Deputy Director with the city of technology. I would like to thank the grand jury for their interest in the department of technology and their hard work for putting together this record and the board giving us an opportunity to comment on the report. In 201112, the grand jury report highlighted major issues that the we feel weve made real and meaningful progress since then. Since that original report, weve continued to improve city wide coordination on it needs specifically to coit. The citys information on the citys technology. Our most recent plan, or ict plan was released this spring and it provides a framework how the city will this plan recommends 150 million in city general Fund Investments over that same time. As you know, the fiscal year is 201516 and 201617 approved budget includes 190 million in it investments. Of this, 61. 3 million is slated to come from the general fund. This represents an important step in improving the it infrastructure. This includes the radio replacement effort and a new city wide financial system, a new property tax data base and the rollout of as well as projects that are apart of the citys initiative. The department of technology is collaborating with the department of Human Resources to review the citys it hiring process. From recruitment of candidates to the on boarding of new hires. For example, this coming monday, the department of technology will welcome an additional recruiter as suggested by the civil grand jury to work exclusive on it hiring needs. In addition, the it hiring group led by the department of Human Resources has developed and began in approve it hiring city wide and to help departments secure the it talents and skill sets. This hiring group has been and will continue to regularly present updates to coit and the Civil Service commission. Youll find detailed responses to each the grand jurys findings and recommendations and response submitted in our response submit today the Supreme Court on september 18th. The department of Human Resources and the Controllers Office and the Mayors Office is here if you have questions you may have. Thank you for this opportunity to comment on these important issues. Good afternoon, chair yee. Im suzanne guard with the department of Human Resources. I want to thank the civil grand jury for their work on this. We agreed that its important and its vital to the cities future to improve our it hiring processes, so that we have a sustainable Technological Group working for the city going forward. So im sure youre aware, were not the only Public Agency facing technology hiring challenges. A recent report from the state chief Information Officers said that a shortage of qualified candidates hampered 66 of states from achieving strategic it initiatives and moving forward with technological goals and that at the executive level in california, 88 of it staff are eligible to retire. So, these statistics in our experiences, San Francisco, help us to understand that we we have a comprehensive not just of field positions now, but to create a sustainable pipeline for the citys future needs and to do that against our current back drop of 3. 5 unemployment in San Francisco proper. We also want to point out that the department of Human Resources believes in the merit hired system that the city has, so our challenge really is to balance those principals with the citys names and the market factors. Mrs. Fortunati mentioned a pilot we launched in 2015. We had plans to present the results of that pilot and our strategy moving forward at a meeting scheduled for today, but it conflicted with this hearing, and their be rescheduled in november. We had a goal of testing the effectiveness of an online, on demand examination for permanent Civil Service hires con ducked for it Business Analyst. Four departments participated in the pilot over six months, the department of Public Health, the Emergency Management 8 positions went through this pilot process. The exam was online and on demand, so candidates did not have to down to a testing center. When they qualified, they were sent a link and rated. Six hires were made through that process we know of in addition to the hires the department made. The eligible list were boryed by row the list was borrowed. When was it done . In a sixmonth period. You mentioned 8. 8 jobs were announced through the pilot process and 6 people were hired of 8. Additional folks may have been hired by departments who borrowed those list, but we dont have that specific data. So the one of the goals was to reduce the time from announcing and establishing an eligible list. We were success. The time of playing a job on the website to having an eligible list of candidates that the department could hire from was 32 to 37 days. Some of the successes from that pilot, the timeline for creating an eligible list was shortened considerably. The vast majority of the applicants we surveyed after the task found it convenient and easy to use and felt it help them see the city as innovative and forward thinking. They found the process convenient. When you start anything new, an electronic system, theres glitches at the building, so those who participated at the end were definitely more happy with the process. So where we were not successful is that this exam only addresses one more component which is what is a very large and can be lengthy hiring process. So we agree with the civil grand jury that a comprehensive change is needed in the way the city conducts its hiring. There has been a time in not too distant past where we were overcome by the number of applicants we had for open positions and especially with it hiring, thats not where we are today. We had to move from a process based on what the city needs to a process focused on what the candidate and what the departments need. So what weve been doing is focusing on changes from the way we recruit candidates to the way we bring them on board and their experience when they be become a city employee. What folks are doing thats not the city and county of San Francisco. Like, what is twitter doing . How are they recruiting folks . We have a coalition, not just of the city, but external partners to help us understand how to update our recruitment and hiring process and redesign our candidate experience, so those coming into the city have a good impression of who we are from the beginning to the end. Were doing some things in this process weve never done before, and one is working hand and hand with a Large Coalition of City Departments. Hr, and it to bring everyone together to ensure were developing a solution that meets everybodys needs. Were planning things like a tech only job website. Were highlighting our value proposition, all the different cool projects City Employees do and all the reasons why someone would want to work for a city. Were designing an enticing situation for candidates. We believe in a year from now when we come back and talk about this again, which is what we would like to do, the landscape will be considerably changed from what it is today, as were able to implement a new exam, but entirely new process focused on the candidate and enticing them, and interesting them in becoming a city of San Francisco employee. Im happy to take questions you may have. You sort of mentioned some improvements that you would like to make by the end by a year from now. And im just curious, do you have, like, a work plan or that shows timelines of things that need to be done next month and three months from now . We will. Actually in approximately a week from today, we have a project manager on board. And we are we have developed a set of recommendations so theres things weve already done as weve done surveys and focus groups with those candidates hired within the city the last two years and those who dropped out of the process. Weve conducted surveys with the hiring department to see what works and what doesnt work in the process. We established five different working groups to look at minimum qualification in salary. Our recruitment process, the candidate experience, how we select candidates. And theres one more that is just flying out of my head at this moment, but each of those working groups got together and came up with a series of recommendations that we will be moving forward to implement. So were doing this in a way we feel is scientific and will be sustainable. So our next project is to take all of those recommendations and weigh them down. Theres a Group Meeting today right now. Who is taking the recommendations and taking them down. The next step prioritize them. What is most important, and what do we have the resource to do . And those are the things well do first and foremost. As ms. Fortani, all thing are on the table. Theres exempt process for hiring. Theres a way we can hire expert it folks as a way of contracting in. Instead of contracting out, we dont have the capacity to provide within the city. Theres a way to contract in those expert services. Well, i think im i would be and probably other members of this committee would be interested to look at when you do make those final decisions in a week or so. To look at that report. Absolutely. And maybe a grand jury, members would like to see it too. We would be happy to share it. Its nice to hear youre going to make progress and it sounds like you are. Im just curious, if the apositions are the 6 people hired, just to have a comparison, how many people were we looking for to enter into the it department . Well, i dont have the total number, but i think a good example is the department of Public Health. The opening of San Francisco general hospital, they have between 80 and 100 new it positions that they need to hire for. So those positions havent been vacant for a long time, theyre new positions coming on board, and we need to hire for those. So in terms of that, there are things we can do in the present moment that help to hire those folks quickly and get them on board, and there are things we can do in the long run to ensure these changes we make are sustainable. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions . I have a question for, i think, this might be for mr. Balace. In regards to the funding thats needed to do all this, you mentioned, in the budget, in the next two years, we have a fairly large budget for the it department, but im just curious, how much would it cost to implement these things were talking about because part what you mentioned was 100something million or whatever it was. 61 million. What i didnt get was, what part of that budget would be to implement new approaches . Well, so 150 million over the next five years is whats apart of the it plan. Weve which is a significant amount of money. We have a lot of need. We have a lot of projects that are in need of more money all the time. But thats a significant investment. I dont have the total number of what it would take to do everything that is requested. But the 61. 3 million is what we mentioned over the coming two years. And as far as what the short fall is, i dont have that number. But that amount is what we have identified as requiring to meet those initiatives we have described and its in the report we submitted. Is there a specific initiative or project, maybe someone from our department can provide more i just am interested in the short comings of these projects. What is the budget need to fully implement the things you want to implement . I dont have that number. We do a better job now of identifying what are the significant and the essential projects and were focusing on those, and thats what weve provided in the response here. As far as the any other projects that arent mentioned here and what the short fall is, i dont have that in front of me. Ms. Garner, in regards to the implementation of these ideas you have, is there a price tag attached to it because again, i assume this is going to take funding to do some of this stuff . Speaker absolutely. The question is, is there a budget attached to those ideas. There will be need to be, so we will be ill give you one example. One of the things that is a recommendation that will come out of this group, i talked about, is we think it would be helpful to have one central team that focused on it recruitment, and helps Department Stay up with current technology, current terminology, helps departments write mouth watering advertising to get folks interested to coming to work for the city. Having a team like that will require resources. I appreciate it. When you do that report by a week or so, have those hopefully well be able to put those price tags on them. I do want to say thank you to dt and the recruiting theyre bringing on board is a great help for us, and in putting all of these things together, but yeah. So the answer is yeah. Well be able to put price tags on that and share information in the report. I appreciate it. Any questions, supervisor . Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there another report . No yes. Any Public Comments on this item . Seeing none. Public comment is now closed. I guess what we want to do now is go through the findings and recommendations. So would you call each finding, madam clerk. Yes. Finding number one, the city has not prioritized critical Network Infrastructure investments as demonstrated by the failure to fund network improvement. Okay. Id like to recommend that we disagree with finding holy. And the comments we have is major it infrastructure, projects have been a major focus for the city. Coordinating effort to improve the citys Network Infrastructure is included ads a priority in the information and the Communication Technology plan. Okay. Finding number two, significant problems exist within the department of technology, that limit the service its provides to departments, largely due to the inability to sale job positions and job restraints. I recommend we disagree with this holding. The board of supervisor has no jurisdiction over the hiring process that dh and dt has and continue to update. The board through the an maul budget process has made significant investments to the department. Finding number, the three reorganization three to designate a could be a positive step in building dts credibility. We will agree with the findings. Finding number four, dt Business Analyst capabilities to launch new processes to make dt more efficient and more effect. We disagree with finding in part. The board of supervisors was able to fund both the new Business Engagement manager position and the second business analysis. Analyst requested by dt it. The department of technology. Dt. Finding number five, the skills capability of the people soft system as con figured will not enable Department Heads to identify City Employees with skill set and demand. We agree with finding. Finding number six, the department of Human Resources, dhr effort through the Information Technology, it hire and stream line it hiring will not sufficiently impact the it and dt. We would disagree with this finding holding. The board of supervisors have no jurisdiction over the hiring process of that dhr and dt. Have established and continued to update. The final finding or finding number seven, the absence of a way to bring in it services whether at will or Service Based system puts the city at a great disadvantage and all other risk of technology the board of supervisor have no jurisdiction over the hiring board. We have established and continue to update. Would you like to go onto the recommendation portion . Okay. Chairman yee, i would be happy to go through my suggested responses to the recommendation. Can you please read recommendation one. Recommendation one, the mayor should pry ore these the Network Infrastructure and fund the platform. This recommendation has been implemented. And our response text is as the mayor response indicates, the 6th Network Project was highlighted as a high priority into the most recent it plan and funded with 4. 3 million in the mayors fiscal year 20152016 and 20162017 budget, the largest single allegation from koits allegation. Recommendation number two, the mayor and the board of supervisors should have a sixmonth report. This will not be implemented. While any individual supervisor can call a hearing on this topic at any time, the board of supervisors could be predict if or when one may do so. The board president , myself, sits on koit which will receive progress. As the departments response indicates in september, dt began releasing a monthly project status and Key Performance indicator, a key and Key Performance report for Department Heads including measures on services at a project Level Network of time and other yet to be determined matrix. Recommendation number three, a User Satisfaction survey should be sent to all dt clients before the end of 2015 and later in six months. After the reorganization to assess whether the new accountability structure is making a difference for the clients. This has not been implemented but will be in the future. For clarity, will i need to specify a date if thats the case . Through the chair, supervisor breed, i believe so and the outlining date can be six months from when the report was issued. Thank you. This is largely beyond the jurisdiction of the board of supervisors. Dt plans to distribute an initial survey before the end of 2015 with a followup survey by the end of 20152016. Okay. Thank you. Recommendation number four, please. The office of the controller should develop a skills capability by the end of 201516. Speaker this has not been implemented but will be in the future. As the controllers response indicates, they plan to implement this in the specified timeframe. Its in the controllers audit i mean, the controllers response. Thank you. Recommendation five. Dhr should present the results of its pilot hiring process to the mayor and the board of supervisors before the end of calendar year 2015. Has not been implemented, but will be in the future. As the Department Response indicates, dhr plans to complete this by the end of fiscal year 201516. Recommendation six, dhr should issue a monthly report showing the number of it positions at the beginning of the month. The number of the new it position recommendations received in the current month, the number of it positions filled in the current month, the number of it positions at the end of the month and the average days to require the it positions closed in the current month. Okay. This recommendation will not be implemented. Implementation of this recommendation is largely beyond the jurisdiction of the board of supervisors. Any individual supervisor could call a hearing on this topic or request a report at any time, the board of supervisors cannot specifically predict if or when one may do so. More over, reports with this level of gradually and frequently would be excessive for the boards purposes. Recommendation 7, dt should launch a task force for recruiting it staff at the atwill basic. Okay. This has been implemented. As dts response indicates, this task force was developed in response to the civil grand jury previous report. The board of supervisor thanks the grand jury members for their contributions in improving city it. Recommendation number 8, the mayor and the board of supervisors should calendar a review of tax proposals within six months of its convening. This has been implemented. The task force has and will present to koit. A body on which the board of supervisors and many other city leaders set. Recommendation nine, dt needs a recruited dedicated exclusively to dt and other it staffing needs. Will not be implemented. This is beyond the jurisdiction of the board of supervisors, so the board will support dt and its effort and evaluate any possible staffing reports during the annual process. The final recommendation is number 10. Dt need to hire business new reorganization and new initiative. This has been implemented. This is largely beyond the jurisdiction of the board of supervisors, but as the Department Response indicated, theres an Engagement Process as apart of this preorganization working on these efforts and have funding for additional staff to do so. And so thats the final recommendation, and with that, chairman yee, i propose that as our official response from the board of supervisors. Speaker thank you very much, supervisor breed. First of all, can we have a motion to file number one. Because the recommendations three, four, and five has an implementation to be in the future, it will be need to be continues. I make a motion to continue item number 1 to the call of the chair. No objection, motion passes. Now, can we have a motion to forward this item number 2 as amended to the full board with positive recommendation as a committee report. So moved. Okay. With no objection. The motion passes. Before oh. Go ahead. Before we move to our next item, i want to thank the members of the civil grand jury for the work that was put into preparing this report, and thank you alegra for your work on this as well. I know youve served on the civil grand jury in the past, so we really appreciate your commitment to working on these reports and working to make the city better. Thank you. I also dido that. This one has been a very interesting one in which we all know that we can mast vast improvements to our system when it comes to the it, so thank you very much, and thank you very much for others that have also contributed to this report. Okay. So, madam clerk, can we have item number 3. Hearing on the recently published 20142015 civil grand jury report, entitled San Francisco Fire Department, what does the future hold . Okay. So, the person for a grand jury for this report is janice. I guess also go ahead. Supervisor yee and supervisor bree. Im janice petty, for the person of the 201415 grand jury, and i was on the another grand juror is going to present the report to you. Thank you very much. Im jack tumey. Im pleased to be here. The most recent investigation of the San Francisco Fire Department by the San Francisco civil grand jury was way back in 2004. We focused on the 1990 emerger of an Emergency Services from department of Public Health and to the i saw it solved problems with poor emergency responds with local 798 with a complex as well as harassment towards emts and with 24hour shifts for emts. In the years, weve seen dispatch shifting from the static mode of being stationed at fire houses to the dynamic mode of being home and they moved to be disbursed across the city. Also, emts have returns to 12hour shifts. Newspaper reports in 2014, again, reported on poor fd Emergency Response times, and in september of 2014, the local 798 issued a letter to the mayor stating that local total lack of interest of confidence in the current ssfd administration. Boelth of these stories peaked our interest when they did an investigation into the Fire Department. During our initial look, we toured the Training Facility of Treasure Island and we were impressed with the state of the facility. Firefighters train inhouse and it has been set afire with propane. Yet the house does not burn down and its available next week for further training. Firefighters are move over Broken Ground in full gear carrying hoses. The capability for a live training on a bart vehicle is we found out this wonderful facility is all going away within a few years because ti is devoted to housing and businesses and parkland. Theres no room for a fire Training Facility. Yet the existing sewerage facility is staying. During our investigation, the jury again find a major problem in fd which is not responding to emergency and medical emergencies fast enough. The department has recently received new ambulances and must rely on some ambulances more than ten years old. There was slow response times in the southern half of the city and recommended that ambulances in those areas go back to their allegation. Sffd responded to recommendation with a plan to allocate fire house in these houses ambulances to return to evans street during their street to replenish supplies. This just might work. Not responding first which is ten minutes for code three emergencies and 20 minutes for code two. The aspect of not responded often enough refers to not fulfilling the 80 mandate the exclusive operating area agreement. Not fulfilling the eoa agreement means loss of funds to sffd and that private analyst get more than the 20 to which theyre entitled. The jury found a lack of Strategic Planning at sffd. The Department Said that this is due to the economic turn down in 2008 when they laid off their Strategic Planner in order to keep one more firefighter on the job. The departments response to recommendation are 1. 5 list its effort being taken in regard to this Strategic Planning. The areas in dire need is they keep the facility there. The mayor appoints members of the board of directors of tita, the Treasure Island Development Authority and it has approval from the board of supervisors. Without ti, the city has to get on with finding another area in the city that can accept the propane storage tank necessarily for the [inaudible]. This will not be cheap or easy, and sffd must not [inaudible]. Another Strategic Planning is the maintenance of fire engines and fire houses. What we have now is deferred maintenance. The deferred bill is already high and getting higher. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions . Let me have fire chief hazewhite and her crew to come up here. And then also owe goe ahead go ahead. Hazewhite, the Fire Department. I wanted talk about our fire president andre evans and Fire Commissioner mike and he custody parted due to another appointment and thats Fire Commissioner stephen. We also have present, mr. Bob beck from Treasure Island department authority. There were two areas where tita had to respond. We appreciate them being here. I have 8 slides. You have our it itemized before i get started on the presentation, and i know three are here today, the members of the civil grand jury. Im impressed by the participating nature of our community members, and they volunteered for this assignment and spent hours working with members of my staff to get a better understanding of our Department Operation and we appreciate the work that they did. So, first slide, and i want to acknowledge the members of my staff here. Mark is going to help me with the slide show. So Department Representative met a number of times with the civil grand jury and explored and discuss a number of topics. At the end of the day, there were two areas that the grand jury focused their report on. The first was the ems response and the second was the status of the departments Training Facility on Treasure Island. So the following slides will address those two topics. Related to ems, issues highlighted in the report as you know, our city has seen growth over the past few years that increases the demand for services. With both day and Night Services the result has been increased calls on the medical services side. The citys ambulance resources both San Francisco Fire Department and private partners unfortunately have not been able to keep up with the demand and that resulted in response issues in the fall of last year. As a result, a city wide work Group Performed pulling partners and stakeholders from our department, the department of Emergency Management, the Mayors Office, the Controllers Office, board of supervisors, president breed was at those meetings, labor and doing an analysis of the systems and makes recommendations on the improvement. There was an investment made in the department which the economy restored here in our city and it has supplied much needed resources to address some of the issues. The next slide, we bulleted it out some of the new initiatives that weve taken and resources added since just a year ago. And ill review these briefly. We do have an academy of 42 members, emt, join the San Francisco Fire Department, so they provided additional staffing. They came in april and graduated in may of this year. We saw the delivery of 19 new ambulances in service. Proud to report related to ambulances we have another 9 coming this fiscal year. 5 were awarded through a grant. 2 were privately donated by a couple from the community. And 2 are in our budget. So with the delivery of those the added to the 19, we will have more than 50 of our ambulances with less than 3 years of service which were delighted to present to you. We also just recently shifted to a 42hour workweek for the ambulance tier. And it allows for greater coverage that the previous schedule did not, and we just embarked on september 26th. We also are working on an enhanced supervision model at station 49. We received greater level of supervision on a greater basis. Joining today, i asked dr. Clenan who is our director, hes also hes practicing emergency he has a very thorough understanding of the challenges we face here in the city, and he has spear headed the restoration of version 2 of what used to be called the home team. The Homeless Outreach medical evaluation team. Weve repurposed it and it has been funded to have two captains that will work full time responding to the frequent users of this system. If we see a pattern by a certain person, instead of having our resources rushed to that scene, wore going to have a proactive resource. Were in the process of recruiting for those positions at this time. They were recently funded as of october. We think that will have a direct impact on appropriate resources for these frequent users of this system. Dp nurses, i believe, as you may know, we have a heavy call volume to one address, 101 pulk street which is a drop in shelter. Responders were responded 80 or 90 times a month, and in working in conjunction with the department of Public Health, we asked for medical expertise, so the dhp replaced a nurse at that city. The calls have dropped by 50 by month, because we have a higher level of expertise to say does this person that im evaluating need 911 services or do they need another service. We believe thats a great i will a great illustration that weve embarked on. Were in the process, as was addressed by the civil grand jury, as opposed to having just station 49 at 14 evans, 15 avenue znswer b, the equipment crash house is getting and we also continue, as apart of the work group to have the subcommittees in terms of the ems, ambulance Provider Group members. In the last year and a half, we have become much more closely aligned and the lines of communication are good. Theyre improved with our private partners and king american. And so they continue to meet on a monthly basis. Our department and the private providers. Weve close with department of Emergency Management of tracking data and that working Group Continues as we refine and analyze our data. Were working closely with dt on it upgrades, and were delighted that under the direction of deputy chief cambardi working on the ems facility, a grand new facility that we envision being placed on the 2016 health fund to the tune of 45 million. It will replace the station 49 facility which was always envisioned to be a temporary facility. Weve grown and weve managed to make it a facility that will continue to accommodate the great work that our members do. We really need a brand new facility and we envision incorporating ems in into what weve locked down is a location behind our station 9 on jerald avenue. And we can answer more questions about that if you have any specifics. The next slide is a graphic. As you can see from the chart, this is included in the departments response in your packet. Emergency or code 3 lifethreatening response times has decreased given these Additional Resources that i talked about. And initiatives put in place or in the process of being implemented. Response times and assistance performance improved over the summer even after the publishing of the civil grand jury report. Its not to say that the work doesnt continue. We need to continue to improve. Were constantly monitoring the system and analyzing areas of improvements or pending issues that may arrive. Weve experienced increases over the last 12 months in light of these improvements so our impact on staffing is being monitored closely. We did want to put in a slide about Strategic Planning although it focuses on the sTraining Facility. The department has been lacking in administrative and planning resources. We have regularly, since we lost that position, nearly a decade ago have advocated for that, and i know chair yee, you and i have spoken about the response of Strategic Planning and i know its a priority for president breed. This year, we had to fight tooth and nail to keep those positions in. We have new positions which were in the process of filling, and in addition, we want to incorporate sort of all these separate documents into one large comprehensive document that well plan. I would like to acknowledge evans for helping spearhead a Strategic Planning committee which is comprised of various committee members, that weve met three or four times and talked about the initiatives and five topics weve been talking about. And its surrounded by the people and the policies and the preparedness of our department. Thats forth coming. Our goal is to initial a plan some time in the spring during the fiscal year. The following two slides, address our Treasure Island Training Facility. When i was a direct of training from 2000 to 2004, we had just inherited from the navy when the navy decommissioned that facility, we inherited and i can say from personal experience, that facility is worth its weight in gold. We operate an extensive goal on Treasure Island where we conduct a variety of training including recruit training and regional trainings and exercise. We do have a Training Facility here at 19th and fulsome. The experience gained from this facility is unmatched. We do have a live burn facility. Weve basically replicated an underground muni and bart situation, electrical, water emergencies, you name it, that facility has it. And we feel that it has definitely assisted us im a big believer in training. Training is the success of any organization, but it takes on a greater meaning when youre talking about saving lives and property. So we have been good partners with mr. Beck and his staff. As you know, we have a state fire station over there. Were responsibility for taking lives and property on Treasure Island. The Treasure Island plan, the department is anticipating to vacate that facility in later phases of that development. We need to replicate this facility. Candidly, it will be difficult because of possibly noise as well as the requirements of having a live burn facility. I know theres plans and im respectful of plans and housing, but speaking with my fire chiefs hat on, i would like engage in revisiting this issue. And we are cold heartily behind it and appreciate the objective recommendation from the civil grand jury that this is a facility that is second to none. I believe theres only two this is the only one i believe in northern california. We have ideas that wed like to enhance, but because of this blooming 7year deadline, we havent done so. We believe we could continue to use this facility. It would have Revenue Generating capabilities if we open more of the regional asset. I would like to throw that i know our Fire Commission is of that same opinion. We would love to have a further conversation about the possibility of keeping that facility, and i understand it would be potentially enough i know theres parkland thats expected to be in that area, but and i get it, im a mother. Outdoor space is important, but this is, i think, where we need to be prepared for a man made disaster. You cant get the type of training that were able to put on Treasure Island facility. That concludes my presentation. Im happy to answer any questions. Thank you. We need to take a real quick 10minute break right now. And well have a lets, i guess, the recess is over. Thank you chief for your presentation. Are there others that will be presenting . Not at this time, but i may call on them for specific questions. Okay. At this time, supervisor breed, do you have questions . Yes, i was hoping that the Treasure Island Development Authority would provide a presentation based on their response regarding the facility. Thank you, chairman yee, director supervisor. I dont have a presentation for you today, but i can certainly speak to the response that was provided as was mentioned in the response. The fire Training Facility was not included in the future Land Use Plan. Im still reviewing some of our historical documents, our files to see if i can find a more extensive analysis of some of the thinking that went into the conclusions to not include it in the Land Use Plan for the future of Treasure Island. We certainly i have a long history in my career of working with the San Francisco Fire Department, and understand the Important Role that the fire Training Facility plays in the departments programs, and i look forward to working with them and the department of realestate as appropriate to evaluate potential future sites for the fire Training Facility or for its potential continued presence on Treasure Island. If the continued use of the Navy Facility has been viewed largely as an interim use, since the base was closed, and so moving forward, we would need to do a full environmental analysis for either continued operation of an existing or rehabilitated facility or a new facility on Treasure Island and recommend that be treated as a distinct project rather than reevaluating our program. But understand the role that the facility plays and the need for such a facility and we look forward to working with the Fire Department and the city to do that evaluation. So there anything in the agreement with the navy that prohibits tita from allowing the Training Facility to remain at its Current Location . Theres nothing in the agreement with the navy that would prohibit the facility from continuing, but the adopted Development Plan for Treasure Island and the land use for Treasure Island did not anticipate the fire Training Facility and so its continued operation as a permanent facility and function would need to undergo environmental evaluation. And it would be something that the tita board would need to approve, not necessarily anything else . It would need to be approved by the tita board and it would need to be approved by the board of supervisor and we need to evaluate it. We could run into some challenges with that. Yeah, there are certainly a number of complex issues that we need to would need to be evaluated that would be you know, potentially significant hurtles to continue operations on they land in a permanent function. I dont recall in the initial discussions the i vaguely recall the fire Training Facility being considered more long term, so i guess im just trying to understand what happened that took it out of the mix as more of a Permanent Location. I know for example, the brig and the Police Academy and other discussions around other City Department zs and those were moved out of the fix, but i wasnt under the impression the Fire Training academy was supposed to be considered long term. Thats apart of the area im still investigating. You know the Treasure Island Department Program underwent a lengthy planning process between the time that the base was identified for closure and ultimately closed in the time that the land use the dir and the Land Use Plan was adopted in 2011. And were in that timeline the decision and where in that timeline it wasnt including the timeline and the basis of that decision is something im researching. I would say things change. It has been going on for many, many years, trying to move Treasure Island forward in a certain direction, developing housing and parkland, and in the meantime, i know theres a lot of empty spaces and spaces that can and cant be used, but im very familiar with the Fire Training academy, and this is one of those particular spaces that i think is being used well and serves the city well. I think when things like this happen and things change, we ought to adjust to those changes, and so i would definitely like for tita to really do whatever it can to try and keep the Training Facility at this location permanently. If thats a possibility to work on a level of agreement that could lead to that. Its important for our city. Our city is growing, and im not suggesting that Treasure Island to bear the blunt of this growth, but Treasure Island is apart of the city. Tita is apart of the city and sometimes decisions need to be made to make adjustments when we need space for a purpose of this nature, which is a real Public Safety issue, so i would strongly suggest that we really explore this and try to come up with something a lot more permanent so we dont find ourselves in the situation where the development is happening and were out luck and facility closes down and were trying to figure out what were going to do. This could impact the quality of life, not just residents all over the city, but those residents who live on Treasure Island because we need a place like this to train our work force. Were growing and were going to be hiring more firefighter and we need the space to train them and this is an important part of that. Im hopeful that could be taken into consideration with the tita board and im hopeful the Mayors Office is heavily involved in this as well in trying to get us moving in the right direction. Yeah. Well, we certainly, you know, this is a very good time for us to be having this conversation. Were beginning the Development Effort now. And we have about 7 years or potentially more before the existing site would be affected by development. So we do have a window of opportunity here to evaluate whether continued presence on Treasure Island is viable, and if not, what ill alternative locations might be, and where we might be able to secure a site that well be able to support such a facility. It is a we look forward to working with the Fire Department and the city, the department of realestate and the Planning Department on that evaluation effort. I can speak for im only speaking for myself, but as a member of the board, if there were approvals that were required of me that involved the development and the property and didnt involve a wellthought out plan that would allow for Permanent Location department, im not certain i would be supportive of that plan, so i want to put that out there moving forward, so hopefully something can be done. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Thank you, mr. Becon. I concur with supervise breed on this position. I havent been able to visit the facility itself, but from the feedback ive gotten from rank and file, people that have gone through training, they speak highly of it, and if its going to help us save lives in the long run, we need to make adjustments so that our firefighters are best prepared, that they could be. So anything you could do to help that along, i certainly would be very appreciative of that. Thank you. Thank you. Any Public Comments on this issue . I did have some more questions. Okay. Do you want to finish them . I did have some questions for the chief. Thank you for your presentation. I know that i mean, i didnt find the report surprising as you probably know, mostly because of the Strategic Planning part of the report, ive always been concerned about the department, and the fact that the department did not have a Strategic Plan to deal with staffing, to deal with the equipment, to deal with a number of challenges that the Department Faces especially when there were really challenging budget times and there had to be cut made and i understand that. I guess, id like to understand a little bit more, you know, when the last Strategic Plan, when and if there were a Strategic Plan done for the department, and can you explain a little bit more i know the civil grand jury report is focused on the fire Training Facility as well the engines and the houses, but can you explain exactly, you know, what kind of Strategic Plan youre working on. Is it a comprehensive plan or is it more specific to whats in the civil grand jury report . Just a little bit more information for the department. Supervisor yee, chair breed, the goal is comprehensive for a road map for the next three to four five years. We worked on a streej we worked on a Strategic Plan in 2005. Theres plenty of plans that exist, but its putting them into one single document. Weve had a hiring plan since 2012. That was in conjunction with the Mayors Office. In the next three fiscal years, we anticipate hiring roughly 375 firefighters and anticipate 200 to 375 retirements. We did a lot of that work, but it doesnt exist in a single document. Youve spent time on Fire Commission, weve had an apparatus plan that has been approved by the staff. Our budget reflects that request. The difficult part is that has not been funded to the extent that the plan calls for, so the plan exist, funding has been an issue and thats probably our biggest initiatives coming up, which was not in the grand jury report, but we were making plans for apparatus to make sure we have appropriate apparatus standards. The plan will be comprehensive to address the two components of the civil grand jury report, ems and training, but also fleet, health and wellness, community outreach, it will be very comprehensive. And for the engine i mean, for the houses like i know theres been bonds that has been passed by the voters, the amount of money that we, say, in the bonds we were using for the fire houses arent the amount of money were using for the fire houses. I wanted to know, are there any plans to address long term, some of the challenges with some of the houses . I know that were were completely doing station 5 and station number 1. A brand new station. We have the new emergency the arson unit and others speaker Public Safety buildings. Public safety buildings, thank you. We have a number of things thats happening, but we still have a lot of challenges with our fire houses and so our do we have, other than that i know the citys capitals plan and information about what we plan to do city wide, is there any plan with the department in terms of the fire houses as apart of the Strategic Plan, that will be incorporated into the Strategic Plan in terms of the standard of every facility should make sure that its a safe environment . Particularly, its a 24 7 facility. We have a work order funding into the department of Public Health, and we have an hygenist on board. We have been blessed by the bond funding. We would not maintenance has been an issue throughout my 25 plus year career in the station. Weve always been, in my opinion, underfunded. We have 50 plus facilities and what it boils down to is less than 100,000 a year. Its more than 25,000 per facility. Without these bonds, 2010 and 2014, we would be not in very good shape. We definitely need Adequate Funding for our facilities. We understand theres going to be our Strategic Plan will make sure we have proper funding for these aging facilities. You referenced station 1 on fulsome, station 4 in mission bay, but most of the facilities are 50, 60, 70yearold and its like the hmo philosophy. The maintenance has been delayed. Can you talk a little about response times and where we are now since this report came out . I know we have more ambulances. I know were hiring more paramedics and we have more paramedic on the street and theres the information regarding pair mets that are regarding paramedics at the station. Are there 24hour a day paramedics in the station. If you talk about that . We have seen an improvement. A drop in our response times. The problem we were having wasnt getting a fire it was the third timeframe, the 10meantime frame. We have seen a drop in that due to the investment in staffing as well as apparatus. So we are 87 of the time, were responding within our timeframe for code 3 emergencies. Thats less than ten minutes, right. Ten minutes or less. So the threshold we like to see, which for a number of years, not just last year, to have in 90 percentile has been a challenge for us. We continue to be challenged given traf patterns, given the increase in call volume, but we have seen significant improvement since last year of this time. Regarding the paramedics, last year, due to staffing, we dropped to 27 fire engines that had als capability. So als means advance life theres a basic life support certified person. 27 fire engines that had als capability. So als means advance life theres a basic life support certified person. The vast majority of response by our department can be achieved and treated by a bls training person. Its evaluated to have a paramedic on the engine. Weve seen those paramedic engines rise from a 27 to 33 out of 44. At this point that is addressed in the civil grand jury report. At this point, we are more than meeting that 7minute threshold to have an als provider on scene within the 7minute timeframe. That has never been a problem for us. And we will continue to analyze the all als engine model which i think has a lot of positives to it, and that you have every engine with the same training level of training and thats something were looking at and well probably discuss during the budget season. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. At this time, id like to see if theres any Public Comments on this item. Seeing none. Public comment is now closed. I do have one more question though. Prior to Training Facilities that you have access to on Treasure Island, where did we do our training . We were training at 19th and fulsome. Theres a large training tower there adjacent to station 7. When i first came in, we had a limited sort of live burn which the epa would certainly, in this day in age would not allow. We would have a smoulder fire down in a basement at 19th and fulsome. That went away in the mid90s. We had discussions way back then under chief demins and chief tabaco and chief i worked for all three of them as director of training and we really felt that it was valuable as set for our a valuable asset for our members and getting thank you very much. Im sorry, i forgot to ask, where are we with the eoa and are we in compliance at this time with the eoa. The exclusive operating area that youre referring to an 80 20 market share. 80 being from the San Francisco Fire Department and 20 by the two private providers as apart of that operating area. Were not quite at 80 . Their most recent statistic is 85 . I know when we were experiencing the height of our crisis, that the private Ambulance Companies were helping the city out which i figured may create a challenge in terms of the eoa, but most important, we wanted to make sure there were ambulances out there on the street, and so were working with the private companies a lot more than we have before, but what do you think what would you attribute the change, the increase in our commitment to the eoa too . I would say definitely the infusion of additional staffing we hired in april and one of the things i didnt indicate, but it segways into your question, we did something just last weekend, we debuted a model so if we have a surge period of time in the city or we have a discretionary leave, we have trained Fire Department individuals who come in. A are they making overtime . Is it a per diem difference than overtime . Im going to ask mark to talk about that. I might ask dr. Ya to speak about the era. Were going to address okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, its a per diem employee. Its not overtime. This is for employees that are not regularly employed by the department or employed elsewhere and come work on a parttime basis with the department. Got it. Thats creative. Thank you, supervisors. I was asked by the chief to mention something about the eoa compliance. A lot is true. We dont meet our goals in terms of market shares. The state has recognized that the important thing is were providing the services to our citizens. We want to jeopardize that in sake of meeting a number. Externally and internally, theres pressure on making sure the processes are in place so we can meet them. That is that we have the infusion of both measures that will make our facility more efficient and allowing more staff to get to 80 20. Its recognized by the state as well as by all of our eternal partners, the privates that we want to get to the 80 20, although it will take time. Great, thank you. Did i close Public Comments yet . I havent. Thank you. Thank you, Public Comment is now closed. First of all, i would like to thank petty and jack for being here and presenting and for the grand jury that has worked on this issue. You know, this is a very important issue. We want to keep our city as safe as possible. And as much as we might have non about these issues in the past, its helpful sometime to highlight and say we need to get some things done. To me, its not just the Fire Department by themselves getting it done, but it would take all us to support the Fire Department whether its from the budget process or the mayor saying, lets go hire some more folks to fill in the vacancy. Lets get what we need. I know this has been an important issue for supervisor breed and for myself. Im ready to continue to support the efforts of the Fire Department to get us to it seems like were moving in right direction. So would you like to make anymore comments . Yes, thank you to the members of the civil grand juries for investigating issues. I know over the past, i guess, year or so, i was really highlighting this issue because of the challenges that many of my residents faced in our district with ambulance response times and i must say that the investment has definitely made a difference, although there is still a lot more work that needs to be done to get us to where we need to be as a city with the department overall. The fact that the board of supervisors and the mayor have invested a significant dollar amount, over 30 million, additional funding to hire more firefighters to hire more paramedic and to try and support the department in a significant way is really commendable. I do think that we definitely need a Strategic Plan. We definitely need to understand exactly where we are in the department, where we are in the equipment, with our engines, with our facilities, with our employees. More so because when i first started serving on the commission, i recall there were one year there were over 70 people or 80 people that retired in that one year, and i thought to myself, okay, if were not bringing on 80 people to replace those people, number one, what are we how are we filling those positions, but more importantly, thats a lot of Institutional Knowledge thats walking out the door. The city needs to do a better job to make sure we dont wait 10 years before we have a class or waiting 10 years to replace equipment or waiting 10 years before we develop a Strategic Plan. We have to think long term so we can make sure as we approve this development, as we add over the past i guess since 1991, over 100,000 residents, and were expected to have another 100,000 over the next ten years. We have to keep an eye over the departments. Its really important and i appreciate the work that has been done by the civil grand jury to shed a light on this and i appreciate the department on improving the issues that has been in the department. And lastly, i want to say i do think its important that, you know, and just for clarity sake, Treasure Island authority is apart of the city. The members of the commission are appointed by the mayor, approved by the board of supervisors and theres a process here. I understand there are a lot of, sometimes red tape or legal issues that tie us to certain agreements, but the fact that there has been no leadership to address making sure that this particular Training Facility would somehow apart of Treasure Islands longterm plan. Im not certain how this ball got dropped and i do think that we need to look at this issue very seriously and try and figure out something a lot more permanent because this is about Public Safety, and Treasure Island is apart of San Francisco, and we hold the authority on what happens with Treasure Island and we need to be a lot more aggressive when making sure that a facility like this, that provides this level of training for people who are protecting our lives every single day is definitely the least we can do, is make sure they have a state of our facility to train at. And so this is really important to me and im hoping that this sounds of alarm for that particular piece of well. Thank you to everyone who is here. Thank you to the commissioners i see in the audiences and other members of the department. And i look forward to, hopefully, you know, as time progresses, you know, an even more significant change in the department. Thank you. So can we have a motion to file item number 3. Yes. So moved. No objection, the motion passes. Madam clerk. Thank you very much, madam clerk. Before we entertain a motion to convene in closed session. Can you call item 46. Item number 46 authorizes for approving settlements against the city and county of San Francisco. Before we entertain a motion to go to closed session, is there a member from the public that wishes to speak on items 46 . Just for con confirmation number 3, was it to call or call to the chair . File. Thank you. Okay. So can i have a motion i see no Public Comments. Public comment is closed. Could i have a motion to convene in closed session. Speaker so moved. Motion passes. Deputy, the committee voted by a vote 20 to forward 4, 5 and 6 with positive recommendation. Supervisor, can i have a motion to not disclose what happened in closed session . So moved. No objection. Motion passes. Madam clerk, is there anything else on the agenda. No further business. If theres nothing further, the meeting is now adjourned. Thank you very much