Transcripts For SFGTV LIVE BOS Budget And Finance Committee 20160323

Alright, good afternoon, everyone, welcome to our budget and finance subcommittee meeting. I am katy tang and i will be chairing this meeting instead of supervisor farrell, it is march 23, 2016. To my left, im joined by supervisor yee and to my right, we have scott wiener, filling in, our clerk is linda wong. And wed like to thank sf gov tv, if we can get a motion to excuse supervisor farrell from our meeting from today. Moved by supervisor yee, seconded by supervisor wiener, yes, without objection, hes excused, madam clerk . Please silence all cell phone and is electronic devices, cop pis of any documents to be included as part of the files to be submit today the clerk, items acted upon today will appear on the april 5th supervised sores agenda unless otherwise stated. Er if we can tall item 1, please. Er item 1 is an ard nones amend thing police code to require employers to provide supplemental compensation to employees who are receiving state paid family leave for purposes of bonding with a new child. Er thank you, and since supervisor wieners the sponsor of this, im going turn it over the him first thank you very much, supervisor tang, and thank you for to the committee for hearing this important item today. Colleagues, before us today is legislation that will make San Francisco the first jurisdiction s nr the United States to guarantee all parents six fully paid weeks of parental leave in order to bond with a new child applying to both parents, applying both to natural birth, as well as adoption, this is trend setting legislation and it is long overdue as the United States is so vastly far behind the rest of the world on this important issue. I want to thank supervisor cohen for signing on as a cosponsor to the legislation. Colleagues, it is frankly surprising and troubling reality in this country that a huge portion of workers in this country can give birth or adopt or bring in a foster child today and be required to go back to work tomorrow. For many of the choices between bonding with a new child and putting food on the table, this is not a real choice at all and it is not a choice that anyone should have to make. Even though there is huge body of work, literature showing the time spent bonding with a child is critical for the health and development of that child, economic realities for many people mean that bonding time unfortunately must take a backseat to economic survival. Some have even offered that this is the start of the achievement gap. The vast majority of the world, and i mean truly the vast majority of the world, has recognized the importance of parental leave and provides mothers and often fathers time off from work to help build the necessary foundations for a new family. The United States on the other hand is shamefully at the back of the line and is one of only four country ins the world na do not required paid Maternity Leave, the other three countries are swaz siland, mosoto and pap poe ya new guinea, you have the right to take up to three months of unpaid time off. This is unworkable for all too many, only 12 have access to paid family leave through their employers. When we talk about income and equality in the United States, dealing with the needs of a family including parental leave factor into that equation, if we want to really start addressing income and equality in this country, there are many things we need to do and better access to paid parental leave is one of them. The percentage of employers offering fully paid parental leave has declined in recent years from about 17 in 2005 to 9 in 2014, and only half of firsttime mothers take any type of paid leave. Excuse me, unpaid leave. Some firms are leading the way in pring ovidparental leave, among states, california is one of just three that provides some level of paid parental leave, new jersey and rode island are the others and washington dc is considering moving in that direction. These are all funded through employee contributions through staterun Insurance Programs. In many ways, california leads the way in the u. S. , yet we are still very far behind the rest of the world. Californias program for paid parental leave is paid for by workers, most people who work in california pay into the state disability program, which in turn funds the paid Family Leave Program. Established in 2004 and the state Program Provides six weeks of paid family leave at 55 wage replacement, so you maintain just in excess of half of your pay. This works for some people, but for people who are lower income in particular, it creates a huge hardship in terms of that level of income reduction even with that limited access, the States Program has increased into concrete benefits for families. Mothers who use the state program are more likely to initiate breastfeeding and to continue breastfeeding for approximately twice as long as mothers who do not use the program, the program doubled the average length of leave taken by new mothers from three weeks to between 6 and 7 weeks, the greatest gains are among mothers with lower levels of education, unmarried mothers, latina mothers and African American mothers. Men who take two or more waoex off after the birth of a child are more involved than fathers who take no leave in terms of the direct care of their children 9 months later. 83 of workers in lower level jobs who lower income jobs who use the program are returned to their previous employer, a 10 point improvement compared to workers who did not use the program. Paid leave increases worker productivity, improves loyalty and moral. But even with these positive status, ix theres still a lot of room in our state to grow, many do not participate in the state program because they cannot afford to take a nearly 50 pay cut, the proposal before us today, colleagues, is structured to mirror and complement the state of californias program by taking the 55 wage replacement for 6 weeks that the state provides and extending it to 100 , our ordinance would require that San Francisco employers with 20 or more workers provide a contribution of that 45 so that the employee enjoys full wage replacement for that six week period. This legislation will help make sure that people here in San Francisco have access truly to a full six weeks of bonding time with their new child. Were honor today have unanimous support of both the commission on the status of women and the Youth Commission. Since the introduction of this legislation, colleague, we have worked with a broad group of stakeholders including in the Business Community, through that process, numerous meetings, conversations, a lot of correspondence, many issues were identified and raised and last week, i introduced a series of amendments to take into account some of the concerns that were expressed by the Business Community, we want to make sure that we have an open door and i want to thank the Business Community for formalizing and putting down in writing what its requests were. Key amendments that we made were one, that an employee must work at the employer for at least 90 days or three months before claiming benefits in order to be eligible, in addition, an employee must repay his or her supplemental parental leave benefit if he or she voluntarily separates from employment within 90 days of the end of the leap period, in other words, people need to come back to work for three months. We amended the legislation to provide a simplified record retention requirement for employers, we pushed back the operative date to january 1 of next year in order to align with the beginning of the calendar year. We the legislation now provides greater guidance for employers and employees for situations where an employee works multiple concurrent jobs, the legislation also is much clearer about addressing the issue of fluctuation and income by employees, in addition, the legislation exempts workers covered by a collective Bargaining Agreement until the next collective bargaining is executed, not conflicting with an existing Bargaining Agreement coming into effect with the subsequent negotiation of a collective bargaining grekt, and today i distributed a few minor clarifying cleanup amendment, theyre nonsubstantive, they wont require a continuance to clarify things like benefit calculations in the event that the employee is on unpaid leave prior to the bonding period and also to clarify the scope of the cba exemption. I want to thank the advocates who worked with us and provided a lot of information who have also been very active at the state level including the california work and family coalition, the league aid Society Employment law center, equal rights advocates and the opportunity institute, i also want to thank ted e began and his staff at the office of Economic Analysis for their report issued today and ill have some questions and comments about that report. So, colleagues, and finally i want to thank andres power in my office for doing an enormous amount of work to move this forward. So, colleagues, if there are no comments or questions, i would i see supervisor yee is on the roster. Supervisor yee . Thank you, i want to thank supervisor wiener for bringing this issue up, as you know, as he mentioned, california is one of the few states that does anything and even what it does is not adequate, i know that ive been part of a group for several decades now trying to one way or another get the federal government to provide for this parental paid leave. Its something that, you know, weve tried everything we can, pressure, voicing ourselves, embarrassing the fedel government saying how could you, were really the only developed nation that doesnt have a paid leave policy, a federal one, so for us to do it locally and really pave the way, im very supportive. I do have some concerns about this piece of legislation and let me put it on the table so that hopefully we will address it. Theres the question of whos paying for this and in particular, those in the nonprofit sector, and if i take, for example, probably the ones thats going to be pretty stressed in trying to make this work would be folks in the child care field. Why is that . Because in order to make up the difference, where are they going to find it . Its going to be hard enough to say to the parents, can you pay more now its already 25 of your income that youre paying for child care, or do we say to the workers, can we give you less than minimum wage, thats all youre getting right now. The equation of making things balance between what comes in in termser of revenue and is what goes out in terms of expenses for Child Care Centers is close to being flat equal, so and one might ask, but were only six weeks in, were only talking about 3,600 per parent, it is 3,600 that the employee might get, however, in a child care center, or when you take care of children, youre restricted to a ratio that you have to abide by, whether its for the preschool at 18 or a toddler at 16 or infants at 14 or 3, so you must not only pay that employee but you have to bring in a sub at the same rate just about, so it becomes 7,200 in which we have to find a way to help these people, otherwise, were going to find Centers Closing down, were going to find families not able to get child care and its a big concern of the field, and to a lot of parents too, so i know that we dont have the ers here and certainly this is an issue and its certainly something that we need to pay attentn to, but i still think that the overall value of this legislation really is more positive than negative. I really think that San Francisco should do this, we need to get california on board to do more, we need to embarrass the federal government to be like the rest of the developed countries, so im making a pledge, wed like to get the Mayors Office, get our city to look at this particular issue. Im going to look forward to working i dont know if supervisor wiener would like to work with me in trying to mitigate this issue because this is a big issue for those providers, but you know, again, i want to thank you, supervisor wiener, for bringing this up. I think it is a great thing to do that our parents deserve what other parents are getting in other countries. Thank you, supervisor yee. And so before we go to ted e ga n from our office of on the Economic Impact report, i wanted to also say thank you supervisor wiener for bringing this issue forward, my of the statements that you have made were things that we also in our office acknowledged last year when we were working on prop b which had to do specifically with City Employees and trying to create a Better Program and trying to set the bar for i think the private sector discussion in the private sector and we had launched in conjunction with the passage of prop b a task force that compromised of advocates, of the Business Community and so forth, and coming up with other ideas for how we could address this issue, again, not just in City Government but outside as well, so weve had several meetings and discussions about different policy ideas, and so i think that, you know, really, i support the shared goal of this, but i think i do have a couple of concerns that supervisor yee, one of them he raised, so the issue about the thresholds, i completely understand why it is currently set at 20 or more employees, something that i am very interested in is talking about whether we could potentially amend the legislation so that it would apply to companies with 50 or more employees, and this speaks to a lot of the Small Businesses and the concerns that were raised at the Small Business Commission Just this week, as supervisor yee mentioned, its not just about that payment made to the employee whos going on parental leave, its also about back filling services, finding replacements and in the Service Industries or a child care industry, its really hard to do that and especially with their Economic Situation such as child care providers, where are you going to find the funds to did that, so thats a pressing concern but not to take away the goal of this legislation at all, i fully support that, so at some point after our economic m pact report, i would like to see if we could potentially entertain a motion to that effect. Another question i do have is whether we could address the issue of the private right of action thats been included in this legislation, i want to see if there is an ability for us to remove that from this, again, we really want to get businesses on board with this and i think eliminating that additional potential issue for them, i hope, will incentivize more companies to come into compliance with this new regulation, and then thirdly, just to make sure that i know supervisor wiener already addressed changes, if they happen at the state level, and that it would automatically adjust what is required of the city and our businesses here in San Francisco and i really appreciate that and i really hope the state takes a harder look at this issue and does a lot more to incentivize parental leave, so if there are changes though at the federal level, any improvements there which we also hope for, im wondering if there are amendments we can make to also incorporate some sort of automatic trigger for us here in San Francisco so that there isnt this sort of double payment, so all that to say again, support this completely in concept, i think theres just a couple of outstanding issues that i have and i hope we can sort through. Supervisor wiener . Thank you, supervisor tang, and i wanted to thank you for your work around paid parental leave, the work that you did last year to really modernize and improve paid parental leave for City Employees, it was trend setting and im appreciative of the work youve done, i know this is a shared value here. I also a few things, regarding and this has been suggested to us in terms of what happens if theres a future federal paid Parental Leave Program. Now, im not holding my breath for the near future given the meltdown that has happened in washington dc, but who knows, we could have a mom in the speakers chair and a mom in the whoit house in the not too distant faou khu, maybe there will be an earthquake in washington and well get some change. The challenge and we did work with the City Attorney to see if we could come up with an amendment to address this. The problem is that if there is a future federal paid Parental Leave Program, we have no idea what that program will look like, who will be eligible, what its scope is, its hard to structure an automatic amendment or change that will happen if we get a federal program in the future without knowing what that program is. What i would be prepared to do is offer an oral amendment today to require that if a federal paid Parental Leave Program is enacted, then within lets say 90 days of that law being signed by the president , the controller would automatically prepare an analysis of the federal law, an analysis of how it interacts and intersects with our local law d then indicating possible amendments to our local law to make sure that we are not in any way conflicting with federal law or not, or covering the same ground that federal law covers and the supervisors could consider that, i will offer that amendment again after Public Comment. In terps of the 20 employees versus 50 employees, i know this has been a topic of discussion and i completely respect the point of view that this should be 50 employee threshold instead of 20, im of the view that we should keep it at 20, thats consistent with other worker related ordinances that weve passed. If you right now about 75 of workers work for employers who are at 20 or more workers, so already at 20, about a quarter of the workforce is exempted, if we raise it from 20 to 50, that exempts i believe nearly 45 of workers, so its a pretty big chunk of the workforce that would not be eligible, we tried to strike a balance of 20, i respect those who advocate for 50, but im gowning to stand by the 20 threshold that we put into the ordinance. And then with termser of private right of action, our ordinances are mixed on this, our minimum wage and paid sick leave ordinance have a private right of action. There are other ordinances that do not like the fair chance ordinance, and so i think this is an ongoing topic of discussion. Then, supervisor yee, in terps of nonprofit, ive been supportive in the past of cost of doing business adjustments in our city budget and ill be open to those discussions again today and im also open to discussions about how we can help our child care providers because they play a very, very Important Role in our city, so thank you for that input. Thank you. Thank you, supervisor yee . Yes, thank you for offering the language to have a study done by the controller if federal law kicks in. Could you also would you be open to also including if theres any changes in the state law to also trigger . Supervisor wiener . Through the chair, yes, the current so, right now, california pays 55 . Right now, the way the law is drafted, if that number changes, if it goes for example theres been a push youre correct. Yeah, and i do want to say thanks to some wonderful advocacy, there is a bill, its either on the governors desk or head tog the governors desk to increase the 55 to 60 and then to 70 for lowincome workers, a thats a positive step even though its not the 80 we hoped for, if the governor signs that, that will reduce the employer contribution here. I stand corrected, thank you, i saw it. Thank you, and just lastly, going back to the 20 versus 50 threshold for employees, my kind of thought is, you know, can we at least try to experiment with the 50 threshold first and see how that goes and ive already asked our Controllers Office for an economic or an analysis on parental leave policies in our private sector, so perhaps if we started with a 50 person threshold, we could in their analysis also look to see what compliance is like, what sort of challenges may have curd, what are some things we could do bet e thats something i put out as a suggestion given this kind of debate between 20 versus 50, but with that said, why dont we go first then to ted e ga n on the Economic Impact report. Thank you, and good afternoon, supervisor, ted e ga n, Controllers Office of Economic Analysis. Yesterday our Office Issued an Economic Impact report on this item and i would like the walk you through some of the main points of our findings of our report. First in terms of the introduction, theres a legislation, i think important things for people to keep in mind is that currently, california employees who take pfl are eligible for up to 55 of their salary, this is paid by california employees through a tax on their payroll, so its entirely paid currently by employees. The proposed legislation would essentially top that up to 100 , the remaining 45 would be paid by the employer, the San Francisco covered employer and in a moment, ill say what a covered employer is, so thats a feature that the state program does not have, this requirement for the employer to pay a share of the pfl claims. A covered employer under the legislation is any employer with is any employer of a covered employee which is almost any type of employee who has had a new child and is eligible for a bonding claimfinger only employers fewer with 20 employers anywhere would not be covered by this legislation, thats about the employers who employ about 75 of the workforce within san transwould be covered by this legislation. This is some data that the department of the Employment Development department at the state shared with us regarding the number of bonding claims, you can take paid family leave claims either to care for a Family Member or to care specifically for a new child, and this proposed legislation only requires additional employer supplement if youre taking the claim to bond with the new khiel, so its not all paid family leave claim, if you look at the subset that is for bonding with the new khiel, the average from the 2011 to 2014 period is about 4600 claims by San Francisco residents. The average claim is about 5. 5 weeks, youre el vibl under the state program for up to 6 week and is the average weekly benefit of that is about 743 a week which is again reflective of 55 or so of the average wage of the claimants who live in San Francisco. Just a little bit of background on the scope and prevalence of this and i apologize for those watching about our colors for the top slides here, this is just a chart that shows the breakdown by gender of employed people who work in San Francisco, San Franciscos workforce is about 47 female, using census data, were able to restrict that to look at just the sample of people who work in San Francisco and have told the census that they have a child whos less than one years old, so those employed people with a young child is essentially the universe of folks living in San Francisco who could potentially make a pfl claim. The point of this chart is although the workforce in San Francisco is about 47 female, only 42 of the employed residents with a new child are female, this could be due to the fact that women are more likely than men to drop out of the workforce at least temporarily when theyre caring for a new child. One of the underlying rationals for paid family leave around the world is to prevent women from interrupting their careers to care for children or at least to prevent that very inequitable pattern of women interrupting their employment than men to care for children had the family. If we look at sex breakdown for pfl claims bonding in San Francisco, its disproportionately female, women in san fra bs appear to be more likely to drop out of the labor force or at least temporarily suspect employment when they have a new khiel, theyre twice as likely to take paid family leave than men are in the city. Were able to look at the bonding climbs as a percentage of this universe of folks who we think are employed living in San Francisco with young children, to get an estimate of what what we call in our report the uptake or the prevalence of pfl claims among the people who are el vibl to take it in the city, and again we see something very disproportionate for gender, the number of claims by female is about 80 of all of the employed women with a young child in San Francisco, the number of claims by employed males is only 26 of the number of employed men in the city who have a young child in their household, so again, very disproportionate patterns by gender there. To move on to the Economic Impact factors, our review of the literature in this policy area suggests that there are three of which were really only able to talk about two, but ill mention three, when the amount of benefit that goes to to a pfl increases, their household has more money to spend, that increases the amount of spending in the household which creates an economic positive ripple effect. On the down side, this additional expense is paid for by San Francisco based businesses, so theres a negative Economic Impact with higher compensation cost for local businesses, the third impact is more long term, it suggests that higher rates of paternal leave or parental leave in particular parental leave for men leads to better educational outcome for children which ultimately has higher productivity benefits for children in the long run and for the society as a whole. It also helps balance out earnings differences over the long term between men and women and address the issue that career interruption for taking care of children accounts for the long term pay inequities between men and women. Given californias relatively recent, its been 12 years or so, with the paid pfl program, we have not seen the research in this country and in the state on the third point, so were not able to quantify that, but we dont doubt that we would see something similar in the long term as with what weve seen in other country, were not able to quantify it at this point, so were talking about trying to measure the first two impacts. Im going the skip ahead to this chart, which basically summarizes what we think the direct impacts of this are. A couple of points that are important for this, when you increase the amount of pfl benefits, its very likely to encoura more people to take paid family leave, indeed, thats the intent of the legislation. The problem is no local government has ever done this before and the state has never altered the 55 before, so we dont really know how this uptake will change if you make the benefit more luke creative, so what weve done in this report is suggest theres a range of possible outcomes all the way on one end to no change and even though the benefit is more lou captive, the same percentage of employed people take the claim, all the way it goes up to 100 and everyone who has a new child and for a number of reasons, that cant happen, but its certainly an upper end estimate. So, weve mated both what the increased income to San Francisco residents and the increase cost to employers as a result of any of these four scenarios. Another point i want to make which is also relevant here is the more people who make pfl claims, the more that the city of San Franciscos economy benefits from an increased drawdown from a state program, so right now, the its paid into a state pool and the San Francisco economy benefits from drawdown tos that pool, the more we sweeten that locally, the bigger the drawdown is and essentially the more transfer of funds from the state to the citys economy. But when we review the actual numbers, you can see in the left column here, the increase to San Francisco households is anywhere we estimate between about 9 and 27 million a yaoe, its a reasonably wide range but it certainly wouldnt be more than that, the increase in compensation costs to San Francisco employers from their share of it ranges from 16 to 32. The reason the employer cost is bigger than the local benefit is mainly because 55 , only 55 of the employees who are covered by this live in San Francisco, the other 45 live in surrounding communities and commute into the city, so our San Francisco based employers will be paying increased pfl benefits to them but the citys economy per se will not be getting as big a share of that. And so when we calculate the Economic Impact, that kind of leakage effect is one of the major reasons why under all the scenarios, its a negative Economic Impact rkts the negative Economic Impacts are small, were talking at the small side if theres no change in use of the program, 42 Million Dollars a year to citys economy and 250 jobs up to 79 million and 480 jobs, just as a couple of point of context, the citys overall economy is 140 Million Dollars a year in gdp, were talking about a small fraction, over the past 11 or 12 year, the city has averaged out good times and bad times, 17 thousand new jobs a year, so the types of jobs foregone under this policy will be a small fraction of even the level of growth that the city currently has. We do make in a concluding slide one recommendation if its a concern about the negative Economic Impact and it really flow from the fact that we dont know what the change in uptake will be as we make the benefit more attractive to employees, if that was stepped up and we went from 55 to something higher but not all the way to 100 , we could reduce the cost on businesses in the short term and see what the effect on pfl is and then make i think a more informed tradeoff about what the ultimate Economic Impact would be. So thats our report in brief, im happy to take any questions from you, supervisors. Inger saoup sore wiener . Thank you, supervisor tang, thanks for the report, i appreciate it, so just to be clear, in terms of the Economic Impact, you indicated that it is small in the context of our 140 billion dollar economy, and the annual average 17 thousand new jobs in San Francisco, i also pulled up some of your past reports on other ordinances on the minimum Wage Ordinance, the which was put on the ballot unanimously by the board and with the support of the mayor recently, the i think the average job loss per year was about 3 thousand jobs, about 10 times what we have here, the report did not indicate a cost to employers, im not sure why but we went through the report, it didnt have im going to speculate that the cost to employers was dramatically higher than the 16 million, the 32 million annually here in terms of the minimum wage. And then the Health Care Security ordinance, similarly job impact where as here its 250 to 480, there, it was 230 to 460, but the Economic Impact, and this was 10 years ago, so presumably its higher now just because of growth in the economy, it was 40 million, so significantly two to three times what we have here. And then of course you mentioned the benefits that havent been quantified of better paid parental leave, Better Health productivity, etc. , and i know its probably hard to quantify that. Its possible to quantify it but the issue with this is the productivity benefits are really reside with the child, so they take a long time to materialize. Okay. Great. I very much appreciate the report. Thank you, supervisor. Thank you, and supervisor wiener, if i may, just one more comment before we go to Public Comment soon, one issue that was raised by the Small Business commission as well on monday that i wanted to discuss is about the definition of covered employee, one of their recommendations was that a covered employee is someone who commences employment with employer at least six months prior to the start of a leave period than 90 days which is what you have in the legislation, and secondly, someone who performs 20 hours of work per week versus the 8 hours you have listed so i wanted to see what kind of discussion or thoughts youve had on the Small Business commissions recommendations. Im sorry, in terms of the threshold being 8 hours versus the higher number . Yes, as well as working for six months prior to the start of the leave period versus 90 days. So, in terms of the 8 hours in terms of part time workers, so we took that from the paid sick leave ordinance, it starts at 8 hours. One thing thats important to note here with paid parental leave, its a little bit different than some other ordinances, for example, the Health Care Security ordinance, Health Care Cost are the same whether youre working 10 hours a week or 40 hours a week, here if youre working 8 or 10 hours a week for part time, your paid parental leave benefit is going to be extremely small, so as the employee works less, the cost to the employer is going to go down proportionately, so we were a little bit less concerned about the part time issue than i think would have been the case say for something that costs the same recorders, i think its much more relevant in terms of the cutoff when you have a fixed cost, in termser of 90 days versus 180 days, we had taken the 90 days, it was from a different ordinance, i dont remember which one, im toep to a discussion whether thats exactly the right number or whether it should be a Different Number of days, i wouldnt rule out supporting a tweak to that, and i think i expressed that to the Small Business commission. Okay, great, thank you. Supervisor yee . 90 versus 180, does anybody have know what the states are in their policy . Because its a state, it comes from workers are paying into disability, i dont think theres any if im not mistaken, i think you can do it on day 1 if im not mistaken, some people are nodding in here, it travels with you. We will get that clarified for sure. Do you want to go to Public Comment first then, supervisor . We have two more brief presentations, first from julia perish of the Legal Aid Society and dr. Curtis chang whos the medical director of adolescent dph and well move on to Public Comment after that. Thank you, i just have a few slides here that im pulling up, but my name is julia perish from the legal aid Society Employment center and were a Nonprofit Organization here in San Francisco that provides Free Legal Services for lowincome workers and i work in Family Program which is a program dedicated precisely to these issues and something we hear about a lot. To clarify your question if it needs additional clarification, someone is entitled to paid family leave benefits on their first day of employment, assuming that they have at some point in the past paid into this tax fund, so theres no employer length of Service Requirement for that. But i just wanted to give a little background in the terms we see care giving needs change, particularly for our callers, today is not the same world that we live in like it was 30 years a most children live in oems where either both parents live or they live in a single parent household, so the model of care with where a child had a dedicated caregiver in the home is no longer relevant and its particularly irrelevant here in San Francisco, and women make up more than half the workforce nationally, they make up a higher percentage here in San Francisco, and in nearly one in four households, the mothers are the primary bread winners, and studies show that fathers want to be more engaged in family care giving, so what were hearing is really both parents need equal access to equity and leave to care for a new child. And from a national perspective, were seeing a lot of movement on this end as well, many people have mentioned how the United States is shamefully bemind the rest of the world in terms of paid family leave, and most employees do not have access to a single day of paid leave from their employers for the purposes of bonding or having a new child, so president obama and the National Department of labor have been work on this issue and giving grants to try to implement this kind of xhaing in local states and jurisdictions across the country. California was the first state to implement a paid Family Leave Program, and it was really revolutionary at the time, only two other states have followed but many other states are considering similar programs. And just to clarify, the paid Family Leave Program has been studied in california although it hasnt been implemented for that long, its been in effect for over 10 years and surveys showed that the majority of employers found that paid family leave had a positive or no noticeable effects on productivity, profitability or performance for their employees and this is particularly true for Small Business owners who recorded less negative impacts than larger Business Owners and many say that it reduces absenteeism and turnover which could be a substantial cost for employers and a lot of women especially turnover when they need family leave, and the way the Program Works at the state level, mr. E ga n also mentioned but i want to reiterate, that 55 of wages that workers are getting is funded entirely by workers, employers do not pay a penny into that fund, no general tax dollars from the state go into that found, its through a workers pay tax deduction, so workers are paying into this insurance tax themselves and they are paying for the entire premium and it is administered through a state agency which is the Employment Development department, and what we know from the last ten years of paid family leave is that over 1. 8 million working families in california have benefited from this benefit to improve their health and well being during a vulnerable time in their live and is the number of men who have used paid leave for bonding has doubled, it remains an unfortunately inequitable number because a third of claims filed are used by men, but a presence of paid leave has allowed more men to increasingly take this benefit which is important for the Health Outcomes of the child and equity issues. One of the pbs were seeing is awareness of the state program has decreased since 2011, in 2011, it was low at 43 of registered voters and last year, the field polled another study and it was only 36 of registered voters were aware the state program existed, so this is a problem because workers are paying into this tax fund and this is being taken from their wages and they dont know the program exists so theyre unable to use it, but the edd which is the state agency that administers the benefit found that when employers integrate Employer Benefits with paid family leave, the uses increases, so by offering some employer incentive, it does have the potential to increase the uptake in use of this state benefit that workers are paying for, some other barriers we hear about commonly at the Employment Law center, and this again is based on the Employment Development department studies, lowincome workers make up 46 of the workers that are paying into the state program but only 12 of workers actually use it, and this is largely because the wage replacement is simply too low, if you are a low wage worker making minimum wage and you have to buy diapers and bottles and all of the other things you need when you have a new child, it is impossible to make ends meet on 55 of your income, so many of the workers that need this wage Replacement Program the most are barred from taking that, and this is a kind of a parallel issue to the employer the employee threshold in terms of moving the employee threshold from 20 to 50 employee, not only do you lose a significant amount of the workforce but you disproportionately exclude low wage workers because low wage workers are likely to work for smaller employers, so youre taking a large chunk out from this benefit, so i would caution against that, another survey found that even when people barerbacker were aware of paid family leave, their wage replacement level was too low, this is an effective mechanism to help address those concerns, and then also the edd did a market study that included some focus groups and they had focus groups from different parts of the state and different economic backgrounds, but particularly for low wage workers, they cited economic barriers being able to take paid family leave, every Income Center cited the lowincome replace but it was more pronounced for the low wage workers, wage replacement is the biggest barrier for poor people like us, were barely getting by as it is, the biggest concern was using pfl is money, money, money, and we have to work, nothing stops, the rent doesnt pay for you, this is people that know about the program but they simply cant afford to use the money that they have paid into the state system in order the bond with their new child, so we think this is a really important step forward that can help incentivize both the state to improve the program and other jurisdictions to follow and that it will really improve the equity of the states paid Family Leave Program particularly for low wage workers and having other important outcome ts, so thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next, madam khai, i would like for a final presentation invite up dr. Curtis chang who is the director of maternal and adolescent Public Health and the director of Public Health. Is it being shown . So, supervisors, thank you for the invitation to present some local dayou and hopefully my comments will bring some relevance to the question of 20 employees or 50 employees, small and large, and when we could implement. The major questions are what is going to be the Health Impact on San Francisco and what will be the Health Impact on the individual mothers and children in San Francisco, so the brief that has been circulated to you electronically and in paper in front of you summarizes some of the data that we have. So, the summary of the data really is conceptualized by something you cant read right here, this is from professor wilson from columbia, this is publicbacker limbered in the journal of health economics, and the quote thats really most interesting, this is the summary comment that many pediatricians like myself, Health Care Providers across the city share the same sentiments, if policy makers are concerned with decreasing disparities in child health and wellbeing between children of different backgrounds, they need to consider the fact that an unpaid Maternity Leave policy may increase disparities because it only benefits those mothers who can afford to take it, and that really becomes relevant when we think about what the threshold would be for small to medium employers. So, the next data set and ill just spend a couple of minutes detailing this is to highlight a few key facts, one is that we have nearly 2400 women who are born with medicaid or other public insurance, Health Insurance in San Francisco each year, so thats a surprising number to many people. Its predominantly white and asian and what people dont realize though is that many of these women even though theyre on medical, theyre abing hull working, so you could see that 51 work during pregnancy and 42 of those who worked worked through into the month of their delivery, so the key social inequity decision thats in front of us is what are the commonalities and differences between being publicly insured and having job stability and Economic Security and paid leave rights. Its reay highly ror elated between those who are publicly insured and privately insured, so the second group of data is a disruption, and we have this data on an annual basis describing the disparities between those in San Francisco wlo are publicly insured versus privately insured, this highlights the needs and confirms the finding from supervisor wieners report, julia perishs report about the Health Consequences of having paid leave. Its imperative that our families and specifically mothers who are insured through medical have leave, that we protect their Maternal Health because of these disparities. As you can see, nearly 30 of those in San Francisco who are publicly insured lost their job or their partner had lost their job. You could see they are threefold high e those with medical, to selfreport they have no practical or emotional support to help them during their pregnancy and postpartum period, and as you can see as an association with the ability to take time off of work during the 68 week postpartum visit, you could see those with public insurance, the likelihood theyre going the miss their visit is 18 versus only 4 of those privately insured, and this confirms what we find in the literature, many, many women, particularly those who are publicly insured are required or forced to go back to their work regardless of their own Maternal Health and regardless of the health and development of their baby. In all these social inequities, Health Disparities and job circumstances contribute to the disparities and health out kolas, you can see the likelihood of preterm birth is two to threefold higher in those with public insurance and you can see the rate of depression during the postpartum period is 25 for those with medical in San Francisco and only 6 with private insurance. So, this data that i have in front of you just describes our look at the American Census survey and what we find here is that this really confirms the importance of income security, job security safeguards and the disparities in job control amongst women in San Francisco. You could see that amongst the women who choose to be out of labor force instead of being unemployed decreases amongst those who are publicly insured but nearly doubles amongst those who are privately insured. And finally, the last graph is table, describes the Health Impacts of paid parental leave on women and children, i just want to affirm the and confirm the findings that supervisor wieners staff has emphasized as well as julia perish, there are really few Public Policies at a governmental level that have as much data on mothers and children as paid parental leave does, and its well established in the literature and by major and National Organizations that pregnancy will reduce the rate of pree claming ya and low birthrate sx, thats reducing infant mortality, and theres very good evidence that having parental leave will improve physical health of women, many cases through improved opportunity to breastfeed for a longer duration of time, it improves Mental Health with evidence showing decrease in depression rate, decrease stress amongst parents and decreasing anxiety by the mother, and for the child, theres great evidence as supervisor wiener highlighted of improving breastfeeding, immunization, infant mortality, child abuse, improves maternal infant interactions and theres good evidence about reducing child behavior problems, improving child cognitive test scores and improving reading and math scores, so all this data is at a population level thats really after hinged by Public Policy, as a pediatrician, obviously we dont counsel each individual patient to make a choice thats a really personal choice, but we really appreciate the board of supervisors considering this Important Health impact policy. I know dr. Emily morasi [inaudible]. Er we do have some departments here that want to briefly speak and then well start Public Health. Emily morasa and i ale hunter. Good afternoon, vice chair tang, supervisor wiener, im [inaudible] executive director on the department of the status of women, and i appreciated the Economic Impact report provided by ted e ga n, hes one of the top people in his field but one of his report leaves unanswered is what is the positive Economic Impacts of healthier babies of, of health year moms and of healthier families, so i want to offer five reasons why its very important to support this legislation, first, healthier babies and healthier moms, we all know that paid leave for the care bonding with a new child has tremendous benefits for children and their parent, paid leave can lead to healthier babies, the National Institute of child health documented that breastfeeding is fewer illness, better infant sur vao ifrl, decreased allergies, reduced risk of type 1 diabetes, theres an increase in the glibly hood and the duration of breastfeeding and Health Benefits go to the mom, theres less postpartum depression, stroerng family, number two, paid parental leave is not only beneficial when the family first welcomes children but throughout all of their lives, women who have accessed to paid leave when they have children are more likely to stay in the workforce, increasing their lifetime wages and retirement security. Fathers who take leave are more involved in caring fir their children later in life and taking up a greater share of household work. Number 3, gender equality, paid parental leave especially equal amounts of leave for mothers and fathers as supervisor wiener proposes encourages gender equality, women still bear a disproportionate of burden of responsibility in the home and have penalty ins the workforce, families face a greater financial burden when fathers take leave from work than when mothers do, this reinforces social and economic pressures towards gender roles. Number 4, 55 replacement pay is not enough, we are proud of the california lead thing way in the paid Family Leave Program, but the 55 replacement is just not enough for so many families. Children are essential will to fabric of our society and economy and we need a broader national structure, so i really support supervisor yees call to the federal government to have a solution for this but until then, this local legislation is one answer. And finally the benefits gap, as weve heard several times today, just 12 of parents have access to parental leave r, this adds to a growing benefits gap that separates low wage workers from higher income earners so, when we consider all the positive economic effects of paid leave, its clear that fully paid parental leave will really benefit lowincome families. We have to ensure that all families, parents, children, have the opportunity to thrive in San Francisco and im very pleased to say that the commission on the status of women at its february meeting voted unanimously to support the legislation. Thank you, dr. Morasi. Ms. Carpenter . Good afternoon, supervisors, adele carpenter, director of the Youth Commission, the Youth Commissioners did unanimously support this recommendation when it was referred to themser most of them are in class today so they asked us as staff to speak for them, we are joined by district 6 commissioners, and i wanted to give her a chance to speak. Hello, supervise source, my name is anna haoe and im the district 6 appointee on the San Francisco Youth Commission, so just some background about me, i was born premature and severely underweight, weighing 2 pounds, my mother went back to the workforce and pay for the hospital expense, she was the only one in my family who had a job at that time. I was left in a child care facility, in the few weeks i was there, i was unsocial, refused to eat and showed no signs of any emotion, it came to a point where the child care workers thought i was mentally delayed, after my mother heard these words, she left her minimum wage job and took care of me personally, in the time she was there for me, i learned how to communicate and began developing the way i was supposed to, i began eating more and i began to show facial expression, i believe having that ding helped me develop the way i needed to become, the youth that i am today, thank you. Thank you very much, and i want to note that iefs, i just wanted to add as well, thank you to every member of the board whos here today for all the work that youve done to support families with new children and thanks to supervisor wiener for your leadership on this issue. You know, this is one of those core gender justice issues that i think frankly its sad we havent been able to move the needle on and its odd to be in this historical moment where we have a woman as a democrat i can front runner, its up po municipalities to help lead the way on this issue, the fact that Many Employers do offer parental paid leave, nearly not enough, not only is it e right thing to do, its Employee Retention and employer cost, the risk of speaking too quickly, the paid parental leave policies of this city allowed me to return to my role at the Youth Commission two years ago after my daughter was born energized and ready to fulfill my role, my wife who works at the school sdrigt as a teacher and didnt have the same leave policies moved to a permanent half time status and took no leave, i think there are major benefits to employers as well as to our working families here in San Francisco and we just encourage you to give this a positive recommendation today and do everything you can to extend this to as many San Francisco workers and families as possible. Thank you. Thank you very much, and i just want to note that donna lovitt is here, can help and respond, well open it up for Public Comment, madam chair, may we open it up for Public Comment . Madam chair . Im trying to follow protocol, madam chair, can we open it up for fub lick comment. Okay, it will be two minutes, there will be a soft bell when you have 30 seconds left and a louder ball when the two minutes are up. Ill call a few names. calling speaker names . Good afternoon, supervisor, my name is vince core nay with the Laborers Union, we represent many men and women in the city, we usually advocate for a project, whether it be a housing project, a Development Project because we represent construction workers, what a lot of people dont know is we represent a lot of very, very low wage workers, most recently, we took on a unit of Public Employee unit that roughly makes 15 an hour, theyre mostly Community Folks coming from the southeast sectors, most unions would not want to take that on but we have done it time and time again, were proud of supervisor wiener and the rest of you for considering this, but we believe in the greatest economic expansion of our lifetime, now is the time to make these things happen, now its time to pass the labor laws, whether its pension protection or what were talking about here, the men and women and Laborers Union are some of the lower paid, theyre entitled to that and deserve that, thats what San Francisco is about, even though some of my colleague ins the Business Community will frown on this, we know they can handle it and the time is now and there will be opportunities to negotiate on down the road, were proud of what you do and how you stand with not just the police and the firefighters and the people who are doing well in the middle class, for the people we represent who are barely making it and cant afford to stay home and they really need this, you guys are hitting the mark, so thanks very much. Thank you, next speaker. Good afternoon, my name is veneer na lisa could be ba, a full time mother of two, first i would like to thank supervisor katy tang for her work in improving parental leave, im here in support of the ordinance that require city employers to pay employees so they would receive full wages during their weeks of family leave. I applaud Supervisor Scott Wiener for introducing this legislation, ive known him to be a supporter or Childrens Health and education, 15 years a i gave birth to a healthy baby and while she was perfect in every way, her delivery was not, ill spare you all the details by lairing for 36 hours and expensing minor complications during delivery did leave me sick, overwhelmingly fa the teenaged and feeling not myself, i had a generous employer who granted me time off and guaranteed my position within the company when i returned, looking back, had i been burdened with the need to return to work immediately following the birth of my oldest child, its entirely possible that i would spiral into deeper sadness and would have suffered from long term postpartum depression, as a new mother, i was determined to nurse my daughter but she was colicky, it took a while for her to learn to latch, for the two of us to develop a comfortable rhythm, during those weeks of long nights, i had constant encouragement of my husband who also had paternity leave, new parents often find themselves worrying and thinking about the what if, we were fortunately spared from those dilemmas and im grateful that my husband and i were able to take time off, to take care of and to bond with our newborn, what about the 88 of workers and families who do not have access to basic level of leave, whats happening to baby and is new mothers in San Francisco households who cant afford to exist in this 100 wage replacement, what are their answers to the what ifs. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, mr. Lazarus . Good afternoon, supervisors, jim lazarus, San Francisco xhaim ber of commerce, thank you for your work on this and to supervisor tang for her work on her task force on the same subject, we appreciate the opportunity to work with you and your staff and to suggest a number of amendments that you have included. I think there are still a number of issues outstand hating are important to the Business Community, the issue of the size of employment, somehow we hit a magic number of 20 ten years ago to exempt micro businesses, but our definition of Small Business really should be much higher than that. This is these types of continued mandates on the smallest employers in San Francisco really put at risk the businesses that the city value the most, and we urge you to consider perhaps its even an extension of time, we appreciate this ordinance would be effective or go operational january 1 of 2017, perhaps for businesses with less than 50 employees, it would be operative january 1, 2018 to see what happens with state law, with federal law and to give them more time and all of us more experience with the legislation. On the Civil Enforcement issue, in recent year, weve met with advocate and is a number of members of your colleagues at the board of supervisors on other ordinances. The formula retail workers bill of rights, the fair hire ordinance, the Family Friendly workplace ordinance and came up with a new provision on [inaudible] enforcement that places the obligation on the City Attorney to move forward and enforcing legislation lick this. Lets face it, theres a plot of bad experience with and im not pointing fingers here, with national ada enforcement, with driveby litigation and the last thing we want is to open these city mandate ordinances on smaller businesses and have them subject to outside litigation, tlas the reason for the xhaing weve suggested in that area as well. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Mr. Algi . Good afternoon, commissioners, im scott halgi, i own a Small Business in San Francisco and i think the first thing that is important to understand is its more than just this legislation. There are its expensive to do business in San Francisco and if you take the sick leave, the minimum wage, the taxes, the fees, the Health Care Security ordinance, when you put one on top of another on top of another, youve got a situation where San Francisco businesses find it hard to be competitive and we do compete with businesses outside of San Francisco. The two amendments that i think are the most important is i think the 20 employees should be raised to 50, the impact on that is it would add about 15 of the employment in San Francisco would be added, and i think it would be beneficial to get a sense of what the outcomes are of the legislation with 50, and the second thing is the 8 hours that an employee is counted for 8 hours, i think that should be increased to 20, so thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you very much. Hi, my name is tiffany lowenburg and im a working mother of three children and i wish i had some earth shattering things to share or even maybe more specific stories about myself but its so obvious that this is legislation that needs to pass. I know the bonding with newborn babies is super porntd, its a critical time, its rewarding for the entire family, studies show its important for your babys best development, its been very clear that that is true, so many families have to rush back to work before theyre ready and it just shouldnt be like that. This really is an equity issue, the majority of families cannot afford to take the time off from work, they need to be able to do this without having to decide between bad choices and worst choices, so this legislation would allow all working parents to have the opportunity to bond with their newborn and is we would have these wonderful effects that we all know are true. I spent a lot of my time outside of work involved in education issues where were trying to figure out how far back do we have to go to solve the root problems of the achievement gap and what fot, and its just clear, you have to go back to the very beginning to when babies are born, theres clear evidence that when you bond children i unconscionable, its a crying shame, we all started as babies, babies do not come to this world as like kindergartners, because in this country, we started invested in children when they enter kindergarten, yet expert rkts dr. Curtis chang has said that the first fife year iss critical and the first year is even more critical and the bonding translates into Better Outcomes for children in the future, so i think that this is a value that should be placed into Public Policy and i hope those people that need it the most, the lowest income, we have to help our Small Businesses pay for their lowest income employees, thank you. Thank you, next speaker. Okay, good afternoon, my name is Elia Fernandez and im a pointer voices in San Francisco and im a grandmother of five kids and one of my daughters has had her baby and she was very lucky to have one year to be with her baby with pay and to be at home and she got paid while being at home and now i wish everybody would be the same, but i guess because my daughter has a good paying job, thats why she had one year, but it would be nice if everybody else would have the same opportunity too, and thats it, thank you so much, and i forgot to mention, im a Small Business owner and i wish i had employees but i dont because i wont be able to afford it, but thank you so much and it was nice to be here. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Good afternoon, supervisors, my name is christian pradia, i represent local 648, we represent the men and women that work in the grocery and drugstores in the city. We believe that paid parental leave ordinance is a familyfriendly policy, no longer will a person have to choose between work or family. Also, this policy will strengthen the family units throughout and provide additional Financial Security for the working class in San Francisco. Were also opposed to any changes in the threshold from 20 employees to 50 employees. We thank supervisor wiener for his work on this issue. Thank you. Thank you very much. And let me just call the remaining cards i have so others can come up as well. calling speaker names . You can come in any order. It doesnt have to be in the exact order i called, but thank you. Thank you very much, thank you for this opportunity, supervisors, to let my voice be hear, my name is roberta guise and i head up [inaudible] and i do definitely hear the concerns about the businesses, theyre definitely legitimate, supervisor wiener, you talked about the state of u. S. Being at the bottom of the stack of countries that doesnt provide leave, my sisout, the gap in infant care and this is one solution that that gap, i want to point out there are other child care providers besides large centers, for example, Family Child Care homes normally dont have any employees or if they do, they have one or two assistants, so they would still be exempt, if were raising it above 20, it will mutter the child care providers who ironically care for children, but would not be able to take the time off to care for their own because they are typically low wage workers so i appreciate you taking that into consideration. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hi, my name is emily loper, im a San Francisco resident and im an employee here in downtown San Francisco, i want to voice my strong can you speak into the microphone, please. I would like the voice my strong support for this paid parental leave legislation which will make San Francisco the first city in the nation to ensure that nearly all employees have access to paid parental leave, this california state Program Provides up to 55 reimbursement for parents on leave but many workers cannot afford to take cannot afford to take leave on partial wage replacement, this would require San Francisco employers to make up that difference, paid parental leave is not only important for parents and children, but it also benefits employer and is the economy at large, economists found that paid leave raises the probability that employees return to work and then work more hours and earn higher wages, in fact, i believe this is the single most important policy for retaining women in the workforce and promoting their growth within organize sashes, this ordinance is also consistent with the obama administrations push for a National Paid parental leave policy as the president stated that paid parental leave is not just a womens issue but an economic necessity, the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not require paid parental leave and i hope San Francisco can lead the nation in changing that. I urge you to support this legislation and i really want to thank supervisor wiener for his leadership on this issue. Thank you. Next speaker. speaking spanish . My name is patricia hernandez, i work for can you speak into the microphone, please. My name is patricia hernandez, i work for local 87, im a janitor. speaking through interpreter . I want to thank supervisor wiener for thinking of this legislation. If this would have been in law 20 years ago when i had my child, it would have helped me. I have problems when i had my child and medically and my husband almost lost him job because of the constant times we had too go to to go to the hospital. Its very important for all the men and women who have their children and especially that are local, thank you, supervisor wiener. Thank you very much, next speaker. speaking Spanish Speaking through interpreter . So, my name is jose orosco, i worked as a janitor for several years, i want to thank supervisor wiener for thinking of us and to support. Thank you, next speaker. Thank you, supervisors, my name is [inaudible] im the political employee of the janitors union, were in the front lines often treated as the lowest on the totem pole in terms of the workforce, this legislation is extremely important, we have talked to thousands of our members who are extremely excited about this and those across the workforce in this similar type of industry. As a new parent, ive personally experienced this where we had to make the choice in our own family and use up a lot of the sick time that my wife had accrued and as patricia said, when she exhausts that, then you have to start making economic choices for your children, so this is extremely important piece of legislation, thank you for all the supervisors that are supporting this, supervisor yee, supervisor tang, and thank you, supervisor wiener for putting this forward today, were 100 in support of it. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker. Hi, good afternoon, supervisors, my name is vivion, im the executive director of the filipino executive center, we support supervisor wieners proposed legislation which is long overdue, we sup pot it because it will support lowincome parent who is are barely able to survive on reduced wages when they file for parental leave, we hope that this measure will have a broader application as currently proposed, it may not immediately make an impact of some of the working class, extremely low wage immigrant family that is we serve, it may serve house keepers who are hired directly by their clients, it may help uber drivers and these are typical immigrant jobs today, more than 40 of todays workforce are called contingent workers, many of them file 1099s in this sharing economy, although we do recognize this measure will have broader application, it will have to go alongside other reforms that will provide safety nets for independent contractual workers, but we do support this measure today because we see it as a door to even more lowincome Family Friendly legislation in San Francisco and hopefully the whole country. We have to start somewhere and this is a great beginning, supervisor, congratulations, thank you. Thank you very much, next speaker. Hello, supervisors, my name is Shani Winston and im a recent graduate of San Francisco state university, ive been tlao for three years as a director and i recognize katy tang would was on our panel, so hello. And i wanted to let you know a little bit about the Womens Center and what we do there, were always brainstorming and coming up with different ideas about how we can better our society and women in the workplace and especially the women within the center are involved with the community of San Francisco because it is a commuter school, a lot of the members do have some questions about the injustices that low wage workers face, especially women of color who cant afford the paid parental leave of 55 at the moment, and we all know that the children that theres more expenses when theres children either before or after, so families may face a greater financial burden if the father takes time off from work because of the gender wage gap for women, this perpetuates the stereotype that mothers should stay at home and fathers go to work which subtracts in the economic benefit of women in the workforce, it will create greater gender inequality in the workplace and at home, i support this because providing leave and payments equally for parents, San Francisco is making a statement by encouraging the men to share responsibility to take care of their children, this ordinance may seem idealistic but when did change ever happen without being idealistic, thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, supervisors, im debbie lur man with the San Francisco Human Services network, we have not taken a position on this legislation but we do believe that paid parental leave is good policy. Having said that, i want to speak a little about Unfunded Mandates for nonprofits with city contracts and i want to thank supervisor yee for recognizing the nonprofit issue. Over the last 1015 years, weve seen two minimum wage increases, living wage, including paid time off, the Health Care Accountability ordinance, the Health Care Sustainability ordinance which was amended twice to make it more stringent and paid sick leave. The Human Services network and nonprofits are supportive of these law, they are good for our employee and is for the people we serve, but our staff tend to skew young, even in a small organization, you could easily incur an additional 10 to 20 thousand dollars a year should this legislation pass. So, we are sympathetic to the impacts on business, but unlike business, nonprofits cannot raise our prices, we have to absorb the added cost and is the only way to do that as you know is to cut programs and services for lowincome populations, and so it is time, we would like to make a Statement Today that the city acknowledge the hardship that these type of laws impose on nonprofits and the hollowing out effect on our organizations and services and we ask that this body consider establishing a mechanism to provide funding when a nonprofit employee on a city contract takes the opportunity for parental leave if we have to hire a replacement worker, then we believe that the city should increase the available funding to cover the cost and we hope that you will consider this as part of your deliberations on this issue. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker. Good afternoon, thank you, supervisors, for the opportunity to speak in favor of this ordinance. My name is lala rock, im a Research Fellow at the opportunity institute, were a nonprofit that seeks to increase opportunity for children, youth and families by advancing policies that support Healthy Families and stable workplaces. We strongly support the bill to expand access to paid parental leave. I wanted to reiterate that access to paid leave is a vital support for healthy and stable families and to echo some of the comments already raised since its inception, californias paid family leave has doubled the median duration for breastfeeding for all mothers who used it and since 2007 has nearly doubled the rate at which biological fathers take time off to bond with their babies, reduced wage replacement is a barrier who lose income as a result of taking bonding time away from work, for families struggling to make ends meet, partial wage [inaudible] like food and shelter and more difficult for both parents to take leave at the same time. Bonding with a newborn is a basic right, it should not be independent on wages, we support this fully. Thank you very much, next speaker. Good afternoon, im jane bernard powers, dr, and i cochair the Democratic Women in action, San Francisco democrat i can women in action, im pleased this legislation was conceived. I appreciate both supervisor wiener and tang for putting this together, i appreciate the political will that went behind this and the publicity. I am i support this legislation. I believe that the San Francisco deck democrat i can issue supports this, this is using research that is decades old that says yes, a good policy like this should be instituted locally and San Francisco is the Perfect Place for doing this, i think we have a reputation and a history of addressing social problems through what the supervisors come up with at the local level. The people who have just talked today i thought provided very rich information on why this is compelling, why it works, what could be changed in some ways to make it a little bit better, but ive just heard very impressive comments from a variety of people. I support the extension of this legislation to low wage workers, i think its a very compelling argument there that there are people who do not have enough money in their Family Budget to take time off and theres those low wage workers that i think would be particularly affected by this in a good way, by including their needs. I make no comment about the size of firms, i think its an important idea but i think the issue is to support the legislation and to institute it and then keep changing it to working on it, perfecting it in a way that you can do once something that has been started, so thank you very much, i really do appreciate this piece of legislation. Thank you very much, next speaker. Hi, im jessica sender from equal rights advocates, i wanted to mention we strongly support the ordinance and appreciate your leadership in springing this forward, we strongly support the threshold of 20 versus 50, the actual effect of increasing the threshold to 50 is to increase the employees and this would affect low wage workers, as we heard today, low wage workers are the workers that most need these additional benefits because they cannot live on the current 55 wage replacement rate and do have to make a choice between taking leave at all and putting food on the table, is i would strongly urge you to keep the 20 worker threshold and i would note that many Small Businesses already do have some paid leave policies in place and those paid leave policies function with those paid leave policies in place, so i would note the studies that have been conducted have shown it increases productivity, increases retention, decreases turnover and is a net benefit to all employers including Small Business owners. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker. Thank you, supervisors, my name is general na gair rising im hoar on behalf of the legal aid Society Employment law center and the working family could will alysing and i thank you for introducing this ordinance and we strongly support it. I want to speak briefly on the proposed amend md to remove the private right of action, we hope it stays in, by having a private right of action, it will raise awareness and raise compliance, it will reduce the burden on the olse, the office of labor and standard enforcement which will be charged with enforcing this new ordinance. This also is the same labor standard thats in the current minimum wage law which we believe is similar to what were proposing here today. So, to ensure individuals that have access and have the right to this benefit, that theyre empowered to seek or address if theyre denied this right, i urge that you keep in the private right of action. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker. Good afternoon, budget and finance subcommittee, and i gotta surprise especially for you singing . Some of you have always wanted to do, waited so long to bond and you waited so long to make a bond, we got the tickets to paid leave paradise, pack your bags, well leave tonight, we got paid leave tickets to paradise, what a surprise, you waited so long to bond, and im working my way back to you with a burning love inside, you wanted a vacation away and youre getting paid every day and im working my way to you with the burning love inside, we got a vacation away, were getting paid every day and the mother and father child reunion is only a motion away and the mother and father child reunion is only a motion away, away, away, only a motion away. Thank you. Thank you, walter. Are you lonesome tonight, do you miss me tonight, tell me, dear, are you as mighty as always. Okay, is there any additional Public Comment on item number 1 in seeing none, madam chair, may we close Public Comment. Alright, Public Comment is closed. Okay, if i may. Supervisor wiener . Thank you, first of all, i want to thank all of the Public Comment that came out, it was compelling on many Different Levels and i also want to thank the members of the Business Community, both who testified today and who provided feedback, i know these issues are always challenging and to be clear, i think it would be amazing if we had a federal social Insurance Program that just covered everyone for however long, for a good amount of time so that all parents could take fully paid leave and i hope that one day we will get there, were not there right now, and frankly even if we were to adopt a social Insurance Program instead, that would have payroll impacts as well, and for example the Health Care Security ordinance or other programs that exist, even social security, theres an impact on the employer, so these things have to be paid for, these benefits have to be paid for somehow, right now workers are paying for 55 through their payroll deductions, employees do not pay any of that, i think this is a reasonable shift to get us to 100 . As i mentioned at the beginning, if the governor does the right thing which i think he will by signing the pending legislation in sacramento, it will raise the state contribution to either 60 or 70 depending on income and that will automatically drop the contribution by San Francisco employers who were already seeing a bit of a shift. So, i do colleagues, as i distributed at the beginning, we have the minor technical amendments which i distributed to you in writing, in addition, the City Attorney and i i think have come up with an amendment along the lines of what i described at the beginning relating to a possible future federal benefit and i want to just read that into the record. Within 90 days of final enactment of any federal law requiring private employers to provide paid parental leave to employees, or providing government tally funded parental paid leave, the controller shall provide a report to the board of supervisors analyzing the impact of a newly adopted federal law on employers and employees subject to this article 33h as well as any overlap between the federal benefits and benefits required under this article 33h in the report the controller may in his or her discretion recommend changes to this article 33h. So, i make a motion to adopt the amendment i just made plus the amendments that i distributed in writing. Alright, is there a second to that . Seconded by supervisor yee and well take that without objection, those amendments are adopted. Supervisor yee . Yes, thank you, and i want to thank the public for coming out again, i think this is a very important piece of legislation for at least the people that ive always worked with in the field of child care and nonprofits and education and so forth, i mean, i remember i took the option when i had my first child to actually take off for six months with no pay and sit with my wife and it really did we didnt have a pocketbook, so it didnt matter, and now im faced my familys faced with the same situation almost with the Upcoming Event of me being a grand dad soon, maybe my daughter will move back toSan Francisco because of this, but i want to request that we add some language in there, its a friendly amendment i guess that we direct the office of labor standards and enforcement and the Controllers Office to provide options to minimize or offset cost to the Nonprofit Organizations. Is that acceptable . Can i just get clarification, is this to make recommendations in terms of the city budget . Perhaps if through the chair, if supervisor yee, could you clarify . Yes, i would say because i talked about it earlier and rather than just leaving it hanging out there, we just put some language that says, lets ask directing the two offices to Work Together to just come up with options to see how we can put if we could do a budget fix to help the nonprofits. Okay, so this is basically whether its in the legislation or a request to the controller to work with olse to come up with an estimate of what the impacts would be of city contractor nonprofits and then so that we can make an informed decision in the budget . Right. The impact and possibly how we could fund it. Okay. And to the City Attorney or the controller, im completely fine with asking for that analysis, the question is we could put that in the ordinance or we could just have the request go out . Deputy City Attorney, john gibner, if you put it in the ordinance, i suggest we put it in an unmodified section in the end because this would be a onetime request of the two departments, it wouldnt be added to the administrative code or the police code, it would just be a separate onetime duty. Okay, im fine putting that in as an uncodify fied section that the board of supervisors is requesting or directing the controller to work with the office of labor standards enforcement to come up with an estimated cost for city contractor nonprofits in order to inform budget deliberations by the board. Thank you, yes, its a request. Of course its a request. We like to try to direct but were usually requesting. Just to clarify, we are putting that in the legislation. As an unmodified section. So, we have a motion, seconded, without objection, that is amended. Alright. And supervisor yee, did you have anything else . No, im ready to vote on this. Okay, so i just wanted to make a couple of comments, i mean, really thank you all for coming out and sharing all of your thoughts on this. I really appreciate that. I know that really you cant put a price on the bonding time that people have, that parents have with their children and i know that both supervisor wiener and i have staff in our office who have either come back from Maternity Leave or about to go on parental leave, so its something that were intertwined with ourselves. One of the things that we had i know this is good and bad, we have so many more things to work on, one of the things that we worked on last year for example was trying to figure out better outreach and education on all the different types of benefits that are available to people, whether its through your private employer, whether its through the state or the federal government, all of that can be really confusing as with you layer what over each other, so for example, in our office, we had to look at a very complicated spreadsheet to figure out what my aid was able to do, what she was entitled to, so last year for example in City Government at dhr, we put into the budget a new staff position, a department of human resources, a paid leave counselor, so that they can provide information to City Employees as to what their different benefits are and we highly encourage that also in the private sector so theres more outreach and education because it is very confusing, another issue that we really want to continue working on is regarding job protection, we know there have been concerns raised about the gaps and where the job protections fall into place, under the family and medical leave act, for example, it applies to companies with 50 or more employees so we certainly have heard loud and clear about job protection, also wanting to make sure that both sets of parents really take that leave. We have seen in mr. E ga ns Economic Impact report that its very heavily skewed that its mostly mothers taking leave but we also want the other parent to take the leave as well, lots of fisbacker issues to continue working on, i look forward to working with all of you, with all of my colleagues here with supervisor wiener on those issues, so again, im supportive overall of this legislation. I want to revisit some of the issues that i had addressed earlier and im happy to just see if we can take a vote on the amendments and if they pass, they pass, if they dont, they dont, so one of the things was regarding the private right of action, again, i understand where supervisor wiener, youre coming from on this, and i think that this is something that is very groundbreaking legislation and i just want to make our employers feel comfortable about this program, so i would like to throw out the motion there about removing the private right of action in this legislation. So, i dont know if supervisor yee, or if anyone else, there is a second, if not, well move on . I dont think you need a second in a three Person Committee . We dont . Okay, so if we can go to a roll call vote on the private right of action. And if we can, i appreciate that perspective on it, i do support the private right of action. I do want to say, im there was a comment made, i cant remember if it was by mr. Lazarus or mr. Halgi about some of the challenges around the ada lawsuits against some of our Small Businesses and thats an issue that i know supervisor tang has done an enormous amount of work on that issue and weve worked with our merchants and our district on that issue and its a very, very challenging one. I dont think that this is in the same category, you know, when you have people going around saying theres the step up to your store is wrong or theres some sort of physical issue because you have an old building, thats a real thats a huge, broad issue. This is about a discrete set of employees who are entitled to parental leave and they get it or not, hopefully every employer will comply, but in terms of our paid sick leave ordinance and our minimum Wage Ordinance and our private rights of action, i have not seen any evidence of abuse in those lawsuits and this is a more narrow law because it affects fewer employees, so i very much appreciate the motion but i will not be supporting it. Thank you for your thoughts on that. Job gibner, deputy City Attorney . Just to clarify, the motion currently the proposal would allow us civil lawsuits filed by olse, the City Attorney, another person acting on behalf of the public as provided by state law or an agrieved person or an organization representing an agrieved person, so its the latter two, the grieved person or the organization of which that person is a member, those are the private rights of action that youre proposing to remove, is that right . Right, i do not want to eliminate, thank you for the clarification, i do not want to eliminate stability of enforcing agencies. Thank you, madam clerk . On the motion made by supervisor tang, supervisor tang . Aye. Supervisor yee. Aye. Supervisor wiener . No. There are two ayes with supervisor wiener in the decent. That amendment passes, and the question regarding im going to hold off on the issue regarding the definition of covered employee, i think i get what supervisor wiener is saying in terms of if youre working fewer hours, then obviously youre contributing less and in any case, im going to hold off on that, but going back to the question about the threshold, im not saying im closed off to the idea of 20 employees but i would like to see if we can move forward first with a 50 employee threshold and do the economic anllys from the Controllers Office tracking compliance, the outcome, something that the Small Business Commission Also asked for in terms of the analysis and then we could revisit whether we can go with the 20 or more employees, so thats something i would like to make a motion for as well. Supervisor wiener . I will not be supporting that motion. I think this is a very, very significant issue, if we go from 20 to 50, that means that almost half of workers will be excluded from this legislation, in San Francisco, we have adopted for the most part 20 workers as the threshold. The only deviation from that, that im aware of, i know the minimum wage applies starting at 1 employee, so in San Francisco, i think we have taken the view that we want to be expansive in offering these worker protections, and i just dont want to go in a direction where almost half of all the workers in San Francisco would not have this paid parental leave benefit and as we heard in Public Comment, i believe it to be the case just that range will disproportionately impact lower paid workers, so i would request that the Committee Reject this amendment. Thank you, and sorry, just to add to that, i completely understand that and i said im still open to idea of 20 plus employees after we do a little bit more analysis. I think i have just heard time and time again from Small Business owners just all of the things that we have layered upon them, again, all good things for workers, employees, i absolutely agree, but at some point, we do need to make sure that we are allowing our Small Businesses to stay here if San Francisco and to survive. So, i just all i ask is for a consideration for us to go forth with a higher threshold and revisit a smaller threshold later. Supervisor yee . Thank you, supervisor tang. With this particular item that youre recommending for amendment, i have to agree with supervisor wiener on this. As much as we have to worry about the impacts of maybe the smaller ones, we have to cut it off at some point and i also realize that youre going to have some negative impact and some positive impact and as i said earlier, the positive impact out weighs the negative in this case and if youre going to bring it up to 50, were going to really eliminate several of the people that came here today that talked about their jobs. Many of these people fit in between the 20 and 50. So, for me, i will not be supporting the amendment. Thank you, supervisor wiener, im also wondering if there was a suggestion thrown about about tier the compliance scheduling, your deadline for compliance is january, 2017, would you be open to considering for companies with the smaller threshold sorry, the higher threshold, i apologize, what you have right now, the 20 or more, you would have them comply later, so would you be open to a tiered compliance schedule . What i might suggest is that i would be open to january 1, 50 or more is covered and then july 1, 20 to 49 is covered, so an additional six months. Deputy City Attorney is standing up. John gibner again, if the committee agrees with this, it sounds simple in concept, i dont know if there will be complications in drafting, it might be a sentence or it might be more, im concerned we need to get the ultimate draft to the clerk by 9 00 tomorrow morning, if the Committee Adopts this amendment today, we will do our best to get it to the clerk by 9 00 tomorrow, if we miss the clerks deadline tomorrow, it would be kikd over, theres no Board Meeting next week. Thats correct. We have an extra week. Sorry about that, we have some time. And i mean, im only doing this because also i know the chair has expressed concern about this range of businesses so im willing to support that change. Okay, i appreciate that. Thank you, supervisor wiener, so i guess roll call on that then, on the tiered for compliance as supervisor wiener stated. On the motion, supervisor tang . Aye. Supervisor yee . Aye. Er supervisor wiener . Aye. There are three ayes. Thank you, that amendment passes, alright. Supervisor wiener, then i guess we shall just take the item. Yes, thank you, colleagues, i think this is really a great step forward and again thank you to all the members of the public would were here today. I move that we forward item 1 as amended to the full board of supervisors with a positive recommendation. Alright. Second, and well take that without objection then. The item passes. Thank you. If we can call item 2, please. Item number 2, ordinance amend thing Building Code to require any existing building with a place of public accommodation either to have all primary entries and path of travel into the building accessible by persons with disabilities or to receive from the city ao a determination of equivalent facilitation, technical infeasibility or unreasonable hardship. Er thank you very much, so i am the sponsor of this item and i just wanted to say that its nice that we have soufp groundbreaking pieces of legislation in Budget Committee today. This one particularly has to do with accessibility and all of our places of public accommodation here in San Francisco and it may seem that we have a simple piece of legislation before us today, but it took us about two years or more to work on this to get it to a place where all parties feel comfortable with this legislation including our small Business Community, so first of all, i would like to thank the Department Building inspection, richard halarin, our Access Appeals Commission, our Mayors Office on disability, [inaudible] from our office of Small Business, jodee na our City Attorney, the dbicac code advisory committee, the council of district merchants, and all of our Disability Advocates for their support of this legislation and all of their input to make it possible and of course deanna kezon from my staff, what we have before us today is a first of its kind legislation really in the United States to try to make our places of public accommodation here in San Francisco accessible for all, and what we did was we modeled our program off of our existing seismic soft Story Program where we break up our buildings into four different categories and in each of the different categories, there are different tiers of compliance, so for example, there may be buildings that have a step in front of it or two or more steps or there may be buildings that are pretty much in compliance, so the first tier is that they would have to submit a compliance checklist and the required plans and information to the city, the second tier is to file an application for the required Building Permits, and thirdly, to obtain the required Building Permits. I will be making amendments to this legislation that we have confirmed our nonsubstantive in nature but i will have deputy City Attorney john gibner confirm on the record as well to ensure there isnt a timeline of compliance in terms of the actual construction work knowing it can take time for that to happen, those are the three requirement, three different tier, we feel that is a very reasonable ask of our Property Owners here to ensure that all people can access the service ins each of our places of public accommodation. To be clear, this makes all of the Property Owners in compliance with chapter 11d of our state Building Code, we understand there is the ada requirements which are ongoing in nature, so this in particular is compliance with chapter 11d of the california Building Code. Additionally, we empower our Access Appeals Commission to do more work and that is we are going the allow them to make determinations of technical infeasibility, unreasonable hardship and so forth, granting again determinations on equivalent facilitation, all of those things are really important because if say a Property Owner or business is sued, there is this demonstration that a Property Owner has made an attempt to comply with the requirements set forth here. As you know, there have been many mentions and awareness of driveby lawsuits where people come by and just sue businesses left and right. Thats how i got started on this issue many, many years ago where we tried to did a lot of education and outreach with our small Business Community on these lawsuits and what they have to do to comply, but we have seen that in a lot of cases, many businesses end up settling with these litigants and they are not in klein after they have settled, we have found that we have tried to provide funding through the city to allow for free caaspp inspections which are Certified Specialist Program inspections through the state law and that has had some success which is great, but we wanted to make sure that all businesses that provide or are places of public accommodation are able to provide services for all and its good for Small Businesses to allow everyone to access their services, so again, i want to thank all the parties who have been involved in drafting this really comprehensive legislation and i just want to at this time then, i know i passed out sheets with amendments, so i wanted to read those forthe record, on page 8, lines 2023, we are going to change the timeline or sorry, the code year that was referenced wrongly for the compliance categories, so on page 8, lines 20 and 23, were replacing july 1, 1982 with july 1, 1992, same thing on page 9, lines 1215 and same thing on page 10, line 614. Then on page 16, lines 24, 25 regarding Building Permits, we wanted to clarify that there is no Requirement Deadline for the completion of the work so the quote will be notwithstanding any other provisions in this code, all workman dated by this chapter 11d must be completed within the time period specified in section 106a for. 4, permit expiration of the San Francisco Building Code, and then also in termser of the compliance schedule, we are giving Property Owners an additional point to obtain the required Building Permits, right now, we ask for in the legislation currently as written between the time that a Property Owner files for an application for the required Building Permit, we give them three months to obtain the actual building perm, we are now extending the time to one year to obtain the Building Permit, we think that is very reasonable and its something that after talking with the various departments, i think weve all come to agreement on. So, with that said, colleagues, i dont know if you have any questions or comments before we proceed to Public Comment on this. Okay, seeing none, then okay, alright. So, we will go to Public Comment and then well adopt the amendments afterwards. I think i see virginia [inaudible] here, if you would like to come up first. Thank you, supervisor tang, and good afternoon, regina [inaudible], the director of the office of Small Business, the Small Business commission has heard the legislation and fully supports it. I want to extend my appreciation to supervisor tang and deanna kezon and all the department and is stakeholders that have been involver over the numerous years to create the legislation. Its very exciting, we are doing something that is groundbreaking and historic nationally and what is there are several thing that is are very important i think from the Small Business perspective with this legislation and what its attempting to accomplish, and that is its really bringing together all three departments to help deal with addressing the issues, title 2, we have an obligation to ensure under our title 2 requirements that were doing as much as we possibly can to achieve access, and when we found businesses had a hard time when they were dealing with their entryway, dealing with Historical Preservation and dbi and dbw and trying to resolve the issues to make their entryway accessible and there were times when businesses ended up saying, this is just too trying to get through this is too costly and too time consuming and i need to get my business open that they ended up not doing the right thing that they want today do, so its sad for me that this really identifies where we as a city can strengthen our title 2 requirements and this legislation does just that with bringing our departments together, so that for me is very exciting because were taking the stand to say that the civil rights of the individuals of our disabilities really matter to us and were going to work with our Property Owners and businesses to help make that happen. And that providing the strengthen the Access Appeals Commission is extraordinarily important to be able to have an entity to go to to help sort of resolve some of these complex issues and make some determinations. I also want to state that we will continue to work with our Small Businesses in promoting the subsidized caaspp inspection, even during this timeline, businesses will still, if their entryways are not completely accessible are still required the meet their obligation while the Property Owner is working on their obligation. And we do have some support at the state level coming down where the state has put in some funding and i think it will be eligible in july of this year for grants for doing accessibility for doing accessibility on commercial properties, so with that, i just really wanted to encourage your support and express my appreciation to the departments and really excited that were really accomplishing the goals of upholding civil rights here for the individuals with disabilities. Thank you. Thank you very much to regina and given her role in the Small Business commission, i also wanted the emphasize that i know there have been some concerns raised about potentially Small Businesses going out of business because of these improvements, and what were asking for is not actually supposed to put Small Businesses out of business, we have worked with Business Owners, for example, in district 4 who have already undergone these changes and improvements and they were able to stay open the whole time, we are not asking for you to make your path of traveler, your bathroom in compliance, certainly we hope theyre making the efrts to do so, for our purposes, its for the person can get the service through equivalent facilitation or the front entrance is accessible, so with that then, im going the call up our Public Comment cards. calling speaker names . My name is [inaudible], im the Community Organizer at independent [inaudible] center, San Francisco, we are a disability Rights Advocacy and support Organization Serving San Francisco residents with disabilities and seniors. We would like to strongly support and thank katy tangs office specifically with the collaboration that occurred between Disability Advocates and the Small Business owners to further the civil rights of san franciscans with disabilities to be able to access equally Small Businesses. Now, we agree that it will eventually be a good for Small Businesses because more folks with disabilities can be able to equally access the services they provide, so again, in conclusion, we would like to thank katy tangs office as well as the city departments, dbi, the Mayors Office on disabilities as well as other Disability Advocates who have worked on this and we appreciate this legislation. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Iem bob [inaudible], i was an advocate privileged to be invited and to participate in this lengthy process and i mention lengthy because i think its important for the public to understand that it not only took a long time, it took a lot of discussion, there were various city departments, staff and agencies represented. The Conference Room was filled, there were people sitting on the sidelines, thats how much interest there was, how much energy and how much input there was to debate, to discuss, to question, to cross question, to reexamine. The very length of this legislation also indicates how thoroughly and well thought out this is done. Im saying that so i help whatever i can to say, please recommend this to the full board for support. Thank you. Thank you very much, next speaker, please. Good afternoon, my name is r. E. Lee, one thing i would like to represent is the extremely poor people who dont even have a home, now, hear me out with this, think of steam lockers, storage lockers, there are tons of them, now youre doing legislation to help people who already have homes, ive been out at pier 85 xhs spectacular, there are a lot of shipping containers out there and make sure your legislation lets people do this, there are a lot of people with wheelchairs out there and they would love just to have a small little home which a shipping container could provide. Theyre big enough where they can move in and there would be no kind of laws on anything outside, theyre very handicapped, right, and San Francisco is everything that San Francisco does kind of radiates out into the country, thats why its very important when San Francisco does something, the rest of the world listens, now, the very poor, poor, im talking about people who have nothing and there are a lot of people out there with wheelchairs who im disabled myself, my left knee, even when you legislate something so it doesnt take so long, see, thats what you have to do, words are fine, but sometimes you have almost no time left. Anyway, do you understand what im saying . You have to make sure its clearly done so that the people that are handicapped may not have much longer to do yet to get rid of all the paper process like taxes and things, sometimes you have to let it go but make sure the handicapped are first, my name is r. E. Lee and i represent the poor of the poor of this city, and have a great morning. Thank you very much, next speaker, please. Good afternoon, good afternoon, budget subcommittee already, just kidding, yesterday singing accessibility for disability was far away, now its you that have made it better today, well, i believe in your city way, thank you, nothings gonna turn your wheelchair back now, straight ahead and on the building track now, youre gonna make your dreams come true doing it your way, there is nothing you wont try, never heard the word impossible this time, theres no stopping you, doing it your wheelchair way, youll make id today, make your wheelchair dreams and disability come handicapped hardships come true and ill make it come true for me and and you. Thank you. Thank you very much. [inaudible]. Speak softly, love and hold me warm against your heart, i feel your weather trembling moments star singing were in the [inaudible] that only few have every known, wine colored days warmed by the sun, the nights when we all were, speak softly loud so no one hears us but the sky, [inaudible] well live until we die, my life is yours and all because you came into my world with love so softly, [inaudible] jesus christ. You should have like out of soul and historical tradition to promote the business. If youre going the sing, just want to make sure were talking about what were hearing in committee. Next speaker, please. Have a good day. Thank you. Scott howgi, [inaudible] insurance and im not going the sing, i own a Small Business, ive been very involved in this issue for about 15 year, i also serve on the California Commission on disabled access and San Francisco, we work all around the state, San Francisco is ahead of almost i would say ahead of any other area in trying to deal with the disability issue and working with Small Businesses. I also come at this from a little different perspective. My wife has been in a wheelchair for five years so i do understand the disabled problems firsthand. I want to congratulate or thank supervisor tang for this well thought out legislation. I was involved in some of the hearings and they were very intensive and a lot of different sides on that, but i think the stakeholders have been brought together and come up with something thats truly workable. I do think that its terrific that youve extended getting the permits, i think thats important, San Francisco generally is going to take more than three months, the aspect that theres no timeline as far as actually doing the work, i think thats important, i think its also important that it addresses the entrances, obviously wed like to see everything addressed but i think the entrance is a good place to start and i urge you to support this legislation. Thank you very much, any other members of the public would wish to speak during Public Comment . Public comment is closed and i wanted to thank mr. Scott howi, the last speaker because he has worked for many years on this issue, so thank you for that, and i neglected to go to mr. Rose for the budget Analyst Report. Madam chair and members of the committee, on page 6 f 6 of our report, we note that two staff positions plus additional operating expenses im sorry, excuse me. Ada legislation, number 2. Sorry. Yes, that is correct, that two staff positions plus additional operating expenses are estimated to cost 321 thousand 631 in the first year as summarized in table the 2, thats on page 6 of our report and this is for the Disability Access compliance unit. On page 7 of our report, were also note that based on approximately 3500 buildings per year, dbi would generate approximately 336 thousand annually from the administrator fees which are anticipated to cover the annual cost of 321, 631, thats the cost of the Disability Access compliance unit. Our recommendations madam chair and members of the committee i believe are consistent supervisor with which you already stated, supervisor tang, i can read those into the record, we recommend you amend the proposed ordinance to add 6 additional month tos the compliance schedules for the time required to obtain Building Permits as shown in table 1 and the lead language that specifies that all mandated work must be completed within 18 months of the date and anl casing for a Building Permit is required to be filed unless an extension of time is granted and we consider approval of this proposed ordinance as amended to be a policy matter for the board of supervisors. Thank you very much. Colleagues, i guess seeing no questions or comments, then again, i want to thank everyone would was so intensely involved in this legislation, i hope it makes a huge difference in our city, hopefully sends a signal to some of the lit litigants who have come around that San Francisco is not a place they should be coming around to, and also wanting to make sure that moving forward, we are trying to time this as many buildings in the next phase of the Seismic Retrofit Program are undergoing their construction to have this legislation be in place so that its an added reminder that they need to do this work to make their front entrances accessible, so with that, then i guess if we could have a motion to send this forth to the full board. Ill move that. Madam chair . Sorry, the amendment first. So, after all that talk about the amendmentsi would like to move that we take the amendments i stated earlier. Second. Alright, so without objection, thank you very much, and as amended, motion. I want to again thank supervisor tang for her work on this, its unsexy but important issue, i know youve been working on it in various forms for a number of years and i want to thank you for doing that, im happy to support this. Thank you, alright, so if we can take that motion and send it forth with a positive recommendation without objection then. Alright. Thank you. If we can call the next item. Item 3, resolution authorize thing director of public works to execute agreements with the California Department of transportation pertaining to the third street bridge Rehabilitation Project for the amount of approximately 18. 4 million. Thank you, i think we have someone from public works here. Good afternoon, supervisors, my name is rachel, transportation financial analyst with San Francisco public works, im here before you seeking authorization for the director of public works to sign and execute all documents with the California Department of transportation also known as caltrans relate today federal Grant Funding for the third street bridge Rehabilitation Project. In the spring of 2015, our application for federal highway bridge replacement and Rehabilitation Program Grant Funding was approved. Third street bridge also known as the franchises ki o dual bridge crosses over Mission Creek channel and mission bay neighborhoods, the bridge was constructed in the 1930s and now requires preventative maintenance to ensure existing damage does not worsen and compromise the assets structural integrity, the project will repair damaged and buckling steel members, damaged well and is the concrete counterweight as well as remove pact result, this means you authorize public works to execute grant documents with caltrans for federal funds, without approval, caltrans will not finalize our design funding and the project will not move forward. Design is anticipated to last through the end of 2016 at which point we will seek authorization from caltrans to proceed with construction. We already have preliminary approval for the Construction Funding and well be seeking the additional 11. 47 required local match through the current budget process. I am joined today by the project manager and we would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, and i saw in the packet materials there was matching funds of 2. 3 million that were required and so i believe we had previously appropriated that, is that correct, the board of supervisors . Sorry, what was that . That there were 2. 3 Million Dollars in matching funds that required that were profusely approved by the board of supervisors, i wanted to confirm that that is the portion for the construction match. We have slightly modified the budget, so we are Going Forward with this current budget process to seek additional match. Okay, thank you for that. Colleagues, any questions, comments . Okay, seeing none, we go to the budget Analyst Report then. And madam chair and members of the committee, on page 9 of our report, we note that the total budget for the third street bridge Rehabilitation Project is 25 million 683, 636 and thats shown in the table on page 10 of our report. Of that 25. 7 million, it was previous appropriated by the board of supervisors and 5 million 5631 will be requested by dpw in the 201617 budget. On page 10 of our report, we note that the 18. 4 million in federal highway bridge replacement and Rehabilitation Program funds requires just as you mentioned madam chair, the city matching funds of 2. 3 million which were previously appropriated from general Fund Revenues by the board of supervisor and is that was in 1516 and 1617 budget, we we recommend that you approve this budget. Im going the open up item 3 to Public Comment. Seeing no members of the public, pub welcome comment is closed, do we have a motion on item 3 . Colleagues . Supervisor yee or wiener . Ill move it forward with recommendation. Er okay, thank you, well take that without objection, item 3 has passed, thank you very much, item 4, please. Er item number 4, resolution retroactively authorize thing San Francisco department of Public Health Behavioral Health services to enter into an amended multiyear contract for Substance Use Disorder Services with the state department of Health Care Services in the amount of 47 thousand 586, 924 for the term of july 1, 2014 through june 30, 2017. Thank you for patiently waiting. Er i want to briefly thank the Budget Analyst Office for the report which addresses and covers the issues quite well and if you have any questions, i can speak for hours about this topic. Alright, colleagues, any questions, comments . No. Okay, and i think maybe when the budget analyst gives his report, he can talk about the Second Amendment then that we have before us. Yes, i can state, madam chair, and members of the committee, that the legislation we note on page 12 of the report retroactively authorizes the Second Amendment to the city and did state for the department of Public Health to accept state funding for [inaudible] to dph in 1516 by a net amount of 7. 2 million, thats 11 million 883432 to 8 million 298365, it thereby increases the total contract not to exceed amount by [inaudible] we note on page 14 of our report that dphs total 1516 budget for Substance Abuse service iss 68 million 675, 040, that includes the subject 18 million 298, 365 from the state under the subject contract, table 2 on page 14 of our report shows the total sources of the 68. 7 million in funds fwr the dph1516 Substance Abuse services, we recommend that you approve this resolution. Thank you, and just in general, i see the increased funding is related to federal and state share of drug medical services and expansion of eligibility for medical, so with that, colleagues, do we have a motion im sorry, Public Comment on item 4 . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Do we have a motion to send this forth to the full board . Ill make a motion to send this with positive recommendation. Er a second by supervisor wiener, well take that without objection and call item 5. Item number 5, ordinance appropriating approximately 740 thousand of Community Improvement immaterial pact fees revenue to the recreation and Park Department to support the eastern neighborhoods Infrastructure Improvement projects in fiscal year 201516. Supervisors, thank you, i maoem here today to request about 740 thousand of impact fees for the 17th and folsom project which broke ground last week in construction, most of this will go to soft cost to supplement the construction contract and ensure we can deliver the project in the next year, we hope that spring, 2017 well be ready and open the first major Neighborhood Park that the department has built in over a decade, were excited about that and the request has already been approved by the eastern Neighborhoods Advisory Committee and its supported by them and the parks and recreation department, im happy to answer any questions. Er thank you, very exciting projects, any questions or comments . Okay, seeing none, thank you very much, any members of the public would wish to comment on item 5 . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed and sorry, well go to mr. Rose for the budget Analyst Report. Yes, madam chair, on page 6 of our report, we note the eastern neighborhoods Community Improvement fund on allocated is 5 million 78 thousand, thats shown in table 1 on page 17 of our report. So the appropriation of the requested 739, 671 for the 17th and folsom streets park project would remain in an unallocated fund balance harbingerbacker [inaudible] on page 17 of our report, we note on table 2, the sources of funds for the 17th and folsom street park project are [inaudible], so that results in the funding shortfall of 739671 which if you approve this legislation, that would resolve that funding gap, and we recommend that you do approve this ordinance. Alright, thank you very much. Alright, colleagues, do we have a motion on item 5 . Ill make a motion to move it. Well send it forward with a positive recommendation, seconded by supervisor wiener, well take that without objection. Madam clerk, do we have other matters before us today . Theres no other mat esinger. Alright, the meeting is adjourned. Adjourned. meeting is adjourned . Working for the city and county of San Francisco will immerse you in a vibrant and dynamic city thats on the forefront of economic growth, the arts, and social change. Our city has always been on the edge of progress and innovation. After all, were at the meeting of land and sea. Our city is famous for its iconic scenery, historic designs, and world class style. Its the birthplace of blue jeans, and where the rock holds court over the largest natural harbor on the west coast. The citys Information Technology professionals work on revolutionary projects, like providing free wifi to residents and visitors, developing new programs to keep sfo humming, and ensuring Patient Safety at San Francisco general. Our it professionals make government accessible through awardwinning mobile apps, and support vital Infrastructure Projects like the hetch hetchy Regional Water system. Our employees enjoy competitive salaries, as well as generous benefits programs. But most importantly, working for the city and county of San Francisco gives employees an opportunity to contribute their ideas, energy, and commitment to shape the citys future. Thank you for considering a career with the city and county of San Francisco. Here we are at the embarcadero. We are standing at one of locations for the street artists. Can you tell me about this particular location, the program . This location is very significant. This was the very first and only location granted by the board of supervisors for the street artist when the Program Began in 1972. How does a person become a street artist . There are two major tenants. You must make the work yourself and you must sell the work yourself. A street artist, the license, then submitting the work to a committee of artists. This committee actually watches them make the work in front of them so that we can verify that it is all their own work. What happened during the holiday to make this an exciting location . This would be a magic time of year. You would probably see this place is jammed with street artists. As the no, there is a lottery held at 6 in the morning. That is how sought after the spaces are. You might get as many as 150 street artists to show up for 50 spaces. What other areas can a licensed street artist go to . They can go to the Fishermans Wharf area. They can go in and around union square. We have space is now up in the castro, in fact. How many are there . We have about 420. Are they here all year round . Out of the 420, i know 150 to sell all year round. I mean like fiveseven days a week. Are they making their living of of this . This is their sole source of income for many. How long have you been with this program. How much has it changed . I have been with the Program Since it began 37 and a half years ago but i have seen changes in the trend. Fashion comes and goes. I think that you can still find plenty of titis perhaps. This is because the 60s is retro for a lot of people. I have seen that come back, yes. People still think of this city as the birth of that movement. Great, thank you for talking about the background of the program. Im excited to go shopping. I would like you to meet two street artists. This is linda and jeremy. Night said to me to print them nice to meet you. Can you talk to me about a variety of products that use cell . We have these lovely constructed platters. We make these wonderful powder bowls. They can have a lot of color. York also using your license. You are also using your license. This means that i can register with the city. This makes sure that our family participated in making all of these. This comes by licensed artists. The person selling it is the person that made it. There is Nothing Better than the people that made it. I would like you to meet michael johnson. He has been in the program for over 8 years. Nice to me you. What inspired your photography . I am inspired everything that i see. The greatest thing about being a photographer is being able to show other people what i see. I have mostly worked in cuba and work that i shot here in San Francisco. What is it about being a street artist that you particularly like . I liked it to the first day that i did it. I like talking to mentum people. Talking about art or anything that comes to our minds. There is more visibility than i would see in any store front. This would cost us relatively very little. I am so happy to meet you. I wish you all of the best. You are the wonderful artist that makes these color coding. Nice to me to. I have been a street artist since 1976. How did you decide to be a street artist . I was working on union square. On lunch hours, i would be there visiting the artist. It was interesting, exciting, and i have a creative streak in me. It ranges from tshirts, jackets, hats. What is the day of the life of a street artist . They have their 2536 in the morning. By the end of the day, the last people to pack the vehicle probably get on their own at 7 30 at night. Nice to me to condemn the nice to meet you. It was a pleasure to share this with you. I hope that the bay area will descend upon the plaza and go through these arts and crafts and by some holiday gifts. That would be amazing. Thank you so much for the hard work that you do. This is a recommended under administrative code section 667 at this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction turn the device