Transcripts For SFGTV San Francisco Government Television 20160613

Today, but to take care of up to 150,000 trees which would then give us an opportunity to expand our streetscape scape population by 50 over a period of years and to have the resources to take care of those trees and the sidewalks and assume liability. The funds will be funded in two ways. First, it sets a baseline in place, which is the average of what of the inadequate amount San Francisco has spent over the last 10 years. We havethe city spending on street trees has ranged over last 10 years from about 6 million to about 10 million so that this sets aside the average. About 8 million a year. Then, creates a modest and progressive parcel tax where overwhelmingly Property Owners will pay about 35 a year, the condo owner will pay 29. 50. A single typical singlefamily home or small permanent building will pay about 35. Larger buildings will pay more and large commercial buildings will pay significantly more good so it is a progressive parcel tax. The parcel tax is conditioned on the city of assuming responsibility for the trees, the sidewalks and liability. If the city once again start stumping street tree responsibility on Property Owners in the future the parcel tax will be canceled. So, this legislation by having this twopart approach, using what were already spending in general funds for the parcel tax doesnt just become replacement money, and then augmenting the amount with this modest parcel tax we can actually fix this problem. So, colleagues, i ask for your support. I do have a amendment today where we would cap the parcel tax at 5000 and thats for large, larger properties, and i typically some of the large commercial buildings are paying 1000 3000 range. We thought it was appropriate to put an upper cap and then we will continue it in committee today. We do have to go through the rules committee as well so after to budget hearings will go tools for more amendment. So well probably end up having three or four hearings on this due to some quirks in our board of Supervisors Committee rules. So, i see supervisor avalos wants to make remarks. When hes done we do of several departmental presentations will call them up after supervisor avalos speak out thank you. Supervisor avalos supervisor avalos i just want to thank supervisor weiner for coming forward with this idea. Relinquishment, which i can i believe in 20092010, those years where we had a 500 million budget deficit two years in a row, was a terrible idea. Terrible terrible idea. It disproportionately affected singlefamily homeowners who had less income than other people in San Francisco. If you look at the southern part of San Francisco, thats the area that really felt it hard on especially on the pocketbooks. If you look in parts of district 11 weve had a real struggle with growing her been forest its one of our Climate Action plans to grow our urban forest. About 40 . And we are actually be planted with the support of friends of the urban forest we planted hundreds and hundreds of trees in district 11 and especially in thewe also lost a lot of trees because of Property Owners no longer want to be in the tree carrying business and a lot of that happens in the darkness of night. Trees are removed and so we have a lot of streets that look pretty denuded. Any kind of foliage that is unfortunate to see. So, looking forward to seeing,having a take back responsibility to the city of maintenance of trees so we can actually have the ability to grow our urban forest. I look at this chart of amendment as a step in the right direction. I also have a Charter Amendment as well. Very similarly, that is associated with a tax on nonrenewable sources of energy. Electricity and natural gas. That measure was introduced last year and yesterday i submitted a amendment as a whole which makes that a general tax. That carbon tax will bring in 18 million a year that could go down as well as people are moving from nonrenewable to Renewable Energy sources. So, its very different from the parcel tax. But for me, its really important to look at we look at a carbon tax moving forward so the carbon tax will also create that incentive for people to move to our clean power as a program, to move to renewable sources of energy. You combine a carbon tax that has that incentive with trees that actually help to remove carbon out of the atmosphere to work great in a Holistic Program of doing our part in moving carbon out of our atmosphere. In San Francisco. So, i am open to this measure. I also want to make sure that we are very responsive or responsible on how we move revenue measures to the ballot. Theres a number of measures that are coming forward this is sales tax. Theres a parcel tax on the board of trustees of city college. I believe im hearing words of a bond for the School District. Theres a mansion tax. Theres other things that are happening that i think we should consider altogether so we as a board can decide whats the best way to move forward on how we are going to apply taxes to shore up our city responsibilities. So, look for to the conversation and i just want to make sure having a discussion not just in one particular tax, but all them together to find out whats the best assortment of measures that will go on about. Supervisor farrell thank you supervisor avalos. Supervisor tang supervisor tang i appreciate supervisor avalos comments and i also know this parcel tax has been but for many many years now. Either way, i agree with the comments made that was horrible for the city to plant all these trees, palms were not going to relinquish them and we did just that. So, whatever form this eventually takes i am very interested in seeing something happen so that our Property Owners can no longer have to accept the responsibility of all the trees that they were, again once promised would not be the responsibility. Supervisor weiner had mentioned a amendment regarding a cap for the parcel tax of 5000 for large buildings. What you mean exactly by large buildings supervisor wiener thank you. The reasoni should as we talked about why this is a progressive parcel tax. The parcel tax is calculated using linear frontage on the street. So the more frontage you have within certain categories, the higher your tax. Again, the vast majority of singlefamily homes small apartment buildings that the standard i think 25 foot frontage debate typically 35 dollars. For commercial printing large building with its residential or commercial, event a really big frontage, theyre going to pay more. So, thats howand thats why today commercial buildings, for example were like eight [inaudible] were some big big properties, and the pain significantly more. You could say the sky is the limit but we thought it was appropriate to put a prettyi dont know be liberal or conservative but whatever the right word is, a cap that captures the world warming majority. Even the big commercial buildings from i think dont evenits very Rare Properties file in there but there are a few that do and i think there should be a cap. Supervisor tang thank you. Okay. Lastly, i just want to really think friends of the urban forest through all the work throughout our city is an amazing part is what i think the city has been lacking terms of whether its growing our citys urban canopy where maintenance. Advocacy, getting people engaged and educated about how it is we care for our trees. I just want to thank you for that. The visor yee supervisor yee thank you. I want to thankactually i want to thank both supervisors weiner and avalos for coming forward with these ideas on how we would be able to find the caring of trees by the city. One of the things that i agree with supervisor tang about is that we really needed to keep our word and have the city secure these trees that we had promise and we know things were happening while i was coming, almost coming into to be a member of the board four years ago. I thought was a bad idea at the time. Especially, when i was able to talk to so many people on the streets and in particular, those that are on fixed income, for them to be stopped with such a high bill was really ridiculous. So im glad were going to be looking at these revenue measures to see how we can fund the potential for the city to finally take the trees back. So im looking for to that discussion. Supervisor farrell okay. Thank you supervisor yee. Supervisor yee 51 asked the department to come up supervisor wiener i just want to First Technology supervisor avalos have been conversing about this issue for a number of years now and i think we reallyi think we have exactly the same goal. Its always good to have different ideas out there and im very open to the carbon tax. This is a general measurement i think the good thing. I know the funds can be used for a number of different terrific user. This is one of them. One thing i do just want to make sure is i think whatever we move to the ballot, i think it needs to 100 rock solid fix the problem. What i dont want to do is go to the ballot and have the voters think within a fixed the problem but it doesnt fix it. So, if we dont have enough funding dedicated funny, associated with the reversal or relinquishment the problem will not be fixed in people the trees will come back to the city the city will not take care of them because ive seen this movie too many times in this building just terrible on trees. That is because trees just dont compete well with Public Health and Public Safety and Homeless Services and Affordable Housing etc. So, we just want make sure we fix it that is really job one here. I will say that this concept of a dedicated parcel tax conditioned on the city taking back the trees, even though we introduce it this year we have been extremely public about the fact that we are formulating this proposal for a think probably five years now. We took our time making sure we do the urban forest master plan which recommended taking back the trees and having a dedicated funding to pay for it. We then, spent frankly through dan flanigan president of the urban forest doing outreach. Mdm just did yeomans work going out to all the neighborhood groups, the Property Owners groups making sure were really reaching out to the commercial buildings owners, to the large apartments owners, to the small Property Owners, the people who are going to be paying the tax. Having Community Workshops on this. Then convening a Community Stakeholder group that was very large and diverse we had i believe three large stakeholder meetings to captivity not and this proposal then came out of that group. So, we did this the right way. Its probably the most thorough threelegislative outreach process ive ever seen and i feel really good about how solid this proposal is. So, with that, mr. Chairman, i did just distribute the minutes i described the 5000 cap as well some smaller technical amendment that the City Attorney has recommended. So, now, i would like to call up our presenters today. Starting with john sway from the Planning Department followed by , sure from public works and then amanda freed from the treasurer Tax Collectors Office and then dan flanigan from friends of the urban street for good i want to thank each of these departments for participating and helping in the Controllers Office as well. Testifier good afternoon. Speaking public was good this was the one on you a little bit good we just have a brief presentation that of give a little bit of context to how we got to this point and then a brief overview about with this program will look like it if we could have the overhead . The first thing i like to do is remind everyone that trees are Green Infrastructure there one of the only assets that actually appreciate in value over time. Most assets the minute you drive your car off the part about it starts to go down in value but trees that they grow and become more mature provide more Ecosystem Services, provide more social benefits to the city. So, they are really good investment because we get a higher return on our dollar. But the urban forest really needs our help. We have extensive canopy decline over the last few years. Were not able to keep up w mortality rates of our trees. We also see Property Owners who are unable to care for trees in overtly can and up devastating the urban forest. Because we dont have longterm maintenance putting in place we were very limited place in planting per annum. We only plans about 375 replacement trees annually because recently dont have the resources to care for them as they are growing. And we have an existing and growing backlog sidewalk repairs due to tree roots that have been damaged the sidewalk because were unable to repair them in a timely manner that backlog rose and the damage it grows every year. The supervisor weiner noted, resources for tree maintenance have steadily declined over the years and as a result, the average number of years for a cleaning cycle has increased. So, the Industry Standard for pruning of street tree is about every 35 years and we are currently on a 1012 youre crooning cycle. As a result of the resources declined for tree maintenance, the department has undertaken over the last several years the tree relinquishment or tree maintenance transfer program. As are all well aware, this is not a Popular Program that would emphasize that public works undertook this very reluctantly. Was a result of our lack of resources to care for the trees for which we were responsible. That lack of maintenance can result in cuts to Public Safety and property from those Property Damage of sidewalks and also failures from trees. Unfortunately, because the lack of resources that upon and felt this was a necessary but certainly not ideal program. Just to highlight some of the challenges of the program, Property Owners with them given responsibility for trees. They were unable or unwilling to care for. They faced new cost. Never planned for good one of the concerns that nearest and dearest to my heart is the actual loss of our urban forest because Property Owners dont necessarily have the skills or the Financial Resources to properly care for their trees. So, these two images are a direct result of the tree maintenance transfer program. The Property Owner who believes he was going to receive responsibility to the pruning that you see on the right side of your screen and it killed the tree. The other thing is we lose the efficiency of scale because we have on Property Owner is putting montreal one day of the week the neighbor may be paying someone to prune a tree three days later. So its a very inefficient process. All handed over to my colleague john could testifier good afternoon supervise that my name is john sway the Planning Departments that. Im also the manager of the citys urban forest master plan could which was really developed to address and find solution to many of the issues that college is described. This was a twoyear Community Planning process we undertook to develop a longterm vision and strategy for the city street trees. The final plan was unanimously adopted by the board last january. So coming research is part of our plan work we looked at a number of other cities what we discovered was that cities who took care of their own trees at Higher Standards of care and healthier urban forest and cities that a Property Owner maintain trees did not. So when we saw the direction the city was moving in the plants of the vision of setting exploring, what it would be like if the city explored creating a Municipal Program for street trees whereby the Public Works Department would take over responsibility for the maintenance of our 100,000 street trees in San Francisco. In addition, another goal of the plan was to increase the forest canopy in San Francisco by 50000 new st. Trees over the next 20 years. This is a map that shows the green dots, the darker green dots are street trees. The green dots are street trees come up but this is after the relinquishment program. The green dots will be with the city is maintained while the majority will be maintained by Property Owners this is the vision of the plan we would have citywide street tree program. Manila talk about a little more about the aspects of this program. Testifier so the program really is, transit and its looking at all the various elements are required to the healthy urban forest over the longterm life cycle of a tree. So it includes maintenance for all street trees on a threefiveyear cycle. As i noted earlier, were currently on a 1012 year cycle. This would bring us in line with the Industry Standard. In addition, it funds the repair of tree related sidewalk damage. Which is it important to make our sidewalks more accessible for all our residents and visitors. Its very exciting to me it also plans for the care of an additional 50,000 new treated allows us to grow the urban forest responsibly and ensure we have a longterm maintenance funding to care for those trees as they mature over time. It would include a program of annual inspections each tree would be inspected on an annual basis by our staff who are Certified Arborists which then allows the city to take lightly paltry related claims. If we are successfully inspecting those trees on an annual basis, we should be able to avert many of the problems we currently have with women failures and sidewalk damage. It also allows funding for care for trees within the School District site. This is important is when you research about how children learn much better when they have just visible access to trees and vegetation. The concentration improves. Their ability to absorb information improves. So we want to include that in the program as well. Testifier the next question we asked ourselves what we have a great idea about how program could work in San Francisco, but how would this be funded and what would the Financing Mechanism available to make this happen . So we Commission Economic study to look at identifying all costs of the municipal street she program though take back all the citys trees and also repair tree related sidewalk damage. We estimated the cost, annual cost of this program would be about 19 million in the study recommended a parcel tax is on the street frontage to fund that. In the meantime, after that study was produced, supervisor scott weiner convened a working group street tree on is working group comprised of Property Owners, Different Community groups and organizations to weigh in on this proposal. Two of the things we heard loud and clear from this working group with the cost burden should not rest solely on Property Owners as was recommended in the finance study. Data city financial contribution is necessary for the group and the larger public they believed to support a revenue measure. So, we went back and revise the proposal to create an urban forest of 19 million bill be comprised of an 8 min. Other city contribution and 11 the dollar parcel tax. So, in terms of a parcel tax the way it works no matter how big the parcel is, theyre taxed the same rate regardless of size. So, a large new building or the new Transbay Tower would be charged the same five dollar parcel tax that this small Residential Single Family home would be charged. The proposed parcel tax in terms of trees, the goal is to district cost more fairly. So the proposal is for progressive parcel taxes based on the street frontage properties. So Large Properties that are more street frontage with more trees, more capacity for trees would pay more in smaller properties with less trees would pay less. So according to our calculations, under this proposal, about 80 of parcels in San Francisco would pay less than 50 a year on this parcel tax. As supervisor mentioned, a typical 25 foot residential lot in San Francisco would pay about 35. 50. Here is the full table that shows the big on of all the different property types. The parcel taxes structured with a flat rate for condos in very small parcels of 29. 50 for small and medium parcels is a linear footage rate of dollar . 42 per linear foot. Larger parcels received a rate of two dollars per linear foot. So, as you can see here even the ultra large parcels which we were just discussing account for less than 1 of the torah parcels under the tax. Karla is concerned about how this compares to actual cost. Testifier as we noted Property Owners have been burdened with us possibly for caring for street trees and we want to just put a little context to it this parcel tax would cover and the cost Property Owners face today. A single pruning job of a street tree customer in the range of 300 1000. If the Property Owner also has to repair the sidewalk in front of their property, that can range fromthis based on our average amount of damage and the average cost to repair the sidewalkin the range of 2700 3500 for a single repair. So this would be one single repair could equate to the lifetime of this parcel tax. In addition, the liability is something we cant really assess the cost for this removes the burden of liability off the Property Owners returns it to the city, but also protects the city because would be able to do the necessary repairs and inspection and pruning of trees to reduce that liability overall. By contrast the benefits Property Owners as weve already enumerated. They would have much lower cost associated with maintaining those trees. They no longer have the actual responsibility to either maintain the treat or hire someone to do it. They lose that liability that i currently have for trip and fall or damage from a tree limb. They would not be facing fines for improperly pruning a tree. We issued citations to Property Owners if they damage street trees. They those Property Owners are not intentionally damaging the trees they either hire someone who doesnt know what theyre doing with it try to do it themselves and end up inadvertently damaging the tree. So this would virtually eliminate all. Would certainly make the unintentional fine. Then they also dont have to pay for those tree related sidewalk repairs which we just noted would be a very large bird. The benefits before it. You would provide for maintenance of existing street trees all existing synergies, not just those for which you currently have maintenance responsibility but also as i said, allows for the responsible growth of the urban forest. We would increase our street to population about 50,000 almost 50 over the lifetime of the parcel tax it would have the funding to care for those trees as they grow. That is built into the model. In addition, it allows for cleaner and healthier tree canopy, both street trees and School District trees as we noted with that, bigger and healthier tree canopy, with greater Ecosystem Services could we have Public Health benefits as well as social benefits and a more livable city. So, the program timeline. We are in the process currently of completing the citywide street tree senses. We will know exactly which trees are out there in the sidewalks and we can plan for their maintenance based on the species, the amount of pruning the species requires in the most efficient way to go about it. We hope this fall there will be about a measure that would sustainably fund urban forest and over the winter and spring would be developing that maintenance plan. So were gathering information not just on the trees and the tree species that also where sidewalk damage is located which we can then overlaid with where we have Senior Centers and bus stops and schools so that we can make the most strategic approach to repairing sidewalks and assessing and pruning trees. Then, in july of 2017 all st. Tree maintenance would revert to the city under this program. So, that concludes our presentation at we are available for any questions. Supervisor wiener thank you very much and thank you for your many many years of work on this issue generally on the urban forest master plan and working closely with us on this parcel tax and Charter Amendment. I do want to note we been working very very closely collaboratively with a number of city departments, planning dpw, treasury and tax collector, controller and the mayors Budget Office was involved in our meetings as well so we really try to do this in a big tent kind of way as possible addition of all the Community Groups Property Owner groups so, think of next, i want to call up amanda freed from the Tax Collectors Office. Testifier good afternoon supervisor. Amanda freed from the treasurers office. Ill keep my remarks very short since mine is not the most exciting part of this proposal and just here to say should the parcel tax be approved by all of you and the voters, our offices ready to implement and administer the tax could i do just want to note for all of you that this administration is a bit of a departure for the role of our office. We are very used to billing and collecting for property taxes, but in this proposal would also be processing exemptions for seniors and managing the Customer Service inquiries and requests for refunds that come in. To that point, were working with the Assessors Office sfusd, controller and dpw make sure we design a process that will both customer friendly and cost efficient. Also maintaining good control carried i didnt want to add efficient passer november, we would come back to you to seek a budget supplemental to cover staffing and technical startup costs that we do not assume in our 1617 budget. That so that we be ready for july 1. Think. Supervisor wiener thank you very much. Then tomorrow final speaker for we have Public Comment, one of invite up dan flanigan from friends of the urban forest and i want to thank dan. I think hes been around 35 years now and i believecame into existence based on city also retrieved from tree maintenance, which start i guess in the late 70s and so doug has done great work overall but also in getting the word out on this idea. So, dan. Testifier thank you supervisors. Thank you supervisor scott weiner pursuing was how my presentation. Before i start with my remarks, i want to think the supervisors for giving me this for addressing this problem. Its been incredibly long saber San Francisco and its exciting for all the said friends of urban forest to see so many supervisors really caring about this. I want to especially thank both scott weiner and supervisor avalos gradually starting this whole conversation about five years ago. I remember very clearly in a meeting room on the other side of this building you brought people together and assume we started coming together around trying to find a solution to this problem. I want to also underline what supervisor avalos was thinking we had friends of urban forest of planted more trees in his district than any other district in the city and it still is district that desperately needs trees, and we believe if we do pass something some kind of legislation along the lines that we are proposing, we can address the inequities, covers aye anyway my remarks. This is what scott just stole from in 1981 the board of supervisors removed funding for the care and planting of street trees. The total 105,000 street trees in San Francisco without committees together to transform the words together by planting 50,000 of those 105,000 street three. Simply put, the San Francisco Public Policy around street trees is broken. Public works and friends of urban forest on a daily basis have to do with a system that makes absolutely no sense. Each of you have heard countless complaints from homeowners on this subject. It is been the dream of our organization and our 18,000 members to fix this bug once and for all. We believe the time is now. Several weeks ago i was invited to a meeting of Community Groups by the mayor to speak about the quality of life issues in San Francisco with hopes that in his upcoming budget, would reflect the investment and address those very important issue spirit folks openly spoke and supervisor avalos was at the meetingfolks openly spoke about crime, lack of Police Support homelessness and health issue. Picking to my turn to talk i said that i thought this meeting was a microcosm of the discussion thats taken place in this building for countless years. When it comes to street trees, the investment and their care simplytrees simply do not compete in the budget process. The Current System gets tree funding against these very important issue did ours and oakland solution to a address this very issue. As you see from john sways and karla shores presentation, a great deal of time and analysis thinking, has gone into coming up with an equitable solution to fix a broken system that we currently have. Ive spoken with many of you over the years about the disastrous policy of relinquishment get public works has been forced to give back 21,000 trees to adjacent Property Owners. This is not the first time theyve done this. Homeowners are being forced to take responsibility for trees that they do not rant , do not want, and now are liable for the expense of the care and maintenance of those trees. This simply does not make sense. The one thing ive learned over the past eight years working at friends of urban forest homeowners want a cleaner and healthier city, but this is a really big but, they do not want the liability. I find it extraordinary we been successful planting about 1200 trees a year in the face of our broken system. Years ago, mayor gavin newsom announced the planning of 20,000 trees in the city ironically, along the same time the money for the care of those trees and many other trees . Many of those trees planted died. The San Francisco urban forest is in dire need of a dedicated Funding Source and a longterm plan. Fluctuations in the budget led to the clients and are already small canopy dangerous trees, thousands of broken sidewalks, an unfair burden being transferred to Property Owners. We now have both an equitable funding mechanism and a plan to expand our urban forest while ensuring that all the wonderful benefits that trees have can be spread to all parts of our city, not just some of those parts. Please, do not lose sight of the fact was half the money on a yearly basis thats being raised by this parcel tax will go to be fixing a huge backlog of over 6000 broken sidewalks. One could almost call this a sidewalk parcel tax but then my members were not agree with that. Additionally, theres a desperate need to transform our San Francisco schoolyards. Which of many look more like a prison than a school. Currently, theres absolutely no money to get first we are trees. This proposal finally gives them a budget to care for trees. As this plan was developed friends of the urban forest visited over 50 or neighborhood associations over the past four years in all 11 districts to seek input and support. Resoundingly, we heard our solution addresses a need that many residents have been struggling for years. Were also part of the working group of city hall with stakeholders. We conducted polling, focus groups, met with city departments, spoke to you elected officials and consulted with other nonprofits. So what have we learned from this process . This is an issue not just about trees but its about Environmental Justice and social justice. Its about pedestrian safety. Its about accessibility for seniors and disabled community and its about good governments. With the input for both professionals and this community, this plan will address the needs of both our urban forest and all our San Francisco residence. We believe this pressure is good for trees. Its good for citizens but we hope that you will support this issue. Thank you. Supervisor wiener thank you very much mr. Fun. One things colleagues, i forgot to mention at the beginning is we do have a cosponsor on this economic on but supervisor mar has signed on as a cosponsor of this measure. So, mr. Chairman, i dont know if these are previous comments or print comments speak out colleagues any questions or comments bring up. I know we have a lot of supervisor tang supervisor tang really quickly i neglected to think public works could honestly given time to do so much without the funding thats really necessary to carry out all this the department has been nothing short of amazing whenever we ask for any help on any issues with the private Property Owner or business that struggling to maintain a tree so i want to call the public work staff. Supervisor farrell okay supervisor jim and i think that does. Supervisor wiener okay so mr. Chairman will open up for Public Comment supervisor farrell lets open up to public on. Supervisor wiener Public Comments will be 2 min. I will call cards we have. [calling names] testifier may i start . Okay. First of all thank you the time. I be brief. Im here to talk about why funding should be provided for the street trees. Its obvious your public utility and she treated as such. So spreading the cost of utility should be spread across everyone as opposed to a jabber owners have the most adjacent to the property. This allows for systemic management of the trees which means is more efficient from a cost perspective the split and overwhelming cost on owners essentially randomly and unluckily very near the street trees that provide an overall public benefit. I hope you will vote yes for this measure. Thanks. Supervisor wiener next speaker, please. Testifier my name is karen can see no i live in the western addition. In the early 80s am a i led the effort in our neighborhood to enter a treeplanting contest and we one. Planting 100 trees in our community. I also served as the 8485 mayor urban forest task force. Skipping out to 2014, i began badgering the city departments because the very poor state of the median trees on visit arrow. The outcome was found that both the city and the private contractor had been negligent because every 90 day reports for three yearsthey were supposed to go for three yearsstipulated we are not done. The trees do not receive adequate water for 40 years. For four years. I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to encourage you to have San Francisco joined the other cities that recognize the importance of the green canopy. Every citizen benefits healthwise from a healthy green canopy and save sidewalks. Every citizen should contribute to that funding. On Property Owners can barely responsibility along with Property Owners in financing our urban forest. Its been so sad watching the signs go up with people now having to be responsible for the tree in front of them. We all benefit from the trees. We should all fund those trees on and i also want to include the sidewalks. I would very much like to add something that there be a Citizen Task Force for oversight built in to the measure because the city often does not do what it should be done. Thank you. Testifier hi. Thank you my name is teresa pratt and im a resident. When i moved there a few years ago i kept seeing these reports on it would cause about trees falling down. Crushing cars and falling into houses in blocking the streets for several hours and i could not figure out why this was so, and every few months i would read about this that i found out its because these trees which are very very public actually the responsibility of private citizens. It made sense to me because not every private citizen has resources as many of you have noted financial or otherwise to take care of those trees. So, to me again many of you know this but this is an issue of Economic Justice just as much of an issue of Environmental Justice. The current plan requires citizens who never signed up for that tree care to the money with the knowledge to do it. That is causing lots of problems. So, we need healthy trees and we need save sidewalks and we all need to get the collective need and collective benefit so there should be collective responsibility to fund the. Again, the atomic benefit the substantive it was mentioned but its also a huge issue of Economic Justice that we all care for this. Thank you. Supervisor wiener thank you. Next speaker, please. Testifier good afternoon supervisors. My name is Susanna Russo and i would like to thank my supervisor district 8, scott weiner and also supervisor avalos for sponsoring this muchneeded proposal. I am a 13 year volunteer for friends of the urban forest. I moved here 13 years ago the first thing i wanted to do was to plant a tree and i was told that this was the go to organizations could well, i. E. Am here to say it was and still is. Severalnot several years ago actually, last year, i had the misfortune to witness a catastrophic death of a 35 foot eucalyptus tree on generate street just across from me. There was huge property destruction. The homeowners residence, a car, sidewalk, fortunately nobody was killed, but it was mindboggling to see this massive tree that simply flopped over into the street. This is an all too frequent occurrence in San Francisco. I have proved more than a dozen small sidewalk trees in my glen park neighborhood at the request of my neighbors. I have been teaching and training others to prune and care for street trees. It is time for the city to create a dedicated sustainable funding proposal for our declining urban forest and i strongly believe that this special progressive parcel tax is a way to go. Thank you very much. Testifier good afternoon. I just would like to speak to my personal experience. Starting with the experience of the schoolchild in another city, close to 60 years ago, my schoolyard have a small plot of lawn with beautiful weeping cherry shade trees. We used it every day and i remember it to this day. On the other hand, ive had a number of unfortunate personal experiences talking to neighbors who remove trees on this one short block. [inaudible] because the abutting owners thought they were too much trouble, to escape they do not know how to take care of them. I Property Damage when a neighbor planted in inappropriate tree that damage myboth myself and personal friend suffered injuries from falls on uneven sidewalks. Personally, i am not could have led to a liability problem. Then, the social, psychological impact of having a shaded beautifully treelined street, and theres a stark contrast from a neighborhood mostly on the northern side of the city that has treelined streets. And other neighborhoods that do not. So, this isa tree just elevates the community in every aspect of its residents lives. Thank you. Testifier thats a nice thought. Good afternoon supervisors and him were cannons for staff and sf usb pen. Im thrilled about the success of measure which is a parcel tax for Wetland Restoration in the bay. Especially because i think it shows people are willing to support a healthy Environment Trust public agencies, and are willing to tax themselves to pay for the many benefits of a better environment. We know as previously have said, as many many Public Benefits that flow from urban trees addictively mature ones that are well taken care of. This measure, as the community has been working on it for five years and more, provides for shared responsibility of both baseline and tax measure so i think it is fair. As previous speakers also noted, sustained funding is the only way to reverse loss of trees and grow the urban forest. Weve planted over 50,000 trees and its over 30 year history, but to make this investmentabroad neighbors together to do that planting so its not just forest rebutted Community Forest it. I think to make this investment last and continue to benefit all san franciscans, especially our youngest ones, we need to have a sustained source of funding this measure represent a great consensus in the city around one. So i think you for your support and for 40 and is measured to the ballot. Thank you. Testifier good afternoon. My name is peter fortune. Im a resident of the marina since 1984. On the past president and sit on the board of San Francisco beautiful. I also sit on the board of the Community Association but most importantly, for 20 years ive been wearing a green bracelet that identifies me as a tree hugger. I would like to support and thank supervisors weiner and avalos and Karla Schwarz and dan flanagan for the comments. I would say ditto to them. I was sure mention one thing about how homeowners were not take care of the trees could i have to trees that frame my driveway. A year ago we spent 1800 having them taken care of and fixed and into years before that it was 1100. I can imagine people in the city spending that kind of money to do it. Were fortunate we been able to do it so we now have a way to fix a problem and i urge you to support it. Thank you. Testifier to supervisor on zara kelly a resident for 20 years in San Francisco good i am a homeowner, taxpayer, mom, and im a big supporter of this ballot and i want to thank you especially scott weiner and avalos for putting this forward. I heard to echo today all of us supported. You understand the idea about trees but im really here to urge you to put an end to the disastrous trade transfer policy we have in our city which makes absolutely no sense. Please remove the liability of the trees back to the city i urge you to improve safety for residents and pick sidewalks for all including for our seniors, disabled, or use, and i urge you not only to support this ballot measure but do your very best to make sure it is done well what it is promising and its rocksolid in the work gets done as soon as possible. If you want to grow the urban forest the city has to take responsibility for it. Theres no other way around. I know theres other measures that are competing with this, but i dont think it can keep compete with one of our best natural entities. Are trees. The work theyre doing forth. Beautification, the air they give us the carbon sequestering. The habitat they preferred the place for kids to climb and see nature in the middle of the city. The amount of gallons, millions of gallons of water that it cleans. I really want to continue this conversation it keep that in mind that we are it falls on our environmental values and how really the city within the list of to do for the city are trees as an asset we should protect our assets, not continued to disregard and damage it. Thank you for listening. Testifier good afternoon supervisors. My name is marilyn carmans. Landscape architect and eight San Francisco native. In the late 80s i was on the citizen advisory open Space Committee but ive not spoken before this body since then. For 30 years i worked with an urban designer in Montgomery County marilyn could i also worked in paris am now here in San Francisco. In maryland, i was montgomery, maryland i was in charge of several urban streetscapes such as in bethesda and marilyn. I also wrote at the same time about urban open spaces and the streets of paris, new york San Francisco and shanghai immensely architecture magazine. Nowhere, i repeat, nowhere, else have i seen the planting and maintenance of street trees and the building of public space, public sidewalks, but two were relinquished to individual Property Owners. As you know from your planning and public works staff, planting and maintenance of the urban forest takes as much knowledge, a series and science as does the development of the rest of the public rightofway. I urge you to take that this responsibility could you have a staff and a great partner in the friends of the urban forest. Thank you for all the support of this excellent measure. Supervisor wiener thank you. Any additional Public Comment . Mr. Chairman they would close public, supervisor farrell Public Comment is now closed [gavel] supervisor wiener collies, thank you for hearing this item today. As you can hear we went to a great process. Its been a long conversation. In a long overdue fix that i think we can be proud of. As i noted at the beginning, im asking the committee to make a few amendment and distribute it those amendment and will actually, mirrors like to make a motion. I want to move the man rocks speak up in a motion by supervisor weiner. Moved and seconded. Any questions or objections . Without objection so moved. [gavel] supervisor wiener now mr. Chairman they can move to continue this item to our next Budget Committee meeting, which is june 16 supervisor farrell so i like to entertain a motion. Moved and seconded. To continue to the 16th and will do because the first day of full budget deliberations will do that item person knock it out of the way. So we will. We will take that without objection as well . Supervisor wiener yes. If i could make is a member of the public, although of course anyone is welcome to come to the meeting to make Public Comments, we are the good Public Comment today. The rules committee will ultimately be the committee that will send this determine whether to send this to the full board, so folks of course are welcome and have a right to come but we had good comments today so its not essential. Thank you. Supervisor wiener supervisor farrell without objection he can take it [gavel] [clears throat] item number 14, please clerk item number 14 a resolution approving the interim budget Treasure Island about authority this clear 26 in heaven 17 and 201720 Team Supervisor farrell thank you. This is the Treasure Island budget mr. Rosen interim budget. Staff mr. Chairman mercer the committee then rosenfield controller. My make sense to call all three of the interim items together. Provide general background on what they are. Supervisor farrell lets do that. Ashley dalby 14 through 16217. Okay mdm. Clerk 14 to 17 together we pick clerk item number 14 has already been called. Item number 15 resolution approving interim budget of the office of Community Investment and infrastructure operating as the Successor Agency to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency for fiscal year 201527. Item number 16, propose interim budget appropriation ordinance appropriating all estimated receipts and estimated expenses for department of the city as of may 31, 2016 for fiscal year ending june 30, 2017 and june 30, 2018. Item number 17 proposed interim annual salary was enumerating positions in the annual budget and appropriation works for fiscal year ending june 30 27 and june 30, 2018 supervisor farrell mr. Rosenfield staff thank you. As you know you begin your deliberation on the mayors proposed budget when you have a false ao annual Corporation Ordinance in the annual salary corridor in front of you. Our charter establishes a budget process with the board of supervisors really adopts a budget at the end of july. Of course the mayor is required to approve that budget no later than the fifth day of august. As you know our fiscal year starts on july 1. So, with the what looks in front of you is bridge that period with the fiscal year that we are now ending on june 30 is exhausted and yet the new permanent budget for the city for the new fiscal year is not yet approved. That approximately 30 friday period in july our charter calls on the mayor and the board to adopt an interim appropriation the covers that period thats what these items are. Provides a continuation of the current year budget allows the government to continue to operate and pay bills will you finish your deliberations in july. So thats really the purposes of these items. Theyre largely administered oh and action. Mr. Rose is a report on. I can respond to his report but thats the general context supervisor farrell thank you. Any questions . Mr. Rose go to your reports fred leaf give 16, 16 technically staff yes. Specifically, regarding item number 16 on page 10 of our report, we report that section 31 is a new provision of the administrative provisions of the annual appropriation ordinance authorizing the controller and the board of supervisors has previously pledged 100 of the property taxes generated by and infrastructure financing district. To the ifd to transfer funds in a Corporation Authority between and within accounts related to the ifd to meet accounting and state requirements, infrastructure, financing plans, and bond confidence and increase increases or decreases in appropriations to match the actual property tax increment revenues received for the ifd. We have a recommendation regarding that on page 11, and that it specifically regarding item 16. We well, this pertains to both 16 and 17. We recommend you amend section 31 of the administrative provisions of the annual appropriation ordinance to clarify that any increase to the appropriation to the ifd or the infrastructure financing district, would be considered with the infrastructure financing plan. It would be consistent with the infrastructure financing plan previously approved by the board of supervisors, and we recommend you approve the fiscal year 1617 and 1718 interim annual provision ordinance file 160626 as amended and to approve this cool year 1617 and 1718 interim annual salary ordinance in that file 16 0627. Staff out is that we concur with mr. Rosen on this item. Supervisor farrell thank you. Sorry about that it mr. Rosen any questions or any concerns on this proposed amendment testifier makes sense must be felt one with that will open up to Public Comment with items 1417 get any questions or comments . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. So [gavel] supervisor farrell to clarify that applies to both items . Staff yes, does supervisor farrell one proposed minutes in item 14 to 17. Can i entertain a motion to except as proposed amendment 1617 . Moved and seconded. Testifier i stand corrected it just item 16 that would refer to. I apologize. Supervisor farrell think. So, a motion to except the minutes for item 16 . Moved and seconded. Without objection [gavel] befell been a motion 24 items 1417 including as amended number 16 to the full board at her next record scheduled meeting moved and seconded. Can we take that without objection . Without objection the motion passes. [gavel] supervisor farrell mdm. Clerk to a variety of the business be forced. Clerk no more business. Supervisor farrell thank you, everyone. We are adjourn. [gavel] [adjournment] this meaning will come to order. Please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Now i will ask our secretary to call the roll. Clerk roll call. President scott, breslin excused; supervisor farrell excused, commissioner ferrigno, follansbee, commissioner sass excused. We have a quorum. Well now proceed to item 1. Clerk item 1. Approval with possible modifications of the minutes of meeting setforth below regular meeting of may 12, 2016. Are there any questions or comments to the board on those minutes . I think it was a remarkable translation process to get it all down particularly with all the Public Comment. So im ready to entertain a motion. I move approval. Second. Is there any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. All in favor say, aye. Aye. Any opposed . That motion carries unanimously. Discussion item 2. Cle item 2, discussion item, general Public Comment on matters within the boards jurisdiction not appearing on todays agenda. Is there any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. We will now move to the rates and benefits committee. We are now the committee as a whole on rates and benefits. We will take up action item 3. Item 3, action item. Approve Kaiser Permanente senior advantage fully insured retiree rates and premium contributions for 2017 plan year. We have before you a presentation or powerpoint document that outlines the requested rate increase for the Medicare Advantage kaiser senior care product. We have it correctly stated as the 2017 Kaiser Permanente managed prescriptions retiree. This is the material. What well go through in our summary on page 3. That as a matter of practice for this product which covers seniors only 55 plus which is a cms program that creates a capitation amount determined by calculations by kaiser to cover the specific medicare members that this addresses. This is how its done. Instead of permitting claims, they get the medical management skill set to cover underneath that cost. This has been a very well received program over many many years and kaiser is of course a leading Advantage Program in the state of california. With that being said, as a matter of practice and necessity in order to have the rates correctly reviewed by the board of supervisors, we did an Early Release of the number. So kaiser allows us and there are kaiser representatives here if there are questions about that exercise. They allow us to have an early number. What does that mean . They dont know the early number. What they are going to get from cms from kaiser, so they give their best estimate to us. We agree to this practice, so at the end of the day when they finally know what they are going to get, we get a number. If we bill for 2016 or 2015, if we find out the number should have been more, then we add the difference to next years rates. Thats what this is all about. For 2017 the estimate they can give us at this point in time is 331. For 2016, it was determined after they received the final remission from cms, that the number should have been 9. 76 higher. So we have to add those numbers together. So the billing rate is 340. 76. I would like you to also see page 4 of this document. When we have rate cards for any of our products for retirees and medical retirees, we have numbers in addition to the pure premium. Those numbers of vsp premium, our healthcare sustainability and then we have added best doctors. And very proactive Second Opinion that hopefully will allow us to manage medical care in the future. All of these have been reviewed by the board and accepted by the board. Additionally, we are adding the 9. 76. With that, i would like to turn your attention to page 5. Page 5. May i raise a question . Absolutely. What would kaiser assume the drivers to be in that negative variance . What would happen is we get a best estimate. I understand that. What caused the number to drive it . Cms determines for the entire basket of people at the end of the year. Once they get all the remissions in and figure out the judgement to the final request are, they say we can give you this amount of money. So, what turns out is they got less mone than they expected to get. Which means the rates should have been higher. Weve been told through the last say 18 months that cms is rachting back money. To have this finally reconciled going forward, we are going to possibly be more short more often than not. This is not expected during this time. That helpful . Thats fine. Let me ask a question too. So the Medicare Advantage, what medicare returns the same for kaiser as it would be for blue shield . Its the amount of money thats area adjusted. Its the same for the blue shield people . When they look at it, its an area based number with statistics relative to that population. If they are a higher risk or different set of people, you have a fact that is calculated. If blue shield needs to be a certain number, they determine you get that amount of money. If your other Medicare Advantage filer is in the exact same situation with a better set of risks, chances are they get less money that is well documented in architecture that they pay you. You dont get the exactly same amount of money. Yes, sir . My understanding if kaiser docs forget to code their diabetes for the whole year, cms wouldnt have the diabetes. Would the numbers be what they think the diabetics get for cms. A lot of this is diagnosis driven and the providers attempt to capture the diagnosis to make sure the reimbursements are maximize. The more money they get, the less they have to charge the purchaser. Is that clear . It doesnt necessarily, well said, sir. You can look at it from different directions. Its an activity that requires very good documentation of diagnosis as was clearly spoken by the fine doctor and the risk. I know kaiser is best at collecting the data and make myselfing the reimbursement there is. Period. Im not selling you kaiser. They will be able to sustain a better set of numbers in terms of the what the city will have to pay for that population. Is that a reasonable statement . Yes. Thank you. If kaiser can get an early estimate, why doesnt blue shield get an early estimate. We have it. Why didnt we get that number. Theirs is the harder number. We havent combined this number. We didnt know that last month what blue shields medicare rate would be. Yes, maam. But i have not provided it in this form at this point in time. Okay. Is that correct. I didnt know we had the blue shield medicare reimbursement rate. Not yet. Did we know this exact same amount of information from blue shield, please restate the question. Yeah. I saw it said kaiser provided an early estimate but i dont remember you saying blue shield provided an early estimate of what the rates would be. That was my question. I dont remember seeing that last month. No. Blue shield did not provide and early estimate of the retiree medicare rate. Why not . Thats not the way they present the numbers. From kaiser they presented an early estimate and the way they recoupe the money, they do say in november, the way the program is structured under blue shield, the calculation they provide is april or may. Depending on the level of the calculation, we go into negotiations is their best and final. Where kaiser has reserved the right to say we wont know a hard number until later in the year. And historically when they have been able to release a number in july, they release their best and final and then ask us to change it to the difference from the july number to the november number. But they have said in essence, we can technically do that. But when we ask for a much earlier number, they say we want to put this process in place. Thats the way that works. So they put it on this process 3 years ago . Yes. We had the question asked and answered, are there any other questions . We are on page 5. This is how we bill the rates in all cases. We take the premium from the vendor and add the 3 pieces and the final number. By the rules of the 10 counties, the lesser of the premium or the ten county. Since the ten county was 604 604. I cant remember what it was. The retiree person pays exactly nothing for the rate for their coverage under this program. And we go through the other calculations. The only other thing that applies to the retirees is the subsidy. It was developed to adjust the rate to early retirees. That being said, here are the set of numbers. If we go to the next page, we look at how this applies to the member 216 versus 217. The number that i will highlight is with the addition of the reconciliation, the retiree plus one will go up 12. 88. Three retirees will go 38. 66 and nonmedicare dependent. These are all the numbers. I have shared. We have gone through the exercise of the reconciliation. We have all on page 9 we have our foot notes for the items on the rate cards. If there are any more questions, i will make my recommendation. Your recommendation is . Please approve as presented. You heard the recommendation from the medical advantage plan for kaiser. The retiree renewal premiums and contributions. Are you ready to vote. I would like to entertain a motion unless you have a question. I move to approve. Second. Its been properly moved and seconded that we approve the rates as submitted by the actuary accepting the actuarys recommendation. Is there a question from the board . Public comment . Public speaker good afternoon, commissioners, clarence vonsky, retired city employees. The only thing that i really have a question about because i do appreciate neals explanation of where the 9 came from and how its being calculated. I think we are missing the rates that have the medicare member plus the nonmedicare member. As i recall we would usually have the more of the rates that included that balance with other nonmedicare members because otherwise these rates, they are very good and we can see them, but we really dont know the impact on those members that have dependents that are nonmedicare. It would have been nice to see that also since i think it would go with this presentation and not the one we have seen before. And later i will express to you my other concerns about the blue shield rate and how they deal with it. Thats the only thing im looking for here. Thank you very much. I will ask the actuary to please come forward and answer that question. Yes, i would like to answer that question and address that to claire. This is a family rate to assume two nondependents. This is a same chart that we have presented as i have been so privileged to be your actuary. Its no less than or no more than. Does that help . Okay. We have a comment from a kaiser representative. Hi. I want to add something. We are adding the rider. 50 copay per visit up to the combined 30 visits, with the chiral combined. It comes with that second benefit as well. The second benefit being added is what we call our silver and fit program. That provides a program for the participant to either join a participating gym thats part of the silver and fit network at no cost to them or receive a Home Fitness Program package. If they dont want to go into the gym, they can get a fitness package for walking or pilates at their home. Thank you. Any other comment . Questions. We have a motion and second. All in favor say, aye. Aye. Any opposed . The motion carries unanimously. I would like to welcome our counsel at this time. Would you please identify yourself. Good morning, this is cecillia mangoba from the City Attorneys office. Welcome, glad to have you. Our other attorney is engaged today. Thank you for standing in for him. All right, we are now ready to move to the regular board agenda. And as she gets ready to leave, i would like to congratulate on her sons graduation this evening. Congratulations. [ applause ]. The first board item is no. 4. Clerk item 4, discussion item. President s report. The action item i have about the citys charter sent to the members of the board by through our counsel. At another meeting we will have a kind of chronology of changes in the charter over the years that have currently brought the current documents to their current state. So this is the first in a couple of steps. This has been requested by the Governance Committee at its regular meeting and i thought by starting out what is covered in our work which is covered in these and looking back over time changes in the charter provisions that go through the board. That has impacted this boards work. That was slightly delayed not only with erics absence today but there were no red line versions in the charter. Hes going through an analysis to figure out what actually changed in the before document and the resulting after document. Its a little diceey. I havent seen it, but thats what hes doing. But that will be presented at another meeting. I just wanted the board to be aware of that. Secondly, i wanted to congratulate. I had the privilege of attending a luncheon yesterday with commissioner breslin, the San Francisco county employees. I would like to thank the employees of the county of San Francisco and congratulate the officers. We had a good time. I did commend them on their work and thanked them for their continued service on behalf of the retiree system. Lastly, i would like to call attention to the board and i will ask the board to send it electronically. The california healthcare foundation. This is an annual study they do on employers across the state of california. It highlights a series of i think some people would say they are not very intuitive, they are kind of obvious trends in healthcare coverage in the state of california. I would encourage the commissioners to take time to read the link. There are several charts that accompany this information. But it does give a very good overview of the level of healthcare coverage across the state, what employers are doing, what copays, deductibles, increases we have seen over time and one of the whopping statistics for me was that since 2002, there has been a cumulative increase of 216 , 216 increase in the overall cost of healthcare to individuals. Its an astounding kind of thing to think its been a little bit more of a decade but thats been the impact to the marketplace over time. There are a number of other statistics and highlights contained in the report and its from the california healthcare foundation. It will be given to the Board Members by our secretary after this meeting. I commend it to you as a reading for the month of july if we act on the proposal today, you are not going to have a july meeting. So you can substitute that hours of work on that item. All right. Well move on to the directors report. Clerk item 5, directors report. Director . Thank you. Commissioners. I wanted to report on the personnel. Month after month we have left a position vacant for attrition savings. Attrition occurs when someone leaves a position and takes time to fill it. Thats the main reason. Because our staff is relatively stable, the average length of tenure is 8 years but it varies from 1 year to 37 years. We dont have a lot of attrition savings. We cant get credit for that so weve had to leave two positions vacant to achieve that for the budget. This year we just late late late yesterday afternoon got our budget from the board of supervisors budget analyst and they want to double our attrition savings which means we have to lay off two people or not fill two positions that we are currently have made offer letters to. There are also other additional budget cuts in the Analyst Recommendations. Im not going to be specific about them because the negotiations arent final and we dont want staff who are watching television to worry because hopefully well be able to save them. The proposals will result if they were implemented as proposed, would result in at least two lay offs. Which is unheard of at this time when the mayor presented a balanced budget, we were successful in getting the mayors approval for our budget that had already a 1. 5 decrease over the 2 years. We had our initial call this morning after pamela spent hours reviewing it and review it with me last night and she worked on it again this morning. We had one discussion with the budget analyst staff and im sure well have more in order to avoid that. But, i request that the commissioners individually and the members in the audience send their emails to the finance committee saying that the Health Services is doing a good job, weve kept the rates low and met all of our Member Service goals and we have innovated in terms of wellness and volunteer benefits, and the other things, all database analysis, etc. Its essential we continue on this path. We avoided 20 million worth of cost to this party, is that not correct . Yes. It would have been a cost to the city. Yes. At any rate. You work all year so hard and you get a blow like this which means an unpleasant month as well as july. I wanted to point that out. That is from the finance committee . Mark farrell is the chair and of course he will support us. Will someone with an iphone look . Well research that. Well say the names publically and tell them how to email city hall and get a hold of everyone. I believe its mark and scott wiener, last year it was jane kim and scott wiener; and london breed participates as chair of the board. Thank you for asking that question. I meant to look it up before i came. I will meet with either them or their staff which i have in years before. So how is this information going to be disseminated back to us then . We will articulate here at the meeting but well ask to distribute the names to the supervisors and the emails and phone numbers to be able to either call or write or otherwise camp out with them. Okay, thank you. Otherwise the map of providing testimony is to sit through an all day public hearing. I believe its not this friday, but next friday where every single issue thats going before them is heard. Its quite a laborious so, anyway, i appreciate your support especially since we took the mayors cuts and approved the budget and now we are being cut more. So, i wanted to point that out and also wanted to point out that we have begun administering this, the Employee Engagement survey at the Committee Meeting. We are taking a survey in a matter thatten insures employees responses are confidential and not disclosed and the employees anonymity is protected. Some responses might yield information about the respondent or other privacy information including supervisors. We want to make clear that we are doing this confidentially. And thats in an effort to have everyone participate. If they were to be made public, we shouldnt both undertaking this survey because people dont want to have their responses public. They have assured anonymity. May i Say Something . On behalf of the board, i would request from each and every staff member to please complete the survey. Its an effort by the Management Team of the system to get a better understanding of what can be done to help engage and respond to your needs. That can only be done if you participate. So, on behalf of myself, principally, but i think i speak for the other commissioners, we are asking each and everyone of you to please participate. Through the chair . Yes. Is it just for active members, the additional services, right, that are in the survey . You are talking about the volunteer benefits survey. We are talking about the staff Engagement Survey. Thats no. 7. Its been in my personnel report. Okay, well talk about volunteer benefits in a minute. The other thing is we will be presenting the results of the Engagement Survey at the august board meeting. Well have a report. In terms of operations. You have in your packet. As usual weve met all of our Customer Service goals even though our in person assistance continues to grow, but people keep retiring. But thats nice because they just come from downstairs into our office. We did an active survey on voluntary benefits. Its in your packet. As of june 1st, 2500, employees have responded. We are happy to offer those benefits. More and more employees are asking for voluntary benefits. It varies from paycheck to paycheck. Can i ask something about the volunteer benefits . Sure. How much is it going to cost us . It cost us nothing. How does that work . We are doing it through the Employment Benefits district, they are doing our mea benefits. It cost just a little on payroll lines. There are lines for colonial and flack and you name it. Whenever that leaves, they are making adjustments. Who is making money on this are the insurance companies. They are vetting rates so there is a place to go and complain. If there are idiosyncracies, the payroll departments will clean them up. Hopefully this will reduce the number of payroll lines than there are. It will be easier. But no extra staff time . No extra staff time. It really is a great benefit. I wanted to draw attention to the Data Analytics report thats in with the packet. This is the first time weve had a dashboard on the medicare retirees since the Third Quarter of 2010. Now that our data base is up and running, we cant do it all ourselves, but we can design the report and feed in the request and get it back and present it. I think its an example of the benefit of the database and you have information on who the retirees are. Kaiser has 45 of the medical retirees. Their average age is 72. 6. Blue shield, 69. 3. At least its what it says on the slide. You are right. 79. 1. I apologize. Ful city plans average ages 75. 2. This tells us about the admits per 2,000 members, the average length of stay and it does that by vendors so you can see on page 9 the average length of stay for medical retirees for blue shield is 6 days, then 4 days and kaiser 2 days. Similar impatient dates per thousand, again blue shield is the highest. Interestingly kaiser is the second highest. We also found this in our care organizations. What we need to look at is what are the readmission rates and then city plan is 5 days. An 8day length of stay is a long time in the hospital. Procedures per 1,000. This is an example script per member per month how many prescriptions and those have all decreased from 2. 11, to 2. 55. I just wanted to draw your attention to the work of the Data Analytics department. Its very exciting. Other things that are happening is we are building the New Enterprise management. You heard us talk about the ecm. Weve now got the equipment and building the processes to begin to scan all of those hundreds of thousands of records that we have in our record room and off site storage. We acquired new copiers that will save us money in printing cost. We are doing an actual enrollment process, management effort to really keep track of dates and times and hopefully reduce the stress that occurs since we are getting ready for open enrollment. In terms of finance, you will hear from the finance committee. But again well emphasize that we have cut 1. 5 this year and next year and the budget was approved by the mayor with no additional cuts. Then we have to be vigilant about not having further cuts from the board of supervisors. Our annual external audit kickoff occurred. In our 2015 post audit by the Controllers Offices yield no material weaknesses. Beyond that, we are in good shape. The other thing i wanted to, in terms of wellness, let me highlight. Can i just . Yeah. I think weve seen in the past sort of a comparison of medicare plan benefits for the different plans. So im wondering if enrollees get an opportunity to see a dashboard of some of these other things . Because their pharmacy cost depend upon whether the drug is generic or not. Their inpatient days varies per plan. Some of them look fairly modest and different until you look at the number of days. Im wondering if that is somewhat of a goal, at some point when you are fully staff. I dont know if people ask about this. But its the next logical attention for a consumer who want to know what they are buying. And what the potential risk maybe. How many inpatient days might there be while making the choice. And what are the most common diagnosis for those days. Im not asking for it. But if the board wants us to consider doing a forum on compare and contrast. Thats something possibly we can take up as part of the educational effort, but also some of this information, i know its posted as part of your directors report but there is also a notion of being more activity around this data and reports going forward. If that is the date to be true, it would say to me that we are going to have a link on the website so members can go into and review. This is a very good time to suggest that since we are looking at redoing the website. As more of these are being developed, you may want to plan on a link there. I know as part of your report, marina comes in and gives us a report, but they dont necessarily sit out alone and that can be a value as pointed out. Great suggestion. All right. I particularly appreciated the wellness thank you letter that was submitted by one of our members and its also part of our report. About colorful choices . Right. I want to highlight the wellness the eapa Counseling Services have reached the highest level in 2016 during the month of may. The addition of the counselor and having them do workshops onsite at different departments have really engaged employees and made them realize. Again, the National Literature shows that in all industries there is this depression in moral in every employer, i guess probably unless you work for google where they have free food and everything else. Commissioner breslin in particular has been concerned about nutrition and diabetes all along. Im excited to report that the recruitment for the Diabetes Prevention Program Research study that we are doing with kaiser that kaiser is leaving is we have already enrolled 200 employees and we plan to roll that out formally in june and july. Probably one of three employees develop diabetes. This is before you get diabetes. If we can teach them nutritional and behaviors would improve the diabetes situation. This directive came from this board of anticipation of trying to keep people healthy. I just wanted to underscore on the part of what i did. Review the budget materials, but i wanted to just say that our chief Financial Officer and her staff labor over the budget for hours and hours and they redo the numbers. Everything is as tight as a sealed tuna can. Our numbers, you cant question them and we are really lucky to have such good finance staff especially at this time of year. I can feel confident when i get a report that all i have to do is read into the microphone at the board of supervisors meeting. That concludes my report. Would you highlight the rates . I apologize. Yes. We revised the rates and benefits calendar to add a rates and benefits meeting on tuesday, june 21st, from 122. It will allow five members to be in attendance as opposed to just four. It also is giving extra time for the actuary to look at what alternatives there are or what can be reexamined and renegotiated because of the retiree rates from blue shield and uacn and ppo and city plans came so high. They are still working on trying to figure out, is this formula the best and who is disrupted in the formula. All of those alternatives will be presented on june 21st. All right. So, at the april, when we talked about the best doctors and at that time they said whoever presented said they would have the final rates for consideration at a meeting. When will that be . Will that be at the next meeting . They said at the time this may not be the final rate. I understand it is the final rate. Im not sure. I looked at my notes. You are asking about the best doctors rate . Right. They said for the future well obtain the final rates for consideration. I didnt know if that was going to be part of can you speak into the microphone . Yes, sorry. The final rates for best doctors. The 1. 40 is the final rate. That is in the active rates that we approved. I saw that. I didnt know it was ever approved. Okay. Any other questions . That includes the outreach, the extra amount for the outreach. Any other questions about the directors report, is there any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Well proceed to the next item clerk item 6, discussion item. Hss Financial Reporting as of april 30, 2016, and fy 20162017 and fy 201717 mayors budget report for hss. On director levin, i would like to commend on the report and would ask you to thank them all for the work they do day in and day out. Thank you. Good afternoon, chief Financial Officer. The Financial Report you have before you today summarize the revenues of the trust and general fund through april 30, 2016. We are projecting the trust will have a balance of 78. 1 million on january 30, 2016. This is only 300,000 less than what i reported last month. Has to the result of some ups and downs. The balance is from city plan due to unfavorable claims experience. Blue shield 500,000 is due to unfavorable claim experiences. There were increases to the fund balance from delta dental to 100,000 due to favorable claim experiences and then we received 300,000 for the forfeiture for the healthcare dollars. We also distributed a copy of the pages from the mayors proposing budget. They look for those of you that have the black and white, they look a whole lot better in color. Basically we had proposed, they did extend a couple of limited duration positions and we ended up taking the cut, but had some return in for that. As catherine mentioned or director dod mentioned that it was preliminary and they could work with us i hope thats true. We had a long discussion today about what we can and cant do and every effort is being made to ensure that we keep the department as a whole if we can. I know thats part of the directors concern and we are tight in our Staffing Levels and we cant afford to either have to keep two more positions vacant than we already have or make cuts to the rest of the staff. So that has been and will be clearly communicated to the budget analyst. I have looked into the Budget Committee, supervisor farrell, supervisor katie tang and norman yee and then supervisor kim and supervisor wiener are the temporary members that join during this budget process. All right. Thank you. So again im requesting the secretary to send the names to the Board Members email and phone numbers so that we might engage in the process. Is that all from you, director levine . Great. Moving right an along. Is there any Public Comment . Claire savssky. I would like to commend Pamela Levine for her incredible work and also her staffs work. Its just amazing and we really do appreciate all the angst that goes through it and the hours and the efforts. Its just phenomenal. With regard to the battle now before the board of supervisors, it sounds like we did okay with the mayors office, but now we are dealing with the board of supervisors cuts and looking to supervisor farrell to really take the lead on this and helping us out. We will send an email blast to the members and ask them to send a letter to the committee. You have been part of what we are doing at the retirement board with regards to our benefits. If they would like us to mobilize and show up at city hall, im sure we can put out the call and get that kind of turnout at city hall so they understand they cant mess with our delivery of Health Services as well as the retirees coalition. We are being quite activist in our old age and are here to support every effort that Health Services goes through and especially through back up pamela and also catherine in their efforts to really fight for our benefits. So whatever we can do, let us know and thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, on the next item. I realize i didnt update you on the legislation. All right. This is to go back to the directors report to include a discussion of the legislative items, please. Right, sb 932 was a bill that pretty much prevented anticontracting within the Health Systems had been pulled from the agenda of the state legislative committee because there was a concern from San Francisco General Hospital and the San Francisco Health Network that it might apply negatively to them. The legislation was amended shortly after that Committee Meeting and i met with ppa and the staff and they in fact withdrew their opposition, but unfortunately the bill did not get out of the second policy committee. So its dead for the purposes of this legislative year. If there is a special session, it might be reintroduced, so we may do it again. The other bill sb 1010 from the same author and its still alive and well. They are trying to add transparency to pharmaceutical pricing. It requires to convoluted mechanism that pharma report to employers when there is going to be an increase of more than so of pharmaceutical cost or a 1 prescription is going to cost more than 10,000 for the course of that prescription. And then the employees have to report to the department of insurance and the department of managed care that this is happening. It doesnt do anything, it just shines the light in pharmacy cost. The remedy as we all know is to have cmms in the marketing of negotiating their rights. But im not going to say that again. Go right ahead. On the state level this is a step again to say pharma and its not okay in california. That went to the legislative committee yesterday and marina actually represented us there. I presume they approved it and the bill is still alive. It has a very small financial impact. It will probably pass through the state legislature and the Budget Committee and go on to the assembly. I will keep you informed. I apologize. Thank you for those updates. I saw this in the packet and i did a bit of reading as well because this is an issue that concerns everyone in this room. The sb 1010 has wide support including the california medical association, etc. And to be distinguished from a resolution in the November Ballot to tie it into a complicated formula with the va medical center, that is different from this and we need to kind of watch that which is much more controversial with a lot of Interest Groups being very concerned about what would happen to drug availability. This is a small step, but a positive one. Thank you. Director levine . Im sorry, i also forget something. We are now back to the finance report. We havent quite left the finance. The first hearing for our budgeted is next thursday between 10 001 p. M. That at that hearing well be asked to give a short presentation and then say whether or not we agree or dont agree to the budget Analyst Recommendations and then if we continue to talk, that will go to, i have to think its the i will have that date. But there is no opportunity to speak until there will be no opportunity to speak that next thursday. Let me be clear. We are just presenting the budget . It will be made public . We will speak, but there is no opportunity for Public Comment. That 1 day. Which is why well send you at the email addresses. So the budget will be presented next thursday to the board finance committee. In seven slides or less. Thats between 10 00 and 1 00 p. M. And there will be a subsequent meeting in which Public Comment will be entertained . Correct. Thank you. The subsequent meeting is a day long meeting for all budget issues, not just for us. I understand. Thank you. All right. Next item. Clerk item 7, action item. Based on the may 10 tsz governors committees review of survey questions and discussion of the Employee Engagement survey, instruct director to pro with confidential Employee Engagement survey. Summary of findings but not individual employee responses to be reviewed in open session. This i spoke about in my directors report. The responses will be kept confidential but will be kept in aggregate summary form. This is requesting an action endorsement by the board. So i would like to entertain a motion that we concur with the process thats outlined. We are already doing. I thought it was approving this. We are already doing this. We were advised by council that we should have it on the record that the information will be kept confidential. All right. So im ready to entertain a motion that we accept the item as described. So moved. Second. Its been properly moved and seconded that we accept the action item as described in item 7 regarding the Employee Engagement survey and its confidentiality with a summary of responses to be provided in open session to this board at a subsequent date. Is there any question by members of the board . Is there any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. We are ready to vote. The all in favor say, aye. Aye. Any opposed . Passes unanimously. Item 8. Clerk item 8