Transcripts For SFGTV Transportation Authority Finance Committee 21417 20170217

Good morning and welcome to the government audit and Oversight Committee for february 16th. My name is jane kim, and to my left is im sorry to my right is supervisor aaron peskin and to my left is supervisor president london breed and i want to thank our committee i would like to thank our committees clerk, erica major and also recognize the staff of sfgovtv, Charles Kremenak who make our meetings available online, as well as transcript. Madam clerk, any announcements. Please silence all cell phones. Thank you, madam clerk and can you please call the first item. Item no. 1 is ordinance amending the environment code to adjust the incentive in the Solar Energy Incentive program. The author of this item is president london breed, if you would like to make opening comments. Yes, thank you i know we have Laurie Mitchell here who will be making a presentation shortly, but i just wanted to make a few comments about your go Solar Program in the city. Were making a few technical amendments to this program today. Despite the fact that other utilities around the state are ramping down their incentive like the city of palo alto and silicon valley, for example, im happy to see the go Solar Program in the city is still going strong and that we as a city are continuing to invest in incentives like this particular program. We must continue to support Renewable Energy and energyefficient programs so its accessible to everyone. Since the program started in 2007, go solar has helped lowincome residents, nonprofit organizations and businesses install thousands of kilowatts of Solar Energy Units on their rooftops across San Francisco. This has helped not only reduce participants electricity bills, but our Carbon Footprint in the city. There will be a few amendments to this today, and i know that ms. Mitchell will talk about that in her presentation, and with that im happy to turn it over to ms. Mitchell to discuss the program, the changes, and the proposed amendments. Thank you. Thank you very much, supervisor breed. My name is Laurie Mitchell and i manage the Renewable Energy group at sfpuc and we have slidess on the ordinance here. Im not sure if you can see it. There is something there we go. Really what were trying to do with this ordinance is to look forward and to expand on the success of the gosolarsf program to include additional programs such as rebates for electric Vehicle Infrastructure, Energy Storage and to expand upon our energyefficiency programs. So the new programs, as well as the current gosolarsf program is funded by the cleanpowersf and hetch hetchy power ratepayers. The agenda of what well cover today. One of the many things does is to integrate the program with the go solar sf program and its important to know that they have both common policy goals. Both programs seek continue vest in local programs and projects such as energyefficiency, storage, ev charging and affordable, cleaner, climateresponsibility electricity and to invest in local jobs [sphfplt ] background on the go solar sf program was established in 2007. And it designates the puc as the program administrator. It states the objective eh providing an appropriation of 25 million annually over the ten years, which can commence in 2008. It also directs the puc to review solar and to adjust incentives and coordinate administration of the program with the implementation and administer of the cleanpowersf program. So here is the summary of what we have paid out over the years since 2008, when the program started. So you can see in total we paid just over 24 million. The majority of that has gone to residential installations with a large portion of that going to lowincome residential. Im sorry before you move on, could you explain what you mean by lowincome residential . We have several categories of incentives that people can apply for. They can apply for residential, so they dont need to make any type of income requirements for that incentive, but for the lowincome incentive they get an additional incentivelevel if they qualify to be low income. No, i understand that you provide additional incentives, but what qualifies . So we work with the Mayors Office of economic development, and we use the hud guidelines in San Francisco. So for a family of one, its about 60,000 a year, and for four, i think its about 80,000. You use the hud ami definition . Yes for San Francisco. And what amilevel and below did you select . So we get guidelines from the Mayors Office of economic and workforce development. So the numbers that were using today for household of one is 68,000. For a household of four, its 98,000 so roughly like 90 of area Median Income and below, is that the threshold maximum income . I can doublecheck and we can can get an answer. I know its ami, but what ami, 90 . 60 of ami and below . Im not sure. Its median. I can get you that answer and can definitely come back to you on that. Okay. So were talking about middleincome households. Right. Okay. So what is residential lowincome . Is the red stuff what is the difference between the dark blue stuff and the red stuff . The red is just a normal residential incentive and the darkblue is residential lowincome and those are applicants that quail hollowed qualified for the additional incentives. Im curious of the range of Household Incomes that apply to what you consider low residential income. It still seems with the Installation Cost going down and incentives its still really expensive for actual lowincome household to actually put on a solar panel. Do you have a range of households that have applied over the last couple of years. You mean the range of incomes for the holidays . Households. We dont have that today, but we can get back to you. Sure. Im sorry did you have any additional questions . No. This goes to your question on what the cost of solar is. So this table shows you first column is installed cost of solar. You can see in 2008 a 2. 5 kilowatt project is typical in San Francisco for residential project costs about 25,000. At that time, we offered an additional im sorry, at that time the regular go solar incentive was 3,000 and they would are have qualified for the california solar incentive, about 3400 and the net cost of solar would be 17,000. You can say today the solar cost have dropped pretty dramatically and that same system today costs 14,000 and qualified for 17,000 from the go solar sf program that make their net cost over 12,000. Today we have some of the lowest net costs in the programs history. And this is just a review of some of the changes in the market and what other california utilities are doing with their solar incentive programs. So most programs have ramped down their incentives and many are fully subscribed. So the California Solar Initiative was fully reserved in 2014, although lowincome program does continue. The city of palo alto is fully reserved. Alameda is reserved. Silicon valley and smud is fully reserved in 2016. So we knew we wanted to look forward with the go solar sf program and engage stakeholder as round make the good solar more efficient and work better and also to get feedback on new programs that they would like to see us develop. So we met in april of last year and gathered fee bac and came back in june with recommended changes that you will see today and we continue to followup with them and brought the changes to the commission in oct. One is to require go solar sf recipients to be a customer. So they would either need to be A Hetch Hetchy customer or sign up as cleanpowersf customer available to all residents and businesss in the city now. We are also recommending that we market and outreach the programs together. So providing assistance and outreach to demonstrate the benefits of installing on the rooftop and becoming a super green sf customer and attractive net metering. Another one of the changes that this ordinance will do will allow us to simplify the go solar sf incentives to dollars per kilowatt, which is how most solar incentive programs are run. Currently we have a pretty complex table and that will make the program more efficient. Were also proposing to stepdown all incentives to reflect the lower cost of solar and stretch the program budget. The last time we adjusted incentive was in 2013. And we are proposing to step down incentives to make sure we grow here in San Francisco. Another of the proposed changes is that we i believe its really important to continue to support nonprofits and lowincome residents and were recommending to continue to offer higher incentives for lowincome and nonprofit customers. And were also recommending that we develop an invertore replacement incentive for previous lowincome and nonprofit customers. So the inverter allows it to connect to the grid and many of those components will be at the end of their useful life. This is when the new incentives will look like. You can see residential customer gets about 500 a kilowatt today. If this ordinance isa approved, in april, reduced to 400 and still would qualify for the additional lowincome incentives of 2,000 and the Environmental Justice inverter in staller is applicable. And then the last thing this ordinance would do would allow us to develop complimentary distributive energy programs. So we know its important to not only install solar, but to be complimentary programs like electric Vehicle Infrastructure and Energy Storage. So there is a couple of cleanup items in the ordinance i wanted to mention. No. 1 we wanted to clarify that we want to continue our support for go solar sf and our commitment to develop these new programs. Then we just needed to fix some typos and no. 3 is inserting the correct fund balance of the program. So should read 7. 275 million instead of 11 million. That is the end of my program. I had a couple of followup questions on the lowincome and nonprofit programs. Do you require them to be a cleanpowersf or puc customer . Today . Today we do not. This ordinance Going Forward they would be required to sign ups a cleanpowersf customer, but today they are not required. I just remember by the way, im a big supporter of cleanpowersf, but i remember one of concerns about the program was because there were its a slightly more expensive program. That we had concerns about lowincome residents, you know being a part of the program. For budgetary reasons. So it seems to me counterintuitive to require lowincome residents to be a cleanpowersf customer when its a more expensive power in order to qualify for stay deeper subsidy for a solar panel. Shouldnt we provide an exception for lowincome . That is a good comment and we can definitely consider that. We have made a commitment to not enroll customers if the clean foyer sf program is more expensive. What they would otherwise pay pg e. So the requirement is that had he sign up for a cleanpowersf customer, but they would not be automatically enrolled unless the rates are at or below parge. I dont think i really understood that. Sure. If i qualified to your lowincome program, and i did not want to optin into the cleanpowersf program, would i qualify for the deeper subsidy . Not under the new ordinance, if this ordinance goes forward. You wouldnt qualify. I just feel like how are you going to get lowincome customers if they are not willing to pay more on a monthly basis . It just its a good point. So right now about we want we had a commitment to clean power affordability and our rates where below pg e. Today due to some of the pcia changes, our costs are slightingly higher. But its very slight. And were currently researching whether we need to do a Rate Adjustment to catch up with that . But we had made the commitment to our commission not to preenroll additional customers until at or below the pg e rates. I appreciate your work to protect our customers and i want as many of our residents to sign up as possible. Im just worried about requiring lowincome residents to be a cleanpowersf customer in order to qualify for the deeper subsidy for go solar sf. But to move on to my second question and maybe i can understand that in the course before this comes to the full board. So im looking at the cost today, and its amazing how much its gone down. Over such a short period of time, but even with the subsidy it takes you down to about 10,000 or well, the incentive, im curious how lowincome residents can consider that and i dont consider myself lowincome and dont qualify under the ami that it seems that you work with. But i dont feel like i could afford 12,000 for solar panel. Its a great comment. Just a couple of things to clarify that 12,000 does not take into account the additional 2,000 a lowincome customer would get. You said its 14,000 today. So i did take the 2000 into account. 14 minus 2 is 12,000. They qualify for the 1700 on top of that. I thought it was 400 plus an additional 2,000. So its 500 kilowatt. Oh, i see. By kilowatt. 2. 5 kilowatt system and would qualify for the basic incentive, which would give them about 1200 on top of that they would get the additional 2,000 for being lowincome applicant and on top of that, if they lived in an Environmental Justice district, and use a city installer, getting additional incentives. That takes them down to roughly 10,000 how do lowincome residents afford . Its a great point and one nice thing about the solar market right now there are Financing Options available. So there are Many Companies now that will allow them to enter into a power Purchase Agreement or a lease. So they can spread that cost over the life of the system and they can still reduce their bill from what their paying on their pg e rates. So there is a lot of additional options that are available to people that are considering solar in general right now, which is nice. But yeah, we understand the other important point is the California Solar Initiative still runss a program called sash and they provide additional incentives to lowincome applicants that they could also qualify for if they are in the right locations for that. So we are really trying to incentivize lowincome residents to be able to afford solar, as much as we can. I would love between now and the full board meet ig would love to understand how that actually works for a real person . Sure. We can get you some specificks. And also the area Median Incomelevels that are eligible for the lowincome program. Sure. Thank you your work and i appreciate supervisor breeds leadership on it to incentivize our residents to go solar. Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments from Committee Members . I would like to move the amendments. I think you received a copy of the amendments sfpuc language clarification. Fixing the typo, and changing the amount which were explained by ms. Mitchell. So i would make a motion to move those amendments. Subject to Public Comment, im happy to vote in favor of them. So we have a motion and we can move those amendments without opposition [ gavel ] so if there are no further comments from Committee Members . Well now move into Public Comment on this item. Hi jason fried executive director of lafcko and wanted to speak to some of the items supervisor kim you brought up about the lowincome and a couple of things to keep in mine on the rate structure, the sfpuc set up a once a rate structure rather than changing the rates quarterly as pg e does. So right now while the rate is slightly different, you will see in the summertime, hopefully, if everything is worked out correctly, youll actually see cleanpowersf customers paying less than what pg e pays. Over the course of the year, you need to average it out over the course of year and while i get your comments about lowincome not being able to pay more and being profocus of tective of that, which is extremely important, in theory, it should be the same they should be paying the same. You might pay more in one month, but less in another month. To keep in mind a lot of other ent or incentives and programs, doing lowincome installation. Taking gosolarsf funds and money from other organizations and groups and are able to put it able to be much more Cost Effective for lowincome customers. The final thing i would put in on the lowincome side, were lowering their bills. So while even if there is a is a slight price differential, their overall bill will go down. Were not just talking about generation, but transmission, distribution and the other line items. So they are able to save a lot of money in the program. I appreciate supervisor breeds legislation and would encourage to you move it forward to the full board. Thank you. Thank you. If there is no further Public Comment on this item, Public Comment is now closed on item no. 1 [ gavel ] can we take a motion to rescind on the amendments and take it again after Public Comment . We have a motion to rescind and do that without opposition. [ gavel ] , well take a motion to move the amendments as proffered by president breed and que do that without opposition. [ gavel ] is there a motion on item no. 1 . I just want to say thank you to mr. Fry for pointing out specifically the balance of what we are trying to accomplish with our clean power program, which i believe is definitely a Better Program than what pg e has to offer and i would encourage everyone who is interested in signing up for clean power, go to cleanpowersf. Org. Thank you, with that i would like to move this item as amended to the full board with positive recommendation. Thank you, president breed and we do have a motion to move this forward with positive recommendation and i see a second and we can do that again without opposition. [ gavel ] thank you. Madam clerk, please call item no. 2. Yes, item no. 2 is a resolution retroactively authorizing the Sheriffs Department to contract with global tel link to provide Inmate Telephone Services which will [phaoeurpl ]ize inmate phone call rates that reduce the cost of the average local call by 34 . Thank you, madam clerk. Were joined today by the office of the sheriff. And today by Crispin Hollins, thank you so much for being here. Thank you very much and good morning supervisors, Crispin Hollins the cfo from the Sheriffs Department and happy sf clean power customer and im here before you today to request approval with a new contract with global tel link to provide Inmate Telephone Services. Global tel link has provided services for San Francisco since 2010. Oover the years the department has made progress in reducing call rates and most recently recussing the cost from 2. 35 to 1. 54 in june of last year and the contract before you today memorializes the june 2016 rates and 3year contract with two oneyear options to extend. As i think you know the proposed rate caps and while these rate caps have been challenged and not yet implemented the rates in the contract before you today are lower than the fcc proposed rates. The main point of had this slide is to show progress to lower the cost of an average call and finally this last slide shows the benefits of lower calling costs inasmuch as it results in greater call volume and greater call duration. When the rates were just last june volumes and duration increased roughly 2030 . Great. Thank you so much for the presentation are or are there any questions from committee [stphebz ] supervisor peskin . Thank you, madam chair. A appreciate the fact that the reduction is in the amount of 34 and i had one House Cleaning question, why the retroactive nature of the resolution . And after the fact contract signing on december 1st of last year . We were anxious to move forward with this contract, and we wanted to make sure these were memorialized, but we had it signed with the understanding that the contract would not be formally approved by the city until it was approved by the board of supervisors so somewhere in this 24page contract is some clause to that effect, counselor, mr. Givner. Not looking at the contract in front of me so im not sure, but all of our contracts become effective only if the board approves the contract, if its subject to 9. 118. So occasionally departments will enter into agreements, but those agreements are not binding on the city unless the board approves. I dont know whether that is memorialized in the contract itself i believe we have some boilerplate in our contract to that effect. I can doublecheck as i see you are right now. Its okay just as long as you dont make a habit of it. Understood. All right. Any other comments or questions . President breed . Thank you. So when i first became a member of the board, i made it my mission to address these particular issues, specifically with the contracts as it relates to phone calls for inmates and also the commentary, which i know former sheriff Ross Mirkarimi worked with the team at the Sheriffs Department to come up with what i believe was a fair change, a significant change and drop in rates. And the drop in costs overall for inmates, who rely on these services, and who i believe sadly were being taken advantage of. So in this particular case, with the phone calls, i do appreciate the significant increase and the continuous decline, especially in light of the fact that calling locally is traditionally free, and i know that there are some other layers that go with setting up the appropriate phone systems in our jail system. I realize there are costs associated with that. But the one thing that im continuously concerned about, and wanted to know if you could address that with some more specifics the money that is collected, and used specifically for programming for inmates, and we have had this conversation in the past, and expressed the desire to see an alternative, and not to develop these programs on the backs of the families of these individuals. And so just wanted to know what the breakdown is for the anticipated revenues annually for this particular program . And what is anticipated to go specifically where . Because its not necessarily spelled out in that way in the contract. We estimate roughly that this contract would bring in about 500,000 to the Inmate Welfare Fund and then the Inmate Welfare Fund provides services its required to be spent only on services for inmates. It funds salaries for Prison Legal Services and other jail program staff. The other big expense that it funds is for communitybased organizations, primarily community works, which provides our oneFamily Program and our stop the violence program. Have we done any work because i know that again, when this contract was up before, i had expressed a desire to look at alternatives in an effort to reduce the costs associated with this particular program. So have we explored alternatives . Is this the only money for this particular program . Are there other means to support this program . Well, so we have reduced our reliance on Inmate Welfare Fund by reducing the costs here, but there is still half a Million Dollar amount that comes to the department to help provide these programs. If we were to go significantly lower than this, we would need to come to the general fund to ask for it to make up for that difference. So do you know what the amount is from the contract for the commentary . That goes into this particular fund . I know that in for last fiscal year from 20152016 that amount was about 600,000. So the total is a little bit over a Million Dollars for this program. Do you know what the cost is to have this program in general . Separately from were talking about 1. 1 million and the total cost to operate the program . Total expenditures in 201516 were 1. 2 million. And it all comes from basically the inmates themselves . Yes; we had a beginning fund balance july 1, 2015, fund balance of 2 million. There was an addition to commissions and phone calls there was commission from some of the signage in the jails. It brought in total of 1. 3 million and we expended 1. 2 million and ended the year with fund balance of 2. 1 and this year, the expenditures will be roughly maybe 1. 5 million. And then where does the additional. 4 i mean, because this contract along with the commissary generates 1. 1 and there is still an outstanding need and where does that money come from . From the general fund. I mean, these the programs that it funds are larger programs. We do quite a lot of work with communitybased organizations, and our prisoner Legal Services program is much larger than what is funded by just this program. So those funds primarily come from the general fund. And for the inmates that are in 50 bryant, the biggest feedback that i get is there is no location for services and so how is that particular population getting served . Even though they are clearly paying into a fund that is supposed to be used to serve them . 850 brian there are challenges that go with 850 bryant. But we do have programming at 850 bryant, particularly with regard to this program. We have the one Family Program operates there. And recently we have augments that program, if you will, by inmates who participate in that program. We have been giving them phone cards 20 phone cards. So that once they after having contact with their families, with their children, through the oneFamily Program, they can then make free phone calls to their loved ones after the program is done for the day. Thank you. Again, i appreciate the continual efforts of the Sheriffs Department to try and make sure that these programs are costeffective for the inmates. Because ultimately, as you know, the families are the ones who have to deal with the bills associated with the phone calls, the commissary and all of the different layers that exist. Because clearly, as these inmates are in custody, they have no means to generate any revenue and this money comes from a lot of these families, who unfortunately, tend to be lowincome families. So i appreciate the work done by the department to continue to decrease these expenses, as much as possible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, president breed. I appreciate you bringing up all of the comments and concerns that you raised. When this contract came to us before slough then sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, i expressed a number of concerns about the high cost of staying connected with your family and friends, which evidence clearly shows supports rehabilitation when the inmate returns into the community. So charging them a lot of money to do something that we know will help our Community Later on, seems counterintuitive, but also to use the program to charging the families in order to provide Additional Services to the inmate also felt somewhat wrong. So i do appreciate the work to reduce the costs. Allowing inmates to stay in better contact with family and friends. Thank you for your work. Thank you, seeing no further questions or comments from the committee. At this timely open up for Public Comment on item no. 2. Are there any members of the public that would like to speak on the item . Seeing no comments Public Comment is now closed. Mr. Hollins thanks for presenting to the gaoc committee. Do we have a motion on the item . So moved with recommendation. Supervisor peskin moving forward with recommendation and without opposition. [ gavel ]. Thank you, madam clerk, please call item no. 3. Would you like me to call all of them . Yes, please call all the remaining items on the agenda. Except for item nos. 327 are various collective bargaining agreements between the city and county of San Francisco. Thank you, madam clerk. Nicki callahan, director of Human Resources for city and county of San Francisco and thank you for presenting on the mous before the gaoc committee. This is a fairly simple thank you for calling all of the items together. We were successful in reaching tentative agreements with every regarding every expiring contract for the spring of 2017. And as i sat here i just learned that seiu ratified by 94 margin. So at this point all of the unions with the exception the second page is sightly out of date now. The largest remaining union to ratify is local 21 and theyll ratify in the first week of march. A couple of smaller groups, three smaller groups we expect to hear from the attorneys next week. But ratification margins, low est we heard is 59 , but some have been unanimous and been in the 90s. So i think our labor partners agreed with us it was a good plan of action, given the uncertainties were facing as a city. Im happy to address any questions. Im sure you have seen the terms. Its 3 , each of two years. Which what i will call a little safety net in the second year, if we should have major drop in revenue, or recession, well be able to save some money by delaying the increase by six months. Although we wouldnt have to go back into bargaining, which is good for he everyone. Well know the outcome. And ill be happy to take questions. Madam chair, i just want to note for the record we have been briefed about this as an entire board in closed session, as the negotiations were ongoing. And i have a question, which is should we do you want us to remove the ones where the tas have not been approved, item 10 for muncial attorney as the association and twu items and continue those . Or do you want us to move those ordinances while they are still voting . We would request that you move them all forward in unt unlikely event that someone fails to ratify, we would request it to be pulled off the boards agenda. Thank you, mr. Callahan. See nothing questions or comments, well open up for Public Comment on these items. So any thank you. Good work. Thank you. Any members of the public that would like to speak on these items . Seeing none, Public Comment is now closed. [ gavel ] ms. Callahan, thank you so much for all of your work. We appreciate on behalf the board. So committee can we take a motion on this item . I would move items 327 to the full board with recommendations. We have a motion to move items 3 through 27 to the full board with positive recommendation. We have a second only that. And we can do that without opposition. [ gavel ] thank you. Maam clerk, do we need to take the motion to convene into closed session . Can we make the motion to convene into closed session . Public comment . Before we do that, can we take Public Comment on these items . 28 and 29. Seeing no Public Comment on items 28 and 29, Public Comment is now closed. [ gavel ] may we take a motion to convene into closed session for items 27 and 28 . Would you like me to call the items . Excuse me. Would you like me to call the items . That is what i asked. Item 28 is ordinance authorizing the lawsuit file by yu ern phan and gai thi fan nguyen again the city and county of San Francisco and item 29 authorizing settlement of lawsuit filed by Willie Crawford filed against the city and count of San Francisco. Can we make a motion to convene into closed session . So moved. We have a motion and do that without opposition. [ gavel ]. We just ask members of the public all right. Were now back in open session. Our City Attorney jon givner. During the closed session, the Committee Voted Unanimously to forward items 28 and 29 to the full board with positive recommendation. Thank you, mr. Givner. Can we take a motion to not disclose items from closed session . So moved. We have a motion and we can do that again without opposition. [ gavel ] madam clerk, any other items . There is no further business. Thank you. Meeting is adjourned [ gavel ] youre watching quick bite, the show that has San Francisco. Were here at one of the many food centric districts of San Francisco, the 18th street corridor which locals have affectionately dubbed the castro. A cross between castro and gastronomic. The bakery, pizza, and dolores park cafe, there is no end in sight for the mouth watering food options here. Adding to the culinary delights is the family of business he which includes skylight creamery, skylight and the 18 raisin. Skylight market has been here since 1940. Its been in the family since 1964. His father and uncle bought the market and ran it through sam taking it over in 1998. At that point sam revamped the market. He installed a kitchen in the center of the market and really made it a place where chefs look forward to come. He created community through food. So, we designed our community as having three parts we like to draw as a triangle where its comprised of our producers that make the food, our staff, those who sell it, and our guests who come and buy and eat the food. And we really feel that we wouldnt exist if it werent for all three of those components who really support each other. And thats kind of what we work towards every day. Valley creamery was opened in 2006. The two pastry chefs who started it, chris hoover and walker who is sams wife, supplied all the pastries and bakeries for the market. They found a space on the block to do that and the ice cream kind of came as an afterthought. They realized the desire for ice cream and we now have lines around the corner. So, thats been a huge success. In 2008, sam started 18 reasons, which is our community and event space where we do five events a week all around the idea of bringling people closer to where the food comes from and closer to each other in that process. 18 reasons was started almost four years ago as an educational arm of their work. And we would have dinners and a few classes and we understood there what momentum that people wanted this type of engagement and education in a way that allowed for a more indepth conversation. We grew and now we offer i think we had nine, we have a series where adults learned home cooking and we did a teacher Training Workshop where San Francisco unified Public School teachers came and learned to use cooking for the core standards. We range all over the place. We really want everyone to feel like they can be included in the conversation. A lot of organizations i think which say were going to teach cooking or were going to teach gardening, or were going to get in the policy side of the food from conversation. We say all of that is connected and we want to provide a place that feels really Community Oriented where you can be interested in multiple of those things or one of those things and have an entree point to meet people. We want to build community and were using food as a means to that end. We have a wonderful organization to be involved with obviously coming from buy right where really everyone is treated very much like family. Coming into 18 reasons which even more Community Focused is such a treat. We have these events in the evening and we really try and bring people together. People come in in groups, meet friends that they didnt even know they had before. Our whole set up is focused on communal table. You can sit across from someone and start a conversation. Were excited about that. I never worked in catering or food service before. Its been really fun learning about where things are coming from, where things are served from. It is getting really popular. Shes a wonderful teacher and i think it is a Perfect Match for us. It is not about home cooking. Its really about how to facilitate your ease in the kitchen so you can just cook. I have always loved eating food. For me, i love that it brings me into contact with so many wonderful people. Ultimately all of my work that i do intersects at the place where food and community is. Classes or cooking dinner for someone or writing about food. It always come down to empowering people and giving them a wonderful experience. Empower their want to be around people and all the values and reasons the commitment, community and places, were offering a whole spectrum of offerings and other really wide range of places to show that good food is not only for wealthy people and they are super committed to accessibility and to giving people a glimpse of the beauty that really is available to all of us that sometimes we forget in our day to day running around. We have such a philosophical mission around bringing people together around food. Its so natural for me to come here. We want them to walk away feeling like they have the tools to make change in their lives. Whether that change is voting on an issue in a way that they will really confident about, or that change is how to understand why it is important to support our small farmers. Each class has a different purpose, but what we hope is that when people leave here they understand how to achieve that goal and feel that they have the resources necessary to do that. Are you inspired . Maybe you want to learn how to have a patch in your backyard or cook better with fresh ingredients. Or grab a quick bite with organic goodies. Find out more about 18 reasons by going to 18 reasons. Org and learn about buy right market and creamery by going to buy right market. Com. And dont forget to check out our blog for more info on many of our episodes at sf quick bites. Com. Until next time, may the fork be with you. So chocolaty. Mm. Oh, this is awesome. Oh, sorry. I thought we were done rolling. We will start our meeting with a pledge to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag to the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This is i reminder to silence all Electronic Devices San Francisco Fire Commission regular meeting wednesday february 8, 2017 and the time is 9 03 a. M. Roll call. President cleaveland. Present. Vice president nakajo. Present. Commissioner hardeman. I am here. Commissioner covington. Present. Chief of department joanne hayeswhite. Here. Item 2 general Public Comment. Members of the public may address the commission up to three minutes on any matter within the jurisdiction and does not appear on the agenda. Speakers shall address the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or to personnel and commissioners are not to enter do discussion or debate with a speaker. The lack of a statement doesnt support or not with any Public Comment. Is there any Public Comment . Seeing none Public Comment is closed. Item 3 approval of the minutes. Discussion and possible action to approve Meeting Minutes of january 25, 2017 regular meeting. Is there comment on the minutes . Commissioners what is your pleasure . So moved, the minute mr. Chair. Do i have a second . Second. Thank you. For both the regular and special . Do you want to do it separately . Separately. Okay. All in favor of approving the minutes. Aye. Minutes for the january 25, 2017 minutes any Public Comment . None. Public comment is closed. Do i have a motion. Motion. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you. Item 4 draft operating budget for fiscal year of 20172018 20182019 discussion and possible action to adopt the Fire Departments operating budget for fiscal years 20162017 20172018 20162019. Good morning. Good morning president cleaveland, commissioners. Give me one moment to pull up the slide show. Okay. There we go. Okay. Good morning. I wanted to go over and present on the departments Budget Proposal for the 1718 and 1819 years. There was a budget book in your packetd and i will briefly go over that, get into the details and answer any questions that may come up. So i wanted to do excuse me. A little brief overview on the instructions and timelines from the Mayors Office that has been touched on previous meetings and a overview of. The review of the budget document before you, some of the changes in the budget, the departments proposal, and then open up for any discussion you may have. So heres a brief review of the timeline. Here we are on the eighth of february for potential action on the budget and due on the 21st and june 1 is when the mayors budget is due to the board of supervisors. We have departmental hearings during june and the board considers the budget overall in july. Excuse me. Just brief review of the budget instructions. These are stemming from the citys five year Financial Plan update back in december. The city over the next two years is looking at after overall defit of 400 mundz and increasing in the out years. Departments have been requesting to reduce the general fund support by 3 in each year so cumulative 6 in the second jeer and for the department thoopts 1. 7 in the next year and no new punishes as part of the Budget Proposals. So a little summary of the budget. So last year is the two year budget. Last year approved the second year, fiscal year 1718 during that process. That has been essentially rolled over for the first year of this budget process so any adjustments prirchl rates and valerie rates and work orders updated those have been roll overd and. It includes assumptions for the hiring plan over the next few year as well as the equipment plan funded in last years budget process so the numbers will change in the book over the next couple of weeks. We have a couple of weeks until submission and adjustments to the staffing models and technical adjustments but nothing material in scope other than what has been presented to you before. So briefly going over some of the changes and the appropriation on page in your budget book on page i will touch on briefly on some of the appropriation changes. You will see there is a large change on page 16 of 82 of your budget document. Theres some changes in salaries, frirchl bchs. A lot that of is driven by mou requirements and changes and negotiated rates in addition to some of the fringe rates that have been incorporated into the Budget System and including retirement and Health Benefit changes et cetera. You will see a increase in regular salaries and decrease in over time and part of the departments hiring over the years as we see increase the staffing we will see the over time reduce and the regular salaries increase and in addition a lot of the non salary work orders theyre negotiated during the mayors portion of the budget and not in our departments budget. Jumping brief leave to the revenues if you look at page nine of 82 thats an overall revenue summary. We are looking altsome potential increases to Fire Prevention revenues as well as ems mainly on that side due to call victim. There were increases incorp volume. There were increases in the volume and we did that and anticipated that in the next two years as well and increased ems revenue. Fire prevention as well and looking at current year activities. We anticipated a small increase and we didnt raise fees last year and were looking at it due to salaries and benefits over the last two years to recover the cost. Ems are triggered with the increase and baked into the legislation that establishes the establish to charge. Overall highlighting some of the changes you will see by kind of division or subject area on page 21 of 82 in your book theres kind of break out by division. I will start with administration and support services. Thats essentially an annualization of current positions that were funded in the current year as well as wage increases incorporated into the budget and also mandatory fringe benefit changes. In addition there were work orders approved last year in the budget. Those increases that are known are included in the departments budget. Excuse me. For Fire Prevention were maintaining current Staffing Levels. Thats consistent with some of the initiatives that the fire marshal has proposed in the current year in regards to realignment of the complaint section as well as some of the outreach and that it continuation of the dbi funded positions so we have an inspector and investigator that we assigned to outreach as well as additional staffing to deal with some of the implementation of some of the new legislation from the board. In addition the increase part of that is due to annualization for a fiscal year and we adjusted over time to account for activity on the revenues and expenditure side. We have increases due to mou and the benefit range rates. Theyre incorporated into the staff. Annualization of new positions and battalion five that has been done for the fiscal year and reduction in over time and increase in the staff were seeing and continuing the fleet and Equipment Program that was approved last year in the budget and in addition a few of the new positions at the airport are annualized as well and h28 approved for staffing and in the process and may have been announced for training at the airport as well. In addition some of the one time projects removed last year and 800,000 allocated for the preplan so to speak on the dpsems facility as part of the health bond and a one time allocation. In addition a lot of the it and Capital Project budgets were nltd finalized and going through the vetting process again in the current year and related to some of the bond work there is quality and furniture and that added after additional conversations ins the Mayors Office. So overall with regards to the proposal as i mentioned we are looking at a 1. 7 Million Dollars request for reductions. Together so far we have approximately 705,000 of that offsetting from revenues as i mentioned, ems and Fire Prevention revenues. However, the department the belief is the additional cuts to that for the operational issues in light of what has been discussed at previous meeting and the increase in call volume and i will get into that a little bit in addition there is limit the flexibility from the operational perspective and other areas of the budget. Thank you. Sorry. I am under the weather. We have limited staffing and mou requirements and the lack of non expenditure side and there are additional strains on that due to the call volume but limited overall of the budget and a very small percentage. So the Department Also proposing to continue to work closely with the mayors Budget Office and staff over the months in advance of the mayors budget submittal on june 1. The committee will continue to meet to address priorities, potential for cost savings and in addition justifications for current funding for the department as well as other initiatives. As the chief mentioned at the last Commission Meeting the reconvening of the ambulance work group citywide and look at ems resources and do analysis of staffing and other resources on the ems side Going Forward. Just briefly i wanted to highlight again as kind of the overall theme that as we looked at the bottoming and operations the main thing that sticks out is the increased call volume and since the late fall a large spike over what we projected and were looking at addressing that. The ems work group will do a good job at looking at nexts with response but call volume is a huge driver of our operations obviously and continuing to see increases in that given reduction requests and resources that we currently have were trying to resolve any issues outstanding from that. So with that i would like to open any questions or discussion that you have. Thank you. Thank you mr. Corso. Is there any Public Comment on this item . Seeing none Public Comment is closed. Commissioners discussion . Questions . Commissioner covington. Thank you mr. President. Thank you for your presentation mr. Corso. I have a couple of quick questions to begin with. I am wondering about on page 16 utilities excuse me. Could you define utilities . In general . Let me find that specific in general that is for if i could find it real quick. Usually its for things such as electricity, sewer a lot is broken out into work orders but let me pull that specific line up. So we pay pg e directly for correct. We pay the Water Department for sewer and wastewater through a separate work order which is a separate line item here. This is in general for let me find that real quick. This is a lot for Treasure Island as well. They have a little different structure through tida so thats in general for station utilities not covered with work orders through other departments. Okay. So what is our pg e bill . Because i noticed this line item in the budget is constant. Its 74,000. Correct so part of is a lot of the utility rates are negotiated over the next months in the budget, want by our office but the Mayors Office on a total citywide allocation and depending on each individual departments perspective that is what the budget will be and adjusted at the Mayors Office level. Okay. So do you have a figure for our pg e bill . I do not off the top of my head but i can get one. Okay. I am interested because i think in the last Commission Meeting i asked about solar panels for fire houses, and i did get a very informative email from chief rivero giving me some ideas but i think this is something that we probably need to have a presentation on at some point. Solar panels or you know Something Else to assist us with these budgets, so i dont know what the pg e bill is. I dont know how high it goes, and that information would be helpful in our conversation, so i would request of our president that we have Mohammed Nuru chat about green roofs opposed to solar roofs so we can have more information of. We have to just as you do with your own Family Budget you have to look at how you can save money. I mean 74,000 for instance is not a lot of money, but if you save that ten times youre talking about a real chunk of change, so Going Forward i think we need to look at everything and examine all possibilities. Absolutely. We have tried as much as we can on smaller scale working with the puc on Energy Efficiency and for example boilers or lights, things like that. Obviously in the big picture theyre small items but if you apply to all of the locations they can add up for sure. We have a lot of property, and you know and in family homes people arent there all day long, you know 24 hours a day, but the San Francisco Fire Department is in our fire houses 24 hours a day, the lights are on literally, so we should look at that, and i also wanted to know a little bit about on page nine the medical cannabis dispensary. Yes. Okay. So the projection is for the projection is for 880, yes. Yes. So in general i dont think its that frequent and i could probably defer to the fire marshal for a little more of an explanation. We do get a few requests every year for informations related to that. Inspections related to that. Obviously the revenue is small so its infrequent but there are occasions were requested to do inspections at facilities. Okay. So its just inspection of the property . Correct. We wouldnt be charged with any of the like the business permitting or anything like that. Its part of the normal fire as far as code and safety. Its a referral from another department for fire saipt. So its on a referral basis . Correct. Okay. I will hold my other questions until other commissioners have a chance mr. President. Thank you commissioner covington. Commissioner hardeman. Thank you mr. Chair. As usual mr. Corso a very efficient i know just plugging in numbers in some respects but in other respects its each one of these little lines and there are hundreds of them that have a number that youre responsible for. You do a great job in your analysis and your recommendations. Thank you. So in the funding for any staff positions related to the Fire Department that are i assume are just staff we wouldnt have to worry about if there is any cuts, and im not talking about the sanctuary city cuts. I am talking about the other funding sources. How many of those are in jeopardy . Are you referring like the new hiring or the academies that were projecting or in general . I am talking about the employees, some of the staff people that have significant jobs for us that are part of Homeland Security money oh on the federal side . Yes. I think a lot of that is unknown at this time. We are currently funded and we have applied for so were funded and applied for the next round of funding and i believe there is another round coming up in a few months. I dont think its anything currently allocated. That would be an issue and in the future years Going Forward the potential we wouldnt be able to apply or receive federal funding so currently we are essentially funded for three, two and a half federal positions. We have the Homeland Security director. We have an information sharing position and we have a planner that assists with nert and the department of emergency management. Theyre funded by federal Homeland Security grants so those would be the three positions. In addition theres a number of equipment and other awards that we received that could potentially be in jeopardy, but i think a lot of that is still unknown both within the department obviously but citywide or federally as well. Theres been a lot of talk what the administration would want to do in certain instances and talk about what they could do as far as pulling federal funding. I think there is confusion around what is allowable and in addition the uncertainty surrounding the implications of actually implementing those policies so i guess thats a long way of saying theres a lot of uncertainty surrounding that but currently were funded for three positions with federal grants. Thank you. And theyre very important positions as we all know absolutely. Anybody that works in the Fire Department knows how hard they work and how valuable they are. The savings on overtime is terrific. Thats remarkable number and that will go into the new staffing for the additional classes. Would that be used this year for the additional employees, i guess the new h 2. S or covered by other funds . Our staffing model overall and we have a minimum level so we know what to fill every year and because of budget reductions we didnt hire as much so we relied on overtime and that increase and the relative salaries decrease because of the redecrease in staff and were going the other way and Building Back the staff in anticipation of retirements of course but were restoring the staffing and adding to the overall net staffing and reduces the need for overtime. Very good. I see youre soaking wet like me. I took the streetcar down and couldnt see and it was so wet and i see you wiping yourself and 45 minutes ago and i am still soaking wet. The volume on the increased volume for primarily engines and ambulances as were so good about giving us these graphs. As commissioners we love. The sky rocketing the last four years so thats basically a multiple of each year, so it goes up 5 this last year based on the year before and went up so many percent and the year before so you know were looking at for our chiefs that are responsible for directing the departments like chief myers with the ambulances the effects of just pyramiding of more and more does there come a point where were trying to reach the goals of on time is just absolutely impossibility because you cant go 100 miles on 95 miles of gas. I mean it doesnt happen, thank you so much how do we deal with that to give you know the mayor has to understand we cant do a 3 budget cut on a 5 volume increase. That really is more than 5 and the year before and the year before and the year before and each year that number keeps shooting up, and we dont have anymore ambulances and we dont have any more engines. Absolutely. Thats the theme that came up. The Budget Committee met talking about our budget and talking to Division Heads thats the core issue were dealing with and we totally i do want to say were extremely appreciative of what the Mayors Office has allocated over the years and were absolutely working with them Going Forward but i think the issue were struggling with internally there are reduction requests here but on the other side we provide a core service to the city and the demand continues to increase and how do we balance that . I think in regards from a operational perspective the ems and ambulance work group is looking at that a bit. There are a number of issues that relate to it. Its not just Fire Department specific so thats why theres a number of partners from Public Health and the hospitals and a lot of factors that go into patient care and response and those issues will addressed and brought up and analyzed at the work group level. Did you want to check in now on this subject not you but the chief and wants to answer chief. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you president cleaveland. I just wanted to add youre absolutely right. Thats why we feel that we need to convey to the Mayors Office in order to continue the level of service were providing over the course over the last years we see a constant increase. Its not surprising and our population in the city is 863,000, nearly 864,000 residents so with the increase we have seen the increase in call volume so i think its an excellent observation. Its something we will discuss at the ems Work Group Meeting on monday. Thank you. Thank you mr. Corso. I knew you would give a great answer and not to put you on the spot and to get it on the Public Record and anybody watching or listening or the supervisors watching and the mayor has a different situation when dealing with the Fire Department because it you know life health and safety of all the residents and the visitors. It cant just be considered 3 cut and thats the way it goes, so i think trying to help the mayor that its out there that this department has a little different problem. Thank you. I asked you a couple of meetings ago about the Square Footage about the chiefs residence and you sent it out us to 3415 square feet and all the you broke down all the expenses that related to keeping that in good shape which are very expensive, but thats something we have to maybe have to deal with at some point what to do because this question has been going on as long as i have been on the commission and every year we keep putting it off so at this point it has to come and find the money to fix it or whatever. Lets see. The one item and i think you brought this up last year also because its one of the commissioners asked about the 30 plus million for electrical. Thats a huge number. Thats like the biggest number. It encompasses a bunch of items but i hope the safety on the electrical we can get into. I know some of the items that might be related to tech hightech or something but hopefully we take care of the anything that might be a safety issue on the electrical. Thats just my comment. Absolutely. I think just in general overall the electrical infrastructure at our stations is quite old and out dated e spill given the current demands on it for equipment, for systems because of the age of our facilities and as were doing work at our stations as a result of the bond were updating and addressing the issues but as things pop up during the year we fix them with the funding that we have to that extent but overall the infrastructure doesnt support the demands for electrical for the familiarities. Thank you for what you do and delighted for representing the Fire Department and the chief with the people that make the final decision. Keep up the good attitude. Thank you. Thank you commissioner hardeman. Commissioner nakajo. Thank you. I had the opportunity to review the budget booklet. In terms of page seven and eight of 82 it has the organizational chart of the department. My question to you is again just for reinforcement what is the total number of the personnel within the San Francisco Fire Department . Uniform and civilian . Yes. I believe its approximately 1650. Yeah. I would say thats about 75 civilian staff and the remainder are uniform. Can i confirm that but its what i have off of the top of my head. 75 civilian and how many uniform . 1575. Okay. What percentage of personnel is part of this budget . Overall . So thats one of our constraints given the minimum Staffing Levels. Its about 91 overall budget goes to salaries and benefits for perm and then theres personnel and portions and workers comp and larger ticket items and the cost of doing business that goes into that so the amount of flexibility we have is rather small. What the percentage for that flexibility . I would say for example for our a lot of our materials and supplies, things of that nature its probably between five and 7 . Okay. And capital is separate from this annual budget . Im sorry . Capital is straight from this annual separate from the budget . Yes but what is in last year is included so if you look at page 18 and 19 of your booklet you will see a section labeled annual projects and continuing projects at the bottom of page 18. In general you will see the two line items for facility and maintenance and renewals. Those are the Capital Budget projects and approved last year in the two year budget process so we have some Capital Funding allocated to us but overall the entire process even thee it was a two year budget each year its reviewed again so even though it was allocated last year in the process its not necessarily what were allocated this year in the process. Okay. But that separate capital line item has been granted previously . Yes, it was approved and the details are on page for example on if you look at page 37 and 38 it gives a little bit of detail on our Facility Maintenance and renewal projects that were allocated so last year in the budget it was the 1617 fiscal year budget and approved the budget for 1617 and 1718 and we reviewing the 1718 budget and 1819 budget and there were projects approved and on page 38 you see exhaust extractor and other projects and allocated in that previous budget but as part of the annual process they will be reviewed again. Okay. But in terms of the discussion are the dollars intact, the capital dollars as part of this budget in. I think so. There is some discussion with the financial difficultes and what the budget is looking at and citywide and not departmental but looked at for savings and a discussion that will continue with the Mayors Office overall and even though they have been allocated and we will advocate for them and obviously we will but they will be reviewed in the overall balances of the citys budget. In terms of the departments budget director corso what is your feeling on those items for us to remain pretty much intact or is there room for some i think the departments request would be to remain intact. We have a number of facility issues and that is done comprehensively on the easter bond and things pop up daily where were looking at general maintenance and hvac repairs and theyre crucial to the normal every day operations and mentioned from a health and safety perspective exhauster repair and critical to our members. Okay. You said we have a goal of 9. 5 left out of the 7. 5 . Correct. In terms of the 7. 5 you talked about that being part of savings and revenue income in. Revenue. So that is revenue for the entire amount and part is ems revenue and the remainder Fire Prevention revenue. Okay. Which leads me to as i review this line by line and looked at page 11, 12, 13 before i began to realize as i looked at these various items in the spirit of trying to identify revenue if revenue identification is part of the goals to offset i didnt know how it was going to work. I know how it worked previously and sometimes when we identify revenue savings that works against us. Do you know what i am talking about mr. Corso when i make that reference . No. I dont. You can explain that a bit. When we have revenue savings and increase revenues or savings and go into our general fund and my interpretation that is part of the 3 cut. Is that accurate or not . So the goal of the 3 is reduce the departments or any departments dependency on the general support and there are two ways and one reduce cost in some matter and the second is add and supplement the revenue from the city through additional revenues and i wouldnt say it hinders us per se but another way to offset some of the citys departments dependence on general fund support. Okay with that explanation and thats qhai was hoping for. What i did as i reviewed the revenue income page 10, 11 as i went down various items commissioner covington mentioned the line of medical cannabis dispensary fees. I see other City Property rentals, intergovernmental revenue states, charges for service, and i side notes and the simple thinking i know there is thing with the cannabis fees but being a layperson on the commission with fiscal with the recent change of laws with the medical cannabis if we the department are involved in some aspect of that my point of view was to increase our charge. If theres a minimum amount of work that is required with that thats one thing but if there are other aspects that the department can investigate to increase our revenues, increase charges, i didnt know again whether or not those were feasible. Other City Property rentals page ten of 82 line 39899 and talks about the department receives revenues from mobile phone companies that have installed transmission towers on department property. I know in some years being on this commission that was controversial in some ways because by puttin antennas and with the members of the station and it was a popular Revenue Source so again my point of view when i see items like that medical cannabis and the property and Public Safety sales, tax allocation the department receives a portion of the citys sales tax revenue and allocated for Public Safety purposes to support this operation and as it goes down in terms of page 11 other government changes, false alarm response fees, preapplication, i decided instead of going line by line since its pretty much pretty similar page 11, page 12, page 13 the question that came to my mind is how realistic is it and i am presenting to you as a question and perhaps you want to ask the fire marshal and look at these areas and increasing our fees. At the point of view many departments are increasing their fees but i didnt know whether that was increase of fees that we pass along is realistic and i wanted to hear something about how feasible is that in this climate presently in terms of economics and construction and development . Because all of these pages, 11, 12, 13 i marked Construction Costs but my notes on every level is look into, possibilities to increase, possibilities to increase but again i stopped in terms of trying to ask this question through you director corso. Yes, so i would say the general comment to fees were not allowed to recoup more than the cost of providing the services so every year we look at that. Last year we were able to absorb some of the into the fees and with the additional benefit and salary increases we have requested about 4 increase to our fees for specifically speaking Fire Prevention and the level of activity obviously is something that the city is looking at projection wise. I think we have seen a lot of the growth over the last few years level off. To say its still strong but the growth has leveled off on that so we look at what we have in the current year and what were projecting Going Forward to arrive at those level of activities and specifically to the cannabis i think thats something studied citywide. As far as the implication on it i anticipate were involved in the conversations Going Forward but anticipate the frequency increasing as more and more come on line with changes in legislation so that is as the fire marshal mentioned its kind of a referral basis and were referred by another department to do an inspection. All right. I recognize being an amateur with good spirit and i am nickel and diming this to get to that amount but every cent helps in some aspect but again i am trying to be real conscious as to that and fear of a pass along increase and what that does to contractors or et cetera. You have given me that answer. I started to proceed on page 14, page 15 but it hits the categorical and insurance revenue, ambulance billing, contractual adjustments, the same question came about. How realistically is it for us at this particular point to increase particular fees in ambulance or that particular area which is separate from separate from prevention for sure. We do the same on the ambulance side and cover the fees to provide ems services citywide. As i mentioned previously there is a cpi medical increase built into the legislation that increases our fees every year. Its a little different on the ambulance side as compared to the prevention size because in general we get paid by prevention up front and in order to do the work we need to be paid for that work where on the ems side its reimbursement basis and for example for medicare or medical no matter how much you raise the fees youre not increasing the revenues youre bringing in and the fee increase affects private insurance but not medicare or medical and when talking about federal uncertainty is changes to the Affordable Care act and how does that change the insurance demographics of the population that were picking up . Were working a lot of people are obviously with potential changes in projecting that out and what does it actually mean to our population and does it mean less insured people . Does it mean the payer mix is different . So those things are discussed kind of on a higher level but thats the main difference between Fire Prevention and the ems fees. All right. Director corso im glad that were having this discussion and the public is aware of the in terms of fees whether its medicare or medical there is a limitation of increase. In terms of Fire Prevention you made a statement were not allowed on certain categoricals to increase. Why is that . Its not were not allowed to increase. Were not allowed to recover more than what our costs are providing the service essentially profiting from the service provided. With that there are additional costs that are not part of its not just salary and benefits of the people. Its materials and supplies. Its the vehicle replacement. Its our administrative staff so all the additional costs are wrapped into those fees to essentially show the total cost of providing service. Thank you. Its interesting that again part of this discussion in terms of budget is that were reducing over time and the over time as a result of personnel that we have. There used to be an argument it was cheaper for us to do over time than have personnel. Do you recall that statement . I do and i would say thats technically true but i think you get into operational issues and i think one of the things we had that were obviously getting out is mandatory over time, any impacts from that, and so with the additional staff were reducing that departments dependency on over time. All right. I was of the mind if more personnel would help reduce over time particularly since mandatory over time is a hardship within the members and budgetary and to the membership so for me to reinforced a concept of having an ample work force to be able to counter that so i wanted to get a little feedback on that and you did do that. Mr. President i am going to stop at this particular point. If there are other questions from the commissioners so i can regroup with my notes. Thank you mr. Vice president. Mr. Corso i have a few questions. Can you define exactly what is premium pay . So there a number of premiums and incentives beyond the member salary rate would be. For example there is premiums for commissi Hazardous Materials and working at certain locations and incentives as far as training and education and holiday pay and working out in the mou and paid on top of what the members base salary is. So premium pay is in the mous. Correct. And its time and a half. Its percentage base so the members work holidays and dont get paid extra for working the holiday but overall there is a six and a half percent premium attached that members can take or time coming. Thank you. The overtime i am glad to see its going to down significantly. What constitutes the bulk of the eefer time . Is it ems, Fire Prevention services . Is it Fire Suppression services . Where is the over time . Its mainly concentrated on the minimum staffing requirements so for engines, trucks there is a portion obviously for the ambulance tier and there is a small portion for prevention, other units, fire investigation, et cetera, but the large bulk comes from staffing and Fire Suppression and ems. So this is prop f. Yes. And based about 2004 Staffing Levels. Correct. I believe around that time so we have increased the staffing since then. We opened up a new station at mission bay and station 51 in the presidio and that increased but we still have a mandated number of shifts we need to fill and the less people we have the more we need over time. Of course. But right now were shifting the other way as we hire staff. How do you determine the minimum Staffing Levels of new stations . How do you do that . A lot is on the surrounding area and the development and high rises versus open space. It depends on the already existing resources that exist around that area. We look at response times and projections how quickly current units could get there, where it needs to go, so theres a lot of data looked in preparation of development. Who makes those decisions . The department. We work closely with the Mayors Office and also on the planning side, a lot of the work done by chief rivero and other chiefs and development and fire safety as well as responsibilities are taken into account as part of the development. So you use a 1104 baseline and look at the surrounding areas and determine whether it needs to be boosted . So that baseline is for day to bay operations. It doesnt necessarily have a baseline of anything new development wise, how you would staff that. Its was a snapshot in time and that would be the minimum staffing and as we supplement we add to that but it doesnt necessarily serve us it doesnt give a lot of data as far as what we project for a new development because there are so many factors visited. What i am getting at there is flexibility in that. And commissioner nakajo mentioned that and a lot goes to operations and staffing and 91 of the budget is personnel related. Correct, so staffing that and make sure we meet minimal staffing thats where the majority of expenditures go. Specialized services and what is that for . Its a variety of things such as we have our medical director contract. We have health check, our work with cpmc, a variety of Contractual Services that the city doesnt provide and we supplement resources in order to allocate funding to it. On workers comp you have 9 million promo proposed spent and then the next year and who pays those costs . Do we pay our own workers comp . I thought workers comp is paid by the state . The city has its own division and were self insured and dont have insurance so to speak so we pay our costs and the budget comes from the department based on past history and projection of issues et cetera and funded through the city. For the department it shows up in the department of Human Resources workers comp division. How do we monitor our workers comp cost . And claims . So we do not have a workers comp unit per se in the department so we hr works closely with the department of Human Resources. They have policies and procedures in place for those issues and they process all the claims. When we have a member and a potential workers comp claim and get them set up and the paperwork but dhr administers the program. If we could reduce the Workers Comp Program by a Million Dollars and we would be there and meeting the mayors budget reductions. Absolutely and depends on the number of people and the issues they may have. Some are kind of ongoing issues so it would be yeah, thats true. Its a little more difficult yeah. Easier said than done. Question. Who pays us . I know the airport pays for our Fire Department services. Is there any other agency or any other group out there thats paying for our services . Absolutely. So when were talking about the reductions its based off the general fund support which is a Different Number than the overall budget because we get paid for the airport and staffing and by the port of San Francisco for fire boat staffing and maintenance there. Theres also a number of revenues we received from the state. Theres a big line item for Public Safety sale little tax so thats a portion of the sales tax that isal indicated to Public Safety and thats for police and fire and sheriff as well. Other than outside of our revenues and smaller grants for Homeland Security, for staffing of those positions the majority is from the general fund through city tax revenue et cetera. Okay. Commissioners i think we have a deadline here that we have to meet. We have to submit this by february 21. Our next meeting is february 22 that i believe so we need to discuss what were going to do with our proposed budget today. I know that mr. Corso has prepared a letter that we will send to the Mayors Office outlining our position on the proposed budget, and the proposed requested reductions, so i think we need to have a discussion about whether we want to send the letter, the draft letter, which i believe each of you should have received a copy from mr. Corso of a letter stating our position, so with that in mind do we want to have some more conversation commissioners . Commissioner covington. Thank you president cleaveland. First of all i would like to move that we accept the San Francisco Fire Department fiscal years 201718 and 201819 operating budget and i will wait for a second on that and then i will ask for a motion on the letter. Do we have a second . [inaudible] [off mic] thank you commissioners. Thank you. Do we want to vote on it at this time . Do we want to have discussion first . I thought we have been discussing it. Any other Vice President nakajo. Thank you. Director corso as we move towards on adoption of the question and theres a letter that were talking about jointly as we have previously from the commission and the administration the bulk of the letter states that were going to be working within this next time frame approximately two weeks to come to the figure of total compliance. Is that not the spirit of the letter and the intention . So first of all i wanted to be clear thats just proposed language for a letter for example an example what has been presented in the past if the commission chooses to submit a letter i am happy to work with you on ironing out the language there. I have not sent to two of the commissioners and part the general discussion and not finalized so that is absolutely a work that can be sorted out over the next couple weeks before the submission. I dont think the intent was to work with the Mayors Office over the next weeks but over the months closely with the Mayors Office prior to their submittal of the budget by the first of june so there will be work done over the next couple of weeks as i mentioned reviewing our staffing numbers et cetera but as far as getting into some of the details on potential cost savings that would be kind of a longer process over the next months. All right. Point of clarification so in terms of this particular Commission Meeting with this budget youre looking for approval of the budget . Correct. Essentially approval of what the department is proposing even though were short of the recommended reduction and essentially the word from the department that we will work very closely internally and with the Mayors Office over the next months on outstanding issues related to the budget. All right. Thank you very much for that comment. I know we the commission and the department are very appreciative of the mayor and the staff for the department and grateful for that support and realizing the call volume increase. Thank you and one city the population of city and county of San Francisco at this time and commissioner hardeman talking about increased population that denotes increased call volume and at some Commission Meetings down the road we will talk what the ems ambulances respond to because they respond but there is discussion in terms of the clients out there, the frequent fliers et cetera that take up some time and whether or not we are able to work towards a poz in terms of serving all members of the public with that. Thank you very much for this opportunity to ask that question mr. President , commissioner covington thank you. Thank you mr. Vice president and i share your sentiments. Chief hayeswhite. Thank you president cleaveland. Thank you president cleaveland. I would also like to acknowledge director corso for putting together an excellent report. Hes been working hard with the Budget Committee. What was put together as a draft is similar the past and i echo your sentiments about being team players and being appreciative of our good working relationship with the Mayors Office. Having said that given the realities of the call volume and the population increase we want to commit to making sure we can provide the same l o