implements policies and procedures we'll talk about today. >> president cleaveland: welcome. >> thank you. >> what i thought we'd do today is an overview of the alert and warning procedures and policies we have in san francisco and i would like to talk about three recent incidents because i think if we talk through recent incidents you'll get a better idea of our policies and protocols and actions and highlight some of our challenges that we have when we do share information about if we're undercommunicating or overcommunicating or using the right system. first, a quick overview of what systems we have in place in san francisco. our primary one is alert sf. the biggest thing i think to know about alert sf,it's completely opted in. this relies upon the preparedness campaign and us going out to the public and encouraging them to sign up. so it's very simple to do. this is probably the biggest thing you can do to help us to make sure people are aware of incidents in their neighborhoods. it's very simple to do. you just text 888-777 and then in the body of that text you put in alert sf one word and we'll have the graphic up at the end of the presentation. but just to give you an idea of the reach in san francisco, we have about 90,000 users. so this is what our duty officers used to communicate with the public and this isn't something that our duty officers do just on their own accord, this is usually the fire department is on the scene or they're responding to a call after dispatch alerts them to a fire and there's evacuation or avoid the area. so they get the information from the commander. we're in a supporting role and take the lead from commanders in the field. and then we have an alert, a notification system that we use internally. so any time there's an event, we're communicating with other offices, the mayor's office and board of supervisors and it's basically our mechanism to communicate internally. and then we have the outdoor public warning system i think everybody is familiar with, tuesday afternoons at noon we test regularly. we have about 120 sirens across the city, multiple languages programmed into the sirens, we can operate an individual, trigger a group of sirens and then i think you all know the history, it was put in place in 1942 during world war ii. in 2005 we used homeland security grants to revamp the system to have a robust process of imminent threats alerting. and we use social media. media follows us, traditional media follows on twitter. if we put out something on social media and twitter, it's picked up by traditional media and amplified. we use facebook, we have about 4,000 followers, not as big of a presence and use next door. i don't know if you're familiar, there are 230,000 users in san francisco. that's been a very -- a good way to enhance communications to neighborhoods if there is an event. and then we can also use the integrative public alert and warning system. this is managed by the federal government. this consists of the wireless emergency alerts, it got a lot of attention after the incident in hawaii and has the emergency alert system we partner with radio and tv to put out emergency alerts over radio and tv. let me talk a little bit about three incidents that may give you an idea of how the alerts are actually triggered and the process behind them. going back to february 6th, a high pressure gas leak break due to construction. it was a tuesday afternoon about 3:30, dispatch gets notified of the report of the gas line break, comes in, there's about 10 buildings that are ultimately evacuated as determined by the fire department on scene. the fire department requests our assistance for public information officers. we have a very good partnership with the fire department. rpo gets dispatched out. our duty officer has got a system in place that he or she could draw around the impacted areas to send out and avoid the area. shelter in place order very quickly to the people. again, let me go back to, that is alert sf. if you have opted in, you're going to get the alerts. if you haven't opted in, you're not. that's our reporting mechanism and we send it out on twitter and next door. that's the big contrast to the wireless emergency alerts where we target an area of the city and say okay, regardless if you have opted in or not, we're going to alert you via your cell phone whether you have registered or not. but some of the other things during that incident, our duty officer and manager on call, we have four managers on call, i'm one of them that rotate every two weeks. we start thinking okay, if the initial reports from pg and e is we're going to repair the gas line and it could take an hour or five hours. that's a difference if we evacuated 10 buildings. do we need shelter, we que up american red cross, salvation army and i think as you look ahead, i got the idea that you wanted us to talk a little bit about some of the challenges. i mean getting more detailed information about what is in the buildings, who lives there, is there vulnerable populations or anybody -- children or seniors or has access and functional needs. those are all areas of improvement for us. i think we have a robust program now, but i'm looking forward to taking it further in the future. the second incident is the magnitude -- initially it was a magnitude 8.0 earthquake off the coast of alaska. we got notification about 1:30 a.m. back on january 23rdrd. so i mean we follow tsunami threats and earthquake, if it's a major earthquake like that and is in a zone off the coast of alaska or washington oregon, those are capable of triggering a tsunami. we didn't know it was 70 miles off so it didn't trigger a tsunami. but the notifications we rely on or the national tsunami warning center. their initial warning to us was california is under a tsunami watch. so what that means is -- a watch is an earthquake has occurred that is capable of generating a tsunami. our initial reports were the first waves could get to san francisco at 6:20 or 6:40. so during those -- the course of the next couple of hours, obviously we're in the position of what do we tell the public, we still don't know if it's going to materialize into a tsunami. the actions were based on information we had at the time. we put out an alert sf to the population along the coast that could be inundated in the worst case scenario with the message of pay attention and stay tuned. we put out on twitter accounts and we had media there early in the morning. it was probably three hours before any waves would have happened. but then the national tsunami warning center and the sensors in the ocean came in, they didn't notice a rise in sea level that would significant an actual tsunami. at about 4:12, two and a half hours later, the watch was cancelled. so we racheted back down the public information and just to give you challenges on that, we got every where on the scale of why on earth did you send out alert sf and wake us up, to why didn't you alert us via cell phone, the outdoor sirens to wake us up. i think we made the right decision, if we woke everybody up at 3:00 in the morning, we may not be presenting on this today. you're always looking at the balance of information and given that we had several hours of warning if it did materialize, i'm confident we made the right call on that. the last scenario i would like to go through or just incident, was the 4.4 earthquake in the east bay we had. which was about 10 miles away southeast of burkely. so we sent out a public alert confirming and i think there was initial conversation about should we put out an alert, it's 2:40 in the morning. but for us, we want to confirm to the public that yes, an earthquake has occurred, the shaking you felt was a seismic event, please don't call 911. sure enough a spike in calls to 911, was that an earthquake we felt. that's something we want people to avoid doing. and we triggered our mechanism with the manager on call program to do an inventory of damage assessments to city infrastructure. fortunately it was low-level magnitude earthquake but for us, two things i think underscored, one, the need for an earthquake early warning system that is embedded in critical infrastructure sites like fire stations and schools and given this particular incident 10 miles away, we only got one second of warning. there's potential to get greater number of seconds if the epicenter is further away in the east bay or further south and still have violent shaking here. it's one of the areas our executive director is very passionate about and engaged and pointed to the state california advisory board for earthquake early warning in california and sits on the usds national panel for how to implement the warning center along the west koeblcoas. we have applied for a mitigation grant program and that would hopefully, you know, allow the fire department, if they choose to do so or if we can get the technology in place, to open up the fire department doors as soon as you have a severe enough magnitude earthquake. the reason that's important, you don't want the doors to be a jar after the earthquake, you want assets to be able to get out of the station and respond to the fires we expect after a big earthquake and we could do programs at schools to allow them to drop cover and hold when they get the alert of an earthquake. so those are some of the things that we're looking forward to or working with. i would be delighted to answer questions and president cleaveland, again, thank you for always being engaged. i appreciate it. >> president cleaveland: thank you mr. dayton. i appreciate the report. anna, did you have anything you wanted to add before public comment? >> i'm fine. unless you have questions. >> president cleaveland: public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner veronese. >> commissioner veronese: welcome mr. dayton. would you consider the system we have as state of the art here in san francisco? >> i would. >> commissioner veronese: you would. and when they had the earthquake in mexico, they have an early warning system that gave them 10-15 seconds of warning. why do we not have that system? >> i think -- i guess fortunately for mexico, their epicenters to mexico city, they have a significant distance, they can have a longer warning, but unfortunately for where we're located, the proximity is so close to us, it will be hard if there's an epicenter close by to want to eliminate the blind zone and to get the critical seconds that matter. it's really the factor of the distance of the epicenter. >> commissioner veronese: so it's not mexico having technology that we don't have? >> correct. >> commissioner veronese: so the placement renders the technology useless. >> correct. >> commissioner veronese: the night that the tsunami warning came in, if there's going to be an emergency like that, i didn't get the text until i woke up, i would be under water by that point but i set my phone not to receive texts before 7:00 a.m. or i'd be divorced. the reason i ask the question, if there had been a tsunami, if it were more serious and you had seen the raise in water levels, would there have been a different alert you would have done that would have gotten me out of bed that night? >> we definitely -- if it's imminent, we would have used wireless emergency alerts along the coast. if there was threat of imminent threat we would use outdoor sirens and pull all the stops. >> commissioner veronese: my confusion as a consumer of alert sf, when i saw that i thought okay, there's a sue tsunami coming. that was my impression, but at that point it was too late because it was after 6:20. but it wasn't clear to me -- i didn't receive a follow-up saying there is no stsunami and it wasn't clear when i received the text, what i was supposed to do. if it had been real, would i have received a follow up text as to what i'm supposed to do. we as a fire department, we're the ones out there in the streets trying to clean up the mess of what's happened, right? and i say that in the sense that people like me, regular people who are receiving the text messages are wondering okay, tsunami is coming, what am i supposed to do. do these alerts tell you as a consumer what to do? do they say for example go to high ground or is it just there's a tsunami coming? >> they are more detailed, i think we're advising some of the language to make it clear, be prepared for the potential and really underscore the potential if it is a watch. we did get a lot of feedback like hey, we really thought this was going to happen. i appreciate that feedback and also the feedback that hey, it should be more specific, okay, what do -- what does that mean for me where i live in the city. >> we do have pre-crafted messaging if it reached the level of warning that led to imminent evacuation, we would have used multiple methods of alerts, including the amber alert that would have gone over opting out of text. we would have relied on that. we know the evacuation zones. i don't know if you know you're in the tsunami zone or not. >> commissioner veronese: i am. >> okay. so there's extremely comprehensive policies and protocols we have built out with our tsunami. >> commissioner veronese: on the messaging side, we know we have all these other ways to raise the alert and you would have gotten extensive other messaging. i got one text not knowing that the other alerts would have come, the message i got tsunami expected to hit san francisco at 6:20 and that's all i got. i'm thinking okay, it's 7:30, the coast is clear but i look over my wife and think if i had gotten it through the night and not slept through it, what would i have done. there was no follow-up message saying we expect it to come at 6:20 but we're watching it closely and we'll text you again so we know -- we're going to sit tight and wait for you guys to tell us what to do knowing there were other systems. i felt unprepared and if it were real, i would have been dead at that point. >> i'll check. i know we sent a follow-up alert sf once the watch was cancelled. i mean, we were very cognizant of that and probably woken up people at 3:30 in the morning and we want to reassure people that the threat is no long there. so i'll follow up to see why you didn't receive it. >> commissioner veronese: i'm not sure people would be bothered if you sent out the amber alert one as long as they knew that we're watching this and will give you further information opposed to this is going to hit at 6:20. our goal is to empower people, not incite panic or sense of what do i do now? the communication is alert sf and the others highlighted. >> commissioner veronese: being in san francisco we know we're going to get an alert at some point. maybe you do have a personal plan. i believe you do. let's say it's a tsunami, the alerts are hey, go to higher ground, these are areas with higher ground, is there an instructional phase 2 the alerts such as we the citizens can be reassured that we're going to get good information from the city at the right time? i hear the alerts on tuesdays. i just wonder when this alert, when and if this thing is going to be real, is it going to be useful to me? >> i hope so. that's our aim, to be useful and actionable and will have the direction that you're getting at. >> commissioner veronese: can you walk me through what the alert would be if there were a tsunami? >> yes. we would do the traditional alert sf and all the other ones, we would do the amber alert wirelessly to your cell phone and coordinating with police and fire department and those areas. and we would use the outdoor public sirens. it would be a tailored-specific message for the areas we expect it and would add get to shelter locations. >> commissioner veronese: you have the messages pre-planned. >> they're loaded in the system. >> commissioner veronese: is there a reason why it's not part of your presentation. i would interested in seeing what -- >> absolutely. >> commissioner veronese: what the city would tell me to do. and it would be nice to train the public on it so it's not a surprise the first time it happens. you have the early warning system happening every tuesday, it would be nice to put a message out there, if this was a real emergency, this is what the city would be -- for example, in an earthquake. this is what we would tell you to do, or a tsunami. otherwise it's information you're getting in the middle of the night, if it happens in the middle of the night and you're really not prepared for it. and having 800,000 people not prepared for an emergency is avoidable. >> definitely. we have tsunami preparedness month and walk coming up in march that we would love your participation. >> commissioner veronese: tsunami walk. exciting. >> anthony rivera operations, we knew we had time when we were first alerted, we did notify the assistant chiefs. we have our plan in place. to their defense, they did send out a follow up at 4:39, we did get it. it's similar to what fire contained or fire under control. that's basically what they do when they send out the message, it's mitigated. in this case we had a lot of time. obviously the earthquake was far away. if there was something that gave us indication it was going to come to our area, we would have started deploying assets and helped with going door to door with the cops and doing as much as we could and mobilize as many boats as we could for a safe area. we have a plan in place. but they did their job that night and they do do a good job and thank you. >> commissioner veronese: i'm not saying you didn't do your job. i'm saying as a member of the public, i should know what the plan of action is when there's an earthquake or tsunami. maybe because i'm not a part of tsunami month in the past, i don't think as a member of the city this is something i should opt in on. everybody should have this information because when it hits, it affects everybody. if there's a way to force this information on to people, because it certainly helps the fire department and you guys in the police department, everybody do their jobs easier when these things hit and it's a more coordinated effort with the city, you guys know what you're doing, but we don't. so it would be great to see -- i know you have a plan and you're doing your job, i'm not here accusing you of not doing your job. i think the public is ignorant in a lot of ways and we could do a better job forcing the information on to them so they have it and not as confused like i was when the tsunami warning happened. that's just my $0.02 on it. thank you for the presentation. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> president cleaveland: thank you commissioner veronese. vice president nakajo. >> vice president nakajo: thank you mr. president. thank you mr. dayton. i know department of emergency management alerts and warnings, i know that we primarily in terms of the examples given, the traditionals earthquake, tsunami, in terms of generic questions and the san francisco app, does it cost you anything? (please stand by) >> for me it becomes fire but that's our jurisdiction. i know we have a system that if there's a large fire and it encompasses large areas that our systems are all supposed to be in play. i just want to ask a question if it's not one of these kinds of examples, for example, i used to be a retired director of a senior citizen organization in japantown, and i was on the mayor's friendly task force of seniors and disability, and during that time we had unprecedented heat wave and in san francisco, traditionally, when you have a heat wave, you like sit it out. unfortunately, with this last experience it reached temperature levels as well as resulted in a couple of individuals passing away. so, talking to the system, you know, and i was not quite sure but i think we were talking about maybe a heat alert system as well. i don't know if that falls in categorically in this department, but duty officer, is that duty officer at e.m.s.? on the deck, or how does that work? >> we have -- the duty officer is at the u.s.c. and so it's very close proximity to our dispatch center. every day from 7:00 to 4:00 a.m., or actually activated at you know, a warm level one, and so we have the operations section active every day, and then it's a 24/7 duty officer program. like last night duty officerer sent out 2, 3 notifications, and i did the other night about a power outage. and then just in terms of the heat and public health, i mean, we certainly work with department of public health if there is, you know, a heat emergency and we can again scale up the notifications, everything to alert us after putting out a notification by the wireless emergency alert. >> vice president nakajo: i'm glad you talked about that. because again for me, it was a clarification between the office on aging through the health department, through e.m.s. and somewhere along the line we could not quite put a finger on who is the point person. so in terms of your presentation, the duty officer, 24/7, is the point person that makes the call on certain kinds of -- >> duty officer in consultation with the manager on call. and manager on call is myself or three other manages within the division of emergency services. but when it arises to the level of a wireless emergency alert, or the outdoor public warning system, we would schedule policy group call, or we would at least bring in the public safety principles with the chief of the fire department, you know chief of police department, mayor's office on our executive director to give the go ahead on that. >> vice president nakajo: mechanism in that yourself. >> just agreeing with him. we would issue hawaii, like we -- >> vice president nakajo: that's where i brought it up. the big old elephant in the room, that -- that personnel in hawaii as it turns out was terminated. and that person, as i understand it, was trying to do their job. i'm just going to leave it right there. all i'm saying about that is that if you are telling me a duty officer or somebody out there is a human person out there that's making the call, putting their finger on the button or turning the key, and i'm just saying that's a whole lot of responsibility on an individual. to the questions in terms of do you put the big siren on and wake everybody up and you know, like if you don't know what you are doing, you don't know what you are doing, you know what i mean. either you get out or you don't. you are prepared or not. and that's, i'm just talking about the facts of life and i'm part of that. i should be prepared for all aspects of it, i could be better prepared and all this does is remind me constantly as to what we need to do. with the recent wildfires and then with the heat, i just want to make sure that you know, our parameters of responsibility are covered and there's a coordination. and just like nert or earthquake, you know, you have to have a mechanism in the public to be able to understand what we are supposed to be doing within the given amount of a few seconds, you know, and that's -- that's what i'm asking. i want to make sure that these duty officers have responsibility but also the whole lot of responsibility with that. comments? >> that is -- we train quite often, i mean, our folks probably think we train too much. i don't think that is, you can never do that enough. but i mean, we do have -- i'll say we do have a lot of security measures in place that would prevent us from having an incident like hawaii. and that's probably something we can go into detail off on. >> vice president nakajo: i truly appreciate your participation and your presentation and your support, thank you, mr. president. >> president cleaveland: commissioner. >> commissioner hardeman: thank you, mr. president. thanks for your presentation. it is sort of an interesting subject when i live in the west portal, and that's like three miles up from the ocean, and it was not so long ago posted all over the poles and everything was all the tsunami information. the odds of water coming up to probably what, 5% of the city, maximum, or -- worst case scenario. it would be to a very geographically restricted area. so, i thought it was amusing a couple years ago with the notice about what to do during the tsunami. i guess it was for people who might be shopping that live near an area, but geographically, what percentage of the city would be affected, 5%, the maximum, i mean in the worst tsunami? >> i think less than that with combined. but we do have tsunami maps, commissioner, that i can provide to the commission as a follow-up. >> commissioner hardeman: should be pretty easy to reach that 1, 2, 3% of people that might be affected and we have to pay attention if we are on the beach and -- but outside of that, it's, i think it's pretty restricted to people that should be concerned or people that live in the low-lying areas around near the water. and i do remember, you get flash notices on tv and all kinds of information. and on the tsunami, too. don't really pay much attention to it, because i know i'm not going to be affected. but it was a great presentation, thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> president cleaveland: we know that commissioner is in the flood zone and perhaps that map should be made public so that the rest of the city could know exactly where they are or not in terms of a tsunami, or possible tsunami, and we have what, 80,000 people that are, or 90,000 that are plugged into the alert s.f. system at this point. >> yes. >> president cleaveland: another 700,000 plus that we can add to the system, right? i guess it's a constant education of the public in terms of plugging in and being ready to receive those alerts when they come. so, that's the message to the public at this point. thank you, mr. dayton, for your very comprehensive report, appreciate it. >> thank you. r>> president cleaveland: madam secretary, the next item. >> draft operating budget, 2019-2020, operating budget for 2018-2019, 2019-2020. >> welcome, mr. corseau. >> good morning, commissioners, happy valentine's day. finance and planning here with the next item. which is continuation and potentially action on the department's budget submittal for this year. i have a short slide show and happy to answer any questions you may have. >> first want to highlight some of the documentation provided you in your packets. you should have received a budget book for the department, along with an outline of enhancement requests, i'll detail shortly later. in addition, a few pages paper clipped together an update to the book. they deal with some of the department revenues and i'll highlight those changes, a replacement to the corresponding pages previously provided. brief overview of the items i wanted to discuss. brief review of the instructions and timelines that we have highlighted at previous commission meetings. some of the assumptions and changes included in the budget before you, update on the department's budget committee that was reconvened in the current year at overview of what i guess technically the department is proposing at this time, and then questions and solicitation of feedback. just a brief review of the city's budget instructions. city is projecting $260 million deficit over the next two fiscal years. as part of that, the department, all the city departments have been requested to submit reductions to their general fund to the extent of 2.5% in each year. so, 5% cumulative in the second year and for u the fire department, that corresponds to $1.5 million in the first year, and $3 million cumulative in the second year. and similar to last year, the overall message from the mayor's office was that departments do not submit any new net new positions to the general fund budgets. brief review of the time frame, today's meeting for discussion and possible action at the commission, the department's budget submittal is due on february 21st, along with all other city departments. june 1st is the time frame for which the mayor's office needs to submit their balanced budget to the board of supervisors. in between february and the june date, departments will be working very closely con figuring what that looks like, no means are what we proposing a final budget, that will be negotiated over the next few months with the mayor's office. june, a number of committee hearings at the board, budget and finance and once the budget is approved there, rolled and considered for final approval at the full board. some of the assumptions in the budget, so, last year, the budget is currently rolling two-year process. last year technically the second year approved last year is the baseline for the current first year. so 18-19 budget, second year last year, rolled over, any known benefit changes, salary changes, those kinds of things have been incorporated into that budget, along with any other health and benefit costs, any work orders that are known at this time, a lot of those things will be adjusted as we get closer to the june budget. what is known currently has been incorporated. also incorporated are some of the department's previously funded initiatives, pertaining to outreach to equipment, fleet, and also hiring. and while we are not submitting until next week, there is still some changes that will be made in the budget regarding rates, regarding work orders, number of things. so, that may change from what's before you, but no material or operational changes between what you see now and eventually submitted. so, just wanted to highlight some of the changes. as i mentioned, revenues, i'll start with that. in the documentation that was proposed to you, there is some increases in fire prevention revenues to align with projected current activity as well as some policy changes that we are still working out, specifically pertaining to some of the administrative hearings that were approved in legislation, whereas previously the department was able to issue a notice of correction and now some of the changes require us to do notice of violation. so, we have seen an increase with that, increase in the number of administrative hearings. we are working on a fee structure for that with the city attorney's office. but we have made some assumptions in the current year budget. in addition, increased some of the other items, including overtime to correspond to current actual, and that's at request of customers. in addition, we have kept the ambulance e.m.s. revenue constant. there are a few, we'll be working very closely with the mayor's office over the next few months for that portion of it. a few changes, legislative changes at the state level, we are currently analyzing their impact, whether they will be positive or negative for department revenues. and shifts in the insurance demographic, working with, very closely with the billing company and the mayor's office over the next couple months. looking at administration and support services, no major changes there, just some work orders, workers comp, central, and settled over the next couple months as departments submit to the mayor's office their fee schedules and their cost for services, so those will be dealt with on a citywide level. at this time we don't know a lot of those rates, but those roadway worked on with the mayor's office over the next couple months. fire prevention, there are a few changes. there's a reclassification of a couple vacant positions to fund fire protection engineers in the bureau, that will assist a plan check. it's -- the budget currently proposes the continuation of some of the outreach efforts by the department. majority of that was funded by the department of building inspection, so we anticipate that continuing over the next couple years. those funds for staffing mainly are recouped through a work order. we have continued funding the two projects in fire prevention, both based from fee revenues and that's pertaining to a fleet, fire prevention fleet replacement, as well as our fire facilities renewal for our satellite office on oak street. as i mentioned, we have adjusted our overtime to reflect current activity. we have seen last year and projected. and additionally, additional fire prevention staff allocated, both to the port of san francisco as well as the airport. operationally, to date, salary and benefits rates have been adjusted with known information. one of the questions that had come up previously and just overall as you may know, a lot of the m.o.u. negotiations are ongoing between the city and firefighters union, so any changes or any financial impacts, budget-wise as a result of those negotiations will be incorporated into our budget at a later date. but obviously since those are not known at this time, they are not included in the department's proposal. as i mentioned before, the budget highlights the continuation of the fleet and equipment plan in fiscal year 2019, allocated over $5 million as part of last year's allocation for the first year here. working with the mayor's office on that allocation in the second year, fiscal 19-20, but the fleet plan, the third year of the five-year plan and the minimum allocation set forth in that plan is $3 million, so we'll be working closely with the mayor's office on that allocation. continuation of the mayor's public safety plan, both for e.m.t. paramedics, and also for entry level firefighters, so we anticipate that hiring plan will continue through fiscal year 20. we are working with the mayor's office on e.m.s. ambulance staffing, so, there was an analysis done a couple years ago that set forth our staffing levels of 200 s.t.e.s. we feel given the call volume and the increase in such call volume we would need additional personnel for the support services, and we will be working closely with the mayor's office as they perform their budget. additionally, just additional training and operational staff added to the airport, pertaining to some of the training over there, three additional training personnel as well as we discussed at the last meeting, bike medic program f.t.e.s. to give a brief update on the status of the budget committee. reconvened for the current year process. we have met multiple times leading up to this point and continue meeting the next few months as the budget process continues. included in your packet was a list of some of the results of need assessment for the department submitted by division head, field and members of the budget committee and discussed those in length and anticipate discussing those with the mayor's office. so, they have graciously offered to host a meeting with the budget committee at city hall and we are currently in the process of scheduling that, most likely for early march. so, we have done that the past couple years, where the mayor's office gives an overview of the city's financial outlook, the budget process instructions and then serves as kind of a q and a session with the budget committee. we have had some initial discussions at the budget committee on how we would like to use that time, and i think it would be for highlighting the priorities of the department going forward, so we'll be meeting internally prior to that meeting, but that's on the radar working with the mayor's office over the next month. as far as what we are actually proposing before you, so, the department, the budget proposal before you does not meet the target reductions as put forth by the mayor's office, given some of the lack of flexibility we have with regard to salary and benefit commitments, as well as maintaining minimum staffing levels. not a lot of room for reductions that does not have an operational impact, so, our proposal is to continue to work with the mayor's office over the next few months on many of those issues as they move forward toward finalizing their budget. and as mentioned, also looking to continue the discussion with regards to e.m.s. staffing over the next few months as well. and with that, i would like to open to any questions for discussion. >> president cleaveland: thank you, any public comment, seeing none, public comment is closed. i'll ask our vice president to begin the conversation on the budget today as he was a part of that committee that met with the department several times on the budget. so, mr. vice president, would you begin the conversation and the questioning on the budget. >> vice president nakajo: thank you very much, mr. president. as you requested, in terms of at least starting the discussion with the commissioners on the docket, i just wanted to say a few comments and then again, mr. president, recognition of the members of our commission to chime in. thank you for your comprehensive preventtation. in a nutshell, commissioners, in terms of page 11 the budget proposal, i pretty much support the budget proposal as is being presented. i know in detail that several questions can be addressed, both in terms of our decision to basically not meet the target reduction, which is very similar, exactly similar to what we did last year. and i'm speaking for me, myself in terms of interpretation, based on the demand of services that we need to provide to the citizens of this great city. it seemed a sense of responsibility upon our part, both operationally as well as how that operation dictates itself through budget or budget reductions that we just simply cannot do that. i think it's irresponsible in terms of being the fire department to look at how then do we meet the growing demand in the city as well as the population. i also wanted to say that this budget committee that was reconvened, is really important and again, i'm going to make some references in terms of longevity with this commission, but there was a time as being a participant on this commission that the budget process was done by a few individuals within the department. the history goes all the way from the commission secretary at one point had a lot of input in terms of how the budget was put together. i remember during chief demon's era we had the ability to hire a budget director and they would create the budget and the most important piece part of the budget presentation that reflects itself in terms of the contemporary budget presentations that we have had over the last couple years is the inclusion of the members of the department. i just have to say again that that's really important. the three budget meetings that you have called, director, i believe i have attended two of these meetings, the first one, the second one i couldn't, the last i attended with the commission colleague, and basically what it is, it keeps on reinforcing to me as a commissioner the importance of the chief, when she put that budget committee together based on her initiative as well, but initiative by this commission and by the department that asks the chief of the department to have more inclusion with the make-up of the budget. realistically, how are we going to operate as a department if we don't have the input of the various chiefs and the responsibility areas of prevention to airport, to suppression, to e.m.s., every component of that with the infrastructure. and i must tell you, colleagues, that i felt really good about it, because the staff that's there now, not saying that the staff there was previously part of this, is a very keen staff that knows what their duties and tasks are. i was delighted within the dialogue that occurs at these budget meetings because these chiefs know that what they have to do is create an analysis of what their needs are immediately, but under the restrains of our marching orders. and basically what's happening is that we are ready as a department with justification not trying to meet the target reduction but the other part about that is that we are going to still try to submit to this mayor's office and to the budget our enhancement items, and our enhancement items from grant writers to marine units to the various components on the list are all brought by the budget meetings by us on the commission as well as the members and the officers. when we met last and the conclusion is always restraint of what we need as a department based on limitations. i think the agreed upon conclusion and i left a little early, was the chiefs themselves attending with conjunction with yourself, director, and the chief's office, that we would agree to at least prioritize the top three of every unit area. all of these multiple areas, in training, in support service, in the airport, in fire prevention, so that no one unit is left out. and that's what it's going to take. it takes that kind of inclusion so that the chiefs can take control of their budget, having the dialogue among their membership and what the need is, bring it back realistically. hear ourselves as a commission to the marching orders and try to submit. i felt very good about the process, mr. president and fellow colleagues. i felt the enhancement list advocates for the items that we wanted to have realistically. it's not saying we can't have other components, such as a marine unit or rescue squad, that we need to use the resources that we have, we have to deal with the hand we are dealt out with and we have to be able to come into compliance. number one thing that i think that we shouldn't do is to delay this process of submittal. we, the fire department i feel, with being members of the commission, we take care of business, we do what we are asked. we submit and the negotiation period between now and the mayor's office with the board of supervisors in this very challenging political atmosphere of having the mayor in place until june, after that it's an area of perhaps almost two years. we got to be able to work with, but that does not negate any responsibility by us, the fire department and the fire commission in terms of what our responsibility is. so, i feel good about this budget. i think we should submit. i'm going to recommend that we move on it. might be a little premature until we have the discussion among the colleagues, but i wanted to say that particular comments as well as give you that input and i'm looking at my notes and i keep on seeing it's about as good as it gets at this point. that's not saying that we are compromising anything, because we went through this process. so, commissioners, colleagues, i'll stop at this particular point and ask the president to indulge the rest of the commission for discussion. thanks, director corseau. >> president cleaveland: thank you, mr. vice president, and for your leadership on the budget discussions. commissioner. >> commissioner veronese: thanks for coming. like you had a choice, right? i appreciate everything you do, really. the san francisco fiscal year operating budget that's in front of us, i want to just kind of go through that quickly if you don't mind. >> sure thing. >> commissioner veronese: on page 14, you talk about, 14 out of 86, you talk about the revenues, the ambulance billings, you have $139 million in ambulance billings. now, i'm assuming what that means to a layperson is that every time the ambulance goes out, they create a bill and they send that bill to the patient and the patient's insurance either covers it, doesn't cover it, and what's not covered the patient should cover, is that correct? >> yes, so the way it works, when our crews respond, they'll generate electronic patient care record for each encounter, which is mandated. and that record is then sent to the billing company where they run scans on individual's insurance, and then if they are, they send letters to the billing, to the patient if they are unable to find insurance, they work with medicare, medical, private reimbursement. and sent and follow-up with the patient themselves and after a certain portion of time, if they are unable to get any movement on that account, it's then turned over to the city's tax collector bureau for follow-up on that side. [please stand by] the flat rates are established at a federal level. if we have a $2,000 ambulance bill, we get reimbursement of $450 on that and there's no flexibility. the remaining balance is written off and shows up, the remaining amount goes into that bucket for adjustments. for population where they do not have insurance, those charges eventually end up in that bucket as well. >> commissioner veronese: so, if these numbers are pretty constant? over the years? >> for the most part. in general it doesn't change. in some cases they have been reduced. >> commissioner veronese: are we in