here big space. meeting is called to order. this is a continuing portion of the budget hearings. um, roll call, please. president paulsen here. vice president rivera here. commissioner jaime here. commissioner maxwell. commissioner. stacy here. you have a quorum. thank you. um before i call the, uh, the item and get this meeting started, i'd like to announce that the san francisco public utilities commission acknowledges that it owns and are stewards of the unceded lands located within the

ethnohistoric territory of the muwekma ohlone tribe and other familiar descendants of the historic, federally recognized mission san jose verona band of alameda county. the sfpuc also recognizes that every citizen residing within the greater bay area has and continues to benefit from the use and occupation of the muwekma ohlone tribe's aboriginal lands since before and after the san francisco public utilities commission's founding in 1932. it is vitally important that we not only recognize the history of the tribal lands on which we reside, but also we acknowledge and honor the fact that the ohlone people have established a working partnership with the sfpuc and are productive and flourishing members within the greater san francisco bay area community. today i also have another announcement at the end of the january 23rd regular meeting. there was an omission of reporting following the closed session, so i'd like to

announce right now that the commission recommend is that the board of supervisors approve the settlements, refer out in agenda items, number six. excuse me, 16 and 17 on the january 23rd agenda. so can we call the first and. only, uh, item. uh, well, item number three is a summary of the budget hearing questions. um, and we will. these are so we will introduce and can we have self introductions. let's start that way i'm sorry mr. president. uh, the summary of budget hearing questions was distributed, uh, for discussion. if the commission has any questions or we can move on to item number four, which is the wastewater enterprise. got it. so, so, uh, commissioners, are there any discussions or questions? okay and then we will

read. i just wanted to say thank you for answering the question very thoroughly. i had been concerned about the loss of the school program, and it was, uh, your response was very helpful. so thank you. thank you. commissioner stacy, are there any other questions or comments? this item. okay. let's go to the next item. item four is a wastewater enterprise fiscal year 20 okay. fiscal year 2425. and fiscal year 2526. operating and capital budgets and ten year capital plan. good morning commissioners. my name is joel prather. i am the acting wastewater agm. i have the slides please. so we'll go over a quick agenda for today's presentation. then we'll have an organizational overview, um, go over our operating budget

requests, our capital budget planning and then a q and a session at the end. overview of our system. uh, we operate and maintain three wastewater treatment plants, one wet weather facility, 28 individual pump stations, 1000 hundred miles of sewers and mains and laterals, and 216 and growing green infrastructure assets. we maintain 25,000 catch basins, um, to protect the health and public health, health and the environment. and then we processes approximately 60 million gallons per day of other flows. and we have a maximum capacity of 565 million gallons a day. our budget is divided up into a few different divisions. um, we have some managers here today to represent those divisions. i'd like to introduce them. first off is elaine leming from our administration division. she's acting manager, elaine. uh, then, uh, maintenance division. mike marvuglia, acting manager for the maintenance operations. george engel uh, collection system. linda candelaria and

then engineering. uh, brian henderson. this this slide shows a quick overview of our current fiscal year, budget uses and the growth of those respective uses. our budget is growing from 428 million in the current year to 525 million by year two of the budget. overall, it's a 23% growth over two years, and we can see that the biggest drivers of growth will be in debt service shown in light blue, and the capital projects, which are shown in green. this is consistent with we've already heard from lauren aaron on monday about our key budget drivers. as. this slide is similar but shows a more granular breakdown of the growth in numbers by line item. again, we see operating capital program. the greatest driver. in addition, we have our new operating proposals listed here which totaled 9.8 million over the two years. this is offset by 3.9 million salary savings for net increase of 5.9 million overall. budget request summary

the slide summarizes all of our budget requests by division and by by line item. um. overall, the one year total request is a 10.9 increase, and then the two years another 10.6 for a total of 22.7 increase total for end of fiscal year over fiscal year 2324. next, i'll go into our operating budget. uh, this slide provides a quick overview of our current fiscal year budget. and we want to note here is that as we go through our new proposals today, you'll see that these requests are in labor non personnel services and materials and supplies. and while they are important to fulfilling our mission they're not the largest drivers of our current budget. so by now we've seen this iteration i've seen iteration of these budget priorities in a few different presentations. uh, at wwe we initiated our budget programing process last year. we

kept these priorities in mind as we reviewed and refined potential new new proposals in the spirit of affordability, we looked internally to reallocate funds and realign resources whenever possible. uh, a number of proposals were not necessarily rejected, but were instead able to find funding or different line items or work collaborative amongst our teams to move initiatives forward or find funding of a different line of work, collaborating to move initiatives forward at a net neutral cost. we also work closely with our finance team to develop affordability and affordability policy, and did our best to move and defer projects to meet that affordability target. practicing responsible manager of our facilities, our staff, the communities we operate in and the environment entrusted our care is a core of what we do. we invested our staff in our staff by building up our in-house resources to move. hiring along rio, lining our work teams, increasing retention as best we can, and working towards building transparent promotional paths throughout our divisions. we're proud to invest in the community by supporting the operation maintenance of our

southeast community center, and we work collaboratively with the external affairs partners to be the best neighbors that we can. you'll see that we're proposing significant investments to ensure that we can continue to maintain the high performance of our facilities and provide the reliable service that our ratepayers expect. in order to maintain this standing, we will need to adapt to a changing economic market, a changing climate and new regulatory compliance requirements. finally, as we move through these slides, uh, for new proposals, you'll see a footer, um, highlighting the priorities that relate to our specific requests this slide is a summary of our total position requests. so new positions were requesting ten total, uh, with four of those being and then four additional temporary to permanent ten new positions for additional temporary permit in the first year. and then six new positions in the second year. as i noted earlier, we made a significant effort to use what we have, so we tried to minimize

the financial impact of our new proposals. we actually have a total of 28 substitutions in a proposed budget. many of those substitutions had a zero net impact on the budget or were minimal absorbed within our existing operating budgets by realigning funds or resources. so you will not see those positions reflected in the proposals today, which you will see are a handful of requests that are either a entirely new position or a substitution that does have a significant financial impact, or a temporary to permanent transition. in. so from there, we will get into our proposals. the first one is in the admin division and this is a work order increase for our risk management. um, work order through the difficulties and losses in california insurance market, our insurance costs are expected to increase by 25 to 30% in future years, and we are requesting an increase of 25% in each year of our budget cycle. and this is consistent across all enterprise. his. also, in our administration division, we have two, uh, attempt to perme

1406 senior clerks. these two temporary positions will add support for our admin group and our departmental personnel liaison group, which is also known as our dpo group. we've recently been building this dpo group, and this is important when we talk about putting together hiring plans, onboarding, retention and performance management at the enterprise level. this group works closely with the hiring managers to ensure that we stay on top of our responsibilities at the enterprise level in these areas, such as putting together supplemental questions for exams, practical exams and interview questions. also, when we're talking about performing job class analysis, which can include things like modifying the job classes, updating key areas of responsibility, or the minimum qualifications, it's the dpo group that works closely with our managers. our our contacts are and our contacts at sfpuc, hrs and the hr teams. another request for our admin division is to fund, uh, our, our participation in uc berkeley

center for smart infrastructure. uh, this is where we will partner with uc berkeley for the center of smart infrastructure to share research best practices and emerging technologies. and data management of water and wastewater operations. we've committed $1 million to support this effort, and it will be shared evenly by water and wastewater. uh, at five $500,000 each, each spread over four years. next, we will move on to our plan and regulatory compliance division. and i think i just realized i forgot to introduce my two planning and regulatory compliance managers, which are amy chastain and, um, sarah are here. so they may be speaking to some of these later too. um, so their first, first request is for the mission and elias channel, uh, sedimentation investigations in june of 2023, our regional board issued us an enforceable order requiring sfpuc to characterize the following sedimentation count.

sediment contamination in these two channels, the potential for wet weather discharges to contribute to sediment contamination, and to propose appropriate remediation actions. if the characterization determines that the remediation is appropriate. so this funding will support those efforts. the next request or proposal for green infrastructure and prc is for residential green infrastructure grant program. in july of 2023, we launched a pilot residential green infrastructure grant program to support a successful rollout of the stormwater charge by offering an incentive program for ratepayers to lower bills through a stormwater credit. this effort of scaling up green infrastructure in our city also reduces the volume of stormwater entering the combined sewer system and provides public benefit. the pilot program is on schedule for completion by august of 2024, and is a total budget of $300,000. currently,

for approximately 8 to 10 residential projects. the program administration costs interest to cover to cover program administration costs. interest in the program has far outpaced the pilot program funding and approximately 300 residents from across the city have expressed interest to date. this budget request will fund program administration and grant payments that will allow the deputy to expand the residential green infrastructure grant program to meet demand from ratepayers. the next proposal we have is some position additions to our urban watershed planning division. the 5602 utility specialist and 56 utility, 5601 utility analyst will support our growing green infrastructure development portfolio. they will work with the capital plan on green infrastructure goals to manage 65 acres of impervious surface using capital projects and green infrastructure grants over the next ten years. uh, these staff will work to

identify multi benefit multi-partner green infrastructure projects and take them through the planning phase. they will work collaboratively with our partners on the infrastructure side to move selected projects forward through construction and delivery. we'll talk about the additional funding for this effort later in our capital presentation regarding the new management position. our urban watershed planning division has grown from a from a group tasked primarily with green infrastructure plans, regulations and programs to one which has taken on flood resilience coordination with other agencies on multi-benefit climate resilience efforts and added green infrastructure planning, inspection and grant program administration functions . the result is a larger and more diverse set of subgroups and classifications that require a higher level manager to lead. this position will provide equity across divisions and provide clear path of promotion within this, uh, urban watershed. planning division. next, we'll move on to our southeast community center. uh, this is, as we all know, wwe

supports our southeast community center as a part of our annual budget. our current operating budget for the center is $2.8 million annually. uh, we could not be more proud of the new center at 1550 evans and the fantastic city staff who worked there to represent us through direct interaction with the community, southeast community. we also support the center with dedicated maintenance staff, and we pay for the operation of staff at the center through our wwe budget. as part of our overall salaries line. but those operations staff, uh, report to our partners external affairs. so we work collaboratively, collaboratively with that group to bring these next two proposals to you. the first proposal is for four substitutions. um, currently a southeast community center, which opened in october of 2022, utilizes four category 16 temporary 9220 or 1922 class positions to serve as event monitors. these positions are limited to 1040 hours per year and do not include benefits. the center has found itself short staffed without adequate coverage as these individuals

move on to full time classifications and other city departments. uh, now that the city has now, the center has experienced close to four full year of operation and more stability and more stable um personnel group is needed to ensure that we have the amount of staff coverage for the anticipated 1000 events that we will see in the second year of operations. um, and you also remember that we just recently approved a rates package for the events at the center. and these these positions will directly support those events. the assistant recreation facilities assistant is a more appropriate classification to recruit a qualified pool of event support. as the job description more directly aligns with the duties of the center. in addition, we are proposing to attempt open positions to support the community center. executive director. uh. these will work closely with the leadership team supporting administrative tasks, internal and stakeholder, um, internal and external stakeholders, and they will help us meet our strategic goals within the community. obviously, this is a long terme facility and we need permanent positions

to fill this facility. the next proposal is to continue to fund the access program at the southeast community center. this program provides laptops and ipads to community members that can reserve and check out. they can reserve and check out on site. ensures access to essential digital tools for education, job search and communication, and removes the barrier of technology access. bridging the digital divide that disproportionately affects underserved communities. uh, this program has been in place now for the past two years and has been funded through add backs. so our proposal is to continue the funding as we move forward. the professional service funding portion is work order to the mayor's office of housing and community development, and is currently administered by the nonprofit five keys education program. education programs. uh, through this core program at our southeast community center, we support advancing racial justice by centering our agencies, programs, resources allocations

on racial and social equity, both as a regional employer as well as a service provider to the community. uh, from here, we'll move on to maintenance. the first request is for an additional green infrastructure maintenance group. as i mentioned earlier, briefly, we've had an increase in green infrastructure assets, gi assets in the past couple of years, and we will continue to grow. um, we also have a wider spatial distribution of these assets and increased variability in size, type and complexity. this proposal will add a gi maintenance manager, a gi crew supervisor and four gardeners, which would allow this allow the wd to wwe to proactively address deferred maintenance and maintain new gi assets. this will essentially double the size of our current field crews and add a second level manager to oversee the crews. uh, plan and manage their activity and work closely with our urban watershed

team. as new gis assets are accepted by our in-house maintenance team. this will allow us to continue to proactively address maintenance as we bring on new responsibilities, both through our redevelopment and built through our capital plan. we have new gi capital projects in the pipeline currently, which includes over $100 million worth of new gis assets over the next ten years. this program has been developed for most new gis to be built and then maintained for a short period of time by outside contractors before being turned over us to our in-house staff for the remaining life of the assets. the next request is for additional gardeners for our non green infrastructure gardening crew. this is the bolster the citywide gardening crew, which takes care of all of our facilities that do not have green infrastructure, landscaping at them. the city. this crew has an increased workload from pump station and other treatment facility rehab projects, which have generally

resulted in a much more appealing public green interface than those designed in the past. uh, this crew, along with our labor staff, is also the primary responders. when we have encroachment or dumping due to neighborhood conditions that some of our facilities, uh, we found that regular maintenance at these green spaces, at our facilities helps to mitigate those types of issues. moving on to our operations division, uh, this first proposal is to increase the maintenance. maintenance into materials, supplies. um, mainly supporting the chemicals that we use in our operations. the overall cost increase for all chemicals used in our treatment process has increased by over 52% since fiscal year 21, 22, with sodium hypochlora being in particular being the highest price. the highest increase at 146% during that time. we've actually been able at wastewater, we've actually been able to absorb these cost increases over that,

uh, for the last couple of budgets due to process changes, overall demands and carryforwards. but we're at a point now where we anticipate that we will no longer be able to cover these rising costs. uh, this is an industry wide issue, and our partners on the water side are seeing similar, uh, challenges. our next, um, request is for, uh, operations. again this is to increase non-personnel services for sludge removal. so another result of the changing economy that's having an adverse effect on our budget is sludge transportation processing and management costs. we have multiple contracts which go beyond our current fiscal year for this service. and we are anticipating cost overruns. so we are requesting additional funds to ensure that we can cover this critical service. another increase that we're looking for our at our in our operations division is an

increase in labor and fringe. um, this is to account for unscheduled overtime. the um and additionally, um, we're also asking for this increase in maintenance and sewer operations budgets. but those, uh, the increases there were able to be absorbed within the budget. so you don't see a new request for those, but the intent is to avoid a mid-cycle budget supplemental request, which we have consistently had to make over the past two budget cycles to avoid cost overruns in our overtime budget. the increases across the three divisions range between 25 and 30, based on past averages in the respective ot lines, and for this current fiscal year that we're in now, we've just confirmed with finance that wwe will be requesting a $600,000 supplement allocation for this current fiscal year, so this is to avoid those allocation in the future. our next request is for a work order increase for the natural resources land management marine biology division. um, this these increased funds will are needed

for on call support during discharge, specific wet weather, shoreline monitoring and posting, as well as needed supplies, permits and certifications. uh this position up until now has been a cat 18 in the water. on the water side, uh, but is proposed to become permanent to cover new permit and regulatory requirements. this will be considered a attempt to perme in waters budget that wwe will be funding. okay, moving on to our collection division. uh, this request is for three new positions as, uh, versus 7262 maintenance planner, which helps with asset management to fill fulfill new california state water board uh regulation obligations. next one is a 56 022 uh, utility analyst and that that position will work on our will work as a laterals permit manager and will formalize our sewer lateral program with dpw and other city departments. and then finally, a chemist who will

support upgrading the pretreatment information, or pim systems software and help with increased sampling activities within the division. and finally , our last, um, new proposal of the operating budget is for our lab and this is for four new positions. um, to business analysts who will use to provide limb development to ensure external regulatory agency such as epa or water board have the data reporting requirements that are met and they will also provide training and communication support for internal wwe division, client base, client databases. the two additional chemists are needed to implement new lab regulatory requirements and updated testing requirements to meet external regulatory agency uh needs. the requirements will be to ensure that the laboratory certification is maintained. this will ensure that the new npdes permit specifications can

be met by the treatment plants, as. an so that. that concludes our operating budget. and that's uh, roughly about half of our presentation at and if we can either move on to the capital present part, the capital part of the presentation now, or we could stop and address questions on the operator operating side first, should we continue with the whole, um, shall we continue? any questions? i think it would be good to ask questions. sorry. it would be good to ask questions. okay. so let's open it up to questions now starting with commissioner jamie before we move on. thank you. thank you for your presentation. i think, um, i made a few notes when i was reading through this. i'm not sure if this is like, okay, here we go. um when i look at your, um, all the position requests, a lot of them actually are, uh, very much, uh, tries in effort

to respond to our emerging challenges, especially climate change. right. you need more material and supplies. you need more people to deal with more regulatory requirements, which most of them are because of climate change challenges we are facing, even though we are not necessarily tagging them that way. but that's what's going on. so, um, and then when i look at the priorities for us in that, the first slide that we have is climate change is only a bullet as part of the list of things we have to deal with. and i brought this up last meeting too. and the meeting before that, when we talked about our, um, sort of a glimpse into the budget process. we really do need to pull this out as a lens through which we look at everything, because it is impacting every single one of those items you have in the list. right? agreed. so

something to especially for you guys because you are dealing with the, uh, like the back end of everything that's happening from, you know, major events that needs responding to, to the fact that you have to deal with all these new, more stringent regulatory requirements to dealing with the aging infrastructure, dealing with actually the, uh, decreasing water use, which is impacting your flows and also operational capacity. so these are all, see, like some of them, it has already emerged. so you're dealing with it. so responding and some of them are actually big is going to become worse and worse. so yeah. um so i think the reason i'm saying this is i think the way the lens we are proposing these right now are very de, uh, siloed. right. you are looking at your operational process alds and looking at every process and say and telling me this is what you need for this process. this is what

you need for this process. but i think it would be good to pull these out and look at them in a different bucket like bucket them in a different way to be able to kind of capture the how much of this is really dealing with some of the emerging issues we are dealing with right now, and what are the different things we have to do to deal with, um, to handle this? another item i noted is insurance. you brought up the cost of insurance. majority of that, as you know, has has to do with the impacts of climate disasters we are experiencing. right like that's another item. um, so my suggestion is obviously we are going through this. i brought this up last time to we somehow need to be able to account what vulnerabilities do we have and how do we need to address this as an institution and how much more this is costing us. and going to cost us in the future?

because for example, the insurance issue is not going to go away. you might find a solution this year. i'm not sure in five years if we have like ten more disasters and a few other insurance companies pull out, where are we going to be right? um so that's the first thing i want to say. second thing is, um, i wanted to go back to the research money that you are putting to use for uc berkeley. fantastic i'm surprised that mr. ritchie did not fight harder for stanford. but, you know, it's okay. um i made the commitment to berkeley. is respective of his allegiances that that requires a real, real commitment. um so, uh, joking aside, i think that's that's fantastic. that's excellent. one thing i've spoken to mr. o'hara about, um, about this resource

that we are putting in is you have to be a lot more, um, involved in. what do you want out of this money? um, and, you know, being on the other side and knowing how these things work, sometimes they can be put in things that you do not necessarily might not be the emerging issue that you really need to be dealt with. and this is a i know, i know, this collaborative of its excellent, but a lot of it is focused on, um, on things that might not be necessarily right now, top of mind, but they are they do have capacity to do more, more. so being more involved is very important. we are going to be very involved. we are going to be, um, participate as mentors, teachers involved. it's not just i'm not just giving the money and that's it. we are going to be actively involved with our staff to make sure that this is, um, what is being looked at is, um, what research questions are

going to be answered like, relevant for our agency as well as obviously the bay area wide? yeah. i mean, you brought up we talked about nutrition management right. a big part of your program, they actually have a lot of, um, skilled, uh, faculty in that area. you know, i would say come up with a list of questions you have, go to them and say, we would like to be these are the questions we have. we are committing these resources, but we want to see what are the innovative solutions you have. and i don't want to get into the nitty gritty of it, but i just, you know, because i'm on the other side, not for this, but generally speaking, if you just give the money and, um, go, sometimes they answer questions that might not be important to you. so thank you. as part of that, you brought up smart infrastructure and data, and i think that very well ties to, uh, semantics. uh, miss mannix efforts around green infrastructure and stormwater management. we really do need to

deal with data gathering, with green infrastructure. um, you have a number of items that were talking about green infrastructure and what we need to do with that. i would say you probably need a little bit more resources on the. and maybe you already accounted for this, but data and, um, modeling that's needed for green infrastructure beyond just hiring, uh, operation and maintenance staff. right. so um, we have talked about this before. um, so i, i feel you're trying to say something. yeah. we are adding additional staff, actually, on the urban watershed team as well as the field staff. so, yeah, it's well noted. and we are we're trying to build that program as much as we can. fantastic that's that's super important. um, and then one other question i have is since i stated all these things as comments and i will give you a

chance to answer every one of them. but um, for, um, for our 5050 evans building, you brought up a lot of positions that needs to be hired to manage, um, that facility, which is fantastic because we wanted to make sure that stays, uh, in the best shape possible in a few meetings back, we had a discussion about renting this space to, um, community members, and we had pricing and there was a discussion about the cost. that's coming in and what's going to happen to it. i'm assuming these two are connected like some of that money is going to go into. yeah, that so i can answer that directly. if you'd like. um, those that money from those rentals of the spaces and these staff will support those events directly that money that's generated there goes back into our general fund or not, our general fund, our, um, fund balance. thank you. the general revenue fund for wastewater. and then from that general revenue fund, we fund all of our different programs, which

southeast is a line in our admin budget. so yeah, but it's good to see them all together because i remember last time when we were talking about that, both, uh, commissioner maxwell and i had the question of what if this is more than cost of operation, what happens to the money? but now that i see the cost of operating it, i'm like, we might actually need probably pull a lot more, which which is fine, but it's important to kind of be able to make these connections. um, and, and be able to kind of see how, how where we are in that in if you look at the balance in that, in this other way, that's something we're definitely going to track. yeah so anyway, those are my comments . and some of them are actually like the whole climate change thing. i don't know how to solve that problem right now, but i do really want to encourage every one of you to go back, and maybe we can have this discussion again at the last meeting we have, i know you have a lot of specific line items beyond what you presented to us on the capital investment that some of them are going to be related to

that, and being able to see it all together, sort of like this is how much is costing us this thing. so we have to think about it more strategically is important. um, i also bring brought this up last time with the rate setting process. you guys are at the end of the receiving end of a lot of that issue. um, so the question is, uh, the debt to revenue ratio, how how is it going to go play out based on what's going to happen with, um, with the way we are operating or the way we, uh, people use water? um so somehow we need to have that discussion too. so maybe i'll put this in your, on your, um, sort of, um, task list of going back and rethinking and what are the different risks you are dealing with? if we think about changing water use, therefore changing revenue for wastewater and the fact that your operational cost is in no way or form is decreasing is actually significantly increasing, right.

um, and the fact that, you know, we have i know the recycling projects are all falling under the water side, but in many ways are impacting your operation as well. right? so kind of like where is where are those connections? um, um, so it would be good to kind of maybe sit back and re bucket these that way just to make sure you have multiple lens through which you're looking at this. yeah. i agree that makes that i agree and concur with that. um, it kind change does affect us directly as at the wastewater enterprise. and we're going to get into a little bit in the capital program as well, because there's some large projects in there with some big numbers. um, but but you're right, we have to address that. and we are we work actively with our finance group to address those issues. so commissioner maxwell, thank you. thank you. um i was wondering you mentioned that there were for your green and residential green infrastructure grant program, that that to have, um,

8 to 10 projects with this amount of money that you go through. but you had 300 applicants. um and i missed i believe you said you were looking at more money, but i kind of missed. so the request is for more more money to take this what is now a pilot program and move it forward in perpetuity. that's what the request is for. so we can help address those additional 300 or and growing requests. yeah. and i think as been mentioned, you're going to see even more because of climate change. and so that's part of our front line . um, are the residents and the people that we, that we serve. so i'm glad to hear that. and then the other was over time. so what's the process? when do you decide that we're going to stop working the people that we have to death and, and hire, uh, another employee? how does how does that work? because again,

because of climate change, this is not going to be this is going to be happening more often. um, yeah. so as you've seen in the hr presentation, we do have a high vacancy rate. um, we're doing everything we can to get those positions filled, even at the enterprise level, so that they're prepped and ready to go at the hse level. one thing that's a little unique about wastewater is we have a very diversified job class makeup. and so, you know, when we're talking about city exams, you may pick up 2 or 3 employees on one exam, which you're waiting for another exam to pick up another two and three employees. so it's not like you can just do one wholesale rep. although we have the 7372, which a lot of folks have talked about. um, we routinely exhaust those lists without filling all of the positions because there's it's the environment. we need to have a more proactive, um, recruiting methods, i think. okay so you're working on filling some more positions. we're constantly and you're only doing the overtime because you kind of have to at

this point because it says minimum staff. yeah so part of it is, um, minimum staffing. the other part of it is the wet weather events that we're seeing. um, there's significant and we need to respond to those. um, and that's really what's driving back to your point on climate change. yeah so there's minimum staffing at certain facilities because like in our operations division, they only come online during wet weather. so those need to be staffed. um, but outside of that so it's not um, it's stormwater. our response to various issues without. okay. so some of this is due to your, um, employee not having enough employees and you're working on that. some of it is, yes. so it depends on which division. but specifically the operations division, it has minimum staffing requirements. so yes, that one in particular is dealing with vacancies. all right. thank you. stacy uh thank you. i want to say first, thank you for incredibly clear and complete materials. uh, it just really followed logically for

me. and i was jotting down questions as i went through. and then after i went through all of the appendices, all of my questions were answered. so i have a few comments, though, and, um, i, i want to circle back to commissioner maxwell's comment about labor. i think the wastewater enterprise size does seem like an incredibly complicated, uh, enterprise with all kinds of different functions and therefore all kinds of different staff. um, which is why i also appreciated the clarity of your materials. um, we get emails all the time when there are wet water, wet weather events. um, i picked other people out there in the dead of night. um, really working to address these emergencies. so i don't, i, i will guess that probably part of the job description includes that kind of emergency response that everybody has to take a turn.

but i feel really keenly that, um, we should really focus on our on hiring and filling those positions because i just worry all the time about burnout for our really dedicated employees. as i also wanted to refer to endorse the center for smart infrastructure, um, investment, i thought when i read through the appendix that sfpuc would really have a place at the table , it sounded like a very collaborative, ongoing effort of all the agencies around the bay, which just seems like an incredibly important effort and very informative. i'll be really interested to hear reports. i kind of wish i could sit in the room and just listen. um, because i think it will be useful for all of the agencies and also to have that opportunity to collaborate. um, i also really wanted to appreciate what you did with a

couple of the positions at the southeast community center. um, the recreation facility, um, positions where you eliminated some of the educational requirements that you didn't think were essential to the, um, for functions. and i think that's something that the is really asked hr for. and the department to review. and so i was really pleased to see that in your materials that you're looking hard at those positions and thinking about how to increase access and the focus in the southeast community center seemed also to be able to hire locally. and i thought that was a really positive, um, uh, development. and i hope that the department generally continues to do that, to try to make the access easier. we yeah, we do that by, um, you know, substituting positions. but we also do that by looking at minimum qualifications of existing classes and working with dr. to change those. so that's an active effort that we're trying to do across all all positions, not all positions

is that but multitude of positions within the division. that's great. and then finally i just i'm also really interested in the sedimentation analysis that you're going to do with the two channels. i'd love to hear a report back on that as well. it's um, probably long overdue. and finally, i will just, um, echo commissioner ajami's concern about, uh, the incredible effects that the climate change and the and the climate crisis will have on our wastewater system and that it just feels very much like we're going to be pushed more and more with with weather events and temperature changes and different issues in the bay, and that we're going to see a constant, um, elevated need for, uh, finances as creative thinking, creative solutions and i, i it's a concern for the future and for our future budget

and i, i know that you and your staff and the whole department really is focusing on those issues, but it's a it's an ongoing worry. yeah. i noted i concur with that. commissioner stacy, if i might add, commissioner john boat, um, your comments about, um, climate change and our need to look at it through that lens is something that we are acutely aware of and if you go back and look at the broad overview that setting the whole lens of how we approach this budget, okay. if when we talk about a utility of the future and investing where it matters, we the top two things that we talk about are resilience and climate change and environmental stewardship. and that was to do precisely what you are, what you alluded to was to look at how we're investing our money through that lens. just as i said, that the racial equity is a part of the

formal part of the budget process and how we're looking at it. if you look at how we developed, how we're looking at everything here, the top two things are resilience and climate change and environmental stewardship. so for us, they're not just a bullet. they are how we look at this entire budget. and that's why we have these as our two top priorities. when we talk about how we're investing our money, i think that it is perfectly, um, appropriate when we get to the end of this process to one thing that we i think we probably can do is tally up the aggregate dollar amount, as it were, that we can that we're devoting to that issue. but but and we're happy to do that. but in terms of talking about the lens, this is something that we are acutely aware of. and that's why we prioritize it this way in the budget. but i do think that you're both of you are, um, comments and suggestions are, are, um, exactly on point. and i certainly i make the comments

not because i think the department isn't aware of them, but it it's just such a strong influence on our budget and everything we do in all three divisions, wastewater, water and energy and i, i, i see in your in your budget and some of the capital projects even that we are really focusing on it. it's i think it's such a we can come up with a way to sort of aggregate the dollar amount of what we're doing that's devoted. yeah, that would be interesting. yeah um, can i make a quick. oh, sure. go ahead. yeah, yeah, yeah. but, um, i think one thing i would say is i hear you, but i would say probably you need to add every single line item and get that answer just because it's not just impacting, um, where we invest. it also impacts your racial equity issue. it's going to impact affordability very seriously. it basically

literally every bullet point you have here is impacted by that. so um, and i think that's why i think it's important to kind of maybe pull it out, not because, um, i'm not saying we are not looking at it. i'm just saying it is important to know this is like this. we are. yes we are slipping slowly down, but there is a cliff. so we need to kind of be aware of that in a process. so that's why i think that lens is important. and this is not by any means a criticism that you guys are not thinking about it. obviously, everybody is thinking about it. it's just like it. basically every line item you have is impacted by it. right? so it's kind of like a little bit more, um, dominant in your process versus a lot of other things that you're talking about. sure. it's already a major budget issue. um, and we'll continue to be and, and grow, uh, no doubt about that. i think that's it. i just i really

appreciated the materials and, uh, just the diversity of activity within the wastewater enterprise. guys, it's a fascinating and complicated device vision. so thank you. thank you, commissioner rivera. um, thank you, president paulson. i just wanted to mention on, um, a lot of my comments were kind of already gone through by the other commissioners, but, um, great presentation. i don't want to cause any animosity with the other divisions, but this was a really great and well put together, and it was, um, really , uh, self-explanatory. i had the same thing as i, i had a little questions. they answered themselves as i went through, um, and i just wanted also to mention what, um, something that , uh, commissioner maxwell had talked about was the residential green infrastructure program, which i think is absolutely great that we're, um, uh, you

know, supporting that and, um, specific actually, you know, assisting residents with stormwater, uh, recycling, etc. and, and i just wanted to know, is there a potential for increasing this program in the future? and then maybe any other, uh, program teams that will engage our residents because, you know, when you have the buy in from the residents, it really, um, uh, helps to underscore, you know, what? we're trying to achieve. and i just think it's great including them. so would you like to comment on that? yeah. no, definitely this this what we're requesting today is approval to move this program forward for the next two years. and this is what we anticipate will cover that. um, but the intent is to keep growing the program as much as we can. this really benefits the city at large. it benefits wastewater and specifically to. and so and like you said, the rebate on the storm, the stormwater credit that that residents receive is also very important. so yeah, the intent is to grow the program in perpetuity. so i also joel,

thank you so far for everything we've seen and the way you've organized and everything. i agree with the sentiments of some of the others in their comments and want to echo that, um, it's pretty clear that you're looking at this very nimbly, and there are lots of, um, um, i think your microphone is not on. so there. can you hear me? i can hear you. yeah. so, um, again, thank you. um, so it's clear that you're very nimble and, you know, again, i know these are bullet points and they're meant to be, because we'd be here all day if not. but it's clear that you're very nimble, not just with long terme climate change, but with short terme, because that's the nature of the interest of the industry. so thank you for that. i do have a couple questions kind of follow up in context on the same thing that other commissioners have said. one is very specific. um, i do note that, you know, that as others have, that you are putting more resources into programs and staffing and the community at the southeast community center. but one thing

just sort of stuck out because you you mentioned it and it was in the bullets, and that is that some of the positions were definitely, you know, 1040 hours, you know, basically part time positions. and then you very specifically, it wasn't a bullet, said no benefits. and i understand that's a temporary position. any time i think a lot of people anytime temporary positions are put together, the flags go up immediately. and i'm not raising a flag. i'm just hoping that this is not just going to be a pass through position, that the intent is. and, um, and you know, where i'm going on this, that this is going to be an entry position with opportunity at the end of the line as maybe part of the job description when people come in. so it's not just like, let's get people in and you know, who cares what happens next. can i clarify that? i'm sorry, i may have not been clear in my slide, but we're actually eliminating those temporary positions and we're replacing them with permanent positions. well, i saw some of those that are, but you did definitely say that there's new positions. if i maybe correct me if i'm wrong, that there were ten that are a

thousand and they're temporary, they have no benefits. you said no, no, no. that's the it's the opposite is what joel just said. yeah. we're replacing the permanent that's currently we have those movement part. i thought there was something else. we currently we're currently staffed with those cat 16 positions. what our proposal today is to move those, get ri of the cat 16, the temporary ten 40 hours, replace them with permanent civil service jobs. that's the request. so that was clarified. thank you. it wasn't to me. i'm sorry. it wasn't clear to me. my second piece is looking at the overtime. my first comment when you mentioned that the. $338,000 that you're putting in there, i was i looked at this and tell me if i'm wrong , that that in particular is that we have needed this money for emergency and for and for flexibility type of issues before and because you looked at it and it was a particular number that maybe went over budget, that you're identifying this now in advance, this and that. this is different than what other commissioners have talked about. you know, we do have, you know, vacancies and therefore we need the overtime. this is not for that. this this

is for listen, all of a sudden something happens and we need other things that move forward. and you've done some analysis as to what that means. so therefore you can budget ahead of time because the whole thing is why are you throwing out all this overtime when we have extra people out there? well, there are reasons why people have overtime there. i'm sure you have some people there that are sick of overtime. you know, they have a full time position and my god, i, you know, i'd like to go home and spend some time with my family, but i got me working saturday and sundays and that's why i'm making a whole. but load of money. but i don't want the money. it's the quality of time. correct me or tell me that that $338,000 is for that bucket. that's not because of lack of because of vacancies specifically with the money is for is to supplement our overtime budget line traditionally over the past few years, we've overextended our overtime budget lines. and so we amongst those three divisions consistently, we've overextended them. um, and so our ask there

is to put money into those lines so we don't have to go for that appropriation at the supplemental appropriation. great you answered my question. and i think that's all i have for now. and unless commissioners have any more comments, we're ready for you to continue. thank you. okay. can i have the slides again, please. okay. so now we will get into our capital budget. uh, quick agenda overview. uh, we'll start with the development process. we'll move on to the financial summary, then talk about a couple of new major projects and then review some key projects that are currently underway. so when we started this, uh, planning process for the budget, we engaged all wwe divisions. the goal is to take a holistic approach to identifying all known issues that required capital, attention. this effort

produced a long list of potential projects, with some some with very high price tags. uh, we then went through a process to prioritize these potential projects based on project drivers and condition and criticality information. when we had available. our intent with this effort was to be transparent in our planning process. we knew that we could not fit every potential project into the ten year window, but rather we needed to show a long terme investment strategy. this was in order to maintain our standards of reliable infrastructure, uh, for water, for water quality, and to accurately project future costs in our rate study to the best of our professional ability. in the next few slides, we will look at our strategy for this process, and then we'll focus on the handful of projects. so first we'll talk about our project drivers. uh, the first one being operational reliability. all facilities should be able to operate, treat, store and convey

wastewater without interruption, without interruption, in accordance with good management practices. such systems like seismic reliability, dry weather flows should be managed to protect public health and safety , and primary treatment within disinfection should be online within 72 hours of a major earthquake, and health and safety um, in accordance with sfpuc health and safety, we employee health and safety programs and cal-osha requirements. uh, the wwe physical security and wwe physical security guidelines. uh, the work environment should be safe for workers and assets in the public rights of way, should be safe and secure. and finally, stormwater management. um, we should control and manage flows from a storm or three. our three hour duration that delivers 1.3in of rain or also known as the five year storm. by prioritizing these drivers, we hope to safeguard san francisco continuously improve and plan strategically to adapt to the

ever evolving needs and challenges. uh, these project drivers help our enterprise align with sfpuc. s overall agency goals of affordability, responsible management, and opposing investments where it matters. all of our projects are an integral part of our never ending, um, asset life cycle. this slide reflects the ever evolving appreciation for our asset management. sfpuc has adopted the asset management policy, and wwe has begun using the asset management approach throughout the entire operation. it's not a linear process with a beginning, middle, or end. it's more of a circle of life for our 10,000 or more than 10,000 individual assets in our system, uh, there's always a connection from the beginning to the end, from planning to delivery to commissioning, and then to the o&m. um. i will come to our

capital planning strategy. um what you can see here is kind of what i alluded to earlier, which today we have the capital budget. it's the two year budget we're approving. we have the ten year capital plan. also then we have the 20 year plan horizon, which is outside of that ten year plan. um, it reflects our long tum vision and our holistic approach to be transparent with our known needs throughout our system for generations to come. the near tum projects are well defined. this is what we'll see in our ten year plan in some projects will start in the ten year plan though, and go beyond our 20 year planning horizon and are not yet as detailed. the intent is to document and show our plans for both near and larger, longer tum capital projects. the farther out in time things go, the less certainty we have. um, about a given project or capital need. what we do is show our best professional estimates on those projects. given the information and forecasts we have today.

having this broad understanding of the financial horizon of the 20 years helps us apparently request funding for projects while also minimizing the impacts on the rate increases the extent that we can. okay, now that we've, uh, talked about how we got here, let's look at some of the financial numbers. um, we've seen this bottom row, the dark blue row of numbers previously in the finance presentation earlier this week. um, but this gives a further breakdown. so we have our different programs in cip, r&r or repair and replacement, renewal and replacement. and then treasure island specifically, and then general wastewater facilities and infrastructure upgrades as. this next slide shows an appropriation of our, uh, ten year capital plan. and so i'm going to highlight a few specific groups here. uh, the first one is the bottom group. the renewal and state of good

repair investments. this includes r&r collections, r&r treatment and then good repair capital projects. we'll note that this is a fairly steady rate of renewal, averaging close to $30 million a year, $300 million a year. sorry um, it represents the recurrent investment and consistent replacement of assets at a manageable level. excuse me? it would be very nice if we could fit everything into this box, but as we know, we can't. so the next box we have is, um, bdffp folsom and lower alemany projects. these encompass the first four years of the ten year plan. these are critical one time investments, but they're significant numbers, as we can see. and they will actually fall off this ten year plan. um within a few fiscal years. the next significant investment that we're proposing again in our ten year plan is nutrient reduction. um. we'll dive into this

specifically in a little bit. but what i want to emphasize here is that what we're asking for approval on today is to get started. you'll see there's a there's some funding in the first years. we want to get started on the planning process, but actual construction will start later in the plan and will go beyond the ten year window. and then one more, um, big driver in our 20 year plan. not necessarily in our ten year plan, but our ten year plan is the southeast outfall, um, which represented here is only $80 million for planning and environmental review. and then design and construction are actually outside of this time horizon, outside of the 20, outside of the ten year plan, into the 20 year plan and the effort there was part of the effort. there was to try and balance that with the potential, uh, nutrient project. next we have a slide showing our

appropriation of our fiscal year 2425 capital budget. um, it shows it divided up by enterprise priorities and we can see from the slide that the first year is actually trending down from the previous year. um, we can also see that cip makes up the majority of our requested appropriation for the upcoming fiscal year. with the request of with a request of roughly 238 million, followed by r&r projects at 153 million, and then facilities and treasure island projects with a total of 102 million, respectively. um, now i'll move on to discussing a couple of the important projects included in this year's iteration. the ten year plan. a couple of notes. before we get started on these two projects, though, um, both are big projects. both have big numbers attached to them, and neither one of them are a fully planned project at this point. um, what they are is critical needs for us to address within the next 20 years. they represent our need to invest in the environmental

stewardship as a leader in our industry and face in the face of these unprecedented challenges in our environment. um the effects of these changes will be felt for generations. and now is the time to act on them. our first project, we'll talk about is our nutrient removal project at, uh, the impact to the ten year plan is 1.1, uh, almost 1.2 million at, and the total proposed project budget is 1.47 1.4 million. the intent is to reduce the nutrient loading in the san francisco bay. that's one of the pressing most pressing water quality issues. that's currently facing our region. and while we know that climate change is influencing the algae blooms events that happen in the bay, we can't deny that nitrogen discharges from the treatment plants are contributing factor from the slide, we can see that from the image on the slide, we can see, um, the trajectory of the algae bloom that occurred in august of

2022. intensity started across the bay but soon moved. uh west to our side of the bay and then progressed southward. eventually we see this as an opportunity, though, to change the narrative and reinforce our commitment to water quality, carrying on the long standing tradition of san francisco values for a clean and healthy environment. as we started programing this budget, we knew that in order to be transparent within our ten year capital plan for the commission and ratepayers, we need to have at a minimum, a placeholder for nutrient removal project that this is consistent with our vision to plan beyond the ten year horizon for our system needs, for our system needs, and for our rate studies. uh, various technologies and scenarios were considered. we looked at how nitrogen loads are changing, giving the water usage, the population growth, the changing demographics of that population within the of that population growth within the city. and we also took a holistic look at our plant processes and how the nutrient

load will change post completion of the bdffp project. uh, the purpose, again, the purpose of this effort was not to come up with a full blown project at this point. um, we needed to confirm that we have real options that can be implemented within the footprint of our southeastern plant. we settle on this dollar amount for the project or for the proposed project in the ten year and beyond planned, uh, based on multiple conversations with cip staff and finance infrastructure, wastewater and our executive teams. so again, what we're seeking approval for today is to take the next steps in this process to carry the work forward, that will carry the work forward that was already done. and look at all possibilities and come up with a defined project over the next two years. of course, funding will be, uh, challenging for this project, but as always, we will work closely with our financial teams and move as we move forward to ensure that we're doing all we can to target low interest loans, grants, and other and other ways to ensure that we're strategically leveraging our debt with current

market conditions. finally, we acknowledge that this is a regional problem, but we need to acknowledge that as one of the largest utilities discharging into the bay, we need to be a leader in this area and set an example for generations to come. so that's it for nutrients for now. uh, the next project we have we want to highlight is our south southeast outfall. so this project, uh, this this asset or the project? sorry, the proposed project, the impact of the ten year plan at this point is 80 million. um, and then the proposed projected budget of the total um project would be 2.9 million. and just a reminder, the majority of that is outside of the ten year capital plan in the in the long terme 20 year horizon. um there's also though a current cip project underway right now to do a, um,

comprehensive condition assessment and then poteially perform as needed repairs to get us through that ten year window. uh, the long terme need is to replace the outfall, um, to ensure reliable operations of our southeast plant. uh, this critical asset conveys fully treated effluent flows from our our southeast plant 800ft into the bay. uh, this plant processes approximately 80% of the city's sewage. uh, built in the 1950s. these two pipes travel, uh, from our booster pump station across the salinas creek, uh, parallel to the third street bridge, and then turn east and travel out under pier 80 before eventually discharged into the bay. since the 1950s, we've performed various levels of inspections and rehab, with the most recent one being a temporary bypass pipe installed in 2019. we're asking for approval on this plan is to initiate a plan environmental review for the eventual replacement of the entire outfall. the actual price of the

project will eventually be updated, but our effort here is for transparency to allow to allow staff to begin planning this difficult project. uh sfpuc has been working with other city and federal partners on a long terme waterfront adaptation plan for sea level rise, and these plans could present, uh, opportunities for the southeast outfall project to align with those plans. okay, finally, the last section. sorry, the last section of our presentation will get, um, will highlight some of the current projects that are underway right now. first project we'll look at is the southeast. uh, plant biosolids digester project or the bdffp. the current impact of the ten year plan is that to the tune of 300 million? um, the proposed project budget is, um,

2.6 million. total cost cost increase is due currently to market conditions such as single bidder outcomes and higher material cost. construction of the digester tanks and solids, solids pre solid pretreatment. building and dewatering buildings are underway and construction is about 45% complete. all major trade bid packages have been procured and buyout of major facilities has been completed by now, each of you have had an opportunity to tour this project and have seen the great progress that is made. the benefit to our processes at our largest plant, southeast, will be significant once this project comes online. a few years down the road, we'll have a substantial positive effect on the community in terms of odor control. just as it has had a substantial positive effect on local community by surpassing local hiring goals. uh, this year is actually a milestone for

the project, as will be the peak of construction activity on the site. and as we move forward towards the final build out, um, again, bid climate material costs have resulted in higher than anticipated bids. uh, in particular for electrical, mechanical and metal working packages as. next project we will highlight is the folsom area stormwater improvements. uh the impact to the ten year plan is to the tune of 110 million. the proposed entire project budget is 430 million. um the cost increase reflects the latest design estimates due to higher costs, additional time needed to address complexity of the upcoming construction of the tunnel, and the large sewer boxes. uh the scope of work has been divided into four separate construction contracts, and the project helps meet the san francisco bay regional water control control board cleanup and abatement order. the purpose of this project is to increase

the stormwater conveyance of the combined sewer system, the neighborhood around 17th and folsom streets in the mission district, and to mitigate flooding in an underserved area of san francisco. the conveyance capacity increases will allow the system to meet the wastewater levels of service goals by controlling, by controlling and mitigating flows from a storm of a three hour duration that delivers 1.3in of rain. this next project is the lower alemany project. uh this has no financial impact to the ten year cip. um, the overall budget is no change. i should say. no. not no impact, but no change. but the approved project budget is 300 million. uh, design environmental review are underway, and the scope includes construction of a sewer tunnel and other sewer improvements to provide stormwater storage and conveyance. and again, this project also helps meet san francisco bay, the san francisco

bay regional water control board cleanup and abatement order. the lower alemany area surrounding the 101 to 80 interchange has been susceptible to recurring flooding. uh associate with moderate to heavy rain storms, and does not meet the defined. the current defined level of cip. level of service goals. this project includes construction on a ten foot diameter underground pipe, uh, to convey stormwater away from the lower alemany area and mitigate flooding in another underserved area of san francisco. finally, um, we'll highlight our green infrastructure, uh, implementation again, the impact to the ten year budget is no change here. um, and the proposed total budget is 100 million. um, with this slide does represent, though is an update to our approach on capturing gi projects in our

capital plan. um, so what we'll be doing is repackaged the green infrastructure projects that are currently approved in the ten year cip, um, and then starting next fiscal year, green infrastructure projects will be scoped by overall performance, establishing a local while establishing total drainage mark management area goals. uh, and then together with the green infrastructure planning project, this project aims to deliver 65 acres of drainage management area managed by green infrastructure within the next ten years. the change in the budgeting structure for the ten year cip for green infrastructure limitation is based on extensive lessons learned in the past ten years. the the approach provides puc the flexibility, leverage, mature project partnerships and find the most beneficial projects in the past. in the past ten years, we implemented projects based upon geography and construction, constructing one geographic gi project per

watershed to demonstrate and evaluate gi technologies in a variety of conditions. this new approach pivots from a list of gi project opportunities for watershed to a more performance based strategy that allocates capital dollars for specific projects only when they become available for implementation. um and then they only become when they become available for implementation. the objective of the strategy is to ensure that all major planning functions are complete before projects are listed in the cip and assigned to a project manager, wbs goals with these projects is. deliver the highest possible value per rate dollar um, with stormwater management projects that also deliver esthetic, ecological and urban design benefits to san francisco's parks, schools and streets. and with that, that is our capital program. so that concludes our presentation for today. um, and we'll open it up for more questions. so thank you. um mr. pratt, there's so

much for the materials and your presentation. um, the beauty of the budget process is often, you know, um, as a factor in democracy is that we get to see, you know, where we're at. and where we're going, you know, all put together because that's what we're here to do. it also, the second part is we also get to revisit what we've been approving and looking at and, um, and been seeing, you know, every two weeks during this year and last year and, and so it all ties things up together. so thanks for putting that together there. and as we did in your first half of the presentation there, i assume there will be comments and questions. so thank you. let's start with commissioner maxwell. oh thank you that the that the, uh southeast bay outfall was a difficult project. what makes it difficult so number one, um, the southeast outfall, this is for this this is our main, our only

effluent, um, pipe for the southeast treatment plant. the complexity comes from the location of where the effluent is now, where the pipe is now. it crosses over a slice creek and goes under the under the pier. so there's multiple jurisdictions. it's also a very big pipe. um we are looking at potentially realigning that so that we don't have to cross the creek anymore. and we're also looking at upsizing it so that we can handle the full capacity of the southeast plant even during wet weather flows, because currently during wet weather flows, we actually discharge treated sewage into the um, into this lost creek. once our booster station is at capacity. so that's that's kind of adds to the complexity of the potential project. okay so affluent, so, so the effluent goes into the yslas creek and right now all effluent from the plant during wet during dry weather, a normal day like today is going out through the booster station, through the pipes, out into the bay, 800ft, um, but the plant can treat more than that boost. that pump station can pump through those pipes. so once it comes to capacity, which

is. what i thought it was. 110 130 um, so i'm, i didn't say 110 130 mgd then that, that whatever is in excess of that up to 200 and 265 that we can treat through the plant gets discharged into the creek. so potentially when we rebuild this , um, pump station and outfall, we could upsize that to handle all that. oh, that's good. all right. and then, um, so we have two years for the nutrien. so in that two years before the plan or your start planning, what happens now? now. and what are we doing to lessen our load so we don't have two years for planning. we're our proposal is to initiate planning right now okay. and that's the we have money set aside in the two year appropriation for that. exactly. the planning process to kick off officially. all right. so what are we doing in between that?

what do we do in between that. so we've done various pilot projects at the plant. we did one earlier this year with the split stream. um, we concluded that pilot and now we're actually initiating a second pilot with using some, some existing infrastructure to modify that to treat the, the central effluent out of our solid side. so it's a side stream treatment. so it's not our full stream treatment but a side stream treatment. so we're going to be piloting that technology to. so that's what we're doing today. um as far as boots on the ground. and then again today we're also going to start the planning process for this eventual project to treat the main stream, uh, effluent from the plant so that everything coming out, the plant gets treated for nitrogen reduction. okay. so will this nutrient reduction, um, produce any recycled water? there's options for that. again, this is what we're going to what we're going to dive into the next couple of years. um, so i can't make a comment today to say yes or no on any technology. what we're doing, though, is evaluating, um, scenarios just

like that, though, so there are potential also there is that potential. yes um, yeah. hi everyone. good morning. laura bush deputy chief financial officer in addition to the technical work and planning work that the engineers will do on this project, the finance team and the external affairs team are also going to be working really hard on trying to figure out how we best finance this project. right now in the capital plan, we're being as transparent as possible, but all of the costs right now fall on spec ratepayers. we are working now and we have some time before the project really starts to ramp up to try and offset that cost. somehow um, some options. we have right now is this is not just a san francisco issue. this is a regional issue. this is facing other utilities in the region. um, so we are exploring ways in which we can work together with regional partners and potentially get non ratepayer funds such as federal grants, things like that, to try and offset the burden on the ratepayers here. so that's something we will we'll be doing

alongside the technical planning work that's being done in infrastructure and wastewater. great. excellent thank you. thank you for that. um, and then with the alimony, lower alimony and the big pipe, i mean, i remember there was a lot that we went through, um, we didn't we were looking at green infrastructure, maybe to help with that problem. so does the citywide green infrastructure. um, is include the alimony project. you mentioned that. so the alimony project will is not specifically a green infrastructure. i understand that, but in tandem with the big pipe, we talked about also being able to use green infrastructure as well. so can you expand on that? bessie or if, if i might, uh, commissioner and i'll let, uh, sarah come up and talk about it. uh, but as you recall, we made a proposal about replacing the pipe with the green infrastructure alternative that,

um, unfortunately, the water board did not, um, uh, they wanted the. they wanted the pipe. yes they did not approve the green infrastructure, but, uh, that does not mean that we have given up on involving green infrastructure in as as a tool. and we talked about that. the 65 acres of, of, um, uh, green infrastructure management. but i'm going to let sarah talk a little bit more detail. i got that right, did i not? yes. okay exactly right. um, sarah, urban watershed planning, wastewater. um, thanks for the question. yes as our general manager just stated, although speak a little. yeah thank you. is this better? yes. yeah um, when the regional board decided to go with the pipe option, we then, you know, were not able to integrate the green infrastructure in the way that we had analyzed into that project per se. so that 300 million is for the pipe alone. however, we are still looking at green infrastructure opportunity

is to reduce stormwater in that watershed. um they'll just be outside of that 300 million. and we're working hard to do that with partners like our colleagues at mta so that when we invest money and they invest money, hopefully we amplify each other's investments to deliver more benefits to the public in our streets in that watershed. and that's that's what we're working towards. but it's outside of that project. so then the citywide green infrastructure impacts a ten year budget will include looking into the alimony, lower alimony and that project. correct. and we'll do that with three different partners that we're looking to deliver the multiple benefits with. and that's mainly with our mta colleagues, our sf, usd colleagues and our rec park colleagues, so that we're really looking at spots where we can benefit kids at schools, folks at parks, and people experiencing the urban realm,

the public realm. and so we're doing that in the allegheny watershed. and we also have a big focus in our bayview watersheds, right now through the lens of our equity piece and saying, where do we get started? first? excellent all right. thank you. thank you, thank you. that's it for me for right now. thank you. commissioner jamie. i was actually wanted to ask about the water board, not letting us do the clean infrastructure piece. uh, is there any clarification of why and how and all that? ron flynn, deputy general manager um, yes. we had proposed when the when the order was first entered, we included a request that we could come back with an alternative plan. the order was to build the pipe. the request was that we come back and we show them what we could

do instead of a pipe. when we did that, we went back. they didn't say, no, you can't do it. they said, it must be done on this date. we will not move the date by which the project. much needs to be done. we could not do sequa and planning and implementation in that time frame. so the no was no. we will not move out. the date for you to do green infrastructure. the no was no. we the no was on on a timing. the only project that was through sequa going up and implementation plan was the pipe and it was their way of saying and we talked to them about it. um, they didn't want to say no to green infrastructure, but they were not going to give us the time to do it. and so we are working with them to do green infrastructure, just as you said. and you said in places in addition to the pipe. so the pipe will be there and then they would like to work with us to do

the green infrastructure in other locations. in addition, but not instead. i'm very surprised. but, um, and disappointed to be honest with you, um, knowing how, um, when i was on regional board, we actually were trying to i mean, of course, we are a combined system, which is different from everybody else in the state. um, but the whole, um, managing stormwater, a lot of the focus was on using green infrastructure as a first layer of dealing with stormwater. so it's kind of like, um, anyway, i'm quite disappointed to hear that. um that timing was the reason that they didn't let us do this. um, i think my line of questioning is along the same. but to be clear, yes, commissioner jamie, as i think you've i think as we've gotten, we were all disappointed with that. but it has not lessened our commitment to continue to want to use green infrastructure

where we can. so as we're as disappointed as you were that they wouldn't move the timing, but it hasn't lessened our commitment. as and as sarah talked about, we're continuing. we will be continuing. we are continuing on all those efforts. absolutely. and i'm not saying we are not. i'm just like disappointed. and i will make sure when i see my colleagues on the other side, um, we'll bring this up many, many times to annoy them. um, um, and make sure they don't do that again. um but i think my line of questioning and one other thing i wanted to say is, uh, miss bennett, you mentioned the whole collaboration with mta and other city agencies, and i know you and a few other people have been trying to kind of create this, uh, opportunity to aggregate funding and resources and build multi-benefit projects. and i want to highlight that and say how much i personally appreciate all that effort, because it is going to be the way forward, dealing with the issues around

climate change and sort of diversifying resources and also addressing some of the, um, uh, you know, social, environmental equity issues that we are facing . so, um, thank you for all your efforts on that topic. um i mean, my line of questioning was very much aligned to commissioner maxwell, but maybe i ask it differently. um, when i see the nutrient reduction and i see the, um, the outfall station replacement outfall, the ncp booster replacement, i'm thinking, how does one impacts the other and especially thinking what we will do in the nutrient side and eventually will impact the size, the functioning and the format that the pipe needs to be potentially . right. and, um, so i'm wondering if some of that thinking is going, uh, through the i'm assuming it is, but i'm

just wondering if you can clarify if you guys are thinking how these two are talking to each other. yeah. so that's, that's that kind of that's why both these projects are in their infancy. right now in the planning stage. because we can look for alignments like that. you know, we talked about the potential for recycled water to be involved. so that would yes, lessen the flows going through the outfall pipe at certain times. so looking for synergies like that, that's the intent of the project at this point. what we're looking for approval for is to move those thoughts forward and evaluate those solutions over the next couple of years. so yeah, and just i know you all know this, but basically since the, uh, there are all the water agencies in the peninsula beyond us are looking into recycling. right. and um, and since the, uh, purified water regulations or direct potable reuse regulations have come down, now, some of those projects that were on were mothballed. now they're just like trying to figure out how fast they can move. and almost every board of directors, uh, in

the peninsula and the south bay is pushing and looking into getting more recycle water in their portfolio now, not all of it is going to happen, and we don't know what capacity they are going to build. but ultimately that is going to impact what the conditions you're experience in the bay. um, seriously. and i know we are talking to others. i know the regional board is following everybody's actions. um i think we do need to have a little bit more, um, focused discussion on with, uh, not not just the, um, uh, pose, um, but also, uh, sorry, the wastewater treatment plants, but also the, um, the water agencies. yeah to figure out what is going on and how this map math is going to work out. um, so, uh, that's

something to sort of think about. um, i don't think beyond us. and uh, um, uh, and correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think beyond us and the east bay mud. anybody else is part of that. um uh, smart infrastructure effort. i think we are the only two, um, i'm not sure you mean i. yeah. for the bay area? yes, for the bay area. yes yes. california's others. um so we potentially need to have another venue through which we collaborate with the other ones. and i know, i know, we are trying to talk to them, and i don't know how how, uh, what's the best strategy? but we somehow need to come with this. come up with a strategy. um, and then again, ultimately it's going to impact how we are designing this outfall. and i know the timing doesn't perfectly match, but we have to somehow, um, try to see what we can do. and i would say also, whatever happens upstream, um,

with green infrastructure and the changes we are seeing is going to impact that in and also onsite reuse is going to impact everything thing. yep. um, so some system level thinking needs to happen in within the city, outside of the city, around the bay. um and i think i would i personally and i, you know, i obviously i speak for myself, not the entire commission. i would prefer we spend more time up front thinking about these things, thinking about the strategies, thinking about partnerships, thinking about that, um, systematic impacts. test coming up with scenarios, building this collaboration rather than in four years down the road, coming back and saying, oh, this. and that didn't work out. and i do acknowledge things go many different directions when you start a project. i'm not saying it's going to be a perfect smooth lining, but, um, but i would rather be spend the time,

um, and go through this. and if that means that we have to negotiate it with water board, we wilgo water board. if we have to do this and that, we have to do it, we'll do it. but ultimately, i rather to spend that extra time ahead of time rather than keep going back and trying to increase the budget or time or, um, change the design. thank you. commissioner rivera, uh, thank you. um, i just had, um, a question regarding i know that you had mentioned, uh, during your appropriation of, uh, capital plan page that there's some funding going towards treasure island, and i just wanted to know, um, maybe get an update on, um, the wastewater treatment plant. plant that's going out there. i mean, i drive by the bay bridge every once in a while, and i know that the buildings are going up and, you

know, things are progressing. i would just breakneck speed. yeah exactly. they're really. the tide is really doing a great job. so i'm just wondering in terms of for casting, you know, potential issues and maybe, uh, financially, is there anything. yeah. can you talk to that bessie? thanks. yeah good morning, commissioners. bessie tam, director for wastewater capital program. uh yes, for the treasure island project. so we this is a progressive design build project. so they are doing both design, completing a lot of the design component while the contractor is also taking advantage of the time to do, like demolition and advance work that they're doing. so as you mentioned, this is progressing very quickly. they are doing both. we actually had a groundbreaking sometime last year on some of the demolition work. while they are proceeding into the design phase, so they are, you know, moving fast in terms of a lot of the components

into even 95% design. yeah and do you feel like we're, um, progress being at a, at, you know, i mean, i know a lot of our other projects are, are, are, you know, having issues. and i'm just wondering because that that's a pretty key. um, um, you know, unique area, you know, to be on an island, etc, getting materials out there. so, um, i just wanted to get kind of an overall feel of where we're at in terms of the progress and moving forward. and do you do you see any, uh, potential problems coming up, um, financially or or otherwise? not not at this time. i mean, as with any construction project, um, any project that is, you know, in progress, there are always, um, issues, issues and risk, right? that's just the nature of the beast. um, my understanding from the project team is that, you know, they are facing similar, um, issues with material costs increases. um, however, because this is a

guaranteed maximum price project, they are working closely with the contractor and the design building team to discuss those issues and find creative solutions. so at this time, that's my understanding, is that, you know, they are not projecting, um, any major changes that has a really, you know, significant impact that we're seeing in some of the other projects with a different, um, delivery system. so i think we feel pretty good about the progress. we feel that we are working very well with design br and the designers. um, on that project, beautiful. thank you so much. thank you. thank you, commissioner stacy. thank you. i just had a couple of follow up comments. i i, i really appreciate the sort of ongoing efforts with green infrastructure around the alemany project. i remember when staff presented, um, the project

to us, it it was really clear that all of that planning effort for the green infrastructure was not in vain, and that the department would continue to pursue those kinds of projects in the area, even though the regional board wasn't willing, you know, to stop and wait for those plans to take sort of firmer shape. i also, uh, really appreciate the focus on the ability of green infrastructure to sort of amplify what the puc does, that it it helps in so many ways with with flooding with, um, what enters the system , how it's how it's treated, how it needs to be treated. and it's a really important focus piece, um, both now and in the future. i, i'm going to circle back to the southeast outfall again. i see that as a, an incredibly complicated issue with many different, um, layers of

complexity. i noted in your slide that you said that it was part of the waterfront adaptation strategy, which means there will be plenty of, uh, port input, city input on many levels. and we just saw the ocean beach, um, resiliency project. how complicated and extensive that effort was. i also want to emphasize this. um, the hope that we look at things like recycling, um, it's both a water issue and a wastewater issue. and the health of the bay. we hear from baykeeper a lot, um, through correspondence. it's they they think recycling is a good alternative to address the health of the bay. and i hope that that will be a big part of your planning process. i know it already is part of the alternative water supply report. so i, i think you we've got a

big lift in front of us on the southeast outfall and so many different kinds of issues to think about as that planning and design process goes through. and i, i, i appreciate that it's a it's a very long terme project and that it will be very important in addressing lots of issues for the city and the bay. and i agree, 100. that's why we want to get this project going now. it will take a long time to plan out eventual construction down the road, but there's a lot of very complex issues to work through. and again, we have an interim project to mitigate the risk currently. and then that's the objective that was to start planning that process, because there are a lot of overarching, um, overarching difficulties in that area. thank you. just one more. just commissioner maxwell, this is going to be quick, but i just hope as you look at the, um, nutrients and the projects that you're looking at, that if they can produce recycled water, um, that that would kind of be higher on the list since it's part of alternative water supply. and all of that. thank

you. yes. noted thank you, thank you. commissioners. uh, more comments or questions that being said, um, why don't we open this up to, um, public comment and starting with, um, donna, can you go through the rules? because i know we have some, uh, remote requests. that's correct. do we have any members of the public present in the room to provide comment on item four? please come to the microphone. see? none. um uh, can we ask our moderator to please open up the, um, remote comment line to our remote speaker? speaker, you have two minutes. hello. my name is jennifer vitale. i'm a marina resident and a mother of a two year old daughter. and i stood before this commission last may. i shared with you the devastation my family and our

community experienced. in october of 21. in december of 22, when a couple feet of sewage backed up on marina boulevard for the second time. my father, he's 80 years old, was on his hands and knees trying to keep our home safe from toxins coming in. i had to call 911 because there was an elderly woman stuck in a car outside our car house, and she had to be rescued. firstrillionesponders came to my door and they told me, do not open your door because there's sewage everywhere and it's not safe to leave your house. my family has been displaced since the second water since the second sewage incursion. commissioner tajani was quick to blame climate change and thousand year storms. but we know this isn't the case as we had two surge incursions within 15 months of closing the peer street outfall. neither was a storm of a thousand years. further if climate change is a

concern, which we've talked about in this meeting today in san francisco, then the idea of closing the peer street outfall should have been abandoned to allow the city to better handle storms based on the information obtained under the freedom of information act, the puc knew that the decision to close the peer street outfall would cause a sewer and sewage backup without thousand year storms and climate change. now my neighbors and my family live in fear of rain. we have the sandbag, our home every time there's precipita ation. i've got sandbags at my door right now and my neighbors have tripped over them. people have broken bones over them. the commission has an opportunity to fix the problem it created here. when they decommissioned the outfall. before we have another catastrophic event similar to what happened in san diego last week. i'm asking the commissioners today to add the repair of the peer street outfall to this year's budget for our communities, health and safety. thank you. thank you. are there any more remote

comments? okay. no. so i see that public comment is now ended . we will um, we have this is the second of the two meetings. can we read the final item that we need to do to conclude to continue? um, sorry, can i, um can i ask a question? i remember, i remember we talked about that outfall. i apologize, i do not remember exactly the details. um, can you one more time go through what happened with that outfall? and we closed it. we had that conversation after the. i remember this lady specifically coming. i don't think this is a budget comment. okay, but, um, is that something we are working on? i can get back to you. i'm not sure. i'm sorry. okay. maybe you can get back to us by next meeting. so thank you. okay. thank you. um,

so that that concludes public comment in our hearing, the question, commissioner jamie, i mean, maxwell, thank you. click. so if that were in the budget, um, yes. or about how, um, i guess maybe those outfalls, how would it how would it appear in the budget if we were dealing with that? or i don't know how it would appear. um i can't i'm not related with the budget. yeah, that's what i wanted. she's couching this question in. if it's in the budget, otherwise it's the best of my knowledge at this time. no, it's not related to the budget. sorry. yeah okay. president paulson, commissioner stephen robinson, assistant general manager for infrastructure. and within the capital budget, there is an element for renewal and replacement or r&r budget. and inside that, there's always ongoing work in both our collection system pipes, but also the combined sewer discharge structures that has been mentioned in the public

comment today. and there was an extensive study looked into the pierce street outfall. and we did come to the conclusion that it did not contribute to the storm in that particular case. um, however, of course we can go back and look at it again. and as we look at our system and how things change and evolve and adapt over time with new information and new science, or in climate change, we have■á■e e good stewards of the infrastructure that we have, of course. so yes, thank you. uh, yeah. um, okay. thank you. um as related to the budget, i think it was requested that we do look at this in, uh, some other, um, context. the budget. so that being said, donna, can we read the. no, just just a moment. i mean, i think we did couch it, and he made it. he very much satisfied me about the budget. do you have a question? yes. my question is there's thank you. my question is i'd like, uh, that commissioner jamie has a question, and it's related to this. and i don't think you saw it because, you know. so i was

just bringing it to your attention. commissioner. jamie, based on the budget question in context. so uh, mr. robinson, i remember this conversation from last time. um, uh, i'm just wondering, obviously, we are investing in our, um. uh, you know, pipes and outfalls and everything thing. um and obviously we have to deal with a lot of different extreme issues, extreme events that are coming and going. um but it would be good to have some something in the, um, to have some information provided to us as a commission. and this is specific outfall. um, and actually, i would not say just this specific outfall. we have had this issue in other areas as well. right. like how do we decide about which ones live, which ones go if one is closed? obviously, because of the trust i have in our staff, somebody had looked and said, there's another one

that's functioning and it's even larger, or we have built to function in. so that's why this is closed. so it would be valuable to provide that information in a concise, nice manner to very specific what how how how was that decision made and where did that come from. and obviously it is important to highlight that in the budget. there is that line item if and in case it's needed for us to make that kind of investment. so it's not like it's eliminated. it's sort of a subtask of one of the budgets items that we have. yes. happy to get back to the commission if necessary. i'm happy to come back with more information as and when we can. great. thank you. that's what we wanted to hear. okay so thank you. i will entertain seeing that there are no other budget questions after public comment, i will entertain a motion to continue this meeting till monday, january 29th, which will

be the third of our four scheduled budget meeting. can i entertain a motion? can i hear a motion and a second? uh, motion to continue special budgetary meeting for the 29th, second roll call, please. president paulson, i vice president rivera, i mr. maxwell, commissioner jaime i commissioner. stacy i and you have five eyes. the meeting is now adjourned or is continued until next monday. thank you everyone

>> # >> >> >> >> you are watching san francisco rising. >> hi, you are watching san francisco rising. reimagining

our city. he's with us to talk about how our library's economic recover. mr. lambert, welcome to the show. >> thank you. i'm glad to be here. >> i know it's been difficult to have books going virtual. have we recovered? >> yes, we are on our way. our staff stepped up big time during the pandemic to respond to the health emergency. since last may, we have been able to steadily increase in person access to library facilities. currently we are at 95% of our precovid hours of operation. in the coming weeks we are going to fully restore all of our hours. we have four branches that we are going to bring back to seven day service. they are currently operating at

5 days a week and we are going to go to every tag line and i know all the foot traffic has not returned to san francisco, but our library is seeing a resurgence coming back. >> can we talk about programs after covid? >> absolutely, that is part and parcel of our mission. we were doing that work precovid and certainly the library stepped up during the pandemic. we doubled our level of programming for personal finance, small business help, jobs and careers. we have a dedicated small business center here at the library. there is a wide suite of programs that our librarian led. we have a financial planning day coming up in october and we have financial coaches that members of the community can come to the

main library and take advantage of their expertise. >> i understand the mission is in the middle of a renovation. how is that going and are there other construction projects in the horizon? >> yes, we have major projects in the pipeline. the historic mission branch library, carnegie library over 100 years old and we are investing $25 million to restore that facility. we are going to restore the original entrance on 24th street, the staircase from the lower level up to the grand reading room. we are going to push out on the orange alley side of the library and expand space for teens and children, we are going to create a robust community room, a multipurpose space. we are also investing $30 million in the chinatown branch, we are going to upgrade the

mechanical systems to the highest level of filtration as we increasingly respond as cooling centers and air respite centers and open access to the roof. it has some unique views of chinatown to create the inspiring space it is. >> i believe you have programs for families that have free and low cost entries for museum and zoos, is that correct? >> yes. it's a fabulous resource. go to our website. with your library cart, patrons, our residents can go to the public library and get passes to the museums, all of the incredible cultural institutions that we have in san francisco all for free with your library card. >> how are these great free services paid for? how is the

library system funded? >> we are so fortunate in san francisco. we are funded for by the library fund and those that taxed themselves just for library services. we also get a dedicated portion of the general fund. that together allows us to be one of the most well supported libraries in the nation. we have the third most library outlets per square mile of any municipality. all of our branch libraries have professionally trained librarians on-site. service that we are able to provide, the collection, we are a leading library in our country. >> that lead know ask about your biggest annual event in the city. how does the event work

and what's happening this year? >> we are excited for this year's one city one book. this is our signature annual literature event. we have everybody in the community reading the same book. this year's title is "this is your hustle" named after the pulitzer prize nominated and pod taste. this is about the population. one nice thing about this selection is that they are both local. we are going to have several weeks of programming, kicking off next month. it will culminate here in the auditorium november 3rd. so our library patrons will get to meet the authors, hear from them directly, and one other important aspect about this year's selection, we have our

own jail and reentry services department. recently the foundation awarded the san francisco public library $2 million to work with the american library association to shine a light on our best practices here in san francisco, and really help our peers in the industry learn how they can replicate the service model that we are doing here in san francisco. >> that's great. well, thank you so much. i really appreciate you coming on the show, mr. lambert. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you, chris. that's it for this episode, we will be back shortly. you are watching san francisco rising. thanks for watching. anniversary. >> happy anniversary sfgovtv.

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okay. so the sfpuc commission is called to order for the for the, um, budget hearings that we are starting here today at 9:00. so can we have a roll call, please? president paulson, president, vice president rivera here. commissioner jaime, she'll be here shortly. commissioner maxwell. commissioner stacy here. and you have a quorum. so before we call the first item, i'd like to announce that the san francisco public utilities