and we will start first with roll call. chair to hear board member herrera here with two members present, we do have quorum. please note that for today's hearing, we will call agenda item number four. before item number three. we will now move on to the land acknowledgment. we acknowledge that we are on the unseated ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone. who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. as the indigenous stewards of this land, and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost nor forgotten their responsibility as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors,

elders, and relatives of the ramaytush community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. thank you very much. item number two, please. item number two is the opportunity for public comment on any matters within the board's jurisdiction that are not on the agenda. comments specific. to the item on the agenda may be heard when that item is considered. members of the public may address the board and will be limited to three minutes of speaking time per person and a total of 20 cumulative minutes for this item. we will now take in-person public comment members of the public who wish to provide in-person public comment on this item, please line up at the podium now. for the record, there are no in-person public comments. we will now take remote public comment. members of the public who wish to provide remote public comment on this item should dial star three on the phone or click raise hand in webex. please note that you will have three minutes. moderator do we have any remote

public comments? okay, it seems that we have one caller, moderator could you please, unmute the caller who'd wish to comment? hear me now? okay. your time starts now. can you hear me? okay. yes great. good afternoon. david pilpel. so i'm not there in person, but hopefully you can all hear me. i submitted a letter to the board just over an hour ago. hopefully. and i understand it was distributed to most of you in the room or everyone, and there should be a couple of additional copies available on the table. thanks very much to staff, particularly jay and ben, for receiving and distributing it. i would encourage everyone there to read it and perhaps we'll find a way to post it later in case anyone else is interested, the one thing i did not include in the letter that i recall now is that there is a budget proposal to reduce 311,

hours in the event that that budget proposal is implemented. and, it seems to me that that might have some impact on the sla response times and some other issues about, 311, call requests. so that's something to be seen in the future. anyway those are my thoughts. and there are some pretty detailed comments. so i would encourage people to read that in connection with, items three and four from them. thanks for listening. thank you for your comment. okay, for the record, there are no additional remote public comments. this concludes the public comment very much. thank you very much. we will close general public comment and complete item number two. and as the clerk mentioned earlier, we will call item number four. item

number four is an action item for the impound action account. budget vote on whether to approve expenditures of impound funds and reallocations of impound funds. refuse rates, administrator j. leah will begin the presentation. good afternoon, city administrator chu and general manager herrera. i'm j. liao, refuse rate administrator with the comptroller's office, our hearing today includes updates on the implementation of the rate order approved by this board, last august, which includes several operational and administrative changes, as well as new reporting requirements, before we start, i want to thank my colleagues, ben becker and claire wilson, for the work they've done to support the implementation of the rate order . also, the team at recology for providing timely information, working collaboratively with our office on implementation and reporting requirements, and also, departments of public works and environment department on working with us as we set up

new processes. are you seeing the presentation? okay. so the first slide, as i get it up, i'll just start talking through it, it's information that's already been in front of the rate board, which is really just an overview of the impound account budget, so just as a reminder, the impound account supports environments, work to advance the city's zero waste goals. related to waste generation and reducing disposal, and to support department public works work around waste disposal and code compliance, outreach, street cleaning and public receptacles is in year one rate. year 2024 environment department had a budget of 12.2 million.

department of public works had a budget of 12 million and rate year 2025. environment department had a budget of 12.6 million, and department of public works had a budget of 12 million, and within this budget was, included a 2.5 million nexus swap from environments non rate related activities to department of public works, for rate related activities, particularly around street cleaning, and street sweeping. in addition, there was a use of 17.58 million in fund balance that was approved in the rate order. this includes a little over a million for refuse rate administration. and within that includes projects and analyzes for a capital plan. oh, there we go, an analysis for a capital plan, cost allocation analysis and a review of our regulatory

structure, also included here are two, one time projects, the trash processing pilot and a pier 96 seismic study, these two projects would be conducted and paid for by by recology. but since these were one time, projects, we tied them to a one time source, the fund balance, to help us keep rates low, and then the last is, 15 million, was approved for new trash cans. so the next part is presentation is really for, for, us, our office environment and public works to talk through the activity that was funded by the impound account. what's happened, in the first quarter, and then also to talk through

some additional requests for drawdown from fund balance and reallocate of some of those funds, just, as a reminder, some of these reallocations are due partly to the timing of the rate order being approved, in august after the budget, the city's budget was approved. so there are some timing issues. and then, as you can imagine, some changes to, some of the needs for, for the departments as well. so i'll do a presentation for, the refuse rates administrator. then we'll invite , public works and then environment to come up to present their updates. so, just our update from our office, a lot of, since the rate order was passed in august, we've been doing a lot to establish, processes and procedures to implement the rate order, so starting with the impound account, developing disbursement

desk procedures, nexus swap procedures, and then reconciliation of the rate year versus fiscal year timing, developing some request forms and withdrawal procedures for the programmatic reserves, a lot of work was done for new reports , in the next agenda item, we'll talk through some of the new reporting and the form and format development, we've worked over the last five months or so with recology to come to agreement on several new reports . and i think we're, we have just maybe a handful of outstanding, reports, to complete. but we'll walk through those in the next agenda item on what they are, and they include the new accounts, such as the balancing account, and the capital reserve, and the and the programmatic reserve, in addition, we've been working on project scopes and resourcing for the approved projects within the rate order, the capital

plan, cost allocation and the regulatory structure review, we've contracted with hfa and they'll also be presenting in the next agenda item on their update for their approaches to these projects, and lastly, we've been doing a lot of monitoring and analysis of programs and developing a performance and financial metrics tracker, abandoned materials for abandoned materials, collections and public receptacles. we hired a graduate student, claire wilson, to help us with some of the analyzes on the service level agreements, these two items were , two of the major service level agreements that we focused on during the rate setting process, and so we've brought on some extra support for that analysis and review of the annual audited financials and rate reports and the reconciliation of those two reports. we've done some site visits to transfer station recycling central and be on the organic site, and we plan on

doing one with the landfill and some, some ride alongs to kind of see how collections operations work, in addition to that, we've done some future rate cycle planning. so we're setting up an rfp for a pre-qualified list to, to set us, set us up down the line for, future rate setting processes and also implementation of the next rate order, we've also done a lot of, received a lot of stakeholder feedback on the last rate process, and, and in the next agenda item, again, you'll see how we've, how we've taken that input into how we seehe process moving on in the future. in the next slide is the budget for our office. so there's really three items here. one is our rate administration team, the original proposal that was in the rate order was around half a million for the team, we're proposing no changes to that, noticing outreach and

hearing, were asking for an increase in budget here. increase in use of fund balance here, so sf covid tv for these hearing costs, there's no change. we have, required newspaper advertising for hearings, no change there. and then prop 218 in the previous rate cycle, what we did for prop 218, noticing i would say was probably bare minimum. and we're looking to have a more robust noticing, pamphlet to send out to ratepayers, which will require additional funding, about 100,000 more, we heard from the rate board that, they wanted to see more outreach, so adding a little bit of budget, 100,000, in, collateral for outreach items. we may do some mailers, and then for our projects, our capital plan budget, has no change. regular

fee structure review has no change. our cost allocation study, we're increasing from 100,000 160,000, along with the residential for versus commercial cost allocation. we've added a couple other analyzes to the cost allocation study, including rate versus non rate allocation and corporate allocations as well, for the rate setting support, we're adding additional $50,000, 75 to 125,000 for consulting support. there we're asking him to do some additional work around helping us develop schedules around, getting information around operation, operational efficiency, and then the last is additional kind of as needed, additional analytical and administrative support. so i think with that, unless there any other questions around, our budget proposal here, what we'll do is have the departments present theirs, and then we'll come back and present the consolidated changes from the

three departments in terms of the impound budget reallocation ins. just a quick question, jay, on this one. for the proposed fiscal year 2425 levels that are increasing, i know that you've provided some updates as to the details for that. yep in our rate order, it included 1.1 million. is that what it included? yes. so you'll see that in the original fy 2425, it's a 1.081. that's the 1.1. and so what we're proposing here is additional drawdown from the fund balance of around 375,000. and does this what will that leave with our fund balance, i was going to present that, later, but we can just show you now. that's okay. if it's coming later, that's fine. okay. yeah. thanks. yep so i think the next presenter is, dpw. so we'll have them come up .

good afternoon, members of the board. bruce robertson, deputy director of finance and administration at public works. i'll be going through a brief slide deck to talk about the budget submittal as it relates to the impound account for public works and the fiscal year 25 budget. the table in front of you shows the overview of the main programs where public works

received impound accounts through the refuse rate process. and i'll go through each of these, really quickly, the one team which i think you're all aware of, those are our staff that go out and do enforcement to ensure citizens and residents of san francisco have proper disposal of refuse, as well as have set up refuse rate accounts. those folks go out and do enforcement 24 over seven and can write citations. as you can see, we did have some staffing challenges and you see the significant expenditure total, but we are fully staffed in that area. and i do have some data. we've been out there really doing enforcement, rather robustly, street cleaning, litter patrol. you will see a slight increase going into fiscal year 25. that represents about a $1.5 million increase, about a $1 million increase on top of ■th $2.5 million that the refuse rate board approved previously. i'll talk about that in a little bit more detail. trash can programs. that's really a multiple component of

the overall trash cans. that's a slowing of the replacement of the trash cans, for the long time, with the slim silhouette that we did significant outreach for, as well as replacement and maintenance of the renaissance trash cans that you see out there. now, some of those do need replacement and improvements, as well as the grant we have with a nonprofit entity that goes out and does regular routine steam cleaning. of the 3300 trash cans throughout the city. and then finally, there is some funding for mechanical sweeping. this is where the 2.5 and the $1 million was included from the previous rate process, and that we put in our budget to meet the mayor's target of 10% budget reductions. and i'll go through each of these in more detail in the slides. coming up. first, let me talk about the programs where there are no changes. the outreach and enforcement team has no changes. we have ten staff that started in 2013. and

you know, as i as i said earlier, we are fully staffed for the first time in a long time. there approved in the previous refuge rate process was a trash can manager. that hiring process is underway and this position will really do a couple of things. this is the one that's going to do a lot of analytical rigor as we get trash can sensors into the trash can and work with recology in the upcoming rate process to maximize and streamline an efficient pickup of the city trash cans throughout the city. and then finally, the trash can steam cleaning project, about a $1.8 million grant. we have currently with, cic that is a nonprofit that has held this contract for a few years now. and then on the next slide, i'll spend a little more time talking about some of the changes. so the main changes as i mentioned, were $1 million to use of fund balance to mitigate general fund reductions. we're trying to use this for equipment. so it's one

time use for one time needs. so there will be some use for mechanical sweeping where we will buy some equipment. and then the other big change is the 2.5 million nexus swap approved by the refuge rate board that was moving 2.5 million of general fund dollars from public works to the department of environment and public works. increase will see a $2.5 million increase in refuge rate, impound amount, and that is for mechanical sweeping. so that you can see what that does on the next group of notes. it takes our overall fte funded and the mechanical street sweeping program from 17 to 30. and this is the staff are responsible for little patrol block block cleaning and street sweeping. and then we are pausing and deferring and slowing down the new trash can procurement. so we are going to use 1 million of that fund balance we have allocated in the proposed budget pending before the mayor as submitted. and ultimately the board of supervisors. should she

accept this recommendation and submit it as part of her june 1st budget. this was approved by the public works commission. use. of this $1 million, and we are still proceeding with the initial fabrication and design, but we are not going as full speed ahead as we originally thought. we are also working with the office of contract administration to talk about, and we just received bids late last week for replacement of overall trash cans and replacement parts of the existing renaissance cans. the green cans you see throughout the city. so i just really want to make sure that i'm bifurcate stating what we're doing on the trash can program, because it really is twofold. one is the near time replacement of the existing cans and the parts, and then the long terme replacement of the overall 3300 trash cans in the long terme that we're deferring and elongating. so that's my presentation and happy to take any questions you may have. thanks, bruce. actually,

i'm a bit confused with the presentation here. so just going back to your second page, which shows the public works fiscal year 2526 budget submittal. are you referring to the budget submittal you're submitting to the city's overall process, not what you're planning to use from the impound account. this shows the use of the impound account and why the number is increased so much, because it does show that one time use of the $15 million in in fund balance monies. can we go back to that? slide two. right. yes. okay. so just go ahead and say that again. so if you look at the 2023 actuals mainly below, because of the vacancies. yep. and then the fiscal year 2024 budget you can see the big delta. is that $17.8 million. and that really is the use of that fund balance for the trash can program. and then it goes down to that $1.7 million for the trash can programs. but what you do see is if you look at that second line, you see the

$4.9 million total. that's the increase of the $1 million to meet the mayor's recommended cut target. and then if you look at the mechanical sweeping that includes the 2.4, $2.5 million plus some other use of fund balance as well, so is looking at it, it is it is a little unclear in terms of how we presented it, but i think the big delta is the increase of impound account. money in the submittal is really. the $3.5 million, and the use of the fund balance does make it clear. i can certainly come back and separate out the use of the fund balance to make it clear, but i think the takeaway is $2.5 million increase in impound account for public works cleaning staff, as approved by the refuge rate board. based on the nexus study by the controller's office and the city attorney's office on the use of general fund versus impound account with the department of

environment and then public works, is part of a balancing measure to meet our $10 million general fund reduction used one additional million dollars of fund balance money for addition, all litter patrol and mechanical sweeping staff. so am i. is it correct to assume $1 million for the litter patrol is coupled with $1 million reduction in your trash can? correct usage. correct thank you. thank you. environment. will, we need a second to put up the slides .

all right. good afternoon, refuse rate board. my name is alexa kelty. i'm the residential zero waste senior coordinator at the environment department. i'm going to provide you some highlights of what we've been working on in the last fiscal year, and also provide you a trash processing update, and also request our waste characterization study that we hope will inform the next refuse rate process. this is the list of what i'll be talking about briefly, and i'll just it's a very high overview, our department's been working on compliance, local and state compliance, most notably our mandatory composting and recycling ordinance, we work very closely with recology, obviously, and we are at 99% service compliance that basically means all sectors have all three bins composting,

recycling and trash. commercial city, government and residential sectors, in addition, in order to combat our contamination issues, we're doing a lot of work around our refuse separation ordinance. that is our ordinance that's focused on the top 500 largest generators in the city. and we work with recology to audit those accounts and then reduce their contamination by requiring zero waste facilitators. our commercial team, at the environment department, is working very closely with small businesses and venues, doing awarding small grants to swap out disposable food service where, those are smaller grants of up to $500 to food establishments and up to the, $5,000 to large venues and this is going to be very instrumental. there's we're planning on introducing, a

reusable ordinance that we hope will pass in the coming months, and there'll be more on that later, we also work a lot on, state compliance around sb 1383. this is the requirement that all food establishments have a food recovery plan. so that's surplus food. that's still edible. getting that to people in need, we are working very closely with our consultants providing technical assistance to businesses to get them in compliance with that law. we are on track to do over 2500 tons of recovered food this fiscal year. so has a huge impact. and folks that are food insecure in san francisco, in addition, we're rolling out our first ever household food waste reduction campaign. i'm very excited about this. this is first going to be launched in the bayview and the excelsior, it's giving folks tips and tricks on how to reduce

their food waste, particularly around preserving their produce. you'll see this in bus shelters, muni social media, grocery stores, even shopping carts, we are in the second year of our zero waste grants, it's a two year cycle, we are. we've awarded grants to 15 nonprofits in san francisco to do zero waste related projects, profiled here is a-pac. they do, zero waste outreach to residents within visitacion valley and sunnydale and terms of generation reduction. that's our overall goal to reduce everything that's going into composting, recycling and trash. we have formed a partnership with the san francisco public libraries to provide free bike repair and clothing repair to san franciscans. so that was a quick overview. what we're working on now, i'm going to get into trash processing pilot update. so as you may remember,

we requested 500,000 to do a trash processing pilot with waste management. this was a very large scale pilot involved 1200 tons of material and unfortunately waste management has withdrew their participation . there was a shift in management and they told us they'd like to pursue other business development strategies. so staff, we have been pivoting and our hope is to do numerous smaller pilots within the bay area to test out different technologies. so we're actually hoping to reduce that down to around $50,000, we have already in conversation with green waste there in san jose. they do trash processing and they're willing to do a pilot, with about 100 tons of material and we believe that this is a cost effective approach and is going to provide us the data we need to move forward with a trash processing technology. let's see if i

needed to say anything else. in addition to that. so from this 500,000, like i said, we want to move 50,000 to trash smaller trash processing pilots, and then we'd like to move 450,000 to a waste characterization and generation study. and these are typical studies that most jurisdictions do every five years. our last one was in 2020. and of course, it was not business as usual in san francisco. so the data we have is not a true, depiction of san francisco at its, at its normal business, and we'd like to do a fresh study and that data can inform the next refuse rate process. yes. these studies do three things. primarily, they

help inform what kind of capital investments and technological improvements we need for the system in order to increase our recovery. they also help us determine what type of outreach we need to do, which to which sector, and how to improve source separation. and they also help inform zero waste policy decisions going forward. and you can see here, you might be asking what are what is exactly a characterization study. we hire the consultants, they go in and they take representative samples of landfill bound material, and they literally categorize it into up to 35 different categories. so very detailed, everything from batteries to diapers to car aboard, so very detailed samples. and then they produce a report and they basically help inform how much of our waste stream has the potential to be recovered for recycling or composting. so another table for

you to take a look. but mostly take a look at the top right. that just gives you an example of, all the landfill bound material coming from single family apartments and small businesses. and you can see the different amounts being that can be recovered or, or potentially composted. so what this tells us is and this is the study from 2020, over 50% of what's going to our landfill has the potential to be recovered through trash processing. so we need this study in order to be able to measure the efficacy of any trash processing we end up moving forward with. so we'll compare it to this baseline data . here is another table. and it's just giving you a snapshot of all the ■different categories that, the characterization provides. and now i'm going to switch gears into the last topic and the landfill contract. so

our landfill contract is about to expire july of 2024. we're in the process of doing a renewal with recology this renewal will allow us to add an additional six years, or 1.6 million tons to our landfill. whatever comes first, our approximation is that will come to a close. november 2028. so it is fast approaching and we need assistance, staff assistance to manage this rfp landfill contract, because there's a lot of components. as you can imagine, and so we are asking for 358,000 to support a 15 month position on, it's a landfill contract. analyst position, and someone, leo on my team can provide more detail about what what that position will require. so in summary,

basically we're asking for three things here. we would like to take the 50, sorry, the 500,000 that was allocated for the waste management trash processing pilot. we'd like to take 50,000 to do various smaller pilots that are going to be local to test different technologies. and then we want to take the remaining 450,000 to do a waste characterization and generation study. and then the third thing is to hire the landfill contract analyst position. so happy to take any questions when it's appropriate. thank you. thank you. your landfill analyst position is from that 450. it is not. sorry if i didn't make that clear. that would be separate, that's a request for additional funding, yes. leo, do you want to add some more information on that, and how much will that be,

so that figure covers the cost for 15 months, which takes us up to the next rate setting cycle, the 387 figure. let me pull it right up. 385 oh, sorry. 358 358 777 so that's for salary, fringe and overhead for 15 months. and the position is needed for 3 to 4 years so that we can get to that next cycle, i think that this is going to be using the fund balance that's available. and in conversations with the refuse rate administrator, because this is outside the scope of the current rate cycle that was approved and that this would be, fund balance that's available, that would be on top of the existing previously approved rate cycle budget. this is additional fund balance that's being asked to be used

for this purpose. okay. j, i think you're going to share with the fund balance will look like. yes, i think you mentioned this a little bit, but you know, i know that this is all of our first time seeing a mid cycle mid rate request for changes. yes. it feels very much like we just approved a rate, you know, order that included a number of expenses from departments. and now we're seeing a redo of that again from all of our three entities here. so i think it's coming as a bit of a surprise. it wasn't that long ago that we were here. i think you mentioned a bit. can you just elaborate a little bit more because this you know, we're seeing it across the board from dpw to you as well as environment. it's not a little bit of money. it's quite a lot.

right? i think some of the changes are due to the fact that the rate, some of them are true ups, really. and they were due to the fact that the rate order was approved in august, whereas the city's budget was approved in, in in july, and so the timing was a little off, the controller's office is proposing , language for the next aao that would include, reconciliation of anything approved by the through the rate, through the rate order to be reconciled with the with the aao moving forward. so i think that will kind of handle those items, with some of these other items, at least for our budget, was just due to not really understanding at the time. we had just started not understanding the cost for prop 218 or, you know what, the full cost of doing various cost allocation studies were. we had anticipated only one. there were

two more that we included in the rate order. so that wasn't put in our budget, and then with dpw, there was the it's just a it's a reallocation. so it's not really, a change in the amount of fund balance used, but just a reallocation of the trash can dollars to street sweeping, on the environment side, they are asking for, more fund balance drawdown. and so i think during the rate setting process, we had not considered the landfill disposal agreement, it wasn't on our radar. and so i think, understanding that they were responsible for this but didn't have the resources to really the capacity to really, conduct a, a, a new contract process in the future after this extension is done, we do feel like, it's important that they're properly resourced to do that. and so that wasn't included in the rate order. so, i think what i can

show here is that there is capacity for these additional asks. i think, for this next rate cycle, and you'll see in the next agenda we're building in a little more time for, city departments to really kind of think through their priorities so that we can kind of line these up so we won't have these kind of mid cycle large ask to draw down from the fund balance moving forward, so in this fund balance overview, i'm just kind of laying out the math for how we get from beginning fund balance of fiscal year 23, 24 of 2.5 million, so to the 1.5 million projected ending for this, for this budget year. and so, we'll take the beginning fund balance, we subtract the non aau rate of order approved use. and this is the 500,000 for

the trash processing pilot. oh thanks, leo. sorry and then, we're adding in projected surplus. so these are projections from the department's that include expenditure surplus, what's also included here are the timing issues. so the nexus swap true up that bruce had mentioned the 2.5 million, because that happened, because the rate order was approved in august, but there was no appropriation for that 2.5 million. so it shows up as revenue surplus, in addition, environment had additional budget over what the city had approved in the rate order, over what the environment had additional budget in the rate order that was approved, past the, over what the city budget had approved. and so that was about 710 million. since that wasn't appropriate. that's also a true up, and shows up as a

revenue surplus. and so you'll see in the requested beginning fund balance use for fiscal year 2425, that nexus swap true up is , in there and subtracted as a beginning fund balance use of 2.5 million, that next item is the reallocation. that 1 million reallocation from trash cans to street sweeping, and then here the additional, asks from environment, the landfill disposal contract, also some reuse policy compliance and then their timing true up in the last one is our additional support. and then the last item here is, column e is the pier 96 seismic study that was approved by the by the rate board in august, as well as, some as a one time project and tying it to this one time use as fund balance, so that's how we end up with a projected ending of 1.5 million capacity. so that represents

about a little over 5% of our impound budget. thank you. let me open up for any other comments. first, i've got a few more. you know, i think. i'll say this. i think that the timing of this being the first rate order that we've gone through can explain a lot of what our processes have been and what information we didn't have. it was also a very accelerated rate process. and so i think you all did a wonderful job trying to get us to that finish line as quickly as possible, i think that having this rate order again be subject to some changes as it relates to these requests so soon after it was passed. it's not something that is ideal, and i don't want to see that going forward from our departments. so, so i, i want to just put that put that out there, i think some of the

pieces that were here that were described, some of the changes that are within the rate administrator's, you know, component things like understanding what the prop 218 notices were, those kind of adjustments sound very normal, rational, reasonable in terms of the true up of costs. but i think there were some other things that can't be explained away by the timing of when the city's budget was passed versus when the rate order was passed. departments are working on their budgets well in advance and understand kind of what's coming down the line. i don't think it's entirely true for dpw because this is in response to future years. it's not the current year that you're talking about here, but for a department of the environment, i'm pretty sure that we've had the landfill agreement on our radar for quite some time. so i don't know how that was missed. that being said, i would be supportive of this because i know how critical that work is for the city to have attention beyond that new landfill agreement. and i do think that that work needs to be done. but i do want the rate

administrator to take a close look at department of the environment's allocation request and staffing requests to figure out whether or not there's any way to repurpose existing folks who are paid for by the impound account to make sure that there's not another room for reallocation or reassignment. so, again, i'm comfortable enough with it because i know it's important for us to pay for . it's important for us to complete that work. i also know that we've extended the existing landfill contract for many years , and we had some time to get to it as well. that time will pass in a blink of an eye, but it doesn't exactly explain away why we didn't get why we didn't have that full, accurate information in this rate setting process. so i just want to express a little of my chagrin to see these come through, understanding some of them and some of them i don't think gets explained away by the budget process. i would, totally agree with the sentiments expressed by, chair chiu and

jay. i very much appreciate you know, your what you had to say in terms of coordination and, some of the transparent money that's come along with, timing and whatnot. but there are a certain number of things here that, to me should have been anticipated. and i just think the important thing is everybody is on notice. this work is important. there are certain things that might have been unforeseen, but, you know, there are plenty that should be, anticipated as well. and going forward, i think all departments are now on notice. they, the things will not perhaps here folks won't be as receptive as they are today. so i would agree with the chair 100. okay with that. why don't we open this item up for public comment? we will now take in person public comment. members of the public who wish to provide in-person public comment on this item, please line up at the podium

now. please note that you will have three minutes. for the record, there are no in-person public comments. we will now take remote public comment. members of the public who wish to provide remote public comment on this item should dial star three on the phone, or click raise hand in webex. please note that you will have three minutes. moderator do we have any remote public comments? moderator could you please unmute the, the remote public comment that we have? okay. can you hear me? okay. yes i will start your time right now. great david paypal again. so i refer you again to my letter and the comments in it, on this item, it's the two paragraphs at the bottom of page two and the two paragraphs at the top of page three. there's a bit of strong language in there, i think the level to summarize and expand briefly, i think the level of

detail provided today is not sufficient to justify the proposed reallocations. i also find it odd to have an 1824 at dpw, but only in 1823, analyst at environment i would downgrade the dpw position to no more than an 1823 and not fund the environment position at this time. in summary, however, i would deny all or most of these mid-cycle requests and defer them until the next rate cycle, or alternatively, require city departments to file a full rate request. i think i said in my comments that if recology were proposing this level of changes, that you would require them to file a full rate application, and i don't see why city departments should be treated differently. that nexus and proportionality have not been shown publicly that i'm aware of , there is no proposed motion or resolution available for the public. i don't know what

separate review has been done or if it's applicable. still, to provide the 2180, exemption and the ratepayer benefit from this change is questionable at best. this proposal does not sit well with me. the impound account is not, has not been, and should not be a slush fund for city departments to change priorities and use as they choose. i would encourage the board to give great scrutiny to this, and at a minimum, apply specific conditions to these fund reallocations and largely to deny it. this is not a good way to go about this. thanks thank you for your comment. for the record, there are no additional remote public comments. this concludes the public comments. thank you very much. public comment for item four has completed and i will see if

there is a motion. madam chair, i moved to approve the expenditures and reallocate of impound account funds as detailed on slide on the slide titled wia fund balance use approval and to approve the sf environment's use of $450,000 in impound funds previously allocated for a trash processing pilot to fund a, quote, waste characterization and generation close quote study and further, to approve the sf environment's use of 358,770 $777 to fund and administrative analyst to lead selection and implementation of a new landfill contract. thank you very much. and just to be clear, the following expenditure requests would have no impact to the refuse rates. i believe that is true. correct? j and i see

him nodding in agreement. that's correct. okay. so that there is no impacts to the rates here for two of these items that were mentioned. it involves a reallocation of what was already in our rate order. and so that includes the $1 million reallocation at dpw as well as the 450, and 50,000 from department of the environment. our representing reallocations from the pilot. and so that is not a change. the one difference is the position at the department of the environment and pending the maker of the motions agreed agreement to this , i would just put a condition on that agreement on spend that the rate administrator report back to the rate board on a review of the positions, and ensuring that it's appropriate in terms of no capacity within the department to pursue the disposal contract, landfill disposal contract. that's fine. okay, so we've got a motion on the floor and a second we'll do roll call chair to a member. herrera i. the item passes okay.

thank you very much. let's move to item three. item number three is a discussion item for the status update on the rate setting timeline. and 2023 rate order implementation. refuse rates. administrator julia will begin the presentation . so for this item, it will mostly be updates from recology on implementation of the rate order. but before jumping into the updates, i wanted to give the rate board a look ahead at the next rate setting process. how we plan on increasing outreach and engagement, and some planning for implementation

of the next rate order and future rate cycles. so which includes setting up a pre-qualified list, we'll also get an overview of or are i'll be giving you an overview of what was in the right order. just to kind of tee up, what kind of detail will be coming from recology, and then we'll also have our consultant, hfa, talk about their approaches to the various rate order projects and including the capital plan and cost allocation studies. so in this slide, we have the rate setting timeline. we had solicited some feedback from stakeholders on the process. and the main takeaways were we needed more time. and the major pain points were related to the service level agreements, that happened kind of last minute in some cases. and then the lack of shared rate model causing us to go back and forth to reconcile estimates with recology, and then in addition, we heard from the rate board that we needed

more outreach and public engagement. so we're trying to build all of this into our process, so on the left is a dark purple, we'll see here. we're going to begin to develop, the new schedule to help us set rates and develop a shared rate model, we're also taking this time to start developing city priorities ahead of time before the rate cycle, and to draft some of our service level agreements. there are 29 programs that, that are funded through the rates with recology that, will want to set service level agreements on, in addition, the bottom half of this timeline shows some of the major projects approved in the rate order. so these projects, analyzes and pilots will be used to inform the next rate order. and so the plan is to have most of them complete. if fully complete or, if not totally complete, before, recology submits their rate change request and the light purple. that's the submission period. our office will release

schedules on september one, and there will be a four month submission period, will hold a rate board hearing, soon after that, to get input from the rate board, i think at that point we'll have some outcomes from these studies and pilots. and this is a place where the rate board can provide feedback on, how to move forward with some items that could or that that may go into the rate order, moving into the green segment, this is four month period where our office will develop our rate proposal. so this includes our analysis, the interrogatory process we conduct during the previous rate setting, cycle, and then refuse rate administrator hearings where we've used that as a forum, a public forum to work out certain technical details and various proposals. but also, more importantly, i think this is also a period where we'll solicit feedback on recology submission from both the public through ratepayer workshops, key

stakeholder meetings and input from commissions, as well as the rate board, the moving into the blue segment is the rate setting period. so our office intends to submit a proposed rate order may one, and that will trigger hearings for the refuse rate board. and so we anticipate at least three rate board hearings, to set rates, and we've included a fourth in case that's needed at the end of july, the other thing i would note here is that we're proposing that an interim years where there's not a rate setting process, prop f requires an annual refuse rate board hearing. we're proposing biannual, one after the, the annual rate report is released in february, it's released in january. and so having a, rate board hearing in february and then after the q2 report is released sometime in and having that rate board hearing sometime in july, and then in the intervening quarters, for the q1 and q3 rate reports, our office

can hold, refuse rate administrator hearings, to kind of work through updates and any, any, in a public setting. so quickly, i wanted to go through some of the additional outreach that we're planning on doing. we're planning on developing an faq sheet, a one pager in our previous outreach, we really just put down meeting dates and opportunities for input. i think we'll add a little more context on this one. pager. why this matters. highlights from the current rate order, we'll definitely be using the existing , chant distribution channels we've used in the last cycle, our website email campaign, social media, our next requests, public records, automation and then, and then reaching out to neighborhood papers, neighborhood groups and districts. and for those latter two, i think will be more

intentional about it. and following up with, the papers to ensure that this information goes out to, their constituents, we'll also be adding some new distribution channels, including the board of supervisor newsletters, recology newsletter , which should reach all ratepayers and then some targeted email campaigns to specific trade associations, such as the small property owners of san francisco, san francisco apartment association, we'll also be doing a public engagement. our public engagement, process included previous cycle will continue the ratepayer workshops, refuse rate administrator hearings. we have the prop f written comments. so once the, change rate change requests submitted by recology, will open up electronic written comments as well as, they can comment by mail, then we'll have

refuse rate board hearings as well as commission hearings, what we're adding here are some key stakeholder meetings, some of these associations, like san francisco apartment association on small properties, owners of san francisco have regular monthly meetings, will be attending these with recology to solicit feedback on recology's rate change submission. the next update i have is really, around just kind of forward looking for this, for future rate cycles as well. actually start with, we for this rate order implementation support, we've contracted with hmmf and h to help us with the capital plan cost allocation study, the regulatory structure review and some additional rate setting report. and they'll be doing a presentation on kind of the work that they're doing. in addition, we're developing an rfp to create a list of pre-qualified firms across three service

areas, this is really an effort to make sure that, once the, that the that the transition between rate setting to implementation goes smoothly, and also to set us up for future rate setting cycles that will have kind of a list of support, that we'll need, so that kind of concludes the kind of future timeline and future planning, so i'll walk walk the rate board through just an overview of, of the rate order, what we included in terms of new investments, and after that, we'll hear from hfa and recology. so just as a reminder, the rate board, held rates constant at the beginning of the rate period, october one, increased them by 1.33% in january 1st, 2024, that increase was mainly to fund a zero waste capital reserve, and then another increase at the beginning of the rate year 2025

of 2.32. this amounted to a 3.68% cumulative two year increase, which was lower than recology's proposed 6.15% increase and represents, from our estimation, about 8.7 million savings to ratepayers. so with these rate increases, we had several service enhancements and administrative enhancements, band and material collections. we increased from five five zones to six, adding two new drivers and trucks, public receptacles. we added two new routes and two new drivers and trucks, we reinstituted. we can clean up events, once, once a year in each of the 11 supervisorial districts. for residents to drop off bulky items. we added two cardboard pickup drivers. we also had additional relief drivers. additional drivers to establish two person routes where, some of those routes were unsafe and

supervised and a new supervisor for increased supervision and then administrative support. we had several new reports, so two analysts were added as well, and i mentioned earlier that we had hired a graduate student to help with the, analysis of the abandoned materials collection. i think the she's done a, her own, validation of some of the numbers. so we were able to validate what you'll see. recology presenting. i think there's a lot of, really positive narrative there in terms of our investments translating into increased service levels, fewer customer calls around these issues, contamination diversion were additional investments. so we talked a little bit about the trash processing pilot, the contamination outreach and camera pilot, new onboard cameras. so i believe those

cameras were implemented either earlier this month or late last month, and then organics pre-processing as well. just quickly walking through, some of our new reporting requirements that we've been working with, recology around coming to an agreement on including pension report, intercompany property rentals, operations reports, some proper processing, disposal reports, some program reports. so across all the 29 programs, we set some metrics to track. and so, along with that, we need new reporting requirements for all those metrics. and then reporting for the new accounts, including the balancing account, the programmatic reserve, and the zero waste capital reserve, and so at the request of the board, i'm just going to, give you a look at where those accounts are at this moment. so the balancing account, this was

the account that adjusts by 50% above or below the target profit earned, based on the 91% operating ratio. and so after q1 , one of this rate cycle, recology combined with the three recology subsidiaries, had an actual net profit about 8.4 million, the target profit was about 7.8 million. so this was a surplus of about $650,000, so 50% of above that target surplus is about 323,000. and so currently what's in the balancing account is that amount for the first quarter, the programmatic reserve, as you can see, this is being funded, on a monthly basis, currently sitting at 208,000. there have been no withdrawals from the reserve, some existing accounts, these aren't new accounts. the

landfill agreement, special reserve, this is, a reserve fund to reimburse recology for landfill disposal costs that they can't fully recover through the rate setting process due to timing issues, this is something that we would actually like to revisit during this next rate setting process. and then the zero waste incentive account, as you can see, we suspended that account, so you can see what's left right now is some interest amount, but it's being closed out. and then the impound account that we've talked about that funds select services from dpw and environment, lastly is the zero waste capital reserve. since the funding of this account began january 1st, it's not reflected in the q1 rate report, but you'll be seeing that in the q2 rate report, so if that if there aren't any questions, i'll ask hf and h to present on their various projects .

okay. can we get hfa on? yeah. good afternoon, everyone. can you hear me? all right, well, i'm going to give a quick overview of the various, projects that we've been assigned in support of this effort, the first is to take a

look at the cost allocation methodologies that are used in the current rate setting approach and in particular, looking at the allocation across sectors of costs to make sure that the apportionment of those costs to the commercial versus residential sector, is appropriate, and that other, activities are appropriately excluded from that. so we're going to take a look at how each of those cost categories is allocated and work with recology to come up with a reasonable approach for allocating each of those cost categories to segregate the residential costs from the other sectors. separately, we'll be looking at the allocation of the corporate costs, as well as the rate versus non rate costs, similarly, looking at what are some various allocation methodologies that could be used for this compared to what recology is proposing, and to agree on some reasonable basis for doing that going forward. so

that will support the cost allocation portion of the rate application as it comes in. next slide please. so this is a bit of an overview for the capital plan development. as you can imagine there significant capital needs upcoming. and we want to make sure that we have a really good understanding of those before, we see them in the rate package. so during april, we're working on discovery and planning. in fact, we started that here in march, working with each of the stakeholders to understand what their needs are and how that may manifest into the capital plan. then we'll get into a needs assessment. and from all of those items that were identified as potential capital items or projects, really assess those options and by the end of july have a really good understanding of what all of those desires and needs are.

and then by october, have the capital project evaluation pretty well done. have a good understanding of what projects would be moving forward, and then by the end of october have those prioritized. so let's talk about in the next couple of slides how we'll do that. so this first step is the discovery and planning. and what we want to do is to meet with each of the stakeholders to the process. each of the departments or ecology, various, folks that are engaged in this system and really understand and the context that drives customer needs. and we're thinking about customers in terms of both the ratepayers as well as the city departments that are receiving services or, engaged with recology. so in the next slide, you'll see a quick, preview of what that context mapping looks like. and this is just the,

mapping that we did with department of the environment, we're doing this with each of the stakeholders, and then we'll create a harmonized, sort of consolidated context map that helps us understand not just what people are asking for, but what's driving that. what what are the factors that are underpinning that. next slide. so once we have an understanding of what the needs are from the ratepayer perspective, from the city perspective and from recology's perspective, we're going to look at the infrastructure that's required, any, facility related things or post-collection related things, fleet related activities need to be looked at in there. we'll look at services that are being provided, and there was some discussion already about cost effectiveness as well as benchmarking to others and how others perform those services and programs. so we'll be looking at that. obviously, education requirements. and to the extent that, those are

included in the cost package, we want to make sure there's a good understanding of what is in there for education and that that is being done cost effectively and by the right parties. and similarly for, issues like enforcement of the system, administration and management and the provision of data, all of those have cost factors to them. and we want to really understand what's going on with each of those things and how that may be driving the rate package. next slide to do that, we're going to be looking at not just what happens in san francisco, but what's going on in other communities. and we'll look at that on a couple of levels. one relates to how those programs and services are delivered and the cost effectiveness of them. the other relates to how they're regulated . and so as part of our scope for this year, will be looking at the 1415 communities that

we've identified over on the right and digging into how do they contract for services, how do they regulate rates, what's sort of the business model for their arrangement, and how do they think about delivery of solid waste service, how do your policy frameworks compare to those? because obviously you do certain things because of the policy framework that you work under, and others have different frameworks, and that drives different behaviors. and we want to look into the program structures and then obviously understand from an economics and demographics perspective how comparable these other agencies are to you and to make sure that we're able to scale. so this is really an opportunity to look at how do others, handle some of these same issues that you're dealing with. and as you move forward to make decisions, hopefully this will provide some information to base that on next slide. so then once we've assembled an understanding of what are the needs, what are the

potential capital projects, we're going to evaluate those capital projects and compare the benefits that we get out of them with the costs. and those costs. obviously have different dimensions to them. right? they're upfront costs. they're ongoing costs. and those costs, manifest in different ways and hit the ratepayer in different ways. and so we want to make sure that we understand that compared to the benefits that come from them. next slide. so lastly, we'll be prioritizing and thinking about financing options for the elements within the capital plan. so one aspect of that obviously is prioritizing for cost effectiveness, either prioritizing based on cost per diverted ton or avoided ton or maybe cost per ghg reduced. so thinking about, that from a cost effectiveness standpoint, thinking about prioritization in terms of regulatory and legal

requirements, there are some, you know, state regulated timelines, for when some of these things need to come into play and we need to be respectful of those regulatory timelines. there are also dependencies, right? as we think about, programs that we might like to launch, there may be infrastructure required to launch those programs. and so we may need to sequence for those sorts of things. similarly programs versus education or education versus enforcement, has a dependency logic to it, and we'll think through those things. and then lastly, we want to make sure that as we do the prioritization, we're doing it with, with your values in mind and in particular want to make sure that we're meeting your zero waste goals and your equity and inclusion goals in the things that we're doing and not bringing things forward that would frustrate or slow down on those goals. so with that, i'll conclude my presentation. i'm available for any questions you may have. thank you. just a

quick question on one of your slides. you speak about the survey and evaluation of regulatory structure in comparison to san francisco, and you have quite a number of targeted communities here. can you tell me a little bit about what the benefit, what do you hope to glean from this to be? we have a pretty unique regulatory structure here. you can find out a whole bunch of information about all these other jurisdictions, but they ultimately may not be applicable. so can you just share with me what the thinking is with this body of work that we would be paying for? yeah, and apologies for the lighting on the screen here, but the idea is that there are interesting aspects of each of these communities. many of them are zero waste communities. some of them are places where recology is the service provider, and in general, they're communities that are sort of comparable to you in terms of either demographics or your policy goals. and so we're looking at how do other agencies that are dealing with some of the challenges that you're dealing with, approach their system and

regulate their system, there you are. correct that there is probably not a perfect carbon copy of san francisco to say, well, this is just the right mix of context for us. and so that's part of why we're looking at features of different systems, because i think you'll find interesting aspects of different systems. and you may find that you want to do some mixing and matching from amongst them to, to assemble a structure that works for you. thank you. i'm a little bit skeptical, but i'll just note that. other questions. okay, jay, we have one last presentation from recology .

good afternoon, honorable chair chu and member herrera. my name is evan boyd, regent, vice president for recology. we appreciate the opportunity to present this information to you today. members of my team and i will be updating you on a number of topics such as a cybersecurity incident, financial performance and projections, implementation of service enhancements, the introduction of new processing equipment, a seismic seismic study at pier 96, a staffing update, and a brief wrap up. the first topic i would like to discuss is the cybersecurity incident we experienced late

last year. on november 2nd, 2003, recology became aware of a cybersecurity event affecting some of our it systems. recology was not the target of this event, however. our third party platform provider, citrix, was the target. many other companies nationwide were also affected by this event. companies such as xfinity, home depot, and alaska airlines, to name a few. this event did not render us inoperable and most systems were back online within a few weeks. all operations and service to customers continued normally without delay or disruption. our offices and facilities remained opened and operating normally during this time. manual redundancies and processes that are normally paperless reverted back to paper to ensure business continuity. as soon as soon as

we learned of the event, we promptly took steps to disconnect and isolate the impacted systems. we engaged a leading third party security expert to validate the scope of the incident and handle remediation. these forensic experts determined that recology's core systems were not accessed nor have they found evidence of personal information being misused. and i want to make a point of saying that again, they did not find information or evidence of information on personal information being misused. forensics is still ongoing and will continue into the foreseeable future. our quick question on that. you said no evidence of personal information being misused, but was personal information leaked? and would you make the proper notifications of that? to our knowledge, personal information was not leaked. there was not access to the systems of the core systems that recology operates. thank you. admittedly,

because of the manual processes that were implemented, some functions became less efficient, causing longer than normal wait times for customers contacting our customer service department. additionally, data cultivation and data extraction became inefficient during system restoration, causing minor delays in customer billings and some delays in reporting. as mentioned, our systems have largely been restored with a few non-critical features expected to be back online in the next few weeks. the restored system has more robust security features and is a much more durable system than it was prior to the cybersecurity event. recology did notify and continues to work with state and federal agencies, including the california attorney general's office, about the cybersecurity event. i will now turn it over to terry dong, our regional

controller, to discuss our fiscal year 23 results and to provide an update on our q1 results for fiscal year 24. terry. good afternoon. board. my name is terry dong. i'm the regional controller of the san francisco company. recology earned 12.6 million in profit in rate year 2023 and a 96.4% operating ratio on rate eligible expenses. sunset and golden gate earned 25.1 million in profit and an 89.6% or. this is largely driven by sunset and golden gates increase in revenue of 7% as a result of the january 2023 cola. our financial results was a loss of 12.5 million and an operating ratio of 111. this is driven by an $8 million increase

in expenses compared to last year, coupled with a decrease in revenue compared to last year. the main drivers of rsf's increase in expenses include payroll about 5, increase in wages from the collective bargaining agreement, freight expenses due to the closure of the sustainable crushing operation and increase in maintenance expenses due to necessary facility repairs and compliance projects. although the san francisco companies earned 12.6 million in profit last year, our profit margin was a lean 2.4. i'm going to take the next couple of slides to provide an update on our first quarter of rate year 24. i do want to mention that our rate projections were set for the year, and we divided those projections by four to compare the quarterly actuals. our first quarter financial results for the combined san francisco companies are in line with rate projections at 90.3, or sunset

and golden gate actuals are exactly as projected, and at a 91% or while rsf earned a small profit of 500,000 and an 89, or. rsfsr is driven by less revenue as projected as a result of a lower than projected volume. the lower tonnage resulted in less weekend and sought line work combined with the timing of expense of expenditures. as i mentioned, our projections were set for the entire year resulted in 1.8 million less in or eligible expenses than projected. we expect the year end results to be very close to projections, as wages and other expenses increase later in the year. now, i want to direct you to the table on the bottom left. jay kind of went over this in one of his previous slides, but recology earned a net profit of $8.4 million in the first quarter, a 91, or on 8.4 million, means that our target profit should have been at 7.8

million, a difference of approximately 650,000, with the balancing account mechanism, 50% of the 650,000 or 324,000 profit surplus is contributed to the balancing account for the first quarter. under the new rate order, we have 22 new quarterly reports and four new annual reporting requirements. we've had weekly meetings with the wra, which includes alignment on content and format of the new reporting requirements to date, we've submitted our q1 financial rate report, and we will be submitting the q1 operational report by the end of march, now, i will pass it off to anthony crescenti, our general manager of sunset scavenger. good afternoon. i'm anthony crescenti , senior general manager for sunset scavenger, and i'm going to discuss some of the initial

results of the operational additions that were made as part of the rate order for abandoned materials collection. a new zone was added beginning october 1st to support street cleanliness, bringing the total number of dedicated zones covering the city to six. with this additional resource, we have seen a 20% increase in the amount of tonnage collected from the streets when comparing q1 of fiscal year 23 to q1 of 24. in addition, the resource has allowed all zones to drive city streets proactively collecting material, and this has resulted in a 10% reduction in complaint calls into the 311 center for abandoned material. sla response time compliance has also improved 62% year over year, moving up to 82, and preliminary q2 numbers are showing continued improvement towards 100. also added were two abandoned cardboard sweep routes covering corridors throughout the city. during the three months, the two

new routes were moved, over 200 tons of cardboard. overall, the new zone and cardboard routes are promoting cleaner streets, with more material being collected and improving cleanliness. for public receptacle collection in the rate order provided for two new dedicated public receptacle routes, which began operating october 1st and brings a total dedicated routes to 12 for the city. these dedicated routes have resulted in a 45% increase in the tonnage collected over the same quarter last year. this, in turn, has led to a 12% decrease in overflowing receptacle. complaints into the 311 call center. looking at public receptacle sensors, we continue to see the vast majority of 311 calls. we handle being sensor requests, which are triggered when a can is about 75% full, not overflowing. during this rate year, we will continue to work with dpw on the efficacy of the sensors. sla

response time compliance stands at 80% for q1. however, numbers from q2 again are trending higher as we have provided updated technology for our drivers to move towards 100. again, all of these new routes and additional passes are making a positive impact for our city, with significantly more material being proactively collected from our streets. finally, the rate order provided for the resumption of 11 weekend cleanups per rate year throughout the city. we recently started in february with an event in district ten and have completed three events to date. as part of the event, we offer three stream disposal to residents of each district. also included is a goodwill drop off of gently used items in e-waste, and there was a compost giveaway for the three events completed. so far, we've had almost 900 customers with over 50 tons collected and a 50% recovery rate. next, i'll turn it over to

kevin flanagan to discuss our contamination program. can i ask you just a quick question? your recovery rate is that what is that exactly? what does it include? the recovery rate includes material that recycle and compost and also goodwill. with goodwill being there, they're able to divert the e-waste and also reuse the items. got it. and then just quickly on the 311 sensors, the sensors generally. do you have any preliminary kind of opinion about whether it's working errors, etc? not as of now. it's a little early for us. they're deployed on approximately a third of the city cans throughout the public receptacles throughout the city, we would like to go through a little bit more time with service with them and also continue to talk with dpw about what the future deployment would look like, because this the sensor information we're gathering now is guiding us and what potential impact it has upon how we route. thank you.

good afternoon, as anthony mentioned, my name is kevin flanagan. i'm the senior general manager for recology golden gate, over the next several slides, i'm going to talk about contamination. so, as you know, the rate order included funding for pilot of six new genesis camera systems to identify contamination in our waste streams, it also included a new contamination protocol that clearly define the process of when and how we will address contamination in an effort to change our customers behavior, in addition, the rate order also included funding for one additional staff person to assist in managing the contamination process and other waste zero functions as previously shared, the first generation of these cameras did not function at an acceptable level, and as a result, we got with our vendor and advised them we wanted really to be the first out there to try new technology, the genesis system is just that,

and we are the first to put that into use, i will say that the system is still in the beta stage, but it will be released in the near future for production. so at the end of february, all six genesis units were installed, on six different routes for commercial recycling and two commercial organic routes. all the units are currently functioning as they should in producing data that we expected, these units have improved resolution from four atp to ten atp, which brings obviously much better clarity to the photos that we're trying to analyze for contamination, we are also receiving events automatically, which is a result of the ai technology that's currently currently identifies black plastic bags and both the recycling stream as well as the compost stream. as mentioned,

the rate order solidified a new contamination protocol, that was developed in partnership with sfa. in addition, we hired an additional waste staff person to support the contamination process, including facilitating the new protocol. the protocol clearly defines the process in which we'll follow to address contamination, and also outlines what a customer will need to do to have the contamination fees removed from their account. the protocol includes a series of letters sent to the customers in three different languages and notifies them of the issue, as well as warns them of the potential charges that could could cut down the road. it also offers resources as well as assistance if needed for those residents or customers. if the issue persists, then contamination fees will be assessed to the account, the fees could escalate, to the point where their ongoing contamination charges on the account and even to the extent where their full diversion discount is removed, a few highlights since the letters

were first sent out are outlined on this slide, keep in mind, this is a pretty small sample of customers, but it's important to point out that 88% of the customers that were sent letters , corrected the contamination and are no longer on the list, our waste team helped these individuals, helped these customers. excuse me with on site training, sorting guidelines as well as support through email and phone conversation. again, a small sample size, but the process is working with the protocol. is the intent that you're focusing on commercial and partment first, no, but that's just how it how it has happened. that's typically where we see a lot of the contamination and we're focusing on the larger volume customers. and then when you say customer, you're really talking about the building owner because they're usually multiple tenants throwing into the same trends, right? yes, yes. part of the radar also required required us to measure the efficacy of the genesis system as well as the

different interactions our waste team conducts with a customer base. this slide shows several screenshots of a system we created in powerapps, that we are utilizing, this this is done to track all the interactions at an account level for every customer that is identified in the contamination process, again, this will assist us in improve the efficacy of the cameras as well as the different types of outreach and collateral the team is using, we do meet bi weekly with our vendor to discuss issues that arise, you know, with, with the genesis system, really focusing on the functionality at this point, including improving the ai component to identify different contaminants for specific routes . an example of that would be an organics route, where we want to identify a plastic bottle or a piece of glass, versus just a black plastic bag, we will continue to do this and anticipate providing our assessment of the system by the next rate board update, with

that, i'm going to pass it off to marie quillan, who's going to talk about organic processing. thank you. good afternoon. i'm marie quillan, the general manager for recology san francisco. i'm going to talk about the organics pre processing, the rate order provided for funding for recology to deploy a trommel screen to preprocess and remove contaminants from the organics. recology placed an order for vermeer trommel screen in september 2023, with the expectation that the trommel was going to be delivered prior to january 2024, so chain issues led to equipment delivery delays, and we were notified that the trommel would not be delivered until late march 2024. knowing that recology had made a commitment to the rate board and the stanislaus county air district to clean up the organics feedstock prior to the year end, recology worked on

identifying an interim piece of equipment. we were able to procure a power screen, electric trommel, the piece of equipment, while not properly configured for the site, and having small screen size that was ordered from vermeer did allow recology to meet our commitments based upon our experience operating the piece of equipment, we now know that we can process 100% of the daily inbound tonnage in the trommel screen. the ratio of screen tonnage of compostable materials to residue is approximately 5050. the material being screened to the trommel is significantly cleaner, with contamination rates as low as 5. i'm happy to report that the vermeer trommel is scheduled to arrive on site sometime this afternoon, and the new trommel will be put into place over the next few days, and then put into service in a week or so. we look forward to installing and commissioning this new piece of equipment over the up and coming weeks, and we anticipate that the new equipment will rectify the deficiencies presented with the temporary temporary trommel,

such as improving organics recovery and reducing the yield loss. this is a couple images of the temporary trommel screen and position that the organics receiving facility. it gives you an idea of how it's situated within the building. and these are a few images of the unprocessed recyclables or the organics should i say on the left is a load of bagged commercial organics, on the right is a typical load of the residential organics. and then these two images show what the processed material looks like. on the left you have the screened organics with the 5% or less contamination rate. and then on the right is the residue from the organic screening process. i'd also like to talk a little bit about the seismic study. on december 22nd, 2023,

the pier 96 lease was approved by the board of supervisors and was executed in mid january by recology. the lease requires that recology perform a seismic study for the recycle central building. baseline assumptions for the study will be established by the port's chief harbor engineer, and shall include identifying the building's risk category and establishing seismic performance objectives for the structure. a kickoff meeting was held with port engineering, real estate and the recology team on march 11th. the study is comprised of two independent studies a geotechnical and engineering study, and an architectural study that together are referred to as the seismic study. the first study is a seismic evaluation and retrofit strategy report. the study includes the assessment of the building structure for its foundation sheet, pile, bulkhead, wall and will identify subsurface conditions, hazards, and liquefaction risks. the retrofit strategy report will provide for conceptual engineering designs to address the identified

deficiencies. the report shall include a narrative and sketches that clearly identify the technical scope of work for the retrofit, as well as a detailed cost estimate for the seismic retrofit. the second study is the facility condition assessment. the study will document the existing condition of the building structure, its foundations, the sheet pile, bulkhead, wall, tie backs, tie rods and any load bearing structures. the assessment will be supported by field observations, measurements, photographs and is intended to be a narrative description that summarizes the current condition of the building and all the associated structural elements. recology has been working with the engineer of record for pier 96, degenkolb engineers to draft the scope of work for the port's review. the study will require significant amount of input from geotechnical engineers to model the seismic ground motion and site responses, and the structural evaluation engineering work will follow the geotechnical work. upon the completion of the geotechnical and engineering evaluation. the

study would then go off for cost estimation, and our engineering team estimates the timing for the seismic evaluation, retrofit and cost estimate would be in the range of 8 to 9 months from the time that subcontractors have been placed under contract. we believe that the facility condition assessment can be done parallel to the seismic evaluation after the geotechnical work has been performed, and that process should take approximately 3 to 4 months to complete. in overall, the expectation is that the seismic evaluation will be completed in 10 to 12, 10 to 11 months from today. okay. any questions? sea level rise. is that part of your process? are you impacted by that here, the port of san francisco is currently conducting a study with the army corps of engineers to address sea level rise and, part of what we do will account for some of the sea level rise issues. more specifically, we're going to just look at the foundation elements of the building. so with that, i'd like to turn the presentation over to evan boyd. thank you. mo a quick

staffing update, a component of the new rate order included the addition of 23 fte to support enhanced services and reporting for new ftes and finance to support increased reporting requirements and more efficient payroll and billing processes. one new fte and human resource is to provide additional support to recology's. nearly one 100 employees in san francisco, so 14 new ftes in the sunset scavenger and golden gate operations to implement new abandoned material routes, cardboard collection routes, public receptacle collection requirements, weekend cleanup events, and improved safety protocols for drivers, which you heard about one new fte in the waste department to support waste diversion efforts and the contamination identification

program and outreach, also, what you just heard about and three new ftes between pier 96 and tonnelle avenue to support required overnight operations and maintenance activities. to date, we have successfully filled 18 of the 23 positions contemplated in the rate order, and we are actively recruiting for two relief drivers a maintenance supervisor and an operations supervisor for the sunset scavenger and golden gate operations, and one shop supervisor for the tunnel avenue operation. we intend on filling the remaining five vacancies as quickly as we are able to find qualified individuals to fill these roles. in summary, and to recap some of the highlights of our discussion today, recology successfully managed through a cybersecurity event with no delay or disruption to service on the street and with minimal impacts to customers. our q1

financial results were on target with projections, and we anticipate our year end results to be in line with our annual projections. we've worked closely with the wra and their team to develop and implement and submit the new reports required. under the rate order, we have implemented a new abandoned materials collection zone and route two new cardboard collection routes, two new public receptacle receptacles, collection routes. say that again, we have conducted three weekend cleanups, cleanup events with good community participation, and have eight more events scheduled. we have installed a state of the art camera system on six vehicles to improve contamination monitoring and identification, and we have procured and installed new organics processing equipment to improve the quality of san francisco's compost feedstock. finally, we have worked closely with city staff and have

followed rate order guidelines to continue to deliver the highest quality service the residents and businesses in san francisco have come to expect and deserve. thank you again for allowing us the opportunity to present this information to you today, and my team and i are happy to happy to answer any questions that you may have. thank you. thank you very much for the update. any questions? all right. let's move to public comment. any members of the public who wish to speak on item number three? for the record, there are no in-person public comments. we will now take remote public comment. members of the public who wish to provide remote public comment on this item should dial star three on the phone or click raise hand in webex. please note that you will have three minutes. okay, it seems we have one public comment. moderator could you please unmute our, our commenter great. david pilpel, can you hear me? okay. yes i can, i'm going to start your time right

now. okay okay. david pilpel again, i refer again to my letter and the comments in it. overall the work plan here seems ambitious and somewhat unrealistic, it's not clear to me what public outreach is contemplated for the capital plan that staff and the consultant, spoke to, i think enough people know how to get a hold of me. i would certainly, appreciate being engaged in the capital plan work as an interested member of the public, i hope i made clear that i think the hf and jurisdictional study scope is excessive and should be cut back. i think i indicated that having a smaller number of jurisdictions, and limiting the, study scope, is more useful.

this just seems like, spending ratepayer money for questionable , benefit. i don't think we're going to, recreate the world here. and go to either an exclusive or non-exclusive, franchise arrangement. i don't see that that has any benefit to the city. the ratepayers, the environment, anyone? i had a number of other comments and questions on page one and two of my letter. i can follow up with appropriate city staff, at city and recology staff to address those comments and questions. thank you for listening. and thank you to the various people in the room and others who may be listening for their, continued good work on the refuse collection, disposal, collection, processing, disposal

and getting to zero waste in a cost effective way that supports the ratepayers. thanks thank you for your comments. for the record, we have no additional remote public comments that concludes public comment for item number three. thank you very much. public comment is closed on item three. this is a discussion item. there are no actions to be taken here. so we will move on to item number five. item number five is the opportunity to propose future agenda items with discussion and possible action by the board. would any member of the board like to propose a future action item? thank you very much. why don't we go to public comment on this? any members of the public wish to speak on item five? for the record, we have no in person public comments. we will now take remote public comment. members of the public who wish to provide remote public comment should dial star three on the phone, or click raise hand in webex. please note that you will have three minutes. for the record, there are no remote

public comments. that concludes public comment for item number five. thank you very much. we will close public comment on item five, and i don't believe we have any items at this moment to add to future agenda items. so with that, i believe we do not have any other items on our agenda and we are adjourned at 323.

meter. >> hello, i'm captain tom the coordinator for the san francisco fire department. this oversight is the three and 4 anniversary of loma linda earthquake i want to go over a few things to help you preparation building a supply kit and supply kit does is not have to be put together all at once take your time on the website have a list of recommendation and have enough food and water to feed your family through three to 5 days and purchase the fire extinguisher if you have an extinguisher at hand will stop a small fire from being a by fire it is simple to use check the gage make sure it is charged and then repeat the word task task

stand for pull to pin aim the novel and screws the trigger and successes to the because of fire the last recommendation to look at the gas meter electrical gas lines cause fires in the loma linda earthquake and we want to show you how to turn off the gay only turn off if you hear gas or hear hissing and coordinator nathan will demonstrate how to turn that off. >> with a whenever i'm going to turn it over one quarter turn. so in on holler orientation in turn off our gays meter don't turn it back on get a service call from

the meeting of the municipal transportation agency. board of directors and parking authority. commission to order. call the roll. item two. director hemminger. here. hemminger. president. director. henderson here. henderson. present. director. hinsey. present hinsey. present. director. so. here. so. present director. tarloff. here to present. chair eken. here. eken. present. director is not expected today. for the record, i note that director hinsey is attending this meeting remotely. director hinsey is reminded that she must appear on camera throughout the meeting. and in order to speak or vote on any items, places you on item number three. the ringing and use of cell phones and similar sound producing electronic devices are prohibited at this meeting. the chair may order the removal from the meeting room. any person responsible for the ringing or use of a cell phone or other similar sound producing producing electronic device