lists we so we save another week there so there's another some other characteristics that differ and i don't think i really need to go into them so twice a year i'm required to go before the silver sources commission and speak to the issue of the timing of the position based testing process as i mentioned there's a sixty day goal that's built into the rules so if you look at this chart and you look at the right hand column and by the way this chart is dealing with the last fiscal year and the first half of this fiscal year so if you look at the top row for position based tests we did three hundred thirty three examinations and fiscal year two thousand and eleven they represented about seventy percent of oral examinations and we were able to

achieve an average timeframe of about forty five forty two days that's from the announcement closing to the adoption of the list the first half of this year it's a little higher it's fifty four days but we're still below the sixty days by comparison if you look at their class base testing program. it's a ninety day timeframe on average for the first half of this fiscal year so there's a really a dramatic difference in in timeliness over the how quickly we can get the list adopted between these two programs so that concludes my portion of the presentation happy to answer any questions if you have them. just kind of sort of yeah i mean really. just for back the clarification average number of days that's from the start of the announcement of the exam from the zing of the closing announcement

it's posting the last day they can file an application. and the reason we put that is usually this time frame examiners and analysts are held responsible for these timeframes it's kind of a production environment in a way so so we monitor these timeframes and sometimes we put an announcement out there and we get very few applicants who apply so we'll extend the announcement we may extend it two or three weeks we don't want you know that's outside the control of the analyst so we don't want to make the analyst responsible for something that's outside their control so we start from the moment the you know ok nasa is closes. mission thank you for that presentation it gives a good insight to the world you live in and what you have to do here and the protocol to meet. the brakes don't we thank you for that thank you. so mr ted yamasaki department human resources i get the task of sort of wrapping

everything up for you and then talking about where we are sort of currently in where we're going in the future before i do that that we wanted to mention for about the fast past five or so years the department of human resources has really been focusing on reforming the civil service system while we're very very fortunate to have absolute technical experts on our team i think our goal really has been to address the needs of departments in terms of identifying qualified individuals to come to work for the city and the transparency and merit based selection processes that we're beyond to follow as you heard from my colleagues the system is rigid in many respects in terms of ensuring that we provide open transparent opportunities for anyone who's interested in employment with the city on the other hand we understand the expectations that departments have in terms of identifying qualified individuals to fill vacant positions in the city. i wanted to address

a couple of comments that were made as a question so we hope we can sort of set the context correctly for a way think we're doing in the future. the position based tests component that mr cross identified is really a civil service response to what was a out of control provisional hiring program and i'm not sure if any of your familiar with it but at one point in the city a number of years ago due to the lack of eligible lists of able to fill current vacancies departments were making provisional appointments provisional appointments as you might recall. required that the department post the opportunity go through some selection merit based process to identify a provisional employee that provisional employee under the charter could work for the city for no more than three years and within that three year window the department of human resources would have to establish an examination to retest that individual in order for that individual to become permanent in that position. what

we found through a civil service reform program initiative is that the department of human resources kept sort of chasing its tail in terms of an exam plan that was not future focused to identify the needs or the future needs of department but really cleaning up the provisional employees who by charter were going to expire from their positions so as mr cross identified really that the position based testing program really gave departments an opportunity to develop position specific examinations that were designed to be much more quick to be done more quickly transparently in terms of compliance with the merit system. special conditions talking about issues related to language i think the commission had a question about bilingual speaking individuals both the special conditions and the certification rule which mr coe talked about. our requests that departments put into the department of human resources those requests as mr coe identified are

vetted very very carefully to ensure that they meet sort of the merit system principles as well as the identified demands of the departments but one thing we failed to mention is that all of these requests are publicly posted our partners in labor have an opportunity to challenge or question why a department is requesting a particular special condition on a particular requisition so we want to point out that while the department makes legitimate requests the department of human resources vets and then we put it up for public posting oftentimes it's not as simple as us just saying yes it's a good thing let's move forward so that adds some unanticipated timelines oftentimes to actually getting the final approval for us to move forward. the last thing i want to talk about really is is the department puts in new positions in the budget you heard about the process in which all of the budget approvals have to take place in order for position to be identified in the annual salary ordinance for new positions generally speaking it's rare to actually have a full f.t.e.

in a new department's budget so with a partial f.t.e. in a new budget cycle it means that the department is unable to actually put in a request to fill probably for the first three sometimes four months of the fiscal year so by the time the department actually puts in a request we're almost at halfway of the fiscal year before the department of human resources has an opportunity to address it the last thing i wanted to say before i talk about where we are on exams is. it is our intent to ensure that we provide the apartments with access to eligible lists that meet their needs the department has committed additional resources to d.b.i. because we knew there was a number of classification specific to d.b.i. where there weren't active eligible lists and that takes me to my side. in working very closely with director de we've identified the following classes that are here for you that will be done through a position based testing program as mr cross identified it's an expedited process

and i want to just make sure i don't overstate our goal and that is the list will be available from our perspective in all of these classes by september it doesn't mean that we're going to wait until september to post lists we have an analysts very seasoned analysts dedicated to doing nothing but the job analysis work in order for us to begin the posting requirements for the position based tests our hope is by september barring any unforeseen appeals that mr kraus pointed out in the process that we don't get to control lists will be available for the department to actually through a certification process do their final selection of individuals to fill those positions. i think pamela is going to talk to you about where they are currently but it we've made some significant progress and i think you'll be pleased when you hear from the department about how many positions are on the verge of or have already been offered and i'm going to steal possibly some of her thunder and there

are seven thousand positions in a number of classes that are currently under consideration at the department meaning the eligible list has been referred to the department of department is currently doing the final selection match process to have identify those positions again d.h. i will prioritize the following exams in order to get a list established to fill the remainder of those positions are they happy to answer any questions about. any part of the presentation. i probably could if i hold my comments to the end and we can hear from the other testimony then i might have a question for you excerpted relating to timing of everything ok. hamilton department building inspection i just wanted to give me a chance to win the mayor's office just to make a couple remarks and then i will tell you all sorts of good news.

morning commissioners my name is many from the mayor's budget office and i wanted to thank you for having this hearing this morning i wanted to reiterate our commitment to work with the department to fill the positions mayor is committed to make sure that there are. enough. positions available for the department to continue their operations and one of things that we're mindful of is that promise operations one thing that we have to do as well though is to to make sure that the department stays within their budget throughout the year and you know it's sort of a dual role that we play where you know we have to advocate for the departments that also do our job to look at the citywide picture and that's what we continue to do throughout the year and i will say that the department is very active and very vigilant in their records. more so than some other departments so i think they're definitely doing

a great job to make sure that's always on our radar what positions they need and i'm happy to answer any questions so will. your commission. so i think one reasons. so first of all i want to thank you mn resources and everybody who came for the presentation but i think one of the reasons this was put on the agenda is because the main. complaints that this department get is our ability to deliver scuse me on permits and also complaints from tenants you know so we both sides housing as well this action services and the permits and things like that and i think what this commission notice was that we have a lot of and fill vacancies so one of the things i think. that was raised in the commission i think some of it's been resolved i know that on the problem we

had the ability to bring back some retirees so with all respect to how long civil service takes and everything the rules you guys have to follow we know we can't change that we know we can't change that overnight and some of it is just the way it is so one of the things that was raised here and i'm glad someone from the mayor's office as we said look we know bringing back retirees may not be the most fiscally prudent thing and it's not even. politically popular and we don't want to do it but rather than let the permits sit you know and we could say the same thing that has been presented to us look he used to take us a month now it's only taking us two weeks so ya should be very very happy but they're not so what we suggest that was ok we would like to hire per minute we would like to hire have less hire quickly but given that we care can we bring back our retirees even to just clean up so that's why this stuff as has happened so if we can do that. especially because it's been approved in our budget

we have and because this department generates you know funds and that's part of that's based on the premise that we can generate those permits and things like that i think that's one of the things we want to make sure that the city knows that we're balancing we want to hire as quickly as possible but if we can't can we don't bring back some retirees just to clear some of the backlog and for all the mayor's office and everybody understand why we're doing that. thank you for coming here this morning thank you. ok of the good news of the good news pamela vun department building inspection so i first want to tell you about all the completed recruitments that we've had in the last month or so we have . filled one associate engineer and that was

a transfer three senior clerics. one senior clerk typist which is the transfer. one cashier to which is we needed to get somebody in board to get knowledge of our system in order to be able to. migrate into the new cash management system so this individual is going to start in june and engineer who's helping with the databases because we've been as you know i keep coming up every month and telling you about the projects the information technology projects and then for a prop that if we hired an associate engineer and who was jeff mon then brought back an errand to help sonja. in terms of the so i'm talking about the non exams either with the position based

exams which d.h. ours assigned a person to help us get through those in terms of interviews that we've scheduled we have next week interviews for associate engineer and for engineer. and for. also. another engineer a lawyer they have that. engineers plural that's five engineers. in the week of the twenty eighth which is a short week as you know because of memorial day. we will have interviews for assistant engineer and for finally for our principal clerks which is a result of that was one of the ones that we were waiting for the tasks and the sort of occasion of the list to be done because that's a departure scuse me a citywide type of position so that pretty much leaves everything

because after we have the exams and then we have a few pending requisitions for positions that will be also part of the exam so it's similar position so that we will hire everybody together but and i do you want to recognize that you know this process is very difficult for everyone involved the mayor's office g.h. are for us of course. and i think we're working really well together and i think that we have. gotten some really good response from d.h. our to help us through this process we have to keep so roughly we had about this is very ballpark in numbers we had about forty vacancies we have to keep twenty five of those. vacant for attrition so to the extent that we can get it if you don't know what happens is that you don't get

a budget you get all year salaries and then the attrition takes away a portion of your salary so you're not budgeted fully for your you know two hundred some odd positions you're only budgeted for in this is just rough rough numbers you know two hundred and i'm sorry one hundred seventy five but that's i'm not giving iraq numbers but that's just so so you have to so we have to watch very carefully and make sure that we don't exceed the number of positions in the amount of money that we have budget and as we roll into next year with having these positions filled. we are going to have to watch it very closely because although we are asking for additional positions we need to make sure we manage archer some level and that's that's a very. kind of judgment call difficult situation but we would not be

able to have to fill positions if we didn't manage our attrition and we wouldn't get approval from the mayor's office or the controller's office. commissioners and the questions from. i actually have attrition i want to talk a little bit about this i'm just going to get my head around it as far as departments go. we seem to be based on just talking and maybe i don't have the answer but we have somewhere in the neighborhood that twenty five people it seems to be higher the most out of the partment i think it runs that party percent is that it's about fifteen and we're running at eighteen. so it's not it's it's not particularly high. what happens is it's really based on the dollar value and then that translates into positions so the only way to really look at it is you know we have to keep some positions vacant a number but i don't think ours is any higher than any other other departments and in fact. we are not when we go to the budget process we

historically haven't been. impacted by trying to balance a budget by increasing the number of positions that we have to have vacant so it's not it's not we're not subject to the same problems that other departments are but if it's based on dollar amount and we've got a rise in economy hopefully here you're going to have more money but it really doesn't change our attrition rate right you have to go back to the board of supervisors to ask for an additional authority disband so even though you bring in more revenue you you or the way the budget is is the budget ordinance gives you an authority to spend it doesn't give you you don't you know it's not it's you have to have it adjusted if you want to spend more than the authority you have so if you suddenly wanted to hire i don't know fourteen more positions

to spare on you know the the fifth floor and plan review and some the we would have to go back and ask for authority to have an amendment to the annual salary ordinance an amendment to the annual appropriation ordinance. may i ask you please actually my question is more for the mayor's office on this very topic so you know we're a different animal then other departments so you know whereas we can project that the department of public health for instance is going to need to have you know x. number of physicians chopped off based on a project a loss in general fund revenue for next year. you know the d.p.i. actually runs on a completely different cycle it's about development you know by the private sector

so i'm wonder if the budget analyst takes that into account into figuring out the percentage and levels of attrition that each department is supposed to take and then in moving to a year or a two year budget. what does that look like in terms of your analysis do we i mean is it is new was does projecting for example loss of revenue from c v b g from the federal government or you know increase in building permits by you know a rise in real estate prices how do we as a commission weigh in on those kinds of nuances sure. you're right t.b.i. is a different beast than a lot of other city departments as even different than. other enterprise farms and we may have an airport where they have different revenue streams i think one thing to be cognizant of is sort of the history of in the last few years especially since i think it was two years ago where we had issues with with

a lot of layoffs that had happened because the revenues this weren't there and i think when we look at. and specially with a two year budget we have to sort of be conservative on the revenue projections i think the revenue projections drives salary lines drives all the other non-personal costs and so. the reason why we've built an attrition especially for t.v. eyes. we don't know what's going to going to happen and we need some sort of mechanism in place to ensure that the department doesn't go over a certain salary budget because it's a lot easier to reduce materials and supplies and then it is to reduce people i mean that's layoffs i'm sure i mean i understand that of course you know we all sort of understand that we everybody so live within their means but you know we do know some things are going to happen we know that in the last twelve months rents have risen in san francisco by fifteen point six percent we know that the

department has seen a thirty percent increase in building permit applications from twelve months ago so those things we know we can project you know by you know district number the rise in real estate values and. so my question specifically was does your office in you know doing the budget projections take those kinds of data points into account in putting in together the attrition that we have to take we do and that's one thing that you'll see in the department's budget submission from from february there are i think i'm blanking on the number of positions are added into the budget and so you know we are cognizant that there are are some changes to the economy that's out there that we were led in the department increase their number of. positions that i go into so and maybe pamela has a little more information on the specifics just commission walker might of course

it's sort of related to this and it was brought up earlier regarding the list because because of the nature of d.b.i. and the connection with the actual. you know work level of our department. it seems to me we might all come together and be more proactive about making sure the lists are active full ready to go to be able to respond quicker to these kind of adjustments in the market and i think that that would help us a lot if we could get a commitment from the mayor's office on that. and you're talking specifically on sure that the lists are ready to go and we're willing to work with you know we are going to work with. the department to again make sure that we're. keeping up with what we need to do in order because these i mean i'm just going to say that i've

been on the commission for ten years and we are constantly in need of certain as we go as we have you know laid people off and then the work ramps up we're way too slow in being able to fill these crucial positions and this is not the first time we've had to wait for these kind of responses and it affects the public so you know i just i would hope that we all can do that because i think it would help us a lot. thank you for coming up did you want to. commissioner is just a follow up on the some of the issues that are being raised which are very good ones and one ten i was just whispering that you know the problem is that civil service is not nimble it is not a nimble way of responding to department which has such which is so market responsive and we have the same issue it planning it's really civil service is structured for career permanent civil service career jobs and we have

a challenge in trying to by the time we see that things are ramping up do we have a list because we are all constrained in resources we're going to be looking for where we know there's hiring and so that is one of the challenges were and we have to look at different ways of navigating that we had mentioned earlier i think or john that we have historically used provisional employees as a fill in it's not a very efficient process because they end up taking a test twice you have to do a sort of a little test bring them in the door and then they have up to three years for get an exam but and we are under some pressure from the civil service commission also the state to keep our provisional counts low however there is a good place for a provisional provisional is i don't have a list ready but i have an immediate need to hire and we certainly there's a conversion you can do from your requisitions to provisional if you need to and that is something that we're willing to work with the department with to look at because that would be an appropriate response prop f.

retired in place is also an appropriate response. we have labor contracts that and also have civil service oversight that preclude us from simply allowing lots of retirees to come back and work and of course i think someone mentioned the political ramifications of doing that it's double dipping in everything else however you know your job is to get the work done and so there are circumstances when it is appropriate to use a retired employee for short period of time when we're waiting for an examination in fact i would prefer to use that than a provisional hire because you don't even if you do exam also it. is true that once we lay people off there on a holdover list assuming they are still available there's no exam process once a requisition is available because there's been an uptick in the market or in the you know the the needs then we simply pull that person right off the list the layoff list the holdover list and they are returned to duty in seniority order in their old job the challenge of course is that they may have found other employment so this has limited utility but is also there is an opportunity so i just wanted to

make sure those that we were clear that we view those is available in response to this or current for a more nimble system even though. that's not what civil service is by definition. you brought up a point about our list or layo layoff list and i wonder if there's. any of we hired back off of those that we have laid off we have exhausted all of the layoff lists we did that about six months ago ok one of our last engineers to transfer in is an engineer that was omni was laid off from d b i and actually went to work for another department and is willing to come back to d.p.i. which is great for us because she's already trained we have. we brought in our last building inspector is working in code enforcement now so we have all of

those once the layoff lists were exhausted then we have to go to the position based testing and that's what de h.r. is helping us with now because we do have to develop new tests from the tests that were developed five six years ago for the existing positions so we will have all new position based testing lists for the building inspectors and benchley the electrical inspectors eventually the plumbing inspectors and once those who developed their specific to d.b.i. so that will help us bring in new people and get lists that we can have a continuous announcement for in similar to the engineer positions that we have. these are more questions question. sorry probably some of a question for you to actually. i haven't department of billing inspection i wanted to respond to committee.