>> at this point, to rrn to the agenda, we were in the middle of the director's report. >> i gave you a lengthy

introduction as it relates to the overtime report, so i'm going to sonali bose who will report on the overtime and its utilization at the san francisco m.t.a. >> good afternoon, again. what we wan to do this afternoon is walk you through a couple of issues related toover time. hopefully you remembered mr. ford's opening statement since he made that statement but i'm going to read some of the points. we want to talk a little bit about the transit division, other divisions in the agency, executive director ordinance that's going to affect the board supervisors and some of the key considerations that drive our overtime and then the management strategy. so here's the m.t.a.-wide overtime picture for this fiscal year for the first nine months. the top left-hand pie chart shows you the trends division

accounts for 90% of the division and as you can see our annual budget was $33.3 million an we've spent $33.6 million in the first nine months and we're expected to hit $51 million inover time for the year. i should have said, the agency has always had a significant amount of overtime and we've never budgeted for the right level of overtime since i've been here for a variety of reasons. this is a year by year comparison. if you look at the first nine months of the fiscal year for 2009, 2010, and 2011, you can see we're about $4 million higher than last year in the first nine months and the bottom right chart of the bar chart is what i want to point out specifically. in fiscal year 2010, which is a

light pink bar, we tried to increase our overtime budget because we knew this is -- this is a lock standing issue. unfortunately, we had to bring the budget back down because we had budgeting issues, we hoped to bring down theover time but we haven't been able to. this has been a constant struggle for us, budgeting overtime as well as having significant series in our salaries and benefits line items because of our hiring process. this is what the transit division looks like for the fiscal year. the three main groups of staff that driveover time in transit division, the transit operators, a little over half, the vehicle maintenance an may not nantz right of way are about a quarter and the remainer is in our central control. so the 80% of our overtime is consumed by transit operators,

and supervisors. this is a division -- >> can i interrupt? you just sunshined with the local 6 contract changes that will improve in terms of overtime in that contract. >> and to be more specific, the previous contract had a work week monday through friday, 8:00 to 5:00 and as you know we're not a monday 8:00 to 5:00 agency so we were having to pay elick trisses overtime any time they worked outside of those hours, so that's been changed and should impact our overtime. this is a year-to-year comparison for transit. you can see that we're -- the $4 million increase from last year is in the transit division and the bottom right hand chart you see the positions that are the biggest drivers of overtime and they're really all our front line service delivery positions. the majority, once again, transit operators. this is the other division, the

nontransit divisions and here's the -- here the biggest group is the parking control officers in our enforcement division. they drive about 46% of the overtime hours and 48% of the expenditures for other divisions. if you look at other divisions from last fiscal year to this fiscal year, we're about $1 million higher than what we're projecting for, compared nine months to the rest of the year. we're actually lower, projecting to be lower in fiscal year 2011 compared to 2010 for this nontransit division. so the board of supervisors has a legislation that requires all individuals who work more than 30% overtime to be reported. out of our group of a lit overall 100, 71 of them are transit operators who work 30% or more overtime, 14 of them from supervisors and 21 are

mechanics. these once again are the frontline positions that are incurring other 0% of overtime. this is the real meat of our discussion and to revisit the issue of that scheduled overtime is critical to our service delivery, it's a tool that the transit system uses to address day-to-day service delivery issues and mitigate service disruption and they use theover time which is built into the schedule to maximize service. once again, hopefully the renegotiations of some of the contracts will lead to better complement of staffing so if we can implement part-time operators and use them for special events on weekends and don't have to incur the overtime costs. the third bullet point, one thing that's come to the front this year, filling front line positions is getting tougher and tougher.

when we stop hiring and start hiring back again, it creates a disruption an the continuity of keeping these major hiring going on even though we may have reductions in service is something that we learned this past year. a couple of other things that are sort of exacerbating the overtime issue this year, we had a wellness program retirement citywide which meant that a lot of individual that was been a -- that have been here a long time chose to take retirement otherwise they would have lost their wellness provisions so we got a will the of vacancies as individuals took that retirement. secondly, we also in our citywide groups we were participating in furloughs. in the fair collectors, they participated in the citywide furloughs, we ended up having

to back fill them on an overtime basis so that citywide participation hurt us in terms ofover time. special events. there's two kinds of special events, there are two kinds of special events that happen every year, that we can plan for an others like the world series that we can't budget for. these special events are incredibly resource intensive from our agency's perspective because it requires a lot of our front line employees to be present and they almost all work overtime to do it. and in san francisco almost every weekend there's a special event in the city. we are trying to do a better job of tracking special events because right now our systems don't separate some of the hours we need to do a better job of that. the second bullet on this page is also critical because the

facilities are in such poor condition, we're having to maintain and back fill them on a regular basis and it requires a lot of attention from our maintenance staff. so as was mentioned, traditionally the m.t.a. has managed the overtime costs within the budget so for example, because we have so many savings and because we're not hiring quickly, those dollars available in our nonovertime line items to cover overtime costs and since i've been here for the past four years, we've always exceeded our overtime business but not our overall budget in salaries and benefits. that seems to be the way to create flexibility, to include overtime and to keep the positions on our inventory so we can continue to hire them. this is my last slide. what we're trying to do, these

are the five points we're focusing on as a management group. we're trying to fill the vacancies we have, focusing on hiring and overtime an the training required to bring the operators, there's several classes right now, the mta board is starting to receive reports and the board of supervisors has asked us to go back on a regular basis and talk aboutover time. we are also working on unscheduled absences, for example when people are sick or out on leave that are unse scheduled. this requires changes to our policies, for example, in managing fmla or other kinds of absences. >> one thing i want to point out and i don't know if it's necessary for john to come up and echo on this, if he was planning on saying this, but if you remember last fall we implemented a very strict sick leave policy with the operators where if you were out sick, you had to bring in a doctor's verify cage, no matter how

short the period you were out sick. we observed a switching from sick leave utilization to fmla which has much more lax controls and we're going to start looking at what we can do in terms of fmla but we saw a mydepration from sick leave usage to fmla and that's one thing we have to deal with going forward. >> did that percentage stay the same? if it was 15% absentee rate, then all of a sudden because of fmla, stay at 15%? >> i don't know quite if it offset each other but there is constant work being done to -- there has been a switch from sick to fmla but i don't know if it's equal. >> but that's something that we're obviously going to have to look at. it's not an issue just with our agency. i saw thises that something happening on the national level in terms of utilization of fmla and it seems to be growing and

creating more of a challenge in terms of work force staffing. >> so the fourth bullet is a critical piece because a lot of the ways we deliver service, to the extent we're more successful in our negotiations with street supersizors and those contracts, that will really help ourover time pause right now a lot of our contractual requirements are kind of having an overtime basis of service and the last bullet is sort of, we all recognize it's going to be levels of overtime in our system and we're at a sweet spot where overtime is actually built into our base service model and where is it that we're now not managing well and we're -- we have to figure that kind of break even point where we move from and that has been a discussion, i think, that we need to work on the next couple of years is to say, ok, this is our base level overtime, this is good for the service, this

is what you can expect but then beyond that is sort of a management issue. we're trying to figure out how to make that distinction. but the more data we can get, the more easier it will be for us to make that distinction. the -- so we have to go back to the board of soup visors on a regular basis and talk about overtime. the one piece of information that i got from john is that -- mr. haley, is that if we did not use this level of overtime we would not provide the 98% of service we are providing, it would sink to 96 pk or below level service. the bottom line is, if we don't use overtime, you are impacting service delivery. >> one additional fact i want to point out if a statistical standpoint, scheduled overtime, built into the skell jewels, built off the contract an

scheduling capabilities but built off the work rules and policies in our contracts, is approximately 80% of the overtime that you're seeing here. there's actually the remain 20g% is kind of what you call management discretion or unscheduled overtime that we do have some clear day-to-day responsibility in terms of controlling. as we go through these contract negotiations, once we hopefully have a negotiated contract or arbitrated contract, that will change the rules of the game in some way in terms of overtime usage, sick leave usage, all those things that we have discussed with you as a board. >> so the message there is, currently we have to use overtime to meet service needs but one of the reasons that's the case is for lack of a better word the inflex bt caused by the contract and the hope is we'll have more flexibility after contract negotiations and we can address that. >> that was one of the goals in these negotiations.

>> how much of that is attributed to being short drivers? >> that's a food question. john, can you come up? the question is -- john haley, our director of transportation, the question is, of the overtime that you expend on a daily basis, how much is related strictly to shortage of personnel, shortage of operators? >> in terms of operator overtime on a daily basis, one of the buckets of overtime is what we fill -- runs with we fill with overtime, we put out 1,174 all together. some of that is not having enough operators and part of it is the question raised earlier about part of -- part of that is catching up, the system catching up with the people that left, the attrition rate, stopping of hiring a couple of years ago, to catch up on the

hiring and training. the other part of it is work force management. on a typical day right now we're pushing on the range, 15% has gone to 20% of people that are scheduled to work that are unavailable for a range of reasons. the biggest reason is use of fmla across the system but there are some other reasons as well. so part of what we have to do is work with everyone to attack those problems. >> right but narrowly, what percentage on a daily basis of overtime is related to your shortage of operators? just the sheer shortage of operators? >> right now it's, of that 70 runs you have, in the range of 15 to 20 on the rail side that have been related directy to -- directly to shortage of operateors. we've made some progress, i'm pleased to report, since last tuesday in shrinking that down

and we're working with the training department to do some other things to fill that hole right now i would say it's roughly a third or so of the overtime is directly related to operator shortage and it's been coming down as we've moved forward with training classes on both the bus and rail side. >> ok. john gave us a presentation in the meeting, my understanding of part they have problem is you can only put so many prospective drivers through the class, they don't make it, it starts all other. >> we can start out with 50 operators in training and end up at the end with 25 through people, not wanting the job, two, not making the cut, and you know, i've always cautioned john and reginald mason who is responsible for traping, yes, we're short operators but we're not going to cut corners because we'll create a safety

issue for the agency. i believe it's six weeks to create an operator in terms of training and -- but our attrition rate, we lose people monthly. we're losing between eight to a dozen operators on a monthly basis. >> have we ever looked a at the possibility of increasing capacity within our training? we constantly have this attrition going on. >> we're looking at increasing the number of trainers, increasing the hours of training, i believe we're doing training not just monday through friday but training is occurring on saturdays and sundays. there have been some tratjis, maybe it would be better that -- >> i mean there's actually three -- there's three things we've been doing. one is extending the training hours, one is looking at the available pool of trainers, in other words, supplement traditional instructors with something called line instructor, operators with good records who can play a role in

helping other operators learn a route for example or in handling techniques and seven days, longer hour, using line instructors, using, we've also got on the rail side some maintenance trainers that can help contribute to the familiarization of the vehicle itself which will short then program a little bit. we're doing those kinds of things. ? ok, thank you. >> any other questions regarding overtime? ok, continuing on with my report, the next item i need to bring to your attention is introducing you to item that will be brought to you in the future in terms of final decision but we are planning, and you've probably read about it, planning to introduce a new n-line express service to help deal with congestion on the n-line. it's one of our highest ridership lines and staff has

been aware of overcrowding conditions on the line, particularly in the peak period heading inbound. john haley, our director of transit, is here to discuss a pilot program we hope to have up and in place in the early -- in the june time frame. he'll give you the direct data for startup. >> good afternoon, again. i think you may recall, for the last several months, we've been -- we were looking at service in particular on the rail side watching and monitoring the m line. last fall during the discussion of that and the rest of the service we talked about po tenable of a pilot program. the line, as mr. port indicated, is the busiest line of any of the rail system. it is one of the longer lines. and during the course of the last several months, it's one that we've experienced some

additional crowding and in particular on the inner portions of the line, continue to look at ways to improve the service. so one thing we have to look at, we were concerned about the number of rail cars we had, we wanted to obviously, we would have scheduled more if we had them but as we go through our rehabilitation program and look at ways to improve the availability and reliability of the fleet, one thing we can do in a quicker fashion to support the n line is to provide express bus service. again, one thing we want to point out on this particular slide is that 70% of the route is on the surface that has a significant impact on the travel time. a lot of stop signs a lot of stops, slow service. we're looking at ways to give our riders choices, get them to their destination during both,

particularly during the two peak commute periods. one of the things to point out about the n-line, despite the fact that it has a will the of stops and has relatively slow travel time, the characteristics of the line are very much like a commuter line as we see on this chart here, the color, on the upper side, eastbound, that shows heavy boarding at the end of the line going into town in the morning an the reverse, the green means ons, those are the people that get on in the amp system of the characteristics of the line, while it's heavy ridership throughout the line, it is -- it does demonstrate the same kind of characteristics as a commuter line which lends it to being a good place to start this kind of service. what we're proposing is a six month pilot to start on june 13 and again, the idea here is to supplement the existing service. this will not take any cars off

of the n-line, it will simply supplement the lines that exist and in particular, we think it will have benefit for riders in the inner part of the line, folks who have a difficult time not only not getting a seat but even getting on some of our vehicles. we're proposing that we have 10 minute service, that the buses start from out at the end of the line, out at the ocean, make the first 11 stops to 19th avenue and then run express to town and come right back out. we believe the running time will compare favorably between the bus an the rail. this is the route, far left is the local stop and we've tried to, this route was shreked after seven or eight different combinations to try to give consistent running time and try

to make sure that we didn't get caught in congestion, which is why we started from the ocean and 19th avenue. this is just a quick schematic in terms of loading out at ocean beach and we're in the process of working with the community on this one, this is not something we proposed initially that if we had buses over there, we'd take nine to 12 parking spots. there are other ways to do this, there was room out there to operate in a different fashion but we want to start from out there along the great highway at some point. in the p.m. peak, the route would reverse and go from montgomery station, the same kind of headways, start the service at 4:00, 6:30, get express tout 19th, then go local. the idea to get people home as quickly as possible and out of the congestion.

there is a p.m. route that we're suggesting, again, the same product of trying a number of different con fig rages on the p.m., mostly using geary. there's a loading point down in the financial district that is in room down there from where we load the three route currently, so there's not a need to make any changes from that perspective. this is a special service and while we're not going to suggest or recommend charging a premium fare, we want to brand it or identify it. in a perfect world, we would do, probably use articulated buses, but what we have now and some of through your efforts we've been able to build up availability and reliability on the bus side through some of our focused maintenance programs so what we'll do is set aside a group of dedicated buses, we'll brand them distinctly with a paint scheme,

and identify them so that our riders will know it is the express and there will be no confusion. that is the schematic of the vehicle and the head boards or destination signs up there that we'd like to see so that we can let people know that's one of the issues that comes up all the time on destinations so we want to do a public outreach over the next few weeks in addition to the branding, make sure people understand where the first stop is. and how the route will go. this is a quick outline starting with today of the outreach efforts between now and the start of service anticipated on june 13. we will run it with nine vehicles in the a.m., eight in the p.m., that's 32 is the number of trips a day. and this is an annualized cost. if we were to run it for 12

months, it will be just under $2 million for the direct operating costs and another under $100,000 and $150,000 for paint and markings and signage for the complete costs. so we think this is an important initiative. we think it's needed. the ridership nand is there the conditions on -- the ridership demand is there, the conditions are not what we want them to be in terms of crowding, so this is something we believe will have a pozzive benefit for riders all along the line and provide additional service and now, i know it's a trial, but will it be coming with full -- to the full board for approval? >> it doesn't have to go to the full board. we expect to bring it back to you in the fl