projections to assume a $50 million reserve for state and federal cuts, which is larger than we have had in a number of years. there is a difference between federal and state cutting vs services that the city already provides, which is mostly in health and social services, and it is where we see a lot of cuts in terms of reimbursement rates at the department of public health and some of the long-term care money we get at the department of social services. there are also stay consider having to our communities that the city does not actually pay for at the moment that we need to decide as a city how much we can afford to backfill. for example, there are a lot of cuts this year being proposed to hiv services that the city has actually never paid for before, and we're getting a lot of requests to pay for things that the city has never paid for before. they have been state and federal responsibilities in the past. we will have more information as

the state completes their budget and estimates there may revise. we do have a fairly large stake reserve this year. it becomes part of the trade-off conversation that the board of supervisors and the mayor's office and the community need to have. but how much we can prioritize this. you know, we definitely need the help of you and the rest of the community to go back to the state and the federal government and make your voice is heard to ensure that that funding stays as high as possible for our city and we do not wind up in a situation where we are making trade-offs between hiv services and streets and parks. we rely on your help to solve that. we do our best, and we will be -- you know, we are cognizant of this and constantly monitoring what is going on and deciding how we can deal with those. [applause]

>> hello. merrill loma park improvements club. i have a question for the administrator. you mentioned in your budget presentation that our city expenses are increasing a lot faster than our revenues, more significantly. could you identify the main cause of the main expense lines going up and that is responsible for that situation? thank you. >> again, i think there are many pressures that the city is facing. about half of our expenditures, just so you know, are spent on salaries and benefits for our city employees. and we're seeing significant pressures in that area. our employees have not taken raisins -- races for the most part in several years now and have actually taken pay cuts. however, as all of your very

well aware, health benefit costs for our employees continue to rise at a quick pace, and our pension costs continue to rise. again, because of the downturn in the economy that the city is now having to deal with. our pension fund is still sort of reeling from the impacts of the downturn and the hit to our benefit trust from a few years ago. so benefits are one of the significant pressures on our budget right now. other pressures are just from the fact that over the last few years, we have sort of, because it has been such a bad situation and we have had to make cuts and not fund things that the level that we want to, we are seeing pressures from normal things that we have not been able to find that the right level in years past. ford's of all, capital. you know, streets, our buildings. so now we are getting to a point where we need to be cognizant of

the fact that we have not been funding those things at the right level to maintain them in the last few years. if we do not pay attention to that, it will become a problem in the long term. that is sort of the biggest pressure. saturday -- salaries and benefits is one of the biggest ones. but others is just trying to make sure we get back to the level of services and infrastructure that we were at nine years passed before, before the downturn hit us. >> thank you. any other questions? >> good morning, mayor lee, supervisors. thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of job-seekers in san francisco. i am the center manager for the chinatown one-stop career links center, operated by self help for the charity. we provide many resources for

job-seekers looking for work, as well as a free assistance to small businesses looking for workers. in district four and district 7, we were wondering of supervisors and the mayor to look for resources for job-seekers who were looking for work, because there is a lack of job training programs, as well as for english learners to learn english. because we are seeing job- seekers and seniors coming into the chinatown area and using services there, and there is a need. it would be great if you could consider that. thank you for the opportunity. [applause] >> any other questions? george. i was surprised he waited this long, george. [laughter] >> thank you. george, district 7. a question for mayor lee. i wanted to ask him if he felt

extending parking meter hours, increasing parking meters, adding parking on sundays, increasing traffic tickets is going to help create jobs in san francisco for small businesses? >> wow, you really waited a long time for that one, huh, george? i have had several discussions with the mta. some years ago, and a little bit on you, the voters made sure that we did not mess around with mta's budget. at least take things out and put things in in the way it did in years past. the board has to vote up or down on the whole budget. having said that, we did talk a little bed about, you know, our general resistance to putting meters on sundays. it is $2.5 million revenue source for them.

they believe that times have changed where there are a lot of tourists and visitors that come in too many of our sections throughout the city on its sundays to enjoy, of course, all the things that we have. so we believe that revenue they need to have to balance their deficits. we have like a $26 million deficit when we started going through all of these things. i will say that we also talked about this parking increase of the penalties. one of the things that they told me that a good portion, three- quarters of that increase the they are proposing in their budget on the parking tickets as exactly to do with the state grabbing more of their revenue from those tickets but not of them wanting more revenue as our mta. they obviously needed, but there were not going to put it on the

backs of the parking tickets, so they have to recover that. otherwise they will be in a bigger deficit. so that is the answer on that one. the debate that i have had around the sun. meters probably have to accept some kind of a compromise and there. they did not want to -- they did start out with the regular 9:00 to 6:00, and we said, gosh, that is going to be too hard. we at least get them to compromise to 12 noon. i know that is not satisfactory for those who believe you should not touch parking meters or not have parking meters all sunday, but they did make at least that compromise, and that is what they're voting on on tuesday. >> [inaudible] >> ok.

so the question is -- how does that impact jobs? you know, i probably will have to say it does not necessarily immediately help jobs. it is an effort to make sure that the muni budget is balanced in all of the jurisdictions that they have. it does keep jobs for some pto's on sundays, i have to say. but apart from that -- you know, the small businesses, and i know we had a conversation here earlier, some of the -- not all, but some small businesses have always felt that if the parking control officers are not doing their jobs, you're going to have people part inappropriately all day long in those spaces.

we get complaints about that from even folks who claim they have legitimate for the blue placards and things like that, and we have got some abuses there. but some of the small businesses are saying that if you do not keep people moving around, their businesses suffered. particularly in those very successful merchant corridors. so in a way, keeping, you know, the parking meters active or keeping the space is exchanging out is supposed to come in at the erie, helping those small businesses with their jobs. >> and that first block of west portal. come with me tomorrow at 2:00 p.m., and you can watch the people who park their and then get on it muni and head down for hours. they do not shop on west portal. they shop downtown. and they go to the giants game. and they do not pay for their parking. >> [inaudible]

>> but if they filled their meter for 20 minutes, that is all you have to do. they can avoid the ticket. ok. all right, this will be our very last question. >> i think the problem is sometimes you may go down irving street or west portal, you're going for lunch, so you're going into a restaurant and maybe you are going to do your banking at the same time. what happens is you may have a meter for one hour two hours and that may not be enough. it is four hours or longer, at least do not get a ticket. that seems to be the problem. you're getting tickets. if you go a couple streets over, it may be two-hour parking, the it is very hard to get. you have to go two streets over to get four-hour parking. but it is a hike.

>> ok. i am holding, and we're working hard on this. i am hoping that there is some technological solution to this. because, as you know, we're changing out all these meters into meters that can not only use your credit card, but you can pay with your cell phone. you would register in and literally almost tapped it or some mid end in a so that the meter tells her cell phone when your time is up, so you get a buzz. we are getting there. there are experience -- experiments going on as we speak. hopefully that technology convenience will prevent people from getting ticketed inappropriately when they're trying to do the right thing and have that notice and cannot run back out. but they will get the notice like five minutes before the thing happens. we're going for that. because we believe that that better technology with the areas we have experimented in, we did

have less to get. we had more people paying the meter. there is some good behavior going on with the modern meters that we have in the city. >> [inaudible] >> no, you can actually feed the meter from your phone. oh. >> [inaudible] a photo of the license plate? [inaudible] >> ok. >> that is why it is a longer time frame. >> ok, we will talk to the mta about that. yes, yes. cards. >> [inaudible] >> you can buy them online and they will come directly to your house. sure. sfgov.org, you can buy them and

have them mailed to your house. >> [inaudible] >> the one department that does not show up it's the biggest one. [laughter] is that how it works? department heads, tell them that is how it works. very good. listen, we would like to thank you all very, very much for coming out and sharing your thoughts. that me reiterate the point from the beginning, this is just one opportunity. you will have many opportunities. there are other town hall meetings, a number of public hearings at city hall, and beyond that, carmen and i are always available to take your calls, take your e-mails, read your letters. you have a lot of opportunity, and please take advantage of it. it is your thoughts that will shape our decisions over the next few months. >> again, i want to say thank you very much for spending your saturday morning here with us. i know it is not easy. we appreciate your thoughts. we all benefit from hearing your comments today.

sometimes in city hall we hear only one perspective, and we do not necessarily here the perspective of your database citizens or running your business or who have frustrations with parking meters or he wants to bsee recreation and parks services be better. thank you for that. one plug. we had the sunday streets event this week in our district. it starts at 10:00 and i believe it goes to 3:00 on the great highway. please come out with your family with your bikes and walking shoes. >> i want to thank again our office of immigration affairs and civic engagement for translation for people who are here. obviously we have a rich diversity and the city. i am glad we can get people who speak different languages and tell us what they need as well. thank you, everybody, for being here, and giants. -- go giants. [applause]