and i want to welcome you to the district 4 in district 7 town hall on the budget. i am pleased to organize this alongside with the mayor. the big purpose is to be able to hear directly from you and get your feedback about what you want to see in the budget. we have done this one year before in the same spot and had a different format, one where our department had spent all of time what they talked about and we did not hear from you, the community. today, we want to flip that and hear from you. we're going to have very brief comments and we will introduce the department heads in the room today. then we will launch right into the neighbor's presentation. with that, why don't i introduce my co-conspirator in this budget town hall. supervisor elsbernd: welcome to

beautiful district 7. we are technically in district 7, so welcome. we want to keep these introductory remarks brief because we want to hear from you. this is your opportunity, one of many. you are here today and we are here today, but from now through july, call us, e-mail us, we need to hear your input on what you want to see in this budget and don't think if you don't get it out today you will have more opportunities. carmen and i are excited we have the mayor here today. it is a real honor to have him out here and an honor for all of you to have your opportunity to speak to the person who between now and june 1 is crafting our budget and it is going to have the largest influence on what we see it in next year's budget. with that, the mayor of san francisco, ed lee. mayor lee: thank you,

supervisors, and welcome to our zoo. i would like to think tonya peterson who is here. thank you for hosting us. we are safe because the zoo director is here. it is great to be out here and we are enjoying the wonderful weather. this is the fourth of six budget town hall meetings we are holding all over the city and i want to thank both supervisors, and carmen has been at every single one of them. she will be helping the mayor to establish and craft to make the best decisions about are very complicated city budget. but i want to say that it begins, and the budget -- i was here last year when we had a lot of input from you and that in

but did make a difference. we are listening very carefully. that is the only way i feel i and the board of supervisors can run this city well, is to listen to what the people in the neighborhoods and running small businesses say, going out there and getting your input. i want to say thank you to all of the various department heads with us today because they have been spending their saturdays and weekday evenings with us as they listened very carefully. they have commissions and commissioners who are here today giving us input, so we will have a lot of input and i hope you feel your government is listening because that is the way we ought to be making sure the budget reflects the highest priorities of our cities. we know some of those things already. we want to keep this city safe and make sure it is solvent. these are things we talked about last year. because in the last year things

have improved a little bit, i want to let you know we have a ways to go to get out of this deficit, but we are making progress. last year, when i was talking about that budget, our unemployment rate was at about 9.5% to about one year ago. today, it hovers around 8%. we're trying to get it below 8%. what that means is 17,300 people found jobs in our city. that is a very good starting and it is my strong intention to make sure more people find that it. 8% means there are 37,000 people still without jobs who are residents of san francisco. i will be working hard. jobs is my number one focus because jobs for youth, for people looking mitt careers, returning veterans, it would be really helpful if the city did

everything it can to make sure there are jobs and all kinds of areas from tourism to the medical field to the technology field with which we are partnering up with in a lot of ways. in return, we get companies who are succeeding a little bit better. they joined me this past friday with their school district, with our city college and other institutions to create a target of 5000 summer jobs for our kids. all of you should make sure you talk to the kids aged 16-24 this summer and get into the program. we are creating 5000 jobs for our city departments to have 2500 of them to private sectors like the zynga, at&t, bank of america, wells fargo, they are all making a commitment to hire and have paid internships the the summer. we're working hard with everyone to make sure the city is

successful. we want to continue that. this year, we want to make sure you are involved and you know the way to find solutions is to innovate and make sure we are working in a public-private setting. i want to make sure our city as a whole is investment friendly, that we create an investor confidence in our city. when we do that, as you realize, we are not getting more state funds. it is cutting all the time. governor brown and the state legislature cannot figure their way out to greater revenues except for tax proposals they are proposing. but in the meantime, they have been cutting a lot of programs. it all falls on the city and county, so we have to be an investment-friendly city and have a relationship with private

industry to make sure we create jobs and get a better tax base. that is what i am working hard on doing and i hope you will let us know what you think is the most important thing we need to pay attention to in this budget. we will hold these budget meetings and a lot of other meetings and hearings. the board of supervisors will hold a series of meetings. you have a lot of input and we will make sure it reflects the kinds of priorities you suggest for this year. thank you very much for spending this saturday morning in this lovely area of our town. [applause] supervisor chu: before we begin, i want to think a lot of the folks to help to make this possible. the volunteers, the mayor's office, the office of civic engagement doing translation service, the mayor's office on

disability and media services and sfgtv. supervisor elsbernd: we have a number of the department heads. the ground rules are simple -- hopefully when you walked in, you sign din and the of a question, you have already filled out. we are going to alternate district for question, district 7 question. they will pull them out randomly. carmen or i will come to you when your name is called in to be the opportunity to ask your question. we would like to keep the question between two and three minutes and we will keep the responses brief. try not to ask a question that necessitates a 20 minute answer. anything we are unable to get to you, we will have your contact information and complete the answer if we do not do it today. but let's try to keep everything as respectful as we possibly can.

supervisor chu: just quickly, can i ask the department representatives to please stand. if you could just say your name and department quickly. >> public works. >> city administrator. >> child support services. >> mayors education adviser and chairing the budget committee for the school district. >> emergency management. >> department of public health. >> fire department. >> deputy chief from the san francisco fire department. >> housing authority. >> recreation and park department. >> public libraries. >> human services agency. >> department of aging and adult services. >> mayors house -- mayor's office of housing.

>> mayor's office of disability. supervisor chu: we have a number of different presentations and our department heads are here to answer presentations -- to answer questions. thank you for coming. we do have a number of presentations today. each of the presentations are from respectively district for and district 7. a few folks we wanted to come up and say some words on behalf of the neighborhood. first, we will begin with district 4 and a founding member of the friends of west sunset and has a lot of thoughts around family and recreation services. mayor lee: if anyone needs translation services, raise your hand and we will get to you. channel 2 is cantonese and channel one is russian. if anybody need to rethink our raise your hand and we will get

to you. >> , longtime president of district 4, the sunset district. -- i would like to comment on how the city is putting effort into updating the playground and recreation areas, including the west sunset playground. these areas are desperately needed to keep more families from xing san francisco. but more needs to be done to end this. this park located on a busy thoroughfare would be a positive sign for everyone that drives 19th avenue that the city is committed to keeping families within san francisco. once we update all of these areas, we must put the effort into programs and activities that will benefit the residents of these areas. only through these means will we be sending a positive, progressive sign to residents

that the city is committed to keeping families in san francisco. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. why don't we give him a round of applause? [applause] the next speaker is the president of the hour sunset merchants association. >> thank you. as the president of a small district business that runs from 19 to 27 avenue and irving street with 127 small businesses, we think things considered for this coming budget, including changes to the payroll tax, i would urge city government to consider the fact that investing in small business and allowing small businesses to flourish which is incredibly difficult in san francisco is something that needs to be given a lot of thought.

small businesses in san francisco represent a lot of san francisco's individuality. an expression as much as a mural on the wall or a museum. it is how residents who live and work your give you pieces of themselves that keep this place individual. that is why we do not have a ton of chain stores. the city also puts us at a competitive disadvantage by virtue of the additional fees and taxes we pay. we are at the mercy of being 15% to 20% higher priced across the bay etc.. i would like to point out because it i am also a city under myself. the problem is it is a little bit short-sighted the way the city spends its money. by spending money locally, by

san francisco spending money here, you retained the sales tax and retain a larger portion of the revenue because money spent at local businesses purses large chains, 67% stays in the pot that floats around san francisco where as 43% goes outside. there is a 50% difference in how the money stays in the pinball what is revenue spending. this policy is at best shortsighted where we are going outside the city for things that can be provided inside the city. at best, it is shortsighted and at worst, it is hypocritical. the competitive disadvantage to create hurts my business. the same is true for many city providers.

i would urge you to take a look at that and look at how much revenue as being blood outside the city and necessarily before considering additional taxes on small businesses that are already struggling. it is extremely hard to keep a small business in business in this city. we are all here because we love it and we want the individuality we get to express because we agree with the politics and beauty of san francisco. but it is incredibly difficult to stay here and maintain the ideas -- ideals and maintain a successful business. local businesses provide a tremendous amount of jobs. when you talk about making jobs, small business is the place to do that. hamstringing as with a gross receipts tax is not going to help the situation whatsoever. you could look at statistics on a turnover of small businesses in the last couple of years

because the turnover has increase. we have seen an increase in vacancies and turnover that is indicative of things that are not healthy. in terms of how the city spends its money, we are all concerned with the same things -- safe streets, beautiful parks, quality of life, something we get here that we can't get somewhere else. but the city needs to look at its budget like the city itself is a small business. i can't just reach out to my customers -- and going to lose customers why raise my prices. if you raise our prices, you will lose some of us and you have no way to quantify what that will cost you in the long run until it actually happens. i would ask for some

significant looking at statistics that might help to close some of those budget gaps and help support businesses here and allow us to flourish because more of the money will stay here. thank you. [applause] supervisor chu: if i could invite from district 7, karen would. -- karen wood. >> good morning. i'm the vice president of the maryland park improvement club speaking on behalf of the clubs were than 600 members about the serious community safety challenges posed by the police department staffing deficit. park emperor club safety committee spends many hours each week working with officers on a

community safety challenges. we have learned that active collaboration between community members is essential to safe and thriving communities. all of our city agencies face great funding constraints. but staffing constraints will erode community policing and quality of life through the city and all aspects of our lives. the police permit staffing has dropped below charter mandated levels. with the approaching retirement of hundreds of experienced officers and no academy class is scheduled for the upcoming fiscal year, officers will be unable to provide protective services and only be able to respond to emergency calls and community policing will suffer. the reduction of san francisco's silent cry weight will be reversed. a program serving high risk queues will suffer proportionately. we are aware of staffing is

currently down 200 officers from the charter mandate and 265 officers are due to retire over the next two fiscal years. four to five academy classes would be required each year for the next two years just to meet the charter mandate. i am here to urge you to prioritize police department funding to prevent the erosion of police services and recommending funding support of four police academy class during the next two fiscal years. to maximize current resources, funding should be provided as previously mandated by the voters, a civilian as asian of police department positions requiring staffing by sworn officers. the cost of hiring civilian staff would be prudent, long- term investment in cost savings to the department sustainability of the community's well-being. thank you for your time.

[applause] supervisor chu: our final speakers from the elder son set great highway area. >> and good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak. i am the neighborhood watch block captain for a neighborhood that is increasingly being called la playa park. we have been working closely with stakeholders to address a range of issues in our neighborhood. among these are traffic and pedestrian safety concerns throughout our neighborhood and in the sunset area in general. particularly at the loop. we are very supportive of various beautification projects that have been taking place. we are experiencing something of

a renaissance in the hour sunset. other issues we have been addressing include oversize vehicles. some are stored there by residents elsewhere in the city. some are inhabited and we have had ongoing issues of sewage disposal, waste disposal, drug use and so forth. homeless this is another issue. many people might consider a quiet backwater, our neighborhood, but we do have a homeless population of maybe a dozen or more in our neighborhood. they are sleeping in parks and so forth. needless to say, a lot of these folks struggle with drug and out called addiction. we could use support in that regard. there is also the issue of illegal activity taking place

around the murphy when the bill in golden gate park. it is kind of a dangerous and sketchy place and many neighbors do not feel comfortable going into the park on that side. what do we need? more police officers certainly -- we've worked with a succession of captains and they have been phenomenally supportive of our efforts to address these various concerns, but their resources are stretched thin. homeless outreach in our neighborhood is much appreciated. we could use that. resources for beautification projects. a solution to the legal activity taking place in the western end of the park. that has been a problem that has been ongoing for decades and we could use some help. this is a quick list of some of our concerns and we appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.

[applause] supervisor chu: so we have had a number of speakers just to talk about neighborhood issues. they are representative of some of the things we hear on a daily basis, whether it's pedestrian safety, the challenge of small- business, making sure our corridors are vibrant and clean. there are a ton of different issues that we hope you will hear further from. but in my haste to get straight to the committee voice, i skipped over the budget presentation. at this point, i think it would be important to hear about the budget a little bit. i would like to invite the mayor's budget office to a quick presentation for us. >> good morning, everyone thank you for coming out. i'm going to do a quick overview of where we are in the budget.

our of last year's adopted budget was $6.8 billion. half of that is what we talked about as being the general fund. half of that is what we call enterprise funds like the airport, the mta and some other smaller departments. those departments have their around dedicated revenue streams and are responsible for balancing themselves within their own budget and revenue streams. the other half is what we call the general funds. that is what we are talking about when we talk about the deficits the city has. we are really talking about the general fund deficit. that is about half of our budget. what do we spend the general fund money on? we spend it on a lot of services and priorities for the public.

we spend it on the social services. we spent our public safety department. we spend it on streets and infrastructure and making sure we are meeting the priorities and values of our citizens and making sure our streets are safe and comfortable for all are residents. where do we get our general fund money? we get from our tax revenues, from property taxes, business taxes, payroll tax, hotel tax. we get a significant amount of money from the state and federal government, but predicting that amount is always a difficult challenge. the state and federal governments are dealing with deficits and a lot of times they try to push that on to us. predicting the amount of federal and state revenue is a big challenge for our office. we also get revenue from all of

you through a variety of fees and payments you make for services you get from the city. what are we talking about in terms of our problem? the last few weeks, we updated what we are calling our budget deficit for the year. we are projecting we have a $170 million deficit in the first year and a $312 million deficit in the first year. this year for the first time in the city's history, we are legally required to balance the two-year budget. in the past, we would have we been dealing with the $170 million problem but this year we have to deal with both. over two years, we have $480,000,000,000.21 call for.

why has that happening? we are seeing some amount of recovery and are economics this year which is exciting. it's a very different story that we have dealt with in the last few years. we are actually seeing revenues improved, but our expenses are increasing faster than our revenue stream. it is as if we were to get a small boost and our paycheck and then go home to get letters from the landlord showing our rent had increased and letters from health insurance telling us are in premiums are going up, going to the gas station and knowing the price of gas is raising and it is eating up that little boost in your paycheck. i think a lot of you can relate to that. we are dealing with the same pressures many in the public deal with. our expenses are increasing at a faster pace than our revenues. even though we see some amount

of economic recovery, we have a problem we need to deal with. over the next six weeks, my office along with the mayor and supervisors will be working on balancing the budget and coming up with ways to solve that problem. our goal is to have a two-year balanced budget and bicol this year is to make some decisions that will result in a long-term structural balance and solutions for the city. as we balance the budget and continue looking ahead into the future, we are not going to have these major fluctuations we have dealt with in the past. we are looking to find structural solutions to make sure our expenses stay in line with our revenues.

as we balance, we are looking to balance that two-year budget. we want to make sure we are funding what we hear from the community is the priorities and goals for the city. we want to make sure we are investing in infrastructure and make sure we have found sound investments for the future. to do that, we really want to listen to you which is why we are here today. thank you and look forward to hearing from you. [applause] supervisor chu: thank you. this is a very simple view of the budget and a great summary, but it does speak to of the challenges we face. each of the department's year player role in making sure