a very good person and she kept us kind of focused. we did things call ksa and don't ask me what it means, she asked a lot of questions about what we expect that american to do when they get there, what skill sets, and she uses her expertise as saying, yeah, at the end of the process, for instance, she was she had a couple... she had certain questions and we have to include these. so it is give and take back and forth. but we are through all of that and we should be fine for the next year or two as far as human resource is concerned. as far as training people. you are right. it is going to take us quite some time, usually inspection service, when they come in, we will put them in the easier districts when i say easier districts that is single family wood frame, for instance, around ocean avenue, suncrest and, richmond district.

they can get up to speed quick on that because they are looking at the same projects over and over again. we are not going to stick a brand new person down downtown unless this person comes from another jurisdiction and he shows that he is extremely competent. at plan check it is a lot harder because it is much more by the book and it is technical. and we will instruct him on the larger project and we will assign him down the duty down the division to get boned up on the inspections. and usually when we hire them. they are in the middle of getting certificates, and so they are pretty well up on the code. it is just the common sense of how you apply the code to that customer in front of you. >> what does that code actually say? what is your parameter? s what is your limit? and the new people of course, are always having to check the

resources where our more experienced people are saying, yes, that is section 701 and that is this. and they can cut through it a lot faster. but i think that since we have those lists, i feel confident that we can keep drawing off of them if we have the openings of the 60-plus people, i think that we can have them in a chair in the next couple of months. it is just right now we have been sort of borrowing from code enforcement and borrowing for technical service. and we have to get those programs up and running, and running quickly. >> director? >> yeah, commissioner... actually, we last year, we already realized that there is a big, you know, lots through the pipeline, and that is why we have presume to the commission, you know, beginning

last year, with all of the major projects and outline what we need. and lucky that we have, the commissioner helped us to get, you know, four or five of those engineer coming in right away. and to help us. meanwhile to address or in sure that we have them from the department. and it is not efficient that way. you cannot get them from the street to do it right away tha. is mike me trying to get those people behind me, jet mar and those actually... and then we have these realized that those people don't come here and after a few months they are starting to have more production. >> and i didn't mean to borrow, plan checkers and staff. i meant, specifically hr. so folks to do the interviewing, the reviewing of resumes and sort of that.

>> if they already did that. >> okay. >> they did a good job, serious, a very good. and a particular person. very precise. however, sometimes i am pulling my hair and, why you are asking me so many questions? we are trying to do that. and we have all of the questions ready, and we need to set up the panel and then for you, and then they realize all of those lucky, you know, we have to cooperate together to try to get it done. >> thank you. >> deputy director i know that you want to weigh in here. >> yes. >> director administrative's services i want to give you an idea of where we are right now. we currently of the 7 vacancies we can only fill 49 of them

because of the attrition level, what are we doing? the 49 equate to the 63 bodys, okay? and so i have a really aggressive plan that i am meeting with the hr tomorrow based on initial plan that they gave me of their testing and developing exams and getting us lists and the majority of our positions right now, are where we have to actually develop position-based testing, which is similar to what we had to do for some of the engineers, and for the building inspectors, we do have a person that is unfortunately a different person than we were dealing with because she had to return back to pec, but we have a person that is there as a senior, and her manager, are very engaged with us, to make sure that we can get these positions filled. that we have so that when we get to the end of this fiscal

year, again, this is aggressive, but when we get to the end of the fiscal year, we will end up just having the amount, a number of and it will fill all 63 of the positions let's just put it that way. but the position-based testing do require an experts that can participate in developing some of the tasks especially for the it people. the... we have a lot of clerks that we have created a new classification for. and we are doing developing those position-based testing for those and basically we have a person full time. and so, what i as i said, i am meeting with them tomorrow, trying to, you know, somehow rather reduce the amount of time that it takes hem to end up being able to give us a list. they are, the other thing that

has happened s that the mayor's office changed the policy, in january, first, effective january first. that a lot of the positions will know longer have to go through this requisition committee. that was cava and cal ahan and there is a third person who is the director or the budget director. and so, there is more of an ability for our budget analysts to get those positions approved in terms of requisitions. >> again, i'm on the phone with this guy, sending him e-mails and staying on top of this the best that i can. and i think he realizes that we do have this necessity, he also has planning as one of the departments. so he is kind of hit from both sides, on what the activity is. >> thank you, looking forward to seeing those numbers by the end of the year. >> great.

>> all right. if there is... >> okay. >> any public comment? >> item five? >> i believe that there is. >> seeing none. >> there is. >> there is? i am sorry. >> good morning, commissioners, i just want for say that what i found and i realized that we are short on staff but quite frankly, the inspection schedule in two days and so i think that it is quite good considering that it is cold today and we have inspecters for friday and monday and a holiday and one is a plumbing and the other one is a building. so, it has gone quite well, introducing the staff as sort of low and, what i am really pleased and i think that you will hear this a lot from the other people is the management is putting up three-hour reports now in four days rather than ten and that is really excellent. i got, the other day goals in three days even. so it is a great job, so

just..., thank you >> thank you for those updates. they are helpful. >> next speaker? >> seeing none, madam secretary? >> item number six, discusses and possible action to award a contract to executive search firm to assist in the building commission in its hiring of permanent director and direct staff to work with the human resources department to final lies the contract terms and issue said contract. the three firms are a lie anssinger, bob murray, and ralph anderson and associates. >> this is take two, we were trying to do this last month and i did not read my minutes. or i did not read my agenda items and i left out the fact that we had to take an action on this. so we are back here.

we had a detailed discussion, obviously commissioner walker was not here and so if she wants to weigh in or if you have questions on this. but, not to leave the conversation but we are leaning towards one that we want to vote on. >> i think that the three, top choices any of them would be fine, i personally have experience with bob murray and associates who helped us the last time ta we went through this. i think that all of the, especially the top two, that i think, people are talking about, have experience with planning and building officials which is critical because those relationships will give us a wider reach in candidates. so that is really keep for me for making sure that they had connections in the industry that we are trying to look at

for candidates. do we need further discussion on this? i had said that if she wanted to recap on what ted had said particularly for commissioner walker if not i would like to call one of the i would like to call for one of these to approved here, which the one that i am calling for is alliance and a vote for that. >> i second the motion. >> that is a motion. >> so, we had a second on that. >> okay. >> and do we have to do public comment on that before we vote on it? >> yes. >> there is a motion, by president mccarthy and a second by commissioner melgar to select alliance resources. is there any public comment on this item?

>> with no public comment, i will call a roll call vote. >> president mccarthy >> aye. >> commissioner clinch? >> yes. >> lee. >> yes. >> commissioner mccray? >> yes. >> commissioner melgar? >> yes. >> commissioner walker. >> yes. >> motion carries unanimously. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> item number 7, discussion and possible action of the proposed budget of the department of building inspection for fiscal years, 2013/2014, and 2014/2015. >> just as a follow up to the last item, will there be a schedule as to when we are going to schedule meetings and stuff as soon as possible? interview, meetings, etc.? >> deputy director why don't you just weigh in i know that you have the answer.

>> deputy director, ted is taking a lead on this project with the human resources department. i will be working with him and the staff on the contract itself and come up with a schedule. we have to come up with a scope of work. the one thing that i wanted to tell you about alliance is that based on our last discussion, it was important to the commission that i guarantee will be given not just if the individual leaves because we want them to leave, within a year, that they will come back and do the recruitment again. with only costing administrative costs. and that is one of the things that they guaranteed. they also guaranteed that if the individual leaves and this is only applicable to the individuals who are selected from outside of the city. but if an individual leaves,

and on their own volition within the first year, they are going to come back and help us refill the position with just administrative costs. >> only if they are not san francisco-based? >> no. only if they are within, if they work for the city currently, and they decide to go to another job, within that first year, then they are they are not guaranteeing that they will come back for no cost. but they are guaranteeing that if they recommend a person outside of the city, comes in and leaves, then they will. now ted and i will work on negotiating a contract, you know, this is all negotiations. and if you desire a different kind of scenario, and we can talk to them about it. >> well, it seems that they are recommending somebody, does not matter where they are.

personally. >> i actually have not had a conversation with them. so i don't know their logic in doing that in their need of something that is logical. >> okay. >> so, that is what ted as i said, ted is going to take the lead on this. and also will be working with president mccarthy. >> i think that it is okay because ultimately, our commission decides who is going to be the director. so it may or may not be somebody that is currently working in city government. here. >> yeah. i know, i mean that i think that it was the guarantee of they will come back and help us, but not if somebody, if we hire somebody who is already working in the city government that seems kind of odd so i would like a explanation about that. i would too. >> thank you for all of your work on this deputy director.

>> okay. next item now? >> call item six, already. >> thanks. >> i am sorry, item seven. we are currently on item seven, discussion and possible action on the proposed budget. >> that is to keep you all awake. >> yeah, the air-conditioning is on. >> is there anything that we can do about that? >> you are trying to kill me. >> it is a conspiracy. >> can i go ahead? >> go ahead. >> you can go ahead. >> deputy director of administrative services. today is the first meeting of the 13, is 14, and 15. proposed budget, i have what i

hope is a short presentation. so i think that i can talk forever about this budget, but i am want to thank a couple of people, i want to thank our acting finance director gale for all of her work on this and she may be if you come up with some mind-bending kinds of questions, she has all of the facts in her head. and i also want to thank acting director huey and the other two directors ed and dan for working with their staff and turning around their requests so quickly. let me do a little bit of the way back machine. and this, the city went to a two-year budget last year. currently it is a what we will call a ruling budget, which means that we are not we get to revisit the second year, so,

even though we have a starting point which was what was approved already for 13/14, we get to revisit that and then we are putting together the budget for 14/15. so we are requesting some changes, to the budget, and so, i will be focusing in on that and why we think that we have the revenues to be able to cover this. >> so, there is kind of a starting point that is different than the starting point you know in the past. >> i gave you a copy of this. so that you could follow along. easier, more easily. >> so, what we have done in the past since i have been here is to try to start our budgets through principles you know, what are we trying to achieve? what are the principles that we

have? and so the first problem is of course, what we have mentioned which is funding positions so that we have effective enforcement. and this is funding positions throughout the department and to be able to meet the continuing increase in the construction activity. without getting into a situation where if there is a down turn we will have to layoff, the you know, the 25 percent layoff that we had a couple of years ago. the second is to continue to provide services efficiently, so in that sense, we are proposed replacing vehicles and remodeling the building and increasing our community out reach. and then in the third kind of principle priority is safe and enforcement, safe and fair enforcement of the building codes. and provision of services so that really is aimed at continuing to train our staff. one of the things that kind of

went on the way side when we had the reduction in staff, excuse me. >> we don't have your flu yet. >> by the time the meeting is over. >> and one of the things that went away with the staff is that we stopped training people as much as we need to. so, we still have a very aggressive training schedule, and a lot of topics that people, you know, the inspecters and our engineer need to be trained on. and so we have looked at... >> commissioner walker has a question. >> i am looking at the more detailed version of this. and i do have a question about this. because we talk about increased money, and houpts technical assistance for it which is great and training for housing inspect ors on recognizing and

referring individuals with mental health on the sites. >> that is an interesting question. so we are increasing our professional services. one, of course, is what you mentioned about the it, because as we get more complicated and we move over to a different system verses the oricale we have to keep our people trained. and the other thing that was requested by our staff was to have more knowledge in terms of our inspectors on what the issues are that they walk in to and how to deal with them and how to refer them to people and how to be more sensitive to their needs. i have talked to although, have not gone into a lot of details

with the person that is, or the people on the street that have to deal with this. this is not so they give mental health services this is just so that when they run into this kind of situation, you know, a horder, clutter, and that they are better able to you know, kind of understand but deal with them and make, you know, give them some sort of you know, referals or something like that. because i mean, they end up going into a lot of situations, i have heard where they go in and they want get into the room even though there is a lot of complaints about it. and the sro, and, it turns out that you know, there is a lot of electrical equipment and all of these kind of wiring that is

problematic and but yet they can't, they have a hard time communicating. >> yeah, i know, it is a lot of a goal. i would suggest, maybe, that we also hook in our or code enforcement groups and the sro collaboratives who have experience in that as well. just to complete the picture. >> right. >> that might be a good way to connect in those folks that are doing that work for us. >> i think that it would be really helpful. >> i do think that it is important, i just think that it is a very sensitive area and we just want to make sure that we do it right. >> the other thing is being able to put money in a place to work with the hr if we need to

have a person there dedicated to our needs over and above what we are paying for, it is somebody to do the exams or someone to do the position-based testing, someone to do, you know, more work, so i have talked to dhr, and they would like us not to have a work order, but have it as the ability for us to use them if we need, but not have them balance their budget around assuming that we are going to pay that. which i think is a good idea. so that was one of the things that, you know, i mean, we are hoping that will be in a good position by the end of this year, but in the event that we aren't. then we need to have somebody working with us dedicated to us. >> >> so in terms of revenues,

this is a chart that shows that we continue to see growth, especially from 2013, through what we are proposing in 13/14, the budget, we have been reporting for the current year, we are projecting a 12 percent increase in charges for service. as you know we are seeing a lot of activity and the acting director will go over the major projects later. what we are proposing is to keep to not increase the charges for service above what the projection is. so in other words, budget for next year, the same level that we are right now. and the only increase that would be there would be starting to use some of our fund balance for one time types of activities. >> so, use the fund balance for the remodel of the building and

use the fund balance for the... some of the contracts. that we don't you know, that are, that truly are one time. so that we are really focusing our revenues into the right place. >> so, that is the increase, and then the next years we are putting in a one percent over-all increase from between the 13-14, and the 14/15. so what we are seeing is we are going to have it at least the level of activity that we currently have now for next year, and that we will have more a little more for the following year. so we are not being overly optimistic, but we are being not pessimistic about the

growth. >> in terms of expenditures this shows actual expenditures up through 11/12 and the budget for 12/13 and the projections on ward. we have as you know been under budget in terms of our expenditures because of not being able to fill positions. we are assuming a greater rate of field position and less vacantcies so we are pretty optimistic that we have the revenues and therefore, we want to focus in on certain areas, community out reach, training, contract and professional service as commissioner walker and equipment and materials and supplies. >> and i wanted to quickly talk

about positions. the reason that you are seeing, this is based on budgets, so the reason that you are seeing this huge drop from 08 to 09 to 9, 10 is because of the large reduction in staffing that we had to do. so, what we are seeing is that we are and this is where we start to get into the kind of the realm of what was approved for 13/14, verses what we are going to ask for in addition to that. so, what we are asking for we had approved an addition of 4.62 fgs which is essentially 6 positions and that was approved by the board for 13/14 and we are asking for an additional 6.93 positions in 13-14, which is basically 9 head count. so we would end up with a head

count of 15 positions in 13/14 and then we are requesting another head count of 3 positions in 14/15. remember, because it is a budget, we get to revisit 15/16, but we want to start out at least with a reservation of having approved positions. >>