issued permits is 46 percent greater than last year. in terms of expenditures as you know our greatest expenditure is personnel. right now we are at about 61 percent whereas the year passed it's 75 percent. they are where we start to see the problem that we have with being able to fill positions. if you look at year to date last year, versus year to date this year, we are tracking just a little less than the same time last year. in terms of position, we are continuing to fill as many as we can. we made offers for the chief building

inspectors for 3, they were promotions within the department. we hired 7 building inspectors for the last which started this last monday. the 15th. we hired for the summer engineering student interns. 78 people took the exam for housing inspectors and we are reconstituting for 7. i don't know how many have passed and then we are going to interview 11, for 11 electrical inspectors for the end of this month. several of those are people that are working for the department as provisional. but even with that, if all those folks were select, we would still have a net gain of 6 positions. other improvements in the next if you months,

senior electrical inspectors, engineers, clerks and plumbing inspect or. we are trying to staff up the department of human resources is still working with us in trying to move forward so we can have sufficient positions on board to meet the need to provide services. so at the year-end, we are projecting to have a fund balance that consist of $29 million that we have rolling into current year, plus another roughly $10 million or a little more coming to about $10 million at the end of the fiscal year. and we talked about doing a review and

analysis about our reserve and what would be logical to do with the fund balance, that report is completed. it was in your package and heather mcdonalds from the controllers office is here to give a quick summary for you about that report. i do want to thank the city services auditor's staff, heather mcdonalds and my staff for working on this report. it was a lot of information that we provided, we poured over whether to have sufficient funding and whether there were other opportunities. so i'm going to turn this over to heather.

>> good morning. congratulations on your election. i'm with the auditors division of the controllers office. as deputy director the controllers office was engaged to conduct the financial analysis to recommend an economic stabilization reserve as well as strategic one time investment in the fund balance in the cyclical nature in the construction industry. our project methodology consist of historic and cyclical revenues, expenditures, staffing hours and defer credits. to support our recommended economic

stabilization reserve level, we also perform a bench marking analysis of building inspection agencies across the state given their recent economic decline. lastly our office reviewed documentation in government best practices regarding reserve levels. our office developed 4 key which i will review individually in the next few slides. first is to create an economic stabilization level, that the be $17 million. the second recommendation is to remain the balance to improve the efficacy of the department's core services. third the department

should provide better staffing for the code and, benchmarking analysis of california building inspection agencies reserve levels. create an economic stabilization reserve level of four months of operating expenses. invest the remaining surplus in strategic one time capital investment over the next few fiscal years. increase staffing living to better meet the current work loads. conduct a fee study to ensure various departments services remained aligned with assessed fee levels. >> these are revenues that are tied to construction cycles.

the numerical cal outs on the right of this chart include a shortfall during the down turn year of 2009-2011. we felt that had dbi approximately 4 months of fiscal year 2008 of total revenues. would have been able to meet cyclical revenue trend line from 2009-2011 thereby an allowing future increases in work. our office also received the government finance officers association for appropriate levels of fund balance. they recommend no less than 2 months of regular operating reserve. the government consider the

volt tilt of revenue and other natural disasters before federal aid is available. our office believes that a reserve of 4 months is justified. lastly pure building inspection agencies around the state. their targeted reserve levels varied from one to six months so recommends levels of operating cost falls within this range. our office second recommendation is the designated remaining balance of approximately 26 million dollars for one capital

expenditures for building improvements which will improve the department core services. this is a capital investment opportunity in partnership with dbi and department of real estate, and capital planning and will be used by dbi for further discussions. our office's next recommendation that dbi should continue to work with the office to ensure the staff positions are approved. this will allow tbi to increase levels of staff. the inspection building departments conduct a fee study every five year to ensure the direct and indirect cost are aligned with the currently assessed fee levels. it should conduct the study of

the next fiscal year since the last year it was conducted in 2008 and fees were increased in 2009. the immediate next steps for dbi to incorporate the economic state and reserve for future budget. they should work with capital planning to strategic plan for these capital investment. in the previous slide conduct the next study for the next fiscal year. thank you for your attention. any questions or comments from the commission? >> i just wanted to say this is really excellent work. thank you so much for your thoroughness and clarityey of the presentation. it's really appreciated. >> thank you. it was a pleasure to work with the great team. thank you. >> i would like to echo that. i didn't even know were you doing

this. you were working really hard. there is a lot of questions here answered that we've been trying to get our heads around and it's difficult to get those facts. this cements that. thank you for facilitate ing and getting this done. i know it's words you live in, but it's easier said than done. thank you. >> item five b, propose legislation. >> public affairs again. as i just mentioned a few minutes ago, the mandatory soft story legislation did pass unanimously 11-0 at the board and the mayor will sign it

tomorrow and we are basically off to the implementation stage of that one. i believe you also are aware of this grab bar legislation that was passed and recently signed by the mayor, chief housing has put together notification material that will be on their way out to the owners of the sro buildings incorporate some of the mayor's office of disability recommendation on how to install them per this commissioners recommendation if owners act in the next 60 days we will wave those building permit fees for these grab bar installations. anything after that 60 day period which i believe is running from early june to around june 14th will then be subject to normal dbi

fees. i have mentioned to you before we have with us today another item that you will be hearing on supervisor tang's reintroduction on the awning replacing during the month of may. we did this last year for small businesses to replace and refresh their business look. last year we had about 10 permits that came in during that fee waiver period. we are hoping that maybe next year we'll have more advanced preparation for this and there will be an opportunity for this supervisors office and myself to do more outreach so small businesses are aware of this opportunity during the month of may. we are observing into the month of may, small business awareness month as well as

building safety month that we do every year. one other catch up item is on the toxic legislation that i have mentioned to you in previous reports and the city attorney is coming up with another version based on from dbi and from the puc and b [!ez dpw and going over this, essentially this will expand the zone for these projects beyond just the perimeter we had for many many years. so we are likely to have many more projects that will fall into this expanded toxic area. the challenge there will be to identify when a project is in this ma har area. the project

owner is going to have to then go to dph and make sure their toxicity levels in the soil and ground water meet d ph standards. dph is going to release the letter to the director of dbi so we can then actually issue whatever permit we maybe reviewing on that specific block. essentially as i understand it the process is going to continue to work as it has been working. it's just that given the building, given the mandatory soft story retrofit and how that may disturb such cubic yard soil which is a key trigger for this dph review, we are anticipating that this could increase the volume of reviews by dph significantly as well as planning and we have especially

asked dph to ensure they have sufficient staffing to deal with this. the acting director has made a suggestion that they have a dpa director to sign off authority as one of the work stations to expedited those types of review. that is what we are still waiting to hear from that. but according to the mayor's schedule for this legislation, it probably will be introduced at the end of april. it will go to the advisory commission in may. it will come back to you probably in may and they hope to have it take effect in the middle of july. so, just fyi, more details are coming on that. i will mention one other one which is supervisor chiu's

bottle filling station, that is a piece of legislation we have talked about before where it now will apply only to new construction but as you know the building code requires depending on the occupancy load a certain number of water fountains to provide water to people and they must be accessible according to disability requirement. supervisor chiu 's legislation requires, that provides water as well as a person to fill a bottle. his goal to try to eliminate plastic water bottles from landfills. i understand that is very likely to come back with a recommendation to you, although the supervisor's intent if i understand it correctly is to have this take effect on the first of july.

those are 2 new pieces that we are waiting on. i believe that's about all in the way of new legislation i can tell you about. >> thank you, mr. strong. >> item c. update on tracking system. >> acting director. unfortunately today our mis manager had a family emergency. she is not present today. generally the new system is under way on time and then also to mention about the testing on those device. we have two options. one is the samsung phone and the other one is the notebook. i think they are still trying out, i think they

have those device ones finish the comment and have all the inspectors using it. >> okay. thank you. >> item five d. update on major projects. >> as we have roughly 34 cranes in town right now. and then the number of projects still coming in, the major projects hopefully, we prepare for it because that's one year next time to do the organization and information to the public. we are trying to start our plan checker and the clerk and there is inspect or for those special tasks. any questions on the

major project? >> just let us know if you are not getting the help you need with regard to the staff. okay. >> is there any public comment on the director's report? item 5a through d? >> i know the time restriction here so i have been requested for the item the close session the key person we need there from the city attorneys office is on a time restriction. and would have to leave here about 1:15. so we have another dilemma here with regard to the scheduling of the calendar. so would 2 to ask here, one is we go into closed session now and change the calendar lineup or 3

we continue. i don't know if you will continue today or not. >> only item i think we have is item no. six and i think we will need to hear that today. >> i want to move 13 to 6 position. >> somebody here from the supervisors office. okay. >> but the closed session is -- so with that. can i get any comments on that? do you want to go into closed session or would you like to continue? >> i would say that we continue with no. 6. i don't think it's going to be very long. you know about how long your presentation might be? >> so not to move 13 to 6. just

to keep six and we are all okay to move after six to move 13 to no. 10? yes. and we are cognizant that to move to closed session. >> yes. ordinance file no. 1234. the planning code 302355 a in amending building code for the month of may for certain facade i am improvements including environmental findings with the general plan and priorities policies. i'm here on behalf of katie tang. we are introducing

this ordinance to provide level -- in recognizes of small business month. this ordinance was passed last year and as was also mentioned we received 10 fee waivers and are expecting to do additional outreach this month in preparation for may to make sure that we can either in crease those fee waivers or get information regarding the need and necessity procedure around replacing awnings and signs. one to support the difference and the ordinance that we felt was very important. a lot of small businesses owners felt it was very educational that they want to replace the signs, apply for permit and pay fees.

so we expect to continue that educational outreach in front of you, there is a packet that we would like to give to small businesses. these are statements that we want to go into if they want to replace awning and signs. it will be translated into three languages. english, chinese and spanish. we plan to work with other offices as well as the office of small business in job squad in neighborhoods for get ting this out. we apologize for the short time in this translation. we want to offer something for small business month because it is a priority

to get something done for small businesses and we hope to do more preparation and planning in advance. if there are any questions. >> would this be available on your website? >> yes. >> i think this is good and we supported it last year. i think we should support it again this year. i would ask the supervisor announce it with all of your colleagues and chambers because i think every supervisor district has a small business corridor. last year we felt this is under utilized. there were no more permits than we normally got. i would like to have a little competition and that maybe at the end of

may we'll come back and we'll say what the most permits were taken out by whatever because then we can have an idea. because i think it's in incumbent upon your office to do this outreach. >> that is a great idea and in our discussion with our supervisors make sure they get out to the community. >> give our best to your new supervisor. >> anymore questions? >> seeing none. thank you. >> any public comment on item six. seeing none , we move to make a motion to approve.

commission seconded it. is there a roll call vote on this item. president mccarthy, aye, mar, yes, clinch, yes, mccray, yes, melgar, yes. the item is approved unanimously. now we need to vote to move item 13 on the agenda. >> if there is no objection, i would like to move item 13. >> second. all all the commissioners in favor? >> ayes. >> any opposed. there is none opposed. pursuant to government code section. in the san francisco administrative code,

67.did 2 item a is there any public comment on all matters pertaining to closed session? seeing none. there is nothing possible to close to convene section. >> i move to closed section. >> second. >> all commissioners in favor. any opposed we are now in closed session. it is now 12:25 p.m.. >>