budgeted. there's $15 million in fund that have been recovered by the city attorney's office under the state laws for only further consumer efforts and a that's correct. 15 and a half million remain from the 20 million >> so we could use it for other things. >> we can't. >> they have additional money available and a okay. and i'll be honest this has been an ongoing question last year and this year. you're in the position you have this money that is recovered due to our good work and others that could be used to do further

consumer protection. we've had beneficial results for the city. it's unclear why we wouldn't be used for another purpose. >> it could benefit taxpayers additional money being allocated for example, code enforcement throughout the city. and many code enforcement cases has a 2 hundred and 17 component. it's not just national arbitration it's about neighborhood b for nuisance abatement. i anticipate that we'll continue those discussions with the mayor's office or with this

board in the future to how we can allocate more resources that we have to be of greater benefit to the state of citizens >> you know i think the last point you made is important fitsz it's not just the major lawsuits. we deal with the code issues all the time. sometimes, the departments are not as active as they need to be in the code violations and the city attorney's office plays an important role >> the funds are made available we can make good use of it. >> thank you. thank you, mr. herrera. colleagues any further comment >> mr. herrera thank you for

the presentation. i know there's a lot of work that's been done for disadvantaged communities to work with other but we're going to talk about equity and culture appropriate community can you talk about your work to make sure that your assessable to all of san francisco >> yeah. supervisor oar you're correct in terms of the work we have done substancely whether it's he wage theft or sensitive issues around elections to be sure everyone was accounted for. it's about process and procedure and we make sure we have language accessibility in our

office to make sure we can make public increase. in terms of reaching out you may have seen we've announced a new app. it's trying to assess with the code enforcement that provides a direct link between our offices and both in city offices. many times some of our most disadvantaged and we've seen tremendous in just a short term a tremendous ability to collaborate to make sure that the folks see the results in their government. it instills confidence or in san

francisco >> thank you. colleagues any fester questions or comment? >> we'll go to our budget report from mr. rose. >> mr. chairman on page 52 of our report we report that our reductions total $58,050 and 50 thousand of one time savings is rescues that allow $3.1 million or 4 percent in the budget. and then i recommend reductions of 50 thousand are all knowing serving. we allow the 3 percent in the departments budget as i understand the city attorney concurs with our recommendations >> thank you, mr. rose.

any questions from mr. rose? >> and you're in agreement with the recommendations yes. >> colleagues with have recommendation on the table we have a motion to accept those recommendations providing that we're going to be he hearing public comment but we, have a motion to accept those rementsdz. any opposition? and so approved. next up the rent board. mr. collins.

>> good morning commission chair and a supervisors. i'm robert collins. my colleague was not able to attend the meeting she is out of the country. i will be presenting a high-level overview of the rent boards budget and an overview of the mission which is workload changed and other thanks.

to begin with the mission of the san francisco rent board as enacted in 1979 it is to assure landlords rent xhfbt with the guidelines. it protects the tenants from evictions. speaking from a high-level prospective the rent board areas can be grouptd into two it's public information and counseling unit provides information to the public regarding the rights and responsibility of landlords and tenant.

and it's administrative hearings and appeals unit provides landlord and taint arbitration and mediation to hearing with the administrative law judges. the board is dedicated to the enforcement of cities ordinances and to the fairy treatment of landlords and tenants. the agencies workload has increased during the last fiscal year. the total number of petitions filed increased by about 27 percent from one through 78 fiscal year 2010 and 2011 to fewer petitions.

the total petitions increased in fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2011 by 33 percent from same fiscal periods >> the budget changes that we are proposing for the necklaces two years are as follows the proposed budget represents an increase of 39 percent of $322,000. half of that increase is for salaries and mandatory friendly benefit increases. the proposed budget for fiscal year 2014 and 15 is about a 3

percent increase is >> i pledge allegiance to the flag and $89,000. three-quarters of that is for friendly benefits and a quarter of it is an increase in cola and salary adjustments. from is another prospective we have two positions an administrative law judge. the addition is in the process of filling the vacant council position with a spanish special condition person who will have the skills to communicate with an english and spanish to assess more of the community. the law judge is to be filled in the fall.

the two years doesn't request any new positions. the budget is for more ftes. i didn't make a slide but we have noo. and haven't paid overtime and don't have is comm

provide the community it serves with the appropriate services. this is an ongoing comment the department has and it's based on the need to carrying out it's mandatory on resolving substitutes within a diverse community. some languages have been translated up to 6 language.

we have the skills necessary to communicate with the diverse community we serve. however, when a language is not assessable by a member of staff then the department used ten based on interpreters to communicate with the folks. the department recognize the need to communicate and sever our diverse community. we know that multiple language assess brings with it a new level of complexity. we have redesigned our systems and we track it to keep track of

the number of documents we've been able to document. we have one example that is translated in another languages. as i can see from the chart we have made documents available that have been translated from 1 hundred and 91 documents to 3 hundred and 88 documents that are currently translated and available. this is a benchmark indicator to serve san francisco community as efficiently as possible. we have, however, numerous changes to the law and the information people need it's also constantly a changing target. related to its goal to - related

to this is to improve our website so we're fully assessable to has much of the community as possible. lastly we're a regularly try agency and the way we conduct our work is based on the requirement of different regulations, legislation and legal mandate that we must follow. therefore we're always limited. we try to run it as efficiently and fetishly as possible. this includes to maintain and improve information deliver that is pamphlets and phone work. we work to increase the number

of documents to make them as broadly available to the system we manage and lastly we'll soon be able to have capital petitions. i'll be happy to provide any additional information >> thank you for the great work of the staff of the rent board. i

increase. but we'll have to be more efficient and we're hoping to accomplish that within the timeframes >> that could be more work for the staff. >> we're concerned as we track the performance we track the number of days that people have to wait for a position for example. right now we have that vacant

position we'll be filling if down the road is inefficient then the next budget will be sufficient. we're concerned about that because it fluctuates and oftentimes that's a challenge we face and a okay colleagues any further questions? and a okay seeing none, thank you for being here. much appreciate. we'll take the consent on friday >> necklaces up the department of environment.

>> budget and finance committee. i'm melanie. thank you for giving us the chance to provide our fy budgets. we run cutting-edge and wide programs. we work collaboratively with the departments and educate the public. excuse me. sf environment is a one shop stop to help to protect the environment locally. we develop much of the environment codes locally for the public >> i think your presentation will be up. so as requested i'll spend a few

minutes talking about the housing environment arrest first is zero waste. we conduct the outreach on our proposition of incentives. we have the wait program that includes the implementation of the mandatory recycling ordinance and providing and monitoring cinnamons with the demolition. offer if you wouldn't mind activating the power point i think it's ready to go.

along with dp w he set the rates for the various places in the city and spearhead other programs. a related program is around toxic reduction. it offers a variety of the public to expose of their toxic products. we provided information insuring with the least possible toxic products are used. we have the pest management plan for the property and we manage the safe disposal program and promote the hazard us home waste program. and also on this slide you'll

see two efforts for the toxic waste program and school education. environment now is our green reservoirs on-the-job training and is key to educate the public on others topics. your environment team has helped with the bilingual outreach program for energy efficient. our school education program provides outreach programs to public and private schools and helps to teach how to protect nature. regarding energy the san francisco watch program is a public and private program which

helps thousands of property owners and we provided support for homeowners this program offers rebates to provide an audit to help the homeowners ruse the use of energy. we have the sf energy map to help the folks learn l about solar. we're experiencing with group discounts through solar at work. regarding our climate program we have aggressive emissions program. we track the city's carbon and multiple programs. we are just about to release our

climate action strategies that will talk about transportation and energy where we can see further reductions locally. i want to mention that our environment program is focused on lower emissions. recognizing our climate is changing we'll want to know what the long term and short term focuses are. the last program serve area is green building. the green building program helps with the assisting of the green standards. it provides innovative green pace program information and helps the city programs to get to the highest level of building standards. on this slide are 3 additional

serve areas the traffic. we work to improve air quality by asking folks to walk or ride bikes. we can work with other agencies and this helps to make the city's fleet the greenest in the nation. we've been around a while and it helps educate the low income communities. we have the healthy homes project to assess and address health inequities for families. this program currently works with families to help with the healthy cleaning supplies and we've described $12 million in

grant to help prompt a variety of sustainable program. the last one is urban forestry and nature. we foster environment and moisture the urban council. finally to enhance our work proposal we launched a proposal that will come up with strategies and policies for the city. the last program area to detail before we go into the budget is the green management program. it offers technical assistance from environmental experts to help businesses improve their businesses footprints

. it looked like we lost the power point again. shall i continue - i know that today, this committee was interested in hearing about lingual and other tops. culture linguistic is part of the mission of our department. we're not able to sponsor board participation and in terms of the uptake of our programs and services unless we can communicate effectively with the folks of san francisco. our department has staff whose

primary responsibility is to the cantonese spanish and other folks. our team spends over 5 house you hours to help with the highest need. a large part of our environment is to attend community events to highlight the policies and every year we attend 16 events. 20 percent of those are by our participants. their strategyly staffed in various languages and approximately 10 thousand members are reached every year. and in regards to outreach and education material on this slide you'll see some frshgsz from the

check out material. we provided for the residential and commercial programs have other outreach programs that are not in english. we will, of course, continue to look for how to reach harder to reach communities. we're priorityizing and providing grants to communities based organized to help reach those populations. we are interested in broadcasting through sftv to reach a boarder