tv [untitled] July 20, 2013 6:00am-6:31am PDT
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services. here we have a summary of our budget and full-time staff positions between 2013 and 2015. what you see here is there are staffing level is actually going down from 157 to 156. what's not reflected here is with the assistance of the mayor's office as well as the controller, we have reduced our staff by five. and as you recall, we had some problems earlier in the year in terms of overspending and temporary salaries and that has been resolved such that those positions have been eliminated. so, there actually is a loss of five positions that's reflected here. in terms of the work load of our office, our largest division which involves felony cases, we handled in this
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fiscal year 8,6 12 felony cases. our average annual caseload per attorney is 196. now, in our profession, we look to what's called the nac, american bar association standards. that's the national advisory commission. these standards were set forth in 1973 to determine what caseloads public defenders should be handling. and for felony cases the standard is 150. so, we're about 28% above the standard. we recently completed a case weighting report. the case weighting report is in addition to counting cases. what the case weighting process does is it allows managers to determine the actual work load of the attorney. and, so, what we're looking at there is the number of cases that the attorney is handling individually, the type of cases, each type of case is assigned a weight based on the
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relative seriousness of the case. and this is something that was determined by the controller's office in 2003 and our department has implemented this. and, so, applying that model, the average workweek and this is as of june 13, 2013, a felony attorney is 67.3 hours a week. for miscommunications, the total number of cases we handled in this fiscal year was 4,495. the annual caseload was 409. cases per lawyer. again, the american bar association standard is 400 cases so we're just right on the mark there. the average workweek was 73.2 hours per attorney based on the case waiting. for juvenile cases we handled a thousand 10 cases. the average caseload was 202. ~ the standard is 200 juvenile cases, we're right on the mark there. the average workweek for juvenile attorneys we62.5 hour.
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for mental health, we had a total of 3,370 cases that we handled. there are only three attorneys handling mental health cases so the average caseload was 1,123. there is no nec standard for mental health cases and the average workweek was 63.2 hours a week. for our investigators, this is a particularly challenging year because we were down two investigators. we were not allowed in this fiscal year to hire two investigators. that will be remedied next year. the average workweek for investigators is 64 hours a week. we do not pay our investigators overtime. we use comp time model instead. so, we award our investigators comp time if they're working over 40 hours a week. so, our overhead cost is zero. the investigator request we had was over 2800 this year and we had 15 investigate rs who
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handled over 3,000 cases. in terms of the attorney to investigator ratio, for every investigator we have six attorneys assigned. again, the standard is about one to three, one to four. so, we are extremely busy and overloadedin investigations unit. in terms of our overall work load what we've seen is an increase in the percentage of serious felony trials. you see this in the chart reflected here. from 2009 to 2013 nearly half of our cases now involve serious felony cases. if you're wondering why, you'll see this in the district attorney's statistics as well as the police department,
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involve greater attention and task. ~ ~ and even take longer to try. this shows our average days in trial. in 2009 we were spending per case about 11 days per trial and now we're spending an average of 16.67 days in trial for every case that goes to trial. we've also seen a 16% increase in homicide and life exposure cases from last year to this year. so, just within the last year we have the 16% increase in homicide and life exposure cases. we also have a rise in jury trials. you can see here are misdemeanor jury trials and our felony jury trials. again, because the pool of cases are the more serious cases, those are the cases that tend to go to trial. and, so, we're seeing more homicide cases, more serious
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cases go to trial. and also more misdemeanor cases because the district attorney's office is focusing their efforts on, again, the more serious misdemeanor cases thaned in the past. we have taken on expanded duties without any new staff. the most significant is the community justice center. we are now staffing the justice center with two attorneys and i think three volunteers. there are 1,053 felony cases per year and we're doing that without additional staff. beginning on july 1st, the public defenders office will undertake responsibility for representing parolees in [speaker not understood] cases. i think the state gave the public defenders office something like $40,000 more
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this year in order to undertake this task. this is a huge undertaking for our office because we're expecting that there is going to be 10 parolees assigned every day from the courts for representation, and those cases at least 3 to 400 of those cases will go to actual hearing which is like a mini trial on the question of whether or not pa parole should be revoked. so, it's a huge new responsibility that we're taking on. we have asked for staff. we asked for two attorneys, a paralegal and investigator and the mayor's office elected not to provide us with that staff. so, we'll see how that goes. wanted to point out that we are doing our piece to save the city money. because of certain changes in law, we were able to shift our conflicts rules to fewer cases to the private bar.
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there is a line of cases from which we draw our conflicts policy which allows the public defender to continue representing a person even though there is a potential conflict of interest if there is an ethical wall established. meaning that if there's no communication between the former attorney who represented client a and the present attorney who represents client b. if there's no conflict of interest because of exchange of information, then we are allowed to continue to represent the individual. as you can see from december 2009, there is a precipitous drop. and we started this policy in june of 2012. so, you can see that in some cases the number of cases has been reduced about two-thirds. and, so, we're expecting this year annual savings of about 850,000. we think in the next year it could be as high as a million dollars in the next fiscal year.
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i want to caution these estimates, though, because, again, the conference panel will do an excellent job of providing representation. we're ethically barred. they are also being assigned more serious cases and they're handling more homicide cases, more serious felony cases which are much more time intensive cases. and, so, you know, these savings will have to wait to determine as to what their cost per case is, what their billings show at the end of the year. ~ will have to weight the programs that we are very well known for championing, the magic programs in the bay view, in the western addition, just to give you highlights of the work we've done, in the past year we distributed over 4,000 back packs and school supplies to kids. this is a community building effort.
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there is a summer learning program now in the western addition that's drawing more than a thousand kids every week. in the bay view we have a literacy fair which drew over 350 children. and we distributed over 3,000 resource guides. this program is made possible with the support of the department of children, youth, and families. and i want to acknowledge their support as well as the work order that they're providing us. prisoner reentry is an area that we have always championed. we have in the mission sunnydale, tenderloin, western addition and the bay view, clinics set up to help people clear their records. in the past year we assisted over 1,360 people in clearing their records. this is something that is essential for people to live productive lives to get back to work to be able to apply for federal housing, educational grants, things like that. we also linked to over 35 4 people to treatment in services in that time.
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and these services are even more in demand given state realignment and the fact that the responsibilities of supervising parolees and probationers and linking them to services is falling to the probation department in our office. this is the 50th anniversary of the gideon decision, which is the case where the united states supreme court decided that every poor person has a right to a lawyer. it's a very significant year. i want to thank the board of supervisors for its support of our department. as you may know, earlier this year we won the top award from the national legal aid in defender association, nlada is the top legal organization in the country and we were i think one of 12 organizations to receive their top award since nlada began giving this award i think 15 or 20 years ago.
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>> colleagues, any questions? supervisor avalos. >> mr. [speaker not understood], thank you for being here, for your work and the work of your office. a question about the [speaker not understood] program. i believe there was an effort to initiate that program out in the lakeview neighborhood. what is the status of that? >> yeah, we've been called out there to do presentations, but we don't have a satellite office set up there. we'd be certainly open to that, but we don't have a site presently. the neighborhood to have a satellite office -- >> by satellite office i mean we use another agency's office for 2 to 3 hours a week and we set up shop there. and, so, people know they can drop by and fill out the applications there. but in other neighborhoods, we
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make our staff available to go out to either community events or, you know, different agencies that have a need for our services. we'd be happy to provide that. >> the services available to residents all across the city -- >> absolutely, yeah. and, so, it's clear, we have hours at our office every tuesday between 9:00 and 11:00 so people can come in without an appointment. and then we have usually every other week, office hours at the various satellite offices that we have throughout the city. >> great, thank you. we can follow-up off line. thanks. >> supervisor mar? >> yeah, thank you, mr. dutchy. i did want to ask you about the state criminal justice realignment. you mentioned the 2,300 parole cases you're responsible for. and i think you said the state is only allocating about 40,000 more this year. so, there's a definite amount
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that perhaps needs to be backfilled for your already overworked staff don't have to -- i guess no mental health in dealing with this caseload. ~ so and i know sheriff mirkarimi probably has some unfunded or definitely underfunded mandates that are before him. could you repeat what you think your requested need are -- is for two staff and how that would help to address that requirement that you have now with the realignment? >> yes. as i mentioned, there will be 2,200 parole violators that will be assigned to the public defenders office next year. the reason why we know that's true is because the contract is now held by this group called cal pap which has a contract with the state and that's how many hearings they handled last year. the department of corrections notified us to expect that they were going to have 5 to 10
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cases of parole violators, that they're going to be referring to us every day. those individuals will be arrested, they'll be brought to court and will be we'll be assigned to represent them. they'll have to be interviewed the same day to find out what their circumstances are and then brought to court that same afternoon where they'll meet with a commissioner and we'll be offered a settlement offer to see whether or not they can resolve 9 case. if the case doesn't settle, then it will go to a hearing on the friday of each week. so, you're talking about a very high volume practice and we're going to need at least two people to be able to handle that volume, even if we have people going to court every other day and on the other days doing investigation and case preparation. those two individuals will be very busy. there's also investigation needs to be done and there is also paralegal work that needs to be done. we had originally requested a paralegal and an investigator and two attorneys. mr. rose's office had done a
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study of the realignment initiatives earlier in the year, and their recommendation was that we be provided two attorneys. so, we did include that in the budget and i had extensive discussions with our budget analyst antonio guerrero and also kate howard and those positions were not funded. >> thank you. colleagues, any other questions at this time? okay, thanks. we will go to our budget analyst report from mr. rose, please. >> mr. chairman, members of the committee, on page 65 of our report, our recommended reductions total $51,452 in 13-14. that's ongoing savings. it would allow an increase of slightly over $2 million or 7.56% in the department's 13-14 budget. our recommended reductions total 66,452 in 14-15 of which
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15,,000 one time, 51,452 ongoing would allow an increase of [speaker not understood] of 2.9% in the department's 14-15 budget. >> okay. i understand, is there an agreement on this or we're still discussing? >> i'm going to go out on a limb here and agree with mr. rose. >> okay. we're in agreement. all right there, good to know. colleagues, any further questions? okay. could i have a motion to accept the budget analyst's recommendations? pending public comment, of course. so moved. [ gavel] >> thank you, mr. dutchy. unless further notice, we don't need you back here next week. moving along we have our superior court, mr. michael ewen. next we have the sheriff's department and then adult probation. >> good afternoon, mr. chair and supervisors.
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michael ewen, court officer. it's a pleasure for the court to be here, the sister branch of government. we used to be funded by the city for all of our operationses, however that change in 1997 when state legislation removed funding responsibility of all superior courts in the state from local counties and placed them with the state. there still is one function, however, that in san francisco the court continues to manage for the city, and that has not transferred, and that is the obligation of indigent defense. it's an $8.4 million budget each year and it essentially provides defense representation to i understand joint defendants whom the public defender cannot represent due to ethical interest. and as the public defender cited a few moments ago it is a right guaranteed by the sixth amendment of the united states constitution as well as section 98 7 of the california penal code. the budget analyst recommends an ongoing reduction of $400,000 to this budget and the
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court believes that it is sustainable. so, we are in agreement with mr. rose and i'm happy to answer any questions that you have. >> colleagues, questions? okay, mr. rose, we'll hear your report. >> mr. chairman, members. committee, on page 75 of our reports as the department just stated, our recommended reduction is totaled 400,000 in 13-14 which are ongoing and again 400,000 in 14-15. as i understand it, the department concurs with our recommendations. >> okay, thank you, mr. rose. colleagues, any questions for mr. rose at this time? again, just to confirm you are in agreement with those? >> yes. >> okay. can can i have a motion to accept the budget analyst recommendations? we can do so without opposition. [gavel] >> okay, so moved. thank you for being here. up next we have the sheriff's department, sheriff mirkarimi in brief.
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>> good afternoon, supervisors. we introduced to you our chief financial officer, brae maharder. aaron brin will also be in the audience again. i want to thank the mayor's budget office, melissa howard in particular, and the budget analyst and the controller. you have copies of the slides, we're ready to go, please.
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do you have it? technical glitch. while we're working out the technical, why don't we paint the information well enough so that the public can follow alongs as best as possible. i look forward to your questions. so, the sheriff's department, of course, is much more than just about our jail system in
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providing safety and security both inside and outside the jail system. that's delineated by three divisions. the custody division, the field division, and administrative program division. you have on the first page of percentages of where our ftes are distributed in the custody division of 604 ftes approximately, in our field division 2 99 ftes and the administrative program division, 126 ftes. when i came into office and being able to review the challenges that really have confronted the sheriff's department, the thrust that i wanted to apply was to correct some of the structural problems that had been ongoing in the sheriff's department as it relates to its institutional i
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think hurdles regarding overtime premium pay and insufficient funding. i believe because of the partnership and the people identified earlier, we're able to really i believe get a meaningful grasp around some of those structural issues, and i believe that's what this budget represents. on the next slide, you can see that the totality of our labor fte force broken down by a 14% civilian and 86% sworn are contribution to community-based organizations, considering how much in custody and post custody work that the sheriff's department is renowned for, thanks to my predecessor sheriff hennessy, really is minute. when you think about it, it's only a 3% contribution of our aggregate budget that goes to community-based organizations and 6% in total of our total
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aggregate contribution to programs in custody and post-custody. 6%, but yet the sheriff's department of san francisco is well known state nationally about the innovative programs. we have piloted and have been well sustained and mimicked by other areas of the state and around the country. there are some very exciting initiatives and challenges before us. in the next slide, we have a reentry pod which quite fittingly adult probation will be coming up next and chief still will be able to speak to this as well. but this is a first for california. in san francisco, we have been identified by the state department of corrections and rehabilitation to do something that no other jurisdiction in the state has done, but others will be following our lead since we're the beta site for it and that is the creation of
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an embedded opportunity, an embedded sort of cooperation between adult probation and the sheriff's department working together where we bring in ab 109 realignment prisoners back to the city in what is called our apod, which is part of our county jail number 2, up to 56 inmates where on the onset of their incarceration with us receives what has never happened before, a well delineated regiment of wrap around case management between adult probation and the sheriff's department. it's been well spelled out by the really amazing work of adult probation and their staff in concert with our staff pitched to cdcr now to the point where three other counties will be following hopefully what they think is a workable template and those are the counties of marin, los angeles and san diego.
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and even though that last year we were hoping for funding from the state on the reentry pod, and that funding did not materialize with the tenacity of chief still, we were able to go to sacramento and a writer was pursued by senator lonnie hancock. and he we succeeded in getting that. now funding will be coming in from the state for the reentry pod. next you'll see on the whole justice replacement, this is quite a milestone project since jails 3 and 4 in our hall of justice has been compromised seismically due to loma-prieta. we're looking at a reduced replacement of jail bed space, which is a significant statement since california is well known in building prisons and county governments are well
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known in building jails. we'll be one of the first counties that in the talk of jail replacement we're no buildingone r one replacement. we're building at reduced beds because we believe in the mission of diversion as well as we believe in safe incarceration. we have academy class of 20 deputies that is slated for november. the sheriff's department has not had an academy class since 2009-2010. because we have been so deficient due to attrition in our staffing, we very much look forward to the opportunity of repleting what has been a real struggle with staffing ergo why we were here not that long ago seeking a supplemental due to our reliance on overtime. so, we look forward to something that hasn't occurred in quite sometime. program expansion, while the
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sheriff's department has been well known on many programs dealing with behavioral issues, substance abuse issues, and other rehabilitative issues, one area that we want to inaugurate that has not been routine for the sheriff's department is a greater emphasis on vocational training, both in custody and post custody. through the sheriff's department directly and through our key charter school. through our next slide on staffing, retirements, as you can see is about 91 ftes. since fiscal year 9-10, hiring in a snapshot as of this past june 1st, for the last three years we have hired 67, but we still have a sworn vacancy of 60 ftes. and we need to try to reconcile that as best as we possibly can. because the jail population and
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the demography of the jail population is changing with regard to the challenges of inmates in particular those that are meantly ill, it's not like everybody is in a general population. whether it's opposing gangs that we have to have separated and proper staffing that is to make sure that sure that area is safe amongst themselves, same with staff, the same with mentally ill and the psychiatric area of our jail system ~ where it is requiring a greater staff load to attend to the protection of those that are either in our absec unit or certainly receiving psychiatric care. i do not see this population reversing in trend, but continue to increase, and yet there's been no provisions made in this budget or i'm aware in the department of public health budget to deal with this increased population.
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on the next slide, with regard to overtime, premium time, hall justice replacement which allows us to set the purchase for the land of the new hrj replacement of the jails, the 20 deputy class, and the reentry card revenue, that just reiterates some of the highlights already had shared with you. and then being 7 years on the board of supervisors budget committee, i was well taught to help answer the question about the needs of where we might be able to hybridize or civilianize parts of our staffing where opportunity presents itself, especially to help answer the question about being able to alleviate some of the stress in our custody staff, and
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