say thank. your thorough report reflects the hard work of the o.c.c. this year despite du difficult circumstances with personnel matters, and i am glad to see complaints are down, sustained rate is up. that is obviously more time for your investigators to focus on the lower case number. i know in the past you were clearing prior quaste cases from years past. you should be commended, your entire staff here today, for your work. it has always been our belief, those of us here at the beginning, that a strong o.c.c. means a strong police department . you have created a level of accountability and respect between the two agencies and you have increased the public trust. thank you. i know you are doing it under difficult standards. i don't know how much longer you can pull this off, but we will try to support you in that regard. the mediation is my favorite thing where the officers and plaintiff sit down and understand how each other's

feel. why the officers do what they need to do. y prosecutors have been your p excellent. i have to tell you ms. vargus and ms. frankel, excellent. they have been working hard. you have done great work in difficult times. i appreciate it. now i will turn it over to commissioner kingsley. commissioner kingsley: thank you for a detailed and informtive report. based on the charter, you call it the charter of the number of investigators per police officers we're going to be acome anying -- thank you.

the charter involves a certain number of officers on the police force. that is correct? director hicks: that is correct. commissioner kingsley: based on the number of investigators in 2010, how many investigators should o.c.c. have? director hicks: based on the number of officers, the o.c.c. should have had 15 investigators. kins -- kin commissioner kingsley: and in fact it had how many? if you were to account for the lost time, whatever. director hicks: well, by the conclusion of 2010, there were only 10 investigators that had full case loads. i would like my entire staff to stand up. the sprfering investigators were

eric mcmahon and -- and this is the entire management team except for two others. i would like to thank them for the work they did in 2010 under very, very challenging circumstances. thank you. commissioner kingsley: thank you. so the answer to the question is, basically you were off about 40%? or by roughly 1/3 of what you -- what the charter calls for? director hicks: yes, we are. but when one looks at the number of authorized positions, there are 15 authorized 81-24

positions. the problem occurs two-fold. it occurs when there are extended leaves of absence, and because i have a mature staff that has been with the office for many years and they have earned leave, then they are on a salary savings, and i cannot get authorization to exceed the minuscule $23,000 i have for temporary salary. the other part of that issue is that one investigator for every 150 police officers doesn't get at what is a reasonable best practices case load. and what the comptroller suggested in the 2007 report auditting the o.c.c. is that

what ought to be looked at is the number of cases that are in the agency as opposed to the number of officers. commissioner kingsley: the picture just gets more bleak if you base it on the best practices, which is what i'm hearing. director hicks: the picture is challenging. commissioner kingsley: "challenging," that's a better word. director hicks: we are not bleak at the o.c.c. staff. commissioner kingsley: very well put. the language written down in terms of complaints, 93% were in english, i think in that range. director hicks: yes. commissioner kingsley: and some others. i appreciated your comparison to the racial ethnic breakdown. is there a breakdown in terms of what people indicate on the census as their primary language, the breakdown for the city. do we have any similar cost available for us?

>> we have not gathered that data in the past. this is an evolving report. commissioner kingsley: since language access has always been very important, that's where that question was coming from. director hicks: yes. commissioner kingsley: agencies, similar agencies in other cities of similar size, is there anything in your sticks other than the -- statistics other than the ones you pointed out other than a cases for investigators, any other statistic that jumps out that the commission should be aware of in comparing our programs to programs in other cities? licks hicks in the director hicks: in the past we have compared ourselves to

robust mediation programs in cities such as new york, washington, d.c., and denver. at a later date we could provide you with that information. but civilian oversight agencies throughout the united states all are a little bit different. on the other hand, it is a good idea to gather as much data as we can on best practices. commissioner kingsley: ok. thank you very much. appreciate it. commissioner hammer: thank you for your report. it is clear you and your staff have a tremendous amount of time. you have given us a valuable tool to compare where the o.c.c. is now and where it would be in the future. a couple follow-up questions. first, on the language access and the percentage of complaints that are -- are you aware of any complaints -- or any

complainants who were not able to make their complaint because of language access issues? prince, i heard you say that when y lost your russian language, obviously we have a very large russian language population in the city. you have -- for such a small staff you have a tremendous variety of language speakers. i would be interested to know if we are missing anybody because of language issues. director hicks: we are able to accommodate all languages of complaints that arrive at the o.c.c. >> i recognize for various reasons you were down for the year. on the one hand you have authorization and budget to hire at least a minimum number of the charter, and i could understand the rationale for maybe more.

do you have any unfilled investigator positions that you do have authorization for? director hicks: yes. >> how -- commissioner slaughter: how many? director hicks: we have three provisional investigators and an -- a city employee can only remain provisional for three years. so these three provisional investigators are participating in a recruitment for 812 4 -- 8124 investigators. they compete for a pool. the pool is 263 individuals or thereabouts have applied, have put in a job application. so there are five vacancies right now. three of them are provisionly

filled, two of them are temporarily filled. however, in another week, one ever our most experienced investigators will be taking a leave of absence for three months, and in another month, an additional experienced investigator will be taking a leave of absence for three months. commissioner slaughter: that's interesting, but just so i understand, you are temporarily filled them or provisionally filled them? director hicks: yes, we do. there -- could be budget challenges, as we discussed. slaught slaught -- commissioner slaughter: and you provided great historical information going back from 1993 to 2010, and it shows in those

-- those charts really show how the open-closed, pending-sustained, have varied over the years. i notice you go back some years where the o.c.c. prior to -- was closing more than 1,200 cases. i think it would be valuable for us to have an understanding, a little bit more of a historical understanding of the staffing situation, too. it seems to me that you are under-staffed. i wouldn't want to later on have you be -- go in the mayor's office or the board of supervisors and said, well, back in such and such a year when you cleared this many cases, you had the same staffing levels. so i think it -- providing the case load is incredibly valuable information. also at the same time giving a comparison on the staffing would be valuable to those folks. i would suspect that the staffing situation was vastly different and there were

probably a lot more resources when they were clearing a lot more cases. i guess i would ask you to what aextent there are fewer complaints in 2010 than in 2009. i view that a as a good thing, and i was wondering if you have through your experience ideas of what you can tribute that to. -- what you can attribute that to. director hicks: i view that as a good thing, unless the o.c.c. -- well, we do out-reach. because we did less paperwork involved in out-reach last year, perhaps we didn't reach as many people.

but i don't think it is attributeable to a police department that -- but i do think it is attributable to a police department that has become more transparent. when there are incidents, our former chief gascon would often be present at those students and announce that -- at those incidents and announce that he would fully investigate the matter. you know, without having a customer-satisfaction survey of the police department, it is hard to know whether the public has more confidence in the department. that could be the case. but also enhanced training for officers could be making a difference. another thing that could be making a difference is that the discipline programs -- the discipline program was more

robust last year, and 345eub maybe there is a message that has -- and maybe there is a message that has been sent. another thing that occurred in the police department was the implementation of the early intervention program. which is not punitive. so officers are put through a program to -- once certain indicators occur. so there could be a greater satisfaction with the public in police-public interactions. commissioner sclauth slaughter: thank you, director hicks. i hope that is a case. when you see a 16% reduction, that is a good sign, in my book. and the last comment i would make, i was impressed that 98% of the cases were closed within a year of filing. as you, i'm sure, are acutely aware under 3304, boy we have to

do our best to hit that 1 hookup hookup -- 100% number because you hate to have cases you can't bring because of this statute. it is difficult to tell someone who got 98% that you have to do better, but it is just -- it is striving to get that 100% because you hate to lose those cases. director hicks: well, commissioner slaughter, those 98% don't comprise sustainable cases. those 98% comprise the inventory of cases that we close. all cases are not sustainable. so you only need the one year when you are going to sustain a case. i agree with you, on those sustained cases where the o.c.c. completes them within a year but

perhaps with only three weeks to spare, then the department has to review the charges and concur if charges are going to be reviewed with the police department, then officers have to be served, and that is what was troubling for us last year. to be able to complete sustained cases within the one-year, but there's more. the officer officer has to be served. and what backs us up, again, is not having enough investigators. so the investigators are completing their cases at point 355th day, and the attorneys are frantically reviewing them, who are frantically giving them to the department's lawyers, and attempting to serve the officers. i agree with you.

commissioner slaughter: it all makes sense, just the points, you know, obviously that year-long date it is critical, as you know. we just need to do what we can to make sure we have the investigators that can get the job done and they get them to the department as quickly as they can. to the extent that we can, we 23450ed to a-- we need to avoid that. director hicks: the case can be told when there is a statute pending. i will give you a better explanation in next year's annual report. vice president marshall: these are cases open in the last five years, is that correct? 2006 it says -- 1,023, 16%

reduction and without the 854. that was correct, the cases open ? >> can you refer me to the page? vice in the apvice president marshall: in t appendix. i'm sorry. i was just trying to get some numbers compared to last year. is that correct? director hicks: yes, vice president marshall, this is correct, this is from our data base. that last year we opened 684 cases and in 2009, 1,018, 2008,

1,083. 2007, 1,854. vice president marshall: so we may have had a reduction last year but too soon to tell a trend, i guess, because i'm looking at the last five years. in fact, it was below that level in 2006, and then it went up and came back down last year. so we have to see if that continues. this is a feeling question, which people don't like to answer. and again, i know all of this is subject to budget constraints and investigator numbers, but i guess what i want to ask -- and all these complaints have to be

logged into catagories, and apparently the percentage of catagories have changed and need the breakdown. but is your feeling about -- let me give you my example. when i first came here, i had a lot of loud, screaming -- you know, i guess i want to know the tone from your perspective. more so, how does it feel? does it feel the same as it did before? these are numbers, but in terms of complaints about -- that's a difficult question to answer. because you have the complaints. director hicks: vice president marshall i feel in president

marshall i feel in statistics and the pe i feel in statistics and the percentages remain similar. throughout the year. so even though the number of complaints has reduced, the category remains fairly similar with neglect of duty being a big category. unwarnted action. -- unwarranted action. vice president marshall: for me, and this is me, many more -- i don't get as many complaints, and i don't know if it is because something happened some place. that's why i was asking you. is this deal about how things are going? it is more a feeling question

than it is anything else. director hicks: vice president marshall, the numbers have reduced. there aren't as many people who are unhappy who are coming to us as they were in the past. but those who are coming to us, are not happy with the contact that they had with the department. so i don't think that emotion has changed. when nn someone things they have been rarblingely profiled, or someone feels they have been the victim of excessive force, that hasn't changed. commissioner hammer: the use of force, i think you said 2% of your complaints dealt with excessive force. i would like to know, compared to our department, has that remained roughly the same? secondly, how do we fakstack up against other major metropolitan

police departments. director hicks: i do not know how we stack up against other police departments, but our sustained rate has been relatively low and the number of complaints for excessive force has been low. commorce has been low. commissioner hammer: can you -- can we have a meeting to determine how we stack up? director hicks: i think it would take more than a meeting or two. hal hamilton i done want to put hoot burden on your office. if it is relatively useful. i want it to be clarified. director hicks: we will do our best.

commissioner hammer: thank you. i think it would be a helpful -- helpful information. president mazzucco: commissioner chan. commissioner chan: i appreciate how hard the o.c.c. works using minimum resources. i wanted to end on a high note and ask -- actually, let me make two points. one is with the language of the complaint, i did note there is a small number in terms of nonenglish speakers. if you have the staff to hand the l nonenglish speakers, it might have to be regional, then i am doing different individuals in general. so i look forward to seeing the plans from o.c.c. and i would be happy to contribute to it. so ending on a high note, i notice that you do have government officials from other office and other countries, including england and argentina and it looks like china visiting. i am wondering if they are

visiting to find out more about the o.c. c. it was my understanding as an attorney, when i filed complaints in a city outside of san francisco, it goes into a black hole because they don't have anything close to the o.c.c. to let you know they received their complaint. and nothing has happened with it. we should keep in mind here in san francisco, that it is good we are keeping the police department accountable, and it is good we are having this review process. many other cities all thre have -- all they have is an internal review, and that doesn't make sense. hick hick thank you for your kind wors. we are an example to other cities. we had a delegation from china to come and visit us torpped the end of last year. -- visit us through the end of

last year. delegations come because they want to understand san francisco's model and are fascinated by it. i feel privileged to work in this agency that has so much more jurisdictions than most civilian oversight agencies. there are only a handfull in the united states that are able to do the level of investigation and the breadth of investigation that we do. i also want to close on a high note by saying in the last 20 months, it has been a real work with the police department and we have developed what i consider to be a collaborative relationship, because that's what it is all about. that's why we exist. not just to hear com c1 not just to hear complaints and resolve those complaints, but

also to take those complaints and turn them into policies that have an impact on the greater public. as i said in my annual report, discipline is extremely important in managing an organization. but in the 72 cases that we sustained last year, it impacted 4% of the department. whereas the policy work that we do impacts the entire community and the police department as well. i want to thank the police commission for the support you give our organization. if only you could mint money. president mazzucco: thank you director hicks. can you please call item 3-c.

>> first the commission reports and the commission president's report. president mazzucco: i don't have a president's report because we have an extensive closed hearing cal >> prepcalendar for tonight. >> president mazzucco the o.c.c. received its budget reduction target from the budget office. because we have a charter mandate staffing level of a member for every 150 police officers, the target was created backing out the salaries of 15

a-124 investigators. our target is 10% and then the contingency of another $232,000. the o.c.c. is 89% personnel costs. another $307,000 is paid to the city for rent of our offices. so the only place i can go now is cutting staff. to meet the 10% budget reduction target, i would lay off two clerical staff. that's 1/3 of our six-member clerical staff. what it would end up doing is causing the investigators to have to do more clerical tasks and in a the