a pro forma approach, and the fact is that the situation the owner in it is -- the owner is in is not going to change when he takes his next trip, and his response to my question was perhaps limited only to him, and i did not ask that of the other appellants in this particular instance. i do not know. i think i am rambling, but i probably would support a reduction. vice president garcia: i would certainly do that, in some time

in the past, i think i went through exercise similar to what this gentleman did prior to coming here this evening. it has always been curious to me how we got where we are. it is with all due respect, dr. ojo, and maybe sometimes a hearing officer reduces a fine, but in terms of the economic impact of the individual, and there is a reasonable argument, and their argument is if the sale of tobacco was so important to someone who was always the appellant then they should therefore always exercise greater caution to whom they sell cigarettes to. it is possible. human error.

this is one of the few cases i can remember in a long time where it is the actual owner coming before us as opposed to someone who works for the owner. aside from my general feelings about this, i wish the board of supervisors would we examine the law which -- would re-examine the law. it has the potential of being very, very harsh. if we were talking about a safeway, 25 days would be meaningless to them because of all of the other products they have, but what we could be doing is tantamount of putting him out of business or a $25,000 fine, not that he is going to earn that much money in the 25 day period of time, but the

impact on his business, and i think he is right. if you are called house of cigarettes, and you do not have cigarettes, you are going to lose some of your customers. 25 days are up, "we will go back to the house of cigarettes." the impact can be very, very serious for this individual. i worry that my statements are falling on deaf yearse -- ars, -- ears, but i would absolutely support a reduction. commissioner peterson: a pro forma and everyone being treated the same. however, similar punishments or penalties, particularly in similar situations.

this, like the case prior, both appellants have admitted they have not checked for i.d. in the case prior, we implemented a 15-day suspension. i think of fairness, we should do the same, so i am in favor of the suspension. president goh: i am leaning the other direction in this case, and some of the reason is because it is the house of cigarettes, and that is the business, and i would think with the, one would be even more careful to always check i.d. -- and i would think with that. the mistakes made by the department in the filing papers, that was my only reason for supporting the reduction to 15 days, and so i would so move,

pending news things for other commissioners. vice president garcia: would you consider a compromise of 20? president goh? yes. vice president garcia: to be overturned and impose -- would we overturn and impose a new -- deputy city attorney: mr. pacheco, could you call the roll, please? secretary note -- secretary pacheco: on the motion to overturn the department's

recommendation and move it to 20 days. [roll call] it is a modified to 20 days. -- it is modified. gipp be to city attorney -- deputy city attorney: mr. pacheco, could you call the next item, please? secretary pacheco: item number nine, which is our last item, a appeal number10 10-142, jack's

market, selling tobacco products to minors. deputy city attorney: you have -- minutes. >> 25 days. second, i would request to see a picture of the lady. he was working with us for five years, and he always asks for i.d., and i asked him why he did not, and he told me she'd look like he was over 21, and that is why he did not care to us for an id -- he told me she looked

like she was over 21. he is a good worker. if you see my attachments in there, -- i also of a daughter. i do not want anyone to sell tobacco to her -- i also have a daughter. with the workers, i always remind them, even if they work with us for so long, i remind them to check for id note -- for ideas region -- for id, and he said that she looked like he -- she was over 21, and that is why he did not ask. commissioner fung: is this your

store? >> it is my husband. commissioner fung: what else to you -- do you sell? >> lotto, chips, but tobacco is our source of income, and alcohol, in the store, and we have regular customers. commissioner fung: have you ever sold alcohol to a minor and got caught? >> no. this is our first ticket. deputy city attorney: thank you. dr. ojo? dr. ojo: commissioners,

apparently the appellant is not denying the sale of cigarettes to minors. the department has done a lot in terms of educating the operators, educating them about the law and sending them a lot of educational materials about tobacco products, and we have been running this program for about five or six years. i think by now, all of the licensed operators -- it is frustrating to our inspectors that we spend so much time on enforcement, but that is the nature of the profession that we

are in. " they allow 90 days for the first offense. -- they allow 90 days. sometimes they listen to the testimony of all of the different operators, and they considered a hardship, but, again, not to watch a lot down vote -- to water the law down, and working with the board, the 25 days is the least we can go down for for the first offense. we think 25 days is reasonable. in this case, she sells other

products other than cigarettes, so i would respectfully ask that the board denied the appeal and uphold the 25-day suspension -- that the board deny the appeal. deputy city attorney: thank you. i do not see any public comment. you have time for your rebuttal. >> i think 25 days is -- they also gave them 25 days, in this is our first defense. -- and this is our first defense -- offense. from now on, i tell the worker not to base this on how they look.

he said when he looked at the lady, he did not see a girl. a lady. she looked like over 21. that is why i would like to see the picture of the lady or the girl, to see if she looked older or younger piccata -- or younger. deputy city attorney: dr. ojo, anything further? dr. ojo: i have seen the trend tonight. in fairness, if the board decides to reduce his from 25 to 20 days, dph would be happy to consider that.

president goh: sums of offenders received 25 days, is that correct regent -- some second offenders receive 25 days, is that correct? -- received 25 days? commissioner fung: actually, if the appellant had seen the picture, there would be no way. vice president garcia: this is a different one. commissioner fung: oh, it is? then my comment relates to a previous case. i think it is up to you. president goh: if dph is willing

to go to 20 days, then i will not argue with the. commissioner fung: i should have said this on the previous case, but just to inform thepublic ane only way this is overturned is if you get four boats. if you do not get four boats -- votes, so i am when to move that we grant the appeal and reduce the penalty to 20 days. commissioner garcia: all the signs indicate you would ask someone for an idea regardless what age they are. regardless of who is working the register, they asked for id from

the this week. i was flattered. i think they knew who i was. no matter how old someone looks, ask for aideed for safety. >> shall we call the roll back? >> the motion is to grant the appeal and modify the suspension to 20 days. on that motion -- president goh: aey. ye. >> the vote is 4-0. the appeal is granted and the suspension is modified to 20 days. >> showing move on to the last item?

president goh: yes. are we losing our counsel? >> yes. she is not needed for this item, unless you want her to stay. commissioner fung: i would say the same thing. [laughter] >> commissioners, the last item on the calendar tonight is the consideration of the budget for fiscal year 2011-2012. you should have a memo outlining a proposal. there is a copy also available on the dais. the budget is due by close of business on february 22. i hope you will review and approve it this evening so we can make hours of battle on time. i would like to what he briefly

to the proposal for next year. this year, we are seeing a potential deficit in the surcharge revenues. that represents 95% of the board's budget. right now, we are looking at a 5.4% deficit, about $50,000. that is good news this is the third year of the deficit, and this amount is much less than where we were. last year, we were looking at 30%. the year before, 27%. the economy is coming back off and we are experiencing that. our filing for revenue is up. it looks likely we will and the year with a slight surplus. -- will end the year with a

slight surplus. we are looking to reduce expenses. we have some salary and personnel cost savings because of having used a part-time employee for part of this fiscal year and having so many on leave. we also had reductions in expenses for non-personnel costs, because the appeal volume is down from average. we have not been having to use our notification contractor and spend the money on the supplies needed for the other things related to the appeal process. my hope is we can continue to save money the way we have been, and that our projected revenue does not get any worse. we will be able to close the year with the books balanced. we do know that if the department does and with a deficit that the mayor's office will help us out with the general fund. moving forward to the proposal

for next fiscal year, in my memo i mentioned that we had some numbers we did not quite yet know coming out of the controller, especially around fringe benefit costs. many of those numbers have been identified to date. i have a revised budget detail that i would like to distribute. commissioner fung, if you don't mind? thank you. the total proposed budget with these numbers is $952,067. that is about a 2.19% increase over the current year. we still have a couple of line items pending. the retiree health subsidy and long-term disability insurance -- we have been told those will increase. i do not know that there will dramatically change the projected increased i am looking at.

none of these are increases that have come out of our pollution. the have all been imposed upon the board. unlike the bulk of other city employees and labor groups, siu employees did not do a swap some years back or they got additional pay and agreed to contribute more to their retirement funds. during the last round of negotiations, they agreed to that. that will be going into effect. you're looking at an increase in salaries for siu employees, and there is a decrease in the retirement contribution on our end. there are some fringe benefit increases. and the employer contribution has gone up. we do see in little bit of increase in some of our work orders. most of them are staying flat.

the department of technology has asked for increases in some of their line items, and to absorb some of the personal cost. our operating expenses -- 65% are labor costs. 25% to work orders and services we receive from other departments. the other 10% covers our grant and contract expenses, materials, and supplies. we have been lucky that our red has not gone up in the last couple of years. just the 2.2% increase -- i am going to ask that we look at introducing legislation to raise the surcharge is again this year. the way our legislation currently is written, the comptroller has the ability to automatically adjust it by applying the rate of inflation without any further action.

we will be close to our projected budget, but we will still be short. because that amount is still vowing to increase and because we know the surcharges have not been producing the revenue they were projected to produce, i would be reluctant to go into another year where we will be setting ourselves up for a deficit. i am not uncomfortable at tightening our belts, but there is only so much we can do. i think as the economy comes back, the ability to save money on non-personnel costs is good to be difficult. we do have to pay for the appeals we are to be processing. my recommendation is that we introduce legislation to adjust to the surcharges in order to produce sufficient revenue to cover our expenses. if we looked at the 2.25% increase to the surcharges, the

amount of increase is minimal. we have a $25 surcharge applied to dbi that would go up to $25.50. there is a $6 surcharge would go up to $6.15. the amounts are fairly minimal, spread over a large number of individuals. we would not know the exact rates until the department submits information to us about the permit volume they are anticipating next year and what their experience has been this year. that would happen in a couple of months. that is my proposal. i would also like us to include in that the possibility that the controller might be able to adjust rates beyond the consumer price index in future years. we have had this structure since fiscal year 2004-2005. in six of those years, we have needed to introduce legislation to adjust the rates.

it seems in addition to do that. the board of supervisors and the mayor's office have ample opportunity to review our budget, since 95% comes from surcharges. looking at separate legislation on surcharges is pro forma. i think it would be an efficiency to move that out. that is my overview. i do not know if you have any questions. commissioner fung: i have two questions, madam director. one is do you and the rest of your team have sufficient resources to do the work? >> we are working on that. we definitely need to improve the computer being used by one staff member who is having a tough time right now. that is something i would like to do this year. i do not know if you recall -- in last year's budget, there was funding for the development of a database which we hope will go live by the end of this fiscal

year. we would need to set up a workstation for that. i think we have the resources to do that in this current budget. commissioner fung: my second question is also related to technology. is it even foreseeable in the future that the process can be web-based? i am sure i will be long gone by then. you can use technology to look at the information. searches so it is easy to look for common -- you cannot find it on paper. those kind of things are readily available now. that makes it not only moreeffia better process for commissioners. it would help the information

stream. >> if the commission were interested in receiving its materials electronically, that is something i would be interested in exploring. i have had mixed messages from board members in my discussions about that. some people feel very comfortable with the paper and want to keep it. some people do not. my hope had been at one point that we would be able to get a grant or something like that for ipads, or some other way that electronic data could be used within the hearing room of to move -- the hearing room to move in that direction. i am open to any suggestions from board members about alternative means of getting their material. commissioner fung: i think you may want to put that into your long-term plans. it is not so much hardware, but access to a database.

to have netbooks and other things is easy. it is access. i am sure it will be implemented long after item off the board -- i am off the board. commissioner peterson: on a related note, i would be very interested in electronic submission. i think it saves trees and time, and some labor costs. a probably asked this last year i do not understand the city attorney cost. it looks like a full-time salary almost charged to this department. i just need some enlightenment on that. how is that delegated? >> it has been a multi-year negotiation. for many years, the board had no work order with the city attorney and did not pay for their services at all. in the last few years, there has

been the first time where those hours are being to regulated and an assessment of how many dollars need to be allocated for that cost. last year, we reduced work orders somewhat significantly and did not have enough money for it. this year, when we discussed the work order, we increased it with some cushion in order to have sufficient funds. but at this point we are running behind in terms of the work order, in the sense that we are not spending it at the rate of which we might, given the amount allocated. i think that once we see how this year ends, we could make an adjustment. we would not pay for hours that are not built. money that is left within that line item would stay in the department and go to other uses. commissioner peterson: can we wait