>> good morning, everyone. welcome to the april 14th meeting of the audit and oversight committee. i am david campos, joined with mark farrel and david chu. the clerk is andrea osberry. and we want to thank the sfgtv staff for covering this. do we have any announcements?

>> turn off all cell phones. if you want to speak, fill out a public speaker card. copies of all documents will be included in the file and should be submitted to the clerk. >> can you call item no. 1? >> this is the hearing on the controls report on the current and projected budget costs, with the use of overtime hours. >> thank you very much. this is an item i introduced with the understanding that for every member of the board of supervisors and the mayor, the issue is a very important one, something we have been watching for some time. and i thought it would be important to have this discussion here, at the oversight committee. let me turn this over to the comptroller's office, and i

thank you for being here. >> this is a committee, as you know, the comptroller's office monitors this on a biweekly basis. we thank you for calling to this hearing -- i have a very short powerpoint to submit to the hearing this morning, and i can give a copy to the public. a number of limitations -- about three years ago, by the board of supervisors. that ordinance requires the comptroller to submit monthly overtime reports to the mayor and the board, identifying these departments and their overtime. we have the existing ordinance requiring overtime twice per year, estimating the total over

time. finally, the administrative code section also established the individual employees for the city and the county, stating that they could not earn more than 30% of the overtime as compared to the straight time. in this fiscal year, over time spending is estimated to be about $40 million, more than has been budgeted for overtime. this is $12 million more than the overtime spent last year. this is based on the evidence of about seven months, and generally, the department that is getting the overtime budget has the available dollars in the regular account to pay for the work. this is based on a straight line

projection, but seasonal fluctuations do occur, and some are aware that over time is used more heavily because of vacations, such as the municipal transportation agency. they are working overtime because of the construction work and the other kinds of things that require additional transit. these suggestions should be used only as a starting place, to make the department heads aware of the overtime compared to the budget, for the mayor and the board of supervisors to be aware of this as well. and so, on page #4 you can see a line graph that shows the overtime usage, since 2005. this is the percentage to the

gross salary. you can see that a number of years ago, this was under 5.8% of the overtime, and this was 6.6% and it came back down to 5.45 and you see the projections for the current year are 5.6% of the overtime. since we have been reporting a couple of years ago on a monthly basis, the five departments using the most overtime have been constant. the municipal transportation agency and the fire department, the department of public health and the sheriff in that order. there was one month in the last couple of years, when they exceeded the overtime hours, but this was an anomaly. looking at page 6 of the report, what we have done is

look at those five departments and the actual overtime since the fiscal year 2005 and 2006. the overtime has gone up in the last six years. almost 40 million in 2007, going up to 46.5, and the actual expenditures were $45.6 million, and based on a straight line this year, this would be $51 million. there were some changes to the scheduling, with a number of construction projects requiring overtime, and also, the municipal transportation agency. this is mostly in the drivers and the parking control officers. these garnered the most

overtime, and the municipal transportation agency is aware of this and they do have the salary dollars in the budget, although not in the overtime account. the level of appropriation is for total salary, and we make sure that the departments are not overspending. the police department is the next-highest overtime user, but if you look at their actual use of overtime over the last year, this has come down significantly. this has been reduced from a high of $26 million in 2007 and 2008, to the all-time low that is expected in the current year of $10.5 million. this is over time to the general fund. the police department also had overtime when there are events in the city, paying for the

police coverage. this is paid, the dollar for dollar, by those businesses. we have the general fund overtime paid by the taxpayers. the public health department is the next apartment, and the last couple of years, the overtime use of the health department has hovered around 9-$10 million. the overtime as a percentage of total time is much less than the other departments and this is because the health department has these programs for the nursing staff. and as they have vacancies or need to replace the vacant shift, the use this rather than over time. the use overtime only if they are not able to place the shift with the civil service nurse, as well as the private nurses.

the rest of the overtime is it in areas where this is difficult to recruit, with these highly- technical positions and they are unable to recruit. in the area of the fire department, this has increased fairly significantly as the line chart shows, however, the fire department has shown that their use of overtime as less costly than the hiring of additional firefighters. and when the brownouts' happened a couple of years ago, there was a backfill of that service, and the fire department opted to use overtime because this was less costly. and this did happen, if you look at the chart on page 6, between 2006 and 2007, 2008 and 2009.

this was because the fire department staffing all of the apparatus. this was down to $21 million in the past fiscal year, on a straight-line projection expected to be about $27 million. and although the sheriff is exceeding their budget in the current year, based on a straight line projection, the overline -- the line will be the lowest ever of all the years we have been tracking this with the board of supervisors. the next chart shows each of these in a line graph, and as you see, the bottom three, a sheriff and police and health -- the fire department had increased and this was based on overtime hours, the hours used,

and you can see that they are using this at a higher rate than they have in prior years. the annual report shows that the public health departments does not have a sufficient amount of salary dollars,, and these will be pending shortly before the finance committee to correct the shortfall in these departments. those shortfalls have been known to the mayor and the board of supervisors, and we have reported these in the last few projections, the second part of the restrictions on overtime speak to the individual over * for the individual employees. over time is limited to 30% of the regular hours for each

employee, and for those employees working full-time and the legislation does exclude the emergency and critical service employees, and we typically see this to be the police officers and firefighters. unless those employees are working in the non-essential categories. under this section of the code, this may only be assigned one work cannot be completed during the regular work hours, and that the department request waivers for the selected classification, and this must go to the department of the human- resources director, and the office the man's monthly reports so that the departments

can monitor the use of overtime by the employees. this was not so much to reduce the overall amount of overtime, but to spread this among the staff so that we do not get increased accidents and other kinds of workers compensation injuries, but what happens in our during the pay. in the bi-annual report, this is on page 11, 74 employees exceeded the cap, based on a pay period ending on january 7. three of them have exemptions -- and three of them are within the deputy sheriff's institution, and the request has been submitted to the department of human resources. the last was a clerical employee and that was an oversight on the part of the department.

this year, the director of human-resources did provide exemptions for the firefighters who are having a difficult time staffing because of the lack of recruitment that has been done in the current year. to summarize on page 12, the continue to monitor the overtime, and they are limiting the overtime use by the employees, and we will continue to report on a monthly basis and the bi-annual basis, and the department's staff is here to answer your questions. >> i know that we have the department heads and the department's staff here, to present, as well as the director of human resources. but one thing jumping out for me is in terms of the budget process, the mayor has convened a working group with the

community-based organizations to look at possible areas where the savings can be had. this is a very positive thing and this is a good thing to do. i do believe that since we are talking about over time -- or over-spending and over time above $40 million from what was budgeted for the fiscal year, i actually think this group should be treated for this issue of overtime. if you look at the overtime for the last few years, the amount of money given back is that the most around $40 million. this is a figure that we are talking about, this is a figure that we are above budget. so, is there a working group, if you will, of the city leaders and city