we look at projections in terms of employment and will provide those. >> the theory is that i understand this. at a certain time, you have to bite the bullet and retain new employees. i don't want to burden future boards with biting this bullet. i would be interested in looking at this report. >> i have a final question. i wanted to ask yo uwha ti -- you what i asked h.r. has your office analyzed how the fire department was able to do their work and only spend $7.2 million in fiscal 2006.

and then 26.6 a couple of years later. the department indicated that they had not done this analysis. has the comptroller's office? >> i would have to go back. it had to do with the brownouts. in that particular fiscal year. stations browned out over the course of the year to reduce the budget. a lot of the savings is in overtime. >> that would be great. let's turn it over to our fire chief. he is here with monica fields, a deputy chief, and the chief financial officer. and if i may, i was thinking of thanking you and the fire

department personnel, who dealt with the fire in the mission. thank you, and your members, for the work they did. >> thank you. >> go right ahead. >> it feels like deja vu. they -- i totally appreciate your questions on overtime and the fire department going in the wrong direction. i looked at the overall budget, how we budgeted. i looked to president chu's comments, how the trend was looking in the fire service. at the time, we had approximately the percentage of overtime to general funds, this was 4%. now this is around 11% and 12%.

we did an analysis. it is counterintuitive. it had to be explained to me, over and over again. the mayor's budget office. the comptroller's office assisted us. overtime is a negative connotation. to see the trend increasing, from $7 million to $26 million. the most dramatic reason this ent up, let me give you the count. we had 772 uniform members, now 1402 members. supervisor farrel is saying, we are having the first class in

5 years. in terms of efficency, we have never come back for suplemental. we live in the budget. we do not anticipate needing to come for this. we live within our means. what we do, we dsave on the salary side. we are able to offset the overtime. and so, what we run the risk of doing is that -- we talked about it before. a sweet spot in terms of staffing. there are times we don't need the full-time equivalents. they are hard to maintain. i am being honest. public safety -- the pensions

are at age 55. benefit and fringe packages are rich. and so, we took a look. i was convinced after a lot o f debate about the increase in overtime. these have proven to be more expensive. we don't want to drop to the level, going to 1403. we are trying to match the new hires with retirements. i am happy to answer any questions. i just wanted to give context. this is a dramatic decrease. this is why overtime is going up, and ove r300-- over 300 +

drop. >> if you had this many firefighters today as opposed to 1403, do you say you'd end up with more money or less? >> that is wha ttht the analysis has shown. you see, over the 30-year projection, an increase in pension and benefits. we will need to do an analysis. i think 1403 is very lean. i am happy to walk any of you through this process. this is the direction i would take -- to drop my overtime for more fte's. this would be well-recieved and i know labor is concerned about the numbers dropping to this

level. we are tryi9ng -- trying to continue to protect lives and property. we are mindful of public safety benefit packages. we are allowing ourselves to increase our overtime. we and increase our over time. we had -- we have staff on overtime over 20%, which is an outrageous number, but the analysis is they are not paying out of pocket the salaries, benefits, and the pension. that is why i believe in our analysis when we vetted through the budget analyst, we have been allowed to continue this practice because it has proven to be more financially efficient. >> how did you do it --

president chiu: how did you do it in 2005. you said earlier it was staffing, but what made that difference? >> 350 more employees. we did reduce spending over time. but we were spending more on salary. supervisor farrell: thank you. president chiu. right now the base pay compared to other jurisdictions higher than other cities and counties. if you factor in overtime, a special pay, that nearly doubles. you are talking about a special rate that is 30% higher than our

counterparts. so, in 20008, we were at 8% over market. now we are at least 18% based on salary, 44%. i am wondering if it is a lack of parity. i wonder if that is driving our ability to either hire more folks. can you comment on that? >> the chief is very much an interested third party. on and not responsible for negotiating -- on and not responsible for negotiating wages and benefits. i believe the director of human resources would be more appropriate. i believe it was in the early to

mid-1990's, based on numbers in the police department, fire department, based on parity language, negotiating a package at that time. it has not dropped off. so, i think it has been negotiated. so, at some point, dhr works the local 7798. i believe that you raise a very good points. our hands are tied in terms of being able to respond to that situation. president chiu: do you have a

response to that? [laughter] >> i am under a bus right now. i am the chief of fish eater of the employees' contracts in 2007. let me say that in 2007, we had great difficulty with a police rate of pay. we did engage in a process to bring them to market. our -- i consider ourselves to be at market. i am sure you would agree that the situation officers encounter are not the same as those encountered in berkeley or some of these others. so, we have, as the chief indicated, the fire has on an

annual basis received the same rate of pay as police. we did make a proposal to break that parity, and we were not successful. it may not appear apparent to you, but we changed be overtime basis to reduce the overtime. president chiu: in fire? >> in fire, yes. we changed the period to 2 or 3 weeks. it is a technical point you can do under federal law. we think it was a good point to make. i think we have not broken parity. it is in the labor agreements. the firefighters hold them to it, and it will be a challenge.

we did propose to change it. i would also note that a big drag is less so on the rate of pay is really the number of hours if they work, if you look at the survey. in general, firefighters work 56 hours a week in the state, and in the region. in san francisco, they work 48.7. that is actually in the charter and the labor contract. we cannot change it. if we change it in labor negotiations, it does not help but because it is enshrined in the charter. i see that as a major driver. >> -- president chiu: supervisor farrell? supervisor farrell: thank you. i appreciate you looked at the numbers and over the long haul, more overtime does make sense.

everyone is under the gun this year fiscally and there are a lot of pension negotiations happening. i would just say that we have to look did that right away as we think of the potential of bringing in new class is coming getting that ball rolling, what ever they may be -- bringing in new classes. president chiu: from my perspective -- supervisor campos: from my perspective, i would rather budget in terms of the overall budget, make sure it is an accurate, realistic budget, instead of budgeting over time. i understand there are efficiencies. but i think that is better from a public policy standpoint, a better way of budgeting. in terms of staffing, chief, what is the plan going forward?

for the department in terms of bringing staffing up to allow all wear over time could be lower -- where overtime could be lowered? >> the plan is to match new hires with the number of people retiring. our target is someone off. we've not been able to hire in 36 years. we will bring in new firefighters beginning next month. our projection for next year, clearly we have been given the direction. we have the same amount of overtime budgeted for next year. if i am hearing from you -- and it is good news for me -- if you would support bringing in more fte's, then i would much prefer doing that. not to the old days of 1782, but

we will look at that. we do have the good work of dhr. right now, i do not believe we have a new class scheduled to come in in the fiscal year. i am happy to work with all of you. again, i think it is appropriate we raise this, as we are supposed to go before budget and finance in the next week. in yen, -- in the end, the budget will increase slightly. we can do that' analysis for yo. supervisor campos: i think there may be differences of opinion on this committee, but i would rather have a realistic budget as opposed to relying on overtime to provide a service. one issue is the number of hours

worked. she mentioned the 48-hour number. as that is compared to other jurisdictions. chief, what is your thought on that? that seems to be a significant difference. >> we run about 100,000 calls per year. it is pretty challenging. it has come up in the past, in the recent past. your colleagues have looked at this issue. currently, it is tied to the charter language. the 40 cents -- it would require a change in the charter language. i believe we work -- the work week for the sentences go firefighters is 48.7. i believe that is the lowest in the state. the membership to assist with the deficit, they want to a 56-

hour workweek. san jose is also at 56. they have seen wage reduction voted by the membership. it is something that has been looked at. it is obviously opposed by the membership in local 798. again, when we are looking at solutions, there's a lot of discussion. >supervisor campos: president chiu? president chiu: i would like to respond to our chair's comment. there is a situation where firefighters are receiving packages that are more than their counterparts in other jurisdictions, i do not know which is the more difficult decision. whether to charge a lot more overtime or hire more folks. neither perspective is a good choice.

we have to figure out at a time when you're asking every department to share the burden and to fairly shoulder the burden of our budget deficit, how are we going to do it? it is a problem. supervisor campos: i understand the point president chiu is making. from my perspective, we can learn from the private sector. in private sector, if you are a business owner, you try to make sure you have the right level of staffing to reduce your overtime. i think it is complicated given the benefits package here, but i think we need to have that discussion. the fact we are facing a budgetary crisis provides an opportunity for us to do that. >> i am happy to work with you and continue to work with partners in the controller's office and dhr and try to come up with solutions. >supervisor campos: just to wrap

up the presentation. i think it would be helpful to get the analysis from the hr department and from the controller's office. and we will bring you back so we can have additional discussion. >> and i believe the controller's office does have that analysis. dhr does not. we can assist. just to read same -- reframe what you are asking, it is an analysis of overtime? supervisor campos: absolutely, but also issues of staffing, and five years ago we were at 20.6 million, and just to have a better understanding of how we got suit -- >> the quick answer is we have dropped by 369 employees in a

six-year period. i am happy to work todhr on details related to that. president chiu: ms. callahan. >> do you want me to go through this? president chiu: it is up to you. i want to have an analysis of whether overtime is more cost- effective and whether the larger staff was able to keep overtime lower. i think it would be helpful for us to have an understanding of what the right level of staffing should be going forward, the implications for that and in terms of overtime, so we have a sense of the numbers. you know, part of the fear we have and in hiring more people is that implicates larger benefits, more costly. at the same time, as supervisor

farrell indicated, we're going forward budgeting through overtime. having a better sense of what the numbers are and the interrelationships between staffing and overtime from hr would be helpful. >> absolutely. president chiu: what we hear from the municipal transportation agency. -- why don't we hear from the municipal transportation agency? mta. >> hi. i am terri williams. unfortunately i do not have an official presentation because we thought someone from transit would be here to discuss in more detail. i am here to answer any questions you may have as far as

our overtime issue. president chiu: i know my colleagues probably have questions, but looking at the presentation from the comptroller's office and in 2005 -- in 2005, the mta was spending $21 million on overtime. now you are projected at $55 million. that is $5 million more than was projected. so, what's going on? you are moving in the wrong direction, at least based on the numbers. >> we were. if you look at the most recent on this track, you can see that in favor of 318, we have started to move back down. i can give you a history of fiscal year 2011, but i want to

bring your attention to the fact that in 2005 that mta, and we started to incorporate toprop a, -- incorporate with prop a, that ross and differences. we started with service reductions. then we restored the service. excuse me? oh. st. francis circle in the summer, going into the fall. most of our overtime issue is attributed, 91% to transit operations. the other 9% would be in other areas.

the most basic problem we have been having so far is paratransit has been drivers. we have ramp up -- so far is our transit has been drivers. we have ramped up. we have an accelerated program with one class that has completed. the success rate in our classes has been 61%. we doubled our numbers up to 40. we definitely need to have more operators on the road. we have to go ahead and have these drivers keep up with services. we do not want any disruption. that often includes maintenance. no maintenance to keep up the videos -- the vehicles. when we did our last two-year budget, we eliminated 263 positions. that is one of the problems.

a lot the more in the maintenance division. that happened to some of them. doing the street line projections, i do not think it is actually -- the straight line projections, i cannot think it is actually correct, because we had the anomaly of a lot of special events. like the play off games. that was another reason. so to do a straight line projection, but would probably not be as accurate, because we had a one-time situation that was there. president chiu: ms. williams, i do not know how other members of the committee feel about this, but it would seem to me that both the committee and the agency, and perhaps the public, would benefit if we had a presentation from the mta that in detail explains what is happening.

i would certainly like to see it, hear it directly from mr. ford. i know he could not be here. supervisor farrell? supervisor farrell: i completely agree. we have volumes of paper. people read through the numbers, to have an oral description of what is happening. this is a big deal. i think we would appreciate a written presentation and either mr. ford or ms. bose to walk through it. >> and that can be arranged. i can secure that. we thought that this was being handled by our transit services section. that is where most of the overtime lies, and we thought it would be able to come up with a better detailed presentation. supervisor farrell: president to? president chiu: i would concur

with my colleagues. i know you are simply the manager -- who are simply the messenger. there's a pattern of the mta not cooperating with the board of supervisors. i agree with my colleagues that we probably should have a separate time period for a written presentation. supervisor campos: thank you, ms. williams. again, you are simply the messenger. >> thank you. supervisor campos: you are welcome any time. [laughter] i think we do need to hear from mr. ford. hopefully mr. ford is watching. now we will hear from our police department. >> [unintelligible] as you have seen with the trends, -- better?

supervisor campos: yes. >> the police department has made huge cuts in the number of overtime hours of the last four or five years. from 300,000 hours in the fiscal year 2007, and we are projecting 86,000 hours for the current fiscal year. if you have any questions, we would be happy to address them. supervisor campos: supervisor farrell? supervisor farrell: how are you doing it? we're seeing other lines and other agencies, what ever the best practices are from your point of view, i think we would run -- we would love to learn. >> team met -- the main difference is we have been able to pull on duty resources for events in the community, where other departments are required to have an individual at a specific location for a specific amount of time. it is really shifting