agreement with the puc. we entered into a 75-year lease with them for parking spaces at the garage for because it is very proximate to wear their new building will be on golden gate. that deal was worth $6 million. in the current fiscal year, the current budget has $3 million of revenue from that deal. we are proposing $1.30 million in the base budget and an additional $520 thousand if the mayor's office were to accept the contingency. we have an mou with them. chairperson chu: thanks. >> i think that is it for me.

i am going to turn it back over. >> just to conclude, perhaps where we started, the department has had obviously a challenging budget year to establish sources of revenue, reorganize, and implement the new revenue model. but it is paying off. due to hard choices we have made, we do have some good news in the context of a $4 million based budget cut. we will not be laying off any additional staff. no increases to existing fees for programs or permits. no reduction to facility operating hours. our goal is to continue funding our scholarship fund by 50% a year. we hope to be well over 300.

we communicate about a scholarship fund. we're going to add a second partner apprenticeships class in september 2011. we have been in conversations with human services agency and tuition services and other agencies about a work force development program for playground embassadors. this would be a pilot with a small amount of money. we are interested in increasing the amount of youth we employ during the year. we do a very good job of that during the summer. we are in the process of concluding a labor-management partnership with the university that we are confident will increase school hours -- will increase swimming pool hours in the coming fiscal year. just so we leave here not thinking it is too rosy, we

still have some significant challenges. park safety remains a very vexing and serious challenge for us. our part patrol resources are at a bare minimum. we have only adequate funding to staff with two officers at a time. we operate 24-7. we have one officer that operates in golden gate park and one that operates everywhere else. supervisor weiner: that is an issue on a lot of different levels. i know there is frustration you share and a lot of members of the public share that the rules are frequently not enforced in our parks. does the department have an estimate on what the cost would be not to have a cadillac parked patrol or public safety program in the park, but just to have

something that would be adequate? i know you have had some questions from the police department and others. but what is the wish list you have? >> we actually do. i would be happy to share that with members of the committee. we are in the process of working it through. there is 2 you will promise to this. this is taking a hard look at our -- there is two prongs to this. there is taking a hard look at our operations and seeing how we can get more efficiency of the limited resources we have. but without a doubt we need additional officers. we are also in a conversation with the san francisco police department and are prepared to invest in a partnership with them that would improve the coordination between sfpd and the park patrol. we stored up to 50% of the city's real-estate. -- we steward up to 50% of the

city's real-estate. we work closely with sfpd. we think there is a model which would improve coordination between the san francisco police department and our park patrol officers. we are also thinking that through and would like to bring that back to you. another one for us, which i think is really important to mention, is we have probably over 250 different buildings in our system. we have 4,000 acres of open space. our facility maintenance budget is $600,000 a year. this is not money that goes to pay plumbers. it is money that goes to buy pvc pipe. this is not money that goes to pay the salaries of carpenters. it is money that goes to pay for two by fours.

if you break that down per acre of open space per year, it is $150 per acre or approximately $2,500 per structure. that is an area of great challenge and great need. we often get to the end of the year and are out of supplies to fix things. our staff has done an incredible job and deserves incredible stuff for doing more with less. but we are significantly short in custodians and gardeners. we are probably 30 to 60 custodians short of where we should be, given the buildings we have. we do operate on a seven day a week schedule. women somewhere between 102 hundred gardeners -- we remain somewhere between 100 and 200 gardeners short given our acreage. while we are very proud of what

we are delivering, we could deliver it more and better with more staff. that remains our challenges. you'll have had to have some tough conversations and cast some difficult votes. we appreciate that. we respect that. we know these are difficult choices to have. but the decisions you are making are starting to pay off. where we are today is a lot better than where we were 10 years ago. chairperson chu: thank you for your presentation. i would like to call public comment. why don't we open public comment for this item? don franklin, maria angelico, sean macgrue. >> supervisors, good afternoon. my name is larry.

i am the chapter president of the park workers union. everybody talked and i listened to some of your questions. it occurred to me that in the first time in seven years, my chapter has not been threatened with layoffs. for the first time in the two years, i have not had to go out and hand somebody a pink slip. for the first time at least this year, i did not receive a pink slip. i see this as being a banner year for recreation and park, for our membership, for our city, and a recreation programs. our programs are buttered than they have been in years. we continue to expand in program quality. if you look at our catalog, we

are not just a tiny tots anymore. we are doing skateboarding. we're doing rock climbing. we are doing fencing. this is stuff we have not done in my 22 years with the department. we are on the right track. i encourage you to support this budget and to consider -- and to continue supporting the recreation and parks department. thank you for your time. chairperson chu: thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. don franklin, vice president of our chapter. we have come a long way since last year. last year was about pain and heartache. i saw a lot of good people get hit, unfortunately. sometimes, you start to see a light at the end of the tunnel. the tunnel is getting shorter. the light is getting bigger. it is kind of nice.

i hope as we keep going in this process that what we have made in investments, as far as our department -- it is nice to be recognized. we had an event a couple of weeks ago, an extravaganza. i had plenty of people from the city say, "this is great. we need more of this. it is fun coming to your department." that is the bottom line for us. we are the fun department. we want people coming to us to have fun. i see in this building you have a yoga program we are not providing. maybe that is an opportunity for us to provide some more fun. i want to and it with this. recently, i have been in charge of alternative recreation. i have to run around twice a week to get cooking supplies for our culinary programs. i heard somebody call my name and i turned around. it turned out it was a person

who played on my baseball team 18 years ago. she came up to me with her children and said, "this is that crazy park director i told you i did all those things with." now, her children are coming to our program. in short, we hope to support us. we hope to increase things we do to get the job done for the city of san francisco. thanks. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am the recreation supervisor for the waterfront. i am also a shop steward. i am not here in either of those roles. i am here as a paying participant in a recreation and park department program. every night at balboa pool, i am taking scuba diving to become a certified scuba diver. i say this because it has not been offered by the recreation and park department since the late 70's, 40 years ago.

i think that illustrates how well the plan is going that we are now able to, in these desperate budget times, be able to offer something we have not been able to offer in 40 years. i wholeheartedly support the budget and hope you will too. thank you. >> my name is john cunningham. looking back 20 years, i was a property owner on dolores park. the city was in a very similar budget crisis in the late 80's and early 90's. the deferred maintenance to the park system of san francisco took numerous years, if not a decade, to catch up. as he sought in the presentation from phil, the number of years that recon park -- rec and park has realized a significant

reduction in its budget, there will come a breaking point. one will be the line that shows the revenue that has been generated will stop, parks will not be a place where individuals and groups will want to come and use them and pay for it. secondly, the citizens of the city will not be able to enjoy what this city offers. on a final point, speaking to the need for increased park patrol, i can think back to about nine months ago on the way to work. i received a call that there had been a murder in the eastern part of the park. they originally told me it was within the growth. it was a tragic event. thankfully, it did not occur inside of the grove. but the violent crime that continues inside that part of the park as a result of the activity in the outer haight and

what was formerly the recycling area -- there is only one patrol person available to be in all of the park's city-wide after midnight. there are times when i go to the grove at night to ensure that some of the activities that have been going on consistently are not taking place. i encourage you to support this budget as well as the increase of park patrol. thank you. chairperson chu: thank you. >> i am from the san francisco parks trust. we are the nonprofit partner for recreation and park. i want to briefly express the parks trust support for this budget and for what rec and park have been able to accomplish this year. we heard about the great programming that is going on and we are really happy that has been able to take place without increasing the fees. we support the budget.

we look forward to continued partnership with the department. thank you. chairperson chu: thank you. >> i am here representing the neighborhood parks council. one of the things we are excited about with this budget is the principal so many people worked on together. we heard the five-year budget plan for the city, to know where you are going. we all have a better idea of what our park system needs and how we are going to do that together. the key as we see it is having revenue generation conversations at a neighborhood-by- neighborhood, park-by-park basis, so that decisions are not being made without careful thought and out reach. that is something we feel passionately about at neighborhood parks council, making sure that park users can contribute and looking at them to increase sweat equity and gifts to the department. i think it is important you know

this deep down. parks are vital to our communities. they are vital to our families. they are vital to everyone, visitors and residents alike. please no more general use tax in the future. >> if there are other speakers, please lineup. >> my name is taj. i am the bernal heights recreation facilities coordinator. i want you to imagine life without recreation centers. what would our children's lives be like? what would your life have been like if you did not have a park or recreation center to go to? i have a little boy in my center. his name is domenic. he comes every single day. but colonel heights was closed for a long time so he had nowhere to go. he was planning on sidewalks -- playing on sidewalks with no one to talk to are play with. the day the rec opened, he has

come every day. he is interested in the park. he loves it. he plays basketball. he helps out. on days out from school, he comes in and asks what he can do. i want to see more of that in our community. in order to do that, we need to continue with the funding. we need our budget approved so we can open the doors for the dominant -- dominics, so they have some future. think of him and the kids like him when you are making decisions. >> good afternoon. robert connolly, president of boys and girls clubs of san francisco. i wanted to speak in favor of some of the model changes that ms. ginsberg and parks and recreation have gone through in the last year or more. we now operate the site at wheeland and cora at a

visitation valley. there were hard decisions parks and recreation had to make, but it has worked really well. we now serve five times as many kids there. recreation and park no longer has to employ folks to provide services there. it has been good for the community. we worked closely with the school next door and the library going in down the street. it is a creative way to keep services coming into the community that really needs them. visitation belling need these services. and it allows park and recreation to use the money elsewhere in the system to reach as many kids as possible. i just wanted to say i applaud that effort. thank you. >> my name is joseph young with "ninja news." i applaud the efforts you guys are doing. i think that is great. but as far as our parks being updated and up to speed with all

the new gadgets and toys for the kids -- they are the future. however, at the same time, consider the homeless problem we have in the city. this is something that has to do mainly with parks and recreation, but a lot of homeless people sleeping in those parks. you guys are upgrading security and making sure that no property is being contaminated in the parks. that is great. however, where do they go? i speak as the voice of those who are homeless. these are the people who stay in our parks. a lot of times, they are good people that just had misfortune in their lives. i want you to consider if you are going to go ahead and say that people are not allowed to stay in the parks, please allow them a place to stay that is safe for them. please keep in mind that poverty can happen to anyone of us in this room or any one of our audience at any moment. please use your hearts when you make this decision. i do support the improvement of

our parks. the kids are our future. i get that. a lot of americans get that. but also consider where these homeless people will be staying, if not in our parks. thank you. chairperson chu: thank you. this will be the last speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is douglas. i would like to thank supervisor chu for having a hearing on this recreation and park budget update. to be honest, i have been very ill informed on this department since one of my current project. i actually learned a very much new information listening to mr. ginsberg. i think the department is definitely improving. we have to credit mr. ginsburg for that. since we are having today's hearing on recreation and park,

i would like to pull the contrasting idea. i was wondering whether there was ever a similar budget update for the department of public health during the last fiscal review. i am not sure whether it happened. since recreation and park is important enough for this budget update, since department of public health is the greatest general fund user, i would think this committee would support a budget update for the department of public health. it is so important especially to the needy and immigrant population in the city. it deserves a very similar, if not identical, hearing like the one we are doing now. so if we can justify the time

and expense for recreation and park and learn a lot from mr. ginsberg, we ought to have the department of public health up here giving a similar presentation, and hopefully some good results. i suspect results will not be as good as recreation and park. thank you. chairperson chu: thank you very much. if there are no other speakers, public comment is closed. i want to thank recreation and parks for your presentation and providing us a brief update. i know your budget will be before us again. i asked this committee to file this item. can we do that without objection? thank you. item four. >> ordinance appropriating

6,000,361 $808 of general fund reserve and the appropriating -- appropriating approximately $6 million of general fund reserve and appropriating approximately $2 million of expenditure contingency and debt service savings to fund salary expenditures due to fewer retirements than anticipated, disability pay, and workers' compensation claims. >> this is a request for supplemental appropriation to pay for salaries through the end of the year and to pay for underfunding in disability and workers' compensation plans. mr. rose's office and our office have worked together. he recommends a certain level of production in the request, in line with his agreement.

>> perhaps we can go to the budget analyst. >> this is a supplemental appropriation. it would we appropriate existing sources of funds. but it would have a $6 billion of mid-year reductions. it would have a $600 billion impact on the general fund. we point out in our report on page 4-3 but with approval of this appropriation at the $6.30 million level, it would reduce the general fund reserve to $40.50 million. we did review the numbers. they are high, but they are in line with the spending to date for the sheriff's department. we are recommending, based on

our evaluation of on going over time, a reduction of $250,000. chairperson chu: think you very much. the supplemental and the general fund value -- is the anticipated and captured in your projections? >> it is anticipated. it was factored into the six- month report. it will be factored into the nine-month report. we are assuming a value in the current year and an adjustment in next year's budget to reflect these costs. chairperson chu: thank you. if there are no questions from the committee, are there any members of the public who wish to comment on this item? >> thomas picorello. first, let me thank sheriff hennessy for his 30 years of service to the city.

but i am here to speak in opposition to this appropriation. frankly, i am surprised to still have $6 million left in your general reserve fund. it is my understanding that the sheriff's department needs funds now because the anticipated 80 sheriff's retiring and only 25 are now retired. -- because they anticipated 80 sheriffs retiring and only 25 are now retired. i would prefer you put money to work people having lunch is on weekends instead of people searching my laptop. thank you. >> i am here to say that we oppose this appropriation. we represent institutional -- we

support this appropriation. we represent international -- institutional officers. chairperson chu: are there any other speakers who wish to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor mirkarimi: motion to accept. chairperson chu: we have a motion to move the item forward. can we take the budget analyst's recommendation? we have a motion to accept the recommendation, and that is agreed upon by the department. we will move the item forward as amended, without objection. thank you very much, and thank you, sheriff, for your patience. mr. young, are there other items before us? >> that includes the agenda. chairperson chu: thank you very much. we are adjourned.

>> welcome to culture wire.

the city rolls of the red carpet to host the international film festival. the actors, directors, and others in among luminaries around the globe. we will get a sneak peek of this year's exciting program. >> welcome to "culture wire." in april, the 50 forces and francisco international film festival will be taking place. joining me to talk about the programming is the director of programming for the san francisco film festival.