is here because this is where the convention center is. people from near and far can be introduced to the richness of the bay area. it is so wonderful and unique. >> the city thanks you for providing such wonderful leadership and vision. >> we're so happy to be part of the city and so honored to be part of "culture wire." >> to learn more about the exhibition and other upcoming events, visit the website. thank you for watching "culture

>> good morning, and welcome to the continuing meeting of the budget and finance committee. i am carmen chu, with chiu, mirkarimi, and supervisor kim is chairing the rules committee. victor young is the clerk.

we have a substitute. do we hvave announcements? >> all people add -- attending this meeting are required to turn off telephones and pagers, and if you have a document for this meeting -- >> just a comment to members of the public, we have been making comments every day that we have had budget committee hearings, and a budget hearing will begin on friday, and those who are interested in the testing, public, will be on friday. we will finish with all public comment on friday. the public comment is on friday.

can you call item, item one to 12. >> the annual salary ordnance for the fiscal year ending june 12, 2013 for the airports and ports commission, item number two, this is for the fiscal year ending june 2012. the airports and ports commission and public utilities commission, item three, and this can be done by private

contractor, with the security services, item 4 for the human services fund, this is for 2011- 2012. item five is a resolution unifying the unified school district, with the funds for fiscal year 2012. this is for the public education fund and we are approving special commissions of up to 25% of the applicable rate, we make environmental

findings, out of the ordinance with the section -- to designate weekday and weekend hours. to the gulf sees at lincoln park. this is amending the code, to designate the weekend hours for the nonresidential rates, and making environmental findings to designate weekday and weekend hours to golden gate park, and item number 11, the ordinance amending the health code section 128, to set rates and other services provided by the department of public health and effective on july 2011, with the ordinance administrative code section, to add a fee of $35 for

services provided by the public, for this program. >> thank you very much. items one and two -- this is the budget and the corresponding item. this is a piece of legislation, trailing with the budget for the particular rates or other pieces of legislation corresponding to the budget. those items will be continued so that we can have public comment on them tomorrow. we will begin with a budget hearing, if you have any opening comments. >> we have no opening comments. >> we will go right into the

departments. we have heard this over the last few days and we continue on, primarily with the organization and the recreation organization, and the services agencies. >> supervisor chu, david chiu, and scott weiner. i am very surprised -- i am very proud, so we can show the unique advantage of the city of of san francisco, and the international reputation of this great city. hamas avenue say a few things. this is the only stand-alone

major museum in the united states devoted only to the arts. this is a great gateway to asia. we help to sustain that the jobs, and the quality of life in san francisco, to provide greater cultural and educational value, where we offer so many opportunities as well as challenges. we also enjoyed a tremendous international reputation for being one of the best museums in promoting the u.s. and asian culture. so, let me -- let me talk about what has happened in the last fiscal year. we have restructured the debt, i would like to thank you for your

support for the asian art museum. without your support we would not have success, and we solve the major obstacle for this wonderful institution. with the city of san francisco as well. and the goals were said very clearly. we needed to do this to achieve financial stability. what is happening now, is immediately after the crisis was solved, we restructured the museum so that we could better streamline the operation with more of a focus on business development.

there was the revenue and the sources that helped to sustain what ever the program was that we wanted to develop further with the mission. looking at the next coming fiscal year starting on july 1, we will show public engagement campaign, in order to boost further awareness of this institution and to develop a new program and last but not least, to initiate what is required of us by the agreement between the museum and the city, but also as a further growth of the museum debt. they have this potential. i would like to share with you some wonderful news. if you look outside of your window, going back to the

office with a wonderful exhibition, we have received spectacular revues. the new york times and the wall street journal and the los angeles times. they say it is a stimulating to look at as it is to look at. we have our very own san francisco chronicle, and this is when we will not mess. the new york area, has a tremendous confirmation. on tuesday, we have a note from

harvey rose, we will increase the attrition level, and i have to respectfully disagree with that proposal, because the nature of this museum is very different, and the situation on the ground is very different. let me know and by the chief operating officer -- >> let me invite the chief operating officer. >> i will be very brief, supervisors. thank you for the opportunity to be in front of you. the government structures of the museum, the asian art museum foundation, this is a private foundation to work closely to

achieve the mission. and in terms of the charter, the asian art museum we will maintain and displayed for the asian art we have a seamless integration of the operations at the museum, and an integrated budget. the budget ranges from $719 million, and we have 54 city employees. the city picks up roughly one-

third. the sources of the finding are threefold. the hotel tax revenue is about 7% in the get some funding. we thought that this was important to give you a high level about how the city funding is spent. $5 million of this -- 60% pace with the security staff. we cover the maintenance cost of the museum. we have a brief overview, and with respect to the budget analysts cuts, i want to reiterate the statement, we do

disagree with the budget analyst recommendation. i think all of you know this. we walked with the mayor's office, and we have a large transition figure that keeps us from the minimum staffing requirements. the past year has been an anomaly. we had multiple retirements, resulting in salary savings. but this relatively small staff goes years without any retirement. we have several critical open positions, and the proposed attrition is equivalent to eliminating -- three of the museum guard positions. we were thrilled to be able to eliminate the full complement of

guards. we expect to come to an agreement, but we hope that we can count on this committee to understand our position and help us maintain our critical staffing needs. thank you. >> that looks like there was a final slide to talk about the five-year plan. we should let the department finish this. >> it will take me multiple this out. this is a challenge for us, balancing the revenues and expenditures over the next five years will be a challenge. it is important understand the city funding carries less than the minimum cost of the city charter obligation to maintain and displayed and provide security.

since we opened in 2003, the museum has sought to curtail the expenditures. we have been driving up attendance from all beijing -- all available sources, contributing to the earned revenue. the ability to maintain the viability and fulfill the public mission is going to remain important with the global financial support. >> we have a few questions. we had come to the board with a restructuring not so long ago. we had a concern -- concentrated effort from the perspective of the board to raise money to be able to supplement that package. >> the process had been going

well. we have the campaign consultant, and we're working with the mayor's office. we need for the mayor to begin -- and meeting with several key stakeholders. we have the face of the capital campaign. >> the sales with the revenue, i appreciate the comments that have been made about this exhibit, and it is great to see high praise for this. this is going to be a large piece of the viability.

>> one thing that we took with the global financial crisis, we are extending the duration of the major exhibitions, and i think that this was a prudent decision to make in terms of cost savings, we have been hurt by this in the most recent fiscal year. the average attendance is roughly 250,000 visitors per year, and a low of about 165. what we are expecting next year, with the new exhibition, we hope to build our way back to about 200,000 in attendance, still short of the average, but

still 40% increase so we think that with the restructuring that he has spoken of, the exhibition's we have in the pipeline, we can build and exceed this level of 300,000, and hopefully sustain in this range with the restructuring. >> and is the strategy to look for attendance from tourism, visitors outside of san francisco. is it to end there. the base at home? how will you coordinate these efforts? >> the strategy has to be successful, and we have one of the most diverse asian-american communities, and they will engage very intensely. we also have the tourists from all over the world, and we have

the mission of the museum, to give a voice to the coaches, and at the same time, people with any aspect of the museum, people will never lose sight of the educational aspect of this. and the community in general, they will look into the richness that asia has to offer. in terms of the asian-american communities. >> we will go to the budget analyst report. >> this department has said that they are different, but all that we're asking for from this department, as we have passed from every department, is documentation to refer to it -- reviewed the recommendation. the one recommendation that we

have made -- we will work with the department assuming that we can clarify this. there is nothing different about providing documentation. this is all we ask. the recommendation is on page 3, $181,000, in attrition savings. this is very easy to document and and we will withdraw or reduce this recommendation if we are provided with the right documentation. >> what i would like for the department to do is get the documentation that we are looking for, and if there is a different hiring schedule, please provide that to the budget analyst,. >> we will be happy to do that. we only receive this on tuesday afternoon.

we look forward to this situation. >> thank you very much. we will see you next week and thank you for your presentation. we will start with the arts commission. >> is this a slide presentation. >> thank you for the opportunity to discuss the budget committee. before i get into the specifics, i thought i would take a second to recognize the importance of arts and culture in helping to really sustain the reputation of the city of san francisco as a cultural destination city. the 16 million people from

outside of san francisco visited us last year. and what will draw them to the region and the city, is the cultural richness that we have here in the city. we see this in public spaces throughout the city. in all disciplines, to the neighborhood cultural centers, this reputation as a cultural city really helps to bring all those people here, to help us to sustain the largest employment sector of the city, the hospitality industry. the hotel taxes and we capture the benefits, the direct benefits to the city of this interest in the city.

and the hotel tax brings in 62% of what, in the current fiscal year, will go to the general fund. and only 20% will go back to the cultural sector. all the different things that we do there. some of this funding also goes to support housing. i think that as the supervisors are now considering all the different challenges that you are faced with in terms of balancing the budget and making decisions, it is important to remember that the cultural sector, this could be a net debt -- and net revenue generator, and an advanced generator of revenue for the city. can we get these slides? this was the slide for what i just said, and the next slide?

this brings into the specifics of the art commission budget, overall, we have been able to, the arts commission has been able to make it through this tough economic time, with minimal reduction. currently, if we examine the committee here, there is a positive variants of over half a million dollars. we will get into what this really means because some of that -- there were some technical adjustments. but the lion's share of why there is a half million dollars -- this has to do with the fact that there is a recognition by the capital committee to support

a critical repair at the opera house. this is one of seven cultural centers that the arts commission maintains throughout the city. this is the only cultural center, in the southeast part of the city. this year it was put on the national register of historic places, and the problem that has been addressed by these capital investments of a half million dollars has to do with the dressing a long-term neglect of physical facilities of the cultural centers, where there was a leak at the opera house that was not discovered for some time, compromising one of the major sustaining walls at the opera house and it has now been determined that this wall will have to be replaced and a half

million dollars in investments that we're happy to see in the proposed budget by the capital committee will help to replace this wall. and this item has been designed and analyzed by the bureau of architecture, and the project is ready to go, waiting for the funding. additionally, there is a negative impact of the cultural centers, specifically to the budget, with the reduction of $50,000 to the cultural centers that are there, and this is -- when we think about the cultural centers, we know about the specific organizations that this constitutes from the mission cultural center, from the latino arts to the bayview opera house, but and a cultural complex in the career cultural center.

at what we do not recognize is that lots of other groups and organizations use these facilities as well. so that when you see a reduction to the cultural center and their budget, the impact of this is that they will try to capture some of the lost revenue by increasing the fees that they charge to other organizations to use their facilities. there will be a reduction in the number of programs offered, a reduction in staff and operating hours. the other area where the commission is sustaining a reduction has to do with the cultural grants program. this is the program that has the greatest reach of all the activities that we have undertaken in the arts commission except for public parks.