supervisor kim's comments and i agree with what you said and when i read that in preparing for today, i thought that was my assumption and i think that -- it's very important for a new mayor to be able to hit the ground running and not have to take significant period of time if they want to try something different or -- or focus in a different way. so i don't know that it should have to come tom the board of supervisors for reallocating and uncomfortable with the controller and seeing that a full and prompt disclosure of what the expenses are. we're going o have a brand-new mayor and we need to have that mayor hit the ground running. >> thank you, supervisor. i would echo your comments. i this it's property to have that comment but if that's the will of this committee that we

would allow the next mayor to have the flexibility to spend it. we still have an open item for next week. if i can is you mr. wagoner to follow-up on che members to follow up on that particular plan. thank you. next department, ethics commission.

>> good afternoon, madam chair, supervisors, i appreciate the opportunity to be here. i just gave you a handout. it's kind of an update on the status of the election campaign fund. to this point this year we've been going on the asurpgs that there would be eight qualified candidates. in all likelihood that number is going to be nine. so we have some updated figures for you on that particular issue. i don't have a formal presentation. the budget analyst has no recommendations for the commission this year, a position with which we concur. and i'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. >> can you speak a little bit about what we're anticipating for next year and just walk us through you're expenses.

one thing that i'm particular in knowing about is what's the current balance in your election campaign fund, what your drawdowns have been where you're expecting to be next year. >> we expect spending with nine candidates a total of $8.1 million. but that's based on a few assumptions. the first is that each of the nine candidates will raise the maximum amount necessary which would mean an allocation of $900,000 to each of them. so far this year, we've expended about $1.7 million. there's money going out every day so that number will rise before the fiscal year. >> how much was expended this current year? >> as of friday just under 1.7 million. >> what's the anticipation? >> the seapings is that we could -- anticipation is that we could go as high as 3.1 this

year. >> how much do you have in the fund? >> the amount that we have right now is that -- is three -- i do have that number right in front of me. no. shoot. sorry. >> oh, wait. it's 7.4, it looks like. >> that's what we started out at the -- yes. and then if you subtract the total uses, the fiss cal year and balance -- fiscal year that we expect to be 3.3 million dollars. >> given the information you provide we started the year with $3.6. the budget included adding an

additional $2 million. there was a repayment appropriation worth about half a million dollars and there was a supplement to appropriation -- >> right. >> so that brought us to 7.4. so far there has been $1.7 million of that 7.4? >> well, yes. there's also an additional nearly million that was spent on last year's supervisor's race. so the total would be 2.7. >> yep. so 2.7 million drawn down a combination of the mayor's race and the board's race? >> right. >> ok. and then the budget for the upcoming year anticipates a deposit of how much? >> a total of -- approximately

$6 million. just a little over $6 million. the exact future is $6,9 -- $6,091332. >> so we expect the total to be $14.3 million for the campaign fund but we have drawn down about $2.7 million, you said? >> right. >> and then in terms of how much we expect to spend over time you said about $8.1 million asumping nine fully

viable candidates all drawing down the maximum? >> right. >> supervisor wiener? >> do you -- i know you were here a few months ago with the 6-5 vote and i know at the time, there were -- you had projections about where we would be at the end of the fiscal year and then on ward. do you have any way of knowing as of now basically in the fiscal year whether we have spent more or less on the mayor's race than you projected. >> to date, we have spent less than projected but even though there's a very small window left in the fiscal year, there's money going out almost every day. we've come closer to that projection than before. but our overall projection for the race has increased.

what we've had trouble -- the difficulty was in the balancing act, we have a total figure that agrees with what we think we're going to spend. how much of it do we put into this fiscal year vs. how much for next fiscal year? >> your projection for the whole race, you understand i'm assuming being conservative -- are you assuming that every candidate will max out? >> yes, that's what the 8.1 figure is based on. >> as of now, how much under projection are we at? i know that it will accelerate as we approach june 30th. but how far under -- >> about a million and a half. >> do you have any sense at all about whether -- how far under we'll be as of june 30th?

>> i still think that the 8.1 million figure is credible. before we were using 7.2 when we had figuratively one less candidate. there's a wild card factor in here that doesn't show up in any of these calculations. the presumption that all five are all -- excuse me -- all nine candidates will max out is certainly plausible. they may do that. they may not. we don't flow for a fact and it's going be hard to figure out. but of the nine that we believe will qualify i think they all have the capability. and expenditures may change these numbers dramatically because of expenditure ceilings. so it could be a lot more. so the more third-party expenditures, they could be substantial.

we could go through more than we anticipate. >> right. and i guess we won't know until july 31st or august 1st whenever the disclosure date is. we'll have a sense of how much each of the fundraising is. i'll assume you'll know a lot more then. >> a great deal more. but even from the amendment that we've been distributing now, there are some candidates that are raising money. others are finding the resources but the financial report as you mentioned will give us a bigger picture. >> could you report back at least to give us more of a sense for whether you think we're going to see candidates maxing out by the end? >> of course. and in the public finance law itself, i'm required at the end

of august i'm required to also issue an analysis. >> thank you. >> thank you, supervisor wiener. what would be helpful also for us to understand -- i know we've had a dialogue about how much we expect the drawdowns to be for the mayor's race but the other thing that's funded with the fund is the board's race and so in the next fiscal year we're expecting about half a year before the 2012 june election for the board. i think if you can provide to the committee members just your expectation of spendsing for the board race as well -- >> $900,000. $9 00,000. included in this chart that i just gave you. >> ok. that's the -- that's the anticipated -- >> right. >> oh, ok. ok. even with fewer open seats we still expect $900,000 in spending? >> yes. >> do you think you can provide that information to us in the copping weeks?

>> yeah. i'm sorry what -- >> just the breakdown for the assumption for the $900,000. >> yes. ok. >> and for the budget analyst report this item unfortunately there is been some miscommunication. last year there was not a requirement for this department to be reported on. so for some misunderstanding that hasn't occurred this year. what i've asked the brudget is to take a look at the department etion budget to provide us with any recommendation between now and next week on the department budget. so if i could ask you to work with our budget analyst on providing that information to make sure that any recommendations are timely and then for us just to make sure we get the information on the $900,000 and what is expected to be drawndown. ok. thank you. then we'll go down to our final department, the department of elections. >> good afternoon. our budget is increasing this year due to there being one more election this next fiscal

year than the current fiscal year. there's a decrease from reimbursement from elections, city college, so we won't be receiving that for the upcoming fiscal year. as far as big ticket items the next five years, the voting system contract with our current vendor will need to be extended. i'll be coming to the board to seek an i approval -- for the current voting contract. i may actually seek to have it extended a bit since the last time it took almost three years from the time we started the r.f.p. process until the contract was approved. i'll be bringing that forward to the board. but also the leas for the department's warehouse will be expiring at 2014 as well. we would like to have that extended.

that's also a secure location for the voting system that we have now than if we were to go to a different system in the fleer future. as far as our five-year plan, we were looking to continue automating and digitizing as much of our process as we can. the reason is that -- there's less workload because you handle materials less but also what's more important in elections it allows for us to get realtime information on election material as we go through the process. we'll continue that through the next five years. one item that's described in the budget report is the scanning and sorting machine to the vote by mail ballots. that's one thing that's reduced the verification process in the vote by signatures and about -- also be able to capture that information and report more quickly.

i can take any questions from the board members. >> thank you. just two questions with regard to the leas at the port, is there any impact on the america 's cup? >> no, it's north. since we're in the southern side, there won't be any impact. >> and then with regard to the purchase i think the budget analyst has really highlighted the automated ballot machine, anything special there? any kind of new things that we're anticipating in the next five years? >> we also want to -- it sounds simple but it makes a big impact. the next thing you want to get is an automated mail extractor. so instead of having people bull the ballots, you actually have an equipment that can open the envelopes and bull them from the envelopes and we can

process them more quickly. one thing with san francisco, we have multi-card ballots. one of the expenses we have for the june primary election is we expect probably six cards and that just takes a long time to process that. and one of the bottom is to pull them from the envelopes. so we automate that. also the provisional ballot process, we're going to change the envelope size to we can use this equipment for the next fiscal year's budget so we can scan those envelopes and start handing those envelopes as we review them. we can actually -- we digitize it, we do a comparison and we can more quickly balance the budget. instead of waiting for the provisions to be processed. >> and just on the areapportion natment process this is that comes for a while. your budget includes $220,000

to complete that work. that work has to be done by april 2012 which is coming up quickly. could you speak about that fund? >> one of the primary things is to get a consultant because the department doesn't actually do the redistricting that the task force does. but the task force members have never done redistricting that i'm aware of. i don't know who the board will choose and who the mayor will choose. so it's important to get that work and that will be $95,000. there is also some money built-in for outreach for the task force and also just to get the materials. and that also there's a halftime position in there that we are working with the clerk of the board's office for someone to staff the task force meetings.

that was one of the challenges that the task force has and the department of elections is that there was no one assigned with the task force. another portion of the $20,000 is to actually appoint them to the task force. >> you are in agreement including budget closeouts? >> i am. >> thank you. mr. rose? >> madam chair, members of committee, our recommended reductions, they're detailed on page 129 total 1 32,628 dollars. that's 100% general fund reductions still allow an increase of about $5.5 million or 56% in the department's budget. and we also recommend closing out your general fund unexpended incumbrances which

would allow $375,000. so they result in $156,206 savings to the general fund. >> thank you, mr. rose. supervisor wiener? >> thank you. first i want to -- and i meant this as an inquiry as well just to compliment your staff. during elections candidates are some of the most difficult people in the world to deal with and your staff amazingly are patient and helpful. i just wanted to note that. i have a question about something that we -- something that we talked about. but i don't know if it actually happened and that is any kind of movement towards electronic voting sig nag chur collection, things like that. i know there was an op-ed in "the chronicle" about that. i'm wondering because obviously that has significant cost implications and security implications as well. i'm just wondering if you

envision any movement towards that in the for seeable future? >> i'll do the voting system first. we're finding out is that i think there will always be a paper ballot but the system will digitize the information, scanning both sides of the ballot are somehow capture the information that's on the ballot, but not having to handle the actual card. that helps and also for people are involved in the campaign and the candidates and even for the public's interest. you can capture information and >> it more quickly. i don't think internet voting is going to happen any time soon. i think that would be a great idea if it's secure. i know that for soldiers overseas, there's a form of exchange of ballot information and receiving the voted ballots from the service members, but

that's in a very limited sense and there's a -- so it's not much of a change as far as the regular process is concerned right now. with the digital signatures, i think that's going to happen fairly quickly. but the challenge there is that everything's based on 100 years of process. it's not just the offices in california that want to handle the paper, but there are laws that's based on those hard copy petitions as well. so receiving something, a digital signature or receiving an additional petition, it's not that we wouldn't know what it is. we would handle it in a way that's consistent with current laws. it's the law that has to catch up with the idea especially with digitizing the petitions for election material. >> thank you, supervisor winer. >> this department is in

agreement with the budget analyst, can we take the budget analyst recommendation and the project closeout without objection? >> great. thank you very much. >> ok. i think that we've exhausted all the departments today. so colleagues we're finishing before 5:00 which is great. if we can, items number one through three -- sorry one and two, can we continue this -- these two items until wednesday? we'll do that without objection. for items numbers three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and 10, can we continue these items to the 24th for public comment? we could do that without objection. great. and then item number nine, which has to do with the human services agency, can we continue this item until the 23rd which is when the department budget will be up? we'll do that without objection. that's great.

all right. mr. clerk, do we have any other items before us? >> second piece to the agenda. >> thank you very much. we are adjourned.

>> the san francisco cons tri of flowers in golden gate park is now showing a new exhibit that changes the way we see the plants around us. amy stewart's best-selling book, "wicked plants" is the inspiration behind the new exhibit that takes us to the dark side of the plant world.

>> i am amy stewart. i am the arthur of "wicked plants," the weeds that killed lincoln's mother and other botanical atrocities. with the screens fly trap, that is kind of where everybody went initially, you mean like that? i kind of thought, well, all it does is eat up bugs. that is not very wicked. so what? by wicked, what i mean is that they are poisonous, dangerous, deadly or immoral or maybe illegal or offensive or awful in some way. i am in the profession of going around and interviewing botanists, horticulturalists and plant scientists. they all seem to have some little plant tucked away in the corner of a greenhouse that maybe they weren't supposed to have. i got interested in this idea that maybe there was a dark side to plants.

>> the white snake root. people who consumed milk or meat from a cow that fed on white snake root faced severe pain. milk sickness, as it was culled, resulted in vomiting, tremors, delirium and death. one of the most famous victims of milk sickness was nancy hangs lincoln. she died at the age of 34, leaving behind 9-year-old abraham lincoln. he helped build his mother's casket by carving the woodallen petition douche the wooden petition himself. >> we transformed the gallery to and eerie victorian garden. my name is lowe hodges, and i

am the director of operations and exhibitions at the conls tore of -- cons tore of flowers. we decided it needed context. so we needed a house or a building. the story behind the couple in the window, you can see his wife has just served him a glass of wine, and he is slumped over the table as the poison takes affect. a neat little factold dominion about that house is actually built out of three panels from old james bond movie. we wanted people to feel like i am not supposed to be in this room. this is the one that is supposed to be barred off and locked up. >> the ole andersonner -- oleander. this popular shrub is popular in warm climates. it has been implicated in a surprising number of murders

and accidental deaths. children are at risk because it takes only a few leaves to kill them. a southern california woman tried to collect on her husband's life insurance by putting the leaves in his food. she is now one of 15 women on california's death rowan the only one who attempted to murder with a plant. >> people who may haven't been to their cons tore or been to -- do serve tore or their botanical garden, it gives them a reason to come back. you think let's go and look at the pretty flowers. these are pretty flowers, but they are flowers with weird and fascinating stories behind them. that is really fun and really not what people normally think of when they come to a horticultural institution. >> "wicked plants" is now

showing at the san francisco conserve tore of flowers. unless next time, get out and play.