housing inspector has seen -- commissioner murphy: i just want a simple answer. commissioner walker: not per building. >> we see peaks in the winter. we do not get many complaints this time of year. but we tried to be proactive and get in these buildings before the winter and do what we call a heat sweep to make sure that they have all of the equipment, top of the property owners, to try to prevent these types of violations. commissioner lee: i am sorry, this also reminds me. at the last meeting, i asked for some numbers to see how big of a problem this is. could we get some overall life safety complete numbers?

-- complaint numbers? >> total number of complaints? >> when you are talking about heating, boiler heating, about 6000, 7000 in the system. out of those, we might get a total of 50 a year calling saying we have no heat, no hot water. we go out there, and more times than not, we find out the day that we are going out, there is someone doing the repair on that system. the day that the complaint is coming in is the same day that the owner is getting in touch with the contractor. by the time we are getting out there to have them draw it up,

it does not happen. when you are talking about space heating, smaller units, more individual. yes, those could go out. getting a complaint about that is usually only when nobody does anything. we do not see that happening that much. commissioner murphy: so the percentage is pretty small? >> yes. they are not leaving them without heat or hot water. normally. there are a few cases, but not normally. >> and you also have to remember, if they are trying to work on the boiler and there is no heat, and they are providing space heaters to the tenants, you need access to their apartments. in some cases, tenants will not allow the landlord access, even to put in a space heater. that is another thing that we run into all the time.

sometimes, the owner is prevented from trying to mitigate the problem, like installing a space heater while the boiler is out. in some cases, it is an access issue. we run into that quite a bit. commissioner hechanova: can we summarize, ed? >> commissioner lee, we would be glad to get those code enforcement numbers for you. we are glad they working with the property owner at 570 o'farrell. we take these things seriously, and we will continue to enforce it. >> it would be best if we could hurry along and get this thing dealt with before the cold weather, if they are going to replace it. >> absolutely. commissioner hechanova: thank

you. >> first, to address mr. sweeney, i am not the only one that has called to complain. there have been other complaints. the other thing, in the particular case of no heat for eight days, it was not until the seventh day that the landlord attempted to call a repair man. i called after 24 hours with no heat to dbi. how many days, when the welfare of residents are at stake? in the housing code, under the paragraph purpose, it says the purpose of the code is to provide for the maintenance of the minimum requirements for the protection of life, limb,

health, property, safety, and welfare of the general public, owner, and occupants of the residential building. seven days without heat and no attempt to repair it. i understand the problem in trying to reimburse the city for the money expended, but i do not think a repairmen coming out and spending two hours is going to be an enormous charge. mr. murphy, last time indicated, it was a small number of landlords that were a problem. i agree with that. i have lived in rental units most of my life. this particular landlord, i have written letters to her and she does not respond. in terms of a director's hearing, nobody came to the directors hearing.

commissioner hechanova: were the inspectors able to get into your unit to take a look? >> yes, i was there to open the door for them. this is seven days before an attempt was made -- commissioner hechanova: thank you. >> where are the priorities of dbi, if not for the city? the time that i went without heat, the low temperature was 37 degrees. the high temperature in the eight days was 54 degrees. i have lived in cold climates. i do not get that cold, but 45 degrees is cold, when you have that no heat for seven days. and nothing was done. i called dbi, and they come back and issue paper work. then it goes into the ether.

thank you. commissioner hechanova: commissioner? commissioner walker: this has been helpful in dealing with the issue. i do think seven days without heat, without us doing anything or forcing the issue is too much. i think i hear you. i hope we all hear you. because of the heater comes off and on, it is difficult to pin down. i think we're headed in the right direction, but i do think having an 8-day delay on getting a resolution for heat is wrong. by about five days. commissioner murphy: final comment? >> ken cochran.

i did not intend to speak about this, but i heard about it when i came in. i had some experience in this area. i live in a building in the city where i ultimately became the property manager because we had a boiler situation like that. no heat or hot water over christmas. four days. i want to point out the difficulty in repairing or replacing a system like that, where there is a asbestos present in the building. even in the best circumstances, it is hard to find contractors who can work in those asbestos containment conditions. if you have to remove the asbestos, that is a huge project. it is going to take a lot longer and is going to be a lot more expensive because of the magnitude of cost. it goes up about three, four times because of the presence of

asbestos. even in the best circumstances -- and that kind of asbestos that you find around boilers is one of the dangerous types. i just wanted to make that comment. any time you are dealing with asbestos, it is going to make the process more difficult. thank you. >> is there any further public comment? commissioner murphy: i just want to ask one question. had the owner of the party applied to have the asbestos replaced, the boiler replaced? has he or she taken that first step? i would like to know that. >> not as of yet. one that we are definitely doing is calling for an action plan of when they plan to do it, not awarding the contract to somebody if they cannot do that.

it has to be done by a contractor. the contractor will have to be awarded that job. what that has been awarded, they will be subject to come get the permit and do the repairs and replacement. commissioner walker: you requested that for two weeks? >> i should have a response from the owner of exactly where they are at, what did have been received, the next couple of what they plan to do. as of right now, my inspector went down there and said there were no issues. i can see the urgency to get this started. if it is a hot water system, they are going to be without hot water for a little bit. if it is just for heating, that is different. both will be down for a while.

>> thank you. >> item #5 -- an item on the update of gray water systems. >> good morning. this is in regards to the plumbing plan check for gray water. i spoke with the puc as of last night as far as where we are at and i know we are questioning where we were at and how we are going forward. as of right now, we have new inspectors coming forward. we have inspectors coming forward for that plan check and we are doing it as needed and as referred to by the puc. there also putting it in a handout and the booklet they will have for contact

information with the department and to notify where to get to get plan check for any type of gray water systems that will be installed in san francisco. >> how many requests have had four great water plants? >> between 10 and 15. that have actually been requested and been installed, that is seven or nine. >> that is this year? >> that is the past year. >> we required plans from everyone. the only one we have not seen is the landscape where is not required or if there is tanking or holding. >> is there a guideline as to some of the pro-active things a homeowner or property owner can make with regard to the technical component of what the site will allow or typography?

>> that is on hand out the puc has. in of the plumbing code which works hand in hand. looking at the code will be more from the plumbing standpoint from inspectors and then you have the handout that will be able to give them the basic information of what they need to do and where they need to go and what type of situation you have. >> so both in combination is able to provide the current guidelines for both conditions of sight and code? >> yes. >> terrific. >> the department has a standard set of plans or specs? does the department have handouts as far as plans for

specs for a system? >> know, we do not design a system -- no, we do not design a system. every system is different as far as the gallon that what they put in their backyards and the location. we do not have a guideline as to how would is supposed to look. their own design is their own design. >> does the department had a list of people? >> not as far as i know. there are some different groups out there that do designs for these systems that do installations and to -- and do the design for the systems. your hiring one of those contractors, they should be able to do both. >> thank you. >> is there any public comment on item number five? seeing none, and no. 68, an

update on finances. >> this is a preliminary report on their year-end. they don't actually close the books until october or november, but the entries are still going into the system through the end of august. we are still missing a lot of ã9qj? arçj÷ side. the revenues are pretty much in. we are looking at a year-end balance in revenues of almost $5.3 million. most of that is either on the powers board for the terminals and we have been getting a lot of very large project coming in at the end of the year and we

started this year. there are many inquiries we have been having and we know the projects will be in in the next couple of months, so things are looking up. in terms of expenditures, we all know the salaries are due to the fact we were not able to hire. so we achieved more salary savings than we expected. but there still could be some charges for retiree subsidies and those other things that come in on the fringes and at the end of the year. that savings may be a little high. in the non-personal services, we are behind in several contracts because they have not submitted their billing. that number is going to change at the end of the year.

the material supplies -- our scanning and the contractors, chinatown, tenderloin, delores, those have not submitted. several of them submit on a quarterly basis and they are behind. that is a typical situation. the materials and supplies, we did not order as many supplies as we originally budgeted. the real one, it looks like there is not going to be any savings is the services of other departments. we do not know that number yet. there are several departments like the city attorney's office and the department of technology

-- they have not billed us for everything and i have not paid for the city attorney for the last quarter because there is still some information i'm trying to get and i said i'm not going to pay the bill until i get. although there will not be any savings, it should go either way. we are looking at about 3.5 million in expenditure savings and in terms of the excess revenue or revenue above budget, we are looking at about 8.8 million. this is before we do any of the deferred credit. in terms of the projects, we have not completed plan checks and a pay ahead of time, not after the services have been rendered and we have to set aside funding for that. we expect that to be in the neighborhood of $6 million.

the intergovernmental projects that include the joint powers board, you prepay in this type of situation. so we will be calculating that in the next month or two months when we get all of the information in. we are expecting the surplus to decrease to around $3 million or so. >> thank you. questions? >> i have a couple. on the replacement of the retirees, what process will take place for the balance of the year? or are those going to remain open? the electrical inspectors? >> we have put in requisitions

for the retirees. until they retire, you cannot float a requisition, but we started putting those in. many of them were approved at the end of the year, but once you announce your retirement, we cannot backfill until you are actually gone. for the most part, we intend to refill those positions. >> all of those positions will be filled that have been retired. we have enough vacancies so that we can hire in to replace our retirees right now. >> i'm always worried about the lag that takes place and how would burton's the department when these individuals on a day of their retirement are not and do not have a replacement in place to pick up the slack for the overload starting to accumulate.

>> we all share in your sentiment. >> the next one is on the category of storage of files and such. i know that when i go home and i have the content of just this past six months of reports, it accumulates. i can well imagine what it does for the city. do we have a central storage system and is there some digitizing of all of that material? >> we have a project in their to digitize the majority, to start digitizing our documents. in terms of prior to doing that, over the last several years, we keep certain documents in the house and we put a lot into storage in terms of the paper. then we pull those back in one

or two days if we need to. that is the old way of doing things. we had an rflp out for an electronic data management system all along with an electronic plan review system. it was not successful. we plan to put that out again and we digitized our scan -- scanned all of the plans. we have another large project where we would go back, i cannot remember what year we started digitizing, but there is a long time, back to the 1900's, where we have all of these microphones and microfiche -- microfilms and microfiche that we need to convert to digital images. we need to put out an rfp.

it's going to take a while because it has to go through civil service review and it is going to be difficult, but we're going to persevere. >> i take it this will be coordinated or you will work with the guidance, or will we bring in a consultant to address the needs? >> we have some people in house that will do the preparation of the documents. the majority of the work would be done outside, but then we have to do quality assurance and make sure the indexing is correct so we can actually find those documents. we are in a situation where we are running out of room in our building and for our records, we

have to go forward into digital. >> i cannot emphasize enough with our city and within the bay area here being technologically rich, how backwards our system can be, not only from the standpoint of retrieval, but also from compartmentalization storage which could be easily be done. >> it is interesting, when you look at the five-year plan for the committee on information technology, there are a lot of projects throughout the various departments to do all electronic data management systems. we are not the only ones in this situation. we are paper intensive so that makes it more difficult. we can digitize things right now

by running it through the copy machine and scanning it, but that is painful. it does not index, you have to remember the name of the file which you have. we are trying to do that in finance because we have so many documents, but the comptroller's office, when they do all of our audits, they require us to have the hard copies. it is a citywide issue. there's the issue of what can be done in house as opposed to out of house and we definitely will work with the unions to try to make sure we are not doing something that would impact our employees. >> thank you. >> the other thing i want to say in terms of next year's budget,

the first reading of the budget for the bird -- for the board of supervisors occurred yesterday. it was unanimously approved and the second reading will be on next tuesday. the budget will become effective -- technically there is a budget right now, but it will be effective on august 1st. >> thank you. >> an update on proposed legislation. >> the only update we have -- our presenter be best to it, the legislation going before the boot -- before the board of supervisors and august. the amount of money involved in our lean cycle is $222,000. we do expect to receive that money on the tax bills by next april.

that will be revenue for next year's budget if people pay their property taxes. on the legislation, i passed out the organizational chart and i wanted to bring to your attention some of the things that happened in the budget cycle for this year. the first one you can see is the 941 position which was deleted by the mayor's budget analyst. we also had to positions deleted by the budget analysts. they were vacant positions that had been vacant for quite a while. we went along with that as part of the budget negotiations.

you will also see in the next iteration of this schedule, code enforcement is going back and along with that, every year, we pay 2% of our budget to the comptroller's office for oversight on the controller's office. this year, they have a project that will involve code enforcement and all of the enforcement, housing inspection and part of that is to review the number of inspections and see if there is room for improvement. they will be starting that very soon and that will be completed this year. that will go along with code enforcement improvement program. that's all i have. >> you might want to take a look

under permit services. on the bottom, right at the bottom there, i believe some of these should be under tom healey. also, i would like to know why the packed meeting was cancelled this month. we have a lot of people called who were unhappy about that. >> we put out a response and we did not receive any, so we canceled the meeting. >> is that normal procedure? >> yes. >> yes. >> commissioners.