to the extent that happens, we would be having some impact on bus service, but we are always trying to weaweigh how we can me the most amount of people given the amount of time. supervisor chu: thank you. if there are no other comments, let's go to public comment. i do have some final comments for the mta. supervisor avalos: two minutes. >> thank you. first and foremost, i have been following mta for a long time from michael burns, michael ford, and now head reiskin. thank goodness we have somebody like john who did not jump ship.

at least to try to address the issues. what supervisors have failed to understand is whether you really have the clout. you agree to a proposition where your hands are tied, and literally, the mta does not need to come to you for anything, except for superficial meetings like this. you have no clout. having said that, we really need to understand, as it john stated, the software, those lines that are operated manually, some explanation about the automated control system, which we need to further look into, not just casualty -- casually. as far as the third street light

rail is concerned, i take public transportation all the time. we still have to work on it. as far as those services provided to the sunset, mr. ed reiskin admitted that we needed to fine-tune the services. ed is not very well versed with the transportation system, but he is a quick learner. he has done good things with dpw, 311. in the given circumstances, we need to support him, but i'm going back to the proposition that our hands are tied. people come here, a kind of a presentation, you folks can do nothing with the mta. >supervisor avalos: thank you. any other member of the public that would like to comment on this item?

seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor chu? supervisor chu: thank you, everyone for patients. i want to thank the mta for your commitment. it is tough with any issue with the mta, considering our influence over the organization. however, i think these conversations are fruitful to help us better understand how to convey information to our constituents and convey information to the mta as well. i want to say thank you to the mta for a couple of things that did work. in terms of the nx service, we have heard nothing but positive things. they are able to get downtown if they live in the outer avenues without having to worry about delays. i wanted thank you for that. it has been nothing but positive, in terms of feedback, from what we have heard from our

constituents. it also helps with the large number of boardings sometimes when we did not have the express service. i also want to thank you for having the real time information. i have get to see how it will look yet, and oftentimes people will be calling our office to see if there are any issues within the system. i know john haley is looking at a process to analyze different bus lines to see what we can do to improve operations. i do want to thank the mta for looking at these things and starting working on those things that we can control. a couple of things that are still problematic, in terms of the turnaround service, i understand the flexibility the mta would like to have to readjust the system, but as super out -- supervisor ablow is mentioned, it does matter what time of day those switchbacks happen. when you have three train going

downtown, it could be a different scenario. but often, when we hear complaints, they are when people are coming home from work, when it is the evening time, and dark. the five-minute policy, we have been asking for information about the adherence to that. supervisor at avalos also talked about that. is there a way to have a different way of implementing it so we know there is another line close behind? that would be an improvement. finally, one other comment. in terms of the outline, this was something new that came out of the presentation, how often the l line is misrun because it is easy to replace with the service. i understand that, but is there something that could be done to make it more fair?

is the l line always the one that gets bus service, misruns? i would like to work with the mta to address that issue further. if we can, i would like to request that we continue this item to the call of the chair. i think there is additional information the mta needs to address, but i think we have moved forward from where we first started. supervisor avalos: ok. thank you, supervisor chu. i appreciate your bringing forward this item. we can continue this to the call of the chair. i want to thank the mta for your presentation. while there is a lot of frustration passengers have, i have, i understand the constraints you are working under. however we can be of assistance, please rely on us.

we will continue this item to the call of the chair. supervisor avalosmadame clerk, m 2. >> item 2. hearing on the budget analyst report on san francisco's banking system and options for leveraging san francisco taxpayer dollars and city revenues in financial institutions that can stimulate our local economy. supervisor avalos: thank you. this is an item that was -- i had requested the budget and legislative analyst and to the report. the idea of municipal banking in san francisco. it was something that was on my radar for a few years. when we got to see how our recession is still ongoing, continuing, the urgency behind how we can use our public dollars to help stimulate our

local economy has gotten much greater. especially now that we have a parallel to what is going on now, frustration to what is being expressed around the country about our financial institutions, specifically, how our financial institutions have failed us, especially after getting bailed out in the latter part of 2008, 2009. there is a general feeling that our economy has not been supportive as greatly as they can be by our major financial institutions around the country. specifically, the top four are wells fargo, bank of america, chase, and citigroup, all of whom have $5.40 trillion in assets. compare that to smaller banks

around the country which have $1.40 trillion in assets. smaller banks to a much greater job of supporting local economies and have a broader portfolio of loans to small businesses. almost four times the amount of these banks that have $4 trillion in assets. how can we figure out, as a city -- and this is something that is being grappled with at the state level -- how can public entities use their public dollars in a way that will help stimulate the local economy, and greater accountability for our financial institutions? that was the purpose of asking for the report from the legislative analyst. with the feeling out in the

street, occupy wall street, occupy sf, oakland, all the other cities around the country where this is going on, we do not feel like we have been bailed out. main street has not had its bailout. fillmore has not had its bailout. mission street had not had its bailout. how can we create the conditions to support small property owners and local business owners here in san francisco with public dollars? in the southern part of san francisco, including my district, district 10, to some extent, district 4, we have high rates of foreclosures. last week i saw a map for a look at the number of foreclosures and it was densely populated in the southern part of the city.

that was something that alarmed me. when we say all these defaults and foreclosures, these are household that are losing wealth. especially for working-class and middle-class families, our wealth is in our property. we have property that we are not able to maintain, we are seeing a loss of our diversity. we talk about african-american out-migration. a lot of that is due to housing costs and the foreclosures occurring in the community. as well, in the hispanic and chinese and asian communities as well. the purpose of today's hearing is to explore how we can use our local dollars to get greater accountability from the banks. across california, we have a foreclosure crisis that continues.

in san francisco, 4210 foreclosures alone in our city. that is an astronomical number. in california, $200 billion worth of property that are under water. in san francisco, we have many as well under water. what is the response, how can we change the situation? the timing of this is interesting because of what is happening outside this room, in the country with the occupied movement, but we also of some great local timing as well. the city treasurer is in the process of putting out another rfp for begging services for the city and county of san francisco. this is an opportunity to see how we can use the time to leverage this rfp process to get greater social

responsibility and support for our local economy and banking institutions. he will be talking about that when he comes to the podium later on. i thought i would start with our treasurer who can give us an overview. he has some activity later on this morning, so he should go first. then we will hear from the legislative analyst about the report that they had done for my office. then we will get into public comment. mr. cisneros, come forward, please. >> good morning, supervisors. i am pleased to be here to talk about the city's banking business, how we transact that business and the process we are about to undergo to review how we manage the city's banking business. i want to spend a minute talking about different types of activities we undertake in

managing the city's money, as it comes in, and as we hold it and keep it safe. the first thing i would like to talk about is how we manage the city's investment pool. technically, a county investment pool that every county in california holds and maintained. this is where all the money that has been brought into the city, funneled through our bank accounts, but we need to hold onto for some timbered period of time, is managed and invested. we managed that pool deliberately and carefully. our average balance of that investment pool has been a little bit more than $4 billion. it is mostly comprised of money that would not technically be considered the city's general fund money. these are, to a large degree, bond proceeds, bonds issued by large departments or government entities. those might be the san francisco airport, the san francisco port,

mta, the san francisco unified school district, or our local community college district. by comparison, the general fund money in that overall imbalance represents one of the smaller portions in there. how we manage those funds is strictly governed by state law, and state law prioritizes three major items that we must follow when we invest those funds. first and foremost is safety of the city's money to make sure it will always be there. we will never lose any of it. the second high priority that they require us to focus on is liquidity. and this means the money will be available when we need it. we cannot allow it to be tied up for a longer prado of time that would make it difficult for us to access when it comes to use those funds. thirdly, we are required to

prioritize yields. make as much return on the investment of those funds as possible. these criteria are put in place by state law, i believe, very appropriately, because we have seen counties in the past have difficulties. some of us may remember more than a decade ago when the orange county, through mismanagement of its county pool, ended up going bankrupt. this is, of course, what these exact strict rules are meant to avoid. so we take the management of the pool very seriously. the overwhelming majority of our funds these days, in these difficult economic times, are invested in very safe investments. over 90% of everything we have invested from the $4 billion

investment pool is in guaranteed investment. we know that our money will be safe. we take this responsibility very seriously. that is the description of the work we do for the investment pool. now i would not like to talk to what you were referring to, supervisor at avaloavalos, how e banking services. just like any other entity, public or private, we manage and number of banking relationships. in san francisco we have an estimated 133 bank accounts that are open and spread over 40 different city departments. the reason these bank accounts exist is so the city can manage and complete its many, many transactions it must do to run

its business. when you think about it, it is all about receiving payments into the city, tax payments, fees, revenues, cash flows, and making payments out. over $12 billion of funds move in and back out. if you total up all the value of the transactions, that occur in the city, and the literally thousands of transactions a year occur. right now we are dealing with early numbers, but almost 2 million deposit transactions and more than 3 million disbursement transactions each year. so literally, millions of money moving, large and small amounts, is what we transact

through these 133 accounts across our city departments. i want to be clear. these accounts are primarily and strictly for the purposes of handling these transactions correctly and accurately. once any funds go into the account, just like any other organization, a private company, government agency, any money that goes into that account does not stay there. it would not make fiscal sense for us to leave it there. by and large, these accounts are not interest-paying accounts. so we provide a function where it at the end of the day, it is swept out of those accounts into a concentration account. then that concentration account balances are reviewed and managed by our investment pool managers, the folks i was talking about earlier, who take that money and make sure it is put somewhere safe, make sure we have liquidity in place, as well

as the option to earn a return on it. that is a description of what we are using these accounts for. just to go into more detail, the inbound deposits are all various types. people bring us cash, checks, payments that come through the mail. we have bought automatic transfers, wires, things like that. all sorts of different transaction that we are taking through these accounts. similarly, a similar variety of different transactions where we are sending money out. also, as people are getting more and more interested in paying their fees and taxes in different ways, we are processing more and more credit- card and debit card transactions, as people are

moving away gradually from paper checks or cash payment, to some form of credit or debit card payment. we have a fair amount now of work we are doing to process those payments from all the different channels they come through. the fees that we pay on those transactions are similar to what retail a establishments -- to what we tilt astonishments have them. annually, they have been costing more than the credit card transaction fees. that is costing us more than the fees we paid to our banks for just the management of the account. so you are correct, we are correc. it is important for us to solicit our business so that we

get the best product and at the best price women do business with our banks. we have come in fact, because we do not do this every day, every year, so we are perhaps not the most expert at doing this, but we secured an outside consultant who has done this work for many municipalities to help us with our procurement to make sure we are engaging with these financial institutions the best way possible, getting the most productive services, most efficient services, and getting them at the most competitive prices. when we are meeting now is a process to engage our city partners. we need to know what their needs are. we need to know how rec and park receives its funds. similarly with the airport, and on and on for all the different departments. what are their banking needs? what types of improvements mind week, with the knowledge that we

gained from our financial institutions and consultant, what may we be able to look at to do better? how can we improve the efficiency we bring into our practice and move our money more efficiently and perhaps more safely? we want to take every opportunity to improve service internally as money moves around the city family and apartments, but we also want to make sure we are offering the best service to our constituents, so folks can pay as in whenever way is most convenient for them. we are gathering that information right now from internal sources, and we are hoping to be able to compile all that. shortly after next year, we will be able to have all of that constituted into our rfp that we will send out to financial institutions. certainly, we want to be very

careful of how we do this. we want to give financial institutions time to respond carefully and thoughtfully to our proposal. then if we imagine moving some or all of these hundred-plus bank accounts, we are going to need a series amount of time to implement those changes. we are being careful to plan this process deliberately so that we can do the appropriate steps in the most responsible way. as you mentioned in your introduction, supervisor at avalosavalos, we're doing what n to work the rfp into the process and ensuring that the contracts that enter the process but the support our community in sanfrancisco. as many of you know, the treasurer's office has a long history of rolling out financial

empowerment programs, but as we call them, to do positive things in our community. one of the first things was an effort to get people away from predatory check captures and enduring relationships with healthy, lower cost, more mainstream financial institutions, where they could seek -- keep their money safe and not pay outrageous predatory fees. since then, we have been working directly with credit -- credit. we are still in the beginning of the pilot program and are hopeful we can show there are ways that credit unions and hopefully banks, can someday provide low-cost loans to low- income people in a way that is not as predatory as pay lenders. >supervisor avalos: who were

those institutions involved? >> we wanted to make it as broad as possible. when launched the program five years ago, we had three quarters of the banks and credit unions in down participating. all the banks that you mentioned earlier, many medium and small banks. i want to say the majority of credit unions in town agreed to be part of the program. in order to do that, we insisted they meet our project goals, which is to provide a low-cost account, offer forgiveness of a first overdraft fee, opportunity for people who have had problems in the past, to earn their way back into good standing. a variety of things that we got to change their practice so that folks have an easier time from beingunbanked to banked.

our goal was to tell people that joining the mainstream can offer them options. go where you want. creethat was our goal, to make s as universally as possible. we also want to make sure -- as we begin to roll up our banking rfp, we take many of the same mission and values we have that in our previous programs to this procurement as well. we want to ensure this procurement reflects the values and goals of the city and county of san francisco. so we are trying to learn and gather information about that, the same way we are meeting with city departments to learn what their banking needs are as well. we are very proud of the fact that last week we bring in the to announce that one of our long-term partners in the

various programs i just mentioned is joining us in this effort to help us craft a banking rfp that has a strong social responsible aspect to it. we are in discussions with other organizations to hopefully be able to announce soon that they will be helping us to review the different policies, practices that we may be able to bring and incorporate into this rfp. for those of you who do not know, the green lighting institute is a national policy institute working for racial and economic justice. they are well known by the financial industry for their aggressive pursuit of the community responsibility act. they are experts and running grass-roots networks to hold financial institutions accountable to the many responsibilities that we share with the communities we serve.

so with that, we are at the beginning of this process. i am grateful to you, supervisor, for bringing more attention to this topic. together, we can dialogue and have a good conversation about what kinds of opportunities this banking rfp can have come in if we can then present goals, missions, and different outcomes, to the different various financial institutions looking at the city and considering bidding for our services. that is very exciting. it is a great opportunity. we must also consider that we have to do this hand in hand, at the same time, making sure we are safeguarding these millions of dollars of financial tracks -- transactions which occur every year, making sure that they occur accurately and safely for the