the amount of money you say it will take to complete this, that is doing it in-house? >> a combination of two things. the proposal we sent to the union today -- because they have to review what we propose -- we are proposing that we do the indexing and quality control in house and the actual scanning will be done out of house. we have a limited run of room, as you have all been to our department, to set up a large scanning operation. at this point, we are looking at contracting that out, similar to the way that we contract out the scanning of existing plants, as they come in. commissioner hechanova: so and rfp will be pending? >> correct. i want to go over the next that's. commissioner lee: could i ask a

question first? regarding the documents that you are scanning on microfilm, what is the record retention policy? are they something that we need to keep forever? i can imagine, in a few years, most of these documents will be over 100 years old. what do people use them for? could they be superseded? could the old ones be discarded, given to the main library for i can -- archives? commissioner murphy: you really cannot do that, commissioner lee. the records are very precious. if you want to find out the legal use of the building -- before the earthquake -- that is why i mention the water department. the water department wanted records before the earthquake. they are restoring some out of

san francisco. find out what the use of what the property was 100 years ago, you go to the water department. they will tell you if they had any water trough that was harsher. they have records. the other thing, not to dismiss commissioner lee's question, but isn't it possible for us to farm out this whole project, at least get some bids on it? there must be some specialty companies out there that can do this. that are set up to do this. >> to address her question, commissioner lee, state law requires us to keep those records. to answer your question, commissioner murphy, we are

proposing to contract out a significant portion of the project, and rfp. there are vendors in the city, in the area, that are doing business with the city that have the capability to do this type of scanning. the issue is we need to ensure the records are indexed so that we can find the record that goes back to the 1930's that applies to today. not all of them have the same information, so we have to double check -- commissioner murphy: i understand and would be in agreement. the staff that you have now, supervise the indexing. what if somebody comes into the process quick? we do not want to be talking about this five years from now, and we will be. commissioner hechanova:

commissioner walker. commissioner walker: i think the proposal is actually to have additional staff for a short period of time to accelerate this. that is what they are proposing. every month, we come and and talk about how there is not enough staff at the front desk, not enough for this spirit we have increased staff to accommodate that. now this is a separate project that is responding to some of the other issues. i think it makes sense to have enough staff to do this, so that it does not take away from some of the other duties that we constantly have issue with. commissioner murphy: i am not sure that they are asking for more staff. that is adequate. commissioner walker: are we asking for more staff on this project? >> at this time, we do not have

enough staff in the records management area to keep up with our current performance measures to be able to respond to records request, respond to 3-r requests. we need additional staff just for today's work. as commissioner walker mentioned, these are temporary staff to bring in to get the project exhilarated as much as possible. it is time consuming. as i said, going forward, with a request for proposal, hopefully, we can find someone, entity that can meet a tight time frame. commissioner hechanova: during the time of data forward, where we have staff that can adequately service the current services that are provided, there are, at times -- are there

slow periods where they may start the process of indexing? >> i would like to turn this over to noreen. they can tell you what they do in the time that they are slow. we are starting to work on some of the indexing. >> good morning. records management staff. commissioner hechanova: on the course of an average 40-hour week, period of time, there is a certain level of volume that comes through the processing during the week or month? are there. of time where staff can be -- periods of time where staff can

be allocated, i guess, technical organization, that will help to improve, if on and our rescue, the amount on the proposal will have already been addressed? >> for the last couple of years, 10 years ago, we had 23 on staff. now we only have 10. we have the phone calls, walk- ins. we have someone in the house scanning the permits. we are tight on the time frame every day. commissioner murphy: i do not think throwing a lot of money at this is going to change it. we need a fresh pair of eyes to look at it to see if there is another way of doing it. i suggested a couple of ways we could do this.

the staff that is there now is doing a wonderful job with what they have got, the equipment, technology they have got, i just think we need to take another look at its. commissioner walker: i actually disagree. we have looked at this and we have always been discussing the need to digitize our existing records in order to make the reprocessing, the new permiting system effective, to include data from history. it will address issues and make it possible to get a quicker response on the things that the public is telling us they need from this system. we must make the investment. i believe staff come in many ways, has been whittled down to the bare necessity. we have been getting information

from the director and finance departments that the workload is actually increasing. we have been hiring people back to do the inspections and permitting. this is the support staff that is needed. we need to do this simple project simple -- not so simple, but it is very much contained. we know what it is, we have all of the information. i do not think it is unreasonable to ask for staff to do it in a timely way, that makes us able to respond. i support it. i think we have to do this, in order to deal with the issues the commissioners have brought up. quick response to records requests, accurate data on all our requests. quick response to the public about information on the buildings they are interested in.

i think it is a product that needs to happen. i think we need to find a way to prioritize and effectively staff this and get the rfp done. commissioner hechanova: commissioner lee? commissioner lee: digitizing these records, it is it for the benefit of the public, commission, both? >> it is totally for the public. commissioner lee: why can we just do something and let the public research it? we do not need to go through a 100% process where we can punch a button and say these are the records. we can provide a process where they can look through it.

wouldn't that simplify the digitizing? commissioner hechanova: is in there a security issue? commissioner lee: that was the other thing, my first question, what types of records are these. is this we could give to a third party than they can say, we will help you do the research? >> these are the only copies we have. to the extent -- we are talking about giving them to an outside party who can do the digitizing -- there are not specialists in this field that only do digitizing of this. we could have them do the indexing, but we would have to redo it. we can turn this over to a third

party and ask them to digitize them. in terms of handing them over to a third party to do the research in order to respond to somebody coming in and asking for a records requests, we would have to look into that. my initial reaction is it will take longer than for our own staff to do the research. as part of the permit tracking system, one of the things that everybody wanted to do was to push a button and get all the information, and be able to provide it to the public or anyone that is authorized to get the information. commissioner murphy: five years down the road, hopefully we have this thing complete. what then? somebody applies for a 3-r report, can they get it online, within 24 hours, or is it still

going to take a week and a half? these are the question we need to answer for. >> maureen murphy. there are a lot of records that are not digitize. we do permit tracking paper. we have microfilm, at the concurrent. a lot of that is manual. it might be the last five, six years that began get digitized, but a otherwise, manual. it is not a push of the button. commissioner murphy: if i had a box of tapes and i wanted the record back 40 years, and i wanted to transfer them to digital, i would find a place that would do it for me, that would give me an estimate -- they would bring it back in the same box.

pg&e does this all the time. big companies do this all the time. >> that is what we are doing, the rfp part of the project. commissioner walker: that is what they are doing. commissioner murphy: that is not what i'm hearing. commissioner walker: we want to make sure that the dish for records are hooked in with the file. it is the quality control and putting the information in the proper connection. when you push a button, the computer gets records. it needs to have a connection, so that when you bring up an address, for instance, all of those things are attached to it. that is what our staff is doing. once the digital copies come in, it is filing and indexing, making sure they are connected to the right property. >> a lot of times, it is not on

the computer. we need to go to central bureau and have them match it up so that we can start a report. commissioner walker: but the goal is, there could be more of that. and then, if there is data outside of it, they need a day or so to see what is missing, then they can go to dpw -- i think what you are saying is what we're doing, which is copying with an outside agency, indexing them, and managing them in house, like we should. isn't that the case? >> 70% of what we do is manual. 60% of the research in documents will be from the digital. there is a lot of manual involved. commissioner hechanova: in the category of the information stream of one material content,

whether digitized or physical, one of the departments within the city that has experienced the category of information provisions would be the public library. i am sure during a period of time, they have been digitizing a significant number of material. is there any way to coordinate with them. -- coordinate with them? there are internet archives that provide services to digitize from books to other material data content from physical form, being converted to electronic data. what is the narrowing down? right now, it is quite wide. is they weighed 2, 1, the part mentally work with other departments that have significant experience with the

provisions of converting physical data to electronic data? second, as mentioned, there are services out there. i know there are some nonprofit organizations that have and make those provisions that are probably cost effective>> the bs for going out to an rfp is going over with the union, and we will be more than happy to look at what the water department is doing, what the library is doing. i check with the library a few years ago to find out how they ever handling their projects. our records are different, but maybe the same process could be used. i will be glad to do that. we needed to get this out to start assessing how contacting

out would be used to achieve this project, and that is the first project in sending this to the union. >> it sounds reasonable to the fact that it there for more material for the upcoming budget considerations for the next year, that would be terrific. >> commissioners? additional questions? >>thank you, panel. >> any public comment on item number six? >> hello, again. this is a very important topic. i want to thank the questions from the commissioners. you are nibbling from -- nibbling on the problem from outside, because it is very

complex. i want to address comments about other departments. you would be amazed to find out who has more stuff. they need to find out exactly the same thing you do. i think when you list the library, dbi, and lord knows who else of the city, i think we of the world's biggest rfp. let us make it really clear, scanning is not indexing if you cannot retrieve the data, what good is it? you have to have that organized the right way. you cannot do stuff fast.

it is complicated in needs time. you do it right and save yourself a lifetime of headaches we need to get it squared away so we do not have to go back and revisit this all the time. but us bring this matter from you to the head of the board of supervisors into anyone else who has fiscal responsibility to the city. you should not have to do this. everyone else wants this into regular records. get their paper somehow secure, because of anything helping -- happens to it, it is [inaudible] we have to get this together. i am encouraging you. you are on the right track.

what has to be done as of the city of the whole. this is the kind of thing the capital planning committee usually takes on as a big project. it is a big project. did i just hear $5 million from you alone. i encourage you. you can count on me to be your supporter, because i want to get this done right and bass, but i do not want to do it so it just leaguers on. we can do it together. thank you. >> thank you. >> any other public comment? >> commissioner walker. to go as a follow-up to the

public input, i think having a discussion with the assessor's office and trying to capture all of those documents would be worthwhile. as you all know, especially commissioner murphy, there is a lot of information over there that if we could make it seem less, it would be well worth some of the struggle we are having with this. if that could be one of the things to do to include them, i think it would help. >> i agree with you again commissioner walker. [laughter] holiday cheer. i think one of the most important categories here essentially is we had a very all verbal category, a physical material that if an event of the earthquake and any other disaster that looms, which i do not know how to define, but the

category of it is only one place and lost, we would have archived materials that are basically going to be gone. i think it is imperative that we push this to the forefront, along with some of the parallel technology categories that we are pursuing from the pds and all the other categories that will literally put against san francisco the category of better service to the public. i urge the director and those that are involved in the categories of one of the technical projects to really push the pedal to the metal and heavily. think you. -- thank you. >> item #7, directors report.

se7a, dbi finances. >> pamela. we have to items -- two items under number seven. the first is the monthly financial report, and then there will be a short discussion about the budget instructions for the 2012-13 budget. in first i wanted to mention, in terms of revenue, we have separated the revenues that are four charges for service from the revenues from the mou's which basically include bit transbay joint power authority

and the court, and we have projected to have more revenue throughout the year, so this is an actual plus protection. so far we have 43.8 in terms of the budget, and we have 42 -- 52.2 percent signed of the budget for the regular charges for service. one of the things we do look at and have started to look at is what the changes are in terms of valuation of issue permits, because that is a measure of how well we are doing. and we are actually, when you look at a year over year this year versus year to date last year, we are seeing an increase in valuation of issue permits of almost 43 percent signed, and we

provided a sketch will in the report that shows the level of valuation in various ranges and the number of issue permits. we're still seeing a large increase in permits, especially one did million dollars or more. -- $1 million or more. it will have the expenses for salaries would be close to 42 percent signed because 42 percent of the year has gone by,

and 42 percent signed of your salary should have gone by. we only expanded 34% of our salaries. most of our budget is in personnel. we have started spending more and non-personal services. this is due to high ti.t. we have to have various types of licenses and services. it includes the payments to the non-profits. that outreach programs. so far we have spent almost 33%. and when we go back and look at the personnel expenditures and the number of staff on board this time we're still trying to

hire staff. we have seven requisitions in just four clerks alone. we are having -- just for clerks alone. we are having some log jam, and we are not sure why. we're pushing to get the clerks out of and get them approved by human resources. they are well aware that this is a priority for the mayor's office, a priority for the commission to have adequate staffing in order to deal with this growth and permits. -- in permits. >> we had 36 big jobs come in

this year over $1 million. we have an idea based on anecdotal information, and the pre application meeting for some of the other projects, but i can give you our projection. >> i do not expect something of this week, but maybe something at the next meeting. appreciate it. >> also in the category of major projects that have basically retracted in moving forward with their plans to build, are there those that have