of service. in i note there is an annual report. i believe there are quarterly reports. plus, i know at that most of the areas are visited at least once a month and there are meetings where everyone gets together and they talk about what they are doing. there is a lot of -- we have instituted over the past couple of years after we were requested to do so from the comptroller's office audits. we did institute more formal review and recording mechanisms. and >>commissioner mar: whurphyy do we have to go through this

staff and so much time? >> i do not need to answer for the department, but i know this program has been one of the celebrated programs by the rest of the city, because it works directly with the folks in our department that are responsible for code enforcement and acts to communicate with both the tenet community and the landlord community, so both are involved in helping us resolve issues and previously issues that were not resolved. it has been really successful that way. i really appreciate that we have added some accountability measures, which i appreciate the support for. and i know there are more in this rfp and there werthan ther.

i was at a meeting of the board of supervisors were the talk about our failures. all of us are concerned about why that is happening. those things we are not doing well on, i think this is one of those programs that can help us do better. i appreciate the focus and accountability and look to our partners to help as to better. >> commissioners? i have a question. >> have one question and a follow-up. and did i read it correctly we're adding six new inspectors to the inspection services? >> two to the building, to do we

go to an electrical and two to plumbing? >> yes. we're having an electrical and plumbing move up to the fifth floor so the review can be done there. we are more consistent with what is required by the code in state law, and then we are putting more people in the community and the various districts because we're seeing more activity, and we want to make sure we do not have a backlog. seniors are going out. there is a lot of activity. and we were just commenting about the number of people that come to the third floor as soon as they can get into the building at 8:00. we're seeing quite an uptick. plus, we know there are a lot of

high rise. high-rise inspections take time. you want to make sure you are not cutting the homeowner on sunset off verses the high-rise. >> ok. the reason why i asked that is if we're adding six inspectors, and i posed this question last time above the department services, if we are adding six inspections -- your answer is we are adding two new engineers and another. that mentions the three permanent people. does that seem like an in balancinbalance? it seems like maybe there should be more people and permit service as well.

everything starts with a permit services and the floor. -- and the fifth floor. >> by the time we end next year we will have 34 people up on the fifth floor. i appreciate, and i agree with you, thing starts on permit services and end with your t.c.o. or whatever, but one way to an allocation on disturbing more staff, first we based it on what the requests are by the various divisions who know their need for people, and it is not an even distribution that certain places did it. we are actually putting more on the fifth floor in terms of

positions than was originally requested by the division. and so we are trying to beef up, because so many things are coming over. we look at the statistics, and 93 percent signed of our permission's came through over the counter. -- of our permits came over through the counter. we're trying to make sure we have the right people who can do the right inspection. we have plumbing and electrical there who could do the inspections, meet the code, and instead of having them go somewhere else. >> that is still a little confusing to me. i am still not understanding how that may work. >> i am not even talking about plumbing and electrical, but if we are adding six to the

inspections, you would think we would be adding at least equal to services? if you look at the numbers now, there is a lot more inspectors than planned reviewers. two of the building inspectors are the ones we're adding, to would be on the fifth floor. permit services have a mix of people on the fifth floor. so we're actually putting more building inspectors on the fifth floor. we're putting engineers into the second floor and adding those. i think if you look at, and i cannot find it, but if you look at the distribution of the position of being added, more

being added for use on the floor. >> is there physical space for these additional bodies? >> so you were thinking the building inspector is being added or going out, but it sounds like they're also being added to the plan check process? to go right. and-- >> right. >> they do not cover just the fifth floor. i look at the numbers come and you would figure if a program application comes in, it will come to permit services first, and once they approve it, then it goes to inspections. i do not understand why we're adding more inspectors, and not enough of the front end. does that mean things will get clogged up at the front end? >> there is a considerable

number of new inspectors that are not in the field. they will be in permit services. and they have inspectors in the mix. some of which are on the fifth floor and some of which are on the second floor. we also have technical services. and i think the issue is maybe we think of inspectors as inspection services, and also that they work and permit services. >> at is the case and are telling me some of the inspectors and the inspection services area is working in plan check, could we identify how many so we get comfortable with how many are working plan check? >> well i can tell you -- i only

did the fifth floor. >> we gave you an organizational chart showing where the new positions were going. the reason being, what is happening in engineering right now, we have a lot of vacancies the need to fill, and we're filling them this year, and it will balance out. by the end of the fiscal year, we are allowed to replace positions that we about to replace. it will balance out, because most of the engineers, the projects that are coming into the fifth floor, some of them do not require that the engineer to be on the fifth floor. so there is a very mixed on the fifth floor, which right now there are more inspectors and engineers, but, who oversees the fifth floor, brings engineers

into the over-the-counter process as needed, but most of the engineers to the plan check on the second-floor. >> i understand that. but then we're pulling people from the second floor to the fifth floor, which means something is not getting done on the second floor. >> i understand commissioner lee's concern. fifth floor is the shining star for dbi. it has been incredibly successful since it was implemented that is what just minimal staff. they have been understaffed all the time. every indicator that i see, especially in san francisco, is construction is going to increase the level, which means the floor will have to deal with twice the amount of stakeholders.

so also what frank is worried about is the money is not in the budget. can we come back six months from now and say we need 10 more people on the fifth floor, and will we get them? four or if there is a different regime running the department -- or if there is a different regime running the department, will they say you approved of this? we do not want that to happen. >> we're looking at the inspection services in terms of new positions, 6.37. and permit services -- services we added 6.5. there are roughly even going to each of those divisions. i focused on the fifth floor because i thought that was the concern based on last time. there is an opportunity to do that during the fiscal year.

and what you do is to a supplemental. what we have to do is get the mayor's office concurrence by saying if we have additional revenues that will continue to come in, we can request positions, and there is probably a favorable view on the board of supervisors based on the fact that we would be not necessarily conservative, but we were being cautious and adding positions now, and we would want to go forward and add additional positions. that is always available. it is not easy, but it can be done. if we can get the concurrence of the mayor's office, it goes

through quickly. commissioner murphy: i like the word being cautious. i think we've been really cautious on the fifth floor. i've been talking about understaffed on the fifth floor. they said they get permits through over there. this is the time we should be talking about it, and we are talking about it. you guys have put this in the budget? if people. until someone starts telling me they have a turnaround of 30 minutes when i go up to cash my check, you are not going to hear me talking about it anymore, right now we're still hearing that. and is now the time to deal with it, not six months from now? we've been asking for cashier's for two years and have never been able to get them.

plan checkers? i hear complaints there are not enough plan checkers. mechanical engineers. there was a memo that we should mention that stuff here, and that is great, and i am delighted with that, but i think we can do better. that is what we are saying. >> we have requisitions out now for clerks that have been out now before siw since before thanksgivings. we put the requisitions in. i know the mayor's office understands our extreme insistence we get these approved and are approved at the level we put them in. we are once again trying to get -- trying to continue to get this through. the problem now is two-fold.

one full this we a ticket approval from department of human resources, and the second is a more serious reason, which is some strange reason they continue to hold up the results of the tests that were done for the 1408's. as of yesterday i got a memo from one of my employees saying he was told there is still some delay on the testing. once we get those and add new ones come that we will end up having 17 clerks, which should move things forward. is it enough? i think right now we actually do not know because we never had that money on the flooany on th.

we can put it on the comptroller's reserve or something so we can say we want to make sure funding is available in order to go forward with the positions or port more positions in the budget and see what happens. we have a 2% -- we are projecting a 2% increase in revenues. i would be a little uncomfortable taking that up to three. maybe we can take it up to 2.5 and fund positions. commissioner murphy: i am sure the way you do things of there is to sit down and examine plumbing and permit services and ask them what their wish list is for the next year. i am sure you have done that with electrical and plumbing.

have you done that with the people on the fifth floor/ ? that is directed at the director. >> yes, the executive team does come in, and it except the actiy director did come in and put in his wish list. on that list there were no engineers. i am the one that added the engineers for the positions that were asked for right now, and i added an engineer to technical services as you see. the problem is right now with the list on the engineers that they have to go through another testing because they expired the previous list, and we have requisitions and four engineers that are not filled. they cannot be filled until the interview and it passed by --

until they are approved by the mayor's budget. but we will be filling positions in the engineering department this year, and then we are adding it next year. so we do have the right to come back for a supplemental in january if we want to, or we can put -- we can add money to the budget and ask for more decisions if you think we're being too conservative on the estimates of the revenue, but it has to balance. if we add more engineers, we will have to add more revenue. and commissione commissioner murphy: what would be the backup plan if we get a jump in permits? >> we have added temporary salaries, and that is where we would bring in temporary people. we have added quite a lot into

temporary salaries. rather than premium full-time positions, so if the economy does skip again, we can lead the temperatures go and keep permanent staff. that is the problem we had before, we had so many permanent staff, that we had to let permanent staff go. our last inspector off the list is coming back on monday from all of the people we have let go. we also have people in other departments that want to come back to work for dbi, and we're looking to bring them back, and they are already fully trained. we're doing things behind the scenes that you will not see until the end of the fiscal year, until we get the positions approved. we had six clerks on hold now better for the fifth floor, and they will be trained on the first floor before they go up to the fifth floor, so it will be fully staffed at all times.

the other part of the problem is our current consider system takes almost 25 minutes to issue one permits with all of the things they have to go through in the current permit system. it is not just going up and handing someone at check. they have to figure out fees on the permits and that appear again electrical and plumbing permits are little bit faster, and we did at a clerk to help with those. those are going very well. it is the other permits that have to wait until the end of it to see if they need impact fees or other fees. that is what the court is doing. -- what the clerk is doing. the fees are not secured until the end of the permit process, and that is where it is taking time to hold up. and to get your permit issued, it is not the plan check time, it is more on the permit issuance side because of all of

the things the clerk has to enter into the computer system that is manual now that could be on the tape -- automated. i think we have all been concerned about stopping and how quickly we could bring on staff. i think what we have to be clear about is we have had a lot of permanent positions opened and improved -- approved, but we cannot bring them on because servals ocivil service has been slow and human resources has been inadequate in terms of testing and having a good pool of people we can regulate coal from. i think it the department can be more aggressive, i think we can. i think regarding human resources, we can say we have permanent positions. we would always rather hire

full-time positions. if you will not let us fill the positions because you're not up to date, then let us bring back more prop f people and more temporary people. i do not think the answer budget-wise is to add more positions we cannot fill, because other city departments are gridlocked. >what i would like to do is fill every single open division. and if we do not have enough, then let's ask for more? right now clearly we have too many vacancies. i think we can be more aggressive, but it is not a budgetary problem to me. they have been approved by the mayor's office. human-resources cannot move on it. they did not give us list. why is that? that is where it -- i understand

the frustration, but part of thie part of the city. commissioner lee: i am not all that sure of what we can do, but i am thinking if we were a private business and have a lack of employees for staff, i would think i would hire the highest position person first, and they would have the knowledge and skills to be flexible and do more job efficiencies/ . let them do clerking work and inspections. they are qualified to do time check or something like that. i am confused on why we're focusing on the clerk's and not trying to get back to the

engineers. >> we have the engineers positions with the clerks. we are asking to fill every vacant engineering position. we just had someone retire in a 52-14 position. we're asking to fill that position. we want more positions, but the 52-41 list, the engineers that do the plan check is the list under concern, because the previous list that we did have approved requisitions for, the people will not -- were not suitable to the hapacting the deputy's list. now we have a new list. we have exhausted all of the engineers we let go before, so actually we are getting more

engineers then we have in the past. we will be filling the 52-14 vacancy. we have asked for that, and i have asked for every 52-41 requisition that i have for this year. we're not leaving the engineers positions vacant for attrition. we're leaving other positions vacant. you have to realize i have to leave at least 25 positions vacant for attrition. that is just something the comptroller's office or board of supervisors does -- excuse me, personnel list, they will take and say you have so many positions and they have to keep this many positions vacant. the will have to take the money out that we programmed in. commissioner walker: i tend to

concur with commissioner mar that we clearly have open positions aimed at most of the opinions expressed by most of the other commissioners. i think rather than adding to something that we are unaware of whether we really need at this point, our focus should be on pressuring the other departments, maybe through the mayor's office. i see the mayor's representative here. to actually free up those positions. i think that sending a message along with the budget that we are continuing to have problems delivering the service needed to run our department if they continue to leave these positions unfilled will result in us adding more positions that may or may not be needed. that is not really how you want to budget. i think that these are all appropriate concerns, but i do think we need to aim them at the

open positions and really trying to get us some help in making sure we run the department right. >> i like what commissioner mar said, giving us a little insight on the human rights and all of the other stuff, but, you know, we -- commissioner walker talks about putting pressure on the mayor's office to get people from other departments -- i mean, we do not need anybody from -- we do not need any gardeners over here at our apartment. we need people that are qualified to work at dbi, and there is a process for that. i do not think we have done a good enough job internally in taking care of the stakeholders, the people that write the checks, the people back keep this department -- the people that pay your salary.

i just do not think we have done a good enough job there. talk about inspectors in the field being busy -- if you do not have the permits approved, the inspectors in the field are not going to be busy. it all starts back essentially on the fifth floor, and that is what we're talking about today. it is great we are having this conversation. it is open, letting everybody know what we want here. commissioner lee: back to that, let's see if we can identify how many building inspector, electrical inspector, and plumbing inspectors will actually be helping out on the fifth floor. >> if you look at page 16 and 17 of the budget, the original, we are going to have one plumbing are going to have one plumbing inspector on the fifth floo