involved that we'd do not have jurisdiction over. we can tell them they need to build a ramp to have access to your front door, but if they can i get permission from the other city departments, it is not going to do us any good and they can't sometimes find that out until we meet with the other departments. this issue has come up and departments need to get together to find a way we can possibly even get the mayor's office on disability involved and find a way to help these property owners that cannot build ramps into the public right of way. there are many ways they might be able to address this, but some businesses are never going to be able to comply. it's just the way san francisco

is built. they do the best they can, but it is the property owner that completely ignores or the tenant who completely ignores someone's request for access that is the one who is more libel to the wills of these attorneys and people who are out there, but there are legitimate disabled people who need access and would love to have access to some properties and cannot get it. we need to find a way to help them. >> >> i have a lot of comments on this issue. this is not just building- related concerns and i hope we all understand that. some of the issues are not

related to construction and it cannot be resolved with construction and we need to acknowledge that. from what i understand, if a business gets an inspection from a specialist, that could hold off any lawsuits. just getting an inspection of their business is enough to say hold off. >> the courts will take that into consideration and forestall the litigation for awhile, but that does not stop a person from filing. sometimes it will be enough incentive for the person not to go forward if the courts are cognitive of the fact they do have a plan in place. >> let me ask if this is

possible -- if we are going to be training so many of our inspectors under the us, can we offer the service of just plainly inspecting, not necessarily resolving the issue, but just inspecting it and telling the property owner and saying here are your problems and you need to get this resolved? >> that is done by private parties. >> could our department offer that? >> know. that is not the intent of the program for the inspectors. we can go out there if they are building but we cannot go to every business in the city and say this is what you need to do. >> i am not saying we proactively go to every business, but could the business come to the department and say could you inspect our business for us?

maybe we charge a fee for the inspection and maybe we say if you find later on that you need to resolve the problem with construction, maybe we will reimburse that float -- reimbursed that fee and apply it toward the permit. >> atypical inspection by private party, correct me if i'm wrong is running about $1,000 depending on the size of the building. you have to do a plan for it once you inspect it to help the customer do a plan. it's not just go out and inspect like you are inspecting construction. you -- how can i say it -- you are not inspecting construction. it is not meant -- that is why

there are two classes of inspectors. you have building inspectors that inspects the pspectors wora double check point, said speak. it is like an engineer trying his own plans and inspecting his own project. >> maybe we can get a clarification from a small business perspective on what has been going on. my understanding is the actual complaint from the business community is many of them just did not know. i realize there is always going to be the folks -- for the overwhelming majority, when they do improvements, they put in a bathroom and they did not know there are all of these her issues.

i think the request is eiffel inspection but when there is an inspector who comes in and there are other improvements being done, someone will say you are going to have these other issues and refer them to the private sector. that's not happening now because many inspectors do not know what those requirements are. there is a spectrum between a full inspection and plan and what we can do which is right now not happening. >> i'm happy to address you and thank you for making this an agenda item. there are many realms in which the complications around the

disability access with the federal and state and around the california building code. the issues we have seen are that many are turnkey's, so they do not ever engage with the department of building inspection because they're not doing tenet improvements. most of those receiving lawsuits have been in business for quite awhile and may have been in business pre 1992 and have not done any improvements, or those doing improvements under the collation threshold. in terms of the discussion with the certified access inspection and the department of building inspection, we have the program and the private inspectors and i

know the city attorney to our discussions with the director and city attorney there have been discussions about whether it is appropriate for the city to be doing inspections. one of the things i hear from businesses is when they go to make improvements, they want assurance that what they are doing, even though they have the inspector making up recommendations, that there is some sort of stamp of approval that you are doing what is right and readily achievable so that it is not up to the individual interpretation of an individual who wants to take advantage of the situation. some thoughts i have had in relationship to the fact that the department building

inspection needs to have certified specialists is that we do have some conflicting things with historical and the fact that there is the readily achievable and needing a to have someone within the city who can bring together the entities who are involved in making the decisions and being able to work toward a final resolution because telling a business they cannot do something readily achievable when the 88 tells them that they can, and us as a city telling them that and and making them vulnerable to these predatory lawsuits is very frustrating for the business.

from where i sit, i see the potential for inspectors to perhaps be in the private realm of if there are conflicting issues, that this is one of the authorities that can be developed. senator feinstein has directed the state to do something to help reduce these predatory lawsuits. if we need to strengthen it around inspections with the department of building inspections and their ability to have some authority, those are things that i know from our office and the business sector that we would be interested in exploring working with the california commission on

disability and with their state legislatures in trying to strengthen some sort of ability for businesses to have assurance that the direction they're taking is the right direction under the readily achievable component. i don't know if like -- >> we have a whole process at this department that involves the access appeals commission. we have appointed people to review equivalencies that come up around disability and i wonder if it would make sense to get their input and that they review these issues --

>> we do review everything within the building property line. the problem is sometimes seem majority of these complaints are around the front entrance to the property. this is something i have to work with the department of planning and the department of public works and get together and see if there is some kind of solution we can come up with for these property owners that will meet the federal laws. in other cities, it has been done before. i sent an e-mail yesterday on this very subject that we are willing to chair the committee and to get going. it does help i am on the building access committee, so i get access legislation as it

comes through. unfortunately, it is not enough right now. we just do not have enough to go after the brunt of the property and sometimes you are dealing with historical buildings and they have to change part of the facade and make the door wider because a wheelchair won't go through the door. some businesses have 28 inch front doors. you cannot change the whole front of a building, but there are some people who believe that you definitely have to and we have seen property owners try to help people into their buildings with wheelchair's. we want to help, but it is trying to get all of the entities together now that this has become a major issue with the historical preservation

society and the public right of way. i want to bring in the mayor's office on disability. >> and get somebody who sits on the -- >> they will be invited definitely. this is part of trying to help small businesses after our staff is trained. there will be 40 people trained on the program. we are not guaranteeing all will pass, but there are new laws going into effect in july we are being trained on and every certified building of accessibility training as part of their certification. they will get trained in that new law, so that has been set

up for may and june. we have a handle on that one. >> with that, i would like to know what services does our department offer? we have the disabled access service division and you can call, but what kind of service would be available? >> 95% of the work completed by that division are complaints on existing properties. we do not go out proactively. someone will call and complain about a property and we have one individual who has 10 properties and once our field inspector to go out and ride up notices of violation of these properties. >> this is not for businesses to

call? >> we have technical services where our inspector resides and they are also trained in accessibility and they can help the customer that wants advice, and that is what we are required to do by law. we do have that. >> i would like to thank the director and the participation of the small business from the mayor's office to clarify these things because this was a concern that was raised by some of the businesses that have been hit with these lawsuits. i think anything we can do, including getting more people certified in our own -- i know there will be hearings that will come out and i think a lot of small business people will be attending.

any thing we can do to educate -- even if we cannot offer all the services they want, if we could offer an inspection when they have a plan and want to do some modification and we can say this is the right way, that would go a long way. they are willing to pay. that is the other thing -- they are willing to pay for inspection services that we can supply. any thing we can do, we inspect and we charge. they are willing to do that, but they want a definitive way of knowing they are doing the right thing and they're just not paying for something that's just going into the air. >> may be the private inspectors

are also looking for some approval method. maybe there should be a process where they can do inspection and come to the building department and say can you guys look at this and reveal improvements? maybe that is what might have to happen. >> the building officials have taken a hard stand on this that inspectors plan but will do construction plans around the issues that are construction- related because we cannot be responsible for the non- construction ask because it's not just all covered under the code. sometimes a private individual

will say you need to do something -- a classic as we always have the 30 inch counter for the disabled and the minute be inspector leaves, and immediately that is taken up with equipment and it is not available and that we have no control over that period it is a minor things and we can't tell link electronics, inc. model number: pdr-885 software version: 3.0c i concur r that the support is there but they have to get everything and that's the world we live in and a cross check that and enforce that. it would be difficult for the

department to get into this where they become the plan drawers and everything. they come in, they follow the cold -- follow the code, and make sure it is enforced. >> we have a handout for small businesses we give to new tenants to we have developed before and we are still giving out. >> for me personally, the elephant in the room is -- i've talked to a lot of people who are active in the community. the black eye that has happened is of these lawsuits have been happening and i know three or four that i will mention their names that have gone through this. three of them are closing and a lot of that is generated by this -- they cannot afford to meet it

and there's a sense in that community that they are just out there and they have nowhere to turn on this issue and a inherited this issue and the -- they get blamed a first. the department is going to do whatever they can, but they cannot bring it home. i would like to see a bigger discussion on that. i'm not sure what will we could play, but i know other cities have limited the amount of lawsuits who are put out there for just making financial gains under the umbrella they are doing good. that's my own personal feeling -- things like that to show the community the uphill battle you have on spaces that have been there forever.

i would like to see if we could take this further. if we could open up this pandora's box, we could end up with a situation worse than we already have. but we should let the business community know we hear their pain and we would like to remedy their pain as best we can and give them the expertise they need because a lot of these businesses are going out of business because of this. if we wanted some testimony, i can generate some testimony here and it's quite shocking what happened to these businesses and what they have to go through to comply and a lot of the irony is they were trying to comply. maybe for future business we can put that on there and talk about that. thank you. >> is there any public comment on item number nine? item 10, directors report.

update on dbi finances. >> i'm with the department of bill the inspection. it will make this short and sweet because i know it is pretty late. we are still seeing a steady flow of revenue from charges for services. we are getting larger projects which tom will go over in his presentation. we are not actually -- we have only received $4.8 million of the $8.5 million because this comes through the property taxes which as many of us know where to last week. next month, we should see better

figures on whether that will actually come to fruition. we are projecting it will. as you can see from the chart, 96% of the revenues have already come through. this is based on the budget. in terms of expenses, 75% of the year has gone by and we have an extended in terms of what our largest categories, which is employee salaries and fringes. currently, we have 33 requisitions and we are going for through the recruitment process.

we expect to see that as we get the positions filled that number will be extending more, but we are projecting a $1.4 million surplus. the other figures are very minor. we are projecting we will and the year under budget by $1.7 million which, combined with the revenues will result in $5.3 million. much of this needs to go into a deferred credit. i did a quick and dirty analysis and looking at this year in terms of what has to be put aside in order to continue working on the projects that are

front and in terms of their payments, we are looking at about five months worth of total expenditures being able to be funded through our fund balance which means we are quite below what we want to be to cover unforeseen circumstances like a major emergency or something similar. any questions? >> five months -- what is the figure we are trying to get to to have set aside for such emergencies? >> the rule of thumb is six months. but we would like to have a little greater because if there is a downturn in the economy, all indications are it will

continue to grow but if we have another swing like we had two years ago, we want to make sure we have the revenue and all bets are off if we have an earthquake and have a major emergency because fema only pays for overtime and we would have to help with the growth and rebound in the community. we had a situation where we had one day two years ago in terms of being able to cover our expenses. we want to make sure as we go along that we have sufficient funds to do the work that is prepaid and we don't end up cutting into other revenues. >> is that a figure of $12

million? it is about $18 million. >> as the value of new construction impact you in any way? >> many of the fees we get are based on valuation. to the extent devaluation goes up, the fis also go up. there is a correlation if the higher valuation, the more complex a project is, the more we have to do in terms of plan review. the more we would have to do in terms of the inspection. yes, we get more revenues for

the higher valuations. >> if your valuation of 2011 was lower, that impacts your overall outlook? >> yes. >> at what point do you see a trend in all of this? that is a good question. >> our fees are not based on valuation. it's based on actual time. we actually when we did our study had consultants sit down with our staff and a tech projects of different sizes and how long it took to check its. how long did it take an inspector to go out in the field and inspect it? our fees are based on a nexus.