people. >> not if you invite me over for dinner. i am ready to dig in. >> i hope you'll love it. >> mmm. >> what do you think? >> i think i am going to need more. perhaps you can have all you want. >> i am produce the that you have crushed this farmer's market challenge by a landslide. the first, we're going to have to tally of your shopping list and see what you actually spend that the farmer's market. >> and go for it. >> incredible. you have shown us how to make super healthy, refresh chapino from the farmers market on the budget, that for the whole family. that is outstanding. >> thank you peter i am glad that you like it. i think anybody can do it. >> if you like the recipe for this dish, you can e-mail us at

sfgtv@sfgov.org or reach out to us on facebook or twitter and we supervisor chu: welcome to the right to their committee of the sub budget and finance committee. i give joined by supervisor avalos and cheered him. we've joinhair kim.

we have been joined by a supervisor reader who does have a bill before us. we have begun as the court today. are there any announcements? >> yes, all cards should be submitted to the court. items acted upon to there will appear on may 8, 2012, board of supervisors agenda, unless otherwise stated. supervisor chu: i did want to make an announcement about items. we will call two items out of order today. we will call item no. 7 first that is sponsored -- sponsored by by supervisor wiener. we will call that item first. we also will call item no. 12 out order. if we will call that items second. this is a hearing on the creation of the office of early childhood education. we will call seven and well out of order before we resume back

to the regular agenda. mr. young, please call item no. 7. >> item #7, hornets amending the san francisco administrative code section 10.107-1 to set a threshold of $100,000 or more for board of supervisors approval of the acceptance and expenditure of grapes. supervisor chu: think you. this is brought to us by supervisor wiener. -- thank you. supervisor wiener: before you is a piece of legislation that will help us as a board be able to focus on accept and extend grants -- resolutions for grants that are significant rather than fall down the agenda with smaller grants that caused significant resources and a strain on the requirements and do not result in any meaningful oversight by this body.

what this would do is any expense has to come to this board for approval. it requires the stuff to put together significant packets for us. it requires use of board resources and department resources. in the last fiscal year we had 139 accept an expensd and explae majority of which were under $100,000, but the majority comes to only 2% of the total value of all of those. and many of those accept and expends are retroactive in nature, meaning the department

has already accepted the money or spend it, and it comes to us for retroactive approval. particularly the smaller accept and expense are almost never referred to committees. they almost never have a report from the budget analyst. so we have all of the effort that goes into the smaller except an expense under $100,000 that had a minuscule percentage of the value of the total to accept and expand, and consumed a significant -- significant amount of resources. it also causes delays in receiving this money, and there are times it cost the department as much or more to process the materials for the board in the value of the grant. what this legislation will do is to allow us to focus on the significant except in expense. it would provide under $100,000

board approval would not be required. instead, the comptroller would be a physician to prescribe of ministry of roles, and the department would be able to except that monday using their own internal procedures. if a grant increases, it would then have to come to the board. i believe this will strike an appropriate balance between oversight, as well as making sure we are not placing meeting list burdens on our departments. i have also today offered an amendment that would indicate that when it and accept and expand has been approved by the board and if there is a subsequent increase up to

$50,000, it would not have to come back to the board. for example, it is board were to approve 01 million dollar crete to be received by the department and the board of supervisors approves it, and two months later the grant comes in at $1,025,000, the department would not have to come back to the board to reauthorize the extra $25,000, because the board has already approved the grant and the increase is not significant. so that is the amendment i am offering today. that amendment would require a continuance if the committee to adopt it. i would be honored to have your support. we have a couple of departments interested today in speaking on this process, and why this would be a good improvement. i believe the arts commission was going to come as well. i do not know if you like to

hear for the departments. to gthe arts commission first, d then recreation and park. >> my name is rochelle axle. i've worked for the arts department for the past five years, and i cannot tell you how thrilled about and this amendment i am. i never thought i would say i was part of the 2% that is below the $100,000 threshold. i want to support this amendment for a number of reasons. i always put this ticket where amendment forward. i have always suggested it was at 50,000, so having it at the $100,000 threshold is thrilling. i want to say i completely support the need and totally understand the rationale. it is important we track the

unexpected revenue so we can keep track of the assets and improve its credit rating. i totally get it. i see there are exceptions for 3 million. the arts commission in the arts in general do not deal with figures like that. a large degree of the commission never received was $250,000. this is really an unusual amount of money for the arts commission to get. typically the grants are well below $100,000 and well below $50,000. and i have seven pending except expenses. they are in the 96 -- the $15,000 range. there are couple of my desk for $845. when supervisor wiener says $1.1000000, he is not kidding. there are very small bigfifts we get.

there could be a gift of $10,001 we have to go through it for that. i want to echo my support for this amendment, and articulate the time it takes is a drain on resources compared to the value of the grant we are getting and inhibits the of port workers are trying to do, which is bring resources to the agency to help relieve the strain on the budget. thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. sarah ballard. as you are aware, because you have seen these, our department is increasingly relying on plans to support the department. we have been fortunate enough to have a have-time gardner and underwritten of all time-time gardener, and a grant that has allowed us to keep the rec center in the bayview open an additional day of the week.

we are hopefully a lot of the 139 that come before the board. we are supportive of this piece of legislation frankly because of the of the industry to burden it places on the staff. the expectation is that with this change of that there will be administrative efficiencies and savings, and that's the spirit of this will still be maintained in the fact that all of the donors to our departments who donate over $100 to the city fill out a donor disclosure form under sunshine. thank you. >> i will note that any grant the funds of position would still have to come to the board regardless, so in terms of actual employees of the city, it regardless, it still has to come before the city for non-employee grant.

>supervisor chu: to the budget analyst, i believe we did not report on this, correct? ok. members of the public that wish to speak on item number seven. i do have one person who has filled out a card, but i think this book are ready, which was rachel axle, next speaker, please. >> good morning. we need money more that would budget money for, and please sit around when the district fund is dry. we need money more after all that is what budget money is

for, and we need it now when the district fund is dry. it is dry. i tell you is do or die. please bring the money around when the district fund is dry. it is dry, and it is dry. please bring the money around. the district needs the money, and they need it found. supervisor chu: thank you. it any other speakers that wish to speak on this item, item number seven? come on up. >> thank you, supervisor. i am here to speak on item number one, chief probation. i want to save the department

that i fully support this legislation, and it provides the department with the ability, because we do have limited resources to encourage others to provide grants and assistance because of the fact that we have limited resources and knowing how time-intensive it is, but sometimes this legislation would eliminate the barrier, and i fully support it. >supervisor chu: any of the members of the public that would like to comment on this legislation? >supervisor avalos: i believe we will make an amendment to continue this until next week, but i want to speak in favor of it. it makes a lot of sense. it is an exempt an expense for

$37,000. -- an accept and explenend for 7 an$37,000. i think this is a worthy cause and would like to support the amendment. supervisor chu: i also want to speak in favor of this. i think it is a great way to be more efficient in city government, and the department not spend as much as the administrative time working on these things. i would like to be added as a code-concert to the legislation. on this item we have a motion to except the amendment and continue the item for a week. we will do that without objection. >> thank you, colleagues. item 12, please. >> item 12, a hearing on the creation of an office of the early childhood education

consolidating ece functions of various city departments such as the the department of children, youth, and families, department of public health, first by commission, and human services agency. supervisor avalos: thank you. i want to thank my colleagues for co-sponsoring this hearing. supervisors farrell, wiener, chiu, and chu. this is an item that has been a number of years in the making. back in june of 2010 there was an effort to create such an office through a transfer of functions looking at housing and office of early childhood education at the department of youth and families but under the department of human services

agency. at that time, i do not think there was quite the level of consensus that is that we needed to have in order to make that office in 2010. in the past year and a half or years since then, i have been working with members of the community in the child care provider community and early childhood education committee to look at how we might create this office. we met with a number of folks, including the president of the school board, folks from public children's council, folks prepare a voices. folks from the child care providers association looking at family day care providers.

a number of organizations came together. we will look at at a process of how we could create a office of early childhood education that would be independent. i think that is a word that i perhaps have not really utilized enough in talking about how we would create such an office. my vision that a lot of folks came together on about the early childhood education office is one that would be streamlined office. we would have a place where a lot of the funds would come through in one single process we are carrying out the functions of making sure we are promoting the highest quality education in our various facilities and areas of care for children. that we are getting kids are ready for education, that we recognize 0-5 age, especially

infant care, if you are receiving earlier higher crude -- early childhood education, it has the greatest and advantages of lifelong learning and the best outcomes of the future. these are issues that have not been lost on anyone that is coming together around this office. i think the difficulty in creating this office in the past is there have been that many different points of view and great work people have done within the point of view that have been hard to merge together. we really need to make sure we're taking the greatest leadership possible. i look at the board of supervisors providing the leadership, and the mayor's office and staff providing leadership to make sure all of the expertise we have in the human services agencies can come together to create independent office that could really lead to

a shifting how the early childhood education services are rendered in san francisco. we have a lot of state. there is a lot of lives that will be improved by the creation of this office. through the process i went through with community stakeholders, we interviewed department heads and people within the field, the human services agency and the first five commission. we actually came up with where we would expect the creation of the office would be placed. a lot of folks landed on the human services agency as a place where the office could be derived from, but i want to emphasize that while the human services agency could be a place where there would ultimately be the back room function, administrative function for a sharing office is moving forward and is created, that

this office would be an independent office that would have major input from the other stakeholders, as well as the schools, and possibly other agencies that would have an influence in the early childhood education field that would make sure everyone feels there is something they contributed to, that there is an overall shift in how services are rendered, and that we have an agreement on how to move forward. today the mayor's office has taken a great step in moving this office will work. later this afternoon we will meet with department heads about how to really bring people together and a common vision to create an independent office. really happy to hear that is going. i was concerned about how that was moving forward, but i feel comfortable that there is a real commitment to make this office happen.

i just want to welcome people from the departments who are here to speak about how to move forward. chief among them is mendosa, one of our school for commissioners it also in the mayor's office working in education. i believe he will walk us through some of the steps coming forward. after he speaks, if there are other department heads that would like to, i would leave the microphone open to them, but then i want to hear from the folks in the community and what their visions and concerns are and what principle they may have about how to create an office of early childhood education. supervisor chu: think you. i want to say a few words very quickly. i want to thank you for your leadership on this to really try to bring together the city family around this very

important issue. i think it is more pressing as we seek potential cuts coming down from the state level and how we should escorted make our scarcer in scarcer resources. that is why i am very proud co- sponsor of the resources today. i also want to take a minute to recognize people i do see in the crowd on this issue. we have already introduced the mayor's adviser on education and board member. norman yee, president of the board of education is also here with us today. i did see laurel from first five in the room. if there are other department heads or commissioners i have missed, my apologies. thank you. >> good morning. thank you for having us. costi am happy to be here to tak

about the direction we are going in. i really want to thank supervisor avalos for taking a leadership role in this. this has been lots of conversations, and i think the community is clear that this has been many years, and not just from 2010. so are really appreciate all that you've done to make this happen. over the past several years we have built in the city and early care and education system that has addressed many of the very challenging issues that we have. there are three different departments that have been helping to serve our kids across the city, and our thought is we really want to be able to bring the quality of care education facility affordable wheat and accessibility for all of our families. the current investments from the department of children and youth families and from first five are enormous, and we would be remiss if we did not include

san francisco unified in the bucket of work that they do. we should actually include them as we get deeper in the conversation. what we're looking at is yet another wonderful opportunity. it is to bring the office together to do a number of different things. i think from the mayor's perspective, not only is he concerned about the child care issues that the city is faced with, as well as the achievement gap, but the efficiencies we have all been working towards, and i think having this conversation in the budget committee. we also want to create a government structure that is flexible enough to act quickly. and i think a lot of the challenges are we have multiple departments doing multiple things. a lot of shared money into individual money and how will we cross all of that over and make sure the goals of serving all of

our kids in our entire city are met through this one at a very independent office? we want to make sure we are leveraging early indication department at the school district and increase transparency. we want to reduce administrative burdens on the city, which we all know is costly. we also want to reduce duplication of fiscal and compliance monitoring and fiscal oversight. i think all of the department's head would say that there were would very much love to be able to do that. we are now working through the vision of providing high-quality care and education so our kids are given the best -- the start to a healthy and educational career while providing families was a quality care for all of our children. i think what we really want to focus on is providing the greatest and best opportunities for all of our kids. you have already noted the challenges we have had with the various priorities. i think it is safe to say for

each department rightly so because that is why the work currently lives where it lives. i think we want to start from not where will this lives, but in order for us to move forward, what is this? the meeting we will have this afternoon with the department heads is going to be posing that question, what is this? i think when we talk about where it is foreign to live, it creates challenges in terms of moving forward, so we want to provide to you a proposal that is a joint effort with feedback from all of the departments and understanding on every step of the way come out reach and community engagement efforts will continue to occur as the arctic have been. -- outreach and community engagement efforts will continue to occur as they are ready have been.

in june that we have already been in contact with our budget director in making sure that in the mayor's budget, this independent office will be included in the budget from his office. in later in june we will come again together to develop a job description and pose a position and interview qualified candidates for the executive director position for the new independent office of early care and education. our hope is to hire a new director and launch a new officer sometime after october. we're hoping to have this up and running before the end of the year. we're very excited. i think from the mayor's perspective, he has heard from a variety of different stakeholders, just as you have. understanding the challenges of bringing all of the perspectives together, but we're very

committed to making that happen, and we're committed to having an independent office of early good -- early childhood care and office that will support all of our children, regardless of their needs. we are making it possible for parents to have opportunities and options for all other kids. >supervisor avalos: thank you. i appreciate you coming together with the folks that are involved in delivering early childhood education services. i was looking at this budget process as a place where we could really do the work of the consolidation of the office, knowing mid-year would be would we would actually go live with it. there is time to make that happen, so i look forward to hearing the progress in debt. f