hand out to our cruise passengers. if requested, we can hand out a brochure that shows different attractions that they can go to in chinatown, north beach, and fisherman's wharf. we have done that with a project called destination embarcadero, an effort with a number of tourism-based entities. it is 100% in english and we have not had many requests for english, but we can take a look at that. our passengers are primarily english speaking as americans are 90% of the cruise business worldwide. supervisor chu: looking at the maps, and there are universal sign that people can recognize, that would be helpful. >> we do have some universal signs, like fisherman's wharf or coit tower.

there are too many words to fit in the first place. supervisor chu: thank you. you mentioned you were in agreement with the budget analysts recommendations, correct? >> yes. supervisor chu: let's go to the budget analysts report. >> on page 13, we report our recommended reductions, as shown on 14 and 15, total $439,382, $442,000.700 $76 in 2014. if you accept those reductions, that would still allow an increase of $6.6 million, 8.4% of the department's budget. 1.6 million, 1.9% of the department's budget for 13-14. happy to respond to any questions. supervisor chu: i did receive

clarification in regards to our ability to take and out -- action on the budget analyst recommendations. we will be entertaining public comment tomorrow, so we will be continuing all of these items. because there are a large number of budgetary amendments, it would not make sense for us to say, to have all of the actions not take place until the last day. that would be 60 departments worth of entry staff. what we can do is to tentatively accept the budget analysts recommendations pending public comment we can always change our mind after public comment. i would like to see if we can entertain a motion to accept the budget analysts recommendations for the airport and port, pending public comment tomorrow. we have a motion to accept the budget analyst recommendations for the international airport and port. without objection. thank you for the presentation. >> thank you.

we appreciate your engagement and support. supervisor chu: given that we have taken action under budget, i believe you will not need to come in next week. next apartment, department of appeals board. >> good morning, members of the committee. i am the executive director for

the board of appeals. what i would like to do is give you a brief overview of the board's recent activities and then discuss our proposed budget for the next two fiscal years. as i'm sure you are aware, the board is the final stop in the city's decision making process for a wide range of terminations and we strive to carry out this charter mandated responsibility in a fair and efficient manner. if you look at the slide before you, you will see a picture of the board's appeal volume over the last 10 years. on average, we have received 228 appeals the year, but in the last few years, we are down to about 150 appeals each year, which is it a reduction of about 32%. that coincides with the downturn of the economy. we expect members will go back up again once the economy strengthens. this next slide gives you a

snapshot from the last full fiscal year, 2011, of the types of appeals heard by the board, separating them by the different departments that issued the determination being appealed. two-thirds of the determinations, and the appeals that are filed with the board come from land use-related determinations, primarily from planning, department of building inspection, and zoning the administrator. the balance of the appeals board tends to fluctuate from year to year. dph and dpw were the primary apartment, but that changes on market forces and various permitting legislations. if you want additional detail on the appeal activity and -- from last year, that is in the appendix. it explains the different types of appeals and more information. in terms of trends, we expect the majority of the appeal we receive will be land related, if

i know or the reason, the sheer number of appeals issued by dbi and planning. we have been noticing a significant uptick in the number of appeals from dpw related to terminations, particularly related to the wireless sites and a mobile food. notification requirements for both of those types of permits. people affected by those permits are getting notice earlier in the process. they can follow the appeal approval path through the underlying department and then file timely appeals with us if they feel that is warranted. when this next slide shows you an overview of the decision making of the board in that same fiscal year. the board upheld have of the underlying determinations in that year and overruled 40%. of that 40%, the board placed

modifications or decisions on the majority of those. the board has a lot of strength and flexibility to resolve problems in ways that sometimes the underlying department does not have the ability to do. in addition to setting backed a deck that a neighbor is concerned about, moving an addition on a property, the board can -- for instance, with a tree removal permits. if dpw does nothing that the tree should be removed but the board is allowed to consider it, the board can do a two 41 and require larger trees be there for the replacement. there is more flexibility that the board has to go beyond what the underlying department may be able to consider in terms of resolution. moving on to looking at the board's budget for next to debut years, starting with revenue, the board has two revenue streams. the primary are surcharges collected by the permitting

department on new or renewed permits. the controller with with the department and us to create surcharge rates based on the amount of work that each department appeals represent to the overall board activity. the comptroller is allowed to increase the rates by cpi inflation on an annual basis, but any adjustment beyond that needs to come to you for approval. we're not requesting any legislation for adjusting the board's surcharges in the next few years. you can see a minimal increase that we are asking for in our revenue. the comptroller's office believes the current surcharges will be able to generate that revenue. as far as filing fees, 5% of the board's budget. we call it that in our office when new appeals are filed. we do not expect an increase in those fees. we really want to see the economy improving before we have an increase in our filing fee revenue.

the next is a snapshot overview of where our expense budget is going. over two-thirds of our budget goes toward personnel costs, another quarter goes to work orders, which is largely personal cost in other departments. major reporters with the city attorney, department of technology. they do a great job broadcasting and reporting our meetings for us. and the balance is typically for their rent. next, i want to give you an overview of the changes in our expense budget. you can see we have to look at the mandatory increases and salary and fringe benefits. fiscal year 13, an increase of $37,000. the next year, another $25,000 on top of that. we're asking for an additional $27,000 an hour professional services contract in line item to help pay for a contractor to

provide support of a new database that i will talk about. we hope to cover the bulk of these increases by reduction in our city attorney work order. recent billing history justified this reduction, while utilization fluctuates based on the number of cases that come to the board, length of meetings, we have been able to see significant savings and then were quarter. we kill comfortable these reductions will still allow us to pay our legal bills. as far as the database, that is one of our biggest initiatives. we are hoping to create and implement in the first quarter of the fiscal year to a database that will help us to remind the appeal filing process and provide easier access to the public that information about the appeals on file, those that have been decided. certainly, would help us to expand our ability to create more robust reporting and share

our data electronically with the departments affected by our work. that has been under construction at the department technology and the cost of construction has already been paid for. only the real cost would be maintenance and support from a local vendor. looking at our staffing levels, when the economic downturn for started, we did take a look at our staffing since our workload was reducing. we did make some adjustments there, eliminating some positions. we do not request any changes to our staffing at this time. we feel we are in the right mode, the right staffing levels to cover the work that we had, given the volume. supervisor chu: living and the number of cases filed with the

appeals board. it dropped off in 2009, 2010, a 2011. generally what was the reduction in staffing that you undertook to reflect that case -- drop in caseload? >> in 2009, we eliminated three positions. basically, that is 1/6 of our staff. we had one position and fiscal year 10 part-time, reduced it down too part-time for part of the year and left it bacon for the balance of the year. we filled it in 2011 because we found we needed the additional body. it is hard to keep an office open with so few people. one has been on maternity leave, one is on vacation, another person is sick, and you barely have anyone there. there have been days where i am the only person in office. it feels like the five people that we have there are pretty critical. supervisor chu: thank you.

>> you asked us to speak about the department's impact on job creation. of course, we do recognize our work has an impact on jobs. if we accept an appeal and we have to suspend the permit, that means on a building permit construction crews may not be able to go to work the next day, or some of staffing a food truck will not be able to serve the public. the board does work diligently to decide cases in a fair and timely manner. most appeals are calendared within 45 days from the date of filing and there is a process by which someone can be heard more quickly, if they can it showed financial hardship. >> generally, they come in in order that the appeals are filed, the time when the that you want to dispense with the case, but you say there is a mechanism where somebody can improve financial hardship?

>> yes, we had a situation this week for somebody give us documentation on construction loans he had taken out and how he would be a losing additional funds if the construction fell through. the board president made the decision to move the case ahead early so that he would be protected in that way. >supervisor chu: how do you let people know that there is this general option, consideration? >> we have information available for the rescheduling option. someone will come in to file an appeal and i'm usually the person to speak to the permit holder to talk about the fact that a permit has been filed, what it means to them. it is common for people to express to me the concerns that they have. supervisor chu: thank you. >> in terms of language access, the board has translated its key documents into chinese and spanish, and that is available on our work site. -- website.

we were happy to work with the office of immigrant affairs. we are lucky to have with a contract with language line. anyone can see the sign that the offer which services are available and 100 different languages. we hired interpreters when we need to to provide translation services for those that need it to. >supervisor chu: on that last point about interpreters available at board meetings, i wanted to clarify, is the translation service one direction or is it two directions? especially for permit appeals cases, is important members of the public there can understand what your members are saying but also be able to communicate their own thoughts to individuals. i'm wondering, it is their translation for when people make

public comment to your board and also providing translation for what you're board is saying to members of the public? >> it is two directional. primarily, the interpreters we hire are parties to the appeal. usually, we do not know who will come to public comment, but they will usually bring someone. either a community organizer will be in there, or a friend, or family member, to help them transit. what -- translate. if we knew that there would be a need for translation services, we could provide it. certainly, in a two-way manner. supervisor chu: and that would require devices for individuals to hear? >> we have tried that. certainly, we would be willing to try again. we have some technical difficulties. i remember one time we used it, we had 1 people on the son of a

room had the speaker speaking to them live. we can do what we need to do so that people and the hero have time for translation. if they need to wait for the translation, they are accustomed to doing that. supervisor chu: i would love to follow up with you on this point in particular. we would be for the permit appeals board and there were language issues about that. people knew that there was going to pay a large group of folks there who would be limited english speakers. i want to make sure we are ensuring a fair process because it is the permit appeals board, and that makes sense for us to do. >> that concludes my presentation. happy to answer any questions. supervisor chu: this is one of the first time that we have a budget analyst report. we thought it was important to ride a quick analysis of the department's budget. this is the first part of a two- year budget. what to set a good time to make sure that all departments are covered. >> madam chair, members of the

committee, the department's budget actually only increases by only $9,000 in the first year and then another $14,000 the next year. we do not have any recommended reductions for you on this proposed budget. supervisor chu: thank you for the presentation. moving on. rent board. >> chair, supervisors, the executive director of the rent board. i'm sure it'll come to no surprise to you that we concur with the recommendations of the budget analyst, because there were none. in response to the question that

you posed to us, this is the first year of the rent board's two-year budget. so we will be seeing you at this time next year. the major expenses for 2012, 13, 14, we expect to remain the same. our proposed budget for 12-13 is approximately $6 million, an increase of 0.8% from this fiscal year. that is due to mandated celebrate increases and -- salary increases and fringe benefits. the balance for the following year is 6.2, an increase of 0.65%. the major source of revenue for the rent board is the rental unit feet, which appears on the landlord's property tax bill. a landlord gets billed for the feet and then they can collect half of the fee from the tenant. the fee has been, for the past four years -- and we anticipate will remain -- $29 for apartment

units, $14.50 for residential hotel units from the tenant. the fee is calculated every year by the comptroller's office, based on the final budget that you approve for us. that is - any carried forward funds. so that reduces the amount of budget and these to be reduced by the feet. we have some carryover funds that we anticipate from the current fiscal year. that is usually generated because there are mandatory rounding up to the next full dollar if the comptroller figures out that we need $28.29 to fund our budget, it gets rounded up to $29. that gives us a bit of surplus that we carry forward, along with any collection that exceed the delicacy rates factored in. and we have some expense savings. in this current year, we did not expect all of our city attorney budget. we never know in advance how many people are going to sue us. it is pretty difficult to calculate, but there will be

carried forward funds again this year that will reduce the amount of the rental unit feet, because of the slight increase, we would've had to increase the fee. i also provided additional information in response to supervisor chu's request regarding departmental staffing levels and workload statistics for all of the units at the rent board over the past few years. if you look at the submission that i provided you, we have an organizational chart that is an attachment, and it shows that we currently have 28.5 fte's. in 2008-2009, we reduced our number of administrative law attorney judge staff. they were reduced from 10 to 9.5. we currently have one until -- unfilled alaj position.

we will look at our workload issues and see if we will work that position. currently we have an unfilled clerical position. because our petition is a ticking at the rate of 28% over last year, we do have a pending requisitions to fill the position. at the top of page two, we have a chart showing the total number of petitions filed that the rent board for the last five years. you can see there was a temporary downturn in fiscal year 2009, 10, but in the current fiscal year 11-12, we are seeing an increase of 25% over last year. this was predictable. we are very recession impact and, as are the previous department that you just heard from. in order for these to make sense to you, there is boring concept

to have to explain. my apologies. utility pass through petitions. at the rent board in 2004, our commission required that landlords had to file petitions if they wanted to impose a pg&e pass through. we have heard several landlords were not doing it correctly. these petitions usually did that go to hearing unless the staff found something that were in them, but they did need to have decisions issued by the administrative law judge staff. our alj staff was spending a tremendous amount of time and resources figure out these utility pass-throughs for basically de minimus announced. in 2009, people felt that people brought to the board's attention that people have been trained. this was a successful effort and landlords were really mostly

doing this calculation correctly. there was an amendment to our rules and regulations in 2009 that said landlords to not have to file petitions except for every five years. that is why when you looked at this chart, you see the great out part for utility pass through petitions, which have been going down tremendously because there are no longer required except for every five years, whereas the regular partitions -- petitions have been going up, this year over last year, after a downturn in 09-10. the fact that our alj's are not cranking out these petitions, that has allowed us to dip into a large backlog that we had accumulated over the years. all of our regular non-utility commissions -- petition to go to hear before administrative law judge. as you can see at the top of

page 3, the amount of time that it takes for individuals who filed petitions to get hearings has been reduced dramatically. whereas it used to take 119 days, it is now and down to 63 days in this current fiscal year, which is almost a 100% improvement. basically, four months, which i was embarrassed about, is down to two months. we are basically providing much more timely, better service to the public for the same rental unit feet. nobel during that 2009 dipped in the workload, we ordered our alj to other city departments. we have a workload with the department of public works,

litter and graffiti hearings, fine ordinance hearings for the planning department, department of human services, we have done hearings for olse regarding minimum wage, prevailing wage. we received full recovery of the salaries and fringe benefits for our alj's conducting those hearings, so basically no tenants or landlords are paying for the services to other city departments. the city attorney is happy with it because they are highly skilled and will supervise. we also only do that when the workload permits. we will be taking an ongoing look at that as our petition filings have increased 25% this year over last year. we also have performance measures for the other units. in the administrative law judge,

as you can see on the next chart, because the backlog is reduced and they are no longer doing these upt decisions brady to take them 28 days, we're down to 13. after the hearing it used to take several days to get a decision issued. now it only takes about a month. at all levels of the process, timeliness has been greatly increased. another mentor we produce for performance measures is how long it takes for our clerical staff to produce reports of alleged wrongful eviction. that is important because evictions are so time sensitive. that has improved from 1.5 days, down to 1.2 days. i do not think they can do a much faster than that. additionally, our counseling staff, on the next page you will see the counter visits and counseling calls they get, from my staff that interacts with the public, basically in conjunction

with the increase in petitions, the department is experiencing a similar increase in the number of people who are calling and visiting the office for counseling. as to major department initiatives, we are enforcement agency, as you know. we enforce the rent apartments and rules and regulations. we are pretty static. we do not have tremendous, new initiatives to bring to you. basically, boring is good at the report. no new positions that we are requesting. as to summer youth, we are highly supportive of the mayor's effort to create summer jobs and opportunities. we have applied to the youth works program for summer interns. we will mentor that student to make sure they have an appreciation for public-service, good training, and at the bottom line, and they will learn about their rights as a tenant in san francisco.

we will also ask the student to give us an evaluation at the end of their internship to see how we can improve. it will be approaching it with fresh eyes. language access. the rent board has always been a tier 1 department for obvious reasons. we are very interested in making our services available to all members of the public. there is a chart here on page 5 that shows our documents in 06- 07, almost 600 transmitted documents. in 10-11, almost 400. it is very important to us, one of our performance measures. over 160 pages of an permission in chinese and spanish. we have staff with language skills. we made a special condition from our last higher that the applicant -- counselor be cantonese speaking.