speaks vietnamese, mandarin, and cantonese. when there is not a staff member available with the necessary language skills, we also contract with language line, and all of our staff are trained on how to get interpreters in over 170 different languages. we provide interpreters for any language when a party requires such assistance. we also have not reached agreements with six nonprofits to provide broader not reach and multi legal pot reached to organizations around the city. we are obviously committed to fulfilling the requirements of the lao, making sure that all limited english proficient members can fully access our services. supervisor chu: 400 documents translated sounds like an awful lot of documents. do we really have that many materials produced? is it simply that you have one

document translated into multiple languages. >> no, almost every document at the rent board has been translated. this measure will not keep going up. we have pretty much translated everything. we even have some material available in hindi. the desk clerks speak those languages, and does not do much help if they do not understand what it says. that one is in seven languages. supervisor chu: to reconcile some of the numbers i see, you showed two charts. another showed the number of non-utility pass through petitions over a period of time. on page three, you show the number of petitions filed scheduled for hearing and mediation. those numbers do not necessarily match. the question is, are we experiencing a continual

backlog, or is it that some of the cases do not require hearing and mediation? >> utility pastor did not get scheduled for mediation. it required a decision but did not go to hearing. >supervisor chu: even if i look at the total non-upt numbers, only 868 were scheduled for hearing and mediation on your next chart. so there is a gap, even if i take out the utility pass through items. >> i'm sorry, we are looking at the chart on the top of page 3 and 2. supervisor chu: looking at fiscal year 2006-2007, 1041 non- utility pass through petitions. in terms of the chart on page three, you only scheduled hearing and mediation for a time in 68 of them. i'm wondering if that means you

are growing a backlog of cases that were not heard, or simply that they were either dropped, what happened? >> some cases are withdrawn prior to hearing, some are settled. and we did have a backlog going in. supervisor chu: what about now? >> we have burned through the backlog. alj's are not busy writing utility pastor decisions. that is why our timeliness in terms of scheduling hearings and getting decisions out has income -- increased tremendously, even though they are all doing the same number of decisions. supervisor chu: given your increase in caseload, it drops for a period of time, but it appears to be coming back up. we do not want to be in the situation again were you do not create a large backlog -- where you create a large backlog. i know you talk about the potential alj position being filled.

are there any strategies or ideas to bring in retired alj's to help with caseload? >> the excellent question. in october, if you look at this trend -- it is difficult to forecast -- but we can evaluate that. we do not believe we will have the backlog situation created again because we are not doing the upt's, which was a burden on our staff. we can maintain this caseload with the current staff we have. if these numbers keep going in this direction, i believe we'll will have to fill the vacant position. i agree, i do not want to go back to the bad old days. supervisor chu: in terms of work orders for other departments, when you have alj's with capacity, you are giving them to other departments to help with capacity. do you expect that to continue? >> it depends on the numbers. we have always made it clear to

other departments, our caseload comes first. this is only as a workload permits. supervisor chu: thank you. let's go to >> the budget analysts greater than greater than on this recommendation -- let's go to the budget analyst report. >> we have no additional recommendations on this. in both cases, those increases are largely salary increases and fringe benefits. we did not feel there was anything that we could recommend to you to cut. supervisor chu: thank you for the presentation and for thoroughly addressing the issues i had about staffing and caseload. i appreciate the information. colleagues, if we have no other questions, can we entertain a motion to continue on items one, too, and 3 until tomorrow? ok, we have a motion to continue the items here we will take public comment tomorrow.

do we have any other items today? >> that completes the agenda. supervisor chu: thank you. we are adjourned.

chairperson chu: good morning, and welcome to the regular meeting of the budget and finance committee. i'm joined by supervisor: shortly and -- i'm joined by supervisor kim and supervisor wiener and supervisor avalos. supervisor cohen will be joining shortly. >> please silence all electronic devices. documents should be submitted to the clerk. item two will be withdrawn from its risers' agenda unless otherwise stated. >> chairperson chu: will you cal item one, two, three. >> item number one, proposed budget and an annual

appropriation ordinance for selected departments, as of may 1st, 2012, fiscal years ending june 30th, 2013 and june 30th, 2014. item number two, proposed annual salary ordinance for selected departments, fiscal years ending june 30th, 2013 and june 30th, 2014. item number 3, proposition "j" contract/certification of specified contracted-out services previously approved for enterprise departments. irresolution concurring with the comptroller certification that services previously approved can be performed by private contractor for a lower cost than similar work. item -- aye. -- chairperson chu: would you

also call item number four? >> item number four, operating $587,756,000 for waste-water capital improvements at the public utilities commission for fiscal years 2012-13 and fiscal year 2013-14. item number 5, ordinance appropriating $171,001,000 for proceeds for water revenue and income from the public utilities commission for the capital improvement program. item number six, appropriating $141,171,000 for hetch hetchy water and power capital improvements for the public utilities capital improvement program.

item number seven, and water revenue bond issuance and sale not to exceed 163 million four hundred thousand dollars approving the issuance and sale of water revenue bonds by the san -- the county and city of san francisco. item number 8, power revenue bond issuance and sale in the amount not to exceed $12,300,000 for capital projects benefiting the sfpuc enterprise. item number 9, an ordinance for wastewater revenue bond issuance and sale not to exceed 520 two million $810,000. item number 10, reserve funds for the public utilities commission in the total amount of $20 million to fund the

electric reliability payments. item number 11, the lease of property at 1455 market street. >> thank you for calling -- chairperson chu: thank you for calling all the items on the agenda. i imagine we will cover these items as we go on in the presentation, so i wanted to make sure that we call them the first item, this is a continuation of discussion around the budget. why don't we begin with ed harrington with the public utilities commission? >> good morning, supervisors. thank you for having us here today. ed harrington of the san francisco public utilities commission. the items before you today are 1310 of the items on your calendar relating to the -- are items one through 10 of the items on your calendar relating to the sfpuc.

the big story at the puc is that we have put forward a five-year rate package three years ago. we have two years left. we have not had as much water falling from the sky and as much water sales in the last year or two, so our revenues are down, but we wanted to stay true to our great package, so we have left those rates in place. in general, you will see a total budget that is lower the first year and somewhat higher the second year, but its capital and operating. the real story is infrastructure. the other story is that we will be spending a lot of money, even if it is somewhat less than the current year. you can do it right or you can do it wrong. we have been trying to do it right with things like global jobs, benefits, language access and those kinds of things. i also wanted to start off by saying that we are in agreement with mr. rose on his proposed

cuts for today. i especially want to thank its staff -- his staff for all the work they did on this budget, and obviously, mr. rose himself, and the budget director from the comptroller's office. very, very helpful. we have had the same person working in charge of our budget for 31 years now, alex sokobo. [applause] the interactions between our agencies simply would not work without alex. along with that senior staff, i wanted to know that a lot of the work is done by carlos. with that, we are trying to maintain ratepayer affordability, and because of that, you will see very little change in the total budget spending. we're also doing low-cost bond financing. we issued $7 million worth of

debt on tuesday morning and we got about a four 0.7% rate -- 4.7% rate on that. we also received for the first time some bonds for hetch hetchy power, and that is because of the discussions from last year over the ability of having -- ability to have a stable revenue source for hetch hetchy. to put it into perspective, this building, city hall, this next year will pay as $27,000 for power. in the early part of the year for the first quarter, our budget for hetchy is off by $11 million. and that is because it did not rain as much as it normally does. we did not have as much water to create power. we did not sell as much power

and we had to buy some. and the volatility of nature creates a swing of as much as $11 million in just one year. the stability of their rates will be very important as we move forward. major capital investments -- and you will see ease again. and the bond issue is there. also, the supplementals that are for you. >> we have about 20 major projects under construction right now about $2.5 billion for the first tunnel under the bay and then a new tunnel over in the hills of the east bay. a lot of work is going on out there. it is dramatic and we are still on target to finish those projects, virtually all of them in the next couple of years, the last one by 2016. on power, you will see in the budget that we have put in additional money for street lights. fort -- part of the street light money is for van ness, but the

additional amounts are for the hearing this week and we have added money into the budget to accommodate those kinds of requests, such as street lights. you will see money in there for that and other system of grades -- systems upgrade at the puc. we're working to make sure that our power production is stable and meets all of the requirements of the federal government to make sure that we do not bring the western grid of the power grid in the united states by something we do. a lot of what we will do will be equipment for staff training. and other items related to power that you will not see here, i know we have been talking a lot about community choice aggregation. there is an item that could be

pending at a hearing in july that could include money set aside for the budget. it really is for a separate item that will be coming year. -- coming here. on some work, that is the biggest thing coming up. there was a lot of conversation about having a sewer rebuild and a water system rebuild. as the water system rebuilt, the sources to rebuild and got more expensive and pushed aside. in addition, we are having flooding in different parts of the city, certainly, fulsome and 17th street have had flooding. there have been climate changes

and will be talking about a new sewer system program. we are doing one major project on the eastern side of san francisco. the big money will be with the commission tried to figure out what the appropriate size is of the program, what we can be prepared to pay for that program. do we stretched it out, drop things off of it? but how can we control flooding and deal with the major issues our plants in san francisco? in both cases, you will see large increases on the money we spend on local maine -- local increases. we have changed out three to four miles per year of sewer and water mains. we are now at about 6 mi. per year.

you will see in the budget for 2015 we hope to get to 15 mi. per year. because without that, we will have continuous street disruptions as we have mains break. you'll notice the budget is pretty flat. is actually down in the first year, up in the second year, with the total budget -- and it is really capital. the positions are basically flat. there have been some positions moved over from our infrastructure group into our operations group because now that we have finished a lot of the construction we have got to do the environmental litigation on those. there are a couple that we changed out and added a position and reduced salary and those kinds of things. but those are basically flat. over the next two years, 80% of what we're talking about is capital. personal items are just enough to make sure that we are paying for any increases in what was

used and in the labor negotiated. the capital supplemental, and you will notice a large amount for water. it is not that much related to the water system improvement program, since that is mostly funded. it is also not related to the water supply system. that is part of the general fund that is the general fund bond that is paying for the water system that the department uses for the water supply. the big money that you see in water there is to a large degree stepping up the manual replacement, plus some other projects. waste water, similarly, you will notice that it is going up almost $600 million for waste water, and nearly half of that is the seed money for the large infrastructure projects on the sewer system improvement program. and the hetch hetchy is mostly country maintenance work and redoing of power for that, plus the in-the power for street lights and things like that. -- d inthe in-cotyity program.

the seas are rising and we are getting saltwater intrusion into our system at this point. we have a plant in the southeast that still has an odor problems. it is not a good neighbor all the time. we have other issues that we will need to cope with and deal with at some point in the future. what you have before you is the initial amounts. any big money and the real decisions about what we will have to do will have to come back to the board. on that note, the sewers system, you will notice, is aging. the average life of the types that we have is about 100 years.

a lot of those were put in place after the 1906 earthquake. they're reaching the end of their life. if we do nothing, you will notice that the blue section shows a lot more failures in the streets of san francisco. when you have a feel your of your water main, it blows up. it is very noticeable. when you have a feel you're in resources and, it tends to have potholes' and the ground starts to sink and you tend to have a lot more potholes and street failures around the city. we need to do something or around 2025 will have 20% of our waste water mains failing in san francisco. the other thing i want to touch on briefly is work force. and ms. simmons is here to talk about this. we had six projects that were related to local hire. the demand rate was 20%. our participation was over 30%

on those projects. on our new headquarters building, which is not subjected to this, our average was over 45% in terms of local hires for that. chairperson chu: supervisor avalos? supervisor avalos: are we hitting that mark on all of our trades? and what is the fluctuation of between the trades on that mandate? >> we are not hitting the mark on all of them. we tend to be doing better with laborers, operating engineers, and partners. we tend to do less well with -- and carpenters. we tend to do less well with specialized trade. or welding, it is hard to get into that. there are traits that we need to do better on. i would be happy to hear from rhonda specifically on something we could add to that.

>> good morning, supervisors. we had 153 total hires for our first-year local hire. and as just a bid, 73 were on puc projects. the majority of those new hires went to labor this time. that has a lot to do with the mix on the projects more than anything. as we move forward a your to and have more diversity of projects, the year two is where we have the largest dollar allocation for the project. he will see that branch out. the mix that is reported here is not out of the ordinary. the puc headquarters project, while it was not subject to local hire, it did actually meet the time line. we are very pleased with the amount of hires that we did.

we that a number of our recent graduates be able to get in on that project and stay for a period of time. >> we are well above our mandates -- supervisor avalos: we are well above our mandates in a lot of trades. are they just not performing as well in those that are lower? >> if you're talking about local projects, is a little bit too early, to be honest. i think that first year, we are pleased that we did the. we did not hit our goal by trade, regardless of the department. some of those projects are not still going on. that will get wrapped up and the data will be rolled in. it has more to do with the timing of these projects and how the data rolled out. but for the first year, remember, we had a late start up

and all of that. i'm only cleaning up eight to nine months of hard data. some of these projects are still going on supervisor avalos: -- going on supervisor avalos: i just wanted an update on all of the traits that are still underperforming. >> i would not say that they are way underperforming at all. they still know where we are. it when i come and do the full update on specific higher, then we will talk in more detail. but nobody has zero or anything that i'm concerned about, or anything where there is urgency to it at this point, no. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. >> do not just think of san francisco when we are working on things. it is regional.

we have been doing a lot of work. a lot of work in alameda county and san mateo county, and san walking county. -- san -- san joaquin county. one of the changes in the budget is 11 people used to be in the infrastructure group and they are now working over at the water department. they have traded a new habitats -- created a new habitat. we are doing specialized training to bring other people like that into that kind of work. we are bringing new people in that can do long-term maintenance of the infrastructure and the habitat that we are creating. the caltrans project has particular things for carpenters and laborers at substations and things that you're doing when you are building a new dam.

we have specialized training there. and we have the tender program where we have taken five people from alameda, san francisco, san mateo county -- and there have been about three groups of 15 people each where we are doing special training in close quarters to work on a project that we have. i appreciate the work of the puc because we did kraft the local ordinance to be regional in nature. supervisor avalos: thank you for reaching out. >> thank you, supervisor. at the public utilities commission, we expect about 200 to be employed by the puc this next year. part of that will be on the project for the water department, a high-school students and the crown -- conservation corps. these are students that are route graduating in the master's program in college very often.

chairperson chu: in the employment area, how do people know about the positions that are available? >> they can go to our website at sfwater.org. if there is any information that you need from our offices, we would be happy to provide it to you also. the project is a joint project spearheaded by the sfpuc and dpw in san francisco. the garden project is working with the sheriff's department. in each case, we are partnering with others, we can make sure that people are aware of it. supervisor kim: it would also be helpful to get the breakdown of the use intern's -- youth the use intern's -- youth interns by zip code and by