>chairperson chu: hello and welcome to date two of the budget and finance committee. our court today's mystery on. do you have any announcements? >> yes. please silence all electric devices. any documents should be submitted to the clerk. chairperson chu: mr. young, would you call items one through four? >> item number one, proposed budget of preparation of expenditures to the department

of the city and county of san francisco as of may 1st, 2012 for the fiscal years ending june 30th, 2013 and june 30th, 2014. item number two, an annual salary ordinance any meriting positions in the annual budget appropriation ordinance for the fiscal years ending june 30th, 2013 and june 30th, 2014. item number 3, an ordinance amending the san francisco fire code section 1 13.10 and 1 13.21 to increase fees for certain fire department services. item number four, an ordinance amending the san francisco police code sections two 0.26

and to two 0.27 to increase the permit application fee. chairperson chu: a note to the members of the public, there are those here to listen to the proceeding and provide support to the apartment, but i want to make a quick note that we will not be hearing public comment today. we will simply be hearing from our departments and our budget analyst. we will not be hearing comments this afternoon. we will be hearing all public comment on the budget this friday, the 22nd, beginning at 10:00 a.m. you can stay and listen to the presentation, of course, but we will not have public comment today. we will have public comment on friday, the 22nd, beginning at 10:00 a.m., first-come, first- served. we do have a number of departments who are here to present to us. i would ask that you keep your

presentations fairly brief. we want to hear about major changes, significant trends in terms of the revenue expenditures or major initiatives that will be part of the budget in the coming years, and in particular, major changes to the budget in this coming year. if we have questions, the committee will ask them during the course of your presentation. again, i would ask for brevity from the department heads. because there is a scheduling conflict, i would like to call the department of human resources, micki kaleka arron, first. she does have a conflict of schedule, so i would like to call on her first. >> thank you, chairman chi-- chairman chu .

i am the head of the department of human resources. i read like to start by thanking the mayor's office and the budget analyst for assisting us in reaching one i'm happy to say is an agreement on our budgets with the budget analyst. in the materials that you have in front of you, we have made a technical adjustment. there was an error in our original submission, which reflected an increase of 3.71 positions. in fact, we only have an increase of 0.71 positions. fob and handling -- it will be a handling of transactions for the workers' comp. i will follow your instructions to be brief. we are happy to answer any

questions. there are three major areas that you will see changes. koppers, a labor and negotiations project at employee -- first, a labor and negotiations project at employee relations. it required as to increase our expenditures on attorneys, arbitration, and staff to help negotiate those contracts. that has been concluded and next year we have what we call a down year. we still have the obligations that we took on as part of our labor agreements. i will be happy to talk about those obligations. we do have some staffing, but it is a reduction from this year. in the following year, 2013-14, we will have to go back. we will have a labor project in 2013-14 of this size that we have -- two years from now in 23 -- in 2014 -- 15 that we have

now. we spend some $45 million in claims each year in benefits to injured workers. the costs are starting to creep back up. however, happy to report that we outperformed almost all other agencies in the state, and we believe that is because of our efficient claims administration, the some changes that we've made. we adopted paperless processing instead of our claims. we have quicker treatment for injured workers to help get them back to work sooner. as a result, while the claims are starting to inch back up because of the increase in costs, largely medical costs that we do not control, there still lower than in 2003-04. we do not have results yet for 2011 -- will, but we anticipate

coming in about -- for 2011-12, but we anticipate coming in under budget. you may know that city hall fellows is a program in which we work with a nonprofit to bring in recent college graduates that have an increase -- an interest in public service and to build a knowledge of public service to get them to build technical projects for us, and at the same time, prepare future leaders. we want to beat a top choice for some of the candidates coming out of the colleges, and public employment it's physically in the city of san francisco. -- public and claim it specifically in the city of san francisco. it is an increase in the dhr budget because we are their employer, if you will, but we actually do not have a city hall fellow in the dhr budget.

supervisor kim: when does the city hall fellowship program began -- when does it begin? >> it begins in august. i do want to comment -- with your permission, we are doing a major initiative in dhr, but it affects all departments. we have done a process review and we have several new systems that we think will speed up hiring going forward. that is one of the burdens that we have -- i don't want to city's civil service system is a burden, but it is an obligation. when we want to fill a job, we have a very technical process. we have to create an exam that is job-related and can be evaluated it so we can hire on

the merit basis. it all takes time. we have adopted a number of core examinations that can be adopted or added on to write various departments. we think that will result in both better hires and more rapid hiring. we have an electronic service request system of that we are in putting. all of these we think will lead to faster hires. the department of building inspection has to europe's more rapidly. they have not been able to do suit -- be able to do so as rapidly as they would like. to the extent possible, we are streamlining our processes. this is an update with our current staff, so it is not reflected in the budget as an initial initiative.

the other item that has led to slower hiring is that we have rather purposefully through the approval committee, we have not moved rapidly to higher in many areas because of the -- hore in many areas because -- we have not moved rapidly to hire in many areas because we have not been able to have the certainty to do so on a permanent basis. we do not want to be filling jobs at too high a level. if it is an entry-level job, we are pushing for entry level filling of the position. that requires three scoping of positions occasionally. -- that requires rescoping of positions occasionally.

chairperson chu: we had a number of department hearings on monday and there were recommendations for additional positions. our budget analyst has looked at past history and said, your department, for example, you add had vacancies over the past year. why should we allow you to hire additional positions when you have had vacancies? on the one hand, it makes a lot of sense if you have not fill the position, why would we add even more positions than what you have in your budget? at the same time, i know it has been very purposeful, even if there might have been a need from the department's point of view. you have not allowed for hiring. perhaps that is a question for the mayor's office. >> when we have cyclical needs, when the economy is starting to recover, we have -- we need to higher -- we need to hire.

we need to be gearing up for the next round of hiring. we do not pose a position and create the exam unless there is a position available to fill. we have to be looking for work even as we gear up. it does take a seat -- take us a while to gear up for the reasons i this -- i described. we do not want to be left unable to fulfill our responsibilities because we have a position to fill. we have been scrutinizing very carefully both the need and the level. it is, in fact, true that city- wide we have been looking very carefully at positions and have been very careful not to hire

when we might have to turn around and lay somebody off. that is much better not just for economic reasons, but for humanitarian reasons. we would much rather not higher than late someone off. -- not hire someone that lay someone off. >> human resources has accurately a fact -- reflected how we are approaching filling positions. but i would also add that for certain departments, like the department of building inspection where there are cyclical need and we need to hire more quickly, we do make an effort to expedite that hiring. sometimes that is challenging because of the existing civil service process because of the list that they need to hire off five has expired -- off of has expired.

in addition, we also do try to expedite positions that have a 20 four/seven -- that have 24/7 responsibilities, like nursing. through the mayor's office and dhr, we have intentionally slow down hiring because of the impact of layoffs on the city. but as the economy is improving, and particularly as the jobs that are generating for the economy, we are actively helping them to hire up for those capital projects. chairperson chu: if i could make a request for budget analyst as we go forward in our conversations over the next week, make sure we provide

additional information about whenever there is a recommendation because of vacancy. we might make sure that we had because there is a civil service examination or something else that they are waiting for that prevented a hiring from occurring. that would be helpful for us to understand. supervisor kim: i thought i would ask this question now, because i was going to have this when department of emergency management about, but is actually a dhr issue. i'm curious about the classification. you went in and change the arts vacation to be more corporate for what the employees actually do. i sent you have to create tests for new classifications. -- i saw that you have to create tests for new classifications. i'm curious about how long that takes. i want to get a sense of the projections that people are making in terms of when hiring can take place. >> it certainly depends on the

kind of job and whether we have a job data analysis. but for example, we did a custodian and it was a city-wide classification. the person we hire could work at the puc, city hall, department of public works, the airport. we have to capture of the possible duties, the significant duties of the position that are required to be successful and do an examination for those. we will do a huge job analysis and we have to manage thousands of applicants. we plan for those at hoboes regularly, but they may take six months or something like that from start to finish if we do not have an updated job analysis. for a position-based test, which would be one within the department, which run for 90 days. -- we try for 90 days. for example, i mentioned core exams. exams. we have a core exam for