sustainability, we also have a reputation for printing money. when you talk to people about the california academy of sciences, they think of lines and they say, you must be making a lot of money. in fact, we're not printing money. i want to clarify that. if we could, we would. it is a wickedly expensive place to operate, and that is because it is a museum of living creatures in the living creatures are expensive to operate. a few more statistics about the academy of your recent audit of cultural institutions in the city said very accurately that we provide the most robust the ready of exclusive benefits to residents and students of san francisco. we do it for a simple reason, san francisco is our home. that includes school groups, and if you come to the academy in the morning during the school year, you'll notice that the average height of the visitors

is rather short, and they tend to run around your legs. well, those are all school kids. if you want to see some, visit us. we also have evening programs and paying internships. quite a marvelous army of young educators themselves. as well as all of our programs for students and teachers focused, for the most part, on the city of san francisco. again, because it is our home. our programs include programs and specific lessons in spanish and chinese as well. if you look at attendance at the academy, there was a time when coming to the academy was risking long lines but that was in the beginning. there was such a pent-up demand for the institution. as we expected and projected, our attendance is settling down to about1.4 million visitors per year, and we expect that level to be characteristic in the coming years. we have attracted over 6 million

people since we opened three years ago. i remember the day and i remember the lines, but now it is said to come to the academy. just come on a nice week day in the afternoon, and you probably will not have to stand in a long line. and the whole issue of how to balance the cost of operating this very expensive institution and the money that we can make and the money we can raise is, you might say, and existential challenge. we do not want a smaller academy. we believe all the parts of our current academy are essential to its success. the steinhardt aquarium is is this a the partnership we have with the city since 1923, since the brothers set to the city, we will build an aquarium if you put on in the city charter the obligation of funding the operating expenses. well, we build a new aquarium falling on their legacy, and

that relationship continues. most of our direct expenses for the aquarium have to do with labor, as you might expect between biologists and our 11 city engineers who are absolutely essential to the institution, because they're the people who make sure that all the water keeps running. if you are a fish, that matters a lot. and if it stops running, they tend to float to the surface and it is a very bad sign. the total aquarium direct expenses are shown in this chart to the total aquarium direct expenses, that is what it really costs to run the aquarium in just direct expenses, not even including indirect expenses, versus the funding that we receive from the city, you'll notice that our direct expenses have been rising

over the last several years. several things have been going on. one, we are actually learning how to use this new facility and what it requires. that is inevitable with such a transformation. the other is something you'll never guess, and that is we design the aquarium to rely on it seawater, that it comes from the beach. after all, you would think if you're half a mile from the pacific ocean, you might be able to take advantage of your natural resources. the only problem is the pacific ocean is too polluted, and if we pomps the water directly into our tanks, our fish become exceedingly unhappy and think about floating, as i said. so we have to make our own seawater. this is a reflection of issues having to do with the sustainability and issues with the environment and so forth. 100 years ago, we would have pumped water from the pacific in our fish would have been happy. 100 years later, the runoff from

the land police the ocean near the beach where we can actually access water. we cannot do that. so we may see water. for a while we were purifying the pacific ocean. we cannot do that anymore. now we have to make our own seawater, and that costs money. that is why expenses have been rising. one thing that is a slight downer is that in recent years, the amount of direct city funding for the aquarium has been trending down words, as people say delicately, 17% over the last five years. and that is a trend that we, of course, would prefer to see go in either direction. because, already, that is about two-thirds of the cost of running the aquarium. at the same time, for all sorts of very good reasons, city engineer salaries have been, by

agreement, rising. so the fraction of that funding that goes to actually running the aquarium beyond the city engineers has been decreasing faster. i showed a little picture, by the way, up here of our newest aquarian exhibit. i hope you have all been to animal attraction. it is downstairs. it is wildly popular. it uses ipads, because we discovered that kids were writing and touching everything and expecting something to happen, so we had to get with the program. this has been wildly successful. it is an example of something we're trying to emphasize, and that is we're emphasizing the academy as its own producer of the exhibits. we have wonderful people, wonderful scientists, and wonderful biologists, and wonderful content. our goal is to make wonderful programs for the city of san francisco. our newest exhibit of by the

way, the we just opened -- i will do a little advertising, is earthquake. you might wonder what that has to do with san francisco, but i think you know the answer to that question. so do come to the academy and the quaked. check out the ostriches. it is wildly popular. our visitors aren't joining in. something like 95 of those who have seen it earthquake say it is terrific. if you have not, unless you are in the 5%, you are in for a terrific experience. we have a major project for fy 2013 that we have to implement, and it is a capital project that has to do with creating a new and expanded animal care conservation facility. we need that to continue. that is sort of the zoo world good housekeeping seal of

approval. that will cost several million dollars. we hope to be talking with you about that at some level. our goals, of course, are to get on a trajectory in which a larger fraction of the strident -- steinhardt aquarium funding comes from the city and not a smaller. ultimately, of course, in time, to fund the aquarium as was agreed with the steinhardt brothers, from the city income. that would still be relatively small fraction of the royal academy of sciences, but it is a critically important fraction because san francisco's aquarium is one of its most popular destinations. regarding the specific proposed budget for the coming year, we would love if we could have restored $39,000 that represents the extent to which the required increase in the

city engineering compensation it eats into the and additional money to feed the fish. on behalf of the fish, i beseech you to think -- hungry fish are not happy fish. beyond that, of course, we would love to be on a trajectory to have far more of the $6.5 million in direct costs, from our partnership with the city and county of san francisco. with that, here are some of my fish. they are waiting. you just cannot see them through the resolution of the screen. but they generally are waving. thank you for the partnership. it has been going on for a long time. this institution, like the fine arts museum, is one of san francisco true genuine gems. we're determined to make it an

even brighter gem. supervisor chu: thank you very much. supervisor avalos? supervisor avalos: thank you for your presentation. my family and i are big fans of the academy of sciences. my son calls at the academy award of scientists, which says a lot, i think it is expensive and expensive to run. i realize that. and this new building with the aquarium and exhibits i imagine are expensive to run. we learned that the members is the most economical way for san francisco residents to enjoy the museum and be able to go back, and it pays for itself. i know in the past we have had days where admission -- it probably still continues, but we have had days where admission is free for san francisco residents by neighborhoods. if you can go over that schedule, that will be important. maybe we can get the schedule in

our offices to weeso we can shat with our residents as well. >> we would be very happy to provide that information. we would be eager to go beyond that and actually help you in your district to get the information about our free days and other opportunities people have to visit the academy. it is really seriously important. what you may know about our program for fourth and fifth grade students, we invite all fourth and fifth grade classes in the city and county of san francisco from all schools to the academy every year. we provide preparatory material, follow-on material, teacher training material, and most important, we provide a bus. that is one of the critical issues. we also provide every student a chip that is the student's family in for free. supervisor avalos: that is great

to hear. my wife is actually a fourth grade teacher, so she will be taking advantage of that. >> i hope she's taking advantage of it. there's one other thing we're doing with that, and we experimented it the past year and would like to expand it, particularly if we can find a donor to help, that is that we set aside and experimented evening in which were invited -- like i said, the students were given a chip for their families. well, not all people take advantage of that. matter of fact, few people do. we set aside a night in which we invited the family is from the fourth and fifth grade from a specific school and a specific district to come and the place was open for the. we provided chinese translation that night. it was appropriate to the neighborhood. and it was a wild success. people who never would have felt comfortable, perhaps, coming to the academy, and transportation.

they had a ball. i was there. my wife was there. we had a ball, too. supervisor avalos: that sounds really great. i will talk to my wife and her school for that as well. my kids go to the same school. so do we have days of the year designated as free for san francisco residence? is there material about that? >> we will give it to you. we have neighborhood freak days. and we have global free days. we switched those from the on wednesdays, which was not really necessarily friendly for families, to being on sundays, which is much better for families. then we have the neighborhood days ago district-by-district. supervisor avalos: where can we find that information? >> on our website. >> we will send it to you. it is a great site. , and welcome people at the front door. supervisor chu: thank you so

much for your presentation. i want to appreciate the strong partnership with the academy of sciences has with the san francisco unified school district. it is an incredible thing to the our fourth and fifth graders. i know that partnership is appreciated by our teachers and surly by me as well. -- and certainly by me as well. i had a quick question regarding the 5%, and also, i just wanted to say it is really incredible how much the academy of science its revenue from a fund raising. 95% is outstanding. we provided a small portion. in a small portion, do you include in-kind services? whether it is rec and park, city attorney, or the puc? >> no, we do not.

sometimes i think we provide services to the park. >> you may. and you prove -- you clearly provide a ton of benefits. >> early in the morning, you can see we with a lawn mower out there. i try to get up very early. >> ok. >> and we have a great partner in that, and he has been a great partner in the academy. supervisor chu: we love to get the free weekend for our residents as well. we did get them last year. we thank you for that. we would like to continue advertising for that. >> we will love it if you would, because the partnership is genuine. it is the most important, to have my soap box, the single most important resource for the future of the city and the country is also its greenest, and that is kids. and the extent to which we do not educate kids well is the extent to which we fail them.

that is why our fourth and fifth grade programs are so important. supervisor chu: thank you very much, supervisor kim, and thank you for your presentation, a doctorfarrington. i know there are challenges with running the academy. i look forward to the conversations continuing forward. i know there'll be more challenges as the facility begins to age more and more. to the budget analysts, is there anything you would add? >> madam chair, members, no recommendations, nothing else to add. supervisor chu: thank you very much. no other questions, so thank you for your presentation. because there are no recommendations, we will not require you to come back. thank you. >> thank you. supervisor chu: our next department is the war memorial. we have beth murray. >> good morning, supervisors. i am the director of the war memorial department. thank you for letting us come

before you today on our budget. we would also like to thank the mayor's office for their help in putting the budget together this year. as you know, the war memorial and performing arts center department, which lives across the street from you, consists of the opera house, veterans building, bayview symphony hall, rehearsal hall, in the adjacent ground. in our president facilities, we provide over 900 performances each year to san franciscans and visitors to san francisco, with an annual attendance of approximately 1.3 persons. we have expenses, educational programs that are carried out by the licensees of the performing arts center, including the san francisco symphony's program which does provide a concert experience to every child in k-5

said the unified school district each year. the next few years at the war memorial department going to be very difficult years, in particular our veterans building seismic upgrade. i have provided a package to you. unfortunately does not fit on the overhead and i do not have the memory stick, so i will just go through it. our budget is basically a maintenance budget for fiscal 2012-2013. you will start seeing dramatic changes in our budget in fiscal 2013-2014, and that is due to the planned closure of the veteran's building on july 1, 2013 for a two-year construction period. our earned revenues from the theater in green room located in the veteran's building will disappear for those two fiscal years. we will have similar decreases

as we will not be providing services. supervisor chu: thank you. supervisor cohen? supervisor cohen: i am glad you're discussing about the veterans building. i am a a little bit concerned about the relocation plan for the veterans program, these services provided for san francisco and bay area veterans. what is the plan to relocate them? >> we are presently working with the real estate division on the relocation of both our offices, the war memorial department offices, and for the space for the american legion post, their office and meeting room sapce. s -- paspace. we have been in consultation with the mayor's office and real estate department on the relocation. we do not have a definitive location for either our offices or the american legion post at this time. supervisor cohen: what is the

timeline? when you need to be out of the building? >> june 30, 2013, so a year from now. the real estate division advised us that the wanted to work with us starting a year off from that timeline so they could more accurately identify properties which may be available as relocation. supervisor cohen: will the american legion post be able to, i guess, once construction is complete, will they be able to come back to the building? >> yes, there is 23,000 square feet that is allocated exclusively to the san francisco american legion post for their office and meeting rooms space when we return. supervisor cohen: i am glad to hear that, because that is a priority for me as we see more and more veterans coming back from service overseas, coming back to san francisco and the greater bay area. it is important that we continue

to provide support for the veterans to get reactivated, to stay connected to the services in the service providers that we have available to them. so you're telling me that in the foreseeable future, you do anticipate them coming back, they will not be displaced. >> absolutely not. their trust beneficiaries under the war memorial trust, and they are entitled to occupy space in the veteran's building that is needed for their social and for their work purposes. supervisor cohen: ok, what is the amount of space they are occupying now? he mentioned they will have 23,000 feet. >> they have approximately 30,000 square feet right now. supervisor cohen: what is that a loss of -- >> of about 7000 square feet. supervisor cohen: is there any way to recover them? >> right now, as you may know, if you come over to the

veteran's building and look at the various spaces that are allocated, there are a number of very large meeting rooms. one is as large as this room. there are actually nine large meeting rooms. the meetings of the american legion post and related veterans organizations have changed a great deal over the years. currently, meetings range, most of the meetings have 15 to 25 persons. at present, the utilization of the meeting rooms is 7% of capacity. so on approximately 40% of the days in the year, none of the meeting rooms are used. so the usages of changed. what we have tried to do in our plans for the veterans' organizations is to provide better, improved meeting room space. it does reduce the meeting rooms from nine to seven, and it does reduce the size of some of the reed -- meeting rooms, which at

this time the volume of space exceeds a need. so it is a better utilization of space. we have also tried to create an arrangement under the new plan whereby we will have shared space. so there will not be spaces that will be unused for 150 days a year but can be used by other occupants in the veterans building. for example, a meeting by the art commission, a meeting of the war memorial, and meetings of veterans' organizations. so we can have maximum utilization. supervisor cohen: i want to make sure i heard you correctly. there is a net loss of revenue that they meeting space is not utilized -- >> no, the veterans' organization pays no rent. supervisor cohen: ok. thank you, madam chair. supervisor chu: thank you very

much. continue. >> of khaybar-1 to review our efforts on the veteran's building seismic upgrade -- ok, i wanted to review our efforts on the veteran's building seismic upgrades. it started in july 2011. we are completing the 100% in design development by june 30 of this year. we will complete the construction document phase and permit bid and award by june 30, 2013. this next year is going to be critical in scheduling, coordinating, and implementing to move out of building occupants and contents by june 2013. and in coordinating the relocation of our to mark -- our department's offices as well as the office and meeting room spaces for the american legion post. in the next fiscal year, we will also be completing the transition of our manual booking processes to artifacts online

data base system. this is a huge transition for our department, and it will hopefully, in the long run, result in some cost-savings. during the next two years while the veteran's building is closed, we will continue, of course, our scheduling, booking, and coordinating. projected 403 performances in those facilities, and and national 483 rehearsal place. another project coming up is the san francisco veterans memorial project. this is a privately funded project, and the funding goal of $2.5 million was reached last month. we will be completing the design development phase at the end of this year, in commending construction in june 2013. the targeted dedication date is november 11, 2013. i have also provided you an

outline of the project scope of the veteran's building seismic upgrade improvements project. this includes a number of every areas of funding. in particular, the city will be providing $132 million total project costs and certificates of participation which has previously come to this board of supervisors for the seismic upgrade portion of the project, facility preservation, accessibility, code-mandated a grades, and water piping. the war memorial department will be providing an additional $6.3 million for additional improvements. that includes upgrades to the veterans' meeting room and office facilities, expansion of the theatre backstage support spaces, and a green room, which are our rental facilities. the san francisco opera will be making an investment of $15

million to complete improvements on the fourth floor, including building two new event rehearsal spaces that will be used by the opera for a portion of the year, and the war memorial will make those spaces available to arts groups for the balance of the year. as previously mentioned at this hearing, the san francisco arts commission is targeted to relocate its functions to the war memorial, as well. i would note that using the job creation estimation methodology that is used by the pack -- by the capital planning committee, it is estimated that 850 private sector jobs will be created from the veteran's building project. i have also provided to you a schedule, a high level schedule of the veterans building project that does, again, reiterate that we will close in july 2013 for a

two-year time span. i also wanted to touch on our language access program. we are a tear two department under the language access ordinance. we have participated in the annual training and opened an account with the language line, the preferred provider for interpretation services, and we do announce that in our public areas. we do have quite a diverse staff. the war memorial administrative staff, with employees who are able to speak and read spanish, cantonese, mandarin, tag olague, and they're prepared and do on a regular basis to assist in our operations. so that is my presentation. if you have any questions, i would be happy to answer them. supervisor chu: thank you very much. no questions from the committee.

mr. rose, is there anything you would add? >> i have nothing to add, no recommendations. supervisor chu: thank you very much. no recommendations at this time. supervisor kim? supervisor kim: this is not a budgetary request, but it would be great to have a schedule of when the different departments and offices and departments are moving out of the war memorial. >> we're working on that now, and as soon as it is available, we will have that for you. supervisor kim: that would be great. we have been fielding questions about when move-out is happening, so would like to be able to provide that information. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. there are