thank you. we will not be requiring you to come back next week. thank you. ok, colleagues, we have recreation and parks department next. what i would like to do is after the recreation and parks presentation, i would like us to go in our break, and then we'll come back and continue the remainder of the agenda items. with that, we have filled ginsberg for recreation and parks. i would like to address items number three and four as part of the presentation, the legislation that follows your budget. item three, a golf course provision and fees. item four, professional tennis lesson rates. >> thank you. we will go through our budget presentation. then katy will what this through the two legislative items of that is ok. supervisor chu: you can do your presentation. then if she wants to speak to those items, that is good.

>> terrific. thank you, supervisors. ripleys to be about to present our 2012-2013 budget -- we are pleased to be able to present our budget. this is after some pretty tough years, and this is a much healthier and happier budget, we're pleased to report. these are our proposed budgets for 2012-2013 and 2013-2014. we have an operating budget and a capital budget. the capital budget fluctuates greatly depending upon resources in a given year. supervisor chu: that if we could go to the slide. the projector is not showing up. >> as we have noted in previous

times we were here, we have basically three primary buckets of revenue that we rely on. general fund subsidies. general fund support through the open space fun. and current revenue. approximately a third of rec and park budget is in revenue, including revenue from candlestick park, recreation programming, permits and facility rentals, parking garages, golf, the yacht harbor, and the remainder of the budget is funded through general fund and open space. we fundamentally balance the 2012-2013 budget using revenues, including growth in 49ers revenue, growth in recreation programming, permit usage in outside lanes. people are living in using their parts more than ever. that actually is healthy for the department's financial losses in the ability. we have a couple of notes here. based on a revenue solution, we had a $200,000 increase in

revenue had harding, and that is based on the proposed fee increase and fluctuating pricing schedule that we will talk about. prior year savings is revenue from the 49ers signed 2011-2012. in the subsequent appeal, recreation programming growth has been fantastic, following a dark day for the department a few years back when a number of recreation staff had to be laid off. we were able to reorganize and reinvent our recreation delivery model in partnership with our sciu represented staff. we're at a place in our public recreation is thriving in san francisco, and we're very excited about it. people are using our programs. the more that use our programs, the more revenue we generate, and more programs we can offer. it has been a healthy cycle.

we expect additional revenue from visits to our main attractions such as the japanese tea gardens. we have revenue dedicated from our long-term lease at the garage, which is moved to golden gate, and we will rely on some prior-year savings. you asked us to know where we see emerging revenues drink for the next two years. again, i would highlight and for recreation model and continued strength from our permits, concessions, and special events. people are enjoying being in our parks in using our parks and going to concerts' and eating in our parks, and that is using -- that is working well for us. areas of concern include the fact that the 49ers are almost certainly going to vacate the stadium in the next three years, and there will be significant revenue losses in our parking garages. parking garage revenue is down about $11.5 million.

supervisor chu: supervisor kim? supervisor kim: bringing up at candlestick park, and i know this is a difficult discussion because we are sad about the loss of the forty-niners, but has the discussion been started on the long-term future of candlestick park? any ideas what we might do with it? are we going to use it for other uses or are we constrained to their land use uses? >> the site is actually part of the hunters point shipyard, formally known as the hunters point shipyard redevelopment area. i think that under the terms of the redevelopment agreement, candlestick reverts to that project at the point in which the 49ers vacate. once the 49ers vacate, we think it would be in the city's best interest for that space to

be turned over to the project and be converted to a future uses as quickly as possible. we will continue to do the best we can to protect the asset and to try to activate the space as much as possible. we do have some other uses there. we have some soccer games coming to candlestick this summer. we have an antique fair. we will try to keep the space healthy, pending the projects, pending when the project takes the site over. you asked for an overview on the expenditure side of the budget of approximately 60% of the budget funds staff. the next largest slice covers services we buy from other departments. workers' compensation, attorney,

power, water, that sort of thing. the remainder of our budget funds capital commitments, materials, supplies, and large functions such as the zoo and the harding park clubhouse. materials and supplies always seems to be a big issue when budget time comes. materials and supplies, it sounds administrative, but is at the heart of what we do. when you think about our primary work force, our gardeners need tools, and they need grass seed. our recreation program is actually need materials and supplies to offer robust recreational programming. our structural maintenance staff is on the full yards in our shop. it takes care of our shops and facilities. sprinkler heads, plumbing, irrigation. these things are fundamentally important to us.

supervisor avalos: maybe it is time to actually comment. i live right next to mclaren park and another park. in the past several years, there have been tremendous improvements there. i know we have seen a slide in staffing levels. certainly, there are people during the gardening work and maintenance work, and they are very stretched for their time. i am not sure if it is because i live right next to the park that i get to see it that way, but it is actually something a lot to remark on. i have mentioned it before that it is very well-maintained along the edges and within the borders. it is very impressive. mclaren park is another issue because there are a lot more things to attend to in the park, but i have seen improvements there as well.

so i just wanted to say that before we move to other aspects on the budget while you're on your discussion of maintenance. >> thank you. we are incredibly proud of our staff. this is a department that does more with less. isaf takes a lot of pride in their work and it shows. thank you -- my staff takes a lot of pride in the work in the shows. thank you for recognizing that. to highlight some of our operating budget initiatives, i talked about this last year and as a pleased to report we fully implemented an aquatics organization which will improve accountability of pools. we're using these strengths from our recreation model and adopting them to our aquatics division. we have full-time managers or coordinators that are swimming pools, and we have a much more flexible mix of staff that does live guarding and swimming lessons. it has enabled us to actually offer more hours of service. as opposed to having a certain

number of staff at a swimming pool in the middle of the day when it is scarcely used. we have more flexibility were written staff up in the mornings, evenings, and weekends when our swimming pools are most active. we have been able to increase our swimming pool hours as a result. we are reinvesting $300,000 this year of our new additional recreation revenue to create an additional recreation program hours. again, our recreation programs have been incredibly popular. many programs that very long waiting lists. so we are taking some of the good news we have gone from our recreation organization, and we are reinvesting it back into the departments so we can continue to offer more quality programs. i want to take this opportunity to point out that one of the things we're most proud about as a department is our fundamental principle that nobody in our department has denied access services based on ability to pay. when i started in the department about 3 1/2 years ago, going

into my fourth year now, we subsidized about $80,000 worth of programs, recreation programs, through our scholarship fund. this year we are up to $700,000. we have basically given $700,000 worth of scholarships to make sure nobody is denied access to our programs because of an inability to pay. we have a custodian as-needed program. it has been fundamentally critical. we have been able to manage to make sure that the rest rooms are open when they're supposed to be and closed when they're supposed to be. we're very proud about that. supervisor chu: quickly on that point, in terms of your as- needed pool to deal with problems that may emerge for your custodial staff, do have something that is similar for the gardener program? supervisor avalos spoke to some

of the maintenance successes, but in my district, on the converse, we have seen a decline in services, mostly because, from my understanding, we have the evidence is, people who are away. we do not have partners to maintain that the land. so we have seen grass that is severely overthrown, trash developing all of those areas, especially for some of the newly renovated parts. do you have something similar to your as-needed to still be all -- custodial part to deal with these issues? >> we do not. we have 13 gardiner sadr on some form of long-term leave -- we have 13 gardeners that are on long-term leave. we do not have the ability to back-fill. we estimate we're probably 50 to 60 gardeners short based on our acreage.

we have 13 people on long-term leave, it requires us to spread the resources pretty thin. again as-needed pool for gardeners is something we like to see. it would be helpful to make sure particular sections are managed while someone is on leave. supervisor chu: supervisor wiener? supervisor wiener: thank you. same issue. i know sort of the decimation of the rec and park gardening staff of the last number of years has had a huge impact on the department's ability to maintain our park properties. i mean, it is amazing what the department has been able to do given the lack of staffing. i am very interested in trying to find the funding to add in maybe five as-needed gardener

staff. can you talk about what that would enable the department to do? >> it would be five as-needed positions. roughly two and a half full fte's we could use to cover a lot of those vacancies. if there is a long-term absence, for example, in district four, along the great highway, i do not have the same number -- we equitably assign our permanent gardening staff among our park service areas which are a blend of supervisorial district. we have six service areas and golden gate park is its own, and we have natural areas. what it would do is it would allow us to cover a park when a gardener was out for relief of time, and that would be extraordinarily helpful. supervisor wiener: shifting over to park patrol.

another has been a lot of discussion lately, including this week, about some of the vandalism that has been happening on our park properties, but there are other issues as well. we constantly hear from people about, you know, that the rules are not being followed in some parks and situations where there is not enough of a response from the department. and i know that the park patrol stuff is pretty depleted. can you talk about what the current situation is with park patrol and what that means? i know so many have to be at candlestick or in golden gate park. in terms of our neighborhood parks, what that really means with current staffing levels. >> there is a little bit of good news, as the mayor noted last week at the board, which is this year we actually did get through a civil service process and were able to fill some long standing vacancies. we are in the process of filling two more positions.

but even at full staff, our park patrol operates 24 hours a day/seven days a week. and even a full complement of staff, we have enough resources to essentially cover candlestick and two positions in the field at any one time. for example, at night, when we probably have three park patrol officers typically on duty, assuming we do not have absenteeism or somebody on long- term leave and we try to manage our overtime at very carefully, we have somebody assigned to candlestick to keep an eye on the facility. we have a park patrol officer in golden gate park. and one part patrol officer for everywhere else. look, i have said this before, nothing good happens in our parks at 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m., and i think havingsupervisor wie

clear, typically, in our parks, everything other than candlestick and golden gate park, we typically have one or two parked patrol officers for everything at a given time? >> correct. supervisor wiener: i find that to be beyond unacceptable. is not criticism of the department, you just don't have the staffing. i don't know how we can reasonably expect the department to keep part properties safe, secure, and vandalized -- un- vandalized when you have two or three officers and outside of the entire park system out side of golden gate and candlestick, i it's frankly disgraceful we have not provided more parked patrol staffing for the department. if you were to have four additional park patrol officers, what would that mean

for staffing? >> if we had for additional parking patrol officers, that will allow us to double the number of staff we have at night. there will always be one at candlestick. that property is under our stewardship. we would probably be able to go from two to four throughout our park system. supervisor wiener: thank you. supervisor chu: just to be clear, with regard to the as needed pool of gardners, help me understand this -- when there is a vacancy or someone is out of leave for sec and they are assigned to any one of the areas -- what do you call them? the beat? park service areas? when they are assigned to park service areas, gardner's bid for

and get a sight to park service areas. when they are absent for whatever reason, sick or medical leave for other issues, but do you back fill? >> we are unable to backfill. supervisor chu: why is that? is it a civil service issue? >> we would not have a budget requisition to backfill someone on a one-term leave. supervisor chu: if one part area was down five gardeners and another had full staffing, could be reassigned folks from the other? >> we do have the authority to reassign staff under the collective bargaining agreement. we do have other strategies. so as not to paint too gloomy of

a picture, we are blessed with an incredible apprenticeship program. it's one of our budget initiatives and they work in a team capacity and we too often assigned apprentices as a team to go through problematic areas to work on them. under the mayor's leadership, we have been the beneficiary of support through the value add of services agency under the successful jobs now program where we have had a additional staff, we had 100 -- they were not gardners. we do have flexibility to make sure no particular area of our park system is not completely neglected. we have within san francisco 3,400 acres of open space. we are very lean and that's the

case. we have done with parked patrol and custodial -- we have utilized the pool to fill some of are more challenging long- term vacancies and fill in the gap. it would be a permanent beat and the staff would understand they are as needed. it would be helpful. supervisor avalos: just about park patrol -- if there is an event and people who put the event on paid for the ps -- paid for the fees for park patrol, but does that mean there would be a person at the of that or would there be a possibility there could be any kind of security or service of that sort? >> we do debate our costs or

over time, depending on the size and nature of the event, we will have parked patrol staff and their wall -- there will be at the event that that is far abated. supervisor avalos: i wonder if there could be something for smaller events -- for park patrol to be at the advent, that if he can be waived or not applied? i have heard of events at mclaren park where park patrol had arrived but the cars get broken into often at the amphitheater. >> i would be happy to talk to you about that offline. we are very aware of the permit

that activities in our parks. we are not always aware of the spontaneous activities that happen from time to time in our parks. with the resources we have, we try to make the best decisions we can make in terms of public safety. supervisor avalos: i am talking about events that were paid for. the result was there have been break-ins. >> that should not happen. if someone has permited an event that we have discussed the need for a consistent part patrol presents, then we should have a park patrol officer there. i would be interested to understand -- supervisor avalos: we can talk about this offline. i believe there are events quite frequently when there should be

security services that's not provided and it is needed and that creates a great inconvenience for people. supervisor kim: i was hoping we could talk about the apprenticeship program. once you become an apprentice, what's the pipeline to becoming a full-fledged partner? do we have enough positions for them to go into? i think it is a great jobs initiative program for our residents, but i want to make sure there is a pipeline they can go into and there are vacancies available. >> it is one of the things we are most proud about. there's not just a pipeline from apprentice to gardner, but there is a pipeline into the apprenticeship program. it starts with our youth to worship program and a program that are down top high-school and jewish vocational services. we are giving kids exposure to taking care of the land at an

early age and make them aware of opportunities to participate in a workforce development pipeline that could hopefully culminate in a gardner job. this is a partnership with local 261, the first program in the state of california. it is incredibly successful. this is only your three. we had 10 in our first-year class. an additional five in the second year. this year, we have asked for an additional 10 apprentices. we can only afford five in our budget and the mayor made sure we have another five to make sure was more robust. we're very grateful for that. it's a culmination of work and education through city college. we are not yet at the point where the first class has actually graduated yet. where we hope to end up is we

would like to go to the civil service commission. we would like to end up with a situation where i graduated apprentice can automatically be placed into a vacant budget gardner position with no additional test, no additional length of time, no additional process. the best predictor of success is performance on the job. if they have graduated, they will complete their academic program and will have had two years of serious training in the field. where we want to end up with this program is graduating apprentices get placed in budgeted positions without any additional processes or delays. >> have you had graduates from this program? >> no. we had -- we actually had to

early graduates because we did fill a bunch of vacancies and the apprentices in our program also met the minimum qualifications. we hired an selected them and i would like to know more about their graduation to make sure they completed their course work. supervisor kim: do we expect we we will be able to hire the incoming graduates that would be graduating throughout this year? >> we have -- we probably have an attrition rate -- we probably lose to retirement of 15 to 20 spot a year. 15 to 20 would be the sweet spot for us. the idea would be we would not need to do a gardner examinee more. that is the long-term goal. we need to continue to grow it but if you successfully complete

the apprenticeship program and when there is a vacancy, there is a spot for you. >> if you have more vacancies are are able to add gardner positions, would you be able to fill them with the apprenticeship program or which you have to hire outside of the program? >> we are in a bit of an awkward spot because we're waiting for the first class to complete the apprenticeship program. those that are in the program would have to have met the minimum qualifications that have been established for the position. if they do and they test because we don't have the civil service rules change that will allow us to just pick from the program in place -- so if they test well enough, we would want to select them. we just took to because we know who they are and we know the work ethic and training. one of the goals of the apprenticeship program is to create a consistent set of professional standards for our partners. they may test well but we do not

really know their work. supervisor kim: with the request of the five additional apprentices, you feel confident we can find replacements when they graduate? >> i'm not sure i understand? . five additional apprentices? -- i'm not really sure i understand that question. supervisor kim: maybe i am misreading that. was there a request for additional apprentices? >> are proposed budget would be a class of 10 new apprentices. we had 10 in our first year and it is a two-year cycle. last year, we only have five additional apprentices and this year we are back up to 10. supervisor kim: i noticed you had