>> thank you. absolutely. >> maybe as a general comment for this department and other departments, the department is actually correct that there are increases in salaries and no increases in other areas. our recommendations are based on actual experiences. if you look at recommendations such as air travel, membership fees, other occurring expenses. and this is not a criticism. our recommendation is strictly based on actual experience, and then we provide a cushion so that when we make our recommendations to reduce, based on several prior years of experience, we believe our recommendations will provide more than the department can expand. in this particular department about we're recommending reductions, as the department indicated, 60,700 four dollars

in 2014. -- 60,007 average $4 in 2014. the department is correct that the savings would be about 60%. in 2013-14, our recommended reduction total is ongoing savings. it would allow an increase of about 1.6%. 1.6% of the department's budget. about 60% of that, or $39,000 would be general fund savings. chairperson chu: if there are no further questions from the committee at this time, we will look forward to seeing you next week after you've had some time to work with the budget analyst on the recommendations.

our next department is the civil service commission. >> good morning, supervisors. i'm the executive officer of the civil service commission. in the fiscal year 2013 proposed budget of 858,009 had $26 for the civil service commission, it is a $34,655 increase over the curve your budget but this is only due to a significant portion of the removal of the furlough days and in addition to the projected cost of employee benefits. for fiscal year 2013-14 proposed budget of $893,182, that is only

a $23,322 increase, and again this is to to the projection of the benefits and the agreement in the collective bargaining agreement. the commission the budget request is allocated only to 5.68 fte staff, professional services would be in the case of there is a need of a hearing officer, translator, or a court reporter. materials and supplies, equipment maintenance, and the lease of the copier is actually the bulk of what we spend in terms of professional services. services of other departments would be the usual in terms of mail, real estate.

in previous years, the department has had two faced challenges in reductions and the department has made extra effort, whether it is to reduce work orders, to take on more of the work by our staff. we have had some reorganization with our staff in the past. we are still able to service the public, the employers organization beckham with questions regarding whether it has to do with the examination, hiring, rule proposals. we had a recent amendment changes which have been costly in terms of putting out notices, proposals for meet and confer, and the posting of the adoption. the department does not have any disagreement with what has been

recommended by the budget analyst. i do not know if you have any questions for the department. supervisor chu: thank you. i believe there were no recommendations from the budget analyst. with regard to your salary, can you mention how many folks are employed through the civil service commission? >> the budget allocations for 5.68 full-time employees. there are actually six full-time employees working on staff. supervisor chu: do you imagine the work of the self-service changing at all, do you imagine any new initiatives or changes? one of the things i'm concerned with, we have a lot of small apartments that come in -- there may not be recommendations -- but that is not necessarily an excuse to do things as we always have. you expect the civil service commission to become more efficient? >> we are continuously doing so.

what happens is, we purchased a management system. how this has helped is that we are making efforts not only to run efficiently but to reduce cost in terms of printing. many times we will receive requests, whether from other departments, organizations, records, and so forth, and this is often printed on paper. we began printing on both sides, so one and so forth, but we are finding scanning documents and the mailing them is an effort in terms of expediting the process but also reducing the cost of the usage of the copier and also purchasing of supplies, and so forth. the department is also continuously working with dhr and other department managers, working closely on whether any

rule proposals or recommendations would be presented to the commissioners. as you heard earlier today, dhr expressed concerns about the sole service process in hiring. so far, we are working closely with them on this. -- civil service process in hiring. supervisor chu: budget analyst? >> madam chair, members of the committee, we have no recommendations for this fiscal year. supervisor chu: thank you. there are no recommendations for this department at this time. i just want to stress, even if it is a small apartment, we would like to hear more about the work you're doing collaborative late with dhr to make sure that our civil service process fees are as smooth as possible. at some point it might be worthwhile to have a briefing with supervisors about the

efforts you are working on. even though it is a small department, it is important for our general system to work better, and have to emphasize, even though we do not have any recommendations for your department, everyone can do something to improve their work. we would like to hear more of those efforts, going forward. colleagues, given that, we will not be requiring this department to return. going on to the next apartment, public library. -- department, public library. >> good morning, city librarian. supervisors, we have a brief presentation that highlights the san francisco public library. we are currently employing 889 full and part-time staff. our circulation has shown significant increases in the

last several years at about 3%. significant increases in the past and we have been able to sustain that. over 7 million people are using the library annually, so we are proud of that. we're also pleased that the ability to provide access to the internet for many of our users. for many, it is the only place where they can have internet access. we are very pleased of the success we are having and the momentum we sustained through the branch library extension program, completing 22 projects. not only completing them but also receiving recognition, not only for the sustainability for leed gold and silver, but also for historic designations. supervisor chu: do you have a copy of the presentation that we could see? >> i have one copy of the presentation.

i am sorry. it seems it is not recognizing the font we created our presentation in, so it is distorting information. we have one copy that we could put on the overhead that might be easier to read, and we will e-mail copies as well to the committee. supervisor chu: thank you. >> let me continue on that first overview. we provide over 100 programs that are you there focusing on education or literacy, but also programs that run the gamut from early literacy to adult literacy. with regard to the overall budget, we were fortunate to have as a baseline through the library's preservation fund set aside that included both the property tax and general fund.

both of those are reflecting some healthy increases. the budget that is proposed for fiscal year 13 is at $92.3 million, which is a 6.8% increase. in the second year, which is a fy14, $96.9 million, another 5% increase. the increases to the budget are primarily based on salaries, due to the benefit costs associated with labor, retirement, and health, but we are also looking at investments in the technology infrastructure, our collections budget, which i will give more details on, as well as proposing expanded hours at two area libraries. the guiding principles for the budget, but also everything we do through the library, are five different areas. i want to focus on those.

that includes literacy and learning, which is our bread and butter, in terms of what we offer to users. digital strategies, so that we can continue to engage our young people, not only in technology access, but providing access to all generations of users. used engagement. this is our next generation of library users. working closely with the school district and community agencies and other sister departments. strategic partnerships. i also talked about the focus we are engaging in the community. certainly, to address the very diverse community that we serve. our programming that supports not only the resources but our collections and programs. we also have a high value on diversity. we are investing in the facilities. now that we are completing the branch library improvement program, looking at how we can

evaluate the post occupancy and looking at some efficiencies in that regard. i will give you some details on that front. supervisor chu: have we finished renovations? i guess you are going to talk about that soon? >> yes, we have completed 22 out of the 24 projects. 16 renovations are completed. six new buildings. i was at the ortega building yesterday and it was buzzing with activity. two final projects in the works. the bayview project is over 50% complete. we look forward to opening in february 2013. we're also making progress with the north beach library, which we anticipate opening in march 2014. that will complete all 24 projects. as i alluded to, we are looking at a post occupancy evaluation. so we have some dollars included

in this budget and next year of about $100,000 per year to maintain that investment. it is a significant investment, so we want to survey the public to see if we can make some changes, but more importantly, maintain the infrastructure. supervisor chu: i appreciate the post occupancy evaluation. that is important. we tend to build new buildings and then do not take care of them, so they fall apart and then go back to the voters for a bond to build something again. the $100,000 looks to be for the evaluation of it. have you include actual money for maintenance work, to make sure we're of keeping the building? >> let me clarify, the 100 belsen dollars is to do something about it. the survey will be done in house. -- $100,000 is to do something about it. we have someone in the house who

will be doing that part of it. supervisor chu: so it is for actual capital maintenance, repair work? >> yes. let me talk about hours. that is one of our strong suit for the department. if you look at the table we provided, in 2006-2007, only 16 of our libraries were opened six or seven days a week. the board requested that we take a deliberate approach in looking to expand powers based on availability of funding and looking at what are the needs out there? making sure that we cover the entire city. we looked at geography, etc. we are pleased by the fact that we have made an expansion of hours a priority and we have been successful. as of today -- and i want to

emphasize this -- all of our libraries are open five, if not six days a week. what we are proposing in this year's budget is two more branches that would be open one additional day. that is the visitation valley. this is in keeping with a plan to be strategic to where the need is. we have also opened up new facilities, have been delivered about the hours on that. the proposal would get us to 54% of all of our libraries open seven days a week. look at that comparison with other cities across the nation. san francisco is at 54%. san jose has only 5%. seattle, 44%. chicago, 4%. philadelphia, 2%. this means san franciscans really are supporting their libraries, and we are supportive

of the preservation fund, but we are also the only urban library in the nation that has had no impact during the economic downfall. we are proud of that but we also continue to have high demand for library services. we continue to maintain that. if you agree and concur with the approval of the two additional branches, that means we would have had an increase of 120 operating hours a week since 2007, and that puts us higher than the threshold required by the library's preservation fund. supervisor chu: supervisor kim? supervisor kim: i'm happy to see that these two libraries on are on your list because i know there are a lot of families in that neighborhood. how do you evaluate the need? >> we work with the school

district to gather data, everything from dropout rates to the size of the community, the demographics, whether there are language. , all that is taken into account, -- language barriers. all that is taken into account. i should also say, this coming year, by march 2013, as required by the library preservation fund, we are engaging in a study to look and all hours across the city. that is required by the library preservation fund. there is a hearing in each supervisor oral district and we look forward to working with each of you to make sure that we have community input on modifying hours. we definitely do it very deliberate based on need and, at some point, getting to where all the branches are maximizing

their hours. supervisor kim: we do have data on the usage of the library. >> we definitely use that data and we are pretty good at quantifying the need and use. supervisor kim: how do you plan on doing out reach an advertising where you are increasing base hours? if the community does not know about it, and they may not come on those days. >> when i talked about the language ordinance, multiple languages, we want to promote in public-service announcements, a marketing strategy. it is really important. through the schools, through your district newsletters, anything. just getting word out is important. supervisor kim: i am a big fan of the libraries. i also want to ensure we are doing the out reached so that

the community does utilize them. i know that some libraries are busy all time and then you have other that are not at capacity. i'm curious to see what we can do so that the community does use it so we can have an accurate assessment of what those needs are. how did you pick the other cities that you compared us to? san jose, seattle -- is that a good metrical what other cities are doing? are there other cities doing better than san francisco? >> we have the urban libraries council, a cooperation of various urban libraries. we have benchmark cities and we try to look at a representative sample. we do better than most cities, if not all cities, currently, in terms of expanded hours. let me move on to talk about some of the investments we are looking at making based on our priorities. collections.

we are looking at continuing to put a good dollars into, not only the books, but more and more into digital learning, e- books, etc. the $9.9 million for fy13, $10.4 million for fy14 represents a significant investment. just under 11% of the entire operating budget for materials and books. collections -- i just want to let you know, on the electronic resources, we have seen a 50% increase in demand. so we really have a need that we try to meet. audiovisual materials, all that is reflected in that enhancement for library collections. we are very interested in having our services -- supervisor kim, to your point about neighborhood of reach -- in the neighborhood and community.

we are out fitting some bookmobiles. one in particular will be on technology in gauging youngsters and anyone else out there who wants to engage in technology. that is something that we're doing to get a library out into the community. not a lot of money, $32,000, but it will be significant. >> are these popular, our kids using them? i remember several years ago it was used as a way to promote violence prevention. i know that there was a lot of question about whether that was a good use of funds. >> our mobile outreach service, if it is any indication, it is absolutely popular and in high demand. we had our kickoff to the summer reading program at the science foundation during the free family day. we had hundreds, if not thousands, of families using that. we are excited about this

technology to use as another strategy to reach out to the community. let me move into the use engagement peace. one of the successful programs we have had is a laptop lending program. laptops are the number was circulating item out there. in our community, there are still areas where there is no access to technology, so we try to do something about it. we found some efficiencies, making note of the fact that in the budget there are $60,000 earmarked for additional increases to our laptop program. it is available at all of our locations. we are increasing the number of actual laptops available as new locations open. we are also pleased to report we are one of 12 cities nationwide that received a macarthur institute of museum and libraries grant to start planning for a digital media learning lab at the central library. we are thrilled about that but

we're also looking at investing dollars in the next two years, $200,000 and $250,000 to have the construction documents ready to go so that we can transform that space in the main library. we look forward to working with you on that. i want to focus on job creation and the employment resources. we are making some concerted efforts to hire youth. we are tripling our investments in youth works. we're going from nine young adults to 28 employment slots. that means we have a youth worker at each of the neighborhood libraries. that is very encouraging. in terms of the mayor's employment and education program, seven spots earmarked for that. we also have a new investment in the project pool. the macarthur grant i mentioned includes 15 teenagers who are

given stipends to help us in designing the actual learning lab. employment resources. you want to be part of the solution in terms of employment opportunities. i mentioned how we have 7 million visitors during the economic downturn fibers are becoming more and more the place to go for career transition or looking for jobs resources. this list is provided there, whether it is the job center at the main library, resume workshops, online and career tutorials, all that is in high demand. we are pleased to continue to work on that. last is our emphasis on the language access ordinance. we are a tier 1 department. everything that we do support the language access ordinance. it begins by virtue of having our public library staff have services in a different languages. we have interpretation services provided as needed. our public programs are offered

in spanish, cantonese, mandarin, and russian. we look forward to expanding that capability. american sign language will be incorporated this coming year. library collections represent over 40 different languages. we are definitely pushing the envelope on that front. we are pleased seven years ago we create the citizen on-line tool kit to allow folks to look in different languages on how to -- apply for citizenship using the tools available at the national will. it has become a model nationwide and many other libraries are looking at us to replicate that tool kit. that basically completes the overview. i know we are still working with the analyst's office. primarily in the area of the 2.5 positions that will be required to provide the additional services to the neighborhood

libraries. supervisor chu: supervisor cohen? supervisor cohen: i just wanted to say thank you and comment on a couple of things. thank you for your leadership in getting the additional libraries built. they are beautiful and i support you in your efforts to have the libraries open seven days a week. i also wanted to commend you for the bay view library progress. i know there were some setbacks and hurdles almost two years ago, but yesterday's event was great. looking forward to the ribbon cutting ceremony. i know i share in the excitement with scott wiener. we both have a special place in our heart for public libraries. supervisor chu: just a few questions from me.

in terms of the expanded hours and the number of branch libraries open seven days vs six days a week. i wonder if you might share with us offline, which of those supervisors and libraries are -- which library within their districts are open? >> we have a very colorful map which highlights of that. supervisor chu: i have gone to the ortega library. it is great. it is nestled between a lot of public amenities and schools. i have been there on a couple of occasions when it was not open when i thought it would be. in terms of the hours that you are open at the library, is there some sort of regularity around it? how do you suppose hours? sometimes people go there thinking it will be open because it is fairly late in the day, but it is not open. how do you go about setting that, is there a way to make it easier for people to know when

the libraries are open? >> first of all, or take it is open seven days a week. we are pleased about that. in the study that we will be conducting, we will look at how we can modify whether it is more evening or morning hours, what the trade-offs are based on the demand and need from the community. in terms of getting the word out, it continues to be one of our priorities. back to what supervisor kim said about how much average we do to not only publicize the hours, certainly on the website, getting the word out. multiple strategies about the hours. it is important to stress the staff capacity is limited. in terms of whether we modified the hours will be based on the entire city possum the point of that and gathering the data once we conduct the study, which will be happening in the late summer or early fall, ready for the budget hearing next year.