supervisor chu: good morning and welcome to the budget and finance committee. mr. young, do you have any announcements today? >> please silence all assault on an electronic devices. copies as a part of the filing should be submitted to the clerk. supervisor chu: please call all the items on the agenda. >> item 1. proposed budget and annual appropriation ordinance appropriating all estimated receipts and all estimated expenditures for departments of the city and county of san francisco as of may 31, 2012, for the fys ending june 30, 2013, and june 30, 2014.

item 2. annual salary ordinance enumerating positions in the annual budget and appropriation ordinance for the fys ending june 30, 2013, and june 30, 2014, continuing, creating or establishing these positions; enumerating and including therein all positions created by charter or state law for which compensations are paid from city and county funds and appropriated in the annual appropriation ordinance; authorizing appointments or continuation of appointments thereto; specifying and fixing the compensations and work schedules thereof; and authorizing appointments to temporary positions and fixing compensations therefore. item 3. proposed budget and annual appropriation ordinance appropriating all estimated receipts and all estimated expenditures for selected departments of the city and county of san francisco as of may 1, 2012, for the fys ending june 30, 2013, and june 30, 2014. item 4. proposed annual salary ordinance enumerating positions in the annual budget and appropriation ordinance for selected departments of the city and county of san francisco for the fys ending june 30, 2013, and june 30, 2014. supervisor chu: thank you for colon all those items. just a quick question to the city attorney. on the items that we have today, items one and two comprise of

the aso for general fund apartments, as well as the general enterprise department. items three and four were carried over from our may deliberations. these are primarily for the enterprise departments. do we technically have to merge them? >> it is up to the comptroller what they need in terms of the documents. >> members of the committee, controller's office. it is up to the committee. usually, the committee merges at the end, but you can do it now. supervisor chu: thank you. we took comment on the entirety of the budget and with the public comment on the enterprise department budget. do we have a motion to merge items 3 and 4 into items 1 and 2?

we have that motion and can do so without objection. now we have one aao and one aso for the department's budget. we will be hearing from a number of departments this week. today, we are following up with regards to some of the outstanding issues recommended by the budget analyst. so we have most of the departments coming back today. in addition, we also have a brief update from the mta about their budget. if you recall, when they came forward, there were some changes from labor negotiations, among other things, and they wanted to fall back up with the committee on. they will be doing a presentation for us today. city planning department will be called out of order as well as the treasury tax collector, because of conflicts in their schedule. >> john ram, planning

department. i do have a board meeting at 11:00 as well that i need to attend. in summary, during the past week, we have been working closely with the budget analysts office. at this point, we are in concurrence with four of their seven propose recommendations. we have agreed to $221,000 in cuts in the our disagreement on three positions, which for the next fiscal year, would total about $250,000. i want to remind the committee, while our budget appears to have increased on paper about $5 million, in fact, $2.3 million of that is incorrectly in our budget and will be transferred over to the rec and parks department. $2 million of that is one time allocations. and of course, $1.5 million is due to the increase of the replacement of the furlough

time. if you remove the one time allocation from the calculation, of the cuts would represent a 40% reduction to our proposed base operating fund -- 14% reduction in our proposed base operating fund. a year over year fte growth is only 1.7 positions, so it is not as big an increase as one would think when first looking at the numbers. to be more specific on where we are in agreement, we agree that on the one-month delay for the harvard of the bar mental and citywide planners for the proposed arena, which is recommendation that analyst has made. we're in agreement about the reduction of temporary salaries and the reduction to annualized professional services, which it was done at the last recommendation of the budget analyst report. to be more specific and where we are not in agreement, the recommendations -- there are three position that we are

proposing that we think are justified, given the workload of the department, and as we have seen, trends in the past couple of years. one is for legislative affairs. the planning code has been amended over 54 times in the past year, which is a substantial increase from the year before. we are seeing a substantial increase each year. that does not include the increase in the number of appeals, which are also increasing the amount of staff time which must be spent on legislative affairs. we have been trying to work at a number proactive pieces of legislation, such as the restaurant legislation, air quality ceqa legislation, and we are moving a lot of other legislation forward. we feel the legislative function is undertaking an exponential increase. it apart and it's also in disagreement on the cuts with

the planner of's position and the commission office. as you know, we staff two commissions. the planning commission is only one of two that meets every week. the commission secretary supports essentially six meetings a month. that is an unusually high workload compared to other commission secretaries. our current secretary, who has been with the city over 30 years, will soon be retiring. the committees have decided to select one person rather than two to fill that function. they each have the right to select their own as charter commission's. we are proposing a high-level support position for that secretary position. what we want to do in the second year of this budget is maintain the three positions for the commission support, but for the coming fiscal year, we are proposing an additional position to give a high level of support to provide that high-level transition, but in the following year, we would reduce it to 3

fte, in a reduced structure. three positions now, 3 positions in the second year of the budget, but next year, we are budgeting for it before your positions to allow for high- level support to the secretary. finally, the other place we are in disagreement is with the environmental planners. the mayor's budget included two in are the planners that would be funded through general fund to work on public projects, where we have a dearth of support in the department. we're in agreement on one of those positions that would move forward, but i think it is important to recognize that we have had a multi-year structural problem with the environmental review function of the department. it causes delays and frustrations for city agencies, in particular, and we believe that this position is desperately needed to make sure we keep up with that workload and not have a backlog as we are now starting to experience

again because of the increase in the economy. i would respectfully ask that you consider our request for these three positions. it represents about a $250,000 increase over what the budget analyst is proposing. that concludes my presentation. i am happy to take any questions. supervisor chu: with regards to your commission reorganization, could you explain that a little bit more? you talked about how in your current staffing some areas you have three individuals that stack your commissions. the plan is in your two, it would also be three positions. terms of the position you are asking for at the moment, that is to support the transition? >> to support the transition and ultimately -- currently we have a high level secretary position. we are proposing that be the second year, that that be

substituted down. in addition to that, we have two clerical positions. instead of a high-level position and two secretaries, a level as secretary and then a higher level position to support the commission secretary. ultimately, we do not believe we would need two clerical staff if we had that middle level position. in the long run, it would be the backup at the commission secretary needs. right now, we do not have a backup in that function. we do not have a high level backup. ultimately, yes, it would be three positions. it would jump to four next year, and then go back to 3. supervisor chu: the way that it

jumps from four to three, would there be reassigned or attrition? >> we would reassign in year two. supervisor cohen: i have a question, point of clarification. the position you're advocating for, are they all administrative clerical? >> a three we are talking about our planner positions. >> that is good. wei wanted to stress the planner working on a wonderful future of visitation valley. supervisor chu: thank you. supervisor kim? supervisor kim: i tried to get a grasp on something that you said. you spoke rather quickly. the state department's ask for the largest increase in the general fund. 162%, which is a drastic

increase. roughly of the $5 million in additional -- in general fund support that you are getting, $2 million of this is roughly -- >> $2.3 million actually should be in the rec and parks department. to do the 17th and folsom park, the puc property we have been working on. supervisor kim: i know the project well, but what will rec and park be doing? >> it is actually capital dollars. will go to build parks. supervisor kim: the impact will flow through the planning department. then the eir, the permanent project tracking system. for the warriors, i understand that would also be paid through fees, not to the general fund.

ok, so that is not coming through the general fund. for the three planners, there is one -- two for the warriors? >> yes. supervisor kim: 1 more for the preservation, and the other for the rec and parks. you have agreed for rec and park planners starting in the third quarter? that was one of the recommendation by harvey? are you anticipating that, too? >> the agreement is two positions would start in october. supervisor kim: i have the two warriors planners starting in august, which you are in agreement with. maybe i misunderstand this. i have two other planners. one is for the first phase of the historic preservation element.

two planner that work on the rec and park project and the first phase of the historic preservation element. >> i think what you are referring to it is the positions in environmental planning to work on a range of projects. the preservation would be a part of it. working on city-related public projects, including rec and park projects, our own work on a general part plan. >supervisor kim: the budget analyst recommendation is that we disapprove one and another would start in the third quarter. >> my understanding is there a recommendation would be only one would move forward. supervisor kim: and it would start in the third quarter. >> i think the third quarter is probably fine. i would just hope that we could get that second position as well. supervisor kim: i think they stated that just because the rec and park bond -- hopefully will pass in november.

you had mentioned that there will be a variety of different projects on top of historic preservation that you talk -- thought needed a second environmental planner position. >> that is right. we have had a structural issue in environmental planning. it takes the most time. for any project. part of the reason for that, we believe, is we are constantly shifting attention from privately-funded projects to the city projects. city projects always get jumped to the top of the queue, if you will, when those projects come in the door. this would allow us to devote staff attention solely to city projects so that other products can move forward. supervisor kim: would this be able to assist in some of the work that supervisor cohen had alluded to in visitation valley? >> the mayor's budget did not specifically include that

position. we can have that discussion. the mayor's budget did not include a position for visitation valley. we believe have an fte would do that work. it was not the original intent of the particular position. we can continue to work on that. i think we all recognize the need for it. supervisor chu: thank you. supervisor wiener? supervisor wiener: with respect to the two requested public projects, environmental planners, my understanding is that will be funded through the budget and then they will not be billed out to the other departments? >> correct, through general fund. supervisor wiener: i think i mentioned this last time. having gone through a number of these public projects, it is a

real fire drill every time making sure that we can get staffing from the planning department and making sure to move these projects forward in a timely manner. it undermines confidence in the public spending and capital process when we have a project that is moving forward and then it has a hit but because there is a delay in the environmental review. most recently, and dolores park, the department, they did the timing bet needs, but for a while, it was dicey about whether we could move through environmental review in the way that we had planned. i do think there is a good argument for having these planners. two questions. in terms of -- in reference to

the actual projects, whether it is private or another department -- also, the preservation element, general planned stuff. i would want to make sure that these planners did not get stuck into the general plan, preservation, what ever else, spending all their time there and then very little time on the public projects. these are very important elements, but even more important are making sure these projects move forward in a timely way. could you comment on that? >> i cannot give you a percentage of time they would spend on general plan, but it would be relatively low. the idea is to spend time on the projects, specifically on the city's own physical projects, primarily capital projects from other departments. frankly, so that