tv [untitled] March 28, 2013 12:30am-1:00am PDT
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attorneys are long time employees in the office are going to be retire and weighing we won't replace them. we've had to take furloughs and we're able to save about $400,000 in that way. it's difficult to ask employees to take furloughs but we've done that before. i understand the city's facing tough times but i can't operate in a way that's going to provide inadequate recommendation to people >> the second question is during the time i asked for the other supplemental what was the result of that. >> what happens the mayor did
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an across the board cut regardless of the need of that department and so our department was cut 1 i pledge allegiance to the flag $2 million so we downsized two attorneys and i came to the board i notified the board we would have to withdraw from a certain number of the says cases and the board decided not to fund s it and just in that next focus year so in other words to save 1 i pledge allegiance to the flag $2 million the city incurred 1 point that $3 million in all attorney costs so the board of supervisors approved the supplemental in the following years and our staffing level was
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restored. and >> and i think you mentioned you would start what did you call it pushing cases out to the bar? and if we're not able to do a case we can send it out to the public bar. we have staff and a our attorneys handle a certain amount of cases they're paid an historical rate but private attorneys are paid an hourly rate so it's more expensive >> so i would submit some of your homicide cases to them rather than the lower end cases that are less expensive tell me
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why and well, the two of the 3 investigators that are resigning have a large amount of homicide cases so if we don't have the experienced people to do those kinds homicide cases are where i could spend your life in prison at any time just so happens that 2 out of 3 investigators that are leaving are handling those kinds of cases. one of the investigators is handling 6 homicide cases this is the investigator who's leaving in april who do i give those homicide cases to?
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we have - i can't simply spread those cases among our exist personnel because that's the caseload it's too large. if we could spread the cases among our existing staff but when we get to a breaking point it's my obligation to come to you and tell you that's what's happening to our office. keep in mind we haven't added any new employees to our officers you just appointed more personnel to the da's office. we're asking that you give us
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funds for staff at a experiences level >> you brought up the plea bargaining. however, i have heard of situations where in a particular category of cases the public defender's office will start advocating spearhead i didn't trial cases and that's putting pressure on the district attorney's office. that doesn't strike me as a situation where all the clients are at the same time saying i want 80 a speedy trial. i say that because i know there
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are certainly ratifications >> i can tell my clients ask for a speedy trial so all my investigators will be over worked. well, to go forward with a speedy trial or not we can't make that decision because of the budget we have. and secondly because we go to trial in thirty or 60 or 90 days the district attorney's office is going to dismiss the cases and thirdly we have to investigate cases we don't know what cases should be considered for plea bargaining and what cases to go to trial. when you look at wrong fill conviction we've seen what happens in illinois where people
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have been wrongfully convicted base of investigators not going into the field findings out where witnesses have to say. we respectable in one case to say that the witness came up with multiple versions and completely the case is being pending i would never had known that unless i had an investigator. unless you have an investigator we call investigators in our office the backbone of our practice. if you don't have an investigator who is out there doing their job it doesn't
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matter how good your case is >> and some of the positions are from the magic program i guess the - >> right those are not the position we're trying to fill. the budget analysis is saying you've got to get argue temporary salaries under control we'll make sure we live within those means. we're asking about investigators position we haven't filled a single position all year. the reality is i'm going to have to start handing these cases over. and they'll want to know why the
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budget is over by $3 million >> you signed a letter to the border and to the controller indicating that the - contaminate recently approved 9/11 and 2013 that the budget was adequate to meet the levels i anticipate i'll make to requests for additional monies. again not only was the budget passed but thereafter you signed that letter and so it makes it surprisingly i came forward with this request and as you know each department head is required to sign a letter to that effect. the reality is if you look at the budget i submitted we clearly outlined this issue.
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if you ask kate howard shell tell you we have made a immensely clear this is a problem that needs to be solved. in the beginning of the year you're already $60,000 in terms of your household spending and you're only making a hundred thousand dollars a year there's no possible way you're going to be able to operate. and that's how it is at the beginning the year and we don't have enough money to pay our existing staff. if you say you've think irresponsible in not hiring
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people but the reality is we don't have enough in our existing salary to hire the necessary folks >> thank you to members the budget committee and i apologize because of the fact we can't have 6 members of the board it's one of those things you can have only 5 members in the hearing. so i want to thank you for the opportunity to be here. i've tried to follow this discussion and i think there is a fundamental mistake of what we're talking about. and my understanding is that all department heads a asked to sign that document whether or not the bickering budget a adequate and the fact is that you do that
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what the expectations that it is and then there are situations which department heads have to come to us with a supplemental. it's not the first time this has happened. i think what's really important here and one of the reasons i was comfortable and remain comfortable putting the supplemental forward we're not talking about to give the public defender's office to hire now people but to address what is essentially a structure budget issue. whether or not it could have been neat a different way i think we all in hindsight have a different take on that but we're
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talking about money of step increases with our labor partner and legal pay that people are legally required to get. and when it comes to budget it's not entirely clear including vacation for people who are leaving and the number of people for a fiscal year and we're talking about the issue of temporary salaries. i do think the issue of temporary salaries needs to be address. you take the position of the press person i don't know if it's essentially a press person in the way we think of a press person by you would need someone to respond to press releases and
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in that case, i think this is a permanent position but in the a temporary position. what we have here is a request i that i wish we didn't have to make but it will allow the office to pay for things that their goobd - obliged to pay. the supplemental that the district attorney brought for the record is an appropriate thing. i have a lot of respect for each office and i know it's not - i
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believe at this point the approach is the only approach we can take i wish i didn't have to ask for that but i respectfully ask my colleagues to move this fward a recommendation if possible and in terms of the discussion whether the public defender has to be out i think there are rules that need to be followed i know we have something that is neat and i appreciate it was carefully vetted by the budget analysts and where they believe the amount t is too high or necessary and i'm glad that the public defender is agreeing with that recommendation. thank you a few comments in
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response. i think their strong different i think when a department head signs something and says that's adequate then this is meaningless we shouldn't do it at all. this is existing services and this is saying i might not be happy but this is the budget i have and i come here and 9 months later i've already spent the money and i need a pay back salaries that thing shouldn't have been signed. i don't like subpoena members of the jury, at all but new services were not talked about in the middle of last summer and that's a big fundamental differences and i think this is
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precedential seth. and if you are living within your budget it's up to a department head to manage their own budget you can violate that and then come up and ask for more - that's inappropriate >> i guess what i would say mr. chair is i don't think that anyone is saying that the document is meaningless i think when you sign that document there should be every indication you're going to stick to it but i think the numbers are not what we expected to have right now. i don't know that you expect it would be so many payist for
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people who are terminating employment. i don't think that some of the requirement of the salaries needed to be made arrest ideally when we budget we find ways to anticipating things that can come up but there are times that this can't be done. so i think that we have a situation here with this department head tried to stick to the budget but there were things out of control and unfortunately, this is sometimes, the way things work. you and i required a measure for departments to stick to their budgets and yet we have had
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situations to approve situations over the budgets because that's the unfortunate thing. i think we need to be careful and certainly mindful we don't want to do subpoena members of the jury, but sometimes their needed and i think this is one of them >> thank you. i don't know if this was not necessarily expected. i know that our public defender expressed this certain through it's budget and i think you shoumd the numbers of almost 5 how does of anticipated expenses for this current fiscal year which were denied by mayor's office and brfrdz. so those were what i believe
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anticipated costs and clearly i'm learning new things everyday and certainly you subpoena members of the jury, are commonplace but when i look at the supplemental costs of the memory health department i'm blown away by $49 million. i don't even know what that looks like but clearly that's significant. and my southern is with any supplemental in i'm i'm thinking of priorities that i want to see the city have and i'm thinking that every single time there's a supplemental that takes away from what i want to see deal with some of the issues and challenges and i do know and
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i'll say this i'm not happy about anyone who brings a supplemental before the board. i've known our public defender since i was a kiddie defended many people's in the community i live he continues to be gave you about defending people and assessable to people. you don't i know that does - i do think this process has provided me with a lot of clarity why this is necessary and that i mean, i know that in my mind based on my review of all the materials this is something we have to pay for its expenses that are basically - those expenses i guess if - from
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my understanding if we don't approve this it's about potential layoffs and potential drastically change to the department. i'm not a fan of subpoena members of the jury, i think this is something we're obliged to do to continue the service of the department. from any prospective i don't want to see any changes as it relates to investigators but again, i'm not really happy that it's being dealt with in this way. i don't believe it's not fair to ask a department head to sign a document that clearly they're going to run into a problem like
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this. the department of public health walked into a position thinking that they were going to be facing a situation this year. we can't keep doing business the same way but as i said when i look at what's necessary to move forward in this department we have to do this as a board. i agree with supervisor farrell in that someways departments are all looking at this a say well, if that's the case i'm going to exceed my budget and ask for a supplemental i want to put out a warning to all department heads
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this is not something that should be common place. the budget is coming up we need to make sure that steps are being taken in each and every one of these departments we don't get faced with a significant number of supplemental requests we get in the coming years. that's my $0.02 and i believe we'll be moving forward and thank you. i do agree with part of what was said specifically about you and the office and this is one of the best defers office in the country. i know a lot of people in the office and i know i'm going to catch a lot of flack.
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you're the only department head that's hanging around here at 3:00 a.m. and other departments are not doing that so my criticism has nothing to do with the professionalism for which you run the department. i think you have a failure of memory there was one time you did get sued and i defended you. so i have nothing but respect for this office we do have a difference of opinion here. i respect your position. we're expecting as i said 3 attorneys who are going to be retiring we'll be in a much
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better position next year but again, this is a problem we need to fix and if we don't fix it believe me i'll be back here again and i don't want to do that >> i want to act on supervisors wiener's comment. i want to marry you know how much respect i have for you. and this is as i've expressed more of a budget issue >> so colleagues unless there are any other comments are questions do we have motions? at this point we'll take public
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comment. before we take public comment mr. rose your report >> good evening chairman. i think the committee as thoroughly examined this issue i'll be brief in our report on page 4 we have 5 positions or 4 for example t e positions authorized by the board. on page 4 we believe that the projected fiscal year shortfall of 4 hundred and 66 thousand 8 hundred salaries step increases 4 thousand 9 in premium pay and
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other payments and one hundred and 527 for temporary salaries should be approved for a totals of 895698. i do, however, question the 1 hundred and 61 thousands of expenditures already incurred but it's my understanding that such expenditures are an obligation of the city, however, the analysts recommends that the balance of the salary not yet incurred for the june 2013 be disapproved base they were not authorize in the budget permitting the department to pay for positions not authorized by the board of supervisors i - we
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recommend to amend of the ordinance to rouse from 751312 to get for the temporary salaries not incurred but authorized by 2013 appropriation as amended and i'm be happy to respond to any questions >> colleagues any questions? >> much appreciated. thank you at this point, i'd like to open up for public comment on item 6? >> good evening. let's look at the dollar amount for this item the dollar amount
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