>> >> february 27, 2014, >> city of san francisco >> >> government audit and oversight committee

>> >> >> good morning, this meeting will come to order. this is the regular meeting of the government audit and oversight committee. i'm supervisor london breed and the chair of the committee and supervisor tang and supervisor chiu will be joining us now. and i also want to thank sfgtv jim smith and jonathan. madam clerk, do we have any announcements? city clerk: please silence all cell phones and electronic

devices and please include in the copies into the file to the clerk. >>supervisor london breed: thank you madam clerk please call the first item. city clerk: agenda[hearing - implementation of audit recommendations status]1310431.sponsor: cohenhearing on the update by the city services auditor on the status of implementation sf 11234 >> good morning supervisors. my name is tonya, i'm the director of city audit of the controllers office and with me is cat skog an. we are going to talk about our follow up process for audit and memorandum issue. the benefit from audit work is not only in the findings or recommendations made but in the implementation of those recommendations. by conducting audit follow up ensures our

department to enhance change and city agencies and city management and assess the value of our work. our office does two kinds of follow up work. regular and field follow up. our regular follow up procedures are done for all of our reports and memorandums and auditees are required to report at 6 months, 12 months and 2 years. after 2 years, the department if they have not yet resolved those issues we will include those recommendations in our annual report of recommendations not implemented after 2 years which we will begin this process at the end of this fiscal year and we'll present 245 -- that report to you. in the follow up process we may select certain audits in the field follow up. we go back

to gather evidence to go by whether each method was implemented. we tuesday approach for the candidates for the field follow up and the factors that could qualify an audit for high risk is large financial impact and weaknesses, to errors, safety issues and high risk of slides. over the next few slides i will provide information for the last quarter and overview of follow up activities and finally some high risk audits in greater details. we followed up on 20 reports and memorandum uams and more are directed at one department. we conducted 22 follow ups that conducted 22

open or contested recommendations. departments responded to 70 percent of those 22 follow up request within the 2-week deadlines. we did not receive two follow up responses at the time of this report, but the department has since responded. so the follow up status is based on the department's responses of the status report of the recommendation. active needs the department never provided a response to our follow up request and we will continue to follow up even beyond our 2-year process until we received a response. as of the writing of this report two follow ups were still active. we recently received those follow ups and open means the department provided a response but at least one recommendation remains open or contested. aft these follow ups are still

opened, elapsed if not all recommendations are given at the follow up period. yet, as i stated earlier we give those follow ups on those recommendations to the reporting mechanism. two of those follow ups have open recommendations after 2 years. all of those recommendations have a status of closed. two are now closed. so after we receive a response from the department, our process is to have an auditor review the response and based on the department's self reporting actions, then we determine if the actions that the department have taken will that actually resolve the problem underlying the recommendation. close means the department has implemented the recommendation, the department has implemented a sufficient recommendation or the recommendation is no

longer relevant due to the change within the department system. department's closed 62 of the 146 recommendations we followed up on which is 46 percent and 70 percent of the recommendations remain open and they have elapsed an will be included in the report after 2 years. the contested means it will not implement the recommendation and could be due lack of resources or disagreeing with the recommendation or believing that the process was sufficient when csa has identified problems that need to be addressed. as a result four recommendations were contested and i will discuss those more in depth as we go through the presentation. there are summaries of all the follow up in the local business audit report. i want

to highlight 10. the 2010 audit looked at three factors in the enterprise provisions of their contracts and the audit findings indicate their contractors used non-lbe contractors or subcontract or that was possibly in eligible for lbe status. the contract monitoring division investigated sanctions against the contractors. in one instance the contracting monitoring division did not find the contract or at fault but the issue did not materially impacts it's compliance with lbe go. therefore cmbd did not impose any sanctions. however they did address weaknesses by the oversight by the department. they conducted training for the department staff so with hopes this would not occur again. in addition cmd

implemented a web base monitoring tool to help track lbe compliance. for our follow ups, our office we use a risk base approach to select specific recommendations that the departments report for field testing. this is where we actually go out to the office and we go in to test. we gather evidence to determine if the department's implementation resolved the problem underlying the recommendation and issue a memo reporting our findings. our follow up go through the same process as the report. we company a follow up at 6 months, 1 year and 2 years. this time we actually go out into field and again do a testation work. during the first quarter of this year we had one follow up of process and sf puc

management with lease with aggregate which leases a rock query. what we found was that puc has significant weaknesses in its oversight and owed the city more than $64,000. the greater detail will be provided in our report for the fiscal year. we did find that the 11 recommendations we did test to be fully implemented and the remaining 38 recommendations did not require follow up. puc has collected $34,000 from has hassan son and addressed the personnel and the issues that had resulted in poor management of the lease.

since the audit they have done significant work and continue to have significant improvement in that particular area of their organization. in july 2012 we issued a report on our audit of sf mta having fully implemented 33 -- 23 of the 29 recommendations. however the department is contesting the implement of one recommendation. this recommendation comes from the audited finding revenue to not seeking reimbursement for providing traffic control activities for some street fares and festivals. recommendation 2 asks sf mta to include a traffic control fee as part of the permit fee paid by sponsors of street

fairs. however their response is they have made previous attempts to do so and have not had support of sf mta and policy makers. mta is here to speak on this one outstanding issue. >> good morning, chair breed, supervisor tang. a little bit, my name is cameron sammy. i'm the enforcement manager with sf mta. a little background. article 6 temporary use of or occupancy of public streets sf mta, the ability to collect fees from major events which are defined in section 6.3.

there is three primarily issues from collecting full cost recovery. they are prior to year 2000 cost for traffic control services for annual street fares and festivals were not covered under the code we deemed them grandfathered. the second piece which impacts parades and demonstration is under the 1st amendment rights and the thirst piece to this is that that when any festival is responsible -- sponsored by the city. the fees were not collectibles. sponsors were required to pay fees for food

permits but not dpt. today sf mta is charging and collecting fees for providing traffic control services from sponsors for new events, newly established street fairs and festivals. any festival or fair established prior to 2,000 are being charged for the expansion of those events but not for prior to 2000 established. so in other words, if they change or establish a new block, we do actually charge for recovery of our cost for those pieces. our ability to recover the full cost of enforcement services for street fairs is limited by the transportation code and my understand is that it's up to the board to change this code. and with that i will answer any questions.

>>supervisor london breed: supervisor tang? tang tang i -- >>supervisor katy tang: i know this ranges in different sizes. what are festivals going to be paying? >> we have an estimate of $529,000. this covers about 30 events annually for festivals and street fairs. >> let's say for example a small block party, 2 blocks, what would an organizer expect to pay for that on traffic controls? >> it depends on what services they need. they could need an x number of parking control officers that handle safety and traffic mitigation. other larger ones could be where towing is involved. that depends on the festival itself. i can provide you with

an example if you like? >> sure. that would be great, thank you. >>supervisor london breed: thank you. >> thank you. >> the next audit i would like to speak about the 2012 audit for kci for medical equipment. there were eight recommendations that focused on improving monitoring of the contract. dph has implemented three recommendations and reports implementing process of three more including creating detailed policies and procedures for reviewing invoices before authorizing payment. the two contested request to implement and document and over all contract monitoring system which would result in the weaknesses for

all dph contracts. dph reports will not implement those recommendations because it did -- does not have those resources to do so and they are here to address these issues. >> good morning supervisors. i'm here for anna cube or who normally facilitates the responses back. from the two contested recommendations in terms of implementing over all monitoring process and documenting as contract monitoring systems in the past three 3 months has been made department wide priority. we have now identified some resources, support the contract monitoring of a lot of these contracts including the ones we are formally contracted with on that boiler plate as well as blanket orders. on the next to cts office we'll include that. we'll take any questions.

>>supervisor london breed: so are you saying that this is not accurate that you now have sufficient resources in order to monitor this? >> at the time of the report it was accurate but since then we've made moves to actually be in line with the recommendation. so in the next update it will be more appropriate. >> do you know timeframe of when that will happen? >> 3-6 months of the departments that are involved with the specific contracts that require their expertise to be fully on board and tracking. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. >> so we would expect your office to follow up with us on the implementation of oversight for these particular contracts. >> yes, we shall. and that concludes my presentation unless you have additional

questions of me. >> thank you. have a great day. >>supervisor london breed: i wanted to bring mta or dpt back to the table. i have a few questions. i know that you are not able to recover certain fees for certain festivals and parades because of the reason you stated earlier and i just wanted to have some clarity about sunday streets in particular. it's my understanding that sunday streets is it's own non-profit organization and they raise their own funds in order to provide fun day streets. i know mta is involved but don't necessarily control the

event. can you explain to me besides i know the signage and parking enforcement officers. are there any other expenses related to that particular event that we are not able to recover? >> not to my knowledge. only as signage and towing if necessary and pco's to help with mitigation of traffic or pedestrian. >> there are tickets given as a result. is there a comparison in terms of tickets and towing fees in order to address cost recovery? >> i can look into that. what it is is more of an offset. >> is that taken into account at all for parking control support. >> the number i have given you, no it has not. >> i think it's important that's taken into account because before we tow we ticket and there is a fee that people that have to get their

cars out of tow pay, in order to understand the real -- impacts, i need to see the numbers. >> okay. >> is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. any other comment? no? quiet today. okay. thank you very much for coming in today and giving us this report. what are we doing with this item? >>supervisor katy tang: i would like to make a motion to file this hearing. >>supervisor london breed: okay. without objection this item is filed. madam clerk please call next

item. city clerk: [setting the 2014 budget and legislative analyst services audit plan]1401282.sponsors: breed; cohenmotion directing the budget and legislative analyst to conduct two performance audits in 2014 and setting the priority as follows: 11 the fire department's allocation of resources to emergency medical services; and 22 the fire department's administrative staffing and strategic planning; and removing from the budget and legislative analyst's audit plan the department of public health's compliance with privacy and security regulations as defined by the health information technology for economic and clinical health act and health insurance portability and accountability act, previously approved by the city clerk: sf 212341234 >>supervisor london breed: thank you. i requested this report and they completed an audit from the practices to retain and perform fire staff. we reviewed this audit in detail and the fire department and department of human resources. frankly and as i said there were some alarming revelations about services. people are calling 9-1-1 because a pedestrian has been sit and the fire department

sometimes has no am ambulances to send. this is happening on an average of 8 times each days. these medics calls have increased by a large percent. if this is happening everyday what would happen in an event of an earthquake or other major disaster in san francisco. that's not all but under the agreement with the medical treatment authority the fire department is supposed to respond to medical calls in san francisco. remaining non-compliant can seriously affect jobs and to the department and overall safety. the fire department continues to say they are staffing and equipment shortage. i'm asking the budget and legislative analyst to tell us exactly what the department needs, in terms of

personnel, equipment in order to reach the required 80 percent of the call response rate. i'm also requesting this report to be completed in time to be considered in this year's budget process. i'm asking the bla to investigate if there are administrative staffing practices to help free up existing resources. as we craft another $8 billion budget i hope the mayor and board of supervisors include the funding needs in this upcoming fiscal year budget to provide city of san francisco with reliable emergency medical care. this is an important issue and i want to make sure we take it as seriously as it is. i noticed chief white is here to the from the fire department. i want to give you an opportunity to speak even

though we didn't make preparation to speak today but i would like to give you the time to make any comments you might have? >> thank you, good morning supervisors. we look forward to working with the budget analyst as we take into account the budget and staffing. i know we said a few months ago you should know that the fire department has always advocated for proper staffing levels on both the fire and ems side. many of comments and finds we totally agree with. in terms of the challenge that we have as you are aware, i know you were being a former fire commissioner. in 2007 -- 2008 there was a decision made at the state level and

challenged and no longer able to make the eoa status area. the department always said that we should have never lost that. there was a fundamental disagreement and myself. it was a huge issue and we fought desperately with the department of local management to retain and regain that eoa status but it came 4 years after the fact. we have done a lot, given there is 4 years of uncertainty, the staff has suffered. you should know in the budget before you, we are still speaking with the budget controllers office and we've asked for $10 million to support the staffing to get back to that 80 percent level. we are at 73 percent now. certainly any analysis by the budget analyst would be helpful. i know there is an initial meeting or