animals and we are trying. that kind of goes to the information about where we are in terms of the services we're providing, but i -- if you have other questions i'm happy to answer them and certainly ly adam can speak to the budget issues. >> good afternoon. adam from the city administrator's office. just going to take a few minutes to walk through the process that we went through to develop the budget proposal and then talk about some of the specifics of the proposal. we reviewed the literature that was available for the standards and guidelines to basically determine what are the recommended levels of staffing for animal care and field services. what were smart, best or emerging practices in the field and from that we looked at a number of the major organizations, such as vets,

national animal control a association and we basically found the lit erature for guidelines on animal care are pretty robust. there are lots of add viesz about vice about how to take care of animals well. there weren't a lot of materials talking about workload and resources attached to it. how do you determine how many officers you need or how many shelter care attendents. and for cleaning within our own agency. we found that we provide about fine minutes or so, not up to the standard. then the other ult what we

found is icc does a great job. they provide more services than most. they have better outcomes than

most but that do so with fewer resources which indicates they're quite efficient. that said, based on what we found we think they should have additional resources to better perform. they are about a 4.8 million annual operating budget. this indicates the budget at fte has been very static at . if you look at the blue line that's their operating budget like supplies, contracted services and that's been pretty flat for most of the period. it was hovering around 500,000 dlar $500,000 despite the fact of increasing costs. what we advocated for in recent

years was a $300,000 increase for that and that was about 7 percent or so, but otherwise the program has been pretty static in level of resources. so what are we asking for? this provides a list -- almost everything is personnel. we found that overall the level of funding available for non personnel items was sufficient, but in terms of staffing we found some did deficiencies. we think that by adding three animal control officers positions, this will help increase officer safety and allow them to partner on various types of calls that are more dangerous, higher risk and it will also allow them to be paired at night. we think this is a highest priority of the items we were asking for. closely following that, in order to have full coverage for the shelter, of course they operate 7 days week and longer than business hours.

we have more than 400 animals in the shelter on any given day, as many as 500 and we only have one budgeted veterinarian on staff. >> can i ask if you could -- you said the three positions for officers are the top priority and does that get us closer to the 1.6 officers that's the staffing level that's recommended? >> it would. if you do the math based on the 1.6 officers per beat, we have four beats, you multiply it out you'd take into con sideration things like employees being on leave, vacation otherwise, add in the additional officers would put us to where we'd like to be. it'd allow us to pair up at certain times so they are safer. >> i think from the previous hearing that's important for the safety of your staff. >> correct. absolutely. and so next step we have the veterinarian. we're asking for just a 0.5, so

half fte so that would allow us to employ an as needed veterinarian so that way we'd have full-time coverage. also asking for one veterinarian technician. there's currently only one fte allocated d towards that so if you had one leave he'd have another available and also helps us do the rounds for selter and processing of animals. next important to us would be the animal care [inaudible]. yep, so it's actually 10 and by adding three it allows us to get closer to that industry standard of 15 minutes per animal per day, which heeds to better socialization, better outcomes for animals, just better care and allow us to have greater flexibility when we have staff on leave to back fill against them. we'd like to have two fte

shelter care representatives that will act as the daytime dispatch. we currently have animal control officers act as dispatch and by adding in these other positions it'll allow us to have the officers in the field as opposed to answering the phones and we think that'll be more efficient. beyond that, we have a request for an animal behaviorist. right now we have a part-time behaviorist that's funded very generously through one of our partnering organizations, friends and animal care and control. by having a full-time behaviorist it'll allow us to spends more time with the animals, to reduce negative behaviors and increase adopt blt. ability. lastly we are asking for one officer for three years that will be in charge of outreach and also help to implement a more robust licensing campaign

for dogs and increase viability. this will hopefully bring in more donor dollars to help make the program more self sufficient. it'll increase the number of dog licenses because there are about 120,000 dogs in the city, only 17 percent of them are registered or licensed despite having a city mandate to to so so by increasing that it'll make the public safer. it'll ensure rabies vaccinations and will help them to be more kwiekly quickly identified if they get lost. by having that it'll increase the revenue for the agency which will make them more self sufficient. the costs for these associated requests is a total of about 900,000 in the fiscal year '15 and then the successive year as we annualize all these positions it increases to about

$1.2 million. that concludes our presentation. we thank you for the opportunity to present to you. if you have any questions rebecca and i would be happy to address them. >> thank you very much. if there are no questions or comments we'll move to public comment. i have two comment cards, sally stevens an nancy stafford. please come on up. if anyone else wants to speak there are public comment cards in the front you can fill out. >> hi, my name is sally stevens and i'm here today wearing two hats, one is the chair of animal commission and one is the chair of sf dog and both hats encourage you to support animal care and control. the animal control welfare

commission voted earlier in month to send the letter of support for acc that i just gave to you have also included a letter from commissioner sherry o'neil who could not be here today emphasizing the important role that acc plays in preparing for and responding to di sasers. sasers. in addition i have numerous letters, together we represent thousands and thousands of dog owners and guardians and we all urge you to support this budget proposal and support animal care and control. it's underfunded and understood staffed and has been for years. the most perezing pressing things get done. there's so much more they could be doing if properly staffed and funded. i'd like to add in addition to what was mentioned is that the

acc's budget include monoe money for a part-time hearing officer for dog court that deals with cases involving dog bites and aggressive dogs. over the years the unit in the hearing officer have developed broad community support because of the fair and compassionate way they deal with dog owners and victims all the time. all the while they keep public safety foremost in minds. [inaudible] just like to remind you this really isn't just about animals. as is mentioned people who abuse animals often neglect and abuse spouses and children. not just the most heinous will save human lives too. please support this additional budget proposal for acc. thank you.

>> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is nancy stafford, i'm . we support the increases for the acc budget, especially the vicious and dangerous dog court, a trend setting program that has proven to be an important asset to the community. i have personal experience with the court. i testified on behalf of a client. my client called me extremely worried because she had been summoned to court. i assured her that the hearing officer was fair and knowledgeable and her dog would not be taken away or arbitrarily youth ewe youth niezed. the incident appeared to be a misunderstanding and the two owners worked it out with the help of the court.

in the jurisdictions people are hesitant to report a dog problem for fear of causing another person's pet to suffer serious consequences. therefore the problem often goes unreported when the solution could be mandated training or requiring the dogs to always be on a leash or muzzle. the result, a potential danger to the public could have been easily solved if the trustworthy system were available to them. please allow acc to hire a knowledgeable hearing officer to continue this important pranl, a program. a hearing officer requires a special set of skills and experience. thank you. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment? please come on up. ?

>> hi my name is kelly.

>> and should be commended. we at pet food express often hold up acc for its inveigh ti approach for saving lives. it was the first shelter in the state to set up a permanent off site adoption center.

acc knew that getting the animals in front of potential adopters outside the center would result in more adoptions, and it has. the number of animals in need and in distress is not going to go down. it seems everyday we hear another story of animal abuse, neglect or homelessness. to adoptable animal should be put down. we need to continue to raise our standards for animal treatment and adoption and we can't do it effecttively without the arc. without the budget to do it -- thank you for helping. cc. without the budget to do it -- thank you for helping. i'm officer john danny, san francisco police. previous speakers said some very kind things about the vicious and dangerous dog court and i'm the hearing officer and i appreciate all the kind

words, but i wouldn't have been able to do all this without the help of animal care and control and it's -- to say they're staffed, i understaffed and i have a office in their building and i see that everyday. i've been called on that for being a cat owner, er but what i'd like to say is that animal care and control and the police department work very closely together and by increasing the staffing fir ing for their officers, a lot of times the san francisco police officers are the first responders to animal to dangerous animal calls. a lot of times they will hold the dog at bay until animal care and control can respond and those are long minutes and that usually happens at night and to have a better staffed officers out in the field that can respond quicker and in

better numbers, sometimes it takes more than one officer. there was a tragic incident in golden gate park where they needed two officers and they only had one. the second officer was called out of bed to get there, but the staffing would just -- it's very important and it affects the police department of public safety in general. i'm a huge fan of animal care and control and i see the wonderful things they do everyday. thank you. any >> any additional public comment. >> thank you. my name is jane and i'm the copresident of friends of san francisco animal care and control. we are the non profit that supports san francisco care and control raising funds for programs that really fall outside the city's budget for acc. over the years as expenses have

increased for acc we have found we're relied upon more heavily to provide support for more basic care animal services which is what we're talking about here, services we consider to be the minimal requirements to operate an animal shelter. in the past few years friends of acc has been asked to fund additional spay neuter programs through other partners just to keep up with the number of animals at acc. we've also funded the part-time staff of seven behaviorists and trainers and we have to aufsh a program like this because we have to take in everything and that includes animals with behavior issues. we also have to provide additional training efforts for staff. we've also covered things that are really minimal, , like cage

retro fits to expand the numbers of cages we can use to house all the animals that come in. we've also had to purchase awnings for the building to keep up with the animals from over heating in the building space so very min pal things imal things that we've done to make the care better. at this point, it's up to you to decide to increase the funding and we respectfully request you consider that. thank you. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment on this item? seeing none, mr. chairman, may with close public comment? >> public comment now closed. >> colleagues, thank you for allowing us to hold this hearing today. i neglected to mention at the beginning to thank supervisor tang who cosponsored this hearing and who's been a very

compassion nate at supporter of animal welfare in general. i think this is a very helpful hearing. i want to thank the agency and also the city administrator. i know the city administrator has taken the needs of animal care and control very seriously and i'm very appreciative of the time and energy and anal say that the city administrator has put in in terms of working with the acc in terms of what i think is a very solid proposal for the agency's budget and i hope the mayor's office will accept that recommendation from the city administrator. with that, i would move to file this hearing. >> okay, we have a motion to file this hearing by supervisor wiener. we have a second for that and we can take that without objection. so moved. okay, do we have any other business in front of us? >> no mr. chair. >> okay, thanks everyone, we're

adjourned.