okay. welcome back, everyone to our regularly scheduled budget and finance committee meeting for wednesday, may 28, 2014. we are coming become from recess for our 4:30 special order. madam clerk please call item no. 4. city clerk: item 140214 hearing youth commission budget priorities for fy 2014-2015. >> i would like to thank you for coming here and for putting this material together and your presentation today. i want to call up whoever is speaking first and come up to the mic and we can get the ball rolling. >> all right. thank you. good

afternoon supervisors. i'm with the youth commission and the richmond district in san francisco. as you may well know the youth commission pursuant to charter section -- 1.24 to impact young people here in san francisco. the commission is composed of 17 young people, one representing each district and additional six appointed by the mayor to have represented commissions to represent all the youth here in san francisco. this year has been a great one for the youth commission. we have 16 full youth commission meetings. we have 78 committee meetings each year along with countless hours of outreach in our respective neighborhoods and communities. more specifically 4.124 g of the charter that the commission shall report to the board of supervisors annually and the

goal accomplishment at the end of each fiscal year. by this today we are going to present 15 policy and budget priorities that we hope will meet our collect identify -- collective goal of serving our young people. we have collaborated with multiple youth group priorities, youth peers, student lead ers and the the youth commission has worked to put this together. i hope you take this into consideration as you go into budget process. without further a do i will give the floor to our vice-chair. thank you. >> hi. my name is michelle tong our marry -- mayor appointee. i would like to discuss the priorities today

regarding policies and recommendations. it's a stream of funding from 1991 for the children and youth of san francisco serving over 50,000 youth and only serves 18 and younger. the youth commission has played a critical role led for youth in partnership with the ococ process. over this entire youth town hall and the entire process for the children's fund we heard multiple times that this should be a priority of the city and it's been estimated that there has been over 9,000 alone. the formal exclusion of services provided to them leads to data integrity and does not allow us to assess the services they are getting

and that the city is providing. even though right now city does provide currently for 18 and over and the tytf student record clearly shows there is an urgency to show this connected population. here are our following recommendations for the children's fund to allow the youth the fund for 25 percent youth for any part of the oversight with half of that youth body being 18 and under and half being disconnected representative. to also support better coordination of services provided by the city, sf organizations through sharing best practices and allowing free rent to the youth when so that they can convene.

resourcesing youth leadership groups to hold annual halls to evaluate programs and identify needs in addition to the cna process and to increase the fund to allow services to provide and support disconnected k and for the children's fund to prioritize and dedicate employment for undocumented youth, mentoring program and adult probation system and support 18-20-year-olds transitioning to juvenile systems. >> thank you very much. nick from the youth commission. for priority no. 2 is about the youth voice policy. this priority no. 2 is heavily based on legislation and i'm sure you are very familiar with which is the brown act which is the state legislation. the brown act

for decades has ensured that meetings by local agencies are open to members of the public and they have an at some point to observe the meetings and can make comments at those meetings. that applies to all board of supervisors and those in san francisco. however every meeting of the board of supervisors and commission available to the public they are barriers to youth 18 and younger namely the public hearings when youth aren't able to attend and provide their input. we have reviewed trouble youth data that don't care at all about government politics and/or only a little bit interested in government and politics. we believe the more opportunities to testify in front of elected officials in san francisco could provide more gauge engagement. the

brown act has an elected body that may impose requirements upon itself under the jurisdiction which allows greater access at the minimal standards. by that we hope the board will do this. youth currently can't vote and choose the board of supervisors. can't make policy decisions and at this point you can't even provide input during public comment on legislation. so our recommendation is that this board of supervisors a firm their commitment to youth voice and guidelines to youth hearing for board of supervisors. one update, supervisor mar introduced legislation that will do this and have the youth commission have the power to make the recommendation that a hearing be made after school hours.

this is made during the rules committee and we hope when this legislation comes before you that you will support that. thank you very much. >> one second, supervisors mar. >> i want to thank those for that piece of legislation. i will make sure as it's scheduled we'll do this at a youth friendly time. this is a great example at 445 :45 p.m. that we can also engaging us and helping us to make the best policies for you for the interest of not just youth, but the whole city. >> thank you. again thank you for having us here at 430 :30 p.m. today. we have youth in the audience which is something that will hope with more legislation in the future. that concludes priority nose -- no. 2 and i will pass it to commissioner

web who will discuss priority no. 3. >> good evening, board. i'm trisha web. i'm also on the youth justice committee and today i will be talking to you about priority no. 3 which talks about investigating the needs of and expanding support services for youth with incarcerated parents. throughout the duration of the 2013-2014 term, the youth commission has been working with the youth leadership program called project what. which is comprised of youth with incarcerated parents either formally incarcerate or currently incarcerated parents. on mar 2014, the board of supervisors held a hearing of incarcerated youth

and the various departments that provides services for youth with incarcerated parents. the hearing will be held thursday june 19 th if you would like to attend. on behalf of the commission, i would like to thank the police commission for passing dgo 7.04 which establishes protocols for making an arrest for youth and children. i would like to thank supervisors for their support involving the hearing. we hope you get involved furred. -- further. we also hope the board of supervisors take measures on the data

distribution and life outcomes of youth with incarcerated parents as well as promoting family and unity and sustained relationships between youth and their incarcerated parents by encouraging enhanced protocols for consideration of a family in sentencing positive, visiting policies in county jails and providing funding house ing and support services and visiting standards for incarcerated parents. feel free to ask questions during our presentation or you can save it until the end. i will now pass it on to commissioner for youth. >> hello board of supervisors. i'm with the health and wellness community on priority no. 4 the district disability

awareness efforts. currently as of 2010 there are 6096 students with disabilities which is the total population. the sf -- is making the learning environment as inclusive for all students. they have a resource page on their website, workshops and other programs geared towards direction of disabilities. the committee this year distributed an informal is survey to 85 students to gauge their knowledge on disability awareness. 46 percent of these students were interested to learn more about special education and only 17 percent considered themselves very familiar. the youth

commission appreciates and commends support for all students who have different learning styles and different learning speeds in a range for mental and intellectual and developmental disabilities. we support the implementation and proposals of programs that build understanding, acceptance and friendships between students with disabilities and students in general education. lastly we encourage the school district to expand and prioritize already existing programs and critique -- curriculum that engage youth and include students. thank you. next is priority no. 5. >> good afternoon supervisors. my name is michelle lee and i'm with this years youth employment and immigration committee. our goals this year to increase employment

opportunities for undocumented youth. they face employment, scholarships and loan and other state and federal services. as a result of federal requirements. the san francisco public sector has not hired undocumented youth who would otherwise be eligible. the youth population has been identified as a need of the community, various forms or various sum it's. in response to this the 2013 summer jobs program, funding by dcyf and united way provided programs for undocumented youth through a series of stipends. while successful, it only employed 44 students which is only 4.8 percent of this population. with this we are asking the board to take action to allow undocumented youth to participate in sf summer jobs

plus public youth programs by utilizing certain methods including but not limited to individual stipends, gift cards or educational scholarships. additionally we hope to see undocumented youth employed at a rate consistent with the youth population. this is 350 job opportunities for undocument youth at the upcoming summer. undocumented youths should have ak access to employment opportunities. thank you very much for your time and we hope you take this into consideration as you continue your budget hearing process. >> thank you very much. nicholas for youth commission. i will be presenting on priority six and seven which are our muni related priorities at the commission. priority no. 6 as you are familiar with is the -- youth

priority. it's something that we advocate for since 2009-2010. a multiyear effort and we've had a lot of commitment to this and it's been a tremendous struggle. the reason why we begin advocating for the youth program was the extremely sharp jack s in price. mainly the pass to $20 in may of 2010. at the same time, sf usd was making severe cuts to yellow school bus services and had no options to get to school but to use muni. a program for low income and motion derate youth. there was a pilot program for 16 months which will go until this june. but luckily this year the

mta in their operating budget including for the next 2 years. of 40,000 estimated eligible youth for the program, 31,000 or 71.2 percent have already signed up which is an extremely significant percentage which shows the need for youth in san francisco. our recommendation is that this board of supervisors along with the sf mta continue to partner with sf usd with regard to the program. lastly one of the reasons why this program has been so successful is that it's easy to sign up. there is actually a free muni lifeline program a few years ago which failed. because this program has been very easy to sign up for youth. all you

have to do is fill out a single form. that's why it's great. it's less administrative on muni and great for vulnerable population in san francisco such as undocumented community. more specifically, priority no. 7 is about the inclusion of 18-year-olds in sf municipal unicipal transportation agency, 75 percent or 3,000 will turn 18 in their senior year. the problem is that currently sf mta only occurs ages to be 5-17. on the students 18th birthday they are forced to pay $66 a month per pass or $2

which is expensive if you are a high school student. many agencies in the bay area of the east bay and golden gate transit of the north bay consider their youth to be 5-18-year-olds so that that gets almost all high school students. our recommendation is to expand munis youth rate to include 18-year-olds and also another issue we've identified is transitional age youth. if there is a way to get discounts for this population for muni and also the small population of high school students that's over 18-year-olds, 19 to 20-year-olds to get reduced fares. for both of these two priorities, i would like to thank the municipal transportation agency for passing them and for making an adjustment to the budget to include