privacy. >> for the commission appointments we do track voluntary data around sexual orientation so that we have a sense of when someone wants to identify as part of the lgbtq community, and so how does that distinguish from what you are talking about. >> i know that from the advice of the city attorney, we do not ask applicants to identify the sexual orientation and we do not track that. we don't have that, and even for our race and our gender, that is voluntary. and we are allowed to track it because we do receive federal dollars and as a result of federal dollars and transportation dollars, etc. we need to provide statistics to the federal government specific to race and gender, if you are tracking it and it is voluntary and i am sure that you are tracking it or you have a conversation with the city attorney regarding that. i know that our city attorney

is telling us not to track that and not be asking for that information. >> it might be interesting to get all of those attorneys in the same room. >> exactly. >> i think from my perspective, if we are talking about voluntary self-identification and maybe i will ask our deputy city attorney if you have a perspective on this issue. you know, if the goal is to increase these numbers, it is hard to achieve that goal if we don't know where we are. and is there a way for us to understand that? >> deputy, city attorney, i am actually not familiar enough with the advice on this issue but happy to circle back with you and dhr after this hearing. >> all right, right. right. >> so there is also gina, genetic information act which also prohibits us from collecting any information regarding a disability that is tied to genetics. >> okay. >> and that is a federal law. >> okay. >> you know what? i think that what is interesting about this conversation is that the community representing the

people with disabilities is asking us as a city to consider tracking and at least monitoring on a voluntary self-identified way, and so if there is a way for us to consider that i am open to it. >> sure. >> obviously given the constrictions of the constitutional and legal challenges. >> we will be happy to continue that discussion as well. >> i just want to thank you for the presentation. and the point from supervisor yee's question of the use of rule 115 over time, it does seem like resources to staffing positions, within the dhr, are critical to that we can begin to use the rule, but also other tools for employment for people with disabilities. and then, we are going to be in a hiring boom as well. >> we are. >> and some will talk about and so right now it is a critical time and i think that reestablishing an advisory panel is critical to deal with the 2909 questions and the community pretty much demand

thating we track so that we understand the problem and but to put our heads together to try to figure out how we might gather that data, for the potential goals, and benchmarks so that we could start to use rule 115 and other rules like we were doing in the 80s before the down turn in the dot com bust. >> right. and i do want to clarify that our recruiters are going to be recruiting not only and reaching out to cbos from the disabled community but we are going to look at under representation in the departments where we do receive the federal dollars and doing reach out to females in certain departments because we are under represented and under represented of asians and other departments and classifications and under represented by latinos and we are going to be doing the recruitment for every population, in the city. every group. >> and i know that david chiu laid out some of the data of the discrimination and barriers

to people with disabilitis in employment but it is hard if we don't have any data or way to show that the disparities and the under representation, but so, if the advisory panel could think of ways to gather that data. >> right. some of the data that we could gather is simply the individuals that are referred to us, from the cbos and how many of those individuals are successful in having employment getting selected for employment, with the city. i mean, that, that would be very easy for us to track, if you know, they had the numbers of who they sent to us and we could keep those numbers as well. i mean that would be one way, i guess. >> thank you so much for the presentation. >> thank you. >> and the next speaker is carla johnson from the mayor's office on disability with a few personal stories i hear. >> thank you so much, supervisor mar, yee, and it is good to see you too, supervisor chiu. i am carla johnson the director of the mayor's office on

disability and i really want to thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today on this topic, but i want to thank everybody in the room today and all of the members of the disability community and the advocates that are here to share their own personal stories along with mine. your introduction comments were very thoughtful. and this is an issue and i am going with the people with disabilities is an issue about equity and i know that we are going to be hearing a lot of statistics today, but, one of the important statistics is that people with disabilities are one-third as likely to be employed as people without disabilities. and as we know, with the labor statistics, those numbers are usually kept on the people that are still actively looking for it, because they have not lost hope of an assignment. and statistically, also, the people with disabilities are much more likely to be in low earning positions.

and nationwide, 52 percent of people with disabilities earned less than 25,000 dollars per year verses 38 percent of the general population. and employing people with disabilities is also really about dignity, and it is about getting people the opportunity to be financially independent, and also to have meaningful week for the city of san francisco where they have the opportunity to do so much good. employing people with disabilities is also really about a cultural shift and it is seeing the people with disabilities as having the abilities and being a little bit more blind to the disability and normalizing issues that surround, reasonable accommodations. and last of all, employing people with disabilities is really about a civil right, because one of those important markers in that time line, is a passage of the americans with disability act in 1990.

and entitle one of the americans with disability act is specifically about rights for people to be employed as well as obligations for employers on how they work with their workforce. now, our office, the mayor's office on the disability, and we are the city's over all ada coordinator and we were tasked with enforcing another part of the ada title two, which is access to government services, programs, and facilities. and in that work, we work with really all of the different departments city wide, who have individual ada coordinators, and part of what those department ada coordinators do is make sure that their programs and their services are accessible and so we are talking about making sure that when someone comes to a service counter that they are able to communicate with these staff, and also to receive the information that they need in return. but, we also work with the ada coordinators who work on some

labor issues. and wanted to refer back again to title one, because in the city's structure, when we look at which department or agency is responsible for title one employment issues, that really is the department of human resources, and of course, we heard today, from linda about their role as they enforce employment policies, and more specifically, rule 115. one thing that our office can do is lead by example. and i will share a story about our recent employee out reach. as a department head, i am both a person with a disability, as well as employer of people with disabilities. and so, when i was in the recruiting mode for some recent appointments i looked very closely with my department of human resources staff some might say that i micromanaged the process. but i wanted to be sure that i

was copied and aware of all of the communications to make sure that any potential applicants would understand the full nature and extent of examinations and interviews. and so that they would understand, if they would need to ask for an accommodation, exactly what accommodation that might be. in our out reach, i also made sure that we notified many of the different disability advocacy groups because that was really the pool that i was drawing from, those were the people that i really wanted to hire. so, our office has much to offer and you heard linda mention our offer to be part of the meetings with the human resource managers, and i really look forward to that opportunity. one of the things that our office has done, very well, in the past is training. and i think that we have much to contribute with that. i would like to close my comments today with actually my

own personal story. and i started working for the city. and i was with the public, and that moment, and something that changes your life and what happened is that i had industrial injury, and as i think about it today, it is still kind of brings us you know, those welling of emotions, but what happens with my industrial entry was that i was no longer able to perform these essential job duties of my classification as a carpenter and so a year after my injury and after i completed my different surgeries i resurfaced and i approached my department head and in talking to my department head i let them know that i am ready and able and it is time to come back to work and i gave the department head a listing of different jobs that i felt that i was qualified for, and that i was able to do, as well.

with my disability. lucky for me, my department head was very savvy and he was aware of the rule 34 opportunity and so, this rule 34, which is what later transitioned into rule 115, i was able to be placed in a new job classification, one that i met the minimum qualifications for and that was a building inspector and i was able to use my construction skills, now to supervise the work of others instead of performing the work myself. over the years at the department of building inspection, i became a senior building inspector and a chief building inspector and a deputy director, and now, i am a director of the mayor's office on disability. and so i really feel that my experience was rule 34, which became 115. and it is really makes me a poster child of how this important tool really can contribute to bringing qualified people with disabilities into the workforce.

but, in looking at that tool, being again, a carpenter always at heart, i recognize that it is only one tool in the tool box and that the other tools then, our city needs really is to be always working with the individuals that we have already, to give them reasonable on commendations, so that they can be placed into the future positions and they are set to do the good recruitment and good training and good hiring, i offer my services and i thank you for the opportunity to speak today. >> actually, miss johnson, could i just ask you how you found out about rule 34, which later is called rule, 115, that dpw, department head did your department head know about it? or how were you connected with the rule? >> that is a really good question, i did not know about it beforehand. it was when i had the conversation with the department head and the department head had invited his

director of human resources to the meeting. who was very much familiar with it and offered that as a solution to our problem. >> and thank you for being a poster child as well. >> thank you very much >> it thank you. >> the next speaker is jennifer jonston the director of the civil service commission and thank you for being here. >> good morning, thank you very much for having me. i was only recently included in these conversations, so i apologize that i am not entirely up to speed on all of the issues. but, on behalf of the civil service commission, you know, miss simon gave a presentation on service rule 115, we have a policy of equal employment in all aspects of employment opportunities. and promotions. and we certainly encourage the use of and the advertisement as it were of rule 115. and i did also want to say that

the authority for rule 115 however is in the charter and i believe that one of the recommendations is to amend rule 115 and i think that would be some of what is being suggested would be inconsistent with the will of the voters and violation of the charter in terms of the merit system requirements. but beyond that, i am also happy to join the conversation to brain storm on ways that we can improve upon a recruiting individuals and the commission also very much supports the request for recruiter, and in fact we would endorse the request for three recruiters, because it sounds like they will have a lofty goal and i am happy to answer any questions that you may have with respect to rule 115. but it is something that is codifie in the charter, 10.104. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> and the next speaker, is anya casey, who is the employment coordinator for our california department of rehabilitations. >> thank you for being here. >> thank you.

i am so happy to be here and thank you for this opportunity to speak to the issue of rule 115. and it is obviously everybody is here in the spirit of good will and thank you for your leadership around this issue. so, i work for the state of california, or the department of rehabilitation. and our job is to help people with disabilities to transition back into work. we help to fund whether it is retraining or i need to go to the city college and i need to get new skills or assistive technology and that kind of thing. and we help to job match our consumers at the end of that process. we and my own office have 22 percent of our staff are people with disabilities. and we know this, because 22 percent of our staff came in on

our state hiring program, which is called leap limited examination i can't remember what the a, stands for. and i will have to look it up. >> limited examination and process is the p. and i will be happy to get you that information, 22 percent of our staff came in on the leap as did i. i will tell you that as somebody who came in as a person with a disability, who experienced being hired by an employer that took a chance to me to do a good job. i am more than happy to disclose my disability and i can tell you that the reason that we know that 22 percent, you know of our staff, with the disabilities because they are going to do the same and we know this by virtue of self-disclosure. and we do, you know, the state

organization, we do not coerce people into disclosing, but we have a voluntary state wide not just in the department rehab, we have the voluntary disclosure. and so you will get an e-mail every year and would you like to disclose that you have a disability? we do three workshops about hiring people with disabilities. we do one on the leap process, and that is to help our consumers also, access leap jobs, and state jobs, and we do one on federal hiring process. and i should say that similar to programs to rule 115, so non-competitive hiring for people with disabilities. and leap is a state one, schedule a is the federal one. we do workshops on them every month, and we are chomping at the bit to add the workshop for to show the people how to get hired, under rule 115, we have mentioned rule 115 to our clients and it was, hey, i went on the website, and for the

city and county jobs and i just don't see any rule 115 jobs, under there. we love the city of san francisco, you guys hired the most, you were the number one employer of clients who came to our door, or through our doors last year and actually we celebrated you at our christmas or holiday rather, party. and so we love the city of california, i mean that we love the city of san francisco, and yeah. thank you so much for taking your leadership role in this position. >> miss casey, could i just ask you how, i think that are there three different tiers of disability, there is like general, and then there is severely disabled, and then there is most significantly disabled? ; is that correct?? and can you give us some examples of the differences of the types of disabilities?

>> yes, certainly, so i think what you are talking about is for a person who wants to transition back to work, okay? so come through our doors and go and look, i don't know what to do i lost my job. i need to get retraining, okay, for the three levels, come in, i need to either get retraining or i need to get a job and i need your help with that. where the three levels come in is state of california has been broke and we are doing better now because of the limited funding, we have established priorities. so as to how we serve those clients, who gets served first. and so people are divided into those three categories and then they get serviced according to our funds, how much we have in our coffers. we have just opened up our

category three, which you mentioned, we just opened up, during the week, actually we got an e-mail and the people in category three, are now eligible for services but the three, the three just to clarify, so the three categories that you are talking about is more to do with the eligibility of the department of rehab services in the first place, does that make sense? >> my understanding for the rule 115 is that you have to get some certification from the department of rehabilitation that you are severely disabled? ; is that correct?? >> you know, because we have not had people come through looking for 115, certification, i am too young to know about that, i can't say that about many things. >> i wasn't around in the 80s when people were coming to the doors saying how do i get eligible for rule 115. what i can tell you is that for

the schedule a, you know, everyone who comes through our doors, is eligible for those, is eligible for those programs. >> okay. >> yeah. >> and then can i just ask. >> yeah. >> what would make somebody severely disabled verses generally disabled, and if somebody is unemployed right now, and they need to establish that they are severely disabled, what would be some of those factors and i think that it has to do with at least one of your physical senses. >> significant barriers with that but if you could distinguish what the general disability and what is a severe, and a person who is severely disabled? >> okay, sure, for the purposes of eligibility of, and okay, so for, schedule a or leap.

what is you are looking for and again, i am sorry that i can't speak to the rule 115. and so to my knowledge of it is that eligibility for scheduling a or for leap, a doctor needs to sign-off to say that you have a condition which significantly limits a daily life function. and you know, most all of our consumers, that we serve that can be from i can't dress myself and i have trouble keeping a job. but i would love to connect you with someone who is doing less guess work than i, it is not my function but i can connect you with hr that can clarify those questions for you. >> okay. thank you so much. >> okay. and i see no other questions and thank you for being here,

and thank you for honoring the dhr department as well. the next couple of speakers and there are a number of community based organizations that are here but i want to just thank, jonathan lions the president of the fdr democratic club in the city and i forgot to mention that jessica is here as well. why don't we start with jonathan and we will keep the community comments as short as we can, as well. so that we can get to all of the public comment.

>> i am president of the fdr, democratic led of san francisco and first you know, the official stuff out of the way, and just for the record, i am proud to say that i am the city employee. and but i am here on high own time. and not even being paid to be here. but, at on behalf of the fdr and democratic level i want to say thank you to the board of supervisors to taking up this issue, and a specific thank you to supervisor mar. long time advocate for the committee and thank you for championing the issue, and i want to thank all of the advocates that are in the room and the city staff as well and you know, you can't have have a

more qualified hard working caring staff and i think that is the benefit of this issue is that we are coming at this issue from the same desire, to increase the hiring and the employment of people with disabilities in the city service >> what we are talking about here is what that means is empowerment through employment and it is empowering people by helping them get jobs and by further get into the weeds on this issue i think that it is important to paint the picture of really where are we? how we measure the number of people with disabilitied and those who are not employed, and on this slab is a chart, a bar chart that indicates that the unemployment rate and the disability community is about twice as high as it is in the

non-disabled community. and you know, this rate was not even tracked for years and it was not until january of 2009, that the bureau of labor statistics at the federal department of labor even started to track the number of people with disabilities, that were not employed. and just for the los angeles in the room, because the number of, and because this data has not been tracked. for so long, it is not seasonably adjusted so, on the chart that i am displaying here is the unemployment rate that i am comparing to in the non-disabled community is also not seasonably adjusted so we are comparing apple to apples here. and so moving along, an issue that was touched on before, is the labor force, participation rate. and what is that? and that, in a nutshell is the number of people that are either employed, or two, actively looking for a job.

and the unemployment rate is calculated from the labor force participation rate. and so it is not the entire it is not the entire population, as a percentage of people that are not employed, it is just the people that are actively in the job hunt or actively employed. and so, just for comparison sake, and the yearly data from 2013, shows that the labor force participation rate and the disability community was on average, 20.3 percent. now if you are like me, that sounds really bad. and to compare that the labor rate for the non-disabled community for the same period was 68.9 percent. and so the last slide that i showed, indicated that there was actually a slight decline in the number of and in the unemployment rate in the

disability community. but what this chart shows is a lion chart with the top line will show you the labor force participation rate and the bottom line shows the unemployment rate and the disability community, and it shows that there is actually a corresponding decline in the labor force, participation rate for the people with disabilities and compared to the unemployment rate in the same community. what does that mean? >> it is not mean that the unemployment rate is coming down because people can disabilities are finding jobs. it means that the people with disabilities by and large are giving up. and that is the important thing to say that that is the discussion in which we are framing this, you know, that is really where we are when we frame this discussion. so most importantly, the big question that we are all asking here today, so what. employment for people with disabilities, and the employment, across the entire

population is a reflection of one's identity. it is something that a lot of us take for granted and everybody has to get up and go to work in the morning, to actually kind of a drag. and well, one of the most, and when you meet somebody new, one of the first questions that you ask, is, what do you do for a living? well the answer to that question, is, i do nothing, how will people with disabilities ever be perceived as equals in the society. and when we talk about having the people with disabilities in the employment sector, it is important to know that there are people and there are studies that show this, and the people with disabilities are more loyal and the private sector studies that indicate that the turnover rate of people with disabilities are actually 40 percentage points lower than the people without disabilities they are more productive, and they require less sick time and take less

time off and they stay longer. and you know, it is something that makes not only good moral sense, but it makes good fiscal sense. they, as pointed out earlier by the supervisor chiu, roughly, and more than a third of people that are on income-based government assistance, identify as having a disability. and so, if we are able to help these folks transition to gainful employment, not only do we run reduced, or the burden on the government to say, you know, to pay those benefits, but we also increase the tax base, no matter what side of the spectrum that you fall on, this is a good idea. >> all right so coming up next, some of the current challenges with