i would also like to note in this request, we have actually made that request and so this has been implemented and i'm sure that the sheriff's department, as well as the department of human resources will be contacted for this particular report. and so the task for this particular response entered into the record that the government audit and oversight committee on september 25, 2014 supervisor london breed requested the budget and legislative analyst to prepare a report on payments made on behalf of the sheriff's department for w claims and related overtime costs during the last several years. as the department of human resources notes it and the sheriff's department may be able to correlate workers' compensation claims with increases in overtime costs and quantify the impact. so that is the recommended board

response and at this time, i would like to entertain a motion to table the hearing. >> so moved. >> okay. without objection, this hearing is tabled. [ gavel ] and i would like to entertain a motion to amend the current resolution to insert the proposed recommendations into the record. >> so moved >> without objection, this item moves forward -- excuse me, these recommendations are inserted into the record and amended in the current resolution that has been provided. [ gavel ] and so is there a motion to move this item wholly as a committee report to the full board as recommended. >> yes, there is. >> that you, with, that the motion passes and this item goes to the full board for

positive recommendation. thank you. [ gavel ] okay, madame clerk, can you please call the final item. >> item no. 5 is a hearing on the recently published 2013-14 civil grand jury report entitled "survey of san francisco commission websites." >> okay. so from the civil grand jury we have mike, you are coming up again for this item? >> good afternoon. chairperson breed, and supervisor tang. i appreciate your time in hearing about this report. again, i'm a member of the 2013-2014 civil grand jury and as part of our inquiries we conducted a survey of commission websites and the reason that we choose to do this is because, well, quite

simply, when people have questions about government services, one of the first places that they turn to is the internet and we wanted to see how well the city's commissions represent the agencies that they represent and that they connect with the citizens of the city. and as well, commissions are the place where citizens can be involved with government. so we wanted to see how well they made themselves available to those who wish to pursue involvement in san francisco government. we also wanted to see how well san francisco commissions embraced desirable attributes of good government such as open meetings, producing minutes and agenda, announcing meetings in advance, the accessibility to the public with regard to both disability and to language

services. compliance with requirements such as commissions announcing meetings and agendas and minutes, as well as commissioners compliance with the requirements for filing statements of economic interests, that is form 700, as well as ethics training and wanted to see if there was a general transparency within the commissions. so as part of our survey, we surveyed 32 commissions and 225 commissioners. and i'm happy to report that there is much good to say. websites maintained by city commission and sf.org and 311 continue to provide

accessibility. meetings are announced in advance. there are agenda presented in advance and those meetings are followed up with the posting of minutes. that the public is able to comment and that the meetings are widely attended or that that they are accessible to people. we did have a few concerns. primarily fewer than 50% of commissions complete an annual report. commissioner attendance falls short of the transparency, because it's very difficult to ascertain commissioner attendance. that essentially requires going through the meeting minutes, opening up the meeting minutes for each meeting for each commission and looking at the attendance record of those minutes, and then recording them and tabulating them over

time. also, as part of our efforts to survey the commissions of san francisco government, we had a great deal of difficult determining exactly what number of commissions and what the names of those commissions were? there are a number of lists, but we found that those lists were not consistent and we would like to see a lit that is directly towards the citizens of the city to help them better access services and be more involved in city government. that is my brief statement regarding this inquiry. >> thank you. supervisor tang, you have a question? >> yes, i just wanted to know under in terms of the reporting requirements. >> i'm sorry, would you repeat the question? >> the annual reports required for the commissions?

>> they are required to provide it to the san francisco public library, but i was informed that i may be mistaken as to the requirement that there be an annual report by commissions so i would have to follow-up on that. >> thank you. >> thank you. so from the mayor's office to present on this item we have antonio guerra. >> good morning, mayor's budget office. the mayor's office was required to respond to two findings and recommendations and that the jury did mention there is a culture of open government in san francisco and very happy to see that meetings are open and agendas are publicized and people know what is going to take place. but as always there is room for improvement. the first finding had to do

with accountability and as supervisor tang mentioned, annual reports, fewer than 50% of the commissions post an annual report as required. we agree with that. the city charter actually mentions that each board and commission of the city and county shall be required by ordinance to prepare an annual report describing its activities and shall file such report with the mayor and the clerk of the board of supervisors. this is a best practice to post it online, but the language doesn't specifically require posting on a website. so i would just like to mention that. recommendation 2 that the mayor should ensure that each commission post its annual report on the commission website and provide a link to the public library. we respond that the recommendation will be implemented in the future. by the end of the current fiscal year we'll send out a letter issued to all boards and commissions, encouraging them to post their annual report to the website and send an ecopy to the library and board of supervisors.

the third recommendation had to do with attendance and the findings says that the records are not readily available to the public. we disagree respectfully. attendance from all mayoral appointees are posted online on the mayoral appoints page. we currently have fiscal year 11-12 and 12- 13 and now have 13-14 posted relatively soon. >> can we stop for a second to talk about that. i think specifically one of the concerns or one of the concerns that was mentioned to me about the attendance is that the city attorneys has its own list -- i'm sorry, that was about the commissions. but i'm trying to understand how you access the attendance records specifically? because it is difficult to access and it's not completely clear except i looked at the department of elections and i

really like the chart ofing going to the department of elections and looking at a chart that shows specifics of whether or not someone was there, which is kind of a user-friendly. especially when you are not necessarily targeting all of the commissions, but you may be looking at a specific commission to look at attendance. so i guess i'm just trying to understand is there an easy way for someone to find what you are suggesting exists as it relates to attendance? because it wasn't easy for me to find. i still don't know how to find it, i'm sorry. and secondly, is there a way to maybe implement this with all commissions, so that it's just a little bit easier for the public? >> yes, that is an excellent question. my understanding of the process from nicole wheaton our commission and appointments director is that we ask each board and commission to supply us on a quarterly basis the

attendance records for each commissioner. and actually i brought a download from the mayor's website. this is for fiscal year 12-13, quarter 4. it's eleven pages on pdf and lists each commissioner by name. and it has the number of meetings held. the meetings attended. unexcused absences and tardies. now i'm just going to jump into the next recommendation, because it said that the mayor should require that commissions post to their website a record of commissioner attendance. we said that we can't implement that ourselves. i can talk to nicole wheaton and see if there is something that we can do to ask them, because we believe it's a best practice and it's not something that we are against. i'm sure that whatever the elections commission has is definitely user front endly friendly and most people want to find out the information for one commission and not all of the commissions with mayoral appointments. >> thank you, yes.

>> so i jumped into recommendation 3. those are all of the findings and recommendations that the mayor's office was required to respond to. i don't believe that the board of supervisors has any requirement to respond back, but i believe we have other department contacts. so unless there are additional questions, that is it for the mayor's office. >> supervisor tang. >> i don't know if it's a question for the mayor's office, but is there a requirement for the commission to post the minutes? there is? i guess i could ask the city attorney. >> deputy city attorney john givner, yes in the sunshine ordinance and brown act that governs public meetings, the commissions must post their minutes. >> i'm thinking, thank you for that -- i think what supervisor breed was saying about the ease of accessing attendance records is really important, but also, i think one way is making sure that

people post their minutes because that should also conceivablely contain information about attendance as well. >> and thank you, supervisor tang. i just wanted to add to that. one, because attendance is really important to me as a supervisor, but also as a former commissioner. and one of the challenges sometimes that people run into is finding out the number of meetings, maybe, that somebody missed within the course of a year? and so in that case, you have to open up each individual minutes and go through and look to see directly when there could be an easier way to determine that information. i know that the mayor has given the commissions a directive that he wants the attendance reported. that it's important that people who are serving on these commissions, whether they are appointed by the mayor or the board of supervisors or what have you that we know that they are actually attending these

meetings. if you agree to serve, there is an obligation that you have to be present. and if there is a pattern or if there is a challenge, that should be something that is easily visible, i think, in a way that could really make a difference. especially when initially these folks are appointed. and they know that they are going to be under a microscope for making sure that they show up to these meetings, because that is really the most important thing. so i think from my perspective, i'm just wanting to see -- i understand the -- i think it's an easy thing to do and i think it's an easy request to make. and it can be added by our technicians somehow to each of the commission's websites and maintained by the commission secretaries. so i would strongly support that, although i can't enforce any of the commissions to do it. i think it's really something

that should be done. >> thank you very much, supervisor. and i will talk to nicole wheaton about potentially adding that to our correspondence for our reports. >> mayor's office on disability, welcome. >> good afternoon, chairwoman and supervisor tang, director of the mayor's office on disability and i'm here to provide the mayor's office on disability response on the survey of the san francisco commission websites and findings regarding notices that inform citizens of their rights and process for requesting disability accommodations and/or language support. and i think as you heard earlier, the civil grand jury had actually four different findings, but i will be responding to finding no. 1 and recommendation no. 1a.

i wanted to start this presentation by just expressing my appreciation to the civil grand jury for their efforts and for bringing this issue forward. because it's actually one of the most fundamental aspects of the americans with disabilities act to be able to engage as a civil right in the public process and to provide feedback to the people who are making the policy decisions. and for context, the mayor's office on disability is the city's overall ada coordinator, and we're tasked with making sure that all city programs, services and facilities are accessible as required under the ada. and we are in effect the city's civil rights compliance officer for the ada. so as a san francisco ada coordinator, we work very collaboratively with the different ada coordinators and the departments and the commission secretaries to ensure that their websites and meeting notices are accessible to all. and just by way of an example

to describe an accessible agenda, i wanted to do a quick call out to the board of supervisors, because i think your clerk's office has done an exemplarly job of a well-crafted accessibility notice on all of your agendas and also when you go to the clerk's website, it's easy to know who to call in you need an accommodation in order to participate. i do want to clarify though that the civil grand jury's report does task the mayor's office on disability with responding to both the disability access recommendation, as well as the language access recommendation. and wanted to just explain that we are d our office would only have jurisdiction over the disability access piece, but you director adriannepon of officer of civil engagement and immigration affairs is here to

respond to recommendation 1b. the civil grand jury surveyed 32 commission sites and unfortunately didn't list which commissions were part of their survey and so we went straight to the source and contacted the city attorney's office and based on the city attorney's information, we actually found 39 commissions that were created by city charter. so as a result, our efforts were to reach out and survey all of those 39 websites or seven more than listed in the report. now finding no. 1 states that a statement that informs the process of requesting accommodations for physical disability, and/or language support is not easily found on many commission websites. and our response is that we partially agree with this finding. providing a notice of the right

to request disability accommodations and the process by which to do so is one of the fundamental administrative requirements of title 2 of the ada. but while the ada is very clear that notice is required, it doesn't specifically state that that notice shall be posted on a website. as opposed to including the information on a meeting agenda. but we agree with the civil grand jury that posting this information prominently on the website is a best practice, because that makes the information so much easier to find. similar to the conversation that i overheard with the board talking about attendance records. it should be easy to find. also, the ada does not specifically address the needs of limited english proficiency for san francisco residents, but the language access ordinance does and it's a specific mandate that addresss this issue. and as i mentioned earlier, the office of civic engagement and immigration affairs is tanked

with monitoring enforcement with the lel. the mayor's office on disability should coordinate with commissions to ensure that statements for accommodation are easily located on websites and our response is that this has been implemented. upon the list of boards and commissions from city attorney's office, we found that the majority of the commission's agendas, 32 out of 39, already contained an accessibility notice and complied with ada requirements for the commission meeting notices, but i wanted to explain that there were some variations on how those notices were actually phrased. and that part of our work on responding here was to actually get more consistency across all of the commission agendas. at the initial review, only 12 of the commission websites had specific statements for disability accommodation on the

site. and again, while this website statement is not specifically required under the ada, we agreed that it was a best practice, makes it easier for people to know what accommodations are available and so we actually contacted all of the commission secretaries and provided technical assistance via mail and telephone, and to-date as a result of that assistance, 35 out of the 39 commissions now feature an accessibility notice prominently on both their website and agenda materials. the four remaining commissions, two are in the process of updating their website by working with their web master and two failed to respond to us, despite multiple attempts to reach them, but our office remains committed to working with those remaining four until we obtain 100% compliance with the civil grand jury's recommendations. so thank you

for your attention to this important civil rights issue. that concludes my director report on findings 1 and recommendation 1a, but i'm available if you have any additional questions. >> thank you. so mr. givner, are you planning to present on this item? >> yes. >> okay. >> john givner from the city attorney's office. i will be brief. we were asked to respond to finding and recommendation no. 4. the civil grand jury was not able to locate a single list niron any of the city's website of all of the city's boards and commissions. there are a handful of different places you can look to find different sets of boards and commissions. the clerk's office maintains every year a list of all of the boards, commissions and advisory bodies, where the board of supervisors makes appointments. that is on the board's website.

on our website, we have a memo that lists all of the boards and commissions that are decision-making bodies, rather than advisory bodies, where the mayor or some combination of the mayor and board or board president makes the appointments. and then the city's conflict of interest code, which the board passes every other year, also includes a list of all of the boards and commissions, whose members have to file form 700, with the ethics commission. putting all three together, you can basically find everything, but the point is well-taken from the grand jury there is no easy access list. so they have asked our office to prepare such a list and we're going to do that within the next couple of months. i think our letter says within 90 days. one proviso is we're going to prepare a list alphabetized as

the grand jury requests of all decision-making bodies in the city. advisory bodies sometimes come and go, created by ordinance or the mayor or departments and so our list won't track those, although the board maddie act list has a nearly comprehensive that supradated is updated every year. >> thank you. can we have recommendations of how to make it easier or user-friendly for the public? >> which piece, i guess >> well, i understand that the city attorney's office is going to provide this list of decision-making bodies, specifically which leaves out other bodis that are maybe advisory in nature, but still provide an important function in order to get the work done for the city and actually in many cases make really significant recommendations to the decision-making bodies. so

i guess part of what would request is that maybe there is a recommendation on how to make this information available to the public consistently? so that it's user-friendly on a website somewhere where people can easily go to identify the information? >> i would say the list that we prepare will at least cross-reference the maddie act list that the clerk's office prepares which is what? 120, 150-page document that includes all the advisory bodies that are -- where the board makes appointments, that are created by the board. i think that is the large bulk of advisory bodies in the city in alphabetical order in that document. so those two documents can cross-reference each other, so that someone can

have a pretty accessible way to find all of the advisory bodies. now occasionally an executive department creates an advisory body or working group, not by ordinance, just kind of the department had or the mayor saying that i'm creating this working group to work with me on this issue. that is probably more challenging because those groups come and go. >> i understand that. and that probably wouldn't fit within what we are suggesting. but i do know that the board has made certain requests and we have done it by legislation to create specific advisory bodies, that we would like to make sure that that information is public and shared in an organized fashion, if at all possible. >> definitely, we'll work with the clerk's office to make sure that happens. >> thank you, miss pond you want to make some comments about finding 1 in particular ? >> yes.

thank you, chair breed and supervisor tang adrian pond, executive director off of civic engagement and immigration affairs. i echo director johnson's comments that we appreciate the civil grand jury's attention to accessibility and language access. i just wanted to make a couple of comments relative to finding 1 and 1 b regarding language support. departments are required to post notices in a public place, informing limited english proficiency citizens and it requires city boards and commissions and determines to provide oral interpretation of any public meeting or hearing,

if it's requested within 48 hours in advance of the meeting or hearing. and meeting minutes should not have to be always translated, but only if requested and if the legislative body approves the minutes within a reasonable amount of time. so there is no reference in the lao to any requirements for website information. however, we totally agree with the grand jury's findings that this should be readily available and we're working on this with the departments. and relative to the languages that should appear on city websites. so the lao specifies which languages are required for support by authorizing our office to determine whether 10,000 residents share a language and there are three

now, chinese, including cantonese and mandarin and tagalog and korean and these are the languages used by the department of elections in their materials, but the voters guide does not determine which languages should be mandated. it is the language access ordinance that was implemented and passed by the board of supervisors and initiated by the board of supervisors that determines that. that concludes everything that i wanted to say. i wanted to add that we have been working with city departments, particularly with the mayor's office on disability. they have been fantastic in really working with us to make sure that we're not only ensuring accessibility from the ada perspective, but also from language service and support. and again, we want to thank the civil grand jury's attention to

language access issues, which we consider critical to full and meaningful civic participation. and especially i want to thank the board of supervisors for its leadership on this issue. we wouldn't be where we are today without your leadership. >> thank you, miss pond. are there any further comments from members of the civil grand jury, mike from the civil grand jury on the responses that you heard from the departments? >> very briefly, i want to thank everybody in the mayor's office for hearing our report and responding to it and taking action on it. i think what we were most concerned about is that government be inclusive. and i'm hearing that we're making progress in that way. and my cross-referencing of all of the