presentation. and so i want to go just sort of very quickly to paint the piblgt picture that there are a lot of facts that a lot of people know the federal department of labor did not actually start tracking, did not bother to figure this out, how many people with disabilities are unemployed until 2009. and we have and so we are really dealing with the less than 5 years of data. and on the slide, that is on the screen here, and there is a table or a line graph that shows, the unemployment rate of the disability community, compared to the unemployment rate of those without disabilities, and it is, roughly, double. and is a pretty staggering statistic in its own right.

and the picture is not fully painted unless you look at, what it is called, the labor force participation, rate and i think that a lot of folks probably know what this is, this is, this is the number of, it is calculated as the number of people that are either employed, or unemployed but actively looking for a job. and in 2015, the rate of people without disabilities that were actively par participating in the workforce, was 68.9 percent and that is compared to the rate of people with disabilities in 2013. was 20.3 percent. and i think that it is really important to point out here, and as the table, on this slide, and tries to show, is that while we have seen a slight decrease in the

unemployment rate of the disability community, there is also a very similar decrease in the labor force participation rate of our community. and so really what that, and to me, what that illustrates is that it is not necessarily the unemployment rate is falling, because, people are getting jobs, it is because people with disabilities are giving up. and you know, i don't know about you guys, but i find that not to be okay. so, slide? >> most important question out of all of this, so what, why are we all here? and i think that this drills down into three main things. the most important one being, what do you do for a living? probably the first question anybody asks you, when you meet them. >> the first question. and if more than 80 percent of us have or don't have a good answer to that question, how

are we ever going to be seen as equals. and fully empower in the society, and moving on to next, i think that really is, people with disabilities are more loyal and compared to employees without disabilities, and our turnover rate is 40 percentage points lower. and the one dealing without that position being filled and two having to pay to go out and recruit for, and to refill that position. when i found this in the research it was true and i was shocked by it too. and the other issue is economics and from the public

perspective, the numbers show that more than a third of people with disabilities are on some kind of income based government assistance program and so we always talk about, you know, political, and progressives, and to me, this is the bi partisan issue and you could be a progressive and you want to help the people with disabilities to become employed or you can be a fiscal conservative and want to save money. and we will turn the conversation over to the current challenges in the city and the next slide. and civil service 115, there is a lot of conversation about the rule 115 and i am not going to belabor the point and i think that there is a lot of

weaknesses and most noticeably, a lengthy one and the council members brought this up, but a very strong weakness is the fact that real 115 is limited to entry level positions. and there are a lot of people with disabilities who are not qualified who are over qualified for entry level positions. i can tell you my own personal story, i spent all of 2013, and a chunk of 2014, unemployed, and trying my darnest to get back in to city service, and i was not qualified to have a rule 115 position. and i had several departments come to me and say, jonathan could we get you on a rule 115, and i said, no, i am not, i am over qualified for 115. and so p and beyond that, you know, as we move into the city has moved to what they called, decentralized hiring, and so

basically, you know, let's, you know, it speaks for the fight that every department does, its own hiring. and there really is no normal way, at this point, for each department to one identify positions that could be good candidates for rule 115, or two, to connect with the non-, or with the numerous service providers, like the positive resource center, like the golden gate regional center and like the arc, that are doing this really impressive and valuable and important job coaching work out there and have qualified applicants with disabilities. and right now, there is no formal way to connect these two parties. and so, that all being said, you know, we and the fdr democratic club has in june, we put forward a couple of, what we considered to be low hanging fruit, type of recommendations, and things that we felt could

be implemented straight and very easily and very straight forwardly, next slide? the next one will be the creation of a a disability of the cities and basically. and to be that con did you it and does exist and discussed earlier and connect to, and educate the departments on rule 115 and the value of rule 115. and also to educate i know that the department of human resources has hired somebody to do this and we are definitely encouraged by the movement and by dhr and we are, and we still hold out hope that a full time position could be created to do this. we believe strongly that this

is a significant issue that very much warrants the creation of a full time position. and in a city that has 30,000 employees, we think that we can have one of them being in charge of coordinating employment of people with disabilities in city service. so, next? >> yeah. >> the next one is to set san francisco hires goals and this is something that could be modeled after section 503 of the act and we believe that it is a pretty straight forward thing and we believe that this is something that the city needs to do, and there is a core element of that and we believe, strongly that the city should be collecting data. on its current applicant and on its current employees and we have no idea, and the federal government has said, 7 percent is a goal, for, you know,

federal contract we could be at 25 percent or we could be at one percent, we don't know. and in order to form coherent solid, public policy, we need data to drive these decisions and right now the city has zero data to show us, and the only data that it can show us is that when we asked, last fast, in the past ten years, how many times have you used rule 115? and the answer was 6. and in the decade. and so, you know, i know that there has been, you know, a conversations directly with director cal han and i know that there is definitely concerns around proposition 209 specifically. and that they have raised with me. you know, and i think that is definitely a valid concern, and

in order to reach that concern after it was raised to me and i went back and read the proposition and i also read the state constitution and that prop 209, amended. and what it does, is that it prohibits affirmative action goals and it does not list a disability as a cross application that is covered by prop 209 and actually gone further than that and found a court case that specifically says, that people with disabilities are not covered in the prop 209 and should not be covered. because, of, you know, the long standing issues and challenges that the community has had in finding employment. so, and you know, on you know i understand, fully that there are concerns around you know collecting data, and making sure that we are not using data

around to say one governor hiring decisions and to dragging people out of city service, or disciplining people for having a disability ask all of these are very, very valid concerns. and i would put out a couple of things. one, we already collect minority data on our job application and we ask about race and we ask about gender on every job application in the city i know that i have filled out a lot of them over the last year and a half and two, we also asked this information of many of our commissioners and council members, and i am sure that many of you will probably ask before you received your appointment. and you know, so we have a track record in this city, and in doing, it in rule, 115 itself requires that you have a disability and so we ask at some point before we hire people if they have a disability but i would, i would suggest that in order to mitigate, the concerns, the valid concerns that have been

raised that we will remove the collection of the data from the responsibility of the department of human resources and place it elsewhere. and perhaps, with the mayor's office on disability. and it seems like a logical place for me. and so, in closing, i know that i have gone on too long. and you know people with disabilities are ready, willing and able to work. and we want to work. we are itching and ready to go. and so the state department of rehabilitation, spends tens of millions of dollars every year to educate, and train people with disabilities to prepare them and to go to work. and there is a disconnect somewhere and it is breaking down and there is a lot of people in the city that ran for office, on a platform of jobs, jobs, jobs. and indeed the last city and the last budget and the last two year budget that we are currently in the city created 1400 brand new positions, over

and above the 30,000 that we already have. and if, you know, started doing the quick math if we were to target 70 percent of those, as just of those brand new ones. and for people with disabilities we are looking at, right around 100 positions, 100 people with disabilities, could be employed in city service. >> and i think that that is a valid, goal that we should all be aiming for. and so, with that, i am happy to answer any questions that you have. >> council member supanich? >> thank you very much for your presentation and this is related to what you were talking about. this is what i called a disability trap. which is if you receive federal disability income you can only make a few hundred dollars a month before you go into a trial work period which lasts 9 months.

and then after that, you start, if you continue to work above a certain level of income, receive a certain level of income, you begin to go on the clock starts ticking and you will lose your medicare benefits and your social security benefits after a period of i think, 36 months and so anymore that trap, i have used my trial work period, and so i have to keep my income below a certain level and i could work, more, i can't work full time. but i could work more. are there any efforts being done to work with the feds on relaxing these restrictions, so that people with be more fully employed? and be more fulfilled and economically independent? >> yeah, i know that i am not completely educated on that, but i can tell you that i have personally been to dc and

lobbied congressionals to increase the limits to ssi, and to do away with the fall off the cliff public policy that congress has implemented and allow for a gradual transition. and i don't know how closely folks follow this, but, not sure that congress has passed a law in the last several years, so, you know, these things are definitely, on ice cubes, and in washington. and but what i can tell you is that one of the, i think that the biggest advantages to having such a strong advocacy on this issue in san francisco, and if we are were allowed to really move this into action, is that, the city and county of san francisco pays quite well, by and large. and so if we are able to get the people with disabilities into some of these positions that are more compensated i think that you know, hopefully

some of those issues will be mitigated. >> thank you. >> no other council members? >> i had a quick question. i loved the presentation that you put together and it is very brief and con size and goes over the main points and your recommendation and in the beginning of the presentation you talked about statistics and about the actual conclusions about employees with the disabilities that are actually and easier to retain on the job and they have lower, turnover rates, but they take the less sick days and what are some of the actual concerns or if you had to give some examples of the concerns that you feel, are misguided by current employers, and either within the city, or the departments themselves or in the city itself that you would think that the disability community keeps coming up against and kind of stops us from being seen as an equal status and my concern is that i

see as a buyer's market that i can get any of the employees in the mind set, why would i settle for a disabled person, what makes you feel that are misguided but existing today? >> i think that definitely, we have hit one of the many nails right on the head. and you know, and i can speak for my personally and so some of what i have heard through the grapevine over the years and my work in the community and i think that a lot of it is rooted in lack of education. and i can tell you that in nearly 6 years of city service, i have never been discriminated against because of my disability. i had a very, unique role i work in the mayor's budget office for four years and was able to interact with almost all of the department heads in the city and each and every one

of them to their credit recognized me as a valuable, colleague. and many of them indeed turned to me for issues and concerns that they were having i think that a lot of is rooted in lack of education and the abilities of people with disabilities i remember, that i speak fondly and i have a great memories of my work in the mayor's office. but i can tell you that i recalled, distinctly, when i lost the issue of my blindness in my interview and offered them an opportunity, and offer them an opportunity to pose a question about how i will go about doing the job as an employee with a disability. the first question that they asked me is that i send a lot of text messages, how are you going to be able to text? >> you know, it is a very obvious and it was folks it is an obvious question, if you

don't know, you don't know. honestly a lot of it is exposure, and the more that we are able to get the people with disabilities integrated into the workforce, i think that a lot of those concerns will fall away. >> thank you very much. >> any questions for the staff? >> okay. seeing none, we will go ahead and break, shortly, for a ten-minutes and, we will be back here for the presentations thank you, again for all of those who attended. [break] >>6. information item: a review of civil service rule 115 and its' implementation for hiring

people with disabilities. presentation by donna kotake, department of human resources, workforce development director, city and county of san francisc >>student: >> human resources advices us that she is running a few minutes late and so if you have flexibility you might want to go to the next item if that is possible. >> thank you. >> moving on for to item number 7, information item,san francisco public library and its' successful implementation of civil service rule 115. presentation by marti goddard, access services manager, san francisco public library. >> the staff hired the rule, reflect the local communities of the users who are deaf and blind and those who have learning disabilities and the

works are one or two part time positions for people with the developmental disability and presentation by marti, goddard, access services manager, san francisco public library. >> that i think this meeting is a celebration and i am so happy to be able to be a part of it, thank you very much. >> being a lie braeer an, as i was thinking of what to say today, i spent the time looking at and thinking about definitions of diversity and inclusion and mostly i found when related to humans something like the state of having people who are different races, or who have different culture and a group or an organization, and or references to people of all backgrounds, and experiences. and we are lucky in san francisco because we don't have to work really hard at recruiting a diverse workforce and when the job openings are posted and a number of talented people who represent, many racial groups are always in the applicant pools and however my experience, we don't often find

the great numbers of applicants of disabilities with *f in those pools but i am really proud to be here representing the san francisco public library, because this is the city, department, that has made a commitment to building a staff that represents all kinds of human diversety, and including people with disabilities. and i want to identify individuals among our staff who have been hired through a 115 process, but i will tell you in general terms about my own experience with hiring colleagues with disabilities and support of rule 115. and i have four examples of positions where we have benefited by being able to deliberately hire people who share the disability experience with the consumers of our services. one program of service, that always has included at least one staff member who has a disability is the fspl deaf services center and so someone that i am happy to name today,

roberto esteves was responsible for establishing the library and print in 1972, and our deaf services center in 1977. and he really set the precedent of having a library assistant job always filled by a deaf employee, that is a step above that entry level position. and but the very talented deaf woman who was in that position when i started working at the library 25 years ago. made meeting people in the deaf community, really easy for me and through the years having someone who represents the community served by the deaf services center has helped to make it a place, where other people in the community feel valued and so they value and support the service. at this time, the only two full time staff members in our deaf services center is the library and the assistant and both of them happen to be deaf. rule 115 made it possible to hire one of those folks without

having to wait for the new eligible list, and you will hear about that soon and did not have to wait for that new eligible list to be developed and the other was hired through the standard hr process. and so the people with disabilities come to us in more ways. and in the library of the adult literacy program, many of the consumers of the service are with us because learning disabilities really affected their success in school, during the conventional k-12 years. and they entered adult hood and they need to improve, and the reading and writing and path skills so that they can succeed or advance in work or help their children with homework or many other things, that they come to project read. and when we were ready to hire someone who to be a full time community out reach worker, the very talented individual, who had been doing that work on a contract basis, happened to be a person who has learning disabilities. the shared experience and

empathy that he has for learners made him a natural for the job, however the exams and the typical hr process was more than he could deal with. through real 115, we were able to bring that person on board and he is a successful member of the team who is beloved by learners who know that he shares their experience in our library for the blind and print disabled a braillist is the essential member of the team, the fact that there are only two positions within the entire city and county of san francisco makes the labor of establishing and maintaining eligible lists not a priority at all. and so when the long time braillist retired there was no list of potential people to

replace her. the braillist that we hired last year is halfway through the extended period, that is through the rule of 115 but she is a great member of the team but i have very little doubt that she is going to be with us for a long time or as long as she wants to be. finally, the committee and so with the partner with the arc of san francisco, the committee members have been looking for opportunities to bring the people with developmental or intellectual disabilities for the library of volunteers and so as we were working on that,

identifying the potential jobs, the wonderful man who was our current chief of branches, edward milton decided that volunteer positions were not enough and that he set aside one and we are hoping two positions that are really entry level page positions and so they will be begin in the streets of employment through the rule 115, and then it will just be part of our staff and so, i will finish this by saying, it only makes sense to have people working in city government who represent all of the communities of people we serve. >> thank you. >> question, and comments from the council members? >> co-chair supanich. >> thank you for coming today. and it sounds like you have an ininclusive atmosphere at the public library for many years. is all of this at the main branch that we are talking

about? and what about a branch libraries around the city? is there equal efforts being made to incorporate the people with disabilities in their hiring? >> actually, the last physicians that i talked about is kind of makes me really smile, and our chief of branches is who said, we should not be just hiring, or bringing people in as volunteers, we really want to make some opportunities that are really entry level, and although, the first one and we are hoping two positions that will be in branch libraries but it was kind of funny to me and i was talking to my boss who is the chief of the main library and said guess what edwards is doing and, she said that we can do that at the main too. and so that makes me happy. >> thank you. >> any other council members? >> council members senhaux?

>> there you go. i can hear in your voice because of my visual impairment your dedication and how you talk about your employees and how incredible they are, and what it is like to work with them. and their contribution, you know, as individuals, and not just from their disability, you know, perspective, and that is to be, you know, commended and we don't hear too many success stories and so i compliment you and commend you for what you are doing. and for how you feel about, you know, the people with disabilities and looking past that and seeing that they can contribute and they can work. and so, i really appreciate that. and i can see the joined commitment that you have from your end and your boss. so i thank you for sharing very heartfelt stories like that with us.

>> thanks. >> all right. and i have got a comment from then followed by a couple of questions. >> my comment is thank you very much for coming here today. and i think that we can all say that we really appreciate all of the work that is being done and not just the main, but through the branch as well and try to create an ininclusive atmosphere for everyone, i will speak to the learning disability portion and that is such a huge commitment to see at the library system to hire somebody who has a learning disability. where i come from in the midwest and i am not going to stay which state, because currently also in the world series. okay, thank you. i am not wearing a hat today for a reason. so, but out there, it was really tough to have a conversation honestly, about a person with a learning disability or adhd like mysel