have pictures. i, too, am delighted to see some of these items, two in particular for district 11, the court resurfacing and lower crocker area, converting the dirt area. i would like to request and i have also given this packet to my supervisor, that the funding for court resurfacing be an annual expenditure, because there is a lot of open courts that have not been maintained for years and i would like to show you a few in d-11. this happens to be alice chalmers. this is the basketball area and part of the tennis area and it's all cracked and pavement is broken up. a little more on the right on the basketball area. i will show you merced heights. this is merced heights their tennis court on the left and a

little bit of their basketball court on the right. this is the excelsior tennis court and basketball on the right. and this is crocker amazon as basketball and open play and le grande half-court. the reason i bring this up, i don't think $250,000 for a one-time expenditure will be enough. this is just one district and there are several districts throughout the city, and i think this is probably a need for annual expenditures which is what i am suggesting for my supervisor and i hope that is also amended when this goes forward as well. also, on the second item, which is the lower crocker area converting the dirt lot:

this has been a problematic areas since the soccer fields have gone in. there are cars parking on the right. we would like to see landscaping rather than extended parking, which has been suggested, paving. because there -- mclarens is right on the edge, but if you add more parking there will just be more problems, damaging the sprinklers and the grounds and that is a drain that has been destroyed. so i would prefer whatever the details are, that they include landscaping. thank you. >> thank you. >> catherine. >> now it's afternoon, commissioners. the five-year plan state to

look for a different material for infield and it brings up interesting questions. why this sudden decision to choose a different infill? the tire waste infill alternatives have been available for years, and yet over and over again rec and park has repeatedly said and we wonder what caused this change and hypothesized it was the nbc news report. a soccer coach in washington took in one of her players for cancer treats and as they were chatting a nurse came over and said are you a soccer goalie? you are the fourth person that we hooked up this week. making the decision after ignoring public [kp-erpb/]s for years why only the few fields

listed on the handout? what will the new and repudiated noxious playing field and mission playground? don't they all deserve a healthy surface and why wait? what about beach chalet? this will avoid putting in grass now -- will avoid having the expense of having to take this out and put in some else later. really the best and safety playing surface is grass. it is environmentally superior. and it can be maintained if there is will. the department is putting grass in at west sunset. so we are here to ask that you use only safe materials starting now, and that you use grass wherever you can and especially at beach chalet. thank you. >> thank you. >> anyone else to comment on item 13? being none, public comment is closed.

>> seeing no questions, i would entertain a motion. >> so moved. >> second. >> moved and seconded. all those in favor? >> aye. >> so moved. thank you very much >> we're now on item 12, the recreation and park department budget. >> good afternoon, commissioners. happy new year to all of you. >> same to you. >> i arrived here this morning and realized i had downloaded the wrong version -- i had you actually last year's presentation on my jump drive and i'm going old-school with paper and black-and-white for this morning. or this afternoon for this initial budget presentation for fiscal year 2015-2016 and 16-17. overhead. there it is. okay. so i am here this afternoon to give you a high-level overview of the

mayor's budget instructions and then discuss our revenue and expenditure budgets in the current fiscal year to provide context for the budget decisions that we will all be making in the next six weeks or so. the city's two-year budget outlook is remarkably positive. it's the most positive that i have seen in these 14 years that i have been working on budgets at the city and county of san francisco. i think that is this is a result of the very strong revenue growth that the city is seeing, along with the fact that pretty much all of the city's labor contracts are closed. combined with the discipline that has been imposed by having to manage a two-year budget process. the mayor's budget office is projecting a general fund deficit of only $16 million in fiscal year 15-16. the lowest estimated deficit in

at least 15 years and probably longer than that, but the mayor's office doesn't have records that go beyond fiscal year 2000. for the second fiscal year, 16-17, they are projecting a deficit of $88 million. the budget office is not asking general fund departments for a budget reduction in fiscal year 15-16. this is a first, also, in my time, doing budgets in san francisco. and for the next year, they are asking for only a 1% reduction to our general fund support in the amount of $473000. as always, the budget instructions require the department to absorb revenue corrections or non-salary cost increases. the $350,000 in revenue corrections that i am showing here include the change to the

gleneagle's golf course lease approved this year and small changes to golden gate concession revenue, re-deucing camp mather revenue as far as the strawberry music festival is held there and changes to the coit tower concessions. $150,000 include a 2.85% and the golf course lease which requires the department to assume the cost of utilitiesing including half of the water starting this fiscal year. i do think this figure will change over next several weeks as we get more salary/non-salary cost information, including the

outlook for tpc. the mayor's budget instructions also include a new initiate for fiscal year 15-16. the mayor is inviting departments to participate in a new innovation grant program. so the program would allocate up to $1.5 million per grant for one-time or limited duration expenditures. the mayor's office has requested departments to use an analytical evidence-based approach to define the proposals that we submit and they have asked us to submit proposals that focus on increasing financial sustainability, improving governmental responsiveness, improving affordability, equity

and shared prosperity across the city and proposals that might leverage public funding. we're actually very excited about this program and looking forward to soliciting what we expect are creative ideas from our staff. at this point we would anticipate submitting somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5 grant proposals to the mayor's office with our budget in february. >> katie, just one quick addendum, i think the program will come up in our community meetings as well, soliciting ideas from both staff and the community. >> yes. i do though, even with this good news, want to just sound a note of caution for the commission, as well as for our advocates in the public.

while the budget news is very good, we and we will not have to make deep cuts over next two years, the department is still not funded at an appropriate level to properly maintain our parks and open space. as you all know in 2000 spur issued a report that suggested that department needed $30 million more in funding to meet our operating needs. on top of that the city's population is growing, density is increasing and our existing parks are being used more, which requires additional maintenance. the department is also adding new properties to our portfolio. we acquired three properties last year, as you know. and once these properties have been built, they will require additional gardening, custodial urban forestry, park

patrol and structural maintenance resources and we're even looking at adding more parks to the portfolio, which will require more funds to maintain. so as we begin the process of balancing this budget, we refer back to the seven principles of budget balancing that we adopted five years ago now. developed in collaboration with staff, the commission, and the community. and just to remind everyone, these principles are to preserve and promote our mission by creating a financially sustainable deputy and protect our ability to provide clean, safe, fun and well-maintained parks. to provide our mission -- to protect our mission to provide healthy recreational choices, to provide low-cost recreational opportunities and

ensuring that ability to pay never prohibits people from participating. preserving our responsibility as environmental stewards. continuing to work with the community to enhance opportunities to support the department. preserving our citizens capital investment in practices and facilities by identifying dedicated funding for maintenance, and investing in user-friendly systems to improve access and enhance our service delivery and to continue to train and support our staff. so our budget in the current fiscal year is a little over $163 million of this amount $143 million support our operating budget and a little over $20 million supports our

capital budget. as you all know, we have three primary sources of revenue, the open space fund, the general fund, and earned revenue. to give just a quick look at these three pieces: the open space fund as you know is the property tax set aside, a growing and continuing vital source of funding for the department's operations. open space is budgeted at $45.7 million in the current fiscal year. it will be more in the coming two fiscal years and we also receive an annual subsidize from the city's general fund, $50 million in the current year and under the charter amendment passed in 2000 are allowed to

keep any general fund savings or year-over-year growth in the general fund at year-end and allowed to reinvest the dollars into department to support one-time expenditures, equipment technology, et cetera. the department supports itself in large part from the property and resources that are under our jurisdiction. in the current year, our earned revenue is budgeted to be $61.4 million to support our operations. these resources include our four parking garages, stow lake, the tea garden and many more facilities, many of which the department has generated revenue from for decades. in addition, our recreation division continues to grow generating additional revenue every year, through improved programming, and this $4.1 million that is shown on this

slide is actually net of over $1 million in scholarship that we expect to give away in the current fiscal year. revenue has earned revenue in the department has been increasing steadily since fiscal year 2008-09. we are experiencing growth in all categories of earned revenue, both in our special funds, which include the marina and the golf fund, as well as in the general fund. in fact, all categories of earned general fund revenue have increased in last five years with no fee increases. this growth is to coming from increased usage of our programs, our facilities and our fields and park amenities, as well as from the success of special events such as outside lands.

as my previous slide notes the revenue that the department generates supported the delivery of recreation services and these next two slides show how we expend this money in support of our service delivery. 50% of our resources are allocated to park maintenance. 25% to recreation and aquatics. 12% to our structure maintenance, yard staff. 7% supports our administrative staff. 3% of our budget supports park safety. and the two remaining slices of the pie support the marina yacht harbor and zoo and planning and volunteer services.

62% of our budget nearly two-thirds is supporting our staff. the next largest slice of the pie remains work orders, services from other departments, latent heat power, workers' compensation, city attorney costs, telephone, et cetera. 6% of our budget is allocated for material supplies and equipment. 4% for services including garbage pickup, software licensing, 3% respectively on the harding park clubhouse and zoo management agreement. 5% on debt service for the marina yacht harbor loan as well for open space revenue bonds. 3% on facility maintenance projects including some of the ones that dawn outlined in her presentation just before me. 1% on overhead for citywide costs including the

controller's office, the mayor's budget office, et cetera . as you know, last year we identified four strategic priorities to help guide our budget decisions. those priorities, which i believe are still relevant are to enhance park safety, to advance environmental sustainability, support active living and strengthen customer service. last year these priorities guided our decision to invest in programs such as park patrol urban forestry, and additional recreational program staff and we'll continue to use these priorities as a guide as we consider budget investments for the next two fiscal years. again, as we have for the last couple of years, we expect to be able to balance the budget,

using revenue enhancements from our leases and concessions, both in golden gate park and citywide. i absolutely expect to have additional revenue from our parking garages, if any of you have been in civic center garage recently, you will have noted it's much busier than it used to be. we have two long-term monthly tenants that we have recently engaged, which make it a little less convenient to park in the garage. but it's certainly generating additional revenue for the department. and then we will also be looking at the revenue that we have been generating from special events, field and facility permits, all of which are doing better than budget in the current fiscal year and we expect that we'll be able to budget some of that brother growth for the new year.

the budget process always includes outreach to the community, to our staff, to our policy--makes, to our labor and management and commissions and prosac and practice advocate meetings. and finally the budget timeline for this season. on february 3rd i will be at prosac for my annual budget presentation. we'll be having two community budget meetings this year as always the one on february 4th will be at boeddeker, which i am excited about, i haven't seen that facility yet. we'll be at hamilton and be back in front of operations committee on february 5th with an update on our progress and

then we'll be in front of the full commission on february 19th asking for your approval of the budget before we submit it to the mayor's office. this year on monday february 23rd. and then as always, the mayor submits its his budget to the board on june 1st. i'm happy to answer questions. >> thank you, katie. i don't see any questions here. good report. >> any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. this was discussion-only. >> thank you >> and would you like to go back to the general manager's report now? >> do we have -- no, of course we will. [laughter ]. >> we're going to item no. 3. general manager's report. >> my 2015 gift to you. this is going to be very brief. i want to highlight the two upcoming budget meetings and

make sure everyone knows wednesday 4th at boeddeker playground and hamilton reck center from 6:30 to 8:00 to talk about our budget and we're going to talk and begin to engage the public in our strategic planning conversations that we have been having some more on that to come, but we look forward to welcoming people at those two meetings. i think it's worth noting that the mayor in the state of city talked about san francisco's leadership on women empowerment issues and january 31st, which is national girls and womens in sports day, our department is holding our annual girls in sport extravaganza. all girls all day, those interested in registering can log on at sfrecpark.org online

and we'll continue our employee quarterly recognition until next month, but i do think it's worth noting that we're celebrating the young people's teen musical group 30th anniversary and tonight at mcclaren lodge at 5:00, we will kick that off with an incredible photo exhibit celebrating their 30 years' of art in our city. they offer instruction during the school year and summer workshoped and opportunities to stage three major productions a year. the next one coming up is "fiddler on the roof." the company also performs throughout the year at family events and they were at our tree lighting in december. the photo exhibit celebrates the history of the one of the longest programs and one that has produced a number of

professionals working in the theater arts industry across the country, not to mention our very own tony award-winner lena hall who come from the young teen musical theater group. and with just this month in park video, i am done. >> he is complaining about management or what? [laughter ] >> he is management. robert had a lot to say.

and poor elton was here for four and a half hours to press that button. we'll post it online and maybe bring it back at next month's meeting. we were celebrating all the good things happening in mclaren park and robert watkins' outstanding leadership. you will have to click online to see it. that is good. and that, commissioners, concludes the general manager's report. >> thank you very much. >> is there anyone who would like to make public comment on the general manager's report? >> probably robert would. >> seeing none, public comment is closed and we're on item 14, general public comment. anyone who would like to make general public comment who did not comment on item 4? being none, item 14 is closed. item 15 is commissioner matters. commissioners. >> i would just like to have on calendar for february, an

informational hearing on the extension of st. mary's park in chinatown. >> thank you. any public comment on this item? being none, this item is closed. item 11, new business/agenda setting. commissioners? public? no public comment. this item is closed. 12, communications. public comment? this item is closed. 13 is adjournment and commissioner buell, i believe you -- >> bear with me for nearly 20 years under helen dillard's leadership, the family foundation has dedicated efforts in nurturing our communities through the arts and medical research and development and for us the san francisco recreation and parks commission, we're grateful to have known helen dillard as a park lover and champion for children and families in san francisco. she contributed her time energy and resources and more than 8 million to rebuild safe

and uniquely fund playgrounds. she invested in a better future for san francisco and we're saddened by the passing of helen dillard and remember her for years to come. we adjourn in her honor. >> so moved. >> second. >> all those in flavor? >> aye. >> thank you. >> thank you, commissioners.