this incredibly challenging financial environment and fulfilling the commitment that we've made as a board from 6 months ago it's critical to the stabilization of our neighborhoods as well and regardless of the outcome of this vote i hope we as a board will address the inequality so that we can come up with a solution before we are done with our upcoming budget process and i don't think this is an issue that we're going to solve today but to make it a priority that we said 6 months ago as we as a board prioritized this issue and i thank you. >> thank you. supervisor yee [applause]. >> thank you president breed. i won't repeat what supervisor mar has well articulated.

coming from the nonprofit world and being there for over 30 years and actually running one for about 18 years, i know how difficult it is when you don't get a cost of living adjustment for your budget and when we talk about cost of living you know when you have to operate a nonprofit, it includes everything from administrative costs to salaries and sometimes there's certain things go up faster than others. certainly rents have gone up faster than what we would consider a cost of living adjustment so you have to make those decisions as a nonprofit where funding would go to keep your operations ongoing. so for me i wish we

had been able to take care of this during the budget process last year but we didn't so some of us made a commitment in august of last year and i was one of them that supported that resolution to say that that we would support a supplemental if we found that the budget would have additional funding available and so for me today you know, yes, we need a long-term fix but i also made a commitment in august that i want to keep to so i'm going to to be supporting the legislation to author the supplemental. >> thank you. many . supervisor campos. >> thank you i'm not going to repeat the points that have been made i think there were five of us putting forward this resolution and i want to thank

supervisor mar supervisor yee supervisor avalos and supervisor cohen and it was a very basic, simple idea. we know that there are many services that are provided by the by the city through nonprofits that by virtue of being provided by those organizations the city actually provides those services at a much cheaper rate and spend much less than than we would spend and i think the basic premise of the resolution is saying that we would not be able to do our job without the very important role that these nonprofits play and it's only a matter of fairness that we that we give them this point 75 increase that would essentially bring them on par with the increases that other city workers and for profit contractors have received and at that time we predicated that

commitment on whether or not there would be additional revenues through the december annual financial report and low and behold those revenues are there and as a matter of fairness we need to do this but more importantly when you look at what's happening to san francisco and the affordability crisis that the city is facing, the people on the frontlines of that crisis are the nonprofit workers and we can not expect them, i believe, to be doing the very important work that they are doing if we're actually not paying them enough to actually be able to afford to live in the bay area and unfortunately that's not where we are right now and so i would encourage my colleagues to support what i believe is a very moderate, very modest increase. i think that it's the right thing to do and i think in the end not doing it will end up hurting

the city because i think we'll lose a lot of these nonprofit workers if this increase is not provided because they are struggling like it is and it's not right. >> thank you supervisor kim supervisor kim and supervisor kim. there's a rule if you want to show your support, just raise your hand supervisor kim. >> thank you president breed i shared a a budget committee last week but prior to being on the board of supervisors i spent actually 8 years working in the nonprofit sector and several of us on this board did and i still remember when the board would allocate cost of doing business increases and seeing that slight increase in my salary each year i started

at 26 thousand $26,000 and then i saw my wage increase five $5,000 over 6 years and i have seen my salary go up 3 times that amount on the board of supervisors so i think it's important that we recognize and value the work of our nonprofit workers that often perform some of our most important and critical life saving work here in the city whether it's in-housing or healthcare or so many other sectors and this small increase would take us to the same level that city government employees have seen their increase gone up as well and on top of that and this is a subject that comes up often at budget committee when we sign contracts we often put in in

an escalator to ensure they get a regular increase and i think we got to make sure we put in in some equity so to make sure our nonprofits are getting the same benefits as for profit and we value these workers and the work that they do and do. i think that is the secondary issue but beyond that i think it's important for us to support this today and i know there's concerns about the precedent that the supplement does today and first of all this board has passed 3 supplementals just over the last year here at the board of supervisors and one passed ten-1 and the second 11-0 and

the third ten the third ten ten-1 last spring and i clearly remember on budget night in june, many of us did want to support a cost of doing business for nonprofit contracts but we weren't sure how much revenue was coming in. had we known that 22 $22 million were going to be coming in, i'm certain this board would have approved the cost of doing business then and that's why a few weeks later 7 members of this board committed to that and that we would support that when we had a clear financial picture. so i think for a number of different reasons because this was in discussion in june that we would pass this is pass this at at a later date and the vast majority of this board has voted to support them and i'll

exclude supervisor christensen but finally i'll just say i think this is important because our nonprofit workers are so valuable and i'll add another story i remember a colleague working at a youth program was on food stamps while he was going to law school and working at this organization because he could not meet the needs of his family with his income alone and today i'll be honoring someone to receive her a commendation. and that is why the cost of doing business increase is so important. >> thank you supervisor kim supervisor cohen? >> thank you very much

supervisor kim and thank you for reminding us about the the 3 supplementals that we passed just last year and it's important to recognize there's still a lot of could conste rna tion particularlyn and i just want to also go publicly on record and voice my agreement that nonprofit workers do play extremely valuable role in our city particularly in in our social service safety network and to share say story with you my mother was a nonprofit worker for many years so i'm personally connected. so i understand the key role that the workers play and often how challenging it it can be to

remain financially inside san francisco i will not be supporting the supplemental largely because my priorities have begun to shift a little bit since the resolution passed in july and my budget priorities are focussed on public safety and i've gone on record as a supporter because i do believe workers should be compensated for all of the reasons previous colleagues expressed earlier but it's important that the dynamic in this city has also changed. and in the first 3 months of this year we as a city have already lost 15 lives. as evidenced by this activity what we're hearing from communities of color in the city as well as

the budget analyst's report reflects the fact that our current public safety system isn't addressing all of the needs for the entire city of san francisco and crime is up more than 30 percent and impacting many of these areas besides the south eastern neighborhoods and i believe we need a serious overhaul on prevention efforts and we need to invest in programs in our city so that we're producing thoughtful results and this is not to say that that i don't support the nonprofit workers, it's quite the contrary i am open to it. i'm just unfortunately not able to support it at this time and being mindful that every

allocation that we make is less funding that we have to balance our budget in support of other priorities and a lot of changes in the last 7 months since we took action on on that resolution and one area i think many of us are in agreement is a permanent fix is warranted for this particular issue and i'm very interested in supporting efforts and spear heading the conversation so that neither the board nor workers need to deal with the the angst every year and for the members interested in this topic that conversation is actively happening right now. this is an issue that i personally have had a lot of

struggle with because i do understand the incredible value of our nonprofit workers particularly those that are on the frontline that are actually helping me, quell this rash and uptake in violence and at the moment as i mentioned my priorities and for my constituents are addressing our public safety challenges and madam chair? >> thank you. supervisor avalos . >> thank you president breed i really don't know -- i think everyone has expressed many of the things i would like to express to express i want to add my heart to this as well though. this supplement is crucial and it's important if we really want to put our money where our mouth is -- if we

truly say we care about it -- this is one tool we can actually employ and make sure the people in the nonprofits can actually stay in san francisco this is about worker retention and nonprofit retention. we're seeing nonprofits with their rents increasing and the cost of doing business are increasing and healthcare costs are sky rocketing and that's going to affect many of the worker at the bottom line and if we put this supplemental forward today we make it easier to balance our budget in the next year. my priorities also are shifting i want to do more to deal with the affordability chris crisis in san francisco.

and that means increasing the cost of doing business and a supplemental for these nonprofits and also making sure they have greater latitude to do the service here in san francisco in san francisco in san francisco. the disparity that we're seeing and the despair we're seeing on our streets is incredible and actually i see homeless people in district 11 and i've never seen as many before as i see right now and it's happening all over san francisco last week we were sent all a letter saying that 25 percent of the homeless population is african-american if we want to actually do something about the affordability crisis and how communities are struggling in san francisco we have to recognize the people we want to

serve most from or nonprofits are actually african-american and if we're not making it possible for nonprofits to serve the people struggling to stay in san francisco we have unprecedented reserves his here in the city we have 30 million $30 million and a budget stabilization reserve 160 million $160 million and our general fund reserve. we can take a little bit of money from the general fund and increase it next year so we're not asking a lot during the midyear budget process to do a supplemental right now and we've actually had a budget process around around that's been in place for years every year i've been working at city

hall since 2005 the nonprofit organizations have talked about the cost of doing business and we've had discussions going on forever. we don't do it year after year. if we want to deal with the affordability crisis this is one thing we can do today to deal with it and colleagues, i hope you can shift priorities to make this happen. thank you. >> thank you very much. i just want to say that just because some of us may not support the supplemental today it absolutely does not mean that we do not support the work of our nonprofits and as supervisor kim supervisor as supervisor kim mentioned i

supported the nonprofit stabilization fund and that was one thing i was willing to bend on because it's very important we try to do our very best to keep our nonprofits here in san francisco and again, just because i'm not supporting it today it doesn't mean i'm not open to this. so i really for for me it's just so important that even during our good budget times that we do not forget how short of a time it was before when there was such drastic can you drastic cuts and you were in a much worse

position coming to us for funding and again, it doesn't mean i'm not open for discussion but today i'm not able to support the supplemental. >> thank you. supervisor farrell. >> so last year i voted against the resolution that came before us and i, like my colleagues very much appreciate the concerns around affordability. it effects everyone in our city. i do believe we need to look at a permanent fix and for me this is about process. . now going forward you know we support in the past and last year it was not included in the budget that we passed out of the full board and i do think without a doubt my opinion is

that doing supplementals is a dangerous precedent to set because we are preallocating money which otherwise we could use -- this money isn't just found money that's otherwise sitting there. it's going to face the deficit we're facing. it's not the same magnitude it was from 20 ten but it's still a deficit going forward and again, i want to say i'm open to finding a permanent fix but in my opinion this supplemental is certainly not the solution. >> supervisor christensen? >> so this is a tough one. my staff and i have thought about it and talked about it quite a bit and for me the first thing to say is it's important to me this is not a refer endum i

don't think there's a person on this board or room who would not agree of the critical importance that they play in our city. i've advocated for many of the nonprofits and worked with them and i understand firsthand the struggle they have economically and i do think as some of my colleagues have said this is a refer endum and we're currently focusing on the budget for this coming year and as a new supervisor in my district i've got baby birds in every corner saying i'm underfunded and we need help and our next budget cycle is literally around the corner and it's important to me also that steps have been taken outside of of the cola to aid

our nonprofits and i agree more needs to be done but the question is is this the best avenue and i think for me the defining thing is this cola will not achieve the goals. it's not going to prevent evictions or have or elevate workers pay and i think supervisor mar description is small because we're talking about payments to a lot of our nonprofits of no more than 3 or 4 or 5 $5,000 spread among the number of employees and the entire scope of work the nonprofits do is literally a drop in in the bucket so my goal would be to try to work in our next budget cycle to address some of these long-term issues and have this consideration be placed in a forum to have a balanced look

at the over all needs of the city and address them in the best way possible. >> thank you. supervisor wiener. >> thank you madam president i think that the folks advocating for a cost of doing business adjustment whatever happens today have achieved a convict a victory. i, too, think that the upcoming budget we need to have a discussion about the long-term fix and that there's a very very good argument for providing a cost of doing business adjustment in the upcoming budget. i've been on this board going into my fifth

cycle and i believe we as a board did do a cost of doing business adjustment along with the mayor. last year it did not happen and i've said this to various nonprofits that i work with that when we look at what happened last year i think it was a model of how not to do it. we, in a good year, have about 25 $25 million to work with in the pool and if my memory serves me we receive 70 or 80 or 90 million $90 million and when and when you have so many very powerful asks whether it's nutrition or mental health or other very important areas and you also have an ask for a cost of doing business adjustment it makes it very challenging. this board went aggressively last year with service expansion expanding

these critical services and not with a cost of doing business adjustment and i'd encourage the nonprofit community to the extent possible to incorporate cost of doing business into that broad set of asks that are coming to the board. we do not have the same pool to work with than the mayor has to work with. we're much more limited and it presents a lot of challenges chl i . i don't think this is the way to do it by doing the supplemental. >> we will finalize a budget by the end of june going into july so i i won't be supporting this today. >> thank you. supervisor mar. >> i really appreciate it about the dialogue on the long-term structural fix we're talking about for the undervalued at

times under respected nonprofit sector workers and the organizations with a few of my colleagues i'll be introducing a sharing request so we can continue the discussion and ensure we're going to end this double standard for community organizations and workers and that we'll achieve hopefully steps toward nonprofits adjustments as the coalition that stepped forward last year has been saying so i want to thank the human services network and many of the workers from our frontline organizations and the community nonprofits who are coming back over and over again to this body and hopefully we can begin that conversation about longer term fix and i started working as a nonprofit worker 30 years ago earning and as as

supervisor kim and others mentioned just how little salaries and wages have gone up over the years so this is about about ending that double standard and i want to say to my colleagues that signed on with us with supervisor campos 's resolution a principal from 6 months ago. the violence prevention programs are critical but we can't keep kicking the can down the road for the nonprofit workers not keeping up with the wages and so my hope is that this is the first step towards the longer term conversation but i still urge people to take the vote today put your money where your mouths are in supporting the community nonprofits it's a

small amount and they deserve it and i strongly urge you to support this budget supplemental. >> thank you. i've been listening very carefully to each one of my colleagues and i respectfully disagree with those who will not be supporting this supplemental but i do have a question to supervisor christensen. i was trying to understand what you were saying. are you saying you would support if it was a larger amount? i'm sure that those of us in support of this would be happy to accommodate any amendments that you think would be sufficient to get you to support it. >> supervisor christensen? >> i said two things -- one i find it difficult to deal with this method of funding the nonprofits because it doesn't allow us to weigh these needs compared to some of the other needs that some of us are

facing and i find it diss general i diss ingenuo u.s. and i think i did clearly say as many of my colleagues have that we look forward to looking at this in a more holistic and balanced fashion in the very much impending budget cycle. >> i'm still not entirely clear. i don't think that anyone here is being diss general i diss engenuo u.s. but the point i'd make is that people always say these things, you know, that the fact that you are voting against an item it impacts a number of people and i appreciate that but i know from the perspective of the worker the most important document that we