14706 for the committee and that suggests to me this was either mishandled by the secretary of state, or there's something else to this story, because an id number starting in 98 would suggest that the committee was initially formed in 1998 under the previous numbering system. and that the -- that either the initial filing was for a new organization that should have been issued in a different number, or this was actually treated as an amendment to a prior statement of organization form had 410 with that id number. so i'm not sure about the history of the organization, but it trigers the question based on that id number. i didn't hear about outreach to the fppc and how they would handle a similar matter involving non-termination of an entity, when there are missing files or

some disarray in the record keeping. i would suspect over the 40-plus years of the fppc that they might have some suggestions or protocol for how a committee can -- how termination can occur if there isn't a responsible officer that can file the terminating 410, and finally, i think i heard from a couple of commissioners that training for entities like this, general purpose recipient committees really is needed. that i think we have a good system for training treasurers and other officers for ballot measure committees for candidate committees, but these entities jprcs otherwise known as pacs, it's difficult because you have a lot of volunteers and a lot of turnover and perhaps some additional effort in training and

resources to do that through the commission would be helpful? they also mentioned slate mail activity, those are regulated under state law and not local law. so there is some confusion there and often confusion in not filing statements. hope that is helpful. thanks. >> any other public comment? >> that is a good thread of an idea, but ms. pelham must know, how are situations like this handled, los angeles or elsewhere? you are on the board of governors of this famous organization. >> so this case -- you know, i was as frustrated as you all are with the circumstances. so i did reach out to the fppc and learned and read their

current administrative termination regulation, which allows the fppc to administrative terminate those committees non-responsive filers with activity below $3,000 and also reviewed their proposed legislation to increase that amount to $5,000 and so non-responsorive filers with $5,000 in bank accounts or less and i reached out to the enforcement division to express support and ask them how we can refer our non-responsorive filers to be terminate by state and we're working on that right now. it's assigned to one of our staff members, johnny hosey to go through and refer all of the non-responsive filers who meet the criteria for termination. i thought why not give our commission the authority as well? so that is something on our list of amendments we would like to ask to cfra to give you the authority to administratively materialinate a committee that meets certain

criteria, so this situation doesn't happen again? as it is right now, we don't have a really good option, because these strict liability violations. as a staff, we can't really make decision about just letting things go. that authority will come as we bring policies to you that gives us that, but right now we don't have the policies in place, which is why it's before you. >> all right. commissioner kopp, you were the author of the amendment, which ms. chiu proposed amending our accepting, but reducing the fine to a dollar -- to $3? >> that is commissioner. >> you had the original motion. >> mine is the original

motion. >> and you don't accept her amendment i will call the question, all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? >> no. >> wait -- what are we voting on? on the amended motion? >> the motion without amendment. in other words, the motion without the amendment. >> to accept staff's recommendation and impose a fine of $3,000. >> i don't know why commissioner kopp is voting no on his own motion? >> i thought you were calling the original motion. >> yes. >> my vote is aye. >> and mine is no. >> no >> so the original motion does not carry. does anyone want to make another motion? >> i would move to amend

staff's recommendation to reduce the fine to again $1 per violation for a total of $3. >> so that the motion is that you would find that there was a violation? >> yes. >> impose a penalty of $1 for each violation. do i hear a second? >> second. >> i will call for public comment on the amended motion. hearing none, i will call the question, all in favor of the motion? >> aye. >> opposed? motion is carried. 5-0. that the commission finds there has been a violation, but imposes a fine of $1 per violation or $3. >> okay, i just want to be

clear on what i need to do other than pay $3? do i need to file form 410 and 460? do i do that? and then pay $3? is that what i do? >> that leaves the legal question if you are no longer treasurer. >> counsel? >> i just want to be clear. >> why don't we extinguish this entity. >> she just wants clear instructions, legally she is still treasurer because the club has not filed a form 410. if you file 410, which i can give you a copy of when we step out. so just a 410, which is terminating and put in the date you

believe it was terminated and file the 460, up until the date it was terminated and i can talk to you more about that if you like and help you. >> thank you all so very much. >> how can she do that? she is longer an officer. she hasn't been affiliated since 2012. she doesn't know if there is money in another bank account. >> i'm sorry, the reason we just found in her violation because legally she is still the treasurer. we find three violations. she can terminate the committee, if she would like? >> i mean, she is still obligated to work with whoever was around the committee, who was in the charge of the committee it was term innated in order to produce documents and we can accept a letter of explanation for that. so she just needs to carry out her

obligations to conclusion and file form 410 and pay $3. >> hopefully the staff will work with her to get that accomplished. turning now to item 5. which is presentation and discussion from the bureau of delinquent revenues about its collection process, status of the ethics commission referrals. >> yes, thank you. commissioners, this presentation is in response to judge kopp's request last month for more information about how the bureau of delinquent revenues operates and an opportunity to have specific questions about our cases answered. three individuals from the bureau of delinquent revenues have come tonight to present that information to you and i will let them introduce themselves and explain more about their roles. >> thank you very much and welcome. >> thank you. thank you for having us. >> i'm sorry you had to sit

for a while. >> very interesting case to listen to. my name is jeff michaels and i'm one of the assistant directors for the bureau of delinquent revenues and this is sheila, one of our collections supervisors and supervisors the collectors who handle the collections on the ethics commission debts and we're here with our policy and reservation manager, amanda freid, who you probably already know. >> welcome. >> i promise to keep this short and respect your time and give basically a high-level overview of the collection services that we provide on your cases, and try to address any questions that you maybe have about the work that we do. so really briefly, the bureau of delinquent revenues being the official collection agency for the city and county, has multiple departments who are referring delinquent accounts and accounts age

to 90 days of delinquency and after that 90th day, we'll have that department notified the debt or referral or email communications. once we received them for your particular cases since we don't have a very large inventory at this point in time, we manually enter them into our collections system and do our immediate collection follow-up process. normally opinion the accounts being referred to us, letters are automatically generated by our collection system. so normally within the first 3-5 days they are already getting a letter from us, welcoming them to the club, and we do all of our initial collection reviews. so the collectors will also if we have phone numbers available and email s available to initiative contact with the debtor. normally after the first

letter goes out we get a response and get them to pay the entire amount in full. if they are unable to pay the entire full amount, we probe and continue our collection efforts including setting up payment arrangements or giving them extensions whenever they can pay the entire amount? there many cases we also get bad address information like some of the information that you may have could be old or from six months, a year-ago. so we'll also do skip -tracing if that is needed and add them to our auto dialer. that is part of what sheila does and we dial on these accounts all day, from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the evening. for people who have not responded to our initial welcome to the club, we will send out a final -- affirm financial notice that contains stronger language as far as the actions we can take [tkp-rbgs/] they are not compliant. so for debtors not

compliant, we do advise that can refer them to a collection agency if the balance is not large value. but still pursable or cases that they are higher balances that are owed, or there is a higher propensity to pay in case where we take them to court. the general -- i guess i would say the general guideline we follow as far as value is concerned we look at cases $1,000 or greater. these cases will receive a more in-depth review by collectors and we'll pull their employment information and property that may be owned. any information that we can find on assets. that review is pretty much done extensively throughout the course of our collection process, from the very beginning making phone call and sending out letters up until whatever the resolution for that debt might be?

so for candidates that are qualified, let's say they owe $2,000 on a bill, and we find that the person is gainfully employed and/or owns property or runs a business in the city, we will send them a demand to advise them that our intent is to sue them. if they don't comply. we normally give them ten additional days to respond to that demonstrate. demand. and if they fail to do so, the collectors are extensively trained and they are trained to file the case in small claims court, and will handle the entirety of the process. so making sure that the debtor is served, appearing at the hearings. we try to do negotiations even at the hearings. sometimes if debtor try to avoid having a judgment entered in their record because once it's obtained it becomes public record and could affect their credit reports and could hit them in a number of ways, they tend to be pretty client

there. ompliant there. if not -- . yes, i'm sorry? >> i may have missed this, how long from the time you initiate collection proceedings against a debtor to the time that you would file in small claims court? >> normally we'll try to do that within the first six months. >> first six months. >> yes. >> thank you. >> we'll do what we can to try to work with them and make multiple efforts to contact. we do what we call "sloppy payers," that they make a payment arrangement and we'll work with them who are working with us, but those not compliant, normally within the first six months we're looking to obtain a judgment to enforce it. once we have obtained they are trained for post-judgment work. the main criteria for any cases that we choose to take to court,

there has to be an ability to pay and enforcement of judgment. if we find there is employment information, our first action is going to be doing a wage garnishment against them. if we receive any payments via check, looking to levy their bank accounts. we do find at the very lisa least, if there is not enough information to give us a clear picture of what their assets look like, we'll record that typically in san francisco we'll look to see if they own any property in any other counties and have it recorded there as well. our goal is that in the event that they try to go into escrow transaction, we'll do what we can do collect on the lien through

the escrow process. for large-balance cases, where they may owe $2500 or greater and have assets we have attorneys within our office to work with to file civil action against them. so the similar review process happens on our anne. normally they want to see all of the active we have done up to the point of the referral to our legal section team. what information we have found that makes it clear this particular debtor is a candidate for legal action at that level and from there they do post-judgment enforcements to collect on the judgments. the judgments are good for ten years. and we'll renew them twice. so for a total of 30 years. so we're not going away any time soon. we try to pursue them, as much as we possibly can. sometimes you can't find

information on them immediately and may not be able to enforce the collection right away, but over the course of the time to make efforts to for collection efforts on that process. in addition to that, we also have quite a few of these case that are city employees. if they are city employees we'll do offsets against their wages. other points to make: we have cases if they are uncollectible and these are cases that we have already hit the wall with our research. there is no property. there is no employment. they don't have a business. we made 6-7 passes of reviews and not finding anything on them and for cases like that, if they are low value, a few hundred dollars those cases are not going to be able to be fully pursued. it's not cost-effective to pursue

them. we have cases that they file for bankruptcy and in that case we have another team that handles all bankruptcy proof of claims and will handle that depending on which chapter the debtor has filed? so that includes if we're going to do a reorg and be able to get installments from assets in the trust account. many cases they file for chapter 7 because there are no assets and we're waiting for the debt to be discharged. so once the court says that is the case, that will terminate our collection efforts at that point in time. for debtors who are deceased, we do the research to see if they have any probate that is estate and the collectors are trained to file creditor claims to collect through probate as well. that is very high-level.

so forgive me if i wasn't detailed enough. if you have any questions for me? >> commissioner kopp . >> did i hear you mention orders of examination? >> yes. so i didn't mention it here, but i mentioned to jessica in our discussions. >> you can see it in the agenda report. we have got a case we acted on last october/november -- what was it about $75,000 penalty item just puzzled why you won't use order of examine of judgment? ? } if we obtain a judgment against them, the order is an option

to pursue. i want to say the last case we got for that size was a real recent transfer -- the last several weeks, maybe two, three weeks. so it has not reached the stage of a judgment just yet. we're still in the initial contact phase, if we're talking about the same one i'm thinking of. >> when a matter is presented to you for collection from an agency, whether it's the general hospital, or the ethics commission, what involved, if any, do you expect from the agency who has referred the matter to? >> normally we have a liaison or contact within the departments -- the referring department that we will work with. so periodically we'll still check-in to see if you received email address? did you receive a mailing address or any recent phone number information? or if they made any payments to you?

a copy of a check? so we'll still collaborate with that department to get updates that may help progress the collection effort. >> how about negotiating a settlement? some settlement? does the agency refer the matter to you have to approve the settlement? >> it depends on the nature of our mou with them. so some deferring departments like the hospital, for example, they give us the authority to settle on those obligation as we deem appropriate. and then we have some clients that we'll consult and get their approval on all settlements negotiations that we do. >> any commissioners have any other questions? thank you very much. >> actually. >> go ahead. >> are you prepared to take specific questions on the outstanding matters that have been referred to bdr from the commission? >> i'm hoping so. >> so in the matter of the committee to elect normal for

supervisor, and bob squarey for district 7, isabel and chris jackson -- two from 2015 and the latter two from 2016. have you filed in small claims for these matters since it's been more than six months since the matters were referred to you? >> okay for chris jackson, yes. so we have three different obligations in total for him. one from -- that was assigned to us in 2011 and one assigned to us in 2013. both of those have judgments against them and liens filed for those obligations. >> okay. >> the third one was referred to us in september of 2016. and that one is not yet suit just yet. so we have communications out to him and do our normal collection process and looking to sue him in the next couple of months if he is

not responsive. >> which was that? >> chris jackson. >> isabel irbano, the difficulty is finding good contact information. we haven't had success finding viable numbers or addresses and won't be able to sue until we achieve that. bob squarey is pending asset review. so we sent him notices. have not located good phone number contact for him just yet and he is currently under asset review. before we had the collectors commit to taking a legal action against him, we want to make sure that they found something to ensure it's cost-effective to take that action. >> and then the committee to elect norman for supervisor. >> is there jacqueline norman? >> we have collection calls that

have been made, but as of today, we have not found assets for her just yet. >> i see. >> which one was that? >> the committee to elect norman for supervisor. >> any public comment? >> thank you. >> thank you for your time. i appreciate it. >> thank you. don't leave yet. >> okay. >> thank you very much. >> hi i'm larry bush for friends of ethics. on occasion the commission will accept the stipulation for a payment over a period of time. i think you had julie ellis, i believe for payment of $500 a month for a period of time, but i

have never seen in any of the subsequent reports whether those payments are being regularly made? so i would like, if in the future, when those kinds of arrangements are made, the report will show it being paid-down as the agreement was made? thank you. >> thank you. >> david pilpel again and i agree with larry's comment and i think it's very well-taken and would be good to follow-up with those stipulations, and payment plans. i just wanted to comment further on the chris jackson referral matter. i heard from the bdr staff just now that they have three different items related to mr. jackson. i only see on the chart page 4 of jessica's report for item 10, two items. so perhaps they broke it up into three, but it would be nice if the two staff had similar

dates and all that? my understanding is that mr. jackson just ran this past november for school board in oakland and is currently a resident of oakland. so i don't know if that helps or hurts their ability to discover his assets, and attach anything? i have nothing personal against him or any of these other actors, i just hope they would pay their debts and get out of the doghouse and be back with the rest of us in a better place. i have talked to staff before about having a larger way to figure out who has fines, forms, fees, et cetera? that are overdue, or have other outstanding obligations to the commission, and find some way to sort of tag all of these people. so that we can publicize them, maybe encourage folks to contact the commission, and provide the funds or forms or whatever is outstanding and get out of that bad place? so perhaps we'll have a

larger discussion of that when we get to enforcement. i appreciate that we have now heard from board of bdr about their process and better communication between the commission and bdr and treasurer's staff. thank you. >> good evening commissioners, my name is ace washington, better known as ace on the case. this is my first time coming before this commission and i have read about this agency and i see you are on the case. the reason i said i came before the ethics commission some five years ago, and the dates that you were all talking about -- excuse me -- about the african american democratic party -- you had charles spencer back there and the deal is i'm

just trying to get some information here. i know i have been to a lot of commissioners' meetings and the agendas i'm familiar with and this long agenda it looks like i'm here until the 12th item. i am african american as you can see here and i would just like to identify myself. i was on the outmigration task force and i'm the czar of the outmigration. i am 62-year-olds and my kids got kids and my question to this commission, i will probably come back at a another date to ask for help from you on some discrepancies on the fillmore, the outmigration and efforts going on. i was surprise to see charles and other people here and i'm trying to find out what is the

function of this junction, what you really do? do you really have backbone you will go after people who make complaints about commissioners, and other issues here? i'm not -- how can i put it this way? i'm not sure what the ethics commission -- i know what ethics is about and i know we need change at city hall and you all call it city hall and i call it silly hall. i just wanted to compliment quentin kopp, a no one sense who will bring credibility to the commission. what i was coming to find i read last year and find out what the mayor is doing, ed lee? because it seems like ed lee has no problem doing anything in the city and county and nobody wants to bring him up on any charges. i have seen some things

happen in 2012 with the elections with some people i'm not going to mention right now that i know personally. but i just want to know if this ethics commission is going to be from a-z up-and-down city hall to make sure that the things that have been going on for a number of years be corrected? because i'm going to be watching. i'm ace on the cases and i'm watching now and i will wait for another time to speak. thank you. >> thank you. all right, turning to -- again i thank the people who came over from the brt bureau of delinquent revenue and good luck and continue with the good work. turning to item 6 that

matter will be determined to the next meet due to health issues -- because of his failure to get notification that would enable him to appear earlier. >> mr. chair? >> yes, david pilpel, i wanted to point out in one of the attachments, exhibit 1 to the warning item. there is an email to mr. warne, and i couldn't find it in the packet and perhaps the packet for next month could include staff's response to the hearings request? that would be helpful thank you,. >> you'll note that jessica? >> yes. >> turning to item 7, discussion and possible action on proposed enforcement policy for investigation

suspension, and parallel proceedings. ms. pelham, do you want to address that? >> okay. thank you, chair. so in the past couple of meetings, judge kopp has requested some discussion of a policy to potentially refrain from indefinite suspension of our administrative investigators while district attorney or city attorney investigations proceed. that effectively is a request for parallel prosecution. so that the ethics commission would proceed on a track that is parallel to a district attorney or city attorney investigation and not concurrently. there is a lot of excellent policy reasons for doing and this most important preservation of

evidence and freshness in mind of memoris for witnesses and just to prevent the staleness of investigations that we're seeing when the district attorney retains an investigation and prevents or least requests that the ethics commission stand down on their investigation for long periods of time, sometimes multiple years and judge kopp suggested a period of 90 days for an ethics commission suspension of investigation at the request of the district attorney and city attorney and we considered that timeframe and think it's a good timeframe and the district attorney should be able to get off on a good start for the investigation at that time and we would support that suggestion by judge kopp and set forward the policy reasons and just justifications and policy for you today.

>> any discussion? mr. kopp? >> i refer to page 4 of the report and the specific language under "ethics commission investigation suspension policy." i have one addition on item 11. which now reads "that the city attorney or district attorney's request, staff will suspend its administrative investigation for 90 calendar days." i recommend adding, "and then resume such investigation." period. secondly, in the following unnumbered paragraph starting with the

words "the executive director reserves the right to decline any request." i ask other commission members here, and of course, the director, and ms. blome and anybody else who wants to offer an opinion on it? the executive director and/or commission. which raises the question of whether the commission has such authority? if it does, then i would recommend that amendment to add those words. if it doesn't, then that's the end of my suggestion. >> yes, the commission doesn't have the authority to initiate an investigation. so you are not informed when

an investigation suspension is requested. so i don't think that -- i don't think that is practical. >> it's not feasible? >> right. >> i'm sorry, i'm not following here. >> well, i would recommend, if it's legal, and it's feasible and practical, the executive committee and/or the commission reserves the right to decline any request to suspend an investigation. >> okay, but we're not saying that commissioner kopp's original observation that as to no. 1, that we should add the language "will suspend it's administrative investigation for

90 days," and add the language "will then resume the investigation." we're not saying that is inappropriate? okay, i got it. that is fine. >> chair renne, i had a question. is there a definition of "good cause?" >> no, it would just be the general standard applied as a term -- like, if there is -- like an example of good cause if we have reason to believe that an employee is about to quit and their emails might go away? just certainly imagining circumstances that could decline a request for investigation. we didn't want to make it absence. absolute. >> thank you. >> commissioner kopp. >> page 4 refers to the

fact let staff continue negotiating with city attorney and district attorney to develop strong parallel proceeding practices. on that point, you are going to let us in on how those discussions are going? >> yes. absolutely. i will include updates in the enforcement report and if you would like to be briefed more often than that, feel free to call me personally. >> okay. >> the idea generally is that as our relationship becomes more built on trust and mutual trust, and mutual respect for investigative techniques that perhaps we would be invited to sit in on interviews or they could be invited to sit on our

interviews and information-sharing would occur cognizant of due process and 4th and 5th amendments and to proceed jointly on the investigations and nobody has to sit on the sidelines. i did mention in the memo there is sometimes justification and quite frequently naturally a criminal proceedings of disposition, like the actual trial would occur before an administrative hearing, just through the nature of how criminal proceedings occur and the speedy trial act and things like this. so we do recognize which investigations would -- i'm sorry, not the investigations, but the actual legal proceedings. but in terms of like the early investigative methodologies of interviewing witnesss and gathering information and collecting emails or data through subpoenas, this is all things -- types of the investigations that can occur parallel. there is no reason to

suspend investigations in our opinion, and we support judge kopp's suggestion for this 90-day policy. >> commissioner keane? >> i think there is no way to actually articulate it in the language, but there certainly should be a recognition of a couple of realities of the interagency relationships. and that is, for example, district attorney's offices. someone who is a line prosecutor involved in investigating something is almost by nature going to say no, no, don't get in my way. your agency should stay out of it. and i think recognition of that should be important and i'm sure will be by the executive director in terms of the fact that no, no, we have a whole different set of

criteria and priorities, and you are proceeding upon the fact if you determine you can't prove something beyond a reasonable doubt, you are going to stop. whereas, we may well be able to prove something far beyond a preponderance and we have established our case. so there should be -- just to shorten this -- there should be a lack of deference to those actions. i mean there should be professionalism and all of of that, but the idea, particularly in the past, there wasn't just deference, but oh, they have told us to not do anything. so that is the end of it. that state of mind should not exist, and should take a critical look at these matters every time you get a request from either the district attorney or the city attorney that

it's important that we stay out of it. because i think in most situations they do it reflexively and without thought. that is just one person's opinion here. >> one thought i had of the amendment that you wanted to make to paragraph numbered 1, it would make it mandatory that the staff would have commence or continue its investigation at the end of 90 days, and there may be circumstances where in the judgment either of the commission, if it came to us, or to the executive director; that we ought not to be immediately proceeding. in other words, 90 days is sort of our default, but there may be good cause why we don't want to? and i just wondered if we shouldn't

just say, "assume its investigation unless the commission or the ed decides otherwise." so it's a default position. >> that is acceptable. >> yes. so add "unless the executive director determine otherwise?" >> and commission. i'm prepared mr. chairman at the appropriate time to make a motion to adopt the recommended suspension policy. i associate myself with commissioner keane's prior remarks. >> do i hear a second? >> second. >> all right. >> commissioner -- >> i will ask for public comment. any comment?

>> commissioners may i just make a point as well for additional consideration and discussion? i think one of the balances we're trying to reflect in the language is the way the enforcement process and investigative process and authority is structured under our existing laws. and part of that is a balance of the commission has a role to adjudicate matters, but doesn't have a role in directing investigations. there is say strong oversight that you have to ensure that we're doing our job appropriately, but i would suggest that the recommendation that you just made, it isn't in alignment with the language that i think we have in the charter and the ordinance about how we go about investigations and probably shouldn't refer to the "commission," but refer to the executive director and you continue to use your oversight role for this policy to ensure we're doing it properly. >> i will accept that. >> mr. chairman, i stated

that is certainly acceptable, but i reflect on the fact that you've got a 10-day period of time before the da or the city attorney says suspend, we're going in. i mean what do you do in ten days? i don't think as a practical matter you have done much in ten days. that is why i said that maybe "resume" isn't even the right word? or "proceed with such investigation?" >> commissioner kopp i'm not suggesting changing that at all. i'm just suggesting that the language not refer to the commission. >> because the commission is prohibited. >> we would support that. >> okay, i will subside. >> any public comment? >> larry bush for friends of ethics.

two points, the recommendation no. 2 deals with the fppc, but i didn't see any real discussion of the fppc in the body of the report. had this been in place, we might not have had the problem we did with a recent case that lost itsability to move toward because of timeliness. so i'm glad to see this. it's also true in my understanding that the fppc's action and enforcement doesn't match in every respect what san francisco law has. that we can take action simultaneously because we have more authority in some cases? for example money-laundering is really a separate san francisco offense, even though it's also a state offense. you have a separate thing to do. on the first thing of resuming after 90 days, i immediately am reminds of the fact that the district

attorney filed charges in february against several members of the commission or staff of the human rights commission over illegal acts that were also illegal under the jurisdiction of the ethics commission. and that has been 11 months. and there has been no action that we have seen during that period of time, undoubtedly they are busy compiling their case. but the public hasn't seen it and i don't know how long it will go on? it seems to me at some point, the ethics commission has a role to step in and say we're expecting some action or we're going to be undertaking the part of the action that relates to our authority as ethics commission. >> mr. chairman, to reply to that, does no. 2 finance bar us

from proceedings? or no. 1 bar us from proceeding in that kind of situation? you are saying it's 11 month, the case hasn't gone to trial and we're sitting here and doing nothing and who knows it will be another continuance, et cetera, et cetera? that doesn't stop us from taking it into consideration and the executive director says we're going proceed to the extent that we can. you are not going to get anything out of defendants, but maybe other avenues of investigation that can be done? do you think that no. 1 prohibits that from happening? >> i do not and i think it's probably time to do it.

thank you. >> from the fppc, i haven't dealt with the fppc in 100 years. >> any other public comment -- i'm sorry? >> i gathered the executive director is satisfied with that language; right? >> yes. >> david pilpel again. a couple of comments. i think this makes a lot of sense and i think it shifts the default to concurrent investigation rather than sequential and potentially reduces some of the problems or potential problems that we have seen or might see. i agree with leeann's comments about the executive director and it's in his or her orbit to determine how to proceed with this particular phase of an investigation. and that the commission retains jurisdiction for overall oversight of the enforcement program, but has specific roles at later

stages of enforcement. it also occurs to me maybe adding -- either adding language or just having a practice that the executive director shall report to the commission any time when the suspension policy is implemented? so that you are aware that there was a request for a delay and that you are just informed that the executive director has chosen for good cause to implement that delay. that seems appropriate to me, i don't know if you want to codify it. and the final point without referring to a specific investigation, i think this language as you have amended it, should be either codified into the procedures for handling investigations, or just exist as a stand-alone policy and be posted to the website. so there is knowledge that this is the new practice going forward? it may not make a lot of sense to

anyone who doesn't otherwise understand the procedures of the commission, but it's certainly a worthwhile endeavor and all to be congratulated for their contributions to it. thank you. >> thank you. >> ace washington again. you know, i'm just sitting back and trying to feel what this commission is and how the process is and see if it goes like the rest of the commissioners' meetings. so i guess i can speak now. talking about investigates and suspension of investigations, and i just talked to the gentleman from oakland, because i didn't know he was from oakland. he informed me i should talk to you afterwards. i'm not sure if i'm going to -- because it looks like this is going to go after 8:00 and i will speak my peace now. i'm interested in next time on the 4th tuesday coming back with some evidence and also complaining and requesting that this commission look into some of the city's

commissioners like for instance -- let me start as i said before i'm the czar of outmigration and i don't know if you know about the african american outmigration and our population goes down to less than 3-4% and the budget has gone up to billions of dollars. when newsom was here and put the committee together we were in $500 million deficit and all of the recommendations and everything that we had put forth in that report just went blank. and all of the department heads they have not reported to no one and last -- it's been ten years since the outmigration and newsom i think is going to run for governor and i know he will be one and i'll be knocking on his door and this commission, i will ask that you open the investigation or find out how i do it into the human rights commission? now this outmigration was turned over to ed lee. ed lee turned it over to the human

rights commission, which he was a director and i worked closely with him. i know ed lee real good and he knows me, but since he has been in office he won't sit down and talk to me. he has put money towards every segment in the county, but not for the african american community. he is in violation and i'm going come to this commission to help me put them on-track again. i go to board of supervisors, which london breed is the president and she was on that committee, too. i'm not going say nothing bad about her, but she is the president now. i'm going to try to put her in line, too and put together a reunion, to find out what is going on with that? i only got a few more seconds, but i'll be able to speak a little bit longer when i have a chance. right now i'm just very concerned about my issues and what do i do to file whatever papers i need? i would like to open up some investigations on the oecd ocii, san

francisco commission housing authority. i would like to invite whenever trump put downs the new director of hud to find out what they are doing. so i got 8 seconds here. my primary objective this year is dealing with the african american community, specifically. moved as amended and seconded by commissioner -- >> i'm sure ms. pelham will let us know in her report. you give us a report every month and have space in there for that. >> i will call the question, all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? it's carried unanimously. turning to agenda item 8.

it's a presentation and discussion on new ethics commission website and plans outreach activities. do you want to go ahead? >> steve massey, electronic disclosure and data analysis manager and for those on the commission in 2015, you may recall that i gave a presentation about a new vision for the commission's website, and i'm pleased to announce we launched the new website last year and i'm hoping that we can get the presentation up on the television. perhaps we could call -- there we go. so the new website is really complete rethinking of the way users

interact with our site. we wanted to make the site more user-friendly and more user-centric and as far as the homepage we wanted users to be presented with relevant content pertinent to the particular filing season or election going on, rather than bombarding them with all potential services and offerings on our website. so just to reflect on where we have come from, this is our website as it was in 2005 when i started. and was pulled down in 2009. it's hard to see there, but there are a number of choices on the screen. it pretty much represents all of the potential services we had at that period of time. what we found users would go to the site and would be lost in the sea of links as far as which section pertained to them? and during a particular filing season, the most pertinent links were not really brought to their attention. they just had a choice of all of our services.

now in 2009 we replaced the website with the department of technology, and we did reduce the number of choices on the website, but over time our mandates have changed. we brought on new regulated areas such as permit consultants major developers and expenditure lobbyists and tacked that on to the existing website and also the way people file statements has changed. back in 2009 most forms were filed in paper format and most people downloaded the compliance information in paper. manuals were printed. and now most users file their statements electronically. they pay their registration fees or late fees electronically online, and they can even sign their campaign statements electronically. so that has all been tacked on to the existing website as well and it's been disorganized and somewhat

difficult to use. in december we replaced the website and unfortunately it's difficult to see on this screen -- you may see it better on your monitors. i wanted to focus on the top-section of the page, because that what most people see when they pull up the website -- they wouldn't see the entire website all at once. so this is the main section of the homepage that would appear on most people's monitors and there is a great reduction in the number of choices on the screen. at the top here, we reduced the number of sections on site to just five. there is the commission's section, where we have all of the information about the activities going on at the commission-level. we have a new compliance section. this is to try and educate those in the regulated community about the actual actions that they need to take to comply with the law. we have a new disclosure section, targeted towardses the

public, who are consuming the statements filed with our office. we have an enforcement section where people can go to file a complaint or learn about the activities or enforcement division. we have a law section, where can you learn about the pertinent local laws that apply to the commission and research advice letters. then on every page we have added a new e-file button, where can you can go to log into your account or pay fees or sign your electronic statements. the main focal point is the banner section. this is what the website looked like december 21st when we launched it. what we plan to use this section for is to draw attention to the most relevant information for this period of time. so it may be difficult to read on the screen there. but the banner on the homepage right now is targeted at users who

need to file their final semi-annual statement due january 31st to close out the activity for the campaign -- for when they were active during the election. that is why the banner there is the "campaign is over, but disclosure is not," meaning that you have disclosure obligations even after the election has ended. the learn more button you can click there that tells you what you need to comply with the january 31st deadline. over time we'll change this banner, depending on the filing season. for instance you can imagine that before the form 700 filings are due on the april 1st deadline we'll have a banner that is targeted at those users. so people do not have to hunt and peck around the website to find the most relevant content. we have also added four links at the bottom to target our most frequently

used services. the old website didn't really have very much information on requesting advice from the information. so we added a section to get guidance from the commission, whether it's informal advice or formal advice and we discuss how to request that. we have a section here for e-filers to set up an account to register as lobbyist for form 700 to open a new campaign committee and to log into accounts anto sign their campaign statements. we have a button here which says, "view disclosures." as you may recall there were changes made to the campaign finance reform ordinance that requires campaigns in mailers to put a disclaimer on the mailer that says that you can view financial

disclosures at sfethics.org to find that information in any of our data formats. and finally we also wanted to provide a more obvious "file a complaint" button on the homepage. the complaint section on the previous website was really lacking. so now we have a new complaint's section that i will go over in a few minutes. another thing it has changed about the users would come to our website since 2009 in 2009 most users used a desktop computer. according to our statistics, no users had mobile phones who were accessing our site. at this point, one in ten users are actually using a mobile phone to consume the content on our website. and so if you pull up our previous website on a mobile phone, what it will do is scale the website, which is designed primarily for a

computer with 10-15" computer to 4" size and becomes completely unreadable. so the site is now designed to scale the content to appropriate font size and interface, depending on the device that you are using, tablet, phone or very large screen. we have actually imported all of the content from the previous website. there were about 4500 pages that were brought in. we reorganized it and rewritten a lot of the content. we have also add new sections to the site related to the commission's activities. we have added a section on our budget requests, that we made last year and we'll be making going forward. we have a new policy issue section. that is a page that will be maintained by our new policy staff. it's really targeted at

making the public more aware of the different policy discussions that are going on at the commission-level. one thing that i have become aware of over time is sometimes when the commission has a policy discussion that spans multiple meetings, sometimes folks come in late to the discussion, and they want to get up to speed on the current status that policy discussion. what are the relevant documents? what is the current proposal? and going back and researching prior agendas and minutes is very time-consuming. so we want to put all of the relevant documents on that policy page and get someone up to speed quickly, so they can participate in the discussions at the commission-level. we have also added a staff page. so there is no mystery now as far as whatever's role is at the commission. there is an organizational chart there. we have listed everyone's working titles, and email addresss for all

staff. so if you need to contact a particular person, that is now listed on the website. we have a new complaints section, which i will talk about in a minute. we have also added a new compliance process walk-through. so before we had these printable manuals to be downloaded on our website. now we have come up with a more standard template for how to proceed with going through start it finish for any of the different disclosure processes. for instance for lobbyists, there is information about how to register. how to pay your fees? how to comply with the filing requirements? and then how to terminate as a lobbyist, and following that, what happens if you are audited? or what happens if an enforcement action is brought against you? so we have documented this for each of the different types of regulated entities that file with our office.

we also have reorganized the disclosure section on our website. back in 2009, when our previous website was put up -- most users came to the website and downloaded the pdf versions of basically paper financial statements. and now there is different types of users who access our content in very different ways. some people still access the more traditional financial statements, but other people will also download or content in spreadsheet formats and various data formats. they may also be sort of the citizen programmer or researcher, who makes actual queris in our databases and using an application interface and we documented each of those sections and we'll continue to work on that section of the site over the course of the next year. one of the requests was made

at the last meeting when i initially presented the website was to add a searchable advice letter section. so we have gone about and done that. you can now search all of our past advice letters by category, by law, by section, by data range and key word to help you find any relevant advice letters that may have been issued in the past. the site is now being transmited securely. before we only securely transmitted sensitive information such as credit cards or your actual forms that you are filing. but now we have secured all transmissions with our site. there are a number of security benefits to this, but one of the primary ones is that a user goes to our site and sees they are secure connection and knows they are on the official ethics commission and not a fake website or another website mimicking our content.

we have also added new sections to our site to be in compliance with the language access ordinance. now we have sections for content in chinese, spanish and filipino. we have translated information about the commission and our contributor guide into these languages, and as the new content is written, and resources are made available, we'll also be adding that content to those sections as well. now going back to the complaints section of the website: on the previous version of the website, if you went to the complaints section, you could download the form to file a complaint and you could also download the ethics commission regulation for investigation and enforcement proceedings which is about a 20-page document of regulations about the process that a complainant can go through to file a complaint and what happens after that? and it's

a confusing document. the first page of that document just goes over definitions, defining with "city" means, what "credible" means et cetera and it's not the most user-friendly document to get through. so we approached uc hastings and some of their students were tasked with drafting a plain-languaged version of these enforcement regulations, and we took that document that they worked on, and we made some additional improvements to it, and we posted that to the website. so we now have a new section on filing complaints, which goes over general information about filing a complaint. what types of complaints can be filed with our office? and then also, a deep-dive -- it's hard to see here -- but there is a submenu where it talks about what is involved in preparing a complaint? what happens when you submit

the complaint? what happens after you submit the complaint? what happens during an investigation? what happens during a settlement or a probable cause hearing? and hopefully that will demystery the process for some folks. some of the feedback we received over time is sometimes people are confused after they file a complaint, what their role is as being the complainant and what exactly is supposed to happen after the complaint has been filed? so hopefully this will help. before complaints are filed, and if it doesn't, at the bottom of the page, there is a button here. i'm just going to zoom in on this section that says "was this page helpful?" there is a button to provide feedback to the commission and if you click that, a form will appear and you can provide feedback about that particular page. when staff receives that

feedback we'll know what page and when we received that feedback to provide very targeted improvements to the site. just in the past month since we had the site up, we have received both critical feedback and positive feedback. we have also received feedback via our social media pages. some of the positive feedback we received hallelujah, motto: ethics on the movie. love the site. so easy to use on mobile, much improved website as part of the reboot of the ethics commission and i want to talk about some critical feedback we received. on the commissioners' page, someone wrote less helpful page and user those scroll to find that information. on our lob ist disclosure page, someone said they couldn't figure out how to view the actual filed

reports and found the links confusing. on the homepage, someone wanted us to list the up coming meetings rather than just listing past meetings. so these are actually very targeted feedback that we can look at that page and if we start seeing a lot of feedback about a particular issue, we can prioritize it and start to make improvements to that section. and so at this point, the website project is not done. it's a project that will always be under continuous improvement. we like to incorporate a lot of community feedback through a variety of different methods, and so this year, we're really blessed to have a senior fellow working on our staff. that person has been added to our staff through the senior pello fellow program and will work

on the website until next october. in the past few months she has brought a lot of new ideas and energy to this website project and i would like to give her a moment to talk about what she is working on the website through next october. >> thank you, steven. good evening, commissioners. i want to provide a brief update on the different initiatives that i'm working on. over the last few months i have been working with the staff to learn more about the programs that we administer and also the online tools that we make available to filers and the public. based on our current priorities, we have identified three key areas to work on in the upcoming months. the first one is form 700. we're currently working on preparing for outreach and training

for the filers as part of the our upcoming filing deadline. in the process i'm looking at our online content on the website. our communications strategy, as well as guidance and detail. so i'll be looking at ways to redesign the content, to make sure that our filers and filing officers are able to find the information that they need to comply with the filing requirements. the second area that i'll be working on is data disclosures. we have a lot of data available on our site. but then sometimes it can be challenging to understand and interpret the data. so i'm going to be looking at understanding the user needs and identifying different types of user groups who consume our data? and look at ways in which we can supplement our data with additional documentation and content? that will help them better understand the data. so make it more

readily available and easy to use. the third area is continuous improvement of our website. as steven mentioned earlier in his presentation we have a feedback option imbedded with every site and i'll be figuring out how to incorporate them in our site? in addition to that i'm working with coit to participate in a tech program that they are working on called "public voice program." i can go deeper into that on the next slide. this is a coit initiative to bring together city agencies and local partners to facilitate users' testing session where local residents can provide feedback on city services and websites. we're really excites that they have

selected the ethics commission as the initial candidate to conduct user testing sessions. right now we're working with a few local partners and civic makers in the civic innovation and they will be coordinating the program, logistics and management to conduct the user testing session. lighthouse for the blind is an organization that provides accessibility services. they will be providing us guidance on how we can make our site more accessible for persons with different abilities. we're also working with microsoft. they are going to be providing us technology support to support the user testing program. to give some more context on the [ao-urgs/] testing section to give you an idea: what we're trying to do is reach out to a wide range of

public members from the communities with different backgrounds, different digital skills and different understanding of local government. and get them to sign up to participate for testing sessions and we're going to be conducting the sessions in our san francisco local libraries and we'll identify certain test scenarios to identify on the site and testers will get that information to us. we can then look at the feedback and test results and identify improvements to the site to sections on the site and hopefully that will make it a better experience for the community at-large. apart from this, we're also looking at our website accessibility. so accessibility is ensuring that our content is accessible to differently abled persons. and as a part of our launch, we did some accessibility testing.

we have also taken into consideration different things that we need to provide, different types of support we need to provide for accessibility. for screen readers and making sure that the content is displayed in a visual manner that is easy for people to consume. we're also going to be getting professional consultation with lighthouse for the blind later this week, where we'll have more feedback on how to improve our site with respect to accessibility. so we're excited and looking forward to these initiatives working with local partners and continuing to improve our site. later on once we have more feedback we'll come back with more information. we're happy to answer any questions you may have. >> any commissioners have any questions? i went on the site and i did find it easier to deal with than the

old one. so much of what you are telling me is wonderful. commissioner keane? >> i just think what you have done is very commendable. it's a big improvement on the site. it's a big improvement on the way the commission is able to facilitate things for the public, and i want to thank you both very much. >> i would like to echo that. i think that now in 2017, people access information not through paper, but going online and looking things up on the internet and my kids and i do it and it's important for us as government to keep pace with the innovations coming out and the accessibility of information that you are literally have at your fingerprints and i think the site is

a great leap forward from 2009 to now, eight years ago it was launched and revamped. so i say thank you, and kudos for the hard work and keep it up. >> i feel the same way. particularly like the complaint portion of it. that is great. that is really important. >> thank you for that feedback, commissioners. it is really notable, i think from the staff's perspective that this is intended to be a work in progress. so we're very excited about having our executive director fellow to lead that effort and outreach and we're looking forward to getting more feedback how the site can speak to users need it in the way in which they need it? the other observation i will share, it's been wonderful for us as staff to be challenged to start thinking how we communicate? not in the way we think about delivering services through programmatic channels, but again, how does the user want to find the information that is most useful to them? so it really is kind of

provoking all of us to think fresh with this tool that is so important. i did want to underscore all of our appreciation for the work that steven and gija has been leading us that started prior to my arrival and hat's off to staff who did a great job getting it started. thank you for your comments tonight. >> commissioner keane. >> i just want to add one observation, as to how much things have changed. i think it was about three years ago or so, where the suggestion was made that we put all of our materials in the various languages that we have in san francisco, spanish, and chinese tagalog and all of that and i remember the executive

director being bitterly opposed to that and being able to get the board at that time with commissioner renne and myself and commissioner hayon were able to vote that we do that. but somehow that was grudgingly done and certainly the attitudes relating to the changes and the modernization of something has important a multi-lingual city like san francisco having the materials in all those different languages and you did it automatically and no question in your mine you were going to do that and you did. it's just an observation and i think the things are changing quite well. >> did you say you also have it in chinese? i heard spanish and? philippine?

>> we can now support chinese, spanish and filipino. we have translated some initial content. there because also content that was previously translated that is no longer relevant because those elections have passed. so the information that is currently posted is just information about the commission, and the contributor guide, which is really relevant to any election. and as new guides and new information is developed for upcomeing elects, and new programs, as resources are made available through the budget, we'll have those translated as well. >> are you talking about cantonese? >> i think it's more the issue of traditional or simplified chinese and i don't remember which it is. >> i believe san francisco is mostly cantonese. >> it's the spoken language, not the written language. >> thank you very much. appreciate all your efforts.

turning to agenda item 9, discussion and possible action. >> we have public comment. >> i guess i didn't ask for public comment. >> i didn't wait for you to ask. i just wanted to suggest a number of changes to make this specifically valuable to larry bush -- -- your page could include a link to sfgtv's when you have the videos of your commission meetings, it would be nice to see that link on our page. i would like to see a one-stop search. so if i were going to follow an action, let's say the larry bush development corporation has got a development going and i would be able to put in that entity, and follow the lobbying that was done for that entity? where it goes to the board

for votes, contributions, any behests and gifts so i can follow actual the way in which city decisions are made and each of the steps that they are going through? in that respect it would be good to include on the commission page links to upcoming board meetings where the commission is providing input. the executive director is mentioning three different measures that are pending before the board. supervisor farrell, supervisor breed, supervisor peskin, and i know there will be input coming from the commission. so if i could go on the commission page and immediately see here are pending issues at the board of supervisors that the ethics commission has scheduled a discussion of those issues so i could see those right on. i would like to see links to the enforcement actions taken by other jurisdictions affecting san francisco. for example, when the fppc

fines somebody that is a san francisco entity, i would like to be able to see that in one place. and finally in that same respect when other jurisdictions are taking up issues that are relevant to us -- for example the fppc announced an ip meeting on rewriting the cal access web pages that woefully out of date and woefully probatic. that data is certainly important to san francisco people trying to understand the flow of money and other issues. if you would put on your web page, something like the upcoming cal access meeting under related relevant information, that would satisfy me for this month. thank you. >> thank you. >> david pilpel of. a again want to thank steven

for all of his work over the years and we talked about this september, october, 2015 and it's been more than a year and thank you and thank you to the fellow i haven't met and name with of i would screw up and would just say thank you. i would assume the website continues to evolve as things change that they are highlighted interest persons meetings, draft, all kind of fun stuff. it will be great. i also assume particularly with the translated materials and disabled user enhancements there is coordination with ocea and mayor's office on disability, so whatever the city standards for translation and for accessibility are used here and that we're not sort of doing our own thing? and just finally to the extent that the staff learns both

through feedback and experience what works for outreach, if that is useful to be shared with other city departments. so it's not like you are doing it well and the puc and port aren't. if you are doing it well, share it with others and hopefully everyone can be up to the high steven massey standard and i'm encouraged to hear about the larry bush development corporation. that is a positive development. [laughter ]. >> any other public comment? i have been requested to take a 10-minute break and we'll come back and complete the agenda.

recommendations for fiscal '18 and '19. >> good evening commissioners, yes item no. 9 is presented to you for your consideration and possible action this evening related to the development of our budget submission, which all departments are required to submit this year, february 21st to the mayor's office. i would note that the commission's next regular meeting is february 27th and so wanting to make sure you had an opportunity to weigh-in on policy direction for when our budget submission should look like. i put together a report that reflects the staff's recommendation where we are at this point in our development

and our progress toward as achieving the blueprint that is approved by the mayor and board of supervisors and adopting the fy'17 budget. so i wanted to walk through briefly the key areas as we see them and our hope this would be a frame work with recommendations that the commission would be supportive of that would give direction to me and staff to prepare the document to submit next month in accordance -- unlike last years blueprint for accountability we have estimates in this budget and we would want to take advantage of time and i will get into that in a few minutes to make sure the numbers we're looking at are as accurate as possible, based on policy direction

you give us this evening. with that, i will walk through a recap. first of all, last year, which the commission submitted its budget, i had understood that it was a request for a two-year budget cycle. as it turns out, we're not on what is called a fixed 2-year budget as a department, unlike some departments are and the city apparently. so our office like many are required to submit a budget for the coming fiscal year and fy'18 and 19 together, which in a mind is not a bad thing with a year of experience at staff-level to reflect on what our continuing resource needs are, and where we best need to apply additional resources in the coming year to continue to try and meet the goals that the commission established last year. the areas that were intended to guide our work. we have talked about organizational efficiencies and more effective enforcement program and supporting compliance with stronger information

for those who are required to comply with our laws. and a strengthened policy direction. when he look back at the year we establish a number of key pieces for that blueprint to be furthered development. as this document reflects where we still have work to do and those are the recommendations that i would like to highlight for you. the first is that when we look at our recommendations overall, one the key recommendations that we have it's important to align our staff positions and resources with the nature of the work that we actually have to do. what that translates to in specific terms is a request for two new positions. that i believe are necessary to provide the level of oversight day-to-day in management of our programs. in our core education and outreach work, and in our audit programs. i'm proposing that we recommend two senior administrative analysts, each of whom would be tasked with

oversee and working with the day-to-day program delivery of our education and campaign finance lobbying and ethics arena and also to strengthen our audit program. but we realize when we do that we're looking at delays that we need to correct and part of this, i think, needs to have additional resources to support the day-to-day management of the program. what we find as we have in many program areas when we have to have staff multi-tasking too much, we're not able to focus on the work that they need to do because they have got split responsibilities. so one of the key areas is recommending that we have that appropriate level of staffing that can actually manage programs. the classification of the

positions need to match supervisory and programmatic responsibilities that we have and that is not currently what we have and we have challenges delivering the services that are core to our function. secondly, i think it's probably clear to you and many in the room that the commission had a significant underfunding of the tools and training and staff development resources that again the work we're doing really does require. this budget framework proposing to change that historic underfunding by recognizing through specific line items that have not existed to-date, things like improved outreach and training resources for our staff, ongoing investments that are required in our technology to make sure we achieve the policy goals that new legislation proposed -- is proposing to accomplish.

so this is an area where technology, we are looking at things like case management software. so we can better track our enforcement cases. that we can better use that information to monitor our own work and to understand where we're coming into pinch points? as we're increasing our staff and have more robust investigations and enforcement and more serious cases we really need to be able to track that information, and spreadsheets are probably not the best way to go about doing that. so looking at jurisdictions like the fppc to see where we might be able to find programs that will help us? that is again getting our work up to the level that it needs to be to do the work that we're required to do. that for example is -- initially estimated to be perhaps $20,000 one-time cost. in addition the report notes the variety of policy initiatives that have been either adopted or

are being recommended by the board of supervisors so far where there has not been funding in the ordinance, in the legislation, to enable the disclosure requirements to happen in an online setting. we know that technology -- that disclosures are really only as good as the filers' ability to complete the requirement easily, and as ensuring it's easy for the public to access that information. transparency through online filing tools is critical in our view and need to make sure that any ordinance that may be proposing or enacting changes actually comes with the resources to enable our system to be modified to accommodate the expectation that we create by having new laws and new disclosure requirements on the books. when we look at some of the recent policy initiatives initiated with my the board we're estimating a ballpark

of $150,000 for fy'18 to accomplish implement those. we had a conversation about translations. one of the things that we have not done a good job at historically is identifying line items and cost it's will help us translate our information to communities that may not have english as first language we have identified ballpark of $5,000 a year that would enable us to [skpa-pb/] expand on a regular basis that on line is updated as they need to be, working with the appropriate offices in the city to do that. we have sort of had to play catch-up over the past years with where is that money going to come from? it's a pressing need and to continue to reach out to a broader community it's important to have the resources

in the budget and funded to reflect that work and to support that work. in our staff development and training again having the right staff positions is critical and having the right staff with the right skills and training and refreshers is really christ. critical. jessica and i know at the council on governmental ethics law a tremendous resource for our staff to understand and build up skills and auburn new ideas and making sure that we have some staff each year attend the conference something in my judgment is very important for our agency. and also providing the kinds of skills training, on-boarding for new investigators, deposition training is one of the things that jessica identified for new investigators who come on-board some of these may be one-time costs and other areas where we have identified $1,000 a year, for example, per staff person to go and really strengthen their skill areas

is something that we would like to identify. we have identified some specific areas, but we also need to take a hard look at supporting staff in recruiting exceptioning and keeping exceptional staff. in the third area is something that is a bit broader question that we're trying to get a handle on over the next month. i'm not interested in coming to you with a blank check request. but i think it's important to recognize that as we have expanded our staffing, to 22, we have now saturated our existing office with one conference room. if we were appropriated and authorized for two additional people we're asking the bottom-line for that space to make sure that we

have the space with the work we're required to do. so we're thinking big and we know that may be a longer term effort, but in my view it's important once you have the right people and right skills to doing right work to have the kind of support to deliver the kind of work in the way that we expect it. so that going that we're going to talk to the department of real estate and other departments in the city to understand what that involves and what those costs are. it's something that needs to be recognized as a cost and cannot be an afterthought. it will mean we're hampered in perhaps expanding our staff to the right level simply because we don't have chairs to put people in. so i want to think big and pressing for the idea to have appropriate staff for staff and training and for the work that we're required to do. lastly i want to come back to a fourth point and that is making sure that we continue to extend the use that we have been planning to be key performance indicators.

one thing we're happy about to track in baseline ways for example, our enforcement caseload. how old those cases are and what nature they are? that has been critical for us to ask questions for whether we're going about the work in best way? it enables the public to ask questions and enables you to have proper oversight and ask questions. we need to expand that kind of process to all of our areas, when we start restaffing in some new area. so those are the kind of indicators that we need to develop and put in place, so we can tell the public and you all, how we are using these very important dollars to accomplish the goals that voters have set for us and we believe that is going to be an important piece of it, too. we don't want that to get lost. it's something that we have started to do but not seen through because of competing priorities, but we're committed to in the coming year. because we know that the city has very important choices where

it's spending its money and we'll hopefully be able to make the pitch in the next month's budget with your approval. that this is the sort of budget that we need to continue to build on. so that we can see our work through in the way that we have identified and the vision that you set forth last year. so that a bit of an overview. i would say in sum, the request that we're looking for at this point is approximately $513,000 for fy'18 and approximately $338,000 in fy'19. again, ballpark subject to some refinement, but to give you a sense that is about 15% increase and about 10% increase based on current operating budget figures. so i just wanted to give that you overview and happy to answer any questions that you and get your direction for next month's

policy submission. >> what surplus is present in the budget that supposedly we were going to have four investigators on-board. we don't have any of them, and maybe it will be march? so that for a period of from july to march we didn't pay any salaris for those. does that result in our having a pot that we can shift over to '18? >> no. >> in '18? >> no, unfortunately it didn't work that way. if departments are saving money one year, it's the use-it-or-lose it. to use it for other appropriate

functions we'll do that. but it's clear that when we have salary savings, that is not a question of whether we're going to fill the positions, but a question of when? they are all on-track and i don't want to get ahead of myself, because i was hoping to talk about that during the executive director's report, but it's something that affects our enforcement work, as well as our work generally. the delay and time it takes to hire staff. >> i'm just curious in terms of what we budgeted for '16-17, we aren't going to be paying the salary amounts that we budgeted. and you say that just goes by the board. so we'll have spent less money than we were authorized? can we use that as any kind of carry to the city and saying look, we didn't spend all the money

we had, so we ought to get some more? >> unfortunately i don't think they see it's a carrot and i will make available to you and the public what is our salary savings. we went through the exercise of our salary savings and encumbrances and some costs we have been deferring. to the extent that some of the costs are deferred are appropriate to be used through salary savings we with do that. i want to make sure i have that information, but i don't have it and don't want to state it inaccurate. >> for example, there is $20,000 worth of case management software that would be a potential expense in fy'18 would that be pulled forward? >> i think it's possible if we identify it and i want to make sure that the salary savings can be used for that function? i don't have that information sitting here, because i know there are some restrictions what that money can be used for. i think last month

when the commission heard from the mayor's budget analyst, there was recognition that the fact that we have not been yet able to fill positions does not sound like that is going to be held against us in terms of obviously you didn't need those positions? i think there is wide recognition that the process of city has to go through non-exempt positions which is more than half of what we have been hiring and there is a process and time it does take. so we've been able for example, to use salary savings this year to bring on-board through a work order a senior personnel analyst from the department of human resources who is dedicated solely to our department's hiring processes for the next six months. so we have been able to use -- again, i don't want to misstate the dollar amount, but using significant amount of salary savings to pay for someone who primes the pumps to get that staff in the door. >> i had a question about the guidance that the mayor's office has

provided about the possible 3% reduction. what is concerning to me is that we're just getting started with this new fy'17 budget and trying to hire the four additional ftes, and that if the 3% reduction is going to be required, that would effectively eliminate half of those; right? and i would suggest in the budget submission that we put forward, i think it would be unwise for the city to require us to eliminate those positions. the biggest savings that we would have is from staff positions. because i think it would send a terrible message to the people of san francisco that we'll give you money in fy'17 and take it away one year later and that means they are not serious about ethics and i don't think that is the message that the city wants to send and i don't think that is what the mayor certainly believes.

but by virtue of requiring across the board 3% reduction, in that passion, that fashion -- that is in effect what will happen. and second two ftes you mention on page 3, that would be two new positions. so that would bring the total staff count from 22 to 24, is that correct? >> correct. >> okay. that would be the cost of -- $500 and change in fy'18 and $338, so all of these initiatives. so the net effect would be an additional to the budget. >> at this point what we have identified. >> commissioner keane, i just want to associate myself with commissioner chiu's observations and i agree with her very strongly in records to that -- regards to not allowing

any of those cuts to take place and i'm sure you are up on it, but you are still somewhat new to the city in terms of the games played in the budget process in the mayor's office and board of supervisors and commissioner kopp long-term member of the board of supervisors. you have some confidence that the mayor is not going to look at the salary savings because we haven't used the positions. you have some confidence that the mayor is not going to do that. that is great. probably your confidence is correct. but you have to watch out for the board. because the board, they can't add to anything, but they can cut. and so when particularly they see harvey rose's office and they haven't

used that and you are likely going to have a recommendation from the budget analyst's office that they haven't used it and they will cut it and maybe -- i don't presume, if i am, to be lecturing you on something that you already covered -- you may want to start lobbying the budget analyst, and getting in the ear of the budget analyst for the board in aspect of not snatching away that part of your budget, our budget that has not been spent because oh, well you didn't spend it, you didn't need it -- to me that would be a big concern. i did the budget for the public defender's office for 20 years and these are the things i really had to watch out for. >> i appreciate your wisdom on that and think it's an important note to

underscore. so again, with the policy direction that hopefully we can come out tonight's meeting with, very much making a priority getting in early to these conversations about the budget. demonstrating very clearly what the ongoing need is and the expanding work is that many of the board members are looking for us to provide. so i think there is a good basis to make those arguments you are suggesting. >> you have to get it from budget office because the members of board are dealing on massive stuff and rely on the budget analyst and if the budget analyst says they don't need it, cut it. no matter what the presentation you make, you go with the budget analyst. so you have to have the budget analyst wired on these things or else it's not going to happen. >> commissioner kopp. >> i will just add for informational purposes that the charter

has been changed so that they'll take the mayor's budget, budget analyst for the board will examine it and make recommendations of reductions. the board will effectuate those roductionsreductions and then the board has the legal right under the new and improved charter to add money back to substitute from the reduction from the mayor's and in effect you have two opportunities. the recommendation of course of conferring with the budget analyst is one. but after that you'll have certain champions on the board of

supervisors if something needs to be rectified. >> we expect all the open positions will be filled by the end of the fiscal year? >> yes. >> by when? >> by the end of the fiscal year. >> end of the fiscal year is june 30th. >> yes, the answer was yes, we did expect to have it filled by then and sooner, i believe. >> terrible. >> let me say, i think that the groundwork that ms. pelham and i assisted with the mayor and a number of the supervisors talking about the budget, there was real enthusiasm for what you were presenting and i think what you outlined here, that they will be receptive to.

because i think they were receptive to what we asked for even in the face of the mayor at that point wanting 6% over two years. so i don't think we should be bashful and i think we keep moving forward. i think there is a sense both from the mayor's office and at the board that the commission is much more active, and is much more effective than it was in the past. and i don't know if any of them in the face of our 85% on prop t are going to say we're going to start cutting the ethics commission. so i would go forward in the direction that this memo says.

do you want a motion on that regard? >> i don't know if it's necessary, but if the commission feels inclined, it's welcomed. i leave it up to you. >> you have to do it by february 21st. >> yes. >> any public comment? good evening chair renne and commissioners and executive director pelham, i'm a friend of ethic and just wanted to say friend of ethics strongly supports the commission's framework for the operating budget for the coming year. the new and improved website, which was discussed earlier is a demonstration of funds well-spent. additionally, it has been reported in the media lately that this commission has an enormous backlog. however, those reports failed to mention that that backlog is due in large part to understaffing and inaction of the previous

executive director and his lack of enforcement. the budget requested will be in the long-term, a cost-savings for this city. and this commission and its staff are to be commended on the exemplary jobs that they have been doing to put things on solid footing. thank you all very much. >> thank you. any other public comment? >> larry bush, also with friends of ethics. any career has been spent a lot with elected officials and i have learned that they learned something from position papers, but learn more from anecdotes and just talking to steve massey about the major donors filing on the ethics page. it's a paper filing, because there was no money to make an electronic filing. and if you were to use that as an example, of the kind of things that could be done with this budget and should be done, you would probably

find 11 supervisors who would immediately agree that yes, major developers filing should be electronically filed. so that they are much more readily researched. so a few examples like that, underscore what is in the position papers, but excellent work. thank you. >> thank you. >> david pilpell again. a couple of comment points i will admit i haven't been if that building, but last i recall room 70 was a large conference room and perhaps that can be used for staff meetings. i support the direction that is proposed. i think you do need to take a motion. the charter still requires each commission to have a budget hearing and i think this is it for next year, tonight, right now. so i think a motion of support is in order and i support that. i hope that the staff report

for this item will be posted on the website, and ultimately the budget submission with a summary of the 24 positions, 22 base plus the two. the $500,000 to $800,000 increment and the whole nine yards there and to really support both the current budget and proposed increase in anticipation of commissioner keane's perceptive view is more data on the backlogs in audits and enforcement and that really more than anything, i think, makes the case for funding the existing staff and funding the expansion. so that we're right sized as you have properly used the word. and the more you can get that out there, attach it to the submission to the mayor's office, support that with the budget analyst, be around in june for all of the fun and games, et cetera. that is all to the good.

and just finally, we originally had three now we have four new supervisors. if the staff perhaps with chair renne haven't had the opportunity to sit down with then and explain the history and backlog and talk about the priorities and translation and other stuff floating at the board and the need to fund new programs, et cetera, et cetera is all to the good and hopefully will be as supportive as others have been in past for doing the right thing. >> thank you. >> i have a question, mr. chairman, of ms. blome. why do you -- on page 2, with the graph refer to non-grant funding? >> thank you for the question. this is a term that is kind of a term of art used in the budget document. that essentially means operating stuff. the grant funding as the budget refers