and the needs of the children, youth and families of our city. clearly we're seeing increases of violence amongst the population of lgbtq young people, a sobering 97% of violence and increases of homelessness from 39% six years ago up to 68% in this past year. thank you. >> hi, i'm tracy, a native of san francisco, homeowner and an advocate for the community. my community is under attack and underrepresented in city government and the set-asides make us feel part of san francisco.

this is my city. this is our city. this is a sanctuary city for everyone. in 1994 and please correct me if i'm wrong, i worked on the first children fund campaign, i was a mother of three children under six. i needed childcare to be able to work, i needed after school services to work and provide for my family, so i could stay in college. so i could do a lot of these things that the services that the children fund protects. therefore the next time it was up, i was a mother of four and all of my kids worked on the campaign with me. this last time around i had three of my grand children working on the campaign. we are three generations of family working on the set-aside because we believe in it and benefit from it and we need it. san francisco is a great city. that's why the voters protect children and these services. that's why i'm urging you guys today to sit down and talk with

us. there are leaders in our communities that would sit down and try to come up with reform legislation. but unfortunately we were not invited to the table for this discussion. we're reasonable people and we are also leaders in a different way than you are. i urge you today, i beg you please include us in the conversation and keep san francisco for me, for my family and for everyone who has ever helped pass these legislations. it's like you're almost taking your voice away in what you're doing. >> hi, i'm a [indiscernible] sometimes i don't know what we're doing here. i come here and i see some of you on your phone.

i know you might have some business but what she said was very important. so i just wanted to say i wish you can find different ways in balancing the budget. cutting from social services should be the last, last, last resource. we cannot balance our budget on the fences of the people who need -- people still have very actual and basic needs and we are not covering everything here in the city. and i think that probably it wouldn't be extremely hard to find other ideas for revenue, really. i mean this is a very wealthy, you know, city. so i urge you to really look

into different ways of balancing the budget. thank you. >> good afternoon greg moore representing ace coalition serving the elderly and dignity fund coalition and justice fund coalition. we're representing one in four -- one in five currently san francisco citizens, in 10 years it will be one in four. when we were crafting the dignity fund legislation, i had the experience of learning a lot about set-asides. and appreciate the remarks today, it is a complex situation and understand the huge constraints it places upon supervisors in managing the budget. however i think there's a reason

the set-asides are there as was stated. i would echo one of my colleague's comments earlier that we need to slow this down. we need to discuss this situation. the idea of having unspent funds rolled back into the general fund and not to be possibly used for purposes other than which they're intended frightens me. i run a small nonprofit in the tenderloin serving low income and homeless seniors and with city funding process being what it is, it can take three to six months to get reimbursement. that could mean doors opened or closed for my organization. so, again, i urge you to exercise caution and restraint and open it up to discussion. we are here to help find the best way forward. thank you.

>> good afternoon supervisors with the council of community housing organizations. i think it's important that the city does have 19 separate set-asides. it expresses our city's intentions to prioritize our schools, libraries, the arts, the seniors, the homeless, housing. it is why we are a special city. i want to bring up two particular concerns, one of which i think supervisor tang started to address, which is around the club acts the measures have. as some of you know the housing trust funds and other measures are largely measures that fund capital improvements and those can't be funded year by year but need to be added over time. it sounds like that particular aspect is perhaps being dealt with. our member organizations provide critical services and their

contracts don't go one year to one year. the payment for those services that are done for this city often run from one year to another, those of you who have worked for nonprofits know what it is like to wait for the check from the city to come in. i think it's very important for us to make sure we are not unintentionally affecting things that we don't want to. i want to make a few more general concerns. one is supervisor peskin talked about how many of the measures do not necessarily have revenue attached and some of that gets lost in the history. when we passed the housing trust fund in 2012, many of us worked on the gross receipts business task and part of the agreement with then mayor lee, we would recapture the funds lost from redevelopment in order to fund the housing trust fund, and the way it increases overtime is based on that increase and

revenue. similar with hotel taxes that historically went to serve housing and art uses, the measurement before folks -- >> same would be tree of the street tree maintenance fund by prop w. >> good afternoon supervisors. from the san francisco human services network, the suspension trigger fails to address the real drivers of deficits identified in the joint report, which is primarily city employee, pensions and healthcare costs and wages that are rising over time. in order to cover those it robs funds for vulnerable populations and voter priorities. these are priorities that voters have chosen to prioritize in

good and bad economic times. we should not deprioritize them when the economy goes down and the need is the greatest and it treats all set-asides alike, even those that rise and fall with particular funding sources and where is the provision that says we do not need to add new police officers when the deficit is large. even that set-aside happens regardless of cost. the general fund return is very bad policy and open to a couple of types of abuse, allowing city officials to undermine the priorities to not incumbent funds and allocate funds as the year of the end approaches because it's use it or lose it. and it's unfair to put in a poison pill against a measure that received two thirds of

voter support last time on the ballot. we ask the board to work with the community on real set-aside reforms that fairly looks at all set-asides. they should be proportioned to city revenues and have policy and needs based allocation plans with accountability measures. look at the children's fund as a model. we want to have this conversation. thank you. >> good afternoon supervisors. i'm jacqueline zimmer jones from the dignity and budget justice coalition. i want to reflect on how the proposal would impact our organization and that is that it wasn't until this past fall that a dignity fund rsp became available for us to apply for.

it was sort of a long process between the submittal and time people were alerted they were awarded. we came in 9th out of 22 proposals and the agency funded the top 7. so we were close but we would love to have another opportunity to apply for the funds again and that won't happen until some time next year. i think it's difficult to put a timeline on when an rsp is going to come out from the department. i think they're extremely busy and have their hands full and it's a never can tell when something is going to arrive that we can actually apply for. we have a $50,000 hole in our budget that came up last summer and we have been in fundraising mode since and we have cut people from our programs and there's a need for us to serve even more seniors in the northeast part of town and so we rely on opportunities like the dignity fund to help carry us

through. i'm looking forward to a continued conversation about other opportunities to help the city thrive without taking funding from these necessary human services programs. thank you. >> and maybe it's important through the chair to supervisor tang, to mention that the dignity fund is a model for what we're trying to impose more broadly, that actually does have provisions in it to deal with economic downturns. if all the other charter amendments had that language, that would actually solve a lot of the problem that supervisor tang and i are trying to address in this. just -- >> i do understand that. but it's still nerve-wracking, thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm a district seven resident and here in my capacity today as the policy director of coleman

advocates. i am interested to learn more about the proposed amendments that were just spoken about earlier this afternoon. i appreciate that information supervisor tang and i look forward to continue to review it. i want to underscore this all feels really fast and to try to get something on the june ballot, feels like as folks have mentioned previously, it's a complicated matter with many interests and voices involved. we want to be sure to uplift the voice of community that have put the set-asides as a priority and have been historically underfunded. and we're concerned that right now it seems there's a lack of transparency in the process. the shift in the city's budget process is a concern and we want to make sure we're intentional about any such shift. and the other point i want to make is that budgets represent values and so as many have said, at the risk of sounding

redundant, when we're looking at the shifting landscape on a federal level and shifting demographics, i grew up in san francisco, going to college and coming back and going to law school and coming back, the san francisco i know and love no longer exists and that hurts my heart. i want to make sure we're intension intentional about the ways we're trying to retain what is at the core of the city to support those who need us most, including low income communities of color. thank you. >> hello, i'm representing the budget justice coalition and just cause. this charter amendment would make the process less democratic.

this charter amendment threatens to cut people's safety net. we do not approve of the charter amendment. just cause has a program that builds the leadership of san francisco's black and brown youth. this charter amendment would impact the youth and our future. we serve thousands of residents threatened with eviction, they come into the clinic and learn how to protect themselves and stay in san francisco. this charter amendment will eventually impact these residents. and finally there's a poison pill written in that would kill prop and that's not right. prop s which supports homeless services and arts, this would kill that proposition. so that means the plan is to cut eviction protection and then homeless services. that is not acceptable.

and also, so -- also supervisor peskin, you had said it would be very brave to raise taxes instead of pause set-asides. i would support that bravery. and i would support that bravery from all of you and us. >> good afternoon supervisors. thank you for holding the hearing and having public comment. i'm one of the founders of the transgender cultural district. i'm sure it comes as no surprise that i'm opposed to the legislation. while i understand wanting more flexibility especially during a deficit, i can't understand cutting potential funding that many small community groups and projects rely on and have worked so hard for. it provides for jobs and life

saving services and some of the most vulnerable communities will be disproportionately impacted. it does feel like a bullying tactic. that may not be the intention but that's how it feels to those working hard to serve their communities. i would like to point out for example, art organizations from my perspective are not only doubling their own baseline participating in the ballot efforts but participating in a diverse coalition to increase to underfunded and largely independent organizations that are such an important part of the cultural landscape of san francisco. i think it's imperative, if we are to try to limit the funding made available through the set-aside process, to undo the work of hard working advocates and concerned citizens, we must first identify other sources of funding. if the bill is reformed, with he

need to offer reasonable solutions to a process that has served as one of the only ways that community members and voters can make voices and needs heard and addressed. i hope you will continue to have meaningful conversations before any reform is introduced or voted on. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm kyle, i work for transgender justice project, an organization that supports formerly and currently incarcerated trans people and primarily our base formerly incarcerated and currently impacted black trans women within san francisco. many of them have disabilities, homeless, low income and are elderly. so when it comes to the set-asides. the set-asides have been an opportunity to invest in supporting community members,

especially as the black community in san francisco has been genderfied out of san francisco, where the black community is at 3% and is going to continue decreasing unless we work on supporting our community members. what the charter amendment would do is target a lot of the underfunded and impacted services that are supporting our community members that are life saving and really necessary to be able to thrive within san francisco without really challenging any of the ways in which they're being criminallized. so just policing. i think it's vital for us to be actually investing in our communities while also moving away from investing in opportunities in organizations that are actually criminallizing our community members. i think it would be great if we could work with our community

members to be able to actually be able to create a better budget. thank you. >> thank you supervisors for holding the hearing. i'm here representing compass family services and we serve about 5,000 homeless families living in san francisco each year. we're here with the human services network and a lot of other partners in wanting to voice our concerns. it may not have been the intent as many said but it feels like an attack on nonprofits. we believe the legislation undermines the nonprofit sector in particular that provides a bull work of the service delivery system. particularly in the highest need communities. our sector operates under great stress with inadequate resources, low salaries for staff and long waiting lists. this is the last place we believe we should be looking for to save money, especially during the hardest times.

and the nonprofit sector saves the city money in the long run and undercutting them is short-sided. in addition, we believe this is terrible public policy, flawed. there may be ways to address real budget shortfalls through a more rational process but taking the things prioritized by the people of san francisco because there's no other way to address them makes things worse. it institutionalizes the already existing flaws in the budget process. ask yourself why the finances of the city should rise on eliminating pathways to funding for vulnerable populations before passing this piece of legislation. in the spirit of collaboration, we hope to continue this conversation and not just let it end here.

>> good afternoon supervisors. my name is marsa ryan. in 2016, i have been working with homeless families, homeless pregnant mothers and families for 29 years now and in 2016 when i was called and asked to be the proponent for homeless families on the prop s for ending family homelessness i said yes. historically i don't get into politics, i usually roll up my sleeves and do the work, but i'm tired and more importantly the families are tired. the increase in families is enormous and we as a city are not going upstream enough. we have babies living in cars. toddlers in vans. pregnant mothers on the streets. the set-asides are voted by the

people. they're voted because the people believe it's our responsibility, the city to invest in the most vulnerable communities. over the last 29 years i have seen our safety net erode and family homelessness increase. the idea that if the set-aside was not used at the end of a fiscal year and then had to be returned to the general fund really makes no sense. it means you don't really understand that it takes a long time as mentioned before, for people to get the money. i think we're moving too fast. that's been said, too. i know that conversations have been had with the arts community but nobody has called the homeless family services community. i would love to continue to have this conversation. i beg you to please stop racing forward, let's do the right thing for our families and for

the most vulnerable communities in san francisco. >> thank you next speaker. >> [indiscernible] anyway. i work in coalition of homelessness for many years. i would like to say mr. peskin to hear what i want to say. i know mr. peskin for a while. working with the homeless for 24 years, i know mr. peskin. i would like to hear from him or any of you guys if you have a clear proposal how we want to [indiscernible] the homeless people in san francisco. we have more than 3,000 homeless people in san francisco school district without housing. families are living outside in

the streets. with children. so i work in -- we work with the families and with the different organizations and coalitions to end homelessness. we intend to pass the proposition s last year, but we had difficult -- this year we want to go to and we wanted you guys to support in that. and forget about what you're doing right now. these kind of changes you want to do in the budget, what i see and hear, it's not really called for, the families for homeless people. you guys need to put more emphasis for the families, for the people of san francisco, for homeless people. we need housing, it's a priority. there's a need in san francisco. and we have the money. we know for sure.

we can cut the budget for the police officers and put in the money and housing and any of the homelessness. we can do it but we need to put a little effort together. thank you so much and i would like to -- >> thank you next speaker. >> thank you for having the hearing. i'm molly brown i'm proud to say i cast my ballot and attended the swearing in of supervisor fewer so congratulations. i'm sorry commissioner peskin is not here. i was there in 1990 collecting signatures because we didn't have a supervisor on board. it wasn't until we collected the signatures that then we were very attractive. people jumped on later. a lot of the other set-asides, initially it was through polling

effort that swayed some of the vote of the supervisors. there is a lot of history about how some of these got on the ballot and i think there's a failure to believe in our good government. it's hard to make the hard choices that will help the budget crisis. so as a citizen who has values, i think the set-asides exactly represent our values. i don't believe any voter in the city would have voted for healthcare rights after five years of unemployment. there's a lot of decisions made in the government that citizens don't support and the set-asides are our way of what we do support and i think we should look at big government. i think people would be more willing to have conversations about growth if we're responsive. i would be happy to get paid in three to six months.

i'm happy to get paid nine months later. if the board looks at good government practices and what it took to be a nonprofit in the city and provide the necessary services, they might be willing to make sacrifices that we're not seeing you willing to do on other places. i hope you give it more thought and consideration before you put this on the ballot in june. >> next speaker. yes. >> thank you. hello supervisors. i'm with senior and disability action. i just want to say, i agree that set-asides are not a perfect policy mechanism but the reality is we work within the flawed system we have.

one of the only tools for poor and marginalized communities right now is set-asides to get resources for the services that have been historically underfunded. the dignity fund helps fund among other things for seniors to stay in homes and not be evicted and not displaced and end up far away from san francisco and the communities we know. we're doing a needs assessment for the dignity fund right now. it takes time to figure out how to spend the money in a way that's responsible and best for our communities. the claw back provision would hurt seniors and people with disabilities. we certainly all agree we need a better budget process, one that involves and really hears community members, and meets people's needs and this is not that. please oppose this legislation. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker.

>> good afternoon. i'm going to echo a lot of the sentiments that people have said. i'll keep it short. i'm an organizer, i work with the teachers union at city college of san francisco. aft is a member of the budget justice coalition. our union has concerns about this measure. the $200 million trigger point, we believe whether it's six budget cycles or 20 out of 20 it can insert a new level of instability into the already flawed budget process and regardless of other points and complexities at this time, we don't see it as workable. without knowing what would replace set-asides, we're concerned the measure will leave a gap for the most vulnerable communities including students who need the resources. programs that we have to serve, students like these are already struggling to meet our city and

community member's needs and have long waiting lists. our students often cannot afford to wait any longer. we understand that this is complex and we hope that you can include our community further in solving this. please don't move forward too quickly. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi coalition of homelessness. good afternoon supervisors. we have a huge crisis in particular around homeless families in san francisco. you have seen us come year after year, draw attention to the issue. we've pushed frank jordan. we pushed willy brown, ed lee, london breed. still today we have an average of 111 day wait to get shelter

for families with children in san francisco. 111 days. what has san francisco done in response? well, they created a task force, that's what gavin did, shrunk down the eligibility, instituted an unworkable requirement. that's happened under the current government. we're primarily sending families out of town is what we're doing. we have situations like what happened recently in san francisco because we shrunk down eligibility and turning families away from help, we just had a young mother, very young mother who was forced to double up in a situation with very violent person, she went to try to get shelter, she was turned down, she was told she wasn't a priority because she was doubled up.

and she was killed. sorry this stuff -- we have to go to the ballot. we have to get a set-aside. we don't have a choice. with these situations -- >> can you add a bit of time, please? >> it's really messed up that there is not a collective process on trying to figure out how to address set-aside reform collectively without hurting communities. it's too fast and loose, it's not thoughtful. it's not engaging. there's a lot of ideas out there for set-aside reform that wouldn't hurt people. there's a lot of messed up

things, having a set number of employees without look at effectiveness, you could tie funding to effectiveness of program and having some evaluation measurements. there's a lot of stuff we can do around set-asides but the random caps are not going to work. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon. todd david on behalf of san francisco parent pack. we as an organization have been supportive of the set-asides on the books. they make life a little easier for families in san francisco and children in san francisco. i know that both supervisor tang and peskin know that and they're not questioning the value of what it is the set-asides are providing. i want to talk a bit about a couple of ideas around set-aside reform. one of the things, the $200 million as the trigger, if that's based on today's budget, that's a $10 billion budget,

that's basically 2%. 2% budget deficit of the overall budget. i believe supervisor tang said it was 2 over the past number of years, i would be curious to know what was the total number budget that it was a part of, a $5 billion, $6 billion, you're talking 3.5 or 4% of the budget is $200 million. if there's going to be a conversation around setting a trigger, i would encourage perhaps to switch to a percentage as opposed to a flat rate. we know the budget continues to grow. and i want to say i agree with supervisor peskin to look at new revenue measures to offset some of the set-asides. i think now if we collect signatures and it's a 50% plus one threshold for new revenues, i think there's an opportunity to build coalitions especially

with people in this room, we can protect set-asides by having offsetting revenue measures. i think there's ways to work it out being fiscally responsible and providing the services that we value. i hope to continue the conversation. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hello supervisors. district 11 youth commissioner. i'm here to speak on the legislation. it came as deferred to the full and i voted against the legislation because it touched money set aside for youth, it is much harder duties to look into things that affect youth and being a native of san francisco since i was born, i have lived through things from budget deficits to recessions and i know for a fact it is not a happy thing for a kid to go home and see his parents fight tooth and nail because they can't find a job.

and it was after school programs that kept a lot of us youth sane. my fear is that touching things set aside for youth is going to set in motion another catastrophe that affected my generation during '04 and '08. destroyed our mental health and took away our potential. i am open to discussion at the same time. i believe we need solutions to deficits and recessions. i don't want to go through the same thing i went through when i was younger and i saw my parents fight because there were issues around money. we are all open to discussion, i think everyone in the room is open to discussion and we want a democratic process around this, something we all deserve and i'm sure that none of us want to fight and none of us want to argue. what we want is a better future for san francisco, something we can all agree on and something i

truly look forward to with all of you. and as youth commissioner, i will continue to stand by what i believe in and what i believe is best for my district and the youth within it as that is my charter duties to do. thank you so much and have a great day. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon supervisors and chair safai. i come before you today to sharon behalf of the commission, the position on this piece of legislation, under charter section, the commission is charged with advising the mayor and board on legislative policies and in this case budgets concerning children and youth in san francisco. the commission heard the legislation before you today and after careful and robust deliberation, the commission voted to oppose the legislation. from their discussion, commissioners shared a number of

concerns as a whole but overwhelmingly the concerns were about the programs and services for our children and youth and our most vulnerable communities and they should be protected always. you know, people -- children and youth and people with disabilities and the most vulnerability are usually at the chopping block and that's especially true in years with a budget deficit as we consider the legislation before you today. it came out of the children's fund in 1991 and the commission advocated along side many of the folks who came and spoke in public comment today for the expansion of the children's fund in 2014 to include young people who are under served and so to consider, you know, a cap on the growth and a lot of the growth funds for children and youth fund would go to transitional age youth, it's something commission took to heart.

should the board move forward with the charter amendment today, the commission would recommend first to oppose it, but they would recommend the removal of some funds and set-aside from consideration, the children and youth fund, the children and pay baseline, the public education and enrichment fund and housing trust fund, a full reflection of their comments is in your packets and while i can't speak to the dignity fund, i would note the commission in past has stood in solidarity with seniors and people with disabilities on other issues before the board, such as funds for seniors and such. thank you for your time. thank you. >> thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor yee. >> yeah, i want to thank the public for coming out here and

sharing their opinions. i really appreciate supervisor tang and peskin in their intent to look at these set-asides. and i was supporting the notion of this. there were -- before i walked into the chamber today, there were basically two things i thought i needed to have addressed in the legislation where i could support it. one of them -- i'll state them. one of them being that why are some set-asides on the list and why are some not on the list. and it becomes almost the same discussion, almost redundant to why we have the set-asides because somebody is going to choose priorities over other

priorities. that's why i supported the children's fund and dignity fund because i knew it was difficult to get some of these issues to float closer to the top where it becomes something that can't be chopped off, we don't have enough money this time around. the other issue i was hoping to get addressed would be this 2 million -- the projection and for whatever reason i guess i was hearing it was a real deficit and not just projections and i thought that would be an easy fix. if that's the amount we're looking at, then i think any growth funding that is

associated with any particular set-aside should be put on reserves until the end of the year, where if there wasn't really a deficit -- a lot of times we project a large deficit and it shrinks to the point where i guess we really didn't have to worry. being on a budget committee, i understand why we project more on the conservative side, you don't want to end up with a budget where you can't pay for it. but at the same time, i think it's only fair you don't just put it back in the general funds just because you project it. we can play games with the projection. that was the other thing i wanted to fix. but after listening to today's public comments, all the issues that came up that i wasn't questioning now i'm beginning to

question. i think part of it was -- i think it started with supervisor tang saying there's explanations about the baseline, children's fund, it's different in how we're going to look at it. i want to understand that better. each baseline seems to be a little different yet we're kind of lumping everything into one category. and i think supervisor tang was addressing multi year contracts but i wasn't sure. and the ones with dedicated funds. there's many issues and i -- at this point -- i walked in with two issues and rather than having clarity around that or making amendments around that, there's more questions now where i'm at the point that i can't

support this. >> supervisor tang. >> i'll defer to supervisor fewer before i answer some questions. >> i cannot support this legislation in its current form. i am not opposed to set-aside reform but i think it should include all set-asides, this does not include police and fire, which i think should be included and i think every set-aside should have a sunset date that's not included in the legislation and it should be revenue-driven and have built-in accountability and mechanisms. i'm concerned about the trigger increases in the amount of set-asides is the projected budget deficit and this is not completely scientific and not the best mechanism for a trigger. today i will not be able to support the legislation.

>> i'm happy to defer to supervisor tang. >> you can't vote on it today. i do appreciate the questions, we'll have to continue the item anyhow. but i did want to address and really thank a lot of the members of the public. i wish they were here to hear this dialogue at this moment. but like i said at the beginning, there are so many set-aside provisions we want to make. there are many people who are much smarter who came up with much better ideas, we had to pair it down to these provisions not to cut any of the baselines. we started from probably 10 plus ideas and went down to the two with the least amount of impact. i heard from nonprofits and so forth saying we're going to cut

funding and you're going to hurt critical services. this measure does not cut the funding. we are saying that in the years where there's a projected deficit of $200 million at the point of a joint report. it's not just at the beginning of the year when we're starting off the budget process, it's tagged to the joint report that we would suspend the growth. so the baseline is not touched, it's the growth part that would be frozen. however, i am interested in looking at what supervisor yee was talking about putting it on reserve until the end of the year to figure out if the 200 million deficit -- by law we have to balance the budget every fiscal year, so of course we balance it but there are trade-offs in the conversation but i will look into that idea. there was a question that came up or some concerns around the fact that the city doesn't pay nonprofits fast enough. and multi year contracts and how

does that work. so i don't know if the city attorney's office wants to answer this, but in terms is that my understanding as long as you're in contract -- i'll take dcys as an example, they contract and provide funding with many nonprofits. as long as they're in contract and contracted with organizations and have multi-year contracts they're incumbent. it wouldn't be clawed back unless they voluntarily closed them out, but they're the ones -- the department has the flexibility to figure out if those funds by the nonprofit grantees would be clawed back to the fund. they're the clearest example i

can offer because they provide so many grant funds to nonprofits opposed to capital improvements. if the controller's office wants to share or elaborate further, let me know. >> just to confirm that your description of it is accurate. typically grant or contract once entered into the whole amount in the budget. >> so i hope that eases a lot of the fears i heard during public comment and from supervisor yee in that respect -- >> can you reiterate that again? i want you to reiterate it one more time for the record and everybody. once a budget is submitted, it's -- >> once a grant or contract is agreed, the whole amount is encumbered even if it's going to be paid overtime by monthly a

lotment. >> so for instance, excuse me supervisor tang -- okay. one of the individuals talked about the dignity fund and how there were individual subsidies for seniors and it's done on an annual basis, they're submitting a contract for specific subsidies for a particular provider on an annual basis, that then marks the money as encumbered for the year and happens on an annual basis? >> in general, yes. i don't know a lot about the mechanics of the dignity fund but as a general rule, once the grant or contract is agreed to, the whole amount is encumbered regardless of how it's paid out over time or other circumstances. >> okay, great, thank you. >> thank you for the clarification and question. so, again, i felt like a lot of the concern stemmed from this sort of uncertainty around the payment and so forth and multi

year contracts but really that is not supposed to be impacted because the language in the charter measure says as long as the funds are encumbered or spoken for, they will not have to be returned to the general fund. and even if the nonprofit doesn't spend down the funds by the end of the year, really the department is not obligated to go and return the funds back to the city's general fund. one thing i want to mention with the 19 set-asides that doesn't include fire in here, only police minimum staffing is, the controller's report explored three different types of uniform kind of measures that each should contain that we consider good policy. one is that they should all include an expiration date, a return and suspension trigger. out of the 19 set-asides only the latest rec park one contains

all three of these. i heard from some of the public comment and from supervisor fewer that all should have a sunset date. we thought about the idea and if you look at when the latest would expire it's in 2045/2046. when do we make the sunset date, after that or beforehand. if we do it beforehand, we're cutting and impacting the baselines. if we do it afterwards, we have a major problem on our hands in the future and i'm not going to be here at this point but future boards will and it's convenient for me to leave them with that problem. that's why we didn't put a sunset date in here. it's not because we didn't want to. we don't want to cut the baselines. i agree that all of them should be backed by new revenues and that's the only fact i supported the street tree one because it

was backed by new revenues at that time. i hear the concern around police officers and minimum staffing. i know that's a conversation as a member of the budget committee we do have. when i was staffing budget economy and it was bad economic times we certainly were not hiring police officers and we heard from many colleagues we should have had more officers on the street to do neighborhood policing. that's the conversation we have in the budget process regardless of the charter measure. so, again, we started this process, the controller's office issued the report in april 2017, it was no secret we were looking into it, we're not trying to do this in closed doors. if you have comments, suggestions, questions about how the mechanics of all this works, i really do invite you to contact my office, e-mail me is the best way and i'm very happy to sit down and chat with you to figure out further concerns and

questions. and i wanted to say, i know there are some folks here speaking about homeless services and so forth, although we don't have a baseline that call out homeless services since mayor lee's administration at least, i tried to research this, the city budget for homeless services has nearly doubled to approximately $300 million and in terms of family homeless spending it has been increased since 2011 by 44%. all i have to say is despite not having a specific baseline for it, i know all of us when we have priorities around health and human services, we really do actually support these budget priorities when it comes budget season. so i could say a lot more but i do want to make sure that everyone knows what we have here are very conservative in terms of set-aside reform and it does not cut your existing baseline

whatsoever. with that i'll defer to my co-sponsor supervisor peskin. >> thank you chair safai and supervisor tang to listen to this unpopular piece of important public policy. first of all, i want to thank the people who came to public comment today. i hear a willingness to have this conversation. i agree with supervisor tang that we actually started in what i think is a pretty reasonable place to start that discussion. but look, we're not politically naive. we're going to have to have some level of agreement or acceptance, a, for us to get it on the ballot with this board and b, for us to pass it on the ballot. the services provided for under

the 19 different set-asides are provided by members of the community who we all know and trust and like and we value the services. but -- this is not an easy or fun conversation to have. as supervisor tang said, we don't have to have this conversation, and somebody else will solve this problem. i didn't really enjoy having the conversation particularly as a progressive in the late 2000s, 2007 when -- with municipal labor unions who provide incredible services to the people of san francisco when we had a tough conversation about the fact that vesting in our health service system and retirement was in those days five years, which we elongated to 10. it wasn't an easy conversation to have but ultimately it was the right conversation to have. i want to have the conversation and i want to thank supervisor tang who has done the heavy lifting and hard working and she's right, we started with a

host of ideas, the conversation has to start somewhere. i know even though in supervisor tang, in my mind, we have been having the conversation for over a year and yes, we've had public hearings and the controller came and showed us all the scary graphs and what have you, but at some point the conversation has to happen somewhere. so that conversation is starting today and i genuinely hope that we're able to sit down and struggle through it in the same way that 10 or 11 years ago we had to do that with the service employees international union and 50 other units of labor in order to come to an easy peace about vesting in our health and retirement. so with that, i really want to thank supervisor tang and her staff for their bravery and policy work. and i hope colleagues on the panel you'll at least adopt the amendments that are before you today so we can continue to have this conversation. >> any other members of the

committee wish to comment on the item? okay. great. so can we have a motion to accept the amendments and then we'll continue the item to the next meeting on the 24th. is that what you all are looking for? supervisor tang? >> i don't know if you're planning to schedule a special meeting -- >> next week is kind of a special meeting. >> whenever the next meeting is. >> the 24th. >> and the amendments for return to the general fund, in addition to encumbered the funds and identified what you're going to spend it for, if it's for capital, you will not return it to the general fund it eliminates for the children's baselines and it specifies how the controller's office calculates how much of the budget that would be returned to the baseline in proportion to

what they received from the baseline. >> great. i make a motion to adopt the amendments. >> without objection those amendments are adopted -- deputy city attorney john gibbner. >> just to clarify one additional amendment in the draft circulated to you, section 16.106 with the charter with a bunch of departments that the board is required to fund every year, funding of services but not a particular amount, not a property base tax set-aside. not a baseline. they were originally included in the charter amendment and the amendments proposed by supervisor tang will remove them from the charter amendment. that's the war memorial, fine arts, and academy of sciences. >> great. so -- that's jus