medics on the apparatus to respond to our normal calls. so if we didn't have the staff to respond or to volunteer to do the bike medic program on over time, then we didn't have enough staff. >> so were you only taking medics for the bike medic program from the airport and not from the larger pool of medics? >> right. >> don't they know how to ride a bike? >> it's not that they didn't know how to ride a bike; that we just can't transfer members from the city to be a bike medic at the airport. >> okay. okay. chief gonzalez? >> i was just here for support. that's all. >> oh. >> chief ali is absolutely correct. it's not just staffing at the airport, it's staffing up here. and down there -- they have different accreditation as in

san mateo as opposed to up here, accreditation for ems. as well as with the over time down there, they did have atrition with employees, but they get capped out. so if we capped them out on over time on the medic rig as well as on the bike, their time would be capped out sooner, and we'd have no one to work the shifts on the rescue rigs, so it was a staffing issue not just down there, up here, as well. that's why we came up with this new model. it's going to take, i'd say, a couple months to implement. >> is there any way the airport can be helpful in this regard. >> it comes from up here, so it is he aa matter of having enough staffing on the medics and the rescue rigs. if we have more personnel on top of that, we use them for the bike medic program on that. >> the funding comes from the airport for that. >> that's why i was asking.

i know the funding comes from the airport, but what you're saying is if the pool to draw from is small, there aren't enough people to send. >> correct. >> okay. we've had a few classes -- we've had a few classes graduate, haven't we, just this past 18 months or so? >> two classes of h-2's with 18 level 3's? >> yes. >> they're still up here. we want to keep our als engines to a certain level, as well. >> and that is due to atrition, as well. >> yes, atrition and retirement, as well as h-2 level 3's have to volunteer to go down there. that's not sending -- that's another thing. we had them up here. we're not sending them against

their will down there, but we do have h-3 level 2's that are willing to go there. the order has been out two days, and i've got a stack ready to go to the airport. >> so you're hopeful? >> i'm confident. >> oh, already. >> good questions, commissioner. >> thank you, chief gonzales. oh, let's see. chief ali, is there something you wanted to add? >> no. i just wanted to make sure i answered all the questions you needed. >> for the moment, thank you. >> okay. >> okay. let's see...mr. corso there was one other thing. so on this sheet, again. >> yes. >> these are based on basically

add-backs, are they not? >> they are items that have been determined to be additional needs for the department currently not incorporated into the budget. this is the sheet from last year that's kind of a working point for the budget committee now, so we're revising this, but this is similar in line to what has been done in the past as far as previous needs assessment and items that have been identified as priorities for funding. >> and you sit on the budget committee? >> correct. >> okay. who else is on the budget committee? >> president cleaveland and vice president nakajo. >> you meant the department's budget committee. >> yes. >> okay. thank you. and the overall budget committee? >> the board of supervisors committee? that budget and finance. >> i thought there was another -- i know there's a budget committee for the board, but i thought there was another budget committee that worked -- that worked together -- i

thought it was headed by the budget analysts. >> so they are essentially the board's representation, and they work after the mayor's office has submitted their budget. enthuse analyze the budget and work with departments and that's where the budget negotiations and budget hearings come into play. we work very closely with the mayor's budget office over the next few months until the mayor's submittal and then there's the controller's budget office that handles more of the technical side of the process, but also termly with the fire department committee, and then, in past years, we've worked with the mayor's budget office as well. >> and getting back to the grant writers, how do we get the grant writer's position into this budget? >> so in line with -- i mean, outside of a -- an additional request as part of our overall list of items with the

instruction of no new positions, we'll look at if there's potentially a current existing position that can fulfill some of those duties, but just in general overall we don't have a very large civilian workforce to do a reclassification to that, unfortunately, but we'll be working -- i imagine it will come up as a priority during the budget committee process, and we'll be communicating that as we have in the past with the mayor's office. >> okay. all right. thank you very much. thank you, mr. president. -- oh, i'm sorry. the chief has -- >> thank you, commissioner covington. chief hayes-white? >> thank you, president cleaveland. thank you, commissioner white. >> mr. corso, just related to the $262 million deficit, it does seem counter intuitive to us, as well, and when we went through the budget instruction meeting, some of the items and mr. corso touched on it, but the total projected expenditure

growth is 1.1 billion with salaries and benefited driven by inflation on wages, pension and health cost increases. citywide operating expenses, 42% of this growth is inflation on nonpersonnel and grants to nonprofits. and i believe they said -- >> i'm sorry, could you repeat that again. >> sure. 42% of the city's operating costs is inflation on nonpersonnel and nongrants to nonprofits. and i can provide you with this presentation. >> thank you. >> mm-hmm. and another thing, and correct me if i am wrong, mark, this city has more -- it's not an editorial comment, but the city has more set asides in their general fund budget than the entire state, so that impacts us quite a bit. so for baselines and set asides, mta and the children's fund makeup 76% of the growth. and for departmental costs, 65%

of the growth is related to -- it's the ihsf, shift from the state so over the course of the next few years, the city is picking up -- there's a cost shift in in-home support services so that folks that can stay in their home with some support are able to, but that cost used to be covered by the state. it's being shifted to cities, so that's some of the reasoning, because i had the same question as you regarding the deficit, when things economically look very well for the city. but those are some of the challenges that they articulated, and i just wanted to highlight that. >> great, and the in-home services account for how much? >> 65% of the growth is related to ihss cost shift from the state, so it's nearly $80 million projected from the state over the next four years that the city will have to now cover the cost of.

>> and we are an ageing population. we are the oldest city in terms of ageing population in the country. >> don't look at me. >> well, now that you mention that, what are you doing about that? we have the lowest percentage of people under the age of 18 of any major city in the country. so this is very frightening, actually, because every day all of us are ageing. >> i'm feeling it more and more myself, so yeah. >> will witell, i really appre with your breakdown of all of that. >> i can provide you with the presentation. >> okay. >> i'll give it to the commission secretary. >> that would be helpful, but it's times like this when your accounting degree is very evident and helpful. all right. thank you, mr. president.

>> thank you, commissioner covington. vice president nakajo, you had a follow-up question -- or questions? >> thank you very much, mr. president. not so much a question as a comment. so as you can see with director corso's presentation and with the analysis in terms of increased services and demand both by incidents and by medical and all of the discussions, which is a good discussion, and the identification of a grants writers, all of that is a discussion on trying to find out revenue sources. there are a lot of things in this department as a commissioner that we want to fund, and part of that is what we can put together, and part of it is the department and filling its needs. and my comments are all over the place in terms of needs.

and at some point, projections in terms of needs, we're realistic, as well. i just want the audience to know that we as the commission as well as the department take this budget process very seriou serious but it's a -- very hard and very much of a challenge to try to identify revenue sources. i don't want anybody out there to think if there's a line that determines the needs of san franciscans, like awfs, it's not that the department is not trying to respond to it. we are, and the need is out there, and we understand that. but evening in terms of the definition, like the awsf that we used to have jurisdiction. there is now jurisdiction within puc. there might be some discussion as to what other area, but we, the department with that, as an example, are limited, i'm going

to say, by our budget, and ticket item that ticket item is going to be a large ticket item. we've got to come out with some other plans or innovations and relationships, and some of them along the lines to address these needs. i'm not sure if we the san francisco fire department and our budget can meet those needs that are out there that need certain kinds of -- to be addressed. i know it's just a generic statement, but my point is, we hear you, and we hear everybody in terms of what the need is departmentally, as well. the hard work is trying to find out where the revenue sources is, so i'm going to get off of my box right now and conclude at this. thank you very much, director corso. >> thank you, mr. vice president. i appreciate you getting on your soap box. i think it was well stated. mr. corso, thank you for your presentation. i had a couple of questions.

dealing with fire presentation, $18 million scheduled for '18-'19. is that offset by fees? how much of that 18 million is actually offset by income? >> the majority of it. the vast majority of it is. there's portions like school inspections and things like that where we don't charge and we can't charge, so there are some costs as well as some administrative costs we absorb, but in general, the fees recover the costs of providing those services. >> so you'd guesstimate maybe 17 million come in and 18 million -- and eight go out? >> yeah, i would say close to that, if not more than 17. >> okay. just guessing. on the classes, you say you have two of them scheduled this year. do we have two cadet classes in '19. >> correct, calendar year. >> calendar year.

i wanted to be sure on that. paragra in the budget for neighborhood response teams, are all of the budget just to continue the existing programs or are we going to expand the programs to some neighborhoods that are not currently served. >> currently it exists of the nrt coordinator position as well as some members that teach, over time obviously because it's outside of the hours that they normally work, and some miscellaneous materials in general. that's been consistent over the past few years. a number of items in the additional enhancement requests for either personnel to assist with administering the program or other materials and supplies requests are incorporated into the enhancement list, and that would be above and beyond what's being -- >> so any growth in the nrt program would happen through the add-back process. >> yeah, our during the mayor's phase of the budget, if they so

close. >> -- chose. >> during the transfers, we had about 1.6 million in transfers, and i didn't under that. was that in dbi just from the fire department. >> so the general fund operating line item? >> yes. >> in general, that's a -- we do have a few different types of transfers. there's -- there's some transfers you'll see on page four of that budget document that detail the $398,819 transfer. some of those agreements are agreements we have for providing services, so those are federal government transfers into our budget that cover us for providing services. there are additional transfers that are more technical in nature. we've received those and allocated them to equipment funds, so a portion of the

equipment needs are met directly thr directly through revenues. for fire prevention, that's mainly facility ork at the old 21 station where we recently staffed and reassigned some fire prevention personnel, and then, also for their vehicle replacement program. and on the ems side it's for funding ambulances, defibrillators and some higher equipment ticket items. >> on the next -- on dealing with your ems equipment replacement, you had that broken-down into three different figures, and i wonder what was the breakdown on that and why are they different? were are they not all one ems equipment replacement figure? >> they are all the same project, so to speak, it's based on expenses. for ambulances and

defibrillators, it's equipment supplies, and then, we have preventative main nances on our defibrillators, that's a separate classification. >> so that $1 million figure is really for defibrillators? >> yes, and ambulances. the old style that we have for our fleet it's approximately 170,000, and as you know we're currently piloting the new project for the smaller ambulances, and they are, i believe, i want to say 90,000 or so, maybe approximately 100,000. >> fully outfitted? >> yes, but the two models we have are not completely outfitted. they're more test cases that we're currently reviewing, but they would be -- if we went forward with them, they would be significantly cheaper than the current models we use. >> so with 1,137,000, we can

probably get ten ambulances out of that, correct. >> yes. the budget is with the older style, which would be 15 ambulances and 15 defibrillators. obviously, that would change if we went with the new style and were able to purchase new units. >> i also notice on the figures on the ambulance billings, that we billed out 135,190,000, but we didn't collect 31 million, so we last about 6 million. is that correct? is that how much we lose every time we send -- in terms of cost to the city, every time we send an ambulance out. >> so in general, those two lines represent two things: one, the positive line, the $135 million line, that represents essentially 100% of all the billings that we

generate for that year. and that 106 million represents the adjustments, write offs, things -- contractual adjustments, for example, medi-cal, medicare, patients that just don't pay, all those old outstanding accounts receivable, all that's written off through the course of the year. so the net of those two, which is about 27, 28 million, is the net revenue that we project. and that based on the insurance demographics and the demographics of our patients, there is a lot of writeoffs. >> so only a few patients ever really pay? >> well, in a lot of cases, we get a lot of payments. for example, medi-cal pays about $150 for a ride, so there's quite a bit of contractual adjustments on that line. >> under the salaried nonpersonnel services line item, you had a professional and specialized services budget. is that where we have our -- and that's 361,000. is that where we have our

planner with our pio, our public information officer? where do they fall? >> could you highlight exactly where you're looking at. >> labor, nonlabor, under page 11 of the budget report you presented and you provided to us earlier. >> so this is the administration's budget, and the nonpersonnel of the -- professional and specialized services budget. >> so this is not for salaries, this is for essentially contractual services so this item covers the contractual check, new hires for department services, as well as sometimes you'll see the software licenses fees. that's kind of the technical categorization in the budget. >> okay. good enough. you can see i went through this thing. >> yep.

let >> let's see if i had anything else. we put scheduled over time for $6 million. is that a usual amount, $6 million for scheduled over time? is that -- i see that kind of 6 million across the board for the next several budget cycles. is that about average, $6 million in budgeted over time? >> in general -- no, that -- i'm not sure what line you're referring to. i think -- >> on 19, page, 01, salaries, over time, scheduled, miscellaneous. >> so that refers to the airport specifically, and that is strictly -- that has been pretty consistent. it fluctuates with staffing levels there, but that in general hasn't fluctuated overall. department wide, i believe we're about approximately 32 or $35 million, and that has decreased over the past few years as we've decreased and gained a net staffing overall with all the academies that we have coming in.

>> one time, i think we were over the 40 million range. >> yes. >> so it'll be about 40 million in budgeted over time department wide in this up coming budget? >> no. i think the chief mentioned a few years ago when we were relatively low staffed compared to previous years, we had high levels of over time, over 40 million in the general fund, and generally, we've reduced that as we've had more personnel come? we've seen our salary costs go up but our over time costs go down. >> so what is our scheduled over time costs for this budget cycle? >> so as approved last year as part of a two year budget the second year, our over time for

our general fund is approximately 31.2 million. that's general fupd. so y -- fund. then, you have the airport on top of that, but that's mainly front line and general stations. >> thank you, mr. corso. i see no further questions from the commissioners. we'll continue our discussion at the committee meeting with additional staff on friday morning and we'll be reporting back to the commission at the next meeting. >> yep. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> madam secretary, would you call the next item. >> clerk: item five, chief of department's report, report from chief of department joanne hayes-white since the current fire department meeting on january 18, 2018 including academies, special communications and outreach to other government agencies and

the public, and report from administration, deputy chief jeanine nicholson on the fleet and if a facility, -- facility, status within the department, training and department. >> good evening, chief. >> good even, president and commissioners. this report captures activities since our last meeting on january 10th. as it relates to the budget. you just received quite a report from mr. corso. i did want to being acknowledge that we just completed the second year of this fiscal budget, and we are on track with our revenues and expenditures. regarding the academies, the 123rd class is in their 18th week. we will have a graduation on thursday evening, which is a change from our regular friday morning. it'll be thursday evening from reardon high school, and letters will be going out with further detail to everyone this

week. we do anticipate 124th class academy coming in on march 26th. it'll be comprised of 52 recruits, 42 recruits off the nth dpsh 2 list and 12 coming from station 49 emt's and paramedics. those -- the class is yet to be finalized, and members have not yet been selected, but we are in process. we are also happy to let you know that we've hired 36 h-3 level one emt's that will be starting at the end of this month, next week, on january 29th, and we welcome them into the department. we also are intending this week to announce some permanent promotions as well as some acting provisions in the rampg of h-22 fire prevention, h-24 in the bureau of fire investigation and lieutenant as well as some acting and permanent h-30 captains and

acting and h-40 acting chiefs. so that's always a nice call to make to the members that are getting promotored. since our last meeting, we've been very much involved -- when i say, it is a team effort in assistant deputy chief tony rivera, james tony reedy, and jeanine nicholson. i believe we've had four or five meetings regarding the auxiliarized water supply system, especially when it comes to establishing increased redone d redundancy for fire suppression in various districts. we have final sign off on anything related to fire suppression for the san francisco fire department, and i'd like to acknowledge director harland kelley and his

staff for that healthy relationship and partnership. so we met with the public utilities commission on the 10th, and the past forward basically is that there had been some concern about not having adequate fire suppression out in the sunset richmond districts, and through our collective work, we -- there was a report that analyzed more than a do say options for improved or increased fire suppression for the sunset and richmond districts. it was analyzed both by puc engineers as well as deputy assistant chief rivera and captain reedy, and it was a side by side review. there was a third party review done by charles hawthorne who's an expert in the field. and collectively, we came up and agreed with the option of the third part repoy report ou

all these options. it will be part of the continuation of the easter bonds, the emergency safety earthquake response bond is 2010, 2014, and we're hoping for another bond in the 2020 range. we have worked very collaboratively with puc, on those bonds, there's been over 40 water projects been completed, including additional cisterns, and upgraded to our pump stations, and one of our two pump stations is at our headquarters at second and townsend. we were pleased we came to this conclusion on the 10th, and moving forward we had subsequent meeting with the two district supervisors, district one supervisor sandra fewer, and district -- representing the richmond district, and

katey tang representing the sunset district. both of them were very pleased with the proposal that we will use going forward. we met with them languast weekd then just this week on monday, we went before capital planning and one of the puc staff members presented the plan, which we will again provide you a copy of. it seemed to be very well received by the community members present as well as the members on the capital planning committee. next step, there's a director harland kelley and i on february 7th will be going before the government audits and oversight committee to present this plan, so we feel very confident in moving forward with this project in which there's already $40 million identified in puc money to move this project forward. so more to follow on that. and i do recommend sort of maybe an invitation to the puc

who has worked with us on this in conjunction with deputy chief rivera who's put in a lot of time on this to come and explain this. it's very technical, but the powerpoint has been kind of boiled down to be pretty -- pretty user friendly from a layperson's standpoint. but the bottom line is we feel very good about added protection from a fire suppression standpoint in the sunset and richmond districts with this plan moving forward. many of us, including president cleaveland on january 15th participated in the martin luther king march from the caltrain station to yerba buena guards, so thank you for marching to us, and some of the members of the audience came with us, as well, so thank you very much. the deputies and i as well as assistant deputy chief rivera attended the labor manager meeting which is monthly with

local 798 executive board. it's always a fairly productive exchange of ideas and topics, so we've been good of keeping that on a regular basis with local 798. on the 17th, and i know chief nicholson might highlight this in some of her reports, some of items that i'm mentioning, but we did met with the nrt advisory board on the 17th. we try to do that on a quarterly basis, and that was with assistant chief jeff columbini. this is the civilian nrt advisory board, and that's also a very productive exchange. the categories for us sort of all the work and the class that have been attended in the 2017 year and just different ideas for moving forward and making sure that that program, which

is very vital, ai know, and al of you would agree, continues to have a robust attendance. and i think after having the january earthquake, we saw a bump up in interest. we did see an increase in the interest of those wanting to attend. on monday this week, i went out to the department of human resources testing center, where the h-20 lieutenant's exam is being evaluated and rated. dhr does a very good job in making sure it's a comprehensive evaluation process. they brought in approximately 36 members from throughout the country with fire suppression experience at the rank of captain and above to evaluate the close to 250 members of our department that took part in this opportunity.

they're doing a lot of work in assisting us in getting that list published and adopted by the department of human resources. once that list is adopted, i anticipate we will move very quickly to promote some new lieutenants, probably between 16 and 20 openings on day one. that's also a positive thing in moving forward and having regular examinations. and yesterday, the deputies and i interviewed members for the homeland security assistant deputy chief position. we had 23 members apply, and we selected six to interview, so probably by the end of this month we'll have made our selection on that. last night, number of us responded to the third alarm fire on westportal avenue. it was a challenging fire. i'd like to acknowledge two different two today -- the incident commander for that fire was assistant chief nicole

girodivac. she did a good job managing that fire. couple of them connected just by a partition wall sharing a common attic, so it was challenging. we always like commissioner hardeman come out, stand across the street, smoke a cigar, and evaluate us. thank you for being there, both in our neighborhood. i comes to so many, they might think he has something to do with starting the fire. we had a number of reserves that came to the fire. i know you'll attest to the crew's worked hard, and the bottom line, which is great news, is there was no injuries. there were four businesses impacted. one is a vacant building that looked like it was under renovation to become occupied, and the other three are businesses that will be out of business for a little while. went back this morning to check on some of the damage in the light of day and talk to the

business owners, and then was very pleased that about noontime, new mayor farrell joined me back out in we west portal to meet with the merchants and see what ecodohed do to assist. i also attended this morning a quickly queened meeting with our new mayor, a-- convened me with our new mayor. this friday, we have a steel completion ceremony. they used to call it a topping off ceremony, but know they're calling it a steel completion ceremony. as you know, the units that normally reside there have been redistributed throughout the

nearby stations. and then, i already mentioned that on monday, the h-3 level one academy will be starting, so that concludes my report. happy to answer any questions. >> thank you, chief. is there any public comment on the chief's report? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners, any questions for the chief? commissioner hardeman? >> thank you, mr. president. yeah, that fire last night in pe westportal was put out really quick. got it out promptly, and people were climbing around that roof, making sure there were no hot spots, and the owner of the one business, the el toreador, that we both talked to, he was quite

concerned. he was worried that his business wasn't going to get hit, too. so it was great performance by the fire department. and i didn't try to bother anybody. i tried to stay on the other side of the street. maybe the best i've been about not bothering people. then, i went home -- well, the chief -- again, i always like to compliment her on her extracurricular activities. so she's ready to go home. it's early in the morning now, and she had just went to the warriors game. we didn't know the other went, but we just saw each other. she was ready to go home, as was i, and a couple that live a few hundred yards way, i saw them. i introduced them, and the chief stood there probably 15,

20 minutes talking to them. they were talking about everything under the sun but -- with the chief, mainly about what's going on in the city and just a variety of things, but that's just how she is. she's on her own time now. she's ready to go home, and she did stick around because she was so kind. she left when they left -- oh, and they thought the world of you, so that was very kind of you to do that. then, i went home and turned on the tv, watched some of the rerun of the warrior game. about 2:00 went to 26, and what was coming on? the mayor's appointment calendar on the board of supervisors. so i happened to watch that whole process of mark farrell, and i'm going to be very careful about how i say this, but you know, our job as commissioners is to worry about this commission.

and firefighters, employees of the fire department, the citizens of san francisco as related to the fire department and all the services it provides. so i'll just say, not trying to say anything bad about anybody else or promoting anybody's -- because mark farrell's not running for mayor or running for office. i think the san francisco fire department has a person that is going to be leading the city for the next 4.5 months that has a very good understanding of the fire department, and i think we're lucky to have somebody, i think will be supportive of this department. so that's all i want to say, and i don't want to offend anybody else that didn't get appointed. but i think -- and i think how the board of supervisors made their decision and how he's stepped down from his job as a supervisor, knowing that doing both at the same time would be too -- very difficult,

especially now adays. not like it was when dianne feinstein took over. things were a lot different in 1978. so any way, that was it, and congratulations to our new successor mayor, or temporary mayor, intermayor -- to mark farrell, so that was it. >> thank you, commissioner hardeman. commissioner veronese? >> chief, quick question. two or three nights ago, we received a text message in the middle of the night about an earthquake off the state of alaska. that happened, an 8.0 earthquake, i think was a pretty big one, and then several small ones, i think in the last couple of days locally. i just think it goes to show how important it is -- of course what happened up in the napa and sonoma fires, and the special warning systems, and

the warning they got out in hawaii last week that must have been absolutely terrifying. so the tsunami warning that was after the earthquake warning didn't actually happen, so i'm wondering -- i didn't actually receive it until 7:20, saying the tsunami was coming at 6:20, so i would have been underwater. >> i'm not sure i'd know what to do if i'd received that text message, and i know a lot of people probably feel the same way. i think as a fire department, we have somewhat of an obligation -- i know it's not just us, but it's des and fire, but we have the obligation to give the citizens that information. because as a fire commissioner, i didn't know what to do. had i gotten that information, i don't know what i would have

done. so that being said, we have an obligation, i think in some fashion, we need to fill full that obligation. whether it's to get with dem and put out the words since they're probably running the show on that issue. but we should be communicating that, i think, you know, with every meeting or with -- somehow, we should be communicating that. and i don't know if that translates to our nrt programs, with our information. they would be involved in some type of response, i guess, depending on the type of incident it was. i'm just saying, i'm not prepared for this type of thing, so i'm projecting that people out there aren't prepared either, and so we should do something about that. i don't know how big or small it should be, but we should definitely be doing something about that. >> i think that would be a natural segue into the presentation that the commission had on the early warning system, that that is a sub set of that whole presentation. i think that would be a good

point to raise, and we will continue to work with the department of emergency management who is the lead agency on that. >> all right. thanks chief. >> thank you, commissioner veronese, and thank you, chief, for your report. chief nicholson. >> and president as chief nicholson approaches, i did want to thank commissioner hardeman's kind words. it's what we do when we go out in the middle of the night. the command staff, as you know, we work long hours, both chief gonzales and chief nicholson checked in with me. we work as a team. they were ready to roll with this fire, and i was actually the one that said no need, but i would like to acknowledge chief dicozio who was thereafter hours, making sure the inspections were up to date and the investigation was under a. chief columbini, who was our safety officer, which is a very important role, and we had from

north beach, assistant deputy chief rivera, so we physical ve felt -- felt very well managed under the chief. this is a huge learning curve, and i appreciate the hard work. >> thank you very much, chief. >> welcome to your first commission report. >> thank you very much. the virgin tour, as we shall call it. deputy chief of administration jeanine nicholson. so i'm going to start the report tonight with -- we'll talk about the assignment office first. the station 49 vacancy bid was completed last week. the assignment office made a really good faith effort and worked collaboratively with the union and the shop stewards to

come up with a workable schedule that would meet both operational needs as well as allow for some employee scheduling flexiblity. this schedule will be reevaluated in may to ensure that we are indeed meeting all of those operational demands. the station 49 bidding process will be complete on the 31st, but the vacancy part are complete. moving onto the physicians office, they completed 45 hp-level one which is the up coming class that starts on monday. we have 36 e mt's starting. the physicians office also continued with promotional physicals and continued evaluation. in terms of injuries reported, there were 37 reports. only 14 of those actually lost

any time to injury or illness. investigative services bureau, captain michael smith conducted # 5 random alcohol and drug tests. all were negative, and he has completed over 150 background investigations on the h-2 candidates, and as the chief mentioned, we will be having a class starting at the end of march. i'd like to mention tonight the stress unit. i really believe that the stress unit is a very valuable asset to our fire department. i'm not sure if you all have met john christie, but he is going to be retiring in may, and so we are working on a successtion plan right now. so we are going to have a new member who has already been selected shadow john christie for two months so he is able to hit the ground running. i'm also meeting with john christie, that new member, and

dan mazzaretta on -- tomorrow afternoon, actually, and we're meeting with a vendor who's going to be conducting a critical incident stress debriefing class for us. it's a four-day class, and we're going to be getting many of our members trained so that they can do critical incident stress debriefing and management so that our stress unit can actually take care of more one-on-one things that really demands a lot of their time right now. so i am working on that. homeland security, as the chief says, is currently vacant, but when that chief does come to work, they will also hit the ground running. i have a pile of things for them ready to go, and the command staff does continue to chief updates on any potential terrorist or suspicious activities. also in my first couple of weeks, i met with lieutenant george caruani who is serving

at nicric. who are those of you who don't know what that is, it's the northern california regional intelligence center. he is one of ours, but he is on loan to them, so he updates us, as well, with any terrorist -- potential terrorist or suspicious activities. turning to training, i was able to go out and visit our treasure island facility last week. chief columbini took me out there, and i met with the entire staff, as well as with the recruits, and as you probably already know, the staff out there, ems, inservice, and the training staff are just very dedicated and work so hard to ensure that people are well prepared -- that we're all prepared to do our jobs. the chief stated the 123rd academy is in their 18th week right now. what they're doing is apparatus and pump operations, so they're

learning that, i believe this week and next week. so how to operate the pump, how to give water, get water at a fire, how to troubleshoot, what our standard operating procedures are. the graduation is february 8th, reardon high school, 6:00 p.m. the chief already spoke with the h-3, l-1 ambulance emt class. it is a six-week class, two weeks in the classroom, four weeks in the field. the fire reserves, which is also under training, they put in 250 volunteer hours primarily with local 798 and 62 drill or training hours. also, the d.o.t. this week, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday, have allotted space for the san francisco firefighter's cancer prevention foundation to conduct urinary tract and bladder cancer

screening. and i know the first day yesterday, we had over 250 people show up, active and retired, and the airport is conducting over 100, i believe, as well, and i don't know how many showed up today, but it's also available tomorrow from 9:00 to noon at the division of training, 19th and folsom. back to nrt, i spoke with captain erica ardiceros today, and just so you know, our new mayor's parents were original nrt volunteers. i said work it, erica, work it. and we did meet with the advisory board, and we are working with captain ardiceros not just on recruiting but retention, as well. in the event of a disaster, we're going to be needing our nrt people.

our support services projects, i'll just mention a couple of them to you. our training facility, so we do have the document that delineates what it is we need in our training if a ilt is, dpw and i know chief columbini and chief rivera worked together to finalize that document, and now work is being done to find a place to put this training center. so i believe old macateer high school is out, pier 96 is out. the cow palace is still a possibility. assistant deputy chief rivera and deputy scanlan have met with john updike, not the

author, the john updike from the department of real estate. they've met numerous times in order to facilitate finding a location for our training facility because tida has told us we're unable to stay on treasure island. station five, the chief said will be friday at 9:00 a.m. will be the steel completion ceremony. final completion is set for october 30th of this year. so they'll be able to have trick or treaters on the 31st, it sounds like, mark, so let them know, chief. all right. station 16, substantial completion, i don't know if any of you have been by there lately. they've really ratcheted it up. substantial completion july 16th of this year and final cleegs september 11completion 11st of this year. we're currently working on a design with many different

parties including the sf planning department, army corps of engineers. mainly, the requests, what chief rivera has told me from all of these departments have mostly been aesthetic and not functional, so that is moving forward. the adf, ambulance deployment facility, station 49, is 100% complete. the formal presentation by dpw to the fire commission, is that on schedule for the 14th, i believe, so february 14th, you'll be getting that presentation from dpw, and it's been a really transparpt process. a lot of different parties have been involved and have been able to have input from local had 48, station 49 members, command staff. and then finally, the awsf. i know the chief spoke about it a bit, but it is moving forward. i have been to probably more meetings on awsf than anything

else in the last three weeks that i've been here, and we are working diligently with the puc and if that plan that we have chosen gets approved, we will be able to move forward almost -- very quickly with construction because of those funds that -- that the puc has. so i thank you for your time, and look forward to any questions. they better be easy on the first night. that's all i've got to say, all right? no threats, just, you know, suggestion. so -- but thank you for your time. >> thank you, chief, but don't count on the easy questions. commissioner veronese? >> seriously, this is -- i think we -- you were introduced to the commission almost a month ago, so the questions, here they come -- no, this is an easy one. i want to thank you for your emphasis on the stress unit. that was the softball from me, but you know how important that

issue is to me and to many people in fact department that donthat -- in the department that don't want to talk about that particular item. so thank you. i know that john's going to be retiring. he's going to be a huge loss to the department. i want to know what kind of the minimum standards, the threshold that the department is looking to setup in john's absence or actually even while john is there. this class that you discussed with me is intriguing. it's a great idea. i think the more people we can get out there trained, that will be less stress on the stress unit. i'm curious as to your thoughts of the name of the unit. not a huge fan of the unit. i love the name peer support unit, so it would be interesting to get the feedback of changing the name. calling it a stress unit, it doesn't really capture what the unit actually does. so i'd love to hear the

department's thoughts on renaming the stress unit the peer support unit or in other name that more better describes what it does, the porps of what it does. but thank you again for your efforts. congratulations on the appointment again, and i know there's a lot of hard work ahead for you, so we're here to support you. >> thank you very much, and the stress unit is super important to me and whatever we may call it in the future, whether it's the stress unit or something else, it is -- it's extremely valuable, and i think just with this cisd class, just getting people more aware, even if it's, you know, 20 or 40 people, however many we train, will help to change the culture of the fire service in terms of people being willing to go get help. so -- but thank you for your comment. >> great. thank you. >> chief nicholson, thank you for your inaugural report. appreciate it very much.

one question, on the awsf, can you at some future date give us a more detailed description of what's being done immediately of -- outside of the 2020 bond that we will have some major improvements to the awss, but i'd like to have a little more detail, certainly for the public's benefit as to just what's being done to protect our neighborhoods in the south and the western parts of the city, so that would be a good thing to do -- in more detail, what we currently are budgeting, what we actually are doing now. so that would be good to have in the future, if you don't mind. >> you bet. >> seeing no other questions, thank you for your report. >> thank you very much. >> is there any public comment on chief nicholson's report? seeing none, public comment is closed. madam secretary, next item. >> item six, commission report. report on commission activities since last meeting on january 10th, 2018.

is there any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners, anything to report? commissioner covington? >> thank you, mr. president. i think it was at our last meeting that i requested -- if it was, you know, possible to have the two different types of ambulances available. so i just wanted to find out if there are any other commissioners who are interested in a comparison and contrast of the ambulances. does everyone know what i'm referring to? >> through the chair. >> commissioner hardeman? >> no problem going out to 49

and -- at a convenient time, maybe with chief and check out a couple newer ones and chair them to the old -- both the new -- and different types and do a little comparison, and that -- rather than having to bring them out here and then maybe have a problem with the public going in and out at the same time as us and -- i think that if we could go out as commissioners and look at the -- anything out there, i don't think we'd have to worry about the public bothering our tour our whatever. >> no, i don't think the public would have bothered. >> well, i'm just saying, i don't know what would happen here, if we were to open it up -- i was just thinking out loud. >> okay. >> so it sounds to me that it's a good idea to maybe look at another alternative which would

just be to go out and look at them. >> okay. thank you. >> can i just jump in on that? >> absolutely, chief. >> yes. i know commissioner covington, you had mentioned that. i think it's a great idea, because i'm a visual person as well to compare and contrast. as it turns out, what it is tonight, i know it wouldn't have been a good night. i know chief handel said it would be good at night, or any time setting up at station 49, whatever your pleasure is. at any time, if you want it at the next meeting in the morning, i know there are some rules regarding more than two commissioners the a time or out at station 49, whatever works best for you. >> here at city hall i think would be good. i know that everyone knows