good afternoon and happy valentine's to everyone here. my name is brendan herammi i serve on the local chapter of our revolution and on the board of the richmond district democratic club, the only in district one will. i'm a native californian and grew up with five brothers and raised by my mother and though she had a passion for karen for children she had to leave her role as a daycare provider to be a waitress because she couldn't sustain me and my brothers with the wages she was earning. it's important we not only recognize the importance of fair wages for childcare workers and ensuring working-class parents like my own can afford to raise

their own families. if we don't recognize these issues as a city we can find simply by having a family will be a privilege for the wealthiest san franciscans and not the working class. if you want to see families thrive here i'd encourage you to support the measure. thank you so much. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon, i'm amelia and i'm a grandmother of six grandkids. i wear my apron because i was working in the mission selling valentine's and happy valentine's to everybody. and made my own decorations and

was selling them and gave that up to come here and thank you for the parent voices. >> hi, i'm lourdes i'm a mission resident and i've been benefit from childcare. because of childcare i was able to attend school and graduated and became a teacher. now i wanted to advocate for childcare education. it's crucial. i'm raising two bilingual children in the city and think it will be a big difference for other families who want to follow the same pattern i follow in order to excel families in san francisco. i wanted to encourage you, it's not about who comes first, the chicken or the hen but thinking with the future of san francisco this future of san franciscans who deserve to have the same level of equity. thank you so much.

>> good afternoon supervisors my name is [indiscernible] i'm here for universal childcare. i was formerly a single mother and without childcare i would not have a job and got access to childcare but still struggled with housing. the point is i raised a child who's now a junior in university of santa barbara and without access to quality childcare i wouldn't have qualified and i have a valentine for supervisor kim for her hard work. please, pass the initiative and housing and childcare come together. it's not a case of the chicken and the egg. it's important to retain

families and working people to build a broad coalition because how can you afford housing as a parent when you cannot afford childcare. thank you. >> thank you, supervisors. happy valentine's. it's fitting we're celebrating valentine's day and talking about our children whom we love and value so much. my valentine is for supervisor yee and thank you for being a childcare champion. childcare help mid family a lot. i met susan and we were residents at a shelter for homeless families.

i started working there and i recruited her and i am here to say we have an historic opportunity to pass a measure that will make targeted universal childcare in san francisco. many people were tourists and said wow, san francisco is doing that and we got a lot of signatures. for every child under five in san francisco there's two adults them getting childcare to get all the signatures and we want both housing and childcare to

pass please make childcare in june. thank you. >> i'm amanda reme speaking on behalf of childcare united. we represent family childcare providers in san francisco and 38 other counties throughout california and in strong support of the proposal and appreciate the leadership. currently, childhood educators are far from making self-sufficient wages and many fail to meet costs. increasing the raises would support the childcare system. additionally the system will help alleviate the wait list for san francisco families and allow more families to continue to access the care they need. thank you.

>> good afternoon, i'm representing district 11 as and a parent of two young boys in san francisco. i strongly support the measure for universal childcare it will generate millions to support our ece community and to let our children and our families thrive in the city. i also add how important it is we invest in our children at such a young age. what better way to support our children to not only become great citizens and be prepared to be sustainable and independent and contributive of our society. i urge you all please to support the ballot. thank you. >> good afternoon, monica

walters ceo of wei toys and i'm here to talk about cepaq as a supports the ordinance as a viable and long-term investment strategy for the successful future of children, families and early educators in san francisco. we heard as we heard from many speakers, that housing and childcare are intricately linked and what it does for employee to make it to work every day. have a quality of life for their children and the knowledge their child is in a quality setting while they go to work. the other thing i wanted to mention is that many of the children still on the wait list are without house.

we still have a lot of children doubled up in sros, in homeless shelters that have not accessed the wait list or quality care. and those children are the ones that are sill homeless and will benefit from the measure. we cannot pit each other against the fact that we need both affordable housing and good childcare but i urge to you please support the measure. >> thank you for giving voice to the voiceless. the ece community. i've been in this field since 2002. we've been through many

struggles. this is the commitment to the infrastructure. we have building and staff and children we want to support. it's time you make the investment. we have a waiting list, the whole city has a waiting list that will never be filled. i have a list of 18 months and children will never get a slot. with this bill i hope to fill desires and hopes and if you make the infrastructure investment in the children i hope that the housing can be passed in november at a later time. it's a good idea in policy that you invest in the children and families first and we need a much bigger bill. $1 million would be great for

housing. it could make maybe 100 units or so but not a lot. please make this investment. it's a long-term investment for the children of san francisco and please make this happen. thank you so much. >> good afternoon, supervisors. we haven't made en endorsement but i look forward for the opportunity for the childcare measure as i puts money in people's pockets immediately. as we know as i believe much of san francisco and california believe, when you raise people's wages you benefit not just that

person but you benefit everybody in the economy. that's an opportunity we can't look past and i look forward to helping members deliberate over this and other measures. i also want to say we represent childcare workers at san francisco unified school district who would be a beneficiary of this measure. we're appreciative of the opportunity to consider this. thank you. >> hello. i'm mary eglasias a district 8 redents. i have two sons. my husband and i. when i went back from maternity leave with my second son the logical thing would be to put my 3-month-old where the 4-month-old was in the childcare center. cost of doing that would have been $3500, $3600 a month with

the sibling discount and credit. affordable childcare is out of reach for middle income and the cost of $3500 it doesn't matter if you're a lower wage or middle income family the cost is the same. i don't want to repeat too much but the issue of homelessness, for the families that are homeless now ensuring the children are in quality childcare settings not in cars should be the number one priority. when we think about the business community having employees who are coming to work every day on time with piece of mind because their children are safe is critical to running a business. our early educators are also business people. they run childcare centers and family childcare homes and their ability to earn the wages they deserve i believe they should be called brain architects because

we could pay them the way they should be paid. they're going to generate gross receipts to help the economy. while the initiative is to raise taxes there's output. lastly, i want to say the debate we witnessed early i think was a perfect example of what we want to teach our kids. how to use our words, how to play nice, how to regulate our emotion and that's what kids learn in their earlier years and sets them up for life and hope the other supervisors will vote yes and endorse this initiative because it will show that we can all play nice in the sand box. >> hi, my name is oscar wua tang and a family care provider. my family runs a family care provider and i'm on the board of family childcare association of

san francisco as well. i want to share a story what happened when we are meeting with high-tech companies in our daycare and they're moving out. the company is pinterest and they want to keep their employee in san francisco and they're moving out because they cannot find quality childcare in san francisco. i don't think that's what san francisco wants to see. if you see how. i think quality childcare is

important and everybody needs to invest on it. thank you. >> hello. i'm julie salem a childcare provider in the 9114. i search families and a third are low-income and moderate income families. family childcare and childcare in general, quality childcare provides a home away from home and a place where the previous speaker said they learn how to regulate their emotions and play fair and include everybody. when we think about housing and childcare and the kids doubled up and in sros in housing more than anything need childcare and childcare is much cheaper than housing though both are

important, i think the childcare impact is very great for families. if childcare is affordable for low and middle-income families they can afford the rent increase. if it's money in their pockets they can afford to support their families. i hope we can go for universal childcare in san francisco. thank you. >> i'm the ceo of hamilton families and i want to come out today because i think it's really difficult for us to be debating these issues separately. families already have to make this impossible decision every single day. they don't live their lives in vacuums. they don't live it by policy. they have to choose every single day whether or not they go to

work >> thank you, joanna ketos ceo.

i'm encouraged by the leadership for the measure as i believe we can leverage existing structures that support children and families such as the early learning scholarship program that will allow the measure to increase subsidies for those more moderate income families and address the wage for the ece workforce. every parent i talk to is struggle because they can't afford or can't find a slot and they can't stay in the profession they chose and every provider is also struggling to attract, recruit and retain teachers. that's a huge issue. the key to ending this funding drought for early care and education is for the ballot measure to address the key

challenges. i urge you to continue to support and stand up for children, families and the providers doing this work. thank you. >> good afternoon. happy valentine's day. i'm pat sullivan the director of the family care association of san francisco. i think if you look at the group of people that spoke most are women and people of color. have you to start asking yourself who do you want to listen to in the city. business leaders are probably not women or people of color. though they may have a vested interest of how to things go in the city, they probably don't live here or send their kids to school hore -- here and probably don't vote here. this say woman's issue and childcare measure has the biggest bang for the buck. while we spend a lot of time

talking about supporting, this is going to be a bigger impact faster and will impact more lives than the housing measure that's currently being discussed. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hi, i'm michelle lundy. a retired childcare provider. i had a preschool in glen park for 33 years. i'm for both measures. i don't want to be campaigning against housing but it's an impossible situation here with the two legislations. we need both.

i brought you valentines yesterday from our children and i hope it can be worked out. we need both. i was on the state board of the family childcare association and san francisco for years has been a leader in what we did fer what they've provide and this measure will help children and families and when i got signatures in glen park it was easy. we're having a baby boom in glen park. just stay on the playground and get signatures but glen park has changed as my supervisor was saying. when i bought my house 45 years ago it was a working class neighborhood. thank you very much. supervisor stefani, i have

another valentine for you from parent voices. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon. i'm salary large the executive director for the past three decades of friends of st. francis childcare center. the past chair of the san francisco planning and advisory council and board member of the san francisco childcare association. my staff turn over has increased. my staff earns less than the subsidized children we serve. san francisco has invested in many remarkable quality features in the past few years. we have pfa coaches, mental health consultants and other resources but each year we train a new crop of teachers because staff cannot afford to stay in this career. even if they have housing, they cannot afford to send their kids to college to pay for transportation, to start planning for retirement plans

early in life to have enough to live on when they retire after a long career in early childhood which they realize they can't do. the city quality money is like a turnstile. if we invest now, however, in ece wages teachers can stay in the career and use affordable housing and other necessities they'll be able to pay for. please vote for the ece part of this initiative and let's work together to get housing funds as our next priority. ec workers care for the homeless children and we're committed to helping these families find and keep work and obtain housing. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm beth stokes of the episcopal chapter of san francisco.

not known as the provider of service for family. ecs provides nearly 100 units of supportive housing for families. and our portfolio in that arena continues to grow as we're asked to step up and provide more supportive housing to families. what we know is families would benefit from affordable chi childcare. there's no doubt. i'm support of locations where one building in particular cannot afford a childcare center that's operating out of the building in which they live. >> that's hard to hear and difficult to see and ecs has 300 employees living with minimum with, many of them, and many would benefit from affordable

childcare and struggle to live in the city. many don't live in the city. many would benefit. thank you. >> hello. happy valentine's day. sorry, i didn't bring v valentines. i'm rebecca browning. i would like to say in support of the measure because every parent living in san francisco it's hard to maintain normalcy in terms of having housing food and transportation and everything and affordable childcare is needed and the [indiscernible] board though

they officially come out they do support it. thank you and have a great valentine's day. >> next speaker, please. >> i'm brad chafin i'm on the board of the milk club and we haven't taken a position but i'm speaking for myself. it's difficult to be vulnerable when talking about these things but i think it's important. my mother was a foster child and had me in high school and worked to get an associate's degree in childcare partially to afford to have childcare for me. my mom, who had no support at all would never be able to support childcare in the city like this.

>> you have to think of how different it may be had i not had the support i had growing up. the most critical time in the brain development is from birth to 3 and the brain's capacity is 90% developed before a child reaches age 5. san francisco has more than 2400 children on a wait list for quality care and more than 1600 of these children are under age 3. those early years play such a critical role and when we think about who's most vulnerable, middle-income folks getting housing is much less urgent than children who desperately need to be supported and to be

successful in life. the rest of their lives depend on this. i don't think there's comparison. these things shouldn't be put at odds with one another but there is something more urgent and more vulnerable. thanks. >> i'm vonda david cincinnati and worked at the cross-cultural center for over 20 years as the executive director. the next year we'll celebrate our 50th anniversary. we serve 362 children in 13 centers and different centers and outer richmond, the tenderloin and hayes valley. 110 of those children are ages 4 month to 30 months, infants and toddlers. i want to tell you, first, about our families and then about our teachers and caregivers who

devote their professional careers to caring for and teaching these very young children. first, the families that we serve, live in low and middle income neighborhoods and over 50% receive subsidized care through the department of education. for the the most part they're janitors, grounds keepers, grocery clerk baggers, bus drivers, hotel house keepers and restaurant employees to name a few, a very few of the types of jobs that support our beautiful and wonderful city. the industries they support are tourism and internet technologies and medical

technology, research and international and national financial institutions, museums and institutions of higher learning, urban and natural resource leaders of the world. these depend on the infrastructure and fort of families who live here. >> thank you, ma'am. >> good afternoon. i'm with the fresno childcare providers association supporting childcare teachers throughout san francisco. i have redrafted what i going to say several times in hearing others. i want to speak to those who

want to claim out of poverty and can't keep being put as a second priority. i don't know if you know of the story of the federal bill put forward in 1971 but mondale put it forward after looking out his window and saw a young boy, 6, 7 years old crossing the street. that little boy was crossing the street because his younger brother was at home would childcare and went home every day and bought his younger brother food from his childcare. that 6-year-old, 7-year-old boy was hit by a truck and that's when mondale put the childcare act forward. depending on what lens you look through and what priority you can give to housing or childcare, it is different. at that point the childcare ended that child's need for any further housing. i think we have to be careful about putting priorities on

human needs. now is not the time to make these priorities. it's the time to unify and raise revenue for all these important issues. i support the early childhood measure. thank you. >> next speaker. >> i'm worked in this industry for 18 years and was a parent in a subsidized program which allowed me to do these things. thank you. i've experienced for all these years the benefits that early care programs provide for the child, the family and the community. i think by now most people know about brain development and in longitudinal studies know about quality programs to the child and you heard this from a couple

parents today. there are many other benefits. the parents, grandparents can enroll and knowing their children are safe and happy and can be more productive at work. children receive vision, hearing, dental and sometimes sensory motor and other assessments. children who have special needs can start to receive these needs early and then sometimes when they're ready to go to kindergarten because they received early intervention they can go in to a regular classroom and sometimes they still need an individualized education plan but they started with us and don't have to wait years to have someone discover their special needs. parents can receive help if they need it or share periences --

experiences from other parents and learn from each other. programs are often involved in their community. at our program children sang for seniors on special occasions. in other programs they participate in community events and staff and parents develop community leadership. so quality early childhood benefits everyone even those -- >> may i have a question of ms. baker if we can have your final thoughts to have your microphone on. >> i'd hate to see this in competition with housing. everything i know and i've experienced, i've experienced parents whose children are in their cars who come in and say they're at their workplaces but they can't continue to work because it's not going to be allowed.

i know for children this is the road to success, i know from my child who has spent all her life working in social services. it's a benefit for not just the parents but the community benefits as well. >> thank you, ma'am. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisor. i'm with the tenderloin development corporation. as my colleague mentioned before, our organization has not formally taken a stance on this measure but i'm here today to speak to the really extreme importance of the babies and families first fund.

no matter what angle you come from it's an acquisition situation and it would be transformative for many to stay in their city and be functioning members of their community. people talk about all the jobs available in san francisco and there's been positive press but this unlocks people's ability to engage and benefit from the jobs by providing affordable childcare for their younger children. additionally, as has come up, this is an important gender issue. if we're continuing to examine disparities between men and women though men are often the main childcare but it's the responsibility that often falls on women and it's important to think about this from that gender angle as well.

no matter how you view it it's crucially important. thank you for your time. >> good afternoon. i hadn't intend to speak but i came here for item 4 but after listening for 2½ hours for the extraordinary needs for people for housing and now for childcare, i said that's me. that's my family they're talking about because my son and his wife and my grandchild live with me because they can't afford a place in the city and they have their grandfather, who's 80 years old and their grandmother, who's 73 as babysitters and

childcare workers because they can't afford childcare. we should not have to create between the two. it creates an ideological tribal warfare in the city that doesn't belong here. in my day, though it was a while ago, would do is go into competing ideas and come out of the room until we resolved it and seen kim do it with the giants. we were there until 4:30 in the morning with her and we started at 2:00. i've seen yee do it with the school board and now, mr. chairman, i'm challenging

you do the same with your colleagues. go in a room and don't come out until you bring both worthy, necessary things for our city together. >> thank you, mr. mayor. any other comments? public comment is closed. i see on the second page of the one submitted for signature you have a number of categories, a, b, c, d to be funded in terms of compensation and investment in comprehensive early childhood education and services, support for early childhood education for those living up to 200% of

the ami and those under 6 but older than 4 for 85% of varied median income. i understand the board of supervisors will give guidance, but what do you think the things in totality add up to if we're to meet all the categories? how would the office of early childhood education make priority in terms of 85% and 200%, you want to increase wages. >> we have a new system a reimbursement rate for providing high quality education in san francisco. we implemented that we know the rates are too low and need to be

increased and it incorporates cost to the teachers. the reimbursement rate covers quality services and it covers the compensation and currently we only benchmark and give some suggested benchmarks of what compensation should be. we have heard feedback from the community it's too low and needs to be increased. the idea is we'd work with supervisors and board around the implementation of the increased funding and figure out the priorities of the greatest need. we know infants and toddlers have the greatest unmet need. we want to target that age group. we don't have enough subsidies for the age group. we know there's a desire from the measure to increase the income level. currently the moderate support goes up to families at 110% of the ami. the idea of increasing that

threshold to a higher salary for families -- i think we feel the model we have is scaleable and we have had requests from the mayor's budget office and supervisors around different models that show different age groups and different income levels of families of how we can incorporate additional funding to meet the priorities within this measure. >> i hear that is there a reason why didn't to that with the average salary of $26,000 a year for a teacher and you want to that how many workers wan you serve with that?

that's one. the other is it talks about increasing access for ami and cuts it at 110. would we have to create a new wait list? would we be creating an entire new wait list? >> i think the devil's in the details of the implementation. we can't meet every family at 200% of ami even with additional funding. we have done analysis of the cost of providing care to all families that would be eligible under that category. we'd have to look at an opportunity for universal pre-k for 2 to 4-year-olds and look at 0-3-year-olds. we can -- we're able to look at the different models to see what would work. as far as the income, our

overarching goal is teachers in the early education field and would be $50 million alone. we're not going to be able to reach that in one fell swoop. hopefully more funding could come and we could achieve our goal. we have to look at additional resources and work with the mayor's office that want to be addressed. >> i know we added 4 million for getting people off the wait list and your office said there's a

problem with finding a list. is there a problem in facilities? how are we going to meet the demand? how are we going to provide if they can't find space and how will we increase the capacity? >> the capacity is an issue. we work with the fund. that's ongoing. we have a lot of projects in the pipeline. we have the community based organizations looking to expand and want to expand we're looking at the state to look to transfer loan funds into grants for agency might be eligible for

expansion for their facilities it's an issue. and looking at the pipeline we have i'm not sewer -- sure the funding would be part of capacity but we have a separate revenue stream. >> i'm familiar with the childcare facilities fund. if the money were here how are we going to implement it if we don't have the slot and i hear what you're saying the childcare facilities fund is important and the priorities in terms of 200% of ami or increasing people's compensation package or doing

universal from 3 to 4. they're important conversations to have. this is going to be out there. people will be talking and asking questions this is my first opportunity to ask the question to have the chance so that's why i'm asking. i don't think i have any other questions particularly now. i think that got to the heart of what i was asking -- >> i'm told i'm allowed to answer a question. >> supervisor kim. >> actually, i was about to answer -- i will ask you a question. >> so we have heard classrooms

are closed and they're not able to hire teachers and programs are closed because there are no teachers. we can pay teachers a more reasonable wage the hope is they can entice teachers into the programs and open the classrooms and expand capacity that way. we know some aren't working at full capacity because of the workforce crisis. >> i'd like to ask you a question about capacity as well. >> thank you, sure. >> i can ask members of public a question. >> can you reiterate your name? >> sara sidlay of the san

francisco childcare association. we did some informal survey of our sites and found over a third of the sites were not able to fill to capacity because they couldn't find teachers. again, this raising the wages, too often these issues are looked at as separately. we see how much low wages have impacted the issues and if we're able to increase wages we can tract new people in the field and that's what we need to do. >> thank you. >> do you have other questions? >> i was going to respond to your question, safai, i said it during item one and reiterate the cost.

to make early childhood education which is my goal over time free, for every family is a $560 million initiative. to make it affordable it's a $260 million initiative. it's a revenue measure. you're going take 50% of the chunk of making childcare affordable for all families.

>> i want to make sure this won't be sitting around while we look for funds. >> several people that spoke spoke to facilities and we have hunters view that just opened and looking at sunny dale. the department of planning has been working one us amazingly. we partnered with the planning department so much over the last year around how to make the expansion of childcare facilities easier and less

burdensome. and the mayor's office of housing development. that's a lot of interagency, city support. i believe looking at the pipeline of neighborhoods one is looking to open three new childcare centers in the next few years. i believe we will have increased capacity to serve the children we would like to serve. >> thank you. so supervisor kim, i heard you say $560 million and $260 million. what do you think? >> it's a $560 million to make it free. free for everybody. nobody pays a dime. what we looked at though it's a high dollar amount. it's great we can say what the

number is. then we looked at it again and we said okay what if we made it affordable for every family which according to stay definition is no more than 10% of your gross income and that's $260 million. that's on top of what we already invest in early childhood education and by the way, san francisco should be proud. we're one of the few cities that achieved universal preschool for 4-year-olds starting through chairman yee and we went to the ballot in 2004 with the seed money start at $3.3 million a year to make preschool available for every four-year-old in san francisco and san francisco hit 90% of 4-year-olds in san francisco attend a qualified preschool and that's an amazing achievement. bill de blasio is talking about

it and we've already done it. we talk about doing this for middle-class families which we haven't done. this measure is the first step in us hitting the next chunk. by the way, it is a big chunk we're taking on in this measure. >> just to clarify, the 200% of ami the increase the investment in comprehensive early childcare and the increasing compensation and the 85% of the ami, that all this fits in this particular measure is about $260 million? i understand you said it afford and but if you separate it? >> if we made it affordable for every family it's another $260 million. this takes us halfway.

>> you think to cover everybody -- >> everybody $260 million as the first step. >> this is not a got-you question. we have roughly $30 million is that correct? the 4,200 families on the wait list at 85% of state median income so this is homeless too -- that's about 30 to 40 million and the rest will be divvied up amongst middle-class families through some type of process the board will institute. we didn't want to tie the hand of the board too much but the goals of the measure are very clear.

>> i see that. it's listed a through d. i was just trying to get a handle on that and you said $25 million for the general fund so that would reduce it to what, 146 minus 25 and the remainder exclusive for this? >> i was going off what the controller's report. it estimates it will bring in slightly over $140 million a year and of that, on $25 million will be dedicated to the general fund with an eye towards funding the mco

>> this does not escalate. >> does that make sense. is there a sunset on it or in perpetuity? >> the tax has no sunset. the expenditure plan is 20 years. the tax will always keep coming to the city. okay. >> thanks . >> supervisor yee. >> one of the reasons why we don't have an exact number in terms of dollar amount or percentage was to keep the priorities. when i crunched the numbers, we're going to serve everybody on the existing wait list and beyond that probably another double that to those that are

200% of ami and we're actually going to get pretty close to serving most of them because there's a co-pay that's mirroring what we do at the state level. [please stand by]

>> but right now, my commitment, it doesn't get any lower than that. so that's how we're going to handle that. and the other reason why we don't want to set everything in stone is because who knows? maybe donald trump will actually do universal child care for everybody, and then, we can use that funding for more -- for the compensation. i don't know. >> i was like what? watch your mouth. okay. is there somewhere in the -- in the ordinance that says that first, that you're pulling from the wait list and that's the priority or is that just something that you -- >> yes. >> it's in there? >> it's in there. >> i saw the 2400 on the wait list called out, and specifically more than 1600 are under the age of three, so it