good afternoon, everyone. this meeting will come to order. welcome to the april 25, 2018, meeting of the rules committee. my name is commissioner safai, to my left is supervisor catherine stefani and to my right norman yee. our clerk today is alisa. and i would like to recognize and thank jesse and lawrence from sf gov to have been.

>> please make sure to silence all cell phones and devices. speakers cards should be submitted to the clerk. >> supervisor safai: thank you. please call item number one. >> clerk: a motion approving or rejecting the mayor's reappointment of ben rosenfield as the controller for the city and county of san francisco for the next ten-year term. >> supervisor safai: please proceed, mr. rosenfield. >> afternoon, thank you for having me here today. i've been here probably hundreds of times presenting before you, but only the second time to talk about myself. so excuse me for reading off notes. >> supervisor safai: that's why i made you do it, i'm sorry. >> it's good practice. i'd like to start by thanking mayor farrell for the honor of the nomination to allow me to

continue in this role and for your consideration here today. i grew up in chicago. after a time at school and teaching on the east coast, i moved to san francisco in 1997 with a goal of getting to know a new coast, new city and get involved in city government. after a short stint waiting tables and thanks to good luck, ended up starting as a junior analyst in the budget office for mayor brown. 20 years later, i'm humbled by the opportunity to be before you here today, seeking your consideration to continue in this incredible job i've been lucky to have for the last ten. i've spent about half of my life working for the city and doing it in a city i'm raising my family in and that has been the professional honor for me. i'm proud of the work we've gotten done in the controller's office and while i'm happy to talk about projects, audits,

reports, budgets we've gotten done, it feels more important to take this moment just to express my appreciation for the fantastic women and men in the controller's office and i have the pleasure of working with throughout the city. the team in the controller's office is brilliant, inquisitive, honest, dedicated, humble and doing their work for the right reasons. like me, they believe in the proposition of government to do -- promise of government to do good, think we can do better and work to make those things happen in all sorts of ways i big and small. i want to express my thanks to the mayors, and willie brown, newsom, our late mayor ed lee and london breed and mark farrell. they've taken time to teach and support those around them. in particular for me, i want to thank eleanor, steve, john, for

their guidance and counsel over the years. part of the fun for me, i've grown out of the junior budget analyst role is the realization i have a similar role to play for others in my department and throughout the city. i have almost universally enjoyed working with members of the board of supervisors to help you move forward with policy goals that you were elected to office to pursue. in particular, for who i've first worked with during their time and have grown from there on the board. my time working for the city in the last ten years has been fun most of the time, often hard, and always interesting. like all of us, at times, it's kept me away from my fantastic wife and kids and friends and family, but it's always been worth it for me because the work, my work and my department,

my department's work has always been felt. it's felt important to the people i work alongside with every day and the residents we serve. i've helped move things forward in the city and the controller's office during my time. again, it has been an honor and i'm excited about the possibility of work to come. thanks for your consideration. as always, i'm happy to answer questions. >> supervisor safai: just for the general public, can you say a few words about what the controller actually does, because it's important for the record. >> absolutely. so the controller's office plays a key role in a lot of the city's financial operations. we run the city's accounting and payroll services, we manage the city's debt, we pay city employees, we provide audit functions to move operations ahead, to help the mayor and

board assess the efficacy of programs and help the public understand what it is the city is doing. it's important to me and to the office, it's an independent office and apolitical. whoever sits in the seat i'm luck yu had enough to hold is nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the board, it's to be independent to both, as well as a number of stakeholders around the budget and finances. and so we really, i serve and our office serves as an advisor to a whole host of stakeholders that care about the city's finances and performance. >> supervisor safai: i know we worked together on housing and you helped to convene along with the appointment of our body, it was extremely helpful we updated our inclusion housing which is

set aside for private developers that have to set aside a certain amount of housing as affordable. so the work your office did was invaluable in that process. and having gone through my first budget last year, the work that your office provided and the information and the hand-holding, just be honest, because you're going through the process the first time and learning that. so, truly, truly have enjoyed working with you as a member of the board and going back to our years under mayor brown. we could go on and on. but i want to say it's really important the role you played and it's important that you've come through the ranks as a budget analyst to director of budget and now controller. you understand the multiple functions that are required for your role and then hoping to guide your staff and others. supervisor yee i see you have a question. >> supervisor yee: mr.

rosenfield, i noted you and your office have started creating the new -- is it data system? and it's been several years. it's one -- is one of your biggest motivation to being wanted to be' reappointed to see if you can complete the data similar in ten years? >> there are big things looking ahead that i'm excited about working on if i'm confirmed for the role. one of them that you highlighted is certainly on the list. in the last five years, we've replaced basically all the key systems that the city uses to conduct its basic business operations. we replaced a 35-year-old payroll system, and then last year, we turned on the new financial and procurement system that replaced a system that was first installed by the city when

i was 6 years old. it has been -- so bringing the value out of the systems and benefitting from the efficiency they should provide and making it easier for departments and residents of the city to conduct city business is a big motivator for me. we're absolutely not there right now in the financial system. which is -- we're nine months after go live, but i continue to think that the value is there and that's part of what i'm looking forward to working on and getting to. >> supervisor yee: thanks. i just want to say, make a remark in regards to the way -- the way i see you think all the time in trying to not only make things in your office more efficient, but certainly in some instances you've made suggestions to my office that is

helpful and i think one good example where you try to look at things not just from our own office, but for the city -- city hall functions overall. as you know, my office has been doing participatory projects for the longest at city hall this point and every year we add more projects and every year my limited staff have to follow more and more projects to make sure it gets completed. when you made the suggestion -- this is a good example where you're not trying to think for your own office -- you're saying if only if more of the supervisors would do parts tory budgeting, you wouldn't have to have your staff monitor these things, because then your office -- or somebody within the

city hall family, could hire somebody to help with that function. so again, i just wanted to point that out as an example of the way you think you care about not just your office. >> thank you. >> supervisor safai: i don't think we have any other questions. i would say on the financial system, i know you and i talked about that and we had heard from other small contractors about payment, can you say a few words about that? >> with you on of the -- one of the key things the new system does is process payments to city employees and contractors. since go live last july, we processed 350,000 payments about $9 million, a lot about the system is working. it has been challenging though to get up to realtime speed with the approval process and that resulted in backlogs of invoices we owe to contractors that their owed money for. this is a significant issue for

us and one we've been paying attention to. we've made some progress. eight weeks ago we had about 4,000 invoices pending longer than 30 days. by the end of this week, we'll be down to about a thousand. so we've cut it by 75% during that period of time. if you put that in the context of paying about 40,000 invoices a month, we're down to about 2.5% dlink insidy, but i'm seeing progress and we look forward to getting back to realtime. >> supervisor safai: when do you believe realtime will be achieved? >> it's going to be the coming weeks, on the invoice side. this is a system that the city is using, 8,000 employees are using this, so we have other troubleshooting throughout the government, but invoice processing is down to -- we're

down to relatively few number of issues and we need to cross the finish line. >> supervisor safai: maybe you can just give the board an update in terms of -- because the ones that i hear the most are the small contractors who rely on that money in terms of paying employees and all the different issues that you already know. and i know you have made it a priority, i just wanted to double check and see if that was going to be -- sounds like a couple of weeks is a great target. >> it's in the weeks at this point. in the meantime, if you're hearing from contractors, feel free to send them my way. it's a priority, i've been talking to contractors myself to make sure the checks get out the door. >> supervisor safai: any members of the public wish to comment on the item, please come forward, you have two minutes, state your name and if you have any documents with the clerk.

>> i'm bob planthold, i'm glad you're doing this. my experience going back 15 years when he was assistant budget director and since then, he, the staff he inherited, the staff promoted, the staff hired, have been majorly responsive. he's had good relationships with you folks at city hall. that is to be expected. i'm going to talk about the response from those outside of city hall. 15 years ago i was an officer in ethics commission, there was a freeze on hiring we asked him to increase a half person, that didn't meet with the mayor well, we got that half person. it was a big advance that started to reduce our backlog. a few years later i was on a grand jury, he was responsive to the grand jury's request. some years later when different advocacy groups sought

information, his staff were forth coming. all throughout the years i've been associated with him, i'm glad he's around, he's reliable and he'll tell us what is not going to work in our thoughts. thank you for this opportunity to help. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, david, wanted to speak in support of the kicks of ben rosenfield for another ten years. i think he gave a comprehensive and humble statement about his history and his work. i think he builds on the professionalism that ed harrington brought to the position for 17 years. really there are only two individuals you can talk about, ed harrington and ben in the modern history of the controller's office. not saying anything negative about john farrell and his predecessors, but then all of

the people who support him, todd, maura, michele, ted, nadia, peg, tanya, ppsd, the entire controller's office are professionals who serve the city well. and once again i support this confirmation for another term. >> supervisor safai: thank you. any -- oh. please come forward. >> hi, my name is natasha, native san franciscan and i'm going to speak up for our interroverted department that won't come up to say what a great boss ben is. i wanted somebody to come up here and say something nice. that's my comment. >> supervisor safai: thank you. >> mr. controller, next time you go to your office total the amount of money uncollected

payroll taxes given to twitter and used to be five, now it's nine high tech companies that's taking advantage of this tax evasion set up by this administration and the past mayor. i've come up here several times demonstrating that a minimum of $217 billion of uncollected taxes have been granted to twitter and five of the high-tech companies. is that clear? sit around and talk about you want to charge people in the financial district taxes in order to subsidize single women for daycare services and charge extra taxes for people who got offices in the financial district. that executive director of twitter was on the news a couple of days ago talking about how prosperous it is to live in san francisco. that's tax evasion and money laundering and bank fraud. and you talk about your controller. and we got all these homeless

people out in the street, you talk about how you ain't got money for housing for them. that's more money than obama and crooked hillary gave iran when they gave it on a personal airplane. it's disgusting. and for this board to sit up here, talk about you want to help the homeless for things, when you campaign on the position that you're running for. want to spend multibillion dollars on plants and navigation center. homeless don't need no [bleep] navigation center, they need homes like you do. you're in violation of the rico act, it's money laundering, you're doing the same thing that mr. jackson and the attorney general -- [bell ringing]. >> supervisor safai: thank you, sir. next speaker.

>> good afternoon, supervisors. on behalf of my colleagues, some of whom are here with me, and others in the controller's office who are not here today, my name is mara, i've worked with the controller for ten years now. i've watched him grow and face many challenges and create many opportunities for all of us during those years. he's very generous with us. he's here, he's reliable, rain or shine, no matter how he's feeling, no matter how we're feeling and i would like to say i recommend reappointment and thank you for the consideration. >> supervisor safai: thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item? please come forward. >> hi you all doing today. my name is noya, i want a second

with the other gentleman said, i haven't seen much people from the public speak besides people inside the department, i thought it was confusing there was lack of public support for the reappointment. i think that in a time when everything is polarized, we don't have much support for the people in the process, whether it's the controller or the budget office. nobody in the public knows who is who. and i think that needs to change so people like the gentleman before that spoke shouldn't have to have a long rant about how they feel, i think people should have services in place to help them that only do not benefit the tech companies. that's all i wanted to say. >> supervisor safai: thank you, any other members of the public wish to comment on the item? seeing none, public comment is closed. any additional comments? oh, want to make a motion.

>> supervisor yee: make a motion. >> supervisor safai: i'm sorry, i think supervisor stefani would like this say something. >> supervisor stefani: ben rosenfield is an example of what is right with san francisco and right with city government. i love what you said about the people doing good for the government, i have loved working with you. what i love about you, you have treated me no different than when i was an aide for nine years to now in this position and it's because you are reliable, respectful, patient, helpful, you're funny. i was writing down all of these things. it feels so lucky i've been able to work with you and i get to continue to work with you hopefully for a long time and i want to say thank you for all the work and explaining the budget, when mayor farrell became chair of the budget and finance committee.

you and melissa were incredible in explaining that and i thank you for all your patience with me and good work with the city. >> supervisor yee: what mr. rosenfield explained the budget to you? and did not -- no, just kidding. i'd like to make a motion to amend, to state that -- to i prove the mayor's reappointment of ben rosenfield as the controller for the city and county of san francisco. >> supervisor safai: i think we can do that without objection, and unanimous support. we look forward to serving with you for another ten years. [applause] [cheers and applause] >> supervisor safai: not to dampen anyone's excitement, i want to remind everyone, we use fingers, know clapping, because

there are items on the agenda that might cause excitement. >> clerk: item 2, ordinance amending the administrative code to abolish fees associated with probation costs and to abolish local penalties associated with alcohol testing and court ordered penalties. >> supervisor safai: i would like to welcome president breed >> colleagues, we have before us legislation that will make san francisco first in the nation to eliminate our city's criminal justice fees. these are fees that have created barriers to re-entry, just when people are working to turn their lives around. they have a disproportionately affected communities of color for decades and contribute d to the never-ending cycle of

poverty in the neighborhoods and on the streets. many don't know the toll these fees can have on communities. i know all too well the devastating impacts on families. i've lived it, helped family members and friends pay the fees and i've heard too many stories of wages being garnished when some are unable to pay. including when i served as the executive director of the african-american culture complex and some of the young people i hired and getting notice to garnish someone's wages for these purposes can be really something that will lower the spirits of the person who thinks that finally i have a leg up, finally i have a shot and here i am most of my paycheck is being taken away because of something that happened years and years ago. we're talking about people who have already served their time in the criminal justice system. they have paid their debt to society, yet outside, they're

still shackled with financial debt that they're unable to pay and it can follow them for years. thanks to the work of the fines and fees task force, the investigative research done by the public defenders' office and collaboration with the courts, and the mayor's budget office, we were able to identify every single criminal justice fee that is levied against residents and found that these fees are actually incredibly costly to administer. and are extremely -- they're extremely inefficient source of revenue for the city and county of san francisco. and because the vast majority of the people are unable to pay the fees, the city only collects between 9-15% of the fees that they administer. sadly, of those that are actually collected, the ones that we do collect are collected through wage garnishments.

a study from u.c. berkeley on criminal fees found that most criminal fees are costing cities and counts more to administer than to collect them period. please stand by.

also supports this legislation. the mayor's budget office and late mayor ed lee and current interim mayor has committed to back filling this money and the sheriff's department also supports it, and has actually stopped collecting the fees in february. the month that we introduced this legislation. i'm looking forward to ridding our city of unauthorized fees and making san francisco the first to do so. i want to acknowledge and thank many of the hard working people who participated in this task force and starting with the person who led these efforts. jeff adachi who will be making comments later. chief probation officer karen fletcher here for questions. district attorney george gascon, whose staff i know is also here today. to the fines and fees task

force who pushed for a number of recommendations for this reform, thank you. and to debt-free s.f., the community coalition that's been pushing for this type of reform for years. i also want to acknowledge the people in the room today, i know there are a number of folks who have come out from the western edition community. people who have had to grapple with these issues themselves. i know many truly understand the impacts this could have on families and communities as i stated previously and i appreciate everyone who is here to provide feedback for this particular issue. lastly to the members of the rules committee, i understand there must be a robust conversation around the fiscal impact of this legislation. for the debate today, my hope is we discuss the merits of the legislation as it relates to changes of the admin code as that is what is important to this particular committee.

the legislation simply eliminates the criminal justice fees authorized by the city and several sections of the admin code and doesn't require the city to backfill the revenue. however, we know there are impacts and they should be discussed. and i hope we could discuss those particular issues at our budget subcommittee where the mayor's budget and budget and legislative analyst, board of supervisors, as well as our controller will be present to discuss the fiscal impacts on may 10th. and without further ado, if no other colleagues have any other comments, i would like to turn it over to our public defender jeff adache. >> good afternoon, and thank

you very much for leading this effort, president breed and the co-sponsors of this bill. i first want to acknowledge the deep support of folks who are here today and not everyone is going to speak but they are here to show support. i ask everyone to stand up. thank you very much. we are here to say there should be no price tag on justice. moving to the first slide, this is from the fines and fees justice center. fines and fees hurt many americans, exacerbating poverty, diminishing trust in our court and police and

trapping people in perpetual cycles of punishment. the national center on state courts has a task force on fines and fees. their principles read as follows "courts should be entirely and sufficiently funded from governmental sources to enable them to fulfill their mandate. core court functions should not be supported from revenues generated by court orders, fines, fees or surcharges. under no circumstances should judicial performance be measured by, or judicial compensation be related to a judge's or court's performance in generating revenue. the u.s. department of justice in 2016, after issuing the ferguson report, asked local courts across the country to be

wary of how they slapped court defendents with fines and fees, warning such practices often run afoul of the u.s. constitutions and have serious real world consequences. that letter read as follows, individuals may confront escalating debt, face incarceration despite posing no danger to the community, and be trapped in cycles of poverty that could be impossible to escape, further more to the extend being unlawful to the extent these are geared not toward public safety but rather raising revenue they could cast doubt on the impartiality of the tribunal, meaning court and erode trust between local governments and constituents. finally the san francisco treasurer fines and fees task

force which led this efford in coalition with other community grassroots organizations, such as debt-free san francisco found, in san francisco, and remember that in san francisco, one out of every ten san franciscans lives in poverty. in san francisco the burden of these fines and fees falls heavily on the african american community. african americans make up less than 6%, now 5% of the population in san francisco, but over half of the people bho are in the county jail, and 45% of the people arrested for failure to pay appear in court, or traffic court, warrants, are african american. steep fines and fees could be a lose/lose for citizens and government. research has shown fines and fees levied on people with modest incomes are often

high-paying, hitting poor people particularly hard but low gain bringing in less revenue than expected. this is just one example of one account and you could see the number of fees. about 25 fees are added and this is in addition to any restitution. so if there's a conviction for a crime, the person has admitted liability or found guilty by a jury, there are these fees which are automatically levied against an individual and most of these are civil penalties meaning even if you serve a sentence, they continue. you will see here a break down of five clients.

you will see at the bottom, i will read this because it's hard to read. client number one $5,000, client two, $4700, client number three, $4500, client number four $4400. many fees involve things like courthouse fees, maintenance of the courthouse, future building of the courthouse. essentially using the fines and fee system in order to fund what should be essential government services. and then finally here, we see a chart which shows the yield on criminal fines and fees assessed and as president breed said earlier, if you look at it, in most instances, it doesn't justify the cost of collecting these fees and the effort of collecting these fees.

so by freeing individuals of these debts which most people can't afford to pay anyway, because they are poor, you are also freeing the agencies from the responsibility of collecting these fees, which is not cost efficient. with that, i would like to acknowledge the work of donovan del in my office who did a lot of the analysis on the criminal side. she came on board at the public defender's office after much of the work had been done by the fines and fees task force. but was able to analyze and evaluate the impact of the fines and fees. also i want to acknowledge melissa white house and her staff. i know she is out on leave now. but she took a personal

interest in this issue and attended meetings herself. i want to thank president breed and her staff who got behind this effort early on and helped shepherd and the city attorney and the treasurer's office. again, this is something that absolutely will produce better outcomes. just to give you one short story. i was doing the front desk duty the day before thanksgiving, as we typically do in my office. matt and i do that. and a father came in, 25 years old named joseph who explained he had been paying about $400 a month from his paycheck. $1200 a month paycheck, paying for probation costs and other costs that had accrued as a result of a conviction he has suffered some years ago. he had two children and he

talked about the impact these fines and fees were having on his life. even though he had served his sentence, successfully completed probation. was actually working as a social worker to assist other individuals who were reentering society after being in county jail or prison. that's the kind of impact that your decision will have. and it will affect thousands of people. so i hope that we can count on your support. thank you. >> thank you, public defender adachi. any members of the committee have any questions for the public defender? supervisor yee? >> supervisor yee: mr. adachi, i guess the only question i really have, i mean, i'm very supportive of this concept. thank you, president breed. for bringing this to us.

once we pass this, what's the mechanism for us to communicate this to the public and to the people that need to know this? >> well, the only fines and fees that are affected are ones where we have jurisdiction over. and so, any of the fines and fees either collected by the court or state mandated fees will still be collected. however, about half the fees including probation costs will no longer be collected and once the court, sorry, once the board passes the ordinance and it's signed by the mayor and becomes law, we will notify the

court, make sure that the ordinance is enforced. my understanding is that the courts are already aware of this effort. we have already talked to them about it and i'll make sure my deputies are aware, so our clients and the private bar will ensure that the will of the board and the mayor and the city are carried out. >> supervisor yee: so the idea here is that we're getting rid of these fees? >> uh-huh. >> supervisor yee: that's the reason there's no reason to collect it. there's a number of people out there who have been charged the fees and continue to pay it. so how do you let them know that they don't have to, just like the gentleman that you were talking about? >> i think, obviously, we will publicize it. in some cases we will be able

to reach people directly if we have addresses for them. if they are currently under court supervision, they could be informed by the probation department. and because the agencies affected will presumably stop collecting these fees from individuals, there would be no reason to pay it. in other words, the people affected would simply not be required to pay going forward. >> supervisor yee: okay. again, i'm sure you have it all figured out, but i'm just curious like if somebody is writing one check or writing a check for every little fee. let's say he or she is informed, they are going to continue writing the same check knowing that some of it has to be paid but not knowing what to

pay. >> yeah, i mean some of these are one-time fees that are paid. other are continuing fees. for example, like probation costs. particularly the probation costs are levied at the same time, you are charged for 36 months if you are on probation for three years and paying $40 or $50 a month, you will be charged one amount. again, i think the mechanics of it have to be determined by every department. they are going to have to figure out how to cease their billing mechanism, if it's an automatic pay they will have to stop doing that. and cases going forward, the court will simply not order the individual to pay the fee. but for people who have accrued fees that are in debt, they would likewise have to be notified in some way. so that's something, thank you for pointing that out, we will have to make sure we follow-up.

>> supervisor yee: thanks for trying to answer it. president breed, i would like to be listed as a co-sponsor. i think this is a logical thing to do and it probably should have been done a long time ago. >> thank you, any other comments from the committee before we go to public comment? >> we have one more presentation. we have ann stoldrier, here director of financial justice project at the treasurer and tax collector's office. >> hi, thank you so much for having me today. once again my name is ann stoljar in office of jose cisneros. we have partnered with the mayor's office, the courts,

fines and fees task force to take a look at fines and fees assessed by the city, county and court. and in certain instances recommends reform if we find they have a disproportionate impact on low-income people. i want to say the treasurer as our debt collector is keenly aware of the importance of this revenue for our city. in many cases we have worked with departments and recommended fees and fines be on a sliding scale or ability to pay or allow for alternative forms of payment like community service. what we have found is criminal justice administrative fees are uniquely different. we work diligently to find the most revenue neutral alternative like basing these fees on ability to pay but we have concluded for these fees, elimination is the best solution for several reasons.

first off, the collection rates are very low. looking at all of these fees over the past five years, the collection rates average 17%. looking at the largest of these fees, the monthly probation fee 16, the collection rate was just 9%. for more than half of these fees up for elimination, the amount of money projected to come in was so low that it wasn't accounted for in the budget. compare this to collection rates for m.t.a. parking citations which are above 90%, business license fees above 95% or property taxes at 99%. the second reason why these are so different is that they are almost wholly assessed on very-low income people who cannot afford to pay them. for the very few people who can afford to pay them it just

doesn't pencil out to conduct an ability to pay determination. the administrative burden of having staff conduct an ability to pay determination doesn't justify the revenue that would come in. there are many studies that show how costly these fees are to administer, how hard it is to collect these funds and president breed cited u.c. berkeley study that looked at counties across california looking to bring in juvenile justice administrative fees and found the counties were spending more than they were bringing in. the third way in which these fees are really different is we have seen in a lot of the academic and programmatic research that charging these fees could actually contribute to recidivism, because these fees are collected through wage garnishment and bank account levies. charging people thousands of

dollars in fees can also drive people to look for quick solutions to generate cash. this research has been conducted by places like the white house council on economic advisors, california l.a.o. and brennan center for justice. as has been mentioned we all worked closely with the mayor's budget office and the mayor's budget office concluded that the benefits of eliminating these fees, far out weighs the costs. the elimination of these criminal justice administrative fees will cost our city $1 million a year in foregone revenue. we know this is a real cost. but eliminating these fees will remove $15 million of debt off approximately 20,000 individuals in our community. you are going to hear from some

of these individuals today. many and most individuals who owe this debt are very low income and they simply cannot afford to pay it. i think most people in san francisco today would have a hard time paying a bill of several hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars. you know, just as an example, people who come to the public defender's clean slate program to clear their record, two-thirds of them are unemployed and have no income. the one-third of people who do have income or a salary earn less than $3,000 a year. these are not people who can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in fees and as probation chief karen fletcher told me, whom we worked very closely, most of the folks she sees have families and are really working hard to support these families. the debt burden from these administrative fees make it

very hard for people to get back on their feet and reenter their communities, it makes it hard for them to pay rent, buy food and pay day-to-day expenses. also owing debt from these fines and fees can make it hard for people to clear their records, get jobs, business licenses or into housing. we know that all of our criminal justice partners that are here today are deeply committed to working hard to ensure people can reenter successfully and i think it's unique that everyone is together in supporting this. the last point i want to make, let's not forget these are administrative fees proposed for legislation. the goal of these fees is to recoup costs, not to create an additional level of punishment. that's what fines are for. these are almost always assessed on people who served

other consequences, served time, paid fines or paying restitution. i want to say san francisco would be the first to do this but many others have called out these problems, probation chiefs from across california, l.a., oakland, san diego have called for eliminating probation fees and a state wide coalition looking to advance this state and nationwide. thank you. >> thank you. unless there's any other questions from the committee we will open it up to public comment. if you would like to comment, please line up on the right. [coughing] >> this is an excellent idea -- >> sorry, please don't proceed yet. i just want to see the number of people lining up.

given the volume we are going to limit public comment to one minute so we could keep the committee hearing going. please proceed. >> you have the right to act but you have to take it a step further and also have to go to the tax collection board because information records that come out of the justice department, when you don't collect the fees is forwarded over to tax collection. then you can't get a bank account. if you have a bank account they want to try to seize your income. they tried to do that to me said i was convicted of several crimes but i wasn't, because of my legal skill i had to file a motion for petition to clear up the nonsense saying i had a conviction when i didn't. as a result, the charge in the record was cleared up, yet the state franchise board is still sending notices to my bank talking about i owe money when i don't. so you need to also send that

information to the tax franchise board to correct their record as well. and about these penalty fees, you ought to be putting penalty fees on hall of justice for not testing [off mic] >> thank you, sir. next speaker. thank you. >> that's a good point about the franchise board. i'm david grace, i very much appreciate this legislation and supervisor breed is bringing up. ferguson, missouri was a shocking point to america to realize that i think 30% was based on fines and penalties and the idea that san francisco had any part of an economic model like that is pretty shocking. a couple of different points. earlier legislation last year about banning the box, the idea

that people trying to get people who have fulfilled a sentence have still a box in an employment whether or not they have been in prison and to remove that from employment records gives people a fresh chance to get started again and so that in conjunction to this is -- [beeping] >> thank you, sir. next speaker. >> hollywood saint james. i would like to acknowledge the assembly. i also want to acknowledge those who spoke before me. i listen and learn and i learn to listen and as a result i practice two principles. i will get right to the point because i don't want the buzzer. people trying to attain housing, employment when

low-income residents fall into this kind of debt, it can severely damage their credit which cause employers to refuse to hire, we are asking this committee to eliminate unfair court fees that keeps san francisco in a cycle of poverty. >> thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is mary vandergriff. i'm a lobby supervisor, i started as an on-call desk clerk. this bill is not only personal but important to me. i have made mistakes in my life and i have a past, the main thing holding me back at this point is all the court fees i collected. low-income residents are saddled with an unfair amount of debt, i feel i will never get ahead of these fees and also makes it harder, if not

impossible for me to get off probation early. i'm a low-income san francisco resident and i demand this committee to support this legislation to eliminate unfair court fees that keep san francisco in cycles of poverty. thank you. have a nice day. >> thank you. next speaker. >> mr. jerry parker and i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today. i think that this bill is very important for the supervisors to make the reform that's necessary because it creates a public safety issue for those that are unable to pay the court cost fees and administrative fees and restitution as well, when they are coming out of prison and they are faced with these debts, very often they find alternative ways to avoid those debts and costs and in many

cases you have those that are joining the homelessness and i think homelessness is an issue that is very pervasive and there are many costs to that. [buzzer] >> thank you, sir. thank you. next speaker. >> hi. i just want to say court fees are an ineffective way to fund san francisco city services. san francisco spends more money on collecting court fees than it gains from imposing them on people and the city services shouldn't be paid on the backs of low-income residents. these debts set up barriers to people trying to obtain housing and employment. this proposal may inspire the

cities around the state to take serious steps to confront the gaps in the criminal justice system. thank you, board, for your attention to this matter. i'm asking the committee to support this legislation and eliminate unfair court fees that keep san francisco in cycles of poverty, thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> thank you, reverend arnold townsend. i should think this legislation should not have much trouble to pass in this body. i hope i'm right. when one understands what this really is, it's a continued form of slavery, even after people have done their time, you still keep them in bondage and ask them to pay for it. and those, it makes absolutely no sense. and i disagree with one of the presenters, when you saddle people with fees you know they can't pay, it has to be just

another form of punishment and so thank you. hurry up and pass this. >> thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon supervisors, paul [inaudible] with the human rights commission. the human rights commission is proud to support this legislation on eliminating fees associated with our criminal justice system. the vast majority of our criminal defendants are deemed indigent, criminal fees at times amounting to thousands in debt weigh people down at precisely the moment they need to be lifted up. they restrict economic mobility and contribute to unemployment. although fees are used to fund important government programs it is immoral and counter productive to fund those programs to what may amount to a regressive tax on low income

people and people of color. the human rights commission is proud to support this legislation and looks forward to work with government leaders to change this high pain, low gain aspect of our criminal justice system. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hello, my name is dayton andrews, the human rights organizer with the coalition on homelessness, proud to be a member of debt-free san francisco as well as the fines and fees board. in my day-to-day i don't think i encounter anyone somewhat impacted by fines and fees. i can think of one particular anecdote, talking to a guy, we will call him william, he has the hardest time keeping his ankle monitor charged because he is homeless or finding a starbucks that allow him to charge his ankle monitor, he

gets kicked out of starbucks and he gets so anxious he takes it off and throws it to the freeway. he is being tasked with maintaining his ankle monitor, pay for it, at the same time he has to be outside and no one will let him charge his ankle monitor. that's one manifestation of the massive pressure we are putting under [buzzer] [cut off] >> thank you, next speaker. >> i'm eva delair. i work with people seeking to get jobs and earn a living in order to support themselves and their families. specifically, i work with people to clear old non-serious convictions from their records, which have been stopping them from being hired for jobs for which they are qualified. these convictions, even several years old mean they cannot get a job. i've seen it in san francisco and across the state, the judges will not allow people to