tv Government Access Programming SFGTV May 17, 2018 12:00pm-1:01pm PDT
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through other means in terms of how we are reaching out to folks and would welcome the opportunity to partner with supervisor yee and his initiative for jobs for seniors to improve recruitment and retention so that we can fill those slots in a cost-effective and appropriate way. [please standby] departments un
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the prop j provision, you s un contract out a lot -- a lot of jobs. you contract out to private companies more than any other enterprise, and so i am wondering, have you a plan. and plan, prop j's provision in 1976 was under emergency circumstances, and i don't think we're in emergency circumstances now. so do you have a plan to incorporate these workers into our permanent workforce.
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>> yes. thank you. through the chair, we are not looking at any in-sourcing of the functions that we have outsourced. what we have been doing in recent years is working with the labor organizations that represent the workforces of these units and the contractors to provide -- to ensure that they're getting a prevailing wage and that it's an adequate wage, so we've worked particularly with the teamsters on several contracts, some of which they only recently organized and have gotten and supported through our budget good wages for those workers. i heard your concern about the growth of fte's in our budget, so we're also trying to kind of manage for that. there's the direct service that we provide that is within and always has been within the core competency of the agency, that
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we do want to use permanent civil service employees for. there are these other elements that have always been contracts out that we propose to continue to do so. one of the biggest driver's of our cost that are rising faster than our revenues are our employee related costs particularly related to health and pension benefits. so we're trying to be responsible how we manage our resources, but we believe that the contracts that we do have provide a good, steady consistent jobs for the people who work them, whether there are employees or from a contractor. >> director reiskin, correct me if i am wrong, but you're not suggesting any new prop j contracts. these are the same ones that you had two years ago, four years ago. this is not growing; this is just the status quo? >> that's correct. >> supervisor fewer: i think my question was whether or not we had a plan to incorporate
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some of these, for example. clear channel, could we be employing city employees under our civil service plan to do these jobs? many of these, after perusing the list, these are entry level jobs. also, when we talk about prevailing wage, that's one thing, but benefits, job security, those are the things that people need to be able to live here in san francisco. i have another overarching question. you don't have to answer it now, but i would love for you to consider a local hire policy for everyone in the mta and see if you can reach some attainable goals because i believe we should be hiring san franciscans first, so thank you, mr. reiskin. i appreciate your response. >> supervisor cohen: supervisor sheehy? >> supervisor sheehy: again, on the crossing guards, are we
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sure that 20 will be enough? i know in my district, i walked with a mother at school drop off at fair oaks and 24 who had been run over with her five-year-old daughter. both of them had been hit by a car. so in that reality, this is just a small part of your budget. it's 2.2 million. we went and we opened sanchez school with mayor lee -- everett school on sanchez, everybody was out, watch for kids, and they were a crossing guard down, and i don't think they've ever been filled. i heard supervisor fewer say there were a number of schools in her district that don't have crossing guards. i just -- i feel like -- it would be great to know that every school -- i guess what i'm looking for is a commitment
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that every school in the city that needs crossing guards will have crossing guards. i mean that's what i'm really looking for. and if you overbudget, and you don't need as many as you might need, but so many schools -- like, the schools that i -- i was -- over on 24th and fair oaks, they'd submitted an application a long time ago, and they just gave up, so we have a futility amongst a lot of schools knowing they won't get them. and it just it kind of -- it's weird to send in people to go and talk about safe routes to school and teaching people how to ride a bike, and we spend all that money on that, but we don't provide the minimum basic service, which is crossing guards. that that's just a plea, that's just my bias that i hope that the commitment will be less position oriented and more capacity oriented and just a
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commitment that we will do whatever it takes. 'cause again, relative year budget is very small money. the impact is high. we may not have people getting killed, but they're getting run over. just 'cause we didn't kill them -- it's hard to talk to a mom and five-year-old that have been hit by a car, and they're at the intersection. the first question you ask yourself, why isn't there crossing guards, so i hope, i hope, i hope. >> supervisor cohen: thank you, supervisor sheehy. i'm going to go to supervisor yee. >> supervisor yee: so i'm going to join the chorus of crossing guards. i'm going to echo supervisor fewer in regards to potential expansion of the hours to get to 20. i think i'm having a hearing on the issue that we're having in
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san francisco or anywhere where most of the fatalities between collision of a car and a human being are seniors, and yet, we know that there are senior programs that operate in the morning or whatever, and there are -- the food pantries are a place where a lot of people are crossing that are seniors. i'm just wondering if we could be a little creative in seeing how we could work together to identify those in which one -- the crossing guards at the school to easily walk one to two blocks at these senior sites and help the seniors cross. >> supervisor cohen: thank you, supervisor yee. director reiskin, i appreciate your presentation, and you heard from the colleagues about crossing guards. i particularly am interested
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more in infrastructure and building out our infrastructure and maintaining the infrastructure that we have in place. and my understanding is the fte's that you're proposing, is it 200 -- 2 -- is it 298 operators? >> director reiskin: there's 298 within the transit division. some of those are operators. there's probably more of them on the maintenance side. >> supervisor cohen: i'm under the impression you're doing this hiring to increase the efficiency of the service to ultimately all of san francisco. is that right? >> director reiskin: all of what we're investing in these transit is to provide services to either meet commitments that we either have collectively as a city made to buy more vehicles and allow more development in san francisco as well as to anticipate the future development that is continually getting approved
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through the planning commission and board of supervisors, so i see this as we're fulfilling commitments that we've made over the years as we've authorized the purchase of buses and expansion of light rail vehicles, all of which have been strongly and unanimously supported by the board of supervisors and the mayor, as well as the population increase of the city we're seeing, as you made reference to previously. but we can't accommodate that population increase with more cars on the road, so transit is really going to be the way that we're going to efficiently and sustainably be able to move those people because we do insource our transit service, we deliver it with civil servants. that's why the increase in serviceman fests as an -- service manifests as an increase in fte's. >> supervisor cohen: we're talking about an entity that has a $1.2 million operating
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budget. >> director reiskin: that is what's proposed. >> supervisor cohen: how much were your projections for the current fiscal year? >> director reiskin: so for the current fiscal year is 1.18. >> supervisor cohen: and what was the last fiscal year? >> director reiskin: last year, expenditures were up at 1.37. i believe there were a number of one-time expenses, including some relates to litigation and -- related to litigation and carry forwards that made that number higher. but generally, the current fiscal year is what's trending at 1.18 and next year, 1.21, so a relatively modest increase. >> supervisor cohen: do you anticipate anymore litigation in the up coming fiscal year? >> director reiskin: we've anticipated that into the next
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fiscal year. >> supervisor cohen: and how much are you intending to carry forward? >> director reiskin: this year, we're at the end of the budget cycle, so whatever we have leftover at the end of this fiscal year, they would just fall over to our fund balance. we expect the end of this week to get new figures from the controller's office, we will be making a technical jauflt, and that is in part how we will be funding the additional crossing guards that were proposed to my board after the approval of the budget. >> supervisor cohen: and how did your board receive the request from this body for crossing guards? were they surprised? were they supportive? >> director reiskin: they were supportive. >> supervisor cohen: okay. thank you, director. i appreciate your presentation. supervisor stefani has bun final question. >> commissioner stefani: yes, i do want to echo the chorus on the crossing guard and taxi.
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what safety enforcements do -- [inaudible] >> director reiskin: yes, thank you through the chair to supervisor stefani. with you look forward to the hearing that you and supervisor fewer have called on this topic. we've made the capital investment and upgrade a lot of the systems within the garages. we're i think one-third of the way through a three year program of upgrading our garages. as you know we've had some very preliminary but encouraging results in terms of what we're doing to add more cameras and lighting. we've also added screening and other ways to limit access as well as coordinating with the police department to strategically deploy their resources to help with the garages. as you know in a couple cases we've seen very substantial
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improvements such as the long-standing conversations we've been having on the pierce street garage going bockmanny years. with regard to on muni, we have a work order with the police department through which we procure security services that's funded both from operating dollars and grant funds. to the extent they don't have full-time resources available or to the extent we've had extra grant money, we also use what we're calling our surge operation where we hire off duty police officers to come and work smaller shifts, and using that resource, we've been able to be very strategic in working with the police department to he can inform -- focus them on the areas, the days, the times, the locations where we see the most security challenges. we also have our fare inspectors.
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we have our muni transit assistance program, so we have a number of dimensions of security on the muni service that we're able to provide. we have seen some returns on that at least in terms of reported crime on muni, so reported crime has been going down on muni, but i do recognize that the perception of safety and security on muni still remains a concern, so we continue to work with the police department and our own staff to kind of capture the rider feedback in addition to the police reporting data to try to most optimally deploy our resources. i will note -- and this may be true back to the questions that you had with the airport with regard to potential homeland security funding that federal funding support in these areas has been dwindling. there's a program within the department of homeland security called the tran sis security grant program, the funds that
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we've been seeing in decreasing amounts over the year, so i think the federal government will be a less reliable partner in this, so we'll need to look more to our operating budget or other grant opportunities to try to address security. but we are encouraged at least that the reported crime on muni has generally been dropping and be happy to go into much more detail on those questions at the june hearing. >> supervisor cohen: i want to talk about certainty and risk. senate bill -- in injure slide deck, you -- your slide deck, you acknowledge thatten al bill 1 is in jeopardy of being repealed, and that's going to have a pretty significant impact. 27 million out of your operating budget. if that's successful and the repeal happens, what does that mean for our transportation system? >> director reiskin: so we would have to go through a budget rebalancing practices. i mentioned early -- rebalancing practices. part of the way that we were
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able to accommodate the increase muni service that we were in this proposed budget was because of the new sb 1 revenues, the tune of $27 million. so we will have to reevaluate should that measure make it to the ballot and be approved by the voters, we would have to reevaluate our budget and come back, whether it be not implementing the full extent of those service cuts or looking at other areas of the budget to try to identify savings. i know we focused on a small area of the budget, but we have more demands, whether it's in maintenance or operations, whether it's refreshing the paint on the street, let alone crossing guards and police services, than we have the resources to be able to supply, so we try to weigh all the different needs and try to develop a balanced budget. that $27 million in addition to continuing strength of the general fund was a big part of
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what allowed us to put forward and for our board to approve a pretty robust budget, particularly in terms of muni service. so muni service would be one of the areas that we would need to look at should we lose that anticipated 12 -- $27 million annually. >> supervisor cohen: you mentioned that costs are going up. can you identify where costs are going up? >> director reiskin: it's primarily pension and health benefit costs of employees which are rising faster than inflation, faster than our revenue growth. >> supervisor cohen: and the way we manage that is maybe restricting the number of people that we hire? >> director reiskin: so that's part of the calculation. i think that was the spirit that was behind the mayor's budget instructions, because they were looking out, just as we were looking out seeing the expenditures growing faster than the revenues, we both for our budget and the general fund budget see a shortfall that
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we're going to need to address. >> supervisor cohen: do you know that shortfall? >> director reiskin: i don't have that number, but i'd be happy to share it with you. our baseline shortfall for those two years but on the number of $29 million, so control fte growth is part of the strategy. on the other hand, the core service that we deliver, we deliver with public servants, and we don't intend to stray from that. so in order to meet those obligations, that's why we propose the employee growth that we do. >> supervisor cohen: i see. do you guys have a rainy day fund? >> director reiskin: we do. so our board set a policy of holding in reserve an equivalent of 10% of our operating budget, so that would create a reserve requirement of about $120 million -- $120 million. right now, the fund -- >> supervisor cohen: annually, or that's what you have in
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total? >> director reiskin: so the requirement is at any given time have a fund balance equivalent to at least 10% of the operating budget. that was something that we dipped into before i got into the agency but pretty significantly during the recession in order to preserve or not to have to make service cuts to muni. we have since grown that back and we're now significantly above that rainy day fund requirement, and i have a chart that shows that. >> supervisor cohen: sfgovtv if you could show that. >> director reiskin: because the fund got built up so high, 20% of the operating budget, we did in the last two year budget as well as in this proposed budget proposed drawing down on that reserve, putting it only to one-time uses, such as equipment purchases or other capital improvements, but we are proposing some expenditure with that, but it would still, as approved, and before the latest projections from the
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controller's office would leave us above that 10% reserve requirement, and this is what we would have to draw on should there be an economic downturn. >> supervisor cohen: all right. supervisor sheehy, did you have -- >> supervisor sheehy: just a quick question, and thank you, supervisor stefani for stimulating this. do police officers still -- is there still that requirement as part of their shift that they ride on a muni vehicle? >> director reiskin: i believe that's still probably in writing a policy of the police department. it would be a better question for the police department, whether it's still a policy and to what extent it's really still in effect and enforced. >> supervisor sheehy: for the riders, it makes them feel safe for those blocks. i think that's something we could refer to the department. i remember you'd hop on a
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while, but i remember they had to do that as part of their shift, and i thought it was a good policy. >> supervisor cohen: all right. thank you. seeing there's no further questions for you, thank you, and we'll see you next week. >> i guarantee you, there will be easy. >> supervisor cohen: excellent. thank you for your patience. i really appreciate it. >> thank you. we are tiny compared to the giants that you have been hearing from. i want to thank you, chair cohen for this opportunity, and community members, i will very quickly do three things. i will provide you with an overview of what we do, i will highlight our budget and i will highlight a couple priorities that will be coming up in the
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next budget cycle that we have been embarking on now. next slide. so just in large overview of what we do, we serve thousands of residents and businesses every year. we go door to door with recycling and composting so to make sure materials don't end up in landfills, we work with small businesses to reduce energy, we protect our public housing residents from exposure to toxic chemicals. we work with our fellow city agencies, with the board and with our business community as well as with our residents on actions around climate change, and those actions have been paying off. this is one of my favorite slides. i know you have a lot of numbers before you, but the number i'd love to leave you with in my short time is the number 29. 29% reduction below 1990 levels in our greenhouse gas emissions. we've done that reduction while our population has increased by 20% and our gdp by 111%.
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there are very few cities around the world that can show a slide like this. clearly, there are large impacts on our city to have such large population growth and gdp growth of the one of the successes is the decoupling between the economic population and the greenhouse gas emissions. we do that in partnership with some of the entities you heard them today. it warmed my heart to hear them talk about their environmental goals. you'll hear more about that later today. our budget, as you said, chair cohen, we are not on the general fund. so when you look at our pie chart, it breaks down pretty dramatically. about half comes from what is the solid waste impound account. that is from the garbage rates. we raise a full 22% or 23% either through grants and awards or through work orders from other city departments, showing our value every step of
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the way that we can. that 24% pie, the yellow, is the cigarette litter abatement money. that is simply a pass through. it comes to our department and then goes to public works to do litter abatement and especially around the cigarettes. our -- the next slide is our budget at a glance. the main point to look here is the bottom line, and when you look at the bottom line, you'll see that our budget has remained very stable between last year and this year. the change that you see reflects changes in grants and grant cycles. because we are so heavily dependent on grants, it does impact our budget, and you see that here where we have some grants going offline, others that will be coming on. we have met the mayor's request that make sure that we absorb any increases in internally. likewise, the next slide -- >> supervisor cohen: before you go to the next slide, i want to ask a question.
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i see a $1.1 million increase. you have a $22 million budget, and i think there's a 1.1 increase -- >> decrease. >> supervisor cohen: excuse me, decrease from between fiscal year 2017-18. you said that comes from grants? >> yes, and we are applying for more grants to try to soften that impact. that is a symptom of our department because we are so heavily grant funded. our next slide shows we have met the requirement of the mayor to keep our fte's constant, and you can see it's pretty much the same year to year. finally looking forward who's coming down the pike, as you may know we have already started rolling out the biggest change to our program in the
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last 15 years. about 60% of the roll out, family and residential sector. in the meantime, we have launched a very intensive multilingual outreach program to work with the residents and the small businesses to make sure people understand what they need to do. and finally, the next large initiative for our department, so very much not alone at earth day breakfast, the mayor announced a strategy and a goal to get to net zero carbon emissions. this is very bold. it keeps us in good company with 25 cities from around the world. it makes us compliant with the paris climate agreement and the mayor has tasked the department of the environment with leading the way, developing a strategy, and prioritization scheme for meeting that goal, which we will be embarking on in the coming year. so in closing, as you can see,
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we have about a $22 million budget. we have no additional fte's, we do not have impound money, and we are very proud of the work that we've managed to do in the last year. so thank you. >> supervisor cohen: great. thank you. my compliments to you and your entire staff, and congratulations. that was under ten minutes. good job for you. definitely getting a gold star. i don't have any questions for the proposed budget. i want going to ask if there was any cost savings, but i don't think you have any or any salary savings or anything like that. >> there's -- no, we're very flat on the salaries. >> supervisor cohen: okay. great. thank you. supervisor fewer? >> supervisor fewer: yes. thank you for your presentation and thank you for all the work you do to pick up the cigarette butts in my neighborhood. i just want to know, do you have any vacancies? >> we have three vacancies, and they are he aall in the process
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of recruitment, so we're looking for good candidates. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. >> supervisor cohen: cone all right. keeping things moving, we're going to hear from child support services next. child support services is headed by miss karen roy. their total budget is $13.5 million. apparently they tell us there's no change from last year. it's mostly comprised of federal dollars and state dollars. >> that's right. >> supervisor cohen: all right. let's hear about child support services. >> okay. >> supervisor cohen: next, we will hear from san francisco employee retirement system.
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>> thank you so much for inviting the department to present before you today. chair cohen, thank you so much. members of the committee, i am excited to present our budget to you. joining me is our deputy director, carol bennett. >> supervisor cohen: hi, carol. >> next slide. thank you. it is our mission to empower parents to meet the needs of their children. while our services remain significant, how we deliver these services needs to keep pace with families today. the child support program understands that sometimes parents need help in meeting their obligations to provide economic support for their children. many parents responsible to pay child support are themselves struggling with poverty or just as involved and face significant barriers to gameful employment. the head winds some parents
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face in accomplishing their goals requires a concerted effort and child support must be part of that effort. with an innovative spirit, the department has structured its delivery service to one that is family centered, helping parents meet their economic commitments to their children, strengtheni strengthening ties. we recognize that custodial parents who suffered domestic violence should be able to pursue child support safely, that realistic orders that are in line with parent earnings are reliable orders that children can count on. that incarcerated parents are parents first, and their children are waiting for them and that coparenting provides fathers the opportunity to engage and care for their children, creating long-term benefits for the whole family. the department manages both with conviction and optimism.
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we continue to build a stronger and more valuable program for all san francisco families by leveraging our partnerships with relevant city agencies and community-based organizations, strengthening outreach to build deep client connections and reaching into our program to ensure parent equity and treatment. low-income families who have timed out of public assistance rely heavily on child support as a safety net. for deeply impacted mothers who receive it, child support is 63% of the family's annual income. our clients are predominantly african american and latino, with the number of asian american families increasing. 98% of families paying child support in san francisco are fathers, and 97% of children on our caseload have paternity established, helping to build
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stronger familial relationships. in my experience, we have made meaningful progress for federal fiscal year 2017, the department collected approximately $26 million. 95% of every dollar collected went directly to families, and of the 58 california counties, san francisco is ranked fourth in collections for children. the department receives no county funding, no county general funding and is 100% supported through federal and state funding as was mentioned by chair cohen. the department anticipates federal funding and has aligned its budgets to maximize budget streams, mineful to live within
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our means. this budget prepares for future increases in the cost of doing businesses with three primary adjustments to proposed spending. first, the recalibration of county costs related to health and retirement benefits were actualized for this budget at a lower cost to the department adding to atrition savings. second rk second, funding in the department's telephony and i.t. systems has been funded by the state for the current year, and finally, current county recovery from other city departments are considered ongoing and primarily supports colocation costs. key to delivering on the promise of enhanced case management services that address the needs of trauma-impacted and fragile
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families are direct service providers. and at this time i want to take a minute to thank the men and women of the child support program. i believe public service is a calling and not just a job. investing in the people that deliver our services is critical. the department has a workforce that is culturally competent and reflects the diversity of the people we serve. case workers appreciate and respect cultural differences and take them into consideration providing excellent customer service to parents. the department also prioritizes language access, understanding that absent effective communication, a culture of inequity in service delivery is very possible. we regularly analyze and criticize our internal systems in relation to clients' feed pack to ensure systemic barriers to access do not occur. i also want to take an
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opportunity to thank the mayor's office and the controller's office for their assistance with this budget. i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. so colleagues, just want to acknowledge that the child support services will not have a budget legislative analyst report next week. i would like to propose that there's no need for them to come back and present to us again, so we will just hear this, and then, we will dismiss you for the -- for the duration of the process. i don't know if there's any questions. supervisor fewer? >> supervisor fewer: just one question. i noticed in your report you said that the caseload is down. >> yes. >> supervisor fewer: and why do you think that is? >> our caseload has -- has gone down substantially. i believe it's the families that are leaving san francisco. they simply can't afford to stay in our city. we, at one time, had over
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27,000 cases, families that were receiving support through our program, primarily middle-income families. we have seen a drastic drop in that number. i also want to say that this program is free to all families, with $25 annually, any family member can come in and ask for services, and we will support you, and we will provide you with legal support. we know that it roughly costs around 12 to $25,000 for mediation services, legal services, etcetera. for $25, we're here for you. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. >> you're well cocome, through chair. >> supervisor cohen: i don't see any other questions. thank you for your service.
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>> thank you. >> supervisor cohen: all right. next, i'd like to call up the san francisco retirement system. they have a budget of -- [inaudible] >> supervisor cohen: years of service. >> yes, i've been watching the committee, and i wanted to acknowledge norm. he's worked two tenures with the retirement system. i'm very grateful that he decided to come back. he's worked in various departments, well known and really appreciate the work that he's done. congratulate him on his retirement. >> supervisor cohen: yes, congratulations. >> he's learned the subject matter too well when you work for retirement. >> supervisor cohen: all right, mr. huish, are you
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ready to get started? >> right. pleased to be here, supervisors. with the retirement system, our mission is to invest the pension trust prudently, to administer the mandated benefit programs, and most importantly, to the folks who have earned pensions, we pay the promised benefits every month. the second slide that i have here, just as a reminder, that plan was established originally in 1922. currently, we're administering 14 separate retirement benefit programs for the employees and retirees of the city and county of san francisco. i have just sort of for tracking purposes our three-year membership growth. you can see that we have
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nonretired members have grown from last year, a 4.8% increase, retired members at 3%, and overall total growth from last year is 3.9%. we've crossed over the 70,000 active and retired member number for the first time. the next slide basically shows the fundedness and the health of the retirement system, and i'm very proud of this slide. i think you will often hear me say, and other people will say that we're among the very best funded pension plans in the united states. we'd love to be 100% funded, but certainly, we're working towards getting 100% funded. i have a very hard working board, pioneering board, and we're doing our best. you can see that the market value of assets in 2017 -- we take a snapshot every year, july 1, 2017 was $22.4 billion, which meant we're funded at 87.2% ratio. just to deliver you the most up to date news, as of the end of
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first quarter 2018, the trust is over $24 billion, and we're set to have a return of around 10% on the plan, which hopefully on the mayor's budget side will be a surprise that we've done better than expected. we always try and help, so good news so far. but as most of you know, the financial markets, especially in 2018, have been pretty shaky. we had a 10% correction, which we believe was long overdue. we recovered from that correction. we're positioning our assets in over time to make sure that we aren't severely impacted by those types of downturns. the retirement board acquires the deferred comp program. we're pleased with the
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participation we have in the program. we currently have over 19,000 employees that are voluntarily contributing to deferring kp compensation to this plan. we have just under 30,000 folks that have accounts with the deferred comp program, and the assets that the employees have contributed and the investment earnings they have now top $3.4 billion. so this is a significant program, an important tool, sort of the third leg of the stool for folks who are looking inforlooking to retire. we're very pleased with the participation in the deferred comp program. we opened up a loan program in august of 2016. this was at the request of the city, and the employees, and we have had over 2400 folks who
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have taken out loans against their own account. you take the money out, you pay yourself back the interest, and so even though we've not widely publicized this, it's certainly on the website. it's a program, you can use it for a down payment on the house, or you can use it to pay college tuition. >> supervisor cohen: what's the maximum amount of money that you can borrow. >> the higher of $50,000 or half of your account balance. so if you don't have $100,000 in your account, you can borrow up to half of what your account balance is, but the max is 50. you can have multiple loans. >> supervisor cohen: once the account balance is paid. >> no, you can have multiple loans at the same time, so it's a very important program for folks. also effective july of 2017,
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the administration and investment of the retiree health care trust was transferred from the office of the controller to fers, but i'm -- i won't he tell you what the funded percentage is, but i'm happy to report that has grown to over $250 million, so we continue to invest that money. that is the money that was required at a 2% rate for new employees and now is being phased in for all current employees at quarter percent rates. the city also has a contribution that goes into this pool, so we're excited about trying to prudently invest these funds, also. our budget highlights are -- i will respectfully correct the chair, madam chair, that even
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though it looks like there are general fund dollars supporting the retirement system's budget, there are no general fund moneys. i think it's setup in a general fund account skbrujust so it c handled differently. >> supervisor cohen: that's correct. >> but all of the funds for the sfers are paid by the trust through the deferred comp program. they're reimbursed to us by the third party administrator and for the retiree health care trust fund, all of the expenses for administering the program are taken from the earnings of the retiree health care trust fund. we have three strategic initiatives that i wanted to point out to the committee. in our budget, we've proposed a very minor reorganization of our member services area, because we want to start focusing on a retirement readiness campaign, not just talking to people about their pension, but also talking to
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them about the opportunity to defer their money through the city's deferred comp program as well as get information out to them related to their social security benefits, and so we're going to start, and this budget reflects just a change -- it was a substitution of a position so that we could have leadership for this new campaign. we also have an enhanced member experience strategic initiative where we currently are on our website, members have 24-7 access through a secure member portal to all of their retirement information. they can model benefits, see what their pension would look like if they decided to retire in october of 2019. we think that we know from the number of visitors that we receive through this that it's been well received. we want to continue to roll out additional services. the service model we have is still probably over 90% of all
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transactions are conducted face-to-face. we're not sure whether it's they just love to come and see us, but we really want to off load and educate folks that they can save themselves a trip to our office by going on-line and conducting transactions that way. and the third initiative is the esg initiative. in this budget, we did not keep in line with mayor lee's budget instructions. however, the mayor's office did approve that we would be able to acquire resources to fully implement our esg, and the board approved unanimously . we're hoping that the committee and the board would be supportive of adding two permanent resources as a signal that we're not just focused on fossil fuel, we're also focused
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on executive pay, diversity on boards, a long list of social, environmental and governance issues, so we're hoping that you'd be supportive of that. as requested we've shown the fte growth relatively flat over the last few years, including the last two years and future budget. and this is how we spend our budget. and you can see that two thirds of all of our expenses are paid towards investment. that is not staff salaries, those are hiring managers, they're travel, they're research, and so the last majority of our budget is spent on investment. we have roughly 23% of our budget is spent on personnel. and then, we have work orders for administration and retirement is the next piece. so i'd be happy at this time to answer any questions that any
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of the committee members might have. >> supervisor cohen: thank you very much for that presentation. supervisor stefani? >> commissioner stefani: thank you. i know you mentioned the divested from fossil fuel holdings, and i'm wondering if we divested from ammunition and gun stocks? >> yes. we went further than anyone did after sandy hook. we not only divested from the manufacturers, but we divested our holdings in the major retailers that were making those available to the public. so i'm proud of the board by going further than the step -- than i think a calot of calls e being made for now. >> commissioner stefani: thank you. >> supervisor cohen: yes. supervisor yee? >> supervisor yee: you mentioned the retiree health care trust fund has grown to
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about 250 million. is there a particular goal that we're trying to reach in terms of the amount? and then, also, i was just wondering what the source of the growth is from? >> i hesitated to say the fundedness because we were one of the first. the city and county of san francisco is one of the very first cities to decide to start funding this type of obligation. i believe -- i don't have the numbers in front of me, but certainly, the retiree health care obligation -- the liability is over $4 billion, the last number i saw, so what the city took, the last charter proposal is to start collecting money from active employees that is in a trust that only under very emergency types of circumstances could the city get into, but they wanted to start having and building up towards a $4 billion. so it's not a significant funded level, but certainly, it represents, i believe, the fore
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thought of this city to go forward and at least try and resolve the issue. eventually, everyone will be paying 2% -- all active employees will be paying 2% of their pay into this trust, and the city will be paying 1% of that pay. so it's going to take a while, but certainly, it reflects an effort. it used to be managed at the treasurer. in a couple of years they approached the retirement system to see if they could piggyback off of some of our investment opportunities and we're able to provide them access to some index funds so that they're able to rather than more than just sort of a treasury rate. i don't have the numbers in front of me but certainly it's earning in the realm of 7 to 8%. and now that we have taken over the management of it, we're actually introducing to the board the opportunities to make direct investments rather than
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just passive investments, so we're building it out similar to, you know, the way we manage the retirement system. they are now at a size that they're significant; they can make a $10 million investment and not really, you know, have it an overpowering impact in the portfolio. so i -- you know, claire murphy, my predecessor, told them, don't come and talk to us until you got to the right size. they got to the right size, and they came and talked to us, and we're more than happy to invest this for them. for being a passive portfolio up until now, it's been getting very respectable returns. >> supervisor yee: thank you. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. i have a question on the final page with the pie chart of your presentation, you've got investment expenses at $61 million. i'd like you to talk to us about those expenses. what kind of expenses are there? >> yes, the majority of these are for consultants and for managers. actually, the majority of them are for managers.
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we engage 80 -- invest -- over 80 investment managers, and we pay them fees associated with those sections of the portfolio. also, the board has an investment consultant, and then we have a private market consultant and a public market consultant, so a lot of those are for consultants. the other consultant that the board has is the actuarial consulting services, which is an outside actuarial firm that oversees and conducts all of our reporting, all of our recommendations for the board on contribution rates every year, and so that's the nature of the vast majority of that cost. i think it's -- in the investment, it's all managers and all consultants. >> supervisor cohen: okay.
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so there were -- earlier in the committee hearing, there was a long conversation about increasing sfpd. the mayor has put a proposal forward -- a budget proposal forward to increase, i think to hire something like 160 employees -- new sfpd officers. and quite frankly, this body is -- not just this committee, but the entire board of supervisors have identified public safety as one of their top concerns. and in that -- in that area of public safety, it's a desire to see more beat cops, more foot patrol cops. so there's a proposal that's being -- currently being floated that would ultimately have 250 employee -- new officers in four years. so that's, what, fiscal year
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2022? i'm wondering -- and if you don't have the numbers, you can certainly bring it back to us, but what are the exponential costs associated to the retirement fund? one thing we heard about mta, when you bring on fte's, there's more than the cost of salary. there's the benefits, and then you're paying out throughout their entire career. and then, when they retire, yes they've paid into a pension system, but they're also drawing down on our health care system with very expensive health care costs that are growing exponentially, meaning the cost that we're paying when they get in is not the same cost that we're going to be paying for them when they retire. and i don't want to exclude myself. this includes myself. >> all of us, actually. >> supervisor cohen: yes. i want to know if you can indicate the cost of hiring 250 additional police officers. the reason i'm targeting this,
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they are very highly paid and a very skilled classification of city employees. and if you don't have it, i'd just love for you to get it back to me because i'm interested in mowing what the plult meyer effect is on their multiplier effect is on their salary. correct me if i am wrong, but i think the vesting -- the number of years that you have to complete your service in order to vest, is it 13 years? >> for the retirement, it's five years. >> supervisor cohen: five years. >> for the health services, i think total vesting is at 20, and so i think you get access to medical -- >> supervisor cohen: after 20 years of service. >> after ten. i don't have the chart, but i think it graduates up. and by -- you have to have a full 20 years to get the full subsidy of retiree health because previous people -- i'll remind you, all of the new police are going to come into a benefit plan that has lower benefits than the folks prior to 2010. but it'll still be costing -- we have -- as you know, we have an internal actuary, i will have her estimate the numbers,
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