small site is strictly devoted to small, there is no deed restriction except rent control. these are the units at risk of converting to market rate either through vacancy de control. we have a separate set of funds to help our partners preserve

and protect. >> is a prioritization of small sites or is there a risk of being displaced. >> sorry, can you repeat the question? >> are you prioritizing small sites where tenants are at risk of being displaced? >> yes, we have a priority list if deals come through the door simultaneously. it's an over the counter program. we will first look at buildings where there's imminent risk of eviction or displacement. we have, for example, intervened and helped our non-profit partners by buildings where there was an ellis act in progress and we were able to provide the funding that allowed the non-profits to stop that ellis act action and preserve the property. >> supervisor fewer: for example, my district. less than 3% of affordable housing dollars comes to my district. we have one small site acquisition in my district. and yet, we are losing rent

controlled units so quickly, because a lot of these apartment buildings, one on 24th avenue, 11 units. it sold for $3 million dollars. my question is, i think, geographically, why are we not seeing some of these small sites being bought in my neighborhood. >> we aren't a developer. we are dependent on non-profit developers and we are open to market-rate developers too if they want to participate in the program to go and put an option on the site or tie up the site, get site control and then come to us and ask for assistance. >> supervisor fewer: but you don't help facilitate that to happen between the provider and your office? >> we have helped facilitate transactions since 2014 when this project started. we have our most active developer is meta. they have done, by far and away, the most of our small

site acquisitions. we are grateful to them for the really great work they have done. they are very focused on the mission. after that, the community land trust has acquired several. but they had organizational change over, so right now they are really focused on just finishing what they have in progress and so that is a separate issue. and chinatown community development center is also primarily focused on the chinatown neighborhood. so i think it would be spectacular to bring more developers into this program and do much more citywide work, especially day one. we also haven't done anything in d-2, d-3, d-4 for small sites. we need this program throughout the city but we need more resources and we need more developer participation. and o.c.d. isn't a developer. we are doing everything we can to make this program as

effective as possible within the constraints that we face. >> supervisor fewer: of the 10,000 affordable units in the pipeline for low-income people, how many are new units versus units being rehabbed and where are they located? >> we have units throughout the city. we had, as you know, a very high proportion of the 10,000 units that were acquisitions and rehabs because of our rad portfolio work. that was 3500 units. to date, we've rehabbed or acquired/rehabbed or developed newly over 6,000 units. we are at about 6,500. so about 4,000 of those are ac/rehabs. about 4,500 are reconstruction. we have about 4,000 units primarily new construction, a

few existing non-profit rehabs sprinkled in there. we have, primarily, those units are in district 8, district 6, and district 10. clearly the o.c.i.i. project areas have a lot of investment because of the benefits of tax increment financing. so mission bay, transbay, and bayview hunters park, candlestick point have a lot of new units under production. but we have, also had a serious investment in district 9, with about 800 units, just about to get under way. in fact, we are having a ground breaking ceremony for the first senior housing development at 1296 shotwell next week. again, we would like to do more in various districts. but we are really struggling with cost problems. construction cost problems.

the whole industry is. we are looking at construction costs that are 700,000, 800,000, 900,000 per unit. so we really need to focus on bringing those costs down. working in a big tent way with all the stakeholders, that's labor, contractors, subcontractors, developers, architects and our city staff to relieve the regulatory burden but also to get some relief from the construction teams. and so we can build more housing. because at the level of construction costs we have now, it's extremely difficult. we need good cheap land without serious obstacles and we need to get these units produced faster. >> supervisor fewer: because i do have a site in my neighborhood.

32nd clement, which a safeway store is moving into. it's a two-acre piece of property that we could build the building above with a partnership with safeway, but i don't see any sort of communication or assistance with actually helping to make that happen, or even negotiating with safeway. i think it's an ideal spot. i spoke to mayor lee about it multiple times, he was quite aware of this site, i think we had conversations about it, in my neighborhood i could use my density, quite frankly, i could build more units, on that site, i could go high on that site. i think this is the kind of assistance offices like mine are looking for. we are seeing affordable units being built all over the city and not actually in our neighborhood. and actually we are second most evictions with owner move-in and ellis act in my neighborhood and people being evicted are seniors in my neighborhood.

i'm seeing huge massive displacement. but yet we don't see any building for affordable units in my neighborhood. thank you very much. i want to also mention about the mayor's office of community development, actually, i just want to also piggyback what supervisor yee said. when this board gives a unanimous vote, and i know the mayor can choose to fund what he would like to fund, and not fund. but when this board gives a unanimous vote, that is a very strong message about what is important to the residents of san francisco. because we actually represent the residents of san francisco. in each one of our neighborhoods. and when we vote yes as their representative, it means the residents of san francisco have spoken also. and so it is quite

disappointing to hear that this is something that was chosen not to have a permanent funding stream. even though, we, as the representatives of the people of san francisco have voted unanimously for this to happen. so i just want to echo that and maybe there could be further discussion on this. because when we vote on things, as a legislative body, and we are unanimous, and i just have to say that sometimes it is difficult to get a unanimous vote and when you have that kind of cohesion, then i think it sends a very important message. thank you. >> all right. i think we are done. you guys are off the hot seat for now. we will see you again soon. any other last minute remarks? ben? nope. great. next we will hear from office

of general city responsibility, michelle allairs will be presenting for us. >> good afternoon, supervisors, michelle allairs from the controllers office. i will be brief, you heard a lot of what goes on in this department. yesterday with the presentation of the revenue letter, very briefly, jen as we call it, citywide revenues and expenditures that don't belong to a particular department sit. citywide responsibilities such as baseline transfer service and other debt services are also budgeted within this department and they are administered largely by the controller's office. the single largest is about $2.1 billion of transfers from the general fund to the m.t.a., the hospitals, library and all of the other voter mandated and approved baseline expenditures. about $234 million in debt service.

deposits to reserves. and citywide general fund expenses for administering health costs and other systems costs and real estate, etc.. i would be happy to answer any questions though. >> all right, well thank you. the office of general city responsibility department with no employees but it is a central fund where all the general fund dollars are collected and then transferred, right? transferred to individual departments. so i don't think we have any questions. thank you for your presentation. next we will hear from our city attorney, mr. dennis herrera, he has an $86 million budget, request of $3.6 million increase, 311 personnel and he is requesting three additional personnel. >> thank you, chair cohen. i understand your direction was to be fast, fun and thoughtful, was the directive given at the beginning. [chuckles] as long as the budget analyst

doesn't have anything to say, i'm sure we could be fast and fun. chair and supervisors, thank you for the opportunity to make office budget presentation to you. first off, i want to acknowledge your job as budget committee is the hardest, most important and under appreciated in all of city government. even at the best of times your role requires tough decisions with limited resources and i know you all do it quite capebly each and every year, so thank you. i'm here with my chief financial officer, dora akai. i will briefly summarize our role. in a nutshell, as many of you are aware we assist in the drafting of legislation, provide objective legal advice so decision makers like you, can make decisions based on a common understanding of the law.

we review and approve contracts, surity bonds and other legal instruments. we defend legal claims and lawsuits and recommend settlements per your approval. we have an award winning affirmative litigation program that litigates not just on behalf the city and county of san francisco, but on behalf of the people of the state of california. our office's expertise must span virtually every practice area. and our staff has lead our office to be recognized as the premier law office in the country. for fiscal year 2018-19 proposed budget is $86 million. that is $3.7 million or 4.4% higher. there are two main factors in the change to our budget this year.

first, mandated salary and fringe benefit increases, and the addition of civil conservativeship cases transferred from the district attorney office to our office, by virtue of your action, this new role will start january 1, 2019. as you know, this new undertaking is at the direction of this board and it will bring 500 new cases to our office. the mayor's budget includes three new positions, two attorneys and one legal assistant to handle this and the implementation of laura's law which our office has also taken over from the district attorney's office. in our professional view, these three positions reflect the appropriate staffing level needed to integrate these cases into our office. i want to note this is the staffing needed to handle the kirnt work load. it doesn't address any future legislative changes or account for a transition period. the way the budget is currently

structured we wouldn't get new staff until the day we take over this important role. however it would be preferable to be staffed in advance of the hand over to allow our staff to hit the ground running which i believe is what the board envisioned, to transfer this responsibility to our office. mental illness is a factor in the desperate situation we see on our streets today. addressing it a priority, for the incoming mayor, the leadership of the this city and residents we all serve. we need to tackle it as a city and we need to do it the right way. the fiscal year 2019-2020 proposed budget of $88 million for our office is a 2.3% increase compared to the year before, largely due to adding physicians and increase in rent costs. additional demands on our office include upholding the rule of law and protecting san francisco's policies from a trump administration that continues to threaten both.

as you know, san francisco sanctuary laws in particular are under attack. you may recall last year the president threatened to withhold federal funding from san francisco because of our sanctuary status. we took him to court and secured a victory. san francisco had about $2 billion at stake. includes grants for large infrastructure and funds for core services like public safety and medical care. this is money that provides food, assistance and other social services for seniors, low income families and people with disabilities. this case continues to play out in court and the federal government appealed and we continue to vigorously protect the city's interest out of our existing budget. which we did not receive additional funding for and we have funded to the tune of $2 million out of our existing budget. recognizing the importance of standing up for san franciscans we have not shied away from

taking other legal action against the trump administration. we have filed lawsuits over the u.s. department of justice instituting new unconstitutional conditions on federal law enforcement grants. the trump administration to undermine the accuracy of the 2020 u.s. census used to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding nationwide and u.s. attorney general jeff sessions decision to rescind certain protections for youth, immigrants, poor, people of color and people with disabilities. these cases are ongoing and vital to protecting all san franciscans. my office continues to be focused on ensuring that san francisco remains a vibrant thriving and welcoming city. and that we receive our fair share of the tax revenue we send to washington d.c. i know you have many other departments to hear from, so i will wrap it up but i want to note we look forward to working

with you, the budget and legislative analyst to ensure we have the proper resources in place to ensure the city's priorities and i look forward to answering your questions and coming to an agreement on the budget that ensures that we can continue to do the best legal job on behalf of you, the rest of the city and residents of the city and county of san francisco. thank you very much. >> supervisor cohen: thank you very much. i just want to say that you have an excellent staff. this is my eighth year on the board of supervisors and i have interacted with so many professionals. of course jon givner is our faithful one we see on a regular basis but there are folks who have worked on landmark legislation. when we they of crisis centers, and the prop-e that just passed, restricting the sales of flavored tobacco. you have an amazing team that are also fearless.

sometimes as legislators we get to be the face of leading the team, but it's really the details in the legislation that is drafted by your team that makes it air-tight. even the thoughtful cautionary memos so we know what we are walking into with eyes wide open. i just want to get an opportunity to go on record publicly. i don't get a chance to see you that much because you are out there working but just want to say thank you. you have just done great things with police reform, negotiations with police and fire, m.o.u. your team has been at the helm in many ways every step of the way. >> thank you, supervisor. >> supervisor cohen: now with that said, no increases for you. just kidding. [laughter] >> that's fine. just take back the additional work you give us. >> supervisor cohen: we can't quite do that. how do we know the success of the conservativeship program? >> thank you, supervisor.

as i eluded to, i think what is extremely important is we have the resources that we need to do that job well. you have, this board has given a directive that work be transferred to our office because of your belief it would receive all the attention it needs and deserves. so i have made the request that we get two attorneys and a legal assistant to do that work. now i understand, my understanding is, i should say, the d.a.'s office, the current situation is the number of f.t.e.'s they have 0.9 lawyers assigned to it and 0.5 administrative staff. it is a little bit of an increase, but presumably, the reason is, we are getting 500 new cases and i don't think that you all would have transferred the work to our office if you didn't believe it

would receive a higher level of attention and that it was your desire to see the work perhaps done in a different way and it is our professional judgment in order to satisfy your directive and do the job right, that we have two lawyers working and one legal assistant, so that's what we asked for. >> supervisor cohen: have you been able to cost out, do you know what three new f.t.e.'s would look like, or two attorneys and one legal assistant? >> do we have that figure? how much? $717,000. >> supervisor cohen: okay. >> supervisor fewer: i just want to echo what supervisor cohen said, i think your staff is so talented. and jon givner too. just kidding. we depend so highly on them, and their willingness to assist

us and answer questions and information has been phenomenal. i just want to thank you for representing our city so well against the trump administration. and as we turn on the news and we see 1600 children being separated from their families, it just makes me so much more thankful that we in san francisco have stood up for what we believe and we have a great legal team behind us, fighting for us, and fighting for those people, that are our neighbors and our community. and for them to know that you have their backs too. so i just wanted to say thank you and take a moment to say thank you to your staff too. >> thank you. >> supervisor cohen: any budget questions besides just thanking the city attorney? this little love fest, we ripped the mayor but we are doing nothing but love for you. i'm sorry, kelly. let me dig in here a little bit and get you some tough questions so we are fair about this. let me see, let's look at your

carry-forward. anything you are carrying forward? i don't see anything. >> no. >> supervisor cohen: okay, can't get you on that. all right. well i don't have anything for you right now, but come back and i'll have something for you then. >> okay, thank you, supervisor. any other questions, budget analysts, anybody? >> supervisor cohen: okay, see you soon. >> thank you, appreciate it. >> supervisor cohen: all right, folks, we will keep it moving here. we will hear from the office of election, mr. john arts. another man who deserves an applause for his hard work. congratulations on another successful election season. you've got some fans in here. all right, good to see you. after we hear from john arts we will hear from mickey callaghan from the department of human resources and then department of fine arts management, ed prohoska. john arts is representing a department that has a budget of $18 million. and he too has found in his

soul to ask for an increase of $3.9 million dollars. and he's got 49 personnel and just asking for one increase. are you ready? >> yes. john ernst, the department's strategic goals will be conducting elections free, fair and functional under the city's charter. some of the initiatives we have are to ensure access registration, voting for all residents. to replace the voting system. we will be leasing a new voting system starting next year and support the city's efforts for an open sourced voting system. some new programs, initiatives will be the implementation of prop-n, the non citizen voting

to allow certain non-citizens to vote for school board members. we will do this in july. implementing the new voting system, for which we don't have to bid in february, at the beginning of november, or january, sorry. then also continuing to support the city's efforts for open source voting system and relocating our warehouse to a new facility on pier 31. as far as expenditure overture is concerned, the department's budget is fixed really to the number of elections that we conduct in the fis rale year. -- fiscal year. '18-'19 will be one election fiscal year, 2010-11 two election fiscal years. from '17-'18 to '18-'19 a 1.54 increase temporary f.t.e. in

relation to outreach regarding the new voting system. '18-'19, '19-'20 increase of 12.6 f.t.e. because there's two elections versus one in the fiscal year and i can take any questions at this time. >> supervisor cohen: wow that was great. a couple questions for you mr. ernst. this city has received a $4.9 budget ask to kick off an open source paper ballot voting program. would the office of elections be able to put that money to use? keep in mind the ask originally was to be matched with the state dollars. maybe take it back and ask, i can reframe the question, how could we enhance our system to ensure that, you know, that it's fair and transparent and won't be hacked. maybe you could start there. >> the department went out to

bid in february for a new voting system. the enhancements that could occur are inherent to the type of system we are bringing in. the next system will be what's called image based. it will take pictures of all the ballots cast in san francisco. right now we have an optical, the light bounces off the page and picks up the difference in reflection of the light density. you can't really do anything with light density. but images you could post online. people can see how votes were cast in every contest and every measure and every precinct through the city and has an adjudication record. every vote mark on a ballot card, the system will indicate how that vote was interpreted. for a measure, for instance, the system will indicate for each ballot card how the system

registered the vote for the yes or the no, and provide the answer which is something we could post online. also what we could do is provide this could be open source as well. we could provide an open source application which we could provide to the public to tally the image online, the department could issue official results each day as we do now and post images of the ballots and then give the public an application they could use to actually tally the same images the department used to post results, so the public could review the department's work and also confirm that the results are true. so those are just some things that come to mind. that's something we will do from the very beginning. what i would like to start up as a post-election

risk-limiting audits which isn't really happening. orange county started some, but there's nothing that's open sourced. i think we could do an open sourced application risk limiting post election audits. choice ranked voting method with the risk limiting. that would be ground breaking as well. there are things we could do that the system lends itself to us doing as far as security and transparency are concerned even though it's not open source. >> supervisor cohen: the department reports 63% of the ballots for fiscal year '16-'17 were vote-by-mail. this is '16-'17, a number of jurisdictions adopted all mail-in elections, madera, napa, san mateo, sacramento. what is your experience with an all-mail system. that sounds funny. all mail-in ballot system.

[chuckles] what impact might that have on voter registration and turn out. district 10 there are v.b.m. precincts. talk about what you have experienced over the years? >> you know, so certainly the vote-by-mail numbers in san francisco continue to increase. but not as quickly as in other jurisdictions. and also the number of permanent vote-by-mail voters in san francisco increased but not as quickly as other jurisdictions. in san francisco, people do enjoy the vote-by-mail method but polling places are still very important in safe. -- san francisco. we don't control polling places. when polling places do change, that's one of the primary complaints we will get from a precinct is the polling place changed from one election to the next.

the location that received the most vote-by-mail ballots is going to the post office and dropping off their vote-by-mail ballots. even though jurisdictions are moving to vote-by-mail elections with voting centers, i think we need to have the conversation if we make that move and win, i don't think it could be a quick move because i think polling places are inherent. i don't know if it would increase turn out. from my experience the content on the ballot is what drives the turn out more so than the options to cast the ballot. certainly the department does everything we can to make sure the voting is easy as possible for voters. we don't in any way seek to make it more difficult. but really it's what's on the ballot that drives interest.

>> supervisor cohen: all right, i appreciate that. supervisor fewer has a question. >> supervisor fewer: yes, first i just want to commend you and your staff also. so helpful. really nice every time they come out to community meetings, very imformative. i just wanted to know about the implementation of prop-n. what does this encompass? your responsibility here. and what will you do to ensure that prop-n is going to take place and people will be educated about how to vote? i mean, their right to vote but also risk to vote. >> certain non systems voting for school board elections are occurring this november. that will happen, that's the mandate for the department through the charter amendment that voters passed november 2016. and certainly we will do the usual posters, bus signs, mailings and things like that.

but what's important for this election, versus other elections, it has to be more of an interpersonal outreach to get the word out to people and inform people the election, the opportunity to vote in the election is a vailable but also the concerns that are around people registering to vote and what could happen with that information. the folks who potentially would be the prop-n voters are ones that would not be paying attention to election information usually because they can't participate. so there has to be more of an interpersonal, one-on-one interaction with folks so you understand first the opportunity is there, and how to avail the opportunity and the third would be there is potential risks related to information in the department regarding their immigration status. the department, the board passed an ordinance that requires the department to provide a notice to the voters. indicating that information they provide in relation to

voter registration could be obtained by the federal government and we will create a web page in multiple languages that advertises. also the board has funded a grant that office of civic engagement, immigrant affairs has issued to chinese affirmative action to collaborate with other non-profit and community organizations to facilitate and leverage the interpersonnel contact with individuals in the community regarding prop-n. there's a lot to do. i think a lot is happening. we will be up and running, i think july 16th is when the registration affidavit will be finalized on our website. chinese affirmative action, we have had one meeting. they reached out for a second regarding the registration process so they can train folks to get in the community and get folks registered for prop-n. election is in november. it will happen and it will be,

like i say, a person-to-person type of outreach as the primary goal. >> supervisor fewer: will your staff be trained about educating people about the right to vote and the warning or the risk? >> of course. we're not experts in immigration statuses. that's something we can't carry forward. we could provide the warning. our website will provide a list of groups that could provide that information regarding immigration risks, if the information were to be obtained by the federal government. that's certainly something we could put forward to folks to make sure it's out there. and also the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs, they have information and hopefully we can leverage their content with ours so there's a bigger board people can look at and know what to do. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. >> supervisor cohen: colleagues, super vietnamesor yee? esupervisor yee.

supervisor sheehy. what was the one figure and what would the role be for that one person? >> we could bring more folks in, i don't have the exact number, probably four that would work during the cycle to support informing san franciscans of a new voting system that we will be using in 2019. >> supervisor cohen: okay. and you've got a $3.9 million increase before us. where is that money going? >> that's the second election in the fiscal year. that's what drives our costs. we are very consistent, our permanent f.t.e.'s are consistent annually. it's the elections that drive our cost increases. >> supervisor cohen: all right.

i have no further questions. thank you for your time. mickey callaghan? hi, mickey. representing the department of human resources. they have a budget of $101.3 million. they are requesting an $8 million increase. 168 personnel, asking for a 21-personen crease. -- increase. all right, defend that mickey. >> i will. thank you for the opportunity, chair cohen. we are pleased to present the d.h.r. budget. and before i do that, i do want to thank the mayor's budget office, laura bush and kelly kirkpatrick and harvey rose, -- campbell and our analyst monica whom we will be working closely over the next week or so. and i primarily want to thank my team at d.h.r. for their work everyday to advance our mission. mission is to use fair and equitable practices to hire,

develop, maintain a quality workforce. a few high-level points to make. our strategic goals are listed here for you, but i want to highlight the ones tied to our major initiatives. first is to champion diversity, fairness and equity. second to maintain top talent while shaping the future workforce and using technology to coordinate and improve service delivery and make information accessible. this is the #metoo era, as we know. in san francisco, like many other places, that means we have an increase in sexual harassment claims. we hope it doesn't mean there's an increase in bad behavior. we think it may be related to greater awareness on the part of both supervisors and employees on the rights and obligations to report inappropriate or harassing behavior. we are projecting about a 50%en crease in the number of sexual

harassment claims, we are on pace for that this year. as you know, the consequence of not dealing with a discrimination or a harassment claim in a timely manner is we end up paying the board cito settlements that come before you. but more is the cost to the employees affected. the vast majority of claims made against the city come to our internal e.e.o. office instead of to the department, means city employees have confidence in our process. our goal has been, for years, to meet, to conclude 70% of our investigations within six months. we haven't met that goal, about 20 cases per investigator per year. we are currently on a pace of 50 cases per investigator.

this is an untenable number and it means we do not get timely to those cases, it means people become frustrated. they may go to outside agencies. if there's bad behavior, it may continue. the human cost and financial cost to the city, we end up paying that way. i'm trying to sell you on its a very good investment to have enough e.e.o. investigators to timely conclude our investigations and consult with our departments and make sure they do not -- that they handle these cases correctly. so part of that is we plan to expand our harassment prevention training. there's some legislation we are looking at expanding to all employees, not simply employees who are supervisors, therefore mandated to receive that training. i will note our unit targets areas which there are high numbers, or unduly high numbers of claims, of any type of

discrimination, including sexual harassment and our director, linda simon, whom you may know, will go out with her team and do in-person trainings where they believe there's a need. so this is a key initiative for us, to make sure we handle those cases timely. and again, it's the combination of the increase in filing cases, but also just frankly the increase in city employees. if you have more employees, you will have more claims. >> supervisor cohen: okay. >> may i go on? >> supervisor cohen: yes, please. >> okay. labor negotiations is the other major area where you know we have an increase. historically, i will note, the labor project, it's a cyclical project. it waxes and wanes. this year though we had several major negotiations we were able to, for the most part, handle them with our own city staff.

however we don't staff to handle 26 labor negotiations at one time on a tight deadline, on an ongoing basis. so we have, next year we have a large number of negotiations going forward. you, the board, will be briefed regularly on those. we need staff to handle that. the consequence of not adding the staff is we would not do a good job, fair job for our labor partners, for the city, responsible for for the city ensuring our funds are spent wisely and we have best practices in our labor agreements. and the third part is our hiring modernization project. our applicant tracking system is expiring. the online system which people apply for jobs. we are doing an entire revamp of the hiring system. it includes civil service rules some of which are antiquated. we are doing them with an eye toward making everything more

user friendly, more accessible. and this will position the city to be able to compete for sought-after employees in this time of historically low unemployment. really a city-wide project that's housed at the d.h.r. i want to talk about promoting access and equity. as some of you may know, thank you, board for previously funding our implicit bias training. we have four trainers right now who have trained. about 1400 city employees embedded in the police academy. just started on fire academy. we have changed sergeants, trained in-person training 16-18 hours for sergeants. maybe somebody on vacation may have missed it. we also developed our online implicit bias training model which will be rolling out under the direction of the new mayor. it's really an awareness.

we are also developing a training module, hiring manager will be required to review before they are participating in a hiring process. this involves ensuring they are aware of their obligations and also implicit bias that may creep into the hiring process, to be aware and avoid it. along the lines of implicit bias, we appreciate the board's support for our de-identification process. we seek the ability to screen the names on hiring lists from hiring managers until those whom they will be interviewing will be selected. if a person can't even get in front of a hiring manager to make their case, we have failed in our obligation to address implicit bias. so that's a huge initiative for us. i also want to highlight some

of our pathways into city employment we have been actively engaged in. supervisors may know about access to city employment, which is our program to bring in people who have disabilities with the city employment. they have a high unemployment rate and we are well-positioned with variety of types of jobs we have available to become an employer. in the last year we changed the minimum qualifications for over 30 job classifications to broaden them to make sure they are more available to people. that we aren't creating artificial barriers to those who might otherwise be very good city employees in those various positions. we have two programs to bring people specifically into the h.r. series. very pleased one includes an upgrade program for people who are typically in the clerical ranks and want to enter the professional ranks and we have

57 employees, a very diverse group who have signed up to advance. every time we do city-wide clerical testing we provide an opportunity for candidates who don't meet the minimum qualifications to take an examination which will qualify them. if you don't have the required experience and have no way of getting it, if you have the skills to pass the test, you will be accepted into the examination. those are some of the pathways we have. i do want to point out, this doesn't capture what we are doing. it's a national model. we have been recognized nationally. our counties across the state. city of houston adopted our model. in the last year out of 8500 applicants only 16 people were disallowed from the positions for which they applied, which is so amazing. and one of the best things about it, it's a technological solution, but we do a centralized review.

if kate is a hiring manager and she wants to hire a clerk, she is not going to know that the clerk has a d.u.i. on her record because, unless it's related to the job. centralized h.r. might know and decide it's not related and then doesn't tell her. so that way she is treated more fairly and avoids the bias that enters into the equation. so we are proud of that program as well. just a brief review of our budget. the overwhelming majority of our budget is in workers compensation. particularly about $50 million is workers compensation benefits. temporary and permanent disability benefits. also medical payments to providers of workers compensation for current and former employees. so that is a good 78% of our budget, as you see. >> supervisor cohen: i have a question. do you ever contract out with

attorneys for workers compensation or mainly work with the city attorney's office? >> entirely with the city attorney's office. we have primarily in-house claims operation. but we do have a small, not tiny, but a smaller contract with a third party administrator which also handles some of our overflow, or for example i file a claim, can't have my staff adjust it to avoid conflicts. the largest is department of public health, which is handled by a third party administrator, but the large part is handled by the city attorney's office. i didn't highlight them here but we have a number of efficiencies in workers compensation which are really ground breaking, including in the next year we anticipate being one of the few employers in the country to provide electronic payments of benefits, and also pay our providers electronically. right now we have to ship a file to chicago and they print checks and mail them, which is kind of ridiculous. >> supervisor cohen: i don't

know if you said this in your presentation but you are asking for an as 8 million increase, where is that going to go? >> we have six positions are in equal employment opportunity or cover the increase in case load that we have, and to have two from m.t.a. which were being funded. we have been doing m.t.a.'s for years but our staffing is not sufficient to cover the number of cases they have. the other is really 11 positions in the employer relations division for labor negotiations. it's a huge lift. we have both increases in the funds we will use for temporary positions and we will hire a mix of employees, temporary employees and contractors to, under the direction of our employer relations director to conclude this negotiation, so those are really the two areas where we see that.

we do have a $1 million funding for hoyt for hiring modernization i described, for citywide application system. >> supervisor cohen: sorry, you want to continue? >> i think i'm speaking very rapidly and i've covered a lot so i would be happy to answer questions. >> supervisor cohen: great. do you know what the percentage of city employees particularly in and around city hall that have participated in the implicit bias training? >> we are typically doing, we have two kinds, either a 8 or 16-hour unit in person and instructor led. certain departments have brought their whole leadership staffs in. i know, for example, department of environment, the assessor's office, they have done that. the mayor's office has required all employees to take the online implicit bias training,

which is more of an introductory module. we plan to work with the new mayor to ask how they would like to roll this out, it's not legally required but it's a good practice and we want to talk about how to do that citywide. looking at implicit bias data, we have had 76 sessions. i can't tell you how many in this building or city hall have had the training. but certainly departments within the city hall have participated. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. supervisor yee has a question. >> supervisor yee: thank you, supervisor cohen. you mentioned one of the programs you operate to connect people with disabilities to departments, or city jobs. >> yes. >> supervisor yee: i want to thank you for that program.

i see it's moving along and hopefully will be further successful in the future. i had a question about staff around some of these opportunities. we had been focusing on employing seniors because many people are finding it difficult, either their social security or, what do you call that, their pension to survive. or to be able to live in san francisco, so they have to go back to work. they are finding out at 65 or 70 they are still healthy and really want to get back into work. one of the biggest barriers seems like, that was discussed, in terms of that not happening

as much as it could is this whole issue whether someone has to work full-time versus 2-3 days. because many of the people that are seniors prefer to do two days or three days. and then there's an issue does it mean they wouldn't have -- there's a discouragement of the departments to do that, for fear of having to pay for benefits, medical benefits. so i'm hoping that we could resolve that somehow. for instance if you are working two days you probably don't have any medical benefits. so that shouldn't be an issue. and many of the people that are looking to come back into the workforce, many were former city employees so they already have medical benefits. so i would love it if you can, you know, sit down with your

staff to see how we could flesh out some of these issues. >> i appreciate that, supervisor yee. i would comment we are certainly open to doing that and i think there are as-needed opportunities and less than halftime opportunities and prop-f opportunities, if you will, that would surmount the benefits issue. i think a challenge we will face is that our labor partners expect, they have a strong preference for full-time employment and their labor agreements reflect that and creation of multiple part-time opportunities would likely encounter resistance. but we would, as we go into a labor negotiations, we could look at introducing some contract language to the bargaining table that would allow the city some flexibility in that area. >> supervisor yee: thank you very much. >> supervisor cohen: supervisor stefani. >> supervisor stefani: thank you, ms. callaghan.

i just have a question around implicit bias. i was fortunate to take the 2-day training and i sent an email how fabulous it was and think everyone should be required to take it. every city employee, and school district, at least senior in high school should take it. i wonder if we place a requirement on our employees is that a work order or something d.h.r. would absorb in their budget. >> to train 35,000 employees is something we don't have the capacity to do. we have 4 staff, maybe 5, who are devoted to that. and it's done on a work-order basis, pretty much. our training program, not so much the online deliverables like the introduction to implicit bias but in-person is done, the department will say we want you to come do our

training and we have a work order. it would be a pretty big lift to find and train the trainers and have a 16-hour or 8-hour training, there's a cost-benefit analysis if someone is, in our department comes in to proctor an exam and is a person that works less than 8 hours a week, is that something you want to spend the money to attend the training. night part-time custodians, there are a lot of costs associated. when we have someone come in and particularly, it's going to be on our time, on city time. i think the first step is to have everybody take the online training, let's say you are a laborer and there's a meeting and they present it, a

6-or-8-hour training, maybe we could look for something that's a requirement for leaders of the city or people of a certain level. i agree that everybody should have it, but i think it would be really hard for us to do that given our current staffing. >> supervisor stefani: right and my question was pretty broad, i didn't mean all 30,000. it would be top-down. honestly though, it is such important training. whether or not it's the online module or a day or two, is something that we really need to incorporate, i think, into not just city employee work but also into our schools. thanks. >> thank you very much for your support and for the positive comments about our program. we are proud of it, we will be presenting it to all the county personnel administrators in california in early september, so they can copy what we are doing.

>> supervisor cohen: that's good. thank you. colleagues, are there any other questions? okay, i think that's it. ladies and gentlemen, we are going to take a recess for lunch. a late lunch. why don't we come back to the chamber for 2:30. all right, we are in recess.