sheet. >> supervisor cohen: okay. >> these are all -- these are all operational units. >> supervisor cohen: okay. >> and these are all operational units. now, the psychiatric response team, you know, we're working in partnership with clinicians, but we're not staffed with any clinicians in the police department. we have a commission, but chief of commission, she's educated as a clinician, but she's a police officer. so none of these units, to your question, i don't think would be appropriate for a civilian to be in charge of these units. >> supervisor cohen: so part of the b.l.a.'s recommendation is to, if i'm not mistaken, i think it's 25 -- civilianize 25 positions, is that right? >> and that's specifically no. the budget has 25 civilianized position which could free up another 25 police officers who are currently not serving as police officers. and then you've identified the 81 in the academy who could

fill up staffing. what our audit shows is that we identified maybe about 200 police officers that are performing functions that could potentially be civilianized. so in addition to the 25 you see in the budget, we think their definitely other opportunities. we don't have a specific recommendation because we think it requires a close look at what they're doing. but we definitely think that 25 is not the maximum number that could be civilianized. we think there could be many more. >> supervisor cohen: thank you for that clarification. >> so i can speak to that. this is one of the areas where we disagree with the 200 is that could be -- that are deemed nonpolice functions. many of the positions that are identified in that 200, they serve sworn functions that i don't believe and we don't believe as an association they are appropriate for civilianization. by my count, about 68 of those 200 should be reviewed for

civilianization. some of the positions are things like instructors at the academy, investigators that investigate criminal activity, internal to the department, recruiting -- are recruitment officers. and some of those we don't believe are necessarily appropriate for a civilianization, but we do agree that 68 of them definitely should be reviewed. so that's where we have disagreement. and then, another subset of this is that of the 200, there are about 31 officers that are on temporary assignment due to disabilities, either permanent or temporary disabilities due to disciplinary issues, physical restrictions, where they actually cannot function as a full functioning or full-time police officers right

now. so that's included in the 200, as well. and that subset of officers is always going to be a part of our makeup because these things happen. life happens, and people get hurt, they go on family leave and those type of things, and that's going to be something that we can't necessarily civilianize because these people can't perform their duties or regular essential full-time functions of their work -- police work. >> supervisor cohen: what i understand, chief, is that the police department was supposed to have done an internal work study to show how and where they need staffing. and -- does this sound familiar? [inaudible] >> supervisor yee: can i jump in a little bit? >> supervisor cohen: yes, please. >> supervisor yee: okay. i like the line of questioning. >> supervisor cohen: okay. i defer to my colleagues. take it away. >> supervisor yee: no. it's just that i did offer the audit, and i had some questions, similar questions,

and i'll go down on that. and the -- in the last year, i had worked with chief scott to try to form a task force to look at the police staffing. and you know, you and other colleagues supported that notion by allowing us to add $150,000 back into that back process so that it could be supported. unfortunately, it's taken them a while to get started. i think they're almost ready to get started. it's been a year, but -- so that needs to happen. so you're absolutely correct that the police department really, with the police commission, really need to look at what really is the police need, you know, most updated in terms of best practices and so forth. and i think this audit really helps to -- in regards to not so much what the police

staffing needs are, but how it could be improved, the efficiency. so a couple questions around the civilianization piece. first of all, you -- this -- this handout we just received which asked for 250 more officers, is this for just this year? >> no, that's over the two-year -- actually, it's over four years. >> supervisor yee: four years? okay. that's fine. >> exactly. >> supervisor yee: okay. and you said, i think, that part of this 250 is the 25 civilian -- the police officers that were replaced by civilianization, is that correct? >> correct. the budget recommendation has 25 positions that we have identified that can be civilianized, so those officers will return to operations once

the civilianization occurs. >> and -- and the 25 you identified is separate from the 68 or 58 that you mentioned? >> yes. >> supervisor yee: what was the number? i'm sorry. >> yes. >> supervisor yee: what was the correct number? >> i think it was approximately 68. >> supervisor yee: in which you're going to look at it or you're looking at it? >> yes. >> supervisor yee: where are you with that? >> so we just got the report, and we agreed that those are positions that we can definitely look at it and evaluate if those positions are appropriate for civilianization, but we just received the report, as you did, in the past week. >> supervisor yee: yes. so let's say 50 of them will eventually be civilianized; that in these 50 officers that are currently not deployed in

police work, i guess, would be available to do some of the things that are listed here. >> that is correct. >> supervisor yee: okay. so there's still an argument between the 200 and your 58, i guess. i don't -- what's the -- have you come up with a response to the -- not the 200, but the 58? >> supervisor yee, the way our audit was written is we didn't have a specific -- we identified 200 positions that could be considered for civilianization. if they've identified 68, i think that's a really good start in terms of further review. could there be more than that? potentially, but i do have to think that even starting with 68 is walking down that way. so i don't see it as a concept, i see it as a first step in that process. >> supervisor yee: and then,

the 58, i guess -- >> 68. >> supervisor yee: 68, how -- how quickly can you actually move that? >> well, we are -- as you know, with your request, we have the task force going, and my -- my hope is that is that will be a part of this analysis that we're doing. as you know, we've done a lot of analysis on our did you employment, but these positions, we believe we can fold into the overall staffing analysis that we're doing. and i don't have an exact time because we have to get this thing rolling in terms of the task force, but i'm sure we can fold that into that equation. >> supervisor yee: i actually don't think that we have to wait for the task force because this is just about -- this is not training new officers or

anything, it's just -- the need right now, as you mentioned, is to get officers in the street, and there's a potential pool of officers that can do that. and all -- so whether we argue with the 250 over the four years, whether that's a correct number or not -- if it is the correct number, then, we could immediately makeup for some of the 250 through this process. that's what i'm seeing, is that correct? >> well, i don't think it would be immediate because we'd still have to staff -- identify the positions, identify how we can transition them to civilian positions, and then, request a budget so those positions can be staffed. so i don't know how immediate that would be, but definitely, i agree with what was just said. i think it's a step forward, and it's still going to take analysis and the process -- budgetary process has to happen in order for that to be

realized. >> so -- so if -- if part of the recommendations is looking at 200, that could be a savings of money in terms of not necessarily training and getting new officers because you have these officers that can actually do police work. then, it's a matter of figuring out by monday what the reduction of the policy would create. maybe it wouldn't be as big of a reduction because you have to hire civilian positions, and we have to do analysis of that for the 58. so i think there's room to -- for movement with this -- just this particular issue, and we -- and this has nothing to do with argument for the 250. this is more how do you get to

the 250. >> yes, sir. i -- i understand. >> supervisor fewer: they're coming in, yes. so thank you, chief, for your presentation. i also am referring back to the budget and legislative analyst's recommendations and report, actually, of the performance audit of the san francisco police department. so the b.l.a. actually suggests that if you were to move certain sworn staff to a different rotation that we could actually -- it would result in 66 full-time equivalent positions at no additional cost. and i think that your -- you agreed specifically with the recommendation, saying that you would have to meet and confer, and i understand that. but also in 2012, you moved 503 sworn officers from a five-hour shift to an eight or nine hour shift, and i think my husband

might have been one of them, resulting in 16,000 additional officer days in each. so my question is it is impossible to look at this budget without looking at this audit report of efficiency and use of police officers and also how the schedule -- and they even recommend not even going to an eight-hour shift, which i know is a really hard thing for cops, but to switch, actually, to a ten-hour, four-day-on, three-day-off kind of shift which would free up more officers and give you more coverage. so my question to you is have we explored this in a way to meet the additional need that you're requesting of us today? >> we have explored the possibility, and as you all know, we just went through arbitration with our contract negotiation, so that issue was settled through arbitration, and at this time, we cannot move forward with that type of

idea. i think we got the -- i think we'd have to go through the labor process in order to get there, and as of now, it's not on the table now. >> supervisor fewer: but this is something you're planning to put on the table and explore, and are you actively exploring this? >> well, the negotiations have ended, so it's not on the table right now. we're going to have to, you know, discuss this as we move forward. but you know, we're out of the negotiation process now, so it's not anything that we can move forward with at this point. >> supervisor fewer: but chief, it's my understanding that actually the department meets and confers over many issues actually throughout the year, and it's not -- so it doesn't just happen during contract negotiations; that you actually meet and confer over a lot of things on a regular basis. so would these -- this be a

topic for meet and confer, considering that we could end up -- and we're not even saying taking away the ten-hour shift, we're just saying switching it to a four-three instead of the five-two or whatever it was. so actually, that would give us an equivalent of 66 full-time positions at no additional cost, which, to me, is pretty tremendous. and then, it's impossible to look at this budget without looking at some of the other recommendations that the b.l.a. report states so clearly in this report, that actually -- that arrests are down and investigation overtime are up, and -- up by 60%, i think -- or 70%, and arrests were down by, like, 30%. and also, i think it's also impossible to look at this budget request without looking

at the fact, also, that the b.l.a. report also states that time responding to calls on average should be 35. we are at 27. in some districts, we are at 22. so what you're telling me doesn't really -- i mean, this budget request for more positions is really not justified from this report alone. and i think that i understand the need that foot patrols do actually -- when i'm looking at this report, and i'm hoping that all my colleagues have read this report thoroughly because it is impossible to look at these budget requests without comparing them to the b.l.a. recommendations of this very, very extensive report that took so long to do. but i feel that it's pretty thorough and opened my eyes to some of the issues, i think that when we talk about coverage, and we talk about

need, that actually, some of these recommendations around overtime costs, about productivity, efficiency, is somewhat tied sometimes to the scheduling of how people are scheduled, but also about our use of scheduling or our use of sworn police officers. and they did give a recommendation of approximately 202 -- i am glad to see that you agree that 68 of them actually could be civilianized. >> well, what -- i want to be clear on what we believe that those are worthy of definitely taking a look at. it needs to be assessed is what we're saying. but i would like to address the -- also, the percentage of time spent on calls for service, which is another area where we disagree with the b.l.a. report. it suggests that overall, that time spent we're responding to calls for service is 27%. we believe, based on the

controller's analysis and the report -- the staffing analysis report that the controller's office did, that that percentage is higher than that, somewhere between 30 and 35%, and i'll let director mcguire explain. >> supervisor fewer: and i think the national average in the b.l.a. report is 35%. does that mean, just for clarification, that 35% of a police officer's shift, like, a ten-hour shift, 35% of that time is devoted to -- should be devoted to service calls? is that correct? >> correct. >> supervisor fewer: okay. so this does not account for self-initiated activity, meaning, traffic violation stops, regular patrol duties, all those kind of things, and i think that also when the chief spoke last time, he mentioned that because of all these new things that you have -- like, the camera things, you have to upload it and all that kind of

stuff, and you said that can take up to 15% of your time. if you got that wrong, please correct me, so we're looking now at 50% of an officer's day, so if you could take a little bit about an officer's time. >> so director mcguire has the slides and will explain what you're looking at. >> supervisors, catherine mcguire. i do have a slide on the overhead that shows the 2016-17 actual time consumed by calls -- responding to calls citywide and by district for the police department. so as you can see, the controller's office looked at not only calls for service, that next purple bar is self-initiated time, and that last blue bar reflects administrative tasks. the balance of that 25% is unobligated patrol time, so that's the opportunity that we

have to do community engagement and problem solving. so the -- essentially, this was 16-17. staffing changed during the course of -- from 16-17 to now, and so the controller's office then reran what our staffing levels were compared to the actual calls for service time spent and determined that we're probably around 33% of our time obligated to calls for service. now, the discrepancy we feel with the b.l.a. is simply that they included more people that don't actually have the primary responsibility of responding to calls for service, they have other duties at the district stations, and so that would bring our average down. so they spend no time on calls for service, so of course that's balanced with officers who are spending more time on calls for service. >> supervisor fewer: you're saying that that slight nuance

in job performance duties has skewed their data. >> how many officers do you have that don't respond to calls for service? >> so you have a captain's staff, which usually, a captain's staff does administrative functions. you have officers that drive the wagons. you have school resource officers, housing officers. some of our foot patrol officers, they can respond to calls for service, but traditionally are not dispatched -- they do not affect a car, or rao car whose primary duty is -- radio car whose primary duty is to respond to calls for service. >> supervisor fewer: for the b.l.a., would you like to respond? >> we did have a couple of differences that we were looking at slightly different time periods in terms of how

the controller and i looked at it, which is going to give slightly different results. there's two other pieces to this, which is the number of officers who are assigned to districts were not in car patrols is a bit of a discretionary number. we did list both numbers in our report, but there's some discretion on now noncar patrol officers are assigned to police districts. the other thing i would say is however you look at these numbers, what we found is that they are entirely within the benchmark that was in the 2008 police review report. none of it showed that there was an insufficient number of staff in the police districts. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much for that clarification. so the numbers you just showed me, i think the most astounding thing was the numbers on self-initiated activity. so that means traffic stops, 8%

of their day is those type of things. is that my -- am i reading that right or am i reading that wrong? >> so the self-initiated -- put that slide back up. the self-initiates activity, you can go through the overhead again, the -- -- >> supervisor fewer: purple. >> the purple column, yes, ma'am, is the self-initiated activities, so the traffic stops and those things that the officers initiate on their own. >> supervisor fewer: and then, the blue is again? >> the blue is going to be -- the administrative time is blue. so for instance, on the citywide scale, if you account -- if you count up the numbers, you have -- you know, 75% of the officer's time is spent on those three issues or three areas, so 25 -- that leaves 25% of the time for what we call unencumbered time or obligated time. that can be used for community engagement and problem solving and those type of things.

there is an element in policing of -- i like to call it preventative policing where just being present in an area has been shown to be impactful in terms of reducing crime. so -- >> supervisor fewer: yeah. i think that's what is sounding to me -- as i looked at the purple line, i'm thinking that is the officers on patrol. those are the officers that are driving around our districts, on viewing things, visible to the public as during patrol times, and getting to know and actually doing community service, also. just seeing what's going on and familiarizi familiarizing themselves with the district. >> can i just, real quickly, supervisor? >> supervisor fewer: sure. >> partially, so that purple column represents self-initiated activity, so if i on view a crime in progress, and i'm going to then enter that in the c.a.d. system,

we're able to track that time. the unobligated time where officers of this stage are driving around on patrol or they're not obligated to anything, but they're out and about, or they stop, and you know, engage with a community member, it's a little bit harder to track that unless the officers put it in their c.a.d. >> supervisor fewer: oh, absolutely. >> but those times are actually used for those types of activities, as well. it's easier to track when they actually see something and they act on it, but there's other times. i just wanted to point that out. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much, chief. i think since you're coming back monday, if you could give us a hard copy of what you just showed us, that would be great. >> thank you. >> supervisor cohen: thank you, supervisor fewer for your thoughtful questions. supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: thank you, supervisor cohen. i just want to get clear on how we're studying how many officers we need because we have a b.l.a. report, and we

have the controller's car sector patrol staffing analysis, and they're telling us two different things. so if we're going to be talking about public safety and keeping our -- the citizens safe, i think we really need to get on the same page about how we're looking at this. so i would like to know what the controller's report said and how does that align with the b.l.a. report. i don't know if we can have the controller answer that or the mayor's budget office. >> supervisor cohen: we can -- let mr. rosenfield respond. >> the scope of our work and the budget analyst's is different. there's a whole host of other issues that warrant review in the department, of course, that are not sector patrol, including other functions in district stations like with deets and other things, and then entirely other parts of

the department that aren't in patrol, like administration and others. so our review is sector control, which is a component of what the budget analyst's reviewed, but their scope is wider. i don't know that our findings are different between our office and the budget analyst. i think generally speaking, the data, we're finding that when we review sector patrol, the staffing levels, given recent graduates, allow the department for sector patrol to approximately meet the natural benchmarks which are between 30 and 35% of their time. >> supervisor stefani: okay. well, here's my concern. the b.l.a. included approximate trell on special assignments, which we have -- patrol on special assignments which we've just heard that can't be pulled for certain things in the city,

so i just want to make sure we're not inflating the numbers on that. >> supervisors, actually, the b.l.a. audit and the controller's office report are not that far apart, as ben mentioned. you know, the subtle differences were sector patrol. the subtle differences, the issue that we're having is the 200 officers that they're suggesting can be redeployed. the concern is that's based on the 27.5% calls for service that they identified. if you start taking out those, they actually also looked at -- they ran the numbers twice, so they ran the numbers including those school resource officers, housing officers, and other types of assignments at the district stations, and that is what resulted in that lower 27.5% number. then, they also ran it excluding those. and that was a bit closer to that, between 30 and 35% range. so that -- again, they're not very far apart at all.

and -- but then, that also brings down that 200 number much lower. and they were suggesting a 35% target, whereas by the -- in that 200 number, the issue that we have there, as well, is that the -- the audit report also suggests that we set that target, not -- not necessarily 35%, but at the discretion of the chief of police and with consultation among stakeholders. >> so supervisor, if i can add, let me -- and i think this is -- what i'm about to say is the part that it's much harder to wrap our minds around. there's an element of policing that -- we love to be data driven, but to be data driven is really a reactive form of policing. we don't want to wait until we have a crisis and then look at the data and say oh, now, we need all these cops. we need all these officers, and i think that's kind of how we're driven in our society

right now. we want to be proactive on these things. for instance, the work that we're doing in the healthy streets operation. the healthy streets operation center takes a great deal of interaction and time to get done what we need to get done. we have officers that they're not just being reactive, but they have to get out there and build relationships with the individuals that need us, and that takes time. it's not necessarily call driven, it's not necessarily crime driven. if you have a tent encampment, a lot of work goes into building the collaborative group, to get individuals to the place where they will accept help. there's a big component of that that takes a lot of time, and it takes visiting people and building relationships and building relationships in order to do this compassionately and properly. you're not going to find that on any data sheet.

we know the need is there. we see the results when we do it the right way, and we see the results when we don't do it the right way. some of these things are very hard to grapple trying to tie that to things like a call for service. once we get the call for service, to be quite honest with you, we failed, and now we're reacting. and what i'm submitting to the board and to the public and to anybody that's listening to me right now, i think we can be better than that. i know it's hard because we're talking about public dollars, and we're asking for a lot, but where we want to be is be in a position where we're proactive and preventative, not reactive, because we've lost. right now, we're reacting to car burglaries. the number had to get to 30,000 a year before we said we've got a crisis on our hands. some of staffing that we're asking for is not necessarily data driven, but it's very much

in the spirit of preventing these things from happening in the first place, and you will hear me say that over and over again. >> supervisor stefani: thank you for that. i think we're always referring to the number of 1,971 which is a voter driven initiative 21 years ago. i think we met that once. i just want to make sure that when we're looking at any numbers that flow from those reports, that we take all of that into consideration, so thank you. >> thank you. >> supervisor cohen: supervisor sheehy? >> supervisor sheehy: yes. well, i'd like to support -- >> supervisor cohen: i was going to say, turn your mic on. we can't hear you, but it's on now. >> supervisor sheehy: okay. thank you. you know, in my district since i've been on the board, i feel like that we've been, in many parts of the district, in an

almost crisis situation. just talking about sector cars, we looked at the mission, well, 43% of their time is spent responding to calls, which is above the national average and t at a level that is too high for them to effectively do their work. eight calls would be an actual crime in process where someone physically threatened just moments after that, and then, you have someone who's a victim of a crime who's waiting for an officer to respond after the situation has stopped. so somebody's been mugged, the person's run off. they wait there, you know, hours. i talked to officers who could not get to those calls over an entire shift, over an entire shift. and so then when i hear from constituents that their car was broken into or their house was broken into, and they did not

see an officer for several hours, it's not because officers were sitting at a coffee shop, they were responding to other calls. so from my perspective, the one thing that i've seen -- and we've seen -- we've seen an increase in property crimes, we've seen burglaries, we've seen car break-ins. the thing that i've observed is we do not have enough officers on the street. we have this fake number that was based on a ballot measure 24 years ago that did not include staffing the airport or staffing treasure island. we now have a different and improved set of active strategies, which i'm very supportive of. i've seen foot beats make a difference in the castro where we do have a serious homeless problem. i talk to my beat officers. they know the individuals who are on the streets, the regulars that are there that we have incredible difficulties getting off the streets, but

they know them, and they can separate that out from people who are newly in the -- in the area who are being credibly disruptive. the healthy streets campaign, this is how policing should be done, and also frankly, the psychiatric intervention. we have multidisciplinary teams that include d. ph, that include the department of homeless outreach workers. frequently includes d.p.w. folks, as well. this is so much more sophisticated that we're addressing these problems than it was when i first came into office. but it takes staffing. we cannot do this kind of innovative policing where we are trying to humanely respond to people who are in dire straits out on the streets unless we have people that are adequately staffed and trained. and i was to commend the

department for this innovatition and leadership in doing this. i think it's outstanding. i also want to go to the data driven piece. when we -- when we start talking about arrests just being a metric, on one hand, i will sit on conversations where we don't want to build a new jail, which i am supportive of, and we don't want to put people in jail if we don't have to, and we're sitting, talking about arrests, i want to echo what the chief said. we don't want to be reacting to crime, we want to be preventing it, and i have seen, twin peaks, you know, that example was huge. i see it in delores park, where we have officers assigned. it's not just deterring crime, it's changing the entire feel of the park. when we had our incident a year ago in august, that was a place where gangs were fighting over who was going to control part of delores park for the purpose

of selling drugs. the decision was made by the department, by the community, that this was not gang turf, this was a public park that was there for families and communities -- and the community, and that has changed, but the way we did that was with deployment of officers, and if we don't deploy the resources, we're not going to get the out comes that we want. and you know the fact that virtually no one feels like they can park their car on the street without fear of getting it broken into, that's not how we should be living as a city. so for me, this is the choice. i hear from constituents all the time that this is one of their top three issues. i do agree with the chief, we have been on a negative trajectory, and i see the curve starting to bend. and as we bend the curve and start to get a positive trajectory, we take our foot off the gas. we don't give our leadership in

the department the resources and tactics that are necessary to succeed. we're trying to do something different with this chief and we're trying to get away from catching bad guys and locking them up, which is not a positive out come, but actually having resources that are engaged with the community, that are engaged in multidisciplinary teams that deal with some of the hardest issues we face, and really prevent people from going to jail. i hope my colleagues are not looking at this as a place we can get extra money, but actually trying to make sure we have resources available to do the job that our residents keep telling me they want done, and they want done better, and they want done completely. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. you have a question for the controller -- i have a question for the controller or the budget director. what are the costs for 250 officers in year three? year four?

>> i believe, and the budget looks at the department, correct me, but a class of 50 officers is about $7 million. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. seven officers -- >> 50 officers. >> supervisor cohen: excuse me. 50 officers, $7 million. >> they might refine it. >> first of all, supervisor cohen, we're only adding 150 officers. i had a slide, and it was in my presentation last week, that breaks out that 250 that you had requested, so i know that kelly is going to be presenting that to you, another breakdown, but it's 150 new positions over four years. >> supervisor cohen: 150 or 145? >> 145. >> supervisor cohen: so you want to add 145 new positions, and what is the cost of adding

145 new positions? >> it's approximately 21 million. >> supervisor cohen: right. so let's get back to what we're talking about on the budget committee, let's talk about the numbers. so we're talking about approximately $21 million, and let's put this in perspective. we've got home health care workers that many people have also advocates for, they're asking for $15 an hour, and they are asking for $34 million. we're talking about $21 million to add 145 new positions, and kelly, correct me if i am wrong, it does include retirement and benefits? >> yeah. in the budgeted costs there, it does include retirement costs on behalf of the city, however, the long-term retirement obligations for the entire life

of the officer are incorporated into our five year financial plans and included in the deficit should be officers be added as staffing. >> supervisor cohen: okay. so the other thing this body needs to take into consideration is the growing cost of health care. we've done our best in terms of forecasting and we're look at the scenarios that the actuarials have presented for us on what those costs are going to be. and i believe whatever is projected, we're going to be -- behind trying to keep up with the cost of health care is going to be very debilitating. so to the chief, and my colleagues, i understand the desire to add new positions, from my perspective, i'm looking at this through a long-term lens, that this is a huge budget reallocation and request, and a huge cost to the city. my apprehension is i haven't

been convinced that 145 is the -- is a magic number. it's a round number, but i don't know it's where we need to be. what i propose is maybe approving one academy class and cutting another, and putting that other academy class on reserve, so that you can come back and think about it methodically. perhaps now that we are at this 1971 level, we don't want to be having an overabundance of officers. it's very expensive to carry there. another thing is many officers don't live in the city. there are a lot of things that i think factor in this decision, and we've been deliberating on this for a long time. i think we're going to need over the weekend. chief, keep your phone on. b.l.a., keep your phone on. i'm going to move the conversation forward, and the next department we're going to hear from is the city

attorney's office, but we are going to keep this conversation open, and we will see you on monday. >> all right. >> supervisor cohen: thank you to the police commission, and thank you to kelly cohen. i will be presenting the department's slides that they presented just so i'm very clear. supervisor sheehy? >> supervisor sheehy: can i ask for one data number? can we get the numbers of crime, attach a cost to assault, to burglaries, is there some way to get some data on that because our taxpayers are paying either way, and they can either -- we can either provide individuals to be on the street to prevent crime or we can have our residents of this city actually paying to repair car windows, to replace items stolen in burglaries, to pay for health care costs from assaults and other crimes. so i think we need to put that in balance and weigh the scale

both ways. 'cause i hear from my residents, hey, i'm paying taxes, and i'm not being protected. and i'm a victim of a crime when i'm having to pay when there should be somebody preventing crimes. so we are talking dollars and cents. >> there are published reports, supervisor, and we will provide those. we will get those. >> supervisor cohen: thank you very much. thank you for humanizing that, supervisor sheehy. okay. so there's no action on this. mr. clerk, do we need to take action on this or can we just bring them back on monday? >> clerk: there's no action on this. >> supervisor cohen: okay. yes, ben? >> just one suggestion would be while you're here would be to accept the budget analyst's base recommendations again, and we can again input those over the weekend. >> supervisor cohen: okay. supervisors, supervisors, i'd like to make a motion to accept the b.l.a.'s baseline recommendations which is the department is in agreement

with. if i can get a second on that. second by supervisor yee, and we'll take that without objection. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. okay. more to ucome, more fun. all right, dennis herrera, the floor is yours. thank you. >> thank you, supervisors. we are here to discuss as a follow-up to last week's meeting, i think there's really one -- only one item of disagreement between the budget analysts and our avenues, aofft has to do with request for additional f.t.e.'s to handle conservatorship and the transfer from the district attorney's office to the city attorney's office that will occur on january 1, 2019 by virtue of this board's action. as you will all recall, we did not seek out this work. we were asked to take it on by this board, and we are happy to

do so. and we have been in communication with the district attorney's office to find out the level of the work since your legislation passed, and what we have determined is there are approximately 500 cases of work that are handled by the district attorney's office and it's our professional judgment that based upon that, that we -- and we made a request, that we need two attorneys and one legal assistant to perform that work. our initial request was that we would have two additional attorneys and a paralegal, and that work would start on january 1, 2019, and after consultation with -- with the mayor's budget office, it was determined, and we said we could live with having one attorney come on on january 1, 2019, and one occur on july 1, 2019, and that the -- in terms of paraprofessional support,

that that work could be done by a legal system and 8173 as opposed to a paralegal. i will say i've had an opportunity to review the budget analyst's report, and i would disagree with their recommendation that our request is based on our increase of homelessness and our pending legislation that can expand the definition of conservatorships. we made our request based on the existing work that exists at the district attorney's office now, and that is 500 cases. it is true that there is pending state legislation, sb 1054, which was almost unanimously approved by the state senate which will expand that beyond that what the current workload is, but we made our request based upon the current workload at the district attorney's office. the fact that this board has asked the city attorney's office to take this work on, i would imagine at least part of your motivation was that you

want to see an improvement in the level of service and the level of work that is being performed. i want to do that job, i want to do that for you, i want to satisfy your policy objective. and i think that we can all agree that the situation that we see out on the streets right now is unacceptable, and it has been a focal point of this board as well as mayor elect breed to have our office handle conservatorships as at least one tool to help us address what we all agree is a crisis on the streets. and it is our professional judgment that in order to do that work right, we need two attorneys, we need to have them start in 2019, and we have to have the additional support staff that we have requested. from my perspective, i would say that i know that the budget analyst is -- they may argue

that we should come back in 2019 and have this discussion again about the second position, but in the event that we have that, we will have lost a lot of time and ability to ramp up to do this job effectively. as it is now, i'd rather have the positioned approved right now before january 2019 even comes so that we can ramp up, have a transition, and hit the ground running. but i'm willing to beiaccede t the mayor's budget office that we take that on january 1, 2019. you have to understand this is new work for us. we haven't done this work before. oftentimes, this work is pain staking, it is litigation oriented, it is very, very detailed. there are strict legal requirements about when someone is conserved. oftentimes, there are defense counsel from the public defender's office that are

involved in the proceedings, as well, and it is an ad versarial, as well. we have to make sure that we have staff to handle the work, but also make sure we have staff in the office that understands how to do it. so if someone is on vacation or the caseload is overwhelming, that we have more than one person that can do this work, do it well, and make sure we satisfy the policy electives of you and mayor elect breed. making sure that this office is doing our contribution to help the crisis that we see out on the streets. oftentimes the folks that we see out on the streets are having mental health issues or drug issues. i disagree with the budget analyst's report, and i'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. >> supervisor cohen: thank you, mr. city attorney. i'd like to pivot to the budget

and legislative analyst -- thank you. let's turn on his mic. thank you. >> is it on? >> supervisor cohen: yeah. >> madam chair and members of the committee. first of all, our recommended reductions to the proposed budget totals 269,578 in 18-19. all of those are one time saves. this would still allow an incres of 3.1 million or 4.8% of the recommended budget. they're all one time savings. these reductions would still allow an increase of 1,700,747. as i understand it, you've heard from the city attorney, he does concur with our recommended reductions except for the one attorney position on page 24 of our report. now supervisors -- and i say

this sincerely, i have the highest respect for the city attorney, mr. herrera. i've known him for a long time, and i have the highest respect. but this item, supervisors, is a classic -- and i emphasize, classic case of how government grows. so on page 24 of our report, we are recommending that you deny one full-time equivalent new 8177 attorney position proposed for handling civil conservatorship proceedings. as you know, the board of supervisors approved an ordinance to allow the city attorney to appoint conservators, approximately 491 cases that's consistent with what the city attorney said, approximately 500 cases will be transferred from the district

attorney to the city attorney on january 1, 2019. [please stand by for captioner switch] >> we are recommending two of the three positions that are

being requested. our recommendation which still provides for increase 1.1 fte over 122% as compared to the current staffing city attorney office. i realized -- i emphasized the percentage. these numbers are small. but the percentage is big. as you mentioned, this is what happens throughout departments. our recommendation would be to disapprove the second attorney positions. let us see what happens when the city attorney starts taking over these cases. i'm assuming he's going to do the best job possible. then, if the workload justifies an additional attorney position at any time city attorney can come back and request it. we will be the first ones to recommend approval if he can show us that he cannot handle these cases with the recommended

two positions that we're reamed recommend -- recommending for your conversations. >> madam chair if i might. i have the high erespect and highest regard for the budget analyst. if he goes back through history, he wants to talk about how government departments classic case of city government. what you'll find, you would see a classic case of efficiency in the city attorney's office when you look at how big the office was when i began versus where it is now. if you back through history and look, we probably had about 220 fte position lawyers when i became city attorney. we tried to manage it like a private law firm. now we have about 185 lawyers. significantly less than we had when i came. not to mention that we continually take on additional responsibility at some times at

your direction, sometimes mayor's direction and department's direction that falls within general fund responsibility that we don't any extra money for. you don't see me coming in here looking for supplemental. over the course last two years since the trump administration in office, we have incurred more than $2 million in additional legal costs fighting sanctuary and variety of other things. we never come back to you to look for supplemental not once. that is because of the efficient job that we do on behalf the taxpayers and city and county of san francisco. i would like to say that, the budget analyst does focus on percentages. they sound they are small. the impact of that may make by doing these cases right is huge. if we're gong them right the benefit to the taxpayer is going to be much in excess of the

minimal amount of money that we are talking about here. we've made our professional judgment. we didn't ask for this work. we did it at your direction. i'm telling you what we need to do the job right. to make an impact on behalf of the taxpayers of city and county of san francisco. i respectfully ask you that fulfill the entirety of our request. >> madam chair, members of the committee, i would like for our office to go back. i want to question the growth of the city attorney's budget. i'm wondering and maybe he is right, i'm wondering if he is included all of the nongeneral fund attorneys. the off budgets attorneys and will be glad to look at that if the committee wants us to. irrespect of that issue, i do doubt those numbers. irrespective of that issue, we're looking at this issue now.

all that we're saying is, we have made in our professional judgment a reasonable recommendation and that is to start off with 100% increase from the staffing of the district attorney instead of 200% increase. then, if the city attorney comes in after he starts this, he's never done this work before, if he shows that is insufficient, we will be the first ones to recommend additional staff for the city attorney. >> one final point. my understanding is, i'll be happy to hear what the budget analyst has to say about this. i don't want to take money away from the district attorney. that's not my job here. i don't think there's been any recommendation the work that we're getting means you're going to see a cut in fte for the person over there at the d.a.'s office doing that work. is that correct? >> that is an excellent point mr. city attorney.

the district attorney and we tried to be reasonable, stated to us that they have other work load that was not getting done. that is why we did not recommend a reduction in the city attorney's office. that's another classic case of where the board of supervisors authorizes a transfer of a function to new department so not only does doesn't the existing department get a reduction in a number of employees but the department is now getting a new workload gets 233% increase in the case load. i agree with the city attorney on that point. we were persuaded by the district attorney's office that we could not cut those positions at this time. >> unfortunately, i was unable, unfortunately to persuade the budget analyst as to the value of that additional person.

i'm hopeful that i persuaded you. >> supervisor cohen: i have a question for the comptroller. how is this body dealt with similar matters like this in year's past? when one function city government and give it to another function. how has that been handled in the the past? >> it's very much a choice. i've seen it both ways where when there's a transfer of function, you see an elimination of position in one department and increase in another. in other cases as the budget analyst indicated, there are examples where department makes a persuasive argument to but you. that make sense for them to retain the funds. >> supervisor cohen: okay. yes mr. rhodes. >> i do remember not the

specifics, other transfers where it was a one on one transfer. i do not remember, ever in my history, of a transfer of a function where it went up 233% in the same year that was being transferred. if anybody can prove me wrong to the contrary, let me know. >> supervisor cohen: it would be mr. herrera. >> i'm sorry. >> one thing that was pointed out to me. couple of years ago we started doing lawyer work here. i we have lawyers that handled lawyers law work. never came back and look for additional funding for that either. that is going to be consumed within this unit that is going to be -- >> supervisor cohen: we've got some questions here that i want to get some clarity on. i want to go back to the state lsl