so i think that this is pretty impressive. i can tell that it's been a long discussion and struggle. these are hard to do, really hard to do. >> thank you. commissioner perlman. >> thank you, i want to compliment justin greving and mya small and staff, because i do think that this has come quite a long way. i have been working as an architect in san francisco for almost 30 years now. there was a time in the 1990s when there were -- they were called guidelines but they were actually laws. like, you have to set back 15 feet. it doesn't matter what the building is, it doesn't matter that the structure line is at 14 feet, it didn't matter. so this has come a really long way into the sensitivity that, you know, every building is unique and every time, you know, a client comes to me with their latest acquisition, it's like,

oh, crap what we'll do now because this is so different from the last one that we did. so i really appreciate that, you know, the direction that this has taken and like commissioner black mentioned that it's broad enough that it gives us a lot of opportunity as architects to work with our clients and to make good buildings which is often lost in the watered down version after it's been hammered by the staff and it gets to commission and it gets hammered more. so i appreciate that. thank you. >> thank you. commissioner hyland. >> yes, i want to just thank staff. this is fantastic. i know that in my 25 plus year career this has been top of my mind. and at one point i had a student intern, a ph.d student who did her dissertation on facadism. and this is yet another first at the city of san francisco is

tackling, along with the cultural resource -- or the cultural, business legacy and all of the cultural districts and the lgbt issues and now tackling the retained element as we'll call it going forward. i think that is an appropriate label. it's just really exciting that we can show leadership to the rest of the country. and it has begged the question around standard nine and the appropriateness of additions in relation to massing and scale and appropriateness to the resource and specifically what we're dealing with now in this city is vertical additions which have been pretty much not accepted, you know, as a general practice. i just wanted to point out that i liked the way that you described, mya, with identifying and articulating the volume and not the surface. i think that will help us in those projects where we're retaining elements and we want

to avoid it just being a postage stamp on the building. so great work. and as well as the site work. i think that, you know, that is some of the recent projects we have learned that the significant cultural site, landscapes, are important as well. and looking at the project in that eye is helpful. >> thank you, commissioner hillis. >> so thank you, i agree with most of the comments that have been made already. and i think that this document is more than a good start. i just like where it's heading. but my question is, what buildings does it apply to, right? so it doesn't apply to historic resources, right? because we're not saying they're all demos. you showed some examples where it could apply, but are we saying that it would apply everywhere? i mean the low-slung industrial building is interesting but there's a lot of them and there are times that probably they should come down because you get

more building and more housing out of demoing it. so that's my only question is kind of where do we apply this? i wouldn't want the arkansas ticketture -- architecture of the city to be facadism, whatever we do going forward is kind of keeping the elements. >> i think that is a really interesting question. and because it's a topic, right, as soon as you retain an element i think that it becomes applicable. and the question is how -- how does this decision get made that you're retaining an element, right? so i think that first of all it sets the bar that says if you're coming in and you have -- you are going to demolish everything and this doesn't apply, right? you come in and you feel that the community is really asking you to retain something and maybe there's some discussion with staff or there's sort of an internal set of pressures that encourage that or maybe -- i mean, developers do come in and say they want to keep things. and then this applies. now there's no -- you know, it's design guidelines, right? so it's more subjective and it's

not like i'm doing group housing and, therefore this applies and it's not a specific designation. that's one of the questions that i have in this process. but i think that if you are retaining an element you are then held to this particular bar, this particular standard. i think that one of the things that we're also trying to set in the design guidelines with the use of the examples is that we expect you to do this with a very, you know, well accomplished professional. you need to have -- you need to know what you're doing when you are doing this if you're going to be doing it. and i think that the question is how -- how it gets triggered in that sense. >> okay. commissioners, if i could just follow-up on that because related to historic preservation specifically, i think that there's a challenge not only at the h.p.c. but within the department, of sort of this notion from the general public that facade retention is a preservation project. and so this design guideline document is also a way to provide some separation between that, to demonstrate that we're not talking about historic preservation here, but as mya

said, because often a developer of a project or sponsor coming to us and saying look at the good work that we're going to do. we're going to save this and preserving it. and we are saying that the bar will be a little bit higher in that case. but most of my experience is that this has been voluntary. through the e.i.r. process, as you know, we will give options for partial preservation but those are generally for historic resources. in this case the developer can come and say, hey, i'd like to keep this and we're like this is how you can do that. >> so the example at pine and franklin, you know, the small buildings, that i actually think when we first approved that, i didn't like that design and i think that one was tacked on and we kind of ended up removing that one that was tacked on. i think that it actually work list, the ultimate project that is there. but that was a resource, right? >> correct. >> so, i mean, these would apply

i guess if the decisionmakers said that there's overriding consideration to remove a resource, these could also kick in, and they would kick in -- >> yeah, potentially, but i think that the bigger question that president hyland mentioned is that this is what we have to match head-on in the design guideline document about standard nine and what is an appropriate addition to an historic resource. >> but, again, looking at a resource. >> exactly. >> you're gearing these to non-resources which i think is tricky -- so that could be flushed out a little more, when it would apply, i think that would be helpful. >> commissioner johnson. >> thanks. so thank you so much, staff, for this. it's been really been exciting to read and to understand more and to see us taking leadership on this. i think that in particular i just really love the weighing of the options slides. i think that it's not only beneficial to us and to staff but i think that it will be

beneficial to all of the stakeholders, including the public in thinking about when a development comes before them and thinking about how to interact with that development. and i think that this is really great and that it does allow flexibility and for the opportunity to assess things on a case-by-case basis but it provides really good guidelines. i think that it would be great if we could -- to commissioner hillis' comments, to get more specific about where we're applying them and making sure that, again, that figuring out what we are trying to encourage being preserved isn't kind of left up to whim. and i think that specifically looking at our neighborhood specific special area design guidelines like polk and pacific and being proactive about identifying if there are buildings or resources that are not historic but that the community itself has said that they feel they want to continue

to support. i'm just wondering how these two pieces of work fit together. and then the last piece that i'll say is that -- i'm so glad as s2.1 is here, for new massing to be compatible with the context. which always feels like a crunchy -- or -- well, there's tension there. i think that, again, thinking about what we preserve versus maybe the context of a neighborhood is one thing now but in 10 years from now the context of the neighborhood needs to be and will be different. and just weighing that balance between what is physically there and recognizing that, you know, what is specifically there is there because of a myriad of reasons. some things that we want to perpetuate and others that we don't want to perpetuate and looking at equity and other

things. so just any more guidance that could be given around how to weigh that balance out, the existing context with the city that we're trying to build, i think that it would be helpful to everyone involved. >> thank you. commissioner richards. >> i think that it's a great document. i thank you very much for all of the hard work that you put into it. one of the interesting things that might be an intangible, i think to commissioner johnson's point and others, you walk down a certain street and you have a feeling, the southside of market street between noe and sanchez has its own feeling. i don't know if it's historic or not. but if we were to dense few that, i would -- densdensify th, and i'm not sure that every street has a feeling that we need to preserve. but it's a sense of place that i think that makes the city special. i don't want to use other cities as punching bags but i have been to other cities and the sense of

place has been completely obliberated and it's bland. i mean i know that there's a lot of pressures and that but there's no sense of place there anymore. everything is gone. and i think that the other thing is that since this is not -- these aren't historic buildings, during the p.p.a. period i think that strongly suggesting to the developer that there be a benefit to keeping a portion of the building should be a check box. we discussed it, what did they say. and then i think that if we really want to take this further on, you know, and, again, not to do the entire city but some examples are pretty amazing -- and maybe we -- we offer a concession incentive or waiver somehow, like in the home s.f. process. in order to get them to save something that they don't want to. so we kind of have a net balance of you're not going to lose a ton of money because we all know

that it's easier to construct on a green field than it is on around a building. it's complicated and more expensive and the shoring and whatever. and then the last thing is, -- so that might be some legislation that, you know, is after we see whether this is being taken up or not by a project sponsor and it's something that we would consider if they keep saying that it's too costly. and the other one is that we saw miss schoutis group c, and it keeps san francisco, a sense of neighborhood that it has, and because we're a city of neighborhoods i would hope when we do the revised r.d.g.s we can have a residential version too. they seem compatible and the u.d.g. land, but i think that more sensitive residential ones as well would be a good one. >> thank you, commissioner wolfram. >> thank you. i think this is a great document

but i do want to sort of second commissioner hillis' concernor question about the potential projects that there was a historic resource and because of overriding consideration that it's being demolished but potentially retained. there seems to be a gap there. for example, the 450 o'farrell project had been approved as originally designed it would have had retained elements. but if we say that it doesn't apply -- the historic design guidelines wouldn't be appropriate for that either. so i'm just wondering how we address that. because it seems that we don't want to then have projects that were historic and they retained elements but we're not using this document for. >> right. it's a great point and i think that is something that we need to certainly clarify. you could make the argument, although it sounds very bureaucratic, because we're demolishing the resource it's no longer historic and, therefore, the guidelines don't apply. >> that's a technical one and

hard to explain to the designer or the developer. >> okay. go ahead, allison. >> i wanted to add that often when we have demolition of historic resources we have mittgation measures to reduce the impacts on the resources. so one of the things that we'll explore is using mitigation measures to talk about, you know, using these design guidelines as well. so we'll look into that and clarify that. >> that could be a great -- >> thank you. commissioner hyland. >> thank you. i just want to say commissioner hillis that i think that you and i are really aligned in the idea around facadism and i have been very vocal if we're keeping the facades that we do it in a meaningful way. and understanding the volume behind it helps to do that. and to your point commissioner wolfram, of the resource that is being demolished -- so the pine street row, there were two projects, one on the west side closer to franklin where we retained leapts and then on the

other side of -- the east side where we did not but we asked -- our joint commissions asked them to maintain the urban massing along that road, but -- those are the project -- so the point is that if the project is a demolition which is what many of the draft e.i.r.s are saying that we have struggles with, then this could be applied through the mitigation measures and that would be very helpful. but the notion is that if we're keeping something let's do it in a meaningful way. and could tha understand that ia preservation, it's an urban design effort. >> commissioner perlman. >> thank you. i did want to comment related to what commissioner hillis said and commissioner johnson about we're doing a project on mission street where the prevailing facades are two and three stories. the zoning is the future state

which allows us to go up to 65 feet on that particular -- on that block. so what we're doing is that the facade of this building is a c, and it's not historic but it looks very historic. it's a victorian period. it's not in great shape but it has all of the character defining features of what was built at the time. so we're choosing to retain that facade and we are setting back above the building and then going up to the 65 feet. so -- and what is odd, what will be odd until more is built out is that the massing will be much bigger than the street. because we're going to have a six-story building rather than the three-story buildings that are around it. but you do have to then, you know, we're going to do 10, 12 units of housing. so you do then have to look at the future state and hoping that other ones will come up on that

block and that will be consistent for the future. but we're doing both, saving the facade and the first portion of the building so that it still feels that it's part of the existing context and then looking to the future with something above. but it is a different massing. and it may end up at your commission so i hope that you'll appreciate that. [laughter]. approved, approved. [laughter]. >> commissioner richards. >> just one thing. i know that this is not a preservation, you know, and this could apply to a 450 o'farrell where we -- i think that this would have been -- the one -- the preferred department version would have fit this because it would have retained more of the facade. again, it's not a mitigation measure because the building is gone but i wish that in the alternatives that we had for that project and maybe future projects that we have one that fits this retained elements

policy because there are mitigation measures. and the frustrating thing on 450 o'farrell is that since the postage stamp that they were to stick on it wasn't done in the e.i.r., we couldn't request any mitigation because they were going to get rid of it. and that was frustrating. so i really got confused, well, we're keeping part of the building so they should be able to save money and fund x, y, z. it would be better if it were outlined on the e.i.r. on historic buildings should they want to demolish them. >> commissioner hillis. >> just quickly, and on applicable, we're saying that it could be applicable on projects that are not historic and it could be applicable on projects that are historic and i go back. i think that 450 benefited from not keeping the facade. because you won't keep the context of that space. you can keep 10 feet but it's not really the space beyond that. and the facade wasn't the most compelling kind of urban facade that you would want.

so, i mean, there's case where is it could work both ways on nonhistorical and historic buildings that are demoed. i think that the applicability is tricky the way that it works. >> okay. so thank you very much, mya and allison. this is really great work and it gives us a really good set of tools. and, you know, i think that applicability to our earlier conversation about the cultural corridors, i think that it does formalize things and, you know, as a really useful set of tools for that conversation as well. so thank you so much. excellent work. so is that it? >> that's it. >> our wonderful time together. so this meeting is adjourned.

>> this is one place you can always count on to give you what you had before and remind

you of what your san francisco history used to be. >> we hear that all the time, people bring their kids here and their grandparents brought them here and down the line. >> even though people move away, whenever they come back to the city, they make it here. and they tell us that. >> you're going to get something made fresh, made by hand and made with quality products and something that's very, very good. ♪ >> the legacy bars and restaurants was something that was begun by san francisco simply to recognize and draw attention to the establishments. it really provides for san francisco's unique character. ♪ >> and that morphed into a request that we work with the city to develop a legacy business registration.

>> i'm michael cirocco and the owner of an area bakery. ♪ the bakery started in 191. my grandfather came over from italy and opened it up then. it is a small operation. it's not big. so everything is kind of quality that way. so i see every piece and cut every piece that comes in and out of that oven. >> i'm leslie cirocco-mitchell, a fourth generation baker here with my family. ♪ so we get up pretty early in the morning. i usually start baking around 5:00. and then you just start doing rounds of dough. loaves. >> my mom and sister basically handle the front and then i have my nephew james helps and then my two daughters and my

wife come in and we actually do the baking. after that, my mom and my sister stay and sell the product, retail it. ♪ you know, i don't really think about it. but then when i -- sometimes when i go places and i look and see places put up, oh this is our 50th anniversary and everything and we've been over 100 and that is when it kind of hits me. you know, that geez, we've been here a long time. [applause] ♪ >> a lot of people might ask why our legacy business is important. we all have our own stories to tell about our ancestry. our lineage and i'll use one example of tommy's joint. tommy's joint is a place that my husband went to as a child and he's a fourth generation

san franciscan. it's a place we can still go to today with our children or grandchildren and share the stories of what was san francisco like back in the 1950s. >> i'm the general manager at tommy's joint. people mostly recognize tommy's joint for its murals on the outside of the building. very bright blue. you drive down and see what it is. they know the building. tommy's is a san francisco hoffa, which is a german-style presenting food. we have five different carved meats and we carve it by hand at the station. you prefer it to be carved whether you like your brisket fatty or want it lean. you want your pastrami to be very lean. you can say i want that piece of corn beef and want it cut, you know, very thick and i want

it with some sauerkraut. tell the guys how you want to prepare it and they will do it right in front of you. san francisco's a place that's changing restaurants, except for tommy's joint. tommy's joint has been the same since it opened and that is important. san francisco in general that we don't lose a grip of what san francisco's came from. tommy's is a place that you'll always recognize whenever you lock in the door. you'll see the same staff, the same bartender and have the same meal and that is great. that's important. ♪ >> the service that san francisco heritage offers to the legacy businesses is to

help them with that application process, to make sure that they really recognize about them what it is that makes them so special here in san francisco. ♪ so we'll help them with that application process if, in fact, the board of supervisors does recognize them as a legacy business, then that does entitle them to certain financial benefits from the city of san francisco. but i say really, more importantly, it really brings them public recognition that this is a business in san francisco that has history and that is unique to san francisco. >> it started in june of 1953. ♪ and we make everything from scratch. everything.

we started a you -- we started a off with 12 flavors and mango fruits from the philippines and then started trying them one by one and the family had a whole new clientele. the business really boomed after that. >> i think that the flavors we make reflect the diversity of san francisco. we were really surprised about the legacy project but we were thrilled to be a part of it. businesses come and go in the city. pretty tough for businesss to stay here because it is so expensive and there's so much competition. so for us who have been here all these years and still be popular and to be recognized by the city has been really a huge honor.

>> we got a phone call from a woman who was 91 and she wanted to know if the mitchells still owned it and she was so happy that we were still involved, still the owners. she was our customer in 1953. and she still comes in. but she was just making sure that we were still around and it just makes us feel, you know, very proud that we're carrying on our father's legacy. and that we mean so much to so many people. ♪ >> it provides a perspective. and i think if you only looked at it in the here and now, you're missing the context. for me, legacy businesses, legacy bars and restaurants are really about setting the context for how we come to be where we are today. >> i just think it's part of san francisco. people like to see familiar stuff. at least i know i do.

>> in the 1950s, you could see a picture of tommy's joint and looks exactly the same. we haven't change add thing. >> i remember one lady saying, you know, i've been eating this ice cream since before i was born. and i thought, wow! we have, too.

>> this is a reminder to silence all electronic devices. fire commission regular meeting wednesday, january 23rd, 2019 in the time is 5:02. roll call. president stephen nakajo. vice president franc francee covington. commissioner michael hardeman. ken cleveland is excused. joe alioto ve. >> members of the public may

address the commission for up to three minutes on any matter within the commission's jurisdiction and does not appear on the agenda. speakers shall address their remarks to the individual as a whole and not to individual commissioners. commissioners are not to enter into debate or discuss with the a speaker. the lack of a response by the commissioners or department personnel does not necessarily constitute agreement with or support of statements made during public comment. >> anybody wishes to give public comment at this time? are there any questions, discussions for the commissioners at this time? seeing none. public comment is closed. >> >> clerk: approval of the minutes, item 3. discussion and possible action to approve meeting minutes from a special meeting on january 4th, 2019. >> at this point, is there any

public comment on the special meeting minutes of january 4th, 2019? are there any questions or discussions from the commissioners at this time? commissioner vice president covington? >> thank you, mr. president. yes, i did share with the commission secretary some minor adjustments. nothing of great importance. i. >> this is for the special meeting. >> the special meeting? >> clerk: yes on january 4th. >> we're doing them one by one. >> sorry. >> ok no problem. i'd like mont move the item. >> do we have a second? >> call for the question, all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> any opposed. none. thank you. >> clerk: an approval of the min es from a special meetig on january 8th, 2019. >> at this time is there any

public comment on this special meeting on january 8th, 2019? any questions, discussions from the commissioners at this time? >> i'd like to move the item. >> thank you, vice president covington. i need a second please. >> >> second. >> call for the question all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> any opposed? none. motion passes. >> clerk: minutes from the regular meeting on january 9th, 2019. >> the regular meeting january 9th, is there any public comment at this time? >> commissioner vice president covington, any questions, discussions from the commission at this point? >> as previously mentioned, i'd like to move this item as well. >> thank you, very much. is there a motion to approve? commissioner vice president covington has moved and i need a second, please. >> second.

>> commissioner. all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> approved. madam secretary. >> item 4. five department operating budget fiscal years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. presentation from mark corso on the fire department operating budget for commission review and discussion. >> at this particular time, is there any public comment on this item of operating budget fiscal year 2019-2020? hearing none. public comment is closed. director corso. >> thank you, president. good evening. here to give a brief update and start the discussion on our 19-20-20-220 and 20-21 update.

it's an overview of time lines and instructions. things we've touched on in previous meetings. look at budget to date. some of the updates in the current year as well as some of the discussion that's we've had so far regarding priorities and challenges. as always, open up for any discussions or questions that you may have. as i mentioned at the last meeting, we received our budget discussions along with all other city departments in december. the city is projecting $271 million deficit over the next two fiscal years. and those deficits are anticipated to increase. that is detailed in the city's five-year financial plan update. they're looking at a 644 million-dollar deficit and fiscal year 2024. so all city departments have been requested to make reductions to the support that they receive from the general fund to the extent of 2% in both years. they would be on going. that would be a 4% reduction in the second year and in

addiction, they would -- the departments are being requested to submit a 1% contingency reduction. 2% is $1.4 million and 4% is $2.7 million. over all timeframe, we have a discussion at the meeting today and then potentially further discussion obviously in potential approval at the next next meeting. budget submissions are due to the mayor's office on february 21st and over the next few months the departments work with the mayor's office to submit a city budget that would be on may 31st do the board. and june and july are budget hearings at the board as well as budget being considered at the board. last year, we're in a two-year budget process. last year's budget process supplied a second year. as part of the budget last year,

some with month indications our budgbudget has approved. all known fringe rates, the results of the m.o.u.s are incorporated into our base budget. one time expenditures are taken out and equipment is usually extracted and target reduction requests are measured against the department's general fund support. taking our expenditures from the general fund, offsetting revenue that this general funds is contributing to our budget after consideration, that's from which our target reductions are based off of. so here is kind of a historic budget overview. so our budget over all, the blue you will see is the total department budget. the red or orange is the general fund department budget. as we discussed previously last year marked the first year we eclipsed the 400 million-dollar threshold for department budget. that's anticipated to increase as you will see on the next

slide in the coming years. as a result of that, the general fund, the non general fund is things like the airport and previously the port and other funds that aren't paid by general fund moneys so as i mentioned it's a 21% increase over this time. majority of that is due not to expansion of scope of services but to some extent for sure but it's salary and benefit increases. so here is a look at our current budget as compared to -- our base budget compared to our current and extended year budget. as i mentioned, we're looking at $400 million budget. and 413 the year after that. the reason that is lower, is because a lot of the one-time equipment and capital expenditures are scrape scrippe. that will reduce the budget until those allocations are

approved. $269 million is our general fund support. after revenue, after offsetting funds from other expenditures like the airport, that's how much the general fund is allocated for the department. so that's what the base -- after prop f staffing considering are removed, that's the amount from which the budget reductions are based off of. so current year, there were some changes that were approved last year. there was the addition of a grand writer. that position has not been filled but the announcement closes later on this week. we're looking forward to filling that. we had funding for q.r.v. vehicles, which is staffed and e.m.s. 6 which established a administrative position. there were changes to overtime and federal labor standards act. there were some impacts to the department. there were changes city wide and impacts with the department as well. the on going hiring and equipment plans were in the process of procurement and a number of apparatus and the next

academy starting up next week, the fire academy. fire prevention. we've expanded the scope of work along with city initiatives such as a.d.u.s and other plans and construction projects. we brought on additional staff supported by revenues to manage that workload and provide the bureau additional resources. there were other staffing include. airport increased some training staff and infrastructure staff as well as bike medic staff and there's marine equipment allocation added back as part of the budget process that covers marine equipment as well as the match for our dive boat that was allocated from a federal grant. so to date, last meeting we discussed our capital and i.t. requests. those were approved by the commission and submitted to the respective committees by januare deadline. there were a couple of changes to those due to some changes in the program. i'll detail those at our next

meeting. we continued to work with division heads on budget issues and needs assessments. we've reconvened the budget committee to discuss the needs of the department and prioritization of those needs. i have included some of the materials that were incorporated in your packets as well. we'll update staffing models as well as revenue and feed projections for the next two years. as far as over all departmental priorities, both the department effective may 2012 established under mayor lee's leadership, public safety hiring plan. that has continued through 2020. in addition in may of 2016, mayor lee established a public safety or fire department equipment and apparatus replacement plan and so from a departmental perspective, it's very important we continue thost

we can but enhance those to future years. that is an ongoing and in addition, we are discussion, along with the budget committee and labor departmental priorities and e.m.s. staff and cyst assistance and in addition to just over all staffing for increasing in calls as well as support for restoring funding for incident sports specialists so those discussions are on going with the budget committee. challenges, i think we've discussed the budget committee level, the large challenge is to submit a budget that would be in response to budget reductions but also have the department deal with increased call volume and increased demand for services. so not just front line calls but

in addition the scope of services that the department provides and has increased over the recent years such as public education and outreach and those kinds of services as well. so there's a very much a lack of budget flexibility that we have given the staffing requirements that we have and the number of initiatives we have. the consensus among the budget committee is that we are the department should not submit reductions to its budget. we have been proposed to the commission previously so it's up for discussion. that's been the message from the discussions at the budget committee level is due to the needs of the department, the department shouldn't be submitting any budget reductions. we're still looking if there's any revenue opportunities to offset some of that, currently that's been the discussions so far at the budget committee level. just going over the documentation that you had in

your packets, just a very, very high level overview outlining the department's costs, revenues as well as expenditures. there's a little packet on page five that outlines the different types of revenues that the department has. by project. on page 8, outlines the total expenditures by type. salaries, benefits, materials and supplies, et cetera for general fund and not general fund and then on page 10, or on page 12, it outlines the 14 it outlines the type of expenditure by division or project type. for example, sports services prevention, administration, et cetera. as you can see in all cases the budget rolls up to the 416 million-dollar base budget number that we were discussing previously so i'm happy to answer any questions. when we get towards budget approval detail and submission

budget book information will be provided to the commission in advance. and then on the last page of the packet provided, there's three pages here. it's an overview of the items needs that were identified both from different divisions as well as the budget committee and were currently up for discussion. we've met a few times and we'll send out communications for prioritization of these needs and we anticipate meeting either the end of next week or early in the week after to discuss and formally prioritize. just because the budget is submitted in february doesn't mean that our conversations with the mayor's office stops, they just quite frankly begin and many as facts so it will condition to discuss our needs and provide our data and justification for a lot of them over the next few months up until the mayor's budget release in may. with that i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you, very much,

director corso. vice president covington, did you want -- >> i called for public comments. at this point, commissioners. >> >> thank you, mr. corso. you are doing god's work and we all appreciate it. >> thank you. >> i had a question. last year the issue of $100 million of fees that were uncollected and i believe those were ambulance related. is that in here? >> yes. so if you look on page 6, top line. >> so on page 5 and 6. on page 6, the top line, ambulance billings that shows the estimate total number of

charges that we would be billing for. actually the previous line on page 5, the last line on the bottom shows essentially the write offic offs for that and te anticipated revenue for that department. >> there's $135 million billed and there is $106 million that are written off. what does that mean written off? are you just not collecting that? is that something every year we just -- what is that exactly? >> it's a combination. it's for bills that aren't paid but it's also mainly based on the demographics, we run a lot of medicine' car medicare and me do not collect anything beyond for what they approve. if we have a $2,000 ambulance bill and the patient has medi-cal insurance, they will

reimburse us $125 on that and that remaining balance is then considered written off. there's no collecting ability on the department's behalf for that. same with medicare where it's $450 there's a big bill we're not able to collect. >> let's say that i need a ride to the hospital and i use an ambulance and it cost me a thousand dollars. my insurance covers 75% of that and i'm left with $250 bill for that. >> as a copay or something along those lines, right. >> i have to pay the department that money? >> correct. it would depend on the structure of your insurance but in most cases, a lot of insurance have a copay where the insurance will pay 75, 85% and there's a remaining balance, be it $50 or a few hundred dollars that would go to the patient. or to the patient's secondary

insurance. >> what if i don't have any insurance at all which i imagine is the case for many of the people using our system? >> correct. so we run people through the medi-cal and medicare to see if they're eligible for benefits and then we have an outreach that the billing company works with. if people do not have insurance, we have financial hardship program that allows for department's ability to write off bills if your income is below 300% of the federal poverty level where that bill would be waived. >> ok. >> it seems like in the system we've created for ourself, the system we've created people are

being billio billed differentlye same ride to the hospital? >> they're billed the same it just depends on the insurance they have. depending on private or medicare or medical, the charges are the same. it just depends on the insurance or the individual's ability to pay that fee where the account goes. >> in the three scenarios that you just mentioned, the ininsured, medicare, i'm the only one that pays in that circumstance? >> correct. >> everything else is written off? >> correct. >> ok. and so, over the last 10 years, by way of example. this number has been hovering at about $100 million. >> correct. >> we've written off a billion dollars in these fees over the last 10 years? >> correct.

if you add that up. if you look at when we do a fee increase, or costs over the years, costs of services may increase for the department and in turn our fees may go up and they go up by medical c.p.i. every year. that doesn't change the amount of reimbursement we're receiving from medicare or the amount of reimbursement we receive from medi-cal. it would extend the write offs with the structure of the insurance. >> you mentioned the general allocates, how much was that? $320 million? where is that number? >> i believe it's on the side. after accounting for our funds and our revenues it's about $270 million. >> $270 million? >> correct. after our revenues that we

received. >> it's twice the money we should be receiving in ambulance billings. the ambulance billings are $135 million. >> yes, that's an issue in jurisdictions with demographics we have, there's very low reimbursement. it's not very unique issue for us per se. >> who does the collections on the ambulance billing? >> we have a contractor that does our ambulance billing. we work with them to find better communications with hospitals and incorporating patient data and getting patient data. for example, when we pick up our patient, our crews may not

collect the data on that patient before dropping them off at an emergency room. we work with our billing company to set up with relationships to hospitals to get additional patient information from them for billing purposes. >> has anybody ever run the number as to how much of that 180 or $106 million a year that we are writing-off as homeless-related? >> i do not believe so. >> is there a way we can do that? now that we're tracking it, we've tracked that information for a year, we should be able to go to the mayor's office and say hey, madam mayor, 40% of our calls are homeless related. that's going to be a really low number because you know that more than 40% of our homeless population is using our ambulance services. assume that it's half that. let's call it 50%, which i think is still low. $50 million should be an added

cost to homelessness to san francisco. i just think that this type of information should be the information we're discussing with the mayor's office when we're doing budget analyzes. so when we're asking for -- when we're up at the mayor's office asking for -- just by way of example. a department electrician that cost $161,000. if you look at total of the asks on page 17, 18 and 19, that comes out to 29 million or $30 million. right. so, if we ask, for example, the homeless department, the department of homelessness to pay for the $50 million in homeless ambulance rides, we can get every little thing that is on that list on page 17 and 18

and 19 and have $10 million to spare. i think these are the types of conversations we should be having since we're in a homeless crisis in san francisco. these are the situations we should be having with the other departments in this city since we're the ones that are picking up the slack on an issue that is technically not just our issue. our mission is to respond to 9-1-1 calls and make sure that people are getting emergency care. it seems like we're giving a large part of our budget to homeless people rides to the hospital -- given they need those rides in a lot of those cases and some cases they don't need the rides. it's cold outside and they know as the ms6 will tell you and some of the other people out in the engines other tell you, they

know the right buzz words. they say the right buzz words and wore going to show up and give you a ride to the hospital. that's probably a part of what is going on here. i think that we, the department should recoup some of those funds because they would pay for everything on our asking list plus another $10 million. i'm just talking to you because you are the guy bringing the news. it's not your fault, but it's something that the department could be better at, given that we're taking up a lot of the slack. i know the police department budget is $450 million when i was on the commission eight years ago. it's probably $500 million by this time and they don't have revenue sources like we do. their general fund pool is closer to their budget. we're the ones that are pulling

in the revenue and pulling a lot of the slack for some of the other departments. i just think that we need to do a better job of trying to get that stuff paid for. >> understood. those discussions are on going. i think that homelessness is being treated as a steed wide problem. to the extent that we have been able to insert ourselves in those conversations in general. we're trying to advocate for the department's position. >> let's try and figure out, if we could, i know jesus does magic work. if we can him to tie that number in an accurate way, the write-off number to homelessness, perhaps it's something we can ask out of the homeless budget. it's something that is happening. >> we can definitely look at that. >> great. thank you mr. corso, i appreciate the hard work you do. >> thank you, very much, commissioner alioto-veronese.

at this point, commissioner hardeman. >> thank you, mr. president. thank you for the clear speaking. your voice carried very good. probably always does. i just noticed how crisp and vibrant your voice was carrying. i just sat back and could hear very good. >> thank you. >> it's interesting, one of the reasons why graphs and charts and just information where you can view it is, you look at the base overview and you go back five years and you look at how it's grown. you look at how the department and the population have grown. that's a very modest growth in the budget. iin my opinion. i think we're holding the line very good.

if you just grasp it, the reality isn't the city. if the city would just hold its own and not growing any in population or in workforce, for this department, you would expect anyway. doing this under the circumstances of growth and the 40% that no addresses. is there a collection of any money for the 40%? or we don't even try to collect that. >> we do. we bill, in some cases, those people have medi-cal or medicare insurance. they just don't have an address. we'll take a closer look at it. we do bill and to the extent that we have information on individuals to see if they have insurance, we look at that as well. >> some of that is collected? >> i'm sorry? >> are funds collected.

>> i would imagine for some of them, yes. >> another thing, like i say, i like the written information. the revenue summary, the expense by type, ex pensio expense by dd the needs and review how you indicated everything. thank you. very good. i appreciate that. i might be sitting in on a budget meeting here. i really like to have this stuff in my mind before that happens. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, very much, commissioner hardeman. chief hayes-white. >> thank you, president nakajo. thank you to director corso. i would say that it might be helpful, because like commissioner hardeman finds charts helpful to track over a period of 10 years