need that needs to be made available but that they don't

♪ in some cases they just had to show their federal i.d. i know it maybe for the lifeline pass, or there are some situations where there is a different path that you show or something like that. what would it take to create something that i am describing here either for the furloughed workers, or for a similarly situated category of people class. >> in the longer term, would require a change in our fair to establish a new program and would require an equity analysis on that. in the short term, we have had similar programs where we've received funding from ad backscatter through the board of supervisors, or other outside funding that cover the expense

of providing these exceptions to our fair role. >> and around the fee and find programs, you mention there is a payment to -- anyone can go into a payment plan and, you don't have to have demonstrated income eligibility, but somehow, the question of whether your late fees are waived, or those kind of things, how exactly would that work -- what is the difference, like for this category, and an individual who has a short-term economic hardship, but not qualify for low income eligibility, two their options be for a payment plan class. >> short, for a payment plan, the difference is a $25 enrolment fee and test data $5, late fees that are not waived fortin on a low income, however,

you from issuance of citations to the application of the late fee, it takes between 42 and 45 days here there is a period of time if people are aware that this is coming up, that they can come and in and roll in a payment plan, again, it is open to everyone. >> and there is some difference in the enrolment fee, it is still a $5 enrolment fee for everybody class. >> twenty-five dollars for nonlow income. >> cottage. okay. chair, do you have any questions class while ? >> i wanted to follow-up on the questions around exploring, providing free munimobile to the impacted workers, and in the

future, when we may have a large group of community members that are facing a significant economic hardship, in an unexpected situation where they might not qualify for the existing low income programs. you are saying it is more -- there's like a budget -- it is a budgetary -- you also mentioned a budgetary challenge to that class. >> short,, every time we provide discounts or free fares, discounts for other fees, it comes out of the budget somewhere else. is a constant balancing of what those needs are, priorities, and trying to address as much as we can catch but also being respectful of the fact that we do need to provide service. >> so within the m.t.a. budget, is there any part of the budget

that could be tapped to support something like this? >> i think it is all trade-offs. it would be something that our board of directors struggles with every year, as i mentioned to, this is one group that certainly is a need, but we have a number of other groups that also have expressed a need that don't necessary qualify for these types of programs, so it's a question of, where do you place that line, and two qualifies while still protecting the revenues of the agency. >> great spirit and beyond the budgetary challenge, can you explain or identify any other challenges as far as administering a temporary emergency, fair free program for

a group of impacted community members. >> i really couldn't. i can't think of any at this point. we usually figure out how to handle the administrative side. >> yeah. echoing supervisor mar, i would love to know more about whether something like this would be possible to have. and the situation with the federal workers, it is a relatively small number of people in a very specific type of situation for a determined amount of time, or at least likely a short amount of time, so i don't know how big of a budget impact it would have. it is probably not a huge number calculated as one, because of the immediate nature of it, and the specific situation that they are in, will be hard for them to have prepared to apply for other types of programs or low income,

all of that, they wouldn't qualify. i would love to know more about what other transit agencies do on this, and even besides what they did for the federal workers , whether there is other short-term economic hardship opportunities that transit agencies have, and what that would mean to develop that, and maybe that something that the board could consider. >> thank you. i mean, i've done budgets for years, and i get that it is real specific gift of what you need to spend money on, and as you said, if we wanted something like this to do and add back process, but i've been to the outback process, ten years, and there is a lot of needs, but, i feel like supervisor haney has

touched on this idea that usually when something like this happens, it was a month or two, and anybody who is writing munimobile, usually has a monthly pass. so when this happens, and it is over a month, and let's say, you know, february 1st comes around and you haven't been paid for a month and ten days, could we do something, like you said, where he said look, if you are an employee and you had your clicker card and your i.d. card, they could ride for free here it is not really taking money out of your budget to, it is just a short-term like, here is my card, i usually buy any month, but he wasn't able to load it this month, and here is my fed card. i just get on the bus? it would not take out of your budget. >> i'm sorry.

as i understood, if they've already paid to, then is no issue, but if -- >> you have to pay every month to load your card. we all pay every month, we go and load our card. so if we know, if i'm a federal worker, and i haven't been paid, i probably won't go load my card that month because i will save that money for groceries, right? but i use munimobile to get around to my job, to take my kids to school, whatever. so if i am a federal worker and i get on, and i have a munimobile card, the clicker card, and my federal i.d., why can't i just come on for a free, of these are really short term, hopefully for maybe a month, or a month and a bit for them to hammer it out at the federal

level. why can't we just say, as in some of the cities that supervisor haney mentioned, we just just say happy heart you have a federal card, you can write for free is worked out. ♪ i think, as mentioned difference between our agency and agencies like caltrain, we have already, as an agency dedicated more than $20 million in our budget a teachers providing free service to the most needy, and also, as a mentioned, i understand this is one specific situation, where there are a number of people large business closes down, the loss of people that are laid off all at once, and hopefully in a temporary situation, again, we are just looking at -- >> excuse me, i get that, but these are federal workers, most of them have been going to work. if i work at google and they lay

me off, i probably have enough money anyway to coast a bit, but they will not pay me, or they might give me, or i'm not going to go back to work. if someone lays me off, i'm not going to go work for free. a lot of these people were working for free. they kept working because they kind of had to, so that's what i'm saying, is i get the needy, if anybody has been laid off, it is really a struggle, with these federal workers, a lot of them went in and kept working. so i think it's a little bit different. >> thank you, supervisor brown. i agree. i think that there's a reason why so many other cities and transit agencies did take immediate action on this, and i will look more into what san mateo was able to do in -- and

logistically how they did it because one of -- if even if we want to do it for free, which i think would be the right thing to do for this category of individuals, even deferring a payment on your monthly pass, you know, could be a way to do it. i think i probably logistically, it is just easy us to have some way that they could be able to ride for free during that time, and i think for us, we as a local governments are trying to protect and support our residents who are impacted by the failures of another level of government, it is sort of a unique situation, and a unique responsibility as well that we have, particularly in the climate we have with the white house. so i don't know if other folks have more questions or comments, maybe there's more conversation

that we can have, or you all could consider it, or the board can consider it. certainly i would plan to keep this part of our resolution in encouraging you all to develop something like this, and hoping that you do. thank you. >> all right. the next presenter i am going to bring up is charles perle from the s.f. p.u.c. who is the chief financial officer. i believe he passed out a presentation. >> good afternoon. it is afternoon. good afternoon, supervisors. and the deputy c.f.o. from the s.f. p.u.c.

for the p.u.c., our response to the partial shutdown has followed our standard, what our standard customer service procedures for all customers who are having troubles paying their bills. generally, for our department, the instance of past-due accounts is a very small one, but it is existed, and i will go into some details on what that means. before i go into those details, i wanted to share a bit about the background on who our customers are, and what are those standard procedures that i mentioned. in terms of the service delivery , as a reminder, supervisors, we provide retail, water, consumer services to residents and businesses in san francisco. we also sell water to 27 water agencies down the peninsula and in the east bay. lastly, we provide retail power services to certain residences and businesses in redevelopment

areas here in the city, as well as to our city family being our municipal power customers. that translates into about 175,000 water and sewer accounts, and about 3600 electric customer accounts. these accounts are billed monthly, and our customers have the typical amount of time, which is about 30 days, to pay their bill. >> our billing occurs each month throughout the month. as i mentioned at the onset, we do have a fairly low instance of past-due accounts, because we are quite -- we worked quite closely and quite hard with customers to keep their bills current. but also, i i thinks folks generally just like the water as well. our standard procedures for past-due customer accounts include late fees, which occur after 30 days after the billing

date, and then noticing occurs after 75 days after the filing date. i will go into some details on what that noticing is catholic customers also, that is one directional, and then customers also call us when they are having issues with paying their bill, we are happy to work out payment arrangements. those arrangements can include, as noted here, due date extensions, which gives folks more time to pay their bill, payment plan arrangements, which just means that their bill is paid over instalments, and then that also differs any further collection action. and our general point with folks that are in this past-due category is if they make any payment whatsoever, it keeps their bill current and doesn't fall into the past-due category. in terms of the response to the partial shutdown, both during

and just following the shutdown over last month, we followed our standard customer procedures, as i described earlier. we haven't seen any past due account number increases over the past month. in looking at the data, we have received and granted three payment plan requests, specifically for federal workers. we may have -- at any given time, we have about 200 payment plans in place amongst our 170 or so thousand customers, some may not identify themselves as being a federal worker, so we do know for certain that three of them have identified as being related to the shutdown. for those of you that are here, or watching this at home, federal employees, or any customer can contact our customer services department as noted here to talk about past

due date extensions, as well as requesting having a payment plan set up. the customer service phone number is (415)551-3000. our e-mail is noted here ... you can also visit us in person. in terms of a potential future shutdown, the outreach carefully understands that we would want to be more proactive. we are still working on developing the communication strategy for this, but generally, what it will involve its targeted messaging on our various communication platforms as noted here. this effort will include posting messages on our my accounts web self-service portal, which is the website you can log into and

look at your account activity. there will be a message placed there, we will put clear messaging on our s.f. waterfront page, and of course, we will put messaging on bills, as well as in our newsletter. i will just leave you with my contact information, and again, for those looking at this, here is our customer service contact information. i'd be happy to take your questions. >> thank you. i just have to say that over the years, working with the p.u.c. when constituents have had issues of payments, i do have to say you've been very helpful

with all of them, and that is something that i probably have had to deal with it maybe six or seven times in ten years. but usually, and a couple of times we've had to reach out to you because it was complicated, but i think like a, and i really applaud the p.u.c. has always been an agency that says how can we help, can you pay $10 extra a month when you are paying it back, or what can we do. i just want to say that i know you've done this in the past and if someone calls out and tells you what's happening, that you look at a way to make sure they are going to get their water, or whatever they need without penalty. i definitely appreciate that. >> thank you, that's right. >> i had a question about the clean power s.f. customers. it looks like they're not really

included in your overview. is that because pg and he handles the billing for them quiet. >> that's right. the clean power customers in san francisco, both residents and in the commercial customers have pg and e. as a billing entity for that. so with that said, we are working with them to find out their take on the federal shutdown. i can say that when i look on their website, i, i do see messaging relating to the shutdown as well, but i don't have specific in terms of what their process is for handling those questions, but i'm happy to come back with that information. >> that would be great. >> sure. >> great. i think it is great to hear there are these opportunities for understanding people's economic situation, and deferring payments, repayment plans, there is a specific

understanding or awareness of this group of workers. i guess the main thing, we will be if this happens again, and making sure that the outreach is there, and people are aware of this. it is great that there are three people who knew to call, i did get some deferment around there peerk it is great. i hope if this happens again that we are immediately putting it out there, and that we are helping put those resources in one place, and that this is one of them. it would be great to know if -- sounds like they have a similar kind of thing that they might do, obviously that is another huge category of utilities that most people in san francisco will be paying. >> i think we will be able to put our messaging in place within a day of knowing the shutdown is happening. we can respond fairly quickly. >> great.

thank you. >> you're welcome. >> i want to bring up mr josh from director director of workforce development. thank you, supervisor here supervisor brown, thank you very much. thank you for the resolution. are deputy directors sharing information that i'll put up on the slides for the public, i want to share with the supervisor and the committee that we have taken to heart resolution and your your directive, supervisor haney, which is the purpose is to group provide assistance to impacted federal workers. a lot of the work that we do at the office of economic workforce development, workforce division is specific to some of the guiding coalition with the other 46 workforce development boards around the state, through an organization that is called the california workforce association. said during the time of the first shutdown, and as we think

about preparations, should there be another shutdown, there's three pieces of information that we wanted to share with you, and we make available through our networks, and that we are prepared to take to the streets if it should come to that point again. the first is, and i will put this up on the slide. this is some information that we make sure to share. how do i do that a lot did it go thank you. a little bit illegible, but this is a directive that we got from the employment development department, which administers the unemployment benefits program. this is when we all got the news of the directive and the support from the governor to make sure that the impacted workers were aware and that despite federal thoughts to the contrary that there is availability of unemployment benefits. the one caveat to, in the one thing we tried to -- thank you. the one thing we tried to make clear is that the last paragraph is the key thing that points out

that if and when reimbursement comes, if there was retroactive pay, it would require repayment of the benefits during that time. so one of the things in working with edd as our lead, and inconsistency across the state, we were able to benefit from an advanced document that we keep on hand available to the public, and that is the second document that you have, supervisors, it if we get this going, i will put it back up there. there is a first item. this information is available through our office, and again in preparation for this happening again, we would want to take it to the streets. i will talk about a third option to do that. the second document, is what became a frequently asked question that we distribute. thanks to our friends and partners at the state, they provide some of the more intensive questions that come up through the service providers and our office, and probably at your offices as well. this is something to have on

hand when people have questions. will make sure it is available to everybody. and then again, it has -- the one thing we really want to be and what we find ourselves being real attention about -- intentional about this as the section is what happens when the shutdown is over. that is the key thing. you don't want anyone who is a worker who gets retroactive pay to be caught off guard with the expectation that it would be repayment for the unemployment benefits. we understand that is just a function of the legal considerations of this measure. i will pause at that point, and talk about preparation some of -- and some of the stuff we prepared during the first shutdown before turning to what we could potentially initiate. i think it's appropriate that a lot of the impacted workers work in your district, supervisor haney. this is something that when we look forward, i will speak in the hypothetical, but i think in a real sense about what we can do to address shutdowns if it

happens again. with those materials, is there any questions before looking at what we call our rapid response program while -- rapid response program? >> okay. we have a rapid response team, and what we do with the rapid response team, it is a division of business services and workforce development. this is an example of what we call a business services -- sometimes we recall a rapid response to layoffs, and in some instances, we talk about us being an employment transition, but this is an example of what happens. it is a rapid response orientation that we put into a work site where we know there's layoffs pending. we get a notice from the state, or we find that where it gets back to us and we want to make sure we intervened the workers know their rights, options and opportunities to keep working. this is when we heard that there would be layoffs in district three at the fishermen's were of holiday inn. we moved quickly in concert with local to, community service providers to make sure those

workers knew that in 30 days when they were poised to lose their job that they had options. both unemployment benefits and insurance capital opportunities and new hotels south of market that are being built and there are hiring requirements or community at labor partners, this gives us -- gives you a sense of what we do. we use a similar form and format when we got news of the chariot driver it layoffs. recently a couple of weeks ago, that we went to the spot. supervisor brown joined us, along with mayor preach. we try to go over all the impacted workers are. if there was to be another shutdown, one of the things that if it was the will of the supervisors to work together around this, and i think the logical location would be in district six when you look at the worksites, the federal building, the federal courthouse, the u.n. plaza federal building, you have the e.p.a., you have the department of education, department of justice, i think 100% of those locations are in district six.

one of the things we can do would be to notice a rapid response orientation at a central location, bring all the teams and resources to answer the questions. one of the only reasons i didn't get to this point during the first shutdown was because there are some legal considerations for those federal workers who might think about transitioning their employment elsewhere, locally to the public or private sector, and so to help get some of those legal considerations answered directly for the workers, for our office and for the workers at rapid response, we are in communication with the national lawyers to be on help -- on hand to answer this questions so no one loses their rights as a federal worker. i'm happy to answer any questions you might have, supervisors. >> yeah, thank you for all of that, we are obviously grateful that the state and have a new some took the steps that they did, that was an important thing. we are very actively prepared to get that information out there.

it is also great to hear about the rapid response orientations, that is one of the things i was hoping to get out of this hearing, which is not just how we respond in the case of a shutdown, but in other types of economic hardship and immediate rapid needs from the city around that, one of the things about what it might look like in the case of another shutdown is that the jobs that they might need would be more short-term, would be more temporary, even if they even did need that. obviously it would be up to folks. i know -- i did not care as much about this in san francisco, but i did hear about this in other cities and other places where certain private businesses and public sectors stepped up and were able to secure those types of placements. you might only also be for federal workers, with other types of contractors and things that are impacted in this scenario, and part of that

question is, is this short-term temporary opportunity something that you would be a part of this rapid response orientation, and the second thing, and this is a little bit out of the scope of what you presented, but i did hear a bit about some of the impact on workers who maybe part of labor unions, janitors who work in some of these buildings, and thinking about how they might be impacted, and whether they might be shifted into working in another opportunity during that time, if they are not being paid in that situation. is that something that you would be involved with, or where to consider as well, working with some of the labor unions were impacted here and thinking about placements? >> absolutely. the success of our programs rises or falls on the strength

of our relationship with organized labor especially where there is representation. we would want to be right there because that was key to our work together with the holiday in, to our work with chariot, and so it is something we would want to do in concert, especially since the rights collectively bargained under that agreement will be key to that transition, and make sure you don't want to lose any vesting or benefits that if there was a transition to another type of work. so i think the only thing i can say is i think with the length of that shutdown, is where the conversation was first about the ideas and your resolution, the ideas from the governor, from the mayor, about making sure there was support during this time of questions. it didn't get to that full point where we had calls coming in, saying i'm looking for something else. i think eventually they would go back, but i think we are preparing that if it does happen again, then we are going to really see more people saying, i am looking for something else.

so i think just in working with organized labor, and working with the city attorney, and some of the folks in the public sector legal community, making sure that in offering, either short-term, long-term, other locations that are signatory to the same agreements that we are not in any way jeopardizing their rights that they have accrued as a federal worker, or should they change their mind and want to go back. that is something we are literally working around the? to make sure we are ready, and have the ability to triage and answer questions on the spot. >> i had a few questions. thank you, for the unemployment benefits, i was wondering if the city had done any outreach to impacted workers in san francisco about the process for applying for benefits, or was it

more -- did you view it more as a state responsibility? >> yes. thank you. we did follow the state charter lead around that, especially because there was a period of making sure there was clarity around the answer is on the availability of the benefits. we do work very closely with edd , and i think, at the same time, wheat sought to be proactive to be available to answer questions, mixer materials like this are available, but i think, again, and thinking about the spirit of the resolution which is to be very aggressive and intentional, if we get to that point again, if it is the will of government that we are to go out there and meet workers where they are out at in a rapid response, certainly concert with labor partners who our program's strength depends on our relationships and partnerships with organized labor. doing that altogether is something we are ready to do to

be more intentional about being there on the ground. >> that is good to hear. i just had a question, if you were aware of any data that edd has collected, or even oewd about unemployment insurance claims from impacted federal workers here in san francisco san francisco or statewide. i was just curious. >> i don't know that we have them. do we have any data that has come in? not at this time. but i think it is safe to say that as soon as it comes in, we will provide it, and we will put in a request on our way back to the office. >> that would be great to pick and echoing supervisor haney's question, i would also be very interested in having that data, if possible, reflect contracted workers as well that would be impacted, including, especially

property service workers in office buildings, but other types of contracted workers that were impacted by the shutdown. >> absolutely. we will do that, supervisor pick. >> all all right. thank you for being here. all right. a couple more. we have somebody representing -- i believe it is jeff littlefield and team. and i don't know if you also have a presentation? >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am the chief operating officer for san francisco international airport. i am here on behalf of the airport director who is unavailable today, but i certainly would like to provide a few updates on the impact of

the government shutdown and some of the things that took place within the airport community during that time period as you are aware capturing the 35 a federal government shutdown, workers who were considered essential were required to work without pay, but in compliance with federal legislation, all furloughed workers have received back pay as of last week. san francisco international airport is what's called a screening partner -- screening partnership program, and the t.s.a. contracts to provide checkpoint screening services with covenant aviation security, which is a private company, is budgeted for and appropriated so screeners were paid during and throughout the shutdown. staff estimates that approximately 1200 federal

workers employed by regulatory agencies with a presence at s.f.o., such as the f.a.a., the dea, customs and border protection, the coast guard, f.b.i., the federal air marshal services, the u.s. secret service, and t.s.a. leadership did work at the airport during the shutdown without receiving paychecks. the services provided by the federal employees are critical to the safe and secure operation at the airport. we want to support these workers as much as possible. in an effort to be of assistance to all affected employees during the shutdown, the airport mobilized several key initiatives, and i will walk through those best one was the airport discount, which involved airport tenants offered -- that offered federally thatched fast employees a 50% discount on all

goods and services, concessions and so forth that we have at the airport here and there was and support services. this created and distributed a resource sheet, which i will give you a copy of, to help impacted workers access assistance services. offer shutdown support for drop-in hours at the airport business and career centers that were affected -- where affected workers could meet with specialist about available strategies and resources to deal with unexpected financial challenges created by the shutdown. we had a few distribution program empirically hosted on site distribution farmers' market, with s.f.o. unites against hunger for donation program. we had second harvest food bank for 175 employees representing over 600 families. in addition, we had heel hosting, united airline sponsors

several meal events to furloughed staff in the s.f.o. museum for over 400 federal employees. we had a very good turnout, and united airlines was an exceptional partner with the airport for that event. in the city and county of san francisco short-term loan program, what we did, s.f.o. worked in partnership with the city to develop a program to provide a zero interest loans of up to $6,000 per person to those furloughed, or considered essential employees who actually were required to work during the shutdown. with those initiatives, we were able to assist the affected employees, but overall, there was minimal operational impact at the airport. i would say there were some more outdoors morale issues that existed, but they were grateful for the farmers' market, the food bank, and some of the

breakfasts and lunches that we served in the museum his. that all in all, things went well, we did reach out and see what other major airports in the united states were doing, and overall, i think what we did was very supportive of those affected employees, and we were able to minimize the impact to those employees, as well as operations at s.f.o. i do have copies of handouts that we provided, which i will certainly distribute to you before i leave. with that, out to be happy to answer any questions that you might have. >> thank you. thank you for all of the work you did to make sure that the employees of the various departments were supported during this time, and to keep their morale up, it sounds like you all did respond in a robust way. we know that because of it,

because of the way the contracting waves works, the actual t.s.a. employees were not affected at s.f.o., into the extent that they were in some other airports, but 1200 people is a lot of people who work in and around the airport, eight it is great that you are able to partner with the mayor touch office and the treasurer on the no interest loans, and to be clear, that is something that would be made available to anybody who worked at the airports, whether or not they lived in san francisco. i think that is a very important thing that we have a responsibility to those employees who may work there, but not actually live in san francisco. i don't have any further questions. >> great. >> i hope this doesn't happen again. >> thank you very much. >> if it does, it is great to see that you have some ways that

you can support the employees, and put out information that information to them. >> thank you. will pass that along. >> thank you. >> all right. our final presenter is from the treasurer's office, the policy and legislation banister -- manager. >> good afternoon, supervisors, thank you for a great hearing. i'm from the office of the treasurer and tax collector. as you may know, the treasurer started the office of financial empowerment more then a decade ago to leverage the power of city hall to strengthen economic security and mobility for low income families. through that, we have work to connect tens of thousands of low income workers to safe and no fee bank accounts, we've opened more than 30,000 college savings accounts, and we provide financial coaching to thousands of h.s.a. clients, hope s.f. residents, and most recently, the general public. through this work, we know all to each weekly right right that for many workers, the impact of a missed paycheck is felt

immediately. most americans do not have $500 saved to cover emergency expenses. and when people experience shocks to income, they often turn to high cost and damaging financial options such as increasing credit card debt, delaying payment of bills, are taking out payday loans. when it became clear that the federal shutdown was going to extend beyond one pay period, we worked quickly to design the city loan program for federal employees who were furloughed, or working without pay due to the federal government shutdown. i would like to thank the mayor and supervisor haney for partnering with us to propose this program. if another federal government shutdown should occur, we are proposing a one-time interest-free loan of 1,000- $6,000 to be available to federal employees who are, as you just heard, san francisco residents, or who work at san francisco international airport. the structure of our loan program is designed to help federal employees and their families whether the shock

without causing long-term financial harm. the treasurer has also arranged for balance. the city's financial coaching partner to offer free one-on-one credit counselling for any san francisco workers impacted by the federal shutdown. we know there are many workers in san francisco who similarly struggle with income and debt, and so for all the folks listening, if you could benefit from talking to a financial coach who could help you manage your finances and achieve your financial goals, we will work on that, but you can call 8-772-568-0073 to schedule an appointment. we have counselling sites at the main branch library, the women's building, and self-help for the elderly in chinatown. thank you for your time, and i am of course, available for any questions.

>> thank you, and thank you to your leadership and to the treasurer and the mayor touch office for their work on this. is this something that -- i think it's obviously something that could extend to other categories of individuals who are experiencing some sort of short-term economic hardship. are there programs, maybe as part of counselling and such that we would provide as a city that would be similar in terms of no interest loans, short-term loans, i know there has been work to try and make sure that we are providing these services separate from some of the payday loans and those sorts of things that can be exploitative in many ways. are there similar programs like this, and why do we need a new program, as opposed to rolling

in the folks into one that might already exist. >> the federal shutdown was a particular moment in time, it was a known -- it is a known quantity of employees, somewhat easy to reach, so it made a lot of sense for us to offer it in this structure. we were happy when we reached out to our banking partners to learn that many banks and credit unions were offering similar programs, but only to their customers. and so what we were concerned about is that if there were employees that weren't banked or weren't spanked with a particular institution that was offering a good program that they would fall into the payday loan trap. i think we are always looking for opportunities to build these types of good financial products more broadly, and i hope we can work together in other circumstances as well. >> okay. great to, thank you, appreciate

it. so i think what we will do now, if the chair is okayed, his take public comment, then i then i have some closing remarks and next steps. >> thank you so much, supervisor haney. are there any members of the public who wish to testify because speakers will have two minutes. stage stager first and last name clearly, and speak directly into the microphone. you are encouraged to leave a copy. noah pausing or booing is permitted. speakers are to are encouraged to avoid repetition of previous statements. >> good morning, or good afternoon. my name is,. i am retired from the u.s. environmental protection agency where i was a super fun project manager for 20 years. i'm a representative of the international federation of professional and technical employees, local 20, also known

as engineers and scientists of california, which represents the engineers and scientists at e.p.a. i'm also a delegate to the san francisco labor council from that union. there are two other unions at e.p.a., and i'm speaking for them today as well. the reason being that they wanted to be here, but they are so busy scrambling to catch up with the important work that they do every day that was, in many cases, left undone. it is true that some of them were working without pay, for example, we had a large crew of people, not only from our regional office, but from across the country, working on the hazardous cleanup at the fires in california, and during the shutdown, they were able to complete that task under budget, and ahead of schedule, all without pay.

so that is just an example of the essential character of our work, i also will mention, since i was a super fun project manager, that e.p.a. is to lead regulatory agency at hunter's point superfund site, which is undergoing enormous problems, as you know, but has a large role to play. i think that you've already outlined very effectively, supervisor haney, what the financial impacts were, and what other counties have done. we would like to really encourage you, especially on the transit subsidies, because you are spot on when you said that here are people who usually load up -- >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you. >> if the other speakers who want to speak during public

comment could line up on this side of the room, that would make things go more efficiently. >> okay. this one is active. hello, my name is angela, i am the assistant council with the national treasury employee's union. we are from the oaklands field office, and we represent 150 -- 150,000 employees with the federal government, nationally across 33 agencies and programs. we thank you all for having us here today. we think supervisor haney's office for inviting us because we know that you all have the forethought to even consider these issues. we are hoping it doesn't happen again, but we know it is possible. hourly employees, i will share some numbers that were prepared by our congressional office out of the d.c. office.

and congressional district 12, congresswoman pelosi's district, there are 8,830 federal employees. and congresswoman's spiritus -- spears district, there are 7,724 federal employees. during the shutdown, some of our folks were still working without resolving a paycheck. some agencies were fully funded. but certain members who were working, most of them in the area we are in agencies such as the i.r.s., we have i.r.s. workers here today who will speak with you, customs and border protection workers, f.d.a., we have a lab over in alameda, a lot of those folks --dash folks work here on the port, on the crews ships, in the airport, and so there was a

widespread impact. these are proud people who work every day, we found ourselves -- >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you. connect speaker, please. >> good afternoon, thank you for having asked. i want to echo all the things that my colleague mentioned. my name is samara. i'm also in an instant assistant counsel for national treasury employer's union. i appreciate all the discussion that has happened today about the impacts of the federal shutdown on government employees, and i just wanted to highlight a couple more things about those impacts, particularly some of the ethics rules that gather and discover in federal employees pick the first thing i wanted to

highlight was that federal employees are restricted from taking gifts, in one of the things that we experienced during the shutdown was customs and border protection employees who were getting food from the various places, being told at a certain point that they weren't allowed to take that food because it would be a violation of the gift rules. and once i went up to management, there was -- people weren't being told that anymore, with us just an example of the things that were happening that people were being told that just added to the stress of not getting a paycheck. one other thing i wanted to highlight as the rules around outside employment. people were being told by several agencies that they should go paint garages. go do some outside work, when they are also all of these rules around employees not taking

outside employment that could compromise their ability to do their job. and generally, the normal course of business is that employees will submit applications to that outside employment. they were not able to do that because of the shutdown. when they take on outside employment, they are taking on the risk of discipline when the government resumes business. so the last thing i want to say is that -- >> mr. chair, the speaker's time has concluded. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i am an i.r.s. employee, and also the president of chapter 20 in san francisco oakland and san mateo. you guys are sitting here looking at us, but you can't really tell what we felt because

you haven't been in our shoes. you want in our shoes knowing that you have to go to work and you are not getting a paycheck, and you are not allowed to strike. you are not allowed to -- you can demonstrate, we can't strike. but you have to show up to work without a paycheck, without a bus pass to get on the bus back to make a choice, do you go through the backdoor of the bus, because you don't have the bus fare to get on the bus. to get on art, to try to avoid the ticket person to climb over so that you can get to work. for you guys to sit here and have people to come before you do for san francisco to help out a federal employee, because that's what the employee means. they do not need to say low income, whatever income, because at this point, you don't have an income, but every place that you go to, they judge you on what the paper says is your income. you need to take away the income, and put it in the help, because a federal employee actually needs that help. help to the fact that there

could have been a temperate job here in san francisco, could have gone to the cafeteria and worked, could have went down and clean the buses that could've went and patrolled the buses to see if there was a person who was evading fares, then i could say, hey, you are a federal employee, we truly understand why you got on the back of the best. i did not want to eat up my two minutes, but i wanted to thank you, the gentleman with a red tie, to the lady who stood here, and you kept pressing, what is she going to do for a person that needs to ride the bus, that does not have the bus fare? >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is deanna. i am a federal employee. i have been with the international -- internal revenue service for 27 years. i'm not a resident of san francisco, but i do commute back and forth every day. i was one of those that was in a

hardship, who was unable to come to work. my son also goes to school in oakland, so i had to homeschool him during that time. i'm glad you guys are looking for a solution for if it is possible. i heard our government -- i heard our president say that we could go to our grocery stores and get help, perhaps it there could be subsidies to try their -- to try there if it happens again. maybe there is some type of coupon or something they can provide. i don't know, but i hate to see if it happens again. we are really stressed. we are really stressing if it really -- if it happens again with no structure in place. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello, my name is cheryl, and i am also a federal worker in

the oakland i.r.s., and we also have offices in san francisco and san mateo as well, so we are all affected. during the shutdown, i was affected very tremendously, not only as an employee and not being able to receive any pay, i went out to go and try and obtain some assistance from the county back and was advised that because i had a husband who makes too much money, i was not able -- they were not able to assist me, however, i'm the primary, and my husband makes less than ideal. therefore, when my federal job is gone, he cannot cover those bills, cannot get my sons back and forth to school, we could not get my husband to work, and he works here in san francisco, and i appreciated all the information that the gentleman

gave earlier about the benefits that he gave for san francisco s.f.o. airport employees, however, it didn't help him because he is from the private sector. [please stand by]