6-0. >> thank you everyone. >> congratulations. we're adjourned. >> 2019. the meeting is being called to order at 2:02p.m. the small business commission thanks media services and sftvgov. which can be viewed on channel

78 or live streamed. member of the public please silence your phones and other electronic devices. public comment during the meeting is limited to three minutes per speaker, unless otherwise established. speakers are requested but not required to state their names. completion of a speaker card while optional, will help ensure proper spelling of the speaker's names and the written record of the meeting. please, place speaker cards in the basket in the right. speaker cards will be called in the order in which they were placed in the basket. additionally, there's a sign-in sheet on the front table. sfgovtv please show the office of small business slide. >> it's our custom to begin and end each small business commission meeting with a reminder the office of small business is the only place to start your new business here in san francisco and the best place to get answers to your questions about doing business in san

francisco. the office of small business should be your first step when you have questions about what to do next. you can find us online or in-person here at city hall and best of all, our services are free of charge. the small business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that affect the economic vitality of small businesses in san francisco. if you need assistance with small business matters, start here at the office of small business. >> item 1, call to order and roll call. [ roll call ] >> mr. president. >> next item, please. >> item 2, general public comment. allows members of the public to comment on matters within the

small business commission jurisdiction and suggest new agenda ideas for future consideration. >> do we have any members of the public that would like to make a comment on any items that are not on today's agenda? seeing none. public comment is closed. >> approval of business registry applications and resolutions. discussion and action items. the presenter richard kurylo, manager at the office of small business. >> good afternoon, president, commissioners and staff. richard kurylo. legacy business program manager. sfgovtv, i have a powerpoint presentation. before you today are three applications for your consideration for the businesses to be included on the legacy business registry. the applications were reviewed by may for completion and submitted to planning

departments staff. applications 3-a and 3-b were submitted on february 6th and heard by the historic preservation commission on marc. application 3-c submitted february 20th and heard by h.p.c. on march 20th. for all three applications h.p.c. made positive recommendations to the small business commission. for each applicant you have a staff report, draft resolution, the application, and a case report from planning department staff and a resolution from h.p.c. there are copies on the table for the public. item 3-a is curry senior center. the non-profit organization originally called north of america et health council was tableestablishedestablished in g mental health, meals and other social and community services to

seniors. located at 315 and 333 turning street. the senior center was formed in response to dire living conditions in the tenderloin neighborhood. francis j. curry was director of the san francisco department of public-health at the time. he and his colleagues, civilian johnson and dennis stone found the living conditions for seniors in the neighborhood deplorable with lack of access to medical care and social services. they joined forces and established the organization. dr. curry spent 42 years advocating for seniors and in 2004, the organization was renamed curry senior center in honor of its founder. item 3-b is jackson fillmore trattoria. it's an italian restaurant that opened in 1985. it's 2506 fillmore street in the

pacific heights neighborhood. it originally opened as jack's on fillmore to take advantage of the unlikely coincidence of an owner named jack opening a restaurant near the corner of jackson and fillmore. however, at the time, there was a famous jack's restaurant in the city that took offense to the name. it became jackson fillmore. soon after opening the restaurant got two mentions in a column and it boosted business. millions of people have eaten at jackson fillmore since the restaurant opened. casey and kelly sullivan manage the restaurant. jackson fillmore is a small plays with a small dedicated staff providing consistently good food, service and neighborhood feel. item 3-c is randy's place. the business is a bar located at 1101 ocean avenue in the engel side neighborhood. it has been in business as randy's place since 1975. it is considered a neighborhood

institution and goes back to the days when it was known as a destination for sporting men to gamble, drink and hunt. randy's place may be the second oldest bar in san francisco's west side. the first being little shamrock. sue castle bought the bar in 1969. when she purchased the business, women were not allowed to bar tend unless named on the. >> alastair: or license. liquor license. sue holds the record in san francisco for longest-serving bartender at one location and will mark 50 years on april 4th, 2019, just 10 days from today. congratulations and happy 50th bar tending anniversary to sue castle. all three businesses received a positive recommendation from the historic preservation. after the recommendations from the h.p.c., staff finds the

businesses have met the throw te criteria to qualify for listing on the legacy business registration. there are three draft resolutions for consideration. one for each of the legacy business registry applicants. note that emotion and support of the businesses should be a motion in favor of the resolutions. in the resolutions, please pay close attention to the core physical features or traditions that define the business. once approved by the s. p.c. the businesses must maintain these traditions and physical features in order to remain on the legacy business registry. for curry senior center it's services for tenderloin and south of market seniors. for jackson fillmore trattoria it's featuring italian quisene. and for randy's place it's a bar. this concludes my presentation. i'm happy to answer any questions. there are business representatives in attendance who would like to speak on

behalf of the application. >> great. thank you, rick. any questions? do you want to hear public comment, first? let's go to public comment. do we have any members of the public, come on up and give a shout out. >> good afternoon, i'm alex, i represent the ocean avenue association. i wrote the randy's place application. i've known sue castle since i was a teenager going to city college of san francisco out on ocean avenue. couple decades ago. i urge you to support this resolution naming randy's place a legacy business. it was a really a great pleasure to write the application. when we dug up the maps and found out that it had been a saloon in the 1890s making it the tenth oldest existing bar in the city we were thrilled. sue castle herself, we're calling her the 50-year wonder. 50 years behind the same bar. can you imagine? she's a character.

she welcomes you all to her party on thursday the fourth. 2:00 to 11:00. there will be food, of course. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> commissioners, thank you for having me here. i'm david with curry senior center. i want to ask the state so i pass the bar and go in it to study many times. just a couple things about curry senior center. richard gave a great overview but we see 300 seniors a day everyday of the year. our doctors and nurses make home visits. a lot of people can't get out and don't have people to get them out. we're not just serving ourselves, we're serving the neighborhood. we're involved in four different safety programs in and around the neighborhood. lastly, we get involved with a

hi-tech groups on market street. a group comes by and does a virtual reality sending our seniors to paris and skiing down some hills. they also take our seniors and put them on a try saw down market street to the ferry building and then lastly, we also have a brand new program with the city trying to get internet in the home for the seniors. i appreciate you considering our work today. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. thank you very much for listening to us. my david. i'm from jackson fillmore. i'm jack's partner. he wishes he could be here but he is up with his wife who is not well currently. he sends his regards. we've been around for 34 years and we're thrilled to death to be part of this small business community of san francisco.

you guys have a lot to be proud of. i think maybe it's not easy to have a sales force and those kinds of companies but it's really important to have a jackson fillmore or center like that. a bartender who stood behind the bar for 50 years. that is pretty good. thank you very much for considering us and we appreciate the help. >> great. thank you. >> any other speakers? >> seeing none. public comment is closed. commissioner dwight. >> well, jackson fillmore is one restaurant i know well. i'm there once a month it's on my rotation. my wife and i love it. it's a great restaurant. congratulations to you and jack. shout out to kelly and casey and phillip a and robin and sean and waldo. you have a great team there. there's a line out the door and it's a great place. so thank you, very much. >> any other commissioners?

>> all three of our candidates are fantastic and really deserving. what you are all the glue of this city. way more than the big tech companies. you are what makes us san francisco. >> thank you. >> commissioner riley. >> first of all, i was really amazed how you changed your name to jackson on fillmore. [laughter] >> you are survived. >> you won the war. >> that's a great story. sue castle, i want to meet her. so maybe we can all go on thursday and celebrate her 50th anniversary. thank you all for coming down and the curry center is very touching story. i read about it and i'm still so glad that dr. curry did what he did and you are what you are today. thank you. >> any other commissioners?

well, i'm going to chime in here first. curry senior center is one of our banks that we don't eigh do. i've seen what curry senior center has done. i've seen your vans around. you've helped so many people in nortsouth of market and the tenderloin. without you, these people wouldn't be their lifeline. i just commend you for everything that you do at the curry senior center. randy's place. i want to go on thursday night and meet this woman. 50 years behind a bar is awesome and especially in this town. it's like, i can just imagine. it's like -- i bet you she would be fun to hangout with. i bet she has stories. jackson fillmore. i lived at laguna and broadway for five years so i was at jackson fillmore once a week if not more. i got to get there like right at

5:00 when you open because if you don't you are waiting. you have the best mioki, hands down out of any italian restaurant in this city and i've eaten a lot of it. it's who i actually -- you know, put the other onc ones up to. you have that asparagus that is like oh my god. it's the best. so, you are a big part of me when i lived in that neighborhood. i was there once a week. and if not more. it was one of the first restaurants that i took my parents to when they came to san francisco 25 years ago to visit me. this means a lot to me, personally. all three of them are well deserving and i'm really honored that you are becoming legacy businesses. >> do we have a motion. >> move to approve all three resolutions. >> second. >> motion by commissioner dwight

to approve all three business legacy and seconded by commissioner dooley. roll call vote. [ roll coal vote ] >> motion passes 7-0. >> great. [applause] >> congratulations. >> next item, please. >> see you friday night! [laughter] >> item 4. legacy business historic preservation fund fiscal year '18-'19. budget on the business assistant grant for fiscal year '18 and 19 and through fiscal year '21 and '22. discussion and action item is richard cor i will owe, legacy business program manager. office of small business.

>> all right. so, there are some documented that are in your binder that were attached to the commission meeting. we have documents that i'm distributing on the table for the public. if they want it. so there's a few additional documents that i'm passing out. in addition to the list in case you want to look at it and reference it in your discussion in terms of those that have received the assistance grants this year. number of s.t.e.s and dollar allocations and lastly, just the list of half that is involved in administering the business assistance grant program. it is a fairly labor-intensive grant program.

so with that, i will turn it over to rick. >> good afternoon, president adams, commissioners, always of small business staff, richard kurylo. legacy business program manager. sfgovtv, i have a powerpoint presentation. >> today i am presenting an update the five year for the legacy business historic preservation fund. there are copies of the record in your finders and on the table for members of the audience. you can also find this report on the website under supporting documents. we'll go under the budget for 22-23. the business assistance grant for 19-20 and beyond and policy

recommendations for the businesses. there's a large spread sheet in your packet and this is the spread sheet here to make it easier we cut the spread sheet roughly in half and this being the top half and the bottom half and we'll go over these in details. this is the budget for the grants fort legacy business programs. there's a separate budget we have for staff and a small budget for non bran grant expene won't be discussing today. the top section here is revenue. the first row is the annual appropriation ordinance or a.a.o. commonly known as the annual budget. the second row is carried forward which is unspent funds from the previous fiscal year.

third row say reserve from fiscal year 15-16, that was released in fiscal year 17-18. in the a.a.o. we're assuming an annual allocation of $1 million a year. note that if fiscal year 17-18, the a.a.o. allocation was $250,000 because the carry forward above 1 million. the next section here is the rent stabilization grant. they were originally received in fiscal year 16-17 but it took several months to get them accept up with supplies for the city. so payments occurred in 17-18. the second year of the grant was paid in 18-19.

>> the rent stabilization grant goes on to the second page. as you know, the rent stabilization grant awards grants to landlords that provide a lease to a legacy business for a term of 10 years or it extends the term of the legacy business existing lease to 10 years. they receive a grant for each year of the lease added to an existing lease. for example, for an existing five-year lease that's extended to 20 years and the landlord would be entitled to 15 years of grants as funding allows. grants pay up to $4.50 per square foot to a maximum of 5,000 square feet. since the rent stabilization grant was issued in february of 2017, the average number of applications received per year has been 15. we have received 11 so far this fiscal year so we're assuming four more applications this year and 15 new applications each upcoming fiscal year.

since the rent stabilization grant was issued in february of 2017, the average square footage has been 2,944.33 square feet. we're assuming that square footage for all new applicatio applications. to date, there have been 29 rent stabilization grants for the 172 legacy businesses. 17% of legacy businesses are benefiting from strong term leases secured through this grant. it's been an effective strategy to stabilize our longstanding businesses in san francisco and benefits businesses that are both large and small. the small business commission directed the office of small business staff to prioritize the funding of rent stabilization grants to qualify landlords over other grants paid through the legacy of business historic

preservation fund. the bottom line here in yellow are the estimated amounts available for other grants. i think i'm miss -- consumer price index. going back a slide. there's a consumer price index adjustment once every two years. it was 3.1% for fiscal year 17-19 and we assume it will be 3% for the next two adjusted. here is the money available for other grants. you can see by fiscal year 21-22 there wasn't be enough funds for the grant stabilization applications. for 2-a, specific procedures are in place for handling grant short falls. they are given priority from

prior years meaning they would pay less than $4.50 per square foot. grants shall not exceed available funds. moving on, the next section is the rent stablation accessibility grant. this fiscal year there will be one-time amount of 150,000 available through the 15-16 reserve release to help legacy businesses pay for disability accesses and inspections and reports. the grant was issued on march 15th. that brings us to the business assistance grant which is number two on the agenda for this presentation. legacy businesses can apply for the grant annually if funding is available. applicants must certify the number of f.t.e.s by adding for each employee as of june 30th of number of employees average weekly hours over the proceeding 12 months.

divide the result by 40 and rounding to the nearest employee. the grant pays legacy businesses up to $500 for full-time equivalent employee, f.t.e. per year plus the c.p.i. adjustment. in fiscal year 16-17, we had 399,000 in grant applications and 17-18 we had just over $625,000 in grant applications. there is one business that may not receive their grant application in the amount of $6,186 here in fiscal year 17-18. so we subtracted that amount from the grants. we'll know more by the end of the month. there's also a check-printing service fee for businesses not able to set up suppliers with the city and county of san francisco. we use a third party to pay those legacy businesses.

we were able to pay the full $500 for f.t.e. for the first two years of the grant. a spread sheet shows the grant amounts were paid each fiscal year with that actually wasn't the case. some payments were made in the following fiscal year. that changed the carry-ford to the next fiscal year so the true carry forwards in the city budget were different than what we're showing here on the powerpoint. we did this for implication. and the long-term projections come out the same. for fiscal year 18-19, which is the present fiscal year, we received applications from 105 legacy businesses to date we have 1,000 # hundred 25 total f.t.e.s for those applications which would be 9,600 -- sorry. $962,500 at $500 per f.t.e.

we're protecting $1,150 for the check-pointing service for a total of 9,963.53 not including 1.63 c.p.i. funds will be 599,214 which produces a shortfall of $364,000. for fiscal year 18-19, the office of small business paid $300 per f.t.e. plus the 3.1% c.p.i. totaling $595,000. the amount available for the business assistance grant would decrease to about 300,000 next year and 100,000 the following year. assuming we continue receiving $1 million in the annual grant budget, we would not have enough funds to pay the business

assistance grants starting fiscal year 21-22 and possibly even as early as 2021. that brings us to the third and final agenda item for this presentation. policy recommendations for consideration for the business assistance grant. for policy option have emerged over the past couple of years that we've been looking at. so we'll go over those in details. number one, continue for the administrative code with no new limitations on applications. number two, limit applicants to three years of grants. number three, limit applicants to those who do not receive full funding, which was $500 per f.t.e. and number four limit grants based on the annual of ratio rent paid to annual gross revenue. option 1, continue per administrative code with no limitations on applicants.

for this option, we would accept applications in 1920 which next fiscal year as we have for the previous three years. we would calculate the total f.t.e.s for all applicants and allocate the funds and roughly $300,000 for f.t.e. i did some pros and cons here and it's up to interpretation. no rule required by the s.b.c. and it would be considered fair by the applicants and as much as we did the same the last three years. cons would be that it would not limit the number of applications so we anticipated on 150 applications next year. which would result in some staff time issues. and another would be that payment per f.t.e. may decrease to about $100. option 2, limit applicants to

three years of grants for this option we would limit the business assistance grant to only three years. they don't have to be consecutive issues which was discussed by the sbce a couple of years ago. this pros might be this would decrease the number of applications up to 38 applications in 1920 easing the burden on staff. it would also eliminate over 700f.t.e.s from the total in 1920 increasing available funding for the other applicants. our cons would be that it would be required by the s.b.c. and another con is that with one year left of the grant, if that's what we have, if maybe you've seen it by some of the most consistent applicants. something we would just have to communicate with them and we have a good working relationship with those businesses. i would imagine that we could explain that to them pretty

easily. option 3. limit applicants to those who did not receive full funding. full funding was paid in 16-17 and 17-18. that's when we paid $500 per f.t.e. partial funding was paid in 18-19 when we paid $300 for f.t.e. so, the pros would be that this would be decrease the number of applicants by up to 81 applications in 1920 and easing the time burden on staff. it would eliminate 1200f.t.e.s from the total in 1920, increasing available funding for applicants. cons are that it would be required by the s.b.c. and it would likely be seen as you know fair by those applicants that applied the 16-17, 17-18. i guess just from my perspective. option 4, limits grants based on

annual rent paid to annual gross revenue. so in this option, applicants would report their gross revenue from the previous calender year. we can do an allocation allocating more grant funding to those businesses that pay a higher percentage of their gross revenue to rent. the pros of this option it creates a correlation between the grant and the ability to pay their rent. and it increases available funding for the applicants in need. cons are that it would require ruled by s.b.c. it does not limit the number of applications so we can still get 150 applications next year alone result north staff-time issues. it creates extra work for staff and reviewing the applications and additional documents would be needed for verification.

so we have some recommendations here. i'll go over them. we'll discuss this in greater detail. original thinking was that if there was no change to the million dollar budget allocation and it would just be one year left of the grant, we would continue for the admin code with no new limitations on applications. that is an option. also, does a small business commission request additional funding. it's beyond 1920 for a number of years to be determined. this lessens the burden for staff with fewer applications coming in and extends the

lifespan of the grant. there would need to be a reassessment for additional funding requests for the business assistance grant when the rent stabilization grant exceeds $1 million in 21-22. i did have one more thing i want to mention. here is my contact information if anyone needs it. i wanted to just mention that in the administrative code, the control office is going to perform an assessment and review the legacy business program grants. so that is the thing you may wish to take into consideration in your discussion. and that's it. any questions i would be happy to answer them. >> commissioners, if you would like rick to talk you through -- i don't know if you had an opportunity to look at this document but it lays out some

concepts and sort of what the financial implications. if you'd like them talk through this and we can put it on the overhead. we can do that. >> we're going to have a couple questions, first. >> ok. >> commissioner laguana. >> thank you, richard. couple questions here. of the four policy options that were put up, was any consideration -- let me rewind a bit. do we happen to know the media number of f.t.e. employees across all applicants? >> the averages, i believe 8.65. >> that's the average. do we know the medicin median? >> roughly the same. >> ok. >> i'm just trying to get a sense of the spread between folks on the high-end and folks on the low end.

which actually curious what's is the maximum number of f.t.e.? >> the maximum they're allowed to have is 100 f.t.e.s. >> the maximum we'll fund is 100. they can still have over 100. >> and do we have any that are at or say like 90 or 90 plus. >> yes. there are a few. we have some that go up to the maximum of 100. i think about two applicants. >> has any thought been given -- perhaps it has, i'm just obviously new and just curious. has any thought been given to oppose the option of putting a cap on the number of f.t.e.s? >> there is one now but we haven't considered leg that cap. >> yes, correct. doing a safe cap closer to the median which would benefit the smaller businesses, perhaps not

being seen as a good return on their time for the larger business. it might reduce the number of applicants but certainly increasing the amount of funds that were available to the smaller businesses. one of the over arching problems is that as we get more and more applicants, if we don't limit the number of applicants somehow, then that starts to be burden for staff. that is the staff something is we have to take into consideration. >> i think -- so, commissioner laguana. based upon proposition j j and w this grant is written -- it allows the commission to draft rules and regulations. there are some parameters that we have to review with the city attorney. because it's drafted to allow up

to 100f.t.e.s if we were to do that it would need to have some very serious legal review in terms of how that kind of policy option for putting criteri critn the grant, which i think is part of the commission early on -- in its early discussions, in drafting the initial rules and regulations has considerations around timeframe. it doesn't tamper between that up to 100 employees, which is outlined in the grant program. >> understood. >> so just a couple more quick questions. >> please. >> you know, there definitely seems to be a focus on the burden on staff and handling the applications. it's very time-consuming. >> right. i understand. >> can you give me a sense of -- i reviewed the list that you

provided. it's very helpful. i'm trying to understand how much of that list is per application versus per employee. in other words, would it be smarter to go say, for example, the other direction and say that there's a minute um -- or is this really just a bandwidth issue. there's only x number of people and there's only so many hours in the day. >> it's more the latter, i believe. >> yeah, i mean it took with 105 grant applications coming in, it took us about six months to review applications. we have to do some overtime in there. they have to provide back-up documents in terms of payroll data. we have to go through and verify

the payroll. sometimes we can just check a few but sometimes we have to go through all of them just to make sure. it can be really time-consuming. so that is a concern. at the tailend when we finish and we term how much we're paying, we send them all to accounts payable. all of a sudden they get 100 and next year it's 200 or 250. grant letters at the same time and that is really difficult for them to handle. they're going to have staffing issues on the accounts payable side as well. they have to enter that in one by one to the financial system and get approval from the controllers office. >> it takes three weeks just to do one so they're doing hundreds of those simultaneously. >> so from your offices perspective, row ducing the number of applications over all

would be superior to reducing the number of f.t.e.s or between the two? which would you rather do? >> w reducing the number of applications or increasing staff? [laughter] >> i don't know if that's in per purview. >> one last question. so you mentioned -- it sounds like there's a question here about putting a cap below 100 and it starts to create a tug of war between what is tallly drafted in the legislation. so, am i understanding that correctly? >> i think you know, i stated the commission can draft rules and regulation. i think in terms of some discussion here is -- and president adams will speak to this in a little bit. the commission can provide some direction to staff to say can

you go and if we decided that we think that this is a potential direction to go in, can you go in and research what the potential implications are and come back. >> we have to do it that way because this is a proposition and a lot of the changes that would have to happen would go in front of the supervisors so i'm hoping to come up with ideas so they can research it and so when we come back we know what we need to do and talk to to get things to happen. >> how critical to the businesses view this program towards the programs' goals and essential to survival or continuing. >> they're very happy when they received the grants and they're very grateful. we've been really -- i don't know how essential it is for them to keep their operations

going. as a small business commission we determined that the stabilization grant was more vital to it because it's been getting businesses of all sizes and long-term lease zoos that would be essential to the program. but they are very happy and grateful that they reached funds and used it to pay all sorts of things, rent and tenant improvement and facade improvements and equipment and technology and things like that. we've been very open with them. pretty open with the businesses. i have a good relationship with them. we've been telling them this year's grant would be in the 300 range. i've been telling them for a year that next years will be in the 100 range and they're getting used to -- it might go away after that and they've gotten used to the idea that this might not always be there. it's been helpful that we've been really open and honest. >> they're planning accordingly. if it switched to a three-year

limb at this time would not either be a shock or unlikely to result in a business closing directly as a result of that. >> that's correct, yeah. i would just communicate to those 38th businesses next year this was the direction that we went. >> ok, great. >> so, just a little refresher, the current statutory life of this program is only through the horizon that you have on your spread sheets here, right? 22021. the board of supervisors have to decide whether they will continue at the current rate of a million dollars a year or some other rate, is that correct? does the legislation provide for that extension? >> let me see if i understand. so i mean -- >> indirectly, yes. the board of supervisors and also the mayor's office. i think they would be looking to the commission providing some

direction of which you would like the program to go in. for us to be able to work with the mayor's budget office and the board of supervisors. >> there's no commitment beyond the horizon that we've shown here. >> correct. >> or anymore money in the program? >> correct. >> if someone is getting a rent stabilization. if a landlord gets a rent stabilization grant today, there has to be some built-in, if not certainly sort of a subconscious expectation that oh, this is going on for as long as my tenant is leasing my building. is there -- is it allowable for the lease renewal to be contingent on the continuation of the rent stabilization grant? >> there is -- for the rent stabilization grant it's a grant in the landlords, there is -- they are allowed to have a contingency clause in the lease. it's part of the grant that says lease is contingent upon them receiving the grant in its

entirety. we wrote into the application that if they don't receive the full grant for that year, the business has the right to make up for that amount of money so they can pay that that extra. >> in four year's time, if there's no more money in the program, and someone negotiated a 10-year extension on their lease, the tenant must make that payment or their lease is at risk? >> only for two or three of the 27 applications or 29 applications. the rest of them, no. each lease is different. most of them there's an understand that money might not be coming in its entirety. some of the legacy businesses have negotiated where they get some or all of that rent stabilization grant towards

their rent. some of them don't. it goes to the landlord. in the cases where it goes to the landlord, there would not be an issue there. in the case where it goes to rent reduction, the business would have to pay the extra. >> this thing blows up in two years, if it doesn't get refunded. so, we know that. we have a budgetary review, a program review that is built in the legislation. i think the time is now where we have to start lobbying for the continuation of this. you can't wait until you run out of money to ask for money. venture capital 101. government funding pays, right. we node to start building the case for that this is benefiting these businesses in a substantial way. i don't think that any business -- well, no business '

survival is contingent. it doesn't justify the effort to make the application. if you have an average of 10 employees at $500 it's $5,000 for the year. that's a reasonable amount of money but at $100, it's costing you several hundred dollars in time just to make the application and at some point though, your applicants will vaporize because no one wants to bother and i'm a little concerned, you know, i guess throttling the applications is something that's essential for your staffing. it's going to get throttled one way or the other. you won't be able to process the application. it's better to proactively to throttle it so people don't say sorry, my bad. i couldn't process your application. better to shut the door.

>> commissioner riley. >> yes, you mentioned earlier that the controllers' office is going to do a study on this program? >> that's correct. >> all of our issues or questions now can we also ask the assistant of the controllers office to do a study to see whether or not it justify the continuation of the program and to justify whether or not there should be an increase of a staff so we can handle the application rather than stopping the application pr prematurely? >> i think we can most certainly ask to have an interim report from the controllers' office. >> i think they're most qualified and to analyze all of

our concerns here and come on with the best -- >> that's an excellent idea. >> i wanted to talk a little bit about the three-year limitation option. with only one year likely left with the grant, is that to these particular people who have been receiving grants? >> i was thinking, ok, we've had our fourth year of the grant coming up and let's say that we don't do any rule and i thought they might be upset about that. you know, like you said, we have to really look at all the bigger

picture and that is probably makes more sense to do it that way because it's going to start getting out of control in terms of time to review these applications next year. i think just communicating to them would be something that we can do. >> it also seems that the people that have been getting them, which is great, but we're kind of cutting off the new people and making it less likely that they're going to even bother to apply if they're of this knowledge that only xy and z people that have already been receiving grants are going to get them again. i think we do have to have a cut off. >> i think you can definitely -- i think the new businesses would be happy about that. >> commissioner laguana. >> two thoughts.

one, sort of a -- i guess just thinking about the bandwidth issue, reviewing the tasks and i saw there's a lot of what appears to be manual data entry, for instance, processing applications. receiving via e-mail or handwritten. i'm wondering if there is the possibility -- i don't know what the restrictions are from the city level. i know that sometimes there's multiple players this has to go through but whether it can be turned into a simple web form. >> we did think about that. >> can i put this on the overhead for the public to see? we're talking a lot about the task that go into the grant. this is page 1 here. i'm going to scroll up and i'll do the second page so if anyone

wants to review this later on, they can. >> now the public can go back if they want and watch this meeting and they can review all those tasks. so we have that on the record. yes, we did think about that. it does take time to enter in everything into an ex sell spread sheet. so, we approached the d.t. we did ask them if they would be able to do that before next year and it looks like it would be possible. we would just make it available

only online so they would not be able toll mail it in or hand deliver it. this way we save a lot of time doing that. >> one other thought here, thinking again about the -- maybe a different way of slicing up -- basically the conundrum is we have a small number of applicants who seem to be taking a dis preportion at a lot owe'rg closer to nine and we have a few folks that are plus 90. if putting a -- and i agree with commissioner dooley that we should be encouraging new folks to apply so that we can benefit the small business community. if putting the cap on the number of f.t.e.s in the program is

problematic, can we approach this another way and say that -- could the commission pass a rule saying no single applicant can take up more than x percentage of the over all budget so in other words, you can have new folks coming in from very small businesses who get the full benefit, say $500. you get very large businesses who might only be seeing $100 for f.t.e. and i know it sounds complex but it may have sort of the impact of freeing up more funds for the smallest companies who would be most likely to see it with relative. >> it's a great idea.

>> commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> i have two things. we checked de9s? >> they're not providing that to us. they're providing a list of employees as of june 30th. and then how many weeks they were employed for the fiscal year and how many hours they worked during that fiscal year. they provide us with payroll reports. we go through their payroll reports and verify the information. >> that was just technical question and then i know it's burdensome but i will support small businesses. it's like the small business we figure it out and not to ask for additional funding for the small business community of san

francisco. >> refresher again. we define small business. is there an f.t.e. level? is it 100? >> yes. we follow this date definition which is 100 and under. do we know what the average -- well i guess the average small business f.t.e. in san francisco has to be less than 10, right? >> um -- so -- for small business week last year we asked the treasurer's office to provide us with data so it was the 2017 business registration filings so for these are the percentages so for a business that hire one or more employees, 95% are businesses that employ

under 100 -- [ please stand by ]

>> come back with recommendations and outlining the overall implications for the commission. we'll me of forward with the feedback you've given us and if there's follow-up you have and to get a handle on the numbers and going outwards doing future projections it's a lot of information and data. feel free to call rick and talk to him to get cliff --

clarification. >> business as unusual throttle the program anyway. if you continue on with business as usual you'll run out of money. you can't take more applications because there's money to be had. you can't determine what to do unless you have more funding. you're make policy decision ob a short time frame without knowing what the real life of the program is. so i would advocate if no one can tell us what's going to happen, continue on as usual and let the program run its course and run out of money. because anything else will be artificial and will