>> good afternoon. the meeting will come to order. this is may 15, 2019 regular meet of the budget and finance committee. i am sandra lee fewer chair of the budget and finance committee. i'm joined by supervisors stefani, mandelman and norman yee. our clerk is ms. linda wong. i'd like to thank s.f. gov tv

for broadcasting the meeting. can i have a motion to excuse hilary roanen from the meeting. seconded and objection. madame clerk, do you have any announcements. >> clerk: please silence all cell phones and electronic devices and include any attachments should be submitted to the clerk. >> commissioner: thank you very much. madame clerk will you please call item number 1. >> clerk: the hearing of the practice of assigning city-owned vehicles to ployos for personal use and the related budget impact and requesting the budget and legislative analyst office

of the city administrator. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm from the budget and legislative analyst office. and i would want to say we were requested by supervisor fewer's office to survey city departments on their use and policies for take-home vehicles. i do want to introduce ashley clark who is one of the main personal -- bern -- personnel working on the department and we evaluated their annual cost and policies. the administrative code actually has the provisions for when city departments are allowed to assign take-home vehicles for individuals who use their vehicles to and from work. i want to say when we say take-home vehicles i'm referring

to permanent assignments not pool vehicles. in the admin code the provisions for when a take-home vehicle is allowed basically if somebody's working outside the city and they're on call after hours or conducting city business before 8:00 a.m. or on weekends and there's forensic pathologists and medical examiners office and the other provision is in instances when an individual would need to have a vehicle at their home. this is in the admin code in 2004. we found little corresponds to the admin code in how the take-home vehicles are assigned by city departments. the city administrator is assigned responsibility in the

ad-min code to approve take-home vehicle assignments. in our discussion, the role was defined as information coordination and there was a memorandum focussing on public safety and emergency response when they assign did take-home vehicle vehicles and there's about 100 vehicles in the admin code. we found there's about 247 vehicles assigned as permanent take-home vehicles they were assigned in the admin code and within that number or below that

number. all the departments below the line exceed the admin code and for most they're nine departments. seven are not allocated any vehicles in the admin code and two are allocated vehicles but the actual number exceeds the admin code. so the other thing is when we look at assignments, most are not specific to the issue of public safety or emergency response. and this is a summary of the departments who have vehicles in excess of the add min code. as you look at this, for instance, many of the departments define the take-home vehicles their responsibility and didn't consider it unreasonable if a department head or deputy head needs to be

concerned with what happens 24 hours a day. some defined their need to be in emergency response. you'll see several of these have what we call canine which is basically police dog, sheriff dogs. the vehicle is specially designed for transporting the dog so that didn't seem so particularly unusual. there were others we had questions about. some were well, with fire 30 staff take the vehicles home and garage them at home. that's allowed in the admin code and a provision allowed but requires board of supervisors approval and we have no documentation it came to the board for approval. some others we had concerns about you'll see public defender

and city attorney assigned take home to all their investigators. now, they're not on all 24 hours, seven days a week. they usually have specific on-call assignments and could be assigned a vehicle on call but for a permanent assignment the justification was not clear to us at that point. others were unclear the airport and business and policy and communications and marketing. you'll see the same with mta and incident and safety. some never have to go out on-call without notice. they may have scheduled events but not routine responsibilities after hours. you'll see the risk management. there's a cost.

our estimates were cost about $1.6 million annually for the vehicles that's maintenance, fuel, replacement costs, insurance claims. our policy considerations were basically departments define the need for take-home vehicle vehicles broadly. there's no consistent stab standards. many are not clearly defined for public safety or emergency response requirements. you'll see them assigned for media engagement and there's a cost to the city. our recommendations are one there simply needs to be a clarification and updating of the administrative code. the code language was written 15

years ago and there may be better ways to provide people have adequate transportation. our recommendations for the board to request the city administrator to establish guidelines to city departments for when it's appropriate to permanently assign a take-home vehicle and when you can use a pool vehicle, assign people when there's specific need but not year round and it needs to look at what's in the administrative code. and whether they're new or not

vehicles and justification for the vehicles. >> commissioner: colleagues, any questions? president yee? >> commissioner: did you ask the departments whether or not they had parking spaces for the vehicles? >> we didn't ask that questions. the only one where it came up as an issue was the fire department was people garage them at home because there's no space at their second street location. it's specifically fire prevention and investigators who took them home. we didn't ask that question of

any other department. >> if you had to do the analysis and if you had to build a garage or whatever, would it balance out or come close to that? >> we did not look at that but we didn't understand it was a garaging issue. it was the other analysis we didn't do for purposes of this report which would be legitimate is the cost of maintaining one vehicle for one employee year-round compared to paying the mileage for a specific need or assigning a temporary vehicle. i also want to say during the course of the review, just

because we're asking departments questions, the numbers changed. a couple of departments the district attorney's office said we're going to reduce our assignments to no longer exceed the admin code. i think talking to the police departments there was clearly some flex in terms of whether they were needed or not. and some were unmarked i assume? >> they're all civilian. we didn't look at that. to my understanding this was not official police vehicles by ann means.

>> but they could have been marked. >> and there's no indication, most probably bring them back and forth was there indications of other purposes once they bring hem -- them home. >> it wasn't an audit but o.c. airport has a transporter to track the mileage and they do that with the police bureau and other staff. and i think we have in here a table on which departments use telemetrics to track vehicle usage. >> commissioner: and look at

vehicles once it passes. they would be armed. >> the airport does use it on their police vehicles in the report the other departments that specified using telematics was police accountable and police and p.u.c. >> commissioner: did you analyze at all how many vehicles are in the pool. so i'm hearing that there is a pool of take-home vehicles. and there'll be a pool of

vehicles departments have. and how do we differentiate between the pool and then also the ones take-home? >> we did not look at department pool vehicles but i will say our questions were very much designed to differentiate between when somebody gets to take their vehicle home as a permanent assignment and when someone take it out of a pool. for instance, the human services agency has a large pool of vehicles. they have a lot of staff and have to make visits many outside the county and they get assigned the vehicles. that's for budget departments too it was not part of our sir have a but we were clear the numbers in our report are the permanent assignments not pool assignments. >> commissioner: is there a governing code for the pool of cars? >> not to my knowledge. maybe management would be able to tell you. >> commissioner: and the admin code i think is fairly vague.

it doesn't also describe the procedures to access a vehicle from personal use. meaning it doesn't direct departments and keep a log of them or ask the department to report on mileage or not to exceed a certain amount of mileage or require a department to take note if the vehicle has accrued citations. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> commissioner: colleagues, any questions or comments? so we have -- thank you very much.

>> commissioner: and we are representatives here from the airport and they have 40 vehicles. none are allocated in the code. fire 45 vehicles, none allocated in the code and police here, 47 vehicles, 33 allocated in the code. public defender, 16 vehicles, none allocated in the code. and the sheriff's department, 24 vehicles and only five allocated in the code. we have other departments actually that have more vehicles than allocated in the code.

and start with the san francisco airport. is there a representative from the airport here. >> cathy wagner with the san francisco international airport. would you like me to walk you three -- through the airport vehicles and tracking mileage is that the best way to start or start with questions? >> commissioner: i think we have some questions, if you don't mind. i know that the response from the airport was these were approved by the board. >> we include the allotted number of vehicles in the 2018 san francisco airport operating budget. we had received approval for 40 city vehicles. we have 39 that are currently

assigned. 17 of those are to commissioner employees and the remaining are two airport bureau police and fire department personnel. >> commissioner: so when you request the vehicles were they specifically requested at take-home vehicles. >> i don't know the answer to that but i'll find out and they were in our operating budget. the numbers vary and we look at who has them and how they're being used. i do know in 2018 we had 40 of these vehicles in our budget. >> commissioner: so would you agree that when you're requesting for a budget allocation for vehicles there's a difference between a vehicle used by many individuals in your department versus a car assigned to one individual to come and from work. would you consider that a big

difference? >> it's completely difference. we have both. take-home vehicles for employees expected to report to the airport for a major event and have pool vehicles used during regular business hours for meetings within the airport and city and san mateo county. >> commissioner: how many pool vehicles do you currently have? >> i don't know but i'll find out. it's under 100. there's quite a few. >> commissioner: okay. actually per the admin code you're allocated zero. you say it's under 100 though. >> don't quote me on that. i'll find out for you. each division has access to a pool of shared vehicles they can use to get throughout the airport whether that's in between terminals or if they

have meetings in the city or san mateo county. okay. i think the question we had was so what is your procedure for these people. the take-home vehicles is under the admin code. have someone in your marketing i believe has a vehicle. >> the 17 vehicles are allocated to commission employees range from the airport director to the executive. and we also have officers that good out to the community

regularly. >> commissioner: and some have take-home vehicle. >> that's not my call. the airport will apply that direction if you have a different direction. >> commissioner: and is there a procedure in which people take out the cars? for one, in your pool vehicles also but are you taking into consult the mileage and do you check mileage on these take-home vehicles and do you check licenses and whether they're licenses are up to date? what is your procedure? if i were to say to you, car number 5, you can tell me who has a take-home vehicle and when they've take jeb it -- taken it home how much mileage. >> yes, there's a transponder and the director get a weekly

report for the airport commission. the chiefs of the airport fire and police department get the read-outs on the cars. the majority the canine vehicles the budget analyst referenced. >> commissioner: any other questions, colleagues? thank you very much. we have fire next. do we have someone from the fire department? >> i'm happy to answer any and all questions. would you like a brief overview of the numbers on our vehicles? >> commissioner: we see the fire department's actually allocated zero cars and that you have actually 45 take-home vehicles but you may have other cars in the pool. >> but they're not taken home.

>> commissioner: how many vehicles in the pool? >> seven or eight. it's less than 10. >> commissioner: okay. you have 45 vehicles actually take-home vehicle vehicles? >> correct. >> commissioner: would you say either the administrative code is outdated or that perhaps not all 45 people who are assigned a personal vehicle need a personal vehicle? >> >> the code is outdated. we have 45 vehicles and they fall into two buckets. those on call 24/7 and that makes up 14 vehicles 31 are not on call, prevention inspectors and vehicles we cannot house. we do not have housing for the vehicles.

>> commissioner: are you tracking the mileage on the vehicles? >> when you fill up the gas, you have a code for your car and have to enter the odometer reading and tracks the amount of fuel you're using. >> commissioner: these people, 31, not on call, they take them home because there's no place to park them is that correct? >> correct. right now we have 12 vehicles we pay for parking. it's around 30,0$30,000 a year those vehicles. we're happy to if it's the will of this board, to not allow those 31 to go home. you cap probably triple that cost easily if not more to park the vehicles. >> i just had a meeting with the fire administration. i understand you are requesting more ambulances this year. i asked do you have room to park

the ambulances and they said absolutely but you have no room to park the vehicles, is that what you're telling me? >> i'm not part of ems i oversee fire prevention and investigation ems house the vehicles over there. i cannot speak to station 49. i can speak so headquarters and the other fire houses throughout the city which we surveyed for available space to park vehicles. as far as station 49 i can not speak for them. >> commissioner: are these vehicles clearly marked as fire from the fire department? >> absolutely. do you differentiate vehicles for person pool and fire vehicles. when you make a budget request for vehicles in your annual

budget request do make a differentiation between vehicles take-home vehicles and vehicles used on call? >> we do not. >> we have a separate funding for replacement vehicles. >> commissioner: i think what we're trying to get is that this is an add -- admin code written in 2004 and we're seeing gross violations in the admin code and city departments and not just your department, spirp we're trying to -- sir, we're trying to figure out the right balance and what is necessary to serve the city well and is it necessary to have this many vehicles if you can't park them, to be frank and whether or not how we're keeping track of it in

our budgeting process so we can make sure if we re-design the admin code we're in alignment with what the admin code says so we're able to track them and why i asked the questions about if you ask for vehicles do we make a specific request for take-home personal vehicle or on-call vehicle. >> commissioner: are nay -- that marked? >> they are clearly marked with the city emblem. >> commissioner: president yee. >> people are taking them home because you have nowhere to park it. when they go into work what happen to the vehicls to the ve?

>> we park where we can and if anyone's visited us at second and townsend and it is a challenge. it's part of our policy. we do not leave them parked out in the back alley behind the sation. -- station. i would disagree it's a gross violation and i would say the code never properly addressed fire vehicles. we have a command staff on call 24/7 and where do we house them and we're happy to house them anywhere and we're trying to find a creative solution to save money for the taxpayers and make it work. we're open to any idea or proposal by this board to change

that for the 31 cars. >> commissioner: abe other questions, comments? nothing? thank you. i appreciate it. how about mta. is mta here? >> good afternoon, supervisors, steve lee, mta. >> commissioner: good afternoon. >> let me begin by saying we agree with the report and believe our numbers are in assign with what our needs are and we take it very seriously. over the last several years we have reduced numbers from 32 to now 23. we really have been struggle the fact that we cannot supply with this ordinance and never will until we see amendment address our concerns and city wide.

>> commissioner: you have none allocated you have 23 vehicles that are take-home vehicles. they're not in the pool. and i'm wondering who are the people who drive the 23 vehicles and take them home? >> the vehicles are assigned to top-level executives who are responsible for 24/7 response as well as like enforcement directors who have to show up for parking events or safety issues related to traffic. when we looked at it it isn't the actual person. we looked at the function of the position itself.

for instance, we have the director of transit, chief transit officer, maintenance, transit services, ways, services we believe are vital and require 24/7 response. >> commissioner: do you have any cars in a pool? >> we do actually. we have 10 vehicles in an administrative pool and the 1 vaness garage that services 147b people. >> you have 10? >>'s a vehicle-on-demand reservation system for our operating hours and administrative staff and we have about 400 users. it works very well. we out light -- utilize the program provided to us by the city administrator's office. >> you, like the fire department think the admin code is outdated

and doesn't currently reflect your needs? >> absolutely. we're more than eager to work with the city administrator and budget analyst to draft legislation. >> commissioner: can you tell me approximately how many times people have had to come in on-call for public safety emergency of the people with the 23 vehicles? >> certainly more than the required five per year. >> commissioner: and you have a procedure in which you check out the vehicles and check the mileage. >> we do a quarterly report on our non-revenue fleet and have 888 non-revenue vehicles that services the mta and do quarterly reports. all our vehicles have gps devices. >> commissioner: you can track

whether or not there are citations given to any of the vehicles? >> definitely. the citation when a vehicle receives a citation it goes to the city administrator as the owners of the vehicle and forward it to the departments for payment and we'll know if anyone is cited. >> commissioner: thank you very much. i appreciate it. police -- >> commissioner: hold on. >> commissioner: sorry, president yee. >> have you 400 vehicles in a pool? >> we have 10 vehicles in an administrative pool utilized by 400 people within the building. >> commissioner: okay. i just heard the 400 number. i thought wow. >> it's superefficient and it works well. >> commissioner: where do you leave the vehicles? >> they're parked in the 1 vaness garage. >> commissioner: what's the

capacity? >> we don't all the spaces. we park about 50 something cars in the garage. there's about 50 spaces in the garage and 10 for the pool. >> commissioner: you have to pay for that? >> yes, to the city's real estate division. >> commissioner: how much do you have to pay? >> i think $320 per space. >> commissioner: per year? >> per month. per vehicle. >> commissioner: what? >> yes, parking is expensive. >> commissioner: it's an issue everyone who drives has to combat. our teachers move their cars every two hours sometimes. i get the hardship but quite frankly it's their own personal vehicles and our teachers have to move every two hours in the middle of classroom instruction to move their cars.

supervisor -- >> are these positions required to use city vehicles or can they use their own cars and get reimbursed for mileage? >> that would be a debate whether or not we're requiring a particular person to own a vehicle to do their job or providing them with the tools. >> if they're using a car for business are they allowed to apply to be reimbursed for gas mileage which is done when people use their own cars to travel to conferences or things like that? >> i suppose we can. for us it's efficient to allow them to use the car rather than require to own a car. >> commissioner: i'm not saying requiring them to own a car, i'm saying if they own their own car, are they allowed to use

their own car or required to use a city car? >> they're not. they can use a city vehicle and if it's official business we should reimburse them. >> commissioner: i wonder if there was a cost analysis in allowing people to use their own cars and reimburse for mileage. >> commissioner: that's something the budget legislative analyst mentioned whether there could be a cost savings to not have the vehicles and reimburse mileage when needed. any other questions? seeing none, please. police. >> i have a presentation prepared but i can field the questions if you'd rather.

>> commissioner: is it commander? >> deputy chief. >> commissioner: excuse me, chief. how many cars do you have in your pool? >> it's made of our unmarked vehicles. i don't have the exact number. it would be to anything assigned to the bureau and pooled on if a member needed a car they'd drive that but it wouldn't be assigned to anyone in particular. >> commissioner: so officers could use their own vehicles and being reimbursed for mileage? >> only if they were responding for training and not required to respond in any kind of an emergency capacity or take

official duties as a police officer. then they could take their own car typically with training classes outside the city but if they're in uniform they're expected to take police action they'd need to be in a police vehicle. >> commissioner: have you 47 take-home vehicles. >> they vary from chief of police to certain command levels such as the lieutenant of homicide or the commander of risk management which would be internal affairs which would have to come out for an officer-involved shooting. anyone assigned a take-home vehicle is essentially responsible for responding back in on an on-call basis 365 dies

a year if there's a major event or critical incident. >> commissioner: how many times do they have to respond from home like code 3? >> they have to respond in quite often. it varies depending on the incident whether they have to go code 3. the majority of those individuals i just mentioned have to respond into officer-involved shootings, for instance, they vary throughout the year. that would indicate a response back in such as the chief of police lieutenant of homicide and our risk management division, so on, so forth. >> commissioner: what i don't

understand is why they can't drive their own vehicles then? i don't know. lay person, don't know if you're on call you couldn't drive your own vehicle in and be reimbursed for your mileage. >> because they're responsible for responding back in in an official capacity. they're often responding always responding to crime scenes, typically an officer-involved shooting or homicide. they're responding in an official capacity driving into crime scenes and they have to, depending on the nature of the call respond ton -- on a code 3 mode. an example back when we had the officer shot at stern grove i myself had responded in a code 3 mode from my house and was the first supervisory capacity.

>> commissioner: i'm assuming there are people on-call that aren't always on call all the time? people have days off. they still take the personal vehicles even when they're not on call? >> they do not. we have the cars we listed the 47, they're the take-home car and they would return it in the

morning and it goes back into the pool. >> commissioner: vow a procedure in which you check out cars. check licenses, that they're current, you have the mileage for each of those cars, is that correct? >> similar to the fire department. every time we have to get gas we have to check in with the mileage and it's checked in via chip and logged each time we get gas. >> commissioner: is there a quarterly report that is produced for the chief's review? >> we would do have a report that has mileage and maintenance from central shops. that would have all the mileage of the cars. >> commissioner: you have the reports so if we were to request reports have you them for the last couple years? >> we could obtain the mileage reports, yes. >> commissioner: do you also feel the admin code is outdated and doesn't truly reflect the

department's needs? >> i do in that we have expanded our roles since twrou2004. we have different roles necessitate response in after hours. any other questions from colleagues? seeing none, thank you very much, chief. is the public defender here? >> commissioner: sheriff's department? do you think this reflects the needs at the sheriff's

department? >> no, we need more in the admin code. right now of 24 take-home go home to those on 24/7 call and all of whom use the vehicles more than the five occasions written in the admin code and another three for canine officers they have special equipment in the vehicles the final four are assigned to our investigators. we have a team of eight investigators so there's a pool of investigators so when they're on duty they have the vehicles to respond. >> commissioner: and you track mileage. >> yes. >> commissioner: and have you quarterly reports for the vehicles taken home?

>> we have reports. i don't know if they're quarterly but they're usage and mileage. >> commissioner: and these vehicles, what percentage would you say the vehicles are taken to other jurisdictions rather than city and county of san francisco? >> i don't know exactly. some of the people who are assigned the vehicles live in the city but i don't know the breakout. >> commissioner: you say you think you're in agreement with the other people using do you feel they could use their own vehicles for some of these

things and charge the mileage? >> i think like the police it would be problematic if people showed up in their personal vehicle to an emergency situation. it's helpful, to say the least, to show up in a marked vehicle. >> commissioner: when you make requests in the budget cycle do you differentiate between a vehicle versus one on-call. >> we go by age and mileage based on the hecto guidelines. >> commissioner: there is no classification where you say we need to purchase five more take-home vehicles. >> it's been 24 for quite some time. we're not looking to increase that level.

if vehicles have low utilization and aren't putting on a lot of miles we're not requesting replacement during the budget cycle. >> commissioner: can i speak to someone from the city administrator as -- administrator's office. many departments are feeling the admin code is outdated. wanted to know your opinion. do you feel the code is outdated and needs to be looked at again? >> yes, we would agree the administrative code sections could be revised to reflect the current needs for departments and also to better match or align with the actual city practices. >> commissioner: do you think

there needs to be tighter guideline on this? >> i would agree. >> commissioner: great. i want to thank every department that cake and just trying to get a deeper and we get complaints. someone just sent me a photo today that every single day this city vehicle is parked on her block. as legislators we want to respond why that is so and some have complained of seeing groceries out shopping in commercial corridors in city-owned vehicles that doesn't look like official city work and i think what we're seeing proof one, the admin code needs to be severely updated i hope we will

do in conjunction with departments and city administrator and i think there should be tight guidelines in allowing the vehicles and for what purpose and how we take into account who uses vehicles at which time and the take-out policies and are we keeping track as the city administrator i know you have a broad jurisdiction but is it the administrator's job to keep track of the vehicles we have and how they're being used and how many citations are being accrued, and getting a deeper understanding. the reason i brought this today and i want to thank my colleagues for entertaining this hearing because i have seen that

myself, vehicles being used this way and wanted a better understanding how we can tighten it up and if there's cost savings to this and how we get a handle on the departments. and thank you to the departments that came. you were not the only departments that didn't have allocated vehicles though you were the most egregious. it's something we're seeing in multiple departments. i think it's something we need to work on to tighten up. thank you to the budget analyst for your report.

>> commissioner: public comment. >> commissioner: yes. if anyone would like to comment, please come forward. >> my name is patricia. i'm a resident of whatever bad idea to use personal vehicles, $1.5 million. my brother, deceased. state auditor central valley. my brother was so cheap he ate at burger king and drove his own vehicle for as long as he worked with the state and something

happened and they pissed him off but he was one of the best. the top. personal vehicles, not. i think it's a waste of time. i'm 62 years old. i nominate jane kim for mayor. thank you very much. >> commissioner: thank you very much. >> hi, supervisors. thank you for hearing public comment on the comment i'm jeff hoover and the part of fleet sharing network. we're across 600 colleges and universities. our mission driven company was founded in cambridge, massachusetts by two women entrepreneurs who saw cars were sitting idle 96% of the time.

those cars simultaneously were taking up valuable curb space while adding to congestion. zip car has been in san francisco since 2005 and you can reserve vehicles for an hour or day and believe people should own the trip and not the car. zip car wholeheartedly supports the goal of the hearing the city and the appropriators should better understand the budgetary impact issuing city fleet vehicles and throughout our history zip car has help limit ub necessary trips and reduce parking and lower vehicle ownership space and operational expenses. former mayor of new york, michael bloomberg highlighted the impact on his city's finances saying it's taken major

steps to streamlining critical operations meaning municipal fleet. the city saves tens of millions on the fleet of more than 25,000 vehicles by using technology purchased by zip car. we partner with many agencies represented here today already. and many more across north america. we are proud partners with the mta, central shop, city hall, sfo, parks and rec and others and zip car believes the future of mobility will be with partners like this. >> commissioner: thank you very much. any other public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. i'd mike to make a -- make a motion to file that item. take that without objection. madame clerk, call item 2.

>> clerk: hearing on the annual overtime report and the related structural budget impact for the city departments with the highest overtime use and requesting the controller municipal agency fire depend and police department and department of public health and sheriff's department to report. >> the file's there but not opening. i'll swito