move over to director questions. director heminger? >> director heminger: some you may be wondering can we afford to buy for expansion cars? my sense of that question is that i'm not sure we can afford not to. i had requested that the staff prepare for me, i'm sure it's available to the rest of you, comparative analysis of the price we got for these cars originally. the siemens cars. compared to other properties around the united states. what that analysis shows is that base unit price was $3.7 million per car. which was the second lowest among the 20 cities. it was almost $1 million per car below the average. what i'm trying to point out here is that we got an

incredible deal. even the option price of $4 million is still a great deal. only thing i don't like about these cars, these new seats are dodger blue. [laughter] back to the cost question. the issue that i wanted to raise with staff and julie talked about this earlier, it's worth couple of minutes conversation. why we don't exercise the funnel option. instead of exercising 30 go up to 45. i have a feeling i know the answer to it. the price is so good. i think it's worth considering whether or not we ought to take advantage of the option at 45 versus 30. julie, could you expand on that?

[please stand by]

>> our site assessment has shown because of various design features it's actually going to be able to hold less and we also gave um some parking spaces -- up some parking spaces when we did the green rerailing to reduce collisions in that yard. even storing 30 vehicles will be a big challenge to resolve between now and 2025 but we think it's something we can get our arms around and were trying to practice tying up real money though it's programmatic because we are not spending any money until we execute this for 35

cars because of competing and operating primarily capital needs we also felt 30 was the sweet spot. it was staff judgment based on service needs and service estimates, storage, complexity and funding. >> i do think that's a persuasive response. it's just killing me to let that price go. we're not going to see a price like that again. you mentioned the funding plan and if it's 30 cars, i think it's good in the future whenever we have these kind of expenditures to see the revenue along with the cost to match them up together.

jonathan? >> good afternoon, board members. i'm acting chief financial officer. so we have a tiered and layered kind of funding plan that's presented in the calendar item. so director heminger you of all people are aware funding plans change over time based on need and cash availability. if you didn't know the current lrv contract the third largest funding source is the sfmta revenue bond. so we can use revenue bond for the purposes of buying lrvs. we cannot use general obligation bonds they have to go to fixed assessments. those are one of the sources and have to see the nature of development and where it goes in the city the next couple years but traditionally we used the transportation sustainability fee for major projects and vehicle expansion is another source likely to grow over that period of time.

i think the board is aware the transportation authority is looking to get the tax plan. the other plan had a component for light rail expansion. we're working with the t.a. on the new expenditure plan that would eventually go to the voters and we'll look on what the number may look like. the absolute backstop in the current funding plan is the proposition b general fund population baseline. we have over time and we did in the last budget shift for the first time we've almost always used it exclusively for capital to operations starting thes current fiscal year and will maintain a level of about $30 million ongoing in our projections. if that source goes up and we think it will because the daytime population has come down and will recover and the formula will get rebalanced, we'll have

a source of funds for the board to discuss to use for operating and/or capital in the window of times you're talking about. so so if we need to go out it will be a policy decision for the board through the revenue bond. if we want to consider maintenance or operating costs with proposition b we'll see what happens over the same time with development impact fees and sales tax and confident we can get a good plan together. >> commissioner: sounds like what you have now are a set of options not a plan. need that plan nailed down by the date that julie needs to exercise the contract change >> yeah. i am confident today based on our projections for proposition b we could meet the cash flow needs to execute it in that period. i would not advise doing that now but we have a backstop in the window of time if we fully

execute it and started getting the vehicles we could meet the cash flow with prop b to cover the cost. we want it to be a mix of different sources and source are largely per capital but that is the worst-case scenario the board will still have the option to pay for the vehicles. >> commissioner: okay thank you, jonathan. that's it, madame chair, for me. >> commissioner: thank you. director hinze. >> commissioner: i didn't have questions. >> commissioner: all right director eaken. >> thank you, madame chair. i wanted to link today's

discussion with the last meeting discussion we had where the staff presented us with like a $5 million gap in the action strategy and director heminger asked can't you come up with $5 million and asked what transit line we'd like to cut. these are big numbers and would like to make a note that there's expressed a great deal of uncertainty and 2030 is quite a ways from now. we all know we're handling a lot of uncertainty. i want to point out we can choose to get 28 vehicles and free up some funding tying back to the conversation we had and i understand there's different time lines and color of money issues but i do want to just make the point that i think there are those funds available for the vision zero piece.

it seems strategic for me to make the option without making the commitment. we're buying flexibility makes sense but it's notable the massive numbers we're talking about and bring up the somz we were talking about last -- sums we were talking about last meeting. >> thank you, director eaken. mr. tomlin, could the funds that come for this as capital can also be used for vision zero? is that considered capital? >> the vision zero project implementation are considered capital. the funding plan or let's call them options that are in the calendar item, you know, julie did mention that certain funding sources have certain restrictions based on requirements and needs.

the proposition b baseline the law the voter approved requires we put 25% into street capital every year and we do and we consistently do it's in the c.i.p. and accounted for. the remainder, 75% is legally needs to be used for trans service so the law restricts our use that source. the t.f.f. we can use for improvements but it's based on to the nature of development and the timing. the board is currently using a significant amount to backfill the operating budget but we have used that and director eaken on the big street project we're using the impact fees on those types of project. prop k sales tax is restricted by expenditure plan category. as an example, the program for vehicle expansion is the only thing that we can use it on, we'll work with the t.a. on adjusting that as a new

expenditure plan as brought forward and taken to the voters. capital is complicated because we deal with a lot of regulatory and policy restrictions on the use of what we do try to do and we do this with the board and within the agency is try to free up as much as we call discretionary funds, meaning you the board based on that type of source get to say where that goes and try to free it up to put dollars on projects when we know we can't put in anywhere else. it will be up to the board on source are flexible at that time but you hit the nail on the head, the money the agency will save by executing this contract modification to have the option is the value that could free up dollars to go to vision zero.

>> commissioner: thank you, any other question or comments before we move on? does anybody have a motion? [multiple discussion] >> commissioner: secretary silva, please call the roll. >> on the motion to approve the item. chair borden. >> aye. >> clerk: vice chair eaken. >> aye. >> clerk: director brinkman. >> aye. >> clerk: director heminger. >> aye. >> director hinze. >> aye. >> clerk: director lai. >> director yekutiel. >> aye. >> clerk: the motion passes. >> commissioner: that brings us to item 14.

14. authorizing the director to execute modification no. 13 to contract no. 1289, van ness corridor transit improvement project, with walsh construction company ii, for direct costs related to various design changes in the amount of $1,240,049.98, for a total contract amount not to exceed $221,747,266.01, with no time extension, and make environmental review findings. >> commissioner: great. and on this one we have mr. grabonzo.

welcome. >> good evening, chair borden and commissions and director tomlin. i'm the project manager on the project. construction of van ness has proceeded. the team has resolved project challenges in the field and found ways to improve the final product so it better serves the sfmta and the changes have required redesigns and contract modifications. this is a collection of such we're bringing this evening to make sure we get the contractor paid for extra work they've done. the current calendar item breaks down six significant changes.

the first is a series of traffic signal changes costing $4,010.38 and a need to rework traffic foundations in part because of redesigns of the accessibility ramps on the corridor. we are also adding red light cameras to the intersection of broadway. this work was $104,000. it's part of the s.f. go program and originally part of a separate project when it was determined it would be easier and more cost effective to make it part of the walsh contract rather than have separate contractor come in and charge you this work in conjunction

with walsh or shortly after walsh finished completing the intersection work. so it was removed from the previous contract and added to this contract. we had to redesign traffic camera pole at lombard street for under $15,000. the changes consisted of adding an additional pole. again, we had to relocate some infrastructure due to the resign of the accessibility ramps and this was needed to reduce the size of the original pole in the project and add a second pole for the additional cameras. the fourth item is the san francisco arts commission's artwork for the project. it's being installed at geary

street across from the medical center. this was not included in the original contract because of the design of the art piece had not been completed. this particular contract mod is for the foundation for the art piece and the electrical connection and the they will come in after our contract and installing the art piece but this is putting in the infrastructure to support that work. during the during the course of constructing the boarding islands, we were making adjustments with regards to the placement of boxes to support the clear channel shelters that will be installed on the boarding islands along the corridor. the determination was made we

should upgrade the originally specified junction boxes to higher quality, longer lasting and a more resistant model. this cost is over $400,000 but in the end it will give us more aesthetically pleasing longer lasting junction boxes on our boarding islands. and finally we have some trolly wire overhead related changes. this is also part of a project that was being developed separately from the van ness project on the realization was made during the design phase not the design phase for van ness but for the project that they would have to come in and basically rework trolly switches

and power lines we had already installed on van ness to do their work. so rather than finish the van ness work and rip up the street within months or years of having finished it the work is being folded into the van ness project for a cost of $203,000. i want to thank you and everyone else for the support that you've given this project and just seeing we're close to the finish line on this. we're hoping to have major construction wrapped up by the end of the calendar year so we can see our finished product and start running busses by this time next year. if you have any questions i'll be happy to answer them. >> great. >> i think i'm going move to

public comment first about any questions they might have. moderator, are there any callers on the line on item 14 modification to our contract related to the van ness work. >> have you questions remaining. >> commissioner: oh, no questions. i'll close public comment. we'll move to director lai. >> commissioner: thank you, chair borden. first of all, i wanted to thank staff for consolidating these but also thinking ways where to make the project more efficient and namely including the trolly changes and also adding an extra red light camera we desperately need for vision zero as part of the project. i did want to talk about -- it

sounds like we had some of these modifications related to coordination with other city departments basically changes that were realized late, which required us to then modify our signal and island designs. obviously i think there's a communication -- communication goes both ways and all sides have responsibilities in this but seeing staff is the only party in front of us right now, could you talk a little bit about how we could have done better in retrospect and more importantly how we're going prevent this sort of thing from happening again and i understand we're not talking about the [indiscernible] report just to the modifications in front of us. thank you. >> yes, as i mentioned, you're right, there were at least two changes on this contract mod

that revolved around some challenges in coordinating the accessibility ramps with the traffic signals. i want to start off by saying this is very challenging work to begin with because as i'm sure you're all familiar with it can be very crowded with overheadlight -- overhead lighting and maintaining a clear sense of travel. having said that, a set of designs were prepared as far as the ramps went. our traffic signal crews thought they located the poles appropriately on those designs but those designs were in the process of being updated and that communication did not get through.

there's some practices we're looking into reviewing. the standard traffic the traditional way is we put them on drawings saying they'll go on this corner and the final location is verified in the field. so the crews went out with the contractor once in construction to finalize the traffic signal poles and it was only during that process it was discovered the ramp designs didn't line up and came to additional demolition of existing utility to make room for the new pole foundations.

in the future we're going to try to first we're going to improve our communications with all department to make sure we all have the same drawings and the a.d.a. coordinator has signed off on the ramp designs before we have going to sign te contract and work on fixing the final location for the traffic signal poles before construction. >> thank you for that. i think that is very consistent with even private projects where an a.d.a. coordinator and department approvals are done at the permitting which is

essentially the schematic phase and not to defer that until later so thank you for recognizing that. i believe director mcguire could still be on the line. could you briefly talk about where we stand in terms of any other outstanding claims on -- let me rephrase that. other than the major delay claim, is this the majority of all the ancillary left over modifications we will be seeing or what is the global range of what we might still be seeing? >> thank you for the question, director lai. so this is the majority of the scope changes but i do want to caution the directors that just as we did with the central subway, we are assessing the

contractor's delay plan. the contractor's delay claim will likely be a larger number than before you today. i won't want to say anything to create liability but we're working through that right now with the contractor and whether we come to a settlement before end of negotiations is an open question. i would like to bring some information to you about what our liabilities are. this is the majority of the substantive changes, however, the delay changes are likely to be a larger dollar figure. >> i understand. thank you, chair borden. >> director yekutiel. >> thank you for answering my questions because she is so

brilliant and wonderful and thinking 10 steps ahead. one, even with the potential contractor delay claims do you still think, director, we'll not be going over budget. a budget of $360 million. do i have that right? >> i don't know the answer to that question right now. >> okay. and how much of the funding sources for this project are sources that can only be used for the project roughly? i'm looking at the sheet right now. how flexible are those dollars anyway? >> peter, can you get started on that. >> most -- my understanding is most the funds that have been committed to the project are specifically for the van ness improvement project.

there's the original small starts grant plus the local matching fund which was written for this. we recently picked up additional federal funds that are capital funds and i believe there's one assigned directly to the van ness project. jonathan may have more information on that. >> i think that's right. the funds in the calendar item are funds for the policy maker or t.a. board or the proposition b or federal government devoted to van ness b.r.t. >> thank you. that's it. >> thank you, director heminger. >> i hadn't planned on asking a

question but peter you said something that was news to me. so we're hoping to end construction by the end of the calendar year but it's going to take seven more months after that before we can get on a bus. did i hear that right? >> by this time next year the b.r.t. will be running. the target date to start revenue service is in the spring of next year. i think we're looking at it end of march, beginning of april depending on punch list items and getting drivers trained. i should have been more specific but we're not going to be starting revenue service in the summer of next year it will be spring of next year will be revenue service. >> okay. and that short amount of time is to get drivers hired? there's not a lot of moving piece to this then, right? it's a red line and you drive on

it. >> and the same drivers driving the busses will be in the lanes. we'll still be doing some punch list work and some testing. the main issues as far as driver training is getting in and out of the transit lane safely especially intersections like broadway and lombard and mission. so basic training on what you do if a bus breaks down in front of you and how do you get in and out of traffic lanes again and where the loading points are and accessibility points on the islands. it's pretty straightforward but we have to rotate the drivers

through and make sure everyone is properly trained how to get in the b.r.t. lanes and how to get in and out of them safely before starting service and we'll do final testing on the traffic signal preemption and make sure all the busses that run through are communicating properly with the traffic signals. we've allocated i think three months in the project schedule for this. we think we can do it faster we don't want to over promise and under deliver. >> commissioner: after all this time you certainly do not. thank you. >> commissioner: directors, any other question or comments? do i hear a motion? >> notion approve? >> second. >> commissioner: secretary silva, please call the roll.

>> clerk: on the motion to approve item 14. chair borden. >> aye. >> director eaken. >> aye. >> clerk: director brinkman. >> aye. >> clerk: director heminger. >> aye. >> clerk: director hinze. >> aye. >> clerk: director lai. >> aye. >> clerk: director yekutiel. >> aye. >> clerk: the motion passes. thank you. >> commissioner: we need to go back and approve item -- do a separate vote because we had two items and should have voted for each independently. i'll take it very voted on item 12. i'll assume we voted on item 12 and take up item 13 for a vote again. so maybe should we make -- >> clerk: motion to approve item 13. >> second. >> great. >> commissioner: secretary silva, please call the roll. >> clerk: on the motion to

approve item 13, chair borden. >> aye. >> clerk: vice chair eaken. >> aye. >> clerk: director brinkman. >> aye. >> clerk: director heminger. >> aye. >> clerk: director hinze. >> aye. >> clerk: director lai. >> aye. >> clerk: director yekutiel. >> aye. >> clerk: the motion passes. thank you for going back and doing that. >> commissioner: that puts us on item 15. 15. presentation and discussion regarding a human resources and office of race, equity and inclusion update. >> commissioner: thank you and i look forward to the presentation. >> thank you. good evening chair borden and director tomlin. i believe josephine will start the slide presentation.

i'll go over and update you on the h.r. update regarding h.r. staffing and also updates to the gold dust state since there's accomplish manies since the last update and then i'll turn it to my colleague and she'll give an update regarding the office. >> first thing i want to talk about is h.r.2.0. i'm really excited about this. it's a very strategic thought process how to improve the processes in h.r. and nothing has changed in terms of our processes and staffing levels

not significantly anyway. we with 2.0 we want to better align the structure and staff adequately and look how to stimulate our processes and be more efficient and collaborate with various business partners and improve the employee experience and make the workplace a better experience. i want to thank our director of transportation for their support in supporting us in the h.r. division. i'll talk about where they're going. we're also focussing on doing three fundamental things. one is to improve the h.r. practice to address racial inequity and we have to do

objectives and recommendations and the goal report so we need staffing to accomplish that. we also want to make sure we're moving our service restoration and service needs and changing business and hiring needs we have to make sure the division is fully staffed to meet the business needs of the agency. this third component leveraging technology. it's very much a paper to ribbon division for years and we want to have the staffing to be able to say, how can we do things better and use technology to be more efficiency and focus on various process improvements. okay. so i wanted to just go over high level what h.r.2.0 is. there's six box. there's four that are blue which shows this division within the

h.r. division and there are two box covered in green our new division. so i want to give a high overview. so it's focussing on recruitment and position control and employees and our employee services and the history background checks and fingerprinting and our personnel file management. we can still have the process believe it or not. the next is business unit is health and wellness and our employees have to have their

c.d.l.s, etcetera and our addiction program and our assistance program for all the agency and then we have a wellness component as well. then we focussed on this a little bit. and we had three distinct areas and handles grievances and arbitration and that sort of thing. we're dedicating two staff to the team that will provide support regarding compensation and pay actions and also help with contract negotiations.

and then we'll have a person to work with the oms buds person and to handle compliance issues and we'll have a team focus that the employee relations are making sure the team is the first priority in terms of staffing up our h.r. division. and the objective was to pull staff and to add additional staff. we're moving forward on that. now, previously this is taking

separate units skrarted throughout the division and pinning them under one unit or one umbrella. that leads to a combination. i currently have a manager who is retiring and that will oversee return to work and employees coming back to work, compensation, a.d.a. and employee relations we'll move it under services and accommodation and then administration. one, you'll have four groups working horizontally and this is the largest cost driver in materials of the h.r. division. we want to make sure we're not just processing but analyzing

and focussing on the analysis within the area of services. and we want to leverage our technology and look at access management so we can reduce absenteeism. i also want to mention by putting all these in place i think it will be more efficient. i think we'll be working together but hopefully we'll also result in better employee experience for all our m.t.a. employees. important to mention here this is one of the recommendations one thing she said was there needs to be a case management approach between the a.d.a.s and workers comp and under one division we'll be able to accomplish that and look at that

in terms of from the workers' comp to another and working together. the next area within h.r. that is introducing people within h.r. under one business unit is the executive innovation h.r. and strategy. i'm excited about this. we'll focus on technology. so i talked about improving processes and they'll be responsible for that and we have a system and a people soft system. we only need one h.r. system. we'll work closely with our information technology director so we can make improvements. and with our covid response is an integral part of what h.r. is

functioning and we'll stay within the office. the last team within workforce development can include management, training development and internship program. >> so i mentioned there'll be three sections within employee relations. this our new year ombuds office and now we have someone in place. her name is toni battle. i'm excited so have her in this position. she's an excellent employee to lead this office. she's in internal promotions. she was previously working in the e.e.o. office.

she'll report directly to jeff and this is going to have a handling work flow and basically she'll be the intake point where employees can go to for centralized compliance and she'll do triage and make the distinction on where it goes in the ombudsman office or e.d.o. or e.h.r. or is it management or related to employee and manager or co-worker that has to go to the employee relation team in h.r. they're working through the process and what it looks like and how we need to communicate it to the board and provide a tracking mechanism as well. one of the key things for this with a recommendation is accountability here and you can

see the bottom box where it talks about the ombudsman office and a resolution. that will be important. she'll be able to monitor the cases as they come through and make sure she sees them to completion. i want to take a minute that a lot of times i know employees get frustrated and there's so many recommendations in until we had the gold report and i know that can be frustrating and i see and hear that and understand that. i want all employee to know the h.r. team and executive team is

committed to understanding workforce issues relating to discipline and hiring and training and just overall employee experience and what employees are going through. we want to make sure that we are we have the staff in place to make improvements in terms of our h.r. practices to address inequities and we are committed to that. and on the forefront it seems like progress is slow and you take one step and then jump seven but we're committed and the team is making a lot of progress. we're accomplishing objectives of the plan and we'll continue to work with the and work with the office as well.

i want to point out to refresh your memory on the hiring and retention and discipline and leadership and professional development, culture of inclusion and belonging and commission and i want to touch on a few accomplishments that are located within these focussed areas. we heard about discipline and it's been a concern of our employees and everyone and that's very understandable. it seems progress has been slow one of the things we're excited about that we've been working on since january has been not only

a recommendation but an author recommendation and that's how are we tracking performance. you have to make sure you have clean information that is accurate information that is being entered so you can report out on it properly and accurately and one of the things with the performance tracking we are trying to do. so one, we go from paper to automated processes. in text form and we'll review this and very simple and easy the manager can fill out and then track to e.o.r. and there's more information every manager has to complete for every action. how do we know h.r. is getting all te data. it will automatically go to the

relations team to put it into our system. there are controls being put in place. so that way the manager for example in for transit for best in rail we've been working with and collaborating on the process so when they go through it has to go through controls for reviews. the director within transit will have to file it. the director can say i see what's happening. we can run queries for each division. it will show us, okay, this employee will see this if

there's anything a manager wants to do for discipline if the rule book then basically they'll have to be a justification and the manager will have to sign off on it. and we'll need to have better data and analyze our data and provide interventions appropriately. we'll have to ask who the supervisor is giving the discipline. it's not an option and we'll have to drill down and see what supervisors are giving what discipline. we'll have to see what the violation is. it's pretty exciting. it sounds a little bureaucratic but it's an important part of the process i think it's important to make sure the discipline is being implemented fairly, consistently and also transparent so as employees come

to us we can explain. our projected live data is in september. this is phase 1 and maintenance next and phase 3 is the rest of the agency. phase 1 takes the longest because we're getting it up and going but we'll have everything in place. we are uploading all the rule violation. so every rule in the rule book for transit has a pull down feature on the form. mangers can do a click and drag. there's a lot of progress made on this and i think it will be completed in september. we'll provide training for managers on how to use the form and we'll include inside bias training in the corrective action process as part of the training. next slide.

this is one of our lead action objectives as well. this is one we're actually going to be partnering with the office on. especially for next year for '21-'22 performance year we'll incorporate mandatory equity training as part of the performance management process and we're excited to work through that process with that office. i also wanted to mention that for the training for this year we had several trainings for all of our employees not just our management supervisors but how to conduct the evaluations and how to get feedback and developing performance goals and how to mitigate bias during the evaluation process. here are important updates i want to mention and one you

probably heard a lot of about is the qualification and this is what i'm excited about specifically. we've gone through a first phase of reviewing our qualifications and we can go through and look at those on a case by case basis and we've been able to say let's replace it with more experience or maybe manager 2 and why does that person have to have supervisory experience? say someone who is a non manager is staffed within the division, they apply for the manager 2 and don't have supervisory

experience and then don't meet it. so there's things we're doing to make sure we have a wider advocate pool in terms of diversity and greater opportunity for our current employees which is very exciting. we'll continue to look through other classifications outside the management divisions in phase 1. another thing is incorporating interview questions on advancing equity. it's part of the interview process. so we have to make sure it's in our mandatory question on all of our interviews and asking candidates about equity. why they think it's important in the workplace. how do they feel about equity, etcetera? and we think that's really

important because that's a mixture that candidates know is important part of our value and we also get to hear from their perspectives. that way we can assess the commitment to equity. so i wanted to also mention briefly to have a high level overview of the report on i believe you all received a summary memo last week the report received from july 19 there were 19 findings and m.t.a. had nine findings and i wanted to give you a high level overview because some of these may overlap and we'll continue to address these.

and one of the recommendations was there was not a city wide acting policy. how do city departments appoint acting or assign people to positions. say for example someone needs a position and you need to have somebody in that role. you want to have capacity so you can recruit for that position. sometimes it can take six, seven months. so we had drafted a policy. it actually is going to internal review with staff and with the executive team and our anticipation is we'll have that completed and finalized within the next 30 days. another thing i wanted to

mention which was really important the report focussed on was outreach to under represented job classes. i'm happy to let you all know that for the first time we actually are going to be hiring recruiters. so those recruiters will be instrumental in term of outreach effort and look for under represented job classes and under represented employees in the workplace and we'll be working with those employees with acquisitions and others and an ombuds person has been accomplished. we're excited about that. we'll continue through our strong program we have continuing to grow and we'll have more opportunities to talk to you about that. we also mention the report about the interview panelists and just that process and we'll be

partnering with the e.o. team on that. the report also mentioned disciplinary actions. i think there's still room for us to continue to grow. obviously making significant changes in terms of disciplinary action and we are focussed on that. and i thought it was interesting because the golden report mentioned that city wide there should be support and agencies technician to address equity and inclusion and i think that's really important because at the beginning of the presentation i mentioned the report in terms of being able to have additional support in h.r. and we think one of those three options was to improve the practice to address

racial inequity within the workplace. [please stand by] .

>> i should add that both the reports that shared these recommendations preceded when we had an ombudsperson's office, and most of the data collection was right when i started or we didn't have a racial equity office at all, so just to put out there that there's more ways that we're working onto share what we need and what resources we have currently. leadership accountability support and development is a really important strategy as well as comprehensive performance reviews or 360 reviews were staffed from many different perspectives give feedback. these are all strategies that have worked to form the work of orei. so these next slides are informational for the public and here. i have publicly available documents, so you can go through them and read through

them. what you'll see on the right are summaries of the baseline strategies and core values, and where we're drawing from when we talk about best practices, we have the office of diversity and racial equity, and racial equity framework, which was used to drive all the city departments and direction us in developing racial equity action plans on what's needed when it comes to racial equity work in the city and county? the sfmta workforce did a great job of developing the phase one racial equity action plan, so that is very core to me to understanding not only what are we committed to and what's the values and background information and known information about what we need when it comes to a sustained office to address racial equity. you'll see both the goal reports listed, and as i mentioned, those have very specific goals around workplace issues and complaint processes

as well as discipline processes. and a few other sources of information that i mentioned at the very beginning that are [inaudible] this really flows throughout [inaudible] which is why a significant portion of my time as i on boarded with the listening session series was to go out to staff across a myriad of different working locations to ensure that a vast portion of our workforce was implementing the racial equity action plans but the orei. they have a series of leadership competencies about how organizations can go from inducing trauma to be listening organizations. i'll draw your attention to these areas highlighted below.

they speak to the many areas of the racial equity action plan which the plan was able to inform. the gare works across the nation to support many different jurisdictions and address racial equity within their organizations. the american public transportation association adopted a racial equity guidance plan for different jurisdictions, and then, we also have our sfmta values, both internal and external values which offer all of what we do, including the office of race, equity and inclusion. i want to go a moment to go over the areas inside the four circles. i want to make sure that the board as well as staff and the public know what our

[inaudible] is. so starting with the top left, the first function is agency wide policy practice and practice improvement specifically around improving equity. we are leading with race per the office of racial equity, and we understand that there's a series of racial equity needs and we'll have to improve our policies to better increase our outcome for equities. on the right, you'll see specific directives and operations both internally and externally. third on the right is to better priority aye and establish equity -- prioritize and establish equity and priorities.

and then bottom left is an agency commitment agency wise. i will just emphasize that again, orei is meant to support the agency everywhere, both internally and externally, so it is expected that many of these areas will overlap with the work areas of our agency because everyone is tasked with racial equity. these are the four core areas that pull from best practices across a series of local, national, and regional best practices for advancing racial equity. so i'll talk briefly about the organizational structure based on that before i switch to the racial equity action plan. first i want to know that with our current budget for the office of race, equity, and inclusion, the only positions that we'll be working to move forward on are these three 9174

manager positions and also a supervisor position, which is the 5408. i will describe the functions of the entire office as there are future staffing needs. first, i want to describe these gray boxes. what they represent is the office of racial equity and inclusion, we'll be working on this over the coming months this fellowship will be an upcoming opportunity and also working on racial equity projects. and then besides that, it's meant to be a networking space. one thing i found from talking to staff across the agency is many people desire a connection, and they're stuck working in their silos. the fellowship which are

basically committees, both are opportunities for custodians to sit and work with engineers, for planners to work with operators, for planning control operators to work with payroll clerks. it's mean to encourage an abundance of this across our workforce. often time, staffing does not get to show those skills. for example, if i am a parking control officer, and i have not had an opportunity to exhibit training experience, this could be an opportunity to do so as equity training work that will involve the trainer model where staff can support the office of racial equity in implementing racial equity trainings across the system. so when we start with fellowship, we will start with one series of fellows but will just be in the workplace. let me take a step back and describe the four elements of the office of racial equity and inclusion.

at the bottom, you'll see an arrow, which means that all four of those have a place in each department.

experiences of being marginalized or underserved. while we do this already, we are looking at cross system approaches to our work. and much of that engagement and who we reach also overlaps in this second area around equity workforce and workplace, so that supports us in having a more equity workplace and fork force, so the same efforts to have universal strategies to reach, against, culturally specific strategies and interventions, to reach more indigenous folks, african american folks, latino folks, so not only is the work of orei, it supports several different divisions of the agency. so there are three different sections that focus on

equitable development, so internally and externally making sure we have robust strategies, building pipelines for staff and making sure we have robust pipelines that can support what's happening in h.r. so training, as you probably know, happens throughout our h.r. division but also through various divisions with stop specific or safety specific training. the training that office of racial equity and inclusion will direct is our racial equity training. it's important to note that that overlaps with the leadership environment and the third unit was an equity workforce and workplace is staffing well-being. this section will be the primary group working to support our [inaudible] groups

as well as our other resource groups or committees, and also helping to form more trauma informed strategies in addressing racism when it happens and supporting staff when it happens, and we've already started to do some of that work with mary donovan, our manager, by giving access to [inaudible] resources. the next is policy topics and practice improvement. we loved it so much, it had to be an agency improve. accountability system. this would include the constant tracking of our racial equity action plan as well as the status of our racial equity action commitment. this will work on establishing a stronger accountability culture not just for staff but for the public, as well, to make sure we have robust

standards when it comes to measuring racial equity in everything that we do. there's a lot of networks that we're going -- we're connected to to work on optimizing how we do data collection and how they improve our processes and alignment with the city and county strategy, and then we'll also have a unit devoted specifically to [inaudible]. as you can imagine, with all of those projects, they'll have a lot of collaboration, so this will actually [inaudible] in collaboration with all of the other units. and then, the fourth and last unit will be equitable collaborations to duplicate any of our internal or external strategy functions. the first is cultural education, so this is focused on the cultural change needs to improve our equity outcomes. this is supportive the other

areas of the agencies, as well, whether it's sharing information about revisions in our system practices or making sure that everyone actually gets the information, especially those that are not assigned a personal device. and also, optimize the learning outcomes of our racial equity training. and then, the third unit's within equitable communications is communication define, so a lot -- communication definition, so a lot of work around supporting the communications coming out of the office of racial equity and inclusion. i will say most of the materials from the staffing managers to coordinators to an lists are proposed. they're not confirmed. in preparation for the upcoming

budget season, it was important for me to get a sense of our overall staffing need and get a sense of the work. i do want to briefly just share that about our committee structure for our cross divisional fellowship which again has not launched, but i'm working with the executive team to get the final details so we can launch that in the coming months, and it shows staff from as broad a range of work duties as possible has opportunities to engage in professional development and has the opportunity to support not only the office of racial equity and inclusion but the larger team in advancing racial equity. i just want to point out that all of three of these groups will be part of a larger committee, and there will be three subcommittees, so probably at least two committees leading each of these, and then the fellow buckets as you'll see are a collective across all of the divisions. so that's a little bit about the organizational structure to

give you best practices about how they're really integral to developing the office of racial equity and inclusion. and again, the public and those listening will have access to those. so this slide represents how the orei functional areas overlap with the racial equity action plan commitments. and this is extremely important because as i worked to build up the office of racial equity and inclusion, but it's building up the racial equity action plan, so on going workshops and meeting with not only division directors but several managers and staff are spaces in which i've been lifting up all the actions and commitments relative to that team's scope of work. so what you see here are summaries of several actions for those who do download the slides and the notes of all the specific actions for example encompassed in outreach and equity pools, monitoring

decision making, interviews at panels, pipelines, performance management, and a series of other areas like wellness and support or data transparency. so what i want to represent here on the far left, what you see are the core analysis of orei, and that will crossover all of these actions. the same goes for culturally specific interventions. there are ways in which -- i can speak a little more at the end of the presentation some of the workshops that we have at the end of the fiscal year now that our budget has been confirmed to create and distribute culturally appropriate material.

in equitable workforce and workplace, we have commitments in our action plan committed to standards around equity for training and development, we have opportunities to have more culturally specific interventions to improve training and development, and then also, when it comes to our process improvement, there are actions that call on improved processes to optimize training and development. so again, this is just for reference to really map out the work of the racial equity action plan is the work of the office of racial equity and inclusion, and we're working to have more sustained support and structure to guide not only the specific actions in the action plan but also many of the commitments. this is currently on the internet, and while this will be available on a public website, but the staff has been

available for several months now. i do want to preview this for the staff and the board and also the public. when you first land on this page, it has a summary of all the actions complete. you'll see 5.6% of the actions have not been started, but the vast majority are either in progress or on going, and i'll explain what that means in a moment. 2.2% are complete. so the main difference between on going and in progress, in progress, there's been planning, workshops, efforts to begin acting on it, but there's been no formal implementation. the on going speaks to racial equity action plan and talked about the sustained approach to implementing actions, so for many things, there'll be many different iterations. i think the blue also really speaks volumes about not only the on going commitment to the

work but also the function of orei, so many of these functions will need to be on going, and they will not be a check the box where complete. i've told that many -- told many people that many items on our racial equity action plan are doors that lead to other doors. this is a [inaudible] for the functionality of the dashboard, so there's an option to filter by the specific actions. you can filter by the updates and the statuses and see the statuses of that specific action. so this section over here, it is a bit hard to read. admittedly, i'll try to hover for the more robust updates. for example, we have one of our

on going actions is to update minimum outreach standards for all job announcements? as you saw within the core functional areas, one of the key areas for orei will be equity standards across the board. this will include how you do outreach, so i look forward to working with our talent integration team about integrating equity standards into our work, and there's been a lot of work, for example, with outreach standards on our citywide network. we're working with mercy work group and has met with a group of stakeholders in diverse locations to ties openings. that said, i think speaking to the on going work, i've had several meetings with h.r. about the need to be doing on going outreach.

we recognize that when it comes to outreach and our connections to communities, the game would be engagement for our public processes is a continuum, and we have a lot of great work to start with. just going through down, this is probably hard for people to see, bias training and capacity building requirements, so i have been working again to identify comprehensive training needs, so the listing series have been super helpful in hearing from staff across a variety of different backgrounds on what we need when it comes to racial equity training. this is true for our board, so more to come when we work on consistent racial equity trainings, and it flows through all areas of operation, so we're really thinking about training as a consistent practice that needs to be in place.

i'll try to skim through these and not take too much time in case anyone has any questions or comments. and then we have action 1.3.5. this is another great example of an action that is in progress and that speaks to a bigger need? so i've been working with h.r. and also e.e.o. with support from the chief of staff team on a data project that encompasses around sharing data transparently, and i'll talk more about that in a moment. so i'll just skim recruitment -- yes. so action 2.1.1 to use data and projections [inaudible] of black indigenous people of color [inaudible] this is something that we had to worry less about with some of the federal funds coming in and is looked at as an on going item currently. just go through a few more. let me just go through

disciplines. i want to save time, and i recognize that it's very hard to see. 2.1, director ackerman spoke about this earlier about the acting policy for acting assignments, so many policies are on going, and some are not started. so for disciplines, a couple of items that i want to speak to. so first, the agency wide corrective action policy is in progress? action 3.1.1? and director ackerman spoke a lot about the work that we've been doing in the transit agency, and again, this speaks to the need for our universal citizens reform effort. so we know that while transit is our biggest [inaudible] it's not the biggest need of the agency, so it will [inaudible] across the board. and what that really emphasizing correction and

discipline action as a last resort. a couple other actions, if i can just scroll down without my computer -- okay. okay. so another one to -- this is one of the actions i'm coordinating with h.r. is around developing a tool for supervisors to really monitor calls when it comes to discipline. this is in progress because we've had some work with h.r. and we just had a listening session series. so with the listening session series, we had multiple sessions and most teams in some cases, there's a robust amount of information around discipline and county culture as a whole, so it's really important that our executive team, managing team across all divisions are listening to those often not heard, and i'll

talk more about the work being done with the executive team. in terms of the workshops for [inaudible] the last thing i want to highlight on this discipline separation section is in addition to the plan report there is action 3.3.2 to develop data dashboards and report trends regularly. so this is one of those actions that are a piece of a bigger project, as well? i mentioned the equity data project, so we're working to share data both internally and externally around the workforce, around discipline and promotions and its iteration and around the hiring processes and also around pay, so really working across the board to remodel those best practices as it pertains to leading with data, and being intentional where we're leading and seeing inequities. and for time, i will just

briefly go to -- so i can finish my last slides and finish the presentations. so action 6.1.1 is in progress and that's around developing and maintaining an agency wide equity curricula and tools. i mentioned that i'm working on developing racial equity training including implicit bias planning and antiblack training, but we also want to talk about racial equity as it pertains to several other racial ethnic groups. also, there will be a thread of racial equity trainings for supervisors, managers, and directors, which has much more around fear based cultures, around accountability systems, and around leadership needed for people in supervisory positions and understanding how it can play out in our actions

from day-to-day. so the racial equity curriculum will be robust and we'll need some time to develop that because we're working on training relative to sfmta's needs. so 3.1.2 is around an annual executive workshop. as i mentioned with our listening session series, there has not only been an equity analysis, a series of equity analyses, it's also meant to support this performance work. we have agency feedback on the agency wide trends at the end of this month and going into the start of september, i will have a series of the business specific workshops to go over

those challenges names and recommendations from staff. so prior to the executive team making formal commitments on what we will be doing to share equity, i will be going to staff and sharing the listening staff, but we know that much of this information has been stated and the known. so in the background and the final report for that listening session series is generating, you'll see that we account for things like past reports and also the racial equity action plan, so what we knew when we started. it's important to note that we've been very vocal about responding to staff needs, and we're hoping to maybe later on in the winter to follow up with staff so we know what staff have committed to when it comes to advancing racial equity. for the last two items, 4. -- 6.2.1, for my first six months,

there's been a -- i won't say it's in the exact same time allotments, but there's been meetings with affinity groups as well as workplace committees. so much of the conversation has been on getting feedback. they were a part of our listening sessions theories, and also identifying the supports and needs of affinity groups. in working with them and talking to other jurisdictions, whether it's oakland, l.a., seattle, it became really clear that protected staff time is a core need for our racial equity action plan. the hope is with our cost divisional fellows program, because it comes with protected time, that could be one avenue for affinity groups. we've been working to secure resources, so as recently as last week, it was confirmed

that analysis in the orei, there will be a total of $372,000, so i'm really excited to partner with the affinity groups to support them and their work and support them in their outreach efforts and also to have a more consistent collaborative structure. the webpage is under development, and i think that was the last one that i wanted to go over. one more, actually. this is kind of just tied to the executive team commitment, so instructing employees anding anding -- [inaudible] so our chief of staff was really integral into making sure this happened for the past fiscal year, so for many staff who worked either on the racial equity action plan or affinity groups arrest other structures in the agency, they were able to be credited for the assets that they were bringing to our organization, and this year, it will be mandatory to have racial equity action training

for all staff, and that will be documented in our performance plans. i'm working on the performance models so that staff is ware of what's required when they're establishing their performance plans for the next few slides.

it's really emphasizing that we're working to have sustained functions, and that whole recommendations for external reviews but also to expand beyond that. so this slide just briefly summarizes the fact that we've had a lot of work on analyzing our needs and stakeholder engagement and also supervisors and management with stakeholders.

again, we've worked with many different county departments. for example, tomorrow, i'll be facilitating a training and meeting with several different city and county department working with either enterprise or infrastructure work, and we'll be talking about how to share data around the workplace, including what kinds of privacy standards we're considering or how to clearly get information to people. so i can't count the number of board meetings that i've had to connect with people across the nation, our city, and departments, but it's been super helpful for increasing our external and internal networks for collaboration. there's so much that we've committed to already and in service of finding a comprehensive long-term sustained approach to advancing

everywhere. >> this slide, first, the equity data transparency project. director ackerman spoke to this. with that, i should note that we do want to have leadership training for staff who are not supervisors. it's just important that currently supervisors, current

managers, and directors understand what our priorities are for managing and directing safe accountable. so again, you'll see down here all these areas, programs, benchmarks, improves diversity, workforce development, staff support, hiring, interview,

discipline and accountability culture for all of these listening sessions series with a really robust opportunity for staff to inform that work, so this is an opportunity for establishing standards, just a few accomplishments, and that's going to be integral to implementing the racial equity action plan. orei did respond to the pandemic call for projects. i'm happy to share that the total amount that we secured was $3.4 million? so now, the orei operating budget for this fiscal year is $3.9 million, which is completely different than 500,000, and it makes it completely different to roll

out and implement these programs, and again, the partnership and discussions, i think we've worked across several different teams to be efficient. it took some time to actually craft job descriptions. as you can imagine, it took time to scope the work to research these best practices, to understand what we committed to, and to work across all the divisions to make sure we're not duplicating functions but

also introducing new functions that are complementing our systems. and then also up until last week, there was budget uncertainty, and there continues to be for a large portion of our agency. again, relative to the second bullet point there, both are urgency in needs and also the racial equity challenges that have been difficult to do that with one person. one person isn't adequate, and $500,000 isn't adequate. i've been working on scope our work, on boarding resources, and responding to our needs. there have been crises that have come up or there have been spaces where there have been need to work across divisions,

not to mention supporting other city departments in requests for proposals. a couple of other challenges that i'll name is staff lists communication and follow up and how that impacts people's trust and willingness to participate. when i spoke with staff, some feel like nothing ever changes. we talk a lot, and nothing ever changes, and that ties into the last bullet point. and these are concerns that i've voiced to our leadership team, and these are concerns that i've been dedicated to tracking out, especially as they play out in different work settings. it's important to be humbled by the fact that many people have a lot of pain points, and rightfully so. that's not to complain, but that's to say that there are high expectations and a lot of need and also a lot of past hard that i'm working to try to mitigate in partnership with

director tumlin and other leaders across the agency. so the last one, i'm waiting for these approvals and finalization of the assessment work before these go live, but there will be three manager positions and one supervisor positions, an equity workforce and workplace manager and an equity services manager and an equity sources supervisor. i won't go through the minimum qualifications. it is important to note that for our qualifications, you need to have a bachelors and you can substitute that with additional qualifying experience. you have to be working at a mass transit agency, and i want to include working at mass transportation departments, but working in transit is also a qualifying experience, and also with supervisory experience, or you can substitute one year of

supervisory experience with that requirement. so really trying to make sure that we're being thoughtful with barriers to hiring and barriers to -- especially diverse workforce accessing our job opportunities, and one thing i'm very happy to be able to pilot because it doesn't happen for most of our manager positions is launching these civil service positions, coming out of the looming threat of potential [inaudible], it was really important for me to work with several teams across the agency to see how we can pilot the idea of more civil service divisions so we can obtain more staff. so i just want to share a few of our next steps. at the end of september, we will have an all staff racial equity update meeting.

admission of equity data transparency project, and that is an on going effort, much of it is led by e.d.o. and h.r. the office of office of racial equity and inclusion is working to make sure we have a robust narrative how we share information both internally and externally, and as i mentioned, while there are several portions of that that are called out, i also want to share that director ackerman spoke to the racial equity action policy, but we have some reports that duplicate this position, but it's really important for us to package this in a user friendly way so we can understand how and if we have disparities. another next step which is really exciting will be a couple months down the line

will be our orei workplace commitment. i also -- i mentioned that i'm working with the executive team and have been giving -- posting on going workshops with our executive leadership teams around the outcomes of the listening session series, and i'll be working with them to get their feedback from staff in their divisions. i do hope to report out just not on the all staff call but on the division specific calls so that the leaders can state what they're doing to advance racial equity. so confirming the orei racial equity action plan, this was before i confirmed the budget, so we'll be working on the project plan, implementing all the projects that we've outlined and that many on our

leadership team have been making sure and that they're resourced. so we're trying to make sure that we have policies and procedures in place to optimize the reach of our funds and also be monitoring and evaluating our projects so we can improve where we need to and scale. and last, starting yesterday, i started a monthly orei with the affinity groups and monthly workplace committees. while we have had a series of quarterly meetings in partnership with h.r., our q.c. officer and other teams like e.e.o. as requested per the affinity group, i have been spread so thin, so i've delegated it to one of my staff. it's really important to

sustain our connection, so i've worked, and also, the same goes for other work -- employee workplace committees that service employee workplace group. so that is what to expect next. we're hiring, working hard to implement the work, and the marathon continues, so thank you so much for your time. >> thank you so much. this is such a very robust report, and there is so much to unpack and digest. thank you for all the work that you've done in the short time that you've gone to m.t.a. i'm going to move to public comment, but after that, we'll move to director's comments. i know that we've got people waiting for several hours. moderator, are there any people on the call for item 15? >> operator: you have one question remaining. >> first caller. hello? hello? >> yes, hello.

my name is charles gollove. i am an employee of the sfmta. i am a member of the white people working against racism affinity group, which is working under guidance from the office of racial equity and inclusion, and i want to say i support the work of this office, that it makes for a better and safer and more productive workplace and a more just workplace, and for more just service to our customers, and i am most concerned that the areas of the challenges be granted the resources alleviate

those challenges. thank you. >> thank you very much for calling in. moderator, are there additional callers on the line? >> operator: you have zero questions remaining. >> with that, we'll close public comment. you have told me you're starting these listening sessions. tell us about the challenges that you're seeing. is there -- like, do people have the confidence that you'll be able to do the things that you need to do to be successful? >> i would say there's a mix of opinions. there definitely are a lot of staff who feel fatigued. there are staff that say i hope they don't fire you or i hope -- there's staff that feel that -- and really, a lot of it feels like staff feels like

there have been promises made in the past, so there's promises made every couple of years. many staff have a lot of different ideas and a lot of feedback, and so i was very [inaudible] people of color staff, and that includes our operator community, our parking control community as well as customer service. i would say that the biggest discrepancy that i saw were people were not as aware of the racial equity action plan. some staff did not realize that there's been a commitment in the past. many people want to see consistency, and not just from myself but from our entire leadership. so i would say there's

definitely enthusiasm. people definitely want protected time, they want resources and find that it's important, but many people are scored, and they have not just racial equity but overall workplace needs. one last thing that i will say is our staff have been reporting to work throughout this entire pandemic when we didn't know if it was spread by sneezes or how it was spread, so i would say that staff are really ready for tea action and consistency from our teams and leadership on many different levels. thank you for the question. >> no, that's great, and in terms of you showed some of these things that are in progress, some things that are happening. for the biggest things that are not happening, what are the biggest barriers for