>> -- and they see this is the third-party originated trip, i don't want it, then, they can make that choice, and if another driver sees that trip and wants to participate, they can take that on. and part of what we want to look at is oh, are we getting more drivers? how can we get more trips, and what about the taxi meter fares? but the driver will have that on a trip-by-trip basis, that ability to opt in or not, so they're not required. they're not required. this is adding more trips to our taxi trips, right?

so street hail, phone dispatch, taxi e-hail, paratransit taxi, our folks that originate at s.f.o., so it's streams for our taxi driver to get dreams. this is another stream if a taxi driver wants to participate. >> i think that was part of the thing that folks were wondering. >> they will be switching their

algorithm for -- on the back end -- so it comes into a taxi app, and then, it's dispatched to the driver. and again, we are tracking the data, so we will see where that

trip originated with the third party. >> so whose algorithm is calculating the up-front fare? >> if it's originating with uber, then it's uber, and if it originated through a taxi-hail app, then, it's that app, based on taxi hail rates. if you're a customer, and you know you can go to the taxi app, and you know you can go to it and look. >> and obviously, the up-front fare calculation on the driver's end, they can see the fare that's being proposed to them and turn it down. >> it's not intending for them to see the fare, it's intending for them to see the third

party. we don't want to disincentivize shorter trips or trips to neighborhoods. right now, taxi trips, the driver doesn't see the fare, so it's not different than what occurs now, so again, we don't want to disincentivize the shorter trips. my understanding is that new york already deployed this partnership with uber, right, the taxis, and i believe the way they do it is they provide the up-front calculations? >> i don't know that for a fact. i don't know if they've built out written program rules in the same way than we have, that it's actually happening more on a business-to-business, you know, transaction, if you will,

and that's because the new york taxi and limousine commission regulates both parties, and i think there's a party to party or permittee to permittee agreement that's a little different to what we've got here in san francisco. >> and i assume it automatically sunset sz and terminates unless you bring that back to the board? >> absolutely. we have authorization for one year from when we started, and we'd have to come back for any board action, so you obviously have any full control over any next steps with whatever may come, and again, we are intending to have all the data for you to be able to make that determination when that time comes. >> okay. i think that i really appreciate that we will have access to the data. i think part of the feedback,

i'm hoping that your team will continue to collect, is actual experimental from the taxi committee, and i'm sure they'll be sending some your way. i think there is a question of are we creating these rules that actually forces the market further into unprotected territories on the labor side in i think that is one of the anxieties that some of the -- some of us are sensing here. i'm not sure what this experiment will yield, but i think that, you know, beyond the -- the certificate of, like, meter rate and number of rides kind of data, i really

think that would be important for us to continue to collect direct data and feedback from the taxi drivers themselves. is that already part of your outreach plan in this next year? i assume it is. >> yeah. with you certainly want to do a survey, and we've been thinking about that. you know, fares will tell us something, new drivers will tell us, and so we'll get a lot of that information. but like you said, we'll want to do surveys to the extent we can to ascertain driver acceptance, so we want to kind of be full circle or robust with the information because we have a lot of questions, and we share, as you're saying, there are a lot of unknowns here. so we want to check and share, and part of the program rules, i think that's part of why you've delegated to the

director of transportation. we might get in a few months and see there's something that we need to adjust, and so we'll see something with that broader information that you've provided. >> okay. thank you, chair. >> okay. we have a motion, and we have director hinze and director cajina, and then, i want us to move on. >> so remind me [indiscernible] so am i correct, then, that because i think the staff report said it's two out of the four that are currently stated to participate in this pilot?

>> no, the pilot, we are -- we will have a process whereby the party will request to be a part of the process. >> the other two still can if they'd like to, so it's not competition within the four apps themselves. >> no, no. we want to cast a broad net, and as long as the e-mail companies are compliant, as long as they're sending over data to track and manage these trips as we are able to track and manage, then they will be able to participate.

>> and a couple of issues that came up in public comment that i wanted to touch on, one, sort of -- i don't know whether to call it a concern or a fear, they'll be flooded with uber requests or, then, other apps will be left out in the cold. will there be a control to ensure that doesn't happen? or i guess how do we control that from happening? >> well, too many trips would be a good problem. we have, as i mentioned, earlier supply, so if more medallions need to be added to the fleet, that is available, and particularly i mentioned, our wheelchair available

accessibility ramped taxis, so we have the availability to grow and we would be happy to grow. >> okay. lastly, some folks won't take into account the taxi sitting and waiting. how do we respond to that sort of stability and pricing or potentially [indiscernible] money from the driver? i know the option is to [indiscernible] uber trips. would that be your response? >> i'm sorry.

i didn't quite hear the last -- your last sentence. >> oh, i was just saying if they need to stop anywhere, that may not be figured into their taxi rates? >> yeah, that would be a concern, and that is something we discussed with the industry, and there will be rules around that. and again, we will need to test to see how often this happens and what the best way to handle it will be. but again, that would be the same for the taxi side of the house or any third party generated trip. >> yeah, and i'll just say to

everyone that i'm on the side of director yekutiel that this is an opportunity to increase demand and maybe scale up the taxi industry because i don't know if we'll have this opportunity again, and if it doesn't, i know that the industry would voice their concerns, and that staff would ultimately have a decision in a year or two to decide what to do with the pilot. but i do see this as an

opportunity to gain trips for taxis, so i am support of trying this and giving the taxi industry an opportunity to take notes here. you know, you don't have to if you don't want to, but this, we've given the city an option of having them, so i am supportive of that for that reason. >> thank you so much for that, director hinze. director cajina? >> thank you so much, director eaken. so could you clarify if there's a working group for taxis during this pilot that you're touching base with continuously? does one exist currently? >> we -- not specifically for this pilot, but we have a

couple of channels that we're using, and in the past, we have had a taxi task force that met for a number of years, and it reached toward the end of its useful life span, i would say, and there are other groups that we're engaging with, the taxi color schemes. my co-worker went to the taxi alliance meeting, so there's already a body meeting that you've heard about that the team has gone to, and then, we have full outreach meetings for the full taxi industry, and those interested have been invited to attend. >> so i'm certainly excited about the notion of creating some sort of industry to propel this industry even more, and i think it's a great opportunity for that. but i am concerned how we're going to continuously engage

the taxi community, and so i do wonder if, as part of this initiative or part of this resolution, we also add on some language of creating or resurrecting that task force or working group, but just some way to engage folks through the the process or that one-year pilot period because at the end of that time, we're going to hopefully have some qualitative or quantitative data. i think it'll be important to have some qualitative data from the taxi drivers themselves. i know that dana has a small business working group, and they talk about different topics. but for this one, i think it's really important to have a think tank for thoeks that are

using this as their means of living, really. i know we're getting to the point where we need to make a decision, but i would make a motion that we amend the measure to create some sort of working group, and i don't know if it's something that kate or dana would do, but i'll leave it to the director. >> sure. the working group has been in existence now about four years, as you may know, so i'm happy to work with kate to convene a working group during this pilot program just to make sure they're keeping us informed during this process? >> sure, i'd be happy to help.

>> so i guess there's a motion on the table to give guidance to staff to create a working group of sorts. >> if i may, since i think it's my motion, with respect to my colleague, i want to give them the opportunity to do it, but i don't really feel comfortable doing it in writing. i don't want them to require them to create a new working group. i don't want to create too much extra work, if creating an extra task force, given the timing of the thing, if it feels like more of a lift than needed, but i'm happy to hear with my colleagues think. >> the working group is one end that i'm hearing you want to

continue. >> okay. so the friendly amendment to the motion is accepted -- >> sure, if it's guidance to

continue to take a pulse of the community, see how it's going, create an informal working group, sure. >> so can we call the roll, secretary silva? >> clerk: yes. on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: on the motion to approve as amended -- [roll call] >> clerk: thank you. that motion passes. >> okay. so i'm going to propose a ten-minute recess for this board. i think everyone could use a little stretch break.

let's come back at exactly 5:32 to pick up item 12. >> clerk: thank you. >> vice chair eaken: item 12. >> clerk: item 12. presentation and discussion of the muni service equity strategy report. for fiscal year 2022 and 2023. >> good evening everyone. i'm the transit director. it is my pleasure to introduce jessica garcia who will give this presentation and present this powerful work. jessica works for sean kennedy and leads our service planning team. before i let her dive into the details, i want to publicly thank her for not making the equity strategy something that sits on the shelf but applying

equity strategy principles in the service planning decisions that her and her team make. i think that the work has evolved over the last almost 10 years since 2014 when the m.t.a. board adopted the service equity policy from something that was standalone to something that is now driving all of our service decisions. i'm really excited for the next steps where jessica will be working closely with josephine as we integrate the muni equity strategy into the agency phase 2 rates and equity action plan, really take all of that learning to bring this work to the next level. with that, i will turn it over to jessica.

>> thank you. good evening. i'm jessica garcia. i lead the service planning team at sfmta transit planning group. we lead the muni service equity strategy which is updated every two years in time to form the budget process. today i will be providing background and we'll highlight how the strategy framework was used during our response to the pandemic and how we plan to incorporate new initiatives and future updates. the final report will be provided in your packet for the april 19th meeting. for some background on the equity strategy, the strategy is muted in the muni equity policy which was adopted by the sfmta board of directors in 2014. the policy builds on the title 6 requirement and provides specific guidance on the metrics, methods and timing update. it use a neighborhood approach.

these nine neighborhoods shown in the map were chosen because of their concentration and affordable housing, low rate of access to private vehicles and concentration of people and of color and people of low income. for citywide accessibility routes we selected basenned on he ridership of seniors and people disability population. at the heart of the muni equity policy and every strategy we've done, our goal is that as we invest in the muni system and make budget decisions that neighborhoods with routes concentration are benefiting just as much from these investments as the rest of the city. first equity strategifuls adopted in 2016. since then each report had a focus on the previous one. the previous report that was developed just before the start

of the pandemic, focused on incorporating the muni equity policy principles into all aspects of our service planning work. this includes prioritizing routes, resources, performing on evaluations of customer reported issues on equity routes and leveraging ongoing community engagement efforts to identify service and capital needs. we niese these principle as our guiding principles throughout the pandemic. the focus for this report is how we incorporated these principles with practice with the implementation of the core services network as well as how we will continue to use these principles to form future expansions. start the with the first core service network, in addition to using the muni equity guiding principle, we also focus on supporting essential trips including travel to hospitals

and grocery stores. we are providing enough service to support social distancing on board. 89% of the first 17 routes were equity routes. every equity neighborhood has some transit coverage. throughout the pandemic, we have continued to prioritize equity routes as resources allowed through increases on busy corridors and route restorations. as of now, once the april 16th service changes are implemented later this month, 37 out of the 41 equity routes will be in service. the remaining routes include the 6, 10 and 21, which are planned to be restored as part of the 2022 muni service network plan and the 14x. despite the pandemic's impact oservice and the agency's resources, 38 out of the 41 initiatives identified in the previous strategy were addressed in the past two years.

i'll highlight some of northeast initiatives on the next slide. many of them were addressed when service was restored or expanded and through street changes such as the tuttle program and other quick build projects. these are some of the improvements that we've been able to implement over the past two years. the previous strategy identified key need for the 30 stockton was increase capacity. in the fall of 2020 the route of the upside to 60-foot bus from a 40-foot bus. in the 14r, we identified a key need to extend evening service. prior to the pandemic that service ran to 6:00 p.m. we extended to 10:00 p.m. this change remains in effect today. another key need for the 19 was to improve tetl project. it was made permanent earlier this year.

also service reliability was identified as a key for the t third on the fourth street bridge in this early 2021 those changes were made permanent. these are a few highlights of improvements that have been implemented in the past two years. although we have significant constraints on resources we are still able to push them throw to continue to improve services on equity routes. as expected, the pandemic brought new key needs. that needed to be addressed quickly. during the early years of the pandemic, there was significant need to understand the impact on access to essential jobs, especially for muni exty strategy neighborhood. the tool kit on the left of the slide was developed to evaluate this and identify any service gaps to address any future service restoration plan. it currently uses regional data to calculate access within 30,

45 and 60 minute commute. we continue to build the tool out to isolate muni service as well as expand to measure access to other opportunities. express service between bay view and downtown was identified in the previous strategy as something to explore. this demand was expedited during the pandemic. in early 2021, we implemented the 15 bayview hunters point express. it was designed in partnership with the community. it helped to improve access around hunters point. although these projects have were developed in response to the pandemic, we still see the need for them to continue. we have made the 15 a permanent route and plan to incorporate tool kit for future strategies. evaluating qualitative data, int

includes on time performance, crowding, travel and auto time comparison and service delivery. however, due to the rapid service changes that we've done the past two years and data quality and availability, we adjusted this year's data to be more tailored to the pandemic response. focused just on two metrics. service levels and performance. for the service levels which are shown in the slide, we calculated the total scheduled service hours allocated to equity route. shown here by neighborhood and accessibility route prior to the pandemic and compared those to our current service. although we're not at 100% pre-pandemic service hours we're looking at how the hours are distributed and scheduled and to accessibility routes. the percent of hours is higher than how hour were distributed

before the pandemic. this indicates that service on the muni equity routes continue to be prioritized in the system. in addition to looking at the service levels, we also evaluated performance data, looking at headway and on time performance. at the service category level, muni service equity route on average performed better in that same service category. looking at both the service level and performance data, it showed us that our guiding principles to prioritize service and reliability on equity route is showing in our day-to-day operations. for the fiscal year '23 and '24 recommendations, we are asking that the board adopt the 2022 muni service network improvements. this is because the plan was developed during outreach process and in collaboration with m.t.a. board of directors

and board of supervisors and still given the staffing levels that we have, it's what the agency can commit to at this point. this plan did include 2021 equity route changes. for equity routes and then for any further service increases beyond the 2022 plan, it will develop a common vision for service expansion that considers equity strategy principles and the shifting travel patterns and community feedback. as with any further service increases, our current constraints and implementing them will be paid by the hiring process. this slide here shows at a glance what service increases part of the 2022 muni service network plan. and which neighborhoods and accessibility routes will be

benefits. these make up 17 of the 21 service changes included in the plan for equity routes. the routes that are shen here on this slide that are bolded are including the ax and bx and the 56. those changes will be implemented as part of the apri. for next steps, we'll be asking the board to adopt the fiscal year '23, '24 equity strategy when the final report is shared at the april 19th board meeting. after this year's strategy is adopted, we plan to work on defining new priorities as we continue post-pandemic service planning including monitoring post-pandemic ridership and building out the tool kit. also incorporate any service priorities identified in the prioritization exercise i previously described. we like to reis visit the framework of the equity strategy to include agency policy centers

around racial equity. this includes applying the racial equity analysis to service planning decisions and integrating any recommendations that come out of the phase 2 of the racial equity action plan that are currently under development at the agency. also now that the census data is available we like to refresh the baseline data. with these next steps we plan to develop new priority and policy updates in future strategies. in the meantime, we'll work towards formalizing them in our day-to-day service planning as they develop. this concludes my presentation. thank you for your time. i'm happy to answer any questions. >> vice chair eaken: do we have any board member questions? i'm going to open up for public

comment. any public comment commenters in the room? >> clerk: i have no speaker cards. members of the public if you wish to comment, please press star 3. let me give it one moment. i see no speakers on the line. >> vice chair eaken: director lai? >> director lai: just a quick question about slide 8, which is the data reflecting the pre-pandemic service hours compared to the current. it looks like we are making improvements in all of these neighborhoods. could staff maybe address -- we often get public comments and reach out by the community. there's still lot of anecdotal experiential feedback we're receiving. commonly, i think especially i

hear lot from chinatown folks and even i would say like west side api communities. they are reporting on continued service run or lack of service, overcrowding. i think from their feedback, it seems they are not actually seeing the same improvements that may be the percentage data is reflecting. something is not quite adding up from what we're receiving in terms of comments versus what the percentages are reflecting. can you speak to why that might be? >> yes. the service levels that are described on that slide is scheduled service hours. that includes all of the --erin- everything that we intend to be scheduled occupant on the street. we look at how we're spending our dollars and resources. we're planning to allocate those. unfortunately, for now, we're

experiencing -- customers are experiencing are challenging to our delivery and operator availability. that's not necessarily reflected in these numbers because it's not picking up the missed service. we are planning -- we're hoping that's a short-term problem, we'll be able to restore that service fully. we're not going to be missing trips especially in the neighborhoods be able to have customers experience that on the street those improvements. especially with chinatown, we are looking closely monitoring, we did have to, unfortunately, have fleet of bad decision on what we can do respond to the operator availability challenges that we're having.

we are looking at ways to closely honor -- monitoring and add back some of the service. >> director tumlin: little bit more specific, earlier at the beginning of the meeting we honored d.o.c. and h.r. teams who helped us through the omicron surge. we had lost as much as 30% of our operators who were in quarantine. our schedules are based upon our available staff, basic rate of people not being able to show up. that rate of people not showing up got astronomically larger during omicron. we're just recovering from that. we delivered services last month. that impact was felt all over the city. we couldn't fully protect our

equity neighborhoods without eliminating lines that people are dependent upon. >> director lai: i think the other thing is that i seem to recall that couple of of the refs, we changed up the vehicle size. that vehicle changed. is that reflected in these percentages? >> yes. >> director lai: thank you. >> vice chair eaken: thank you. director yekutiel? >> director yekutiel: i wanted to acknowledge the hard work that's put into coming up with this plan. all the work up done over the last two and a half years to make sure that folks be able to work. thank you very much for your work. i was able to take the 15 when we first instituted it with president walton.

it was wonderful. i'm glad we did that. i want to say thank you. appreciate it. >> thank you for that appreciation. >> vice chair eaken: director hinze? >> director hinze: i too want to acknowledge the creativity that's gone into serving our equity neighborhoods. i was pleased to see that most equity neighborhoods saw an increase in scheduled service hours. we're responding to needs of the city.

i'm wondering -- we're sort of talking about service and impacts on equity, i'm wondering if you can give update on the service restoration and particularly if you want to focus on the equity strategy neighborhoods that are going to be served by our restoration? >> we had hoped to have the 2022 muni service network plan implemented in the spring. unfortunately, due to the omicron surge and other factorings, we're not able to roll that out quickly. we are planning to phase that out throughout the year and starting with april 16th, we'll have the ax and bx and 56 changes in place. those are all impacting equity neighborhoods. then the next phase that we're working on to roll out that service is going to be in the

summertime. we are currently trying to figure out what was fresh off the omicron surge. we're still trying to track out operator availability and staffing resources would be so we can put together a package of service changes that will be included in that. we're still working on that. we don't have the details. we are definitely going to try to prioritize equity routes as much as possible in the summer and whatever we cannot fit in the summer package will be done in the fall. >> director hinze: thank you. >> vice chair eaken: director cajina? >> director cajina: thank you. thank you so much for your presentation. i did have a question for the refresh neighborhood demographic data. what should we expect from that? >> the first equity strategy defined what the neighborhoods were going to be. we looked at the 2010 census

data. looking at those different metrics and kind of made a matrix to select which neighborhoods will be highlighted through the data. we also did -- we had a working group at that time and got feedback from them and other community stakeholders did define what the neighborhoods should be. we haven't fully relied on data to define what the neighborhoods would be. we felt like at this point, especially with so many shifting trends and demographics in san francisco, we decided that we should do a refresh especially that we have the 2020 census data. any changes that we make or any results that we have, we want to

share and get feedback from the community. >> director cajina: as you were talking, i wonder if it made sense to incorporate any feedback we're getting from the taxi services. i think this is mostly transit based. >> we can consider other data sets that are not just exclusively to sunsets and decreases but also other transportation modes as well. >> director cajina: i wanted to give my appreciation for the 14r extending to 10:00 p.m. i'm grateful for that. just putting that out there. >> vice chair eaken: this is not an action item today. it was just an informational item. thank you so much for your presentation and for your leadership on our equity strategy. we can move on to item 13.

>> clerk: i'll be calling items 13a and b together. presentation and discussion regarding the sfmta fiscal year 2021 to 2025 campaign improvement program in the amount of $2.6 billion within ten capital programs including transit reliability, state of good repair, facilities, system safety and accessibility. item 13b, public hearing and presentation and discussion of the fiscal year 2021 and 2022 operating campaign budget including use of fund balance authorizing changes to fines, fees, rates and charges including extending free muni for all under 19 years old. reducing the boot removal fee and sfmta's fiscal 2023 and fiscal year 2024 campaign

budget. >> vice chair eaken: thank you so much. i will remind the public and the board that we're not taking action today on this budget. this is one of our last opportunities to shape the budget which we hope to adopt next meeting. we have 77 slides in the powerpoint. i will ask you and advise you to focus our attention on where the items you really need feedback that we should be discussing. >> thank you. let me start off by saying this is one of our final steps to duet through the budget. we've given you the programming and the project specific. that's why this is -- we start

splitting the items between the c.i.p. and consolidated budget. you have project level detail at this point and the fund programming which is part of that with c.i.p. plus. you heard from the citizen's advisory council. today we'll focus on the expenditure side of the budget. we wanted to go that that meaningful outreach process and hear from the public report to you what we heard and have our programs to be responsive to that outreach. i will quickly cover the process. for lot of people, we just developed the budget. you going through this for almost three months. i want to remind the steps to process. i'm going to quickly go through the c.i.p. i don't think there needs to be lot more discussion about that. you did ask in the last meeting for some options around fare policy. we want to spend majority of the

meeting on augmentation for expenditures today. we're at our final -- this is our required charter required public hearing tonight prior to adoption of the budget. you approved the strategic plan at the end of last year. that's the key component of the budget. the budget overall was designed to be resilient. resilient based on the fact that throughout the pandemic the situation has been changing every six months. we have estimates. we have projections. the budget is designed to deal with whatever situation might show up. it is designed to be adjusted depend -- depending on what

things might look like. then consider what we don't know. there's some things we will talk about that we don't know. we can set ourselves up to be ready no matter what the situation is. really quickly for the public and board, at the board workshop, we set the baseline. you saw the original baseline budget up. heard from ben rosenfeld about the condition of the city. we covered some our successes and challenges over the course of the pandemic and we talked about on the second day of workshop about opportunities and risks. all of those were considered as we developed the budget. no specific -- it was not a prebait budget on purpose. this is what the baseline is. this is what we think the environment in san francisco is going to look like. let's hear from you the board at

a policy level. let's hear from the public with regard to the programs and operations they want us to implement. on february 15th, the next meeting you had questions about capital. how do we go about prioritizing it, what will our priorities be. that led to the development of c.i.p. plus where you approved priorities for where we should be applying for lot of these new resources that hopefully we will be getting over the next two years. on the 15th, focused on revenues, fee, fares fine. those policies where we got direction from you how to proceed with that. today we want to focus on expenditures. as far as i'm concerned as acting chief financial officer, revenues are fixed. we know what those will look like now we want to talk about the expenditure side of the budget. just to quickly remind you what we heard through our outreach, it's in the appendix for you. speed and reliability, no shocker. personal safety on our streets and transit, which i think we

will address this evening directly. equity and delivery of service. you just heard the muni equity strategy and the policy. that is a key component budget. on the c.i.p. very quickly, the two core things that we are addressing in the five-year campaign improvement program is projects related to the speed and reliability of the system. that is moving to the replacement of the train control system, moving forward with our mid-life overhauls. that contract just went through the board. this is the first time that a core, biggest project in our c.i.p. are all state of good repair. there was a focus from the board and public back to the geobond

that we continue to enhance over past three c.i.p.s it will be in the $270 million. it is at $240 million. it's $2.6 billion, 158 projects. i will not go through the detail. there are some risks to consider. one is that rm3 still stuck in the courts. we do have reserves in place and development impact fees are very uncertain. what we did do as part of the five-year c.i.p. is our own discretionary revenues. where this board has more discretion where the dollars go. they are not going to show up. we have planned projects that need to move forward. here it is. final 5-year c.i.p., we'll be at

-- just to rhyme the board, we have to appropriate the one part that is not in the budget yet. it's what we call campaign outlay or transfer to capital. the first two years of the 5-year c.i.p. for the new board members is the appropriated campaign budget. you'll see the operating budget at your next meeting plus you'll see a transfer to capital from the operating budget. we have to appropriate it through the city budget process. the numbers contained will be a component of that at your next meeting. here are the c.i.p. plus priorities. no shocker, state of good repair. investing in our high injury network. moving towards zero emissions buses, muni metro modernization. these are the cash flow requirements. we do want to show the federal and state government and the region that we are ready to spend these dollars if they show

up.

the $115 million competitive federal relief that we received, i cannot tell you what a difference that made. that is how we're able to do lot of these augmentations. those are being used to restore full agency operations. the m.t.a. has the capability to provide the service to keep the streets safe through our strategic plan to help the economy of san francisco. the city joint report was released on march 31st last week. it's why we waited until the

last minute. that was the eligible -- general fund updates. revenues were declined by $6 million and $5 million. we're locking down revenue. this is the maximum amount of revenue we'll get. you'll see here the details on the different revenue sources. we're sustaining the $30 million. that was the choice that the board made of moving $30 million of proposition b kelley to -- capital.

on the expenditure side, a salary are in. they are still assuming general c.i.p. in the region. we've been negotiating with the city about our work orders. i am very hopeful that they will be maintainly and below $100 million. trying very hard to keep it below $100 million. it i will be less. we're working on that balancing now. funding levels restore most of the positions that were frozen. lot of them had to do with positions we put in the budget related to the muni reliability working group. lot of positions around the customer experience and service

and supervision were lot of the things you approved two years ago that now we have the cash to pay the salaries and keep them going forward. we do make free muni permanent. there are opportunities to pay for it outside of our enterprise revenues. we're not going to know about those now. we should approve it as a policy now. there are divisional

augmentations those went up a little. $38.5 million, all the division director worked really hard to keep that number at $39 million. it did bump up a little from $56 million to $65 million. that has to do with just part-time f.t.e. in the second year once we calculated it. here's the total budget expenditure and revenue details will give you hyper detail at the next meeting with the books. one follow-up from the last meeting was ridership projection. the specific question was, would the ridership support the fare revenues that refer projecting in the budget? i want to start with two years ago. some of you remember this chart when we were hitting the pandemic. at the top the dash line is what our normal seasonal ridership was pre-pandemic. often you hear the 700,000 riders. the blue line just assumed the

data telling us, we're going to lose the telecommuting, you just lost riders. people just moved. the goal was sort of, we're making adjustments for this, people only going to go to work three days a week.

up to the current month, assuming about 1.8% growth for the remaining months of the fiscal year, kind of reflect what we think the ridership will be. the interesting thing is, if you look at the projected in fiscal year '23 it is close to the gold bar we had about a year ago. we looked at it and that's kind of what it's showing. if you look at gold bars, we thought two years was shift in ridership. our actual projections based on today is equal to that being the scenario.

we do believe we can collect about $106 million in fare revenue. we could do better. part of it is, one thing that actually youth transportation advisory brought up to me, students and school as commuters, they all went back to work. they're all back, 100%. there's no part-time nothing. there's no three days a week. they are now all riding for free. workers, regular commuters are not back 100%. because of that, what we're collecting per rider is much lower than it usually is. as the city recovers and more people get back to work, we'll collect on average from customers is going to grow

exponentially. we have to realize the nature of the ridership is different now. even though we got a 50% ridership, we're not at 50% of our fare revenues. that's because the ridership is different we recommend that we

make it permanent. it's clear to the public that the program is permanent. around october, i will come back with a report to say how we ended up paying for it. that's staff recommendation. we did overall, look at the cost per your request of extending. if we wanted to extend free muni to people at 125% of federal poverty. that will be $11.4 million. the cost will be off fare revenue.

staff recommendation is, we should really wait for the fall, see what happens with the state. see what happens with the general fund. i think director heminger brought up, i'm comfortable with if that state funding comes n we should have a fresh look at the fare policy completely. we can do that with the experimental fare policy that we have already, we can make adjustments. now we get to the main event. budget augmentations and expenditures. it's 38.5 in fiscal year '23. it was important to us again to be responsive to what we heard from the public. first thing i will tell you is, one thing that we heard from the public -- i was at a meeting last week. one of the things they pointed out, we want you to explain in the budget how programmatically

you will do things. weapon don't care -- we don't care about street divisions. we have presented the augmentation in the form of programs that will show you how much we're spinedding and -- spending and augmentations related to that. here's the full list here. you'll see the amount in millions. $39 million and then $65 million. the $65 million a little bit is offset because those car cleaners are temporary position wise in the budget. they don't show up as an expenditure. we're paying for them anyway. this year the positions will be put in the budget. it's just continuing expense. that's a little bit of offset. i'm going to go through this quickly. all the division directors here are prepared to answer questions on their specific program. agency operation is just running the m.t.a. where we froze a bunch of positions like in

accounting and payroll, technology where we're trying to get the m.t.a. back to pre-pandemic levels of service internally with regard to support to our own employees and just running the agency day-to-day. the biggest part of the expense here is newell our technology and integration section. we have a number of significant capital projects, the radio project where now we're accepting the system. there are positions inspect -- also, position in government affairs to be more responsive to concerns from the board of

supervisors. lot of these positions were frozen. the apprenticeship program was a key component of filling our maintenance gaps across the agency. this makes that investment that we can start moving forward and developing staff internally to fill these critical positions. lot of discussion this evening about that. their position in the budget related to projects that will charge the campaign project that are not in the f.t.e.

like outreach related to service changes is ultimate with of them. being able to have translation services internal to the staff, having the graphic staff internally so we're not paying to do that work. does actually save us lot of money. these positions things that will be paid for by the operating budget and not by campaign by cl projects. customer experience program is probably one of the biggest elements to this. we want to invite all san franciscans to come back omuni. the agency is willing to make the investment as people are making their transportation choices and making the system better for everyone. i'm going to talk about safety. huge component is adding ambassadors to the system,

making permanent the car cleaners. thesis close to -- so that's close to 40 f.t.e.s. i think director yekutiel has brought up the quick fix program that julie has discussed. being out there and responsive as we get complaints about service or the quality of the service kind of qaqc, having staff available to respond to community concerns and complaints either through 311 or channel we received. we are taking customer service seriously. we welcome everybody back to the system as we reopen it and people are making their transportation choices. we are making that investment as the public asks us to do. hiring and training to get the staff, we need to bump up the h.r. division. we added about 20 f.t.e. that was $3 million that will

continue into fiscal year '23. these positions is on top of that. lot of that has to do with internal performance, managing the data. lot of the things that you asked kim ackerman for. we need to track the data and the performance. these positions are meant to support that. there's also significant investment in internal workforce development which is something our employees are looking for. and continuing to find the pact program. race, equity belonging -- we fully want to staff the group. 12 f.t.e. to get her the staff she required to implement lot of the programs that she has discussed with you in our race and equity action plan phase one and developing phase two.

safety training and system improvements, again, making sure the system is safe. we're following guidelines. making sure that the system is reliable. also, taking all the lessons learned and wins in innovation out of the d.o.c. and making that quick response permanent and being able to do that. that was an innovation out of the pandemic that we want to continue successful operation. those positions will be funded into the next fiscal year. service equity and explanation after a customer experience is the next thing. people want to be welcome back. they want it to be clean and safe and they want the service to be quick and reliable. this is another huge component. almost all of the staffing and supply and budgetary recommendations were things that came right out of the 2020 muni reliability working group. members of this board, the board

of supervisors, city controller office went through a meaningful process to come up with recommendations on how to improve the system. this is pre-pandemic plus making the down payment on the system so we come back better. improving street management in the system, system management improves the reliability of the system is key recommendation of the working group. removing disruptions related to maintenance. having the trades director tumlin noted, shortening the hours to get in the tunnel and not have overheadline disruptions, not having people stuck in the tunnel.

that's what this particular investment is. the service quality program is to, director lai brought thumb - brought this up. how we show the public the investments we've made and what the results have been. this is a key component of that. qaqc in the system. on the street management side, we added a bunch of p.c.o.s. we did not fill them off. we couldn't afford to.

recommendation is to make the etc program permanent so the budget funds that and funds the staff permanently to support that program. lot of the reforms, she needs the support and staffing to provide what the taxi industry needs. during the pandemic, when the agency was lean, that was not the top priority. it's time if we want to get back to full agency operations, in this area, we have the

sufficient staffing we need to take advantage of the innovations such as the e.t.c. program we had during the pandemic. bull also provide that support kind of post the court case to help the people who need it host. transit safety and security. this is the one that we've been talking about for two hearings it now. you look at the number and you're like, you're talking about spending millions of dollars. this looks like half million dollars and two f.t.e.s. the reason it looks like that way is because we have known for two years since the beginning of the pandemic, that the safety and security of the system was most important for san franciscans. i want to remind the board of things that were in the '22 budget that we added during the course of the pandemic. that was the pact program which is becoming permanent at

$200,000. we added 20 positions during the pandemic to the muni transit assistance program. if you recall, we did that in the last budget. even when we were cutting during the pandemic, we kept those positions in. $1.5 million. the board just before the pandemic, approved our new security contract. the security contract added $1.5 million and another 10 positions. six staff for the patrol of the subway were added. those were 30 positions. in this budget on top of the three nearly three and a half million dollars we invested during the pandemic, we are going to be adding another

$1.7 million, 22 positions for transit ambassadors. it is absolutely our intention to have a presence across all of our vehicles to closely monitor the system. the two positions you knee here are the people required to manage all of that. our chief security officer has no deputy and has not had one. the second position consistent with the board is, where is the data? where is the metrics? it's an analyst position to track and show the board how all of those investments are having impacts across the system.

honestly, this last two positions is on top of the 30 plus positions that we have added during the course of the pandemic that we still need to hire up for. not denying that. we still need to have a plan to distribute across the system to distribute those staff in right place at the right time to deal with customer concerns. i do want to be very clear that we have invested nearly $6 million in security and safety of the system since the pandemic began in march 2020. just to rhyme the -- remind the board, while we're going through wonderful things, there's a tradeoff. the trade-off is that our enterprise revenues simply will not recover sufficiently to continue to cover all the costs into fiscal year '25.

we tried different iteration. i told you the board that i wasn't comfortable increases the structural deficit. this investment is required to reopen the system and do it successfully. it is required for us to have our enterprise revenues recover. 18 months from now, we'll be discussing. there's going to be a deficit in fiscal year '25. the good news is the prudent decisions of this board have left us our 10% reserve in the worse case scenario. we are one of the few agencies in the united states that did not use the reserves to get

through this situation. we have that, i'm telling you this is the last tool that we have. we worked with m.t.c. to increase the federal relief. here are the projections. you'll see the long-term this becomes mission how do we close that gap and focus on revenue. there were lots of discussions about expenditures in the last hearing. this budget is pretty flat. the increase in the appropriated budget between fm year -- fiscal year '22 and what is proposed in fiscal year '23 is 4%. in the following year, the growth is just around 2%. that really demonstrates that we have worked very hard to continue the innovations that we

saw throughout the pandemic. all the divisions have worked towards finding deficiencies within our operation. we're only increasing the budget by 4%. i did want to address the expenditure question. we are working on work orders. i think everybody scaled to maximum community benefit at lowest cost. you'll see, we are just returning to what our projection was in 2009 for what we should be spending at this particular time. that expenditure line has not gone up. it returned to what it always supposed to be. with that, just to remind you, you will approve the muni service equity strategy at the next meeting which you are required to do. we will bring you the full books pending this discussion today at the next meeting. that includes, revenues,

expenditures, campaign budget -- capital budget and title vi analysis you will approve and then the transportation code amendments. they are part of the calendar item in draft. they are actively being worked on as we speak. if you attempt to make changes on the 19th, my staff has one day to make the changes in order to post on time in order to make the muni on the 26th. it's your option. that will be a very stressful situation and the last i heard, there was still only 24 hours in day. that is it. thank you. >> vice chair eaken: thank you. let's go to director questions.

director heminger. >> director heminger: jonathan, it will probably be helpful just to have the slides back up. i want to talk about two of your 77 slides. these are your augmentations. slide 28. $65 million in the second year of the budget, i added the f.t.e.s, it's over 300 f.t.e.s? >> yes. but in the second year, it gets to almost 70 f.t.e.s? >> director heminger: we're paying for that out of the federal aid right? >> yes. >> director heminger: federal aid runs out second year of the budget? >> we will have a little bit

left in fiscal year '25. that was always the plan. structural deficit goes even higher if we don't. we won't have $100 million left. there there $42 million left. >> director heminger: we're having a good part party and the party come to an end. can you turn to slide 43. i think you say on the slide before this that your forecast for '25 is a deficit of $76 million. then if you turn to 43, that grows to $135 million in '27. >> correct. >> director heminger: that includes all the augmentation? >> correct. >> director heminger: if you were to not have any of the

augmentations, we basically wouldn't have a deficit in '25? it's a pretty much one-to-one calculation. >> if we stuck with the baseline that we gave you in february, we were projecting about a deficit of about $24 million in the 25 to 26 period. but the deficit would not be to the levels that will be created. >> director heminger: we're still living in period of very significant revenue risk.

my advice will be to reconsider the strategy you're laying out here, which is basicallily to augment the budget by a significant amount. basically blow a hole in the first year after the budget year. you can take less risk if you did $30 million worth of augmentation instead of 60. what i worry about as presented is, you're taking the whole risk. more or less, this set of augmentations leads to equivalent deficit in '25. we're all going to be working our tails off to try to get a new revenue source. we're betting about that too. passing two thirds sales tack in san francisco is not what it

used to be. the bond measure isn't even fun anymore. it's two thirds. that's my advice for you. colleagues, that's advice i would urge you to consider as well. i think we're taking at least for me, too much of a risk with the full set of these augmentations. there must be some way to prioritize them. i think we ought to revisit that approach. >> director tumlin: i like to say little bit more about our budget strategy here. there is a significant amount of built-in risk to this strategy and it is strategic. we know that even if we were extremely conservative with our investments in the coming two years, we though that we still

need a new revenue measure in november 2024. even in the best case scenario. part of of what we're trying to do here is to build trust with the electorate. we know that we need to advance some spending in order to demonstrate what we're capable of. there's also a built-in backstop. it's not. only the ability to spend all the way up into the november 2024 election, it also gives us off ramps by cutting spending if things are not looking good. my goal with this budget

strategy is to push the throttle as far forward with risks that demonstrate what we're capable of while maintaining a break that will allow us to again shrink through attrition without the risk of layoffs. that is what we've crafted with this budget. >> director heminger: jeff, you can concede, i understand your strategy. that's good. we're on the same page as far as that goes. this strategy increases the risk of layoffs. it doesn't reduce them. it places an enormous amount of pressure on the first budget after '24 when all the federal aid is gone and we've had at least one or two elections and they've gone either bad or well. what i'm saying is, augmentation means extra in my view.

we'd all like to augment every budget we've seen. i don't think you're going to build trust with folks if you add these positions and activities in the budget and then two years later, you got to strip them out again. >> director tumlin: that's right. what we know is that some time at certain check points, weaver going to get a better sense of what is the likelihood being able to secure additional money. we are start backing off on expenditures well in advance. we can slow down hiring. one of the things we demonstrated during covid, when you stop hiring at sfmta, you shrink really quickly. we lost 20% of the agency. simply slowing down an expenditure is a pretty effective break that can minimize that risk of layoffs.

the fact that we're not burning through the reserves or through all of our federal funding, gives us that last backstop that we need to give us the time to shrink without having layoffs. >> director heminger: i don't want to prolong the conversation. i appreciate the insight. just look on the screen. this problem gets worse in a hurry depending upon what the revenue risk turns out to be in the real world. we're talking now about $76 million. it doubles in couple of years. then the interest. i would urge you to pause and rethink taking this much revenue risk with all of the augmentations you're proposing. >> director tumlin: one the other factors that we're considering as well is compared to the other large transit operators in the united states or even here in the bay area,

our team has managed our finances more skillfully. >> we thought this will be over in six months and our fare estimates are even lower what you approved in the last budget.

we'll see what happens with the state budget and general fund. lot of positions in the budget

we made them all contingent after quarter one of the next fiscal year to see what was going to happen. second traunch of them are contingent on january of 2023. you'll remember we had that october during the pandemic, hey, the revenues are not coming back at the pace we thought. they are flattening out. now we're going to start using some of the tools to manage expenditures to deal with the situation. i think a happy compromise, we should build resiliency to give the public what they expect and not be stuck in two years unable to do it because of appropriation. we don't have positions on the books. this board give us direction on, okay, if the revenues aren't looking good, this is the process by which i want you to start stepping things back. we can prepare something for you on that.

>> vice chair eaken: thank you. director lai, if it's okay with you, i love see if any of the directors have comments on the theme in particular? which is sort of question of how risk averse or how risk tolerant do we want to be. >> director lai: i will speak to that but i have other questions. i think my position has been leaning on the side of taking a bit more risks. i think through the past year or two i've been with the agency. my perspective is that, i think the current situation that we have agency wide, we've identified lot of hole. the augmentations to me it's really -- that's necessary part of functional agency. i don't really see it as

additive or optional. it's where we need to be in order to run the agency well. i don't feel that as currently budgeted, what we've been going through in the agency, it's reflecting the level of service that really our community and our economy really needs. >> vice chair eaken: any other directors that want to weigh in

on this question? >> director hinze: i'll be brief. i understand the hesitancy of folks willing to take on risks. i am sympathetic -- [ indiscernible ] this is how we're going to get

public back. i still have a little bit of apprehension around director heminger's concern. i do see these augmentations as a path forward to sustainable budget.

>> i think we can definitely do that. we structured it that way. the first off ramp where turn things on will be around october. the second will be in the december-january. we have a conversation like this during the board workshop and off budget year. we will revenues and risks. we'll have our year end numbers from fiscal year '22. that's what we did. last time. we had conversations about

slowing things down, stopping expenditures, cutting back on overtime. we kept the board informed. we also kept you and the public informed of the service and operational impacts of doing that. one thing that i do want to stress is that the staff is burned out. you are asking them to essentially provide 100% of m.t.a. service with roughly 75% of the resources. that is unsustainable. i think director lai said it right, the budget was designed to get back to normal agency operations. as people are coming back to the system, provide that service well. outreach is what the public expects of us.

>> director hinze: thank you. >> director cajina: i do share director heminger's concerns. that said, we are at a moment right now where there's this renewed energy around transit. there is this moment right now it feels like we have -- it is a big investment to try to ensure that our staff has the support they need. the public has the support they need to reengage in the system and that we have the infrastructure in place to really support that transition that mode shift in folks. i appreciate that there's thought around a contingency

plan. i will say that will be our safety net. we will have have continuous check-ins to ensure we making sound decisions. if we seeing things not go our way and we have to make adjustments -- i appreciate all

the work that you've done here and i guess those are my two cents. >> vice chair eaken: director yekutiel? >> director yekutiel: i share the apprehension of director heminger as someone that has run agencies like this before. i take your perspective on this very seriously. if it were a normal time, i think that apprehension would result in probably a request to

be more aggressive. these are not normal times. i think little bit about looking backwards 18 months. there's two options. we can choose to make investments in our agency and think, that didn't really work. she's are -- these are strange

times. i'm nervous and i'm afraid what it could mean in the future. we should be aggressive with all the different requests to make sure we're prioritizing all the things this will get our customers back. if we don't, we will really be in a much deeper state than we are. i trust jonathan that you and your team and director tumlin have understood that. we've given you that feedback and all of these conversations. i'm a little heartened to know that it netted 4% increase in in

the budget. it's not immense. that's my feedback. >> one thing that i would add is, this board took a lot of heat for not spending all the federal relief as quickly as it came if through the pandemic. we followed the data. the city wasn't reopening. we saw how many tourists were coming in the city. we made the decisions with a steady increase in service, investing heavily in maintenance and the reliability of the system. we got an extra $115 million. had we not gotten that, we would not be having this discussion now. i think the difference is, the city is reopening now. the data is showing that. the ridership is consistently

increasing. more people are going back to work. the last time we had this discussion, we thought it would but delta showed up. then omicron showed up. this time we're post a period where there's vaccinations, where people are more comfortable living this type of lifestyle. the city is reopening. the outreach what we heard from the public is, take the risk and spend the money on the system to get us back. i think then, that was the decision. it was prudent. it did work out for us and this agency here in the bay area and nationally. now the city is reopening. we need to have conversation. i'm not going to deny that there is risk associated with this. because there is. we were all juggling with the same issues you were all talking

about. i think that $115 million was the difference. do we spend this or close the structural deficit in '25 and '26 and keep everything the same. the outreach and the listening sessions with the public were a large component of what we are proposing to get people back. it's what we heard from the public. >> vice chair eaken: i want to thought all for weighing in. this feels like high level strategy question that the board should questly with. i appreciate how bold this strategy is. it's kind of fascinating. what i'm seeing little bit is that you lived through an impossible situation. you're almost -- we're emerging out of that more confident.

there's one silver lining. i'm seeing little bit more confidence. you're not being tentative. you could be quite fearful in this moment and you're showing the opposite. i think that's fascinating. i have two questions. given all the talk on hiring do we have the confidence we can hire the staff? >> that's a good question. i think you read the situation right, the definition of resiliency is to manage disruption. we developed a plan to deal with a rapidly changing situation where more confidence.

the data shows certain things. we developed systems to deal with it. when we come back on the 19th, there's an order of operation to these things. the first one we have to get the h.r. division staffed up. which is why we added the 20 f.t.e. last fiscal year. the emergence of omicron took lot of staff time on things not associated with hiring. lot of that staff time is spent on current labor negotiations. we can get past those things. this is the last traunch of staffing related to director ackerman's h.r.2.0. restoring agency operations, we got to get h.r. staffed up to hire the positions we need to hire. the other thing is lot of our hires, internal for the agency have been internal and well

deserved promotions. city recovery means that people will be comfortable coming to the bay area for work and for jobs. transportation will be a huge component of people making that decision. we are a component of that and that helps us. i think it is possible. i think we are working on reforms in the h.r. consistent with the muni reliability working group and the work that kim has done. this is aggressive hiring. again, that's built into the expenditure question that director heminger is talking about. it gives us the ability to flex and see what's going on. pump the break or push down on the gas. that's that confidence is resiliency. we have answers no matter what scenario might come to us. >> director tumlin: that we stabilized from the omicron same data team producing our omicron

response data about quarantine, we're now lending that team to h.r. to be able to put together a dashboard around hiring and promotions. so we can track and know how hard pushing forward for with that. provide you with updates as we go along. it is my number one issue at the moment. >> vice chair eaken: last question is another read between the lines i'm getting here. your willingness to go to the $75 million deficit. i read in that also some confidence in you both in your ability to solve the revenue challenge. help me understand where you're at in terms of that confidence that we'll figure this out.

>> we'll remember in august, you got transportation 2050. that's the plan how to raise revenues for the operations and the capital needs of the transportation system in san francisco. remember, i cored a -- covered a number of that part. we advocated for full federal relief both in the region, essentially muni fare share based on equity. we have heavily lobbied the state. in this budget, we'll see positive outcomes from the surplus the state has for transportation, key investments such as the train control system. the plan has been working up to this point. the next phase for us, which director heminger has to report back, how do we generate revenues off our property.

we all went through the long hearings on potrero. we continue to work on voter different options for the voters to provide us revenues. i think director tumlin said, we have the runway now to tale mature some of those ideas and vet them publicly. make something hamett based on - something happen based on the headline. >> director lai: maybe just to put that in context, can you start by fielding a question about the percentage of -- when we went into the budget workshop, we had lot of needs

presented to us. i believe that whole number is much larger what you're currently presenting as at augmentation. by no means are you coming to us saying like, just fund everything. can you share what percentage of the total agency need that was presented to you by staff funneling up through their managers. >> i think when we really ran the map on all the proposed programs and the things that we wanted to do if fiscal '24, that was running in the 160 to $180 million per year. you're looking at 65. 35 to 40% of -- perfect m.t.a., implementing everything muni reliability working group. doing all these amazing things we want to do on the street.

outstanding, fully funding and comes team. well over $100 million of augmentation. roughly 40%. >> director lai: one of the c.a.c. recommendations was to look for the defer in maintenance -- >> i think it was the opposite. they told us to stop doing that. stop shifting money from capital to operations. >> director lai: okay, i don't have a question there. i still do. i understand that there's a lot of strings attached to the capital funds. i feel like our operating side is trickier at this point. are there any additional opportunities that you see from it capital side that we should be looking at to fund services?

>> i think that the capital investments we have planned, like on the facility side, set us up for revenues from potential development. on the operating side, reduce the -- it's why we're so heavily investing in state of good repair to reduce long-term maintenance costs which start reducing that cost line year-over-year. i'm very concerned based on lock term commitments we've made on contracts like the board knows about potrero is coming up. we know the cost of that. we got l.r.v.4 contract. i can't explain to the board the impact of shifting permanently $40 million out of the f.t.e. i think we compensated. if the bond passes that, will help deal with that.

i would not recommend continuing that path. >> director lai: beyond the 30. >> in our 30-year projection, we assume 30 is permanent. >> director lai: i saw that in your presentation you noted that we are assuming zero wage fringe increases. >> we're assuming anything on top of bay area c.i.p. we made no assumptions around anything related to the contracts. those need to be completed before we put a number to it. >> director lai: what are we expecting? >> roughly 3% in '22 and 2.85 in fiscal year '24. >> director lai: okay.

>> this budget does give us a pathway for continued service increases. i think what's actually going to be our ultimate determinant is the pace of hiring. than will continue to be our

pace card as we put the throttle down. we do believe that the positions in this budget particularly the combination of the customer experience and service quality with the service equity expansion will allow us a pass for service recovery. what i think is really -- i really appreciate in all of your comments is we're prioritizing the quality of service while still trying to get as much overall service as possible. we've had past iterations of muni service that focused on just get the numbers out, get them on the schedule.

>> director lai: you believe under the current two-year budget that you're proposing, there a path to full pre-pandemic service restoration? if we hire fast enough, we have budget for the positions that are necessary? >> correct. >> director lai: there's two things i want to provide feedback on at this point. i already made this comment in

the earlier item today. i support in general the augmentations that you're making. i would encourage us to look at increasing our in-house outreach budget. i think that is very important. i don't know what the current two-year budget reflects. your slide shows the future two years of added positions. you happen to know what is the current outreach budget? >> i think we answered this question for director yekutiel. i want to say between consultant cost and staff roughly $4 million a year. >> director lai: i think you're adding half million. >> what we can do, project positions that charge back to capital projects for outreach

are essentially offset in the budget. they show as zero. i'm not showing those in this. you're using your general fund to cover the costs. there are more positions in the communications division that are proposed to be offset by project. largely because if the geobond passes we need to be ready. we have some significant work. when i come back own the 19th give you a complete picture.

>> this is when we report back on this, we have a plan and a strategy to how to deal directly with that. >> director lai: again, safety security. the whole thing. i think 2 verbally kind of tried to provide the overall picture of -- i can't repeat what you said, you mentioned lot of different positions and in

different group. i really appreciate wholistic view where are all these positions? i appreciate you reminding us that we funded 30 positions during the pandemic. my question is really how are we doing with those positions? are we funding the correct positions? one of the biggest highlights from the survey results was that safety and security top of mind for lot of riders. i am just hoping -- this is a new thing for us and our our agency to be addressing. i'm not sure how we're doing. i know we some staff. i don't have a good sense of is that really improving actual

safety of our riders. >> we do have kim on the phone to give us details. i will try to cover your questions. the question whether we've hired the right people. we made a commitment to focus on visibility. that was about getting more people in uniform reassuring presence on the system. because of the pandemic, positions that we budgeted -- those staff members are just joining the m.t.a. now. it's a little early to answer the question moving the needle.

that's really important thing for us to be transparent about and think about ato report back to you on. >> director lai: how are we planning on measuring how well we're doing with our investment with regards to safety and

security? we're putting in action. >> historically we tracked three general areas. there's the actual reporting crimes on muni. there's the customer survey perception on safety. there's physical things like vandalism. those are things we can be for transparent about. >> director lai: one of the other things i pointed out is the concern over the quality of the data collection. i know that she's been working with eother agencies like the police department to improve that data collection. based on the description on that, it seems like really big job for two people.

is it sufficient to manage all the safety and security of agency including data collection? >> we just finally filled permanently transit fare inspector management job. we've never had a deputy for kim. kim can't be everywhere every moment providing responses to security contract and she's not to manage this unit plus do all the data collection, management coordination. that's the manager position. that's one of the f.t.e.s that's requested. other one is an analyst. it's a principle analyst. it's the highest level analyst that you can have in the city and county of san francisco to do high quality management of

these contracts plus the data an will the tick -- data analytics that you're talking about. i don't think we have to have data analytics groups across the organization. it is a team approach across the organization to get that information. i think these two positions are to coordinate that, create the report, make sure there's the follow-up and manage the quality of the report and data they are receiving.

>> director lai: from where i stand, i feel like safety and security of our system, not just in transit but around our properties and our transit stations is really imperative. not only is it right thing we do that we are finally investing in protecting riders but also it's a huge hurdle according to the survey results for people to come back. not to mention really we need to be addressing violence on our operators too. that will go towards retention and all of that. it's really number one issue.

i am concerned whether or not we are appropriately allocating our resources here. it sounds like we can't answer that question now because we don't have enough runway in our data to reflect whether or not we're investing in the correct things. i definitely want to see where this goes. i'm kind of seeing this piecemeal throughout the budget. i'm not fully appreciating how it will all work together. i'm hoping for some sort of qualitative information about

that. if. professional staff is telling us that you think this is enough resources to really make a dent in improvement in our safety and security, i will take your word for it. i will be holding you accountable for that. if next year we don't see an improvement, we're going to revisit this seriously. >> vice chair eaken: director yekutiel? >> director yekutiel: thank you so much. tonight i have couple of questions. my first will be about the customer experience augmentation. i like to understand where we're at with the 615 investing in our bus shelter program, keeping our products clean for the public.

>> that's part of the customer experience program. i will talk about some changes we made to the budget where we reallocated expenditure and we're going to go with the shelter program. >> thank you, jonathan. they are related. we want to make sure that we are funding and empowering our public works department to be able to clean the shelters and not as you really powerfully presented, have them go around our shelters like a donut. we want clear channel to be focused on what they are strongest at. while grateful for all the customers that call into 311 and

flag issues, we do not want that to be our preventive maintenance program for transit stops. the customer experience team will include staff that is monitoring and tracking and holding both of these groups accountable to make sure that the joseph -- overall conditions of the shelters improve. make sure that the signage is accurate.

the tenderloin is home to families, immigrants, seniors, merchants, workers and the housed and unhoused who all deserve a thriving neighborhood to call home. the tenderloin initiative was launched to improve safety, reduce crime, connect people to services and increase investments in the neighborhood. as city and community-based partners, we work daily to make these changes a reality. we invite you to the tenderloin history, inclusivity make this neighborhood special. >> we're all citizens of san francisco and we deserve food, water, shelter, all of those things that any system would. >> what i find the most fulfilling about being in the tenderloin is that it's really basically a big family here and i love working and living here. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> my hopes and dreams for the tenderloin are what any other community organizer would want for their community, safe, clean streets for everyone and good operating conditions for small businesses. >> everything in the tenderloin is very good. the food is very good. if you go to any restaurant in san francisco, you will feel like oh, wow, the food is great. the people are nice. >> it is a place where it embraces all walks of life and different cultures. so this is the soul of the tenderloin. it's really welcoming. the. >> the tenderloin is so full of color and so full of people.

so with all of us being together and making it feel very safe is challenging, but we are working on it and we are getting there. i worked on the it for 16+ years and i workeded an endless cycle of people going to the emergency room. i wanted to address those unmet needs. i have a satisfaction when we make a real difference in our clients' lives. we were getting people housed, connecting them to treatment, and seeing them through sobriety. don't be afraid of failure. i have failed at things in my career and they are opportunities to continue on. it's important for women and women and people of color to

see representation matters. when i first started my career 25 years ago, there were not that many other women. so it is amazing to respond to meetings and go to meetings and see other female leaders and learn from each other. this career is my dream job from working on [ indiscernible ] to being the chief and overseeing a division. it's been challenging and >> he is a real leader that listens and knows how to bring people together. brought this department together like never before. i am so excited to be swearing in the next chief of the san francisco fire department, ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome, jeanine nicholson.

(applause). >> i grew up total tomboy, athlete. i loved a good crisis, a good challenge. i grew up across the street from the fire station. my dad used to take me there to vote. i never saw any female firefighters because there weren't any in the 1970s. i didn't know i could be a fire fighter. when i moved to san francisco in 1990, some things opened up. i saw women doing things they hadn't been doing when i was growing up. one thing was firefighting. a woman recruited me at the

gay-pride parade in 1991. it was a perfect fit. i liked using my brain, body, working as a team, figuring things out, troubleshooting and coming up with different ways to solve a problem. in terms of coming in after another female chief, i don't think anybody says that about men. you are coming in after another man, chief, what is that like. i understand why it is asked. it is unusual to have a woman in this position. i think san francisco is a trailblazer in that way in terms of showing the world what can happen and what other people who may not look like what you think the fire chief should look like how they can be successful. be asked me about being the first lbgq i have an understands because there are little queer

kids that see me. i worked my way up. i came in january of 1994. i built relationships over the years, and i spent 24 years in the field, as we call it. working out of firehouses. the fire department is a family. we live together, eat together, sleep in the same dorm together, go to crazy calls together, dangerous calls and we have to look out for one another. when i was burned in a fire years ago and i felt responsible, i felt awful. i didn't want to talk to any of my civilian friends. they couldn't understand what i was going through. the firefighters knew, they understood. they had been there. it is a different relationship. we have to rely on one another. in terms of me being the chief of the department, i am really trying to maintain an open

relationship with all of our members in the field so myself and my deputy chiefs, one of the priorities i had was for each of us to go around to different fire stations to make sure we hit all within the first three or four months to start a conversation. that hasn't been there for a while. part of the reason that i am getting along well with the field now is because i was there. i worked there. people know me and because i know what we need. i know what they need to be successful. >> i have known jeanine nicholson since we worked together at station 15. i have always held her in the highest regard. since she is the chief she has infused the department with optimism. she is easy to approach and is concerned with the firefighters

and paramedics. i appreciate that she is concerned with the issues relevant to the fire department today. >> there is a retired captain who started the cancer prevention foundation 10 years ago because he had cancer and he noticed fellow firefighters were getting cancer. he started looking into it. in 2012 i was diagnosed with breast canner, and some of my fellow firefighters noticed there are a lot of women in the san francisco fire department, premenopausal in their 40s getting breast cancer. it was a higher rate than the general population. we were working with workers comp to make it flow more easily for our members so they didn't have to worry about the paper work when they go through chemo.

the turnout gear was covered with suit. it was a badge to have that all over your coat and face and helmet. the dirtier you were the harder you worked. that is a cancer causeser. it -- casser. it is not -- cancer causer. there islassic everywhere. we had to reduce our exposure. we washed our gear more often, we didn't take gear where we were eating or sleeping. we started decontaminating ourselves at the fire scene after the fire was out. going back to the fire station and then taking a shower. i have taught, worked on the decontamination policy to be sure that gets through. it is not if or when. it is who is the next person.

it is like a cancer sniper out there. who is going to get it next. one of the things i love about the fire department. it is always a team effort. you are my family. i love the city and department and i love being of service. i vow to work hard -- to work hard to carry out the vision of the san francisco fire department and to move us forward in a positive way. if i were to give a little advice to women and queer kids, find people to support you. keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep trying. you never know what door is going to open next. you really don't.

[cheers and