happened across the city coming out of this pandemic. i have much love and respect for the tl, the people of the tl. i know we have work to do there. most certainly, we're not going to continue to neglect district 10 and say we only want to provide resources to one neighborhood in san francisco. and i don't care how you write it, i don't care how you present it. we cannot do this and, then, walk away and say we want an equitable and just budget. so i don't care if we make the decision today. they should not be getting this money for this department for this service. which, by the say, has not been made clear what they want to do with the resources. >> thank you. i'm confused. i want clarity whether or not the staffing for this is included in this $4.2 million or if it's separate from it? >> so the staffing is separate. so it's $4.2 million plus the

three staffers. >> is that right? i thought it was $4 million plus the three staffers. we can get clarity on it. it's $4 million plus three staff. >> it's $4 million plus the three staff -- >> i'm not sure where the $200,000 comes from. >> b.l.a. >> actually -- sorry. i need to -- this isn't a programmatic project line. so just looking at the budget, we don't have the detail for that. we have to get it from the department. i can look into my documents to see if we have details on hand. but i'm not slur if the -- i'm sorry. i can't speak to that at this moment. >> my understanding, $4 million, $200,000 is clearly not just -- that's too little for three staff people at the level.

so... >> so that's correct. so the staffers are not included in the $4.2 million. the $4 million is for the community grants. and my understanding is that $200,000 is for other contract services associated with this effort. but the bulk of the investment was the $4 million to support the tenderloin grants. does not include the staff. >> so all $4 million of that money goes straight to the tenderloin? it's not -- okay. i think we have a lot of questions about this that we're not going to answer right at this money. so i think we can continue to ask those questions. i completely understand and agree where you're coming from, president walton. i just want to dig a little deeper. super mar. >> supervisor mar: thank you. i just wanted to request if the mayor's budget office could provide us with a summary of all the proposed new investments in

the tenderloin mid-market and also the downtown area, you know, across the different departments. there's this -- we have -- some of this discussion that came up in the oewd budget hearing yesterday. i know there's a number of other departments with investments in the t.l.a. market in the downtown core. it would be helpful to see that summarized in one document. the t.l. mid-market and downtown recovery are high priorities in the budget. it would just be helpful to see that all together. >> supervisor ronen: yes, supervisor, we could put together a summary of those items for you. thank you, supervisor mar. that would be helpful. thank you. to the controller's office, note it's the committee aentinges to accept the planning department's budget with the b.l.a. technical adjustment recommendations. we will be continuing to discuss

the policy recommendations, including -- i just want to put this on the record, the three positions that are not included in the budget and legislative analyst policy recommendations that are attached to this project. >> we'll get you information this afternoon on those three positions, the costs, their job descriptions, as well as the community plan, which is kind of a summary of what they're requesting and the costs. >> supervisor ronen: that's great. before you go -- oh, you don't have a question. okay. that sounds great. >> thank you very much. >> supervisor ronen: talk to you later. okay. so next up, we have the department of emergency management.

>> our recommendations for the department of emergency management are summarized on page 109 of our report. our recommended reductions to the proposed budget total, 454,000 fiscal year 2022-2022. $174,000 are ongoing savings. $312,365 one time savings. these reductions would allow increase of $14.9 million. or 12.3% of the department's fiscal year 2022-2023 budget. in addition, we recommend closing out prior year unexpended encumbrances of $105,348 for total general fund savings $559,988. we also have a policy recommendation totaling $3 million in fiscal year 2022-2023. which is one time savings.

our recommended reductions to the proposed budget total $139,116 in fiscal year 2023-2024. all of which are ongoing savings. these reductions would allow increase of 4.4 -- or $4.35 million or 3.2% of the department's fiscal year 2023-2024 budget. our understanding, we have agreement with the department on our technical recommendations. but that -- there is agreement on the policy recommendation, which is contained on page 111 of our report. that is $3 million recommended reduction to specialized -- under emergency services. the department's proposed 2022-2023 budget, includes $3 million and one time funding or -- sorry. alternative street response pilot program. according to the department, community-based organization will be selected through a

competitive bid process to provide non-law enforcement response to nonemergency calls with the goal of reducing the number of nonemergency crisis and street condition calls the police department is called to respond to. the board of supervisors approved -- in budget cycles including various response and outreach teams in the fire department, department of public health, the department of homeless and supportive housing. to be a policy matter for the board to consider. we're available for questions. >> supervisor ronen: great. before i turn it over to you miss carol, i just wanted to note that, you know, i continue to remain committed to c.a.r.t. and i just wanted to make it

clear when we are, you know, sort of describing this line item in this program, that there are three aspects of this funding that attached to this funding. if that makes sense. so those three aspects. and director carol and i talked about this. that this needs to be a new team. that it is a team that is meant to respond to level c calls that come into 911. that are, then, diverted away from the police. and then, number three, it's run by a community-based organization. so i just want to note that in whatever sort of description ends up in the final budget that those are the three fundamental aspects of c.a.r.t. that we expect the department to adhere

to. but i don't think this committee has changed our agreement with and support for this program and our thoughts that is needed within the community. director carol. >> thank you, chair ronen. good morning, everyone. for the record, i agree with you on these three items. the mayor's office directed this $3 million in one time spending to d.e.m. to launch a police alternative community response to nonemergency and nonmedical calls. these funds were the result of community-led conversations that resulted in the report. since the c.a.r.t. report was issued and as the b.l.a. noted, we have a city launched several police alternatives outreach teams, including crisis, wellness, and overdose

prevention, which are street cred's response team and overall response team. the street response teams currently are running 24/7, and the -- this money is to execute a pilot program based on the c.a.r.t. report that would address calls not currently addressed by the current outreach teams. i'll leave it there and happy to answer questions anyone has. >> supervisor ronen: doesn't look like there's any questions. and you are in agreement with all the technical -- >> yes, in agreement with the technical. >> supervisor ronen: okay. to the controller, note it's this committee intention to accept the department of emergency management's budget with b.l.a. technical recommendations and we plan to

reject the b.l.a. policy recommendation. >> okay. great. thank you so much. >> supervisor ronen: all right. thank you. take care. >> thanks. >> supervisor ronen: okay. next, we have up the rec and park department. as the rec and park department is coming up, mr. clerk, i'm wondering if you could call file number 220693. >> clerk: yes, madam chair, file 220693 is unfinished from the june 22nd agenda. it's a resolution authorizing the recreation and park department to amend its agreement with the francisco park concertificate vi to provide sbc credit $443,000 to fund maintenance at francisco park the next four years -- members of the public who wish to provide public comment on

this resolution, should call 415-655-0001. meeting i.d. is 24932267048 and press pound twice. if you haven't done so, press star 3 to line up to speak. the system prompt will indicate you raised your hand and you may begin your comments. madam chair. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. and colleagues, i would like to make a motion to continue this item file number 220693 to the call of the chair. do i need to open up for public comment? that continuance? >> clerk: yes, we would have to. >> supervisor ronen: and could i get a second on the motion? >> second by president walton. >> supervisor ronen: could we open this item up for public comment on the continuance. >> clerk: yes, madam chair. members of the public who wish to speak on the continuance of this item that are joining us in-person, line up to speak now. for those listening remotely,

call 415-655-0001 enter i.d. 2493226748 pound and pound again. enter star 3 to enter the speaker line. continue to wait until the system indicated you're unmuted and that would be cue to give your comments. and... madam chair, we have no callers in the cue. >> supervisor ronen: public comment is now closed. [gavel] >> supervisor ronen: can we have a roll-call vote on the motion? >> clerk: on this motion item continued to the call of the chair. [roll-call vote] >> clerk: we have five ayes. >> supervisor ronen: that motion passes unanimously. sorry about that. i wanted to get that out of the way. [gavel] >> supervisor ronen: rec and park's budget.

>> our recommendations for the recreation and park department are summarized on page 61 of our report. our recommended reductions to the proposed budget total $356,292 in fiscal year 2022-2023. all of which ongoing fafshings. in addition, we recommend closing out prior year unexpended unencumbrances for total general fund saving of $447,000. we have policy recommendations totaling $522,456 in fiscal year 2022-2023, all of which ongoing. our recommended reductions to the proposed budget total $384,040 in fiscal year 2023-2024. of that amount, $455,040 are ongoing savings. $28,442, one time savings. these reductions allow an increase of about $4.8 million or 2% in the department's fiscal

year 2023-2024 budget. our policy recommendations for fiscal year 2023-2024 total $671,329. all of which are ongoing. my understanding, we have agreement on our technical recommendations with the department. but not with our policy recommendations, which are detailed on page 63 -- 63 and 64 of our report. and those are that the department is requesting four new 8208 park rangers. and i believe one new -- i'm sorry, two new 8210 head park rangers. so with the 8208 park rangers, which is recommendation number 5 on page 63 of our report, again, the department is requesting -- sorry, eight new 8208 park rangers in fiscal year

2022-2023. and it's -- we consider enhancement to be policy matter for the board due to increase in enforcement positions. the board may want to consider we -- we laid out three options as we have done in other policy recommendations. that the board could consider funding the full cost of all eight positions at a cost of $802,256 annualized at about $1.03 million in fiscal year 2023-2024. you could delete the entire request for savings of the same amounts. or you could delete funding for four of the eight proposed positions for savings of $401,128 in fiscal year 2022-2023 as shown in recommendation number 5 on page 63 of our report. the third option would allow the department to fire four new 8208

park rangers next year and still allow the department to enhance public safety presence. similarly, recommendation number 6 on page 63 of our report, the department is requesting two new 8210 head park rangers for fiscal year 2022-2023. and if the board were to fully fund this request, at a cost of $242,656 in the first year. annualized to $311,470 in the second year. deletion of the entire request would render savings of that amount. we also propose deleting funding for one of the two proposed positions for savings of $121,328 in the first year and $155,735 in the second year. we're available for questions if you have any. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. so to start with, you agree with the technical recommendations?

>> that is correct. director of administration and finance. we are in agreement on the technical recommendations. >> supervisor ronen: your position towards the policy recommendations? >> yes, so the policy recommendations, i think the one in the report specifically is a cut from ten park rangers down to five. they would cut four 8208s and one 8210. we have a counterproposal that would allow us to keep ten positions with a one time attrition adjustment. because we believe we wouldn't be able to hire -- or bring on the positions until of the end of the year resulting in one time adjustment of $300,000 as well as staff adjustment to say account for staff being brought in and hired at the step 1. which would be $119,000 in year two or year one and $181,000 in year two. and so that was our counterproposal. unfortunately, we're unable to come to an agreement. we would -- we really believe that ten park rangers are the

right amount. we asked for more from the mayor's office. but we're happy to take questions about that. chief david murphy of the park rangers is here to answer any technical questions as well. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful. commissioner chan. -- i mean, supervisor chan. [laughter] >> supervisor chan: thank you, chair ronen. i think my question is could you actually elaborate why do we need additional park rangers? and where would they be deployed? and how would they be deployed? >> i can give a brief on why. specifically, looking broadly at the system, our director of operations danny kern worked with university of southern california to analyze how many park rangers do we need for system of our size and complexity. 49 square miles of san francisco. aspirationally we requested this. the thought was we needed additional 40. we received ten in the budget proposal.

basically, this is 24/7 operation. so even though the department would be receiving ten total positions, if you split that up between three shifts a day and swing and night shift, you break that down just on the 8208 dlas, the regular rangers to two and four. and then, add on top of that, that is seven days a week, when people really are only working 40 hours, that's even less. and you have vacation, holiday, you know -- >> supervisor chan: how many do you current have, though? >> we have 50 total positions right now. 50 total positions in the park ranger program. >> supervisor chan: and again, i have said that last week and i'm going to say this again. but you do have -- i asked that question. you do have park hours? >> yes, we do have park hours. unfortunately, not all residents of san francisco obey the park hours. but you are correct. that people should not be in the parks at night. >> supervisor chan: totally. but with 50 they're spes? >> yes, 50, we want to be

exact, 50.5. >> supervisor chan: 50.5. and i said this too last week. is that for a homeless outreach team? i'm putting this in perspective, because just time and time again, i think one of the top concerns that our constituents and really city-wide have, it's, you know, how do we really medicate the homelessness that we see? how do we do this? and i have said that last week and learned that our homeless outreach team, again, only very modest of 52 f.t.e.s city-wide. i would say they too probably work around the clock. i don't understand and i'm not saying this because of rec and park department asking -- requesting for, you know, staffing, but i said this with oewd, too. you know about ambassador programs.

so again, i'm just putting things in perspective to on top of the 55 or 50.5 that you already have for additional ten, that's around 60 city-wide. i'm -- i have great respect for the park rangers, and i think that the park rangers have done wonderful work all around our parks. but i just don't understand the deployment. i don't understand the area that you cover. it's not clear to me why do you need additional more than beyond what you currently have which is 50 city-wide? yes, you have -- i think yous function similar to sfpd with morning swing and night. i totally understand that, you know, you want to cover as much as many areas as you can. but again, i don't see the need for that.

so i am in a line with the recommendation with b.l.a. i know that there's three different options for us. i am inclined to see partial, you know, funding for this to see perhaps what delay of hiring for more cost saving. but that's where i stand on this issue. but if -- i think if -- i see that there's an eager -- [chuckling] >> chief david murphy can expand on our deployment. >> madam supervisor, madam chair, thanks. as far as deployment, just so you know, the -- the parks are closed, right, at night. but if we don't have any enforcement at night to move people out of the parks, they become camping grounds. and that's across all 11 districts. i would tell you also at night we have multiple buildings that are alarmed. just two weeks ago, the alarm

went off at beach l.a. at the bottom of golden gate park. we responded with san francisco fire to give them access. luckily, the alarm was just an electrical smoke fire, but it could have been much worse. if we don't have rangers 24/7, the reaction to those calls will be significantly delayed. we take care of multiple c priority calls to 911 that go to 311 that come to the rainingers. we take care of the citizenry for the very simple things that the sfpd is way too busy to deal with. and that is be it golden gate park, mcclairen park, the mosconi, across the city. at times, we have only two or three rangers on the midnight shift. we also have to secure the facilities and make sure gates

are secure, whether it's twin peaks or the marina green. so we currently have approximately 14 on day watch. 14 on swing watch. ten on midnights. that's generally breaking it down to three. but we do vary some of the schedules. our bike unit in golden gate park works from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and that adjusts when daylight savings time moves back, because those are the operative hours there. we try to spread across the city as best we can. we have to surge efforts sometimes. events dictate that that happen in parks or recreation centers, where we're asked to have a uniformed presence. as far as uniformed presence in the city, we are the best deal that the city has going compared

to sheriffs and p.d. i'm not disparaging sheriffs or p.d. because i come from the sheriff's office. we've worked with both the sheriffs and the san francisco p.d. in multiple areas, whether deloris park is one with the mission station as well as with captain channing -- or canning rather at u.n. plaza to help with the problems there and the mayor's focused efforts. >> supervisor chan: thank you. i, again, i think which is why i appreciate b.l.a.'s recommendations. i do agree that in some way that this is a -- well, it is a policy point of view, and my point of view is that we already have sfpd, who is also asking for increase of staffing. we have sheriff's department, like you said. we have our first responder. we have our street crisis response team.

we have our homeless outreach team. we have ambassadors and programs all around the city. and now, i think we're trying to add police officers again in a concentrated area. i don't know how many more of these ambassadors of law enforcement that we need in this city to either keep us safe and keep us maintained. i think that is a policy question that not for you, but for us as a committee, but as a city and city government. at which point is enough? and how much is enough? how many is enough? and i'm glad that you had a study about park rangers. but i cannot -- there's no independent verified of that study. also, let's be mindful that we are also both in a space where

we have procidio and federal park police within san francisco, city and county and san francisco. so i have a lot of questions about whether this level of staffing is necessary from rec and park department when we already have many law enforcements and first fonder departments that also are asking for increased for staffing. thank you, chairwoman. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. and i just want to echo your points. and just ask one clarifying question. so the park ranger study, was that done in connection or taking into account the, you know, increase in budget to the police and sheriff? and then, all the teams that supervisor chan mentioned, we have ten of them. we have ten different teams that are responding to people in crisis in the streets or

neighborhood complaints and concerns. we are increasing those teams constantly. we have another one with c.a.r.t. we just discussed coming online. it seems there's a point we're saturating the city with so much enforcement. and really, not investing that money into prevention. and giving so much enforcement is about people and mental health crisis or substance use disorders or, you know, other things that have some really complicated root causes, where we should be investing a lot of this money. i'm just -- i just wanted to clarify whether or not that report was taken in consideration with all the other investments in the city? >> yes, i believe that report was over five years ago. so whatever investments have been made within san francisco government, i'm not sure that it

would take into consideration of those. >> supervisor ronen: got it. >> i think it's a comparison, parks department. >> supervisor ronen: got it. that's good to know. supervisor safai. >> supervisor safai: thank you, madam chair. i think what is more informative -- i understand there was a study, but chief murphy -- sorry. you're distracting. chief murphy, have you seen an increase in calls for service over the last few years? >> supervisor, with all due respect, i've been there six months. >> supervisor safai: i got it. >> i would tell you in my six months -- >> supervisor safai: maybe someone else could answer that. i think that's one of the most telling things. we did that analysis last year with the fire department for their e.m.t.s. over a course of a six-year period their calls for service had gone up dramatically. >> that's correct. looking within our work order

systems, calls for vandalism, up 61% between 2020 and 2021. >> supervisor safai: so my thing is and just i share a couple of the other supervisors, one of the second largest park in the city, when you look at 50 park rangers for a city of 775,000 people, 800,000 people, that's one park ranger for about 16,000 residents. it just doesn't seem proportionate. it seems -- and then, if you think about the increase in calls for service, i can tell you the calls that we have gotten particularly after we had our community process with the murders that happened more recently in alice chomers, our community is asking for more park rangers. it's not just calls for service for unhoused residents. it's for vandalism. it's for unruly behavior. it's for illegal vehicles.

and other types of behavior within the parks. all the things that you know. so i would imagine that was probably part of the reason why you asked for even more rangers based on the need that you all have demonstrated the last few years. when is the last time you've seen an increase in additional rangers? >> it's been three years. we've been static in terms of the total staffing. >> supervisor safai: right. so i mean, i would say even over the last couple of years during shelter in place and covid, the amount of usage in the parks has gone up. it's not gone down. so for me, i mean, i would like to see absolutely the park rangers are funded. it's something that our community has asked for. so i am not in support of deleting park rangers in anyway. can you tell us more about you had a proposal that you were going back and forth with. what was the difference in cost

savings? you said ten hires with attrition. what was the additional cost savings -- what was the difference in savings between what the b.l.a. is proposing? they've given us three options. >> so between i believe the policy recommendation for us to cut from ten to five, including both classes, in year one, fiscal year 2022-2023, the b.l.a. policy recommendation would result in $522,456 in savings. while the rec park recommendation would result in $419,000 in savings. >> supervisor safai: that's a difference of only -- >> it's about $100,000. >> supervisor safai: $100,000. >> it's greater in fiscal year 2022-2023 -- i'm sorry, 2023-2024. $671,359, if the position -- five positions are cut. and in fiscal year '23-24 we're proposing $181,000 reduction in

our budget. that is nearly $500,000 difference but still funding fiscal year allows us to hire on time. >> supervisor safai: seems to me, you could do better time and come up with better compromise. maybe it's one or two positions with the attrition savings. maybe that would get you the savings that are equivalent. thank you, madam chair. >> supervisor ronen: okay. so it looks like we want to consider this a little bit more. so to the controller, please note that it's this committee's intention to accept the rec and park's budget with the b.l.a.'s technical recommendation. and that we will be continuing the discussion on the policy recommendations. thank you. next, we have the district

attorney. >> budget and legislative analysts recommendations for the district attorney's office are summarized on page 80 of our report. recommended reduction to the proposed budget totaled $210,665 in fiscal year 2022-2023. 113,000 are ongoing savings, $97,009 are one time savings. these reductions would allow increase of $3,146,634 or 3.9% of the department's fiscal year 2022-2023 budget. in addition, we recommend closing out prior year

unexpended -- $54,869 for total general fund savings of $265,534. our policy recommendations to $3,502,465 in general fund savings in 2022-2023, which are ongoing. recommended reductions to the proposed budget total $30,000 to 2023-2024, ongoing savings. these reductions allow increase of $1.6 million or 1.9% of the department's fiscal year 2023-2024 budget. policy recommendations total $3,566,965 in general fund savings in 2022-2023, which are ongoing. our understanding is that district attorney -- i believe they agree with the technical recommendations but not the policy recommendations.

our policy recommendations are detailed on page 83 and 84 of our report. and i'll just briefly walk through those. the first is the victim services program. which totals $2,560,491. we note in our report that in june 2022, the san francisco voters passed proposition d, establishes and creates the office of victim and witness rights. and is not clear how the city will allocate resources for this new office. many functions of which now reside within the district attorney's office. the department currently has dedicated employees as well as contracts under this program. with total proposed annual budget of $2,560,491. for next year. and we consider it policy matter for the board of supervisors considering ongoing operations

for the department's victim functions as transfer of functions has been determined. that's recommendation number 8. recommendation number 9, are two trial attorneys and two victim witness investigator 2s. the department has four vacant positions in general fund. these include two 8721 trial attorneys which vacated this month. and two 8331 victim witness investigators two which vacated march this year. because these positions were recently vacated and not considered for deletion by our office, we consider continued authority and funding of these positions policy matter for the board of supervisors. recommendation 10, regards to 81 -- victim investigator 1. the department has two recently vacated off budget positions.

one 8177 trial attorney, which vacated may of this year. one 8129 victim investigator one, vacated may of this year. either of which the department is actively recruiting. because these positions are recently vac indicated and not funded by the general fund, we consider continued authority and funding for these positions policy matter for the board of supervisors. and finally, recommendation number 11, is in regards to a 8133 victim witness investigator 3. the department has one vacant 8133 victim witness investigator 3 which was newly established in this year. and it's grant funded. we consider continued authority for funding for the position to be policy matter for the board of supervisors. again, the total of our policy recommendations for the first year are $3,669,771. and in year two, $3,000,735

$425. we're available for questions. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. good morning. you're okay with the technical adjustments. >> yes. >> supervisor ronen: can you tell us your position about the policy recommendations? >> good morning, chairperson ronen and committee. we're prepared to accept the technical recommendations. we have our chief of finance and administration online, who will be logging in if we can have permission granted to eugene mcclenon. he has a presentation. i'm joined by our assistant chief of finance and our chief of victim services. we'll be available to answer questions afterwards. thank you.

>> supervisor ronen: mr. clerk, the individuals. >> clerk: yes, to the chair. i do see mr. mcclennon on and logged on. i see your lips moving, but we couldn't hear you. yes, your mic is active -- there we go. we hear you now. >> hear me now >> clerk: yes, we can. >> all righty. sorry about that. good morning. my name is eugene mcclenden. we are in agreement with the technical recommendations. we are not in agreement with the policy recommendations.

as it results to recommendation number 8, the department remains poised to work in cooperation with all interested parties in the establishment of the office of victim and witness rights to ensure the will of the voters and any decisions of this committee. we expect this will require very methodical process to understand the role of the office being created, how the office will intersect with the activities of the district attorney and redundancies laying out roles. without the planning process, we cannot ensure process to the 8,000 victims served annually, remain in place without disruption. this includes victim advocacy and support they provide. there's many things to consider in any transition. for us, impact on grant funding, day-to-day workflows, implementation of crucial emergency services, communication lines and many more. the request to the department is to allow planning process as is before prompting to occur before

making significant adjustments. as it relates to recommendations 9 and 10, the department would like to request these positions not be deleted but for the ability to work with analysis to come up with appropriate attrition adjustment. these positions are critical to ongoing operations. delay in hiring will lead to cascading effects on the remaining staff. managing staffing levels the past few years, has been a major concern. as we've seen, many employees depart due to the high pace and high stress environment by the high case lows. there's constant recruitment, bringing in mid-level to senior trial attorneys to fill vacancies. all six positions are permanent exempt. we can fill exempt positions within 2-3 month period. in one of the vacancies we have a candidate this morning we

would like to extend an offer to, but we're waiting on the outcome of this hearing. as it relates to recommendation number 11, this is a grant funded federal -- federally funded grant program. that was approved by the board of supervisors this past september. the position is for alternative sentencing planner. to be hired in the second year of implementation. the we're currently still in the first year implementation. any reduction to this position would not result in general fund savings and not allow us to fulfill the obligations of the grant. i'm poised to answer any questions along with my colleagues. >> supervisor ronen: okay. thank you. i understood you had a presentation that we didn't receive, but my staff is bringing up copies. so what is the entire budget of the victims services unit?

>> the entire budget for the victims -- >> i'm sorry. may i handout the victims services fact sheet that you prepared that has the budget? we did send it this morning. i'm not sure if chair ronen or supervisors received it. thank you. the budget is on the back. >> supervisor ronen: are those copies already? or are you making copies? oh, great. nikita, we have copies, so no need to bring them. >> thank you. >> supervisor ronen: oh, here is the -- it's 7.229 is the full amount. so the voters voted for proxy and my understanding is that

they want a separate unit applied to the district attorney's office to provide these services. i understand it's going to take time and there will be a process to create a -- the new victims services office under prop c. my understanding is that this is a major priority of katherine stephanie, and many people in the city hall. and so i expect that it's going to be created next year. i think if we accept the district attorney -- the budget and legislative analysts recommendation for d.a.t.-9, and take the vacant positions that you haven't had infilled anyway, that you'll still have plenty of staff and budget necessary in order to run that unit until prop d is created. and at that point, we will come

back and look if we need to reduce the size of that department even more and transfer that money over to prop d. so colleagues, it's my intention to accept the budget and legislative analyst's recommendation d.a.t.-9. do you want to respond to that? >> i did. thank you, chair ronen and supervisors. i'm casey lee, the chief of victims services in the d.a.'s office. i understand, chair ronen, what you did. with the passage of prop d, there's going to be creation of a new victims services office. and that has -- without more of a concrete plan, it has kind of left a lot of questions and answers about what the transition will look like. and so on. one thing we wanted to kind of just talk about here is this is on the fact sheet. the san francisco district attorney's victims services office is still the major provider designated by the city administrative code under section 28.70.

and as such, this is under -- i'm going to cite some law. under code 13.85.5, every victim assistance program in had all the jurisdictions in the counties of california are required to carry out mandatory services. they list the services. so that is something that our division has been doing, especially in the past year, we have really built out victims services under the d.a. and bringing very trauma-informed services to our victims. and i can give just an example. last week, there was a tragedy in the mission. a 21 year-old was killed in a hit-and-run. in that case, our victim services division reached out to -- there were multiple victims, not just the deceased victim but also passengers in the two different cars. we reached out, worked with city agencies to make sure that the

families are connected. first to victim compensation, because funeral and burial, as you know, could be expensive in the bay area. so making sure we're doing as much as we can to mitigate the financial impact of crime and not put people further into debt. and these -- especially this victim had a big family. and also mono lingual family, spanish speaking. and that meant pouring resources into finding the right linkage to trauma treatment. so that they can get through this crisis, but also because when we don't do that, the trauma turns into something much greater later on. and it's intergenerational -- >> supervisor ronen: let me just interrupt you. i have no doubt this office, especially under d.a. godine's leadership, because attention to victims was a top priority for that district attorney, i have no doubt the work you do is extraordinary. i've seen it throughout the

years. what i'm saying is that the voters want a change of direction. and they created a new unit. and so you should have plenty of money with, you know, over $6 million until this unit -- i mean, even if this new unit, which takes over some of that work, ends up happening mid-year, you know, in the middle of the fiscal year or even towards the end of the fiscal year, you should have plenty of resources to maintain the quality and the level of services that you're offering now until that office is set up. if that's not the case, you could come back to this body and seek additional resources. >> if i might just respond to that just briefly. that was my point, is that there are -- it's absolutely not true we have enough resource to say carry through. we need to fill those positions. our advocates right now, they've harder than i've ever seen.

like other people in the public sector work. they provide all of these services that are listed here. but their caseloads are extreme. we're talking about sometimes 300 to 400 cases, including charged cases. and uncharged cases. what i'm talking about, just that one case, that one family and people impacted in just that one, when we take away even one victim services position, that means hundreds of families being impacted. and you know, but we really need to make sure that we have additional advocates to serve victims in san francisco. so i understand where, chair ronen, we're headed into potentially having this new city agency that serves victims. but in the meantime, i do fear that with our high caseload and the importance of these cases, that we wouldn't be able to adequately serve victims and survivors without these positions. >> supervisor ronen: how long

have these positions -- go over all four of them. how long have they been vacant? >> that may be a question for mr. mcclenon. there were two 8229s listed before. that one has been taken away because it's been filled. there's a person hired for that one coming in july. the second one, we have somebody being trained -- >> supervisor ronen: i understand. that's not the question i asked. the question i asked is how long have these positions been vacant? >> i think eugene should answer. >> supervisor ronen: is he on? >> yes. i'm on. the two victim advocate positions have been vacant since mid-march. >> supervisor ronen: these are the victim witness investigators? or these are the -- >> yes. >> supervisor ronen: or the trial attorneys? >> the victim witness

investigators twos. >> supervisor ronen: so mid-march. what about the trial attorneys? >> two trial attorneys were vacated in june, early june. >> supervisor ronen: so just recently? >> yes, they just vacated. as i stated previously, when we have a candidate to already send an offer letter for one of those positions. we're waiting on the outcome of this hearing. >> supervisor ronen: okay. i have one other question before i turn it over to my colleagues for the budget and legislative analyst. you know, much ado has been made throughout the recall campaign and et cetera about turnover when new district attorneys take leadership. this was -- this is a very unique position -- or scenario, where we have a district attorney who was elected on a

clear mandate that was very specific. and then, was recalled from, you know, supposedly because he actually did what he said he was going to do. so we can imagine that the next appointed d.a. is not going to have that same sort of orientation to prosecution and to the office. and so therefore, there's going to be an unusually large amount of turnover. was that taken into account by you when you calculated your attrition population? >> it was not, chair ronen. we conducted a technical inner review of the proposed budget. >> supervisor ronen: how would you go about accounting for what we all know is going to be an unusual amount of attrition in the office? so new hires and people being fired and leaving and perhaps it's happening -- twice in one

fiscal year, someone else is elected in november. >> right. i would say that our review looked at historical turnover. and projected term for the current year. that would not necessarily include what changes might take place because of a recall and change in leadership. >> supervisor ronen: okay. i would like the b.l.a. -- i know there's no precise science to this. the i would like the b.l.a. and given all your experience, to calculate a sense of, you know, if there is potentially turnover twice in one fiscal year in this office, what that might mean for the attrition line item. >> okay. >> supervisor ronen: i'm curious about that. >> may i respond to that? >> supervisor ronen: sure. >> i'm going to share my screen

and have a presentation on what you're asking. >> supervisor ronen: i'm sorry. i thought you were done with your presentation. you have a new presentation for us? >> no. i have a slide deck specific to the attrition question that you're asking. >> supervisor ronen: oh, okay. go ahead. >> if i can share my screen. >> we do have copies of the slide deck as well. we didn't know if we were going to need it, so i didn't send it ahead. >> can everyone see my screen? >> supervisor ronen: yes. >> all right. so what is before you is basically what our budget attrition rate has been since 2017-2018. and then, the actual attrition

of positions since 2017-2018. while we have projected budgeted attrition of 10% this year, that's the second highest it's been in the last six years. the only higher year of attrition that we've had was 12%, and that was during the height of covid when all departments were asked to give back. it was in 2020-2021. in terms of actual attrition, our actual attrition has fluctuated. however, since 2018-2019, we've seen pretty much a significant increase in the amount of turnover in our office. we attributed this partially to the change in administration. in 2018-2019, that's when the former d.a. announced he wasn't running. we saw an increase in number of people resigning from the office. but that doesn't negate our

responsibility to re-hire those positions and have them in place as quickly as possible. since 2018-2019, the higher level of attrition in our department has continued pretty steadily with this last fiscal year on the fiscal year that we're in, we've seen 48 positions turnover. which is about 14% of our budget -- or 14% of our positions. what i want to point out, though, regardless of the higher rate of attrition, is that our budget from a salaries and fringe perspective, continues to be lean and we continue to finish the year pretty much close to on budget or on -- exceeding our sallys and fringe budget because of the need to fill positions as quickly as possible. the next two slides i'll show you show the yearend budget. if you look particularly at salaries and fringe line items,

each year we're either over our expenditures for that category or we're just about breaking even. last year, we're about $600,000 over budget in salaries and fringe. that's not driven by overtime. that's not driven by other things happening. that's basically people leaving and us hiring new people, making the one time payouts for the vacation pay. and then, us needing to maintain adequate staffing throughout the divisions. same thing for the prior year, 2019. again, we exceeded our budget. regardless of what the attrition rate is, because we have a constant need to have positions filled, have bodies on deck ready to attend court hearings or handle calendar. again, going back another year, we broke even basically between salaries and fringe. and going back as far as 2017-2018, again, we're a little

bit ahead to the tune of about $200,000. but each year, regardless of what the attrition is, we're still required to have that staffing level. otherwise, what ends up happening is that the high caseloads get transferred to other employees. and that just continues the ongoing recruitment challenges we've been facing the last few years. >> supervisor ronen: okay. but my understand something that the d.a.'s office has pretty low caseload compared to surrounding district attorneys' areas, surrounding counties and district attorney's offices. is that not true? >> i'll refer that question to marshall khi. >> chair ronen, i think we have great variability in terms of caseloads around the state. there's a lot of factors that would affect that. some of our higher caseload

carrying units have caseloads pushing 200 cases, which is a significant caseload. so much so that they're working on nights and weekends. we're stealing from peter to pay paul to handle coverage issues are that are not just from covid but from any other leave, vacation leave, sick leave. i think the attorneys are working so hard so much that earlier this year, we had an attorney collapse in the middle of trial and had to substitute in another attorney just from exhaustion. i think that we have a comparative caseload to many of other jurisdictions. there are many jurisdictions that have you know much smaller caseloads as well. >> supervisor ronen: okay. my understanding, you're among the smaller caseloads of counties. but that's neither here nor there. if i could ask the b.l.a. or the

controller, so why are -- or miss ralphenberger really, why are we only budgeting 10% attrition rate when last year there was actual 14% attrition rate? and by all accounts, common sense would tell us attrition is going to be much higher this year because of the turnover that's definitely going to happen and perhaps twice. >> sure. happy to address that. we work with the department from the time they submit their budget through june 1st to understand their expected level of hiring next year and set the attrition rate based on that. i think the complication this year is the decision -- you know, the vote happened long after we were making those decisions, so we weren't incorporating any particular outcome into our decisions around attrition. >> supervisor ronen: okay. so can i ask the budget and

legislative analyst or controller's office, either one, to calculate for us what the savings rate would be if we are at, you know -- let's calculate, 14%, 15%, 16% attrition. and let's take a look at those numbers. supervisor safai. >> supervisor safai: thank you. i don't have clarity. how many in terms of this unit, victims services unit, how many attorneys do you have? and how many witness investigators do you have currently? >> we don't have any attorneys specifically assigned to the victims services unit. >> supervisor safai: i'm only looking at what the b.l.a. is recommending cutting two trial attorneys. >> those two trial attorneys -- >> supervisor safai: are not related to victims services? >> they'll go into the criminal division. >> supervisor safai: okay. so the only thing -- okay. how many victim witness investigators do you have

currently? had >> on our advocacy side, we have 36 victim advocates, supervisors and public service aides. as well as our front office team. and then, we also have six claim specialists. >> supervisor safai: 37 plus six? >> right. but in terms of carrying, we call, caseloads, assisting victims through cases, it's 36. >> supervisor safai: 36 staff doing caseload. so these would be an additional two? got it. what is the normal caseload ratio that you have? >> okay. i have to clarify. the 36 includes the two. >> supervisor safai: 36 includes the two? >> right. >> supervisor safai: so you have 34 currently. and two that are vacant.

okay. i just wanted to know how many -- i want today know the size of the unit and how many individuals we're serving. >> just to answer that question, last year -- i don't have the exact number. but it was over 8,500 victims served. >> supervisor safai: okay. 8,500 victims served. okay. thank you very much. >> supervisor ronen: supervisor walton. >> thank you. supervisor safai got to my questions. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. to the controller, please note that it is this committee's intention to accept the district attorney's budget with the b.l.a.'s technical recommendations. we're going to continue to discuss two items.

both attrition proper and accurate attrition rates for the department as well as the four vacant positions in the victims unit office, so i'm putting that on my list for continued discussion. thank you so much. >> chair ronen? >> supervisor ronen: yes. >> we still have recommendation 11, which is a grant funded position. >> supervisor ronen: oh, yes. it's our intention to -- yeah, thank you. i will be more specific. hold on one second. what this committee is not going to accept, d.a.t. -- recommendation d.a.t.-8,

recommendation d.a.t.-10 or d.a.t.-11. so what we're going to continue to discuss is d.a.t.-9 as well as proper attrition rates. >> and just to clarify, i think i heard vice chair clarify that it's only two victim service advocate positions. the other two are 8177 trial attorney positions. they're not associated with the victims services unit. >> supervisor ronen: okay. well, that is going to be a discussion that is related to our attrition rates. in that case, i feel like taking away two witness -- primary job, my understanding is to serve subpoenas, is that correct? >> no. they provide the full services to victims -- >> supervisor ronen: okay. okay. thank you so much. we'll see you and be in discussion further. >> thank you, committee. >> supervisor ronen: all right. take care.

just for timing purposes for the public, we are going to take the public defender's office right now. and then, we are going to leave the police department until after a break. so to the police department, please don't come yet. i will give you the exact time that we'll be breaking after we're done with the public defender's office. so mr. vauncher, the public defender's office. >> our recommendations for the public defender's office are summarized on page seven 5.

the recommended reductions total $148,902 in fiscal year 2022-2023. $43,497 are ongoing savings. $105 are one time savings. these reductions allow an increase of $3,649,000 or 1.8% in the fiscal year 2022-2023 budget. we recommend closing out prior year $171,000 for fund savings of $181,672. our recommended reductions to the budget total $753,000 in fiscal year 2023-2024 all of which are ongoing savings. our understanding is that we do not have agreement with the department. i believe the disagreement is specific to recommendation number 3, but the department could clarify and, then, we

could summarize what our justification is for our recommendations. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful. hello mr. gonzales, how are you? >> hello, everyone. to chair ronen and other members of the committee, my name is matt gonzales, chief attorney of the public defender's office. we want to thank the b.l.a. for their attention to our budget and for their analysis. always a pleasure to work with them. our only point of disagreement is the 0922 substitution being recommended. liz lynn lacoste, the chief of staff of the public defender's office is going to address it. >> thank you. good afternoon, chair ronen, supervisors. my name is miss lacoste, chief of staff for the public defender's office. as matt mentioned, i'm here to talk about the 0922 and b.l.a. recommendation to substitute that position for 1454. i want to thank the b.l.a.

specifically, carrie tan, finance manager and chief of operations. i worked closely with. thank you. speaking to 0922, this is a confidential secretary and office manager position for our office. the person has already started. she's amazing. started in may with our office. she's replacing the executive assistant that was with our office over 19 years. who was at a higher classification. the person who replaced current 0922 position worked with our office previously for five years. and in her office manager role, she's also not just supporting the main office at 555 7th street but two other locations, our two magic programs, youth defender unit, as well as our mental health unit, which are off-site, off the main office site. lastly, we -- 0922 position

request based upon the current structure, organizational structure for the district attorney's office, which to our knowledge has 0922 confidential assistant. and executive support. but also has 0922 that is serving as their facilities and general operations manager. it's these reasons we're asking our office -- confidential secretary and office manager stay under 0922 so she can remain serving in these responsibilities. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. did you want to respond? >> sure, yes. thank you, chair ronen. i just wanted to note that this 0922 manager 1 is a new position. we -- our recommendation is not to deny the position that's been requested but to actually we just believe that the 1454 executive secretary 2 position classification is better suited to reflect the staffing need.

again, it's a new position. the department stated they're still working to develop the position's full job duties and responsibilities. so those areas have not been confirmed yet. the depend did state to us the position will serve as confidential secretary to department head and oversee two administrative support staff as well as have some office management-related responsibilities. we therefore, believe these duties align with the job responsibilities and duties of the 1454 executive secretary 3. and that's why we made that recommendation. >> supervisor ronen: i just have one question. there's someone currently in this position. >> correct. >> so this is not about changing the position. it's about lowering the salary? >> so it is a new position. they -- it might have been the person might have put into that position via temporary exchanges or t.x. >> correct. >> that is a like a mid-year substitution, which is not

like -- it's not a permanent change, because the board of supervisors has to approve permanent changes. when a substitution is when it's proposed for new fiscal year and it comes to the board first for approval and then goes into effect. so the board still does have authority here to make changes to the position. and that's why it's reflected as a new position with someone in it. >> supervisor ronen: so right now, there's a person -- >> yes. >> supervisor ronen: in the position doing a great job and earning a salary. >> correct. >> supervisor ronen: if we accept this, what would it do to her salary? >> it would lower her salary, decrease her salary. >> supervisor ronen: okay. >> as soon as that comes into effect. >> supervisor ronen: okay. colleagues, i don't think that makes sense to lower someone's salary who is doing a fantastic job. i think that's a unique situation we haven't seen yet. so i would suggest that we don't agree with that recommendation. that we agree with the other two

set. okay with everyone? yeah? okay. thank you. >> okay. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: so two the controller, please note that it's this committee's intention to accept the public defender's budget. with recommendation pdr-1 and pdr-2. we will not be accepting pdr recommendation number 3. thank you so much. okay. so colleagues, we are going to recess until 1:00, when we will start with the we are back. the june 23, 2022 budget and appropriations committee meeting. and we are going to start with the police -- i think the police is the last budget of the day. so, if we can hear from them and

then from the police department. thank you for your patience. budget & legislative analyst office. our recommendations for the police department are summarized on page 100 of or report. our recommended reductions total $3,535,000 in fiscal year 2022-23. 1.7 are one-time savings. these reductions are still -- of

the department's fiscal year budget. total 1,143,773. all of which are ongoing savings. these reductions would still allow increase of $10.3 million or 1.5% in the department. our understanding that we do -- we do not have agreements on any items. i and my colleague are here and available to walk through those or answer any questions you may have >> chair ronen: okay. questions. no questions yet. so, if we can hear from the chief.

>> chair ronen, president walton, chan, mar and safai. thank you to the b.l.a. for working with the department on this year's budget. we respectfully disagree with the b.l.a.'s proposed cuts because we believe the cuts will adversely impact the department's ability to meet calls for service, policing and crime prevention. our rationale for the disagreement are as follows. the b.l.a. has recommended that increasing sworn attrition by 10 fte will not interfere with the fiscal plans. we disagree because we are 181 police officers below the level

and the hiring objectives include using every available dollar to allocate its personnel costs to address across the board workload demands, including using salary savings when hiring those not met to backfill staffing which is currently 349 officers below the needed staffing levels. also we disagree with the b.l.a. proposal for the same reason. the recommendation includes cutting 2 of 5 analyst positions in the fiscal year 23 budget. we disagree with this proposal and although the b.l.a. assessment is accurate that the department will retain 34 fte positions with the introductions as well as the 300,000 for the recruitment firm, this rationale does not take into account that the department is already severely short staffed in analyst positions.

based on our staffing analysis, the need for 68 analyst positions in the department currently exist. in short, we have tried to make due with less than half of the staffing that we need to meet work loads. we strongly believe that this proposal will make matters worse. and furthermore, this is particularly true for our department general orders manual and other policy revisions as these proposed cuts takes us backwards in our goal to further civilianize our workforce and our goals to implement and sustain reform. our rationale is the same for the fiscal 24 to eliminate two analysts positions. next, want to address the proposal of the $1.5 million reduction and the funding needed to complete the replacement of the current records management system with a new national

system. b.l.a. rationale centers on hiring deferral and hiring them in january of 2023. the department received a $5.3 million federal grant that the board of supervisors approved in 2018 to help transition to a system. that grant ends on december 31st of this year and did not does not fund positions. our general fund ask of $4.9 million will support hiring 23 staff for implementation and support for a new naivers system, provide funding for hardware and other technical assistance needs. in cutting the $1.5 million from the budget by deferring hiring puts our ability to meet requirables at risk. not meeting those deliverables really puts us at risk of potentially not being able to

keep the $5.3 million that we already received. the last b.l.a. recommendation is cutting facility master plans or the funding for that. we disagree with this proposal in the gist of the rationale as i understand it is that the b.l.a. believes this is not an urgent matter that is critical to the department's strategic budget plan to focus on retention and reform. our interest is twofold. first, adequate and modern facilities does have impact on our competitiveness to recruit and retain candidates over departments with modern facilities. secondly, the master planning was strongly recommended by city planning to provide risks of all facilities and/or repairs for badly needed seismic structural improvements, lack of funding to support professional facilities master planning will in all

likelihood lead to capital expenditure inefficiencies and create future emergencies. thank you for your time and i and members of our team will answer any questions that you, the committee or the b.l.a. may have. >> chair ronen: thank you. president walton? >> president walton: thank you, chair ronen. thank you so much, chief. trying to do this afternoon as lighthearted as possible. but i noticed that you are the only city department that didn't take any of the b.l.a.'s recommendations. >> do you want a response for that? no, i do. it's a serious matter. and this is my sixth budget since i've within here. and we do respect the b.l.a.'s recommendations, but we really didn't have any excess, any fluff in this budget.

and although the cuts will cost savings, they also will use in our viewpoint issues for us down the road. i laid it out. i don't mean to repeat everything that i just laid out for you, but we can't answer those questions and details why we feel the way we feel about that. we understand that this process is a negotiation, but i feel it vital that we make our position known for the board's consideration. >> president walton: i really brought that up because typically, maybe not typically, in a lot of cases, the b.l.a.'s more amenable than we are when we're going through the negotiation process, but as i look at the budget and what i want to say to the department and to my committee and -- i mean i have -- i may not have all my numbers right, but i think if -- >> i can't hear you. >> president walton: what about

now? >> yes. >> president walton: what i wanted to say to the department and to my committee members from my standpoint after looking at the budget, i think we can reduce the overtime budget by 25% for what i believe to be $6.7 million and place another 25%, which i believe to be around $6.7 million or i'm not sure of the numbers, and put it in reserves and i'm saying that because, we are looking at a heavy investment in recruitment and strategies that i'm actually hopeful that positions will be filled and we can reduce overtime costs? so if we reduce 25% and put 25% on reserve, that still gives opportunity for coverage. and if you need to come back, obviously conversations continue. and then i think with the investment of the recruitment

strategies, i would also propose eliminating two of the eight academies, putting two on reserve, which still gives you four academies, two on reserve and that's six academies for next year. and my understanding, again, obviously numbers need to be worked out, but each academy is between $5-6 million and so it seems like we will be proposing to reduce $10 million for those two academies and putting $10 million of the two on reserves. and still gives the police department six academies for this year and obviously, you know, if you get six academies, fill six academies, there are two on reserve. i mean, that gives you four academies this year and two on reserve, if you are able to fill and move, you know, folks forward. but that's my recommendation.

that's what i see in terms of reasonable, feasible and, you know, still allows the department to do its work, but also obviously provides a cost savings as we work to take care of business across the city. >> president walton: i don't know, is that mic or me? did you hear any of that? >> if i may ask before supervisor safai just to make sure, replacing two academies? >> eliminating two and placing two on reserve. still allowing for four. >> and obviously, if those four are successful, there is two on reserve. and, again, you know, keeping in line with the fact that there is

a pretty good investment and recruitment strategies pretty good in retention strategies and we've included resources and opportunities obviously to keep folks in the department and make sure that folks do want to come and work for the department. and also proposing we reduce the overtime budget by 25% and put 25% of that budget on reserve. and not necessarily saying that's a proposal for today, but that's what i'm thinking. >> thank you. >> president walton: which is higher than what the b.l.a. recommended. >> got it, thank you.

>> chair ronen: hi. >> hi, chair ronen. >> chair ronen: supervisor safai. >> supervisor safai: great. i have fine with supervisor walton not being able to be heard because i didn't agree with what he was saying [laughter]. i'm just kidding. just trying to bring levity. so i like to state my position and then i would like to hear from the mayor's budget director, because we've had some of these conversations before. personally, i'm -- i have been a loud proponent of doing exactly what the department is asking for right now, which is more frequent academies and smaller sizes. because we had this debate last year. we had a conversation about being able to fill a large number of positions. you, chief, were very honest and forth right in saying getting 30 people in the classes. i think we allocated funding for

50 and you said give me the opportunity to fill them, but this is where we're going. so i don't support the recommendation to reduce the academy classes. i think we're probably at least 400 officers -- around 400 officers short. and even being ambitious that we'll be able to cut into that with the rate of retirement, with the rate of people that are separating from the department. so i have heard loud and clear from not just my constituency, but the constituency of the entire city that this is probably one of the top priorities. i want to put on the record also organized labor as i said the other day, very much in support. we have a letter from the restaurant union, building trades union, in conjunction with the hotel council and someone that worked with organized labor for a decade, i can tell you this is the second

time, but it is unique to see organized labor and management speak with one voice in that regard. and they are saying loud and clear that they are in full support of the proposed budget for academy classes and increasing that. i think it's very straightforward that you with ill have retirement, but we have to be aggressive in our hiring. with regard to the overtime, i think we get into this back-and-forth on an annual basis. we always underproject and then we come back with mid year adjustments asking for additional monies, maybe even multiple times a year. i think with proper planning it is better to project up front what is actually needed for the overtime. that allows the department to better plan, better allocate resources and not have to spread the department so thin in terms of essentially deploying

officers to where they're needed. so, again, i would not support that. i think actually they're doing the city and this budget committee a favor by asking for that money up front. doesn't mean that we might still be off a little bit based on our lack of staffing, but i think it's better to plan and it will allow us to deploy resources in a more efficient manner rather than as supervisor walton said and i have said, pulling from stations and redeploying in other parts of the city. so i'm not for that. the other thing i want to say is we've all been in a constant conversation about meeting the department of justice recommendations for justice reform. the outstanding measures that need to be met require records management, require additional staffing to do the analysis and work for that. so if we cut those positions -- doesn't mean that we might not be able to adjust it slightly and i think there is still room for negotiation there, and same

thing with the amount of attrition, calculation, i'm sure the department is still willing to work on that. but in terms of the overall need, i think that if we're going to meet some of the goals of justice reform in the city and the department of justice goals, i would say that it's important that we put the appropriate amount of resources into that. i think there is still room for negotiation. i understand the chief doesn't want to in this instance reduce. maybe there is still room there. but i would just say that the citizens of san francisco have spoken loud and clear over the course of the last two years. we've heard -- at least i have heard directly from them. chief, i appreciate the work that we've done together on the organized retail crime working group. we've begun to see some success in some of the additional redeployment, but even more recently with what's happening in the westfield, i know assistant chief lazar and i have

been working on it, there is not enough officers to go around. i mean there is just not enough officers to go around to meet the demand out there and the need out there for deployment. so this to me has to be one of the top priorities in the budget so we have to find a way to come to agreement on this, because we need the staffing in the city. but through the chair, director -- director -- oh, yeah, director, can you give a little more insight on the conversation about asking for overtime monies up front. [please stand by] [please stand by]

all the things that are about the single-sided police stations like to understand that a little better iq supervisor safai. i'm going to open by saying my 5+ years here we've had to recalibrate becauseof seismic reports and the like . are planning on risk stations is going to be repaired and

just the lesson learned with that is we needed andstill need a master plan . i have captain cizanne to talk in more detail about that because he's doing this every day and i wanted to hear it is an urgent matter >> just for clarity, i think we all understand thatthere's urgency . it's more about the timing of the need for the money based on the project. that's really what is going to give this committee the information it needs to make thatdecision in my opinion . >> house he quickly on this supervisor safai. that afternoon president walton, good afternoon. i'm the acting captain of facilities andfleet . specifically your first question, this is not related to ingleside.

what this is about is the departmentdeveloping a strategic plan for our facilities . the department manages 32 sites right now. i've been working with capital planning for the last 2 years and what started coming to life is we need to professionalize our presentations. we need to have a formalized long-term strategic plan for how we will get to where we want to be . what i've learned and this is through multiple meetings with the department of public works. in the event of another major earthquake it is likely none of our stations will be able to be read inhabited the following day except southernstation, police headquarters so this is a critical need . this will be the roadmap allows us to have the m ammunition to really start getting into a deep dive and analyzingour facilities and prioritizing . >> thank you. >> supervisor mar.

>> thank you chief stock and everyone from the department forbeing here for this budget discussion .i had a few questions around some of the bla recommendations that you're not accepting but i wanted to respond to president walton's proposal around the economies and say i'm supportive of maintaining the economies in the budget because i understand that this is really just an important first step that the department is able to take to start filling theunprecedented number of vacancies . i think it's over 400 as i understand. and it's not even necessarily increasing a step towards increasing the sworn officers staff from the department.

i think this is really important just to address the call for service time to meet those goals and to implement the reform initiative priority. and also to really implement the community policing ordinance that the board just adopted. i am open to considering putting two of your academies on reserve because it seems like it's still an open question how many recruits are going to be in the economies and hopefully the department will be able to do a better job of recruiting with the additional resources then you have been in the last few academies.so i just wanted to say that and then i just had a question about recommendation 1 around the bla recommending increasingattrition by 10 ftes

in year one and five in year two . and they've done, they provided pretty good analysis and justification for why this reduction is justified so if you could just respond to that a little bitmore . why you think this would be problematic . >> i'm going to ask patrick young our fiscal director to come up as well butjust repeating what director robin berger stated . operationally , we are on full overtime right now and that's the bottom line. we have to backfill stations at some point and sometimes backfill crime prevention measures. some of the specialized detail that we have to use overtime to police and make sure we have

public safetythere. we're really surviving on overtime and offices are working a lot of overtime. that's not the preferred way but that keeps us at least afloat . when those positions arefunded it basically takes away our ability to absorb some of the operational needs i won't be too long-winded because i know directoryoung has a lot to say about that . >> good afternoon supervisors, patrick young chief financial officer .there is a significant impactto our budget with the recommended cuts . if i take the opportunity to explain what happened during this fiscal year . the six-month report we were predicting a deficit and what that would require for us to continue hiring would be requesting asupplemental and that often takes several months . in between thattime our position really is frozen . any positions we hire have to beapproved by the mayor's office and also by the controller's office . a perfect example of that we had a professional staff who

was very talented that wewanted to promote .they had another opportunity from another agency and because of the deficit at the time we were not able to make the offer and unfortunately for the department that person took the job from a different agencyand there was a huge loss to us and with , while the temp position they may not seem like a lot the academy classes we are planning for our class of 25 but in the event that we have the ability to hire 30 we want to have that flexibility and without any access there is no opportunity to increase class sizes without any of the position so the last thing i'll say about that is with the severity of staffing shortages that we have for the overtime it's a significant risk if we go over that if we go through

the supplementalprocess that's going to significantly delay our ability to hold academy classes . we've had to do that this year delaying academy classes and thatdoes have adverse effects on our ability to recruit candidates . when we have to delay academy classes , the candidates that we would have in our academy classes have other opportunities out of agency and that is a big risk to us and it will be a continuing risk going forward. >> thank you for that explanation. and then i had a question about the ela recommendation around reducing the allocation for the staffing for the new record management system. they i guess the bla is saying that the start date for or a more realistic date would be

january instead of september so that'swhere the $1.5 million reduction comes in . >> we have acting director wilson mosher who can that. >> good afternoonsupervisors. lieutenant captain mosher . first ofall , as our cfo patrick leon just saidearlier , we don't want our hands tied with all of the open positions i think there's over 3300 in the department right now. if we have a candidate that is qualified and willing to come to the police department we want to be able to hire them immediatelyfor this project . we are under a very tight timeline to ensure we do not lose the grant funding for this and we implement it properly . i've been activelytrying to recruit .there's other police departments such as oakland implementing their record

management system and also san pablo. we have some candidatesthere interested in coming aboard . so we are activelyrecruiting now to fully fill those positions . >> great, thank you. >> supervisor walton. >> thank you chair. just out ofcuriosity , when was the last time we filled eight academies? >> eight or in two years? >> right now just talk about one year. >> the eighth academy classes in the budget is over two years so it's 4 classes in fiscal year 23 four classes in 24.>> so going back to my point earliertalking about investments. going to be back here in the budget process next year . and so if you feel for

academies then by all means it makes sense to look at how we go into the yearafter . and that's not necessarily a question but more so in response to supervisor mar in terms of what's being proposed to staffing up. if you fill for academies this year and are successful obviously we will be having the same conversation again next year about the next 2 years in the budget process so i would love to see that happen but we haven't seen that happen. and why not have the savings to take care of other businesses of the city and if we needto adjust, we can. that's just my point on the academy conversation . >> just one point . with the academy ideally you spread them out over every

three months. the environment right now is such that we have to be a lot more and what we're seeing is if we get 20 candidates and we are ready to go we're going to go and not wait to get 30 because we are losing people on the back and when we do that . right now we have captain harvey here and we can talk about this but we're running three academies, their small academies and one that just darted 20 recruits. but whatwe are seeing , if we get to a number where we have enough candidates to move forward we will forward and if we can get another 20, not to wait three months we can run multiple academies at the same time . so we changed the model somewhat to make sure we're adaptable andnimble enough to do that . because last year, this year actually we had an academy graduate 13. is the smallest since i've been

here and one of thesmallest in a while but behind that we hired another i think 23, something like that . so the idea here is ideally they're all spaced out evenly but really that's not the environment we can be competitive in so i would like if you can bear another moment with captain harvey to talk more aboutthat . >> good afternoon supervisors. supervisor walton, my name is tom harvey, captain of the police academy and i want to attempt to address the question you asked taking a quick gander at previous classes and recent history i can tell you that the last time we had four classes which began in the same calendar year specifically was in the year 2020. and 20/20 weserved with four classes and in the year 2019 we had a total of five classes . and the trends are pretty consistent . and then only until recently with the significant decrease

in applicants at both the academy class size as well as the number of classes have decreased in line with the decreasedamount of applicants . so i hope that addressed your question at least partially. >> it definitely does and i think we're also kind of dealing with a chicken and egg thing. we don't have so far a lot of interest and at the same time we're trying to get to certain staffing level and get people trained.and i think even what i propose to allows for you to be able to do exactly what you're talking about and being nimble particularly going forward for this year. and again, very successful in getting to that number that warrants another additional conversation. plus you already have resources for reserves.

>> and if i may just one last thing. i know it's been said. i would like to add that the dynamic where there is a candidate who is ready to go and enter police academy to start on whatever designated date but it's a challenge. it's been a frequent challenge where we lose individuals to neighboring agencies. like for instance i recently heard last week of someone who is ready to go butoakland to themfirst . so i just wanted to reemphasize that one point . that's the frequency and sort of this new world of police recruitment and attracting candidates that it seems apparently to beg for a more frequent classes even if the sizes may be smaller . >> can we just tell those folks san francisco is better than oakland? >> yes we can and it works will

be in good shape but that's the predicament wherein. >> and i'll say since we are working on that and we appreciate the board's support on salaries and increases and the like those things matter. that's why i go back your question we may be the only department that disagrees with bla'srecommendation . >> every one of them >> i don't know how many departments backs are against the wall like ours but i can say our backs are against the wall . >> thank you captain. >> we're just going to continue to continue that conversation for a minute because many departments backs are against the wall. the entire cities back is against the wall the amount of poverty that residents are facing in our city is unprecedented . the need for basic things like food and shelter and healthcare

and quality education for your child. every department's back is against the wall and every single department came forward and worked with the bla to give up some money. because they know we have a $1.3 billion add back of basic needs . like brokenelevators and seniors stuck on the top floor of their apartment building . mothers buying stolen meat off the street because they can't afford the meat in the grocery stores.this is really serious and it is serious to me and i'm disappointed that this department can do what every single other departmentdid . and figure out a way to work with the bla and accept some of these changes . i take that seriously and i'm really upset about. i have to say. i know that your department is struggling and guess what?

every single other department for the most part in the city is struggling. very few departments like your department an increase of 50 million dollars. as a matter of fact the public defenders office who i promise you work just as hardas you and your officers to . their entire budget is less then your increase.and they still accepted the budget and legislative analyst cuts . so i'm nothappy . i find it really, really not disrespectful but irresponsible at this department thinks itself exceptional and above every other city departments in san francisco and isn't agreeing to a single cut. i want to start there. as thebudget chair that offends me . now, what is your total budget? >> i asked director leon to

answer that question. >> one second. >> you need me to tell you what your total budget is? >> i have it. >> $708 million, 700,000,265 $272. that is a massive, massive budget. and the mayor gave you an increase of $50.8 million and you say in a $708 million you can find some savings? >> first let me say that we don't take this lightly and definitely i understand your frustration and passion. we do not take thislightly. and were not above any other department . as a matter of fact the members of this department and fire departments were in my viewpoint we're the only

departments to have two further raise the further racesfor 2 years so yes, we care. yes , we're willing to sacrifice. >> can i say something? there also the only department. name another department earning as it much money as your officers? >> i can name many other departments that we're competingwith earn the moneywe make and more. i'm not trying to be argumentative . >> i'm just saying we're not talking about low-wage workers . >> you brought the point that we are arrogant and we don't care. we are not arrogant and wedo care . >> i didn't claim arrogance, i find it troubling and disrespectful. >> we're not trying to be disrespectful. i want to point out i understand this is the negotiation process as the chief and leader of this department ithink have an obligation to ask what i believe weneed . decisions will be made and we

will live with those decisions . the other part is as i stated in myopening we did a lot of the cutting before we even got to the mayor's office . we are short 30+ analyst positions. we didn't ask for 30+ because we know that's unreasonable. we only ask for a few.a lot of the cuts we took on ourselves are being talked about. we're just trying to survive. and i don't think that's asking too much for this police department with what's going on in the city to ask forwhat it needs to survive. i don't think that's asking too much . >> i just want to makethe point and there are many articles about it. we wrote letters to each other back and forth . that you're saying there's a morality issue in your department because your officers are working so hard as if they are the only ones. >> i'm not saying they're the only ones. >> and that somehow this department isdifferent from

every other essential department in thecity . i just want to break that myth . your officers are incredible. they work extremely hard and that is true of so many different departments. that is true of the fire department. that is true of teachers. that is true of public defenders and prosecutors. and you know what, their understaffed and they work seven days a week well into the night and they have extremely stressful jobs. and yet you never see work stoppages. you never see the kind of articles claiming that this is a different situation. i'm just, and it's not all you. it's the press and it's the media but i want to tell you that in this committee's eyes we are not looking to punish you. we are looking to treat you like we treat every other city department. andevery other city departments

despite facing understaffing , stressful times . as staff that is overloaded and overworked came to an agreement with the budget and legislative analyst over something with the exception of your department. i will move on. >> you have a question and you may have answered your own question but. >> if i may provide context. over the last two budget cycles the department has faced significantly higher threats to the committee process well and above and beyond what the bla recommended. and with those cuts that have significantly impacted our operations and for some of that is also caused ourstaffing levels to shrink . >> you and every other department. >> it's true but if you compare what the cost for service is on

our response time it deteriorated to levels we haven't seen in many years. >> no other department had 10 street teams to take work away from them. i don't think we should get into this discussion let me be clear. idon't think we should get into this discussion. it is not going to be good for you . so the four recommendations which mind you compared to everyother departmentare mild . the four recommendations you cannot live with a single one of these recommendations . >> supervisor, we understand this is anegotiation. i also understand that it's not over until it's over . we've made our position as to

why we believe these cuts will be harmful to the police department and we will go from there. if theboard decides to cut them, the board decides to cut them but i think it's important that you hear our position . >> okay. i will let my colleagues talk and then wecan discuss what we're going to do with this budget supervisor . >> vacuum and share. i just want to say for the record my understanding is just to remind this committee. we voted as a board to approve and ou adjustments in the past two weeks that had todo with retention. that had to do with years of service bonuses and recruitment . bonuses and salary increases and i think is the vast majority of themillion-dollar increases have been reflected in this budget so i just wanted to say that for the record . and i think that that was

purposeful. we are in an environment in the bay area northern california where we are competing and if you write bart any day it says come join bart police, $15,000 immediate signing bonus . we tried to level the playing field in some ways and some of that reflected in this budget. we can debate about the number of officers that are needed whether it's 400, whether it's 200, whether it's 300 but we all agree there is a need to recruit and hire more officers so some of that requires creative solutions and i think those are reflected in his budget which also that is just a group which is the mou adjustments. to be fair i think that is what the majority of that is as you stated as when you're talking about salaries and certain level thoseincrease . it's going to bereflected in the overall budget . i would say and just to an what the chair said, each department

has found a way to look for some adjustments. it seems to me like the thing that is the most important in this budget is the recruitment and hiring of new academies and over time. i would encourage that we zero in on that. i think that the facilities master plan i bought originally my understandingwas from the ingleside station .that's why spokeup about it . the bla makes a point about that's something that could be revisited in year two. as much as i would like to see that done right now that seems like something where you could get gift along with some of the other adjustments that are being asked for they don't completely records management but they ask you to take a look at some slight reduction there. and maybe what we did in with

public works is they asked for two inspection services for new initiatives and ended up cutting one. i would ask you to take a look at those things as we move forward and then ultimately can you explain just so we all understand because again the bla. maybe the bla canexplain from their perspective . but it says increase one attrition by 10 fte and then your accounting for less separation. can you talk through your recommendation a bit and how thatwould impact the academy classes ? >> sure chair. >> to the chair, nick minard fromthe budget legislative analyst . the way i got to the increasing patrician number was that i looked at the existing staff that were on hand as well as those for academies that are planned in each year. and also look at their

retirements over the next two years. now historically the police department has had 80 retirements a year although more recently they had closer to 100 . so i use the 80 as a kind of as a baseline estimate for what's going to happenover the next 12 months . when you look at the headcount they have now the headcount that they need for the academies and once they're going to lose for their retirements based on our analysis it looks like at least over the next 12 months still have 35 vacancies. we didn't take all of those in this recommendation. we can to provide savings tothe board . that leaves around 25 for the department and that allows them to immediately backfill the academy hiring temporary police officers for the year so they can address their immediate staffing as the outline for

you. i thought it was a reasonable compromise that would not interrupt their academy over the next 2 years. >> is your recommendation ifi'm reading it right to reduce one academy class ? >> know, the recommendation will not impact any of their academies. >> but your recommendation is okay. it wasn't clear to me. and just to give you an opportunity to respond. the academy is not being reduced their increasing the number, can you talk about what the resistance is on your part ? >> so that is correct.they are notrecommending reduction of academy classes . those 10 ftes to represent a dollar amount that if we can't fill them basically they're still available as salary and that's what director robin berger and leon.

it's available salary savings. the workload is still the workload.when we can't hire we still have the workload and now we how we trust that is this year almost $40 million of overtime try to make up those portages and staffing so when that money is notthere, it takes away our ability to do that . that's the position thatwe're operating from . >> if i may add one more comment to that. the number of with the significantstaffing shortages over at the nations , many of the vacancy savings are being used for backfill that's still going to be a need for the upcoming year. with those attrition and with service demands were not able to meet the service levels or the service level needs. and we rely upon backfill's to help address some of the service needs.

>> director, did you want after that? >> supervisor preston, is there an announcement that needs to be made? >> yes madam chair. with supervisors preston's appearance as of1:50 1 pm we have reconvened as a special meeting of the board of supervisors . >> thank you chair and i know president walton is on the roster as well. i wanted to do for you want to go first . thank you hair. and appreciate the detailed questions.i really just wanted to kind of follow up. there's a lot of back and forth at your last hearing about some of theissues around police budgets . we have spent some time looking at and we have encouraged cuts

and spent some time looking in detailat areas that could be cut . i do want to just a couple of comments though offthe bat . first vice chair safai's comment about the vast majority of the million-dollar and you increases. 16 million of the 50 million is the increases from the mou so we established that previously. you can still find 50 million easily in this budget to, but you don't need to revisit the 0 million that could be caught without having impact on delivery service at the street level and i want to say that

the department in a sense and we can talk to chief scott about this and i understand the role of the budget committee but we established the last hearing the department hasn't been asked to cut in that way. and that's part of the problem here. but just in my office looking at the challenge of how would you cut $50 million. what are the kinds ofthings you cut and you've all been asking questions about a number of those things and i appreciate the scrutiny . but a lot of these are really obvious.we talked about the mounted units. it's almost mindblowing that we are here year afteryear . president walton made his case. powerfully the last budget cycle . i think i took issue with the budget cycle beforethat. there is no law enforcement case that has been made . i don't expect the chief of police necessarily to come in here. these are officers working in this department and i don't expect them to say yes, wedon't need sworn officers in that apartment . i wouldn't expect the mayor to

ask why we are finding this. we can easily say it's five sworn fte could have savings of at least 1 million just on the mounted unit alone.the honda unit , another unit with extremely limited if any law enforcement value. different from other patrols and other officers.in other words without that unit and with other people reassigned and removing vacant positions in that unit you would not see an impact. no resident of san francisco however they feel about increased or decreased policin would see an impact . you have 14 sworn ftes assigned to this unit, $2.8 million in potential savings .at some point we have to take these on and challenge the department to cut. attend the unit we established lasttime and i'm not talking about the entire unit . just the idea of worn officers

and an administrative function to basically contract out services makes no sense whatsoever. hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings from reassigning sworn staff and removing associated vacant positions and civilian icing positions within the attendee unit. to your point chair about the rising availability of street teams and the need to be scaling back on police as those teams are up and running. the most obvious example is the police presence which did not exist and the police should be called upon as needed and not be part of enforcement teams that are out dealing with folks who are unhoused in the street. we provided these tochair ronen and my team discussed this with bla as well. the savings of $1.8 million . the media relation unit and

again not what might be radical approach and we can talk about that is really going at the media relations unit. i have my own opinions on even in a more laserlike approach there's no reason we need a full-time videographer at $120,000. the director of strategic communications. position whichis essentially and i think we should this clearly at our hearing . a position designed to shape public opinion more than provide services to people in the community. that's $289,000. that's over $400,000 in savings and especially avideographer . if you're talking about wasteful spending, things we don't need to chair ronen! if we're balancing seating people at community hubs versus having another videographer full-time on staff at the policedepartment and i think there's no comparison . same thing about feeding people in our community versus having

a fully staffed sworn officers mounted unit. but these things on scale there's no question that these are not the best uses of funds. just to continue running down the list. low-level traffic stops and i think the chief expressed an openness last time and there's a discussion around the extent to which low-level traffic stops and pretext stops will can be restricted or eliminated again reassigning sworn staff, removing associated vacant positions. a savings of over$1 million . i think there's significant savings on cars, not eliminating the entire request but about 3 million that we identified that could be eliminated eliminated there and then the economies that you've been discussing obviously one of the big ticket items

depending how much of a willingness there is to cut academies. that's obviously where a significant amount can be cut as well as overtime and president walton has stressed that. that was my team and my thanks to my legislative analyst hernandez engaging deeply with the budget and identifying to the question of were you to go at and reduce the budget so that you did not have an increase to the budget but without reversingthe position on the ou how would you get there ? that's what we laid out in detail on that. i'm going to refrain because i really value the committees time and i don't think it's worthwhile to have, i mean, if there are things you want to pick up on or ask about, great. i don't intend to with each of those recommended cuts do that. but i didwant to put those out

there . reiterates that we had put together that list of cuts and also to identify that regardless of where the budget number of lands we feel very strongly that there should be a significant amount on reserve and i know president walton was talking about some targeted things to put on reserve but i think in addition to whatever the committee has in mind having a figure and i'm recommending these 50 million the on reserve and specifically tied to the police department coming back to this committee probably six months from now and demonstrating measurable progress in reducing racial disparities and use of force stop and arrests and in meeting our state law obligations to release police records under sb 1421 and sb 16.

so i think those two things it's really essential and again i want to emphasize regardless of where you land on the amount that is cut for added to this budget and i feel strongly and really just wanted to be here to reiterate my support for all the cuts you are talking about and really think that we should not be increasing the overall budget to the record-breaking 708 million that's been proposed. after we asked the city committed to be divesting from police, not growing their budget in 2020. but regardless of where that final number last having a significant amount on reserve i think is really the obligation of the board and our oversight capacity to make sure that addressing racial disparities in policing and complying with these transparency laws that a lot of advocates and folks came together across the state to

pass, it's not okay for us to keep approving departmental budgets without seeing progress on those fronts. i think the committee can decide what level of specificity to require. there always the department can make progress on reducing racial disparities. banning pretext stops is one that would have a significant impact. there are other ways as well and they should have to come back and show that progress on releasing police records and on reducing racial disparities before receiving that chunk of money that's set aside and again my recommendation is that at least 50 million or more. and supervisor preston, i wanted to thank you and your staff for doing the work and

bringing this list forward and iwant you to know we looked into it very deeply . i pretty much agree with all of the policy suggestions you made. i want to just note the majority of them wouldn't necessarily involve savings this year. because those officers would be moved into vacant positions which is probably a goodidea but it doesn't result in cuts to the budget . so just making that point to the public it's harder than you would think to actually cut the budget. but i do think that many of the policy suggestions we should be looking at. especially given that apartments you know, claims that they are severely understaffed and that they need more officers out in the

streets.we should redeploy from the mounted units . we should civilian ice the 10 units. it drives me crazy that taxpayer dollars are subsidizing private entities hiring off-duty police officers in the first place. i think that's between the officer and the private entity hiring them.i don't know why taxpayers have to foot any of that bill personally butif were going to the bill than it should be civilians and not sworn officers and those worn officersshould be patrolling ourstreets . i just want you to know i'm committed to making this happen . some of these would lead to savings but many of them don't . i just want to make that point . >> just understand that some of the changes and this is the frustrationeach year some of

these changes yousee in here to potentially not in year one . and at some point if you decide . >> for the increased costs because you have to hire new civilians that those officers get put into. and this is not within our discussion. this is withinthe chief discussion . we just have to cut the positions. for the public that's watching this is not as straightforward as you would imagine over me making these cuts and i want to make this point so they're not confused about what it is we're doing here and why it's so complicated. >> just to add to that is what complicates it in a sense it's a starting point where you need to cut departmental budget by x amount from the mayor's office. the g would be looking at these various policy choices and how

to move things around within the department to achieve those cuts.to your point that challenge was not made so they come forward with a budget that's a significant increase and as a body board could without charging countering each of these positions simply reduce the overall budget and a lot of the decisions on how to deal with that would then be made to write. where in this awkward position where when we suggest any cut it's like, point to exactly what you're going to cut but then some of those decisions shift around where the department willstill live with the chief . i want to emphasize i think what we putforward , your point is well taken. some of those you would see more short-term but i believe this is the tip of the iceberg. this is me and my staff without the benefits of the chiefs full knowledge of his department

trying to from the outside around the areas the policy decisions don't line up with the budget. so the concerns that folks have talked about with police staffing, hsoc or officers in the 403 or the mounted unit where it seems pretty clear there's not a strong law enforcement case for those kind of expenditures. i believe there's quite a bit more. you all have been hitting on some of those things in the bla as well. but i do want to make sure that this was us trying to find 50 million worth of work that seems like not essential and that could be the subject for concern. thank youfor the time . >> president walton. >> thank you chair ronen and thank you supervisor preston. i want to start off by stating that i think we have been more than reasonable with the

department. going into this budget hearing and i want to make sure that the four public listening, before the media and our discussions around public safety that we have definitely been more thanreasonable with the department . we approved the mou that has been increasing salaries. we're talking about making sure that officers who have been on the force for a certain amount of time received bonuses. we're talking about increasing the salary incoming officers. does it that is extremely reasonable and definitely displays that we want to work with the department so that we can be successful and keeping our communities safe. most definitely there is data

that doesn't support the number of officers that the department supports and i know you and i talked briefly. there is data that demonstrates that calls for service is horrible way to determine coverage and deployment. let me give an example. to all of our officers who are here. who work hard and you know and some areas in the city people don't call the police department when they hear gunshots.some areas of the city people don't call the police when certain violent things happened. but it's also unfortunate that some people call the police department when a child is selling lemonade on the street. when somebody is writing black lives matter on their own house.when someone is doing something that they should be allowed to do. every day in communities.

so call for serviceare a horrible way to decide who to deploy because different cultures call police for different things . i know some of those cases are police department doesn't want to be responding to those type of calls but calls for service i could never ever agree that we continue to do that and i know that's something that the department really feel strongly about and most certainly that's not going to create equity in terms of how we get quality training for the officers and officers that are in our community. but what we should be focused here is a budget that keeps people safe. but also takes into account the otherinvestments that are needed to keep people safe . likeprevention . like intervention. like employment.

like mental health. like training, education. like keeping people from starving. what making sure people have opportunitiesso that we don't get police involved and we have made , we have never ever made the appropriate investment in any of those areas i just named. all of our jobs become easier if we do. so my proposal reduces about 20 million or so budget where we have more police per capita than cities with millions of people. bigger cities in the state of california and i'm proud of what we do to support our public safety departments. but we have been very very reasonable not only during this budget process but prior to coming into this budget process so i just want the public to know and understand the commitments that this board ha

already supported .and also the commitment this board has supported for all city departments investments that need to be increased so that we can do more to prevent crime so that we can do more to prevent disparities do more to provide forces for people because obviously the more options the more choices you have a better human being you're going to be . i'm off my soapbox on that but did you go over last year's overtime budget? >> yes. we can we get back to director? >> we went over the budgeted amount. >> and yet you still provided overtime. >> whatever the case. it was provided. so this whole thing if we don't approve the present of overtim . there's never been a point in

time in history where police, fire, sheriff'sdepartment don't get the overtime needed to have coverage . i'm not asking the question. i justwant to state that for the public to know. i didn't make that up . that is true. andit's a statement,not a question . i don't need an answer . >>. >> chair: supervisor chan. >> thank you ma'am chair. i ammaking the statement that i don't really have any more questions . thank you to all my colleagues for their statements and sentiments. i am in the space on the way to what i already expressed last week particularly about the salient positions that you intend to hire. it is the reason i do agree with the bla recommendation about just reducing the hiring for the civilian positions.

and i do think that there's some savings there but i think that they're not just savings that takes two fiscal years. i think that as i also have expressed last week i have questions about the recruitment for that you're going to retain and your recruitment strategie . it's the reason why i could see and support i think what supervisor mark had mentioned earlier to put perhaps half of the academy class on reserve for the fiscal year 2324. i understand you want to contain the planning for the recruiting classes and training. but i think just to consider for the fiscal year 2324 and half of that on reserve. it is reasonable because we want to know a couple of things

like whether you're successful or not but also perhaps we can learn more results or analysis from the recruitment firm that you're going to be working with to tell us what kind of tweaks we should be making in terms of the way we recruit and train so that's just where i met and thank you chair. >> supervisor. >> i just wanted to also just reiterate for the chief. i know we talk about this but i also see the opportunity to hire and recruit for this department. to coalesce around the idea that we had in the conversation that we had commitment that you made to diversity and hiring continues as a historic opportunity in using as a supervisor chan mentioned the recruitment firm to focus in on having a more diversified population.

i know that your most recent class was a very diverse class. i just wanted to see that effort continue in the upcoming push to fill these vacant positions. also want to state for the record just my understanding and again being on this budget committee the last year and working with ghosts departments the last couple of years amount of significant cuts that this department has made and ways to look for deficiencies within that apartment and in your department and i think that as has been said some of those decisions have made us put us into the position that we're in now. the reason why we're having to readjust look for hire more and recruit more to fill some of the downsizing that happened over the last couple of years so i just want to say that for the record and i appreciate the hard work you all havemade and perhaps you could take another look at the recommendations >> thank you ma'am chair . >> chair: i don't know how the

committeefeels. i feel ready to act on the full recommendations of the budget analyst . we lostpresident walton but i don't know how the rest of the committee feels . >> is there an opportunity to allow this department to take another look at the recommendations that have been made to come to an agreement with thebla ? >> that'sbeen on policy issues . there is no policy question here . the vla is looking from a fiscal lens what is the responsible way. >> i would ask the chair to see what the chief has to say with that recommendation. >> i'm sorry, what's the question supervisor safai. >> chair: he just made his opinion known, is a question for the committee on the bla. >> what i heard the chief say

is he sees this as a negotiation on their first position what i would ask is if the chief is willing to take another look at the bla's recommendations to see if you can come to some agreement about the proposalthat's what i would ask . i hear what you're saying but i wanted to do that first before igive my position . >> sure. >> thank you supervisor safai. we can take this if that's possible. >> this is our last item of th day . we can do that briefly. i'll let you know that in favor of all of our cuts.i think that that bla has been incrediblyreasonable . there's 1 million other cuts out there that have been suggested to us we're not even talking about at this moment . these cuts, the bla has carefully laid out how this,

these cuts do not in any way shape or form inhibit you from holding before academy. hiring as quickly as you need to. doing all the work that needs to be done. to me if anything we are being reasonable here. so i'm ready to act and accept all our recommendations today. the question to me is more to the committee members if you feel ready to act today and do that right now to finish this out or if you want more time because i don't know that this really is on the chief. now it's back to the committee to decide how we want after hearing the chiefs opinion and hearing from the budget legislative analyst what we want to do . >> madam chair.

we're being asked to go back and look at possibly some of these issues to renegotiate or continue this process and we are willing to do that. we'regoing to need a little bit of time to do that but . >> well, okay. that's fine.i think we will just not ask onyour budget today and wait until monday . but you know, that's what i'd like to hear from this committee. i think that this committee if this is the minimum that we expect to see in savings from yourbudget . i think i can say that confidently. and if there's a different way that you want to achieve these savings and the way that the budget andlegislative analyst played out .

something i would be open to. but you know, otherwise i'm ready and i think this committee is ready to wrap up and accept all these recommendations . did you want to say something supervisor. >> if i hear you correctly chair i think that this is less about policy. this is more really about saying that i think this committee has consistently asked virtually everyone and in fact i have asked rent and part why do you need 10 park rangers for additional hiring and i think i just want to share that this is a committee that has those mandates not just to the police department but really all city departments so if the police department and this is my sentiment.

if the police department can look at this and say we can find similar dollar amounts and cost savings but in a different way. i think i would be in support of trying to have you figure that out but if it were in a space where there's no way no how. then i am also in the space where i'm ready to accept the recommendations . >> and then i do agree. i am fine with that eight academies over two years. i do wantto put some of those in reserve. this is just me. i know the committee is not united on this . you want put some of those academies in reserve i'm going to be looking at putting other lineitems in your budget on reserve. for the reasons supervisor preston stated .

so there is more policy discussion to come related to the budget but as far as i can tell unless there areany other additional cuts . did we have a vote on the academies. president walton. as a committee. or have a vote if you want to make a motion. we don't have to ask on anything until monday. but other than that i wonder if there are any additional cuts outside of the bla recommendation. >> i wanted to cut 25 percent of the proposed overtimebudget . >> and then put 25 percent of the proposed overtime budget on reserve and put two of the academies on reserve. >> did you want to vote on that now for see what happens with negotiations and address it on

monday? >> we can address it on monday. i think that i still productions that may come up which i hope is the case out still that this is very reasonable and provides the department what they need . >> so to summarize the chief will meet with bla. on the print suggested cuts that the bla made. and the advised committee members within the brown act rule if they want to discuss the issue with supervisor walton that he is planning on making motions to cut 25 percent of the overtime. but we will deal with all this finally on monday. and with that thank you very much. >> thank you committee. >> thank you bla. >> we have nothing to say yet.

stay tuned. >> and i'm just speaking making a note so i don't forget. okay. so i don't i believe this item is held until tomorrow so we don't have toactually make a motion on that . mister clerk. >> that's correct madam chair. >> i'm sorry colleague. it has been brought to my attention earlier today we acted on two items from our recent agenda that we hadn't intended to call until later in our meeting. i'd like to move that we rescind the vote on these items so we can call them later. and really quickly those items are special appropriations ordinance and board file 21194. the agreement amendment and board file 220693.

mister clerk if you can take a roll call vote on that motion. >> on the motion by chair ronen seconded by commissioner walton to rescind the votes on file 211194. 220693. [roll call vote] >> that motion passes unanimously. >> i just wanted clarification with our city attorney that once we rescind the vote because one of the items we had an amendment to be filed. when we rescind these votes we sent an amendment as well.

i just want to make clear that we may need to make the amendment amounts. >> deputy to the attorney and pearson. i think it might be worth clarifying that. i think the motionwas to rescind the votes on those two items and it could be read to include all the votes including the amendments but if you wish to rescind this boat , making a motion to make that explicit i think that would be clarifying. >> but is it necessary? >> i think themotion as offered was to rescind the votes and i wouldinterpret that as meaning all of the votes taken on those two items . >> when we do here that item again . >> it will be as it was as it appears on the agenda. prior tointroduction prior to amendment . >> so we will have to make a motion to amend theitem again . >> .. i want to clarify that so

if we act on that amendment again that we need to act on that,thank you . >> and to clarify on the record that was our intention to present all the votes. i don't think we needanother vote onthat . so with that colleagues , the meeting is on recess until 10 am tomorrow morning. >> actually a bit of housekeeping madam chair. we do need to as with yesterday i do need a simple motion and vote on undecided items for tomorrow's meeting. that would include the mayor's ordinance also file number 119-422-0693 and 220683 that we were going toconsider on monday originally .

on that motion by chair ronen seconded by commissioner walton that the files be considered for tomorrow's meeting.vice chair safai. [roll call vote] we have 5 aye's. >> chair: the vote passes in the meeting is recess until 10 am tomorrow morning. >>

when i shoot chinatown, i shoot the architecture that people not just events, i shoot what's going on in daily life and everything changes. murals, graffiti, store opening. store closing. the bakery. i shoot anything and everything in chinatown. i shoot daily life. i'm a crazy animal. i'm shooting for fun. that's what i love.

>> i'm frank jane. i'm a community photographer for the last i think about 20 years. i joined the chinese historical society. it was a way i could practice my society and i can give the community memories. i've been practicing and get to know everybody and everybody knew me pretty much documenting the history i don't just shoot events. i'm telling a story in whatever photos that i post on facebook, it's just like being there from front to end, i do a good job and i take hundreds and hundreds of photos.

and i was specializing in chinese american history. i want to cover what's happening in chinatown. what's happening in my community. i shoot a lot of government officials. i probably have thousands of photos of mayor lee and all the dignitaries. but they treat me like one of the family members because they see me all the time. they appreciate me. even the local cops, the firemen, you know, i feel at home. i was born in chinese hospital 1954. we grew up dirt poor. our family was lucky to grew up. when i was in junior high, i had a degree in hotel management restaurant. i was working in the restaurant business for probably about 15 years. i started when i was 12 years

old. when i got married, my wife had an import business. i figured, the restaurant business, i got tired of it. i said come work for the family business. i said, okay. it's going to be interesting and so interesting i lasted for 30 years. i'm married i have one daughter. she's a registered nurse. she lives in los angeles now. and two grandsons. we have fun. i got into photography when i was in junior high and high school. shooting cameras. the black and white days, i was able to process my own film. i wasn't really that good because you know color film and processing was expensive and i kind of left it alone for about 30 years. i was doing product photography for advertising.

and kind of got back into it. everybody said, oh, digital photography, the year 2000. it was a ghost town in chinatown. i figured it's time to shoot chinatown store front nobody. everybody on grand avenue. there was not a soul out walking around chinatown. a new asia restaurant, it used to be the biggest restaurant in chinatown. it can hold about a 1,000 people and i had been shooting events there for many years. it turned into a supermarket. and i got in. i shot the supermarket.

you know, and its transformation. even the owner of the restaurant the restaurant, it's 50 years old. i said, yeah. it looks awful. history. because i'm shooting history. and it's impressive because it's history because you can't repeat. it's gone it's gone. >> you stick with her, she'll teach you everything. >> cellphone photography, that's going to be the generation. i think cellphones in the next two, three years, the big cameras are obsolete already. mirrorless camera is going to take over market and the cellphone is going to be better. but nobody's going to archive it. nobody's going to keep good

history. everybody's going to take snapshots, but nobody's going to catalog. they don't care. >> i want to see you. >> it's not a keepsake. there's no memories behind it. everybody's sticking in the cloud. they lose it, who cares. but, you know, i care. >> last september of 2020, i had a minor stroke, and my daughter caught it on zoom. i was having a zoom call for my grand kids. and my daughter and my these little kids said, hey, you sound strange. yeah. i said i'm not able to speak properly. they said what happened. my wife was taking a nap and my

daughter, she called home and said he's having a stroke. get him to the hospital. five minutes later, you know, the ambulance came and took me away and i was at i.c.u. for four days. i have hundreds of messages wishing me get well soon. everybody wished that i'm okay and back to normal. you know, i was up and kicking two weeks after my hospital stay. it was a wake-up call. i needed to get my life in order and try to organize things especially organize my photos. >> probably took two million photos in the last 20 years. i want to donate to an

organization that's going to use it. i'm just doing it from the heart. i enjoy doing it to give back to the community. that's the most important. give back to the community. >> it's a lot for the community. >> i was a born hustler. i'm too busy to slow down. i love what i'm doing. i love to be busy. i go nuts when i'm not doing anything. i'm 67 this year. i figured 70 i'm ready to retire. i'm wishing to train a couple for photographers to take over my place. the younger generation, they have a passion, to document the history because it's going to be forgotten in ten years, 20 years, maybe i will be forgotten when i'm gone in a

couple years but i want to be remembered for my work and, you know, photographs will be a remembrance. i'm frank jane. i'm a community photographer. this is my story. >> when you're not looking, frank's there. he'll snap that and then he'll send me an e-mail or two and they're always the best. >> these are all my p

. >> my name is ana renzi. i'm a fire investigator for the city and county of san francisco. the job of a fire investigator is to go after the fire has been put out and to determine the origin and the cause of the fire. so we are the people who after the firefighters have come in and done their magnificent work to extinguish the fire, we go through the fire scene and we are able to find how the fire started. just showing up, being who you are can mean a world of difference to someone.

when someone sees you as an identifiably queer person, an identifiable female presenting person or a person of color walk into their home, they can feel more comfortable and more trusting just knowing that you are around and that you may have some insight into their situation and to their community needs that others may not have. the san francisco fire department i'm proud to say goes out of its way to recruit women, minorities, and to the lgbtq+ community, we are awaiting you and wanting you to come join us as a san francisco fire department. no one is going to represent us like you are going to represent us. no one is going to care for our communities and for our departments like you are going to come and represent our communities and our

departments. i am a proud black queer member of the san francisco fire department and i'm especially proud to be part of an organization that respects and values our diverse communities in san francisco. [♪♪]

>> good morning everyone. [speaking spanish] act one, scene two. thank you so much, eric. i'm the ceo of tndc. it's great to be here with you to celebrate this ground breaking of 70 affordable homeses at 180 jones. today is a milestone for the tenderloin and for the community that came out to celebrate with us today. we're here because of the power of the community and the community voice.