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minutes for speakers.eakers.eakg none in person.person.person.pee your hand.ur hand.ur hand.ur hal participant and character to give public comment on this item. seeing no hands raised. ah! please know that the board will take a real call vote on the recommended student expulsions when we reconvene to open sessions now i recess this meeting at 501. >> >> commissioner alexander, jenny lam, alida fisher, lisa

weissman-ward, mark sanchez. 7 ayes. >> we will go to the superintendent report. >> good evening, everyone. i wanted to provide an update on a few issues. just a week ago i announced an error where we did not file information with the state regarding state withholding taxes for 2022 school year. since i started as superintendent, i have had to share challenging issues related to our payroll system and how we are managing it and that was incredibly difficult to share because i know how impactful it has been on employees. i have received e-mails on the district

with accurate information to move forward with their taxes and their lives. even if i don't get back to everyone, i read those and understand just how terrible this situation is. so we did move as quickly as we could to address it. we are on track to resolve the issue. the quarterly reports were submitted to edd friday and they need to process them by the 17th. we sent out an email yesterday and set up a website as well that has faq's, www.sfufd 2022 payroll tax. we are working to get more information and working to provide more support for the issues that the employees have been facing.

i do want to appreciate the board approved a calendar at the board last meeting and also authorized to look at spring break. we have the academic calendar for 24 school year. the first day of school will be august 13th and the spring break will be april 12th which works well for our employees and our students. for those students celebrating the holiday, they won't miss school. for the 24/25 calendar and beyond we shared the process and that will start next month and you should start looking for communication around that and we plan to have a two year calendar where we can start earlier and we can have the community discussion around the holidays we might want to observe. also got feedback on this calendar about whether we

want to start on the middle of a week or monday and end on a friday. we'll have a process where we can hear from our community and to know what's going to work best. then lastly, i just want to share that along with while we are going through that process, we know students that celebrate this year and there is a new regulation on the beliefs and customs. for the board we looked at other issues and our new regulation that students and families, we try not to make a requirement between them choosing a holiday and participating in school. we issued a calendar with

observance that may impact attendance. you may have seen that at the last board meeting. and to avoid scheduling exams and athletic events and contest and other special events and students will be excused from school during that holiday week and looking at our communications staff. we have this coming up next month and we'll be sure now that we have the up-to-date regulations. that concludes my report. >> thank you very much, superintendent. with that, we will go to item e 1. i will ask for a motion and second on that item? >> so moved.. >> second. i will pass it to the superintendent to delegate the

staff. >> i would like to bring up anne marie gordon, our interim financial officer. we have here our cd expert in the audience, desean. we are passing around our presentation of the two interims. this is the second

interim report that we provide to the state on this year's budget. we do have here our interim associate superintendent of business services, dr. clark as well. >> good evening, everyone. i also have one printed copy. once we get the full book printed, i will distribute those to all of you, but they are large. so i recommend using the version on board docs. for anyone that wants to go through it, we can hand that out. >> we can put that in the office of commissioners to review on their desk. does that work? >> yes. >> okay, well then, i'm excited to be here again to share our second interim report of this school year. and we'll go ahead to the next

slide. so as a reminder, we do, as dr. wayne shared, we do two interim reports each school year and this is no. 2. interim reports, identified changes to revenues and changes to fund balance and provide multiyear projections for this and the next two fiscal years. and based on these factors and how our forecast looks, one of three certifications is made to the california department of education and positive and for the county and district a positive certification. that is our recommendation this evening

that would certify that the county would enter in our obligations. qualify means we may and negative means we won't. but in this case, we will bring a positive recommendation for both. we'll start with the county office of education. the county office budget is a bit simpler, and more straight forward. so we'll go ahead and go through those, and then the district has a little bit more meat to the content, but in the discussion we'll go through any of it that you have questions about. starting with the county recommendation certification positive. looking at the county's unrestricted general funds, you can see this slide deck is a number of charts that look just like this but want to maintain consistent structure and as i

shared at first interim, we'll always refer back to whatever the previous presentation was for reference. so here for all of these, we have the first interim budget and the second interim budget which is highlighted. going through the revenues, expenditures and ending fund balance you can see there are very minor updates overall compared to the first interim and there were also a few updates within the budget. within the county we have a lot of consistency in what we see and in terms of the plans that are made and changed every year. for this year, we moved payroll and the legal departments into the county budget in an attempt to better reflect some of the functions that we hold as a single district county. so we do have overall hires expenditures compared to last year. but what

you can see is that has resulted in a deficit in the county budget this school year. that is the negative, the red numbers for the net shortfall. so we did not intend to create this pattern within the county budget. when we move to the next slide i will speak to how we are going to correct that so we have stability, consistency and alignment in on going revenue and expenditures in the county budget. so the overall picture for this year and through 24/25, is the county is projected to remain balanced. to reduce that deficit spending, what we will plan to move the payroll department back into the district's general fund, legal for the time being will stay in the county, and

we've had some discussion about how best to reflect. this is after a lot of discussion all through the year last year recognizing that we do have uniqueness as a single district county being a large single district county that we want to be sure that we are thoughtful in reflecting those responsibilities in our budget rather than having it all in one where it's hard to untangle to see those duties. i think there will be more to come on that and how to do it in a way that really makes sense in terms of the big picture and mechanics, but i think at the end of the day where we are right now, we are in a good position this year and structure it in an on going way the county office budget is aligned. the only other thing that i would add as part that have

transition with the 23/24 budget is the added cost for the budget and we'll be working through that process as we finalize next year's budget. >> onto the district for which we also recommend a positive certification. and so we have a number of different snapshots of the general fund overall. starting here with the unrestricted general fund. one important note is that our year to date expenditures in the second interim report are fully incorporated in a way that we were not able to record at first interim. during our first interim report, we had not successfully posted all of our payroll expenditures to our

general ledger, so looking at those reports of our year to date spending, it was very low. we have caught up so far this year. so that means when it comes to our year to date spending, it does reflect the full second interim period which is through january. so that is exciting news. we are still working on how to make that process as smooth and frequent as it's supposed to be, but for the purposes of the second interim report, we are in really good shape in terms of reporting accurately what our expenditures are so far this year. the major update on this table even though it actually looks the change looks relatively minor, but i think the update that is the most significant is that we have updated our local control funding formula revenues using the most recent lc sf

calculator that incorporates the input shared from the january budget proposal and our update ada informal forecast. even though this reflects something minor, it's an area that is very critical for us to update as an estimate as a source of the budget for us. in this bullet point, there is a $20 million audit adjustment that has been implemented since first interim to establish the first system's reserve. on the chart you can see that from the total ending fund balance section e, the second row. it has a rainey day reserve and

systems reserve. that's what the $40 million commitment to hold our rainy day reserve and the audit adjustment is rather than increasing our investment in opeb liability, we maintain the commitment of a $50 million contribution that had been determined last year and brought down what had been an increase to the creation of this system's reserve. this is in the future can be something that we consider as a reserve if needed for on going upgrades or things related to empower sf and also at some point in the future we will also need to upgrade our financial system. empower is only our employee information and payroll. we continue to operate with a financial system that in the short to midterm future may need to be looked at more closely.

so the restricted general fund, this slide was not a part of the first interim, but our cde fiscal agent shared this slide at the board meeting in february. we shared this and with the budget presentation moving forward where we can see the different snapshots, the unrestricted and restricted. you can see we don't have the same partner of deficit spending. there can be more variability depending on what funding sources are available to us based on the decisions made by the state or federal government about category cal allegations and these funds are not impacted -- by declining

enrollment in the way that general fund is. you can see here and we are going to have a little bit more detail to double check into this, but that state block grants, local measures, short-term funding, present a new opportunity for us and on going opportunity for planning and prioritization. and as an example, on the next slide. this is something we discussed a little bit at first interim that was getting a little bit more insight into what is our restricted general fund, what are the details. and so this is not comprehensive. this is not, we can provide more of that detail and each year when we recommend the budget, we include a longer list, a multipage exhibit around our restricted resources, but this is a good example of at the top, some of our larger sources of on

going funds that fall into the restricted general fund and the bottom is some of our one time funds that are eligible to be used over multiple years. so what that means is that some of these are documented as new revenue each year. for example, the public educationen enrichment fund and some of this is reflected in the beginning fund balance. for example, our learning recovery, the third line. we have already received that allocation and so it sits in our fund balance as we spend out of it over multiple years. one note is that our special education number is reflected on the money we get from the state and the district contribution from the unrestricted general fund. we don't get $180 million from the state, we get much less

than that and then we contribute from our unrestricted. to get a little bit more into the weeds, again, i'm happy to answer questions. i wanted to provide a little bit more detail since that has been an area that we have been really talking about moreover the past year. so, i don't have additional talking points here, but wanted to then bring the unrestricted and restricted general funds together so you can see all of it in one place. so that is just again to have the consistency of these different representations of how our budget breaks down and then comes back together. our multiyear projections focused on the unrestricted general funds. overall, the highlights here are very similar to what we saw at first interim. with the establishment of a budget stabilization reserve

last year of $65 million. we have created a buffer for ourselves over the next few years whereas we develop a strategy for how to address on going deficit spending. we've made updates to some of our revenues, but there aren't significant changes at this point in time that we have really substantive updates to share, and on the expenditure side, most of the it revolves around moderate increases for step and column adjustments as staff stay in the district. the cost-of-living adjustments that we get updates from the state, the governor's budget in january. so, we have a slightly, by the end of 24/25, we are in a slightly better position than what it looked like at first

interim due to that lcf revenue in particular. the $11 million of the remaining reserve is not insignificant, but it is small in relation to our overall full budget. >> when you look at the multi- can you go back to that slide. when you look at the multiyear projections, there are three years that shows deficit spending. i do want to point that out because that is something the board will need to paying attention to and my recommendation would be to start in 2023 looking at budget balancing solutions. when you get to 24/25, that budget stabilization is down from $11 million. we go from 25 to 11.3. that trajectory

maintain, 25/26 is going to be some issues at the district. so the purpose is to see how the district will need to plan accordingly. >> that is a great segue into our last two slides. the take away here, positive certificate recommendation and we have retained that positive outlook and as you can see we continue to spend more than we generate on the annual basis through our various funding sources. so looking forward from here, we are in the midst of looking at budget development for year and looking at aligning our goals

and guard rails. our next state budget update will come in may with the mayor revise and that will help with the end of year projections when we look at the budget at the end of the school year, and also in alignment with what dr. clark just shared to ensure long-term fiscal solvency. we intend to bring forward a resolution to commit to aligning our expenditures with our revenues as part of the 23/24 recommended budget. >> thank you, anne marie gordon and dr. clark. i want to end on that knows as well. while in the short-term we are able to meet our obligations. i appreciate what dr. clark said, but it's not that we need to do this, we need to commit to going through this process and we are working with our labor partners and we want to be sure that we are taking steps to recruit and retain our

valued staff through the negotiations process, and so we are going to have to really focus in on what our priorities are and how we are using our resources to support those priorities. so, we should anticipate some real serious discussions about our long-term fiscal outlook throughout the 23/24 school year and the first step will be laying the road map of what that will look like through a resolution. >> thank you so much superintendent and staff for that. much appreciation. if we can have anyone for public comment with cards. >> thank you. i don't have any speaker cards for in person. please raise your hand if you care to speak. >> i'm sorry, we have an in person public comment. please hold.

public speaker: my name is steve sell zeier from a labor party. it's obvious tonight that you continue to pull from privatization. it's been trouble to get these out of power in san francisco. and they continue to suffer because of the malfeasance and failure to properly pay the teachers or overpay them causing problems. you are not addressing that. you are not addressing that. teachers have not been paid properly. they have a problem with the irs, and the state franchise board. nothing here said about that. what are you going to do for the teachers that have to deal with their taxes? we have not heard from the superintendent. it's complete negligence on the part of the school board and you don't have any concern about it.

so when you are saying that there should be an end to privatization, and also you have to have a proper treatment of the workers and teachers and the staff who are suffering as a result of privatization. >> thank you. >> that concludes in person. >> for virtual participants, if you care to share a comment on the interim report that was just shared, please raise your hand. each speaker will have one minute to speak. can we have that repeated in spanish and chinese. >> [ spanish speaker ] >> tiene un minuto.

>> thank you. seeing one hand raised. charles? >> public speaker: yes. thank you. at this point, i beg for, i demand a state take over. i used to be very afraid of losing local control. the state should come down and put a chain and lock on the door and fire everyone at central office and replace them. you have failed to handle any responsibility. you had a year and still couldn't deal with payroll. check the w 2s. and there was plenty of money in our budget and there was 50 percent for raises. if

you cut the overhead, there will be money. but those will never happen because of arrogance and incompetence and lawsuits that was meant for bond. thank you. >> thank you. that concludes virtual public comment for this item. >> all right. are there comments from commissioners or questions? >> commissioner fisher? >> alida fisher: dr. clark, thank you very much and thank you desean for being with us as well. i appreciate the breakdown of the one time unrestricted funds. it really helps as an explanation for me as a lay person, thank you. i also appreciate the intentional discussions that we

have to have about what are our district responsibilities versus our county board of ed responsibilities. could you help us understand a little bit more what that breakdown is going to look like? how are we getting to a stronger understanding of what lies in which responsibility? i have questions about that, not just from a payroll standpoint but also from a special education standpoint. so much of that overlaps. how do we tease that out? mostly financially, but everywhere? >> thank you for the question. so, yes, this is a single school district/county office of education, but as you can see from the report, they are separate and state entities. one of the things that maria and i are working on is to look at the

two separate entities to make sure there is clear delineation between functionality for what should be the county office of education for what should actually be the school district. that's the part of the conversation that we are having now and when we come back in may for the mid-budget development, we can delegate what the roles are in the county office and expenses in comparison to the school district and the organization. if there are specific questions that you have, please send them so we can make sure we are including those in our presentations and be prepared to present. vice-president ward? >> lisa weissman-ward: thank you for sharing this budget information. ever since you have

been here, you have this new budget layout. this has helped me understand especially coming from a non-budget background. thank you for that. i have one ask and maybe then it's through the superintendent and then a question. on page nine, thank you, ms. gordon for pointing out the special education that 190 million wasn't just the state but state and district contributions. i'm wondering for purposes of this presentation or future presentations, whether that column might say state/local, or state/district because i do think that distinction is a really important one. yes, to the extent that also includes federal money just knowing more precise would be useful. then my question is on slide 7, you mentioned the $20 million

audit adjustment that has been just implemented. i wonder if you will share information on it as we moved from opeb liability into this systems receive -- reserve and want to know the why for making that benefit and if you can make that change? >> yes, we can make that change for the future. last spring, when we received the proposition g funds after the legal challenge, there was discussion about how best to use the large amount of one time funding. so one of the recommendations for how to partially use those funds was by paying into our opeb liabilities to help secure our long-term financial position having that

amount of one time funding available for one time investment that really strengthens and reduces our liabilities in the future. the decision at that time had been to invest $50 million. as we went through the year-end closing process and we are preparing our unaudited actuals at the beginning of the school year, our actual spending came in much lower than we had anticipated to the degree that at the time our former head financial officer recommended increasing that $50 million to $70 million. but i think over the course of the fall and the winter and recognizing that we have these other investments in systems that we anticipated needing to make in the future, conversation with our fiscal expert pamela in particular with

someone who suggested recognizing there is a number of certain areas where we need to have reserves available, that it would perhaps play in our favor to maintain the $50 million that we had originally said and recognize that we can make that and establish that $20 million reserve for the need that are for on going priorities where we know we are going to need to make investments in the next several years. >> okay, maybe i misunderstood. so this is a systems reserve in addition to. it's adding on and you are calling it something different or it's the same pot of money? >> so the -- compared to what? >> i wrote down in my notes opeb

liabilities. >> opeb liabilities is not on this slide. that was an aside. at first you didn't see the 20 because it was in a set aside and we pulled the opeb liability here it shows back up. >> we are meeting the requirements around opeb and the biggest liability is how our financial system is working. so if we wanted to and appreciate the cd's guidance where this is the time to invest those one time funds. >> thank you. >> commissioner lainie montamedi? >> there was a reference earlier to a resolution that would come before us as well as a number of areas that have been highlighted

around organizational changes and i'm addressing enrollment and financial projections and trying to prepare as a board member for what to expect between now and what we see in june and how that will be communicated. maybe this is for whomever wants to answer. >> we recently had a meeting with cd representatives, myself, anne marie, mr. desean, as well as pam and a couple other district staff involved where we went through those specific items that were given to the district where there were responses requested. i think from my perspective, all the different items that we discussed, the district did have responses and updates. at the

end of that conversation, cde was very happy to see that there had been movement in areas. they were aware of the challenges that we had in some other areas, but also understood that we had a game plan and as you see the deficit spending and when we come back to the board to have deeper conversations and budget balance and solutions in addition to conversations regarding the resolution in terms of the board's commitment to make sure we stay the course. from my perspective, i thought the conversation went well. they will expect to see between now and june they stay the course and if there are any anomalies, we need to have that conversation here and be able to share back to cde. >> one thing i think in that comes to mind that we discussed in that meeting and again --

particularly with the restricted funds, they encouraged us to make as much progress as possible on having our multiyear plan or multiyear kind of path mapped out for in particular those stimulus funds, the block grants that just came through because that is an area whereas we have a more concrete plan we can reflect on those more accurately in our budget this year. and what can be sort of jarring compared to the restricted and unrestricted, we can see that fund balance. we can actually in our budget establish, represent what we intend to do so there isbetter alignment overall over multiple years we can budget that alignment year over year in our projections so every year you

don't see that number that we have these funds available that we aren't using and that we can really think about how best to serve our schools and students. >> my question has timing element as well on what should the board be expecting between now and june when we are expected to adopt and when might we anticipate seeing a resolution or a draft resolution? >> so, after the meeting with cde, we've also worked to formalize our written responses to the letters we received in october and you will get that at the end of the week. the resolution will come forward with the adoption of the budget and then we'll continue with our progress, sharing our progress in developing the budget as well as our l cap for the 23/24 school year. there is a public

hearing on i think it's the beginning of june. and prior to that, i know when we had our budget workshop, we talked about you should see how the previous l cap was aligned to our goals and guard rails as a baseline, and then and still using that format to say after 23/24, our expenditures are more aligned. that's what we should see to the goals and guard rails to the l cap expenditures. >> thanks. that's super helpful. one thing that i'm particularly interested in is shedding light and airing out our budget in l cap process, and i see improvements being made and really we have an l cap director and so forth, but to the extent that we can provide transparency and both to the board as well as to the public, it's around the

gaps that we need to close and also engaging with the public prior to being asked to adopt the budget because that is the cycle that i think this board has been really clear about wanting to get out from under. the other ask is i have this stigma on financial budget since it's a report that has been a little over a year since we did see it. >> we can work on that. >> i would love to see that as part of the responses to the board as well.

>> we have commissioner lam and commissioner sanchez, if we can make space for that. >> jenny lam: thank you for the report. just a couple questions on the analysis and the reporting. i feel like we briefed it pretty consistently and superintendent, i would like to understand before june to have clarity and what that response and progress looks like. mr. desean, if i can ask you a couple of questions. thank you first and foremost to anne marie and to mr. clark for all the work as we are in the depths of this budget season. mr. desean, you have been with us for a little while. >> this is my home away from home. >> i wanted to follow up to the

letter that was sent from ms. finley in march that was also sent to all board members. i don't think what was raised in that letter is anything new. any new news that has been shared by you and the cde. specifically i want to ask about two issues and i'm glad that you and the team had positive discussions and commitment around progress in the district. could you speak to what you have seen from the past to where we are at now and where you would like to see that momentum specifically on the inadequate position control around systems control around identifying the budgeted filled and vacant

positions particularly for this current second interim as well as looking forward, also on the accuracy on the financial projections. >> we have how much time? [ laughter ] let me try to answer concisely. position control in and of itself is a function of a number of factors including your payroll and personnel system which as we all know is still a work in progress. it is also a function of standard operating procedures which i think need to be part of that work and process, and we have been working with staff on those issues. i think as you are aware, there are a number of vacant open positions in the budget, and this kind of portends to what

you should be looking in the resolution and where we are in the fund and the position control of knowing where those positions are, the dollars they cost and how many of those positions need to be filled and how many just can be deleted from the budget, what are necessary. all that comes with a little footnote that it has been very difficult to recruit and retain, mostly recruit particularly your technical positions in the district. as big as this city is, it is somewhat insulated from other school districts. it's great to have dr. clark on board and to respond to what i think you are saying is a redistrict position which will work with the standard operating procedures with the position control and how you get to answering those questions about the big blocks in the budget. the other thing i think and this

kind of comes between here and there and that resolution is a commitment to look at, and i think this was also in the state letter both you and lainie montamedi are referring to and those steps are needed to refine and you brought on a new demographer, flow analytics, something or other, and i sat on in the interview and they looked very well equipped to look at the micro level of the school district and those population. those three need to come together and they will not be answered by the way, by june. your demographic information is probably a year long until you get to that. hopefully you will have information to inform your 23/24 budget because staffing needs to come way ahead of that.

i'm trying to go back to your three questions, and i don't know if i answered all three of them. with regard to the fiscal risk analysis. there were a number of issues pointed out in there. i think certainly with your staff and we can look back and certainly information that was not retained from the cde, because i think that covers a number of them. as you know one of the major ones was to bring on a cbo which you have right now structured in a business position. one of the things, again standard operating procedures come to the issue and i don't remember all of them that are in the fhra. i wish i could have committed those to memory, but those internal controls and we have the business position and interaction with human resources and who does what so there is

kind of a control system in terms of both fiscal and data that come into the system. the obvious, it's not elephant in the room, and i think i know everybody knows what it is and that is with empower which is on another agenda item. i don't think you have any choice but to continue with that and continue to look at other options in the long-term as ms. gordon pointed out. did i get through all of your questions? i might have talked myself out of remembering one of them. >> going into the second year with us with san francisco unified at the government level, what is it you want to share with us looking ahead to ensure there is a stronger alignment and that this district has had structural deficit spending and

what that looks like? >> you and we have helped to decrease that trajectory, but it's still there. as you know year three, $36 million structural deficit. structural deficit -- is that right? that's still an issue particularly with declining enrollment and in years 24/25 which is not on the multiyear reports projections, that is clearly a concern. so it's going to be key to fine tune those systems in the next year. for the board along with staff to make a commitment which is going to be difficult to look at the way you spend money on staffing. i picked the words the way because that doesn't necessarily mean anybody goes away or who comes or who goes, but how staff are aligned to stick to your

sites, to your programs, to some of your one time funding and some of your restricted funding. some of that one time funding goes away at the end of 23, at the end of 24, and i think 28 even. so it's going to be very critical to prepare for those funding decreases. again i come back, i think it was the first thing i heard ms. gordon said at the meeting before i came on board was queueing up your staffing to the needs of the school and when i say that it's truly just your bare bones and that will be tough and hopefully attrition will take care of some of those things but hopefully realigning staff and i know that can be a

painful process but you did go through it this fall and you did survive. open enrollment and looking at what the staffing needs are. on your vacancies, they are right now near crippling to be honest. i can't make it a stronger point that you have this in position in your vision and human resources and they require people with human resources and business experience in schools which makes it much more difficult to fill especially part of what you deal with is the complexity of the city personnel commission, and the fluidity of staff being able to go back and forth. that's something i don't think you can control, but it will be very important to retain people in the technical positions, and just an example right now is your dot, is very thin. dot's

tend to be then with the expertise required but with the depth of the people who work with the fiscal system, with the payroll system, and you've got several, you know, we can throw out all the initials but with people soft and empower system, you have two different systems. it's very complicated but it needs to be staff with expertise. >> thank you. >> commissioner alexander and then commissioner sanchez. >> matt alexander: thank you. i want to come back to the school budget and guidance and it should come to the superintendent with the intention that it does not honor the mission and the values and the superintendent has to convince us of the budget. my vote is no right now on the

budget and waiting to be convinced next year. i don't understand that process for going into the next year, and this also says, you know because of the potential for back and forth as part of the deliberative process and for beginning the adoption process at least 4-6 months prior to deadline of adoption. to me a meeting in early june does not seem like the time to begin and i'm confused about that and i'm not sure how that's going to play out with our process that we are smaller. >> sure, tonight, first to clarify. tonight you are not approving a budget. you are approving the second interim report for the 22/23 school year budget which was developed before we adopted goals. then for the process you described, we did have our budget workshop where i think we did talk about priorities and some of what the board expected

to see, and so then and the work around our goals and guard rails is helping inform the budget development process. so that's within the initial presentation that will be a follow-up from that to convince you of how the budget has shifted to be more aligned with the resources. and then that gives an opportunity for some feedback before adoption. i will say, hearing the line of questioning, i'm going to think about ways maybe before then to provide some update on how it's developing so that there is maybe some mid-development correction or feedback to be offered. i didn't want to get to june and maybe i'm over dramatizing that, but i didn't want to get to june before the board said oh my gosh, what's going on here and how does that

align with our goals and we don't want to have our backs up against the wall. we have been here not with you but the superintendent. >> commissioner sanchez? >> mark sanchez: thank you very much for your hard work. i just have one question which is about the may revise. how can that play out and what negative or positive effects might we expect? >> so the may revise will, i think based on what we saw in the january budget proposal, the main area where we received updates were the cost-of-living adjustment or the kind of growth

factor in the local control funding formula. it could be next year and the out years for our planning for how the lcsf projection looks over the years. that is one where the current cola used for planning is quite high. there is a possibility that it could go down. we hope not, but that is one where that sort of informs that growth factor overall for lcsf. >> is there any indication of what's going to happen in may regarding cola? >> i'm not sure. i think that they are sort of different. once the january proposal comes out, there can be a couple different firms, different organizations that sort of review the assumptions and will weigh in, and i think that for now, they

are sort of indications, questions, if we are as a state moving toward a potential economic down turn what that means. the way that cola is calculated, there is a little bit of a lagging effect. so we wouldn't immediately see the cola go down if the next year or two out is an economic down turn. so not sure. the last thing that i would add is we got updates on, for example, one of the block grants that we received last summer as part of the enacted budget was reduced. so i think that's one where it's in the world of one time multiyear funding resources but we are trying to develop a plan that might be another place where we either learn where it could be increases in funding or

if we get confirmation that some of those on going more restricted funding sources will continue. >> one last thing. slide nine, vice-president was referring to as well. i do appreciate the on going funds addition. i just recommend that we put in parenthesis the ones that are local to have sunset dates. i think that's helpful for the public to know when those dates are. >> you mean for the taxes? we can add that and the one time also as mr. desean said some will expire in year 23 or 24. that's part of the outset. >> yes. thank you. >> thank you, commissioners.

i saw pam virtually unmute. i don't know if you wanted to add anything, pam, before we move on? >> thank you. i want sure how to approach this. the one thing i will say in terms of the revise they have at the state level right now because they gave extensions to counties on filing their income taxes this year and some of it is going past i believe maybe even august or september, that it's going to be more difficult for the state to really kind of see where they are financially because of that. so i would think that at the may revise, it may be a little bit more conservative just based on that and not having the information they need to be able to see where this standing of collection of personal taxes. that was the only thing i wanted to mention. >> thank you so much for adding that context. >> i was just going to as a segue say that we both i think

pam and myself would recommend being quite conservative even with the may revise because the cola, which is really the implicit price deflater which is a calculation, doesn't govern what the governor does. the governor takes that money, and it also doesn't govern how much revenue the state gets. so the state gets a certain amount of revenue. there is a statutory cola, and the governor has to put that altogether in a budget. until you see that, it's going to be difficult to predict what might happen and in the past several years, the legislature has moved more and more towards restricting certain parts of that money. so even under prop 98, you are seeing more and more of it restricted. that's why you have a lot of these on going, one time funds, the elop, not the arts and entertainment, arts

and music instruction and materials which is actually less restricted that was passed with prop 28? you have two sources of art and music, but one of them is more restricted, one is less restricted, but i think you are going to see more and more that have and the district should be prepared for the legislature to really give you some direction in how they want you to spend money. so i think all of those things need to be thought out as you look at your next year budget. i did want to respond a little bit to commissioner alexander because i think that's a really good point that over time, the board should be intimately involved with the development of the budget. you have a new l cap coordinator director in the district and you will see over

time. i'm underscoring over time your alignment between guard rails, vision values, goals and guard rails. i have to pick up the san francisco language every time i come into town. i think it's critical you look at those and you will have to look at those within the context of the money you have. i always end with how much money you have. >> i will be clear, i don't think this is thoughtful of this year. this is my point. i wanted to make sure that we are being transparent and we know i think all of us know we are not going to be able to turn the entire ship overnight, but i think it's really important to be transparent with the public about what we are turning and what we are not turning. if there are things that aren't aligned yet to be able to be honest about that and for the board to have questions to say, okay, we are agreeing and we are going to approve this budget even though we may all agree

it's not where we want it to be. i think there is time for that conversation and doesn't get jammed up in two weeks because when we do it at the last minute we have teachers and parents and other stakeholders all stressed at the same time and the more we can have a little bit of breathing room, the more conversations we can have in a deliberative way. that was to clarify my intention and my comments. >> i hear that, but i think as we are -- i appreciate the clarification, but i do think as we are developing the budget there are updates that we can give along the way on our priorities and talking about students and about delivering on some costs there and updates would be helpful. >> all right. with that, roll

call vote, mr. steel. >> commissioner alexander? >> yes. >> commissioner fisher? >> yes. >> commissioner lam? >> yes. >> commissioner sanchez? >> yes. >> commissioner lainie montamedi? >> yes. >> thank you. with that, we'll go to item e 2. can i have a motion and second on the 2nd amendment on the contract on school district and info systems limited. >> so moved.. >> second. >> good evening again. with me is associate superintendent of business, dr. candy clark, and our head of staff truejillo,

from our action plan. while the presentation is loading, i will say tonight we are going to share why we need to amend this contract. what are some key definitions between this amendment and the previous contracts that we have made to increase the accountability and timely delivery of services. the next steps to increase our ability to effectively manage, empower sf overall in particular. >> good evening, commissioners. this is my first time addressing you. hello, everyone.

i want to talk to you a little bit about why we continue to need info sys and why it's needed. they remain critical to maintain payroll services and many of our day-to-day operations. the capacity to have an internal team up and running is still in motion. so we remain dependent on infosys for that. and lots of institutional knowledge is still within infosys. to that end, there are some key differences to this amendment and one is this contract with time and material with this rate. we have precisely identified what needs to be fixed. i will say in the process we will find other issues, but we have a very clear understanding of what needs to be fixed right now. we have

clear change control mechanisms in ways to slate issues from both ends and in the contract itself there is now requirement for senior management, the senior management communications on weekly basis. when i say we have some clarity on the work, what you have in front of you is known as the work packages that our partners helped us identify. we have identified close to 66 known issues and defects that have been organizing to work packages. the ones in bold are the first we are going to work on. enter -- inter phase and employee payroll. and this is important for us to know how we are going to interface with this work and to know that infosys

and the team is on the same page. >> this is critical for the board to understand and i think also helpful for the public to see because so much of this implementation when we are talking about the challenges with implementation, the question that keeps coming up is where is the accountability? in previous amendments to infosys hasn't really delineated where the focus is on but we need this system first launched and fixed. so this is where you can see exactly what work should be completed and we can provide that progress report. on how they are doing. but that's not the only step that will help make sure we have stabilized empower. they have clear technical support they need to provide. one of which has been provided thus far is just to run

our payroll. we need to be sure we are hiring the appropriate staff to run our own and support the staff with this implementation and also need to try to say no to things as we stabilize. there are features we would like to have to help us in the future better understand our personnel and manage evaluation, but right now we can't handle any new enhancements and need to pause and see what it looks like. we need to hire staff and train staff and really implementing this successfully. i would like to turn it over to dr. clark. >> we've taken a three step approach as dr. wayne mentioned. one of the most critical components of looking at staff is training. right now we are in the process of digging deep and developing additional

professional development for payroll staff, human resources staff, i.t. staff, accounting, as well as site staff. a lot of that training has been on understanding on how to utilize the system and how one individual's job may impact the main course down the system and bringing these partners together so they can see the big picture. we have had a lot of positive feedback from the training so far and also guidance from the training that will begin to develop it going forward. the other part of the approach is looking another increasing access to external support. right now there is one vendor that we are utilizing for temporary staff. the challenge is trying to find individuals that may have school district experience as well as success factor experience that we can potentially pull in. that pool

of talent is thin, and so rather than try to completely rely on a small group of individuals, we are expanding our rfp to look at bringing in additional resources even if it's temporary staff to focus on some of those areas. so that rfp has been released and we are hoping within the next couple of weeks, we'll be able to get feedback from the rfp and be able to utilize that to add additional entities to the core group of staff that are able to come in. that's more of a short-term goal. with the last piece i want to talk about was the long-term goal which is being able to hire staff full-time within the organization. we have been working hard to look at 42 or 43 essential positions that we need to have in place in order to continue to move forward with this system. so, that has been a

challenge for a variety of different ways. a lot of it is stemming around trying to find individuals that are willing to come to work for the district to fill in some of these roles. so we are rethinking on how we approach recruitment. i have recommended a more active approach. so rather than wait for individuals to apply, let's go out and knock on doors and make phone calls on neighboring entities and districts to see who might want to come and share their expertise. i did go to the conference and will actively recruit for positions available and hopefully encourage more to come into the district and so we can hire from the bay area or around the bay area for those who have the skill set that we

need in order to continue to move forward. >> as i go to the next slide, i want to share how this has really become an all hands-on deck. when we talk about the training with new staff that has just come in, just last week i was at the command center and their full-time job is to support the board office has been supporting also the command center. they were training new people coming in. that's what has taken to make the progress, we know it's not enough but to make the progress we have made so far in having people get out of their day jobs to step up and help us address these issues. >> just to give you a picture of the hiring that we need to do. >> sure. this is a list of the immediate and urgent needs that we have identified for positions. the dark green represent positions that are filled, the

light green represent positions that are ready to interview, and then if you go to the blue colors, they are either being prepared to post or posted. i would have loved to have been able to show you a screen that have all green, dark green because that would have moved us down the road a lot further, but i do want to point out that this list is very critical to our ability to continue to move this system forward. there are positions identified in business services, particularly in payroll, human resources and information technology. the expectation is that for many of these positions that you see here, they will either a be assigned 100% to the empower implementation team and work there, or they will be back filled on the operational side

within the department so that another staffer can focus fulton empower. this is a daunting task. there are a lot of positions that we need to fill and i believe at my last count, out of the 43 positions, we may have filled 10 or 11. so, there is a lot of work that needs to continue to happen in order to fill these positions. go ahead about the funding. what happened to that? >> so on the funding source for this amendment is coming from,

okay, you can just speak to the funding sources. >> funding sources are for this particular amendment that are related to one time funding sources that we have identified in relationship to salary savings. we saw that list of position that are already in the budget but need to be filled. that savings will be utilized for a portion of the positions. we talked at first interim in related to opeb and that savings. a small portion will be utilized to cover the cost of this amendment.

>> sorry for the presentation challenges there. the key point is we know it's hard to bring forward an amendment to be putting more money into this implementation. again, it's a different type of amendment and the point is one time funds will be used for that. then just as far as next steps so we are going to continue to work on the action plan and i will keep updating you at our meetings on our progress. we will be getting weekly progress reports and continuing to stabilize our efforts in this new system. i will say this since i started in san francisco, i came in knowing this was a challenge.

not knowing the huge scope and the depths of this and the community has stepped up and offered to support. last week we met with the city of san francisco and the comptroller's office and community is interested in helping. so in negotiating this contract as emphasized that it's different from previous amendments and different in parts because we have the support of -- who has spent her time in this field and has been willing to work for free but we paid her a dollar to be sure we have that accounted for. i wanted to recognize her and our other partners who have really stepped up to say we want

the district to be successful, how can you let us know, and it's been our pleasure and privilege to work with them to try to move forward this implementation. >> right. with that, why don't we see if there is any public comment on this item. >> we have a couple cards. steve zealser. >> please raise your hand if you wish to speak. please mention that in spanish and in chinese.

>> cantonese. >> [ spanish speaker ] >> [speaking in cantonese]. >> thank you. i will call on charles and chris. >> public speaker: three words, sunk fallacy. please look it up. what is the normal average cost for payroll software. you want to look for $500 per employee more. for a total of close to $3,000 total per employee. the cost should be one tenth of that, but obviously nobody could do that research. but somebody got rich and was paid off and got away with it. you don't have to be an inspector columbo to find that either.

someone knew and gave them the contract. it should be given and handed over to the local fbi office. i'm not laughing and the kids of the this city suffer because of the corruption. it's always easy to play in san francisco. either investigate it and admit it. this is people that steal from the public schools. please do not let them get away with this. thank you. >> thank you. >> chris and then ms. marshall. >> can you hear me? >> you sound far away. public speaker: can you hear me? >> yes.

>> i have two points. i'm a special education teacher. first salary savings from open positions is not savings. that money represents positions that the city has failed to fill causing at this point almost unmeasurable harm to secretaries, teachers, custodians and staff. i'm tired that you are claiming savings for position whether it's in payroll or across the state. they are not savings. they are failures. my second point to my question, given all the harm that's been caused by this system and the ballooning expenses of it, is this worth it? that's the question you need to answer. if this doesn't solve the problem, sfusd will have spent over $30 million by my count on this

system. so again, i'm asking is this worth it? thank you. >> thank you, chris. ms. marshall? public speaker: good evening, superintendent and staff. i am appalled to hear the request for more money. i am appalled that you cannot find people in san francisco. i know you can who can do the positions that you had on that screen. this company should not be given one penny that takes away from the integrity and from the students and staff in this district. i know that you can find people who can do what's on that screen. before this system arrives, sfusd hired people in hr, in payroll, who did this

work as part of their regular job. you have spent so much money on this system. this and i agree with the caller before me. this needs to be an fbi investigation or naacp investigation. this company should not receive one penny more. there is plenty of staff that can do this as part of their regular job. they have done it before, why can't they do this now. give it to the teachers, give it to the people that you have not paid. not this company. this is a fraud. >> thank you, ms. marshall. that concludes public comment for this item. >> i appreciate that. we will go to staff comment. i have a few initial comments and then we'll go to other commissioners. if staff could talk a little bit about the expertise gaps and just kind of where we are maybe

lacking internal expertise and kind of an impact that kind of outside consultants are kind of playing to fill that gap, and essentially trying to get a fill of what would be the reality if we had to run these systems, kind of by ourselves without outside help at this point just kind of what state we would be in. >> so i'm going to talk about two different things. one thing is the recognition that even before the implementation of empower sf there were critical vacancies within particularly the business services department. that should be recognized. so coming into this system, the goal of filling a lot of those positions have yet to emerge. now here we are still trying to move forward with the system and those gaps in subject

matter experts are still there. when we look at school districts, that's a unique skill set. there are individuals that you are hire from other agencies from government and payroll, yes, those are transferable skills. but if you are coming from the outside, from the private sector, some aspects you may be able to manage but may not have experience with the teachers retirement system or classified system and may not have experience with the contract and experience in the variety of calculations that are necessary to deliver an appropriate pay for an individual. what we are dealing with the empower system is that there are three separate modules, so for an employee record, rather than having that record in one location, pieces of it are all in these three systems. so an individual who

may be over here on the benefit side doing work may enter 92 something in and if it's not in the appropriate frequency or scope or academy -- cadence on what it needs, it can cause issues. so we need to know what this looks like so as they are entering this information with the issues coming up, the goal is to catch that first before it enters the system. that's the perfect situation. but when you have vacancies and filling them and they don't have that expertise, you have to train them from the ground up. that's an effort to get them where they are trying to be while moving these efforts in place moving forward. i would like to talk

about the life of a cycle of an employee from hiring and on board and move through the pay cycle. the manner in which this system is set up, it's not like the information grows smoothly. you start here and this particular element of this system needs to replicate and if there is any gaps in that replication, we have a problem. we know that there are 50 fields within this system that directly impact pay. but those 50 fields are not just within the payroll department. they are not just within the hr department. they are throughout this system. we

need to understand how these systems operate to be sure that it is always kept in the system so the system can replicate and move pay through the pay department. we called it the payroll issue but it is not the payroll issue. there are many things happening within the payroll field that is outside the department that is on the back side replicating to pay some of those employees. those are the challenges. the other pieces is on the i.t. side of the house with the requirements to manage this system. it's different from the previous system and so this is a requirement of higher levels of expertise from what is needed before. one of the challenges that we have been having is finding individuals that have sap success factor experience particularly individuals who

have worked with a government agency, a school district in the payroll and hr side of the house because those are the two areas that are having the most impact from the fields around this system. it's not just pulling someone in off the street and throwing them in a position. it's really being thoughtful and methodical about the skill set that is needing, the training required and whether or not that individual has the ability to learn it while we are also implementing a system. it's a huge lift, and those positions that you see listed, that is just immediate needs. that is not all the vacancies in the organizations, but those are the things that we have identified in key areas that we want to focus on to be able to have people in positions, focus full-time -- on this particular

situation. >> thank you, the next thing i want to focus on how san francisco is set up and getting your opinion on the district and how things compare here and i get the ability to compare what's happening in other districts and the variability to being able to manage this as their approach. >> what is really unique about san francisco is being part of the civil service and the city managing our benefits. earlier in the year, we had an issue with people's benefits being dropped, and that's compounded because part of the communication that was happening between our system and the health and human services in the city. that's just not districts typically manage their own health benefits and wouldn't need to send that information

over to a whole other entity for health benefits to be activate. that is one concrete example of the complexity that we are dealing with and surely other districts aren't dealing with. i don't know if you want to give another specific example. >> yes, one of the things that i see is drastically different is the employee record. usually the employee record is in one location in a system, so you are age to go in and input information into that one system. the way this system is set up, it's pieces of the employee record are in these different modules so that information is put in multiple different places and it has to replicate and replicate accurately and move its way through. so you have a very different work flow for how information comes in and how it moves over to payroll for

processing. i'm only aware of one school district in the state that has this system in place and it was a very difficult implementation and i believe it was somewhere around 7-10 years for that system to be implemented. we definitely don't want to repeat what happened in that district, but there were a lot of common things between the issues that they discovered versus what we are seeing with this system. >> thank you. my last question. i take all the time for questions. maybe the superintendent can address why the public should trust us and have faith in this decision and kind of like the path we are going over some of the decisions we have immediate to lead us in this place as we are in crisis still? >> yeah, i don't know that i can expect the public's trust just

yet. i will just keep pointing to highlighting the differences in what we are trying to do such as having the clear scope for this contract, or having the regular updates that we've been providing, and again, it's not where it needs to be but still trying to demonstrate where we've made progress in resolving issues. i feel like that trust is something that we are a ways from earning, but that's what i would point to and to demonstrate we are intentionally trying to earn that trust back. >> thank you for responding. additional questions or comments from commissioners? seeing one from commissioner alexander? >> matt alexander: i was going to comment that this is a hard vote for me and for all of us. i actually voted no on the infosys

first time in june 2021, because at that time i felt like i was being asked to approve a blank check. i don't feel that way about this one, and i think that's due to the diligent work of mr. trio, dr. clark, and i as a board member have been able to have extensive briefings and feel there is a level of accountability here that wasn't in the district before. i don't expect the public to believe that, but as a representative of the public, i would not be voting for this unless i felt that level of accountability was there. i want to say that i shared the extreme skepticism that has been expressed by many members of the public, and i think my colleagues do as well. i don't want to speak for people, but this is a really tough one, but i also understand that we actually need this

system if we want to keep paying our employees right now and this is the only system that we have and then we can start moving forward. i wanted to appreciate what i think is a different way of working from the team here. >> >> okay. seeing no more comments. sorry, i missed vice-president ward. >> lisa weissman-ward.. i want to just briefly in 30 seconds say thanks to our commissioner. i absolutely share your sentiments and while votes don't always feel easy or feel good. i have a better sense of feeling

of confidence because of the information from the board and regular meetings from dr. wayne and the reality is we have to pay our educate ors and our staff and a lot of people are going to endure significant harm and i don't want to cause additional harm. >> commissioner lam? >> jenny lam: thank you to the team for doing this work. i also want to say how frustrating, how infuriating, how angry, you know it's been for the board and the governance. i take, we all do, the responsibility as stewarding public funds, and knowing that

our core of our staff and educators deserve this dignity and i respect that and i say that every month this report comes up. i also want to say thank you, dr. clark, for your work in just a couple months that you have joined us. it is so clear how much we need the expertise and the prioritization around turn around for this district and everything goes back to its core with the business operations. without that core, everything else cannot function. we have been living it for over a year now. i just want to express that we know it's still going to be a long road ahead, but i want to

just acknowledge the superintendent and his leadership with the team and want to say thanks to our partners and experts to lend their expertise with us to get to the right course. i appreciate that it's not just about payroll. this is so much of a much deeper system of work that needs to happen, and that is why after many decades, i think we are finally going to need to put the attention, the resources, the skills, the expertise so that we can have a stronger foundation. so thank you. >> >> roll call, please. >> [roll call]

>> >> seven ayes. >> all right. thank you. >> with that, we will move to item f, informational items. we have two. >> these are presented for yours and the public's information. these are the sunshines from the united administrators of san francisco to us and our proposal, our sunshine of the proposals will negotiate to them. as part of the process, we share them as an information item. we'll have a public hearing next week and we'll seek the board's approval and acceptance of our sunshine and public comment and both at the next meeting.

>> >> all right. with that, we will adjourn the meeting at 8:18. >> can i make one comment? >> yeah. >> happy pie day, everybody. >> yeah. >> [ end of realtime captioning ] >> >>

>> there is a lot of unique characteristics about visitation valley. it is a unique part of the city. >> we are off in a corner of the city against the san francisco county line 101 on one side. vis station valley is still one of the last blue color neighborhoods in san francisco. a lot of working class families

out here. it is unusual. not a lot of apartment buildings. a lot of single family homes. >> great business corridor. so much traffic coming through here and stopping off to grab coffee or sandwich or pick up food before going home. >> a lot of customers are from the neighborhood. they are painters or mechanics. they are like blue color workers, a lot of them. >> the community is lovely. multi-racial and hopefully we can look out for each other. >> there is a variety of businesses on the block. you think of buffalo kitchen, chinese food, pork buns, sandwich. library, bank of america with a parking lot. the market where you can grab anything. amazing food choices, nail salons. basically everything you need is

here. >> a lot of these businesses up and down leland are family owned. people running them are family. when you come here and you have an uncle and nephew and go across the street and have the guy and his dad. lisa and her daughter in the dog parlor and pam. it is very cool. >> is small businesses make the neighborhood unique. >> new businesses coming. in mission blue, gourmet chocolate manufacturing. the corridor has changed and is continuing to change. we hope to see more businesses coming in the near future. >> this is what is needed. first, stay home. unless it is absoluteliness

scary. social distancing is the most important step right now to limit spread of virus. cancel all nonessential gather everythings. >> when the pandemic litly land avenue suffered like other corridors. a few nail salons couldn't operate. they shut down. restaurants that had to adapt to more of a take out model. they haven't totally brought back indoor seating. >> it is heartbreaking to see the businesses that have closed down and shut because of the pandemic. >> when the pandemic first hit it got really slow. we had to change our hours. we never had to close, which is a blessing. thank god. we stayed open the whole time. >> we were kind of nervous and anxious to see what was going to come next hoping we will not have to close down. >> during covid we would go

outside and look on both sides of the street. it looked like old western town. nobody on the street. no cars. >> it was a hard eight or nine months. when they opened up half the people couldn't afford a haircut. >> during that time we kept saying the coffee shop was the living room of the valley. people would come to make sure they were okay. >> we checked on each other and patronized each other. i would get a cup of coffee, shirt, they would get a haircut. >> this is a generous and kind community. people would be like i am getting the toffee for the guy behind me and some days it went on and on. it was amazing to watch. we saw a perfect picture of community. we are all in this together.

>> since we began to reopen one year later, we will emerge stronger. we will emerge better as a city because we are still here and we stand in solidarity with one another. >> when we opened up august 1st. i will not say it was all good. we are still struggling due to covid. it affected a lot of people. >> we are still in the pandemic right now. things are opening up a little bit. it is great to have space to come together. i did a three painting series of visitation valley and the businesses on leland. it felt good to drop off the paintings and hung them. >> my business is picking up. the city is opening up. we have mask requirements. i check temperatures. i ask for vaccination card and/or recent test. the older folks they want to

feel safe here. >> i feel like there is a sense of unity happening. >> what got us through the pandemic was our customers. their dogs needed groomed, we have to cut their nails so they don't over grow. >> this is only going to push us forward. i sense a spirit of community and just belief in one another. >> we are trying to see if we can help all small businesses around here. there is a cannabis club lounge next to the dog parlor to bring foot traffic. my business is not going to work if the business across the street is not getting help. >> in hit us hard. i see a bright future to get the storefronts full. >> once people come here i think they really like it. >> if you are from san francisco visit visitation valley to see how this side of the city is the

same but different. >> my name is alan schumer. i am a fourth generation san franciscan. in december, this building will be 103 years of age. it is an incredibly rich, rich history. [♪♪♪] >> my core responsibility as city hall historian is to keep the history of this building alive. i am also the tour program

manager, and i chair the city advisory commission. i have two ways of looking at my life. i want it to be -- i wanted to be a fashion designer for the movies, and the other one, a political figure because i had some force from family members, so it was a constant battle between both. i ended up, for many years, doing the fashion, not for the movies, but for for san franciscan his and then in turn, big changes, and now i am here. the work that i do at city hall makes my life a broader, a richer, more fulfilling than if i was doing something in the

garment industry. i had the opportunity to develop relationships with my docents. it is almost like an extended family. i have formed incredible relationships with them, and also some of the people that come to take a tour. she was a dressmaker of the first order. i would go visit her, and it was a special treat. i was a tiny little girl. i would go with my wool coat on and my special little dress because at that period in time, girls did not wear pants. the garment industry had the -- at the time that i was in it and i was a retailer, as well as the designer, was not particularly favourable to women. you will see the predominant designers, owners of huge

complexes are huge stores were all male. women were sort of relegated to a lesser position, so that, you reached a point where it was a difficult to survive and survive financially. there was a woman by the name of diana. she was editor of the bazaar, and evoke, and went on and she was a miraculous individual, but she had something that was a very unique. she classified it as a third i. will lewis brown junior, who was mayor of san francisco, and was the champion of reopening this building on january 5th of 1999. i believe he has not a third eye

, but some kind of antenna attached to his head because he had the ability to go through this building almost on a daily basis during the restoration and corrects everything so that it would appear as it was when it opened in december of 1915. >> the board of supervisors approved that, i signed it into law. jeffrey heller, the city and county of san francisco oh, and and your band of architects a great thing, just a great thing. >> to impart to the history of this building is remarkable. to see a person who comes in with a gloomy look on their face , and all of a sudden you start talking about this building, the gloomy look disappears and a smile registers across their face.

with children, and i do mainly all of the children's tours, that is a totally different feeling because you are imparting knowledge that they have no idea where it came from, how it was developed, and you can start talking about how things were before we had computer screens, cell phones, lake in 1915, the mayor of san francisco used to answer the telephone and he would say, good morning, this is the mayor. >> at times, my clothes make me feel powerful. powerful in a different sense. i am not the biggest person in the world, so therefore, i have to have something that would draw your eye to me.

usually i do that through color, or just the simplicity of the look, or sometimes the complication of the look. i have had people say, do those shoes really match that outfit? retirement to me is a very strange words. i don't really ever want to retire because i would like to be able to impart the knowledge that i have, the knowledge that i have learned and the ongoing honor of working in the people's palace. you want a long-term career, and you truly want to give something to do whatever you do, so long as you know that you are giving

to someone or something you're then yourself. follow your passion and learn how to enrich the feelings along the way.

>> welcome everyone. thank you so much for joining me today. the round table discussion. i actually have background in youth work. worked in china town before so having you four from youth commission join today is