madam chair, no speakers. >> public comment is now closed. we will move this item to full board with recommendation. with that, a roll call, please. >> on the motion to forward to full board with positive recommendation, mandelman, aye. safai, aye. chan, aye. we have three ayes. >> thank you. motion passes and let's go to item 16. >> item 16, resolution approving amendment no. 1 to the agreement between richmond area multi services, inc. and the department of public health (dph), to provide vocational rehabilitation employment and training programs; to increase the agreement amount by $31,268,440 for a total not to exceed amount of $40,837,235; to extend the term by four years and six months from december 31, 2023, for a total agreement term of may 1, 2022, through june 30, 2028; and to authorize dph to enter into modifications of the agreement that do not materially increase the city's obligations or liabilities and are necessary to effectuate the purposes of the agreement or this resolution.

>> thank you. we have department of public health here. >> good afternoon. the program manager for vocational services at behavioral health service. i will say bhs and happy to share we have leadership from rams here present in case there are specific questions for them. just to talk about the richmond or rams vocational programs, there is 5 different programs that are part of this contract. the first one is focusing on janitorial services. it provides paid supported employment and interturnship opportunities within the

janitorial field and provides coverage to dph, bhs clinics and programs. then we have the clerical and mail room services and it provides paid supportive employment and internship opportunities and support of bhs administrative operations included the areas of business operations support such as clerical mail room front desk reception, messenger and driving positions to deliver mail all within bhs system of care and primarily in our central administration facility. then, third we have the it program and that provides 5 specific training cohorts operated by bhs and dph and supported employment in it support positions within the bhs systemf ocare. next the vocational services that provides vocational

occupational assessment paid internships and or entry level work positions to tay youth age 15-25 par titspating in program s in this program and then have the finally employee development program and that provides vocational assessment job skills training paid on-site work experience unpaid classroom and group training sessions vocational counseling and job coaches and classes and workshops to improve employment readyness in this program. i just want to share that with the rams vocational contract we have been in partnership with them for over 20 years and as a agency we have been contracting with them for over i believe 40 years. so this contract is within dph

behavioral health service office of justice equity diversity inclusion/mental health service act and eligibility basically is san francisco residents receiving behavioral health treatment and then the vocational services on function as a pathway to competitive community integrated employment and they are critical to the clients wellbeing independent and recovery. the referrals can come in directly to the rams or us vocational services. and then hireability closely follow trainings while they complete their program and facilitate onward referrals to additional internships educational opportunities or to the department of rehabilitation. permanent employees continue to receive behavioral health support during employment. in terms of outcomes for fiscal year 22-23, each programs successfully met all their year

end performance objective which measures program completion or transfer to other employment or education improvement and work place coping skills, increased vocational readiness and motivation and employment referrals. these are just some select performance objectives from fy22-23, so i just like to show for the it program this objective says by june 30, 2023 75 percent of survey graduate report increase in readiness for additional meaningful activity related to vocational service. meaning educational program advance internship advance training program employment volunteer work et cetera evidenced by item on it feedback tool and the result is objective met 15 out of 15

survey graduates indicated increase in readiness for additional meaningful activities related to vocational service. i want to read that out loud as a example. pictures of folks that were part of the rams hireability and currently are part of the rams hireability program as interns. so, dph agrees with the bla recommendation which is request approval of the proposed resolutions as amened. one year extension not $13.1 million not to exceed and happy to provide update on performance of the contract of rams hireability seeking extension of the contract. thank you very much and i can take any questions. >> item 16, this is a

resolution that approves amendment to dph agreement with rams. extend the agreement by 4 years and 6 months through june 2028. we detailed the cost of the agreement on page 40 of our report. total cost is $7 million. little less then half is funded by the general fund. we also discussed on page 39 that two of the vocational programs here did not meet the units of service, and far below delivering 50 percent units of service that are required in the contract due to staff vacancies and just people not beic in the program and participating in them. for that reason we had a recommendation to either stop funding those programs or just do one year extension which the department agrees with and that allow some time to--they

reported us the programs are now on track. they are now staffed and hoping to sustain that for the next year, so i think amending the resolution to just provide one year extension through december 2024 and there is one i think it should be $16 million for the new not to exceed amount. i think dph circulated a resolution about that. >> what was the last thing? >> the resolution before you approves not to exceed of $40.8 million. i think reducing to $16 million would provide them sufficient funding for the next 12 months. >> we have to amend the total not to exceed dollar amount minus 3 million is that crckt because you are increasing by 13 million instead of 16?

>> now it is the resolution says 40.8. my recommendation would be to change that to $16 million. >> for total not to exceed 16.8 instead of 40.8? >> correct. >> because we are only extending for one year? >> one year. >> yeah. okay. we are good? looks like everybody nodded and looks like it makes sense. look, i think that i appreciate it. i think that it is pretty direct recommendation that either you stop funding under utilized programs and i say that is really consistently been and moving forward for the fiscal year that we'll be the ask at least from this budget committee that we will stop

funding under utilize program, and overall across, not just this one, but all across for all city departments and the fact that i thank you for willing to work with us to say let's only enter one year extension for total of 13.1 $13.1 million that allow us to as a city to reevaluate what we can do with contract and services move forward. ultimately the goal is meet the target for people like that we need to serve and should be rbing that service and it is sometimes all most doesn't matter why, but just the fact it does not meet the targeting goal, it requires tweaking. i appreciate it. it is my intent to make the motion to amend and enter one year extension for $13.1 million as not to exceed amount

as recommended by the budget legislative analyst and that with that, let's go to public comment. my apologies, looks like deputy city attorney has something to say. >> i want to clarify there is amended version that list a specific number value not to exceed. i think it is 16 million 43 thousand, 775. >> here is the-got it, i see it now and trying to understand. this is the version that i have right now and if i may i will read out loud and it is the page 1 line 6 for the 16 million 43 thousand, 775 dollars and then to extend the term by one year, but then it is actually through december

31, 2024 and not june 30, 2024. okay. is that-you want me to read that part so we know and so i think that it is throughout the legislation itself indicating the dollar amount and the term ending december 31, 2024. >> that sounds good. i wanted to make sure you were looking at the same edits i had. >> thank you. thank you for the reminder and so lets go to public comment for this amendment. >> invite members who joined today who wish to comment on this resolution to step up now and all speakers are allowed two minutes to speak. if you begin i'll start your time. >> hi. my name is john thorn. i was born and raise in the excelsior and work for rams. i say without the hirable job training program and hireability employment is likely i would be homeless

right now. the hireability program helped regain self-esteem through work and the experience and skills enabled to be employed full time all most 4 years now. something that i thought not possible due to struggle with bipoller disorder. after one year of paid work experience i got full time job as it inventory technician with facebook. after a year working in the private sector [indiscernible] with hireability and proud to say our trainings closed over 1200 it service ticket for san francisco department of health and equates to 10 percent of all tickets assigned to the field service team. we are playing a crucial role up grading. work is critical to partners as on job training opportunities are valuable to program participants. i have seen the program transform lives and help folks

like me often hopeless and forgotten and now reaching maximum vocation potential despite strugglewise mental health. i have seen people transform through dignity of work and healing that comes. with your continued support rams hireability can continue in this work. thank you for your time. >> thank you for addressing the committee. next speaker, please. >> hello. good afternoon. my name is carmen. also a san francisco resident. the director of our vocational service division rams hireability and i have a statement to read from one of our recent grads. board members, i was referred to hireability from family doctor in 2019. i was suffering from clinical depression at the time and unemployed. i applied to hireability help desk program and trained 18 months learning it help desk skills.

qul had an zisty around picking up the phone at the help desk but after encouragement from joy and caleb the help desk trainers after 3 weeks of shadowing i was able to take calls. the staff made me feel very supported in my job training. this enabled me confident as a help desk worker. i learn it was not bad to make mistakes as long as i continue to ask questions and kept trying. this way i gained more skills and confidence without fear of failure. i completed both front line anded a vance help desk 9 month training tracts. happy to help medical professionals with their it issues i found it was easy for me to do so with the training and support. i applied for the desk top program and started that 9 month training. there i gained hands on experience and learned how to trouble hp shoot and maintain it infrastructure dph clinics

san francisco general and laguna honda h. and completed the final project where i designed a functional website. now i was recently hired as a it operation level admin 2 working with epic readiness team. i believe all the it training that i received through highability as well as supportive environment is why i have this position today. i also learned through the hireability how the boundaries- >> speaker time elapsed; and thank you. >> we are timing each speaker to two minutes. next speaker, please. >> my name is dr. bay, the advocate for renaissance parnt success. we are located 1075 fillmore and another location at 1801 folsom. to hear service baffles me.

we have over representation especially in the black community that doesn't have the services or the funding for the services to hear decrease from $40 million to $16 million yet nobody can tell us that there is discretionary funding in eachdistricate. there is a big gap in funding sources between the services that the community provides, which have been there over 50 years. the [indiscernible] for over 50 years providing services in this community. why is there are certain organizations that have funding availability to them yet you are saying they are not utilized as much? we are in the streets all day every do. we need our surprisers to please connect with the agency that provide the services and

provide the fundsing. job placement. reentry. these are things that are not funded in certain areas so we asking that the same motion you have for ram is the same you have for renaissance parent center so this is what we want to leave the information to and like to have transparency in what is happening. i don't know what the gentleman name is but you aresary soft spoken even with the microphone. can you speak up so we can hear you? thank you for your time. >> thank you much for addressing committee. if there are no further speakers, madam chair, that completes the queue. >> thank you. seeing no more public comment, public comment is closed. i wanted to department of public health--department of

public health, do you want to -actually, describe the delivery less then 40 percent of the contract? >> can you repeat? >> do you want to describe that how the program are delivering less then 40 percent of the contract units? >> the director of the business of our business office identified that the unit of service is more reflection of a cost per day, so we will work with rams to revise that and the current 23-24 contract, so it can better reflect the service that is provided by rams. we will definitely work on that and report back.

>> do you want to describe ahowhy they are being considered as under utilized even though they are the needs? basically characterizing-the fact i think what it is here is--i do understand the budget legislative analyst report and it is actually a very specific terminology and very specific way to conduct performance evaluation, but it seems like even the grantees you have here is questioning what does it mean to be identified as under utilized program, but i thought that we should articulate and be specific what kind of program would then be identified as under utilize in the standard set by the budget legislative analyst here so that it is actually clear to even to our contractors that what is the performance

evaluation that we are actually seeking. or that the performance delivery we are actually seeking here. >> i think when we go back and revisit the unit of service, the utilization, what is shown might change and so when we better reflect the unit of service by the program, we are hopeful that we will demonstrate the program is in fact being utilized at a high rate. the program is back on its feet. they are fully staffed. they are back stronger then before. there is more participation in the programs now, so and we will closely monitor them and work with them so that they can be successful in what they are doing. >> i just want to make sure that we are all on the same page when we talk about under utilize programs that it is

clear terms to everyone and what it means if you have grantsees it is not clearly there is disconnect like not knowing the what specifically units of service that needs to be documented in order to reflect the utilization of the program. i just want to put it out there and that we probably need to do a better job communicating with the grantees about what that actually means. with that though, let's make-i are make a motion to amend as recommended by the budget legislative analyst and agree by department of public health and [indiscernible] thanks to deputy city attorney for pointing to those specific language and with that, the motion to amend and then move the amended item to full board with recommendation. roll call, please.

>> on that motion to amend the resolution to lower the agreed total not to exceed amount and also term to thend of this year and forward that resolution to full board with positive recommendation as a-minded, mandelman, absent. safai aye. chan, aye. we have 2 ayes with vice chair mandelman absent. >> thank you and motion passes. i'm curious if the department of homelessness and supportive housing is here? sorry. if i may i like to call this item first and item 18. i will call out of order and please call item 18. >> item 18, ordinance amending

the administrative code to extend by five years, from may 5, 2024, through may 5, 2029, the sunset date of the provisions authorizing the department of homelessness and supportive housing (“hsh”) to enter into and amend contracts without requiring competitive bidding for services relating to sites and programs for people experiencing homelessness (“projects addressing homelessness”), and the department of public works to enter into and amend contracts without adhering to the environment code or to provisions relating to competitive bidding, equal benefits, local business enterprise utilization, and other requirements, for construction work and services relating to projects addressing homelessness; and affirming the planning department's determination under the california environmental quality act. madam chair. >> thank you. we have the department of homelessness and supportive housing. >> good afternoon committee members. emily co hen joined by

colleague gee gee whitley chief deputy admin. here with a ordinance that extend streamlined contracting for homeless services in our community. in april of 29 the board unanimously adopted ordinance 6119 authorizing the department of homelessness and supportive housing and san francisco public works to use streamline contracting procedure for grants related to homeless service projects. this ordinance is set to expire in the coming spring and we are propozing to extend this ordinance for additional 5 years or until we reduce unsheltered homelessness by 50 percent which aligns with our strategic plan goals. this ordinance allow to continue to build on the momentum we have made and progress made since 2019.

the proposed ordinance has been introduced to expend sunset date and allow us to continue to more rapidly expand the homeless response system to meet the need and continue to drive down homelessness in our community. while this ordinance was enacted we were the only community thin bay area to see reduction in homelessness and i believe the speed at which to open new projects is part of what made that possible. this new ordinance reaform the board prior declaration as shelter crisis and extend the sunset date of it provision for 5 years. the ordinance maintains the original amendments related to streamlining adman chapter 121b

and 6.76, so essentially would continue what we have been operating under for the last 5 years. it also maintains the annual reporting requirement where we articulate every agreement entered into utilizing the authority submitted to clerk of the board and posted on our website, and this ordinance in no way i want to be clear, no way impacts the contract threshold of what comes to the board of supervisors, so any contract that reaches the minimum threshold for review by the board would still come to you and with the new homeless oversight commission all of our new contracts and new agreements are going to the commission, which increases the transparency and oversight in all our agreements. i have not been advansing my

slides. hsh [indiscernible] reflect the agreement under this ordinance. since we have-enacted we have entered into 159 agreements across 52 non profit organizations utilizing the authorities within this ordinance and we estimate it reduces our contracting length of time by approximately 3 months per project. this project has been absolutely essential to continuing existing programming and maintaining programming. we extended or opened over 10 thousand units of supportive housing, nearly 3 thousand beds of temporary shelter, developed programming to prevent homelessness over 600 households . this is funded outreach engagement impacting more then 4200 people including dedicated

outreach for young adult s. helped bring in and assess nearly 10 thousand households through culturally competent providers. this includes-access points that focus on veterans, survivors of domestic violence, latinx community and lgbtq community as well as specifically serving the tgnc community. one of the additional benefits that this ordinance has brought us is the ability to bring in small providers that havet nootherwise been able to compete in traditional rfp based contracting system, particularly important for our bipoc led and small non profit organizations and this helps us achieve equity goals better targeting the communities we are hoping to serve.

additionally, i want to raise another benefit of the existing ordinance. hsh has been working to open many new shelters about 3,000 new shelt r beds over the last several years and many of those are on interim use sites. these are predevelopment sites, other sites otherwise have a more long-term use and we get to use them for two years, three years to offer shelter before the long-term project breaks ground, and being able to construction contracting as well as the service contracting makes these interim sites more viable. i think about the upper yards in supervisor safai's district and we had such a short window to use the site, if the contracting takes too long or construction takes too long it eats into window of the time to use interim sites. i also want to highlight a

couple projects where we have been able to use this authority. particularly thinking about the 550 new units of supportive housing we recently brought on line for adult, young adults and families. we were able to use the authority in this ordinance to enter into quicker contract for interim use of the sites and then go to former procurement process for long-term use of the sites. we also use the authority to extend agreements at existing housing sites where communities were very low established and provider long been providing services in the area. additionally on the housing side our emergency housing vouches which came through hud during or just in the after math oof the pandemic brought

906 new housing vouchers for people in san francisco and we were able to target these to people literally homeless, formally homeless, survivors of domestic violence and high risk of homelessness and the other authority in this ordinance allowed us to more quickly enter into agreement with non profits and also helped diversify the non profits and really helped achieve or equity goals for this program. we have real success not only have we already moved in over 700 households to these vouchers which is a very fast rate of movement for 900 vouchers, we are serving i believe 80 percent of the households are bipoc lead and doing a much better job insuring our resources are getting to people who need them the most or been historically excluded from systems of care. additionally through this, we have been able to address

immediate crisis when we had to change service providers we were able to bring in which is our transgender serving navigation center, able to bring in culturally competent service provider. on the shelter side, couple of great examples of this ordinance in use. the bayview navigation center. used by public works and hsh to develop the site out on evan street this is 200 bed shelter. in the picture it is a beautiful eco building and this ordinance was essential to beds on line as soon as possible at the beginning of pandemic so a great example. the other example i use is safe parking or vehicle triage center at upper yards. this was a interim use site to bring a safe parking program

that demonstrated this type of service model can work for people living in vehicles bringing people off the street and connecting to services and really makes possible those short-term type programs. i will stop there and again joined by gee gee whitley and colleagues from public works and happy to take any questions. >> thank you. i have a lot of questions about this and thank you so much director cohen for having like allowing me time. i have a brief discussion. i also want to articulate the fact this just transfer to the budget committee. it was bouncing around but glad it land here to allow us to have the consurivation. it ties into spending and accountability around spending, and that i think i totally agree that we need to do things

more efficient. i think sometimes yes, faster-i don't know if more efficient means always means faster. i just think it is more efficient and deliver service in a timely fashion. i do think that the question again to is there is a civil grand jury report out there. outstanding and i believe that the government audit oversight committee will schedule this thursday for a public hearing and we will go through in greater details. part of it is really talking about both the contracting process that the department of homelessness supportive housing and how it does not correlate to really the service delivery or at least the result we want to see and questioning sort of what can we do to be better.

i think that there seems to be-what i do understand about just generally speaking and why we have competitive bidding process, technically what we are looking for a waver is allowing the department of homelessness and supportive housing have the authority to give out sole source contract without going through a bidding process, because at the time that we believe in 2019 that if this-all these things all these contract be small or big however dollar amount especially those under threshold of charter 9.118 with $10 million or duration over 10 years, anything like that will then tangle us up because it is true the city procurement process fastest is 6 months otherwise wouldn't have the emergency order in place allowing city department in case of emergency they could go

for it and i think in 2019 the argument while i was not on the board but believe the argument is we have a crisis on our hand with homelessness and therefore we need to go forward with this with the waver to allow a city department to do all the things to tackle this. five years later now here we are and i think it is time to look back on those past 5 years and say, what are the contracts that could be better and more efficient and having a conversation about that and to be able to say, are these type of contract really delivering the efficiency we want and delivering the result we want? i do understand it is a combination of contracts not just about meals or security or construction. we are talking chapter 21 and

also administrative code section which is section 6, so that is both all these contracts. i think that i am-what i'm trying to accomplish is have a better understanding the type of contract coming through the department, not-i dponet mean coming to the board, but the type of contract the department is going through and are there systematic way to tier them up to better understand? what can we be more efficient with the preapproval vendors and we be more efficient about that? what are the type of contracts we could actually go for some type of bidding and best practice when it is necessary? so we can actually tweak our selves and know maybe there is

better programming and values and deliver better service. [captioning will continue in a moment]

>> we have a new and recently staffed up dedicated procurement team. we launch multiyear over the next 3-5 year procurement plan so the goal is to drive our equity, strategic, quality and performance goals through those new procurement mechanisms where we look at the portfolio, have time to plan, engage stakeholders review budgets and drive the policy priorities through a thoughtful reprocurement of the portfolio, but we still feed this particular tool for-to get us

to get that bridge to do that so we don't have a hard cut on may. the other thing is director cohen mentioned the crisis on the streets and ability to move quickly when opportunities come up, especially around emergency shelter, and this tool has been incredibly impactful both fwr the emergency shelters and being optnistic with things like home key money to quickly if gauge providers. it does not mean that we don't have informal documented process, we are not running a soup to nut procurement of laid out in the chapter 21, but many times we are using informal solicitation, we post on the website, call solicitation of interest, comparing bids and looking at performance and

concepts and this enable to expedite all the prop c money and not long ago i was at the same committee saying release the funds release the funds so been able to do that expeditiously using this tool, so again it is one of the tools in our toolkit. your excellent points about performance and monitoring are really once in contract what can we do to improve performance and quality and i think having that as a expectation for the all providers is key and focus of the department going forward. the final thing i'll is a is, this is not a tool for everything we do f. it is a service benefiting the department, new it project, private consulting contract anything you have the department go through the standard procurement we follow the rules and regulations. happy to say more about the

multiyear procurement plan and moving forward and provide more of the transparency as well as what we are doing in perm formance but i will say not having this in place for the next certainly 3 years will be really critical in screeching us to all most a stop in what we have been able to accomplish and trying to get into a cadence to reprocure services. finally, director cohen mentioned the oversight of not only this body, but the commission. that's really where we are having a lot of these policy conversations, and being able to engage community and client input into those conversations and all of our agreements now go through that new commission. we also have a very robust internal check and balances within the department and we document everything in a

electronic system. all that is available for public review and scrutiny as well, so i'll stop there. thank you. >> thank you. vice chair mandelman. >> >> thank you. i'm in a slightly peculiar position because quou are asking for authority to do things more efficiently i disagree with so been very public about my and said repeatedly i think your strategic plan is off and is pushing us in the wrong direction and not emphasizing things like immediate exits from unsheltered homeless it to transitional placement. that being said, i think procurement in san francisco is broken. i think it is broken in lots of places and one reason why when san franciscans look at the city government and see it not working and get so frustrated,

well part is our brokenness of our hiring processes and the other piece of brokenness i think is procurement. i guess it would be helpful for you to put more flavor rather then just saying, it is faster, what it means to try to-why it is a actual problem for the department to do things that sound reasonable like solicit competitive bids? how could that in any way, that is supposed to drive down the coast of government and make things more efficient so you are asking a group of politicians to do something that sounds profoundly counter intuitive which is make government move more quickly by taking away the protection we think we have that make government function more efficiently and lower cost. i dopet think it does those thing but think you need to explain to us what the problem

is you interest trying to solve with this. >> thank you. yes, the procurement process in the city has its challenges. certainly this has been critical in allowing us to expedite services. in terms of the policy questions you raised supervisor mandelman, you know, one way it is able to help us is some flexibility to do a more informal procurement process or solicitation process where we compare things like cost and concepts, but we are not beholden to a regulated process with a panel. we don't have to go through the timeline to post. >> what does that look like? you have to put together--like,

>> yeah, so >> give us-what else is going on. try to make multiple things happen. >> sure. you are trying to do your performance monitoring, contract monitoring, pay invoices on all of your hundreds and hundreds of existing contracts, and low behold because you are new department, not every contract expires at the same time. they all have different times they expire because when we started as a department, some ing thes on hsh procurement and some dph so you got all these different timelines, different pieces of the portfolio are expiring. identify need a procurement authority, so what do you do? you have to decide, what piece of that portfolio, maybe we'll do all supportive housing services this year. that's a year planning process.

getting inpt, writing the scope. revising the scope. getting budgets together. by the way, we only have our existing budget, so providers are wanting to come in and say, this is our opportunity to renegotiate and then we don't have funds to renegotiate. that process can take 6 months. you set up a panel, the panel has to be trained. the panel is sometimes steak holders outside the department. we have to rent the room to do training. we have very formal criteria. folks can come in after the criteria and there is protest period; there is resolution for the protest period and now you are at the point where you're about to select the provider and start the contract and budget negotiations.

so, we have been able to start the budget and contract negotiations or solicit proposals from providers and compare those without those 6-12 months of work ahead of time and that has allowed us to draw down frankly funds we otherwise wouldn't have received. >> what are you doing to make sure you are not over-paying and giving away city funds that you shouldn't give away? there are reasons why we have these complicated processes and they are supposed to result in good things. what do you do to try to avoid over-paying by millions and millions of dollars? >> sure. what we do first and what we have done with the new department and little of the work through the strategic plan and certainly some analysis the all home work is, try to

standardize what is the city willing and able to pay for a shelter bed a night? permanent supportive housing unit whether renting or scattered site unit and standardize in that way across our portfolio. so, we have been-when we renegotiate contracts and contracts come up for amendment, that is our time as well through the budget process to try to standardsize that, but those sort of standardsize rates or what we look to for reasonableness and then we say to providers, there may be something unique about this site. it doesn't have four walls, so you have a fence if stead and the provider will say we might need more security. we had especially around all the conversations with shelter there is a lot variability in cost around that model.

this process internally is still quite robust. you have a program analyst, program manager, director, deputy and it goes to the contract panelists, budget analyst, i review everything, city attorney reviews and approves, so there is robust internal controls and i think the other more practical thing to mention is that our providers are over-stretched now with all this new money coming in and new services we launched and on the rfp we have done not seeing the level of competition. it isn't like a it software product or private consultant where there very little providers to do street outreach service and we saw that in the procurement. only had one qualified bidder.

some of this too is recognition of where our community partners are and yes, it is my whole mission to be cost effective with taxpayer funds but we are trying to balance that with the needs of the community and some realties of what kind of cost we are seeing our providers have. i'll stop there. thank you. >> emily handed me procurement timelines so i can answer more questions. >> supervisor safai. i have more questions. >> thank you. i think we have to set context and think it is done in this legislation in it sense it was done right at the outset of covid-19. i think it played particular role during that time specifically.

designed to do that. i still haven't heard arguments that make hsa any different then any other department that have to go through this process and it is not just a process designed to increase-to insure efficiency in cost it is also designed to avoid corruption. the root of the corruption over the last 5 years the cloud it is under, it has been contracts that were awarded via sole source in many many cases. in fact, when the controller did a audit of one of the service providers within your department in the spring, the fbi had to be called in and that provider is no longer working as i understand it servicing that contract. and that was a contract that

was renewed consistently. my concern, i want to move quickly but there is work you can do to do that. you with go through the process to put together a rfq thoot have gone through the competitive process and vetted and then you are able to choose from the list. that is what we did with adult probation for our sober living. we moved so quickly public health said what's going on, what is this happening even though it want their department or contract it provided through adult probation and gone through qualified list of vendors, looked for the specific need of the service provider, they needed a abstinence based program serving black and latino

probationers and it has been successful. i guess i haven't been convinced-why haveants you done that? and hear new department and not trying to argue but this departments has been around since 2014 correct? 2016. still not 2 or 3 years old it is 7 or 8 years old and i understand contracts you inherited are still rolling out, we just approve the contract for pharmaceuticals that is 10 year contract so i understand you're inheriting and moving things over. i think there is a happy medium. i think there is a way on the construction side we just reauthorized that authority for public works. i think that is important when you move as quickly as you can as you noted to do improvements

on site. public works works with vendors they work with consistently. that control for cost, time and so on. removing competitive process for service providers i have concerns with. unless you have gone through the process of creating a qualified list. has your commission your oversight body commission weighed in and are they comfortable waiving the process by which--as the commission weighed in on this? either one of you. >> thank you. this has been [indiscernible] director report. i think the last 2 or 3 committee meetings. it has not been agendized but reported to the commission.

>> what kind of response? >> none. >> no response but not item in terms of sole source contracting for service providers. >> no, but there is robust discussion around generally around contracting. >> has there been analysis, annual report or otherwise on the individual contracts that were sole sourced in terms of their effectiveness? i understand you saying you are saving three months average, but i don't know if that means you saved cost. >> so, gee gee whitley through the chair. we have as i said this is one of the tools in our toolkit and if you recall from our annual report to the board, you'll see

on that that we are using many of the processes that you are describing. we do informal solicitations, we have done rfq, we have often look for minimum requirements, but there is difference then following what is a documented process that allows us to compare those bids and full blown procurement under chapter 21, so i would say in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, this has been invaluable in rolling out and doing things that otherwise the department and the city would not be able to do, so supervisor in your sober living example or saying hsh in ort departments i can't think of another department that has had over the last 7

years the budget go from 250 million annually to over $700 million and tremendous political and public pressure to roll out that funding be advaj taijs from the funding to the state and into community and service as quickly as possible. that's what we are attempting to do here, to use this tool over the next 5 years to continue to be oper tune istic while we get the department stabilized, have the procurement team in place, a multiyear proturmt plan and able to do the kind of performance analysis in line with those new strategic goals you are recommending, but this isn't a business driven by the bottom line. we look at cost reasonableness

and we vet cost but also know that what we are asking our providers to do and the little often paying for things like staff and wages is really not sort of the only thing that goes into the criteria we look at. we look at quality, we look at cultural competency, we look at experience, we don't simply look at bottom line cost. >> i get that. have you done any rfq ? >> we still do rfq and rfp and publiced on the website. anything where the city is owns a building and master leasing the sf hot contract was a rfp. we just had a rfq on the streets that closed and we got no bidders. >> i get it, so then what's the necessity of this if you do rfq

process then? >> rfq process--there's regulations and procedures that are codified by oca that dictate how an rfq works, how long it is supposed to last, and -- [multiple speakers] they have been supportive of the approach and asked what else do we need to address the crisis. so, there is nothing magical about a rfq but the limitations on the city wide process for a rfq we are better positioned to use the processes that we set up internally to reach out to providers that normally wouldn't be in our system while we are evaluating competency and making sure folks meet the minimum. we are trying to balance a

minimum qualification with deep seated goal to bring in new providers. providers who are lead by people of color that serve those organization, faith based providers, this has been immensely successful allowing us to do that. get people in the system and able to compete. >> i would just say that it sounds like you all could do more to continuously be creating rfq list to draw from which could include bipoc organizations, smaller non profit organizations. i haven't heard that prohibits you from adding to that list and haven't heard a argument other then you don't want to go through the process. not trying to be flippant but i really haven't heard a compelling argument other then you dont want to do it and you have done rfq but necessarily want to do it consistently so it doesn't necessarily make

hundred percent sense why you couldn't expand that process and achieve what you are trying to do because the rfq-you do work up front and have the qualified list of vendors you choose umfrain the situations you need and if there isn't enough smaller organizations or bipoc organizations do a rfq to add to the list. i'm not really understanding other then you don't want to go through the process and want to continue sole source authority. the other thing i say, it is helpful to hear from oca because they could be helpful adding to the discussion of this. again, i want things to move quickly but also concerned about again, the nature of in all most every instance when there was corruption and corruption charges within the city it had to do with sole source vendor. in multiple departments. not just yours.

it was in multiple departments across the city. it gives me pause and i think we need more time to get this right because maybe-the other thing we haven't said, you can come for a specific waver. and we just did that in a previous item on this agenda today where the police department said, we want to use a sole vendor for this specific contract. they might have misunderstood because it was a grant application they could put theveneder into it. they are working with oca to clean that up and get that authority from oca to say this makes sense. you have the ability to come on specific cases and ask for wavers rather then a 5 year blanket waver on all service providers for your department. it doesn't make sense to me. >> before i call on vice chair

mandelman, i just want to add, this is exactly what i am saying because i think mrs. whitley you mention well talk about the fact you roughly-no one have-no city department has increased their city budget like the way your department has. from roughly to $200 something million while today over $700 million. previous year was 600 and now roughly 700 and over of annual city budget. out of which and if you can answer that question, with this sole source contract waver, how much of that city-of your annual budget will be able to fall into this category? >> thank you for the great question. i think we said at the top of the--we have hundreds and

hundreds of contracts and budgets we monitor each year. the last annual report shows that we enter under to only 41 agreements using this authority, so it is not to say that this is a way to just not do what other departments are doing, it is then critical in doing the policy priorities of this board to address emergency on the streets. we used it very circumexpectly and asking that continue. my point in going through our multiyear procurement plan when we use rfq and rfp was to show that this is simply a tool in the tool kit. not the only thing we do. we don't sole source everything we do, but it has been critical over the last 5 years and going forward. >> i get it. what you are saying is since

2019 up to december 2022, 159 agreement across non profit partner but you haven't answered the dollar amount. it is not listed on the slide. there is no dollar amount indicated. >> we do have that. we just need to do quick math. >> while you are at the dollar amount trying to figure out and i think the dollar amount will help to articulate why this is significant investment without -sole source bidding and that there isn't really a process to talk about how they are selected, what are the results and what do you determine--i

get that you saying internally you have documentation, yes, but and it is fascinating to me you said two things that is contrary to what many of my constituents believe. you said two things, one is there were not a lot of competitive bidding that came forward. it is difficult industry and no one wants it not too many people want to do this which to me it makes a lot of sense, however there is a narrative out there there is a homeless industrial complex people actually is trying-are making money, they are profiting from homelessness so there is i just want to put out there, there is that narrative out there from

some constituents believing this is a profit driven for example that are doing this work. that's one. second, to say that we are not about the bottom line, i think it is also alarming for me that when we say we are not about the bottom line, we are just here to provide services, while i do agree with you, what is alarming for me to think that we are facing more then $700 million of budget deficit, something got to give at some point and what do we do to make sure we continue to service the population that really have great need, but then it is the cost is out of whack and vice chair mandelman time and time again is how we drive this per unit cost down when we talk about all these units that we want to provide in shelters, permanent supportive housing, but it is not, right?

what do we do here and that's what's frustrating me and what i want to understand is you have mentioned few times now the multiyear procurement team that you or team you now have recruited and established. they have a multiyear procurement plan that you put in place. can you articulate the plan and what about the timeline for the implementation of the plan? it sounds to me earlier during the early presentation you are saying if you have the multiyear procurement plan in place you no longer need to sole source waver. you need to sole source at least another three years and correct if i'm wrong, it sounds to me you say that because you say you need 3 more years for you to have this multiyear

procurement plan implemented. you are not a brand new city department. you are now by now established since 2016. three years from now you will be officially in your 10 year in decade long city department. so you are saying you need a decade of sole source authority in order fl you to reach a multiyear procurement. that kind of goes back to referencing again, i concur with supervisor safai sentiments, it sounds to me that it is basically city department saying we do not want to abide what the city set for procurement process because we do not believe it apply to plus nor the way we operate. then-and yet we kind of do because we do all these other things, just not to your standard and liking. not actually to my liking, to

the standard set by the charter and really having the whole check and balances and really set forth again by our city administrator. i want to add on, not saying there is no frustration and difficulty with our existing procurement, but i do believe our controller and our city administrator have been doing that work together to really streamlain and really improve upon our procurement process and i have seen delivery of those improvements, so i just want to put it out there that i am not quite satisfied with three year ask. i'm not definitely not agree to the 5 year ask. i have a lot of questions about 3 year ask. i think i'm more in a space of i can see one year for you to come back to really articulate the multiyear procurement plan. vice chair mandelman. >> thank you.

we are in a very different position on this item. i just in strong disagreement with colleagues on this committee. i don't think we are hearing sole source contracting being described. i think we are hearing what is described as efforts to achieve some benefits of competitive would be achieved competitive bidding through less ridged processes and not going through the exercise when we know there are not multiple bidders and trying to shorten the time to get important public policy goals fulfilled. i take the point--san francisco has been rocked by corruption, but i do not believe the effort we have--if policy and or if regulation-if regulation and legal requirements were the secret to eliminating corruption, we would be the

most corruption free city in the world. we are regulated upside down around all over the requirements are intense. we have very good people trapped in processes that are really terrible and really slow down the ability to achieve our policy goals. as i said, i am not sure i share the policy goals of the this department but i know we have good people in the department trying to advance policy goals they are think are what they are suppose to be doing and until the mayor and board of supervisors tells them to do differently, this is how it goes mptd we are hearing from folks familiar with the processes what they need to move for quickly in a difficult environment and would say we ought to be supporting that and clearly i'm a little frustrated. that's just my perspective. >> we are clear, you can read the header.

it says extending the 5 year from may 24 to may 29 so this department may enter into an amend contract without requiring competitive bidding. service related to sites and programs for people experiencing homelessness. we all want to kwr j you are right, we want you to move as quickly as possible and do in a thoughtful careful way and so, i think there needs to be more discussion around this personally. i don't think this is ready to be approved today. i like to hear from oca and like to know how many people you have a rfq list. i like to see the list provided and compare to the list of people you have sole sourced over the last 5 years because it might be overlap and it needs to be expanded doing work to expand that and having the

ability to continuous open the process. that is what adult probation does. they are much smaller department and nimble and get contracts on the street in an effective way and so yes, we don't want to slow down the process, why we just approved the other day the ability for public works to continue that work. the example on the mission in n which went through a rfp process to choose people that are providing the services on site. mission housing, dolores street, larkin street. they were part of the rfp and i know i think you used some of this expedited authority to do construction work, but anyway, we can keep talking about this all day. i think we need more information from you all to make a better informed decision, so chair i would

propose we continue this item for further conversation if that's okay. >> could just clarify deliverable's? >> sure. >> we have some of the numbers that we can provide that. i think it might be helpful in our appendix to show the timelines, how long it takes for a rfq and rfp, how quickly rfq expires and have context setting from oca. they have bun a wonderful partner since we had 21b we consult with them often. they were supportive of the legislation asking what else do you need and how can we be helpful and honored to have been part of some of those convursations with controller and city administrator. i hope many some of what we done can be a model for that. in the mean time we are running a very complex emergency

response system. in the adult probation analyst i can say that there are much smaller organization then we are and of sure more nimble. this has been a invaluable tool and i think having more context about the complexity and some of the challenges we face until we are in that more you know, stable state with our homelessness crisis may be helpful and changing hearts and minds here. >> i want to say though, that is what you say about adult probation department. i say it department of public health which is $2 billion and way more complex and yet to come to us and requesting a sole source waver blanket sole source. again, the question is about blanket sole source requirement and granting that authority for

services, commodities and grants. it's a very blanketed waver and i was saying to [indiscernible] adult probation department or department of public health, you are neither here nor there. none of these departments came through as needing ask of blanket sole source authority for grants, commodities and services and that's what is before us today. >> i want to clarify chair that, we modeled this legislation on some of the sole source wavers already in place with public health for behavioral health services, so that informed lot of our decision. you medicationed commodities professional service, the department is benefit to the

department. commodities, consulting contract and it contract. this legislation is not applicable in that way, so i hear what you are saying, it feels very broad and it is a privilege to have received this and been able to work with it, the department leadership takes it very seriously, but we do and have used it very circumspectly but we have limitations what it covers. >> i didn't give you a chance to answer the question about the multiyear procurement plan. do you want to quickly about that in terms of timeline? >> sure. we kicked off the plan this year with our outreach services, sf hot contract is coming before it board i believe tomorrow at gao and so that was the first. it is a believe 5 year plan,

and it endeavors to try to take not just what contracts are expire igin that moment, but take a look at the whole portfolio, so the next iletm on the portfolio we have done has shelter ancillary service. that is food contracts, now we are moving into our coordinated entry access point agreements will be on that list coming up in the next few years. the next one coming up i believe is some of the permanent supportive housing portfolio. the goal is we have the strategic plan, get a lot of input from clients and providers, setting performance measures and don't want to roll those out haphazardly. we want to do it through a procurement mechanism. in the meantime we have to keep our existing agreements going

and respond to the crisis on the west side of the city and bayview side of the city where we need to move quickly, so again it is a tool in the tool kit that we do not have the luxury of 3-5 years to plan out in a way we want to these multi-trained to do multiyear procurements. while we have this emergency tool. do we need it forever? i would say no, but we certainly need it now to respond to the crisis when our pit count is what it is and people are suffering on the street. >> thank you. >> to that point, when you originally said that you-unless i'm reading it wrong, sunset may 5, 2024, or if there were fewer then 5250 homeless people in san francisco. we didn't achieve that, right?

that was part of the argument for giving this right so you are more nimble and get more people into shelter and move quickly. again, i know you all are doing good work. i know you are doing everything you can to move as quickly as you can, but some of the justification for it i don't know if it is play out. maybe it has. we need more info and conversation with oca. i want to see the list of rfq and the value attached to supervisor mandelman and chan poist points. i don'ts thinkee are saying blanket no. i think we need more converivation to get to the right point and don't think 5 years is the right point because that says we give the authority for all most the entire time you are in existence oof the department and don'ts know if that is a solid argument. >> i concur and i said it very

early at this hearing. you were bouncing around. you just got here. this is frankly the first time that-i don't if you had a chance to brief supervisors on the body about this waver, we justf had this is the first conversation we are having in public hearing. you and i, that is no more then 15 minutes of phone conversation to figure what we should discuss and how to discuss this today and i think that it does require a little conversation. i am inclined to continue this item to call of chair, but with the note that understanding you are not expiring right now, your support is expiring in may 2024, and that i do understand that you may want to have a little bit more time and why

don't i continue the item to call of chair in the event we feel we are ready to come back next week we could, but let's have those conversation and then--but just know we are weekly committee. we come right back, i think it is january 4, 5 committee meeting. >> we don't come back in session till the 8. i think it 10. >> i just think that if we have time to for a detailed discussion. i also want to propose that there could be--i want to propose the conversation with city administrator and control could be amendments to this waver and to be bit more specific to be bit more specific about the waver itself and not just this blanket sole source chapter 21 but perhaps

within the chapter 21, here is the type of things we are waiving or this dollar amount we are waiving. anything under this dollar amount that you could just be--i just wanted to offer some thinking that is data driven, something that is really now 5 years later i'm sure you have figured something out like what are the contract-like i said earlier at the good beginning of the hearings the contracts that could fall in the waver category and how to tier up the wavers the way maybe work specifically for you as a city department. i just want to leave that, because it is 3:30. i think we have been going on since 10 a.m. i think we have some idea where we are heading, so if i may, i want to open public comment for this item because we have yet to do so. >> thank you madam chair. we invite members who joined us

and wish to speak on this ordinance, now is your opportunity to line up. madam chair, no speakers. >> great. seeing-- >> i apologize, i saw you heading that way. wasn't sure if you were lining up. please step up and i'll start your time. >> thank you. so, the continuum of care is broken. let me tell how broken it is. you didn't have rfp since 2021 because we if quired and ask for the san francisco coc, charles miner and dylan osborn to be xckt. is there a rfp for homeless agencies like ours to build housing and provide services.

two hours friday november 3 a rfp was put out. when the community is not informed, when the coc isn't communicating with the board of supervisors and the mayor and they are the go-between of solving the homeless credit. you said it correct supervisor chan, it is a profit margin. homelessness is a business. it isn't really [indiscernible] i would like to personally work with gee gee whitley and emily cohen how to streamline a rfp process for agencies trying to apply and the timeline is ridiculous. you have till july 2024 to get awarded so that means we will continue to dispense to put people in services, to find locations that they are not fundsing and funding is a issue when i tell you there are agencies ready to go. so, lived experience, people on