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public works commission's public works and sanitation streets commissioners welcome everybody. >> today is thursday, january 23rd, 2025. apologies for a slightly late start as we got technical issues worked out. mr. shotwell please call the roll. >> good morning. please respond with hear or present. chair lower post here patty zoghbi president eleanor bloom bear paul woolford is an excused absence and gerald turner president. all right. with four members present we do have quorum for the streets and sanitation. uh, we have john anderson as selena you soap. yeah.

chair kim hartwick shulman here . >> thomas harrison here and chris see me present. okay. and with four members present from the streets of sanitation we do have quorum public. with that, may we have quorum in both public works commission and streets and sanitation. public comment is taken for all informational and action items on today's agenda. to comment in person please line up against the wall near the screen to the audience left when public comment is called. for members of the public wishing to comment on an item from outside the hearing room you may do so by joining via webinar through the link shown on page two of today's agenda to be recognized. select the raise your hand icon in the webinar and you may also comment from outside the chamber by dialing 1415655001 to raise your hand to speak press star three the telephone log in information is also

available on page one and two of today's agenda. commenters may speak for up to three minutes per item and you'll receive a 32nd notice when your speaking time is about to expire. in the event we have commenters on an item the chair may reduce public comment time to less than three minutes per person and unless you are speaking under general public comment please note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed. if commenters do not stay on topic the chair may interrupt and ask you to limit your comments to the agenda item at hand. we ask that public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity abusive or hate speech will not be tolerated. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole not to individual commissioners or staff. the public is always welcome to submit comments in writing via our email address public works commission at s.f. dpw dot org or by mail to 49 south venice suite 1600 san francisco.

>> on behalf of both public works commission and the sanitation and streets commission we extend thanks to s.f. gov tv building management and media services staff for helping make this special meeting possible. thank you. >> do any of my colleagues have any changes to the order of today's agenda? all right. hearing none. we will then move to the first item which are announcements by chair, commissioners and secretary. i have no announcements this morning. >> chair harwood chairman do you have any announcements this morning? i do not do any of our colleagues have an announcement this morning? mr. otwell any announcements this morning? >> no. all right. >> please open this item to public comment. thank you. and item one is announcements by the chair. this is an informational item. >> members of the public who

wish to make a three minutes of comment in person on item one announcements by the chair, commissioners or secretary may line up against the wall to the audience left if commenting from outside the chamber press the raise your hand button and the webinar or press star three on your phone to be recognized. >> it looks like we do not have any comment. thank you. please call the next item mr. hartwell. the next item is the directors report and communication and here is public works director carla short to present this informational item. thank you, mr. hartwell. good morning, commissioners. carla short, director of public works. i'm going to keep my director's report fairly brief today so that we can keep the focus on the very important topic that brings us here today. the department's budget proposal for the upcoming f y

2526 and 2627 years that said there are a few topics not directly related to the budget that i did want to bring to your attention. we have been working closely with the mayor's office and partner city departments to address street conditions in high need areas as part of our coordinated demak operation with a recent focus on sixth street in the south of market. the corridor has long been challenged with open air drug dealing and illicit drug use. our primary role at public works is keeping the right of way clean. the citywide operation has seen some progress with improved conditions but a lot more work is needed. i've been in regular contact with mayor lurie, our new policy chief alicia jean-baptiste and other leadership in the new administration largely around our involvement in street behavior, strategy and response initiatives. >> my team and i have also been

gearing up for the upcoming chinese new year parade and nba all-star game that converge in san francisco on the weekend of february 15th and we'll shine the spotlight on the city. >> high profile events are not new to us but a lot of citywide planning and coordination goes into making them safe, welcoming and successful. and as this work is underway, we have been putting a lot of attention on our upcoming budget commissioners. i'm not going to sugarcoat this we face steep budget cuts that if implemented will have significant impacts on our operations most notably street cleaning. you will hear more from deputy director robertson in a moment . >> but before we get started, i want to express my deep gratitude for the budget team led by bruce robertson, jennifer marquez, donna lee and sylvia as well as others on the team. >> they have put a tremendous amount of thought and time into crafting this budget plan. it has not been easy and many

hard decisions have had to be made to get us to that point. as deputy director robertson will detail later this hearing today is the first public airing of our recommendations with a long way to go before the mayor submits the overall city budget to the board of supervisors for consideration. >> we look forward commissioners to getting your input and and hearing from the public. thank you. thank you. director short. i have no questions for director short. does anyone joe hartnett shulman any questions for director shaw? i know they look great. commissioner turner thank you. director short. i want to also know we want to get on to the budget and this is somewhat related to the budget. i want to thank our staff for an amazing first neighborhood beautification event. >> it happened over mlk weekend half of this past weekend and so many people were looking for and found an amazing opportunity to volunteer. but i'd like to make sure director shaw i've got three

things that i observe correct as we get ready to prepare for our budget. one, i was very surprised by the folks who were there as a part of community service. that is our our system here allows for folks to perform community service in lieu of fees and things of that nature. that's really important as we talk about sixth street, we talk about homelessness but we should also talk about homeless prevention. that is imagine if your car gets impounded. you have no way of paying that fee. that also means you no longer have a way of getting to your job. think about all the number of things that can happen to a person that this gives them an opportunity to stay gainfully employed. but most importantly they get to engage in a city that they love. that was one observation. am i correct that we do provide an avenue for community service? >> yes. and i should thank you, mr. turner, for joining us for our

first neighborhood beautification day of the year. >> we do and in fact we are we are broadening those opportunities for people to work off tickets and other issues by by working with us homeless prevention. second thing i was also surprised by the number of youth particularly high schoolers who are participating who are getting various credits and volunteer hours. but if you really look at what they are really doing is they are the economic future of san francisco that is being able to go to college ideally college here in our own city would be great. >> but the economic power that we support by making sure that folks can go to college be well prepared for college seemingly is a very impactful thing and i would actually argue that most of the participants there were students participating in that. >> is that correct? director sure. we certainly did have a great turnout. we often have good turnout from students and i am going to

announce and i hope rachel gordon is not going to get upset with me. >> a very clever opportunity this year that we will be nominating all star and all star student who lags the most hours volunteering with us and give them certificates just a nod towards the exciting upcoming event. in the past we we have looked for ways to recognize that work and we will give certificates to students so that they can supply those quantifying the number of hours that they volunteered with us. and i also want to just take a moment to thank our partners at sfo usd. we often host our events at public school sites as we did and this was a middle school but that's also a way that we get the word out to students that this is a volunteer opportunity. >> great. lastly so i can move on. i apologize. the last thing i observed myself included. what a great way to enjoy your city. meet your neighbors.

>> but i was surprised by the number of folks that were using this as a social and if not a mental cleansing opportunity to partner with folks to put their hands into the dirt to be able to be out in the sunshine but most importantly to meet neighbors. when we talk about the things that often isolation, mental illness and so forth, some of the best things there's a little sunshine, a little bit of socialization. >> is it correct that this does provide that on a regular basis if not on a monthly basis? >> yes, absolutely. and just as you noted this we host these events every month. we also support many events every month where we're not the primary host. so our great community engagement team is providing lots of support and services to other neighborhood cleanup and get to know your neighbor events. >> thank you. so direct a short to conclude here as we prepare to discuss our budget we take on our fiduciary responsibilities as commissioners. we also prepare to advocate as much as we can seemingly. our story also includes

homeless prevention, economic development and support of our youth and more importantly community connection which is something we all need. thank god we're out of the pandemic but most importantly we've got a bright future of events coming forward. >> is that correct? as commissioner turner well said. >> thank you. thank you. thank you, chair. thank you, commissioner turner. all right. any other questions or comments on director schwartz report? if not, please open this assigned to public comment. >> thank you. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on item to the director's report may line up against the wall to the audience left if commenting from outside the chamber press the raise your hand button in the webinar or press star three on your phone to be recognized and we do not have anyone in person or on call and we have

no further comment. >> thank you. please call the next item. >> the next item is general. item three is general public comment which is four topics under the commission's mandate but not related to a specific item on today's agenda. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of general public in-person may line up against the wall to the audience left if commenting from outside the chamber press the raise your hand button in the webinar or press star three on your phone to be recognized and as a reminder general public comment is limited to 15 minutes for all commenters and can be continued to the end of the agenda item nine if we exceed that limit as effectively we have any callers in queue we do not and we have no further public commenters and that concludes public

comment. >> thank you. please call the next item. >> item four is for public works fiscal year 2025 to 2026 and fiscal year 2026 and 2027 operating budget and priorities. today is the presentation in the hearing of budget priorities. we're scheduled to have public works commission vote to approve the budget plan at their next regular meeting on february 13th. in compliance with the timeline for approval by commissioners in the city, charter cfo bruce robertson is here to present that report. >> thank you. and deputy director robertson, before we get started i would just like to assure the public that in today's brief two hour meeting it may appear that the commissioners are giving the budget short shrift in our consideration. this is actually not the case since we all were the beneficiaries of a small group briefings in detail all the departments budget. so this is not our first pass at the budget. it is our second and there will be more passes between now

and when it has to be approved. >> so i would like for the public to understand that if you feel were quieter than you would have expected, it's not because we are hearing this for the first time and we've had an opportunity to ask lots of questions. we'll be asking questions today of course. but i just want the public to know that that we all have been briefed on the budget and this is now an opportunity for the public to be briefed. >> deputy director robertson. good morning commissioners. bruce robertson, cfo for san francisco public works much like director short, i want to take a minute before i really dive into the presentation by doing a few thank yous. i want to thank my colleagues on the executive team director short but i mainly want to thank the budget team that i asked most of the team to come today so they're in the audience. without their work we would be nowhere near where we are today. they really are the backbone of the operation that have made myself and director short look good with the presentation and the thoughtful plan and develop developed budget that we're putting before you today. i also want to acknowledge the mayors budget office that are in the back of the room as well here to listen and provide us any guidance and feedback

without their tremendous help and resources. we also wouldn't be where we are today. so just want to take a moment to say send some thank you. but this is the commissioners i'm going to take you on a journey today and it's a budgetary journey. >> we're going to start with where we're at with the city and then where we're at with public works and what what's happening in a citywide level impacts public works and then impacts the services that we provide to the residents. >> so as i just a quick reminder our current year fiscal year 2425 budget is $452.9 million and that was what was before you about a year ago at this time and then updated in a memo we provided in august. i want to say that although you see this number is $453 million approximately when you factor in all of the money we get from revenue bond general obligation bonds client departments we

spend closer to $1.5 billion annually. so this is really just a subset of the overall activities we provide for the city. >> so i'm going to just start right in with where we're at and what it all means to public works and to the commission and to city and county of san francisco. >> mayor breed provided budget instructions in early december that basically outlined a few things her priorities were as you can see on the screen. we had to reduce the general fund by 15% but we had to provide some core services that will get addressed later. a 15% reduction for public works equates to about $13.8 million. >> and i know you've heard both myself, director shaw and other colleagues and public works say we've been surgical in prior years in terms of how we've been able to reduce our budget without operational impact with the cut this large and this deep that's not really possible this year and that's going to be part of the story i'm going to tell. not only do we have a $13.8

million reduction from that 15% reduction two years ago, the mayor's office and the board of supervisors agree agreed on a two year supplemental bill for enhanced street cleaning activities that equated to about $16.7 million that expires june 30th of this fiscal year. >> so what that means is we'll lose 20 fte, we will lose some funding for temp salaries. so the level of service you see just based on this funding going away will not be what you currently see on the streets in san francisco today. but if you take the $13.8 million reduction and the loss of this to your supplemental, our reduction is really about 20%. >> so what that means is we will have potential program impacts. i'm not going to sugarcoat it. there will be impacts and we're still we'll go through some of the scenarios we're talking about what we're doing, some of our options that we're going to present today. you've heard some of this

before. but what it does mean is we may be here will likely have a slower response to 311 calls for street cleaning. we will likely have to reduce some of our contractual agreements with our nonprofit organizations. that may be the pitstop that is street cleaning and power washing enhancements that we do in parts of the city. it also will mean that we may have to reduce and scale back some of our illegal vending operations. >> difficult choices all and we're going to go through how we're trying to mitigate the impact of those difficult choices. >> so commissioners, we provided a memo to you. as you know, you see the budget in early february before the submittal date per the administrative code. we have to hold public hearings but then once we submit it in the end of february it goes through the review process by the mayor's office and then it goes before the board of supervisors. so there are changes. so the numbers you saw in august in that memo have already been reduced in the

current year. so in the current year the mayor's office asked us to make approximately a $3.4 million reduction. >> and this slide is a little nuance. >> so apologies as i get into the details of it as part of that 3.4 million dollar reduction that was asked all of the city labor agreements were open at the same time and closed at the end of the fiscal year. so there was a bit of a timing issue as part of those labor agreements. there was some additional pay provided to some of the staff in public works. overall city employees got a 13% increase over three years. there was some additional increases for staff on top of that 13% that impacted our budget. >> but because of the timing and the approval and the agreement of those employees with our labor unions, not all of those numbers were reflected in our budget. so the mayor's office said rather than cutting your budget and then adding money back. >> public works i would like to see if you can just absorb some

of those impacts by living within your budget. and that equated to about $2.4 million. so one of the biggest drivers of that was an increase in the minimum wage for 9916 staff. that's our block sweepers. so if you're in the city and you see the public works staff were in orange vests and pulling a trash container behind them, those what we call 9916 it's a pre apprenticeship program. we have many of those staff they were making roughly $22.45 in the new mou with local to 61. that amount was increased to $25 an hour. so they got a pay bump on top of the 13%. >> those are some of the lowest paid employees in the city. so it was a good a good addition to the mou. there are also some of the most public facing employees of this department. you'll see them in commercial corridors whether it's west port or mission or visit zero. throughout the entire city you'll see these employees of

public works out there cleaning the streets. they do a great job. there were a few other things included in their street inspectors got a 2.5% premium. some truck drivers got a little additional pay if they're driving hazmat materials. if some of our staff were having interaction and contact with the public, they received a little bit of a pay bump. so all of those equated to about $2.4 million. >> and the mayor's office said just stay within your budget budget, absorb those cuts and we're not really going to cut you. that's the way we came to that agreement. there was however still that remaining million dollars and because i'd like to think public works is a good actor. we just need to make sure that at the end of the day we come in $1 million below what our budget is for the current year we will be able to do that through just some of the tools available in our toolbox. so that's changed even since you saw the budget last in that memo in august.

>> so i want to before we dive into public works i think it's really important to get a perspective of what's going on on the city. so this is the next couple of slides are from the city's five year financial forecast. and i want to spend some time talking about here at the citywide perspective because really this is what's driving the 15% reduction not just for public works but for all general fund departments. >> and it's pretty significant. so if you look at the top of this chart, you see sources of that really is revenue. so what's going on with revenue citywide? and if you notice in the budget year fiscal year 2526 you'll see that decrease of $9.2 million. >> that's primarily a result of proposition m that was before the voters in november to revised the business tax structure to provide some relief for small businesses and really just change the overall tax structure. >> so going into that and if you read if you remember the

controllers report in that proposition it highlighted that there will be a one time reduction and then a significant improvement over the out years. and you see that in years two through five you see that revenue is increasing to the tune of 500 and almost $519 million in year five in fiscal year 30 revenue is increasing. we're not in a recession. revenue is increasing. that's good. and i'll go through some of the assumptions of of that. the bad is really the four items below that says uses that's expenditures. and you can look at it pretty quickly and see those numbers. expenditures are outpacing revenues on a pretty significant number. so there's four categories baselines and reserves. there's a general fund reserve. there's an mou reserves at various reserves that the comptroller's office has. but the baselines are pretty critical. the mta gets a baseline the library preservation fund gets the baseline, public works gets a baseline for the tree

maintenance fund. so all of those are incorporated and formulaic lead driven all charter mandated. >> significant $254 million in year five the increase. but it's really the second line that is driving almost everything. >> so if you look at salaries and benefits, you can see it starts in year one at almost two almost 176 million and increases, alex say in big numbers to almost a billion in year five and fiscal year $3,943 million to be exact. >> and that's really driven by a handful of items the close down we use that i mentioned earlier for non public safety employees that 13% increase for the next two years. there's also some assumptions the public safety mou use police and fire opened in fiscal year 27. so the report has some assumptions in that. >> and then there's assumed increase is to the tune of 6%

for current city employees health care cost increases and 7.4 7.5% for retired employees. >> their health care costs are increasing. so it's really that's what's driving that significant number as well. and of course just the sheer number of employees the city has now over 40,000 ftes. >> the other two are smaller in comparison but still quite large when you look at again the growth over the years citywide operating budget costs those are assumed increases for the capital plan equipment cost technology requirements that the city has as well as just some some inflationary pressures. cpi consumer price index adjustments 2.7% and gradually stand at about that range throughout the five years. >> and then the department costs any elections that maybe are included as well as ongoing costs that are anticipated to potentially increase public

health is up by you know if you look at the report $3,247 million in some years as well as hca in-home supportive services that are increasing. >> so overall the deficit is on the bottom but it's shown incredibly well on this chart. >> so if you look at this chart, the blue is the revenue. you can see the increase the red or the expenditures. >> i want to commend the comptroller's office for whoever put together this chart because this visual summarizes it so well. but it's worth looking at the table as well to get into some of the details and really the chart says it all. $253 million next fiscal year and you can see it increasing to almost $1.5 billion in fiscal year 30. >> so sticking with the citywide perspective, i've been doing this in my 25th year so i've been around a while. >> the five year financial plan

went into a little bit more detail than it's sometimes does and this is really interesting for stakeholders policymakers interested members of the public to really to really think through it went through six recommendations of priority areas for budget investment to consider and focus on. >> and i'm not going to go through all of these in significant detail but a few of them directly impact public works. and so if you look at the first one driving new and recovered economic activity and promoting small business development, that's public works and public works is even referenced in the report in terms of our cleaning and welcoming streets. that's the core of one of the things we do we clean the streets. we clean the public right away. we run the pit stop program to reduce bio waste on the sidewalk and then the public right away. so that's a key component of what we do. but there was also talk about supporting small businesses with our shared spaces program, our table and chair fees that

have been waived. so we play a key part in driving and helping the city's economic recovery. and as you all saw recently in our in our newly developed strategic plan, that's a core element of our strategic plan. so not only is the comptroller's office the mayor's office budget and legislative analyst focusing on this as is public works, there's a strategic vision. >> so number two is exploring new tools in public safety and you know, traditional approaches. i think we've seen some of that use of of technology such as drones and cameras. consider alternatives to policing. >> i think we've all seen in the commercial corridors the retired police community ambassador program where there are some retired police officers that are working and work in some of the commercial corridors. >> number three is investing in the city's future through children and families here talking about, you know, supporting the schools and you know, early care and education programs. >> number four decreasing

homelessness and increasing housing supply. >> commissioner turner, you're acutely aware of this one. you know, producing more affordable housing subsidies for supportive housing units, eviction protection programs and all of the key programs there as well as expanding shelter capacity. our number five is as a key priority that we've heard out of the new mayoral administration is you know, continue to build behavioral health systems for care and treatment. you know, that's crisis response and just overall improvement in that area. some of the other city departments will play a big role in and finally maintaining long term government operations infrastructure and high talent workforce infrastructure. the other i would say core element of what public works does. streets capital delivery of important projects whether that's in the public right away or providing new buildings. we had a meeting earlier today and china health center that we're going to deliver for public health as part of the proposition b bonds. >> so public works at the at

the heart of everything. >> i also think it's worth noting that there's a lot of assumptions included in that five year financial plan. so i want to continue to looking at the citywide perspective before we dive into public works. >> you know the slide really speaks for itself. no significant changes in the number of employees week revenue growth. again, i'll reiterate it was growing but not at a significant rate that is going to grow faster than the expenditures. >> did you assume any impact and costs related to the november 2024 election locally? the bullet point way better below that i referenced prop m we've talked about no changes in the city approved and will use that 13% remains. again i mentioned the health care insurance costs increasing 7.4% for retirees, 6.1% for current city employees.

and then the cpi increase for labor contracts a 7.2% return on the investment fund for our pension. and then some minor items about funding levels of the capital plan. the act which is a similar version for technology systems and programs. >> those increases continue. >> last slide on the city perspective and maybe in some ways the most important one the uncertainties and i think there's a lot of uncertainties. funding from the federal level we saw a new administration on january 20th. what's going to be the impact of any federal federal funding decisions on not just the state that could impact san francisco but direct grants and funding for the city and county of san francisco state funding the budget deficit at the state was about $68 billion. we've heard good news in that level that's continued to improve. there's now a small surplus so that's good. i would put costs associated with the tragic events in los

angeles with the fires could potentially impact that number significantly. i get a couple bullet points here on inflationary pressures i think we've all seen and have been reading in the news come february one plan for significant tariffs for canada, mexico and china the three biggest trade partners with the us. so that could drive up costs, impact the economy could create inflationary factors, increased trade deficit significantly lee and then could ultimately drive up interest rates. so the impact of that what exactly those numbers look like i think is still to be determined but certainly a an uncertainty and a potential risk. >> and then finally the last two things the new business tax structure proposition, a lot of analysis went into it, a lot of thought went into it. but you never know sometimes policy intentions don't match the outcomes you get and then any cost associated with new programs or expanded legislation.

>> so now i'll get to what that means for public works. so what that means for public works i've highlighted a little of this is the first priorities were came from our old mayor london breed in early december were reiterated by the current administration mayor lori. >> so the priorities for the mayor's office were as follows maintain core services and specifically public safety and clean streets were referenced clean streets again being one of the core elements that the department provides continue progress in decreasing unsheltered homelessness. we provide support to various departments that are key in that area such as building and providing shelter for the homelessness department effective mental health treatment and then finally something that we'll touch on later proposed opportunities to improve efficiency and service delivery and city services

reporting at the last commission meeting and the public works side you saw our annual report. we're a little bit ahead of the curve in many departments. we do a good job of tracking our data. we're always looking to make improvements but at the last meeting talked about rolling out key performance indicators . that's really the next step of our overall step program and then the specific instructions again that came from mayor breed that were reiterated by the current administration. i mentioned the 15% general fund reduction creates about $13.8 million assessed community based organization grant allocations that for nonprofit contracts. we'll talk about that a little later examine all contractual services. >> we're going to have some talking points on that and then eliminate vacancies and no new positions. >> so as we go through some of our proposals, you'll see that we really took the proposals coming from the administration and tried to make sure that we as public works comply and respond to what we're being asked to do.

on january 9th mayor lori took over provided some additional instructions to city departments he implemented a citywide hiring freeze that impacts not just public works, the general fund departments but all departments, the enterprise departments, puc, mta and airport. >> there are some exceptions and there is a process if you've got key core functions that you need to fill and provide to the the city and county of san francisco, there is a process that was developed going through the mayor's budget office and your respective policy chief. >> so there are ways to get positions approved and filled but you have to go through a process, pause new contracts or programs that have not yet been signed or implemented. i myself personally had multiple conversations with the mayor's budget office on this. if it's a one time funding source, a general, a g.o. bond, a revenue bond, maybe an

external grant those can go forward even if they're new and not yet started. but we just need to talk through that process with the mayor's office. >> one of the ones that we're talking about with the mayor's office i'm writing a memo as we will not literally as we speak but i will have it done today is the trash can procurement can that contract go forward for instance? so a lot of back and forth and just providing a lot of transparency to the mayor's office in terms of what we're doing and what we're spending our money on. >> and then the last one is really important. the mayor has said do not submit a budget that is politically unacceptable and so you'll hear in the press you'll sometimes see where a department made provide something that is politically popular with the residents, elected officials, stakeholders and they may submit that as a request knowing that it won't get approved. so that's in essence what the mayor is asking for here. we're going to probably submit a budget that's politically unacceptable but i'm going to

go through why we don't have a choice. >> so a few slides about our department is a little bit of a breakdown. and commissioners, you've seen this. well, i'm not going to spend too much on this but this is really this is the revenue that makes up the public works budget. and when i said it's $450 million, it's about 1.5 billion. not everything is showing here. again, this is just what support the operating budget of what was 450 2.9 million is now 406 and i just want to be very clear up front on both of these . >> the reason you'll see lower numbers as of today january 23rd, 2025 is because the capital budget numbers are not fully included. so it is a bit of a timing issue. the capital plan and the admin code has to be done by early march. i'm drawing a blank on the

exact date so those numbers are not entirely reflected in here . and as we go to the next slide that shows uses and what we're spending the money on i'll highlight some of that in particular. >> so i'm just going to go left to right and both of these the biggest source of funds is interdepartmental services that in essence is departments and clients giving us money to perform work and that may be all of the you know you've seen you've all been approving the construction contracts, the professional service contracts so you have a good sense of what we're doing for public health psc, mta and all of the city family, the general fund, the combination of capital and ongoing. so again if you look at that light gray that there is some funding in the budget currently that didn't maintain for the paving program for curb ramps some of the core functions we do and i'll go through some of the other ones that have been removed and not included in the budget and then that dark gray

in the lower right that's general fund what's called general fund operating. i'm going to have a whole slide on what makes up that amount because that's really where we have to make our reductions the 13.8 million and then just moving around solid waste commissioners as you know the trash can pick up by recology rather didn't have to pay for that out of that funding becomes a small amount as you see here at $12 million comes from that directly to public works and the solid waste account and that provides mechanical sweeping services hand sweeping and sidewalks and then the one team which is the outreach and enforcement team that are the staff that go out and try to combat illegal dumping or try to make sure everybody has a service to get their refuse picked up and they've been on the news. i think you've seen some of the articles that they're actually rummaging through the garbage trying to find identification of who's doing illegal dumping in the city so they can then

issue citations. they are allowed to issue citations. >> the other items the tree maintenance fund that is a general fund set aside that was approved by the voters proposition f a few years ago. you've certainly heard that special revenue fund a very de minimis amount that's from development agreements, ongoing funding from development agreements for some very narrow and specialized services we provide some focused cleaning and some maintenance of medians in mission bay and then the final ones are really all from the state the road fund, the gas tax and then the capital funds. that's really money coming from the state because we're a city and county we get both gas tax at the county level and the city level road fund is from the county allocation gas tax of the city allocation and then the capital funds is primarily from what's called the road maintenance and rehabilitation account senate bill one a couple of years ago increased gas tax by $0.12 per gallon.

that money comes for us for the paving program and then uses i'm going to just go through this again quickly the i'll go left from right so i'll start again with interdepartmental services that's money that public works pays to other departments $12.2 million of it is rent for 40 nine southbound us $11 million of it is what we pay central shops for. both of those are funding sources that go to the city administrator's office for rent for 49 southbound us and maintenance and fuel for our fleet for the general fund on street cleaning to go out there and do it. >> we also pay almost $8 million for their services. we paid department of human central human resources the central data $7 million and then there's a bunch of smaller items the controller environment puc for light heat and power for money that the department pays to other city

departments. there's a lot of money going back and forth within the city family from one department to another. capital equipment is just what i mentioned earlier it's capital and equipment so some elements of the capital budget do go through in a two year basis. if you notice the the pie chart on the right there's no nice green sliver that is 100% the capital budget. it'll get fixed as we go through the process for that mainly paving program and curb ramps for instance of that 58.6 million about 4445 million of it is for the paving program city grants that orange sliver pitstop program to clean so key key programs we have there with some of our nonprofit partners non personnel materials and supplies there's a the biggest item in here is debt service. >> so about $9.4 million is debt service that we pay to the comptroller's office is an allocation based on what the

funding is for. i think commissioners as you know the city was using less general fund money for the paving program and was issuing something called certificates of participation which is a debt instrument that you pay over duration of years. you pay the debt service of that. that's what that the primary driver of that number and then the last two the one says facilities maintenance and programmatic budget there is really what it is that's just broad programs. so there's about a $6.5 million allocation in there for the pitstop program, a $2 million allocation for graffiti abatement and then some of the impound account that i mentioned earlier and the source aside is also shown up in this programmatic budget and then the big blue 56% of our budget is labor salary benefits pretty clear what that is. >> so commissioners that

overall will break it down by bureaus. so as you all know we also had a reorganization that we announced in late october early november. >> now the budget system legs so you'll see the budget next year reflected with the structure. we've done a lot of the budget team again the folks behind me who get all the credit for the magic that happens. they've done a lot of behind the scenes crosswalk of all of this but the way it's showing in the budget system is in the old structure so i'm not going to spend a lot of time on this just going to show some of the biggest changes. so if you look at the first to the old building design and construction and the infrastructure for design and construction, you'll notice that if you look at the approved current year budget of fiscal year 2425 into fiscal year 2526, you'll see both of those are down by 32% and 22% respectively. again, i don't want to keep repeating myself that is 100% driven by the capital plan and the timing of the capital

plan. so in bdc for instance in the old bureau design and construction there was a $14 million allocation included in there for the public health and safety bond that is not in there currently. there was also funding for some elevator projects at the opera house again not in there but we'll see some money added back in on the infrastructure side the deficit is $22.5 million related to the paving program. there was some money in there for a sunset boulevard recycled water project that's not in there currently as well. some funding for the fourth street bridge near the baseball stadium. >> so those are just again capital projects that we fully anticipate some of that money for different projects will be added in as we go forward in the capital planning process and you'll see in the later slide public works is actually presenting in front of the capital planning committee on monday of next week. so it's just a timing issue happens every year and as we

write anything that changes between now or the next meeting in february and we provide a memo, we'll certainly make sure we highlight all of that in some granularity and be the next one street use and mapping going to sound like a broken record. also capital for two programs we have what's called the serp and a sap are the acronyms the sidewalk inspection program, the sidewalk inspection repair program that for public works does more proactive sidewalk repairs. and then there's a sap where it's the accelerated sidewalk the second day accelerated sidewalk abatement program it would come to me thank you where we work with the homeowners and residents and to try to proactively expedite known defects in sidewalks. so those are capital funded programs that again just are coming off those usually in our prioritization score quite high. it's an important program. both of them are so we expect

funding to come back from that in the next one. beer and street repair if you look at the the big delta is actually in the second year in fiscal year 27. again capital that's the organization and the bureau and our department that does pothole repair the capital pothole money is not included in that so it's driving that as well. >> some equipment purchases urban forestry is pretty flat street environmental services that where all the street cleaning happens and a minor decrease then that's driven by the loss of the supplemental appropriation. we'll go through that in a little detail. but in the second year there's a 6.6 reduction and that is driven by the solid waste impound account. so in addition to the budget process in addition to the capital process, the refuge rate board is actually going through the process working with recology of updating citywide refuse rates and we

get funding from that that i mentioned earlier because it's an unknown there's a decrease in fiscal year 27 and so i don't want to say that i don't think there'll be a reduction because there very well could be but the funding we get from those are the core services for the city and county cleans mechanical sweeping litter pick up outreach and enforcement as well as trash cans. so i fully expect that number to go up for street and environmental services as it's shown here. the commission pretty small budget all of your salaries, all of your you know, your commission secretary and support staff and we'll go through that in a little bit more detail. >> commissioners, i want to be cognizant of timed so this is fte by bureau there's really one number to really look at here. i think it jumps off the screen. you see that -20 and street environmental services that is

absolutely the impact of the two year supplemental appropriation that i mentioned earlier. so in a perfect world we could choose what goes away and not choose some of the most impactful positions. but this was a policy decision introduced by the mayor a few years ago and approved by the board of supervisors knowing that the funding and the position allocation was only for two years. so this is a policy decision and there's not much we can do. >> so no other change on here except for that we're not adding any positions. we're not we're making very few changes in position so very flat in light of the instructions and the fiscal situation the citizen now i think we get into really in many ways the meat and potatoes and the heart of the presentation. so if you remember the slide and i have another slide i'm going to repeat this several times as part of the story we're trying to tell $13.8 million reduction from general fund work.

we make those reductions. here's our general fund budget $97.4 million and you can see that an overwhelming majority of it is driven by street and environmental services that street cleaning core function. we talked about some of the priorities that the five year financial plan highlighted clean streets welcoming downtown help the economic recovery. it's in our strategic plan. that's where we get an overwhelming majority of our general fund dollars. the next one street use and mapping $10.5 million. and if you look almost all of that is salary that is our staff at public works that's doing the illegal vending enforcement. >> another core function if you then you continuing to the right you see bureau of building and street repair almost all of that funding you can see again is related to maintaining city buildings,

keeping them open. a lot of this money is for work we do at the jails some of the real estate buildings. we're out there maintaining trying to ensure that the buildings are functioning and running well and taking care of any repairs that they may have. and then you can see the commissioners the salaries drive an overwhelming majority of it. it's your salaries for attending these meetings. thank you as well as your administrative staff two very small non personnel and materials and supplies. a lot of that goes to our staff govt to air these on television as well. some small items related to any technology and ipad business cards documents you may have. so again very small not a lot of wiggle room to make reductions there but you can see $97.4 million if you take 15.7 of 15% of that. >> that's roughly how they came

up to the $13.8 million. there's a few adjustments that are involved. so if you do the math it may not tie exactly. so this is really what we have to begin looking at making our reductions. but i want to step one i want to take one step back as we dive into the reductions to really holly in some detail. what is the impact of that two year supplemental coming off the books so again, this was the policy decision. we can't say we want to cut managers or an accountant sorry accountants but the policy the direction as it was budgeted impacts again these core services. it was a two year enhancement for clean streets and you know i think there's a couple of things that's done. it's really allowed us to do more proactive cleaning rather than relying on some of our service orders and responding to three one one or complaints from residents. >> it's allowed us to be more proactive in many ways that's

the big benefit of what we've seen from the supplemental. >> so 15 general laborers to street inspectors and the two street inspectors were really involved in graffiti abatement. so graffiti continues to be a challenge in the city and county of san francisco. so we had to dedicated staff doing that. we have others but this was again an enhancement and what we currently have and then a couple of positions that are really front line supervisors that are out there in the field cleaning and helping keep the city clean so the 20 fte reduction we lose at june 30th and then we also lose some of the items below about $1.8 million and temporary salaries that's again primarily the 9916 positions that you see in the universe but also allows us to enhance through seasonal hiring general laborers, truck drivers as we see fit and then some minor or non-labor labor expenditures also go away at the end of the fiscal year materials and supplies our ability to rent steamers to

power wash sidewalks and do some of that so i'm going to go back to the mayor's budget instructions because i just want to reiterate as we get into some of our recommendations again 15% reduction assess cbos and nonprofit organizations, examine contractual services, examine vacancies, no new positions and then the additional instructions that came from the new administration citywide hiring freeze pause new contracts and again do not submit a budget that's politically unacceptable. and we talked a little bit there are some exemptions around the hiring freeze a process for that as well as new contracts. >> so we only have two options you saw in the pie chart most of the budget is not general fund so we can cut general fund which is again for some of our core services street cleaning, illegal vending, keeping buildings open or we can cut what's the overhead fund and the overhead fund is to our

indirect cost plan what supports all of the back of the house operations i.t h.r. the budget team me our director so that's our two options from two go through those two options in a minute but i also want to highlight and let you know that as part of every budget that public works does we submit what we call initiatives. >> we don't load them into the system, we just say mayor's office if you find additional funding if the economy turns around and you have additional money for some of the items, here's some of the items we have and we'll give you more detail on this. just two of them enhance the legal street vending enforcement nighttime hours and the weekend as well as special event support. so i think we all saw what happened in new orleans, the tragic tragedy there. currently whenever there's an event public works staff park to dump trucks or a cement mixer and they're blocking any pathway an entry point into an event, we'll do it for the

lunar new year. we get more and more and more of those and we procure barricades massive amounts of barricades. you can't go in the city without seeing a barricade with the public works a little. the logo that we've either procured or we've rented we don't do that just for public works. >> the police department and others rely on our procurement of barricades coming out of our budget. >> so so some issues there so i want to take one minute and highlight the only two places we could cut the general fund 100% 1 to 1 relationship. but the problem is that's our core services street cleaning, illegal vending and building maintenance. we've already lost 2050 but we do get 100% reduction. >> so then why don't we cut overhead, cut the back of the house operations? the problem with that is we only get about 20% 25%. it varies a little bit of general fund savings if we cut those so if we would only cut there to get that $13.8 million

we would have to cut 55%. we'd have to cut 55 million of that budget. that would be mass layoffs. that would be no city department. we'd probably have to get rid of some executives. we'd have to do wild layoffs that we wouldn't be able to support any of the administrative costs. the problem with that is even that wouldn't be enough because we talked about that big interdepartmental services budget 40% of that budget some of the larger items on our rent, the $12 million i mentioned the work orders, the dia that's the budget it comes from we can't really cut those those are centrally loaded and so that's not really an option. >> so our hands are a little tied. that said, we cut their significantly each and every year because that is back of the house and not core service . >> so with all that here's

where we're at as of today. so commissioners this is preliminary full disclosure we are we're still making some potential tweaks but wanted to get this in front of you as soon as possible and let you know that it's going to be some variation of this. so i'm just going to go top to bottom so that midyear reduction of $1 million that i talked about early on in the presentation that's ongoing. so that's we'll find a way to make sure that we meet that reduction again, a lot of tools in our toolbox to do that and then if you go back and you remember what the directions were from the mayor's office, both the previous administration and the current administration look at nonprofits, look at cbo allocations. that's what we're doing. we're looking at the pit stop program and i won't bore you but i've got ample data that is really looking at the usage of the pit stop program to see where we can reduce that program and not have a

significant impact. there's going to be an impact because there's not one of those toilet facilities that has no use. so we're looking to where we can minimize impact potentially close shift ours. >> that's what we're doing. we've got the data actually doing a trend analysis on an hour by hour basis and we're looking to see what the impact is and then we're going to take it so far as sometimes we have our own trailers that we can always put out because they're under repair. we're looking to see if we can quantify any impact for those locations. so let me just give an example . if we have a pit stop at buena vista west on haight street but if it's down for a few days for repair or we're looking at the service order data are we seen and those days a spike in service orders for biohazard on the street or in the sidewalk. so that's the level of granularity we're doing for the pit stop program really, really detailed. and as i go through this slide at the next presentation we

will have multiple slides that will show what is the operational impact. we're just it just takes time were there were getting there just weren't quite ready for this presentation. >> we're also looking at reducing block sweeping and sidewalks team cleaning to nonprofit contracts. we have the impact of those that will go away. they're just going to go away. we're quantify and the impact to see if that is the right decision. preliminary analysis looks like we will be okay there. it can help. one thing that's on here that i'm not sure we're going to do but it's still a placeholder. we've analyzed the data of the total clean grant that's a relatively new grant i think about nine months ago $2.2 million contract for 18 months we've looked at the service order impact from that program. >> it's about a 31% reduction. so that program is having an impact having a significant impact. so as we go back and look at the instructions you know, look at how services are being

provided, are they efficient, what's the data show but yet look at nonprofits that's when i think we may pull back and revisit and we're now getting into the granularity of if we adjust by a half hour or something can we do anything there? so really again not in the room or recognize the performance team miss bedo and her team they're also quasi budget members during this process and then some staff we're going to again look at are block sweepers and our temporary salaries. i've mentioned some of those staff before. we're going to again see what we can do and one of the things we're exploring for those positions other other funding sources so ideally we wouldn't have to offload or reduce that amount. we can ideally try to find some other funding sources. so we've been in communication with other departments, other funding sources, other entities to see if we can try to keep that as holds possible but maybe shift some of the ways in which those positions are funded right now don't hold me

to this number. i think there's about 70 of them that are funded through the department of human services agency through various programs they have. so we're going to see for instance, we can try to expand that. i've been talking to their cfo on that option overhead reduction. so again we're going to make a $6 million reduction again. listen, listening. very much to our instructions. think of contract services. a lot of it will come from contract services so most of the contract services in that overhead budget are really around two things i.t and i.t and so we're going to delay and pause a lot of our i.t programs and see if we can do more with less. we will also likely would do some hiring. we're still quantifying the impact and getting a better read of what the hiring freeze may or may do and it's given us the opportunity to see if we do have some long term vacancies can we keep them long term vacancies forever? so we're doing that analysis as well.

>> and then finally in addition to some other funding for the temp workers, we're looking at some of our existing staff to see if we could potentially look at other funding sources. so on a few slides previously we talked a little bit about the gas tax and the road fund could we move more of our positions off of the general fund to gas tax or could we maybe shift some of our general labor positions to urban forestry to help there if we've got work that needs to be done maybe rather than issuing a contract could we perform some of that in-house and that could go on the tree maintenance fund the set aside that was mentioned earlier. so to slide, thank you for your time commissioners. here are the next steps. there's a lot it's crazy to think about for all the work we've been doing but we're still in the early phases of the budget process so we need to finalize our targets which we will plan to do in short order.

one of the things that i've not mentioned but we brought before you last year was very surgical and strategic fee increases. we will do that in the upcoming meeting as well. we'll certainly let you know in advance if you've got any questions or concerns. again, we are listening to what's in the five year financial report and our strategic plan and no way, shape or form will we increase fees that will have a negative impact on the economic recovery of the city. we have earned our cost plan. we need to update we need to submit all of this by february 21st. i mentioned the capital budget we're presenting monday of next week. we need to determine how other funding levels will impact us. so i think that's a big element of this that i haven't addressed until now that big blue part of interdepartmental services that's were coming to us. >> so if the sheriff's department chooses to they've got to make a reduction if they choose not to fund us to maintain the jails for

instance, that could have an impact on us because they want to make sure that they've got the the staff and the vehicles and the requirements to provide security for the for the jails so that could impact us. so not just myself. >> director shaw the whole budget team we're working all of our contacts to make sure that we're kept fully aware of any changes that may be coming on the capital side as well. proposition b 390 general $390 million general obligation bond passed. we're just determining how much of that funding will come to us and who where we're going to are again as a way to shift resources as needed. we've got the commission presentation today and the one on the 13th in february and then as i mentioned also next week, next week, thursday we've got the first presentation on the refresh rate board where we're outlining in detail what the ask from for it is for public works. again being good stewards of

the city's resources literally i'll give you a preview of what's coming. the only increase we have is the mou wage increases and a minor increase of 2.63%. the cpi adjustments for a one contract we have that steams and cleans provides additional steaming and cleaning of the trash cans in the city. other than that we're trying to stay flat. >> so this is just as a reminder the overall process of where we're at or about that that we're a little ahead a little to the left of that red arrow which is review and approval of the public works commission and providing details to the sanitation streets commissions today you can then see right next to it to the right is the capital plan process and then you see you know, we submit on the 21st of february the mayor submits to the board of supervisors on june 1st the board reviews during june in committee july

at the full board and then it gets signed in early august and then we all get to come up for air and think about the process for next year. and with that thank you for your time. thank you for your support. i want to thank the budget team ,all the staff and public works, the mayor's budget office who's helped us to get to this point and we'll be happy to answer any questions and comments you may have. thank you for your time and consideration and most importantly your support. >> thank you deputy director robertson very much and i know all my colleagues on the dais joined me in thanking the team that you pointed out at the outset. jennifer marquez, donna lee and sylvia and all the other people involved in this gargantuan effort. i just have a few questions please. you mentioned $7 million that the department pays to s.f. human resources division under the cio's office now that we have a very robust and successful in-house h.r.

department why do we need to pay them $7 million so we are paying the city wide department of human resources the $7 million not the city administrator's office we use to contract our human resources function through the city administrator's office. we're no longer doing that. that is now brought in-house but there are a number of central services that departments that provide services to all other city departments and we don't get to choose how much we pay them for their services and the department of human resources is one we do pay in the city administrator's office. we do pay department of technology and we pay central shops. those are under the city administrator's purview department of human resources is a separate city department that again provides citywide human resources policy clarity

on processes and works represents at the civil service commission etc. i don't know ift was part of what deputy director robertson called the non-negotiable items. okay. you know it's all hands on deck here. what do you mean non-negotiable items? >> i mean shouldn't the mayor say okay, everything's up for negotiation now? i mean this is dire times right ? commissioners? they are negotiable and they're instructed to make the same 15% reductions that all of the other departments, including public works are when i say non-negotiable, i guess i would say is there what's called centrally loaded by the mayor's office so they have their fixed costs that you likely will see some reductions in the you know, the 15% range and then they're based on an allocation of fte or head count. there's an allocation that's done and then it's centrally loaded. so when i sit non-negotiable public works or other

departments can't say you're charging me x but i want to pay y to get a reduced service. that's really the part of it that's non-negotiable. but they're absolutely be held to the same reductions that all of the other departments are. >> okay, thank you. and also another large item as you mentioned was the debt service on the cops for street paving in your looking for other revenue sources it'd be i mean that wouldn't be a short term change because the debt service is fixed but it's for future road paving in the next five years. are there are we looking at sources where we don't have to pay debt service on cops a commission? >> we certainly are looking for it. that's been a recent change in practice as the budget has gotten tighter and there's been less and less discretionary or available general fund i would say there has been an effort to use other sources to continue the critical work of maintaining the city's infrastructure so i think

there's been a realization that there are some ancillary costs provided with using long term debt for the paving program and other programs that impact public works. again, it's just it's a key decision for policymakers and stakeholders is keeping the programs going, maintaining the infrastructure first, finding a funding instrument to make have some additional costs downstream. >> i will also well quick if i could say because of the cops and working with the capital planning committee and and the mayor and the board has allowed us to reach a high score of 75 so we're back at 75 that was achieved in december. so through the support we have been able to improve our overall score to i think outside of danville the highest in the bay area. i was just going to add that the the increased use of the cops was really a reaction to the decrease of overall general fund available to the capital planning committee in

particular and so they are strongly advocating to restore the capital the general fund allocation to capital planning to pre-covid levels but they're not there yet. >> so i think there's been a a reliance on some of the other funding structures that everyone agrees are not ideal. >> great. thank you. and i also would urge you in the list of where you're looking at at cuts that we all understand about deferring it projects, i really hope that that won't be needed because deferring i.t improvements and upgrades of public works that affects everybody in this city every citizen and you know you've heard it from both of these commissions since we've been up and running on how to make life easier for the citizens of san francisco when they deal with public works. and one of those ways of course is improved technology and i.t systems so please do what you can not to defer the i.t programs we've heard about at these commissions that have

been funded that we've approved contracts for because that really has a more elevated effect on the population and here than perhaps meets the eye at first blush. so i would just advocate please try not to diminish the momentum you've been building around upgrading the departments if you can. i understand hard choices but to me that's not oh yeah well just you know to me that's very important. >> commissioner it's a very good point. it is a direct report to me. so we have been very surgical in terms of what we're doing and many of the key critical projects that have been before this commission such as our project construction management system or project financial system those will continue unabated and we hear from our clients we've heard from you, we've heard internally that that is the most important system. >> what we are really reducing are some of the more nice to have. we were going to we were

considering implementing a learning management system that would provide a better way to track and monitor and make sure everyone is getting their required trainings and is really using their training hours to the best and most effective use possible at some of those systems. the more nice to have that we are you know deferring and just putting it on the back burner. but we hear you loud and clear and agree with you 100% that our core functions and our systems that will make us more efficient and better and allow us better data for kpis and reporting will continue. >> thank you. good to hear we get a lot of bang for the buck with it. the last comment i'll have before i turn over my colleagues is that all the directors from both mayors mayor breed and now mayor laurie do you do these provide you with enough flexibility in managing this department and its budget? >> in other words, i'm a little surprised that you've been told, you know, freeze contracts, no new hiring this and that and not just you need to cut 15% from your budget. go figure out how to do it

and present me new mr. mayor with what you're proposing it just are you pushing back at all? is there room to move and say just we'll we'll cut our budget 15% but but but don't tell us how to do it. >> we know how to run this department. we know where we may have to make some painful cuts instead of just no you know, no new hiring contracts. i mean that to me it just seems like a meat ax approach that should not be taken. >> i will take a crack at responding to that. >> so i think i just want to be clear that the instructions were citywide instructions and not specific to public works. they also did provide it's kind of an exception process. >> so i think that the clear message is that the city needs to address the structural deficit that dramatic slide that shows the gap between spending and revenue and and the vast majority of that gap as as you saw on the table is

driven by labor costs. >> so it is a good excuse me it is a broad brush approach. but i think the message that we were hearing is we we have to look at this at at the citywide level to reduce the structural deficit. we every department has said where's our flexibility? we want more flexibility. and i think, you know, the mayor's office has to make tough decisions. they are as i mentioned, they are allowing exceptions and we ba clear justification to demonstrate that it was well within our existing budget and that it's not going to affect our cuts. and then we are hopeful that the critical positions that we need to fill will be allowed to fill. thank you very much, chair harwood shulman do you have any comments or questions before we open it to our colleagues? >> i'm well. thank you for all your hard work, your whole department.

i really appreciate that and i guess i'm just kind of wondering if there's any way that we could not eliminate the block sweeping and sidewalk. >> i mean just total elimination like we already struggle so much with keeping our streets clean and i know that you guys have been through this and everything but the way you went through like the pit stop program of looking of reducing hours and staff have have you also done that with the block sweeping and the sidewalk staining? i'm assuming you probably have but commissioner we have we will provide some of that analysis and the updated slide deck at the next meeting.

>> we have done it the programs have been in effect for a little while so honestly with the data it's a little more challenging to go back and do it a little longer term trend analysis what we did preliminarily see what the rules was some minor reductions in terms of some of the service orders we we've seen but now what we need to do is take that analytical approach to the next level and determine how much of that was related to some of the more proactive work we've been doing. it's kind of a correlation and causation analysis we're doing now is is was it a combination of both the additional nonprofit supporting us and our more proactive work and our additional staffing or was it only the nonprofits that were primarily driving that reduction or was it our staff and the proactive work? so that's the analysis we're we're looking into now a lot of those are focused in certain parts of the city but the preliminary data shows not

nearly the impact as that we saw from the preliminary data analysis for the tenderloin and the total clean contract. but we will look into that and and if the data shows that's a terrible idea, we will revise our recommendations when we finalize them for for your review and approval at the next meeting. >> okay. thank you very much for all your hard work and questions. >> i'll come out alphabetical of commissioner bloom and so thank you so much so so a few comments but i want to start with appreciation and praise for the work that you have done and your team has done in making some identifying and making and explaining to ice in the press briefings. and today the very difficult decisions that the department of public works and all city departments face right now. i think that that reflects a tremendous amount of work

and commitment on the part of staff. >> so thank you for that and thank you to your team. i, i also really appreciate that the department of public works was ahead of the game in some of the efficiency that that we have heard about here in this commission over the last couple of months. the restructuring seems to have put the department in a good position to effectuate some of these savings that you need to do now in to be more resilient for the future years and some of the some of the efficient expenditures i will say for for example very micro-level trash can procurement the new trashcan that went in the bottom of my street a couple of weeks ago has already led to a reduction in 311 requests which is which is going which is going to be i think important as you're thinking about how we how we do more and maintaining

level of service out of the department of public works with your staff and in particular fewer staff in some of the core service areas. so we think that kind of efficiency the moving around of of staff, the gaining of efficiency through the restructuring which was in effect long before i joined this commission and was in effect prior to the mayor's budget directives and and some of those strategic decisions i think are are positioning the department well to continue to thrive in the face of very difficult decisions that we're seeing here that's that i have three major concerns and i and i recognize that you are not in a position to change these major concerns but they're really significant. >> one, as you noted in your uncertainty slide, i think the the general environment in which these decisions are being made is a is a challenging one. >> the inflationary pressure

that we see throughout the economy is also very true from the department and for staff. >> and so the kinds of pressures on the department when you come to procurement and other is is going to be very real and and also very real for staff and the decisions they are making in their own households and their ability to continue to do certain jobs. >> so i think that that general inflationary pressure is something that we're going to to see in this next year as there are cuts in in future years as you've previewed here. >> the second is the potential almost certain volatility of federal and state funding. we in california have a quite volatile state budget as everybody in this room knows well and and i think we will see what happens in the federal expenditures over the coming years. >> i think there's potentially a great deal of volatility

there that then is going to impact in various ways the budget that we're seeing. >> then my third major concern is that the department of public works is an economic driver in the city and so the kinds of reductions that we are talking about the very difficult decisions that you have to make may then in turn have an adverse effect throughout the city not only on the lived experience but also on the economic vitality and you know, the support that the department provides for small and medium sized businesses in the commercial corridors. the department as an employer and and the cbo partners as employers and the department's really exceptional role in making the city a great place to live and raise a family and do business. and so i, i share all of this to say that i think there is there are a number of of

external factors that put pressure on this budget that you have touched on and not i, i think we need to be really thoughtful about and i hope that the mayor is being very thoughtful about and also implications from the kinds of cuts here that are not only on the services that the department is able to provide in that like in and of themselves and implications for the department and the management there but also for the city as a whole and that that doesn't mean we can necessarily change the choices that are being made. i understand you have the instructions that you have. it's a very difficult environment but i think that there will be some very real adverse implications from them . mr. turner thank you. >> and i want to echo all that sentiment from beginning to end, but i just want to make sure i've got some clarity. >> you definitely want to stand back up and could you please

pull up slide ten so most of your presentation you use several words and i just want to make sure i understand what they mean in the context of what we have in front of us. many times you kept saying citywide perspective city family you kept saying the mayor's priorities pass then post mayor's okay got all that great stuff and i appreciate it but on slide ten i'd like to make sure i understand specifically the mayor's priorities starting with number two. number one, we all got but let's just talk about number two. so continued progress decreasing unsheltered homelessness. we clearly do that in multiple different ways but one of them is our workforce development programs and so on and so forth. and so i'm trying to reconcile the other thing that kept saying is politically unacceptable. so would it not be politically unacceptable for us to do

and take an action that would literally and potentially increase homelessness? that's my first question, commissioner. i can address that. i would say possibly yes. thank you. but can i just follow up on that again, i think the whole story that we're trying to tell is there's a lot of difficult and bad choices that we have to make and as part of our decision making, one of the priorities was really focusing yes, on the mayor's priorities but also really that that first one what is the core of core functions for public works and it's trying to minimize the impact on unclean streets. great. but i would just like to reiterate i think your answer was yes. is that correct? >> i would say so, yes. i would argue though that i'm not probably the best person to answer that question so directly as a dichotomous variable but i forced to do so i would probably say yes, the next effective mental health treatment one of the great things that we have is extreme experience from developing

navigation centers public health, public health hospitals ,proposition b which is going to fund this expansion and ability to deliver. >> i'm trying to again how do we not work with and what they have to keep funding if not increase? that's our indirect that's our capital. i'm just trying to understand again we use these words family city family city perspective. it seems like the ones who don't really have a choice here our departments we should be holding accountable like to say this is why prop c is important. this is why mental health is important. we haven't talked about image to say we haven't talked about all of the other things that i said every single day from when we do street cleaning street sweep for homelessness to the back is i'm just trying to to reconcile how what we have in front of us we could potentially be proposing something that would affect mental health commissioner potentially i think these are the larger discussions

and decisions that need to happen at the central office, the mayor's office and that's why when we submit it from our department perspective on february 21st it's not submitted from the mayor until the 1st of june and those are the discussions that that are happening internally in room 200 in the mayor's office. >> lastly, as proposed opportunities improve efficiency and service delivery and city service reporting it's actually my favorite one. >> so i want to echo chair post a statement about it but i want to just make sure i again i understand when we talk about service delivery and particularly for us. yes it's clean streets but it's also being able to deliver events where people don't die. >> is that correct? >> again, i'm not sure that that's our primary responsibility but we do not have emergency responses to have emergency response and i believe our new emergency manager is actually in the

audience taking the sentences first week on the job by definition. and we but yes we we we do we are more in line of the recovery efforts after a particular event and i will just say one thing our structural our head of structural engineer just returned from los angeles where he was down there providing support to the impacted areas of los angeles. sure. i would like though to make sure i'm clear when we have upcoming nba events we are going to deploy our trucks. we're going to deploy our staff who are working. they are coordinating with emergency response including fire police and others. that's all preventative things so people do not die. >> is that correct? we will be working in a collaborative manner with public safety organizations. we will be likely activating our department operations center to ensure that there is a coordinated response to any events that should happen.

>> and so the proposed budget that's in front of us in order to be able to do that is seemingly the things that are in it would impede our ability to do something very basic which is make people safe, secure and able to enjoy our global city. >> and so i say all this to say i struggled every year with this process and this year's no different but it feels more personal. i feel that the things that are going to make the city great are the things that are in front of us and we seemingly are doing things are going to set us back. >> and so i'm trying to understand i'm grappling with the language, the terminology, the facts. >> they're not adding up to me and maybe it's just because of how i feel about public works. i feel no different about public works as i do the police department or the fire department. we have a baseline of operations that we must maintain but for city to be great we need to be investing in our future. and so i just like to end with

that point in that i struggle with what's in front of us. i do think the staff you guys are incredible every single year you guys probably get tired of hearing from me. i'm excited to hear we got our emergency manager on site. that is great. all of these things though are about the future and this budget does not seem to do anything for the city's future. thank you mr. harvey thank you, chair again. >> i mean if i'm so sorry if your staff gets tired of us recognizing them and out yeah. get ready for more. great job. i thank you and thank you for all the time that you spent on ongoing through the budget. i came up with some questions. i have one of the question was actually you know actually i got answers i got answers multiple times so i was going to be a comment on my first question on the slide page five up out of the four major uses

that we have here that are impacting that you know, the whole city budget, where does public works stand in each and every one of those categories where it is like is it the fifth the first offender i guess we want to call for we would have some degree of impact in all four. >> yeah but in each one a category where where is public works in comparison to other department with you know when you're looking at all the departments of the city so i'll go through each one individually so our baseline reserves the only baseline in reserve that directly impacts public works is the tree maintenance fund and that's approximately $23 million. >> can i can i pause you? i think i think you're misunderstanding the question so i think what commissioner obie is asking is relative to the city as a whole how much is

public works impacting each of these lines so we are one of the larger departments but we're not the largest. >> so from that i've got to thank you for the clarification so the first word in my head is de minimis but i don't think that's quite right. we have a more nominal impact than some of the other departments because a lot of our funding doesn't come from the general fund. this chart really is only talking about the general fund and the biggest some of the larger departments that get general fund direct support are the public safety departments so they would have a much larger impact on this than public works. >> that said, we certainly have a retirees we certainly have, you know, $100 million of staff that are charging the general fund our labor costs are included in here. we're part of the 13% of reserve for all of our non general fund funded staff. the economic impact of

additional health care costs is all going to impact the general fund we do have about a budgeted number of 800 positions out of a city that has about 40,000. >> so you know we're included in this chart and have an impact but it's we're certainly not one of the key drivers of of these numbers to put it in that term. >> i just felt that this is a story that needs to be told. i mean that the public needs to know that which will get me to my my my comment towards the end i'm going i was going through the slides one you know ,one by one. >> but if you jump to a number 11, what about the solid waste fund? >> i noticed that every year so for 2025 and then through 2026 the solid waste fund goes down . can you tell me more about that ? yeah. so the solid waste fund again as we get a about $12 million

$12.5 million to be more precise for funding of some core services from residential refuse rates and that funds the one team about ten fte and then about of staff to go out and inspect illegal dumping and making sure everyone has a garbage account with recology and then about 30 staff i'm using small numbers for staff that are truck drivers to do mechanical street sweeping and then staff that do little patrol with they're picking up litter and debris and refuse from the sidewalks. the reason why you see a decrease in the second year here is the refuse rate process is actually just ramping up as we speak. and what's going to be included in that second year is an unknown and so there is a possibility that we could see a reduction. i personally doubt that that'll happen because in the overall scale of the roughly $3

and what the costs are for residents there, i can say it's de minimus it is it is pennies on the dollar so our cost there just not known because the referees rate board hasn't fully signed off on it. >> they did a two year process last year so the current year and the budget year and they're just now doing the out years as we speak they're doing a three year so you won't see the decrease a year from now when we're presenting the budget. yeah, the reason i'm asking is because solid waste is going up and just going down just didn't make sense so we'll just have to wait for the budget to correct. >> it's a bit of a timing issue and as i mentioned i'm personally present in front of the referees rate board kicking off what we're asking for on thursday of next week. and so what we're asking for is just a modest increase based on the agreed upon and will use for our staff and then a small agreement for a cpi adjustment for our contractor who provides additional steam cleaning of

the trash cans. we did make some asks to recology to provide some additional services but that's not public works delivering those services. it's a cost borne by recology that will be included in that refuse free application. all thank you. so last year we were like saved by kicking kicking a couple of projects down down the line like the garbage bins that was planned that we just you know decided to move that down and not work on it and that actually saved us save the department a lot of funds from the from the general fund. >> is there anything around like is there a budget for like new equipment going going on right now that maybe that can be an option potentially we could we are still going forward with the refugee camp procurement and sure and we can go forward with that. we're having discussions with

the mayor's office whether that can go forward in terms of the big element that we could do to save general fund would really be the tools in our toolbox to shift funding sources away from the general fund to another source. so the real options we would have would be gas tax and road fund for the road fund again as the gas tax at the county level and what we do with that that we're exploring is if we can move any potential equipment purchase from general fund to the road fund and we currently do buy equipment using that funding source we're seeing if we can do more the same thing would hold true for gas tax in terms of shifting staff or resources off the general fund to the gas tax. >> there are some problems with that there it's like with any special fund there are some restricted uses in terms of what we can and can't do with those funding sources. the state comptroller's office provides updates and guidance that we make sure we adhere to

to make sure that we're not violating any of the rules and covenants with those funds because if we don't get audited we would have to pay them back and that's the last thing we want to do. >> so we are exploring that in terms of other funding sources that the last option i would mention that we're talking about potentially is general laborers and i mentioned it earlier moving some of those folks to the bureau of urban forestry and help maybe with tree establishment or sidewalk repair and if we can do other funding sources for that, we're again not necessarily reducing the services we're providing maybe shifting what they're doing and being free and able to free up some general fund money. all right. thank you. last one which was my comment on slide 11 please or ten page ten to echo my colleague here, the department of public works

is a lot of these priorities. i believe public works is the only department that is in charge of cleaning the right of way in the entire city. and there's just to also you know, to reiterate what we talked about in the last our last briefing so looking at numbers in the big scheme of things numbers okay, easy cut 15% here. you know 10% there 20% that that all can work with numbers. but i do believe that we need to tell the story. we need to tell the story of the importance of public works. why we do things and what was the impact if of cutting these jobs. i'm a i'm i'm a well i'm very

passionate about, you know, people keeping their jobs and not losing them not losing their income. >> so like again thank you for agreeing to add those slides. >> the the the laborers that are walking around with with with the bucket and the broom the impact of them getting off the street it should be told as you know how many pounds how many tons is going to keep this going to stay on the street if we cut these jobs the trucks, the hazmat trucks, the the ones that are driving around and picking up all that you know, because we do have maybe a shortage of of garbage bins or or the the the lack of enforcement of of solid waste with you know multifamily buildings and so forth. these are all being picked up

by those two year contracts contractor trucks. so i really believe that and this is one of the benefits one of the one of the greatest things that the commission started doing which is it started we're all your your ambassadors. >> we all go to the public and explain what public works does and what what impact it has on our day to day lives. and i think that story also should be told too the new administration and then i i agree with with my colleagues that did mention that did mention that last but not least, the the non profits i think also another slide should show how much the city is saving on benefits workers comp and all that stuff if if we decide to also move away from those grants. other than that i really thank you for for for putting all that energy in this and i thank my colleagues too for being

here. >> thank you. >> thank you commissioner any other questions or comments? >> commissioner you so i have a questions if you can just explain a little bit. so last year was my first year as a commissioner and dpw has 2000 staff so this year is down to 1800 staff a combination of management and service. that's right. so just couple of it i don't know whether it's going to link together. i just wrote a bunch of it so if you could all these services which is this service that's that's on the ground zero, what is the percentage of service staff that's doing all these core services for the city of san francisco versus management's staff because the biggest of your fund is going to salary and benefit. i just want to understand that

part and then the continuation. so this next question is bonds. this is city and county so you have that bond state and federal i'm assuming. so how much of this bond funding that dpw receiving yearly and how quickly does this get implemented as an operating cost if that's something that you know, i always curious to know i went through two questions. very good questions. commissioner. >> and the first question without looking at our fte count and doing the analysis of our 800 positions i can't give you that number off the top of my head department wide. i will say this though we have thoroughly examined our organizational structure as part of the reorg and we've done comparisons to other departments and by and large we

have fewer managers at lower level classifications than departments that provide similar work such as the puc or the mta that are doing construction or the types of street cleaning and maintenance work that we're doing. >> so i don't have the numbers at my fingertips but i don many other departments to answer question but we can pull that number off if you want. again, we don't really have a choice if we were to just cut managers it wouldn't necessarily save the general fund money upfront because a lot of those positions are either directly funded by the bonds that you had mentioned in your second question or it would be overhead funded that there's about a 2,025% general fund savings. so we would have to eliminate a whole lot of managerial level staff to come up with that $13.8 million reduction. >> in terms of the second

element of when we hit the ground running on some of the bond programs, the federal funding generally speaking we're pretty quick and nimble to do that in terms of before issuing a contract for say the construction delivery or if we bring in an external consultant to do geotechnical services or engineering or architecture services we can do that pretty quickly. we do provide a lot of those services in-house and normally we have a certain number of vacant positions so we have the ability to flex up and flex down and the perfect example i'll use is back a few years ago the $881 million general hospital we build the luxembourg general hospital, we build we needed to ramp up staff that had familiarity with providing a hospital so they knew at the time what was called hodgepodge that was the state regulatory agency so we needed that expertise so we make sure that when we have bond programs come in we are very much in line

and communication with our key clients who we're going to help deliver the project for in the most recent bond i'll give an example of the china town health center for public health. we're having regular and frequent communications with them and in fact full disclosure i was texting with their ceo before i got up here to speak on this about some elements related to some of those projects. >> so we make sure that we can get on board very quickly but we make sure we do so in a way where we're right sized. >> we don't want to have much larger staff on a project than we actually need and that was something commissioner woolford and i and others have talked about before what level of analytical work are we doing to make sure that we have the right staff at the right level of skills for the right jobs? it's similar to the paving program, the right block at the right time in the right condition. we do the same thing with some of our staffing levels for for any bond or capital program

using and then the benefit of those is there's no general fund savings and in fact the more bond programs we get, the more external sources we get. it's very counterintuitive. we actually save the general fund money the way our indirect cost plan is structured. so we want as much of those resources and funding sources as we possibly can get of that answer to your question. >> okay. i mean i'm not advocating for layoff or anything like that. i just want to know what does this number represent, you know, because this is all core services that city of san francisco need. i mean today we were the number one destinations for travelers in 2025. so we must keep the visual of the city, you know, clean and beautiful and people coming to visit us so this is important work. >> so thank you. thank you. and if i could just add one thing it really is the challenge of the way our budget is structured that the only area that we get general

funding for is our most core services. street cleaning, illegal vending enforcement maintaining core buildings that is the core function of public works and that's also the only part where we see direct general fund support. >> but i also would like to chime in to the commissioner you soaps.com is on your own again all hands on deck. ding ding ding ding. this might be a time to talk to the comptroller in the mayor's office about lifting the cap on our property tax rates so that more general fund bonds can be issued and more debt service can be paid. i know that's sacred. you don't but again, this is an emergency situation. we have a very nice low cap on our general obligation bond debt service. >> this is a time to look at a little bit of an increase because that would help move some of the projects along that commissioner turner always talks about is advancing the

city into the future. commissioner, you mentions people are going to want to come here in 2025. it's all part of keeping san francisco moving forward despite these dire budget decisions. so again, perhaps you will raise is this a time to we have a new mayors, a new day, new energy, new momentum maybe we going tweet that cat, talk to the comptroller about that. so just another tool perhaps deputy director robertson to add to your kit. >> we can do that. i have one, yes. just to last things. so last year as a part of this process we prepared a letter to capital planning around making sure we had enough money around our street conditions. my question is do we need to send a letter to the office of economic workforce development fire ems, police refuge port who would you like us to send and more importantly go talk to you again i echo my colleague's

sentiment we are your ambassadors. my second is related to slide 17 it's just an addition in addition to enhanced legal venting and special event support, i'd also like us to make sure that we are focused on our mutual aid agreements and what they mean and are we ready to fulfill them. i think los angeles as demonstrated every natural disaster is going to take all hands on deck and i just want to make sure that we are ready and our focus on what it would take to respond and more importantly for them to support us from communications and others the things that get in the way from responding. thank you. >> all right. if there are any other questions you're coming out quick couple things if you don't mind. thank you again to everyone for the work. i want to spend more time and thank you guys for a lot of. >> so budgeting is hard. it's especially in this context, right? so you need to cut spending

and you know most of your spending is on people and on top of that basically every priority of the mayor has in some way shape or form touches dpw so that that makes this hard to do, right? you're sort of between a rock and a hard place there but but you know also that sort of the citywide i think it is important to keep that in mind here because the math doesn't like work fundamentally with the revenues and the sources and all those uncertainties could break our way. we could, you know, issue mortgage bonds and we could shift people on to refuge rate sources and everything. >> but none of that's going to no matter what you do there and none of that's going to end up with the same amount of people cleaning the streets that we have now based on the general fund. and so i think we should just keep that in mind that we still need to do something about about the general fund. and i was just kind of looking through some of the mayor priorities. >> right. and it sounds like they said, you know, keep positions vacant i'm going to assume politically unacceptable as a euphemism for no layoffs