and the department is responsible for saying, thank you dhr. do they put it in writing or is it an internal body? >> it's not a centralized function. we're supporting the efforts. we don't require reports from departments. the public health commission asked us to do a presentation on succession plan and we gave the materials and told them we would consult with them and there has been consolidation, but it's more of a support from dhr. >> my final question, what kind of feedback do you need to hear or from what entity do you need to hear from to change the testing mechanism that you have? what is it going to change? you've heard people -- editorials from the chronicle examine the court has spoken on a desire to see a change in testing, this audit has expressed a desire to see a change in testing, so what does the department of dhr, you as the director need to hear, see, what more evidence, what else do you need for this change to happen? >> i think many people are operating under a misconception of what the findings have been. the exam about whi

next up, we have dhr. micky calihan will be presenting. >> thank you supervisor, micky human resource department. i want to thank you for the opportunity to comment on this report and we appreciate the attention paid by the budget and legislation and the subject of recruitment and promotion in the fire department. all the tension that was mentioned, i don't think it was apart of the report. i want to introduce people. we have linda who is the city director and she's an expert in the subject of labor market availability. and we have john who is the head of the city and testing program. before he joined us in san francisco, he was in charge of all public safety testing in the city of new jersey, so he's an expert in that field. i want to thank jennifer johnston for attending and she can address issue that's you have about the civil service requirement and the services we operate our recruitment programs. we appreciate the attention paid to the important subjects, and it is very important that we do pay atten

we did work with labor very much so with dhr. there's a 633 cap on overtime and given the nature of how we run the organizations structurally, that wasn't working for us and so there was no cap. most fire departments don't have an overtime cap. we think it's high, but we think it was a big deal that we were able to collectively with director callihan to agree with an 1100 hour cap and the fact that we're bringing that staffing back in terms of the new hires is great because for a long period of time, we didn't have the ability to hire. so for example, 43 hired and graduated in december, we're hoping for another 48 coming out in may. the trajectory of retiring is 30 percent. we're headed in the right direction and that concludes my response. again, we're appreciative of the work, but i continue to be very proud of all the efforts that we've achieved. you have my commitment that if there's anything that we can do differently, we will, you i would encourage you as you know, as well as i do, you go to any fire station and or you look

i'm sorry, i'm john crouse, dhr. it depends on the examination that we administer, but typically there may be hundreds of scoring elements in the examination, sometimes thousands of scoring elements when you factor in ever looking at the scores or the ratings of multiple raters, so did that answer your question. >> no, it doesn't. >> how do we adjust for -- >> how do you adjust for any problems with the test in advance of the administration of the test? >> we have -- we convene groups, we call them subject experts to relevant the examination and we have a separate group involved in the development of the answer key and we try to make that group as representative as possible. so they're the one -- >> representative by -- expertise, race, age. >> their level. they're betting the test material and determining if it's appropriate or not. if it's not, we don't include it. >> what if one say it's appropriate and two say it's inappropriate. >> if they can't agree, we should throw it out. but generally we try to get consensu

we do think we have some answers or in suggestions for the dhr, fire department to conduct exam in the future and i would look forward to haring those dialogues. >> it would be helpful if you share that would be helpful. >> any other members of the public who would like to peak. >> good afternoon supervisors. my name jerry cooper. i like to thank the board and the budget analyst office for bringing to light the problems in the fire department. i like to keen in on one area which we discussed already which was the prevision of the emergency services to you're community and citizens here in san francisco. as we were discussing, the fire department is able to serve 72 percent of ambulance request. 43 out of our total fire stations have a paramedic within their community in san francisco on their fire apparatus. as we were discussing earlier and in audit report, over 9,000 calls to date have been logged without an ambulance that's been able to be sent at the time of the emergency. granted, most of those calls did have a firefighter ems or firefighter on that emergency. our department today

and from the departments here, dhr particularly susan guard and olsc donald levitt and the office of contract administration for providing their input as well. as a society we orphan talk about how an individual has paid their debt once they have paid -- once they have served their time. it is often not true. we find that individuals, even after they have served their time, lived with their conviction or arrest history for the rest of their life. and, in fact, we have tried to tie in this legislation with the celebration of our civil rights leader martin luther king and his birthday. we missed it by a couple weeks, i'm reminded by what he had said about those that had been part of our criminal justice system and to borrow from king he called it the quick sand of injustice. but he also said, "the situation can change and will be changed and i'm not willing to allow formerly incarcerated men and women toual owe in the valley of despair." obama also talked recently how one's liberty is linked to one's livelihood and the pursuit of happiness requires of dignity of work, skill to find wor

i also want to recognize dhr, olfc and office of contract administration as well as the mayor's office of housing. what we have presented before us is legislation everyone can agree on, but more than that what it means is that as policy makesers we can some time pass policy because we have the votes but it doesn't mean it will get implemented the right way. having stakeholders such a large businesses and employers on board means they will be advocating amongst their membership to do the right thing because they truly believe in the final outcome of this legislation as well which is to give people opportunity that want to work a chance to work. so, i know that was a really long introduction. we don't actually have a presentation of this today so i was hoping that folks would give me the time to explain the history and the background of all of this. and, so, if there are no further questions from committee members, i'm happy to open up for public comment. >> thank you, supervisor kim. and i also just want to alert folks that i in a few minutes will have to step out to go to the small bus