this would be a dedicated attorney and paralegal. that would stay in that affirmative consumer protection unit. however, if they took the existing affirmative litigation back and used them and dedicated them to the consumer protection activity instead of the demands that they are able to move people from affirmative litigation, then there would be general funds savings. supervisor chu: thank you. >> i beg to differ with the budget analyst. the fact of the matter is, our affirmative litigation budget for lawyers deals with issues that, unfortunately, we talk about ada litigation, other responsibilities that the general fund increasingly looks to the city attorney's office to fill. you look at how general fund contribution has been reduced over the course of the last five years and fiscal year 2006-2007, we received a $10.5 million general fund contribution, where last year, we would all the way up to $5 million. supervisors, you know, because you see my budget reports to you on your behalf. city attorneys are doing more and more and m

budget year, the public defender's office had an investigator, an attorney, and the legal -- and a paralegal to investigate police misconduct. it is housed with the office of citizen complaints. that was the mayor's rationale and adding positions. the money had already been allocated temporarily for the public defender. in addition to that, the budget analyst is proposing to cut $21,000 from the occ's budget. $10,000 in temporary salaries and another $11,000 in professional services. we are continuing to have discussions because tabloid have the temporary salary budget -- that would have the temporary salary budget and we have that to backfill when investigators are out of long-term medical leave, on family leave, and also when a particularly complex investigation arises that needs and expertise that we might obtain from the outside. with regard to the professional services budget, if we lose a portion of that budget he will be on able to implement information technology projects that we proposed for next year. that is for the auto prompt for the investigators. i am continuing discussions wi

the public defender temporarily had a budget that allowed for an attorney, an investigator, and a paralegal. that is no longer being funded, and those moneys were proposed for the occ. that concludes my remarks. supervisor chu: thank you very much. budget analyst, is there anything you would add? >> the budget included two new investigator positions for the office of city complains. we are recommending one. not recommending the second position. we continue to not recommend the second position. this office has added two positions since the audit to their overall budget. but, more importantly, as we look at caseload, we have seen a decline in caseload over the last three years. from 16% from 2009 to two dozen 10. an additional 8% from 2010 to 2011. overall, the caseload is declining. we believe that one additional position is sufficient to meet their current requirements. supervisor chu: thank you. supervisor wiener? supervisor wiener: thank you to ms. hicks. i would like to respond in terms of declining caseload. i preface this with my own perspective, having spent years and years as a trial

inordinate number of vacancies that occur at the support staff level, whether it be legal assistance, paralegals, or secretarial. and that has been an ongoing dialogue that i have been having with the mayor's office with respect to giving us the ability to fill those positions, and i want to compliment them. the have been very receptive. we have been able to move forward on filling most, if not all, of those vacancies and support staff level. i think you're going to see the cavalry coming in to make sure that the trial team is getting that level of support that perhaps they have not had over the last couple of years as we went to the tough budgetary times. but the mayor's office has been very receptive recently and we're moving forward on filling those vacancies. that will make a lawyer's job much easier. it will allow us to be much more efficient and to ensure we're protecting the public to a greater degree than we have been able to. supervisor wiener: thank you. and thank you to the mayor for understanding that. and to really stressed that if we allow the trial team atrophy, whether at the law

earlier in her life before she became a mother and then subsequently went back to school to become a paralegal and many ways she thinks even though i make fun of it being brave in the video she does think that it's brave to actually. try to do so. being a more focused and artistic that doesn't have a clear success because it's it's it's it's tough for getting around out here and not knowing which way to go but she's she's proud of me. always going to the support of your parents and you say in the video you know you're taking an artist's path and you said yourself that a lot of your friends and colleagues are enduring the same struggle i mean working you know low wage jobs to try to follow about same path and stay true to yourself when you look at college education as a whole i mean when half of college graduates are unemployed what do you think about that i mean that college is kind of a scam this point. well it's so hard to say because. my father when i was growing up he was from germany and his a lot of his family did not get college degrees and they saw it as as maybe a waste of time if you