next person i like to come up and speak to this is roger meranko transit workers union local 250a. >> thank you supervisor brown. it's true there's a muni operator shortage. there are a plethora of factors that contribute to this serious issue and along with the problems that i'm going to mention to you now. number one, the wages has to be seriously addressed. it used to be 18 months max out pay and now it's 48 months to max out i in pay. number two the starting rate of pay of 63% of the base hourly wage. number three, going from level one in pay to level two in pay now takes 12 months when it used to take two months. number four operators to not feel safe and secure. especially nowadays when the assaults are increasing. all of the majority of these issues are indeed contractual issues. i'm looking forward to the negotiations. i think they're going to go smoothly. we're going to have san francisco board of supervisors helping us out. in terms of what's happening now pertaining to the retension rate, the auditor stated that the wages and the 63% were a concern. i would go above and bey