Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Budget And Appropriations Committee 20240713

Chair fewer good afternoon, everyone. This is the february 26, 2020 rescheduled meeting of the budget and appropriations committee. I am sandra lee fewer, chair of the budget committee. I am joined by supervisors raphael mandelman, shamann walton, and hillary ronen. The clerk is linda wong. Madam clerk, do we have any announcements . Clerk yes. Please silence all cell phones and electronic devices. Documents to be considered by the committee should be submitted to the clerk. Chair fewer madam clerk, would you read item 1. [agenda item read]. Chair fewer thank you. We have the Youth Commission. You may begin. I am here wito present on t Youth Commissions upcoming budget in the next two fiscal years. This is both laid out in the charter and also reflects the importance of having youth voices at the table when we are making decisions concerning the city. So our formal budget and policy priorities report will come out in may, as usual, but we are here today to report our preliminary budget recommendations while you are still narrowing down the boards Budget Priorities and the mayor is presenting her budget. The commission has three committees, and i am now going to turn it over to my colleagues to present on the specific recommendations. Thank you, commissioner. Good afternoon, supervisors, and thank you for your time. I am a mayoral appointee on these commissions, and i serve as the delegate on Civic Engagement. Its about 16 campaign which urges to expand Voter Registration in San Francisco and allow 16 and 17 year olds to participate in the election. The 16 looks to amend the disparity by bringing a level of equity and inclusion into the San Francisco democracy, however the vote 16 campaign depends solely on education and infrastructure in place for young people so should they enter the electorate, they have the experience and authority to make politically respective decisions. Therefore, wed like to thank the supervisors who have agreed to sponsor the campaign, especially president yee, whos the main sponsor for the vote 16. Thank you so much, and ill pass it onto the transformative Justice Committee. I represent district four, and im here on behalf of the transformative Justice Committee to share our views with you. Were tasked with forming radical views on certain laws in our cities. Weve already presented to a variety of Different City Department advisory groups such as j. P. D. , the police commission, human rights commission, and now were coming to you all with our recommendations. So first of all, for the department, the adult probation department, we have an urge to maintain and expand the Young Adult Court especially in terms of hours and accessibility for youth. For the department of children, youth, and their families, while we do want to fund a lot of programs for justice that impacts communities, we also want the c. B. O. S that are providing the programming to be held accountable in providing the citys money. And we want to make sure that these departments are, like, being held accountable and the programs are serving the residents. Weve seen really great models of this. The young womens Freedom Centers town hall last december, which i believe supervisor walton attended, and thats a great example of young people coming together to figure out what they need, and we would urge the board to put more money aside for that. They already provide great know your rights materials online and on paper, however, we urge the board to allocate funding for them to actually be able to do targeted outreach in the schools and other after School Programs and community organizations. As a student in my senior year, ive never had a know your rights training, and this would be incredibly beneficial so all youth in San Francisco could be educated on their legal rights. And finally for the department of homelessness and youth housing, were asking for 100 beds for youth shelters. We presented before Juvenile Court. A lot of girls are having to stay in the home longer or go out of county or even, like, out of state placements because there arent enough shelter beds in San Francisco and we want to make sure that girls have the same experiences and opportunities that boys do, and with that, ill pass it onto my colleagues. Good afternoon, commissioners. I am rocky versace, and i am a mayoral appointee to the Youth Commission as well as being a vice chair of our youth committee. The transformative Committee Recommends that the Juvenile Court department collaborate with other agencies on lgbtq inclusive programs. We also request that the San Francisco Police Department incorporate Youth Brain Development through an equity formed lens. Supervisor ronen, you have previously advocated for the cultural competency of officers, but currently less than 100 officers are train index this strategies for youth, and this becomes a problem in the case of the after math of the Balboa High School incident when Police Officers were not equipped to deal with youth in the after math of the incident. The Committee Also wants funds to be allocated towards know your rights training and Community Advisory groups to foster fair interactions between the Law Enforcement and youth as well as more consistent and timely implementation and responses to the Community Oriented action plans. Finally, the transform atiff Justice Committee urges the Public Defenders Office to raise money for bail reform initiatives, Case Management for reentry programs, and services for the children of incarcerated parents. This is incredibly important in our current Political Climate because right now we need our citys immigrants and our citys undocumented people to have accessible and Free Services that are culturally competent. Thank you, and now ill pass it over to our land use committee. Good afternoon, commissioners. I am the vice chair of the land use committee, and i represent district 6 on the Youth Commission. We are here today as the housing and land use committee, and we have identified two agencies that we would like to look at for our budget for fiscal years 20192020 and 20202021. [inaudible] in the city of San Francisco in the next two years . So these 400 units of t. A. Y. Affordable housing will be a great hope in this. We also propose for suitable housing for t. A. Y. Because they seem to be inadequately funded . We also want to make sure that t. A. Y. Experiencing homelessness are equipped with basic first aid and basic needs such as food and transportation, which is we have heard from money constituents that there have been issues on these issues and not being able to have some of these resources completely, and theyre highly underfunded. Wed also ask h. S. H. To collaborate more fully in order for youth to come out of the homelessness realm in a more smooth transition. For our next for a Second Agency that we wanted to look at was sfmta. We asked sfmta to allow more funding to build an effective equitable and Sustainable Transportation program for s. F. Youth and students and make sure that s. F. Youth and students are making it to school on time and not having overcrowded buses skipping stops. We have seen an inaccessibility to signing up for the free muni for Youth Program and youth across the city arent getting the benefit of free muni. And we wahave held a town hall and we talked to many students that ride the 29 bus, and there have been many issues with the bus skipping stops, the bus being crowded, and the bus being late at times. This has been an issue for many years, considering the bus falls within 15 schools, a mall, and we also have a college and the b. A. R. T. Station, as well. And it also passes through many diverse neighborhoods with many people coming in and out of the neighborhood and going to different places. So we believe this is a bus that needs to be focused on so that the improvements will be there and make sure that studen students get to school on time and safely, as well. So we also have two asks that are related to the board of supervisors own budget. These have been before you before, but im just going to reiterate them. First, we support raising Youth Commission staffs salaries to or above the a. M. I. Level to help with our longstanding retention program. Our longstanding director is our longest serving staff member currently. She has served around four years, which is less than 20 of the longevity of the Youth Commission, which has been around since the 90s. Our staff are very valuable institutional members as you know because a lot of us dont serve more than two or three oneyear terms, so having longevity is important in terms of stability. And then finally, last year, supervisor fewer, you asked for costings numbers on how much these acts would cost to implement. We said then that we would work on that for this years set of recommendations, and we have been communicating with the Controllers Office about our options, however, if we cant find a way forward that does not overburden our staff and our already rather strained resources by the time of the b. P. P. Report by may, it would help to get some direction from the board to the Controllers Office or the b. L. A. To take on a heavier responsibility for future budget seasons if that is what the board would like to see. That concludes our presentation. We are able to take any questions. Chair fewer colleagues, any comments or questions . Theres no b. L. A. Report on this. Yes, president yee. President yee so real quickly, and thanks for the presentation. You have a lot a lot of priorities here, but did you was there any discussion on which ones are the higher priority versus versus things that are maybe not as high . So, you know, we get we get we do we have gotten this question asked of us before. So i think our position is that we are the body chartered by the city to just provide the recommendations on unmet needs of youth throughout San Francisco, and this is our report. Certainly, there are some issues where we are more advanced than others towards meeting these goals than others, but i think our role as we see it is to bring you the recommendations as we see it, what we hear from constituents, and thats sort of our chartered duty to represent the interests of all these youth and all of these issues. So i i hesitate to single out anything particularly important as compared to others. President yee okay. Now and thank you for your response. Just about everything that was spoken about inspect terms of your priorities are probably things that many of us also think are priorities. But we also have to go through a process that we may not be able to fund everything. Thats why i asked a question, is there a particular order or particular things that are much more important so at least for me, i can weigh it in my mind as we go through the budget deliberations. Thank you. Chair fewer supervisor ronen . Supervisor ronen yes, thank you, and thanks so much for your presentation. It was really thorough and really impressive. I was a big fan of the vote 16 campaign, and i wonder if theres any plans at all to put it back on the ballot . Thank you, supervisor ronen. Actually, we are in the process of support with president yees office to put that back on the ballot. We are putting that back on the ballot in may and thats to garner up as much Financial Support as we can until may prior to it being based on the ballot because us with the Civic Engagement committee cant technically meet on the campaign. Once we meet the deadline, we can meet outside of our roles as the Youth Commission. Supervisor ronen oh, i see. I thought you were increasing funding from the department of elections to do outreach. But in addition to that, youre putting together another bat initiative for november. Right. So the idea behind the allocation of money, weve looked at the Scottish Independence referendum because they had an insanely high turnout to allow people younger than 16 to vote in the referendum. That was approved, and the two years between when it was approved and young people were actually voting, there was a National Movement to put civics in the classroom to make sure that young people are getting the proper education. Thats what were doing so that vote 16 should vote 16 pass in 2020, the soonest that theyre voting in 2022, they already have that education in place. Supervisor ronen fantastic. Thank you for that clarification. No worries. No worries. Chair fewer supervisor mandelman . Supervisor mandelman yeah. I want to add my thanks to the Youth Commission for analyzing these needs and priorities and your presentation, to bring it to us today. Having grownup in San Francisco, ive been thinking a little bit about how these issues might have been similar or different 30 years ago when i was young. And definitely, you know, we see the sort of changing reality of housing in San Francisco and how thats impacting youth and your recommendations. And i take the point about the placements for folks coming out of the juvenile Justice System who need a place to be as well as the need for permanent housing recommendations for t. A. Y. That seem critically important. But also, some things never change. I remember riding the 28 and the 29 myself all those years ago, and they were crowded then and didnt come enough, and theyre still crowded, and they dont come enough, so. Chair fewer yes, supervisor walton . Supervisor walton thank you, chair fewer. Just a quick question because i definitely think its important to have know your rights trainings, and im glad you brought that up. Have you had conversations with the board of education or School Leadership to make sure that these are happening throughout the district . So we havent really. I mean, just by nature of us being the San Francisco Youth Commission, sfusd is sadly not in our sphere of influence, however, i think this is something we could definitely take up with the student advisory contact which did directly interact with the board of education. Its definitely in the works. Supervisor walton well have some communications. Ive got some ideas how we can get it in the school and into our educational institutions, as well. Thank you. We would love any support that you can give. Chair fewer thank you. I just wanted to say thank you also. I do have a couple of comments, and one is that having sat on this committee for three years and having heard the budget commissions priorities for three years and not seeing actually, quite frankly, a lot of action materializing after and i see i think that you can all agree that probably theres little action from this board, right . So although its not in your mandate charter mandate to prioritize, i think its to your benefit to prioritize. I think when you look at this whole list there are things that i would say could be low hanging fruit, and then, next year, another commission, there will be things that theyll be able to follow up on. So i think what i would appreciate also is sort of a so what you might be able to gain in this budget cycle in this year, and then see the processes of, for the long game, what do we hope to accomplish . And what are the steps that you might gain this year so next year you are one step closer, right . So another thing, i love vote 16 myself, but i think it would be great to have some analysis on how well sfusd is doing because Rachel Norton and i actually wrote the resolution to require our School District to register young folks to vote a year before they can vote. So whats happening on that . Do you have data right now . And do you see an increase on that now that its being implemented . Do we see more young people registering to vote . Thank you. Thats a great question, supervisor fewer. I just received an email today from one of our stakeholders letting us know that as january 30, 2020, San Franciscos seen a record high of 16 and 17 y r 17yearolds that have registered to vote. Speaking to constituents who are students, were not seeing formal infrastructure from sfusd, were seeing students taking action. But the limited Financial Resources and the scheduling time of the student just doesnt allow many young people to mount a Citywide Initiative or all of sfusd. Chair fewer and i dont think youre mandated to do. If this is the one big thing that you think you want to pass in november, then i think it is your responsibility to work with the Student Advisory Council and the representative that is on the school board that is the Student Advisory Council that represents the whole Student Advisory Council. They can actually work with Board Members to call a hearing on this, and i think you need a deep analysis of this. Because actually, if we want vote 16 to work, were going to need to have the School District have an Implementation Plan and then also have an infrastructure to support that. If they dont have the infrastructure to support the resolution that was passed over four years ago, youre going to have an even harder time. So i would say working with this body, the Student Advisory Council, which seems like a natural fit for you, they can actually and i know probably supervisor walton and president yee have coauthored many of these things with Student Advisory Council members to hearings and resolutions also. I think that, you know, we had great hope that people would preregister. You know, the fact that we the School District or us even as a legislative body would not take an initiative to actually a step to help or encourage people to participate in our electoral process is its, like, their responsibility. I think its part of the School Districts responsibility, too. Its part of a civics curriculum, it is part of engaging. And actually, it helps Public Schools in general because more people that vote that are products of our Public Schools will vote to support Public Schools, so it is in their best interests. Its a natural ally for you. I think it would be great if you could reach out. And they have the mechanism in order that they can actually go to the board. They sit at the board, and theyre its their responsibility, and they can actually call these hearings for real data; why isnt it working . What can we do to make it work. And then even gathering some anecdotial resources, because youre right. It isnt on just the youth to do it. It is on these institutions that are educating the youth to do. And also, i just want to say if there are Budget Priorities that you want to see i know that you had said you dont have the capacity to look up what the budget would be for everything, but you do have the capacity on some of these things to look at the budget and for example, on some of your Budget Priorities, that there has already been a budget for it, and how much do you think you would want to expend it by . I see that some of your recommendations are expand the know your rights, right . So what is it currently funded at, and what would you like to see it increased . Is it a 20,000 increase . Is it 3 million for Domestic Violence to expand it, blah, blah, blah. They know they wont get the 3 million, when their real target is 1. 5. Looking at your mindset, i would love to see what your priorities are. Vote 16 might be a Civic Engagement priority or political priority, but your Budget Priority to this committee should have a number attached to it so that we actually know what we could fund and what the impact it can do. Yeah, and just to touch on that, we had actually weve talked to the Controllers Office, and were working on contacts in each like, all of the departments. So for know your rights, department of Police Accountability and their finance contacts to try and sort of take, as you said, what we already have, extrapolate from that, and what wed like to see. So we are hoping to have that when we do our full report in may. Chair fewer yeah. And then, i would just say, too, in the know your rights, there are funding for many, Many Community groups in know your rights, and they are in community language. So would you want this through the office of Police Accountability or would you want more funding to go to nonprofits to actually reach out deep because they have these ties already deep into the community . Many of these communities, quite frankly, are the ones that most likely need to know your rights the most and dont have access to it because many of them are undocumented, and we know that many of our black and brown communities are the ones that are most targeted. Oh, yeah. We know that. Were kind of concerned that if were funding know your rights services, maybe these c. B. O. S are overlapping in their spheres of influence. So centralizing it, like, under schools or the d. P. A. Is our priority. Were keeping kind of all options in mind but we just want to make sure if were giving out resources, money to the community, that theyre actually putting resources into the community. Chair fewer and then, my last suggestion would be, you know, San Francisco is experiencing the largest wealth gap we have ever had. And i dont know if among your Youth Commissioners or not that people are talking about their families struggling to put food on the table, and we are looking at our youth that are being severely impacted by this, and the lack of opportunity to living wage jobs, quite frankly, and also the lack of opportunity of being about the networking to actually get jobs. So and also the lack of economic stability for some of our communities, especially our African American community. So im wondering whether or not and i dont see anything about your Budget Priorities at all. And i completely respect that you had a process, and these are the things you picked, but i would encourage you to think about economic stability especially for our youth. Because i am learning, as i go around and actually being on the school board for eight years, what we actually discovered is that a lot of the youth do not know about finances or economics or how to build economic stability within their own communities or themselves, and the lack of opportunities to do so. And we want our next generation to actually be able to survive here in San Francisco, and i firmly believe that every child that we are educating here in San Francisco should have a place to live and thrive in San Francisco. Then, many times, these our youth are going to be the ones that bring their families out of poverty and give them economic stability. And so ive seen it time and time again with immigrant communities. It is this generation of youth that are actually helping their parents and navigate this very sophisticated way of getting economic stability in a city that is one of the hardest cities to survive in. Yes, and we fully agree request that. We see that, we with that. We see that, we hear that, too, from our constituents. Thinking about that, we do definitely make sure that that informs what were thinking about when were doing our Budget Priorities, so we appreciate you for singling that out. Chair fewer sure. And i just want to say that my office is open should you need any assistance or guidance or whatever. We are more than happy to help, and we look forward to hearing more about your Budget Priorities when we start our budget process. Okay. Yeah. Chair fewer commissioners i mean, supervisors, any other comments or questions . Would you like to add something . I would. Not at all to reduce the significance of the question you just asked, but can i go back to the question about specific budgetary asks . Chair fewer sure. The 2015 Budget Priorities ask was based on the 2010 census, so the demographic has changed, if youd like us to send those to your offices. Were trying to find ways to make those numbers more accurate, whether that involves canvassing or polling, but we do have monetary asks similar to what they would be should the 2020 campaign pass. They would be updated with the 2020en ch 2020 census. Chair fewer any Background Information we can get would be helpful. Any other comments . Questions . Okay. I just want to say thank you so much. Yes, commissioners . Thank you. Chair fewer commissioners, thank you so much for what you do on behalf of the youth in San Francisco and thank you so much for your time. Madam clerk, is there any further business before this commission . Clerk madam chair, we need Public Comment. Chair fewer is there any Public Comment on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [gavel]. Chair fewer well file this and bring it back when were ready to take action. Is there any further business before this commission . Seeing none, we are adjourned. This is a special meeting on wednesday, february 26, 2020 and et cetera called to order at 1 06 p. M. We thank sf gov tv. Members, please take this opportunity to silence your phones. Public comment during the meeting is generally limited to three minutes