Transcripts For SFGTV 20101014

>> good morning, everyone. thanks for waiting a few midgets here. i'd like to -- minutes here. i'd like to open the thursdayving, october 14, 2010 meeting of the government audit and oversight committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. my name is eric mar. i'm the chair of the committee. to my right is our vice chair chu. and shortly we'll expecting supervisor maxwell. our clerk is miss stokes. are there any announcements today? >> please make sure to turn all cellular phones and pagers. completed speakers cards and documents to be included in part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will appear on the october 26 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. supervisor mar: i'd like to also thank our sfgtv staff members, jennifer and don for their work in broadcasting this today and televising this. we have three items on the agenda today and i would like to call items 2 and 3 and call item one last so that we give supervisor maxwell time to get here. is there any objection to calling items 2 first? ok. mix spokes, can you call item two? >> ordinance adopting and implementing the member yum of understanding, amendment number 2, service employees international union local 1021, h-1 fire rescue paramedics by extending the term of the parties' agreement through june 30, 2013, and by implementing specified terms and conditions of employment for fiscal years 2010 through 2013. supervisor mar: thank you, from the department of human resources we have martin grand. >> good morning, supervisors. i'm martin grand, play relations director at the department of human resources. as you may recall brought to the g.a.o. and full board 30 concessionary labor agreements last spring. we were successful in bringing all of labor together around concessions which were approximately 4.5%, 4.6% of wages for most groups, on average it was a 4.5% concession. the h-1 paramedics are a very small unit in the city and county of san francisco. they started out as the civilian paramedics in the health department. and through a transfer of function moved into the fire department in approximately 1997. they are sworn cross trained firefighter paramedics, but they are now a small number of folks, originally from the department of public health, now paramedics as they come into the department are hired into a different classification, age 3 range. at this point there are about 14 f.t.e.'s in this unit. they were not included in the first round of 30 because they are a small group and we needed to have the firefighters salaries set before we could ensure that they would then be able to agree or disagree with the concessions contained in that contract. the wages have been set under the w force at least six years. this is a matter of making sure that we are, making sure this contract also contains theóp concession and also contains the retirement restoration piece which makes guarantees that there won't be a loss in lifetime pension earnings for folks who participate in the giveback for the next two years. we have also then again lined up the termination date of this contract with the firefighters' contract. supervisor mar: thank you. are there any questions? let's open this up for comment. is there anyone from the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. is there a motion? supervisor chu: i make a motion to set this item forward with recommendation. supervisor mar: woid. we are -- without objection. we are moving this forward with a positive recommendation. miss stokes, please call item number 3. >> ordinance amending the employer relations ordinance to update provisions consistent with state and local law and related cleanup provisions. supervisor chu: mr. martin grand from department of human resources. >> again, supervisors, martin grand, to the board and chair, about almost exactly one year ago, october, 2009, d.h.r. started a project of updating a document which has grown to be sadly out of date. the document is the city's employee relations ordinance. what is the city's employee relations ordinance or the e.r.o. as we call it? it's a document which tells us what the city's bargaining units are. it tells us how to change those bargaining units if employees are unhappy with their elected employee organization. and it describes procedures for any alleged unfair labor practices that the parties -- either party might allege along the way. most probably the most popular unfair labor practice charge would be that the city has implemented something unlaterally or otherwise has failed to properly meet and confer under both the state law and local law. the parties met approximately -- on 10 sessions and by parties i mean we noticed all the labor and all of the employee organizations that are registered with the civil service commission. we proposed draft language to update many provisions, primarily provisions having to do with the jurisdiction of the public employee relations board. which is a state agency. in 2000, the california state legislature made cities and counties subject to the jurisdiction of the public employee relations board, primarily for the adjudication of unfair labor practices. prior to 2000, unfair labor practices would be handled under the city's civil service commission rules. the legislature, however, did not include safety officers and managers under the jurisdiction so there are -- there is a section of the newly one dedicated to retainting the power of the silver service commission and courts -- civil service commission and courts to deal with those practices. the entire document was updated to reflect that change. changes also made clear that the -- m.t.a. has its own employee relations ordinance, which it does under the power granted to under prop e. we have made clear that there are some time limits for employer organizations that want to come forward and challenge a sitting union and force an election. we made clear there are tit< limits for the gathering of signatures. we have made clear that signatures can't be more than six months old. we have made reference to a state law which allows for a process known as car check -- card check to be a short cut in the way in3 circumstances for employees to show their support for a union. we worked closely with labor. we had again approximately 10 working sessions with labor. singleç issue. we havea >> -- supervisor chu: in our prior meeting you mentioned if there is an unfair labor practice there is a change -- supervisor mar: in our prior meeting you mentioned if there is an unfair+i labor practice there is a change -- its face says the civil service commission will handle all alleged unfair labor practices. the state law in 2000 intervened to say not so fast. the state will be handling this for probably 90% of your employees. and not the civil service commission. but in revising the document, we wanted to acknowledge that state law is what it is, but retain the process for the safety and safety employees and managers. so the first 2/3 of the document is dedicated to describing the role of the pub lick employee relations board. the second third says for those employees still under the jurisdiction of the civil service commission, the following procedures would apply. supervisor mar: thank you. should we call up bob muscat from the public employees caucus. >> bob muscat. as martin described it was a very kind of competent and $x& functional process. 25, 30 people meeting through 10 sessions representing police, fire, management, all their attorneys coordinating on issues 1e concerned to the different organizations and the met result of bottom line is a very competent piece of work, a very important piece of work. and helping to update and define the relationship between city employee unions and the city. a lot of these procedural problems and vagueness that were in the existing ordinance could lie there for a while and all of a sudden problems develop. because you don't have a competent document to go back to define what people's responsibilities are, you can get into difficult relationship problems and legal problems. fortunately for all of us people were willing to put the time and effort in to cleaning this up, bringing it up to date, trying to eliminate as much of the vagueness as we can. now we have an employee relations ordinance defining the relationship that i think everybody can be proud of and everybody's happy with. so we hope that you'll approve it and move it forward today. thank you. supervisor mar: thank you. any questions? let's open this up for public comment. is there anyone from the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. is there a recommendation for this? supervisor chu: i'll make a most to send this item forward. supervisor mar: without objection. miss stokes, could you please call item number one. >> item number one, hearing to consider the budget and legislative analyst's schedule for conducting performance audits, special projects, or other studies for the remainder of the calendar year 2010 and for the calendar year 2011. supervisor mar: thank you. we have miss campbell from the budget office and ben, too. miss campbell. miss campbell, do you have a copy for supervisor chu? great. >> good morning, chair mar, supervisor chu. at the last government audit and oversight committee meeting there was a hearing conduct ond the budget analysts schedule for audits and special projects. at that meeting we were requested to go back and do more detailed development of a work plan for three specific projects. which i have here today to present to you. in addition, at the budget and finance committee meeting yesterday there was a request for projects all for consideration on community benefit districts. i'll also discuss that. so the three projects that i have developed the board details were plans on would be an evaluation of the city's advertising policies and practices on public property. an evaluation of the assessor's backlog. i'll go into more detail on that. and evaluation of the city's m.o.u.'s and setting an m.o.u. policy. the fourth one would be looking at community benefit districts. just sort of a summary of what a work plan would be. on policies and revenues for advertising on public property, as you know the administrative code and other codes do have provisions about where advertising can be conducted or is prohibited. there have been a couple of propositions, voter-proof proposition that iare restricted. general advertising on public property. the planning department also had provision of responsibility for monitoring and tracking advertising in public spaces. so part of this project would be to actually look at revenues that the city's receiving. and evaluate the impact of city policies on revenues. another piece of the project would be to look at actual