Transcripts For SFGTV 20120619

environmental review. >> how many positions will be funded with this project? >> i know that they will have folks working on that. sueprvisor kim: with that cover these two positions? >> i am sure that it will more than cover it. moving on, we are proposing up with substitutions with a changing of assignment, adding one planner to the code enforcement team. we are proposing new positions for the mayor's department of legislative affairs. we have seen an exponential increase in the department planning code. 2010, there were 44 pieces of legislation. the code is changing on average more than once per week. hard for staff to keep up. there have been almost double the number of appeals last year as there were in 2010. both of those processes have short processes for timeframe. we can stop shifting staff from the other work. we are proposing web support. we have a substantial and new robust web site. they are planning property information maps. those have been very new and effective tools. those get 25 hits per month to check on information properties. finally, we are proposing a manager position in the commission office. we are staffing two traditions and proposing higher level support for the secretary to be an effective backup for that as well. the restructuring of that position is the commission secretary. in job creation we have 18 youths who are currently going to work with the department. five r pay decisions, the rest are on paid. we have a regular internship every year, as well as others through the high school program. for a total of about 18 people. you can see the details here. we have on site services provided by a vendor. we do give small compensatory pay where english is a second language. i want to say that since we have a communications manager on the department right now, she is creating a more robust effort, looking particularly at the engaged communities that are not now -- not normally involved. we have an upcoming hearing to talk about her efforts in that regard as well. so, with that, i hope that we did not rush through that to quickly. we are not yet in agreement, but i am optimistic that it will come to an agreement by next week. that concludes my presentation. thank you. supervisor chu: we have a few questions. supervisor wiener: i wanted you to touch on this briefly, the environmental planner with additional public. >> i might have skipped over that. supervisor wiener: ok. i thought i had heard it, but maybe i did not. the budget analyst, i wanted to ask you to talk about that. this has been a real challenge for the department, i note, given that fortunately we have a lot of activity in the city with huge projects. we have a lot of public projects, including rec and park projects. it has been challenging, meeting time lines, given how stretched the environmental planners are. i know that we had to go through a hole fire, i was really happy to see the projects moving alongi would be curious to hearm the budget analyst. >> sure the. >> what proposed are two positions that are general fund funded to work on the the city's own project. the way our protocols have worked for a long time is that when a city agency comes to us for environmental review, we automatically put them at the top of the queue. what happens repeatedly is that departments come in for their reviews, and we are pushing off the private project sponsors. it really creates a problem for us on the other side. what this would do is allow us to have staffed exclusively dedicated to those city projects. it would be primarily rec-park, three of our four biggest projects right now, and allow that work to move forward without delaying other projects. i will say that we are broadly defining "environmental review" so we are including the staff of the department and the staff that is dedicated to the historic preservation side of ceqa, which also causes delays. collectively, that will really help us move those projects forward. supervisor wiener: these are line staff? >> correct. supervisor wiener: if i could ask the budget analysts to respond to that particular item? >> yes. as you see on page 29 of our recommendation, we have recommended approval for the environmental planner position on the central corridor. we have recommended approval of one environmental planner position to be in the second year of the two-year budget. i believe that would still be resulting in a reduction from what they requested in fiscal year 2012-2013. supervisor wiener: thank you. in terms of the rationale for that, if you could expound so i can understand what the thinking was both the >> in our review, we did not have data that we felt justified the position. the reason for recommending the position and then the senator was in anticipation of a bond measure in november. supervisor wiener: ok. is there any additional data that has been transmitted or that could lead? >> we're still working with the department. supervisor wiener: thank you very much. supervisor kim: that was one of my questions. the other was on the additional fourth staff person that is being requested to support the planning commission. >> yes. what we're proposing is restructuring of the commission support function. we anticipate -- right now, we have the commission secretary and two clerical positions. those are not in a position to back up the commission secretary when she is out for illness or vacation. we are proposing a restructuring of those three positions so there will be a higher level support staff to support the commission's secretary when he or she is not available. and, to be able to answer questions about projects and so on for both commissioners and the public. it is somewhat a restructuring. what we have seen in the second year, there would still be three positions, but different classifications. supervisor cohen: thank you very much, director. so much here has to do with code enforcement. when we sat down, i was able to articulate the importance of it. i will articulate the importance of enhancing the capacity of your code enforcement division to help us with our challenges along the southeastern neighborhood in district 6, district 11, and district 10, which are represented on this committee. in the wake of the fall of the redevelopment agency, we needed to build a little bit more resources to begin to envision the project. yeah. i can tell by the expression on her face, we're probably on the same page on that. really directing staff to having a dedicated staff that they review in the entitlement process. i'm a little concerned. we see it in the budget. i know staff is at capacity as it is already. plant that seed and maybe you can come back next week and we can talk about that project and the appropriate staffing capacity within your department. >> i would be happy to do that. if i may come on the code enforcement issue, this substitution we're proposing is an upwards substitution and a reassignment. we will be adding one additional staff member to our small team. it is never enough. i agree. we are trying to upgrade it a little bit. supervisor chu: thank you. if there are no questions, why don't we go to the budget analysts report? >> the reductions total -- 512,318 our ongoing savings with $189,000 as one-time savings. it would allow an increase in the department of $5.3 million or 21.8%. together, our recommendations result in the 701,005 under and $57. that is gentle -- general fund -- $701,557. in 13-14, reductions total ongoing savings, and they are general fund savings. we will include a policy recommendation of $297,097. we're still working with the department and will report back to next week. supervisor chu: thank you for not. there are no areas where you have then -- been in agreement. the whole package is in discussion? >> we have agreement on some of them but there are a number we're still in discussion about. supervisor chu: why don't we leave it for now? we look forward to seeing you next week. >> think of vermont. i would like to invite jose -- thank you very much. i would like to invite jose up. >> good afternoon. treasury tax collector. i'm pleased to be here. i will go quickly over the high points of our department's work and our budget. i will be happy to take questions. if there are details you like us to bring further to you, we will be happy to come back with you next week. our department is responsible for bringing in literally billions of dollars of revenue for the city. we collect over $3 billion annually. in the process of doing that, we process over 10 million payment transactions each year. as you heard this morning from the city's controller, two of the major revenues we collect, the property-tax, the business tax, are not only coming in higher, but higher than what was projected in the budget, for a total of approximately $65 million. we are proud to be able to assist the city in bringing in more and more revenue to pay for city services. with regards to our budget, our office is proposing a net reduction in staff for both of the budget years. we are still in what we consider to be good discussions with the budget analysts office and look forward to coming back with you with an update next week. in terms of recapping the work we have done recently in your office, we were very pleased to be able to complete a consolidation of the annual license billing for the department of public health, police, fire come and entertainment. we see this as a benefit to businesses in the city, particularly small businesses who now will be able to deal with the city on a more consolidated way with a single set of bills to be attentive to over the course of the year. we are also continuing our work to produce on-line tax filings for a number of our revenues that we collect with over 60,000 online payments also having been made recently. we're very excited about the improved customer service we are delivering. we are also improving our efficiencies with our third party vendor on delinquent collections, as well as implementing our substantial under-reporting penalty, which resulted in billings of over half a million dollars this year. we're continuing to make progress on our multi-year project collecting delinquent upp accounts, netting in the millions of dollars. looking forward, we have some major projects that are under way. we have begun replacement of our business technology. we have conducted an rfp to migrate our legacy system. i want to emphasize the word "legacy" when i talk about our system. we do need to update that system. it will allow us to do good work in terms of collecting revenues for the city. the other major initiative we are working on right now, we have released our banking services request for proposal. it will allow us to update and improve the types of services we provide, including banking services, cardholders, processor services, gateway services like on-line payments, and so on, including even armored car services. i am very excited to remind you that it is through the good work we have done with supervisor avalos and others on the board that we were able to include social irresponsible banking collection, which are mandatory for all the respondents. thank you very much, supervisor. i also wanted to note that we are attentive to language access -- access issues in our office. we have a line serving the public. we have budgeted $15,000 specifically to provide language access. we also have a history of working with summer youth. we have between three and four of placements each year. we have requested an additional three summer interns in our office. i would be happy to answer any questions at this time. supervisor chu: a question on the amount of investment for language access. is that primarily for language line? can you speak and elaborate more on the that? if a taxpayer comes in and pays, do you have individuals who can address -- folks who are limited-english proficient, the on-line portals we're working on? do you have language access? >> we do have personnel that our language proficient in a number of languages. we have a number of our instruction documents translate. the actual tax forms are in english for a number of reasons, including legal issues. we want to make sure the forms are legally in line with what the law says. our instructions are multi- lingual. supervisor chu: thank you. supervisor avalos? supervisor avalos: thank you. thank you for your presentation. just a question, there was a session earlier this year about making investments in credit unions and smaller financial institutions here locally, and wondering how that is proceeding in terms of projects moving forward and how that might impact our working to bolster the economy. >> absolutely. as we discussed previously, we managed the city's portfolio of investments. that averages between $4,000,000,000.705032704 dollars at any given time. when in that -- between $4 billion and $5 billion at any given time. earlier this year, we went out with an informational invitation to all financial institutions, including credit unions, asking them if they would be interested in receiving a deposit of up to the fdic-insured limit. at this time, we're still processing the responses we have got in. i think we have made three, four -- five deposits in financial institutions. a number of them at credit unions -- 1 credit union has responded. we're still in the process of receiving applications. i would be happy to update you as we get more. we have published those deposits monthly in our investment report. supervisor avalos: is there anything those deposits are hoping to leverage in terms of investments they're making locally that we can point to? >> we cannot put strings on those deposits. we encourage them in our invitations to use this money to be responsive to the community. i'm excited that the credit unions, that is really what they do. my hope is to get more of the credit unions to take advantage of it. four small credit union come a deposit of this size would help the more significantly than will help a major bank. it could make a bigger difference in the amount of funds they have available. i would be happy to keep you updated. supervisor chu: thank you very much. on the recommendations, the two investigator positions, and the accountant, are there any areas of agreement? >> we are still in discussion. we have had good progress. discussions are still under way. supervisor chu: thank you. with regards to the two additional positions for investigators, i would like some more information about why it is needed. it to be helpful as we go for deliberation. >> absolutely. >> madam chair, are reductions total 503,000, to hundred $30 --$503,230. these are general fund savings. they allow an increase of 2.2%, $632,000. our recommended reductions totaled $117,000 their ongoing savings. those are general fund savings. we are still working with the department. we will report back next week. supervisor chu: thank you. i want to thank the treasurer -- treasury tax collector. we will see you next week. our next department is the comptroller's office. -- controller's office. >> thank you. i will be very brief. i will run through some of the highlights of the two-year budget. the committee is aware. you have on the overhead projector. our office provides a host of financial management supports -- services for the city. we audit and provide technical assistance for city departments. we perform the kind of budget and economic analysis that you see typically during the budget process. our budget for the coming two years is growing modestly at just about 3% in each year. $38.9 million next year. almost exactly 3% per year, as is the case with the citywide budget, predominantly driven by the employee wage and benefit costs, offset by reductions and other changes we have made to pull down our subsidy and expenses. our position count is roughly flat, declining from 201 fte's down to 198. supervisor chu: can i ask you to hold on? ok. go ahead. >> just to very briefly -- are balancing plan for this budget totaling $2.1 million over the two years is really made up of a host of different solutions that you have in the proposed budget before you. $220,000. slowing down the work we're doing in the auditor function, which generates a balance we are using to reduce their need for general fund money the year after. then other miscellaneous productions and work order recoveries. that is repeated each of the two years. very briefly, to hit some of the highlights of our work plan for the coming year, we are very excited to be nearing the end of phase one of the project. this is the city's replacement of the 20-plus year payroll system it will be an integrated payroll system merging with the human resources systems on one platform. we do expect that there are subsequent phases to the project that will be stretching through the coming fiscal year. we expect to hit that milestone early in the year and push ahead with the others as it rolls along. as we finish one system replacement project, we are actively planning for the of the large one, replacing the city's financial management system. this is a very old mainframe- based system the city uses to conduct its purchasing business. we are anticipating completing the work on this project at the end of fiscal year ahead. this will probably be a multi- tier system need for the city as a whole. we look forward to being back with you to talk about the results of the assessment when we have completed it. third on our list, we're actively working to develop redundancies for our financial management in the event of an earthquake or national disaster. we talk a lot about the first 72 hours after a major disaster, but the time beyond that really relies increasingly on us being able to use our technology tools effectively to continue to operate the government. we do have money in the coming year's budget available to develop an alternate site that will let us mirror our current financial management system to an alternate location in more real time to allow us to bring the city's financial operations up faster after an event. we talked a fair amount today about the new budget set up of the new redevelopment agency, but a lot of work still has to be completed to integrate the former agency into the city's financial operations. as a reminder, this is an agency that was operating outside of the city's financial system using a different payroll system in different collective bargaining units, using different contract in roles. bringing it into the city family in rules and procedures is probably going to be an effort that takes the full year ahead, and we will pursue a lot of time from our staff as well as the city administrator staff and bring that ahead. we are looking for to implementing an open checkbook initiative this year, which will provide the public with improved access to public and searchable information regarding the city's spending and budget information. we have some of this available on our website that lets a member of the public look up a given department contract and see how much we're spending on a certain vendor or on a given service. we are hoping to broaden that into a broader sense of searchable information that will give the public more insight into how their tax dollars are spent. we are looking forward to pushing ahead with that this coming year and developing some of the key components of that project. we have a list of other things going on everywhere else. i will not try to talk through all of them. we have about 150 other audits and projects we're hoping to get completed, from the very big to the very small across a whole host of financial and management issues. in terms of the committee's questions, regarding job creation, we have kind of our macro large role and our micro small department role to play here. on the larger front, we have been working actively for the last nine months on potential replacement for the tax system. those are pending before the board of supervisors. those are changes that we think have potential to move the city to a more stable, economically efficient tax system in the future. that is probably the single largest contribution we are making to this specific point both in the current year and looking ahead to the future. in terms of our work as a department, we are participating in youth works.