Other projects and i would say that yes, there are projects that take even longer. We have a project in our area that is taking, maybe, two years, but i do not expect that to happen on our project and i feel that we have a good schedule and by summer of 2021, we should be able to run trains. So thats my presentation. A fina final slide is a completf june of 2020, revenue service, summer of 2021. Thank you and if you have any questions, i would be happy to answer. Just to be clear with everyone, when we settled this today voting on this, even though there are outstanding further claims, those claims cannot delay the project any further because of this modification, correct. That is correct. And then related to that, you just presented a slide about testing. I know a lot of people a a question if were getting a system in june of next year, one question is, can you open stations sooner and then, two is, you know, is there any way that testing window could be smaller . Ill answer the first one. So on the issue of opening stations sooner, i have heard suggestions that, perhaps, you could open the central subway and have it not stop at chinatown first and thats not something we think makes sense from a rider point of view. Weve been talking about this subway as a connection to chinatown fochinatown for over d i think it would be confusing opening it one station first. But secondarily, i think talking about testing systems, this is a system and though the construction work is due to be work in chinatown, i would be very wary of trying to open it piecemeal. Out. I can add that i have had discussions with the contractor, with our own staff and we are also working closely with the Operation Staff and youve had discussions with julie and based on the experience they have had with some of the other projects that they have worked on, it seems like it would not be to our benefit to try to do it sooner because its a safety issue. We also have to get cpu certification. These things take time and they have to be convinced and the other thing is, theyre not committed to a schedule. Their focus is on safety and if its not safe, they will not give us one day of slack. So thats why we have to make sure that we have the time that it takes to get this done. And the other thing i would say on the stations is that the stations are not that far apart. Theres only a threemonth gap between the two stations and chinatown. So were not really gaining a lot about even thinking about opening a certain station before the other one. They should all be coming online about the same time. So its good to open all of them. So ill turn it to the rest of the directors . I do have several questions on this one. And maybe starting with the biggest one. We have a twoyear delay here and thats very substantial. What caused it . Well, i can give it a shot of what i have looked at. Number one, these are complicated projects and a lot of these projects get delayed. Two years is not an abnormal delay for these projects, first of all. I know projects delayed even longer than that. And of this magnitude and complexity. The other thing is this was very complex and different and we had to be careful about doing the project safely. One of the critical safety areas was tumbling under market street, under the bart tunnel and muni tunnels. I dont know how much was factored in or not, but thats one thing. The second thing that was a very complex operation was chinatown is in a very difficult and very congested urban environment, so the decision was made were not going to cut this station, which is typically done. You open up the street and thats how you do construction. So this is the most difficult construction method which was mining from below. One of the things that happened was that there were unexpected conditions. The soil was much tougher to excavate than even the planning and the soil reports showed. So that took a lot longer. So that was one more thing. Then the other thing is this was a design bid built project, not design build. What that means is if you make changes, you have to resign the changes and then the resign has to be given to the contractor and then that has to be constructed. So that takes extra time. So while the advantage of design bid build is that you actually get the project the way you want it, but at the same time, you are giving up on delays if you make change. So those are some of the tradeoffs and reasons it happened this way. Yeah, im having a hard time squaring that. Its a complicated project. Mining is not a new technology. Its done all over the world. My understanding was, there was a Design Change in the plaza at the chinatown station that had some kind of let me ask the question. How much of that twoarea delay did that Design Change have do and did that Design Change have any cascading effect in other elements of the project . Give us a slaye slide on the chinatown station because it shows it graphically. The path depends on activities. One is concrete work and goes through the electrical and atcs and the line at the bottom which actually shows the delivery for the chinatown elevator. Theres dus different factors at play here. Number one, its very difficult to get labor, so i know the contractor struggled to keep electricians on the property working. I know that was an issue with the chase center and other buildings being built in the city. We knew there was a large amount of lead time with the elevator. It takes a year to get components on hand and thats a different function of the large amount of high rise on the west coast. The Design Change itself, just for transparency, it was the decision to make sure that the communitys desire to have not just a station head house but a programmable plaza above the station that was a decision we did make after the project had begun. But its hard to pull out and say the elevator was 40 and the supply chain was 30 . All of the things together are what pushed the completion date of chinatown to june 2020. Did the resign have the effect of putting the elevator on the critical path. It did. It did . It did. So thats a culprit, it seems to be and as you say, its 40 , 70 . That at least is something that makes sense to me as the cause of such a significant delay. Second question is, what is the estimated cost to complete the project today . We are working on it. We have some ideas. We dont have a solid number because we while we do have the climbs from thclaims from the ce have backup, but were looking at the escrow documents that the contractor has so we know the cost items. So once we examine all of that, we will have a solid idea on what the numbers are. So if we have an estimate now, its an estimate, its a ballpark. Thats what my question was, whats the estimated cost of completion . Let me just lay it out for everybody. Theres the 32 million that were asking for your approval on today. And then theres the two other buckets of cost that was referred to. The additional cost claims that tutor and most importantly, the sub contractors might come in with and then there are other costs outside of the tutor contract costs, the agencys borne costs won, so those are e other two large buckets here. In addition to the 32, weve seen initial numbers from tutor and i dont think theyre credible or worth discussing in public. We think that do you have a credible number in the alternative, though . I mean, just so the public and the audience understands, and just so i understand, the action before us today is to resolve delay claims up to a certain date. Its not to resolve all claims that tutor and his contractor might have, correct. Thats correct. As you said tom, thats bucket one. Bucket two is wer when you takeo more years to build a project, you have to take mtas to do it, including you. So we should have an e estimatef that cost. The first one was the estimate of nontutor costs which are mta plus our Programme Manager consultants and those are, again, order of magnitude, 20 million. To completion . To completion. Ok. The second part and if you could put the slide up, the one i was keeping track of the numbers, slide number six. So that remaining contingency is insufficient even to cover the staff cost, correct. Thats correct. Which is why and then whatever we negotiate with tutor and the subs is gobbing just how deep in the hole will we go . Do you have a number on the order of magnitude of 50 million. 50 . 50. Is that inclusive . It is not. So we had tha add that to thd weve got 70 and we have 15 to apply to the 70. So now we have 55 . Right. Order of magnitude. Thats the math. The estimate you have on delay, its good to see that it has a contingency of three months . Do you know the estimate behind that contingency . Its actually on us because if the contractor delays, hes l irklibel for liquidates damag. So that three months is built in as a contingency. Are the lds trigge triggerede end of the three months. June 29th. Your contingency is after that . So if we get passed that delay point, there will be an argument about whose fault it was, this all likelihood. Yes. Two more questions, chair. You mense mentioned the other py in the region but i dont think it hurts to say it bart and bart has opened and extension to the warm springs station in Alameda County and santa clara is trying to open one and bart built the warm springs extension and santa clara built the santa clara extension but both had trouble with testing. You indicated you didnt think we would have that kind of trouble and i just would like to know the source of your confidence. Let me jump in on this, but i dont want to hold nadime fully accountable. So our approach is to make sure were ready with an internal task force of folks who have deep understanding of all of the disciplines needed for testing, and all of the rail operations that are entitled. So were forming that team now and clearing peoples workloads and premeeting internally and trying to get folks absces and s to the tunnel. One of the things is we negotiated access to the parts of the station as part of the modification. So were basically doing everything we can to prepare for that team to be ready to hit the testing hard on day one. Thats what we can control right now. Let me ask one, i think, obvious question. Have you talked to bart or vta about their experience and maybe learned a couple of lessons about lets not do it that way. This is the right time to start those conversations. Ok, great. Last question, and this is on your laundry list of potential suspects to get the money from. How large is the fund balance that youre referencing in the third bullet . Well learn more that well be talking about in the fall. What is the courier budget. Ill acts our cfo to tell us the size of our fund balance. Hes going to say its zero, you watch. [ laughter ] no, im not, actually. Im the cfo for the sfmta. The boar has a Research Policy that weve maintained which is 10 of ou our operating budget d we committed to maintaining 1. 2 billion, the operating budget, so weve had 120 million as a minimum target. Actually, in the last couple of years, because we get a percentage of the citys general revenues and comes in higher than expected at the end of the last few fiscal years, that has grown. So i think we were reporting before it around 160 million and it may be a little higher than that. But we actually are still we have not yet closed the books on fiscal year 1819 and its in that magnitude. And were making sure were doing a lot of things with the new Financial System to nail down the components because part is defining im talking about Available Fund balance. We have a lot more fund balance committed to different reimbursements that weve committed to. You would be ok with that decision . It is taking funds from realoreallocating operators. I feel like ill provide you with options that will be a decision on which of the options to take. Im not sure which recommendation ill be taking. Because any fund balance in excess of out reserve policy, theres a reserve and everything requires tradeoffs. So i see that as a board decision in the end. Can i ask before you leave the podium, could you give us a quick refresher on the fund balance and how long weve had that policy because i dont think weve tapped into that in a number of years and most members were not on this board when we did that . Well, i wasnt with the mta when the policy was established so this is what ive learned from joining in last year. Were planning to come before the board soon, probably in november, with a full discussion, not only the yearend close, but our reserve policy because we may be recommending an increase in that reserve policy. We can wait for that. I wanted to take a moment to remind everybody that this was a hard comeby decision to have that Rainy Day Fund and how important it is. I should say, the fund balance was used during the last serious recession in order to maintain operations and came close to zero at that time. And so, then, with good work from previous boards, my predecessor and lots of staff, that policy was established and we have managed to build backup reserves. Those reserves are for the use of when theres an urgent need and this is a need that the board wants to use it on, thats one of the possibilities. Director bunkerman brinkman,t late yocongratulate you. Theres always an emergency out there, but it is important to know where we are and if were in excess, then weve at least got to talk about, not that we have to do it. Ill conclude with just the following comments. I do believe the recommendation before us today is a responsible course of action. No one likes overruns. No one likes delays. But what they like even less are overruns when you dont tell them theyre there and delays when you dont disclose them. I view the action today as the act of coming clean on what the finish line for this project is going to look like and how much it will cost and what the delays are going to be. So as this discussion disclosed within we have several stem steo take but we finally, for the project, after some hemming and hawing this area, we have a date and a cost estimate that passes the smell test and thats the First Step Towards restoring credibility for the project. So i would be willing to sort the iteming when it cup when ito making motions. Dr. Brinkman. Thank you for the presentation. I know it took a lot of work for you to dig into this and give us answers to these questions. I appreciate it. And on the same light as director hemming ers quest for transparency, we should remind the public when these bid processes come up, we are required to accept the lowest bid, arent we. Yes. Even if there is experience wit contractor and things to consider, we dont have the opportunity to consider those. So i just wanted to remind the public of that and thank you for your hard work on this and i agree with director hemminger that this is something we need to move forward on. please stand by . The delay, but making design decisions like that, i dont think that that number was, that that was expected when the decision was made. So i think the other dimension we should remember here, this project has been extremely impactful on the transat community and one of the things they have been doing, when not negotiating this and getting a handle on the costs of it and construction, to get the construction off the streets of chinatown and there is an important dimension here, too, that is, and perhaps this connects to director brinkmans low bid as well, less impactful on communities is really important because it will it will it will take a lot of risk at the project and thats something thats a little hard to predict at the time we make, whether its a design decision or decision about whose bids we accept, thats an important dimension. Its one to remember. And we should at some point in the future do a really thorough postmortem on this project and understand the continuo continuous improvements, what mistakes could we not make next time, but a couple Lessons Learned you want to share with us right now in terms of tough, tough, hardfought Lessons Learned in terms of cost overruns and delays. I think the thing i would say in terms of good project management, you always have to have your focus on cost and schedule, cost and schedule, cost and schedule. And what happens, a lot of times, wellintentioned Program Managers have a lot of other pressures and a lot of other needs, and i have faced that myself. I have faced situations where you are in the middle of construction and there is a pressure to add a station. So can you imagine if somebody said add another station to this, this line was not long enough for that. But, those kind of things even happen. But the thing i would say is at the end of the project there is a requirement from the f. D. A. There is a Lessons Learned exercise and we will have to go through that, and we can look at what happened in this project and have some key Lessons Learned that we can share with the board. Thank you. And thanks for your transparency and its down the charts of the individual stations as well as the system timeline, really, really helpful. Thanks for all your work on this. Thanks very much. Great. Any other final questions among directors before we turn it over to the public to provide input . All right. Rowen, followed by cat, and herbert, the only people to turn in speaker cards on this topic. Good afternoon, directors. Roman katao. Comments were hilarious, its what should have happened, wont get into it now. Northeast should have had a station. But i would like to first commend you all for bringing this amount of oversight and scrutiny that is long overdue to this project. One way that you know that this was overdue is that the unrevised completion date was in the past. The project is not complete and it was supposed to have been completed, very good sign that these things were not being revised in a timely and direct manner. I would also like to thank director brinkman for saying what i was thinking, very Serious Problems with state requirements around contractor selection and i hope that this city will help push for legislation to address some of those problems because that ultimately is how these things are going to be fixed in the longterm. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Cat carter. And then last herbert wiener. Hello again, directors, cat carter, acting executive director for San Francisco transit riders. We are let down by the delays and the cost overrun, our office is across the street from the station, and i want to go inside. San francisco cannot continue to be this bad in Major Projects. We are so far building all the infrastructure we need so desperatel