Chair m chair mar good morning. The meeting will come to order. Welcome to the thursday, march 5 meeting of the government audit and Oversight Committee. Im supervisor gordon mar, the chair of this committee, and im joined by supervisor matt haney, and supervisor aaron peskin will be joining us shortly, as well as supervisor sandra lee fewer. Thank you to this committees clerk, john carroll, and id like to thank sfgovtv. Mr. Clerk, do you have any announcements . Clerk yes. Please silence your cell phones and electronic devices. Completed speaker cards and copies of any documents should be provided to the clerk. Items acted on today will appear on the march 10 board of supervisors agenda. [agenda item read]. Chair mar supervisor fewer, thank you for joining us this morning as the sponsor of this hearing. The floor is yours. Supervisor fewer thank you, committee. I call this hearing today after discussions with ifpte local 21 because i am concerned about the use of Civil Service exclusions and the impact it has on our Civil Service industry. I realize that discussions have been ongoing between the department of Public Health and local 21 regarding a process of conversion for these positions since the last hearing that we called on this issue in april 2019. Since that time, this agenda at the time that this agenda was posted for todays meeting and this morning, an agreement has been confirmed between d. H. R. And the local 21. Since that i time, weve agree to hear the agreement. With that, id like to bring up steve ponder from the department of Human Resources to present. Good morning, supervisors. City o steve ponder, department of Human Resources. Im pleased to say we have reached an agreement. If you can pull up this screen, you can see the 12 major departments that we will be looking at. I believe this is going to be over the next 12 to 18 months. So again, were going to set up a pretty robust schedule, monthly meetings with them in which we develop a list of c. A. D. 18 appointments for each department, and looking for some similarity among them and if any of them can be cobbled together. If you look at the economy of scale, like d. P. W. , they have lots of sidewalk projects, so instead of having a number of discreet positions, maybe we can convert some of those to p. C. S. , and so thats going to be our goal over the next 12 to 18 months. Supervisor fewer thank you. Any comments or questions from any of my colleagues . No . Thank you very much. I think right now, then, we should take Public Comment if chair mar agrees. Chair mar so yeah, thank you. If theres any members of the public that wishes to speak on this item, please step forward, and you have two minutes, and you can lineup on the righthand side of the chambers. First speaker. Can i can i can i okay. Ill put my identification here. [inaudible] the health and Human Services illegally evicted me out of my government housing. Now, im government, and the thing is that march 20 of this year, the two years is up for Human Service or the mayor to manage my administration. I brought this here because they illegally evicted me out of government housing. The court ruled that its politics, and i have to deal with the committee, so basically, all im saying is on march 20, the two years is up for the managing government money thats in my name. Now as far as what happened, i dont know because ive got to dale with you all, but im deal with you all. But im saying until march 20, theyre still managing my administration, which is the government money youre all speaking of. Chair mar thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Im joel kamisher, School Crossing guard, and tried to address some of our problems with the guards, so we can be parttime and not exempt. If they can be fired easily, theyre going to quit easily, and the city might have some savings by being exempt workers, but then, they have to spend more money by recruiting and replacing people. Theres really no savings from exempt employees. And San Francisco regards itself as a progressive uniontown, and they often refer to their employees as part of a union family. But sometimes, i think were run by the absent likes of jeff bezos, mark zuckerberg, and the like. Im just hoping that the city will do everything it can to try to discourage the use of exempt workers or contracting out. Thank you. Chair mar thank you. Next speaker . Good morning, supervisors. My name is kim thompson. Im the local 21 Information Technology chapter president , and i serve on our unions citywide bargaining team. Ive worked for the department of technology for over 30 years. The majority of my career at the city, i never paid much attention to exempt appointments. They werent used very much, so most people werent very aware of who was exempt until a few years ago, when three employees on my department on the same team were let go on the same day without explanation or warning. These were not limited duration project staff, these were tenured city employees. There was no way they had expected to be here one day and gone the next. This triggered a culture of fear which stands in the ways of employees doing their best work and stops them from speaking up when they want to and when they should. I see this happening on a daily basis in my department, so i want to thank you for your support on this issue. Local 21 and the city have recently made progress on addressing the except issue. Im looking forward to working together on the process to convert these employees to permanent Civil Service status. We expect the city to continue to meet with us and execute the agreement in good faith. As agreed, the priority will be the departments having the highest percentages of exempt staff which should address the most egregious situations first. Some of the employees are eager to become permanent Civil Service because they want to continue working for government and serving the community. This will build and strengthen the firstclass workforce that San Francisco has and should have. Thank you. Chair mar thank you. Next speaker . Good morning, supervisors. My name is zach goldman with local 21. 11 months ago, we filled this chamber with nearly 100 city workers who came and talked about their concerns about the abuse of exempt positions and the abuse of exempt employees. City workers highlighted how exempt positions were abused to do permanent ongoing work in violation of the city charter. They testified how exempt employees are at will, meaning they can be required at any time. And they connected the dots for us, showing how this leads to a culture of fear and intimidation that makes it hard to speak out about workplace problems, management abuses, and even serious wrongdoing and misconduct. I want to thank this committee, chairman mar, and especially supervisor fewer for really listening to city workers and using your oversight powers to push our city to do better. A year ago at the last hearing, we identified three solutions. One is we needed an audit of all current exempt employees. Two, we needed a fair process for transitioning folks from exempt employees to permanent Civil Service, and three, we need to strengthen workplace protections so that when people speak up, theyre not intimidated, harassed, or retaliated against. Im happy to say that local 21 has an agreement with the city that makes meaningful progress in all three areas but i would remiss not to point out the challenges that remain. Reurge d. H. R. To we urge d. H. R. To reach agreements with employees that have problems in their areas that they deal with. The city and the supervisors must continue to remain vigilant and work with us to ensure that workers rights are now protects and managers do not take advantage of this protection to supervisor fewer excuse me, chair. I have a question, actually, for the public speaker. What is the third . Thank you. The microphone got thank you. Third, we have to have a conversation about what is the root of this problem, and from our view, the root of this problem is that the administration continues to put forward budgets that do not provide enough services to invest in city services. When you make it impossible for departments to post Civil Service positions, departments are going to get the work done by posting exempt positions or by contracting out. We need to get to the heart of this problem by making sure that the budget that we pass accurately reflects the resources that are needed to do the work by a professional Civil Service staff. Supervisor fewer thank you. Chair mar thank you. Next speaker. Good morning to all supervisor on board. My name is antoinette johnson, and i am an exempt employee at sfpuc as a Water Quality tech, and i just decided to come over this home because i wanted to speak regarding me being a 49years native of San Francisco. I decided to go back to college after 24 years to get my waterwastewater Treatment Technology college degree. I came in on board with 20 hours per week. I do have to work several other jobs just to make my ends meet, and i would just love to have some participation in the ongoing process of Civil Service as a fulltime Civil Service. I have been waiting patiently, ive been applying continuously online to look forward to fulltime work, but overall, i work hand in hand with my fulltime employees with no benefits. I would love to do overtime, but unfortunately, as exempt, you can only get 20 hours per week. And i just look forward to well, i honestly can just say ive just been waiting patiently and holding onto serve my community here in San Francisco as a native, and excuse me and im just waiting patiently to be a fulltime exempt in my own city. I do not want to go honestly, i do not want to go to other cities such as davis, solano county. I want to work here continuously in my own city, where i was born and raised and make sure that the city and county of San Francisco has clean Potable Water and safe water for all of us, as unity, as people. And i just believe that that [inaudible] chair mar thank you. Thank you so much for your service. Next speaker. Good morning. My name is osha astrith. Thank you for taking up this very important issue. We just recently about six months ago noticed a pattern at the department of technology where we had about 50 of our members occupying exempt appointments. Many of these exempt appointments have been continued over several years. One, i believe, has been over two decades of multiple exempt appointments that have transpired over the years, so this is a very important issue. Its something that we look forward to working with d. H. R. To try and address. Weve requested to meet, and were hopeful that d. H. R. Will cooperate with us like they will be doing with local 21 and mirror everything that local 21 just said. We have very, very similar issues but i wont bore you with redundancy. Thank you. Chair mar thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is tono watanabe, a clerk at the Members Services agency, and a member of local 21. There are all ways for individual managers to try to bypass Civil Service rules as well as budget restrictions similar to president ial appointments who are in acting positions without sorry. Without congressional approval. To keep their jobs, their loyalty is to the person who gave them the position and not to the law, their city workers, the government, or residents of the city. Public polls that can be found in any law or policy will be exploited by those who are being asked to do more with less, and so we need to make sure that there are also consequences for the managers who implement these plans without any repercussions on their jobs. Theyll continue to do those things because theyre still going to be employed by the city, and as long as theres pressure to show a budget decrease without actual oversight of the sorry. This is my first time up here, so im a little nervous. Supervisor fewer its okay. All right. Without the actual overtime pay, theres going to be a lot more of this coming. So i appreciate your time on this, and i hope that 1021 will be able to work with you guys to get this kind of thing passed. Thank you. Chair mar thank you. Next speaker, please. Good morning, board of supervisors. I am sandra ng, the acting officer of the Civil Service commission. We have heard from extremely many of our union representatives, our employees, regarding the concern of exempt appointments, and so we clearly understand, and our commissioners have given direction to the department of Human Resources and the Municipal Transportation Agency on the concerns on the high number of exempt appointments. And there are audits and annual reports being presented to the commission. I do want to emphasize that i we keep hearing the word transition and conversion, and i just want to make sure its clear that the positions ourselves are being looked at and how they can be put into permanent Civil Service positions from exempt, but it is not a guarantee that these exempt employees will transition into permanent Civil Service positions because according to the charter and the Civil Service commission rules, people must still meet the minimum qualifications, still compete in an examination process, must still be a reachable eligible before they can be appointed. So i just wanted to clarify for the board of supervisors, there is no guaranteed movement that the employee whos in the exempt position will be guaranteed a permanent Civil Service position because that would be a violation of the charter. Thank you. Chair mar thank you. Thank you so much, acting executive officer ng. Supervisor peskin had a question. Supervisor peskin thank you, chair mar. I apologize for being a few minutes late. Thank you for being the acting director. I knew all of your permanent predecessors. Could you please remind this body and i must confess, i lost track, who the members of the Civil Service commission are today . Yes. Our president is elizabeth selsein. Our Vice President is indicate sevetti, commissioner douglas chan, commissioner essex crowley, and commissioner jack miner. Supervisor peskin and could you remind us who that appointing authority is, and who confirms whether its the board of supervisors, who confirms their appointment railroor rejection . They are actually appointed by the mayor. Supervisor peskin and are they 300 appointments . Are they appointments that the board can affirmatively reject with a twothirds super majority within 30 days of the appointment . That, i cannot answer off the top of my head, but i know at the same time that when a mayor has made the appointment, it has been brought to the board of supervisors attention. Supervisor peskin okay. Well, that would mean its a 3. 100 appointment. And ill ask no more questions, but i do want to thank supervisor fewer. This has been an on and off again perennial issue relative to exempt and nonexempt employees, so i really want to thank the house of labor for holding our feet to the fire. I realize the issue with the crossing guards is a little bit different, and i say that and ill just let you know, i have been communicating both with chima and mr. Mcguire if the City Attorney were here, theyd yell at me because were not allowed to have an ongoing conversation with that. But thank you, supervisor fewer, for bringing up this perennial problem that comes and goes in City Government. Chair mar thank you. Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [gavel]. Chair mar supervisor haney . Supervisor haney if we could ask the member from d. H. R. To come up . So i also want to thank supervisor fewer for her work on this, and her leadership. You had mentioned that you were going to be looking at some of these departments that had over 15 of specifically local 21 employees that were exempt . And i guess could you clarify a little bit which departments youre going to be looking at and what exactly that analysis is going to involve in a little more detail . Yes. Its departments with 15 or more of their overall employees. For local 21, theyre about 17. 6 . Thats just for local 21. Osha, who ive spoken with before on this matter, ill commit that im going to following up with her, as well. I have the same concerns with ddas, so ill follow up with her. Our concern was when we looked at this on a macro level, things looked fairly consistent. When we look at this, a lot of these look to be appropriate project hires, so our goal here in these committees is to sit these meetings will have the laborist to provide their list of exempt employees and go over with them a reassessment of how its being done. I think its mentioned earlier theres a lot of redundancy working on sites, working on the streets, and maybe we could cobble it together to be an ongoing position. So instead of having ten different positions where people are rotating through those because theres 1,000 people in local 21 and cat18, and a year later, its down to 500. So were looking at with ongoing work, can we convert that to p. C. S. . Supervisor haney i appreciate local 21 for their leadership, and i would imagine theyll be on us for this. I would say in analysis to these particular employees and how to transition them and how to deal with them, i would suggest we look at maybe some stronger protections and controls and oversight so that this doesnt sort of grow particularly in certain classifications or in areas, so thats something im sure we would like to see and in terms of how we can provide better oversight. The two things that i also just want to flag that this committe