Commander ford showed in the powerpoint. Its not as much increases in the applicant pool. We only hire about 5 or 7 percent of the applicants. We have lot of applicants to get at the end. Very small number of candidates actually get through the whole process. I think its important to say, i hope this isnt taken the wrong way. Background process is strenuous and its strenuous on purpose. We ultimately from the entire pool, it is a small percentage that ultimately gets in the door and we armed with our equipment and guns. I guess i was in background for many years. I remember early on, this was years ago, the underlying theme was that the background process, it is exclusive to a degree. Were looking for a certain type of individual who has certain mindset and heart to come in this organization and do this kind of work. This is a unique profession and it requires a very unique personality. Were very all organizations are very particular about who we ultimately hire. Obviously, the implications are huge. If youre not suited or ready for this line of work. Thats the underlining theme. Were considering hiring people, not are they best, the question is are they suitable for hiring. Thats a culmination of a long process that takes sometimes a year. Were talking about physical, oral, background and is when we get into peoples personal and professional history and start crossreferencing information to see if theyre transparent with us. The numbers on face value maybe little alarming belch a pool we have a pool thats out here. I think the underline i theme, can we salvage more people. Is there a way to not. Only cast a wider net but pull people in the organization. At the end of the day, it is a very the process is stringent and everyone isnt suited for this line of work. Supervisor haney i wanted to make one point and some reflection. I know one of the values of this hearing was ability to see whats happening across Different Departments in our city and what folks are doing differently and what the data looks like. It does seem like im sure theres a lot to learn it does seem like the Sheriffs Department, at least as it relates to the demographics to the folks there, looks a bit different in terms of diversity. Is there would ascribe that to . In terms what they are doing, that maybe something other departments can learn from in terms of positive things they said there are things they would learn from you as well. Its funny you say that. I have relatives in the Sheriffs Department as well as relatives in the Fire Department. One of them is mr. Buford. I think it boils down to nature of the work. The way our Sheriff Department is structured, i dont want to overspeak, primarily they work in the jail, they are turnkey. Then dont have any patrol car. Its a different structure. In San Francisco, the police manage the street and the Sheriffs Department manage the jail. I think obviously, the nature of work is different. The implications are different. Being a police officer, in certain communities, is not attractive to pursue that line of work. Conversely, although sheriff are Law Enforcement, the way they function in San Francisco is different than anywhere else. I would say, the demographics at the Sheriff Department look different than Fire Department and Police Department. I think its really the nature of the work and then ultimately who gravitates towards that profession. Policing, we have our moments. To your point, theres a lot of variable and nuances that would feed into the research and the assessment as to whether or not why people of color, africanamerican in particular, are gravitating toward the Sheriffs Department as opposed to the Police Department and Fire Department. There are structural differences, lot of has to do with the nature of the work. Supervisor haney thank you for that. Its something that as were looking at these practices and processes and also as you said, what is drawing people to the work as well. What is it about the Sheriffs Department. For some grupps i grupp for e groups in our city are more drawn to it than the Police Department. I want to flag that. That is something thats notable with the opportunity to look at the Different Department bees. Im sure theres examples with the Fire Department as well. Supervisor peskin i will also note with all due respect to commander ford, theres also very different history in the Sheriffs Department. Interestingly enough, the Sheriffs Department was the only agency that was not subject to a Consent Decree. In large part because the sheriff is elected. Interestingly enough, if you go back to as early as 1971 when the first progressive sheriff was elected and then you had almost 30 years of Michael Hennessy at the helm. That level of diversity was really a function of having an elected official who was directly elected by the people and the people actually got to make choices as to who that sheriff was. It really have noteworthy that when judge conti, long time ago, issued those Consent Decrees at a very shameful period of time, relative to fire and police, the Sheriffs Department never went through that. I think thats in large part why three decades later, they look different. I have to say, lets just call it out little bit, which is that the unit of labor, the Deputy Sheriffs Association has actually not been as much of an impediment to the leadership in that organization over time as their counterpart. The Police Officers association has been relative to every chief and command structure as long as ive been around, which is 20 years. Every single thing, every obvious thing, subject to meet and confer for years upon years. I always say, you have to meet and confer, then you can go forward with a sensible policies that we all agree to. I wanted to get all that off my chest. Thank you mr. Chairman. Chief scott, i do want to say commander fords presentation was very thorough and impressive. Thank you sir. Supervisor safai just to bring it back little bit. I think that we got kind of about thousand feet. I want to bring it back down to the real, which is important. I think one of the things that i like the office of Racial Equity to do is when i hear online, physical, oral interviews, background processes, the d. O. J. Went through a significant number of recommendations. Theres the whole aspect of what process as much as possible, in your recruitment and hiring is objective then how much of your hiring process is subjective and subjective process is where many of the inherent biases are played out. Thats why i highlighted the retired members doing background processes. They cant help but people cant help but bring their biases into the conversation. The other thing to note is today how much energy and effort is put into recruitment and who are we targeting for recruitment and what does recruitment mean . Recruitment can also mean separation. If im just asked to step in an opportunity and im going against people that understand the process better than me or better prepared, i might not score as well or perform as well. An example of that is some of the physical which can be as of objective as possible. There might be some adjustments that need to be made. The Testing Processes itself, when we have a national organization, weve heard it over and over again. It seems to me both from applicants as well as some of the other people that representative bodies. This seem to be something thats a point of contention in the process. That has been an area where you see lot of diversified pool begin to drop off. Its not as reflective as your overall body. I want to underscore that point. I think were going to im going to ask the clair chair to continue the hearing. So we can either call of the chair set a date in the next three or four months so we can come back and people can talk about some of the progresses thats been made and ask the office of Racial Equity to give us analysis and recommendations. Well also be able to see how each department has performed during the budget process and what commitments theyve made to this. I dont necessarily have any other things to say to police other than the Testing Processes seem to be something that should be revisited. Obviously it rests with the Human Resources department, the power of your recommendation definitely could make some significant changes here if they are warranted based on the data. I agree 1000 . As referenced during my presentation, we have quarterly meetings. We definitely will revisit and consider the things that youre talking about and look at mitigate adverse effects. Once we get past the n. T. N. , we feel really good about the work were doing and embracing these applicants and identifying the ones thats suited for this organization. Supervisor safai if the Testing Process is leaving people out and youre getting that ends youre left with a very different makeup. I agree. Like i said before, well look at the n. T. N. Closer and tight up that process and not have the adverse effect its having. Supervisor safai okay. If you can share that study on the hiring process, if you can get that over to director finley and h. R. So they can have access to that and look at it and give their own interpretation an ande help form the conversation. We can go to the Fire Department now. Chief nicholson is still there. Greetings. Oh, just a minute. Director finley, did you have a question or comment . I do have a comment. I can wait until after chief nicholson speaks. You can go ahead. Youre good. Thank you chief and through the chair. Thank you supervisor safai, office of Racial Equity is able and ready with the additional support, our office with perform the analysis. We live in racialized society, the system we set up produce racialized outcome. Its impossible to find a mutual instrument that will produce the type of result that we want in regards to diversity inclusion. Therefore, as a city, we have to work extra hard to make sure that were setting up testing systems, our interviewing systems, our physical tests, background checks in a way that is overcompensate and make sure were not producing as many racialized outcomes that given we live in a im committed to advocating and working and pushing to make sure that with Department Resources and with our Agency Representatives here that we do that work which is necessary for this to happen. It sounds for us given the racial dropoff that weve even seen in each department in regards to testing and hiring needs to be examined. I want to make sure we dont fall in the overall population of San Francisco as an indicator how wel were doing. Were not doing well because of the extreme gentrification and displacement and black and brown people. Were not we have to put in extra to work make sure were not reproducing racialized outcomes that happens because of the society we live in p. P. P. Supervisor safai you heard some of the things presented by president buford and 798. Can we talk a little bit about that . I want to say for the record, i know that you been there for a year. Some of this stuff predates your position and taking over and also understand as you stated, were faced with the significant budget shortfall and economic calamity. Part of the reason why we called this hearing was to ensure as we confront the budget process or tackle the budget process, were going in with eyes wide open. I think this is something everyone made a commitment to and we need to figure out ways as creative as they might be, to make really firm commitments. Heard from president buford about the Recruitment Division, meeting a budget, needing a better classification for the Recruitment Officer and properly funded and additional staffing dedicated to recruitment. I wanted to see what your response to that was and what some of your thinking was since you been the chief now for some time . Thank you supervisor safai. If i can go back for a little bit. When Consent Decree happened, we had a really well staffed well oiled recruitment machine and a Testing Division in our department that mr. Johnson was part of. When i came in, there was all this support. We got to go to workshops and all sorts of things. It was really impactful and really effective obviously. End of the Consent Decree came. Im not sure when the testing unit moved over to d. H. R. We lost that testing unit. Supervisor safai when did the Consent Decree end . Approximately . Im not certain. I cant remember if it was 15 or 20 years. I think it was around 2009 when we were left with not a whole lot of anything. The diversity of our department was really strong at that time. The chief spoke this morning. She came in couple of years after i did. We all had really good support. Fast forward to 2009, we didnt have much of anything. I believe that d. H. R. Hired a Public SafetyRecruitment Officer and had that for i dont know how many years. D. H. R. Can speak to that. I dont think that was particularly impactful. Thats when we had no one. In 2015, our former chief hired a recruitment firefighter to do recruitment. Thats what we had since that time. If you look at our Strategic Plan, it backs up lot of what president buford said as well as what i think. I would love to be able to get funding to put in place so we can be as impactful and duty outreach and supportive stuff that we did 30 years ago. The budget. Our Strategic Plan does speak to that and it is extremely important to me. We are having trouble staffing getting enough staffing for our ambulances. Last year, i tried to i came in two weeks before the budget. I asked for additional staffing, additional administrative staffing. Very difficult with the board and got very little in terms of administrative staffing. This year, we are being removed from the budget. Whether we like it or not. That is the reality of it. I dont want to make excuses. I welcome any and all recommendations that come out of this. I look forward to figuring out the solution. Started trying to do something little bit differently. In the past, past 16 years we had one person choose who was going to answer the San FranciscoFire Department. I wanted to change that. Thats why i reached out to all the Employee Groups to ask them to help recommend people that they wanted they thought would be qualified to come into the department by holding panels and having conversations with people. Then to address what director sims said in terms of there being 18 africanamerican women. That is an absolute shame and a travesty and its awful. Clearly, we are not doing something right. Were not doing a lot of things right. How do we make these changes with not a lot of money because we have we just been were all being gutted this year with our budget. How do we make these changes, how do we do what we need to do . Thats the question. Im open to recommendations to ideas, thoughts. I look forward to figuring this out. This is important to me. Supervisor safai i appreciate that. I didnt have any preconceived notions of what we were going to be presented with today. I didnt know that the Police Department had eight full time staff dedicated to recruitment. I knew based on the meetings that we had with the representative groups there was only one person with your department. I didnt know exactly how many in the Sheriffs Department. [please stand by]. I just think there is creative ways that you could obviously you are given 423 million. I dont know what your time number is going to be. You could make a gesture in this budget to find a way, given the circumstances that we are under in terms of this overall climate that we are in, and it is important that our First Responders are making that commitment. I think we have to find a way within our existing budgets, even faced with the shortfall on how to do that. This is actually very, very telling today to see what each department is doing in terms of their commitment and what the outcomes are. If i may just say, supervisor, we do use parttime. We do that with our core committee, Community Outreach and education, but we dont have the resources we need. We dont have the program in place that needs to be in place. I absolutely admit that. I think that is what we were trying to do today, to have an honest conversation and talk about things we can do. We can help you as we go through this budget process. I think the commitment needs to be on your end and we can help support that through the budget process. President buford, i saw you come on. Did you want to Say Something . Thank you, supervisor safai, chair mar, supervisor haney for taking the time to hear us, let us express and share our thoughts and opi