Inclusion. It supports them and growth and mobility. Another area to think about is around testing. Each one of the presentations we saw major drop offs in regards to race and gender around testing. That is an area of concern we want more conversation about and think about strategies. We wanted to better understand budget line items in regards to equity. It is one thing to talk about equity. It is that we want to Work Together to put our money where our heart and mouth is. I want to understand how it is centered in the budget given the hearings next month and then lastly what kind of relationships are we fostering with communitybased organizations . They can help with hiring and recruitment needs. Those are the four or five areas from the office of Racial Equity that we are wanting to be a resource, partner and collobborrator on, to have more robust conversations about this hearing. I think all of our leaders have been very open and very clear eyed. They have been at the heart of a lot of difficult conversations. I know doctor davis with the Human Rights Division met with chief scott and chief nicholson and the sheriff to get this work done through opportunities for all. Those are my comments for now. Those are the areas we are looking at. I look forward to hearing more from our presenters. Thank you. Thank you, director finley. That helps define the conversation, some of the things we had talked about we will come back to that. Those are good things and highlight the information that has come out today. Are there moving with Racial Equity action plans . They talked about testing. What control and influence they have over the Testing Process. That is regarding the overall budget for recruitment and diversity and is there a plan . Those are all helpful. We appreciate that and we will come back dow. Come come back to you. I want to give you the opportunity, president beufort to present abgive us your thoughts. Thank you for joining us today. Is the director sims on the call as well . I am here. Is that okay with you that we let director simms to go ahead and jump in. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Thank you, chairman mar, we worked together before and special thanks to all supervisors, especially supervisor safai and walton who i have worked with several times to get more of a streamlined recruitment position and process. I know that local hire is no longer an option, but having people come from the bay area is near and dear to me as i am a San Francisco native and grew up in the lake view district. I am adrianne simms, one of approximately 20 women in the San FranciscoFire Department. A department of 1700 people. That is a very small number from the number when i came into this department. I was recruited by one of my mothers friends, one of the first women in the department. I was floating along not understanding where i needed to go in life and she pulled me in and said this will be good for you. I am a very strong girl. I didnt have a lot of direction. Without recruitment i would not be here today. I had no previous knowledge what to expect in this job and how to ham myself. I was part of the Cadet Program which prepped me for what would be in the academy. I met friends i have until today. Teamwork is essential to the success in the Fire Department. We were given the opportunity to practice with the ladders on 19th and folsom before the test. I most defly would have failed the fiscal test. Not because i am not strong but i had never used my body in that way before. It required guidance for me to succeed. The Cadet Program is why i am here. Have been given an opportunity to serve and pr protect my community. It has given me the opportunity to fight, educate and inform for not only my brothers and sisters that i can do this job as an africanamerican woman with no College Education. I was not given support or Financial Assistance by my parents. It gives me an opportunity to reach the communities i serve. That is to show them and young black and brown women and anybody that this is a path where these badges don arent a symbol of oppression. They can be a symbol of opportunity. To give you background on me. When i first got here i was a single mother, struggling, homeless. I am now a homeowner with three children that respect what i do for a living. I would not be able to do any of that without this job and this opportunity. This is very passionate to me. I could have been lost had i mott been recruit the and brought to the department. This is not a pathway for young women. We are not strong but this is something we can do and we can do this. We bring a different aspect to this job. We bring empathy. This is a masculine job where we bring something softer and peoples most traumatic parts of their lives we bring in something else. I really cannot stress enough how important recruitment is. This is a pathway of an opportunity that we have to figure out away that our kids within our community, whether they have a College Education or not can reach back to the next generation. It is something i am passionate about. I have talked with supervisor walton and supervisor safai about different ways to have a diversity plan to work with the ueg which consists of the afa, black firefighters, womens group and veterans to have them have input and support to the Recruitment Department. We need to have a budget for our Recruitment Department. The way it is working now is not working. The numbers prove that time and time again. We are losing whether it is through promotions or hiring diversity. The numbers are going down. 18 black women in this department. That does mirror the community. As we know San Francisco is one of the most gentrified cities out there. We cannot say it doesnt mirror the community so it is not important. We need to have a Recruitment Department supported by the San FranciscoFire Department and we need to have an actual plan within put and support and mentorship. We are losing a lot of people in the academy because they dont know how to maneuver through it. This is something that is very foreign to people unless this is something that you tried to do your whole life and you are studying it your whole life. I will leave it to shawn. I fully support recruitment. I am amazed to listen to sfpd for eight recruiters and budget. Our department does not have that. Last administration was not a priority because they said they had 7,000 or 8,000 applicants and didnt need to focus on recruitment. It is obvious that we do. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I appreciate your passion. Never apologize for that. President buford, are you able to speak now . Thank you very much. First i would like to thank the chair marand supervisor peskin and haney for calling this hearing. I would like to read a statement i wrote and ask any questions you may have. I would like to thank supervisor walwalton and safai for hearingr concerns and interested stakeholders to participate in this government and Oversight Committee recruitment be and inclusion efforts. This topic came over a conversation with supervisor safai who was doing the check in to see how the members were handling the recent challenges of the global pandemic. The Fire Department members were handling things well considering what was going on. Later that night i realized that members were able to adjust to the National Unrest that followed the murder of george floyd because sffd had been mandated in the late 1980s. This wasnt is First Federal mandated Consent Decree. It was the one the city took seriously and told the Public Safety association to reflect the communities we serve. The city was able to accomplish this through implementation of training members and aggressive recruitment efforts and Diverse Community throughout the city. Efforts have proven successful. The current climate of social tension made me consider what else can and should be done to continue the progress begun over 30 years ago. This is when i requested a meeting to discuss how to better fund and improve th the recruitment. One person whose job was misclassified with no established budget and lack of resources to reach the expanded communities. The concerns are not new. In fact, i have met with leaders of the San FranciscoFire Department you need employees and the ueg who voiced concerns that recruitment efforts are not sufficient. United Fire Service Women have led the conversation o on the National Testing network would have negative impact. The primary concern was the associated with the test but also the makeup of the list has changed specifically since opening testing to a larger demographics. Rescue the lgbt organization, asian firefighters, black firefighters and veteran firefighters have expressed similar opinions. The latest blow with a negative impact on local recruitment was consideration to defund the mt program formed by the Fire Department and city of San Francisco. I bring this up because individually many of these things may not be noticed. Collectively they have a huge impact on our department moving forward. I thank you for this opportunity to bring it in, and San Francisco has become one of the most diverse departments in this nation due to those efforts. The National Association of firefighters have recruited members from San Francisco to be on the human relations committee, director simms to become an instructor to show diverse population within international as well as the secretary and myself to help promote diversity and inclusion within international. I hope that our department can do the same. If commander ford is available i would love to sit down to learn about the efforts, the program seems to work well and i will take any questions if there are any for me. Thank you. You did some real outreach listening to your representative groups. You talk about what you thought your recommendations were but not thought what they were excuse me. United statessed what you thought would be helpful. Can you talk what you think would be helpful in terms of achieving goals that might have been presented . Director simms mentioned listening to the Employee Groups. They have a good understanding. They could bring the ideas to meet more Diverse Community. When i was an attendant at station four the Public Safety building i met many members of sfpd recruitment unit and saw how they were organized. My concern was that they were not at that level. What i would like to see is proper funding to our recruitment and the mayors budget where the recruiter cannot only have assistance but a budget to be classified properly as what was given to his position. Also have a recruitment budget to do like the pd. Go to other organizations, have money to advertise in the newspapers, on social media. We can get to a broader base of individuals as well as with the Unified School District and city college and as did chief mentioned the new ems core program that would make it move forward. Now we see the members trend backwards. I dont want San Francisco not to go backwards to to remain the leader on these efforts. My next question is there is talk about and this is chief nicholsons presentation. I heard talk about in the other presentations. What is your reaction to and can you talk about the testing and what impact that has had on the makeup of the recruitment classes and makeup of body of the firefighters . The city and county of San Francisco went to the National Testing network because it was cheaper. The impact it has to go throughout side vendor which has a fee. There is a provision to waive the fee not easily accessible to recruit. It made it more difficult for our youth locally within the bay area to gain access. It also requires extra time and effort. We have other requirements like you have to pass a physical agility test, tnt license, the effort was more restrictive. In doing so we notice our numbers of those eligible started to shrink and the united fire women mentioned the impact as well as other groups. What i would like to see if we are going to remain in that system, that San Francisco make an effort to provide waivers for our communities of color or low income who are unable to afford it as well as provide real recruitment to be able to reach to them and lead them on the path not only just there but actually to begin to bring it to these communities to bring them to our department. Do we have discretion over that test . Do we have to participate in that National Testing network . Our department of Human Resources is under their department. The police, fire do not necessarily have control over it. We would have to get an agreement for the city to do it themselves. I would be happy to have that conversation. We have the department of Human Resources on the phone. It sounds like that is something we can check on. Please stay on the line. Unless any colleagues have questions for you we will talk a little bit with hr Human Resources and open up for Public Comment. Supervisor peskin and mar. Supervisor haney is with us as well. Any questions for president buford . Thank you, president buford nor your leadership. It is much appreciated. I know that we have worked together a few years back around some of the work at sfusd and city college and this is related but i wonder if you could speak how you see that. It was mentioned but how you see the work with s. F. U. S. D. And chief nicholson as well. What are the things we can do better with our other institutions and new programs and approaches . Is there anything positive out of that . Anything to do to support . Thank you, supervisor haney. You were setting up the meeting. A lot of youth understand there was a path they could consider to move forward so the exposure was important. If we can get youth excited to share their story that would take our work from us. Thank you for your effort goes to bring us together. I know it was to be funded. I am not sure how you were able to stop that but i would love to see it continue to expand it as well. Even like something having paid cadets. We have fiery serve. Having another auxiliary to allow them to work sidebyside for Public Safety would be another way to actually get more youth excited. My mother started off as a meter maid before moving to the Sheriffs Department. It was her exposure that brought it over. Thank you and i would love to sit down with you some more to expand these programs. Supervisor safai a question is related to the question supervisor haney just raised. The role that city college can play in helping to build out and expand a pipeline, diversity pipeline to the Fire Department given the student demographics that reflect the priority africanamerican and people of color and women recruits that we are trying to tap into for the Fire Department. City college has a Degree Program in fire science technology. A number of Certificate Programs including firefighter academy. Can you speak to your thoughts how city college with be leveraged more in the Diversity Efforts of the Fire Department . Chief nicholson, i would love to hear your thoughts as well. Thank you, chair mar. City college is a great resource. It is an automatic pipeline, i would say. Very strong pipeline for us, but what we are seeing with city college is there is a lack of diversity in terms of women in the fire science, africanamericans in the classes as well as africanamericans in the ems classes. We have to go upstream even more. If i can elaborate. They have been great but they are members of the Fire Department but they have gone on their own. There is exposure as chief nicholson mentioned if we could expand that more. That is an Academy Degree you can get or certificate. We need to also expand it to the point where ems is another portion of it and prevention and think of that. There is a small collaboration but room for improvement there as well. I would love to follow up with you on that. Chair mar, ms. Simply has her hand raised. Ms. Simley. I did have a question for chief nicholsons in regards to ems cohort. That is close to your heart to have an opportunity to talk to your staff about this and bringing this to the southeast part of the city. Do you have in this budget support for that cohort . What does that support look like . Thank you for the question. Yes, it is very close to my heart. If i can just explain a little bit about our budget. It is 423 million, 91 is salary and benefits. We have equipment breaking down all of the time, and if we dont have equipment recant re