[00:01] Speaker 1: Today is Thursday, January 22, 2026. The meeting began at 11:05am Secretary Fuller, please call the roll.
[00:13] Speaker 2: Good morning. Please respond with here or present. And I'll start with the Public Works Commission, then do the roll call for the Sanitation and Streets Commission. Eleanor Bloom.
[00:24] Speaker 3: Here.
[00:25] Speaker 2: Vice Chair Bloom is present. Gerald Turner. We're just trying to have a. Oh, okay.
[00:36] Speaker 4: But I am present.
[00:37] Speaker 3: Okay.
[00:38] Speaker 2: Commissioner Turner is present. Paul Wolford. Okay, let me see if I can fix that. Commissioner Wolford is. President Fadi Zabi has a planned absence. So with three members present, we do have quorum for the Public Works Commission. Now I'll turn to the Sanitation and Streets Commission, so if you could just. Sorry. I will correct the microphone issue in just a moment. Azelina Usopp.
[01:08] Speaker 5: Yes.
[01:08] Speaker 2: Commissioner Yusup is present. Thomas Harrison. Vice Chair Harrison is present. Kim Hartwig. Shulman. Commissioner Hartwig Shulman is present. Stuart Parmenter. Chair Parmenter is present. Chris Seemey. Commissioner Seemey is present. With five members present, we do have quorum for the Sanitation and Streets Commission and public comment is taken for all informational and action items on today's agenda. To comment in person, please line up against the wall near the screen. The audience is left when public comment is called. And for members of the public wishing to comment on an item from outside the hearing room, you may do so by joining via webinar through the link shown on page two of today's agenda. To be recognized, select the raise your hand button icon in the webinar. You may also comment from outside the chamber by dialing 415-655-0001 and using the meeting ID of 266-4893-4443 and then hitting pound and pound again. To raise your hand to speak, press Star 3 and the telephone login information is available on pages one and two of today's agenda. Commenters may speak for up to three minutes per item and you will receive a 30 second notice when your speaking time is about to expire. In the event we have many commenters on an item, the chair may reduce public comment time to less than three minutes per person. And unless you are speaking under general public comment, please note you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed. If commenters do not stay on topic, the chair may interrupt and ask you to limit your comments to the agenda item at hand. We ask that public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and you refrain from the use of profanity. Abusive or hate speech will not be tolerated. Please address your remarks to the commission as a whole, not to individual commissioners or staff. The public is always welcome to submit comments in writing to either of our commissions@publicworks.comissionfdpw.org or sas.discretionfgov.org also by mail to 49 S. Van Ness Ave, Suite 1600, San Francisco, CA 94103. On behalf of the commissions, we thank the we extend thanks to the SFgov TV Building Management and Media services staff for helping to make this meeting possible. And because we do have this combined meeting, what I will do is keep microphones on. So if you have need to have any type of side conversation, I would just move the microphone out of the way. So with that chair, Vice Chair Bloom.
[04:19] Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Given Chair Zabi's absence, Chair Parmenter and I conferred and decided that I would preside over this joint hearing of our two commissions, provided that there's no objection to that. Do I hear any objections from commissioners? Great. Wonderful. So no objections. We'll proceed. I don't believe we need a vote on that. Okay, great. Are there any requests from the commission to change the order of the agenda that we have in front of us today? Wonderful. Great hearing. No further agenda changes. Secretary Fuller, please call the first item.
[04:52] Speaker 2: Item one is the announcements, announcements by the chairs, commissioners and secretary. And this is an informational item.
[05:01] Speaker 1: Thank you so much. One brief announcement from me and an expression of gratitude. I recognize that the primary topic for today's joint hearing will be the Department of Public Works operating budget and priorities for the year ahead. This budget cycle is a little different than the one that we have experienced as commissioners and the department has experienced in the past. And I know that the department and all city departments are continuing to work in a very challenging budget environment. I appreciate the work and the patience and the thoughtfulness of the commissioners and of the staff and leadership of the Public Works Department in working in the somewhat different timeline and process than we would typically see or have typically dealt with in other budget years and continuing to do so in a very tight budget environment where we still need to deliver excellent results for the city. That is all I have. Chair Parmenter, do you have any announcements?
[06:03] Speaker 6: I would just echo your sentiment. I think, you know, the budget cycle is challenging this year. I mean, it is every year. But, you know, the work here is so, so critical to the core infrastructure of the city. City and I think just, you know, excited to see everything continue and push forward and see the great changes that are coming.
[06:24] Speaker 1: Thank You. Secretary Fuller, do you have any announcements?
[06:29] Speaker 2: My only announcement is if any commissioners have been closely looking at their city email, you'll know that we already have trainings, mandatory trainings that have been loaded so far for the spring and into the remainder of 2026. I'll be sending a reminder to all commissioners of what trainings are necessary. And then as we Approach the Form 700 filing period at the end of March or the deadline at the end of March, I'll also be sending any updates to commissioners and make sure that we're all on track to complete the trainings and filings necessary to be in compliance.
[07:11] Speaker 1: Thank you. Secretary Fuller, Please open this open public comment on this item.
[07:17] Speaker 2: Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on item one, announcements by the chairs, commissioners and secretary may line up against the wall to the audience's left. And if you're commenting from outside the chamber, press the raise your hand button in the webinar or press star3 on your phone to be recognized.
[07:43] Speaker 7: Okay.
[07:43] Speaker 2: And no one has come forward, and none of our callers have raised their hand to speak. So that concludes public comment.
[07:51] Speaker 1: Thank you, Secretary Fuller. Please call the next item.
[07:54] Speaker 2: Item two is the Director's report and communications. Today there is no Director's report. In order to provide more time for the budget presentation item, the agenda does include the restricted communications report and delegated contracts report for the benefit of commissioners and the public. And since this was on the posted agenda, we will need to take public comment on it before proceeding to the next item.
[08:22] Speaker 1: Thank you. Before we move to public comment, does the commission have any questions or comments? Great. Thank you. Hearing nothing further here, Secretary Fuller, please open public comment.
[08:31] Speaker 2: Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on item two, the Director's report may line up against the wall to the audience's left. And if you're commenting from outside the chamber, press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone. And we do not have any commenters on this item.
[08:55] Speaker 1: Thank you. Secretary Fuller, please call the next item.
[08:59] Speaker 2: Item 3 is General Public comment, which is for topics under the Commission's mandate, but not related to a specific item on today's agenda. And members of the public who wish to make three minutes of general public comment in person. Again, you may line up against the wall to the audience's left. And if you're calling in, you would press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized. Okay. And we do not have any commenters for general public comment either. So that concludes general public comment.
[09:38] Speaker 1: Thank you. Secretary Fuller, please call the next item.
[09:41] Speaker 2: Item four is the Department of Public Works fiscal year 2026 to 2027, and fiscal year 2027 through 2028. Operating, budget and priorities. Today is the presentation and hearing of budget priorities. We are scheduled to have Public Works Commission to have the Public Works Commission vote to approve the budget plan at their next regular meeting, which will take place is scheduled for February 12th. And this is to be in compliance with the timeline laid out in the city charter for budget approval by commissions. And Deputy Director of Finance and Administration, Bruce Robertson is here to present this report.
[10:25] Speaker 1: Thank you.
[10:27] Speaker 3: Good morning, Commissioners. I am not Deputy Director Bruce Robertson. I am Carla Short, public Works Director. Just in lieu of a director's report, today, I wanted to give just a brief introduction. Actually, our chair and vice chair said much of what I was going to say in my brief introduction. This is a different process this year. We where we are being asked really, to align our core functions with the mayor's top priorities. And we have not been given specific cut targets, which is often what we come to you with our proposals for. Rather, we've been focused on really identifying how well what we consider to be our core functions align with the pillars of the mayor's priorities. And I think the good news for us as a department is the work that we do aligns very well with the mayor's priorities. The mayor has been very clear that safe and clean streets, one of his top priorities. Clearly, the work that we do directly aligns with that also, you know, revitalizing the economy. Much of the capital work that we do and the infrastructure task force work that we do to support private developments clearly aligns with that economic revitalization. So I feel hopeful that our core priorities are well aligned with the mayor's priorities. I think the other thing that we really wanted to emphasize is that we.
[12:07] Speaker 8: Are.
[12:09] Speaker 3: In my opinion, we are not doing much work that is not a core priority. So we have, through our reorganization, we were a little bit, I think, ahead of the game when we went through our department reorganization. And we did take a hard look at that time about what are we focusing on and are they the right things? And so we feel good that we sort of unknowingly anticipated this approach to the budget. And we're pretty lean. We're not doing a lot of things that we wouldn't consider to be our core priorities. So Bruce is going to talk. Deputy Director Robertson is going to talk you through how this process is different this year and give some details about exactly what, what those core priorities are that we looked at and how they are framed. But I wanted to just share that little bit of context with you beforehand. Thank you.
[13:09] Speaker 1: Thank you, Director Short.
[13:15] Speaker 7: Thank you, Director Short. Commissioner Bruce Robertson, Deputy Director of Finance and Admin. I'll go through the presentation, the slide deck that kind of will highlight what's already been discussed, the different process, but I'll also highlight the financial outlook of the city similar to how we've done in previous years. That I think has really laid the groundwork for what we're doing in our specific budget as it relates to the overall budget. I would be incredibly remiss if I stood up here and didn't do a few thank you. So I very much would like to do that. And most of the folks I want to thank are behind me, the budget team. Jennifer Marquez, Donna Lee, Victoria Chan are in the audience. And I don't like getting emails from them at 2:12:31 in the morning, but I quite often do. And on the weekend their dedication and hard work is tremendous. Back in the office are Christopher Tank, Philip Kong, Sylvie Ho, Luis Gonzalez, Joyce Lee Yip, Michael Crooms, Jared Weiner and Maribel Hansen. It really is a team to get to this point. It's not just me, it's not just the folks in the audience. It's everyone at Public Works, the executive team and some unsung heroes in the bureaus, as well as want to thank Daniel Cawley from the Mayor's Budget Office, also in the audience. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the great work that they're doing. I'm very fortunate to have them on the team. Clearly losing my computer skills. Commissioners, this is a routine slide, you see, just puts in context the work we do. Our operating budget is $428.5 million, but as you all know, a lot of the work we do is funded from external sources to the public works operating budget, whether it's GEO bonds, client funds or elsewhere. So we spend well north of a billion dollars annually, but our operating budget is only this $428.5 million. So a quick overview of where we're at before I dive into too much greater detail. So the fiscal outlook, as I think you're all aware from seeing in the paper and hearing from Director Short, it's the same story as last year and the year before that and the year before that, where revenues are growing but expenditures are growing faster than revenues. And really you can see that here, revenue growth over the next four years is $617 million, which is very good, very healthy, driven a lot by business tax and some property transfer tax, which I'll talk about in more detail. But the problem is the expenditure budget is growing by 1.8 billion over the same time frame, which has led to a deficit in fiscal year 27 of $296 million, increasing to 640 million in fiscal year 28. That's the two years of the budget we're working on here. And so as a result of that financial picture, the mayor's budget instructions that we've all acknowledged are a little bit different this year. Rather than getting specific cuts, the instructions said there's going to be an overall ongoing general fund reduction of $400 million citywide. And as part of that process, we've been asked to identify core services as well as how those core services align to the Merrill priorities, which I'll talk about all in more detail. There was a specific reduction ask of 10% for work orders and overhead. Carla took a little, Director Shore took a little thunder. We've already done that by 25% in the current year. So again, I think we were a little ahead of the curve and then look at potential discretionary programs and offer those up for elimination. So commissioners, you've seen this slide before and this really is the four year forecast. And you can see on that top sources, I.e. revenues, and this is just showing the increase or deficit amounts. So as you can see the sources, the revenue are increasing next fiscal year by 252.4 million and then increasing to over 800 million, 822 to be exact, in fiscal year 30. That's great. More revenue. That's very positive. However, if you look at the USES component right below, there's a little bit more granularity. And that's the number that I was talking about is really larger than the revenue growth and it's really driven, you can see by that second item. You've got baseline and reserves, but then you've got salaries and benefits. And that's the main driver of it. Starting at 216.5 million next fiscal year, increasing to almost the entire revenue amount that we're going to get in fiscal year 30 of 828.9 million. So then if you see there's a really this table is very interesting. If you look at the first item under uses, you'll see surplus and or shortfalls and you can see 211.8 increase into 963. But then you see a new line that's been added to this table where you see the impact of state and federal policy impacts starting at 84.5 million, increasing to $205.8 million, primarily driven by HR1 or it's called the Big Beautiful Bill. And I'll talk about that in a little bit more detail. Full disclosure, when I talk about it, I am out of my element and hardly a subject matter expert in that area, but that's compounding the impact of the deficit. And so I know we presented this chart, a similar chart, last year and I think the commissioners liked it. It's a nice visual to help understand the table that we just talked about. If you look at this, there's a third line added here. So the red line shows the projected expenditure growth and then that black dashed line shows the revenue growth. But there's that blue line on the bottom that shows the impact of HR1. And HR1 attempts to redirect federal funding to hospitals, other healthcare providers and state and local governments. It also creates barriers to enrollment to reduce the number of individuals who receive health care coverage through Medicaid and other social safety net programs. Thus, it will result in the reduction of reimbursement to service providers. And here's a key component. Under the bill, governments will lose Medicaid funding for adults who do not meet work requirements. The projection assumes these numbers assume both a loss in direct federal funding and a gradual disenrollment for individuals affected by ineligibility restrictions due to unsatisfactory immigration status or updated work requirements or more frequent redetermination. So the estimates are driven primarily by that. The impact is primarily on the Department of Public Health. The Human Services Agency is also impacted in the city's financial plan. They do a very thorough job of explaining it, of which I will claim, again, not to be an expert in CalFresh or Medicaid reimbursements at all, but there was a nice presentation done to the Public Health Commission that gave some good information that I used here as well. So that's a big impact. And just showing the known impact isn't the end of the story of HR1. Because if you look at the key assumptions in there, the assumptions shown of the 84.5 million increase in over 200 million in fiscal year 30 are just that. As I get down later in the presentation, there are risks and other unknowns associated with that bill. So the impact could be significantly larger. But these are the key Assumptions in both the chart and the table that I presented earlier. Again, modest tax revenue growth primarily driven as I said by the business tax as well as growth in real property transfer tax. That's the sale of real estate. And I think if we've seen in the paper and news articles and other outlets there's a fair amount of real estate transactions happening in the city both on the business and residential side. Again, HR1 we already talked about and then salary and benefits. A lot of the public sector San Francisco employees have an MOU that's not currently open for MOU negotiation. The exception of the public safety departments. So they made some assumptions on what that growth will be. The actuarial analysis for the return for our retirement funds SFers is 7.2%. If that doesn't materialize, it could get a little worse. As well as all non labor contracts. So contracts that we have with construction and professional services throughout the city, nonprofit organizations, those are assumed to increase by CPI which varies per each year, but it's roughly over 3%. Varies a little bit, but between 3 and 3 and a quarter percent. And then health insurance costs are increasing. Both medical and dental insurance costs are increases for an overall impact of 9%. The 7.2% and the 9% were consistent with last year and the year before. So we have seen some steady increases in it. So it's not wild fluctuations. The financial plan assumes full funding of the capital plan. So next fiscal year that's about $54.8 million if my memory is correct and roughly 4.2 million for the ICT plan, which is basically IT systems again from the general fund. This is an important one. As we heard the instructions reduce or eliminate discretionary programs. The assumptions are no change in service levels or number of employees. So that is built into these numbers. And then finally the implementation of Prop M which was the business tax that the voters approved a couple years ago. If you remember, there was a slight down turn in revenue based on this for a significant upswing in the out years. And and it really streamlined and simplified a little bit of the tax code. So here are the uncertainties and again I'm not going to dwell on HR1 anymore. But that is certainly an uncertainty. Other federal state funding, you know the. We've seen the initial budget from the state has. I think it's an $8 billion reduction. We'll see what we get in May with the state mayor. Revise the state governor's budget. Revise the usually comes out around May 20th or so. Again labor negotiations, recession risk, job Growth is decreasing, economic GDI is decreasing. There's a lot of risk factors around the overall health and economic status of California and the US at large. Retirement contribution rate, business tax litigation. There's a lot of entities on the business side that have filed litigation against the amount of taxes that they've paid. There's a few big ones before the Board of Supervisors last week or the week before. And then of course, any new legislation or other proposals that are unknown as of this time that could impact the budget either in a positive or a negative way. So with that background, here's the specific instructions that we received from the mayor's office. Again, it was an unusual year. Going to continue to kind of pound that drum for anyone that does budgeting. This is a good way to do budgeting. So it's a good approach to really look at what are your core services, how does it align with the priorities of the administration, and then what is discretionary? So not every dollar that is being spent is treated equally. So again, reorient city spending to 2026 priority core services that's directly taken from the mayor's budget instructions. Continue to reduce the structural deficit. I feel like I get up here and say the same thing year after year. The near term is not great, but not bad. The out years are terrible. And so fixing the structural deficit, we'll get to that investment long term operational efficiencies as well. So we've developed a return on investment spreadsheet that we've been using for some of our ideas and thoughts as we've gone through the question that has been asked to us by the mayor's office of what are our core principles? And then a little bit More specific, the $400 million reduction of general fund and ongoing savings. Eliminate discretionary programs, restructural departments around current staffing levels. Reduce citywide work orders and overhead by 10%. Shift duplicative or common services towards a centralized model. As Director Short stated, we have mostly core services. We are also a centralized entity when it comes to street cleaning, when it comes to public right of way management, engineering services. When it comes to capital project delivery, we are a core service for a lot of those activities. And then proposed near term investments for long term cost savings. As I go on later in the presentation, we have one of those proposals. Continuing, there was a lengthier list of instructions than usual looking at technology, identify technology and procurement savings. So possible centralization of some of the enterprise agreements and other economies of scale that can be achieved on the technology procurement side. And again, invest in long term operational efficiencies and just you know, thinking about could there systems is the use of AI that could reduce our costs and make us more efficient and streamline the services we provide to the public. Grants we have a lot of nonprofit grants as you all know. The Pit Stop program being one of the largest ones. Review grants and contracts for measurable outcomes and financial efficiency. All of our agreements have measurable outcomes included in them. And the performance and planning team works with our frontline staff and does a great job really identifying a lot of the impact of our services. What is the outcome of the nonprofit grant agreements? We have finally prioritized funding for essential social safety net programs. Again that's the last time I think I'll reference HR1 today and I think that's really directed towards that. So now I'm going to shift a little bit and talk a little bit about how these policy impacts the mayoral budget instructions impact public works. So this is a snapshot of the mayoral priorities and it really is two areas with six columns, three under each and then one overarching theme. So safe and clean streets. As Director Short mentioned, we are front and center of that, but keep our city safe, transform our health and homelessness services and maintain clean, safe and welcoming public spaces. I will gladly stand up here at 11:30 on the 22nd of January and say I think we can do all of those all the time. Every day is a core function. And then the economic revitalization, revitalize downtown San Francisco, make the city more affordable and livable for families, and strengthen the city's economy, arts and culture. We do those as well. And in some ways I think public works, the work we do, is so core and fundamental that it's just inherent to what we do. And I don't think it always gets recognized. So for instance, just looking at revitalized downtown San Francisco, there are now events happening, concerts, gatherings on Thursday evenings. Public works is right there helping set up and take those down. So we are really everywhere to the point that I think we're almost invisible at times. So people forget about us and I think it maybe take us for granted a little bit. And then on safe and clean streets we talk about statistics. I'm only going to throw one out here. £50 million. £50 million. That it's an output. That is how much garbage we collected last year. £50 million. That's not the rubbish that recology has picked up or anyone else. That is just public work staff. £50 million. I think it sounds better than 25,000 tons. So we're going with £50 million. Also on the slide, I want to make sure that I'm mentioning the critical work we do on the capital project side. So whether it's doing small scale improvements on the mid market theater district, or it's more larger scale projects such as the renovation that's underway for Powell Street. Again, our capital project plays such a critical role. We work with hsh, we work with public health. We just recently did a behavioral health clinic. Really we are kind of everywhere and meeting these priorities from the administration. So we have that. We've looked at it. The mayor's budget office asked us to complete a document that we submitted on the 20th a few days ago. And the question posed to us is really what are your core services and how do they align to the priorities outlined on the previous slide by the administration? So we looked at all public works programs, we looked at who the program serves, Is it other departments, is it residents, is it citizens of the city, visitors, tourists, businesses, whomever. And then we looked at how does it align with the priorities. And then we looked at what are the FTE and budget impact. And then we looked at what are our metrics, both outcome and output, mainly focused on outcome metrics. How do we know we're doing? Are we successful? Can we improve? We are always trying to improve. Continuous improvement, that's part of the Baldrige framework that we strongly adhere to. So that was part of this exercise. And then is there anyone else providing the same services? There's a question asked by the mayor's office, could things potentially be centralized? So that was something that we looked at as well. So the next steps, we submitted that to the mayor's office and we are anticipated to hear back by February 1, their feedback on what we've submitted and then if there will be any target reduction to follow, of which I suspect there will be some or other policy ideas that they may have. And then again, we will come before you at that point. We should have some idea of where we're heading in our budget and we'll have some clarity for you when we are here on the 12th. And then the deadline per the charter is February 23rd. I think the 21st falls on a weekend, so it is the following Monday. So that's an overview of where we're at. I'm going to just spend a few minutes talking again about our budget in a little bit more detail and just really what we're spending on everything. So these are our sources. So this is the money coming in. So we get capital funds, interdepartmental services, money from other departments. But the big thing is really in the lower right of both of these pie charts because that is the general fund, that is the $400 million that the mayor's office is looking to reduce to address both the structural deficit and the 296 deficit for fiscal year 27 and then the 600 plus million in fiscal year year 2728. So that's the key box and I'm going to focus a little bit more on that. We do get a lot of state money. Road fund, gas tax. That's money that's coming in from taxes applied on a per gallon of gasoline. RMRA is the road maintenance and rehabilitation. We get money from that. That's a separate tax on gasoline. We also get the property set aside, the tree maintenance fund. So all of those are shown there as well. So we get a lot of sources. Primarily not general fund.
[33:54] Speaker 9: Bruce, can we ask a question?
[33:55] Speaker 7: Absolutely. Interrupt at any time.
[33:57] Speaker 9: I was going to ask. So 17% of the budget sources, capital funds disappear from 20267 to 2017.
[34:07] Speaker 7: Explain that a little more, Commissioner Wolford. It's a very good question. It's a timing issue. So really what happens is under the admin code, the Capital Planning Committee, of which Director Short is a member on, finalizes the capital plan usually around March. So the reason why we have it for two years is we have it for the current year and we have a placeholder for then what will be the next year. So that's always the new second year, won't have any capital budget monies associated to it. We know we'll get some. And let me rephrase this. I hope we get some. I assume we'll get some. But it's just a timing issue that, that's why when we produce the memo of the final budget that you see, you will see both years filled in. And so generally that is money that we get for public works programs, that's money for the paving program, that's money for the curb ramp program. That's really, it's the big ticket items that the money is coming directly to public works for our programs. And paving being the biggest example, gets the largest amount of that money.
[35:12] Speaker 1: Great clarifying question. Thank you.
[35:14] Speaker 9: This is a big gap.
[35:15] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[35:16] Speaker 7: And it's a big gap that will be there every year. Just again, based on admin code timing, the administrative code timing and the requirements of when it happens.
[35:23] Speaker 6: Thank you.
[35:24] Speaker 9: That clarifies.
[35:27] Speaker 7: And then again just to show at a high level, these are the uses. So you can see the blue. Labor, Labor, Labor. Labor is over half of our budget, almost 60%. And then you can see the gray in the upper left. That is interdepartmental services. That is money we are paying to other departments, the city administrator's office, the controller's office, Department of human Resources, DT, et cetera, rent some of those services that are there. And then that green only on the left hand pie shows the capital budget. So again, there's. There's quite a disconnect of the 441 versus the 361. And so this number really shows our base. So every year you roll over and you get a base budget, and that's what we have to work off of. So the base budget will show it's a little higher than the 428.5 because there's MOU increases for salaries. So that's going to drive it up. And there may be other items that are driving it up based on COLA increases. One of the items that's driving it up is our debt service payment is a little higher than it was in the current budget cycle. So that's completely anticipated and something we expect to see. So $400 million seems to be one of the key numbers that I keep referencing. So if we were to cut general fund, this is where we spend our general fund money on. And so it is street cleaning. And you can see a large percentage of it is there. So $72.5 million, again, that aligns right under the umbrella of the mayoral priorities of safe and clean streets. And every single penny there goes to meet those services. And then the next biggest number is illegal vending enforcement. So as you've heard from Director Shore and others in the department, we have a key role in enforcement of illegal vending in the mission around the 16th Street Part Station, 24th Street Part Station, but elsewhere, certainly doing work, assisting the port with some of their enforcement and throughout the city. And that's another about $11 million again, keeping our city safe. Economic revitalization, I would say corest of the core. And then we have public right of way repair. We're in the public right of way. We get a small sliver of money to do that. That may be pothole repair and some of the other items. So again, critical infrastructure and keeping our city safe. And then the last element is the Commission. So overall, $87 million of our budget is truly straight general fund. So when you look at our $441 million budget as the basis you look at the 87 million of it, under about 20% or so is general fund. And then if you look at how much money we spend from clients, grants, federal funding sources, that's about a billion dollars. It becomes a very small slice of the pie. And so just to put it in a little bit more context, just on the budget and how that compares post reorg. So I wanted to just give you a sense of as we were being asked a question by the mayor's office to prioritize our core services and match them and align them with his priorities, just to give you some context of where we're at. So project delivery is the delivery of the capital projects. Project design and development is the engineering services, the architecture services. And I'll go through most of these in more detail. Support services is permitting and some HR and some other critical components. Health and safety building, street repair speaks for itself. Urban forestry speaks for itself. Street environmental services, that's our street cleaning crews, the commission here and then general administration. And as you heard from Victoria Chan, our highly competent budget manager who spoke in December, the general administration budget is allocated in line with government finance officer association best budgeting, best practices that we've been doing since 1977. And that is a perfect segue into the next slide. So as you know, in December, I think December 11th of 2025, budget manager Chan gave a presentation on our indirect cost plan. And so the budget instructions asked for a 10% reduction in work orders or overhead. We've already done that. So I think we were a year ahead of the curve. We talked about a reorg and the impact of our reorg and some of our difficult choices we made in the last budget process led us to this, where our overhead rates were at 131% in fiscal year 21 and are now down to 82%. That puts us lower than the private sector. That puts us lower than many other comparable departments. It is a huge achievement. And I can't begin to thank the folks standing behind me on this. They deserve all the credit. They made it happen. Unbelievable work here. We were assisted a little bit. We had some reductions based on Prop B and some of the payouts stemming back from the COVID 19 pandemic. So we had some easier levers to pull. But getting it to 82% is crazy. And just by lowering the rates, again, a key talking point saves the city $34 million and the general fund $10 million. So we've already done a part for providing savings in the current year. So I'm going to Spend a few minutes going through. I'm not going to go through all of the items that we submitted to the mayor's office on our program inventory list because it was on 11 by 17 and it was about two dozen pages and I needed a magnifying glass to read it because there was just so much information there. So I'm just going to highlight and and go through some of the key elements that really show how everything we do is core. And so start with the director's office. We have an emergency management team and one of the not well known facts about public works and how we say we're just the unsung heroes in webware. Public works staff are considered first responders. The first George Bush made that proclamation when he was president. The first George Bush. The U.S. senate reaffirmed that in 2019. APWA guidelines say there is, as does FEMA. So if there's a big seismic event, we are out there right away clearing debris or doing what we can. So then police, fire, sheriff, other public health entities, the first responders can get to where they need to go and do what they need to do. But it's not widely known that public work staff are also all considered first responders by multiple entities. Housing coordination. We have a housing coordination. This was an executive director from the previous administration just to have some coordination around housing development throughout the city. So we have that and then public records also codified. There's a Sunshine Law, sunshine ordinance task force that everything we write, everything we prepare is a public document and we use a system called Next Request and we have a small team that handles that. We get thousands of those annually and we have a timeline in which we need to respond. So finance and administration again, administration, back of the house operations, is it really a core service? It really is. And in many ways I'll kind of highlight that. Now we do a lot of citywide project accounting on the Public Works Commission side. You get contract after contract after contract that comes for your approval. So many of those are funded by other entities. And so we are then doing the accounting for that. So we're doing some of the accounting work for projects, whether it's funded by a client department such as Public health or even the PUC or the MTA who can issue their own construction contracts. The Port Rec park, we're doing a lot of that citywide accounting on the project side and elsewhere. And I love the statistics. We touch every single fund in the city last time we looked, every single color of money we basically touched. We manage the ECIR program. So the Board of Supervisors recently heard ESEER 2026, the latest iteration of the ESEER program. That was 2014, 2016, 20, 2020. So ESIR is the emergency service and why? Earthquake safety. Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response Bond Program. So thank you for the hat tip. I'm clearly drawing a blank. But that helps renovate seismically enhanced public safety buildings in case there is an earthquake. So the public safety building was funded under it. We're currently doing work out at Ingleside Police Station, the floating fire station down on the port, and neighborhood fire stations throughout the city have been upgraded under this program. So there's a new one coming for 535 million that'll be before the voters likely. And we do all the management, we do all the accounting, we do all of the reporting on that. So again, when I say we're a centralized entity and serve citywide, this is yet another example. We do most, not all. Chapter six contracting. Chapter six contracting is construction. So we do, we've done projects for the mta, the Port Purity roof replacement recently for the port. We've done some work for the puc. We've done Folsom Streetscape Project, that's a joint project with MTA and Public Works and puc. We do all of the larger construction contracting for Breck park. So Buchanan Mall, Japantown Peace Project, and then we also do the accounting services for all of those. We also do that. I don't think it's a lot of publicity. We do a lot of and almost all of the emergency contracting for the city. And that can range from we've done issues on Pier 80 for the port. We've done 25 Van Ness for real estate in the city Administrator's office. We've done the main library. We've done Laguna Honda, Rock Park, Portsmouth Square Elevator. So we do a lot of that. An emergency will get declared and then we'll work with the board to get that approved and issue the construction contract. So a lot of kind of behind the scenes work, information technology also, we provide a lot of support to the controller's office in terms of their peoplesoft system. We also do a lot of work with helping on the data side of that. We also have a big role that, I don't know, gets publicized as much about the base map. So because we have the surveying function, we manage a lot of the base map that other departments and other entities rely on public works for and then performance and planning. And Ms. Bideau is here. You heard the strategic plan from her recently on the Public works commission that is really looking at our outcome based data. Our public works stat, which is one of the leading reporting and tracking systems I think in the city. Really proud of that and always looking for continuous improvement. And that comes through her shop policy and communication. Construction outreach I don't think can be underscored the importance of that. We have a very thin team that does construction outreach. So if we have a major project in the public right of way and it's impacting a business, we will work with that business to adjust the schedule to try to minimize it. There are stories of family issues or crisis and we will adjust where we are doing work, on what block to try to accommodate as much as possible prior to any project. We're actively working and talking to neighborhood organizations, business leaders. Again, it's all about project minimizing of any disruption. Critical team, small, robust, highly efficient, the One team and volunteer cleanups. So the One Team stands for outreach and enforcement that is funded by the refuse rates and really that enforcement is out there issuing citations and warnings to try to combat illegal dumping. So you get illegal dumping in a lot of the city. It's a big concern in District 10 where you'll get some construction contractors, drive up the peninsula, dump just across the border in San Francisco and then leave. So we've actually, there's been a highly regarded news story, national news story by CBS News where they were chronicling the work and they're actually doing dumpster diving, trying to find an envelope with a mail address or some other information and then cleaning and greening programs. We had over 1,000 events last year. So that's just bringing in volunteers to help clean and green the city. Working with the mayor's office, CBD's neighborhood organizations, just random citizens throughout the city, government affairs. We look at proposed legislation, state, local, national, coordinating with the mayor's office, trying to highlight any impact and you know, make sure that we're meeting the needs. If a district supervisor has some concerns and there's something that we're either not doing or could be doing better, or it's an area that's not on our radar. Will work with all of the mayor's office and the supervisors as well. And then internal and external communication, media relations, proactive social media, but most importantly messaging around programs. So the tree maintenance program, property owner responsibility, permit reform, that's coming through the mayor's office. So a little bit more of our core programs, again, project design and development, city right of way engineering. So public works is responsible for the right of way and what seems pretty straightforward streets is anything but. You've got sidewalks, you've got curb ramps, you've got paving, you've got drainage, sewer mains, water mains under the street. You've got in a lot of jurisdictions, overhead wires by the MTA above the street. So it really is a critical collaborative effort. You've got to manage the flow of water. We've got hydraulic engineering. Every curb ramp design is done by this group. And because no curb ramp, if you've seen one curb ramp, you've seen one curb ramp, they're all different. The grading, the water flow, they're literally all different. So really important group here. And we do work for not just the public right of way, but also for buildings. So there's a lot of engineering work on buildings as well. Citywide structural engineering. We have the structural engineering arm of the entire city. Every project gets reviewed by the structural engineers. If there's a seismic event, this team is out there firsthand to track the seismic vulnerability of any building before any first responder can go in and potentially perform a rescue. That need to test that. We don't want building collapse. Also critical right now, some of their key projects, Halliday Plaza, Powell Street. So really working on the seismic review of those. Also recently did a lot of work out on. There was a rock slide on Telegraph Hill out there doing a lot of engineering work there. Architectural services, just what it sounds like. Commissioner Wolford knows this one quite well. A lot of architectural work is performed in house. Recent projects include the behavioral health project that I mentioned earlier. Also doing a lot of work around ESER projects for the public safety buildings and starting to get ahead of some of the potential projects that may be included in the upcoming bond, such as Ingleside or some of the neighborhood fire stations. Landscape architecture sounds just like what they're doing, landscape architecture work, but really have a core function. This group does a lot of larger projects. Did all the architecture design for the Southeast Community center and for the puc. That was a PUC project, but we did the landscape architecture, but also does a lot of smaller projects of greening and beautification of the city that are low cost, high impact that I don't think a lot of times get resonated. So one of them that they're doing is working for looking at some of the mid market Cedar District. Is there anything they could do there to help out? Also do a lot of work for ocii, the Office of Community Investment, where they do a lot of park work, a lot of rec. Park Work and other department park work, regulatory compliance and regulation. Sounds very boring, but it's very critical. A lot of projects need environmental review. We will work collaboratively with planning department on that. But they're also doing sites site assessment and remediation. So if you're going to trench or dig underground, this group will test to see what's under there. And is the toxic, is the soil contaminated? Are there toxins underground that aren't visible? So really important. Recent big success. Just did a critical project with the port on purity and some fendering. So do a lot of critical work that's on the front end of any project. Project delivery, citywide project management, again e cert. But really this is the delivery engine of public works. These are the staff that oversee their delivery of all capital projects. We manage the bonds, we manage the programs. That touches literally every single San Franciscan. I don't think there's one San Franciscan that isn't touched by the work that comes out of the project management team. And then with project management you need construction management. These are the folks that are actually out there in the field making sure that the construction contractor is safe, performing in accordance with what they should be doing, making sure that the right quantities are being delivered and installed. And we're not being ripped off. If they say they're delivering 10 square feet, they're actually doing 10 square feet and not five. So critical. We do a lot of that for the entire city. We do about a quarter of the PoC's work. So it's not just for public works projects. We do a lot of it for most of the city. Don't do much for the airport, but that 13.3 mile distance is a big reason why we also manage facility renewals. So Commissioner Wolf talked a little bit about Capital Planning Committee. The Capital Planning Committee a few years ago decided to centralize some of the facilities renewal project to public works. So some of the H Vac, some of the roof work is already being centralized. So some of what we're talking about, what are our core services, it's organically starting to happen. So we're now doing a lot of that work. A lot of work for the library, a lot of work for others where it's kind of our core DNA and we can gain economies of scale. We can have one contractor provide roof work or H Vac worker heating and cooling work at multiple locations with one contract. And we can gain some economy of scale. And then infrastructure development and permitting. This is one of the core functions that I don't think it's nearly as much press and I know I'm saying that more often, but I really think this one is true. Because this is the city's housing accelerator. We are the ones that does work for large development agreements in the public right away. So if you've been in the city for a long time, think back what mission Bay was 20 years ago, think what Mission Bay is now. A lot of the work in the public right away. This group managed Treasure Island. This group is heavily involved in Balboa Park, Park, Merced. A lot of these big development agreements. We're helping coordinate with the developer. We're helping maintain the public right away. A lot of affordable housing units. A lot of changes in infrastructure development in the city wrapping up. Thank you for sticking with me. Support services. This is also pretty critical that doesn't get as much attention. Private sector permitting. Private sector permitting is just that. There's a lot of discussion around permitting and trying to enhance it and make it more effective. That's really what this group does here as part of the reorg. We change the way we do some of our permitting. And so this group was really a coordination of development that will help economic revitalize the city. So they're really looking at permitting such as shared spaces and tables and chairs that will help the economic recovery happen. And and really has worked with Permit sf, the mayor's office to streamline and have a dedicated team focused on this. Health and safety is really just that, the safety of our employees. We've got a lot of staff out there working in the field. Whether it's pruning trees, cleaning the public right of way or working on a construction site, whether they're in a trench with shoring, this group really makes sure that we are safe. Looks at our data, looks at our workers comp bills, make sure we're doing everything we can. And this group won a platinum award for exceptional well being efforts so critical to the safety of our employees. And then HR hiring without hr, we're not out there cleaning the streets with hr. We're not out there building buildings, paving the road. We're not doing any of the key work we do. So a truly critical back of the house operation. And you've heard from Ms. Hill and her team previously, just does an excellent job filling positions and making sure that the employees are behaving according to city rules. And then the last operations. This is maybe the most core of everything we do. Street cleaning, mechanical street sweepings, street sweeping. You see with our apprenticeship program and people pushing brooms, you see Our general laborers driving trucks around the city. Everything we do the A frame support that we provide to public safety entities, police in particular. It is our most front and center role in the city. We do special events. I don't think that always gets highlighted whenever there's a special event. We I get almost a daily email of special events coming up and that may be something that's a large one off. Super Bowl 60 for instance, or activations of neighborhood night markets or other events happening or known bigger events. Carnival Pride, beta breakers. So we are doing all of that. The Pit Stop public toilet program. I think you know all about that. You're going to hear a little bit more about the Pit Stop program in a few minutes. The right of way, code enforcement and illegal sidewalk vending. I touched on on that. You're all pretty familiar with that street repair and paving. So of the blocks in the paving program, we do some of that internally. So we do our own. We have what's called the big gang and they go out there and do 100 or so blocks annually. So we do some of that internally as well as pothole repair. So pothole repair is a big element of the street repair and then building repair and maintenance. We do a lot of plumbing work, electrical work for the public safety organizations. We had an emergency at the library. We did some emergency plumbing work there. Really our role here is to maintain city assets and city buildings. Almost done. Thank you for your patience even in these difficult budget times. As we were asked the question, what are your core services and what aligns with the mayor's office? We did identify a couple priorities and initiatives that we will let them know about. So the first one is the PITSOP program. So I think you all know last year we made some reductions to that program. And here's where the greatness of the performance and planning team is demonstrated. We anticipated about an 18 to 20% spike in additional 311 requests around feces and biohazards. We're coming in at about 21%. So they nailed it. They nailed it. So if there's any additional money, we would ask to restate that program back to where it was prior to the reductions we made in the current year. And then we're working with some key stakeholders to look at a potential dog waste pilot program. So much of the waste on the public right away is not. It's from dogs and other animals. So we're trying to come up with a dedicated dog waste receptacles and bags that will impact key targeted areas. Still, finalizing the price, it'll be de minimis. It won't be a multimillion dollar ask. It'll be in a hundred thousand to a couple hundred thousand range. Still dotting the I's, crossing the T's. Didn't want to put a number here that we didn't really think was accurate. And then as you remember earlier in the presentation, the mayor's office said if you've got one time investments around it or other technology, if that could produce out your savings, we would visit that. And that's really what we're doing here. We've started a consolidated project management system and it was really narrowly focused on the project management, the construction management side. We're looking to expand it to the entire life cycle of a project from initial project intake. When someone may call someone at public works and say, I have an idea for this project, we can do the intake and start tracking it to when that project is complete and it gets into the financial statement as a fixed asset. And that could help the work we do. Because we deliver so many projects, we are in close coordination with the controller's office on the financial statement, finalize it and then how do we track the asset management of it? So the full lifecycle of it, about a $1.5 million ask. And there's lots of empirical research that shows if you're tracking an asset and you do the preventative maintenance, you can have anywhere from a 10 to 30, 35% savings is if you're doing it reactively when it fails. And the example I always use is a vehicle. A car is a good example of that. So that's our initiatives ask. So I'm excited about all three of them. And then finally, because it's a different process, just want to kind of highlight where we're at in the chart. It's always good to see visually where we're at. We are the red bar where we submitted the program inventory. We'll be back in February to seek approval. We'll hopefully have. We will have more clarification of the direction of our budget submittal and then the capital plan as identified and discussed earlier. You can see that's due in the right at the February, early March timeframe. And then June 6th when the mayor submits to the Board of Supervisors. Then we have the June review with the Budget and Finance Committee. Then it will get signed by the Mayor's office after full board approval in July and early early August. So with that, thank you so much for your time, your attentiveness. I talked A little longer than I thought. So apologies. And I'm here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you so much.
[63:28] Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Robertson.
[63:30] Speaker 7: Yeah, that was a lot.
[63:33] Speaker 1: That was a lot. I also realize this is a somewhat different budget process, but actually having the opportunity to hear from you in an extended presentation about the big picture, operation goals allocation rather than just focusing on the budget lines, personally, I find very helpful. Perhaps that is something to take forward that having that opportunity to really get the big picture is very helpful for me. A couple of comments, maybe questions before I hand it over to my colleagues here. First, really struck by a couple of things in your presentation. One, as you highlighted at the outset, the alignment between the work that the Public Works department does and the mayoral priorities and what in my own view make for a really robust, livable city, I think is really striking and is something that, that I will take with me into the budget review process. And I hope that my colleagues do and hope that the mayor and the board of Supervisors do as well, that there is very strong alignment between the functions of the Public Works department right now already all the incumbent functions and your vision going forward and the stated priorities for the city as articulated by the mayor. The second, and this is something we didn't talk about quite as much this in this briefing, but has been discussed in prior years, is how limited of a portion of the public works budget is the general fund. And so when we're looking at cuts, one of the things that is so challenging, and I recall this from last year's discussions on this, is that the general fund is only a relatively small, I'm not recalling the exact percentage, but a relatively small percentage of the overall work of the Public Works department. So when you need to cut, you have a smaller piece of the pie to cut from. And also there's a lot of the of the functions of the department that are preserved because they are being funded through other mechanisms. But those mechanisms are sticky. They, they're not flexible. There's not the opportunity to cut or borrow from those. So really struck by that. And then final thing that struck me. And then I have two minor questions. The impact of HR1, on the citywide budget and on public works. And the way that you're having to think about it, I think is something one is very striking to me and I think is something that should be talked about loudly as to why departments across the city are needing to identify potentially really significant cuts because of how the city is needing to manage its cash flow in light of the revenue impacts. I Think that's very important. Two questions. One, last year we had talked about the cuts to the apprenticeship program and you mentioned that program. Here I saw the items for potential restoration or new spending. Curious what and it's okay if you don't have this answer now. This is something we can come to prior to February 12, but curious what your thinking is around the apprenticeship program going forward. And then second question. Similarly, should we anticipate briefings prior to the February 12th vote when we'll have some further details?
[67:07] Speaker 7: Commissioner Vice Chair Bloom, regarding the apprenticeship program, I'm not really the best person. I'm not well positioned to answer that. But we certainly can come back. As of now, I think it's like many of these programs still very much to be determined. I will highlight, I would consider the apprenticeship program core because that is the pathway to get the employees to clean the streets, to prune the trees, to maintain the buildings. So without that pathway, my fear would be that we would have a hard time filling those positions. And some of those positions are very demanding, challenging and hard to fill. In terms of the briefing, Absolutely. I will make myself and the team will work with commission chair Secretary Fuller on scheduling those in the coming weeks.
[67:54] Speaker 10: Great.
[67:55] Speaker 1: Thank you for both of those before I open it up to my colleagues. Chair Parmenter.
[68:00] Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you so much. Big budget and a lot in there, I guess. Just a couple questions I had. I mean, looking at the mayor's priorities and you know, recognizing the overlap, you know, I guess part of me wonders, is the overlap actually such that there should be more, that the budget should go up, not down. And obviously everyone in this room probably would love that. Maybe that's not real, but it sort of of it's striking to me a little bit as I think about the investments that can be made are being made. And a little bit to the like one time cost piece, you think about it maybe more on the technology side, I think that makes sense. But like are there things in the 26 cycle that if you were to invest even more in, whether it's vending or some of the other things that are like clearly in the mix right this second that could have lasting impact and potentially could decrease long term costs? You know, are there more opportunities to push on a few of those additional pieces and to say, look like we're taking on this huge piece, this is actually enabling economic revitalization and therefore actually we if we could take not the 10 million more, but I'm making up numbers now, the 20 or 30 million dollars more, what does that actually do. And can you. Could you do more of that in 2026 that maybe would let you come back down?
[69:26] Speaker 7: 27 chair department. That's a great question. And I think the way I would answer that, if I had my magic eight ball or wand who could control things, I think there are some potential opportunities there, but I'm looking at a narrow silo and just public works. But asking the question, what are your core services, not just for public works, but for the entire city, is a potential opportunity. And the mayor's office is, I think, seeing that as a potential opportunity. That said, I'm looking at it very much as a narrow focus. And I don't know what all of the competing priorities are or where there may be other economies of scale, but I do think there is the potential for it. But it's really ultimately a policy decision for the mayoral office and what they want to do, knowing that they have a lot more competing priorities than the Department of Public Works.
[70:21] Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, totally. And, you know, I imagine you ask for 100 things and you get, you know, three of them, and that's how this will play out. But I do think it's worth echoing the things louder and above and beyond probably what you're echoing in this, where you can. Because I do think there's a lot of alignment there. And, you know, I would hate to say, oh, we didn't get this thing because we didn't ask for it. I guess the second just observation hearing, you go through all the core services, There are a lot of services where it was like, we do some of these things and somebody else does this and this and this. And I kept hearing that a lot. I don't know that there's a thing to be done there necessarily. I think it's that way for lots of reasons. Some I probably understand and some I probably don't. But it may just be worth something to think about over time. Not saying it should centralize over here or here or not, and I have no actual opinion on which direction. It was something that kept repeating. When I hear that as many times as I heard it, it makes me just think there's overhead here and here and here and here. If all these different groups are operating similar functions. And I would, you know, if there is overhead, I would rather spend that money on some of the other things.
[71:35] Speaker 9: I don't think that Gerald and I have the ability to raise our hand.
[71:38] Speaker 6: All the microphones go for it.
[71:41] Speaker 8: Raised my hand.
[71:42] Speaker 9: Commissioner Wolf, if I could qualify that for a moment, I don't think that Mr. Robertson is in a position to actually make policy directives for the Department of Public Works. That resides with leadership, I think, who then report to the mayor. So I think Mr. Robertson's job is to actually isn't, if I correct me if I'm wrong, but is to assist the leadership in reporting out how to make the numbers work.
[72:02] Speaker 7: That's correct. If any proposals are out there, I not me, the team who's far more talented at that than I am, we'll crunch the numbers to see if there is any savings. Again, any potential opportunities. You're right. There is some duplicative services that are all over the city and most jurisdictions have that. And so that's really a topic for the mayor's office. But again, I would agree with Commissioner Wolford. My narrow perspective is just on public works and there's conversations happening that I'm not privy to nor really should be.
[72:32] Speaker 9: So I do have my hands up. So on page 11, I was just going to ask a question. So, Bruce, under the mayor's budget process, first step, the last point was who else is providing similar services? And you qualified it as within the city. So a question would be so that then begets the answer that then has to be provided from city budget. So a question I would ask, and this is really less to you than to Director Short, is the department looking at who else besides the city provides services so that the the city doesn't have to spend city resources?
[73:08] Speaker 3: Thank you, Commissioner Wolford. CARLA short, Director Yes, I think we are looking at what are the functions this is getting a little bit at both of your questions, Chair parmenters as well. What are the functions that are being provided by us and what are the functions that may also be provided by another department that are similar functions? And I think the intent behind that question was the mayor's office to look at maybe are there ways that we can gain efficiencies and reduce overhead? Similarly, we have, at least from our department, we have answered the question about whether some of that work is being done by outside entities, again with the same intent. The mayor's office needs to have the information to know what they may want to do. So we did include that information in our spreadsheet that we're submitting for the most part, that we're submitting back to the mayor or did just submit back to the mayor's office.
[74:13] Speaker 4: I want to thank everybody, especially the accounting finance team. I know this is a journey that you take every year, and I'm glad we get there successfully every Year. A couple questions starting on slide 15. One of the things seemingly as an assumption here is that a lot of the cuts, the fees, the indirect work we did in the current fiscal budget, we're not going to be deploying those again. We're saying we've done that. We've kind of. We've leaned the house out. Is that. That's my first question. Am I operating correctly?
[74:51] Speaker 7: I think that's a fair assumption. Commissioner Turner. We always look to see if we can make any other reductions, and we've identified some. I don't want to say that we won't do anything, but we did a lot of scrubbing as part of the reorgan to get where we are.
[75:05] Speaker 4: Got it. Thank you. So this current budget and this budget process based on core priorities and services, it does technically seem that we are increasing our budget. Our current operating budget is just under $410 million. This is based on slide 15, 440 million. So we are technically making a request or an increase. Now, I'm sure most of that's salary overheads, and to your point, you know, mous, that's going to absorb a lot of that. But technically we are asking for a budget increase. Is that correct?
[75:40] Speaker 7: Yes and no. Technically, as part of the budget process, there's the budget as approved and signed by the mayor last year, and then it rolls over into what's called the base budget. And the base budget will assume any ongoing fixed costs that can adjust. So, yes, it is increasing, but it's primarily driven by the salary increases from the mou. And debt service was, I think, the other big item that's a fixed budget. We have no control with it. Most other departments are in the same situation where for that same reason, because labor makes up such a large percentage of most departments, that it's going to increase slightly. And I think because we have a pretty large debt service, because we carry debt service for certificates of participation and other debt instruments, and that's just a fixed schedule based on the principal and interest you're paying out, that it's really fixed costs that are really driving that for every department at this point. And then when the instructions come in, it's based off that base budget, not necessarily what was approved last year. And the controller's office makes all of those calculations and determinations for the mayor's office and all the departments on slide 16.
[76:54] Speaker 4: I don't think I really understand the. How the data is being reflected in terms of reduction. What is the 82 of what I understand our cost allocation plan and what our indirect rate is. I also understand and thank the team that you guys have worked to reduce that and streamline that rate. Is that what this 82% reflects that work?
[77:20] Speaker 7: That's exactly, Commissioner, what that reflects. It's just the reduction of how much goes on top of salaries.
[77:25] Speaker 4: Got it. And you know, just for public record, I'm just going to always advocate we should go in the other direction. It limits our ability to invest. And you wouldn't have to have a category asset for two, $10 million if we could just charge the rates that we actually need. The last thing I just wanted to make sure as we go through this process. I know there was some discussion around maybe having budget hearings with commissioners if necessary, but I think I want to echo that. I really like this process we're going through. You know, there are some things that I think that you guys are just going to have to do behind scenes. I'm glad to see the mayor's office and others here. So it's a collaborative process and just coming to us to make sure when we know what our core responsibilities, what our core services are, but also the budget from now until the summer is going to be very iterative. And so I think by providing us this kind of baseline where we are and then kind of bringing us along collectively through this next six months, I just want to thank you and the team for what did seem like a long presentation. But its robustness, I think really gets us on a really firm foundation for the next six months. So thank you for that.
[78:33] Speaker 8: Thank you.
[78:34] Speaker 7: Thank you.
[78:34] Speaker 1: Commissioner Turner, do we have any other questions from the commission?
[78:43] Speaker 5: So my question is echoing what Commissioner Sini brought up, I believe last year during similar budget meeting to overcome a deficit, you can create revenue. Correct. So because I run my small, tiny restaurant in the most political space in San Francisco, there's a lot of illegal dumping that we seem can't hold these folks responsible. So is there any kind of movement on creating citations folks that doing this illegally? But you know, over time, this small percentage of the the citation can become like a generated revenue for Department of Public Works. So is that momentum?
[79:30] Speaker 7: That's a very good question. And yes, there is. So in fact, not only is there a movement on it, we talked yesterday that we've been working with the treasurer, tax collector going to start the process to really have them help and assist us in terms of trying to collect any issues and citations against illegal dumping. So we are both trying to, we've been able to fill some of those vacant positions of the One team that I mentioned earlier that's out there doing the enforcement of illegal dumping. And then we're also working, gonna start working more proactively with the treasurer, tax collector and their bureau of Delinquent Revenue to try to enforce and do what have them use the mechanisms and the tools in their toolbox that we don't have to try to make sure that those fines are collected. And, and we will continue to issue. And we are seeing an uptick on the amount of site tickets we are issuing. So yes, that is happening.
[80:22] Speaker 5: That would be great. Because where all the priorities of these core services happen in this few neighborhoods where I feel like we hold some folks accountable, this can decrease and some of the services can just move, get shifted to some something else. So it's great to know.
[80:41] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[80:42] Speaker 7: Thank you.
[80:45] Speaker 1: Thank you. Any other questions from the commission? Yep.
[80:52] Speaker 10: Make a comment. Just to thank you guys for all the work that you guys have done. It's probably just worth putting in context. You know, you're looking at like a two year citywide deficit of a billion dollars. And you know, Public Works is a very small piece of that. So I think we all understand that they're not going to balance the budget off of Public Works. But I think what's put you in a particularly difficult position is that so many of what's been identified as the core services and what residents of the city really see and experience every day are generally the things that are funded by the general fund. And so I know that puts everybody in a really difficult space when having these conversations. So I just wanted to, I think Bruce, in particular, you've done a good job of sort of making that point and putting that in context and making that clear that, you know, you can't cut, I don't know, some of the infrastructure design services, for example, as a to cut the general fund. And so I just, I appreciate the work you guys are doing on this and we look forward to seeing where it all shakes out.
[82:01] Speaker 7: Thank you, Commissioner and commissioners, thank you all. I really appreciate the support, the advocacy and the questions that make us think about what we're presenting and how we're thinking about it in a different light. So just on behalf of myself personally and the entire budget team, thank you for your thoughtfulness and help, which is really what you're all doing. So thank you.
[82:22] Speaker 1: Thank you. All right, hearing, seeing, hearing. No further discussion. We'll open this to public comment. Secretary Fuller.
[82:32] Speaker 2: Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on item four, the budget proposal. May line up against the wall to audiences left. And if you're commenting from outside the chamber, press the raise your hand button in the webinar or press star3 on your phone to be recognized. And no one has come forward to speak on this, and we don't have any callers who raised their hand. So that concludes public comment on this.
[83:07] Speaker 1: Thank you, Secretary Fuller. And I believe we do not need the final item on the agenda.
[83:11] Speaker 2: Is that correct? That is correct. Item 5 is not necessary since we did not exceed the limit of 15 minutes for general public comment.
[83:18] Speaker 1: Thank you. Well, thank you, Director short. Thank you, Mr. Robertson. This was a very informative conversation and I look forward to the next round of seeing the details put to paper on this. I adjourned this meeting. The Public Works Commission will meet next on February 10th or, sorry, February 12th, at 11am in this room. The Sanitation and Streets Commission will meet again on Monday, April 20th, 20th, at 10am in City hall, room 416. We are adjourning now at 12:29pm thank you.
[84:12] Speaker 8: Sam.