Building Inspection Commission (BIC)

BUDGET & ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE

Committee Meeting of January 29, 1998

Adopted February 12, 1998

1660 Mission Street, Room 6034, San Francisco, CA 94103

MINUTES

The meeting of the BIC Budget & Organization Committee was called to order at 9:40 a.m. by Chair Vasquez.

1.	ROLL CALL - Roll call was taken and a quorum was certified.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS/STAFF PRESENT:

Armando Vasquez, Chair	Mona Cereghino, Vice-Chair

Maria Banico, Commission Secretary

D.B.I. REPRESENTATIVES:

William Wong, Deputy Director for Inspection Services

Jim Hutchinson, Deputy Director for Permit Services

Carla Johnson, Assistant to the Director

Paulette Hooey, Manager for the Administrative Services Division

2.	Report, discussion and possible action on the proposed budget of the Department of Building Inspection for Fiscal Year 1998-99.

Chair Vasquez welcome Commissioner Sharon Mark who had come to observe the proceedings. He then opened discussions on the latest budget draft.

Commissioner Cereghino asked if the rent for 1650 Mission Street was reflected in the budget.

Ms. Hooey said that the line item entries for the rent of office space at 1650 Mission Street were included and had been corrected.

Chair Vasquez asked if the expenditure side in the new budget proposal was under the projected revenues and if the cuts discussed at the last Committee Meeting were already shown.

Ms. Hooey said that the expenditures were less than the projected revenues. The changes discussed were shown in the latest draft distributed for this meeting and were already shown in the previous draft distributed to the full Commission on January 21, 1998.

Commission Secretary Banico said that the difference between revenues and expenditures was about $400.

Ms. Hooey said that there would be further changes in the expenditure side because the salaries will have to be adjusted to incorporate the cost of living increases for next fiscal year.

Chair Vasquez asked what impact this would have on the draft budget.

Ms. Hooey said that the difference would not be significant. She estimated that the adjustment for the whole department would range from $100, 000 to $150,000.

Chair Vasquez asked if any other documents needed to be prepared for submittal to the Mayor's Office.

Ms. Hooey said that the two documents drafted to date comprise all of the required submittal to the Mayor's Office.

Ms. Johnson said that one of the two required documents, the Executive Summary, has been formatted per guidelines from the Mayor's Office. The text used was from last year's Executive Summary and was updated to reflect the direction given at the two previous Committee meetings. She discussed additional changes that could be incorporated into the Executive Summary:

-	Timeliness could be added to Strategic Issues

-	Under Initiatives, the One Stop Program needs to be updated

Commission Secretary Banico said that the reference to Community Outreach Program in last year's Executive Summary was because the department was requesting funding for the Code Enforcement Outreach Program. The reference in this year's Executive Summary may not be appropriate.

Ms. Hooey agreed. She also said that the heading "New Initiatives" was not necessary. She recommended that the new programs and divisions be incorporated into the text of the second page of the Executive Summary.

Ms. Johnson said that the description on the Project Management proposal was revised to provide more information on how the new staff will be deployed to backfill for current staff who would be assigned to major projects. Ms. Johnson also noted that the Disability Access Division (DAD) staff was moved to the Inspection Services Program.

Chair Vasquez asked if this would include the inspection/response-to-complaints function of the DAD.

Deputy Director Wong said that this function could be handled by the Code Enforcement Division (CED) under Inspection Services.

Ms. Johnson said that with the lawsuit, the intent was to keep Disability Access personnel in one group.

Deputy Director Hutchinson said that the lawsuit has been set aside. He thought that the inspections related to complaints could be handled by CED since there was no more backlog.

Deputy Director Wong agreed and said that there are only about 8 or so complaints per month.

Chair Vasquez asked how this will be reflected in the department's organizational chart.

Deputy Director Wong said that a new organizational chart will be submitted with the budget.

Ms. Johnson referred to the goals on permit issuance in the draft Executive Summary. She said that the statistics used do not reflect the fact that all electrical and plumbing permits are issued over the counter. This is based on Director Chiu's wish to focus specifically on building permit issuance. If electrical and plumbing permits were counted in, the percentage of permits issued over the counter would go up.

Deputy Director Wong said that the One Stop Permit Processing Program should also be mentioned with its own statistics.

Ms. Hooey said that the administration goals need to be quantified.

Commissioner Cereghino asked if progress reports are provided to the BIC on these performance criteria.

Chair Vasquez said that reports had been received in the past.

Ms. Hooey said that the City, led by the Controller's Office and the Budget Analyst, is moving towards quantitative data requirements. Time spent will be captured in timesheets and performance will then be assessed using quantitative performance standards. She said that she has been setting up index codes for various types of activities in the department.

Commissioner Cereghino asked if there was already an established timeline to implement activity based timesheets.

Ms. Hooey said that the City has been moving towards a mission driven budget process for the last couple of years. She said that it seems that this may be the year when the Controller's Office will start requiring task reporting on timesheets to measure performance. She said that this is conjecture on her part. She said that they have also requested for a three-year budget proposal for this budget cycle.

Commissioner Cereghino asked who would be responsible for verifying the accuracy of reporting time spent on specific activities in the time sheet.

Ms. Hooey said that the managers review the timesheets. She said that this process is already partially in place in the department. She has set up activity codes which are being used by some divisions, for example there is an activity code for training.

Chair Vasquez asked how long the process has been in place.

Ms. Hooey said that the Controller's Office required the system since DBI became a department. There was already preparatory work even when the department was part of the Department of Public Works.

Chair Vasquez asked how staff has reacted to this reporting system and if there was any resistance especially from employees who had to use more types of activity codes.

Ms. Hooey said that there has been no resistance. There are some divisions that have been more proactive than others. For example, the Technical Services Division has just requested for more activity codes to have a finer breakdown of their tasks. She said that she provides activity codes to managers when requested.

Chair Vasquez said that there should be a report to the whole Commission on the procedures for reporting time used on different activities.

Ms. Hooey asked why there was a reference to expanding community outreach under Administration.

Ms. Johnson said that this was because the Customer Services Division was being moved to the Administration Program.

Commission Secretary Banico said that the BIC's adopted goals on administration included a goal to develop a dynamic budget process. One of the subgoals is to prepare two budgets for low and high revenues. She said that this budget proposal shows revenues and expenditures equal. The expenditure side includes salaries for permanent employees for three quarters of the fiscal year, meaning the salary allocation will go up for next fiscal year. This might put the department in a lay-off situation when the revenues go down.

Ms. Hooey said that there will always be a surplus. This is the first time that the department is being allowed to budget to full projected revenues. Once approved, the Controller's Office will not approve expenditures over what has been budgeted. This is also probably why the Controller's Office is asking for a three-year budget proposal.

Chair Vasquez said that the Committee could return to this discussion at a later point in the agenda and that he wanted to go back to the discussions on the Executive Summary. He said that the narrative is too skimpy and needs to provide more detail.

Ms. Hooey said that the amount of detail presented may be acceptable to the Mayor's Office already. She said that there were no constraints on the department on how detailed they want to be in their narratives. However, the narratives will be cut down to facilitate review by the Board of Supervisors.

Chair Vasquez said that the Executive Summary should be more detailed to be able to provide a clearer picture to the Budget Analyst and the Controller. Then, they will be well informed prior to forwarding the budget to the Board of Supervisors.

Chair Vasquez than solicited discussion on the three-year budget.

Ms. Hooey said that she does not have details yet on the format and requirements for the three-year budget. She anticipates that the Mayor's Office is looking for programs that have an impact on the city.

Chair Vasquez asked what wiggle room is available on the projections.

Ms. Hooey said that the revenues used are conservative. On the expenditure side, she had a discussion with Mr. Roan Michaels, Manager of MIS, who conveyed to her that $100,000 of his requested professional services budget is flexible.

Chair Vasquez said that the City Attorney's budget is another source. He said that the budget document should have the $1,000,000 entry broken down among the programs. He also said that the total amount should use the projected annual expenditures given the information the department has at hand on the monthly billings.

Ms. Hooey said that using the monthly billing, the annual City Attorney's projected billing would be about $800,000.

Chair Vasquez said that the justification for the cut would be that the projection was based on actual expenditures to date. He also wants to send a message that there should be a serious attempt to keep this expenditure down.

Commission Secretary Banico said that maybe there is a need for the BIC to talk about criteria and to give guidance on the department's use of legal services. For example, the BIC makes up about 5% to 7% of the monthly billings. There are no guidelines to date on when the City Attorneys should attend meetings such as Committee meetings.

Commissioner Cereghino said that if the department is being allowed to budget up to full revenue levels, it makes sense to keep the City Attorney's allocations high.

Chair Vasquez said that once allocated, the funds get expended to the full budget. It becomes budget driven. He said that this matter could be discussed at the full Commission hearing.

Commissioner Mark asked if there is also a city-wide budget process and allocations.

Ms. Hooey said that there are contributions from different departments into the city-wide allocations. DBI contributed a small amount in the past and is not being required to contribute this year.

Chair Vasquez summarized the discussions thus far and asked how the Committee will proceed.

Ms. Hooey said that the three-year budget needs to be prepared.

Chair Vasquez requested more information on the process and format at the next full Commission meeting.

Commission Secretary Banico asked for clarification on the finalization of the budget documents. She proposed that the Executive Summary and the actual budget document be provided to the full BIC. The Committee members could then review the drafts and forward written comments to staff on a separate track.

Deputy Director Wong said that the Executive Summary could be revised by early next week so that the BIC could get a draft that incorporates the discussion at this meeting.

Chair Vasquez agreed.

Ms. Hooey said that the budget document will also be revised to add in all the line item justifications.

3.	Review and approval of the Minutes of the Budget & Organizational Committee meeting of January 15, 1998.

Commissioner Cereghino moved, seconded by Commissioner Vasquez, to approve the Minutes of the Meeting of January 15, 1998 as prepared.

The motion passed by unanimous vote.

4.	Review and approval of the Minutes of the Budget & Organizational Committee meeting of January 20, 1998.

Commissioner Cereghino moved, seconded by Commissioner Vasquez, to approve the Minutes of the Meeting of January 20, 1998 as prepared.

The motion passed by unanimous vote.

5.	Discussion and possible action to set a meeting and identify items that could be placed on the agenda of future meetings of the Committee.

Chair Vasquez requested a report on the actual year-to-date revenues and expenditures compared to the budget allocations for the next full Commission meeting. He said that the report on the surplus funds will be the subject of a future committee meeting. The committee can decide on whether there is a need to meet again on the proposed budget and the meeting schedule after the full Commission meeting. The committee members can determine at that point how the Executive Summary has developed and what work needs to be done on the three-year budget.

Ms. Hooey said that there is an annual report generated on the surplus funds. Chair Vasquez and Commissioner Cereghino said that the full Commission should get a copy of that report.

6.	Public Comment: The Committee will take public comment on matters within the Committee's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda.

There was no public comment received at this point in the proceedings.

7.	Adjournment.

There being no other business, and on a motion made by Chair Vasquez, seconded by Vice-Chair Cereghino, the meeting adjourned at 12:15 p.m.

The motion passed by unanimous vote.

________________________________

MARIA BANICO

Commission Secretary

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