Building Inspection Commission (BIC)

BUDGET & ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE

Committee Meeting of February 12, 1998

Adopted January 15, 1999

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

The meeting of the BIC Budget & Organization Committee was called to order at 9:45 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:

Frank Chiu, Director

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.

Ms. Hooey noted that there was a new summary expenditure sheet marked Draft 7a that was prepared. The change from the previous draft is a decrease in the work order amount to DPW. This change will also need to be incorporated in the Work Order Summary Page.

Director Chiu said that the department was also proposing additional expenditures to support the Apartment Unit Conversion Ordinance that is being sponsored by Supervisor Teng and is currently being reviewed by the Board of Supervisors. He said that in order to carry out the mandate of this proposed legislation, DBI will have to hire another Senior Housing Inspector and allocate an additional $40,000 for City Attorney expenses.

Mr. Chiu said that the Work Orders budget will also need to include $55,000 for payment to the Assessor's Office for sending out the billing for the Apartment License Fees.

Director Chiu said that he is also considering a suggestion by staff of the Fire Department to work order to SFFD some positions in the One Stop Permit Coordination Program. He said that some employees from the Fire Department have expressed an interest in applying for the positions in the One Stop Program. However, the retirement benefits for employees of the Fire Department are better than DBI's. He said that he would want to discuss at some future time whether some One-Stop positions should be work ordered to the Fire Department.

Chair Vasquez asked if the expenditures exceeded the projected revenues at this point.

Ms. Hooey said that the expenditures are already over revenues even without the $55,000 to the Assessor and the Apartment Conversion Ordinance proposal.

Chair Vasquez said that he did not support an automatic increase in the City Attorney's budget allocation on the Apartment Conversion Ordinance. The need for legal services is hypothetical at this point and the BIC is still trying to work with the City Attorney's Office on reducing the billing.

Director Chiu agreed on deleting the $40,000 proposed increase in City Attorney's expenditure and requested that the Senior Housing Inspector be added to next fisal year's budget.

Ms. Roberta Caravelli, Citizen Review, said that the BIC is spending too much time discussing the City Attorney's Billing. There needs to be line item projections so that the BIC can have line item veto.

Chair Vasquez asked for more information on the $55,000 for the Assessor's Office.

Director Chiu said that in the past, the department sent out the bills and collected the revenue (about $3 million) from Apartment License Fees. He said that DBI proposed an ordinance that was approved by the Board of Supervisors last year to have the bills sent out and collected by the Assessor's Office. He said that he thought that the department could not negotiate on the $55,000 at this point and is stuck with this legislation.

Ms. Hooey said that the $55,000 is funding a full-time position at the Assessor's Office. On the request for a Senior Housing Inspector, Ms. Hooey said that the department could request for supplemental appropriation for this current fisal year's budget and can request Supervisor Teng to incorporate this allocation into the Apartment Unit Conversion Ordinance.

Director Chiu agreed that this was the better way to fund this position.

Commissioner Cereghino said that the Commission should be able to review the various on-going and new programs in the three-year budget. The three-year plan also has to project for code development needs such as additional staff for the next three years.

Director Chiu said that he wants to get ahead on the code development work. He said that Chief Building Inspector Laurence Kornfield is preparing a work plan to be submitted to the Commission.

Chair Vasquez asked if the $55,000 for the Assessor/Tax Collector's Office had been incorporated in Draft 7a.

Ms. Hooey said that the amount was not yet shown because she does not yet have the code for this item from the Controller's Office. She said it is also not yet shown in the Work Order Summary. Ms. Hooey said that there is $125,000 allocated for MIS that can be used to offset this $55,000.

Chair Vasquez asked why the whole $125,000 should be taken out instead of just reducing it by $55,000.

Ms. Hooey said that she was told by Mr. Roan Michaels, the MIS Manager, that the $125,000 allocation is not necessary. She said that there will be additional changes/increases in the expenditure side. She is waiting, at this point, for information on the salary changes for SEIU personnel that are effective as of March 1998. Also, she will have to make the necessary adjustments on the approved positions from this fiscal year's budget that have been "TX-ed" or substituted by other positions. Once she has the final list of TX-ed positions, she would then know what positions to substitute, eliminate or add on to the budget request.

Commission Secretary Banico asked if the TX-ed positions would need line item justifications.

Ms. Hooey said that they would.

Chair Vasquez said that he is nervous because he does not know what the magnitude of these changes are.

Ms. Hooey said that she also did not know, at the present time, the magnitude of these changes.

Director Chiu said that he felt sure that the changes would not be too large and that it is not a concern.

Chair Vasquez said he wanted to discuss the Executive Summary at this point.

Commissioner Cereghino asked if the Executive Summary was patterned after last year's document or if it have a required format. She said that there was so much background information on the department that made the document longer than necessary.

Director Chiu said that all departments are required to submit background information. He said that this has been the tradition. This is also needed because the players change all the time. He said most of the people in the Mayor's Office who will be reviewing the budget are new.

Commissioner Cereghino said that the Executive Summary was very general and the Strategic Issues do not pop out.

Chair Vasquez agreed that the Executive Summary was very general. He also noted that "Strategic Issues" was used as a heading on page 1 and page 2 but the contents do not match.

Ms. Hooey suggested that the gist of the text on page 2 could be inserted under the Strategic Issues listed on page 1. For example, the explanation on the Technical Services Division could be listed under "Assume a leadership role ... code development."

Commissioner Cereghino asked if the Strategic Issues on page 1 could be deleted.

Director Chiu said that this was a required format component from the Mayor's Office.

Commission Secretary Banico suggested that the Strategic Issues on page 1 be rephrased to read as issues and use the Strategic Issues on page 2, which are proposed actions, as the response to these issues.

Ms. Caravelli said that she agreed with Ms. Hooey. The first bullet could start with "Increase the accuracy ..." then the matching actions or divisions on page 2 could be indented under this line. In response to Chair Vasquez's comment that "Increasing the accuracy of plans" is a result of Ms. Caravelli's testimony, Ms. Caravelli said that her issues are simple cases. She cited extension of permits (e.g. One such permit expired in 1985 and was issued in 1998) and issuance of permits to applicants who do not have the authority from the property owner to take out a permit.

Chair Vasquez said that the Executive Summary reference to "Lead Paints" should delete the "s" and also include the word "exterior."

Commissioner Cereghino asked if interior lead paint was not a concern also.

Chair Vasquez said that the ordinance and the program addresses exterior lead paint only. He recommended further minor changes to the Executive Summary text such as listing the Mission Bay project before the stadium and using "Board of Supervisors" instead of "Board."

Ms. Hooey said that the text should include ordinance numbers.

Chair Vasquez said that the description of the Disabled Access Division is not clear and needs to be expanded. He said that the phrase "step up enforcement at the front end," is not accurate and is not easily understood by the lay person.

Director Chiu explained that staff is putting more efforts at plan checking and on giving out information so as to avoid enforcement at the end of the project.

Chair Vasquez said that enforcement is not part of plan checking at the front end.

Ms. Caravelli also suggested that the Project Management description not use words such as "key players" and that "positions" should be used.

Ms. Hooey said that the descriptions in the Executive Summary should be similar to the description in the line item justifications.

Chair Vasquez asked where the One Stop Program would be lodged. There was a discrepancy between the budget and the organizational chart.

Director Chiu said that it should be with Permit Services.

Deputy Director Wong said that he has been working on this program and it should be lodged under his Inspection Services Program. This would also create a more balanced organizational chart.

Director Chiu said that the number of divisions or boxes under each program is not important. Inspection Services has bigger boxes and Permit Services has more boxes.

Ms. Hooey said that functionally the One Stop Program should be under Inspection Services.

Director Chiu agreed.

Ms. Caravelli said that the description of Housing Inspection Services (HIS) is not clear and "routine apartment inspections" should be expanded.

Commissioner Cereghino said that the description should also be clear that there are two separate functions: code enforcement and routine inspections. There is a need to plan for these functions separately.

Chair Vasquez asked Ms. Hooey if the performance measures for Administration were sufficient.

Ms. Hooey said that she did not understand the text. It seemed to mean that Administration would have to take on the role of making projections on the construction trends in San Francisco and other relevant areas.

Chair Vasquez suggested using performance measures that quantified improvements, e.g., City Attorney's billings, customer services, etc.

Commission Secretary Banico suggested that if the current text is to be retained that it be revised to "prepare and track budget based on construction trends ..." Administration Services could then rely on construction trends information from such institutions as UC Berkeley, etc.

Ms. Hooey agreed. She said that she knew of some good sources on construction trends and research.

Commissioner Cereghino agreed with Chair Vasquez's recommendation. The quantified improvements should also include follow up on public input to the BIC. The follow-up and support staff work can be measured.

Chair Vasquez said that the justification on the increase in City Attorney budget on pages 20 and 26 is confusing.

Ms. Hooey said that the language will make sense to the Budget Analyst.

Commission Secretary Banico asked if this current year's City Attorney budget should also be allocated between the two programs.

Director Chiu agreed. He also asked Chair Vasquez and Commissioner Cereghino if there is a need to add numbers to explain the 12% increase in workload.

Chair Vasquez said that this would help. He noted that there were numbers provided in other parts of the Executive Summary.

3.	Review and approval of the Minutes of the Budget & Organizational Committee meeting of January 29, 1998.

Commissioner Cereghino moved, seconded by Commissioner Vasquez, to approve the Minutes of the Meeting of January 29, 1998 as prepared. The motion passed by unanimous vote.

4.	Discussion on the format, content and guidelines for the preparation of a three-year budget for the Department of Building Inspection for Fiscal Years 1998-2001.

Ms. Hooey said that she is preparing a spread sheet starting with this year's budget into the next two fiscal years. She has also provided the Mayor's Office with the budget for the two previous fiscal years. She had been informed by the Mayor's Office that there is no deadline on the three-year budget and that this can be submitted as close as possible to the February 20, 1998 deadline.

Commissioner Cereghino said that the three-year budget should have input from Laurence Kornfield on the work to be done for the codes.

Director Chiu said that Mr. Kornfield is preparing a workplan. The deadline that the BIC had requested for the workplan is April.

Chair Vasquez asked when the three-year budget would be ready. He said that he wanted to ensure some review by the Committee and the full BIC.

Commission Secretary Banico said that if the three-year budget is not ready by the February 18th BIC meeting, the BIC could provide policy input at that time to DBI staff to incorporate into the three-year budget.

Ms. Caravelli urged the Committee to include allocations in the three-year plan that would improve the way the public accesses public information. She said that there are serious problems in DBI in accessing public documents. She said that she had requested a copy of a document in a current file on February 2, 1998. She has not received this document to date.

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.

There was no discussion on this agenda item.

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 11:50 a.m.

The motion passed by unanimous vote.

________________________________

MARIA BANICO

Commission SecretaryÇã