Budget Committee
BUILDING INSPECTION COMMISSION (BIC)
Department of Building Inspection (DBI)
BUDGET & ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE
Tuesday, January 23, 2001 at 1:00 p.m.
Adopted July 18, 2001
City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 416
MINUTES
The meeting of the Budget & Organization Committee was called to order at 1:20 p.m. by President Fillon.
1. Roll Call - Roll call was taken and a quorum was certified.
COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:
Alfonso Fillon, President Bobbie Sue Hood, Vice-President
Esther Marks, Commissioner
Ann Aherne, Secretary
D.B.I. REPRESENTATIVES:
Frank Chiu, Director
Amy Lee, Assistant Director
Taras Madison, Manager Administration & Finance
2. 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.
3. Report, discussion and possible action on the proposed budget of the Department of Building Inspection for Fiscal Year 2001-2002.
President Fillon stated that this was a very informal meeting and the Commissioners could bring up any items they were interested in at this time. President Fillon asked if there was any staff report.
Taras Madison, Manager of Administration and Finance, thanked the Commission and stated that she had handed out a brief memo describing some of the information that was requested at the last BIC meeting and in particular some MIS information requested by Commissioner Marks. Ms. Madison said that Commissioner Marks had asked what was being done in the MIS Department this current year, particularly on PTIS and Ms. Madison said that Commissioner Marks had requested greater detail on what the Department is requesting in professional services for this year. Ms. Madison said that the first thing she had included in the package was a professional services line item explanation. Ms. Madison said that this explanation was similar to the other line item explanations that were included in the information at the previous meeting. Ms. Madison said that this included permanent salaries. Ms. Madison said that this would explain why $1.8M was being requested for professional services. Ms. Madison stated that the second handout that she had attached was the MIS Professional Services summary received from MIS Manager Marcus Armstrong. Ms. Madison said that this was a summary of what is going on with MIS and the PTIS system. Ms. Madison said that MIS and particularly PTIS is a six-phase project and this current fiscal year the Department is in phases three and four. Ms. Madison said that Mr. Armstrong had explanations of what was being done in this current fiscal year and next fiscal year would include phases four and five with the emphasis on online services and the Internet. Ms. Madison referred the Committee to the line item for field inspection automation, which has to do with online services; local Internet development is included for the online services. Ms. Madison said that online services and website updates and maintenance were included as well as ongoing licenses with Oracle which take up a lot of the monies allocated to MIS professional services money. Ms. Madison said that when the budget was submitted to the Commission on January 17th, the Department had not yet received the baseline budget from the Controller's Office. Ms. Madison said that the actual request had increased slightly, particularly permanent salaries. Ms. Madison stated that the reason for this is because every year the Department budgets new positions at .75, not at a full time equivalent as basically the Department cannot hire anyone until October. The baseline budget annualizes or increases those salaries up to one full year because whoever is hired in October of this fiscal year, next fiscal year they will be on board the entire fiscal year and in addition to that the Controller's Office rolled in a 2% COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment), not a 3% COLA. Ms. Madison said that originally the Department had estimated $18.4M for permanent salaries and now it is $19M because of the 2% COLA and because the Controller annualized all of the new positions to one FTE and it includes $619,000 that is being requested for new salaries. Ms. Madison said that the final and third attachment that she submitted to the Committee was a line item explanation of every item in the budget that could be compared to fiscal year 1999, fiscal year 2000-2001 and what is now being proposed; the last column included the percent change. Ms. Madison stated that overall the budget was increased by 5%, which is less than prior years when it was increased by 7, 8 and even 9%.
President Fillon asked if the 2% was sufficient given inflation in the past year. Ms. Madison said that it is normally 3% and for some reason the Controller's Office had rolled in 2% this year. Ms. Madison stated that before the budget is submitted to the Board, the Department would probably have to eat another 1%. Ms. Madison said that she thought the reason only 2% was rolled in at this time was that this pertained mostly to the general fund departments because they have to capture it and possibly those departments could not capture this increase at this time without having to make huge cuts in services. Ms. Madison said that the Controller's Office rolled in 2% for everyone and DBI will probably have to adjust this to 3% at the end. Ms. Madison said that the Department has always adjusted to 3% and has not had a problem because the Department is fortunate compared to other projects in that DBI is special funded and has revenues to cover the COLAs. President Fillon asked if there was any other staff report on the budget.
Director Chiu asked if Taras Madison or Amy Lee could explain how the Department requests funding for MIS, particularly the professional services. Director Chiu said that he did not want the Commissioners to think that the Department just dreams up these projects, hires a contractor and gets them done. Director Chiu said that the Commissioners that have been with the Department for a long time know that there is a lengthy, very complex, process that the Department has to go through in order to demonstrate all of the phases of the upgrades. Director Chiu said that the Department went through a very tedious process three or four years ago to identify how DBI wanted to upgrade the entire system and process. Director Chiu stated that some of the former Commissioners were very involved with staff in developing the process. Director Chiu said that anytime DBI requests anything related to MIS, there is an umbrella City system and the Department has to go in front of a Board to demonstrate what is being done; the Board has to sign off on the projects and approve the vendors to do the job. Director Chiu referred to the professional services that list contractor's names such as COIT and City Store vendors, which means that the Department cannot go and hire contractors, but always has to deal with COIT. Director Chiu said that there is a panel, a group of nine or ten people that sit together and look at every department when it comes to automation and computerization and asked if this process could be explained.
Ms. Madison said that COIT stands for the City's Committee On Information Technology and was established to make sure that all City departments are consistent with automation so that all systems can talk to each other. Ms. Madison stated that the committee has someone from the Controller's Office, Ed Harrington and there are people from the Department of Communications. This committee has oversight for any MIS job that the Department wants to do and this committee has to approve all projects and then the Department has to go through City vendors. Ms. Madison said that the Department is not allowed to go out and contract its own vendors and do a bid for any project, but has to go to the COIT City store and within that City store there are contractors that have been City approved, COIT approved vendors, and those are the vendors that all City Departments use.
Vide-President Hood stated that she had questions about the summary page that compared expenditures from year to year. Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to know why there was such a difference in some of the line items. Vice-President Hood said that under material and supplies in 1999-2000 the amount was $516,000, the current year is $908,000 and 2001-2002 is expected to go down below the 1999-2000 figure. Vice-President Hood asked why this pattern was emerging. Ms. Madison said that this fiscal year a lot of computer hardware and software purchases were included. In addition to that, the Department was getting ready for the 1660 Mission Street expansion. There were a lot of new employees that required new workstations and new furniture along with moves and reconfigurations. Ms. Madison said that this was the reason for the increase and in the next fiscal year it is reduced drastically because all of the things that the Department needed such as replacing old computer systems have been done, so once again the cost for this is going down drastically.
Vice-President Hood said that with respect to equipment, it had dropped a great deal this year and is going up again next year. Vice-President Hood asked if computers were included in this item. Ms. Madison said that the definition for equipment has changed and now is defined as equipment costing a minimum of $5,000 with a three-year useful life. Ms. Madison stated that now all computers, because most computes are $2,500-$3,000, are considered materials and supplies. Ms. Madison said that the reason there is an increase in this item is because once again the Department is requesting some new vehicles and there are going to be some huge purchases for Records Management Division. Ms. Madison said that RMD would be getting new Microdax Machines. Ms. Madison said that last year only vehicles were requested and this year the Department is requesting specialized equipment, plus some vehicles. Director Chiu said that the Commission has been concerned about ways to build in a better security system for plans approval and this year the Department is going to be purchasing three or four machines for scanning the plans and to implement a bar coding system. Director Chiu said that once plans are received, the Department wants to have a bar code system to track the projects, and once the plan is approved, not necessarily issued, the Department wants to scan them to assure that the final plans were approved the way DBI approved them, and not what happened after the fact. Director Chiu said that the Department could track the plans that were approved by DBI and if the plans are modified on the job that would be something that could be easily traced back on the system. Vice-President Hood said that this would be great and stated that she has wanted a bar code system such as UPS for a long time. Director Chiu said that the Department is purchasing three huge E size copy machines so that the plans can be copied and imaged before they are issued, so that will be a true copy of what has been approved before anyone can alter them.
President Fillon said that he wanted to ask about the City Attorney fees, as they seem to be increasing. Ms. Madison said that the Department has not received a work order request from the City Attorney's Office. Ms. Madison stated that she had received some of the work order requests from various departments, but many were still outstanding. Ms. Madison said that given the fact that fees are increasing, she estimated a 3-½% increase, which is like a COLA and maybe it will go down. President Fillon asked if the $972,000 was based on this past year, plus a 3-½% increase. Ms. Madison said that was correct. Ms. Madison said that she had started receiving some of the work orders from other departments, but otherwise had used 3 or 3-½% as an estimate. Ms. Madison said that all of the work orders are supposed to be in before the budget is submitted on February 28th.
Commissioner Marks said that after the last budget cycle, there was a request from the Board about the issue of the musical chairs in Tenderloin hotels. Commissioner Marks said she believed that $200,000 had been set-aside in a fund for DBI to work with the City Attorney's Office about how this situation could be addressed. Commissioner Marks asked if anything had happened with this program. Director Chiu said that the Board of Supervisors asked that $190,000 be reserved for that program, and as of today the Department is still waiting for the City Attorney's Office to tell the Commission how the program will work. Director Chiu said the money is still set aside. Assistant Director Amy Lee said that the Department is waiting for the City Attorney's Office to come up with a program, as the Department is not allowed to just spend the money. Vice-President Hood asked if the Department had called the City Attorney's Office to prod them into action. Ms. Lee said that the Department is waiting to hear from the City Attorney's Office. Vice-President Hood asked if this money had to show up in the current budget. Ms. Lee said that it did not; as this was a one time give away for this program. Director Chiu said that if the City Attorney's Office wanted another $190,000 they would have to request it again, but they have not spent the money that was already approved for the current fiscal year and said that it would be hard to justify another $190,000 when they have not begun the program. Director Chiu said that the City Attorney's Office needs to come in and demonstrate a program to the Commission. Vice-President Hood asked if this money is supposed to be spent by the City Attorney's Office advising people who live in these hotels. Director Chiu said that his understanding was that, in reading the newspapers for the last couple of years, there was problems with hotel owners making everybody move before thirty days was up and causing the musical chairs issue. Director Chiu said that the purpose of the $190,000 was for the City Attorney's Office to hire staff to put some teeth into an existing ordinance. Director Chiu said that the intention was to hire additional investigators to enforce the ordinance and the City Attorney's Office have not come back with a program showing how they are proposing to use this $190,000. Commissioner Marks asked if this item could be calendared for the next regular Commission meeting. Vice-President Hood asked if the Department could ask for a report from the City Attorney's Office as to how they are doing in developing this program. Vice-President Hood suggested the Commission give the City Attorney's Office a deadline for a report in order to encourage them to get this done. Director Chiu said that he did not want to the Commission to think that the Department is not willing to release this money, but it is up to the City Attorney's Office to come to the Commission to demonstrate the program. Vice-President Hood said that she understood this completely.
Vice-President Hood said that she was curious about the Real Estate line item that went from $2,000 to $12,000 to $5,000. Ms. Madison said that this was the work order that DBI has with the Real Estate Department. Ms. Madison said that the reason it increased was that the Real Estate Department was going to be doing different things for the Department because of the move to 1650 Mission and all of the reshuffling. Ms. Madison said that given that the moves have been completed, the cost is once again being reduced to a reasonable amount. Vice-President asked if Real Estate would continue to operate the garage while DBI has the air rights above it. Vice-President Hood said that the Department is going to build out over the parking lot. Director Chiu said that the Department plans to as long as people don't object to the project. Vice-President Hood said that she thought it was already a done deal. Director Chiu stated that the Board of Permit Appeals refused to accept a rehearing request as there was no merit to it, but the Planning Association people have asked for a Discretionary Review with the Planning Department, so the project is still on hold. Vice-President Hood said she was glad to get an update on this issue. Vice-President Hood said that she was going to ask about the parking and how it is being managed because several times recently, the parking is always filled up and seems to be filled up mostly with white cars. Vice-President Hood said that in the interest of diversity, she remembered that some time ago Director Chiu had staff park in other garages around 1660 Mission Street to free up spaces for the public. Vice-President Hood asked if it could be suggested to other City Departments that use the garage to park their cars in surrounding parking lots. Director Chiu said this issue is not Real Estate and understood that there was an agreement that the Building Department would have six or eight slots for staff and Planning would have two. Vice-President Hood said that there are many, many more than that. Director Chiu said that he and Assistant Director Amy Lee would have to take a look at exactly how this is happening. Vice-President Hood said that sometimes the notice that the parking lot is full is incorrect as she has gone down and found empty spaces. Vice-President Hood said that however this is being done, it is not accurate. Vice-President Hood said that one time when the sign showed full, she went down and there were many cars parked from the Planning Department. Director Chiu said that the enforcement is lacking and the enforcement is done by Real Estate, but the Department needs to instruct staff that those parking spaces need to be kept for the public. Vice-President Hood said that maybe the parking spaces should be labeled for the public because otherwise they get co-opted by people in the building. Vice-President Hood said that she realized this was a little off of the subject, but wondered if this item had anything to do with the running of the parking garage.
Vice-President Hood said she had a question about the revenue transferring to Real Estate that had been increased a lot from 1999-2000 to this fiscal year and now was increased by the 3% for next year. Assistant Director Amy Lee said that this reflects a debt payment for 1660 Mission Street and the debt payment is set to inflate as the years progress as the Department is trying to accelerate the debt payment. Vice-President Hood asked if this was for buying the building. Ms. Lee answered yes. Vice-President Hood said that this was great, as she thought the Department still had to lease the building. Ms. Lee said that this also reflects a 1% reduction as the surcharge is usually 3% and was to increase to 4.5% on July 1st, but the Department decided to eat a portion of the increase; however, this amount represents the whole amount that has to be transferred to Real Estate.
Vice-President Hood said that she thought the Department covered the MIS situation very well this year as it is a much more broad based plan of attack than it was two years ago. Vice-President Hood said that in tackling MIS the way the Director suggested, which is one piece at a time, it is now easier to deal with much bigger issues and she stated that is good to see.
Vice-President Hood asked if there were certain goals that the Committee needed to accomplish and stated that there were a certain number of meetings that the Committee needed to have prior to the public hearings, but asked if there was a particularly subscribed program for the Committee. Vice-President Hood said that she had not been on the Budget Committee previously. Assistant Director Amy Lee said that the only requirement was that the Commission hold two public hearings before submitting the budget and one meeting had already been held. Taras Madison said that the two public hearings had to be held by mid-February and there are two meetings scheduled for January 31st and February 7th, but for the Budget Committee there is no set amount of meetings that have to be held. Ms. Madison said that the goal of this Committee would be to go over the budget in detail and resolve any issues, and then go back to the full Commission with recommendations for what is to be finally submitted. Ms. Lee said that the Committee should make recommendations to the BIC. President Fillon asked when the drop-dead date was for submitting the budget to the Mayor's Office. Ms. Madison said that it would be mid-February. President Fillon said that the Committee is to review the budget and go back to the full Commission with recommendations and then to get input to take action to approve the Budget.
Vice-President Hood said that the Controller payroll dropped off completely and asked if this item went under another heading, or what happened. Ms. Madison said that it dropped off completely because now the Department is on a new City system which is called TESS and this amount was previously paid to the Controller who paid an outside vendor to input the actual timekeeping on a computer; the Department is now on the City system and that contract is no longer necessary as the Department does its own input.
Commissioner Marks said that what would be most helpful to her would be a breakdown division by division. Commissioner Marks said that going over the summary just includes the budget items that each division is requesting for this year and a format that was used last year was more helpful to her. Commissioner Marks stated that at that time the Commission was given information that showed what each division accomplished in the fiscal year and what the goals were for the new budget year. Commissioner Marks said that the performance measures she received does show how the budget fits in to the Housing Division, but wanted to go over each division and review what they have accomplished in the past year to see what has been done with the funds received and what the goals are for the coming year. Vice-President Hood asked if Commissioner Marks was asking for more information. Commissioner Marks said that was correct. Taras Madison asked if Commissioner Marks was asking for the goals that were accomplished by division for this year. Commissioner Marks said that she did not think that any new material would have to be produced, she was just asking for a copy of the quarterly reports that would have the information she was requesting. Assistant Director Amy Lee stated that Commissioner Marks just wanted copies of the quarterly and annual reports. Ms. Madison said that she would provide that information. Vice-President Hood stated that Commissioner Marks wanted the dollars attached to the objectives and Commissioner Marks said that she wanted to see what was actually accomplished within the Department and what was planned for the coming fiscal year. President Fillon said that he didn't know if this was related, as the quarterly report talks about goals and accomplishments and does not address how much money was spent. President Fillon said he was wondering how this would be tied in and said that the money was spent and the goal of spending the money was met. Director Chiu said that he felt that Commissioner Marks' comment was valid because it all comes down to money. President Fillon said he did not want to say that Commissioner Marks' comment was not valid; he was just seeking clarification. Director Chiu said that, for example, a goal of Inspection Services to respond to 98% of general code enforcement, if the Commission wants to increase that to 100% response to general code enforcement in the next fiscal, then that would relate to more personnel being hired. Director Chiu said that staff would respond that if the goal was increased, then an additional one or two people would be required, and this is how performance is tied to the goals. Director Chiu said that the Department could go back and compare the goals to the accomplishments by division, and could demonstrate what was done last year. President Fillon said that his other concern was whether the Department could put this information together in the timeline that has been set. Assistant Director Lee and Director Chiu said that they could provide the information within the timelines. Commissioner Marks said that the information about the dollar amounts spent was available, but in theory the Department is on a performance based budget and Commissioner Marks said that there was a law passed that the Department go to zero based budgeting. Commissioner Marks stated that there is talk that this will be implemented in the coming fiscal year. Commissioner Marks said that for her, it fits together better by looking at what was actually done, and what was said was going to be done with the dollar amount, and then what is going to be done in the coming fiscal year with the dollar amounts. Commissioner Marks said that nothing new would have to be produced and the dollar amounts are already in the budget. President Fillon asked how this was going to be done without producing something new and expressed his concern that the Department could do an accurate assessment of all of the divisions' progress over the year in the amount of time that is left. Director Chiu said that at the next meeting the Department could bring in the information by looking at the quarterly reports and looking at the performance measures that were submitted last year with the budget to the Controller's Office. President Fillon said that this was a good idea, but his concern was still time constraints. President Fillon said that if an assessment was going to be done, in order for that assessment to be fair, it has got to be done accurately otherwise it is not fair or it could be overblown or underestimated, one or the other. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that the concern was that the goals and the objectives are being accurately funded and the money that is being spent is going to make those things happen. Vice-President Hood said that for some department's goals and objectives, it is very clear what is happening and said that MIS was a very clear example as it ties in with things that have been requested and what has actually been done and accomplished. Vice-President Hood gave an example such as Plumbing Inspectors who were doing maybe 75% of inspections within 48 hours or whatever, and this was a very numerical kind of thing, and suppose they added three more Plumbing Inspectors and performance increased to 80% of inspections being completed within 24 hours; this would justify the hiring of more inspectors. Vice-President Hood said she thought Commissioner Marks was asking for a correlation between what the divisions said they wanted to do in their objectives and the funding. Vice-President Hood said to some extent it involves a value judgment because it is not always as directly related as putting on three more people or buying 40 laptops. Vice-President Hood said that if it can be correlated, it would be very helpful to look at that as a kind of checklist to make sure that the objectives are being funded, and the funds are not being spent on things that are not objectives. Commissioner Marks said that if there are problems in a division not meeting its goals that needs to be dealt with. Commissioner Marks said that in looking over her notes from last year, one question she had was about the Housing Inspection Division where there was a backlog of 30 days at that point and the division did not ask for additional staff. Commissioner Marks said it was Director Chiu who added the additional staff position and Commissioner Marks said she wanted to know what happened with that issue. Vice-President Hood said that the information does not have to be exhaustive, but she would also like to see the big picture for each division. Vice-President Hood said that this would be a very valuable tool for the Committee and the Commission and said that much of the information that the Commission has seen in the past reflects this. President Fillon said that when he thinks of a fair assessment he thinks of one that is accurate, but stated that if the Commissioners had specific questions about particular performance goals and whether they have been met or not, that would make it a lot easier for staff to deal with. President Fillon said if the Department had a list asking if certain goals were met, that would make it a lot more doable. President Fillon said this would be easier than doing a blanket assessment. Vice-President Hood said that all goals are not measurable. President Fillon stated that this would be more reasonable given the timeframe. Assistant Director Amy Lee asked Commissioner Marks if there were certain divisions that she was particularly interested in. Commissioner Marks said that in her mind the whole purpose of a budget process is that the Committee has a responsibility to the public, that their fee dollars are in fact being spent in a wise way. Commissioner Marks stated that she did not know how else that determination could be made and then justify the coming budget without really looking at how each division is operating and spending its money. Director Chiu said that the document that Commissioner Marks had in front of her was the same document that was submitted with the budget to justify existing or additional personnel. Director Chiu said that the direction that came down from the Mayor's Office for this year was that there is to be no new programs or no new increase in budgets, and because of that the Department has not changed or increased the performance goals. Director Chiu said that the Department's plan is to stick with what was in place last year and the Department feels very comfortable with the goals that were set last year and the previous year. Director Chiu said that there were a few goals that the Department needs to continue to work hard on. Director Chiu said that Commissioner Marks brought up the point about the Department asking for two additional Housing Inspectors to do more SRO and routine inspections. This was not asked for by the division, but was requested by the Director as he felt the need existed. Director Chiu said that there is an increase of 4-5% overall, but it is not to increase the goals that the Department had last year, but due to additional workload or additional enhancement of staff. Commissioner Marks said that she feels that she is performing her public responsibility and this is information that the staff is going to have to develop if it is not readily available. Vice-President Hood asked if there was any problem in getting this information. Director Chiu said that there was not a problem and the staff would do its best to get the information together by the next meeting. President Fillon said that if there were particular areas that Commissioner Marks is more interested in, he would ask that she make the staff aware of those so that her particular questions can be answered. Commissioner Marks said that she was just asking for the quarterly reports. Director Chiu said that he would provide the information even if it were in draft form. Ms. Madison said that she wanted to clarify that Commissioner Marks wanted the quarterly reports and division budgets. Commissioner Marks said that the Committee had division budgets and she wanted to see what the divisions said they were going to accomplish last year with their priority goals, what they have actually accomplished and what they are proposing to do in the coming fiscal year. Commissioner Marks said that if there were problems in each division then it should be identified. President Fillon said if there were problems that Commissioner Marks was aware of that the other Commissioners didn't know about, those should be brought out at the next meeting.
4. Discussion and possible action t set a meeting and identify items that could be placed on the agenda of future meetings of the Committee.
Vice-President Hood asked when the next meeting was. Secretary Ann Aherne answered that there was going to be a Special Meeting on Wednesday, January 31st with the entire Commission. Vice-President Hood asked if the information requested was going to be presented at that meeting or perhaps there should be another meeting of the Committee. President Fillon said that when the Committee goes to the Commission, he would like to be able to say, here is the budget and these are our recommendations for approval or not. Director Chiu said that it sounds like there needs to be another Committee hearing. President Fillon asked if the information could be given to the Committee prior to the meeting. President Fillon asked if the meeting was going to be in the current week. Secretary Aherne stated that three days notice had to be given to the public and a room at City Hall needed to be secured so the meeting would have to be on Monday. Secretary Aherne said that she would try to secure a room for Monday. Commissioner Marks asked if the meeting could be held after 2:00 p.m.
Commissioner Marks said that she had a few more questions. Commissioner Marks stated that she knew that payment by credit card was a new service for the public, but noticed that currently the cost of the fee is $350,000 and last fiscal year it was $150,000. Commissioner Marks said that she knows the Department takes pride in not increasing fees, but it does seems as if there should be some sort of mechanism to either reward the person who pays cash or by check, versus the person who pays by credit card when the Department is having to pay an additional service fee to the banks to accommodate credit card use. Vice-President Hood said that if you pay with a credit card any place, a person spends the same amount of money one way or the other and it is considered a cost of doing business. Vice President Hood said that use of the credit cards was going to make it easier to process some of this information and said she felt that the Department should not charge extra for the use of credit cards. Vice-President Hood said that the Department is in the business of trying to give people better service and this is one thing that makes it easier for people to do business. Vice-President Hood said that when the Department moves forward with online permitting on the Internet this is something that the Department should just do and absorb the cost. Vice-President Hood stated that with permit fees the State law requires the Department to have the permit fees cover what it is costing to process the permits, and people in the Department have been very efficient. Vice-President Hood said that if it can be done without raising the fees, she feels it should be done. Commissioner Marks asked if it has been easier for the Department to have people pay by credit card rather than by check. Taras Madison said that it would be easier when the Department goes online because that would be one of the few ways that payment could be processed online. Ms. Madison said that because the Department has the Point of Sale registers, it is pretty much the same whether the customer pays cash, check or credit card. Assistant Director Lee said that it has been easier for the contractors and other customers because they can send staff people and sometimes it cannot be determined what the exact amount of the permit is going to be and with the credit card payment this is not a problem. President Fillon said that he felt it was always easier to pay any transaction by credit card. Ms. Lee said that the Department is not going to be doing only one or two permits on line. Vice-President Hood said that the Department does not have to be collecting all of the checks, adding them up and then taking them to the bank for deposit and the Department does not have to deal with the problem of bounced checks. Ms. Lee said that bounced checks result in the delay of permits. Vice-President Hood said that she thinks this will eventually be a time saving device in the Department. Director Chiu said he was happy that Vice-President Hood had brought up the issue of bounced checks and as a result of the credit cards payments he has seen a great reduction in bounced checks. Director Chiu said that when a check bounces, it not only causes more paperwork for the Department, but sometimes an Inspector has to be sent out to stop a job for non-payment. Director Chiu said that it is true that once the credit card payments start costing a great deal of money, the Commission and the Department should revisit the issue to make sure that money is not being lost. Director Chiu said that he would let the issue ride for a while, as the Department is not losing money and is in good shape financially. Director Chiu said that perhaps next year when the Department starts launching the online permits the Department could see the impact on the revenue. Director Chiu said that the Department should then look at this issue again as the Commission's direction has always been to not keep raising the fees to make things easier and more efficient for the public. Director Chiu said that if revenues start coming down he would be the first one to come to the Commission and say that it is costing a lot of money and the Department would have to look at ways to make it more efficient. Vice-President Hood said that people who have been around the Department for a long time are very proud of the fact that fees have not had to be raised in five years and said that she does not know of any other department that can say that.
Vice-President Hood said that with regard to the budget, many people have already received electrical bills that have gone through the roof and Vice-President Hood said she was wondering if the Department needs to budget a special item to cover increases in utilities. Vice-President Hood asked if the Department buys its electricity through Hetch Hetchy or through some other mechanism so that the Department is not subject to the PG&E demands. Taras Madison said that this may be one wild card in the budget; some City departments actually buy directly from Hetch Hetchy, but because DBI has the Real Estate Department take care of anything that has to do with the building, an increase would be seen in any of the Real Estate work orders that are included in the budget. Ms. Madison said that the Department has not heard anything so far, but said that she did do a 3% increase, but thought that it may actually be more. Ms. Madison said that although the City does get utilities from Hetch Hetchy and it is subsidized, Hetch Hetchy is having the same problems as any other utility and will probably have to pass the cost along. Vice-President Hood asked if Ms. Madison thought the Department was covered well enough in this regard and Ms. Madison said that she thought the Department was covered well enough. Ms. Madison stated that DBI has enough revenues because the budget is only being increased by 5% overall and a lot of that has to do with things out of the Department's control such as COLA and annualizing.
Vice-President Hood said she had a question about the Mayor's directive, which said to keep the dollars the same this year as it was last year. Vice-President Hood wanted to know if that included inflation or was the budget in effect supposed to go down. Ms. Madison said that for special funds departments, such as DBI there is a baseline budget where the Department has to start and any increases above this will have to be justified; the Department will have to show how revenues will cover the requests. Ms. Madison stated that the instructions Vice-President Hood referred to are more for the General Fund Departments. Ms. Madison said that for those departments it means that they should stay within their current budgets and cover their COLA, which would mean a decrease for certain departments. Vice-President Hood asked again what COLA meant. Ms. Madison answered that it meant Cost of Living Adjustment.
President Fillon asked if there were any other questions and stated that the Committee would review the assessments of the goals of the different divisions within the Departments. Ms. Madison said she would get the information to the Committee members before the meeting. Commissioner Marks said that since the package for the regular meeting on the 31st would be going out on Friday, it would be good to include that information to the other Commissioners so they would have time to review it.
Vice-President Hood said that she would like to thank Ms. Madison for the information today as she was extremely well prepared and helpful in answering questions and said that she appreciated it very much. Director Chiu said that he wanted to thank Taras and Amy for working as a great team to put the budget together and said he hoped that this year would be the same as last year when the Department got most of the items that the Commission and the Department asked for. Director Chiu thanked the Commission for supporting the Department.
5. Adjournment.
Vice-President Hood made a motion seconded by Commissioner Marks that the meeting be adjourned.
The motion carried unanimously.
RESOLUTION NO. BIC-006-01
The meeting was adjourned at 2:20 p.m.
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Ann Marie Aherne
Commission Secretary
SUMMARY OF REQUESTS BY COMMISSIONERS
Agendize follow-up on City Attorney's Office program to enforce ordinance regarding Tenderloin Hotel "musical chairs" issue. - Commissioner Marks Page 5
Prepared by Ann Aherne