>> madam chair, yes, we are. supervisor chu: yes, i would be supportive of supervisor mirkarimi's position. perhaps we can make a motion or take action on the $24,900 in budget closeouts and accept all the recommendations from the budget analyst except the $10,000 for the animal control section? can we do that without objection? ok, we can do that without objection. thank you very much. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. supervisor chu: the department of technology. >> good morning, supervisors. john walton, director of the department of technology. i am here to give you an update on our discussions with the budget analysts office. we are in agreement with them. these 16 recommendations of the total value of approximately $800,000. unfortunately we are not in agreement with the budget analyst on several other items related to travel, training, equipment maintenance, other expenses to cover unforeseen expenses throughout the year. they add up to a total of $823,041. 16 of the 22 cuts we do agree to add up to -- the

>> madam chair, yes, we are. supervisor chu: yes, i would be supportive of supervisor mirkarimi's position. perhaps we can make a motion or take action on the $24,900 in budget closeouts and accept all the recommendations from the budget analyst except the $10,000 for the animal control section? can we do that without objection? ok, we can do that without objection. thank you very much. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. supervisor chu: the department supervisor chu: the department of technology.

>> thank you, madam chair. greg wagoner. i have a couple of items to submit to you. the first two are items that we have discussed earlier this week, with you and your staff and had intended to submit earlier in the week, but did not make the final submission, so we are doing that now. the first is an addendum to transfer a function letter, which includes a couple minor adjustments that are being approved in the budget that you are adopting, transfer of a total of seven positions -- i'm sorry, eight positions, all of which are simply administrative corrections associated whips management adjustments in the budget -- associated with. when transferred to the administrative services department. seven positions from public works to the public utilities commission, gardners. and 1 position from the department of human resources to the access a recorder, which is a human resources position. i will submit that letter to you and to the clerk. the second piece is our first technical assessment again. this is from earlie

>> thank you, madame chair. i agree. the department of technology is about to take a leadership position in moving forward some of the strategic initiatives around consolidation, working together, finding ways citywide for folks to come up with solutions that do not replicate procurements as solutions. it is hard to say at this level of production where we would be. what i can say, when we agreed to doing eight of the 10 strategic initiatives, we did not anticipate these additional cuts. there will be some impact if you decided to take these additional recommendations from the budget analyst. we would have to reassess how many exactly we could continue to support. we have been cut back the last three or four years fairly significantly. we are a bare bones operation. at this point, at this level of cuts, though perhaps necessary, would be significant to us and we would have to frankly ss our leadership -- frankly reassessed our leadership position on some of these things. not to belabor the point, but every i.t. investmen

>> we do not have to take any action, madam chair. supervisor chiu: i want to quickly echo our colleagues. you do a lot of this work. we know it will be a very complicated set of analyses, and i really want to thank our controller and our economist for the work they have done already. supervisor chu: thank you. thank you, mr. controller. >> thank you for your support, supervisors. we appreciate. supervisor chu: moving on, the next department is a general city responsibility. i believe the outstanding item we had was the neighborhood transition funds of $300,000. >> madam chair, members of the committee, on the last item, we do have one alternative suggestion on page 64 of our report. the committee has already taken our recommended reduction of $24,000 on this item. $300,000 or remain, which we consider to be a policy for the mayor's transition plan. we ask that the board of supervisors consider placing the funds on the budget and finance committee reserve. it would not be a board reserve. it would be reserved we are suggesting as an i

lee: thank you, madam chair. i'm pleased that my colleagues and friends, congressman nadler and woolsey, are joining me in offering an amendment that makes it the policy of the united states to withdraw all members of the united states armed forces and military contractors from iraq by the end of this year. more importantly this amendment also clarifies that the timeline cannot be changed unless it is in the form of a treaty requiring the advice and consent of the senate or else otherwise authorized by an act of congress. we must ensure that 45,000 united states troops who remain in iraq and our military contractors leave iraq at the end of this year as is stated in our nation's status of forces agreement with iraq. this is of concern because this week the president and some of his advisors are considering just how many troops they can leave behind. senators and others are publicizing their opinions. senator mccain of arizona has suggested 10,000 to 13,000 troops remain to serve for support in intelligence arenas

>> thank you, madam chair. i think you have eloquently recognized everybody to be commended and appreciated. i won't return to that roster. i think you thoroughly covered it. i would like to take this opportunity to thank you, madam chair, for your steady leadership in directing this budget committee. this is my sixth year on the budget committee. i believe i'm the longest serving member of the board of supervisors on the budget committee. this has probably been the scariest budget session i have ever been part of. even beyond this bewitching hour, i cannot tell you how concerned i was because of how tranquil and noncontroversial and calming pizzle process has been where i kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. but yet quite frankly, we are beyond the witching hour that we are now reconvening. those shoes did not drop. both feet and legs on behalf of the city are well-planted into the ground. this is a dramatic change from what we have been experiencing the last several years where our budget deficit last yea

rahall: thank you, madam chair. i thank the ranking member's remarks and his anger, it is indeed frustrating. i again invite him to fast track without consideration of process as he has done on this pipeline bill in order to free us from reliance upon foreign sources of energy. i hope he just as quickly fast tracks our kleenex tension of the f.a.a. bill we introduced today -- clean extension of the f.a.a. bill we introduced today. people that are already sitting at home for the second, going on the third day without jobs. i would also, madam chairman, ask that a letter i sent to chairman mica back on june 30 in regard to our committee on t yanled i, waiving jurisdiction on the pending legislation be made part of the record at the proper time. and also a letter from four major labor unions endorsing the pending legislation, the brotherhood of teamsters, the labors international union, the international union of operating engineers and united association of jern journeyman of the united states and canada, a let they a

. >> thank you, madame chair, supervisors. we did work with the legislative analyst's office, and they did complete the review. also, you requested a breakdown of how we expect public financing expenditures in 2012 to pan out. i did forward the document to all of you with that breakdown. the only other thing i would highlights while i am here today, last week, i told you the total funds distributed under the public financing program was $1,674,000, and in the seven days since i gave you that figure, an additional $826,869 has been distributed in the last week, bringing us up, that much closer to our estimate. i do not know we will hit the $3.1 million by this thursday, but we're going to come very close. at this point, we are just over $2.5 million in expenditures for this fiscal year on the mural public finance program. supervisor chu: with regards to the campaign fund, we have a balance sitting there that will be carrying forwardthe mayor's s an additional amount in the budget as well. to the extent that, come november, afte

>> madam chair, members of the committee, on page six of our report, we point out the office of public finance reports, using conservative estimates, the total cost of issuing the proposed to tickets of participation would be $316,280,000. that includes the project cost and related expenses, and included the interest cost estimated at $148,165,000. annual interest rate of 5.63% on the cop's. average cost to the city general fund would be about $12,165,00 for a period of 12 years. the cost of financing the $132 million in improvements to the veterans building through the use of general obligation bonds would be an estimated $228,520,000. that is a $7 million less than the cost of funding and the improvements using the proposed cop's. furthermore because general obligation bonds are financed through property taxes, financing would have effectively have no impact on the city's general fund, whereas the proposed cop's do not include a new source of revenue and require general fund expenditures of approximately $12 million per year. however, having said that, it is reported to us that under

. >> thank you madam chair and welcome mr. olsen. you certainly come to this position with an impressive array of credentials and i congratulate you and certainly senator conrad's accommodation certainly speaks volumes about what you represent and what you bring to this position which is obviously a significant as we continue to face a growing threat. i would like to just explore with you for a moment in the aftermath of the assassination of osama bin laden, how would you describe the al qaeda threat and what it poses today? i know you have said it is significant and it remains the most significant threat to the united states in combination with regional affiliates that were dispersed and as you mentioned it is certainly a dynamic and complex environment and certainly an asymmetrical threat. how to identify, how to quantify. where do you think we stand today in terms of one, mitigating the threat and certainly since the killing of osama bin laden? >> thank you very much senator. the threat i think today is as diffuse and as complex a

and madam clerk, is there anything else on the agenda? >> no, madam chair. meeting adjourned. >> that is right.

and madam clerk, is there anything else on the agenda? >> no, madam chair. meeting adjourned. >> that is right. >> good afternoon. thanks so much for joining us. we are excited to could be here today. the assessor recorder cost of this is excited to announce it again that we have come to the rescue of the city budget. over the years, we have been able to continue to bring in more money than expected. this year was no exception. even given the huge hurricane of appeals, we are able to bring in about $50 million above our projection for the city budget. that will help this year's city budget and also next year's budget. behind me are some of the people who will talk about the very important things that the money will go to. just to give you a sense of what we are talking about, the $50 million is almost 20% of the $300 million budget deficit. we also want you to know, $24 million of that will go to the general fund. if it were allocated exactly as general fund was broken up, then it would be $9.5 million for public safety, $6.5 million for human services, $5.2

>> madam chair, for the record, it is $52,981 all general fund recommendations. >> we have that amount for the cuts being proposed that the health service system, mostly in staffing adjustments, some copy machines and specialized services cuts. the department is in agreement with that? >> efp president chiu: can we take that without objection? ok -- supervisor chu: can we take that without objection? ok, thank you very much. the next department is the public library. >> good afternoon. i am the city librarian. we are in agreement with the analyst recommendations and very much appreciate the support and the help we received from javier and kate. we're pleased with the proposed budget. supervisor chu: thank you. >> madam chair, members of the committee, the total recommended cuts are $264,486. they're not general fund reductions. supervisor chu: thank you. and to the comptroller, because these are actually savings from the library baseline, these would remain within the library's budget department. correct? ok, thank you. given that we are in agreement, can we take these cuts without obj

>> thanks, madame chair. mr. olsen, let me carry that question one step further because obviously it is a very, very serious issue when you have a member of congress who thinks that he has been misled so i want you to have the opportunity to explain and i want to quote to you what congressman wolf's recollection of the scenario was in the memorandum that he prepared within the last couple of weeks. i know you had the opportunity to look at it. here is what he says. he said it has recently come to my attention that i was misled about the status of the transfer of the knees in april, to those inclined to read the information confirms the newsweek report the federal employees were explicitly directed to hide the information from the members of congress especially republican members. during an april 22nd, 2009 meeting in my office with members of the guantanamo bay detainee review task force including mr. olsen, i inquired about the status of the potential transfer of uighurs detainee's to the united states. mr. olse

i reserve the balance of my time, madam chair. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. crenshaw: i claim time in opposition. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. crenshaw: madam chairman, i yield myself one minute simply to give you three good reasons why we should defeat this amendment. number one, it really doesn't do anything because we don't spend any money in this bill for house restaurant services. they are funded through a revolving trust fund and that money comes from another source so it wouldn't have any impact in the first place. number two, if it did have impact all it would do is raise the cost of everything in the restaurants and be passed on to the folks and that's not a great thing to spend more money. and number three, the reason that the gentleman mentioned, this year there was a bipartisan letter from the chairman of the house administration committee, along with the ranking member, to say we tried this program, we're going

>> madam chair, members of the committee, i can make a brief summary of our reports or just pick out the additional. when ever you prefer. supervisor chu: what ever we -- what about the additional information? >> madam chair, super reassert -- supervisor mirkarimi, we stated that our report had factual errors. that is incorrect. we have responded to all of those comments in our letter to the board of supervisors and there are no factual errors in our report. on page 2 of the recology letter to you, they stated that " competitive bidding does not necessarily result in lower rates." by that statement, recology itself acknowledges that competitive bidding could result in lower rates. the it budget and finance subcommittee previously requested last go -- lafco survey other jurisdictions for the process of selecting providers. their initial report found that in the 71 jurisdictions survey, san francisco is the only jurisdiction that did not have an agreement with a service provider and san francisco is the only jurisdiction that has not completed a competitive bidding process for collecti

>> madam chair, members of the committee, we reported on page 5 that we do not anticipate a significant increase in costs associated with implementing this ordinance. although one time resources would be needed to pull in the necessary changes to provide the required reports, costs would be absorbed into the budget. the proposed ordinance to reduce overtime from 30% to 20% would create a significantly administrative burden for the mta, increasing the number of requests for chief executive officers to approve such requests. the overall dollars spent on overtime is determined mostly by transit operations and enforcement management. they believe that it is required to provide the required services. mta will continue to use overtime to ensure levels of service. they are not confident that the reduction will result, as i understand this legislation, which is not necessarily the objective, which is to control over time, as i see at. they reported that if over time is capped at 20% rather than 30% of base salary of them over time be spread amongst a larger number of employees. additionally, if

and madam clerk, is there anything else on the agenda? >> no, madam chair. meeting adjourned. >> that is right. on commissioners campos and weiner for their ongoing leadership. the situation is indicative of what we could see from here on for the next coming year. askehas far as state funding is concerned. prop k funds will be even more crucial as they are stretched to keep programs going, keeping our on going for your use in place. this concludes my report. who, on behalf of director milosevic, will give a report? >> maria lombardo. you have the executive reporters report -- directors report on your desk. earlier this month, the draft proposal was released to be one bay area grant program. this was the server -- first significant item to come out of the process. it has to do with the programming of the federal servants transportation and air mitigation funds, which make up the bulk of the funds. what is unique about this is that for the first time the region is attempting to tie the allocation of transportation investment funds to land use decisions, partic

supervisor chiu: thank you, madame chair. i want to thank the staff on the council for the answers to these questions. have you seen any anecdotal evidence of excessive overtime leading to safety issues? as i said earlier today, when we have been the station agents that have logged literally close to 39 extra hours every week for the entire first half of the fiscal year, that seems to be pretty significant. >> we looked, i know, a couple of years ago we did searches for studies on productivity and over time. there were general statements that basically declining productivity after a certain number of hours, we do not have any evidence. i think that it would make sense. it might make sense to consider -- and i would use the term safety sensitive -- there are certain jobs where a drop in productivity is not explained and you just have to have someone there. an example might be working overtime delivering food. if the person is a little late for the person forgets milk, they can go back and get it. different from someone driving

>> madame chair and members of the committee, we have a table, table 1, which shows that the amount in this fund or the revenues that have been received to date since the inception -- $9,191,000 -- $1,991,923. expenditures at it from the fund from the inception to date is $4,067,518, so there is a balance in the fund of approximately $5.1 million. if you approve the $325,000, that would leave a remaining balance of nearly $4,800,000. we point out that the requested $75,000 for the asian neighborhood design is in addition to case management services already being provided by asian neighborhood design, under a separate $50,000 community development block grant managed through the office of economic and workforce development. that contract is on a citywide basis. although the requested $75,000, which specifically targets the area, the $75,000 request for services only in the area is $25,000 more than the existing $50,000 from the community development block grant funds where in asian neighborhood design is providing such services city-wide. we also note that asian neighborhood design has

thank you, madam chair. i look forward to the testimony. >> thank you manager for convening this hearing. thoughts welcome on the witnesses. appreciate you all being here. i want to sing aloud to paul rieckhoff, but more importantly thank you for ipc for veterans. you've been a bulldog. crystal nicely, thank you for being here. when we say they go to war, we say their spouse goes with them. we appreciate you being here to tell your story. it's going to be a great perspective to hear. the welfare of the young men and women is always at the forefront of our minds and the question to whether to send them into harm's way to begin with is something that can never be taken lightly. in doing so, we prepare ourselves for human and monetary cost of these decisions. it is not just about providing troops armaments and equipment they needed tools to be successful in missions. it's about ensuring we are fully capable of caring for them and their families when they return home. to quote the vfw commander of the detestatio

. >> madam chair, did you want this to allow to the retroactivity? supervisor chu: yes. we have an amendment according to the budget analyst's recommendations. recommendation will be to send the item to the full board with recommendations. thank you. next item please. >> item 5. resolution authorizing the san francisco municipal transportation agency to amend an expenditure contract with cypress security, llc, to add an additional $18.7 million to continue security services for an additional three years. supervisor chu: thank you very much. on this item we also have ms. hoolihan from the mta. >> good morning again. this is a three-year extension of the existing contract we have with cypress security. basically, under our first three years, our total expenditure was $14.3 million. under the extension of the three years, this includes an 88 cent per year cost of living increase. the total rebuy amount of the contract is $32.9 million. this is including additional services, which is video data assistance, which helps us poll video the after hours when there is a crime-sensi

. >> madam chair, and members of the committee, we have recommended reductions of $74,744, but we will adjust that for the reasons just stated by the department. we would just advise this morning -- and this recommendation, supervisors, on page 7 is the last times on page 7 where we say "disapproval of the interim exceptions for these four positions that do not perform revenue-generating and critical department functions." we were just advised this morning that those positions are actually existing positions in other departments that will be transferred to this department. on that representation, we withdraw that recommendation, and we will adjust our total recommendations for the salary for that one month as well as the mandatory fringe benefits. supervisor chu: thank you. if i understand correctly, there was a series of recommendations with regard to reclassification, and the department is in agreement with those recommendations. >> correct. there were down with substitutions for the three positions and one remains the same period supervisor chu: with regards to the -- the same. supe