It was 1106 and 1130 now.

Good morning.

The meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the May 22nd, 2024 meeting of the budget and appropriation committee.

I'm Supervisor Connie Chan, Chair of the Committee.

I'm joined by uh Supervisor Mirna Malgar and Shimon Walton, and today Supervisor Matt Dorsey has been temporarily appointed to replace uh President Aaron Peskin, our clerk, it's Brent Halipa.

I would like to thank uh Jamie Evercherry uh from SFGov DV for broadcasting this meeting.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcement?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a friendly reminder to those in attendance to please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices to prevent interruptions to our proceedings.

Should you have any documents to be included as part of the file, this should be submitted to myself, the clerk.

Public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda.

Uh, when your item of interest comes up in public comment is called, please line up to speak on the west side of the chamber to your right, my left along those curtains.

And while not necessary to provide uh public comment, we do invite you to fill out a comment card and leave them on the trade by the television to your left by the doors.

If you wish to be accurately recorded for the minutes, alternatively, you may submit public comment and writing in either of the following ways.

Email them to myself, the budget and appropriations committee clerk at B R E N T dot J A L I P A at SFGOV dot ORG.

If you submit public comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and also included as part of the official file.

Uh you may also send your written comments via U.S.

Postal Service to our office in City Hall at one Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlick Place Room 244.

San Francisco, California, 94102.

And due to the Memorial Day Holiday Act items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda of June 4th, unless otherwise stated.

Madam Chair.

Thank you.

I just wanted to um say that uh given the fact the volume of today's agenda and that uh numbers of city departments uh going to come back to make their presentation as well as trailing legislation.

I would like to limit today's public comments to one minute.

And so with that, um, before we get started, I want to let people know that uh what to expect for today for the remaining of agenda.

Item number one is a piece of legislation.

Uh uh the sponsor is uh Supervisor Shaman Walton, which I'm a co-sponsor to.

Uh this actually, this item has already been approved and recommended uh by the rules committee, but since it has a fiscal impact, so that's why it has to be scheduled to be heard by this committee as well.

Uh and this item we will take normally uh like like a regular item that we do on agenda.

However, next we will hear item two and eight, which are what we call uh budget trailing legislation associated with the May proposed budget.

And since item two applies to multiple departments, and item eight applies to uh a department that does not have a BLA report, but budget and legislative analysts report, we will take those two items separately.

Finally, we will call items three through five together and hear the budget and legislative analysts report on their recommendation and hear back from the departments.

There are also additional budget trailing legislation, which should are items six through thirteen.

And I will also call those up together with the department that it is affiliated of it is affiliated with.

Yes, madam chair.

Item number one is an ordinance amending the administrative code to amend the language access ordinance to clarify department's responsibilities to provide language access service services to members of the public and to clarify the role of the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs in administering the language access ordinance to require language access service to be provided in Chinese, Spanish, Filipino, and any other language for which the requisite number of persons qualify has a sub uh substantial number of limited English proficient persons to lower the threshold amount for the requisite number of persons needed to meet the definition of substantial number of limited English proficient persons to amend the formula for determining when the language becomes eligible for language access services to require departments to translate signage to require departments to translate digital content provided on digital platforms to clarify that crisis situations also includes but is not limited to pandemics, refugee relief, and disaster-related activities to require departments that provide emergency response services in the event of a crisis situation or disaster-related services involving an immediate threat of serious harm, mass casualties, conditions of natural disaster, or conditions posing extreme peril to the safety of persons and property to provide language access services to rename the annual compliance plan to annual compliance report to impose requirements for the language access ordinance summary report to require departments to inform members of the public of their right to file a complaint and of a process uh for providing feedback on the department's uh language access service.

To impose requirements for the language access ordinance summary report to require departments to inform members of the public of their right to file a complaint and of a process uh for providing feedback on the department's language access services to require Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs to create a know your rights brochure to require departments posting notice of the availability of language access services and a know your rights brochure to require departments to budget and plan for delivery of language access services to require Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs to prepare an investigation summary report of each investigation that will include findings and recommendation to address the issues raised and to create and maintain a website for the posting of investigation summary reports and to delete the financial disclosure requirement for immigrant rights uh commission members.

Madam Chair.

Thank you.

And uh Supervisor Shaman Walton, would you like to uh make opening remarks?

Thank you so much, Chair Chan.

And as Chair Chan stated, uh we actually did uh address these changes and rules committee and just really excited about the opportunity to do everything we can to provide language access for more communities in San Francisco.

Uh this will strengthen the current language access ordinance that we have in place, lower the threshold, provide more opportunities for more languages to be um utilized across city departments, but also puts in uh ways and strategies for city departments to be able to comply and does a lot to make sure that our our departments are going to be held accountable for providing this access through the language access ordinance or the language ordinance access.

So I'm just excited about these changes and want to thank, of course, OSIA uh for working with us on this, the uh Office and Immigrant Affairs Commission for working with us on this, and of course, all communities who came to the hearings that we had at the rules committee and also came to the rally to express their gratitude and thank you for us increasing language access here in San Francisco.

So thank you so much uh to everyone who's worked on this with our office.

A special shout out to my chief of staff, Natalie G, and again, thank you so much, Chair Chan, for making sure that this was heard today.

Of course, uh Supervisor Malgar.

Uh thank you, Chair Chan.

Uh, first I want to uh profusely thank Supervisor Walton for his continuing work on this issue.

I think language access is a just crucial fundamental component of full civic participation uh by the totality of our San Francisco population.

Um, that being said, I do worry that we are literally not putting our money where our mouth is because we struggle with language access a lot, not just in written communication with folks, um, tax bills, you know, all kinds of things, but also uh here in these chambers uh to appropriately staff uh the need for translation.

And so I am wondering um how this uh you know going forward uh will affect the budget for OCA or if there are other ways that we are looking at funding, you know, the new state mandates uh or the expanding need for language access.

Um, because you know, I I know some of the state staff came out after OCA had submitted its budget to um the mayor, so I'm just I mean, you know, it may be something this committee has to address, but I wanted to say both that I um think that we here in this uh chambers are very committed to this issue and to full participation, and I worry that we say these things, but then we don't actually you know fund it as we should.

Thank you.

And so uh Supervisor Walton.

Thank you, Chair Chan, and thank you, Supervisor Melgar, for bringing up one of the major issues and concerns about actually achieving complete access uh when it comes to making sure that all of our our language needs are met.