This meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the April 22nd, 2026 meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Happy Earth Day, everyone.

I am Vice Chair Matt Dorsey, and we will be chair and I will be chairing this committee today.

I am joined by Supervisors Danny Sauter and Cheyenne Chen.

Our clerk today is Brent Halipa, and I would like to thank Kalina Mendoza and the entire staff at SFGov TV for broadcasting and facilitating today's meeting.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Thank you, Mr.

Vice Chair.

Just a friendly reminder to those in attendance.

So 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, they should be submitted to myself, the clerk.

Public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda when your item of interest comes up and 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 required to provide 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 those doors.

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

Email them to myself, the budget and finance committee clerk at B R E N T dot J A L I P A at SFGO V dot O R G.

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

You may also send your written comments via U.S.

Postal Service to our office and city hall at one.

Dr.

Carlton be good at the place.

Room 244, San Francisco, California 94102.

And finally, Mr.

Vice Chair, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors agenda of April 28th, unless otherwise stated.

Mr.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Before we call item number one, I would like to make a motion to excuse our colleague, budget chair Connie Chan from today's meeting.

Mr.

Clerk may we have a roll call in that motion.

Yes, and on that motion that we excuse Supervisor Chan from today's uh from attending today's meeting.

Member Sauter.

Sauter, I member Chen.

Chen, aye, Vice Chair Dorsey.

Aye.

Dorsey, aye.

We have three ayes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The motion passes.

And before we call item one, I want to remind the uh members of the public who are here today and watching uh on TV.

We have the budget and legislative analyst reports for items numbers one, nine, and ten on today's agenda.

For those items, we customarily uh have the department presentation first, and then it is followed by the uh budget and legislative analyst.

We then take questions usually from um colleagues and then invite up public comment.

Mr.

Clerk, can you please call item number one?

Yes, item number one is a resolution approving and authorizing the director of property on behalf of the Department of Public Health to amend the lease of a portion of real property located at 845 Jackson Street on the fourth floor with Chinese Hospital Association serving as the temporary location of DPH's Chinatown Public Health Center, changing the lease expiration date from October 29th, 2028 to the third year anniversary of the date of the issuance of a change of use permit by the California Department of Healthcare Access and Inform with no change to the total lease amount of approximately 3.9 million, increasing the construction to leasehold improvements, reimbursement allowance uh by an amount not to exceed 400,000 for a new total maximum of 800,000, and authorizing the director of property to execute documents, make certain modifications, and take certain actions that do not materially increase uh the obligations nor liabilities to the city and are necessary to effectuate the purposes of the lease amendment or this resolution.

Mr.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Uh, we have Jeff Seuss here from the uh real estate division, who is the transaction team manager, and I know you are joined by Kay Kim, the project manager, if there's any questions.

Um welcome both of you to the budget and finance committee.

The floor is yours.

Thank you very much, uh Vice Chair uh Dorsey and good morning, Supervisor Shen, Supervisor Sowder.

Um, yeah, I'm I'm pleased to uh bring you this.

We brought you this lease in October of uh last year to approve.

This was just a little background and reminder is that uh you know that we're using Chinese hospital as a temporary site while we go through the renovations of the um of the city-owned uh you know Chinatown Public Health Center.

Um to adapt the hospital to be able to be used for this purpose.

We needed to get a state um change of use for uh from hospital to clinic level.

And as we went through that permitting process, we found that uh they had modified the requirements to meet that in upgrading the fire safety system.

So that exceeded the budget that we had originally planned on when we brought this to you back in October, and we're now coming to you to something we try very hard not to do is come back and ask for more money, but here it's required by the state, and we're asking to increase the not-to-exceed amount from 300,000 to 800,000, which will allow us to do that.

We're also looking to align the lease term to the um to receipt of the CU from uh from the state, which is also when rent commencement is.

So there's no increase in rent, but it's going to extend the uh the lease for about seven months to align with the delays that we've had in getting the project started and getting the space prepped.

So those are and uh I believe, well, I believe the board is uh the BLA wants us to modify the uh the uh resolution, and I'll let Nick do that part.

Okay.

Okay.

Any questions?

No.

Oh, let's hear from uh Mr.

Renard.

Good morning, Nick Menard from the budget legislative analyst office.

Item one is a resolution that would approve an amendment to a lease between the Department of Public Health and Chinese hospital.

Uh the existing lease has DPH renting the fourth floor of Chinese hospital to relocate Chinatown Public Health Center while they undergo renovations.

And so the clinical services will be uh out of uh the hospital for the next four years while those renovations take place.

The city, in addition to paying to rent, is paying uh for tenant improvements to convert the fourth floor of the hospital from hospital beds to clinical uses.

Uh there's an existing tenant improvement budget of $300,000 that's being increased to $800,000 in this amendment to do additional um fire alarm installations that are required by the state.

Those costs are funded by DPH's general fund.

Um then the the items will be part of Chinese hospital after the lease ends.

We do have um an amendment to correct the long title of the resolution to remove the phrase, quote, with no change to the total lease amount of $3.88 million dollars.

And we recommend approval as amended.

Thank you, Mr.

Munar.

Uh Supervisor Sauter.

Uh thank you, Supervisor Dorsey.

Um I will uh certainly be supporting this.

This has been something that we've been working on uh with real estate and DPH and Chinese hospital uh since taking office.

Uh and and this is going to allow that during the time that the um public health center is closed that we still have those services available to the neighborhood uh in partnership with Chinese hospital.

So I think it is excellent.

We're all excited to get this underway.

Um and uh uh Vice Chair Dorsey, I'll be happy to make that amendment after public comment.

Thank you, Supervisor Sauter.

Um I would just say if you've ever been to an event at Chinese hospital, it's um I think every member of the Board of Supervisors has uh regards this as a really special um institution.

And I know I when I was back in the city attorney's office, I think 20 years ago um we had a case against some of the um doctors groups that were really putting Chinese hospital in a difficult situation, and we had a consumer protection case that stood up for them.

So I will be supporting this also.

Um I don't have any further comments, and I don't see anyone on the roster with them.

So thank you for your presentation, and why don't we invite up now public comment?

Yes, we're now opening public comment for this item number one.

If we have any members of the public who have joined us today, wish to address this committee.

Mr.

Vice Chair, we have no speakers.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Public comment on this item is now closed.

Supervisor Sauter.

Thank you.

I'd like to uh make a motion to uh make the amendment as recommended by BLA, which is um on page one lines 10 through 11 deleting with no changes to the total lease amount of 3,880, 292.20 cents.

Okay.

Mr.

Clerk, may we take a roll call on that motion?

And on that motion uh to amend this resolution as so uh stated by the BLA and member Sauter.

Member Sauter.

Sauder, I, Member Chen.

Chen.

Aye, Vice Chair Dorsey.

Aye.

Dorsey, aye.

We have three ayes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

We probably could have done that as one thing, but I would now uh do you want to make a motion to send it out with our positive recommendation?

Sure, I'd like to make a motion to send this to the full board with positive recommendation.

And on that motion uh to forward this resolution to the full board with the recommendation as amended.

Member Sauter.

Sauter, aye, member Chen.

Chen.

Aye, Vice Chair Dorsey.

Aye.

Dorsey, aye.

We have three ayes.

The resolution is approved as amended to the full board of supervisors with our positive recommendation.

Mr.

Clerk, may you call uh items numbers two through five together.

Yes.

Item numbers two through five, our resolutions approving the following fiscal year 2026 and 2027 programs, authorizing the mayor on behalf of the city and county to apply for, accept, and expend the city's uh fiscal year 2026 to 2027 program entitlements from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Great.

Hold on.

Let's see then expend.

For a period beginning July 1st, 2026.

Item number two approves the community development block grant, C D BG program in the amount of approximately 19.4 million estimated program income in the amount of 2.1 million for a combined total of approximately 21.5 million through the date when all funds are expended.

Item number three approves the Home Investment Partnership Home Program in the amount of approximately 4.6 million hentax spend program income in the amount of 2 million for a combined total total of approximately 6.6 million through June 30th, 2031.

Item number four approves the emergency solutions grants or ESG program in the amount of approximately 1.7 million for an unspecified period.

And item number five approves the housing opportunities for person with AIDS or HOPWA program in the amount of approximately 7.5 million hentax spend program income and reprogram funds in the amount of 2020 for a total of approximately 7.7 million through June 30th, 2029.

Mr.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

And from the mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development, we have the Director of Community Development, Julia Sabory.

Ms.

Aubrey, welcome to the budget and finance committee.

The floor is yours.

Thank you.

Good morning, committee members.

I'm Julia Sabori, Deputy Director, Community Development, Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development.

I'm here to present the accept and expend resolutions for federal HUD funding for fiscal year 2026 and 2027.

These resolutions authorize the city to receive and deploy four key federal funding sources that support San Francisco's vulnerable residents.

Each year, San Francisco receives four federal entitlement grants from HUD, CDBG, ESG, Home, and HOPWA.

These are formula-based funds driven by population and need, and funding levels are generally stable year over year.

MOCD serves as the lead agency with funds administered in partnership with OEWD and HSH.

The amounts in this resolution are estimates based on prior year awards and typically vary by less than 5%.

Before getting into the numbers, it's important to ground this in impact.

Last year, these funds served over 13,000 residents through job training, eviction prevention, and housing counseling.

Supported nearly 1,500 people experiencing homelessness and assisted over a thousand residents living with HIV AIDS.

They also helped preserve and develop hundreds of affordable housing units across the city.

This year we anticipate receiving $21.5 million in CDBG, $1.7 million in ESG, $6.6 million in home, $7.7 million in HAPWA.

Together, these programs work to address housing stability, homelessness, and economic opportunity.

These funds cannot replace general fund dollars, but they are critical in reducing pressure on local resources.

Before walking through this year's proposal, I want to briefly highlight what these investments delivered last year.

CDBG supports both housing and community services.

On the housing side, it helped preserve and advance major affordable housing projects, including Normandy Apartments and 249 Pennsylvania.

On the services side, it supported over 13,000 residents with tenant counseling, eviction prevention, and job training.

Home funds are primarily used for affordable housing development.

In fiscal year 24-25, home funds were allocated to the Sunnydale Hope SF site and affordable senior housing site in Chinatown at 772 Pacific, which will build 359 units of housing.

Home also supports property oversight, ensuring that buildings are safe, well maintained, and meeting standards.

ESG focuses on homelessness response.

Last year it served over 1,400 individuals through shelter and services.

In terms of prevention efforts, it helped nearly 3,000 households avoid homelessness.

HOPWA provides housing and services for people living with HIV aids.

Last year it supported over 1,000 residents with housing assistance and care coordination.

Stable housing is directly linked to improved health outcomes for this population.

Building on these outcomes, I'll now walk through the proposed investments for the coming fiscal year.

CDBG totals approximately $21.5 million, including both federal allocation and program income.

The majority supports housing preservation and rehabilitation.

Program administration funds support the staffing required to operate these federally regulated programs.

ESG provides about 1.7 million for focused on homelessness response.

Funding supports emergency shelter operations and services, homelessness prevention, including rental assistance, HMIS data systems required by HUD, and this funding is tightly regulated and targeted to crisis response.

Home provides approximately $6.6 million, primarily supporting new affordable housing construction within the city's development pipeline.

HUD's goal for HOPWA program is to provide housing assistance with supportive services to low and moderate income individuals living with HIV and their families.

In accordance with federal HOPWA regulations, HAPWA funding is distributed by formula to eligible states and metropolitan areas.

The HUD designated San Francisco EMSA, eligible metropolitan statistical area, include the San Francisco and San Mateo counties.

The HOPWA funded rental subsidies program provides long-term rental subsidies and housing advocacy for persons living with HIV.

The housing and supportive services program provides operation fund operations funding to residential care facilities for chronically ill and transitional residential care facilities.

The program contingency line is intended for rental subsidies.

Capital improvements to HOPWA funded facilities and other HOPA funded programs.

So this concludes my presentation.

These federal funds are essential to manage to maintain housing stability, reducing homelessness, and supporting vulnerable residents across San Francisco.

Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Sure, I have a couple questions.

In the references to eviction prevention, is eviction defense part of that?

Is that an eligible use of the funding or one that's customarily?

Do you want to?

Good morning, Helen Hale, Director of Housing Services of Eviction Prevention is in my portfolio.

So we have a mixture of funding that goes into a number of our programs.

We do use some of the CBDG, but a small portion of that.

We also use some of the OCO money and all so there's sort of a mixture.

It doesn't fully fund that alone.

Okay.

Okay.

Are we I know that in last budget cycle, this is a concern I think that is a most of us on the board share is just making sure.

Usually eviction defense and eviction prevention is a wise uh investment in making sure that we're not exacerbating homelessness.

So I was just curious if if we're seeing any as we're coming into another budget season, is this something that you think is going to be an area of needs?

I think there's always always more need, but I don't see a gap as compared to last year, particularly with this specifically with this item with the federal funding.

No, not at all.

Okay.

Okay.

I think that is it.

That's it from me, and I don't see anybody else on the roster with public comments, so Mr.

Clerk, why don't we open up a public comment?

Yes, right now opening public comment for items two through five.

If we have any members of the public who is to address this committee.

Mr.

Vice Chair, we have no speakers.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Public comment on this item is now closed.

And I would like to make a motion to send items two through five out to the full board with our positive recommendation.

May we have a roll call in that motion.

And on that motion.

The turfer.

Items two through five to the full board.

Member Sauter.

Solder aye.

Member 10.

Aye.

Dorsey, aye.

We have three ayes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The motions passed.

Mr.

Clerk, can you please call items numbers six, seven, and eight together?

Yes, items.

Between the city and county, and the following.

To be effective July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2030.

Item number six and seven is with the San Francisco Firefighters Union, local 798, High AFF, AFL CIO, units one and two.

Item number eight is with the San Francisco Police Officers Association.

Mr.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

And we are joined by the Department of Human Resources Executive Director, Carol Eisen.

And she is joined by some folks who are also available for questions.

Welcome to the budget and finance committee.

The floor is yours.

Good morning, Chair Darcy, members of the committee.

Thank you for having us today.

My name is Carol Eisen.

I'm the human resources director for the city.

These these agreements that would become effective July 1st upon your approval are four-year agreements.

They cover the three bargaining units that are at uh in question here, which is why you see three items on your agenda.

These agreements before you establish wages, benefits, and working conditions for all of the uh sworn members of the police and fire departments, and they include negotiated updates to compensation and to premiums for the next four fiscal years.

Um they were reached as a result of extensive good faith negotiations between the city and our labor partners.

Um we're very pleased to report um that we were able to reach these agreements through collective bargaining, and um we believe that they provide um support for our public safety work over the next four years.

If I had to uh pick a couple of words to characterize what these agreements are really about, um they provide both stability and certainty for the city over the next four years as you're approaching, I think, a very difficult budget cycle over the next two.

Um we did this at uh Mayor Lurie's direction to reach both fair and um responsible agreements, and I think that they that what's in front of you have achieved both.

Um the sworn members of the police and fire departments overwhelmingly ratified these agreements.

We're joined here today by uh the uh negotiating committee from the police officers association.

Want to make sure that we acknowledge their presence.

Um I think it's the best indication that the members of the police and fire department have heard and understand the city's concerns about its fiscal position and yet uh that these agreements also provide stability and certainty for their members over the next four years.

Um I'm gonna turn this over to Artist Graham, who is our employee relations director to cover the details with you.

I'll be here um to uh answer any questions that you have, but I want to make sure that you know that we're believe that the outcome is really quite excellent for everybody concerned, that the vote from the members uh with 95 percent plus uh yes votes sends a signal loudly that uh our members of our police and fire departments understand that the city's elected officials and uh uh their own leadership support the work that they're doing and endorse it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Director Eisen.

I really appreciate um the work that you did um as well as the negotiating teams for the the bargaining units um for their work for all working together.

Uh Mr.

Graham, thank you for being at the budget and finance committee.

The floor is yours.

Thank you so much for having me, Supervisor.

Good morning, Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Artis Graham.

I'm the employee relations director for the Department of Human Resources, and I'm very excited to present to you these uh MOUs.

And so first thing, as Carol said, I just want to reiterate that we really believe that this agreement, these agreements that we were able to reach are fiscally responsible for the city, and also help sustain our competitiveness for both our police and firefighter unions over the long term over the next four years.

So we we've been able to come to an agreement with our labor partners that we think is in the best interest of the city, both our citizens, employees, et cetera.

So if you don't mind, we'll we'll go walk you through some of the details of the of the MOU.

Can we pull up the PowerPoint?

Or yeah, perfect.

Okay.

So just to to give you a brief overview, the both or all three MOUs have wage periods of four years with three percent increases each year with a 2% increase on the last day of the contract.

So for a total of 14% increases over the four-year period.

And in the next slide, we can talk about some of the details of POA.

In the POA agreement, we added retention payments at some really targeted years at eight and ten years because holding on to mid-career police officer professionals is very important to us.

It helps to sustain our police force.

We've also made some improvements in terms of how we recruit our police officers.

In particular, there's a focus here on lateral officers, and so we made increased the signing bonus thanks to a one-time grant that the city has received.

And so, although we will have a significant signing bonus of 25,000 for mid-career officers that lateral into our department, it does not create an ongoing financial burden for the city.

In addition, we created a one-time five additional floating holidays for folks.

Because as you can imagine, as a mid-career professional, oftentimes you may have vacation plans, et cetera, with your family, and people were sacrificing that or not willing to come over because of that.

So we try to address that with a a one-time five-year or five-day floating holiday advantage for those officers.

And then in addition, we uh I forgot my last slide.

Oh, yes, we enhanced our field training officer compensation because field training officers are very important to the department, particularly as we bring over officers from other departments and bring people up through the academy to restaff our police force.

We want to make sure that our experienced officers have uh are able to provide them with the kind of secession planning we need and to familiarize them with the intricacies of our city and the complications of our city.

On the 798 agreement, we similarly took a proactive stance to invest in training of our officers.

And for here, we uh created an incentive for them to participate in a San Francisco specific training program.

So, as you may know, earlier, I guess last week, so earlier this month, we broke ground on a new uh firefighter training facility.

Part of the plan to use that firefighter training facility is to help prepare our department to prepare for the next big earthquake, or heaven forbid we have a situation like Los Angeles with the huge fires.

And so we have some very San Francisco-specific dynamics, large wooden structures, we share a lot of walls in this city, things like that.

So our department and our chief really wanted to make sure that we had a highly trained um pol uh firefighter force that was ready to deal with the San Francisco issues, and the mayor was completely supportive of that endeavor.

And so that's what we worked to do in this particular instance.

And to that regard, we wanted to provide for experienced officers to work on a seven-day a week schedule.

So we created an incentive for them to train seven days a week at our new training facility on these uh San Francisco specific crisis interventions.

We also created a wellness program for our firefighters, similar to the wellness program that we have in the POA agreement, um, which we hope will help support firefighters and their ongoing wellness.

As you can imagine, both are very physically demanding and difficult jobs.

So this was a way that we could support them.

In addition, we have committed funding for our behavioral health unit within the fire department, as well as we have additional tuition reimbursement money for them so that that way as they continue to uh learn and can progress and develop their careers within the San Francisco Fire Department.

Lastly, uh just to give you kind of an overview of how we in the Department of Human Resources consider um how we bargain and what we use is the factors that are in the charter.

And so the the charter factors deal with issues of CPI, what do other employees within the city have what is their compensation structure, what um are similarly situated employees in the region, what's their compensation structure?

So we take those things into account, and we believe we we were successful in doing that.

And working with our labor partners, we also were able to consider all of that as well as the financial condition of the city and create a an ongoing uh relatively long-term agreement that creates this you know sustainability for the city's work safety workforce.

And I'm available for any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I got have a couple questions.

On the um first of all, I really appreciate that um investing in behavioral health units work.

Um I think that's really important for jobs that are just I don't think people who are aren't in these kinds of positions fully understand the the level of stress um that we put people under who do this, and I think this is really important work.

It's my uh do I understand correctly it's $20,000 annually performing.

Yeah, just for the behavioral health unit for supportive services for them.

Does the police department get something similar to that?

Is there or is that already in its budget?

I believe it's already in its budget and they already have a system for that.

Okay.

Um the you mentioned uh competitiveness, and I think that's a really important point.

I know that we often, and certainly I have prioritized this, police understaffing um in San Francisco has been a problem.

Where are we with fire staffing?

Are we in good shape there?

Yes, the fire department is fully staffed.

Okay.

Is there a perspective that I don't know if you or maybe I could somebody here could give me just to give me some visibility on the labor market for um law enforcement personnel, um, is this an MOU that is going to put us in a better competitive position for new recruits and for lateral hires?

Yes.

So I'll I'll say that for just for sake of context, we do the surveys uh about once a year.

So our earliest survey, our most recent survey rather, was before these MOUs were agreed to.

So the exact impact of these MOUs is uncertain in terms of the competitive landscape, because there are a number of other jurisdictions that are also in bargaining with their police officers association.

So we don't fully know how to work out in the end.

But in short, we are very competitive within the police ranks.

Uh when you take our full compensation together, there are only two cities that pay more than we do, and that's um the City of Santa Clara, which pays more than we do for everything, and the City of San Jose.

Um I think that we as a city being an exciting and interesting place, offer a lot of different opportunities for police officers that those cities don't offer.

So we are competitive in that way as well.

Okay.

The reason it's going to continue to be a priority for me, at least police understaffing, I think we finally had some good news in that we are starting for the first time in many years to hire more police officers than we are losing to retirement and attrition.

Um but we also have a methodology that was independently developed that voters approved back in 2020 of how many police officers we need.

And so while we're we're netting more than we're losing, that's the good news.

The bad news is our need actually went up, I believe, something like 200 plus full duty officers.

So we're in actually worse shape than we were even when I was trying to push a couple charter amendments a couple of years ago on this.

Um I'm working with the mayor and you know, doing everything I can to work with people.

I do feel this is just I'll get in my soapbox for a minute.

Uh many one thing that I've just experienced as somebody who represents a downtown district, um, it is exasperating that so many of the responses that I have to constituent concerns about things that are playing out with street conditions in their neighborhood have to include some explanation that we don't have enough police officers for that.

And while I recognize that there is a lot of public safety challenges that came before us that we didn't see coming, I think we can be defended several years ago for not knowing that we were going to have a once-in-a-century pandemic.

I think we can be defended for not knowing that there was going to be a drug that was more potently addictive and deadly, like fentanyl.

We didn't see that coming.

Um but we knew we knew police officers retire.

And it is sort of uh continually frustrating to me that we we as a city didn't do more sooner to get ahead of that.

Um so anyway, uh I'll I'll be continuing to work on that.

Um maybe during public comment or for or we, you know, I'd love to hear some thoughts on uh what I'm interested in is making sure we're doing everything we can to be the place where people want to work so that we can make some real progress that we need.

Supervisor Darcy, um also looking forward to hearing what the police officers association's comments are um on the points that you raise.

I just want to assure you from the perspective of the Department of Human Resources, we're doing everything that we can to support the police department and its recruitment and retention efforts.

The last agreement that is now expiring, plus this new one, I think has added very substantially to the department's ability to um attract mid-career police officers from other agencies.

Um the labor market, yes, we can do a survey, we can tell you how much everybody pays, but one critical fact in San Francisco that is really unrivaled is just the size of the department and the opportunities that for employment and to uh have your career go in a lot of different directions.

We can offer that here in the city.

The other thing that um uh we have worked closely with the department on is to make sure that out in the labor market that there's a good understanding of how the city's pension works.

It is um for for new officers, for emerging uh police officers, our pension is better.

It's not always the top concern of a 25 or 26-year-old thinking about what they're gonna do with themselves.

But 20 years later, they're gonna find out that if you come to work in San Francisco and work in our under our Spurs system, you're going to be substantially better off than you are under the PERS uh and the PEPRA arrangements that are um what most of our competitors are in.

So I think that's critical.

We've advertised that.

It's helped a lot.

We've gotten a lot of um lateral transfers, and now you can see in this agreement we've taken some steps to make sure that those lateral transfers want to stay.

Uh and in the at the same time, the police department is really um driving towards expanding their academies.

And you can see in this agreement that we've created incentives for experienced officers to be much more directly involved in those academies to help uh bring up a new generation.

So the work is continuing.

We hear you, we share your concerns, and it's a central uh driver for DHR and in our work in our employment services team.

Thank you.

I really appreciate that.

And thank you.

I really appreciate everybody for their work.

And before I see the representative of the POA is here, but um Supervisor Sauter.

Thank you, Chair.

Um and I'm I'm very happy to see that there's a a clear path to um to resolution here, you know, in this current budget climate.

Um it's good to see that everyone came to the table and was realistic and worked together um to find an agreement here.

One thing it just uh to get on the record here, and I know I've had conversations with DHR and then union leadership as well, something I'd like to see us go further in, either uh in this in the future or in a future agreement, which is um more work specifically higher bonuses around bilingual recruitment and certification.

Um I think there's work to be done on making sure that the testing and certification piece is realistic and is um accessible, and then also just the the dollars themselves, um, particularly for fire, I know we're quite low when you compare to some other uh comparable cities.

So uh just stating it here on the record, that's something I continue to uh to hope to work with all parties to get past in the future.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Sauter.

Um I don't I don't think I have any more questions for you, but I would love to get if it's okay, I'd like to call up um Louie Wong from the police officers association.

And if you if you want to address, I I would value any perspective you have.

I mean, you know, at the end of the day, I want to make sure that we are more competitive than jurisdictions that may be hiring law enforcement personnel that we want to have working for us.

And I have that information for you.

So good morning uh supervisors.

Uh my name is Lewis Wong.

I am the POA president uh for San Francisco Police Police Office Association.

I've been with the department for over 30 years.

Um been with the POA for 14 years.

I'm here to speak on behalf of the total um membership.

Uh we are we would like you to support this tethered agreement.

This agreement I've been around for 30 years.

I believe this is the best contract that I have ever been a part of.

Um I can tell you as regards to uh staffing levels.

I just met with the Samtell Sheriff Carlos Tapio yesterday at lunch with him.

He wants our inside information, which I won't give to him regarding how do you guys attract all these officers.

What do you have?

That is correct.

We have retention built in.

Um but they want to do it.

I have I was on FaceTime with the Hawaiian president yesterday, Don.

He was asking me, he wanted to see our old MOUs to see how to better his department because staffing is bad everywhere.

But I can tell you that I've been working with uh Chief Lou, uh members of recruitment where we have a lot of laterals.

They're waiting to come.

We have actually 19 laterals from the Southway waiting to come here.

We've had the highest number of graduation of recruits since 2017 of 41, just two weeks ago.

There was an incentive inside our contract given to us to attract laterals from private donors.

And I'm telling you, it's it's gonna make a big difference if you guys do pass this uh this tenant agreement.

Um I want to also thank my negotiation team who's here.

I'll just go really fast, Gaetano, Pavel, Rob, um Paloma, and Ashley behind me, as well as our labor attorney, Rocky Lucia.

As you can see here, we have um older officers, officers mid-level, and newer officers.

We even have two females on my negotiation team, because as you know in life, we need a female's perspective into this.

And I think everyone brought something to the table, and it was a fair and professional uh negotiation.

Uh I would like to thank um Donia Wong, who's a chief negotiator.

I want to thank also Carol Eisen, who worked tirelessly with us at 10 p.m.

on a Friday night to help help with this contract.

Uh I would like to thank members of the command staff that are here, Derek Chief Liu, who attended some of these meetings, and Nicole Jones under the direction of Mayor Lurie.

Uh I don't think we had any conflicts during this, not even one little dispute, because we all had a common denominator, which is public safety.

This contract, it will it's not just for the police and for fire, it's for the citizens.

We're gonna attract more cops here.

It's gonna bring the crime rate down even more than we are.

And it's gonna help with the with the public with the public safety and the mental health situation that we have here.

Um and this contract also we thought about the budgetary crisis that we're in.

That's why we had a four-year contract instead of traditional three, because we understood and we want to help out the city.

Um the like they like Carol Eisen said, the membership approved this overwhelmingly.

It shows the support to these officers that you guys have.

You know, when I met with you guys when I first became president, I met with you guys one-on-one in your office, and you guys said, hey, public safety is number one.

I took that in consideration and I applied that into this uh contract.

Um and also stated, I also stated that this this the main topic is is recruitment and retention.

And I can tell you if this is ratified, we're gonna get we're gonna get back on top in a couple of years.

You guys got any other questions for me?

I don't, and I don't see anybody on the roster, but I really appreciate that.

I could ask if it's okay.

There's a follow-up because you know, we have uh as a city um expressed our aspiration for 30 by 30 hiring, making sure that we're doing more to hire female officers.

Correct.

Um I'm interested if there's any um perspective on that.

How are we doing and what couldn't what more could we do?

I think we're doing well, and Ashley behind me can speak to that, but we have a leadership committee that we established uh with the POA as a new leadership group to uh attract more females.

We have a leadership, we just had a leadership luncheon uh where we attracted more and more female officers, and I think this profession is changing towards that.

When I came in, it was 95 percent male.

Now we see more and more um command staff uh female officers, and we are attracting more.

We were having a lot more uh laterals coming that are females.

They're just attracted by the fact that command staff we have women leaders because their departments don't.

Okay.

All right.

Uh Supervisor Chen.

Thank you, Chair Darcy.

Um, I would also like to learn a little bit more about retention.

I know recruitment, we've been boosting with lateral or the academy, but what about retention?

In keeping officers.

Yeah, in keeping officers.

Well, that's why we had the fourth year, and in the fourth year, when you look at the MOU, there's a higher uh pay rate at the end.

That's to keep the officers.

Um the majority of our this contract affected the majority of the officers, which is 86 percent and are younger.

Um 14 percent are people like me who came in in 1995 who are retiring.

So, in regards to losing officers, we're not losing officers because at the POA I'm I'm not uh making any retirement plaques that often like I used to.

So, in regards to keeping our own officers, we are, but we're gaining a lot more.

Great, thank you.

And I I um I appreciate that um Supervisor Dorsey talked about female officers, and I also uh remembered I asked the questions about language access.

And I think San Francisco is very diverse.

Um is that any and uh uh effort in continue to also recoup uh bilingual, trilingual officers into the academy or into in into the department.

Yes.

Thank you.

Is that oh I'm sorry, that was a question.

Oh, I am so sorry.

Yeah, is that effort also being um um uh intentional about recruiting more uh language um uh capacity?

I I'm in constant talks with one of the recruitment officer, Michael Batuu.

You see him all the social medias and events.

Uh we are targeting schools of with bilingual different races.

Uh we are going down to military basis.

Uh we are going to be going to attract outside laterals from different states that have more of a bilingual uh atmosphere for officers.

So we we I am in constant contact with him.

Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Chen.

Um do we want to hear from the was the officer?

Yes, she's right behind officer slumps.

Welcome to the committee.

Thank you.

Good morning, committee uh vice chair and members of the committee.

Uh my name is Ashley Slomowitz.

I'm an officer here with the San Francisco Police Department, and I've been in for about 10 years now.

Um I'm also um on the RPOA board of directors, which I joined back in 2023, and I was uh re-elected.

I represent Central Station, which is my current assignment.

I've been at Central Station since about 2020.

And uh my current job role is I'm on patrol as a fisherman's war footbeat, but prior to that I was a lower knob Hill footbeat in District 3.

I worked with Supervisor Sauter.

Um this was my first negotiation.

I was part of the negotiations team, and I will agree with what our President Wong uh stated here is that the negotiations team had a vast spectrum of years of experience.

It's very important to represent our members who have like 25 years, 30 years in.

We have um officer hospital here has six years in about um so just and everywhere in between.

Um so to make sure that all of our bases were covered and that the input we got from our members was authentic and represented um an accurate picture of what our members want.

Um we had true buy-in from both sides.

It was very obvious.

I didn't know what to expect in this process, but to see how the city team and the SOPOA team operated was extremely professional.

We had a lot of very candid conversations, including a lot of difficult conversations involving the reality of our staffing shortages and uh the need for a robust uh compensation package, as well as focusing on improving working conditions.

Those were our core goals, and we were very frank about that, and I do credit that with how we were able to get this tentative agreement um the way that it is.

Um those conversations shaped that um and that that this TA is a solid foundation to rebuild our ranks, which will benefit the city as well as our department.

Um just to echo as well as um what Carol Ison mentioned earlier about stability and certainty.

I believe that is the core of this tentative agreement.

Um we sought to address items of importance as well as urgency to stop the bleeding of losing cops um as well as focusing on issues including FTO pay, which was an item that has not been updated in 20 years.

Twenty years without increasing compensation for FTOs.

Um I'm just surprised it went that far, so I'm glad it was addressed here.

Um as we've just been speaking about, we're having a lot of recruits and FTO burnout is real.

Um officers here do probably more work.

The the calls that we see in a regular week of patrol, it's probably on par with what smaller agencies maybe see in a couple of months, and that is magnified by what FTOs, field training officers have to go through by guiding recruits, not even just new officers, but laterals who are coming from other agencies who will have to learn our policies and ensure that they abide by them.

Um so our FDO pay increase is something that I'm very proud that we were able to accomplish in this TA.

And aside from how this DA will affect our department, I think about the community.

My mom works in the city, has worked in the city my entire life.

She's at work right now in Soma, and I think about her all the time.

You know, where is she?

Is she safe right now?

What would happen if I had to go over and help?

Um my aunt and uncle are here, my cousin works here.

Um I care about this city.

Our negotiations team cares about the city, and our membership cares about the city.

And this tentative agreement will help ensure uh that we are fully staffed or in heading that way, um, as well as to keep public safety um stable and give the city that certainty that it needs.

Um I do want to specially thank uh Chief Liu as well as our command staff who were present for our negotiations.

Uh Assistant Chief Jones as well as um Deputy Chief Sawyer.

Their input was again very candid, and I think those real conversations is how we actually got a lot of our um great um points.

Um the sections of the MOU that we needed to include here.

A lot of that would not have been possible without buy-in from our command staff and their understanding our perspective and the reality of what we're facing on the street.

Um so again, big thanks to them.

Thank you to Mayor Lurie.

Um, thank you to DHR and all their team's work.

Um I'm open to any questions you have.

I don't see anyone on the roster.

I just express my appreciation to you, Officer uh Slomowitz, for your presentation.

Thank you.

And I want to expand that just to thank everyone for their work on this.

Um I don't see anybody else on the roster for um questions or comments.

So, Mr.

Clerk, why don't we open this up to public comment?

Yes, we're opening public comment for these items six through eight.

If we have any members of the public, who wish to address this committee?

Well, I guess I count as the public here in this scenario.

But I just wanted to stop by and um lend my support to to the contract and first off thank DHR and Carolicens team and of course the POA negotiant negotiation negotiation team, Louie, um, for I know a lot of work went into this, and I think from the onset, I went into the first meeting and asked for all we wanted was something fair and equitable to both membership as well as the ability for um command staff to properly manage the the department as well, and I think that's where where we got.

Um so I know there was a lot of work that went into that.

Um, and uh so very thankful for for how this all turned out.

Um but the bottom line is I think that what concluded was we got something very reasonable.

It probably I think rewards um officers, the membership for you know all the work that has been done up to this point.

I think the public safety numbers speak for themselves.

We are currently in the midst of uh the fentanyl crisis, and I think that it's an all-hands on deck situation for the entire city.

But our officers are a huge part of that.

14,000 um drug-related arrests are a big deal, and then along with all of our calls for service and the other things that we do uh to go with that.

So I certainly feel like that's being recognized.

Uh the other part of it is is um for the department for us to move along at this trajectory and this I think level of success.

It all depends on um our ability to recruit and retain.

I think this achieves that.

I'll just speak to laterals, for example.

I I feel like they are the true barometer of whether people want to come here and work.

They already have jobs.

I think that part of that is looking at the financial package along with what is going on in the city and being part of that.

Uh and I think this contract addresses that.

So I'll stop there.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

And if we have no further speakers, oh, thank you.

Uh Chief Lou.

Uh if we have no further speakers, Mr.

Vice Chair, that completes our queue.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Public comment on this on these items is now closed.

And seeing no one else on the roster, I would like to make a motion to send these MOUs, items six, seven, and eight, to the full board of supervisors with our positive recommendation.

Mr.

Clerk, may we have a roll call in that motion.

And on that motion, they refer all three ordinances to the full board as recommended.

Member Sauter.

Soder, aye, member Chen.

Chen, I, Vice Chair Dorsey.

Aye.

Dorsey, aye.

We have three ayes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The motions pass.

Congratulations.

And next up, uh, Mr.

Clerk, can we call um item nine?

Yes, item nine is our hearing to consider the release of reserved funds to the San Francisco Police Department placed on budget and finance committee reserve by Board of Supervisors annual appropriation ordinance for fiscal year 2025 to 2026 and 2026 to 2027 in the amount of approximately 537,000 for operational needs.

Mr.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

We have the San Francisco Police Department's Government Affairs Manager Carl Nasido with us.

Mr.

Nasida, welcome to the budget and finance committee.

The floor is yours.

Thank you.

Good morning, Vice Chair Dorsey, Supervisor Sauter, Supervisor Chen.

As you just said, I am Carl Masita, Government Affairs Manager for the Police Department.

This item requests release of $137,583 in fiscal year 25-26 general fund overtime that was placed on reserve in June 2025 by this committee, along with additional 652,130 for fiscal year 26-27 for a total of about 1.19 million across those two years.

Since then, as you will recall, the board just approved a $28.5 million increase in SFPD's 2526 general fund overtime appropriation by deappropriating salary savings for overtime.

This item releases the 537,583 reserve for the current fiscal year to support overtime costs for the remaining pay periods, including minimum staffing requirements.

Releasing this reserve helps the department get through the balance of the year without needing another mid-year appropriation.

In short, it is a release of the previously budgeted overtime funds that were held on reserve to help the department manage the remaining pay periods in this fiscal year.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Nasita.

There was, I mean, one thing I will just ask for just generally.

And to find out that the cost savings from overtime would almost make it a wash.

It just really elevates the urgency of doing more as a city just to get to so that we're not in a situation where we're spending this much on overtime.

My my thinking on overtime, and I think what I have said whenever there has been a budget supplemental or issue that comes before us, whether it's for the full board or as a member of the budget committee, is yeah, I'm going to support this because the alternative is unthinkable.

But it's one of those situations where I'm not proud of it either when we're spending this much.

We shouldn't be asking taxpayers to spend more money for less policing because of the overtime needs.

So that's part of the reason that fully full staffing has been a priority for me.

If if in your budget presentations moving forward, it might be worthwhile to have a slide of just sort of just just to remind us.

I'm just, you know, maybe my this is just my political advice, maybe.

Um what it what a fully staffed department might cost compared to just so that we're reminded of the added costs of overtime.

Um I also worry, as you know, somebody who's been around city government for a long time, when we are running some of our work our workforce ragged with really stressful jobs.

Um I am sensitive to that too.

I have no questions about other than to just get that off my chest.

Um I don't see anybody on the roster with questions or comments.

Um we have a BLA report on this.

Item nine is a request from the police department to release about $500,000 from budget and finance or budget appropriations committee reserve.

This is money that is already in the police budget uh but can't be spent until the committee uh lifts the reserve.

Um so as we discuss on page 10 of our report, uh the department is projecting about a salary surplus of just under a million dollars, so this is over half of that.

Um that does assume ongoing reductions in their overtime use for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Uh and so I think given that this is uh over half of their uh projected salary surplus, it's it's cutting it pretty close, and I think they will need these funds, and so we are recommending that you release the reserve.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Bernard.

I don't see anyone on the roster with questions or comments.

Mr.

Clerk, may we open this item up to public comment?

Yes, we are opening public comment for this item number nine.

If we have any uh members of the public wish to address this committee.

Mr.

Vice Chair, we have no speakers.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Public comment on this item is now closed.

And I would like to make a motion, and actually, Mr.

Clerk, may I do these as one motion?

Yes.

Okay.

I would like to make a motion for this hearing to be heard and filed and then move this item to the full board with our positive recommendations.

Could we have a roll call on that?

Um actually uh Mr.

Vice Chair, this is a hearing that we don't push to the full board.

So uh yeah, if we could just uh direct that we uh release the funds.

Then let's uh the motion is to have this hearing heard and filed and do approve the the release of the funds.

Okay.

And on that motion that we uh that this committee approves the release uh of the reserve funds to the police department and that this hearing be heard and filed.

Member Sauter.

Saudder, aye.

Member Chen?

Chen, I'm Vice Chair Dorsey.

I Dorsey, aye.

We have three ayes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The motion passes.

Mr.

Clerk, can we please call item number 10?

Yes, item number 10 is an ordinance retroactively authorizing the police department to accept and expend the grant in the amount of six point twenty-five million from the U.S.

Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services or COPS under the fiscal year 25 cops hiring program to fund 50 new police officer positions for approximately one year for the period of October 1st, 2025 through September 30th, 2030, and amending the annual salary ordinance for fiscal years 2025 to 2026 and 2026 to 2027 to provide for the addition of 50 grant funded positions in class Q002 police officer.

Mr.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk, and we welcome back Mr.

Nasita.

Thank you again.

Item 10 retroactively authorizes SFPD to accept and expend a $6.25 million DOJ COPS hiring grant and adds 50 grant funded Q2 police officer positions to the annual salary ordinance.

In June of 2025, SFPD applied for this highly competitive national grant that supports hiring of full-time sworn officers to expand community policing capacity and crime prevention.

In October of 2025, the department was awarded the 6.25 million, which is the maximum award in a single cycle to support 50 new full-time officers.

This is the department department's second such award within five years following a similar award in 2021.

The grant provides funding for up to 75 percent of the entry level salary and benefits over a three-year period, capped at 125,000 per officer, and includes a 12-month retention requirement after federal funding ends.

These are 50 new officers, and the grant is being implemented as part of the department's broader hiring strategy.

As of April 2026, 27 of the 50 positions have already been filled, which is why this is retroactive, with the remaining hires coming through upcoming academy classes.

The grant requires a local match, and the department's approach is to support that match through vacancy savings within the salary budget, consistent with our prior COPS grants, while adding officers rather than replacing planned hires.

I do want to note that the city attorney's office challenged certain unlawful conditions attached to this grant, and the city obtained a preliminary injunction in January blocking those conditions.

The City Attorney's Office is seeking a permanent injunction, and until then the preliminary injunction remains in place.

In short, this grant allows the department to leverage federal funding to accelerate hiring, increases sworn staffing, and supports violent crime reduction efforts while maintaining the city's overall staffing investment.

Happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you, Mr.

Nasita.

Um I don't have any questions, and I don't see anybody on the roster with um questions or comments.

Um we have a BLA report.

Mr.

Bernard.

Thank you.

Item 10 is an ordinance that would authorize the police department to accept and expend $6.25 million from the U.S.

Department of Justice.

Um and also amends a salary ordinance to add 50 positions to the police department budget this year.

And so, and then the the underlying grant agreement would be effective as of October 2025.

So it's retroactive.

Um so as we discuss on page 15 of our report, the way that this grant works is that the DOJ provides the city funding up to 125,000 per officer over a three-year period.

The city has to uh then provide a matching fund of at least 25 percent, and then keep those people on payroll for one year after the three-year grant period.

Uh over the three-year period, because the 125,000 dollars is really just the base uh entry-level salary costs of an officer, the city will pay the remaining costs for the two years, which far exceeds um the 25 percent match.

Most of those costs will likely be from the general fund.

Um and then any additional non-personnel costs, such as a new car or overtime, are not part of the grant as well.

And that so this the city's projected $18 million in matching funds are just to pay for the base wages and benefits for the officers during the grant period.

Um that's it.

I think we recommend approval of item 10.

Great.

Thank you, Mr.

Munard.

I don't have any questions myself, and I don't see anyone on the roster with uh questions.

Mr.

Clerk, can we invite a public comment on this item?

Yes, we're opening public comment for this item number ten.

If we have any members of the public who wish to address this committee.

And Mr.

Vice Chair, we have no speakers.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The the public comment on this item is now closed.

And I would like to make a motion to send this item to the full board with our positive recommendation.

We have a roll call on that motion.

And on that motion to refer this ordinance to the full board as recommended.

Member Sauter.

Soder aye.

Member Chen.

Chen aye.

Vice Chair Dorsey.

Aye.

Dorsey, aye.

We have three ayes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The motion passes.

Mr.

Clerk, is there any more business before us today?

Mr.

Vice Chair, that concludes our business.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Thank you, colleagues, and everyone who participated today.

There being no further business, we are adjourned.