Good morning, everyone.

Happy Monday.

We are happy to be here for this special meeting of budget hearing.

Madam Secretary, could you please call the role?

President Jami.

Here.

Vice President Maxwell?

Commissioner Paulson.

He's expected shortly.

Commissioner Rivera is joining us today remotely.

Commissioner Stacy?

Here.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 health emergency, and given the public health recommendations issued by the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the emergency orders of the Governor and the Mayor concerning social distancing and lifting the restrictions on teleconference.

This meeting is being held via teleconference and is being televised by SFGTV.

For those of you watching the live stream, please be aware that there is a brief time lag between the live meeting and what is being televised on SFGTV.

On behalf of the Commission, I would like to extend our thanks to SFGTV staff and SFPUCIT staff for their assistance during this meeting.

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Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Before calling the first item, I would like to announce that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission acknowledges that it owns and are stewards of the land on ceded lands located within the ethnohistoric territory of Moakmaalone tribe and other familial descendants of the historic historic federally recognized Mission San Jose Verona Band of Atlamida County.

The SFUC also recognizes that very every citizen residing within the Greater Bay Area has and continues to benefit from the use and occupation of the Moach Maalone tribe's aboriginal lands since before and after the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's founding in 1932.

It is virtually it is vitally important that we not only recognize the history of the tribal land on which we reside, but also we acknowledge the and honor the fact that Moakmaalone people have established a working partnership with the SFUC and our productive and flourishing members within the many greater San Francisco Bay Area communities today.

Madam President, please call the first item.

First item is item number three, the public hearing, staff presentation and overview of the proposed budget priorities.

Good morning, Commissioners.

Dennis Frera, General Manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and hello everyone and thank you for joining us today at this uh special meeting.

We are at the midpoint of our two-year fixed budget process, and usually we have a break from budget hearings in the off year, as you are well aware.

However, as you know, we've been working very hard on our capital plans over the past year and have a lot of updates to share with you in advance of the budgets being officially adopted at the regular meeting in February.

So I want to lay it.

Please could you ask us for the presentation up?

I'm sorry?

Please could you ask us another presentation?

Can you put the presentation up, Donna?

Okay.

So here's our agenda for today.

First, a quick reminder about our budget process and what to expect.

Then I will go over our budget context, challenges, and approach, and then I'll hand over uh to CFO Nancy Hamm and her team to go over our proposed fiscal year 2023-2024 operating budget changes, capital budget, and 10-year capital plan.

She'll talk about what's driving the changes, the process we have followed, and why we've been so focused on prioritization.

We'll also include a summary of the proposed 10-year financial plan, showing how all of these decisions impact our financial sustainability and rates in the future.

After that, we'll hand over the presentation to the enterprise AGMs who will go over their capital plans in more detail.

Let's begin with a reminder about where we are in the budget process.

The SFPUC has a fixed two-year operating budget, which was adopted by the Commission last February.

However, we only put in place a one-year capital budget.

So we're at the midpoint of our biennial operating budget and we'll only be making minor changes there.

However, as we have been very busy with updating the capital budget, we will talk more about, we'll talk more about that shortly.

So, what will be asked of you in the budget process?

First, your review and oversight.

Then you'll be asked to adopt the budget before it is proposed to the mayor's office in February.

And at the February 14th regular meeting, you'll hopefully vote to adopt the operating budget changes, a capital plan and budget, and a 10-year financial plan.

Our goal for today is to provide you with background information for these items.

We would also like to walk you through our strategy in developing these budgets.

So let's talk about the context of this year's budget and the factors influencing its development.

First, despite a wet winter so far, we are still officially in a drought, and we don't know exactly when it will end.