The meeting will come to order.

This is the February 12th, 2024 Rules Committee meeting.

I'm Supervisor Hillary Ronin, Chair of the Committee.

I'm joined by Committee Vice Chair Shimon Walton, and we'll soon be joined by committee members, Supervisor Safai.

Our clerk is Victor Young, and I would like to thank Corwin Cooley at SFGov TV for broadcasting this meeting.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes, 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 on your right.

Alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing in either of the following ways.

Email them to myself, the rules committee clerk at VICTOR dot YOUNG at SFgov.org.

If you submit public comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors that include as part of the file.

You may also send your written comment via US mail to our office at City Hall when Dr.

Carlton be goodlit place.

Room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102.

Please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk.

Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda on February 27, 2024.

Unless otherwise stated, that completes my initial announcements.

Thank you.

Can you please read it number four out of order?

Yes, item number four is ordinance many the administrative code to authorize the Department of Public Health to procure behavioral health and public health residential care and treatment services for the patient of the department without adhering to the competitive solicitation or local business enterprise requirements of the municipal code.

Thank you so much.

Good to see you, Mr.

Wagner.

Again.

Good morning, Chair Ronan, Supervisor Walton, Greg Wagner, Department of Public Health.

But business continues.

So as you know, we have before you legislation requesting additional flexibility to be able to procure behavioral health and public health residential care and treatment beds inside, but probably more frequently outside of the county to meet what we all know is a very urgent uh need.

We've been working for uh months and years to expand the supply of uh treatment beds of various types.

We've come to the conclusion uh that in many cases, although there are obviously very good reasons for the rules and laws that we have around procurement, uh they are not fitting the need uh given the market for these uh beds.

There is an undersupply and a lot of demand for these beds.

In many cases, we have providers that have beds available, but who did not participate in the competitive solicitation process, and that makes it very challenging for us to figure out how to wait to uh a way to purchase those beds in a timely way.

Um so that's obviously creating service gaps, time delays, and getting people uh the treatment that we know uh that they need.

Um, if you could hold on one quick second, there's slides on the laptop, but they're not showing on SFGov TV.

Oh, yes, SFGov TV.

Uh if you don't mind showing the slides.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, so um at the heart of the request uh of this ordinance is uh a competitive solicitation waiver.

Um so we would certainly still continue to use competitive solicitations, RFPs, and RFQs for a lot of these services.

Uh but the request here would give us the option uh in cases where we find beds available uh that a provider had not uh uh uh competed in those processes to enter into contract negotiations within the confines of this uh ordinance.

Um we understand that this is uh a serious ask and we don't make it lightly.

Uh, we've attempted to put some constraints around the scope of the request to make sure uh that we have the ability to monitor uh the usage of the request and that it's being used appropriately.

Uh we would have reporting obligations uh including uh annual reporting on the usage of this ordinance.

We have our health commission oversight of all of our contracts.

Uh we have the regular contracting process that would still apply, including uh contract compliance oversight and uh the state and federal licensing regulations and clinical oversight of the use of these beds.

Um so while this would uh waive the competitive solicitation process in current in certain cases, we would still have a lot of controls and oversight uh over these services.

Uh the legislation includes a sunset provision in five years.

Uh what we uh expect that this would do is expand our capacity for uh much needed behavioral health beds, including those that are tailored to some of the specific needs of our clients that are very hard to find.

Uh these could include locked subacute, complex licensed treatment beds, mental health and substance use, residential services, withdrawal management, uh step down and others.

Uh this would also provide us the ability when we require isolation and quarantine beds that are unpredictable and often very time sensitive to um uh quickly procure those beds.

Uh so goals uh again are to reduce wait time, increase diversity in our provider pool, uh, give us flexibility and finding the right bed for the right client at the right time and uh uh speed up and streamline the administrative process uh for uh procurement of these services.

Um so I will uh leave it at that, and I'm happy to uh answer questions and uh my colleagues from public health are here as well.

Sure, thank you.

Supervisor Walton.

Thank you, Chair Ronan, and thank you for the presentation.

Just I do have one question.

Why do we have to waive LBE requirements as a part of this?

Um so right now for these services, um we we have an active LBE program at DPH, but for these services, those requirements are often waived anyway.