2.

(ACTION) Review and approval of June 28, 2006 meeting minutes

Upon motion and 2^nd, the minutes were approved as written.

(public comments)
There were none.

3.

Public comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Juvenile Probation Commission
Jessica Hazard (Each One Reach One) asked about the status of the contracts being negotiated.

Francisco De costa referred to a recent report from the City of San Francisco MOCJ called Safe Summer 2006.  He talked about some of the data in it. He noted no particular attention being paid to youth who are not in conflict with the law. He also said community programs should be evaluated on a quarterly basis.

David McGillis, Urban Services, YMCA, Dir. Of OMI Beacon Ctr. He was concerned about the failure of two programs to be funded despite their high rankings in the scoring.  He asked for an explanation of why this was, and asked for a re-consideration.

Will Corpus, OMI Beacon, asked what those youth that used to be helped by the Ctr. will do now since the Ctr. will not be funded?

4.

(DISCUSSION) Chief Probation Officer’s report:

(copies of documents re. Individual items, attached at end of minutes.)

The Chief introduced Kevin Liao from the Youth Commission to do the first report.

• Report from Youth Commissioners on work toward youth advisory council
• Update on YGC youth awaiting placement
• Update on the CARC cite-backs

Iqra (Chair of Youth Commission) and Cassandra James (rep from district 10), said they had looked at the Chicago operation and come up with their recommendations for a work plan for SF, encompassing 3 elements that Chicago has. (orientation, exit interviews and peer jury).  (written report available through Youth Commission or Probation Commission).

K. Liao gave a little background to the thinking of having young people involved in service to others like themselves, and to the general public (eg. Youth Commission).

Diana Pang gave some anecdotal information about the benefits of such a program.

Staffing:3 Dept staff (community development specialists) will help work on this. The funds are from the Zelllerbach Fdn grant.

Comm Queen recommended that the development of this keep a close contact with existing services like Brothers Against Guns, etc.  and that youth from the most impacted neighborhoods are involved.

Comm Hale wanted a clearer picture of the scope of the work envisioned for this body, clarification of proscriptions by the sunshine ordinance, and how it will be sustained beyond this development stage.  What “teeth” will the body’s recommendations have and how would it be implemented?

The Chief referred to a document that showed the different times taken for dealing with detainees awaiting placement.  This document is a working draft of a management document that they will continue refining in order to improve the way cases are handled. Comm Hale noted that this issue is about case processing and how to make sure the system expedites it.

The Chief referred to the document provided. Mark Mardahl further explained what was behind some of the cite-backs to CARC.  Some due to “over charging” by the police. The staff between CARC and the Dept are consistently meeting so there is greater coordination of work.

Comm Beijen corroborated the practice of “charging up” and said the Dept might raise this to the Police Dept as an issue in their training.  He complemented the CARC and Dept on their increasing cooperation and improvement.

There was a review of the ethnic breakout of the referrals and other demographics.  A further breakout of zip codes of the homes of those referred, as well as the zip codes of where violations occurred was requested for future reports.

(public comments)

Francisco Decosta asked to have speakers remain after their presentations so that they may hear comments about their presentations.

“Lucky”, United Playaz, asked about the lack of a Boys and Girls Club in the south of Market area.  Comm Hale asked to re open public comments, item #3, so the comments could be included.

Rudy, United Playaz also spoke in support of the OMI Beacon Ctr, at Denman MS.

Chip RIch, Exec Dir. Urban Services, questioned the decisions around the recent RFP where their highly rated proposals were sidestepped for lower scoring proposals. He asked for clarification and re-consideration.

5.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION) Approval to receive and expend Annie E. Casey Foundation grant for the JDAI work.

The Chief presented a letter of award from the Annie E Casey Foundation in the amount of $125K to continue the work of the JDAI.  He asked the Commission to approve the resolution to accept and expend this grant.

Comm Beijen moved to authorize the Chief to accept the grant from the Annie E Casey Foundation to support activities to advance the principles of the JDAI in SF.  Comm Stiglich 2^nd.

Comm Fetico asked what this will cost this year and in future years in personnel.  The Chief said about $68K of this grant will go for staffing.  It is a civil service classed position.

Comm Hale commented that the DMC issue would not be impacted by adding a position, when it depends on the cooperation of partners in the system.  He was concerned about how this plan came about –not having heard anything prior to tonight about it.

Garry Bieringer commented that the decision to pursue this route was based on looking at the experience of other JDAI localities where they had a “dedicated” staff that dealt with the DMC issue.  SF was the only one that had a single “combined” staff attending to the overall JDAI and DMC issues.  The role of the DMC Coordinator would be to amass the data, analyze it and bring the decision makers to the table to change things.

Comm Hale felt it was disingenuous to say that having one central staff is the way to make progress in DMC.

Comm Stiglich asked if the funds were exclusively for technical assistance to advance long range planning.  to advance long range planning.  Yes.

The question was called and upon voice vote was approved 6-0.                                                                                    

(public comments)

There were none.

6.

(DISCUSSION).   Oversight and management responsibilities.

Comm Stiglich tabled this until the next meeting.

(public comments)
There were none.

7.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION) Request Controller to perform an audit of financial systems and procedures to assess efficiency and accountability in Department operations.

Comm Fetico said he asked for this because he wanted to get a fresh start on the work of the Dept and Commission, to have a firm understanding of just what procedures are in place, so that we were all on the same page about where we are at and what should be done to move the work forward.

Ques: what is the cost of this?  Ans: it is understood that the Controller’s office would shoulder this burden.  Ques: are there any requirements to be eligible for such an audit.  Ans: none known but timing is up to the Controller’s availability for this.

Comm Queen supported this item.  Comm Hale reminded the Commission that some years back an employee managed to take $800K from the Dept.  We were audited then, but he couldn’t recall any cost to us.  Comm Hale wanted a concentration on the Dept’s contracting process to improve our efficiency.  Comm Beijen asked to add the contingency that an audit be done by the Controller as long as there is no cost to the Dept attached to it.

Comm Fetico made the motion, 2^nd by Comm Queen.  Upon voice vote the motion passed 6-0.

Comm Stiglich asked the Chief to contact the Controller and get clarification about what if any costs and when it could be done.  Comm Queen emphasized that they include community contracts in the audit.
(public comments)

There were none.

8.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION) Further discussion and planning for the performance review of the Chief.

Comms Hale, Queen, and Rojas volunteered to be on the Ad Hoc Committee to establish the process for doing this evaluation.  There will also be a process set up for a similar review of the Commission Secretary.

(public comments)

There were none.

9.

(DISCUSSION) Committee reports, other reports

• Program committee
• Finance committee
• Facilities committee

The Program Committee did not meet.

Comm Fetico commented that this would be a summary of the past two meetings of the Finance committee.  The Dept’s monthly expense report is showing some positive and negative points in the operations, some reductions in WC, fluctuating OT, still a lack of clarity and analysis of how the cell phone usage and car usage is being made more cost accountable.  The Chief said they were looking at employing a car use log sheet that the Private Placement division uses, with their other cars.  There was a short discussion regarding what kinds of cars are used for transport of youth.  He took issue with having to use a caged car for this.  The Chief also reported that there was a theft of a car from the Dept lot.

Comm Fetico commented that there has been no accurate accounting of how the cars are used and by what circumstances they get damaged.

The staffing issues at both JH and LCR continue –needing a larger on-call list.

S. Kinghorne said that they have done recruitment at various colleges and are trying to get more people on the on-call list.  They inquired with the police dept as the Commission had suggested.  There were other suggestions for places to recruit from, given by some commissioners, eg. staff from CBOs, temps from other City depts.

The Chief commented that staffing will be an even greater issue when the new facility is opened.  They are working on being able to place on-calls where the Dept needs them (JH and LCR) and not just have separate lists for each place (they have the support of some senior counseling staff) There is still the impending problem from the potential 56% of staff who are within two yrs of retirement.

Kinghorne said that the City took $600K from the Dept’s WC budget to help pay for JH overruns.  The Dept is attempting to settle some longstanding (20+ yrs) cases with a single payout.  He offered to give a fuller report on WC at the next Finance Comm. mtg.

The staffing issue was redirected to Finance Committee for further exploration.

The committee did not meet.

(public comments)

There were none.

10.

Public comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Juvenile Probation Commission

There were none.

11.

(DISCUSSION) Requests for future agenda items. 

Comm Hale asked about the CBO contracts.  The Chief was not sure when it would be ready to bring before the Commission.  Comm Stiglich said that once it is known the Commission can schedule a meeting with 72 hrs notice, if need be. Otherwise, it can be taken up at the next full Commission meeting.

12.

(ACTION)  Adjournment

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:04pm.