1.
(ACTION) Roll Call The Chair called the meeting to order at 6:30 pm. Comm Hale was present at the gavel. Comm Ricci was excused.
2.
(ACTION) Review and approval of Minutes of February 9, & 13, 2004 meetings. This item was tabled till a later meeting.
(public comment)
3.
(Public Comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Finance Committee of the Juvenile Probation Commission)
There was none.
4.
(DISCUSSION) Dept budget overview, including community and dept based programming. M.Lui reviewed a document passed out at the meeting, showing the Dept budget and how much went to which portions of the operations (eg. Admin was 18% of the total budget, Log Cabin Ranch was 6%) He said that is TANF is taken away, a significant amount of services would be lost (13% of the Dept’s funds comes from TANF). –chart is available from Finance Director.
L. Jackson-Simpson referred to a chart (a matrix) of all the current funded programs. She explained that the Dept gives about $700K of general funds towards these programs. The rest of the $3.2 million comes from other sources. L. J-Simpson said she expects to see some level of TANF funds in 04-05, but didn’t know how much.
She said that they have asked the JJCC to use about $1 million of the upcoming TANF spending plan to augment the general fund funded programs, giving them $1.7 million for the upcoming RFP.
The Chief reported that she went to Sacramento for a meeting (Chief Probation Officers), and there is lobbying going on to keep TANF coming to juvenile probation depts. She said she went to see Senator Speier and her legislative individual made no commitment to it. She spoke with Assemblymen Leno Yee and they were supportive. She said that the most important person, Senator Pro Tem Burton, was not a proponent for them. She said they claimed that if TANF were kept, $700 million dollars of welfare would have to be cut, because TANF is tied to CalWorks. “They see that as all the same population.” She said what Burton’s office was doing was tying CYA to TANF, and saying to them, “you solve that problem and we’ll consider keeping TANF.” “So they sort of want us to do the job of making a decision about CYA.” “There’s talk about whether they will close CYA and give us a portion of the money or give us a portion of the parole or whatever. Those solutions are still being crafted. But we were able to , the last day I was there, through caucus, we were able to get the Chief Probation Officers and their representatives at the table. So they’re being included at the table with the CYA and the TANF discussions, and being able to lobby at the table with the legislators.” “The other piece is that, hopefully, they will be successful in getting it taken off so that it will just be in the May revision, and then what will happen hopefully is there will be a proportionate cut, because everybody’s taking cuts rather than elimination. The other successful thing we were able to do was we went to the State Dept of Social Services, because that’s where the money is allocated to. Because they had seen how successful we were in getting 64 or, between 64 and 70 legislators and additional legislators to sign on to not have TANF eliminated, they were open to discussion and negotiation in terms of that cut. So we have two things going, if DSS, State Dept of Human Services agrees to not cut us totally, because our cut is a part of their $700 million dollar cut. What in essence is happening is that they’re only taking a $500 million dollar cut and they’re just eliminating TANF. So we’re negotiating at both ends, but it is not a done deal. We all feel optimistic, but a key player is Pro Tem Senator Burton. Many of the legislators, their staff that I talked to, were saying, ‘well, we’ll be checking with Burton to see what he’s doing.’ “ “He’s the leader here. That’s not true in the Assembly because Assemblyman Yee in essence is that. Bu the Senate is a key place for that to be successful. So we are lobbying, we have our strategy, we’re writing the letters, and encourage even the providers to write the letters to the senators. And I think Senator Burton is very important, and your senator, to say to them that San Francisco has taken all their money and put in the community for alternatives to detention, and as a result of the loss or elimination of TANF, it will increase the recidivism, there will be no alternatives, there will be minimum alternatives, that the detention center population will increase, that there will be more violence on the streets, that it is in fact these alternatives that have reduced population, that have diverted individuals from detention, and helped address the violence in the streets. Because these individuals are out there in the streets and they are supported by the TANF dollars. So we need to get that message out. Also the other message is the elimination of the TANF funds will also close the ranches. Because most ranches are very well supported by the TANF Ranch monies. So that’s the whole strategy and that’s where we find ourselves and we continue to lobby and we encourage anybody to write your legislators.”
there was none.
5.
(DISCUSSION) Fiscal review of Log Cabin Ranch operations, revenue generating prospects. M.lui showed a chart of five years budget for LCR. It showed this current year to be in deficit, due mainly to the re-absorption of 4 counselors. Lui said that another item that impacted the budget was that the budget was adjusted downward by $225K by the Controller. Comm Hale asked if it was the Controller had re-calculated the TANF revenues? Lui said yes. Comm Hale asked whether any future re adjustment will be made to TANF revenues. Lui said even if it is, there would not be any more monies added for one or two years after the fact.
The Chief said they are looking at the potential of getting medical reimbursements. It would “upgrade” the services at LCR, and make it more “palatable” to other counties. They are still working on getting a list of on call counselors (projecting 10 at the end of April) that would reduce OT costs. They are working on youth produced projects to be sold. They are thinking of leasing the greenhouses.
Comm Hale asked the Dept to give them any updated information regarding the Governor’s budget and not wait for a Commission meeting to present it.
He also announced that there is a group of ministers in San Francisco who are engaging in discussions with the Chief over the use of Hidden Valley Ranch.
The Chief said that she was “kinda thinking ahead in terms of the California Youth Authority and thinking about revenues, I did an investigation when I was at the Bay Area Chiefs Association, I talked to them to ask them how many individuals would be interested in contracting with San Francisco for replacement for CYA, because what I’m thinking about is in the next fiscal year our new facility will be up. We will probably have two pods that are not in use. I checked with the Bd of Corrections and they said yes we could rent it out, and we would have to staff it but because we do have the accommodations for secure, a good secure facility, that I would like us to consider contracting with other facilities, to do, instead of sending their kids to CYA, like say level 8, 9, in those two pods, I think we could make good revenues from that. So I think we need to consider the revenue that would come from the new facility.”
(public comments) There was none.
6.
(ACTION) Adjournment There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:22 pm.
