2.

(ACTION) Review minutes of Sept 30, 2003.
The minutes were approved as written.

3.

(DISCUSSION) Public Comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Juvenile Probation Commission.
Jack Jacqua again expressed his anger and disappointment at the continuing delinquency of the Dept’s non payment of their ’02-’03 contract.  He impressed on the Committee that this is right, and that all past efforts to get the Dept to pay have failed.  All the “good words” also haven’t shown the sincerity of the Dept regarding their claims that the community partners are important and valued. He questioned whether it will ultimately take a legal action to get this resolved.

Alfredo Bojorquez, Instituto de Familiar de La Raza, agreed with J. Jacqua and asked the Dept to find a better solution to their budget problems without victimizing the CBOs, who continue to work with great commitment, even in the face of non payment of services.  He also mentioned the recent killings in the community, which they deal with.

4.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION) Review and possible recommendation to full Commission, on the proposed FY 2003/2004 Mid-Year Budget Balance Plan

The Chief said she wanted to walk through the recommendations.  This is a budget balancing plan  The plan that was submitted to the Bd of Supervisors was cut by 4 POs and 3 counselors.  The State cut $120K in training funds.  The Controller’s notified the Dept that they project a $1.2 mil. deficit for the Dept.  at any point there are an average of 18 peace officers out on WC.  There’s a growing increase in the number of detainees with serious felonies, the same as those the community agencies are dealing with.  At any time, there are 50% of detainees here on serious charges.  20% of the population have mental health issues.  This places different and more intense service demands on staff, thus OT is up.  If you have 18 out, you have to backfill them with staff, with OT. The cost? Average per person per year, $150K.  Without WC, it’s at least $100K per year. With the construction, there are less units, so the Dept cannot separate the populations as well.  And there are no secure court facilities, which are now in very public places.  This required creating 5 new POST positions.  All this makes for increased costs.

Referring to the document:  they broke it down into best and worst case scenarios.  She said the best case scenario would be if they couldn’t get any workers back from WC, and the worst case would be if they get at least 2 people back.   In the WC work order, there is an increase of about $280K in medical costs for WC. Last year, WC was $1.3 mil. this year it’ll be $1.8 mil. (that includes OT, medical, and indemnity; that’s why the deficit of $280K)   So the total deficit is $467K, in the best case, and $754K in the worst case.  So they looked at how they could reduce those amounts.  They looked at accounts payable to see what could be carried over to the next year (not paid out this year) and saw $150K.  They think they can reduce the DTIS work order by $75K.  of the $250K facilities maintenace line (for both YGC and LCR), all but $130K has been used.  $65K of that will be put in reserve.  A ceiling collapsed in B-2.  there are ongoing repair needs. 

She mentioned a work order for $55K which is supposed to reduce the amount of cuts to CBOs.

Proposed cuts to CBOs is $272K total. And cut staff: $138K.  they’ll do the CBO cuts in Jan. and lay-offs in Mar.

The Chief recounted the cuts the Dept has suffered over the years, eg. Finance and Admin used to have 10 staff, now 4, and “only” 2 of them “professionals”.  She said every director is working two jobs. There are no Asst. Directors. No Dir. of Probation Services.  There’s no supervisor in the IT division.

She said that they have exhausted all of their options and cutting the CBOs is the only way.  They are still commited to the principles and partnership, however, the fiscal status at this point, has put the dept in this dire situation. As well as the cuts they have sustained to the budget by the Bd of Supervisors.

Comm Bonilla asked for the logic behind keeping the large LaFrance contract.  The Chief said that they are mandated by TANF to do evaluation, and it is because of the information they get from LaFrance  that they are “certified” to get the TANF information (sic).

Liz Jackson-Simpson said that there is a requirement to do some sort of evaluation and since they had a provider (LaFrance) and program (PrIDE), they kept it.  The Dep City Attorney was asked if there was any language in the contract which prevents canceling it.  She did not have particulars about that.

The Chief said that the original LaFrance contract was for $225K, and is being proposed for a $25K cut. She said this is a disproportionate cut. Everyone else is only at 5%.

She furthered stated that because of the budget situation and their inability to pay contractors, and the inability is that they must have a balanced budget, the projection of a balanced budget, the Mayor’s office and Controller have held all authority to pay any contactor. That meant that the contractor who was a programmer left the dept because he was not paid.  The part of the work he was doing to work with LaFrance, they no longer have the capability to do that, so to integrate that into the Dept at a quicker rate is not possible.  Part of that contract that the commission approved was that it would be cut and transitioned into a dept. position.  They’ve found a position to do that, but that position has been held until the Dept has a balanced budget.

Comm Ricci asked how the PrIDE program has helped CBOs, and if there is language “out there” which “mandates” this type of service.

The Chief said that PrIDE has to do a two prong activity; to evaluate the projects and then provide information that is feedback to the contractors.

Ques: can Dept staff do this evaluation? Ans: funders require outside, independent evaluators. L. Jackson-Simpson said that they do not have to have this particular type of evaluation (PrIDE), but just that they have to have some means of evaluating how the funds were used.  She said that if they decided to do an alternative, they’d have to do an RFP to find another evaluator.

The Chief said that integrating the data that is collected by the evaluator, into the juvenile justice information system has allowed them to on an ongoing basis, decrease the cost of the use of an outside evaluator.  That was the component, each year they have been decreasing the cost of this evaluation because the object is to reduce the cost for outside evaluation and to use the data system they have here, but they still would have to have an objective evaluator in order to use the data. The objective evaluator would have to collect the data outside, integrate it into our JJIS, and then they could pull the data and evaluate the data from the system. So that reduces the cost of an evaluator.

At this point of the meeting, Comm Hale arrived.

Comm Hale expressed his interest in seeing how this proposal relates to the document developed that outlined a continuum of care.  He called it a blueprint for juvenile justice in SF.

He raised the question of who should fund Huckleberry’s services.

The Chief said that the W&I code says that the Dept may underwrite this service, but was not ‘mandated’ to do so, neither for LCR. She said that different counties in the Bay Area do this differently.

Bruce Fisher mentioned that there are even more services being asked of Huckleberry, that formerly were not a part of this contract, and they are playing a greater role in the JDAI initiative, so the proposed cut is going to affect even more people than it would have before.

Jose Estevan, Mission Neighborhood Center, spoke a little about what they do, and encouraged the Dept to not cut CBOs’ contracts.

Dale Butler of Local 790 said that if the commission is hoping someone will “step up to the plate”, it isn’t going to happen.  There is a real budget crises going on.

Kristen Atkinson, BHNC, spoke about how the cut would affect their programs.

Comm Bonilla asked what they do in those programs, and commented that he rarely saw kids there when he passed by.  Atkinson explained that a lot of their work is done on various school sites.

Alfredo Bojorquez; commented that the PrIDE program is not working, the data gathering is not working.

(one hour 16 mins into recording to 24 mins, misfunction in mike,  no sound)

Kent Eagleson spoke about the services they do exclusively for probation youth and how they are increasing their services, so the proposed cuts would be very significant.

Lois Jones from Parent Helping Parents says their cut will be 100%.  And in fact, they are only operating because they got the Casey Foundation to advance a match for the Dept grant.

Comm Hale said that they have been trying to address, as a city, the gaps in youth services. He didn’t see it as a situation where they have not cut them, but where they’ve tried to bring them (CBOs) up to speed. He further commented that LaFrance has been a target and it should be, because this PrIDE is a tool, which the Dept has not benefited from nor has it in the past. It is supposed to give us data to evaluate our community programs as well as the Dept services.  He said the question about LaFrance can be discussed in more detail (referring to possible further cuts). He said he wanted to hear from other CBOs if their experience with the PrIDE program was similar to Instituto.

He summarized that in light of the document he referred to earlier (the continuum of care), he was at a loss to understanding the proposed plan presented by the Dept.  He was not comfortable or ready to make any recommendations to the full Commission.

He said he didn’t understand why Huckleberry was willing to take the proposed cut of $120K back in July but now is concerned with a $30K cut? Why is it more drastic now?

The Chief said that $120K over the entire year is different than absorbing a $30K cut now, in Jan. It would shut him down, almost.

She said she wanted to re focus on the Juvenile Probation Dept and what kinds of services it continually has to provide. Being a public safety institution, they run two  24/7 institutions.  Their job is labor intensive. She mentioned the budget cuts to the Dept over the years, and that they haven’t cut CBOs in that process because they believe they’re important.  She said she understood the concern for bringing CBOs up to speed, but this is a very unusual situation the Dept faces.  It is the first time in maybe 50 yrs that the Dept has had the number of serious offenders they have.  Anything that’s in the community reflects what they are dealing with in the Dept.  She again mentioned the staff cuts (made by the Bd of Supervisors), which are causing the OT and deficits. She said that in perspective, they have to look at the cuts to the CBOs in comparison to what the Dept has had to sustain in the last 3 yrs.  Their focus in collaboration with policy and procedures they had set was to not cut direct services, because that is the meat of what they do.

She said in answer to whether the evaluation could be done with in-staff, that there are some 50 contracts, with two contract individuals, who can hardly do the contracts.  They cannot monitor them.  There is no staff to do this.  They have to have, according to federal guidelines, an outside evaluator.

She said that Finance and Admin has been cut about 40%. Their extra funding is $20mil from the general fund.  The other funds are federal funds.  They have to have an outside evaluator and they have to do all that intrusive kind of thing to meet that need.  With Title IVe, they have to generate a great amount of paperwork to get the reimbursement for probation officers’ salaries.  AB 1695 also has a lot of paperwork.

Staff in the detention ctr have to do more, with less, and work longer.  And they have to do OT because they can’t fill cut positions.  They can hire on-call counselors, but Bd of Corrections requires core training (about 180 hrs).

She said she had met with the Mayor and informed him of the situation, and that is why his staff looked around for places to workorder some money over to this Dept, so that cuts to CBOs could be kept small. Then they agreed to lay some people off.

Comm. Bonilla asked about the LaFrance contract, saying that he had not been totally convinced by the reports he had received of the status of services by some providers.

The Chief said that she has an evaluation background, and that there is a vast difference between a survey and an evaluation. An evaluation system is research based. It is the data driven research that is a science. So to meet the requirements of evaluation that are federal mandates, you can’t do a survey.

She presented an example:  there is no programmer here that can program the juvenile justice information system, therefore, if it goes down tomorrow, the whole place shuts down.  It is a very complicated computer system, and so is juvenile justice and the information that comes from DOJ that has to be used, and all that kind of information, is very complex.   PrIDE, and the staff of PrIDE have taken the time to learn this. They have information and they’re building on it.  The commission, the Dept wasn’t satisfied with the results from the first contractor so they found another one.  If the Dept discontinues LaFrance and stops this project, it delays the project and puts at risk all of the TANF money, because it is a requirement to have an evaluation.  She said they have to be careful that they put at risk the TANF money.  She said she understands a lot of people don’t understand the need for evaluation, but the federal government does. and all that money that they get, whether it is Title IVe, they have that same kind of requirement, and TANF has that requirement.  Remember we’re talking about the 

Full TANF funding, and we could put that at risk, by not having an evaluator and the evaluation of the outcomes.

Comm. Hale agreed with the Chief. Just as with JDAI, it is data driven so people understand why something is done. He said we don’t have (that), nothing comparable to that.  He said that this process was chosen and you have to give it time, and place the appropriate priorities.  An evaluation tool is of the highest order.  He again stated that he was not ready to make a recommendation on the proposal. He thinks there are other areas that need to be looked at.

Comm. Ricci agreed that it needed to be revisited more.  She asked for answers to the following:

How many youth have been served by the PAW in 02-03.   Ans: they’ve worked with about 17 probation youth as part of the Impact HS, and the FITS unit. 

Comm. Bonilla asked for a breakdown of the budget for BHNC being supported by the grant.

The CPO revisited the issue raised by Jack Jacqua.  She said that the Dept has been mandated to come up with a balanced budget, otherwise the authority to pay any contractor has not been released by the city, the Mayor’s office nor the Controller’s.  the reason contractors have not been paid is the authorization has not been released by the Mayor’s office, or the Controller, and will not be until a balanced budget plan for the remainder of this fiscal year is completed and approved. This plan (being discussed here) has been submitted and tentatively approved by the Mayor’s office.  Of course, the Commission has to approve it, and the Controller has to approve it, before any contractor is paid any money.

The reason contractors have not been paid, contracts have not been processed. They have been held in the slots where they are until this balanced budget plan is approved.

She just wanted to make clear that the reason contractors are not paid is they do not have the authority to pay until that authority is released by the Mayor’s office and the Controller, for them to pay contractors. So every day, the contractors are not being paid until a balanced budget is approved.

Comm. Hale asked Comm. Ricci to request the Comm President set up a meeting with the Mayor to discuss the release of some or all of these dollars.  He said that to the degree that withholding those CBO funds does not impact the bottom line required by the City, then there should be a discussion to ask the Mayor to release them.

Comm Bonilla offered to set up another Finance Comm. mtg to further discuss the proposed plan.  The Chief asked the committee to forward this item to the full commission for further discussion.

Comm Bonilla commented that he thought it would be premature for the other commissioners to take action on this, given the Finance Comm’s own uneasiness with the proposal.

Comm Ricci agreed that there should be a meeting between the Comm President and the Mayor, and also maybe the Chair of Finance Comm. should sit with the Chief and come up with some alternative plans.

Comm Hale had no problem with it.  He said he brought up the question of Huckleberry, and what amount to cut from the PrIDE contract, is open for discussion.  He also said he hoped that CBOs would admit if they could absorb those cuts.

Comm Ricci asked about the Arc of Refuge.  The Chief said that this was the fiscal agent for the Spirit Life project.  T. Diestal described the Spirit Life program.  There is a Chaplain (T. Dunbar) an asst. Chaplain, and a number of volunteers.  Diestal said that Dunbar also coordinates all the volunteers from the faith community that come to the hall.  Comm Ricci asked for a list of those volunteers (and from what denominations), and a breakdown of the chaplaincy budget.

Comm Ricci further moved to remove proposed staff cuts (class 1544, 1840) from the plan before it moves to the full commission. She emphasized that the Commission serves a very important role and needs to remain independent of the Dept. and if there is “extra” work that needs to be, or can be shared, that it be better shared by the Commission Secretary rather than the Dept’s secretaries.  As for the 1840, she wants to further look at how that would impact the services of the Finance division. She would like to review that entire issue of the Administration, and not have it go before the full commission tomorrow night. Comm Bonilla seconded.

The Chief said that she understood that this proposal would have to be advanced to the full commission intact, with their recommendation  But changes and removal of recommendations would not be at this level.  She asked for the Dep City Attorney to comment.

Comm Hale opposed Comm Ricci’s motion.  He said that there’s nothing sacred, including the Comm. Secretary.  He said he doesn’t think there’s a need for full time commission secretaries.  It’s up for discussion.

Comm Ricci stated, with all due respects to the Chief, she didn’t feel the Dept is not privileged to make proposals to cut the Commission and impact their work. She raised the question of the two secretaries in the Chief’s and Asst CPO’s office.  How much is that necessary?

The Chief said again that her understanding was that once the recommendations are set forth, and as part of the Sunshine, she is not questioning the authority of the committee, she respects the Commissioner’s recommendations, she just wants a legal opinion.

She wanted to know what the legal way to proceed is, once those recommendations have gone out, and the authority of a committee to make changes.

M. Baumgartner, Dep City Attorney said that they have several options.  They could forward the proposal as is, or they can amend it and recommend an amended proposal to the full commission.  She wasn’t of the opinion that the Committee wanted to recommend the current proposal to the full commission.  She said that it appeared to her that the committee wasn’t ready to pass this out of committee with a recommendation either for or against, and because of that, there’s nothing to amend. It they wanted to pass it out of committee with the amendments as proposed, they could do that. But unless the committee was going to recommend it, there’s nothing for the full commission to consider with respect to an amendment.   If they have the whole thing in front of them, you could recommend an amendment at that time, or recommend personally against it, but the committee as a whole is not acting on it at this time.

Comm Hale asked if the motion and second could be withdrawn, and the item taken to the full commission with the understanding given the Chair, that it was only for discussion at tomorrow’s meeting.

Comm Bonilla said that in his discussion with the President, he was of the understanding that it would only be a discussion item on the full commission’s agenda.

Baumgartner said that if this is passed to the full commission, they could act on it tomorrow.

Comm Bonilla asked if the Committee could not pass it out to the full commission.  Baumgartner was not familiar with the rules of the Commission so could not answer this.

Comm Hale commented that it comes down to collegiality, whether Commissioners are going to sabotage each other. It is a discussion which needs to happen and he agreed to the need for a special meeting so it could be attended to immediately.  He said he didn’t see it being acted upon tomorrow night.

Comm Ricci reiterated that she felt that because of the drastic nature of these proposed cuts, she wasn’t ready to make any decisions on it tomorrow.  It needed more discussion and investigation.

Comm Bonilla summarized that it is also his feeling and apparently Comm. Hale’s opinion that they are not ready to make a decision on this proposal, so that it will only be discussed in tomorrow’s commission meeting, with a future special meeting called, where a decision can be made.

Comm Hale reminded that the motion and second needed to be withdrawn, and a replacement motion to move it to the full commission without recommendation be made.

Comm Ricci, with the understanding that it would be discussed only, withdrew her motion.   Second was withrdrawn.  Comm Hale moved to forward the proposal to the full commission without recommendation.
Seconded, and upon voice vote, passed 3-0.

(public comments)
there was none

5.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION)  Requests for future agenda items
Comm Hale asked for a report on LCRS, what has transpired, where it stands to date, what options for the future.

(public comments)
there was none.

6

Adjournment
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 11:53pm.