OLA#: 016-03I

LEGISLATIVE ANALYST REPORT

TO: Honorable Members of the Board of Supervisors

FROM: Office of the Legislative Analyst

DATE: June 6, 2003

SUBJECT:Employee Suggestion #262, 358: Eliminate Employee Bottled Water

EMPLOYEE SUGGESTION

The City and County of San Francisco maintains a blanket contract with Danone Waters of North America, dba Alhambra Water to provide bottled drinking water service to City offices. Multiple employees suggest that this is a benefit and expense to the City that could be eliminated or reduced significantly.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The cost of bottled water service to the City and County of San Francisco for 12 months is approximately $612,000. It is recommended that bottled water service for the purposes of employee drinking water be discontinued unless clean water is not available to workers at their facilities. This would result in a $612,000 savings. As some of the water service is utilized by enterprise departments not all the savings would be to the City's General Fund.

ANALYSIS & RECOMMENDATIONS

The City and County of San Francisco maintains a blanket contract with Danone Waters of North America, dba Alhambra Water to provide bottled drinking water service to City offices. Each department, office or unit places their orders and pays for the water out of their individual budgets (payment procedures are established by the customer). The water service includes bottled water, cups, hot/cold coolers, filter systems, and miscellaneous other related products. According to the contractor's records, an estimated 400 offices within City government utilize their service at a total cost for 12 months (October 2001 through October 2002) of approximately $612,043.

The S.F. Trial Courts recently took steps to eliminate paying for the employee drinking water and have instituted a method whereby employees that are interesting in maintaining the water service pay for that service. Establishing a office "water club" is generally the method by which employees pay for delivered water service.

In discussion with Marijane Pierson, Materials Manager at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) stated that the bottled water service they have is for employee use only. She also stated however that SFGH had looked at eliminating the service in order to make budget reductions but in the end decided that in case of a critical emergency incident that could cut off the water supply of the hospital, the hospital could utilize the employee bottled water that they have on hand for the patients (water delivery is weekly so there isn't a large surplus on hand). This supply is pretty small and would be quickly depleted.

Recommendations:

It is recommended that BOS request that the bottled water service contract for the purposes of employee drinking water be discontinued unless clean drinking water is not available to workers at their facilities. Employees could have the option of forming "water clubs".

The City may wish to pursue providing the new Hetch Hetchy bottled water to locations that have no available clean drinking water.

Water supplies at City hospitals for emergency purposes is an issue that needs to be addressed. However, it does not appear that the employee bottled water would be of much use for any more than a very limited time frame.