CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE OF THE LEGISLATIVE ANALYST
BOARD of SUPERVISORS

LEGISLATIVE ANALYST REPORT

TO: Honorable Members of the Board of Supervisors
FROM: Jesse Martinez
DATE: March 21, 2002
FILE NO: 020037

SUBJECT: MEETING SCHEDULES- CITY COUNCILS

SUMMARY OF REQUEST

A motion introduced by Supervisor Matt Gonzalez and approved by the Board of Supervisors directed the Office of the Legislative Analyst (OLA) to report frequency and schedule of full City Council meetings and committees, number of members, and number of committees for the 20 largest cities in California excluding San Francisco.

BACKGROUND: OLA SURVEY OF City Councils and Committees

The OLA examined 20 City Councils in California to ascertain Council-meeting schedules, length of meetings, and meeting frequency. This report gathered data concerning the number of City Council members in each designated city for proportional analysis. This report focuses on the 20 largest California cities to establish average number of council members, standard meetings days, and typical meeting lengths. It is a complement to an earlier one, which concentrated on 57 California Boards of Supervisors ¹, where similar elements are analyzed to determine comparative comprehension.

ANALYSIS & FINDINGS

Meeting Days-80% (16 cities) of the Cities assessed meet on Tuesday and only three, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, and, San Bernardino, meet on Monday.

Meeting Times-60% hold their meetings from 8:00 am and 5:00 pm. 9 cities meeting from 1:00 and 5:00pm. 15% meet on Tuesday mornings between 8:30 and 10 am.

Most (63%) meet on a weekly basis (see Attachment 1: Meeting Schedules).

Meeting Frequency-90% meet once weekly while two city councils, Los Angeles and San Diego, meet three times and twice weekly, respectively (see Appendix I).

The city council sampling illustrated that the average meeting lasted 3 hours with the range from 2 to 5 hours (see Chart).

Correlation Analysis- a basic study was performed which examined the relationship between a council meeting length (dependent variable) in hours toward (independent variables) day of the week the meeting took place, frequency of meetings, and, time the meetings were held. This preliminary study suggests that there may be an association between the meeting length and day of a meeting. In addition, Accountemp, wholy owned by Robert Half Corporation, recently released a study indicating a strong relationship between work efficiency and day of the week. They specifically cited Monday as the worst day for work efficiency. The initiated may want to review Appendix II for a brief explanation of OLA"s study.

Committees--Fifty five percent (11) of the cities had a council committee structure, requiring council members, containing three to eight council members. The remaining 45 percent or 9 cities comprised of boards and commissions with two to seven members. That is, these structures did not necessarily require city council membership but were largely staffed by council appointees, much akin to San Francisco"s Commissions. These advisory bodies averaged four members and 40% met monthly and 45% held bi-monthly meetings. These non-council body"s averaged 2 hours in length and met at varied times: 25% convened any time during the day almost at an ad hoc basis, 25% assembled from 8:00am and 12:00pm, 35% met at 1:00p and 5:00p, while 15% scheduled meetings after 6:00pm.

Council meeting preparation by council staff, including legislative aids and city clerks, included standard groundwork: reviewing council packets as the principal manner for meeting preparation. These packets largely consisted of the customary materials: staff reports on related budget, City Attorney support, and in the cases of Los Angeles and San Diego, policy and/or legislative reports. Preparation time largely relied on agenda items and inclinations of council members. Accordingly, the preparation ran the gamut from 2-days to one week.

CONCLUSION

Eighty percent (16 cities) of the Cities assessed meet on Tuesday and only three, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, and, San Bernardino, meet on Monday. Average Council meetings lasted 3 hours with the range from 2 to 5 hours.

Ninety percent of these twenty cities meet once weekly while two city councils, Los Angeles and San Diego, meet three times and twice weekly, respectively.

Preparation time largely relied on effectively setting agenda priority items and inclinations of council members. Accordingly, the preparation ran the gamut from 2-days to one week.

Of the Committees, fifty five percent (11) of the cities had a council committee structure, requiring council members, containing three to eight council members. The remaining 9 cities had a non-council structure of Boards and Commissions comprised of 2 to 7 members.

Finally, a correlation analysis was performed which studied the relationship between a council meeting length (dependent variable) in hours toward (independent variables) day of the week the meeting took place, frequency of meetings, and, time the meetings were held. The results showed that the Day of the meeting explains Length of meeting better than the Time or Frequency of the meeting. A recent study by Accountemp Corporation reveals that Monday is the least efficient work day of the week. More research is recommended on the meetings day as well as the efficiency in preparing meeting agendas to include policy papers for direction and effectivenes

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II

Correlation Analysis

In correlation analysis, we generally want to determine whether two variables are interdependent, or covary - that is, do they vary together?

Definition: A correlation exists between two variables when one of them is related to the other in some way.

In common usage, the word `correlation" describes any type of relationship between objects and events. In statistical usage, correlation refers to a quantitative relationship between two variables measured on ordinal or continuous scales.

When we wish to establish the degree of association between pairs of variables in a sample from a population, correlation analysis is the proper approach.

We hypothesized that the day of the meeting, it"s frequency, and, meeting time affected the meeting length, and tested the hypothesis using the data from the 20 largest California cities.

The results were:

1. Length to Day of meeting (-0.32)

2. Length to Frequency of meetings (-0.26)

3. Length to Time of meetings (-0.01)

Because the correlation"s were progressively negative from variables #3 to #1 we conclude that there was a relationship between the three variables albeit resulting in a in an inverse correlation. Under this model, the relationships between the variables are weak (less than -0.10) (See Appendix II). Thus, the Day of the meeting explains Length of meeting better than the Time or Frequency of the meeting.

Correlation does not imply causality! Two variables can be correlated because both are influenced by the same third variable.

¹ Legislative Analyst Report, "Meeting Schedules," November 13, 2001, File No. 011548