Section 1: Coordination with other agencies: In response to an audit finding that the Department is not fulfilling the State requirement to coordinate its plans with other local agencies, the Department reports that it has invited staff from other agencies to workshops and public meetings where various ideas were discussed pertaining to the other agencies" areas of jurisdictions. However the agencies interviewed for this audit indicated that the Planning Department is less likely to participate in the other agency"s workshops and initiatives. Other agencies also report there is often no forewarning to their managers when new Planning Department ideas are to be presented in workshops or other public venues. Further, the Planning Department is not complying with the terms of its agreements with the Redevelopment Agency and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to coordinate efforts.

Section 1: Reconciliation report: In response to a Recommendation 1.5 that calls for preparation of an annual report reconciling the Planning Department"s annual Work Program and its budget following final budget adoption, the Department reports that it currently prepares such a report for the Planning Commission. Based on our review of these departmental reports from the last three years, we found that these reports are not presented in a format consistent with the annual Work Programs and therefore do not allow for a valid comparison of what was proposed with what the Department actually plans to do with the appropriated resources.

Section 2: Requirement for ground floor level public services: The Planning Department pointed out that our draft report representation was inaccurate regarding our statement that a number of approved new office buildings in the area of 1^st and Howard Streets were not required to provide retail and public services on their ground floor. We concur with the Planning Department.

Section 2: Conditional use approval in Better Neighborhoods areas: The Planning Department pointed out that our statement that conditional use permits would no longer be required in certain neighborhoods after completion of the Better Neighborhoods process was not accurate. We concur with the Planning Department.

Section 3: Definition of arts activities: The Planning Director states that our draft report statement that the Planning Code does not define arts activities was incorrect. We concur. A clarified statement is now included in the report that the Planning Code does not sufficiently define the extent to which live/work inhabitants must engage in arts activities to qualify for occupancy of a live/work unit. We also state that the Planning Code does not define "work" to determine compliance with the Department"s "live/work" requirements for these units.

Section 6: Environmental review time limits: The Department states that our analysis of a sample of 56 cases showing that median environmental review processing time of 211 days exceeds the State time limit of 180 days is flawed. The reason given by the Department is that the 211 days does not account for the 30 days allowed by State law for the Department to review the application and determine if it is complete before case processing begins. Subtracting 30 days from the 211 day median would leave 181 days per cases, or only one day more than the State limit.

As pointed out in the draft report, the Budget Analyst used case "file date" as the starting point for counting the number of days of case environmental review processing. This is the date the project is logged in by the case planner and is the only starting point date available for all cases since the Department does not keep track of when applications are determined complete. In some cases it may include time spent determining application completeness; in others it may not. Even if 30 days was required to determine application completeness for all 56 cases reviewed in our sample, 28 cases, or half of the sample, would still be out of compliance with State law since their total processing time was more than 211 days. After deducting the 30 days for determining application completeness, this would mean that processing time for half of the cases would be at least 181 days and for many cases, processing time would be substantially more than 181 days.

Section 7: Voluntary work rotation system: A recommendation in the draft report to institute a voluntary work rotation system has been deleted in response to the Department"s comment that such a system was in place in the past and was not successful.

Section 7: Internal promotions: The Department provided information regarding its high rate of internal promotions and reference to the need for more internal promotions was deleted from the report.

Section 9: Management and supervisory spans of control: In response to the finding in our draft report that certain managers and supervisors have low spans of control compared to their counterparts, the Department has provided new data in its written response showing different staffing levels than the staffing information provided by the Department to the Budget Analyst during the audit field work phase. Since the differences are slight and the staffing numbers previously provided by the Department were reviewed and verified with Department staff during the audit field work phase, the Budget Analyst continues to use the staffing numbers originally provided by the Department. The new numbers provided do not change the conclusions that some managers and supervisors are underutilized compared to others and that opportunities for consolidation of management of the Department"s administrative functions exist.

The recommendations to delete one management position and to reclassify several Planner IV supervisors to Planner IIIs is based not only on head count distributions but also on the nature of functions performed. The information systems function currently managed by a Planner V would be more appropriately managed by the Manager of Finance and Administration, who oversees most of the Department"s other administrative functions. Consolidation of all administrative functions under the Manager of Finance and Administration is further justified because that position is currently underutilized, overseeing only 8 positions compared to a median of 19 for all managers in the Department.