California Public Utilities Commission
Regionalization Workshops
October
25, 2016, 9:15 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Legislative Office Building
1020 N St. (at 10th St.), Sacramento
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November
1, 2016, 9:15 to 4:15 p.m.
CPUC Auditorium
505 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco www.adminmonitor.com/ca/cpuc
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California
Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is currently headquartered in San Francisco
with offices in Sacramento and Los Angeles. Senate Bill (SB) 840 directs the
CPUC to report on options to locate operations and staff outside of the CPUC’s
headquarters. It states the following:
(a) By March 31, 2017,
the Public Utilities Commission shall report to the relevant policy and fiscal
committees of the Legislature on options to locate operations and staff outside
of the commission’s San Francisco headquarters. The report shall explore
options for leveraging additional facilities in areas of the state, including
Sacramento, that would allow the commission to collaborate with other state
entities and provide staff more opportunities for training, career development,
and exchange placements with other state entities. The report shall do both of
the following:
(1) Consider categories of
operations in different offices.
(2) Analyze recruitment and
retention, salary disparities by location based on duty statements, and costs
associated with using locations outside of San Francisco with no, or minimal,
disruption of current commission employees.
(b) The commission shall
conduct one or more public workshops to obtain suggestions, concerns, ideas,
and comments from stakeholders and interested members of the public in
furtherance of the purpose of the report.
(c) (1) The report
shall be submitted in compliance with Section 9795 of the Government Code.
(2) Pursuant to Section
10231.5 of the Government Code, this section is repealed on April 1, 2021.
Pursuant to the bill the CPUC will hold workshops
to gather information from a broad group of participants including but not
limited to the employee Unions representing CPUC staff. As stated in the bill, the objective of the
workshops is to hear suggestions, concerns, ideas, and comments from
stakeholders and interested members of the public on options for leveraging additional
facilities in areas of the State, such as Sacramento, which would allow the
CPUC to collaborate with other departments and also allow staff more
opportunities for growth in promotion in the other state departments. In order to frame the
discussions and have a productive meeting, we consider three scenarios as
options to relocate CPUC operations and staff outside San Francisco headquarters.
In the report that will be presented to the Legislators, these scenarios will
be compared in terms of real-estate costs and other unquantifiable factors that
concern employees and quality of the CPUC operations.
- Scenario
I (Larger Presence in Sacramento and Los Angeles):
CPUC will retain its current 505 Van Ness office location. Incremental
office space needs and hiring will be met through expansion of Commission
presence in Sacramento and Los Angeles.
- Scenario
II (Relocation): CPUC will move most of its
operations currently located in San Francisco to Sacramento or Los Angeles.
- Scenario
III (Regionalization): CPUC will shift parts of
its operations from San Francisco to Sacramento and Los Angeles. Shifts to
Sacramento and Los Angeles will be based on the relationship of an office
function and its interdependency to other control and/or sister agencies
and regulated entities based in Sacramento and Los Angeles.
The real estate costs for 505 Van Ness location is
$1.87 per square foot while locations in downtown and/or Natomas or Elk Grove
range from $2.75 per square foot to $4.25 per square foot in downtown
Sacramento and that’s because the 505 Van Ness facility is a state owned
building that was built many years ago and anything new will have the latest
rent and costs that are much higher.
In addition to comparing
real estate costs, each scenario will be evaluated based on unquantifiable
factors. For example, a relocation decision:
- Should help the
CPUC improve key relationships with the executive and legislative branches
of government by creating a larger presence in Sacramento.
- Should help the
CPUC gain efficiencies by consolidating functions and/or offices together.
- Should help the
CPUC recruit from a larger and more diverse labor pool in markets like
Sacramento and Los Angeles.
- Should help CPUC
employees deal with high cost of living in the Bar Area by creating
opportunities in lower cost of living housing markets.
- Should help the
CPUC recruit from a larger pool of public sector employees who have
experience in government and/or energy sector and allow staff more
opportunities for growth and promotion within other state agencies.
- Should help the
CPUC better serve Southern California.
- Should help the
CPUC with its outreach efforts to serve and inform the public more
effectively.
- Must not cause any
major disruption in CPUC’s operations in terms of high turnover rates, low
morale, and difficulty in retaining key staff.
Finally, we will
evaluate the staff cost implications of each scenario based on the requirement
of (2) above, which states: Analyze
recruitment and retention, salary disparities by location based on duty
statement. This analysis will be conducted by reviewing:
- The regional
cost disparities of CPUC staff versus staff conducting comparable work in other
State agencies (e.g. ARB, and CEC) in the proposed locations.
In these workshops, we would
like to hear from the stakeholders and interested members of the public on the
following:
- Is there any other relocation option that should be
considered in compliance with SB 840?
- What are the unquantifiable factors that have not
been captured in the list above?
- What are the concerns, issues, ideas on each of the
options outlined above and other options that might be suggested at the
workshops?
- Taking into account the expenses that will be
incurred and unquantifiable factors that concern the CPUC employees and
operations, which option satisfies the intent of the relocation, as expressed
in SB 840, in the best possible way?
9:15
- 9:30: Welcome and Introductions
9:30 - 10:00: Opening Presentation (CPUC)
10:00 – 10:30: Legislative
Perspective (Christian Griffith)
10:00
- 12:00: Unions (employee unions representing CPUC
staff)
12:00
- 1:00: Lunch Break
1:00
- 4:00: Interactive Discussion to answer questions
above & more
4:00 – 4:15: Public Comment