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Q&A
Agency staffing needs and costs associated with increasing vending licenses
1:18:47
·
162 sec
Council Member Sanchez asks each agency to detail how their staffing needs would change if the cap on vending licenses were raised, including associated costs and potential revenue.
- Department of Health notes the need for proportional staff increases in licensing, inspections, and training
- DCWP mentions the need for additional resources in license intake and legal staff
- Department of Small Business Services indicates potential impacts on outreach and regulatory assistance teams
- Department of Sanitation reiterates that current enforcement staff are at capacity
- Agencies emphasize the uncertainty in predicting exact staffing needs without knowing the specific increase in licenses
Pierina Sanchez
1:18:47
you help us understand both from each agency's perspective how your staffing needs would need to change how the staffing needs would change if we were to raise the cap on the number of licenses available, what costs would be associated, what revenue would the agency see, and specifically if you could talk about the different roles, the professionals within your agencies that are involved in the enforcement system.
Corinne Schiff
1:19:16
I can start for the health department perspective.
1:19:20
As my colleagues have testified, I think we don't know what the additional numbers of license, really for the health department for permitted vending units.
1:19:30
There is, as you know, there's no cap on licenses.
1:19:33
A person is licensed, they are able to vend, and we have no cap on those.
1:19:39
And we would, there would be, as I testified, there would be additional costs for us to manage food safety among the additional permitted units.
1:19:48
We have staff who do issue licenses and permits.
1:19:55
We have health inspectors who conduct inspections both to check that the vending unit meets food safety requirements, and then conducts inspections out on the streets and sidewalks to make sure that those are operating in a way that meets food safety standards.
1:20:13
We have training staff at our health academy who provide food safety training, which is required for anyone with a food vending license.
1:20:22
So there would certainly be a proportional need to increase our staff proportionate to the number of increased vending units.
1:20:32
I
Carlos Ortiz
1:20:35
think likewise, I mean, on the general vendor side of things, we're certainly talking about moving from a cap of 853 that was established many decades ago.
1:20:45
Whatever number we're able to land on based on conversations today and throughout the legislative process, there would be new resources particularly on license intake, attorneys as well.
1:20:56
Yeah.
1:20:56
I think that would be for the c DCWP.
Julie Menin
1:21:00
Great.
Haris Khan
1:21:01
For the Department of Small Business, this would a change in the cap would impact could impact our outreach staff and our regulatory assistance staff.
1:21:11
That team currently supports all of these sister agencies and other agencies, informing them about the regulations that currently exist.
1:21:18
An increase in what's possible for businesses and the opportunities that are possible could lead to increased volume, and those are the would be the teams that would be impacted by such a change.
Joshua Goodman
1:21:28
Yeah.
1:21:28
And I think I spoke to it.