COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, April 9, 2025 10:25 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMAN MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. BILLS: 250195, 250196, 250197, 250198, 250199, 250200, 250201, 250202, 250210, 250211, 250212 RESOLUTION: 250214 - - -
Good morning, everyone. This is the public hearing and public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bills Nos. 250195, 250196, 250197, 250198, 250199, 250200, 250201, 250202, 250210, 250211, 250212 and Resolution No. 250214. Good morning, everyone. (Good morning.)
We will be starting shortly. The honorable Mr. Boyle, just wanted to start off by saying, good morning to you, sir. Good to see you over there. (Brief recess.)
I have to rearrange my Leadership team. Didn't you ask to run? Ms. Loughead, will you please take the roll to take attendance.
Present. Thank you, Ms. Loughead. A quorum of the Committee is present and this hearing is now called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the titles of the resolutions.
Bill No. 23 250195, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1500 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Wage and Net Profits Tax," by revising certain tax rates, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250196, an ordinance adopting the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2026. Bill No. 250197, an ordinance to adopt a Fiscal 2026 Capital Budget. Bill No. 250198, an ordinance to adopt a Capital Program for the six Fiscal Years 2026-2031 inclusive. Bill No. 250199, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-2600 of The Philadelphia Tax Code, entitled "Business Income and Receipts Taxes," to revise certain tax rates and end certain exclusions from the tax on receipts, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250200, an ordinance amending Chapter 12-100 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Traffic Code" to revise the fee for the use of parking meters, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250201, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," to provide for an increase in the tax of the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia is authorized to impose on real estate; and amending Chapter 15 19-1300, entitled "Real Estate Taxes," to establish an equivalent reduction the tax rate for the City real estate tax, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250202, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1806 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Authorization of Realty Use and Occupancy Tax," to eliminate certain exemptions, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250210, an ordinance amending Section 10-1001 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Fees of the Commissioner of Records," to increase the portion of fees for the recording of deeds and mortgages in related documents to be used for Housing Trust Fund purposes, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250211, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1400 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Realty Transfer Tax" revising the rate of the tax, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250212, an ordinance to amend Chapter 19-4400 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Development Impact Tax" to end imposition of the tax, under certain terms and conditions. Resolution No. 250214, resolution providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia of a Revised Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia covering Fiscal Years 2026-2030, and incorporating revisions with respect to Fiscal Year 2025, which is to be submitted by the Mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to an Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement by and between the City and the Authority.
Today we will hold the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole to consider bills read by the Clerk that constitute proposed operating capital spending measures for Fiscal Year 2026, a Capital Program and a Forward-looking Capital Plan for Fiscal Year 2026 through Fiscal Year 2031. We have scheduled testimony from the Managing Director's Office. This afternoon we have scheduled testimony from the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first witness to testify from the Administration.
Adam Thiel, Managing Director. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Good morning, Adam. Just state your name for the record and when you feel ready, begin your testimony.
Thank you, Council President. I'm Adam Thiel, the Managing Director for the City of Philadelphia. And good morning President Johnson and members of City Council. Joining me today are members of our Managing Director's Office executive team. You can see them here. We have Tara Mohr, our First Deputy Managing Director; Aparna Palantino, who's our Deputy Managing Director for the Capital Program Office; Dominick Mireles, who's our newly-appointed Deputy Managing Director for Community Safety; Aubrey Powers, our Deputy Managing Director for Community Services; Dave Wilson, Deputy Managing Director for General Services; Crystal Yates-Gale, our Deputy Managing Director for Health and Human Services; Mike Carroll, our Deputy Managing Director for the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems; and Stephen St. Vincent, Deputy Managing Director for Strategic Initiatives along with Brian Clinton, our Chief of Staff and all of our agency heads are here or will be here as well as other relevant subject matter experts. I'm pleased to provide testimony on the Managing Director's Office's Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget. The Managing Director's Office or MDO works in coordination with individual operating departments to implement the Mayor's vision to make Philadelphia the safest, cleanest and greenest big city in the nation with access to economic opportunity for all and to deliver efficient, effective and responsive public services to every neighborhood in Philadelphia that residents can see, touch and feel. To that end, Council President, this just in. I'm pleased to announce that Mayor Parker will be making an announcement later today regarding the continuation of the SEPTA Key Advantage Program for City employees. About 13,000 City employees are presently enrolled in the Key Advantage Program, enabling them to commute to and from work free of charge. Additionally, Mayor Parker will be announcing the City is in discussions with SEPTA to extend the SEPTA Zero Fare pilot through Fiscal Year 2026, so you'll be seeing that announcement soon. Mayor Parker didn't want to sit on that good news, Council President. So with that, I'll be happy to answer your questions and Councilmembers' questions for FY26.
Coming correct today. Set the tone. So we obviously got to give credit where credit is due. So I want to acknowledge our Mayor who's a former member of this body. I want to take a moment to acknowledge Minority Whip Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke who rose this issue to the next level through a sense of advocacy. And so, I just want to acknowledge you for your hard work and speaking truth to power, and also our Mayor for her compassion in addressing this as it relates to our fiscal budget. And so, thank you for that good news and let's get started. I want to jump right into it, Adam. Your budget request includes a substantial amount of funding for both highway and commercial beautification efforts. And so, just give me an idea of how you're going to determine what roadways and commercial corridors will receive the funding, and also how you're coordinating with the Office of Clean and Green, Streets Department as well as I know for the cleaning and greening and beautification of highways, there's been roughly $800,000 put in the budget of Mural Arts that has to be used for the beautification of highways. And so, those are three separate agencies that are already receiving funding for the beautification of highways. And I'm thinking hearing yesterday there was some talk also about work along commercial corridors. And so, it seems there's an overlap. So just give me some clarity.
Council President, I'll start by saying, as you know one of the hallmarks of this Administration and one of Mayor Parker's mantras is intergovernmental and interagency coordination and collaboration. I think we've demonstrated that over the past year with many of the so-called impossible projects that we've accomplished. And as we get ready for 2026, all of our roadways and highways need attention. This is something we know you hear all the time. We hear it all the time and it is a really challenging space to do that level of coordination. Nobody does it better than our Deputy Managing Director from the Office of Transportation Infrastructure Systems Mike Carroll. So I'm going to ask Mike to come up and address some of the specifics of how we're getting that done, Council President. (Witness approached Witness table.)
Good morning. Mike Carroll, Deputy Managing Director for the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems here in the City. So as the Managing Director said, we're leveraging all the partnerships we can in order to get this work done. There's pieces of this work that CLIP has been engaged in, in commercial corridors -- I'm sorry, on the Highway Network working with PennDOT, and we're extending that work. So we're trying to reach an agreement with PennDOT to do a series of events over the next fiscal year to make sure we're prepared for all the events in 2026, and I expect that agreement can be reached later this spring. The work on commercial corridors is an extension of work that the Office of Clean and Green has already been involved in working with Commerce Department, so that's really a continuation of work that we've been doing and hopefully a little bit of an expansion of that. That's also coordinated around the events in 2026. And I think that gets to the Mayor's goal. As she said many times, we have company coming so we'll make sure the City looks as presentable as possible and everybody has a great experience there. The Mural Arts work is being rebooted based on information that PennDOT has shared with us. They are creating a policy, which is a little bit different than the way that we've done mural arts on the expressway system in the past. But we're confident that we can continue to resource that work. You may know that there have been some vandalism on some of the signature murals that were placed along our expressway network. And so, we're going to be cleaning that up and refreshing those murals. And in addition to that, it's my understanding that some of the murals around the city on the local streets and some arterial streets are also going to get a facelift and there will be an expansion of some of that work in order to make sure that we have some diversion possibilities for folks who have been tagging maybe neighborhoods, you know, kind of the way that we did in the past. And so, this is something the Mayor's also expressed interest in rebooting and resourcing at a higher level now to make sure that they can get on the right path and hopefully find a career track working with us through the Mural Arts program. In general as the Managing Director said, the emphasis has been on getting out of our silos, having conversations among departments, among units and extending that beyond the City administration to work as close as we can with our colleagues at PennDOT District 6 and others in the community.
And just a brief follow- up before I ask my next question, but the funding that's being asked for the beautification of the highways and commercial corridors and then there's also funding that's going into the Office of Clean and Green to do the same thing and there's also funding going into Mural Arts to do the same thing, do you see where I'm going with this? So one let's say is $1 million going to our Mural Arts, right. And for the beautification of highways and commercial corridors through MDO, there's significant funding being asked. Then in Clean and Green, there's also funding being asked so the coordination is cool. I'm just talking about the money asked for three different departments.
Council President, totally understand that and I think just being real about it I think your concern is, is there a duplication, are these somehow going to be -- is this going to be efficient. And I can assure you those efforts are complementary so they're going to be joined up and synced up. It's not like we're going to have somebody coming in and doing work and then painting over it or recleaning it unless it needs to be recleaned. So I think the idea with the presentation of the budget is to put the dollars closest to the work. So putting the dollars into the actual agency or entity that's going to be executing that work even or perhaps especially when it's part of a broader, coordinated strategic effort as everything is. And we meet -- this team meets every day to make sure that everything is synced up just in our portfolio. We meet obviously regularly with Mayor Parker and her team and all of our different -- while we have our direct portfolio, we work and enable across all of city government to make sure there's no duplication of effort and make sure we're efficient. And I think you all really saw that with the effort at Riverview having everybody all hands on deck meeting regularly, even in some cases from other government entities and from private sector partners.
And I have one more question and before we get into the Wellness Center, I'm sure members have questions regarding it, but I do want to give compliments in terms of it being an idea and you came new on a job last year during the budget process, very long budget process, about the 100 million being borrowed. And at the time it was just a concept, building it as we were moving forward. But thus far though, definitely a step in the right direction, definitely an actualization of the actual concept in terms of the actual Wellness Center. So I do want to commend you from having the idea and the concept. And to be quite frank, were short on answers and responses the last time. And we were saying, well, what are you going to do with this whole 100 million, but members had the opportunity to see the progress that has been made from proof of concept to actually the realization of the actual Wellness Center at Riverview. So I just want to acknowledge that and give credit where credit is due.
And, Council President, really appreciate that and appreciate your support. Understand, as I said last year, we were really asking you to believe in us and hopefully we delivered on that. We appreciate the trust. The essential thing, I use that as an example, that way of working is what's different, making sure that we are working across silos, that we are connecting these efforts, again not just within city government, intergovernmental, interagency, not-for-profit, private sector, so it's that way of working, everybody working towards a common goal and executing against that goal. You know, they said we couldn't build it while we flew it, but we did. And that is that way of working. Because we know 2026 is coming, we're using that same way of working for internal processes, external processes. And I think that is the assurance that we'll make sure those efforts you're talking about are joined up, executed efficiently and effectively.
Thank you. Michael Carroll, first and foremost, I've been working with you several years so I just want to thank you for your hard work as the leader of OTIS. So that's first and foremost. I tell you it publicly, I tell you privately. I respect your expertise in this space. Your testimony cites that OTIS will issue a new Vision Zero action plan, including programming safety on every mile of the High Injury Network and fostering citywide safety culture through key programs like Automated Speed Enforcement, which is in partnership with our good friend Richie Lazer and the Philadelphia Parking Authority, and Safe Routes Philly in partnership with the School District. Can you give us an idea of the actual action plan? And also, as we continue to make sure that we're a more pedestrian- friendly city, how we're addressing those efforts as well?
Yes. So the action plan, a lot more detail, so we want everybody to stay tuned as we're rolling that out. But the main focus will be to continue the work that we're doing in neighborhoods and schools in order to rightsize the right-of-way, implementing some narrowing up of lanes and some facilities that enhance crosswalks. We have work to do to protect bike lanes where we have bike lanes in place. And so, we're doing a series of capital projects throughout the city, create some level protection, whether it be planters in some neighborhoods which is a high-level protection, whether it's to continue to implement the parking-protected bike lanes on facilities where we've identified those projects. Also in some cases, we're doing more limited improvements to, as you have discussed several times, daylight intersections. And in order for daylight intersections, we want to make sure that we're coordinating with PPA and we're actually implementing physical obstructions in those intersections near the corners, near the crosswalks so that people don't just kind of cheat because they think the enforcement might be laxed, but of course enforcement is also part of it. We're coordinating this effort with the new implementation of speed cameras and red light cameras, which is continuing throughout the city, and that's providing us an opportunity to directly reduce speeds in a lot of neighborhoods. And we're also continuing with the planning work we're doing, engaging with communities which involves working with schools, working with neighborhoods, working with you as Council in order to identify other things that we can do to modify people's behavior, identify future products as well.
Can you and your team consider, I know we discussed this when I met with you and your team and Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition and the Bike Action group up in Room 576 regarding education campaign, awareness campaign, we have to just slow down in the city. People will be on AirPods in their ears, on their phones while they're driving, same thing when they're walking, same thing even when they're biking. And when you're not paying attention, this opens it up for more opportunity for somebody to get hurt. So that's something for us to just think about as a city itself just to get people in the mind state of specifically just slowing down and being more aware of their surroundings. I just think from the education standpoint if it's out there, people will be more intentional about their surroundings and slowing down when they're going to and from home or to and from their place of business. And so, that's all I have. I'm going to turn it over to my members. I want to ask members, because I know we started a little late, to be more direct in your questioning so we can get two rounds in today. And also, those who are on the panel to also be more specific in your responses so we can get a second round in as well because I know members will be texting me saying, you know, I would like to get a question. So I want to make sure I'm managing this time to keep this process moving forward and being fair so everybody can get some feedback in before we move forward, their questions in as we move forward. First person I want to call on is Councilmember Curtis Jones.
Thank you so much, Mr. President. And welcome back. I will be as succinct as possible in light of what's happening with tariffs, in light of what's happening with supply chains. Have we done a Plan B to make sure that we have a predictable cost within our infrastructure, within running of our government so that we are not caught flatfooted with spiked price increases and have we made that plan? And I want to get this in. By way of capital projects, it is the word in these chambers it is a 10-year process backlog in some cases. I have two charts here. One is the optimal chart of days 8 to get something done. The other 9 is 44 days. If either one of them 10 were close to true, it would be a 11 wonderful day. It's more like a 12 10-year process in some cases. 13 And as we start to look 14 at infrastructure repairs, how do 15 we cut this down? My good friend 16 Mr. Carroll has a bridge that 17 connects the Art Museum to the 18 Parkway that I'm worried about. 19 I'm worried about the 59th Street 20 Bridge that we at some point have 21 to close and we're talking about 22 2026, but I don't know, you know, 23 will that take 10 years and 24 disrupting traffic patterns in our city? So with that, succinctly Plan B on price spikes and tariffs and our exposure from the federal government and what are we doing to cut down the capital project time?
Councilmember, Council President, we are constantly tracking the market for the cost of materials as well as supply chains. It's incredibly dynamic. We have seen -- everybody has seen sometimes on a daily basis tariffs can go from x percent to 2x percent and back again. It's really challenging. And I'm not sure the market has necessarily priced all of that in right now because there are inventories that are already on the shelf. We're fortunate Aparna and her team Joe Brasky do a great job sourcing materials and supplies, which is why we were able to do Riverview so fast. That is going to continue to be a challenge. It's something that we are literally assessing every day. As far as your second question of the timing, this goes back to the answer I provided the Council President before. We are using this model and changed the way we're working for everything, so trying to get all of our partners, our enablers, our key enablers, all of our agencies around the table working together from jump to make sure that we can execute projects faster, still with quality and without short- circuiting any of the things that we need to do in terms of procurement regulations, supply chains, equity, making sure that we have the people we need working on those jobs. So we are absolutely working on that daily and tweaking our processes to be more efficient, faster and effective. And it is the uncertainty, like with everything, that's making that a challenge.
So before I pass off, I would like to take a look at our requirements contracts that we have within Procurement to see how we can lock in prices. We do that with gas. We do that with other commodities so that there's some predictability as to what the City of Philadelphia's costs are. And then we really just need to figure out ten toes down how we kind of take timelines, instead of one beginning when the other ends, run them synonymously to see if we can do a little better with this because every month is a half of a percent increase in inflation. We are getting ready to do, God-willing with this budget, a track and field up on Chamounix Drive. It's going to be a home field for Overbrook and about 7 other schools. From the time we 8 put that out to now, it's been like 9 a third increase in cost. We have 10 to get shovels in the ground quicker, lock down prices faster. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Member Jones. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning, Managing Director.
My questions are about our support to immigrant communities. According to OIA's budget detail, $450,000 is added to the Legal Services budget for CLS and PAIFUP for assistance with temporary protective status, asylum and workplace rights. Considering the increased threat to our immigrant communities posed by the Trump Administration, advocates have been asking both about increasing this funding to 1.3 million and transferring these legal services to the Defender's Office, which already has dedicated staff for immigration efforts. I would want to hear your position on this request. And I have other questions that I'm going to get on record before you answer. Next, MDO budget documents state that OIA intends to work on increased community outreach and engagement with the aid of a new Community Engagement Plan, and I have several questions about that. One, can you provide some specific details about the engagement plan? Two, given what many have seen, particularly in the community as a lack of publicly- stated support for immigrant communities at this time, do you think that immigrants should feel safe reaching out to the City of Philadelphia and OIA specifically? And what are you doing to build trust in these communities at this time? And then lastly, on the first day of budget hearings Chief of Staff Tiffany Thurman mentioned that you all were in search of a new Executive Director for OIA. What is the status of the search and do we expect the position to be filled by the start of FY26? And I know that's a lot. And I'm happy to repeat questions if need be.
Councilmember, Council President, thank you. I think I'm tracking all those. I'll work backwards. That search is ongoing. The good news is we had a lot of candidates. The other news is we had a lot of candidates. We've narrowed that pool. First interviews I think are tomorrow -- Aubrey?
Tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. -- or tonight at 5:00 p.m., so we are actually doing interviews. That is really a key and critical position, that OIA Director. So that is -- like all of our agency have positions, something that Mayor Parker is taking personal interest in, we want to make sure that we get the best person for that very critical role, what remains a critical role. As far as the dollars, we actually have $450,000 increase that is going into Legal Services. Right now where that lands is under negotiation. We have a couple different possibilities for that, including the Defender's Association. And when our Director gets in, first order of business is where do we connect that and make sure that that important work continues. So actually dollars are still available in FY26 for that work with a new director. And other than that, as far as the trust and the engagement for us right now as a city all the supports that were in place continue to exist. So we are continuing to invest as you can see in the FY26 proposed budget, invest in those services. We're excited to get this new director on board and excited to continue the community engagement work that is underway while we continue to track a very dynamic situation at the federal level.
Small follow-ups. One, I understand that you're in the hiring process, but I think I'm asking if the Administration has a position on both increasing the amount of money for legal defense and housing it at the Defender's Association, which already has that as a strength? And you mentioned that we have the same supports in place, but the world isn't the same. The world has changed a lot in the last three months and there is terror in the immigrant community. Do you think that what we are proposing responds to that change in the world?
Councilmember, I think what we're proposing is to continue the suite of services that we've provided as a city with city funding. Certainly, the Defender's Association and where those dollars, who's going to execute that, that will be first order of business among several first orders of business for that new director. In terms of how people should feel, you know, it is our role in the MDO to focus on the things that we focus on, to execute policy, to execute the decisions of this body as well and to make sure that we are getting functions done on the ground and creating a government that our residents can see, touch and feel. As far as how folks interact with the federal government and what the federal government does, frankly that is not something that is within our ability to control.
Okay. My questions were all about local government, but I would hope that we can get some answers about this in this budget cycle. Regardless of whether that person is on board, this is an important moment for our city. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.
Good morning. Thank you, Council President. Good morning, Managing Director Thiel.
Just wanted to ask a couple of questions. The Philadelphia Parks & Rec infrastructure is incredibly important at our recreation centers and our parks. Neighbors are often reporting the importance of paving, lighting, plumbing, roofing, all that and more. I just want to learn more about how your office is supporting our Parks and Recreation system to assess every recreation center in the city of Philadelphia to kind of understand what is needed for infrastructure and how we can increase capital project budget beyond our ITEF to support the needs of our recreation centers and our parks?
Councilmember, Council President, Philadelphia Parks & Rec Commissioner Slawson does an amazing job with the resources she has. As you know, this year we're going to be opening over the summer more pools. We have more lifeguards. We've done more with rec centers. Rebuild is continuing a pace thanks to Aparna Palantino and Commissioner Slawson. So I think we are constantly assessing the infrastructure at Parks & Rec. We know there's a lot more that needs to be done, including finishing all of the initial slate of Rebuild projects and then doing more. You've heard Mayor Parker talking about this, funding for youth sports. So I think across the entire PPR portfolio we're investing more. In terms of capital dollars, we have a lot of major projects that we are executing and I think that assessment that you're talking about is happening all the time because we know we are catching up on literally decades of deferred maintenance. So often -- and this is across our entire capital portfolio, Department of Public Property, Free Library, we are constantly balancing what we're trying to do with long-term capital strategic upgrades with the HVAC, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning system broke or the roof leaks and trying to shift those dollars around so we fix the tactical issues while we're continuing to move that strategic work plan forward.
Thank you. I'll follow up later with another question around that. But I just want to, one, also go to 311, Philly311. Residents reported their service requests are marked closed once they are transferred to departments. And I kind of mentioned this also last year about how this, you know, transparency around the 311 system. It creates confusion and frustration for users who expect closure to mean the issue has been addressed and resolved. What steps are your department going to take to ensure that service request statuses reflect actual progress and resolution rather than administrative transfer?
Councilmember, Council President, this is an ongoing challenge. I mean, I just have to be honest about it. Many of the calls that very dedicated 311 calltakers receive are for issues that have nothing to do with city government. We get calls, people ask about how to get a birth certificate, how to get a death certificate, how to fix something with their cable or their telephone bill. So many of those if it is not within the City's purview to fix those, tickets are closed. Now, I don't want you to think that means we're perfect on all the rest because we're not. So there's ongoing work with PhillyStat360 to be able to put all that out there and dashboard that so residents can see that, residents, businesses and visitors can see that and ongoing work behind the scenes as we join up in the implementation and the execution chain to make sure that departments are working with other infrastructure providers. For instance, if we get a 311 call about a hole in the ground, say, hypothetically at 16th and Samson, the City piece of that is the last piece. Once PGW, AT&T, PECO, the Water Department which is part of the City, do everything they need to do in that hole, then Streets can come in, and then and only then can we close the ticket. And that's the kind of thing that we're still working on. Those are long-term projects. We don't have control of all of the entities in that chain, so this is something we're going to have to continue to work on.
Chair recognizes Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Point of clarification. I have a point of clarification regarding that just based on your response, Managing Director Thiel. Is it that when 311 receives the call and when the actual case is sent to the department, is it listed as closed at that point? Because what we find sometimes is when there are multiple departments internally in city government that have to touch a case, that once the departments receive it, it doesn't mean that it's actually closed. They're saying that they received it. It doesn't mean that the case has been followed up on. And I'm just asking for that point of clarification because I was here when they implemented 311 and I was in the round of constituent services representatives that they met with to try to stand the system up. And we tried to explain to them when you have multi-department cases, we've talked about this over the years, I just want to get that clear on the record for Councilmember Phillips' question, because typically what happens is they close the case when the department receives it, not that it's touching other federal or state entities?
Councilmember, Council President, the short answer to your question is it depends. And that's what we're trying to make sure that we're getting right is when is the ticket closed, is it when it's done, is it when it's transferred, if it has nothing to do with us. We have additional dollars proposed in FY26 for an upgraded 311 app. So this is all something we're going to have to continue to work on. We're not alone in this. 311 is a very valuable service. We want to make sure that I think the real -- so the outcome is to fix whatever the problem is and that can take time. And certainly, closing the ticket when it just goes to the first agency in that implementation chain, that doesn't pass, that doesn't hit the mark. So we are still working on this, I want to be very honest about that, and we will continue to work on it. These are complex and complicated systems, even the ones that we do have ownership of. So we're going to have to keep working on this.
I just want to say -- just one follow-up. Thank you for your response. Just two things that I guess if we could consider. Going forward, maybe a citizen advisory group to help with ideas and thoughts around how to improve the system and maybe follow up on what their needs are. And then lastly, if we are able to get an assessment on our Library infrastructure, our Parks & Rec infrastructure, get someone to do all those assessments, maybe we can work closely. Your office can work closely with the Councilmembers and the Districts to figure out how we can create a timeline to fix up some of the immediate serious needs of the infrastructure in some of these spaces. And they come up with something where it's like FY27 this will be done, FY26, just a timeline of infrastructure being fixed over the years. That's all. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Thank you, Council President. Hello, everybody. Thank you for being here this morning. Want to get right into it because of time. The MDO holds a $1.6 million contract with Johnson, Mirmiran & and Thompson.
Member Harrity, could you speak directly more into your microphone please.
I'm sorry. The MDO holds a $1.6 million contract with Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson for Rebuild project management. Can you explain exactly what this contract entails? And I'd also like to know what positions are you having trouble filling and why? And can you explain the discrepancies between FY26's budget positions compared to '25? And what I'm talking about is certain positions either have no 3 designation of how many employees are going to be where there were employees before. So for instance, the Citizens Police Oversight Commission, FY25 filled positions 22. And FY26, there's no 9 positions. The Defender's Association, they have nothing for '25 or '26. The Animal Care Control, nothing for '25 or '26. Office of Safe Neighborhoods and 15 nothing for '26. 16
17 Councilmember, Council President, 18 let me work I guess backwards from 19 there. The organizations that you 20 mentioned are not technically 21 within the Managing Director's 22 Office. They are independent 23 entities that manage their own 24 organizations. In the past, they were counted differently as part of this and/or some of them have been transferred to other parts of the City organization. So that's the answer to -- so those are essentially administrative changes that are coming out of our display and they will be somewhere else on those organizations.
Yeah, that's what I thought. So they're like the Defender's, they got their own budget?
Yes, sir. It doesn't mean that they're -- they're not gone. They're not being shown here because of administrative changes in the way the budget is displayed.
As far as the question about project management, I'm going to call up our Deputy Manager Director for Capital Projects Aparna Palantino, who is an absolute rock star. We're so thankful to have her and her team. We're continuing to build out her and her team. Hopefully, you're already seeing the benefits, I know I am, of this change in the organization where we have brought back and put together CPO. And Aparna has just done an amazing job. And I'm going to let her talk about some of the details and the specific question you asked about the $1.6 million project management contract for CPO.
Good morning. Aparna Palantino, Deputy Managing Director for Capital Programs. Councilmember Harrity, thank you for your question. The contract that you're referencing for JMT was an owner's representative services contract that Rebuild held for a number of years, so they provided various things, assistance with project management, estimating, inspections, also software to be able to help support the Rebuild program.
Okay. How many programs did they -- how many developments or fixes did they do in that time frame? How many jobs were they in charge of?
So it's a little bit difficult to answer that because they provided services that sort of covered the entire program. So for example, the software support was for the entire program for all 72 sites, but it wasn't necessarily site-specific. But then they did provide services, as I mentioned -
All right. Thank you. I'll wait until the next round for the rest of my questions.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Nic O'Rourke.
Well, glory to God and power to the people, Director Thiel. You come bearing gifts in April. Might be Christmas in April already. Wanted to begin by saying how grateful I am for the accolades and the congratulations from members of this body for the work and the advocacy that myself as well as my team, who worked tirelessly to help us to be effective representatives of the people in this gig for as long as we have it. We're not here forever. The ending date, unless the people say otherwise, for my job is December 31, 2027. And so, I'm grateful to be able to do something that I think is going to be meaningful for folks. But more than anything else beyond the accolades, it is really a testament to and what I'm grateful for is that the people themselves are getting what they need on this front. When we really kind of focused on this just in the last two weeks, we've heard a couple of comments, several comments and reports from constituents that were advocating around Zero Fare in particular. Quotes like "The past helps me afford groceries and bills. It ensures I can work during the day and have dinner with my kids at night." "This program saved my life after two years of homelessness," and things like that. These were the sorts of reports that we were asking for and it really is telling, which is the reason why I am looking forward to hearing what the rollout is as it relates to Key Advantage as well as Zero Fare. But also, as I mentioned last week our work as lawmakers is to find ways to make sure that we are measurably and materially improving the lives of working people. And so, that's why we're going to go forward with our legislation around the Transit Access Fund that I do continue to solicit the support of my colleagues to making sure that we can make this thing permanent here in the city of Philadelphia. That having been said, I will shift my focus to another pocket of concern for us, the Wellness Village and opioid settlement funds. Can you tell me, Director, what percentage of the City's opioid settlement funds are currently going towards or are planned to go toward the Wellness Village ecosystem?
Councilmember, Council President, I think the settlement dollars are going to a lot of different places. I could probably answer that as saying all of it because the wellness ecosystem is all encompassing, as you can see on the display there and the handouts that you all have on your desks. And that really is the former configuration and the former way that a lot of those settlement funds were administered, was in sort of again not a joined-up and not a strategic approach. That is not to say that the work that was happening and continues to happen with those dollars is not important. It is absolutely important. Everything that these folks are doing is important. It's important for us though, to the Council President's original point, that we are being strategic about this. We are making sure there's not duplication of effort. We're being efficient and effective. So the first priority for us is to make sure that the entire wellness ecosystem is funded and it works using whatever dollars are available. And those settlement dollars, that is, when you think about what those settlement dollars are for and the origination of those, the genesis of those, if you will, what is more applicable than ensuring that we have these journeys for folks through this wellness ecosystem to housing, et cetera. So we have absolutely changed the way that that is being approached in terms of these specific allocations and percentages. That's something that we can get to you because there are so many of those different programs and projects. We can get that to you as a memo and follow up.
Thank you, Director Thiel. I heard the bell. I'll come back around for a second round. But the question then becomes what programs actually have been cut or reduced in order to redirect the settlement funds to the Wellness Village? So if you could answer that, that would be great. But again, I can hold my time until the next round.
Councilmember, that's a long list. And so, we can certainly get you that specifically on follow-up. I do want one thing to reiterate, the wellness ecosystem is not the Riverview Wellness Village. Riverview is part of the broader ecosystem. So we are using those dollars throughout the entire ecosystem and also at the Riverview Wellness Village. And again, part of the reason we're using the settlement dollars to operate that, the alternative to that is largely the General Fund right now. So that is why we are making that the priority.
I would, if we could, get that list, if that's okay to have that submitted to the Chair of what programs again that have been cut or reduced in order to redirect all of the settlement funds, because I hear you saying all of it to the Wellness Village. Thank you very much.
Councilmember, just as a clarification, nothing's been cut. We just shifted. There have been no cuts. There's just been a shift in reallocation. So we'll get you that matrix.
Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Brooks.
Thank you, Council President. My questions are about reproductive rights. So we know that they're under heavy attack by the Trump Administration, including the recent cuts to Title X funding for Planned Parenthood and groups like Abortion Liberation Fund are having to turn away Philadelphians every day who need the funds for reproductive health care. I want to thank the members of the Administration for their participation in the Reproductive Freedom Task Force. But can you tell us what the Administration is doing to defend and directly fund reproductive services that Philadelphians need? And as we see funding cuts on the federal level putting this strain on our local providers, has the Administration increased funding for reproductive health care? And if so, in what ways?
Councilmember, Council President, I'm going to ask our Public Health Commissioner to come up and talk about what the City does in those areas. (Witness approached Witness table.)
Good morning, Council. My name is Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson and I'm the Health Commissioner for the City of Philadelphia. As far as the questions regarding funding, we were notified on March 25th that our COVID dollars, which were supposed to be extended into this fiscal year and next fiscal year, were abruptly cut on March 24th. At that time, we were in Council for a hearing. And so, Finance, Law as well as the Mayor's Office and the MDO's Office were notified immediately. Everybody rallied together and we worked with our state and other local partners to engage in all sorts of actions we needed to. Our internal team started looking at budget and figuring out how we can move people around. We communicated with the resource hubs, the community-based organizations and everybody else so everybody was on the same page. Right now the temporary restraining order is in place so our funding is available up until April 17th, and we're keeping an eye on all of this and working as the Managing Director has been saying without silos and working together as a City team.
Thank you for that. My next question is around mobile crisis. We heard from the community members that they would like to be more directly involved in mobile crisis units, including being hired directly to the teams. What would be the process or what would it look like to see more community engagement around mobile crisis units? And what do you need to do to make this happen?
I'm going to ask the Deputy Managing Director Yates-Gale, Councilmember, as I understand your question, it's about how to ensure those services are getting what they're needed?
And including some of the community-based organizations that work alongside and advocated for this program to be included in the process or hired to work alongside.
Thank you, Councilmember Brooks. I'm sorry. I didn't originally understand the question. The current providers are still providing the mobile crisis service. We are trying to work on reducing the response time but to get the other CBOs involved and other providers. As you know, the system will require them to apply with a proposal to an RFP process. Once we open that, all of the providers are notified by email that the opportunity is available, but it's not available at this time.
Do you know when the RFP process will be opening up for that?
Thank you so much. And my last question, we're hearing -- I think this is very similar to O'Rourke's question, so I'm going to skip to -- no, I'll save it for the next round.
Thank you, Member Brooks. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau, then Councilmember Bass and Councilmember Majority Leader Richardson.
Thank you so much. Appreciate you. And good morning to the Managing Director's Office. I wanted to follow up first on Councilmember Gauthier's PAIFUP questions. I had some similar ones as well. The first question, when we were originally given a briefing from the Mayor's Office, a budget briefing, the operating for the program was listed as $450,000 but it was listed as an expansion of services even though it is $50,000 less than the amount appropriated for last year. Can you explain that? Did I get that right?
Actually no. 3 In FY25 the appropriations for that program was $500,000. And in FY26 it's adding $450,000. So FY26 would be the 500 plus the 450.
Okay. It's an additional 450. Okay. Thank you so much. Also wanted to double down on the request of what the immigrant service agencies want, that this goes to the Defender Association. This is in line with what they do in New York with their NAIFUP. I was a little surprised, Managing Director Thiel, at your reaction that you were distinguishing between feelings and execution of what your job is. And for a lot of us, what is happening to marginalized communities throughout Philadelphia is deeply, deeply felt. It's painful, it's scary, it's terrifying. And we would hope that our city can respond in a way that's not erratically emotional, but has that as a baseline and not just to the execution of a plan.
Councilmember, I appreciate that. And to clarify what I was saying, I certainly, you know, our mission is to execute at the local level and the state level. What I'm saying is my feelings about how things -- and again, I don't have that same lived experience. I certainly do have feelings about things that we're seeing at that level. And my mission is to stay focused on the City level and make sure that we are executing things. And as it stands right now, as you heard not only are we continuing to do all of the things that we did before, we are adding additional dollars to be ready to do more.
We appreciate that so very, very much. Thank you for that. I wanted to also follow up on the Wellness questions that we had yesterday. So my understanding is that the budget includes over $133 million in Class 200 which -- well, hang on. The Wellness money is going to support the wellness ecosystem, including the Wellness Court. And so, how does the $133 million for Class 200 expenses relate to the 16.6 million for the Office of Community Wellness and Recovery, which will oversee the implementation of the Wellness initiative? And then while I get through this real quick, can you detail this 16.6 million and will it cover the staff at the Wellness Court?
Councilmember, I think some of those dollars -- those dollars go to support the entire ecosystem, the operations of the entire ecosystem, the Class 200 dollars. So that includes the kind of overhead, which is the Office of Community Wellness and Recovery. They do the contract management. As we talked about last year with you all, you said it was very important that we make sure that we have very solid oversight and direct oversight and management of our pieces of this ecosystem. So that is really what Community Wellness and Recovery does, Isabel McDevitt and her team. The Class 200 dollars are for the providers who are providing services, Black Doctors Consortium, Merakey, Gardenzia and Riverview and in other locations around the wellness ecosystem. And the Wellness Court, Tara?
The Wellness Court, we have proposed an additional $1 million to the Defender's Association, and that's included in the Defender's Association section of the MDO budget. And that will cover the staff and use for covering the legal representation for Wellness Court.
So that's to ensure that folks that are going through that Neighborhood Wellness Court have the representation that is necessary.
One last question while he's not paying attention, a quick one. Is the Office of Immigrant Affairs still under the Managing Director's Office?
As it stands right now, the Office of Immigrant Affairs is under the Managing Director's Office. As we've talked about and hereto, we work very closely with the Law Department, especially right now, to understand what is happening daily and dynamically at the federal level. So that is a -- regardless of where that resides administratively, that is an area where we have a great deal of interagency collaboration.
Thank you, Member Landau. And I'm always watching, Member Landau. That's why I'm here. Councilmember Bass.
I want to give a shout-out to Donald Carlton. Is he over there? I'm sorry. I thought I saw Donald Carlton. A couple of questions. One question, I'm on the board for ACCT and I noticed that the proposal is for 8 million, a little over $8 million which is not that much more than they receive to date in the current budget. And so, I know that you mentioned in the beginning your proposed budget was $133.9 million in Class 200 funding, which included you specifically mentioned ACCT and the Domestic Violence Hotline. And so, when I look at the fact that it's almost being promoted that we're going to do more for them, but at the same time we're only giving them about $500,000?
Councilmember, Council President, the proposed budget includes a $921,000, so almost $1 million increase in what we're paying ACCT. That is for anticipated collective bargaining agreement-related increases for their staff compensation, insurance coverage, care supplies and additional veterinary staff. I think it's -- while ACCT, a very important organization to us and a contractual relationship that we have, I think that while I've only been in the MDO for a little bit, I think that's one of the most substantial increases that ACCT has had at some time.
So it says here $8,099,250. But you said it was actually million -- I 8 don't under -- 9
Councilmember, the increase, year- over-year increase that's proposed is an additional $921,000 from '25 to '26, so we're actually investing almost $1 million more in ACCT for the things that I mentioned.
I'm going to come back. I don't think that those numbers are accurate so I'm going to come back to you --
-- and just ask about that. Another quick question and I have a much longer question. The Philly Phlush public restroom, are these Portland Loos? Are these the Portland --
I thought we weren't using those anymore because they broke down, we couldn't get parts, it was a problem. Why are we still doing that program if we can't get parts when they break down? I was told like two years ago that we weren't going to use the Portland Loo anymore.
Councilmember, I'll have one of our colleagues join us, Deputy Managing Director Yates-Gale to talk about that. I think the short answer is because there still is a salient need. And you're right, it seems like --
There's definitely a need, but the product itself, there's more than one product I guess is my point. And that product is a problem. So why are we still using the product that when it breaks down, we can't get the parts, this restroom is out of service. And this is just one particular brand. Why aren't we using other brands? And actually, hold that because I really want to just ask my other question which is much more substantive and important to me. So the Support Center for Child Advocates under Legal Services, I don't know if you saw today's Inquirer article about basically the City's dereliction of duty when it comes to children who are in the foster care system and the high rate of child separation that we have here in Philadelphia. And we did have a conversation with DHS some time in the last week or so and talked to them about what the numbers were. I know Kimberly Ali didn't have the numbers available. But according to this article, it's much more troubling than what was presented here. And so, when I looked at again on the document you provided, the proposed funding for Fiscal Year '26 is a little over $7 million. Now, when you look at every department that was listed in your presentation in your briefing, every department has a set of strategic goals and has a set of performance measures except for this one. And I find that very disturbing because this is a department, according to your own description, that it's a legal representation for individuals who are in need but cannot afford an attorney. The Support Center for Child Advocates represents child victims of abuse and neglect, including new dependency cases and in criminal cases related to their victimization. Community Legal Services represents vulnerable populations, including indigent families and seniors, as they seek to access social service programs. So we put $7 million here. And yet we have no strategic goals and no performance measures and every other department here does have goals and performance measures? Please explain.
I'm going to take that one. Tara Mohr. I'm the First Deputy Managing Director. The Legal Services Division represents a combination, a collaboration with a couple of other different departments. And so, in some of these contracts that you see here is a collaboration with external departments. And so, we can work with them to come up with those performance measures and the strategic goals. But sometimes the funding that we have here, the funding is allocated to the Managing Director's Office to match and to supplement and augment some of the investments in other departments. So for example, the Support Center for Child Advocates contract that you referenced, our contribution is a supplement and augmentation to the funding that DHS also provides, so where there's a cross-section and a collaboration on those particular contracts.
Well, I was going to ask is there sort of any coordination with DHS on, you know, like, what's the number plan -
You're out of your time, Member Bass. Wrap it up please.
Yes, sir. But I do want to say this, when I think about what was printed in today's Inquirer -- and trust me, I'm not going exclusively on their word -- but it was extremely disturbing to me the idea that we have given so little thought that we have provided no goals, no 13 recommendations, no performance measures. And I understand it's sort of a collabo with all these different departments. That's still not acceptable. This is our most vulnerable population. And when we look at who's shooting who in a neighborhood, it's 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. It's not -- when I was coming up, it was more like 18, 20, 21, 22. They're much younger now. And that's because we're missing the mark, and we're missing the mark in many different departments based on what's presented here by the City. We don't even have any goals for this department. We're spending $7 million. That's like a giveaway, and we don't even have any requirements for how are we going to fix this situation. I think that it needs to be in here like it's in here for every other department that was listed.
Councilmember, certainly appreciate it and understand the importance of that. And again, the reason that that's not in there is it's essentially part of the way the budget is displayed.
We passed those dollars on to other entities that do that. And moreover, the Managing Director's Office can't do direct oversight because we sometimes are involved --
I understand. I'm not asking for direct oversight. I'm saying that it should be a part of your conversation and expectation. As we're handing money over, we should be saying what are we getting for this and how are we making things better and that should be reflected.
Councilmember, we'll certainly talk to our partners who execute those programs and see how we work with the Budget Office to get those displayed in the future.
Good morning, Councilmember. The Philly Phlush model is no longer using the Portland Loo model, yeah. And we have contracted with the provider to provide realtime quick repair service. We'll check and respond to you and your office about the Philly Phlush that's in your District. Now, that one is a little aside from the other two because it's a Rebuild project so we'll make sure that we have the repairs associated with that one.
Vernon Park, ma'am. You have one in Vernon Park. There's one outside --
Right, that's no longer being used. That model is no longer being used. We are building one in Clark Park as we speak as we go through the L&I process. And then the next Philly Phlush, we will be doing community engagement in South Philadelphia.
So I'm without a bathroom now in Vernon Park? I just want to --
So we don't have a bathroom anymore in Vernon Park; is that what you're --
No, no, you do. We need to make sure that our repair contract covers that.
You're welcome. Just a brief follow-up, the Support Center for the Child Advocate, who are we partnering with? Who's the contract with in regards to the -- helping provide the services for the Support Center for the Child Advocate?
With the Support Center for Child Advocate. Okay.
And that contract is partially funded by the Managing Director's Office and then also partially funded by the Department of Behavioral Services.
So we're partnering with the Support Center for Child Advocate, but they don't have a strategic plan and goals in terms of how we're addressing the advocacy issues on behalf of the youth; is that correct?
Council President, I'm not prepared to say what the Support Center does or does not have in terms of their strategic planning. That is something we can work with DHS to get on follow-up --
Money is coming from us the same way like money go through OHS and OHS partners with other entities, correct, to provide a service?
We and DHS fund them to provide a service, and we are also conflicted out of providing direct oversight because of the way court proceedings unfold. And I don't think it is at all unreasonable to ask for an understanding of what their strategic goals are, how they're spending the dollars.
Before this process in over, can you get back with a report to the Chair, members of this body regarding -- we want to be fiscally responsible, right, transparency, accountability on behalf of the taxpayers. And so, when Member Bass talked about our most vulnerable citizens which is our youth, our children, if any area, we want to advocate and make sure folks are doing right by them because they don't have lobbyists walking these halls asking for support. They don't have individuals who are getting paid in a government relations position coming and asking us to fight on their behalf. So I just wanted to follow up on that line of questioning. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Bass briefly.
Thank you, Mr. President. I just have to say I just find it so egregious that so little thought was given to this. We put more thought -- and I'm a Board member, as you know I love my fur babies, for ACCT. We put more thought into the dogs and cats than we did into the children. I mean, come on now. You got to do better. Who put this report together that thought it was okay to type that there were no strategic goals and no performance measures? Like, who did the document that didn't flag you all and say this is a problem, we shouldn't present this?
Duly noted for the 8 record. 9 The Chair recognizes 10 Dr. Phillips. 11
12 Yeah. I've also been relatively 13 concerned about funding for ACCT. 14 Because right now in a lot of parts 15 of our city, raccoons, other 16 rodents are literally going across 17 the city, and ACCT response is that 18 they don't have the ability to 19 capture these loose animals that 20 can be treated by them and in these 21 spaces because of certain 22 parameters, but if they had a 23 little bit more support and goals, 24 maybe that could be something that could be helpful. And I'm just trying to figure out why such as a raccoon problem is not even supported with the funding from ACCT.
Okay. So I want to call on Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson, but we'll expect that report. And I just think as a part of conversations that we'll have with Rob Dubow in Finance, I mean if we're going to be fiscally responsible in order for this body to sign off on it, then we need to see something that we feel confident for us to sign off on. So I don't mind going on record saying that as we move forward. But thank you, sir. The Chair recognizes Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson. Then we're going into our second round.
Thank you. Thank you, Council President. And thank you, Managing Director Thiel and Tara and your entire team. I wanted to just go through the detail. So if you have the detail, I think that would be helpful. You have it, Tara? Okay.
Majority Leader, could you speak into the microphone?
Yes. Surely, Council President. My apologies for the delay. So I'm going to go only on the detail for my first round of questions. You have a copy of the detail in front of you so we can speak with the same information. So I want to start with Section 43 of the FY26 operating budget for the Managing Director's Office. I'm back at Pages 171, 172 and you can include 170 as well. And so, this is strictly around Program Office of Workforce Development. And so, if you could detail for me very quickly the Office of Workforce Development as it relates to the Managing Director's Office? And I know most of these are grants that have been awarded. I'm very clear on that, but it states that it's under the Program of Office of Workforce Development under the Managing Director. Could you just detail that for the record?
Yes. Thank you for the question. The Office of Workforce Development, in particular these grants, are legacy grants that had been in existence in the Managing Director's Office when the Office of Workforce Development had existed in the Managing Director's Office and prior fiscal years.
And when was -- okay. For the record, can you say when that was?
Probably around FY21. However, I have not been with the Managing Director's Office except for only one year so I cannot -- FY21, but we would want to double check that and get back to you.
Okay. And for the record, the Office of Workforce Development grants that are listed that the City received that are ongoing, because some started back in 2020, was when Workforce Development was technically under the Managing Director's Office. Obviously, it would have to be at least 2020, right, because that's what the documents state. I just wanted to get that on the record. Now, I'm going to go to again to Section 43, under Program Administration and Policy. First line for Class 250 Professional Services, Chicago Women in Trades. Could you just explain what that's about?
Sure. Section 43, , Program Administration and Policy. The first listing under the Centralized Infrastructure Strategy for Professional Services 0250 which is Class 250, Chicago Women in Trades.
Yes, ma'am. Yes, I can confirm that that is there. And the question is what is that for?
Yes. Could you talk to us more about Chicago Women in Trades?
Excellent. And as quickly as possible because I have a number of items that I need to get on the record in this section.
Thank you. So that was a grant where we are working with several local apprenticeships and Chicago Women's in Trades has a presence here in Philadelphia where they'll be providing training opportunities for apprentices who come from Philadelphia communities.
Okay. So even though it says Chicago Women in Trades --
They're national and they have a footprint here in Philadelphia? Because that sticks out to me because I'm like, we have Philadelphia women in trades.
These folks were very talented working with young women in sectors where they're underrepresented. And so, the Mayor was aware of their work. They did establish a local presence. And so, they are doing the work here in Philadelphia on behalf of Philadelphia residents.
Okay. And they're working with Philadelphia residents?
Okay. Thank you. And I just wanted to put that on the record. We do have Philadelphia women in trades. We have WINC, Women in Nontraditional Careers. And so, I wanted to put that on the record for those organizations that we just hosted here in Council who also do wonderful work. I wanted to then go to Section 43 again, . And I hear the bell so I'm going to try to get all this in. Section 43, under Administration and Policy for the Managing Director's Office, again Class 250, Professional Services and Support Services for the City. I see listed here, Joseph -- third line down, Joseph A. DeLuca, Advisory and Consulting, $350,000 for contracted services or, no, I'm sorry, for OHS Fiscal Consultant. Could you talk about what that's for?
We'll have Cheryl Hill, who's our OHS Director, answer that question specifically.
Okay. And to repeat, just to ensure it was heard correctly, it's Section 43, 26, third line down under Support Services, Joseph A. DeLuca, Advisory and Consulting, $350,000 for FY25, estimated obligations. There's nothing under FY26 proposed budget, but it states OHS Fiscal Consultant. (Witness approached Witness table.)
Good morning. Thank you, Majority Leader. Cheryl Hill, Executive Director of the Office of Homeless Services. DeLuca is currently working with us to go through our fiscal operations to make sure that we have some key controls in there as well as come up with some streamlined processes to make sure that we can manage our finances and make sure that we are keeping in line with all the policies and procedures.
Okay. Excellent. And so, I'll have additional questions. I think now it's on May 5th for OHS, but I wanted to get that on the record since it was under the MDO's budget line item. And again, on the same page under 0 to 90, after you go through the payment for care of individuals, and I'm not going to name all the organizations that are listed, but underneath -- the last line states under Women of Excellence Inc., Vendors to be determined, $338,539. Would you be able to detail that information for us today on the record? As I see, that it's only listed under Fiscal 2025, estimated obligations, and no listing for Fiscal 2026 proposed budget for service providers.
I'll take that question, if that's okay. Tara Mohr. The vendor to be determined, that should say various. And we can lay out the details of that information for you in a memo following the proceedings.
Okay. My respectful request is that we receive the information on the second round today. Since there's nothing listed for Fiscal 2026 proposed budget and we're almost at the end of the fiscal year, that would mean that you all would have that information or no?
If I can clarify. We are currently in our RFP process for some of our programs. And as a result, we didn't list vendors. That's why it says to be determined. We actually have open RFPs at this time.
Okay. So let me go back because help me understand. I want to make sure we're on the same page. Under FY -- just Section 43, under FY26 proposed budget it's all blank. Okay. And so, when you go on FY25 estimated obligations, you see that it's $338,539. The fiscal year will be over June 30th, correct?
Okay. So then the question is you're RFPing for these services and they'll be able to provide them by June 30th? I'm really asking for clarification.
So the FY26 expenditures and the plan expenditures, those will -- you will see those in OHS budget. And where there are RFPs, it may say vendors to be determined. But anything that is FY26, that is all within OHS. The vendors to be determined that are under the FY25 estimated obligation, again that is simply an error. Those are various that were probably a little bit too small to list out individually. And again, we can provide you that detailed information about what's in that 338 -- I apologize.
Right, the 338,539. Would you be able to provide that today in our second round after we take a break?
And the reason why I'm asking is because, you know, I don't want to say this, but this is my 25th year here, okay, and this is a process, right. And what happens is when we get the information at a later time, it doesn't enable us to fully review the information and enough time to then provide adequate additional response before the conclusion of this process. And we know that the budget hearing for OHS has been moved to May 5th, right. So we may have a little more time in this instance, but initially it was supposed to be next week. And so, if we could get the information today, I think that would be helpful based on everything we know to be true from the last year. And I'll come back on the second round just to place my other questions on the record specifically and only about the detail and the information that is provided on the papers.
Councilmember, we'll try to get you that today. If not, then certainly before the OHS hearing.
Right. Because I mean, you understand the way it's listed it's very hard to go through each one and I think it's important for us to know that information. I heard my colleague Councilmember Gauthier who's Chair of Housing talk about the $5 million in question as well at a previous hearing so we need this information. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council President. I'll come back on the second round with the remainder of my questions under Section 43 of the budget detail.
Thank you, Majority Leader. Councilmember Young, before we go into the second round, you have a question, sir?
Thank you, Mr. President. First question is a similar line of questioning to our Majority Leader. I looked at --
Sorry. Thank you. I looked at the appropriations for some of the vendors for OTIS and it says, To be determined. I'm just wondering if you can give us some of those vendors because I do know, for example, it says there was 75,000 appropriated for 2025 for the innercity bus operations. And I do know that that study is currently going on. So vendors should be selected for that. So if you could provide us with some of these vendors that say To be determined when we have appropriated those funds for last year, that would be helpful. It says the OTIS Tabor Ave Design, Neighborhood Bikeway Planning, Kelly Drive Signal Curve, Protective Bikeways, you know, those things like that. So we do know those things have -- that money has been spent or is being spent. And so, it will be helpful if we know who those vendors are for those particular programs. That's first question. Second question is of course related to Philly Home at Girard. Can you tell us what the capacity of that current facility is and if you plan to exceed that capacity in the future?
Councilmember, Council President, I'll do the second question first. The capacity of Philly Home at Girard is 180 beds right now. The daily census changes daily with demand. And right now we think that is the capacity that we're going to keep given the current situation and our continued investments across the rest of the wellness ecosystem.
So the work with the innercity bus operation primarily has been with the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation. We've also engaged with Kimley-Horn Associates for some study that's unrelated to the existing operation on Spring Garden Avenue.
But there's also a list of other -- I'd say one, two, three, four, five, about six or seven other OTIS- related appropriations that were made that say vendors to be determined. So just wanted to see where we can -- this is on . So I just want to see if we can get some information on those vendors as well.
I'll work to get you some detail. I'm going to need to check to see whether these have been awarded or the work orders have been initiated on these to be determined ones.
Thank you. I mean, I'm only asking because it's a lot of to be determined here for that particular, I guess, department. And I know that in that particular space there aren't too many minority, women-owned, Black and Brown firms that do that type of work, so it is helpful for us to see who's actually doing that work.
So, Councilmember, we'll get you, to the extent we can, detailed answers to that. Sometimes if there's an RFP process underway, then we can't specifically answer those questions as you know. And the other thing with this is obviously these processes are always working not even in parallel. Sometimes they're linear. Sometimes they're in parallel. So the procurement process is one of the reasons why we have to get the authorization, appropriation and then procurement is the next step. So we'll get you whatever we can.
We understand that. But again, as Majority Leader said we're almost three months at the end of this fiscal year so I believe that some of the things should be in motion. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. We're now officially going into our second round. My question is the Office of Emergency Management requests 2 million for Emergency Fund pilot for FY26. And it's described to be used for unseen emergency situations such as unanticipated disaster recovery needs. So I just want to get an idea -- I know it's going to be housed under the Finance Department. And so, I want to get an idea of how this fund specifically will be used. And I want to make sure it seems like it's more of a discretionary fund. So how is it to be housed under the Finance Department, so I just want to get an idea of how the funds are going to be used. And then also, how are we preparing to deal with AI and cyber attacks? Are we prepared? Are we doing anything regarding being on the forefront of preventing any type of cyber attack, any type of AI attack? I know during last year some company, they're supposed to be protecting us, kind of had our system go down for maybe a day or two. But nevertheless, it did freeze operations throughout the country. And so, what are we doing from an emergency management standpoint to be on the forefront in the event that a cyber attack does happen here in the city of Philadelphia?
Council President, definitely appreciate your awareness and concern that we share about cyber security and the potential impact of AI. In fact, I just finished my mandated cyber security awareness training that our Office of Information Technology does, and that was a key point in there. So that is in the city. That is largely an OIT responsibility securing our system. So that question is probably better directed to them. I can tell you again going back to your very first question, we have a regular call with OIT, OEM, our Managing Director's Office, we are always in that call, Tara and I, because it is that important. So we work very closely with Melissa Scott and her team, with Camille and Dominic, also work very closely with them. So it is definitely something securing our internal systems. And that's really the OIT job. The OEM component of that, and this bleeds over into your first question, is the consequence management, if we have an issue as we did. That incident was sort of a preview of what it might look like. And I have to say our team did an amazing job across agencies, across government and beyond in addressing that. Could have been a lot worse. I think everybody understands that. So it certainly is something that we are very focused on and we'll make sure that OIT, I'm sure they'll have a more fulsome briefing on that when it is their turn. In terms of the Unanticipated Needs pilot, the short answer to that is that is a contingency fund. It's a pilot we have seen almost every year. And I don't want to, you know, from my former business I don't want to speak anything into existence, so I'll knock on wood. We know what happened earlier this year in the Northeast, and that was a substantial cost to the city. So it seems like at least every year that I've been here for the past nine years there has been something that is truly unanticipated that we could not predict that requires our entire city force to mobilize, as they did during the plane crash, work together with intergovernmental, interagency partners and get it done. So that $2 million is there as a contingency for when the next thing that we can't anticipate or some of the things we might be able to anticipate if we do have a severe weather event. Now, I'm talking about the "routine snowstorms and weather events like that," if we were to have another hurricane or another derecho or something we have not had to worry about and now we do, wildfires within the city and urban conflagrations. We had five significant events last year. We've already had one this year. So that really is what those dollars are for, sir.
I would like for Sue Slawson, Parks and Recreation Commissioner to please come to the table. (Witness approached Witness table.)
Council President, another one of our rock stars, as you know. She hates when I say that. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Good morning. Susan Slawson.
Good morning, Susan. First and foremost, I just want to thank you for your leadership. I want to thank you for coming back to the City of Philadelphia. One of the smartest decisions that our Mayor has made by tapping you to come back and have you take helm of our Parks and Recreation. So I just want to thank you for your leadership. I want to thank my good friend Frank Fabey, he's out there somewhere, who also does a lot of work when I'm calling day-in and day-out regarding Parks and Recreation. Just want to get an idea in terms of the summer months that are coming. Plans around programming for our youth, plans around safety of our youth at the various recreation sites and also around staffing our pipeline, nontraditional pipeline I would like to say, of bringing more individuals who volunteer at rec centers, right, may not take the civil service test, right, may not have a degree but still want a pathway into becoming a Parks & Rec employee? So those are the three questions that I just have, want to get an update from you and on how we can be supportive of your efforts and keeping our young people safe. My nana taught me as a kid an idle mind is a devil's workshop. And so, when I wasn't at Chew Playground getting my lunch through the lunch program and going swimming and the camp was free, I was probably down at FDR Park or Center City probably getting involved in something I wasn't supposed to be getting involved in as a kid, just to be quite frank. But keeping our young people involved is something that's critically important, so just give us an update please. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you, Council President. We are not only working, Parks and Recreation, it is a collaborative effort. Mayor Parker talks often about One Philly. It is not just Parks and Recreation that's working to ensure that we have programs throughout the city of Philadelphia to ensure that we can provide opportunities for young people everywhere, everywhere throughout the city to have something fun, to have a job, to be able to swim. So I'll start with our pools. Last year we had 59 pools open. This year we'll have 63. Thanks to Aparna a number of the Rebuild facilities are now opened. And on top of our pools being opened, that's an opportunity economic for our young people. Pools are critical for the summer. They're critical for safety. They're critical for fun. They're critical for enjoyment, but it's an opportunity for us to hire. We look to hire at least 400 lifeguards. We look to hire at least 400 PMAs, pool maintenance attendants. So there are job opportunities that help support our young people to keep them off the streets. But on top of those job opportunities, we hire at least 1200 young people which is a part of our C2L program for the summer. They --
What's the name of the program? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Career to -- Community Career to Learning. I forget one of those Cs. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Career Connected Learning. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you. Career Connected Learning. And so, we get an opportunity to hire 1200 young people to work in our Parks & Rec facilities and we are excited about that because, you know, it's not -- you talked about staffing. We have opportunities for employment, but we don't always have people that put in for our jobs. We don't always have people that want to work in our rec facilities. So we have the jobs. We need the people. And so, we're hoping that as we bring these 1200 young people in year after year after year that they want to become a part of Parks and Recreation. You asked about staffing. We have opportunities that we haven't always had. We call them ROWs, recreational workers. So there were young people, middle-aged people of all ages working in our facilities as volunteers because they couldn't pass tests. So we came up with an opportunity for those people that couldn't pass our tests to come into our system. I don't have the exact number. I will have that next week of how many ROWs that we've hired, and we're still in the process of hiring ROWs. But on top of those ROWs, we've changed some of the specs in our job requirements to ensure that people that -- we were asking for specific degrees. We've changed it just to have a degree, so you don't have to have a specific education degree to come and be a part of Parks and Recreation. So we've been doing a whole host of things to make sure we can bring people in. This is the first year in five years that we brought back ARLs. Those are our seasonal part- time permanent positions. Again, I want to say -- I don't want to make the number up and I don't want to give you a number, but this is the first year that we have been able to hire ARLs in our system. So we have the jobs. We have the opportunities. We're looking for people to come and want to be a part of Parks and Recreation. As a matter of fact, this Saturday we're having a job fair. It was supposed to be at the Dell Music Center, but because it's going to rain we're moving it inside of Mander Recreation Center. So I think -- the summer, I want to go back to summer programming. We have 130 camps that we will be providing. 49 of those camps are already filled. So people are using our -- and we have affordable camps. We have opportunity for waivers for those parents that can't afford to pay for their young people to come to our camps. But on top of that because it's all about safety, we want parents to know that our places are safe regardless of what has happened. We have this amazing partnership with the Philadelphia Police Department. Last year we had a meeting with all the commanders in each district, all of our rec leaders, all our program directors and we exchanged not only phone numbers, but they set up programs in each of our districts. They ran basketball tournaments, they had movie nights, they came out. This is the best community policing that you can possibly have because they partner with what we do in our facilities to make sure that they're not just showing up when there's a problem. They're showing up in our rec centers, one, to let people know that they're there, two, to provide that community service and, three, to also be eyes and ears for us. And I think that's an amazing opportunity, in addition to our rec leaders running programs, having police officers there running programs with our staff. We also have our teen nights. We locked down the Oval right down here in Center City where we purposely have opportunities for young people to come. They listen to music. We provide games. It is just for them, but we expanded that. It's not just at the Oval. We do it throughout the city of Philadelphia now because we recognize if we provide these opportunities, they will come.
I'm sure there are a whole lot of things going on and I'm drawing a blank right now, sir.
Well, I think that's fantastic with a focus on specifically supporting our young people. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I just thought about something else. I'm sorry.
Absolutely. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: So I want to keep in mind that the Mayor gave us that additional $3.2 million in our budget and we've been able to offer 70 grants to community members that have been putting money out on their own running programs in everyone's community. And so, that right there has been huge for us --
How much are those grants? On average how much are the grants for the community groups, do you know? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: You can get $5,000 to $25,000.
Okay. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yeah. Depending on your program, how big it is, how many young people you're serving, you can get up to $50,000. The money is there. We have criteria that they have to follow, but we have 70 people, 70 organizations that have already put in. We're also -- with that grant funding we've been able to have specific training for coaches. We all know that we've been having challenges with coaches and some of the issues with just behavior character. And so, we've been training our coaches as well. We have used some of this funding to do trauma training in our facilities and it's just been amazing what we've been able to do. We're also able to provide additional equipment. There's some old equipment throughout our system. And with this funding, we've been able to replace a lot of the equipment that's been there for decades. So we're supporting basketball, soccer --
Are we doing an equitable analysis -- COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Absolutely.
-- of the parks and recreation centers throughout the city just to make sure that the resources that we're providing are equitably distributed across the neighborhoods? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We absolutely are. There's some neighborhoods that don't need support with basketball. There's some neighborhoods where they are fine when it comes to soccer and funding. Our purpose, and it's intentional that we're looking at those zip codes where people are struggling, those zip codes where we know that we need to have additional opportunities for sports, and also not just sports. We have opportunities for red light cameras, whether it's our -- what's it called? I'm not a, what do you --
Gaming? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Gaming, yeah. I'm sorry.
Yes. Mr. Thomas was getting to ready elaborate on that. I remember during COVID we had a partnership with one of the gaming companies to allow our young people during that period to engage in gaming. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Well, one of the things that -- I don't know how many facilities. I have all that information written down, but we actually have extended our gaming to other additional recreation centers. As opposed to I think there were six, we've been extending our gaming opportunities. I heard Councilmember Jones whisper polo. We have opportunities that we're working with Dr. Deborah Carrera where we're going to offer opportunities for that extended school. She's going to identify young people that will be a part of Work to Ride, our equestrian opportunities for our young people as well.
Okay. And last question and you could be brief on it, but have we thought -- police can't be everywhere, right. Are we thinking outside the box in terms of maybe public-private partnerships with civilian individuals to help patrol and be eyes and ears at our rec centers and our playgrounds, right, because no matter what we do we just don't have the manpower to have an officer at every single playground, but at least in the high let's say 57 blocks, so to speak, where we know there's high poverty, we see high crime, we see gun violence, right, and as opposed to -- because you're not going to have an officer at every specific park or rec center, but the same way we have Center City District ambassadors, the same way we have University City District ambassadors, to a civilian or the average person when you see them come riding down the street on bike patrol because you know somebody's watching, you're more apt to not get involved in something that's negative, right. Have we explored outside the box that type of partnership? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I think that's something that we can definitely look into. But I will say one of the successes that I've seen in our rec facilities are those people that live in the community, those men specifically, and even some women because some of the women, the grandmoms that have the eyes and the ears, it's really about relationships. It's about respect. It's about those people that live in that community, know those young people and young people will get checked by certain people. So those Advisory Council members that we depend on so often are key to helping us police our facilities, are key to working with the rec leaders. They're not getting paid, but they're supporting because they live in the neighborhoods and they care about the neighborhoods. I find that people that have the relationship, I'll use you, for instance -- I'll use myself, I won't use you. When you're young, when you were young, there were certain people that you didn't cross --
I was the same, yes. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: And so, those are the people that we're looking for that know the community, that know the neighborhood to be in our rec facilities, and most of those people are volunteers.
Okay. Thank you very much. And again, whatever we can do to be supportive of your efforts, especially around the children, I know how this process works but whatever we can do to increase support for your particular department, let us know. I have just one last question, not for you but just for -- COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you, sir. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you very much. Aparna Palantino. And I also want to thank Mr. Alain Joinville for his work with Parks & Rec. I've been working with him for many years always being responsive. Aparna, because I'll email you any time of the day asking for an update on my Rebuild project guiding me through the process. Vera is coming along great. Myers is coming along great. We have Chew. The work that we've done at Chew is moving forward. So majority of my Rebuild projects are moving forward. But what's the future for Rebuild, right? Give us a brief status update of Rebuild. I know we're pretty much at the end of our borrowing. We're paying more than what we borrowed for in terms of the whole beverage tax and so forth. But it's a very, very highly successful program in terms of making sure we have equitable, high-quality recreation centers and parks irregardless of your zip code. And so, it's something I would like to continue supporting as we move forward.
So thank you for your question, Council President. As far as the original list of 72 sites goes, we have completed approximately 36 sites. There's another 16 or so either in construction or getting ready to go into construction, with the balance in design or engagement. The Mayor's Office and the Administration of course have committed to completing out the Rebuild initiative. What we're not certain of is whether we call it Rebuild in the future or it becomes part of the capital program. Essentially, it's similar work that we're doing, just a different source of funds at the moment. So we're always --
When you say different source of funds, we're talking general funds or us floating another bond?
So Rebuild was -- actually for Rebuild there's only been two bonds floated. The last 130 million roughly will go out potentially this fall. So there's still Rebuild money to be secured.
You don't anticipate us needing to borrow more to finish up the remaining Rebuild projects to complete the total 72?
At this time, not all of them have gotten into design. So once we've gotten into design and actually have hard numbers, we'll be able to determine that --
Million dollar question, because really you're new to the position but we know your expertise, how do we streamline the rest of these projects so we can pretty much get them done?
So if you've noticed, in the last year or so we've been able to move many of them forward much more quickly. In combining the three units under the Capital Program Office, we have the ability to use different contracting methods now that either Parks & Rec or Department of Public Property Capital teams are already using and that has helped us to move these projects much quicker.
Thank you, Aparna. I appreciate your leadership, your hard work and dedication to always picking up the phone even if it's a Saturday or Sunday. So I appreciate you being responsive. We're in Round 2 officially. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Curtis Jones.
Thank you so much, Mr. President. Just for the record so that we're keeping accurate accounts of who's who and where they live. Sue Slawson's from the 4th District. We claim her, born and raised just like Will Smith in West Philadelphia. And we used to have you. You moved out. I don't know why. Well, maybe one pothole or two that you didn't fix, you left. I don't know.
Okay. So what I'd like to focus on is something that many of us in this chamber experienced when we went away to visit Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. And what we saw was a city that was prepared to welcome visitors, some of them for the first time. And I was in a cab and the cab driver said inadvertently, I don't know, we glad you're here because they're cleaning up places that ain't been cleaned in decades. And when we were at the hotel downtown, one of the people standing outside, he was smoking a cigarette. He said, where are my homeless people today. I don't know how they did what they did. But they made a concerted effort from the time you hit the airport to the expressway where there might have been graffiti to the points of contact at hotels, cabs and other means of mass transportation. They got their act together. So I guess what I'm asking us is, and I don't want to story-steal from my colleague Isaiah Thomas, as we look to FIFA, as we look to all of the other events that are coming down, how are we doing our little facelift for our city from everything from medians and streets that probably could use a little tender loving care, little planting, so that people experiencing Philadelphia for the first time won't make it the last time and come back to enjoy our city? And I know we're -- I guess the other part of that question is are we partnering with the railroads, Amtrak, CMX to deal with those corridors, from corridors to bridges to just spruce up?
Councilmember, Council President, certainly appreciate the question. Chicago is my hometown. Philly's way better. Let me just put that on the record.
And this is to your point, everything we are doing, everything we are doing, safe, clean, green with access to economic opportunity for all is about first and foremost our residents and businesses who are here now, who've been here and will continue to be here and next for visitors. The good news is all those things line up. Safer, cleaner, greener with access to economic opportunity for all, that's good for everybody who's here and that's exactly what we need and want for all of those visitors. So this is one of the reasons that we've put wellness in this wellness ecosystem at the forefront, we need to have -- I think everybody for various reasons, everybody that I've talked to, we hear from you all, certainly hear from folks, the same people that you hear from and others, we know that having unhoused folks in the street is not good for those folks and it's not good for our city for a variety of reasons. People have different reasons for that. For me as a former healthcare provider, it's about taking care of people and giving them an environment where they can get better and that is what we're doing. That's what we've been doing with the wellness ecosystem. That is what we're going to continue to do. And the good news is that also helps folks who don't want to have some of the ancillary activities that come along with that, in front of their business, in front of their home, the not clean things that come along with that. So that is part of our safety commitment. Other safety commitment, making sure that we have the law enforcement presence that we need all the time, first and foremost here in the city, for residents and businesses and then for visitors in 2026. So even the question about some of the efforts around the highways, that's exactly Mayor Parker's vision. And you're seeing the execution of that. We want to make sure that when people get on any road in the city -- they don't know that it is a "federal highway or a state highway or a city road." They don't know the difference. Our visitors don't know the difference. Many of our residents don't know the difference and they don't need to know. We are going to treat all of that the same to make sure that we're improving those conditions. I certainly see it every day. Our Director of Clean and Green Carlton Williams, I mean I see it. I walk. I spend a lot of time walking around here and other places in the city. We're seeing it. We are seeing the difference. I hear people. They stop me on the street. They see the difference. And we know there's a lot more to do, which is why we're continuing to make investments in all of those areas because we know that companies are coming, and it's the same things we need for the people who live here, work here and make a living here, and, oh, by the way, play here to the previous question.
So to your point when my country cousins come to town, we do a little extra cleaning up, gardening and stuff like that, so we make a good impression so that they feel a welcome but also want to come back. And one good event begets another. If people come to Philadelphia and have a good experience, then they want a barbecue, right. They want to come back for Thanksgiving and they want to come back for Christmas or whatever holiday. So if we can put our best foot forward during this period of time, we have an opportunity to make repeat customers. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Member Jones. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. I wanted to follow up on some of my colleagues' questions around 311. In FY24, 43% of 311 survey respondents rated themselves as "service detractors," meaning they are dissatisfied. This is a sizable portion. So I wanted to ask you, what are the main drivers of dissatisfaction? Does it stem from the service request process itself, so difficulty using the system or from the outcome, the City departments not resolving issues promptly? How is Philly311 working with operating departments to close the loop on requests and improve the overall satisfaction rate? And would more transparency or publicly tracking each department's response times help accountability for those unresolved service requests? And then lastly, as the central hub for nonemergency issues, 311 data can highlight where City services are falling behind. Does the MDO use Philly311 metrics to guide other departments' budget or staffing needs?
Councilmember, Council President, I think I'm tracking all those. The answer to the last question is, yes, we do and we're working very closely with PhillyStat360 to make sure that we are tracking those across the entire city government. I think that's one of the issues, is that folks sometimes look at 311 as being the source or the resolution to many of those issues, and they are not. They are literally a way for us to collect information from people about things that need to be done or questions they have. Many of those questions are again things that the City doesn't control or have an interest in. So that I think is where we get to some of the challenges.
Quickly with respect to the departments, the data on departments, can you give a few specific examples of how we've used that data to change staffing or budget needs? And then can you answer the other questions around the service detractor metric?
Councilmember, I can give one example from my experience here over the past multiple years. When I arrived, we had exactly the problem -- when I arrived to the Fire Department, exactly the problem that Councilmember Gilmore Richardson was talking about with the closing tickets and the question about closing tickets. We had all of these open smoke alarm tickets, 311 tickets, and there was no technical connection. The Fire Department was keeping a list and 311 was keeping a list. The lists didn't match. There was no crosswalk between the list. We didn't know if a closed ticket -- exactly the earlier conversation -- meant that a smoke alarm had been installed or if it had just been that meant it was transferred to the Fire Department. These are very complicated systems, so I think we're in a much better place on that. One of the evidences of that was the investment that was made in smoke alarms. And of course, Mayor Parker made the first General Fund investment in that period of time in smoke alarms last year because we found, you know, when you come in, you say, all right, well, there are no open tickets. That doesn't mean there wasn't a need. There was absolutely a need. We heard that from people. We got new requests. So that was an area where we -- it fed right back into the funding and the resourcing piece so we can answer those requests. I think Net Promoter Scores I think, look, our folks in 311 are incredibly dedicated. And I mean, I got to be honest, this is another area -- I think all of you have alluded to this. We need folks to help us help you. They take a lot of heat and a lot of frankly venom from folks sometimes who are calling and asking about where do I get a birth certificate or -- well, not so much birth certificate. That's not a great example. But my power is out, can you fix it or I don't have cable, can you fix it and why can't you fix it. You know, people are used to calling and getting if they call one of the utility providers, the infrastructure providers, they get a time and an appointment. And that could be a frustrating experience too. And the 311 operators can't do that. So that I think might be some of the source of those challenges. And then part of it I think is using it which is why we have additional dollars to update the app.
So you're saying that the main source of that 43% dissatisfaction is that people are calling to ask about services that the City does not provide? And as a follow-up, how are you ascertaining that?
No, Councilmember, I don't know. We don't have -- again, those people who are -- we don't have -- when folks do their Net Promoter Scores, we don't have insight into who those people are or a way to understand why they're rating the way they are. I think it's a combination of they couldn't fix my problem. I also think sometimes it's a combination of this is -- again, that hole in the street that I talked about, that is something that at the end of the process the City of Philadelphia, our Streets Department can fix between the time that is created sometimes by an infrastructure provider that we don't control and us repaving that street. There are entities that 311 doesn't even have insight into their workflows. And again, this is just a reality of the infrastructure, PECO, PGW, PWD. Where we do have insight and control over those entities, we are doing a lot of work to make sure that those efforts are joined up. At the end of the day 311, they really are an intake and a notification mechanism to other entities. They can't resolve problems themselves.
I understand and I appreciate our hard-working staff. But given that the number is quite high, do you think that it bears -- do you think we should be adding something to understand why people are dissatisfied so that we can address their issue? Even as an intake mechanism, I would imagine that we want people to be satisfied with the intake, right?
Councilmember, I think that -- we are taking them at their word. So we are putting a lot of time and attention and we appreciate Council's attention to this. We're taking folks at their word that they're not happy about the experience. We know some of those reasons. We don't know all of the reasons. So that's why we are investing in 311 and the app. We are looking at making that an around-the-clock operation in some form or fashion. We're looking at the compensation for the dedicated folks that answer that phone and take a lot of that heat. So I think that's a great idea, understanding what that 43% is about. For right now we're taking folks at their word and we're doing a lot of things to ensure that when a 311 issue comes in that we do have control over, that we're fixing it.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you, Council President. And thank you again. I neglected to start with my thank yous and no one reminded me. So for the Managing Director's Office, Crystal Yates-Gale, Deputy Managing Director for Health and Human Services, your work on the nonprofit task force was commendable and appreciated. Mike Carroll, Deputy Managing Director for Transportation and Infrastructure, my team says you're always responsive and knowledgeable. Thank you to the Office of Emergency Management and the entire team, obviously for the plane crash that happened in Councilmember Driscoll's District, the Super Bowl parade that we all enjoyed and all of the weather emergencies. I'm adding the Office of Special Events and Jazelle Jones, CLIP because we love Tom Conway, and ACCT, Sarah Barnett, she's always responsive for our constituent cases and cares about helping animals, and that's from my staff. And then 311, Lori Roberts, she recently retired from 311 but she was great, and we will certainly miss working with her. And Beth in my office, my Constituent Services Director, says that she will miss Lori tremendously. And I also wanted to mention the Office of Arts and Culture as well. So I had to get that on the record. I'll go back to very quickly Section 43 of the detail, if we could go to in light of the announcement that you made this morning. I had already tabbed this, Managing Director Thiel, but if we could get an updated budget detail based on the ongoing conversations with SEPTA. If we can get an updated , that would be helpful. Not today but just as you all continue the process for . And then I wanted to notate for the record that I did read relative to the Community Wellness and Recovery Centers, and I'll come back to that at another time. And then finally, for Section 43 on if you go to Line Nos. 15, 16, 17, and 18, Transportation Policy Analysis -- Analysts, I'm sorry, Vision Zero Design and Project Coordinator, Vision Zero Program Manager and Deputy Managing Director for OTIS. If you could just talk about those four positions in particular and what the goals are for FY26. So I'll repeat it. It's Section 43, : Transportation Policy Analyst, Vision Zero Design and Project Coordinator, Vision Zero Program Manager and Deputy Managing Director for OTIS.
Councilmember, Council President, Vision Zero is our comprehensive effort to ensure we have safe streets for everyone, all modes of transportation. It was Mayor Parker's fourth Executive Order, one of her earliest executive orders. So we are heavily committed to Vision Zero. You heard Mike Carroll talking about some of the efforts and I'll invite him up. These are essentially the folks who operate that program with all of our partners, again some of whom the Council President mentioned.
Right. And just if you can state for the record, if you all are budgeting for a Vision Zero Design and Project Coordinator for this year?
The other thing while Mike's sitting down I want to mention, the Vision Zero work that we have a sort of a coordination component that is in OTIS, and it's there for a reason because that is in the Managing Director's Office. It's a high level office. It's right there because the Vision Zero work includes City agencies and other partners all across government, outside of government, so that is why it is there. And the investments in Vision Zero are not solely located in OTIS and in the Vision Zero program either. There are things that the police department is doing, there are things that other partners, the School District is doing that contributes to Vision Zero. And I'll let Mike talk specifically about those positions.
Good morning, Councilmember. I may have missed the question.
Sure. I'll repeat. From Section 43 of the detail 14, I was looking at the positions, particularly under OTIS, and I'm just mentioning the last four. These are Lines 15, 16, 17, and 18. Transportation Policy Analyst, Vision Zero Design and Project Coordinator, which is the position I have the question about, and then Vision Zero Program Manager and Deputy Managing Director for OTIS. I don't have a question about 17, and 18. The question is about Line No. 16 Vision Zero Design and Project Coordinator. Are you all keeping that position for FY26 or is that moving or coming from another department?
Yeah, 9 we're in the process of hiring for 10 that position. So we're not taking 11 that from a different department. 12 We're bringing somebody on to do 13 that work. 14
Okay. And then you all are -- are you budgeting for that position for FY26 though?
So you don't have a copy of the detail in front of you?
So you can see what I'm looking at here. Because what I see is FY24 actual 1, and the increment run for PPE 11/24/24, 1. And then Fiscal '26 budgeted position, it's nothing there.
I'll take that question, if that's okay. Part of what you're seeing is also sometimes a slight shift in the working titles. So the position and the work will stay there, but it might just be a shift in the working titles and who is actually responsible for that work. So you might see under where you see under the increment run where there's one position filled, and I can't speak to the details because I'm not sure exactly who this person is because I don't have that detail in front of me, but sometimes what you see is that that position existed in November and it might be slightly retooled for the future, so you'll see that there's other positions that are budgeted in FY26. So that's where that hiring and it might be a shift in the working title or a shift in the duties. So it's there. It just might be slightly different.
Right. But for the record, you all know what I'm saying as far as trying to track where it is. Because just for everyone's clarity, it does not reflect here to say while it's not listed for FY26 where it is listed. So that's why I was asking.
I apologize. So I just did get additional information from our team, and this position is actually grant-funded in the future.
So this spreadsheet or this page that you're looking at right here, this is General Funds. And so, that position is grant-funded so it appears in a different part of the budget. So that's why you don't see that one position in FY26 because it's going to be shifted to -- it's in the Grant Funds.
So it's currently in the General Fund and it'll shift to the Grants Fund?
Okay. Because normally when that happens, it's the other way around recently, which is why I had asked for the information around our Class 100 and how many positions were shifting from Grants revenue to the General Fund. It's just in this instance it's happening in the other direction, correct?
Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Majority Leader Richardson. The Chair recognizes Councilman Jim Harrity. Then after Jim Harrity is Councilmember O'Rourke and then Councilmember Brooks.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you again for being here. My questions are around Rebuild. So just to lead in, I want to just put some numbers out there. So the total Rebuild funding is 574 million, 300 million from bonds, 100 million from the William Penn Foundation, 105 million from the capital, 62 million in other grants and then 7 million from the operating funds. So far we've spent about half of that, a little more than half. Total expenditures to date is 255 million. 145 million of which came from bonds, million from the 13 WPF, 75 million from capital, 13 14 million from other grants and 15 million from operating. Of course, 16 not all the projects are finished 17 or have even begun construction. 18 As an example, the 19 Francis Myers Rec Center increased 20 from 10.18 million to 26.56 21 million. I imagine that's because 22 of the increases in products 23 availability. And I'm sure that's 24 going to get even worse as these tariffs kick in. So what I'm trying to get at here with all those numbers being said is I was kind of under the impression that Rebuild was supposed to be at least partially funded through the soda tax. That was part of the original soda tax pitch thing and I don't see any of that funding here. So have any soda tax funds been used for Rebuild in the last two years would be the question I'd like to know for starters?
Councilmember, I think we'll have to get back to you with our colleagues from Finance and Budget to give you an answer to that question, specifically to the soda tax. We're sort of --
Excuse me. Point of information. Ask the question again.
Okay. So the question is, have any soda tax funds been used for Rebuild in the past two years? The Rebuild money is here. We know that the total number is 574 million and we know that we've already spent 255 million. Gave one example of increases. That was part of it. The first part of the question is though, has any money from the soda tax, beverage tax been used in the past two years to pay for Rebuild? And then the other part of the question is, what are we doing about the overruns that are going to occur because I don't think this 255 million number is going to be real at the end of the day?
And for additional clarity, Sabrina, could you also go into how much of the beverage tax money has gone toward paying down a debt service?
Yep. So I'll have to follow up with those numbers. I don't have them in front of me. But just to clarify, so what we always said around the beverage -- sorry, Sabrina Maynard, Budget Director. What we always said around the beverage tax and this is what we did is the beverage tax funding helped to pay for the debt service on the borrowings for Rebuild, so we can get you that breakout of how that breakdown --
Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. Basically, the only thing -- and I'll be honest with you, I believe the numbers really show that no soda tax money has been even used to -- or let's rephrase that. There will be no 2 soda tax money going towards it this year because I don't believe we've made enough money in the soda tax to even pay for child care, let alone to pay debt service. I believe the number last year was 70 million. We took in for a thing and child care was 67 million. So that left 3 million. So debt service could be paid out of that for some of it. But this year, the estimates, you know, so it's not a total, but estimates are saying somewhere around 67, maybe 68 million. That's barely enough to pay for the child care. So, yeah, how are we paying for this?
Yeah -- sorry. Sure. So we'll provide the breakout of how the beverage tax money has been used over time. And we've said all along that -- so it's used to cover a couple of different programs. So one is for the debt service on the borrowings for Rebuild, also the PreK program and then Community Schools. And so, we have a multi-year budget showing how that's been used over time which we can provide. And we always said that the cost of those programs over time would exceed how much would be brought in by the beverage tax. And so, we can provide that breakout to you, yep.
Yeah, that's -- I mean, my thing is correct. It's steadily dropping every year. Like I said, this year the estimate is that we'll barely make enough to pay for the child care alone. So that's where I'm going. If you could just give me some numbers around that stuff, I'd be happy. Just trying to come up with real stuff here because again -- and again, if we go to the second part of it, what are we planning for overruns and stuff like that because I believe this 255 million is going to really go up in the next couple months between costs with the tariffs coming in. I mean, everything we use is coming from out -- steel, this, that.
So, Councilmember, Council President, I think again, that is -- it is a very dynamic market. The tariff situation changes daily, hourly and we are tracking that. As you heard Aparna say earlier, sometimes we can't know for sure until a project is in really the post-design phase and we start to get into the area where we're ordering supplies and looking at supply chains. Aparna, anything else you want to say to that?
Councilmember, I just wanted to add that the 255 million is actual expenditures in the past. And then to respond to your question about changes in pricing from the initial project estimate --
255, I understand that was what we already paid out. But there's another 200 and whatever's left in there, that number is going to grow. It's roughly less than half of the 574 that's left. So it's still over $200-and-something million. But I believe that number is going to increase drastically. So do we have a plan for when that does happen? Will that cut some of these things we're trying to do because we will not have the money?
So the pricing is based on scope. We're careful to make sure that we align the scope with the cost so that we don't increase our available budgets. So in certain cases, early on scope had to be modified. You can get into a project and realize there's additional needs, especially with our infrastructure --
Can I get a point of information because Myers Recreation Center's in the 2nd Councilmanic District. I don't think it's anything to do with the tariffs or the increase in cost of production. It was based upon us working in partnership with the community and the community is saying, we want more, we want more, we want more, and the budget actually just grew. So it wasn't even based upon even when COVID happened and some construction costs started to skyrocket. The real issue is that because it was a collaborative process and we let the community have a seat at the table, the community would say, well, we want to have now turf field, right, and that may not have been a part of the original scope. And so, that turf field as a part of that conversation added to the cost.
Yeah, and that's all ticket work. You know, I'm a construction worker so we charge a surplus for that.
Yeah. So I just wanted to clarify at least when it comes to -- that's in my District so I wanted to give clarity --
Yeah, I just did that because it had an increase. But what I'm getting at is without even the tariffs, it went up just because of community input. I think that --
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, community input, I put you on that one.
I believe that community input and tariffs we're going to have --
Just to reiterate, I think we would likely ensure that we are aligning scopes with available budgets as we move forward in the process. And we're always very clear when we go to communities to present projects to clarify what budget is allocated for each site so the expectations are met.
Yeah. I was just trying to figure out if we're going to have to go to some of these people we already promised and told that we were going to be doing work and tell them that it's either delayed because of other issues beyond our control is what I'm saying --
I'm sorry. When these things start to happen, our offices are the ones that are going to get the call, you know what I mean. They're going to start saying, oh, what happened, you told me that they were going to start this and now they just told us that it's on hold, you know, I'm saying. And I think we need to be prepared for that because it's not a question of if it happens. It's a question of when it happens and how fast it happens.
Yes, and we are always very careful to include Councilmembers in those conversations, the community conversations.
Thank you, Member Harrity, and thank you for your line of questioning around this very, very important project. Member O'Rourke, Member Brooks, then Member Phillips, Young, Landau, Thomas and then it's a wrap. We have a hard stop at 1:00.
Thank you, Mr. President. Circling back to the Wellness Village, from my understanding it currently offers step-down beds, meaning you have to receive intensive treatment before being cleared to go to the Village. But what is the City's current intensive bed capacity? If it's not being scaled up at the same time, the Wellness Village slots probably will never reach capacity. So what's the current status?
Councilmember, Council President, appreciate that. So just the nomenclature for this is very specific with the regulatory scheme, et cetera. So what we are doing at Riverview, those are recovery beds. And you're exactly right, that's the term of art, those are recovery beds. You're exactly right. Those beds, that's where the gap is right now in the ecosystem. There are beds available for treatment. There are beds available right now in the ecosystem for anybody who wants to say -- who's ready to come in and get treatment. And that ecosystem, this is what you see up there, that kind of middle ecosystem, those are private sector, not-for-profit, for-profit providers. That's the 30-, 60-, 90-day treatment. That market is somewhat elastic and responsive to demand. So we are constantly talking with providers and bringing new beds. Providers are bringing new beds online when the demand changes. We are seeing that market operate which is what we told you we anticipated after talking with all the providers and everybody in this ecosystem. So, yes, that is the treatment. That capacity's there. This is a rough number, but its max is around 3000. It's around 3000 beds. That's not a direct number. We can get you back the direct number. It changes daily with the market. And before we added the 336 recovery beds in Riverview, that increased the recovery bed capacity in the entire ecosystem in the city by 64%. So now we have -- still we're up to almost about a little bit less than 1000 beds. Again, just to make for an order of magnitude comparison, we have about 3000 treatment beds in the ecosystem. And now, we have almost 1000 recovery beds which is why that's still the gap. That's why we need to continue to move forward. We need those numbers to match so that people who come out of treatment have a place to go. If they don't have a place to go that is in this comprehensive wellness ecosystem, this long-term care, treatment and housing, we know where they go and that is not good for them. It's not good for our communities. And so, that is really what we're trying to build out. That's the scale to which we are trying to build this while we hope that the market will eventually work to provide more recovery beds on its own.
Thank you, Director. I will say I heard the buzzer. I'll shift to this one. I wanted to ask this question. Thank you for sharing with the Council the proposed plan for Medicaid reimbursement for services provided at the Village. I want to clarify that the Administration stated in their letter to the Council that primary care and substance use disorder treatment are currently reimbursable. Has the City received any Medicaid reimbursement for services provided at the Wellness Village? And if so, how much have we received so far?
Councilmember, that reimbursement is done -- the requests are done by the providers and that money goes back to the providers so the City is not directly in that loop. So that helps offset the providers' costs. And at the same time I think with caveats, that is the situation today that we are working with the state. We have been working and will continue to work at the federal level to ensure that Medicaid funding -- well, to help get Medicaid funding unlocked for types of treatment and services where it might not currently be able to be used. That's part of shifting this to more of a market mechanism. And that was a complicated, maybe complex space before but now is even more complex as we see again changes happening and try to anticipate what may or may not happen at the federal level.
The President said hard stop so I'll let it ride. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Member O'Rourke. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Brooks and Councilmember Phillips and Councilmember Young. Please be direct with your questions as well as your response.
Thank you. So I'm in the same. This was not planned, but almost similar question. So I visited the Riverview facility. It's a beautiful space and I want to commend you on the work done and making the buildings livable. However, I was sad to learn of the relatively low number of people living in these big, beautiful spaces. And I also understand there's some degree of selection happening, that some of the hardest medical cases are not being sent to Riverview. So does the Administration have plans to ease the requirements on living in Riverview to accommodate more people and harder medical cases? And I'm also thinking that relapse is a part of recovery, but we are hearing that people who suffer relapse while at Riverview face immediate discharge. And I was wondering how many people have you discharged from Riverview for using substances? And what happens next with those folks because once they've been in placement for 90 days, they're no longer considered homeless, so do they go back into the system? To your point, you just said what do we do with folks in the next stage. So by the time they hit Riverview, from my understanding when we did the tour, they're coming there after their 90 days, so they're not considered homeless anymore because they have some place to stay. So they get to Riverview and relapse. Then what?
Councilmember, Council President, I think it's important to say these are all difficult cases from a physical, clinical, medical health standpoint, behavioral health, substance use treatment, these are all difficult cases. And it is important for the safety of the folks who are there, all of the residents, that there are standards for behavior that are maintained and standards again -- these are licensed. I mean, these are licensed beds. These are licensed by the state, Ergo. There are certain standards that have to be upheld to maintain that licensing for recovery beds. If somebody, you know, I'll use the term relapse. If somebody relapses, then that's not the care that they need anymore. So that's not a recovery bed case anymore. That is -- we hope that folks go back into treatment. The reality is we can't hold people against their will, our residents there. So if our residents make those decisions and make those choices, then our goal is as you saw to create a facility that has the dignity and has all of the services needed, skilled, credible providers who can make it so you don't want to leave and you can stay on that journey. It's not just about what folks want. I mean, this is difficult for individuals. So if they're not able to meet those standards, then we hope they go back into treatment somewhere. The reality is we don't have control over them at that point. Really --
Do we track? Do we have a number of folks that decided to elope or discharge and do we track those folks because reality is they're going back to where they came from and back into the system again? So are we tracking this? Because I'm thinking based on the numbers, whether it's 30 or 50 people that have been at the Wellness Village, if 5 of them, that's already a 10% rate. So are we tracking the folks to kind of figure out this cycle that we know is a cycle? Recovery is a lifelong thing. So if someone relapses and we send them back to the street, then what? It's not like hands- off. They're still going to end up back in our system some way or form. And the ask is, how many people have done something similar to that and are we tracking?
Councilmember, we are. We are tracking those numbers and we can get you those numbers.
Thank you. Councilmember Phillips, Young, Landau, Thomas.
We have a hard stop at 1:00, so please be direct with your question and direct with your response please.
Thank you, Council President. The Juvenile Justice Center has been operating under a provisional license following a widely-publicized incident where a fight broke out during a boxing match. Can the MDO's office provide an update on the status of the provisional license and detail what oversight mechanisms have been put in place since the incident? And what corrective actions have been implemented and how the Administration will be ensuring the safety, well-being and proper programming for youth housed at the facility?
Councilmember, we will certainly follow up with our colleagues who are responsible for those programs and get you that update.
Thank you. And I just have an additional question. Vision Zero is continuing to promote the idea of traffic calming measures as well as another host of things. In this upcoming Vision Zero plan, is there anything else that can be less of a financial deep cost for the City to take on that the Vision Zero team is looking to do to really help halt issues when it comes to speeding and so forth in our city?
Councilmember, Council President, the short answer is yes. And we'll have Mike Carroll come up and give you some of the details subject to the Councilmembers' timelines. And again, I think this reinforces the point that many Vision Zero-related activities are happening across departments and even in other related entities.
Thank you, Councilmember. So the answer is yes, and this also gives me an opportunity to respond to Council President's comment at the end of the first set of questions. One of the things that we're doing is trying to get information out to people in terms of public education. So we do put information on the backs of buses and bus stops as part of a campaign. The education also includes work with schools, which we've spoken with Councilmember Thomas about in the past, trying to build curriculum within the schools to educate children about traffic safety but also school communities about traffic safety. So there are a number of things that we are doing which are lower cost, but we think will be effective in the long run as we start to get people aware and change behavior.
That's awesome. If we can work with all the Councilmembers on those initiatives, especially if you're going to schools in certain areas, maybe we can help with the advertisement for that and also ideas of where some of your public- facing awareness campaigns can be most helpful. All right. Thank you, Michael. And thank you, MDO's Office.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Young, then Landau, then Thomas.
Thank you, Mr. President. Just looking at the brief information that was sent over, it talks about the public restrooms. Can you elaborate a little bit more as we prepare for 2026 and things like that? I just happen to be in a fast food restaurant and some tourists were looking for a restroom and they couldn't use it, right. So they can't go into our hotels to use the restroom. So can we elaborate on how we're going to upgrade these facilities for the future?
Councilmember, Council President, I think that this sort of steady state daily public restroom activity, that's something that Deputy Managing Director Yates-Gale can talk about and our Public Health Commissioner. With respect to 2026, please rest assured when you see dollars for 2026 for the safe, clean, green aspects of 2026, adequate and sufficient restroom facilities are at the top of that list everywhere that we expect concentrations of people, which frankly for 2026 is everywhere. So that will be a large component of the dollars that we spend, the Class 200 dollars we spend to ensure we are ready for that influx of people in 2026. Again, we would characterize that as temporary capacity while we continue to build out the Philly Phlush program with effective products for kind of our steady state daily need.
Okay. I mean, outside of 2026 can someone talk to us about what that looks like? I mean, it was in this document here that was submitted to us. It was a line here talking about the upgrades to those public restrooms. So is it a goal to increase those public restrooms? Can someone -- like what's the number that you guys are looking for because you're asking for money for that, right, so we just can see what that is?
Councilmember, the short answer is, yes, that is a goal. And here's Deputy Manager Yates-Gale again to talk about public toilets.
Councilmember, good afternoon. Crystal Yates-Gale, MDO. I think Managing Director just answered. The Philly Phlush model started as a pilot and we would love to expand and continue them. Right now we have three. We're working on an additional one in West Philadelphia. The next one will be in South Philadelphia. They move slowly because they're hard plumbed into the system and we also have to do community engagement. It's my understanding that when we first started to do the models that they weren't well- received because it was thought that they would attract unhoused people. So we have to do the community engagement so that we expand them across the city. They're well-received. There's one right outside in the --
I know. That's why I asked. I think that it's a positive thing for our city.
One more question. In the budget I noticed that there are no strategic goals or performance measures for the legal service agencies. And I just want to know what's the rationale and thinking behind that when we're providing millions of dollars and they don't have to meet goals, anything like that?
Now, he just came in and had the same observation. This was addressed early on, but address it for the record though, sir.
I appreciate that, Council President, Councilmember. Yeah, I think that's really -- it's a display issue because we don't directly provide those services and it's something that we can fix. So we will have -- with respect to the SCCA, Support Center for Child Advocates, we'll have strategic goals by the end of this week to you, including FY25 metrics and '26 goals from them. And again, we'll take that as feedback across the display for the entire budget.
I respect you, see, for not even trying to defend that and making a whole bunch of excuses. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau and then wrapping us up will be Majority Whip Councilmember Thomas.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I heard there's supposed to be a triage nurse onsite at Wellness Court. Is that true and is the salary covered in this budget?
Councilmember, I think we'll have to talk with our colleagues in OPS and get you that answer.
Okay. Thank you. And what funding will be allocated for Riverview for medication-assisted treatment like Suboxone and methadone? Will they be offered?
Councilmember, Council President, Riverview is not a treatment location. Those folks are in recovery. Ergo, that is not an anticipated service that we're providing there at Riverview. I don't know if that's your question.
Okay. Then I want to follow up on some of the questions that my colleague Councilmember Brooks was asking or O'Rourke I believe. You were saying that there are 3000 treatment beds right now. As of yesterday --
That's okay. At some point, we would love to see the list of which entities are running those beds. And I believe you said that there are currently 336 recovery beds at Riverview, trying to get up to 1000 and hopefully 3000 at some point, right, to match -- you said you wanted to have the same amount of recovery beds as you have for treatment beds?
Councilmember, that's throughout the entire ecosystem, not just Riverview. We couldn't fit that many beds at Riverview. So Riverview is our city's attempt to address the market gap that exists today and the hope that eventually the market will change. I also want to make sure I'm clear. We do have residents at Riverview. And again, we have to be somewhat cautious. The folks at Riverview who are receiving treatments of various kinds, we call folks residents generally. There are folks who are patients. So we need to be cautious for privacy reasons what we disclose about the levels of treatment that they are getting. So if there are people who are in the longer phase of MAT, that could be a service that is being provided again as part of that longer, that tail of the longer recovery process. As far as the locations and the folks, again the little circles in that ecosystem, we have been very deliberate. I think we talked about this last year. We are not disclosing a list of those providers and facilities for the privacy of the patients who are there and also to protect those facilities. We view them as we do domestic violence shelters and others that again there are, you know, it's important that we allow people to have unfettered access to those and we don't want to chill anybody who's already taking a leap to raise their hand and say, I want to get help, to have them go somewhere in that ecosystem.
Let me back up and ask one last question that I believe to be what we were initially looking at for the Wellness Center. Why are we not providing the treatment services and the treatment beds at Riverview so if we are trying to be holistic and have the care from start to finish, folks can check themselves out of the treatment centers. They don't have a place to go. And if we really do want to wrap our arms around them and give them all the services they need, we should have treatment there and then the recovery beds.
Councilmember, Council President, that is a model, that is an idea. Certainly, that would be a lot more expensive. I think the short answer is right now there is an active, responsive market to provide the treatment beds. We don't want to compete with the private sector and the not-for-profits that are already doing that work. And right now they appear -- that system can expand to meet the current anticipated demand. Where the gap is recovery.
Why can't they provide the treatment at the recovery center though? We have other entities that are providing services at Riverview. Why can't we have the nonprofits providing the treatment services for the treatment beds at Riverview so that they can have a holistic wraparound services?
Councilmember, we're not licensed to do that at Riverview now. The licensing process, as you can imagine, for that type of care is much more intensive and it's more expensive. And right now, again there's an active market for this entire ecosystem to provide treatment. It is recovery beds that are the gap. That's why we can't move people through the process. That's why we've sort of been stuck at 30, 60, 90 and you're out. So we are really focusing our limited and precious city resources on where the gap in the market exists today. In the future, in the future -- it's hard to know. This is a very dynamic space. This is health care so we all understand how complex, expensive and challenging it is. That could change. So we are also making sure that throughout the ecosystem we are flexible enough to adapt to changing market conditions, changing conditions in the patient and resident populations.
Appreciate that flexibility so much and appreciate all that you're doing.
Thank you, Member Landau. And last but certainly not least, Majority Whip Councilmember Isaiah Thomas.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon, colleagues. Good afternoon to the Admin. I just wanted to just get a couple things on the record before we close out. The first thing is listening to some of the remarks around Parks & Recs I definitely would love to have a meeting with the Commissioner. Some new information was presented. I know the hearing is next week, but sometimes three to five minutes is not enough time to really do a deep dive and we know the summer is right around the corner. So, Council President, I appreciate your questioning specifically around summer preparedness and getting young people ready for programs and different initiatives. So that definitely would be appreciated. We communicated some concerns as it relates specifically to Fleet. We know Fleet will be coming next week, but I want to be clear this is not about the people who work in Fleet, right. We've allocated a lot of money to the Fleet Department through the last couple transfers as well as looking at mid-year transfers as well as looking at the proposed budget for this year. And we're also looking in general to give a huge pot of money to the Managing Director's Office as a whole. With so many moving parts from the Managing Director's Office, it looked like that you have moved over $100 million worth of programming and personnel outside of the MDO. So is the balloon in requesting that we're seeing -- I'm saying since you guys have taken over, we've seen some shift in position. So with less responsibility, is the balloon and request that we're seeing for MDO, and again we see it in multiple departments, but is it specifically around the Wellness Center or is there another reason why we see such a large request from MDO with responsibilities being disbursed other places?
Councilmember, Council President, Councilmember, I really appreciate that question. It's been something I've been wanting to say. The Managing Director's Office is not a department. To your point, we directly oversee around 20 departments, many more programs. And even with our restructuring in this Administration, the Managing Director's Office still enables and funds other agencies across city government as well as not-for- profit partners, many of whom we've talked about. So certainly, I don't think our responsibility has decreased where some of these programs land and they are displayed has changed. And I think the really short answer to your question is wellness, developing this wellness ecosystem, continuing to cultivate that and build it out. That is a lot of the increase that you see in our budget on paper, even as we move things around within the Administration. So we still have a role in equities and Fleet's a great example of that across all of city government.
So are we looking at an increase in personnel? Are we looking at an increase in contracting? Do you feel like it's being evenly disbursed? I mean, I think that the ask amount is pretty significant considering how money is being disbursed across other departments. So I'm wondering as a discretionary spending what are we looking at?
Councilmember, Council President, I think we're making these changes based on priorities. And that mantra safer, cleaner, greener with access to economic opportunity for all -- also, 2026 is coming and many of the investments, again as you've talked about, many of those investments, for us to have the things that we need, from vehicles to porta-potties and everything in between for 2026, we need to be -we certainly have been planning. We need to be procuring a lot of those things now because other cities are also in queue for that. There are limited number of the "nice bathroom trailers" that we can get. So we have a number of things coming that are obviously sort of big one time-ish events.
So we're concerned about the Phlush program similar to Councilmember Young. We have a hearing next week, but we're going to do a deep dive into 2026 stuff and we recognize the importance of being prepared. Absolutely no question about that. I think what we're offering is just a little pushback on how we're spending the money not just in 2026, but in general. If you look at Fleet, for example, right, the amount of revenue that we're spending there -- let's just do a deeper dive another time. I heard the bell. I want to respect the hour. I will submit the rest of my questions in writing. The one thing I will ask as we close out because I do want to have a deeper dive into 2026, I would invite the Managing Director's Office to be a part of that panel next week. We already have commitments from Michael Newmuis as well as Jazelle and we're excited to talk about them and the great roles that they've done. As we close out though, one of my big priorities is keep it local. And so, in the midst of me asking the line of questioning around revenue and money and the new money that's coming in, when we look at the contracts that go directly out of the Managing Director's Office, most of the professional contracts are to businesses that are outside of the city of Philadelphia. So I'm wondering what can we do to have more of a concentrated effort and a focus to specifically have more professional contracts that's coming out of the Admin as well, specifically the Managing Director's Office be allocated to Philadelphia-based businesses?
Councilmember, Council President, we spend a lot of time on that. We share your same concern. One of the things we did at Riverview at the Wellness Center was really do a lot to mobilize local vendors. That is an ongoing conversation with our CAO and our new Procurement Commissioner. And of course, we have Commerce and a lot of other efforts around developing those vendor ecosystems. Fleet, and I know they have their own hearing, I will simply say we've talked a lot about the uncertainty around pricing going forward. Vehicle costs have increased substantially over the past several years. There are a number of reasons for that, venture capital entry into the markets for specialized vehicles, supply and demand. I know that Commissioner Rosati and others will talk about that in detail with you during their hearing.
We've asked Rob Dubow for a written explanation, because again we understand that the cost of doing business has gone up. But we need to make sure that we do our due diligence when it's time for us to take these votes. So, Council President, I'll submit the rest of my questions in writing. I look forward especially to not just this afternoon, but our budget hearings next week. We have some important departments. And I will hope to get a meeting with both Fleet and Parks & Recs prior to our budget meetings next week because I clearly have a lot of questions. And hopefully, those questions could get answered outside of just the three to five minutes that we have to talk on this platform here today. Thank you, Council President. And thank you to the Admin for being here today and to testify and answer important questions.
Thank you very much. This hearing will be at ease until 2:00 p.m. sharp. (Council at ease.)
This is the continuation of the hearing. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the witness to testify on behalf of the Administration.
Michael Resnick, Commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Good afternoon, Council President.
Good afternoon and just state your name for the record. Please speak into the microphone. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. Michael Resnick, Commissioner of Philadelphia Department of Prisons. Give me a second because they keep making this print smaller. All right. Good afternoon, President Johnson and members of City Council. I am Michael Resnick, Commissioner Philadelphia Department of Prisons. Joining me today are Xavier Beaufort; First Deputy Commissioner Greg Vrato, our Chief of Staff; Deputy Commissioners Jeremy Nash and Morgan Jaco and unfortunately Dr. Herdman, our Chief of Medical Operations is out ironically with the flu. I am pleased to provide this testimony on the Philadelphia Department of Prisons Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget. The mission of the Department of Prisons is to provide a secure correctional environment to detain people accused or convicted of illegal acts and prepare them for re-entry into society in a clean, lawful, humane and safe environment. PDP offers job training, educational services, parenting classes, substance abuse services, medical services, behavioral health therapy, individual counseling and group therapy. PDP helps advance the Mayor's goal of building mutual trust and safety in neighborhoods by ensuring that returning citizens have access to resources to support their successful re-entry into the communities. To elevate the City's focus on re-entry in 2019, the Office of Re-entry Partnerships or ORP, a unit within the Office of Public Safety, was created to act as the umbrella agency to coordinate, maintain and expand public-private partnerships across the city to ensure linkages to community services post-release. PDP, working with ORP, has ensured that there is a continuum of re-entry services after release for people incarcerated at PDP. This partnership has ensured a critical role in the City's efforts to reduce recidivism, as criminal justice reform in Philadelphia evolves to focus on community reinvestment and re-entry. Plans for Fiscal 2026: That PDP will continue to increase our staffing and retention to improve the security of our facilities. We will continue to provide increased out-of-cell time to enable the population to receive more services and programming. PDP's delivery of delivery of such services and programming includes medical and mental health care, substance use disorder treatment and education and literary programs for inmates, but especially individuals from vulnerable and underserved backgrounds in preparation for the release back to the community. PDP is a 24-hour-per-day carceral operation and requires continuous staffing. Because our facilities operate around the clock, they need ongoing preventive maintenance as well as routine and emergent upgrades to modernize the infrastructure and equipment. PDP continues to address staffing challenges in collaboration with the City's Central Office of Human Resources to attract candidates to fill vacancies. PDP has retained a recruitment coordinator and contracted with the Whalls Group, a firm that specializes in the recruitment and hiring of people specifically interested in working in law enforcement. Over the past year, PDP's double-digit attrition rate dropped to a low single-digit attrition rate. The PDP attributes this to staff pay increases, an aggressive hiring campaign and the opening of our new training academy and fitness and wellness center at the former site of the Alternative and Special Detention Unit. PDP's spending largely stems from the policies, professional standards and operation priorities established by its contracted medical, behavioral health, food and maintenance contracts and associated staffing costs and collective bargaining agreements. PDP's budget supports required services for the incarcerated population and aligns with its operational goals of providing food, medical care, ensuring the maintenance of its facilities while pursuing the resumption of full operations.
Our plans for Fiscal 2026 and beyond are broad-based, consider areas throughout the Philadelphia Department of Prisons to support our primary goal which include: As I said PDP will continue the top priority of hiring through the promotional efforts of our recruitment coordinating team with Whalls Group. PDP will continue a partnership with the criminal justice system partners in achieving the goal of lowering the jail population. PDP is currently undertaking a comprehensive assessment of our restorative and transitional services division, which includes, but is not limited to, discharge planning, education, counseling, vocational skills and re-entry services. By the summer of 2025 working in partnership with the Office of Re-entry Partners and other stakeholders, PDP will open its new re-entry services trailer located on our grounds. This will allow returning citizens to receive linkages to community services directly upon release. PDP will continue to provide medication for opioid use disorder to incarcerated individuals with opioid use disorder. PDP will continue to provide correctional staff with professional development, continuing educational opportunities in wellness and fitness programs. This will allow us to maintain the highest level of professionalism among our staff, supporting current theories and practices while staff interact with incarcerated individuals and maintain their personal safety, along with increasing staff retention. In the spring and summer of 2025, PDP is planning to pilot a medical monitoring bracelet for all newly-admitted inmates. This system will monitor inmate vital signs and alert staff if immediate medical intervention is needed. I'm happy to answer any questions that the Council may have.
Thank you very much, Mike. And, one, congratulations on your position. You have a track record of good work -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Thank you, sir.
-- working with members of City Council. And so, when I saw the Mayor pointed you to that position, I know she got the right decision -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Thank you.
-- the decision right in terms of you taking Department of Corrections to the next level and addressing the various issues that need to be addressed. So I have a couple just brief questions and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues. I just want to get an idea of how are we managing staff- to-inmate ratio around public safety, right, addressing the issue of K2 amongst inmates, cell phones amongst -- well, contraband amongst inmates and their safety. Obviously, there's been reports based upon, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, the lack of staffing, inmates being locked down for significant period of times, maybe not having an opportunity to use the phone, but give me an idea where we're at, just the state of our prison system. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Certainly. So I'll start with staffing first, Council President. So since I started in April of 2024, we have hired 230 correctional officers. We have net gained 174. We had 56 attritions. We went from a vacancy rate of 47% down to 34%. Not great, but we're going in the right direction. We currently have a single-digit attrition rate, which is remarkable since we were in double digits previously. We have a brand new academy, renovated it, opened it this year. We can simultaneously train two classes of approximately 60 each and have room 20 in an auxiliary space to train current officers on the required inservice training. Currently, we have a class of 58 in the academy that will graduate in two weeks. Our next class that will start on April will be 74. That's the largest 4 class we've ever had. We have also 5 worked with the City and our other 6 partners in the Administration to 7 change the Civil Service rule to 8 allow staff members who have left 9 the system within the last five 10 years to return to their old 11 position. The rule used to be one 12 year. So we have about 25 13 individuals who have come back 14 since that rule changed. We sent letters to everybody who had left in good standing in the past four years -- five years. I'm sorry. And so far we're about individuals. We put 20 them through a mini academy just to 21 refresh them and put them back in 22 the facilities. 23 We have probably maybe 24 10 or 12 individuals in that category to be reinstated again. So the situation that arose that caused us to be in this situation where we're in this settlement agreement in the Remick litigation was because of a lack of staffing. Everything we do is determined upon our staff, allowing good order, good security, inmates being out, going to their programs, getting the treatment that they need. Our population today is 3678. That was down from a high of 4800 in September, I believe it was. So we have less inmates. We have more staff. So we are getting to the point where we are opening the jails almost the entire days. Inmates are getting out of their cells for the better part of the day. In the past when our population was higher and our staffing was lower, what we would do is open a bottom tier for two, three hours and then open the top tier for two, three hours. And that as you can imagine was not an ideal situation, not for the population and not for staffing. So we're getting to the point where we are able to open the jails fully. Deputy Commissioner Nash right here has been working with all the jails to put together what normal operations in a normal day look like. And we started out-of-cell trackers to make sure that we're adhering to those things. You mentioned contraband, sir. It's dangerous for the inmate population, dangerous for the staff that work there. We've undertaken a bunch of new initiatives. We expanded our canine unit, and our canine unit is contraband detection dogs. That's what they're trained to do. So we've expanded that unit. We've have an entrance procedure unit that mans our tech 84 machines. You've probably seen them in the airport, those scanners that scan you to see if there's anything on or in you. So our staff go through those.
The inmate population goes through those. We have new mail- scanning machines that detect any drugs or anomalies that come in on the mail. We have a new security and intelligence unit that sole purpose, sole purpose, is to interdict contraband, and they've been very successful. So we're taking many proactive steps to ensure the safety of the facilities, and that will come with as we increase staff and work with our justice partners to maintain this population level.
And last question, in terms of Department of Corrections, what is your IAD unit? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Where is it?
Where is your IAD Unit? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: IAD is currently on Byberry Road. They're in a facility. I believe it's an old fire facility. They're off campus. And the theory behind that was keeping them away from campus so that people didn't know who was generally going to IAD to be interviewed or make a complaint. I'm not so sure that I follow that theory. So I'm looking to perhaps move them closer to our campus.
How do you monitor just for quality control just to make sure the officers are doing what they're supposed to be doing? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So we have an array of cameras throughout our facilities that are monitored or they're recorded, they're on 24/7. The security and intelligence unit that I mentioned and our canine staff monitor those as well. Additionally, they monitor the telephones and they monitor tablet visits. So we have staff monitored. We are proposing to go to a body camera system, so all of our staff will have body cameras eventually. We are increasing our ranks of supervisors because we have more -- with more supervision, more sergeants and more lieutenants working in the facilities. Staff are just under more supervision. And we've implemented a process where the wardens and the deputy wardens need to be in their facilities. And this was not punitive, but this is something that I wanted. They need to be in their facilities in the early morning and late in the evening. So the wardens and their deputies split it up, and they each take time during the week to be in their facilities, eyes on staff, eyes on condition, eyes on the population on off-hours.
Well, before I turn it over to my colleagues, Mike, I definitely feel that we're going in the right direction. Just the numbers that you're talking about, we've been working on this issue under the leadership of Councilmember and Chair of Public Safety Councilman Curtis Jones. We worked through COVID and a variety of different issues, and I definitely feel the direction that we're going into. So with that being said, I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues. First person I want to call is Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, then Councilmember Jones, then Gilmore Richardson.
Good afternoon, Council President. I want to first start by saying thank you to the Commissioner, to your entire team, to the Admin, to the union representatives that's here as well as the union representatives that are not here for the work that we have done over the last year plus as it relates to prison oversight. We truly appreciate your partnership. We understand that this is not the ideal situation that you would probably want, but you haven't been moving with any resistance. We appreciate the collaborative effort because we know it's important dealing with the conditions that we are here to discuss today. With that perspective in mind, can you provide for the public as well as for my colleagues and City Council detail from your perspective of what the ideal way a city or county jail should have oversight? What should oversight in an ideal way consist for a city or county jail? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Thank you for that question, Councilman. And I know this comes from a deep interest in caring about not only the inmate population but also our staff. You and I maybe have a philosophically different approach to that. I think my testimony here during the hearing for the Oversight Committee, the Charter change, I did mention that we do have oversight from our court monitors. Hopefully, we are moving in the right direction. We declared in substantial compliance, and that will end at some point. When that does end, and I've had conversations with the Law Department about this, I am committed to hiring independent experts that will come in and just review conditions and give us feedback on how we are doing, best practices perhaps in other areas, recommendations to achieve those things. Additionally, we have the Pennsylvania Prison Society that comes on tour. They bring their monitors. They bring guests with them to tour. We also have monitors out of the Law Department, Dr. Johnson and Dr. Perini, who come in and review the things that we're doing with regard to medical and mental health. So I am not opposed to oversight. I think we have a lot of it. I think because a lot of the work that we do is done outside of the view of the public and behind the walls. The public has a right to know what it is that we do. And I'm philosophically not opposed to oversight. How we get there maybe you and I disagree.
Thank you. We appreciate it again. The willingness to compromise has been an amazing journey thus far. And we do agree with the multiple layers of bureaucracy. And I think that's part of why we would like to see this board in place so we can kind of remove some of the other bureaucracy that's in place and just have this level of transparency. There's been a number of issues in the prisons over some time, long before you've gotten there. Most of these issues and conditions clearly you didn't create. Clearly, this Council didn't create, but this is where we are. This is what we've inherited. I would like you to communicate to the public as well as to this legislative branch of government what array of healthcare services do you provide and offer to inmates? How often are medical personnel serving patients in the prisons? And what initiatives are you spearheading that curb the spread of diseases throughout the prison? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Thank you for that question, Councilman. So we have a contract with a corporation called YesCare. Our medical and mental health care is contracted to this company. They have -- what's the number -- over 350 full-time medical doctors, nurse-practitioners, psychologists, social workers, nurses and others all licensed and credentialed the same way community offices and hospitals are. Our functional vacancy rate is around 0, which means we're fully staffed and we're able to provide care. All of our facilities are accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. That's only 600 out of about 7000 jurisdictions. We also have a PHSW. It's our licensed 64-bed psychiatric inpatient hospital. And we also have a medical suite in PHSW that cares for inmates who have chronic conditions that might not allow them to be housed in general population so --
I'm going to respect the time -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure.
-- Madam Chair, because I do want to do a deeper dive into some of the issues around health care, equity and things of that capacity, more philosophical stuff than tangible things. But I do want to respect the time. So, Madam Chair, if I could be put in the queue for the second round, that'd be deeply appreciated. And again, I just want to say thank you for the partnership, and especially thank you to the Admin around prison oversight. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Yes. Thank you so much, Councilmember Thomas. What I will say is based on the amount of members in the queue I will grant you an additional two minutes so that you're able to get those questions on the record in case we don't have a second round. Okay.
Oh, excellent. Great. I'm sorry. I apologize. So when we look at some of the issues that we're dealing with in the prison, specifically looking at the healthcare and the services, why is it that we contract this stuff out? Why can't we do some of this stuff inhouse as it relates to what we're doing to better service the inmates as well as the prisoners? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So we put the RFP out. The RFP will go out. I believe this year the contract is up. So there are a limited number of folks that operate in this area. So the major ones, the bigger players who are able to deal with our population, the size of our population, the complexity of our population, it's open for anybody to bid. We could entertain bids from if Temple Health System wanted to bid, if University of Pennsylvania Health System wanted to bid, we'd be open for those models as well. But our staff, our local staff, regardless of the corporation that they're affiliated with, our local staff, the doctors, the nurses, the practitioners all provide excellent health care.
There is a time, and we'll submit more questions in writing, specifically around health care, injuries. We know that there's been significant issues. I don't want to alarm the public as it relates to those numbers because that can be a different issue. I want to shift directions real quick. Prior to your leadership, there have been a lot of tension -- and this will be my last question, Madam Leader. There has been a lot of tension between the leadership in the prison and the unions and the staff. Talk to us about your relationship during your time with staff, with the unions. What problem still exists? Where have you seen some improvements? And how can this legislative branch of government be supportive of that particular issue? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Certainly, so I think, you know, and I'm not focused on the past. I hear the way things were in the past. I'm not concerned with that. I tell everybody that I'm looking forward and I am looking to the future to change things. So I think that my personal relationship with our union officials is very good. We have cooperative and productive labor management meetings. I am accessible to the union officials 24/7. They have my number. They can call me. We resolve issues. We don't necessarily agree on everything, but I do stress to them that they may be their members but they're my employees, and their employee safety is my number one concern. I think how this Council can be helpful to us is a number of ways. So we need more staff. So if Councilmembers can get the message out to their constituents to go to the City's website and apply to become a correctional officer, that would be helpful. We discharge our inmates back into the community, right. It's only 9 miles up the road. They didn't go 10 to Mars or anything, and they're 11 going to be discharged back into 12 the city of Philadelphia 13 communities. So if there are ways that Councilmembers can talk to chambers, talk to labor unions and perhaps have educational or vocational training programs for our inmate population or jobs available for them when they return. We know if somebody has a job, housing, their substance abuse, their health, their mental health under control, the likelihood of them recidivating is very low. So employment is key, so if Councilmembers can be helpful in that regard.
I think you have my word and other Councilmembers' word who are hearing that we will definitely be helpful. I'm hoping that when we do talk to the unions that their sentiment is similar to yours. And as I close out -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I hope so.
-- I think that it's important as we close out, and I'm sure another member will ask this, but you clearly have disgruntled people here at today's hearing who are concerned about issues related to the prison. I already asked you one question about health care. As I close out, talk to the members of Council as well as the general public about what type of investigations take place when there's a death in the prison and what type of communication do you require to have with those families? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So you can count me as one of those disgruntled individuals, Councilman. I'm not happy with the way things are, and progress is too slow for my liking. We are going in the right direction. I think that the staff can feel it. The numbers are going in the right direction. I would just like things to happen quicker. So in that regard, I guess I'm a little disgruntled as well. I want to see progress happen a lot faster. So when a death occurs in the prison, the Philadelphia Police Department come and they do an investigation and our Internal Affairs office opens an investigation. The police department is looking to see if there were any crimes that were committed. Our investigation from Internal Affairs is looking to see if there were any policy violations that occurred that may have caused or contributed to the death. When a death occurs, our Chaplaincy Unit will reach out to next of kin and advise them of the death. The individual's possessions and belongings will be returned to the family members. And I believe we forward the information regarding the medical examiners, because the medical examiner is involved and they come in and do an investigation as well. So we give the family the method and means to contact the ME's office.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Commissioner. The Chair now recognizes our Chair of Public Safety Councilmember Jones.
Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And I want to for the record thank Member Thomas for his laser-like focus on focusing on the problems both from the inmate, from the correction officers and the union standpoint and those people that have to deal with that on a daily basis. We visit. We walk through the tiers. We go home. They spend most of their waking hours there, so I want to thank you and your team and the correction officers that do it on a daily basis. What I'd like to do is say just real quick on oversight, and I've had some experience now with selecting people for the oversight of the Police Advisory Oversight Commission. And the most important thing I can say is pick your folk wisely. If they didn't walk a tier, if they didn't advocate on a tier, if they didn't spend time in that facility, if they didn't work in that facility, you got to kind of watch who you put on to make suggestions that affect their daily existence. Now, having said that I'd like to shift back to what my colleague talked about, which is health care. As we put greater demands on the system to clean up hot spots like Kensington and we're asking you to take on a greater role in the corrections aspect, and some of that is people experiencing detox, how are we preparing for folks that may come from that environment, be forced into a situation where they have to take their first detox in your facility? How are we preparing for that? How are we monitoring for that? How do we preserve life so that we don't have situations where people jump from the frying pan literally into the fire and have a shock to their system? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Certainly, Councilman. Thank you for the question. So what we've started to do is as we intake individuals, as they come from whichever law enforcement agency is bringing them to us, usually the Philadelphia Police Department, but not always, will have a nurse come out and triage the individuals as they come through the sally port to determine whether they're medically stable enough to go through our process. If they're not, we reject them. And the law enforcement agency bringing the person needs to take them to the hospital to be assessed and evaluated, treated, if necessary. And when they're discharged, they come back with that paperwork. We'll accept them --
I don't mean to interrupt you. What triggers -- where is the floor of the ceiling to say, no, they need to go to the hospital? How -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I'm not a medical professional so I don't want to guess as to what they do. But there's an assessment of an individual's vital signs, their medical condition, their history, if there's any medication that they've been taking, if they've been injured prior to coming to our custody. So -
Is that for every inmate? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Everybody who comes in our door there's an assessment that's made. If the person or the individuals are cleared for acceptance, they'll go through our intake process and then they go to the medical unit where there's a series of indepth questions that are asked. We administer to everybody the Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Test, the COW score scale. And any anybody who registers a positive score on the COW score is immediately started on Subutex for the withdrawal and it's a taper. So while they're with us, we taper them up. They pass through Medical. They're on Subutex if they're in withdrawal. Then they go into intake housing. Everybody --
Is there an isolation period? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Yeah, there's a --
Can you explain how long? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. So when you leave the receiving room, you go into intake housing in CFCF. And everybody who is withdrawing or on the Subutex, we've red armband so we want them to be immediately identifiable to our staff and the medical staff. We've increased rounds on intake housing from the medical staff.
Describe that a little bit. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Rounds is a nurse who comes onto the unit and she visits the individuals, she talks to them, takes their vitals and makes a medical assessment of their condition. Individuals stay in intake housing to days before 4 that when they're classified and 5 they're assigned their permanent 6 bed. 7
Has 8 there been an increase, influx of 9 individuals needing this type of 10 treatment? And if so, how much? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I can get you that information. I don't have that readily available and I will tell you, yes, there's been an increase in the number of individuals who we see in that condition. I will add, and I think I mentioned it briefly in the written remarks, that we are in the process of piloting a program where everybody who comes into the facility will be placed on a medical monitoring device. It looks like a big Apple watch and it monitors vital signs. For the first five days, everybody through our doors will be placed on this device. Their vital signs will be monitored. If they have a negative medical event, there will be alerts that go off in the Housing Unit for that officer, in Unit Management and in Medical so there are redundant alerts. So the idea is we will respond almost immediately to medical emergencies.
So my final comment before I pass off, has there been an influx, ebb and flow to this type of phase based on the drugs that are being taken, based on the number of people that we're bringing in? And if so, have we been here before? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I don't know that we've been here before, Councilman. I think that we're seeing more of our population. We intake about 18,000 to 20,000 individuals a year. So we could probably chart that over the year or the individuals on our substance abuse treatment, so we can provide you with that information. One more point that I'd like to make is because of the incidents and the nature of the drug supply, we've outfitted all of our correctional officers with Narcan. That's a new initiative.
How many deaths did we experience over the last two years? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: In Calendar Year 2024, we had six. One of those was a natural death in the hospital. One of them was a suicide. The investigation is ongoing. But from what I know of it, we could not have responded quicker. And the others are I believe still under investigation. That is down considerably. I think there was a year we had or 18? 4 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: 5 18. 6 COMMISSIONER RESNICK: 7 18 was our high. I will note that 8 our mortality rate is a lot less 9 than the city's mortality rate as a 10 whole, and a large portion of our 11 population, 80%, don't have a 12 primary care physician and have much higher-than-expected medical challenges. 40% of our population of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, HIV, Hep C, 36% take medication for behavioral health illness. The comorbidity of substance abuse is about 70% in our population. So we have a very medically fragile population, but our morbidity rate is I believe three or four times lower than the city's as a whole.
The next round, Madam Chair, I'd like to visit Re-entry. I yield the mic.
Thank you so much, Councilmember Jones, our Chair of Public Safety. Thank you very much for your work. I'm going to skip myself for a moment to try to get to each of the colleagues for this round. So the Chair recognizes Councilmember Harrity.
Thank you, my Leader. Hello, everybody. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Good afternoon.
Just to make sure before I start asking my questions, do you guys manage the Juvenile Detention Center also? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: No, sir.
That's what I thought. Okay. 36 million has been requested for overtime pay in the prisons. What is driving this reliance on overtime pay? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Our post-plan, Councilman, if you take a look at all the positions that we need to fill, have correctional officers working those areas calls for about 1500-and- change officers. Our complement today is about 1050. So while we still need to do things, we don't have the bodies all the time so we use overtime to fill that.
Okay. And can you tell me more about this re-entry trailer and what kind of services will be provided to the released population? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Certainly. So one of the things that I would like us to do is -- and we're in the middle of a total reassessment of that division. We call that division Restorative and Transitional Services. Deputy Commissioner Jaco is in charge of that. That division, that's all of our social workers, our psychologists, our counselors, vocational and educational. We're in the middle of an evaluation top to bottom of that unit and to determine what we are doing right, what we should be doing and any changes that we need to make. I would like to see us do complete needs assessments on individuals as soon as they walk through our door, provide them with the services and treatment that they need and the education that they need according to those evaluations. When they are discharged from our care, all individuals will go to our re-entry center. We will have that staff with our staff, Office of Re-entry Partnership staff and community partners to ensure that when people leave our custody, there are followed-up linkages in the community to continue to provide them with the care, the treatment, therapy, the work that they've started behind the walls. That's the hope.
Yeah, it's good hope. I did have another question. I'm blanking right now. How many total officers are you short, somewhere around 500? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So we're about 500 off our postplan. We're around 1050 and our post-plan I believe calls for 1576.
Okay. And you guys brought up about jobs for the inmates getting out of prison. Do you have any partnerships now with any companies or anything like that where you have -- that might be an idea. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I don't think we have any partnerships with companies now. What we have is our skill center. Our skill center, we are revamping it so we're able to provide vocational education to the population. So we used to have -- they would build an entire house in there so it'd be carpentry and masonry and electric and plumbing, and we would teach those skills. So we're going back to opening the skill center to provide those services, to provide that vocational education. And that's why when I made the comment to Councilman Thomas' question as to what Council can do to be helpful, if there are unions or employers in the City that would be willing to hire ex-offenders, we would like to partner with them --
Help us. We're short jobs right now, right. We'll hire ex-offenders, right. Yeah. So I mean, I get it, I get it. It's kind of funny that, you know, you guys are short. The Sheriff's Office is also short. Part of the Sheriff's Office problem of being short is actually because you guys are short. I worked for the Sheriff's Office and we used to sneak most of our employees from you guys because they're already trained. But thank you. And again, thank you for your commitment. Thank you for coming back to try to get this under control, and look forward to seeing what you can do and how we can be helpful, and would really be curious on how we could actually maybe come up with a program for employment because I agree. I mean, that's the same thing with the addicts out on the street. If you take the housing and the mental health aspect out of the picture, you'll have more succeed. It's the same thing with you. If they continue with their mental health and addiction stuff, and they have a job with stable housing, we'll have more people succeed. And I got to learn a lot about recidivism when I worked in the state for Senator Street. He was on the Sentencing Board. And I remember our first meeting. They were actually going to -- they were voting to give 10% more time to people because of their zip codes. We put a stop to that. It was actually not true at all. They were saying that people were more likely to recidivate if they were from low-income neighborhoods like mine, which actually was not the case. It was actually the opposite. But here or there, I'm glad to see you're there and that we're going to be moving in a steady forward direction. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Thank you, Councilmember.
Thank you so much, Councilmember Harrity. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Lozada.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon. Can you tell me how many -- what's your prison population? What's that number? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Today our population, Councilwoman, is 3678.
And by any chance, do you guys have the breakdown by race? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Breakdown by race, I believe it is about -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Is she talking about inmate population? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Inmate population. I think the last report that I looked at was from February. I don't know that we had our statistical report completed yet for March. I don't know that it will change much. But it was about 70% African American. Overwhelmingly, our population is male. It's about 92%, 93%. Maybe even a little bit more because our female population is down. And it's generally younger, to 35. 3
8 Thank you. I ask that question 9 because I've consistently been 10 hearing that there are non-English 11 speakers in our prison population 12 and that there are no corrections 13 officers who are able to respond to 14 some of their needs. Some of these 15 individuals suffer from mental 16 health illness or substance abuse, 17 and they and their families are 18 saying that they are not being taken care of appropriately or adequately while they're in the system. And so, I'm just trying to figure out where that's coming from. I want to say that I appreciate all of the changes that you all are making in the right direction because some of the stories that we've heard, at least since I arrived here in 2022, were really scary, right, especially for a population that can't go nowhere, right. They have no choice but to be there. And so, thank you for the changes that you're making. But I want to make sure that as a city we're able to respond to all of those communities that are non-English speakers. And so, of the officers that you have hired how many or do you know how many of them are bilingual or bilingual in other languages? And I don't mean that in just Spanish, right, in other languages as well. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: No, I don't have that figure off the top of my head, Councilwoman, and I know we could provide it. It is self-reported however. So if an individual does not tell our HR that they are bilingual or fluent in another language, we won't capture that. They may be. But the System does uses Language Line so that an inmate who does not speak English or English may not be their first language, they can access Language Line and communicate to staff.
We know the language access line is not the best way to do that, right. I mean, I'm just being really honest. We have challenges with that language access here. And so, if we could consider looking at a better way, right, a more intentional way of being able to communicate with the non-English speaking population, that would be awesome. And then my last question, you were here a few weeks ago. You all mentioned providing some of those wraparound services to inmates as they re-enter into society. Can you tell us for the record what some of those programs are and how successful have these programs been? How are you measuring their success? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. I'll ask Deputy Commissioner Jaco, you want to talk about some of our programs and how we're looking at success. I will tell you, Councilwoman, that the metrics that we had been collecting in the past I was not happy with the method of the data collection and the type of data that we were collecting, because a lot of what we were collecting was we were counting sort of outputs, like how many people went through a program. And that's fine. I want to know did that program have a difference and did it create a better outcome for that individual. So that's the type of data that we will be geared towards collecting going forward to measure our programs, to see whether our programs are actually successful. It's fine to know how many people went through a program, but did that program have the desired effect that we wanted it to, did it change that person in a positive way that they did not come back, they did not recidivate. So I'll let Deputy Commissioner Jaco talk about some of the services we have.
Thank you. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JACO: Thank you, Commissioner. Afternoon. I'll say that right now as the Commissioner stated, we are currently going through an assessment and we are reviewing all of our services. Wraparound services are not where we need to be. We are depending on our community and our volunteers to come in and help provide those services. So we work with numerous organizations to come in and work. They're providing job readiness. They're working on re-entry plans, on housing, on identifying their needs because each individual is different. And so, they're working with them separately and providing those services knowing that our contracts state that they must provide the wraparound services post-release. So that's what our contracts are looking at, is pre- to post-release coordination of care. When we're talking about the re-entry trailer, that is our focus for wraparound services to ensure that there's a smoother transition. I really believe in the adage that it takes a village, and we all have to come together and work towards that.
Yeah. So in my office we have an individual that comes in -- I'm sorry. Am I over time, Madam Chair?
My last question. We have someone that comes in. We have a provider that comes into our office in the District every week to provide some of those services to folks who are reentering into society. And one of their biggest challenges is housing, right. And so, if you could share with me what percentage of that population as they're coming out face challenges with housing and how successful are you connecting them? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JACO: Thank you for that question. I don't have the number. I will say it's extremely high. It is a huge need, so much so that we changed a position to focus on rules specifically. Her job duties is for a housing navigation. She is currently assessing the landscape of the housing providers out there, the recovery homes, all of the options within the community, working with the social workers inside. She's working within the two intake facilities so that she can identify individuals as they come in and as they state that they're unhoused or they need further assistance, whether it's transitional, long-term supportive housing. All of the different options, she's able to mark them down, start that as a caseload and then work towards that for their discharge. She just started this month, so it's new. I will say that that's a focus and that's why we pivoted that position and said, this is what we're going to start doing. That's just in concert with the re-entry trailer and everything all of the other efforts that we're doing. So we know it's a need. We don't have those numbers though.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Lozada. I'd like to put on the record that Councilmember Jones wanted to speak with the Office of Re-entry Partnerships today. So if they are available for a callback, that would be excellent. Do we have anyone here from the Office of Re-entry Partnerships? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: That's out of the Office of Public Safety I believe, Madam Chair. They're not under the umbrella of the Department of the Prisons.
Right, I'm aware. But I wanted to make sure that I put it on the record that Councilmember Jones would like to ask a question of the Office of Re-entry Partnerships as it relates to inmates that are released from our prison system. And so, we will respectfully request a callback for the Office of Re-entry Partnerships for Councilmember Jones. Okay. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Driscoll.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And, Commissioner, it's been a pleasure working with you since you've been back. Our staff, you know, working well together. Appreciate that. Very encouraged about the numbers of the new employees. We still have a ways to go there. And I will say, I think I can speak for my colleagues, we all have Facebook pages and we announce job openings. So if your office can share with us as you're looking for recruits, you know, we have a big following and we'd be happy to share that on our pages. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Our recruit coordinator will get in touch with you, Councilmember.
Thank you. Yeah, we'd be happy to do it. We have a lot of constituents looking for work. They come into our offices. Navigating the philly.gov jobs may be easy for some people, but it's not as easy for everyone. So to the extent that we can even use our offices to help people apply, you know, most of us have District offices and we want to participate. I would like to hear as your District Councilperson where the prisons reside and as a family of seven that lives up the road from you, I would like to hear about your perimeter improvements? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Okay. So --
Those that have been completed and those that are contemplated. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Certainly. Deputy Commissioner Beaufort can talk about some of our upgrades to our perimeter and what we have in store for the future. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Good afternoon. So the first thing we did was we addressed the PICC situation, which happened a couple of years ago dealing with that escape. We fortified that perimeter. I don't want to go in detail, but we fortified that perimeter first. The next thing we did was we added perimeter cameras into our entire campus and that is still an ongoing project. So where we did not have cameras regarding the perimeter, we added some with the help of capital projects and public property. So we have cameras on our perimeter based off of State Road and the wooded areas in the back of all of our campus. There is some other things that are coming that I will gladly get to your office. I just don't want to put them in a public forum, but I will gladly get to the office some of the other security enhancements that we have made throughout the jail, throughout the whole campus. The other thing that we added that I can tell you is the way our roving perimeter patrols are now at every facility. We have the roving vans at every facility who stage at the facilities making roving tours. So that is some forward-facing things that the public can see. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: And those perimeter patrols exist 24/7 so they are always out there, always on campus.
You say on campus. Is there any supervision say from Ashburner to a little south of Rhawn. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Well, Ashburner at the end is where PICC is at the north end of our campus. CFCF would go down Rhawn Street at the south end of our campus. So our vehicles are up and down State Road, are in and out of our drives, are around our driveways, in the front and the back of our buildings. They are very visible to anybody who comes onto the campus or from State Road, you can see those.
Yeah, it's a deterrent. It works. So appreciate that. Just lastly, can you comment have we had any incidents in 2024 post-release? I know a lot of your former inmates get the public transportation on State Road at that shelter across the street. In 2024, have we had any what I would call nearby incidents post-release? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I do not recall hearing of any. I don't believe we have had any in the year 2024.
Good to hear. I'm good, Madam Chair, Thank you, Commissioner.
Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Driscoll. And I just wanted to put on the record based on the callback request and the reason for the ask I think from myself and Councilmember Jones is under Section 52, which is Philadelphia Department of Prisons under Program Social Services and Re-entry for Class 250 for professional services. This is . It states Office of Re-entry Partnerships and is listed under the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. So I know that we'll get some level of clarification, but I just wanted to put that on the record that I believe that's the reason why Councilmember Jones asked. And I do see questions from a prior year about Re-entry Partnerships as well. So I just wanted to clarify that under the budget detail that we have received from the Budget and Finance Office that Office of Re-entry Partnerships is listed under the detail for the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Correct, Councilwoman. There are certain positions in that office that we do fund.
Okay. All right. Thank you very, very much. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Commissioner Resnick. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Councilman, how are you?
Good to see you, sir, as well as Deputy Commissioner Beaufort. Nice to see you all and all of the top brass of the Department of Prisons. Wanted to just -- I think I overheard Member Lozada mentioning some things around housing supports. And I just want to hat-tip my colleague for raising that. Was just having a conversation with some folks who were formerly incarcerated Monday night and hearing things that were important to them, one of them being some of those particular concerns and just grateful to hear that that's widely a concern for many of us. So let me dig in here. We have heard from a number of members questions around health care and that's what I'm going to focus on today. Corizon as they used to be called, YesCare as they are called now, the contracted health care provider for the PDP. I have questions for Dr. Herdman to start. Is Dr. Herdman here? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: He is not here. Unfortunately, he is ill.
Okay. My prayer is that he gets better. I'll put it on the record though to the degree that you can answer them, Commissioner, it'd be great. As I understand it, Dr. Herdman's office is responsible for ensuring YesCare is in compliance with the contract. So my first question would have been does he believe that YesCare is actually meeting its required obligations under that contract? And so, if you have any opinion on that front? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I would let Dr. Herdman respond to that in writing and provide you a detailed explanation. But from the things that I see and experience, yes, I believe that overall they're complying with the terms of their contract.
It's a bit unfair because he's not here and you have a number of things in your oversight as the Commissioner to which -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I'm glad you understand that.
And I want to echo Member Thomas' points around our appreciation towards you in terms of the project that we've been working on over the course of the past year. That having been said, if that is his shared sentiment that it is doing all right, I think that would be a disappointing answer. I got to put this on the record. We've had more than two dozen deaths in custody since 2023. You know that. It's been a decrease, but that is still the case. And they've been sued, YesCare, over 1000 times nationwide for substandard care, nationwide 1000 times this particular organization. In the Remick case, the health care provided that the prisons was found to violate the Constitution. And since 2015, the department inmate population has dropped over 55%. And in that same period the cost of this contract has grown over 60%, so they get more money for, at least based off of what the reports are, substandard care that not only we're raising but as I said, they've been sued over 1000 times across the country. That is a concern. So under the contract, the City can essentially fine YesCare for not meeting its obligations under Appendix G. What I would want to know is has the department sought to fine YesCare for failing to meet its obligations in the contract at any point during at least this Administration? And if so, how often have we done that? When roughly was the last time that we did that? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So I don't know that the appropriate language is have we sued them. I think under the contract we can impose liquidated damages --
Fine them, fine them. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Fine them. We can impose liquidated damages or fines for failure to comply with contractual provisions. And I'll defer that to Dr. Herdman, and we'll get the Chair and the Councilman the response. But I will just want to mention or respond to some of the things that you said, Councilman. It's not surprising that they have been sued many times nationwide. They're a huge corporation. They're in lots of jurisdictions. They provide health care to a lot of individuals. If you're going to use the metric that someone gets sued so they don't provide good health care, University of Pennsylvania I think provides excellent health care. They get sued. Temple University, Einstein, Jefferson, same thing. They're in the business of providing health care. Unfortunately, that comes with the territory. They get sued. Just because you're sued, there's no indication of the quality of the health care. I will add that I believe, and I would have to check with the Law Department on this, that the number of suits filed in Philadelphia are low. Additionally, you talked about increased costs to the contract. That's because we ask them to do additional things. Like we've asked them to do increased grounding. We've asked them to do access to care. So they're going to have staff that work with our team to make sure that the inmate population get to their medical appointments. Currently, right now we are below the monitor's set targets for inhouse medical appointments. The numbers that are waiting for inhouse medical appointments is below the monitor's targets. We are making substantial progress in meeting the numbers for external clinic trips. 95% of the people who leave our system are enrolled in medical assistance and they have behavioral health and physical health linkages into the community. So if the only metric is the number of lawsuits that the company endures, I don't know that that is an indictment in the care that we provide locally. But again, I'll have Dr. Herdman respond in detail to your questions.
Thank you. Heard. Perhaps sue-happy folks may be, but I would say that every time a specialty care appointment isn't completed in 60 days, we could fine them $250. And according to the federal monitor, there were actually a total of nearly 600 of these backlog specialty appointments at the end of 2024. That's roughly $150,000 sitting on the table on just one provision of the contract. Though that ain't the point. The point shouldn't necessarily be about the money. It should be about the quality of care that we're providing our neighbors behind the wall. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: And just not to cut you off, Councilman, but a factor in determining whether an inmate gets to go to that external medical appointment is if we have the correctional staff available to go on those trips. We are increasing the numbers of staff. I think we are now at 64% in terms of those external trips meeting those. We have also started using a company called USI. They're used by the United States Marshals and other jurisdictions around the country to do medical guarding in the community. So even though our staffing levels may be low and not permit us to make all of these trips, we will utilize USI to further reduce that backlog. So I can't say that the backlog is all a fault of YesCare's. It is a holistic approach, given that they can't do anything without our staff members.
Perhaps. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So we're trying to implement things that will increase that number by bringing on USI and having them take out the trips along with our officers and keeping our staff at the jails.
My buzzer done gone off twice and sucked up my time. I'll just say heard. And I appreciate what workarounds you're trying to provide to be able to meet these things, to meet the need. But they've actually lost contracts 14 in recent years over substandard 15 care. So they've lost -- other 16 folks have recognized this is an 17 issue. 18 And so, I think we 19 really ought to raise this up as a 20 real concern. Again, this budget process isn't about one contract at any given point, but this one has really stuck out to us because again, often times people behind the wall are perceived almost as noncitizens. They're forgotten about and the quality of care that they're provided, not just the conditions within the prisons, but the quality of care they're providing for the humanity I think is important. So we have to raise that point. I'll say this. I'll close it by saying that this body has long been committed to ending mass incarceration. And I think that starts with making sure that we do right by those behind bars. Like Mr. Lewis Young, who died last November after going six days without his insulin under YesCare's watch. At the same time, Philadelphia is a union town, yet we are contracting out a huge amount of work, to the point that Councilman Thomas made, to a company that in recent years split itself in half so it could pay pennies on the dollar for the hundreds of lawsuits it faced related to substandard care, deaths in custody and even sexual violence committed by YesCare employees, which is unacceptable to me. Doesn't it make sense to bring this work back to D.C. 47 members who are already doing great work in the City's health centers and are solely focused on people, not profits? I think that it does. That having been said, again I thank you for answering my questions. And I know you and Dr. Herdman, but I appreciate you at least meeting me here in this moment. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Majority Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Council President. And thank you again, Commissioner Resnick, for your work. And I wanted to notate also that we greatly appreciate, and I'll never forget, the tour that we had of the Philadelphia Department of Prisons with First Deputy Commissioner Beaufort. You probably don't remember this, but I was Chief of Staff for former Councilmember Blondell Reynolds Brown, and you helped us with a tour during our staff retreat. And we thought everything was very well put together for us to really see firsthand what's happening in the prison system. So I wanted to thank you for that on the record and to the entire team. We hear from a lot of individuals, families a lot. We had a lot of constituent cases from families. We do receive some cases from time to time from staff as well obviously regarding staffing concerns. And I just wanted to notate that. Very quickly I just wanted to look at a few things in your detail. So I'm in Section 52 of the FY26 budget detail. I'll start with . That was the Office of Re-entry Partnerships question. We just wanted to receive additional information on the re-entry work, and also how many folks are enrolled in any type of workforce development program currently in the prison system or other certification program, because we know that skill building from a workforce development perspective is really important when we try to connect folks with work upon release? So if you could tell us just how many inmates are currently in a workforce development program or certification program. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: We'll get that information for you, Councilwoman.
Okay. And I did see the information about the CDL, a licensure certification program in your detail and it was studied year-over-year FY25 and '26. But I know you all had mentioned I think it was a year or two ago about a barbering program as well that would give a certification skill to inmates. Is that up and running? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: No, that's not up and running. We did have someone come down from the state to give us an assessment. But with the transition from the former Deputy Commissioner of RTS and Deputy Commissioner Jaco, we have to redo it.
Okay. Just keep us updated on that because I remember that coming up. It was either last year or the year before. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: It was last year, yep.
I remember without even looking through the transcript that we talked about that certification program. But again, I just wanted to note for the record I did see the forklift and the other certification. If you all could just notate based on , this is related to the Security and Operations program regarding IOD. It's just 2 million. So it seems plain. If you could talk about the IOD number year-to-date this year thus far? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: I can get you the exact number. But what I can tell you off the surface our IOD, which was in triple digits last year, is now down to just small, low double digits. So the IODs, they've been coming back to work. And what we have changed is instead of we use two work -- what do we call them -- yeah, work health facilities now. So we now use two. Before there was a backlog of getting folks in for their appointments. So we use the Navy Yard along with another center to get the officers and staff seen.
Okay. And then I want to put three more questions on the record really quickly. You had a noticeable decrease in professional services. I'm specifically referring to Section 52, , again under Security and Operations for Class 200. It was a little more than 2.285 million. And so, I just wanted to put it on the record that I'm notating the significant decrease in asking what it's for and where you are with your minority spend on your professional services contracts since it is a significant portion of the security and operations schedule 200 detail? And then also wanted to ask about your vacancy allowance -- because I heard the bell, your vacancy allowance because I noticed how you moved around some of the positions in the Class 100 earlier in the detail. And I'm specifically referring to Section 2 52, and then Section 52, regarding the vacancy allowance. That will help me figure out that piece of the puzzle. And then finally, how many additional classes do you have forthcoming as far as new employees that will be working? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So far our goal, Councilwoman, is to put a class in the academy every six weeks. So a class will start -- training is about 12-plus weeks. So midway through their training, another class will start. Once they graduate, soon after that another class will start. So we're looking to do that, replicate that throughout the rest of the year.
(Inaudible) sorry. Just the vacancy allowance because literally I'm just trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together on and . And I know it's two different facilities. I want to put that on the record I'm aware there's two different facilities, but I just wanted to know your vacancy allowance so that could help me figure out why it's listed this way for Schedule 100? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure, we'll get that for you.
Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. President.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Brooks.
Thank you, Council President. I'm going to skip around. So my first question is last July the department announced that it had opened a nine-bed inpatient unit for people in prison custody at Jefferson Frankford Hospital. But according to the monitor's report from last week, not a single person in a Philadelphia jail was treated in that unit until February of 2025 when the PPD -- I mean, the PDP claimed three people were getting medical treatment there. So how many people have been treated at this unit to date and what kind of care are they getting there? And why did you guys open a medical unit at Jefferson Hospital? Then claim after the unit was opened that Jefferson couldn't offer surgical care the unit was intended to provide? And also, did you guys inquire about what kind of care the hospital could provide while planning to open this unit? Just trying to get clarity around this. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Thank you for that question, Councilwoman. That was planned well before I got here. And that is correct, the hospital does not provide surgical services. Additionally, we don't determine the location of the hospital an individual goes to. If we have to send an inmate out, we'll call Fire Rescue or our provider will direct which hospital based upon the services, so Fire Rescue determines or our medical providers. We would ideally like to have that unit full, but since that hospital doesn't provide the range of services or a full range of services it's sort of limited. So we have had conversations about continuing the utility of continuing that contract. We have had people there. They will open it for us when we have what, two? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Two. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Two individuals. The hospital will open the unit and staff it with nursing staff and our correctional staff will be there. The point of that unit is every time we have to take an inmate to the hospital and they become what we call an open ward, meaning they're admitted to the hospital, we have two officers on each one of those open wards. So if you have 10 open wards, that's officers. If 18 there's nine in this ward, in the 19 secured ward at the hospital, what 20 do we have over there? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Five and one supervisor. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So it greatly cuts down on our staff burden. But considering that we have had challenges filling it, given the services provided we were questioning the utility of it.
Okay. Thank you for that. And this is another question. We get these questions from the community. So one of the questions is that why when families are visiting incarcerated friends and family, they can't take pictures? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: No, ma'am. We used to have a system where -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Yes. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: You can discuss that. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: So pre-COVID we did have a ticketing system where they could take pictures and it was a Polaroid and they would buy a ticket and what have you. Post-COVID when we opened back up slowly inperson visits, that was not something we had a slot for. The objective was to get families into the visiting area and let them see their loved ones. So that's something that will come down the line as we get back into full operations. But that was the reason why. That's a -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: (Inaudible). DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Yeah, it was a whole distancing thing. And we had to cut our numbers on how many people can be in the different jails visiting rooms at one time. So that was the reason why.
So you're planning to reintroduce that -DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: That is definitely a down-the-line plan to reintroduce the picture-taking back into it. And it won't be as before because it's hard to get Polaroids. There was a Polaroid type of system that we had. Certain supplies you can't get anymore. So we're going to have to rethink how can we do it.
Okay. And I have one final question. I would just go through the whole thing and then you guys can answer it. According to the most recent monitor's report in December 2024, there was an average of 751 backlog appointments. This is some of what Councilmember O'Rourke asked. So the question is how do you plan to tackle these delays due to the plan that is affecting people's health and in some cases, pivoting to untimely deaths? And our examples are Andrew Drury died on March 9th a little over a day after he was transferred to Curran- Fromhold. He was then labeled as an emergency medical case, and a medical examiner determined that his cause of death was from drug intoxication. So we were wondering how three days from Kensington he died from drug intoxication while in custody. And we were wondering was he taken to a hospital or medical treatment during his time in confinement because that happens. And the other example was a Joshua Mister was arrested and held in custody this past Friday after trying to evade SEPTA fare in Kensington. He died by Sunday, and he had been in a hospital but was released. Joseph Gabor was taken in on a Kensington sweep and shortly after he passed away. Amanda Cahill was arrested in a sweep, died a few days later. So there's a pattern of people being arrested in Kensington and then dying in jail not long after. And in the case of Michael McKinnis, he died overnight in an unsupervised jail cell. So what I'm trying to understand is are there new policies and procedures that can be put into place in order to end this pattern of people dying from opioid-related complications in jails? And I know it's short- staffed. I did the tour. I've seen the whole thing, and I'm not kind of placing fault but we have to find a solution. We can't continue having deaths in the prison system around something that we could kind of plan for. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I appreciate the question, Councilwoman. So I'll answer your first question first with respect to our backlog. As I mentioned, our backlog of onsite medical care is now below the goals set forth by the Federal court Remick monitors. So we are well below those ranges now. So we've met that and we will continue to meet that. How we are meeting that is we have assigned a Major Deputy Warden who's in charge of access to cares. He works with the YesCare team and our custody staff to ensure that people who have medical appointments come out of their units, come off of their housing blocks and are seen in their appointments. So we're ensuring that YesCare is also hiring access to cares individuals who will work with that Major to do that work. We have also tackled our external clinic trips. We've met I believe at 64% of them last month. So that backlog is coming down. The report that you mentioned -- and the problem with these monitor reports is because they look at a snapshot in time. Then several months later they issue their report. The report is historic already because we've already made progress. So the progress that we are making now won't be reported until September because that's just the way the timing of the monitors and the timing of the reports. So the numbers that you see in the reduction of those backlogs will be reported in the monitor's reports come September, but we're doing it now. In addition, as I said we are working with USI to help augment our staff to take inmates out to the community to have their appointments and also to sit on the open wards. That does two things. It allows us to get those trips and those services for the inmate population, but also utilizing USI allows us to keep staff at the jails on housing areas, having those areas open and having the inmates out-of-cell time increase. It allows us to do those two things. So I think that's my answer with respect to how we're tackling the backlog and I think you can see from the numbers that those backlogs are coming down.
With the respect to the cases that you've mentioned, as I'm sure you can understand I can't talk about open investigations. But what I will say is we have done a number of things at the Prison System. As I said, anybody who comes in and scores a positive score on the COWS assessment is immediately started on our medical- assisted treatment. We've red-armband everybody in substance abuse treatment so they're easily identified by our staff and medical staff on the housing units. We've increased medical rounding on those housing units and we are undertaking a pilot program to outfit all newly-admitted inmates with medical monitoring devices that will monitor their vital signs. And we will get alerts, redundant alerts in different places if an inmate is having a medical incident and we will be able to respond immediately.
I'm glad you guys are taking steps in the right direction. And to the last -- something that you mentioned about the hiring policy. What does it look like? You said you want a class every six weeks. How is that going with recruitment? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So that's going amazingly well. We've hired -- Mr. Robinson is our recruiting coordinator, the handsome man in the blue suit right there. He works with our community partners. He works with Council staff. He works with schools, businesses. He goes all around the area to job fairs. We have the ability to hire outside of the city of Philadelphia so we're recruiting in other areas as well. Mr. Robinson also works with the Whalls Group, which was the recruiting firm that we've associated with who has expertise in law enforcement and corrections to work with our background unit to expedite the cases. So what you're seeing is we've had classes of 30 and then 40 and then 50 and now it's 74, so we keep increasing the numbers in the class and the frequency of the classes.
And what does the retention look like? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Our retention rate is down to single digits. I think it's been running between 2% and 3%. We're trying to do a lot for our staff to make them feel valued, to make them invest in their personal well- being, their professional well- being. We've changed where we do our training. It's now in a updated state-of-the-art facility. We opened a wellness center for our staff. They can use that facility to work out, to do cardio. We've appointed a wellness director who will be providing classes that staff say that they want to have, whether it be weight loss, smoking cessation, healthier eating, just things that staff have an interest in to keep them on the payroll.
Thank you so much for that. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: You're welcome.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau, then Councilmember Lozada and Councilmember Young.
Thank you. Thank you so much. First, thanks for being here. Council President, I hope you heard that they have an exercise room, a cardio room and a variety of other things so maybe we'll get that -- no. 2
I walked right into that. Okay. I have three questions for you. And the first I want to start with because you were talking about recruitment, training your new classes for weeks. I 12 wanted to talk about how much you're investing into de-escalation practices and other kind of restorative practices or different kinds of justice to make sure that we can resolve conflicts without it getting out of control. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So that is part of our use-of-force training. We did have a large class of crisis intervention training, train the trainer. I forget how many months ago that was. That was brought on board, so our staff now have been trained to do that training. So we have individuals who have already been trained, deployed in the facilities. And our staff at the Training Academy are certified to do that training. So we rolled that training out with the new classes. Obviously, the CIT training is I think 40 hours. It's an entire week. We rolled that training -- we incorporated it into the new cadet training when we're talking about use of force. We have I think about 12 weeks almost, our training. One of the things that I would like to see is our academy increase. I know that doesn't sound intuitive because it takes longer to get people in. But I think if we train people, we provide them more training, we prepare them for what it is the job we expect them to do, right. I don't want to short-change training and then people get inside the jails and say, I didn't expect this, you didn't prepare me for this. And after we've made that investment in recruiting and hiring and training, they leave. So I want to make sure people are adequately prepared. And it's a debate amongst the people in this room with me about increasing the length of our training. But ultimately, I would like to get us there.
Thank you. Two more questions. One is I was unclear, we allocated money -- you requested last year money for body worn cameras. Did you purchase them? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: No, we did not.
And is the intention to purchase them this year? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Yes, it is.
For all staff? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Ultimately, through the life of the plan, yes, for all staff. I think the initial rollout with DC Beaufort and DC Nash is we would put them in the receiving room and our special management areas first, areas where we know we traditionally have more issues, more uses of force to protect both staff and inmates. So those are the areas where we will roll it out first, and then as we move on into the outyears, general population areas.
And is the intention that you would -- I'm the head of the Tech Committee. Is the intention you would store that data, that footage, with the police department's footage or you would have your own storage for that? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I think it's our own storage. We would piggyback off of the systems, the same vendors, but it would be our storage.
And then the last question is do you have an intention of using drones in the prisons? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: We have four drones currently. They would be tethered to the buildings. They would be up essentially hours a day weather- 22 permitting and providing realtime 23 monitoring of the external 24 facility.
That's great. Thank you very much. I'm good for now.
Thank you, Member Lozada. Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Thank you, Council President. I just want to get these two questions on the record. They're not related, but want to make sure that I'm able to respond to folks who have made inquiries. Number one is how much are incarcerated individuals getting paid for work detail? Number two, according to your testimony there was an average rate of 120 daily out-of-service cells in 2024. What is that number now? And then when we last spoke, 60% of the population was substance-abuse dependent. Has that number gone up, stayed the same or has it got down? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I'll address your last question first, Councilwoman. I think if you said 60%, my records show it's 70. So if that's the case, it went up. With respect to inmate pay, I believe we're paying $2 a day. And our out-of-cell numbers, I am not sure what --
You said $2 a day? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Yes, it's $2 a day for our general work. And then our specialty work within our industries area, they actually get paid by the hour based on the craft. Some of it is $0.45 an hour and some of it is I think $0.55 an hour. But general work which is general cleaning, food service, that's $2 a day. It actually went up. It used to be $1.50. As of last year it was $1.50 a day and we asked for the increase, which it went up to $2 a day. The out-of-work cells that you see, we are actually in a capital project. We have some cell doors that are mechanical in nature that we had to change all of the motors and all of the sliders. They don't open up like a regular door do. These actually slide. So that project is ongoing. So that's the out-of-cell numbers that you see. But it's down to only 60 now.
And I'm sorry. I didn't hear your substance abuse number. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: 70%.
It went up. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to get all three of those on the record. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you and good afternoon. Just a few questions just about the workplace environment there up at our prisons. Can you tell us is there a difference in pay between officers who work 12 hours versus officers who work 8 hours? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Yes, Councilman.
Why is there a difference in that pay? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: The way our contract works is we go before a panel of arbitrators. The Union makes a proposal, the City makes a proposal and three arbitrators craft a contract for us.
But their rate is the same or is the rate different? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: The rate is the same.
The rate is the same? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Yes, the rate is the same based off of their years of service.
So even if I'm working a 12-hour day or an 8-hour day, I still get that same rate? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: So if I'm a 10-year officer and you're a 10-year officer, we both have the same flat rate. But you chose to stay at your 8-hour post five days a week with weekends of holidays off and I chose to do the 12-hour post. I'm getting extra money because, one, I'm doing four hours more. And based off of that arbitration, they got a little more money in their differential. So that's what you see the difference at.
Okay. Thank you. Can you tell us about I know we have this shortage, but can you tell us about the standards that you have when doing recruitment? Because my office has gotten information that standards have extremely and drastically lowered, which created some of the issue with retention because some of the folks who are applying may not be strong enough, right, or have that mentality to work there in that type of environment. I mean, I was told that there was folks who were close to 400 pounds who were applying, folks who don't speak English who are applying without any assistance and folks who are in their 70s, right, who are applying for these jobs. So could you talk to us about some of the standards? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. So I don't know that -- well, you need to speak English to be able to work at the Philadelphia Department of Prisons and there is a physicality portion of the training, so you need to pass all of the academy training and part of that is physical fitness.
But were they lowered was the question. Were those different standards lowered in order to allow some more folks to be hired to kind of fill those jobs? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: DC Beaufort can address that. I believe that some of the standards were relaxed just to get larger applicant pools. But again, like I said those applicants could apply, but you still have to pass all the training. But DC Beaufort can speak to that. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Yes, Councilman. As you know when we were in our crisis mode two, three years ago and we were putting out job announcements, we were getting nothing. If we put out a job announcement and let it run for the standard two weeks, we may have gotten 200 people that applied. Once we vetted them the way we normally do, we wouldn't get anyone. So we had to try to lower some standards as to get a bigger applicant pool. So what did that entail? Well, there used to be a written test, a written civil service test to become a correctional officer. That test is nonexistent right now. We did have to relax some of the weight requirement because we were not getting anyone for this particular field, this particular profession. So we did have to relax it. But what do we do on the backend? So on the backend our training academy, so to make sure that the person can pass the basic skills while in the training academy, they had to pass their physical fitness requirements, their weapons requirements, their testing requirements. And if they didn't meet any of those requirements, then of course they didn't make it past their probationary period, but that's where we're at right now.
Can you talk to us about the air exchange that happens? There are a lot of inmates who smoke whatever they smoke in jail, right. It's not just cigarettes and marijuana. It's other chemicals that they're smoking and that is affecting the correctional officers as well who inhale these things. So can you tell us about the air exchange at the Prison System and what can be done to protect some of the correctional officers? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. DC Beaufort can talk to you about the system for air exchanges. But let me just address the fact of the portion about contraband. So I did mention earlier that we've acquired machines in our mailrooms that will check all the incoming mail to determine if it's been adultered with any substances. If it's legal mail, we let the inmate and the sender -- because it might not always be a legitimate law firm -- know that the mail has been confiscated and it's returned or destroyed and the inmate is notified. Other mail, if it's adultered, if there's any problem with it, the inmate's notified and it's destroyed. We have as I said increased our canine unit, and we have a unit specially assigned to detect and interdict contraband. We have an Entry Procedures Unit now that checks all staff, all contractors, all visitors coming into the facility. So we're making a huge push and a huge concerted effort to reduce the amount of contraband available and then make the environment safer. But in the incidents where inmates are smoking, which they shouldn't be, DC Beaufort can talk to you about the process of air exchanges. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Yeah. So the facilities -- three of the major facilities, CFCF, RCF and PICC which are air-conditioned jails, have a system where when they start smelling smoke, the staff smell smoke, they make the call to the shift commander and maintenance and then the maintenance team can reverse the air, in which case they let fresh air come in from outside which will vacuum out some of the bad air. It's not a perfect system, but that's what we do. The second thing is wherever the area is we start the search process. The search process, the housing area that was smelling the smoke, we need to do a search on that area to see if we can find the contraband. Now, most of the time they know we're starting the search process, the flushing of the stuff goes, you know, commences. That's how the air exchange process works. Now, at the Detention Center, partial of the Detention Center is air-conditioned. The dormitory side which will be air-conditioned shortly, is fresh air coming in through the windows. The Detention Center is all window- made. So of course we open the windows. We use big fans there to try to get the smoke out of the area. But I want to be clear with something. It's not like you're walking through a plume of smoke. That is not the case, but the smell is the smell. Okay. And we encourage staff the minute you smell something, say something. Don't let it permeate in the air too long. Say something immediately so we can start the process.
Thank you. And I only ask that question because I know again it's not just like marijuana or cigarettes. People are smoking K2, smoking chemicals, whatever chemicals they get their hands on. And so, that affects the air quality for everyone in there, right. And so, just want to make sure that these systems in place are actually working to clear the air because, I mean, someone died because of that, right, an officer died because of that right. So we just want to make sure that these things are clear.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Majority Leader Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Council President. I just wanted to put on the record I have this written on my sheet for thank yous and I neglected to say it in my transition. But I wanted to thank David Robinson for all of his work in helping really deep touchpoints in the community that help us reach out to folks who wouldn't typically be interested in being a part of this work. So I wanted to say thank you to David Robinson. And like I said, I had it written down on my paper and just was going back down memory lane thinking about that last visit and just how great you were to our team, First Deputy Commissioner Beaufort. So thank you, David Robinson. And I also just wanted to state for the record based on Councilmember Young's question because I was reviewing this in the detail as well on Section 52, under Schedule 100 regarding the 13 amount of full-time positions, and 14 that was another reason why I asked 15 about the vacancy allowance because 16 of the FY26 budgeted positions. 17 And then overtime which we know is 18 around 34 million. And the shift 19 and stress differential, so is that 20 one in the same or it's just listed 21 under the same pot of money, the shift and the stress. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Yes. It's listed under the same code, yes.
Okay. And I got that off of the same page with the IOD questions. So when he brought it up, I just wanted to make sure I got that on the record. But thank you very, very much. And thank you, Council President.
Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments from members of the Committee? Member Harrity? (No response.)
Okay. Well, thank you very much for your testimony. Continue to keep moving forward the progress that you're making. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Thank you. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Thank you.
The Chair recognizes Councilmember Gilmore Richardson for a motion on the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolutions before the Committee today stand in recess until April 15, 2025 at 10:00 a.m.
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution before the Committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, April 15th at 10:00 a.m. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. This Committee will stand in recess until Tuesday, April 15th at 10:00 a.m. Thank you very much everyone for being here. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 3:40 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL