Committee of the Whole, April 9, 2025

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?

Yes.

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?

Uh, 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?

Yes, sir.

Councilmember Young.

Thank you, Mr. President. First question is a similar line of questioning to our Majority Leader. I looked at --

Member Young, speak into the microphone.

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.

Thank you.

And now, for Mike Carroll to talk about the vendors.

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.

I like to share, Councilmember.

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.

There you go. Good answer.

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. Thank you, Council President.

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?

Yes.

So you don't have a copy of the detail in front of you?

I do.

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 that's a --

I -- it -

Go ahead. I'm sorry.

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?

Yes.

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?

Yes.

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 --

Well, that's why I gave the example of Myers Rec --

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 --

Okay. Just wanted to clarify that one.

-- some issues. I apologize.

Aparna, could you respond to the member please.

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 --

Member, can you speak in the mic.

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. Thank you, Council President.

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.

Thank you. Councilmember Phillips, Young, Landau, Thomas.

Thank you.

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.

Thank you.

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.

Thank you so much.

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 --

Roughly, Councilmember, roughly.

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.