COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, May 5, 2025 10:10 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMAN MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. BILLS: 250195, 250196, 250197, 250198, 250199, 250200, 250201, 250202, 250210, 250211, 250212 RESOLUTION: 250214 - - -
This is the public hearing and the meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bill Nos. 250195, 250196, 250197, 250198, 250199, 250200, 250201, 250202, 250210, 250211, 250212 and Resolution No. 250214. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the roll and take attendance please.
Present. Thank you. A quorum of the Committee is present. This hearing is now called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the titles of the resolutions.
Bill No. 11 Bill No. 250195, an ordinance 12 amending Chapter 19-1500 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Wage and Net Profits Tax," by revising certain tax rates, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250196, an ordinance adopting the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2026. Bill No. 250197, an ordinance to adopt a Fiscal 2026 Capital Budget. Bill No. 250198, an ordinance to adopt a Capital Program for the six Fiscal Years 2026-2031 inclusive. Bill No. 250199, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-2600 of The Philadelphia Tax Code, entitled "Business Income and Receipts Taxes," to revise certain tax rates and end certain exclusions from the tax on receipts, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250200, an ordinance amending Chapter 12-100 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Traffic Code" to revise the fee for the use of parking meters, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250201, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," to provide for an increase in the tax of the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia is authorized to impose on real estate; and amending Chapter 3 19-1300, entitled "Real Estate Taxes," to establish an equivalent reduction the tax rate for the City real estate tax, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250202, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1806 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Authorization of Realty Use and Occupancy Tax," to eliminate certain exemptions, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250210, an ordinance amending Chapter -- amending Section 10-1001 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Fees of the Commissioner of Records," to increase the portion of fees for the recording of deeds and mortgages in related documents to be used for Housing Trust Fund purposes, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250211, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1400 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Realty Transfer Tax" revising the rate of the tax, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250212, an ordinance to amend Chapter 19-4400 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Development Impact Tax" to end imposition of the tax, under certain terms and conditions. Resolution No. 250214, resolution providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia of a Revised Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia covering Fiscal Years 2026-2030, and incorporating revisions with respect to Fiscal Year 2025, which is to be submitted by the Mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to an Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement by and between the City and the Authority.
Thank you, Ms. Loughead. Today we continue the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole to consider the bills read by the Clerk that constitute proposed operating and capital spending measures for Fiscal Year 2026, a Capital Program and a Forward- looking Capital Plan for Fiscal Year 2026 through Fiscal Year 2031. This morning we will hear testimony from the Register of Wills. And this afternoon we will hear testimony from the Department of Public Health and from DBHIDS, the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disabilities. Before I start, I just want to acknowledge the presence of Councilmember Curtis Jones, Councilmember Rue Landau, Councilmember Kendra Brooks. With that being said, Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first panel for testimony.
The first person to testify is John P. Sabatina, Register of Wills and Clerk of Orphans' Court. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Good morning, Mr. Sabatina. How are you this morning? REGISTER OF WILLS SABATINA: Very good, sir. Good morning, President Johnson and members of City Council. I'm John Sabatina, Register of Wills, Clerk of Orphans' Court. I'm here with my staff and I'm pleased to provide testimony on the Register of Wills Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget. First off, we have some plans for Fiscal Year 2026. With additional funding requests made to the Administration, the Register of Wills Department's plans for Fiscal '26 are to continue the restoration and preservation of historic archives. And to speak with that, I have Emilio DeGregorio and Erald Dika. The other next area that we're going to cover would be to enable the outreach program to guide and explain to the public our services and new Title Clearance Unit that we have established. Working with that, the program, I have Myasia Williams with the title clearance and Kyle Sampson for public engagement and outreach. Next subject I have is onboard a Legacy system vendor to replace the current system. It's basically just a new software system that we hope to enable us to have better document requests. Fourth, we have make capital improvements to the office that are urgently needed and prepare a space to showcase and display our historic documents in commemoration of America 250. In addition to all of this, I would like to mention that a request has been made to the Administration for additional funding for the above current appropriation level. No additional funding has been granted for the previous year and we're asking that we now get some funding to help provide funds for our programs that we have come up with for this year. Thank you for your continued support and consideration.
Thank you, Mr. Sabatina. And I know that my office partnered with your office on several different housing fairs regarding educating individuals regarding tangled titles. And so, I thank you and your team for that. I thank Jewel Williams for serving as a liaison with members of City Council regarding the operations on the Register of Wills office as well as Ms. April Scott Street on Public Engagement, Senior Advisor, who've also partnered with us as it relates to communicating and teaching the public, educating the public regarding the process that deals with tangled titles, as it relates to building generational wealth and people not losing their homes, and also Mr. Roger Poe, who makes sure that the Register of Wills office from a communication standpoint keeps the public well- informed of your operations. And so, I want to start off by thanking those individuals, at least that my office works with, and get into our questions. Give me an update -- well, I'm going to let my Majority Leader talk about tangled titles since that's her space.
Not yet, sir. I'm glad you're eager to respond, but I'm going to let my Majority Leader talk about the tangled titles. But give us a more indepth overview of the archive preservation and digitization software that you want to use to make sure we're keeping our records up-to-date and also making sure we modernize the Office of Register of Wills.
Good morning, Council President. My name is Erald Dika, Finance Director. For as far as the archives, we have restored few records. We had a one-year term contract with a vendor about 300,000 but they did an analysis on the entire archives, the one in City Hall on the 9th floor, also the one at 6th and Spring Garden, and they kind of came up to a conclusion that you need a lot of money to restore its files. In the few millions of dollars, let's put it that way. We have been asking for funding every year to restore the ones that require immediate attention because there's files that the paper is decaying or bad order and it doesn't really make it a good working condition, especially for the people at archives. So we want to address those, but we also want to prepare for the American 250 anniversary to commemorate the independence from the Great Britain. As far as the Legacy system update, we went through the last audits. There's some recommendation from the auditors to make some upgrades. But the current system doesn't have the functionalities that we need, especially for internal controls or better recordkeeping or record- viewing. My deputy can speak to deeper detail because he's the one in contact back and forth with OIT for the requirements, but a general overview is that we need to replace it for internal controls recommended by the auditors and also for better recordkeeping.
When you update and modernize and digitize these records, how will it improve public access from the public for the historical and legal records? And also, I know you have an RFP that's put out for a new system. And what's the timeline and the scope of the RFP as well?
Thank you for the question. I'm going to let my Deputy answer that, Emilio DiGregorio. MR. DiGREGORIO: Good morning, Council President. Emilio DiGregorio, Register of Wills. And good morning, City Councilmembers. So we are at I could say the finish line with the RFP with respect to OIT putting the final touches to make sure all the City's technical specifications are, so I think we would release that RFP hopefully June and then leave that open and let it go through the vendor process, vendor selection interviews and see all the features that some of the vendors that are in the arena have available to us with further modification to our needs. This new system would allow us to bring the City's records to a public portal, which we don't have at the moment. It will utilize our existing database that we work with OIT in maintaining and then give the public full free access to view records, request records, streamline payment processes. So it would really bring Philadelphia to the forefront with that.
Okay. In terms of the recent state audit that came up with different findings regarding some internal controls regarding Register of Wills, how are you actually addressing it? MR. DiGREGORIO: So currently we use an inhouse auditing process according to their standards, but they would like a more robust system auditing process where we can quickly get to solutions. Our reports are a little dated as far as transaction- wise. So it would modernize today's standards as far as the financials, reporting and ordering process.
Thank you very much. To lead this round, I want to call on Majority Leader Councilmember Gilmore Richardson. Then Dr. Anthony Phillips, Councilmember.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President. And thank you to our Register of Wills and the entire team. I wanted to start off first with the thank yous that I received from my team, but I don't have to read them to know that I always start off with Lou DiRenzo. He is the best in the business, the absolute best and I will never forget his work and we really appreciate him. But also Bernice Bradley, Colleen, Colleen, Probate clerk. She is excellent, excellent. She's stellar. She's very knowledgeable. And my team says every department needs a Colleen. Bob Stewart and April Scott Street, she was at our Wynnefield event. So I just wanted to put those names on the record. All of you are here. We know we thank each of you. But I wanted to -- oh, there you are, Bob. I wanted to put on the record the names that I received from my team because I've asked them to pull for every department we work with each year who we've worked with. Okay. I wanted to start with tangled titles. You all know that that's an issue that I've been working on really closely since the last term. And thank you, Council President, for the opportunity. We had given you all additional funds last year to stand up the Title Clearance Unit and you all have given us detailed reports regarding the families that you've been able to assist, even down to the Council District and the areas. If you could talk about how you all are continuing to work with families to clear tangled titles for the remainder of this fiscal year. And then you know this is my real overarching concern. I've spoken to the Register about this, is how your office is working directly with the legal service aid organizations. Because how we set up under the funding with NPI for tangled titles is not just through the City department, but it's also to give funding to the legal service organizations to help us clear tangled titles and deeds. And I wanted to ensure that as we do this work we are prioritizing making that process as easy as possible when you're able to emailing documents instead of having them walk over to get the documents. So could you just talk about how you all are streamlining the process with working with the legal service organizations around tangled title clearance? REGISTER OF WILLS SABATINA: Yeah. At this time, I'd like to call up Myasia Williams who basically handles the tangled titles. We call it a little different name, but it's basically the same as used to be the tangled titles. We have it as -- we call it the Title Clearance Unit. Oh, here you are.
Good morning, Councilmembers. Our Title Clearance Unit is working with constituents from start to finish with the process of clearing their property titles. At this time we are not working closely with the other community organizations because they're income-based organizations, whereas we are working with the working-class members or citizens of Philadelphia. Anyone that comes to our office or we receive a call from someone that fits within their income range, we do refer them over to the Community Legal Services.
Right, so -- because I want to get this on the record and make sure we're all clear because you know we already had meetings about this and I'm really just putting this on the record more so than anything. You all if you receive a case for title clearance, if the individual does not meet the income requirements for legal service assistance, then you all have the ability to help them traverse through the process in your department through the Title Clearance Unit, correct?
And then if they do meet the income requirements for the legal service organizations, then you all refer them to the legal service organizations, correct?
Okay. And then if the individual meets the requirement to work with the legal service organization, then you all then will work with the legal service organization relative to any of the documents needed to help with the resolution of their case that may be housed in your department; is that correct?
Okay. And then as much as possible when records are able to be emailed when possible, do you all email records to the community service organizations that the City contracts with, i.e., Community Legal Services, VIP Bar Association and others?
Okay. All right. Thank you very much for that. I wanted to also mention I saw that I think my colleague Councilmember Phillips is having an event with you all around the Real ID, and we actually had another event at a church recently regarding Real ID. I went for another purpose and they asked us to come back strictly around Real ID, and we found that a number of seniors in particular having issues with getting their Real ID because they need I guess the copy of their marriage license that has the raised seal. Have you all noticed that you've been getting additional requests for that? And then how should we work with you all to expedite those requests for individuals who are seeking to get their Real ID? I mean, I know we only have two days until the May 7th deadline, but I'm sure more folks will as they find out about the necessity of Real ID will be coming in. How do we work with you all to ensure that we're helping folks get an expedited copy of their marriage certificate? MR. DiGREGORIO: Thank you for that question, Councilmember. We've received such an influx of requests, mail and inperson. We normally process 40 records a day prior. We're doing roughly 75 to 80 in person, in addition to 75 to 80 pieces of mail per day. So we've dedicated additional staff for this. We're processing as many records as fast as possible as we can. Any requests for urgent matters we pull to the front of the line, whether it's visa or passport situations, Social Security. But if any requests come through, please make it to my attention or anyone in the office and we'll definitely address it as soon as we can. But we've committed additional staff to kind of take over the overflow of this process, which we know is frustrating for a lot of people.
I figured you all would have to do that because that's how many people we have actually heard from over the last several weeks as the deadline continues to approach. So thank you very much for availing the additional team members to ensure that we can help as many constituents as possible. I'll come back on the second round. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. Just had one question I wanted to ask and I wouldn't be a leader if I didn't ask. And we do got a good relationship, but there was this recommendation saying that the state says, PICA says they should get rid of the Register of Wills Office. Now, I don't agree with that. I want to be partners in making sure that the Register of Wills Office work most efficiently as possible, and you just came on as the leader of this particular office. And so, what is your response and what are you doing differently to counter that actual recommendation that came from PICA?
Thank you, Council President, for the question. We believe as with you that this is not the action to take --
So the questions they bring up about our office don't really apply to our office. There's no issues where net positive, you know, revenue, we take care of. We're self-funded essentially. We're taking care of the constituents with title clearance. We collect inheritance tax. We do all these various things that the PICA Board didn't seem to want to ask us about, you know, they reached out to other offices that they were investigating but didn't reach out to us. And I thought that would have been a smart thing to do. As a former journalist, I usually ask the source do you want to comment and we would have been able to assure them of each and every point they made, that that really didn't apply to us. So we're always improving the office --
-- contacted to say, hey, here's our issues, here's our concerns, here's our official response?
Okay. Thank you. I'm glad you said that for the record.
Okay. All right. But finish talking about the things that you are actually doing to show that your office is efficient as you counter that particular narrative.
So just a great example is the one that was just brought up about the marriage certificates. And a lot of city departments people have certain job descriptions and it's rigid in the way you can apply how to move people around. But I was able to recognize, there was a problem brought to my attention, that we have a line for people who need marriage certificates for Real ID. Okay. Well, I relocated several people to there -- if you go in there right now, you'll see that every desk is occupied. That's not necessary in January of any given year. We're not that -- we have 40 a day. We don't need full staff, but every table is full. I have people in the back room. We have our archives and staffed up, because anyone prior to 2000 needs a marriage record and we have to literally go up a ladder to get that. So I have a team over there that gets it, gets it scanned in immediately so that no one's waiting. So much so that we actually have been able to do some events at some of your offices and actually get them in hand either right there or just a few days later, which is something we couldn't have done if I wasn't able to pivot so quickly. So sometimes when people are talking about the office is inefficient, again I don't understand what they mean. We're able to -- if something happens and we need to move somebody to marriage licenses, everyone starts to get married, that happened last year when the federal election went in. Some people were afraid immigration purposes, they wanted to get married. Guess what? The line out the door for marriage licenses. Guess what? Bob puts in two more people to go help and get that room staffed up. So I think when they talk about operational efficiencies, it's really completely unfounded and we're able to move people quicker than other departments. Where I talk to other people who have my position, hey, how do you guys do it. You know, we're always exploring better ways and more efficient ways. And they're like, actually you're able to do it faster than us, so we do that. So it's really about just being efficient as being nimble and we're able to do that on a dime. I have people I can send up to Orphans' Court. I can text them right now, and before I'm out this room they're walking by me going to Orphans' Court. A lot of the departments don't have that flexibility because of the way things are in the hiring practices and the rules.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much. And just state your name -- I know it, but just state your name and title for the record.
I'm sorry. I'm Bob Stewart, Chief Deputy for Register of Wills.
All right. Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips. Then Councilmember Isaiah Thomas and then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you all so much. I just have a few questions regarding some youth work, community engagement as well as some contracts. Let me just start with the contracts on of my budget. I notice about 10, maybe about or so 14 consulting contracts that are here; 15 Scoop USA, Urban One Inc., Box Sourcing, IBM Production, Buzz Communication. What are these contracts about and what do they do to serve the office?
Good morning, Councilmember. So those contracts are from FY24. Some of them are no 23 longer with the department, but the majority of the contracts that perform some sort of public outreach or posters like let's say, Scoop, they did the banners, the big banners that you see down the hall with the big wheels and portraying the information it belongs to. Some of the contracts were advertising about the program --
Yeah. Some contracts were about advertising about the program from the previous person and with a new program that we currently have, the title clearing. And so, it's mostly like public engagement and public outreach. But the deputy can answer a little bit better for the contract piece.
How are you measuring the effectiveness of these contracts, Urban One, Cofile Technologies. We have a technology service in the city. MR. DiGREGORIO: Thank you for the question, Councilman. But the Cofile Technologies was the restoration and digitization preservation contract. So it's more than actual document work. It's not a tech firm, so to speak. Only the scanning aspect of the old documents, which are full scale large image scanning are handled by them. Some of the other contracts you mentioned were for advertising and public engagement. So we're engaging those contracts with the response we get from constituents, the number of cases that we're getting from those engagements.
So, for example, Urban One was $58,000. What engagement are we doing with that? MR. DiGREGORIO: So I believe the Urban One was public radio awareness campaign that was done from the prior administration.
Okay. Is that proposed -- and that's taken out for this year, but a -- okay. So I just want to make sure -- okay, that's fair. Last question I had is, has the department considered partnering with schools, libraries or youth organizations to introduce basic estate planning awareness to younger Philadelphians? MR. DiGREGORIO: We definitely would be more than ecstatic to have the opportunity to kind of curtail a curriculum for estate planning. We've had some discussions with Temple in the past when our probate officer Lou DiRenzo attends some of their real estate events to discuss this and the outpouring of information that they received it's tenfold to be needed. We've had conversations a couple years ago with Dr. Watlington from the School District. It sounded like a great idea but we've never really been able to kind of scale up the curriculum to really push this through. And with your help, we would love to do something like that.
Absolutely. I mean, you have these community engagement specialists and I think that could be part of their process to create a program that could be specialized, going into schools and the community and these youth organizations and teaching them about this. I wish I'd have known this information as a young person, as a young adult. I mean, that could be really how it could change our city, but that's just something innovative. I'll stop there. Maybe that's a follow- up. Thank you. Council President.
You're welcome, Dr. Phillips. The Chair recognizes Councilman Isaiah Thomas. Then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Good morning, Council President. Thank you for your line of questioning as well as Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson and my Councilman Councilmember Phillips. I want to start by thanking Lou DiRenzo. I know he's not here right now, but I personally went through some personal tragedy and Lou really was there for myself and my family and Lou also supports us when we have other people who are going through these issues. So I wanted to start by putting that on the record. In the same spirit of Councilmember Phillips -- well, before we get into contracts, first question: So your budget is about $5.9 million with another million or so that you get to deal with us in the General Fund through the city. In the recent midyear transfer, we also gave you guys another $80,000. We asked some questions during that midyear transfer. Not quite sure what the answers are. Still waiting on some of those questions to be answered around the midyear. But in the Register's testimony today, the Register is asking for increase in this year's budget. How much more money are you asking for on top of the about 6.8 million you have, which also includes the 800,000 you just got? And what do you plan on doing with the new revenue?
So this year we're asking for $1.2 million. We need about 500,000 for the Legacy system replacement --
I'm sorry. You got to speak into the mic a little bit more.
This year we're asking for $1.2 million. We're asking for 500,000 to replace the system. We're asking for 500,000 for the archives project to restore records. We're asking for 150,000 in Class 100 given that one of our all time employees retired and they have accumulated substantial time in their book to pay their retirement, terminal leave and vacation. We also asked for 100,000 in Class400 to replace computers. Our computers are crashing so we need to replace and get up-to-date Windows. For FY25 it's about $81,000 that's to amend the current FY25 budget to include the exempt raise increases that were given July 1st for the exempt employees. That's about it.
Thank you. So I see that my time is up. I just want to go ahead and I didn't get the chance to ask about contracts, but Councilmember Phillips has pretty much captured my sentiment as well too. I think there's a lot of contracts that you guys have out there --
Excuse me, Member Thomas. I have a point of information by Councilmember O'Rourke.
Thank you, Mr. President. How old are your computers? You said they were crashing. Do you have a general idea about actually how old they are? MR. DiGREGORIO: So we've had a lot of --
Excuse me. One second. I asked my team to work on this. Y'all have to fix your microphones and then speak into the microphone because we can barely hear you over here. You got to fix them and then speak into them. Adjust them and speak into them. MR. DiGREGORIO: All right. Sorry about that. Thank you, Council President.
There you go. That's okay. MR. DiGREGORIO: We've kind of handled our equipment on a cycle basis. So we've technically ordered maybe or more, so 20 to 8 25 every other year. And a lot of 9 our computers I'd say are roughly 10 around the 2012 range of computers. 11 They work majority of them, but 12 we've tried to utilize them until 13 their life ends, cycle them out, 14 new ones in. 15 The pandemic we 16 purchased I'd say about 15 to 17 17 laptops to kind of deal with the 18 whole transition, some working from 19 home, some not. So we have an 20 influx of laptops, but we really 21 want to overhaul all of our 22 technology to be modern and to 23 date. 24
My time is up, Council President. I want to be respectful. I just want to close out by saying you're asking for $8 million this year. That's a significant amount of money. I just wanted to echo the sentiments of Councilmember Phillips as far as contracts, but also just to put on the record we did put in writing that there have been a number of complaints that came to our office around contracts for Black and Brown businesses as well as issues with Black and Brown staff members. And we understand that because of pending litigation you can't have that conversation right now publicly so we appreciate you responding and giving us that information, but we do look forward to having a conversation off the record where you don't have to have the conversation in public prior to us passing a budget so we can make sure that we're addressing some of the concerns that's been communicated to myself, members of Council and clearly going out to the public as well. Thank you, Council President.
As a follow-up to the line of questioning, could we just get an update on the percentages of minority participation in terms of contracts that comes through the Office of Register of Wills?
Thank you for the question, Council President. Based on policy from the Law Department and our advice from our attorney on Friday, this is actually a very important point to the plaintiffs' lawyers, and our lawyers asked us not to comment publicly, but more than happy to provide any of these answers privately. It's actually part of the case at the moment.
So, Council President, in the same spirit I do want to just confirm that we are a part of a lot of confidential meetings and conversations as members of City Council, so you might not be able to give the information publicly but I think what we're asking for is off-the-record conversation so we can look at the numbers, look at the data, see what's going on with contracts and staff, because again those are complaints that were sent to us so --
I just thought in general -- because I didn't know about the lawsuit, I just thought in general just as a matter of practice, right, like any department that would come in front of us there's just public information on diversity, equity and inclusion in terms of participation. And you're saying you can't speak generally about the participation that your office provides because it's part of a litigation so you can't speak on it publicly, but you can speak on it privately, correct? MR. DiGREGORIO: Yes.
Okay. All right. I mean, we can have a follow-up conversation, but I just thought as just a matter of general practice rather it's your office or anybody else's office that comes, those numbers would just be generally a part of the record because it's a standard practice unless I might have missed something.
Correct. With that said, the way you're stating the question maybe it doesn't seem as --
Like for instance, if it was the police department, the District Attorney's Office, L&I, Commerce Department, members would just generally ask what's your goals around participation and then the agency or the department would say our participation numbers are 30%, this many women, this many people of color, this many people who are veterans, this many people are LGBTQ. And so, I just thought we just had that information, that's just --
I think that's a fair question. And I'll have Erald Dika come back up to answer that question the way you phrased it. I appreciate that.
I'm a little nervous myself not being a lawyer making sure I'm not going to run afoul the Law Department.
Thank you for that question. So as far as the contract, we are about $157,000, about 40-something percent -- 46 closest percent in minority, diversity, disabled --
And how are your contracts broken down? You said 46%?
We have about four to five contracts -- I got to pull the budget -- in minority and disabled. We have one disabled person, and we have four minority contracts, minority local businesses.
Okay. And just one last part. And in terms of those four, right, one is someone that's disabled. Let's check the box. The other one is what, women? Another one African American? Another one Latino? Another one LGBTQ? Can you explain that?
Okay. Obviously they have to be minority if I'm asking that question. Okay. So you have three Black males?
That was easy. That was like -- that's all we were asking. So I'm not trying to, you know, try to play Peekaboo. I just wanted to ask a general question, follow up on the line of questioning of my Majority Whip. And that's good information to have so that's good. The Chair recognizes Dr. Nina Ahmad and Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Thank you, Council President. I want to pivot to your role as the clerk of Orphans' Court. I know there's been a lot of issues around guardianship and problems with that. So I hear that there's a PA Act 61 that is supposed to make it safeguard the alleged incapacitated persons. So I wanted to hear your comments and any data around how well this Orphans' Court guardianship is working and how many complaints we have gotten or how they have been resolved, and does this Act 61 help you in making sure that the rights of those who receive guardianship are being protected? MR. DiGREGORIO: Thank you for that question, Councilperson. The Register of Wills as the Clerk of Orphans' Court is more like a filing center. We don't really engage in any kind of guardianship issues. We have the guardianship tracking system which we monitor to ensure that the guardians are filing the correct forms periodically to ensure that there's an accounting of what's going on. But as far as any issues revolving around guardianship, we would have to forward those questions to the Orphans' Court judges.
But you would have numbers to see because you track it, how well the guardianship program is working or who has that information? MR. DiGREGORIO: We would have that information. We don't have it readily available to you, but I can give it to you offline.
That would be very helpful because there has been some constituent inquiries around that to say that people are being taken advantage of basically. And I wanted to -- and maybe you aren't able to comment on Act 61 that is supposed to make that a better process. So I'll take that response from you when you can. And then finally, just to circle back on the percentages that were discussed around the M/W/DSBE contract, on your testimony here it says 21% FY25 and then projected 36, but the numbers that were shared were different.
Yes, because those numbers were as November 2024 and we were talking year-to-date. Normally, our goal is 21% but we always succeed on minority data.
So this projected FY26, you're saying you reached 46, not 36?
The data is as of November when the budget was put together with the actual data that I had. But as we move forward with the new year, obviously those numbers increase.
And my last question on that is do you have Asian American and Pacific Islander community represented in your office in your minority numbers?
Thank you, Council President. Good morning, everyone. Just like everybody else, I'd like to thank you guys for all the outreach you're doing. Had time to work with April Street on numerous events so far this year. She does a good job representing. And again Louis, forget about it, you can't say enough about him. He's like the man when it comes to getting things done over there, and just your staff overall. But like some of my colleagues, like our leader I'm interested in the tangled titles. There are still -- my numbers are saying there are still 10,000 active tangled titles in Philadelphia. These properties cause blight, property tax revenue loss and displacement mainly affecting Black and Brown families. Compared to FY25, because of the quantity of the tangled titles are these titles being litigated at a faster rate? And if not, what would it take for us to do that? Your budget this year I see only goes up a slight bit from FY25 to FY26's appropriations. I'm just trying to figure out are you going to have enough in this budget to handle the tangled title aspect of it and also the influx of people with the real IDs? You guys got a lot of traffic. My office is right down the hall from you guys and I see them out there. I mean, you guys make a good job of getting them in and out, but there's a lot of people coming in there. And tangled titles it's important. We need to keep this intergenerational wealth. So I'd just like to know how much actual money is going towards the tangled titles and is it going to be expanded? Are we going to be able to litigate these and get them taken care of faster?
Thank you for the question, Councilmember. We asked for additional funding. None was granted. The slight increase is due to the contract increase for the exempt employees, the estimated cost. But as far as the title clearance, I'm going to let Myasia Williams. She can speak better to the influx of cases --
Excuse me, sir. My member Rue Landau asked me could you speak into the microphone.
So here's what y'all can do, don't be shy. Just pull the microphone over. It can move. It's not attached to the desk. You can go like this and get in front of it. Is that better, Member Landau?
Sorry about that. So as I was saying earlier, the slight increase is due to the contract increase for the FOP employees and for the exempt employees. That's why it's like a slight change on the FY26 budget. But as far as the Title Clearance Unit, the influx cases, I'm going to let Myasia Williams, our Director of Title Clearance Unit, to answer that.
Thank you for your question, Councilmember. In the past four months we have successfully transferred 29 property titles. Additionally, we have screened over 100 complex multi-level cases and currently have several active cases that are expected to be ready for deed transfer in the next few months. One of our primarily challenges is the lack of available funding to assist families who cannot afford the costs associated with fees such as inheritance tax, title reports and delinquent liens. Currently we are actively seeking funding through grants from nonprofits, financial institutions and legislative initiatives. This report would allow us to assist constituents who do not qualify for low income-based tangled title programs but still lack the financial means to declare their property titles independently.
I have a point of information, Member Harrity, if that's okay. Mr. Sabatina, Sr., is your office in line or in partnership or at the table regarding tangled titles and the Mayor's H.O.M.E. Initiative? Because we're about to borrow $1 billion if this body approves it. And if we're talking about people staying inside their homes, right, I would think that this would be an intricate part of the strategy of helping individuals stay in their home as well as helping them build generational wealth and for the most part when it comes to housing preservation from one generation to the next, that this will be a part of the actual strategy, I would think. MR. DiGREGORIO: Council President, we have not had any discussions regarding the Project H.O.M.E. But as you stated, keeping people in their homes a lot of times these are the most affordable homes for people, the ones they're living in. And overcoming this hurdle of title clearance for a person would mean a wealth of possibilities and accessing capital that they do not have access to at the moment. So that would be a welcome partnership.
Thank you. I'll relinquish the time back to Member Harrity. But also want to defer to Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson for a follow-up conversation. Member Harrity.
Yeah. I'll just get to what I'm trying to get at. I just thought I'd see a little bit more money because I know the lawyers were part of the problem, like you guys had testified with Community Legal, a lot of the people because they're middle class and actually work, can't qualify to get the lawyer but it doesn't mean they can afford to go get the lawyer on their own. I'm for one, I'm going to vote for an increase so that we can handle this tangled title stuff. Look, you're giving these people a lawyer is just leveling the playing field. The idea I believe is we should think about how we keep this money in these families. So just saying I was just a little confused. I thought I'd see a little increase going towards the lawyers part of it. MR. DiGREGORIO: Thank you, Councilman. For the legal side of things, we are full scale operational. We're following through with every case as fast as we can. Once we get to the finish line, real estate, transfer tax, inheritance tax, those fees that are somewhat at times non-negotiable with certain entities, that's where we hit the hurdle. So that's why we're continuing to talk to legislators, government grants to try to get funding to dedicate towards those purposes or develop some sort of --
Maybe we need to put some money there so that we could do some grants for these people. I mean, that's the bottom line. Yeah, anything that we can take out of the process that they don't have to pay for it will make it easier for us to keep that house in that family so it gets passed down. MR. DiGREGORIO: Absolutely.
The Chair recognizes Councilmember Cindy Bass. Then Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, Councilmember Rue Landau, Councilmember Jones.
Thank you, Mr. President. I just had a couple of quick questions and some of my questions were mentioned earlier in terms of the hiring and the numbers, but I really wanted to ask your Director of Human Resources Ms. Roseborough to step forward. I had a couple of questions for her. And the first thing I wanted to say is that one thing I've noticed, because my office is up on the 5th floor, when I come downstairs to come to chambers, that 4th floor hallway is always full. And it's full in a way that it's never been before. And through when Donald Tucci was the Register, through when Gordon was the Register and now with you all, there's definitely an uptick in the work that you all are doing. And so, I wanted to ask you about hiring and just really sort of what's the office strategy in terms of managing the needs, because there's a lot of people out there and they start early in the morning and they're there all day long, you know, different people coming and going. But that busyness is happening all day long. So how are you hiring to keep up with the need? And I'm assuming that part of what the ask is for is to make sure that you are able to hire enough people to provide the services to our citizens.
With that being said, with the Real ID situation it's a lot of chaos. So what we need to do, we had to hire at least 15% more than we had at the Register of Wills. So at that point we're sure we have plenty enough people getting into the situation.
Okay. I thought everybody was getting married all of a sudden. I said, oh my, everybody wants to be married now. Okay. And so, it's the Real ID that's driving people to the office --
Okay. But when you're thinking about the strategy of hiring to make sure that you hire people of different ethnic backgrounds, you make sure you have African American and Latino representation, that you have representation from the LGBTQ community and so forth, just talk about what your strategy is and sort of managing all of that?
Well, far as all the different diverse acquisition of (inaudible), we have plenty of -- we have Latinos, we have Asian, we have different people who speak different languages that we do not have a problem at all.
Clearly, it's a part of your strategy. And the numbers that you've given us thus far are promising and I know that there's some question about additional hires that may happen and sort of beefing up those numbers, so we look forward, Council looks forward to working with you all in the future to help you realize what it is that you need to making sure that there's representation from all parts of the city. So thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Member Bass. Playing it safe in the 8th. At this time, I would like to call Councilmember Rue Landau. Then Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and the gentleman from the 4th Councilmanic District. And then we will be -- I'm sorry, Councilman Jones and Councilmember Brooks. I'm sorry. Then we'll go into our second round.
Thank you so much. Thank you all so much for being here. I have a question about Title Clearance Unit and also about fee waivers. So with the Title Clearance Unit, can you explain a little bit more of exactly what role your office plays on this, what your successes have been, what your challenges are? Do you step in the role of basically being the lawyer for the person who isn't income-eligible for legal aid? Wanted to talk about that. And then in more detail for that one, are you still asking people to raise intermediary risk estates? So the loved one dies and they want to raise the estate. But after that person passes, someone else passes, a couple other people pass, you're asking people to raise the estates of the other folks, the heirs, who have post-deceased the deceased. I know this is a practice that doesn't happen in other counties. And so, I'm curious if you could talk about that. And then finally, the fees are quite high at this point. If there's a modest estate family home up to $200,000, it's costing over $490 to raise this estate. Have you thought about establishing some version of an IFP fee waiver process like the Court of Common Pleas does? Thank you so much.
Good morning, Councilwoman. I am Frank Campese, the Chief solicitor here at the Register of Wills. I wanted to address the issue that you've raised regarding our position with respect to these intermediary estates. And I believe we discussed this last year and our reasons and rationale. We have recently attempted to try to circumvent as best we can with the assistance of Orphans' Court to try to appoint a neutral early on in that process. And what that neutral administrator does is able to sort of bypass some of the requirements but eventually they will have to satisfy those requirements. But it makes it I assume get on a quicker track. So that's what we're obviously trying to do. And realize, Councilmember, that these issues are new to us and to all of us, because I feel that the value of these properties obviously in all of our districts, has increased tremendously. So 20 years ago, 23 years ago we weren't discussing 24 this because the value of the home was not as important and there were multi-generational folks living in there. So what we're attempting to do now and because we're in the situation that we're in, in some cases, it's an all case-by-case basis, to see if we can assist by appointing a neutral to start the process quicker. Now, some of these estates are 25, 30 years old, even beyond that. And by law, if it's beyond years the first step is 14 Orphans' Court. So you cannot even 15 come into our offices until you get 16 approval by Orphans' Court. As a 17 private attorney doing this work 18 for a number of years, 19 unfortunately that process -- and 20 it's not their fault. I mean, 21 they're busy like everyone else is busy, but you can file a petition. Sometimes the turnaround time is quicker than others. Sometimes not so much, but you have to start the process somewhere. So it is a long, arduous, costly process that we're trying to assist in our own way. Thank you.
So about the process of raising the intermediary estates is this across the board that you're doing it for everyone? What are the successes? What are the challenges that you're seeing? And also, have you considered an IFP fee waiver?
Councilmember, thank you. But it really depends on the estate. Some of them are easier to handle than others. Every one of these estates has a mind of its own and has a character of its own that we need to address case-by-case. So that's how we're handling that. As far as fees are concerned, we're working with various organizations to either pause those fees or maybe hold on to those fees until the property is sold. And if the property has significant value, obviously when the property is sold the fees can be recouped, but that's an ongoing process that we're still trying to work with.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. I had the same questions as Councilmember Landau.
Thank you, Mr. President. You do notice the bling on Jamie today?
Congratulations, Member Gauthier and Member Rue Landau for completing the Broad Street Run. Let's give them a round of applause. (Applause.)
Thank you so much, Councilmember Jones and Council President. And thank you for having your team out there with water for us and to cheer us on. We really appreciated it. I had the same questions as Councilmember Landau so I won't go through asking them again. But I think you're seeing this morning how important the tangled title issue is for City Council and it has been for several years now. I think that we understand as you do that this is one of the biggest barriers for low-income homeowners accessing wealth and to be able to take advantage of the great home repair and other programs that the City of Philadelphia has available to them. Moreover, this issue impacts my District in a huge way. I think that the 3rd District, if I'm remembering correctly from the Pew report, has the most tangled titles. And I also want to acknowledge our Majority Leader's great work and focus on this issue. And so, we all are in communication with not only you all but the legal service organizations about the barriers to this work. And it's been highlighted that this intermediary estate issue, the fee waiver issue and the email communication issue are some of the biggest barriers for us being able to help people. And so, I think what we're trying to get on record today is that there is a real and concrete commitment from the Register of Will's office to knock down these barriers, right. And I think that's something that we would want to see over the next budget year from you. And so, I'd love for you to just comment on your commitment to that and how maybe we can get to a different place over the next budget year, and then since some of these are state issues I wanted to hear about whether there's been any advocacy at the state level or whether you're planning on any advocacy over the state level to knock down some of these barriers as well?
Thank you, Councilmember. If I can address the issue of what it is our offices are attempting to do to assist the tangled title crisis. So we created this Title Clearance Unit. And as you've heard testimony today, the number of tangled titles I don't feel gives justice to the reality of the situation. So if we assist one tangled title, we untangle a title. You're not just affecting one person. You're affecting 10s, 20s, 30s, maybe more, multi-generational people who with now that total being cleared have the assets to continue to reinvest and protect the family wealth. So when you hear numbers we cleared so many tangled titles in a particular month, multiply that number by 30, 40, 50 people. That's the constituents that we're assisting every day, and that's something that we're continuing and are committed to continue to do. Regarding the state issue, an interesting question arose recently about that very issue because the Register of Wills Office is responsible for collecting inheritance taxes for the Commonwealth. So an issue was raised and brought to the attention of the Commonwealth, well, what about these intermediary estates. Do they have to pay inheritance tax because that's important, right. If you have a situation where the grandmother passes and passes her assets to three children who then passes their assets to six grandchildren, we know that when grandmom dies we have to pay inheritance taxes at the child level of 4.5%. But then we have been told, because we asked that question specifically to the Commonwealth, does that next level have to be paid, so does the grandchild have to pay for their parent. And the answer was a resounding yes. That is something that we are responsible for collecting. So because that is an issue at the state level, obviously we can only do so much in what we're trying to protect, which is to assist --
Just for clarification, I hope I didn't make it sound as if I don't appreciate your work. I do. I want to be very clear about that. Thank you for the work that you've done on every single title that you've cleared. I think what I'm asking is how we do more. As the Council President just highlighted, we are embarking on an ambitious housing plan, but the most affordable home is the home someone lives in. And so, I don't misunderstand that the issue is a state issue. I'm more so asking about if there is advocacy that has been done or that will be done to change that dynamic, and what we can do in the office to also knock down some of these barriers as we attempt to grow the work?
Thank you, Councilmember. And again, we are again assisting all of our constituents with the Tangled Clearance Unit and continue to address is intermediary issues on a case-by-case basis.
I look forward to talking more. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Brooks and Councilmember Jones.
Thank you, Council President. So my questions were on the same lines. So I just have a question also about the tangled titles. I remember last year you guys said it was a two-year backlog. And I heard you say 29 cases were cleared. Where are we with the two-year backlog though?
Thank you for your question. The two-year backlog I believe refers to the PDI program that the previous administration had in place. That program is no longer active. We replaced it with the Title Clearance Unit because that program ultimately deferred probate fees and placed a lien on people's properties, which weren't beneficial to the families. The PDI program also referred cases to the low-income --
Okay. So what happened to the folks that were on that backlog? Did they have to reapply? Were they transitioned into another program? And have we done anything to clear that? Whether it's a different type of program, what are we currently doing and what happened to those folks that were waiting in the midst?
I do not have that information at this time, but I can provide that to you in writing.
Okay. And my next question because I was thinking if we're -- we shouldn't have people repeating systems and cycles over and over again. And if we're good at whatever we're doing now, whatever the current program is we should be focused on making sure people are made whole, whatever that means, family-by-family. And if we're going to make that investment, it should be into programs so low-income folks are able to do that. So that was my question. But just so I can get all my questions on the record, I was wondering what law firms do you use to participate in the resolutions of this event, whether with your office or through Orphans' Court? And I wonder what judges oversee this? And do the law firms get a percentage of the sales of tangled title properties through often Orphans' Court?
We have an attorney on staff that is assisting with the constituents in our program. But as far as your other question --
So you handle all of these things inhouse? You don't contract out to any other law firms outside of the Register of Wills Office?
Thank you, Member Brooks. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Curtis Jones, Jr.
Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you for what you do around the corner from us. I too have noticed the increase in crowds. And I wondered is that in part due to the deportation policy of the Trump administration and how that has impacted your office? That's number one. Number two, I need to know about what are you doing about wills and educating people, not just about tangled titles but about the importance of properly filing a will? I will leave my personal story of me and my brother going through that kind of exercise and how traumatic it can be at the worst time of a person's relationship with a deceased. And then finally third thing, for the 250th anniversary you guys have an archive that precedes this country. The first charter was filed here in this county. And I wanted to know does that 250 celebration in part illustrate some of the historic aspects of your office? Those are the three questions I have.
I'll start off for you, Councilman. Thank you very much for the question. Quickly on what you pointed out about potential reasons for the marriage license and marriage records, unofficially -- I mean, officially people don't have to tell us why, you know what I mean. Only if they ask for expedited because of a passport, that's certainly reason. But there were other reasons or their own personal reasons. We did informally find out a lot of things last year in terms of marriage license, actually people applying for the license, not the record, were some fears regarding not so much the deportation point, just the election. And then there were some of that, but that would be unofficial. That's just kind of a casual observation that we made. So I wouldn't be able to answer that specifically. I'll skip the Wills and we'll probably bring up Roger to speak about that. The A250 we would love to be involved in those things. We are obviously seeking more additional funding for the digitization and preservation of the records. We do have some of that already on display. You could come to our office and we could show you what we have and we feel we could be a big part of that celebration next year with the city. So we would love to do it.
I got to believe that you should be working with Michael Newmuis over there to talk about this being a stop that visitors that are coming to Philadelphia kind of take a look at the historic nature of your office. And before we were a nation, the role we played.
He was in our office. We did have a great conversation. I think you made a great point. I'll bring up Mr. Roger Poe to talk about the Wills, more about our public engagement, how we're getting the word out and he can answer your question regarding that.
Good morning Council President, other Councilmembers, Mr. Councilman Jones. I'm Roger Poe, Director of Communications. I'm not going to assume, but I'm alluding that in the previous administration there was a huge, huge focus on wills and doing them. We've continued to do that. Part of the people that we've hired contractually are doing outreach as well as myself continuing that conversation. I personally have been doing wills workshops every week for different organizations, but that's still an ongoing part of our process.
I'm very glad to hear that we have little understanding as to how the tangled title got tangled. And part of it is because we did not give specific instructions to you and the government and our heirs as to how we wanted property distributed and what our wishes were. And it's the kind of thing that at the point you need it, you wish you did it years ago. So I think it's an important part, particularly in Black and Brown neighborhoods where that kind of emphasis can go generations without being addressed and it's in a brown paper box in the back of the closet when it should be registered with yourself. So is there a marketing strategy, which I know you're very good at, to kind of get that message out there?
Again, we have a curriculum. All of our folks that are in our reach go out and do that. And I'm sure you're aware of the axiom, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of a cure. So, yes, by getting that information, you won't have tangled titles, you won't have these issues because you will have dedicated and specified who the assets go to.
We work with several agencies, as you have referenced here, that don't cost anything if they take you in as a client.
We got to get that out there. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you very much. Just had a question before we go into our second round. You have an initiative, very good initiative called Legacy and Wealth: How Inheritance Shaped America, external project brief for partners and funders. So, one, I want you to give us an update on that particular initiative as we celebrate the 250th anniversary in 2026. And then also, as a part of your strategy regarding the City Hall exhibit, the statewide tour, lecture and panel series, community storytelling initiatives. Then it said public workshops and legal literacy campaign. One, I think that this is a very, very important initiative. So I want to get an idea of the coalition building that you are doing to make sure that this is successful, the partnerships that you're engaging in to make sure this is successful. And then also, it strikes out to me when you talk about legacy and wealth and how inheritance shaped America, I just want to recommend that as you partner with different organizations, you talk about 40 acres and a mule that's owed to African Americans, Black people here in America as it relates to how we help build this country. And also, the issue regarding redlining, particularly around the issue of housing and the role it has played in terms of the inequality of neighborhoods and opportunities for individuals to build generational wealth based upon banks doing redlining here in the city of Philadelphia, in terms of also the housing market. And also last but not least, in terms of partnerships I recommend and I'm going to point to my civil rights housing leader on City Council. On a federal level, it's called the Fair Housing -- what's the name of the actual agency that deals with the fair housing rights?
Not HUD. I'll come back, but I know actually there's a different department. Not particularly HUD because HUD just deal by housing, but there is a federal agency that specifically deals with the Fair Housing Rights Act that makes sure that we're being inclusive and equitable in terms of housing, but I'll make sure I get you the information. But I want to be partners. I think you taking on the inheritance piece in terms of how wealth was built in America is a very, very important issue. And it's an issue that's probably not normally talked about, but you can't talk about it if you don't talk about the role that African Americans have played when we talk about wealth and how pretty much -- I'm not shy to say, when we talk about 40 acres and a mule is because prior to the emancipation of freedom, I mean we probably provided free labor. I think we are the labor movement, to be quite frank, when it comes to building this country. And so, I'm glad that you are doing this. We want to be supportive of you as you do this. When you talk about a City Hall exhibit, when you talk about a statewide tour, when you talk about a workshop, my team will step up to the plate and I'm sure members of Council will support you in those efforts, because most people would dare not talk about inheritance of wealth in this country. And if you're talking about real wealth and how that wealth actually got started for a lot of different people that benefited in this country, I'll be less than a man to really talk about or a leader what this conversation really, really means. So as the leader, Register of Wills John Sabatina, you signed off on it with your team and we're here to work with you on your team to make sure that this is a story told. Because in 2026, it's a lot of advocacy around you know, if we talk about the Betsy Ross House, we got to talk about the Paul Robeson House, right. We had a hearing, which I think was great, at the Civil Rights Museum, which is the American Revolution Museum, which is great, right. But also in Belmont Mansion in Councilman Curtis Jones' District, right, we can also have a roundtable discussion around the Underground Railroad, right. So we just want to make sure as we celebrate the 2026 Anniversary of America, that the role that Black people and other indigenous people and other people of color have played in terms of putting this country on the map, and so far to be quite frank with you, a lot of agencies that have come in front of us seeking funding, I think this is probably one that pretty much that we be direct and have a conversation about it, talks about an issue of social justice and it's a part of your proposal. No one's given us a proposal thus far yet, at least that I've saw that says funding strategy and call to action, civil education and vote engagement, legal aid in estate planning and education, historic preservation and archival work, racial and economic justice, arts, humanities and cultural outreach. And so, just give us an idea where y'all at on this particular initiative moving forward.
Sorry, Council President. I actually summoned someone from downstairs to come up to address this. This is pretty much the author of these plans so I'm going to bring him up right now.
He's on the email, Joe Driscoll. Come on up, Joe. (Witness approached Witness table.)
Good morning, Council President, Councilmembers. It's great to see you.
Good. Give us an idea. I was just talking about this initiative about the inheritance of wealth in America. And I don't know if you were up here, but I just said quite frankly hopefully my recommendation is that when you're doing exhibits in City Hall, you're talking about doing a statewide tour, you're talking about doing workshops and panels, right, particularly as a part of their conversation you talk about 40 acres and a mule with African Americans in terms of the role that we have played in America for 2026, also the role regarding redlining that has taken place in the city of Philadelphia where banks didn't allow individuals to provide home mortgages in certain neighborhoods that resulted in what we see today in the city of Philadelphia and all throughout America. So those are two of the key areas that I believe played a major role in terms of how wealth has been generated in America. And then last but not least, at least from my perspective and I'm quite sure other members are here want to be supportive of this initiative in terms of organizations that we partner with that we recommend that you work with, coalition building around this issue. This is a very, very serious issue that y'all are embarking upon in my humble opinion.
Absolutely, Council President. Legacy and Wealth: How Inheritance Shaped America is about how inheritance shaped America, but it's equally about who gets left out of that promise. And we're not only telling the stories, but we're going to be attacking that through workshops like Roger was just talking about, and through all of the outreach initiatives that we do through next year we're going to include that in here. And so, absolutely who gets left out of this promise of generational wealth is going to be the most heavy focus on this program. So there will be the storytelling. There will be the power plays and who built lots of wealth, but we want everyone to build wealth. And so, this is really about education. This is really about making sure that stories are told and not just the good ones, the folks that have been left out. And so absolutely, Council President, any suggestions you or your staff have on this program we will implement.
All right. Thank you very much. And last but not least, good presentation regarding civic engagement and I see y'all do a lot of work with the school. Have we considered papers such as The Tribune, papers such as the Philadelphia Sun, local newspapers besides the School? It seems like there's heavily support on the School, but not papers such as The Tribune, Philadelphia Sunday Sun, WURD.
Good question, Council President. And you know, you and I have background experience with my media background, so all those are considerations. I don't know how much we asked for, but we might want to just put a few more dollars in our budget for that.
I'm just saying I don't steer. I'm just saying these are things that take in consideration to make sure it's equitable across the board. And I only see one particular paper. And so, I just wanted to put that out there just for the record just making sure you're diverse and inclusive, including WHYY for the record as well and those types of overall far-reaching types of media genres. And so, I just wanted to put that on the record. But I do know for a fact if we're talking about building generational wealth and getting to communities that haven't had an opportunity to build generational wealth as much as others, then you have that type of audience that do read The Tribune, that do read on the Philadelphia Sun, just so something to think about as you think comprehensively regarding your media strategy as well as there's a new radio station called Black Information Network as well that I think it's like a counter -- it's like a cousin to WURD. And also, this helps individuals to learn about tangled titles, again making sure we're just being intentional about reaching the most impoverished individuals in the city of Philadelphia. But again, I just want to say great job on the Legacy and Wealth: How Inheritance Shaped America. And with that being said, the Chair recognizes Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson, Councilman Dr. Anthony Phillips, and then we'll wrap up with Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President. Thank you especially for that line of questioning, and in particular the question regarding the H.O.M.E. Initiative and how the Register of Wills Office is working with the Administration. I know a lot of what we have received is relative to home preservation and helping folks stay in their home. And I'm glad to hear that you all stayed at the most affordable home one has is one that's already in the family. So my request is that you all as an independent ROW office schedule a time to meet with the Administration and let us know the summary of the conversation and what further work comes from that meeting so that we have that information when and as we deliberate this housing initiative. We still have an additional hearing on the housing initiative coming up. And so, it would be really helpful for us to have that information so that we better understand how you all are coordinating with the Administration around homeownership and preservation in particular, because that's a part of the 30,000 units. So I wanted to put that on the record. And you all mentioned several times that because of state law that you weren't able to waive certain fees and do certain things. I wanted to know if you all could give us a list, if you had a wish list of things that we could give to our partners in the Statehouse and in particular in the Philly Delegation regarding our specific needs in Philadelphia around creating some type of waiver program and/or deferring some of the fees, what would that list be? Can you all provide us with a list that we could give to our state partners? MR. DiGREGORIO: Definitely. I mean, out of the fees that are mandated by statute, you know, those are the things that we have struggles with. But maybe increasing the allowance of eligibility through the tangled, title fund, raising that bar. A lot of the grants that we submit for income requirements are attached to, so then we're in the same boat than we were before. Establishing maybe a grant or amnesty program for some of the fees that are related to utilities, inheritance tax, those conversations with the state. They've had amnesty programs in the past, which were successful --
Right. MR. DiGREGORIO: We haven't had one I think maybe in 15 years --
At least. MR. DiGREGORIO: -- so something like that could also help us get over hurdles. And a legislative grant or even a city grant to kind of put us in the parameters of people who are just above the poverty level, but also still struggling in these times. That group as well is something that we struggle with to try to manage and get them over the finish line.
Okay. I would request that you all give us a list that we could share with the state partners to our Council President for dissemination to all members of this Committee so that we can include that as a part of their process as well. I don't think we should be in a circumstance where we say every year, well, the state, the state, the state. And right now we have speaker Joanna McClinton, who is dynamic, our Philadelphia Delegation Chair Cephas, we have Chair of Appropriations in the House, my fraternity brother Representative Jordan Harris who's the best, and then also State Senator Hughes. And so, I think we have enough up in Harrisburg to sort of help us with whether we could do an amnesty program or looking at changing the percentage around AMI for eligibility purposes. I think there's a few things there, that low-hanging fruit that we need to attach to and try to bring those down to help open up more availability for our constituents as we're looking at this housing initiative. And I heard the bell and I'm going to honor the clock, but I did see on in Section 38 of your detail around the state administration that there was an increase over the FY25 estimated obligations to FY26 proposed budget. There's an increase for grants funding. Can you talk about what that grant is for? I think it's an extra 650,000 for state administration in particular. MR. DiGREGORIO: I'll pass that to our Finance Director.
Thank you for the question. So we continue to apply for grants and was the grant amount that we put through the state legislator, so it was increased --
I'm sorry. Can you repeat that? I don't know why I'm having a hard time hearing you.
Yeah. So we continue to apply for grants, whether they're federal or state. So we have conversation with some legislators about potential grants for archives. So it was not a said and done deal. We put in the application but we haven't heard anything. So it's still in the works and was an increase based on conversation with the administration, given the grant amount to include it in the budget detail.
I see. So it's the circumstance of it has a 0 net impact on your budget, but you're waiting to hear back on whether or not you'll have or receive the grant, but you have it there as a placeholder --
Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Council President.
Thank you, Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson.
I apologize for this, Council President. Can I just get this one additional question in?
I apologize for this. I made a notation also on , Section 38 of your detail relative to interpretation. There's a contract for interpretations, Global Language Solutions LLC. It says 5000. And I see there was another contract for FY25 for Powerlang. That was only $1,000 for FY25 but that goes out afterwards. Can you talk to us about how you all are providing interpretation services for constituents for your print materials as well as in the office, you know, individuals who come in who may not speak English as a first language?
Yes. So the two contracts, the Global and the Powerlang they go through the MDO's office so we reach out to the MDO to encumber the funding. We also reserve interpreters for every marriage license appointment or the other services that we have in office. So first, they will book the appointment and then they'll shoot the details and then we'll reserve the interpreter for the specific date and time frame. There was an increase on Global currently because we got some documents, not legal documents but forms translated in Spanish so we are foreseeing invoices coming for those translations. Powerlang is a translation company. We normally don't use them for interpretation. We use Global mostly. But in case of who better has the better rates, you know, we kind of reserve the funding ahead when the new fiscal year kicks in.
I pointed it out because it was only $5,000 and I know that as an example for our hearings if we receive notification for a hearing as an example that an individual needs interpretation services, we have to provide that. And so, I just wanted to make sure that there was an opportunity for our constituents to receive translation services but also that the materials are translated as well and that there's someone -- is there anybody in your office just on your staff that can provide interpretation?
Yeah, so we have bilingual staff in the office. We have Spanish, we have Portuguese, we have Albanian, Italian. So we have all these languages. Just we don't have every other language. And we constantly book interpreters through Global for every appointment. We don't turn down anyone. There are circumstances where we book an interpreter and they might not show up or they double book with a different agency so that's when those circumstances occur. Then staff will step in if they know the language. But depending on the service, we're requiring person interpreter. But we also have the option of the phone line interpretations to provide to clients. And also, we have boards throughout the office with different languages to pinpoint in the right target language. So we constantly book interpreters for every appointment.
Right, I was just asking because I just know how much their hourly rate is and I saw it was only $5,000 for the whole year.
Yeah, I understand that we keep increasing in increments of 1,000. We don't have a lot of funding in Class 200 to dedicate to additional resources. But as we go through the quarters if we have additional funding we increase. But we don't let anyone with our interpretation services, either staff will step in or we constantly book interpreters.
Okay. Meaning that you as an example for FY25, you only utilize $5,000, right?
Okay. I was just making sure because I'm like I know what the hourly rate -- okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau. Then we'll be wrapping up with Councilmember Dr. Phillips.
Thank you. I neglected to give you thanks earlier so I wanted to start with that. I appreciate so much that your brochure on marriage rights is completely gender neutral. And as somebody who got your first same-sex marriage ever in not only the city of Philadelphia but the state of Pennsylvania, I remember how you had a very quick learning curve in your office to not only handle same-sex marriages but to also then really just try to use gender- neutral language for any couple that was coming in to get married. So it was really great to see your brochure recently. Just say you want to get married, come on in, you're all welcome. Appreciate that. But my second thing, I think Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson really kind of handled it. I would very much love to see as much as possible not just relying on grants, but a fee waiver system for lower-income people who can't afford the fees in your office. It's just something I'd be happy to even help you set up. It's essential and we need folks with these houses to keep every dollar they possibly can, so thank you.
Thank you. Two brief follow-up questions, Councilmember Dr. Phillips and then Councilmember Quetcy Lozada. Briefly, please.
Thank you. I just had a quick question. What culturally-specific outreach strategies has the Department found most successful educating heirs on the complexities of probate and the urgency of getting it done? And so, how it's going to be expanded in FY26? So I just had that question?
I'll ask it again. So what outreach strategies has the department found most successful in educating individuals' right, heirs on probate complexities and its urgency?
Primarily just meeting them out where they are, various events, various organizations, churches, senior centers, the pop-ups we're doing in your office out in the District. We're meeting in all the Districts. We're educating all constituent services, people with City Council, with state legislators, federal legislators as well. It's just repetitively making sure that we get the word out.
A point of information then. Mr. Poe, is this your strategy? Is this your comms plan?
Don't be shy. Is this your strategy that you put together, the comms team for the outreach?
I mean, that's how I know you. You do comms, right? From Radio One, right?
Don't say what you and I do. You come from Radio One, right? You do comms?
This is just a follow-up to what Dr. Phillips is saying in terms of the outreach and really meeting people where they're at. And then when I saw this with a picture of Phillips and the Register of Wills Sabatina, I said, okay, this is -- aren't you doing this with state legislators as well? I think I saw Senator Williams doing it as well.
Yes, we are. Yes, we are. But again to the Councilman's credit, that idea was initiated by him and his office so he needs to get the credit for that.
That's why I asked the question because I said we need to have further ideas and innovation to make things like this happen because honestly, I get confused about the probate process, you know. So if I'm confused, I can only imagine --
I only say that because if I get confused about the probate process and I know something about it, then I can only imagine how do you break it down to layman's terms for regular residents and all of your information and data. So it's just something I just want you to think about more strategically of how do you break it down simply for people to understand.
Thank you. And last but definitely not least, Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Thank you, Council President. I just want clarification on my colleague's question. She mentioned that $5,000 was enough for you all for translation services. I know that my office has translated multiple documents for your office. When we met, you all mentioned that there were challenges and that you're trying to work on translation services. So I'm a bit confused now. Is that enough? With the increase in folks that are coming to your office for services as a result of your outreach, is that enough for you all to keep up with the work? And then you mentioned staff that is bilingual but you experience challenges in translating this stuff. So talk to me a little bit about -- help me understand the discrepancies in your testimony and in your materials and in your one-on-one meetings?
So as far as the translation, we can only translate brochures, informational brochures. In terms of being enough, no, it's not enough because we deal with limited sources in Class 200 where the professional services for translations comes in. But as we move towards the fiscal year if we have funding surplus, we'll dedicate it to additional translating brochures or increasing the interpretations. But also staff does a magnificent job in helping constituents, but we also have the Language Line available to us. The 5000 is to start the fiscal year because we got to go through the MDO to reserve the funding to pay for Global because their contract falls under them. But obviously as I mentioned, we can dedicate additional resources if we had more. But if we have a surplus, we dedicate those resources to the interpretation services. And obviously, with the new service there's going to be in an influx and obviously we're going to need more resources to dedicate to interpretation depending on the public request.
Who do you have in your office that translates for you all now?
Who do you have in your office that translates for you now?
So we have Spanish-speaking employees that work in Marriage License or Probate. We have Portuguese- speaking employees. We have people from Asia. They speak Vietnamese, Indian, so our staff goes out depending on the request. Everybody volunteers to help out in terms of public engagement, so they bring that language with them in that community. Now, if we target a specific community, then we'll book an interpreter to go out for that event as well. We'll reach out to Global and give the instructions where to report and what's the event all about. But staff normally if they go out, if there's a bilingual employee that goes out with the public engagement unit, obviously they'll help translate let's say in Spanish if there needs to be or Albanian or Italian, if they're out with the public engagement unit. But normally if they don't, then we'll reserve an interpreter for their event. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Any other questions from members? (No response.)
With that being said, the only follow-up I would like to do with you and your team, Mr. Sabatina and Jewel Williams, is just making a connection with Michael Newmuis regarding 2026 and just making sure that there's a partnership regarding the Legacy and Wealth: How Inheritance Shaped America initiative with the Register of Wills. And so, whatever we can do to forge that partnership with Michael Newmuis and making sure that as he shaped what 2026 looks like, that this initiative is a part of the conversation, and most importantly the rollout plan. And so, want to be helpful from that aspect. MR. DiGREGORIO: Yeah, Council President. Sorry to interrupt you, but we've met with Michael Newmuis and we've had a great meeting with him and having the idea of Visit Philadelphia, our documents, our presentation of documents and developing those stories that you discussed earlier, so we'll definitely circle back with more information on that, but he's seen --
Did y'all get funding for the work that y'all are going to be doing to help roll out what y'all are doing? MR. DiGREGORIO: We submitted what's in our proposal. And also, I think he was going to include it in his proposal to the Administration.
Good. Okay. All right. Because meetings are great. Funding is even better. So with that being said, thank you very much for your time. Sabatina, Sr., continue to keep up the good work with you and your team. Thank you very much. And also, shout-out to Lou DiRenzo. I know he's retiring. And so, I know y'all are sending him away for all the great work that he's done working under the Office of Register. So with that being said, we will be adjourned until the afternoon session at 1:30. (Lunch recess.)
We will continue our Committee of the Whole Budget hearing. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the next panel to testify.
We will have Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson, Health Commissioner, and we'll also call up Dr. Marquita Williams, Interim Commissioner for DBHIDS. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Good afternoon. Please state your title and please begin your testimony. And for the afternoon session, members, we have the Health Department and the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disabilities.
Good afternoon, Council President. My name is Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson and I am the Health Commissioner and I have here with me, Ashley Clark Jackson, our Deputy Commissioner/Chief Financial Aid Officer for the Health Department.
Good afternoon, everybody. I am Dr. Marquita Williams, Interim Commissioner for the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services. And I have with me Deputy Commissioner Dr. Tierra Pritchett and Interim Deputy Commissioner Amanda David.
Thank you very much and please begin your testimony -- give me one second. I just wanted to make sure if the two of you could bring your microphones in and speak directly into the microphone.
A little bit, but you maybe have to adjust it up a little bit.
All right. Thank you very much. Please begin your testimony again, either one of you.
I'll go first, sir. Good afternoon, President Johnson and members of City Council. I am Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson, Health Commissioner. Joining me today are Sarah and as Thorpe, Chief of Staff; Ashley Clark, Jock Jack Johnson, excuse me, Chief Financial Officer, Dr. Frank Franklin, Deputy Health Commissioner and our Division Directors. I am pleased to provide testimony on the Department of Public Health Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget. The proposed FY26 budget will continue to support our mission to protect and promote the health of all Philadelphians and to provide a safety net for our most vulnerable. You have my full written testimony so I will summarize the proposed Fiscal Year 2026 General Fund budget totals, 161,389,004. It is an increase of $6,186,599 over Fiscal Year 2025 estimated obligation levels. The increase is due primarily to $6,652,616 funding to support our health center expansion to increase capacity and provide increased access to health care in Northeast Philadelphia. The department is requesting 1,091 budgeted positions across all funds for FY26 and that is an increase of nine positions over FY25. The increase is attributed to one General Fund position, three hospital assessment tax-funded positions and five grant-funded positions. The mission of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health is to protect and promote the health of all Philadelphians and to provide a safety net for people who are disproportionately impacted by societal factors that limit their access to health care and other resources necessary for optimal health. We want Philadelphians to thrive, not just survive. Our work activities include -- I'm sorry. Our core values are based on our three pillars: Integrity, commitment and accountability across the department. Our work activities include providing primary care services to Philadelphians, promoting vaccination for children and adults, preventing the spread of HIV, investigating outbreaks of disease, inspecting restaurants, preventing lead poisoning, combating air pollution and creating safer air quality, reducing infant and maternal mortality, promoting the health of young children and preventing heart disease and cancer by promoting healthy eating, physical activity and smoking cessation. We also work very diligently to control the rat population in the city. Key highlights from this past year include: In 2024 we launched our Philly Joy Bank pilot designed to improve birth outcomes and support overall well-being of pregnant Philadelphians. We have enrolled 250 participants and families. We are continuing our work on injury and violence prevention using evidence-based approaches with youth-serving organizations. We are also working with other city departments on the Mayor's Vision Zero goals. And many of our divisions, including the division of Disease Control, air management services, environmental health services and our public health lab are preparing for the special events and festivities that are coming up later this summer and in 2026. These divisions ensure proactive prevention of diseases so that everyone can enjoy the festivities and be safe. We have a robust infrastructure with years of experience from our work during the papal visit, the DNC and other such activities. Our division of HIV Health has been assisting with transitional housing for people living with HIV. We have also received additional funding to help with our lead hazard remediation in homes where children have been lead poisoned. Our air management services division has implemented a training program for scrap yard operators working with Licenses and Inspections to prevent fires. Our Medical Examiner's Office has been working on conducting advanced DNA testing to help identify next of kin for long- term unidentified decedents. Our Ambulatory Health Services Division has been continuing to add capacity and services within AHS operations and continuing the improvement of our existing health center facilities.
Lastly, our core admin services have been diligently working towards filling vacancies, conforming contracts, procuring needed items and making sure that our Health Department facilities are in good repair for all Philadelphians. I thank you, Council President and members of Council, for your continued support of the Public Health Department and I am happy to answer any of your questions at this time. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Dr Marquita, please begin your testimony.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon again, President Johnson and members of City Council. I am Dr. Marquita Williams, interim Commissioner of the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services. Joining me today are Dr. Tierra Pritchett, Deputy Commissioner, who oversees the Division of Administration, Finance and Quality and Amanda David, who oversees the Behavioral Health Division. I am pleased to provide the testimony for DBHIDS's Fiscal Year 2026 budget. In April of 2024 I became the interim Commissioner for DBHIDS. My work with the department spans over years and I have had the privilege of serving in various roles throughout my time. I give you this context because I have seen the tremendous work that DBHIDS has done over the years to evolve the behavioral health landscape in Philadelphia and to a model behavioral health system across the country. I wanted to take this opportunity to say how proud I am to have worked alongside and now lead my fellow colleagues in work that they are personally committed to and invested in. We are together a strong DBHIDS. You've been provided with our full testimony. So today I will highlight our 2025 updates on the transformation of our crisis system, the expansion of our provider network to diversify and include more providers of diverse backgrounds, the partnerships that we have with other city agencies to serve the city's most vulnerable residents and finally, how DBHIDS is supporting the Mayor's vision of a safer, cleaner and greener Philadelphia with access to economic opportunities for all. The DBHIDS mobile crisis teams include four providers: Elwyn, PATH, the Consortium and JFK. These providers manage up to 29 adult community mobile crisis response teams hours per day seven days per week across Philadelphia. Each provider is responsible for a geographic region and their work is to respond and deliver immediate support in communities for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. This critical resource has helped to reduce the need for law enforcement involvement when an individual is having a behavioral health-related crisis. Between January 2023 and February 2025, approximately 14,793 dispatches were recorded and that number continues to grow. A significant part of our crisis system capacity-building effort was the expansion of our Philadelphia Crisis Line. DBHIDS has expanded PCL staffing to meet the anticipated needs of the 988 hotline. PCL now handles about 6000 calls per month providing telephonic crisis intervention, clinical consultation and seamless dispatch of mobile crisis teams when a person is in need of support. Additionally, the collaboration between 988 and 911, which colocates 988 counselors in the 911 radio room, has led to a 36% increase in warm transfers of behavioral health calls from 911 to 988 during the same period mentioned. This ensures that individuals in crisis receive the appropriate mental health services swiftly and effectively. In January 2023 through February 2025, 4,288 calls has been transferred from 911 to 988. In September of 2024, we also established the city's first adult behavioral health urgent care center located at 3125 North Broad. In the first five months of operation between September 2024, and January 2025 the Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center conducted 1,113 service encounters, reducing the need for more acute crisis intervention. Overall we understand that meeting the needs of people in crises across the city must be coordinated strategically and effectively to continue to save lives. In terms of our providers connectedness, related to identifying key areas of high need, the department has proactively sought to include providers of diverse backgrounds to ensure that the options of service for people seeking our help is representative of them and their communities.
This work specifically evolved from our efforts to address and support youth living in areas of the city heavily impacted by gun violence. So in late 2023 we convened 17 organizations working on the front lines of violence prevention and mental health services in their communities. Many of these organizations provide both traditional and nontraditional interventions that meet people at the level of their need and help to transform the experience of the people that they serve. Currently these providers continue to meet bimonthly with DBHIDS and the CBH leadership and are able to present various culturally-informed models and are helping to recreate new programming and barrier-free access to our service system. Additionally, over the last two years CBH increased access for care for members by opening the provider network for the first time in 14 years. This action allowed for more Medicaid-licensed providers for services to Philadelphians in need. We see this as an important step in ensuring that our network truly reflects the diversity of Philadelphians' needs and the individuals we serve. In terms of our partnerships with other city departments, DBHIDS partners with multiple agencies and departments across the city of Philadelphia including, but not limited to, the Office of Homeless Services, the Philadelphia Housing Authority, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, the Philadelphia Police Department, the Streets Department, the Department of Human Services, Parks & Rec, the Managing Director's Office and several others, also with local hospitals and programming to serve the city's most vulnerable residents experiencing homelessness and whose lives and families are impacted by a variety of behavioral health challenges. In FY24, DBHIDS's homeless outreach team engaged over 9,200 unique individuals living on the street across the city. Homeless Outreach worked tirelessly and made 38,594 contacts with these 9,200 individuals working to build lasting relationships to facilitate placement acceptance. Their efforts resulted in 2,464 unique individuals or 23% accepting housing and/or behavioral health treatments. The DBHIDS mobile outreach and recovery resources team supports the city's neighborhood Wellness Court and other court systems. The Moore CDC program provides case management to our neighbors in need and helps to increase adherence to substance use treatment and the recovery supports continuum of care. In addition, our Behavioral Health and Justice Division is a crucial tool in our service delivery system. It serves as a centralized referral system for justice partners, including the District Attorney's Office, the Defender's Association and the First Judicial Court District. Our justice partners are able to make referrals for individuals they think would benefit from connection to behavioral health treatment and social determinants of health resources. BHJD navigators screen and assess the needs of individuals referred and ensure appropriate referrals are made to available resources. This portal plays a significant role in ensuring that individuals in need are connected to the right services at the right time. Approximately 500 referrals are made through the portal annually. Our behavioral health system also works in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia by supporting children in schools and in their homes. Services include SAP programs, which are provided in every district-operated charter and parochial school across the city, and a host of prevention programs addressing mental health and substance use disorders, such as a number of programming, Girls Circle, Too Good for Drugs and a Positive Turn. Lastly, our work supports Mayor Parker's priority of creating a safer Philadelphia. Our outreach teams are on the street every day, engaging people with mental health and substance use disorders.
Our Community Wellness Engagement team meets with community members and businesses to educate and support their connection to services for themselves and their communities. Our Network of Neighbors teams meet with communities impacted by violence to connect them to the services that mitigate the impacts of these traumas. Our Trauma to Triumph program seeks to break the cycle of violence that have trauma as their root cause. DBH partners across city departments and with a number of community-based organizations and providers to implement the behavioral health services and programs across the complete wellness ecosystem. In conclusion, DBHIDS plans to continue these initiatives in Fiscal Year 2026. We are firmly invested in bettering our best every day. The support of City Council has been crucial in helping to address the profound challenges to behavior, wellness and a trauma that has so widely impact Philadelphians. We appreciate the opportunity to highlight the work of DBHIDS, and my colleagues and I are ready to respond to questions that you may have. Thank you so much for your support.
Thank you and thank you, Dr. Williams, for your hard work and I appreciate you taking on the role as Interim Director, although I would push you to be permanent if that was something that would be in your vision. But nevertheless, we appreciate the hard work that you have been doing and I know the Mayor and her team are listening. And so, yeah, I think you should make her permanent.
So thank you for your passion. Thank you for your commitment. And also, you've always just been on the case. I know you've welcomed me through the process of the possibility of bringing virtual trauma support to our young people and showing me the ins-and-outs of that process, but most importantly just staying on the case. And so, I just want to personally thank you for that. And also, Devan White also for being a liaison and talking to members of Council and keeping us abreast on all the great things that your department is doing. And so, I wanted to take a moment to ask a couple questions. First, starting with Dr. Nelson. And, Dr. Nelson, you're new to your position, and thank you for stepping up to the plate and taking helm of an organization that's critically important when it comes to health equity in the city of Philadelphia. And I know during COVID if we learned anything regarding the inequality of how health support is throughout the city of Philadelphia, that definitely showed us that we need to make sure that we're keeping health equity as a number one priority. So also, thank you. Quick question though, just going over a variety of different things that was mentioned, Dr. Nelson, in your presentation, we talked about air quality for environmental equity, health infrastructure, public health planning and events, federal policy and funding changes, community safety and business regulation, maternal and infant health, access to health centers, child-led exposure, substance use prevention, harm reduction, and I wanted to get an idea, I worked with Dr. Ruth Abaya in the past regarding the issue of gun violence and also with my colleague Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, we came up with the Injury Prevention Dashboard. That's what we fought for as one of our budget priorities. And although we had a historical low when it comes to gun violence and homicides, we still have saw an increase in juveniles being arrested and prosecuted as adults for gun violence. And so, we want to continue the mission of addressing gun violence as a public health epidemic as we have in the past administration. And just wondering what is this administration's position? Because based upon your testimony, we're not talking about gun violence. We're not talking about gun violence as a public health epidemic. And so, just giving us an idea from your perspective where we're at with your agenda. We work with a coalition of different hospitals such as Temple, such as CHOP, such as Drexel particularly on gun violence. I want to see where your agenda is since it's not mentioned or the Administration's agenda since it's not mentioned in your testimony?
Sure, Councilmember. So while I've been Health Commissioner for about four months now, I have been with the department for 29 years. And our gun violence injury prevention work is folded within our Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention. While Dr. Ruth Abaya has moved on to other positions, we're still continuing that work within our Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention and looking at -- we're also working with the office of or Adam Geer's group on different facets of how we can support the work that's being done, along with working with Dr. Williams and the kind of the Mayor's focused on breaking down silos. Having been in city government for 29 years and worked with folks side-by-side, it makes it a lot easier to reach across to another department and say, hey, this is the work that we're doing, you know, how do we continue this work and move it forward. So we are in the process of setting up some additional meetings and kind of getting a sense of what are the activities that we need to launch out, especially we know during the summer months things get escalated.
So let me give you some grace because you just got used to -- how many months?
Four months. Okay. At some point in time in the future I want to get a more thorough idea on where you're at specifically around gun violence, shootings, homicide, addressing the issue of trauma, right, and making sure we continue to address gun violence as a public safety health epidemic. And even though I know you're just there four months, right, but you've been there in that position for how many years?
I started off as a health inspector so I came up the ranks so I've been here, but we'll get you a full answer of the work that we're doing in terms of that.
Because everything else is mentioned in your testimony but gun violence as a health epidemic or any work related to gun violence. And so, it's glaring just based upon the work that this body has done. And normally, when the Health Department is in front of us we get a chance to address that particular type of issue. And so, that's all I have.
Okay. And we're partners in this. And so, however we can be supportive that's how we work as a unit, particularly with Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and myself around this particular topic of gun violence. Thank you. So who'll be leading this session is Councilwoman -- the Chair of Health Councilwoman Dr. Nina Ahmad, but I'm going to just use a minor personal privilege because she has to leave immediately after she asks her question, so Minority Leader Kendra Brooks. And then I'm going to divert the rest of this conversation through the Chair of Health which is Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad. The Chair recognizes -- oh, she's not here. Oh, okay. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you all for being here and for doing so much important and critical work for the well-being of Philadelphians. If we are not healthy, we can't do anything else, whether it's -- and health is the intersection of many things, mental health, physical health, financial stability, food security, housing, environmental justice. All of these things contribute to our health. But I wanted to focus in on something that was mentioned around the Joy Bank. You said you had 250 participants in the Joy Bank. Could you elaborate more on what your findings are, whether this was a successful pilot, what the plans are for doing more than those three zip codes? Do we have resources to do that? And what is the fundamental finding around implicit bias and maternal care that you might have discovered through this process?
Sure. So, Councilmember, the Philly Joy Bank began last year in 2024 in the summer and we have since that time enrolled 250 individuals. However, we're not quite at the place or a moment to fully evaluate yet. It's not been enough time, but we are working on the evaluation plan and can absolutely share the results once the evaluation is completed. We haven't quite reached a full annual cycle.
Any highlights you can share before we go to the actual formal report because I keep talking about the Joy Bank and I don't have any data to sort of underpin what I'm saying. So I would love to hear this even if it's at this moment, anecdotal from your perspective, because there's a whole conversation about how we work in human services, serving communities who are but for poverty of great families but that has become an issue in how we do child removal. So is there extrapolation of sort of what the Joy Bank finds and can we do something similar in some other areas, which is why I'm so interested if you can share any highlight, which we won't hold you to until the final report is out?
Absolutely. Well, I know one of the highlights that is up and coming is we're going to have the celebration for the first year of the program completion. So that is a big highlight. I think the other major highlight to think about is the fact that when you hear a program that gets initiated within not even a full 12 months, we have 250 participants already enrolled within the program. So those are definitely on the preliminary major highlights. There are so many times public health programs that get put in place and then you don't have participation and you don't have active participation, so we have full-on active participation and we can get you some additional details.
That would be great. My next question quickly is about vaccinations. The testimony did not explicitly mention vaccinations, but we know that the department has a focus on infectious diseases like measles, H5N1, could you elaborate on vaccination initiatives that DPH is planning for 2026 to prevent these and other diseases? I am particularly concerned about the drop in childhood immunizations and I would like you to comment on the target rate and where are we in Philadelphia.
Sure. So first and foremost, there's no 4 drop in immunization rates for our city. We're still staying steady at our high vaccination rates and we are continuing to do our work through our health centers and also partnering with other local juris -- the School District of Philadelphia and others to get as many children and adults vaccinated as possible.
So we're reaching our target rates as we did in the previous year?
Is there overall reduce in rate for the region of Southeast Pennsylvania which will of course impact us because there are no real borders for viruses?
So is there any difference in the target vaccination rate for surrounding counties, not necessarily Philadelphia that you're aware of?
So in order to determine where we are compared to other surrounding counties, we will have to go ahead and get those results back over to you because that is a fairly complicated question and we need to go ahead and work with the state health department to get that --
Only because we know nationally it has dropped. That is a fact. Obviously I would like to know how well-prepared we are, even if right now we're seeing not an impact because it'll be impacted by people around us in different counties.
Our rates haven't dropped, Councilmember. And we're staying steady and we're continuing the work that we have been doing.
Can you just tell us what are the initiatives you take normally for vaccination rates to stay where they are? What was your general practice?
So generally, we work on vaccinations through our health centers. We also inform pediatric providers about the various needs of vaccinations. Most recently the Children's Hospital Philadelphia wants to do an event to get more folks vaccinated in the Lower Northeast area with our various populations so we're partnering with all of the folks that we possibly can to get the additional vaccinations done. And we have our Vaccine for Children program that we've continued and we will continue.
The reason why I'm on this issue of vaccinations, we're going to have a huge influx of visitors coming next year. And so, I just wanted to know how are we prepared for folks. We have no idea what their status is, vaccination status is and what can we anticipate to make sure Philadelphians stay safe at least on this front?
Sure. We can have Jessica Caum, our Division Director for Disease Control, come up and talk. But I just want to say one thing before she comes up and that is, our children are vaccinated and they'll be vaccinated at the same rate. I understand the concern about, you know, folks coming to visit us from all over the place. And while we may not know their vaccination status, our best defense is our offense of getting our folks vaccinated and making sure that vaccines are available for all of the folks that need the vaccinations.
Okay. Is she going to come up and tell us? (Witness approached Witness table.)
Good afternoon. I just wanted to address the question about preparedness for next summer's events. So we have convened internally several of our divisions to start planning. We have also convened a regional surveillance group where we are working with surrounding jurisdictions and the state of New Jersey to prepare for the events of next summer. And this surveillance group in particular will be working on identifying all of the diseases that may be occurring in the countries where we expect to have visitors, and we'll be notifying all the health care providers in our city to let them know about things that they should be aware of with respect to clinical presentation for various illnesses that may be happening at that time. I think we can anticipate now some things we might see, and certainly measles is something that we would want to be prepared for, but we'll also need to see what other outbreaks may be happening next year in order to notify health care providers. So we will notify them through something called the Health Alert Network. So the HAN, which is a national system, and we have a local system as well so we will notify all of those providers again about what to be on the lookout for. We will provide additional tools that they can use to make sure that if anyone is presenting to local emergency departments, that those providers are aware and have guidance as how to manage them. And part of our participation in the surveillance group is with representation from our hospitals through the health care coalition.
Thank you. I know the bell rang. Just last one question around communicating this plan and this sort of preemptive move to our communities. People are not following all your surveillance methods. So I just wanted to know what is the community outreach program under way, amongst maybe other things that you're telling people about the importance of vaccination and at the same time saying we are ready, prepared because this gives confidence in Philadelphia, and we want our communities to feel that.
Well, we have a few mechanisms for communicating with our communities. One, in our Division of Disease Control is something called the Community Response Partner Network, which is a list of hundreds of community- based organizations who we send regular newsletters to, regular communications out to, to make them aware of things that they should be on the lookout for. So most recently we have sent communications out regarding measles, as we have had a couple of cases occurring and have done a lot of work in order to contain transmission of those cases. That's a network that we will use next summer to alert all of our communities about activities that will be happening and things that they should be aware of. We also have mechanisms to do neighborhood canvassing as well as canvassing of early childhood education centers, community organizations. And one area that we have also looked at and have been working on actively, especially with respect to measles, has been urgent cares. They are not traditionally folded into all of the other communication networks. And so, we actually will send staff out to the urgent care networks across the city to provide materials and make sure that they are also well-prepared to recognize any diseases of concern that may present in those locations.
Council President, I'll have my second round for Dr. Marquita Williams. I didn't get to that at all. So thank you for giving me so much time.
Thank you. And at some point in time I'm sure you're going to talk about vaping and popcorn laws?
Yes. We're talking to them all the time right now. We should be putting our hearing back --
I'm going to stay in my lane, but I do want to hear more about the popcorn laws and the devastation --
I can do that now if you want to indulge me now. Okay. Yes, should I go ahead?
Okay. As you know, your department has been working very closely with my office to talk about the bill we have under way to increase fines for retailers who violate selling vaping products and other tobacco products to our youth under and 14 I wanted to kind of look at why we 15 are doing this from a medical 16 perspective, the idea about this 17 irreversible popcorn lung situation 18 that occurs in young people and how 19 serious it is, because the hearing 20 we had really had young people come 21 to us and tell us you have to do something. And this is our response to their request because they're watching their peers really get impacted. And if you could speak to the addictiveness of these vaping products because these are pure nicotine versus what we got in a tobacco form smoking cigarettes, and where the Health Department is on this matter because we continue to see huge targeting of young people, particularly in underserved, underresourced communities and they're taking advantage of that?
Absolutely. So for the record, tobacco and nicotine specifically there's a warning label that says if you use this, it's going to kill you. And the tobacco industry has been very stealthy in the way that they do advertising. So as cigarette smoke and cigar smoke and other things started becoming less in vogue, they started doing vaping. They had issues and court cases that they lost associated with tobacco products, they started doing vaping. Vaping and JUUL are not necessarily as heavily regulated as tobacco products, for us at the Health Department and the tobacco industry traditionally hooks people while they're young. Okay. So if I think back to my youth, the going ad then was you've come a long way baby with Virginia Slims, right, making it look very attractive, very the in thing. Now, the newest thing are the JUUL products. So as the Health Department we have to be committed to prevent -- we can prevent people from getting hooked, from our youth from dying, our youth from getting chronic diseases. So we are working not only with your office, not only -- we have two divisions within our department that handle specifics with tobacco and tobacco and vaping and JUUL regulations and everything; our Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention Division and our Environmental Health Services Division, which is our enforcement arm that goes out. We've worked with the Law Department. We're able to do everything from issuing code violation notices, which are tickets, to doing cease operations if folks are selling to youth, to closing businesses down for 14 days if they've had infractions multiple times. So we are committed to doing this work and working with the youth. We have funding from the JUUL settlement and we are working with Finance to increase the media campaigns and to do the anti -- there was a lot of truth -- I don't know if anybody remembers those ads, the Truth about Tobacco ads that were in place about maybe eight or nine years ago that were very effective to prevent youth from doing smoking cigarettes. So our goal is to use part of the settlement dollars towards advertising education and then also the enforcement work that we need to.
Are you keeping track of any data that shows what the rate looks like, where they're happening most? I know you have heat maps and all. Can you just tell us for the record where do you see the most sales, unauthorized sales or illegal sales happening in the city of Philadelphia?
Councilmember, that's very challenging to answer only because there's about 2500 or so places that have a tobacco permit in the city, right. We have no way of capturing those folks that sell tobacco products that don't have a permit and they're just selling because they're just selling. We have no way of knowing that.
Correct, correct. And so, it's like any other activity people can, you know, we have no way of knowing how many people sell water bottles during a hot summer day on the street because they're not a regulated entity. They're not permitted. They're not licensed. But for the establishments that are permitted, we do inspect them. They get annual inspections. We work with the Law Department as well as Licenses and Inspections.
So I think you articulated the problem. We don't know what we don't know and how can we address that along with our law enforcement along with L&I maybe region-by- region? We have a sense of where they are most in Philadelphia. It's not all over. It's not in Chestnut Hill. It's not in Old City. It is in specific regions. We know what those zip codes are. So since we know that, what is our targeted way of addressing so those children know that we love them because we are putting resources, we are stopping those smoke shops, we are holding people accountable because that's what the children of Philadelphia told us to do. And I just wanted to know how are we going to get there? It's not impossible. If we can go to the moon and we have all these people coming and going, we can know where these smoke shops are and we can have a much more proactive program to address that. So I would like to know what we are doing from multiple -- not just Health but maybe Health coordinates, what is our effort to really crack down on that?
Sure. And, Councilmember, you know, I'm a firm believer the word impossible is broken down to I am possible. So anything is probable and possible. And so, what we are doing is we've received complaints, right. A lot of these illegal shops are on a complaint basis. So because we have partnered with and have been working with the Mayor's Nuisance Task Force and we work with L&I, the PPD, if there's alcohol involved, we work with Liquor Control Enforcement and everything and there are monthly meetings. In the interim, we do we do conduct joint inspections. Different departments have different authority. And so, we work together collaboratively and our staff go out in the field with their staff, the different department staff and we conduct inspections. And when we see evidence, because we need to see evidence of it, we take the appropriate enforcement activity, whether that's cease operating the establishment, if there's other behavior happening PPD goes with us and addresses that as well. So those are the sorts of activities that we're engaged in and we are tracking those activities through the nuisance PhillyStat360.
Could you please share that with Council President to show these concerted coordinated efforts have resulted in X --
-- I would like to know that our tax dollars are being used to protect our children.
All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I'll reserve my questions for Dr. Marquita for the next round.
Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman. Chair recognizes Councilmember Harrity followed by Councilmember O'Rourke.
Thank you, thank you. Thank your for the work you do. The work you guys do is for our most vulnerable population and it doesn't escape us here in City Council. We have a big respect for the work you guys do. That being said, this week The Inquirer reported this week that Judge Simmons was ready to shut down the program over frustrations with the lack of coordination and communications from the Administration. The Administration says the changes and delays were due to administrative protocols that we need to be resolved. In your opinion, what is the biggest obstacle in streamlining the process to get people into the Wellness Center program? We're all committed to this work, especially us in the Kensington Caucus. For us it's about getting people into this wellness ecosystem and giving them a chance to succeed. What are your views so far because you guys are working as part of that, correct?
Correct. So what do you see as an obstacle or something that we can do to streamline the process? Because in reality, it's about getting people into recovery and the easier we can make that, the more people will have that will succeed. So just trying to see if you guys had any wishes or what you have seen so far that we can rectify, you know, administrative stuff, that stuff we can fix that.
I think any time that there is a new initiative in the pilot phase those initial months of all the teams working together, this is an initiative that's led by Public Safety, Managing Director's Office inclusive of partners like DBHIDS, I really think it's the time that it takes to bring a pilot to full bloom and to make sure that we are addressing all of the kinks as they come. That's the stage that we're in, right. I think that it's really sort of like par for the course in terms of implementing new programming. And I think that if everybody continues to come to the table and work together to make sure that there aren't these barriers to people being able to come into court and then move from that court process into treatment, if that's what's indicated, you know, so that's what it will become and we'll be able to scale it up for five days.
Yeah, we're looking forward to scaling it up to five days. All right. That's all I have. And again, I thank you for all the work you're doing. Look forward to working with you to get this situation moving in the right direction. But I really do feel that this Wellness Village is one of a kind. Once we work the kinks out, this is going to help a lot of people and give a lot of people the opportunity that they wouldn't have normally had. Again, always talking about people, places and things for us addicts is what helps -- you know, is what hurts us. So by not having to go back to the place we came from right away gives us more time to be able to deal with the realities of being sober. So I thank you for your work.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for all of your support. I mean, if you look back in history at programs where these revolutionary state-of-the-art programs, it takes time to sort of move outside of maybe some of our traditional ways of being, to implement new ideas, to get everybody on the same and to make it work for the outcomes of everybody involved. So I think you're absolutely right, and we're committed to continuing to support the Administration as well as all of the individuals in Council to make sure that people have what they need when they need it. So thank you for your support.
Chair recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke, followed by Councilmember Lozada.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being here. Good afternoon. The services that you provide are critical to ensuring access to care for Philadelphia's most vulnerable residents, including the uninsured, including the undocumented, including the poor. Given the looming federal threats to Medicaid and to SAMHSA funding, I'm deeply concerned about the impact on health care access in our city. Dr. Williams and Dr. Raval-Nelson, have your departments engaged in any scenario planning or financial modeling to assess the potential impact of these cuts?
So absolutely, that's one of the things that keeps us up, right. Because we know that 40% of Philadelphians, around 600,000 people, are eligible for Medicaid here and potential cuts can be catastrophic for us. And so, we have been doing continuity planning, looking at if there is a cut, where potentially would that cut come from, what are the services that would be impacted, what would access look like for those individuals, families, children, whole communities, if that was to happen. And then looking at our provider network to see now where are there places that we can think about cost-saving, cost-sharing, constriction of the network in anticipation of something happening that obviously none of us want to happen, but in an effort towards thinking it through in the event that there are some cuts. And so, we've done that internally, but we've also started talking to our provider network about it. And in fact, later on this month we're supposed to go back to the provider network to include them --
And two things, number one, can you make sure that you're speaking into the mic so the stenographer can hear --
-- and number two, can you be a little more concise in your answers because --
-- the Councilman has a limited amount of time and so do the other members and they really want to get a lot of their questions in and we're already at past our time.
What you shared is actually good to hear. Could you talk more about which services in particular would be at risk under the most-likely- cut scenarios and from what you know already, and then which communities would be most impacted? And I'd also appreciate if you could forward information about the planning that you guys have been able to compile herefore and it sounds like you have some more to do --
Councilman, I'm going to give you another minute because I know I interrupted and some things weren't actually heard on the record so we're going to give you a little more time. Sorry about that, Councilman.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your indulgence. If you could forward the information about the planning to the Council President at your own convenience, that'd be super helpful as well.
Absolutely, we can do that. Thank you. And can you repeat the last part of your question?
Yes. if you could pinpoint the communities that are impacted, if you would like to talk more about which services are actually at risk as a result of these cuts? And then which communities would be most impacted in particular? That would be good for us to know in terms of what you all are seeing coming down the pike.
Absolutely. Thank you. We can get that to the Council President's office.
All right. That'd be super helpful. I'll try to get one on and then pass on the mic for Public Health. So last year our office and many advocates raised concern over the Parker Administration's announcement that they would not include any funding for syringe exchange programs in their FY25 budget. The Council passed a budget that reduced funding for syringe exchange programs by nearly $1 million and many health care experts said that Philadelphia should brace for "a spike in HIV and other bloodborne diseases." Couple of questions: Has the department tracked any changes in rates of HIV, of Hepatitis C or other bloodborne illnesses since the funding cuts took effect? If so, what are the trends? And are you aware of whether the organizations previously funded to oversee syringe exchange programs were actually able to identify alternate funding sources? You may not know that but I wanted to ask.
Sure. So the funding was shifted away from the harm reduction section of syringe exchange and our Division of HIV Health as well as our Divisions of Disease Control and Prevention, we've been monitoring the number. We have been keeping track and we can get you a full update about where the prevent -- you know, where we are with the HIV data and --
You don't have any of that data on hand at the moment?
I can look through our division of -- our budget was changed around a little bit, the time frame. Our HIV director is not here today, but I can absolutely get you that in a few minutes. The rates have not spiked as we had anticipated. They have not, but we are keeping a close look at it. One of the reasons for that is that we've been focused on other upstream solutions. So what can we do in terms of PrEP and and other sorts of solutions to prevent the infections from happening.
Thank you, Doctor. I heard the bell. And I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair. I'll come back around for the second round.
Thank you, colleague. And I too look forward to that data to see if we've seen any spikes or anything in that capacity. Chair recognizes Councilmember Lozada, followed by Councilmember Gilmore Richardson and then Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you both for being with us. First, I want to make sure that I extend my gratitude to Commissioner Raval-Nelson and Sarah for always being present in the 7th Council District. We had quite a ride at the beginning when I first arrived here and we were trying to talk about the need for more health centers and that still hasn't changed, right. We're still having those conversations and we still have the need. I just want you to for the record talk about the importance of the new health center that we are looking to see happen at Frankford Transportation Center. What are some of the challenges that we're still experiencing? And do you see this project as a project that will continue to be a priority, not just for Council and the residents but for the city and the Administration?
Sure. So we know based on the population and the demographics of the Northeast, we know that in the city of Philadelphia -- and I'm going to try to keep it brief but get it on the record -- of all of the health centers we have eight health centers, though the numbers are a little bizarro but we have eight centers. We have one health center that is on Cottman Avenue that serves the entire Northeast. The average wait time for a child is six months for an appointment and the adult wait time is over a year. So the Northeast is a health care desert and the population is as such that they don't have the capacity to go all over the city to seek care. So it is definitely a need. We are working, as the Councilmember is aware, to get the legal documents in place to move forward with the design phases and of the health centers.
Thank you. And then you just mentioned that the spread of HIV did not change or did not go up as a result of the changes that this Administration has made. Can you tell me what we are going to continue to do to ensure that the population that desperately needs those services continue to receive them while still responding to the quality of life in the neighborhood of Kensington Harrowgate?
So we are going to continue to do all of the outreach and the work that we do, whether it's with our partners at DBHIDS, our SUPHR Division, which is the Substance Abuse Division, whether it's our disease control folks that go out to do vaccinations on foot. So we're going to continue to do all of that work. Our division of HIV Health is working collaboratively with our SUPHR Division to monitor the rates of HIV, and they're putting together a process plan for, as I mentioned, upstream solutions so that we can continue to keep an eye on that rate so that that level of disease does not go up. We're also working with -- when and where when we're asked work with philanthropy, as the Mayor had charged us to work, to raise funds for other sources of harm reduction.
I'm sure that you've heard that there are some different feelings about coordinated mobile provider services in districts like mine. Do you see us experiencing challenges or putting individuals at risk that need mobile services by us coordinating the efforts to ensure that the most vulnerable population gets the services that they need while responding to the quality of life that we have heard has gotten worse since we've allowed services just to happen anywhere?
So I know that we've been working for several months now with your office and other departments as well as the Managing Director's Office and the Mayor's office to come up with legislation that would be effective in the implementation and I believe that we're getting there, we're approaching that. We have carved out the things that I believe we need to carve out of to provide services but also to regulate what needs to be regulated. And I don't have a crystal ball so I can't tell you what it'll be like but --
Thank you. Thank you. We've heard challenges over the course of the last few weeks around food trucks. That seems to be another hot topic right now. And one of the challenges that individuals have said to us is that when inspectors come to inspect their food trucks, they have challenges with language, with understanding what some of our inspectors are saying. How many inspectors does the Health Department have to be able to speak languages like Spanish?
Sure. So we have I want to say at least 10 bilingual sanitarians and sanitarian supervisors. And they're not just bilingual in Spanish. We can get you the exact numbers, because we do track language access. But we would much rather, Councilmember, use the language access service and the appropriate translators because that way there's nothing lost in tone or affect or anything like that. So our team does use the language access line. And if and when needed, we also use the live interpreter services.
What is the time that mobile food trucks are supposed to close currently? Their permit states what? What does their permit say?
The mobile vending trucks for food are given a license for a food license. There's not a timestamp on it. We don't necessarily look at the hours of operation. However, we have to be mindful and we would work with others to make sure that they don't become a nuisance if they're going past the hours of operation in specific neighborhoods.
My last question: What is the process of an inspection? I know that food trucks, some food trucks have an electrical (inaudible). They don't move to commissary every day. Do they know when they're applying for these permits does the Health Department give them something that gives some very specific instructions of the process for them to operate?
Sure. So the Health Department has extensive food safety regulations. And when we carve out mobile vendors, and I believe the last number we have about 1,169 legal, mobile -- legal, not illegal -- legal food vendors, mobile vendors in the city that are approved to operate and they are licenses. All of the food safety regulations and all the requirements and operating requirements are available on our website. We also have made videos and other items. Our inspection process is to educate, then regulate. So during the course of the inspection process we also explain to them how they should be operating, what to look for. Our inspectional focus is really about food safety. So what is the hot water temperature, are folks washing hands, do they know the most common transmissible, foodborne illness, diseases and all of that. We also look for vermin and making sure that equipment is properly being utilized and it properly works. So all of that information is available in writing and easily accessible on the website.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Gilmore Richardson, followed by Councilmember Gauthier then Councilmember Phillips.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And thank you all so much for your work and all that we do together throughout the year. I wanted to just quickly get through all of our thank-yous starting with DBHIDS. Of course, Commissioner Williams, we appreciate you so very, very much. Levan White for always responding to the call. Donna Bailey from CBH, who we've had several calls with and she has been exceedingly helpful. Malik Gray and Andrea October, they are out of sight. For five years we have worked together to put on a Grief Program during the holiday season and the program is always very well received and we're able to connect a number of constituents to additional services that are available as a result of that program. And so, we are just so grateful for their continued partnership. And then for Health, of course, Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson, kudos and congratulations to you. Also to Dawn, I'm going to mess up her last name, Keisewetter, who has helped us and was even with us with some of the drug paraphernalia tours previously. Dr. Mehta, who I just happened to see at Penn for Black Maternal Health Week Conference where we both spoke at an event, and Dr. Frank Franklin, who worked with us to present to our nonprofit task force. So I just wanted to say thank you to those team members, and that was from my team and I. I wanted to quickly start with Health relative to the subject of Black maternal health. Last year I had secured an additional $1 million for maternal health in the budget to help with the maternal health mini grant program. And I just wanted to get on the record because we'll have to do this again for this year. We actually just approved the additional funding in the midyear transfer that was approved by the Council this last Thursday. But I wanted to talk about the open grant process for the Black maternal health organizations. How will that process work? Do we have sort of a timeline on when to anticipate the information to apply for the opportunity will be released? And if you could list for us the organizations that received grants last year? And if there's any carryover leftover money and how much it is?
Absolutely. So there was $1 million provided for maternal health programming. Of that, $500,000 was awarded to or transferred to our Ambulatory Health Services Division who does the actual work so that we could efficiently start utilizing the money to take care of our moms. And then the other remaining $500,000 was provided in a series of mini grants to 11 organizations. That process was RFP'd. It was vetted out. Each of the organizations were given -- the availability of the funds were posted in February and the opportunities closed in March so there was ample time, and the organizations, we received 38 applications and the awards were given to AFHO, Chosen Kin, Family Medicine, Education Consortium, Growing Resilient Communities, ITAV Foundation, Mindful Well CDC, New Voices for Reproduction Freedom, PAN PAN(ph), Puentas de Salud, Reclaim Black Motherhood, Women in Transition.
Thank you very much for that. My request for the record is that we receive the information for the dollars that we just appropriated under the midyear so that we can also alert the organizations to apply and that we know when that opportunity opens up. And I heard the bell. I want to honor the clock. But very quickly I just wanted to get on the record that if we could talk through how the Department of Public Health is working with Licenses and Inspections and also the Nuisance Business Task Force as it relates to the stores that we are all dealing with, these nuisance businesses, that sell drug paraphernalia across our communities? And then my last question so I can get this one in, because I won't come back for the next round, is relative to minority participation numbers both for DBHIDS and for CBH. And I just received an email, all of the colleagues received this within the hour, regarding the closure of Wedge Recovery Centers. We didn't know anything about this until just now. So if we could get an update about Wedge Recovery Centers and how we're going to help individuals who are seeking to get into recovery? We literally just got this email since we've been sitting here.
Absolutely. Regarding the impact participation, would you like me to answer that first?
Okay. Thank you. It looks like -- and you mentioned Community Behavioral Health. We have 112 nonprofit provider agencies and 88% of our CBH nonprofit agencies are minority or women-operated. We have 21 independent practitioners, and 52% 22 of those practitioners are minority 23 or women-operated.
Yeah. And then we have some numbers around our group practices and additional types of for-profit programming. Would you also like those numbers?
So in terms of our for-profit providers, 73% of those providers are minority or women-owned. And then in terms of our group practices in our CBH network, 86% of those providers are minority or women-owned.
Thank you. And then in terms of the email that you got about the Wedge, I'm going to ask Donna Bailey to come up and talk a little bit more about that. Thank you.
If you could be very brief in your responses, we can move on to the next members. Thank you.
Thank you and good afternoon, City Councilmembers. I'm Donna Bailey. I'm the CEO of Community Behavioral Health. So, yes, last week, the CEO of which notified myself that they had made the difficult decision to close the agency. It was our understanding that they were just going to be telling their staff today so we had not shared with our organization either. So a little alarmed that there wasn't better coordination with our team --
-- because, one, I just want to get this on the record, I would never do anything like that. But it literally just came to our email so I was taken aback. I'm like, yeah, we knew nothing about it so I want to apologize. I'm sure it's not there now. But we just received an email that was not from within government to say that it's confidential. So I apologize.
No. No 19 worries, Councilmember. I'm sure once they told their staff, you know, these things tend to get away from folks. Yeah, so they did make the unfortunate decision to close the entire agency. So I think they've been struggling post- pandemic with workforce issues and that nature. So we're going to be working hand and fist with them to make sure that all of the members across all their services have choice in terms of where they're going to go. Our call last week was very brief. So now that it's more public we can drill down into exactly how many members on which levels of care and where we have capacity in the network, but we do believe there is existing capacity. Sorry, you all had to hear about it that way.
I apologize. I just -- and again, you all know that this is nothing that I would ever do if I knew that. We literally have been sitting here and we just received this information. It didn't indicate that it was confidential so I'm thinking that everyone knows about this. There's a plan in place so that there's no alarm. Meaning, within the sort of provider network that we have everything under control. But I appreciate that you all have already been on top of this and that you all are coming up with a game plan to address this issue. And again, I want to apologize to you and your team, because like I said we had no idea. And I wish it would have been better coordination just even with us getting the information in that way.
Absolutely. And we'll make sure that we follow up with the CEO as well because I'm sure that's not how he intended it to go as well. But we know these things sometimes happen. Thank you.
Thank you, colleague. Chair recognizes Councilmember Gauthier, followed by Councilmember Phillips and then Councilmember Landau.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon to all of you. Thank you for being here and for all of your work every day on behalf of the city. I wanted to second the Council President's comments earlier about getting an update on the dashboard that we had worked on with Dr. Abaya and also our other partnerships to track our ability to address gun violence as a public health crisis and grow those proven strategies. I remember we also were working to grow hospital-based intervention throughout the city, and I think we had pushed some resources to Public Health in order to do that work better. And so, I don't want us to lose track of that now that we're seeing better numbers with gun violence. It still has to be a top issue, particularly on the youth side. My questions are about mobile crisis units. At the March 17th Joint Committee on mobile crisis units I asked about pay rates for mobile crisis staff, which appear to be considerably lower and less competitive than similar private sector positions. Have we been able to gather any information on this? And is there a plan in place for addressing the issues of low-paid staff and staff turnover? And then secondly, it's my understanding that part of Penn's study of mobile crisis resources is a workforce study for the staff who provide services like our Crisis Line and the CMCRT team members. When do we expect to have the data from this survey and how do we plan to use this data to improve workplace conditions? Obviously, the mobile crisis units are very important to our ability to compassionately address mental health. And so, I just want to make sure that we're doing our best to compensate and create a good work environment for those teens.
Thank you, Councilwoman, for that question. Thank you for all of your support that you've given us around mobile crisis. So yes, we, too have been concerned about the workforce landscape. And in terms of mobile crisis, the monies that we have been given, a part of it from City Council, we've used to create Bridge teams. We used to try to create some sense of equity across our mobile crisis teams, making sure that the teams were able to -- the providers were able to give some incentives where they could. They were able to increase the pay rate if they could. The issue has been even once we have increased the pay rate, we haven't always been able to fill every slot. And so, we have made sure that we've done a workforce analysis to make sure where we could make it competitive.
Will we be able to see that analysis and get specific information on those incentives and the level of the pay raises that you provided?
On time. Thank you, colleague. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Phillips, followed by Councilmember Landau and then Councilmember Young.
Thank you so much. Honestly, I think that these two departments, even though they're similar in nature, should be probably separated because there's so many questions. But first question I just want to have is about staffing with the Department of Public Health. I want to have a better understanding of how many of the staff that you have currently with the department are inhouse staff versus staff that are not inhouse in terms of do you utilize consultants and so forth in the department?
I apologize, Councilmember. Are you asking in general or talking about specifically for (inaudible)?
Yeah. So the specific question is are private employees almost a majority of your staff with the Public Health Department? And does this, you know, what is the configuration of that and why is there more private employees that are part of the staff as opposed to staff that are generally hired by the City, City workers?
So we definitely have majority of our staff are civil service staff . We do have contracted staff that work. They're embedded contractors that work within the Health Department to do work. We pivot and hire embedded contract staff to do specialized work specifically as it pertains to grant funding. So for instance, during the pandemic we were able to hire using grant funding, hire contract- embedded staff through the various contracting agencies to go do work for civil service positions that did not exist.
Okay. Thank you. Is there a way to begin to look into examining whether or not the civil service positions can actually qualify for the contracted staff that you have as opposed -- and that would probably save the City some money as well?
Absolutely. Sir, one of the areas that we're trying to attempt and we've been working on this for the past about year and a half is looking at our epidemiology titles. Currently, the civil service system has one epidemiologist title that is available for the entire Health Department. So we've been working with the Office of Human Resources as well as our own HR department within Health and our different divisions to create civil service job specifications for epidemiologists so that we could have positions that are civil service whether it's General Fund or contract dollars. So part of the challenge with the Health Department is that since our titles are so specific, creating a job spec is required before we can fill them. But we are working on that and we're hoping to have the epidemiologist series completed by the end of this calendar year.
And I just also want to follow up on Councilman O'Rourke's line of questioning, but I'll follow up with you more about the civil service and so forth. But just real quickly, Councilmember O'Rourke was talking about lifesaving treatment when it comes to HIV prevention and so forth. As we know, PrEP is something that's been out here for a long time. Is that something that your department can do more of to help raise awareness around the city about the usage of that? I see you at different community events highlighting that, showing that. But how do you wage a campaign in the city so people can become more familiar with PrEP when it comes to HIV prevention?
Sure. So our Division of HIV Health does work with I believe it's Mask Our Media groups to go ahead and our -- one of our campaigns has been Philly Keep on Loving and a few other such activities to go ahead and raise awareness. And I can absolutely get you additional details through the Council President's office about the whole host of activities that our Division of HIV Health does as they pertain to raising awareness, giving education, getting folks connected, the services that they so desperately need so that we can prevent HIV.
And just real quick follow-up and I have a quick question on this -- and I'm going to do the rest of the questions in the second round -the staff budget to keep 988 open 24/7, how many cases are suicidal- related for 988 that's 24/7 and is it necessary to have -- can some callers be diverted to another source as well as doing suicidal- related work when it comes to 988? This is what I'm hearing from different people as well.
So the first question you asked was how many of those calls are about suicidality?
I don't believe that I have that information with me today, but I can get it back to you.
Okay. Thank you. And just one last comment. I just want to say I think both the social media I was examining for both of your departments could be a lot stronger. It can really help you all with some videos, some demonstrations that can potentially go more viral to help people understand about the different public health issues that are happening in the city as well as even a demo on what a mental health counseling session could look like to make people feel comfortable from DBHIDS. I'm just looking at your social media. One of your DBHIDS posts is sporadically, not even frequently. And same thing with Department of Public Health. This could be really useful as you're trying to get more young people excited about the things you're talking about, and I really think you're working with the Communications team in City Philadelphia would be very helpful for you all. I just don't see that in this budget so it makes me a little concerned.
We agree with you completely. That's one of the major focuses that we have now going in place, Councilmember, is looking at public health and rebranding and looking at public health in action to figure out how we can get folks excited about public health and their well-being and get absolutely social media and all the different Tiktok videos or whatever is the way to get public health messages communicated.
And I just want to speak to that as well. We agree 100% as well around the use of social media. In fact, next week, May 13th, we have a meeting to look at our marketing and our communication strategy specifically around social media to make sure that we are engaging our various audiences so that they really understand about behavioral health and what it is and common diagnoses. We also have a Healthy Minds Philly website that we're revamping as well that provides a lot of education and resources on a community level, really easy to understand and sort of one-click resources. So we're right there with you. Thank you. You'll see the evidence of that in the upcoming months.
Thank you. What's your timeline? I hear upcoming months. But what is the timeline, like a hard timeline on some of the things that you just said would be changed based on what Councilmember Phillips just asked?
So the Healthy Minds Philly overall is happening right now. So by the end of summer we should have that completely up.
So by the summertime Councilmember Phillips will see a difference in your presence in social media?
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau, followed by Councilmember Young. And then I believe, Councilmember Bass, you had first round?
Yes. So Councilmember Young, Councilmember -- no, it's Councilmember Landau, Councilmember Young -- Councilmember Landau, Councilmember Young and Councilmember Ahmad, and then you'll be the last person for the first round, Councilmember Bass -- no, you went on the first round. I apologize. So, Councilmember Bass, you'll be last. Tough read. Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau.
Thank you. Thank you all so much for being here, for everything you do for Philly. I have I think two questions for the Health Department and potentially two for DBHIDS. First for the Health Department, thank you for the work you do with Philadelphia Legal Assistance with your medical legal partnership. I think it's an incredible model that is helping. It's like a holistic work and solutions for a lot of families. In today's funding environment, are you experiencing any financial challenges to maintaining this very successful project with Philadelphia Legal Assistance?
So we're continuing to work and continuing to write our grants and continue to get funding. Right now I think overall as a country we're worried about the funding atmosphere, but we just are continuing to do our work one step at a time and seeking additional funding as well as maintaining the funding that we have.
Okay. And I have a funding question. I'll stick with funding for a second. The -- I'm going to switch over again. The Mayor made it clear that she does not want to send spend city dollars on syringe exchange and then also said that she was going to try to see if philanthropy would fill the gap. How far along are we with that?
Thank you for that question. That was one of the items that actually the Mayor discussed while I was being interviewed by her and the team. So we're in the process of scheduling. I believe my Chief of Staff and I have a meeting scheduled with several of the foundations coming up in two weeks. I was trying to finish our budget meetings and then get those scheduled. And again, we're using all of the tools that we have in our toolbox. So we are working our Division of HIV Health and our SUPHR Division are working on what are the upstream solutions because if this was not available to us what would we do. And then as we were charged by the Mayor's office, we're meeting with philanthropy to figure out how we can raise the dollars for the other forms of harm reduction.
Let me dab a little bit more into the funding issue because I'm very interested. Also, if the Medicaid funding dries up, what are we going to do. What payment models like pay for performance, pay for treatment, value-based purchasing would between DBHIDS or the Health Department work lean on if Medicaid funding is dried up?
I'm going to let Dr. Williams and Donna, Ms. Bailey, answer.
I'm going to call up my team member Donna Bailey, CEO of CBH.
Good afternoon again, members of Council. I'm Donna Bailey, the CEO of Community Behavioral Health. So we are the City's behavioral health Medicaid-managed care organization, and we're fully funded by Medicaid. In fact, our federal match is 54% so we are extremely distressed about the potential $880 billion cuts as well as any policy reforms that will go along with that, that would potentially restrict eligibility or our ability to have the robust network that we have. So what we've been doing, as Dr. Williams alluded to earlier, is contingency planning. And you heard about one agency making the decision that it's no 8 longer going to be able to deliver services. We are concerned that other agencies will make that hard choice as well. We do think that given potential cuts the state is not going to be able to make up that that match. And so, we are looking at restricting or constricting our network. We are hoping to do that in a strategic way because we don't want to lose geographic access, we don't want to limit members choice, but this is what we're planning for.
That's very unfortunate. Thank for that. If there's anything we can do to help you push back on this or to advocate at the state, we would be so happy to do it.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Young followed by Councilmember Bass.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And good afternoon. My questions are for DBHIDS. So we all know that there is the rising demographic and overdose deaths in our city is among Black men. And just to give some context, we all go through it. I lost my one of my best friends, he was in his 30s, to overdose. Lost a cousin. He was in his 30s to overdose. Lost my dad, right, through complications because of overdose, right. So these are all Black men. And so, with that context -- and I know that the DBHIDS has tried to increase its capacity for treatment -- but could you talk to us about what is your licensing process to provide medically-assisted treatment, and particularly talk about in the context of areas where those Black men live?
Can you archive that question from Councilmember Young real quick. I want to recognize Councilmember O'Rourke for the point of information on a statement that Councilmember Landau made in your response to that statement followed by Councilmember O'Rourke's point of information we'll revert back to Councilmember's Young line of questioning. And I'm not going to count this against your time.
Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair. And my apologies, Member Young, on this one. Quick point information on Member Landau's questioning. Does the Public Health have a response to that question as it relates to those cuts and plans?
Medicaid. So about 40% of our Ambulatory Health Services patients or so are on Medicaid, and we are looking -- we serve everybody, whether they're insured or uninsured. And we're working internally, same at CBH, to figure out how we would absorb and still continue to provide the services that we do.
Thank you. Councilmember Young's line of questioning now if that's okay. Would you like him to repeat it?
I'm going to ask my Deputy Commissioner Amanda David to talk about the licensing process.
So you don't need him to repeat the question? We're good to go?
Hi. So licensing process actually goes through the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs who licenses programs to provide drug and alcohol treatment. So what we can do is we can facilitate that connection between providers and the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, but they provide the license ultimately.
So what role does CBH play in that process of determining if a provider is able to provide that medically-assisted treatment as a part of their program that they already have?
Thank you for that question. So for any provider to participate in the CBH network they have to be licensed by the state of Pennsylvania, enrolled in the Medical Assistance Program first, and then they would be credentialed by CBH. And so, the credentialing process would be a review of the facility, the staff files, the policies and procedures and we would take that recommendation to our Credentialing committee. So that's the process for entering the network, whether it's through DDAP licensing or OMHSAS licensing.
Thank you. And I ask that, I premised that question based on some facilities that are in my area, my Council District, we have a organization that is licensed to provide this work in Atlanta, Georgia, but can't get the license here in Philadelphia to serve a population of Black men and women that are the highest rates of overdoses now in the city of Philadelphia. So just trying to figure out how and what -- now, we just heard about another facility closing today, right, so that serves that population. So I just want to get some more information on how we can get these providers up to a certain standard for you all to allow them to serve our community and serve that population.
Yes. Just to restate, it all does start with the state in terms of licensing. But I will say that DBHIDS and CBH have been working together to do some degree of training and education for agencies that might be interested, because we do know Medicaid in particular is complex. And so, there are community-based organizations that might have an interest but might not understand how to go about it. So we've done one of those trainings this year and anticipate doing another next year.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Bass. And then after Councilmember Bass, we will start the second round.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. How's everybody doing? So I had a couple of questions and I just actually want to follow up on Councilman Young's line of questioning because something that came to my mind, and I apologize if this was already mentioned because I was a little bit late coming in, but one of the problems that we have because we have, you know, Philadelphia has a substance abuse problem, it's a real problem, it's a big problem. But I think one of the biggest problems that we have with providers coming into neighborhoods is when they sort of go off the rails, when they're not really providing effective treatment, when they're not really servicing, when it's a money grab, when it's sort of almost like a hustle, to say you're going to treat people for substance abuse disorder and you don't. And so, what happens is a provider may move into a neighborhood, it goes off the rails. There's no follow-up, enforcement, supports that the community gets and, therefore, it's unlikely that we're able to get more services in a neighborhood because people don't want to have to try to fight what's supposed to be a community-based organization providing services to a needy population and there's sort of no 5 enforcement, level of enforcement from the City once that happens.
Right. So what can we do to provide enforcement? If you get a call from someone saying this drug provider or drug treatment provider isn't acting right, people are loitering out front, they're buying drugs from the local drug boys, they're doing all kinds of things that they really shouldn't be doing because they're supposed to be in treatment and this is happening and it's adding to sort of an influx in a climate in the community that the community finds unacceptable, so what are we doing to make sure that we address what's happening with that particular provider? Because we need drug treatment in our communities, you know, we all have family members, relatives, whatever, who have gone through treatment, are in treatment, need it, but we can't get providers because we don't enforce the rules of sort of engagement in the community.
I understand. And, Councilwoman, you know we've worked together on this very issue so thank you for bringing it up to us again here. We have a robust compliance and quality program. When we have received calls from your office, we've worked together. We came out to make sure that the community was aware --
Let me pause you because I hear what you're saying. But I think almost in most of my District, there's a few exceptions, there are a few outliers, but I think in most of my District if you ask folks is this treatment facility doing right by the community, they're going to say no. 10 And when they come before an RCO or we try to get zoning or we try to get more of what we need in the community, we can't because people have had this experience and they don't want more of it.
So let me bring up Donna Bailey so we can talk about what that process looks like when we do get those calls in about a provider.
You know what, I know I'm short on time so I just want to jump to it. But what I would really like to hear is what are we going to do going forward? Because what we're doing, I'm going to be honest, I don't think it really works. If you have a good provider -- and I do have some really good providers -- I had one provider that was so good that people didn't even know it was in a neighborhood. They didn't even know, oh, that's a treatment facility, I had no idea. They had been there for years. 15 But for the most part, 16 people know, are aggravated, don't 17 want to support it, even though 18 they may have people from their 19 families who need treatment, just 20 like all of us, but they don't want 21 more of the same in that 22 neighborhood because we can't get 23 enforcement from the powers to be 24 when something goes awry.
Thank you for that, Councilmember. So I would say just as Dr. Williams said, we do have a very robust quality oversight process. We do get complaints from members but also community members. And as a part of our procurement process, we really do encourage prospective agencies to be good neighbors, not only in terms of gaining community input at the onset but certainly in an ongoing way. And so, if you have names of agencies --
And it's nice to say we expect them to be good neighbors. That's nice. I expect my neighbors to be good neighbors. You know, everybody expects their neighbors to be good neighbors. The reality of it though is something really different. I can point you to a few sites right now where I know that there's like people standing 7 around outside of a treatment 8 facility that is causing other 9 businesses -- it's a disruption to 10 other businesses and it's making 11 them leave the neighborhood. And 12 I'm very sad about that. And I 13 really want people to be able to 14 get treatment, but I also don't 15 want to lose other elements of the 16 neighborhood that have been 17 successful, minority businesses 18 that are moving out. But I'll be 19 happy to talk to you off the record 20 because I don't want to call anybody out.
Absolutely. If they're a CBH provider, I would like to know about them.
Absolutely, they are. All right. Thank you. I'll come back around on the next round.
Thank you. We will be starting the next round now. I believe everybody who wanted to go for the first round went. So we'll start with the Chair Councilmember Ahmad. And anybody else who wants to have questions in the second round, please queue yourself up now. We're going to try to stick to the time limit on this round just because we want to be as efficient as possible with the normal hard stop time that we have. So we'll really try to stick to the time limit so folks can ask their questions, that'll be great. Chair recognizes Councilmember Ahmad, followed by Councilmember Lozada and Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you, Chair. This question is for Dr. Marquita Williams and her team. It was really phenomenal that you have been able to engage over 9200 unique individuals living on the street across the city and made 38,594 contacts that resulted in 23.5% accepting housing or behavioral health treatment placement. My question is twofold. One, are these folks tracked once they are in treatment or housing to see are they able to stay and retain those spaces or keep their treatment and come out successful? What is that process? And the second thing is for those who you were not able to move to either treatment or housing which is the remaining people, what happens to them? Are they being tracked and is there a continuous approach, repeated approach with them to ensure that they are able to be successful as well? And last question is do you divide up this whole, you know, this is the chronically homeless or this is newly homeless or these are people who are in between couch surfing? How do you divide up this population that you're serving in terms of who they are and what their needs are because they all need different levels of care and engagement based on the root reason for them being homeless?
Thank you, Councilwoman, for that question. Going backwards, yes, individuals who we have attempted to engage who do not take the services at that time are continuously engaged over the time, because the goal is that whenever individuals are ready, there's barrier-free access for them to come into our service system. So we continue to engage those individuals. In terms of how the groups are broken down, I'm going to let Deputy Commissioner David talk a little bit about that.
And if you could be very brief in your response because time is up. We want to move on to the next members.
Hi. Thank you for your question. And so, yes, we do track individuals when they come into our system through each part of our system and we have continuous engagement with those folks. So if a person is on the street and moves into housing, we have continuous conversation with that individual and try to move them on to the next levels of care as they're accepting of their recovery process. The other thing that we do is if a person disengages in treatment, we do follow up and we go look for folks and we continue to have those engagements with individuals as they're accepting of services.
Very quickly, attrition rate for those who accepted help?
So recovery is a non-linear process. I don't have the exact attrition rates at this point, but we can take a look at it and get it over to you guys and share that information.
Not everybody who you take in are people with substance disorders. Some could have chronic mental health disorders. So they're --
-- different populations within who you place. That's what was my question. How do you separate out the different types of people because they'll have different responses and different requirements. Just wanted to see how disaggregated we are in our approach to have successful outcomes for placements and future placements.
Yes. So we have placements for individuals who have substance use disorder, we have placements for individuals who are primary mental health, and then we have some co-occurring placements also called dual diagnosis. And so with that, the approach is very similar with engaging individuals on the street. It's engagement, engagement, engagement. And then really the outreach workers begin to formulate a plan around each individual and then they start to target conversations around which programs might be best for that person, begin to have conversations related to potential opportunities for those folks.
So 23% is a very low rate. So I just wondered what do we need to do differently. We've been doing this approach for a long time. And many of these folks if you leave it up to their decision-making, which is particularly those with substance disorder, is already not operating in full potential. How are we working with them to let them decide how we move on this? My question is how do we increase that whatever number it is because that's not good enough. That is just not good enough. And we need to figure out how we do better in that space and where are all these accountability measures for those impacted and those who are giving the services both, and I think there's a level of that, that we must expect from everybody in Philadelphia regardless of what their status is. Because you can't on the same hand say they are too compromised to make a decision, we can't force them. But then they are not compromised enough and they're making a decision in their full right, so we have to honor that. So there's a rub there between either being impacted so greatly by substance disorder that you're not able to make rational choices that are good for you. So I want to know how this industry is dealing with that. I have not seen that anywhere because this is such a touchy subject, we don't want to go there. And then we'll keep having 23% as our success rate. We can't be satisfied with that. We have to think outside the box and we have to think how we move the needle on this, and you are the folks who have to be tasked with that.
After this we're going to have to move on so let's make sure we get a good answer.
Thank you. I appreciate that question and I would love to partner with your office to begin talking through what kind of opportunities there are to increase the numbers in that way and to begin -- I hear where you're going with that. And so, I would like to have more discussion so that we can partner.
Thank you, Chairwoman. Thank you for your leadership on this particular issue with the Committee in general. Chair recognizes Councilmember Lozada, followed by Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. I just wanted to follow up on Councilmember Bass's questioning around oversight for providers. We had a Special Committee hearing on Kensington where we talked about the very same issue, and we agreed that we were going to look at our process and we were going to figure out what and how we could do better. What did we need to change that was in our current process that would allow us to better understand the work that folks that were receiving contracts from us were receiving and how they were actually delivering. And so, I'm curious to hear -- I heard you say that we do have a process for oversight. I'm curious to hear what did you find in the oversight, what were some of the challenges and what were the corrective action plans that some of these providers put in place in order to respond to being a nuisance in their communities? In addition to that, I also want to know could we as District Councilpeople receive a list of who are these providers in our community, right. As the Councilmember mentioned, there are some providers that are great providers and we don't even know they exist because they conduct business in a very effective, responsible, respectful way to the community. And then there are others that are outright crazy and disrespectful and they will start a fight with the community members. And so, could we get that? Is that a possibility?
Yes, absolutely. You can get that information. And in terms of looking at the providers who -- if we got a report, like I know Councilwoman Bass said that there are some providers that she wants us to look into, we can look up those providers and have a conversation with you generally about what the process is, when we get information that providers are not providing the services that they're contracted for and what that looks like, what the corrective action plan would be and what the timeline on that would be --
But did you guys do that already? That's what I'm asking, because we talked about this about a year ago, right. So I want to know did you all do what we committed or what you committed you would do, which was do an assessment of who the providers are and whether they were good, responsible providers or not. And if you did that, what were some of the challenges? Because we also talked about the fact that there's billions going into districts like mine, right, in contracts. And my community told you in that Special Committee on Kensington that there were many providers who were not good providers. We talked about redirecting dollars, right, because what good is it to give a contract to a provider who's continuing to deny the services that our community needs so desperately, right. So have we done that? What happened? You guys have had a year so I'm just curious about what your findings were?
And so, we haven't done the comprehensive exercise that you're talking about. But in terms of looking at our providers and key performance indicators and benchmarks clinically that we're looking at, we do that routinely. If there is a provider where we get some information that's outside of that, so to what you're talking about, meaning they're not providing a certain service or there's some bad actor behavior happening, that takes on a different course. And so, where we do get those types of referrals or that type of information, it would be a separate inquiry and it would be a separate action. So in terms of looking at our entire network and trying to pull out who the bad actors are, that would be a more complicated process because we would need information from individuals who have had those experiences that we would need to investigate. But there's a routine process for making sure that providers hit certain benchmarks.
I know we're kind of tight on time, but go ahead take another minute, Councilmember Lozada, because I don't know if that answer was adequate to what you're trying to accomplish right now.
I mean, I think I got it. I got the answer, right. No, what we committed to doing we didn't do. But I think that we should do it, right. I don't think that -- I think that you as a department you need to look at who are your providers and what did they say they were going to deliver to a community, did they actually do that or not, right. And not just because they're checking off boxes, but because somebody went out into the neighborhood to say, how do you assess this provider, they're in your community, they're providing services to the people around you, right. How do you bring them as a provider and then how do we compare to contract deliverables, right. That's what we committed to doing because we know that in districts like mine, people are making money off of the need that there is currently there, right. I've said this before. There are friends of friends who have contracts who are doing nothing, you know. And so, we need to -- if we are going to change what is happening in the neighborhood, we have to recognize that. We have to recognize that Kensington has become a money mill and that's the truth. And at some point we have to stop that.
If you want to give a brief response, you can give a brief response and then we have to move on to Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you and thank you, Councilwoman, again. And so, in addition to what I was describing earlier around sort of the standard types of protocols and looking at providers, we do have customer satisfaction teams that go out and interview members and interview community members and interview staff to get at some of those very types of challenges that you're talking about. Then we have a network accountability group that goes out and looks at another set of benchmarks and performance indicators, so there are varying levels of compliance and oversight that happens in the department and I think it would be helpful for us hereafter to talk to you about what that looks like and what the various levels are so that if there are places where there's some things that you say you've been seeing or you've been hearing that we haven't been aware of, we can create the kind of mechanism to then address that as well.
Thank you. Point of information, Councilmember Bass, and then we have to move on.
Please don't take me off the queue. Thank you. So can we get a list of -- you said that there's a team that goes out and does these surveys. Can we get a list by district of what providers were touched or this survey, contact was made and when? Can we just get a list because I've never heard of it? I'm surprised to know that it exists and I'm just curious if they've ever been in 8th Council District and what was the conversation and what was the result.
Thank you. And you are in queue. We got you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Gauthier followed by Dr. Phillips.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question about our City's contract with Reworld. For the past several years our city has incinerated our trash at the largest trash incinerator in the country located in the city of Chester. And it's not a secret that many Chester residents want this practice to end. They want the incinerator gone, both because of the perceived negative impacts of the incinerator but also because of the cumulative impact of the incinerator when considered with all of the other dirty uses that they're forced to contend with. So since the incinerator also neighbors Southwest Philadelphia, I was wondering whether our air management services team has measured the impact of the incinerator on air quality and on the health of Philly residents living within the vicinity. If not, can you talk about how you typically evaluate the air quality impact of plants that might be polluting the air and whether we're able to use that same methodology to evaluate the impact of the Chester incinerator? And if yes and you do see a negative impact, are you able to incorporate those findings into the procurement process for our trash management services and are you working with the Procurement Department and Streets to evaluate other alternatives?
So absolutely, I can take you through kind of the permit process, and be mindful, you know, the air quality is something that it doesn't matter where eventually if Philadelphia is downwind of it, Southwest Philadelphia will get it. Our air management services we have hard-wired 10 meters located around the city and then we have about 51 PEQUOS meter, which we can then move around and we measure the air quality. The hard-wired meters keep tabs of poor air quality days. That's how when the wildfires were happening, we were very quickly, able to pivot and tell people and give them guidance about wearing masks or staying indoors or keeping their windows closed or turning off their ventilation. So it's a similar process. The incinerator because it is located outside of the city of Philadelphia, we're not necessarily the permitting entity, but that does not stop us from collaboratively working with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the Streets Department. It is potentially our trash that's going there as well. So we are working collaboratively and I believe it was your office, Councilmember, that brought this up and we were at meeting that was convened, and so we're absolutely working on that. In the meantime we continue to monitor the air quality. Our AMR 6 regulation, or Air Management Services Regulation No. 6, which provides permitting for the Title 5 emitters, which are the larger facilities so the PES refinery that used to be there and all, there's about 27 of those in the city of Philadelphia and they have to go through a rigorous process now because of that regulation to assess background, air quality level and also take measurements of chronically environmental justice communities, Southwest Philadelphia included. So that is all in the process. One of the first things that we did initiate doing was our preventative education and outreach for the scrap yards or junkyards in the city to keep them when they do go, you know, on fire, it causes all sorts of air quality issues. So we've been doing a lot of preventative education and we will be working in whatever capacity we're asked to on the incinerator aspect.
As we continue to collect this data, I represent Southwest along with Council President Johnson and I feel a great responsibility to remedy a lot of the dirty uses in that area, but I also feel a responsibility to make sure that we're not negatively impacting Chester. And so, I would appreciate any data that we could put into this procurement process to make sure that we're making the best decisions for our residents but also for the region.
Agreed. And I just wanted for your Injury Prevention dashboard question, one of our amazing team members, the Chronic Disease Injury Prevention Director, the dashboard is up, Councilmember, and it's been up. And it does capture -- it tracks shooting, nonfatal and fatal shootings. And there's also maps associated that are available on the dashboard so we can gladly get you the link for that.
That's great. Thank you so much. And if there could be also a follow-up on the hospital-based intervention work that we were doing together, I would appreciate it.
Thank you, Councilwoman. Chair recognizes Dr. Phillips, followed by Councilmember Young.
Thank you so much, Chairman. Given the concentration -- this is for Commissioner Nelson. Given the concentration of tobacco retailers in certain neighborhoods, how is the Department of Public Health assessing particularly youth, assessing the impact on youth and vulnerable populations when it comes to taking in loosies as well as any other legal drugs at business locations. Is there a zero tolerance for that behavior? What is the protocols in your department? This was also brought up by Councilmember Cindy Bass at a recent hearing too.
Sure. So it's illegal to sell loosies. So loosies for those folks that don't know, cigarettes are supposed to be sold in their packaging. Proprietors however will sell individual cigarettes, one, to make money and the tobacco industry promotes that kind of behavior because teenagers or younger folks that may not be able to buy a pack of cigarettes can buy individual cigarettes. So they are illegal. When our teams that go to do the inspections of these establishments, when we receive a complaint and we go do an assessment, we will issue them code violation notices as well as engaging in cease operation of those establishments if they have a tobacco permit. Our Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention Division also has worked through the Health Promotion Council where we hire youth with an adult that go and try to purchase not only tobacco products as minors but also other such products. And then once those surveys are completed, we go ahead and do enforcement follow-up.
We just heard from a couple of businesses in the city of Philadelphia where some people in your department just issued a violation as opposed to a cease operation. Is it clear that in the cases of selling drugs -- well, selling things without a tobacco license illegally you're supposed to get a cease operation as opposed to a violation; is that correct?
Sure. So I want to clarify we wouldn't be involved with any sort of drugs or drug paraphernalia, but if it is a tobacco product that we see is being sold while we're there onsite we would -- and they don't have a tobacco permit or a state tobacco license, then we would go ahead and both issue a ticket as well as potentially cease operating the tobacco aspect of it. So for instance, Councilmember, if it is a gas station, we would not cease the selling and buying of gasoline, but we would cease operate the sections of the store that are involved specifically with the tobacco business and the establishment would need to move those products out.
And that's my concern. And I'll stop here. I just want to -- that's my concern. I think the whole operation should be shut down as a result, not just one part because as was examined, they can come back and quickly try to hide it once they're still operating. And I think that's the policy that we are asking for the change. And I'll let Councilwoman Bass talk about that more later potentially, but I just wrote --
Before you, Dr. Phillips, let me just let Councilmember Bass get a point of information real quick.
Thank you, Dr. Phillips. But I just wanted to say I heard your comments that if you had to be onsite and see, they're not going to sell it to you. Like, come on. They're not going to sell --
They won't sell it to me, Councilmember, because now --
Right, they're not going to sell it to me either, you know.
But what the Health Promotion Council does is they have actual youth that they hire. So an adult would be around the outside of the establishment and the youth would go in that they're not aware of to buy the tobacco products. And based on that is how we engage in the cease operations and/or code violation notices. So that's how it's set up.
So how was it that 5950 Ogontz Avenue is still open when they opened with no license to operate, no use in occupancy -- no license to operate no certificate of occupancy, construction without permits, illegal signage, sale of tobacco without a license, sale of loose cigarettes, tobacco sales on the same block as a school, on and on and on, you know, like 12 violations that we have listed and they're still open. And I just can't, you know. And I know not all of that is you. Some of that is L&I. But if we know that -- and they're selling like fake cigarettes. So these are cigarettes that look like Newports in a pack but are fake, made in China, so you don't know what you're ingesting. So if we know that they're selling what could be very dangerous products, I just haven't seen us do anything yet.
No 18 worries. So one of the things that I want to keep in mind is that -- and thank you for acknowledging that some of the items our partners within L&I, and we work with them, they handle that. But as far as the fake cigarettes, which you sent us pictures of and we followed up with, we go and we do refer to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, who has a whole entire tobacco enforcement arm, that they go out and they'll confiscate the fake cigarettes and everything. As far as our process is concerned, we would cease operate the establishment. They have upwards of 48 hours to fix the violations. When they fix the violations, then we have to allow them to open back up because they've taken the corrective --
I apologize. I am speaking about an establishment that is with a license open and operating. But if they don't have a license to operate, then we go ahead and work with L&I, Licenses and Inspections, to figure out the next steps for either a 30-day administrative -- I believe administrative opportunity to correct it or L&I will conduct a cease operation.
Member Phillips, we have a hard stop at 4:00 p.m.
real quickly. I just, I want to go to record, just to say I don't think they should get opportunity again, but knowingly doing this, you know, they can. We can fight it in court and so forth, but from our city's policy, we should not, you know, have the opportunity and that's all. They shouldn't get it again. Thank you.
Sure, Member Bass. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young, then Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke, then Councilmember Quetcy Lozada and Councilmember Bass will be wrapping up.
Thank you, Mr. President. Again, questions for DBHIDS. Philly Home at Girard, just like most of my colleagues mentioned today, some of them mentioned that no one knew in that neighborhood that that place was a shelter until there were this influx of folks with substance abuse issues at that site. Could you tell us how many beds DBHIDS is contracting out at that site and what is your capacity there?
Hi. Yes, so we have 180 beds on two floors, 90 and 90. And they're full today, if that was your question.
Yes, thank you. And what's the intake process for someone -- I mean, that's full, right. But if someone leaves, what's the intake process to allow a new individual to receive services there?
Yep. So individuals are engaged by Homeless Outreach. And then if the individual is appropriate for and willing to go to the Philly Home at Girard, the outreach teams will call our offices to ensure that there's a bed. If there's a bed available, the outreach team takes the individual to Philly Home at Girard and makes a warm handoff to the staff that are there. Once the individual arrives to the location, the outreach worker will stay there as the individual receives an intake assessment. At that time they're given food because a lot of times folks are hungry. They are offered light physical health care, like first aid. They do a minor assessment to see what the individual's needs are, and then they're transitioned up to the residential floor where they learn about the rules and the regulations of the program and then are continuously offered services related to physical health, behavioral health, including substance use disorder --
Thank you. One more question. My time is up. So can you tell us about the -- you say they have to go through a certain -- make sure they fit the standards in order to qualify to reside there. Can you tell us do you have to be -- do you have to be addicted to substances -- do you have to have substance abuse addiction in order to receive a bed at Philly Home at Girard?
The two floors that we have, yes, it is targeted to people who are using substances and focused toward recovery.
Thank you. And just for the record, Mr. President, I want to put on the record that we had OHS here last week. They have 132 beds there. And then now we learned that DBHIDS has 180 beds there, but their beds are only for folks that have history of substance abuse. So I just wanted to get that on the record. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Member Young. Councilmember Nic O'Rourke.
Thank you, Mr. President. I believe Member Gauthier kicked off some of the concerns, at least that I had, around the mobile crisis response teams. As the data you discussed shows the crisis mobile response team saves lives, I'd like to start by getting a few questions on the record. How does the data for outcomes of dispatches compare now to this time last year? How many calls have ended up in a voluntary hospitalization so far in 2025 compared to last year and how many calls ended in a 302 in 2024? I'll say them again. How does the data for outcomes of dispatches compare now to this time last year? How many calls have ended in a voluntary hospitalization so far in 2025 compared to last year? And how many calls ended up in a 302 in 2024?
Thank you, Councilman. In 2024 -- and so, we have some data from '23 and '24. We can get you data for '25, but I can tell you in 2023 the number of 302 petitions was 8,924.
8934. Comparably in '24, the number was 8808. Now, those are petitions that were made, but in terms of how many -- we have the data here on how many were approved and how many were reviewed. And so, I can get you the comprehensive data about '23, '24 and '25 to you probably in a couple of days.
Appreciate it. At the Committee hearing in March, Local 2186 informed us that's that their response team has only one Health Program Manager for a 24/7 team. I don't think that's enough. And I can imagine it contributes to the burnout and turnover that I know that y'all are focused on combating. Can we discuss why -- and I know we don't have much time, but can you discuss why this hasn't been addressed as part of the proposed budget?
So at this time I believe that they have another one so they have two.
Okay. All right. You got a point of information, Brother Phillips?
Point of information, Member Dr. Anthony Phillips.
Thank you. I just wanted to bring it up because also I've been hearing in terms of staffing, does this budget allocation reflect, especially with low wages and so forth compared to other sectors, how are you recruiting and retaining staff? Is this budget allocation showing an increase in salary for these workers? I'm just thinking about how are you going to do a better job with retaining staff and attracting them for positions like this as well as other clinical areas?
Yeah. So we work closely with our providers. We know that this is a position that leads to high burnout. So we work with our providers around salary increases, around incentives. I believe Councilwoman Lozada asked us to submit to the President what those incentives are and what it looks like so we can include that in the information that we submit to you, but it really is a result of relationship that we build with our providers and them working on their staffing needs. We can provide the funding to support it, but understanding their staffing patterns and sort of what the incentives are that would retain workers relies on the side of the provider. And I do have a piece of information for you from your last round.
Just a point of clarity, there's no 14 increase in salary in this fiscal year for staff members who are doing this work?
I do want to let you know you asked about the suicidality. 70% of those calls had to do with suicidality. You were asking about the calls that came into the PCL line.
So it was Member O'Rourke who had the floor and Phillips asked for a point of information. And you were wrapping up, correct?
One more if you give me some time. But if not, I can hold it.
Thank you. This was kind of picked up already by Member Harrity a little bit, but I do want to go there myself, Dr. Williams --
My apologies. I thought I was doing a pretty good job on it. Your testimony mentioned that your continuity of care team provides case management for up to 90 days in connection with the Neighborhood Wellness Court. Only 120 of the 3,400 folks that the team engaged with actually ended in a linkage to case management. That's 3.5%. And I had a few questions that I'd like to get on record as I get off the mic. What factors contribute to this extremely low uptake? How many of those 120 actually stayed with a case manager beyond the initial linkage? And has anyone successfully completed the 90 days of provided case management thus far?
So the Moore's Continuity of Care team serves individuals in the Wellness Court, but also serves individuals that the Moore's team connects with outside of the Wellness Court. And the idea behind the Continuity of Care case management team is really to make those connections and then transition individuals off to other services. So if the Moore's team gets somebody assessed and gets them into some kind of treatment placement or housing placement, they then follow up with the individual just to make sure that the continuity of care continues. And so, they've been pretty successful in that arena. The Wellness Court piece we are working with individuals. And as Adam Geer mentioned in his in his testimony that the data is just not ready to be shared yet, so we would be happy to share it along with OPS data related to Wellness Court. But the Continuity of Care team that works outside of the Wellness Court has had success.
Thank you, Council President. I just want to get three questions on the record that are all unrelated. But because this is Round 3, I want to make sure that I get them in. In 2024, you mentioned the launch of Trauma to Triumph. The program serves 100 youth and young adults annually that live in high poverty, high crime zip codes across the city of Philadelphia. Considering this information, how many of the youth or young adults participated and completed the Trauma to Triumph program in the 7th Council District? Through these programs were the kids ever asked what they wanted? And if so, what was their response? And then how can City Council best support programs like this that impact young people directly?
Thank you, Councilwoman, for that question. So the Trauma to Triumph program, the 100 youth, 75 completed the cohort. We partnered with grassroots community organizations, Every Murder is Real, NAMI, Mothers in Charge, Black Men Heal and the Philly Children's Movement. Based on the interviews that we had with the youth about what they'd like to see as well as feelings that they had about not being seen or heard in traditional spaces, and we're able to take them through 12-week curricula, that in fact just in the last month they've completed. So in terms of City Council support, like any resource, would be helpful for us to be able to continue to engage additional youth in these programs beyond this initial 75 cohort.
How can we as a legislative body continue to support programs like that to directly impact young people?
Always about money. And then my other two questions is how many needles were distributed versus the number of needles that were collected? Do we have that number?
I'm sorry. Can you repeat that question? I didn't hear what you said.
I think it's for the Health Department. How many needles were distributed versus the number of needles that were collected?
So we can absolutely get you the numbers in terms of what was collected. Our SUPHR Division does that aspect of the collection. The distribution is not a number that we would readily have. That's done through the other entities.
Okay. If we can get that, that would be great. And my last question for the record is some folks spoke about beds and availability. I know that we talked about getting those numbers onto PhillyStat360 in realtime. Have we been able to do that? And if not, when do we think that we will be able to see that in realtime?
In realtime -- so we are working on an RFP for a bed registry. And so, it's taking a while to get the RFP together because we want to make sure that the RFP is comprehensive and includes all the needs. We've also met with all of the bed-based treatment providers in order to understand what would be helpful for them, what would be helpful for the crisis response centers and what would be helpful for us in general. And so, the RFP is due to be released in early summer. And then it'll take time to get things up and running and connected in the network. Because what we want is we don't want it to be an extra job for somebody to do. We want it to be a seamless thing, because things that are seamless will continue. And if it becomes an extra job, we don't want it to become a laborious process for folks. So we're hoping to have that up and running. I can't give you a date now. But as the RFP process rolls out, we can give you more of an update related to what the rollout looks like, if that's okay.
Thank you. I have a brief question for Dr. Williams. I talked to you about this briefly regarding the initiative that I want to bring in the city of Philadelphia. But just give me an overview on the level of support we are providing for the children in our School District and our charter schools around trauma support. We know gun violence is significant in the city of Philadelphia. And although we've had a historic low, when it comes to shootings and homicides we've seen an increase amongst juveniles, right. And so, I'm one to believe that a lot of our young people walking around shell-shocked, right, as it relates to them seeing their friends being murdered, families being murdered and they go to school with this trauma every single day with not really having the ability to process it on its own. So what are we doing as a city to support such young people? I know we did have one company that had a contract with the City that we don't have anymore. And so, if we don't have that contract with, say, a company, what are we doing to be supportive of our youth around the particular issue of trauma support when it comes to gun violence?
So trauma has been one of the pillars of our -- addressing trauma has been one of the pillars of our department for years. And so because of that, we address trauma from a variety of different angles. And so, you're familiar with some of the grants that we've been able to implement like the ReCAST grant going into the communities specifically looking at youth and supporting youth in terms of their exposure to violence and the aftermath of violence, meaning the sort of traumatic sequelae, if you will. We also through our Engaging Males of Color work with younger men through the JJC program to sort of deter them against indoctrination to gun violence and so forth. We just talked about our Trauma to Triumph program that targets a younger set of youth around looking at high poverty areas, high crime areas, high violence areas and exposure in terms of trying to move people away from the earlier indoctrination to selecting gun violence as an option. We also work with our providers. There are several providers who are of color who have made a specific culturally competent series of programming to engage young African American and Latino males around understanding violence, understanding the cycle of violence. And so, across our system there are a number of programming. You mentioned also about our school-based connections. So in every school there's an IBHS provider, that's a behavioral health provider, that would also work with children who are exhibiting some symptoms of trauma. So in various places, whether it's prevention, whether it's actual treatment, whether it's support services, trauma is embedded across the programming. And addressing trauma is embedded across the programming --
Tell me about Network of Neighbors. Are we expanding that particular program that actually goes out after shooting and homicides and actually trains the community on what the community wants to see as a trauma response?
Network of Neighbors is in high demand constantly. They are out in the community, requested frequently from some of our city departments --
How many staff do we have? Let's see if the Administration -- to be quite frank we talk about priority. I know when they came at one time, we said could we expand the number of individual staff because it was like two people at the time for the City of Philadelphia as a whole. How many staff do we have now?
So since then -- I don't have my number exactly with me, but it's more than two people. We've expanded -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: 10.
We have 10? Okay. So that investment shows it's a priority.
You sure you don't want to be permanent in the position, no? I know y'all watching.
She made y'all go from 2 to in a two-year period. 8
And we 9 are -- the funding for Network of 10 Neighbors is coming to a close soon, but we're trying to make sure that we get some additional funding to keep that program moving. But they are in high demand. It's a very well-respected program. We have been able to expand from the 2 to 10. We'd like to expand even further.
Some more, okay. Well, I know you have members here, including the former Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Black Male Engagement, Dr. Ahmad, and also Councilmember Jamie Gauthier who's advocating around youth gun violence as well as Councilman Jeffrey Jay Young and members as a whole who have been working on this issue to support such expanding of that particular department as well as Dr. Phillips. And so, is your hand raised for a point of information, sir?
I just want to say just going back on my comment earlier, this would be an opportunity for you on social media to kind of display showing young people the benefits of that type of counseling because we always say -- after those events we always say that is available, but they can't visualize what that looks like. So maybe y'all can do some role play and skits or something to make it interesting. Thank you.
All right. Thank you very much. Wrapping us up --
So, Councilmember, we collected 11,921 syringes for FY25 Quarter 3. 11,921, the number's dropping this quarter, but that's how many we collected during January, February, March.
Okay. And can you clarify that? That was in response to -- go ahead.
Yep. And Councilmember, Council President, I did provide the information about the Gun Violence Nonfatal and Fatal Injury Prevention Dashboard so we can get you the exact web address and everything for that.
I have it. Joshu Harris sent it over to me. I have that part. I just want to make sure that the agenda is still on the top priority of the Department of Public Health in terms of moving forward. But, yes, I do have the Injury Prevention website dashboard actually in my phone. But I want to know the response regarding the syringes. I wasn't here for the initial question.
The Councilmember just wanted to know how many syringes we had collected. We don't have control --
That's the Health Department's distribution, right? That doesn't include all of the other uncoordinated providers that just distribute syringes, right?
I just want to be clear. It's just a collection. It's a number that we keep track of.
Well, thank you for your work on that because I know we had a young lady talk about how she has to get tested every so many years for HIV because she stepped on a needle in Kensington and she gave her testimony in front of members of Council. So very, very important job. Wrapping us up today will be the gentle lady from 8th Councilmanic District from the Northwest part of Philadelphia, Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Thank you, Mr. President. So just a couple of questions. I know we're running out of time so I just want to be quick about these. I want to shift gears a little bit to restaurants and business closures because I've had instances where restaurants were shut down for various things. And it's a little confusing to me because I've had restaurants that shut down that seem to be clean and well-organized and an inspector will come in and there's a cracked floor tile or they come in July and during the lunch rush and the temperature is off a couple of degrees in the freezer and they get shut down. And then I'll have, sort of like my stop-and-gos that never get shut down. And they've got dirty cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. And we talked about this before, because the floor is filthy. They have a restaurant license. And I was told by one of the inspectors that cleanliness is not something that really rates with the Health Department when it comes to closure. So can you explain that?
Sure. I'm not sure who would have said that, but that's beside the point. Our Food Safety Inspection Program is based -- it's a risk-based inspection approach which means that we're not just looking at walls, floors and ceilings. We're actually focused on actual handling practices looking at temperatures, making sure that folks that have Hepatitis A are not making your salad so you end up getting Hepatitis A. So the inspection form itself has about 54 categories. The top 27 are the risk-based inspections, which looks at everything from whether or not the place has a food safety certified individual, whether they have an understanding of food safety principles about foodborne diseases, whether there's reporting. We look at vermin. We look at --
Don't mean to cut you off, but what you're saying rings a bell. So I think I probably in my mind just sort of paraphrased what was told from the inspector. But you're right, what they said was that it wasn't one of the priorities to close a restaurant. But my thing is if a restaurant location is pretty filthy, which most of these stop-and-gos are, shouldn't that be a reason to close anyone with a restaurant license? Shouldn't there be some level of cleanliness required to stay open besides the other items that you listed?
Sure, Councilmember. I don't want to send the wrong message. The good retail practices are about the cleanliness, the cleanliness of the floor, the cleanliness of the ice machine, the cleanliness of the countertops, whether or not there's mouse droppings all over the place. So it's a combination of those things. Looking at ceiling tiles, missing, dirty ceiling tiles, moldy ceiling tiles, all of that factors into whether or not an establishment is given an opportunity to correct those violations or they're cease operated. And it's a combination. So it's not just one category. It's not just everything else is fine and you have a dirty floor right there. We give them the opportunity because we want businesses to operate safely to maybe go ahead and sweep that up or mop that up now. If that keeps happening, then we know that it's a repeat offender. So it's a very complex matrix of how an establishment is open or closed, unless there's a sewage outbreak or you know.
Well, I'll say this, some of the restaurants -- stop-and-gos, not restaurants. But some of these stop-and-gos I can tell you are on the frequent flyer list in terms of just being chronically dirty. And it just seems like any way that we would expect that we could get some help to address the problematic business that it is for the community we just can't get any sort of motion from the City to say, well, this is something that's a violation or this is -- you know, sort of like the things that we think of as commonsense reasons to tell a business that they have to shut down and clean don't really seem to resonate with the Health Department. Have we ever thought about doing like a grading system, like a grading system like in some cities where you'll walk into a restaurant and it'll say this restaurant was inspected and it's an A or this restaurant was a B or C and you can decide if you want to go into a C restaurant or a D restaurant or whatever but you have the information up front as to how this particular restaurant was ranked?
Sure. And I want to kind of separate out the notions and the challenges that we have with these businesses that operate as stop-and-gos right, those businesses and addressing enforcement with those businesses, a grading system would not fix that. Okay. And I know that the Health Department along with other departments is working with your office specifically to address some of these issues as nuisance businesses and fold those in. I know that we've been working with your office to provide information about inspections on varying spreadsheets and all of that. And there are businesses that use the loopholes to continue to open and operate. But as far as the inspections go, we do have to allow folks the opportunity regardless of where they -- regardless of where they're located if we're going to offer an establishment that is an eatery, I don't know, Center City eatery the option to fix a violation onsite and continue to operate or cease operate for 48 hours, we have to afford the same opportunity for other establishments.
So when we issue violations with hefty fines in the city, let's say -- if I park my car in a bus zone now, right, I'll get a hefty ticket and I don't get due process. It's kind of like the ticket is the notice and that's the due process and you have to pay it or else. So whether it's that or you put your trash out early or whether you get a speeding ticket or whether you get a violation because your grass is too high, you get that ticket and you have to pay it. You don't get due process. You don't get a warning first. You just get the violation and you have to address it right away. So I don't understand why this particular type of business -- if you do construction and you're out working without permits and L&I comes across you, you have to stop. They issue a stop-work order. But we have this thing with certain businesses who are afforded a level of due process that works against the needs and wishes of the community. And it's like, well, we need to give them a chance to get themselves together. And it just really feels quite unfair.
And, Councilmember, we take each of those businesses and we cease operate them. And when we cease operate them, they get the opportunity just like when we get an opportunity to pay a parking ticket or pay PPA to untow our car or what have you, they get an opportunity to fix the violation and they're then allowed to open up. The stop-and-go issue is very complicated because it also involves the Liquor Control Board, and others -- I know that for years now we've been trying to work on this. I'm hoping that in this new role that we can figure out additional creative opportunities.
Well, Dr. Nelson, I'll say you and I, we've worked together for a long time when I was Chair of Health and Human Services and you're a great partner to work with. But for me, this issue is not complicated at all. And I think for most people this is not really that complicated, but I look forward to continuing to work with you and hoping to push past where we are right now to really get the level of enforcement that I think people really want. Let me ask one other quick question because I know I'm a little bit over time. Does the City of Philadelphia Health Department do anything in terms of organizing our regional health providers into some sort of a network? So I know that in some other cities and some other states they're actually -- I can't remember if it was Florida or Georgia or somewhere, somewhere down south where it's kind of mandated that they have to meet, coordinate, talk just so that they are all working on the same together. There's not a duplication of services, you know, just more efficiencies. So I wanted to know. I don't think that the City of Philadelphia does anything like that so I wanted to encourage that. And actually, I think it should be a regional network of health providers, because now we have what's happened with Crozer- Chester closing down and Taylor Memorial. People out there need health care too. It's not a next door neighbor, but it's close enough that, listen, if you're in Chester and you're pregnant, you still have a baby that's coming on the way whether Crozer is there or not. So how are we working to make sure regionally that this region is stable medically and to address some of the health disparities that have been existing for a very long time, which is quite shameful in the city of eds and meds?
Sure. So we're working -- a lot of that work is led by the State Secretary of Health and we're working with our local hospitals as well as with the items or the issues happening with Crozer. We work with our local counties, municipalities. I work with the Delaware County Health Director, which is a brand new position. They didn't have that role before. So we are working together. These are kind of newly- formed or differently-formed relationships now because they were forged and formed due to COVID and other things. So now, we're coming upon other areas where we can communicate and collaborate. So those networks are there. I'm not necessarily sure that they're mandated, but they're in existence and we do work with them.
Okay. I would just like to say in closing that I hope the City of Philadelphia doesn't just work with them but leads them to what we need, because I think left to their own devices, you know, good people, but the disparities have continued to grow.
Thank you. As there are no more questions from members of the Committee, we want to thank all of you for your presentation. Continue to keep up the good work and thank you very much.
Very quickly I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you and the Council for just all of your support for the department and your partnership and working hand-in- hand with us to make sure that Philadelphians thrive. Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson earlier acknowledged my team, and I just wanted to echo that and say I think that this is the most fantastic group of professionals that I have had the opportunity to lead on the television and sitting right here behind me. So thank you all so much for the support.
Thank you. Keep up the good work. At this time, the Chair recognizes Majority Whip Councilmember Thomas for a motion of the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolutions before the Committee today stand recess until Tuesday, May 6, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. All those in favor will signify by saying aye.
Aye. So moved, Council President. So moved. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolutions before the Committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, May 6th at 10:00 a.m. in Room 400 City Hall. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. This motion carries and the Committee will stand in recess until Tuesday, May 6, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. Thank you very much, everyone. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 4:15 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL