Your request for this year is about $21,000 in Class 200, the purchase of services, and $16,000 in Class 300 and 400 for materials, supplies and equipment. What was that request in Fiscal Year '08?
And in your oral testimony, you said you do not contract with non-governmental entities?
So how is 74 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 that $21,000 and $16,000 spent?
Typically that is held in the event that we need some sort of expert advice or testimony during the contract negotiations. We've also used that kind of contract money to get advice on our information technology needs.
I believe we've spent money in the current fiscal year in order to contract with outside consultants to advise us on an imaging technology that would allow us to scan the documents that we refer to and maintain them.
I think that the contract for that was actually let citywide and we were --
The question is, did you contract with a 75 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 non-governmental entity?
Again, I believe that the contract is citywide. And I may have misunderstood the way to present that, but we went through the Mayor's Office of Information Services. This is the citywide contracting consultant that provides these services, Macken Enterprises, and we use them to do this kind of work for us. So we didn't let out a separate contract, I believe would be the way --
You utilized a consultant that was secured for the entire City?
And so were you told that you were supposed to report on DBE participation goals?
And so you 76 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 decided in your oral testimony to simply say you don't contract with non-governmental entities and then put nothing in your written testimony?
I believe that we did not directly contract with them because we used the citywide contract. I apologize if that was a misunderstanding.
Well, from my standpoint, whether it's $5,000, $50,000, $500,000, if it was a DBE firm, then that's 100 percent participation. If it was not, then it's zero participation. My guess is it was zero participation. Am I correct?
I would not even have information on the firm. I mean, the contract was let through the Mayor's Office of Information Services. They had the information on the contractor.
Is it a minority-owned firm, a woman-owned firm or disabled-owned business?
Again, I don't have that information personally. We can try to get it.
So do you believe you offer testimony with regard to your DBE participation?
I believe that I answered the question to the best of my understanding from the --
And I believe every single department that's going to testify will be asked to submit that information, and you have not.
Again, I believed 78 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 that I understood the question. If I made a mistake, I will go back to the Finance Department and try to provide the correct information.
Are you familiar with the fact that MBEC releases a report on an annual basis?
Okay. This is the last report that was released for the fourth quarter, Fiscal Year '07. Under Labor Relations it has zero percent. Do you dispute that?
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, Mr. Tolan. 79 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
Mr. Tolan, I recollect recently being involved in a discussion in this Chamber where the Fire Department wanted hearing protection, and it surfaced during that conversation that that became a bargaining issue or somehow your office got involved in that particular issue. Could you explain the process and how something can be rejected by you and saying, Hey, this is not a bargaining issue here, the Commissioner is empowered to make this decision? I was kind of taken aback by the fact that that issue on hearing protection ever got to your office.
Well, I think that it's fair to say that on an ongoing basis all across the City, the labor unions have regular discussions with managers about issues that reflect health and safety concerns, and that's especially true on the Fire Department, because both 80 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 the Commissioner and the union have a deep interest in those subjects. When those parties, as they go through the process, fail to agree on whether or not something -- let's say the definition of a problem or they don't agree on its importance between the two of them among the other things they're dealing with, or if they don't agree on the solution, the union is free then when the contract brings it to the point where we're in collective bargaining to ask the members if they think it's important enough to put on the table in collective bargaining. So it kind of reflects at the end of the process where they have failed to come to agreement on how to resolve it. I mean, I think during that testimony as well from the Commissioner, it was clear that he had provided certain hearing protection to members. They felt that they wanted something different. The City was in fact in its vehicle 81 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 specifications for new engines and pieces of apparatus making certain that they met the standards of NFPA for the new equipment in terms of noise within the cabs and that sort of thing, but the union wanted and the members wanted a different standard. So it's kind of that process, that ultimately it can be brought to the table and, again, we'll talk to the union about it, along with the department, and see if we can't come to some kind of resolution. But if the union is not satisfied with the resolution we offer, they reserve the right to present it to an arbitration panel.
Well, I think that, yes, for the last couple of rounds of negotiations, there have been issues about hearing and auditory conservation programs, and the union has presented evidence in front of those panels. In a 82 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 number of cases, the panel did not agree with the union's final position. We've had committees, we've had discussions, we've put in some equipment. The union and some of the members were still dissatisfied. And, again, this is an ongoing process where even outside of the contract negotiations there are regular meetings to talk about these issues and to see if we can find some kind of common ground.
Well, the implementation of that really would be within the department, and I don't know their actual status in terms of what they've purchased or have not purchased since that ordinance was passed.
So as the Director, if something would come to you and suggest that this be a bargaining issue, that you could reject that and say, No, it doesn't belong here? 83 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
Well, I think that at some points in time we may question whether or not the bargaining law says that something should be collectively bargained. I mean, it might be an interest of mutual -- an issue of mutual interest to the parties, but that doesn't mean that under the law it's a mandatory subject to bargaining. So we may challenge something and say, Well, wait a minute, the law leaves that decision ultimately to the Commissioner, if we think there's a legal basis to raise that. But more often the case is that the parties are talking, the parties are trying to find a solution that both of them can live with, and they just haven't found that solution yet. And we kind of facilitate that discussion as it goes forward. We don't say, Well, pick this set of ear protection versus that. We leave that to the experts on both sides, which is typically the Commissioner and his staff and the union and their advice 84 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 and counsel from their International to work out.
Thanks for explaining it to me. Thank you, Madam Chair.
You're welcome. Are there any other questions for this witness? (No response.)
This Committee will stand in recess until 12:45. Thank you. (Short recess.)
The Committee of the Whole is now back in session. The next department to testify? MR. McPHERSON: Is the Mayor's Office of Information Services. (Witnesses approached witness 85 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 table.)
Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good afternoon, Council President Verna and members of City Council. My name is Terry Phillis and I'm the Chief Information Officer for the Mayor's Office of Information Services. I'm pleased to provide the testimony on our proposed Fiscal 2009 budget. Sitting with me here at the table to my left is Mr. Joe James. He's my First Deputy CIO. And sitting to my right is Mr. Michael King, who is my Chief Information Security Officer and Deputy CIO. MOIS works in partnership with City agencies to implement and manage information systems that support and enhance City government operations. MOIS coordinates the City's information technology -- after this, I'll just call 86 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 that IT -- activities by providing centralized planning, IT standards, IT project management, computer training and desktop support. MOIS also operates the City's central data center, the metropolitan wide-area network known as CityNet, and the operations support center. MOIS' responsibilities are clearly linked with the Mayor's six core service areas. Because the agency supports the City's core IT infrastructure as part of our mission, we collaborate with the many agencies carrying out the Mayor's goals in public safety, education, jobs and economic development, healthy and sustainable communities, ethics, and customer service. Additionally, we support the Mayor's core service areas by participating in developing business applications that help advance each of these areas. The Mayor's sixth core service 87 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 area, that of customer service, is really the focus of MOIS' responsibility, because we are essentially a customer service organization for IT services. Our goal is to collaborate with all City agencies on IT matters, including planning, standards, training, project management, and support. Additionally, last year we transferred voice and data from Public Property in the communications area and the responsibilities over to MOIS. That means that we now have the availability to support these critical functions and have the continued opportunity to improve networking and communication activities. In order to measure our progress in achieving excellent customer service and as part of the PhillyStat initiative, MOIS is developing a series of Service-Level Agreements to outline our enterprise-wide services to the City. A couple of those services are e-mail and Internet, as well as customer-based 88 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 Service-Level Agreements, known as SLAs, for departments supported by MOIS and for specific applications. These Service-Level Agreements establish agreed-upon levels of customer service standards and provide the best and only way for MOIS to measure its performance in the Mayor's core area of customer service. In conjunction with establishing these Service-Level Agreements, we are developing a new series of metrics that provide more meaningful measures in order to hold us to our promise of performance. These measures include such areas as Help Desk ticket response and resolution, project success and timeliness, network availability including e-mail and Internet, and other statistics to measure such critical areas as eCommerce and virus protection for the City's assets. MOIS is requesting a total of $38,147,598 from the General Fund for 89 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 Fiscal Year 2009: $9,252,172 in Class 100 for 156 full-time positions; $28,557,792 in Class 200 for computer hardware maintenance, software licenses, training and project and program management support, communication contracts and surveillance cameras; and $337,634 in Class 300 and 400 for materials, supplies and equipment. This General Fund request represents a total increase of $7,495,000 from the previous Year 2008 estimated obligations, and the number of positions that we have is remaining the same.
The Water Fund, we are requesting a total of $2,695,704: $1,232,354 in Class 100 for 17 employee full-time positions; $1,427,000 in Class 200 for hardware and software maintenance and communication contracts; and $36,350 in Class 300 and 400 for materials, supplies and equipment. The Water Fund request represents a $37,498 increase from the '08 budget estimated 90 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 obligations. In the Grants Fund, we are requesting a total of $1,441,847, which is an increase of $185,251 from '08. These funds will be used to develop needed interface programs to support the sharing of property information among the departments. In the Aviation Fund, we are requesting $694,000 in Class 200 for the Communication Division contracts. We have been working hard to improve our service and make it more efficient, particularly in the area of better Internet availability, a more effective e-mail system and the continued reduction of paper through the automation of business processes and imaging. Additionally, our program, or Project Management Office, is making strides in improving the oversight process for the numerous IT projects that are going on in the City. As we move toward the next 91 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 fiscal year, we look forward to aligning our mission of effective IT leadership and support with the Mayor's six core service areas, particularly that of customer service, which is our focus. Our budget proposal and our improved performance measures will contribute to our ability to fulfill this obligation and will allow us to be accountable to everyone and be measured by the people that we serve. Madam President, this concludes my testimony, and I'll be glad to answer any questions you or the other members of City Council may have at this time.
Thank you very much. On -46, you are requesting $9,200,000 in Minor Object Code 251 Professional Services Information Technology. This represents an increase of almost $7.8 million above your current budget. Can you tell us what that is for? 92 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
Yes. That's for the video surveillance project that has been being run as a service.
And can you tell us how many cameras you will be acquiring and where they will be located?
There will be a total of 250 cameras that are due to be installed per the contract by October of this year. The location of those cameras is a requirement of the Police Department as to where the best opportunity to address public safety is based on crime stats and where they feel they would make the most difference.
Yes. They currently have a monitoring center set 93 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 up. It's a pretty good operation that they have down there, and if any of the Councilmembers would like to see that, I'm sure you're all more than welcome to stop and visit that.
Thank you. -47 you're requesting an increase of $1,795,000 for Verizon. This represents an increase of 18.5 percent. Can you elaborate on that, please?
Good afternoon, yes. It's been a long day. My name is Joseph James, First Deputy CIO. The increase in the expenditures in the Verizon category represents an increase in both the overall volume and increase in number of telephones and services that have been 94 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 deployed. Over the last couple of years, we have been trying to actually catch up on the amount of expenditures associated with the expansion on CityNet and with the number of telephone lines that are being generally deployed out in the field. So it represents both an increase in volume and services.
On -49, Water Fund communications, you are requesting to carry over your FY08 amount. Why is the General Fund communication budget increasing and please tell us why the Water Fund and Aviation Fund stays stagnant?
Council President, both the Water Fund and the Aviation Funds are numbers that we project based upon the expenditures in the past with those departments, and based on the services that have been purchased, we have not shown or not received an indication of an increase in either volume or traffic, and basically 95 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 projected that number to remain flat.
Basically over the Fiscal '08, over the Fiscal '09. Those two categories for those departments and their funding is remaining flat.
On -20, you're requesting $78,500 in Class 200 for staff augmentation. Can you explain what this is for and why it's needed? -20.
That is just for general consulting. As the year goes by and we run into the traditional bell-shaped curves where we do not have enough resources in the IT area, we go out to contracting opportunities that we publish on the web to bring in staff augmentation to help us with those initiatives when we run into those. So that's based on the previous year's spending, is what that is.
Thank 96 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 you. At this time, the Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Mr. Phillis and your team. First of all, I want to congratulate you for the great job in rescuing Project Ocean. We thought that that was going to become a bigger concern and more expensive than it turned out to be. But, again, I want to compliment you on the rescue of Project Ocean. And if you want to comment on it for a few seconds, you can.
Well, I'd like to thank the Councilmembers for giving me a chance to rescue that project. When I first came here, I remember being brought before the Councilmembers here to explain why Project Ocean was a fiasco, is the best way I can explain it, and rather than put the clamps down and say, Stop all activity, you gave me a chance to 97 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 work with the two different departments, both Water Revenue and the Water Department, to begin to put a project together the right way that would deliver success, and with the help of those two departments, we were able to do that. So I think it was an effort by the whole City to rescue a bad project.
Similarly, Wi-Fi Philadelphia, Wireless Philadelphia, hopefully that project can stay on track, but our responsibility here is to ask the questions when it pertains to the expenditure of taxpayers' dollars. Now, specifically, I've got a couple of questions, and I'm going to read them because they're technical and I want to make sure I get it right. Specifically, how much of this year's Fiscal '08 proposed $200,000 for professional services for Wireless Philadelphia is for the consultant project manager? Not the firm. How much 98 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 is the project manager being paid?
I can't answer that because we do business with the consulting company, and that's the billing rate. That is not the amount that's paid to the actual resource. I don't know what that is.
What services does the consultant project manager perform?
The project manager in question here is working on 11 different items for me, and I'll read these off for you. The first one is departmental broadband assessment, and this is where the contractor is working with City departments on the broadband wireless assessment and how it could be used by these departments to become more efficient and provide services without having to come downtown, to be outside and have, for instance, an L&I inspector be able to do their job remotely, accessing the wireless network. Today we 99 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 are working with five departments - Police, Health, Water, DHS and L&I - to evaluate their applications and see how they would be candidates for using the network. The second one is for video surveillance interoperability, because the resource we have has a tremendous amount of background in wireless technology, which is also being used in the video surveillance. We're also using her as a technical advisor to that project. The subterranean wireless systems where we're talking about how we're going to get connectivity for first responders down in the subway systems, she is a consultant to that task that we're working on because, again, of her technical expertise. We've been talking about an opportunity to do prison home monitoring in a different way, one way that could benefit us removing some of our 100 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 non-violent criminals from the Prison System and not just trading bars for curtains, but instead allowing them to be monitored across a 6,000-node network throughout the City that would allow them to have some amount of freedom in leading a productive life and still be monitored as though they were in the prison. Digital tourism, we're trying to find a way that we can use the wireless network to enhance the visitor experience. CityNet interoperability, how we can open up our CityNet to use other broadband partners as to how we can have more use of the network throughout the City. And, of course, the Wireless Philadelphia relationship is also one that she works on. In working on that project, she is the leader of my Technical Advisor Board that meets once a month to review the technology and the changes that are required on rolling out 101 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 this wireless network. She also chairs the operational meeting, which goes on every week with Streets, EarthLink, MOIS and other people that are involved in this, and she chairs that opportunity. And she also is the City's contract reviewer on a day-to-day basis both for financial compliance and technical. She also manages the 3,000 free accounts that EarthLink has given us as part of their contract and who gets those and what we use them for. Those are the activities she works on.
What technical experience does the consultant project manager have that MOIS doesn't already have?
She is completely versed in all aspects of mesh technology, which is what we are using for the wireless network. We do not have any mesh technology people in the department. We don't have any wireless technology 102 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 that we utilize within our department. Everything is part of CityNet and is a hardwired network today.
There's a report in the media today that claims that the person you're referring to is a former Board member getting paid part of that $200,000 as a former member of the executive committee of Wireless Philadelphia.
She was never a Board member. She was an assistant to an executive committee member that was appointed by the previous Administration. She worked for the previous CIO, who was Dianah Neff, and she was an assistant to her on that committee. She was not a voting nor a participating member of the executive committee.
Madam President, do I have a few more minutes or should I wait for the next go-around?
You have a few more minutes. How much longer 103 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 do you need?
Two minutes. But I will go around. How much has MOIS spent for the consultant project manager in prior years?
Okay. You need to look at Wireless Philadelphia as a project in two different ways. There was money that was spent prior to a contract being signed after the RFP process. There was -- and I can illustrate all that money for you. She was also being paid a portion of that by MOIS, and she was also being paid a portion of that by the Wireless Philadelphia non-profit agency. After the contract was signed, we had her as an extra resource in MOIS to do the tasks that I just mentioned to you, and she's been on that project for two years. She was there for '07 and she will complete the '08 year in June 30th, which is all we have her for, and the 104 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 total amount of that was -- I didn't add it up. Wait a minute -- $400,000 over a two-year period, which wasn't paid to her, it was paid to the consulting company.
Would you provide to the Chair -- again, I'm going to ask for this information. You mentioned it, but I would like it sent formally to the Chair -- how much was spent for services in preparation for the request for the proposal, how much was spent in preparation preparing the agreement with EarthLink once the RFP approach was abandoned, and how much has been spent since the EarthLink agreement was finalized. So if you can provide that information --
I have all that information in a spreadsheet, which I 105 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 will supply after the meeting here to Council President. You can distribute it to everyone if you'd like.
Also, could you please provide to the Chair the names of the principals of the consulting company that you just described, please.
And the final question, how much will be spent -- and, again, that can come to the Chair. How much will be spent on the consulting 106 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 project manager in Fiscal Year 2009, and, again, if you can tell us what services will be performed, that would be appreciated.
I do not have any projection beyond June 30th for this project manager. The only way I would address this person staying on is if we had more activities for her to work on. Other than that, she would be done.
Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, because a lot of the feedback that I'm getting is the fact that if Wireless Philadelphia is going to be a long-term project, we should start considering staffing, not consultants, that will work for you, that will manage this project and will oversee it in the coming years.
I don't disagree with that. There's a need for project management, but you also need to remember there are three separate contracts that govern this relationship. It is a 107 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 contract for three different organizations. It is the City of Philadelphia, it is Wireless Philadelphia, the non-profit agency, and currently it is EarthLink. The relationship of managing the relationship with EarthLink is tied up in those three contract pieces. So it's a little bit integrated, which I will be glad to send you that information.
And in my next go-around, the question that I'm going to ask is -- and I'll repeat it later -- is really if you could just give us a two-minute update on where this project is and where do you expect it to be. Thank you, Madam Chair.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.
Thank you, Madam President. 108 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 Good afternoon, Mr. Phillis. You are obviously testifying today as part of the Mayor's Office because MOIS is situated there. Can you tell me why IT services should be situated within the Mayor's Office and/or exclusively within the Mayor's Office?
Can you tell me why IT services should be situated within the Mayor's Office and/or exclusively within the Mayor's Office?
I don't think that I could say that that should be the case. I think there's a case to be made for a core IT agency to serve the City of Philadelphia. If you were to look at how IT money is spent throughout the City, I think we spend a lot of money in a lot of different areas because we are such a fragment organization that we do not necessarily get the best bang for our 109 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 buck. So I think there needs to be a core agency. When I came in here, this organization had been formed by an executive order from the Mayor.
I don't totally disagree with that. In your testimony you say that MOIS is a customer service organization for IT services. Our goal is to collaborate with all City agencies on IT matters, including planning, standards, training, project management and support. How many different customers do you serve?
I never counted them, but there's at least 50 to 60 different department agencies and organizations within the City that make use of our enterprise services, such as e-mail, network. There are many things that we do. We have the Internet applications. There are a lot of things that we serve as enterprise and there are a lot of other things that we serve -- 110 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
Yes. No, the City itself is not the way we're organized today.
My question is, how many of those customers can be classified as one customer, being the City or the executive branch of government?
I don't think I could call -- the only thing I can think of a way to answer your question is that we have a handful of enterprise applications that we serve for the entire City, but we serve a lot of other ways individual departments.
But the Council of the City of Philadelphia is not an agency or department. Do you think there should be a separate Council 111 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 Office of Information Services? If you were not under the auspices of the Mayor's Office, but if we were actually a separate customer, would you not be advising us that we should basically have a separate office and separate capacity?
No. I think there is more of a reason for non-separated agencies within the City. I think it makes much more sense to serve them together.
So when the departments and agencies under the Mayor's purview have failure in their IT services, Council should just be subject to that as well?
In other words, when your system goes down, because we're part of your system, our system goes down. And when your system is slow, our system is slow. 112 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 You don't think that we should have separate IT capacity, considering that we have separate IT needs and essentially are a separate branch of government? We are not a department or agency.
You could do that. I don't think it's the most efficient use of money.
Efficient for the City, efficient for the executive branch of government, efficient for an agency that works under the Mayor's Office and/or efficient for a separate branch of government like City Council?
Well, I think what you're referring to is that from a core agency, who I support should be governed by a Service-Level Agreement that says if I was supporting the Councilmembers here, I should have a Service-Level Agreement that says what I am required to support for you. If I can do that at the right price and I can 113 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 deliver that service, why would you care?
I would not care if the service was good and to the extent the service is not slowed down by being part of a bigger package of services.
I don't think that those go together necessarily. I could --
They do. They do. I mean, when the Internet slows up for the entire City, it slows up for City Council, and the City Council has separate IT needs in general, but specifically probably has definitely separate Internet service needs in terms of research and other things.
If you're really just relating to the performance of the Internet, we can talk about that, but there's no reason why we should be in a position --
Same as e-mail and so forth and so on. I mean, 114 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 the issue is really even if you claim to have 50 separate customers, we shouldn't be treated as one of 50. Do you agree with that?
No, I don't. I think you should be treated based on a Service-Level Agreement that we agree on.
Well, why do we need to agree upon a Service-Level Agreement? Why shouldn't we just have our own capacity where we can --
If you want to have your own capacity, I don't think there's any reason that I can force you to do anything other than that. You can go and do whatever you want. If you want to set up your own IP, you want to set up all your own information, there's absolutely no reason why you can't go ahead and do that.
Well, let me jump to a separate line of questioning. I may return to this. Your request is for $20 million 115 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 in Class 200 and $337,000 in Class 300 and 400 for computer, hardware maintenance, supplies, equipment, so forth and so on. As part of this budget process, Councilwoman Brown requested each department basically detail its level of DBE utilization. That is not included in your written testimony nor was it part of your oral testimony. Can you tell me why?
Andrew -- there's our MBEC requirements and our performance on that, if that's of any interest.
It's not within your testimony. It's not within 116 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 your written testimony.
Okay. For the money that we spend on these types of contracts where we have the opportunity to hire MBEC participation, our participation for the past year has been percent. That 24 percent is broken 15 down on the chart up there on the screen 16 as 15 percent being African-American, two 17 percent being Asian and seven percent 18 being WBE, women. There is three percent 19 where we have minorities that are in more 20 than one category, and that's the Asian 21 and the female category. It's three 22 percent. 23
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Green.
Thank you, Madam President. I'm just going to ask you some specific questions. If you could design the way information technology operates within the City of Philadelphia -- and specifically I'm talking about a conversation we had in my Council office. But if you could design it from scratch and you could say, how should the City 118 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 run its IT department versus the way it's running it now, with each department having its own IT people that do not report to you? And can you talk about the savings that might result also and productivity and efficiency increases.
I think that -- and that's what I was relating to before with Councilman Goode's question, is that with standards, you have the ability to create efficiencies, but you can't have standards without enforcement. The only way that you truly have enforcement is when you have a hold of all spending to make sure that IT spending is concurrent with the priorities of the City. Otherwise, priorities are siloed into each individual organization, which might not be the best benefit for the City overall. We have some very, very, I guess I'd call them, low-hanging fruit, such as something as simple as a desktop. We do not have a standard desktop 119 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 throughout the City. Consequently, changes to applications, changes that we are trying to make to the Internet to move to a more efficient operation requires a visit to each and every desktop throughout the City. That's very, very inefficient. It's not a good use of resources. There's better ways to do that. In many ways, the City is far behind the private sector as to how our IT should be structured and should be functioning. So I guess my best answer to that is, number one, to have standards that are enforceable and people that are responsible for them, and number two is to control budgeting for IT expenses so that they meet the requirements of the City as a whole and not just a department, even though in a department they may be very significant.
Sure. But you do not have control of IT spending in the City? 120 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
To certain degrees we do. In the previous Administration we had an IT Governing Board where anything that was forecasted to be over a hundred thousand dollars worth of expenditure had to be approved by the IT Governing Board.
Over a hundred thousand dollars. So prior to the budgeting call each year, we would do a project call from the IT Governing Board to find out what projects were being requested by each of the departments. That does not necessarily catch everything, because obviously you can have a project that looks like a hundred thousand dollars or you can have four projects that are linked together that look like $25,000.
Excuse me. 121 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 Is the Governing Board still in existence?
It's in the planning mode with the new Administration. It is going to be reestablished, with the Budget Director and the Managing Director working on that with me now.
In the private sector, the CIO's job is to increase productivity and the efficiency of an organization and essentially change workflow processes to make that happen throughout an organization, and they're given goals every year of decreasing the organization's costs by two percent, three percent a year. The only reason our economy has survived the past 30 years is because our businesses, our major corporations, et cetera, have become far more efficient at the delivery 122 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 of services. How would you compare that to the way the City of Philadelphia conducts its IT operations and the responsibility specifically of the CIO within the City of Philadelphia?
I think there is enormous opportunity to provide efficiencies and better working conditions for all workflow opportunities within the City. There's no question that the task and the opportunity is just huge looking forward. I don't think we're on the same level as the private industry today.
And were we to capture the efficiencies the private industry captured over the last ten or 15 years, how much could we save the City of 123 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 Philadelphia on an annual basis?
I don't know that I have a good answer for that. I think it would be more than reasonable to expect that you could have a savings of at least five percent really quick.
Yeah. I think -- I mean, it would take a lot of work to do this. You got to invest it. It wouldn't just fall in your lap.
But an annual basis we could save the City of Philadelphia $200 million a year from our costs --
It has to do with 124 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 your paperless environment suggestion, which I think is a great suggestion. How easily you can get to that number, though, would take some work.
But I'd like to understand why we don't have in this year's budget expenditures that take us towards a $200-million-a-year savings, which is a lot of money to the people that need services in the City.
Well, now that my Budget Director is up here to keep me honest, we'll let him answer.
It's already on the record, Steve. It's $200 million a year we can save.
No, I understand. But here's what we're talking about. We're talking about a CIO that reports to the Finance Director, whose job is or somebody like that whose job is -- which the CIO usually reports 125 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 to a Chief Financial Officer in a private corporation, whose job is to increase productivity and efficiency. All technology spending should go through that person, which includes the use of centralized procurement and strategic sourcing, which the City can't currently do effectively because each department makes its own decisions versus a centralized agency. So we're talking about the whole picture, plus going paperless in this. Sorry, Steve. You might have a comment on this.
Madam President, thank you. Councilmember, the $200 million figure I think is rightly an opinion. That is not to say that the thrust of your question, which is why aren't we introducing the investments in technology 126 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 that make us more productive, is one we haven't been paying attention to. I think that is one of the reasons that we're hoping to reconstitute the IT Governing Board. In other communities that I've been in, from a state government in the Midwest to other cities, you've had similar arrangements where the Chief Information Officer reports to either a Director of Administration or a similar entity, because the resources don't come free. It's a little harder to gauge what your return on investment is. It's a little harder because you don't have a stock to watch, either grow or deteriorate because of the investments that you're making. So we need to capture that. I think Terry's point about the IT Governing Board is an important need. We need to reconstitute that. We need to look at what these strategic investments might be, and then we need to be able to 127 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 demonstrate to you and others that indeed they have a value, not just a quantitative in terms of dollars we're saving, but qualitative, they make our work easier or they make us better at what we do.
We provide more services for the same money, would be the goal.
Right. But right now I don't think we're ready to do that, and I think that, yeah, we are probably behind by some significant number. I don't know if it's ten or 15 years, but there's a lot of work to do, and I will tell you, one of the -- and I've been having this conversation with Terry and Michael and others, that I'm a little amazed at some of the things that we have in place and some of the things that we don't have in place. I think others share that opinion, and it requires us to spend some time working on it, making that better. 128 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
You mention that the CIO in other cities is reporting to some administration board or other things. We have Dr. Barnett basically trying to bring us 3-1-1 and PhillyStat, which is extremely tied in to what Mr. Phillis and his team do. Would it be appropriate for MOIS to become MDOIS?
Well, it doesn't sing as an acronym, I'll grant you that. That may be where we end up. I think what we are looking at is that the Governing Board has to be an effective entity by which we bring together the spending that's happening in all of the departments to a place where we're making the priority investment citywide, we're making priority investments by department. Whether we do that organizationally by a sort of hard move of MOIS into the Managing Director's Office or we do it through an effective Governing Board, I think it's just a matter of strategies, but both can 129 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 accomplish that end.
Would you say it's fair to say that we don't really know what IT spending is in the entire City of Philadelphia as a result of the limited classifications that are in the budget and that we have to greatly increase classifications to specifically pick up software license agreements, which may just be listed as contracts, or other things within the specific departments? We don't know what the IT spend is for the City, right?