Councilmember, I know what we budget for it. The budget should be able to tell us that. It should be that document, but --
But that's for MOIS. Within the departments, we don't know what the IT spend is.
Within departments, we have a bit of a handle on what their hard expenditures are on certain items. On a soft expenditure 130 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 where someone says, Hey, you know, I know how to program a particular function or I know how to do a spreadsheet that will allow us to capture some of our activities, that, no. That will be almost impossible to capture.
Can I ask the Administration next year to create separate budget classifications for IT expenditures by department so that we can look at what the actual IT is -- so that's consultants, software licensing, et cetera -- so that we can see what each department is actually spending, and then we'll know what pool of dollars we have to get from each department to pull into a centralized strategic sourcing and procurement organization, which I hope would become MOIS under Terry Phillis' leadership.
Okay. I have one more question. Is there a 131 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 report by Deloitte and Touche -- and I have heard this from a previous CIO -- within the Office of CIO that says that the City could in fact save $200 million a year by adopting some of these changes that I have suggested?
Yes. I have never actually seen the report, but I've got the same information that you do, that that was done before I came on the scene here.
Will you please provide the Chair with a copy of that report?
One way or another, we'll find it. I can reach out to -- one of the previous CIOs may have their actual own copy of it somewhere.
Thank you very much. My questions were in no way 132 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 meant as a criticism of your department. I think you guys are doing a terrific job, and I'd like to see you take over IT for the entire City.
They weren't recognized as being critical. They're all good questions from -- truth, I've never had a bad question in here.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I know very little about IT, so my questions are going to sound very elementary. Just listening to Councilman Green, does each department in the City have its own IT staff within a department?
It's a hybrid of what you think. We have some departments 133 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 that we operate their IT for them completely, such as the Revenue Department under Keith Richardson. We have their desktop. We have their programming. We do everything for them. There are other departments, such as Streets, that has their own IT Director and their own IT organization. So it's kind of a hybrid of that. You may have a department that may have one or two IT people and you may have a department that may have or 14 IT people. So the question is really a 15 little bit of everything. 16
So 17 listening to your testimony, if you had 18 your druthers, would you rather have your 19 own -- design a whole new IT system for 20 the City?
I think you're asking me if I had my magic wand, what would I do?
I think there's 134 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 an opportunity to work in a collaborative way with all departments, but to have more of a central control over spending, which will allow us to do things in the right way to meet the City needs rather than individual needs, because some of the big departments, quite honestly, do a really nice job with their IT, but it is strictly isolated to that department, and although that's a good use of their budget, it might not be the best use of the money for the City's benefit. So if a magic wand, I would have somewhat of a hub and spoke organization, with collaboration and control over standards and spending.
Okay. In your testimony you talk about the Water Fund. What is that? What is the Water Fund in your department?
The Water Fund are money that the Water Department pays for general support in the MOIS organization and we have several 135 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 resources that are charged back to the Water Department.
I don't know if I can explain it any better than that. Joe, do you have any better explanation?
In the past, we used to do interfund transfers for certain services that the Water Department would purchase through the central organizations, like portions of their phone service or their IT services or their long distance. We used to do a reconciliation in the previous Administration at the end of the year, and then we changed that to say why don't we just appropriate what they are planning to spend based on their spending history in the budget for us, and that way, we could just -- it would be a lot easier for us to procure the services for them, because they wouldn't have to 136 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 figure out at the end of the year what they did spend, what they didn't spend and try to reconcile it. And it would usually be after we had already spent the money. So it was always a catch-up. So the idea was to just figure out what their expenditures are, allocate it in the budget so it would be identified and itemized specifically for the Water Department, Aviation, and then we as the central agency just go ahead and spend the funds for them.
Okay. Thank you. We had a meeting recently with SEPTA because they're trying to renovate a train station in my district and we asked for security cameras. Now, I notice in your testimony you're talking about --
Yeah, video surveillance cameras. Is there a 137 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 collaboration with SEPTA about putting cameras in their stations, or what is the relationship there?
The plan and the contract that we signed with our vendor allowed for us to address collaboration between PHA that has a camera system, SEPTA, regional, state. We're looking eventually to be able to do that, but we are not doing that currently because we're still trying to get our network set up and our cameras working before we address taking on anything else. But the plan is to have that, yes.
So would that be for surveillance purposes? The collaboration would be for --
No. The collaboration would be for during the either forensics for looking at a crime that may have been committed or for a crime that is actively taking place, that they could work together using both sets of cameras to be able to treat the 138 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 problem, but there is no plans for the City to monitor SEPTA's cameras.
Okay. And you wouldn't install City cameras on SEPTA sites?
If we did that, it would be based on the Police identification that that is a very high crime area, and we would have to work out with SEPTA to get the authorization to be able to put cameras on their assets.
Okay. Since you have to get approval from PECO and SEPTA and anyone else to install cameras on their poles, how is that work going?
Not very well. SEPTA has basically not played at all. They have not been willing to let us hang anything on their assets at all. PECO has agreed, but the negotiations between the vendor's law department and PECO have just gotten to the point now that the contract can be signed and we can start 139 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 hanging on PECO poles probably within the next two weeks. But that has been a significant struggle for the project.
Yes. We're also looking at that. It's interesting that you ask that because our vendor responding to the Police locations for cameras has identified several areas right now -- I think there's three of them -- where there's two different kinds of problems, and both would be solved by installing a new pole. One is there is no pole to hang anything on, so there's no way to hang the asset. The second one is that it's so dark there that no matter what you do, you can't see. So putting up a pole and putting up a light would allow us to have some place to hang the asset, plus it would allow us to put a light in a place where there should have been one anyway. 140 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 So we are working with the Streets Department right now to see if we can get those scheduled for implementation, but we haven't -- we're just doing that this week.
Okay. All right. Thank you. I was going to ask you about the Streets Department, but you brought that in. That's fine.
Streets Department has been extremely cooperative and work with us all the time.
Okay. Thank you very much. No. I have one more question. I forgot. Do we have a project called eGovernment?
No, we don't have a project called eGovernment. We have ePay.
ePay? All right. How does that work? 141 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
Well, ePay is where about three years ago MOIS set up a trial site to be able to have our constituents pay their bills across the Internet. It's become a very, very good operation and the numbers are mushrooming. We got more and more people being able to do this. We're only at a very small percentage as to the opportunity that that gives us, though. One of the detriments that we have in that area today is that in order for you to pay your bill, say your water bill, online, you have to pay an extra fee, a convenience fee to do that. Obviously that's not a great marketing tool to get people to use that. So what we're doing right now is, we're looking at reestablishing that contract with OPC, who is our vendor. We just did an RFP. Now it's time to negotiate the contract. And then we are working to figure out how much money it saves us as a city to be 142 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 able to get the payments online like this that would more than make up for the convenience fee that we do have to pay to the credit card company for handling the payment, which would allow us to pass that on to the constituents, which will get the money in the bank faster and it will make it easier for our citizens to pay their bills. But we're still working through that.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Phillis, I'd like to go back to Wi-Fi Philadelphia, finish my questions that I have for you. It was my understanding that Wi-Fi Philadelphia was not going to cost 143 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 the taxpayers any money. You've made a distinction between construction of the system and the management of the project, but costs are costs. Could you address that issue, please?
Well, I think you're basically right in the way you say that. The way that it was advertised -- and, of course, those were before I got here, but that it was to be built at no 12 cost. The network was to be built at no 13 cost to the constituents of Philadelphia. However -- and I know this is probably splitting hairs a little bit, but there's no way that as a city I can manage the requirements that the City has in this project without spending some money on that. Because it's never been forecasted far enough in advance as to when we'd be completed with the network, I have not hired a resource that I felt could take it to the next level. So I've been using contract resources to do that. So in your statement, yes, I am 144 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 spending money on the wireless project from a support effort for the City.
Mr. Phillis, I think what Councilman Green said earlier is extremely important about -- one of the problems I see in our government is, we really can't figure out what a project really costs us. In the private sector, there's account numbers for almost every task that occurs, and that leads me, that I previously pointed out, that there have been costs to this project. Do you know staff time, legal services, your IT department's time? I mean, how much money have we really spent? Because I think one of the problems that we have is, we don't really know because we don't have a really good accounting system for the time and effort and expenditure on any project sometimes in this.
Well, you're absolutely right, but that's not unique 145 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 to Wireless Philadelphia. Because we do not account for time by project or by activity that people spend their time on every day, there is no accounting down to that level. And that gets into a whole lot of different issues, including unions, how you account for time. That's a much bigger issue. But I agree with you that in the private sector, people make out time sheets that equate to what they spend their time on every day, not just in IT, but also in the operating departments.
I understand that. I guess this is the last one. What other City costs are associated with Wi-Fi Philadelphia, whether construction management or others? I mean, is there any other surprises? You don't like to be the guy that surprises us with things, so could you today tell us -- and I asked you earlier -- where are we with this? We all know EarthLink is 146 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 actively trying to market or sell the system. Could you just take a few minutes, address the real costs and talk about where we are with this project.
The only thing I can tell you is, there are no surprises in costs that I'm aware of, none whatsoever. This wasn't a surprise to me. Obviously it was a surprise to you, but --
No, it wasn't a surprise. I thought it all along. You just proved it during your budget testimony.
And that's the only cost that I've been associated with that even relates remotely to Wireless Philadelphia. That's the only one. I know of no other costs anywhere, because the money is totally outside of the City at this point. So I'm not aware of any costs. Your second question was in regards to the status of the project, 147 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 where it's at today. Wireless Philadelphia obviously is about -- depending on how you calculate it, it's between 70 to 80 percent complete. The Northeast and the Northwest have not been built out at this point. We do not have a commitment for the completion of those sites. The contract requires EarthLink to complete the entire network by November of this year. The project requires a payment from EarthLink of $1 million to the City through PAID May 24th of this year, on an anniversary of the acceptance of the proof of concept area. That money is supposed to be delivered to PAID, given to the City and put into the General Fund, and the Streets Department then issues a $1 million payment to Wireless Philadelphia to aid them in their operational costs going forward to solve the digital inclusion issue. As you know, EarthLink has gone through several statements, several changes in leadership. The original CEO 148 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 that saw the vision of providing wireless to governments throughout the United States and really worldwide died and a new man took over by the name of Rolla Huff. When he came on, he has changed the direction of the company and his relationship to the stakeholders and has decided that this is no longer an initiative that he wishes to be part of their strategy going forward. So they are officially trying to sell the network. Through the three announcements that they've made, they hinted about that, but in February, they actually said it, they are selling the network. What that means to the City is, of course, the best thing for the City would be to have a vendor come in, buy the network and basically just change the logo. Instead of calling it EarthLink, we'd call it ABC Rental, or whoever the vendor might be. That wouldn't change our contract. It wouldn't change the payments. Everything would remain as is 149 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 with the ultimate plan. If that doesn't happen, the current Administration and myself, we're working on what should be the City's posture going forward if they are unable to sell the network, and we do not have a conclusion for that at this point.
Tell me about the completion of the network. Northeast is obviously a very big piece of real estate, parts of the Northwest. Do you anticipate them finishing that, and, if not, who finishes it?
Well, the official word is that those areas today are deferred. They are making very little, if any, progress on them. The contract states that the network has to be completely built out by November of this year. If they don't get it built out, they are in default of the contract.
That means 150 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 litigation and remedies that are provided for in the contract. Although they're not overwhelming remedies, there are remedies within the contract.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Phillis, this is the first time I've had a chance to talk to you in public since the new Administration came in, and Mayor Nutter I know early on asked you to stay, and I just want to compliment you on how well you're thought of by your colleagues and peers around the country, both in large cities and counties. I have firsthand knowledge from attending meetings through the Public Technology Institute. And I consider the City very lucky to have you 151 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 here and your work ethic and your knowledge and also your ability to network with your peers and share best practices. So I just want to thank you on the record for staying, first of all.
And for being in a position to be asked to stay, which wasn't true of a lot of people in the last Administration. The ePay -- and, again, I'm glad we're doing something with ePay. There's an awful lot of people that will pay if you don't charge them for the convenience of paying when they're saving you the money. So I'm glad we're on that track, and I think you'll see a boom in payments once you get that down to where the rest of the world is, which is you're helping us, we're not charging you to help us. Councilman Goode's question I thought was interesting about how many departments and whether City Council 152 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 should be one of them and what the integration should be, and it comes up to what I was just referring to. Do you have information on what other particularly large cities and counties do in this area of the Councilman's questions in terms of how much is centralized? In fact, we had other questions along the same lines that came off. I'd be surprised if there weren't quite a few cities that have gone or counties that have gone to the central IT model, both for savings and efficiencies and the combination that comes with it.
I belong to a large city CIO focus group, which are the ten largest cities in the United States, and we meet quarterly. All of them deal with their IT as a central agency. They do not have the City Council or the legislative branch separated from the core agency. What they do have, though, 153 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 is their own Service-Level Agreement that says how they want to be treated, so that they have their own anonymity, which I think is important, that they have their own protections and that they have their own performance levels that, quite honestly, I should be held accountable to. And we haven't done that as a city, let alone for the Council. So I think that's a growing experience for everybody to get to that. And it's a rather large endeavor to do that. I've been through it before. It will be a very new experience for almost everyone in the City as we start doing that.
Can you explain what our own anonymity is when you're talking in these terms? I don't quite understand.
Okay. I had a meeting with Mr. McPherson and I think it was Rick Auerbach was with us about Internet usage just to let everyone know 154 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 that many of the problems we've had with the Internet and the performance over the last several months have been multi-faceted. There's lots of issues with that. One of the issues is a great deal of improper use of the Internet, going to sites that the employees have no 9 business going to, and I will tell you that improper use of sites probably accounts for 65 percent of our traffic in the City. In order for us to address that, we did not have a tool that we could use to control the content of what people were downloading off the Internet. We had to go out and buy that. In doing that, there was some concern about the fact that this would allow the legislative or the Councilmembers the opportunity for everybody to see who was going to what site. They deserve the anonymity of their jobs not to be scrutinized in that way. So we are providing that kind of anonymity to the 155 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 Councilmembers, but we are going to deliver the appropriate Internet service that they deserve and want. So that's what I mean by "anonymity."
Okay. Having just been down at the National League of Cities conference, I was talking to some people. This isn't just about IT. And I got our budget guru here, Steve. I've never heard that the City had people on staff in any capacity, any department, centralized or otherwise, who write grants for a living. That's what they do. And when I heard that Chicago -- I heard other cities, but the one that struck me was Chicago, because they seem to be doing a whole lot of things right at the moment. They have three full-time grant writers that work in the city, and apparently it has paid dividends way beyond their salaries. And 156 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 there are grants out there for a whole host of different things that would benefit the City, our efficiencies, maybe take some of the workload off of Councilman Green in terms of trying to go paperless or different things. I'm only kidding, Bill. But those kind of things, the kind of things that you want -- the people are willing to give grants for to help us become better. And I just wanted to know where we are today and if we have any thoughts of -- I just had never heard of -- and IT is one of the places where we obviously could be getting some grants for this kind of thing.
Councilmember, Madam President, Steve Agostini, Budget Director. We do have now a full-time grants-writing individual in the Mayor's Office working under our Policy Director, Mr. Wendell Pritchett.
Did you 157 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 say a person?
Yes, one person. And from what I could tell so far, she's been effective in sort of not only getting some grants, but in sort of canvassing and categorizing what it is we can go after. The effort that you referenced in Chicago, Chicago actually had an individual who was -- I think the Mayor actually referred to her as the czar of IT, and it was her responsibility to generate sizable grants, sizable contributions from a variety of entities across the city, because it was the Mayor's then effort to try and make the city much more of a digital city. That may be something that we talk about here as well. There are grants out there. I think the Kennedy School of Government has a very significant effort with respect to trying to generate IT enhancements, IT improvements for local governments, 158 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 because it's not a place where you see that. We're going to look at those things. Terry knows this. We are trying to get ourselves up to speed. I think one of the things you would see a consensus among us who are newer to the City is that we have a lot to do to catch up with some other cities. There's a lot to build on, and Terry has sort of raised that for you, but there is a lot that we can do and should do.
Just to let you know that today we receive about $8 million a month through the Internet payment capabilities.
First let me say that as a new Councilperson, we were allowed to enter in our office maybe three hours, four hours before we were sworn in the day before we were sworn in due to some circumstances which we won't go into, but I must say that your staff -- when we found our circumstances, we found out our hard drives had been wiped clean. I mean, all kinds of problems with the computer systems. Your staff worked diligently, diligently to get us up and running, gave us everything we needed. We are appreciative of allowing us to be able to function on behalf of the citizens of Philadelphia. So we appreciate that.
Joe James and I go back to a prior life's work in economic development. So I am confident as I see him sitting over there that you guys get it. And so having said that, I want to put into context my questions that I ask from here forward to try to make you a better agency or at least help me to understand how you are a better agency. There's a word called tropophobic and that means the fear of change, and I'm wondering if a lot of times when you go through departments that actually should be sharing information, that could use similar software/hardware systems, when they don't do that, it's because often they're so used to doing things a certain way, knowing the function keys like their family members, that they're afraid to try new, more efficient softwares that might be out there. How do you deal with that? 161 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
Well, I think you're absolutely right. There is a fear of change in the world today. It's not just in this particular area. I think most people don't like change. I happen not to be one of them. I enjoy change. I think it's kind of exciting. But part of this is allowing people to have input to the process so they feel engaged in the result that's going to change what they do. If you just go out and drop it on them, they are not going to accept change. We did this with Project Ocean. We allowed all the people to have significant input as to how we were building a project, how we were building the training material, how everything was going to be delivered. They were fighting change previously. They did not fight this change, because it was part of their requirements. We're going to have the same thing with our new HR system that's coming in. We have Legacy systems that 162 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 are still green screen main frame operations. The people that operate those every day, they don't have a problem. They like what they do. They know how to come in every day and do their job, but to change is scary for them. And we have a lot of people in this City that are still on Legacy applications that are basically PC illiterate. And that's not attacking their IQ. It's just they don't know what a mouse is. They think that's who lives in Orlando. We need to bring those people into the mix so that they feel they're part of the solution rather than having a solution dropped on top of them.
I share their phobia sometimes. I'm an end user, but I have had to struggle to get up to speed on some things. But I want to go now to say that we're getting ready to implement, based on the Mayor's edict, a 3-1-1 system which will quantitatively allow us 163 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 to measure, and Councilman Green and I go forth and we talk about if it ain't measured, it ain't managed, and we kind of live that credo throughout this. So how are you going to interface with this 3-1-1 system?
Well, we're part of the design team for building the 3-1-1 system. We're part of the RFP process for picking the CRM that is part of this. I have my Enterprise Manager, Jim Querry, who has put together a plan for how we will build the appropriate back office system, which is the work order system, because obviously a 3-1-1 system is just really talking about -- when you talk about 3-1-1, it's just the front end. It's the phone call that somebody answers. If it doesn't provide a result, if it doesn't provide the right opportunity for the City to deliver a service, it's not a complete system, and that's what we want to measure, not the calls coming in, but the fruition of 164 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 meeting that requirement. So there are multiple pieces that have to come together. We put together a plan and we had it ready so that when the new Administration came in, we shared all of our opinions and ideas as to what would make a successful project, and that is the way we're moving forward. I think we're going to be doing a good job with this.
As Councilpeople, we really want your 3-1-1 system to work. It complements the constituent service work that we all do. However, right now we use Lotus Notes, which does not allow us to scan documents, to do things that allow us to better measure the responses that we get to constituent service requests from departments and follow up. Is there a software that is being planned to, on the back end, as you say, allow us, empower us to measure things so that we know how many Streets 165 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 Department complaints or requests we're getting, how many Water Department issues --
The CRM package, which is the citizens tracking mechanism in this process, will allow you to do that.
No, no. This is where we are going. This is the RFP that we're going to be issuing for CRM, which is the cornerstone for the 3-1-1 system.
No. The back end is the work order system. The 3-1-1 is no more than getting Verizon to redirect the calls when you dial 3-1-1. Not a big deal. The people that answer the phones have to be able to enter the information into a CRM, which is going to track and manage the request that comes in. Once it does that, it has to kick off a work 166 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 order for Streets to go out and pick up the trash or for whatever the call may be, to go and pick up a dead dog in the street. That work order to actually send the person out to do the task is the work order system.
So how do we as the end user, Council, use -- what system will we use?
You will be able to go into the CRM and find out what calls are coming in from your constituents. You'll be able to look at -- you'll be able to segregate all that data in many different ways. Also, I think that you'll become accustomed to looking at the results of the PhillyStat meetings that are going on today, as well as the 3-1-1 review that will incorporate all of this when it's done, and that should give each one of the Councilmembers the opportunity to see how City services are being provided within your district. 167 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
Finally, I, like Councilman Green, want to see an actual plan for a paperless government and I think that the 3-1-1 system on top of some other things that we can do can help us go that way. If I heard correctly, the savings annually would be $200 million? Bill, was that correct?
So $200 million. If we're talking about $200 million, that would have solved the after-school crisis four times over. It would build 1,200 low-income houses, which we desperately need in this City. It would reface every commercial corridor in the City of Philadelphia. So it is not a minor thing. As we look at the cuts we're getting from the federal government, we're down to $53 million worth of block grant funding. So $200 million can buy a lot of services for the 168 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 citizens of Philadelphia. So if in fact we are ever to become paperless, it would be helpful to me and this Council to see the steps we are taking each and every year to become that paperless government.
I agree with everything you said. Just make sure you also understand that there are tools and mechanisms that can be put in place and that are here today that allow you not to have paper.
Let me just say that, for instance, Lotus Notes, people get a note in an e-mail system and the first thing they do is print it out and file it. It kind of defeats the purpose of a paperless environment. So there is a way to have tools, but it's also a change in behavior as to how you do your jobs.
So from your office perspective, is there a ten commandments of how to get to paperless 169 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 or do's and don't's that we can pass around and not print out, that we can pass around electronically so that each department is charged or given a goal?
I think it's a good suggestion, but, no, I do not have a tablet with the ten commandments on it. But I think it's a good suggestion. I think as we go through the various things that could benefit this, we need to put in place the behavior modification so that it really reaches its goal.
My point here is that it begins with us in this room, including yourself. If in fact we are going to take steps, let's start taking them. My colleague wrote a paper about a paperless society. The first step was that I read it and I agree with it, and now that you came up with this wonderful suggestion, it would be good to take another step and give that to department heads.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Green.
Thank you, Madam President. Terry, I'd like to supplement the request of information to the Chair to include what you believe the cost would be to implement the recommendations of the Deloitte report to the City so that we know what the investment is to get to that 200 million in annual savings.
Thank you. Mr. James, the President mentioned that the Verizon budget had gone up, I think it was, 18 percent. In private industry, data and communications costs generally are going down on an 171 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 annual basis. I'm wondering why we're not following a similar trend with respect to our communications.
Councilman, in most cases, our costs have gone down as far as what the contracted rates for the services that we purchase. We traditionally are usually saving about 45 percent off what the general TAF rate is for most services. In some cases, we do even better, that our basic line rate for a line is $7, and that's pretty good compared to what you see in the private sector. But what we experience is, we experience a great deal of churn. We deal with a great deal of -- because there's such a dynamic to City government, that we're constantly moving people, rearranging things, adding people, adding lines, creating initiatives, creating hotlines, changing voice mail. So the sheer volume of work generates those costs. 172 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
And it's Verizon employees that have to come in and -- what do you mean "the sheer volume of work"?
I mean, the sheer volume of the work. I mean, if you look at the amount of telephone lines that we have in the City, we're close to 30,000 phone lines. Our line counts grow just about every year, and whenever there's a change of any kind, whether it's a change in Administration or a change in people, a change in City Council, we constantly expand and contract. So it's not that the actual rates are the issue. It's the sheer volume of work. Also, there is a great deal of work that, yes, Verizon technicians are installing a lot of phone lines in a lot of places. We're redoing health centers. We're redoing rec centers. We have to take out stuff. A lot of it is a swap and replace, and it's that kind of activities that occur over a period of 173 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 time that keeps growing our rates, and what we try to do is defer stuff. So in previous years where we have not spent as much as we should have because we didn't have it in the budget, we now try to catch up with it and try to get a budget increase this year, and we were successful in getting an increase to the budget, so it allows us to anticipate the expenditures that we're going to need hopefully in the next fiscal year.
Well, Mr. James, you haven't been successful in getting an increase to the budget yet.
I said we expect. I said we expect. I'm sorry, Councilman. In our proposed budget, we hope and anticipate that we'll see an increase. If not, we will work within the confines of the budget. But generally that's where the volume of work comes from and that's where the increase comes from.
Are there different technologies we could be using 174 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 rather than copper wire phone lines that would decrease the overall cost of data and voice communications to the City of Philadelphia? And that's where many of the savings are coming in major corporations. They have their own T3 lines that they own around the world. That's how they communicate with each other. They don't use private operators. They've created their own systems. They've used voiceover IP. They've used new technologies. To what extent are we exploring savings from the use of different technologies and the City's use in the past? For ten or 15 years behind on IT in general, it probably -- does it apply to this also?
On the communications side, back in 2005, we were successful in getting dollars to build CityNet, what we call CityNet 2, where we basically put in our own private fiber to 13 of our downtown buildings, 175 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 which make up a huge amount, almost 80 percent, of the volume of traffic between the high rises, which before was all leased circuits from Verizon. So we made that -- we were successful in getting that capital and we made that investment and have built that infrastructure in place. So we're trying to maintain ourselves consistent with the private sector and our ability to maintain these services, and we've made those investments. I think we are in the planning stages and have been in the planning stages of looking at what's the next generation network for the City, where does voiceover IP as a technology solution fit for us that will not only provide greater service and efficiency, but also have the ability to have some reduction in costs. We have not deployed that. We're using a lot of that infrastructure for a lot of what's done in the private 176 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 sector to triple play. We have a video surveillance network, so we have video. We have a voice network, which today is a managed service. And we have a data network. And part of the solution bringing communications into MOIS is to looking at how can we leverage it and now finally start to see a convergence of those networks so that we get to that point. I think we're in the planning stages of getting there. We have not achieved that yet, but we kind of have a sense of where we want to go with that, and I think it's strategic in our thinking how we achieve that. But we do need -- like anything else, we need to invest money for the expenditures to buy this equipment, because we don't necessarily have it sitting on the shelf.
Are those investments in the current budget or Five-Year Plan?
Could you please provide to the Chair the expenditures required to update our voice and data networks to bring them to the current technology that's used in the private sector and also tell us what the expected annual savings would be for that investment.
Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments for these witnesses? Yes. Councilman Green.
Thank you, Madam President. One more question. You talked about with Councilman Jones the front end of 3-1-1, which is getting information into the call center and then getting it out of the call center to the departments through a work order system so you've got 178 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 customer -- citizen relationship management software, I guess you were referring to it as, and then the workflow order entry system, which will go out to the various departments to have the service delivery happen. To what extent -- obviously that's a change in behavior within each department, because they're used to getting calls directly. Now they'll be getting information through this work order entry system. To what extent are you involved in reviewing or is someone reviewing the workflow processes within each of the departments to prepare them for this change in behavior that's going to happen and presumably more effective and productive behavior within the departments, because they don't have people answering phones, it's all coming in electronically?
Councilman, part of the design review process that the team 179 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 has been put in place for the 3-1-1 team is looking specifically at that activity to get a better understanding that there is going to be some business process reengineering necessary for us, one, to have a clear sense of what is the current as-is condition for the flow of work and then how is that going to be changed once you implement a work order management system and a 3-1-1 tool. Over the course of time, the departments occasionally do get together and talk about cost interactivity, because even though they do come in into different places, many times there's an overflow about our activities and certain calls get actually sent to the wrong place. So the departments are trying to better understand how we interrelate to each other, but I think in this whole 3-1-1 initiative, you'll see a better effort put forth of how we figure out how to design this to take into account 180 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 better activity.
Many of the savings that will come will come from reengineering the workflow processes in each of the departments as a result of the increased use of technology, and without that process taking place, we're sort of adding just a separate function of new people answering the phone and then setting the information into a department that doesn't have a change in the way it operates, its workflow processes. So I just would like to -- if you could provide to the Chair information about how all of that is being integrated into the planning, I'd appreciate it.
It is being integrated, but I'd just like to bring one point up about something you just said. There is not a 3-1-1 installation in the country that has saved any money. I want to make sure that we set our goals 181 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 right here. The 3-1-1 implementation will set Philadelphia apart as doing a terrific job of serving our citizens. It does not necessarily save money. I have talked to all the biggest cities and nobody has saved any money in the process.
Mr. Phillis, that's exactly my point. It is not the 3-1-1 call center that saves money. It's the change in the operations, the productivity efficiency, the workflow processes of the departments of the way things get handled, of the fact that now the information they have is electronic. The information they give back is electronic, eliminating records clerks, et cetera. It is that which saves the City's money, not the 3-1-1 system per se. Baltimore since it implemented 3-1-1 over the last six or seven years has saved $350 million, which it relates directly to 3-1-1 and CityStat. 182 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 So it's really 3-1-1 in combination with PhillyStat which is going to provide great productivity and efficiency enhancements. But you're right, it will take time. There are reports of -- Baltimore credits 3-1-1/CityStat with saving it $350 million a year.
And a lot of that is the focus on the work order process to make sure that we are delivering things in an efficient way.
Thank you. Any other questions from members of the Committee? 183 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 (No response.)
Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony.
Thank you very much. MR. McPHERSON: The next department is the Mayor's Office of Community Services. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, Council President Verna and members of City Council. , Executive Director of the Mayor's Office of Community Services. Today I will provide you with a brief description of the work that this agency does and 184 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 present the proposed Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2009. The Mayor's Office of Community Services requests a Fiscal Year 2009 appropriation of $11,211,543, all of it from the Grants Review Fund. The MOCS program itself is requesting $8,612,000 and the Empowerment Zone is requesting $2,599,543, for the same total that we're requesting of $11,211,543. In Fiscal Year 2007, MOCS provided services to 83,482 people. The agency expects to provide services to 97,021 people in Fiscal Year 2008. This projected increase is the result of the increase in the number of ex-offender clients that will receive services from two reentry offices located at 1741 South 54th Street and 1952 East Allegheny Avenue. The addition of personnel to the Mayor's Action Center is expected to help us serve additional clients as well. The mission of MOCS is to empower individuals, families and 185 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 neighborhoods to reach self-sufficiency by providing programming and coordinating services. MOCS provides direct services to low-income individuals through the following programs. The Workwise Program receives $1,662,700 from the Commonwealth's Department of Community and Economic Development to provide case management, job readiness activities and employment placement for 1,350 TANF recipients. The Foster Grandparents Program receives $532,000 from the Federal Corporation for National Community Service to provide volunteer opportunities for over 110 senior citizens at 45 host agencies to impact 11,000 children with special needs, such as those who are mentally challenged, abused and neglected, hearing and visually impaired. The Fatherhood Initiative Program receives $350,000 from the Commonwealth Act 148, which is the child 186 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 welfare award to DHS to support up to 600 fathers who are behind in child support through workshops and other programs. The functions of the Mayor's Office of Community Services impact five of the core strategic areas laid out in the Five-Year Strategic Direction and Financial Plan. MOCS is involved in the promotion of public safety through its Community Engagement Unit, otherwise known as the CEU. The CEU works with the Philadelphia Police Department by assisting in the facilitation of community meetings and the collection of data. MOCS also contributes $366,000 directly to the Mayor's Office of Reentry for the purpose of helping ex-offenders transition smoothly and make useful contributions to their communities. The Community Engagement Unit also works towards strengthening healthy and sustainable communities by working with various City departments to inform 187 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 residents of departmental activities; for example, recycling, organized clean-ups. These goals are achieved through literature drops, mailings and community meetings. The CEU also helps to process LIHEAP, CRISIS and SSI applications and provide income tax assistance. The MOCS Workwise Program makes a very important contribution to education through its job readiness program. The Foster Grandparents Program is also providing volunteer opportunities for seniors to serve as mentors to over 11,000 special needs and at-risk children. Our Fatherhood Initiative program encourages and teaches non-custodial fathers become better parents through various development workshops. MOCS shares the goals of the City of Philadelphia to encourage job creation and income growth. As mentioned already, Workwise provides a great opportunity for jobs and economic 188 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 development by providing case management, job readiness activities and employment placement for TANF recipients.
MOCS also shares the goals of the City of Philadelphia to become a leader in customer service. Like all City departments, MOCS has the responsibility to provide customer service at the highest level possible. All of our programs - Workwise, Community Engagement Unit, Fatherhood Initiative Program and the Foster Grandparents Program - work directly with the public. We look forward to focusing attention on tracking our performance and bringing us into compliance with various citywide initiatives. We plan on using the following performance measures to track both internal and external performances. Our internal performance measures, the result would be to ensure that MOCS is adequately and appropriately 189 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 staffed, and the measure would be the number of staff evaluated and the percentage of evaluations resulting in personnel actions. Another result would be to increase service to low-income families, and the measure would be the ability to meet contracted deliverables; for example, sufficiently documented linkages for 60,000 new families by June 30, 2008 and 60,000, or 100 percent, of families receiving information to meet their specific needs by June 30, 2008. The external performance measures, the results would be to serve and assist citizens of Philadelphia, and the measure would be the number of people participating in our programs, and another measure would be the number of people served by our programs. Another result would be to reduce Philadelphia's poverty rate, and the measure would be the number of Philadelphians qualified as below the 190 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 poverty line according to appropriate measures. New York City uses National Academy of Science recommendations. Another measure would be the number of eligible enrolled persons in the EITC and TANF and other programs. At the Mayor's Office of Community Services, we hope to help the City become a national leader in customer service. To do that, we will establish, publish and meet customer service guidelines for all the services that we provide. This includes redress for the customers when the standards are not met. At MOCS, we ensure that we will provide our name to you every time you contact us. Within 15 minutes we will tell you what services you qualify for and give you the information you need to use our programs, and we will attempt to answer all your questions on the first call or provide the answer within 24 hours if we currently do not know that answer. 191 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 If we do not meet these standards, the client will receive a verbal apology directly from the departmental leadership and the problem will be corrected immediately, and the client will receive a written apology directly from the departmental leadership. In dealing with our minority participation, in an effort to increase MBE and the WBE participation on City contracts, MOCS provides two contracts totalling $300,000 to North Philadelphia Human Services Development Corporation and Workforce 2000 for international driver's license training. These two contracts are MOCS' only contracts with non-governmental entities in Fiscal Year 2008. I'd like to thank you for allowing me to present my testimony and will gladly attempt to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. 192 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
Thank you. Mr. Ridley, how many employees does the MOCS office have?
That's a very good question. We have 105 total. There are 65 who answer to me and my department directly. Those are the programmatic ones. We also have employees that we pay salaries for in other departments.
We have employees in the West Oak Lane Center. There are employees in portions of DHS. There are additional employees in the Managing Director's Office. There are employees in the Mayor's Action Center, the Mural Arts Program and the AVRP.
Adolescent Violence. 193 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
So I just want to get this clear in my own mind. We have 105 employees total, including those that you just mentioned in West Oak Lane and the Managing Director's Office, et cetera?
Now, your funding source is strictly federal government?
Well, it's the Community Service Block Grant, which I guess has its beginning federally, comes to us through the state, but it's totally grant based.
Can you tell us what, if any, restrictions there are on how these funds can be used?
Well, I'm learning 194 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 that every day. Some of the departments that we actually fund, the DCED, or the Department of Community and Economic Development, actually questions those uses. If those uses are not directly providing services for those who are impoverished, then it's questioned. So there's a number of restrictions with that.
Can you get back to us as to what those restrictions are, please.
The state requires that we provide documentation and data that the dollars that are used are actually providing services for those who are impoverished. That's the major restriction.
Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record.
My name is Mary Mariner. I'm the Director of Grants and 195 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 Programs at the Mayor's Office of Community Services. Our Community Service Block Grant, which is our largest grant, the requirement is that we provide services to people who live at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty level. That is the major restriction of that grant. We have to document it. We have to have photocopied documentation in the client's file that proves that for the 90 days prior to service the client lived at 125 percent of the federal poverty level. For our supported work program, which are TANF dollars that come through the federal, they're federal TANF dollars that come through the state, those clients must be current recipients of TANF. They can't get General Fund -- or general assistance. It has to be TANF. For our Foster Grandparent program, they have to be senior citizens who live at or below 125 percent of the poverty level as well. 196 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 So those are the major restrictions of our grants.
How many of your employees are in the Managing Director's Office?
Twenty-eight. So how do they deal with people who are of need? What program do they work under?
I'm sorry to interrupt you. I know that many of them were working with the NTI program.
Lot clean-ups, neighborhood cleaning and things of that nature. So in areas that were blighted and impoverished, it was used in that area. 197 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
I would like to have a list -- apparently you have 40 people who do not work immediately under you, but in other departments. I would like to have a list of what departments they're in, how many of your employees are in those departments, what their titles are and how much they get paid. I'd like to know what they do.
Please. The Chair recognizes Councilman Greenlee.
I want to 198 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 ask you specifically on -- you talk early in your testimony about the reentry offices at the two locations. Can you go into a little bit of what kind of services will be provided there. I'm assuming employment is part of it or preparation for employment, but what do you see being done there? Are they actually operating yet, first of all?
Yes. Both are operational. They provide case management services, housing assistance, GED preparation, of course employment being the biggie, because to get them stabilized, you have to get folks employed. There's employment training. There's some training programs. Clothing, helping them get clothing, helping them get the proper identification they need to even get a job, Social Security cards, those kinds of things that someone coming out of prison may not have.
Now, who 199 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156 do you have working with them? Are some of these people working with them --
Some of them are ex-offenders. Quite a few of the people that work with them are ex-offenders themselves so they understand the need.
And just one more question along the line of what the Council President was asking you, specifically on the Mayor's Action Center just so I kind of understand that. I know you're separate from them, but some people that may come to the Mayor's Action Center may kind of be referred to you because they fall under that income guideline and have the kind of issues that you would meet? Am I saying that right?
Am I confusing the issue? I'm not sure. 200 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
The issue is confused enough already. One of the things that probably out of maybe the four meetings that I've had with the state, that question has constantly come up. So one of the things that has to occur and the state has requested that we provide an amended work plan to provide them with the usage or how these employees are actually going to work in that capacity. I mean, one of the things that we see as a tie-in now is that it would be advantageous to use the Mayor's Action Center in combination with the 3-1-1 center, and that would help with that, we believe. But, once again, that office provides us with large numbers with the phone calls that they take in, and sometimes they are referred to us because of issues that are dealing with poverty.
Okay. That's kind of what I thought. I know we had a conversation in my office. 201 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
I'm getting there. I'm starting to understand. Thank you, Mr. Ridley. Thank you both. Thank you, Madam President.
I'm sorry. Did I understand you to say that you have two offices?
The Mayor's Office of Reentry has two locations. The Mayor's Office of Community Services has two locations as well. Most of our services are out of 990 Spring Garden and our Workwise Program is out of 1234 North Broad Street. So there are two offices. I don't know if I actually had mentioned where Workwise was actually located.
I don't think you did. And I do know that I guess in the 1400 block of South Broad Street, a couple of years ago you had an office there and that was closed. Where did they relocate? 202 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156
If you're familiar with the program, why don't you tell us.
I'm sorry. The office was the Family Development Center that you're speaking of, and that was closed due to lack of funding. There is a representative at 990 Spring Garden Street in the Community Engagement Unit that responds to any issues for that area. People just have to call the 685-3600 number and be connected to the person who handles South Philadelphia and Southwest Philadelphia.
How many other offices were closed at that time? Because you had a number of offices.
That was just a couple of years ago. 203 3/11/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080156