COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, April 1, 2026 10:18 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMAN MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. BILLS: 260199, 260200, 260201, 260202, 260203, 260204, 260205, 260206, 260208, 260209 RESOLUTION: 260227 - - -
This is the public hearing and public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bill Nos. 260199, 260200, 260201, 260202, 260203, 260204, 260205, 260206, 260208, 260209 and Resolution No. 260227. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the roll to take attendance.
Present. A quorum of this committee is present. This hearing is now officially called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the titles of the bills and resolution.
Bill No. 17 260199, an Ordinance adopting the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2027. Bill No. 260200, an Ordinance to adopt a Fiscal Year 2027 Capital Budget. Bill No. 260201, an Ordinance to adopt a Capital Program for the six Fiscal Years, 2027-2032 inclusive. Bill No. 260202, an Ordinance amending Chapter 19-2400 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Hotel Room Rental Tax," by providing for an additional excise tax on hotel room rentals, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260203, an Ordinance amending Subcode "A" (The Philadelphia Administrative Code) of Title 4 of The Philadelphia Code (The Building, Construction and Occupancy Code), by adding and revising Zoning Board of Adjustment fees and provisions regarding hearing scheduling, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260204, an Ordinance amending Title 3 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Air Management Code" to modify the amounts of license and permit fees, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 2602055, an Ordinance amending Section 19-1806 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Authorization of Realty Use and Occupancy Tax," to clarify the imposition of the tax on the use or occupancy of real estate with respect to cell towers, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260206, an Ordinance amending Chapter 6-600 of The Philadelphia Code ("Asbestos"), by adding and providing provisions related to various fees, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260208, an Ordinance amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," to a add a new Section 19-1808, entitled "Authorization of Rideshare Use Tax," to authorize the Board of the School District of Philadelphia to levy a tax upon the use by a passenger of a transportation network company for a prearranged ride that originates in Philadelphia; all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260209, an Ordinance amending Title of The 9 Philadelphia Code, entitled 10 "Finances, Taxes and Collections," 11 to add a new Chapter 19-4800, 12 entitled "Retail Delivery Tax," to 13 establish a tax on orders for the 14 delivery in Philadelphia of retail 15 consumer and other tangible goods, 16 all under certain terms and 17 conditions. 18 Resolution No. 260227, 19 Providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia a Revised Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia, covering Fiscal Years 2027 through 2031, and incorporating revisions with respect to Fiscal Year 2026, which is to be submitted by the Mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to an Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement by and between the City and the Authority.
Thank you, Ms. Loughead. Today we will hold the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole to consider the bills read by the Clerk that constitute proposed operating and capital spending measures for Fiscal Year 2027, a Capital Program and a Forward-looking Capital Plan for Fiscal Year 2027 through Fiscal Year 2032. This morning we have scheduled testimony from the Department of Human Services and the Mayor's Office of Education. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first witnesses to testify from the Administration.
Kimberly Ali, Commissioner for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services; and Dr. Deborah Carrera, Chief Education Officer. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin your testimony. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. Good morning, Council President and members of the Philadelphia City Council. My name is Kimberly Ali and I'm the Commissioner of the City of Philadelphia Department of Human Services, DHS. With me today is Nadine Perese, Chief Financial Officer; Cydney Irving-Dasent, Chief of Children and Family Support Services; and Sean Perkins, Chief of Early Childhood Education as well as other members of my senior leadership team. I want to thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony to support DHS Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget. DHS is the county's child welfare and juvenile justice system. I have the honor of leading the department, which consists of 1500 dedicated employees who, in alignment with the department's mission, are focused on serving children youth, families and communities by building on their strengths and advancing safe and supportive environments. Our work at DHS is rooted in the following goals, maintaining children and youth safely in their own homes and communities, increasing timely reunification or other permanency, reducing the utilization of residential placements and improving child, youth and family functioning. 4 million in new funding to increase workforce opportunities for 1000 additional youth and young adults through Career Connected Learning, C2L, and increasing our PHLpreK capacity by adding 100 more slots for our eager early learners, who are and years of age. When children and young people have access to quality education and meaningful career readiness opportunities, the impact extends well beyond the classroom. Their caregivers are better positioned to pursue employment, earn certifications and degrees and advance in their careers. Investing in preschool and career learning is not just an investment in our youth, it is a direct investment in the economic mobility and stability of the entire family. DHS will continue to safely divert children and families from entering the child welfare and juvenile justice systems by offering community-based prevention services that address their needs in their own homes and communities. In support of our work, I am pleased to share that we have made great progress towards achieving our goals. We are moving in the right direction. For example, during Fiscal Year 2025 we were able to provide prevention services to over 1700 families rather than through the formal child welfare system. Additionally, there are 1464 children and youth receiving services in their own homes, which provide support to their families and prevent them from being separated from their loved ones. As of today, there are 2258 children in child welfare placement, which is down from 5111 in 2020. This amounts to 2853 less children in care or a 56% reduction in the number of children and youth who are in child welfare placement. We prioritize kinship when a safety threat cannot be mitigated and the child requires placement. Placing children and youth with kin lessens the trauma that they suffer because they are placed with a family member or someone who knows the child or youth. At DHS, 40% of children are currently placed in kinship care, which is above the national average of 38%. We are also becoming less dependent on residential placements. 4% of youth in placement are in child welfare residential placement. 5%. DHS recognizes that we cannot do this work alone. We continue to work in partnership with stakeholders, the courts, advocates and community-based providers to build a continuum of services to meet the needs of children, youth and families outside of the formal child welfare and juvenile justice systems. We continue to offer diversionary services, including Intensive Prevention Services or IPS. IPS providers are strategically located in specific sections of the city and have the capacity to serve over 1400 youth annually across all the sites.
This program is particularly unique because youth received an individualized service plan designed to strengthen their sense of self-worth, enhance life skills and improve relationships at home, at school and in the community. In collaboration with Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, other members of City Council and the Philadelphia Police Department, we established Community Evening Resource Centers or CERCs. m. m. Since their opening, the centers have provided services to over 3000 youth, with over 79,000 visits. As the summer season nears, we look forward to connecting with more youth. Our goal is to connect our young people to job readiness, training, conflict resolution and other violence prevention services. With our proposed and continued investments in programs and services in FY27, I am confident that these positive outcomes will continue. However, I do want to acknowledge that there is also still more work to do to ensure children are safe, cared for and that families are supported. These efforts are underscored by our journey to become an equitable and just department. We aim to reduce the disproportionate number of Black and Brown children and youth in the child welfare juvenile justice systems. DHS has partnered with national organizations to develop a robust training, I mean, strategy to include the following: Training DHS Community Umbrella Agencies and community-based providers on understanding the need for advancing equity work. To date, we have trained 1548 individuals. Providing supplemental, mandated- reporter training with an emphasis on supporting families when there are no signs of child abuse. To date, we have trained 3325 individuals, to include the School District of Philadelphia, Children's Hospital and St. Christopher's Hospital. In partnering with the Philadelphia Department of Public, we expanded the Philly's Family Can Support Line to offer resources to families who are in need of support, with the goal of diverting children and youth from entering the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. In summary, our FY27 budget reflects the DHS priorities to improve outcomes for children, youth and families. I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today. We look forward to our continued partnership to serve Philadelphia's children, youth and families. My team and I are available to answer questions.
Thank you very much. Ms. Deborah Carrera, the floor is yours.
Good morning, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. I am Dr. Deborah Carrera, the Chief Education Officer for the City of Philadelphia. Joining me today is Sharon Ward, who is my Deputy Chief Education Officer. I'm pleased to provide testimony on the Mayor's Office of Education's Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget. The Mayor's Office of Education is dedicated to transforming Philadelphia's education system by fostering innovation and ensuring world-class learning opportunities for all residents, regardless of age or socioeconomic background. By facilitating collaboration among city departments and educational institutions, MOE creates a unified, effective strategy for educational advancement and supports the Mayor's vision of a safer, cleaner and greener Philadelphia with access to economic opportunity for all. MOE actively engages educational stakeholders citywide, ensuring efforts align with the Mayor's goals and contribute to a world-class education for Philadelphia learners. MOE identifies gaps in existing services, scales successful programs and launches new initiatives to meet evolving needs, expanding access and opportunity across all communities. The Mayor's Office of Education's priority programs advance the mayor's goal of government that residents can see, touch and feel and provide access to economic mobility for young people and adults. Education is the foundation of economic opportunity and our approach is to align education programs with workforce goals and create transparent pipelines from educational institutions to city, school district and private sector employment. We work for adequate and equitable state funding for all Philadelphia public schools and develop programs that serve Philadelphians who face the greatest barriers. Our Fiscal Year '27 priorities include further expansion of the Extended Day, Extended Year program to new district- and charter-operated schools as well as a new initiative that will help Philadelphians burdened by student loan debt navigate federal loan program changes and support eligible individuals in securing public service loan forgiveness. We will be planning for One Philadelphia Community Schools, which will double the number of high school community schools, bring a new focus on career exploration and preparation and identify new partnerships to expand adult education programs for adults seeking workforce training or employment. We will also continue our work to attract and retain teachers in our district- and charter-operated schools. The city thrives when its learners thrive. Mayor Parker's Fiscal Year '27 budget will enable MOE to better serve learners, deepen our programs and strengthen the education-to-career pipeline. And I'm happy to take your questions today.
Thank you very much. I want to start off by just acknowledging the work of Commissioner Kimberly Ali. She hails from South Philadelphia, particularly the Point Breeze area. Always proud to see the hard work that she's doing. We come from the same neighborhood, so to see us both doing this work is truly a pleasure. And I see Deputy Commissioner, actually Deputy Mayor back there, Vanessa Garrett-Harley. I just want to give a shout-out because I know y'all all work together. And so, just a couple brief questions before I provide opportunities for my members, and always good to see everyone, including the legendary Ms. Deborah Carrera. Thank you for being here as well. Every time I meet somebody in the education field they say, that's my mentor, she's doing great work, particularly at E.M. Stanton School. Welcome. A couple questions: When we talk about the expansion of PHLpreK by 100 slots, something that's very, very near and dear to me, can you give me an idea of, one, the gap that the 100 slots will close? Two, how are we determining what neighborhoods that individuals receive opportunities to participate in the 100 slots? And then the last part of that question is, how are we making sure that those particular slots and those providers are Star 4 education centers? COMMISSIONER ALI: So thank you for that question, Council President. I will call up Sean Perkins, who is Chief of Early Childhood Education, and he can answer those questions.
And also, help me out with this. Is this a new structure that the PHLpreK is under? I know DHS administered it. But at one time I know we did the soda tax early on and we had an Office of Education and everything was under the Office of Education. So explain the process to me or the new structure or if something changed since then. And even if that wasn't the case, explain that to me. COMMISSIONER ALI: So if you could recall, back in 2016 the Office of Children and Families was created. Under the Office of Children and Families was PHLpreK as well as the Mayor's Office of Education. And so, that structure has still been there since 2016. However, the reason why you see Chief Deputy Mayor Vanessa Garrett- Harley is because she's responsible for the Office of Children and Families, which includes the Department of Human Services and she's also responsible for the Mayor's Office of Education. And so, PHLpreK as well as Career Connected Learning is on the DHS budget.
I see that. Okay. Just wanted to get some clarity on that.
Good morning, Council President and other members of Council. My name is Sean Perkins. I'm the Chief of Early Childhood Education, also Point Breeze resident. I want to answer some --
Take it easy on him. Don't give him a hard time, y'all.
Your question, sir, Council President, was about 100 new seats that get put out that are available to families to access in Philadelphia. Each year we run an application process for all the licensed child care centers across Philadelphia to apply for any seats that may become available. Some sites end up relinquishing them. They say we can't take this many or there are a variety of different reasons or sometimes this Council passes a budget that says we want to expand, so we prepare for that. We also go a year even earlier where we prequalify some centers. That's like our waiting list or our runway that prepare centers to be prepared for any additional seats that become available. So we're always ready. We're preparing for any eventuality where we are meeting the demand of families. You asked the question, sir, about what is that demand. Every year there's about 20,000 children born in Philadelphia. So we have about 40,000 3- and 4-year- olds. We have 5250 PHLpreK seats. We have an additional approximately 10,000 federal- and state-funded full-day free preschool options in Philadelphia. That's our job. We coordinate with the school district and the state to see where are those seats so we can allocate them appropriately to meet both family demand and, as you mentioned, the high quality nature of those Star and Star locations. So we run that application process every single year. We have a series of criteria to evaluate that on, one of which is geography. So we take into consideration where we have the fewest number of publicly-funded preschool seats per child in that geographic region. We also look at where do we have the highest number of children with two or more risk factors without high-quality seats. And then we also look at where do we have the highest number of children in poverty without high-quality PreK seats. We apply that across a variety of different metrics to see what's the best investment for those 100 or however many seats we have available.
And the last part of that question is, how do you focus on making sure that we're targeting Star 4 early childhood education centers just to make sure our children are getting the high- quality seats?
Yeah, we do a couple things. The first of which is a portion of our dollars go towards a quality support center. So we just recently ran our RFP process to identify who's the best place to give technical assistance, coaching, professional development, emergency response to any of our centers. They're also responsible for ensuring the highquality nature of those early learning programs and the instructional support. So we do that. We also engage with the provider community. We have a variety of different organizations and collaborations to make sure who's doing what and what do you need the most help on, so we can meet that need. And the third thing is we get an annual evaluation from a third party organization that comes to see what is the quality nature inside of each classroom and center every year, so we can focus on not just the things that are internal, those that are externally evaluated as well.
And do we have data on the number of centers that we help go from 3s to 4s, from 2s to 3s to show that we're continually helping raise the bar on the quality of services provided to our children?
Yes, sir. We just received our fifth consecutive Gold Medal Award for that work. We get that external evaluation every year. We just received a fifth one --
That's what's up. Can we clap when it's good, y'all? (Applause.)
We started in Year 1, 56% of our seats were high-quality Star or rated by the state. We are now at 97%.
And you hail from Point Breeze. That's what I'm talking about. The Mighty Second District. All right. Well, thank you very much. That's something near and dear. And I believe when we talk about academic achievement, we have to start as early as possible to put our young people on the path for success. I want to -- COMMISSIONER ALI: Council President, can I correct the record with the date? I said the Office of Children and Families was created in 2016. It was created in 2020. I wanted to correct the record.
Okay. But prior to that, it was under -- what's his name? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Otis.
Otis Bullock, yeah -- no, not Otis Bullock. Otis -- COMMISSIONER ALI: Hackney.
Otis Hackney. I do remember him starting the whole process around PreK. So I was wondering how it went under DHS, which is fine. I want to talk about we're projecting -- and this for DHS -- 20% vacancy rate for FY26 across the department. So I want to get an idea of how we're addressing it, but at the same time we're reducing long-term social 15 work positions as a way to 16 rightsize the budget. So we're 17 reducing, at the same time we got 18 vacancies. So give me an idea on 19 how we're addressing the two at the 20 same time. 21 COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. 22 And so, as you indicated, Council 23 President, DHS does have a 20% 24 vacancy rate. Their rate has actually improved over the past few years. Primarily, our vacancies rest with social work service managers and youth detention counselors. However, we have a number of other vacancies in which we are able to reduce by because 8 we have done such good work with 9 reducing the size of the Department 10 of Human Services. 11 As I testified to, the 12 number of young people in placement 13 since 2020 went from 5111 young 14 people who were in child welfare 15 placement and now it's that 2258. 16 We have been doing a lot of work 17 around diversion and prevention. 18 Therefore, there is no DHS social 19 worker or no Community Umbrella 20 Agency social worker assigned to 21 those prevention or diversionary 22 programs. It is the provider 23 community that is providing 24 services to those families. That has been pretty successful. And so, that's why we're able to at the same time reduce the number of vacancies so that it's a cost savings to the city, but still maintaining the quality of services that we offer at DHS.
Now, for some that's probably thinking I'm playing, but the reality is you need less social worker staff because you're actually getting the job done on the front end, that's something that means we're going in the right direction. That's all I have at the -- well, one last one before I turn it over to my members. Talk to me about the Career Connected Learning program in terms of youth employment and what does that look like. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. And so, please allow me to call up Cydney Irving-Dasent, who is the Chief of Children and Family Support Services. She oversees Career Connected Learning.
And is this separate from -- so we're going to have an additional 1000 slots for our youth, right? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes.
Are they just for the summer or are they year-round? I know when the Administration first came on the first day, we talked about year-round jobs as well, right. And then also, is this number totally separate from what we do at JEVS that does Philadelphia Youth Network summer job program so I just want to get an idea?
Good morning. Cydney Irving-Dasent from the Office of Children and Families. Thank you for the question. We are going to serve 9000 young people this summer. And the number of students served by JEVS is included in the total number. They are the primary operator, but we also work with other providers.
So tell me, just for the record, I think the number of youth that applied last year was 14,000 and we hired 7000 and I know we talked about early on in the budget proposal during this cycle, FY27 budget, the goal is for every young person to have a summer job. So I think we're going after 14,000 this time around. And I know part of the Mayor's budget proposal is saying we're going to do some and then we're going to ask philanthropy to also chip in. What's the number for 2027 -- all 14,000 that apply should have the opportunity to have a summer job if they choose to, correct?
The system will not support the entire 14,000. Last summer we served 8000.
The Mayor has committed to another 1000 so we'll get 9000 for this summer. And with the support of the business community and Philadelphians, we hope to get to 10,000 this year.
I have to ask the question though, one pushback on this. Why we just can't put in our budget for the full 14? One, clarify that the system can't accommodate the 14,000. Help me out with that part.
We need a combination of things for that to work. We need providers. We need the nonprofit provider community to be able to issue and administer the stipends, collecting the applications, all of the vital documents to process the young people, and we need to have enough places for young people to have their summer experiences. So we need additional businesses, community members.
Clearly, there's a will, there's a way. So when you say the system can't handle it and I think you're saying, in order to build that infrastructure, right, to hire these 14,000 -- so let's say hypothetically the private community steps up and says, okay, you want to hire 9000 this year. We want to provide the additional funding so you can reach the 14,000. Wouldn't we still need the infrastructure in the system to accommodate us to hire all 14,000?
We would welcome the problem to figure out how to serve 14,000 young people. It certainly is the long- term goal --
-- with the support of businesses so that we can have placement sites for young people.
Okay. I just want to challenge the Administration to figure out, like, I know we do public-private partnerships, right. But if we already know that there's 14,000 youth who are applying, then we should come into the situation already looking at a strategy aggressively to not just do the infrastructure in the system, but that budget should be on our dime. That's just my opinion. I just believe the City of Philadelphia in terms of our budget -- and that total cost would be how much right now just for the 9000?
Yeah. 17 million out of 5 7 billion and -- 0 6 (Councilmember sneezed.) 7
Bless you. I didn't say 9 nothing. 10 I was just trying to get 11 the clarity on -- I just think as a 12 city when it comes to our budget, 13 and particularly with our children, 14 right, because we do make major 15 lists for a variety of different 16 industries and a variety of 17 different interest groups that come and seek support, that at least for them they should just know, period, budget-wise, the families should just know if the 14 come, they apply, they should have a choice. And if they don't apply, they don't provide the proper documentation, then they don't get the job, but those jobs should be relatively available. So that will be something I will continue to have conversations with, with the Administration. Anything the private industry does I believe should be extra. And do we know who that private industry is from philanthropy that want to participate? Like, has the Chamber of Commerce said, we're going to come to the table and provide 5 million? Have commitments been made or we're just hoping that after the budget is passed they'll step up and provide the funding for the program?
I'd have to get back to you on where the levels of commitment are as we stand today. I know that we are actively engaging a number of entities to make sure that 14,000 young people can have the opportunity.
Okay. Can you just please provide some time in the near future before the budget process is over what those commitments look like? I know there's a roundtable of businesses that are at the table, but we should have these commitments before this budget process is over so everyone will know that this is the commitment from the business community. But I do want to say I'll continue this process with my members, that I just believe we should foot the whole bill, that's just where I'm at, just for our youth so they can just know -- I believe this investment is a major lever in reducing gun violence in the city of Philadelphia. It's a major level of why we're seeing poverty go down. And we're the second largest, poorest big city in America, and I think that investment just also puts everyone at ease in terms of our young people being -- I think I've seen two flash mobs already, one in Curtis' district in Fairmount Park at the Japanese House. Did I say correctly it, yes. And then also on 52nd Street they were wildin' out. So we want to -- my Nana said, an idle mind is the devil's workshop. So we want to get them activated. So I'm all on board on what y'all are doing. I just want to see if we can do a little bit more. When we talk about vacancies, you mentioned Youth Study Center, right. Let's talk about how we address Youth Study Center in terms of vacancies, the progress we have made in terms of -- we don't want to minimize the work that you have done, Dr. Ali, regarding making sure that we don't have overcrowdedness. I know Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier, and it might have been another member, Councilmember Jones, led a delegation to Youth Study Center to kind of work with y'all and kind of see how our young people are being taken care of. And a lot of it wasn't on us. It was a lot of state-related policies having an impact on us. And also, how young people are being charged, contributed to the overcrowding of our Youth Study Center -- Juvenile Justice Center. Can you give us an idea of the progress we have made because I know we've made some progress? I just want to highlight that. But also, how are we going about the hiring to make sure we have individuals over there monitoring our young people? COMMISSIONER ALI: Thanks for that question. And so, the PJJSC and the work in terms of a population has been a journey, but I'm happy to report this morning that our placement population at the PJJSC has been reduced significantly. We have 94 young people that are being held at PJJSC, 94. It's a significant reduction. ) COMMISSIONER ALI: As a reminder, the PJJSC is a 184-bed facility. So the fact that we have 94 young people being held speaks to the work not only that we do with our partners, but also the work that is happening at the PJJSC. And so, we attributed some of the successes in terms of the young people at the PJJSC to the work that we're doing with the Philadelphia Police Department. You will hear more about that when they testify around our citywide diversion. We start a Citywide Diversion in January of 2025. And when you look at the number of young people who were arrested according to police data, the juvenile arrests from 2024 to 2025 was reduced by 16%. And during that same time, Calendar Year 2024 to Calendar Year 2025, the population at the PJJSC also was reduced by the number of young people that was being held by 13%. And so, we definitely see some synergy around that. We also see synergy around the work that we are doing with our providers around providing alternatives to detention for young people. And so, when you think about our inhome detention services for young people, our evening reporting centers as well for young people, those services are designed individually for young people to keep them out of the Juvenile Justice Services Center as well as residential placement.
And so, at those particular centers they provide conflict resolution, career readiness for young people and a whole host of services in order to ensure that young people stay on the right track. And so, it has again been a journey in terms of the PJJSC and we're just happy that we are 94 today.
Awesome. You're rocking and rolling. Good job. Ms. Deborah Carrera, you talked about student attendance and outcomes, highlighting some of the things that the School District of Philadelphia is doing. The data has 54% of students attended at least 90% of school days in FY25. Do you have any data regarding truancy rates? And then also, give us your perspective on the current school facilities plan and if that will have an impact on how our students continue this 54% attendance rate. And even building upon that 54%, the changes that will be taking place moving forward?
So good morning again, President Johnson. I'm Dr. Deborah Carrera. That is such a critical question because we know that if kids don't come to school, then they cannot learn. And so, we've heard the Superintendent share in this body that there has been an increase in student attendance as you've shared. One of the strategies that this Administration has implemented is the Extended Day Extended Year initiative. And we are seeing that in these 40 schools that have this programming, more students are attending. We have about 78% of our students, K to 8, that are attending 90% more in comparison to the schools that are not Extended Day, Extended Year, which are about 70%. To your second question about the school facilities component, there's going to be some -- this is hard work. There's some challenges. But the most important thing, and I think I've shared with this body as well, I was an educator for 27 years, a principal for 15 years in some really hard schools. We have some great administrators, great teachers in the School District of Philadelphia, and that is the important work of administrators, to ensure that instruction is engaging. Kids come to school when they know that they are safe, that the environment is safe and that they have caring adults in those buildings. And so, we are supporting the School District in this initiative, but definitely keeping an eye on truancy.
When you say the Administration is supporting the school district on this initiative regarding school facilities plan, what type of communication, collaboration in terms of the transition if the plan moves forward as the Administration is providing, particularly regarding the transition from kids going from one school to another school, and again, we want to build on that progress of student attendance and making sure that in the event that you have school closures and/or the co-locating of one school with another school, that that process is seamless so students don't feel, you know, morale was broken, I don't want to go to school or parents begin to say, you know what, I'd rather do home schooling as opposed to moving forward with the current proposal that may be put forth in front of certain parents in certain neighborhoods?
Yeah. Thank you for that question also, Councilman -- President Johnson, sorry. This is not easy as I said. This is not easy. I was here in 2012, 2013. I was the principal at Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School. And I was here during that financial crisis. I never thought I would open a high school without counselors and I did. I had two counselors before that who were exceptional. They were family. They were part of the school culture. Opened up the school September. October, November, December, guess what happened? Fights increased. Kids with needs for mental health increased because they didn't have those caring adults that were part of the fabric of the school. This office works collaboratively with the School District of Philadelphia --
I get the experience in the past, right. I just want to get an idea today in the present. Your team's strategy, right, just give me an overview, Mr. Johnson, these are the top five things we've been working with the district to make sure that in event that this proposal moves forward as planned, these are the things that we have in place to make sure we address truancy, we're addressing student attendance, we're making sure public safety is great -- I mean, is addressed. We're making sure -- a lot of parents asked us about not even just so much of closing down the school, but just transportation, do we have a plan with SEPTA or not. Could you give me an overview from that aspect? What is the Administration's Office of Education on our end doing to make sure that the district is doing what they need to do from a collaborative standpoint, but also accountability standpoint? They're a billion dollar independent institution, right. And just want to get an idea of what is our strategy -- when I say our, meaning the Administration's strategy to make sure that some of the key areas that have been expressed thus far are going to be addressed.
Yeah. So I would say to your question when we think about the strategy of this Administration, number one, it's the open line of communication. We meet with the superintendent, we meet with his chief of staff. We again, to your point, President, talk about those important data points. We also work with the Board of Education as well to -- it's a bidirectional relationship, to talk about also the initiatives that the Mayor is leading. And this office is really focused on supporting the district around the adequacy and the funding, because I don't want that to be lost in this conversation --
-- that we are an underfunded district. And we know this, but we've got to keep saying it --
-- because I'm not sure that everyone understands it and that we're owed a billion dollars and that makes a difference. It makes a difference. And so again, this office --
Can I ask this question, if I may, and I understand that we have a structural deficit, right. I understand that when the wider public comes to the Administration, your office, with their issues and their concerns, right, about the plan, like they come to District members, but when they do come to the Administration, how is the Administration, your office, actually documenting that information? And are y'all addressing that information as well? Okay. The families from Lankenau as opposed to coming to their Councilperson, they may go directly to the Administration saying, these are our issues and concerns regarding the shutting down of their schools. How is the Administration reacting to that information?
I'm just trying to get an idea. We're all rowing in the same direction in terms of how we want to protect our young people and families. And so, I'm just trying to get an understanding.
So I served on the facilities team. There are about 30 of us, representation from this body as well, nonprofits, the unions. And so, we are in continuous conversation with the school district around those concerns that we're hearing and that are brought to our attention as well.
Okay. We talk about adult literacy. It's about, if I'm correct and not to be more accurate but just in general, about 23% adult literacy rate here in the city of Philadelphia, individuals illiterate, and then about around 56% individuals functionally illiterate. Do we have a strategy to tackle illiteracy, adult illiteracy, here in the city of Philadelphia? What's the plan? And when I held a workforce hearing on how we address poverty through growing our workforce development initiatives here in the city of Philadelphia, one of the key things that he said was a barrier to hiring individuals to allow us to grow as a city is the issue of adult illiteracy. Give us an idea on our strategies, our plan around addressing it. I think about when I was in AmeriCorps, I was part of something called the Center for Literacy. This was a long time ago, right, maybe years ago, but 7 they were very, very robust. They 8 were in the community. I don't 9 even think they were around 10 anymore, but literacy was a major 11 topic of conversation at that time, 12 adult literacy at the time. I even 13 learned about English as a second 14 language by participating in this 15 program. Do we have a strategy to 16 address adult literacy? 17
We do. 18 And so, as you shared, it is a 19 great issue. We have about 18%, 20 almost 400 adults in the city of Philadelphia, that are reading or doing numeracy at an 8th grade or below level. So this office does a few things. We are currently in the process of hiring a new executive director, which is going to be very important with vision casting and really re-establishing relationships. But we receive about $2.8 million and those dollars go out to about 8 providers that do adult basic 9 skills classes, as you said, 10 English as a second language, high 11 school equivalency and a GED as 12 well. And in addition to that, we have four providers in the city of Philadelphia that receive Title 2 dollars and those Title 2 dollars are focused around workforce development as well. So that's Lenfest and it's 1199c, (inaudible), Temple. We are also working closely with Phila Works with Pat Clancy to ensure we received a grant a few years ago, about $2 million, and that money is going out now to support workforce development. To your point, we have the adults. We just have to support them and give them those skills to be able to be successful.
Awesome. Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.
Thank you, Council President. I want to frame my questions today around the importance of a theme that I've been working on throughout the budget hearing, responsive government. Why is this important? I believe that with this Mayor, if we don't figure out how to get responsive government right, we'll never get it right in its entirety. And I'm very confident that we can do this. When it comes to responsive government, we're going to be focusing today on how we make sure students, families that are working in our neighborhoods understand the importance and investments that we are making in city government they can really see. So with that being said, my first question goes to the Mayor's Office of Education. I see that there are new positions being proposed to support Extended Day, Extended Year programming. I also have a background in nonprofit leadership. And I'm curious to learn if you can share an impact report on particular metrics that are being used to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs?
Sure. Thank you for your question, Dr. Phillips. I can't see you.
Okay. Great. So as you shared, Extended Day, Extended Year, we started two years ago with schools and then 7 we expanded to 40 schools. The 8 Mayor when she was on her campaign 9 really listened to families that 10 said they wanted a safe place for 11 their children to be and they 12 wanted their children to also have 13 enrichment opportunities. We have 14 been working collaboratively with 15 the district on building on those 16 metrics that you are talking about 17 to ensure success of programming. 18 So one of those metrics 19 is of course attendance. And as I 20 shared earlier, we're seeing some 21 great gains around students 22 attending. The other piece is 23 utilization. So this year we have 24 about 12,000 slots that are available to students and families for before care, afterschool care, spring and winter camp and summer. And then we're also measuring belonging. So the district implements their district- wide survey where students can self-report their sense of belonging. And so, we have some data around that, that I can definitely send you. But we are looking at attendance, we're looking at utilization and we're looking at students' sense of belonging. We're also serving the parents. And so, we were able to receive surveys from parents for winter camp, of which we got about 200 surveys back from those parents that attended, and we had about 90% of the parents talk about how satisfied they were with the initiative, and we can send all that to you.
Yes, that's extremely important because we don't just want to celebrate our afterschool programming and pre-before school programming, but we want to make sure that they're having a level of growth outcomes. The second thing that I wanted to ask you around is are we making sure -- do we have an understanding of growth? Are we looking to do these Extended Day, Extended Year in every public school in the city of Philadelphia? If so, what does that look like?
I'm sorry. So, Dr. Phillips, the question is we're going to do it --
Are we looking to expand it to every school in the city of Philadelphia, every public school in the city of Philadelphia? If so, what does that strategic plan look like?
So right now we are, as I shared, expanding to five district schools. These schools are already Community Schools and two charters. What we want to do this year, Councilman, is really do a deeper dive into program quality. So we want to ensure that the programs that we placed in schools are meeting, to your point, those needs that we want to achieve. This year we also piloted an academic enrichment program. So we piloted with some Joyful Readers, some other initiatives to do high-dosage tutoring. We're seeing some great results. So to answer your question, we're spending this upcoming year to really go deeper on program quality and then we'll have discussions about expansion.
Yeah. I'm more curious about how do we have a strategic plan to make this and every school in the city of Philadelphia, because before and after care is important. So yes, do your evaluation, but I would love to see how we can evaluate getting this in every school in the city because it's helpful to parents.
The other part that I want to mention, I've noticed in the testimony this creation of a Student Borrow Help Center. Coming from college access, I understand the importance of financial education. However, can you break down how much funding is being allocated to the Student Borrow Help Center? And essentially -- also, one of the things I do want to mention -- actually scrap that question. I'm going to go right to this one. Can you tell me why haven't thought about integrating the Student Borrow Help Center into the Neighborhood Action Centers as a support service that as opposed to -- and it's also other organizations that do this as well. So is it so important that we have in the city of Philadelphia a large funding mechanism to do our borrow and action centers when there's other organizations that do this that we can send them off to?
Thank you. Thank you again, Dr. Phillips, for that question. And that is a great question. We have about 231,000 Philadelphians who have student loan debt of about $9 billion and I'm one of them. I am one of them. 14% of our residents that have loan debt are 65 years and over. And so, what the Mayor's vision is, is that the Student Loan Debt Help Center is exactly that. It is a help. It is working with, to your point, Dr. Phillips, organizations. We are working with CAO. We're working with Community Empowerment to do what we have to do to give Philadelphians information. We had a webinar two weeks ago. We had 850 people register for the webinar and many people are just confused with where they stand. So this office is really going to be an office that is going to collaborate with the nonprofit organizations and bring the information to Philadelphians in a way that they can digest it.
So that's the point. Why don't we fund a nonprofit organization to do this at a less amount of money, right, that we can fund to support this, because it is important. But why create a whole city agency just to cover this particular issue? It's not clicking for me --
I'm going to make it click. I'm going to make it click. I hope so, Dr. Phillips.
So the money that we are allotting is not going to us. The money is going to go out to the nonprofits. We're going to RFP it and get it out to people because they need additional funding to support the work. We are adding a position that is coming out of my current budget. So the dollars that are being appropriated are to be able to work with the nonprofits and give them the funding so that they can do this most important work, because again it's 231,000 Philadelphians.
Okay. Got it. And we'll talk about how much it has to be. But I do notice that your office's budgeted positions, the office had 78 budgeted positions with 54 filled. And now, you're proposing 85 positions and you haven't fulfilled the other positions. What are the factors that have prevented this office from reaching full staffing levels?
Thank you for that question, Dr. Phillips. And I think that -- so as Commissioner Ali was talking about the transition, the Mayor's Office of Education was under the Office of Children and Families. We transitioned out this year probably fully where Adult Ed, Foster Grandparents, Community Schools, Extended Day, Extended Year are now under our portfolio. So we are working on filling all of those positions. We actually have about five Extended Day, Extended Year coordinators that are in our office right now getting onboarded.
I got you. Thank you. So I understand that. Now, you believe that going into this new year with the transition completed now you'll be able to fill these vacancies?
Okay. So you're saying it's going to take over $5 million to give to already existing nonprofits to do the work for the student loans?
I'm sorry. $850,000. Sorry, I had the wrong number in front of me. So it's $850,000 over five years?
Okay. So it is 5 million. So it's 5 million over -- okay, got you. So it's $850,000 over five years, close to --
No, it's not $850,000 each year. It's $250,000 this year, $150,000 next year. It's 850,000 across the five years.
Okay. Thank you. And then my final question focuses on the -- how many district positions would that 48 -- no, no, that's not a good question. Would the city consider using a contingency fund -- like for example, does the Mayor's Office of Education or the city have a contingency to plan to prevent reductions that affect students when it comes to the $48 million that we're proposing recurring revenue for the rideshare program?
So, Dr. Phillips, just to be clear the question is, does the Mayor's office have a contingency plan if the $48 million --
In the event that the $48 million doesn't come through the Uber, the rideshare program?
No. So that if it does not come through, then the district will have to make the budget cuts.
Okay. Those are my questions. Thank you, Council President. I have a Round 2, right?
Absolutely. Chair recognizes Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Thank you, Mr. President. Good morning. How's everybody doing? So I had a couple of questions. As the former Chair of Health and Human Services --
Member Bass, could you speak into your microphone?
So as the former Chair of Health and Human Services, and we've spoke extensively around DHS, and particularly CUAs, and as you are aware this was supposed to be back in I think 2013, was it, 2014? COMMISSIONER ALI: 2013.
2013. When we moved to this CUA system, the idea behind it was a cost-cutting measure. That was the thought process from the Administration at that time around why we were going into a brand new system that was recommended, I think, by the Annie Casey Foundation. And so, we went into the system and it leaves a lot to be desired. In my opinion, the first thought behind it was that it was a cost-cutting measure, and I just don't even understand how we can cut costs or how that can be a part of the conversation when we're dealing with our most vulnerable population, which is primarily children who are often displaced or in very difficult circumstances, living circumstances, and we're trying to make sure that they're okay. And so, cost-cutting should have never been a part of that conversation. But what we did is we went and we started this CUA system and here we are now. And every year I ask, if you could help us get a better understanding, I know what the numbers are, but get a better understanding of how are we here with the same budget almost that we had in 2013 or so, and now we have an added component of CUA social workers. And now, as I look at your CUA scorecard I see an additional piece to it, which is that they haven't been -- most of them, not all of them, but most of them have had a very difficult time with staff retention. I think that it's been the leading problem with the CUA system. And so, can you help walk us through and explain some of this so that it makes sense to us, because it's just very difficult to conceive that we're spending more than we were spending? We're about double what we were spending on a system that really doesn't seem to work because the CUAs can't seem to retain staffing. Most of the CUAs can't seem to retain staffing. COMMISSIONER ALI: Thank you for that question, Councilmember Bass. So as you indicated, back in 2013 we launched Improving Outcomes for Children. And by way of improving outcomes for children, we identified Community Umbrella Agency providers. So we separated the city geographically so a provider will be responsible for providing ongoing services, both inhome as well as placement service for young people in need of formal child welfare services. And so, first I want to say in terms of the cost-saving measure, as you indicated, that was a previous Administration. Certainly, I don't put a cost on -- when you talk about the most vulnerable children, you're talking about children when they are formally accepted for child welfare services who have been abused or neglected. And so, I definitely want to make sure that I communicate that point. Secondly, I will say to you is that when we launched the Community Umbrella Agencies in 2013, we did struggle. We struggled during that particular time because it was a whole system transformation, and that system transformation came as a result of the unfortunate death of Danielle Kelly, in which we had at the particular time a dual case management system. We had private providers in families' homes as well as DHS social workers. And so, one of the major complaints we received from families, because we took the time to talk to hundreds of families, was around I don't know who should I listen to and there are too many people that are coming in and out of my house. Secondly, the reason why we moved to the Community Umbrella Agency is because we recognized that the providers are the experts around providing ongoing service delivery, and DHS will retain our responsibilities around managing the hotline and doing investigations as it relates to abuse and neglect and some other areas in the department. And so, we wanted to clearly delineate the roles and responsibilities between a DHS social worker and a Community Umbrella Agency social worker. And as I indicated, early on there was a struggle because you're talking about a huge system transformation we're introducing them.
And so, 2017 was the first time that we rolled out the CUA scorecard and we have been doing the scorecard every year after that. And if you look at the comparison between 2014 and 2025 -
Oh, it's a big improvement. COMMISSIONER ALI: -- in particular, there's been some improvement.
I've been paying attention. COMMISSIONER ALI: There has been some improvement.
So can I pause you for one quick second because you said that one of the problems was having too many people coming in and out of my house and I'm not sure who's doing what and who's responsible. So clarify, if you would briefly, the role of the CUA social worker versus the role of a DHS social worker? COMMISSIONER ALI: Absolutely. And so, the DHS social worker is responsible for manning our 24-hour child abuse hotline and that is done by DHS social workers, supervisors, administrators and a director. So 24/7 I have DHS staff that are in 1515 Arch Street answering calls as it relates to young people being abused or neglected or families who are in need of support. DHS social workers are also the only ones who can do child abuse investigations, so CPS investigations as well as GPS investigations, so they are the only ones. Community Umbrella Agencies cannot. DHS social workers also are responsible for talking to the Law Department and talking to the courts when removal of a young person is necessary. So CUA case managers do not do removals.
So on removals, and I know my time is up, but I just want to lay this out here and then we can come back, you can think about or maybe have somebody respond. So I wanted to talk to you about a case. We have spoken about this, but obviously I'm not going to say names and whatnot. But I'm personally aware of a case from my district in which adoptive parents both died, a non-relative from out of state, a non-relative, so basically someone from out of state came and took the children. And despite orders from DHS that children were not to leave the state, they were taken. And hearings to get in front of a judge were delayed for nearly two years. And after two years, finally in court, a judge said they wouldn't move them because -- there were three children, wouldn't move them because they've been living in another state with these other people for the last couple of years and they're young children and they don't want to disrupt them. And so, they were also aided by a staffer who wrote a note that allowed a non-resident to remove the children from school with a note on DHS stationery that said this person is authorized to remove these children. And all of this happened and we had just such a difficult time trying to get any action or intervention from DHS to get those children back to the family. And now they're gone, they're gone. There's a court order, judges ruled. They live in another state now, period. And so, they've been permanently separated because there was no interaction from our Department of Human Services. Also, I was contacted by a citizen who has been in a legal battle in family court covering another jurisdiction, very similar, for years despite having a partial custody order issued in 2019 as a grandparent. There were several children by the parent who is incarcerated. Now, those children are divided up. The person with full custody has no valid address and has been in contempt of court since 2022. And again, no action. So you have a grandparent who is trying to connect and has an order for partial custody and there's been no action by DHS in the last four years now at least. I know I'm out of time, but I would really like an answer to some of these things. And I don't know if you need time to review your case files and come back. COMMISSIONER ALI: No, I don't need time to review the case files because your office did make me aware of the cases. And of course, because of confidentiality I won't talk about the specifics of the case. However, I will say that there is a distinction between family court where DHS social workers actually testify in family court. Those courtrooms are strictly child welfare courtrooms versus custody court. So DHS doesn't have any jurisdiction over custody court and custody court matters.
Well, I'll say this: So even if in courts that DHS does not have jurisdiction over, it's my opinion that the social worker who is assigned to the case or whoever from DHS has been involved has really a duty and obligation to say to the person seeking custody, this is not what I'm able to do. And these are the instructions in terms of where you need to go and what you need to do to help resolve your case. Most people don't know. I don't know the ins-and-outs of trying to navigate family court, custody court. Most people don't know. If you have the knowledge, you're the subject matter expert, then I think that it's responsible for DHS to inform our citizenry of what it is that they should do to help their case along, because most people aren't lawyers, aren't attorneys, don't know. COMMISSIONER ALI: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And so, that is definitely our role in terms of informing constituents or clients of DHS's role. And so, we do that by way of our Commissioner Action Response Office, in which clients, young people call in because they have a question about their case and then we do it by way of points of contact directly --
I'm going to push back on that with all due respect, because I know you work hard and you've really made a big difference at DHS. But when we were trying to say why is it that they are allowed to, you know, take children that they're not biologically related to, why are they allowed to take them out of state despite the fact that there's an order that they're supposed to stay in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, why are all these things happening. And we continue to get sort of like the hand up, nothing we could do, you know, this is what it is, we have to wait. And those delays and delays and delays ended up for two years and now judges saying they've been in placement with these people for two years so they're not coming back to Philadelphia. So I'll move on, Mr. President, because I know I've extended my time. But I just really wanted to talk about that, and I have another round. COMMISSIONER ALI: Thank you.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. And good morning to all of you. Thank you so much for everything that you do for the city every day. My first question is about the school facilities plan. One of the things that has been most frustrating for me in this conversation is that there seems to be no direct answer to the plan's disparate impact. The initial plan recommended closing schools. 8 And now, the current version of the 9 plan recommends closing 18. And 10 that's such a high number, that 11 some folks are referring to this as 12 a closure plan instead of a school 13 facilities plan. And certainly, 14 the recommendations for the 3rd 15 District are very concerning to me 16 and is a part of the reason why 17 I've pushed back so hard, the 18 recommendations in terms of both 19 the amount of closures recommended 20 in West and Southwest Philly and the lack of investment recommended for West and Southwest Philly in terms of our school facilities. And though I'm grateful for Motivation High being moved off of the closure list, the impact would still be negative for my community. And so, I continue to push. But beyond the 3rd District, the disparate impact around these recommendations applies to the entire city. When Dr. Watlington was at this table a few months ago, I brought up the inquirer reporting, which showed that 68% of the students impacted by this plan are Black. And I asked Dr. Watlington if he had a response for that, for that level of disparate impact, and if that was appropriate to continue moving on with a plan that would impact Black students in that way. And he said, well, 51% of the students in the school district are Black. There's a big amount of difference between a 51% Black student population and almost 70% of the students being impacted by closures being Black. And, in fact, 90% of the students impacted by this current plan are Black and Latino. I've asked this question at every school board meeting and I've attended every school board meeting that has happened since the plan has been released. For most of them, I've stayed there to be in the room with community members until the end of those meetings because I feel like we're all fighting together, but I don't understand why there's not an answer for this and I don't understand why it's okay to keep the train moving on a plan that will hurt so many of our students who are already vulnerable. And so, I heard you voice, Ms. Carrera, your support for the school facilities plan. And so, I want to ask you directly is it okay to keep pushing forward with recommendations that have been shown or that are shown to have such a negative and disparate impact on our school districts, Black and Brown students and on Black and Brown communities? And I'm often in this chamber and we're talking about what Trump is doing to us and we're talking about what the state is doing to us, but this is a process that we control. And we fought for a long time for local control of our school board. We fight all the time to have representation at every level of government. But if every time this conversation happens, every time this closure conversation happens, whether we're talking about 2012 or now and we're okay with hurting the same neighborhoods and the same vulnerable students, then I question what we're doing and why we're here and why the representation and the local control matter. And so, I really want a direct response on if we should slow this down because that negative and disparate impact has been shown or do you think it's okay, does the Mayor's office think it's okay to move forward with a plan that will hurt the same communities that have already been hurt by every version of this closure conversation? What's our responsibility on this issue?
So thank you so much for your questions, your comments. I've seen you, Councilwoman Gauthier, at these meetings.
I think we were next to each other. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes, we were sharing a beautiful little baby girl that's been at the meetings also. And so, this is not easy, it is not easy, it is not easy. When I was here, I think, a few weeks ago testifying and I shared a few things, the district is underenrolled, and I have to talk about the enrollment issue because that is very important for us to understand. 65% of buildings are utilized -- there are 25% that are -- there are 65% of buildings are underutilized, right. So we have a 65% underutilization rate. When I was here, the last time I shared that in the last 10 years we went from 500 children in cyber charters to now 15,000 children in cyber charters, and we also have families that are choosing charter schools. About 80,000 families are choosing charter schools. So we went from a district that had over 200,000-something children, the school district, to now they're at 112,000. The district is populated about 51% African American, 27% Latino that we have to talk about as well, right. And then the population of the district that is White is 14%. Whatever decision is going to be made, it is going to impact Black and Brown children. What I think is being lost in this conversation is what are kids going to get. And I think that we have to really listen to that part of the story. And I will say this, and I said it the last time: I ran a small high school, 500 kids under Paul Vallas, Kensington CAPA. We were a creative and performing arts school, but guess what we didn't have? We didn't have a dance studio, we didn't have a music room, we didn't have a choir room. And yet we were a Kensington CAPA school. And so, things shifted for us at Kensington CAPA because I moved my program into a school where I had a dance studio, where I had a visual arts space, an art space, where I had a choir room, I had a music room. What happened? Achievement went up. College Readiness went up. Student belonging went up because the students had what they needed. And what's getting lost is that the purpose of this plan -- two years ago I was here --
And I kind of want to -- I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm asking a very specific question that I really want a direct answer to. It's not enough to say there are more Black and Brown students in the district and it's okay to have an outsized impact on those students. If 51% of the district students are Black and 27% of the district students are Latino, but 90% of the students being impacted by this plan, which in all fairness could be called a closure plan based on the recommendations, that shows an outsized disparate impact. Why is it okay to not take a pause to ensure that there is equity? Why is that okay even when the numbers clearly show that the plan is inequitable to just keep charging forward as opposed to taking a pause to ensure that a plan that we are creating ourselves, the state is not directing this, Trump is not directing this, this is Philadelphia's plan. Why is it okay to keep charging forward as opposed to taking a pause to ensure that there's equity?
So thank you for that and I hear you clearly. And when I think about equity, equity is about giving kids what they should have and it's not about being equitable, but it's about giving kids what they need. We can't advocate to the state without a plan. And as the Mayor has said, we have to rightsize our district because we have too many buildings and we don't have the students. We have some parts of our city that are overenrolled, right, that are busting at the seams and we have to think about equity for them as well. But to answer your question when we talk about equity, it is about giving kids what they need. And I want us to focus on what is that pathway forward, knowing that we have to make some difficult decisions. We have to rightsize the district. This is an enrollment issue as well. But most importantly, it is about giving Black and Brown kids the programming, the quality programming they deserve in modern buildings. And we've heard the statistic. Our buildings are old, 73 years old is the average building. This 10-year plan would modernize 159 buildings.
Just a brief statement and come back in the second round.
Thank you. I think communities can tell us what they need and they're speaking right now. I think with a plan with such a disparate impact, it deserves us to take a pause. And then also just one thing that has also not been addressed is that the enrollment problem relates directly to changes that the district made against what communities and principals and school staff told the district. And I think that schools shouldn't be punished because the district made policies that drastically decreased enrollment. Thank you so much.
Thank you. And just as a follow-up, I would like to get the specifics regarding that last statement, so the recommendations that was given to the district and as a result this is how the district decided to move forward. I would like to see that information just for the record. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, then Councilmember Rue Landau, Councilmember Harrity, then Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you, Council President. I just want to start by saying thank you to the Department of Human Services, particularly Commissioner Ali, who is extremely accessible. Any time I have a question or there's an issue with the constituent, you have answered the call and I'm very grateful for that. Today we're talking about a critical conversation impacting our child welfare system that touches over 2000 children a day, right. And in my two years here and being the Chair of Public Health and Human Services, I've had to learn very fast a very complicated system. And when we discussed the budget for DHS, we're not just talking about dollars, we're talking about children and families. And our conversations and decisions today should be guided by compassion, fairness and a commitment to supporting our most vulnerable. So my questions are going to be guided by three priorities. I want to talk about the status of the department's provisional license. I want to find out about the status of the youth emergency shelters. And then finally about staffing issues, including salaries, both at DHS and in the CUA system. So I wanted to understand in the provisional license issue, when was Philadelphia DHS's provisional license issued and what is the current status? And what was the reason precipitating this problem and where are we today? And how does this impact your services that you deliver? And there's more questions after that I'll ask. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. Thank you for that question. In terms of the provisional license, the first provisional license that DHS received was on March 27th of 2025 as it relates to the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center. Their provisional license was issued by the state as a result of a boxing exposition that we had at the PJJSC, at which no young person was actually boxing. They were viewing the boxing match and a fight broke out. As a result of that, we were placed on provisional license as of March 27th of 2025. However, I am happy to report that as of yesterday we have our full license on the PJJSC, so that has been restored as a result of all the hard work of the dedicated staff at the PJJSC. As a result -- (Applause.) COMMISSIONER ALI: As a result of that provisional license at the PJJSC, we were then issued a provisional license on the child welfare side. That provisional license was issued on May 9th of 2025, almost two months after the provisional was issued on the PJJSC. We were not in agreement of a provisional license status. And so, we did file an appeal. Because we filed the appeal, I'm not at liberty to talk about the provisional license status, but we are still currently on a provisional license on the child welfare side. We have filed an appeal. When you are on a provisional license, the state comes in and do monitoring every six months. And so, on our last monitoring evaluation on the child welfare side, we only received one citation. And so, we are hoping that our license will be restored on the child welfare side again, given the hard work of both DHS as well as the Community Umbrella Agencies.
Could you just elaborate? I know you can't speak about the current process under way. That's public, why they issued you that provisional license for the child welfare side of things? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. The initial provisional license on the child welfare side was issued again as a result of the fight that happened at the PJJSC in January of 2025. The state accused the Department of Human Services of accessing a child welfare database, which is their child welfare database, which is an exchange to our internal DHS database. And so, the information is shared in terms of the state database and the child welfare database. So as a result of that, and you could see that from the issuance of the provisional license, the state accused DHS of looking into an investigation as it related to the PJJSC.
So you're contesting that. COMMISSIONER ALI: Absolutely.
So thank you for the update. I'm quickly going over to a line item of 8.6 million for youth emergency shelter. And on there, there's a vendor to be determined. And last year, we also had the same conversation about vendors to be determined. In FY25, that service was provided at 2.78 million. The proposed amount is now almost three times larger and there's no 13 provider selected. Can you explain to us how we can approve a 8.6 million in critical child safety services that is assigned to no 17 one? We would like some clarity on that. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. So we actually have an RFP that is out now to identify another emergency shelter. And so, that's why a vendor has not been identified as of yet. And so, we are hopeful that we will have a vendor identified by the end of this fiscal year to provide short- term emergency shelter services for young teenagers.
So why is the number three times more as you had last time?
Thank you for that. My name is Nadine Perese. I'm the Chief Financial Officer for the department. The number has changed because it was additional funding that we received from the state. The state gives us partial funding in the first year of a program when we're asking to start it up and then full funding the following fiscal year. So that's when all the funding came through for that. And the RFP is out right now. And so, we're reviewing the proposals.
And this brings me to the question we asked yesterday about the speed of paying contractors and paying people we connect with in terms of vendor services. That seems to be an issue with the CUAs in terms of how they get paid. I also wanted to wrap into this the conversation about how well our social workers are paid and what is your attrition rate. And I would have loved to see an increase in your budget because it's flat and we are not seeing -- I don't know if you took in account all the issues around inflation and salary adjustments, because the complaint I have heard is about our social workers are not paid well, that's number one, when we compare to other states. And the other issue is the workload in terms of how the state tells you how many cases you can have, but if it's a case with many siblings, they don't take into account the increased work even though you're qualifying for the actual total number that's set out by the state. So these are the things we've been discovering as issues faced by people who work in DHS. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. So let me start with the contracting question. And so, DHS embraces the RFP process because of the transparency of the process and it gives providers an opportunity to bid for opportunities. And so, we have been very successful with the RFP process. Additionally, we have been very successful with our contracting process at DHS. And so, we don't view the contracting as an issue with DHS. To give you a sense, DHS has 287 professional services contracts and we were at a 93% conformance rate during the first quarter of FY26. So between July 1st and September, we had already conformed 93% of our contracts. We take that extremely seriously because we know that contracts and providers need to get paid so that they can take care of the most vulnerable young people as well as their families. And so, we don't view contracting as an issue with DHS.
Just one point of clarity, when you conform doesn't mean you actually paid the contractor. There's two different things for people to understand. COMMISSIONER ALI: That's absolutely -- our invoicing process and our payment process is also pretty exceptional at the Department of Human Services.
Councilmember, I don't know the percentage. But what I can tell you is payment usually occurs within days of receiving an 7 accurate invoice. 8
The 9 conformance. So you conform and 10 then you get the invoice and then 11 you pay. And that is all 21 days 12 from the time of conformance? 13
No, no. 14 Once the contract is conformed, and 15 this is throughout the fiscal year, 16 we receive an invoice, payment is 17 usually remitted within 21 days. 18 And that's a review process 19 internally and then it goes through 20 central finance, the Controller's 21 Office and then we make payment.
So we're missing what it takes from actually conformed to getting the actual invoice. I think the devil is in the details. So we'll follow up on this, because it might look good that we're doing the conformance at 90, but actual payout is not 90. So I just want to clear that up and we'll follow up on that. Sorry. Go ahead. I interrupted you. COMMISSIONER ALI: The other question you asked was in terms of the salaries for DHS staff.
Yes. COMMISSIONER ALI: And so, I will pull that up in a second. I will tell you that a Social Work Service Manager II at the Department of Human Services makes about $60,000 a year, which is comparable to the amount of money that we also instruct CUAs to give to their CUA case managers. And so, it is comparable in that regard. And so, Social Work Services Managers II Step 1 is $62,000 and they can go all the way up to Step 5, which is $80,000 for Social Work Service Managers II. You asked the question about also our vacancy rate. So our vacancy rate as indicated is 20%. In order to increase the retention and fill vacancies, we have done a number of things. The first thing that we do is we work very closely with Central HR around making sure that social work, the test is not a written test. So we do use experience so that we can make sure that we get a good applicant pool. We also bring in classes every quarter. And so, every quarter we bring in social work classes. We learned from doing exit interviews from Social Work Service Managers in terms of why they left the department, they talked a lot about the difficulty and the transfer learning from the classroom, in which they are required to receive at least 120 hours of a state-certified training, up until the time they have to actually engage families. And so, about a year and a half ago we developed what we call Bridge Units. And so, Bridge Units are supervisors that we identified in investigations and in hotline who could mentor and train the newly hired Social Work Service Managers after they got out of training. And so, what we find is that our retention rate is higher because we started with the Bridge Unit. We also do a lot around wellness, morale boosters because this work is extremely difficult. We also offer counseling around vicarious trauma, again because of the difficulty of the work. And so, we also believe in supporting social workers as well.
So do you think $60,000 to $80,000 for this type of work is appropriate? What are best practices for other urban areas? That sounds to me really low, I will tell you. If you look at some of our salaries of our executive salaries, they're massive compared to this. And this is real work every day, stressful, traumatic, and this sounds to me they're really underpaid. COMMISSIONER ALI: So the Social Work Service Manager, the salary that I quoted was $62,763, is the starting salary. And so, we have began to start newly hired Social Work Service Managers at Step 2. Recognize that this is a civil service position. I will tell you that we have been in conversation with both the union as well as Central HR about raising the salary, particularly for investigators, because what you spoke about in terms of the level of trauma. They see a lot when you talk about young people who are being abused. And so, we are in active negotiations around that so that we can give those social workers in particular a higher salary.
So we are really stuck at the civil service level to figure out how to increase that? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes.
Yes. Well, I just have one last question for Dr. Carrera.
We don't have one more question, Member Ahmad -- be brief because I've been --
I'm tightening y'all so we can continue to move forward. I want y'all to be very direct with your questions, direct with your responses because everybody is still in the queue waiting so --
Quick question to follow up on my colleague Jamie Gauthier's question, and I'll talk about specifically one particular school, and the talk about the only problem with that is enrollment issues. When you talk about 73-year-old schools and we have to -
Yeah. The question is you can't use the age of a building to say how appropriate it is, because we're sitting in a building 126 years old. I live in a building in my home which is over 100 years old. So let's put that aside. I want to talk about enrollment and Lankenau. Lankenau is a jewel in your crown and you have made no 16 efforts to tell us -- the only environmental curriculum school in the city and one of two in the state who have received honors all over the place and yet you are putting them on a chopping block. That makes zero sense to me. Could you please answer that? And please don't say it's the same as Saul because it is not. We need both Saul, an agriculture school and an environmental education-focused school.
So I would be brief. Thank you, Dr. Ahmad, for your question. As I shared earlier, the school district used four components to reach these decisions. They looked at neighborhood vulnerability, they looked at program alignment, school utilization and school building score and they made those recommendations. And so, that's my answer.
Okay. It's sufficient. But we'll end it here. We have much more to discuss. Thank you, Council President.
It does beg the question when you have high-quality schools, and we've been dealing with this, this school has 100% graduation rate, right. And the fact that it has 100% graduation rate and not all the schools have that high level academic achievement, irregardless of what the building looks like, if you have that level of success rate, it does beg the question why would the Administration support closing such a school? Now, the district will come and give their reasoning, but I would also think as the Chief Education Officer, the information they provide to you, you'll be able to opine on as to why it would be a good idea to close the school with such high academic performance, because that's rare to be quite frank. Not every public school has their level of success. And so, I do understand the fact that my member has been advocating around this particular issue, and it's kind of does that even make sense. If it's so successful, you want to keep that model more than anything else. And so, we will continue to advocate. And obviously, to be quite frank even as we move forward through this budget process, evaluate what that looks like. But I just wanted to add that. To members, I just want to ask because we have a couple people in the queue and I at least want to get through the first round before we go to lunch, just please be succinct and direct in your line of questioning as well as the response -- I'm okay with the commentary, but also be more direct as well. Councilmember Rue Landau, then Jim Harrity, Richardson, and then we have Brooks and Young to take us out the first round.
Thank you very much, Council President. Thank you all for being here. I would like to think the first part of my questions are going to go to DHS. And thank you, Commissioner, for being here. I wanted to follow up, in October 2025 the Committee of Technology and Information Services along with Children and Youth held a hearing on GPS use, GPS use for youth as an alternative to detention in Juvenile Justice Center. During that hearing, youth reported having a difficult time engaging in activities like afterschool jobs, extracurricular activities. Often times they said they were even worried about stepping off their front porch or going into their basement because of problems with the GPS monitoring. And there were conversations about data collection of this, whether or not the companies knew of these failings and whether or not you knew and the communication here. So my questions are, are you currently tracking these types of failings or glitches in the system? And if so, can you make it available? And how can we make sure that if we're committed to using GPS monitoring, that our youth are still able to engage in social activities? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes, thank you for that question. The GPS monitors -- so DHS actually pays for the monitors. We are in partnership with juvenile probation and the courts. And so, we do not directly receive data around the use of the GPS other than how many are utilized. We don't get data around any glitches. That information is shared with the courts directly based on their MOU with the provider, so it's shared directly with them. I will tell you though that we have had some subsequent conversations with the courts around the use of GPS. And so, I know that they have been talking about some strategies around making sure that the use of GPS is more effective based on that hearing. And so, I believe the detail of the questions is probably best asked of the courts when they come before you.
Okay. That leads me to a larger technology question that I think I'm going to use as a theme for so many of the departments now. So I understand you have a database that shares information with the state database. What other technology do you use at DHS and what do you need? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. And so, at DHS in terms of the technology we use, we have what is called the Philadelphia Family Data System that we call PFDS. And that data system actually contains information about families. So everything from when a call comes into the DHS hotline up until we close out of case, so very specific information about families, about the services that they received, whether it was inhome or placement services, so very specific, and it contains all that information is very confidential. In terms of what additional data or what additional technology that we need, we don't need any additional technology at this time. So DHS does have an IT department that certainly responds to any issues that we may have internally with either our database and the exchange with the state, because, remember, DHS has a hotline, but the state also has a child abuse hotline. And so, there's a data exchange when the state receives a call about a young person from Philadelphia. And so, our IT department at DHS certainly supports us in that.
Final question, thank you, was you talked about having fewer social workers, I believe because the work is being done by outside organizations because of the success that you're seeing, right. I may have missed this, but my understanding is unfortunately when there's families that are struggling and having problems, there's two paths you go. If DHS starts getting involved, the family gets resources. And if DHS is not involved, which is what we want, the family doesn't get resources. Do you have programs that give resources to families that aren't in care? And if not, is there a way to utilize social workers to give families the resources they need so they never come under DHS care? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. And so, the families that receive services on our prevention side, those services are provided to them by our community-based providers, some of which you are very familiar with. And so they provide services to the family outside of the child welfare system. However, families can access that service even without DHS involvement. We wanted to also ensure that families were aware of that. And so, we also in partnership with the Philadelphia Health Department stood up a support line because we want the child abuse hotline to be used for when a young person is either abused or neglected, and that the support line, mandated reporters can use it, community- based providers, community can use it so that they can call and request services. And so, DHS helps support the Health Department with community navigators as well as putting some concrete supports so families can get the services that they need outside of the formal child welfare system.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity, then Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you all for your service. Of course, we all know that your jobs are not easy so we do appreciate you even though sometimes our questions are a little rough. But for the sake of time, just going to ask my questions real quick and you can answer what you can and get back to me on what you can't. So Human Services first. Last year in your testimony you stated that you rely on 165 million in federal funding. What changes did you see in FY26 and what should we expect for FY27? You mentioned that the department would continue to develop and implement new tools to evaluate juvenile justice diversion and detention alternatives in FY2026. Can you provide more information on what specific improvements were made? What measures are currently being taken to reduce juvenile recidivism? And what do the statistics look like today? And then for the Mayor's Office of Education, in light of the projected school closures, what role will your office play in helping the needs of the community when you close a school, for instance, like Memphis Street Academy, which is a charter school in a neighborhood that we're already closing three other schools? So just trying to figure out how we're going to fill not only the needs of our kids there, but also the needs that are being taken care of in the community by these schools through their interactions. COMMISSIONER ALI: So I'll have Nadine talk specifically about the federal funding, and then I'll go into the answers.
Sure. Thank you for your question. On the federal side, we haven't seen much of a shift in our overall federal funding. It's been pretty stable. Small shifts in the funding occur when our placement population changes because it's based on whoever's in care. But other than that, it's been fairly stable. And a significant portion, almost all of our federal funding is passed through the state. COMMISSIONER ALI: So in terms of the questions around diversion, community-based juvenile justice providers, so we do have a performance management and technology division that's responsible for doing all of our data reporting. We recognized in order to do more thorough and comprehensive, look at the impact, if you will, of particular services that we needed some additional capacity. And so, we issued an RFP, we selected a provider and we have been actively engaging that provider so that they can help us determine whether or not the services that we are providing on the juvenile side are actually working. I do want to also talk about the recidivism that you indicated. And so, we actually looked at over a five-year period. Over 4300 young people that were being held at the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center, 85% of them did not recidivate after two years of their case being closed out. And so, we will continue to look at that and look at recidivism. We believe that the reason why there has been an impact is because our goal is to make detention more meaningful. We know that it's difficult for young people to be held at the PJJSC. And so, we offer a variety of programs to keep them engaged, a lot of which are vocational programming.
Yeah. I actually come up there and speak to the kids for PTTI. Shout- out to them, doing great work up there trying to get these kids interested in the trades. Thank you. And just if you could answer the question about schools.
Thank you so much, Councilmember. Thank you for your continuous advocacy. It's an important issue. I'll talk about Memphis real quickly and then get into the other question. So just to know -- and you know this, the transition process is a joint conversation between the school district and the charter school provider, so I'll have to defer that question specifically to the school district. And then the second question is about our office involvement. So as you know, the school district presents a plan to the board, and then the board votes on that plan and they're responsible to implement that plan, and we will be working alongside the board in the implementation of what they have to do.
So you have no real role in the schools being closed?
It's school district's plan. Okay. Just my concerns, as you can see, is that fact that it seems like certain areas get targeted and my area seems to get targeted a lot. And the fact that we're losing three of our schools and then on top of it, are going to lose our neighborhood charter school. If we're thinking about kids, I don't know what that is. But thank you for the time, Council President. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson, the Minority Leader Kendra Brooks and then Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Council President. And thank you so much to the Mayor's Office of Education, Dr. Deb Carrera. Wonderful time at CCP at the CATC relative to the nondestructive testing and naval welding, first cohort graduation last week. Very quickly I also heard you mention the program Joyful Readers. And when I heard Joyful Readers, my ears perked because that is a wonderful, proven program to help young people increase their reading levels and their reading scores. And I can attest to it personally. This is my first experience and first year with Joyful Readers, a program I had never heard of before. And so, I want to give kudos to Joyful Readers and the work that you all are doing in the Mayor's Office of Education. I hope that that program can be extended to schools citywide. It's an excellent program. And then finally, I wanted to thank our Commissioner Kimberly Ali from the Department of Human Services, Council President. You always give her kudos from being from South Philadelphia. I must give her kudos for being a graduate of Philadelphia High School for Girls. And we appreciate the work that you and your team are doing. I must do the thank-yous quickly. Katherine Garzon, who helps us with the CERC work; Gary Williams, you've been incredible, incredible over these last six years; and Cydney Irving-Dasent as well as the entire team at DHS, particularly the communications team as well who works with my team, and also Nadine, who's doing the heavy lifting with some of the things that I'll mention very quickly. I heard you say, Commissioner, that we are at over 3000 youth service and 79,000 visits for the Community Evening Resource Center. So thank you, thank you, thank you. That is an initiative that did not exist at the onset of the last term and together we were able to stand up that operation in large part due to the work of the team at DHS. I wanted to briefly mention, and I heard you talk about this earlier with another colleague, regarding the professional services contracts. Are you all one or two in city government with the amount of professional services contracts? Is it 1941? Are you one or two? How many professional services contracts over the life of the Five Year Plan?
So we have about 287, I think it is, professional services contracts. So I'm not --
Meaning, ranking. Meaning, city departments.
Okay. And I'm bringing that up for a reason. Because I heard you all say that you're at 93% conformance for Q1?
For Q1, Yes. We're at 100 now. I mean, everyone's been conformed now. But, yes, we were at 93 at Q1.
Right. No, I think that DHS is the gold standard in the Health and Human Services portfolio as it relates to contract conformance, getting the process through the pipeline. I'm sure the last --
I'm sorry. I'm sure the last 7% was probably related to provider challenges relative to invoicing on the backend. And so, I just wanted to give you all kudos because you have obviously, and I'll check this, the largest amount of professional services contracts in the Health and Human Service portfolio. And to have a 93% conformance rate in light of the recommendations that we have from the Pew/Bennett Midland report, I think is excellent. So I wanted to give you kudos for that. (Applause.)
I think this is probably a question more for Sabrina than for our Commissioner. But I heard you talk about the 20% vacancy rate. And we notice -- when you read the detail, you notice that there's an assumption baked in that the full Class 100 allocation will be utilized when we know that departments technically have a significant vacancy rate. And I heard you talk about the 221 new hires total. I read that in the detail, the 71 or 78 new social service managers, and then the additional complement of staff over at the JJSC as well, that was 31. And so, how does that impact FY27 Class 100 requests in particular because I did see the slight bump? This on the Five Year Plan. I saw the slight bump. And then how does it impact the Five Year Plan projections? And I think that's probably a question more for Sabrina, but if you all could address that because I think that's an ongoing challenge across departments over the plan. It's extra dollars baked into these Class 100 projections. And if we can get that tighter, I think that helps us get to a better end goal relative to realizing additional revenue that is right here. It's right here.
Understood. Thank you for that question. So first, I'll just say that we have been trying to take a conservative approach with addressing our vacancies and rightsizing our budget. So in FY27, we proposed a cut of positions. And so, 5 that's something that we're going 6 to continue to evaluate as a 7 department, but we made that 8 initial cut. So that's one way to 9 address it. The second way is -- 10
Okay. Because the 17 current estimate for FY26 and FY27 18 estimate, you know, it would be 19 hard to see the reduction in the 20 position because of the amount. 21 You know where I'm going. 22
I do, I do. 23 So what I would say is it's 24 counterbalanced by the fact that there were contractual raises in FY27 that were taken into consideration. So we have D.C. 33, D.C. 47, non-rep raises, so that's also baked into there. So that does cancel it out a little bit. But we are at least addressing the vacancies with the positions.
Received. No, no, I heard the bell and I'm going to honor the clock, but I received that. But I also know that we are working through, I guess, the labor reserve as well. So I'll come back to that on how we understand the Class 100 allocation for each department. It's not specific to DHS. But just thinking -- and I heard you answered with the 20% vacancy rate. And then looking at the estimates versus the proposed and then the position count, you try to make sense of the numbers to find where there's additional opportunity for revenue that's sitting right there. Because then we'll come back again next year and we'll be sitting with a surplus in the General Fund after we indicated that we believe will not be in a good space. Okay. So I just wanted to bring that to the attention of every department who's listening, not just for DHS. And then lastly, I just wanted to ask a question how are you all ensuring the safety and the permanency and the well-being of youth who need to remain at DHS overnight, say, if they're not able to get a placement? I wanted to bring that up. And then the very, very last question, Councilmember Bass brought up a case, and we don't have any specific cases, but I wanted to just reiterate that we have one particular constituent who I'm sure has contacted many Councilmembers. I will give you their contact information again, but just want's additional feedback, outreach from DHS. And I've given you all this case before. I know it's very delicate from a legal standpoint, but I'll resubmit it again because we received constant outreach. And I don't know whether or not the case is just stuck in the legal system or where it is, but I'll resend it again. COMMISSIONER ALI: Okay. Sounds good. Thank you for that. And so, I will take the question around the safety premising and well-being of young people who are in need of placement. And so, DHS is a 24/7 operation. And so, young people can come into DHS any time of the day, any day of the week and we receive them with open arms. And so, we do have a child care room. However, we had to look at the number of young people who were utilizing the child care room and implement a few strategies. First, let me say that there has been almost a 50% reduction in the utilization of the child care room, partly because we are laser-focused on making sure that young people are placed with individuals that they know. Also, we engage them to determine why are they disrupting from placement or why are they unable to return home. And so, that is also the result of our family engagement initiative that we have in partnership with the courts. And then finally, I will say this is one of the reasons why we do have the RFP out now for youth emergency services so that we can address the short-term needs of young people until we identify a more permanent placement or return them back to their families.
Received. Would that site be downtown or it depends on the response? COMMISSIONER ALI: It depends on the response.
You're not location specific? COMMISSIONER ALI: No, not at all.
Received. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Council President. COMMISSIONER ALI: Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Leader. Chair recognizes Minority Leader Kendra Brooks. Then we have Member Young and then we have Member Lozada.
Thank you, Council President. I have some questions for the Department of Human Services that I want to get on the record. I want to begin by thanking them for their commitment to connecting our foster youth to federal benefits. And we had a very productive conversation about this tough topic and I've been interested about this issue since I've been in Council. I'm going to go straight to it. So I have three clear questions. In terms of the accounts to hold this money, I know there have been several RFPs that have not worked out, and I want to thank you for that work that you have done. But can you let me know the status of the process of setting up those accounts? And if the RFP process isn't going to work, are there other workarounds that doesn't require an RFP? And could the city put that money directly into a savings account rather than having it gone through the General Fund first? And can you let us know what options you are thinking through? And the third question is, I know there have been some concerns about the tax implications for providing these funds and I appreciate this concern, but could these be classified as gifts or could these payments be made in parts rather than a lump sum?
Thank you for that question and thank you for your continued support here. There have been a few updates. First, I would say that you're correct, we had the unsuccessful RFP process two times. And so, we have decided that it would be best if we broke up the process, did as much as we could internally with the support of the Treasurer's Office to push out funding to individual youth and then create or build up a fiscal literacy program for youth within an existing provider. So that's our steps. Unfortunately, we have had some delays on actually writing checks to youth. So that is our goal, to be able to write checks to youth upon exiting care. We've looked into a grant option, a gift option, and I think now we're at a point where we would like to just be able to write checks directly to youth and then just provide them the information that they need so that they fully understand the possible implications of receiving those funds. So we just wanted to take our time with this and be sure that we weren't causing any greater issues for the youth or tax implications or worse, as they're transitioning out of care, that they're no longer able to qualify for benefits. So that was a major hurdle for us.
Benefits, you mean like health care or whatever or --
Mm-hmm. COMMISSIONER ALI: But I did want to state that we have been conserving those funds since January of 2025. And so, those funds are being conserved for young people who receive RSDI benefits. And so, we are still conserving the funds. We just need to get the money in the hands of the young people upon their exit.
So with the small lump sums, wouldn't that prevent them from having whatever amount of money they're allowed to earn in lieu of food stamps or health care? Is it a way we can parse out that money so it doesn't eliminate that but still gives them additional funding? Because if you're getting cash assistance, I don't know what that is, what $200? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. And I will say this, we have been in conversations with our Law Department around what does this look like in terms of taxes, eligibility. And so, we have been walking lockstep with them so that we can make the right decision for young people and not jeopardize their ability to receive additional funds upon their exit.
Okay. Thank you. I have questions for the second round. I'll wait.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young and Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Thank you, Mr. President. First question I have is for DHS. Can you tell us how many or what's the deficit in the number of resource families that we need in order to provide a home for all of the kids that need a home in the city? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. So thank you for that question. We don't have a deficit in the number of resource homes for young people. We actually have more than enough resource homes. The issue comes if the resource parent is able to address the needs of the young people. And so, that's where you see the disconnect. And so, in order to address that disconnect, we actually partner with our colleagues at Community Behavioral Health so that we can provide additional skills to both kinship parents and foster parents around skills, around how to handle young people who have more challenging behaviors. And so, we started that maybe about a year and a half ago so that we can help build the capacity and the skills for foster parents and kinship care parents.
Thank you. Another thing -- I should have been more specific in my question. So I specifically want to ask about the 22nd police district because I'm getting information from our CUAs to say that they are in need of these families in those communities in North Philadelphia. So you're saying we have the capacity there. I just want to make sure that I'm understanding how to continue to help some of our CUAs. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. So I don't know the capacity by district. I could get that by district in terms of resource parents. I will say to you when CUA case manager or DHS social workers talk about resource parents or foster parents, we also like to have the conversation around kinship parents first. And so, our goal is to place young people with individuals that they know or know the family. And when they don't, then we place that young person in foster care. But I don't know specific by zip code or district, but I certainly can get that. And I can have more conversation because the Community Umbrella Agency who is responsible for that area is NET, so Northeast Treatment Center, who's also a foster care provider. And so, I can have some conversations with them around their own foster care recruitment.
Thank you. And you mentioned kinship care. Can you talk to us about if there are any issues as far as housing habitability that takes kids away from their families? And what the city provides to those residents in order to get their house to a habitable state in order to keep their Family intact? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes, I can speak to that. And so, in terms of kinship care, again that is our goal, to place young people with someone that they know. We do not allow a housing situation to prevent young people from living with their kin. We have resources that can support that and we have a 60-day window in which we can support them. So there are times that we have to of course support with beds, because to have another young person into your home, you may not have an appropriate place for them to sleep. We help certainly with food, a whole number of things in order to help support that. There are even times that we may have to do minor repairs, if you will, in that particular home in order to make sure that young people are able to stay there. But even before that, if we have a parent who we received a report on and they need some assistance with housing, we certainly will support them in housing support. So that could be anywhere from rent arrears and we will support that, move-in costs, we will support that. We do whatever we need to do in order to make sure that young people stay with their families. We do not want housing to be the reason why young people come into care with the Department of Human Services.
And we were talking about youth summer jobs earlier today. And as we were actually talking about it, I got a text message from someone who said a 15- to 17-year-old boys, they need a summer job. Those kids need a summer job being in the communities where they are. I know they need to be doing something busy this summer, right. And so, we have parents who are desperately looking for these opportunities. Can you just give us what that number is so we can fund all 14,000 slots that's needed? Because I think in the long run as we're making these investments in our children now, it's going to pay off for us in the future. And so, I think we really need to figure out what that cost is because I can guarantee that we can fill 14,000 slots for young people who are looking for jobs. We can do that and we provide incentives. So my question is what type of incentives do we provide to the potential employer, to nonprofits in the city to host one of these young people at their sites? Do we give them some kind of tax credit? Do we give them some kind of grant other than -- I know C2L pays for the paycheck for the students, but are we providing something to the actual host businesses to incentivize them to want them to participate in this program?
Sure. Thank you for that question. So what I will say is I can tell you that the cost per slot is around $2,700. That slot includes the stipend for the youth to get paid over the summer or whenever the opportunity is and then also a provider compensation component. So the providers are compensated for taking the youth and giving them the opportunity so that --
It comes to about 1180 per slot. So of the 2680, around 1180 of it goes to the provider and then 1500 goes to the youth.
Thank you, Council President. I think most of my questions were asked by my colleagues, but I do have one question for the Office of Education and, that is, given all of the concerns that have been expressed by community members, all of our school community, given the fact that many of our school parent advisory boards have made very valid recommendations, have expressed very valid concerns, is there a way for your office to help support the voices of the students and these parents and slow this decision process down some kind of way where every community -- I mean, I'm speaking for the 7th because I've been able to attend many of the online and inperson meetings, I've been able to meet with some of the students who feel that they will be impacted in one way or another as a result of the changes that are being recommended in the plan. Is there a way for us to slow this process down until every action has been considered and until people feel like their input has been valued and respected, right? I am going to refer to the Moffet community, who was not a part of the original list of closures but who will be impacted, and it is a closure when you look at the decisions that are being made in their K through program. 5 How can your office help support our on-the-ground communities in the situation that we're in right now?
Thank you, Councilwoman Lozada. As I've said a few times, this is not easy at all. In 2017 when Parsons came and did an assessment of our facilities, the price tag was $7,000,000,000, 2017 -- we're in 2026 -- of repairs. So our buildings are old, but there's also been a disinvestment because we're underfunded. So I have to repeat that because I think we have to really understand that the state discontinued Plan Con, so we couldn't get those funds to get our buildings to a state where all kids should have. The district entered into a process and they're going to share them. You've heard them. They did -- we were on this facilities project team. They had 35 principal sessions. They've received 14,000 surveys. I'm also a parent of a student in the School District of Philadelphia and I received the emails and the contacts. And I'm not saying that our families have not been listened to. What I'm saying is that this is a really hard process. And I think if we asked anybody who wants to close their school, no one is going to raise their hands.
I get that. I understand that. That is a fair statement. No one wants their school closed. However, decisions have been made in specific communities that we know will negatively impact not just our student population, but our teaching staff as well. Because there's no teacher that's going to stay through the transition year or through the planning year if they know their jobs are not secure, right. And so, there's going to be a ripple effect in this decision-making if we don't slow down and really look at how this is impacting our system as a whole. Councilmember mentioned earlier, right, that there's a negative impact that is occurring in communities like mine and hers, right. But I think those communities are the communities that feel like the engagement that was necessary did not take place. And while they have all of these numbers that say X number of people took the surveys and responded, are those real numbers, right, or were those people that were surveyed in those neighborhoods part of the Administration or a select group of people? Because when I talk to my families, when we're knocking on doors and we're talking to our families, they didn't participate, right. They either don't speak the language, they didn't participate, weren't unaware, don't even know what is happening and are not comfortable moving their children out of their community where they go to school in a way that's walkable to another neighborhood where they're not going to be able to walk and they don't feel safe in that neighborhood, right. So how do we just pump the brakes a minute? We know that there's tension. We know that decisions are not going to be easy. We know that some of our buildings have not been invested in. Hell, the state mentioned that they had not invested in our school system for many, many years. How do we kind of just slow down and really do the necessary engagement where we allow for parents and families and young people to feel like they are not at fault, right? We're talking about underutilization, that you guys continue to say that we're not making this decision based on scores, but the children that are negatively being impacted are those schools that continuously show that they come out at the bottom, right? How do we do that? How do we do that together so that we're moving our school systems, our school district, our children, our families forward without them feeling like it is because of them?
Those are all -- thank you, Councilwoman, because those are all very valid concerns. And I will say this, and you know that I led Kensington High School. Even when I moved from my old building, I didn't -- the program moved, so I think that that's a part that we also have to understand in this process, because we're talking about buildings, we're talking about underenrollment, I hear what you're saying, engaging. But my program went into a different location. So I just want to say that. But it --
A point of information, Dr. Deborah Carrera, and that was a great point you made. When your program moved from one building to another building, did the progress change, did the progress improve because you're talking about continuity? And so, could you also talk about that in the context of you responding to Member Lozada?
That's a great point, question. And so, my staff moved. And the district had said that next year '26-27 was going to be a year of planning, what that's going to look like. So when I moved my program, my staff moved with me to this new facility. And so, that continuity that you're talking about, the counselors that the kids knew, my climate manager that the kids knew, me, the principal, has an important role in all of this work and they've been a part of these conversations. I was part of that move and --
But that's not what's happening right now. You just said how important that is, right, that not just the program moves, but that the leadership moves, that the children feel that they're supported by that move. That's not what's happening right now. And what I find interesting is that it happens all the time. Council President is going to attend something. Everybody goes up in front of him the days before, we're planning, we're cleaning it, we're making it look pretty, we're putting paint and we're making it look great. Same thing happens with the Mayor. Same thing happens with Superintendent, right. Superintendent is going to visit a school and they know exactly where they're going to walk him through, they know what hallways they're going to take, they know what stairwell they're going to take and the facilities folks go before him, they make sure they're clean, they make sure they smell good, they make sure that there's no paint chipping. But that's not the reality, right. And in order for our children and our families to feel supported, everything you just said has to happen, has to happen. And in this particular process, it is not happening. Because when you talk to our school teachers and our administrators, they don't even know what's going on. They're confused. They don't know what their future is going to be. And so, I think that we're putting ourselves in a situation where we're going to lose talent in our school district that we really can't afford to lose right now, given how sensitive the academic process is in our schools.
Well, speaking of support from our state officials as we work on a school facilities plan, I'd like to welcome to City Council chambers the Appropriations Chairman, State Representative Jordan Harris. (Applause.)
Thank you for joining us, sir. He also hails from that great part of the city known as Point Breeze, South Philadelphia. Thank you for stopping past here, sir. We will be breaking and I'm assuming, based upon the feedback from my members, you would like for them to come back for a second round? (Yes.)
I kind of figured that. And so, we will be back at 1:45. I will see everybody then. See you back. Thank you. (Lunch recess.)
Brief Round 2 with the Department of Human Services, Office of Children and Family Services and Education. Briefly. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier. Before we get started, just some house rules. I'm asking all members just please be direct with your line of questioning. Short on commentary. Chair recognizes Councilman Jamie Gauth -- I'm sorry. Chair recognizes Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you, Mr. President. I have questions for the Free Library and Parks and Recreation. I can re-enter the queue if you'd like me to.
Any last outstanding questions you have for this panel?
All right. Thank you very much. Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.
Thank you so much, Council President. I just wanted to state -- earlier today I got some more information. As stated, the budget includes $850,000 over five years with $250,000 allocated in the first year, along with the hiring of new staff positions to support 230,000 residents with student loan debt. I just wanted to get a better sense from you all, $100,000 is going to go towards staffing for a grant program that you're going to do an RFP for. What is going to be the role for the staff?
Dr. Deborah Carrera, Chief Education Officer. Thank you again, Councilmember Phillips, for your support. The $100,000 is for two administrative staff, and that is to support with the calls that we're going to take in addition to supporting the position that we are purchasing from our office in the many pieces to this work. Because what I didn't get to say in the beginning was that not only is this position going to support 231,000 residents, this position is also going to work with city employees through the public service loan forgiveness program. And so, that's going to be also a bucket of the work that's going to be really important.
Okay. That was helpful. Because one of the things I noticed, you had some other staff and some vacancies. I'm like would it be possible just to use the ones that were already budgeted in that regard? But that's pretty much only questions that I have. And I'll submit DHS on the record some other questions that I have. I want to thank Commissioner Ali. I also want to say I'm really a big fan of the afterschool program and thank you for your work with that. Thank you, Dr. Carrera, as well.
Okay. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier. But before I ask any other questions, any other members who have questions for this panel, raise your hand? (Raised hands.)
Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you so first. And briefly, I just want to thank you, Commissioner Ali, for all of your partnership on the youth ombuds, on this body's GPS hearing and on your efforts at PJJSC. We appreciate you. I do have some questions as a follow-up to the recent GPS monitoring hearing. In the hearing, we learned that youth were being incarcerated due to technical violations related to the GPS monitor. And so, my questions are how many children were detained at the Juvenile Justice Services Center this year for technical violations related to a GPS monitor? And how do you plan to work with the courts and other systems partners to reduce the number of youth incarcerated due to technical violations? COMMISSIONER ALI: Thank you for that question, Councilmember. I don't have the data in terms of how many young people are being held at the PJJSC solely for technical violations. We will work with the courts in order to get that data. Because as you know, probation as well as the courts make the determination around whether or not young people will be held at the PJJSC. I will reiterate what I said earlier in terms of there has been a decrease in the number of young people held in detention. And so, when I look at the full year of 2025, we had 1325 young people held at the PJJSC. So that's individual youth. And that was a decrease of 13% from just the year before, which was Calendar Year 2024. At that particular time, it was 1524 young people being held there. But I don't have the specific information about the reason why they were held, whether it was a technical violation or based on one of their lead charges.
How long do you think it would take to gather that information from the courts? COMMISSIONER ALI: I'm not sure, but certainly my team is here and I'm sure they'll probably send in text messages in order to obtain that data.
Thank you. I look forward to receiving it. I also want to commend Councilmember Phillips and Councilmember Landau for holding that hearing, but I do think we have to kind of keep our foot on the gas. And so, it will be important to, on an ongoing basis, look at that data to ensure that young people aren't being incarcerated unnecessarily or due to minor technical violations. Thank you. COMMISSIONER ALI: Understood.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Cindy Bass and Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad. We'll wrap up with Councilmember Kendra Brooks.
Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon. I just really wanted to make a little bit more of a statement than a question that I have -- well, I do have one quick question. And that is around going back to the CUAs and the problem that we had with retention of staff. And my assumption is that the salary is what the problem is in terms of them being able to retain staff. So does the city have a minimum requirement for staffing for employees through CUAs? COMMISSIONER ALI: We do. And so, that minimum requirement for CUA case managers is in alignment with our social work service managers at DHS. And so, that minimum requirement is $60,000 a year because it's comparable to DHS employees.
Do we have a caseload requirement? COMMISSIONER ALI: The caseload requirement for CUA case managers is families to 1, which is lower than what the state recommendation is. The state recommends for ongoing service delivery, a 30-to-1.
So 7 do you monitor that? 8 COMMISSIONER ALI: Oh, 9 absolutely. 10
Okay. COMMISSIONER ALI: So we do monitor the caseload.
So if it's not the caseload and it's not the salary, then I would assume -- are you all looking into what is the problem, why are they having such a difficult time retaining staffing? Because clearly, there's a problem. It's not just one CUA or two CUAs. It seems to be, I don't know, maybe half of them or more. So if you could give us that in writing as to what DHS is doing to look at the staffing and turnover because it's a position that we need a steady hand on this. COMMISSIONER ALI: Absolutely. And so, I can say some brief statements and then I can submit it in writing in terms --
Well, real brief because I don't have a lot of time. COMMISSIONER ALI: I'm sorry. Do you want me to continue?
(Nodded affirmatively). COMMISSIONER ALI: We do utilize the same strategies we do internally in terms of CUA case managers and what we do with our own staff, supporting them around the training, number one, of their employees, also making sure that there is appropriate transfer and learning for CUA case manager staff, because it's very different from being in the classroom versus you knocking on the door and engaging families.
Well, let me -- because I want to just make a statement real quick. But I'll just say this, there's a problem and it doesn't seem to have been figured out. So if DHS could do some work on that and then report back to the President, that would be great so he can let us know. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes.
Please provide the information to the Chair at the appropriate time. Member Bass.
One last question or statement that I wanted to make regarding schools and school closures. And I just really wanted to say on the record that, as there were questions earlier, this is really quite a self-created problem where the district changed the requirements to special admit schools. And as a result, you can see how the enrollment dropped year after year after year. So now, we're in this sort of crisis phase where you have some really good schools like a Lankenau, like a Parkway, like some of these other schools that are being identified as they have to close because of low enrollment. The reason we're here is because of the work done by the district in the first place. And so, rather than going back to look at the work and look at the changes that were made and saying we need to reverse those changes or we need to do something different, the first thought was just shut them down, just close them, which is really quite a disservice to our communities and to our young people. I often say if you create the conditions, you're responsible for the results. And I believe the district is responsible for these results. There were other options. We didn't have to go immediately to we have to close the schools. Again, we could have revisited the special admit policy, made corrections to ensure quality educational options were available in every neighborhood and then we could move students, we could transport students to spaces to preserve schools and neighborhoods with less attendance and provide transit. And I don't understand why that's not an option. But if you look at a map of the city of Philadelphia and you look straight down the line of Broad Street, years ago when schools were closed or 13 years ago, whatever it was when schools were closed, most of the schools closed were on the west side of Broad Street, which is where there's declining population. Most of the schools that were kept open were on -- actually all the schools pretty much, I believe, on the east side of Broad Street were kept open, which is where growth in the city was happening. But at the same time, you can't say, well, just because that's where the population growth is, that's where we're going to close schools. There has to be educational options for every neighborhood. Because what happens when, you know, let's say if we take some of these buildings and we build them into residential housing units, are we going to say that families without kids only because there's no 3 educational options or there's limited educational options --
Thank you. Briefly, Dr. Deborah, have we entertained one-for-one schools where you tear down the school and rebuild a smaller school so the school could stay inside the neighborhood in the process of the school district's $2.8 billion initiative? Has that been a serious thought? Because I understand clearly what you're saying, if we have a school -- my understanding, Lankenau has the school built for 800 and it's only 300 kids inside the school right now. I do understand that part because that's also a public safety issue with a little bit of kids inside a school that's pretty much empty. Anything could happen. And if something did happen, we would be having a different conversation in this room 11 as to why you have a whole bunch of kids -- why you have kids in a building that's pretty much empty. And if something does happen, we would be having a different conversation. But I guess my question is, has the Administration approached the district and had a conversation saying, okay, this building was built for 1000 students, there's only 300 students in that building, but as an excellent academic program as opposed to us relocating, combining, how about as part of that $2.8 billion budget, we tear the school down, not sell it to a developer, tear the school down, rebuild another school at the same site, maybe add a rec center, maybe add a health center, right, on that same campus, right. So now, you have a smaller footprint, the overhead is much, much less. And out of that $2.8 billion strategy, the neighborhood doesn't lose the school. Temporarily, the kids are inside another building, maybe a trailer for that particular point in time, but they get to come back to that very same neighborhood with a smaller footprint of a school. Have we actually explored that or do you know if that has been explored?
Thank you for that commentary, President Johnson. So I will say that this process has been a two-year process of engaging with different stakeholders. And so --
I want to say respectfully, and I know Mr. Chairman of the school board always says we are just doing what y'all asked us to do, but there has not been a two-year engagement of the members of this City Council. Now, it might have been every time they may have come in front of this body and say, hey, we're going to rightsize the schools, but in terms of an actual sit-down engagement and saying, here's our plan, here's how we're rolling out in the near future -- and I know the surveys have been done, town halls have been done, but I'm just talking about active conversations with this body in terms of what we would like to see from a facilities plan standpoint. To be quite frank with you, that hasn't happened in terms of this body, maybe other stakeholders, but I will stand and say that hasn't happened. So I just was wondering has a one-for-one type of option been put in place like, okay, Lankenau, very, very nice campus. We know, right, realistically, a school built for 800 kids and you only have 300 in there probably may not be the best fit, right. But however, has the option been it's a nice campus, let's work on tearing the building down and build up a smaller one, more modern building?
Not that I know of, that option. But I just want to reiterate respectfully that the enrollment decline has been happening for 10 years. It didn't just happen a year ago, two years, but 10 years. And so, I just want to --
I'm agreeing with you on that. I understand --
Point of information. So while there have been declines over the years, the last 10 years or whatever, there were steep declines after the changes made by the district. So, you know, a drop in students here or there is 19 different from a 50, you know, 20 based on just naturally going to a charter or whatever is much different than a school seeing a 50% drop based on changes that were made by the school district. And that's why I keep saying that the district needs to go back to the drawing board and take a look at when those big drops happened and what were the changes that happened that got them there in the first place. Thank you.
I want to ask this because this is going to be a very lively conversation in the future. And if y'all want to do a callback throughout this process to continue this conversation, you're more than willing to do a callback so we can get to the next panel. And then I also want to ask Ms. Deborah Carrera, if you and your team can have a conversation with our Chair of Education and the members who have different issues and concerns so we can work collaboratively, right. It's not an adversarial thing. They're all of our children. So we were just working the best that we can to get it right. And I heard you say a couple different times, which I think most or all of us understand, there's a structural deficit. We get it, right. We know the politics in Harrisburg. They do want us to come up there with an actual plan that we're working on addressing this issue, right. I also remind them though, but all politics are local so I rely on our Chair of Appropriations, our Speaker of the House, our Governor Josh Shapiro to do what they need to do, right, and we're going to do we need to do on our end. So at the end of the day, their politics won't dictate ours, right, because we're on the ground and we want to make sure we're protecting our children and supporting our families. But I do understand the reality of how we address it, but we still want to get it done right so we don't have even worse of a problem two, three, four, five years, and we're sitting at this table and we're saying, well, they got rid of the special admit programs and this is a result of what actually happened. But I do want to follow up and have a more concrete conversation with members of Council and the Administration, particularly around this issue, if that's okay. And one small one, Commissioner Ali. I know a couple CUAs had to be shut down because of the insurance issue, the liability issue. What's the current status and how are we addressing that issue? Because at one point, I thought all the CUAs would not be in existence because of the cost of insurance. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. And so, you're correct in terms of two CUAs making a decision that they no longer wanted to provide services. So I want to also reiterate that we had a seamless process in terms of transferring all of those families as well as the staff to the other CUA providers that were newly identified. And, yes, they made their business decision based on insurance. We continue as a city to monitor liability assurance because it is a nationwide issue and we'll continue to work with the state. But to date, both the city and the state has certainly paid all the insurance premiums for not only Community Umbrella Agencies but placement providers as well.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad and then we'll wrap up with Councilmember Kendra Brooks and go into our next panel discussion.
Thank you, Council President. Very quickly, just to follow up on the CUA point, and I'm glad Council President brought that up, so the CUAs are getting their insurance premiums paid in the contract that they're doing, correct? Am I understanding that correctly? COMMISSIONER ALI: That's correct.
What percentage of that contract is spent on insurance premiums? COMMISSIONER ALI: 16% of the contract.
That's a large amount of their budget. And also, we talked about the whole salary of social workers who are people with Master's in terms of in your office, but what is the requirement for CUA social workers? And second is how much oversight do you actually give now that you're actually not in the business of doing what the CUAs did, because that's what you did before. Now, you're just investigatory and then just a follow-up. I want to know, because what I've heard from CUAs is there's not a lot of oversight in person. There are meetings, but they're not onsite with actual families and engagement. So correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the feedback I got. So I want to be clear publicly, what exactly is your engagement with CUA in terms of supervision and what they're required in their social workers to produce? COMMISSIONER ALI: So all social workers at Community Umbrella Agencies as well as DHS have the same requirements around having a Bachelor's degree in social work or a like profession, if you will. The social work supervisors and the CUA supervisors, they are required to have a Master's degree in social work. So the Master's degree in social work for both CUAs as well as DHS supervisors. We receive the same training, so it's the exact same training for DHS as well as the Community Umbrella Agencies. So everything is the same in that regard. In terms of the oversight, so we do significant oversight of the Community Umbrella Agencies, one of which rolls up into this CUA scorecard where we look at over 2000 families each year to determine whether or not they are receiving the appropriate services and we rank them according to domains, and that's what you see in the CUA scorecard. So that is completed by DHS's performance management and technology division. So they are DHS staff that actually monitor the CUAs. On the ground, we have practice specialists. They are employees under my DHS universities, so under my training arm that provides technical assistance. As you can see from the CUA scorecard, most of the CUAs scored four or five bells, so they have been doing fairly well in terms of the CUA scorecard and the practices that they provide and the services that they provide to children, youth and families. And so, the technical assistance looks different. So for the CUAs who achieved the three bells, the two that achieved the three bells, we provide more hands- on, on-the-ground technical assistance than the ones who are achieving much better. In addition, we also have the family team conferencing model at DHS, so as DHS supervisors that facilitate team meetings, so we bring together the family, the Community Umbrella Agency to see the progress of the case. So that is our way of also making sure that families are receiving the services that they deserve.
So we'll circle back later, because I'm visiting each of the CUAs and getting feedback on each of them. So we'll provide you with what we saw and heard and how it shows up. Quickly before I let you go, I wanted to revisit the 8.6 million. I didn't understand it. There's 8.6 million that jumped from 2.7 million. And you said that was state money that was coming in. But then why is it on the budget?
It's a combination. It's state and General Fund. The entire budget that we have for DHS is leveraged. So every line item that you see in here is a combination of state and General Fund dollars, so that represents a portion of that funding and then we got the full year funding. That's how our requests work with the state. And none of that has been awarded yet. So we currently have an RFP out right now, and then we're hoping to award that soon.
So the 8.6 is a combination of General Fund money and state money?
If you separate them, what is the General Fund money because that's what will reflect in our budget? So if we are reducing it by the amount the state gives, that means we have more dollars available. I just want to understand that number.
Sure. So from the 8.6 million, about 2 million -- about 1.6 million, I'm sorry. Around 1.6 million is General Fund dollars.
So that means we have more resources. I'm just trying to have an accounting conversation to say what are we showing on the ledger to show how much money is available in the General Fund. If it's so much money, it's like $7 million, that's a lot more revenue that we have sitting in General Fund to do other things with. That's the clarification.
I understand. However, you can't access all of that money without matching, right. So --
-- in order to put that General Fund -- in order to receive that state funding, we have to put the General Fund up and then spend all of it together.
I understand. But we need to be clear, what is the revenue that we are having to generate for our General Fund to give services. And that's only 1.6 of the 8.6. Just for clarity, I wanted to make sure. Because the numbers that we're -- we're looking for efficiencies, right. We're looking to see how tightly we are running our budget so that people know how their dollars are being used.
There's no way for the public to know this. There's absolutely no 22 way to look at the budget and say, oh, it's actually only 1.6 coming from the General Fund. I think we need to be absolutely clear how we're using tax dollars, and this clarification needs to be evident in some way in the budget with an asterisk or something because that is very misleading. And it's jumped from 1. something to 8.6, immediately alarm bells for us. So thank you very much for that clarification. Thank you, Council President. I'm done.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Kendra Brooks.
I am going to finish up the line of questioning I started before. It was really again about the amount of benefits that you've earned while in the foster program. We know it's large, so providing kids with money that they need to support their education or start a career. I want to know can we talk about what kind of planning work you -- you mentioned it briefly, we're having with the kids about what to do this money, how to spend the money. Having young kids have large lump sums of money at one time can be pretty difficult so I would love to hear what are you doing to provide them with that education? And I know it's a complicated process and I want to thank you for working through this. And I would like to know the timeline for the next steps. And will you be willing to sit with my office and advocates from the vendor's office about the details of the next step. And the last one is we want to work with stakeholders to understand the gaps in community-based services and kind of work with you guys to help recruit providers to fill in some of those gaps. And I would love to also have a convening with stakeholders about how we can fill in the gaps of services to make sure nothing slips in?
Thank you for that question. So as far as the next steps, right now we're working with the Law Department to explore the writing checks directly to youth. We're not starting accounts. We're just going to write checks directly to youth. So we've already worked with the Treasurer's Department. Now, we're moving in the Law Department -- well, we're continuing to work with the Law Department on that, and the hope is that that can move along quickly. And then we also want to ensure that we are setting our youth up for success. And so, that is that financial literacy that we're talking about. And we've been working internally to see if we can route that through one of our existing providers. And then that would be, here's how to set up an account once you receive this money, here are how you could budget for this money and next steps on how to be fiscally responsible with this money, and then also the effects of receiving a lump sum amount of money. So that is currently our plan. COMMISSIONER ALI: And in terms of working with your office, absolutely. I know we've had some conversations in the past in terms of the RSDI benefits. So, yes, we are committed to continuing to work with both your office as well as advocates around this issue. And I do understand that there is some energy at the state level as well, so we're waiting for some further guidance around that too.
All right. Thank you so much. I have one for the Office of Education for Dr. Carrera. One of the programs under the Mayor's Office of Education is Octavius Catto scholarship at CCP. As a CCP alum, I often encourage young people to apply for the CATTO scholarship. One issue that frequently comes up is that the scholarship is limited to full-time students. In my experience, the students that most need the scholarship are those working at least part-time and they aren't able to take on a full course load. Has it been any discussion about these scholarships being available part-time? I was a part-time student at CCP for seven years before I went to Temple to finish out my first degree. So I know the significance of access. So limiting young people or not so young people, because I know it's expanded now, the opportunity to acquire the education because they're not able to go full-time seems kind of unfair and kind of against what we're trying to capture. So is there any talk about that?
Thank you for that question, Councilmember, and glad to hear that you're a CCP grad. My sisters are too. And so thankful that they went to CCP because I went to Temple because of them. But we have had conversations, because to your point it is a real issue. So we are having conversations with the Community College of Philadelphia about that, because I know that there are certain standards that the college uses or that there are certain standards that assess the college. And so, we have had those conversations. We've been a little creative around the teachers. So we have the CATTO scholarship that is supporting some teachers and we're looking at how we can create a full-time schedule for them, even if they're working during the day. It is an issue that we're looking at and we're trying to be creative around it.
Thank you very much. I want to just say thank you for your time today. Also, I just want to get y'all a shout-out to just thank you for your extreme professionalism under three, four hours of line of questioning. And so, it's all in the effort of moving our great City of Philadelphia forward. Chair will briefly acknowledge Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young.
Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to note for the record that we'll be submitting a couple more questions in writing for this panel as well, and we'll welcome a callback as well. Thank you.
Thank you very much. That will be noted. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Ms. Loughead, please call the next panel.
We have Sue Slawson, Commissioner for Parks & Rec; and Kelly Richards, President and Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin. I know you're not going to start and you see the young lady sitting next to you. I know your mom/Nana taught you better than that. Ladies first. Commissioner Sue Slawson, welcome to City Council today. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Good morning, Council President -- good afternoon, Council President and members of City Council. My name is Susan Slawson, Commissioner for Parks and Recreation.
Good afternoon, Council President, members of City Council. My name is Kelly Richards, President and Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Please begin your testimony. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Good morning, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. My name is Susan Slawson, Commissioner of Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. Joining me today are my colleagues Marissa Washington, First Deputy Commissioner and Susan Buck, Deputy Commissioner for Operations. It's a privilege to be here. I appear before you to present our proposed operating budget for Fiscal Year 2027. We are proposing a General Fund obligation of $89,318,447, a decrease of $518,345 from Fiscal Year 2026 estimated obligation levels. This decrease is primarily due to one-time payments for contracted bonuses and site preparation costs associated with 2026 special events. Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, PPR, is entrusted to manage recreation centers and public spaces equitably, sustainably and responsibly. We fulfill that responsibility by delivering programs and services that strengthen the health, safety and provide economic opportunity, advancing Mayor Parker's vision of neighborhoods that are safe, clean and green with economic opportunity for every resident. We are proud to partner closely with OHR on recruitment, workforce planning and job specification revisions, resulting in expanded candidate pools and stronger development pathways for staff. Their ongoing support, including job fairs, onsite recruitment efforts and strategic planning has helped drive significant hiring progress and together, we remain committed to finding creative and innovative ways to further reduce our vacancies. As stewards of Philadelphia's natural lands, our sustainability unit maintains, increases and protects natural resources across the city. We recognize the importance of minimizing the use of herbicides and pesticides wherever possible, while also ensuring that our management practices are effective in controlling invasive species and supporting the long-term health of our natural landscapes. Our compost program at the organic recycle center directly advances the Mayor's clean and green vision of diverting over 5000 tons of organic material from landfill each year and creating beneficial products like mulch, wood chips and compost. Residents and city departments receive free services, improving environmental outcomes while delivering visible community-level benefits, such as cleaner parks, reduce waste, workforce opportunities and long- term cost savings for the city. PPR isn't just maintaining its tree canopy. It's growing a healthier, more equitable future for everyone. Tree canopy provides shade, cleaner air, improved water quality and mental health benefits. The reality is that not all neighborhoods experience those benefits equally. Low canopy correlates directly to extreme heat, higher asthma rates and fewer public spaces, and some areas can be degrees hotter than other parts of the city. Our urban forestry unit's focus has shifted from simply planting trees to building systems that help people feel supported, viewing maintenance as a critical form of trust-building, with an estimate of 1025 trees to be planted in 2026. We are addressing environmental justice through the urban forestry unit. We know there are fewer trees where there is more poverty. To date, our partnership with the Department of Commerce has trained 40 Taking Care of Business ambassadors to care for over 460 newly-planted trees on commercial corridors. In FY27, we will expand our natural land restoration, building on the 3600-plus trees and shrubs planted last year. Summer is our most critical season for service delivery and our greatest opportunity for impact. And as we plan, we use key points from the blueprint of a Safer Philadelphia. PPR will provide more than 800,000 meals to children and families, ensuring consistent access to nutritious food.
Through Career Connected Learning, PHL C2L is what we call it, we will provide approximately 1100 jobs for teens, supporting workforce development and economic mobility. We're preparing for a full season of pools, Playstreets and our summer camps. Our recruitment for the American Red Cross certified lifeguards begins earlier each year, utilizing social media and community partnerships to ensure all 63 outdoor pools can open safely. This summer to enhance our boxing programs throughout our system, the youth sports anti- violence funding will be used to upgrade equipment, further support the vital efforts of volunteer coaches that have served for years with incentives. Safety remains our top priority. Our targeted enforcement program supported by PPR rangers and Philadelphia Police Department will continue to operate from Memorial Day through September. Philadelphia Police Department has also agreed to train our park rangers on the five new electric bikes that we are purchasing and train them in de-escalation tactics. We remain deeply committed to the Mayor's initiatives in Kensington. Through the Play Parks initiative, we provide consistent programming at McPherson, Hissey and Harrowgate Park. These aren't just parks. They are essential sanctuaries for working families and people that live in the communities. I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge my amazing, talented staff that I'm privileged to work with at Parks and Recreation. Thank you for this opportunity to present our 2027 budget testimony and we welcome any questions that you may have.
Thank you very much. Please begin your testimony.
Sure. Good afternoon, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. I'm Kelly Richards, President, Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Joining me later today is Sade Olanipekun- Lewis, Chair and Board of Trustees. I'm pleased to provide testimony on the Free Library's Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget. The library's mission of the Free Library of Philadelphia is to advance literacy, guide learning, inspire curiosity, as part of the Mayor's vision, to provide world-class educational opportunities for Philadelphians of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. A plan for the Fiscal Year 2027, libraries are open doors to opportunity in every neighborhood in Philadelphia. Each of our 54 libraries provide trusted public spaces where people can gain job skills, explore new ideas, connect with their neighbors and participate in the civic life of our city. Every day Philadelphians come to the Free Library to learn, to grow and to find opportunity. We're grateful for the city's continued investment in the Free Library and have been able to expand public service hours across the system. We now offer Saturday service at libraries citywide. This is a major step forward in making our services more accessible to working families, students and seniors. Building on that progress, we are preparing to launch Sunday hours at several libraries next year, further expanding access to critical community resources. At the same time, we must continue to invest in the safety and accessibility of our buildings. Many of our libraries are historic and beloved neighborhood landmarks, but they require ongoing investment to address life safety needs, building systems, accessibility improvements. Ensuring that every branch is safe, welcoming and accessible is essential to keeping libraries open and available for communities that rely on them. We're pleased to see that in addition to this operating budget, the Mayor's capital budget for Fiscal Year '27 through '32 dedicates 33 million for replacing HVAC systems to keep our libraries open. This is a big step toward making our libraries more accessible throughout the year. Equally important is investing in the workforce that keep our libraries running. Our staff provides programming, technology assistance, literacy support and community services that make the free library such a vital resource. A continued investment in our workforce allows us to keep libraries' doors open, provide excellent service and meet the involving needs of Philadelphians. Over the past year, we've also strengthened how we communicate and engage with our community. We've expanded outreach, improved how we share information about programs and building operations and upgraded internal communications to better support our staff across the system. These improvements help ensure that Philadelphians know about the opportunities available to them at their neighborhood library. The Free Library does not do this work alone. We partner with hundreds of community organizations, civic groups, schools and other city departments. Libraries are places where many of the city's priorities come together, from workforce development, afterschool enrichment, cultural programming. We also join with the citywide efforts to provide needed warmth in the winter and cooling centers in the summer to help save lives. In this way, the library helps weave together the social fabric of Philadelphia. This work aligns closely with Mayor Parker's vision of a safer, cleaner, greener Philadelphia with economic opportunity for all. Libraries provide safe and welcoming spaces in every neighborhood. They are where access meets opportunity. They support educational and economic mobility, encourage people to explore new ideas and hobbies and connect residents with city services and strengthen communities. When libraries are strong, our neighborhoods are stronger. So thank you for your continued partnership and support for the Free Library of Philadelphia.
We look forward to continuing this work together on behalf of the people of our city. And I brought my great, fantastic team with me too today.
Thank you very much. Just a brief remark and I'll turn it over to my members. I just want to thank Commissioner Sue Slawson for always answering my phone calls, being very, very responsive. Even when you're on vacation, even when you were out on personal time, you still would return the phone call and make sure I get the issues and concerns addressed. I want to give a shout out also to Frank Fabey as well. He's on speed dial, thank him. Thank Aparna Palantino, thank the work that she's doing very much as well as Chris Klinman as well, and also Francesco for also responding when I'm trying to get my design right, as we build new playgrounds and I have different edits that 6 I would like to do, his patience 7 and always making sure that we get 8 it right. And so, to the whole 9 Parks & Rec team, just want to say 10 continue to keep up the good work 11 as well as Kelly Richards, the work 12 that you and your team is doing to 13 make sure that we continue to have 14 seven days a week when it comes to 15 opening up our libraries throughout 16 the City of Philadelphia. 17 But also, I'm excited 18 about the capital investment to 19 make sure our young people have 20 high quality libraries to enjoy themselves. Our libraries are our hubs, right, for growth and development and academic achievement as well as workforce development as well. The same way as our parks and our recreational facilities are our safe havens for our young people. Just give me an idea, Commissioner Slawson, as the weather breaks we already know the issue of public safety is number one when it comes to making sure our young people are safe at our recreation centers and our playgrounds. What is our strategy? What is our plan as we go into summer 2026 to keep our babies safe? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for that question, Council President Johnson. We truly have been following that blueprint for a safer Philadelphia, and we are -- our afterschool program, we're going to be hosting 2400 kids. We're serving 300,000 meals during the school year alone. So for Parks and Recreation, we can't just think about youth for the summer. We ramp up in the summer, but this is all year-round for us. The plan is for us to serve at least 800,000 meals. We're going to offer 1100 jobs with our C2L. Some of the things that we're doing as far as safety is we are working with the Philadelphia Police Department. We already have scheduled our annual meeting with the command staff, our leaders, our program directors, phone numbers exchange and we're doing programming together. The police department has just stepped in. And in those neighborhoods where it's really tough where we need extra support, they are supporting us. We have the necessary media, social media also this summer where we're trying to ensure -- what we don't want to hear is parents saying, I don't have anything for my kids to do. We have multiple programs. It's not just for the young people that their parents are looking for them to have something to do. We have visual arts. We have performing arts programs. That's separate from our sports opportunity. And I think one of the big things, Council President, that I'm excited about this summer is we're rolling out -- we are focusing on our boxing. I believe -- and we're using the Mayor's anti-funding to equip all 12 of our boxing sites with brand new equipment. We're going to set aside funding --
Okay. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Because you have coaches, you have boxing instructors that have been training these young people for years and all they've received was a thank-you. But we're trying to increase the number of young people that come into our boxing facilities, guys and girls, because we believe that if we can figure out another alternative to picking up a gun, I think boxing is one of those alternatives. I had the opportunity to have Rob Jackson, our new Deputy Commissioner, he took Anne Marie's place, Rob Jackson is over here, and he's overseeing our boxing program. I think this is going to be a huge opportunity. Another thing that I'm doing, I am starting a teen program for girls, specifically for girls --
Okay. Ladies gone clap for that? The ladies get some support. (Applause.)
Because I was in a roundtable discussion the other day and they said, we keep having all these programs for the guys and the boys, and what about the girls. They be out there carrying on and doing the flashmobs too. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: They're struggling just like our boys. And I think it's an opportunity for us to -- the Teen Girls Safety and Empowerment program is a trauma-informed initiative designed to equip young women across Philadelphia with the tools, awareness and confidence to navigate real-world safety challenges. Grounded in both physical safety and mental wellbeing, this pilot prioritizes de-escalation, situational awareness. Sometimes our young girls are in friendships with people that are dangerous and they don't know. We want to try to give them some skills and teach them what to look out for. Self- advocacy, you have to speak up for yourself. You have to be comfortable saying, here's my boundary, don't step over it, core skills alongside introductory self- defense techniques. It's going to be a pilot. I'm going to pick three centers to get it started. We're going to have 10 to young girls 20 in each cohort. But the best part about this program is that this is not going to be funded by the city. I reached out to a friend of mine. The name of his company is Jobology, it's an IT company, and he's gathering a number of his friends and they're going to sponsor and fund this. And hopefully, as time goes on they'll raise additional money so I can spread this across Parks and Recreation. But it's to promote safety and de-escalation, to build confidence and just practical skills that we assume that our young girls have. But what we're seeing as a result of some of the crime that's happening, they don't. And so, those are some of the things that we're doing to ensure that we're providing opportunities. And of course, you know, we need lifeguards. We need PMAs, pool maintenance attendants. There are opportunities for our young people to work at Parks and Recreation. So moms, dads, we have these doors for you to walk into.
Thank you. I'm going to advocate for the boxing program. I'll follow up with Mr. Jackson. I'm a strong advocate of the James Shuler Boxing Gym as well as Marian Anderson Boxing Academy as well. And so, this is an opportune time. And I'm an advocate for Play It Safe in the 8th regarding the young ladies program, to make sure that we are empowering our young people and Play It Safe in the 8th is a model. At some point in time, it's probably going to go citywide because it does what you're talking about, partnering with local community organizations, Parks & Rec, to really make sure we're keeping our young people active during these summer hours. With that being said, the Chair recognizes Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson, then the Chair of Parks & Rec Dr. Anthony Phillips, and then Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you very much, Council President, and thank you both for your testimony. You know that we typically meet and speak throughout the years. So I wanted to start again with our thank-yous, and obviously to our Parks & Rec Commissioner Susan Slawson, thank you so much to you and to your amazing team, particularly this winter, and for the communities that we work with; Sue Buck, our Deputy Commissioner who works with Beth on my team very often; Erica Smith, one of the city foresters, Frank Fabey, emergency tree removal inspection and facility maintenance, and all of the tree management information team members who handled the special email around requesting tree inspections and supply updates, and particularly Yanni Rodriguez and Damien Yasipour. I hope I got that correct. But to the entire team, we appreciate you. You know I have to include in there Faye and the entire team at the Dell Music Center. They are fabulous and doing wonderful work. And to our team at the Free Library of Philadelphia, to our President Kelly Richards, thank you, thank you, thank you. You have certainly been a breath of fresh air since being here in Philadelphia. We truly appreciate the work you've been doing at the library; Christina Patton Kelly to Priscilla Suero, Mary and Ethel at Wynnefield Library, because I know they're listening, I know they are listening right now. So I'm shouting you out, Mary and Ethel at the Wynnefield Library, and the wonderful autism program they have, and Monique Moore Pryor and the whole Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation team. They have had wonderful events, particularly at the main branch. So really quickly, I just wanted to put a few things on the record, and I was waiting for my District Councilmember, Councilmember Jones, so I'll have to get this on because we don't have a recreation center in Wynnefield, and I've been seeing the construction progress happening at the John C. Anderson Cultural Center. So I wanted to get it on the record. One, if there's any update around Wynnefield Library, and I know we did the project that's in the middle of the courtyard. And then also at the John C. Anderson Cultural Center right next door, updates on the progress, where the capital projects there. And then again, I'm asking everybody the same question relative to your vacancy rate, how many positions have been filled, your Class 100 estimated obligations for this fiscal year for FY26 and if they meet or exceed your FY26 adopted budget allocation, and if you'll have any overspend in Class 100? And if not, how many unfilled positions do you have? And then just your overall vacancy rate? I'll start there. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you, Councilmember Gilmore Richardson. I'm going to ask for First Deputy Commissioner Marissa Washington to come and she will be responding to the vacancy -- so let's talk about Anderson first. We are super excited, grateful that we were able to come back this budget hearing and talk about the fact that the roof is being repaired. And once the roof is repaired, one, what's most important is that it's fully funded, which is what we had been waiting for to ensure that the work could be done. So it's fully funded to not just do the outer, the roof. The inside work will start once the outer roof is complete. I don't have a date. Aparna may know when it will be completed. Would you like for Aparna to come?
Sure. And I turned around and I saw Aparna in the gallery. And of course, wanted to thank you for the work that you all did on the courtyard project. The neighbors are truly excited and waiting to utilize the courtyard, which is separate from Anderson, but the two properties meet sort of where the courtyard is located. So just any updates on the utilization of the courtyard, number one? And then we're seeing the work in realtime. So just wanted to put it on the record that we're thankful. I'm sure Councilmember Jones will say the same. So on behalf of Councilmember Jones, my District colleague and Councilmember, and myself, thank you very much because we do not have a recreation center in Wynnefield, and the cultural center is all we have.
All the rich people live in Wynnefield though.
You know my family's from Arlington Street and 53rd and Lebanon though, but I support my Majority Leader. How are you doing, Aparna?
Doing well. Thank you. Good afternoon, Council President, members of City Council. Happy to report as you're aware, Wynnefield Library, the courtyard is complete. As part of the Rebuild project, there was a roof replacement and some interior work that was done. With FY27 funding, we'll be able to address the HVAC system, which is currently in design for the library. With regards to the John C. Anderson Cultural Center, the roof, if you've driven by recently, is under construction. So as the Commissioner mentioned, we will wait for the roof and some waterproofing to occur and then we will go deal with the interior renovations that are required in the facility. The roof will be completed by May, and then the construction on the interior will begin. We expect it to take about 8 to 10 months because there's a lot of work that is required due to the ongoing roof issues.
Received. And I heard the bell and I'll honor the clock, but I just wanted to put on the record does the roofing project at the cultural center impact the ability to open the courtyard? I want to get that on the record.
We've been coordinating with the library, but I'll defer to the library.
Because it's so close I think that it may impact it. And I just want to make sure I can say that on the record for the community members who will be listening for the reason why we cannot open the courtyard due to safety protocols. I just want to make sure I understand that.
We don't believe that's going to be an issue to open the courtyard.
So we'll be able to utilize the courtyard? Okay.
We've been coordinating with the adjacent property owner as well as the library for the work.
Right, and we talked about that. So thank you all very, very much. And to honor the clock and Council President and also my colleagues, I would just request that I'll submit the balance of the questions that I did verbally state as well as others to the Council President for written response so that we have an opportunity for other colleagues as well. So thank you. Thank you very much. And I was going to ask about LEAP, but I'll submit them for the record. Okay. Thank you.
We got time today, Madam Leader. Just ask that question before I go on to Dr. Phillips.
Thank you so much, Council President. Of course, I'm going to ask about the LEAP program. I formerly served as a teen leadership assistant as a teenager at Wynnefield Library, so just wanted to ask about the LEAP program. We work with the Free Library every single year on this program. You all have been stellar with recruiting young people from different communities and schools. So just wanted to get an update on leap and if we need to ensure that they have any additional funding as a result of the Career Connected Learning goals.
Actually, Councilwoman, I actually got some pretty good news about LEAP. We've created a part time position utilizing the assistant rec leader position for afterschool leaders to support the LEAP program year- round. That's been something we've been trying to do for a long time, so we didn't lose good talent. So there'll be permanent part-time all year-round, and this will provide our youth with continuous Out-of- School Time programming that fosters inclusive and formal learning for our children and teens and families. Right now we currently have 94 TLAs supporting the LEAP program, and every library has at least two teen library assistants who engage in this professional development opportunity for them where they can actually do homework assistance, but also gain job skills on their own. So as you're aware, it's a great program and we're doing our best to make it greater.
That is awesome news. It's awesome news because you're creating the pipeline of young people who will transfer into larger roles and positions of leadership and responsibility in city government. And so, that is exciting. I'm grateful for that work and thankful that we are expanding and continuing to fully fund the LEAP program. Thank you. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you very much. Dr. Anthony Phillips, Jamie Gauthier and I see Mr. Harrity just came back in the room, and Mr. Harrity.
Thank you, Council President. I want to start this round of questioning with the Commissioner of Parks & Rec, Susan Slawson. I want to thank Commissioner Slawson for all of her incredible work that she's been doing to lead the Parks & Rec system. It's not easy, but it is very challenging, but she has made it seem very seamless and she's working every day to make it better. Also want to thank her team, Sue Buck, Frank Fabey and Marissa, for all of their work as well. Over the past several months, I also just briefed all of our members. We've been working closely with our union as well as Parks & Rec to kind of address different challenges in the Parks & Rec system. And I also want to thank you for working with me as the Chair to navigate these conversations. In addition, I just want to start off with just some things that I hope that we can facilitate more conversation on how we can strengthen our Parks & Rec system that I would love for us to be on the record on. We recognize in the city of Philadelphia, a lot of our offices and certainly the 9th District, we receive a high volume of calls related to tree maintenance and removal, with neighbors waiting months and sometimes longer for service, including in cases that raise safety concerns. Just wanted to know if you can put on the record how many trees are on the list currently for pruning and how many trees are on the list currently for a removal, right? And what is the service agreement that neighbors should understand on when they make a request how long that should take? And then also, I noticed that there is a $15,000 contract budgeted for or expense made for tree arborist, a contracting company, and around $450,000 for tree cutting and pruning. I just want to know that's citywide, right? That's not just residential trees, correct? I had three questions in that.
Hello. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. My name is Erica Smith-Fichman. I'm the city forester here at Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. So I'm going to try to remember and answer the questions that you just asked. The first one was?
How many are in the end of the pipeline for tree pruning and how many are for tree removal? And what is the service level agreement that neighbors should understand when requesting tree pruning and tree removal?
Yes. So citywide we have a record of about 25,000 trees that need to be pruned. That's outside of the ones that will be pruned this season, this year, which is about 1700. The reason that is so high is in part because when we receive a request to prune a tree on a block, we actually inspect the entire block to list every tree that needs pruning. Often the trees are around the same age, they will all need pruning. And so, it kind of exponentially increases that list. It's also cost-effective for our contractors to go and prune an entire block as opposed to ping- ponging around the city to do individuals. So the pruning backlog is about 25,000 trees. That's about $5 million. That's across the entire city. And then our removal backlog is smaller. That's about 3500 trees and about $3 million.
So the question I -- when we talk about a government that people can see, touch and feel, right, I think that we get more frustration from a Council office where people are like, my tree is about to fall down, right. I just wanted to see how if we were to reflect that in the budget, why wasn't that necessarily reflected in this year's budget? I guess there's many reasons for that. But if we reflected it in this budget this year, that $8 million, do you believe that we can in an annual calendar year complete the entire backlog?
It's a complicated answer. I will try to do it shortly. The backlog, the list of trees that need to be worked on is constantly growing. So we will never eliminate it 100%. Also, the capacity that our team has and the contractors have, we do need to give them more than one year to increase it, because we spend about $1 million on tree work across the city, street tree work specifically across the city each year. And so, to multiply that by eight times, we would need to give them time to increase their capacity to do that. So it would take multiple years to get up to that, that period.
And that's the part I was just trying to say, how do we create a service level agreement with our residents so we can basically balance their expectations so they don't believe that they can get this done, because I feel like we have -- are you thinking about a strategic plan that we could do to work on addressing this tree problem?
So our plan -- within the Philly tree plan, one of the goals is to transition from a reactive to a proactive system. So that would be inspecting all of our trees on a regular schedule. That is going to require staff. And we are currently, my HR colleagues and I, are doing an amazing job of actually filling vacancies and increasing the number of inspectors we have for our street tree canopy. So we will be hiring four new people in the next few months. So increasing our own capacity is part of that, increasing our contractor capacity is another part of that, and communication with residents is a huge part of that as well. I was really excited to hear Councilmember Gilmore Richardson shouting out Yanni and Damien at the street tree office, because we have four full-time people who are answering residents' questions, and we have done a lot of work to try to increase the way the amount of communication and the quality of communication to make people understand that we're triaging what we have, no pun intended, but we have trees that are in various stages of critical, hazardous, poor condition. If someone's tree is not in the most hazardous condition, it's not going to be removed immediately. And so, because that is a moving target, it is hard to communicate about but we are doing a really I would say good job of communicating about that, increasing the way that we communicate about it and the number of staff we have to answer people's questions.
I have another question, but I just want to quickly say that I just know that this budget doesn't really reflect a strategic plan on how do you accomplish that goal. And it's very important to residents in the city of Philadelphia, and I believe there should be a plan and there should be a level and investment for that. And I know you want to do it. But if you don't have the investment, it's not going to happen any time soon. So I got to wrap up, but I will come around for a second round of questions. Thank you. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: If I can respond to a little bit of that question. Would we love $8 million? Absolutely. If you gave us $8 million and the expectation was for us to come back here next year and this work to be done, it would not be. It is a process that will have to be staggered because of the backlog, because of the great need. And so, it is about giving us X amount of dollars over X amount of years for us to actually get the work done. So I just wanted to make sure I got that on the record that, yes, funding is needed. But could we complete it all in one year? We could not.
Thank you. Thank you, Council President. I'll come back for the second round.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, then Jim Harrity, then Councilmember Bass.
Good afternoon to all of you. Thank you so much for the work that you do every day. I wasn't going to really talk about trees, but I just want to support my colleague quickly, because I think this is more than just an issue of how it looks or an issue of what the tree is doing to the sidewalk or something like that. It's a public safety issue. I can remember two instances last year where trees fell on people, right. I know one of the gentlemen who was playing chess in Fairmount Park and the tree fell on four elderly people who were playing chess in the park. And then I believe there was another incident a couple of months after that. And so, I think it's worth doing the planning. I know that you all are doing what you're doing. And a part of this is that you have not had the appropriate appropriation. But I think it's worth upping our budget for this. And I think it's worth having that actual strategic plan on this because this can endanger people's lives, right. And so, I support the line of questioning. But I want to talk about Rebuild. After years of waiting, I'm really glad that my constituents in West and Southwest are finally seeing their beloved public spaces reopen after long Rebuild construction periods. You and I, Commissioner, were both at Kingsessing at the ribbon-cutting for Kingsessing Rec Center a couple of weeks ago, which was just amazing. And I know it's one of the biggest Rebuild projects in the city and I'm grateful for that. I'm also excited for the reopening of Johnny Sample Rec in Cobbs Creek. And so, with this in mind, can you give us a summary of how staffing assignments are going to change in FY27 for those of us with Council Districts that are seeing their sites reopened? Can you tell us if we're adding new staff to account for Rebuild sites reopening or will non-Rebuild sites lose full-time or part-time staffers? I've heard rumblings about staffing going down at some of the smaller sites in my district that didn't get Rebuild money. And I'm worried that they're going to have fewer services and shorter hours now that the larger Rebuild sites are reopening. So if you could tell us how we're balancing that and approaching that? And then I have a few questions about capital projects. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for the question, Councilmember Gauthier. We will not be taking from smaller sites once these facilities open. One of the things that had to happen is when those sites closed, we had to place staff in different locations. Some of the staff will be coming back, some of the staff will be going to different locations. So, no, I'm grateful you brought that up so we could kind of squash that rumor. It is important that when we open these facilities that they are fully staffed. I think one of the things that was brought up by Councilmember Gilmore Richardson is the rate of vacancies, and we've been working really hard at trying to bring up our vacancies. And so, we're in the process of hiring additional staff to ensure that those facilities that are reopening will have the necessary people so you won't lose staff.
That's so awesome. In some cases, when we had larger sites closed, I was able to get those staff transferred to our smaller sites. And so, I was worried that we were going to have our numbers go down again. So thank you so much for that. On the topic of capital projects, I'm inspired by what our capital programs office can accomplish. Going back to Kingsessing, we now have a block in Southwest with both a restored rec center and a restored library directly next to one another, and it's hard to state how transformative that is for a neighborhood that's been waiting a long time for that. Now that the majority of the Rebuild initiative has been completed, can you tell us -- or we're making good progress rather. Can you tell us in as much detail as possible how much of the FY27 budget for parks and libraries is finishing out Rebuild projects versus new money for capital projects? I'm sure I'm not the only District Councilmember that still has many large sites in my district that desperately need multiple millions of dollars of help that were not even a part of Rebuild, and that would take ages to fundraise for if we're relying on competitive grants in order to get the capital funding necessary for those renovations. So are we budgeting beyond the money that has to go to completing Rebuild projects? Are we budgeting for big capital projects in the FY27 budget, particularly for sites that were never a part of the Rebuild program? I'd like to hear more about that. Hi, Aparna. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I'm going to pass this over to Aparna. I want to just make a note, thinking of the staff, thinking of the size of the facilities that are now coming on board. Some of them are double the sizes of the facilities that they replaced. And so, when you think about staffing and you think about the three full-time people that you may have, now you may have two floors, you may have boxing going on, basketball going on upstairs. There is going to be a need for additional staff because we are bringing on larger facilities. We are bringing on additional opportunities for community members to come in. And so, that is something that we have been having conversations about because we recognize that the sites are changing, the size of the sites are changing. The number of people that we will need to manage also has to change.
Thank you. Aparna Palantino, Deputy Managing Director of Capital Program Office. Thank you for both your comments and your question, Councilmember Gauthier. With regards to the FY27 budget, there aren't many asks for the Rebuild projects. The reason for that is, as you know Rebuild was funded through roughly a $300 million bond initiative, William Penn funding and then grants. We are still spending down that money. So at this time, there's not a substantial ask in the capital budget for Rebuild projects. If and when a particular project comes up, we often work with the District Councilmember to then identify that need, and then if need be include it in that year's capital budget. But FY27 doesn't necessarily have that much for Rebuild.
Thank you. I just want to encourage us to keep pushing, right, for this budget year and beyond. I think we got to what, 97 of the projects that we originally wanted to get to?
So there were 72 sites in the original ordinance. 43 have been completed. About are in construction. At 5 the moment, the rest are in design 6 engagement or planning. So as we 7 continue to roll out projects, 8 we're identifying the need. But at 9 this moment, there are still bond 10 funds allocated to those sites that 11 we are spending down on. 12
13 Okay. In closing, I just want us 14 to continue to keep pushing on this 15 capital project budget issue. We 16 are going to get to 72 projects, 17 and a program that originally I think envisioned 250 and it's still historic, it's still the biggest, you know, renovation of our public sites that we've ever had. But we needed Rebuild because we weren't continually investing in our spaces and we don't want to get to that place again. So I just encourage us every year to make sure that we're putting in enough resources so that we don't ever need a rebuild. We're just taking care of our stuff. Thank you.
Thank you. Perhaps you may start thinking in the future about a new funding source. I'm thinking tofu. But Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity, then Councilmember Cindy Bass, then Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young, then Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon, everyone first. Ms. Slawson, just got to say thank you to you for the changes that you made from our hearing. Shout-out to Cindy Bass, the originator of our HOPS legislation. When we have problems, we asked you in public, so we should also thank you in public when things are getting done. So I thank you for that. And could you please just run me through the changes that you have made, kind of take the victory lap on what we're doing now for our children to keep them safe? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for that question, Councilmember Harrity. Sue Buck, Deputy Commissioner of Operations is going to come up and respond.
Good afternoon, Council President Johnson and other Councilmembers --
Let me take a moment, first of all, to acknowledge Sue Buck. Sue got one of them big awards from the city before, like the -- what was it, National Citizens Award so many years ago. Yeah, it was a while ago. I remember, Sue. I just want to say hello. How you doing today?
No, I'm fine. Appreciate it. So we took into account our conversation last fall and we met with your staff as well as Councilwoman Bass's. And our first method is obviously mechanical, we try to do that. We made commitments and we're following through with them. We're not spraying ball fields at all this year. We went from 50 feet to 100 feet of play equipment. We're not spraying farms, gardens rather, food-producing or otherwise. We're posting signage and we are keeping records. And I think you will see a significant decrease in the amount of pesticide spraying that we are doing on parks -- I should say, passive parks and recreation centers.
Yeah, I was very excited and happy for our kids. I mean, you know how I feel about that chemical and it's really nasty stuff, that 2,4-D, which is basically Agent Orange. But again, when we bring you in here and ask you questions and we put you on the spot, we definitely have to praise you when you turn around and do what we ask. So while I think we still have a little bit more to go, I am very happy for our children and for our parks. I know the coach is probably happy. Right, Coach?
But I appreciate all you're doing over there in Parks & Rec to keep our kids safe. And I really appreciate the fact that we're really cutting that chemical out for real now. The 100 feet is big around the rec equipment because it has a tendency to stick around. So I thank you again. And that's all I have, Council President.
And I'm sorry, Sue. I was thinking about Barbara McCabe with the Dilworth Award. But I know you do --
-- good work. I know. Yeah. But, Sue, I know you're a big-wig, so I appreciate your support though. Thank you for being responsive when we call. At this time the Chair recognizes Deputy Majority Whip Councilmember Cindy Bass, then we will have Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young, then Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon. How's everybody doing? It's good to see you all. I want to give a big thank you to each and every one of you and really everyone who's here from the departments because we work very closely together. We do a lot together, as Jimmy just -- excuse me, Councilman Harrity just mentioned about the HOPS bill and the importance and the work that we've done on that together for years, the work in the 8th District with our recreation centers and getting the attention that we so desperately have needed for a long time, the work in our libraries. Particularly Nicetown-Tioga, we're still working on that one. But really, all of our libraries and getting them attention is greatly appreciated. So I just had a couple of questions for you all. And the first actually is in 2013 with the then members of Council, my office worked with them -- I was then the Chair of Parks & Rec. I worked with them to allocate funding from their ITEF funds for cameras in every rec center. And I know we've made tremendous progress. I think we had something like cameras in 19 the whole system in 2013. And I 20 know we were just about done at last year's budget hearing. I think almost everything had been done. So is that project complete? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for that question, Councilmember Bass. I was actually here and excited when you met with your colleagues and came up with this idea. I actually used that same idea with Councilmember Phillips about the lighting and I shared with him that I got that from you, because you said we need to get together and make sure we have cameras. So thank you for that.
And to that end, if there's an effort to put money in from our ITEF funds for lighting, I'm certainly -- sign me up. I'm in. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We're going to sign you. So the security camera sonic devices have currently been installed at 178 sites with an approximate total of 2357 cameras installed. That's an increase of 309. There are 9 sites that are under construction. 7 sites are in the design phase, and 27 sites remain to be designed with a cost of $1.25 million. And one of the things that we have been mentioning is that when we started the camera process back then, we didn't think about maintenance, we didn't think about them getting old, we didn't think about replacing, repairing. So now, when we have the conversations about the cameras, we have to have -- because technology changes so quick, we can't just pay for cameras. We have to pay for cameras, pay for maintenance and pay for service. So right now there are 27 sites that remain to be designed, and that $1.25 million are just for the cameras.
Can you give us an idea in writing, could you provide to the Chair, to the Council President, where those 27 sites are, just all members? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Definitely. Would you like me to name them or would you like me to present it?
If you can do it briefly. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Herron, Sacks, Cibotti, Guerin, Stinger Square -- oh goodness, Wharton Square, Laura Sims Ice Rink, 39th and Olive Playground, Gustine Rec Center, Hillside Rec Center, John C. Anderson Cultural Center, Shuler Playground, Amos Playground, Francisville Playground, Holme Playground, Holmesburg Playground, Monkiewicz Playground, Mullin Playground, Ramp Playground, Carmella Playground, Cruz Rec Center, Gambrel Rec Center, McPherson Square and Ramblers Rec Center.
Okay. All right. Thank you for the list. Appreciate that. Pools, I heard you say pools were going to be opening on time? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes.
Is that the total number? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: The total number is 70. Some of them are still part of the Rebuild. Some of them maintenance needs to be done. But 63 of our pools will be open this summer.
Okay. Will they be open -- will the other pools be open at all this summer or they're offline this summer? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: They're offline this summer.
Okay. Can you give us a list of where they are? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I don't have that in front of me, but I can make sure that I send that information in.
Okay. Overall I do want to say that you all have done a fantastic job of working with us, keeping the pools open, having the pools open. For a lot of kids, they're not going to the shore. They're not leaving the neighborhood. So pools are incredibly important. And how are we doing with improvements to the pool sites? One of the things that we noticed when we've been out doing tours is that the pool, you know, you either have to be in the pool or out of the pool because of lack of pool furniture. Pool furniture is really not a luxury. It really is a requirement. Because the concrete surrounding the pool is so incredibly hot, on a day in July, you know, it'll just burn your feet. So I know at some pools you've added furniture and umbrellas that protect from shading, the sun is so hot. And these are not -- again, I don't want people to think these are luxury items. These are really necessities to be able to use the pool. Are we online for those kind of improvements this summer as well with some of our pools? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We have some funding for pools, but that's not -- we don't have funding specifically for pools for us to ensure that there's equipment at all of our sites, we do not.
Are we working towards a plan? Could we work towards a plan to get there? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes. And it is important, because to go into one community and see that it's furnished --
Yeah, Quetcy got it nice. Linden(ph) Park, you ride up that jawn. That jawn's nice. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yeah, to see that one facility is furnished and other facilities are not, it is a challenge. It just shows the disparity in our system that we are working on.
Right. So Pleasant Playground, which is completely fitted out, and just a few miles down I have Awbury, which has nothing and it's quite a stark contrast. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yeah. There was a fundraiser and this was before I came back, and somebody can share this information, there was a specific fundraiser. It was Tiny WPA. They raised funds to make sure that pools had the furniture to go around the pools and not just the furniture. And so, that was something that was done separate from the budget.
We shouldn't have to raise funds. We shouldn't have a public-private partnership, and this is just about priorities. We have a $7 billion budget. And so, the reality is it's just a matter of priority. But I think you're probably going to hear from some members that -- and I just want to be frank -- in the event that we were to allocate appropriations to Parks & Rec to address some of these issues, would you be able to use it or would the Administration frown upon it and ask you to give it back and you can't spend it? I'm just being transparent, because we've tried to help a lot of departments before in the past and they say, that's not in the context of what we can do. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Council President Johnson, we will find a way to --
Spend the money? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Spend the money.
Okay. All right. That's all I wanted to hear. Point of information. Councilmember Young.
Thank you, Mr. President. Along those same lines, if we allocate money and your executive branch is the ones who spend it but Council has a pocket of funds as well through our ITEF, are we able to use our ITEF to purchase these types of equipment if our pools need -- COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Your ITEF serves only for capital. And that's $15,000 or more, sir. And it has to be something that's in place, that's not movable, immobile.
Thank you. And I only bring that up because again, these are measures that Council has in place, but we're handcuffed, I mean, providing those types of services that our pools would like to see so because we don't have -- that's our funding ability, so we can't fund those type of things and our communities are asking for it, then what can we do to really to get that implemented? Thank you, Mr. President. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Council President Johnson, Marissa Washington, First Deputy, just mentioned that there are four sites that will be equipped and 12 more sites will be refurbished.
Thank you, Mr. President. So I was told that the improvements to Pleasant were around the range of 25,000 or so. Is that about average? Did you say 15? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: No, that's for -- the that I was 9 I was responding to was using ITEF 10 funding. It has to be $15,000 or 11 more and it has to be capital. 12
13 Okay. Two things real quick. One, 14 as a mother of a 16-year-old, I 15 want to thank you and applaud you for the program for young girls. So thank you very much for your work around the issues surrounding growing into adulthood for young women today. So I just wanted to thank you for that. And the last question I had was actually for the Library. Kelly, Mr. Director, I just had a question for you. Digital literacy classes in libraries, is that happening? And are we using AI in any way in those classes? Are we teaching AI or can we just do that?
Sorry. We've not really moved forward with teaching AI at this particular time. It's something that we want to do. We have digital resource specialists that work in of our 17 libraries. They do provide support 18 and help for any patron or anyone who comes into the buildings who wants some special support. And some of them may have some expertise in that particular area, but it hasn't been something that we have moved forward on, concerted, I mean, as a, you know, from the senior level on down. But it's a direction we want to go in. Our biggest focus has been trying to build up our staff and keep these buildings open and continue to provide the basic level library service. But it's an area we want to move into.
I just want to encourage the use of AI as much as we possibly can, because our young people are getting left behind. Look, our old people are getting left. Everybody's getting left behind. I just think as a city we have to step it up. So thank you so much, and thank you all for the work that you all do.
Thank you, sir. And thank you, Member Bass. Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau, then Councilmember Quetcy Lozada --
I'm sorry, Jay. You must have pressed the button and it went down to the bottom. Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young, then Councilmember Rue Landau, then Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Thank you, Mr. President. I want to start with I want to say thank you to Parks & Rec and the Library. I think that you two are probably literally the most important departments to our families and our communities because we rely on you to kind of fill those gaps and voids in our communities. I want to start with Parks & Rec first. It was mentioned today about combat sports, and particularly boxing in our rec centers. But I want to note just for the record that the fastest growing high school sport is girls wrestling. So just keep that in mind when we're talking about combat sports. I really think that combat sports is a way for our communities to kind of channel some of that energy that we have. When I was growing up and I was a youth, I went to wrestling practice at MLK Rec Center. Sometimes I had wrestling practice at the Blackhawks Field at times. So I do think that having more combat sports in our communities, in our rec centers is a positive for our communities because it gives us a way to learn discipline, to channel that energy, to channel that frustration in a more positive way. So anything that we can do to improve or to invest in those types of activities, I'm all for it. I want to also commend Parks & Rec for partnering with the police department in the 22nd District for the Summer Nightlife Series. There are activities every single day at two recreation centers in the 22nd District, at Winchester and at Penrose. And those community members have said, although there were activities happening every single day at the rec center, that's the quietest their neighborhoods have ever been, right. And so, we want to continue to invest in these types of programs, these types of positive programs that go to uplift our communities, provide our young people and our residents in general with things to do during the summer months that are positive, get us away from a certain mindset of what the past has been, because our kids, our communities deserve this type of investment. The one question I do have is regarding lifeguards and lifeguard training every year. It seems like we have a shortage of lifeguards. We're opening up 60-plus pools. That's great. But it seems like we have a shortage of lifeguards every year. So what proactive measures is the department taking to ensure that we have enough trained lifeguards? And this is going to be a good summer job, right. You mentioned that the Parks & Rec is already hiring 1100 C2L kids to work at Parks & Rec. What else are we doing to encourage our teenagers specifically to become lifeguards? And I'll say there's an indoor pool in my district at Hartranft that's owned by the Housing Authority that can be used all year-round to train our residents to become lifeguards. So what types of things are you at Parks & Rec doing proactively to train and hire more lifeguards? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for that question, Councilmember Young. Well, the first thing that we're doing, I think it's one of the biggest incentives that we're offering to young people, that additional $1,000 if they sign up by -- that's just how much we're trying to make sure we have lifeguards in time at our pools. If you sign up by April 15th, you get an additional $1,000. Because the struggle was real and we just did not have young people -- and it doesn't have to be young people to be lifeguards. It doesn't matter how old you are. And on top of that, if you didn't make the April 15th deadline, there's an additional $500 if you make May 15th. And you don't have to pay for the certification. That certification is $400. It's free. We're doing a ton of social media. Our leaders are putting the information out. And I actually go on radio and on TV pushing the need for lifeguards. And so, it's there and we're going to continue to do what we can with the incentives, with the social media, me going on radio, going on television, having flyers in the community.
If you have something else that you'd like to suggest, we'd be happy to hear.
Thank you. I do think that some of the critical life safety jobs for our kids, they seem to be underfunded, but we're not underfunded. But we have a hard time hiring for lifeguards and crossing guards, right. I mean, those things should be the easiest, I think, that we should fill for our communities. Maybe we should start cross- marketing and say, hey, you're a crossing guard during the school year, schools close during the summertime and we'll train you to be a lifeguard now, right. That's something that those folks can continue working all yearlong. I mean, just some other ideas that we can have to be more creative when we have these lows when we seem like we can't find certain people for jobs. So I just think that we can be a little more creative. Mr. President, I do have one question for the Library as well. Capital improvements to our library I think is very critical. I have my staff do some of the math. It looks like per unique visit, the City of Philadelphia is spending $1.08 per unique visit on capital expenditures while we are spending $2.50 per unique visit for our Art Museum, right, for capital improvements. And so, can you talk to us about essentially the need for more capital funding for our libraries? What are our actual goals? I know many branches face recurring closures, reduced hours, patron discomfort because of HVAC, plumbing, electrical and accessibility issues. What do we really need to resolve this issue and what's the timeline to resolve these issues that face our libraries all across our city?
Councilman, that is a very good question. I am extremely excited about this particular budget the Mayor is proposing. I'm also really excited at what has taken place the last couple of years. In '25, I believe it was like 49 million spent on deferred maintenance. I think this year we're headed toward about 28 million. From my understanding, this has been something that has not happened in the history of the Library district. So we are moving in the right trajectory to deal with the impact of our deferred maintenance issues at the Library. We are a system that's very historic, beautiful buildings. We are experiencing the consequences of global warming and experiencing the consequences of the success of hiring staff and our buildings opening more hours than they have been in decades, which is impacting some of the older systems that we have in our building, from some of the air-conditioning or HVAC units that were installed in the '60s. So to answer your question, I think we're moving in the right path right now and it's been happening the last few years. We just need to continue to do this as we circle around the system, working on and fixing the infrastructure. We are now -- last year we went out and did 10 building condition assessments, which gives us a strategic guideline on what areas of the building are in critical need of health safety issues or immediate closing, and it puts those in a hierarchy to where we can follow that particular plan. We've did 10. It took a long time to get that process done and we're going to do some more this year. But that doesn't stop us from using our own skill set, working with the Library's team and the Capital Project Office -- Aparna's team, sorry -- and utilizing our own strategies to determine what needs, health, safety needs or immediate closure, because that's the one most important thing, is the building going to close immediately and what can we do to stop that. So good question. I think we're moving in a trajectory to deal with longstanding deferred maintenance in a way that we have not done before. And every day we're improving in that process as our team is learning some of these needs, working with other city departments to develop that strategy as we're utilizing consultants to help us develop a more strategic strategy.
I know that there are libraries in my Council, the 5th Council District, that any day now some of the systems can just go, right. I'm sure it's like that throughout the city. Can you provide us with a number of libraries where the systems, any type of system that's there it's past its useful life, right, so we can get an idea of what this problem really is?
We can give you a number based on the date that some of these systems went in, which would kind of give you a better idea. I don't have that, but that's something we can provide you. I've got it all broken up. But I think we could put something like that in the spreadsheet to be able to help you. But just know it's just not HVAC, it's sewer lines --
That's why I said systems. I didn't just say HVAC. All the systems in general, right. Our buildings are old. I mean, I say this often. The Cecil B. Moore Library was built in 1961. So someone in her 70s today used to use that library when she was 8 or 9 years old. So 8 or 9 years old today, my son and other Councilmembers' kids who are that age, right, why are we using the same facilities, right, the same systems that were being used back in the '60s, right. The world is a very different world today. And I think that we really have to take a look at really investing in what the real issue is. We need newer facilities. We need updated facilities. We have to stop piecemealing together the solution for some of these projects and realize that it can be cheaper in the long run to just build anew, right, and figure out what we can do elsewhere. So thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, then Councilmember -- did I miss somebody, Rue? Oh, you know what, when you pressed the button, it went off the screen. So it's Rue Landau, then Quetcy Lozada, then Mike Driscoll, then Brooks.
Thank you. Thank you guys so much for being here and for what you provide to our communities every single day. I'm just going to repeat what my colleague said, you are the backbones, the lifebloods of our communities. And if my one vote was the answer to all of this, I would give you much more money than what is being allocated now. Because the fact that we come here every single year talking about what piecemeal little things we're going to do to make our institutions and our functions stronger and better, it doesn't make any sense to me. I think my colleague Councilmember Young just said it perfectly, he had a community tell him it's never been so quiet and the kids have never had so much to do. When you provide facilities programming and whatnot, that's what we need. It's just so simple. It's illogical to do anything but that. I wanted to stay with the Library for a little bit. We have had -- Commissioner, we've had a talk. I've talked to your staff, I've talked to you a little bit about this facilities plan. And we were told there was going to be this big facilities plan. I'm At-Large and I get complaints about library closures due to HVAC systems and whatnot. And you said, we finally hired someone, they're going to do a full plan. And I think you just said they've looked at 10 libraries. This was in the fall. If the person's job is to just go in and assess the building and the actual operating functions of the facilities, I don't understand why it's not fully done now? So I start by asking you that. And then wondering if the amount of money that you're asking for could possibly fix these problems. I'm so torn when we talk all the time and you hear about the pools, either you get a rec center or a library that has everything and then other rec centers and libraries that have nothing. We come to this part of the road and we have two choices. Everybody gets a little or we do it the way that we're doing it, everything or nothing. And it's just insane for me. We've got to just invest in all of them and then we will not have this problem, that you drive a mile down the road and you've got nothing. I am literally sitting here thinking, oh, we could move some pool chairs from this pool over to that -- that's just crazy. So I want to ask you, we know that there are problems with HVAC systems. And I wanted to know how many libraries are closed because of it? What is the closure rate? How are we going to fix them, it's already getting warm now, to make sure that this happens throughout the summer? And what do we actually need? I really want to know what the plan is. And I'll start right there.
Thank you, Councilperson. Appreciate that. Right now we're focusing in on what would immediately close, health safety issues, equity, and then we're looking across Councilmanic Districts. So we have went out and did building condition assessments. But that doesn't stop us because we only can do so many of those a year, but we still are evaluating and looking at each one of the systems as far as from an HVAC issue, but then there are some of them that just fail and that may supersede some that were on the list that had not failed yet. To talk more about the building condition assessment and what they are, if you want to know a little bit more about that and more detail, we can submit some information to you or I can have my Property Management Deputy Director come up and talk a little bit more in detail about that.
I just want to be clear on something. Did you hire somebody whose full- time job it was to come up with this plan and was the plan done? I think I'm calling it something different than you are. So let's just call it what you call it.
The building condition assessments are per building and it breaks down the issues related to HVAC to any of the mechanical issues with the building. So each building has its own strategy in plan. It isn't one overall strategy.
No. At this particular time, we've only did it for library branches and 7 we're going to go out again for 8 another number of branches, I 9 believe. We're in the process of 10 going out with an RFP to do another tier.
So I have to ask this: If you're thinking about buying a house and you get a housing inspector who comes in and does a full assessment top to bottom of the house, it takes about three hours or four hours. Why is it that you've only done 10 buildings?
Because these are very big buildings, they're very old and you have experts -- this is my property management. He'll give you probably a little bit more detail than what you want, but he'll talk to you about it.
Good afternoon, Mr. President. My name is Ty Dupass, the Property Management Director, the Deputy Director for the Free Library of Philadelphia. When I first arrived two and a half years ago, there was no building condition assessment. So basically we're working in triage. So what I did, I have an internal assessment where I evaluate the buildings. So basically that involved me driving around going from building to building, trying to get some sense about what I should be attacking first. This is what Mr. Richards hired me to do. And one of the first things I wanted to ask for was a total comprehensive assessment by someone more professional, capable of doing it. Because we want to move the library forward, so I have a document that I use that evaluates all of the buildings. And part of the strategy on the capital side, working with the capital program office, we meet every month. We're strategizing from the 10 that we already did, the highest -- within that building condition assessment, we have what you call a facilities condition index. So based on the current value of the building, and we estimate all the stuff that you need to do in the building, if that number exceeds the current value to building, we have to have a serious conversation whether we're going to keep that building or demolish it and build something else.
I hear you. I must admit I'm fully confused. I was told by more than one person that you were hiring somebody who just got hired in the fall whose entire job was to create this plan. You can't get a full picture of your portfolio until you do an assessment of the full portfolio. I understand that you might get some outliers while you're doing the assessment, wait, we have serious problems in this building, maybe we might need to demolish this building. But you got to do the whole thing. We don't know that. And it's a big city. We should know what's going on in our libraries throughout the city.
Well, the first 10 buildings that we did, along with the capital program office, we hired a group of architects and engineers to perform these assessments. From the time we started to the time we ended, they wrote up the information we needed. That took several months. So out of the -- in a perfect 7 world, I would like to do all 55 8 libraries, but it's just a lot of 9 information to take in. 10
I'm at the point now I'd really love to ask you how much we've spent on architects and all of these other folks in order to have a basic assessment --
Excuse me just for a second. So I'm going to have our Commissioner Sue Slawson, I'm going to dismiss her at the moment because we're dealing with a major issue at the moment. Do you have someone you want to sit in on your behalf to answer any questions or we can do it in follow-up?
Thank you, Council President Johnson. Marissa Washington, First Deputy Commissioner, she'll sit.
Okay. thank you. Please join us at the table, Ms. Washington. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you. I really think for Council we would really appreciate you submitting the findings of the 10 buildings, a plan of when the other 45 will be done. And also, how much we've spent to assess these 10 buildings up until now because what we need to do is spend the money on the buildings, right. If you don't have that number now, that is fine. I think the hour is running late and you can submit at a later date.
The problem is this comes down to closures and staffing and all of the other issues, right. So we have to crack the first nut first, but we really need to know when these buildings are being closed for issues like HVAC, staffing issues associated with it and when these can be fixed.
Good afternoon, Councilmember. I'd just like to give a very brief overview of how the sites were selected and why we started with 10. So over the past decade or so, there's been a number of different initiatives that have led to investment in libraries. Rebuild, for example, has already touched a certain number of libraries. will be addressed in total. Beyond that, there's been other initiatives that have improved certain facilities. So we're not looking at the whole portfolio because a certain number of them have already received improvements. Beyond that, there has been a certain number of HVAC upgrades and building upgrades. So one-by-one, based on the category of improvements, we narrowed down the number of sites. The other issue with doing an assessment of all the sites at once, a holistic investment, is that those assessments tend to get dated by the time you actually get to the point of addressing them. 10 libraries alone, if you were to look at the estimate that came back for what those need, it's tens of millions I'll say, and we're happy to provide those numbers. So we are looking at it strategically to be able to assess a certain number and be able to react in future years based on capital budget allocation. That doesn't mean that the Library along with our office is not actively looking at certain infrastructure systems that could fail in the near term. So, for example, last year we had done about 10 HVAC projects, HVAC system upgrades. This coming year we are planning to do another 8 to 10, knowing those that are sort of in danger of closing, those branches that are in danger of closing. So it's not that we are not looking at those systems. It's that we're not doing holistic assessments for every library at one time.
Yeah, I find this frustrating. This should be raised to the emergency level that it is. I find it frustrating, I've just got to tell you. I know my time is up. I had one tiny follow-up question that might or might not be able to be answered by Rec, please. We talked about your cameras failing at the rec centers and that you would need to maintain those cameras. I'm the Chair of the Tech Committee and I've been asking questions about centralizing some of this. We've got cameras at rec centers. We've got cameras on street corners. And why do we not have one part of the city that's maintaining all of our cameras? Why would you have to pay for this out of your budget?
Point of information. We do. It's called the DVIC Center in South Philadelphia at 20th and Oregon. I don't know if Parks & Rec is tied into it, but it's our central hub that monitors pretty much every major camera we have in the City of Philadelphia, including SEPTA as well.
So good afternoon. My name is Marissa Washington, First Deputy Commissioner, Parks and Recreation. The cameras that we have in our facilities, they are not monitored by a company. So they kind of record -- like sometimes in your home, your home cameras, they record, the recordings stay there for 30 days, and if we need to pull something as far as the recordings to use for some situation or incident that may have happened. But most of the cameras in our facilities are not monitored by a company. I do believe we have some of those cameras are monitored for some of our parks, especially those that are hotspots for dumping and other kind of activity that we need to monitor in conjunction with the police department. So that's kind of an overview of the cameras at Parks and Recreation.
Okay. So I understand, it's like you're a small business, your own camera for your own space?
Okay. I still would like somebody else to pay for the maintenance so you can pay for the pool equipment, but thank you.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, then Councilmember Brooks.
Thank you, Council President. I want to follow -- I want to kind of continue along the lines of Councilmember Landau as it relates to assessments in some of our libraries. I want to really focus on the library at McPherson Square. We know that we are doing some improvements in that space, but I'm trying to figure out, you know, have assessments been done in all of our libraries, right. And using McPherson as an example, what is the role of the Library's Foundation to be able to invest in some of these spaces to be able to make these improvements possible, right? Because I feel like in the McPherson Library project, there should be more support on the Foundation side if we're going to earmark some of these spaces as historical spaces. And what's the investment in order to protect those historical spaces from the Foundation?
Thank you. Thank you, Councilperson, for the question. I will say this about foundations and how they work with the Library, especially the Free Library Foundation, which has been a significant supporter to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars for the Free Library. It is utilized or we utilize the Foundation as a way to go and get grants from nonprofit institutions or other foundations for capital projects and for library programming. There are also possibilities through the Foundation, from some of the members in the Foundation or Board members or adjacent groups. There may be individuals who want to donate to individual libraries and that's not unusual, that happens. It's just a matter of, lack of a better word, curating or finding those people who have an interest. Sometimes it's an interest in just specific locations or branches or neighborhood libraries rather than an initiative that the Library wants to do. So it really varies. But we have a strong team of people over at the Foundation who's always looking for opportunities or funding that may support the Library in a variety of different ways. Sometimes we're very fortunate and find people or grants and sometimes we're not. Over the years, there have been initiatives spearheaded by the Foundation to support the Library to the tune of millions of dollars to help at some of our neighborhood libraries. It is something we're thinking about. And I may have more information later, but it is an opportunity and it is something that is possible.
Can you share with us or with the Chair a list of which of your libraries have had these assessments and in which cases any improvements have been made to the Library, the support that they've received from the Foundation and what that support is? Can you share that?
Yes, we can. We can look through our history and see what libraries have been supported by donors over the years and which neighborhood libraries have had building condition assessments. We can get that information.
Thank you. I also would like to thank the team over at PP&R, Sue, Anthony, Frank, Aparna, all of them, Commissioner, thank you all for your support. You all have made working with the department so much easier because you all are kind of rowing in the same direction. I do have multiple projects that are going on in the district. They've been going on for many, many years. I go into neighborhoods and community residents, they're like when is my part going to get done. And considering that the cost in materials and construction and all of that is rising, when do you all believe you will be able to complete all of those projects that were in the pipeline that were at one time considered Rebuild?
Thank you for that question, Councilmember Lozada. They're on different sort of schedules, each project. As you know, for example, McPherson Library and Park was stalled for a period of time and now has been restarted. The roof work was completed last year and the building envelope. The next phase we are continuing through design and construction will begin shortly this year on that overall building project and site work. McVeigh is another site, a Rebuild site, in your district. We had to change the model of delivery at that particular site, so we have fortunately been able to find an alternate delivery method and we are restarting that. The design will be revisited and construction is expected to probably start late this year or early next year. So both are moving. They'll be on different timelines. They anticipate, because of the scale of both projects it will take about 8 months of construction for both of 9 those. 10
15 Thank you for that. And then the 16 Commissioner mentioned 27 sites, 17 $1.25 million, 2000 cameras. We 18 were having a conversation with another panel about cameras that have been installed in different places. And it's great that we have the cameras, but what good are the cameras if no one is monitoring them? And so, can you tell us or can you give us a list, that list that you ran off very quickly to Councilmember Bass, can you submit that list to the Council President's office by district? And can you also share with us other locations that you believe are very problematic that you recommend we get cameras and what would it cost us because I know that I have multiple centers that could use some of those cameras? But there's a conversation about budget, right. So I want to know where do I focus my priorities on in the future in order to better work with you and the community. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for that, Councilmember. Lozada. Yes, we will ensure that we will submit that. I do want to share something else because of some of the recent advances in equipment. We're able to install cameras at sites without buildings now and house the recording equipment in a box, because some of our parks there are no buildings. And so, we're able to now install cameras, which I think is another benefit that assists us in dealing with some of our crimes, dealing with some of the, you know, it's warm outside, some of our young people, that's something else also that will be helping us throughout the summer.
Thank you. And lastly, I want to just reiterate the importance of partnerships. I've had the opportunity to work with the Tacony Creek Watershed folks, and I've seen the impact that they've had along the trail from Whitaker Avenue right up into Friends Hospital. I can't tell you how important it is to strengthen that relationship. I think a lot of the things that they are doing are helping to take the pressure off of us as a department and I think they're willing, they have community support. And so, I'd like to figure out a way of better strengthening that relationship and growing that partnership so that we can respond to making sure that the community can benefit from that trail the way that they do in other neighborhoods. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you, Councilmember Lozada. That's really important because these partnerships are important. We can't do anything that we do without the community. And Parks and Recreation functions because of the people and we rely on our public spaces and the learning from people, the physical activity. And one of the things that I'm doing is I'm going to have a strategic engagement unit that will just expound on our success. Everything that we do is public- facing, and this is a way to elevate our commitment to making our public spaces more accessible. And so, this person will work directly with as opposed to them trying to figure out who they can connect with. And so, we're going to have a strategic engagement person who will have a couple of people under them so we can ensure that we're hearing what's happening in communities, because a rec leader is only going to hear what's happening at that rec center. But we're trying to make sure we're hearing all the voices. So thank you for that and we will work at being a better partner, not just in that area but throughout the city.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Kendra Brooks.
Thank you, Council President. I have a few quick questions. One is about the Carousel House. So it's been an important home for the disability community in Philadelphia since the '80s. I spent a lot of time at the Carousel House. My previous position was a recreation therapist, so I did a lot of work within that community. And I was wondering it's been closed since 2020. Can you give us an update on the status of the construction along with a timeline for completion? And Part 2 of that is since they have been closed, we also know that we don't want there to only be one accessible supportive recreation center for the 17% of Philadelphians who are a part of the disability community. What does the disability program and accessibility look like at other rec centers? And what level of funding is provided for that to happen?
And also, additional point of information. Can you give us the timeline for the rehabilitation or the rehabbing of the Carousel House? And also, where are the individuals who would normally tend to Carousel House that are disabled, where they spending their time at now? And I'm only passionate about this issue because around the issue with gun violence, I have several friends who play basketball there who are in wheelchairs. That's like their safe haven. So they have reached out to me before in the past. And also, before your response, I just want to ask for us to aggressively, you know, I-95 in the Northeast, the bridge fell apart and the Governor found out a way to get it put back together in 10 days. And the reason why I say this is because the disabled community, separate from Minority Leader Brooks, right, they don't have a big-time lobbyist coming down here advocating on their behalf. They don't have people walking the halls of power saying, this is the agenda. So if it's not us inside this room speaking on their behalf, then it probably won't be a super priority. Not saying it's not, but at the end of the day, I know how sometimes things can work if you're not being aggressive about advocating for it. (Applause.)
Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Councilmember Brooks. So fortunately, we have been very aggressive with that project. I know it was closed in 2020 because of existing structural issues. It was a Rebuild project. The challenges early on, on that project was to be able to accommodate the program that that community needed, we needed more funding. So there was a period of time in which additional funding was being gathered to be able to move forward on that project. I'm very happy to sit here today and say over the past year the funding was confirmed. We were able to deliver. It's going to be the largest Rebuild project. Actually it's about $40 million in construction value alone. It will have all the amenities that the community had requested through many, many programming sessions with the community. We have been keeping the community abreast of the status of the project. We've been very active and proactive in holding several community meetings. We do a monthly update. We have members of our team who have been going out into the community to provide updates. It's currently in construction. We actually -- I'm sorry. It's currently in design. We're getting final documents within this month, early next month. And it will be bid and go into construction this year. And we are doing everything in our power to make that as fast as possible. It is a very large facility. We'll have a very large gym with a walking loop to house, you know, exactly that, the wheelchair basketball tournaments. It will have -- and other communities are going to get mad -- but two pools, one that's a lap pool, that's something to help train lifeguards, and then a very special pool, zero entry, so folks that are in wheelchairs have an easy access to the pool. So it is a very large facility. I want to say that to be able to provide in the construction timeline, we will do our best to move at I-95 speed. It will take about 18 to months. So in 2028 24 it will likely open.
And what about the programming for folks now? What's happening at other rec centers to accommodate some of the programs that were at Carousel House? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for that question, Councilmember Brooks. The programs that were happening at the Carousel House were moved immediately to Gustine Lake, which is accessible. And I think with the new Rebuild facilities it is so important because I think Council President Johnson's question is key. Because when these facilities were built years ago, they weren't built with handicap in mind. So now, with these new facilities coming online, we have more sites -- well, all of these sites, they have to be handicapped accessible. And on top of that, we had a position and I am in the process now of hiring an accessibility manager because we need to make sure that we are mindful of people that might need some special attention. And so, we'll have an accessibility manager that we can identify those basketball players, especially along with our engagement director, we can identify those people that need specific needs and we can direct them now to facilities that they can actually get in and play basketball. And so, we are working on that.
Just a point of clarification. So will the accessibility manager be checking accessibility needs at all Parks and Recreation centers? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Absolutely, not just one location. They're being hired to take an overlook at the entire system.
Thank you for that. That's really important because it came up at our Accessibility hearing around voting, because some of the Rebuild projects were built and it was an accessibility issue for folks to get in, which is illegal. But I digress from that. So thank you so much for hiring someone to make sure that all of our Parks and Recreation centers are accessible. What about programming? Because I know right now that Carousel -- well, not right now. Carousel was the hub. However, people with various abilities live all over the city. What type of program is available in other communities? As you know, the population continues to grow from gun violence or just aging, what programs are available for folks? And I ask this every year, will all the wheelchair lifts at the pools around the city be open this summer? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Well, the 63 pools that we plan to open, Frank Fabey has been working to ensure that we have the pool lifts because there is a major need. And so, yes, we will have those lifts at the pools, Councilmember Brooks. As far as the programming, I cannot say -- oh, I'm going to ask for Deputy Commissioner Rob Jackson.
So to that point, as they talk about the accessibility manager, even if it's not a specific program, is it someone available to help a program be adapted to accommodate a child with special needs because it doesn't always have to be a whole new program? It could also be just a few tweaks that are made for the children to be able to enjoy what everyone else is enjoying and we need to take that in consideration. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: You can tell that this was your field because one of the questions that we had for the person that we were interviewing, that was pretty much the question. So I mean, if you think about accessibility, it's a lot broader than people recognize. And so, we're not just looking at one piece of accessibility. We're looking at the totality, and we're bringing someone on that has had some skill and some background and not just in one area of it being an accessible facility or an accessible pool.
And also, just from a point of information standpoint, something that I saw the Department of Parks and Recreation do that was a little different than I saw in the past was I refurbished all my playgrounds, right. And I like bright colors. That's my thing. I like the bright reds, the bright yellows, the bright greens. You know, I said, wait a minute, Mr. Johnson, our new standard is making sure we adapt to children who have autism, right. So we have a different type of standard regarding the playground equipment that we are utilizing to make sure we are meeting the needs of young people who have autism. And so, you hiring an accessibility manager I think puts us in a new direction in terms of making sure we be more accommodating to those who have disabilities. And I even saw some playground equipment also making sure we take in consideration our senior population as well, which is a different conversation, but it also is more inclusive of everyone who want to enjoy our parks and our recreational facilities. But I just want to -- again, I think it's great having the accessibility manager and also, whatever we can do to make sure that the disability community is a key priority as we move forward. I think it's great. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Can I call --
You can respond. You sure can. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Okay.
Good afternoon. Rob Jackson, Program Deputy Commissioner, Parks & Rec. To answer your question, we have -- gosh, I would say more programs than I could say our name now, so we can provide a full list. But we have tons of basketball programs. All of our gyms that have accessibility entry are available for basketball. We hosted the youth basketball wheelchair tournament at Mayfair Rec Center this year, the Katie Kirlin Tournament. That went off as a huge success. We have quite a few facilities with sensory corners that take that into account. Our summer camp directors adjust their activities to accommodate all special populations. And we've been working countlessly with our colleagues in capital to make sure that that's reflected in any new construction. And at Champions Park, we have Joey's Place, which is an inclusive playground for special populations. So for a full list, I'll make sure that I get that information over to you after the hearing or to Council President.
-- for the Library. This is a quick question. So one significant use of the Free Library is printing. So as folks come in to get their printing needs, we've heard from constituents that the library does not take electronic credit card or debit payments for printing. What types of payments are accepted and when will electronic payments be accepted or readily able to use at the library?
Thank you for the question. I believe my IT Manager is here. Jen, why don't you come up and explain it. I don't want to give you my explanation. I want to go to the source.
And this will be the last follow-up, everyone. Today is Passover so we're going to be respectful. Individuals need to get home as well. Is that all right?
I'm Jen Maguire-Wright, Director of Performance Management and Technology here at the Library. The equipment that we use is leased equipment and that is something we will look into. It is not yet up for renewal, but we will look into that when it's up for renewal. It's ancient coin-operated machines at the moment, so we hear you and that is something we'll put on our list.
I need to check when that lease is up for renewal. I don't have it off the top of my head.
And, Councilperson, I just wanted to say this, for us to even be able to look into it is showing the trajectory of the resources that you have given the Library. Because Jen said it's coin-operated and she said it was ancient, it's beyond that. And as we are going through and modernizing the Library and modernizing how we provide service to our community, this is one of those areas where we're going to be making a change. But I wanted her to explain it because I'm always asking for something.
Thank you very much. And last, Member Phillips, are you going to put on the record --
I have a question from Member Driscoll, but just want to put on the record I'll send you the rest of my questions for in writing, particularly around potential municipal guards and camera maintenance and also some staffing questions that I didn't get a chance to ask that I wanted to do in the second round. But Member Driscoll, as many of you know we just recently learned unfortunately that there was a small plane crash in the Northeast section of Philadelphia and we're going to recess very quickly. But on his behalf, he couldn't be here, he had this question for the record: PPR sustainability work and illegal dumping efforts, particularly around the cleanup efforts in Pennypack Park, can you just talk about sustainability work and illegal dumping efforts in Pennypack Park on behalf of Member Driscoll, who just had to step out to deal with the recent circumstances?
Thank you, Councilman, for that question. My Sustainability Director Natalie Walker and I have been working with Clean and Green, the Office of Clean and Green, meeting weekly as part of the Illegal Dumping Task Force. And this is really a true example of One Philly. We have PPD there. We have Sanitation. We have Streets, PWD. And we have William Penn funding for four Park ambassadors. And these Park ambassadors we'll be hiring probably within the next month. I think we're in the process of doing interviews. They'll be working with the community in certain areas to educate, inform and get out there. And they are able to write CVNs along with our rangers. So the specific illegal dumping in the Pennypack is similar to the one that was in Councilwoman -- I'm sorry, was it Tacony? Sorry. Last year, so we've identified this, and it's really where we all come together and put our resources. It's tons of construction debris, house clean-outs. You name it, we can find it in the Pennypack, right, and probably a lot of other parks. But this material is getting into our waterways, right, and it's so unsafe. So we are coordinating these efforts to clean them out, restore them, grade them, seed and then, right, that's not enough. You have to add barriers, whether it's fence, bollards, boulders, signage, cameras, lighting, right, so it doesn't keep recurring at these locations. So our next stop is Cobbs Creek and Whitby. I think, Councilwoman, your team has reached out to us about that, so we're going down there. And we look at it from a holistic approach how we can resolve this and stop it from happening in our parkland.
And just to follow up on that particular part, what is the vacancy rate for programming staff that can help out with things like that, do you know, programming staff in Parks & Rec?
Oh, watershed, I'm sorry. But just in -- well, I still want that question answered for our programming staff. What's the vacancy rate for that? And how many in our programming, is it 25? I saw rec leader trainees. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for that question. We don't have that broken down. We have an overall, but we can get you that information, Councilmember Phillips.
All right. Thank you again. I wish I could ask the other questions, but I'll submit it for the record since we were out of time together. Thank you so much, Commissioner, for your work.
I did. I just wanted to ask for the record in what ways can municipal guards support public safety? As we know, some of the staff members have been talking about how they are quasi, they have to do work, security sometimes at our rec centers. In what ways from your perspective could the municipal guards that we see at our libraries be supportive of public safety? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for that question, Councilmember Phillips. I think there's several positive reasons to have them inside the rec centers and outside of the rec centers. Municipal guards could provide valuable support to the community. They could deter potential criminal activity, providing a safer environment. Guards can possibly respond quickly, address disturbances or medical emergencies or unauthorized activities, minimizing potential harm. Guards can support staff in managing large crowds or organized events, allowing activity to run smoothly. But, you know, along with the pros, there are always some cons. There are some concerns about municipal guards being present at recreation centers. Also, perception of safety. The presence of guards might create a perception that the area or the facility is unsafe, which could deter visitors or some individuals making them feel uncomfortable. Some community members, especially young people, might feel intimidated by guards affecting their willingness to use the facilities. Funding and resources needed for staffing guards could be a challenge. Diverting some of the resources that we need for other staff inside the facility will be taken away to go towards guards. Managing community relations and addressing concerns regarding the need for guards requires sensitivity and transparency. So I think there are pros and cons.
Point of information. Excuse me one second. Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young.
Thank you, Mr. President. I just have a point of information for Mr. Richards. Our libraries have municipal guards and you hear some of the concerns that our Rec Commissioner is outlining. Are these concerns that patrons have when having municipal guards at our libraries as well?
Well, what I would say, Councilman Young, is in our libraries we have multiple floors, we have basements, restrooms in multiple parts of the building. Our buildings are utilized by everyone at any time of the day, and our forward-facing staff who are in our libraries are always distracted with helping patrons, working with children, working with everyone, and that municipal guard is necessary in our buildings to walk through the buildings, to keep an eye on what's going on, to walk outside to keep an eye on what's going on. Because of the nature of the services that our staff are providing, they don't have the opportunity, for lack of better words, to watch their own back. They need someone there looking out for what's going on all day.
Just on that line of questioning, the questioning is, is there a proposal for you to hire municipal guards? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I do not have a proposal to hire municipal guards.
Is the question should we get municipal guards?
I'm wrapping up though, but is that the question?
I agree that we should have municipal guards, right. And I heard all the responses, public perception, should feel safe. I did a roundtable on gun violence here in the city of Philadelphia. You know what the babies said at the roundtable? We want armed guards at our rec centers, particularly the basketball courts because the guys are doing the shootings. They come over there, they're not playing basketball and then they start shooting at everybody and we have nothing to do with it and we don't feel safe. I know it's not the whole city, right. I think it's some parts. And I know when we talked about this before, Commissioner, I remember you said, well, maybe also we'll partner with community groups, right. But until we get to the point where maybe Parks & Rec do a contract with organizations like PAAN that's intervention, groups that could be on the ground or Philadelphia Ceasefire or we hire boots-on-the- ground organizations to be there, I'm still an advocate of the presence of somebody official will give some of these young people an opportunity to think twice. Sometimes the presence of a uniform just slows things down. The classic example, and I have to wrap up because several members have to leave -- we can have a longer conversation if y'all want to do a callback -- but even in University City, right, University City District has the bicycle patrols that ride through the neighborhoods, right. They don't have any guns on them, but the fact that they ride down the street at 2:30 in the morning, keeping their eyes on who's trying to go inside people's cars is just a presence. So I do think it's something as a city we might want to be forward-thinking about in the near future, because I believe the investment will outweigh any offsetting, I'm not going to say negative consequences, but if somebody feels like, oh, I don't want to go over there because there's a guard and because it feels more safe or -- I don't ever want to talk about resources because it's just that important from a public safety standpoint. Just something to think about. That's all. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Can I ask a question, Council President Johnson?
A very brief one because then I'm calling for adjournment. But, yes. And y'all can talk. He's the Chair and y'all can have a personal conversation. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I didn't know we were talking about armed guards because --
No, we weren't talking about armed. I'm not talking about armed. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Okay. Because armed guards is something totally different.
Yeah, I'm not talking about armed. You're talking about armed?
No, I wasn't talking about -- we were just talking about the same guards at the Library. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Okay.
Just the presence. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you.
Listen, we thank all of you for your testimony. I thank my members though because we were supposed to be done at 4:00, but this shows that we're committed to doing a deeper dive and addressing these issues. And thank you very much for being here today. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Isaiah Thomas for a motion to adjourn.
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution before the committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, April 7, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion passes. This committee stands in recess. Happy Easter and Resurrection Sunday. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 4:45 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. ________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL