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.