COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON HOUSING, NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT AND THE HOMELESS - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, May 2, 2006 10:45 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN COUNCILMAN JUAN RAMOS RESOLUTION 050871 - Resolution calling on the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development, and the Homeless to hold public hearings on the administration's proposed reorganization of housing agencies. - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your patience. This is a reconvened hearing. Our last hearing date was March 16th. As we note, we had hearings on November 15, 2005; December 8, 2005; February 9, 2006; March 16, 2006; and April 18, 2006. This is a reconvened hearing of Resolution No. 10 050871 dealing with housing reorganization, and we will ask the Clerk to read the title of the resolution.
Resolution 050871, resolution calling on the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless to hold public hearings on the Administration's proposed reorganization of housing agencies.
Thank you very much. Again, we thank you all for coming, for taking off from your jobs to be here. As all of us know, this is very, very important to your survival, to all of our survival and the survival of 3 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 the housing agencies, with whom we have worked all these years. We're going to ask the Secretary of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation if he would come to the witness table, and we invite him to give his testimony. And we note that this is the first hearing where we have a document and we note, Mr. Hanna, that albeit we've tried to get this document forever, this Reorganization Final Plan that we've been asking for is dated fall 2005. So this must have been ready for a little bit of time. Certainly it must have been ready before our hearings, and that's one of our questions, because we've been begging and begging and begging for this document. I still only have one copy. As you know, we haven't been able to get any copies of anything. So the Councilpeople got one copy, so we couldn't give one to anybody else. And this is dated fall 2005, and that's going 4 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 to be one of our questions after your testimony, as to why it's taken us to spring 2006 to get this when you have continued to say that you were reviewing it with the Mayor, you were reviewing it with the Administration, no decisions have been made, it hadn't been completed. And it is written, printed, on the cover of the OHNP Reorganization Final Report fall 2005. So, again, good morning. We ask you to identify yourself to the record. You can make your testimony and anyone else whom you would like to do so.
Good morning. My name is Kevin Hanna and I serve as Secretary of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation for the City of Philadelphia. Since the last hearing, we have submitted to Council and made public the proposed Year 32 Consolidated Plan, along with the OHNP Reorganization Final Report submitted by our consultants. The 5 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Consolidated Plan outlines our proposal for spending certain federal, state and local dollars to fund our housing and certain economic development initiatives in the City. The consultant's report outlines their work, their methodology, the results of their surveys and interviews, along with their recommendations. This body of work was used to develop the proposed reorganization plan which was presented via PowerPoint back in February. In addition, since the last meeting, we have met with the union. Subsequent to this meeting -- to that meeting, that is, with the union leadership -- Ms. Pankey and I have exchanged phone calls in an effort to clarify certain issues. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have prepared for and are ready to present to the Mayor certain information and proposals for dealing 6 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 with issues raised at these hearings and in the meetings with union leadership. That meeting to discuss these issues with the Mayor is scheduled for tomorrow. Soon thereafter we will need to present to the union leadership our proposals. We have heard your concerns both here and in the union leadership meetings. They will be addressed in our meeting with the Mayor. Until that meeting with the Mayor takes place, once again, I cannot offer any more details than what has been outlined in the Consolidated Plan and in the Final Report. My staff and I will be available to answer whatever questions you may have on the Consolidated Plan and the report.
Mr. Hanna, since you do not have responses, we're just going to continue our hearing again for another two weeks. We really need to know what's happening, and as I've said from November 15th, December 8th, February 9th, March 16th and April 7 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 18th, it seemed to me to be clear to everyone in the City, you and the Administration, that we're not going to drop this issue until there is some resolve, until everybody is certainly on one accord. I don't mind agreeing to disagree, but it is certainly unconscionable and unfair that we would still be asked to consider something for which there is not clarity. We still don't know what's going on, and we still are concerned about not knowing what's going on. One of my questions is, for example, again, I want to know why this report says fall 2005 and why we just got it.
That report -- first of all, let's be clear as to what's in that report. That report, that consultant's report, outlines the methodology that they used in pulling together their information and outlines 8 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 the surveys that they used and the interviews, the results of both the surveys and the interviews. That information, as I stated in my written testimony, was used to develop the proposal that was actually presented to Council, union, to other constituencies back in February. Now, as to the question of why that report is dated fall of 2005 and why it's just now being released, that was, for the most part, on the instructions of the Administration, of the Mayor. He did not at the time of its completion feel comfortable with actually releasing it until we were ready to release the Consolidated Plan. So that's why the two reports, those two books, the Year 32 Consolidated Plan and that consultant's report, weren't released until a couple weeks ago. But, again, the important thing you need to remember about that is, more important than that consultant's report 9 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 is the proposed reorganization plan that was made to you all back a couple of months ago now.
-- know what report you mean, because you told me when I asked you about this, you said you had to tweak it. But now if this is dated fall 2005, obviously this has been tweaked a very long, long time ago. (Applause.)
And, Mr. Hanna, with regard to this report, you list Plan A, Plan B and Plan C for reorganization. Now, if there are three charts and three plans and you ask Council to support a housing reorganization plan and you list them -- you don't say, We recommend Plan A, Plan B or Plan C. You give three plans, Functional Option A, Functional Option B 10 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 and Functional Option C. So I have no 3 idea what it is that you are asking me to recommend to this Committee, to the Finance Committee and to Council that we support. We have our own ideas, and we'll deal with them, but certainly we wonder why after waiting all this time for a report we get one with three options in it. What are you recommending?
Those were the options, Madam Chairwoman, those were the options recommended by the consulting team. We ended up not proposing any of those straight options. What we did was take elements of each one and propose that as basically a fourth option. That option, that proposal, is what was presented to you all, both individually and to some extent as a body, in that PowerPoint presentation in early February. These are the consultant's 11 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 recommendations. Like I said, we took these recommendations, we went through them, and we determined that from our standpoint, none of the three functional proposals or options, recommendations, that were made in here were really appropriate.
That's the one that was presented via PowerPoint and in fact was resubmitted to you, along with the Consolidated Plan and this report. That PowerPoint, somewhere around three-quarters towards the back, is the proposed reorganizational structure.
So you're saying in this booklet for reorganization, this is the one that you're asking us to consider. This one, likewise, has various charts. This one has on --
That's the current structure. 12 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871
And the one after that is the proposed structure. Everything else in that PowerPoint presentation is an explanation and an attempt at clarification of what we're trying to propose.
Well, let me ask you, how does this affect the various departments? How many people do you intend on removing, replacing, firing, laying off? Where is that in here?
That's not in there, but to answer your question, this was, as I said, presented to you in early February. Since then, we've had discussions in an effort to try to determine specific answers to those questions. Here's what I could give you that's been determined since the last meeting, since the last hearing. The Office of Housing and Neighborhood 13 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Preservation, that middle group, the Office of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation will subsume OHCD. So we're not creating a fourth organization. OHCD will become OHNP.
And I still don't understand why. If we have RDA, if we have OHCD, why then did you not take OHCD and make them the parent organization and not create an OHNP then? (Applause.)
We still don't understand why you want to reorganize when we have housing agencies that all together perform every function that any city needs. Why do we have to create a new one? Why couldn't we use one of the existing ones and then talk about reorganizing if we had to do that?
OHNP is certainly new when it comes to this level of organization and when it comes 14 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 to moving people around. I mean, right now what's OHNP? Three or four people?
You're the Secretary of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation. Then it becomes an Office of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation with all these people under that. We still don't understand why, what the reason is and what the effect is.
Even if, Councilwoman, even if we left the name at OHCD -- and changing the name from one or the other doesn't cost a dime, but even if we left it at OHCD, the idea is to consolidate as many functions that are now redundant existing at RDA, existing at OHCD, existing at PHDC. The idea is to reduce that redundancy and consolidate as much of that into one Mayor's Office of, and you can fill in the blanks.
We understand that. The Council, as well as everybody I've talked to and anybody I've 15 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 run into on the streets, in the unions, have always said where there's overlap, let's tighten up. Nobody said that they weren't willing to consider more, in their pension plans, whatever the City wanted to do, but nobody wanted to scrap things and start all over without understanding what that means. And so that's why we're asking you. I still don't understand why we couldn't have done that under the organizations we have, and so I'll ask you that again. Why do we have to create a whole new entity, and who does it affect and how many people does it affect and where do they go and how are we supposed to view all of this?
There were several questions in there and I'll try to hit all of them if you give me a second.
Right now there are approximately 60-odd people at OHCD. It 16 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 is proposed that OHCD/OHNP grow to approximately 150 people. That's an addition of another --
There are currently at OHCD approximately 60 employees. I may be off by three or four.
It is proposed that we hire approximately 90 people, 90 more people into OHCD/OHNP. Those people will come from RDA and PHDC. So that much I can determine for you. That much I can tell you. As to the impact upon RDA and PHDC, PHDC was presented with this 17 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 information, at least their leadership was, a week ago Monday. They were given this information with instructions -- well, first of all, with an explanation as to what we were looking to do from a reorganizational standpoint, what programs were going to be brought under the umbrella of OHNP, which of their divisions or departments were going to be consolidated into OHNP. They were, PHDC on Monday, were then given the assignment to go back and discuss among themselves at PHDC how specifically this would impact PHDC. I talked to Mr. McIntosh yesterday, and Mr. McIntosh tells me that hopefully by the end of this week, he'll be in a position to sit down and talk to me and tell me or give me his view of how this reorganization impacts his shop in terms of the number of people. I met with the RDA -- this was last Monday. I met with the RDA and RDA's leadership on Wednesday of last 18 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 week, gave them pretty much the exact same spiel as I gave to PHDC; that is, I presented to them the proposed consolidated plan budget for administration and program delivery, told them what programs, what departments were going to be moved out of RDA and proposed to be put into the Office of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, and then gave them the same charts, that they needed to go back and determine for themselves the impact that this reorganization, the budget number that was given to them, the impact that that would have on RDA. Mr. Wetzel asked for a certain specific piece of information from us which he deemed necessary before he could come back with that specific information. We hope to have that information to Mr. Wetzel by the end of the day tomorrow. Soon thereafter I would expect Mr. Wetzel or someone from the RDA to get back to me to give me the answer to the questions you just asked me; that is, 19 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 specifically what will be the impact on the RDA. So that's a very long way to answer your question, but for OHNP, what we think we know is that the ranks of OHCD/NP will swell to approximately 150 people. What the impact will be for PHDC and RDA is now being determined by those organizations given the fact that they were presented the information two days after you all were presented with it.
I have a follow-up question by Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown.
Good morning. My question goes to the level of detail on the information you're either waiting for or already have, and specifically I'm curious to know, do you have by name, not only by agency what the impact is, but by name what employees will be impacted, particularly those that are at the plateau of their career or ready to make the transition to leave? 20 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Because there's a concern I've heard with regard to losing benefits. So if there's a way to keep those employees whole if this reorganization happens, then I think that should be done. So have you had a chance yet to go specifically to the actual employee by name in each department how they will be impacted?
No, ma'am, and that's a good question. It has to do with because it speaks to the meeting with the Mayor. After the meeting with the Mayor, I'll be equipped to go back to the union leadership to discuss with them our proposals for issues such as that.
But as far as how certain people are affected, how certain processes will flow during this transition, that's something, in addition to what I just talked about relative to the Mayor, that's something that we need to meet in some cases, negotiate in some 21 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 cases, discuss with the union leadership. So, no, we don't have that level of detail yet because we haven't had those discussions with the union. The reason we haven't had those discussions with the union is because we've been waiting to have this meeting with the Mayor.
And I still don't understand why after all of these meetings that we've been having since November 15th of last year that people still have to come here and still have to be afraid that they're not going to be able to pay their rent next month. (Applause.)
Or their mortgages, because they don't know how they're affected. It is the most unfair process. (Applause.)
And I really feel that it's total disrespect to 22 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 this Committee. We say the same things every month. You know, the scripture says there's nothing new under the sun, and there really is not. We still feel disrespected as a Committee. The people of this City who work for these agencies still feel disrespected. (Applause.)
And I don't understand how people can say -- I always mention the lady who will be 55 next year and she worked for the City for some 36 years as an example, and the Mayor as recently as yesterday, everybody says, We're going to take care of it, oh, that won't happen, but how can anybody be sure that they're not going to be disrespected, cut out, laid off, transferred? How can anybody be sure? And in terms of the whole issue of doing this, how do you do this when you said you haven't talked to the unions? What about the issue of what it will cost the City, you, in 23 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 reorganization in terms of giving them their benefit packages, their vacation time and all of that before you can transfer them? I mean, obviously you've considered that could cost more than this reorganization; could it not? (Applause.)
Again, to reiterate something that I've said at several of the hearings before, believe me, Councilwomen, I get no joy, no pleasure in coming before this Committee and enduring these hearings. The process is just that, it's a process. It very well --
Mr. Hanna, we don't get any joy out of it either. Do you really think we want to say -- we're at six hearings here because we have people in our City who don't know what will happen to them, whether they can plan a summer vacation or not. I mean, we don't get any joy out of being here either, and we don't even know that 24 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 you all save any money.
The process is just that, it's a process. And like with all processes, it takes time. Just over the past couple of weeks, there has been progress in the process. Over the next couple of days, couple of weeks, I expect that there will be more progress in the process. I don't like the fact that it's taken this long. I don't like the fact that it's taken this long, but the fact is, it takes a while to gather certain information and be in a position to gather it.
You said there's been progress. How? In what way?
There's been progress in the sense that we've provided 25 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 you consolidated plan information with the budget information that you've been asking for. There's been progress in the sense that this consultant's report that you've been asking for has in fact been released. There's been progress in the sense that we have outlined where we see the savings coming from, both from an administrative standpoint, from a programmatic cut standpoint, from a program delivery standpoint. Those, in my mind, are examples of progress just since the last hearing.
Can you explain to us -- you said savings from administration and programs. Can you define that for us? We still aren't sure whether we're talking -- you said administration and programs. Can you define that?
In the information that was transmitted to Council the week before last, we outlined specific savings that we project to achieve as a result of 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 reorganization and in response to the federal cuts in CDBG, Home and HOPWA. There were --
Where they are? It was a separate sheet of paper. It was a one-pager like this. We'll be more than happy to make more copies of it, but this was transmitted to you along with all of the information that was transmitted.
I don't recall that one page. Can you just define it?
Sure. Categorically, administrative initiatives over -- in the first year, the estimated savings is roughly $152,000, with an average of $275,000 over the five-year period. With benefits initiatives, the estimated savings is approximately $820,000 per year each year for at least 27 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 the next five years. Personnel initiatives, the estimated savings for the first year is -- well, for each year over the next four years, five years is $4.1 million. Our estimated costs -- this does not include the issues that we were talking about relative to what benefits we may be able to provide to individual employees, but our estimated costs to implement the reorganization for the first year is approximately $245,000. Most of that money is money that's invested in training and retraining, providing training to employees, all employees. That provides for a net savings; that is, the total savings in those three categories, less the administration costs, of $4.9 million for the first year and an average of roughly $5.1 million over the five-year period.
Well, Mr. Hanna, if you've made these estimates, then you must know how many 28 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 people and from what departments you intend on -- (Applause.)
-- them being removed or laid off. Those are the details we would like as well.
No, ma'am, we do not have that level of detail, at least as far as RDA and PHDC are concerned. RDA and PHDC have to go back. Like I said, they were just given these numbers last week, 72 hours actually after you all were given the numbers. Those 72 hours were really the weekend. They were just given --
If you say you're saving $820,000 a year for five years, you've got to have numbers. You've got to know how many if you're reducing it to figures. That's common sense.
The numbers that we presented to you is dependent upon, to some extent, the RDA and PHDC themselves. 29 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 The $820,000 that you spoke of specifically has to do with our estimate of the savings that we would achieve if RDA's benefits package, specifically pension and healthcare benefits, were brought in line with your pension, my healthcare, all of our pension and healthcare benefits around the City.
Mr. Hanna, we asked you to give us that information. I wrote you a letter. I asked for that information prior to this. I received nothing from you or from the Administration --
We asked for data. Obviously after five hearings, we knew this was one of the questions. We asked for that data. We didn't get it. We asked for you to give us a chart and an outline that would specifically detail this information, and you didn't make it and we didn't get it. 30 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871
Councilwoman, this was included with all of the information that was transmitted to Council a couple of Fridays ago.
But this doesn't tell us what we need to know. You know that. This does not indicate who is affected and how they're affected. We still don't know. If I have a chart and it doesn't make sense to me, then it's not helpful. It doesn't spell out who it affects. You've got to know. If you have personnel the first year and from four to five years you're going to save $4.1 million -- that's what you just said because I just wrote it down -- you must know how many people are involved.
You can't have numbers without basing them on something, Mr. Hanna. Come on. (Applause.)
You 31 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 also mention retraining. Who are you retraining? If you don't have any idea of how many people you're retraining, how can you say the cost of that is $245,000? You must know who you're retraining and from where they've come. You've got to have some numbers about who is affected. We don't know whether we're talking about 50, 100, 200, 500. We don't know who you're talking about. We don't know how many people you're talking about. We don't know how we're supposed to be able to move forward and consider what programs these departments run. We don't know who will be there and what will their functions be. We don't know what you're talking about. You have to know in order to come up with charts in the beginning and to give out these figures. You've got to know, sir.
No, Councilwoman, I do not know -- (Applause.) 32 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871
No, Councilwoman, I do not know specifics as to who is going to be in each department, who is going to be functioning at the RDA, who is going to be left at PHDC. I don't have those details right now. If I had them, I would share them with you. I won't have them until I get that information specifically from RDA and from PHDC. I cannot tell you even which specific people will be coming from those individual organizations to OHCD/OHNP. It may be, for instance, an individual is asked to leave the RDA as a clerk typist and asked to be a clerk typist at OHNP. That individual may refuse because of seniority, because they like working with the person next to them, that person may refuse and not come over to OHNP. So, no, I can't give you specifics as to who will come over or how many people will come over, because I don't have that information.
Then 33 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 give us estimates. If you don't have specifics, then give us estimates.
No. For me to try to give you an estimate will be just a guess, and in my mind --
Then does not that mean that all of this is just guesstimates? (Applause.)
These are estimates. If I had to guess, and this is just a guess, if I had to guess, my guess would be all in among RDA, PHDC and OHNP -- and there will be people separated from each of those three organizations. Among those three, my guess would be somewhere around 50 people is what's contemplated right now.
So then the charts we received, all of this is based on 50 people through all the departments?
That's not what it's based on, but one could extrapolate 34 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 from that, yes.
Let me ask you another question. This is the preliminary consolidated plan and this is the actual and --
Well, one is preliminary and one is proposed. The final one will be what comes out of this hearing and Council hearings later on this spring.
As you can see, this one is double this one. This is double this one, and we want to ask how reorganization affects this and why we have a double document from the preliminary and from the proposed consolidated plan. I want to know what the difference is.
I'll let Deborah McColloch answer that with some more specificity, but I will say that it's been my experience over the past three years that it's not unusual for the preliminary plan to -- for the proposed 35 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 plan to be more detailed than the preliminary plan.
These are unusual times, Mr. Hanna, very unusual times.
And we want to know how all of this affects reorganization as well. And obviously if your chart is implemented and your plan is carried out, then Deb McCulloch won't even be here next year to talk about it. (Applause.)
Because we won't have an OHCD. We won't have an Office of Housing and Community Development. We've worked with these folks many, many years. I've been in Council -- I succeeded Lucien in 1992, and I worked for him as long before that. We have people we've worked with over the years and who do a great job within our departments, and we don't understand why 36 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 we have to create new entities for people who know our City, people who know our workforce and with people whom we know how to work, and Deb McCulloch is certainly one of them. (Applause.)
And we still don't understand how you expect us to vote for an unknown entity. Ms. McCulloch. MS. McCOLLOCH: Good morning. My name is Deborah McColloch. I'm the Director of Housing.
Thank you. MS. McCOLLOCH: The difference between the preliminary plan and the proposed plan is that the proposed plan contains more detail. The preliminary plan, as part of our citizen participation plan that's included in our whole process, is issued first. It gives the broad outline of how we intend to spend the funds that we receive from HUD 37 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 for the next year. We have a series of community meetings and a public hearing to solicit additional input, and we take that into consideration, and then we prepare the document that you have that is the proposed plan. The proposed plan is a bigger and thicker document because, in part, it includes elements that are required by HUD. The preliminary plan is not a document that is required by HUD. That is a document that the City chooses to issue as part of our way to get citizen participation in putting together our plan. The proposed plan is required by HUD, so there are certain elements in it that must be included. That plan is then transmitted to City Council, and as you know, Council holds its own hearings. On the specifics regarding the housing reorganization, the preliminary plan, if you look on the budget pages, the preliminary plan simply had a number 38 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 for general operations. It did not have a breakdown between OHNP, PHDC and the Redevelopment Authority. The proposed plan, which includes the reorganization as part of what's being proposed to City Council, breaks out those figures for each of those three agencies. So the proposed plan is providing more detail about how we intend to spend the funds for the next fiscal year.
Where and how does this proposed plan deal with housing reorg? MS. McCOLLOCH: If you look on the budget pages, and that is , this outlines -shows the projected annual operating costs and it shows a number for program delivery costs and a number for general administration costs, which are two different types of operating costs broken down in accordance with HUD guidelines for admin and program delivery. And it shows the costs for each of the agencies. You can see them 39 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 listed there, OHNP, PHDC, RDA, PIDC, PCDC and L&I. And then under General Administration, it includes OHNP, PHDC, RDA and then some funds for Commerce, Law and the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. So this page, 153, is providing more detail about our operating costs than were presented in the preliminary plan.
So then this figure for OHNP, this 5,000,807 -- MS. McCOLLOCH: For OHNP, the program delivery costs, I'm looking on Part A, No. 1 under Program Delivery, OHNP -- oh, I beg your pardon. Okay. OHNP has two different numbers to make up its operating costs. The one at the top, program delivery for OHNP, if you read across the column under Year 32, the total is 6.5 million. For general administration, it's 5.807 million. So those two figures together give you the 40 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 proposed operating budget for OHNP, whatever that is, approximately 4 million. 5 For PHDC, again, their program 6 delivery figures for -- 7
Is 8 this after this reorg? Then we put all 9 of the big dollars in OHNP. 10 MS. McCOLLOCH: Yes. That's 11 what's being proposed. 12
And the closest one, PHDC and RDA, in annual operating costs, they're the closest to it, and they're a few million below, and all the other departments are very, very low. I mean, down to like $275,000. So all the other figures are very low when we have big figures for OHNP. So this means --
Madam Councilwoman, this reflects the reorganization structure. Remember we talked about 41 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 moving departments and divisions out of RDA, functions and programs out of RDA and PHDC into OHNP. These numbers reflect this, and this is what I meant by the reorganization being embedded in the consolidated plan. This is the structure. This is how we propose -- what you're looking at is how we propose to pay for this structure. As far as the smaller departments, L&I, PIDC and PCDC, they've always, if you look at their numbers for Year 31 and previous years, their numbers have always been relatively small relative to OH, PH and RDA. That's because those departments also get significant General Fund dollars. For the most part, our admin dollars come from Home, CDBG and HOPWA. For the most part, their admin dollars come from the General Fund.
So this takes us back where we started from, which is that we don't know -- this is 42 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 part of the Community Development Block Grant application, obviously, for which that will come through the Finance Department or could come through this Committee, either one, and we're still back where we started, which is reorganization that we know nothing about and are being asked to vote for something for which we have no real information. (Applause.)
We have a follow-up question by Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown.
Mr. Hanna, the preparation of this document, was that before or after knowing what the federal government was about to do?
The preparation of the proposed document. Was that before or after the hard number I've seen in here that we expect to lose from the feds? 43 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871
Yeah. The proposed and the preliminary plan were -- MS. McCOLLOCH: After.
We got the number from HUD and then we delved into putting together the preliminary plan and the proposed plan.
At what point do you think the number from HUD will be real, 7.8 million in anticipated budget cuts?
It is real, okay. To Ms. McCulloch, were you here during the Brophy era? MS. McCOLLOCH: Yes.
In what capacity did you serve during that era of the proposed housing reorganization? MS. McCOLLOCH: I was the Contract Administrator at OHCD.
Were you interviewed during that period for that 44 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 document? MS. McCOLLOCH: No, I was not.
And for the proposal from the Public Financial Management, were you interviewed for that? MS. McCOLLOCH: Yes.
You were not interviewed during the Brophy era for that report? MS. McCOLLOCH: No. 13
As a person then not interviewed but certainly a part of the housing unit, what lessons did you observe could have been learned during the Brophy era? What one, two or three lessons should have been learned from that, given where we are now? MS. McCOLLOCH: I'm sorry. I don't exactly understand.
In terms of process. MS. McCOLLOCH: Oh, in terms of the process? 45 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871
Yes. MS. McCOLLOCH: Well, the process that was used for this proposed plan was more open and more involving and more inclusive than that used for the Brophy. The Brophy report, there was never a report issued. There were a series of interviews, and a report was never issued under that. But for this, the process teams were held, the consultants met with a wide range of people, took a variety of suggestions and other ideas, not necessarily directly related to housing reorganization but just how to improve our service delivery systems, and those were the process teams that many people participated in. So there was actually a wider range of activities for this proposed housing reorganization.
I missed the beginning of that question, 46 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 but certainly we have a copy of that reorganization task force that Paul C. Brophy was Vice-Chair of -- or a member of it. He was Vice-Chair of the Enterprise Foundation, but members certainly include people which we work with, like John Gallery, Ernie Jones of GPUAC, John Gallery of Urban Partners, and even our own Chief of Staff, Joyce Wilkerson. And so they were all involved in all of this with regard to the reorganization, or rehabilitation then they called them, rehabilitating the City of Philadelphia's housing operations. That was August 1992. I have that copy here as well.
So when you say it was not released, that means what? Because Councilwoman Blackwell has a copy. It wasn't released to whom? MS. McCOLLOCH: It was never released by the Administration. I believe it's labeled a draft. A report was never officially -- 47 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871
Formally released to the leadership at OHCD, PHDC at the time that the documentation was completed? MS. McCOLLOCH: Correct.
We're really concerned that going back to 1992, it is apparent that there have been many meetings, many levels of housing reorganization, when the people most affected have been left out, and that's part of our problem. And we understand now, Mr. Hanna, that when you were hired, you were hired for this time. When they made you Secretary of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, you were interviewed and hired for this day to create an Office of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, and we were left out of that as well. Certainly I sat in one of your interviews, a luncheon meeting with you and another individual or two who the 48 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 City was interviewing for this position, but little did I know that the whole issue of creating this post was certainly to reorganize all of housing and to lay people off and to try to do it in an unfair way. I had no idea that was the process, that was the intent. And we really feel that we've been duped and disrespected. (Applause.)
Again, we do have some issues. We have many issues with regard to the consolidated plan, housing reorganization and our voting for a process we know nothing about. Let me say that our time is running short. The City, according to the PICA Board, we've got to get past a lot of issues, and we are concerned -- we're responsible legislators. We're responsible elected officials, but certainly we want to make sure that you are as well. Let me ask another question. 49 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 How is Vacant Property Review Committee affected in this reorganization plan?
The Vacant Property Review Committee is a committee that was created via City Council. In our discussions with City Council people individually, to include yourself, Madam Councilwoman, and a couple members of your staff, we proposed the creation of a land bank. The land bank would have land put into it that is now at Public Property and at PHDC. The land now in RDA's inventory would remain in the RDA inventory. So just PHDC and Public Property properties would be conveyed over to the land bank. Our proposal is to use many of the staff that is now the staff of the VPRC, Vacant Property Review Committee, to use many of the staff that are there as the staff of the land bank. The land bank itself will not have any employees. Real estate operations, which is one of the boxes under the Office of 50 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, real estate operations currently exist in one form or another at RDA and at PHDC. It's one of those entities or one of those departments that you've talked about being redundant, existing in more than one organization. The employees of real estate operations will be brought into and become the employees of real estate operations of OHNP. That group will serve as the staff for the land bank. We have proposed to work with City Council to determine a new and to create a new way of disposing of properties that are now going through the Vacant Property Review Committee.
The Administration, the Mayor himself, committed -- Council created Vacant Property Review Committee. It was a Council-created entity back in 1976. Therefore, how can you now say that you're going to reorganize it and talk 51 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 about a land bank and how it's used and expect us to just vote for everything and we still not know that?
No. In our presentation to you a couple of months ago, what we proposed was that we sit down with City Council people individually and collectively and collectively come up with a way, because --
That is not true, Mr. Hanna. Not true. You promised that nothing would happen to the Vacant Property Review Committee, that it was a Council-created committee. (Applause.)
I remember the specific question at the last hearing in April. Your question was, Mr. Hanna, will the Vacant Property Review Committee be dismantled, or something along those lines? My response to that question was no, that we, the Administration, we, the Office of Housing, didn't create the 52 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Vacant Property Review Committee. Council created the Vacant Property Review Committee. What we are proposing is not the elimination of VPRC. What we are proposing is a different way of disposing of property, not the complete dismantling or the disintegration of VPRC. We don't have that power. The Mayor doesn't have that power. That's an entity, that's an animal created by City Council.
Well, I think that you will help me to convince my colleagues that this is bad, because now you're even going to disband a committee we created. (Applause.)
So I think you finally give me part of what I need to convince my colleagues that this is bad. You won't even leave ours alone, less said yours. And you promised, the Mayor promised, all of you promised that 53 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 VPRC would be left intact. Now you say you want to talk to us about what we do, but yet we should just vote everything out and we should all go happily on, and then you and I and everybody here knows those talks never really happen. (Applause.)
I want to ask you again about these charts, Functional Option A, Functional Option B and Functional Option C. How do they compare to this one, this reorganization book? Because you got two reorganization books here, and I want to know which one of these three compares to this chart.
The one that we finally decided upon was closest to what you're looking at Functional Options A and B. It's not exactly A and it's not exactly B, but it's closest to those two. Those are the recommendations, the options, that were recommended by our consultants. We took a look at those recommendations and decided that none of 54 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 them really fit what we thought we needed and so we took elements of the first two and came up with what turned out to be the fourth and the one that was actually being proposed to you all today.
How do you think the land banking under whatever this new system is, how is that better than what we have now? What is wrong with PHDC dealing with the houses they deal with and RDA with their condemnation powers being able to do what they do? Why is your way any better?
First of all, let's set aside RDA. The RDA process won't be touched. The RDA process will remain what it was yesterday, five years ago. That's not on the table. Right now because Public Property owns property and because PHDC owns property, there are a number of different ways that properties can be disposed of, and for developers, this is confusing. They don't know necessarily -- for a given development, 55 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 it may be necessary to convey to a developer property that's right now owned by Public Property, that's owned by PHDC within the same block. As things stand right now, a developer would have to go through the Public Property process for conveying property, as well as the PHDC process for conveying property. As you know, time is money with developers. For every hour that they spend trying to get property conveyed from these two different, at least two different --
Let me just finish the thought, please. What we're talking about with the land bank is consolidating those processes into one or two, at the most, so that a developer does not have to go through several different processes at several different -- two different organizations in order to have land conveyed. What we're talking about is 56 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 simplifying that for developers.
But administratively we do that now. Does not VPRC work with RDA? All of the entities work together already. So that's not a big problem for us. It may be for you administratively, but you haven't shown me how your way improves it. Why can't you work it out administratively and still have the agencies do what we do? Why can't Public Property go to Tony McIntosh and say, Here's a property, or Tony McIntosh, as he does now, work with RDA? Why can't we get it done? When it comes to us, it could come from any entity when we introduce legislation. We don't care whether it comes from Public Property, PHDC, RDA. We don't care where it comes from when we convey. So why is this a better process? How does it streamline things and how does it improve what we do? 57 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871
Because, again, for each of those organizations, there exists at least one different way of conveying properties. At Public Property there are a couple of different ways for conveying property depending on what the property is and where it's located. What we're talking about is simplifying that, and if you can simplify something from two, three, four different ways of doing something to one or two, that's got to be better. Now, in terms of RDA and the other entities working together, you're right, they do work together, but what we're proposing is, in our view, a better, more simplified way, a more time-efficient way of getting the same thing done.
If 58 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 you're doing this, you must know how you intend to do it. Have somebody describe the process for us.
My name is Catherine Califano. I'm Deputy Secretary of the Office of Housing. Currently, as Kevin has noted, there's multiple processes that community developers or citizens go through to acquire land from the City of Philadelphia. Right now the VPRC process starts when a request is made, for example, for a side yard. If someone wants to acquire the vacant lot behind their property and it is owned by Public Property, VPRC starts the process by asking Public Property to request from other City departments whether the property is surplus or not. So there's a whole process internally of determining whether land is surplus or not. Once that process is completed, then the negotiations start between VPRC staff and the individual on determining 59 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 the value of the property, the reuse plan and so forth. What this process proposes is that we look at the inventory of publicly owned land. We have about 11,000 parcels of land in the City of Philadelphia. Sit down with Councilmembers with real data on characteristics about the property, the square footage, the condition, the real estate value, and then, with Councilmembers, determine what is an appropriate reuse for that property and tag that property so that land that may be surplus and appropriate for side yards are already identified as side yards, so when an individual comes and requests that property from the City, we can quickly expedite and dispose of that property to the individual.
If one really thought that was going to happen, the whole world would be different, and we both know that's not going to happen. We all know in this room -- 60 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 (Applause.)
We know that we'll never have a process where you come to me about every vacant property in the Third District or every side yard. We also know that just recently everything was on hold because the City wanted to sell everything at market value. (Applause.)
You cannot ask me that. I had to fight to get side yards released because you all wanted to privately real estate market. We need money. The City always needs money, and you wanted to sell everything, and we had to go back and fight for people who were in line to get side yards so that it would be released that they could get them. (Applause.)
So we know that you are not going to come to us about whatever my part of the 11,000 61 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 properties are in my area. We know that you're not going to come and say, Listen, here's a side yard and Ms. Jones next door wants to continue to use it for her garden. We already know that's not going to happen. (Applause.)
In fact, you insult our intelligence by saying you're going to be that far along. In terms of what people plan for side yards, some people want to gardens, we have some properties that are part of a development project, we have some in my area -- I market mine. I'll call in private developers and ask them to develop mine. So you mean in terms of every property in the City, how are you going to coordinate that? Which one is proposed for a neighbor, which one is part of a PHA development plan, which one is part of a private development plan, which one I need to market for other 62 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 private developers to come? How do you intend to reconcile those issues with these 11,000 vacant properties?
With our new Virtual Property Information System, we will be able to record all of those commitments that have already been made towards projects. So that right now, that information is not accessible to staff across the City agencies on plans for specific development projects, and we have found that over the last couple of years and prior, that multiple requests have been pending for a specific property of land. What we believe this process can do is help to ensure that if land is reserved for the Philadelphia Housing Authority or for PEC, that that is noted and clear so that that land doesn't -- so that additional requests are not accepted by the City for a redevelopment proposal of that land.
As it is now, I may call, let's say, Herb 63 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Wetzel and I may say, I have a church who wants to do a development here and I have a private entity who wants to develop the same land. I get double and triple requests all the time, because this is my issue. I work hard at this, because I believe in our City and development opportunities. And so you're going to say you can stop that process? In other words, I'm the elected official. I love my area. I market mine. I'm involved with my churches. I'm involved with everybody. And I don't want anybody making those decisions for me. So in your system, when you say you come to us, I don't need anybody making my decisions. I just need the City to kind of get out of the way and support us in our plan. (Applause.)
The City is not making any decisions. We can't make any decisions. What we can just do is record 64 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 the opinions, positions of Councilmembers so that all parties, including Councilmembers, can see on maps from their computer screen and all staff in the three agencies can see that this parcel is committed for this entity and that private entities on the outside --
I don't want the City to commit anything for me. I don't even believe -- I mean, you all, for example, give out planning dollars to groups who may be at adverse purposes to that community. I don't like any City department making decisions for me, because I'm elected to represent my people and that's okay with me. (Applause.)
Councilwoman, we're not talking about making decisions for you. Obviously you're the elected official. We're appointed. You're going to be here for the next four years -- well, after the election, the four years after that. 65 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 AUDIENCE: Longer.
Who knows how long -- we're not talking about usurping your authority in that respect. What we are talking about is providing you with realtime information so that you can make better informed information. The purpose of the Vacant Property Management Information System, VPMIS, is just to provide you information and to inform the world of what decisions you have made, if a decision has been made, about whether a property is going to be reserved by you for PHA. Right now we don't have any way, aside from word of mouth, of communicating, conveying that information to whoever might want to know. And if whoever might want to know just doesn't happen to talk to the right person, they won't know. With VPMIS, we'll be able to provide the world, or whoever you deem appropriate, with the appropriate information about the decisions that 66 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 you've made based on the information. We're not talking about --
And that happens for me most of the time. Sometimes you all deal or they give pre-planning dollars and all to other people, but for the most part, the agencies with whom I deal, the heads of these agencies, whether it be John Coates, VPRC; Herb Wetzel, RDA; Tony McIntosh, PHDC; or Deb McColloch, OHCD, we can call them and we can deal with them and we can get the stuff done that we need in our neighborhood. So I don't understand -- I don't know what your reorganization will do and how my interests will be protected not only in terms of the workers who are employed but in terms of the projects that we're dealing with.
Again, in respect to VPMIS -- and you're right, the Third District may be an exception, but there have been examples all over the City 67 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 where, for whatever reason, a particular parcel of land has been doubly or triply committed by various people who had the authority to commit them based on the fact that they didn't have relevant information. What we're talking about relative to VPMIS and as it relates to land bank is providing folks information so that those kinds of things don't happen again. People have made -- CDCs and private developers have spent dollars based upon commitments that were made to them for a given parcel of land, a parcel of land which, as I said, has been already committed to somebody else. Among other things, what this reorganization does is help to avoid those kinds of situations happening going forward in the future. And, again, that's going to be done primarily through VPMIS.
Well, again, for some districts, it may happen. 68 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 For mine, we make our hard decisions. I will call people in from across the board and say, John Smith came before you did, I'm sorry, first come, first-served, and develop a process within my district, or say you don't have the dollars to commit to a project or any dollars or you don't have the community commitment. So I don't mind in my district making the hard decisions. I'm elected to do that. But what I am wary of is a whole new process where I don't know what's going on, nor what can we expect. What are your plans for like Home Start Program for dollars that still exist and the land banking properties that are already in PHDC? Why can't they continue to do that?
Home Start will be merged with HRP. The two are very similar in the sense that they seek to rehab existing units as opposed to construct brand new. But they both seek to rehab existing units. So HRP and Home 69 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Start will be merged. Through this merger, we expect to get even more units rehabbed and made available for affordable housing.
How do you plan to change the current operations of RDA and those under this new OHNP model? How will they change?
That's a question that's going to be better asked of RDA. What we've submitted to RDA is our proposal for how much money for the money that we're going to provide to them for operations. RDA has the capacity to generate more funds on its own through the issuance of bonds, through the provision of other services that are granted to them under the state Public Authorities Act.
So you're saying the functions of RDA will not change?
No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, what 70 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 will remain in RDA are primarily three functions: Financing capital, the Urban Renewal Act function, complete with Act 94, and the acquisition functions and their general counsel functions.
For the most part, everything else. There will be elements that will be left over at RDA and at PHDC.
There will be elements that will be left over at RDA and at PHDC. For instance, we've determined that at PHDC it will be necessary to leave at least one, maybe as many as two people in their Human Resources Department for all kinds of very good reasons that we were convinced of by PHDC. In a couple of conversations with Mr. Wetzel, I've been convinced that 71 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 that probably makes sense for RDA as well. The same might hold true for RDA's Fiscal Department. We propose to move most of, if not all of, RDA's Fiscal Department out of RDA and put it under OHNP and provide those fiscal services from OHNP. Again, based on a conversation or two with Mr. Wetzel, I'm becoming convinced that it probably would not be prudent to take all of those folks out of Fiscal at RDA and move them over to OHNP and it might make more sense to leave a couple people at RDA for that purpose.
Well, I will tell you, if you're talking, what was it, 245,000 into retraining people, people already know what they need to do. It's 275,000. That doesn't make sense to me when we have people who work with the City for many, many years, know how these things work. Those who have opted to move have worked out wherever they have opted to, but those who are there, I 72 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 still don't understand. I'm still not convinced as to what works well, and we don't agree with this reorganization and we're going to have a real -- and I will tell you, you're going to have a real problem with my colleagues in trying to deal with Vacant Property Review Committee. That's up. (Applause.)
And I've been wondering what could convince my colleagues this is a bad idea, and you want to reorganize a program we created out of this Council and you've finally given me a handle on what I can use to convince people that this is bad. (Applause.)
And I will tell you, Mr. Hanna, what it will create for us is the opportunity to introduce other legislation ourselves to try to certainly protect some of the programs and certainly to deal with this whole issue. 73 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Again, we know that the Administration hires. You all spend the money. But we know it's our job to deal with the legislation, and we're still concerned about this whole issue of this being a union City and the whole question of union busting. I've been checking into that definition. (Applause.)
And I've been told that union busting is when you transfer people around and lower their salaries and their benefits. That's what union busting is. It's not just cutting back. Nobody can say the City can't improve its operations, but when you move people around and you lower their salaries and benefits, that's union busting. And we've been checking into this whole issue since we started having these hearings, and that's a big, big problem for our City and a big, big problem for we who are elected to serve 74 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 people and all the people who work in various agencies and people who live here. We have a residency requirement. So you can't ask people to live in our City, to work for our agencies and expect us to support anything that can be perceived as union busting. So that's a big, big issue for us. (Applause.)
I waited a very, very long time to get these documents. I'm really not surprised that after receiving this fall '05 report, this document from that long PowerPoint that was much too long and that didn't do the job for us, didn't make it clear getting this reorganization, and even our proposed consolidated plan with changes in it that we haven't supported, as well as finally getting a copy of this old Brophy report from 1992, I'm not surprised that out of all of these things -- and we've tried our best to go through these things. We 75 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 try to do our homework as Chair of this Committee. We try to represent our colleagues, as we should, and represent the City residents, as we should, and we are very displeased with this whole issue of housing reorganization. We appealed to you. We appealed to the Administration overall. We're saying that we're asking you to reconsider this. We don't understand why you want to go it in the final year of this Administration. That makes absolutely no sense to us. And we will, again, do use whatever means at our disposal to let you know that it's not good, it's no good, it's not fair to the workers, it's not fair to the residents of our City and we who have programs to improve our neighborhoods. We totally disagree. And nothing you have said in all these hearings from November 15th, December 8th, February 9th, March 16th, April 18th and today, May the 2nd, you still have not convinced us that this improves the quality of life 76 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 or it improves service delivery to the citizens of our City. (Standing ovation.)
We don't understand why you could not have had meetings with all of these agency heads who have been around here many, many years to work out improving the whole overlap, to improve service delivery, to get rid of any overlaps. We've done it before. We don't understand why we have a whole new program being created and why we couldn't work it out administratively any changes and improvements we need, as we always have. We don't understand that. So let me say that we're in here for the long haul, thank God. You people elect us. We're here. We're going to continue to disagree, and certainly we want you to know that we're going to continue to fight, and you've given us a handle with Vacant Property Review Committee. You'd better leave it 77 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 alone. (Applause.)
Would anyone else like to testify who is here? Veronica Pankey, please come forward. (Applause.)
Good afternoon. Thank you for your patience. (Applause.)
Please identify yourself for our record and thank you again for being here.
Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell. My name is Veronica Pankey, President of AFSCME Local 1971. This is Joseph Wills. He's Vice-President of AFSCME Local 1971. Much has been said here today regarding this proposed housing reorganization, and you are very clear on your position with this proposal and we have made our position clear, and we are very disappointed with the information 78 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 that has been provided to us on April 24th. We still have various questions that have gone unanswered that was presented to Mr. Hanna and the Administration on March 22nd regarding the transformation process from PHDC and the Redevelopment Authority over to OHNP. There were some questions that were presented to them regarding the personnel transactions and the finance transactions for the remnants that was going to be left behind back at PHDC and RDA, and at that time, it was stated by Mr. Hanna that he realizes that and he was going to take a look at that. When we were provided this plan on the 24th of April, we asked for answers to those questions, and we were told that their homework had not been completed and they did not want to give us the answers in the event that they may change. However, we have heard here today that it appears that they are going to leave some aspects of personnel or 79 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 human resources and finance at at least at the Redevelopment Authority and I'm assuming back at PHDC as well, but the union is still waiting for their response to those questions that were proposed over a month ago. We looked at the information that was given to us. We had very limited discussion with the Administration on the 24th of April, because we were very dissatisfied and disgruntled with the information that was provided to us. We looked at the budget information that was provided as you see, and PHDC went from a $10.598 million budget last year to a proposed 5.4 million, to a proposed $5.27 million. That's a cut of half their budget by $5.17 million. We looked at the Redevelopment Authority's budget, who was at 12.873 last year, and they're proposing giving them 6.078, a cut of 6.795. We looked at OHCD's budget, who 80 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 had operated at 5.492 last year, and they're proposing 12.540. We were told that the staffing left at OHNP would be somewhere between 140 and 155. We now hear today that it's somewhere between 140 and 150. So that number is changing. While it's still in the range that was provided, that number is changing. We asked and have not been provided detailed information, but we did ask what was the level of staffing going to be as it pertained to bargaining unit individuals. We were told that they did not know. It was also told to us that they wanted to sit down and meet with the individual employees to determine what impact this would have on them. It's clear. It's very clear. First of all, let me make it clear here as I made it clear to Mr. Hanna. This Administration will not sit down with any individual. They will sit down with the union leadership and talk about the impact that 81 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 this has, not the individuals. We are the exclusive representative of this body and we will sit down with the Administration and talk about this impact. (Applause.)
It has already proven to be detrimental to us sitting down with them and being part of any committee that they form by joining the committees that were formed back in February 2005 and they stole our information, and now what they are planning to do is to revise our job specs and decrease our salaries. Now, they won't openly state that, but if you look through their documents, they talk about revision of job specs and also about red-lining individuals. Let me remind this Committee, as well as the Administration, each one of our contracts has language in it pertaining to revision of job specs and it clearly does not state that we will meet and discuss 82 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 anything. It states that we will meet, discuss and agree. And if we cannot agree, there is a third party that we will go to, and that is the Civil Service Commission. However, if you look at proposed language in our expired contract -- mind you, a contract that expired June 30, 2004, that we are still trying to negotiate and get, at the very minimum, a cost of living increase that we haven't gotten that they've dealt themself. They've gotten a signing bonus and they've dealt themself the cost of living increase back in July of 2005 and again their percentage in July 2006. We're still trying to get some cost of living increase, which they've clearly told us they're not doing anything retroactive. So let me just state that. And also in their budget that they're proposing, it's clear, it was clear in Deborah McCulloch's presentation back in February, beginning of March, that there is no increase in there for 83 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 bargaining unit people for however many of us that are going to be left behind. So they have no consideration for us at all, not even as individuals but for the work that we've done. We don't ask them to look at us as individuals, but look at the work that we do throughout the City. This City works because we work. (Applause.)
Again, you talked about this financial impact of housing reorganization report initiative that was given with this whole packet, and we had the same concerns as you presented. How do you arrive at figures when you don't have any numbers and you claim to not have any numbers to tie back into? So we don't want to call them or label them, the Administration, as a liar, but there's certainly some deception that's going on here. And we deserve to be told and dealt with accordingly. We have always been up front about what our position is, have always expressed a 84 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 desire to be a part of this process. We have been a part of any reorganization that has ever taken place in this City. I have documentations to show the last reorganization that took place with Brophy where the union made agreements. We made agreements against our own contract to make this process as smooth as possible. We had a list of 35-plus people, and the Redevelopment Authority stepped in, stepped in and picked up these individuals. (Applause.)
While it was clear at that time that their benefit package was going to change, some was for the better, some it was not, however, it was clear there was some changes that was going to take place as it affected the employees. As it pertained to seniority and other fringe benefits, seniority was not an issue. Seniority was kept in place. And, again, I have documentation to show that this was agreed upon by then 85 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 the agency heads of Mr. Cromer, Mr. Blue and Mr. Eisenstadt. They all signed off on documentation with Local 1971 leadership in agreement for this transition to be as smooth and have little adverse effect as possible on the membership of Local 1971. And the Redevelopment Authority, again, picked up the majority of these people. That proposed reorganization came into play when it was decided by the Administration that they wanted to take department functions and they picked those department functions up as a whole and, for the most part, placed them at the Redevelopment Authority. It wasn't a matter of resigning, bumping, going through this whole persona that's being drawn up that we have to come to some conclusion of how we're going to go about dealing with this, and it appears that they don't want to deal with seniority. When we talked about seniority on March 22nd, it was stated to us, Well, 86 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 what about merit? What about us hiring people based on merit? Well, we have current contract language, and merit plays a part when anyone who has an unsatisfactory performance evaluation goes first, and that's the extent that merit has, and that's the extent that we intend to deal with it. While we do understand that there are some people who have not been here for a number of years as others have been and who are very diligent in doing their work for whatever their reasons are, there are some of us who have been here 25, 30 years. And we understand that this Administration don't particularly care for those individuals who will have their own perception of those individuals and they project to want to be the individuals that they want to cut. The union stands on seniority and we will continue to stand on seniority. We have a number of questions 87 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 out there that we need answered by this Administration as it pertains to this transformation. We're looking to see how they want to deal with people who are in the DROP program, both at the Redevelopment Authority and at PHDC. We're looking to get some information back from these people, and I don't know when we're going to get it. I don't know if we'll ever get it. And so we're just, again, we're continuing to do what we have to do in terms of standing for what we know is right and not supporting information or not supporting this reorganization because of information that hasn't been provided to us, and we ask that you do the same.
We're going to ask Mr. Hanna to come back to respond to these issues of information and ask that we receive them before we have our next hearing. And let me note, Ms. Pankey, that the whole issue of merit 88 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 selection is one that creates unions and one they try to use to bust unions.
We're real clear on what merit selection means and what it has meant historically across the board.
Absolutely. One of the other concerns we have with this reorganization report, we too noted that it was administered allegedly to the City back in the fall of 2005, and in our presentations over the past months, we've asked for a certified copy. It is my belief that this is not a certified copy. Anything that is certified, there is a page with some type of signatory on there, and I don't find that in here at all. And I don't find any verbiage in here that states that this is a certified copy from Public Financial Management, although the Administration is saying that this is one. I'm looking for documentation from Public Financial 89 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Management stating that this is in fact their work. We paid them -- or the City contracted with them for $550,000, and the question is, what are we getting for the work that they were supposed to perform and the money that was paid to them? And if in fact this is what their work -- if this is the final results of their work, after a half a million dollars, you mean to tell me that you're not doing anything, you're not following any one of their functional charts that they've given us for a half a million dollars? You want to arrive at your own and then you don't give us any justification as to why you want to take remnants of Organizational Chart A and remnants of B as opposed of taking either A, B or C out of a half a million dollar contract. It doesn't make any sense to us, and we question whether this is an actual certified report. So that's where we stand at this particular time.
Thank 90 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 you. We're going to ask Mr. Hanna to come and respond to those issues. (Applause.)
Thank you very much. We have some serious opinions about this merit selection stuff. They use it in the court debate. They use it all over. And merit selection is always a catch phrase that leaves people out who have spent their lives working in any field. That's my opinion, and I'll stick by it. Mr. Hanna, you've heard many concerns. We'll ask, one, about the whole issue of this $550,000 document and about whether or not it is certified. If so, we would like a letter from Public Financial Management saying so. And also the whole question of why, after we paid all this money for this document, do we have another chart that we're asked to adopt and support.
Relative to the 91 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 certification of that document, I'd have no problem with asking PFM to provide a letter of some sort certifying that that is one of the fruits of their labor. That's not the only thing that PFM and that team --
If there are other fruits of their labor, we'd like that statement, too.
That's not the only work that they've done for us. There is work that's projected to be done by them under the current contract. Relative to a couple of the other issues that Ms. Pankey brought up just a second ago, issues having to do with transition, will people be able to bring over their seniority with them, their leave time and all the other stuff that people have at PHDC or RDA, those are going to be the topics of discussion with the Mayor tomorrow. Those will be 92 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 the topics of discussion once we meet with the union leadership after that meeting with the Mayor. We have some ideas. I have some ideas as to what that transition and what those transitional policies ought to look like, but the guy that hired me is the Mayor. I'm not going to sit down and talk -- I can't sit down and talk to them until I've gotten his sign-off on those ideas. And, like I said, once that happens, we'll get in contact with Ms. Pankey and her leadership group and we'll present those proposals to them.
We'll look for that letter with regard to this report, but given public information disclosure, we would like to know whatever Public Financial Management is working on for us in this housing field. We want a statement about that as well.
And 93 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 certainly we want to know why, if we have engaged them to do this, why another document has come forward with another map. Given there are three choices, then why do we have a whole other document and a whole other organizational entity that's formed out of this if we paid a half a million dollars for this full document? I agree with that question. Could you respond to that?
Councilwoman, again, these are paid consultants. They come in and they're paid to take a look at things the way they are and they're paid to make recommendations as to how they think things ought to be. They're consultants. They're not employees. They're not here every day. They don't deal with all of the folks with whom we deal, Councilmembers, union folk, CDCs. Their experience has been on a survey kind of a basis. It is the Administration's opinion that while their recommendations 94 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 had merit, they didn't go far enough or they didn't achieve what we wanted to try to achieve from the Mayor's vision standpoint, that vision of providing more efficient housing services to the City of Philadelphia. They're paid consultants. It's not unusual for consultants to make recommendations to the folks who hire them and not have those recommendations followed to the letter, to the T. That's not unusual at all. That's not what we've done. We've followed, for the most part, a good many of their recommendations. Certain of their recommendations, if you look through that final plan, certain of their recommendations relative to how some savings could be achieved we took a look at, talked to RDA, talked to PHDC, and we found that we couldn't do them because they were illegal, they were against the Charter, they violated some rule or some policy. They couldn't have known that, because they're consultants. After we 95 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 had done some research, talked to our Law Department, we determined that some of those things that they recommended couldn't be implemented. And so I say all of that to say this, that it's not unusual at all for a private firm or a public entity to hire consultants and then not take and use every single one of their recommendations.
All right. So we've learned out of these hearings today that this is the document that you seem to be reorganized by. This is a document that your department and whomever else, the Chief of Staff, have come up with and that you support for reorganization. Where in here is Vacant Property Review Committee and your plans for that?
I don't know that Vacant Property Review specifically is mentioned in there, but, again, we've had discussions with -- if you take a look 96 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 at -- not at that plan but at the PowerPoint proposal or the PowerPoint presentation that was made to all City Council people, that presentation was the same. That's a different -- that has actually --
Mr. Hanna, we hear PowerPoints for at least 30 minutes, and they went over and over and over. I mean --
So I don't even remember half of that. They went through one after another. I didn't even pay attention. I took phone calls and did other things.
But certainly I don't see VPRC in it and I still want to know if that was left out, what else is left out, and how do you expect us to support even after your commitment, the Mayor's commitment, for 97 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 not reorganizing, how are we supposed to consider -- if you want us to consider everything in the PowerPoint, if you're saying that's your Bible, then you got to give us a written document with everything in the PowerPoint in it if we're expected to support something. I'm sure this does not have everything that was in that PowerPoint in it; am I correct?
So how are we supposed to support something that we can't review?
Between that PowerPoint and the Consolidated Plan, we offer our proposed reorganization plan.
There are certain details, Councilwoman, there are certain details that still need to be worked out. Ms. Pankey talked very articulately about the fact that we need to meet and agree 98 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 upon any changes in job specs.
So then how are we supposed to consider this stuff?
Let me finish my thought. My point was that the meet and agree is not in that document either. Relative to VPRC, in the PowerPoint that was given to City Council people back in February, we talked about VPRC and its role in conveying properties out of Public Property and out of PHDC to CDCs --
So I'm supposed to memorize the February PowerPoint?
No. I'm not saying you need to memorize it. We'll be more than happy to go back over that with you, but what I am saying is that it would be a misrepresentation to say that we've never talked to you or your colleagues about that subject, because in fact we have.
-- from February to now, do you know how many -- I mean, even reviewing all of these documents, come on now, let's be fair.
I'm sure you've been inundated with information. Not just having to do with housing, but all of the other issues that go on with a city of one and a half million people. I 100 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 don't doubt that a lot of information is passed over your desk, and what I am offering to do is, again, to sit down with you and your colleagues to talk to you about what we're proposing for VPRC and the conveyance of properties.
Mr. Hanna, what we want is for you to respond to the information the union has requested, the information that we've requested even regarding pension benefits between all the departments and all other benefits. We've written you a letter in the past. We want that. We'll take it further. If we don't get it from you, we'll go further in our City to request it. And we're also asking that -- I don't want personally and privately another briefing on that role. I want you to produce documents so that we can make them available to this Committee, to the Finance Committee and to my colleagues with regard to that. 101 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 We tried to review these documents you've given us. We tried to review it so that we could be ready for this hearing. And so I knew if I had received that -- we've tried to be prepared, and so we were pretty sure that that wasn't in it. I would remember it, because I try to do my homework. We're serious about serving these people who work here and serving our residents who elect us to do development.
And it is very unfair and disingenuous for you to tell us that you're changing things and we're just supposed to go along. We can't do that, Mr. Hanna. It's unfair for anybody in this Administration to assume that we have all these documents, all of these new documents to review -- and we've tried to do that. We've tried to be ready for this hearing today, and you still say information is considered that's not herein defined. That's not 102 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 fair, Mr. Hanna. That's not fair and that's dishonest to do that. What we're asking is that before we meet again -- we're going to ask my colleagues not to vote for this stuff now. This is the Administration's deadline as well. I have Councilwoman Juan Ramos here, who is on this Committee. We thank him for coming. (Applause.)
And we have a deadline. Tuesday, May 16th is the election. That Thursday we don't have Council. So you all have got these deadlines as well. We want the projects in our district supported, but we can't work in a vacuum with misinformation, with missing information and without a full disclosure of how people in the City who have to work in the City to work for these departments, how they're affected. You can't expect that, Mr. Hanna. We are again requesting that 103 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 you respond to those requests for the union. We're asking you to respond in a clear, concise manner the information we've asked you for with regard to who works where and how they're affected, how their pension and medical expenses are affected. And we're going to ask that this happen and that the union tell us that they have had these meetings before we meet again. And unless there is someone else who would like to testify or other concerns, we're recessing this hearing. Councilman Ramos.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Please excuse me for not being here earlier. I had a Gas Commission meeting and a subsequent meeting after that. So please accept my apologies. A different angle, but yet supportive of the Chairwoman of this Committee. I think that tomorrow is going to be a very, very crucial day for 104 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 you, Mr. Hanna, and our housing agencies in your meeting with the Mayor, and I sure hope and I pray that all of the things that have been expressed here by City employees, their representative union, that these are seriously discussed and that there is a way that we can on both sides give a little on each side so that we have a union who has represented their employees very well. Ms. Pankey to come into the leadership role during this time says a lot about her. (Applause.)
Mr. Hanna, for you to also withstand the scrutiny that you've been under, a couple sessions that I have not been able to be here I've been briefed or I've been talked to by the Chair of this Committee, and I know that you've been put under a tremendous amount of scrutiny as well, and you've held up. At the end of the day, we're all going to have to work together. So both sides are going to have to give in. 105 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 Something needs to happen at this meeting tomorrow to get us over this impasse, because at the end of the day, we'll be voting on that budget, and this is within the context of the budget. The last thing we want to do -- and I don't intend to speak for all my colleagues, but I know that we don't want to be here all summer long because we can't approve a budget because you can't reach an agreement with our housing departments and their representatives, the union in this case of the employees in those respective divisions of our housing component of government. So I sure hope that this meeting tomorrow starts to break an impasse, and I will suggest that you meet with the representatives of you, the employees, through Local 1971, subsequently to your meeting tomorrow so we can have good news, so that this next meeting will be a meeting announcing that we have reached an agreement here where 106 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 we will look out for the workers that have worked so hard, that this consolidation does not leave our people out of work and that we do make the -- because there are certain realities here. The federal government does not want to fund our cities, and that's a reality we have to deal with. It's happening across the board all over this country. It's unfortunate that we can put in billions and billions of dollars to fight a war that we don't know where is going, yet we can't find money for housing in this country. There's something wrong with that. But those are the realities nevertheless. Those are the realities. So I would just want to reemphasize how important I think this meeting is tomorrow, and I sure hope something happens, because if not, this will be a contentious point for us on whether we're going to approve a budget or not. Thank you, Madam Chair. 107 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871
Certainly the late Lucien Blackwell used to say, Leaders have to lead, and he used to say, If I have the opportunity to lead just one day, I'm going to do that. And I always say we have a moral commitment. We believe in God. We believe in trying to do the right thing. Anybody can be -- and my saying, I've added to that, is, I'm not afraid to fail. I'm only afraid not to stand up for what's right. We're going to continue to do that. (Applause.)
Having said that, now that we've had hearings on November 5th, December 8th, February 9th, March 16th, April 18th and now May the 2nd, we've had five hearings, we will have our sixth hearing and we'll hope for all those good things that my colleague 108 5/2/06 - HOUSING - RES. 050871 referred to, but our next hearing will be on 5/22, May the 22nd, at 10:00 a.m., same place, same time, and we will hope that at that time, the unions can tell us they've received a written response to their issues, we will say that we've received a written response to ours and that we can move forward on one accord so that we can pass this budget and we can do the best we can to fight this negative Administration that seeks to destroy all the issues that we fought for. Thank you very much. This hearing is recessed then until that date and time. Thank you all for being here. (Applause.) (Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless adjourned at 12:30 p.m.) - - - 109 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on May 2, 2006, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)