COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, May 4, 2026 10:25 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 NICOLAS O'ROURKE 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 - - -
Members, please take your seats. Good morning, everyone. (Good morning.)
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.
Present. Thank you, Ms. Loughead. A quorum of the committee is present and this hearing is now called to order. Ms. Loughead, could you please read the titles of the bills and resolution.
Bill No. 16 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 8 Philadelphia Code, entitled 9 "Finances, Taxes and Collections," 10 to add a new Chapter 19-4800, 11 entitled "Retail Delivery Tax," to 12 establish a tax on orders for the 13 delivery in Philadelphia of retail 14 consumer and other tangible goods, 15 all under certain terms and 16 conditions. 17 Resolution No. 260227, 18 Providing for the approval by the 19 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 very much, 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 City's Department of Public Health and the Department of Behavioral Health Intellectual Disability Services. This afternoon we have testimony from the District Attorney's Office. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first panel to testify from the Administration.
The first panel to testify from the Administration is Dr. Palak Raval- Nelson, Health Commissioner. Also present Ashley Clark-Jackson, Chief Financial Officer; Sara Enes Thorpe, Chief of Staff; James Garrow, Deputy Commissioner; and Dawn Kiesewetter, Deputy Commissioner. We'll also ask that Kenny Solanke, Commissioner for DBHIDS come to the podium. And also present with her is Amanda David, Deputy Commissioner of Behavioral Health Division.
Good morning. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Good morning.
I just want to start off by thanking Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson for your work around the air-monitoring initiative that we kicked off in Grays Ferry, South Philadelphia and also just your work just in general as it relates to moving the City of Philadelphia forward and making sure we have a more healthier city, as well as Commissioner Kenny Solanke. Thank you as well for most importantly the passion that you have brought to this position as we address the issues around behavioral health here in the city of Philadelphia as well. And so with that being said, please state your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
Good morning. My name is Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson and I'm the Health Commissioner. Good morning, President Johnson and members of City Council. Joining me today are Deputy Health Commissioner Sara Enes Thorpe; Deputy Commissioner Ashley Clark-Jackson; Deputy Commissioner James Garrow, Deputy Commissioner Dawn Kiesewetter and all of our division directors. I'm pleased to join you today to provide testimony on the Philadelphia Department of Public Health's Fiscal Year 2027 operational budget. The proposed FY27 budget was developed with the goal of supporting our ongoing mission. You have my full written testimony so I will summarize. The proposed Fiscal Year 2027 General Fund budget totals, $158,498,176, which is a decrease of $6,816,066 over Fiscal Year 2026, estimated obligation levels. This decrease is due primarily to $9,981,127 in Class 800 funding to pay for capital to support our two new health centers. The Health Department is requesting 1084 budgeted positions across all funds for FY27, which is a decrease in eight positions from FY26 due to grant funds ending. Those are grants that are sunsetting, and that was planned. As a reminder, the mission of the Health Department is to protect and promote the health of all Philadelphians and to provide a safety net for our most vulnerable. We want Philadelphians to thrive, not just survive. Since I've started in this position, the values we strive to achieve are simple, integrity, commitment and accountability. I often say that public health touches everyone's life every day. The work of the Health Department demonstrates that our staff provide primary care services to Philadelphians, promote vaccination for children and adults, help prevent the spread of HIV, investigate outbreaks and disease, inspect restaurants, inspect and treat for and teach residents how to prevent rats and other vectors, work to prevent lead poisoning in our children, combat air pollution and create better air quality, reduce infant and maternal mortality, promote the health of young children and prevent heart disease and cancer by promoting healthy eating, physical activity and smoking cessation, among the many, many other things that we do. I'd like to take just a couple of minutes to talk about some of the department's key highlights from last year. Looking ahead, many of our divisions, including Disease Control, Air Management Services and Environmental Health Services as well as our Public Health Lab, have been preparing for the many special events that are going to be ongoing as we celebrate America's 250th birthday. These divisions ensure protective and preventive disease conditions so that everyone that comes here and all of us can join the festivities and be safe. As a part of this planning, our Division of Disease Control has also led public health planning for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup and now 2026 FIFA World Cup, developing response plans for both events and conducting a series of planning workshops and exercises with partners that focus on responding to health emergencies during the events, should they happen. Earlier this year, Air Management Services Division installed 76 Breathe Philly sensors in every neighborhood of the city. 5 and nitrogen oxide in realtime. There is an example of the monitors in action here -- the map is over there at the front there -- showing a picture of the monitor as well as where all of the 76 monitors are located. Please note, we are the first big city in America to create a network like this, one that empowers residents to know exactly what is in their air and what they're breathing right now. We are already working to expand this network, both in terms of number of sensors and pollutants measured. So stay tuned for that. I'm proud to acknowledge that last May, all eight of our health centers operated by our Ambulatory Health Services Division were recertified as patient- centered medical homes with the distinction of behavioral integration.
Last year the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office also interred all of the human remains of the victims from the 1985 MOVE bombing. Finally, we put them to rest with dignity in Laurel Hill Cemetery. )
And they are identified as such. So should the families ever want to come and claim any of the remains, they will be able to do so. Last winter our Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention helped lead the efforts by Mayor Parker's Administration to deal with the SNAP funding crisis. You'll remember that the city stood up an entire grant program in one week in order to distribute $2 million to 135 organizations to distribute healthy, high-quality, culturally appropriate and appealing free food to all Philadelphians that were experiencing food insecurity. Our Division of HIV Health provided in-kind Point-of-care rapid HIV testing to the Philadelphia Department of Prisons, enabling the facility to finally qualify in FY26 for 340B drug pricing, which is a federal program that allows for eligible providers to purchase medications at a significantly reduced rate. HIV Health also stood up five public health vending machines which provide free access to HIV self-kits, condoms, COVID-19 self- test kits, fentanyl and xylazine test strips, Naloxone, nicotine replacement therapy and wound care kits. There's a picture of what that vending machine looks like over there next to the Kensington Matter sign. You can see an example of those machines. They are located -- in 2025 our Environmental Health Services once again met our interval to achieve a 12.5-month inspection interval. We know that when we get to every food establishment, that the food in our city is safer. Additionally, our Lead and Healthy Homes program increased the number of lead certifications and we received two additional HUD grants to fund lead hazard remediation in our city. Our Division of Reproductive and Adolescent Health launched Philly Flow, which is an initiative to distribute free, high-quality period products across rec centers and free library branches, expanding citywide access and reducing barriers to menstrual equity for communities with the greatest need. (Applause.)
Our Public Health Lab established two five-year contracts to ensure that we have what we need to perform gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV and hepatitis testing with the School District of Philadelphia, and we are eagerly awaiting our brand new lab trailer that will be capable of testing dangerous pathogens as we approach the 2026 event season. The Division of Substance Use and Prevention and Harm Reduction or SUPHR responded to the introduction of metatomidine into Philadelphia's drug supply, by helping to develop and disseminate best practices for treating metatomidine withdrawal, distributing metatomidine test strips, providing updated overdose reversal training and conducted syndromic surveillance. SUPHR also supported the launch of Philly Phlush public restrooms that was installed in Clark Park in October of 2025. There's a picture of the actual flush contraption at the front of Council. If you haven't seen one, you can look at that picture. And there's also going to be a grand opening across the street. There are so many things that the Health Department staff have accomplished and I could go on forever, but I want to be cognizant of your time and allow for questions. So to close, thank you, Council President and esteemed members of Council, for your continued support of the Public Health Department and public health in the City of Philadelphia. And at this time, I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Good morning, President Johnson and members of City Council. I'm Kenny Solanke, and I have the privilege of serving as Commissioner for the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services, DBHIDS. Joining me today is Amanda David, Deputy Commissioner overseeing the Behavioral Health Division. I'm pleased to provide testimony on the DBHIDS Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget. You have my full testimony. I will summarize today. DBHIDS' envisions of Philadelphia: Where every individual can achieve health, well-being and self- determination. The mission of DBHIDS is to educate, strengthen and serve individuals and communities so that all Philadelphians can thrive, enjoy an improved quality of life and benefit from city services that residents can see, touch and feel. Thank you for the opportunity to present our FY27 priorities. Today's testimony will focus on three key areas: First, the continued transformation and performance of our crisis response system; second, the progress we've made around substance use treatment access and ongoing outreach in Kensington; and third, how we are strengthening system awareness, accountability and preparing for upcoming Medicaid changes. I will also outline the risks we're actively managing to ensure continued access to care for Philadelphia residents. Our crisis system: With Council support, DBHIDS has built a comprehensive crisis continuum that is producing measurable results. In 2025, calls to the Philadelphia Crisis Line increased 10% to over 79,000. And 90-day call volume increased 24% to 31,692 calls. 83% of our 90-day calls were resolved on the phone. 15% resulted in a mobile crisis dispatch, while 2% agreed to go for further evaluation at the Crisis Response Center, and 1% required emergency service dispatch. Our mobile crisis median dispatch to arrival time improved by 17%, from 46% in 2024 to 38% -- 46 minutes in 2024 to 38 minutes in 2025. A comprehensive quality evaluation completed in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania found that mobile crisis services avoided over $4 million in acute inpatient psychiatric spend between 2022 and 2024. Additionally, Philadelphia's first adult behavioral health urgent care center, which opened months ago, 18 has completed over 5000 same-day 19 encounters to date, with no 20 appointments required. Substance use treatment and Kensington outreach: We added more than 400 treatment beds across 12 new sites through a competitive procurement in 2025, and we currently have access to over 2400 licensed substance use disorder beds across the full continuum of American Society of Addiction Medicine, ASAM, levels of care. We are not aware of any systemic barriers to accessing these beds. We launched Philadelphia's first mobile methadone van, bringing medication- assisted treatment directly into Kensington and soon to other parts of the city. Our centralized bed registry is under contract and on track for initial implementation in December 2026, replacing the manual phone-based referrals with streamlined referral processing and realtime bed visibility. Kensington remains a top priority for the city and for us. The Mayor's wellness ecosystem offers a coordinated citywide strategy to address homelessness, substance use and social determinants of health through integrated low-barrier services. DBHIDS funds behavioral health, wraparound services across every wellness ecosystem location, including Philly Home at Girard, Riverview Wellness Village, the Neighborhood Wellness Court and the 1000 shelter-bed expansion sites. In partnership with the Office of Homeless Services, DBHIDS administers the One Philly Wellness vouchers, supporting individuals in recovery from opiate use disorder in securing independent housing. In 2025, our homeless outreach teams assisted with a placement of 323 individuals at Philly Home at Girard, and we facilitated 474 admissions into Riverview Wellness Village.
Our homeless outreach teams made over 44,000 unique engagements citywide in 2025. And of those engagements, 64% took place in Districts 1, and 7. 5 Notably however, District 7, where we see the most outreach activities in Kensington, there was a 19% reduction in contact, yet a 24% increase in contacts that resulted in placement. Additionally, to increase awareness of behavioral health services in Kensington, DBHIDS has developed a targeted behavioral health resources mailer in English and Spanish delivered to 1843 businesses and 22,579 residential addresses in the 19134 zip code. We also launched the Kensington Children's Task Force across-agency-across-systems effort aimed at developing actionable plans to support children's well- being in the community. And you can see, all of the system partners that are involved in the Children's Task Force, so over 100 individuals, so we're incredibly excited about what's possible. Medicaid risk and preparing for 2027: The federal Medicaid changes taking effect in January 2027 pose a serious and immediate threat to Philadelphians' access to behavioral health care. The new work requirements and the more frequent recertification mandates could result in approximately 73,248 Philadelphians losing Medicaid, disproportionately impacting those with the fewest alternatives, and we have those numbers out there. You have the Pennsylvania impact as well as our local Philadelphia impact, and we'll talk more about that. In anticipation of these changes, the Managing Director's Office of Health and Human Services has engaged a consultant with deep Medicaid experience to work across city departments and external partners on four areas, enrollment and re-enrollment, community engagement, financial assessment and technology solutions. While DBHIDS is an active partner in that effort, we are also working in parallel to prepare provider network and the community for potential impact. Our behavioral health system is also operating under workforce strain that predates these federal changes. A stable behavioral health system is part of the infrastructure that makes economic opportunity real for all Philadelphians. Philadelphia provider organizations and DBH have raised with Pennsylvania Department of Human Services the need for a statewide investment in competitive wages and provider infrastructure, a statewide behavioral health career recruitment campaign and the long-term workforce commission with county-specific planning. And so, in closing I want to say and I'm proud to say that our collective investments are working. We have expanded crisis respond, we have improved access and we are strengthening outreach. Behavioral health is foundational to the Mayor's vision of a safer, cleaner, greener Philadelphia with economic opportunity for all. Residents who are connected to care are better able to participate in their communities, sustain employment and contribute to the city's economic life. But our system is under pressure from workforce training and federal changes to Medicaid represent the most significant risk ahead. With tens of thousands of Philadelphians at risk of losing coverage, our FY strategy is focused on three things: mitigation, continuity of care, and equity. Protecting that access is inseparable from the Mayor's commitment to a safer, more equitable Philadelphia, because residents who lose behavioral health coverage, they do not disappear from the challenges that we're all working to address together. DBHIDS remains committed to building a system that is responsive, coordinated, accessible, ensuring that every Philadelphian can connect to care when and where they need it. My colleagues and I are ready to answer questions you may have. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Just a couple questions. I just want to ask you, the two of you, I want to start off by acknowledging -- excuse me one second. Member Jones.
I want to start off by acknowledging part of the leadership team, LeVan White and Dr. Marquita Williams for their hard work and their dedication in terms of making sure the lines of communication are open with members of City Council regarding DBHIDS and just overall the good work that they do. So I just want to acknowledge that publicly that you have a good, strong leadership team working to make sure you continue to move the City of Philadelphia forward. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Thank you.
And you're welcome. And Dr. Palak, I'm thinking about -- I'm sure a couple members are going to talk to you about our health centers that are coming online, particularly up in the Northeast, which is something that Councilmember Chair of Health Dr. Nina Ahmad will surely have questions about. I'm thinking about the role that you play in terms of providing high-quality health care for those most in need. And so, I can't speak for everybody else. But I come from humble beginnings, right. So before University of Pennsylvania, Penn Medicine became my doctor, I attended the Health Center at Broad and Morris in South Philly as a kid growing up. My Nana would take me there to get my shots and I would go there to get my yearly checkups, me and my sister and all the rest of the family. And so, it really just crystallizes on the importance of your work. Because I remember as a kid, we would be in the waiting room and the room would be full, right. But that's also some of the best experiences that helped me become a healthy young man growing up. So thank you for your work. I want to start off by talking about an issue that's very near and dear, which is gun violence. I want to talk about how the Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention Coalition, I remember it started around when Dr. Abaya was around, myself and Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, we advocated for funding to support a dashboard, where all the hospitals working together could have support as they address the issue of gun violence as a public health epidemic. Now, at that time, maybe two, three years ago, Member Jones could remember as Chair of Public Health, it was like the buzzword, we had to address gun violence as a public health epidemic. And now, we're on to the next thing which is affordability, but I'm still focused on that key issue around gun violence as a public health epidemic. And so, can you give me an idea on what are we doing to make sure we continue to push forward the Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention Network? And what's the status of that coalition as well as the dashboard as we address gun violence from a public health standpoint?
Sure. Thank you for that question, Councilmember. So gun violence is a public health issue, right. Public health touches everyone's life every day. We have worked through the leadership of Dr. Kinnari Chandriani and Pilar Ocampo. We have worked to create a Violence Reduction Council. We have initiated -- so we are working with the Police Department, with the Office of Public Safety as well as a host of partners to look at reducing gun violence as a holistic approach, hospital-based interventions. We've gotten the group together. We've had about two meetings. So part of that offset is the dashboard. We started this work mid-last year, sir. And since then, we've brought the coalition together twice and we're looking at how the violence occurred and then tracing it back and really getting focused. And the dashboards are an ongoing project. The hope is that they will hopefully be ready by the end of this year.
Could you provide to myself and members of Council, the members of the Violence Reduction Council and then also ways that the Special Committee on Gun Violence could be supportive and involved in the process.
Absolutely. Would that be okay if we provide that after budget?
We'll get you a full summary, sir, along with all the members of the actual working group, the training we've provided so that folks know how to look at gun violence appropriately. And we'll also go ahead and get you the members of the executive committee as well as an update on the dashboard.
And I would assume that the Mayor's Office of Violence Prevention Public Safety is a part of this overall strategy as well?
Yes. The Chief of Staff -- so Director Geer as well as we have our Deputy Managing Director Crystal Yates- Gale leads with the Managing Director's Office. And then we have Commissioner Bethel and/or his appointee that joined the group. Yes, sir, we're all working seamlessly. The Mayor talks quite often about breaking down silos, and not being in ivory towers. We're all working together.
We want to continue being partnerships. And when I say we, meaning not just myself, but members of Council and these efforts. So please keep us updated. Although we're at a 60-year historical low when it comes to gun violence and homicides, our overall goal is to eliminate gun violence in the City of Philadelphia. So now, we should be doubling-down our efforts, now more than ever, when it comes to looking at the root causes of gun violence and addressing it from, as you would say, an epidemic standpoint. And so, thank you. On that area, I established the Food and Nutrition Security Task Force. As a matter of fact, my team just had the opportunity to go to Washington, D.C., on my behalf of City Council, to talk about the work that we're doing to address food insecurity here in the City of Philadelphia. And one of the key things that has come out of the recommendations is how do we focus on or do a better job regarding collaboration across all city agencies to address food security. And so, can you give us an idea? I know we did the one-time investment as it relates to the cuts around the SNAP benefits, right. But to be more direct, what are we doing to better collaborate with other city agencies around food insecurity and your strategies from a Health Department standpoint. Two, we know from Washington, D.C., the new policies require individuals to reapply and meet a certain type of criteria to be eligible for SNAP benefits. Now, I'll say publicly we could probably be supportive of addressing the food security standpoint, but we don't have a budget to really do a super, deeper dive when it comes to filling that overall gap, which is billions of dollars of individuals who receive SNAP benefits. But one of the key ways to address is making sure we're supporting individuals to reapply and just meet their proper criteria. And so, what is your strategy to meet the moment in that area?
Sure. So once again, our Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention has a whole subset of folks, a manager that works specifically with food insecurity as well as water safety and water security. And so, we are working together with partners. So there are folks -- as we know, with the summer months coming, kids who normally receive benefits through the school system will be at Playstreets and other things. So we're working holistically across the board to make sure that there is adequate, safe and healthy food available, but we're also doing the work in the background, having the appropriate meetings with the various partners and departments as well as our DMD for Health and Human Services has been convening groups. Within our health centers, we have counselors to help folks with both the Medicaid requirements and recertifications as well as helping them with the SNAP applications and recertifications. We can get you full details on all of our work.
In terms of your team, who is I guess I would say the food security czar to walk us through this moment in time? Because most of us in here are -- I guess some people call us professional and pretty much everybody in the crowd, right, but there's a population in Philadelphia that really need us to fight for them now, more than ever, and part of that is making sure the qualification process so people can reapply and they don't lose their -- well, so they won't lose their benefits, right. So who would be that point person?
Sure, absolutely. And I just want to say, before I give you the name, sir, as someone who had a child in their 20s and was on Medicaid and benefits, I can relate to how complicated the application process is. I've been a fairly perfect A student, but I failed that application multiple times and it was very scary. So our main person that focuses on that, her name is Mica Root. I'm sure folks probably saw her on the YouTube videos when we were rolling out the SNAP grants, and then Dr. Chandriani. So we will get you full details and the full plan that we're working on.
Are we partnering with any workforce agencies to make sure individuals, unless they have to volunteer, they have to work a certain amount of hours to qualify, what agencies and what's our strategy to meet the moment from that aspect?
Sure. And that is one of the reasons why, as my colleague mentioned, Dr. Solanke mentioned, our HHS Deputy Managing Director, we've hired a consultant specifically with the Medicaid benefits and the benefits --
Good. That's that interagency working together.
Exactly. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Do you mind if I just say a little bit about what we're doing related to that?
Sure. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: We do have a Social Determinants of Health and Equity Unit within DBHIDS that is partnered with the Food Engagement through Efficient Delivery Services called FEEDS and Philabundance. And so, we're able to deliver one year of free food to up to 50 families. And so, they get this biweekly. It's boxed food as well as prepared meals. And we also are able to provide technology, which is -- we did a survey that identified five main areas that people indicated that they needed support with technology, transportation, food and workforce. So the RSDOH team that's headed by Laura Jordan, that's our point person for our food initiative, is actually responsible for providing all of those supports to the individuals that apply.
Along with Cheryl Hill. That's our third -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: That's our third stool.
That's what's up. The Good Food Procurement Coordinator, that position has been budgeted for $76,000 and still remains unfulfilled for a particular period of time. What can we do to fill that position when it comes to making sure that we're advocating we have an individual who's focusing on procurement from a food justice standpoint?
So I believe that position recently became vacant, sir. We had an individual who was with us for a long time. People have kids, priorities change, so we are in the process of actively recruiting to fill that position. But in the meantime, we are working collaboratively to ensure that the work is getting done.
Good to hear that. I saw a report that talked about our air-quality, right. Philadelphia received an F, right. And I remember we kicked off the air-monitoring initiatives. I thought that was great. Then I see this report, as recently as last week, that talked about our air quality. What are our strategies to make sure --
So I'm a little surprised. I didn't see that report. We monitor, besides --
Do you know -- well, I can get details from your office, sir.
Yeah, I'll get it too. And I'm not trying to gotcha you either --
No, no, no. Absolutely not. I'm just curious, right, because we --
We always have folks, as they should, they should be watching. They should be keeping tabs on us. But just for clarity, before I answer regarding what was discussed in that report --
Just for the record, this is by the American Lung Association.
-- and they were alluding to the higher benzene associated with recent wildfires. But I want to clarify and mention we have 11 hard-wired monitors throughout the City of Philadelphia. That data goes directly to the EPA and that captures all of the details. Those were the monitors that we used during the Canadian wildfires. If folks recall, we had put out an alert that said please stay indoors, wear masks and everything else because the level of the air quality was, I never thought I would see purple, but it goes green, it's color-coded, so we're fairly high and we were able to toggle to that. Now, the story that you're referring to is talking about higher benzene levels and that's due to wildfires. However, if there was an imminent threat -- so besides having the 76 monitors that folks can go ahead and get details directly on their phone, we would have put out an alert. I believe the report analyzed items from the past. But again, we'll look at the article and get you a full update.
Do we have a -- because some of the things you talked about is more responsive. Do we have a strategy that looks at a variety of different categories to have an impact on the quality of our air and begin looking at policies to implement or to propose to address those various types of initiatives or developments that will have an impact on our environment?
Sure. So we absolutely do, sir. And we have -- the Health Department is responsible for the air pollution control board as well as who sets -- it's similar to our Board of Health. We go ahead and we draft regulations and go through the public comment period for the regulation process. Our Air Pollution Control Board two years ago or three years ago passed AMR VI, which is the regulation that restricts Title V emitters, which are the large industries from polluting into our air. It increased the number of toxicants, so to ensure that folks were not spewing things into the air. We also, a couple years ago, began down the path of making sure we have a process in place when we have our junkyard fires that occur in our city. We went ahead -- we have an environmental justice manager who works with our Air Management Services Director, and they went to every single junkyard that would have them. We worked with L&I because L&I is the one that licenses them. We trained them to make sure that they knew what and how to store things that were appropriate so things did not combust during heat waves and heat-related incidences. And along those lines, we have our entire emergency messaging system that goes into effect when there is an issue, whether it's a fire or something, so that we can alert residents immediately about what to do regarding their air quality and whether it's to shelter in place or to ventilate or to wear a mask. So we are also working -- we recently passed a regulation on crematories and what they were allowed to put into the air compared to what they were allowed to put into the air before. And we are also looking at mobile sources of air pollution. We're working with the Mayor's initiative and our Fleet Commissioner to roll out our vehicles and change the amount for electric vehicles.
All right. Thank you very much. And, Dr. Solanke, just have a quick question. I wanted to ask you around the issue of trauma- informed support for our young people. I know the School District of Philadelphia has an initiative called Hazel Health that provides free therapy for young people. One, are you aware of the initiative? Two, how impactful is it? I think when you talk about the issue of nonviolence, again we have a lot of our young people walking around dealing with, I call it, post-traumatic stress disorder because they're living in an environment where they're seeing their friends being shot, where they're seeing their friends being murdered and they have to return back to school day in-and day-out, right. And so, the question is always how are our children doing, and who's checking on our children? And I think about how are they processing the level of violence that they're seeing in our neighborhoods day-in and day-out. I just want to get an idea on what your office has been doing around this particular issue as well as the Hazel Health initiative as well? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: So we're aware of the Hazel Health initiative. We actually help to promote that. We don't pay for it, but we do make sure that whenever we are messaging around school- based services, that that's an option that's readily available to schools and to students. But with regards to trauma, all of our programs, all the programs and the providers that we contract with are required to provide trauma and responsive care. That is an expectation across the board, but we also have specific trauma programs, especially for Black and Brown youth that have been exposed to gun violence. And it's called Trauma to Triumph. It was launched in 2024. It's a 12-week model that happens five days a week after school. And it's a space where youth can -- it's a safe space for them to kind of express themselves, to feel joy and to talk and connect about what it's like to live in an environment and to have to endure so much trauma and to really think through how trauma shows up in their personal lives and in their communities and they get some coping skills around that.
Do we have any initiatives we partner with the Philadelphia Police Department to work with officers as they deal with the issue of trauma, as they see it, doing their day-in and day-out duties? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: You mean specifically working with the Police Department, we have a Network of Neighbors team that can provide support to not just city agencies, but also to communities if they have been exposed to trauma or stress or any kind of violence. And I know we have actually activated Network of Neighbors for the Fire Department, for the Police Department, more recently, the Sanitation Department, Streets Department. They're a go-to for a lot of our city agencies when we go through, especially with the garage street -- the tragic, tragic accident. So we have the different entities that were involved that have been supported by our Network of Neighbors.
Have we increased the number of staff in Network of Neighbors? This is prior to you coming. And this is when gun violence was at an all-time high, and it was like two people for the whole City of Philadelphia. And we're on the ground day-in and day-out addressing this issue and Network of Neighbors would come out -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Yeah.
But they can't be in South Philly and Mt. Airy at the same time. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Yes.
And we were advocating at that time to see if they can be at a level of expansion because it was such a dire need for it. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Yes, sir. We have a dire need for it. We have increased the staffing and it actually allows them, to your point, branch out to respond to other trauma incidents across the city.
What's the total number today, staff, staff? 6 COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: I 7 don't want to guess. I know it's 8 in this folder somewhere so I can 9 get that to you at the end of this 10 hearing. 11
All right. 13 COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: I 14 think we're almost there. I think 15 it's more than 10.
Okay. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Definitely more than 10.
Good to hear that. All right. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: It's 12.
See, a couple of years ago it was like two. Good job. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: I think we also have them train the trainer. So it really doesn't have to live with the 12. They train the communities to be able to --
Yes, they do. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: -- provide ongoing support so that they move on to other areas of the city.
I agree. I think 20 is a good number to train the community -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: We'll be happy to have 20.
Because we want to make sure, right, on this gun violence issue, we want to eliminate gun violence. We don't want to rest on our laurels that we had a 60-year low and it's a historical low, then we start pulling back on resources and start focusing on other areas, where again, I'm a firm believer, okay, we're at 12, let's shoot between now and a particular period of time to get because again, 15 the ultimate goal is to live in a 16 city where there is no gun violence 17 and we can go a summer without 18 violence. 19 And so, that behavioral 20 health component plays a major role in terms of how we process trauma, because hurt people hurt people. We know that, rather it's children, rather it's adults. And so, I commend the two of you for the work that you are doing and actually working together on this issue. Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Council President. And thank you all so much for being here. I wanted to start with our thank-yous for our Health Commissioner, Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson, to Dawn -- I'm going to always mess up Dawn's last name, Dawn K. Thank you, Dawn. You were out with us years ago during the pandemic when we were going store- to-store during those inspections with my District colleagues, so thank you. Thank you very much for your great work. James Garrow, Sara Enes, Dr. Mehta, thank you for your work on the maternal health work. Karla Eyre, Benjamin Hartung. And then for DBHIDS -- thank you, Council President, for recognizing Dr. Marquita Williams, who served with excellence. Of course, LaVan White, thank you even for your help on Friday afternoon. We received a case, and it was the middle of the May Day activities downtown, so thank you for helping us get assistance for the 81-year- old constituent. And Malik Gray, thank you so much, Malik. Malik joins us every single year for our Grief and Loss Workshop around the holidays, and we've been doing that every year since the pandemic virtually, and it's always very well-attended. So thank you very, very much also to Malik Gray. I wanted to start with health, relative to again saying thanks for your work around maternal health. And I see some of our organizations are represented here, including Oshun. But wanted to on the record just get an update on all of our maternal health funding for the entire FY26 and then going into FY27. And then also, if you could talk about -- I noticed in your budget detail that there is funding for teen contraception, the doula program staffing, homevisiting for young mothers, family support services, the Maternal Mortality Action Team and the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Program. Will there be an increase of funding for that work or will there be a decrease? And if so, how much and what do we need to do to ensure that work is adequately staffed and funded?
Level funding, okay. Great. Okay. Excellent. And then could you just provide additional detail for the new Severe Maternal Morbidity Review Committee?
Absolutely. If it is okay with the Councilmember, we will get that to you after.
Okay. That'll be great. And then my last question goes to the legislation that I recently introduced, which would allow the city to hold commercial landlords accountable when they knowingly allow their tenants to sell tobacco without the proper permits from the city. And so, if you could just talk about how many citations have been issued for unlicensed tobacco retailing this year? And how do you work with L&I and other departments to ensure coordination of inspection and also enforcement? We get a lot of complaints around these unlicensed tobacco dealers across the city. You know, they typically have medallions from other states. They're buying cigarettes from other areas and then selling them here. And we've gotten a lot of complaints. I know we met with a group in Councilmember Lozada's District even, about a year ago, where they expressed their consternation relative to these stores and vendors who are selling cigarettes and tobacco unlawfully. And so, I just wanted to get an update on tobacco enforcement.
Sure, absolutely. So when it comes to tobacco enforcement, the Health Department issues a tobacco permit for folks. We are capped in most of the districts, so the number of permits that are available in those districts don't go above a particular cap. However, people can get a state license to sell tobacco and often people try to use that license to sell tobacco. In order to sell tobacco legally in the City of Philadelphia, you must have a state license and you must have a city tobacco permit. In terms of enforcement, we have about 2500 legal licensed establishments and we will go ahead and get the exact number for you. Our food protection staff, the ones that conduct inspections throughout the restaurants, because these stores have a food component during the end of COVID, and Councilmember knows this, we integrated in a cost-efficiency manner, so now everybody does inspections and looks for tobacco products. So these are the places that are permanent. For --
Excuse me, Commissioner. One second. Point of information. Member Young.
Thank you, Mr. President. Along the same lines, when the state provides a business with their tobacco license, is there any kind of -- do they talk to us and say, hey, can this person legally operate where it's like -- what's the process in that?
Sure. So they don't necessarily talk to us always. The folks that we work with are actually the state revenue folks that do the enforcement for the illegal cigarettes and everything. But we are working on that relationship to improve that and better that. So similar to what the Liquor Control Board does and we check in with them about license establishments, we are working on that aspect with the state, but most of the time they just issue the tobacco licenses.
Is it possible that we have to issue ours first before the state can give theirs in the City of Philadelphia?
So tobacco laws, we are preempted from a lot of the tobacco work. But we can absolutely explore that from a collaborative approach, sir, to figure out how we can encourage them to do that.
Thank you, Councilmember Young, because I think that's an important question. And I think we should explore that with our state colleagues. And part of the reason why I did bring this question up is because I had a conversation with one of our state representatives from the delegation who talked about the continued challenges because of the state preemption on tobacco and the challenges that we have because we are capped at the number of permits that can be issued per district. So I think that's an important follow-up that we can work together on to ensure that we work with our state partners to figure out how we could possibly put the city process in front of the state process or at least make it a requirement or a part of the process.
We can absolutely partner to work on that. And then, just to finish the answer to your question about enforcement, if establishments are selling tobacco products and they just pop up, so that is based on a complaint basis, not on the ones that are permitted, we go out and conduct an inspection and then we work directly with Licenses and Inspections. But we have the authority to cease-operate, folks. And you, yourself, have put a sticker up on a door. So, smiley candy. And then we follow up. We will also do a 14-day cease now. We have that authority. And we are working with L&I. We're also working with our Law Department to determine the next steps for how do we suspend or revoke a license.
Okay. That'll be great. Because I think most of what we heard from some of the retailers that are legally allowed to sell tobacco is that they felt as though they were being targeted versus the locations that are the illegal pop-ups that really don't have any permits or licensing to sell tobacco products at all. And so, I think that's the challenge that we have at this point. But I heard the bell and I want to honor the clock. And so, we will certainly follow up on this. We plan on having hearings on this legislation, hopefully very soon. And we'll do the additional follow- up at that time and also follow up with my colleague Councilmember Young to coordinate with our state as well. Okay. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning, everyone. Thank you as always. You guys do very hard work, and we asked a lot of hard questions. But I want to make sure we thank you also for everything you do. I'll start with Public Health. I'm going to ask my questions for Public Health and DBHIDS, and then you can answer just for time. There's been a rise in kratom addiction in Philadelphia with powerful extract sold as seven 7-OH in smoke shops, increasing stimulating opioid effects. Is the DPH tracking kratom and 7-OH- related harms, hospitalizations, overdose calls, treatment, emissions? Is there any FY27 funding to monitor or respond to it? That's for Public Health. And then DBHIDS, the inquiry reported last week Judge Simmons was ready to shut down the Wellness Court over frustrations with the lack of coordination and communication from the Administration. The Administration says the changes and delays were due to administrative protocols that need to be resolved. In your opinion, what is the biggest obstacle in streamlining the process to get people into the Wellness Center program? We all want to work and are committed to doing so, but we must be able to identify any issues we are facing and correct them as soon as possible. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: I'll have Dr. Palak speak first.
Sure. So we know that it's just like metatomidine, right. The more we get a handle on certain substances, newer substances pop up. As far as kratom is concerned and kava, Dr. Danny, who's our SUPHR Director, has already been ahead of this. We've developed a comprehensive one-pager on what to look for and what to be concerned about with this substance and we are working to not only ensure -- so when we go into a food establishment, sir, so that's usually where they are infusing your beverage with kratom or when we're going into the places where people are selling items, our staff are getting the training so that they can -- right now we go ahead and we would retain those items or have them -- retainment means we have them take them off the shelf and they're not allowed to sell them, mainly infused products. A lot of places advertise on the outside that they're selling kratom and everything. And during the course of the inspection, it's products that say kratom on the front but don't necessarily have a kratom content. So we are doing our darndest to be fully educated. It's another way of making sure that there's no silos within the Health Department. So our SUPHR Division is educating our inspectors and everybody else so we're on the same page. Right now we are retaining those products when we come across those.
Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: And very quickly, when individuals come into the Wellness Court, our teams process the individuals and do the assessment for treatment and follow-up. We've actually increased the number of staff that is able to do that. The process is related to whether they go for a hearing in front of a judge. It's a little outside of our jurisdiction. But for the folks that we assess that we process and refer to treatment, we're not seeing any lapses in care coordination. So if there's a little bit more specifics, what part of that assessment or what part of the referral or what part of engagement that's getting lost, we would like to get more information so we can address it.
They ain't the holy grail. He'll probably ask me later on, but it is what it is. Member Harrity, go ahead, sir. I'm just joking.
No, I also get that. But it's not the first time I've heard about it, so let's put it that way. There have been some challenges that we face. Not trying to point a finger at anyone, just trying to see -- so many times we dig in instead of admitting that something's not working and try to figure out a fix. Just want to make sure that we're looking at everything and looking at the process -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Absolutely.
-- because the process is for us to actually get people into treatment as fast as we can, especially if they're ready. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Thank you for raising that. I know that we're still in the first year of operation so there will be bumps along the way, but we are committed to looking into what the concerns are around follow-up and care coordination so we can address them immediately.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council President. I heard the bell.
Thank you, Member Harrity. Councilmember Cindy Bass.
How are you? How's everybody doing? It's good to see everyone. I just want to start, I think our Majority Leader Kathy Gilmore Richardson thanked everybody already, but I'm going to just echo her sentiments. Thank you so much for all of the hard work that you all do through challenging times, through difficult budgets. We know it's not easy, and then you have to deal with us on the phone on a regular basis too, you know, often upset, complaining, worried, just really having a challenging situation in front of us. So I just really wanted to say that. I also wanted to give a shout-out, I saw in the back there Rhashidah Perry-Jones, who has done some great work over the years. Rhashidah, where -- (Applause.)
I will give Rhashidah a clap. So Rhashidah is someone that I've known and worked with in this space for a very long time and who's really one of the best subject matter experts in my --
Okay. All in favor say aye. But really seriously, thank you all for all the work that you do. I just had a couple of businesses -- I'm really following up on some of my colleagues' questions. I wanted to start with nuisance businesses. As you know, Dr. Nelson, it has been an issue. We've talked about it many, many times. Can you talk a little bit about the regulation of some of these establishments? Because not only are they not really selling food in the spirit of which it's regulated through the City and the Commonwealth, but can you talk a little bit about the cleanliness of food establishments and the Health Department's role? Because one of the things that greatly concerns me is you'll go into these stop-and-gos, they're really not selling food. And in my opinion, there should be a number of reasons that they could be shut down, reorganized, however you want to do it, but the cleanliness is a problem. These places are not clean and they're supposed to be serving food. The floors are dirty. I've seen cobwebs. I've seen all kinds of stuff. I've seen blood on the floor. And so, what is the Health Department's role in determining cleanliness and the past, you know, whether an establishment, a food establishment, passes the muster or not?
Sure. Absolutely, Councilmember. And so, the Health Department, we have a 54-point check inspection system. It's a risk-based inspection system. So we look at the first 27 criteria and categories. They're the risk-based items. So, for instance, improper hand washing, those sorts of things. And then the remaining 50 up to 54 are all about good retail practices, which are cleanliness and other items. Now, the risk-based, higher-level criteria violations are considered more likely to get a closure because it's like lack of hot water and everything. However, the cleanliness-related items, the good retail practices do add up. If an establishment is out of compliance in those areas, we take the appropriate action of doing a re-inspection. And then if they're still not in compliance, we will cease-operate them and they will be closed for 48 hours. I know that when it comes to our stop-and-gos, and this is the thing that I think you and I have been trying to sort out since I was Environmental Health Services Director, right, how do we address those places that have the 30 stools on the side and say, hey, I met my criteria, how do we address the fact that I have 30 oodles of noodles in a microwave, is that deemed food, right. A lot of this is because those requirements are a part of the Liquor Control Code, what we have done is to try and work out -- go ahead.
But the Liquor Control Code regulates the sale of alcohol, not the sale of food. The food portion is the city's responsibility, if I'm correct.
So the code does require that there is adequate food for up to depending on the license, whether it's the large or the small, for enough people. You're absolutely right that the quality and the safety of the food, that is within the purview of the Health Department. But if someone has -- where we face the challenge, ma'am, is that if someone has 30 oodles of noodles, which they can probably outlast nuclear warfare, there's not a whole lot of food safety challenge, you know, there's not a whole lot of food safety issues, right. Like a normal restaurant, we can go in and do an inspection. If the food temperatures are out of temperature, we can go ahead and cite them. We can make them get rid of the food. So what we have been doing, because I was anticipating your question, and you, ma'am --
Same every year. And we're going to figure this out, right. We go and test out places to see if they're selling shots. We do that together jointly. You're not the only one, Councilmember Gilmore Richardson, that we go out in the field with. But what we have started doing is a seating criteria, so essentially capturing, right. Because if you are going to have a license that makes you a restaurant, it's not enough to have just 30 chairs, but space, whether it's 12 inches by 8 feet, so you can't just have that counter, that makeshift counter that they have, where they say, oh, this is the table. So that is what we're working on. We're also working on making sure that they have a valid, legitimate menu and other things. So what I would like to propose is as soon as we're through the 2026 events, if we could have a separate meeting and you can do the assessment and we can share the data.
Well, listen, Dr. Nelson, because we just love you so much I'm inclined to say yes, but I also want to say no, because it's been like nine years since we passed the bill. And like I said, I'm asking these questions every year. When are we going to see the level of change that we need to see, because these establishments are a problem in the neighborhood. These establishments, in my opinion, promote addiction. It's sort of like an easy way to acquire a shot of liquor and they have the medications that you can mix and make a speedball or whatever you want to make. It's all kinds of concoctions that you can make with medicine and then with a shot of alcohol and they sell it all. They have the crack pipes. You know, they got what you need if you're looking to get down. When are we going to see some level of enforcement that's going to change that? Because when we look at homicides and whatnot, a lot of times homicides occur there. Like I said, I've been into these establishments, one fairly recently and there's blood on the floor from a fight that just had occurred. And the fight was over, the people were gone, but the blood was still on the floor. So how and when are we going to finally see some level of improvement on these establishments because we're just not there? We're just not there.
Sure. And so, ma'am, if the blood was on the floor and we showed up to do the inspection, we would have cease-operated them to clean that up, right. We quite often close places down because of their violations. They stay closed for 48 hours and then they're allowed to open back up because they're entitled to a re-inspection and they get everything cleaned up, and then we have to open them back up. So this is why the seating criteria concept is so important because I think it'll make a more pronounced, longer effect, and it will also help us to collect the data so that then we can work with the LCB to impact their liquor license.
Okay. I'll come back around and honor the bell. But I still think that, you know, we've been doing the same day for a long time.
And we closed them down and they correct their violations and we're required to let them open back up and --
It's just not right. It's just not right, but I'll come back.
I think we may have to come up to the Northwest with that bullhorn.
Listen, we got the bullhorns. They don't care. They don't care. They operate any way that they want to, with immunity, like they just don't care. They just aren't concerned about our communities, our neighbors, the products they sell. They sell to people who are already inebriated. Like, we know what it is. We know what it is. Thank you, Mr. President.
They ain't taking that to Chestnut Hill, oh no. And I represent Chestnut Hill. Great neighborhood, but you don't have those kinds of problems there. You have them in Black and Brown parts of the district.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips, then Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. I want to begin by thanking Dr. Palak and her team for working with us to address tobacco sales in the City of Philadelphia. I just want to make sure that the new law that I introduced, that members of City Council supported around ensuring that there is tobacco education, where if an owner in the past, one of their clerks ended up having a tobacco sale to a minor, they would just ultimately not have any real recourse. They may be opened up again within a matter of weeks, but we're hoping that this bill 20 requires them to provide education to their store clerks about the importance of noticing who minors are and checking for that and making sure that that doesn't happen again. Can you talk more about the implementation process --
Sure. Absolutely. And our goal is education and then regulation wherever possible. If we teach people why and how they have to do something, they're likely to do it, sir. I believe we are completed developing the module for education. We want to have it available so that the store owners can have it readily available to them via YouTube or what have you, and we are going to be enforcing the law and making sure that we keep track of who needs to get the education and getting those numbers. I believe we're trying to, after we address the rat-related issues, set up a meeting with your office to do the follow-up. I believe Ben Hartung and Deputy Jim Garrow might have already met with your office. So we're going to go ahead and provide you the data as we collected about the folks that have gone through the training and the education has been provided. And then we really want to look to see, based on those areas, do we have an impact, right. So do those places, you know, they got a ticket, they got whatever, they went through the educational module. When we come back around on the cycle, the annual renewal cycle, did they receive additional tickets. So we're going to also keep track of that data.
Thank you. One of the things that we've been talking about is responsive government, even when it comes to our public health. When it comes to responsive government, it's about the idea of how can the Public Health Department create for all Council offices and to be distributed to neighbors, clearly explain report on all the services that Public Health provides to the City of Philadelphia, also with a service level agreement of if you request this, this is the time frame for execution, especially when it comes to vector control issues?
Absolutely. That is something that we absolutely want to do and put out. So we have many dashboards for other things that we're doing. And so, when it comes to Vector Control Services, we realize that besides having a phone number, right -- it's spring. We've had a bad winter. So the rodents, the rats, have been in the sewers. We've been indoors. Now, all of us are coming out. And lawns are overgrown. So you have harborage, rodent harborage. And then you have the availability of food because people aren't maybe storing their trash the best way. And then we're out and about so we're more likely to see the rats. So besides having the phone number, we also now have a web address set up and email address so that we can also get complaints from there. And we have a database that is almost at completion, so hopefully we'll be able to put it as a dashboard so folks can see the progress.
Can you commit to working on a service level agreement, one-pager?
Thank you so much. And then also for -- I'll come back to you, Dr. Palak. For DBHIDS, I just have a quick question. I heard the bell. How is the -- DBHIDS has emphasized service to residents. In our conversations with DBHIDS, our office is focused on young people and rec centers as trusted spaces where children, parents, guardians and caregivers are already there. Therefore, how is DBHIDS thinking about rec centers as access points for family, behavioral health support, including therapists? Is there a conversation being held about having family counseling, parent engagement and caregiver support at rec centers on an ongoing basis? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: I think that's a great question. Right now we do have some of our community engagement teams that go to the rec centers, especially the ones that are with the neighborhood community action centers. If they're located in the rec centers, they provide information about the services. We have that available. They also provide information if there's a community meeting. But I think your point about can we provide behavioral health services as a touchpoint, as a way for people to access services, I think there's an opportunity for that. It could look anything like maybe having one of our behavioral health specialists rotate through some of these rec centers on a regular schedule so people know that somebody is going to be there. But we really want to maximize the action centers at each of the districts as a possible place for residents to come to when they have questions about behavioral health services or they have a need. We also have -- fairly it's easily accessible. And I think this is really for the community. And I know it's not for people that live out in the Far Northeast, but we have our behavioral health urgent care center. That's an excellent place. It's not just to get additional information, but it's a place to provide immediate support if people have questions about how they're feeling before it escalates into a crisis. So we're using spaces like faith-based churches and mosques, we're in different spaces providing information. But I think to your point we can be more intentional about not just providing information and resources, is there an opportunity for us to engage differently and get a better sense for what people need so we can make the right connections.
Yes, Commissioner, and that's exactly why I was hoping you too can commit to having a public- facing one-pager or guide on all the services offered by DBHIDS that could be in our schools, rec centers and we can give to our neighbors. Because I don't -- if you're in a church in the 9th District, I don't know. And I wish I can give our neighbors a document to say, if you need mental health, here's what you do, right, and also how to go about requesting those services, because individuals are going to need -- I know you work with a lot of agencies in the city, but individual mental health support is also important beyond -- I know you passed out that 31 -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: 988.
988 flyer, but that's just a tip of the iceberg. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: We also have a QR code actually that has all of that information. So I think we're going to try to place as many of those resources in as many places as possible, and they can just use their phone to scan and you have a list of all of the CBH-contracted providers and some of the county providers. Any service that people are looking for, they can --
Yeah, that's just not as clear as it could be. You can provide that. But I'm just saying, something more accessible, maybe a one-pager that talks through all the steps. That's important. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Absolutely.
Well, thanks for committing to that. We'll work on that together. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Just a point of information, Commissioner Patel, I know you said the Good Food Purchasing Coordinator position has been vacant just recently, correct. Just clarify, because my team has since 2022. So either we're getting wrong -- I think we probably don't have the most updated information.
Our records have 2022, so we probably have not the least, the most updated information. Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau and Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you for being here. Appreciate you so much. I want to start with two areas: One, having to do with beds, treatment beds, and also then LGBTQ health and HIV health. I'm confused and I would love some clarity. It sounds like from your testimony, DBHIDS, that you're saying overall bed capacity exceeds utilization and that you put out what sounds like RFPs. You got 2024 service providers, opened up beds and they were underutilized. So I wanted you to kind of talk about that a little bit. What are the barriers to that? But then we now have a situation where we're trying to expand 1000 homeless beds and finding that space. What's the intersection here? There's many people who are trying to get a homeless bed who do have substance use disorder. Are you connecting on these two areas? What's the communication like? And what was also -- did the city fund or put any resources into this expansion of the treatment beds where we could actually just use them without additional money for the homeless beds? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: So the 1000 shelter beds, we do work very closely with Office of Homeless Services, because it's our outreach teams that are engaging at street level with individuals and getting them into shelters. And some of those individuals may decide they want to go into treatment, which is preferred. So we do facilitate admission into treatment as well. So there is coordination. It's actually fairly seamless coordination, whether they're going directly into a low-barrier shelter, like Philly Home at Girard or we're getting them into treatment. So once they get into treatment, there's an opportunity to transition to Riverview. The procurement we did was to address the concerns that we didn't have sufficient substance- use beds, I think in 2024 or the last hearing. And so, the procurement allowed us to add an additional 400 beds at different 7 sites. However, we know we have 8 sufficient bed capacity now, but I 9 think it's possible that due to low 10 referrals or low utilization of 11 financial strains, we have five 12 sites closed. So we did close -- but it doesn't affect the current campus capacity we have. We have sufficient beds to meet the needs of Philadelphians. And so, we're not concerned about that.
Did the city spend money on these other treatment beds that we've now closed that are not being utilized? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: So the treatment beds are funded through the Medicaid behavioral health managed care organization within DBHIDS, which is CBH. So these are CBH-funded beds. Some of them we will fund if the individual admitted doesn't have health insurance and we use state grants. So there are no General Fund grants technically going into these beds. It's all Medicaid and state-funded grants.
Now that the beds are offline, are we still paying for them? The beds that you said there's treatment beds because of an underutilization that are no longer -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: We're not paying. If they're closed, we're not paying now. We only pay for beds if there is a body in there.
I'm excited to hear about the centralized bed registry. Are you going to have a direct connection? Is OHS finally going to have a bed registry as well? When there's a homeless bed available, they'll be able to see where it is and be able to put somebody in realtime. Are your two databases going to be able to speak to each other? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: That's a really good question. So there are two opportunities that we're exploring with OHS. And just like with PDPH, we're very close to OHS. We're right now looking to an opportunity that allows us to see homeless individuals that our homeless teams are engaging and putting them in a database that is HIPAA compliant, that OHS also has access to so we're not duplicating information. So that's one. The centralized bed registry, we'll want to pilot first. Where there are crisis response centers, we have five of them. So as they're assessing individuals, they're able to put the referrals right into the centralized bed registry, so that the receiving provider that they sent the referral to gets that information very quickly as opposed to a fax or call, and they can review and say, yes, I have a bed for Kenny and she can come at this time. And so, there's more visibility in terms of what beds are available, what types of beds and where these beds are. Again, this is as good as we're able to ensure that we're writing it to provide a contract, the need to make sure that they're updating their bed capacity and make it part of their provider agreement, because we need to ensure that they're compliant.
And I hear you. You're also talking about increasing bed capacity, but we weren't able to fill the other beds. I'm still confused what the barriers were to the original beds, why we weren't able to fill them? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: I'm going to have Donna Bailey, CBH's CEO speak a little bit more to the details.
Good morning, President Johnson and members of City Council. I'm Donna Bailey. I'm the CEO of Community Behavioral Health. So I just want to explain that we don't own the beds. So when we do procurements, it's really to allow us to be able to access additional bed capacity. And as the Commissioner said, Medicaid only pays if there's a person in the bed. They meet necessity criteria for the service and so on. And so, we did that procurement in response to concerns that there was insufficient capacity. The unintended consequence has been we are now overvetted or we have more capacity than what's currently being utilized. That utilization is really dependent on people being referred to care and inpatient level. So there's no barriers to people getting that service. It really is much like on the physical health and sometimes there are days when beds are not filled.
Okay. Thank you. Can I ask a couple of more questions about --
Wrap it up. Not giving you a hard time either.
It's not about beds anymore. I wanted to move into -- there we go, I got it. Thank you. I wanted to get into a little bit of HIV and health and LGBTQ and health. So the state's Health Department sent a letter to Philadelphia FIGHT in September 2025 saying that disbursements for Ryan White Part B and special pharmaceutical benefit programs are reduced to only 25% and it doesn't have sufficient funds to maintain the level of program activities for FY25 and '26. This significantly impacts Ryan White-eligible folks to get the assistance they need, whether that is emergency funding administered through ACO or the ability to get health care services. How has the reduced funding impacted the administration of services? And how do you anticipate this impacting people are in treatment for HIV and AIDS? And also, what is the capacity of staff that are overseeing HIV health prevention and services? I'll start there.
So as far as where we are with the HIV and HIV funds, as of right now, we are remaining steady. There was information that was received and we ended up having to look and make programmatic cuts. One of the areas that we did originally engage in cutting was the TEACH program. I believe I'm saying that acronym correctly. But since then, we have met with them and we allocated funds within our budget to go ahead and make them as whole as possible. So I believe this was an item that, Councilmember, your office had raised with us and the group had also reached out to us. And Dr. Brady, myself, and DC Garrow met with the group and we've been working with them to figure out how we can assist them.
Great. Thank you. And then what's the capacity of staff that are overseeing HIV health prevention and services?
What's the capacity of staff that are overseeing HIV health prevention and services?
So our capacity is the same as it has been. We're at level.
Thank you, Council president. Good morning, Commissioner Raval-Nelson and Commissioner Solanke. Thank you both and your teams for your partnership with my office and also the work that you do on behalf of our citizens every day. My first questions are for Public Health Commissioner. In response to the Council President's earlier question about our city's recent F on air quality, you mentioned a few air quality measures that the Health Department employs for some sources of air pollution in our city. However, for the past seven years Philadelphia has sent 30% of its trash to be burned at the largest trash incinerator in the country, which is owned by a company called Reworld. The Reworld Incinerator has been repeatedly cited for poor environmental practices. In fact, Reworld was cited again last month for not inspecting radioactive waste before burning it. It is located just down I-95 in the city of Chester. The American Lung Association who authored the recent report on our air quality, endorsed the Stop Trashing Our Air Act because, as stated in its letter of support, municipal waste incineration poses serious and well-documented risk to public health, particularly for those most vulnerable to air pollution, including children, older adults, individuals with pre-existing health conditions and communities of color that already face a disproportionate amount of environmental burdens. In Philadelphia, in our metro area more than 577,000 adults and 137,000 children live with asthma. And earlier we were talking about the Canadian wildfires. We remember that impact all the way here in Philadelphia. So I don't think I have to stress to you the impact that an incinerator in Chester would have on Philadelphia. So I have to ask, what are we doing to address large-scale polluters like the Reworld Incinerator? And how is the Health Department working to ensure that our city is not contracting with industries that contribute to polluting our air and making Philadelphians sick? (Applause.)
And then more specifically, the Parker Administration opposed the Stop Trashing Our Air Act, which would ban our city from contracting with polluting incinerators. Was that opposition informed by a public health perspective? And if so, what was your participation in the Parker Administration's opposition to the bill?
So, Councilmember, I can start by saying -- and I think you and your office are well aware my background is environmental health, and specifically environmental health and policy and environmental justice. With that said, the things that we can do in terms of the incinerator and working, when we were here for the Five Year Plan, I mentioned the city of Chester has recently gotten a new Health Commissioner. I've met with her once. I'm hoping to meet with her again, along with the Director of Health for Delaware County, to figure out the ways that we can partner and work on the items that are within our control in terms of providing them assistance. We are monitoring the air and we can gladly share the data. As far as because the incinerator and also the incinerator sits outside of the city of Philadelphia, all I can say is, wherever possible, we can partner to help. We will and that is --
Is our city's contracting within our control? You said we would do what was within our control to help. Is our city contracting something that's within our city's control?
The city contracting system would be -- I know for the Health Department, we RFP things and pick lowest bidders and go through the procurement process.
But you would agree that the City of Philadelphia has control over who it contracts with?
Okay. So this is something within our control that we can help Chester with, yes?
So this would be one of the things in our control that we could help with? You said that we would be willing to help Chester.
Okay. Was the Parker Administration's opposition to the bill informed by a public health perspective to your knowledge? And if so, what was your participation in that opposition? And then lastly, we've talked about the air monitors that you all put up. Earlier when the Council President brought up the American Lung Association's rating on our air. You said that you would have to review it and get back to us. And also, there is a pretty well- crafted study that Delaware County did about the very harmful impact that trash incineration has on people's health. Why does it seem like the Parker Administration only trusts data that the Parker Administration puts out? As a doctor, do you think that we should also be taking into account reputable sources like the American Lung Association, prior studies that are credible about the impact of trash incineration? Why do we have to start from scratch on things that have been studied pretty well?
So, ma'am, I've agreed with Council President. I'll absolutely look at the studies and be happy to get back to your office.
Okay. And then can you answer the question about how the opposition to the bill was informed by any public health perspective. To your knowledge, was it?
Again, I'm going to look at everything and absolutely get back to your office.
Thank you. I'll just close by saying we have this F air rating. We control our contracting. We know the harmful effects of trash incineration. I'm looking to the Department of Public Health and the Parker Administration in general to take these concerns seriously and do what is within our control to make sure that our city and our neighbors are healthy. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Member York -- Member Young, O'Rourke and the Chair of Health Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you and good morning. Thank you all for being here. My first question I have is for the Health Department. Just really quick, in your testimony it says the target for non-Hispanic Black women initiating breastfeeding drops from greater than 80% in FY26 to greater than 78%. So why is this number a little bit lower when we're trying to emphasize maternal and child equity? Specifically through the Joy Bank program that we have here in our city, can you talk to us about if we are investing in these health equities, why is our target lower when it comes to breastfeeding in Black women?
Sure. Give me just one second here. The lighting in here requires little readers. So we have been conducting broad outreach and conducting all sorts of telelactation programs. And at the end of the day, initiation and the target for monitoring with both Black women and Latino women has been lower because of participation issues. So we're doing all of the things we can. We are also increasing our promotion. Our goal is to be greater than 80% this past quarter. We were at 78.2% so we are trying our darndest to get more people and do different forms of outreach where we can be considered a credible source and then women are more likely to engage in breastfeeding.
Thank you. I just don't think we should lower the bar when it comes to this issue. I think we should set higher standards to ensure that we get to a place where there is equity in the Black maternal health system --
And we won't lower our target. Our target is going to remain where it is. We're just going to increase our efforts to meet the target, sir.
Thank you. One more question for Health involving asbestos. Can you talk about what are the penalties for not following the existing protocols the department set for abatement contractors currently?
Yeah, for asbestos particularly. What are some of the penalties that could happen if you're not following the abatement plan or if you mislead the department about what your abatement plan is?
Sure. We have both, they're called, air pollution control inspectors as well as supervisors. Folks submit their plan and we go out to do inspections, whether it's by complaint or engaged in inspections as they are working through the course of the job. If they are not in compliance at the time of the inspection, they do get penalties. We assess and leverage those penalties. The penalties vary based on the infraction and the type of permit, but we can get you full details.
It's a major infraction. What's the type of penalties? If it's labeled on your document as a major infraction?
So a major infraction would mean that we would ask folks to immediately cease the work that they're doing. And then the actual penalty amount, I can get back to you on the actual dollar amount and how it's assessed.
Thank you. Mr. President, one more question with DBHIDS please.
Thank you. My question involves the 2100 Girard Avenue and our Wellness Center. You report that there are 323 placements at Philly Home at Girard and 474 at the Riverview placement. Can you tell us how many placements led to a stable recovery, longer-term treatment or permanent housing as opposed to a short-term cycle through the program? And what are the types of services that are provided at these locations? And can you provide us with the demographics of the participants? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Great question. I can actually provide more detail after this. But I can say generally the participants receive mental health services. They receive medical services as well. There's also vocational training that's provided. There's case management training, all of the services required and necessary to get somebody on their recovery journey so that when they're discharged, they're able to contribute to the economic life of the city. We have 151 Philly One vouchers. And I believe OHS administers some of those and DBHIDS administers some of those. So the idea is to identify individuals that are ready for transitioning graduation from Riverview who can access those vouchers. I'm sorry. I think I missed the first part of your question.
So if you can provide us with the demographics for the folks at the facilities. And you mentioned the One Philly voucher support program, and that is only for people that's recovering from opioid use disorder. But here the testimony says opioid. Are there other substances that people who have issues, can they get this voucher if I have alcoholism? Am I able to get this voucher if I have other types of substance abuse issues or was it only strictly for opioid use? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: The vouchers are funded through the Opioid Settlement Fund. So, yes, those individuals that have access to those particular vouchers will be individuals that have substance use disorder. But we're exploring other voucher and housing opportunities, including up to the H.O.M.E. initiative, to kind of look through the full continuum of housing needs for individuals in Philadelphia, regardless of whether they're coming from the shelter or treatment or any of our programs.
I'm just questioning that because it's only for opioid use. And if you look at the demographics, it affects everyone. But I'm asking for the demographics for a reason because there's a rising use of substance abuse among Black men. And I want to see if the resources are getting there as well or is it still going to the certain folks. Thank you, Mr. President.
I'm sorry. I was just going to clarify, sir, regarding the fines for air, the asbestos permits. So our local fines can be anywhere from $300 to $500, but we also leverage, because we regulate the federal guidance in the laws anywhere from 2500 to 25,000, we can also make referrals to the EPA and do criminal sanctions against folks.
Thank you. But for clarity, for a major violation you can shut the job down?
Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: And, Councilmember, just to be clear, individuals that are Black and Brown are also part of the individuals that have opioid use disorder, so it's really the full gamut of Philadelphians that have a disorder, that have opioid disorder, that have access to those vouchers. But we do have other options for anyone else that may not have that as a primary diagnosis, so we're moving them into more permanent housing.
I just want to follow up on the line of questioning from Member Young. And so, do we know the rise of substance abuse amongst African American men by numbers? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: I can get you that data, sir.
Okay. Because I want to see if there is a correlation between the new movement toward the legalization of marijuana. When I was a kid, they said marijuana was a gateway drug, right. And so, we also know mass incarceration, there's a movement to legalize it. And so, I want to know if there's a correlation between the legalization, right, and us saying the level of substance abuse increasing. So that would be very, very helpful information.
Council President, if I could just let you know about the procurement position. I just want to -- I mean the food procurement position.
So the food procurement position that I was referring to, which is within our CDIP Division, that is filled and was vacated because of the person. The position that I believe Council President is referring to is a joint position between us and Procurement. That has been vacant. And we are working with our new Procurement Commissioner to go ahead and fill that. That position is 50% with Health and 50% funded through Procurement, so we are working on that. So I just wanted to correct that for the record, sir.
And we will keep an eye on that and do our darndest to get it filled.
The name of that position is the Good Food Procurement coordinator.
So y'all know I'm vegan, so give our young people some healthy vegetables and some foods. And if they may not want to eat any meat, they can have that option to have maybe some tofu, a little bit of seitan seasoning, probably for our young people. But thank you for your hard work in all seriousness -- well, I was serious. But thank you for your hard work around that issue. Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke and we're waiting to hear from our Chair of Health Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad who will be next.
Thank you, Mr. President. And sorry for cutting in front of you, Dr. Ahmad. Dr. Nelson, thank you and your team for all of your work and for your responsiveness to outreach when questions arise. Our team is super grateful for the quick engagement. Much appreciated. I want to ask a few questions about your Resource Hub program, especially the colocation of resources in sites like Puentes De Salud. From my understanding, this has been an invaluable program that benefits from the language access and community trust of Puentes and resource distribution by the Health Department. But due to contract changes, these resources are being pulled from community sites like Puentes and moved to Mayor Parker's many city halls for neighborhood community action centers. For the record, what types of resources have been provided by the Resource Hub, specifically at Puentes De Salud?
Sure. Absolutely. And I thank you for the question, Councilmember. And I just wanted to clarify for the record, so the resource hubs are -and Deputy Commissioner Garrow is passing around double-sided information so that everybody has access to it. The resource Hubs were a part of our COVID funding, our federal funds that we received. Those dollars are sunsetting at the end of this June. And so, the funding to pay for the rent, to pay for the security, the cleaning and all of those items at the resource hubs, that funding is ending. But we know that our communities still need us and we know that our communities need the resources that we were providing. Whether it's masks or COVID test kits or free condoms or the newest, latest and greatest condom holders, we want to make sure that we have them accessible. So what we began doing, as we realized that this funding was sunsetting, we started partnering to figure out where we could create spaces so that communities could still have access to these resources and the test kits and everything else. And one of the areas that we realized where we don't have to pay overhead, where we don't have to pay for security and cleaning and all of those other items was at the neighborhood action centers. And so, we ended up partnering with the neighborhood action team. And again, Jim is passing around -- I don't know if you have it yet, Councilmember, we are passing around the information that shows the map. We are hoping to go from having four sites to actually 10 around the entire city so that there is access. I have also met with Puentas to figure out how we can address the challenges and the issues with them.
Okay. So then that's the reason why you're planning to move the services out of Puentes to a neighborhood community action center starting July 1, because all that funding will be sunsetting? That's the logic behind that?
Correct. And I'm sorry. If I could clarify, at the same time we're more than willing to still provide the items. We just don't have the capacity to pay for the rent and the rest of the overhead.
Okay. Heard. The locus of my concern had to do with language access. And so for me, if Puentes was providing that, moving them out of Puentes would be concerning for that reason because of language access issues and the community trust Puentes has built already, especially with our migrant neighbors -- so thank you so much for this, I'll keep this to the side -- you're of the opinion that the neighborhood community action centers will be able to provide the same level of language access that Puentes De Salud has offered? Is that something that we can trust?
So that is the goal and that is something that we can absolutely make sure it's addressed.
Are there currently any staff Spanish-speakers in the apparatus that could be moved?
So we use Language Access, we use Language Line and other language resources within the Health Department. We do have Spanish- speaking staff. However, we can work to figure out the best way to address that need. I have been personally, actively engaged with Puentes because I want to make sure that we, as a non-English speaker, English being my second language, I'm very mindful of those issues, so I want to make sure that at the end of the day we have the best solution for the community that needs the Department of Public Health to be there for them.
That's great and I appreciate that. Do we know right now which neighborhood community action center that folks will be directed to away from Puentes?
Got you. Okay. One of the things that -- I think I'm looking at this right. Maybe I have it wrong. I think that's east of Broad Street. Is there one in the 2nd District? Is there a neighborhood action center in the 2nd District because Puentes I think is in the 2nd District --
Not sure. Okay. That was one of the concerns, that Puentes I understand is in the 2nd District. If we're moving into a neighborhood community action center because the funds have been sunsetted and that's already the plan, great. But then the location does matter because of where folks are. You want to say something?
Yes. The 2nd District action center just opened last week.
Okay. Thank you team for getting that squared away. That does address some of the concerns that I had. So there's not necessarily -- as long as it's there and we can get some language access at that neighborhood action center I think that'd be good, because I think all of the resources that were coming out of Puentes will be able to just be replicated in this new spot. So that's awesome. I heard the bell. I want to honor the clock. Is there a second round?
We have a hard stop at 1:00, so I think we can get there. But ask that question, sir.
Let me ask just a few more and I'll keep it real, real tight. DBHIDS, thank you. Thank you for the work that you do every day to support some of the most vulnerable Philadelphians. Some of this may already have been addressed. So if you have already gotten it on the record in your opening testimony or across questions that I may have missed, then just disregard it. Take what you can. Like many folks, I am concerned about the coming changes to Medicaid enrollment and funding and how that will detrimentally affect the lives of those who rely on Medicaid for their health care. I know that we have up here 73,000. I had actually in my records 67,000 Philadelphians will lose Medicaid coverage due to the federal cuts. What proactive measures, if any, have you been taking to address the Medicaid changes? Let me just get them all on the record. Is there any collaboration with the state to prepare for the fall of the cuts? Is there any public awareness information campaign that you're running about it? And I know that you've said that you're preparing for some of this already. I kind of wanted to get some details about what that looked like. Some are proposing a public health emergency fund or that the city step in to fund its own Medicaid subsidy program. As a safety net for those who will be under or uninsured due to these Medicaid changes, if provided with the funding, does DBHIDS have the ability to administer such a program? And -- I got too many more. Let's just go with that. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Very good questions. I have our inhouse expert Donna Bailey, who is the CEO of CBH. CBH is the city's contracted managed care organization insurance that serves all Philadelphians that have Medicaid. But to answer your first question is there anything we're doing, absolutely. In addition to the effort that the MDO's office, Health and Human Services is embarked on to contract with the consultant with deep Medicaid knowledge to help create stakeholder engagement around four areas, which is enrollment, financial assessment, eligibility and I think fiscal technology solutions. In addition to that -- and that work will start in May and we're going to be looking to you to be part of some of those work groups. So we hope you'll be able to participate. However, on our end at DBHIDS and CBH, there's been a lot of work being done. So the state behavioral health managed care organizations and counties have been meeting to talk -- with the state to talk about what are some of our early mitigating strategies, what data should we have access to, to support individuals so we can make direct outreach, and what are some of our Philadelphia-specific strategies to raise awareness so that Philadelphians know what we're doing. And so, Donna, who's been heading that task, will speak a little bit more to that.
Thank you, Commissioner. So as the city's Medicaid managed care organization for behavioral health, this is obviously an issue that's of deep concern for us. We're concerned for individuals who might lose coverage, but our revenue, our capitation is determined by enrollment. So the fewer people we have, the fewer revenue we have. We're funded 55% by the federal government, 45% by the state. So last year, we really worked to try to delay these changes. We were unsuccessful. We know they're coming. So our strategy really has been one of education and outreach. So earlier in the year, we really were focused on provider education, stakeholder education. Now, we're shifting more towards member engagement. We know or the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services is estimating that 184,000 Philadelphians are in the expansion population. Those are individuals who gained eligibility through the Affordable Care Act. They're the ones that are really going to be at risk for losing their coverage under these new policy changes. Of those, we're expecting about 74,000 to lose coverage. I think that's a low number. So we're also looking at our own data at CBH. We're estimating about closer to 90,000 individuals who are currently receiving behavioral health services to be at risk. So what are we doing? First, we understand that a lot of people don't even know they have Medicaid. They think they have Health Partners or Keystone or Geisinger or UPMC For You or United. That's Medicaid. And so, that really is our talking point. If you have any of those organizations as your physical health insurance company, you're automatically enrolled with CBH for your behavioral health coverage. So we're doing a lot of public services announcements. We're out in the community. We have a member services team that's like the first line of information and resources. They have a script so that when people are calling in, they're asking those questions. We're also planning for member engagement activities across the city this summer starting June 13. We do have some flyers. The first one will be in partnership with Concilio, so we really want to go to those neighborhoods where we know we have a high percentage of both eligible and utilizing members, prioritizing those first. We're also working with PA DHS on how they are planning on implementing this. We know that folks can get a waiver if they're considered medically fragile. The state has not issued what their definition is going to be for that. We're really encouraging for a broad definition, so that as many people can be exempt as possible.
Is there going to be a day that we're going to get the definition or what the definition will be?
So we're expecting that CMS will give additional guidance to states in June. And hopefully shortly after that, PA DHS will issue their definition to the managed care organizations.
Okay. Great. I see a switch-over. I have more questions, but I can wait for another round.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, who's the Chair of Public Health.
Thank you, Council President. It has been good to wait and be the last person because I've heard all my colleagues ask their questions, very insightful questions. Good afternoon and welcome. I just want to start by saying thank you to both these dynamic Commissioners, both for Public Health and for DBHIDS. I am grateful to all of you for your cooperation, for work collaboration. There's nothing greater than the health of Philadelphia, our mental, physical and our wraparound services that keep people engaged and fully participant in our society. So I thank you both for that. Now, for the question. First to the Public Health. We had had this conversation already in our meeting we had around the projected timeline for the health centers in the Northeast, the additional health centers. There's a nine-month-to-a-year wait for people to be seen. We are already facing so much stress from the federal government that is undermining our health in the country and of course here in our city. We need to have every available resource to support our communities to have health care access. You had informed me that all the legal barriers were resolved, a lot of things were resolved and now we're getting ready to hit the ground. And there's a 2029 date for the Frankford one and there's a 2030 date for the Friends Center. This is unacceptable, to have so much time. Projects of this nature, of this scale shouldn't take so long. Much bigger budgets take maybe three or four years. For this size, it's unacceptable. So I need to know what exactly is the barrier to expediting this in a timely fashion so our constituents in this part of town have access to health care? We were able to in two weeks get 95 done. We know we have the capacity to do this. We need to have the will to do this. So I really want you to clearly articulate in a public setting, for our public consumption what is the barrier? Why is it three and four years that it will take now that you have resolved lawsuits and everything else? What is the real reason for taking so long because it should not? (Applause.)
Sure, Councilmember. So let me start by saying this, right, pouring concrete to build a road can't be compared with building two health centers, specifically health centers which require a multi- faceted set of exam rooms, mammogram, all sorts of services. So it's not -- yes, we can absolutely pour concrete, I'm not a civil engineer, to patch a roadway. It's not the same and cannot and should not be compared to the building of health centers. So where we are, we have two sites. We have the Frankford Transportation Center, and that is going to be a multi-use health center residence as well as a grocery store that is going through the process steps of getting the core and shell built and everything. And remember, this is a health center. We all know what recently happened with the collapse. I don't want to move anything faster than it needs to be. We need to make sure that the health center and the site is safe. So that site is on its trajectory. We are working through the letter of intent. We are working through all of -- they have new market tax credits. We're working through all of that to get that through design. Both sites, we have conceptual design drawings for. Now, the way construction works, our CPO, our DMD for capital projects has explained and taught me is that we have phases. Construction occurs in phases. So we have our conceptual design. Then we have our architectural drawings and our blueprints and everything so that it's sound, especially now for the Friends site the litigation has ended. Once those drawings are finalized, approved, verified, we have the permitting for that. That is when the process occurs for the building of the core and the shell. Okay. That takes its own time. Once the core and shell is built, then we go ahead and do the fit-out. The fit-out is the phase of the construction where we decide about the exam rooms, the items that are needed, and we get the equipment and all of that. The FTC site is -- because of the multi-developmental uses for the FTC site, it is a smaller building compared to the site at the Friends Hospital. The FTC site is on its own trajectory. We're working on the LOI, the letter of intent, and the lease documents. For the Friends site, we are in the final phases of selecting the architect and the designer that will take our conceptual design and go ahead and turn it into drawing so that we can then move towards the permitting and the construction aspect. The building itself that was there onsite that was the Lawnside building where the health center is going, that has been demolished. So we are moving on the most appropriate and safest trajectory that we possibly can. Again, I want to be very careful and cautious. Pouring concrete for a roadway is not the same that, you know, we want to be cautious on how we build up our health centers so that they can last us for upwards of 80 years.
Thank you for that. So you might not know. I actually have background in development. I actually do --
I do know what you just described is a process, but you did not describe time involved. So time is money for contractors to put these things down. So what I'm finding is sort of bureaucratic speak, is what I heard from you. Not your fault because you might not know how this works. You were told something by the capital budget people probably. All I'll tell you is it is not about pouring concrete to do a street. There is no reason where we are today for this to take as long as has been told to you. And I will follow up with you with whoever gave you that information step-by-step-by-step to tell you, you know, getting all the financing together, getting the actual contractor in place, it should not take so much time if we are intent and if we are intentional about it. So we're going to have a conversation after this, which I will then publicly share with everyone to say what exactly is the hold-up of doing this faster because this has taken years to even get here. So I don't accept that answer and I will actually look to see details, and this is going to be a callback, details on the actual construction project, to say why is it taking so long. Because this scale of project, just with the money involved, should not take this long. Much bigger projects take shorter time than this. And to the safety issue, the garage issue, was a materials issue and we're going to hear about that. This is not a materials process. Material science was involved in the garage collapse, not in this one. This is not going to be using those kinds of materials. But, yes, safety is paramount and we have the best building industry here that can guarantee that. So I do not take this answer and I need to have a much more specific, detailed that I can share with my constituents about why these things are taking so long step-by-step, including financing all the way to the contractor. So we'll get back to that. So thank you.
I welcome conversation, Councilmember. And I just want to make sure that I put on the record that all of us are working together. We want the safest and the best health centers. Again -- I know based on what you just said, you have expertise in this and I appreciate that. And I look forward to us meeting with our colleagues with DPP and CPO, because they are extremely great partners in this, and we can absolutely go through the process. But where we are right now is we have conceptual designs and we are working to get the firm selected to take us through construction and then take us through the process. We want to make sure that we have the safest and the best sites.
Thank you. We will circle back on that. Because of my limited time, I want to shift to DBHIDS. I wanted to get your perspective on the partnership you have with the Department of Human Services. How engaged are you? Because in the last budget hearing, we were alarmed to hear there was not enough DBHIDS presence in this process of child welfare. And what I mean by that is when the investigators are going out responding to a complaint, their load in terms of how many cases they're processing, what support the social worker is getting there and similarly, what is your engagement with CUAs, who are actually executing on following up on that investigation? I want the entire wraparound perspective you have because I love the diagram you gave us in your material about a well- rounded, comprehensive kind of approach. And if that were the case, we would not have as many issues with DBHIDS, I believe, if we really did have a full partnership with full oversight from DBHIDS. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Thank you for that question. It's going to be a two-part question. I will tee up and then I'll punt to Donna Bailey from CBH to talk a little bit about how CBH not only partners, but we embed care managers in Family Court. We have care manager stations at DHS and they've been there for over 20 years. We have care managers in all of the spaces where children who are in child welfare care are able to access behavioral health directly. So we may not be in the CUAs, but these CUAs are behavioral health providers. And so, they should be able to do an assessment and determine what is right for that child, because that's literally what they're being paid for. And that was one of the reasons that DHS contracted with behavioral health service providers to ensure that there's an interdigitation, if you will, of social welfare and behavioral health --
I want to interrupt you before you go forward. Apologies. But the fact that the CUAs have no direct oversight from you in their behavioral health, they're just contracted out, because that's where we're having a lot of the breakdown. And so, I wanted to know how much oversight do you have of this entire process of the child welfare system? Just saying that we have this there and we gave this out to -- it doesn't matter because we're just looking at what is the outcome. And I am seeing there's a lack of engagement from DBHIDS or type resources, even though on paper that is happening. So there's a lot of things on paper, boxes checked and things done, had a virtual meeting here and there. I want our children to be able to be impacted by the care you're giving, the wraparound services. I have not seen that yet. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: So a lot of the CUA providers are not CBH providers or DBHIDS providers, but they provide behavioral health services. And that for us is actually a good indicator of ensuring that all of the children and families that are coming through these agencies have the assessment, a behavioral health assessment, a child welfare assessment and they're able to make a determination about what the family and that child needs. But DBHIDS as a county, we don't pay for these services.
So you have no oversight to check the quality of this, correct?
We need to fix this because that is where the breakdown is happening. You can see that they hired a behavioral health expert to be in that CUA. How well are they actually executing? What is the outcome? So if we as a city where we have two agencies, public health and mental health, is not able to give oversight to make sure child welfare is working, that's a problem. So we need to all come together, whether it's legislatively or programmatically, figure out why there is no clear oversight of any behavioral work that is going on in our -- because CUA money is a contract that comes out of our money. So this is all tax dollars. So to just say that we said, oh, they have behavioral health, that's enough. That is not enough. So we have to figure out how you have full agency over accountability in these CUAs, because this whole system was set up in response to a terrible death of Danieal Kelly, and here we still have no accountability of exactly how these processes and services are being given to our most vulnerable in our city. So we have to have another callback or some questions answered about this is not acceptable. This is not acceptable. The state we are in now, because we are having so many problems continuously, even though we have given so many things. So you might have some ideas. We'll have some ideas, but thank you. I know the bell rang. I have some more questions lined up, but we'll have a second round?
So we will be breaking shortly. I will check with our Council President relative to additional time after the break, although we do have another department after the break. And so if possible, I'm going to move beyond our Public Health Chair. We thank you, Dr. Ahmad, for your questions so that we could recognize the additional members who were in the queue before break. Okay.
I will definitely get the answer and then circle back to you. Okay. But I wanted --
-- to make sure you had ample time as our Chair of Public Health. Okay. All right. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Landau -- really quickly before recognizing, I'm sorry, Councilmember Landau, I wanted to recognize the Coalition of Culturally Competent Providers as they start their citywide Mental Health Awareness Month events and activities. They will start today at 3:00 p.m. at 69th Street. And they'll visit also Fern Rock Station, Frankford Station and Suburban Station for their final event. And this is in partnership with SEPTA, and they have invited DBHIDS, CBH, PECO and a host of community providers and organizations to provide behavioral health resources throughout the city at our major transportation stations and hubs. So I just wanted to recognize that work and also that partnership. I will now recognize Councilmember Landau and Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you. I will be as quick as possible. I know this will be a fast round. The state has an affordable insurance marketplace that opens for enrollment yearly with a special enrollment period for unplanned circumstances, like losing a job or recently released from incarceration. Do we have any protections in place for folks who lose their Medicaid or need to sign up for health insurance on a similar marketplace?
So what I can tell you is that the county pays for behavioral health services for the uninsured. And to my knowledge, right now that would be the only protection. For other folks, the marketplace is available, but we also know that those subsidies have been scaled back as well.
I'm looking for tech solutions for us to make sure that we capture as many people as possible. On your website, it says that health counselors at health centers could assist with finding insurance. But I've heard from constituents who are calling our office that making an appointment is difficult, the wait is long and the closest date is usually months away. Is there a website like Pennie where they can browse their options? Do we know who will be cut off so we can proactively -- and do we know who's going to be cut off? Do we have an idea? The tech in the City of Philadelphia is not where it needs to be. I feel like we should know more about who these folks are who are getting cut off than we do. And do we know who they are and can we proactively reach out to them?
So there's also Benephilly that folks can reach out to. We do know that the county assistance offices, there's challenges often times with getting through on the phone. And so, we're telling folks to physically go to the office. And you are asking do we know who these people are who are potentially going to lose coverage. Yes. So CBH has looked at our data to identify the folks who fall into the expansion category and of those, the subset who have used behavioral health services at some point. We are now stratifying that data additionally to understand who is their physical health insurer, who was the last behavioral health provider that they saw, all towards giving those providers their list of people so that they can engage more directly with them. So that data and analytic work is happening right now. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Councilmember, there's one other option to help people maintain their insurance. The state is encouraging what they're calling Community Partners to help individuals in different spaces, at school, faith spaces, community centers, provider agencies, community action centers to help people enroll and re-enroll. Since we have a lot of people, 73,000 individuals, who may need to have more frequent redeterminations every six months, if we expand the places and the spaces people can go to for their re-enrollment, I think it's going to make a significant difference in terms of reducing the churn.
Thank you so much for what you're doing. Last question is, given the federal attacks on gender-affirming care, has the department, the Health Department, taken any action to protect these services for trans and gender non-conforming folks in our community, especially young people?
We have continued and will continue to provide the care that we have been.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilmember Landau. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you. My questions are for DBH about our Community Mobile Crisis Response Teams and the Philadelphia crisis line. How does the data for outcomes of dispatches to CMCRT compare now to this time last year? How many calls have ended in voluntary hospitalization so far in 2026 and how does that compare to last year? At last year's hearing, I don't think this data was available for us. And then how many calls have been transferred from 911 to the 988 line as of February this year compared to February of 2025, which we have as 4288? And then lastly, at last year's hearing we heard that you were expanding 988 to meet demand and that we were getting 6000 calls a month. What are those numbers this year? And are we currently meeting demand with our current staffing levels? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: All great questions. And if I forget all of them, I will ask again. So to start, I think we began with the call volume for 988. So the call volume went up by 24% and that is 31,692 calls. And of the percentage of those, 83% of those calls were resolved by phone which is what we expect, which is great, but 15% of those calls resulted in a mobile crisis dispatch. I think you also asked how many calls were transferred from 911 to --
Yes. How many dispatches of the CMCRT teams and also how many calls have been transferred from 911 to 988? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: I can get the data for the 911 to 988 dispatches. And I have the data here monthly, so I'm going to have to tabulate that before the end of this hearing to give you a number. But the average dispatch per month for all providers hovers around between 500 and 600 dispatches per month. And I can give you the comparison too. From 2024 to 2026, there was a 3% increase in mobile dispatches from 2024 to 2026.
Okay. And how are our staffing and capacity levels? Do we have the staff necessary to manage the PCL line? And do we have the capacity with our mobile crisis teams to meet demand? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: In all honesty, we are actively, actively engaging with OHR to support us in increasing our ability to bring on qualified staff for PCL. The process right now can be fairly lengthy, takes a little bit of time. And because we have a need, we're looking for about -- how many are we looking for? About six more staff. So we have a meeting coming up to say, is there a way that they can be a little bit more flexible because we're 24/7 and we need clinicians, so we can be more intentional about who we're targeting who can support. From the mobile crisis side or the provider end, we've actually been good in spite of one provider that we've been challenged with and we are sticking with them. We're still in there to win it. And we haven't seen any -- I mean, think about it, we haven't seen any significant increases in response time because of some of these challenges. It's actually gone down --
That's great. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: So we are doing something great. And so, once we get the provider stabilized, I have no doubt that this time next year we're going to get a 30-minute dispatch to response time.
That would be great. If you could follow up with the data promised -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: The 911 to 988 calls, yes.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Oh, we have the number. We have the number.
Very quickly please. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: 1632 calls from 911 to 988.
Thank you. And is that an increase? Just remind me. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: That was Calendar Year '25 so I'm going to have to see why '24, but we'll get that to you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Young.
Thank you. My question is along the same lines around 988. It says that 83% of 988 calls were resolved in 2025. How are you determining that those calls were actually resolved rather than simply closed out without any escalation? Is there follow-up data that exists or repeat callers or later emergency utilization? I'm just referencing our own system we have with 311 that just says things are resolved when they are not. So just trying to get a sense of how this system works and is this 83% accurate? And what is the definition of resolved essentially? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: What is the definition of?
Resolved. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Yes, so that's a great question. So the 83% of the calls that are resolved means that they didn't have to go to a Crisis Response Center. We didn't have to send a mobile team out. We didn't have to activate any emergency services. The resolution could be that person was stabilized in the moment. But we also have a 72-hour follow-up process in place where we're calling it to check in. It depends on the level of intensity of need that person is experiencing. So we can call them every day or every so often hours or maybe kind of space that out. So we do follow up also to make sure they're connected to services. For the most part, if we looked at the trajectory, we could find out where people are going post that call. So we feel fairly confident that if we're saying that the call is resolved, that that person is stable, they're connected, we've followed up. And if anything bubbles up, they can always call back and we do have some repeat callers.
Could you give us the data on that -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Sure.
Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Can you be more specific on the data that you want?
So on the number of follow-up calls or repeat callers or later emergency utilization. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Sure.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilmember Young. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to get a few more of the questions that I had on the record and I'll try to get them real tight so I'm just going to say them, and then hopefully you can respond to that if that's okay. If 67,000 Philadelphians lose Medicaid coverage, another major concern is lack of Medicaid reimbursements for providers. How do you -- I wanted you to hear some forward thinking about this. How do you plan to protect the agencies who provide services, including all services on the crisis continuum, from closing due to insolvency? Your economic impact report estimates that 810 -- I apologize if this was already spoken to -- 810 Community Behavioral Health jobs will be lost due to the cuts that we talked about earlier. How do you anticipate the shrinking of the Medicaid roles will impact community mental health in the city? And two more. In 2025, how many people moved through Wellness Court? Of those, how many were connected to ongoing services? You may have already asked that question. I apologize if you already answered it. And how do you categorize and measure outcomes for people who participate in Wellness Court? Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: For the first two questions related to the individuals that are losing M-aid, the 67,000 and how we plan to support those agencies, I'll have Donna say a little bit about some of the mitigating strategies we have, and then I'll speak to the county side.
Sure. So really, our focus is on ensuring that individuals know about the changes that are coming so they can stay covered. I think the issue about agency solvency is a bit more complicated. We know that coming out of COVID there were providers who closed lines of business or in some cases, closed their agencies altogether. Sadly, I think additional agencies are going to close. Our rates are going to be capped, our rates are going to diminish and we're going to have to make hard decisions, I think, about what the network looks like and who and how much we're able to contract for. In terms of agencies, we are having conversations with them about what does cooperation look like among providers. They tend to compete. And what we're suggesting is looking at what one agency might do really well and disinvesting of those services that they might not do well in and partnering with another agency. So we can't broker those conversations, but we know that they are happening out there. Right now today we feel like we have sufficient capacity across all levels of care. I think if those numbers increased to the extent that we think they might, then there will be serious concerns about access in Philadelphia.
So what I hear you saying is that you're clear about your priority, which is making sure that individuals have the care that they need. To the degree that you can address the financial insolvents, what's going to come with this, you're trying to encourage cooperation amongst groups to kind of move away from a competitive model to one about all of us trying to provide -- COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Coopetition.
Say that word again. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Coopetition, Managing Director Crystal Yates-Gale.
Well, said. Stolen, I'll use that now going forward, coopetition. And also, you currently feel like you're staffed up enough to be able to address what concerns are. But if you feel like there are deeper cuts or what have you, then you will have some concerns --
-- of the state of mental health in the city. Perfect. Thank you so much for those answers. Did you get a chance to walk me through the Wellness Court piece? COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Still waiting for the data. We don't have it readily available. We'll be happy to share it as soon as we get it.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilmember O'Rourke. I'd like to reserve the last one minute for Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad -- so if you could just please quickly 15 seconds. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: (Inaudible).
Okay. Well, thank you very much. Please get back to Councilmember O'Rourke. I will now recognize Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad for one minute.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Quick question about measles. And as we know, 95% vaccination rate is needed for MMR immunity for measles. Can you speak to what is happening in Philadelphia because we were doing very well? And I just wanted to know where we are now, given what the federal government has done. And a second question very quickly is about maternal health and what things have been changed outside of the Joy Bank that we are doing to really reduce maternal mortality?
I apologize for the interruption. 30 seconds please.
Absolutely. As far as the Joy Bank is concerned, we are continuing that pilot and we're in the evaluation phase so we are continuing to work on that, and we can get you some additional data for maternal mortality. As far as your question about vaccinations, we are in a very good place in terms of we know that the MMR vaccine, which is the measles vaccine, is given when folks are children, so we are monitoring that through our School District and Childhood Immunization program, and those vaccines are not given to adults unless there's some sort of an issue and there is a case and we need to verify titers and everything, so we are in a good place with those vaccines.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Councilmember Ahmad, our Chair of Public Health. We appreciate all that you do on our behalf. This committee will now stand in recess until 2:00 p.m. We thank you all so much for testifying. Have a great day. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Thank you. (Lunch recess.)
Ms. Loughead, could you please call our next panel.
The next panel to testify is District Attorney Larry Krasner, who's also joined by Chief of Staff, Jennifer Lynn; Chief of External Engagement and Government Affairs, G. Lamar Stewart; and Director of Finance and IT, David Benson. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
So before we get started, one, I want to welcome you to City Council, District Attorney Larry Krasner. I want to also acknowledge Mr. G. Lamar Stewart, that's a part of your leadership team. Thank him for all his hard work in making sure he's keeping the line of communications open between the District Attorney's Office and members of City Council. And also, my good friend Mr. Bill 22 Fritze and the work he's done regarding the Gun Violence Task Force going after those who carry guns here in the City of Philadelphia. And also the work that the District Attorney's Office has done when it comes to the Integrity Unit, helping individuals who may have been wrongfully convicted the opportunity to have a chance to take a relook at their cases. And so, to the whole District Attorney's staff, those are a couple key areas that I've always focused on. And also the next level around the issue of domestic violence and making sure that we're helping women who are impacted by domestic violence, and the work that you have been doing also around supporting victims and co-victims of gun violence, Mr. District Attorney. And so, I just want to start off by setting that tone. You've always been an open and willing partner when it comes to issues that we want to see addressed in City Council, by not only coming and listening to us, but you'll find a way to come back and say, here's how we're actually going to address the actual issue, rather it's individuals with stolen cars. We came to you, talked about it being an issue, you followed up on it. Rather the issue of retail theft, you adjusted the policies from COVID to make sure we're going after those who are not only on a low level engaging in retail theft, but those who are fencing goods in the City of Philadelphia as well. So I just wanted to start off by setting the tone. Let you know we have been paying attention to the partnership that we have at the District Attorney's Office as well as keeping the lines of communication open as we make this a safe city. And so, with that being said, you can begin your testimony. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Good afternoon, Council President. I will say good afternoon to everyone as well in a moment, but I just want to say that in light of your most recent comments, which touched on the partnership, that really is true. There has been a very interesting and very positive partnership when there is an issue that the city has faced and Council has conducted hearings. Even if some of us were reluctant to face the reality that we were up against a big challenge, I have always found that those hearings in the long run were a very positive thing for the city. They were a very positive thing for safety and freedom and a very positive thing for our office. I would say it's a template that was put down in many ways by you, Council President, and also by our friend Curtis Jones, when we were looking at a gun violence crisis. Obviously, we are in a different place now. But I genuinely appreciate that partnership. I'm not just saying it because I want money, and I do want money. I'm saying it because it has been real and it has been positive and I truly appreciate that. My good afternoon therefore is not just for you, sir. It is also for Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson, all of our other good partners in Council. It is for Minority Leader Kendra Brooks, all of these folks who are either here in spirit or in person, Appropriations Chair Squilla, members of our esteemed Philadelphia City Council as a whole, who are here, many of whom have been tremendous partners just in general, but on specific issues of interest to them. And I will reference some of those issues for the record. I am Larry Krasner. I'm the District Attorney for the City of Philadelphia. I'm here testifying on behalf of the 600-plus attorneys, sworn law enforcement, victim service advocates and support staff professionals employed by the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.
I'm joined by several senior and executive level colleagues. Among them, Chief of Staff Jennifer Lynn; G. Lamar Stewart, who's the Chief of our External Engagement Government Affairs Division; and I'm joined by several supervisors of crucial units, some of which are of special interest today. I'm going to identify them and I'm going to ask the heads of these units to stand up so you can see them. Because when you see them in the hallways, you'll know who they are. Gun Violence Task Force seated next to me, Mr. Bill 12 Fritze. And by the way, you can all sit down after you stand up. Family Violence Sexual Assault Unit Chief seated with me, Katrina Wadas. Elder Justice Unit seated with me is Gillian Dagress, and also we have Alex Blumenthal, the Chief of the unit who is seated nearby. Information Tech Unit, that is a very, very important unit anymore, David Benson; Economic Crimes Division, Kim Esseck; Dangerous Drug Offender Unit, Paul Riddell, and Keion Cook is not the Chief but he is here with him; Juvenile Unit, Annie Ambrose, who may be familiar to many of you from other positions she has held; our CARES Unit, which as you know works specifically with families and homicide victims, Tania Leonard; Victim Services Unit, Mariel Delacruz; Relocations Unit, Donna Woods. We'll talk about CIU which you also highlighted, Council President, we'll talk about CIU, which is the Conviction Integrity Unit, the one that does exonerations of the innocent, we'll speak about that a little later. Our entire executive team and DAO staff remain committed to a balanced and comprehensive approach to prioritizing public safety through modern enforcement strategies and supporting violence prevention, intervention and interruption efforts throughout the City of Philadelphia. Yes, it is about safety and freedom. Yes, safety and freedom go together when you handle both of them in the right way. And, no, they didn't get it right in the past. Look at the numbers right now and you will see that we, all of us together, collectively all of us, we are getting it right. The number of homicides this morning, and no homicide is okay, is 39. We are past the first third of the year. ) DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: You are looking -- that clap, I believe, is for so many of us in and out of government. But you are looking at fewer than 10 homicides a month at this point in the history of the City of Philadelphia. At the height of the pandemic, it was about 45. That is where we are under difficult circumstances in many ways. And I think many people in this room and many people in the gallery, whether they're here or here virtually, should be patting themselves on the back because something good is happening in the City of Philadelphia. The nation as well as our city are going to highlight several themes or have highlighted them. In the month of April, we highlighted Sexual Assault Survivors Month, Re-entry Month, which is was also Second Chances Month, National Child Abuse Prevention Month and National Crime Victims Rights Week, which was April 19th through the 25th. This month, the month of May, we recognize Mental Health Awareness Month. And every one of these issues obviously is of great significance to public safety and to freedom. I want to open my testimony by thanking victim advocates, both within the Philadelphia DA's Office as well as our external partners for their advocacy and support to families and communities impacted by violence and trauma. It is the work of these victim services groups that continues to help our communities heal in 100 ways. I won't list them because we ain't got the time, but in 100 different ways. They help with our safety, they help with our freedom, they help with our healing. I am joined today by our partners in work among these nine external, contracted victim services providers.
They are special guests in my view and they are also absolutely essential to the work of the DA's Office and the work we do together for safety and freedom. I would like to briefly ask them -- well, ask them to briefly stand as we acknowledge their organizations and there are nine, so I'll go through them expeditiously. Northwest Victim Services, Anti-Violence Partnerships, Victim Witness Services of South Philadelphia, Women Organized Against Rape, now known as Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Violence, Concilio Central Division, Victim Services, Women Against Abuse, Northeast Victim Services Support Center for Child Advocates. ) DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: -- these nine. Inside your packets are letters from each of these organizations in support of our budget and in support of the work that we do together. We are very grateful for that work, and we hope that Council and we hope that Philadelphia in general understand the incredibly important close connection that we have with these groups. We sit here today 50 -- let me make sure I got my numbers right, 55 months into historic declines in violent crime. 55 months into improvements, and it's not just violent crime. It's also nonviolent crime. No, not every single crime down every single month. That's not real. 55 months and it hasn't stopped. This is an incredible achievement. And I don't think there's anyone, any group, any aspect, any factor that can claim to have done more than has been done by our nine external contractor victim services providers and the victim services providers within the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. And I thank you all for the work that you do to continue to help Philadelphia heal. If you're standing, you may be seated. And if you're not, then you're smart. Now, let us be clear and I think it is clear at this point, the idea was never just let everybody go. The idea was always that there were some minor crimes being overenforced and we needed to focus on the most serious crimes. We needed to take the limited resources. We continue to vigorously pursue appropriately lengthy consequences, serious consequences and accountability for offenders who harm others in ways that are serious, and we will always do that. We will also work however to be diligent in exonerating individuals who, in prior administrations or even in ours, were wrongfully convicted and innocent of a crime. It was always a double- edged sword. You're letting the guilty one go, you're emboldening the guilty one by putting away the innocent who weren't even there and don't even know what occurred. That is, in many ways, extremely important because it restores faith that we are trying to be fair, which unfortunately was not always the case. And it enforces the notion that it makes sense to engage the government, not to settle your things on the street, but to actually be willing to testify, to be willing to report the crime and to be willing to engage a system that tries very hard to be fair. These exonerees, these innocent people who sat in jail for the crimes of others, were always victims themselves and they are victims now. The families who were sold a bill of goods that Joe committed a crime when he didn't when Bill committed the crime, those families were victims of a system that was inaccurate, inefficient or didn't care about whether they got it right. And we do care that we get it right. We also remain steadfast in funding anti-violence community- based organizations. This, I know, is an issue of great interest to many of you, including of course Councilmember Gauthier, through the DAO's Violence Prevention Grant initiative in partnership with the Philadelphia Foundation. This money, of course, is money we're not allowed to use for our own salaries. We're not allowed to use really for our own purposes. This money by law must be put back into the communities from which it was extracted by drug dealers, by people who harmed other people.
This is money that comes from crime and goes back to try to heal that crime, and we continue to push that money back into the community. Next week, the DA's Office will announce nearly $500,000 in grant awards in support of community-based organizations that lead summer camps, mentoring programs, athletic programs geared toward providing safe spaces to Philadelphia's youth during the summer months, which we all know from a criminological perspective, are always the months when we need to be especially careful about safety. 5 million in grant awards to 501(c)(3) organizations that put boots on the ground and focus on violence prevention, violence intervention and violence interruption. And let me be clear, that money goes back to the communities it came out of. I love Chestnut Hill. I love Rittenhouse Square. It ain't going there. This money is going to the communities that have been most harmed, and that's how it's supposed to be. I want to affirm the professional, integral and hard work of our law enforcement in the City of Philadelphia, police officers and others who go to work every day, sometimes risk their lives while ensuring the public safety of the residents of Philadelphia. The DA's Office supports our law enforcement who are committed to integrity, service to community professionalism and modern community policing that constitute effective modern enforcement. We strive in every way to collaborate with the Office of Mayor Cherelle Parker, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel and his executive team, Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal and her executive team, other local and state law enforcement, not to mention all of our federal partners, but I am now speaking of the city so I'll stick with that, as well as FOP Lodge 5 President Roosevelt Poplar, who's been a tremendous partner since he became the leadership of the FOP and his executive team. I want to thank you all again for the work each of you do daily to improve the criminal justice and to ensure the safety of our residents and to the collaboration that we enjoy or hope to improve so that we can do even better. As for the DAO's FY27 budget request, I want to take a moment once again to thank Mayor Parker, Council President Johnson, City Council, for your support of our FY26 request to launch the DAO's Cleaner and Greener Enforcement Unit, which has focused on the prosecution of quality-of- life crimes that are serious, like short-dumping. Assistant DA Teresa Benavides-Sexton, who previously was working in the Homicide Nonfatal Shooting Unit, has been working very closely with our partners in law enforcement in the investigation of new cases in this difficult area. We have also hired a Victim Witness coordinator Jada Rudisill, who has provided support to communities and victims that are impacted by these damaging crimes. Today I am testifying and respectfully requesting funding support above the FY26 proposed operating budget from Philadelphia City Council in the following amounts: And then I have a comment for you, because I know some people come in here and say, can I have $100 million and their prior budget is a third of that, okay. That's called bargaining. That's called tug of war. That's called I asked for a ton so give me some of it. We're not doing that this year. We're coming in with what is, in fact, a minimalist request of what we absolutely need in order to continue to do this. And I will be the first to admit that might not have been what I did in 2018 or 2019, but some lessons are learned. The lesson here is that I understand how serious you are about trying to get this right and I understand that we are in a time of some concern about austerity, due in part to the federal government. Well, we are coming in for what we need. We're not coming in here for everything we want. Now, on the other hand if you have everything we want, we'll take that too, let me be clear. But these numbers represent not a starting point.
I hope it represents a request that our partners here and also the Mayor's Office will meet. 25 million for witness relocation. 5, which is actually $3,417,833 is for us. It's for payroll, which is 90% of our budget. It's for our people. The other two amounts, in fact, don't go to us. The $1 million in Class 200 is for nine external contracted victim services providers who are here and who need that. City Council answered that need to a good extent last year after 15 years of not answering it, and we are very grateful for that. But I'm just going to be direct. It wasn't enough. They need more and we need them to have more because they are such close collaborators. 25 million that we are requesting in continued support of the DAO's Witness Relocation program doesn't go to us. It's timely and it's critical. An essential role that we play as law enforcement and prosecutors is to protect and ensure the safety of witnesses and victims who are being harassed, threatened, bullied as a result of their cooperation and participation in prosecution. Funding relocation doesn't go in our pockets. It goes for those expenses. And it makes it possible for us to prosecute some of the most dangerous people who are out there. It makes it possible for people to want to come forward. It makes it possible for witnesses who are reluctant to say, I can get over that reluctance because I know that you're going to protect us. So that million in Class 200, not really going to us, not going to our employees, not going to fund things we need. 25 not going to us, going to protect others. What is going to us is the 3,417,833 in Class 100. And of course, the crucial question is for what, what you going to spend it on, why do you want it? Well, in many ways those requests are based upon your priorities, and I say that to the Whole of Council, your priorities and the Mayor's priorities that have been clearly expressed by you, but also by your and our constituents. It goes to a group of areas that we think are vital. I will tick them off and then I'll talk briefly about each one. The first is expanding the work of the DAO's Gun Violence Task Force. That's Fritze sitting over here. Number two -- I mean, he's not going to keep the money, but that's the work. You're not going to keep it, right, Bill? He's not going to keep it. He's from Michigan. They don't do that stuff. Launching the DAO's Repeat Domestic Violence Offender Unit. And that goes to Katrina Wadas, but she's not going to keep that money either. Then there is information technology support. I know it's not the most exciting topic, but trust me, it's absolutely essential. And I will explain to you, and David Benson will help me explain to you, what it would mean for a DA's Office not to have email anymore. Imagine if that happened in your office. What it would mean for us not to have the ability to pass discovery with our new electronic discovery system, which is Axon, what it would mean if we can't do closing arguments because we can't use PowerPoint anymore. What does it mean if we can't Word Process so we can't write motions anymore. I mean, come on now. That's kind of silly, right. So that is one of our requests. We have raised this flag a couple times, but we are at a precipice. As of July, I don't want to say we're going home, because we would never do that. But I do want to say I guess we'll be writing with a pen, because I don't know what else we're going to do unless that need is met. And I know you understand its importance. And the fourth issue is strengthening investigations and prosecution for crimes committed against seniors. Now, I must admit this is a little selfish because I just turned 65. So I've joined the category of people who need our protection. All right. But it's important, our seniors did a lot for us and we need to make sure we're doing what we can for them. As to these four areas, let me start out talking about the DAO's Gun Violence Task Force.
We just had a press conference this morning. Gun Violence Task Force, with the help of state agents and our local and federal partners, including Philadelphia Police does tremendous work. Today was not their greatest achievement, but it's an important achievement. A man in Roxborough who is 6105, meaning he's a felon and he's not allowed to possess any firearm, he had of them. He was manufacturing silencers. Okay. Silencers have been illegal to own in the United States since about 1936 because Al Capone wanted to run around and shoot people to death with them. They serve no 9 lawful purpose whatsoever. They are especially useful for what? For mass shootings. Yeah, we need him arrested, we need him charged and we need him off the street. That's important. He was running essentially a little firearm shop where he would manufacture these things. And as our investigation continues, we'll see for whom and for what. But I think probably the most significant achievement of this Gun Violence Task Force is that it has gone from being an entity that was well-known for stopping illegal sales of guns, this was often a process of gangsters, victimizing women who were within their control to go buy guns that these gangsters would then use for gangster stuff. That's what it was. And that is a worthy project, but it was not a unit that was dismantling for good, big chunks or all of shooting groups. Some of these shooting groups have been around for decades. They can't even remember the reason that the shooting started. And yet for decades, they have continued to shoot each other, kill each other, terrorize neighborhoods. And whenever somebody got out, one way or the other, let's just say the penitentiary or the cemetery, someone young would step up. To my knowledge, and I'm almost 40 years in, this is the first Administration where we have been able, with a lot of support from Council, a lot of support in state funding, where we have been able to take a much more modern approach that does deep-dive investigations of actual shooters, of actual shooting groups. These investigations are heavily based upon forensics. And that's why we have been able to communicate to young people by saying things like YBC, and this was requested by the mother of a victim. YBC doesn't mean young bag chasers anymore. It means you've been charged -- actually you've been convicted is what it means. That's why we were able to say these things. That's why these things got to Tiktok, because it became a topic of conversation among young people who are constantly being tempted by portrayals of violence that glorify the violence and the lifestyle. It's why we were able to get there. These are just some of the groups in South Philadelphia, in the Northwest that have been, in part or in whole, dismantled: 31st Street, 27th Street, CCK, PNB, 02DA4, YBC. You've heard these, because there were busts that involved 30 shootings, 3 homicides, 12 people, 19 people, people. 14 It makes a difference when we shut 15 down whole shooting groups, and even the criminology around the locations where this occurs shows these drastic drops in shootings and murders that occur within that area for a very long period of time. It has truly made a difference. Well, you know, as is common, there was funding for the Gun Violence Task Force. It was a good idea, but it doesn't always go on forever and we need to make sure that this work goes on forever. Because this is the work that is going to reap incredible benefits in terms of Philly going from being known as chronically violent to going to being known as consistently safe. This is what's going to drive up property values, and not in a bad way, not in a way that is predatory. For those who live here, drive up property values, increase revenues. Every dollar that goes into this is going to come back 10 to 1, 10 to 1.
And that's not even when we talk about the psychological effect on Philadelphians in knowing that they're not going to have to keep their kids away from the window and keep them inside all night, every night, which is kind of how it felt at some points at the worst of the pandemic. That is our Gun Violence Task Force. I encourage any and all of you call me anytime. We will give you a tour. We will show you the effective use of license plate readers, the effective use of cameras all over the city, the effective use of social media analysts, the effective use of machines that crack open cell phones and produce maybe the most abundant source of criminal investigative material that we have seen since the beginning of DNA. We'll show you how all of this works together and why our federal partners, the FBI, ATF, why the Philadelphia police, are all coming in the front door with our blessing to work with us on how we can do this. We'll show you the incredibly effective work of the state agents who work with our Philadelphia DAO attorneys on these cases. And I know that those issues obviously are of extremely high interest to the entire Council, but also to Council President Johnson, to Public Safety Chair Jones, to Councilmember Phillips, to Councilmember Bass, among so many others. Repeat Domestic Violence Offender Unit, our second point, you called a hearing, we came and we made a commitment to you at that time. Once again, it really is a positive process when we do this. We made three commitments. The first one was to do additional training, and that was requested by Councilmember Phillips. Well, we're doing it. We have elevated someone who is essentially a full-time trainer. She is here and, that is, Erica Vanden -- I'm not going to do it again, am I -- Vandenekart. There we go. That's Erica Vandenekart. Instead of having a weekly meeting for all the supervisors, we now have one a month. And the other meeting occurs in units. We go unit by unit to train. I go myself. There's other training as well, but I go myself to make sure not only that the training covers the policies, but that any adjustments in the policies that are being suggested by the line attorneys are considered so that we can try to make sure our policies line up. And thank you for that suggestion. A second commitment that we made was to follow a model from the gun violence days. We take the new DV cases, new domestic violence cases. We sit down with our partners in the Philadelphia Police Department. We have in the room 4 Women Against Abuse, and we looked at the new cases as a roadmap for how we can do better with these cases. It worked extremely well when we did it with gun violence. We're following that same process here. Those meetings started out weekly. They may, much like the gun violence meetings, become biweekly or monthly at some point. But the lessons we learn from actual cases are much better than the ideas we have in the abstract. And the third commitment we made, the only one of the three that requires additional funding, because we did the other two with no additional funding, is for a special unit where we can have our more senior, more experienced attorneys under the leadership of Katrina Wadas who's sitting here, we can have them take the case from beginning to end, use their expertise, make sure the representation is consistent, because these experienced attorneys take it from beginning to end. We can have the specialized investigators that we need to do these cases. And simply put, we can do what you asked us to do and what we always wanted to do, which is do better. The third thing is information technology. I know that this is an issue of interest to all of you, but perhaps especially to Councilmember Landau and Councilmember Squilla, who are the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Tech. I'm going to ask Dave Benson to talk for me for a minute. I've already mentioned to you we need our email. We need these other basic office systems.
In an era when communications is king, our systems have to be able to communicate with other systems and we have to be able to move in modern ways within this system. But I am going to ask Mr. Benson to be available to you for any questioning on these topics, because there's a cliff. That cliff is called July. And if we don't have funding by the time we get to that cliff, we're all going to go over and none of us wants that. And then finally, with reference to strengthening investigations and prosecution for crimes against seniors, a topic of interest I'm sure to all of you. But let me also mention Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore, Richardson, Kendra Brooks, along with Jim Harrity, is on the Committee that takes special interest in Intergenerational Affairs as well as Aging. Let me say that we all understand the importance, especially in a time when a city known for its very high homeownership and that homeownership's relevance for generational wealth, especially at a time when there is a targeting, there is a weaponization of technology against human emotion that has, among others, targeted seniors. I don't feel like being a target. Now that I got my AARP card for 10 years, I don't feel like being a target. And I don't think anybody else who's had that card as long as I have or longer should be either. I think it's incredibly important that we address that. My final remarks here, which I promise will be briefer than what I've done so far, I just want to end today's testimony where I began. One of our very top priorities is to ensure that every survivor, co-survivor and community impacted by crime knows that the DA's Office is seeking justice in their case and is supporting them throughout the prosecutorial process and in many instances throughout the investigation. That support comes in many forms, including the advocacy and work of the DAO's CARES Unit, this is the Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement for Survivors Unit, that provides specialized services to the families of homicide victims in the first 45 days, the advocacy and work of our Victim Services and Relocations Unit, and last but never least, very importantly the advocacy work of the nine external victim services agencies contracted to provide specific support to witnesses and crime victims. And they are one more time, Northwest Victim Services, Victim Services of South Philadelphia, Anti-Violence Partnership, Women Organized Against Rape now known as Philadelphia's Center Against Sexual Violence, Women Against Abuse, Northeast Victim Services, let me see -- okay, Central Victim Services and the Support Center for Child Advocates. Thank you once again for the incredibly important work that you do. And I wish to thank you, City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson, Appropriations Chair Mark Squilla and the entire Council of the Whole for the opportunity to present at today's hearing. My team and I are here to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Thank you very much. Just a couple of small questions before I turn it over to my members. I want to go into the Gun Violence Task Force. Not receiving $500,000 from the state, it has an impact on your operations. I want you to kind of give us an overview of what that will impact as it relates to your overall operations. I want to get an idea also on how the use of the grand jury investigations play a role into how you're going after individuals who are carrying guns and wreaking havoc on our City of Philadelphia. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: There's a lot I can say, but I think I've already said a lot. With your permission, I would like to ask Chief Fritze to talk about it a little bit. And then I may have a comment at the end.
Good afternoon, Council President, Councilmembers. William Fritze for the record. Council President, we receive a total of $1.6 million from the state. $14 million is awarded by the state for the Joint and Local Task Force. There's only one in the state. The way the fiscal code is written, $8 million comes to Philadelphia. And out of that, the City of Philadelphia through the fiscal code is only allowed to get 20%, so 1.6 million out of that 14 comes to us to support not only the DA's Office, but over time, with the Firearms Identification Unit, and that's been as of 2022. So we used state funding as well as a one-time grant of $20 million, and that grant allowed us to expand and create a $15 million digital evidence lab here in the City of Philadelphia, it allowed us to give equipment to the police department for their license plate readers, for their cell phone cracking technology for their cell site, location information, anything you can think of digitally. Without that funding, each year about $1.6 million we're in a deficit for because we have to pay for license renewals for that equipment. So if we don't continue to get funding or any matching funding from the state, the ability to map cell phone towers for the City of Philadelphia, all of them, because we pay for all of the police department, will no longer happen. You won't know where a defendant is. The cell phone equipment, we have machines. We 6 give two to the police department. 7 Those won't be cracking any phones. 8 The license plate reader, we were 9 able to install some of the 10 equipment for the city and also pay 11 for OIT to install them. We won't 12 be able to do any of that in the future either. So basically, the unit shuts down, the digital forensics lab. And again, that was a $15 million investment. So we're asking for 1.6 to keep the lights on and keep the software going. When we look at the grand jury investigation and how that works, we use that digital evidence, right. People tell on themselves a lot. And I think you can see the effects of that. If you go to 31st and Tasker, right, that that corner store is no longer a corner store. It's Korea Taqueria, right. And the park down at 30th Street, 30th and Tasker, that's where our gang members from 31st and Tasker used to sit with their guns out on the picnic tables. And now, you have little leaguers out there playing T-ball on the weekends. So a drastic change. So what we're doing is we use that digital evidence, gives us a lead. And then we use the power of the grand jury, the members of our community who are fed up with this, and they're hearing all this evidence and they're hearing about all of these people who are involved and they're taking 1% -- .1%, I'm sorry, not even 1% of the community that we're arresting, and we're getting extremely long sentences on those individuals because we're arresting them not for one crime they committed, but for the shootings 5 they committed, and we're doing it 6 all at once. 7 And so, we've seen a 8 drastic reduction. I think even 9 our numbers from the police 10 department had us down 52% in the 17th Police District. It was the lowest number in six years that they had seen, and that had continued after the grand jury. As a result, the University of Penn has embedded a researcher within the unit to figure out if our grand jury system can be a model throughout the country. But that is how we're using the digital forensics lab and then using the grand jury process. But really, I think it's allowing the community to come in and actually see what's going on and making those decisions and help us make those decisions to get the right people.
Okay. This year you and your team, from my notes, aim to double the number of phones extracting and analyze and complete grand jury investigations for 11 2026. What performance metrics 12 will be used to measure the success 13 of these goals? And how will they 14 correlate to reductions in gun 15 violence?
So I think -- it's easy for us to kind of look at these and give you a report back. So each time we do a grand jury investigation, anything that we're doing at the task force we're already obligated by the state to respond back to our funding and tell them exactly what we've done. We would be able to look at time of incarceration and the length that the case can go through the system by using digital forensics, we can see that it's a faster process as a result. We can also look at shooting reductions in the neighborhoods of what we've affected and the spillover from those neighborhoods based on the crime data that we currently have, and we can account for every single cell phone that comes into the city. We pay for it's called Guardian, and we pay for that account so we know exactly what phone is being extracted and what phone is being used within the court system. We know that we've doubled each year the amount of phones. I think we're now at 2600 phones that we brought in. So we'll be able to account for anything that this Council asks us for, for any usage of money.
When you talk about the work that the task force is doing, how do we ensure that investigations into firearms trafficking and straw purchases lead to successful prosecutions and long-term reductions in gun violence going after those that sell guns to our kids?
So I think a big part of what we see with straw purchasing is that if we can bring those individuals in who are doing the straw purchasing, right, those are usually the people that are being taken advantage of, they face mandatory minimum sentences for each gun they purchase, beginning with 5 to 10 years of incarceration. And we're able to bring those individuals in and talk to them and make those connections of where they sent that gun and then arrest those individuals as a result. So we're able to reduce crime again and again and again as a result of that. If we see an increase in the purchase of firearms or the transfer of firearms within the City of Philadelphia, you can rest guaranteed that we will use the grand jury or any other investigative technology in order to increase the amount of guns recovered from those areas. Just like today, right, 16 guns recovered. We're going to look at every single one of those guns. We're going to find out where he bought them from or who supplied them to him. And a big component of that is that cell phone that we recovered from him today, it's going to tell us a lot of information. But we're going to be able to continue to chip away at the amount of guns recovered within the city and also chip away at those who are making money off of the sale of those firearms.
All right. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your dedication on that particular area, which is near and dear to me as it relates to keeping guns out of the hands of young people and making our city much safer. So with that being said, the Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips, then Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Thank you, Council President. So I want to begin by thanking the District Attorney because we were able to work together on an initiative in the Northeast section of our district in Lawncrest that's going to really impact us with addressing illegal dumping. So I want to say thank you for that. I also want to thank --
Member Phillips, could you speak into the microphone please.
Also, I want to thank you for just being able to answer a question that I had, that was actually the first question I had for today. I'm glad that we see changes around how we're supporting our ADAs to make sure that they have the same grit, tenacity and thoughtfulness as their leader, as you, so I think that's really important. So I just had a question, a couple questions. We're spending over $13 million on outside counsel when it comes to -- yeah, what types of cases require outside firms versus internal handling? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, thank you for your kind words. I suspect you're referring primarily to outside cases, outside counsel in civil matters; is that what you mean?
Yes. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Through the Solicitor's Office, because obviously there are court-appointed criminal counsel who are absolutely necessary in the system due to conflicts among criminal defendants. But I think what we're talking about now are situations where the City Solicitor's Office due to conflict or some other important reason cannot represent everyone who is involved as a defendant or as a plaintiff, usually a defendant because it's usually the city being sued or some subpart of the city being sued. In general, those will be situations where there is a conflict. It will be situations where one attorney cannot properly represent multiple different entities because those different entities either are factually in a different place or have defenses that contradict. I can't say whether that's a good number or a bad number in terms of what the City Solicitor does. I'm not in that room. It's not my specialty. And obviously Renee Garcia, with whom we work and have worked in the past, is probably better-positioned to do that. But I will say that, especially in government, it gets quite complicated because the City Solicitor's Office works very closely with the Mayor. There may be moments when elected officials are not placed in exactly the same position as the Mayor, and I don't say that to cast shade on anyone. That's just our legal system. There may be times when a particular city entity wants to do things and the Mayor's Office feels differently about who should have control over that, and that presents a natural, reasonable conflict that requires having different counsel, but also just at the individual level. For example, in an area that I do know pretty well, which is 42 U.S. Code, Section 1983 lawsuits against law enforcement, allegedly for a violation of the civil rights of a civilian. It's a common type of lawsuit. When that occurs, you may have a police commissioner who thinks that what the police officer did was just right. You may have a police commissioner who thinks that what the officer did was dead wrong or it may be somewhere in the middle. So there will be instances, depending on whether that individual police officer and the commissioner are on the same page. There will be instances where separate counsel is required, but there will be other instances where everyone's on the same and a single counsel can serve for all of them.
Thank you for that clarification. I just wanted to make sure that we were using as many internal resources as possible, so that was good clarification. Also, I've been on the theme of responsive government with every agency in the City of Philadelphia. I do want to say that through your work with G. Lamar Stewart, who's been really helpful for a lot of us on Council, and a lot of your ADAs and folks have been supported, so I want to say thank you to him --
I think he's saying that because they both go to -- well, Enon is in his district and got this whole Northwest Philadelphia thing going on. Mt. Airy, West Oak Lane and all that type stuff.
Enon is a great church. Well, I also want to thank the DA for his responsiveness as well, but in terms of efficiency and also helping neighbors understand the role the DA's Office plays in the city, I was wondering if we can perhaps get a service level agreement on the following, just all of the things that the DA's Office offers beyond prosecution that communities and families can take advantage of, such as the grants that you have to offer, the grant program, how to access that. If there could be a one-pager, it could be distributed to especially our office, but all of Council offices. Maybe a one-pager on some of the youth diversion programs so people can understand how tax dollars are being utilized. But I just want to be able to say, hey, the District Attorney's Office is doing some incredible work. If you want to access these services or things that they have, you need any support. Here is a one- or two-pager on all those things and also just a one-pager describing from requests to finish how you get those things? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, the short answer is absolutely. I think it's a wonderful point. People need to know that their government is working for them. They need to know what opportunities exist. And in electronic era, it's so easy to do that at no additional taxpayer cost. So, yes, we'd be delighted to do that. However, I have a subject matter expert here to comment a little further on it.
Hi. My name is Amanda Rivera. I'm the Assistant Director of the Community Engagement Unit at the DAO, so I can answer that question. So as community engagement, we do a lot of things in the community. We go to schools all around the City of Philadelphia. We do a number of things. Sometimes it's a reactive thing where a student unfortunately has been killed, we go to the school, we offer different things in conjunction with the principals. Sometimes we do healing circles with the kids. Other times we are just sort of there as support, somebody that they can talk to. Other times it's not as sad, which is wonderful, and we just come on a regular basis to the schools. We also go to senior centers in the community. A lot of the senior center work is times when we try to help them not to become victims of crime. So we talk to the seniors about scams. We talk to them about deed theft, house fraud, those kinds of things. And just spending time with our seniors is really nice and they're always really interested in what the DAO does. We also do a lot of --
That's what exactly I would love for you to do. I would love for you to put all of those great services that you do into a nice well-designed one-pager, so I can say to a senior, the DA's Office helps with deed --
Deed theft, excuse me. You help to support school assemblies. I can pass it out to our principals. Because you said, it's just not reactionary to go to schools. You could do it proactively as well. So just finding ways to collaborate in that nature. I just think you all do great work. And then a lot of the community organizations are always like we need money, we need money. And I wish there was a way which I can say, here are the open dates for the DA's Office, everything in a one-pager. Not I can't get them pages' of worth 11 of stuff. A flyer here, a flyer 12 here. If I can get a snapshot, 13 that'd be good too. 14
Thank you, District Attorney. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for your service as always. Just a couple questions. Your office put out a press release praising AMP Court's success. What has changed your opinion since last year? And I've been talking about the need to expand AMP Court every budget cycle. I think we should have two judges and two courtrooms to accommodate the number of cases. Can you tell me your thoughts on this? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think our position has ever really changed. We've always been big supporters of AMP Court. We continue to be very big supporters of AMP Court. As with all diversionary programs, we try to look to best practices to see in what ways they can evolve, whether it's drug treatment court, which is incredibly important or it's AMP Court. But I can tell you that the criminological results for AMP Court and the report that we released say that it's a success, that it works, that going from a couple days a week to five days a week makes a lot of sense. We are at a moment -- I don't want to speak for the courts, but I know for a fact where we have come to a moment when there are more judges available than there used to be in the Municipal Court, maybe not in the Court of Common Pleas, I'm not sure, but certainly we are better off in terms of the availability of judges. I'm not the one, I think, to determine whether there should be two judges doing AMP Court or three or eight or one, but I will say that we are vigorous supporters of carefully, carefully applied diversionary programs. A lot of what happened previously, I think was confusing to people, and this is a good thing, the police started to do their own prearrest diversion. When you do prearrest diversion, which can be a very good thing, it means fewer cases come into the system that are exactly the kinds of cases that would go to AMP. Some people I think honestly misinterpreted this as being why are there fewer cases in AMP. There are fewer cases in AMP because there was a different diversionary program that existed before people got charged. There are some changes with that. I don't control what the police do before an arrest, but I am delighted to deal with whatever comes to us by way of an arrest. So whatever that flow of cases is, small, big or middle, we are always going to support diversion where it's appropriate, where it works. No, we're not going to be putting the members of YBC into AMP. No, we're not going to be putting the members of YBC into some sort of gun diversion. That's not real. We're going to be taking people who either have walked the straight path or can walk that straight path again and who are not committing crimes that are incredibly damaging to their neighbors. We're going to be putting those people in there. I know you, Councilmember Harrity, well enough, and I say this respectfully to know how deeply you care about things like addressing people's addiction issues, addressing people's mental health issues, addressing people's unrelenting poverty issues. You live in a place where all of these things are in front of you. You can see them as you walk out your front door. So I just want you to understand that consistent with our reform approach, consistent with our progressive approach is, and always was, that we want to focus on the worst offenders. We want to catch them. We want them there to be a consequence. We want them to be separated from society as needed. But there's a whole lot of people who used to go straight to jail who needed to be in diversion. And now that we are doing that, we are much safer for it.
Okay. I'll respect the clock. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Mr. DA. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much, sir. Councilmember -- real quick I want to acknowledge Laquisha Anthony new Executive of WOAR, Woman Organized Against Rape. I remember when she first really started doing this work so I want to congratulate you on your new position as well as Tone Barr, who represents Philadelphia Masjid, community leader out in Southwest Philadelphia. But also Alison Sprague, South Philadelphia, she runs Victim Witness Services. We've been doing this work for a long time, way before I became elected official, since I started as a public safety liaison for State Senator Anthony Hardy Williams. And so, to all the advocate groups that are on the front line doing this work day-in and day-out, I attribute the majority of the reductions in gun violence that we have seen based upon the investments -- it's a collaborative approach with all of us, but we haven't always in the City of Philadelphia invested on our boots-on-the-ground organizations. And so, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that. And it was G. Lamar early on who came to us in a couple of our hearings and said, why don't we talk about prevention, right. And Larry followed up, why we don't talk about doing something different. Because mass incarceration obviously wasn't the way out of it. And I don't mind saying for the record under Lynn Abrams and Ryan Castille were two tough as nails, so to speak, hard- on-crime district attorneys, the homicide rate was like 500-plus. It's the early '90s. We had the JBM, Jamaican Shower Posse gangs running the street of Philadelphia, crack epidemic, right, and obviously that approach didn't get us anywhere. And I think even now we have more serious issues because we didn't have the proliferation of guns in the street and our young people having access to those guns, but we're doing something right. And so, I just wanted to acknowledge that for the record. Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, then Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon. Good to hear so much progress being made. I had a question about how the DA's Office ensures that they're prosecuting actual perpetrators of human trafficking and not the victims? We have heard from our partners in the human trafficking awareness space that often victims of trafficking are revictimized by being prosecuted for crimes like prostitution while the traffickers and the johns walk free. And just to be clear, we're defining those who are trafficked as individuals who are forced, coerced or defrauded into engaging in commercial sex acts for the profit of traffickers. So I wanted to understand that space and how we're ensuring that those who are so-called prostitutes are not caught in the system if they're deemed to be those to be trafficked? And then I have a follow-up. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, thank you for the question, Councilmember Ahmad. As you know, we have had private conversations about this and we have also been together at public events that are built around the city's public education program relating to trafficking and relating to the reality that with all the special events occurring in Philadelphia, we are likely to see what has happened around the world historically, which is a big influx of traffickers who will be using and abusing women, among others, for the purpose of making money. And there is information indicating some of those victimized people who are being trafficked are younger than ever, that the money that is flowing is flowing in ways that are electronic and is flowing in ways that can be spotted through the effective use of law enforcement capacity that is there. I'm going to turn this over in just a moment to our Chief of the Family Violence Sexual Assault Unit, Katrina Wadas, who has also been with us in these spaces. But I want you to know this, I am not here to tell traffickers what's coming. But I am here to say something is coming, that there are meetings that are happening right now among people in law enforcement involving sources of information that perhaps weren't previously connected, with the idea not just of the public education, which is crucial, it's crucial, because it lifts up witnesses who see something that doesn't look right, it provides the kind of information that can have tremendous effects and it also just makes it much harder for these criminals to conduct their business and victimize the people that they victimize. But I am here to say that I would like Philadelphia not only to be studied for its achievements in other areas, I'd like it to be studied for its achievements in catching traffickers in the year 2026. I would like to see that the information that's been out there for 10 or 20 years gathered internationally about how this business is conducted, I would like to see that that bears fruit in terms of the clearest message there can be to prevent crime, which is people like you get caught. If we can catch them before they get on their planes and go to wherever, if we can hold them accountable here -- and by them, no, I do not mean the people who are trafficked. My position from the very beginning in 2018, and it caused quite a bit of controversy at the time, has always been you do not go after the people who are trafficked. They are victims. You go after the people who use them, who exploit them, who harm them in so many different ways. So I share your values on this issue. I think public education, simply put, is really much more for you, that's for you and your colleagues. I'll support it any way I can. But enforcement is for me. And I'm very hopeful that through meetings that are not public, that are private and rightly so, that we will be able to not only lift up the issue in ways that are helpful to the enforcement, but we will be able to lift up the enforcement in a way that supports deterrence and public messaging --
So I want to do a point of information also along the same line of questioning. I know a lot of times your approach is also to look at the big picture and not just the picture from a microlens standpoint. And on the same line of questioning just for additional information with Dr. Nina Ahmad, when we talk about trafficking, do you and your team have any strategies that look at some of the video game apps such as Tiktok, such as Roblox, right, where we see a lot of human trafficking taking place and those major companies -- well, in the City of Philadelphia we haven't really targeted them as they're going after them, but I have seen research in other states that have made it a priority to figure out ways on how we hold those types of companies accountable, because there's no 8 safeguards and they think that you can come on these social media apps when children are playing and all types of things happen where kids are trafficked and kids are groomed. And so, any thought process around that as it relates to specifically the line of questioning of Dr. Nina Ahmad, especially as we deal with 2026 and we're going to have people all around the world converging into this city and then you have these creeps trying to go after children? So I just want to get an idea has there been any thought process? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Council President, this is a perfect segue to our Chief of FBSA, Family Violence Sexual Assault, Katrina Wadas, who has taught me about some of the issues you just raised and who has been working in the area of enforcement against trafficking for quite some time. So I'm just going to let her say smarter things than I would probably say.
Good afternoon, Council. Thank you both for your questions. As the DA stated, my name is Katrina Wadas. I'm the supervisor of Family Violence and Sexual Assault at the DA's Office. You bring up a great point about trafficking in the space of social media and other gaming platforms. I know Council just addressed just a week ago -- unfortunately, I was not able to attend. However, I do have special interest in that -- and we absolutely see that in cases that we are actively prosecuting in the DA's Office. That is an area of trafficking that's often times overlooked. Holding accountable the platforms is something that I hope that legislation is put in place as it pertains to creating more safeguards for our children that are on these platforms. However, right now what we're doing in the DA's Office is actively prosecuting the people on the other line of those gaming systems, on the other line of those social media platforms, the individual defendants who are actively reaching out and doing online grooming. Those are the cases that we're actively prosecuting. We do see it amongst platforms, not just gaming systems, but social media platforms such as Snapchat, Tiktok, Discord, Telegram, to name a few, those are all platforms in which we have active cases currently and that we're vigorously prosecuting individuals who use those platforms to facilitate crimes of grooming against our children. Usually the crime that's associated would be unlawful contact with a minor. That's the codified crime for the offenses that we're talking about, and that's something that we're actively prosecuting across the board in our unit. To go back to the question as it pertains to human trafficking and prosecuting prostitution as an offense, I have not seen a meaningful prosecution of the charge of prostitution in a very long time. Since transitioning to Family Violence and Sexual Assault almost a decade ago, to that specialty unit, our unit does not prosecute the crime of prostitution. There used to be a time when prostitution was charged and was often times diverted, and there was actually a special diversionary program for prostitution offenses. However, often times now with policy changes and with better oversight of the Charging Unit in our office, I'm often times seeing more charges of prosecution or prostitution that come in that are actually declined. So instead of charging, arresting, having a criminal record for an individual for the offense of prostitution, we're actually not even getting there. We're often times declining those charges for a number of reasons.
Council President, I'm going to add a quick follow-up. So I hear you. But are you being able to prosecute traffickers and the johns and number two, those who you're not prosecuting who potentially would have been prosecuted as prostitutes, are they still being diverted to get support and some sort of ability to leave this space? Because we have a lot of other agencies, so I wondered what sort of connection you have or maybe this might be a police issue if they're not getting prosecuted at all or maybe your charging unit can send folks -- I just want to make sure we break that loop and put people together with resources.
So as far as charging, if they do decline a case, it is not often the practice that the chargers would then reach out and make any efforts to provide resources. I do believe that if it's going to be a declined case, that's something that usually PPD would be in the best position to then connect that individual with resources. But absolutely to your first question about are we prosecuting trafficking, yes, we have active cases in the DA's Office now awaiting trial for human trafficking. So that's absolutely offenses. I believe we have one trial coming up in May and one in June for individuals identified as human traffickers.
And those numbers would be reflected in the quality of life? Is that where we would see those numbers? I just want to get a number on what we are doing last year, this year or anything in comparison as to the focus has shifted and we're all paying attention to this now. So I wanted to see if there's a commensurate increase in what you're seeing in prosecutions. So I'd love to get that number.
Yes. I can tell you about the two that I just mentioned, which are the two active trials that we have. I know that there's also active investigations still with PPD. But as far as active cases within Family Violence and Sexual Assault, there are two active human trafficking cases currently charged and awaiting trial.
And finally before I go, any prosecutions or any work done on the gaming platforms? And we missed you at our hearing. We'll follow up after. It was a very, very informative hearing for us. But I would like to know is any work going on in that space in your office?
I would say absolutely as it pertains to social media platforms. Roblox is not one that I often see, although I know it does get a lot of attention for very good reason. But as far as the social media platforms, there are. I could pull numbers for you at another time if you'd like. But absolutely, the social media platforms is most prevalent and most often times what we see in our unit for our cases.
Thank you so much. We would love those numbers. Because then we can share with our public that we're moving dollars into these spaces and this is the impact and this is what we're doing about, so we have to complete that loop, particularly for us to say how we are allocating dollars. So thank you very much. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. Member Gauthier, then Member Jones.
Yes. Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon, DA Krasner, to you and your team. I want to start by commending you and your team for all of the hard work that you have done around gun violence. I started here in 2020 where we were just in such a different environment than we are today. And I know that we spent a lot of time during this hearing talking about your good work and talking about our collective efforts. But in general, I don't think you get enough credit on an everyday basis for the work that you've done to help us get to such a stark decrease in our shooting and homicide numbers. You have not taken this approach of spreading law enforcement resources all over the place indiscriminately. You've been a champion for focusing on the most violent offenses, for stopping the cycle of violence. And in West and Southwest Philly in particular, I've appreciated the work of stopping the shootings that were happening among all of these different street groups. I mean, these groups were terrorizing West and Southwest Philadelphia. And you all, particularly through the Gun Violence Task Force led by Chief Fritze, have put a halt to that behavior. And I also want to credit your efforts around violence prevention, particularly the efforts led by G. Lamar Stewart. But to your whole team, thank you very much. That being said, Council, just like the DA's Office, never loses sight of the fact that even one shooting is one shooting too many. And in West Philly, I've seen just kind of an alarming uptick in shootings over the past couple of weeks, in particular. And so, in the wake of the shootings that have happened around the 60th Street area, what is your office doing proactively to make sure that gun violence does not spike again this summer? Another thing that's concerning to me are sort of rumors that I've heard that these shootings are connected to street group activity. And so, what's your understanding of that? And what can we do to get ahead of a situation where we're again kind of experiencing a war between these different factions bringing so much violence to our neighborhoods? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember Gauthier, thank you so much for that question. Very quickly, obviously step 1 is prevention, which you have championed as have many others here and my office has championed, which has tremendous impact. And the reality is that it is those neighbors, it is those coaches who are uncompensated. It is those neighborhood leaders who look out for the kids on the block who have had a tremendous impact. That part's easy to talk about. The other part of course is not prevention, but enforcement. It's modern enforcement. And, yes, GVTF, Gun Violence Task Force, deserves tremendous credit, so does our Homicide Nonfatal Shooting Unit, which has been extremely effective in ways that we have not gotten into today. But if you actually look at how good they are at convicting, at improving investigations, at bringing in proper, just outcomes, they have had a tremendous impact as well. And Jeff Hojnowski is here. He is the co-chief of the Homicide Unit, as he has been now for a number of weeks. He is here as well. To the extent he wants to add some commentary, I invite him to come forward. But I'm going to turn the mic over to Bill Fritze. Because as you know, when an investigation is very active, when there is the possibility, I say the possibility, of secret grand jury proceedings, there's what we can say and what we cannot say, we will always try to say as much as we can because the public deserves to know and you deserve to know as a member of Council, but there may be certain things we can't talk about. So I'm going to ask Mr. Fritze to do what he does well, which is say as much as he can, and not to say what he shouldn't.
I could just say no comment, right. You know, we made a promise -- William Fritze, Chief of the Gun Violence Task Force. We made a promise a while ago when we went to West Philadelphia in the first grand jury that we weren't going anywhere. We haven't left there. You are, right, there are some groups out there that are still going back and forth. Without giving too much information, right, I can say the groups that we all know or the names that we've all heard, North Side, South Side, right, Christy Rec, we've got the Elmwood corridor, so we are in that area. We know that there's probably some back and forth between some individuals. We constantly are monitoring it in the ways that we monitor, but we're also working with the city's GVI program, right. So if we see something ahead of time that we can get ahead of, then we're going to make a referral over there. Because while we do our investigations, our investigations take a little while, right. And then if we have any information on cases as they're coming in, where it might be group related or anything else, what we will be doing is either adopting those matters ourselves to prosecute or we will inform the Homicide Nonfatal Shooting Unit or whatever unit has the case, that that individual is likely group connected and might be somebody of interest that is causing some problems in the neighborhood. So we are actively in that area of the city and we will remain active there until there are no more problems in West Philadelphia.
Thank you. Go ahead. Did you have something else, DA Krasner. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I just wanted to give Jeff Hojnowski, who is running the Homicide Nonfatal Shooting Unit, at this time I want to give him an opportunity to add anything he thinks he can add without spilling too many beans.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Councilmembers. Jeff Hojnowski. I'm, I guess, Acting Supervisor for the Homicide Nonfatal Unit. Just want to add a little bit about the collaboration that we have with our unit and the Gun Violence Unit. Maybe in Administrations past there was more of a rift between the two units. They kind of worked independently of one another. Under Mr. Krasner, I know in recent years the units have kind of worked together more to help solve a lot of the gun violence that happened in all throughout the City of Philadelphia, not in any particular area. Especially members of our Nonfatal Unit have worked with analysts -- I know I've worked on homicide cases with analysts in that Gun Violence Unit to help solve cases, to help prosecute cases successfully. So that collaboration is happening and it's become stronger over the last couple of years, especially under DA Krasner. I'll explain a little bit how I guess the process works in terms of charging homicide cases in particular. So in the District Attorney's Office, what happens is when the police officers investigate a crime, they'll get everything together, they'll package it and they'll submit it to our Charging Unit, which is primarily responsible for charging anything short of a homicide essentially. We have hours a day, 20 seven days a week, 365 days a year, 21 a charging unit staffed to review 22 those cases to see if there's 23 enough probable cause to make 24 arrests and charge individuals. The Homicide Unit's a little bit different, in that within the Homicide Unit we charge our own cases. All homicides that come through the City of Philadelphia are charged by homicide prosecutors, experienced homicide prosecutors and we review every single homicide that comes in, not only for search warrants, but also for arrest warrants and arrests that occur. I know over the weekend there was a shooting at 52nd and Chester, and that's a case that I know that the DA that's up right now -- and when I say up, the way that it works is this, from Friday at 5 o'clock to the next Friday at 5 o'clock, one DA will be assigned. They're on call 24/7. They handle everything that comes in from that Friday at 5:00 p.m. to the next Friday at 5:00, and at which point another DA will take over and they'll be up. That's in addition to any other court duties and obligations that they have, any other cases that they have. That's extra work on top of everything else. I know that the DA who's up currently is Cydney Pope, who has been thoroughly investigating and working with detectives on that recent shooting and the other shootings that happened over the weekend. And what will happen is every morning, we'll get updates on that investigation and see where it's at. We often will talk within the small group of chargers amongst one another, bounce ideas back and forth off of one another to see if there's enough probable cause and we help each other out. That's just kind of an overview of how the charging works within the Homicide Unit. And we're constantly working with the Philadelphia Police Department. Like I said, we're on call 24/7. We get phone calls at 2:00, 3 o'clock in the morning. We have to get up. We have to be responsive to those detectives, especially if they have individuals in custody and we have to make sure that we're available. So we are always working not only with partners within the office, but with all other law enforcement agencies. And it's not only confined to Philadelphia police. We also work with state police and on occasion federally.
Thank you. It's good to know that you all are out in these areas and focused on these areas, bringing these targeted approaches and that GVI is focused on these areas as well. And I look forward to continuing to talk to you and learning what you're able to tell me as things move forward. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council President.
So I want to thank Member Gauthier for talking about 60th Street. We share a border there where a lot of the activities happen. There are two spots and maybe I'll go to a third that are hotspots in the 4th Councilmanic District, 60th to 52nd to 63rd is one bordering Member Gauthier. And then 24th and Lehigh is another in North Philadelphia. Yes, I represent both areas. So we focus on that, so thank you for pointing that one out. I want to thank you guys. You have proven to me and to many others that two things can be true at the same time. You can have criminal justice reform and reduction in crime. I told you off the record there, now it's on the record, I said if I had to bet on that to my younger self in '08, I would have thought that that never could happen. So thank you for proving me wrong and being persistent in your belief. Because when you get the heat, sometimes people stray from the course and you did not. So thank you and your team so much. I no longer have a nervous twitch when you or G. Lamar Stewart call me. Before I used to see that, and my hands would start shaking, my eyes start twitching. So over the reduction in crime, that has dissipated. I'm thankful. A couple of questions. Number one is, how much does the crime lab play into the closure rates that you will -- by having these tools, how will that impact going forward even further reduction and closure rates in crimes? That's my first question. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: That's a great question. So I am a tremendous believer in forensics. The capacity of forensics in 2026 is so far beyond anything I could have imagined when I first started to work as a lawyer in this field in 1987 and frankly, so far of where it was 10 years ago that it has changed almost completely the way we try cases. We try cases now sometimes with no witnesses at all, no -- in fact, let me put it this way, no eyewitnesses at all. I'll just give you an example because I think it illustrates it -- and there are two types of forensics we're talking about here. One is the forensics that are actually in the Gun Violence Task Force, which necessarily needs to be a lawyer- led unit because the law around technology is changing constantly. It would be a huge mistake if we turn that over to our colleagues and our friends in the Philadelphia Police Department when the law is shifting all the time there. At least for the foreseeable future, there have to be lawyers making sure there's no goof-ups with that technology. The other part of course is the long-advocated, much-awaited and extremely necessary improvement in other forensics in the City of Philadelphia. I have been actually thrilled that the state legislature about three, four years ago and that the city has made a commitment to that. Because the reality is that the one kind of deterrence that really works is catching people. The other stuff just doesn't work. Mandatory sentencing, talking about a gazillion years if you steal a candy bar, that stuff doesn't work. What absolutely clearly works is when people get caught, they don't feel like getting caught so they don't do it. That's how that works, right. So I'm going to give you a specific example of how powerful this stuff is and how powerful it can be. We have a shooting. There are no eyewitnesses. Four people bail out of a car at night. Somewhere in the city of Philadelphia, they are wearing black athletic clothing, they have black masks over their faces and they're wearing hoodies and they shoot up a corner. They hit two bystanders, maybe or maybe not get their target. But mayhem, chaos, incredibly destructive behavior. We don't have one eyewitness. We don't know who the heck they are, but that car drives by a SEPTA bus. And on the SEPTA bus is a camera on the exterior, and that camera catches two digits in the license plate. Well, there are license plate readers in the City of Philadelphia.
And those license plate readers attach to the Gun Violence Task Force and they are constantly looking at license plates all over the city, whether those license plates are on cars that are parked or cars that are moving. And they register that and they put it into a database to the tune of more than a million pieces of data in a week. I think that's right. Fritze, you'll correct me if I'm wrong -- I got that one right. So they're going to put that in there. So you've all already taken a universe of cars, because you can tell the color maybe, you can tell the model of the year probably, and you got a couple of digits. You've already reduced the universe of cars that were involved in this from, who knows, half a million, maybe down to 50. You now start to look at possibilities there and you see that car traveling past additional public or private cameras, and you note that this car has a particular characteristic. One of the fenders has a dent in it. There's a sticker that's somewhere on the back of it. And now, you're honing in a little further. You go to your database, you're able to see that car or at least three or four or five cars are usually parked in certain locations because you got 50 hits for being in a particular block parked there. Now, you start to look at who owns these properties. You start to check to figure out who might own these cars. You check it against the database that includes people who are either in shooting groups or adjacent to those shooting groups. You find yourself in a position where you're already able to make an arrest or you've gone to the owner of these cars. What the heck do you know about this? I don't know nothing about it. I gave it to my nephew. Who's your nephew, and now, we're off to the races. If you can get that nephew's cell phone, nephew's not necessarily giving you the code to open it. But you handle it the right way, which is technical. You put it into a machine that will try to open it. You pop that phone open. And now, we have this, geolocation that shows you that that phone was at the scene of the crime. It approached the scene of the crime at the instance of the killing. It was at the scene of the crime and then it sped away at 100 miles an hour. You have all of that person's contacts. You have all of the phone calls and the texts that were made on the day of and on other days of. You have their social media. You may have what social media they are reading. This is why I say this is arguably as good as or better than DNA, and you have new capacities with DNA that never existed before. You have the ability -- and this was not possible really 6 years ago. You have the ability, 7 if we invest in it, if we care 8 enough to do this, to take from the 9 fired cartridge casings, meaning 10 the brass end of the bullet that's found at the crime scene, there are often 50 of them or 20 of them. You have the ability to check all of them if they're collected properly for DNA. Despite the fact you fired a bullet, despite the fact that you have incredibly high heat and explosive activity on that gun, you can pull DNA off of fired cartridge casings at a percent that's worth doing, let me put it that way. There's some debate about what that percent is. But at its best, it's 20 or 25% of the time. Now, you're getting DNA off of these things, which means you can potentially identify either sooner or later who loaded it and whether, because guns are passed around, the person who loaded it was associated with a different shooting, maybe an unsolved shooting. So we go from a world that used to look like the Salem Witch trials, where what you needed was an eyewitness to say something that you couldn't really test. Okay. I saw the farm wife flying around the farm on a broom, that was considered good enough evidence. And frankly, a lot of people died because of that stuff. Well, if you're really going to base everything just on what people say, it's not always right.
But when you start to take geolocation, videography, photography, you start to take texts, things like I'll get the front, you'll get the back, for a shooting where people shoot through the front and the back of a car, social media where people are showing the gun that matches the caliber that was used, DNA that connects up. And now, some of them are doing, you know, they're expressing themselves musically in ways that are either bragging about what they did or talking about what they're going to do next, you are in a different world. This is so essential that we do this. It is so essential that we fund the Gun Violence Task Force to continue with this work. It is so essential that the City of Philadelphia, which has for decades been behind other cities on forensics, that we go there. And frankly, it's so essential not only to catch those who have committed crimes, but to make sure the innocent people do not get blamed for those crimes. With us today, and I didn't really speak about him much, but the new Chief of the Conviction Integrity Unit, Matt Stigler is over there. He's going to stand up so you can see him. He's a humble soul --
He needs to come up because my next question was about drones and some of the cases we lost. So you might be helpful in that, but real quick because I'm going to get the hook. But two things. The best thing you did today was bring all of these resources that you fund here with you. I know several of them and have not just met them, seen what they've done in the community. And I'm so very thankful that you have them here to add because on one hand, see, the right hand of fellowship or the left hand of punishment, both are appropriate in certain cases. And so, stand up little Shelby. That's what I call you. I don't know your married name. Petals in a pond to prevent -- I worked at the House of Umoja a long time ago. And we would get young felons that came in and we would have them for a year under our watch and we mentored them. One of them is her father who graduated, became a good man, a taxpayer, a good dad. He's still one of us, but he was a good dude. But look at what a generation down the line he produced. And then Tone Barr, who I'm glad you brought today. Stand up, Tone. Before, you know, in order to be somebody, you should have helped somebody. Before he ever got into this, we were down at the Eid, he's giving away cars, not to the A student but to the C student, right, to make sure that they stay on the right path, so toys and food and clothing. So I'm thankful that you have the vision to have both balances. Because your name used to be nicknamed, and I'll ask the President what the real name is now, but it used to be, Let Em Loose Larry. You ain't that guy anymore.
Book Em Larry. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Point of order, I was informed it was Larry Law.
So I appreciate what you are doing and what you have done for our community. So drones, how can we do it better so that cases aren't dismissed? And that's my last question. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I think for that question, Councilmember, probably Paul Riddell, who runs our Dangerous Drug Offender Unit and of course, that closely connects with the user drones and closely connects with gun violence. I think probably Paul Riddell may be in a better position to talk, if he can talk at all, because some secret squirrel around us and some of us are secret squirrels. But let me see what he can say.
Good afternoon, Council. Paul Riddell. I'm the Chief of the Dangerous Drug Offender. First and foremost, the drones are going to give us the ability to see things that we ordinarily couldn't see or put us in certain places. Because what we're finding out right now from our surveillance cameras that we work with the Philadelphia Police Department is sometimes they absolutely know where they're at and you can't move that, so sometimes they get destroyed or they get taken, along those lines. But if we can use drones, we can actually follow people when we're making purchases, when we're doing takedowns. We can put other eyes on a property, back and front. It's the ability to do everything we'd want to do with a police force, but that we can do also with drones, and that's also going to give safety to police officers. And at the end of the day, what we're going to be able to do is go into court and we're going to film footage of everything we said we do. We want the certainty of our convictions. We want them to stand. We want to have the integrity of our convictions. And as the DA was saying, if we use all these other tools, not just some person saying I saw x, but when we only have a person who says that and says, well, look at the video, those cases are pleas. Those cases don't go to trial. And if they do, there's certain convictions that --
Can you elaborate on what we're doing wrong, as a city or what we're doing wrong -- I think partly we just got to catch up with the technology, let's be honest. It's already been out there. It's something we're all looking into and trying to get a hold of. We put in a request internally that we would have our own drones to then work with the Philadelphia Police Department. And my unit works with everybody. We're working with DEA, PPD, State Police --
We need to talk a little more about that. The one drone case that I would go to, Mr. President, was when they were having caravans roving, caravans of people attacking malls. There was a famous person, Meatball, that they --
Yeah, I know Meatball. I mean, I don't know here personally, but I know of Meatball.
Yeah, and they caught her and found her, you know. So I'm just going to say I think it's a useful piece of technology to put on our tool belt, similar to license plate readers, cameras and stuff like that. So whatever we have to work out, let's fix it. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. Meatball saying, Ain't nothing. Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada. Welcome, good to see you today. Councilmember Rue Landau, then Councilmember Phillips will take us home.
It's good to be here today. Good to be seen. Thank you, sir. Internal jokes. Good afternoon. Thank you for being with us this afternoon. I just have two questions. I appreciate the work that you all have been doing. I know that it's not easy, but I appreciate the work that you all have done thus far to be able to improve the quality of life in the Kensington community. We have a lot of work to do, but I think that since I arrived in 2022 I have seen a change in my community and so have the residents, and I know that you all have been a part of that change. So I just want to express my gratitude. We have been working very closely with the police department in the Mayor's mission of that pie piece that she talks about often. And before folks get their underwear in a bunch, this is not about anti-gun holders or license to carry, none of that. This has to do with what we are seeing in my community that has increased the level of concern amongst residents, children, stakeholders. I'm sure that you or your teams watch social media. You have seen young gentlemen now walking around in my community with open carry automatic weapons in the neighborhood like it's a toy. And the guys in my community are built different. And if you threaten them and you don't look at them a certain way, they're going to handle their business, right. And so, our concern is that they will handle their business and others will be impacted by the results of that. We've been talking to the police department. And they say, Councilmember, we can't, you know, our hands are kind of tied, we can't do a whole lot because these individuals have an ID, they're able to carry. I can't accept that. There has got to be something that we can do so that folks understand that that is not normal. You cannot have to carry a weapon of this magnitude to feel safe in your neighborhood. We cannot allow for our children to continue to be impacted by these types of things that they're seeing every day. And so, what we are calling that additional trauma, I'm just trying to figure out what can you do in collaboration with the police department so that this doesn't become the trend of this summer? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I understand your concern. And frankly, almost 40 years in this field I find it absolutely shocking the state of what the United States Supreme Court considers to be appropriate when it comes to the Second Amendment. And I find it shocking what the Pennsylvania legislature and even our Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who frankly have been forced, it's not their wishes, but they've been forced by the U.S. Supreme Court to certain positions that have left us in this absurd situation. There is no question that people walking around with weapons, especially big weapons, are frightening others. I mean, we know that if you have a gun in your home, the chances of being harmed by a gun go up 500%. It doesn't make anybody safer. It's madness. But your question is much more specific, what can we do here with a frankly hostile Pennsylvania legislature. Not our delegation. Our delegation is on the right page with this stuff. But with a hostile Pennsylvania legislature, with a hostile Supreme Court that's a mini legislature and is trying to turn the entire country into a war zone in terms of the gun law, what can we do now. Mr. Fritze, I'm going to ask you to address the specifics of people walking around with large weapons in the City of Philadelphia. What is legal, what is not and what thoughts you have that we're able to talk about publicly that can be done?
Again, William Fritze from the Chief of the Gun Violence Task Force. This individual I am well aware of. We've been observing him as well. Unfortunately, the reason that the police department is telling you they feel their hands are tied are the same reasons that I'm going to tell you that they are slightly tied. But it doesn't mean that that is the answer. Under Pennsylvania law, you can carry a long gun, open carry, right. And so, that's what this individual is doing. Philadelphia specifically has a statute which is a misdemeanor, that if you carry that open long rifle without a license, you're in violation of that misdemeanor statute. That law itself is also on review of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court right now as to whether we will be able to continue to enforce it. So this individual knows the law, right, as it sits. And there's some things that I think we can talk with the police department about and see, because a license to carry is authorized by the county in which the individual obtained the license and you have to be in good standing. So the question comes in maybe that we need to look and determine whether an individual is in good standing and should maintain that license to carry if they're putting the public at risk or if they are scaring the public, right. That to me would deem it not to be in good standing and therefore a revocation of that license, and therefore no longer able to open carry in Philadelphia. That would create case law and that would create its own set of problems. But it is of grave concern that this person is essentially walking the streets with an automatic rifle right now and giving them to others to carry around as well. So we're well aware of him. And I'm happy to discuss off the record with you some thoughts as well.
I appreciate that. I think it's important for all of us to be aware that it's happening, right. None of us should be able to see or to say we haven't seen the images on social media. We don't know what is happening. I want to make sure that all of us are very conscious that it's happening. It started in my neighborhood. It will come to a neighborhood near you if we don't do something about this. There is no way that folks in this city are preparing to welcome millions of people into our city and they are faced with this type of behavior in anybody's neighborhood. Right now I'm advocating for mine, but I'm sure that this will get to other neighborhoods very quickly if we don't respond to this, right. And again, I want to be very clear and I want to say it again, this has nothing to do with folks' rights to carry or own weapons. That's not what this is about. I think that this is greater than that. And so, I'd appreciate any conversations or any solutions that we can come up with together. My next question is around your Domestic Violence Unit and the funding that we're looking to secure for that. I think as we have seen crime go down, domestic violence issues have gone up and I work very closely with many of our on-the-ground partners. My question is, how will the money that you all are asking for, how is it going to impact the smaller boots-on-the-ground and those programs and their funding? Will they be impacted in any way? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I just want to make sure I understand the question. We are seeking money for the purpose of a prolific or a Repeat Domestic Violence Offender Unit. Essentially, the point there is that there's a wide array of domestic violence that occurs. At the less serious but certainly important end is someone with no 12 prior record, married for an extended period of time, develops an issue with alcohol, acts out and is arrested for the first time having not caused serious injury. But it's worth the arrest, it's worth the intervention. It's worth hearing from the victim, who may very well say, I really don't want him convicted for a lot of reasons. I really want to reunite. He's been a good father. But for whatever reason, he's got an alcohol problem and he's acting out, and we're able to take that and route it towards serious treatment, serious diversion with the hope often realized that this person never re-offended. The opposite end is the person who has now harmed their partner for the third time, has already done jail time in another state for this. This time is boiling a pot of water on the stove with the intention of throwing it in her face while she sleeps. And that is the place where we need to be, in my opinion, extremely serious about the consequences, the protection, the separation from society. And obviously, there's a lot of stuff in the middle. There is a spectrum of very troubling behavior and behavior that sometimes results in murder. We have domestic violence murders that occur in the City of Philadelphia and in every other city. So this is an issue that I think is very, very important to us. However, the money we are seeking is for the DA's Office to have a Domestic Violence Repeat Offender Unit of specialized attorneys, highly-experienced, people who've been in the family violence, sexual assault and domestic violence space for years, who have a unique capacity really to take a case from beginning to end, to be very effective when you have victims who are often under tremendous psychological pressure or even physical threat and we need to follow through as a society to make sure we are able to have a consequence there. That is what the money is for. The money is not for us to provide it to an outside victim services agency. Now, separate and apart from that, we are seeking money as we've made clear for victim services agencies that also do this work.
Women Organize Against Rape under its new name, Women Against Abuse, among others, and all the area providers, as well as people in our office who on a daily basis deal with domestic violence units. So there is money going there, but within the pot that is for the establishment of a repeat domestic violence offender, none of that money would be going to the victim services. It would be going through the other route. Having said that, the resident expert here is Katrina Wadas once again, and I'll give her a chance to comment on how our Repeat Offender Unit for domestic violence would be organized and how it would operate.
Thank you, and thank you for your question about the Repeat DV Offender Unit. I think it's an important one, and it's important to make a distinction that this is a unit that has never existed in the DA's Office. I know that there's been questions in the past about isn't there already a unit of this type. And I think that was geared towards the fact that there is a Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit. However, the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit does not handle all domestic violence cases. There is a large number of cases that are never handled by our unit. We handle in Family Violence, all sexual assault crimes and we handle felony domestic violence cases. However, those cases are first handled by the Municipal Court Unit, so we do not usually see those cases or interact with cases until they're beyond a preliminary hearing. The problem there is that often times we see the highest dismissal rates of a case at the preliminary hearing. So a large number of cases will be dismissed before they ever come into the hands of an experienced prosecutor, in which that experienced prosecutor, had they been involved at the inception, the outcome of that preliminary hearing may have been different. And so, for us to take this opportunity to take experienced ADAs who can focus at pre-preliminary hearing, meaning handling the case vertically from the moment that matter is charged through the preliminary hearing and beyond disposition, creates a situation that we've never had before, in which the repeat DV offenders are specifically targeted. And vigorous prosecution of an offender who's not on his first arrest, but who has repeatedly committed crimes against maybe the same partner, but maybe other partners. This isn't just a situation in which the same victim reappears. This is an individual who may be committing seemingly lower-level offenses, but against various partners, should be held accountable in a different way. And so, that's the idea behind creating a unit, unlike one we've had before, to specifically focus on those offenders. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, I do actually want to make sure I fully answer your financial question because it's important. Within the Repeat Offender Unit, the funding that we are seeking for that, the total is 1,062,000 and change. What that buys is five Assistant DAs, who are dedicated to doing the work, three Detective IIs, that's a higher-level detective capable of more serious investigation, one victim witness coordinator. So there is within that budget a victim witness coordinator who would work on nothing but these cases, which is probably a better answer than the one I gave, although all of these other resources for victim witnesses, indirectly and directly, also support that, and one paralegal. That's essentially what the unit would come down to. With that number of prosecutors, well-supported by investigators with frightened victims and witnesses, in many instances, supported full-time by a victim witness coordinator in addition to the other resources, and of course a paralegal to make sure that all the paper is flowing and all the details are covered, we think that we could make a significant improvement in the quality of representation that is possible.
I just got a note that says the DA has cut 90,000 from all victim services, so he is asking to provide the agency money that will be lost. I don't know what bucket of money that is from, but is this money additional? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: You know, I'm not sure of what we're talking about here. But maybe -- I don't know that we've been trying to cut money, but perhaps I can offer additional clarity.
I guess the concern is, as you all are building this new unit, will the agencies that are currently providing services, even though they're different, will this unit now prioritize the work of the agencies?
So my name is Laquisha Anthony, and I'm from WOAR - Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Violence. So two things here. We are experiencing, as victim service agencies, a major cut from federal government from VOCA funding, and that's the cut that we're talking about, but also the 90k that the DA's Office had provided for us last year has been substantial in sustaining our services across the board. And he's advocating now for more funding to allow us to be able to have access to those funds again, which was a one-time thing.
Just to add a point of punctuation there -- G. Lamar Stewart, DA's Office -- so to the point that Laquisha just made, our office meets monthly with these nine organizations and how victim services work within the DA's Office, obviously there are three units within the DAO that does victim-related work. One is our CARES Unit that's focused on providing trauma support, peer-crisis support to families impacted by homicide, whether it's an arrest or not an arrest. Then our Witness Relocation Unit that focuses on safely relocating those who have been experiencing harassment or threats as a result of their cooperation with the criminal justice process. There's then our Victim Services Unit. Their work starts at the time of charging, providing specific support to victims and witnesses. But then we have nine contracted organizations, those are who are behind us right now. And through funding through City Council, we have funded those units prior to this DAO Administration for decades. Up until last year, these organizations did not receive additional funding for over 15 years. Through the advocacy of DA Krasner and our executive team and through the support of City Council, we were put in position to support them as they realized federal cuts were coming. We are now asking the city to support us again, that we might, as the chief law enforcement agency in the City and County of Philadelphia, be in a position to make sure that these organizations that are helping us to support victims and witnesses and co-survivors, that they may have the resources they need to keep their doors open, to keep their lights on and to keep their staffing paid. Many of them can tell their own stories, and I encourage you to read the letters that are inside of your packet, and how many of them were in a position where they almost had to lay off and some had to lay off staff over the last year. And so, we're hopeful that with your help we're in a position to continue to fund them. And that's not a whole lot of money, but it's something to help them along the way, as we continue to address the issue of public safety and support for families.
I heard you mention earlier, DA Krasner, the work that you all will be doing or what is coming as it relates to human trafficking in the Kensington community. We have seen a group of young women who kind of organize themselves from other states and spring break, summer break, come into the Kensington community, work and then go back home. We have met some who have been stuck here. And as we prepare for all of the folks that are going to be visiting us, is there a campaign or some sort of something that the DAO will be doing in order to, I guess, warn or caution individuals that this type of business will not be tolerated in our city? And I ask that question more so that folks don't get stuck here as a result of their activities than anything else. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: So thank you for the question. I do think one of the most important things that we all do in government is communication anymore, is providing information as I see it, and this is just one way to describe it. But I think there are two parallel tracks here, two lanes on this highway going the same direction and one of those lanes is public education. City Council has already allocated, as I understand, about a half a million dollars for the purpose of public education around trafficking. And as a challenge that we're going to face in this year of MLB's All Star Game and FIFA and the 250th anniversary, and that's great. And we intend to support it every way we can, and we have in the past, including by using our significant platform to help lift that up. But separate and apart from that, there's what the law enforcement people do in a room 12 and, that is, enforcement is try to figure out how to set the mouse trap and catch the mouse, so that you can say, hey, look, mice, don't come looking here, it doesn't end well. Well, that's a pretty effective form of communication too. These concepts overlap. But I can tell you, without getting into the details, that we are very active and actively meeting right now with reference to how we could have potentially effective enforcement actions, have them in a timely way, and have them to go exactly after the threat that you're talking about, which is people who are not stuck here yet, but who are being brought here or who are coming here in order to -- well, they're being brought here really by traffickers in order to be used by those traffickers to be exploited and for those traffickers to make money.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Quet -- I'm sorry. Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you, DA Krasner and your whole team who is here today. Congratulations to everybody for the reduction in gun violence and other forms of violence in the City of Philadelphia. You have really done what you set out to do. And I want to remind you, in 2023 when I was on the trail to get the position I am now, I had a talk with you, DA Krasner, after you were on a panel, and I took great notes on the things that you were looking for, which was an increase in forensics. You wanted to increase enforcement by getting this investment in the forensics lab. You talked about electronic wiretaps, electronic warrants and that you needed this big investment. When I went around the city, many people who weren't yet believers in you and your team said, no, he just want to let everybody free. And I was like, I'm taking notes, I'm watching what he's saying publicly, we talked about it, this is what he wants. And it seems that you've gotten there, getting there, we need more investment in it, but you've done exactly what you said you needed in order to hold people accountable and to get all the evidence we need to close these cases. And so, congratulations to all of you. I am proud of you for that and I know that there's still much work to do. You also talked so much about what you've always said about community-based violence prevention. And my colleague, Chair Jones of the Public Safety Committee, I have always been a believer in this model. I did not need to be convinced. But again, it is absolutely wonderful to see our successes and the results of that. I am the Chair of the Tech Committee. And in my very first tech hearing I had in 2024, we worked with your data lab and had a hearing on the 57-plus blocks in the city of Philadelphia with the highest crimes based on a variety of reasons. I know those blocks have kind of morphed and changed. But I am curious if you can provide an update on the data behind that, whether you're collecting the same things, different things, what does your data say about targeted investments in the neighborhoods? Has there been a decrease in violence between these blocks, anything else we need to do? And I want to add to this. I don't know who can answer this. I just introduced a resolution to hold a hearing on the renewal of the city's Microsoft contract. Is that the same contract that you have or do you have your own in a different contract that you're asking about here? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, thank you for the very kind words and we accept them. And we say, you're welcome on behalf of 650-plus people and all of our partners because we all know it ain't me, and of course all the victim services agencies that are here. The question, as I understand it, goes two directions and they are related. One Direction is the more technical aspect of the software that we need, the renewals and the payment for those renewals. The other one goes in the direction of our data lab. Our data lab is headed by the Philadelphia DA Office's first ever onstaff criminologist. That is Dr. Oren Gur seated right next to me, who left academia to run the show with our data lab. And obviously, all of you in Council for years now have been receiving packets of information on specific issues or just having to do with crime that occurs in your area. So I think Dr. Gur is probably best suited to try to respond to your inquiries about the 57 blocks, whether that is morphed in any other details you may need. We're happy to follow up with that after today, because I've certainly learned over time that data questions are usually best answered in hours or two weeks. They're 21 usually not best answered on the 22 fly, but he is here.
23 As for the cliff, the 24 July cliff that we're coming to when, like a bunch of lemmings, we all go over to the side because we don't have software anymore to do the basics and I have to go and buy a pile of pencils and a manual pencil sharpener, as for that, we have Mr. Benson here who is, among other things, our head of it, but also quite an expert in our budget and functions in that space a lot. So because your question began with 57 blocks and data around that, I will ask Dr. Gur to answer first and Mr. Benson to answer second.
Thank you for the question, Councilmember Landau. My name is Oren Gur. I'm the Director of the District Attorney's Transparency Analytics Lab. Really appreciate again you bringing up 57 blocks and that work. As DA Krasner foreshadowed, I don't have an answer for you right now, but I'd really love to have an opportunity to go back and recalculate that. And my hypothesis would be that there are fewer blocks that have had or 6 more shootings during a similar 7 time period because of the work of 8 everybody here around the DA and 9 around the room. So thank you and 10 we'll get back to you.
Thank you. Just to be clear, I want to restate my question because I meant to say Microsoft licensing renewal.
And hello, Councilmember Landau. Thank you for the question. I don't know if it's a lifelong dream to talk about Microsoft licensing in front of City Council, but thank you for the question. It used to be you used to be able to buy Microsoft 2012, Microsoft 2015. They changed to a subscription model a few years ago, which is just more expensive. We use the same contract that the city uses. OIT is not budgeted for the DA office's Microsoft license costs. There's two subscription tiers. There's sort of the cheaper version where you get Microsoft online and then there's the more expensive version, where you need Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and our trial teams all need the more expensive version. Specifically, Microsoft Word has lots of briefs, motions, have very finetuned formatting requirements. And then for PowerPoint, the worst thing that you could want in a courtroom is the Wi-Fi goes down, you need the actual physical version of the software on your computer when you're running it. So we've trimmed the request as much as possible for the licenses that our office needs. The ongoing sustainment is $285,000, is the request. OIT is not funded for it. We're not funded for it. And I've scoured every other area of our budget, whether there's other places we can pull from and there's just nowhere to go. So that's sort of what brings us to this cliff at the end of July.
Just to clarify, was this something the city paid for before and is not paying for now or is this a new --
It used to be a partial funding arrangement where, OIT covered part of the license cost and then the license increased, and they're not budgeted for the increase. And now, OIT is not budgeted for any of the Microsoft license costs for the DA's Office. So we're asking to stand on our own. There is no 3 other funding source for that. Them for those sort of basic operational costs, sort of like a utility bill 6 essentially.
I also wanted to ask one question having to do with immigration. As you know, Minority Leader and I, Kendra Brooks and I passed this great ICE Out legislative package with tremendous Council approval and support and it's affirming Philadelphia as a welcoming city. How much funding does your office receive to serve the immigrant community or how much do you put in place for that? And what programs do you have in place? And will you increase your immigration staff enforcement or any work to meet the moment as we see a tax on the immigrant community from the federal government? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you really for that question. I think it's a very timely and important question. So the short answer is, we made financial room for this in 2018 when we copied the model that existed in Brooklyn, at that time, led by the man who was and is still the District Attorney in Brooklyn, a guy named Eric Gonzales. That, of course, is because Brooklyn is just full of immigrants, so they deal with these issues all the time. He had to come up with a very sensible approach at a time when the leadership in Washington was not nuts. And that approach was to be there to support victims who were immigrants, to be there to support witnesses who were immigrants, and to be there simply to make sure that defendants who were immigrants got fair and appropriate treatment. There were a number of tools available. Special visas could be obtained through ICE in order to protect the people who were assisting the prosecution in bringing about prosecutions. So that is how it operated. We didn't ask for special funding, but I appointed an experienced immigration attorney who had also worked in the criminal sphere for many years, known to many of you, by the name of Caleb Arnold, to do that work. Caleb is now moved on to other very important things in the office, and we now have a woman by the name of Stephanie Costa, who is also an experienced immigration attorney who tries to cover these many bases. But, no, there has not been any sort of increase in funding. I applaud the fact that Council found some funding for the Public Defender's Office to defend people, and it has become a very, very serious issue and I'm about to tell you why this affects us in so many different ways. It is stopping immigrants from reporting crimes that are committed against them. S. S. citizen from being willing to come to court in order to provide information. And get this -- everybody take a deep breath because you're not going to believe this one -- you remember that President Trump said that this was all about keeping us safe. S. citizen. That's the reality. But every now and then an undocumented immigrant commits a terrible crime. It's a rape or it is pedophilic sexual assault or it's a homicide, something like that. Do you want to know what ICE does with those people? They deport them before we can take them to trial. That's what they do with those people. S. S. citizens, get-out-of- jail-free card for that tiny subset of immigrants who commit these terrible crimes. Every single thing that we were told about this immigration policy making us safe, it's the exact reverse. Okay. So I applaud all of you for having pushed money through for the Public Defender's Office to be able to provide some kind of representation to undocumented people who are often very unfairly and often very illegally being mistreated by this government. Part of my job, part of my sworn oath is to uphold the Constitution, laws of the United States. That means to protect people's rights, and that is something that we want to do. We are finding ways to do it within our budget, but frankly we absolutely could use more staff. Steph Costa is only one human being. There's only so much that Steph Costa can do when we have all these different assaults on our ability to do prosecution as usual, to protect victims as usual. We certainly could use additional help.
And I also want to applaud City Council for speaking with a unified voice about this being a welcoming city, this being a place where we all recognize that our ancestors with very, very, very few exceptions, and those would be indigenous ones, were all immigrants.
Time, time, time now. Pause. You had me for a moment, Larry. Harrity may speak on this. But I support everybody, right. But Plymouth Rock didn't land on us. We landed on Plymouth Rock. So we didn't come willingly. We were forced to come here and build this country. But we support everybody because we understand the role of oppression -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I retract my entire statement because that was a big goof.
But we support everybody though. I got your point. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Council President, you're actually right. I beg your pardon. I should have been a lot more specific about the reality of people who are forced here, which is quite different than immigration.
But we definitely understand the point in terms of fighting against -- point of information. Dr. Phillips.
We're closing out. I just want to say you're doing -- he was just about to wrap up. I give you kudos. You're doing some amazing work where you're becoming, as you said, Lawful Larry. I think it'd be great if you -- is that what you're trying to do, a new nickname? It'd be great if you start sending out a document highlighting to neighbors people you're arresting and so forth that we can share. Maybe a visual, a nicely-designed one, that we can email to different neighbors and say, this is the District -- that gang that was causing issues, do that. So I just want to help you out, help us out so we could show the city that crime, people's issues that they say is happening is going somewhere. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I agree. I thank you for that, for helping me out. And I also want to say that the phrase I heard was Larry Law or Larry Law Law. I heard that one too.
Larry Law. Okay. Thank you. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I'll take Larry Lawful though.
Council President, I'm done. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
I just want to follow up. I was at a CVS. I saw a couple kids rob candy and stuff, run out. So I do agree with you we got to come up with different practices. But these stores are leaving our communities because they're getting robbed every single day. And so, I need to work with you closely on that. And to Member Jones' comment, that's really, really important going forward. Thank you. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I look forward to it.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Young for a very brief question, sir.
Just one question on the record. So in our district I'll say a couple weeks ago, we were out with the police and a few other departments and we were at 17th and Cumberland. There was a shooting soon after we left. A couple hours later there was a shooting in that same neighborhood where a young woman was shot in the leg and someone came out of their house, went back into their house during the shooting, came out of the house with a gun and just started shooting, I guess shooting back at people who they thought were shooting in their neighborhood. But that person who was at the house, who went back in the house, got their shotgun, was not charged with a crime. The DA's Office declined to press charges in these types of situations. I just want to know how do these types of situations help reduce gun violence in our communities? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, I want to be able to give you the most accurate answer. Obviously, our office handles about 35,000 cases a year. This does ring a bell, but I really don't want to guess at your question. I want to be able to answer it very directly. If we have specific knowledge in the room, we may or may not, we'll give it to you now. If we don't --
If not, please. You can -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: No, I'll be happy to do that. Obviously, one of the issues we face in cases is it's not always clear at the inception of a case whether self-defense is real or phony defense. We don't always know that up front. And sometimes it becomes clear after further investigation. But I don't say that by way of excuse. I want to answer your question with specificity as to that particular incident. Do you have it?
Give us about a day to get some updates on that investigation on PPD's side and we'll get back to you.
Hey, Larry. So when that budget comes through, that guy right there, I know you got your whole team with you, they're probably gonna be hating on you later on though, but give that boy a raise, man, because that was just sharp right there. Oh, you talking about April 24th, 2500 block of North Colorado Street, I'll get back with you on that. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I appreciate you raising that because we do have one small addendum to our request for funding.
But overall, thank you for your time. Thank you for you and your team and all the work that all of you are doing to keep our city safe. Also to acknowledge again, individuals who are the front line day-in and day-out, to help families who have been impacted by gun violence. We know hurt people hurt people, so you have the organizations that are working with victims and co-victims of gun violence. It starts from when people are young and people are adults. Just to give an example, if somebody slights you in some type of way, are you thinking about all types of ways on how you're going to respond them, right, that perpetuates that level of one individual trying to hurt another individual and it plays out in a variety of different ways. Like when I can't get a quorum, I kind of think about all day long how I'm going to address the situation, right. That's just having fun with my members. But on the real, we thank all of you for your hard work and your dedication. Thank you very much. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you very much.
Any other questions from members of the committee?
The Chair recognizes Councilman Curtis Jones for a motion that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution 5 before the committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 400, City Hall.
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution before the committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 400. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. This committee will stand in recess until Tuesday, May 5th at 10:00 a.m., at which time we will reconvene in Room 400. Thank you all very much. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 4:34 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. ________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL