That part would be very difficult because, again, you're talking about people who are presented to you before you approve it. On the contractor basis, you're talking about a competitive bid scenario. And with the developments and the TIFs, 192 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET you basically get two bites at that apple. They can present something to you and you can say, Well, we believe it should be higher. On the competitive bids, you can't do that. You got to accept what it is at the time of the bid, as long as they follow all of the specifications. And that's where we found it the most difficult to use the practices that you just stated.
And you can't say in the bid that you would like to see kind of sort of thinking it might be nice if you could reach certain levels?
Right. And I can't do it for this reason. And if you compare their reason -- if you compare that price and that's -- 193 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET if you look at the bid documents, the bid documents do not talk about the process, they talk about the lowest responsible bidder.
How were people -- I mean, this has always been one of the intriguing things. People were able to do it in '88,'cause they thought they had to. And then when they didn't think they had to, they couldn't do it anymore. How did that happen?
I have faith in church. How are they able to do it and then not able to do it?
Because the rest of the program changed from an affirmative action one to a anti-discrimination one. In affirmative action, you have to take affirmative steps to be inclusive. In anti-discrimination, you have to prove that you did not discriminate in the process. 194 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
Okay, all right. Well, you know we're going to have some more questions on that. I was intrigued, as Councilman Ortiz was. The list of projects on , what is kind of glaringly missing are the number of TIFs, the hotels. Did we do any monitoring of the RPAC, or now I think it's the Kimmel Center??
Parking garages and the like. Again, it seems like there's a fair amount of work and activity in the past three, four, five years, and it will go on for a number of years going forward. How do you monitor all of this activity? What's the size of your staff? has it increased over the past years? are you anticipating more increases going forward? I mean at some point, I mean, how much -- I mean, you -- I mean, you can only do so much. And, I mean, you're a pretty big guy but, I mean, all of us still only have 24 hours in a day and all that kind of stuff. 195 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET How do you keep track of all this stuff?
We are planning to look at our staff needs and we are planning to look at our technology needs. And we will be presenting that along with the -- to the Finance Director, along with the Secretary of Productivity to determine -- and we believe staff increases will be warranted over the next fiscal years. These projects span a number of fiscal years, so we believe that during this process that we will seek and gain some additional resources.
Now, you indicated in response to earlier questions that you absolutely, positively are involved in almost all of the business monitoring.
Where there's a -- where there's, quote/unquote, a City interest. And I say that to say that if we're in the legislation or in the -- when City Council does a TIF and it specifies within the TIF that the organization has to be responsive to the MBEC, then that gives me the leverage to insist upon information. 196 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET If I -- if our organization is not listed as part of that activity, then no, they don't feel compelled to give me that information. Now, I mentioned I'm on an oversight committee, but they're not compelled to then give me that information.
I think we recently, through a series of -- I was in a conversation with Councilman Clarke. I think recently, through a series of legislative initiatives, we have attempted, albeit some of the horses are already out of the barn, but I think we have recently put MBEC in most projects that are ever going to come through here.
Anything of TIF nature, OHCD, CDBG, all of that stuff.
And we'll be glad to get you that. So, I mean, I don't want to be in a situation, quite frankly, where I have to remember to ask you -- and I'm not directing this to you 197 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET personally. But, I mean, it seems to me it should automatically be a part of the process. I mean, this is what always leads to the level of anxiety and sometimes acrimony in these projects.
Because, as I have said on a number of occasions, at the end, it's always about what somebody's going to get or not get in certain groups, and -- 'cause everybody else already had their stuff taken care of.
And it's always these last-minute fights about what's the level, what's the amount, who's in, who's out, who's not doing something, what are you going to agree to, and then we've getting, you know, letters, amendments, and that whole kind of process. And it just starts getting a little sloppy and starts getting a little nasty at the tail-end of some of these activities. I will be very interested in what your requests are for increased level of staff to monitor what has kind become a plethora of projects. And who is responsible for monitoring 198 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET the employment side? Both during construction and subsequent.
It would really depend on the agency. For instance, OHCD takes some responsibility, RDA takes some responsibility, and that's the only other agencies that I'm aware of that will review the actual monitoring for employment.
The City -- you know, again, like rec centers, libraries, police stations. Who knows who works on what projects for the City of Philadelphia?
That has not -- I can tell you, I have been here since 1994 and that has never been -- I shouldn't -- I take that back. That has only been requested recently about monitoring the actual employment for those particular kinds of projects. And when it came up, we -- MBEC stepped up again to do that on the One Parkway facility. But to my knowledge, the One Parkway 199 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET facility and the runway -- the runway project at the airport are the only projects that I'm aware of where we actually were requested to do any kind of employment monitoring.
Now, don't you now, though, have an employment responsibility as a result of, I believe it's Bill 181?
Yes. We had that. Once the union provides the information -- and if you recall, part of this triggers -- in part, our responsibility is triggered by the information from the local unions as far as who's in the apprenticeship programs and journeymen and things of that nature. And I believe I sent Councilman Clarke and Councilman Ortiz a copy of a letter that I sent out to all of the locals, and I believe it was November or October. And I got one response.
You had requested that in -- actually, I think it was October.
Well, I got one, I got one response from the bricklayers, and that basically was a copy of their equal opportunity report, but I didn't get anything that dealt specifically with the number of people within those locals. And that's the information that we needed in order for the mechanism to kick in for the MBEC to begin the actual employment monitoring.
I'd like to add 201 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET something to that, Madam and Councilman Nutter. You know, we have during the last nine years appropriated millions and millions of dollars in terms of projects. And I was just commenting with Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds that you would expect that after -- let's just take the last nine years -- that the level of employment in several areas in terms of construction and entrepreneurs, because of the projects that we have approved and the clauses in those projects, that the level of employment within minority areas -- African-American, Latinos and so on -- would have gone down, and the appearances of people from those communities in those projects would have been increasing. The curve would have been one of going up during the last nine years. And also, the same situation in terms of businesses and subcontractors, that the curve would have been going up. And we haven't achieved that, we haven't seen that curve go up on either the State level -- or actually go down. And it's mind-boggling that we just sit here and they fill up the chambers, pressure us -- and most of them 202 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET do not live in the City. But our numbers are not growing. And I, for one, am really, really tired. And when you say you have written in October and you have not gotten an answer to that, it really is really insulting. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me just make sure that we're operating from the same understanding. Do you take the provision in Bill 181A, Section 17-1003 -- this is the reporting requirement section. It says that all bidders or contractors on any covered construction contract shall provide to the Procurement Commissioner in the case of contracts in which the City is a party, or to the Director of Finance in the case of contracts to which the City is not a party, such information as the Commissioner or the Director may need to assess the bidder's or contractor's ability to meet the 203 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET hiring requirements set forth in Section 17-1002. And then there's a list of things.
No, that puts me out. I am the Director of the Minority Business Enterprise Council.
I understand that. You're a part of the Office of the Director of Finance; is that correct?
But the Procurement Commissioner is sitting behind me, and it specifically directs the information to go to him and for him to then disseminate it, if he would like to come up and make a few comments.
Well, it directs both the Director of Finance and the Procurement Commissioner to do certain things.
You work for the 204 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET Director of Finance.
And those two heads of those respective agencies are authorized to ask for whatever information they want to make the assessment.
I mean, can I have any reliance on the notion that as a division of the Office of the Director of Finance, when the Finance Director is being asked or directed to do certain things, that you would automatically be a part of that process, as you are a part of that agency.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman 205 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET Brown.
Councilman Nutter touched on a number of questions that I also had concern about, but I need help on the big picture. How old is it agency?
We were established in 1982, and so that makes us years old. 13
--has been under 16 your leadership since, you say, 1994? 17
And the mission of 19 the agency changed effective. . . ? 20
No, the mission hasn't 21 change at all. We're still responsible --
Prior to the legal 206 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET activity, the emphasis, I should say, was what?
Has shifted several times. But the primary emphasis is still to increase the number of minority women and disabled businesses that do business with the City of Philadelphia.
Okay. Now, I have to say that I, too, was intrigued by the graph that you shared with us on .
But, again, having worked and managed people, I'm trying to get a handle on the why. And you said you would get back to us for possible reasons.
No, no, no, no. Okay, let me understand your question because it's different from, I think, the question of Councilman Nutter. What part of the graph --
The top graph, which speaks to the fact that the participation levels have been diminished.
What is the staff 207 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET complement currently?
Okay, the reason why the participation levels have diminished may not have anything to do with the staff --
-- of the agency. It has to do with how the City has purchase -- or our ability to utilize minority and women in certain aspects of the bid contracting process. And you know, I can -- I will respond to you in writing just how that has happened, especially from '95 to 2000.
Okay. On Page -- so I'll look forward to that follow-up information as well. You mentioned a number of projects. And I too am awestruck because it's nine of them.
What I was trying to do with these is list the most current ones that we are involved in. As you can see, not only is Kvaerner not listed, but the Regional Performing 208 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET Arts Facility is not listed. I mean, I have listed those in the past.
If you look at my testimony from last year, you will see a different set of projects from last year than you did with this year.
Well taken. Monitors are needed to oversee these projects; is that correct?
The way we do that is we assign a -- we consider these the high-visibility projects, so I have a professional-level staff person assigned to each one of them that is responsible for specific information. But we have seven -- currently seven professional staff.
That helps the big 209 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET picture.
But I have overall, 4 but I have -- like the classifications I'm talking 5 about have three coordinators, which are 6 supervisors and then I have the MBE Specialist II 7 and so forth. 8
How many staffers 9 have the chief responsible of monitoring? 10
Okay, let's move 16 to the monitoring activity. You award a contract, 17 you discover some way through, I guess, the 18 implementation phase that the general contractor 19 may not be honoring the MBE/WBE goals.
What provisions do you have in terms of procedural policy at MBEC and reprimands, consequences are available to you to move general contractors back on line to monitoring the contract. 210 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
First you'd have to determine what kind of project it is. And by that, I mean, is it a TIF, is it an operating department project? If you see most of these -- okay. Basically, what we would do, if you see most of these are TIFs, but there are a couple of them that aren't TIFs in here, so it's about 50/50. But what we would do then, the sanctions that we would have would be similar to any sanction that you could have on any avenue of the contract. It becomes a material part. The participation role, once they agree to it, becomes a material part of the actual contract.
So in the event that they did not comply, then they could be held in default of their contract.
Okay, that's helpful. And the reason why I raise that, in the short time that I've been here and spoken with small-business people who are attempting -- have done -- no, currently are work doing work with 211 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET MBEC, one of the -- some might call it a criticism is that general contractors get the job and then MBEC, given the overwhelmingness of the work that you have to do, are not able to respond to the concerns raised by small-business people.
I'd have to disagree with that, 'cause one of the major problems that we face every day is management by crisis.
We don't get the information about particular contractors having problems until the 12th hour.
Somebody was promised a check on Wednesday and it's Thursday morning at 9 o'clock, and they have people facing them because they didn't get a check Wednesday -- and I mean literally -- or Tuesday, Tuesday, and somebody told them they wouldn't be paid on Wednesday, and they showed up Wednesday saying, you know, I didn't get a check. We have a problem. You know, then we got to go through and chase the paper trail.
As far as our responsiveness, again, it's going to depend on the level of authority that the contract has.
Is it an operating department, is it a quasi? Have certain quasi-organizations that we work with that have groups in-house that they are responsible for monitoring. We just coordinate the activity. We assist them in some cases of helping them set ranges and goals. But then it's their responsibility from that point forward. And I got to tell you, some of them can be very territorial. And so we walk a thin line to just provide them the information so that they can assist the client. And, again, a lot of people think that because it's a City -- either a City agency or a quasi-City agency that the MBEC can go in and alleviate their problem. And in a number of instances, we can't.
It's simply not true. 213 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET We can recommend and we can refer. But to that individual -- and I think most of these are payment issues. To that individual who's not getting paid, that's not good enough.
Let's move to your discussion of the mentor protege program.
It's only about two years old, and it's only in the construction agency. And what it's an outcry to, there are a number of general contractors that were saying that they could not find competent minority firms or competent women businesses. And then there were a number of minority women and businesses that were saying that the majority firms were not working with them and not helping them in other 214 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET areas. And so the General Building Contractors Association contacted the MBEC, the United Minority Contractors Association, and one other agency, I believe -- oh, and the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition, and they asked us to be cosponsors of this mentor protege program, where we would first take a look at a small group of people and match them up with potential monitors. And so what we did was, we came up with a pool of individuals that we could -- that expressed a interest in having a mentor and tried to match them with the appropriate -- tried to match the appropriate protege with the appropriate mentor. It's not as complicated as it sounds.
For instance, most of the mentors are either general contractors or specialty-related contractors. Most of the mentors are the same, are either specialty contractors or small general contractors. And so what we hope to do is have an experience where the smaller contractors could 215 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET learn from the larger ones and have a resource where they could bounce off information. One of my strongest, I guess, criticisms or problems with the program is I don't think that a mentor should subcontract work to his protege. They should be there for advice and to provide supervision if they can, but it's very difficult for a mentor to have a working relationship with a protege in a difficult scenario.
How does that move or help the bottom line, which is, folks of color and women are reflected in the building trades in single digits.
Okay, because you can't compare one with the other. See, we're talking 216 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET business participation versus employment. The mentor part is soley on the business aspect; it's not on the employment.
That's helpful. Recognizing the awful reality that women and people of color are not reflected in the building trades, has MBEC -- or is it within MBEC's jurisdiction to take a look at that reality and do something about it, particularly given what's ahead of us with stadium construction?
The short answer is no. The long answer is, because of a couple of legislations and bills that have passed, we, MBEC, is responsible for reviewing the information that the union provides to determine level of potential participation for minority and women by trade and make that recommendation on a variety of economic projects. For instance, on the stadium project, they sort of go, I believe, a 35 percent minority and I think 5 or 8 percent female?
Yes. 217 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET Unprecedented in the country, yes, thanks to my colleague Darrell Clarke.
Well, a part of that process is going to be for us to find out how many people exist in the union already.
And how many will be available for work. And if they aren't available, what's the next mechanism that could be used --
There are a number of discussions now as to how do you that and who's supposed to be involved. Now, to everybody's credit, the union has been very forthcoming and providing the information about their apprenticeship programs. What we don't have is the specific numbers of people who are currently in their rolls and the potential or the possibility of how you grow that number to meet those ranges or goals. That's the work and the challenge that's ahead of us. The MBEC will be involved in that aspect, as well as the Greater Philadelphia 218 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET Affairs Coalition. We also have been in contact with --
No, Congreso de Latinos and other people who have other programs. We firmly believe that Top Win will be involved because we don't -- at this juncture, at this very limited juncture, we don't believe that we have enough people that's in the currently in the marketplace --
-- that could facilitate the achievement of that goal. So we have to come up with a strategy and we got a little time to do that. But what we're doing now is collecting the information so that we can at least alleviate some of the inherent obstacles. And most of it is information.
Absolutely. And you're absolutely right, we have time to craft a strategy, but it's also important to make sure that all parties are at the table. 219 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET
And I would strongly suggest, with MBEC being a bridge, that the School District is at the table. There are discussions happening also at the School District, and we do all of ourselves a disservice --
Absolutely. And the time to make sure that that happens is now.
Let me just check my notes here. You mentioned that one of success areas is that of outreach last year.
And based on the testimony last year also, you were just beginning to put a lot of things on line from a technology standpoint.
Are there still areas where you see serious challenge as you look down the line for Fiscal 2002?
The great digital divide, getting people to understand how to use our services from the Internet, getting us more in the Internet, or technology (indiscernible). Right now, although we are on the City's Web site, we're not inactive -- interactive. I mean, people can't pull down our directory and use it as appropriately as we would like for them to.
And we want a certain level of proprietaryship to that because it can be abused, but what we want to do is make it available so that everybody has access to it, and you won't get calls where, "I was trying to get some assistance from the MBEC but I couldn't and so I had to submit this bid without this level of participation," when we can just tell people to go on the Internet, the directory's accessible on the Internet, the commodity codes will match the areas that you're interested in. And then we can do a 221 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET check-and-balance type of thing. The other things that we would like to work on is to increase the number of projects that we can monitor. And the only thing way we can do that, again, is from a technological standpoint. Again, a more efficient database or a more efficient software that enhances our database and enhances our ability to increase the level of information that we have. One of the problems that we had on the One Parkway project that we -- that Councilwoman Blackwell said was kind of antiquated and required us to go back and do manual things was every time we submit -- put information into one of the systems, it would crash. And so we had to get the individual back, you know, to walk us through. And every time you bring a software person back, it's costing you money. So we kind of at that point just disregarded that and just went to a manual so we could keep pace.
I would like to go back to another success area. Would it be fair to say that to the extent that the City, through MBEC, is a participant on the Oversight Committee 222 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET that that project experienced a success with regards to MBE/WBE goals?
And if the converse, or reverse, of that is true, to the extent that MBEC -- (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
Okay, then let's go back to Kvaerner. It's not on the list currently. What is MBEC's participation with regards to Kvaerner as it today?
We have no 15 participation. What we've asked Kvaerner to provide to us so that we can provide to the Administration and Council is a final report. Kvaerner hired an outside consultant to monitor their participation. They also had -- and testimony records will indicate that they preferred and used OHCD as their monitoring group. We worked with OHCD and we work with the Redevelopment Authority to assure that most of the firms who participate there were certified or certifiable. 223 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET And then had have a change in management, and once the change in management occurred, then there was a certain amount of slippage in the information. So about three weeks ago or maybe a month ago, I wrote to the new president and asked him for an update as to all of the activity that has transpired up to now. And he indicated that they had made a good-faith report that they would do this for the City.
No, I haven't, but one of the things that we did hear -- you know, we read the paper and saw the article about the new --
Things are growing. (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
So we're going to intensify that because one of the things they also committed to was not only having local suppliers and distributors, but identifying opportunities for local minority and women businesses. And we 224 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET need to then find out where they are in that process. A number of people that were involved initially have changed, and so we're kind of searching through that process right now.
I cannot speak for any of my colleagues, but I do know that there are a couple that would be interested in a response to that, given the -- some might call it unfortunate, others would say the terrible start with regards to Kvaerner and MBE/WBE participation. So if you would share that with us --
But I would like to echo the same sentiments I had with Councilman Ortiz: I need a little more than two days to respond.
Obviously, you can't respond until you hear back from them.
Well-taken. Let me just check. That's it. Thank 225 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET you very, very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Mr. Roundtree.
Mr. Roundtree, you've actually touched base on most of the questions I had, but I just wanted to get some clarity on some of them. With respects to your testimony as it relates to Councilman Nutter's question on the expansion of your responsibilities, I just want to get some clarity. Will you now have the responsibility as a result of our amendment of the ordinance that created MBEC?
One of the responsibilities that you have is Penn's Landing Development Corporation. And you referenced in 226 2/13/01 - FY '02 OPERATING BUDGET your testimony that you're looking to increase your staffing levels in the out-years to give you the ability to monitor that agency and other agencies.
I'm a little concerned about that because as we speak, there are currently two large-scale developments taking place in Penn's Landing that were done through Penn's Landing Development Corporation, the large residential development on -- I can't remember the pier.