Okay. Does the timeline lead to a disparity between the initial project cost and the final cost? And that's especially relating to Rebuild. And that'll be that for me, my brother.
Thank you. Do you want to give a brief response as well as provide the information in writing?
Sure. So comparing to other cities or agencies, the timelines are pretty consistent with traditional public procurement agencies that haven't gone through any sort of modernization and upgrade. Are there -- are there initiatives to decrease the cycle time? There will be. Through the implementation of OPAL, we'll be looking also at our business processes to see if we can drive that down. And also, as I spoke to before, the more we engage in strategic sourcing, the more we have pre-positioned contracts. And some of those can even play in the space of public works when it comes to the engineering design and planning.
The -- it gets a little more difficult in the actual work, work, the construction type work, but that can be --
Yeah, I was in the construction business my whole life.
And then the last one, does it create a cost disparity? Absolutely. The longer the solicitation period, that is one of -- that is a big driver to cost in both actualities at the end, but also cost built in into the bid price due to perceived risk.
Well, thank you very much. We want to thank all of you for your testimony. We will stand in recess until 2:00 p.m. And I'll ask everyone if we could be back to start at exactly 2:00 p.m., so we can get two full rounds in it. And I'd rather get -- before everybody start getting up, this is important. I'd rather get responses on the record as opposed to written responses. And so the only way we can do that if we start on time, and then you can ask as many questions you can within your timeframe as opposed to getting the information back in writing. So we want to be transparent in this budgetary process. Thank you very much, everyone. See you at 2:00. (Council at ease.)
Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone. We will now conclude -- we will now continue. We will now continue our budget hearing. And with that being said, Ms. Helen Loughead, can you please call the next panel?
Yes. We have Kimberly Ali, Commissioner for Philadelphia Department of Human Services. We'd also like to call up Dr. Debora Carrera, Chief Education Officer for the City of Philadelphia.
And so, Members, we are going to have the two departments give their overview of their testimony, and then we'll go directly into questions. Based upon a request from members to have a level of input, this round will be two minutes, so everybody can get a chance to get their questions and comments in. And then we'll also going to go into our second round. And so I just want to state that, for the record. So to the distinguished panel, whoever wants to start first, just say your name and please begin.
Good afternoon, Council President and members of City Council. Thank you for having us this afternoon. I am Vanessa Garrett Harley, Chief Deputy Mayor for Social Impact and Strategic Initiatives. And the departments and agencies that are coming before you this afternoon are still under my portfolio, even though I'm now in the Mayor's office. I am joined today by my leadership team. The two major departments in the portfolio are the Department of Human Services, and I'm joined by Commissioner Kimberly Ali. And the Mayor's Office of Education, I'm joined by the Chief Education Officer, Dr. Debora Carrera. But also with me are Sean Perkins, who is the director of -- or the Chief of the Early Childhood Education, or our PHL Pre-K Program, as some of you know it. Dr. Christine Piven, who is the Chief of Children and Family Support. Many of you know that as the Office of Children and Family Prevention Services. And Nadine Perese, who is the Chief Financial Officer for both Office of Children and Family and the Department of Human Services. Both the Mayor's Office of Education and the Department of Human Services have submitted written testimony, for the record. Early Childhood Education, which encompasses our PHL Pre-K Program and the Children and Family Support Services, which houses out-of- school time and our summer youth employment or year round youth employment now, career connected learning program are found within the DHS budget for budget detail purposes. Before we answer, I'm sure, the many questions that you may have, I just wanted to share a few of the highlights of our work on behalf of the city's children and families. The Department of Human Services continues to make great strides towards keeping children and families at home and in their own communities. For the first time ever, the number of children in placement is close to 2,500, down from approximately 3,100 last year, and from a high of approximately 6,100 back in 2016. Almost half of the children in placement live with their families. We continue to offer an array of diversion programs to keep families out of both the child welfare and juvenile justice system. This year, the Mayor's Office of Education in collaboration with the School District of Philadelphia, local charter schools and the Division of Children and Family Support Services, launched the Extended Day/Extended Year program at schools. That's 20 24 school district-operated schools and five charter schools. This program added over 7,000 new slots for after school, before school and vacation enrichment type activities. For the first time ever, during winter and spring break, students were able to engage in fun and free activities so that their parents could work. In FY26, we plan to add an additional 10 district schools and another five charter schools. Our early childhood high quality PHL Pre-K Program is thriving. With a 92 percent enrollment rate, our 5,250 slots are placed throughout the city at 227 locations. This year, we launched a unified preschool search and enrollment platform by partnering with the School District of Philadelphia and the State Department of Early Learning to launch a universal enrollment process for parents to choose a publicly funded Pre-K program for their children. This process will allow the city to maximize its publicly funded seats and avoid wait lists for some programs while others are still carrying empty seats. We also invested $3 million to recruit and retain early childhood teachers for our youngest learners. Last summer, we launched the city's new youth workforce program called Career Connected Learning or C2L. We are pleased to share that almost 7,900 youth participated in this program. Students in the program earned a stipend while gaining valuable work-based learning experiences. Applications for this year's program will be launching in a few short weeks.
Additionally, we continue to offer a robust out of school time program across the city, where over 7,000, participated last summer, and over 8,000 youth participated in the first half of the school year. My team and I are here today to answer any specific questions that you may have. Thank you very much for all of your continued support.
Well, thank you very much. And so before we turn it over to members so we can get right into the questions. First and foremost, I just want to acknowledge Commissioner of DHS. She hails from that great part of Philadelphia known as South Philly. And so just always good to see Ms. Kimberly Ali in terms of work that you are doing and also part of education team. Debora, you have a very fine young man that's working under your leadership. He's worked in his field for several years. He goes by the name of Will Mega. And so I just want to acknowledge him for his hard work and his dedication because he truly has a heart and most important passion to help our youth. And so I just want to acknowledge you for your hard work and your dedication as well as the team. Vanessa, I already know that you're on the case in terms of the work that you have been doing, and so I look forward to working with all of you. I want to get into PHL Pre-K. Very, very successful program. It's a program that addresses the issue of quality education for our most precious assets here in the city of Philadelphia. And that's our children, right? And so I want to get an idea of how many Pre-K slots are funded for FY26 compared to FY25.
So our Pre-K slot funding is the same as it was for FY25. Is 5,250 slots.
Are we working to expand it? And if not, why not?
For this year, we did not focus on expanding. We wanted to double down on quality.
And ensuring that we have the appropriate quality for the number of slots that we have and the funding for that. You may recall, Council President, I'm sure some other members of council do, that we asked for an increase last year because the state increased the dollar amount per slot that they were charging from 10,000 to 10,500. And so we asked for an increase because we always try to match what the state pays for slots so that there is not that uneven level of competition or forcing providers to choose which program that they want to be in. But we have been really concentrating on the quality of the slots. I am pleased to say that the vast majority, over 95 percent of our programs, and I'll call up our chief of prevention, Sean Perkins, who could give you more specific details, but over 95 percent of those programs are what we call star three and four. You know for -- that is the rating system that the state uses to determine quality programming. And so we have been very intense about making sure that we work with our providers to ensure that while it is a free Pre-K program for three and four years old, that they are getting the highest quality possible.
And that was the follow-up question I was going to ask in terms of how many daycare centers or early childhood development centers went from, you know, two star to three star to four star, but you answered that question. When you talk about -- we talk about the Department of Human Services, when we talk about JJC, right, Juvenile Justice Center, all of my team here at some point in time have visited the Juvenile Justice Center. Give us an idea of how we have been addressing the issue of overcrowdedness. I know there was a crisis at one particular point in time, and then there was a role that the state had to play as well in terms of expanding more beds. And so give us an idea of where we stand in terms of the status of addressing the overcrowdedness and also the hiring of individuals to help with staffing capacity at JJC. COMMISSIONER ALI: Sounds good. Thank you for that question. Again, I'm Kimberly Ali, I'm commissioner for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services. And so as you indicated, Council President, in 2022 and 2023 and part of 2024, we were certainly in a crisis at the PJJSC, given the number of young people who were being housed there. As a reminder, our state license capacity is 184 young people. When I testified last year, we were at 193 young people at the PJJSC. I am happy to report today we are at 132. We have been consistently below the license capacity of 184 since June of 2024. So we continue our partnership with the state in order for them to promptly remove young people who have been court ordered to be placed at state institutions. As of today, we have 20 young people who are waiting for placement at the state. Again, when we were here last year, we were at 70.
Fifty young people less. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes.
Okay. What gets measured, gets done. Congratulations. Keep up the good work. So we have to like also celebrate when we are doing what works. So this is not just about coming and just criticizing, but we also want to -- well, we have to probe and ask questions from accountability standpoint, but let's celebrate our wins. And so I think that's great. And I also want to acknowledge Michael Scott, I'm going to ask him to stand up. He's over there somewhere. Give him a round of applause, please. I just want to acknowledge him because, you know, when you talk about the issue of juvenile justice, and I always talk about me being a graduate from Penn, me being a graduate from Mansfield, me studying at Harvard, right? But however, as a juvenile, right, I had my challenges with the system. My judge was named Reynolds as a young man. I was on probation as a young man, but it was some other thought leaders and community leaders who saw some things in myself that I probably didn't see as a young man. And so when you give us the opportunity to bring outside partners inside to the Juvenile Justice Center, to kind of show these young men that there life beyond just standing on the block, there's life beyond just carrying a gun. I think I just built a brand- new recording studio with Meek Mills, the Muslim young brothers get to do tiling services, so you let Imam come in and talk to the young men. And so I think those types of partnerships, right, and also coupled with job training and development opportunities, when they do come back out, I think that goes a long way for us helping our young men now so they don't arrive up in Phoenix, or they don't -- they don't arrive up in Coal Township because as a juvenile, right, they didn't have that opportunity to get their lives together. And so I just commend the team over there for the hard work that they're doing. With that being said, I know my members are really looking forward to asking questions. And so this gentleman wasn't here for the last two rounds, but I'm going to let him -- have him come start off with Councilmember Curtis Jones, then Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, then Councilmember Brooks.
Thank you so much, Mr. President, and all the work that the members of the body helped to do. Whether it was Jamie, us going to the Juvenile Justice Center in your district, or whether it was us suing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for derelicting -- dereliction of duty. Working with you to get that situation solved, I applaud you as well. Couple of quick questions, though. As it relates to -- well, first and foremost, I always told the two of you, I could never do your job. When I first met you, you meet people on their worst day and have to help them through it. I want to thank you again for the 100 shooter review. Where we discovered through a lot of the data that you had is that the young person that you wind up taking into custody or trying to assist early in their life winds up often being the defendant, please rise as an adult. We see this throughout the system. How much of your budget goes for preservation of a family versus taking into custody of a child? What percentage does that represent? COMMISSIONER ALI: While Nadine, our CFO, is trying to get a sense of the percentage, if you will. I do have numbers in terms of the funding -- the dollars that are spent, to give you an idea. And so when you look at the Juvenile Justice Services budget, $53 million of that budget goes to court and community services. And so when you talk about the diversionary programs, everything from our IPS, our intensive prevention services, to our Community Evening Resource Centers, to our evening resource centers, to our citywide diversionary programs, to the funding that we also provide for GVI for juveniles that is encompassed under the JJS budget. When I look at the total prevention spend, it's $173 million. That money also includes our child welfare diversionary program. So all of the services that keep families together. So that includes our case management services in the prevention realm, meaning no formal acceptance for child welfare services. So that's our rapid service response, in which during the course of an investigation, a social worker walks alongside of the family so that we can mitigate any concerns that cause for a report to be called in to the DHS system. We also have family empowerment centers, which is site- based services. Congreso is one of them, as well as Gemma. All of that is included in the child welfare diversionary.
So to what degree -- see, I knew that, that's why I wanted to hurry. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah.
To what degree is any of this a pass-through that might be threatened by No. In Washington? How much is -- of that budget is in jeopardy? COMMISSIONER ALI: So our overall federal budget, when you look at DHS, that's a pass-through, is 9 percent, which is $167 million. But 10 none of it is in direct jeopardy by 11 the federal government because the 12 federal government pays for core 13 mandated services. And so you -- that 14 is included our CUA contracts, 15 placement providers, and not 16 prevention and diversionary services. 17
And I'll stop on this because we have an aggressive schedule for questions. The CUA system, how many do we have now? How many are coming up for a contract? And how do we keep place with inflation so that we don't have the extreme turnover in these ranks? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. So we actually have seven CUA providers that oversee geographic regions. 4 And so it's the same regions as we 5 always had in terms of the CUA 6 providers. In terms of the turnover, 7 we did put on the website our CUA 2024 8 score card. And if you look at the 9 workforce domain, we have certainly 10 done a much better job in terms of maintaining staff, you know, at the community umbrella agencies. And so we are definitely pleased by the CUA 2024 score card versus the 2023 CUA score card. And one of the big investments that we made in terms of funding of our CUAs is we wanted their salaries to be in line with DHS salaries. And so the average CUAs salary case manager is $60,000. That's comparable to our social work service manager too at the Department of Human Services.
So I'll wait for the second round. I want to know about the placement in some of the foster care situations. So whoever has that information should tee it up. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, then Councilmember Brooks, then Majority Leader Gilmore- Richardson.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER ALI: Good afternoon.
I want to add my applause on reducing the census at PJJSC. I know it took a lot of hard work. I want to get my questions on record before you answer, because we have a very short time period. So even though we did great work reducing the census at PJJSC, we also did see some really damning reporting by the Inquirer earlier this year, which found that Philadelphia incarcerates youth at four times the national average at a rate that is higher than any other large city in the nation. And that's true even when you control for the type of crime that we might be talking about. And your budget detail states that juvenile justice services will advance the reach of its juvenile alternative to detention initiative by adding contracted community-based alternatives and addressing disproportionately within the juvenile justice system. So I wanted to ask some questions about that. First, can you provide additional detail on how exactly we are addressing this disproportionality? Specifically, how are we working to increase pre and post-arrest diversion options? What are the community-based alternatives that we are exploring at this moment? How many kids will these efforts divert from the juvenile justice system and does the proposed budget amount meet our needs? And then lastly, I am in support of most methods of reducing the number of kids at PJJSC, but I remain firmly opposed to sending young people to Rite of Passage in Texas. So lastly, can you let us know if we have any more young people in Texas at this time, and are we still contracting Rite of Passage for future placements? COMMISSIONER ALI: Thank you for those questions. And I'll ask Gary Williams, who is the Deputy Commissioner of PJJSC, just to come up in the event I need his assistance. And so, yes. I am certainly aware of the Inquirer article that talked about the city of Philadelphia incarcerating or detaining more young people in terms of the other commonwealth -- counties and the other Commonwealth and in terms of the other state. And I don't have an answer for that. The reason why I don't have the answer for that is because DHS does not make the decision in terms of detaining young people. As you know, that the arrest of young people is done by the police. The charging of young people is done by the District Attorney's office. The decision to detain a young person is done by probation. So we view ourselves at the PJJSC is ensuring that we have a continuum of services at the PJJSC to meet the needs of the young people while they are placed there. We also view ourselves as the provider or the entity, if you will, that is responsible for providing a continuum of services, both diversionary as well as alternative to detention, so that the young person is not being held in detention. I talk --
Yeah, I think that -- just to briefly, I think DHS's role in expanding community-based options and alternatives has to be a key part of this. COMMISSIONER ALI: Absolutely.
And so I'm asking you to speak to that. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes.
And what we're doing proactively to change this dynamic. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yep. Absolutely. You want to talk specifically about the programs?
Good afternoon, Councilwoman Gauthier. Yep. good afternoon, counsel. Yeah. My name's Gary Williams, Deputy Commissioner for Juvenile Justice Services. So I want to speak a little bit about what we are doing in terms of specifically the JDAI initiative which we actually brought on a full- time coordinator. This coordinator works in conjunction with DHS as well as probation. The idea of JDAI is really to look at data to make informed decisions about expanding alternative to detention, as well as community- based programming. And specifically, we've actually opened a number of additional community-based programs that are focused on vocational skills training, as well as job readiness. Some examples of that, Councilwoman, is one, we have a YouthBuild program that we opened in South Philadelphia. This is a program that is based on vocational skills and social emotional learning. This particular program is open for young people across the city. It serves as a diversionary program, and it serves young people from to 18. They actually are paid 10 a stipend to actually learn a trade. 11 Part of their culminating event in 12 terms of that program is actually 13 contributing to community development by helping young -- helping citizens fix up home -- fix up minor repairs to their home. Very robust program. We're excited about that. It opened in fiscal year '24. Another specific program that is on that continuum is what we call Philadelphia Technician Trade Institute. It's a combination of a intervention as well as diversionary. We've entered into a contract with this trade school. They actually have opened and operate a, if you will, a satellite campus right at the Juvenile Justice Center -- Service Center, whereby young people are exposed to upwards to seven programs, bona fide trade programs. Some include carpentry, electrician, pipe fitting, et cetera. We really believe that giving young people that level of exposure could actually put them on a different trajectory to actually change their lives. Not only are they actually doing a satellite campus at the center, they also have a Saturday school whereby young people can actually attend when they actually discharge either from the center or from treatment and rehabilitation. So those are some examples of extended programming that we actually have invested in a significant way.
Is it your sense that we're moving forward with the community-based options that we need to change this dynamic? I don't think this is a distinction we want to have nationally.
Could I just add something to what Commissioner Williams just told you, Councilwoman. There are certain programs that are court-ordered programs that we work with the court on that are specifically court-ordered to avert detention. For example, the Evening Reporting Centers. There are four different entities at four different locations across the city where a judge can actually order a young person to attend there as opposed to detaining them at the Juvenile Justice Services Center. There's something called -there's also court-ordered intensive supervision programming and/or in-home detention program. So there are specific programs where we work with the court and the probation department as an alternative to incarcerating that young person, even though sometimes they may have been adjudicated, delinquent or determined or have already had their trial. But they're dependent upon what the charges are, we do try very hard to make sure we continue to have a continuum of services so that not every person has to be detained. We really only want to detain those people that is felt can only be maintained safely there.
Thank you very much. Next Councilmember -- COMMISSIONER ALI: Oh, Texas. I'm sorry. Texas.
Go ahead. COMMISSIONER ALI: So I'm happy to report that we do not have any young people placed in Texas. Yeah.
I will say this though, right? Because Texas is a little far, but if you grew up in Philadelphia, you know about Vision Quest, right? If you grew up in Philadelphia, you know about Wagon Train, right, with Vision Quest where children would travel all throughout certain parts of the country via a wagon train. Like it's literally a wagon train. But I do want to get an idea, and I'll wait until my round. And I know there was a study that says that children are more able to be rehabilitated within their own community, right, easier than being like back in the day at Caldwell Heights or Sleighton Farm. And I'll follow-up on this later, but you're also asking young people to get their lives together in an environment that if they don't have a support system and all they know is those streets, I would just love to see how we combating that. Because sometimes you come out your environment, maybe not Texas, but sometimes it's getting out of your immediate circle to see something differently, right? I'm speaking as our Mayor says, from my own lived life experience, right? I'm not a typical elected official. Like been there, done that. But also when I saw a Mansfield, I'm like, okay, there's something a little different, right? I'm not -- and it was a hard transition because all I know is everybody I grew up with. So when I come back home even on the weekends from school, I'm not ashamed to say I would still get caught up sometime because that's all I know, right? And still coming from a pretty good household, right? And so we could have that conversation later. Because I know the data shows based upon one meeting I had with y'all says in your home neighborhood it's better to rehabilitate easy than outside. But I would want to know how we also showing them something that's different than what they only know. Because some people never go downtown. And we know what we just experienced this past weekend, that is youth. Hey, young folks, right? So how do we broaden their horizon to see other than what they only know. But I want my members to really take advantage of this time. So with that being said, Councilmember Brooks, then Majority Leader Richardson, and then Member Young.
Thank you so much. I'm going to kind of follow Jamie's lead. I'm going to say all my questions, and then you guys can answer later. So my first group is for DHS. A few years ago after the investigations revealed that the city routinely took millions of dollars from youths in foster Care, this council took action and passed a law banning that practice. Can you give us an update on the implementation on this law and how many accounts have been set up for youth and what is the total amount of money in these accounts? And the second question is, a part of this important law concerning testing for benefits. Many of the foster youth are eligible for various benefits, including disability benefits or survivor benefits from other family members or previous guardians. Is DHS testing all youth for the benefits like disability? And if you're not, why? And the third is, DHS should also be testing youth for all these benefits as part of aging -- the aging out process. So what -- I mean, so that they can be set up for all the programs and the money they're entitled to when they leave DHS programming. Currently, what percentage of youth are tested for benefits as part of the aging out process? And can you commit to making sure you guys are doing that moving forward? COMMISSIONER ALI: Thank you for those questions. Nadine Perese will answer the questions around social security benefits.
Good afternoon. My name's Nadine Perese, I'm the Chief Financial Officer for the department. And so the social security unit falls in finance. And so what we have done thus far is internally we keep track of the youth that are in our care and that are receiving the social security benefits. And then we become the rep payee, as you're aware, while they're in care because that's what we're mandated to do through -- in order to receive our federal funding through the state. So that's a process that we're unable to change. So what we've done on the side is in conversations with the Law Department as well as OCYF at the state level, our funder, we've discussed matching the funds so that we can conserve all of those accounts for -- that money for youth on the side without causing any issues with our federal funding. So we're still the rep payee, but we're keeping track of that money internally right now that we're collecting for youth. So on a monthly basis we're able to report out on what we're collecting for youth in our care. What we're -- we haven't been able to do so far, we've released an RFP to try and find a provider to help us with the accounting and the conservation of these funds. That really falls outside of the valley wake of our department. We just don't have the skill set or the bandwidth to be able to manage that internally within DHS. So we're trying to find a consultant to help us -- to help take care of that for us. And in consultation with the Law Department, we just had a failed RFP process. So we couldn't find a provider. So right now we are reassessing internally. We're working with the Finance Department and the Law Department to try and rework the scope of the RFP and try. And we thought maybe that would be a better way to get at a good accounting firm that can help us and support us through this process. So that's where we are internally with conserving the funds for youth in our care.
So basically just the funds are being conserved. You're just trying to find a better system to figure out --
Yeah. So we're keeping track of -- yep. Huh-huh. And the best way to do that -- and we actually don't just want to disperse the funds to youth. We want to incorporate some sort of financial literacy for the youth to make sure that we're not just passing off large chunks of money to youth after they exit care and we can kind of support them through that process. So we're trying to make this a holistic approach to this programming, and so that's where we are right now.
Okay. What about the second part of the question about testing for benefits, whether it's eligibility or disabilities while children are in care? Do you have a system for that? COMMISSIONER ALI: So yes. Based on the needs of the young people, we will ensure that that young person receives an evaluation. And if in fact that evaluation speaks to whether or not that young person is eligible for benefits, then we will roll them in that process in terms of conserving benefits as well. Because as you know, in order for young people to qualify for social security benefits, they need to have an evaluation to make that determination. But I think it also is important, probably, Nadine, for you to talk about not the disability. That we don't collect the disability.
That's correct. So we are just -- so there's -- so we don't do the social security income, the SSI, we only collect the -- what's known as RSDI. Yep. The Retirement Survivor Benefits. Yes, that's correct.
And then I think the ending part is, what about when children are at the age of transition? If they come in close to age of transition, is there a plan to make sure they're transitioning into, whether it's out of SSI service to adult disability services, is there a system for that to make sure that they're -- they have a sustainable income or the services that they need once they transition out of the system, even with the financial literacy that you guys are moving towards, as well as giving young people lump sums of cash to run free with? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. And I will also say that it is -- it's expansive and not just for social security. And so all young people who age out of DHS, and when we say age out, they did not achieve, you know, they didn't reunify home, they weren't adopted or they didn't achieve permanent legal custodianship. We track in terms of whether or not they have a stable income and help them with that, whether or not they have stable housing, and also whether or not they have a life connection, someone that they are connected to. And so in terms of our reporting on that, we had -- FY24, we had 188 young people who aged out of the Department of Human Services, which was down from the 310 that we had in FY 2021. Yes.
Now, do the services still transition to children that are in incarceration? Like is it the same system for both or is it a different process for children that might be in JJ?
Brief response, please. Because we getting ready to move on. COMMISSIONER ALI: Excuse me. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you.
I said, brief response and then we're going to move on to the next member. COMMISSIONER ALI: So yes, we do reintegration work with those young people who transition out of the Juvenile Justice Services Center.
All right. You're welcome. The Chair recognize Majority Gilmore- Richardson, then Member J. Young, then member Jim Harrity, then Member Bass.
Thank you. Thank you, Council President, and thank all of you. And I know, Council President, that you stated Commissioner Ali hails from SP or South Philly, but she's also a graduate of the Philadelphia High School for Girls, which is why she is so thorough. And wanted to add -- and also Vanessa Garrett Harley because that's what Girls High Girls do. But at any rate, I wanted to just --
Majority Leader Richardson, there's a point of information from your District Councilmember.
You were giving out shout outs and you didn't mention that Will Mega was from West Philly.
Wynnefield. Thank you. I wanted to just say thank you to Commissioner Ali for all of your work with the Nonprofit Provider Task Force and for being really a shiny example of just the best -- one of the best departments in the Health and Human Service cluster. Your department is an example on how to do things the right way. And we appreciate that example, and it was exceedingly helpful for us in this entire process. So I just wanted to express my public thanks and gratitude to you. I only had one question for DHS and the other for the Education Department regarding the Extended Day/Extended Year. You know, this question that I'm going to ask, you already sent me the information, but I wanted to get it on the record because I do want to be cognizant of our colleagues in the Northeast, Councilmember Driscoll and Councilmember O'Neill, regarding the Community Evening Resource Centers. We have six centers across the city and we're very appreciative of your team. And Gary Williams is here and Catherine and the whole DHS team. They -- they're -- I'm telling you, they're stellar. They're a shiny example of how to do things right in city government. But we have the six centers in and throughout the city. So we have JJC in the Northwest, IDAAY Central, Greater Philadelphia Community Alliance in the South, Community of Compassion which I love in Southwest, and Xiente in East Division, and then Unique Dreams is technically covered for Northeast, but their zip code is 19124. And so I asked about the CERC centers, one, because we want to ensure that we have adequate coverage in the upper part of the Northeast. We don't have any footprint like up top in the Northeast. And I know that very frequently when we travel with Councilmember Driscoll, and when we travel with Councilmember O'Neill, everyone in the Northeast says, don't forget about the Northeast. And so I just wanted to put that on the record regarding a CERC Center for the Northeast. And then also the usage of the CERC Centers citywide. And if we're continuing to collaborate with PPD, because I do notice that we have more young people who are voluntarily -- COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes.
-- going to the centers versus PPD bringing young people to the centers. And I know it's our policy to, you know, try to reunite the young person and help them reunite with a parent or a guardian before we take them to the CERC Centers. But I just want to make sure that we're adequately using CERC. And that'll be a question I ask for your PPD as well. And then I heard the bell, so briefly, for Extended Day/Extended Year, for the summer specifically, will there be any programs that are focused just on reading? I will tell you that I love the program. Some of the providers that we have in the system now are providers that I used as a child where my parents place me, I should say, as a child. And they have done great work for many years. But we do need programs that focus on reading for our young people because a number of our young people are not reading on grade level and we need reading specific programs. You know, they have to have the recreation components and the other parts for out of school time, but we need programs that are focused on reading for our young people so they don't experience summer slide. And that would be in conjunction with the work that the district does. But because you all pick those providers, we need to have a focus on reading. So I wanted to put those on the record.
And also a good point of information, Ms. Debora Carrera, can you also just in the same vein, just also touch on what are we doing to address adult literacy?
And see if -- I think of something like percent adults are 11 like illiterate. And so that would be 12 great segue into those two parts. 13 COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. So 14 I'll start with the CERC data for the 15 Community Evening Resource Centers. 16 And so for FY24, so that was July of 17 '23 until June of '24, we had 1,378 18 young people who visited the CERCs 25,000 times. And so that is an indication that they love the CERCs. The CERCs are a safe space for young people between the hours of 7:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. And then when you look at the FY25 data from July of until now, it was 1099 young people and they made over 18,000 visits to the CERCs. And since exception, since January of 2022, we service 2,614 young people for 50,000 visits to the Community Evening Resource Centers. And so they are much needed in our community. We will continue to work with the police department to ensure that they know that it is a resource for young people who are out past curfew violations. We do have one provider in particular at JJC, who does a much better job in terms of their interaction with the police. They highly utilize the CERC in Northwest at JJC. And so we will continue in that vein.
And so as a new leader -- as a new elected official Councilmember, and she said, listen, John Street created this model where we went inside neighborhoods and they were called curfew centers. And I want to create that same model 2.0. Right? And so we talked and she said, listen, this is the game plan. So I just want to say kudos to Majority Leader Richardson because this is actually government in action.
And so when you see how she built on it from like maybe one to two centers, and then the next year, three, four centers, and then you see the actual numbers and trying to impact our young people, I just want to take a moment to just acknowledge that in terms of the work you're doing. Member Richardson?
Thank you, Mr. President. And those are my exact remarks. I just really want to say thank you because this is like a dream come true in government in action. And the reason why we're sent here to represent our community and our neighbors to service over 50,000 young people in the short amount of time that we all work together to stand up the centers is nothing but remarkable. And I'm just so appreciative of the DHS team because you all did such a stellar job. COMMISSIONER ALI: Thank you.
And, you know, just working together for us to stand this up. So thank you, thank you. COMMISSIONER ALI: Thank you.
Thank you. My name is Dr. Debora Carrera, the Chief Education Officer for the Mayor's Office of Education. So thank you for your question, Councilwoman. I'm excited to report that we will be extending Summer Achievers in all of the Extended Day/Extended Year programs. So Summer Achievers is a collaboration that existed between the Office of Children and Families and the School District of Philadelphia, where to your exact point, in the morning students receive academic support in literacy and in mathematics. And then they're working with the providers in the afternoon. So we're excited that now Summer Achievers will also be expanded to the 20 Extended Day/Extended Year district operated schools. And we're going to have some programming -- summer programming in some of the charter schools as well. And then, Council President, to your question, that is correct. And so our office, the Mayor's Office of Education, we work with learners of all ages. And to the Mayor's vision statement of economic opportunity for all, adult education is really important because there are about 13 percent of Philadelphians ages 25 or 14 older who do lack a high school 15 diploma or it's equivalent. And so 16 that's something for us to really think about. And our office is working to make sure that we address those needs and those issues. And so in this fiscal year, year to date, we've had 2,203 learners enrolled in classes, which is exciting. And we have about 82 classes running simultaneously throughout the city. And these are classes that are offering basic literacy skills, numeral skills, as well as acquisition of the English language.
Okay. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Member Jeffrey J. Young, Member Harrity next, and then Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Thank you, Mr. President. Just a couple questions for -- regarding DHS. Is there a funding discrepancy between kinship care and foster care? And if so, can you provide us with the rationale behind that? COMMISSIONER ALI: No, there isn't.
Okay. Great. COMMISSIONER ALI: We pay foster parents the same amount of money as we do kinship caregivers. So there is no funding discrepancy.
Great. Thank you for that. And can you tell us what, if you keep the data on the number of young people who are involved in the DHS system who have either become victims of gun violence or perpetrators of gun violence? COMMISSIONER ALI: I don't have that information readily available, but I'm sure I can get it.
Thank you. And there was a -- there was talk about a bunch of programs that the city has for these young people to get involved in, which is great. But, you know, there was no specific information on the capacity for these programs. So can you tell us, I mean, there's a number of programs that the gentleman mentioned about, you know, getting children exposed to the trades and paying them weekly stipends. But can you talk to us about the capacity because if these programs are working, then we will want to know how to expand these programs so more kids can have these opportunities as well. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes, we can get the information. Just give me one second because I have it. Just don't know where in this binder.
And, Councilmember, while Commissioner Ali is trying to find the actual data, I just want to point out -- first, thank you for the question because I think it's an important question. It's a relevant question about capacity. But one of the things that we do is continue to review and be willing to increase capacity. Because we try to determine what we scale up on. It's very rare that we get a program that is at full capacity that we will not go back and look at and try to add additional funding based on the ability. So it is very, very rare that I hear that our programs are totally full because the objective is not to turn a kid away, particularly if they can fit into one of those programs. But I'm sure they -- they're looking to give you the exact detail now. And if we can't find it at this moment, we can always get you the actual data back.
Yes. If I may, Councilman Young. Again, Gary Williams, Deputy Commissioner for Juvenile Justice Services. We will get that information to you. But I do want to -- I want to make mention of the one program that I did mention, PTTI, Philadelphia Technician Trade Institute. They actually started their work with our young people in March of last year. To date, they actually served 131 young people. Out of that 131, 89 completed the program and 28 was actually -- went on to actually have either part-time or full-time employment. It's just one example. And it's still a relatively newer program. When we talk about capacity with regard to intensive prevention services, which is a combination of case management and diversionary program, which is a highlight in terms of school diversion, as well as it is the major intervention that we have with the Citywide diversion and our partnership with Philadelphia Police Department. They're servicing at least a thousand young people every year. Just to give you an example. But we can certainly drill that down a little further for you.
Thank you. And just one brief question. Council President mentioned something about the environment for the kids. And I went to a boarding school where on the weekends my life was totally different than it was Monday through Friday. Because when I went home, it was -- it was literally night and day. So has the city ever explored opportunities to open up boarding facilities since we had the closures of Sleighton Farms and closure of Glen Mills and all these things? Have we looked at opportunities to expand on some of the short falls that we saw with some of those type of entities to try to change these environments to make it a little bit better for our kids to really get a different outlook on life? Because they're -- I mean, they got the ankle bracelets now and that's like a badge to them walking around their communities, right? So what can we do to really get them out of that mind set? And has the city really explored that opportunity to fill that gap, because it's -- instead of sending our kids to Texas, you know, we can purchase somewhere to really build on that capacity that we -- that we need. COMMISSIONER ALI: We have not, in terms of when you talk about the child welfare and the juvenile justice system, have not explored boarding homes, if you will. We actually had to sort of change that narrative to make sure in terms of child welfare operations, that young people who are in care are in care because we can't keep them safe, you know, in their particular homes. So we have not explored that. What we have done as an alternative is offer at least those safe spaces for young people. And so, as you know, our safe spaces are actually open on the weekends as well. And so they're just not Monday through Friday programs. So when we talk about the CERCs, when we talk about the evening reporting centers, when we talk about intensive prevention services, which is also site-based and case management, we do provide those services on the weekend, as well as -- opposed to just a Monday through Friday program.
Hold on. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilmember Young. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Harrity.
Thank you, Leader. Thank you. Just a little note on that. I agree with Councilman Young. If something has worked, we should figure out how to expand on that. As the Council President said, someone whose lived experience brought them through the juvenile justice system. I believe that the programs that you're talking about, the trade programs and stuff like that. If we had more of that before they reached you guys, we'd win a lot more, you know. So definitely would like to know what programs are working so that we could try to expand them. Because we all know those of us who grew up in a neighborhood, everything operates around your corner or your little hangout where you're at. And, you know, sometimes, like, with programs like these, it may be easier for somebody to complete and go with it if maybe they could bring a friend. You know what I'm saying? Like a buddy program sort of thing where they can bring somebody else along with them to learn that trade with them, you know, because, you know, we're used to being around people. We're social people. And, you know, our corner and when we're young, our friends are our life. That's it. You know what I mean? So we need to expand those programs that are working and giving these kids training, because the bottom line is not all of us are meant for college. I wasn't. You know what I mean? So we got to give them opportunities earlier and teach them earlier so that they can actually have a trade or have something that they're able to do. When I went to Bartram, a lot of my buddies were in the automotive program and, you know, now they're all in their own shops or mechanics, but they learned that in high school and it stuck with them their whole lives. But my questions today is for the Mayor's Office of Education. How will the 43 positions being moved to the Mayor's Office of Education or MOE impact DHS operations and vice versa? And what is the reasoning behind this move? And are there specific programs that this aims to contribute to? I'm just trying to get a grip on this.
So Councilmember, thank you for the question. I'll start off and then I'll pass it over to Chief Carrera. But the positions that you're referring to are being moved actually equate to the moving up programs as we looked at and tried to better align where services were. Some of those positions, for example, are in the Adult Education Department. And so, now that we have a Mayor's Office of Education, they're better aligned in that department with those folks with the expertise around overseeing those type of programs could be. Community schools is where the bulk of those positions that you just described, the 43, I'm trying to remember, because all of this stuff was under me. I think it was 30-something of the positions where actually our community schools, again, better aligned under the Mayor's Office of Education because the community schools program is about a comprehensive program that is a direct partnership with the School District of Philadelphia and the Office of Children and Families and now Mayor's Office of Education. So it was about aligning those programs that directly went to education better there. So they will not hurt DHS if that was the question, how will it affect DHS? They will not. They were programs kind of more in the provisionary realms and particularly because all of this stuff is still coming under the same portfolio, right, because it's still under my portfolio, both with DHS and with Mayor's Office of Education. I'm able to make sure that the interaction is appropriate and they work very collaboratively together on many of these programs. And DHS, you will find in your budget line is still paying for some of the services, for example, the case management services at the community school because you want to make sure that those services stay in place. So they work together well.
That's great. Thank you. And then just real quick, how is the extended hours going to affect the --
I apologize for the interruption. If you could just wrap up with this question because we are way past time.
Yes. And they can give it to me and, you know, if you want, just relay it or whatever. This is just -- how are we going to deal with the maintenance of the facilities that we usually do in the summertime in the schools where they're going to be going year round now? That was all.
Thank you again. Dr. Debora Carrera, Chief Education Officer. Thank you, Councilman, Harrity. So we've -- we're seeing success. We work very collaboratively with The School District of Philadelphia. And as I shared in this pilot year, 20 schools were selected and we did work carefully with the district to make sure that we were also selecting schools where the facilities were at the center of that decision as well. So school buildings that could handle children there in the summer, children there in the winter, in the spring. So those are some of those same indicators that we're going to use. But we work very closely with Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill and his team to make sure that as we are expanding and hopefully expanding the program, that we will be working in facilities that can hold the programming year-round.
Thank you. Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes Councilmember Bass.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon. COMMISSIONER ALI: Good afternoon.
So I have a couple of questions. So I want to just ask first, and I know we're short on time, so I'll try to go as quickly as possible, but I have a lot of questions. So the first is that I noticed that, you know, I was paying attention to the CUA score card, and it's something when I was the Chair of Health and Human Services that, you know, we talked about extensively. You know, I'm no longer the Chair, but I'm still very interested in that system because I don't understand how the city, you know, when we first implemented this, it's never made sense to me. That we think that we can pay less and get more for a vulnerable population. And, you know, the idea was really like a cost cutting measure and it didn't end up, you know, saving any money. We didn't cut any cost. We actually expanded costs. You know, probably, like, doubled our costs. And still not getting the results like the -- I don't know, the -- because we are getting some good results, but we're not getting the level of, you know, acceptable results that I think any one of us would want. And so I just wanted to ask a couple of questions about the CUAs and specifically the score card. And that was in 2024. We asked about the score card because it hadn't come out yet. And this was, you know, a year ago. And we were told, oh, it's coming out, and then it just came out, like, three weeks ago. Is there any reason why we didn't publish a score card -- a CUA score card in 2024? COMMISSIONER ALI: So actually it was the 2023 that wasn't posted. And so the CUA score card was posted for 2023, and then it also was posted for 2024. And so, because it is -- it looks at the entire year, so the entire fiscal year, right now, the data has to settle for fiscal year 2025, since we are not quite done, fiscal year 2025. And so it's always a year behind.
Okay. COMMISSIONER ALI: And do you want me to speak to -- in terms of the narrative around it being less?
Well, not yet, because I do want to -- COMMISSIONER ALI: Okay.
Because I know we're short on time. Madam Chair, do I have -- are there folks lined up in the queue?
Yes, but you can ask your last question.
okay. So let me ask this. When it comes to reviewing a score card, one of the things that I've always taken exception with, and I think Kimberly and Madam Commissioner, we've spoken about this extensively. And that is the fact that the Liberty Bell rating, in my opinion, should actually be a grade. And if you were to grade them, then we have, you know, like, a traditional A, B, C, so that people can really, you know, get it right off -- right off the top. And so if you grade it as it's -- as the numbers are provided, so 3 of the 10 CUA agencies right now would be C's. And I don't think a C is acceptable when you're dealing with a vulnerable population. And so, in 2020, out of the were C's. And 2021, 1 out of the 9 10 was a C. And 2022, 5 out of 10 10 were C's. And in 2023, 4 out of 10 are C's. So 40 percent, 50 percent, however, you know, how you want to look at it. And what's interesting is that of those numbers, for three of those four years, those C's include one consistent provider. And so my question is, is there a -- there should be a floor that says for any of these providers, if you're providing -- if you're not making this mark, if you're not an A-agency or a B-agency, you cannot be a C-agency in dealing with this population. And so, can there be a floor that DHS would mandate so that there would be no less than four bells or, you know, a B-grade? And is that something that you-all would be willing to do? And is there an improvement plan for any of these agencies that consistently come up? Because there's one, Bethanna, which consistently every single year is a low -- low ranking provider of services to the vulnerable populations. And so how long do they get to be? And I -- you know, I don't -- I don't have anything personal about -- against anybody here, but how long do you get to be in this position and deal with this vulnerable population and not make -- you know, not make the grade, not make the cut? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. And so thank you for that question. And how I would respond is that we agree that children, youth and families need quality services, which is why we transparently do a CUA score card and we actually post it on the DHS website so that everyone can see how the CUAs are doing. And I would say the reason why -- really, the reason why we decided to do the bells really has to do with the fact that we are Philadelphia. But I do hear you in reference to that. And yes, when we have a provider who is a C or below, we certainly meet with the provider very regularly. When I mean, “me," my DHS leadership team, I have a performance management and technology department who oversees their plan of correction. And so, yes, they submit plan of corrections, but the other thing that they do is that we bring in the CUA leadership supervisory and above, so that they can learn from the other CUAs in terms of what are you doing well, what processes, what practices do you put -- did you put in place so that you can improve your score? You did reference Bethanna. You know, at one time Bethanna was at a bell 2, and so they have made some substantial progress in terms of their service delivery. But --
So they went from a D to a C. COMMISSIONER ALI: They went from a D to a C on the --
That's still not -- COMMISSIONER ALI: I get it. I get it. I hear you, you know, in terms of the young people and rest assure that we continue to monitor that. Our CUA score card is the most robust evaluation that we do at the department. We actually review over 2,000 cases that consists to close to 4,000 children, you know, in terms of their service delivery.
Just say -- just say this and I'll come back on a second round. So assume, you know, as you said, you have all the different, you know, resources that you bring to the table to CUAs that are struggling. But clearly in this case we have one that, you know, continues to struggle year in and year out. For three of the last four years, they're making what I would say is an unacceptable grade. And so, like, it doesn't feel like we have any, you know, like, is there a plan B? Can another CUA come in and sort of take over their case load that's performing better? You know, like somebody who's maybe a higher-ranking CUA could sort of provide some mentorship to a lower ranking CUA? Because, you know, it's -- this isn't -- it doesn't seem like there's a plan to lift them out of this situation because, you know, the numbers speak for themselves. I'll -- you can answer that later, but I would like for you to address what you said you would address earlier around -- oh, I forgot it. What did you say you wanted to talk about? COMMISSIONER ALI: Me?
I'm sorry, I can't remember. COMMISSIONER ALI: What did --
The results, yes. COMMISSIONER ALI: The results of what?
Right. Issuing the results timely. You said that you were -- COMMISSIONER ALI: Oh, yeah. So it's always a year -- it's always a year behind. And so now what we're doing since fiscal year '25 is not over yet. So usually it takes us about -- we usually -- we'll post it somewhere around January, February- ish. You know, really depending on the needs of the department. I do want to remind you in terms of the CUA score card is that when you asked about the -- you know, the RFP process, we did RFP, you know, some CUAs. And so some of these CUAs who are doing well is actually their first go-around, you know, in terms of their score card. And, yeah, so we will post FY25 somewhere around February, but it's usually a year-round. However, we do do quarterly reviews. And so in order to roll up into the annual score card, we do quarterly reviews. You talked about the mentorship, and so that's what I was talking about in terms of bringing the CUA leadership together because you do have higher performing CUAs who mentor CUAs on certain benchmarks if they're not doing well.
Thank you. Because we have quite a few in the queue and we have an evening budget town hall tonight, so I want to try to get to everybody else that's in the queue. We have -- the Chair now recognizes Councilmember Ahmad.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually am going to continue in the line that my colleague was questioning around CUAs. To first, help me just refresh my memory as to the funding of the CUAs. Where is that reflected in your budget?
Sure. Thank you for that question. So across the 10 CUA regions, we spend --
Can please state your name, for the record?
Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. My name's Nadine Perese, I'm the chief financial officer for the department. Across the CUAs, it's $114 8 million that we're investing annually. 9 That's for the fiscal year in the 10 budget. And are you asking the -- what the funding makeup is?
Class 200. Okay. So this is completely within your purview, not CBH? This is completely --
So my question is, when you went to the CUA system, did the staffing for your department change because a lot of the services were now going to be handled by CUA?
Councilwoman, I'm just going to try to lead off, and then I'll turn it over to Commissioner Ali because when we went to the CUA system, I was in a leadership position at DHS, and then ultimately was the one charged with having to stand up the last few CUAs. The staffing levels did not change at DHS because we did not want to go into laying off any staff. There are other jurisdictions who did models that are similar to our Community Umbrella Agency model, which was a model that was all about putting the services in the community where they could be more easily availed and hopefully would be utilized more frequently, making things more convenient, right? So that was a lot of it, but we did not lay off any staff. So, the staffing levels at DHS did not change.
So did they get allocated to different work or oversight of CUAs?
Yes, they got allocated to different work. The service array was slightly different. It was enhanced. We kept the front line services at DHS, which would be our DHS hotline and investigations, and where a large part of your staff is at is still there. DHS is still responsible for that. And so those workers remained in those fields. The workers that would've been what we used to call the backend or the ones doing more of the case management, that's what got moved to the CUA, was the case management services. But those existing workers at DHS went into other roles. And the commissioner can give you more details around that. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. Primarily, the staff at DHS, they went into family team conferencing roles. And so we have a supervisor as well as a social worker who engages family so that they can assist with developing their own case plan so that they can reunify with their children or their case can be closed if they were receiving in-home services. We also put additional staff in our performance management and technology division, you know, in terms of monitoring and evaluation, you know, as well to ensure that the CUAs were providing services to families as mandated. And then we also beefed up our -- or put additional staff, if you will, in our front end. So on our hotline, as well as an intake in investigations, so that we could make sure that we were responding to calls that we wanted to enhance our expertise around doing investigations. And so we put additional staff there. And then finally practice coaches. So we had practice coaches, as well as senior learning specialists who are co-located at the CUAs to ensure that there was a transfer of learning in terms of the practice.
So that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Because to my colleague's point of improving CUA performance, you already have a system in place to assist and support. And I wanted to know how well that's been working in terms of elevating the services to be received from CUAs? It seems like there could be some improvement in that area of getting CUAs to really be leveled up to get better scores. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. And so as I indicated, we are -- we certainly monitor and evaluate them through DHS's performance management and technology and the staff that are co-located at the CUAs, primarily the CUAs that are not doing as well, because we do have CUAs that have five bell, and then we have some that have four bells, you know, as well that we have them co-located at the CUAs to do the transfer of learning. In addition, my supervisory team under the direction of the Deputy Commissioner Sam Harrison and Child Welfare Operation, as well as his operations directors, also meet monthly with CUA staff from supervisory above up to the CUA directors, again for their transfer of learning so that they can continue to learn from the Department of Human Services.
So they get a lot of good support from you. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes.
So hopefully in our next report card we will see a reflection of that. Just quickly, I know we are short of time. I just want to turn to , which again, has a sample of some of your contracts, professional contracts. Are any of these CUA contracts or -- I can't tell what exactly staff augmentation -- those are IT things. Is there any CUA contracts in there or not?
No. These are not CUA contracts. These are our top five contracts, the largest contracts that we have that are for profits.
And so, in that -- when I look at the time from an RFP to the contract start date, who controls that time? Because I see seven months, 10 months, 11 months, 11 months from issuance of an RFP. Who controls the time of the contract start?
Sure. So the contract start period -- the department controls the contract start --
So can you say why it takes so long? Because, you know, we would like things to move much faster.
Sure. So these are predetermined time periods. So oftentimes we'll go through the conformance -- the -- I'm sorry. Excuse me. The RFP process. And even though it ends, the plan is to not start work until a certain point in time. So for instance, with the first one, the Shine Early Learning for the quality supports for our PHL Pre-K, we needed that to start in July. So our goal is to start as early as possible, and there can be a lag time between the award, like, when we have decided and selected a contractor to the actual start date of the work. But, you know, the conformance time -- I mean, the RFP time can vary. I think it kind of depends on the nature of the contract as well. If we have to build in a time period for presentations, a longer Q&A process, so it is a little bit tailored based on the work as well.
It would be good as a city to be more efficient about this process in general.
So that's just a point. But very quickly last wrap up, is -- do -- can you share or send to us what is the CUA process of evaluation that you use to award these contracts? I would like to see what that looks like. And I mean, we don't have to do it now. I just want -- because this is a quality assessment issue that I'm concerned about. So if you could please send it to Council President for us to see. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes, we can.
Thank you, Councilmember Ahmad. So Councilmember Landau, you'll be the last Councilmember for round one. We will then move to a very quick lightning round two where each of the four members who are in the queue will have 90 seconds to put their questions on the record, so that we are able to end on time because we have a neighborhood budget meeting this evening and we all need time to turn around. Thank you for understanding. Councilmember Landau?
Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thank you for all the work that you're doing to continue to improve DHS. This is where my questions are. Last year, I wanted to talk to you about aging out of foster care housing. And last year, I was asking you questions about how can we house the young people without relying on adult shelters. You talked about relying on OHS at that time. And you also said that we had -- you had a certain amount of family reunification vouchers and fostering youth to independence vouchers. It was about 137 slots altogether. It says -- and $2 million is allocated to this issue yearly. How has the allocated funding helped with placing youth who have aged out of foster care and have the slots been filled since last year? You know, I have a particular interest in this because so many of the youth are -- identify as LGBTQ. Thank you. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes, so thank you for that question, Councilmember Landau. I actually did speak about older youth in that -- this was the first fiscal year. Fiscal year '24 was the first fiscal year in which we had under 200 young people who fit the definition of aging out. That was the lowest that we had in 188 young people. Typically, it hovered around 300. In terms of the housing support, when I said last year in terms of relying on OHS, it probably -- I probably said PHA as well. I should probably -- not relying, if you will, with more of a partnership, if you will, in terms of housing. And so in terms of the Family Unification Program, there are 116 clients that we served. In terms of the Fostering Youth to Independence, there were 40 young people that we served and are serving, and that's between and 13 years of age. 14 We also have Generations Two 15 program through Northern Homes for 16 young adults. They have a capacity at 17 any given time to service seven young 18 people, Valley Youth House assist with 19 rental assistance. So we do rental 20 assistance, and we've served -- the -- 21 our annual capacity is 60 young 22 people. We are serving over 30 young 23 people now. We have rep for youth case management through Valley Youth House, 28 young people are being served. And then we have Congreso who provides rapid rehousing when reunification is an issue for families. We have slots at any 7 given time to help those families. 8
Does 9 that add up to your number of 10 approximately 188? 11 COMMISSIONER ALI: All 180 12 youth are not in need of stable 13 housing. So the reason why we got to 14 the number with our program, that is 15 the DHS Older Youth Rental Assistance, 16 which was 60, is because approximately 17 60 of those young people need 18 additional rental assistance. DHS 19 stopped servicing young people at the 20 age of 21 by law. 21 However, our older Youth 22 Rental assistance provide housing 23 support to young people as well as 24 case management up to age 23. So, they could stay an additional two years in a subsidized apartment.
And Councilwoman, I just wanted to say, as you know, the Parker Administration is very committed to the HOME, Housing Opportunities Made Easy, the 30,000 units of housing that the Mayor has committed to. And we will certainly be thinking about this target population as we think about, you know, there are different categories and different segments of housing as we move forward, but we'll certainly be also thinking about this target population.
Thank you so much. Quick follow-up, is just there was an Inquirer article that talked about some DHS under spending, which would be a savings. Is there any way in which you can reallocate that money to help more young people with housing?
Sure. That's a great question. So actually the way the budget was being reviewed, it isn't actually under spending. DHS has an appropriation of around about 30 to $50 million within its budget. And it's not -- we don't have permission to spend that money, it's just appropriations. So it's in the event that we get additional grant funds. As you know, we don't always get our award letter by the time the budget comes through. So if there's a need for more funding from the state because we're awarded more than we anticipated, that's where we draw that down. So we're not allowed to spend that money, but it's in the budget during the actual budget period. So in FY26, it's in there, and then it goes away because we don't actually spend it, we're not allowed unless we have additional grant dollars. So it's just appropriations. I know it can be a little bit -- a little tricky there, but it's not actually under spending.
Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Landau. We're now moving to round two. So as a reminder, colleagues, thank you very much for your consideration in advance. You will have 90 seconds to put your questions on the record. Once the bell rings, I'm moving forward to the next colleague. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Jones.
Heck of a test case. One comment, two questions quickly. Thank you, Department of Education. We had several months ago, melees right out on the plaza with young people there about schools, 5 both Catholic, public, private, right 6 in this area, and they choose many of 7 them to use our plaza as their 8 playground. But for your team's 9 intervention and putting together a 10 plan, Mr. Mega, we might have had a 11 bad day outside. We had one shooting, but we've been able to, you know, get around that. So thank you. Thank you, thank you. Two questions. One, kinsmanship care and placement. What is the percentage of that versus people that are unknown to the kids? And what are the rights of siblings when taken out into custody? Does a young person have the right to visit, a complaint about conditions? What are their rights as it relates to siblings? Was that 90 seconds?
Bam. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. And so when you look at our total DHS population, we have 2,554 young people in the city of Philadelphia that's in child welfare population -- a child welfare placement. Fifty percent of those young people are with kinship. So someone that they know or someone that they -- that their family knows. The other young people are in foster care. It's around like 30-something percent in foster care. And then we have residential placement and supervised independent living. In terms of sibling visits, yes, siblings do have a right to visit with their -- with their siblings who are in care. And so we track that. We track whether or not young people are placed together or if young people are placed apart, whether or not they have visits. And so yes, they are entitled to visits.
Quick follow-up. I just want to say, if me and Jamie are brother and sisters, and I feel that Jamie's being mistreated, what are my rights? COMMISSIONER ALI: So, Jamie, should call the Commissioner's Action Response Office. It is aligned directly to my office, in which I have staff who will fill the complaint, talk to Jamie, figure out the issue, and then follow-up with the team for resolution.
Thank you very much, Commissioner and Councilmember Jones. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you. My questions are about data. Several months ago, I asked DHS to publish data about youth in detention and placement on a quarterly basis. I wanted to check in on the status of that request. Additionally, we are most interested in seeing the lead charges that send young people to placement. So please tell us about your ability to collect and share that information. And then we would like to also see demographic data; age, gender, and race, if -- and if possible, zip codes, so that we can know what areas and demographics are most in needs of services. And then lastly, is there any effort to track young people from their first contact with the juvenile justice system through every program until they come home, and then to tie that to outcomes? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah, so thank you, Councilmember Gauthier. As you indicated, my myself as well as my leadership in PJJSC, as well as PMT have been working closely with your office around data. And so, yes, we are in the final stages in terms of the utilization data for young people who are being held at the PJJSC, as well as our community-based detention services. I have a draft that we're finalizing. We also have data around, as you indicated, the demographics, how many were admitted during the quarter, how many were discharged, race. Yes, so we do have that and where they are placed. So you should be receiving that shortly in terms of that data.
Thank you so much. We look forward to seeing that and to engaging with you on it. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes.
Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Gauthier. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Brooks.
Thank you. So we know that 10 percent of the School District's funds comes from federal funding. And we're talking about, like, Title 1 and IDEA resources. So the School District is protecting deficits and school closings moving forward, even without federal uncertainty. What is the Mayor's Office of Education doing to help the school district brace for these potential cuts or impacts? And second part is, like, Medicaid reimbursements help pay for additional nurses and social workers in school, and have the Administration looked at how many of these positions may be impacted moving forward?
Again, Chief Education Officer Dr. Debora Carrera. Thank you, Councilwoman Brooks. So, yes, we are aware of the financial cliff that the District has projected to be happening. And so the Mayor's Office is -- this administration is working closely with the School District of Philadelphia around those concerns as well. As far as Medicaid, I'm going to invite my Deputy Education Officer, Sharon Ward to come up and have her answer that piece.
Thanks so much. Thank you so much for that question and raising this issue. We're obviously very concerned about what's happening at the federal level. Right now there's a great deal of uncertainty. The cuts that we have been expecting have not happened yet, but they could very well happen over the next two months when the Senate and House take action on the budget moving forward. With respect to Title 1, and with Medicaid, what we have heard from the school district and from other school districts is that the services will continue to be provided by the -- by the school district of Philadelphia or by other school districts. And they will simply have to absorb the costs. So what that means is that federal funding cuts that are on the agenda could increase the deficits that the school district has -- is projecting. On the flip side of that, we have been working very closely with a set of partners, including the school district advocates with city council to work towards increasing the share of state funding that's coming through. We saw a big increase last year. We are very pleased with that as part of the settlement of the lawsuit. This year's funding levels were not as robust as last year, so we are really looking forward to trying to increase some state funding that will help to insulate the school district from these types of cuts. And I do have to say that the governor has also taken a strong position on this. He has been very vocal around protection of education and other types of pass-through funding that comes from the federal government. So we'll be working closely with the -- with the Governor's administration.
Thank you, Councilmember Brooks. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Bass.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Couple questions. So a few years ago, Philadelphia was highest in the nation when it comes to removing youth from homes. Where are we now? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. And so in terms of our removals, I indicated that we have 2,554 young people who are in child welfare placement. That is down from the 6,200 that we had in 2017. So a sharp decline in terms of the number of young people who are no longer in placement. And then at this time last year, when I testified we were actually at 3,001 young people.
So, no, I'm sorry, I'm asking specific, like, just where are we and compared to other major cities, just to get a sense of how we rank. COMMISSIONER ALI: So I have to wait until the other cities publish their data. I can't do the -- I don't know the ranking.
Do we know where we were last year? Like, the last available data? COMMISSIONER ALI: I don't.
Okay. COMMISSIONER ALI: The only -- the last data that we had that was published was from 2017.
Okay. And so that showed us as, like, the highest? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes.
Okay. So we don't have the most recent. Okay. COMMISSIONER ALI: No, we don't.
Okay. Was I going to ask -- the juvenile justice budget was 53 million, and that's just to keep these kids on the right track, right? And what's the size of that population? COMMISSIONER ALI: The size of the juvenile justice population, we actually had, in terms of who -- how many we serviced, I could tell you how many we serviced in juvenile justice.
Yes. COMMISSIONER ALI: We serviced -- oh, we serviced 506 young people in our IPS. We serviced 1,378 in our CERCs. In our evening reporting centers, we serviced 273 young people. In our in-home detention, we service as 982 young people. And don't fall down in the hood, which is our gun mediation program, we service 139 young people. And PJJSC, as of today, we have 132 young people at PJJSC.
Councilwoman, I just want to add that PJJSC number is not indicative of the total number. That's a revolving number because there are so many kids who are coming in and out of there. So we would have to go back, check the data, and could potentially provide it to you at a later time. She's giving you the current census. It's 132 in there right now, but at any given time, there is -- my rate of kids who are coming in and out that would've been serviced.
Understood. So the total population roughly is about -- from the numbers you gave is about 3,278. And we spent $53 million on that population. And I'm not sure that we're getting the outcomes that we were hopeful for. And I'm -- you know, it is -- it is just my thought that maybe we could do something different. It seems like if we just, you know, invested more in their families, you know, double down on, you know, the family structure or the, you know, the household or living or the foster parents or whoever the caregiver is. But we spent $53 million trying to make sure we keep 3,200 young people on the right track. And I'm not sure that we are making -- we're moving the needle as we want to, ought to, need to. COMMISSIONER ALI: So what I -- what I would say, so a couple things. Number one, what I would indicate in terms of the 53 million, the numbers that I said, except for the PJJSC, those were the number of young people that we served in FY24. The PJJSC, we service about young people every quarter coming to the PJJSC, and about the same amount actually discharged. FY24, we saw some additional young people that got discharged, which brought our census down to below the 184 young people. But in addition, in terms of when I said court and community services, the young people who are at the PJJSC, the vocational training that Dr. Williams testified to, that is included and court in community services. That contract is -- of that, it's $1 million dollars of the $53 million. The contract in terms of YouthBuild services for young people, that's another million dollar contract. Because when you're talking about providing skilled trades to young people to also connect them to jobs, there's an expense associated with it.
Of course. COMMISSIONER ALI: But in terms of -- but in terms of our outcomes and what's the result. And so we did at the -- in connection with Councilmember Gauthier's office in terms of -- looked at, we were -- we began to look at recidivism to determine how many young people --