Committee Hearing, April 18, 2007

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BUDGET - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, April 18, 2007 10:30 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN FRANK DiCICCO COUNCILMAN W. WILSON GOODE, JR. COUNCILMAN WILLIAM GREENLEE COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN JUAN RAMOS COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILMAN DANIEL SAVAGE BILLS 070114, 070115 and 070116 RESOLUTION 070128 - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2

Good morning, everyone. I regret the delay. However, we're ready to get started. This is the continued public hearing of the Committee of the Whole. I would ask Mr. McPherson to please call up the first department to testify. MR. McPHERSON: The First Judicial District.

Good morning, Your Honor. Welcome. JUDGE JONES: Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

I see that your testimony is quite lengthy.

I can assure, Madam President, I will not read the entire --

Please, but we will give the stenographer a copy of your testimony and it will be transcribed in full. 3 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Thank you.

Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.

Good morning, Council President Verna and Councilmembers of the Committee of the Whole. I'm David C. Lawrence, Court Administrator of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, and with me today is President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and Chair of the Administrative Governing Board, C. Darnell Jones, and Kevin A. Cross, Deputy Court Administrator for Financial Services. We're here to submit testimony in support of FJD's Fiscal Year 2008 General Fund and Grants Revenue budget request. This testimony and budget request differs from recent years in terms of our requested budget increase and our ability to forge an agreement with the Administration for Fiscal Year 4 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. '08. The requested increases are detailed in the tables in our written testimony. Current budgetary constraints, as detailed in this testimony, dictate the FJD depart from its past practice of not seeking additional funding for grant revenue shortfalls, operating expense increases, technology advances and facilities management, as the savings the Judiciary generates is no longer sufficient to support these ongoing, escalating and unavoidable increases and shortfalls. Perhaps the most dire shortfall we face right now is in the child support funding area. The Child Support Program of the Philadelphia Family Court Division, Domestic Relations branch is funded with Federal Title IV-D funds appropriated in the Grants Revenue Fund. As noted in our testimony before City Council last year, this program will experience severe funding problems in 5 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. 8 million. The primary function of the Child Support Program is to identify and locate absent parents, establish paternity through court order and genetic testing, and establish and enforce court-ordered support payments. Child Support helps families escape poverty, improve self-sufficiency and obtain medical benefits. 2 million in foster care was paid to the City of Philadelphia through DHS. The caseload of the Child Support Program is 169,000 children who are either eligible or receiving support from the non-custodial parent. S. census estimates for Philadelphia, the Child Support caseload represents 46 percent of the children in Philadelphia. The Domestic Relations branch located at 34 South 11th Street receives approximately 6 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. 2,500 client visits daily for child support, custody and divorce matters, with a majority coming in for child support. The funding reduction currently proposed will reduce the services available to Philadelphia children through the layoff of approximately 200 employees. And I'd like to amend the testimony downward somewhat. It could be about 150 employees or slightly less than one half of the current workforce. The Philadelphia Child Support Program is unique to other support programs throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Of the 67 counties in the Commonwealth, 66 counties provide direct local funding to their child support programs. Philadelphia is the only county statewide that does not provide direct local funding for its program, which had relied solely on reimbursement and incentive revenue from the federal government. The reimbursement is provided through the state and federal 7 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. government for 66 percent of eligible program expenses and, until recently, incentive funds made up the difference. All other child support programs are directly county funded with the county receiving the reimbursement and the incentive funds. The Philadelphia program can no longer be self-sufficient relying on reimbursement funding and declining federal incentive payments. Direct City funding is needed to support the program. Two changes in federal statutes for the calculation of incentive payments have decreased the amount of incentives which previously made up the difference between total program costs and reimbursement revenue. 2 million.

The two federal statutes are the Child Support Performance Incentive Act of 1998 and the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Prior to the Child Support Performance 8 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Incentive Act of 1998, incentives were received by local authorities based on increased collections. Until this change, the Philadelphia program maintained a positive balance and was self-sufficient. Since passage of the 1998 act, incentives are now determined based on the performance of the caseload, with no recognition of the unique barriers faced by a large urban city. The Deficit Reduction Act, effective October 1, 2007, will further reduced funding to the program by excluding incentive funding from federal reimbursement. 5 million during FY08. 98 for every dollar spent during the federal fiscal year. The Child Support Program is included in the City's Grant Revenue Fund and is solely responsible for its fringe 9 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. benefit costs as opposed to General Fund employees whose benefits are paid directly by the City. Fringe benefit costs, including pension and medical costs, have increased in the last five years and have hampered the program's ability to provide service to its youngest citizens in Philadelphia. 2 million annually. Medical costs have increased percent over the last four 13 years and have, up until now, been 14 absorbed by the program. 15 The court has cooperated with 16 the City's initiative to reduce its 17 positions through DROP rightsizing and 18 General Fund positions. Since January 19 '05, the Judiciary, in recognition of its 20 responsibility to work cooperatively with 21 our government partners, has reduced its 22 workforce from 2,038 to an authorized 23 position level of 1,965. Furthermore, in 24 enforcing delays in filling critical 25 vacancies, the District has been able to 10 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. further reduce the network force by an additional 53 positions to 1,912. 3 million. The FJD suggests that the savings it has voluntarily generated over the past two years is equivalent to that of the IV-D shortfall. Without adequate funding for the Child Support Program, the jobs of somewhat less than 200 people are at risk. Layoffs of this magnitude would substantially impact the program and the Philadelphia children and families it serves. I'll paraphrase the rest of the written testimony, Madam President.

Thank you.

In Class 200, 300 and 400, the court has not had an increase in those budget classes for 11 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. many, many years. Nonetheless, we face increasingly rising costs as it relates to our lease payments. Court interpreter costs have skyrocketed to roughly $800,000 this year. The cost of providing mental health services has skyrocketed, and up until now, we've been able to absorb those costs within our budget. Going into FY08, we don't feel that we will have the ability to fund those costs, which are basically uncontrollable by the court. They're driven by the population we serve. We're also seeking an enhancement in the salaries paid to our probation staff. Currently, social workers for the City at their highest level top out at roughly $5,000 to $6,000 per person per year higher than our probation officers. Being a probation officer is a demanding and difficult chore and we have some difficulty in, A, motivating and, B, retaining our senior people. We would love to be able to 12 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. compensate them at a rate that's equivalent to their counterparts in other areas of the City government. Our testimony goes on on 6, and it's something I'm sure you're well aware of, as are other members of the Council, that, yes, we've requested 126.4 million, but the Judiciary does generate a substantial amount of revenue for the City to offset that. As it relates to the General Fund, revenues generated by the Judiciary and related offices offset our General Fund budget by 46 percent and, when you include the Grants Revenue budget, by 61 percent. One thing I need to point out to the Council is, there's been a lot of discussion on increasing the number of police officers, which is well and good, but I would encourage the Council to also consider the increase in other areas, cost increases in other areas that that will precipitate. Courtroom costs, case processing costs, probation supervision 13 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. costs are all going to result if there are more police officers on the street. We have been asked by PICA to present some very rough cost estimates of what a thousand police officers would cost. I believe for the Judiciary that would result in an additional $9.7 million.

9.7?

9.7 million. These are in terms of increased probation staff, increased DAs, increased defenders, increased clerks, increased court reporters, everything that goes in to running the criminal justice system. We understand that we are asking for a lot, and we do not do so cavalierly. The issues being faced in funding the Child Support Program in particular are dire. This is not anything anybody in the court wants to do in seeing a cutback in these services, but unless we receive some help from somewhere, whether it be the state or the City, we simply won't be able to sustain 14 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. this program at the level at which it needs to be sustained. I thank the Council for their consideration and would gladly entertain any questions.

Thank you so much. On of your testimony, Table 2 identifies your requested increases by item. For the record, can you give us a breakdown by item by class?

Certainly. Specifically, the items, child support funding shortfall is $6.6 million. The operating expense of Classes 200, 300 and 400 would amount to $4.3 million.

I'm sorry. We need it by specific class.

Oh, okay.

The child support is 6.6.

In other words, in Class 100, we would ask for $7.1 million. 15 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. MR. McPHERSON: Specifically, child support, what classes do you need the 6.6 in? Is it all Class 100?

That's 100. Let me just double-check that, Charlie. It's predominately 100. There is a portion of the rent. MR. McPHERSON: Can you give us a breakdown by class for the specific titles so we know what we would have per class?

Yes. We can give you a breakout by line item for Class 100, 200, 300 and 400 for each line item. It's in our budget submission, but we'll provide that to Council.

Do you have a shortage of probation officers? If so, how many?

We can always use more probation officers. It's been shown that the more intense the supervision provided to offenders is, the lower the recidivism rate and the greater 16 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. our degree of success. There's been a lot of talk about increasing our probation staff, the goal being to reduce caseload sizes. There's several -- there are two primary ways to do that. The obvious way is to increase POs. Could we use an additional 100 probation officers? Absolutely.

How many cases does a probation officer have as a rule?

It varies across the board, but a probation officer in general supervision carries a caseload of approximately 180 cases.

180?

Yes, ma'am. That leaves them time to do paperwork, conduct some cursory interviews with their clients and go to court, and that's about it. Now, we do have specialized units, such as YVRP and special offenders 17 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. and whatnot, where the caseloads are substantially lower, but in the final analysis, once you get past the specialized caseloads, there's everybody else that has to be supervised. One area that has been suggested, which has been used successfully in New York City and which we have under exploration, is the use of an electronic reporting system. It's a kiosk type of system. A great many of the people who are in this caseload of 180 are marginal-risk offenders. They don't need a lot of supervision. They're going to be one and done in the justice system hopefully, and the idea is to divert them away from requiring the services of a probation officer, who is just going to ask them some perfunctory questions - are you working, where do you live, has anything changed - and allow them to do that electronically, and any aberrational answers would, of course, be reported to 18 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. a probation officer. As I said, this has been used in New York City successfully. We have begun exploring the use of that type of technology to divert our lowest-risk offenders, thereby freeing up our POs to handle the higher-risk folks who need the services more.

Do you have any indication as to what the cost of that new process would be?

The kiosks I'm told cost about $15,000 a piece. That's for the equipment. There are then programming costs that have to go into it to integrate the software of the kiosk with our probation case management system. So I'll take a guess and say, when all is said and done, it's probably going to run in the $20,000 to $25,000 per unit cost. This has been discussed at a group called Probe Stat, where a lot of the justice partners meet and talk about 19 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. the various issues related to probation and parole services. The Police Department is at the table. But we would have to work out the mechanics of where they're going to be placed, who could safely be moved to these types of systems and whatnot. We did not intentionally put additional probation staff into our budget request. In our transmittal letter of the budget to the Budget Bureau, we recognized that this is an issue that's been under discussion at the Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission and we did not want to appear to be demanding, if you will, funding for X number of probation officers when we see this more as a cooperative agreement between the court, the City, the Council to look at our various options and see the best route to go to providing these more intensive services, especially in the areas of the City that need it most.

What 20 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. is the status of the state assuming the funding of the First Judicial District, as required, as required, by the state Supreme Court? Since they rendered that decision, how many court employees have been transferred over to --

12.

12?

Yes.

That really helps a great deal, doesn't it?

Madam President, as far as I know, there are no 15 discussions with the Governor's office at this point for the state to assume the responsibilities outlined in the various Allegheny decisions. It's been a dormant issue for quite some time. The only people who have been transferred to the state payroll are myself and -- I'm sorry; there's 13 of us -- 12 deputies.

Oh, that makes a big difference. 21 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. So I can assume that no one from the courts have spoken to the state regarding the shortfalls that you're presently facing?

Actually, Justice Baer -- and this is a little bit of hearsay, but I'm told Justice Baer had a conversation with the Governor. DHS submitted an $11 million line item in their budget to the Governor to cover these shortfalls, which are statewide, and that $11 million line item was not contained in the final version of the Governor's budget.

If the City does not provide the additional funding for child support of $6.6 million, what would the operational impact to the families being served be?

It would be delay. We would continue to do that which we had to do, which is to accept petitions, assign cases to hearing officers, conduct conferences, and where 22 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. there were the need to assign them to judges, it would lengthen greatly the amount of time it took to do that, because we would have fewer hearing officers to deal with these issues and fewer clerical personnel to process all the paperwork that would be required.

And I assume it's not only a delay, but don't you also accumulate a backlog?

Well, delay equals backlog. You get into an area where X amount of time is acceptable. Anything in excess of that time is a backlog. JUDGE JONES: Madam President, if I may, I think it goes without saying that in addition --

I'm sorry, Your Honor. Would you identify yourself for the stenographer, please. JUDGE JONES: Certainly. I apologize. President Judge C. Darnell Jones. 23 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. In addition to the delay, I think it's pretty evident that it's going to also cause the kind of potentially delinquent problems, additional dependent problems, additional problems that our City is currently undergoing. It's a ripple effect. It just doesn't happen in an isolated fashion within the court system. It's going to cause, I think, a wave that's going to affect negatively and impact negatively across the Commonwealth, across the City of Philadelphia in particular.

I totally agree with you. If you do not receive the additional funds, will the First Judicial District mandamus the City for the additional funds?

I don't know that we're prepared at this point to answer that one way or the other. That would be a decision that would have to be reached by the Administrative Governing 24 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Board. We don't, again, cavalierly enter into mandamus actions. We would exhaust every possible avenue we could before we went there.

You're talking about something that's truly very disturbing to me.

It is.

And I'm sure it has to be to every member sitting here. If the City doesn't come up with the additional money, what happens?

Well, we either sue the City to get it, we --

How about the state, who are supposed to have the responsibility of funding the courts?

Well, I can't argue the mechanics of the Allegheny decision because it's not happening. In a real sense, we are looking to the state. The Congress in Washington is debating repealing portions of the Budget 25 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Reduction Act that would possibly mitigate this situation. And this situation is nationwide in every big city. But I can't at this point say if the City doesn't fund us, we will sue. That's an agenda item with the Administrative Governing Board. It would probably involve consultation with the Supreme Court and the AOPC before we were in a position to do that. One of the sad things is that until there's a budget passed, we couldn't mandamus anyway, because there would be no action against which to mandamus until the City budget is finalized.

That I understand.

But it's a definite option.

Ms. Reed, would you please approach the witness table. 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Ms. Reed, can you explain what the Administration's rationale was for not granting any of the First Judicial District's request?

Dianne Reed, Budget Director. For Fiscal '08, the First Judicial District was one of the few departments that we held harmless from the 2.5 percent General Fund Class 100 cut. We are sympathetic to the issue of IV-D. We have talked additionally to state officials to try to get that funded. We had to make the Five-Year Plan balance. Now, one of the issues that we have with the Five-Year Plan is, we need a balanced approach. We have huge cuts, wage tax cuts, in the out years, $50 million in '11, $50 million in '12, and right outside the framework of this Plan is another $68 million for the Cohen cut. So we have to either decrease the amount of cuts in those out years or cut other 27 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. people's budgets if we're going to accommodate the First Judicial District's need, which we agree is a critical one. But we have no play in this Five-Year Plan, given the requirements of PICA and our fixed costs and all the other priorities and choices that have been made.

Well, I'm sure you were here to hear the testimony.

Yes, ma'am.

I am strongly going to recommend that the Administration and the First Judicial District sit down and certainly try to work out a compromise, because I just think that this is such an important issue. It is such an important issue that I just can't imagine that we, in good conscience, can sit back and do absolutely nothing. And I am urging the Administration to start working with the state more closely. I don't care where 28 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. we have to go. And I believe, sir, that you said that they are trying to do something in Washington?

That's correct, Madam President, but my fear is whatever may come out of Congress, whenever it comes out of Congress, and then will the President sign it and when will it be effective.

It may be too late.

It may be too late, yes, ma'am.

Truly sad. The Chair recognizes Councilman Greenlee.

Thank you, Madam President. First, I just certainly want to echo all the concerns that the Council President raised. I mean, these are obviously very important programs that we 29 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. need funded, the child support, the additional help and just the fairness for the probation officers. And I also echo her concern that it doesn't seem like the state is living up to their responsibility in this. But I just had one other question, I guess of a smaller nature. The interpreters in the court system, how many do you have and, in your opinion, are there sufficient numbers? I guess you could always use more, just like anything else.

We use a combination of services for interpreting services. By and large, our Spanish interpreting services are provided by staff interpreters. I believe we have eight on staff now. The majority of them are fully certified, in that they have taken the New Jersey certification test, which we encourage our interpreters to do. Aside from Spanish, we provide 30 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. interpreting services in 60 different dialects and languages. These are provided by contract interpreters who work for various agencies. We feel most of them are proficient at what they do. Do we occasionally get some folks who may not be up to snuff on their interpreting skills? Yes. There is a move -- well, there's not a move. There's been legislation passed in Harrisburg that empowers the administrative office of Pennsylvania courts to carry out an interpreter orientation and certification program. That is in its formative stages right now. The certification process will probably only be extended to a very limited number of languages just because of the complexity of it, and I would guess it would be languages that we use heavily, such as Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian and whatnot. When you look at -- we provided 31 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. interpreter services on over 3,000 occurrences during FY06 in, to be quite honest with you, Councilman, languages that I have never heard of and many of which I can't pronounce, but it is -- it's a concern to the court because it involves access to justice and basic fairness for people who are non-English speaking and also for the hearing impaired. So that do we have enough interpreters, staff interpreters? Yeah, I think we're okay.

You say most of those are proficient in Spanish?

Yes. Yes. Most of those are fully certified. When you look at where our heaviest utilization is in our contract interpreters, it's Cambodian, it's Korean, it's Mandarin.

Excuse me. Are those people sort of on call when it's learned that they're needed?

Yeah. The way 32 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. it works is, when one of the, I'll say, actors, partners, becomes aware that an interpreter is needed, they will contact our Office of Interpreting Services. We have contracts with several agencies, and we then contact the agency and tell them when and where we need the interpreter. That's one of those uncontrollable costs that because of the expanding diversity of our population has just exploded over the past several years.

What is the cost on that? Maybe you said that and I missed it.

It will be in excess of $800,000 this year, and that's exclusive of our staff interpreters.

That's the additional ones?

Yeah.

Got you. Thank you, sir.

You're welcome. 33 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Savage.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning.

Good morning.

I have a couple of questions for you. First question refers back to kind of the dialogue you had with Council President Ann Verna referring to the kiosk system. You talked about how much the cost would be. What would the savings be over the long term?

We haven't calculated that, Councilman. We can work it up. It depends on how many people are put on the system, how many people are diverted away from traditional supervision modalities. So we'd have to 34 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. project over several years exactly what the savings in that might be.

And, secondly, you talked about -- you didn't really discuss recruiting more probation officers. What do you think the ideal mix would be with electronic monitoring; i.e., bracelets, kiosk systems, mixed with probation officers?

It's funny because it's an individual case decision. Electronic monitoring, whether it's static monitoring or now we're looking at GPS monitoring, doesn't necessarily rule out being under the supervision of a PO or being required to report to a kiosk, although I would imagine as I've done some thinking about this, I would imagine if we have you on EM, you're probably a little higher risk and you're going to need to see a PO. I don't know that for those people who truly need it there's anything better than a professional probation officer to deal with their 35 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. case. It's those folks who are deemed to be low risk -- and there's a lot of them -- where they don't need those intensive supervision services of a PO where we can divert them to a kiosk type reporting system. But I don't know if I could sit here and say, Well, we'll do 45 percent of the population supervised by POs. Of that, percent will be on EM and 12 another X number of percent would be on 13 electronic -- or kiosk reporting. 14 As I said, we're just starting 15 to look at this. We've had conversations with New York City, and we're going back and forth to see how they went about doing this, what their criteria were, how successful they were. If we put somebody on kiosk reporting and they go out and stick a gun in somebody's face, well, what will then the criticism be? Well, kiosk reporting doesn't work and you should have had them under closer supervision. 36 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. So there's a lot of issues that go into exactly how that might work. You might step down people who are being supervised by a probation officer and then over time move them to an electronic reporting as their needs diminish, as whatever problems they have, whether it's employment, drug addiction, whatever, you start to take care of those problems, and then maybe they don't need the services of a probation officer to the extent that they did when they were first put on probation.

What exactly is a low-risk offender?

You would classify a low-risk offender as generally a non-violent crime, generally not an extensive record, a person who perhaps has a job, a person who has a home or someplace to live, a person with ties to the community. Things of that nature we would probably consider as the low-risk offender, in converse to the violent 37 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. crime, the extensive criminal record, the type of person who obviously needs some watching.

Sure. Referring to high-risk offenders, I'm familiar with the SAV-U unit with the APPD. Is there any money that is allotted in the budget for the SAV-U unit?

That money, I believe, comes through the University of Pennsylvania, and they are funding, I believe, five positions at this point in time. It's just getting underway. As I'm sure you know, they're using a new technique to identify the highest risk offenders, a data-mining aspect of it. That's the type of service you'd love to provide for your highest risk offenders, scientific identification of those most likely to kill or be killed and then providing those type of people with intensive services. We're very optimistic and look forward to working 38 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. with Penn on that project.

I think it's a great program. I actually met Carrinnia Woodson. She's one of the SAV-U probation officers. I think it's a great program. So just to follow up, what would be the specific exact number of probation officers to meet the need to reduce the recidivism and how much would that cost and how long would it take to meet that?

Well, if you consider an ideal caseload, I don't know, 40 people, 50 people, we can go back and calculate that cost for you. It's going to be extremely high. A hundred probation officers -- and I don't think that would get us to the level we need to get to -- is going to run roughly $5.3 million a year. Five hundred probation officers is going to be $28 million a year. So, I mean, it's an expensive proposition. 39 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. JUDGE JONES: And if I might add, that does not include the Class 200, 400 categories, desks, computers and facilities and things like that that go with all of those.

I agree with you, Your Honor. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Miller.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. How many probation officers do you have? JUDGE JONES: Four hundred fifty-one, I believe, at this point in time. That would be the adult and juvenile.

And at this point, is there 55,000 people on 40 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. probation or parole in Philadelphia?

There are 55,000 adults under supervision. There's another, I believe, 2,300 juveniles -- 5,700 juveniles under supervision.

Fifty-seven?

Fifty-seven hundred.

So your 451 includes adults and juvenile probation officers?

Yes.

So their ratio, probation officer to number of clients, is very high, I would assume?

Yeah. Keep in mind that the way you supervise juvenile offenders and the way you can supervise adult offenders are very different. Juvenile probation officers will generally have much lower caseloads than adult offenders, and that's because of standards set by the Juvenile Act and the 41 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. JCJC, the need -- or the requirement to make frequent home visits and things of that nature. So, in a sense, juveniles will get closer supervision than similarly situated adults.

Did you say earlier that you right now have about 180 low-risk offenders that would use if you had the kiosk system?

No. The 180 I referred to, Councilwoman, was the average caseload per probation officer in adult probation. And these caseloads are people who are broken up into general geographic districts, whether it's north or west or east, south. Probation officers in those districts will have about 180 cases.

Oh, okay. Well, I'm glad to hear that, because I thought out of 55,000, there was only 180 low-risk offenders.

No, no, no. 25 There are thousands of low-risk 42 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. offenders.

Okay. Good. I just want to ask a couple questions regarding outcomes of some of the projects that you've listed in your testimony. On , the Parent Project, which is a project I think that's probably pretty good. I wasn't aware that you had it, but I know it's needed just based on questions and things that come up in community meetings when parents say they have a hard time dealing with their children. The Parent Project, are people court ordered, are parents court ordered to attend this project?

I have with us today Administrative Judge Kevin Dougherty from the Family Court. If I can defer to him for this.

Fine.

They're both court ordered and volunteer for the 43 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. program.

So what's the outcome? Is it helping? Is it working? Kevin, you might as well come on up.

If you don't mind, he has the specifics. JUDGE DOUGHERTY: Good morning. Kevin Dougherty, Administrative Judge of Philadelphia's Family Court.

Thank you. JUDGE DOUGHERTY: Councilwoman, the Parenting Project, the former Administrative Judge did not keep statistics. We have a new Director of Children and Youth, Carol Carson, and she and I are in the process of reorganizing the Parenting Program so that we can achieve and obtain better outcomes. But the program anecdotally is very successful. We just would like to have the figures and facts to show the public. 44 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

So when you get those figures and facts, can you forward them to the Council President? JUDGE DOUGHERTY: Absolutely. I'd love to make that public information.

And this is a project, I guess, that a parent would know about, we wouldn't need to say, "Well, why don't you talk to your child's probation officer" to get? JUDGE DOUGHERTY: Yes. The Parenting Project is made known through faith-based organizations, all community-based organizations of providers contracted through the Department of Human Services, as well as the Family Court generating notice court-wide.

Okay. Thank you. And the other program I actually wanted to find a little bit about their outcomes is Treatment Court. JUDGE DOUGHERTY: Treatment 45 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Court has been very successful in the last year, and I'm proud of that as being the first year of my administration. This year we had 45 applicants, and I believe 35 of them graduated. The rest are remaining as a result of recidivism in the sense that they've used drugs again. We have received additional monies and we're expanding the program. Initially it was only centered to West Philadelphia youth. We're currently in the process of contracting and providing this service of diversion for those children who have been charged with felonies with substance abuse issues to go through our treatment program to avoid them from being adjudicated delinquent, which in fact if the child is 14 years or older judge delinquent of a felony, he or she would be a convicted felon the rest of his or her life, because our prisons are so overcrowded we have to give out numbers for those individuals to get into 46 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. our county jails. The most points you could get would be six points. A conviction for possession with the intent to deliver, that being a felony drug charge, would be two. Therefore, we would be creating a path for our children to go to State Road as opposed to State College. So Family Court has instituted this treatment program to divert those children and get them the necessary rehabilitation so that they become productive individuals, drug free, and it creates a safer community. So we're in the process of expanding that to make that citywide to effect all the population.

Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo. 47 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning. The question I have -- and I don't know who I should direct it to -- is the electronic monitoring program. Is there someone that can talk about that?

We have some numbers on that.

Could I ask someone to come to the witness stand?

Here I am.

It's you? Good.

If I can't answer the question, I'll get you the answer.

Terrific. Have we stayed current with the technology? I understand the electronic monitoring program has kind of moved to a new level where GPS is actually being utilized. And also the costs of electronic monitoring, what it costs 48 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. today versus the cost if we would go to the GPS, if we haven't already. Again, I don't know what technology we use, but I was asked the question about electronic monitoring and how effective it is and are you going to grow it and are we going to move from one technology to the other and the approximate costs to do that.

Let me give you some background. We currently have 769 persons on electronic monitoring, and this is the traditional ankle bracelet, static electronic monitoring. As of a few days ago, we had 96 units available to utilize for this function. We will shortly receive an additional 65 units as a result of grants for the Domestic Violence Program and the DUI Program. The cost of providing electronic monitoring in the traditional sense is roughly $8 a day. We computed this cost about two, three years ago. At that time, it was $5.48. Since that 49 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. time, the price of the equipment has gone up a little bit. So it's about $8 a day. We are currently testing, through our Pre-Trial Services Division, GPS monitoring systems. We have five vendors that we've been testing their equipment. I expect a report from them shortly as to which product works best under what circumstances. The major problem you have with GPS units is, you lose contact. You can't track where the offender is, because I guess, in a way, they're like cell phones, you lose the signal. So what we're doing is working through the process as to seeing which of the products has the most consistent delivery of a signal with the most accuracy. The way we're doing this is, we are having employees who are volunteers be tracked in their comings and goings throughout the City using the unit and then calculate what the dead zone ratios are and whatnot. GPS 50 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. monitoring will run between $13 and $15 a day per person.

Okay. I guess I need to understand. Are there some people that wear these devices that are allowed to roam, go to work throughout the City, but they're contained to the County of Philadelphia? I'm most familiar with the persons that are under house arrest where they're not allowed to leave their home. So I assume the GPS would be reliable in that particular environment unless it's --

I don't know if it would track them from the living room 18 to the dining room, but other than that, we'd probably be able to tell that they're in the house.

So there are folks that wear these devices that are not just kept in their home?

Are you referring to GPS devices? 51 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Any of the 769 folks that are wearing devices.

Sure. There are people who were on -- if they're not restricted to their home, they are very restricted about where they can go.

So then if the technology worked well, am I hearing that maybe there would be more flexibility in allowing a person that is sentenced to wear one of these devices that possibly could go to work?

Where they really work well, Councilman, is in domestic violence cases, where there's an order to stay away or don't be within a thousand feet of this location. You program the computer. If they go within a thousand feet of that location, it's beep, beep, beep.

Got you.

At that point, we'd send a warrant team out to make the apprehension and just process them on a 52 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. violation.

Terrific. Well, it's good to hear that you're staying current with the technology, because I have information where some of the GPS providers of this technology are suggesting that the cost could be less than we currently pay.

Councilman, if they can give me a number that's below what I'm paying now for traditional, I'm more than happy to talk to them.

I'll make sure that they reach out to your office.

Certainly.

Thank you. And, again, it's good that you are staying with this technology.

We're trying. We're trying to keep up with it.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

53 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Ramos.

Thank you, Madam President. In Fiscal Year '06, the City amended its budget and increased the First Judicial District's budget by $3.3 million, and this current budget was significantly lower and this year there is no increase, but you'll be declared harmless, meaning that you won't have any requests for any cutbacks in your staffing and so forth. But when you come here and you tell us that we're going to have to make up a $6 million plus hole, that puts us in a hole of how do we make this happen within our limitations with the budget as the budget has been presented to Council. I just don't know how we can do that. As I have stated many, many times since early this year, because of the crisis of violence, crime and drug 54 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. trafficking in our city, that it is my objective during this budget cycle -- and I'm quite sure many of my colleagues here on Council concur -- that we should make funding available to all those programs, to all those departments, to the courts that will help us win this fight against violence in our city, and that's the way I have approached this budget. We have to make sure that our number one priority, at least in my view, is to be able to allocate the resource that is needed for us to win this battle against violence, crime and drug trafficking. So I really don't know how we're going to handle that one. I'll look towards the President's statement earlier for how we're going to be able to be of help to you, particularly our concern about the increase of homicides in the City and the significant role that the courts play in this battle against violence and crime. I see that apart from the $6 55 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. million plus, that there is a request for an increase. I believe you're referring to it as pay parity or someone is referring to it as pay parity, that instead of hiring more probation officers, that you believe that incentivizing our parole officers, probation officers would be the way to go. Can you explain that? Because I saw this a few years ago when we had deployment of police officers in areas of growing crime and we were giving police officers the chance to do overtime, but I know that down the stretch in that program, we had police officers that were definitely stressed. They were just -- they couldn't hack. And I've been there. I know how good it is when it is announced that you can do overtime and you're gung-ho until you run into a project where the overtime is needed, needed, needed and then you're just tired, tired, tired. 56 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. I want you to explain to me how you think that the pay parity is in fact the way to go versus hiring more probation officers.

I don't know that it is versus the way to go. There are two separate problems we need to address. One is the size of the caseloads our POs are carrying. That is a huge problem. I believe it's directly related, to some degree, to the gun violence issue, because we're unable to provide a level of services to those people who need it most, and these are the people who, in some instances, are shooting up the streets. The other is a basic issue of fairness to those who are already doing the job and have been doing the job for a long time. There's been this issue with our probation officers and it's been a demoralizing issue, if you will, when they look at their counterparts who are 57 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. similarly situated with the City government who are able to basically make more money than they do. I don't know that we're looking at this as either pay the guys we have $6,000 more a year or we'll hire more POs. The $1 million for the parity is just a drop in the bucket of what it would cost to hire more POs. So I think when we're looking at this, we're looking at two separate issues that we're trying to address. I understand this Council cannot address everything that we come here looking for. These are issues which need to be brought to the Council's attention in our IV-D testimony or our testimony last year. We made reference to looming problems in this arena. And then with the explosion of violence in the City, it's the Council, it's the court, it's the Mayor's Office, the Police Department just struggling to find solutions to these very complex problems, and we haven't 58 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. even begun to talk about prison overcrowding. Arresting our way out of this problem, there's no place to put these people. So I just need to stress to the Council that we recognize this as an extraordinarily complex societal problem, and stress that we as the court are a willing and anxious partner to try and seek some sort of resolution that's going to have some permanent and lasting impact.

Going back to the specific budget, a concern of mine -- and I understand and I concur with you on the broader issue of the root of this problem with crime and violence in our street. And I can accept and I believe in pay parity, and I know there's a big difference between spreading a million dollars to incentivize our probation officers versus using a million dollars to hire, which will probably get you, I don't know, probably maybe 12 to 59 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. 15, 18 new probation officers. That can make a difference. What I don't want us to do or I think that will be a bit of concern to me is that we do the pay parity -- 1$ million is a big difference from $6.6 million, so that might be something doable there, from my perspective, but what I don't want is for probation officers then to say, This caseload is so big that although you did pay parity, you did meet justice -- and I believe it is an issue of justice -- but that it is still too much, and here we're back to should we have hired more probation officers.

I understand the dilemma, Councilman, and I don't necessarily disagree with you. I mean, I understand that money is a disincentive. It's good for a while. There's motivators and de-motivators. Money is basically a de-motivator. It's good for a little while, but it doesn't have a 60 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. lasting impression on the quality of somebody's work life. A great deal of -- I was never a probation officer, but I would imagine if I was and I had a caseload of 180 people and if I could make a difference in five of them, I'd say that's a win. I'd feel good about what I did. If I had a caseload of 100 and I could make a difference in 30 of them, I mean, think about the psychological payoff and the motivation that that would provide for a probation officer.

And I'm willing as a member of this Council to take a look at this pay parity and take a look at this one million sum, see if there's -- but we don't want to get caught later on having good probation officers say, This is just killing me now, I cannot handle this caseload, and then it becomes an issue. Though I'm getting paid better, but I'm all stressed out and I'm trying to meet my obligations 61 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. on my job.

I understand that, Councilman.

Can I follow up with another question, ma'am?

Please.

The issue of Gun Court. I saw last night, late last night I saw, I think it was, the President of Australia. He said that the problem -- and it was in response to the tragedy at the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech -- that the problem with America was that we were a gun culture. And I concur with him, that this is not -- this is something that since the dawn of television, we've been turning on and seeing cartoons of Quick Draw McGraw shooting it out, and the culture has just gone haywire, and I think that has a lot to do -- it's probably not the only thing, but nevertheless, how is our Gun Court coming along? Is it fully staffed? 62 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. What are we doing in Gun Court? What's the volume over there?

Right now --

What's the backlog, is probably my more --

Actually, there is no backlog in Gun Court.

That's good.

The preliminary results of Gun Court are interesting. Gun Court probationers are rearrested at a lower rate than similar offenders from prior years, people charged with the same offense. In the first year after their probation starts, percent of the 2001 17 gun offenders were rearrested, while 12 18 percent of the Gun Court offenders were 19 rearrested. So 12 percent were 20 rearrested, but that's down from 20 percent. When you compare similarly situated individuals from prior years, county prison sentences are up, guilty verdicts are down -- I'm sorry; guilty 63 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. verdicts are up as well. So when you look at what the kind of primary indicators of the success of a program are, recidivism has improved, jail sentences have gone up, guilty pleas have gone up substantially. So the indications are that at least to date -- and this is roughly a year and a half into it or two years -- that Gun Court appears to be working. We intend to continue it. We have no plans to discontinue it. There's a funding stream in place through the civil fee bill to keep it going. So we are somewhat optimistic about the Gun Court model.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you so much for your responses.

The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.

Thank you, Madam President. 64 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Let me thank all the gentlemen, especially President Judge C. Darnell Jones, with whom I work regularly. I wanted to raise two issues. One, I know that we got the Mayor to -- we co-founded the Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs, and they have cards out dealing with all the languages. They do have languages. And I'm involved with that organization regularly and we meet monthly. But they even have cards available so that people can get to 9-1-1 no matter what language they speak. It's very, very important. So we certainly offer the -- and all of the groups are virtually -- say, all of the groups from Africa and on that Diaspora are in touch with this Commission meeting. We meet on, I guess it's, the second Wednesday of every month. So we certainly would make that available, and I'll send that information just so you have it. JUDGE JONES: Please do. Thank 65 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. you.

The other thing is just a question for, I guess it's, probation officers within schools. I know we have them in some schools, high schools, which I think is a good idea so that kids don't lose time leaving school and not being in school because they have to see their probation officer. How do we determine which schools have them, or do the schools apply? Do the courts deal with them? Do we need to expand service? I think it's a great service to keep kids in school.

If I may call upon Judge Dougherty once again to explain the school-based probation program.

And I think I asked him before, but I forgot his answer, probably last year. And thank you for all that you do. 66 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. JUDGE DOUGHERTY: Thank you. For the record, Kevin Dougherty, Administrative Judge of Philadelphia Family Court. Madam President, Councilwoman Blackwell, as we sit here today, we have school-based probation officers, which 9 means they were assigned to 15 high 10 schools. The concern and question that I 11 had was that each individual school 12 dictated how our probation officers were 13 to operate. In essence, in certain 14 schools, some probation officers were 15 permitted to walk through the school building; others were relegated to a particular location. It defeated the concept and the purpose of having contact with our children in their educational environment. In May, I anticipate revealing what we're calling our community-based probation reorganization. While we currently are short-staffed on probation officers, I have hired a certain number. 67 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. We're anticipating taking approximately 65 probation officers and assigning them to what we're calling community-based probation, geographically assigned. So that every probation officer will have contact with every middle school and high school. I've met with the City. I met with Mr. Vic Richards, Department of Rec. I met with Mr. Vallas. We've met with the regional superintendents and we're meeting with the school principals to share and to start having a dialogue with what is going to be required of the School District to partner and assist the court in making sure that we are achieving rehabilitation, treatment and supervision for our kids. So, in essence, we will now not be restricted to only 15. We're going into every school that every one of our children on probation will have. We've created a resource manual so that I know who the principal is, who the counselor 68 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. is, who the medical person is. Same thing with our recreation centers. In essence, our desire and hope is that we'll have flexible work hours such that if I have three individuals, hypothetically, in the 19148 area code, I know that there's a particular rec center, I will be able to have my probation officer dispatched to that rec center so that we could see the children in their environment. In essence, it will also create a sense of protection for the community, knowing that while our probation officers are law enforcement in nature in juvenile, they're also very much part of our social work and the fabric of making sure that our kids who are at risk are better protected. So we're trying to do a dual purpose here, make sure the community is safe, get to see our kids in the environment, make sure that they're involved and enrolled in activity, but 69 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. make sure that we are also in the classroom so that they're attending and getting the education that is required. So it's exciting. It's innovative, and it should take place come May. We are just working out the details.

Well, thank you very much, and I'm sure I speak -- I see the President nodding -- for all the members of Council who support what you're trying to do, look forward to it and certainly want to proceed as partners with you on this venture. JUDGE DOUGHERTY: Thank you. We welcome your friendship and your partnership.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

Can you tell us what the present backlog of cases are? 70 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

That's a very difficult term to describe. JUDGE JONES: If I may, at least in the civil side of the court, there is no backlog.

How about in the criminal side?

The criminal side is in relatively good shape. There's roughly 16,000 Common Pleas Court cases. That's an acceptable number. There are roughly 60,000 Municipal Court cases that come through the system, criminal cases that come through the system every year.

I'm sorry. Do you mind repeating that figure again?

Sixty thousand. Again, that's a reasonable figure. When it gets into the areas of the Family Courts, because the cases go on forever, it's extraordinarily difficult to tell you what a backlog is. 71 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Are we able to afford timely hearings to folks? Yes, we are. People are not waiting inordinate amount of time to get their hearings. So that I would say that the backlog when thought of in the traditional sense is marginal, if any. There's always that amount of delay which is expected and acceptable when you process a case, and I believe we are within reasonable parameters of how long it takes us to get our various cases through the system.

With the detainees that are incarcerated --

I'm sorry, Madam President?

Pardon me?

I'm sorry. I didn't hear you.

I'm sorry. With the detainees that we have incarcerated that are awaiting trial, what is the time period before they get 72 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. to court?

It depends on the nature of the case and the nature of the hold. Under the Rules of Procedure in Pennsylvania, there are time standards that are set for --

I understand. What are those time standards?

It's 180 days for incarcerated individuals, unless there are delays occasioned by the defense. So you will have people being held longer than that, but in many cases, they're defense-related requests. The biggest problem we have in the prison population is that nobody -- very few people are up there on one case. The nature of the population today is such that there are multiple holds on virtually everybody. There are no non-violent first-time offenders in jail. I can assure you of that. People who are up 73 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. there today have multiple holds on them for new charges for various probation violations, and just sorting through the process of getting these things squared away takes a long time. You can't begin to deal with the probation violation detainers that are holding them until the new arrest is taken care of. So you want to get the new arrest taken care of as quickly as possible. Then you can go on to address those secondary holds. We've been working with the Municipal Court, the District Attorney's Office, the Defender Association to modify our scheduling practices that are going to expedite this entire process by perhaps having the new arrest case scheduled in front of the judge right away that has the defendant on probation so it's one-stop shopping. You don't have to wait to get all these different types of holds resolved. You can do it all at one time. The prison overcrowding problem 74 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. is a significant issue. It's dealt with at every meeting of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission. In Common Pleas Court, we embarked on a program where cases were scheduled, for the sake of simplicity, too far out. They're scheduled months out. Judge Keogh, who at that time was a supervising judge, he's now the Administrative Judge of the division, brought all those cases back in front of himself and, where he could, he rescheduled everything, he took some pleas, he consolidated cases. So we're trying to be as proactive as possible in working with the City Administration and our justice partners in trying to resolve this difficult issue. Prison overcrowding isn't something that the court can cure by itself. It's a systemic problem that we need the cooperation of the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, the police working cooperatively to develop systems that are going to help us cut 75 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. down the time of pretrial detention.

Okay. Are there any other questions from members of the Committee? (No response.)

Thank you all so very much for your testimony. JUDGE JONES: Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

But I will tell you, it's been very depressing to hear.

I'm sorry to start your day off on a sour note.

Thank you. MR. McPHERSON: The next department is the Clerk of Quarter Sessions.

Ms. Miller, I just want you to know that we're presently distributing the information that you forwarded to me. 76 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. We're sending it to each Councilperson. It's under date of March 7th regarding your budget. Vivian, this (indicating).

Yes. Yes. Thank you.

Good morning. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.

Good morning, Council President Verna and other members of Council. My name is Vivian Miller and I am the current Clerk of Quarter Session. I have with me my First Deputy, Robin Jones, and also Tom Christmann, my Budget Manager. May I take a moment just to talk to you about the ripple effect of the crime wave? I am not going to read the testimony, because you have that. I'm just going to read a synopsis. Is that okay?

Yes. 77 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Just as the Police Department fights to stem this tide, just as the county prisons struggle to --

I'm sorry. Can you pull the microphone closer to you, please.

May I take a moment to talk to you about the ripple effects of the crime wave? Just as the Police Department fights to stem this tide, just as the county prisons struggle to contain the overflow, the judiciary system battles daily to maintain control over the entire process. The state has recognized this problem by assigning additional new judges to address this problem. However, no one at the state county level provided for the additional clerks needed to process their work. I come to you today to ask you for the ability to support these jurists. We need 12 new court clerks. There are 133 judges total. However, we service 86. Today, eight more came over from the 78 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. civil. That means there are 94 sitting judges today. But, remember, there are eight more coming after election. So eight more, 86 plus 8, plus six will give you 100. We have 80 clerks, 80 clerks working these courtrooms. So if you do the math, you know it's not enough. There is no room for no one to take a sick day. There's no room for no 11 one to take a vacation day. I mean, it's just so unfair. And if you look to my right, this is the volume of work that each clerk do on a daily basis. In these files, there are numerous cases. This is just not one case. There are numerous cases in this file. So think about what's happening with the judge as opposed to our clerks. I say it's inhuman. Right now there are courtrooms where I must assign two clerks to handle the paperwork generated by certain judges. There are four courtrooms where we need two clerks. So you also add that 79 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. to your numbers. These clerks --

I hate to interrupt you. I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt you, but I think you should state why we need two clerks in some courtrooms.

Okay. Yes. I'll give you Robin, my First Deputy.

Please identify yourself for the record.

Yes. My name is Robin Jones. I'm the First Deputy of the Clerk of Quarter Sessions. We presented a packet today, and in that packet you'll see that we've given you a breakdown of every courtroom that we staff in the Criminal Justice Center, and the particular rooms that we are identifying two clerks are in there. If you would like to look through it at the moment, we can, or you can do it later. I don't know if you have time. If you look at , it 80 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. speaks to the prison where we need two clerks in that particular place, where it talks about bench warrants. There's 80 cases daily. Also, if you turn to 5, you'll see Courtroom 501, which is motion, traffic violations, probation, average of 110 cases.

I'm sorry. The pages aren't numbered.

They aren't? In the back of the book -- I'm sorry. After the address and after the numbers, it says at the top the Office of the Clerk of Quarter Sessions and it has the courtroom breakdown right after the budget numbers. It's in the very back, the last packet that's presented. You see them at the very bottom, , 5. We thought it would be best to give you the detail of each courtroom and what happens in that courtroom, why we need the additional clerks. In most of the rooms, you're going to see that there's one, but in those two pages, you see the 81 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. two. If that answers your question, President.

I thought it should be explained for the record. Thank you.

Thank you.

Please proceed.

Now, these court clerks transform the judges' order into actuality. So my court clerks are now coding all results in realtime. Prior to this new computer system, I can assign one clerk to two courtrooms. I can't do that any longer. We don't have enough court clerks. We need 12 more court clerks. With the new system in place, we now collect more money in the fines in courts and bail. The Administration is cutting my budget by two and a half percent, which means four jobs. They are taking me from one eighteen to one 14. That's unreal. 82 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. While we need new clerks and I'm asking, I'm asking, we need $430,260, I think that's a small amount due to the fact that if we do not staff these courtrooms properly, then what will happen, the City will get suits, because people are being incarcerated longer than their time because we are not doing the proper paperwork. So I'm asking this Council, please help me to obtain new 12 clerks. I believe we have a folder that each of you have which gives you a breakdown and gives you a chart of just what's going on, and as you can see, the reality of it is this is what each clerk do on a given day. So if you can imagine if one clerk is out, two clerks are out, maybe vacation, sick time, this work needs to be done, and if it's not done in realtime, the person will stay longer, and that will cause a suit to the City and I'm sure it will exceed more than $430,000. 83 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Thank you very much, and I'll entertain any questions.

Thank you. Ms. Miller, the budget detail that you have sent us reflects an increase of $346,329, not the 430,000 as you mentioned in your testimony. Which is the correct figure?

We're asking for $430,260, and that's for, of course -- that would be personnel services, materials, supplies, as well as 12 new clerks.

But if you look at your budget detail, you have 346,329.

Tom Christmann will address that.

Good morning. My name is Tom Christmann, Budget Officer for the Office of the Clerk of Quarter Sessions. The figure that you're 84 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. referring to, Councilwoman Verna -- or President Verna, is the figure that when we take the amount that we would need in personal services for Fiscal 2008 and compare it to the estimated obligations for Fiscal 2007, that's where the difference lies. In terms of the reduction that we've been asked to accept for next year and place it together with what our needs are, we really are in need in the Class 100 area of $430,260.

Tell us what amount do you need in Class 100 you're asking for.

For Fiscal 2008?

Yes.

We need 5 thousand -- $5,065,546.

I think you'd better look at what you submitted.

I'm sorry? 85 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

I think you should look at what you submitted.

I'm sorry for the confusion. The 346,329 that you see, that takes into account what we reasonably expect to happen each year in terms of turnover reduction and delays in filling positions. The 430,260 is the legitimate figure for the court clerks 12 that we are in need of. If we were to not expect any delays in filling positions or turnover reduction, then we would be talking a different figure than that, but we built into this figure for our request what we consider a reasonable amount for those two categories. And that's reflected on our budget in the later portion of the forms.

And with the additional funding that City Council suggested last year for the Clerk of Quarter Sessions, were you able to use any of that money? 86 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

We are presently staffed at the full level of 118 employees right now. We just had that accomplished within the last three to four weeks, but --

So it took a year?

We've had significant delays throughout the course of this fiscal year from July to the present, and that's typically what happens in the course of a year and that's what was built into our --

So that we fully understand, Finance eliminated the increase that Council gave you last year, for the most part?

I'm sorry. I missed the last part you said. Finance?

Eliminated the increase that City Council --

Yes.

-- 87 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. gave last year; is that correct?

Yes.

So you were able to spend only -- how much of the $150,000?

The year isn't finished, but we're intending to spend as much as we can with 118 employees that we have. I don't have the figures.

You're not answering my questions, but I'm going to proceed. I just want to make the record eminently clear. Are you asking for an additional $346,000?

Yes.

And that is for 12 additional court clerks?

That would be for 12 additional court clerks, taking into account what we consider reasonable figures for the two categories that I mentioned earlier.

Ms. Miller, did you request this 88 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. additional funding from Finance?

That was the package that was submitted. I believe it was late. And this is for the new 6 employees. I believe it was late coming 7 in. 8 Is that correct, Robin? 9

Yes. 10

So 11 that Finance does not know? 12

They did not get the package.

Oh, that helps, Vivian. Ms. Reed, would you approach the table, please. Ms. Reed, I see that the Finance Department not only eliminated Council increases for '07 but they also gave them a reduction of the 2.5. Can you explain how you arrived at the $4,721,000 amount the Administration proposed for the Clerk of Quarter Sessions for FY08? 89 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Dianne Reed, Budget Director. Yes, ma'am. The budget includes the four percent raise, which adds $188.8 thousand to the budget. We also restored 50,000 that was taken out of Class 100 at the Clerk of Quarter Sessions' request and put into equipment so that they could purchase computers. We put that money back. We took the two and a half percent reduction in Class 100 of 122.7 thousand and we eliminated the $150,000 Council increase. So that the Class 100 budget is 4 million 635 and the Class 200 is 28,700 -- sorry. I am having trouble reading. I did call the Public Property Commissioner about replacing light bulbs today, because there's about 20 out. I'll keep going here. And then Class 300/400 is 57,300. And so that adds up to the 4,721,362.

90 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Ms. Reed, is it the opinion of the Administration that the Clerk of Quarter Sessions does not need any additional employees to accomplish its mandated, mandated duties, and if so, I'd like to know how you arrived at that conclusion.

We don't have budget detail from the Clerk of Quarter Sessions, so I can't quite tell you anything based on knowing that, nor did we receive, as the Clerk reported, a justification request. So other than what is stated in the testimony, I don't have any knowledge about what the human resource requirement would be of the office based on their duties with CPCMS. We could -- there is an opportunity to check with some other officials within City government to see if they have an assessment from a third party's opinion additional positions are needed. I cannot say that at this time, but so far, based on the history of the office and the number of people they manage to keep 91 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. on staff and they do have high turnover, we did not think that putting these reductions in place was unreasonable.

Well, they must have a high turnover if you can't take a sick day off if you're sick because the courtroom is not going to be manned. People can't go on vacation. I mean, if that's a daily workload and if they don't have enough help, who is going to do that work?

Well, one of the things that's true is that they do have the new case management system in place, which will relieve them a lot of the clerical obligations that were being done manually in the past. A lot more is automated, and as is the case every place --

But how about the new courtrooms and the new judges that are coming on board?

Six more.

I have no knowledge 92 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. of six new judges coming on board.

They're being elected. They're on the ballot. I'm sorry.

Ms. Reed, I am strongly urging you to get together with Ms. Miller. We go through this every year. Get together with Ms. Miller, go over her budget with a fine-tooth comb and then come back to us before the budget hearings are over.

Will do.

I'm talking about like next week.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. So you understand me.

Yes.

Thank you.

Councilman Greenlee.

When Ms. Reed was testifying, I saw Ms. Jones certainly shaking her head on those 93 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. facts. Even with the computer enhancements, improvements, I assume there's still a lot of manual paperwork you have to do. How much has changed by the computer, would you say?

With our new case management system for our clerks, it has changed tremendously. We were able to put two clerks in a room. We could have one clerk man two courtrooms at one time. But now we have the case management system, that means at the end of the day, at the close of every file after she finishes writing it out, she has to enter that information into the computer system before the close of the day. So you can't have two people -- one person manning two rooms at that particular time. One person has to do that. So their day has grown. They were able to get out at 5:00. Most of our clerks are working overtime until 7, 8 o'clock at night to complete that, because you're working with -- everybody 94 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. is working on the system. The server is slow, so it has just increased the volume. It has increased the time that it would take to complete each one of these particular files. So it hasn't decreased it. It's definitely increased it.

So in your opinion, the computer system, it just in some ways gives people a little more work?

A lot more work. What happens is, we've had to rearrange our entire department and take -- because what's happening is, they're actually entering in the cost and fines, which is going to help the state receive their money at a quicker time, and we've had to create a quality control. So we've had to use employees in multi different ways in order to do that. So, yes.

And, Ms. Miller, I know you said that there was certainly the fear that if you don't 95 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. get these additional people, there will be people kept longer in jail. Has that happened yet? I mean, have you experienced that yet or --

Well, not with the new system so far it hasn't. But with new judges being elected -- I believe I gave you the numbers.

Right.

And I gave you the amount of clerks, and there's no way it matches at all. And, in fact, we did a questionnaire, and all of the judges -- I mean, just to try to get a sense of what's going on with the new system and their feel, and each and every one asked, Please get me a clerk in my room.

And I would certainly echo what the Council President says. Working this out, in the end it saves money probably.

Exactly. Exactly.

If your prognosis is correct, which it sounds 96 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. like it certainly could be, the City will lose more money in legal problems than they're saving right now. So I keep repeating I'm not a numbers person, but that seems to just make sense to me. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.

Thank you, Madam President. I certainly want to associate myself with your comments. We do go through this every year, and we really -- it's very, very unfair that people remain incarcerated because their paperwork can't be processed. And we do want our Clerk of Quarter Sessions funded at the appropriate amount, and so I agree with your comments and certainly urge Ms. Reed and whomever else is concerned to try to get this issue worked out.

All right. Ms. Reed, I suggest that before the end of the day you meet with the 97 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Clerk of Quarter Sessions and get back to us, please. Are you there?

Dianne Reed, Budget Director. Council President, I'll see if we can get that meeting set up today.

Please do. Our next department to testify -- thank you, Ms. Miller. I'm sorry. Are there any other questions from members of the Committee of Ms. Miller? Yes, there is. Councilwoman Miller.

Thank you, Madam President. I have one quick question. Would a laptop help in the courtrooms? That way, you wouldn't have to manually write it and then go back.

They have the computers in the courtroom, and if you remember in my testimony, I said they are 98 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. doing coding directly into the system. What happens is the system goes down. And any time people work with computers, they know what happens. And quite naturally, work still has to go on. So, therefore, they're doing the data. They're doing it manually. But the problem is, it's not enough -- it's not so much the computer. It's not enough people to go around to all the courtrooms.

Well, I understand that. I was just referring to Robin's testimony, that you have to manually write and then go back to the office and put it in and that's what's causing overtime.

I believe that's when the computer goes down.

They actually do it in the courtroom. They don't take it back. They have to stay in that courtroom and process it within that courtroom. So I don't think the laptops 99 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. is an issue. The computer part is not an issue.

All right. Thank you.

Bodies.

But thanks for the suggestion.

Any other questions or comments of Ms. Miller? (No response.)

Seeing no one, thank you.

Thank you.

And Ms. Reed will be in touch with you, Ms. Miller. Please make sure that you meet with her so that we could try to be of assistance, and get back to us as soon as possible.

I most certainly will. Thank you very much.

We will now hear from the Register of Wills. 100 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Good morning. Welcome.

Good afternoon.

Is it afternoon? Time goes by when you're having fun. Mr. Donatucci, may I ask that you abbreviate your testimony. We will give the stenographer your testimony and it will be transcribed in full.

Fine. Thank you for your help in our request. I'll see you next year. Very brief, and thank you. First of all, I would like to make a statement. I want to thank all my City colleagues, especially the incumbent City Councilpeople, for their help in helping us make our computerization -- the start of the computerization of our office a true fact, and I thank you. And I see some of my colleagues sitting here. And especially Bill. He was very helpful a couple meetings I had, and I'd like to acknowledge especially Jannie and -- 101 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. well, everybody, Juan. I don't want to get in trouble. 8 million. The Administration -- basically the difference is $366,486 of what our request is. The only thing that we're in agreement is, Council President, is the amount that we owe in Class 800 that we have to pay back. It's the only figure that we agree on. I'm not here today asking for any additional employees. Many of you in this room know since I've been coming here that my budget personnel-wise has not grown in this area of Class 100. It's basically that we're being mandated more and more by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the Orphans Court to do additional duties. And as earlier testimony from my colleague, Vivian Miller, you do have additional work, believe it or not, when you do have 102 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. computerization. One of the things we implemented -- and we are ready. By the end of this fiscal year, we'll bring in over $100,000 in additional fees to the City just in one area alone, which we're charging an access fee for every estate that's raised in our office, but we're also improving our turnaround time. A year ago it would take approximately a little bit over a week to a week and a half from when you came in to get the actual final product, what we will call a short certificate or letters of administration. Now we're boasting and very proud -- I don't think there's any other office across the Commonwealth that would turn -- our turnaround now is three days. The Bar is elated. The public is elated. Everything is being done by computerization. But you're only as good as the people putting the information in. So we're not asking for any additional monies in the sense of our 103 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Class 100. As you know, all City employees will be enjoying a four percent raise, which is approximately 120-some thousand dollars of that difference, and I guess the Administration is cutting us in the Class 100 like they try every year, and my biggest argument is that we will operate once again in the black. 4. So we'll show a profit to the City of Philadelphia, while yet -- and I don't want to do a commercial. I believe this is probably the best user-friendly office in City Hall. We don't have voice mail. Everybody answers the phone by their first name. We believe that the public is entitled to that. I'm not condemning voice mail, but I think they want to hear a human being on the other end of the phone. And we do still have and 104 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. maintain two offices in the City outside of City Hall. We maintain -- we send employees up to the Northeast and we send employees in North Philly to do estates. And we have a traveling probate service where if somebody is in the hospital, God forbid, dying, we don't even charge a fee to go to the hospital to probate or to do a marriage license application if they're on their death bed. There's so many different services that we provide that we haven't cut back on trying to service the public. If you can help us once again maintain the level of service of the Register of Wills operation and also the Marriage License Bureau. Believe it or not, the number of marriage licenses has increased last year.

Really?

So business is improving and we make a lot of money in the sense that after 9/11, you'd be 105 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. surprised how there's an increased request when you go to get, say, a driver's license in another state now. They want a certified copy of your marriage license if you're a different name on your marriage, and we charge for that. We make a lot of money, but you need employees to process these requests. And a lot of times people's -- I'm traveling, I'm going abroad, can you give me a certified copy. They don't want to wait four, six weeks. They want a turnaround time within 72 hours. And we also have an expedited fee that we do it in hours. 17 So if you can see in your 18 kindness and in your business sense that 19 we're running it like a business and we 20 intend to increase some of our other fees 21 for next year, and we will do our share 22 to help the City meet its fiscal 23 obligations. 24

Thank you very much. I would just like to say 106 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. I think that you and your office do an excellent job. They really do. And I think that you have been very creative in your ideas for revenue-generating schemes, and I don't know why you would be nickel and dimed every budget year. It doesn't make sense to me. However, based on your testimony, you're requesting $366,000 or more in additional funding; is that correct?

Yes. And, again, part of that is a mandated four percent raise, which my employees deserve. I just want to keep my present staffing level and I'm going to expand what we're doing. I'm not asking for any additional employees. And I would have brought some of the caseload to show you, but I couldn't get a hand truck for what each one of my employees do each day. There weren't any available.

Mr. Donatucci, did you make this request known to the Finance Department? 107 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Yes.

And if so, what was their response?

Well, in fairness to Dianne Reed, she's always been trying to be helpful, but I guess she has certain mandates in her position. And, no pun intended, sometimes we're looked on as the orphan child.

Ms. Reed, would you join us at the witness table, please. Ms. Reed, what was your justification for not funding the Register of Wills at their requested level?

Dianne Reed, Budget Director. This is not something anyone could feel good about. We have the budget constraint of the Five-Year Plan and, unfortunately, the Register of Wills was asked to take a reduction, along with everyone else. And just to let you know 108 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. how bad it is, we have been talking with the Register's staff as well as other staffs about trying to make sure that we can get Productivity Bank loans in place this year and get ordinances over to you for the ones that are over the threshold, and we had to ask him, the staff member that we discussed this with, to see if they could raise any fees or were there any other cuts that they could take in order to put the pay back into the Five-Year Plan, because it's just so tight, and we are saying that to everyone. So we don't feel good about this.

Okay. Can you tell me how much money will the Register of Wills generate in FY08?

I think they had about 100,000 in their testimony.

No. 23 I think it's more than that.

Let me just pull out my other source. 109 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

If I may, from October to June 30, we will have approximately 101,000 additional revenue, just the one category, which is our access fee, which we charge for every estate that's being raised, which is approximately 7,000.

But I'm looking at the detail book. It appears as though you would be generating $3,850,000.

For next year, yes. Unequivocally.

Yes. And you're requesting a budget of 3,869,000, which is $19,625 more than you will generate in FY08. Why wouldn't you just give them, Ms. Reed, what they need in order for them to do their job?

I have to balance the Plan, ma'am, and we have accounted every single penny --

So 110 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. they don't have --

-- that we know about. I'm sorry?

I don't know. Either you're talking over me or I'm talking over you. Why wouldn't you give them money so that they can generate even more money for the General Fund?

We funded every initiative that was brought to us for '08 that involved revenue, every single one of them. The proposals that we got from the Register did not include a revenue projection offset.

Ms. Reed, what you did was reduce their budget by the 2.5 percent general reduction coverage, the four percent pay increase to arrive at the budget of $3.5 million, which would mean that their revenues would exceed their budget by approximately $350,000; is that correct?

I don't have all the 111 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. revenue that you're talking about. I would have to check that out. It is quite possible that they are generating revenue in excess of their costs, but we would have to check that out.

It's in your Budget in Brief, if you have the book there. It's on . See, I just have a little problem in understanding why you would reduce a revenue-generating department by 2.5 percent without understanding the operational impact of such a cut.

We have to make the Plan balance. There are other solutions that are possible. We could cut other people's budgets. We could reduce the out-year tax cuts. Choices have to be made and we had to treat all General Fund departments the same, except for those that were held harmless, which included FJD, prisons and uniformed departments, uniformed employees. 112 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Mr. Donatucci, do you foresee not being able to generate as much revenue in '08 as you did in '07 simply because we cannot understand that the 2.5 percent --

It's not even an issue. I'll tell you why. Once you go and advertise -- and we're on the Internet -- and you're charging every person that walks in or personal representative an additional $25 for Internet access and the fact -- and we're bragging -- that the turnaround time and accessibility. You'll never justify getting any additional fees -- there will be an uproar -- if you're not going to provide the service. I'm not going to advertise and increase the fee, say, for a short certificate if you can't provide the short certificate within a reasonable amount of time. There's going to be a mutiny. They'll have me before whatever and I'll have opposition in four years. I don't have at this time, because I 113 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. think I run a good office and I don't have any controversies, but I'm not looking for any opponents.

Wait a minute. I think I run a good office, but I have opposition.

Well, whoever said your opponent -- no comment.

Okay.

Believe me, I don't consider it opposition, but that's my opinion.

It truly doesn't make sense to me that you could really be generating more money if you did not have the 2.5 percent reduction.

There's other fees that we wanted to implement. It was only until our system -- I believe it's approximately maybe 60 or 90 days now running really smooth. Now that we're running smooth and all the glitches have been taken out, access, we have problems 114 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. with MOIS where -- not MOIS's problem. The server in the middle of the night when lawyers were going online at 5 o'clock at night to get information, it 6 was shutting down. 7 Now that the system is fairly 8 working well, we are comfortable enough 9 to maybe raise some additional fees 10 related to A, B and C with the Internet, but you can't raise fees from get-go. But now that we're starting to feel comfortable, I will assure City Council and Dianne that we will do everything possible. If you look at our track record, we've always raised our fees commensurate with other counties. And we're studying the other four counties right now to see if our fees are within inflation, whatever. And whatever we could raise that the public can afford, we will do if they get the product. You can't keep on raising fees if you don't have a product to offer. Any business. 115 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Forget City Hall.

Point of information.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Reed, did I hear you say that there is a process in the budget where when it's obvious that you've got a department that can generate funds, that if you identify the fact that they can add, like President said, funds to the General Fund, then it's a wise, prudent thing to even increase the numbers in their budget, because a 50 cent increase could turn into a dollar increase. So tell me how you could overlook the fact that you've got a department that is generating funds to help support some of the other departments and no one recognizes that.

Councilman, there are many departments that generate more 116 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. revenue than their Operating Budget costs. Just, for example, Fairmount Park. And we are always in conversations with departments about keeping their revenue, for example, but in the budget call for '08, we said we have to cut the Class 100 by two and a half, because it's staffing that we can control, but if you have proposals to reduce that cut, tell us what the revenue source is or how you're going to offset that addition, because we cannot add -- we got $96 million in budget increase requests from departments for '08, and the only ones that we granted were either supported by revenue, of which there were very few, or were unavoidable, like Prison, Health and departments like that.

Well, I hear what you're saying, but I don't necessarily agree that some departments should be protected. Obviously the Police Department, the Fire Department, the Prison Systems, I think they should 117 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. be scrutinized also, because there's a lot of money in the budget and right in this Council you can identify where millions of dollars were written off. So I don't think they should be relieved of scrutiny and just say we're not going to touch the operating or the uniform forces. I think that they need, especially in the business side of what they do, to be looked at as hard as you look at these operating departments, because I think it's shortsighted to cut a budget that has the potential to assist in restoring programs in other operating departments since their revenue goes to the General Fund. So, again, I think that that policy of not looking at uniform forces, no disrespect to Police and Fire, I know they knock themselves out to try to make us a safe city, but I can tell you this, that some of the business practices that we identified here left a lot to be desired. 118 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. Councilman Greenlee, are you finished, or did you start?

That was Councilman Rizzo. I know we look alike. Just very quickly, I just want to echo what the Council President said. It seems that when a department is doing it right and bringing in money, it just makes sense to keep them or let them keep doing what they're doing. And just generally, I just want to thank you and all the folks -- I can run through a whole list of names. It would take a while -- that have been real helpful to our office over the years, and you certainly are one of the most customer-friendly places down there. I hear it not just from people who come to us and then we come to you, but from people generally who say they go down -- they don't have to come to us because you 119 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. take care of them . So it's --

Isn't that what we're supposed to do?

It is. It doesn't happen all the time in other places, but it certainly -- so I just wanted to get that on the record.

Especially when they're bereaved and they come into the office, they just lost their mother, they don't need a clerk to say, Oh, I'm sorry, you don't the forms, you don't have the death certificate, come back next week. We give them a self-addressed envelope. Mail it to us and we'll help you. That's what we're there for. The public should be entitled to that.

As I said in my opening statement, I think you and your office do a fabulous job and you're to be commended for it.

Thank you.

The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell. 120 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Thank you, Madam President. I, for one, always associate myself with your comments and do agree. It just doesn't make sense that if you raise the money, you can't spend it. It just doesn't make common sense. Thank you. And also to thank Mr. Donatucci and his department for all that they do for all of us. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Councilman Ramos.

Madam President, I just want to concur with you and my colleagues with the statements that you have made here at this hearing concerning the good work of the office of Register of Wills. I have had the experience as being in City Council that I get people that are visiting certain departments and for one reason or the other, they cannot take care of them because they do not speak English 121 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. fluently, and the one place where I don't have that problem is in your office. And I've gotten people that are looking for, like you just stated, death certificates of a loved one. They've traveled particularly from Puerto Rico and they come here and they had no problems when they go down to your office in getting the service that they need, because you have personnel that attends to them. So keep up the good work, and this City Council stands with you.

One of my top deputies, as you know, is of a Puerto Rican descent, and she's excellent. And she makes sure that we give access to every possible Hispanic group or whatever, and we're proud of that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments for the Register of Wills? (No response.) 122 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

Seeing none, thank you.

Thank you for your kindness.

You do a great job. And, Ms. Reed, you will get together also with Mr. Donatucci, and hopefully we will hear from you and Mr. Donatucci --

Yes.

-- before next week.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Have a nice day.

You do the same. MR. McPHERSON: The next department is the Sheriff's Office.

123 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Sheriff, please come up to the witness table, identify yourself for the record. We have a copy of your testimony. I would ask you to abbreviate it, and we will give it to the stenographer and it will be transcribed in full. SHERIFF GREEN: Thank you very much, Madam President. My name is John Green. I'm Sheriff for the City and County of Philadelphia. With me this morning, to my left is Tyrone Bynum, who is the Finance Director for the Sheriff's Office, and Inspector Mark Stipa. I'm going to be very brief by simply saying that the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office is requesting for Fiscal Year 2008 14 million 9 hundred 19 thousand -- I'm sorry; $14,920,827 in 20 expenditures. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Sheriff, by your testimony, you are satisfied with the proposed 124 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Administration budget for your department? SHERIFF GREEN: That's correct. Beginning in August of 2006, as a result of litigation against the Philadelphia Prison System, we started working with the Finance Department to ensure that our personnel level reflected what we need to service the court system. At this time, we are still working and we're satisfied in the progress that we're making in staffing our office.

Sheriff, on of your testimony, you mention that you have shared information with the Office of Housing and Community Development that has helped homeowners avoid sheriff's sale. SHERIFF GREEN: That's correct.

For the record, would you please explain how you help people avoid sheriff's sale? SHERIFF GREEN: In 2004, the Sheriff's Office noticed a spike in the 125 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. number of properties that were going to foreclosure and eventually to sheriff's sale, and as a result of noticing that increase, we did a couple of things. One, we had a moratorium for a month on the sale of properties. Second, we started an education program that informed people on how they can save their properties. As a result of that program, we've been able to decrease by 30 percent the number of properties that eventually go to sheriff's sale. I have with me a map that is broken up into wards that reflect the actual percentages of work-out agreements. Work-out agreements mean that people are able to work out their mortgage problem before the property goes to sheriff's sale. And I can submit that as part of my testimony. And the map reflects that, for example, in the 66th Ward, 80 percent of the properties that are foreclosed on are worked out before they come to sheriff's sale, meaning that 126 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. 80 percent of the properties that are scheduled for sheriff's sale in the 66th Ward are able to avoid sheriff's sale through our program. There are other wards. For example, in the 23rd Ward, 60 percent of the properties that go to sheriff's sale -- or go to foreclosure before they come to sheriff's sale are able to work out an agreement. So we consider this to be a success. We've been able to work with the housing counseling agencies, as you mentioned, the various City agencies that are affected by this, and that is just part of the work that we've been doing.

How about the 36th Ward? SHERIFF GREEN: The 36th Ward? I know the ward well.

I think you do. SHERIFF GREEN: Fifty-nine percent. Fifty-nine percent of those 127 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. properties that are foreclosed on are actually worked out, the agreements are worked out to avoid sheriff's sale.

That's wonderful. SHERIFF GREEN: Thank you.

Your testimony has been very refreshing today. You're not asking for more money, and I can tell you very publicly that I think you're doing an excellent job. Councilman Rizzo, you want to be recognized?

Thank you, Madam President, and I agree with what you just said. Sheriff, I got an e-mail from a constituent that moved from Florida to Philadelphia, and there is a difference in the way the Sheriff Department operates here versus in some of the -- I even assume in some of the Pennsylvania counties, and the question that I had to respond to in the e-mail was if the 128 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Sheriff had a bigger budget, if the Sheriff had more funds, could we replicate or do some of the things that Sheriff Departments do in like Broward County, Florida where you actually see them as the law enforcement in the community? What's the difference between our Sheriff's Department and this constituent's observation of the difference between Philadelphia and other municipalities throughout the United States, and could you do more or are you limited because of some statute or City Charter? SHERIFF GREEN: Well, by statute and by custom, the Sheriff's Office is the law enforcement arm of the court system, meaning that everything that we do must be initiated by the court system, as opposed to police officers, who can respond to site infractions. They can actually investigate matters that are not in the court system. 129 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. Now, quite frankly, as you know, when the Pennsylvania State Police came into Philadelphia and started patrolling the state highways, those portions of the state highways that are in the City limits, the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 5 complained. They said that based on past practices, police officers should patrol these sections of the highway and that instead of using the State Police, why not adjust the budget to reflect being able to provide more police officers to do that. That would be a labor issue, number one. Number two, it would require us to be able to say that we have fulfilled our obligation to the court system. As we sit here today, we transport 90,000 people per year to and from court. We do not have, quite frankly -- we could use more people, and right now we have 20 openings and we're in the process of hiring people. We could use more people just to fill that 130 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. obligation. And as I mentioned before, we're working with the Finance Director to do that. It would require hiring a lot more people.

Sure. SHERIFF GREEN: And it would require looking at the labor issues and it would require looking at the statute and common practices throughout the Commonwealth.

Obviously I think I said that you'd need more money and you'd need more people, but the constituent that e-mailed me was wondering, because they are a new resident of Philadelphia, that what they're accustomed to when they call 9-1-1 in certain places, that the Sheriff shows. In Montgomery County, I believe that -- I'm not sure they operate differently than you, but I think the crux of it was the issue with the schools, with security in our schools, that maybe the Sheriff's Department, if 131 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. given the money, given the personnel, given the authority, could really do similar chores that the Police Department does. I think you know where I'm coming from here. Am I correct to say that in certain municipalities, the Sheriff does have more than just doing what you described about supporting the courts? SHERIFF GREEN: Oh, yeah. In other jurisdictions, the Sheriff's Office, it's more of a full-service Sheriff's Office in terms of law enforcement. And in addition to that, there are other jurisdictions where in addition to doing law enforcement, the Sheriff's Office is responsible for the county detention centers. The Philadelphia Sheriff's Office, as long as I'm there, will respond to any statute obligation that we have. Any obligation that's given to us by government we will fulfill. And if it is the will of the legislative bodies; 132 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. that is, the state's legislative body and this legislative body, to give us more responsibility, along with more dollars, we'll gladly accept that responsibility and do our best to fulfill it.

Now I know how to answer the e-mail. Well, thank you, and, again, I concur with President Verna about the great job that you and your staff does for the City of Philadelphia. Thank you. SHERIFF GREEN: Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. Are there any other questions or comments of Sheriff Green? (No response.)

Seeing none, I thank you very much. SHERIFF GREEN: Thank you very much. 133 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. MR. McPHERSON: The next department is the City Controller's Office.

Good afternoon. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Good afternoon.

Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: I am City Controller Alan Butkovitz and I'm accompanied by First Deputy Controller Harvey Rice; our Administrative Director, Andrea Rose; and Deputy Controller, John Thomas.

May I ask you to please abbreviate your testimony. We have a copy of it. It will be given to the stenographer and it will be transcribed in full. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Okay. Thank you, Madam President. The Mayor's proposed 2008 134 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. budget includes a General Fund appropriation of $8,254,796 to our office, which is earmarked for 140 budgeted positions. That reflects a 2.5 percent reduction in personnel costs that the Mayor has requested of all City departments and which our department is living within, without objection. Last year, we issued 28 departmental audit and financial opinion reports and ten performance audit and special reports. Those included 132 recommendations, which, if implemented, would realize a $71 million financial benefit to the City. We are putting additional emphasis in performance audits as we go. In the past year, we have had a number of significant audits, including the Police facilities audit, which was dovetailed very well with City Council's own agenda. The findings that we had about crumbling and decrepit Police stations co-existed almost perfectly with Council's appropriation of a $30 million 135 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. capital appropriation for improvement of Police facilities and other facilities. In addition, we made similar findings with respect to school facilities and Licenses and Inspections. We also very aggressively worked to penetrate both the physical conditions of the Philadelphia School District and budget issues, which were contended to be beyond the scope of our post audit authority but which we believe that events and history have indicated the approach taken by our office and where we believe that continued aggressive action on our part will be useful in a joint city/state effort to try to minimize the headaches that are going to emanate from the very large School District deficit. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Councilwoman Blackwell and the rest of Council for the work that we did jointly this year in getting the Philadelphia Pension Fund, to 136 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. get Philadelphia to be the largest city in America to take a position of a divestment of pension assets in Sudan, one of the few tools that is having an impact in opposing and stopping the genocide over there. We look forward to hopefully a good relationship with this Council, and I'm available for whatever probing or questions.

Thank you very much. On of your testimony, you mention that your audit of L&I's Assessment of Housing Inspection and Enforcement Process found that L&I met the mandatory 24-hour response time for imminently dangerous conditions only 30 percent of the time. I just want to let you know that yesterday we had the L&I Commissioner before us at a hearing, at which time the Commissioner stated that he did not need any additional 137 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. inspectors. Are you surprised at his statement? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Yes. The Commissioner needs more inspectors, but I believe it's the Administration line that he needs to deal with what's --

I'm sorry? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: I think it's the official Administration line that he needs to deal with what they've allotted. But I forget the number of employees that we felt -- something like an additional 30 inspectors, according to our audit. I mean, we found backlogs in some of these cases of as long as five or six months. And it's not because L&I is not trying. Our people calculated the workloads and the follow-up times and what the model times were and what they're capable of doing with their staff. I believe they have 58 inspectors and we believe they need 88 or 89.

You 138 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. also mentioned that your review of the School District has uncovered financial inefficiencies, misleading and non-transparent budget projections and information concerning fiscal issues. In your opinion, has the School District corrected these deficiencies? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: No, not at all. I mean, the biggest problem is the School District's unwillingness to just be frank and open with the people of Philadelphia about the real facts. As I'm sure you will remember, when Mayor Rendell took office in 1992, at least there was a common experience among Philadelphians that there was a fiscal issue that was on the table and that there were certain painful remedies that had to be taken as a result of that. And I believe that we are on the verge of the same types of painful choices with respect to the School District. And you can't fix something that everybody doesn't acknowledge what the true 139 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. condition of it is. I was in the Legislature at the time the state takeover legislation was adopted, and it was understood that there was a cumulative deficit that was projected at the time to get near half a billion dollars, and a number of remedies were adopted, including authorization of $300 million in deficit bonds. Now, what that was supposed to do is give the School District five-year breathing room in a non-crisis atmosphere to make adjustments to expenses and to make recommendations for any revenue enhancements that were necessary. The problem is that that five-year breathing spell was squandered as part of a public relations strategy. Every year we climb the wall because the Chief Executive, Mr. Vallas, would issue a press release bragging that he had for four or five consecutive years had a balanced operating budget, and the truth was he didn't have a balanced 140 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. operating budget in any of those years. He was using bits and pieces of the $300 million every year to get by. So one of the things that we noted, that that money was run out in the 2007 budget year. We also saw that there were fund balances that remained identical from year to year and that there were adjustments in the way the School District was reporting their budget, things like a $96 million, what was it called, a negative appropriation in the Chief Executive's Office. Well, it was just an adjustment figure. They figured out how short they were and they added that figure to the other side of the ledger so that they could issue a press release and say, We're doing a great job, and really what they were doing was deferring a deficit. Now it looks like we're talking about a deficit in the range of $188 million. And I know that this Council will struggle very hard to help, without 141 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. killing the taxpayers of Philadelphia, but the schools only really have two revenue sources, state subsidies and real estate taxes. Now, this City's annual take from real estate taxes is a billion dollars a year, and if you send in a message and say, We need another $200 million because of the schools, that in itself would be a percent increase in 11 real estate taxes. 12 So more information sooner 13 rather than later is better, a commitment 14 to non-gimmickry and a commitment to full 15 disclosure to independent entities. The 16 habit of the School District is to come 17 into this Council with a onesummary, not a line item summary of their 19 expenditures. And there has been a lot 20 of investment of good faith in that process, which I think you're justified in running out your patience when you find out that, by the way, please send us $188 million.

I 142 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. know that the Administration and the state are reviewing the School District's finances. Is your office participating in that review? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: No. We attended some of the early meetings, but I think all the parties know that our comments would not be controlled. We're not interested in a spin on the outcome. We have been absolutely willing to disclose whatever we find as we find it. And I believe that it's understood that people are sitting on a potential time bomb, and we're prepared to go in there and help, but it would be under the condition that things would be disclosed. So far, no one has been really eager to take us up on that.

That's a shame, because I think you could be very helpful. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Yes.

But I guess you're not supposed to be. 143 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: I'm not supposed to -- oh.

You mention in your testimony that you are opposed to the BRT's full valuation initiative. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Yes.

Do you believe that a reassessment of all properties within the City needs to be done even if we continue with our current assessment methodology? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: I think the reassessments are going to continue no matter what, but what would happen under the full valuation process is that it would all happen all at once, in a hurry, constantly, pushed by the most recent sales data, and since there has been a tremendous inflation in property values in most places of Philadelphia, people would get hit with a shock. And most of my criticism has been on the policy basis, that certain initiatives 144 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. taken by this Council, and specifically Councilman DiCicco's initiative on abatements, a lot of people crossed their fingers and hoped for the best when they did it, but didn't think it would really work. It turned out that that policy has now contributed to one of the strongest economic engines in the City. And the reason that we have been running surpluses in our budget for the last few years is because there is so much trafficking in real estate that we're making enough money on transfer taxes to balance our budget. Now -- and you can see the spill-over of the upgraded development in all sorts of neighborhoods now that people were expecting lower property values. So we've been down at 17th and Christian Street and we see properties that are going for a half a million dollars or more. Strawberry Mansion, they're building properties for $300,000. And my specific point is, if the policy 145 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. of not cashing in on the tax ability of this is working to promote development and to create an economic diversity in the City, why should Philadelphia City government take an action to cut that off before it's maximized? Because if we are going to thrive, we need all kinds of people in the City. We need all kinds of incomes in the City, and it is helping us right now, combined with the fact that the real estate tax just works so unfairly. It's such a large part of our population who are seeing a paper increase in the value of their properties but no more income to pay those tax bills. People who constitute the whole backbone of a number of neighborhoods who would be driven out by -- our office, we did a -- we took what the Board of Revision of Taxes' estimate was a year ago. They said that the trade-off for doing a full value reassessment would be the probability of a lower tax rate, and as a hypothetical, Mr. Glancy said that 146 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. 9 percent. So we did an exercise in our office, because one of the frustrating things to me is that they're talking about doing this dramatic new move without anybody having any idea what the final numbers would be. So we did the best that we could. 9 percent tax rate, and we couldn't find anybody whose taxes went down. It's supposed to be a revenue-neutral proposal and we saw in areas like Center City as much as a tripling of current taxes under that analysis. Even the statement that it's revenue neutral would only be a statement that its overall effect would be revenue neutral, but its effect on particular people could be overwhelming. So we've got all of this development. We still see cranes up in this vicinity. Imagine for a moment that 147 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. all that just stopped dead in its tracks. What would that do to the value of the properties? What would that do to the momentum of the City? What does that do to our overall fiscal health? We're not robots. We're not on automatic pilot. We can exercise some control here. So there's no urgency to doing that step right now. What was cited as the authority for it was a 1953 state law that talks about uniformity in taxation.

And I may say, if there's got to be a conversation about the fairness of taxes, there are other things, such as the state Constitution's handcuffing us on the way we can handle tax -- the fact that 18 percent of the land in Philadelphia can't 19 be taxed because it's owned by hospitals 20 and universities, that ought to be part 21 of the conversation, not running some 22 senior citizen on a fixed income telling 23 them they got to pay triple the taxes on 24 their property. Since when did that 25 become the sum and substance of the 148 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. fairness debate on taxes?

Thank you. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.

Thank you, Madam President. Controller, how are you today? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Very well.

Controller, first I want to thank you for looking into something that certainly I had a lot of interest in and I know that you did also, and it is the project called Project Ocean. I know that we've spent a tremendous amount of money, $18 million, and I know some of that money is for licensing which would be required. I hear, though, at the end of the day we wound up buying a system that we needed off the shelf, after spending almost $20 million combined on this project. Could you comment on the 149 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. settlement and your observations of what we call Project Ocean? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: We're still in the process of reviewing with the Administration our draft report and their comments, and I think the City Administration's position would not be that it was off the shelf. I think they have a strong point of view that there was a custom-made unique type of system here, and that is something that our technical people and their technical people are debating about and analyzing, and we're hoping that we can actually have a report in about a month on that issue.

Mr. Controller, how I understand it, that the process, since it took a couple years to resolve it, that the programs have developed along the way that became standard in the industry. So if they're trying to say it's a custom program, it may be, but after two or three years of 150 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. development, the program that we were looking for pretty much became standard in the industry, if I'm communicating clearly to you. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Okay. I haven't received any information like that. If you have anything that you would like to provide us on that, we would appreciate it.

I'd love to. And what I would like you to do is just maybe if you could just take a few minutes to -- we have Mr. Phillis, the new IT person in here, telling us about the way the project was managed. It was a disaster -- I'm paraphrasing now -- disaster from the beginning because of the way the whole program, Project Ocean, was handled. Could you tell us what you can tell us at the moment from what you believe for the record happened with this project? I'd appreciate that because of my personal interest and this Council's 151 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. personal interest in this. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: The problem is that professionally we're committed to a process where the auditee has a chance to have a fair hearing with us.

But is this an audit? This is an investigation. This isn't really an audit. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Well, we're treating it as an audit. And believe me, you'll have a lot to read, and we will not pull our punches on it, but it just wouldn't be fair for me to comment before it's cooked.

I understand. But I'll tell you, those first few slices of the ham are pretty good before it's cooked. Okay. That's fair. But we did learn from when the IT people did testify that one of the issues -- and we'll hopefully get the notes of his testimony, which I would suggest your office do, 152 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. where it was pretty much stated -- whether it was publicly or privately, I'm trying to recollect now -- that after many years of development, that the product pretty much developed outside of Project Ocean and then when they got to the point where they were willing or ready to make a decision on what to implement, that someone in the sales department said, Oh, yeah, you want this because this is what we already have now developed as of today, and it apparently met the needs. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: What I would say is that there is general agreement that what went on for many years ended up to be not fruitful and not organized in a way with the appropriate thresholds and benchmarks and cooperation and that there was a lot of money spent before their act was really gotten together. It appears that with Mr. Phillis' appearance on the scene and with some of the actions on the part of 153 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. the Administration in the last year, that there has been a lot of activity to salvage a situation that was going south and that they have been doing a better job on it more recently.

Well, I understand when the Controller's Office, when they knew that you were looking at it, it certainly got their attention also. So you motivated a lot of people to get that act together and get this project back on track. Is it fair to say -- and I think you can comment on this -- that we're talking a project close to $18 to $20 million? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: You mean counting from the beginning?

Yes. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Oh, I think it's much more than that. It's much more than that. I think it was over $30 million already, and probably it will be, what, another -- I think it's 154 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. projected to probably be another $6 million.

In your report, you'll also discuss the settlement aspects with Oracle? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Yes.

Okay. I didn't realize it got to that level at this point. Well, I'm glad you were involved in it. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Thank you.

Thank you. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: I'm glad you were involved in it, Councilman.

Thanks. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much. The Chair wanted to thank you and all of your staff in your department for the work that you do, especially with regard to Darfur. It didn't automatically happen. One doesn't get 155 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. divestment without a lot of hard work, and we are very, very pleased about the partnership we had with that regard, as well as all the work we were jointly able to accomplish with regard to getting the issue of Iraq on the ballot and the issue of full tax valuation. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: That's true.

It doesn't just happen that it goes there's an idea and without a lot of community work and a lot of collaboration. So we thank you and are grateful for the opportunity. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: I think it is a very productive partnership. I was hoping that in much the same way that the General Accounting Office provides technical help to Congress that we would be able to provide that kind of teeth or additional help to the Council. This Council has been very vibrant and vigorous, and I thank you for your 156 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. leadership on the tax assessment issue and on the Iraq issue. Council is doing a lot to really engage the people of Philadelphia in these major decisions these days.

Thank you. Councilman Goode.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Controller. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Good afternoon.

The Council President asked you a couple of questions. I was not sure of your answers to either one. The first regarding School District finances. What do you believe the cumulative deficit to be over the next five years? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Well, I have no idea what it's going to be over the next five years, but last year when the School District initially indicated a 157 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. $70 million deficit, there was a briefing for top City and state officials, and the people who were doing the finances were specifically asked whether we should multiply that by two for the subsequent fiscal year, and they said no. They said that these were one-time problems that were being capped. It turns out we turn around and we're in the new fiscal year that you can multiply it by more than two.

Controller, I think we're in complete agreement that Paul Vallas probably cooked the books before he got his new contract. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Right.

I'm talking about after he got his new contract, after it became revealed that there was a definite, are you in a position to project what that deficit is over the next five years? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: No, because we have a major problem. I'll 158 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. give you an example. When we looked at the line item budget for the School District, the amount of money that is listed there every year that is supposed to be spent is $250,000. You know what they spent one year? $8 million. You know what they spent the next year? $3 million. Now, nobody in this Council, nobody doing budgeting would do a budget like that, right? Now, how can I take responsibility for what any of their numbers mean when I don't have free access -- we asked the School District to send people over to us so that they could agree on definitions about what belongs in what category. The School District changed some of their accounting definitions and put things in categories that only Paul Vallas knows what's in that category.

Mr. Controller, what I'm saying is, I understand that the numbers were wrong in 159 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. the past and that that's been uncovered. The issue now is, do we know that the new numbers are wrong? Because the new numbers, as far as I know, have been confirmed by the state Budget Director and by other people, and there are a number of people who believe that the new number is over a billion dollars over the next five years and there is a new number that probably is a sure number that we should be looking at. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: I would say that it probably is at least -- one thing I can tell you for sure, whatever they say it is, it's worse.

So you would agree that the cumulative deficit over the next five years is probably over a billion dollars? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Yes.

So what should we do about that? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Again, it's hard to say without having access 160 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. to -- they had a situation where they only had $500,000 in no-bid contracts. Now they have -- or business consultant contracts. Now they have $7.7 million in business consultants contracts. Now they have over $600 million in no-bid contracts. It seems logical that there's going to have to be additional revenue streams for the schools, but to give a comprehensive answer that there's no 13 waste or that there's nothing that could be cut out, I can't say because they won't let us get at the underlying data. What I suggested to the Mayor's task force and to the state Budget Secretary is something akin to zero-based budgeting. I think when you're dealing with the no-bid contracts, the School District right now, they'll give you a sheet with maybe one line that tells you why this amount is in there. I think the people running the School District know what they're doing. They know why 161 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. they're awarding these contracts, and they should be required to make that showing to the Council and to the outside stakeholders justifying why we need all those no-bid contracts. And you have multiple different types of administration in handling of the schools. That also needs to be consistent and justified. It seems it is very -- it is likely that there's got to be more money for the schools, but you can't say how much. Vallas is still over there. He still won't let us have -- he wants to control the data.

I understand, Controller. I'm going to try one more time. They say it's a billion dollars. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: And I said it's at least that.

Let's say it's two billion. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Okay. 162 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

But let's reduce it back to a $1 billion problem. If it's only a $1 billion problem, what should we do about it? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Well, there's two general courses of action. There's increased taxes and there's reductions in spending. And as Mayor Rendell said when he came into office, before he was going to ask for a tax increase, he was going to make sure he squeezed out every dime of unnecessary spending. And I don't think that that process has been gone through in the School District, and I'm not going to write a check for what Paul Vallas did without letting anybody know without getting in there looking under the hood, kicking the tires and seeing what the situation is.

Pretty soon this has nothing to do with Paul Vallas. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: It has everything -- he's still in control of 163 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. the data.

Pretty soon this has nothing to do with Paul Vallas. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: And then we can have the --

And we still have a billion dollar problem that somebody has to be responsible for. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Well, I can't take responsibility for solving something that people won't let me get at. I mean, I would be acting in ignorance to propose a policy solution without being allowed to review the raw data. I've been fighting from my first day in office for a chance to review that data. I want -- and we are not shy even about taking unpopular positions when necessary, but one thing we're committed to is doing our own analysis and looking at real data. I'm not going to have Paul Vallas or anybody else there write a number down on a piece 164 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. of paper and then say, Oh, by the way, take my word for it, here's the problem, now it's your problem.

Okay. So we come up with our own numbers, which we will do, particularly since we're going to move beyond Paul Vallas and the state Budget Director will be involved, hopefully the Controller's Office will be involved -- CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Hopefully.

-- hopefully we'll be involved. I guess what I'm really getting to is, there are definitely going to be cuts. There's definitely going to be a need for state subsidy. There's definitely going to be a need for local subsidy. I'm asking not so much for us to resolve what the numbers should be at this point, but you know in the end where I'm going. Doesn't it require a millage shift? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Look, I 165 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. commend your leadership, for example, on the proposed transfer in real estate millage, but I would note in dealing with the magnitude of the problem, that would yield $20 million in revenue. We're talking about an annual problem of $200 million, right? I don't see anybody on the Council and I am not suggesting a 10 or 30 or 50 percent increase in real 11 estate tax. Nobody wants that, and I am 12 not for that, right? Somehow they're 13 going to make -- 14

And no one 15 is suggesting that. 16 CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: But 17 I'm -- 18

I guess what 19 I'm suggesting is that there are 20 automatically going to be cuts. There's automatically going to be a need for more state subsidy. There's automatically going to be a need for more local subsidy, and doesn't part of that local subsidy have to come from a millage 166 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. shift? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: From the millage?

From a millage shift. Doesn't part of that subsidy have to come from a millage shift? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: I think that the action you've taken is productive and contributes to a solution, but I believe that we are facing a School District crisis of such large magnitude and the major sources of money would either be the state or real estate taxes, and the state is something we don't have any control over. Everything we've heard is that it's going to be a fight and that the state thinks it's very unlikely -- the state's position is that they have put in $300 million plus over the last four years.

I'm aware of all the issues. The simple question is, isn't the local subsidy going to have to 167 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC. require a millage shift? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: If you're asking if I'm for the proposal that you have on the millage shift --

No. I'm not necessarily asking if you're for that particular proposal. I'm asking, isn't the new local subsidy required to help the School District going to have to require a millage shift? CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: I think that would be productive, but if you're asking me theoretically what are the options, it doesn't necessarily have to be a millage shift. They could just raise the total level of real estate tax. I mean, if they doubled everybody's real estate taxes, the schools would have the money without a millage shift. Nobody would do that, I hope.

I was asking you a serious question. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: That's a serious answer. 168 4/18/07 - WHOLE - BILL 070114, ETC.

It's not a serious answer. CONTROLLER BUTKOVITZ: Sure, because --