COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, April 3, 2024 11:44 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILMEMBER NINA AHMAD COUNCILMEMBER CINDY BASS COUNCILMEMBER KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMEMBER MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILMEMBER JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILMEMBER KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMEMBER JIM HARRITY COUNCILMEMBER CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILMEMBER RUE LANDAU COUNCILMEMBER QUETCY LOZADA COUNCILMEMBER NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMEMBER ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMEMBER MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMEMBER ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMEMBER JEFFERY YOUNG, JR. BILLS 240179, 240180, 240181, and 240182 RESOLUTION 240193 - - 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
This is the public hearing and public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bills No. 240179, 240180, 240181, 240182, and Resolution No. 11 240193. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the roll to take attendance.
Councilmember Young. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. (No response.)
Councilmember 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Harrity. (No response.)
Here. Thank you. A quorum of the Committee is present and this hearing is 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. now called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the title of the resolutions.
Bill No. 240179, an ordinance to adopt the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Bill No. 240180, an ordinance 9 amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," to provide for an increase in the tax that the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia is authorized to impose on real estate; and amending Chapter 16 19-1300, entitled "Real Estate Taxes," to establish an equivalent reduction in the tax rate for the City real estate tax; and making technical changes; all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 240181, an ordinance 22 to adopt a Fiscal Year 2025 Capital Budget. Bill No. 240182, an ordinance 25 to adopt a Capital Program for the six 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Fiscal Years 2025 through 2030 inclusive. Resolution No. 240193, providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia of a Revised Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia covering Fiscal Years 2025 through 2029, and incorporating revisions with respect to Fiscal Year 2024, which is to be submitted by the Mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to an Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement by and between the City and the Authority.
Thank you very much. Today we will continue the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole to consider the bills read by the Clerk that constitute proposed operating and capital spending measures for Fiscal Year 2025, a Capital Program, and a forward-looking Capital Plan for Fiscal Year 2025 through Fiscal Year 2030. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. This morning we will hear testimony from the Office of Children and Families, the Free Library, Parks and Recreation, and the Department of Human Services. This afternoon we will continue our hearing and hear testimony from the Commerce Department and Mural Arts. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first witness to testify from the Administration.
The first person to testify is Vanessa Garrett Harley, Chief Deputy Managing Director.
I also want to acknowledge the presence of Councilmember Rue Landau. Also, for all members, you can ask questions of the following organizations that falls under the jurisdiction of the Office of Children and Families: The Free Library of Philadelphia, Parks and Recreation, and Department of Human Services can all be 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. called during this morning session. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Always good to see you, Vanessa, but just officially for the record just state your name and your title and you can begin your testimony. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Good morning, Council President. Vanessa Garrett-Harley, Chief Deputy Managing Director for the Office of Children and Families. Good morning, President Johnson and members of City Council. My name is Vanessa Garrett Harley and I'm Chief Deputy Managing Director for the Office of Children and Families, which is now encompassed within the Managing Director's Office. I'm here to testify on the FY25 budget bills. The Office of Children and Families, otherwise known as OCF, includes the following City departments: 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. The Department of Human Services, Parks and Recreation, and the Free Library of Philadelphia. OCF, through the Early Child Education Division, administers the PHLpreK program and through the Prevention Division administers the following programs: Out of School Time or OST, Youth Workforce, Social Service Supports and Community Schools, and the Education Support Center, ESC. With me today are Kimberly Ali, Commissioner of DHS; Sue Slawson, Commissioner of Parks and Recreation; Kelly Richards, President and Director of the Free Library; Sean Perkins, Chief of Early Childhood Education; and Christine Piven, Chief of Prevention Services for the Office of Children and Families and Nadine Perese, Chief Financial Officer for the Office of Children and Families and other members of my team. While each of our departments has submitted formal written testimony, I'm pleased to be here today representing 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. all OCF. I'd like to highlight some of the successes and plans for our departments and programs. The Department of Human Services has continued to make great strides towards keeping children and families at home and in their communities. For the first time ever, the number of children in dependent placement is close to 3,000, down from 6,200 in 2017. This amounts to a 50 percent reduction of children in dependent care. In addition, the number of kids in placement -- out of those number of kids in placement, 50 percent are placed with kin. With regards to juvenile justice, DHS continues to support at-risk youth in their own homes and communities to prevent them from entering into the juvenile justice system. With the assistance of City Council, we have increased our community-based safe spaces by adding two additional Community 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Evening Resource Centers, or CERCs, one in the Northeast Division and one in East Division of the City, bringing the total number of CERCs to 6. Additionally, we've grown our juvenile justice diversion services in an effort to keep those youth involved in the juvenile justice system from further penetration, making every effort to keep those youth who can be safely maintained in their own communities at home and utilizing detention only when necessary. At Parks and Recreation, during the summer of 2023, we were able to host over 5,000 youth at our day camps, and we had almost 640,000 visits at our 60 public pools. Parks and Rec is gearing up for another summer season with robust program offerings and services. We recently held the second annual Philly Freeze, a one-day pool fundraiser that supports our aquatic programs and assisted in raising awareness of the need for lifeguards. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Parks and Recs will once again offer hiring incentives for lifeguards to assist in recruitment and making sure that we have the necessary number to ensure that pools open on time and are safe for the 2024 summer season. Free swim lessons will also be offered for residents at many of the pools. Working across City agencies and with community partners, Parks and Rec will continue to provide safe and fun programming by offering summer camps and play streets throughout the City.
Youth can have supervised play, water activities, receive free nutritious meals and, via a partnership with the Free Library, reading opportunities to enhance literacy. m. m. Moreover, Parks and Rec will 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. once again provide Kensington Activations, which provide high-quality experiences to support working families and youth through the Play Parks initiative at Hissey Playground, McPherson Square Park, and Harrowgate Park. The Free Library of Philadelphia has made major strides in bringing new staff on board to allow us to offer stable five-day service in the branches and Saturday service in 27 libraries across the City. The Free Library is also currently gearing up to offer Sunday service hopefully in the fall. The revitalization of our city's libraries is a bright spot in our city that will assist residents of all ages with the ability to read, research, and learn. Thanks to the budgetary support that the Free Library received from the City and City Council, we're now rolling out new computers for staff and public 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. use. This will provide the libraries the ability to enhance services by providing digital access. This technology upgrade will improve the internet speed and bring wireless printing to our patrons. Additionally, the proposed increase in the FY25 budget will allow us to do enhanced cleaning and environmental services in the neighborhood libraries. Our early childhood education or PHLpreK program is thriving. With a 93 percent enrollment rate, our 5,250 slots are placed throughout the City in 223 locations and 43 zip codes. Over 96 percent of our seats are in high-quality centers, and we provide support for those other seven centers that are striving to achieve high quality status. Nearly three-quarters of our centers self-reported as being M/W/DBE. This spring, in conjunction with our partners at the School District and the funders at the state and federal level, 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. we will be launching a universal enrollment process for parents to choose a publicly funded pre-K program for their children. This process will allow the City to maximize its publicly funded seats. Our focus for the new fiscal year will be on maintaining the quality of the program and supporting and retaining a highly qualified workforce in order to educate our young learners. Finally, our Prevention Services Division has been working feverishly to develop two new amazing programs for children and youth this summer. In conjunction with the School District, we'll be debuting the Summer Achievers program, which will offer 63 programs at 50 District schools. The programs will offer academic enrichment, including English language arts and math instructions, taught by School District teachers in the mornings and fun camp-like enrichment opportunities 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. facilitated by qualified out-of-school-time providers in the afternoon. And for our older youth and young adults, in partnership with Philadelphia Works and the School District of Philadelphia, we've created a new summer youth employment program called Career Connected Learning, C2L-PHL. C2L is a youth workforce development program that replaces the summer jobs program known as WorkReady. This program will offer 8,000 summer work experiences with enhanced training, career exposure, and work-based learning experiences. Moreover, for the first time, 2,000 of these slots will continue during the school year. We expect the applications for this program to go live and be available to the public by no later than mid April. gov/C2L-PHL. My staff and I are here today to answer any specific questions that you 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. may have about any of these departments or programs. Thank you very much for your support.
Thank you very much for your testimony. I just have a couple of brief questions before I turn it over to my members. When you talk about the new Summer Achievers program in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia, the program will offer 50 sites with 63 programs. Give us an idea of how the sites were determined, the actual budget for those particular sites, and also will this be a part of the Mayor's year-round school initiative where she talked about also partnering with other organizations, non-profits for year-round programming for schools? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Understood. I'm going to ask Christine Piven, my Chief of Prevention, who is over that program, to come up, but while Christine is coming, I will just in 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. general, in terms of your second question as to whether it would be a part of the Mayor's program as she looking at full day, full year, the Mayor is looking at -- and those of us who are working with her, looking at all of the existing programs and seeing how all of these things are aligned and integrate together in order to achieve that full day, full year. So, yes, the Summer Achievers program, some would argue, might be one of the first steps towards what we're looking at to build that model that she's talking about for full day, full year.
Will full day, full year also, would that be under your purview? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Full day, full year I believe will come under the Mayor's Office of Education, the Chief Education Officer that they have now hired, but I do work very closely 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. with them. And so you heard in my testimony as I talk about us providing supports for certain programs. All of that stuff will still come under Office of Children and Families, so we'll be working kind of hand in hand.
We're in good hands, Vanessa. Thank you. Appreciate you.
Hi. My name is Christine Piven. I'm Chief of Prevention. So the first question you asked was about how the sites were chosen, the 50 sites. So about a year ago we went through a rigorous RFP process to pick new OST providers, and we did that in conjunction with the School District to identify high need schools across the City. So those are the sites that we've chosen. Certainly can get you a list of all those sites. You can see the neighborhoods, et cetera.
And 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. when you say high needs, I guess this would be based upon poverty, crime, gun violence?
We can provide that analysis that we used to make those determinations.
Please just provide that for the Chair so the members could have an opportunity to review it as well. And what's the budget for that particular initiative?
We can break that down for you. The budget for just the Summer Achievers, that's what you're looking for?
All 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. right. Thank you. In terms of early childhood pre-K, what is the percentage of PHLpreK eligible three- to four-year-olds in the City of Philadelphia pre-K program and the number of seats that are supported, and out of the current seats, how many seats are currently filled? And I know I asked this question early on when we kicked off the budget process, so I'll be very short in detail on my questioning. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: No 14 problem, Councilman. As you see, Sean Perkins has joined us, and he is the Chief of the Early Childhood Education and will give you more detailed answers. More generally I would just say to you that we currently have 5,250 pre-K seats, and of them, we have a 93 percent fill rate that we're very proud of. About 93 percent of our seats are filled, and they spread across those 223 locations and 43 zip codes that I mentioned. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I'm not sure I remember the other part of the question.
The other -- well, you actually answered it. It was how many seats were actually filled. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Okay.
And also I know we're flat-lined in terms of funding going into FY25. There isn't a significant increase. Just give us an overview on what is the Administration's agenda over the next five years to continue supporting the, I guess I would call it, the pre-K to career pipeline for our young people? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Absolutely. So for FY25 budget, there was not an ask for a tremendous increase because we are focused on quality. We are focused on trying to maintain the program that we have and also on instituting an implement of the universal early education process in the City. We 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. wanted to be not just about PHLpreK at the City but for the ease and availability of both children and families, it's about building a whole ecosystem about early childhood education. And so we worked very collaboratively, and Sean will give you more details, with the School District as well as with the state and the federal government, because you know, there's Pre-K Counts and there's also Head Start in the City, which are all part of this. What we will hope to be launching in May is what's called a universal application, and that is so that families only have to put in one application. Right now each one of these programs has a different application, and it puts a different level of onus on a parent to try to figure out what may or may not be best for their child. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that the process is easy and that our parents are getting 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. high-quality education. And so a lot of the focus is on that. Now, I think your question went to in the text couple years, though. Certainly I can't tell you the dollar amount right now, but I'm sure there will be some ask for some increases as we move forward over the years. But some of the things are not just about increasing seats. We have a good program in Philadelphia that's being touted even nationally. It is thriving. We want to make sure that it stays that way and you don't lose the focus on the quality and where you're really trying to go just merely by adding seats, right? And we want to maximize all seats in the City, because there are still some vacancies available in these programs that I'm talking about us putting together. But the other focus is also on working towards enhancing the workforce. The PHLpreK is experiencing workforce challenges just like many of 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the other jobs in the City. So doing what we can, we are certainly exploring ways and opportunities to help, along with recruitment as well as retention of those teachers and teaching assistants that you need so desperately to make sure that this runs. But I'll turn it over to Sean may have some additional details.
Good morning. Sean Perkins, Chief of Early Childhood Education. One of the other elements that we've heard from providers across the City regardless of the child's age, income status or location is the mental and behavior health needs of the children that are showing up at younger ages and the interventions that are necessary for them. We invest in a quality support center to provide those necessary coaching and professional development trainings to ensure that the teachers are well prepared, as well as the child and the family are getting the services all 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. in one cohesive unit together.
In terms of the portal that you are creating, the one-stop shop, how will you separate seats that are based upon income criteria and seats aren't, right? I'm a fairly new dad, so I know a little bit about the Pre-K Counts as well as PHLpreK process, right? And so how would a new portal kind of break down the income piece versus the non-income criteria when people go on their portal to see if they qualify? And then the second part is, what are we doing to make sure that we're still building up the providers in terms of making sure they go from a three star to a four star to a five star? Because as a parent, you're looking for five stars for your little ones, and that will determine if you're going to enroll in certain programs, but also I know early on there was a process where we were actually helping providers get from four 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to five stars as well.
Yes. Thank you. So the first part of the question about the administrative function about making sure families who are income eligible for seats are indeed filling the seats that they are eligible for, that's the administrative function, and as Vanessa mentioned here, that's the collaboration we have to do with the School District, the administrator of those means-based programs like Head Start and Pre-K Counts. That's the work that we do together with them, and it's been going quite well and we've developed a process by which we would be able to identify that. But, yeah, families will have to insert their income information or other eligibility determination criteria, but we'll have web-based opportunities. We'll also have supports from our 370 locations across the center. We have administrators at the School District and 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. with the PHLpreK team to help. Also, it's available in different languages. 4 So we are excited about this opportunity. 5 Council President, you 6 mentioned about the rise in the quality, 7 and that's where we're very proud of 8 receiving a Gold Medal from the Kaiser 9 Permanente evaluation of early childhood 10 programs across the country. Of the 75 11 major cities across the United States, 12 Philadelphia is one of less than a dozen 13 that received that Gold Medal for 14 focusing on that quality. 15
Can you say that again for the record, please? We need to hear you. We need to celebrate when we do good. Say it again.
We do. We're very excited. Of the 75 largest cities in America, Philadelphia is one of less than a dozen to have received a Gold Medal for having high-quality, accessible pre-K.
Can 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. we clap for that, y'all. - - - (Applause.) - - -
I mean, if you want to keep going, we can say other than New York City, there isn't another city in our country's history that has grown as fast as Philadelphia has. So while we have been growing by -- in the last six years, we've grown 162 percent. We've also improved the quality. In Year 1, 56 percent of our seats were considered high quality by the state. We are currently at 96 percent.
That's what's up. Best news I've heard all day.
You asked about how we're assuring -- I think it's great 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to talk about where we are right now, but let's talk about the future too I think is really important. Yeah, we have what we call pre-qualified centers. So we currently have identified locations 7 this year where we are building up their 8 quality for any future investments to be 9 prepared. So while we don't contract 10 with them right now, they're in a quality 11 improvement process to make sure that 12 when we are ready to add more seats, 13 they're also in our priority zip codes 14 with whom you heard from Ms. Piven that 15 we have identified parts of the City that have higher needs than other parts. That's our equity approach to this.
Okay. That's what's up. Now, Vanessa, your former life, you were doing this under your purview, correct? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: My former life -- oh, in the last Administration? 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Good job. This is new, but you've been doing this, so we'll give you the credit. You can clap for them. Give people their flowers. - - - (Applause.) - - -
We're not here to tear people down. Let's celebrate. And all jokes aside, that's near and dear to me, right? Because we meet a lot of lobbyists that come like and advocate for a variety of different things, right, but our most precious asset here in the City of Philadelphia are our children, right? That's not a political statement. That's not a statement for likes and clicks. That's just the reality of our city, right? 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Because ultimately those young people that we're investing in now, right, they'll be the future Councilmembers, they'll be the future Mayor, they'll be the future State Representatives. Some of them can run for President. They'll run our city, right? And so that's the reason why I want to double down on how we look at continuously investing in our young people. And we talk about making the City of Philadelphia safer, cleaner, and greener, which is great, but there's also the economic opportunity for all, right? That part right there is like the crux of most of the departments who are here today, because it's all social service focused -- DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Understood.
-- during this part of our session. So I do want to commend your team for what you're doing in this 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. particular area. I'm going to shift to Parks and Recreation. Welcome back, Sue Slawson. Come on up to the table, Susan. We appreciate you. (Witness approached witness table.) - - - (Applause.) - - -
Giving a shout-out to Aparna and Francesco over there for every time I'm calling every five minutes to make sure my playground equipment is done, right, or my architectural design for new equipment is moving forward, they're very patient, even when I text them on the weekend. So I just thank you, Aparna and Francesco, for just being patient with me. Just around Parks and Recreation, I just want to get an idea on 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. just a couple things, particularly around support for diverse small businesses and making sure that what's our plan to strategize to make sure that we're making sure that we're supporting small Black and brown and women-owned businesses. I know under the former Rebuild initiative we were exceeding our goals in terms of making sure that process was diverse and inclusive and part of our negotiation with the prior Administration when we signed off for Rebuild but that this had to be a priority. So if y'all can just give us an update on where we're at from that aspect. And then also out of your top five largest contracts, four out of five have like zero participation, right? And we want to see how we're looking at addressing that in terms of making sure it's diverse and inclusive and making sure people have an opportunity to participate. Now, you're new, Susan, so 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you're just picking up from the last Administration, so that's not on you, but nevertheless, when we address poverty here in the City of Philadelphia, I'm a strong advocate that unless Black and brown small businesses have a seat at the table, we'll be in a continuous cycle of poverty forever. So any major projects that come through this body, we all in this body recognize that diversity and inclusion is the key part of helping us address poverty. So those are my two questions, where are we on Rebuild and then in terms of our largest contracts, how are we making sure that Black and brown and women-owned businesses have a seat at the table. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Council President, we're going to ask Aparna to come up and help us both on the Rebuild and probably part of the secondary question as well. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: First, 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. let me say thank you, President Johnson. I'm actually really glad to be here. I'm hoping that I can --
Good to see you. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Hoping that I can bring some enhancement, some changes, thinking about our young people, safety, clean, green for Parks and Recreation, make some changes, along with the support of all City Council. So I am excited to be here. Thank you. Aparna is going to talk about Rebuild, because that's her baby, and just want to congratulate Aparna as well for being the Director of Capital Projects, former Deputy Commissioner of Capital Infrastructure for Parks and Recreation. DIRECTOR PALANTINO: Thank you, Susan. Aparna Palantino, Capital Projects Office Director. Council President, I'd like to 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. break your question into two parts. So with regards to capital projects, we have been able to exceed the ranges that were established by the Office of Economic Opportunity on all of our requirements contracts. In addition, for Rebuild, 56.6 percent of all of the committed dollars have been awarded to minority or women-owned businesses. One of the benefits of having a combined office in the future is that we'll be able to take the best parts of both programs and continue that work, be able to find opportunities, whether they be smaller contracts broken up into more trades per project, to offer opportunities to those smaller businesses to be able to get their foot into the door on City projects and grow those businesses to then become the prime contractors, large prime contractors on projects moving forward.
When you talk about everything being 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. housed under one system now in terms of capital projects, right, it's no secret that a lot of particularly District members and at-large members that support a variety of different projects recognize that there's been a bottleneck in terms of getting these projects actually done on time, definitely not under budget. Most of our projects are over budget, right? And the thought process early on was to separate the two entities. We had Rebuild over here, capital projects over here. Now that it's combined, just reassure us that we will have more efficient and effective process moving forward, because we were all under the impression that the first model was the model to go by putting the multi-million-dollar huge projects in one area to work on versus the smaller projects that we have in our districts in another area. So just give us an overview of what your vision is moving forward to get 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. our projects moving. DIRECTOR PALANTINO: Thank you for your question, Council President. So the goal of the new Capital Projects Office is to make all of the capital projects more efficient as well as more cost effective, and in working with DPP and our analysis of projects over the last eight years certainly, we have found different contracting mechanisms that are helping us to do that. At Parks and Rec alone, we were able to complete about 54 projects at a value of $45 million in one year. So we have found ways, different contracting methods that continue to encourage participation, et cetera, to be able to complete projects more quickly. As I mentioned previously, it's breaking them down into further components, using cooperative contracts, other bidding mechanisms, being able to reach out to more businesses to 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. participate in that. So we want to take that and utilize it across the board. We will continue in both for capital projects as well as Rebuild, which will in the future just be part of the Capital Project portfolio, to work with Council offices like we do currently on capital projects so that you're able to better prioritize your investments across the systems and have a better sense of project scope, project budgets. You'd have a direct involvement in development of all of that as well. So the goal is to work partner or closely with Councilmembers to be able to create more opportunity in partnerships for business participation, but as well as to control costs moving forward.
Okay. And this is my last one. I'm going to turn it over to my members. I want to go back -- if you can just provide to the Chair the numbers that you 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. exceeded in terms of diversity and inclusion based upon the Office of Equal Opportunity. So we don't have to go over it. Just provide it for the record. I also want to give a shout-out to my good friend Frank Fabey. So when you see him, tell him I said thank you. He's made my life a little -- oh, he's here. Thank you, Frank, publicly for making my life a little easier. The last thing is, there's always been a major issue regarding workforce development in terms of how there's a pipeline for neighborhood people to really be a part of Parks and Rec, but you have to have a degree, you have to take the civil service test. And what I've seen is that a lot of the neighborhood people who have seasonal positions, right, but they live in the neighborhood and they adopt the rec center and probably spend half of their lives at that rec center, right, so it's 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. a combination of me serving as a seasonal worker but also as a volunteer because you just love the rec center and playground because -- or park because it's in your neighborhood. I remember there was an initiative where there was a pathway to be like a community engagement liaison as opposed to being an RS-1. I guess that's the official one where you have to have a degree and so forth. Where are we with that initiative? How can we open it up so more people from the neighborhood -- because I think one of the only gripes I do have is when you do have the people that's volunteering and doing the work, but they can't really be a part of having an actual job at that rec center. Then you send somebody else from a whole different neighborhood that don't know the nuances of the current neighborhood and then there's -- sometimes it's just off, if I just be up front. So if you can just elaborate on 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. that particular initiative, and then I'll turn it over to my members. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: So we actually have a position which is our recreation outreach worker. It was intentionally designed for those young people, those older adults as well that may not have that degree that have participated in recreation opportunities and facilities and hanging out, growing up, but they can't pass the test, because that's real, right? So we had that position put in place on purpose so we could hire people from the communities. Those positions are still there. Sometimes there are some challenges with passing some of our background, because there's still a process, because we made sure that you didn't have to have a degree for this. We changed some of our processes intentionally so we could hire within the community. So we still have those 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. positions available, and we are looking for people. Let me just put that out there. We actually have a job fair that's coming up. It's going to be at the Dell Music Center. We also have an opportunity to go and be a part of some other job fairs, because we are pushing. We are trying to fill some of these positions. And we do have those positions, because we want the community members that have been supporting Parks and Recreation for years and for decades to be the ones in there working, because they know the community, they love the community, and they love our facilities.
Well, thank you very much. Very, very near and dear to me from a job opportunity for individuals who live inside our neighborhoods that want to be a part of Parks and Rec. So I'm going to turn it over to my members. Just want to give a shout-out to Cindy Bass, who is the Vice 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Chair of Parks and Rec. When it comes to diversity and inclusion, she held up the hearing and the bill a couple years ago when we first started Rebuild and said, this bill does not move if it's not diverse and inclusive. I don't want a handshake, I want to have it in writing. So we are going in the right direction, Cindy. So I just want to give you your flowers publicly as we make sure Philadelphia is diverse and inclusive as we move the City of Philadelphia forward. At this point, I want to acknowledge the current Chair of Parks and Recreation, Councilmember Anthony Phillips.
Thank you, Council President Johnson. And also I want to thank my co-partner, Cindy Bass, Vice Chair, for all her years of service as Chair, and I'm looking forward to seeing what we're going to be doing together as a team to take Parks and Rec to another level. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Welcome, Commissioner Slawson. I'm excited that you're here, and we want to begin to roll up our sleeves and do the work of the Lord for our city. The first question -- I just have a couple of questions for Parks and Rec. If I get time, I'll get to Office of Children and Family and then the Library. I am greatly concerned about -- I just want this on the record -- about public safety and cleanliness in our parks. Over the past several months, we've had public safety incidents happen in parks. We've also had a number of short dumping happening in our parks as well. And there's been a large request from residents to have park rangers in parks to help with public safety for our young people and our seniors, even during the day for dumping, during the night. Is there anywhere in the budget that talks about how we can increase the number of park rangers in our parks and 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. what would that look like in order for us to make that work so we can extend public safety and illegal dumping to get rid of that as well? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: So I think the park rangers are key to what we do, but when we're talking about public safety, when we're talking about short dumping, it's more than just park rangers. It is a coordinated effort with the Streets Department, with Sanitation, as well as the Philadelphia Police Department, because we need enforcement. We just had last week an incident where we had major short dumping in West Fairmount Park. Someone must have demolished a house or a few homes and they dropped it right in West Fairmount Park, and this is where the collaboration comes in. I reached out to Director Williams and Commissioner Jacobs Shipman. I texted them pretty late at night. By the next morning, the short dumping was clear. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. So there has to be some type of, one, we need to educate our communities, because we're talking about clean, green, and safe. We need to be on the media. We need to show people that we're doing everything we possibly can to make sure the City is clean, but we need your help. We need you to identify these people that are short dumping. We need you to give us the license tag. But we also need to show that we're out there cleaning it up as soon as they're dumping it. So that's part of what needs to happen. We need to work collaboratively, like we're doing, Streets Department, Sanitation, Parks and Recreation. And let me just say that the short dumping, we have staff that we get the short dumping as well. This particular time the Streets Department assisted us. That pulls us away from our everyday work. It pulls on our resources. And so education, some kind 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. of media, and enforcement, and it has to be a collaborative effort. So the park rangers can be out there. They can write tickets, but it is difficult, because our people go through trash trying to identify who dumps, but if you're cleaning out a house, you have wood, you have toilets, you have sinks. You don't have anything that identifies that particular person that has actually dumped. We are working and we do have opportunities now where we're talking about putting additional cameras, and Frank just talked about solar cameras, right? But you also have to pay for the poles for those solar cameras to go on. So there's some things that we're already in the works talking about. The rangers can come. We can lock gates. That's the other thing. You know, our rangers, we lock gates at a certain time, we open them at a certain time, but we also need our community members to be our 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. eyes and our ears to make sure this happens.
And just a quick follow-up. What some of the residents have mentioned is that they just sometimes want the rangers to be present during the day or even during the evenings when they're sitting out there hanging out just for like a sense of comfort and a sense of peace, and that's why it was brought up. So we can continue to talk about that, but I love -- just a quick follow-up. If we could -- I love what you just said about the process to do cleanups and so forth with our parks, but if you can get something that we convey to neighbors whereas can we have a written process to kind of like -- if there's illegal dumping happening, if I can say, here are the steps and protocols to go to just to make sure that you get that taken care of. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: So are 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you talking about something for the community where they know the process of reporting --
Yes. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: -- this whole -- absolutely. We can definitely come up with that.
That way we can hand that off to them. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Okay. Thank you.
Commissioner Slawson, given your experience spearheading significant renovations at the historic Dell Music Center, which you did a great job at, how can City Council collaborate with you to facilitate major renovations for our recreation centers? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: It's funding. It's really about -- so we get our funding. You get funding. It's about us coming up, going out together, looking at your district, me going with 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you, and us saying, okay, here's a priority list, this is the facility that we're going to pour money into right away. So I think we just need to work together to go out to your districts and let's identify where you want your funding to go, how you want to start changing your district.
One last question, Council President, just one last one. In regard to major renovations at recreation centers, could you elaborate on ways in which private investors can contribute to the progress of those renovations and in what way should the City work with them also given your experience with Snider Hockey? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Aparna is actually going to take that.
Okay. Thank you. DIRECTOR PALANTINO: 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Councilmember Phillips, so we currently -- as you know, we're significantly underresourced for the level of capital investment required at parks and recreation centers. So we have a number of projects annually that we work with non-profit partners, for-profit businesses. We solicit every opportunity we can to bring in private investment in a number of ways and to be able to do more with less essentially. So we always welcome that. For Councilmembers, if you're aware of businesses, for-profit or non-profit, that are interested in partnering with us, we do that on a regular basis. We have standard contracts in place that help to facilitate that. Annually I would say off the top of my head we probably at least have 10 to 15 projects a year where we're partnering with the Sixers, the Phillies, non-profits like Make the World Better, 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. et cetera. So we welcome that investment. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Can I add something to that? Vanessa just reminded me. So when I was back here in my other life, I had the Flyers reach out to me. So those ice rinks that we have throughout the system, that was a phone call that I received that we worked hard to get the ice rinks. And so there are opportunities. We just have to be willing to work and work through all the nuances of the City to make these public-private partnerships work.
Thank you. And I also recognize in going through the data, there's not an increase this year for Parks and Recreation. Could you elaborate as to why there's not 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. a funding increase? Not on the capital side, on the operational side. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I'm actually going to ask Deputy Commissioner Washington to come up and respond to that. We are flat, but it's for good reason. (Witness approached witness table.)
I want to hear why we're flat. Because we're cleaner and greener, safer, economic opportunity for everybody, and I think during the pandemic, we really utilized Parks and Rec like hours a 17 day from a programming standpoint to keep 18 our young people occupied, and so when I 19 saw flat, I just want to get an idea of 20 why not the investment. 21 DEPUTY COMMISSIONER WASHINGTON: 22 Good afternoon. Marissa Washington, 23 Deputy Commissioner for Parks and 24 Recreation. So we do have a slight increase 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to our budget this year. So we added $255,000 for CEO to help us clean some of our parks. We also received over the last couple of years a lot of money from Council and we're still trying to spend down those funds. A lot of that is based on the vacancies that we have, having the same issues that everyone else has been having. So we're still trying to fill those positions, but we did have a small increase and we also have some funds that have been fronted in FY24 that we're going to use for activities in FY25. So you're not seeing a full -- kind of the full picture in this budget. So I think we will be fine with the budget that we have for FY25 and being able to provide the services that we need as long as we can fill our positions.
Awesome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you, Council President. I want to stay on this line of questioning. I want to better understand what this budget tells us about our capital investment strategy in our parks and recreation centers. So Philadelphia spends $50 per capita on our Parks and Recreation Department. This is less than half of the national spending, which is $98 per capita. For comparison, Pittsburgh spends $89 per capita on parks and rec and Baltimore spends $125 per capita on their parks and rec facilities. Philadelphia's underinvestment in capital projects means that there's a lot of deferred maintenance that is needed for parks and rec facilities. In fact, as much as we all love Rebuild, I would argue that Rebuild was hundreds of millions of dollars for deferred maintenance as a result of our budgeting decisions over the years. So what is the Administration 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. doing to do more proactive maintenance work so that years from now we don't 4 need a Rebuild because we're taking care 5 of our assets? 6 COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I 7 believe the first step was putting 8 Capital under Aparna, having everything 9 run so there is a streamline, there's a 10 focus, and things are not all over the 11 place, having someone to manage and work 12 with City Council specifically. That's 13 number one. 14 The other piece is us, Parks 15 and Recreation, working along with City 16 Councilmembers and helping to direct your 17 funding in our facilities where we know 18 the most work needs to be done. 19 If there was an opportunity to 20 get additional funding, we would love to be along the line of Baltimore, New York and have that type funding to do the work in our facilities. When I came years ago, there was a project, there was a survey done and it talked about how 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. much -- that's over years ago -- how much it would really cost to upgrade recreation facilities, not parks, just recreation facilities. Over years ago 6 that was up 400-some-odd million dollars. 7 And so we're looking to get 8 additional funding in order for us to not 9 just maintain but to enhance our 10 facilities. We can't continue to provide 11 the kind of services in our facilities if 12 we're talking about clean, green, safe, 13 economic opportunities. Like you, I'm a 14 grand-mom now. So I want to take my 15 young people to a rec center, but I want it to be a recreation center that looks wonderful. And so we have to invest in our facilities in order for us to look like a New York or a Baltimore or some of those other facilities.
We fully agree. I would encourage us to really take a look at that capital line for Parks and Recreation so that we have what we need every year so that we don't 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. need a Rebuild. And I can tell you I spend my ITEF money. Councilmember Jones I think has as deficit, because he spends his ITEF money, right? So we are putting that money out, but it's not enough for the capital needs of our facilities. Earlier this year Parks and Rec was forced to leave millions in RACP grant money on the table because we did not have enough grant-writing capacity on our staff. So I want to hear about whether the budget includes a grant writer to allow Parks and Rec to maximize the amount of state, federal, and local dollars going to our parks and rec centers to help with these capital challenges. And are there other challenges that Parks and Rec has faced in executing capital projects and how can Council support you in removing those barriers? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: So I can speak to the grant writer. That's one of my top three priorities, is that there's 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. a lot of capital money out there from the state, from the federal government, but we don't have the capacity right now to pull down on that funding because we don't have a grant manager. And so that's on my list for us to hire, and it is in our budget to have a grant manager. So that will be happening. Again, we'll be able to put in for those RACP grants and federal grants.
That's really important. If the state has -- the state has billions of dollars that we don't have and we're leaving money on the table that we need just because we don't have grant-writing capacity, which I would argue if we pay a grant writer -- I'm not sure what the going salary is, 70K, 80K, whatever it is, it's going to be a high return on investment if we're able to pull that state money in for the capital projects that we need. I have some questions about the Juvenile Justice Services Center that I 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. will come back and ask later.
We're going to rock and roll. It's going to be a long day, thanks to the Appropriations hearing, but we're good. We'll keep this thing moving. That's how we get business done. I do just want to note for the record, the Capital Program over the next five-year program is actually decreased each year. And so just something for you and your team to review in terms of how you're having conversation with the Administration. But capital investment, Parks and Rec actually decreases over the next couple years in the Five Year Plan and just wanted to note that for the record, unless somebody wants to address it now. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: So the decrease is strictly related to the move of Capital Programs from Parks and Recreation to the Capital -- Aparna's department. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Okay. So it's a shift in funding from one to another? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes.
Okay. So we'll still see significant investment as we move forward -- COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Absolutely.
-- following the line of questioning of Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier. Jamie Gauthier, recognize.
Can somebody just clarify the number so that we are clear, right? We know that the money is moving under Aparna's management, but we just want to be able to compare the number for this proposed budget to what other years have looked like.
Do you want to answer that now or do you want to provide that to the Chair? 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: We'll provide it in writing to the Chair to make sure that we're giving you the totally accurate amount, but I will say that as Commissioner Slawson said, it aligns with at least positions that 8 are moving to the Capital Project Office 9 as well as a few other things, but I'll 10 return it to the President in writing so 11 you'll have it exactly. 12
13 Okay. Thank you. 14 The Chair now recognizes 15 Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you, everyone, for being here. Council President actually asked a couple of the questions I was going to ask, so I don't have to worry about that. We had one of the special interest groups, and I'm slipping on which one it was, come in requesting 250 more pre-K seats. If there were more 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. seats, would we have the children to fill those seats? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: I'm going to ask Sean to come back up, but I will say to you it's a little bit complicated. Certainly we would have the children to fill the seats in a sense, because we don't have as many pre-K seats as we have children in the City, and I would never be disingenuous and sit here and tell you that. However, it's more complicated, because you also have to have the teachers and the staff and the providers to be able to provide the program and the space for those children to go. And so that's some of what I was talking about when we're trying to make sure we maintain that quality and that we drill down and building that workforce and supporting the workforce, so that you have requisite places for those kids to go. Sean can elaborate a little 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. more, but I do know that there are places where there are some wait lists. There are places where some classrooms have closed because you didn't have the teachers and the teacher assistants or the employees that you needed. So it's not quite as simple as we put in 250 seats and we get you 250 kids immediately. You have to have the qualified providers and staff to be able to accommodate that.
That's beautiful. You actually answered a couple of my follow-up questions right in there. So the STAR three and four providers with full wait lists, right, we currently have that going on now, right?
Yes, Councilman. We do have STAR three and four high quality locations that do have wait lists. That's part of our job as administration is to make sure that we reallocate seats accordingly to make sure 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. that children and families are receiving the quality care that they can across our city, and we know that different neighborhoods have different needs and different quality, and I'd also say different types of communities that are being served. We have percent of our 9 children are English learners, so we want 10 to make sure that we're providing the 11 services that they need. 12
Okay. And will the City be promoting and advertising the pre-K again still? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Absolutely. We will be promoting it in different avenues and exploring different media, everywhere from social media to print to radio. Anywhere we can, we actually will be promoting it, yes.
Okay. I thank you for that. I mean, I get it, that the shortage of employees is hitting everybody, but I also think that when we can, we need to build this up more. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. There's a lot of kids in Philadelphia that may be on the cusp of qualifying and, you know, I think that this program is too important to the children of Philadelphia for us to settle. So thank you.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Kathy Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. President. Moms get the job done. I had to take a call about my son. So at any rate, I wanted to thank you all so much for this testimony this afternoon and for all the work that you all have done. I truly appreciate the PHLpreK services and particularly the summer program. I wanted to just ask a really quick question about that relative to how we are ensuring that we're focusing directly on reading during the summer. I 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. know for the summer camp, it's typically -- I think it's in the morning 9:00 to 12:00 you have the instruction period, and then 12:00 to 5:00 they have the sort of recreation, activity, arts and crafts or whatever they're doing for that particular day, but I do believe that we need additional instruction relative to reading, reading-focused, reading-based instruction. And so could you just talk about the morning portion of the summer camp, the 9:00 to 12:00?
So just -- sorry. Christine Piven, Chief of Prevention. So the morning program for Summer Achievers is actually managed by the School District. So it's their teachers coming in with their early literacy curriculum, their math curriculum, and the OST providers are there all day to assist with transitions and to assist in other ways. So I can get you more information, but I think the School 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. District will be best equipped to answer specifically all of the activities, because that's under their purview.
Okay. Because that's one issue that I think we hear about very often relative to the summer slide in our young people, but also ensuring that they are on par with their reading skills. And you know K through 3 you are learning to read, and beyond that you are reading to learn. And so I ask that not as just as a member of Council but as a parent, as someone who has children who have participated in these programs. I know and understand it very, very well. And I also say that because I'm going to go out and put them in a special reading program just for this summer to try to get their reading on par. The kids need help with reading. So I don't know how you all can work with the District to align or realign the curriculum, but these young 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. people are those who -- they're the COVID children. When they went to pre-K and kindergarten and first grade, it was COVID. So now they're catching up and they're playing catchup, and all of our kids in the City are playing catchup, because the kids out in the burbs, they went back to school. All the private schools in the burbs, they went back to school, but our kids are the ones that have to catch up. And so my request is if we could -- if you all in your team and your department could work with the School District to realign that curriculum to really focus on reading for our young people. If you look at the scores, they're not on reading level at all.
So I guess I just want to reemphasize the Summer Achievers, that is part of the focus. So why we have the morning and the partnership with the School District, again, it's the teachers, the School District teachers, 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. that will be teaching those sessions. They'll focus on early literacy and math. So using the School District curriculum. And I would add that across the board with our OST providers, we within their contracts and the work, we are aligned with the School District around early literacy. So that is also baked into the OST providers year round, not just summer as well.
Sure. I just wanted to put emphasis there, but I appreciate the work and everything you all are doing, but we got to get our kids on reading level, because they're matriculating up and through to middle school and high school and we're hearing from -- even I know Councilmember Gauthier had a hearing and employers seeking employees for life science positions and they're saying our young people just aren't on par. And so I just wanted to put a special emphasis there. Really quickly, I know I had 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. already mentioned this and defer always to my District Councilmember, Councilmember Jones, on this one, but I have to put this on the record for Wynnefield that the John C. Anderson Culture Center is closed, and I'm just going to say that. Any response there? Because we have no recreation center in Wynnefield at all. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes. Thank you. The center closed on -- and I'm sure you know -- on January the 8th and it was an abrupt closing unfortunately because there was a pipe that burst and we just did not have time to notify the community that we were going to close, but we did move the programs to the Parkside recreation facility. And there's a cost, and so if we want to talk about that offline, we can have that conversation to get the facility up and running and open again.
Okay. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you.
I heard the bell and I will honor the clock and come back on the next round. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. President. Good afternoon, everybody. (Good afternoon.)
You know what, I am actually going to come back to Parks and Recreation. Is that okay with you, Sue? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes, it is.
But it's good to see you and I'm so glad that you're back. Welcome. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you.
So I'd like to talk to the folks from DHS. I have a number of questions, and then I'll probably have to come back around for Parks and Recreation and some other questions that I have. And my first question is on -- as the former Chair of the Committee on Health and Human Services in which DHS was under, we did an extensive amount of work on talking about CUAs, the CUA system. For those who don't know, the CUAs are community umbrella agencies, which were supposed to take the place really of the traditional social work system here in the City of Philadelphia. And so my first question is around the CUA Scorecard, the DHS Scorecard. But there was this report that was issued annually, Improving Outcomes for Children. I haven't seen it in a minute. When was the last time it 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. was issued and when will be the next time it will be issued? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. So good afternoon. My name is Kimberly Ali. I am Commissioner for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services. And so the community umbrella agency or CUA Scorecard, the last time it was issued was in FY22. The FY23 scorecard will be posted within the next couple weeks.
Will it be done before budget hearings, most importantly? COMMISSIONER ALI: Oh, definitely, yes.
Okay. And I'm assuming that you'll make that available, because I'm sure that there will be some significant questions from the body regarding the report. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. COMMISSIONER ALI: Absolutely. I can make it available.
Can you also talk about one -- or actually there were two of the providers who were listed as community umbrella agencies that have since, from '22 to this moment, are no 9 longer providers because they had significant lawsuits based on actions that happened particularly around sexual assaults around children. And so can you discuss that matter? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. I can discuss the process --
Yes. COMMISSIONER ALI: -- in terms of why the decision was made in reference to a provider. I will name that provider since that information was public. And so in the end of 2022, Turning Points for Children, after much conversation with the Department, made a decision that they no longer wanted to provide case management services through 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. community umbrella agencies.
Can we pause for one second, though? Because I thought that the decision was made by the provider because they could not get insurance, they were no longer insurable based on their actions. Is that not true? COMMISSIONER ALI: So the provider was insurable, was able to get insurance. We have consistently paid for insurance for CUA providers since the inception. What the provider wanted the City to do was pay and to indemnify them for their own negligence, and that is what the City was not going to do.
I see. I see. Okay. Thank you. But continue. COMMISSIONER ALI: And so after we received notice, we certainly issued a very rigorous RFP process, because we were talking about four different geographical locations. And so in August of 2023, we actually named three 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. community umbrella agencies. That was for CUA 3, it's Concilio. For CUA it's 4 APM. For CUA 9 it's Greater Philadelphia 5 Community Alliance, or GPCA. The second provider that you are referring to is Tabor Community Partners, who gave us notice January, so January of 2024, that they too had made a decision that they no longer want to provide community umbrella agency services. Again, we issued an RFP, and we are in the silent process of the RFP process now in that we are vetting the providers who applied.
So let me ask you a question. Why are we offering RFPs for new providers when -- and this is wholly my opinion -- when the CUA system was put into place to sort of relieve the current -- well, what was then the social work system that was operating here in the City of Philadelphia? And so the idea was cases are overflowing, the caseloads are too 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. big, you know, we need to bring in additional providers, we some assistance. You know, the Department's idea was to shrink the number of social workers and to bring in this outside sort of -- these entities, which I never thought was a good idea, because you can't -- with a vulnerable population, you can't reduce the amount that you spend on the issue and at the same time expect an improved result. And now it seems as if we've spent the same amount -- and correct me if I'm wrong, but whatever our budget was through DHS prior to the CUA system, we currently have doubled that budget, because we have the same budget in the City of Philadelphia and we have the same expenditures with the CUA system. And please correct me if I'm wrong on that. COMMISSIONER ALI: So I'll do the first question that you asked in terms of why we moved to the CUA and then I'll ask our CFO, Nadine Perese, to talk about the finances. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. So when we decided as a system to move to Improving Outcomes for Children, which is the system transformation as it relates to the CUAs, the decision was not made based on wanting to shrink the number of social workers. That wasn't the decision. The decision was made because we did not have a presence with communities, so we lacked the engagement of communities at the Department. We also had a blurring of roles and responsibilities, if you will. We used to say that DHS at that particular time was everything for everybody and our mandate was around safety and keeping families together, and we lost sight of that. And so that's why we entered the system transformation. So what we maintained at the Department was our expertise around investigations, investigating child abuse reports, supporting families when there were general protective services reports, and allowing provider staff, because DHS 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. has always had contracted providers to do the ongoing case management with families once a decision was made by DHS whether or not the family needed formal child welfare services. So DHS does the investigation. Once the decision is made in terms of if the family needs ongoing support, then it's transferred to community umbrella agencies, again, providers who was doing the work since the inception of DHS. And so we wanted to clarify those roles and responsibilities. Additionally, we seen a lot of gains, just to be frank, in terms of the CUA system. We have challenges. Child welfare is extremely difficult.
Absolutely. COMMISSIONER ALI: Extremely difficult. So when I think about since Improving Outcomes for Children, we did have some periods of instability. I want to make that clear. From 2015 to 2017 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. was very, very difficult in child welfare, but we made some significant --
Why is that? COMMISSIONER ALI: Part of the reason was turnover, so turnover at the community umbrella agencies. I want to be very transparent in reference to that. The other thing, which was extremely significant, is that there were a number of changes to the child welfare laws, and so our system imploded during that particular time, the number of investigations, the number of hotline reports that came in, and we could not keep up with the demand. And so we had to do an infrastructure change on our front end, because we only want to investigate reports of child abuse and support families who need that support. And so we had to build a system on the front end in order to address that.
I thank you for that answer. It makes a lot of 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. sense, but I will say this, so we do this dance every year. COMMISSIONER ALI: We do.
But this is the first -- I got to say this is the first time I've heard that explanation, but I appreciate it. It makes sense, but I'm just saying this is the first time that I've heard that information. And I know that the bell has rung, but I just want to leave one thing on the table for my second round and, that is, I had a question based on what you said, which was the rationale for bringing in the CUA system was essentially to shift the responsibilities of DHS and the investigative part of it. I would like to note Philadelphia at one point had the highest rate of child separation in which we removed children from homes. We had the highest rate of 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. child separation from homes in the United States of America. COMMISSIONER ALI: We did in 2017, yes.
Yes. And in 2020, it was a rate that was three times higher than New York City and four times higher than Chicago. And so I'd like the data on that when I come back around. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. I have that.
Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Isaiah Thomas.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning to the Admin. Thank you all for the amazing work that you're doing. Vanessa, thank you for all you 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. do. I want to start with you. Talk to us a little bit about what's going on with out-of-school-time-based initiatives. A couple things. So you and I have talked in depth about some of the things that we need to do to get ready for summer learning and summer work. We know JEVS has the contract and they've taken it from PYN. Just give me a couple seconds to talk a little bit about where we are with summer readiness and what we're looking to do, and then I want to ask a couple more questions about the Library as well as Parks and Rec. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: So I feel good about this summer, excited about the summer and what it will bring for our young people. I do convene a multi-department or sort of collaborative summer planning meeting to make sure that we are all on the same page. We meet every other week right now, and that's various City agencies, including the 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Police Department and the School District and others, in order to make sure that we're all aware of each other's summer plans. The lion's share of the summer planning obviously comes out of Out of School Time. Our investment in Out of School Time was around 42 million, about where we continue to have it. We're excited about this Summer Achievers program that we talked about, and the reason we're so excited about that, it's the first time that we will have 63 programs in 50 schools. We had a very small cadre of school and out-of-school-time programming last year, but this has been much skilled up and much expanded, and so we're pleased with that. We also have our Parks and Recreation who continue to have summer camps across the City that are either free or low cost for residents. We're opening our pools. They will also be 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. doing play streets. Our goal is to get to around 300 play streets. At those play streets we provide play, water activity, free meals, because we also are very concerned about our food security. We do food security work, because we know for some of our young people the only time they may eat may be in school. So we want to make sure we supplement that in the various summer programs that we do. And then our Free Library also has a myriad of programs that really try to -- and this goes to some of what Councilwoman Gilmore Richardson was talking about. We've recognized there are issues with literacy and want to make sure that we are intentional at OCF and all of our programs are aligning together. So the Free Library does various programs around reading and literacy and other kind of STEM programs and other summer camp-related programs that we work on as well. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
So since you mentioned the Free Library, I prefer that the leaders of the rec center and the Library not come up, because my time is limited. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Understood.
They both -- the leader of the Library, he does great work. We've met. We've talked in depth. But I'm wondering from the Admin's vision, how do you see the future of gaming having an impact on libraries as well as rec centers, gaming, coding, things of that capacity? Right now only about 30 percent of Philadelphia residents have a library card, from your testimony, and we're doing yeoman's work on the Council side to get both the Library and Parks and Recs the amount of money that puts them in a position to be open in non-traditional hours, right? We don't want our parks and recs open only between 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. 9:00 and 5:00, because our kids can't take advantage of that. We want them open after school and on the weekends, and we want them to be able to have things that young people find interesting. And right now gaming is a big thing. My office has been pushing the City to become branded around gaming. We want to be known as a gaming city nationally, right? Just like we're known for our restaurants and our historical landmarks, we want to add gaming to that list. So from the vision of the Admin, how can we incorporate gaming and the work that's done -- gaming and coding and the work that's done at Parks and Recs as well as in our libraries to become more future thinking and to become more of a resource for our children? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Thank you for that question, Councilman. I know this is something that's near and 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. dear to your heart. We are trying to increase gaming. I agree with you, it's sort of the wave of the future. I will say to you first and foremost, though, that the City's infrastructure in terms of from a technological standpoint was far behind where it should be, right? And so we are just beginning to really make those level of investments. I think I talked about in my testimony thanking City Council for giving some money to help us be able to even get new computers at the Library. When I tell you that the Library has one of the most archaic computer systems, it absolutely does. And so working on that both to even refresh staff computers and now we're beginning to roll out additional work computers for public use in the libraries will help, because quite frankly, I don't even think that the system or the computers that we have would have been able to meet the demands 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. of what the gaming infrastructure would have been. We're also working on, and there was some special money given and there's a rollout going on right now, of putting computers in the Parks and Recs, into the recreation centers as well. So that's the first part, is we have to have the requisite equipment, and then certainly we will continue to push it. There are a few eGaming centers that Parks and Rec have opened that we're looking to scale up to continue to move them.
That's good. So this is what I will ask, Council President, and listening to the testimony kind of inspired me. I wonder what it looks like for us as a city to examine where we are as it relates to government buildings and technology to figure out how archaic are we, right? Like I'm sitting here screaming and 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. begging for more gaming and technology and I can't even plug my phone in to nothing while I'm in the Council session. We're not blaming the current Council President for that, right? But the reality is, what does it look like for us to really challenge ourself as a municipality to examine where we are as it relates to just technology in general and what do we need to do to come into 2024 as it relates to how we digitalize stuff, access to some of the things that you talked about as far as equipment to be able to provide more resources to the City. There's a lot of independent studies and companies that we can work with to try to do that, but listening to your testimony, I think that that's something that we should possibly discuss to figure out how bad off we are and what direction we need to go in. As I close out, I just really want to commend you and the agencies 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. that's testifying here today. I listened to Councilmember Bass who has been adamant about issues with DHS compliment DHS. I'm listening to what's going on with Parks and Recs and Libraries, and we've met with you all prior to coming into this hearing, and we know that there are going to be some hurdles this summer. We know for a fact. But we all recognize that if we can make sure young people are as busy as possible and their time is occupied in a positive way, that's our number one crime prevention tool, right? And we're going to do our best, and I know you and your team are doing your best already to be able to address this crisis. Thank you, Council President. I believe my time is up. I don't have a second round. Thank you, Council President, and thank you all for all the great work you do.
Thank you for your time. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I just want to -- before you leave, though, Councilmember Thomas, one, we are doing an assessment of this room 5 and our Caucus Room technology-wise. So we're going to take a look at that. But I also just wanted to say as we move forward and become a more gaming-friendly society, particularly with Parks and Recreation, that Councilman Thomas spearheads the effort to make sure that when our young people come and play games -- particularly for me in my household, it's Roblox and Fortnite. And they will go on my phone and say, dad, can I spend $10, 10.99, $30 for a new skin. So we're going to make sure Councilman Thomas makes sure there's a stipend as we upgrade when kids go and play Roblox and Fortnite and all those other games. But very good comments as we go into the next century in terms of being technologically savvy as a city. Those Roblox dollars is something 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. vicious.
And when you log in at the rec center, they don't want to log in with a fresh new game. They want to start where they were at with their skins that they have, but that's a different conversation. But good line of questioning, Councilman Thomas. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jones.
Thank you, Mr. President. On that note of making sure that young people have something to do I think is the best crime prevention, violence prevention thing there is. So I want to know about year-round employment, not just summer jobs, but for a lot of the high-risk people that we run into in GVI is that -- hold that answer. I got some thank-you's to do. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. One, I want to thank Commissioner Ali for working with us on Parent University, and the good news is that in a meeting with the former Mayor, our current Mayor Cherelle Parker asked as a single parent, if I wanted to plug in my address and my kid, what activities there are and things that they can do, whether it's reading, whether it's out-of-school-time programming, she asked the last Mayor and there was nothing that was coherent. Based on Parent University, which you helped us with, the good news is that we're getting ready to take that one-day activity and turn it into an online matrix so that the answer to Mayor Parker's question can get answered, here's what's available to you as a single parent in this zip code and in others. So we're excited about that, and thank you for that. And thank you, Mr. President, for you and my colleagues 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. coming out and supporting that. I want to also welcome back Sue Slawson. Welcome back Kotter, and Aparna. But, you know, I got to call you about Shepard. I'm going to say Shepard, and you'll know what I'm talking about, so I don't need to discuss that here. But my number one -- oh, and the Juvenile Justice Center. Me and my colleagues, Gauthier and Quetcy Lozada, it seems like all of the female members of Council aren't afraid to go up to the jails. I don't know. We walk those tiers up there to look at where some of the young people are going, and thank you for bringing those numbers down that our young people had to suffer through. It was all hands on deck. It was a constant fight with the state. The state finally heard us, the Governor heard us, and we're reducing those numbers. So now with that, where are our numbers at JJC? Where is GVI? What's 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the future? Where are we going with that? And can we get a year-round job program for at-risk young people? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: So our current numbers as of today at JJC, the total census is 186.
That's right -- wait a minute. Hold it. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Our license capacity is 184.
So you're two people over? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Yes.
Can we give them a round of applause for moving them numbers down. - - - (Applause.) - - -
Okay. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: So that includes 156 males, 30 females. We are a little concerned. They're looking into what's going on with our young 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. ladies, because that's a much larger number than we typically carry of young ladies, but we will be working with all of our partners at Public Safety and Police and others to try to figure out exactly what's going on and how we can address that trend. So we're doing much better in terms of the Juvenile Justice Center and the population work. I think your second part of the question was around GVI.
What's the future? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: The future of GVI, you know I helped start that and spearheaded and continue to work with it even though it technically isn't under my purview but work very closely because it's a program I care a lot about, and I do think it has made the difference in reducing the gun violence, the shootings among gangs and groups, particularly in that certain area that we started with. Your area and Councilwoman 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Gauthier's reduced by about 40 percent based on an evaluation we got from University of Penn. Our future, we are now in conversations with the Police Department and other partners to that thing about moving it to doing a more very specific or focused GVI for juveniles, because I'm concerned about what we're seeing in the trends around juvenile justice and the upscaling kind of violent acts that juveniles are doing. So we're now beginning those conversations and exploring how we may do a more tailored version, still keeping the GVI that we have for the adults. And even though you can have some juveniles in it, it is really not as tailored, as the juvenile justice system is a little different. There are nuances. So we're looking at how we tailor that and how we use the existing resources that we both have in the current GVI model on the social services 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. side but also accessing all of the prevention and diversionary programs that we currently have on the juvenile justice side to do something specifically tailored toward juveniles to hopefully offset some of these violent crimes before they happen.
Mr. President, we should take a hard look at how much resources that we offer these young people when we go and knock -- I actually went out in your district, Member Gauthier, because I wasn't going to do it in my district, knock on the doors with the team, and a lot of people are on that cusp, like I really don't want to do this, but tell me what options there are. And the better -- that's why I asked about the year-round jobs and other than that. One of the things that I want us to do, and I'm going to end on this, is that we need to make those young people a promise, that if you go back to 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. school, if you put down that gun, if you're not out past curfew and get a C or better average, we promise you positive outcomes, that we're either going to put in a college, put you in the military, put you in a CTE program or put you in a wage-paying job. And if we keep that covenant with them, maybe they'll keep that covenant with us. Thank you, Mr. President.
No. 13 Thank you, and however we can be supportive of those efforts and also the staffing piece, because I know we did some visits up at JJC Center and just looking at how we focus on the robust staffing of that particular facility, particularly young men. I know there's a lot of young ladies that want to work there. But I'm going to slide a real quick one just real fast before I call on the next person. How are we doing on the staffing of men? And then also we know 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. several different organizations that go in there. I know Bilal Qayyum goes in there. You also have a lot of young men -- I think you had an Imam come do like a major Jum'ah service this past week, which I was told was very, very successful. But along the lines of continuing opening up the partnerships and while you have those young people captured in there, the opportunities to hopefully get involved in something that's positive as opposed to something that's negative, because they can get involved in negative stuff up there as well, correct? So just elaborate on the staffing component. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. Since the last time we testified, we actually hired 60 additional -- 60 juvenile detention counselors. - - - (Applause.) - - 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. COMMISSIONER ALI: And definitely we have to say kudos to certainly Deputy Commissioner Gary Williams as well as Executive Director Michael Scott, our HR department and OHR. OHR was there with us on a Saturday twice hosting job fairs all day.
Inside? COMMISSIONER ALI: Inside the PJJSC. So we have made significant gains in our staffing. They only have 30 vacancies, and they are looking to bring in another class the end of this month. What we are working on is keeping the staff. Again, I talked about child welfare being difficult. Juvenile justice and working in a residential facility is very difficult. It is difficult work. We have to adhere to certain ratios. And so we want to make sure that our staff and complement is robust so that staff do not have to work mandatory overtime. We want to do this 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. work-life balance. And so we do have a ways to go, but we certainly are moving in the right direction, and kudos to the leadership.
Let me ask you this, right? Is there opportunities for non-traditional individuals, some call them credible messengers, some people call them those who have lived life experiences, that would love the opportunity if they can like work with their background, they may have did some time, come back home, but they would love to be in that type of environment, but I know there may be certain guidelines and regulations that say if they can and they can't. But I see a lot of people who want to do good if given the opportunity. COMMISSIONER ALI: So we actually made that investment. And so as you know, we had that crisis that peaked in October of 2022. And so in 2023, we actually invested in some credible 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. messengers, violence interrupters, if you will, who come to the PJJSC consistently. They were the ones who helped hold us down during the time that we were struggling with staffing. And so they continue to come support us in the PJJSC. They make the connection with the young people, sometimes the connections that my staff are unable to make, and we are making some tremendous gains. And so we do have credible messengers that are inside the PJJSC working alongside our staff.
Can they be hired under the City's budget? COMMISSIONER ALI: So some of them are. And so we have part-time options and also full-time options. I certainly have to do the appropriate --
Due diligence. COMMISSIONER ALI: -- due diligence, but, yes, we have hired some credible messengers. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
All right. Thank you very much. The Chair now -- keep up the good work. She hails from South Philadelphia, so we're from the same neighborhood. So want to give a personal shout-out. Not too many of us made it out. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you for being with us this afternoon. My first question is for Children and Families. I know in your testimony you mentioned a youth center being in East. Can you share with me where it is, who operates it, how were they selected? I didn't know that it was there, so I'm really interested in just knowing like what services are provided, where the children -- what are the zip codes that the children come from. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: I'm sorry, Councilwoman. I think I missed the first part of the question.
You mentioned in your testimony a youth center being in East. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Oh, the community -- we call them CERCs, Community Evening Resource Centers. Thanks to -- and I have to give a shout-out to Councilwoman Katherine Gilmore Richardson, who help spearhead a lot of this and worked extremely hard with us to get them up off the ground. We have them in different districts throughout the City. The most recent that you're referring to, one is in East Division, which would be in your district, and one is in the Northeast. They run -- and the unique thing about them is that they run the hours of 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., so they operate as a drop-in site. We do a lot of community 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. canvassing, and while the lion's share of the young people that are there are people from the community who like to come there, we offer a myriad of programs. And you come and it's free of charge, and once the kids like it, they keep coming back. So it's a safe space for them to be on those difficult days and hours that are very much supervised. It is also a space that the Police Department utilizes for curfew violators, that they are also able to bring them there if in fact when they take them home, there's not a responsible adult to assume the young people. So they use them. The one in the East is -- I was going to say I'm going to pronounce it wrong, Councilwoman. Xiente, I believe, is the provider of that particular one that's in your district, and then there's one in the Northeast. That's the Juvenile Justice Center. And those are the two that are most recently opened. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
And how many youth can typically be found there? How many youth are serviced out of that facility? COMMISSIONER ALI: So I can give you a snapshot from since inception. And so we opened the first Community Evening Resource Center, or CERC, in the latter part of -- well, in January 2022. So the latter part of December 2021. And so thus far, 1,720 young people have visited the centers and participate in the activities. And so what speaks volumes about the CERCs is that they did 22,000 visits, which says that those young people continue to go to the CERCs, because they are safe spaces for them. And I just want to do one clarifying. The Northeast is Unique Dreams. Northwest is JJC.
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I didn't know that, so I'd like to visit 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. them whenever I have an opportunity. Thank you for sharing the information. And then I just found out a few weeks ago that my district has the highest number of children enrolled in pre-K, but we also have 64 vacancies. You also mentioned in your testimony that you guys are doing everything you can to try and fill those vacancies. Can you share with me what are some of the strategies that you guys are doing to be able to fill those and how we can help promote those opportunities? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: Sure. I'm going to ask Sean Perkins to come back up, but they work closely with both the School District as well to try to maximize where the vacancies are on all sides as we try to fill them. They also do some work directly with the providers, because there's several providers in your district especially, but I'll ask Sean to give you the particulars.
Sorry, 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Councilmember. It's a little bit difficult to hear you over there. Was the question about vacancies for PHLpreK in your Council district?
Yeah. So as Vanessa mentioned, we work very closely with our community-based organizations and the providers themselves, your office, as well as all the other District Councilmembers to make sure that they're well aware of like where are the places that we could be filling. But as we mentioned before, PHLpreK has a 93 percent fill rate, and sure we could improve on the seven percent. I also want to highlight it's healthy to have about a five percent excess capacity rate, just because there are some movements that happen throughout the school year, families move here, children become more available and families say I want to come in and be available. So five percent is kind of 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. healthy, so we're right on the cusp of that. But like Vanessa mentioned, we work with our community-based organizations. We have a lot of provider council organizations. We work very closely with Children First has a provider council itself. We have a PHLpreK advisory. We work with the Head Start collaboration. We have an organization called The Voice of ECE. We also work with Latinos Educando Juntos, LEJ. And the other one is SEPECC, the Southeast Pennsylvania Early Childhood Commission. So those are like our core collaborative opportunities to make sure that we're working to identify what are the major places that we need to be helping fill and advertise and advocate to put families into seats that are available to them.
And do you foresee those positions being filled before the summer? How quickly do you 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. think those positions will be filled? Have they been challenging to fill in the past?
How quickly do you think that those positions will be filled?
Oh, how quickly? It depends on what families are seeking. It really is. I think it's a matter of a family choice and like what families are mostly looking at. But I think that Vanessa mentioned earlier here too that it's important to have a highly qualified staff available. So each center has a unique set of circumstance, and in some places -- I don't want to speak about like a specific place in your Council district perhaps, but like I would want 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to look at the data to understand. It may actually be just a teacher vacancy may actually exist there, and that's a real problem that we're trying to help support and solve right now, but each case is unique, I think.
Thank you. And then I just have one question for PP&R. Before my question, I just want to say thank you to Commissioner Slawson for always making herself available since she arrived. She's been available to respond to questions that I have, and I'm grateful for that. I know that sometimes I can be really frustrated, and you've been able to kind of calm me down. I'm also grateful for your staff. They have been very willing to tour my facilities. I have expressed concern and frustration, a lot of frustration, as it relates to how clean the rec centers should be and could be, 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. and as we work with the Administration in our cleaning and greening initiatives and as we encourage young people to use our rec centers, they should be spaces that are at least clean, at minimum clean, and I have to say that some of my centers are disgusting. I just want to be very honest with you. I want to know what we can do to better improve the cleanliness of our recreation centers if we are going to start encouraging our young people to use them. We don't have to -- I'm just going to say rec centers should be clean, especially if we have full-time maintenance people there and especially if during the summer months we have additional SMAs to support them. What can we do? I don't think that we should be spending extra money to do deep cleaning, but a lot of my centers -- and I don't know about other centers, but a lot of my centers really deserve a deep cleaning and then 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. maintenance by those who are hired to maintain them. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you for those statements and the question. So I want to say for some time our facilities in certain neighborhoods, especially communities of color, resources and high-quality programming has not existed. So what we're going to do is, we're going to align our staffing model to better serve those distressed communities by focusing on neighborhood-based data. We're going to have some strategies and some goals, and I've actually had this conversation with my deputies already, because I've been to some facilities and I have issues with the way they look. And so I echo your concerns, and we are putting together a plan to -- we do need to deep clean, but it shouldn't have to be a deep clean. It should be an everyday clean so you don't have to get to a point where you are deep 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. cleaning. So we are working on a strategy with our Operations, with our Programs Department to start cleaning each one of our districts. And you're right, we have staff. They're in our facilities from 7:00 until 3:00. I can't sit here and give you an excuse. I'm not going to try to. But what I will say is that we are working on how to bring our facilities up to par where not only will the staff be happy -- because it's not just about our kids. We have staff members that are working in those facilities that we are concerned about as well. And so we want the community -- so what we say to our community speaks volumes on how our facilities look. So what are we saying? If you come into a facility and you're sitting here and you're saying they're deplorable, so it's our responsibility to step up and make the changes. And so what I can say to you, it's already in motion for us to make the 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. changes, and thank you for bringing it up.
I appreciate that, and I look forward to touring the district with you. When I toured the district with your team, the goal was to evaluate each facility and figure out what the priorities were, how do we make the spaces better and more welcoming for young people, but I also had the opportunity to talk to some of our community young folks in certain centers, and a lot of what I heard was that, yes, the rec center is there, but there's not programs that interest them. So what are we doing to communicate and engage with young people to talk to them about what they want to see, what activities would make them want to come to the center? How are we changing how we do outreach to them now? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: So I think that there should be two things going on in rec facilities. I think 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. there should be some consistent programming, because we can't -- there's no measurement if there's nothing consistent going on. So I believe there should be some consistency. We should be able to say, this is going on at these facilities all the time, this day, this time of week. But I also think that every facility is unique. There are going to be places that want to do eGaming. There are going to be places that want to do -- and I'm just making it up in my head -- you know, sewing. And so we should be able to have those opportunities, those specialty opportunities, for different communities, because all of our communities are different. So it's okay not to have sewing in the Northeast, but to have it in North Philadelphia. It's okay to have eGaming in West Philadelphia but not in South Philadelphia. And so we should have those opportunities. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. And I'm going to say one of the things that I did some time ago, because when I came in 2008, Cecil B -- no; Martin Luther King Rec Center, there was nothing going on there, and they said, well, the community is just not interested, there's nothing that they want to do. Not so. I put the right staff person there. We cleaned that place up, and we had listening sessions. I went to these sessions. I listened to the kids and I listened to the parents. Within a matter of months, that place was overflowing with young people and parents. So we need to have some listening sessions. We need to hear -- and we're not going to like what we hear all the time, but it's a part of building up the programming and making sure that we are giving the community what they need but also doing what we need to do to provide programming. So we're going to be addressing those issues. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
I'd like to also -- my last comment. I'd like to also offer the need to hire from within the community. If you're hiring from the community, people will be vested, right? So they're going to maintain and take care of it as well. Thank you, Council President. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Thank you.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. I wanted to speak about pre-K and community schools, and I want to come back to Human Services later. I hope I get a chance. So I just first wanted to congratulate you on so much success in the pre-K space. I have a special interest in this because I was part of 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the Kenney Administration when we worked so very hard to make this happen, and to see the growth is very gratifying. So thank you for all the work you've done. This is really showing our children that we care and we're investing in them. So kudos to all of you, and I'm just so pleased to see how far we've come. The question I had was about the current STAR three and four level learning programs. They make up about 71 percent of your programs, and the goal is to reach 80 percent. How realistic is this goal and will we be making aggressive changes to contracts or to help existing contracts to go to three or four? What is the plan around that? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: So my understanding is that we have about 90 percent of the programs are STAR three and four, not 70, we're happy to say, but I'll have Sean talk to you a little bit more about -- we do offer technical assistance and other stuff to the 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. programs that are not at that level yet, which is only about seven or so, quite frankly, about --
Excellent. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: But we're offering special assistance to try to bring them up to the level.
Yes. So there are seven locations across Philadelphia that receive PHLpreK funding, and they have options available to them. They're on an improvement plan, that we assign them to a quality support center where they get specific coaching and technical assistance, professional development, make sure that the teachers and their staff are getting the quality educational resources that they need to move up in that STAR rating. So we do invest in them, and we also invest in the priority areas of our city that have the highest needs. We talk about literacy rates, we talk about 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. low maternal education, we talk about crime and violence. Like we know that we add additional resources into those communities.
The follow-up on that is -- this is just anecdotal feedback I've gotten from parents who have gone. They said to me, and I was surprised, they said they found the three's and four is sometimes better than the five's. And I don't know what they were referring to, but they said they've toured a lot of these spaces. So that's just -- you don't have to respond to that. There's maybe --
If I can respond for just a quick second. I'm not sure what they are saying there, because the quality rating system is only up to four star, so there is no five.
Four. So they were like the lower, not the total high number but the lower numbers they found to -- maybe they were on the 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. improvement scale, so they were already gung ho. I don't know what it was, but that was an observation that was shared with me. I had a quick question about looking at the community schools. I didn't quite understand this table that you said about getting community schools to show gains in student attendance to go from 10 to 20. The target was -- FY24 is 20 and FY25 is 20. What does the 20 number refer to?
Sorry. This is Christine Piven, Chief of Prevention. The number refers to the 17 number of community schools. So it's 18 looking at year over year gains in each 19 community school in terms of student 20 attendance. So it's saying that -- I think it should say in FY25, that all 20 community schools will show gains in student attendance, and then in FY24, it's ten community schools. So that's the benchmark that's being explained 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. there.
Is that the maximum number we want to keep community schools at or are we working to get more schools to become community schools? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: So I'll say we currently have community 10 schools. We just brought on about three 11 about a year ago or so within that last 12 year. So they've been phased in sort of 13 incrementally. 14 I certainly am a fan of 15 community schools and would love to see 16 us have many more in the City, because I 17 do think that they make a tremendous 18 difference for the children and families 19 that we see, but certainly I'm sure 20 you'll see in budgets to come what that may look like.
And my last question, because we're all going to lunch, is there was an in-house data analyst position that was eliminated in 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. FY24 that continues to be excluded in the budget. So do you have other capacity to do this analysis or is this that you didn't need that analyst?
Sure. So within the way the Office of Children and Families is structured is the back-end operations are centralized. So there's what's called PMT, performance management technology. So all the data supports sit under there. So each program works with PMT for their data needs. We don't each -- we don't have our own data analyst.
Individual. Got you. And the very last question I -- first a comment, that I think the structure is great, and if we can be helpful in any way to all of your goals, please make sure to ask us. I just wanted to comment on the distribution of where the community schools are and where you're targeting, 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. how are you doing the assessments to say the next ones we want here, and do you have co-location with other services? Obviously that's what a community school is, but in terms of the high violence spaces, are we looking to do some more there? DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: So we try in OCF, at least since I've been there, to prioritize neighborhoods and needs, and what I'm saying prioritize a neighborhood, we take into account everything from the lower income levels to the lower educational levels to the violence, quite frankly, because that still goes into the trauma that the residents are experiencing and our young people and their needs may be enhanced because of that and a number of other factors that we look at when we try to prioritize. One of the things about community schools, though, was it is sort of an application process, and some of it 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. is about the principals at the schools, right, do they want to be a part of this, do they want to be involved. This is a collaborative effort with the School District. And so the School District is heavily involved as well as we make those selections. But you certainly want that school community that are amenable and want to be a part of this is a lot of how we also choose it. It just so happens that most of them happen to be in some of the more impoverished neighborhoods, and I'm sure it will continue to be that way, because we really are trying to hit those branch schools that need more help than maybe some of our more specialty kind of schools. It is those sort of neighborhood branch schools that wind up being the ones that really need more help and attention.
And the final structural question, Mayor's Office of Education and what you do, is there overlap or how does that work? I don't 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. know the structure. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: So that's a somewhat new transition that we are working out. I will say to you that community schools probably will be transitioning fully to the Mayor's Office of Education come FY25, so let's say July, because it makes sense. It is directly education, and the Mayor's Office of Education is also taking on those matters that directly work with the School District and the School Board. So Mayor's Office of Education as well as Adult Education Services will be transitioning to the Mayor's Office of Education in FY25. Those are the only things I'm aware of right now. Now, having said that, we will still be working very closely with my colleagues in the Mayor's Office of Education and happy to do that and support that, because these are all really, really important programs and goals. And while community schools will 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. transition to Mayor's Office of Education for supervision, management, and other things, we will still be, "we" being OCF, will still be providing the support services, and they will remain on the budget for OCF to provide all the necessary supports and the contracts and other things that we pay for there.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you very much, Council President. And thank you for answering already some of my questions. I appreciate that. I wanted to know about the Mayor's Office of Education. I'm going to focus right now on Parks and Rec and Libraries, I think, and then come back to DHS later, second 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. round. But for Parks and Rec, Commissioner Slawson, nice to have you back, and it was great to hear about the leadership that you're providing for the rec centers in Philadelphia, focusing on each one of them in each neighborhood, and I'm hearing this collectively from all of you, because as we know, this is really just a matter of equity, right? We want to make sure that all of our libraries and rec centers, no matter what neighborhood you're in, are clean and beautiful and well funded and thriving and absolutely responsive to the community that they're in. So I love the concept of getting the input from the community. And I've been around the City for a long time too to see that sometimes programming is based around the expertise of the supervisor there or the leaders in the rec center versus the community, and then they move around to get other jobs and there's vacancies. So I think I like 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. it from the bottom up. I am very set on making Philadelphia the most teen-friendly city in America, and I would like to know what you are doing to focus more on teen programming, especially when the teens aren't into sports. And I think this is probably a Library's question too. I have a couple of questions here, but we really got to engage them more and would love to know what you're doing. DIRECTOR GARRETT HARLEY: So, Councilwoman, you know we've known each other a long time, and I have that same interest, which I know you know. Older youth are sort of my thing. We are really trying to focus on that. It goes to some of the eGaming stuff that Councilman Thomas was talking about but also last year for the first time, and we will continue. We do programming at Eakins Oval during the summer, but we have dedicated Thursday nights to being teen 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. nights. We'll be coming to all of you for some advertisements that help get out to our networks, because last summer was the first time, so you can imagine it was a little slow start, but we bring in a deejay. We bring in someone who's known in the communities that these kids -- you know, the kind of music they listen to to be able -- they come out. They dance. We bring in food trucks. We pay for the food for them. It's just supposed to be a safe space for them to gather. As you know, across the City we have been challenged with kids just popping up with a party somewhere and it gets out of hand. This way it's a party that has a little bit more supervision, so to speak, for them on Thursday nights. So we'll continue to do that. That's an example of just trying to think out of the box. We know we have to go back and do some real rethinking about how we attract our kids and how we get to them. I think that's 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. what Councilwoman Lozada was saying, about how do we get to them, what they like, what kind of programming do they really want to be there, and that's what the Commissioner was saying about talking to them. So do plan to do a lot more work around getting youth voice and youth input into what is it that they really want, and also partnering with some community groups. We did have a night or two at that teen night last summer that we partnered with another community group or two who have a great relationship with kids. We had one who did some work particularly with sort of our higher risk kids who were able to come out and bring other things that they knew would attract them or that they would like. So we're also exploring that again for this summer and moving forward.
That is great news. Thank you so much. Is there any -- have you had 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. any thought about my dream, which is to get an app, not a website but an app, for all of the programming to put it all in one place? And this isn't just to say where your rec center is or what the hours are or where your library is. It is literally to tell you, hey, tonight is the dance party, tomorrow the pools are open from this time to this time, adult swim is only this time. People should not have to go to the rec center or the library to find that information out. An app would be great. You would know at any point at any time. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: And so the answer to your question have I thought of that? No. 20
Well, congratulations. You have now. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: All I can do is tell the truth here. But Vanessa says they have. I haven't. But, I mean, of course it makes sense. We 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. live in a technological age where everyone is on their phone. And so that is something we can definitely look into and start actually having conversations with our team and talking with the young people, what does this look like, talking with our leaders, what does it look like. So that's definitely something that we can do. I also wanted to share something else that we're doing in addition to some of what Vanessa just shared. We are providing -- last summer was great. Let me just say we have some wonderful leaders and people that work in these facilities. You really dedicate your life when you're working in a rec facility. They work 1:00 to 9:00. If you have children, if they're not coming to the rec center, except for the summer months, you're kind of missing out. So I just want to give kudos to those people that are running those facilities that are giving up their time day after day, 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. year after year. I just want to thank the staff and the teams for what they've been doing, and most of them have been doing this for decades. So I just want to publicly say thank you to them. So we provided last summer some initial projects, right? So this year, this summer we have this project to reduce the cycle of violence. One of the things is, Council -- I wish he was here. Councilmember Jones gave me a document and it was called the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia, and I had an opportunity to read it, and one of the things in this Blueprint, it suggested that you have access to parks and recreation. That's one of the things they say that helps deal with the crime and the violence. It's paramount to prevention, intervention, and solution. The document also provided other thoughts, and what I'm happy to say is, Parks and Recreation covered every one of those thoughts that he had in 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. here, one of them being this summer we're going to do this project to reduce the cycle of violence. The mission is to reduce the violence by empowering our youth through sports, mentorship, and conflict resolution training. Our kids need to know how to deal with conflict. They need to know how to argue. I want to push -- I'm putting it out here. I want to push to have more boxing in our facilities. When I grew up, I fought. And so if I could fight, I don't need to pick up a gun, right? So let's teach our boys how to fight.
I hear you. Okay. I don't know if y'all caught that, but I understand. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Let's teach our young men. Let's get them back in our facilities.
Put the guns down, pick up the gloves. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Let's 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. put the guns down and pick up the gloves. That's what I believe. So the project will also incorporate trauma-informed practices by providing a safe and supportive environment for our young people. We have a template that will assist groups. We see -- our Mayor talked about seeing young people outside collecting money to purchase equipment. We're going to provide fees for coaching. We're going to provide opportunities for them to run their programs, including games and music and dance, eSports. We're going to provide opportunity for additional eSports. I wanted -- the Deputy Commissioner just mentioned to me back there two months ago we had a huge eSports gaming city event at Venice Island. So we are doing eSports. We just have to just do it a little more in our facilities. And so those are some of the 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. things that we're going to do this summer in addition to what we've always been doing. DIRECTOR RICHARDS: Kelly Richards, President and Director of Free Library of Philadelphia. There was the conversation about what are we doing for teens and then there was a conversation about gaming. The Library actually does have gaming programs at some of our libraries. Now, it depends on creating games or playing the games. And at some of our libraries across the City we do have gaming programs where teens are at the library and they're competing with one another with various popular games that are out now. Our staff, we have very creative staff who work alongside -- you mentioned working with the community -- who work alongside with the community coming up with a variety of different programs for teens in all of our 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. branches, and they do this on a regular basis. We have over 30,000 programs a year, and 600,000 people visit these programs. So we do a lot of teen programming at our library with our very creative staff.
Yeah, Round 2. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Kendra Brooks.
Good morning. Good afternoon now, I guess. And I just want to thank everyone for their testimony and the work that they have done. So everybody up there, you guys know that I love Parks and Rec. I love libraries. You know, my tagline was like libraries saved my life. So I saw the same excitement in the Five Year Plan that the Mayor put 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. out, and I just had a couple concerns, and some of them have been asked already, but I'm going to kind of float around my notes here to see if I could kind of capture all the things. My first question is about the investment in community services and expanded programming, and this question is for the Free Library. In the Five Year Plan, it talked about the Library not planning to increase in-person visits this year, and I was kind of trying to understand the thinking behind this, because I think that we should want to expand the number of people coming to the libraries and why aren't we increasing funding to make sure that we're doing more recruitment to make sure our libraries are open and accessible to more folks than what they already have? DIRECTOR RICHARDS: Councilwoman, I'll probably have to get back to you on that, but the only reason why the numbers wouldn't increase is 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. because some of our libraries are closed for Rebuild.
Okay. That makes sense. Okay. Do you know the number of libraries that are closed for repair? And does that add up to the -- I think the number was 3,000 less preschool students -- DIRECTOR RICHARDS: Five.
-- attending and a flat number for teen adults and senior programs and 20,000 less children attending programs. So that's kind of where my concern was coming around. Like shouldn't we be increasing access to libraries instead of -- I mean, access to programming instead of decreasing? So I was wondering are we cutting programs or are we just not devoting time to prevent the decline in programming? DIRECTOR RICHARDS: Very good question. No, we're not cutting programming. The impact I believe was on 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the branches closing for remodeling, but, you know, again, like I mentioned earlier, our staff are very creative. I mean, very, very, very creative in coming up with programming and providing services for the community. So that number I have to look into, but I believe that number has to do with the branches cycling in and going through closing to be remodeled in communities where a large number of the kids come.
I'm very glad that you're saying this, because I'm always trying to, my team is trying to connect to expand programming at the libraries and I just want to make sure that that's what we're going to continue to do. So if you can get back to me on that, that would be helpful. DIRECTOR RICHARDS: Sure.
My next group of questions is for the Parks and Rec and how it connects to community 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. services and City services as well. And the advocates have been calling for full staffing and an increase of $25 million, and I heard you say that you're doing some spending down with some hiring, things that were happening. So my question is -- let me go back. And then even Council President pointed out how we can have more community members being able to have access to hiring. So I was just wondering what is the plan to fully staff the centers and how does -- how will that happen if we're flat funded? I understand you have some spend-down happening. So when the hiring happens, do we plan to still increase the programming in libraries across the City? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: In the rec centers?
In the rec centers. I'm sorry. Yeah, back to the rec centers. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Deputy 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Commissioner Washington is coming up to address that. (Witness approached witness table.) DEPUTY COMMISSIONER WASHINGTON: Good afternoon. Deputy Commissioner Washington, Parks and Recreation. Excuse me, Councilwoman. Could you repeat the question again as far as the -- with the positions?
So how do we plan on ensuring that the staff are fully -- the parks and recreation centers are fully staffed even after the spend-down happens? I remember -- so my question changed because the spend-down part. I get that. So once we hire the position, what does it mean to continue programming if we were able to? Because I know at the hiring fair someone mentioned -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER WASHINGTON: So after that, the job fair, but also -- so the bulk of our vacancies are in civil 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. service positions. So of course we go to a list. One of the things that we found out with our rec leader trainees, even with all of the changes we've made to the scope of the job, kind of decreasing the requirements during the height of the pandemic, we're just not getting a lot of names on the list. In 2020, before 2020, 2019, we probably averaged about 60 to 70 rec leader trainees on the list. The last two lists, even with changing them, we're averaging around 35, and we don't exhaust the list. So, you know, we're going to continue to reannounce until we can get our full complement of recreation leader trainees, outreach workers, and all those positions. I will say -- I think it was mentioned earlier with someone else, that it's a lengthy process. It can take a few months to kind of -- anywhere from four to six months to fill those positions. We also utilize our seasonal 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. workers to help us with the programming. So we're focused on making sure we can put the appropriate programming in, and we're going to continue to focus on that and using all the positions we have from our outreach workers to all of our recreation leaders, from our 1's, 2's, and 3's and our seasonal workers. We hire about 2,000 seasonal workers throughout the year. At least half of those positions are in our Programs Division.
And could I just -- just added to that, I know there are non -- I don't know what you guys call them, the ones who don't necessarily have to go through the civil service employment to work. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER WASHINGTON: So those would be our seasonal workers.
The seasonal workers that are running programming. I just want to make sure that every recreation center, to 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Councilmember Lozada's point, is not just clean but it's active programming going on at every recreation center throughout the City. And just in conversation with various folks at rec centers across the City, I've heard both extremes, that there are programs that are supposed to be running that aren't running and someone is there collecting money for after-school programming that's not happening, and then on the opposite end, that there are parents in more affluent areas that are sending their children to out-of-school-time programs that there's a fee and no one is there to collect the fees. So I just want to make sure that we're as efficient as possible, because that's a problem with programming. In some neighborhoods it's supposed to be happening. We're paying someone and they're not doing their job around recruitment, to other areas where parents are willing and able to make a 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. contribution that can help money go much further. How can we make sure we're tackling this in every community so parks and recreation centers are thriving around our city? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER WASHINGTON: Absolutely. And this is probably something for Commissioner Slawson to answer, but I'm going to try my best and answer it. One of the things that she did mention was about having those listening sessions and going out and talking. She's been in this role for about 30 days now. So she already has plans to go out and visit centers. There are going to be some changes that we're going to make with expectations for folks. So she has some really big ideas and wanting to change some of the things to make sure that there is equity across the board, because we recognize that there is not, and there has to be some accountability from the top down, and I think she 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. recognizes that and has a plan kind of once we get past these budget hearings, which was a lot for her coming back in. So we're going to go out. We're going to be visiting together, talking to not just rec leaders but also our seasonal workers and community folks to really find out what is it that you need and you want and start to put some policies and procedures in place to hold folks accountable.
Thank you. That's time, but we're going to do a second round as well. We started a little later today for a good cause, but we're going to do a second round. But I just want to also just note, right, I want to highlight what Councilwoman Brooks was just talking about, the critical importance of the programming component. And I always use myself in terms of my lived experience. I'm a kid who used to attend Chew Playground, free summer program. My Nana 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. used to drop me and my sister off, lunch, swimming all throughout the day, and it's free. And then now it's 50 years later, but we're still -- this is really a key point. When you're raising a family in our neighborhoods, right, we choose not to go to Lower Merion. We can. We choose not to go to Bucks County. We can, right? But we choose to stay in Point Breeze where I'm born and raised and carrying on the legacy with my two young boys now. But we go to Wharton Square Park for free tennis. We go to FDR Park for the brand new free Anna Verna Playground. We go to Marian Anderson for the free Monarchs baseball team. And so that programming is so critical for families that have high amenities in the neighborhoods in which they're raising their families. And so we're going to double down our efforts and be supportive of you, because a lot of times as parents we make that decision to stay or leave based 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. upon what's available for our children in terms of where we live. And the truth of the matter is, something I experienced as a young man is that we shouldn't have to leave our neighborhoods. I shouldn't have to leave Point Breeze to go to Markward, which was called Taney a long time ago, to enjoy ourselves. I should be able to still enjoy myself at high amenities, rather it's at Barry Playground, Guerin, right? And so just want to reiterate the programming part is so critical and important. With that being said, the Chair recognizes Councilmember Nicholas O'Rourke. And also for the record, we have Councilmember Driscoll who is present, for the record.
Thank you, Council President. And first set of questions are for Parks and Rec, and blessings to you, Commissioner Slawson. I wanted to 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. highlight some of the lesser discussed components of your work, like the Urban Agriculture Plan and the Tree Plan. The Urban Agriculture Plan is particularly powerful and important to our office, and I think we have a lot of potential to do something truly transformative with it. I wanted to ask, could you detail your vision for implementing the Agricultural Plan? What's your process for bringing those recommendations to life? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I'm going to ask Erica Smith, who oversees that, who has this program really down to a T and she can give you all the details, to come up and respond.
Hello. Erica Smith Fichman, City Forester, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. 4/3/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I was the project lead for the Philly Tree Plan. You mentioned the Ag Plan as well. My colleague, Ash Richards, is probably best to answer those questions, but in terms of the Philly Tree Plan, we've made some really great progress in the last year. We have hired our first City Forester, which is me.