No, I just wanted to jump on the thank- you bandwagon. Thank you, you know, just in pulling together our district offices. It's challenging and I just really wanted to say your office and staff, just really professional and helpful in every way possible, so thank you. COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Thank you. Appreciate it.
You can see you have two of the more difficult departments in the City of Philadelphia as it relates to the work that you do, so we all appreciate not just you but the people who work for you. COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm going to go to the same bandwagon. I mean, your departments touch every single department that the city has, both of yours. So I really do want to thank you for the work you do because you have to deal with not only our craziness on Council, but the other stuff from other service departments. I can't even imagine what you got to deal with from Police, right. So again, thank you. Thank you for the work that you do. But one thing I do want to note, as I have been highlighting in the budget for the Department of Public Property is that there seems to be a decrease in the minority, women and disadvantaged participation in professional services. For FY24, it was a 64% goal. For FY25, it was 37%. For FY26, it was 40%. But for Q1 and Q2 of FY26, it's only been at 14%. So even if we were to double that, it would say it's 28%, which is lower than that 40% goal, lower than the FY25. So I just wanted to make a note of that for the record, Mr. Chair. And just seeing that these trends seem to happen more than in one office. But my questions for Fleet: It's been noted that you guys have a robust internship program, but it seems like the workers are overwhelmed by just the amount of work they have, particularly with the interns and there needs to be I guess more qualified technicians that are able to actually train and mentor these interns that are there. I know Parking Authority folks probably make grand more 7 than what the City of Philadelphia 8 Fleet management workers make. And 9 so, how can we get your department 10 to be on parity with other 11 municipal departments or other 12 municipal agencies that have 13 similar functions? 14 COMMISSIONER ROSATI: 15 We've been working on that to try 16 and increase our technical staff 17 salaries with HR, and we'll 18 continue to do that because it is 19 important. We want our people to 20 be paid.
Yeah. I think we can clearly see it's literally apples to apples when it comes to some of the things that your folks are doing and some of the things that the Parking Authority folks are doing. And so, I really think of you as someone who appreciates what your office does. If there is an ask for that increase, I assure CCP and all of us thank you, right. So we would be pushing for you to be on parity with a comparable municipal authority to ensure that those city workers are able to make a living right here in the City of Philadelphia and want to stay working for the City of Philadelphia. We commend that gentleman working for 30 years, but there are others who don't stay for a variety of reasons and pay should not be that reason, I think. I think we should be able to pay our workers what their worth is because we need them. Like I said, your department touches every single department in the city so you are highly valued. And I think that we should pay our workers in that vein. But my final question is, we know that tools are expensive for our auto mechanics. And so, what are we doing to help technicians bear the burden to purchase tools? COMMISSIONER ROSATI: We get a yearly tool allowance. I think it's about $500 a year. A technician's tools could be up to $20,000. Some of these tool sets are pretty expensive.
Yeah. I mean, $500 really is only a couple of pieces, right. So that's not really going to provide them with the full set that they need to do their job to their best capacity. And I think that's one of the things that could help with retaining some of our employees, making sure that they are fully equipped to do the job that we're asking them to do. So again, my ask is that if there's anything that you all can ask of us to help be your advocates to ensure that those men and women who are working for you have the adequate tools they need to do their job or adequately paid, that's something that we would be more than willing to work with you on to increase. And just for the record, I know the Council President mentioned something earlier today about Strawberry Mansion Day. For my information, Strawberry Mansion Day is still happening. It's ran by a local community group. So I just want to put that out there for the record, Mr. Chair. So thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all the questions I have.
Thank you, Member Young. And we will close out with Councilmember Landau.
Thank you so much. I just have a couple of Public Property questions. Thank you for being here. Sorry I came in midway, but I wanted to get an idea of what you were talking about with GIS mapping of public spaces. Are you saying that we're still working on mapping all city-owned properties? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: That's correct. It was never mapped out so I'm building it out. We go off different data sheets of what we have in our inventory, also with the Land Bank. But that's one of the things that I felt that we had to build out to really take over our assets and know what's what in each district for when Councilmembers come to ask questions and we have that information readily available. So number one, that make the easiest, most efficient way to track. Even on our interior spaces of MSB, OPB, stacking plans, vacancies, it's all interactive that we want to build out. And that's why we're trying to build that up.
I got to tell you I'm just amazed that it's 2026 and we're still talking about this. Thank you for doing it. But I can't imagine how you move your work forward if we don't know this. So I appreciate so much that you're doing it. COMMISSIONER BRASKY: It's going to make everything so much easier. No, I totally agree. And that's part of the vision that I see and what I feel we're lacking in.
So sometimes I've noticed in the city if we take long enough to get something done, technology is so far ahead of us, that it makes it easier. And I think there are very simple ways to get this done, much easier ways than it would have been had it been done 10, years ago. 13 COMMISSIONER BRASKY: 14 100%. And that's why we're 15 navigating software programs to help us with that, bringing on our new Deputy Commissioner for Real Estate who've worked with Public Property years ago and also worked on the federal level. They had privilege to the system. So we're trying to incorporate that and we're building out a great GIS team to help us do that.
Are your IT people overseen by the Office of OIT? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Yes, we have one IT person that works with us, but OIT is our main technological so we work in parallel with them.
Thank you. So I had two other questions. The first is State Representative Elizabeth Fiedler, in collaboration with the Sunrise Movement, champions solar for schools which utilizes municipally- controlled assets to implement solar infrastructure. Is there a plan to install energy-efficient material? You said you had a plan to install energy efficient materials in FY27 and also an increase in Class 200 budget because of utility consumption. Is this an opportunity to install solar panels in our more modern and structurally-sound buildings? And what energy- efficient materials are planned to be installed? And is there an estimate of how much increase in spending we would have to invest in these solar panels? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: For the solar panel standpoint, we'd work with the Office of Sustainability and Energy Office to help us incorporate that and we'd be open to any option we have to save on our utilities 100%. Using our energy efficient, we speak of that as when we're doing an office fit-out, dimmable LED lights, occupancy sensors. We also incorporate our BAS system for our HVAC equipment to go down, you know, shut off overnight to save energy that way. So we're looking for different possibilities. Mainly our LED lighting projects is our energy savings, but you can only get so much out of that. So I do work closely with the Office of Sustainability and Don McGraw and his crew to any ideas they may have. And we always push back and forth and we talk it out. We can always talk about the possibilities.
One final question. Thank you for that. What process do you go through with decision-making to lease out public spaces, including parking lots? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: For parking lots, that would be in coordination with PPA, with Philadelphia Parking Authority.
What if it was a vacant city space and another entity just wanted to park their vehicles there? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: We do have a couple of the lots that the neighborhoods do use. We maintain clean, you know, trash removal, sidewalk snow removal. So the spaces that we do own, we just give that to the neighbors for neighborhood use.
Do you make those decisions internally yourself or do you do that with other city departments and agencies? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Mostly interdepartmental stuff.
So, for example, the former Roundhouse, which is vacant and has a parking lot, if one of our federal partners like ICE wanted to park their vehicles there, how much permission would they need in order to execute a contract to park there? Could it be just you with Fleet or would it have to go through multiple levels? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: I think it would have to go through multiple levels. And that's a private parking lot just for our facilities people. It's really a staging area for our barricades and trailers. PPD internally uses it along with our event staff, but it's not a lot that we use.
If there were schools -- well, not schools. If there was a rec center with a parking lot on the weekend and an entity like the federal ICE wanted to park there, would that be a decision that you could make internally or what decision-making process would that be? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: No, that would be up to Parks & Rec. They maintain their facilities and their operations. So I really wouldn't have much --
So you're saying that each city entity makes its own decisions as to what to do with its public spaces? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: As far as you're just talking about parking lots?
Yes. COMMISSIONER BRASKY: For the most part, they should be secured parking lots. As far as Streets Department, if they have equipment, fleet, also they should be secure parking lots. So it would stand out if anybody was using it. They're not supposed to be using it. We have never gave permission to use any of our lots. So for the most part, it's just mostly any of our bigger departments, they're going to have secured lots for their equipment and their personnel.
Last one is, if you had a library that wasn't normally open on a Sunday and want to agree to allow ICE officials to be in there during a very hot day, are they allowed to make that decision themselves? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: No. I feel that would be a bigger ask and it's pretty much our property, so we would have the say over what goes on there. And I don't feel -- I'm not sure what the libraries' hours are for Saturdays and Sundays. Hopefully, they're locked down during the weekends.
Thank you, Councilmember Landau. There being no other questions, the Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips for a motion that the public hearing of the meeting on the bills and the resolution before the committee today stands in recess until Wednesday, April 1, 2026 at 10:00 a.m.
It's been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolutions before the committee today stand in recess on Wednesday, April 1st at 10:00 a.m. We will stand in recess until that time and we will reconvene in Room 400 of City Hall. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. The committee will stand in recess until Wednesday, April 1st at 10:00 a.m. at which time we will reconvene in Room 400 at City Hall. Thank you, everybody. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 3:58 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. ________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL