Right, so we're not going to go to that extent to try to defend these claims. If there is a reasonable relationship between the person's duties, the exposure report, 367 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 and his contracting of Hepatitis C, we're not going to deny those claims.
When do we expect to be able to come to some fruition or some closure on the existing 6 and -- now, how come there's between 6 and 25? I don't understand the disparity there.
It's a matter of claims that we know we have verified as being claims for Hepatitis C and new claims that are coming in that we have not had a chance to verify yet.
Have we set some type of general a timetable on their resolution so that these people aren't going to drug out for months or years?
I would like to ask Jane Lewis from our Employee Disability Unit to come up and help me out here. Jane?
Councilman, let me kind of 368 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 give you overview of how I see us handling these claims, because that will be my job. Essentially, what we've been doing with everyone who's made these claims -- and so far, we've had two actually file for Worker's Compensation, and in the last three weeks, we've had about 30 letters putting us on notice that people will be making claims. What I've instructed our contractor to do is this: First of all, we need people's medical records for any claim we get, and that would be claims where there is a presumption of work-relatedness or not. We get people's medical records. We also get any exposure reports from the Department to see if people have any kind of work exposures. We'll also, as soon as we get these, be having these people seen by doctors. And the bottom line is, as I see it, we're going to end up with three categories of cases: We're going to end up with a category of cases that it will be clear the people got Hepatitis C elsewhere. Maybe they had a transfusion off the job. But when you look at 369 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 someone's medical records, you might be able to pinpoint that. We're going to get a group of people where it's clear that, in fact, they did get Hepatitis C on the job. It might be a case where -- as you know, the test for Hepatitis C has only been available in the last couple years. But it might be an incident where they have a blood-borne exposure a couple years before that, and we tested them for Hepatits B. And so we have liver studies available that might lead us to say, Oh, okay, gee, they didn't get Hepatits B at that point but they had liver problems so we're going to pick that up that this must be when they contract Hepatitis C. And then we're going to get a group of cases in the middle, and those will be the harder cases. Those will be the cases where, you're right, people don't always fill out exposure forms. And even though the Fire Department has done training for years encouraging people to report every time any time they've had a blood-borne exposure at work, and people do fill those out because I see a lot of them. 370 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 But sometimes people don't. And for those cases, what we'll be doing is, we'll be looking in their medicals, and if don't find any clear evidence that they got it from other than the more common method of transmission -- you know, transfusions, I.V. drug use, things like that, if there's nothing like that, I can tell you, Councilman, we'll pick up those claims. We've never said anything different. Mr. Perrello has always been clear, when cases arise, he'll say to me, Give me a reason to pay this claim. It's a little frustrating because we have only gotten these claims recently. We'd heard about them before but I couldn't really handle anybody's claims because they weren't making them. Now that they're making them, in order to expedite them, what I've instructed our contractor to do is to use a service to track down medical records and to expedite the handling of each claim. I'm hoping to have people's medical records for the first batch within a month, and we should be able to get them examined pretty quickly thereafter. 371 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a follow-up question to President Verna's question around the City contribution to the Philadelphia Public School District. You spoke and answered as to why the $2.4 million increase actually. The year before Fiscal 1999, there was $29 million, which is actually double what has been slated for contribution for the School District this year. What was that attributed to? I'm referring to -72.
There was actually a doubling of our -- what we really did was slide our 2000 contribution into '99.
There were two years' worth of contributions in '99, so that's why it looks larger than other years. 372 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05
Thank you Madam Chair. Mr. Dubow, if I could go back to where I was in my first round. Can you just provide for us -- rather than taking you line by line, can you give us a full schedule through the Chair of --
-- the debt service items associated with the Blight Removal Program, and I would like the request specific to where those items are in the budget book, by page and by line.
Thank you. Is Miss Kammerdeiner here? I have a couple of questions for you. 373 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 (Ms. Kammerdeiner returns to witness table.)
First, can you elaborate on the business location research that you mention on of your testimony and the REMI Regional Science Model? What is that? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: The Regional Science Model, REMI, is used for econometric forecasting and other forecasting relating to the region. It's a model that the City has acquired from an organization called "Regional Economic Model Incorporated." The City uses that model to determine the impact of changes in the economy, changes in tax rates, and to simulate what would happen. The model was used in doing the budget forecasts for revenue, that's one of the uses. But we use it during the course of the year in order to confirm what has happened with changes in trends and also to project what might happen with changes in legislation regarding taxes.
So was that model, for instance, used to support either Revenue or Finance Department's views as it related to 374 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 proposed lowering of tax rates, whether it was wage tax, business taxes, or even the real-estate transfer tax? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: Yes, that's correct.
Okay. Well, given what the Department's position was on the cut in the real-estate transfer tax, I'm not necessarily sure I want to support this model. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: I think that is one area, let me just double-check. I don't believe we used the model for that one, but let me just check.
Okay. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: I understand we did use it to some extent in that process, but we'd be happy to sit down with you and go through some of the detail on that in terms of just how we assess the impact.
All right. And maybe you'll rework the model or try to make it show some different results the next time. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: No, I think we show you what we found along the way and help 375 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 you to understand where we were coming from on that.
Okay, no problem. I'm sure we'll have that opportunity in the spring. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: I imagine we will.
Yeah. I want to talk about a little bit about the wage tax and collections and calculations. From time to time, I am told that some people apparently seek to avoid paying the wage tax by reporting a non-Philadelphia address to their suburban employer. I believe we have a suburban withholding provision now that was passed by the State Legislature a couple years; is that correct? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: That's correct. The suburban withholding requires any employer in Pennsylvania to withhold Philadelphia wage tax for a Philadelphia resident.
And does the employer just ask the employee what their address is; is that the way it works? 376 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: Yes, but that's the address that the employer would have for other taxes as well, and so it would mean that they would be indicating an other-than- Philadelphia address for federal and state purposes as well and any other communication that their employer would provide to them.
Okay. So let's say it's a relatively young person or a not so young people, but they live in Philadelphia either by way of rental or home ownership, but maybe their most recent previous address was at their parents', and they lived outside the City. They now have a job, the employer asks them for their address. Is it possible for that person to give the parents' outside Philadelphia address as their address, even though they actually live in Philadelphia? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: It's certainly possible.
Okay. And do we have any methodology to figure out whether or not people are living in the City but are not paying? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: Certainly 377 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 not a foolproof methodology, but we are trying to find increasing ways where we can identify gaps like that. Some of it we pick up on -- through, I would call it, anecdotal situations. We do find something things through our use of federal data. We might be identifying someone who's paying federal tax that we don't have for, let's say, school income taxes, and then we might pick it up through that method. We're looking for increasing ways to deal with this, and one of the things we would like to do is make use of a data warehouse. It's a new technology, and we're looking ahead in the next couple of years to devising ways to make use of that technology to find just the kind of situation you're referring to.
All right. I'll talk to you away from the record on a couple situations that I've been made aware of as well as some other potential ideas for checking that out. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: We would appreciate that.
On another wage 378 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 tax-matter, can you explain to us -- there's been much public discussion as it relates to sports stadiums and the practice facility. The -- one of the major arguments for having the Philadelphia Eagles' practice facility in Philadelphia is because we would, I guess, technically continue to receive a certain level of wage tax from the players because their practice facility would remain in Philadelphia. Currently, the practice facility is in Philadelphia. And the whole concept of duty days versus game days. Can you explain to us what those distinctions are, and which methodology do we use? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: We use duty days. That includes days when they practice as well as play games in Philadelphia for our home teams. And if they have major meetings, whatever, and they have to bring them into Philadelphia for a substantial portion of the day, that's a duty day in Philadelphia. If they live in Philadelphia, of course, their entire compensation would be taxable wage tax. Most of the players for the sports 379 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 teams do live outside of Philadelphia, so duty days become control factors in terms of allocation of their wage tax.
You said most live outside of the City of Philadelphia? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: Most are nonresidents.
Is the duty day concept memorialized somewhere, or is that by agreement with someone? Is it with the teams, is it with the players, is it with the players' union? How does that all work? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: It's a combination. We have agreements with the leagues in terms of the payment particularly for visiting teams, but it would cover the home teams as well. And we do have agreements with the home terms in terms of how the allocation is determined and the calculation of duty days.
Okay, so let me make sure I have all this correctly. Most of the players live outside of the City. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: That's my understanding. 380 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05
But their place of employment is in Philadelphia. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: That's correct.
And they play for a team that has a lease with us -- at least two of teams; the other two play in a private facility. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: Right.
So I guess based on that, they automatically pay the commuter rate. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: They pay the nonresident rate.
The nonresident rate, and they don't pay for every day because for their job classification, they don't work here every day like the rest of us. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: Right. The same holds true for other employees who are nonresidents if they do not work in Philadelphia every day, they travel a lot, for example. Their employer could allocate in an out of Philadelphia in terms of their work or they might at the full rate fro the entire year, and then we would provide a refund for those days that they document 381 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 that are outside of Philadelphia.
Do we have those kind of agreements with many other businesses in Philadelphia? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: It's basically in terms of the way the wage tax regulations are worded and how that's managed. The employer withholds and pays it over to the City. In most cases, the employee then provides documentation signed off by their employer that shows that they worked out of Philadelphia for X-number of days and the wage allocation that is related to those out-of-Philadelphia days.
Do we have many of those situations, non-sports-related? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: Yes, we do. And provide refunds based on documentation and a refund petition filed by the individual.
Okay. And this agreement, as I understand it, is a memorandum of understanding; is that correct? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: I believe that's what it would be characterized as, yes.
Okay, but it's not 382 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05 codified in the Philadelphia Code? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: It's not in the Philadelphia Code. It's in terms of just how they allocate the days in and out of Philadelphia what constitutes a duty day.
Okay. Can you provide us a copy of this memorandum of understanding through the Chair? COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: I believe I can. I'm hesitating only because I'm not sure if it was an audit document that might have a confidentiality feature to it but I believe -- Okay, I'm being advised that it is something that would be available, yes.
Okay, 'cause it wouldn't have any individual person or player's information. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: It could have, and that's why I was concerned about it and wanted to double-check it. 383 12/14/00 - WHOLE - Operating Budget - 05
Okay, that's okay. COMMISSIONER KAMMERDEINER: But I understand it is something that could be made available.
Not only is your time up, but it is o'clock, and the Mayor 11 has asked us to be down in 225 at 12 o'clock. 12 So I would simply like to recess this hearing until 2 o'clock this afternoon. So we'll be back at 2. (Break taken.) - - - (Proceedings resume.)
This hearing is recessed until 9:00 a.m. Tomorrow morning. (Adjourned at 2:30 p.m.) - - - 384 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Monday, February 14, 2000, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE BILL NO. 005 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter