The trip to New York, we actually saw their CouncilStat application, and what they're doing, they have not centralized it so the constituent calls one number. They're still keeping those individual Council offices within New York.
That's by choice. That's by choice. But what they have done, though, is actually purchased an application, a computer customer service 117 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. type of application, where it's centralized. So within those Council districts, they can actually pull the stats together of all the calls that are coming into the individual offices and begin to see a trend as to why customers or constituents are calling each individual Council office. So individually you may not -- you may have a small view of what's going on within your area, but what they have done is been able to aggregate that information across, I think it's, 52 boroughs or 52 districts within New York. They've been able to aggregate that data to say, Hey, there is a problem not just in my area but also in these other areas as well. So that's how they're using that CouncilStat information. It's really for Council.
Okay. I guess as I travel -- and I try to stay within my district, but every now and then, they allow me to go over the border 118 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. to other Council districts, and people sometimes ask about something in Council, and I said, Well, it's not really in my district, and off the top of my head, I can't think of a Councilperson's number and I don't know what to tell them. I usually tell them, Call my office. But if I say, Well, call 5-1-1, because I know you can't do 4-1-1, for obvious reasons. Call 5-1-1 and that will direct you to whatever Councilperson or whatever area of the City that you need to deal with your Councilperson on or at-large. That's basically kind of what I'm talking about.
Yeah. You can create a new model which not only is your information centralized in a database, you can also create a model where you have one phone number. If a constituent wants to call City Council, they're calling one number, and that call can either be dispatched or they can answer generally -- you can create the model. 119 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
Well, I want to call that one number, but ultimately be --
-- sent to your Councilperson or an at-large Councilperson. From a technology standpoint, I guess the question I'm asking is, how difficult would that be to do?
From a technology standpoint, I'll let the CTO answer that, but from my experience, you can create the number and it wouldn't be that difficult, but I'll let him answer that question. (Witness approached witness table.)
And understand that after this hearing, Councilmembers might say, Are you crazy? We don't want to do that.
I'm Allan Frank, 120 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. the Chief Technology Officer. To answer the question, yeah, it would be possible for Council to set up a phone number or whatever it is, 5-1-1, 6-1-1, and then when the citizen actually got something on the other side, the choice you could create is, even through voice response, the name of the particular Councilperson and then forward that call directly to that office. So there's any number of options that you would have, and it's really well within our capability to do that sort of thing. It's really not very difficult at all. I think the big issue is, is there somebody on the other side of the phone in the Councilperson's office that when there is a call, is someone actually live going to pick it up. I think that would be the bigger concern.
It's a no-brainer technically, if that's what you want. 121 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
If there's one number, somebody said, Well, I need to call City Council. Who is your Councilperson? I don't have no clue, which happens more frequently than you would think. Well, call this number and you get diverted to your Councilperson or an at-large Councilperson.
I'd like to call the young lady back for 3-1-1. I'm sorry. We should ask all these individual --
This is Rosetta Lue. She's our Director of the 3-1-1 122 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. Contact Center.
The reports that you send out about the kind of calls you get and you categorize them by district, I notice that in my district, the 9th, but also other districts, we have a large -- the calls for abandoned cars sort of outstrips other than when you have episodic stuff like the snow. Other than that, you get abandoned cars. What's happening? For a moment we thought the abandoned car program was pretty much operating and the cars were leaving, but I see there's an increase in a number of those calls, and particularly in my district.
Right. Well, that's one of the good things about 3-1-1, is that we actually -- what the perception is, that something may have been taken care of or that has been fixed, what we're able to do is to capture the citizen's request for resolution of a 123 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. problem. And so with those reports, we're able to ascertain that there are issues within certain districts on different types of complaints. So with the abandoned car program, let me refer to Deputy Mayor Gillison to talk a little bit about exactly what's happening with that program.
We are seeing an increase in these, and these are handled by the Police Department, which is why Deputy Mayor Gillison is going to respond to your question. (Witness approached witness table.) DEPUTY
Good morning, Councilwoman. Yes, the abandoned car policy is still in effect. It's still going on. The program is still going on. What we have done is be able to put more transparency. People thought that when they called 3-1-1 initially and when it 124 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. was deemed to be completed, that the car had been removed. There are laws that have to be followed with notice and also to be placing the placard up. And so within the Department, we have now streamlined our response. 3-1-1 is called, they then call -- notify the Police. The Police go out, they put the notice on the car. It is actually noted at that time to see where the car is. At that point, there is a timeframe that has to be followed. I think it's about three days that have to go by. If the car is still there, sometimes 3-1-1 would then get another call that says that the car is still there, because people think that you can just take the car immediately, and you can't. But after that time period is over and after the three-day period is over to five-day, then we end up towing the vehicle after the statutory time has been done. At that point, we now circle back to 3-1-1 to make sure that they know that the job has been 125 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. done. Whether it has been that the car is not going to be towed or it will be towed, we now have to close the loop to 3-1-1 so the citizen can be notified. So those things are still happening. We have seen an increase in the abandonment of cars again in the City. We have been looking at proposing legislation to Harrisburg to help with the transfer of title so that people just can't use the pinks anymore solely, that they would have to get it registered in order to make sure that we would know who the last owner is, because all that usually happens is that the pinks are used maybe three or four different transfers ago, then when the Police go back to the original -- or the owner that's on the title, they say that they got rid of that car a long time ago. So we're trying to propose to Harrisburg different ways of handling that, but the program itself in towing, we are still doing and we are now working 126 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. very closely with 3-1-1 to make sure that we close the loop that was opened at the beginning of this process.
And one of the things that we do in 3-1-1 is, when we get a call like this, we're careful to let the citizen know that there is this time delay because of the legal process, so that we're helping to get the information out about exactly how long it takes. That's helped as well.
The pink is the transfer of title issue. Usually when you end up transferring the title, you could actually write on the back of the title. When you go, usually you would have a pink form. That form could be filled out and just given, and people would keep those in the vehicle to show that they have transferred title, but then on the pink, you can actually transfer title again, and what happens, 127 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. what we're seeing, is these cars are being transferred again and again and again. We're also getting issues where people say they donated their car to various organizations that you might be aware of and all the sudden, those cars are appearing back out on the street and the owner is saying, I gave the car to XYZ Foundation, I don't know why it's back on the street, and they're disavowing any knowledge, and the only thing they show us is the fact that they said that they transferred the vehicle. So we needed to tighten that up. We've been looking at how to do that with legislation and we're trying to work with our state representatives, because it is a state issue.
Thank you, Madam Chair. 128 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. Mr. Gillison, I just want to know, do you have any working relationship with the Parking Authority? DEPUTY
I mean "working" as far as eliminating this problem? DEPUTY
Oh, yes. We talk -- of the Parking Authority, I will actually say Deputy Mayor Cutler has a lot more of a working relationship, but I've been at a lot of meetings with the Parking Authority and we work very well together addressing not only this issue but whatever. You have to remember, Councilman, though, the Police have their own tow squad. So that's the one I'm really speaking to, what we're doing internally with the Police.
They don't seem to have as many, though, as the Parking Authority. 129 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. DEPUTY
And the Parking Authority is notoriously efficient when it comes to removing cars. DEPUTY
Would the Police Department be the only agency to tow these automobiles? Going back to Councilman Kelly's thought, that maybe the Parking Authority could be the agency that tows the cars. DEPUTY
Well, I know that the Police have jurisdiction over certain areas and the Parking Authority has jurisdiction on others, and I don't want to overstep, so I will get back -- I'll actually put together an outline for you and submit that to the Chair so the entire Council knows when one authority has the other and when the other one, because I don't want to speak out of turn at this time. 130 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
I think it's state law. I believe it's state law, but I'll make sure in my response to the Chair.
While you're sitting there, because you were next -- DEPUTY
The Office of Reintegration, do you head up that department or do you have an Executive Director for that? DEPUTY
There is no Executive Director, although we are putting together a call at this time for an Executive Director. I hope to have 131 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. one in by the next fiscal year, but right now, the Chief of Staff of that has been running that department for the past year.
The Mayor's Office of Reintegration Services for Ex-offenders is now known as RISE. We provide direct services still in a couple of different areas; that is, in socialization skills. I guess that's the best way to say that. But for the most part, we've gone to a model of capacity building in other agencies, community agencies or non-profits or even for-profit companies. We have a relationship at the new center, just opened yesterday, at 11th and Market. We have a center for literacy collaboration. We have America Works, which is being paid through ARRA dollars, which is a rapid attachment to work, job developing area. We also have mentoring that we now 132 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. have contracted and provided services on site with our Mayor's Office on Faith Initiatives, working through four or five faith groups that are providing mentors to the ex-offenders. All of that is now housed at 34 South 11th Street on the sixth floor.
So at the end of the day, do you have any idea or statistics on the number of people who come through the program thus far -- DEPUTY
-- who have reentered but also who are working? DEPUTY
Yes. I can tell you that we went to this model beginning in July of 2008. We were looking for obviously dollars, because our dollars were beginning to slip away, and we had to cut a lot of things. Our primary way of dealing with it was through the Prison budget and trying to reallocate funds from the Prison budget 133 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. to make sure that we were able to give people the opportunity to get jobs. As you know, the Mayor's focus is get jobs for people and they will be able to correct themselves, or at least keep themselves in a corrective state. The idea has been that over the last year -- so if you go the last fiscal year, 2008 to 2009 -- I have at least 1,500 people that came through the doors. Those that actually stayed with the program were approximately 700, and of the 700, we were able to get them through the programs that were offered by our partners to get ready for jobs, and I think we placed over 375 in full-time and full-paying jobs. Those persons have a recidivism rate, which is obviously what I'm worried about, of less than four percent. We report on these things not only through the CJAB, which, when asked, this is one of the programs that I try and make sure people understand we are dealing with, but also to make sure that 134 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. we put out this notice, and every time I go out or when the Mayor goes out, we talk about the successes we've had and trying to get more employers to actually hire the people once we get them ready and eligible to work in our program.
Thank you. Just a quick question for you while we have you. On these flash riots that are precipitated through electronic communication, sometimes Facebook, sometimes -- DEPUTY
I understand. "Riot" is a little strong. 135 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
You say tomato, I say tomato, but we'll go with your definition. Do we have someone within law enforcement that is monitoring Facebook, monitoring Twitter and, more importantly, is hip enough, if you know what I'm saying, to understand the secret language that these young people have? Because they've got abbreviations for everything and sometimes it goes over our head, but if we had someone that was adept to that jargon, we can anticipate where it's going to be and head it off the path. Because if 3,000 people know and we're sitting in here in City Hall clueless, we need to find someone with a greater understanding of that culture. DEPUTY
Well, thank you very much, Councilman, and believe me, I understand not only your question, but also I will agree with you that whenever 3,000 people show up at any one place, it's a problem, no matter how 136 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. you look at it, especially if they may or may not have ill will on their mind. Yes, we do have people that are monitoring, both in the Department and outside of the Department, monitoring these particular areas, but I have to emphasize that it's the nature of the electronic age that you almost have to be part of this inner circle to get that kind of communication directed to you. You're on Facebook. We have a number of Councilpeople here on Facebook. We monitor -- if you want to say just by looking at what you post, we monitor what you're posting.
We know you're looking at us, if you think we don't know it. DEPUTY
We also know that there are a number of people that once you are their friends, you could actually get into what they're also saying. And, yes, we do. We have that not only for all elements that make up 137 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. our rich society, young, hip, old, unhip, whatever you want to say. If you're out there, we're trying to monitor. The difficulty is is that you have to be able to be aware of what the individuals who are planning the event, which is usually, on a Twitter, account to account, and then it just passes virally through the numbers of friends that they have. What we've been trying to do through Anthony Murphy and Town Watch, through just our other partners that we use in the community, PAAN, for example, with our YVRPers, we want them to be part of our eyes and ears, and they are part of that process of alerting us as quickly as possible. People don't recognize that, but that's that kind of collaboration that we maintain as we go forward in this particular area. So the answer is, yes, we're doing it. It's just difficult to handle it because it's just the nature of the medium. 138 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
Just as a friendly suggestion, you might want to reach out to the Youth Commission -- DEPUTY
-- to see if they might have a greater insight and understanding as to this difficult problem, because it is going to make it bad for all young people who want to have a wholesome good time, whatever that is, but as we start to have fear of young people because of their great numbers, we can probably head some of this off if we had greater intel into how that works. And I think that they're far more adept and equipped to understand the lingo than we are, and if you reach out to them, it might be a part of the solution. DEPUTY
I will take that, and I think that's an excellent idea. I think it's also important for them to be part of the solution.
Correct. 139 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. DEPUTY
To have them stand with and not only say, This is what's going on, but this is how we feel, and to be able to have them say to their peers, You are really damaging what we're trying to accomplish. I think that the Youth Commission could play an excellent role in that, and I will take that suggestion. Thank you very much.
Just finally, I don't know what percentage comes from outside of Philadelphia, but I would guess that there might be a surprise in there that you'll find a lot of people that aren't even from Philadelphia, they're from surrounding counties that view Philadelphia as a great place to let their hair down as opposed to the counties in which they reside, and we might want to just put a Post-it note on to finding out where they come from, and that might give us greater insight as well. DEPUTY
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to continue to go through some positions, but I'd like to sort of make an overarching point and respectfully ask the Managing Director and the Administration and the other departments to not fill positions while we're in the middle of this budget process. People are getting hired throughout the City. A couple people got hired by the IG's Office right before this process began. People are getting hired in the 3-1-1 Call Center. There are a couple other departments where they had just filled some vacant positions. And I know that we authorized those positions last year in the budget 141 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. process, but we also are facing a $500 to $700 million issue over the next five years and we're filling positions, and at least for myself, I'm not going to view any position filled in the last couple of months as filled. I'm going to view it as vacant in terms of trying to find savings, and I'd hate to have people start a job, be all excited and then be disappointed. If people haven't been doing or in a position for six, nine months -- the public has just told us that they think the level of service we're providing is as good as it's been in the recent Pew poll or a small percentage even said they think service has improved in the face of all these cuts. I just think as we go through this process, I find it frustrating to hear, yes, we have to raise taxes $180 million; oh, yes, we just filled those three positions. So my request is that we stop filling positions until we agree on a budget. 142 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. (Witness approached witness table.)
Madam Chair, Steve Agostini, Budget Director for the City. Councilmember, as I tried to point out when you asked for the information, the increment run that's in the budget was as of November or December, and we have been both holding and filling positions throughout that time period. I mean, the increment run is now almost five months old, and for many of the positions that have been held, there were instances when there were some critical functions that needed to be performed. I would just -- in today's situation, at any given time we probably had somewhere between six to 15 vacancies in 3-1-1 given the level of attrition, and while I have been holding positions in an effort to generate savings in the current year to address our budget, you can only do that for so 143 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. long in order to ensure yourselves you're getting the services done. So I just wanted to point out that we are -- there is no mass filling of positions in the days or so since 7 we began these hearings. It really is 8 the case that we've been doing that since 9 the increment run, which is, as I 10 mentioned to you in Council earlier, it's 11 an older number and it's a number that's 12 constantly in flux. 13
I completely 14 understand that. Somehow they're getting by, and I think we need to just continue to get by until we get through the process. So the past is the past. Whoever is hired is hired. From this point on, I'd like to try to keep our vacancies vacancies. Like a perfect example of that is the hiring in 3-1-1. I don't really understand, because there is a report that was prepared on 3-1-1 by The Pew Charitable Trusts. It said that in 144 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. December, the time waited -- the time waiting for a 3-1-1 call had shrunk from a minute 45 seconds to seconds. Now, 5 I think it's all right if people have to 6 wait 45 seconds instead of 18 seconds to 7 get on the phone. 8 Seventy percent of the calls 9 that come in to 3-1-1 are for general 10 information. If you simply have 11 something that says, This is a call for 12 general information, press 1, this is a 13 call for a service request, press 2, then 14 we can make sure we prioritize service 15 request calls and the general information 16 calls are going to have a longer wait 17 cycle. And in this kind of budgetary 18 environment, that seems like a reasonable thing to do. And I don't mean to pick on 3-1-1. It's just the latest example of people who are hiring in the face of asking City Council to raise taxes by $180 million a year.
Within the 3-1-1 145 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. operations, we are open five days a week, hours a day. We're also open on 4 Saturdays eight hours. 5
Right. What I was 8 saying, with the staff that we have -- 9 and also we have a Walk-in Center. 10 When we look at the actual 11 numbers that we need, of personnel that 12 we need, we need a higher number in accordance to looking at the actual workforce, but we are operating with a smaller amount of staff, but we're spreading that staff not only to answer calls, they're also handling walk-ins, they're also handling --
I'm just saying when it comes to staffing, it is looked at very critically as to whether or not we need that person on board.
Well, I 146 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. mean, let's face it, we've got people in 3-1-1 entering data, and then it goes to the department and they enter it into their separate department systems. So we're still entering -- 3-1-1 has created two data entries instead of one data entry the first time someone calls in to the City. So we are -- 3-1-1 has created an inefficiency in duplication of task that Dr. Barnett's original vision and Jim Kenney's original vision and my support for this didn't anticipate that. We haven't gotten there.
For example, with the Streets Department, when the information is sent over to that department for a pothole request, there is no manual entry that's required for that type of operation. There are a couple of organizations that they do when they get a request have to enter things manually, but we are moving towards automation. Like I said, the --
But even if 147 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. they put it in their separate system electronically, my understanding is it hasn't -- it doesn't -- you don't take the metadata from 3-1-1 and automatically put it in Hansen or put it in --
The 3-1-1 data and its interface with work order systems in the Department is different department to department, because some departments don't have a work order system and others have different ones.
So part of what we need to do and part of what will make us more efficient in 3-1-1 is to use the technology to really make that happen, and I think that will improve services without increasing the number of people.
So how much would we save if we just went back to the departmental numbers where people who sat in the department and took the complaint and the work order number entry system in 148 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. the department, how much would we save if we just went back to that system until we built a truly automated system where there's one number that's the same number in 3-1-1, the same number in Streets, the same number in L&I, et cetera? So essentially if we close down the 3-1-1 Call Center and went back to people calling department by department, how much would we save in the interim while we're building the platform that we all originally envisioned?
I think it would be difficult to say that we'd save anything, and this is why: The previous system didn't have data that said what calls they were getting, how many were answered, how many were dropped. It would be impossible to do a performance comparison, because one of the things that 3-1-1 has done is to give us that data.
Well, I understand that, but I'm talking about in 149 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. terms of dollars, not in terms of performance. In other words, how much is the 3-1-1 budget?
It's 2.8 million for salary. So we'd save at least $2.8 million.
No, we wouldn't, because we'd have to reproduce that in the departments. If you'd like for us to do an analysis of what the different costs are and what would be the financial impact of dismantling 3-1-1, I'll be happy to give that to you. It's better than me trying to describe it off the cuff.
That's great. But my point is, there's still somebody in Streets who follows the work order flow and who follows the Streets Department number for work order flow, and that person used to answer the phone directly when people from City Council and others call. 150 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
No. Streets is not consolidated yet, so we get 3-1-1 calls on Streets, but Streets also gets calls directly. It's one of the places that has not yet been consolidated with 3-1-1.
Right. And even those places that are, there's often two sets of data entry, even if they're both electronic.
Okay. I'm looking to pick up pennies off the street, and maybe we need to take a step back and then really implement the full vision rather than go incrementally, and save money in the process or have money --
Well, I'll be happy to talk about that with you, because I think that it would be a real mistake to do that. So I'll be happy to explain why. 151 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
I appreciate that. It's just that we're hiring people and we've got this report that says the wait time is seconds. And I think 6 people would be pretty patient, a little 7 more patient than that. And it says 70 8 percent of the calls aren't for services. 9 So those are on the same priority in 10 terms of answering as service requests, 11 and there's efficiencies still in this 12 system I believe if we prioritize those 13 calls and potential savings in terms of 14 personnel if you just look at the Pew 15 report. 16 The other statistic that I 17 found interesting is -- and this is 18 information from the Managing Director's Office. Actually, from Rosetta. 3-1-1 operators enter approximately 15 new requests per day on average. That's in an eight-hour day they handle 15 requests per person. How does that compare with sort of private-sector call center statistics? 152 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
Those are -- let me clarify. Those are new requests for 4 service. Now, just like you stated, the 5 majority of our calls are for information 6 from the constituents. So some 7 constituents may call for a new request, 8 some may call for a follow-up on a 9 request they placed before, but the 10 majority of them are calling for general 11 information. 12
So what's 13 that mean? What happens when someone 14 calls for general information? 15
On a daily average, we receive about 3,500 calls a day. We do have a system in place where if you're calling for directory assistance and general information, the customer does have the option to press 1, and those calls -- like you're going through right now, we do segment those calls so they go to the right skill. If the customer doesn't make a choice or wants service requests, they 153 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. can press -- they just hold on and they'll get a person with the higher level skills to handle that.
So my question is, go through a typical general service request call for me.
Not request for service. I'm sorry. General information request.
Okay. A customer will be calling for the library hours, they're calling in for that. They can press one for general information. They will get an agent that will be able to verify the information in our knowledge base, look for the information, follow through with the customer, summarize --
Let me ask you a question. For a general information request, what process does the operator follow? Do they take the person's name? 154 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
No. For just general information, typically the customer does not want or the caller does not want to leave their name. They're just calling for --
If you just get through to the other line, what happens?
Oh, they'll end up going to -- just by not hitting anything at all, they'll end up going to an agent.
If it's a service request, they'll ask for contact information. For general information, 155 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. they don't.
What's the typical length of time for a general information request call?
Okay. What's your average call time for a service request?
For a service request, it's falling within that medium. So depending upon the type of request that we're doing, less than three minutes that they'll be talking to that customer.
So how many calls on average does a 3-1-1 individual handle?
It depends on season. Right now we are averaging about 100 calls per agent. Last month we had almost 200 calls that came into the Contact Center.
A hundred calls per person? 156 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
Could you please break that down for me by month and give me some detail on that --
Okay. I think I've beat the 3-1-1 horse to death for now.
I'm getting e-mails now. In addition to 3-1-1, as District Councilpeople, we still get contacts from our constituents.
Yes. Well, that's a whole other 3-1-1 issue. 157 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. I did send 3-1-1 a bunch of questions, or the Managing Director's Office, which you were kind enough to answer in advance, so I won't go through them. There was one question related to that that I wanted to follow up on, and, that is, it appears to some members of my staff who have been to the 3-1-1 Call Center and seen what is on the screen and what information is available to a 3-1-1 operator in terms of status, all the different notes from the departments and stuff, that's information that we do not get in my office.
The Council staff, what they have is a profile that shows them certain types of information. There are different security levels, that as an agent, they may see the workflow, meaning the programming behind that service request.
Right. So why can't my staffers have that information, which would free up 3-1-1 158 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. time, because when people call us back after we've called 3-1-1 on their behalf, et cetera, we can't say this is where it is in the department, which is available on the screen of every 3-1-1 agent. Now, if you don't want us to be able to change data on there, set that security level, but actually we could take pressure off you because there would be less interaction with Council offices if we had direct access to the same data that your agents have access to.
That is not correct. I've seen the screen in the 3-1-1 or my staff has seen the screen in the 3-1-1 office and they've seen the screen in our office. There's a lot more information available to the agent.
What I was going to 159 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. say is that the resolution as to where the department is, we both have that same access. What is --
Yeah. That is not the information in terms of what is really happening, what the department has actually done. That is like status.
Right. What I was going to say is that what the agent may have -- and it's not in all the cases -- they have the actual business process map that the department is going through, which is what you're talking about. We can give that information to Council staff. So all what they're seeing is the actually mapping process.
We'd like the same exact data the agent has so that we don't have to call you.
Okay. That will save up 3-1-1 time as well. That way, we don't have to call people in 160 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. 3-1-1. I mean, there's four people who are on staff or three that are Council liaison kind of?
No. We have three, the Licenses and Inspections subject matter expert.
Okay. And if we had the same data, we wouldn't really need a liaison, because we'd have the same data.
Okay. Let me make sure I didn't forget to ask something.
Does that mean we're going to get the data or we'll have access or is that an, Okay, I hear you?
No. It's, Okay, I hear you, but it's also, Okay, we need to 161 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. get together after this to make sure that we're speaking the same language. If there's data that we have that you need access to, I'll be more than happy to give that to you. Again, what I was trying to get to is that what they're seeing on the screen is actually in some cases the process map detailed out in the system. We can give you that same data. We can give you that same information.
-- give it to us electronically? Giving it to us hard copy doesn't work. Giving it to us realtime so that we don't duplicate the phone call or triplicate the phone call is what I believe is at the heart of my colleague's request, and I concur a hundred percent, that if we could see where a pothole was in the loop of pothole process, it will alleviate us from having to call you to 162 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. do that.
Two quick questions. Last year's budget had three million in the MDO budget for, I think it was, street furniture fees. It was revenue under the title Strategic Marketing Fees, which I think last year's testimony said was sort of for street furniture. Is the concept of that street furniture and getting those strategic marketing fees dead? (Witness approached witness table.)
We can talk about street furniture. I'm not sure what the marketing fees that you're talking about. Is it market-based revenue opportunities? Is that what that is?
Last year's budget it was on -- sorry. This year's budget it's on .
It's market-based 163 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. revenue opportunities?
Original estimate is three million. Current estimate is zero. DEPUTY
I think -- I'm sorry. Rina Cutler. There are two different pieces here. I can speak to street furniture, but that is separate than the marketing-based piece the Managing Director referenced.
Right. The market-based revenue opportunities, we're showing a zero there because we're not at this time advocating that we have the advertisement on various public facilities and buildings that would bring in that revenue. So that's the reason it shows as zero this year.
And what was 164 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. the decision-making process that -- is it possible to get that revenue? I mean, did we make a policy decision not to go after it or did we find the market doesn't want to advertise on our buildings?
Let me get you the specifics on what happened to that initiative and I'll provide that to the Chair.
Okay. Because, I mean, if it's possible to get the revenue, I'd like to see it --
-- given the current circumstance. And while you're there, Deputy Mayor Cutler, what's going on with street furniture? DEPUTY
Glad you asked, Councilman. We expect the RFP to be on the street this week and we are expecting to be in front of Council with 165 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. a contract in the fall.
We are anticipating revenue from that. Because the way the contract is -- the RFP is written, the people who are bidding on it will be giving us numbers for revenue. We do not at this point know what the market will bring back in. So we have not -- we cannot estimate what we think the revenue from it will be until we get back the responses.
Well, we can estimate with some degree of accuracy or some -- but we can estimate. Will it be a hundred thousand dollars? DEPUTY
I believe if I can -- you can just use the numbers 166 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. from the current contract, if you wish, to estimate. But we do not know the market -- the market itself is so significantly different, that it is very difficult to project, which is why we did not do so.
I know, but there's a lot of assumptions in the budget, and we're asking people to pay us more fees and taxes and -- DEPUTY
-- I'd like to offset that with as much revenue as possible, and if we can make a reasonable assumption about revenue, I'd like to see it reflected.
If I can respond to both the MBRO that you mention as well as the street furniture, I believe -- I'll start with the latter. The street furniture, we had estimates. I think two or three years ago, the City did move forward with what was a preliminary set 167 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. of estimates. The range from the firms that came back to us was something like two and a half to, I think, $20 million in terms of what might be available to us. When we arrived in this Administration, we took a hard look at that. We took a look at the pro formas, and we concluded that those were -- they just didn't seem to be real. And having done street furniture estimates in San Francisco that ended up with Decaux being hired to provide, as part of the street furniture, public toilets, the estimates that we had inherited when we walked in just seemed totally unrealistic and not grounded in reality. But with respect to the MBRO, we did have the MBRO and have had the MBRO revenue in the budget for a number of years at the $3 million level. We did go forward with an RFP. We did get some responses back on the RFP. What we realized from that was that the likelihood of realizing anything close to 168 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. the $3 million was slim, given some of the assumptions that were built there. So I think we intend to proceed with the MBRO, but at this point, having any kind of placeholder for revenue also seems unrealistic.
Well, what did the responses suggest was a realistic figure?
I think it was all entirely subject to negotiation with what you would make available for advertising or for some form of that market base.
And based on negotiation, it just didn't seem clear. Needing to go through the RFP, needing to go through the negotiations, not understanding or at least being confident that those could get concluded in a timely manner to include in the budget, we just made a decision to set that 169 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. aside. We'll proceed, but having a revenue estimate based on that just seems very unrealistic.
-- and suggest that we have to include all possible revenue measures with some reasonable estimate. Even if $500,000 you are comfortable with, it's not unfair to ask you to provide that information to us so that we don't have to increase taxes by $500,000.
As I said before, we did have it. It was in the budget. It was in the budget for a number of years. At the time, we thought it was a realistic estimate. It never materialized.
Well, it sounds like we haven't done an RFP that the industry wants. It doesn't seem to 170 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. me that it's their fault. We need to put together a list of buildings and properties we're willing to allow them to use, send out an RFP and get bids. It will take us six months. Is the Administration undertaking to do that?