Okay. So what would be educational for us, if you can come up with a crib sheet that says this is state law, this is city law. And you said you made recommendations to President Dembe and to Judge Rizzo, who both have expressed an interest and willing to work with us on this. What is missing? What is the gap? What type of state-enabling legislation, what types of recommendations could you give to us so that we can ensure -- I know there is a work group working on some state legislation, and I just want to make sure that if there's something that we need that's missing, we should be part of that discussion. Are you part of that work group that's putting together state legislation? COMMISSIONER DECKER: Yes. We have met with Representative Manderino on several occasions, and most recently she 328 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. did submit to us drafts of a set of legislation, recommended revised legislation, based on our prior meetings with her office. And the enabling legislation, actually there are several of them, and one of -- they are as follows: To require both a buyer and seller of a property to sign the deed at the time that the transaction is committed and enacted. Right now it's only the seller of the property that must sign. This will give an audit trail, traceability, to make sure that when subsequent mortgages come in and subsequent sales occur, we can match up or law enforcement can match up the names appropriately. That would be one idea. Another idea is to revise the notary public law, which would require several things. First of all, any one of us can claim that -- can come in and go to a store and purchase notary equipment, stamp and seal, without being a duly authorized notary. So the thought is is 329 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. to kind of strengthen the notary public laws by requiring or by making it a criminal offense -- the penalties are, I think, only in one case, they're very light civil penalties -- to do a couple of things. Number one, to impersonate a duly commissioned notary, and the second thing is for anyone who purchases equipment without being a duly notarized notary. Both of those would carry both a criminal penalty as well as a civil penalty, because we do notice that in many cases, the notary is a fraudulator, so to speak. They're the ones that have colluded in the crime and they actually are responsible for verifying the identity of the person who is signing over as the granting party to either the rights or the property rights, and that is a problem. That is not necessarily the Records Department responsibility or County Recorder's responsibility. It's the responsibility of the notary, but in many of these fraudulent cases, the 330 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. notary is actually a criminal and is participating in this as well. So to the extent that you can strength the notary public laws, that would do a great degree in getting the message out that these will not be treated lightly. We also suggested in part of the working group that the bonding requirements for a notary would be increased. Right now I think it's only about $3,000. What this would mean, that when a notary is in collusion with the crime, that the innocent victim could go to the notary to get the money to proceed with the return of property through a quiet title action through the court of law. This would help to recover some of the expenses that are involved in doing that. I believe that there might have been one or two other issues, but they're really the driving areas of the legal changes that would be required, and I can get you a list. 331 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
It would be important for you to submit it. I know Councilman Greenlee has taken the lead on this issue, but you mention that this is impacting immigrant communities, and obviously my district being -- again, one of the areas where we're first is on this fraudulent deed situation. What are we doing around language access? Because it is happening to a lot of folks who English is their second language in some cases. Do we take deeds that are in Spanish, any of our documentation in -- COMMISSIONER DECKER: We haven't received any deeds that are in Spanish, but we have received some other documents like attesting to the identity of a person for a consulate in another country. But we haven't seen any deeds in Spanish. The deeds that have been submitted are in English. We did -- to your point, I did mention earlier community education is 332 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. extremely important. That has been the most difficult challenge for us, to connect with the right linkages to get to the community groups. We have spoken about this with Judge Rizzo, and she suggested that we invite Ms. Santos, who was invited to the Fraudulent Conveyance Committee. We just had a meeting on Friday at the Bar Association. But if we can -- to the extent that we can -- we do have tips for homeowners and buyers, and they are --
Are those in English and Spanish? COMMISSIONER DECKER: We have them in Spanish. We have some of our brochures about document recording, document recording requirements, also the fraud that is perpetrated, the document notice program. We have those in Spanish language as well. And we also have much of this posted on our website. I don't know right now if the Spanish language is posted on the website, but we do have the 333 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. brochures. The brochures are distributed and available in our public service rooms. Whenever anyone wants to come to research land records, we make sure that they have a copy of that. But the tips to homeowners and home buyers, all that material is very helpful to get out to the community groups.
It would be important and, again, we have to work with the DA, and I know in the past the DA's Office did not have the resources or did not want to dedicate the resources that we needed to go after what we knew were kind of the perpetrators. This has been a market, and they target hospitals. We've kind of known the pattern. We've just been unwilling. Do you see more prosecutions happening now or more willingness on the DA's Office to really kind of pursue? Because the onus is on the victim. You're the victim and then the onus is on you to prove that someone stole your 334 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. property. COMMISSIONER DECKER: Yes.
Do you find there's a little bit more cooperation there? COMMISSIONER DECKER: Oh, yes. Very definitely. I just testified in a hearing and listened to the closing arguments, was asked to be present at those. And I will also be participating in the sentencing for a rather large fraud ring. I will be present there, and I will be providing a victim impact statement on behalf of the City at that sentencing hearing. And there's some other cases that are in the works as well.
Okay. We're going to obviously continue to work on this issue. I'm very concerned, because some of the numbers that I get are several hundred a month in my district, and they only come to my desk when it's a problem, you know, when 335 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. obviously people are trying to recuperate it. And we've worked with CLS and we try to go through that whole circle of helping folks. One of the issues that I have a great concern is that even once it's proven that the person has stolen the property, the person, the victim, still has to get an attorney to file a civil case, and I'm wondering if there's anything in the middle there other than this person now absorbing a legal expense to go back and claim their property that we could be doing. COMMISSIONER DECKER: Well, there are two other areas. There are a number of non-profits. So we generally provide an information sheet if it's reported to us, if suspected fraud is reported to us, and we do work, again, through the Fraudulent Conveyance Committee in the Philadelphia Bar Association. We work with a number of the non-profits, including Regional Legal 336 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. Housing Services, Senior Law Center and Philadelphia Volunteers for the Indigent, as well as Community Legal Services. So they partner with us, and we usually refer these cases first to any of those four non-profits. Beyond that, prior to -- Judge Dembe has continued and her predecessors actually implemented a pro se expedited hearing. So there is an opportunity every Thursday to go to the Court of Common Pleas and make your case. So that particular area -- that particular setup has been -- those sessions have been utilized. We do find that victims who want to argue their case on their own behalf do attend those hearings. A lot of the problems with that, though, is that these cases are very complicated. It's not a simple question of a transfer from one person to another. The criminals continue to become very smart. They figure out work-arounds for -- every time a 337 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. protection is put into place, they figure out a work-around. What they generally have learned to do is to transfer the property into a fictitious name and then sell it out to an innocent victim, making it almost impossible to trace them, and that's part of the problem. So what happens is, that innocent victim, many cases, will invest in the property and do renovations and then perhaps it's sold out again. Sometimes the perpetrator of the crime will do two sales, two unknowing victims. So when these cases appear in a court and the judge is trying to make a determination, it's really not a quite so simple solution, where you have multiple victims who are harmed, where some people have invested in upgrades to the property and another person has paid another, whatever, several thousand dollars to purchase the property as well. So although there are measures in place to accommodate people who do not 338 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. have the resources to argue for themselves, the cases can become very complicated. There are a lot of notice requirements, advertisement requirements that are set by law that need to be implemented. And many times these cases require very complex legal title searches, and that is what adds to the expense of the return of the property. So, yes, there are some other mechanisms that are in place for these innocent victims to utilize, but, again, these cases can be extremely complicated and it's always not so easy. The legal community is very interested in this, and they do work as much as they can. I mentioned these non-profits, who really do a wonderful job, and we assist them with that as well. We conduct a lot of the research on their behalf. We waive the recording fee. We notarize at no cost and sign the deed over to the rightful owner, but it is a very vexing and complicated issue. 339 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
I'm just concerned that ultimately our inability to flag some of these cases leads to all this legal unraveling, and I just feel Bill's frustration, that we need to be more preventive. So maybe we want to look at particular areas where there is a pattern and you have these transfers that are coming in way below market, because many of the cases we've seen, the family relationship, they're not really related, but obviously to skirt real estate transfer tax, you see that. And I don't know who is keeping the data where this is happening, and so if we can identify certain communities, because we know. Who is tracking how many of these cases are out there? Do we have like one central? COMMISSIONER DECKER: We do have an internal tracking system where the reports of fraud, of suspected fraud, that do come to the Records Department we do keep track of. However, at the time 340 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. that they are reported to us, we do not know whether it is founded. So although we do have that material available, until it is prosecuted and examined and confirmed that it is fraud, we don't know that all of those cases are in fact fraudulent cases.
Can you at least share that data for us? Again, I'm the leader in the City as it relates to this, and I'm very concerned. So I'd like to look at the patterns, because maybe the conversation -- again, notwithstanding people's civil liberties, I'm very concerned about what other steps we need to put in play to limit, especially when we have family transfers or way-below-market transfers, which is what you see, because many of these properties also end up being tax delinquent, they end up with other stuff in the pot. Do we require -- you don't have a way of ensuring that taxes are paid, no 341 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. cross filing with any other departments? COMMISSIONER DECKER: No, we don't. No, we don't. With these -- and, again, with many of these cases, one of the big issues -- and we were talking about how this happens and the need for community education -- most of these incidents of fraudulent transfers occur without title insurance. If title insurance had been purchased, many of the searching for outstanding liens, whether it be outstanding real estate taxes, outstanding utility bills like gas, electric, other kinds of liens and judgments that may be filed in the Prothonotary's Office, when title insurance is purchased at the time of a property transfer, all of that examination, as well as any restrictions that occur on the property, all of that is examined. The problem with many of these is that title insurance is not procured.
I know, 342 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. but in lieu of -- title insurance is expensive, and so when someone thinks they're getting a good deal -- and I always tell them if it sounds too good, it is too good, and they don't listen. In lieu of that, we need to figure out how we develop the infrastructure to at least be able to check for delinquent taxes and delinquent water, and that becomes a flag, because we found -- and, again, that's why it's important for you to share this data -- that many of these transfers, particularly the ones that are family related, have many delinquencies. So maybe that's another step, Councilman, that we could pursue around, no different than we're doing now with zoning as it relates to folks getting permits. We may want to say unless there's a signed agreement and they can prove there's a signed agreement for real estate and water, we're not going to let these transfers happen. So that's up for discussion. 343 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. Again, we're trying to find a solution with you, but I just think as government, it is not acceptable that our only recourse is to say we can't do anything. And when we're talking about hundreds a month, Lord knows what the pipeline is of some of these properties. I'm sitting on a couple hundred of them in my office now, extremely frustrated because we don't have options, and then we're walking through the legal process with people when I think there could be more that we can do up in the front. So I'd be happy to co-sponsor that with you, Councilman. Thank you.
I'm going to seed to Councilman Green, who never seeds to anybody else.
I actually 344 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. do have questions for Ms. Decker, but I am going to hold them while we bring Mr. Frank up so we can let him go. He's still waiting in the audience.
Well, I don't think it's fair to Commissioner Decker either.
Well, my questions for Commissioner Decker will take minutes and Mr. Frank has already 12 been waiting about that amount of time. 13
18 Commissioner, do you mind? 19 COMMISSIONER DECKER: No. 20 That's fine. 21
Just 22 a moment, please. 23 I know that Councilman Greenlee 24 had his light on, so -- 25
I never 345 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. ask questions that last 25 minutes. I just had one follow-up, one comment on what -- a number of comments, but just one for the record what Councilwoman Sanchez was saying. I certainly agree with everything, but the DA, I'd like to verify. This District Attorney, in all fairness, seems to be much more proactive. I think the former District Attorney kind of wanted to see that there were a lot of cases before she proceeded. This DA seems to want to take it like right from the beginning and fight every one, and I think that's good certainly. I just had one follow-up question, Commissioner. The issue of not providing or not considering some of that documentation public record, like I gave this particular case, is it a difference whether it's a criminal matter or a civil matter? Because in a civil matter, why would that be considered not public record? COMMISSIONER DECKER: Well, the 346 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. documentation that we look at from the City Council legislation, that's all incorporated and made part of public record.
Say it again. I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER DECKER: So all the documentation that is listed in the City Council legislation, we call it the deed match legislation, all of that is incorporated and becomes part of the public record.
It is part of the public record? COMMISSIONER DECKER: Yes, it is. We do not include photographs of people at the front counter who walk in the deed. Your prior question was about photographs. That is not part of the public record.
So the photograph is not, but the rest is? COMMISSIONER DECKER: But everything else, all the documentation, 347 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. the articles of corporation, testamentary letters, the wills, the trust, powers of attorney, and we even -- the staff even takes a copy of the envelope, the certified U.S. postal envelope, and includes that as part of the document recording.
So some of the people who are trying to do this themselves, as was pointed out, there is some help for the lower-income people, but that the people who are above that means, they often in some ways are in tougher shape, because a lot of organizations now just can't handle it, because, as you say, some of it is very complicated. So they could get that information? Short of the photograph, they could get that information? COMMISSIONER DECKER: Yes. We would make -- the case that you cited, we didn't release the photograph publicly because we don't consider them public record, but in that case, because it is 348 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. under investigation, we are under --
I understand. COMMISSIONER DECKER: -- a ruling not to release anything.
I understand. COMMISSIONER DECKER: However, if we knew that an individual was entering into a pro se argument in front of the Court, we certainly would release it in that case. We would want to make sure that we understood they were going to the Court on that day. It would only compound our issue, the issue of fraud, if we were to proliferate these photographs widely. So we want to be a little bit cautious about who we release them.
That makes sense. One last thing, if a person -- I won't use his name because you said it's under investigation, but somebody like that person is -- obviously 349 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. has been involved in a lot of questionable fraudulent transactions, is there a flag put on somewhere in your department where if such Joe Blow comes down here, be extra careful or don't take his stuff until we check farther, that kind of thing? Because there's obviously some people who have made this a living. This is their way of having -- COMMISSIONER DECKER: Well, we have a great staff at the customer service desk, and you probably know both of them, Cindy and Ed.
Sure. COMMISSIONER DECKER: And they are very attuned to who are repeat customers that could be suspected fraudulators, and whenever we think that someone is coming in who has been there and suspected of fraud, we do contact the District Attorney's Office.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam President. 350 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
You're welcome. Commissioner, if you don't mind waiting. COMMISSIONER DECKER: That's fine. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Frank. (Witness approached witness table.)
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your patience, Mr. Frank. I'm sorry. I think I missed your testimony by two minutes running from another meeting. So I appreciate you hanging around. In every department that testified, I've -- and I let the Budget Office know I'd be doing this for each department. I have asked people to talk 351 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. about positions that have been unfilled for a significant amount of time, newly created positions, what the job duties and functions of those positions are and who has been performing those functions in the time that while -- if it's newly created, obviously nobody was, why we need an additional position. If it's been vacant for a long time, how has that work been getting done. So if we go to the schedule of positions in the budget, Schedule 100, list of positions, and this is under General Management and Support, you had a Deputy CIO position that was unfilled that has the salary of $175,000. Can you tell me what the job duties and functions of that are and -- I think I know the answer to this question, but is that position still unfilled?
No. That is the position filled by the First Deputy CIO Tommy Jones.
I'm confused 352 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. about that, because there was no 3 authorization or no position such as that in last year's budget. Is that incorrect?
So are you spending more in Class 100 than was authorized in 2010?
Okay. So how did you -- because that $175,000 wasn't in last year's budget, I'm wondering, did you lose people through attrition and that created Class 100 funds?
Do you want me to answer the question, sir? Basically, as you know, I'm transforming IT and I have to make a number of judgments in terms of bringing in specific positions. In order to make sure my budget stays balanced, first of all, what I've done is, I don't 353 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. look at any historical, what you would call, vacant positions. As far as I'm concerned, what I do is identify what are specifically the roles that I need today. Then what we've done is, we've either eliminated vacant positions that I don't need or -- I can't speak to this one specific position, but if I've created savings in the past, we might have even done a transfer ordinance between Class 200 and 100, but in no way am I going over the total budgeted Class 100 number. But there's no question we are making a number of very strategic important hires.
Well, very specifically -- you're talking about Tommy Jones or any Deputy CIO's?
I'm talking about the new Deputy CIO that has a salary of $175,000.
He's my first 354 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. deputy, so he's next in line in terms of he has overall responsibility should I not be there to run the operation. On a day-to-day basis, he's got overall responsibility for all application and data, as well as all of the departmental services.
I don't know what that means. I don't understand the question.
General on a day-to-day basis he has responsibility for, what did you say, general -- what is that --
So when you say he "runs the Applications and Data" -- I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just trying to understand what happens on a daily basis.
What happens on a 355 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. daily basis, sir?
When you say he runs the Applications, he's not in there writing code?
The direct reports would be the people that are responsible for all the applications systems in the City. And so that would be a number of people. He also would have responsibility for the services we're providing to our departments moving forward. But in terms of day-to-day work, he's a manager. He leads people. I mean, I really don't understand that question.
So he's going to be in charge of the new Departmental Services Division?
Okay. And 356 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. everybody in that division will report to him?
Ultimately, okay. And with respect to Applications, is that a separate department or is that just a group of people? How would you classify that?
The Division of Technology is organized into major units. One is call Department Services, which is where we are going to be and are consolidating all the departments. We have another group called Applications and Data, and that is the groups that maintain and run and develop all the software and databases, and he has the responsibility for all those people. There is another unit within Division of Technology called Infrastructure. There's another unit called Operations. There's another unit called Business Information Services. So, again, I'm trying to be 357 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. respectful. I don't really understand the question, other than the fact that it's a very large organization and he's got responsibility over a chunk of it.
Well, I'm trying to define his responsibilities as compared to other Deputy CIOs.
So very specifically, the unit called Applications and Data, which is the software and database side, as well as I call it Department Services, and he is my number two.
So with respect to the Executive Assistant position for $50,000, it was unfilled as of the latest increment run that I have. Who is that person supposed to serve and who was performing those functions prior to it being unfilled?
That's your Executive Assistant? 358 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
The Chief of Staff was transferred in from another department.
So reporting to you now, you have a Chief of Staff to handle things and an Executive Assistant?
Okay. With respect to under Business and Improvement Services, you had two unfilled positions at 85,000 a year, Senior Business Analysts. Are those positions still unfilled? 359 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
Okay. The Senior Program Manager was a newly created position of $105,000?
-- under Facilities and Infrastructure. Enabling Technology Services, Systems Development, Senior Application Architect, $110,000 a year, two positions.
These positions are in the process of recruiting, sir. 360 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
So they're unfilled. And Senior Application Developer, two positions also unfilled?
I will point out that we have not authorized this funding yet. Systems Development, three unfilled positions. There's no salary on Page -- it's under the Information Management System. There's three newly created positions with the title Systems Development. There's no salary for that category in the Salary Range in Dollars field.
There are seven people. It looks like a total of 565. So roughly 80 grand, salaries.
So they are still unfilled? 361 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
Can you tell me what those three systems development people are going to do and how that job is getting done now?
Well, in general, we need systems development people in order to develop web-based applications, whether it be a part of phila.gov or implementing online functions for any of our departments. It's just a basic skill that you need in order to provide that application support.
And we need full-time people instead of outsourcing that?
A combination of contractors and in-house. I don't think it's a hundred percent one or the other.
I have the same question with respect to the Senior Application Architects. What will those people do?
Application 362 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. Architects are actually, in the vernacular, are, in a way, much more senior developers that understand broader software design concepts. Developers tend to just focus on what they're being asked to write. So it's really a level of proficiency. And to your point about using outsiders or insiders, I think the majority of our work will be done with contractors, but you need to have a core group of people from inside the City that effectively intellectually own how all the pieces fit together, so that you can coordinate and manage the development efforts. So, in effect, these architects and this small group are really our seedbed of a small group of very senior professionals that will be augmented by contractors, and, unfortunately, we don't have that level of profession proficiency that we need, sir.
Right. There is a lot of people coming into your 363 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. department, though, and I'm just wondering has there been an assessment of whether or not all of the people who are being transferred from the various departments are actually required in your department?
We have an understanding right -- I can't say that I have a full knowledge of the skills and capabilities of every individual coming in. What we do have currently is obviously through the City's classification scheme, I have a pretty good understanding of the broad categories of skills that we have, and we've developed a competency survey so that we can understand that better. But as it relates to things like some of the application skills and data skills that I'm speaking of, interacting with our other IT Directors and so forth, we strongly believe we need these skills.
I understand. It doesn't look like you're 364 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. giving anything up through attrition or through other efficiencies with respect to, say, people who have expertise in Fortran or something that we might not need anymore.
Well, what I'm doing -- well, it's an interesting point, because what I am doing, though, is over the next several years, there is a significant number of people that are getting close to retirement or retirement age, so what I am looking at is the timing of that. And so as an example, if at some point we replace our, let's just say, our main frame system with a new system five years out, we do have a very natural attrition built into our plans.
Under Administration -- this is a low dollar, but believe me, I asked the Youth Commission about $11,000 yesterday. Under Administration, General Management and Support, there's TBD, $27,000. 365 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. (Witness approached witness table.)
I'm not sure I have the exact piece of paper you have in front of you, so I'm just trying to reconcile that question, sir.
Okay. I mean, there's a Telecommunication Services Representative going from one position to three positions. What do those people do?
Can you tell us what page you're on in the detail, Councilmember?
I don't think there is a page number in the detail, is there?
It's Communications section, General, under the Division of Technology. 366 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
I don't know. I'll show you. So the question is what those people will do and who has been performing the functions until now. (Witness approached witness table.)
Hi. I'm Tommy Jones, First Deputy Chief Information Officer. Currently -- you asked the question what do those people do. They're going to be part of the staff that maintains that telecommunication system, install phones, make moves. Currently, we have about a 30-day turnaround, because we only have three people doing the 70,000 phones, and we're trying to increase that capacity.
Well, this is a debate for another time, but I don't think we ought to be hiring people for an antiquated system that's not going to exist in a year. You may say two years, but okay. So Communications, General, professional services, paid, NAC, 980,000, NAC operating costs. What is that?
The paid NAC operating costs are currently the run rate for the operating costs of that wireless network --
I apologize for looking for -- departmental services. Obviously the run we have, which is page -- there is no description, but as 368 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. you know, in 2007 I wrote a paper requesting that we consolidate everybody into the CTO's -- create a CTO, consolidate everybody into the CTO's office. I was pleased to see the Mayor do an Executive Order on that. Part of the purpose of that was to gain efficiencies through the elimination of redundancies that exist in the various departments, and it looks to me like everybody is essentially moving from the department into your department at this point without a thorough review of where there are potential efficiencies through similar skill-sets that come from different departments.
Councilman, we made a decision to move everybody in rather than take the time to do the assessments as you're suggesting, because we thought the assessment process would simply slow up our ability to move everybody, get the consolidation done. So we decided to do the consolidation, 369 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. with the expectation that Allan will complete, because he's already done a rather extensive review of the positions, he'll complete that assessment once he gets a sense, as he said earlier in his testimony, what the skill-sets are for people, what their individual skill levels, how they can contribute to the organization, and that's going to take some time as he gets everybody into the organization.
Now, with that said, Councilman, we painstakingly went through each person, each position with the department person by person, including to identify, in conversation with the department head and others, what was the person's role, what their IT class was, what percentage of time they were doing IT work. So the number that's coming over is a result of that very direct discussion on a person-by-person basis. What I've also agreed to with 370 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. the departments, again, under the proviso of doing no harm, is that as they come in to service a department, I was not going to do anything that would disrupt that department's IT operation given the fact that on one day, they're working for one person, on the next day they're working for another. So actually this is, in my view, absolutely the right way of doing this. So that when we again get in, we have a much better idea of -- we know what they're already doing. Now what we're going to be able to see is the opportunity for people to grow into new roles, those that might want to have the significant training in new areas and so forth, including identifying redundancies and so forth.
Right. I mean, there may even be redundancies, say, between the Information Technology Division and the Departmental Services Division -- 371 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
-- for example, not just within each category, where people can fulfill roles that are applicable to both.
Absolutely, and I've done an analysis by broad job category, so I know how many people across the board we have that are doing technology work versus software versus other categories.
But we are in agreement that ultimately the purpose of this consolidation is the creation of efficiencies?
Okay. And when you say you talked to department heads, how many people were listed in the departments' IT budget in total, or how many people were they allocating towards 372 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. IT and then how many people did you ultimately assume?
Roughly, sir, when we did the initial inventory, there were, give or take, about 750. That includes independently elected offices. By the time we were done going through the detail and really identifying what the people were doing, roughly 100, 105 didn't come over in the consolidation, because they were in fact doing not a high level of IT work, and so they remained in the departments. And so that brings us down to roughly 525 in total, including independently electeds. There's 57 IT people in independently elected, so we're down to like 470 or whatever.
Actually, that's the level I want to stay at for a second. So there were 105 people who were in departmental budgets ostensibly as IT-related people, at least with respect to the way the department was 373 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. submitting things up to the Administration in past years, and those 105 people, are they still in those departments, just not as an IT function anymore?
That would be my understanding, sir, that they are doing work for the departments, they are fully employed and doing that work. They just -- let's just call it either a misclassification, that sort of thing.
Well, I mean, I can't judge that at the moment. But that would be great. So if you could provide the Chair with a list of the job duties of -- not you, but the Budget Office -- a list of the job duties of those 105 people and what they're doing in the departments, I'd be curious to take a look at that. 374 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc.
We have the classifications. We don't have all the job descriptions or job duties. As it turns out, as Mr. Frank was saying, many of the duties that would have been expected based on the title turned out to be something in some cases entirely different than the job title.
Well, it just seems to me that that may be a very fruitful area to find efficiency since they --
Based on the discussions, robust discussions, that I've had with departments, I would agree with you.
Well, let me know if I can assist you in shaking loose --
Shaking the tree. Okay. So with respect to the 375 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. consolidation, the testimony states that the seven mainly grant-funded operations will keep their 102 employees and the elected will keep their own 57 employees. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Those departments that we spoke of that will be under an MOU, physically the people will have their home in that department, but I will have full management responsibility to direct them in every way, shape or form. It just was a facilitating -- just a transition in the accounting. For all intents and purposes, they work for me through that Memo of Understanding.
I understand. And so basically they had to be grant-funded, they couldn't be in your department. Is that essentially correct?
That's exactly right. In fact, we went through an 376 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. exercise of trying to move them into the department and realized that we were conceivably putting some of the grant funds in jeopardy.
But I will be driving the same efficiencies with those departments as I would with anybody else, and that is the understanding of those departments. It's only the independent electeds that I'm really not addressing.
My final question is, during your testimony in not last year's budget season, but I think you came in in the fall, November, December, sort of gave a presentation to Council about the stuff you were working on, and in there you had a suggestion that there were basically, you thought through the effort of consolidation, the opportunity to eliminate about $40 million in Class 200 services contracts. Where does that stand?
Well, when I 377 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. presented that year, the total amount, if I can recall, in Class 200 in the budget at that time was actually a total of 44 million, and so I did say --
Maybe you could reduce it to million. I mean, I 8 have the -- 9
Yeah, but what I 10 said is, I saw a significant opportunity 11 by driving that Class 200 down. And, in 12 fact, it started that process last year, 13 and in many ways that's how I'm funding 14 some -- have been funding some 15 investment, by driving the Class 200 down 16 and then working to reallocate those 17 dollars. And that's the process I'm 18 talking about, revising our IT sourcing 19 so that we can drive the pricing down, 20 reduce both the reliance on -- we had over 97 different vendors, and I think that the rates were all over the place, so what we want to do is drive those rates down and create a consolidated vendor strategy. And then the second 378 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. piece was, which was just going into effect at that time, is, I had gating authority, which means regardless of department, no contract, no dollar could be spent in IT without my approval. So what occurred, in my view, I mean, some of it naturally went away. We had a reduction in video surveillance, but, for instance, going into 2010, if I can recall, the Class 200, my equivalent number went from what I thought was 44 was now down to like 36, and I just see continuing to push those numbers.
So what do you expect to spend through the end of this year in Class 200?
On a consolidated basis, not including the independently electeds, there's roughly a rough number of roughly close to 70 million, 69.9 million of Class 200 when you add up kind of on a pro forma basis all of the Class 200 across.
So that's 379 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. FY10 you'll spend 69 million?
This is '11, going into '11. When I'm talking about what's both coming into DOT through a consolidation, as well as the amount of Class 200 that's currently sitting in those departments that will be MOU'd, represents a total of roughly $69 million of total Class 200 dollars.
2010 -- let's see if I can do an apples to apples. It would be pretty hard for me to do an apples to apples. I wouldn't want to give you that number, but it's significantly higher. I'd really --
If you could provide it to the Chair and also the detail of where that Class 200 expenditure is going to take place for the Department. There is million in 24 capital money that we're considering 25 allocating for the next fiscal year and I 380 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. just am wondering if the Class 200 budget in the Capital Budget are synched in the sense of a lot of the Capital Budget is services, is it not, implementation costs?
Yeah. The Capital Budget relates, let's just call it, these new strategic initiatives, but let me tell you and maybe to help you a little bit. I don't know if you're familiar with the term "zero-based budgeting," but what I started last summer in preparation for the consolidation was starting with 2010, we sat down with each department, including their fiscal officer, and went through line by line every IT dollar, every IT class, what was the Class 200 number, what was the contract, what was the dollar. So I had this baseline of effectively building up what every department was spending on at that time in the IT space. So I think we have a pretty good understanding, and I can tell you 381 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. right now that I don't see the overlap, but be happy to show you between that and this.
And then also what about efficiencies within that 69 million?
What I'm hoping to do, because I'm counting on the ability with the consolidation to be able to drive the Class 200 number down from what it is. Even if we were not changing a single activity, I believe we can do this cheaper. And then when you combine the fact that I believe that in some cases -- this gets back to our manpower -- we're letting out contracts for certain technology where we have plenty of people inside but in other departments that could do that work.
So maybe some of those system architects and analysts can reduce the Class 200 expenditure.
-- I needed contractors to help me with architecture, because we didn't have any. And my hope is, exactly, to have a core team. And where we do need contractors are for these projects, kind of the peaks and valleys and the skills you need.
So in Class 200, is it -- your estimation was a huge savings number. It may have been as much as 50 percent of what you thought the contracting was because of all the disparate service providers in different departments, maybe providing services on the same pieces of software in different 383 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. departments, et cetera. It sounds like that 69 million is sort of what you've identified from all the departments as the expenditure, but it's not -- sort of like moving everybody over in the Departmental Services Division, you sort of move the expenditure over without --
I've maintained separate subsidiary books. I am a CPA, unlicensed at this point. So what we're doing is, we're maintaining effectively separate subsidiary ledgers for every single department, because ultimately what I need to really understand is what does it cost the City on a baseline basis to operate IT in a given department. I don't think we've had clarity and I don't think we have it today. So what I'm saying is, I am maintaining the visibility on a detailed basis for every contract and every cost that we will be expending either for the center or for a department. And what I want to do in 2011, now that we're 384 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. together, is to drive the Class 200 number down, which is professional services. The other I think is a big opportunity is what we call software, just the purchase of software, and that's where the big opportunity is where people are buying -- let me buy a piece of Adobe Flash here. And I think also we're buying off of reseller lists historically one-offs, instead of saying if we buy enough of them, let's have an Enterprise license. So what I'm hoping to do is drive, let's just say, all of this kind of random spend down to the point where we can leverage that and reinvest it in. What I did say last year is I hoped that over the five-year period, that we could reinvest as much as 50 million, is what I said, over the five-year period through savings, and that was my hope at the time.
Right. How 385 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. much do you think we can save through the software -- purchasing software more smarter, more -- better?
I really can't -- I don't want to give you a specific dollar figure.
I think we should be able to get 10 to 20 percent out of our software purchase.
Okay. And with respect to the 69 million, I just want to be clear, that's in your budget even though you're keeping subsidiary books or it's in the departmental budgets and you're keeping track of it?
The departments that physically transfer into DOT will be 386 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. in my budget physically and I will be maintaining, within my chart of accounts, separate departmental kind of subdivision breakouts.
Right, but the $69 million, is that Class 200 in your department?
Councilmember, if you look at Section 21, , the summary, departmental, all funds.
Purchase of services, Class 200, 60.4 million. That doesn't include the departments for which there's an MOU as well.
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much for your testimony. I appreciate it.
I'd ask the Commissioner of Records to please 387 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. approach the witness table. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Commissioner, thank you for your patience and your courtesy. COMMISSIONER DECKER: Sure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Commissioner Decker. I guess it's -- when is the evening hour, 6:00 or 5:00? I have the same sort of questions that I have for every department. You just heard me explain what they are to Mr. Frank. I appreciate your patience. Starting with the 31,000 per year Legal Assistant in the Document Recording Division, has that position been filled? 388 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. COMMISSIONER DECKER: Yes.
And what does that person do? COMMISSIONER DECKER: That's in the Document Recording area, so that person examines documents for recording cashiers and may be asked to do some other duties in that area as well.
Also in the Document Recording Division, it appears that one of five budgeted Title Registration Aide II positions -- COMMISSIONER DECKER: Yes.
-- was vacant. Has that been filled? COMMISSIONER DECKER: Yes.
And what does that person do? COMMISSIONER DECKER: That is also in the Document Recording area, similar duties, examining documents for recording, cashiering the information and also some other related duties.
In the 389 3/23/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100117, etc. Records Management Division, there is a 57,000 per year position titled Records Management Analyst. COMMISSIONER DECKER: That position was really translated or moved over into a Title Registration Aide. So it's filled as a Title -- it is filled and it's filled as a Title Registration Aide.
So that line item in your budget is unnecessary, then? COMMISSIONER DECKER: That's correct.