If we were to deal with the 7.9 figure, is none of that reimbursable by the State?
No, that's not reimbursable by the State to the students who pay that cost.
If the School District were to cover the 7.9. Is any of that 168 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING reimbursable?
If the School District were to cover that 7.9, is any of that reimbursable by the state?
I can't answer with certainty. I think there's a possibility that we could receive additional reimbursement. We'd have to check the formula, the reimbursement formula.
I thought in the information that you submitted to me last week, that you said the cost of reducing student transportation costs per 5 cents of subsidy after the State reimbursement is $150,000, which means that this is a -- to eliminate 90 cents makes it a $2.7 million issue for the City and a $5.4 million issue for the State if that reimbursement takes place.
What I'll need to get back to you with Council and Councilman Goode is whether we can get 67 percent reimbursement if we were to pick up the full cost of tokens.
But if the State were to reimburse the full 67 percent of the 7.9, 169 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING then it would be reimbursing the School District for what's unreimbursed now, the 2.5, and reimbursing the School District's share would be roughly 5.2 million; is that correct?
So with State reimbursement at the current rate, it's a $5.2 million issue; without any State reimbursement, the 7.9 --
I'm sorry. Are you finished, Councilman? When you were talking about the cost, you said with this pool of students, how many various pools are there?
The reason I used the term "this pool" is because if free transportation is available to all students, then students right now who don't use transportation but in fact may be in walking distance to schools may want to have free transportation. And I don't know without the Head of Transportation here -- and even then I'm not sure of all of the students who might be 170 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING interested in free transportation in that instance.
What we do know now is we purchase tokens -- these would be the free tokens -- for 10,000 students. We purchase tokens and sell them at a subsidized rate for 20,000 students, so that's pool that we're dealing with now. If we were to provide free for everyone, then obviously, the usage may go up, and we just simply don't know what that number would be right now.
And I would apologize, President Verna, for asking this question in this way, but as I hear School District administration respond to the question, as a Board member, I'd have a question, which is the impact on non -- as a general rule, we hear that whatever service we provide to public school students we have to provide to non-public and charter school.
Yes. So I don't know what -- as we're giving these answers, I just want to just flag for our folks that I don't know whether 171 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING the answers are including the impact, if any, on non-public schools. Just from a sidebar here is that Rhonda Chatzkel, our CFO, is saying that it's not -- it's not that clear that there would be a significant impact on account of non-publics because at least the initial belief is that we would get reimbursed similarly for charters and that we would get substantially made whole for non-publics.
That with respect to charters, Mrs. Chatzkel said that we -- they would be treated similar to our students, so the reimbursement would be the same, and with non-public students, that we are substantially made whole. And I hope that answer holds because. . .
I understand that there's a Mr. Lombardo who is very familiar with the facts involved, and I was wondering whether he might be available to be here at a slightly later 172 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING time this afternoon.
I understand that's in the course of his work that he --
Okay, Councilman, do you have any further questions?
No. I just wanted to make certain that Mr. Lombardo was produced.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be quick. Just very briefly on this school token issue, I know that Councilman Goode plans to have some hearings in this regard, and I'm sure -- and I'm sure he's made his own information requests. One of the things I wasn't crystal-clear about was, I guess going forward, what is the -- what's the goal as it relates to the transportation issue? Is it to -- I think in Miss Chatzkel's words, you talked about a pool of 173 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING students and then there might be another group of students that we don't even know about if it was completely free and available to everyone. And so are we trying to deal with the 10,000. I think you said 10,000 get it for free. Is based on some kind of income criteria or something?
I think as I understand the issue, it was to reduce the cost of the subsidized tokens as well as transfers.
Right, okay. Do the 10,000 that get the tokens free, is that income criteria or something?
Okay. And then the 20,000 who actually buy, so that gives us at least a pool of 30, and if went to a totally free situation, there might be some other group of students unknown to us today who might want to take advantage of that.
Is that kind of all of the various universes of students?
Yes. I think obviously 174 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING the demand would probably increase --
Right. Do you have any information, or could you at least get some information for whatever exists out there? We continue to hear about what other cities do outside of Philadelphia, some in Pennsylvania. I've read or heard Pittsburgh and Erie, and then I hear about other cities across the country. Could you get to us at some later but relatively soon point in time and information you are able to glean as to what those programs are. I mean, I'm actually somewhat intrigued as to the other cities in Pennsylvania and what they do and how they do it. They obviously don't deal with SEPTA, but there must be some public transportation system out there. And I would be interested in not only how they do it but who pays for it.
Okay, thank you. 175 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING Thank you, Madam Chair.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.
Thank you, Madam President. Yesterday, we attended a meeting at Turner School. And this is for the future. I just wanted to speak to you in advance of a program we want to do. There we've had about four principals in maybe four years so, you know, we've had a new principal, new leadership at the school. And we are trying -- with the hotel tax money, we are trying to generate a program there to do hospitality training, a job skills program for people in the neighborhood with Universal, with the University of Pennsylvania, some other trainers and the school. Now, there is space there that hasn't been used for at least 15 years -- you know, an industrial arts place, a kitchen, and the whole bit. And, of course, you know the new principals 176 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING said, of course, there may be plans for it and that a commitment could not be made. And what we wanted to do is -- I'll be in contact with you in detail in the future, but we just wanted to give an advance about that, about using vacant space that hasn't been used in years. There's a whole wing in the school that 9 hasn't been used -- only community uses it. It's 10 called "Support Our Community Organization," 11 SOCCA. The leader there is Pat Evans. And they 12 run a program from 3 to 10, a voluntary program 13 and have for years. 14 We worked with them for years in that 15 unused wing, but we really would like to create a job skills program out of that vacant space, and pretty much I think all it needs to be is be cleaned up, but we wanted to contact you in advance about that. And also ask if you will work with us on -- you know, there's a beautiful Olympic pool there that's not used, and we go through it every summer and try to find a lifeguard to hire, and we all try to pitch together, but I don't think it's being used during the school year either. You 177 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING could train people. It's fabulous. It's a beautiful, beautiful school. And so we need to deal with the swimming pool. So that's the second issue. And then the third thing is that they have an arts and music space there such as I've only seen at the School of Peforming Arts. I mean, they must have at least six or eight pianos alone there that are not used. And this is a building where we could have some kind of art and music focus. And in fact, we were trying to start a third district band and ask for materials, and here we have at least six or eight pianos alone -- I saw them yesterday -- that aren't even being used. You have practice rooms, you have everything there. So it really, really could be a model. And as I said, I haven't seen anything that nice other than at the School of Performing Arts. So, you know, we have great space there. It's a absolutely fabulous building. It doesn't have -- the only experience or the only record people hear about Turner was (indiscernible) in the past, but it's there, we have great space. We would really 178 3/13/01 - FINAL FY '02 BUDGET HEARING like to utilize it, and we certainly will be in touch with you about how we can do that. Thank you.
We appreciate it, Councilwoman Verna. I'm reluctant to do this, but just to make sure the record is clear, I misstated myself in saying that the free tokens are based on income. They're really based on desegregation and distance, so I just wanted to correct the record on that.
Thank you very much. Thank you. This committee will stand in recess until 1 o'clock tomorrow. (Adjourned 1:45 p.m.) 179 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 Tuesday, March 13, 2001, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE BILL NO.'S 010001, 010002, 010003, 010004, 010005, 010011, 010012, 010013 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter