Regarding the status of the facility, use of it was not anticipated until some preliminary work had been done. All of it is capital. There was a fiscal '01 capital project 1257 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET which began with the separation that was asked for by the community, the line of site separation on one end of it, and some preparation for the work to follow, such as a salt dome and a small mobile --
It has. I happened to have driven by last week and the berm is in. The trees are planted. We weren't able to do it in the fall planning, but we did get it in. And it appears to be thriving, to the best of my ability. The maintenance contract as we currently use it will be on an as-needed basis for items that can't be done by our own work force, with the exception of custodial. The increase may be for all of the related projects that use the maintenance contract, and I don't know why it got tagged to 63rd Street, because it's just not that big. It isn't. It's a very -- it's a big facility, but it's a fairly small custodial responsibility.
Well, what is the million dollars for? It's over a million 1258 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET dollars.
We are going to be rebidding the overall maintenance contract, the contracted maintenance, which is primarily for our high-rise Center City facilities, but does include options to support certain other facilities, such as the first police district, the fourth coming 24th, 25th police district, the fourth coming --
That is already in the budget. That's in the budget for the maintenance at 24th and 25th police district, $301,000.
I had a minute to look over the numbers again. Basically what we're anticipating, it's not necessarily just the custodial of the inside facility, meaning the actual work areas. There's quite a bit of money in there to upkeep all of the grounds around there.
The ground maintenance around that facility. 1259 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
63rd Street. So the $1 million includes the anticipated cost to totally maintain, custodial speaking, the grounds and the interior of the building.
Commissioner, you just said that the ground isn't that large. Now suddenly it grew to the point that it's going to cost us over a million dollars to take care of the grounds and custodial work in the buildings. I'd like a breakdown of that, please.
Can you tell us, what does the city spend in total on master maintenance agreements and are we satisfied that this is the most effective way to go?
The current total we're looking at, including the prison, about $18 1260 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET million, I believe. And as far as the prison, the Curran Fromhold Prison, as well as the triplex, it's been a very successful endeavor by the Department of Public Property. The contract of services have been above what -- our anticipated levels have been met and exceeded in some instances.
Commissioner, you made mention of the fact that you're working on the public right-of-way legislation. To the best of your knowledge, when you've been at a meeting, has anyone been represented from City Council? (Brief interruption for power going out.)
In your testimony, Commissioner, you mentioned that you're working on the proposed public right-of-way legislation. To the best of your knowledge, has anyone in Council been present at any of the meetings or has anyone been involved?
And, if so, can you tell me who in City Council has been involved? 1261 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Good afternoon, Council President. My name is Joseph James, deputy commissioner for communications. To date, no one from City Council has participated and been part of the discussions on the formulation of the ordinance, but I would say that we did in September of last year have a briefing session with members of Council staff to discuss much of the information we had accumulated to date and also to have an opportunity to have some dialogue about issues that they viewed related to what City Council would find to be important issues that should be included into the design of the right-of-way ordinance. But specifically to your question, no 17 one from Council is part of that committee and no 18 one from Council has been involved in the design of the ordinance to date.
Well, I would strongly suggest that the next time you meet, that perhaps it would be wise to have someone from the technical staff there who you've worked with in the past.
Yes. Like I said, we've had 1262 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET discussion with members of the staff, and as we get closer to putting together the actual legislation before we send it up to you, we will have an opportunity to have the staff members involved.
Thank you. Commissioner, you said in your testimony that your department administers the 9-1-1 surcharge program.
How much revenue is projected to be collected in FY02?
Councilwoman, it's been holding pretty steady at a million dollars a month, and we projected 12 million for the fourth coming year.
I think you're projecting a little more than that.
Is this budgeted in your grant's revenue fund as a payment to other funds collected? 1263 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Let me ask Vince Costello to come forward, director of communications for the department.
For the record, Vincent Costello, Department of Public Property. Madam Chair, in answer to your question, as you may recall, for a number of years we had been putting away the bulk of the 9-1-1 surcharge to account for the fairly high cost of the new radio communication system. By law, the city is allowed to spend up to 70 percent of the money it takes in for the surcharge to account for public safety, generally fire, EMS and police salaries and benefits. We had, as I said, been collecting the money, put it in a separate interest-bearing account to pay for the bulk of the 800 megahertz system. By law, the city -- I'll repeat what I said before. The city is allowed to apply 70 percent of the revenue from the surcharge directly to the salaries and benefits of police, fire and EMS personnel. All 1264 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET of those, in other words, engaged in 9-1-1 services. We have been using the 60 percent figure for salaries and benefits and applying the other 40 percent to the capital account to pay for the 9-1-1 system -- pay for the 800 megahertz system. Excuse me.
How much revenue is included in the five-year plan from this surcharge?
As the commissioner indicated, we're averaging about $1 million a month, so it would be 12 million a year times five years. I mean, we don't see a radical change.
But I think your budget indicates that you would be collecting in FY02 $16.5 million.
Well, let's check on -51. While we're looking for that -- do you have that, Mr. Costello, -51? As I read it, it says, "Funding for the enhanced 9-1-1 emergency response system." 1265 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Madam Chair, we're advised by our budget director that the million 4 figure represents not only the yearly 9-1-1 5 surcharge contribution, but also the money collected 6 in the past from the PCS operators, Sprint and AT&T 7 Wireless. They had actually paid the city 8 approximately $5 million for the city's two 9 gigahertz frequencies. That was part of the 10 settlement going back. 11
Can you tell 12 me, what are the restrictions, if any, placed on the 13 use of these funds? 14
In Act 78, which is the 15 guiding legislation, there is a fairly detailed list 16 of eligible and non-eligible costs. Eligible costs include equipment used in 9-1-1, maintenance to that equipment, service to that equipment, salaries, benefits, overtime costs, all financial costs associated with the operation of the 9-1-1 system. That includes the salaries of dispatchers, call-takers, uniformed personnel, non-uniformed supervisory personnel in fire, police and EMS service.
But, Councilwoman, that fund 1266 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET is subject to periodic audits under the state rules. Those audits are conducted closely with close coordination of the city's controller, and we'll be glad to provide you a copy of the most recent audit that's been done.
Well, what fund are you going to be turning the $16.5 million over to?
With the exception of the surcharge, it all goes to the general fund.
Once again, it's the 60/40 split that I was referring to earlier, where 60 percent --
As I was referring earlier to the 60/40 split that the city has historically applied to the funding split, 60 percent goes to cover the salaries of 9-1-1-related personnel and the other 40 percent goes to the capital fund to pay for capital purchases, such as the 800 megahertz radio system.
Okay. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter. 1267 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn't start out with a question in this area, but, Mr. Costello, did I just understand your testimony to be that some of the dollar surcharge goes to pay the public employees who are involved in the operation of the 9-1-1 system? Did you just say that?
Okay. How did we pay these folks before -- when did the 9-1-1 surcharge go into effect?
And we obviously operated or maintained the 9-1-1 system prior to that? We always had.
And state law allows 1268 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET you to take 60 percent of it and pay salaries. The other 40 goes to?
State law actually now allows you to take 70 percent. We have historically been using 60 percent of the money for salaries and benefits.
Let me go back to the right-of-way legislative process. I thought I understood from the questions the Council President asked that there is -- is there like a working group or a task force or somebody working on this?
The working group is representatives from Public Property, Streets Department and the Law Department and the managing director's office.
And how long have you been working? 1269 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
I'd say we've probably been at it for about two years as a formalized working group, with the assistance of a consultant to help us in the legislation. We've actually been discussing the issue ever since the telecommunications act of '96.
A company called River Oaks. They were part of the presentation we did in September. They came along with us.
Their expertise is in working with municipalities who are dealing with this various issue of developing some form of either regulations or policies on how to effectively manage the right-of-way.
We expect to be able to have that bill ready for Council within 30 days.
And up to at least including today, so far there's been no Council involvement in the development of this legislation?
Because part of the process has been in developing a lot of the background material associated with formulating the regulations. Because one of the critical aspects of any kind of regulations that we've seen in other jurisdictions have all been challenged along the lines of either legal standing or the effective -- the fees that you come with have to be justifiable. So in part of our -- the spending the last two years have been dealing with all of the background on what is the right format for our regulations, what have been the experiences in other jurisdictions along the legal lines of what they've been either been successful or not been successful.
I appreciate the 1271 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET answer. What does that have to do with whether City Council is involved in the process or not?
Well, I thought it would be -- and I think it's important before we sit down with members of Council that we effectively know the subject matter fairly well that we can speak in an intelligent manner about the issue and how it would impact the regulations that exist within the departments, then sit down with Council and have discussion along the issues of legislation and how it effectively should be legislated.
Well, how about the concept of everybody learning together at the same time as opposed to you bring in a bill, naturally it will have to be done, less the city fall apart, and you will then spend your time quietly and publicly expressing frustration that we can't seem to understand what it is that you're trying to explain to us in a very short period of time for something that you took two years to learn?
Or if you send it over, we should just pass it, because you guys are 1272 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET geniuses and you figured out all the answers, we don't know anything and we should just take it as it comes to us?
Not at all. I think what we anticipate is some long and lengthy discussions with members of Council on the background material associated with the regulations. Part of that -- as I said before, in September of last year, we sat down and we sent out a notice to members of Council that we were having a briefing session to talk about where we were up to date at that particular point on what we've discovered, what issues that we've seen that have been very important on the formulation of the regulation and kind of the issues of the focus of our intent with any kind of legislation, so that we would have opportunity to discuss that before we come in.
Pardon me? I don't 1273 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET understand the question.
Have been there any update materials sent to us since September?
I guess on this particular point what I might want to say to you is, we recently went through one of these torturous experiences on another item that the department spent about two years working on, and then it came over to us and we were then basically supposed to become somewhat expert in a particular provision of the telecommunications act of 1996 known as the open video system or OVS, and, again, to your frustration, you spent a fair amount of time trying to explain to us what this thing was and what it was about and what its particulars are. I can only imagine that right-of-way issues are potentially equally complicated. I'd like to not see a replay of that particular scenario and all the finger-pointing that goes with it. So I can only encourage you, even if you don't have it all together and don't know all the answers to all the possible questions, you might 1274 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET want to have some preliminary involvement or given the fact that you're about to wrap it up and send it to us in whatever form it's going to be, you might want to have some involvement even now in the waning days, at the tail end, right before the train comes into the station, to get a sense of either what we know, what we don't know, what we're interested in as we go through this process so we don't end up you're going to send it to us in 30 days, more than likely that means it will come to us in 60 days. Before you know it, it will be May, and then you've got to have it in June and why are we obstructionists, would be the question for something that we just got.
I understand the concern over the experience that we just went through. I will go back to what I said before, is that part of us having that discussion is, of course, knowing the subject matter. And probably last summer we went around and probably talked to several members of 1275 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Council on the streets committee, because this various issue came up with a bill for Cavalier that was before the streets committee for a right-of-way issue, which brought out the various issue of how do you effectively manage it, what are the regulations, and we did kind of make the rounds at that time. And, I agree, before we send anything over, we should come back and make the rounds again.
I understand that and I appreciate that, but let me say this, Mr. James, and I know that you're trying to do your job: Talking to members of the streets committee last summer or having a briefing last September, it was so long ago. I don't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. And so this is going to be a very complicated issue. You will want to get something done. We will probably want to get something done as well, if we can understand it. So you'll have two years of knowledge and wealth of knowledge and information, trying to pour it into our brains in a compact way and then be frustrated that we're not ready to move along with you because you are two years ahead of us, but then expect us to do what you 1276 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET want.
I don't think it's our expectation for you to rush through this.
So I'm only laying out to you a bit of legislative advice from someone who might have to vote on something, that I'd like to understand it. I'd like to not go back through the recent experience, because it was unnecessary, and I just kind of anticipate that we might be in the same situation.
Thank you. Let me ask about on -34 of the budget book, there's an item in here, City Hall custodial services, $1.4 million, pest control, restroom sanitation and window washer. Now, who is covered by the City Hall custodial services and the restroom sanitation and all those items? It's my impression that there are a number of different entities that cover different parts of the whole.
Well, that's correct, broadly speaking. There is a Department of Public Property contract for services. There is a first 1277 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET judicial district contract for services. I believe Council has its own smaller maintenance support staff. Generally we're responsible for all the areas that are not taken care of by the other two. The courts do not include common areas in their contract, so all the common areas of the building are under Public Property's jurisdiction, hallways and bathrooms and stairways.
Do we have, I guess, standards for cleanliness in the building and in the common areas and in the bathrooms?
Does someone check to make sure that things are in place?
Let me ask Mrs. Schlotterbeck to explain how this contract evolved and how we manage it.
Councilman, yes, there are standards. There's a spec, which is very detailed on what we expect of the vendor, and there is someone that does manage it.
There's two layers of management. We expect the vendor to have professional managers. We also have our own staff 1278 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET people in the building that are responsible for oversight of the contract to have their eyes wide open all the time. In addition, we have municipal guards which roam through the building during the regular business day and bring problems to our attention or to the vendor's attention for follow-up.
I mean, I've been in a couple situations and I've also had reports from staff about paper towels, other paper products, soap dispensers, in a couple situations apparently we've got still bars of soap in certain facilities. I mean, we're like in the midst of flu season. Why would we, or at any particular point in time, commonly use bars of soap? I mean, it's not like around your house or something.
Councilman, I'm going to have someone check. As far as I know, there shouldn't be no bar of soap anywhere in this building or any other city building. We have had trouble --
For sanitation standards and reasons, we abandoned the individual bars of soap years ago. We can't stop people from bringing in things and leaving them behind, but --
No. These are bars that they're all the same, they all have the same marking on them.
I mean, it's not Ivory, it's not Zest. It's whatever it is, but I don't know anybody that's running around supplying the bathrooms with bars of soap on their own.
They really shouldn't be there, not even as an emergency in case we run out of liquid soap. They shouldn't be there, and we certainly would like to follow up.
Okay. Be glad to. Are you involved in the Youth Study Center new construction project site selection?
I will be at the point where 1280 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET I'm told to proceed to secure a site.
Of course programmatically it was under my jurisdiction before the architecture and engineering group was split off on its own. It's been revived as a planning objective and as a project. However, it's primarily in the hands of the capital program office, the managing director's office and the human services cluster.
I want to talk a little bit about property disposal. From time to time, the city disposes of parcels of property. We go through, it's my understanding, an auction process once there's been a memo usually circulated saying the city has an interest in disposing of this piece of property, do you care, do you have an interest.
And more often times than not, wait for some response. Commissioner, you know that we've had a couple instances where properties ended up on the auction list with no 25 approval or authorization. These are properties 1281 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET that are in the district that I represent. And I would like to hope that we could have some understanding or some agreement. I don't think we've ever unreasonably or unnecessarily held back on disposal of property unless there was some unresolved community issue or other unique circumstance.
I would like to get a better sense from you that the standards of the department are such that if you're going to take the time to send out a notice asking people their opinion about what you're going to do, that somebody might actually wait until they got a response back as opposed to handle everything, I guess I'll go and do whatever it is I want to do. That's not unreasonable, is it?
By default of action. So if there's no response, we assume it's okay and have moved forward, and, of course, we've created some other problems for ourselves. 1282 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Commissioner, as my father told me many, many years ago, you know what assume does.
Okay. At least for myself, I would like our agreement and our understanding and our standard to be if I get a request, I always respond to it. Sometimes I need an additional piece of information from potentially affected neighbors.
And so until I affirmatively respond back to you, whatever that response may be, I would like no action to be taken.
Thank you. What's the nature of our relationship in this process with people who are in the real estate community? Do we contact them and let them know that we may be auctioning property? Are they kind of always chasing us around and asking on a daily, weekly basis, You got any properties this week, and how do they get involved in the sale of a city property?
We at one time not too long 1283 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET ago did try to have regularly scheduled sales of city properties. The results were erratic. The effort was always the same. It didn't matter whether it was a ten-acre parcel or 100 square feet. We had to go through the very same level of effort, appraisals and so on, advertising. And so we started looking at the prospective value versus the cost of bringing it to sale, and recently we've only packaged properties that have interest. Now, what I mean by that is, a real estate professional may have contacted the office and told us you own XYZ property, it appears to be surplus, are you going to sell it, please let me know if and when. Private citizens do the same. We have walk-ins. We have people calling in. But in the majority of the cases, they're just neighborhood properties that may be available for an individual's use as a side yard or backyard of someone. Public Property, as you know, under the charter can only dispose of them through a public auction, except where the other two avenues are available, which is transferring them to another public agency, Redevelopment Authority and Philadelphia Industrial 1284 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Development Corporation, for a more selective negotiated disposition, and we're out of it, because we actually transfer our deed to them. So, yes. If we've got interest and there's a note, a phone message, a letter from somebody in the professional community or the local community, we will try to give them notice as we proceed to the end stage where we're actually preparing advertising for sale.
If an appraisal is done of a property, who does it and how do we determine who does the appraisal? What's that process?
Every year we select a small number of appraisals -- appraisers, I'm sorry, solicit appraisers, and issue a few contracts. It varies year to year. It's a professional service, as you know, usually small scale.
They represent different capabilities. So we may give -- for lack of a better word, a small operator might get non-really valuable or uncomplicated property appraisals.
Does the person have 1285 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET a territory or an area or a portion of the city that they deal with versus somebody else has another portion? How do we decide who gets what parcels to appraise, and is it a flat contract or do they get paid per appraisal?
It's a flat contract, but each use must have the equivalent of a proposal. So if I have -- if we have -- we try to keep it under the miscellaneous purchase order amount so it doesn't have to go to a full contract bureaucratic process. And if we have a property, every property requires a specific appraisal proposal before we initiate it. It could be a cluster of properties if we have a row or --
How do you decide which appraiser gets which properties? Is there a rotation system? Is it comparable to the Kirby Puckett standard, you're every other week and if you're a green week, a blue week, it's your week, you get a property, next week you don't? I mean, how do you know?
It really varies. It varies because sometimes it requires a very sophisticated appraiser, and there's only one or two who are 1286 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET willing to do business with the city on a regular basis.
Why are people reluctant to do business with us? We have money. We pay our bills. We run a pretty decent operation here.
Okay. Well, I was intrigued in one situation where a property ended up on the list, not authorized, off the list, and I got a copy of what appeared to be an agreement of sale for this particular parcel with a dollar amount in the agreement. And I guess I was somewhat intrigued as to, one, what the involvement was of a particular realtor, what's their role in this, because I guess I mistakenly was under the impression that it was a sale between the city and the individual.
That's correct. To the best of my knowledge, in the 11 years that I've been commissioner, the only time we used a middleman 1287 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET agent to actually facilitate -- and it was for acquisition purposes, not for sale purposes -- was as part of this massive space consolidation, obviously the Binswanger Company at the time.
Right. So why would the realtor have an agreement of sale document with a dollar amount in the document for a property that was going to auction -- I think no one knows what the price is ultimately going to be -- and it never went? Why would such a document exist?
I don't have a good answer for you. It doesn't sound like a situation that should have existed unless the agent was misrepresenting his interests or hers.
Well, the agent had been in touch with Public Property.
Well, I'd like to see the documents and take appropriate action.
Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Rizzo, you're next. 1288 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Absolutely. Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds-Brown.
You mentioned in your testimony that the department has experienced significant savings from competitively contracting out custodial operations. Who is the current contractor for City Hall custodial work?
I believe it's called Colins Services, headquartered in New York, but they have a local office.
Might you be able to tell me the status of that contract, how old it is, how far along we are in it? Have there been recent negotiations?
We just recently awarded through the procurement bid process the 1289 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET third contract, and I believe we're looking at ten years.
Might you know how much the custodial workers are paid on average, and does the contract call for regular raises?
The contract as we prepared the schedule with the labor office has an hourly wage per year, with a wage increase stated in the document. I'm not 100 percent sure what the wage is for City Hall.
However, the wages are considered to be prevailing based on the local labor agreements.
I ask those questions for this reason: I see them every day walking in City Hall, and for me it's a sad commentary if they are in a circumstance where they're not given regular raises and the like. So 1290 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET my hope is that when you say the department is experiencing significant savings, that it is not done on the back of those who are paid at the lowest end of the scale. So then what are the significant savings attributed to?
The savings are attributed to doing an analysis early on where we determined how many city employees it would take and what the cost would be if we were including the productivity losses with more vacation time. See, when you have a contract, you state the number of employees you want per the contract, and regardless of whether or not they're on vacation, it's the contractor's responsibility to replace that person. So we're never down any time. And no, Councilwoman, there has been -- the wages stated in there, as commissioner stated, they're dealt with on a prevailing wage with the market standards and it's actually part of the union. It's a totally unionized work force.
And the raises that you speak of, it would be in the lap of the contractor, Colins, to make sure that those raises are actually happening at the agreed-upon 1291 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET date, correct?
Yes. And they do happen. And if there's ever a complaint on the contract by any individual, they do come to my office, and we automatically refer them to the office of labor, the mayor's office.
Labor standards. And any complaint is always acted on and followed up, and they do a complete investigation.
I appreciate that, and I will do some additional follow-up off the record between your office and our office. I thank you for that. Let's move to, if we could, this notion of public access and all that that means. Public Property is responsible for public access; is that correct?
In a manner of speaking. I mean, we are the department with the communications division and which the original ordinances assigned the responsibility for. I mean, that's as much as I could answer right now.
The role 1292 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET of the school district with regards to public access, currently are there any other entities, institutions that are using it in addition to the school district?
Councilwoman, if I understand your question, if you're talking about public access, which is a different degree of cable access than educational access and the third being government access, the school district, the community college, LaSalle and Drexel currently provide educational access on four cable channels throughout the cable franchises.
Help me along. And what's the role of Public Property towards that end?
Our role has been to assist those entities with making sure that they have the right insurance and that they are on the air, and if they have technical issues related to the franchise operator as far as broadcasting their signal, then we provide a role to advocate to try to get that corrected.
That's very helpful. So if my personal view that student 1293 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET participation is low, I should take that up with? Complete the sentence for me.