Thank you. Thank you very much for your testimony today. And to this panel, especially as Councilman Jones said, we're sorry it took so long. We really appreciate your patience. But collectively assembled, based on your testimony -- and, you know, we'll have to look into it -- you know, you can save you the probably $500 million a year. That's real money. 231 3/24/09 FISCAL STABILITY COMM. - RES. 090178 Assuming you're only percent right, it's real money. Assuming you're only 4 percent right, it's real money, okay? 5 So we appreciate this. These are very important things. And I just want to thank all of you for that. Mark, specifically -- and I'm going to kind of -- and I know people understand this, but I just want to relate what you're saying to savings. Thirty percent more time in the field because you're not filing paper reports or other things means 30 percent more citations you can write, whether that's for Dumpster violations, whether that's lack of business-privilege licenses, whether it's for the Health Department or Streets or whatever, that means either the same number of inspectors and lots of additional revenue because people are out in the field; or it means fewer people. And we've just re-tasked a bunch of people from L&I and other places and 232 3/24/09 FISCAL STABILITY COMM. - RES. 090178 other places, and some of us are not confident that that's going to result in the same level of revenue in L&I with fewer inspectors. This could make up for that. And in other cases, it could enhance revenue because people are more productive; they don't have to go back. I'll give you one specific example. Right now, to write a Dumpster permit violation, you go look at the paper permit on the Dumpster, if it has one. You then call back to the Streets Department, and you find out who owns the Dumpster and you find out who the person is. You then write a paper ticket, which you then have to -- like who do you send it to? Or you go back at the end of the day and you write tickets and you mail them out, which means you're spending not much time on the street. They only spend half their time on the street, the other half of the time 233 3/24/09 FISCAL STABILITY COMM. - RES. 090178 writing tickets. Instead of having everything in a database, pushing a button, and having the ticket, like the PPA can do, and track it. So that's just one example. And then with respect to police, what we're talking about is one hour more a day or percent more time on the 10 street, which correlates nicely with 11 24 percent faster response times, which 12 are all different data points that tell 13 us the same thing. 14 What they tell us is that we're 15 basically, through the implementation of 16 this kind of technology and use in Tulsa, 17 Oklahoma and Texas and elsewhere, is we 18 are increasing manpower by 15 to 20 by -- 19 not by increasing the number of men but 20 by making them more productive. We're keeping them on the street and we're keeping our citizens safer. And that's why this is a very important thing for us to look at, I believe. So thank you very much for your 234 3/24/09 FISCAL STABILITY COMM. - RES. 090178 testimony.
Thank you, Councilman. Gentlemen, I want to thank you so much. Again, sorry for having you wait so long, but when there's a lot of good information, you know, it takes some time to put it out in the public. So I just want to thank you, and we look forward to continuing to work with you on these very important endeavors. Thank you. Okay. There being no other witnesses, this will conclude the public hearing of the Committee on Fiscal Stability and Intergovernmental Cooperation. We will recess till the call of the chair. (Proceedings end at 5:05 p.m.) * * * 235 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings of the City of Philadelphia Council Committee on Fiscal Stability and Intergovernmental Cooperation are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, and that this is a true and correct statement of same. __________________________________ JOSEPHINE CARDILLO Registered Professional Reporter (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)