Ñ›-œ COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS - - - Room 401, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, November 10, 1999 9:00 a.m. - - - BILL NOS. 990602, 990663, 990664, 990665, 990666, 990667 - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JOAN L. KRAJEWSKI, Chairman COUNCILWOMAN ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILMAN FRANK DI CICCO - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 (215) 561-2220 2 Ñ›-œ I N D E X BILLS NOS. 990602, 990663-990667 Robert Dubow, Deputy Budget Director -------- John Timoney, Police Commissioner ---------- 4 Charles Brennan, Deputy Police Com. -------- 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 3 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667
Good morning. The Committee on Appropriations is about to begin. Will the clerk please read the bills.
990602, an ordinance 6 authorizing transfers for appropriations Fiscal Year 2000 within the Health Choices Behavioral Health Revenue Fund from the Department of Public Health to the Department of Health. Bill No. 990663, an ordinance 11 authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2000 within the General Fund from certain or all city offices, departments, boards, and commissions to certain or all city offices, departments, boards, and commissions. Bill No. 990664, an ordinance 17 authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2000 within the Grants Revenue Fund from the Director of Finance - provision for other grants to the Department of Record. Bill No. 990665, an ordinance 22 authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2000 within the Grants Revenue Fund from the Director of Finance - provision for other grants to the Department of Records. 4 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 Bill No. 990666, an ordinance 3 authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2000 within the Grants Revenue Fund from the Director of Finance - provision for other grants to the Police Department. And Bill No. 990667, an ordinance 8 authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2000 within the Grants Revenue Fund from the Director of Finance - provision for other grants to the Department of Recreation, the Department of Human Services, the District Attorney, and the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania.
Thank you. Who from the Administration is here? Please step forward. Good morning, gentlemen. Please state your name for the record.
We appear before you today to offer testimony on Bills 990663 through 990667 which make FY 2000 budget appropriation transfers between and among classes in departments in the 5 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 City's General Fund in Grants Revenue Fund. In addition, we'll give testimony related to Bill No. 4 990602 which request approval for the FY 2000 expenditure reinvestment monies for Behavioral Health Revenue Fund. I'd like to start with 990663 which is the FY 2000 General Fund transfer ordinance. There are a total of six transfers requested in this bill, including four which will result in change in department's appropriations and two that involve transfer between classes within departmental budgets, but do not result in any change in appropriations. The largest request of the requests is $434,914 in the a Police Department appropriation to offset costs resulting from increased crime-fighting and drug prevention efforts, including the rental of vehicles for narcotics surveillance and the accelerated installation of mobile data terminals in all patrol vehicles. Additionally, we're asking for $99,743 in Department of Records appropriation to cover the cost of software equipped by the department for the completion of its document recording, re-engineering and automation effort. Another $29,493 is requested 6 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 for the City Planning Commission to cover higher than anticipated software and maintenance costs stock reported engineer and automation effort. These increases in appropriation are made possible through a decrease of $564,150 in appropriations for the Department of Public Properties utilities budget, which is linked to energy cost savings. In addition, to these net increases and decreases, the Administration is asking for two internal transfers, the largest of which is a transfer of $160,000 from Class 100 to Class 200 for the Municipal Energy Office, of the Managing Directors Office. The transfer will enable MEO to conduct energy cost savings evaluations in several important city-owned facilities, including prison facilities and the Central Library. That concludes my testimony on 990663. And I'll go ahead with the other ordinances unless you want to do questions now. We can do them now or at the end.
990664 through 990667 are Grants Revenue Fund transfer ordinances. 9 million 7 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 in appropriations for the Department of Recreation, the Department of Human Services, the District Attorney, and the First Judicial District from the Director of Finance provision for other grants. The purpose of this ordinance is to make available to these departments federal juvenile accountability block grant funds act of 1997 Congress has appropriated funds for use by states and local governments to promote greater accountability in the juvenile justice system. The City's Juvenile Crime Enforcement Coalition comprised in the agencies included in this ordinance as well as the School District and other organizations has developed a juvenile criminal reduction plan consisting of projects that form 17 the basis for the City's grant application. 3 million for DHS, about $350,000 21 for the District Attorney's Office, and a little over $420,000 for the First Judicial District. Projects that will be funded under the grant include, among other things, the implementation of a voice tracking system to serve as an alternative to 8 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 secured detention for juvenile offenders, the installation of video conferencing equipment in Family Court in the youth study center, the implementation of a crime repair crew that will give offenders the tools to make repairs to crime victims' property, various school safety initiatives, and the expansion of several existing programs, including Safe and Sound. Bills Nos. 990664 through 990666 are productivity application transfer ordinance 12 requests. The written testimony gives you some background on the productivity bank and the status report. I think I'll skip over that portion of the testimony and go to specific requests. Bill No. 990665 is proposed an order to restore the records departments the balance of its Council-approved FY '94 productivity bank loan for automation-related improvements to the recording of documents, as the Administration's FY 2000 budget requests failed to carry this balance forward. 85 million loan for an automated document recording system which was to have been implemented by the fall of '96. Unfortunately, under the system 9 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 designed and implementation process, the Department encountered a number of delays before the effort collapsed altogether, with the vendor terminating its contract and fully reimbursing the City for all funds that the City had paid. The circumstances are explained more fully in the Department's testimony on this bill which is attached in the packet. In March 1998, the Administration initiated a comprehensive effort to re-engineer the document recording process first before settling on an automation system. During the last months, 13 the Department has implemented a re-designed manual 14 recording process that has increased its daily 15 reporting capacity from an average of 760 documents 16 to 917 with the same level of resources. 17 Additionally, the department has established a 18 customer service desk and a pilot program to provide remote computer access to the recorders index for some of its largest volume clients. 4 million for the Department of Records for a second productivity bank loan approved by the Bank Committee in September 1999. This loan will fund a new automated recording process that 10 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 will as a result of the re-engineering efforts support a new efficient recording process. The automation system which is scheduled to be fully implemented by the end of this year will enable the Department to scan documents and permanently store their image, thereby returning original documents to recording death customers within a day and half as opposed to the days on average that it currently 10 takes to return original documents.
The project is 11 expected to result in Class 100 savings of just over 12 $300,000 per year at a minimum from reduction in 13 overtime and the use of temporary employees. I'd 14 like to add now, too, there are some representatives 15 of the land title community here who are here to 16 show their support for the project. 17 I'm about to go to Bill No. 990666 which 18 is another productivity bank loan request. 6 21 million productivity bank loan that was approved by 22 the bank loan committee in September '99. This loan will enable the Department to construct a police information control system, a large integrated computer database system that the Department will 11 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 use to identify and track crime records, monitor the activities of police officers, and foster improved management decision-making. Specifically, the loan will be used to build two systems that will form the backbone of a police information control system, a computerized reporting system and an internal affairs case management system. The Department expects to the build out and test these two systems should take approximately to months to 11 complete. Using the system, the Department will be 12 better able to gather, store, and analyze data which 13 in turn will enhance its ability to fight crime. 14 And the last ordinance I want to discuss 15 is the Health Choices Behavioral Health Revenue Fund 16 ordinance. That's Bill No. 990602 and it requests 17 approval for the expenditure of $8,550,000 for 18 various behavioral health initiatives for children 19 and adults. 17 million is 20 focussed entirely on programs for children, 21 including the hiring education specialists to be 22 deployed at the public schools, one time grants to 23 behavioral health agencies to institute 24 collaborative programs within the public schools, case management and outreach services, support 12 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 groups, and an initiative establishing children advocate services at the Children's Psychiatric Emergency Center. 67 million is focussed on supported living, noble outreach, and substance abuse case management programs for adults. 71 million devoted to joint programs serving adults and children. These joint programs include the creation of an emergency fund to resources on an as-needed basis for special need services, expanded behavorial health services to Philadelphia's Southeast Asian community and the establishment of consumer operated business initiative. That concludes my testimony, and I respectfully request your favorable consideration of these bills and request suspension of the rules to permit consideration of this ordinance on the First Reading Calendar of City Council of next meeting. We'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Mr. Dubow and Mr. Nadol. 13 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 Just two very quick questions. They both involve the Police Department. One is 990663 and the other is 990666. On 990663 I think I took from the testimony that this involves the vehicle lease bill.
Just a very quick question. Most of our fleet, not just the police department, I thought it was my understanding that we primarily buy our vehicles. Can you shed any light on why the decision was made to lease vehicles, these particular 46 vehicles?
I can, but I think what I'd to do is ask the Commissioner, Commissioner Timoney to answer that.
I'm Police Commissioner John Timoney. As part of the overall assessment of the department over the first two or three months 14 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 upon coming here, when we looked at the unmarked fleet, two things were obvious. One of them, they were not in best shape and there was a shortage of cars, and number 2, which is probably more important than number 1, they all looked like typical police cars. It didn't have to have a light and siren on; you could spot them a block away. The decision was made to lease cars, nondescript cars, that do not look like typical police cars. The leasing gives you a few advantage. One, you get cars like Toyota, or jeeps. You have the ability of switching them around from district to district throughout the division. And then when they do in fact get burned out, you can bring them back to the lessee and get cars. While it may seem like a lot of money, it really is quite a bargain. It's an effort that the DEA and FBI have been involved in for last few years, and so that's why that decision made. It brought remarkable results because as you are aware, Councilmember, we in our crime-fighting have relied much more on well-trained well-supervised plain clothes personnel, especially in the area of fighting narcotics, stolen cars, things like that. 15 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667
So you feel that it is a cost-saving advantage to the Department and gives you greater flexibility by way of the lease as opposed to purchase and then we just own it, we have to take care of it and all that?
The second, Commissioner, is on the bill 990666. From the testimony in the back of the package, this is on the IRS system, not to be confused with the federal government, but the incident reporting system that you're talking about building, this is for your productivity loan?
Just a technical question. The testimony indicates the Department will enter data into the IRS via two different methods, direct data entry and electronic imaging. Initial incident reports, 7548s, for approximately 250,000 incidence will be electronic scanned into IRS and all subsequent investment forms such as -- and then it continues. Does this mean that this work will be done in a building somewhere or is this providing the capability of officers to somehow 16 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 communicate electronically communicate their 48s or image them into the system out in the field?
My sense is out in the field, but I'm going to have Commissioner Brennan answer any technical questions.
My name is Charles Brennan, I'm a Deputy Police Commissioner. Councilman, the scanning of the forms will be done at the police headquarters building by a centralized unit.
Yes. The forms you're talking about are the base incident forms that the police officer does in a book.
Right, they carry a little book. It's a form like this. They'll been done at the police headquarters building. We have a unit there that -- I'm actually switching the work that they do. So the work force will be in place probably by the first quarter of next year.
Thank you very much. 17 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 Thank you, Madam Chair.
Just one question. What is the status of the installation of the mobile data within the patrol vehicles?
Right now we have 768 installed. For all intents and purposes, the project is finished. The only cars we have not installed are those waiting for repairs at the garage that we haven't been able to get to. But our limit was always 800, and we're, for all intents purposes, we are finished.
Commissioner Timoney, maybe you can answer this I hope. The lease cars that Councilman Nutter asked you about, do we know if you'll be leasing for a year, two years, three years? Is there any idea what you're going to be leasing them for?
So at the end of a year, if you don't like -- say you have a Chrysler and you want to change something else, you can do 18 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 that?
We can change it before the year is up. We can change it within a month, two months. That's the advantage. But the contract is from year to year.
Commissioner, is the contract including service of the vehicles with the dealer.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, on 990663 there's reference made to increased crime-fighting efforts. In the recent years it's my understanding that various confiscation and forfeiture laws have enabled us to get additional revenues to help these efforts. Is that substantial?
It is, both the Fed forfeiture and State forfeiture. State is administered through the DA's Office. The Fed 19 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 forfeiture comes in through the federal government. And both of those situations, we've gotten significant amount of cash.
Do those revenues go directly into the Police Department?
Have they increased as a result of the substantial crime-fighting initiatives that you've implemented?
There's always a time lag. So the confiscations have gone up over the last 13 months, but when you get that money is usually a 14 year, year and a half time tag. So my sense is 15 there should be more money coming in, but -- 16
So probably next 17 year there will be additional revenues come in as a 18 result?
Are there any other questions from Members of Committee? (No response.)
Thank you, gentleman. 20 Bills Nos. 990602, 990664-990667 Does the Administration have any more testimony they'd like to submit?
I will submit all the testimony incorporated with the minutes.
Thank you. That ends our public hearing. - - - 21 Ñ›-œ COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC MEETING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC APPROPRIATIONS - - - Wednesday, November 10, 1999 - - - Public Meeting conducted by the Committee on Appropriations, held in Room 401, City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the above date, to consider action on the following: BILLS 990602, 990663, 990664, 990665, 990666, 990667 - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JOAN L. KRAJEWSKI, Chair COUNCILWOMAN ANNA VERNA COUNCILMAN DARRELL CLARKE COUNCILMAN MICHAEL NUTTER COUNCILMAN FRANK DI CICCO - - - 22 Ñ›-œ
We will go into our public meeting. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that Bill No. 990663 be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and a further recommendation that the Rules of Council be suspended so as to permit first reading at our next session. (Duly seconded.)
All those in favor? Therefore, Bill No. 990663 will be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation with the suspension of rules so as to permit first reading at the next session of Council.
Madam Chair, I move that Bill No. 99066 be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and a further recommendation that the Rules of Council be suspended so as to permit first reading at our next session. (Duly seconded.)
All those in favor? Therefore, Bill No. 990664 will be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation with the suspension of rules so as to permit first reading at the next session of Council.
Madam Chair, I move that Bill No. 990665 be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and a further recommendation that the Rules of Council be suspended so as to permit first reading at our next session. (Duly seconded.)
All those in favor? Therefore, Bill No. 990665 will be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation with the suspension of rules so as to permit first reading at the next session of Council.
Madam Chair, I move that Bill No. 990666 be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and a further recommendation that the Rules of Council be suspended so as to permit first reading at our next session. 23 Ñ›-œ (Duly seconded.)
All those in favor? Therefore, Bill No. 990666 will be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation with the suspension of rules so as to permit first reading at the next session of Council.
Madam Chair, I move that Bill No. 990667 be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and a further recommendation that the Rules of Council be suspended so as to permit first reading at our next session. (Duly seconded.)
All those in favor? Therefore, Bill No. 990667 will be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation with the suspension of rules so as to permit first reading at the next session of Council.
Madam Chair, I move that Bill No. 990602 be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and a further recommendation that the Rules of Council be suspended so as to permit first reading at our next session. (Duly seconded.)
All those in favor? Therefore, Bill No. 990602 will be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation with the suspension of rules so as to permit first reading at the next session of Council. Thank you very much gentleman. That ends our public hearing in Appropriations. 24 Ñ›-œ C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of June 16, 1998, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. RE: COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY ___________________________ Lisa C. Bradley, RPR and Notary Public