COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, May 4, 2004, 10:00 a.m. BILL 020455 - An Ordinance adopting the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2005. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILMAN W. WILSON GOODE, JR. COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE L. BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN BRIAN J. O'NEILL - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
Good morning, everyone. This is the continued public hearing of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bill No. 020455. The first department to testify is the Personnel Department. I understand Civil Service is going to testify first. Good morning. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good morning, President Verna and Members of City Council. I am Repsie Warren, Chair of the Civil Service Commission and I am pleased to testify on behalf of myself and Civil Service Commissioners Marwan Kreidie and Edward Keenan in support of the Commission's budget request for fiscal year 2005. Our total budget request of $164,055 represents an increase of $655 over our FICA '04 estimated obligations of $163,399. This increase is reflected in Class 200 primarily and reflects the changes in how legal advice 3 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 to the Commission is provided, from services provided by an employee, to those provided by contract. This change saves funds previously expended on fringe benefits. Under the Home Rule Charter, the Commissioners are charged with insuring the application of merit principles to public employment. And in carrying out that mandate, the Commission approves or disapproves a large variety of actions affecting Civil Service employees. These include the establishment of job classes, positions and pay classifications and personnel service contracts, Civil Service regulations and exemptions from the Civil Service. Significant time is also required to carry out another major role of the Civil Service Commission, that of an appellate body who hears and decides on Civil Service employees' appeals of personnel decisions. Most appeals are regarding dismissals, suspensions of more than 10 days, demotions, oral examinations, denials of requests for leaves of absence and claims regarding 4 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 injuries on duty time. Fiscal year to date through March, the Commissioners received 97 appeals and issued 122 opinions and orders resolving appeals. Please note that some opinions and orders related to appeals made in FICA '03. With this budget, President Verna and Members of Council, the Commission can continue its important work of assuring the preservation of the Philadelphia merit system as mandated by the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter. At this time, I will be very happy to answer any questions you may have at this present time.
Thank you. Can you tell me how many residency waivers are granted a year?
Residency, I assume, is about -- that we approve or disapprove most of them -- I would say about 10 to 15 for last year.
We 5 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 have granted waivers for?
Yes. But they're only for like a six-month period. Yes; just for a six-month period. And then they must move within the City limits.
Could we get a list from the Commission on the people that have waivers? Because I believe the Charter allows people to take six months before they're required to move in without a Civil Service exception, but I'd like to know how many people have extended beyond the City Charter's mandate.
I think you would have to be a resident for at least a year prior to.
No. 22 Employees other than police, I believe, can move in.
What positions -- 6 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
We would appreciate that. Can you tell us what positions they were for? What type of positions were they for?
All right. The positions of -- some were for police and some were like for engineers, you know, and positions that are very difficult to fill.
Fine. If you would provide us with that list, I will make certain that all the Council members receive a copy. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from Members of the Committee? (No response.)
Thank you. Personnel. Good morning. Please identify 7 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good morning, President Verna and Members of City Council. My name is Lynda Orfanelli. I'm the Personnel Director for the City of Philadelphia. I'm here to present testimony to support my department's budget request of $4,568,071 for fiscal 2005. That's our general fund request. With me today are Deputy Personnel Director Tanya Smith, Celia O'Leary and our Administrative Services Director for the cluster, Dan Earley, who is in the back. Our FY2005 proposed budget contains $4,124,932 in Class 100, $362,530 in Class 200 and $80,609 in Class 3 and 400. Our fiscal 2005 budget represents a decrease of $401,716 from FY04 estimated obligations. A quarter of this reduction is due to decreased liability for lump sum payments for separating employees. Other reductions are in recruiting, training, maintenance and a one-time commuter system expense for a Sigma IV upgrade. 8 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 The mission of the Personnel Department is to recruit, select and retain a diverse and effective work force to support the goals of the City. This mission is a critical component of any plan to manage shrinking staff resources while insuring that services suffer as little as possible. One of our methods for handling this goal is our work force planning. To achieve this goal of effective employee recruitment, selection, retention, we develop a citywide work force plan. The plan is a consolidation of hiring, promotion and job design work requested by City departments for the upcoming fiscal year. The Personnel Department uses a plan to assign work to our analysts, and the office of Budget and Program Evaluation uses it to insure that requests do not exceed available resources. Management of this plan is a critical linchpin as City leaders deal with the impact of employee turnover due to the DROP. 9 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 Similarly, the department works with City managers and executives to redesign jobs to accommodate new ways of working with reduced staff resources. As part of our recruitment and selection program, we look at applications. The number of people, candidates, who apply for City employment and promotion varies from year to year based on needs identified in the work force plan. While targeted recruitment is needed for specialized hard-to-fill jobs, in most cases, the City receives many more applications than are needed to fill the limited number of vacancies. Even though only 46 percent of applicants actually report to a test site and take an exam, the City still has many more job candidates than are needed. 6 percent of the people who pass City exams are ultimately hired or promoted. In FY04 to date, the Personnel Department received over 51,000 applications, tested over 15,000 people and ranked 11,455 candidates on more than 350 eligible lists. 10 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 Only 1,383 have been hired or promoted, and 15 percent of those were police officer recruits. These characteristics of the City's applicant pool have resulted in the Personnel Department's proposed introduction of an application fee. Such fees are typical in other jurisdictions, such as communities in Montgomery County, Lancaster and Allegheny Counties, and throughout the States of New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts to name a few in our region. Fees will be waived for applicants on public assistance or unemployment compensation and for candidates being recruited for hard-to-fill jobs. It is expected that the fee will decrease the number of frivolous applicants and applicants who choose not to take the examinations, which, as mentioned earlier, is over half of the applicant pool. Such applicants waste staff resources used in processing their information and notifying them of the test time and date. One of our other goals is work force diversity. In our continuing efforts in 11 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 recruitment and selection, they've resulted in a steadily more diverse work force. 9 percent.
4 percent to 4 percent of the work force. 8 percent to 37 percent. These numbers demonstrate steady positive progress in increasing diversity in the City's work force. We've also taken steps to reduce costs through automation. Since fiscal '90, the Personnel Department has reduced its staff by 35 percent to its current 83 positions. This was made possible by the fiscal '92 purchase of software to support applicant tracking, test scoring and list management and by organizing into cross-functional teams in fiscal year 1997. This year, the Personnel Department is working with MOIS and the office of the 12 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 Finance Director to automate the process used to separate employees and also for new applicants as well. The team is currently working on automating the new hire process. It is expected that implementation will increase the speed and accuracy of these processes and reduce the resources needed to provide them. The Personnel Department's Customer Service Center provides information to applicants and employees on vacancies, application procedures, test schedules, test scores and eligible list status. We have an automated job hotline which is available 16 hours a day. We also have job postings on the 17 Internet. 7 million 19 times since July of '03. 20 Finally, the Personnel Department 21 continues to administer a comprehensive 22 benefits program for about 7,500 City 23 employees. The City provides a life insurance 24 program for over 39,000 represented employees and retirees, which we also administer. 13 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 This concludes my testimony. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Ms. Orfanelli, with the previous speaker, you gave a list?
Would you mind explaining what that list was? Because I think it was testified that we have about ten waivers a year and yet the total amount that's shown here is 49. We don't know when --
However, I think I calculated 63, but if you look on the first page, it has ten. I don't know. Six seem to be lost somewhere.
It's class waivers. It's not individuals. So, in other words, we could have a waiver for a position, a type of position; for example, doctors, but we could have ten doctors. So it's a waiver for the class, not the number of employees. 14 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
Well, I had asked how many residency waivers we give a year, and I think the answer was ten.
I believe that Repsie thought you meant by position, not by person.
This represents the people who are in those class waivers.
I don't know whether this is a printout problem or a copying problem, but the document that I have starts with , continues with , 15 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 starts up with another page that doesn't have a page number and ends with , but the total is clearly not 49. I'm up at 73 I think before I got to the last page. So I don't know whether there was a printing problem.
I should check into it and find out. It looks like it was printed at more than one date, so that -- I see what you're saying.
Well, you got an 11/5, 5/22, one with no date and 5/22.
Well, it's different department numbers, but it's different -- I think it's different dates. What I need to do is go back to the IT person who produced this list. Because they are, one is dated 11/5/2003 and the other one is dated May 22, 2003. So I need to get a consolidated up-to-date list for you.
Yes. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo. 16 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
For my needs, what I would like to have, as of today, I would like to know how many people get paid by the City of Philadelphia that don't live in it and when they are expected to move into the City and how long they have had that waiver to allow them to live outside the City. Did I cover it all pretty much?
Okay. So we'll produce a report that has the name, the job title, where they're living, if and when they'll be moving into the City. Some of them are waivers where they are never going to move into the City.
Well, there are certain positions, such as physicians, where we have such a difficult time recruiting, that they have a permanent waiver. So there are a few permanent waivers. 17 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
I think we can find a doctor that would be willing to work.
And we could find no other person in the City who would like to work with us who happens to be a doctor other than -- 18 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
The Health Department recruits, but has had a lot of difficulty over time because of the schedule. These are people who work half a day. If they have practices, they are frequently not available to work on this kind of schedule or time. We have doctors that live in Philadelphia as well, but when we're in a critical crunch, we also go outside.
I just can't figure why it would be desirable for a physician that lives in Bucks County or Montgomery or Delaware County to come and work in the City for half a day when we have doctors here. I think the Health Department really needs to come back and explain. Are you involved in that recruiting process, to help them find local physicians?
Actually, they're not Civil Service. They're Civil Service exempt, so I'm not -- they don't test with us. I don't test them or recruit them. 19 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 We sometimes help with their recruiting, but they do that mostly themselves.
The Health Department. Why would the Health Department be doing that and not Personnel?
Because they don't come through the normal Civil Service route. We don't do Civil Service testing for physicians. This is not -- this is something --
I'm not suggesting testing. I'm talking about to make sure they're a real doctor. I mean, you read about this constantly where someone went to a mail order house and got his degree in medicine. I mean, how do we really know if you're not part of that process?
We've never been part of that process. Certainly I can speak with the Commissioner and -- certainly. 20 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
Personnel would be able to involve themselves in that process if requested, correct?
Ms. Orfanelli, I don't want to belabor this issue, but how many people are Civil Service exempt from this list? You couldn't tell me right now?
We're going to have to do a new list, because part of this list goes back to May of '03. So I don't know that this list is accurate anymore. So I'm going to have to produce a brand new list up to date.
What I would like to know, I'd like you to work from that list and let us know if the people were hired, have they moved into the City.
Okay. We'll get back to your testimony. In the recruitment and selection 21 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 portion of your testimony, you mention the introduction of an application fee. Since an ordinance establishing such a fee has not been transmitted to City Council, I have to assume that you will be doing this administratively. Am I correct?
Is the application fee limited to Civil Service jobs?
Will the application fee be for new hires or will it be imposed on promotional exams?
Oh, for both. How about part time, temporary and seasonal?
Part time, temporary and seasonal usually don't fill out applications.
What 22 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 is the projected revenue to be generated by the application fee and can you tell us how you arrived at that estimate?
We took the average number of new hires, which is 26,479. We multiplied it by --
Applications. Applicants, not new hires. Applicants. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I used the wrong terminology. We took the average number of applicants. We multiplied by the application fee of $35. That came to 826,765. We assumed 20 percent waived and came up with a figure of 666,765. For budget purposes, we're using 600,000. We did not include laborers in that 23 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 applicant pool. So we took a conservative number.
But if we have a job freeze that's in existence, do you think we're going to generate that kind of money?
The job freeze isn't impacting on our applications. We're still getting large numbers of applicants.
Why would people file an application if they know that there's a job freeze?
They're doing it. If you look at our numbers, without the laborers, we had --
But they're not being charged at this point in time?
And more than half of those people don't show up for tests.
The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode for a point of information.
Thank you, 24 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 Madam President. The point of this new fee is to cut down on frivolous applications?
So how do you expect to cut down and how much do you expect to cut down over the course of time? Let's say over the course of the five-year plan. I mean, you expect this to be declining revenue at best, I'm assuming?
That's correct. Actually, we're actually taking a conservative number that is much -- if we took the number of applicants and multiplied by 35 and took the waivers, including promotional, it's a much higher number than we're projecting for the budget.
If the point is to get rid of frivolous applications, you mean people who apply but don't take the test, 25 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 is there an added goal of trying to get more people to take a test?
I guess the question I have is, why would we want more people to take the test?
To have a larger pool of applicants so you have a better labor pool to choose from.
Your pool of frivolous applicants is large right now. Your pool of people taking the test is not large right now. So is there any goal to increase the number of people to take the test and how do you achieve that?
I don't know if you had been here for my testimony, but the actual --
Yes. I was here before your testimony. I was here for the Civil Service Commission. My question was specifically --
Well, let me Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 give you the numbers so you understand.
My question is specifically, and I'll ask it a different way, are you looking to charge people for frivolous applications, make whatever money you can make off of this year, and then knowing that revenue is going to decline, with no strategy whatsoever for actually getting more people to take the test?
Well, our strategy -- assuming that we have a position that is difficult to recruit, the application fee will be waived. If we have 15,000 people that actually showed up to take tests last year and only 1,383 qualified, then we had plenty of applicants. We had too many applicants. That's applicants who actually even showed.
So you do have enough people who are actually taking the test?
Okay. Discuss with me for the first year, you've 27 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 talked about what revenue you expect to get from the number of frivolous applicants that have to pay this fee. How does that decline over the five-year plan?
We are expecting about a to percent decline. 8 Remember, our number has already been reduced 9 from what we actually expect. So, I mean, 10 we're saying 600,000 that we're going to bring 11 in. Reality is that if we didn't -- 12
At the end 13 of the five-year plan period, how much do you 14 expect to be bringing in that fifth year? 15
Probably it 16 will be more like 400,000. I don't have the 17 actual number, because we aren't really sure 18 what the decline will be. I mean, at this 19 point, it's guesstimates. 20
I 23 think Mr. Dubow is here. He should explain 24 what's in the five-year plan. 25
Good morning. Rob 28 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 Dubow, Budget Director.
The five-year plan assumes 600,000 a year all the way throughout, and in part, it's because of what the Personnel Director has been saying, that we actually assume a decline right at the beginning and it's unlikely that the decline will actually be as large as what we're showing. The numbers that Ms. Orfanelli cited were 660,000 for the actual number for the first year. We're including 600,000. So it's a fairly conservative number, so we don't take it down. So it does go down over time. I mean, from where it is now, we'll probably hit the number that's in the plan.
Councilman Goode, does that answer your question?
Just for the record, I'll just be direct about it. So you're charging people for 29 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 frivolous applications, you have enough people testing for jobs, but you want to charge people for frivolous applications over the next five years?
Since 54 percent of the people who apply didn't show up, those are people who probably --
If the answer is yes, then just say yes, you charge people for frivolous applications over the next five years.
Okay. What are the procedures for waiving the fee and who determines if it is to be waived?
If it's a difficult position to recruit for, then we will make the decision. If it's a person who is on public assistance or unemployment, then 30 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 they will produce the forms to show us that they are, and they will be automatically waived. We will photocopy that, attach it to the application and not collect any money.
So who will collect the fee and how much is it going to cost us to collect the fees?
Are you going to have to hire additional personnel to do that?
In our budget, we've added an account clerk. Our Customer Service people will be the ones who will actually be collecting the fees, giving the receipts to the people who are the applicants or mailing the receipts.
I'd like to get on to another issue. Can you explain what steps are being taken for the City to be self-insured?
I'm not involved in that process. 31 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
That process at this point is being run out of the Finance Director's office, and she testified, I guess, a couple of weeks ago as to what we were doing.
Time is running short. I mean, I don't know what we're doing.
I think we agreed at that point that we would give you a briefing on that, and I'll see what's happening with getting that set up.
Because that certainly will not happen over night.
That's right. And we don't assume in the plan that it happens over night. We don't assume that anything 32 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 happens at least until January.
You could never do it in that short period of time. However, it's not your problem. It's our problem. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Orfanelli, I know you're going to get us some additional information, but I'd like to go back to this list that was handed out and then I'd like to go back to where we were just a few minutes ago. I know you're going to do another run on this. This was a list produced by your office. This is employees who live outside the City of Philadelphia?
Can you just tell me what a couple of these numbers mean? On the far left-hand side, there seems to be a code assigned to different groups of people. You see 16, 17, 22. 33 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
Far right-hand side up at the top, OAD, LAD and Long Date.
I see it. I'm sorry. OAD is original appointment date, LAD is latest appointment date and the other number is longevity date.
All right. So original appointment date, how is this done? Is the year the first two numbers?
So for this first person, their original appointment date was 6/30/02?
Well, let me ask a question. Why would we need a person from one of our suburban areas as a temporary person in the Recreation Department?
It's possibly someone who was a college student who was recruited who didn't live in Philadelphia when they were originally hired, but, of course, this one looks like -- I don't know. There's two appointment dates here, so... It could be someone who worked for the summer and was attending a college in the area or was hired on a temporary basis for a summer program.
I hear your response. I appreciate all of that. Why would we need to recruit a person from the 35 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 suburbs to work for the Recreation Department? There are a lot of people who are college students here for the summer, may go to school somewhere else, but actually live here, who might want to have one of those jobs. What about the second person? 6/26/03 was the original date, the last appointment date and the longevity date. And that's in Recreation. Now, even if you get a waiver from outside, isn't there a six-month requirement to move into the City?
It's possible, and I don't have the class code list with me, but these could be life guards, which we have a terrible time recruiting. We have a very difficult time hiring qualified life guards.
All right. What's the class for 22? What classification rather.
Department of Human Services. 36 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
We have a waiver for social workers. They are supposed to move into the City at some point.
That's correct, but this report was run in '03 and they may have moved into the City since then. This report was run in November, and these appointments, if you'll notice, were around May. And they have a year to move in.
Well, the second one was in February of '02. The third one was in February of '03. I mean, I guess --
Sometimes this information is stale. That's the reason why we need a new HR system. The information isn't automatically updated. They move in, they don't give their HR person their new 37 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 change of address, our system still shows the old one.
Well, let me ask this question: Who is directly responsible for making sure that people move in?
And who monitors the departments in monitoring their people? I mean, you've got --
We get lists from the Department of Motor Vehicle, which we send to the departments and ask them to look into any people who are living outside the City.
I understand that, but, I mean, I don't want to make too many assumptions here, but is there a monthly report run of employees who live outside the City and then someone says, Well, let me go talk to Recreation, let me go talk to DHS, let me go talk to whomever, because their person is still showing on my report as 38 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 living outside the City, it's now six months, it's a year, whatever the case may be and --
When we get the quarterly report, we send them the report and ask them to let us know what the status of the employees are. So we basically monitor it, but we don't have any authority to take any action. Then we send --
And if they don't get back to you or if they don't do anything --
If they don't get back to you or if they don't do anything about it, then what?
They have investigators to check to see what the residency situation is.
Well, you know what? We have this wonderfully unique relationship with the public employees. For us, it happens like clock work. About every other Thursday at 3 o'clock, it just magically appears in my office, an envelope. It has a wonderful message inside. It tells me that I'm getting paid. So if you really want to get someone's attention and they're not paying attention, stop their check. You'll find out every piece of information you want at least in two weeks.