I have a question regarding the, I believe, approximately 175 recreation centers in this city. How old are the fences surrounding the playgrounds? Has there been any discussion to review the replacement of these fences? Most of the fences I see are pretty unsightly, rusted, and buckling from age. Can you explain to us, Commissioner what we can look forward to? COMMISSIONER RICHARD: Well, money's always an issue. In our Capital Projects Program, if we have enough money, we address the fencing as well. Also, in the maintenance side, in our preventive side, we have vandalism, trees falling, et cetera, et cetera. The wrought-iron fencing that had been erected -- and I can't tell you how many years ago -- very costly. We work on repairing those 47 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062 internally, if we have the material. We do not design those type fences at today's cost. We go with your regular cyclone wire fencing, so it's a ongoing process. I want to say last year, we spent approximately $26,000 in-house, within our Operating Budget, and I want to say I believe there's $25,000 that's appropriated for '01. Could we use more money? I would always tell you yes, but it's an ongoing issue, based on the number and also the age.
I sympathize with you. We all have problems, but they are unsightly, some of these fences. Are there any questions? Councilman Nutter?
Yes, he is. I'll answer 48 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062 that one for him.
All right. Thank you. Mr. Dubow has saved you once again. COMMISSIONER RICHARD: Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Commissioner. Commissioner, what's the City's Office of Fun and Fitness? Can you explain that to me, how it operates? COMMISSIONER RICHARD: It's a part of the Mayor's initiative, Fun and Fitness and Healthy Employees.
Mm-hmm. What does it do? Where is it housed, first of all? 49 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062
Estelle Richman's going to answer that. (Witness comes forward.) COMMISSIONER RICHARD: Hi. I am Estelle Richman, Director of Social Services for the City of Philadelphia. The Mayor's Office of Fun, Fit and Free is housed within Social Services for the City, and Gwen Foster reports directly to me.
Where's it located at again? It's at DHS? COMMISSIONER RICHMAN: No, it's in the Municipal Service Building.
In MSB? COMMISSIONER RICHARD: It's directly part of Social Services.
So does it promote fitness throughout the City of Philadelphia or just with employees or what? COMMISSIONER RICHARD: No, it promotes fitness throughout the City of Philadelphia. In one of the newest initiatives, we'll be to look at the employees of the City directly, but its focus has been on the folks that live 50 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062 within the City of Philadelphia.
Okay, so if I have some folks that -- from time to time, people have asked me about that and wanted to get a sense of where they should go to participate in the program, both for themselves and as it relates to themselves and educational purposes. Should they just contact your office? COMMISSIONER RICHARD: They should contact my office, and I will put them directly in contact with Gwen Foster, who is the czar for Fun, Fit and Free, and there are a number of initiatives going on right now, probably the most recent being the one, together with the 76ers, to have the City lose 76 tons in 76 days.
All right. Are we still Fat City? I know we were referenced that. COMMISSIONER RICHARD: We are not the fattest city.
We're number three. COMMISSIONER RICHARD: We dropped to the third fattest city, which is an improvement. 51 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062
All right, that office is doing well, then. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Yes, this is for the Recreation Commissioner quickly. I first want to thank you for continuing to follow up on a very difficult situation I have with the Chalfont running track. I mean, it's the only one in my district, and I just talked to your staff the other day, and I hope we can continue as the spring comes forward to get that vendor involved in doing it right the second time. COMMISSIONER RICHARD: Yes.
But I appreciate you still staying on top of that, and that's something you promised me and I appreciate it. COMMISSIONER RICHARD: Yes. The leases as well.
Yeah, it's moving. COMMISSIONER RICHARD: I'm sure you're happy with that.
Absolutely. 52 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062 COMMISSIONER RICHARD: All right, okay.
Thank you, commissioner. COMMISSIONER RICHARD: Thank you.
I believe there's someone here from the Health Department. (Witnesses come forward.)
I'm Dr. Tsou, the Health Commissioner, and I'm joined here with Carmen (inaudible), our Finance Director.
I believe maybe this question is more geared to 2002. Regarding the SPCA, they have terminated their contract with the City either this June or next. What do we intend to do to handle their duties?
Okay, we believe that -- they are giving us 16 more months to take over this contract. We believe this is going to be an important issue for Fiscal Year 2003. We are, over the course of the next year, going to be gearing up to assume the animal control program for SPCA, which includes locating a place where we 53 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062 can do kennels and also to gear up for training our staff for doing this, but we don't anticipate this being a major expense for us until 2003.
Do you have any idea how much money it's going to cost by taking it over?
790,000 for our current contract with the SPCA. But we anticipate, however, that this could be an important expense for us, and we'll be talking with the Budget Department sometime in Fiscal Year 2003 budget proposal.
We'll be speaking with the Budget Department about our request for Fiscal Year 2003 to take over the animal control program from the SPCA. And we anticipate that will be an important expense for us then.
Thank you. 54 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062 Are there any other questions? (No further questions.)
Are there any other questions from other departments?
Mr. Dubow, on of the testimony, it reads that these -- this is referring to some previous testimony. These increases in appropriations are made possible through the savings of $10 million in appropriations for the Department of Revenue Sinking Fund resulting from a postponement of new debt issued and lower-than-projected interest rates on short-term borrowings. Can you tell me what new debt we did no 24 issue?
What happened, when we 55 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062 expected that our general obligation bond would be issued earlier in the fiscal year, and instead, it was instead issued in January, and the first debt service payment amount isn't due until FY '02.
Okay. So the second fund still remains a good place to hide the money, is that it?
Very good, good answer. The $18 million in Grants Revenue Fund left over at OHCD?
How is it possible for OHCD to have any money not spent or accounted for?
Well, what we do each year in the Grants Fund is put in excess appropriation in case more grants than we would have anticipated come in. And that has not happened this year, and OHCD assures us that it would not happen to the 56 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062 extent that they would need any of this money.
When we put the budget together, we make sure that in our grants funds -- and this is a grants fund --
Well, what grant were you anticipating that we did not get? I mean, in OHCD, it's usually not a mystery as to what their funding is going to be. If they get $69 million or so in CDBG funds, they get another X-amount from POPLA, another amount from I think it's PHFA or AIDS-related funding. And I mean, what's -- what was this unknown grant that we were hoping to get?
Well, what we do when we set up the budget is we put in enough room in case there's something that we don't know about. There's a new federal program, for example, that we could get grants from. (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
So there are a lot of new federal programs coming through for OHCD -- 57 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062
Right. Well, we didn't know when we set up the budget who was going to win the election.
Oh, okay, all right. So there's just another place where some dollars went.
Okay. I appreciate your honesty. Director of Finance - Provision for Other Grants will provide $22 million. What is or was this?
Okay. You know, Mr. Dubow, we are starting to figure this out.
Over the summer, let me encourage you to come up with some new techniques and strategies, okay? 58 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062
Go back about five years and you'll see what they recycled from then.
Exactly. You know, we have very short memories up here. Hotel Room Rental Tax Fund, down at the bottom, $2.9 million. This increase in appropriation would allow the Administration to allocate stronger-than-anticipated hotel tax revenues to make the City's payments to the Convention Center, Greater Philadelphia Tourism, and the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Don't we --
-- every year have to make certain payments to them, and didn't we budget in the '01 budget payments to these people? What does this mean?
Yes. This is the place where we actually kind of did the opposite of what we did in grants. We appropriated too little at the beginning of the year, and now the hotel tax is coming in stronger than we anticipated, so we have more revenues than we had appropriations in 59 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062 the '01 budget. So we need excess appropriation power and when the money flows in, it goes over to the Convention Center, they use it to cover their debt service and their operating deficit. And then whatever's left over comes back to the General Fund. So the higher these revenues are, the more likely it is the money will flow through the Convention Center and come back to us. But without this additional appropriation power, we can't do that.
What's that have to do with the payments to -- I mean, excuse me, this would give someone the impression that our payments -- put the Convention Center aside for the moment -- to the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and the Convention and Visitors Bureau, aren't those finite amounts that we pay them? It's not on a sliding scale based on increases or decreases in the hotel tax collections, is it?
Well, yes, they actually get -- they each get an appropriation -- they each get a percentage of the hotel tax, each one of these entities. 60 2/12/01 APPROP. - BILLS 010006, 010007, 010062
The Visitors Bureau is actually capped. So at some point, they reach their cap, so they won't get any more. Then the rest of their portion winds up going to the Convention Center, but that's all figured out at the end of the year.
Thank you. Are there any other questions for members of the Administration? (No further questions.)
There being none, the Committee on Appropriations will stand in recess until March the 13th, 2001, at 9 a.m. (Adjourned 10:50 a.m.) 61 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 Monday, February 12, 2001, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS RES. NO.'S 010006, 010007, 010062 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter