COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, April 7, 2026 10:15 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMAN MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. BILLS: 260199, 260200, 260201, 260202, 260203, 260204, 260205, 260206, 260208, 260209 RESOLUTION: 260227 - - -
This is the public hearing and public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bill Nos. 260199, 260200, 260201, 260202, 260203, 260204, 260205, 260206, 260208, 260209 and Resolution No. 260227. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the roll and take attendance.
Present. Thank you. A quorum of the committee is present. This hearing is now called to order. Before I ask Ms. Loughead to read the titles of the bills and resolution, I just want to thank all my members for being here promptly as we start off this budget hearing. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the titles of the bills and resolution.
Bill No. 24 260199, an Ordinance adopting the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2027. Bill No. 260200, an Ordinance to adopt a Fiscal Year 2027 Capital Budget. Bill No. 260201, an Ordinance to adopt a Capital Program for the six Fiscal Years, 2027-2032 inclusive. Bill No. 260202, an Ordinance amending Chapter 19-2400 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Hotel Room Rental Tax," by providing for an additional excise tax on hotel room rentals, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260203, an Ordinance amending Subcode "A" (The Philadelphia Administrative Code) of Title 4 of The Philadelphia Code (The Building, Construction and Occupancy Code), by adding and revising Zoning Board of Adjustment fees and provisions regarding hearing scheduling, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260204, an Ordinance amending Title 3 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Air Management Code" to modify the amounts of license and permit fees, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 2602055, an Ordinance amending Section 19-1806 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Authorization of Realty Use and Occupancy Tax," to clarify the imposition of the tax on the use or occupancy of real estate with respect to cell towers, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260206, an Ordinance amending Chapter 6-600 of The Philadelphia Code ("Asbestos"), by adding and providing provisions related to various fees, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260208, an Ordinance amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," to a add a new Section 19-1808, entitled "Authorization of Rideshare Use Tax," to authorize the Board of the School District of Philadelphia to levy a tax upon the use by a passenger of a transportation network company for a prearranged ride that originates in Philadelphia; all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 260209, an Ordinance amending Title of The 16 Philadelphia Code, entitled 17 "Finances, Taxes and Collections," 18 to add a new Chapter 19-4800, 19 entitled "Retail Delivery Tax," to establish a tax on orders for the delivery in Philadelphia of retail consumer and other tangible goods, all under certain terms and conditions.
Today we will hold the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole to consider bills read by the Clerk that constitute proposed operating capital spending measures for Fiscal Year 2027, a Capital Program and a Forward-looking Capital Plan for Fiscal Year 2027 through Fiscal Year 2032. This morning we have scheduled testimony from the Office of Clean and Green, including the Sanitation Department. Before we get started, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge Mr. Omar Salaam, who also represents the Office of the Mayor; Ms. Crystal Jacobs -- where's Ms. Crystal Jacobs Shipman? I want to thank her also, Commissioner of Sanitation; Mr. Carlton Green -- Carlton Williams, Head of Clean and Green, where's Keith Warren at, Deputy Commissioner for Sanitation, I want to thank all of you for always picking up the phone when I'm calling asking for some type of constituent service issue to address in the 2nd Councilmanic District. I want to also acknowledge Antoine Little from District Council 33. Also thank you for being here. Just want to start off by just thanking all of you for your hard work and your dedication to improving the quality of life of the City of Philadelphia. Ms. Loughead, can you please call the first panel to testify.
The first panel to testify from the Administration is Carlton Williams, Director of the Office of Clean and Green and Crystal Jacobs, Sanitation Commissioner.
Glad to see the West Oak Lane Wildcats finally got their turf filled. That's awesome.
How are you doing, Carlton? Always good to see you.
Good morning, Council President and the honorable members of City Council. My name is Carlton Williams and I am the Director of Clean and Green Initiatives for the Mayor's Administration. And I am here today with Commissioner Crystal Jacobs Shipman from the Sanitation Division Department, Casey Kuklick, Director of Clean and Green; Mary Stitt, Deputy Director for Clean and Green Initiatives; Mr. Keith Warren, Deputy Commissioner for Sanitation; and Mr. Christopher Newman, Deputy Commissioner for the Administration. And I am pleased to provide testimony on the Office of Clean and Green and Sanitation's Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget. I'm extremely proud to report that the Office of Clean and Green continues to make great strides in accomplishing the Mayor's bold vision of a cleaner, greener and safer city with economic opportunity for all. Our FY27 operating budget marks a pivot from building and implementing multiple new and expanding Clean and Green initiatives to sustained transformation of city conditions going forward. We have successfully established multiple programs and initiatives that are proactive, data-driven and demonstrably impactful. The goal now is to move towards solidifying and making permanent all of our successes for the long term. Our One Philly, United City citywide cleanup, for example, will continue to serve as a staple framework for a coordinated citywide approach to address quality-of-life issues in our communities. During Fiscal Year 2026 alone, over a dozen government and quasi government agencies worked together to clean 20,000 streets and address more than 150,000 quality-of-life actions across the city. This comprehensive and coordinated approach is now standard operating procedure and will continue to touch each and every neighborhood annually throughout the City of Philadelphia. Twice weekly trash collections have also shown tremendous growth and success, expanding high density neighborhoods, areas in both South and North Philadelphia and yielding a 15% reduction in illegal dumping calls as a result. The success of this initiative that has gone well beyond a pilot concept is now a permanent shift towards a more flexible service delivery model, where collection frequency is based on need and neighborhood conditions in those areas. The overall plethora and scale of these and our various programs and initiatives, including the district-based residential cleaning, the 10-point greening program, the anti-graffiti and highway beautification plans, Sanitation Department's program expansions and increasing extensive partnerships all reflect forward- looking efforts for a multi-agency, coordinated and combined approaches towards multiple quality-of-life issues and have become primary strategies focusing not only on litter reduction, but also greening graffiti and nuisance abatement, stabilizing vacant land and improving environmental resilience. Importantly, all of these efforts have made a huge difference. Not only can residents and visitors visibly observe the difference across communities and neighborhoods, but objectively our litter index scores have improved over 11% over the last two years, and our new, more comprehensive community appearance index has shown significant initial promising results, with zip codes showing 4 improvement overall in community 5 conditions. 6 Equally important is our 7 investment in people throughout the 8 Philly Future Track workforce 9 development program. Over the last 10 two successive years, the Philly 11 Future Track program has successfully transitioned over 260 program participants to full-time permanent civil service positions. And next year, we are projecting an additional 100.
This not only helps support the massive staffing expansion in the Sanitation Department with new work-ready hires to deliver many of our new programs and initiatives, but it has also endured many of the most at-risk city residents in disadvantaged areas that have career pathways to transition to a new and more promising life. In FY27, we are laying the foundation for the sustained cleaner and greener and safer Philadelphia with economic opportunity for all, not just for today but for the future. This is a strategy built on a quality-of- life focus, shared multi-agency coordination and collaboration and adaptability and it positions the city to deliver increasingly better outcomes year after year. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. We will be happy to answer any questions for this testimony hearing. Now, I'd like to ask Sanitation Commissioner Crystal Jacobs Shipman for an introductory testimony on behalf of the Sanitation Department. COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: Good morning, President Johnson and members of City Council. I am Crystal Jacobs Shipman, Commissioner for the Department of Sanitation, and as mentioned joining me today is Deputy Commissioner Keith Warren, Deputy Commissioner Christopher Newman, not mentioned earlier but our Director of Environmental Planning Scott McGrath, and as mentioned, Omar Salaam, and as well joined by Faruq Scott. I'm here to provide testimony on the Sanitation Department's Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget. 2 million all funds appropriation level. This proposed budget reflects Mayor Cherelle Parker's deep commitment towards making Philadelphia the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in America with access to economic opportunity for all and secures the expansive clean and green investments made by the Mayor and this Council over the prior two fiscal years. C. 33 Vice- President Antoine Little. And I would be remiss if I did not recognize and thank the hard- working men and women of the Sanitation Department. Their work is highly visible, challenging, physically demanding, and their commitment to making our streets clean, green and safe is unwavering. On behalf of the leadership of our entire department, I extend my sincerest gratitude for their professionalism, resilience and pride in serving the residents of Philadelphia. This budget proposal solidifies the various new programs and expansion initiatives of the last several years, while ensuring the continued transformation in how we deliver core sanitation services and improvement and accountability, efficiency and a neighborhood-level impact across Philadelphia. We have successfully established and implemented a wide variety of new initiatives over the last two fiscal years and expanded staffing to historically high levels. This has positioned the department to be much more efficient and responsive in delivering core services throughout the city. Our district-based residential cleaning program, for example, has provided a much more localized service model for all Council Districts, better aligning uniquely-needed services with neighborhood conditions. Since the program's inception, we have effectively cleaned over 90,000 total blocks and impressive achievement, further enhanced by the specific delivery of services needed within each district level area. Similarly, a series of program expansion efforts over the last couple years for twice-per-week trash collections and mechanical street cleaning has increased and consolidated specifically-needed services and geographical areas with the most need in Kensington and parts of North and South Philadelphia, greatly reducing litter debris in those areas and enhancing overall neighborhood conditions. We are continuing to intensify our approach to illegal dumping cleanup as well as surveillance and enforcement.
This budget resources six illegal dumping cleanup crews continuing to strengthen our ability to respond quickly and comprehensively to dumping incidents and focusing in particular on chronic hotspots. The increase in illegal dumping cleanup crew capacity funded over the years has resulted in a more than 280% increase in illegal dumping-site cleanups since 2022 and over 2300 additional sites cleaned during the time period. In addition, we will continue to fund expanded illegal dumping surveillance camera coverage and a significant expansion of sanitation enforcement staff. This will ensure we have the enforcement power and the citizen outreach capability necessary to make as big an impact as possible on citywide littering behaviors. Looking ahead, this budget resources the operating costs necessary to support the recent newly-rehabilitated Northwest Transfer Station. This facility will greatly improve operational efficiency for the transport of trash by reducing travel times for collection crews and strengthening our capacity to manage waste more effectively across the city. We are also committed to continuing to improve Philadelphia's recycling rate through targeted education, better bin access and marketing improvements which are supported by this budget, we expect to continue the steady improvement in overall resident recycling participation, which has increased from a pandemic FY21 low of 8% to an expected 14% this fiscal year and a goal of 15% for FY27. A key aspect of this anticipated continued improvement is the recent expansion to our Big Belly trash and recycling compaction units with an expected network of 1500 this fiscal year, representing 600 newly installed and 520 replaced. We are very proud of the remarkable expansion and strivings we've made thus far, and are poised and excited to solidify these efforts moving forward into FY27. This proposed budget allows us to strengthen and continue the Mayor's visionary clean and green strategies, thus institutionalizing comprehensive and long-term solutions to remove litter and blight across the city and drastically improve overall quality of life for our residents and communities. We're therefore requesting your favorable consideration of the budget. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. Our deputy staff and I are happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you very much. I'm going to call on my members and, again, Mr. Williams, thank you for -- and, Crystal, your work around the snowstorm, just being responsive as we dealt with two back-to-back storms, just leading those efforts and being on the front line.
I just want to acknowledge that. I also want to acknowledge the role of our Mayor when we talked about the issue of Philadelphia being known as Philthadelphia and her jumping in head-first and doing a deeper dive in making sure it's a priority to have clean streets here in the city of Philadelphia. I just had a brief, small question. The Future Track program is very near and dear to me. What aspect of this budget invests in Future Track? Do we know how many additional positions we will be hiring for Future Track in the upcoming future? And then also give me an idea of the role of CLIP. Will you be doing an investment in the CLIP program? And also, will you be hiring more individuals to expand CLIP? I know we're doing a lot of work with TCB, Taking Care of Business, which I think is a great program that deals primarily with the commercial corridors. But I have a specific interest in expanding the opportunities that are available for individuals to specifically do work around Future Track because it gives individuals, regardless of their background, an opportunity to have a pathway into the administration through civil service but through actual permanent jobs, which you mentioned inside your testimony, which I think is great. So I want to continue that progress and whatever I can do to be supportive of it.
Absolutely. Thank you, Council President. And let me acknowledge the fact that you, along with this Council, did champion a budget that allows us to hire every year 200 Future Track employees, trainees that eventually can be eligible for long-term city employment for the City of Philadelphia. That is a huge program for us. It's a win-win-win situation for all of us. Number one, it's a win situation for obviously the candidates in the program. They have meaningful opportunities to join city government, for us, for government agencies like the Sanitation Department, but multiple agencies we've expanded to with multiple tracks. It gives them an opportunity to fill much-needed vacancies with trained employees in advance, so that is another benefit from the program. And of course, for the community in the city, they see the direct results of their hard work. They've worked not only during the snowstorms, but also during the work stoppage and they were a valuable asset all year long with the citywide cleanup. These are the initiatives that we are launching. And based on the important roles that Future Track play, they play a huge role. I will get back to you in terms of CLIP's budget and their positions. We are not anticipating any cuts for CLIP in terms of their role and responsibility. They're playing a huge, huge role in not only graffiti removal, but other quality-of-life initiatives as well, vacant lot restoration. They've been on the front lines of our highway beautification project. If you take a ride up 76 now, you'll notice that that graffiti is no longer on that major CSX wall. That is all CLIP and our Mural Arts program working together to remove those eyesores. But not only do they do that on major corridors, they're doing that in the neighborhoods every day with the number of quality-of-life initiatives, over 100,000 initiatives combined, and they're a big part of that as well. TCB is here. They've expanded. Ms. Roxana, Roxy Taginya -- and I'm sorry, Roxy, if I mispronounced your last name -- but she is here. She can tell you about the expansion. But we've improved from 39 TCB programs to 51, and we've expanded to over 450 blocks. And also, not only do they clean the corridors, but they're also cleaning north, south, east and west of each block related to a corridor as well. So they're doing outstanding work. And together, we're accomplishing the Mayor's vision of a safer, cleaner, greener Philadelphia and reducing the monarchy of Philadelphia.
Are we expanding Future Track? And how many positions in this budget are going to provide more opportunities for people to come into the Future Track program?
Yeah. I think we're sustaining it at 200 right now which is the budget, which is a pretty substantial number for workforce development. And we're able to again utilize and give them the skill sets for them to thrive in city government when positions are available.
And can we expand Future Track in the future or that's not a part of the vision at this particular point in time right now?
Well, I mean we can always expand it if funding becomes available. But right now we are happy to hold Pat at the 200 positions that we have --
-- because it's ultimately a great management function for Commissioner Shipman and team to be able to disperse those and manage them accordingly.
And then also, are we expanding TCB? How does one apply when we get phone calls and say, I'm looking for employment and I want to respond and say, TCB may be an opportunity to have a pathway to work for the City of Philadelphia?
Yes. So TCB did expand with their contractual partners from 39 agencies to 51, so they have now 51 locations in --
How do people apply if they're interested? Is it based upon an individual's geographic location, South Philly, North Philly, West Philly?
So they do hire from the neighborhoods, the community groups and who contract with those agencies, are likely to come from the communities in which they serve which is a good thing because they take ownership. They're able to give back to the neighborhood residents who use that community the most. And that's a good thing. But it's not necessarily a law. Someone from another location of the city that's looking for the opportunity could be placed in that program.
So if a person wants to apply, they reach out to their actual partnering locations, is that correct, partnering organizations?
Yes. Well, the partnering organizations actually do the hiring. We contract with the --
Okay. I just wanted to get an idea. And CLIP isn't going to be expanding at the moment. So if a person wanted to apply to be hired by CLIP to do the CLIP type of work, at this present time they won't be expanding slots for individuals to work for CLIP?
Right, we won't be expanding slots. But there's always turnover in multiple departments and those positions will be filled. And so, we do anticipate -- if those opportunities open up, we definitely want to fill them because of the important work that they do.
And I only ask you this line of questioning because I meet people on a daily basis looking for work and civil service may not be the best route. And traditionally, just to be frank, transparent, you can call CLIP, any spots available because you have a young person that's looking for work, even you, Future Track, do you have any spots available, a person looking for work, and I just think that's a good way to provide people who may not have that opportunity to go through the civil service process, but just a straight hiring process to get them involved in the workforce here in the City of Philadelphia. And last, how does all this correlate around CCME, that program?
So CCME at Community College, Future Track members actually learn a different skill set. So it's a way for us to enhance workforce development opportunities for technical work. Many of them go for positions that may not be available to them if they hadn't taken those courses. And I'm thinking about certain maintenance positions that require technical skills. Also, there's a variety of other related programs not related to Clean and Green that CCME offers as well. So I think it's a great program that we need to continue to support because it gives them that added skill and knowledge base that they need to compete, not only with city jobs but out in the professional world as well.
And, Commissioner Shipman, I know you have -- 200 people is a pretty sizable amount of individuals, but I know you're more than capable of managing 1000 if you had the budget to actually operate those 1000 individuals. And so, the 200 people on their path for graduation, that will open up other opportunities for people to come in? Because I guess I'm getting the impression right now that there's a freeze basically on Future Track. There's a freeze on CLIP. And I guess TCB is opening up some positions or expanding partnering organizations. Did I explain that correctly? COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: I wouldn't justify or classify it as a freeze.
Okay. COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: No. So what happens with Future Track is towards the end of the program if it ends in June, graduation is in June, as many of those individuals who finish that program that we have slots for, whether it's Sanitation or Water or Streets, any of the other departments, we place as many of them as we can. They identify a track that they like, something that they become familiar with. And as far as how many spots that we have open that are available to them, that's how we place them. And then we restart the cycle again.
Got you. So if we place 20 people in permanent city positions, there's 20 slots that's available for new people to come and apply for; is that correct? COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: So at the end of Future Track, typically they've graduated out of the program. Last year we were able to place 180 --
I saw that, which is awesome. COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: And so, the hope would be to place as many as we can and then we start over with a fresh 200.
That's what I was trying to understand. All right. Cool.
And, Council President, just to add they are eligible to stay on a civil service list after they complete even though the job may not be readily available immediately after training service. They are now certified to be on civil service lists to be considered for interviews in the future. And we are trying to connect with other departments to open up more opportunities.
I think also y'all work should just be acknowledged as being a part of a larger strategy to reduce gun violence in the city of Philadelphia, reduce the shootings in the city of Philadelphia. We have a blueprint for a safer Philadelphia that also talked about the need of putting young people to work as a way to address violence in our city. And I believe again the more young people you hire -- my Nana taught me as a kid, an idle mind is the devil's workshop. And so, when you got something to get involved in that's positive, you don't want to stand on the corner, you don't want to get involved in drug dealing because you have a pathway to create an opportunity to have sustainable wages to take care of your family. And so, thank you very much, and I appreciate your testimony. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, then Councilmember Jim Harrity, then Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson and then Dr. Phillips.
Thank you, Council President. And good morning, Director Williams and Commissioner Jacobs Shipman, and thank you for the work that you do on behalf of the city every day.
My questions are about the city's waste disposal contracts. We have less than three months until the city needs to have new solid waste and recycling disposal contracts in place. Delaware County commissioned a very detailed and comprehensive lifecycle assessment study of incineration versus landfilling versus adoption of their zero waste plan. It showed that burning trash at the incinerator in Chester is 69% worse for the climate than landfilling, and that it is 15 times as harmful for all other 16 public health and environmental 17 measures combined. The study used 18 EPA and other data to evaluate nine 19 criteria: Climate impacts, smog 20 and related asthma impacts, 21 respiratory and cardiac effects 22 from particulate matter, cancer and 23 noncancer impacts of toxic chemicals, acidification, ecosystems, toxicity, ozone depletion and eutrophication. At the March 24th budget hearing in this chamber, Director Williams, you stated regarding the Delaware County study that "I think we have to consider all of the environmental impacts, not just one section of it." And so, my questions for you are: Have you read the entire Delaware County study? And if so, why did you claim that the study looked at just one section of environmental impacts when it looked at nine of them from landfills, incinerations and zero waste alternatives. And what other impacts are you implying were not examined? And what specific problems do you have with the study that was already completed?
Councilwoman, thank you for your question. First of all, I want to again state for the record that I think what I've been referring to is that we need to evaluate during our RFP process that we need to be able to address it. Second -- (Background interruption.)
Hold on one second. Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me -- (Background interruption.)
Now, either you get them or I'm going to get them. So I know they're here to be supportive. But okay, y'all want to keep coughing? Hold on one second. Council will be at ease. (Council at ease.)
I don't mind y'all coming and I'm not sure how they do business in Chester. This is a democracy. This is the People's House. And you can come down, you can have the opportunity to listen to their presentation. You can come at public comment to voice your opposition or your support for other people who are in this building. But you will not disrupt this hearing by coughing and making noises while these individuals are giving their presentations or any members are commenting on the stated matter. If not, you will be removed today. Now, you can keep coughing all you want, but I'm going to show you. We want to be respectful of everybody inside this room rather we support their opinion or not. Now, keep coughing.
Thank you, Council President. And, Councilmember, just to follow up on your question, what I was referring to is that there are other studies that also can contradict what was presented in the study from Delaware County. For example, and I would like to present for the record the study that was just released by the Municipal Solid Waste Management Association and Recycling edition in March 2026 which states, Thermal chemical waste to energy technologies play a pivotal role in valorizing MSW by converting waste to energy and materials while reducing environmental impacts compared to landfilling. The integration into sustainable waste management systems support global efforts towards resource efficiency and climate change mitigation. In developed countries, WTE complements recycling and source separation. While in developing, undeveloped nations, it offers a pathway to reduce open dumping and improve energy access. Continued advancements in process efficiency, emission control and product valorization will enhance their contributions to a circular economy. By addressing the technical, economic and social challenges, WTE technologies can serve as a cornerstone of sustainable MSW management aligning with global sustainability goals. So what I'm referring to is that there are multiple studies that we need to review before we make a decision as to if we should eliminate it or ultimately continue to use it altogether.
Thank you for reading that, but I did ask a very specific set of questions. Have you read the Delaware County study in full? And since you brought up the other study, I just wanted to point out that the Delaware County study was quite specific to what's happening in our region. In fact, it mostly focused on Philadelphia's trash. It sounded like what you read was more general. And I would ask whether it focused on the Reworld incinerator in particular, which in addition to being the largest trash incinerator in the entire country, is quite old and not like a lot of the other incinerators that do waste to energy in Europe and other parts of the country. But can you answer my questions about the Delaware County study?
Sure. Me and my staff did review some of the findings in that study, and we don't disagree with the emissions assessment that was made, although again we believe that it could be looked at as subjective in terms of how the LCAs are evaluated. But we're not here again, I want to state for the record, to support WTE versus landfilling. We're here to ask this Council to give us the opportunity to evaluate it through the RFP process. And I can ask my staff to come up to talk more in detail about the evaluation and review that we did if time permits. But ultimately, I'm going to just let you know that that's where our position is.
So did you just say that your staff doesn't disagree with the findings of the study that the trash incineration happening in Chester is 69% worse for the climate than landfilling and times as harmful 23 for both public health and the environment? Is that what you said, that you all don't sort of take qualms with the study that was already done and generated those results?
We don't disagree with the study, but we're saying that there are other studies out there that contrast very differently from the one that was presented. And the data that we have ultimately states there's multiple research agencies that did it from 2016 to 2023, which is much more recent than the study that was done in Delaware County.
If you could forward to my office the studies that you have looked at that are as specific to Philadelphia and our surrounding region as the Delaware County study which again focused specifically on our trash, I would appreciate that. And in closing, I would say if your staff looked at the Delaware County study, which was quite thorough and are not pushing back on what it showed, which was quite clear data that incineration is much worse for the environment and public health, I would question why you want to have an RFP process that allows something as harmful to our neighbors as the trash incinerator and Chester. Thank you so much.
Yes, ma'am. And I read in for the record the study, and I'll make sure that Councilmembers each have a copy. We will send some electronically, but that is a hard copy for the record for the study that we also reviewed and contrasted to the one that currently exists and presented by Councilmember Gauthier.
All right. This will be made and presented to members of the Committee of the Whole.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity. And then, as I mentioned before, Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson and then Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you everyone for being here this morning. Got a lot of respect for you guys. Thank you for what you do to clean and green in my neighborhood. It's moving right along. We always have little stumbling spots. But you guys, when I tell you, are responsive, you guys are responsive, and that's what our neighbors want. But since Councilwoman brought it up, I have a couple questions about the incinerator stuff too. How much would it cost to change the way we deal with our trash? I know that there's the legislation to terminate the contract in Chester. Can you please talk about how much it would cost Philadelphia to transition to this? And have we given any thought to landfills also cause pollution. So maybe we can make a five year plan just like Chester to explore better options than landfills or trash incineration. I mean, I know that before COVID we were almost there with the recycling, and I know you've been around. So I think we were at 18%. We needed to get to 22 to get the federal money. I'm not sure if the federal money is still there. Technology has advanced now. I met with a company that does sorting recyclables and rubbish, composting-type deal where the AI now -- the employees are there, it's very clean, very organized, and the AI hits it with these lasers and it can tell you there's a banana under that box, please take it out. And then the person lifts up the box, pulls the banana out and puts it in. In reality, neither of these things are good for us, right. What's the cost going to be? And what about making a five year plan also like Chester's doing in order to phase out through a lot of other different avenues, not just burying our trash other than incinerating it, but also trying to recycle more so we can get more of the federal money. And also, compost. I'm a big farmer guy. We got lots of people that would probably use the compost if we had it. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember Harrity, for your comment and support. We couldn't agree with you more in this statement that we need to look at other practices away from landfilling and waste to energy programs. I think I also said in that initial five year testimony about anaerobic digestion and the use of organics, which make up 30% to 40% of our waste stream combined with recycling, which can get somewhere to 60% to 70% diversion, which helps us get closer to zero waste. I had the great opportunity last fall to attend the Chicago GPLEX Summit and we actually witnessed one in a neighborhood that was generating safe, productive energy and organic material. It cost them about $20-something million to build for a 90,000-ton-per-day facility. That is something that we should be seriously looking at. Commissioner Shipman is already working with PGW and looking at the infrastructure here in the city of Philadelphia to do exactly what you said, to see what Philadelphia's infrastructure could lead to, to get us away from both waste to energy and landfilling. Commissioner. COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: I just want to add that -- and you stated that very, very well, Director -- that we will be piloting some organic waste opportunities for residential homes to be able to remove organic material out. So you'll be seeing that very shortly, and we'll be talking to Council about spreading the word on how we remove that particular material from the homes.
Excuse me, Commissioner. I have a point of information. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Some quick points of information. There is not an opportunity to come up with a five year plan. This is a seven year contract that will be done June 30th. And if we do not pick another partner or alternative, we'll be in another seven year contract with Reworld, which is not only the largest incinerator in the country. It's the largest industrial polluter in the region. And so, the timeline for that would be past the Parker Administration. I wanted to point out that there is no sorting that happens at this facility. I went to visit and also had a number of colleagues and staff visit with me. They sort of eyeball it, so they don't know really what they're burning. And then lastly, we've looked at the cost. It's about 6 million more to switch to a landfilling alternative, which in a $7 billion budget, is almost a rounding error and a lot cheaper than what you have to pay for the public health costs associated with asthma and cancer in both Chester and Philadelphia. Thank you. (Applause.)
I would also recognize that, as you just said, if we did do a five year plan, say seven years, we would be in the same time frame as Chester is planning to do theirs. They're planning a five to seven year phase-out. If we do a five year plan with a seven year, so you're talking the same amount of time, we would all stop together. Maybe we can get a better price on the landfill. But thank you, Commissioner. Could you please answer the question?
Member Gauthier, could you let the gentleman who's on the floor continue to keep speaking. Member Harrity.
Yes, thank you. That's what I had to say. I mean, listen, it would bring us to around the same time that Chester wants to stop too. That way maybe we can work on together getting better prices, and by that time we'll also have better recycling and all. I'm just saying we need a lot more planning here, and still would like to know, if you don't have it here, the cost analysis.
Just one second. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, point of information.
Again, the Philadelphia contract will be finished. Chester is not in the same position. Neither does Chester make that decision for their city. Delaware County does. And they are not at the end of their contract. Philadelphia is at the end of its contract where it has the opportunity to make another choice and to decide whether clean and green also means being kind to our neighbors. Thank you.
Chair recognizes Commissioner Carlton Williams.
Yes. Just a point of clarification. Councilmember, the contract is for a guaranteed four year with one three-year renewable option year. So in theory, four years is what we're committed to. We can renew the contract in its fifth year, Councilmember. I just wanted that stated for the record because it's not a straight seven year contract.
This is just information too. Ohio, Maryland and the five other counties in Pennsylvania that are currently burning trash there also, they have no intentions of stopping, right?
Not to my knowledge, but I'll turn it over to the Commissioner. COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: Based on what we know, we have not received word that the counties that you've mentioned or the other states, New York, New Jersey have any plans to pull out. We have not received any of that information.
Thank you guys. And if you could just give me that cost analysis, if you could send it to us so we'd all have that information in our comparison. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember and Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson, then Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips, then Minority Leader Kendra Brooks.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President, and thank you to our colleagues. I also wanted to mention that you asked my questions regarding Future Track. You know that I was going to ask about workforce development. But I'll start with my thank-yous. Again, thank you to our Commissioner Crystal Jacobs Shipman; to our Director of Clean and Green Carlton Williams; to Keith Warren, who I think I email at all times of the day and night, we are currently working on I think at least five or six constituent cases just from the last week or two. I must mention Community Life Improvement Program, CLIP, with Tom Conway, the long-time founding Executive Director, and also Rochelle Hand, the Deputy of Operations, the CLIP staff from all the way down from Tom to all the crews who are on the street. We thank you for all of the work that you all are doing to really help us address a myriad of issues across the City of Philadelphia, and we thank you for being responsive and for always getting back to us. I wanted to go back quickly to recycling, and I heard that our rates are improving, particularly from the pandemic period, which is wonderful. And we always talk about the education, the enforcement and the compliance as it relates to recycling. So can you just talk about the staffing from a Class 100 perspective complement that you all have proposed in this budget specifically for recycling and talk about the goals, if any, around ensuring that we can increase the rate of recycling in the city? I know we had that program years ago and I'm forgetting the name of the program. This may have been 10 or 15 -- COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: Philacycle.
Philacycle, and you would receive rewards and points for recycling -- COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: Yes.
Can you just talk about that and what we're doing to try to incentivize recycling to increase our rate in the city?
The program Philacycle was Recycle Bank as well. It had two names --
So it used to reward people for participating in the program with gift cards or coupons to locations and local businesses and stores. We thought it was a great idea. It was a great program. But that's when recycling was actually benefiting the City of Philadelphia and we were actually making money. Believe it or not, Councilmember, it was a time where we made $6 million a year off of recyclable material. Unfortunately, now we're paying close to $10 million and to sustain a program like that was very difficult. We need to reinvest in domestic markets so that we can get those rates back to favorable productivity, and we're working on that. But we need to continue and maintain our program for the environment and for future generations to use because it does continue to preserve our natural resources. But because of the shift in dynamics, what particularly happened to overseas markets, we unfortunately had to discontinue the program. I'll turn it over to the Commissioner for follow-up.
Sure. But how has that impact -- so we've, I'm sure, had to increase our recycling costs year over year as a result of that. And I thought that was a great program. I even used that program. I remember the wonderful program. How has that impacted how much we are needing to invest year over year in recycling? But again, we need to focus on the education, the enforcement and the compliance. So what do we have relative to a proposed staffing complement for recycling? COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: So our Sweep Unit is the primary unit that educates or provides education specific to recycling. They're also responsible for enforcement. They are the folks who are more commonly seen traversing in the business corridors, our residential corridors to provide education. They also staff the events that are hosted where we're able to reach out to our constituents specifically. At present, we're budgeted for a number of sweep officers and I don't have that number right in front of me. We're continuing to staff up in that particular unit. In fact, I think there are interviews taking place right now to increase the number of people who serve in that unit to provide the education and the campaigns that we need to roll out. In addition to that, you'll start to see going back to the basics, us being able to communicate directly with the public to say, hey, this is what is recyclable, make sure that you get the good materials so that we can continue to increase the rate, get us back to that 21% that Councilman Harrity mentioned.
Thank you. Thank you very much. I heard the bell and I want to honor the clock. But I have to give a shout-out to the sweep officers who have come to the block parties that we've had, Councilmember Jones. And also put my plug in, you know I have to say this, Jones, for twice-weekly trash collection for the Wynnefield community. That's for you, Sheila Wilson. That's for Sheila Wilson. So thank you very, very much.
Thank you, Councilmember. COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: Councilwoman, Deputy Commissioner Newman let me know we are budgeted for 76 sweep officers and 54 are filled.
Oh, okay. And are there any vacancies? COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: Those are the vacancies, 22. Like I said, we're interviewing now and hopefully we will get that staffed up as possible.
Great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Majority Leader. Thank you for honoring the clock. Next is Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips, then Minority Leader Kendra Brooks, and then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you so much, Council President. I just want to begin by thanking Carlton Williams for his leadership as the Director of Clean and Green --
Time out. Council will be at ease. Time out. (Council at ease.)
Don't both of y'all -- all three of y'all are from the Northeast.
It has nothing to do with efficiency and effectiveness. We just bring great --
I know the Madam is out there somewhere watching this. Dr. Phillips, the floor is yours, sir.
Thank you. And also, I want to thank our Commissioner Crystal Jacobs Shipman as well, the Sanitation Department, to me that I believe is the best department in the City of Philadelphia. From the idea of the twice-a-week mechanical sweep cleanup to the cleanup teams that we have, to the incredible focus on illegal dumping, and then also even when there's an error that happens, you all tend to clean it up that same day or the next day. And so for me, that's what Philadelphia is looking for in terms of greatness. So I just want to say thank you all so much. And I do want to ask you this question that can hopefully help other departments. You all have a 3% vacancy rate, which is roughly around 60 people that you haven't hired out of 1000 or so people on your staff -- no, 1800, excuse me. And what are you all doing, right, to make sure -- you're doing well, your HR department is doing well to make sure that hiring is taking place, because clearly you all have a great model for that?
Sure. So I'm going to ask Deputy Commissioner Chris Newman to talk about HR work, but I will say Future Track plays a huge role in that, because we have workready people ready to fill positions once they're open. That is a huge advantage of the program. By allowing them to come in, get trained, have experience and then when a position opens up or have a waiting list, you don't have those long delays. And so, those workforce development programs are awesome. They really do work and they provide again that win-win-win situation. That's the win for us. We get people who we've already trained, we know they can do the job and we have put them in positions and they're able to fill it right away.
And right before the Deputy Commissioner's response, I just want to also add our office met with Trash Academy, which is a community-led initiative. They have some questions around the H.O.M.E. Initiative. They're concerned that that construction and demolition is going to cause debris that can contribute to higher levels of dumping, illegal dumping. Given that, does the department have a plan to work with the construction companies that are going to have to respond to illegal dumping and demolition debris? And how is the department coordinating with developers and contractors and other agencies to ensure proper disposal happens? So I guess that question can be answered after we hear from -- those are my only two questions -- three, I think.
Good morning, Councilmember. My name is Chris Newman. I'm the Deputy Commissioner for Administration in the Sanitation Department. Thank you for noticing the vacancy rate. Director Williams is correct, most of it is Future Track, our Future Track workforce development program. If you look at how many people have been hired just this year alone, it's over 300 that we've hired. 100 of them were Future Trackers. But in addition to that, the other thing that we do is we're just continuously in hiring mode. We learned a number of years ago that we could just continuously have new hire classes on a monthly or bimonthly basis to keep up with our attrition rates. In some of our jobs, we do have high turnover rates so it requires us to kind of just keep on moving forward with hiring. And we've established a great relationship with the Office of Human Resources in helping us do that.
Sure. We had a very productive meeting with Clean Philly Now maybe about a week ago to talk about the concerns that they had in reference to the H.O.M.E. Initiative. Obviously we would work definitely with our Administration within Planning and the Housing Division with Jesse Lawrence and Ms. Angela Dixon to talk about those initiatives. But to ensure -- they're just basic commonsense requests to ensure that any contractor that's doing construction in this city is following the rules and not dumping it and recycling the material as much as possible and to make sure that we have checks and balances and to make sure that happens. So I'm looking forward to continuously working with them to make sure that those things happen, either through policy or through any other form of legislation that we can assist with.
Thank you for your incredible work. And, yes, please share with the HR departments how you all are doing that across the -- Streets has 17% and I'm so confused by that, so thank you so much, as to vacancy rate. Thank you all for what y'all do.
Thank you very much, sir. Chair recognizes Minority Leader Kendra Brooks, then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, then Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke.
Thank you, Council President. And thank you guys from the Office of Clean and Green for all the work that you do. One of the initiatives that I have been proud to lead is my work on community gardens. We are currently years into the process, and many of those gardens are now making their way through the Land Bank thanks to this Council and the advocacy of the community gardeners. I want to see what, if any, role the office of Clean and Green Initiatives can help pay for community gardens, and if you haven't been involved this far, how can we get the office to be better engaged and involved with community gardens?
Thank you, Councilmember. We're happy to report that we are launching a new initiative this spring called Lotscapes. And Lotscapes is exactly what the community gardeners have been doing on their own for years, but it's a formal process for us to transform lots into a usable, viable open space that the community can enjoy, driven by the community, so they can either put an organic garden in that location. They can have a sitting area or a play area for young people or a mural design, 3D version of a lotscape, as you can imagine, that beautifies the neighborhood. We think this makes a huge difference not only in the quality of life, but it also reduces crime. There are studies that show from the University of Penn that when you have green open space communities, there's a 30% decrease in crime, violent crime. So this is why we're making this investment. There's locations this year, this spring that we're hoping to complete and finish and show as examples of what we can do across the city and then to formalize the process. There are some policy issues that we have to work through about ownership and who's going to be insured by it, who's going to take responsibility for it. But we think working with PHDC and the Land Bank, that we can get through those and helping the community by making those lots active and viable for community residents.
So the conversations you're having in the policy pieces, will it be coordinated with the current work that's being done around community gardeners? Because it took us so long to even move to the point that we are and we're in some of the same discussions and have been in discussions for five years now -- as long as I've been in office, that's one of the first things I started working on. So I just want to make sure as we're creating this system, that it's the same conversation to streamline the efforts of the many community gardeners around the city that are getting stuck in some level of policy around this work, and making sure that we're working with all the agencies that are already existing and not just lifting up new programs. So I would love if we can do some coordination. Because right now, we've worked on saving 90 gardens in the city.
So we need to make sure those 10 have the same opportunities as the 90 that we're still trying to get legalized in the city.
Absolutely. My Deputy Director Casey Kuklick is directly working very closely with him and he can reach out to your office to ensure that community gardens is definitely a part of that conversation.
Thank you. Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, then Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke, then Jeffrey Jay Young and Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning. Good to see you all, and thank you. To echo everybody in my thanks for being so highly responsive, I try not to bother you but you always answer the calls. I deeply appreciate that. I have a question about a specific item. I see that the 1.5 million contract with PHS to enact the Land Care program is being cut. That's on the supporting detailed professional services segment. I just wanted to know why that has been cut, because this was the same day pay work that happened in lots with young people I believe? I saw it be very, very effective using young people on weekends redirecting them. So I just wanted to know what was that -- it goes to zero. So I just wanted to ask that question.
I'm going to ask Deputy Commissioner Chris Newman to come up and talk about the cut and then we can then follow up.
And a point of information as well. Could you also add that if there is a cut, PHS, Philadelphia Horticulture Society, but if there is a commitment from the Administration to build I guess it's 1000-plus trees, who's actually doing the work if we're actually cutting back in the area of the organization who is actually helping us plant trees?
It's not cut. I'm happy to report it's not cut. So what you're looking at, we actually had that budgeted under what was called the Solid Waste program, budgetary program. We created and established the Office of Clean and Green program in the budget. It wasn't in there before, so it was just moved from one program to another. The 1.5 is still there.
Still there. And it will still do that program of the, you know, having young people work on the corner lots, empty lots to do the cleanup? Because that was the -- I was actually going to see if you need more resources there because we've had nonprofits who've come and told me how well that has been working and the redirection of our young people to feel pride in cleaning up their own corners has been immense. So I'm so glad to hear that. Second question quickly is there's a lot of conversation about recycling and I know it costs, but it costs not to do it is part of the issue. And just a very mundane matter of recycling just in our offices. There seems to be a confusion about who does what in terms of clearing our waste and different contracts are operating and they don't all do the same thing. So if we are going to really do recycling, we have to showcase what we are doing and model the good behavior. So I just wanted to know what goes on there and how we can resolve that? COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: So I'll first speak specifically to what's going on in City Hall. Council President did bring to our attention that there was some confusion as to whether or not the materials that leave City Hall are actually being recycled. And so, I will say that we do provide both trash and recycling collection here at City Hall. And I think the confusion has been in the collection process itself, whether or not the workers, the folks who are working here are actually separating once you've separated. So we are working very closely with the three different organizations that collect trash from this building to, one, provide different types of collection receptacles. So the hope is that there will be an investment in a bag that is able to be recycled, so maybe a brown bag for your recycling and then a bag for your trash so that you have the ability to make sure that the items are separated when you're in and then they're collected separately and placed downstairs in the basement in two separate bins.
Good to hear, because the prevailing thought is told to me we don't, it all goes in the same place, why are you -- because I'm religiously separating my trash and I'm told it's useless, but I hear you. Just quickly my last question, and this has been touched upon briefly by some of my colleagues, including Councilmember Harrity, about using technology to really, really reduce our garbage, the ones that need to go to either incinerator or landfill. What are we doing in real terms to employ what we have current technology to really reduce that? And also, how are we investing in composting? And that is going to really -- we are going to need to separate and then do something with that separated trash. So I wanted to know -- we had a very successful campaign to get people to recycle before, right. So we know we can change culture in terms of people doing it. If we're really going to address incineration and landfills and the pros and cons of that, we have to make a commitment as a city to reduce our waste -- (Applause.)
-- number one, and then to actually do things with the waste that makes sense without causing detriment to our health.
Yeah. I'll start and then I'll turn it over to Commissioner Shipman to talk about organics. And thank you for your comment, Councilmember. We think that there's a real opportunity here in the City of Philadelphia to do organics. Right now our Water Department uses digesters in the City of Philadelphia to do sludge waste and turn it into energy. So the capability is there. We could do the same thing for food waste organic material, whether it be using existing city resources or having a public-private partnership, where one is built here like in the city of Chicago. We're also working with PGW to explore what those can mean in terms of dollars. There's energy credits available when we do make that transition. So I think that is a very real opportunity for us to do so. I think that there definitely needs to be a commitment. We're working on an RFI to see what companies could come in and actually build here in the City of Philadelphia. I also want to say for the record that in our existing contract there's always provisions for us to move tonnage. So there was a 25,000-ton stipulation that we can use to pilot programs that would allow us to see what technologies could work best for Philadelphia. We anticipate putting that same clause back in this upcoming contract to give us those opportunities to explore what works here in the city. So if we can do it on a small scale immediately, then we can grow it out to a larger scale and eventually transition our entire waste system to that. But I'll turn it over to Commissioner Shipman for additional comments on organics. COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: As mentioned, we are piloting a small organic program that will help residents to remove the materials that are in their home. A big portion of that comes with the education and just telling folks, hey, you don't need to put the organic materials in the trash, it can go to a place where it can be easily reused, repurposed. And so, we will be focusing on that in this upcoming fiscal year and again working very closely with you all to make sure that those locations are known where people can drop off their material and how it will be utilized from there.
Thank you so much. I look forward to a robust program that signals to the city that we can be a number one city to really look at our trash in an environmental justice manner to make sure we're not impacting people. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. -- Nicolas O'Rourke, Jeffrey Jay Young and Rue Landau.
The Doctor's worked too hard for them titles. I ain't gone take one unduly, but thank you --
Appreciate you, sir. And thank you for your time and all those that are with us today. I want to start my time by talking about Councilmember Gauthier's Stop Trashing Our Air Act legislation that I've supported through the Committee on Environment, as I have the pleasure of serving as a part of that committee and I will be personally proud to celebrate it on final passage as well. Before I get into my questions, I wanted to share something because the beauty of being an At-Large member is that you represent the entirety of the city. You don't have necessarily the focus of a District member, but you have to amplify the voices of your constituents. I was not here the day that a number of children came through the chamber to share their views and beliefs on the topic, but I did want to share a few things I thought were pretty interesting from what they said, if I may use a little bit of my time to just read this to you. On the 11th of March, Dear Mayor Parker, I believe that we need to stop trash burning in Philly. We need to do that because 70% of Chester's population is Black and that is environmental racism, literally what they wrote. Everyone in Chester deserves the right to live in a clean and green place. Everyone deserves the right to breathe clean air. There are other industrial places next to the incinerator and that is a lot of pollution for one neighborhood. If we can make people healthier, why wouldn't we? (Applause.)
I thought that was stark -- there was more that they wrote, but that was from Poppy from Fanny Jackson Coppin. They're a 2nd grader. There was another one. Dear Mayor Parker, I believe we need to stop burning trash because when the trash gets burned, the trash gets buried. It pollutes the groundwater and the ash is toxic. Kids get asthma because of the air pollution. A greener job would be like a composter or a gardener. 70% of Chester is Black. The smoke can spread here too. We used to have trash incinerators in Philadelphia and even the District Attorney then sued the city because they were causing so much pollution. And now, we are letting Chester deal with all that deadly pollution. How was that fair for Chester? That's why we should stop the trash incinerator. Sincerely, Leo. I liked that one. (Applause.)
This one was like a little booklet. I didn't even get this one beforehand. This was actually on my desk already. This is kind of cute. They put it together. Once there was a land where people were sick and the world was smoke because all that smoke was coming from the incinerator, exclamation mark. The incinerator is bad, the people say. But the Councilmembers and the Mayor did not listen, so they protested and rallied just to shut it down. Let Chester breathe. Save our air. They got a little protest picture in the booklet. And then at the end it says, and that's why we should shut the incinerator down. The end. I thought that was good writing. So I wanted to share those with you because as the President said, this is what democracy looks like and their voices particularly matter. I said during the committee that I was struck by this. It wasn't read up on prior to the bill being proposed, but it's amazing to me that we would have such a close example of environmental racism to the City of Philadelphia, and that we would miss the opportunity to act on that to resist it. I hear the bell. I basically wanted to ask with these students that, you know, cut through all the bureaucracy and get to the heart of the red tape. What they're saying is burning trash pollutes our air and it makes people sick, especially them. So with that in mind, can you either, Commissioner Jacobs Shipman or Director Williams, tell us clearly when will the Administration submit the waste disposal contract to City Council for approval? I ask that question and again, I want us to just sit with what they're sharing here, because there are very rare opportunities for us to be able to affirm what seems to be a growing and bustling moral compass. I thank God that we have children to look up to. But for their clarity on this issue, I think we ought to keep that in mind as we try to address this very I guess complex issue. But can you share with us when you might submit those?
So let me first of all acknowledge and thank those young people for taking action to voice their opinions in regards to their health and concern, not only for the city of Chester but for the environment. And we recognize that and we're not ignoring it. What we're simply asking for, Councilmember, is the opportunity to evaluate because just as those many people, including those children, say it's dangerous, others say it's not and then we have the dual responsibility because what we decide on this contract will impact the citizens of Philadelphia and the city of Chester. If we send it to landfills, they have health issues as well. They distribute methane gas that globally affect not only the city of Chester, Philadelphia, but the entire planet. We have to take advantage and look at what's right for Philadelphia, what's right for Chester and what's right for our environment. We have a responsibility to do that environmentally and fiscally because we don't know the impact of if we're forced to move one way or another, if we don't fully evaluate it, this is all we're asking. We're taking those in consideration. We appreciate Councilmember Gauthier's passion for this issue, but we need the opportunity to look at the RFP in its totality, look at objective data that is able to say this is dangerous, this is not, this is cost-effective, this is not. These are the things that we need to do in an RFP process. And unfortunately, I think if we preempt that, we don't have that opportunity.
Thank you for the response. I'm wrapping up because I did hear the bell. I'll just say that I want to echo the clarity that Member Gauthier brought in her point of information to Member Harrity that we've seen this particular process before in 2012 as well as '19. Contracts were submitted in early June just weeks before they were set to take effect, and that effectively forces Councilmembers to a take-it or leave-it position, which I think that we need to be mindful of the time frame. And so, government is difficult. This is slow. There's a lot of moving pieces, but I want to keep bringing up the timeline point because I think that urgency, it can demand an urgency of us to be clear and to act before we get into a situation where we can't move or address that particular issue. But I hear the interest in taking the time necessary to observe those things. I just want to make sure that I repeat and echo that sense of urgency I think that we need on this particular matter.
Absolutely. And I just want to also acknowledge that the process did change because of Councilmember Gauthier. We met prior to the announcement to talk about evaluating the environmental impacts, which is the first time out of those contracts that you stated would be our first time looking at an environmental factor that not only looks at cost, but it looks at the impact that it's having, and having objective outside agencies from MSW and CEC, which looks at particulate in the air environment to tell us recommendations as to what this actually means. So that's why we're asking for that time. But I do want to acknowledge Councilmember Gauthier's efforts. It did make changes in the RFP process. And that's the process that we want to follow.
That's good. That's very good that we're moving forward and changing the way that we move based off the way things are being proposed. I appreciate your consideration. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young, Councilmember Rue Landau, then Quetcy Lozada and then Bass.
Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to thank this office for your hard work. You are one of the hardest working I'll say service departments in the city. So again, thank you to the Office of Clean and Green for what you do for our city. First question I have is regarding the recycling budget. Mr. Director Williams, you said there was $10 million that the city pays in recycling. Can you tell us is that on average of what other cities are paying in their recycling costs? And also, could you tell us how much of our recycling actually gets lost because of whatever reason, damage or things like that and it has to go into our landfills or incinerators?
Sure. I'm going to ask Deputy Commissioner Newman to come up in reference to cost. And then also, I think our Recycling Director Kyle Lewis, is she here -- she's not here. Okay. Environmental Services Director Scott McGrath, he can talk about contamination, I think is what you're referring to, things that don't make it to the processing facility because it's soiled or contaminated or just is not part of the recycling stream. I think those are the things that impact our ability to process the material, which drives up costs. But the $10 million certainly goes to the cost for processing. And unfortunately, if we don't have markets that we can actually sell the material on the open market, it then comes at a price for us to have to warehouse it and so forth. And that's at the industry level. In comparison to other cities, I think Environmental Services Director Scott McGrath will tell you that this is probably a good rate for Philadelphia because other cities are paying much higher to recycle material.
I would ask what is New York paying, right, as a comparable East Coast city?
We're paying about $90 a ton to process recyclable material.
I'm going to ask our environmental services expert to come up and he can give you that information. MR. McGRATH: We can check on the New York rate, which is actually based on a long-term 20-year contract that involves both city and vendor investments in both buildings and equipment. So it's really difficult to compare the two.
Great. Thank you for that. I want to move on to my next question because you answered that part of my question for me, but you led into the next question about longer-term trash and recycling contracts. You can say they reduce stable pricing, but what specific procurement timeline, contract structure, pricing controls and vendor accountability measures will be in place for these long-term contracts to ensure that that can happen so we can get some of those lower costs that other cities are paying when it comes to recycling?
Sure. That is a part of the negotiation process that we're going through right now. The recycling contract is also up for negotiation in terms of what the city can get in terms of best value and that's what we're working towards now. So we won't know that until this process is complete, but we are working to get the best deal for the City of Philadelphia under our current terms and conditions and facilities available.
Thank you. Madam Leader, I have one more question please, if you don't mind.
Thank you. So this question is about the twice-a-week trash collection. What evidence shows that this trash collection expansion is reducing litter, illegal dumping, missed collections and complaint volume? Is this enough to justify the cost of the twice-a-week trash collection? I'll tell you that we get mixed reviews about it. Some communities love it. Some people I'll say will complain about it because they see more trash. What can we do regarding the twice-a-week trash collection to ensure that it's not creating a negative impact on our communities?
So to answer your first question, 311 data shows us the reduction in the number of calls and complaints that we're getting in terms of illegal dumping. It's down in some neighborhoods in South Philadelphia, 20% which is a significant number. It's too early to tell in North Philadelphia yet because we haven't run a full scale program to get enough data to show the difference if it's making an impact. We have had challenges because of the storms disrupting our collection processes. So we're trying to get back on track so that we can deliver the service that the program is expected to achieve. But we are working with the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner and the whole team to be able to do that so that we can mitigate some of those problems. They're not incorrect when they make those complaints. It has been sporadic because we were off schedule, but we expect to address those issues very soon.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Young. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Landau.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Hi. Thank you for being here. I've got two buckets of questions for you and I want to start first with recycling. Again, increasing people's recycling is really all about education. I've heard from many constituents who have talked about the fact that if our recycling numbers reduce to 9%, it's as if we don't have recycling at all. When I first started in 2024, you told me that we're recycling for 13%. And now, we're only up to 14%. And I think as somebody who's around a lot of teenagers all the time, they do not believe that recycling is real. They actually tell me it's a myth. They throw things that should be recycled in the trash can. And I wanted to know very seriously, my numbers are a little different from yours. It seems that we're spending $10 million on recycling. And if we have 85 tons of recycling, we're spending about $117 a ton, not just 90. So I wanted to talk about reducing that cost, increasing education. And then I have some incinerator questions as well.
Sure. You want to talk about the recycling education? COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: Sure. I'll just say, Councilmember Landau, that it's a national challenge for people to believe that folks are recycling. It's not just a Philadelphia issue. What we saw over COVID, and I know it seems so long ago but it actually isn't that long ago, was you had communities that have completely stopped recycling. Even more recently you've had communities completely stop recycling. In Philadelphia, we never stopped recycling. And so, what we're trying to do through the educational campaigns that we're bringing back, one, get back to the basis of explaining exactly what goes in so that it's not confusing and then getting that messaging out into the schools. And Deputy Warren would be kicking me right now if he was close enough, just to mention that we have programs like our Green Schools program, where we help to encourage different recycling efforts and get into the schools so that we fund the different programs that they utilize to help educate each other. We're doing a program right now with City Year to also get the messaging into the schools about recycling. Because we do realize if we get them in the schools, we catch them early, they can take that messaging home to their parents and then we can help to further build up our recycling rate.
And, Councilmember, just clarification, we budgeted because it was over $100 a ton and the rate did improve, so it's closer to $9 million in what we're paying in actual cost. But last year, we budgeted and that's the number that I gave when I said $10 million so that gets you closer to the $90 per ton that we were stating. So I wanted to clarify that.
And a couple of quick questions. I wanted to clarify something you submitted on the record. The study, was that your study on the impacts of burning trash?
The study that you gave to Council President, was that your study that you did on burning trash?
No, that was an existing study that was done by researchers from Idaho. And it was done in a recycling magazine, an agency that's very credible, the Municipal Solid Waste Managers Association of America.
When will your study be done? How much did it cost? What's the difference between your study and the one commissioned by Delaware County?
I think what we're doing is having an independent objective review process from MSW Consultants, which is a nationally known agency, that looks at all waste strategies that we've worked with for a number of years to give that data. And then we also are adding a component from CEC. And what does CEC stand for, Scott? I forget their name. MR. McGRATH: Oh, CEC, Community Environmental Consultants.
So the combination of these two studies will give us the data that we need to objectively include in our factorization of what the impacts are and those will go into evaluating it. So it's not that we're not believing Delaware County, but we also have another report that says different than Delaware County, and this is why we need an objective review that we need to do on our own.
We knew the deadline was coming up for this contract. When did you launch this concept that this information that will come to you will give you the information that you need? We've always known the deadline.
I mentioned earlier that Councilmember Gauthier changed the game when we met last year and said, we need this as a part of the review process. That's what we agreed to. And that's why it started last year, in order for us to start gathering contracting information to be able to include in this RFP. So this is not a small item. This is a huge deal in terms of us being able to determine what the environmental impacts of these facilities offer versus what they submit in terms of pricing.
Okay. And you will submit to us how much it's costing you?
Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Landau. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Lozada.
Thank you, Madam Leader. First, good morning and thank you for being with us today. I also would like to begin by expressing gratitude for both of your teams in the 7th Council District. I know that I text like many other Councilmembers at all hours of the night and always get a response. Special shout-out to Keith Warren because it doesn't matter the day, the time, the time of the year, he's always very responsive. So I want to express my deep gratitude to him. Many of my questions have been asked by my colleagues, but I think that although we have come a long way, especially as it relates to litter in the 7th Council District, I think part of what I believe we need to be doing is around education, right. We need to change the culture in neighborhoods around short-dumping and throwing out trash and how we put out our trash and we need to be able to hold ourselves accountable. And I know that we depend very highly on our amazing block captains. But what can we do better? What are we looking to do to change the culture in neighborhoods that are consistently dumped on and how do we work to better hold each other accountable, but also educate residents on how to prevent those who come from the outside into our neighborhoods and think that it's okay to short-dump?
Thank you, Councilmember. I know you're very passionate about this issue because it impacts all of our city, but your district in particular you've expressed concerns about locations that have been problematic. I think you touched base on a couple of them already. And one of the things that we're working on currently right now, as you know we've launched the Illegal Dumping Task Force to increase the fines and ultimately hold people more accountable. We've added more cameras. But that may not be enough and we need to do more, and that part of it starts with education. We are launching an educational campaign for illegal dumping to let people know, first of all, what can you do when you see it, how to report it and what we can do about it. Secondly, we want to offer resources as well. I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Jacobs Shipman in a moment to talk about how successful the bulk collection program has been across the City of Philadelphia, which many people are taking advantage. Many times people would take these materials and just discard it. But now that we have this program in place, they now have an opportunity to get rid of it. So just enforcement alone won't do it. It takes a combination of different resources, education that you talked about enforcement definitely, because people should know better not to come into a community and dump their construction, their trash and anything else. But it also takes programs to help people who are struggling the most. And Commissioner Shipman can talk a little bit about those programs as well. COMMISSIONER JACOBS SHIPMAN: So specific to what we offer in the department, as the Director mentioned would be our bulk collection program, which directly supports the types of items we see dumped on our corners unnecessarily. One, we offer the opportunity for people to bring them to our sanitation convenience center. And it's available, we have six locations. They're open six days a week. But if you can't do that or you need someone to pick it up from home, it's as simple as calling 311 or go onto phila.gov and you fill out a very simple form. I'm telling you it takes you less than three minutes. We'll come get that refrigerator, we'll come get that washer and dryer. We take up to four tires at one time. And so, we've seen a lot of success with that program. But we do need to continue to try to get the word out so people will know the corner is not the solution. You do have viable options within the City of Philadelphia to place the materials that are in the homes. And one thing I was surprised Director Williams didn't mention were just the partnerships that we have with a lot of the community organizations. And one that comes to mind is North 10 and the pilot that they're doing regarding illegal dumping, where they're actively going out more like on a foot basis, grassroots effort, to tell people, hey, if you're going to illegally dump, we do have an opportunity for you to get a voucher that if the materials are not the types of materials we accept at our convenience centers or that will pick up curbside, you can use this voucher to drop them off at a location that accepts it for free.