I don't know the answer to that question, whether there are any social services programs. I think there should be. I know when I sat in L&I court, for example, there are issues with hoarders. So they get evicted for hoarding, and they really need social services and I don't have anyone in the court or I didn't have anyone in the courtroom other than a City solicitor to help with that. So services are very, very important. That's just one example of something that I remember being an issue. Then there's the issue of just tenants getting evicted. Maybe they have mental health issues. And if they don't have insurance or if their insurance doesn't address mental health, they're just out there on the street. So there are a myriad of problems with evictions that end up without social services for the people. And I think it should be addressed. I tried to do what I could. But as the judge presiding over the case, the biggest thing for the judge is to be fair, impartial, unbiased. And the follow-up services are nonexistent sometimes. MR. McSORLEY: And to echo all that, Councilmember, the Judge is exactly right. The court can get involved when the case is in our system. We do have many programs in the Landlord-Tenant Court of Municipal Court. We have the Lawyer of the Day program, Landlord Tenant Help Center, court liaisons, courtroom navigators. The City Eviction Diversion program assisted over 21,000 people in 2023. So while the case is in court, we're trying to do everything we can to not let it go to eviction and to help those litigants that are mostly pro se as much as we can. The problem is again that when the court case is done when it's disposed, the court's jurisdiction ends.
Well, I do know that there are some judges that are trying to implement what they're calling resource-based sentencing, right. And so, is that something that we could implement in our landlord-tenant process? Is that as a part of the court order, right, those that are getting evicted are ordered to, you know, these type of resources that are available to them? MR. McSORLEY: That is definitely a conversation that I'm sure the court would want to have. I know the Supervising Judge of Municipal Court Yorgey-Girdy and the Administrative Judge, Judge Pittman, would be more than willing to sit down and have that conversation. And any assistance we could lend, we would be happy to do.
Thank you, Mr. President. I'll wait for my second round. Thank you.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon. Following up on my colleague's questioning around a resource-based court system, I had a personal experience sitting in Family Court, actually waiting outside to be called as a witness. And I saw that's a very fraught area. Somebody is losing custody -- this was a custody case. Somebody's losing custody, somebody's gaining custody. And I watched unfold in front of me somebody commit a felony against a lawyer because they didn't like what had transpired, and this escalated into something that could have been potentially resolved if there was a space for people coming out of a custody hearing to go and get support and get debriefed around that space. And I wondered if the Department of Behavioral Health can be engaged with the court system to have, as you were saying, social services but mental health services, social services, at that time of great trauma for some family. I mean, everybody's traumatized in that space. So I just wondered if you've thought of having services that would have helped that man not have to now come and again get in front of court and face those charges? So I'm really interested in that.
Thank you for that question. I spent nine years in Family Court, domestic relations, divorce, support, custody, domestic violence, criminal abuse, so I'm very, very familiar with that emotion that's evoked at the end of a custody trial, especially when one gets custody and the other is denied custody. And you're right, emotions take over and you can have a scene right there in the waiting area and it can involve other people. I think it's a terrific idea. I actually never thought of that. I think it's a terrific idea to offer resources right then and there. I know in Family Court right now there are two days a week I believe, I don't remember the two days right now, but there are two days a week where there's help offered to pro se litigants, which it's really important, that's one of my things, you know, pro se litigants need help. But people need some type of counseling or advice given or resources at the end of a custody hearing. I think that's something I would like to follow up on and get back to you. I think that's a great idea. Thank you for the suggestion.
Thank you. I have another question around the CURE report that was referenced. I was not in Council then and I actually testified when Council had a hearing around this. And my question was that report had been initiated, a whole survey and a study had been initiated at the request of the court. And that generated that report, which there were problems in having it shared and whatnot, so that was what the Council hearing was about. I just wondered that some time has elapsed since then. Is it useful to have another assessment now that you have a DEI officer and some changes have been made to actually measure what the changes have been since that report to now, and if you would consider to have some sort of expansive survey? And they also did focus groups I believe in that report to really see where the court is.
Thank you for that question. That might depend on the budget that you give us today. I've often thought about the CURE report in terms of having a follow- up. I would like our Chief Diversity and Equity Officer to address that issue, if you don't mind. I'm sorry to put you on the spot.
Absolutely. Thank you, Councilmember. I think that is something that I will take to the leadership to see if they want to do a follow-up survey. I know one of the things that we do now with the anonymous suggestion box, you can submit anything directly to the court administrator. So whether that's a diversity issue, discrimination or it could just be how you're feeling at your job, it's the court administrator's way of keeping the pulse on things. And if he needs my advice, he will send those over to me. But I do appreciate your suggestion about coming up with the new survey. And I think it's something that I will talk to our Administrative Governing Board in leadership about.
It just gives us a level of transparency that our public and our constituents really look for having heard what happened which was in that report. I'll hold my questions for the next round. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes the Councilmember Mark Squilla.
Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, President Judge. Great answer there on the last response. But this answer may be -- I'll just follow up with what Councilmember Landau was saying. Isn't the Council Fee Unit under the Managing Director's Office that services those payments in the City of Philadelphia? MR. McSORLEY: Currently it's part of the MDO's Office. That's who we send our payments --
Right, the MDO, Managing Director's Office. So is it possible -- I guess we don't know why it takes them months to go through and do them, right, and that's not your job to figure that out but maybe ours. But is it possible for the courts to process them and if you're doing them or you're sending help already over there to try to do that, can we process them and then get them to do the payments? MR. McSORLEY: We are processing to the best of our ability. The person who writes the check is the City. So as far as I'm concerned, here's everything you need, write the check and --
Okay. MR. McSORLEY: -- for some reason between here's everything you need and write the check, there's a slowdown.
Right. All right. That's something that we need to discuss with the Managing Director's Office. But also I want to thank -- because as we heard, the Defender's Association was here earlier and with the Kensington group meeting with the DA's Office and the Defender's Association but also Judge Pittman is part of AMP Court. It's really important, you know, the resources right now is up for two days a week, but hoping to get the five days a week for AMP Court. And when you talk about the social services, it's really important to have all those services funded with the courts in order to make sure that everything is available at that time. And the best part about it is if we could get folks to that court in a short period of time, right. So we're not, first of all, clogging up all our other courts but to be able to get them assistance as soon as they need it is the key. And when Councilmember Jones was speaking about Community Court, we had Community Court at one point here in the City of Philadelphia and it was very, very effective. And it was able to even take the backlog from Municipal Court down, right, because you were able to serve hundreds of cases a day and people not receiving records by getting community service or some other programs, which also ends up helping our communities because a lot of communities worked with the people who were doing community service time to clean up or be a part of community events and things like that. So it became a win-win. So I think we need to look at all these other opportunities now, including AMP which we have up and running and hopefully expanding, and Community Court. And even if we still continue to use the PAD, Police- Assisted Diversion Program, we could use these courts to help folks who are committing minor offenses and don't need to be recorded as having a record but then knowing there is a consequence for that, I think becomes very useful but also providing those services to them and with other opportunities that they have for them so they don't come back into the system. But that is not something that we have in the budget here, right, at this point for a Community Court type operation? MR. McSORLEY: No, we don't have a Community Court budget. We can fund AMP Court and we are willing to expand AMP Court. Right after that testimony I happened to be with Judge Pittman and we discussed your suggestion. It would be nice if we could go to five days. The reality is that the numbers just aren't there for the cases. I looked at some back in some of the previous years prepandemic. The AMP Court handled over in one year, and I think it was 2018 or 2019, over 4,000 cases. This year 290-something cases were diverted to AMP Court, so there's a big drop-off. And it's like a lot of our diversion programs, I think that they are terrific. I think that they do a good job. I think they do the intervention. But if the cases don't come to our court, to our program, there's not a lot we can do. So AMP Court could be expanded. I would like to see more cases go to AMP Court. Why we're not getting more cases, that's a bigger conversation.
And that's why we're having those meetings with the District Attorney's Office because the District Attorney sends those to AMP Court, but Judge Pittman is part of that conversation, Keisha Hudson is part of that conversation. Having all the folks at the table is so important so that we could understand what cases go there, why some cases aren't going there, but having everybody there could help hopefully drive that so we do have the opportunity to help as many people as we can. So thank you. Thank you for your support.
Thank you, Member Squilla. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Council President. And thank you to President Judge Padilla and to the District Court Administrator and Deputy Court Administrator. Thank you all for your work. We recognize that civic participation is key in the work that you all do, particularly with a jury participation. And so, correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember FJD had a study around jury participation in 2018. And one of the recommendations from the study was to create a child care facility or provide a child care discount voucher to jurors. Do you remember that? MR. McSORLEY: Yes, I do.
Could you just talk about that? And then I just have a question. MR. McSORLEY: At the end of that conversation, I was part of that conversation, we did say that we'd be willing to have that discussion with the City. The biggest obstacle we have is the location of any child care facility. There's no space in any of our courthouses. And to be frank, I don't know now that I'm a father of an 8-year-old, I don't know if I would want a Child Care Unit in the Criminal Justice Center, the Stout Center. So we've talked to the City before. It's a huge cost. After that conversation, I went to our largest partner, Allegheny County, and they do have a program but it's all outsourced. So I think that they do something more of what you just mentioned, a voucher kind of program. They have a flat rate from an outsourced daycare center. I believe the way it works is that people can go there. They can show they have jury duty and they pay, if nothing, maybe it's a $15 day fee or something like that. So something like that I believe could work, but again having the space in Center City. And one of the other challenges here is that our courthouses are all over the place. You know, we have Stout, City Hall, Family Court, so having a central location where a parent could be able to get right to that. So it is something the court would have no objection having. It's just how -- the nuts and bolts are still out there in how to be solved.
Sure. And you mentioned Allegheny County, but I also wanted to mention for the record Montgomery County. They have a court child care center that is primarily funded by the County's Domestic Relations Office as well as court fees, and I believe it's Pennsylvania Act 105, if I'm not mistaken, that was passed in the year 2000. Do you all at FJD collect a fee relative to PA Act 105? MR. McSORLEY: I checked on that just because I had a feeling that question would come up. And, no, we do not collect that fee.
Okay. So we do not collect that fee? MR. McSORLEY: That's correct.
And typically how much is it? MR. McSORLEY: Pardon?
Typically how much is it per case? MR. McSORLEY: It's a $5 fee.
$5 fee. And so, in Montgomery County they do collect the fee for PA Act 105, which is how they fund in part the Montgomery County Court child care facility, is that correct? MR. McSORLEY: I believe that is correct. And I am talking to my Finance Director Mr. Wright over here. He informed me that when we had this conversation before, I think we figured that the $5 fee would come close to covering the cost of a FJD or a court-run daycare center.
Sure, that would be wonderful. And so, my only request for follow-up is if we could work on that issue. I know previously when I was a Chief of Staff there was $500,000 allocated to FJD. And I don't know, somewhere in the transition process the money was, say, lost or never allocated or sent to FJD. But if we could work together to work on figuring out how we create a child care facility, an opportunity for those who would like to participate in the jury process, I think that would be most helpful for those who want to participate. MR. McSORLEY: I'll personally reach out to your office, Councilmember.
Please. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President.
You're welcome. Next round. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you. Okay. So I wanted to start by going back to some of my IT questions. One, I'm very glad you're requesting money for cyber security, super important. I'm the Chair of the Information and Technology Committee, so happy about cyber security. Will you be getting electronic filing in all areas of Family Court soon? MR. McSORLEY: The answer is yes. We're doing this internally with our FJD IT Unit. We have been working on, and that my last ask here with City Council, a case management system that we were hoping to have closed that contract and have a vendor in to create a case management system which was going to include many other parts of the FJD besides civil, and that was Family Court e-filing. Unfortunately, as the numbers started to be crunched, it became untenable. We went from hoping to get a $6 million or $7 million system and then found out that the vendor we were going with after five years would have cost us $54 million. So we are restructuring that, rebidding that and relooking at vendors. But at the same time, the FJD IT Department is working with Family Court to start an e-filing system. We just completed a scanning system which was integral for that. And I believe -- is there a start date, do you know? UNIDENTIFED SPEAKER: (Inaudible). MR. McSORLEY: We're in Phase 2. And hopefully within the next 60 days, we're going to start a pilot e-filing system in Family Court.
Thank you -- MR. McSORLEY: Now, I know Administrative Judge Murphy just heard me say that, so I'm going to be in deep trouble if it doesn't happen.
Yay, yay for that. Second question: There was a lot of interest in reducing the harm for tenants who have gone through the landlord- tenant system in Philadelphia. And the question for you is can we seal Municipal Court records after a certain amount of years so that landlords cannot continue to hold an eviction even if it was a default judgment against tenants going forward? MR. McSORLEY: That sounds like a legal question to me, and I know my Chief of Legal Operations is here. Most of the court documents are public documents. So I'll have to get back to you on that, Councilmember, to see. I know that this conversation's been had before. I just don't know what legal hurdles we might incur about sealing or what has to be done.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for getting back to me on that. Moving into ADI for a minute. Very happy that you are starting a program for Autism Awareness. That is very, very important and I hope that that can expand throughout the City. Director Webb, is there also going to be training, trauma-informed training for all staff in Family Court and judges?
Thank you for the question, Councilmember. And I appreciate what you're saying about the Autism Awareness. So for right now April is Autism Awareness, but next month we're looking at what our programs will be in terms of anything related to mental health and trauma and things like that. So there are some plans in the works, but I can't say definitively right now what those training sessions will be.
Okay. I would love trauma-informed training for all staff in Family Court. MR. McSORLEY: Just to add to that, the AOPC has joined with the FJD for a mental health initiative that I think is beginning in May, and that's going to include trauma training. And that's going to be for the entire FJD.
Can I just say how awesome Chief Creadell Webb is. He's awesome. I just want to say that. And I really mean that. He's awesome.
Awesome, that's what's up. I just got a quick question I want to ask: GPS monitoring for adults, currently that isn't a part of the process. Why isn't that the case as we address the issue of gun violence in the City of Philadelphia's public safety? MR. McSORLEY: You're talking about GPS for people on pre-trial and probation release?
Yes. MR. McSORLEY: We've looked at various vendors for GPS and it just hasn't met our criteria for being effective. Having somebody on house arrest with a bracelet has proven to be more cost-effective. And the technology works in the City of Philadelphia, those that we've tried with, we've run into different problems with the GPS not being accurate. They're in the Stout Center right now, but they look like they're in City Hall. I don't know, Mr. Bouchard, if you have anything you want to add to this.
Yes. Chief Deputy Mike Bouchard with the FJD. The primary problem is the very expensive cost for GPS. So we've piloted them several years ago, five or six years ago while I was the Chief of Pre-trial Services. And our juvenile section does have GPS. The adult section, to Mr. McSorley's point, there are a range of technical issues, but the primary problem is the expense and that goes from not just the equipment, but the 24/7 monitoring, the amount of data that comes in, that whole data center would need to be expanded and also the general supervision, so pre-trial officers and probation officers, to make sure they're as responsive as they need to be to that data.
Is the expense different than the expense with the GPS monitoring with the Juvenile Unit? Is the oversight different for the adults than it would be for the Juvenile Unit?
Yes, sir. So the Juvenile Unit falls under Family Court, and the other side falls under the Trial Division.
Under the Trial Division. Okay. So it sounds like the Juvenile Court has more resources than the adult? That's what it sounds like.
I would venture to say that is true, and I also don't know the number of juveniles that are being actively monitored on GPS, and that might be much smaller than on the adult side as well.
Smaller than the adults. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young.
Thank you, Mr. President. In the testimony I note that just all other City agencies throughout the City, that there are some issues with staffing. And I do know that and I have friends and colleagues and family members who are your court staff. And so, I do know that sometimes they work past their allotted time they're able to work, and they're not eligible for any overtime or bonuses or things like that. So can you talk to us about how the court can or if the court is willing to adjust some of the HR practices to allow flex time or comp. time to be more competitive to try to increase the amount of or try to attract some employees and retain employees? MR. McSORLEY: Well, the FJD does have comp. time now. We do allow comp. time, and we do have to follow the labor laws so we do have overtime. When a person works a certain amount of hours, they have the option of getting comp. or overtime. And we do pay out overtime. Unfortunately, unlike law enforcement or 24/7 services, we only have a few 24/7 services, so our overtime budget is very, very minimal. HR, we're looking at our practices. Those kind of policies come within the AGB, flex time. But we're also under the rules of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. So, for instance, one of our conversations we had after the pandemic was remote working. We had a lot of conversation about that, and that's something that we are ordered by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court what we can and cannot do. So we don't allow remote working in the FJD. Flex time, that has been discussed. I don't know actually -- you said you've talked to people -- how much of a need or how much of a desire there is for that. But it is a conversation that if any of the employees and, in fact, if anybody's listening, like the Suggestion ox, it is a conversation that we have all the time with the AGB and HR.
Thank you. My next question, as someone who practices are there any upgrades to the system that allow a text notification for upcoming court dates, any changes in court dates, hearing dates, et cetera, to allow that information to get out there a little bit more quickly and efficiently? MR. McSORLEY: You mean texting the litigants?
Texting the litigants, attorneys, particularly if in a criminal matter, a defendant, right. Is that something that is foreseeable from the FJD? MR. McSORLEY: We have already instituted a robocall and a texting system, especially for criminal. That's still ongoing as far as I know. So it's still ongoing so we have that now, and it notifies you of your hearing dates. We have upgraded our Internet so that a lot of our notices can be put out on the Internet. But we are using as much technology as we can and I think we're pretty robust right now. It's not throughout the whole FJD. I know we have it in Criminal Court. I don't think we have it in Civil --
It's not in Civil. MR. McSORLEY: -- Court, right. So that's something I will definitely explore.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. I have a follow-up question on just services, particularly language access services for those Philadelphians who don't have English as their first language. Could you tell me how the court diverts those services to those folks?
Thank you for your question. I just want to make sure I understand. How they should access it, you mean how they can get it?
Yes. So when they're in court and they require language assistance, what is the process for that?
Thank you for that question. It's very important. People don't understand that they really need to request that in advance of their proceeding or trial. So there is an Office of