COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, May 5, 2026 10:23 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS 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 ISAIAH THOMAS 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, Resolution 15 No. 260227. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the roll.
Present. A quorum is present and this City Council meeting is officially called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the titles of the bills and resolution.
Bill No. 16 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. 260205, 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 8 Philadelphia Code, entitled 9 "Finances, Taxes and Collections," 10 to add a new Chapter 19-4800, 11 entitled "Retail Delivery Tax," to 12 establish a tax on orders for the 13 delivery in Philadelphia of retail 14 consumer and other tangible goods, 15 all under certain terms and 16 conditions. 17 Resolution No. 260227, 18 Providing for the approval by the 19 Council of the City of Philadelphia a Revised Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia, covering Fiscal Years 2027 through 2031, and incorporating revisions with respect to Fiscal Year 2026, which is to be submitted by the Mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to an Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement by and between the City and the Authority.
Thank you very much. Today we will hold the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole to consider the bills read by the Clerk that constitute proposed operating and 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 Philadelphia Fire Department. We also have several departments here for callback and available for questions, including the following departments: Licenses and Inspections, Department of Human Services, the Managing Director's Office and the Procurement Department. Additionally, Administration officials are present to address questions related to the proposed tax bills. This afternoon we have scheduled testimony from Community College of Philadelphia. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first panel to testify.
We have Jeffrey Thompson, Fire Commissioner. Also present, Carl Randolph, First Deputy Commissioner; Gustav Baumann, Deputy Commissioner; Joshua McGuoirk, Deputy Commissioner; and Martin McCall, Deputy Commissioner. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
For this round, members, so we want to engage lines of questioning to the Fire Department. And then when the round is over, then you can engage members of city departments for callbacks. With that being said, I want to start off by thanking you for being here. I want to thank Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson and your team for all your hard work in keeping our city safe. I want to also thank you and your team for being very helpful to me and my staff during the collapse of the Grays Ferry CHOP garage in South Philadelphia within the 2nd Councilmanic District. So thank you for your leadership and working hours a day throughout that 22 period to address the issue as well 23 as being supportive of the 24 community and the families. I also want to acknowledge your Executive Chief Daniel McCarthy as well. He's also done several different community initiatives with us as well. And so, with that being said, just please state your name for the record and begin your testimony. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you very much. Good morning, Council President Johnson and members of Council. My name is Jeffrey Thompson and I have the honor and privilege of serving as the Fire Commissioner for the City of Philadelphia. With me today are several members of my team. To my right is First Deputy Carl Randolph and Deputy Commissioner Martin McCall. Philadelphia Fire Department continues to respond daily to approximately 1000 calls for service per day, responding in an all-hazards capacity, while also providing emergency medical services to the entire City of Philadelphia. We have had some pretty good accomplishments in the past fiscal year. And some of those things are that we continue to work collaboratively with other city agencies to support operations such as Operation Code Blue, the Kensington Task Force, among just a few other things. In addition to that, we are currently in the process of installing lactation pods strategically throughout the Fire Department to ensure that our young mothers can express, can manage themselves in a safe and dignified manner. We are also continuing to work feverishly to reduce the incidents of fire within the city of Philadelphia through our robust fire prevention efforts. We are in schools, we are participating in camps everywhere we can. We are trying to propagate our fire prevention message. In addition to that, we are installing smoke alarms throughout the entire city. And I want to thank City Council for continuing to support those efforts. We are also leveraging technology. We are in the process of purchasing drones, which will help us strategically and will make our firefighting operations safer. We are also looking towards the future and ensuring that we have a sustainable workforce. We are working on finalizing a paramedic apprenticeship program, which will allow us to take citizens and train them as paramedics, which is a position that throughout the country is in high demand. And so, we're trying to build a sustainable pipeline. Internally we are also working on an upskilling program where we can take our employees who are currently EMT status and elevate them to higher levels of EMTAs and paramedics. So we are extremely busy in the Fire Department. And with that, we will take any questions that you may have.
Thank you very much for your testimony. I just want to ask a couple questions. Your M/W/DSBE, which is minority participation contracts, FY25 dropped from 15% to in FY26 down to 11%. And then from FY26, the first quarter of the fiscal year, dropped down to 5%. So just give us an idea regarding those numbers regarding participation. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Well, thank you for that question. I'm going to ask my Fiscal Officer Marguerite Morgan to please come up and respond to that question.
And the key reason also I want to also address is because I know for FY27 we're looking at $5 million in professional services contracts. And so, if we see this trend going down, we want to make sure that if we're about to spend $5 million in professional services contracts, that they're diverse and inclusive.
Marguerite Morgan, Fiscal Officer for the Fire Department. The Fire Department, the nature of our business, we only have a small niche of people to supply services. There's not a lot of vendors who could supply services that we need for EMS and firefighters. Our major contract do have -- Digitech, that helped us build the services for ambulance. And a lot of the minority portion went to that contract. For some reason, that minority partnership decreased for a while, right. So, again it's very hard for the Philadelphia Fire Department to get an increase, a minority business due to the nature of our business.
Have you worked with our Office of Equal Opportunity and Employment to look at different strategies to help you address those issues?
It's the same issue, since it's like a small niche of vendors that deal with, you know, firefighting equipment and services is really hard to do that. But we will continue to reach out to people and try to increase those numbers, sir.
All right. Thank you very much. I want to get an idea, Commissioner, regarding the 6% increase of incidents that you have to address regarding fires. You responded to 350,000 incidents last year, which is a 6% increase. And so, I just want to get an idea, what do you think is driving that growth? Give us an idea about the level of staffing and equipment that you need to address the increase, and then also give me an idea regarding our strategies in combating this 6% increase in incidents that we have to respond to. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yeah, thank you for that question. Fire, as you know, is a very unpredictable science. And so, while we continue to see more structure fires than we would like, we are seeing an increase in our EMS response. So the need for -- we find that people are engaging in medical services through our systems, through the 911 system versus going through traditional health care. So a lot of the increases that we are seeing are EMS-related so we do have strategies to deal with that. One of the things that we want to make sure is that we make sure that we have our ambulances available for those who need them the most for the high acuity calls. So we've done some things such as call stacking, for instance, which will prioritize calls, so we make sure that we have our ambulances available for the most serious of cases. We've added some resources, a Basic Response Unit, which responds solely to extremely low acuity calls, all with the goal of maintaining operational capability to deal with the most serious of issues, so we continue to look at the issues. And most of them, again as I stated, are EMS-related. That's where the biggest increases are. Fires, they continue to plague the City of Philadelphia. It continues to be a problem, and we are trying to really address that with a robust fire prevention program, trying different strategies that we haven't used in the past. We are really using social media quite frequently. I myself recorded a fire prevention piece just the other day. We are engaging with some of our food delivery partners to put fire prevention literature in some of the food delivery so that we can just really spread our message. And the message quite simply is that fire can happen to anyone and we want you to know that, we want you to be prepared.
All right. Do we have a breakdown of neighborhoods or Council Districts where you can show -- I know we have 37 civilian deaths in FY25. Are we able to break down what neighborhoods or Councilmanic Districts where we're seeing the highest level of fire incidents? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yeah, absolutely. We have a very good records management system. I do not have that before you today, but I most certainly can provide you with that.
Absolutely. All right. Thank you. At this time, the Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Chief. Just want to say thank you for all you guys do. It takes a very special person to run into a burning building when everybody else is running out, so we thank you for your service as always. I asked these questions last year for the record so I just want to ask them again. So I'm just going to rattle them off for the sake of time because we're on a timeline and there's a lot to do today. I asked the questions for the record last year, but I wanted to draw attention to it again this year. How many paramedics do you have right now? How many paramedics are you budgeted for? How many paramedics is the department short? And then what are the city's current -- what areas of the city currently have no 8 ALS or Advanced Life Support Medic Units? And why? How many days have you run out of available ALS Medic Units in the past year? And how many units were downgraded from ALS to BLS in the past year? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you, Councilmember Harrity, for that question. I'm going to defer to Deputy Commissioner McCall for those answers. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: Deputy Commissioner Martin McCall. The number of paramedics that we have?
Yeah. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: Okay. The number of paramedics that we currently have is 200.
How many are you budgeted for? And how many are you short? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: The amount, the total EMS, paramedic EMT, EMT Advanced, the number of total positions is 624.
624. But that's all of them, that's not just paramedics? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: Correct.
What's the number of paramedics is what I'm getting at? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: The number of paramedics should be 260 plus 56. I didn't put that together so that's 36 -- 360.
And how many are you budgeted for? And how many then are you short? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: So the total number that we're budgeted of all persons is 624.
That's for all, though. You don't have -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: The number of paramedics that we're budgeted for is about that 360 number.
Okay. So you're short 200 and something, about; is that correct? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: Well, the total number of positions we are short is 176. I didn't extrapolate the paramedics versus EMTs, EMT Advanced.
But it's a big difference between the EMTs and the paramedics. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: Correct.
Especially for somebody in my condition with a heart condition, as it was broken down to me before. EMTs can perform certain numbers of duties, you know, Narcan, stuff like that. But when it comes to other things, they're not allowed to do it. Where somebody like me who has a heart condition or a stroke, you know what I'm saying, it's minutes and we need that shot to get us to the hospital. That's why I'm trying -- and there should be definitely a difference between the two, you know what I'm saying. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: Yeah. According to my notes here, of that 176, the number of need for paramedics is 60.
Yeah, yeah. That's a lot better. I appreciate -- that's why I was asking to discriminate at this against each of them, you know what I'm saying. EMTs, paramedics, I just want to get that number because the paramedics, that's an important one for me. I've been asking for it for a couple years, but you're making progress which is great. So when's the next class? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: May 11th.
May 11th, beautiful. And please, if you can get us some flyers and stuff like that, that we can post also to try to help get the word out there. And if you can just answer the questions about the ALS medical questions, which was how many days have you run out of available ALS Medic Units in the past year? And how many units were downgraded from ALS to BLS in the past year? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: The number of units downgraded from ALS to BLS, I'd have to get for you. I don't know that we have -- I know we've had a significant decrease in the number of zero medic units in the city, and we had a 70% decrease in that number in first quarter of this year versus the first quarter of last year, that I do know. I do have a list of the number of times in which we -- a number of days that we went zero occurrences and a number of occurrences within those days that we've had -- I don't have that list readily available to me. But as soon as I find it, I'll give you that number.
That's fantastic. And just in your opinion, what's stopping us from getting more of these paramedics? Is it the pay scale? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: What's stopping us from getting --
Yeah. I mean, we're losing paramedics. Is it because that -- you know, listen, it takes a special person to be a firefighter or a paramedic. We discussed that, right. Is it a matter of pay could just be solved with a raise, is what I'm saying?
We're ready to move on. Go ahead. Could you answer, sir? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: Yeah. In my opinion, I think that it is a combination of things. One, it is salaries. And Philadelphia has -- we're competitive with salaries, but other jurisdictions are becoming just as competitive as us, right. It is the number of available paramedics out there. Institutions aren't graduating as many paramedics as we were in the past. It's roughly a 40% pass rate for the paramedic program. So the number of paramedics graduating has decreased, just like the number of doctors graduating has decreased as well. And I think that it's also a function of the work in which we do. It is challenging. And it takes, like you said, a special person to do that. And even though someone comes on with a particular mindset to want to do this work, when it gets down to doing it, it sometimes creates a change of mind. So we are trying to work on that part of it by improving the environment, reducing the utilization of our medic units and allowing our medics to have training opportunities, to have rest and moments between completing paperwork and do things just without being on a constant go. That's been a serious issue for us and it deters people from wanting to do the work.
Thank you very much. Dr. Anthony Phillips. Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson next.
Thank you, Council President. I want to start by saying thank you to Commissioner Thompson for being responsive to neighbors in our district and our concerns. Fire services are one of the most visible examples of government responsiveness. Residents can expect consistent response times or reliable service. And I want to tell you are really reliable when it comes to your service. I just want to hear more about the following: Our office heard from a Philadelphia resident who scored 90 out of 100 on the firefighter exam, was told hiring (inaudible) and the score order is off a merit, less as vacancies arise. However, they waited roughly six months without a clear timeline or update before ultimately being hired by a surrounding county. That's a serious concern that we may be losing people to what Councilman Harrity was talking about. Can you clearly explain how the firefighter and EMT hiring pipeline works, from an exam score to final hire, including how candidates are ranked, how vacancies trigger movement through the list and what determines when you know when someone actually gets called? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for that question. Fortunately, here in Philadelphia we have an abundance of people who are interested in doing this work. So every time we offer an exam, which is every two years, we get thousands of candidates that apply. And in addition to being ranked on the test that is given, there are different points that are given for different things. You get points for being a veteran, for example. There are points that are given for being part of our Fire Explorers program. So there are different ways that you can get additional points outside of a perfect score on the test. The training to become a firefighter is nine months. So typically when we hire off of a list, we may get two classes off that list just because the training is so long. Now, we are going forward because we are trying to increase the number of budgeted positions -- or let me correct that. We're trying to fill the budgeted positions that we have. Beginning in September, we are going to be putting in two classes at a time, which is going to double the amount of candidates that we can get off of each list. So it's extremely competitive and just the multiple ways that you can receive additional points, what may seem like a perfect score may not be.
So I would just want to talk more about the process, if you can talk about that. It says that candidates take a civil service exam and they may be placed on the eligible list, but it's not clear which parts of the testing and certification process are handled internally versus outside entities. So if you can, for the record, just kind of explain why a candidate may not get information or an update with -- I mean, they waited roughly six months for an answer. Is that typical? Do you tell them the hiring timeline from the beginning? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So we work very closely with OHR through the entire process. Some of the processes are outside of the control of the Philadelphia Fire Department and sometimes they are constrained by the amount of people that are available to do that work. But we work diligently as best we can within the Fire Department to go through those lists, to establish those lists, which the list is established by OHR and then we internally hire off of that list. I'm not sure if that answers your question.
Not necessarily, but hopefully we can get more information from you. I heard the buzzer, but just that I needed more information about the steps, right. When someone applies, there should be a sense from HR like, hey, this is how long it's going to take when you get the response, month one, month two, month three. And right now it's deflating for someone to be waiting and not knowing their dream job is going to come to a reality. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Understood. And I will make certain that you get that information.
Thank you. Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President. Thank you all so much for being here today. Thank you to Commissioner Thompson and to First Deputy Commissioner Randolph, also Deputy Commissioners Baumann, McGuoirk and McCall, I hope I got that right. And to the entire team, we were very happy to join you, Councilmember Harrity and I, for the promotion ceremony at the American Red Cross. It was a wonderful day to be there in celebration and support of so many leaders in the Philadelphia Fire Department. And I was especially excited about a young woman who was in the class. There was one young woman. And so, we're really excited about her future in the Fire Department. And Bowmer and so many others, we're just so thankful for the work you all do. I really wanted to just say thank you for the work that you all did in Councilmember Jones' district around the fire on Hazelhurst Street. And just send a special thanks to Engine 54 for all the work that they do and all the engines that responded to the fire on Hazelhurst Street. So I'm just here to say thank you, appreciate the work. I know we work together throughout the year and I usually ask you all questions throughout the year. So I don't have anything today, but just wanted to express our deepest thanks and gratitude. Thank you. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you.
That's a first. Member Bass. Then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Mr. President. Good morning. How's everybody doing. Good to see you all. I just had a really quick question. First, I wanted to give a shout-out to my two neighbors who are part of the Philadelphia Fire Department, Larry Carroll and Bruce Canada. So I just wanted to give them a shout-out for the excellent work they do on behalf of the City of Philadelphia and I want to thank really your entire team, because heaven forbid any of us ever need the Philadelphia Fire Department to rush to our homes, to our businesses, wherever, to put out a fire but really save lives, you know, the work that you do is so very important and I really just don't want it to be missed that we really can't function as a city without each and every one of you and the work and dedication that you do. So, thank you, thank you, thank you. I just had a really quick question about CPR and training. Does the Philadelphia Fire Department -- are you the entity that does CPR trainings for the City of Philadelphia? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: I'm going to let Deputy Commissioner for EMS, Martin McCall answer that question. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: In the city of Philadelphia, there are both private entities that offer CPR programs -- we do offer CPR programs as part of our other programs such as our Explorers program and our Randolph School program. We also train to keep our members certified for our CPR.
For the general public though, it's not really the Philadelphia Fire Department? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: No, we do not really have anything posted for the general public for CPR.
Okay. I'd like to follow up and circle back and have a different conversation offline, if we could, about CPR trainings, just I think to increase the number of trainings that are happening here in the city. So if we could, we'll convene at a later date. Thank you very much, Mr. President. That's all.
Okay. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning. Good to see you all. And I echo my colleagues in our gratitude to you for the work you do. As Councilmember Harrity said, you rush in where we rush out, right, and we're very grateful for that. I also wanted to commend you on all the innovation you're doing in the Fire Department. And I wanted to -- particularly, this was maybe a couple of years ago. You did the preferred vendor, you chose 3AM Innovations to do the personal accountability system. That makes you one of the first major cities in the country to use smartphone technology alongside portable radios, so I want our public to know these things that you guys are doing. This sometimes get drowned out by all the negative stuff and I really want our public to see what our tax dollars are doing. This is what you're doing. You talked about the GIS -- I don't know if you spoke about it, but I've been following that. The GIS capability you're trying to do so you can preempt and understand where fire hazards are in what neighborhoods, so that's excellent. One of your employees, one of your members, Kamilah Bayate, she's all over. She's someone I've known since she was 5 years old. So I'm so proud to see her doing this education in schools and really connecting to the public. We want to do more of that and support you. My question is, I see from your budget the planning, research and risk reduction is about 12 million. And I just wondered when you compare it to the budget for logistics 52 and for operations 380, is 12 million enough to be as innovative as you are being or would like to be? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for that question. And we most certainly continue to innovate as best we can. This Fire Department I will tell you looks a lot different today than it did when I started many years ago. So working with the budgets that we have, we have to be as efficient as possible. And sometimes as we are exploring new technologies, we don't know exactly what is out there. You mentioned 3AM, for instance, and that's our personal accountability system. And all you have to do is think about the Meridian fire where we lost three firefighters. If we had a system like that in place at the time, we probably could have saved those firefighters. So we continue to leverage technology, and our Planning and Risk Reduction Division is very innovative. I'm very proud of those folks who work there. And to answer your question succinctly, sometimes we don't know what it is that we need, so to actually budget for it can be a challenge.
Okay. I was just doing a layup for you. One final question unrelated is I wanted to see if your department receives any training around identifying and intervening in suspected human trafficking issues. That's an issue I've been very engaged with. The city has a big campaign underway just now for this year. I wanted to see what role the Fire Department could have, does have in that space and how because we're doing training -- a part of the money that was allocated is to do training of all types of personnel, particularly frontline personnel. So I just wanted to know where you guys are on that? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So one of the things that we try to do is collaborate with all city agencies. We just had a presentation by the Office of Immigrant Affairs recently, talking about language access and other things. So what we do is when we identify issues and problems, we try to proactively reach out to the appropriate agency and train as best we can. That most certainly is something that we should be a part of. We should have awareness and we should most certainly have some training in that. So I think there's more work for us to do in that space.
Definitely, we'll make sure you're looped in. Thank you, Council President. And thank you all.
Thank you. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier isn't here, so I'm going to skip her in the queue and go to Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young, then Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the Fire Department for always being there for our communities. Your work kind of encouraged me to create this fire safety guide that we have for our district. We give them out everywhere. It has pages from your website that links us to the National Fire Protection Association. So we have information in here that we pass out to our constituents because we know in North Philadelphia there's a high rate of fires, particularly from a lot of our vacant properties that we have in the district. And so, my question is regarding those vacant properties that are in our district, how proactive is the Fire Department with L&I in identifying certain properties that could be of risk of fire? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for that question. We have a robust inspection program, so we are out on the streets and we work collaboratively with L&I. In addition to that, we have our own Fire Code Unit. So when we identify any structure that can be a hazard to the community, we communicate that with L&I so that we can hopefully seal that property so it doesn't become a danger to the property. We have a very good collaborative working relationship with L&I to really address those issues.
Thank you. Our next question is, so the average total EMS run time in FY25 was 74 minutes and the target for FY27 just says a decrease from FY26. What's driving the long run time, like hospital turnaround, scene time, dispatch practices, staffing, transport delays? Can you tell us what's driving that and what specific reduction does the department think is realistic? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for that. I'm going to have Deputy Commissioner Martin McCall answer that question. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: So currently, our total run time for all calls is about 72 minutes. Our total run time for calls that we transport patients for is about 66 minutes. Those particular calls, where we actually have patient contact and we are getting folks to the hospital, we want to look at to get below that 60-minute mark. And what the target area for that is hospital wall times at hospital time, in which we have our medic units at the hospital with less than 30 minutes. Often times because of the busyness of the particular hospital, that can exceed an hour on those wall times that we have medical units waiting to transfer patients to an available bed at that ED. So we're really focusing in on that space by reaching out to the hospitals. We have set up a hospital liaison program where we have a fire department member actually be the face in connection with them. Our medical directors are actually engaging in that space so there's a doctor talking with a doctor and having that same language and figuring out how we can reduce those wall times. And we have also put some policy in place, such as redirection policy and medic unit availability policy that has helped us reduce that zero medics that the Councilmember was talking about from 736 occurrences to 230-some-odd occurrences. So we see some improvement there, but our goal is to get to less than 60 minutes.
Thank you. Mr. President, I have one more question, if you don't mind.
Thank you. I want to go back to the ALS and BLS conversation. I know when there's a BLS run, there aren't monitors on those vehicles and it seems that, you know, we're asking the medics to do things manually. Do we think that if we have monitors on those vehicles that it could save lives if those medics are able to have those types of monitors to accurately record some of the stuff? Because I'm being realistic, I know people, right. And so, what's being told to me is that sometimes on the BLS runs they're not really checking all the vitals and things like that, right. But if they had the monitors there, it'd be easy for them to do it. So what's the policy behind that? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: So our BLS responders are per protocol to have a set of vital signs taken within a certain period of time in which they contact a patient. We look for that to be about five minutes. So we look for blood pressure, pulse rate, respiratory --
I know what you look for. But the question is, would the monitors help save lives on those BLS runs? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: So all BLS runs have an AED on it. And if that person goes into a dysrhythmia, that AED can determine what dysrhythmia that is, and correct that if the person goes into cardiac arrest. We have cardiac monitoring capability on our ALS units, and all ALS units have that monitoring capability to look at a heart rhythm and be proactive about that. So for that to happen, all of our units would have to be ALS all the time and our staffing often times don't allow that. So when we do have that ALS, that capability is available.
Is it just a matter of training to use the monitors? I'm just curious, because I think some of the folks who are EMTs may have the capability and capacity to learn that if this is a matter of training. You don't think so? I'm just curious, because sometimes we're running ALS calls for someone who vomited, but then it's a BLS call for an old lady who fell down, they get their shoes stuck on the ground. So what's the differences in those calls and those policies that we have? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So, Councilmember Jones(sic), if I may, I want to make sure we're clear on the vernacular, so when you say monitor, we think about a cardiac monitor, right. And I think you may be speaking about other instruments that can take vital signs, just to be clear.
Yes. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: So other instruments that can take vital signs, our equipment we do the best we can to get the modern most equipment out there, from pulse oximetry to cardiac monitoring. What prevents the certain equipment from being used, such as a monitor versus an AED, is the level of training the person has. We have, like the Commissioner mentioned in his opening remarks, implemented programs to upscale people so they can get to that higher level, so they can utilize that equipment. So when we're on that particular call, that equipment's available. So often times when we are responding, the call determinant is based on what the person who made the call says on that call will determine what level of care you often times get, and then we make an assessment upon our arrival.
Thank you. Could we take a moment to acknowledge the children from Sankofa Freedom Academy. What's up, Sankofa. (Applause.)
Contrary to popular belief, City Council is for the kids. Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning and thank you for being with us today. First, I want to say thank you for the work that you all do in the 7th and across the city of Philadelphia for your response in ensuring the safety of all of those who live in my community. Speaking of my community very specifically, can you speak to how you all monitor what neighborhoods have seen an increase or decrease in fire? To me, paying very close attention or closer attention this year than I have in the past as a result of my work with some of your members, I feel like I'm hearing about a fire in the neighborhood consistently. And so, I'm trying to figure out if you all monitor where specific fires are happening? What are the results of that? And how do we work together to be able to change that so that residents know that there's access to resources to prevent fires? And if there is a challenge, how do we work together to address it? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you very much for that question. And so, we are fortunate that we have a pretty good records management system. We use a system called ImageTrend, and we track every single run that we make. We have some very talented folks in our GIS Analytics Unit that look at that data. In fact, we have moved to a space where we are trying to use that data to predict where fires may be, so we are responsive to the 311 requests for smoke alarms. But in addition to that, we are trying to predict where fires may be and move in those spaces. In addition to that, we are really trying to focus our fire prevention efforts in places where we see an increase in fire, in places where our GIS information is possibly predicting where there may be fires. So we are using all those tools to try to really address the problem of fire. In addition to that, we are in every Councilmanic District. We are hosting open houses, because we want to engage the community. We want people to know that the fire station is part of the community. We want them to come there and ask questions and get information. So one of the messages that I've been putting out recently is I feel as though people think that fire will not happen to them and I try to let people know, it can happen to anyone at any time so we have to be prepared. So we are just really trying to diversify and increase our messaging --
Excuse me, Commissioner. Point of information by Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.
Thank you, Council President. On the lines of Councilmember Lozada's question, I just wanted a point of information. Do you have a strategic plan and proactive steps that you're taking to provide reduced fire risk education in neighborhoods? Basically, I know that we did a press conference recently with the smoke alarms and detection which has been really great, but do you have a strategy to get to every single neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia? If so, can that strategy and timeline be shared? That's the point of information I have.
Commissioner Thompson. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yes, sir. So absolutely. Our strategy is we use a lot of methods to communicate our fire prevention methods, right. So we're out on social media. We are at schools engaging the young folks. We partner with Parks & Rec to do a summer camp every year, so we are looking at different ways to expand our reach so that we can get our message out. We are talking internally about do we do radio spots, can we get on TV, can we do billboards. All of those things cost money. So most certainly, the strategy is to increase our messaging as best we can.
I want to give a point of information too, if that's okay, Dr. Phillips.
Can I just get 10 seconds. I want to say what I'm really trying to get from you is -- that's great, but I want it to be a little bit more on a weekly, monthly basis what neighborhoods you're going to be at, what blocks you're going to be at, how are you going to get to the goal of getting to all those high-risk -- if we can get a copy of what that looks like as opposed to just being sporadic, you know, we're going to do those type of things. Thanks, CP.
Commissioner, I just wanted to say if part of the goal is to take to the next level of campaign around fire safety, then our body would be supportive of your ask and I would think the Administration would be as well. We have a $7 billion budget. So when we talk about public safety, we can't put a dollar amount on trying to keep people safe. And so, if your overall strategy is to say, hey, listen, we're going to do a campaign around public safety, fire safety updates to public safety and this is the type of support that we need, then we will sit down with Rob Dubow over there in the Administration as we go through this process to see how we could be supportive. Because surely, I don't think the Administration would say they would not support you having the opportunity to have significant additional resources to keep the residents here in the city of Philadelphia safe when it comes to fire safety. So if that's a need and that's an ask, then please bring them forward so we can have a conversation as we go through this process. The Chair relinquishes his time back to Member Lozada who has the floor.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All of what they said was part of what I want to talk about, right. We need to make sure that residents understand the resources that are available to them in a language that they understand. I can't tell you the number of times that I've been in some of our schools, in some of our student town halls and they speak to the fact that there's a disconnect between the Fire Department when they compare it to the police department, right. They feel like they're more approachable and they see firefighters when there's an emergency. And so, I think part of what we are looking to do and what we've been working really hard on with some members of your leadership is to connect folks in those times when there is not an emergency, right, so more presence and more partnerships with our Fire Department so that we establish the relationship that I think needs to be seen in communities like mine where sometimes there's not that level of trust that there needs to be. And then language access, right. We know that the standard language access that we have available in the city doesn't always work. And I know the Fire Department or the Police Department has moved to some type of a translation format with their radios or with their cameras. What are you all doing to ensure that your resources, your communication in the event of a fire, the folks that are present are actually able to communicate with those who are experiencing an emergency? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for those questions. And we most certainly really appreciate what our colleagues in PPD do in terms of regularly-occurring town halls, and that's something that we most certainly are planning to emulate. We want to be in communities on a regular basis and forge those relationships. We also want to be in the neighborhood action centers. We want to be very visible and make those connections. We had a meeting with the Office of Immigrant Affairs just last week, where we were able to really make a connection with them, and we talked about ensuring the fact that we can communicate in the different methods that are available. So that was a great meeting where we really got to understand the capabilities of that office and how we can leverage that to ensure that we are communicating with every citizen in Philadelphia.
Okay. We will have a brief separate second round and then go into callbacks. Councilmember Cindy Bass and Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips -- y'all want to go straight into callbacks?
Okay. Listen, thank you very much for being here today. Thank you for your testimony and thank you for your hard work and your public service to the City of Philadelphia. Thank you. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you.
At this time, we will go into callbacks for the departments of the Administration. The following departments are now available for questioning and you can approach the table: Managing Director's Office, Procurement, Licenses and Inspections, Department of Human Services. Rob Dubow is on standby for any questions regarding the proposed tax bills as well. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
How's everyone doing today? COMMISSIONER ALI: Pretty good.
Welcome back. Chair recognizes Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning, everyone. Good to see you all here. Because of time, I will just jump right into my question. We were recently made aware of a case where there was a DHS worker's mistake that resulted in a child being placed with the unrelated family, rather than the cousin who was already the adoptive parent of three of the children's half siblings, that child's half siblings. And there's been court proceedings and everything and you admitted that this was a misstep. I wanted to understand what things have been put in place for something like this never to happen? From what I read, it seems the DHS worker called the hospital against department policy to redirect who was going to get that child. And so, this is when I am faced with constituents who say, what is going on here. Legal kidnapping is what they're calling this. So I just want to understand what -- I know you have said that this was a misstep, so I appreciate that you made that acknowledgement. But I would like to know very specifically was this an investigative space where you had a DHS worker, what also happens in the cause in terms of how, if there's placement issues, how did that work? So if you would please address that. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yes. So good morning. I'm Kimberly Ali. I'm Commissioner for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services. And thank you for that question. Although I am bound by confidentiality, I'm unable to talk about the specifics of any case. However, I can talk to you generally about if, in fact, the department had a misstep, what does it look like in terms of engaging families in order for them to determine who's the best placement resource for that young person, and then also the adoption process. And so, let me start by first saying DHS social workers and not Community Umbrella Agency social workers make the decision around the removal of children from his or her home, so that is done by a DHS social worker in concert with their supervisor, but also with the Law Department and the courts in terms of removal. So that's the first step. The family then goes to court within 72 hours for a detention hearing. The parents are given an attorney. The child is also given an attorney called a child advocate, and then the judge listens to testimony in order to make a decision about what's best and the best placement for that young person. It then goes back to court in 10 days and there's an adjudicatory hearing at that particular time. Additional evidence is presented in terms of why that child needs to remain in care. During that process from day 1, in terms of the department asking the court for removal, so for order protective custody, we engage the family, the parents, so both mother and father, who identifies the best place for their young person. Where there is some discretion is at times we should look to, if possible, keeping siblings together. However, when we place in kinship care situations, we do ask the parents, we ask other family members. And if the young person is old enough, we also ask the young person, who do you want to live with, who is in your circle of affection. That is part of our engagement process. Cases go to court every three months. And so, I talked about the 72 hours. Then I talked about the 10 days. And then they go to court every three months thereafter. The parents come to court, their informal supports come to court. Of course, their attorneys, the child, if the child is of age, as well as the child advocate attorney, DHS or the CUA case manager and our city solicitor. And every three months the judge will hear testimony around the best placement for that young person.
Thank you for clarifying the process. But I'm more interested in what measures did you put in place for such missteps not to happen? Because you acknowledged there was a misstep. That was publicly acknowledged by your department there was a misstep, and we identified it was one particular worker who, against your rules, called the hospital, right. So I want to know very specifically, drill down how do you stop that kind of process from happening, and what -- and this was a baby who couldn't speak for themselves, so that's a whole other issue. The person, the mother who was engaged in this, was addicted to drugs and already had three other children in her own kinship -- put in kinship care and that's who was asking for this child. So I want to know exactly what did you change for this to never happen again in terms of how process happened and what was the policy change that you made? COMMISSIONER ALI: And so again, I'll reiterate that I won't talk specifically about this case. But I will certainly say that any time there is an error, if you will, or mistake, if you will, we do look at that case individually. And so, it's not -- we have teamings. Those teamings will happen by way of our Operations Director as well as our Deputy Commissioner to determine whether or not there are individual practice issues or systemic practice issues. And as a result of those, we make determinations around do you need additional training, do you need additional transfer of (inaudible) or does a policy need to come out in reference to that. In specific cases in which there is a parent who's making a recommendation in terms of wanting their child to be placed with someone else but the family wants something different, there is attention there because we want to recognize the voice of parents. Although maybe possibly addicted to substances or not or untreated mental health, they still have a voice in the process because they still have parental rights so we still engage them because we have to work with the parent along the way throughout the life of the case. However, in situations in which we say, oh, the best thing is for a child to be with a sibling, I send my Operations Director to court to testify in that regard to let the judge know that we want to change course. And then the judge makes a decision, the child advocate has an opportunity to speak as well as the parent's attorney. And so, we do a higher level of review and also a higher level of court testimony in those situations.
So I hear you, I hear all of this. But I still don't have an answer to when somebody violated your own practice of not calling the hospital directly and giving another family for where the child should be adopted. What did you do in the process of the social worker making that call? Streamline that for me. Tell me how that process occurs where they were able to violate that principle that you have in your office. And what did we do to say, did you tell your social workers you are not allowed to do that or before you make any call, this is who you need to check with? I just want to know very simply the specifics of the process that allowed this mistake to happen and how did we correct for that? COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. So I can't -- I don't know how something like that could happen other than the fact that I indicated that we also listen to the voices of parents and parents have a right to identify who they want their child to be placed with. Where I would have wanted to happen in situations where there are siblings, that we also prioritize placing young people with their siblings. So I can't tell you in terms of the misstep. What I can tell you is that when it came to the attention of leadership, that we responded accordingly and we attended every single court hearing in order to rectify the situation.
The Chair recognizes Councilmember Bass for a point of information.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, I have a lot of respect for you and the department and the work you do and I know it's not easy, so I hope you'll accept my comments in that sentiment. But I've had so many experiences, and we've talked about them, that are similar to Councilmember Ahmad's questions and concerns where children have been displaced, it doesn't make sense. As we had talked about before, we had a family whose children were taken from school. It really should have been kidnapping. They were taken from school with the DHS social worker's note saying that it was okay when it wasn't okay. The court had ordered them to be here. They're now living in another state and they won't be returning because they've been there for a couple of years. The family, the original related family, legal family could not get these kids back. And so, I hear what you're saying, but I don't see the evidence of any changes to the daily practices that would make sure that these kinds of things don't happen, because they're really just devastating to families. So I just really wanted to say that on the record. I'm not familiar with the case that Councilmember Ahmad is referring to, but I just think we just have to do better in DHS. COMMISSIONER ALI: Yeah. So let me say this, the decisions of social workers, particularly when you're talking about working with families, are extremely complicated.
Yes. Yes, they are. COMMISSIONER ALI: I'm the first person to acknowledge that. I also acknowledge not only all of the growth and the progress that we have, but I don't shy away from when we need to make changes. And so, I will tell you in terms of when I rolled out my goals for 2026, it is around mastering, not perfecting, but mastering the basics, making sure when there is tension, if you will, when you have competing requests, if you will, in terms of parents, what the parent wants to do and what the family wants to do that, that you seek a higher level leader to have that conversation with, also that you bring them to the table in terms of our family team conferencing process. And so, I do understand. And when we step in, in terms of executive leadership, if we don't like the direction of a case, but I do hear you.
And I appreciate that, but I also would say to me it's a little late. Because that's something that should have been just really instilled just, you know, a part of the day-to-day workings of a department that's as important as DHS for a long time. This shouldn't be something we're working on now. This should be something that, you know, some of these things never should have happened, I guess, is my point. And I understand what you're saying that maybe not perfecting, but I would say actually because we're dealing with children, maybe we should be trying to perfect it. This is something that there can't be any errors when we're dealing with children, because we're dealing with a young person that once they're broken, we can't fix them back. COMMISSIONER ALI: I agree. And what I will say, our family team conferencing model has been in place since 2015, so that's been in place since then. And then the reason why I used the word mastering instead of perfection is because we know that there is going to be a continuous process in which we have to change and we have to pivot. And so, we will continue to evaluate and assess our practices accordingly.
That's what I was going to do. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Bass. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Ahmad for one additional minute.
Yes, thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate Councilmember Bass for bringing her years of expertise into this space. And I still want to say I heard you say there's a -- so there was an issue between a family member who already had three of that person's children, half siblings of this child in question, versus a completely unknown family that your social worker was saying should go to and got the mother to agree. So the process I heard was there is a conference when some -- when there's a discrepancy between going to kinship care versus going to a stranger, that was the point. There should have been a conference and should have been a conversation about why are we making this decision, how did this happen. And I want to know that if that is happening routinely for every decision, clearly it didn't happen in this one. It did not happen in this case, which is why it proceeded the way it did. And then the court system took so long you could not rectify it. So I just want to be on the record to say, are you having those conferences when the social worker has made a recommendation as opposed to when there's already kinship care available, what happens then? I want to be clear on the record that that didn't happen in that case clearly. And how do we make sure it happens in every case, every child placement case? Thank you, Madam Chair. COMMISSIONER ALI: Thank you for that question. And so, part of DHS's practice, and this practice actually started in 2020, we have what is called the Family Engagement Initiative. That is a partnership with our courts as well as the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts. And what that involves is what we call crisis and rapid response teamings. Those teamings happen within hours or 11 72 hours of a crisis. And so, yes, 12 we have been doing that 13 consistently since 2020 in terms of 14 a crisis rapid response teaming. 15 In addition, we have 16 family team conferencing in which 17 we have family team conferencing 18 meetings every three months. This 19 actually is tracked by our 20 Performance Management Technology 21 Division that tells us if, in fact, 22 the conference occurred, did it 23 occur at one time and if it was 24 missed. If it's a missed conference, then the team will assemble the family as well as their support systems as well as everyone else who touched the case in order to have a family team conference. And so, yes, we continue to do that practice.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Ahmad. The Chair now recognizes Dr. Phillips.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to get right to it because I have several questions around the tax bills, Licenses & Inspections and the Water Department. So just around the tax bills, I want to talk more about the existing tax impact. Currently can we provide an understanding of revenue that has been generated from the liquor tax, liquor-by-the-drink tax and also the cigarette tax? Where do those taxes go currently in terms of revenue, through what department? And then for the beverage tax, we understand what -- I have the numbers of what revenue has been generated from the beverage tax. But I want to know what is the forecasted revenue that's going to be generated from the beverage tax. I just want to get a better understanding and also to what department is that going to go to?
Thanks. Rob Dubow, Finance Director. So the liquor tax and the cigarette tax both go to the school district.
Okay. That's good. Is it permanent that that's going to -is it a staple, it can never change? It always has to go to the school district?
Okay. It always go to school district. Awesome. With the beverage tax, currently there's no 11 Rebuild no longer in place. So currently with the beverage tax, what can residents begin to see out of that when it comes to capital projects and where's that money going to?
So the Rebuild funding pays the debt service on the borrowing for those projects, so that debt service will continue while the debt's outstanding. So all the improvements you see to those rec centers are possible because we were able to issue bonds that the debt service paid for. In addition, the funding from the beverage tax goes to PreK and to Community Schools.
Okay. So PreK and Community Schools. So no longer towards our rec centers?
Yes. Part of it goes to debt service or rec centers, part of it goes to PreK and part of it goes to Community Schools.
When will communities begin to see new projects come out of that debt service to go towards rec centers?
We haven't seen any drafted proposals and conversations around that, so that's why I'm asking.
Good morning. Aparna Palantino, Deputy Managing Director, Capital Program Office. Dr. Phillips, thank you for your question. So we continue to implement projects at parks, rec centers and libraries that are funded through the Rebuild initiative. That's still ongoing. We're not complete with the program of the 72 sites that was originally included in the Rebuild ordinance. And I'll let Finance Director Rob Dubow speak to that.
Yeah. I just want to know when is it going to be a new request for proposals, because right now we should be pretty much done the 72 sites?
Or near done. So it should be a new batch or revenue coming, because that revenue was already there. It was already in existence. It's already forecast to be used. New revenue coming in for FY26 and '27 should be utilized for new projects, correct?
Yeah. So the capital program itself has new projects. The 72 projects of Rebuild are paid out of the debt service, and we did the most recent borrowing within the last year. But going forward, the projects that we're seeing funded in the capital program are funded out of other General Fund sources.
Okay. I only asked that question -- and I heard the bell. I'll come for the second round. But I just want to say I asked that question because residents are curious consistently about where is the revenue going for the beverage tax. Yes, we're seeing new projects happening, but they're also seeing a lot of other libraries and rec centers not benefiting from the beverage tax. And so, to them it's like, okay, that money should have already been utilized for prior projects, now what is the new money going to. And to me, that's not clear, because Councilmembers have not been engaged with how we can begin to use the beverage tax now for new capital projects. And so, that's concerning for me. And that's why I want to also be sure that the new proposed tax for rideshare, is it permanent, it's always going to be used for the School District of Philadelphia as well, if passed?
Yes, those funds go to the school district, so they would always go to the district.
Okay. So what I would recommend is that we begin to engage on new projects because the revenue that is currently allocated is for future projects for the beverage tax, not for the 72 projects; am I correct? Are you still trying to capture --
The beverage tax is for the existing 72 projects. It's for the debt service on those --
The debt service for them. Okay. I'm very clear now. So we still haven't paid them off basically?
How many years is it going to take for us to pay those off?
So the most recent bond issue was within the last year. It's a 20-year bond issue. So we'll be paying it off probably for another years. 10
So 15 the city's never going to see 16 anything new from that tax? 17
No. What we 18 see new projects from is from the 19 capital budget and program. So if you look at the capital budget and program, there is a lot of funding for parks, recs, libraries so that's where that funding will come from.
Okay. I would like to see how that works. Thank you so much. I'll reserve my questions for the Water Department and L&I for the next round.
Thank you, Dr. Phillips. And so, colleagues, I'm level-setting for this hearing. We are breaking at 12:00. There are eight members in the queue. Each colleague will have three minutes to complete your questions. We are going to respectfully request that all of the departments who are here for callbacks return at 1:00 p.m. when we return from lunch, so that we can ask the additional questions that are in the queue. And then we'll go with CCP hopefully by 2:00 or 2:30. Okay. Thank you very much. And so, I'm next in the queue and wanted to get a question on the record for the Managing Director's Office. My office submitted follow-up questions to your department and one of them was relative to a request for $1 million in warehouse space. When asking for additional information, you all responded that it's for additional warehouse space. I already knew that. So I'm requesting if you could provide the detailed information relative to that request, how much warehouse space does your department currently have? What are you all storing? How much does it cost? And what's the need for this additional space? I could see on the budget docs that it's for warehouse space. It says million for warehouse space. I did do the follow-up prior to this hearing. I want to be very clear. And you all responded it's for additional warehouse space. So can just provide additional details?
Madam Chair, we somehow in the process we didn't get that question, so we will come back and give you more detail on that. There's a lot of different spaces --
Rob, are you still available, Rob and Sabrina? Did you all get that question from me or no? Who received the question?
Yes. Good morning. Sabrina Maynard, Budget Director. So this is a line under the Public Property budget. There's some room for potential additional work that could happen. It may be mislabeled, so we'll double-check on the naming. But it's a public property item for potential additional budget.
That was under MDO, but it's for Public Property?
I believe it's in the Public Property budget. Let me double check where the line is.
And I'm only asking because I did -- I want to be very clear. I did follow up with you all --
-- in advance of the hearing or else I wouldn't have asked it today.
Madam Chair, we can also have that be first up at 1:00 p.m. if you want.
That'll be great. I'll move on so that I honor the clock. I'm at 2 minutes and 46 seconds. Thank you very much. You can follow up after the break. Okay. I appreciate it. But I do want to be clear for the record I did ask in advance. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Gauthier.
I have brief questions for Fire Commissioner Thompson and Deputy Managing Director Carroll. Good morning to both of you. For the Fire Commissioner, I heard you talk with the Council President about wanting to prevent fires and the wonderful effort you all have put on in that regard, and I look forward to getting the information about how that breaks down by Council District, but I can probably almost guarantee that West and Southwest is going to be reflected there. I wanted to ask about the program we have where we give out free smoke detectors if people reach out to 311. I think that's a wonderful way to prevent fires, but I also have read in the past that it was pretty backed up. So I wanted to ask, what's the backlog for that program now? If there is a backlog, what are we doing to, to kind of clear it? And would we ever consider going beyond owner- occupied properties, particularly if we're seeing fires in properties that are not owner-occupied? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you very much for that question. Smoke alarms are very instrumental in saving lives, so we do all that we can to make sure that we get those out as best we can. So we work with 311 to install smoke alarms. Sometimes there is the reckoning period between when we install them and when they can clear it off the books. Sometimes that skews the numbers. And just as a point of note, in addition to installing via 311, we install on our own. So as companies are out in the street, if they run across a person who needs them, they can install them on demand. So some of the things that we are doing to reduce that backlog -- and we do have a backlog currently, I don't have that number in front of me -- but one of the things that we are doing, we are employing technology. We are working with -- again, we have some very talented folks in our GIS Analytics Division. They are currently working on an app that is going to allow us to expedite and reduce the time that it takes for information to travel, so we are using technology to reduce that backlog.
Thank you. If you could get back to us with that information. And also, if you have it, what's the amount of fires that happen in owner-occupied properties versus rentals and should we be considering doing something to get smoke detectors in those as well. And then my next question is about the citywide bus depot. Deputy Managing Director Carroll, can you talk about where we are in the process of building a citywide bus terminal for the City of Philadelphia? Not long ago I know that OTIS sent out a survey to constituents to guage their interest of where they would most like to see a permanent location, including 30th Street Station in my district. And so, can you share the findings and talk about the considerations for final placement of the terminal?
Please, please respond very quickly. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember. We're working with Department of Planning on that. The 30th Street Bus Depot did rank the highest in terms of the feedback we got from stakeholders. We've had some conversations with Amtrak about their plans for that area, and we'll continue that work moving forward, maintain the engagement and look for an opportunity to see how we could specifically advance some design concepts, working with all the partners.
Okay. Look forward to continuing to work together. I think you know that I would love to have all the transit in the 3rd District. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilmember Gauthier. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Driscoll. And then Councilmember Lozada will be the last one for this round.
Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is around the cell tower tax. I'll be brief. Will nonprofits who currently don't pay U&O have to pay the cell phone tower tax? That's one. In the legislation, it says that the new tax is based on the bandwidth of a tower. How will the city be able to tell or know what the bandwidth is for each tower? And then lastly, the $2.4 million estimate for the tax, is that under the current assessments or would that be tied to some future assessments? COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: Good morning. Kathleen McColgan, Revenue Commissioner. Thank you for the question, Councilmember. Nonprofits who are leasing cell towers, they would be responsible for the Use & Occupancy Tax on the cell tower itself. I'm sorry. What was your next question?
The bandwidth. COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: Yeah. The bandwidth is actually assessed by OPA, and it's included in the data that is sent to us right now. It's already part of the total assessed value of a property going forward. If this passes, then it will be broken out as a separate line item to make sure that we are calculating Use & Occupancy Tax accurately for the school district based on the bandwidth.
Okay. And then a 2.4 million, is that -- COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: That is for a full fiscal year. So we intend, if passed, to implement this in January of '27, so for Fiscal Year '27 and it will be the 1.2 million. And then each fiscal year thereafter, 2.4.
Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Lozada.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question, I believe, is for the Fire Commissioner. I forgot to ask him while he was here. It is related to some of the work that we have been doing in the Kensington community as it relates to AR-2 and where we are when we're talking about overdoses, have they increased the work that they're doing? Have we seen a decrease in the need to have them in the footprint as a result of the work that we are doing together? Just trying to figure out where are we now. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for that question. I'm going to have Deputy Commissioner Martin McCall, who's our Deputy Commissioner of EMS, answer that question.
Thank you. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: Martin McCall, Deputy Commissioner of EMS, Philadelphia Fire Department. If I heard your question correctly, it's about around AR-2 and have we seen a decrease or increase in the amount of overdoses in the Kensington area. We have seen an increase in the percent of impact in which AR-2 has had in that area as far as outreach and getting people into assistance and responding to overdoses, but the call volume has pretty much been steady.
Okay. Last budget cycle we had questions and we also held a hearing around reporting on the number of overdoses, the number of individuals that we have to respond to on an emergency basis multiple times a day, what we call the frequent flyers type of an individual. Because as a community we believe that if we have to overturn an overdose on you multiple times, obviously you're in a crisis situation and we have to respond differently. I believe you testified that that was a number that you are collecting and that was an easy number to receive. We haven't received one report. And so, I'm just trying to figure out, number one, where's the report? And number two, my community knows these people very, very well. And so, as the supply changes, they tend to overdose more often. And so, my community is seeing some of these individuals often. So I'm trying to figure out do we not know what that number is? Are we not collecting that frequent flyer? Do we not know if the number actually went up or down? Where are we? And again, I'm not trying to -- this is not an I got you, right. I want us to be transparent and have an honest conversation. If you don't have the number, you got to get it back to me, I'm great with that. I'm okay with that. But I want us to look at the work that we're doing in the Kensington community, because I believe and my community also believes that there has been an impact in a positive way as it relates to the work as a whole, right. So I'm trying to figure out where are we as it relates to the numbers so that we can use data, because some people are data- driven, so we can use data to speak to what is actually happening. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: Right. As far as the number, to get the number is very difficult, one, because people we respond to often times we don't get the information, like to get a name and age and data or whatever the information is from the person, often times it's to treat or they get up and they go away before we can get the information from them because the priority is to treat. So we can't grasp the information to say, okay, have we seen this person this time or did we see this person yesterday or did we see this person the day before. That's where the obstacle is, is getting that information and getting it in. What we do have, we should have been producing and providing. It was my understanding that we were doing what we were able to capture. And I will check to find out where that is.
Okay. Please respond with the additional information after the break, if you're able to locate the numbers for Councilmember Lozada.
And then my last question is, I want us to have an off-the-floor conversation about that because I think that there's more to say about that. I'll have a different conversation with you directly. But then I also want to ask about as we approach the summer months and we approach people coming into our city, we know that it gets cold in the city of Philadelphia, we know it gets hot in the city of Philadelphia, are we preparing partners in our city to become cooling centers? Are we ready for that? Do we know where our cooling centers could potentially be? Because every year we struggle with individuals who have, you know, it's hot outside and we need to get them off the street and we need to figure out -- and I know this is not for PFD, it's MDO, but I want us to proactively be prepared for this.
Very quickly. Pardon the interruption. One minute for the response. Thank you.
Managing Director Adam Thiel. The short answer is yes. And as we've done, you've seen and you were part of the way we have been doing heat emergencies very differently with a lot more resources, a lot more people, a lot more access. We intend to do -- well, you know, extreme cold, that's our Cold Blue. We intend to do the same thing with extreme heat, so we are absolutely going to use that same template, and that's OEM, Public Health, DBHIDS, on and on and on, the Fire Department, PPD, everybody all in to provide that same level of access on really hot days as we've done on very cold days.
And I appreciate that. Yes, I have been very much involved in that, which is why I know that it has been challenging, because all of those entities that you just mentioned are not cooling centers that people would typically go to, right. We say, yes, the police department is a cooling center, yes, the fire department, you can go -- but people are not going to go there. We know that on the ground. We know what the realities are. And so, we have worked really hard to try to identify stakeholders in the community to become cooling centers. And one of the responses that I get from them often is, you can't tell me at the last minute that you need me to be a cooling center or that you want me to be a warming center, right. And so, there's a lot going on this year. I want us to make sure that we're responding to the needs of our city before we're responding to all the parties, right. I want us to make sure that we are ready to go on day 1 of that first heat wave and that people have safe places to come into. And so, can we work on making sure that we identify those stakeholders with enough time so that they are ready for us?
Councilmember, it's a really heavy lift. It's always going to be a very heavy lift. It's all in addition to everything else that those agencies do. And if you have a list of willing partners, please send it along and we'll make sure that we get that into the work stream.
Thank you. Thank you very much. This committee will now stand in recess until 1:15. We ask that everyone please return at 1:15. Thank you very much. (Lunch recess.)
All right. Good afternoon. This hearing will now come to order. We will now resume the Committee of the Whole with departmental callbacks. And then once we've concluded with departmental callbacks, we'll go to Community College of Philadelphia. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Thomas.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to start by talking to the Managing Director's Office. Good afternoon. The last time we spoke, I started our conversation by talking about my Keep It Local legislation. Keep It Local was a bill that we passed coming out of COVID. And the purpose of the legislation was to encourage and incentivize people to invest in Philadelphia. Our thought process was it's very difficult to ask others to invest in Philadelphia if Philadelphia isn't invested in Philadelphia. So over the last couple years, we've been able to see a significant increase as it relates to procurement opportunities, specifically for Philadelphia-based businesses. In our previous hearing, we asked MDO to explain why we've seen a significant drop in both contracts for Philadelphia-based businesses as well as Black and Brown-led businesses here in the city and you guys were not able to provide that information. So I'm hoping that we can revisit that conversation today. I would like to see where we are as it relates to the Keep It Local legislation and what is happening as it relates to procurement opportunities for Philadelphia-based businesses?
Councilmember, appreciate that and we did provide responses to those questions from the last hearing. Bottom line upfront, in FY26 so far we're at about 93% of our contract value went to local business enterprises. And in FY24 -- we've actually improved from '25 to '26. In '25 --
93% of total value of contracts in the MDO went to local business enterprises. And then in '25, that number was 88% so we've actually increased. And I will let Ron Hovey, our Procurement Director, talk about some of those things, and then we also have Nadir Jones here to talk about more of what -- to answer the second part of your question of what we're doing.
Yeah. I want to be clear, and I'm curious to hear about that, Managing Director, and I'll bring my documents to compare. But we're not just asking about just your department. We're saying procurement in general across city government. So the Managing Director's Office is part of that conversation and I'm glad to hear that your numbers are as well as they are. But we're really looking at the entire gamut as it relates to procurement opportunities. COMMISSIONER HOVEY: Sure. Ron Hovey, Procurement Commissioner. And thank you for the question. I don't have the 2026 numbers, as we're still processing those. But I do have '22 through '25. Managing Director's numbers were for his department only. Across the city, we have -- our goal was in 2022 46% and then each year was -- this was our target: 46, 46, 47, 56. And our actual awards were 53, 62. Then it went down to 54 in '24 and back up to 64 in '25. And we're on track to exceed the 64 for this year. But I don't have the full number because the year is not in yet. Now, there are two things that drive that. There are two different programs. There is a bid preference, we'll call it a discount, where when you're bidding, you get a credit. So if you're not the lowest, you get a percentage credit knocked off your price, which could move you from a lower ranking to a higher ranking in a bid. The other program is a set-aside program where you bid only to local businesses. And so, through the credit program we've seen that steady uptick. But from the complete set-aside program, we've seen very little usage. We've seen less than just a couple of tens of thousands in total. So we know two things, the credit program, the discount program is working in terms of driving local business usage. But the set-aside program as constructed today is not.
Okay. So I think where we need some clarity, and help me understand, because I know you had a conversation with me about some things as it relates to systems and things of that capacity. Why does it look like through M/W/DSB contracting or why does it appear that there's been significant declines as it relates to local procurement opportunities and local contracts? What is happening with the reporting of information whereas though it looks like there's been about $150 million less spent between the fiscal years as it relates to supporting these types of businesses? COMMISSIONER HOVEY: So you're talking two different things: local business and M/WBE stratification of the numbers. I'm going to let Nadir Jones address that because it's his department that tracks M/WBE and small businesses. But they're two different things. And I would say that the numbers for LBEs don't always capture the full M/WBE number, so in the current state there's probably an underreporting of that. But I'm going to let him finish the answer for me.
Good afternoon. Nadir Jones, Director, the Office of Business Impact and Economic Advancement. How are you doing, Councilmembers. So, yeah, we took a look at the year-over- year trends. What we're going to plan on doing is doing a gap analysis to see what those impediments are, why the M/WBE spend has gone down. It can be an accumulation of several things. It can be the overall city spend has maybe gone down or the lack of M/WBEs in a specific industry where we don't have that availability to lend itself to subcontracting opportunities. So we're going to perform a gap-wide analysis across all city departments to get that information to you asap.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. And you can understand why there's some confusion around some of this stuff. And I think it's important that we remain diligent as it relates to our work in local procurement. Madam Chair, I did hear the bell. I just want to for the record, Madam Chair, if it's okay, as the Chair of the Education Committee I'm not going to be able to sit through the entire CCP dialogue. I do want to commend our new President at CCP and thank her for her leadership as well as the entire team there. And I just want to ask CCP to make sure that in the midst of their testimony today that they are addressing some of the concerns that's been communicated as it relates to the union that represents CCP. So just wanted to put that on the record. MDO, thank you. I look forward to continued dialogue and hopefully take you up on the offer to meet to be able to have a deeper dive into this issue so I can better understand where we are, what we're doing. And hopefully, we can work collaboratively to figure out how do we continue to invest in businesses, because I think you all would agree that we have done a good job over the last couple of years as it relates to local procurement and procurement opportunities. I just don't want to see us deviate in a different direction, especially in this climate that we're in right now, with the affordability crisis that we're facing. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilmember Thomas. Colleagues, we are now in departmental callbacks and afterwards we will go into Community College of Philadelphia. For this round, we will have three minutes for callbacks. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Young.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Questions regarding the tax bill, then to L&I. So first question to L&I just really quick, we have the FIFA Fan Fest coming up around the Lemon Hill area. We know that this is a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity for Philadelphians to participate in this type of global economy. The Fan Fest is only allowing 10 vendors per session or something like that to participate within the Fan Fest area, 10 local vendors. What's L&I's position on or how can L&I work with some of our local vendors so they can participate in this once- in-a-lifetime economic opportunity without being overly penalized by L&I, because again people in our community, in our city, want to participate in this as well. COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: Hi. Bridget Collins- Greenwald, L&I Commissioner of Quality Of Life. So we don't determine who can vend in that area. That is actually done by Philly Soccer 2026 --
I know. That's outside the area, right, or around the area, right. Because they're going to be people who may be at the zoo or people who may be, you know, on the Parkway, right, who are vending and want to participate in again this once- in-a-lifetime opportunity where we're going to have thousands of people in our city, you know. COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: So you're asking if we can educate those folks; is that what you're asking?
I mean, I'm asking if L&I can -- how can I say this in a different -- in my colloquial language. If L&I cannot be drawn, right? Don't just go out here, like, just heavily enforcing on Philadelphians who are just trying to earn a living during this time? COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: I'm going to have to defer that one because we have -- we can only enforce what's in the code, so we really shouldn't turn a blind eye to people that are not legally doing what they're supposed to. However, we do have a very robust education program where we do educate small businesses all throughout the city, and that's what I would recommend, that any of these groups get in touch with. So you could see it on our website, L&I vending, here's how you apply, here's how you do it. I totally suggest that. But they have to go through that process.
Thank you. COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: You're welcome.
I appreciate that. Next question is for Mr. Dubow regarding tax bills, specifically on the delivery tax. This is something that I asked the Law Department. The legislation specifically states that the issues that are being caused are being caused by the delivery trucks. Why aren't we taxing DHL, FedEx, UPS, of the like to pay for this tax? Why are we putting this tax on the citizens rather than the billionaire companies?
The tax is trying to capture kind of the new activity, which is what we see from the delivery services. And that's why we proposed the tax the way we did.
One moment. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Young.
Thank you so much. Are we able to tax those companies rather than taxing the people?
Yes. COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: So the delivery tax will be levied per delivery to the people who are making purchases and having deliveries made inside Philadelphia. So 25% per delivery -- I'm sorry, $0.25, not percent.
Yeah, we know that. We know what the proposal is. But the question is, can we tax the delivery companies versus taxing the people?
So I think regardless of the way that tax is written, the delivery companies can make a choice about what they do with their pricing.
This is the same argument with the other tax, regardless of how it's written. If they do it in another way, then they're not following the law, right. Can we write the law in a way where we tax the companies?
So that we will have to talk with Law and get back to you on that structure. I'm not a lawyer and I don't want to give a legal answer to your question.
But you're the Finance Director, as an expert on tax policy, right, I would assume.
You're asking a specific legal question and we will get you an answer. But I don't want to answer something today that is not legally correct.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilmember Young. The Chair now recognizes Dr. Ahmad.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. Actually, the question is along the first part of my colleague's questioning around small pop-ups, and I have probably a question for L&I. Let me just wait until Bridget gets here. Good afternoon. This weekend I was up in the Northwest at something called Mt. Airy Day. There were like 100 vendors in this space. I spent money. My husband bought me a bag. There's a woman who was making purses with the caps off of the cans, the bottle tops, beautiful, beautifully done. She had many other wares. There were all kinds of -- I bought soap. I did walk around. These were mostly pop-ups, most of these businesses, and I was chatting with -- some were a little bit more established. Their biggest issue was how they can participate in the economy with not so much paperwork and not so many hoops to jump through. So I wanted to ask -- I mean, these can be incubators for bigger businesses, for established businesses so there's a real value in them. So I was wanting to know what your department and potentially Commerce together are thinking about how we create a space with less regulation for these smaller ones and can we, given our uniformity law and all of that, carve out spaces to attend to them in a different kind of way to support them? And what that process looks like now and what could it look like streamlined? COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: Okay. So Bridget Collins-Greenwald, L&I Commissioner of Quality Of Life. So currently, like I mentioned a few minutes ago, we do have a robust program with the Commerce Department. We call it BEE, Business Education Enforcement, very clever. So we do have that. We also have vendor -- we gather vendors together and do some education for just them. We haven't done it in a bit. We did it the last time before we had the lottery. We did the Center City lottery and we had vendors come in. We could certainly do that again. We can certainly work with Commerce and tailor it to smaller businesses. I agree with you. I go to those types of things all the time. It's not really that cumbersome to become a vendor, believe it or not. I think people might feel like it's a little cumbersome so they don't get involved in the process. But it's really you get your commercial activity license, which is free and fairly easy to get. And then we can walk you through, like here's step by step. We have all kinds -- you know our Good Housing Partners thing. We have all kinds of documentation like that, that takes you exactly through the process and we can certainly have those types of one-on -- not one-on-one, but like little seminar sessions, whatever you want to call them.
And so, one of the things that these small pop-ups is people don't necessarily, they come from elsewhere, right, they're not located right where they're selling their wares, so I just wanted to know -- you mentioned doing something in a location. How do we invite them to come and be part of our economy in a way that is welcoming and streamlined, as you just pointed out? COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: Yeah. We don't even have to do a location-based. We can put like a call-out, kind of like call to art, you know what I mean, where you get a call to art. We can do the same exact thing and say, hey, we're going to have these five sessions these certain nights of the week or whenever we're going to have it, different areas of the city, whoever wants to be involved. We can do virtual things. I mean, we are all in about the education because that's the better part of our job. The enforcement's the part, you know, I mean, you'd rather educate and have people wanting to do business in the city and feeling welcomed here, like you just said. So we're all in. We can absolutely do that.
We'll follow up with you to actually do a pilot project to do all across the city, inform people, amplify, have all my colleagues support us to make this happen and then really do some results. Like, once you give this information, is this still onerous or not and what are people doing. We would like to get some data as to how to improve that process, and most importantly, get that revenue. COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: Absolutely. Yeah, we can totally do a pilot and I'll hook up with Commerce, talk to Cameron and Saleem and that crew. And, yeah, we'll circle back and see what we can come up with.
Thank you for being so cooperative and let's work together. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you so much, Dr. Ahmad. The Chair now recognizes Dr. Phillips.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want the Water Department and L&I you can stay in place. Thank you so much. Really quickly, as you know we are moving forward on the implementation of the Non-Resident Landlord Accountability bill. The bill was structured to ensure that non-resident property owners provide accurate and verifiable contact information, in addition to designating a local agent. So the questions that I just have for you is I want to thank you for some of the updates you provided and I appreciate that, but we want to know can you please clarify how owner contact information will be captured within eCLIPSE, what steps will be taken to verify the accuracy of the owner's contact information and not just the agents, how that owner information will be utilized during enforcement actions, including notices of violation intent to revoke and other compliance measures? And then I also have to get this out. When a property has multiple unresolved violations -- this is different from the Non-Landlord bill. When a property has multiple unresolved violations, at what point does that trigger consideration for more serious enforcement like a sheriff's sale recommendation? Is there a defined threshold, for example, 40, 30, 60, how many violations do you have to take in order to trigger sheriff's sal or is this handled case-by- case? So that's four questions. Hope you all have them. And then for the Water Department I just want to ask, what structural changes would the Water Department be making in the next year to improve customer service communication and resolution 3 timelines? And also, what percentage of disruptions lasting more than 24 hours included proactive updates? And what type of updates were provided. Thank you. COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: Do you want me to go first and jump in? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: We spoke some time ago, Councilman. I got involved --
State your name for the record. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Oh, excuse me. Basil Merenda, Commissioner of L&I, Inspections, Safety, and Compliance. Excuse me. Councilmember, some time ago after we chatted I got involved in this legislation and I can report that, effective June 15th landlords will be required to submit agent information, including the name, address, phone number and email address directly into eCLIPSE as part of the rental license process. If the landlord does not enter that information, a rental license won't be issued. For context, previously that information was provided to L&I as an upload, which would not lend itself to verifiable information. Now, because it's a required field in eCLIPSE, we can verify through OPA and Revenue whether the agent's address is a legitimate Philadelphia address. And if it's not a legitimate Philadelphia address, for example, the license application will not be advanced at all and it will not be issued as part of the application process right off the bat. So that's the front end. Now, the back end is for the other enforcement. I can turn that over to Bridget.
Thank you. COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: Sure. So as part of our proactive rental inspection program, this is a big piece of that, that administrative -- I did mention at the last hearing, the administrative piece. To Basil's point, if you're going to put in an application for a rental license or renewal, you're going to get flagged if you do not put in this agency information. We can run reports off of that, and that will be one of the parts of the criteria for this PRIP program. So we'll be checking owner information, we'd be checking agent information if you live outside the city, along with the other things obviously that we'll be inspecting for. So it will be caught in that, you know what I mean -- it'll be caught up in that process.
The Water Department. I did ask another question, but we'll have to get that on --
Quickly for Water. COMMISSIONER JEWELL: Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for the questions. Ben Jewell, Commissioner for the Philadelphia Water Department. So I believe the first question was structural changes to improve customer service. So we are currently working through some review of our customer call center and staffing as it relates to both our call center, that is a shared responsibility of the Water Department and Water Revenue Bureau as well as our afterhours call center staffing through our emergency support services. I've had a few conversations, Councilmember Gilmore Richardson last year, and her staff brought to my attention some issues with our call center's responsiveness, particularly during the evening hours. Over the winter, we instituted a software tracking program to allow us to collect additional data for the folks that are working in our emergency support services. We're going to be reviewing that data, along with our call center data, and we've already started conversations about expanding hours, adding a second shift and seasonal search staffing, much like we do on the operations side, but on the customer contact, that leading edge, that first touchpoint we get with our customers to be available to take a call which is the most basic form of service, and then able to route those calls efficiently. The second question was --
Disruptions -- COMMISSIONER JEWELL: -- before I get to the second question, I just want to add one other thing, because, Councilmember Phillips, I think you were part of this process that we initiated with Better Services PHL. So we're also in the process of working with the Better Services group to map out some of our customer touchpoints in the field, both for planned and unplanned disruptions related to your second question. And that will include a review of all communications and an effort to identify places that we can step forward, and we've discussed some of those with your office in our meetings and we're looking forward to continuing those dialogues.
Thank you. I want to thank you for our now new relationship of communication. And I also want to thank Commissioner Basil and also Commissioner, Jesus -- not Commissioner Jesus, Bridget, Bridget Greenwald, Commissioner Bridget Greenwald.
We're going to pray for Dr. Phillips. Thank you so much, Dr. Phillips. Commissioner Greenwald received a little upgrade. Thank you. And thank you to our Commissioner, Commissioner Jewell from the Water Department for that process improvement relative to customer service with the Philadelphia Water Department. I did share with you that we were grateful and thankful for Michelle for being out with us last week in South Philadelphia at one of our senior centers, sharing information from the Water Department, and also Ms. Renee as well. But we're thankful for their continued work in partnership and for you always answering the call, but most particularly for that customer service process improvement that has taken place within your department. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Landau.
Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I want to announce my topics because you're going to do a little shuffle. I have a BIRT question and a Wellness Court question. I apologize that I couldn't be here this morning. I tried to listen to as much as I possibly could via my phone, so I believe these questions have not been asked yet. I'll start with BIRT. First, to Director Dubow. When we first talked about rescinding the exemption on the BIRT tax that assisted small businesses, I believe I asked you here on the record, and we are looking for this exact question and answer, how much you believed it would affect small businesses and you said, on average you thought it was approximately $750 per business. We've now heard from the businesses and they are being hit with 1500, 1800, over $2,000 bills and it's debilitating for them. I know that our colleague Mike Driscoll has introduced legislation that could ultimately help these small businesses and I am fully in support of that and really hope it gets to a hearing soon. But I wanted to know whether the reality of what you're hearing now is worse, harder and different than what you originally thought going in?
Yeah. I do want to start by saying, and I know I said this but I feel that each day every time, this is not something we wanted to do. We felt that we had no choice. I think the reality is there are a variety of impacts depending on companies' receipts and on their income. And so, what they'll pay wind up depending on kind of number of factors. We knew that there were going to be impacts, which is why we set up programs to try to help companies, both grant programs, new ones and expanding old ones and giving tax preparation help, and also treating businesses that hadn't paid for a few years like they're new businesses so that they could stage their payments, but we knew there would be impacts. We didn't want to do it. We tried to do as much as we could to ameliorate that.
Are the impacts that were being reported to the city worse than what was anticipated?
So I think for some companies they're less than we anticipated. Some companies they're worse.
Again, just so you know, hearing from small businesses, some of whom say they don't want to do it, but they might have to leave the city of Philadelphia. And I don't know if we calculated that cost into the cost of just taking a chance and seeing what the courts would ultimately say. I look forward to moving forward on Colleague Driscoll's bill and seeing if we can find a fix.
And in the worst case, that cost could have been hundreds of millions of dollars, so we really did not think that was a risk worth taking. But I understand your question.
Thank you. Then for Managing Director Thiel, I have a couple of quickies for the Wellness Court. If you didn't review them already this morning or even if you did, sorry, looking for somebody with some more specific outcomes from the Wellness Court, whether or not people have found permanent housing, if they've been placed, whether they've gotten full-time employment and also some of the negative outcomes that have happened from stories that we've heard on the inside? Have there been overdoses on the inside and have there been any deaths?
Councilmember, Adam Thiel, Managing Director. Appreciate the questions. The Wellness Court is within the Office of Public Safety, which is not within the MDO. Have texted Director Geer and I think we got all those questions. Our colleagues from Finance got all those questions and we can have them respond to those in writing.
You can't answer the question if there's been any overdoses or even sadly, tragically any --
No, ma'am. OPS is a separate entity and is not managed in the MDO, so I don't have visibility on that or have the data. However, we've alerted the Office of Public Safety and Director Geer, and I know they'll be able to respond to those questions.
Pardon me, one moment. If possible, will we be able to receive that answer during this hearing? This is our last callback which is why we're requesting it.
Madam Chair, I have done what I can do. My expectation is probably that they're watching and hopefully we can do that. It's not within my purview.
Sure. It's the last callback. And so, if we're able to receive a response from the Office of Public Safety. Is someone here from the Mayor's Office who can contact the Office of Public Safety? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.
Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. It is our last callback so I think we need to get it all in today. Thanks a lot. It's greatly appreciated. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Harrity.
Thank you, Leader. My questions are for -- well, in regards to the taxes, regarding the retail tax, retail delivery tax. DoorDash cites Colorado experience with a similar delivery tax, 12.2 million in lost small business sales, 17.1 million in total economic loss and 367 jobs eliminated. Has the Administration modeled similar impacts for Philadelphia before projecting revenue from this tax? And according to DoorDash, in 2025 approximately 70% of deliveries DoorDash facilitated in Philadelphia were to customers residing in low-income communities, as defined by the American Community Survey. What do you say to these customers who will disproportionately be affected by this tax?
So to answer your second question first, because that's the one I remember, when we look at the national survey data, what we see is the number of orders goes up with income, so that it would not -- the tax would not disproportionately affect lower- income payers, but higher-income payers who order many more, many more packages and we can get that information to you. We also have exempted a number of items to try to make sure that things like baby products, medicine, food are not subject to the tax, to make sure that those items don't have an extra cost.
So you're saying that while everyone else is saying that Philadelphia is an outlier. And just like the Uber and Lyft, 58% of that comes to and from low-income neighborhoods. And now, you're saying for DoorDash even though the numbers say that 70% of the orders or the deliveries are coming to low-income areas, they're not going to low-income areas?
That is not -- like I said, we'll share the survey data we have with you. But the survey data that we have shows that as income goes up, orders go up. And we can definitely get you that.
National Household Survey. Okay. And so, how about the first part of the question with the loss of sales and the economic losses, especially the 367 jobs that Colorado experienced?
Yeah. We'd like to see that analysis. We haven't seen that analysis. When we had meetings with delivery companies, we asked them for any data. So if they have that, it would be great to see.
They sent it to all of us so that's, you know. All right. I guess I'm good. I heard the bell. I'll stay with that. All right. Thank you, Leader.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Member Harrity. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon to all of you. My questions are for L&I.
In the course of our day-to-day work, my office has stepped in many times to walk small prospective developers and landlords through the eCLIPSE process, because they usually report being dismissed when they try to show up in person for help at MSB and because the system itself is not very accessible for someone entering development for the very first time. Your FY27 budget includes funding for enhanced eCLIPSE reporting, and ISC's goals in particular mention a residential permitting modernization project. But neither of these addresses the frontline customer service problem for people kind of just getting into development and their interactions with eCLIPSE. And so, will the department commit to retraining staff specifically on how to assist first-time users through eCLIPSE in person? And will you commit to hosting a usability session or a focus group with small developers, first-time landlords and residents before the modernization project is finalized? We would love to participate in something like this because we see a great need for it. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Sure. We -- I almost forgot again. Basil Merenda, Commissioner of L&I, Inspections, Safety and Compliance. Absolutely, Councilmember. We can certainly work with you to set those educational processes up. It's all part of Mayor Parker's making city government you could see, touch and feel. So that is exactly what we were more willing to do. In the meantime, we have this chat feature that could help new landlords or landlords that are not computer savvy to work through that and get direct information. Also, we have Lisa Adams who's our City Council liaison, who is very accessible --
She's amazing. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: -- and then if all else fails, you can contact me.
Okay. Thank you for your willingness. And so, do you have the resources in your budget to do more inperson assistance and to set up these types of trainings as more than a one-time thing as kind of an offering for folks who are trying to interface with this system on a regular basis? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: I would just ask that you could give us a little time to do a little digging to see exactly what we have and what we can do. I'd appreciate that.
Okay. We would love to follow up with you about this and to participate. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Sure.
My next questions are about inspections and violation tracking. When a violation is issued, the property owner gets 30 days to correct it. After that, my office and constituents really have no way of knowing whether a follow-up inspection has occurred, whether fines have escalated or where the case stands, unless we call. So the question is, is there a way to add an update to the initial violation notice showing the most recent inspection date, the current compliance status and any updated deadlines or fine amounts? And what would it take to build that into Atlas? And is that something that the department would commit to exploring? So this is just about helping us to be more up-to-date about violations as we're trying to help our residents with quality-of-life concerns. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Is that in the context of a property maintenance issue whereabouts a violations issue because the property is not being maintained as opposed to construction? Then it's --
I mean maybe -- I think we're mostly talking about the former but maybe globally. COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: You want to know violations, how people can see updates, right --
Yes. COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: -- where it stands? So in our Atlas system, as you said, when you go out on an initial inspection, it'll show up in the system and then you can pull the actual violations up. Now, you're probably familiar with that, right. The actual violations come up now, so the updated violations come up now as well. So you do have to go into Atlas to see it, but it is seeable.
I have to profess that I am not the one generally checking Atlas, so this comes from my staff. I would love to follow up with you just about what they're seeing on their side and getting and making sure that we have the most up-to-date information in a way that will help us to better inform our constituents. COMMISSIONER COLLINS- GREENWALD: Sure. Atlas is a great tool. It really is. It has excellent information, very up-to- date. It's processed right there, so you definitely will see the latest violations, what they are and that actually you can see the violation notices itself with all the dates on them.
Okay. Look forward to talking more. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much, Councilmember Gaudier. And I wanted to concur relative to Lisa Adams. She has been stellar, has gone above and beyond the call of duty, including calling constituents while she has been on vacation, on the weekends, which I do not recommend. She has been awesome and amazing. So thank you, Lisa Adams, for working with Beth on my team on the variety of constituent cases that we receive in our office. And I wanted to mention relative to Atlas I was just on Atlas this morning around 6 o'clock. And what I do like the new feature wherein you could see some of the 311 complaints that have come in, in that area, so it's not just particular violations on that home, but also some of the 311 calls that we receive in that local community. I do like that new feature on Atlas. So please follow up with Councilmember Gauthier's office and her team. I wanted to quickly go back to the Managing Director's Office relative to the question around the warehouse. And I did receive this question when I was out in the community relative to the tax bills. Will nonprofits -- and I'll use a church as an example -- that lease out roof space to cell phone or cell providers now have to collect and remit U&O tax? And then if you all could just explain how the cell towers will be assessed?
Madam Chair, Adam Thiel, Managing Director. I'll take the first question. And again, just to reiterate we apologize. We missed that in our tracking. You did ask that well before this hearing, so thank you for that. And this is around the million dollar cost, that essentially is a contingency for 2026 operations, especially the peak period. We could potentially have need for additional space that's not available. For instance, if we did -- and I'll knock wood here, if we did have something happen, if we were to have to stand up a joint operations center or joint information center with a host of partners, those end up being huge operations as well as for the -- so it's characterized as warehousing space. It's essentially space where we can set up whatever we need and it is a contingency or if we do have to bring in commodities on short notice because we overperform our already high expectations for the company that's coming during that period of time, so it's a contingency. What we will absolutely commit to is if we don't need it and we don't use it, then we will let you know that.
Okay. I appreciate that response. I think we'll need to follow up on that because I was trying to look through the detail, the budget detail, to track the 1 million. And I'm not sure whether it's related to DPP, other contracting that's already shown in the detail under DPP that's around almost 800,000 or so. With that said, it was relative to Riverview. So I'm not sure if this is just an extra contract or in addition to that or does that mirror or match in some kind of way?
It's contingency space. It could be for a lot of different things. The main reason is potentially around 2026.
-- I follow up with the detail that I'm specifically referring to so that we can ensure we're on the same page. And then the question relative to U&O. COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: Good afternoon. Kathleen McColgan, Revenue Commissioner. I appreciate the question. Councilmember Phillips asked -- I'm sorry. Councilmember Driscoll asked a similar question earlier and there's something that I wanted to clarify in my response. So what I said was that nonprofits would be responsible, but actually the owner of a property is responsible for making sure that the use and occupancy from the tenant is collected and remitted. So, for example, there's a telecommunication agency that's renting or leasing the space with the cell tower. They are actually the one that's charged for --
Okay. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER McCALL: -- use and occupancy, so it's the property owner's responsibility, whether it's a nonprofit or not, to make sure that they're remitting either on the tenant's behalf or that they set up an account on behalf of the tenant so that we can hold the tenant responsible.
So as an example, if I'm said church, we lease space to this communication agency, we would then have to set up a separate account for them to remit the tax in order for it to be collected? COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: Yes. So the typical model would be that the church would have a Use & Occupancy Tax account in which they remit the tax on behalf of the tenant, but alternatively they can have a tenant account set up for the telecommunications company.
Okay. COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: And then we would hold the telecommunication company responsible.
Received. So they can also set up a tenant account wherein they have to do it directly with the city? COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: That's right, yes.
And then how will they be assessed? COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: So right now when we receive the assessed value of a cell tower right now in the complete property assessed value from OPA, but we would work with OPA to ensure that we get the value of the cell tower broken out as a separate line item so that we can tax that based on the actual assessed value of that cell tower, rather than square footage of the entire property.
Received, because it could be a larger location as an example. All right. I will submit the balance of my questions in writing. So thank you. Thank you very much. I do want to get this one on the record. We were in South Philadelphia, I mentioned, relative to the Water Department and I had a constituent come up to me, a senior from South Philly, who stated that she is receiving her monthly payment coupons for property tax three days prior to the bill being due. So she's on a monthly payment plan for her property taxes. She received the coupon three days before each month. So at the point that she remits the payment, it's always late and there was a lien placed on her property as a result. She pays every month. She said it was $220. She pays every month. But because of the timing of when she receives the coupon, she's not able to remit until that time. And so, now she has accumulated late fees and she said at one point a lien. So I wanted to put that on the record, not for response because I did send her case directly to your team who was already on site, but it's an issue that my Constituent Services Director has said has come up multiple times throughout this particular year. So I don't know if it's been a change in vendor or if the process has changed with the monthly coupons being mailed out or if it's just a mail issue, but I think that's something that we need to look into because she was a senior. She said, I can't come downtown but I really need help with this issue. COMMISSIONER McCOLGAN: Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that to our attention. We are investigating that. There hasn't been a change in vendor, but that was the first that I had heard that complaint. And of course, we want to make sure that we get those coupons out timely. So we're in the middle of investigating that.
Okay. That'll be great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any additional questions for these witnesses or for the departmental callbacks? (No response.)
Okay. And then is our Public Safety Director, Director Geer, able to join us?
Okay. He'll be our last witness for the departmental callbacks. And then, colleagues, you all can get into the queue for Community College of Philadelphia. I'll recognize Councilmember Landau first for questions for Director Geer, and then you all can get into the queue for CCP. Thank you. And as a reminder, we do have a town hall this evening. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Thank you so much, Director Geer. We certainly appreciate your availability for this departmental callback hearing. Councilmember Landau had a question for your team. And so, again we thank you for your availability and for coming over today. We certainly appreciate you very much. Chair now recognizes Councilmember Landau.
Yes. Thank you, Director Geer. I know you didn't expect to be here. Appreciate you so very much. I had asked Managing Director Thiel a little bit more about the Riverview Wellness Village and I wanted to know more about the outcomes of the residents there, whether or not we can quantify how many people have been moved into permanent housing, how many people have received full- time employment and also, some of the negative outcomes like unfortunately, how many overdoses have occurred inside the Village and also whether or not there's been, very sadly, any deaths there?
Thank you, Councilmember Majority Leader. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, esteemed Councilmembers. I was able to bring the numbers that we have. Some of this we have shared before and I'm hoping that this will suffice for today. If not, we will certainly circle back with those numbers.
Madam Chair, Councilmember Adam Thiel, Managing Director. Councilmember, I apologize. When we heard your question the first time, it was around the Wellness Court and that is Office of Public Safety. Now that you've asked the questions, it was about Riverview. Riverview and the Wellness Court are not the same. And so, I want to --
-- apologize to you and colleagues for that. The good news is we have all the right people here to answer any questions you might have about that continuum of care. And I'm going to give up my seat for Deputy Managing Director Crystal YatesGale and let Director Geer --
Managing Director Thiel, I appreciate that. I've been working a lot with other things with the courts and I may have accidentally said court instead of village. Apologies.
Good afternoon, Councilmember. Crystal Yates-Gale, Deputy Managing Director of Health and Human Services. So the good news is nobody has died of an overdose at Riverview Wellness Village. Unfortunately, we did have a death, not overdose-related. You know from doing work in the population that it's a fragile population. So we did have a death. It was cardiac-related from a previous cardiac history. As far as the number of overdoses, the number of overdoses that have been reported to me are, you know, I'm always trying to be mindful of people's privacy, but they are less than 11 in the time that we've been open there and they've all been successfully reversed. The number of people with employment, we don't track some of the employment that people get on their own, but proud and happy to report -- I hope Director Isabel McDevitt is watching -- the food service provider onsite has hired 10 people full-time. Some of those people have started to be connected to permanent housing and will maintain their employment when they move. We've also connected people to other employment and then some of the residents have gotten employment on their own. I forgot the last question.
Permanent housing. I don't have the exact number, but we have used a significant number of our wellness vouchers, not as many as we'd like to. I don't want to guess, but we have been issuing wellness vouchers to residents there, so there has been people that have gone through the whole continuum.
Great. Can you get us some more concrete numbers? I appreciate so much the work that you've done --
Sure. It would be easier to give privately and we'll send it in an email to Council President's office.
Thank you. So do we need Director Geer, Councilmember Landau?
Okay. Well, thank you, Director Geer. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. Are there any additional questions for this departmental callback? (No response.)
Okay. Seeing none, we will now proceed with our presentation from the Community College of Philadelphia. We'd like to welcome Dr. Alycia Marshall, our President, and also Jacob Eapin, Vice President for Business and Finance. And as they are approaching the witness table, we'd like to thank again Dr. Alycia Marshall, Danielle Watkins, your Chief of Staff; Erica Harrison, thank you, Erica Harrison from Community Relations for all of your help in coordinating all of our events. And then also to Malika Rahman, CCP Criminal Justice Department, for coordinating interns specifically in my office. And I wanted to mention Rainah Chambliss, who works at CCP. She shared with us this week in a very special moment from the CCP graduation, and also all of the union members who are here from Community College of Philadelphia. I see Marissa and others. We thank you and we appreciate you all for being here as well. So please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dr. Alycia Marshall. I am the President at the Community College of Philadelphia. I'm joined here today by our Associate Vice- President for Budgets and Business Services, Derrick Sawyer. First of all, I want to say thank you to the entire City Council for your support, your investment in the city's college, and many of you have been to our locations and have supported our events and express support for us and our students and our programming. So I want to start off by saying sincerely, thank you to all of you. What I'm about to share are some of the highlights and success stories of what's been happening in realtime at the city's college. And I want to underscore that all of those successes, most of them are a testament to your support and your investment in our college. The first picture here I want to point out is Donvale Wilson. He is a valedictorian and the graduate of our inaugural naval welding program at our Career and Advanced Technology Center in West Philadelphia. And I want to sincerely thank Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson for being there and speaking at that event. It was a wonderful event, but this is an example of success. Donvale was a career changer, he was a barber, and in four and a half months he graduated from our naval welding program and is actually working at Hanwha now. So we want to talk about how the Community College of Philadelphia is really an economic engine of mobility and creates pathways for success and upward mobility in the city.
And his speech was fantastic, by the way.
Yes. Just to give you a glance at our institution, particularly at this moment in time as we celebrate 60 years this year at the Community College of Philadelphia, 60 years of transforming lives of almost 800,000 students, I want to quantify that for you. We are the highest-enrolled community college in the Commonwealth, out of all 5 community colleges. 6 We service 21,000 7 students, credit and noncredit. 8 About 18,000 of those students are 9 in our credit programs. We have 10 almost 4000 students in our 11 noncredit programs and we really 12 are representing the entire city. 13 We are a minority-serving 14 institutions. 67% of our students 15 identify as being a student of color or minority student. And we also have 1700 students, closer to 2000 depending on the year, partaking in dual enrollment opportunities, so about 10% of our credit population. And our dual enrollment students, those are students who are in high school and at the same time taking college courses with us. I want to underscore since we're coming off of graduation, last Saturday we were pleased to graduate 1968 students at our graduation. (Applause.)
And 122 of those students actually were also in high school, so they are receiving their Associate's Degree before they get their high school diploma. So, yes, that speaks to impact and really exposing students to college early on. I have to share and brag on my institution and my faculty and staff. This year we were pleased to be nationally recognized in many ways and I'll mention a few of those. In February, we became the only community college in Pennsylvania to receive the 2026 Community Engagement Classification from the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This prestigious classification recognizes colleges and universities that demonstrate institutionalized, reciprocal and measurable community engagement, which is the standard that CCP has met through decades of intentional partnership-driven work. We also received the '25-'26 Military Friendly School Silver designation from Victory, celebrating our holistic support of our veteran students through our Veterans Resource Center. And last May, we celebrated not one, but two Jack Kent Cooke scholars from our graduating class. The Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship is a very prestigious scholarship awarded for students that are high-achieving, and it allows them the opportunity to receive $55,000 annually for up to three years towards pursuit of their Bachelor's Degree. This year we have five semifinalists. We're still waiting to hear, but we hope that we will have a scholar for this year as well, maybe two. Lastly, I want to highlight our civic engagement work as well. We did receive a voter- friendly campus designation through a partnership between Fair Election Center's Campus Vote Project and NASA's Lead Initiative. And in 2026, All In Action Plan seal from the All In Campus Democracy Challenge for developing a nonpartisan democratic engagement action plan under our #CCPVotes programming. Before I move on to the next slide, I just want to thank the entire faculty and staff because without them, all of these awards and recognition is really part of their efforts. I want to thank them for that. I want to talk a little bit about CCP as an engine of economic mobility. A few months ago, we worked with eConsult to create an economic impact report. As a result of that report, we found that the Community College of Philadelphia is generating $1 billion worth of annual economic activity in the city, not just in the city, but in the Commonwealth. $882 million of that are actually in the City of Philadelphia and Philadelphia's economy. This includes $30 million of local and state tax revenues. I also want to underscore something that you all probably know. 98% of our students who graduate from the Community College of Philadelphia remain here in the city of Philadelphia. So in addition to our economic activity that we're generating just by being here, just by operating. We also have graduates that are spending and staying here and that contributes to the city's economy as well. I want to underscore our footprint. We hire and we support 1600 employees. We have 327 full- time faculty and 708 part-time, along with 300 administrators and a range of classified and support staff. Next slide. Economic impact goes beyond just a spend, just a footprint. I want to talk about individual impact. 90 If you think about taxpayers' input, they are doubling. For every $1 that a taxpayer pays, they are receiving $2 on their investment when we talk a little bit about return on investment for the city's college. Next slide. I think that some of the efforts that we move towards and that we're trying to build on, expand, are our transfer partnerships and pathways. We have students that are working towards Bachelor's Degree attainment. And if you think about economic mobility, I want to underscore savings for starting with the Community College of Philadelphia.
So in addition to increasing your earning potential, as we know a Bachelor's Degree recipient is going to make $30,000 more annually than a high school diploma. I'm looking here and sharing with you what is the benefit in terms of savings and how much they're going to pay for that Bachelor's Degree. If a student starts with us, for example, at Temple University, which is one of our top transfer institutions, they are saving $50,000 over the course of earning that Bachelor's Degree. Our second top transfer institution is Drexel University, and we are looking at a savings of $142,000 over the journey towards that Bachelor's Degree attainment. Community College of Philadelphia has transfer and articulation agreements with all these institutions that are listed here. We are building and expanding that and we're also launching our Cheyney at CCP program this fall. It is an opportunity to bring access to Bachelor's Degree attainment right on CCP campus. We know that many of our students have transportation issues, so being able to actually bring the classes towards the Bachelor's Degree from Cheyney University to the city of Philadelphia is really going to be a great opportunity for our students, and we are launching that pathway in the fall with business and education as the two areas of degree pathway. Next slide. I mentioned that CCP is the highest enrolled community college in the Commonwealth. So I wanted to underscore that for you and show you those bars are CCP in terms of our credit enrollment. But you can see there that we are surpassing our sister colleges within the Commonwealth. That is the orange line underneath that. And then the top line represents enrollment nationally at community colleges. So we are also inching towards getting to that national average for our enrollment as well. This underscores the fact that CCP is the first choice for many in the city of Philadelphia. So we're excited about our growth and we are anticipating continued growth. Right now we are 5% up year-over- year for our enrollment, and we anticipate that growth to continue. It's not just about bringing students into the college. We are increasing enrollment, but I want to underscore that we are also producing graduates, and our graduation rate has gone up by 8% since 2022 when I joined the college. And part of this is based on the support and the high-quality teaching, innovative teaching and the support services that we wrap around our students that contribute to increased graduation rates. So it's not just about bringing more students and giving them access to education. It's providing opportunities for success, and that's indicated here. We anticipate our graduation rates to continue to climb. I want to talk a little bit about our Career and Advanced Technology Center. Many of you have been there. It's located in West Philadelphia. I know Councilmember Gauthier has been there. We thank you for your support there. This is really a state- of-the-art building. If you haven't seen it, 2022 was when we opened that building. But this is where we do a lot of our short-term training programs, as I mentioned the Naval Welding Program. But we also have a very strong automotive technology program. I want to highlight the Toyota T-Ten program, because that's an opportunity for students to earn and learn, so they're actually working in the dealerships while they're earning their Associate's Degree, and we consider that an opportunity for experiential learning and work- based learning, which we're trying to expand through our programs. We want to prepare students for careers, so that is what we're trying to do. I want to mention, as we go to the next slide, the maritime industry and how CCP is really becoming a player in that space. S. Navy to build out and start up two new programs, naval welding and nondestructive testing. We graduated our first cohort, and you saw the picture of Donvale on my first slide, of students in 5 March.
We were pleased to have 6 Councilmember Gilmore Richardson 7 there as well as Mayor Parker. 8 And we cut the ribbon on 9 our new Naval Welding Lab that 10 really trains students to work on 11 ship building, right, specific to 12 Navy specification. That is at our 13 Career and Advanced Technology 14 Center. We're excited about that 15 opportunity. And I want to 16 underscore that we are continuing 17 to build and expand programs that 18 align with high-priority 19 occupations, such as naval welding. 20 We are also building on our 21 Industrial Maintenance Program, CNC 22 programs, NDT. All of this is going to be part of preparing students for not just jobs but careers. And I want to highlight one piece, the nondestructive testing program. Four and a half months of training at this location students graduate and they can start earning $77,000 a year. This is truly lifechanging, not just individuals, but families and the community and City of Philadelphia. So we're pleased to continue to provide this type of high-quality training. I want to thank Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad for being with us for the ribbon- cutting ceremony for our Healthcare Simulation Lab in February. This is a state-of-the-art facility at our main campus location, where we were able to provide high-quality facilities imitating the hospital setting. We have state-of-the-art real-life mannequins who have bodily fluids, they are real-life mannequins, but they allow the opportunity for our students to practice and learn in a simulated setting, and they can do this on almost humans, not real humans, which I would prefer and I think you do too. Great opportunity for our students. It was a result of a Perkins grant, so we did receive funding to build this out, a federal-funded grant through the state. And we are offering support for our nursing program through this, but we're also moving towards interdisciplinary support throughout our health care programs. I want to take a minute to basically celebrate our 122 nursing graduates that graduated with us this week as well. )
Last week we had our pinning ceremony for them. And I want to highlight that our nursing program is identified as a Center of Excellence by the National League for Nursing. They also have 100% pass rate on the NCLEX exam, so we are very proud of our nursing program. I want to make sure that I share that nursing is not the only health care program we have. We also have respiratory care technology. It's similarly best in class like our nursing program. We have health service management, public health, diagnostic medical imaging, behavioral health and human services in addition to our shorter-term noncredit pathways, such as clinical medical assisting, pharmacy technician and nurse aid. What we are doing is building noncredit to credit pathways through a lot of this programming so students can start in one program. They can get work and then they can transition to another as well. I want to underscore our partnership with the city and providing programming to support careers and to really connect city residents with increased living wages. The City College for Municipal Employment has had over 400 participants in that program to date through our partnership with the city. 80 have completed, those that are in the traditional and upskilling programs. We also have a total of 200 completions with the partnership through the City College for Municipal Employment. That includes our high school as well as our civic entrepreneurship programs. We are pleased to continue to build up programming in response to city needs and regional needs, and we are looking forward to expanding and growing through the City College for Municipal Employment. I mentioned our 122 dual enrollment graduates this past Saturday. 10% of our CCP student population are dually-enrolled. Part of our efforts moving forward is to expand that. What we recognize and acknowledge is that we're not in all areas of the city as we could be, and that there are opportunities that we want to connect young people to in terms of early college and we want to be strategic and do that in a way that touches all areas of the city. So working with the School District of Philadelphia, we are pleased to expand our dual enrollment starting this summer. We are expanding our ACE program. Our ACE program allows students as early as 9th grade to take advantage of college classes on our campus and be in a class all by themselves, so we work with the school district to identify which schools will benefit from this on the first pass and we're excited to launch this, this summer. I also need to mention the Octavius Catto Scholarship Program. Many of you are familiar with that. Thank you for the city's investment for the Catto Scholars Program, last (inaudible) scholarship. To date, the Catto Scholarship Program has serviced over 4000 low-income residents of the city of Philadelphia. We service 2000 students annually through the Catto Scholarship Program. And as you may know, because of the additional wraparound student support services, our Catto students are graduating at almost double the rate of our traditional student population. So that is thankful to your investment from the city for the Catto Scholarship Program, which we want to continue to emphasize and support. All right. So the Community College of Philadelphia is also part of the solution. We want to work to being part of the solution to addressing the teacher shortage. So I want to highlight a few of our programs that are geared towards this. With support and working directly with the Mayor's Office of Education, we are working on the fellow Catto Teacher Scholars program. That allows Catto graduates to transfer seamlessly through those institutions that you see listed there, Holy Family, LaSalle, Temple and Arcadia, as long as they're interested in pursuing a career in education, so we want to create that pathway.
As I mentioned, our Catto graduates are always high- achieving students, so this is a wonderful pathway for them as well as a way to get them interested in education and teaching. I mentioned the Cheyney at CCP. We're looking to launch that with 30 participants in the fall. That will also be an education pathway. We are launching two pathways in the fall, education and business, but the education pathway will obviously help prepare students. They will go seamlessly to Cheyney University and earn their Bachelor's Degree and pursue education and teaching as a career. And then lastly, I'll mention the para pathway. That is a collaboration with the School District of Philadelphia. Paraprofessionals, we're training them. They are completing their Associate's Degree with us so they can go on and possibly become a teacher. We see this as a critical need for the city as well as the region, and we want to continue to support teacher education. So we're almost at the end. So I just want to underscore some of the points that I made. The Community College of Philadelphia is really an economic engine of mobility for the city, and we can't do that without your support so we appreciate that. Also wanted to just underscore the importance and the impact that we are making in realtime as we are increasing our number of graduates, our graduation rate as well as expanding our programming to align with regional and city workforce needs. And I want to just end on how CCP has been impacting over 750,000 lives for over 60 years as we come into our 60th year. We want to do this into the future. We are growing and we are creating opportunities for upward mobility. And I want to have an end point. I have a student here that I think is the best representation. I can tell you how great Community College of Philadelphia is, but the best representation of that is one of our recent graduates. So I have Daniel Emden, who is here with us today. )
He graduated on Saturday. Daniel is also our Student Government Association President. He is also our student board member. He was with me yesterday in Harrisburg representing Community College of Philadelphia and helping us advocate for more money on the state level. And I want to let him have the opportunity to talk about his experience at CCP.
All right. Thank you for the introduction, Dr. Marshall. Good afternoon, Council President Johnson, esteemed Councilmembers, CCP family and honored guests. My name is Daniel Emden. I am a proud CCP graduate, Class of 2026 as of past Saturday and I also had the honor of serving as the Student Body President for the 2025-2026 academic school year. Now, not too long ago I didn't believe higher education was for me. Like many students in the city of Philadelphia, I saw college as something that was out of reach, too expensive, too uncertain and simply not built for people like me. That changed when my older brother learned about the Octavius Catto Scholarship and encouraged us to apply. That opportunity didn't only make college affordable. It made it possible for my family. CCP was more than a school. It was home. My brother attended first. He graduated debt- free and is now finishing up his Bachelor's at Holy Family University on the verge of applying to medical school to become a doctor. I then attended and graduated recently. And today my mother is also continuing that journey as a Catto Scholar. When I arrived at CCP, I originally intended to become a scientist, but through the mentorship opportunities and support that I found there at CCP, my vision expanded. I began to see a path as a physician policymaker, where I hope to continue to be of service to my community, being able to serve individual patients as well as shape systems for marginalized communities. Serving as Student Body President was a defining part of that journey. It gave me the responsibility to advocate for my peers and to understand the real challenges students face every single day, from affordability to access to opportunity. In fact, yesterday I had the opportunity to be in Harrisburg, where I spent the entire day speaking with state representatives, senators and legislative leaders, simply sharing my experience as a CCP student. I was especially grateful for the time and support shown by Representative Jordan Harris, Senator Vincent Hughes and Speaker Joanna McClinton. Their willingness to listen reinforced something powerful, that student voices matter and that leadership at every level is invested in our success here in the city. CCP paved the way with more than access. It gave me a direction and a platform. Because of that foundation, I was one of the five semi-finalists for the Jack Kent Cook Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, which as you all know is one of the most competitive scholarships in the nation, and that allows me to attend any four-year institution debt-free. I was also accepted into several top universities, including Rice University, which also offered me a full Rice scholarship to continue my education at the four- year level. (Applause.)
None of that started at an elite institution. It started right here at the Community College of Philadelphia. That is the impact of CCP. It takes students who may not yet see a future for themselves and equips them with the tools, confidence and support to succeed at the highest levels. I stand here not just for myself, but for the thousands of students I had the privilege to represent, students with the same potential who simply need the same opportunity. Your support makes that possible. It is not simply funding an institution. It is investing in people and families like mine and in the future of Philadelphia. I am a direct result of that investment and I hope you will continue to support CCP so that many more students can follow this path. Thank you for your time and your commitment. (Applause.)
Great job, young man. Continue to keep up the good work, Mr. President. At this time, we're going to get ready to prepare for questions from members of the committee. I just want to take a moment to thank Dr. Marshall for laying out your vision. It's great seeing you go from interim to actually now being the person who is charting the Community College into the next level. And so, great presentation. And I'm going to also thank Derrick Sawyer, who most of us worked with his dad, former Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer, and so always good to see you doing the good work as well. He's also part of that D9 fraternities, you know, sororities and all that good stuff, supporting our young people. Just a couple questions, Dr. Marshall. I know last year that the Board raised tuition by 9.4%, which will be implemented in the fall of 2026. And so, give us an idea of -- actually as we deal with the issue of affordability, right, the rent's too high, we're addressing issues around childcare, transportation, right. We want to also encourage and invest in our young people to get a quality education. So give us an idea regarding the strategies and analysis of the impact that you thought the tuition may have on the student body, but also the strategies to kind of mitigate it as much as possible? And then also I would like to get an idea of the amount of funding that comes from the state and also the amount of funding that comes from private donors and philanthropy?
So the most impact that we expect to have is on students that really aren't taking advantage of financial aid and scholarships and those things. So majority of our students, 75% of our students, have some type of financial-need situation in terms of homelessness, housing insecurity or food insecurity. And so, we're hoping that it's not going to really impact them as much. This is the first time the college has raised tuition in nine years. We are the highest- enrolled community college in the Commonwealth. And even though we are the highest-enrolled community college in the Commonwealth, we do not get the highest allocation from the state for our budget. If you add on top of that, what is our student demographic, and as I mentioned 75% of our students have some type of need, right. We also have to service that need. So our demographic is more vulnerable, and that requires us to provide more wraparound support services, particularly if you look at other institutions that we're being supported through the Consortium, the Community College, all of the other are peer institutions in the Commonwealth. So I feel like we're in a unique position. We did not want to raise tuition obviously. But at the same time, as expenses are going up, as enrollment is going up, we had to do something. We're drawing down our reserves. So this was what we decided on. It is a $15 per credit-hour increase. We're also working with our fundraising and our foundation to increase that. The private donors, the scholarships are a significant aspect of that, and a lot of that comes through our private funding. So we're hoping to mitigate some of that as we support them in other ways. But I'll ask Derrick to talk a little bit of specifics about the numbers in the state. We were in Harrisburg yesterday, so we are working on the state piece of it because that is a big part.
Thank you, Council President, Dr. Marshall. So from the state, we are currently receiving around $36 million from the state -
Do you know how much Montgomery County Community College receives?
Yes, I do. Montgomery County Community College receives 22.7 million from the state for operating.
And from the City of Philadelphia, right, you're getting 55.9 million for FY27; is that correct?
And you said Montgomery County receives how much?
22.7. How much are we receiving for Philadelphia?
Is there a point of information? Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
I was just going to say if those numbers can be given per population, then we'd have a fairer assessment of that investment made by state in Montgomery.
Could you provide that information to the Chair?
Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad. Just clarify your line of questioning please for a point of information.
So the question was clarification on the numbers the Council President asked about how much the state gives to CCP versus Mont Co. I just wanted it divided by your student body.
We'll follow up on that particular one. We don't have the data for each community college on that level, but we do have the allocations for state.
Are there any other universities as well that we're comparing ourselves to in terms of level of investment?
We compare ourselves to the 15 community colleges, our peer institutions.
Could you provide that information to me as well just to provide to the members?
Just from a supportive standpoint, this also allows us when we advocate with you in terms of our partners that we work with on the state level. It allows us to also kind of crystallize the need. And so, I understand now the investment per population. Because obviously, the population of Montgomery County is much, much smaller than the population in the City of Philadelphia. And so, I clearly understand the line of questioning now.
Correct. And the state also funds the PASSHE schools, which is like the West Chester --
I'm a graduate of Mansfield University. Proud Mansfield alumni, yes.
All four of them, state- related, Temple, Penn State, Cheyney and it's one more. But, yes.
This is the second year in a row that we were flat-funded by the state as part of the community colleges, so it's --
We're struggling. And what I tried to communicate in Harrisburg yesterday is that as the largest enrolled community college when we're flat- funded, I mean flat-funded is not great when you have inflation and all that anyway. But in addition to that, we're really struggling when --
Here's what I'd like to do before I turn it over to my members, Mr. President, young man, come on up to table again. He said he had a good time with three individuals I have a very strong working relationship with that can really have an impact on this flat- footed funding that has been taking place. You said you had a good time with a young man named Jordan Harris, the Appropriations Chairman. I am a former State Representative in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. He's the individual who succeeded me. I call him my little brother, but he is the Chairman of Appropriations which appropriates the funds. And so, I want you to tell him that you came to City Council today advocating seeking additional support for CCP, you're a recent graduate. And the fact that they're flat-footing funding for CCP is unacceptable. And it'd be great if they could work toward this budget cycle to increase what is an iconic institution, but most importantly an institution that can invest heavily in our young people here in the city of Philadelphia. And then also I want you to follow up and talk to Speaker Joanna McClinton, who's also the Speaker of the House and a young lady I've worked with as well, and also reiterate that you came to City Council and also had a conversation with us about the need to invest in CCP as a former student and now you're an alumni, but as your last charge as Class President is to push the needle as it relates to investing in high- quality education, secondary education, which starts at CCP. So continue to keep up the good work, but also I'm very serious when I ask for you to follow up and do your due diligence and say, hey, I just understood that from City Council hearing and we've been flat-footed, and it would be great that we can increase the level of funding beyond what's been allotted thus far. Keep up the good work.
For sure. Thank you for that. I'll get it done by end of this --
I want you to report back to me. This is my Chief of Staff, John Christmas. And so, get his business card. He will give you my card and get back to me and let me know how those conversations go.
Thank you very much. Dr. Marshall and Mr. Derrick Sawyer, I'm going to turn the microphone over to my members. But in all seriousness, we recognize that in order for us to really continue to drive down the gun violence that we're seeing here in the city of Philadelphia, we had a historical 60-year low when it comes to homicides and shootings. That comes from investing in our young people, right, giving them opportunities to get involved in things that are positive as opposed to things that are negative. I enjoy being City Council President but most importantly, I represent the 2nd Councilmanic District, so I'm very, very aware of the partnership with Hanwha, which is located in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Rhoads Industries, which is also located in the Philadelphia Navy Yard which resides in my district, and we need to continue those types of partnerships to provide individuals, particularly young people an opportunity to get involved in things that are positive, but also a way to build generational wealth and drive down poverty, right. And it starts with investments. And so, I honestly think for CCP to be flat-footed, right, it's totally unacceptable. Now, I work with my colleagues in the State House, but nevertheless we have too much power up there from the City of Philadelphia where we're flat-footing CCP. And so, I will also work with my team to also do some advocacy as well to see if they will be willing to be supported. We're doing our part with 55 million. And so, surely they can do more. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. Dr. Marshall. Thank you so much for being here and thanks for the presentation and all of the great work that you're doing at CCP. So I walked in on the conversation around flat-funding, but I wanted to go -- well, flat- funding by the state, but I wanted to go a little bit deeper. I have heard that CCP has had to raise its tuition by 9.5% this year. Can you talk about what that means for the population of students that you're serving? And do you know in the past when we've had to have that kind of increase, how has that impacted enrollment? Did you already talk about this? If so, then I can move on and grab it later.
So, yeah. I'll just say that it's the first time we've had to raise tuition in nine years. Our enrollment is booming right now. Again, we're hoping that we can mitigate the difference by supporting our students with scholarships and additional basic needs support. We've been fortunate to have donors who invest in that and we're trying to leverage that and make sure that we communicate to those folks that really can help us, so that we can continue to support our students in other ways so they won't feel that a lot of our students also participate and take advantage of financial aid. So we're hoping that they won't necessarily feel this as much as the typical student that's actually writing the check, but we hated to do this. But this was something that we had to do based on inflation and costs rising.
And I know you're newer to the institution, but do you have any information on have we had even similar increases in the past? And what impact has that had on the population?
I believe it was '14, '15 when we did the last increase. But it wasn't $15. It was less than that.
On enrollment? OUNCILWOMAN GAUTHIER: Did you see enrollment go down? What were the results of that increase?
So our enrollment was still steadily increasing over the years. Our enrollment didn't really decline until the COVID year.
Okay. Thank you. I wanted to ask about the CATC, which I'm so proud to have in my district. I feel like it's a wonderful model of workforce development that is actually connected to jobs at the backend. Can you talk about the current enrollment at the CATC and your plan to increase enrollment?
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that question. We have about 350 students enrolled there right now. That's double our enrollment this time last year. Still --
Yeah, it's great. Still a small number. We know that there's a lot of capacity there so we are building and expanding our program. We believe that the Navy project and additional support and expansion of our footprint there with that program and those programs, nondestructive testing, will also contribute to the increased enrollment.
We're really leaning in on the advanced manufacturing space and collaboration with the Navy. We're hopeful we'll get some additional funding support for that. A lot of these programs are high-cost programs and it's really difficult for us to expand without some type of partnership. We're also working with Hanwha. We were there maybe about two, three weeks ago visiting with the CEO at Hanwha working on how do we develop pathways and what kind of support we can get from the employers to develop out different curriculum and programming. They are supporting us with that in that regard. So as we respond to the needs and the requests, we're hoping that we'll also get partnership investment. Part of that is deepening our partnership to be able to deliver those programs.
Great. Last super quick question: I saw you put up all of your partnerships and I know that you have a lot of students that transfer to Temple, and I was pleased to see Drexel, but I didn't see Penn. Can you talk about how many students transfer from CCP to the University of Pennsylvania each year? And have you talked with Penn about building a partnership and increasing that number?
So we might have to get back to you with the exact number, but I do know when I was serving as Provost, we were always looking to expand that pipeline. We have had multiple conversations with Penn recently. As recently as last week, we had a meeting with them. They definitely see the value in deepening the partnership and creating pathways for our students. We're starting with honor students. There have been conversations around a pathway for our honor students there and expanding and building on that. But there's definitely opportunity, and we've had conversations with their Provost and their leadership over there most recently.
I would love to further that conversation. We all know that there are so many things they're allowed to say or not say. This is an easy way for them to live out their values and their mission. So would love to talk about expanding that partnership further.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke.
Thank you, Mr. President. And good afternoon, President Marshall and all the cabinet that is here. Thank you for all that you do to make higher education accessible for the residents of Philadelphia. Last year CCP reached a contract agreement with the faculty and staff union AFT Local 2026. The agreement was widely reported on by the media and it came in the final hours before a potential faculty and staff strike. I remember someone was there until about 4:00 in the morning in discussions, and I remember hearing the good news the strike was averted. I am concerned, however, that CCP has not honored its agreement with the faculty and staff union to provide SEPTA passes for all CCP students. In your testimony, you shared that you signed a non-contractual MOU with AFT that you would negotiate with SEPTA for a free transit benefit. AFT members understood this to be a vital part of their contract negotiation. Can you help us understand, explain the difference in the understanding here?
Yeah. So we signed a non-contractual memorandum of understanding. And the language with that said the parties agree that during the term of this agreement the college will negotiate with SEPTA for a free public transportation benefit. In keeping with this, we've continued negotiations with SEPTA, which actually began in January of 2024 The college also launched a free pilot program at our Career Advanced Technology Center located in West Philadelphia. And let me just start by saying this: As we've been negotiating with SEPTA, the dollar amount that they have quoted for us in order to provide free SEPTA passes for all of our students is a little over $2 million --
We simply don't have that, right. However, we understand that we want to provide services to our students so we have been working on how do we do that at least in incremental ways. So we started a pilot at our Career Advanced Technology Center, particularly around supporting the students that were there, having an opportunity to perhaps increase enrollment there at the same time, but then give a sense to us about how it's going to be in terms of cost to administer the program. As we've done that, we've also worked with our Student Government Association, Daniel, we've worked with him to survey the student population to really identify what percentage of our students would actually want and take advantage of this because we want to go into this in a thoughtful and a strategic way, as we decide to offer SEPTA passes for our student population. We are signing up for this into perpetuity, which means every budgetary cycle we will be looking for a certain dollar amount. I know it seems like a quick decision. But as I look at it if we start offering SEPTA passes, which I think would be great, we are signing up to 2.1 or more as our enrollment increases, and every year we will need to figure out how to fund that. And so, I will say we started the pilot. We're assessing that. We're gathering the data from the students through Student Government Association. About 50% of our students actually use public transit. And so, there is a large portion of our students that drive and so forth. And then we're also looking at how can we potentially identify a certain population of students that are really our neediest students and maybe support them as we start to figure out how do we finance this over the long haul. The last thing I'll say is that we have shared this request with the state in Harrisburg yesterday. We talked about these numbers. There is some general support. And so, we're making it very clear that this is something we'd like to provide, but we're just not in a financial position to do it right now and into the future with that dollar amount for all of our students.
If I may, President Marshall -- and I heard the bell, Mr. President, so I want to be mindful of the clock -- with all respect, please hear me if I seem a bit direct, the strike last year was averted on the premise that this had been agreed to and was going to be worked out. And so, it seems this is challenging for me to hear and I'm sure others as well, that it sounds like we're figuring out whether or not we can or will do it. And so, I really want to press on this, the only reason why we're in a good position right now to even be having this discussion is because we were able to avert it upon an agreement. And there's understanding that AFT has that I think that you all do not have with them. The questions I want to ask that following this is when can we actually expect CCP to provide SEPTA passes for all CCP students based off of that agreement? And what the plan was for negotiating with SEPTA moving forward on that front? I was going to ask, has CCP requested additional funding this year from the city or pursued philanthropy grants or other sources to support the transit benefit? I'm assuming -- maybe I should ask that question. Has there been an ask within your budget proposal to fund the passes? Is that included in your calculations, in your tally?
We have asked state for that. And so, that was part of our conversations yesterday at state.
So the budget proposal to the state has been to include those particular passes?
As we've been discussing, the city has been a great partner with us, but the state is lagging behind. So from my standpoint, I know how challenged the city budget is. It makes sense for me to talk about how can we get state support. We're not the only institution particularly that might benefit from something like this at their institution as well. So we are continuing to have those conversations with state as recently as yesterday. And I will say the agreement was not to provide free SEPTA passes for students. It was to negotiate with SEPTA, to try to get there, and that's what we agreed to. And so, I understand the interpretation of that and I understand how people took that away as we will provide. But I will say, had we said that, that probably would have been premature. I'm new in this role trying to assess what our financial situation and picture would be and need to really understand what we will be signing up for and how the college will be able to support this in the long term.
And again, no shade on you or anything like that, but I am going to advocate for AFT. And that I think it undermines confidence in conversations that as you come back to the table, eventually you have to, it's going to be hard for anyone to believe that when you have that sort of agreement, and I understand there are different interpretations on it, but when you have a sort of agreement that they can trust that they're going to come through, if we come back a year later, ask about the update on these things, that they are clear in their minds, they're clear they're supposed to be expecting or getting or figuring out what the plan is, something more concrete, and the response is, well, we don't have the money, you know, we're not really sure. So this is a major concern, I think, for them, certainly for myself. I'll leave the balance of the questions I had on that because I'm clear what your response is. One question and I'll get off the mic, I've heard from AFT members that there are challenges with HVAC systems at all three campuses. Some staff are working from home indefinitely because conditions of offices are unbearable and there are no other spaces for them to work. How did this happen? What is the college's plan to address this particular situation?
Yeah. So I appreciate that question. We have old buildings. We've had HVAC issues historically. We were pleased to receive funding from the state to address some of these issues, and we are prioritizing the buildings where the highest need is and the impact is on students. So as I've been sending out communications as recently I think as last week, we sent a facilities update where we indicated one of our buildings, which really has high traffic of students coming in classes, CBI, that's our CBI building, that I have prioritized that and we are allocating some of that money towards addressing that in the near future. The building is actually offline so that we can get in there and address it this summer, and we'll be ready to go for the fall. It has been a long time, five plus years where this hasn't been addressed, but I'm prioritizing it under my administration and we're moving forward with addressing that.
Okay. Thank you. I'm done. I just want to reiterate again I do think it's essential that we figure out -- I even said this amongst my colleagues. Certainly when budgets are not -- when other states, the country, they're not helping to provide necessary funding that you may be relying on, it requires municipalities or other separate entities to think differently about how you're going to meet your particular budgets, how you're going to stand on your own two feet. I don't know what decisions you have to make. You're in a tough position as president, but I do think that there has to be some figuring out in when you're talking to unions. If they're walking away with the understanding that averts a strike that was certainly going to happen and then a year later they're not getting a real solid response or answer on actually delivering on the thing that they were standing ten toes down on, we got to figure out how to move differently. And so, I just want to encourage us to think about that. I don't mean no harm, but I do think this matters to them. I'm a big proponent of transit. I'm not the only one who's advocating for this. It is essential that they get this. So please, please find out a way to address that matter. Thank you for the time, Mr. President. (Applause.)
I do have a question though. Was there anything in writing?
So the union negotiates on behalf of the faculty, not students --
Nothing in writing. The memorandum of understanding was that we would agree to look into trying to do that. Again, I understand that people walk away and say, yay, that's what we're going to do. But I have to be a good steward of the financial resources that the college has. I have to prioritize, along with my team, what is highest priority. And then, what can we maintain into the future. Like I said, I could not be the president tomorrow, but whoever came and sat in this seat will have to find at least $2 million every single year or they're going to have to abruptly stop providing SEPTA passes for students, and that's not a good look either. So I'm trying to think more broadly about how do we work with other entities. Perhaps the state can pick this up and they will help us with that. Maybe they're listening. But I don't want to sign us up for something that's going to cause a problem every single year and I definitely would not want to provide SEPTA passes to students in one year and the next year say we don't have the money to do it. So that's where we are, but we are on the same page. We want to do it.
So I would think -- and I'm just objectively looking at all of this and obviously, I want to advocate and be supportive of the students, right. So they could potentially strike this year, right, if things don't go the way they would think they would. I mean, I would think if somebody agreed to do something or I'm going to have the interpretation that they agreed they did something, then they say, well, next year, that's not what we interpreted it, I probably would get my team together and be like, well, you know what --
That would be very unfortunate because I think we're all here for the students and success of the students when we try to disrupt their educational experience, but I think somebody wants to say something who's on my team.
Yes, I'll keep it brief though. They -- the Federation, this is not a term that's in the collective bargaining agreement and we have a collective bargaining agreement with the Federation with the terms that would -- an agreement not to strike during the period of the term of the CBA, which goes through August 31st of 20 --
And as the term that we're discussing relates not to a term or condition of their employment, but to a student benefit arguably, and I think the college's position would be that they are not able to strike based upon a term and condition that does not affect their employment.
Gotcha. Okay. All right. I just want to get additional information. I just want to go on the record and say, any way that we can support the students there, I know this is an added benefit and understand about thinking about who may be president in the future and taking on additional costs, even in the strategy of working with the state and the city as well, and the city as well, to try to figure out how we would make something like this work, because we have the resources. It's just what we prioritize. On the city level, we have a $7 billion budget -- (Applause.)
-- on the state, they have a tremendous surplus. And I understand you saying, I'm not going to put it all on the city. And so, I want the state to participate, and I do know Chair of the Philadelphia Delegation is on your Board as well, Morgan Cephas, I know she does a lot of hard work as well. But it should be a convening and meeting of the minds to try to figure out how we can be supportive of our young people, especially with the issue of affordability that's going on right now. And so, I'm trying to get a balanced approach so I hear you exactly as well in terms of wanting to be responsible in terms of how you go about it and also our role is to try to break down as many barriers as possible for young people to take advantage of their great high-quality education that CCP has to offer. And so, just wanted to say that. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.
Thank you. I just want to say first thank you, Dr. Marshall, for your leadership and for actually doing your best to listen to your students and your faculty. I do cosign with Councilmember O'Rourke and Councilmember Johnson about the importance of trying to get to that request. I just want to know how much would it cost to get to that request over a five-year period?
So that's part of what we're trying to assess. When I talk about being thoughtful, the $2.1 million is actually just the cost of the passes based on our current enrollment annually. What we're doing with our pilot is trying to assess human resources piece, because there is an implementation piece, there's work that has to be done. Right now someone is picking up that work, but there's potentially a position that we might have to hire if we were going to really do this broad scale and if we're going to continue to do it. So part of this period of time around the pilot is to also get real numbers around the student interest and who would take advantage to figure out what that looks like in terms of our human resources. Because again, we would have to hire somebody and we will need to sustain their salary wages into perpetuity if we were going to really offer this as part of what we do. So the 2.1 is really just what the SEPTA passes cost, but it doesn't take into consideration, which is what we're trying to assess now, human resources and infrastructure that we would need to set that up.
Okay. Great. So continue to assess all the information. I know it's a difficult decision because you have a lot of priorities for the Community College of Philadelphia that you probably want to -- what do you want to advocate first as the number one priority compared to all of them, because that 2 million can go to some other big priority. But I do want to congratulate you on the fact that you have this Cubhouse, which is really nice. A lot of families need that. I do want to ask you another question. The Catto Scholarship, it's a full scholarship for students in a certain income bracket, correct? It's a full tuition scholarship, correct?
So with that in mind, have you seen -- what is the graduation rate for students with the Catto Scholarship?
So there are advocates that are saying we need to increase the number of Catto recipients, which I truly understand, right, but at the same time we only have a 36% graduation rate for those who are getting fully invested in to go to the Community College of Philadelphia. What do you think is contributing to that? I'm not going to say relatively low, but low graduation rate where even people who are getting fully paid for are not finishing?
I'm going to have Dr. Seth Jacobson speak to that. He oversees the Catto Scholarship Program.
Good afternoon. I think it's a great question. It's something that we grapple with and we think about a lot. In fact, when I first started at the college, one of the things I took a very vested interest in is looking at survey exits for all of our students that end up leaving the college to really look into, display all the supports that are being provided, what is it that is moving them to leave the college and the scholarship. And the reasons end up being on par with what we're seeing at the college at large and at community colleges across the country, right. We have a higher representation of our lowest socioeconomic bracket students and residents of the city. And so, they're also in addition to the supports that they're being provided or despite the supports they're being provided, they're still grappling with poverty, housing insecurity. And while we do work really closely to try to ameliorate that through the Last Dollar tuition, through course material coverage and even a monthly basic needs allowance to provide that to offset support for it, what the students say is 275 is just not going to cut it in terms of some of the realities that they're facing in their homes and in their families. So when it comes to what, where and why we're still seeing a lower rate or not a higher rate rather, it's a lot of the same reasons that we're seeing low graduation rates at community colleges across the country.
Do you transfer -- if someone doesn't finish, do you transfer those funds over to another student who was waitlisted for the Catto Scholarship?
Yes. When students are unable to complete the program, we're able to open up more seats for any students that have not been able to get into the scholarship.
Okay. That's very important to me. Because I understand, housing, wages, you know, economic things, costs for people not to finish, but it's also relatively not necessarily in the best interest of the college or the student if you start and you don't finish, and then that funding that someone else could have utilized to finish your education is not necessarily utilized. So I don't know if we have to begin to have an agreement that says at some point if you receive this funding, you have to finish or you're owed 5%, something, I don't know what it may be, but I just think people have to finish if they're given a grant of that nature.
Yeah. And I just want to reiterate what Dr. Marshall mentioned. While the rate is low or it does appear to be low, 36% compared to the general population is still significantly higher than the general population. And then when you look at Catto scholars' counterpart, so students when you're comparing apples to apples when it comes to other students who would have qualified for Catto but were not able to get in because they're waitlisted, the difference in terms of the graduation rate is doubled. So we know that when the students get those wraparound supports, we know that they lead to much higher graduation rates. It certainly doesn't solve the entire problem. The other thing I'll just mention as well is Catto is modeled after a proven national model out in New York City, the CUNY ASAP program. And our results are on par with what they've seen over the past years as they've been 15 looking to boost their graduation 16 rates. So students that 17 participate in a comparable program 18 in New York are seeing double the 19 graduation rates, but generally 20 speaking across the country, community college graduation rates are just not that high. And so, while Catto and those wraparound supports we know are working, they just unfortunately don't solve all of the challenges that some of our students are facing.
Gotcha. And I heard there were some concerns about student safety as well. How is the college addressing increased concerns around student safety, student and faculty safety I gather?
Thank you, Councilman. So around safety, we do have a public safety department and we actually are an open campus because we're in the city. However, we are required to have individuals swipe with ID. So we have security guards at every entrance and pretty much our security guards monitor safety and we have a safety team that kind of monitors our campus 24/7.
Okay. I'll follow up later with more data around the safety issues that I'm concerned about. Thank you so much, Dr. Marshall and team. And also, I want to give a shout- out to Kenisha. She's been doing a great job with engaging all of us in City Council. She is an incredible force for you all. So thank you, Kenisha, for your service to the Community College of Philadelphia.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity, Councilmember Rue Landau and Councilmember Jay Young.
Good afternoon, everyone. My questions are also around the -- I'm the Labor Chair on Council so I'm very concerned about promises made, promises being kept. This was a good-faith agreement between the college and the -- one of the reasons they actually went back was because you guys said you would work on getting the school passes for the kids and the facility leaders. I understand that cost plays a big thing. But in some of your own testimony today you've said that some of the things that help and will help with the graduation rate is those services, the wraparound services. I would argue that this is a wraparound service that the students in community college would need. They're at community college for a reason. Most of the time it's because the institutional schools were too expensive and they needed to go a less expensive way. Not saying that the education is any different. Community College, we all know is a great school. My wife is enrolled at Community College in the paralegal studies thing, but our concerns and my concerns, just like the Council President and Nick O'Rourke is that this is going to bite us back at some point. Because as a union guy, I know if somebody makes a promise to me and then they don't come or live up to that promise, then the next time I'm going, I'm not going to take their word for anything and it's going to end up causing other issues. And while I know the finances, but as the Council President, something this important we should be able to find a way. So could you elaborate more on the whole...
So I appreciate that perspective and the advocacy. I think we are all aligned in terms of the desire and the need for this service. I will say that -- I will say that for our pilot we just have some numbers here. Out of the 300 students that were eligible for the pilot at our Career Advanced Technology Center, only 80 of our students are actually taking advantage of it. So part of my deliberation and thinking about this is trying to assess what the actual need is and then trying to work with SEPTA so that we are not on the hook for people that aren't going to need the service, right. And so, that's part of the exploratory phase. The promise was made to look into trying to do this and to work with SEPTA to get to a place where we could provide it. We have kept the promise. I will say that the promise was or the memorandum of understanding was made under a different administration. This is a new administration --
Oh, okay. Oh, I got it. I got it now. There's a new sheriff in town.
No, this is just facts. I'm saying that at the time I was part of the negotiations in full transparency, but my role was a Provost and Vice- President of Academics and Student Success. I did not have information or authority over budget at the time. The decision was made by those in authority to make the decision. I agree that if we could provide this, this would be great. But I have now information about budget and trying to figure out how to do that. And so --
I'd like to know how you're actually getting it out there. Because if you're saying 300 students were eligible for the pilot and you only had 80 sign up, that doesn't make sense to me. I live in Kensington. If you're giving us something, we're taking it and we're going to use it. So I know a lot of those students are from my neighborhood, just like they're from Jeffrey's neighborhood and Jamie's neighborhood and everybody else's neighborhood here. The public transportation thing, I would say then even if that is true, then that means you have 220 slots available that we can give to somebody else, right?
Right. So this is a conversation to help us with negotiating with SEPTA. They have ways by which they are approaching this with us that is somewhat rigid, which is why we are negotiating. I don't want to get into that, into too much detail, but they have presented it to us in a certain way that says this is how we would price it for you. This is based on who we think is going to use it and we're working with them to figure out a way we can get to a place where we're comfortable with our budget and we're addressing the needs of our students. But that is what happened at our Career Advanced Technology Center. We're also doing a student survey and gathering information from that. So we want to put together an informed proposal of how we might do this moving forward. Dr. Rooney can speak a little bit to the survey and the information that we've been gathering to date.
Sure. Good afternoon. I'm Shannon Rooney. I'm the Vice-President for Enrollment Management and Strategic Communication. I think you posed a really good question and it's one that has been animating our entire leadership group. Just to give you a little bit of a sense of how we got that information out to students, we also expected much closer to 100% adoption from students. We hosted SEPTA onsite twice. We also had folks who worked at the CATC in person, handing out cards. We sent out emails weekly to students who were eligible and we also text messaged students who were eligible. Part of the text messaging campaign, we asked students to let us know why they had not adopted or signed up for the program for which they were eligible. We got very little feedback on that, to all of our kind of shock. Anecdotally, what we did hear from the students who did respond to those surveys, they were telling us that they were either driving or they were taking alternative methods or they already were getting SEPTA benefits elsewhere. So that's the kind of scant information we have right now. To Dr. Marshall's point, we are in the process of taking a look at a much larger survey that we developed in collaboration with our Student Government Association, because we really do want to kind of understand what our students are telling us they need and want.
Yeah, because that's a little hard to take. Okay. I'm going to let it go because of time. But just know I will be standing out there with the union when we go to negotiate again. And being new is not going to be an excuse the next time. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau and Jay Young, and Dr. Nina Ahmad will wrap us up for the day.
Thank you. Thank you so much for being here, Doc. We are very, very happy that you're here. You're making some very significant changes to CCP. Love seeing the gains that you're doing. And as we're seeing a rollback on even availability and eligibility of student loans for parents and students going forward, CCP is more important than ever to make sure that people can afford going to college and figuring themselves out and whatnot, and you're making it very, very easy for them. So thank you. I'm going to try not to double-, triple-down on the SEPTA student passes. I too was really excited to hear or to think that we were finally at a point where we are going to provide passes to everybody. We just had a budget town hall in South Philadelphia last week and somebody stood up to the microphone and said, I'm a CCP student and I cannot afford to get there, I can't afford to get my classes. I would suggest as we try to figure this out, and we will try to help with as much funding as we can, that maybe it is part of the terms and conditions of employment for your faculty when the students can't get to class. So we need the students that come to class, we need the faculty to get everything they need to teach it. All we're trying to do is trying to make it easier. I know you want this too so we're all on the same page. We can all work collectively to make this happen. But this would be the success story for the region, maybe even the country, who knows, that we all got together and made this happen. I'm going to get to -- we touched on a couple of other things already, including the Catto Scholarship. I want to get to something kind of touchy that I've heard about. I'm the Chair of the Tech Committee. And I know that the Board has approved $1 million purchase of the Evolv weapons detection systems from Allied Universal Technologies. It's a detection system that has had questionable reliability. There's been serious concerns. Even the FTC in 2024 basically called it false advertising, marketing, that they can detect the weapons they say they can. And my understanding is that you did this through your foundation and I wanted to hear more about it and whether or not you should have or could have collaborated with the faculty and students and others on this purchase?
I'll jump in. So this is a result of a local share grant, so it's not college money operating. However, the decision to approve, to use this money in this way was made by the Board. No money has been spent as of to date. And again, this was a follow-up from a previous decision. So I am assessing whether or not we're needing to move forward with this in realtime. We've just had an official session with the Board that says you can do this, but it has not been done yet so we're looking at that.
Point of information; is that right, Councilmember O'Rourke? Are you -- point of information.
I got to acknowledge him first. Chair recognizes Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke.
Thank you. I just wanted to circle back. You had someone who mentioned that there were other SEPTA benefits that were being utilized by some of the students. Can you just clarify what those are if you know, whoever it? Was it Zero Fare? What are the benefits that have been used by students?
So I can speak to the fact that through our Catto Scholarship Program, there is a transportation stipend so sometimes people use that for SEPTA passes. We also have single-stop services where we provide support for students in transportation who have high need. And if they come to us with the need, we sometimes offer them SEPTA passes through those avenues.
Thank you. Dr. Marshall, I'd like to get back to, you said it was a local shared grant. Is the grant only for security for the campus?
Yes. Previously there was an application. It was approved and we were awarded that. We have not drawn that down. We have not made a --
Okay. Would it be possible to look at other possibilities and to spend the money elsewhere? If there's $1 million, I'm sure people want higher security. But is there a possibility of allocating that money in a different way and not going with above?
So as it relates to grant funding, it's restricted. So it's restricted for the purpose that we applied for, which was the metal detectives. So we cannot reallocate that money for other purposes at the time.
For metal detectors. And just a point of clarification, the contract has not been signed yet.
Gotcha. Is there a way to use a different company with different metal detectors with this money?
So we typically do what we call an RFP process. So we did an RFP process and we looked at that particular technology. We outsourced our contract security with Allied, so we currently have a relationship with Allied. So we thought it would be best to use a software that Allied is familiar with. And this software is used throughout the city. You know, Xfinity Center, when you go to basketball games, you go through this software so it is a popular software. But once again, we have not implemented it yet. The contract has not been signed. We have simply received approval from our Board and we are exploring, so we can continue to work on this.
Thank you very much for that information. Thank you.
Just was making sure you're all right. Chair recognizing Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young. Then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, and then Rue Landau will take us home.
Thank you, Mr. President. First, I just want to acknowledge CCP for the hard work that you do. This past Saturday I personally know multiple graduates, including the son of my Chief of Staff and my Political Director, who were two of the high school students from Boys' Latin, who got their Associate's Degree. (Applause.)
And I want to give a special shout-out to my intern, who's leaving our office this week, Selena. She was our legislator for the day from CCP. She interned in our office and she also just graduated this past Saturday as well. (Applause.)
And she's done a great job for us in our office. I know the pathway. CCP creates a lot of opportunities for people who kind of just don't know what they want to do, right, and you're playing a much more larger role when it comes to the city's workforce development ecosystem. I mean, you're involved with the CCME, you have the dual enrollment, teacher pathways and industrial training. But how do you decide what industries get scaled, what industry, what programs get subsidy and how employee demand is validated before students are recruited into those different pathways?
That's a great question. So majority of our programs have an industry advisory board, which they meet with the program leadership, the faculty. They meet with the advisory boards who provide input in terms of making sure that our curriculum is relevant and what are the standards for the industry as well as what do they need to be successful in the workplace if they're pursuing a career in that way. So we do have extensive engagement with industry. A great example is our collaboration with Hanwha. We've been talking with them. We want to make sure we're developing curriculum that's going to supply. I think the most important piece of this is that we're prioritizing high-priority occupations. One of those occupations is welding, and that's going to be thousands and thousands of workers that are needed. So we're looking at and identifying where the need is, where there are guaranteed job opportunities, but also where there's opportunities for students to graduate or complete the program and make a living wage that they can take care of their families. As part of our strategic planning process, I'm working with my team to actually take a look at academic programs, our inventory, to understand and make sure that our programs are relevant. And if there are programs that are no 3 longer relevant, we need to think about that because we need to make sure that our programs are preparing students for success and that they can make a living wage. So those pieces are taken into consideration. Obviously, what we've been talking about here is funding. So some programs may start more quickly than others. If we have an investment from an industry partner or something like that, it may be easier for us to stand that up, so we take that into consideration as well. But we're definitely looking at high-priority occupations, where the career interest is for our students, but where the workforce need is and that's where we need to prioritize our programming.
Okay. Thank you. So it seems like from the numbers there were 400 folks who enrolled in the CCME program, 80 completed, more coming. How many of those completed the program actually entered city employment?
Hello again. Seth Jacobson, Interim Vice-President for Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement. So just as a point of clarification, because there has been a lot of evolution in the CCME program, even in the months that 15 it's been in existence, so at the 16 college level there's four 17 different programs that we're 18 running through CCME, and those 19 programs are what we call the traditional CCME program, which is those pathways that you were referring to that lead residents into jobs or are designed to lead residents into jobs with city government. There's the upskilling program, which is supporting current city employees to get upskilling in their subject areas. We have a high school program, which is we're working with the city as well as the school district to expose more high school students to careers in city government and just thriving industries in general. And we have a civic entrepreneurs program as well, which is a new sort of internship program for CCP students to get who are pursuing Associate's Degree, to get exposed to city government jobs as well. So across those, all those different programs, when it comes to the traditional program or rather across all those programs, over about about 56% of those in completers have now moved into what we are considering desirable next steps, so that either are jobs with city government or it is continuing education with Community College of Philadelphia --
So I get that. So that kind of inflates what I'm looking for. So for the first program then, right, the first program is just students enrolling to a direct path to a city job. Program number one you mentioned, how many of those completers got a city job? Not -- because that's the goal of this program is to get folks into a job with the City of Philadelphia. So out of that --
So our numbers indicate that there are that are currently in city jobs. And those go across the Streets Department, Water Department, Police Department, Procurement, and Office of Innovation and Technology.
A point of information. 10 We went over this in the past. I 11 think the level of investment I 12 think it was 14 million, correct? 13 Because I think it was a million 14 per individual who actually got a summer job; is that correct?
I guess just clarifying, it was 14 million that was invested in the initiative and there's actually only 14 individuals who received city jobs, and that's million per individual.
If you can clarify that for us for the record.
And I'll relinquish the time back to Member Young. Go ahead, sir. You can respond.
So we're aware of it, a $10 million investment total. But to your point, Councilmember President -- Council President, again kind of going back to sort of the evolution of CCME, over the past months, 18 it was originally focused on moving 19 folks into jobs in city government, but has since evolved into a number of other programs that are not just moving folks into city jobs but also other thriving industries across the region as well, so there's an evolution of that. The other thing I would mention is that these are students who have been moving into the program and some are still in the program and the programs range anywhere from months to 8 months. And so, some students are 9 still completing, other students 10 are still in the pipeline. They 11 are on civil service lists, they're 12 waiting for interviews. And so, 13 we're working with our partners in 14 the city, with the city to make 15 sure that we're doing everything we 16 can to reduce any potential 17 barriers for those graduates to 18 move into city government jobs. We're also continuing to work with those remaining students who have completed the program to ensure that they are again still on track to being able to get employment with the city or that we're helping them to move into another desirable pathway desirable for them, whether that is continued education at CCP for free if we can get them into the Catto Scholarship to continue to sort of stack upon the existing education that they receive through CCME or looking at alternative employment, where the skills that they learn through CCME are applicable in another area.
I understand that the program has evolved over the past 18, 15 months. But the goal is that we 16 have so many vacancies in the City 17 of Philadelphia right now. Every 18 department comes to us -- I mean, 19 the Fire Department had hundreds of vacancies, right. So every department has these vacancies. And for us to only have 14 jobs, I mean with that level of investment, we mind as well just give the people the money directly then, right. I mean, we'll save some money. Even with the 56% rate, right, I mean that's still not enough for the investment that we're putting into this to fill the vacancies that we have in the city. So if the goal is to ensure that we have a city workforce that's ready, able and willing to do the job, then I think we have to really look at that program a little bit more to see what other ways can we get our residents ready for city employment for that level of investment.
Excuse me, Member Young. Member Gauthier has a point of information.
I just wanted to correct the record that the 14 is sort of an uptick from what we heard from the hearing. At the hearing, we heard that people were employed from a 4 $10 million investment, which was 5 roughly $1 million a person. 6 And to Councilmember 7 Young's point, I worked in the 8 funding world before I came to City 9 Council, we would never fund a workforce development program with those numbers. But also, most workforce development programs don't control the training side and the employment side, like we are both sides. So if there are changes we need to make on the employment side to take in the people that we are training, arguably we have the power to do that. So this should not be a workforce development program that that is seeing those kinds of numbers, because we have the power to change things if we wish to. Thank you.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Young.
Thank you. One last question. Of course, we all know the recent labor unrest at CCP creates, I'll say, different experiences between the workforce quality and the student experiences. And the faculty and staff union secured a fact-finder to authorize that strike before they reached the tentative agreement. And I know you weren't the president of the college then, but you were in leadership. So what did you learn from that breakdown and what has actually changed in the labor management relations since then?
So we're talking about the SEPTA passes, correct, and the agreement to look into providing SEPTA passes as part of --
So that's one part of it. But just overall as the management style, what have you learned since that process of negotiating with the union? And how can we create a better atmosphere for that relationship?
So I appreciate that question. I think it's pertinent. One of the things that I instituted, and it's a great example to share today in light of the conversation we've been having, I've started a listening tour. So what I'm doing is going around to various departments and divisions at the college and just sitting down and listening. What's going great? What can we improve? What are the challenges? Two listening tours that I had last week specifically, independently came up with challenges and problems with one particular building at our institution, the CBI building. This happened last week -- two weeks ago, within the past couple weeks. Immediately that day I had cabinet members come in. We looked at what were our priorities for maintenance and issues that dealt with HVAC and we moved up this building because it was impacting negatively the student experience, and I'm hearing it from multiple pieces, multiple departments. So let's figure out, how do we fix this and how do we fix this now. And so, I think this open communication in addition to monthly meeting with Federation leadership -- myself and my cabinet, we meet once a month with the Federation leadership and we have an open agenda where they bring any concerns that they have, they can discuss that with us. If we have information we want to share, we do that. And I think it's keeping the lines of communication open. I also think that we have to have more transparency and communications, which I've tried to institute. I had an open meeting, a gathering a couple of weeks ago where I shared what was going on with the finances, where we are as an institution. And so, I think it's communication and opening those channels. I think we want the same thing, what's best for students, so I'm happy to continue that.
Thank you. Thank you for your leadership with the college. I think we want to see improvements with your leadership. So thank you.
Thank you very much. Last, but definitely not least, Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad. It's Dr. Nina Ahmad, right?
And Member Gauthier has a Master's from Penn, right, in planning. And Jeffrey Young has a --
-- Dr. Anthony Phillips from Morehouse. I haven't seen this level of education in the history of City Council, but I'm going to leave that there right now. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Well, thank you so much, Council President, and I have to pitch myself awake. Thank you again for being here. I am so excited by all the changes that are going on at CCP. They're all forward-looking, getting our children ready for the millennium we are in. There's a lot of catch-up to do and you're doing it, so thank you. But -- there's always a but, right -- there's three questions I have very quickly. One is, this is my role as Chair of Public Health and Human Services, I am always concerned about our children in foster youth who are enrolled at CCP and those aging out. And what is the enrollment pipeline and program specifically for that population and how we need to really support them as they enter adulthood? So that's one question. Two is, you note that 25% of the students are parents, right. And what specific supports are in place to ensure that student parents can persist and graduate? And I believe that there was a child care center that was closed. And what would it take to open it and to provide affordable child care? And connected to that, what are the outcomes in retention rates for graduation of parents compared to nonparents in CCP? And last question is about faculty, because that's the other side of the coin. I wanted to know how many hours do you think faculty leaders are working? Do you believe faculty leaders have sustainable workloads? And what are you doing to ensure we're able to recruit and retain talented faculty that students need and deserve? And obviously, we've heard issues around overloaded faculty members who are leaving because of these overloads and uncomfortable situations at work. So sorry, I had to pack it all in because I'm the last person asking questions.
Okay. I'm going to try to remember all of the questions and thank you for this question. One thing I wrote down was about student parents and what are we doing in that regard. So I'll start by saying it was mentioned earlier we recently opened Roary's Cubhouse, which is a specific dedicated area on our campus where students can come with their children. There's a play area there and there's a study area there, and they don't have to decide whether or not they're going to study and work as they're trying to get an education and trying to raise children at the same time. So we were pleased to be able to have support from the Jevs Foundation for this, and we were able to open that and that was a great opportunity to support our student parents.
Just a point of information. So it's not a day care where you can leave your children where sometimes you need the time to do whatever you have to do without your children?
So I just wanted to make sure that was not a replacement, just an added facility?
It's an added facility to support student parents in their experience with us when they come to the college. We did close down our child care center, particularly because of expenses and running it, so that is something that we are looking into to determine how we can afford to stand that up again and what that would look like. So we are exploring that because we understand that that's a need that if we could provide that, that would be great. We are in the process of doing that right now. The other piece --
Excuse me one second, Madam President. Member Jeffrey Jay Young, point of information.
Thank you. So you said you were having issues with funding the child care. I mean, I used to represent day care owners, right, in my previous life. And I know that it could be a lucrative business. Have you guys applied for the CCIS or we have our Philly PreK? What made it difficult to have that type of service, because I know for a fact there are a lot of students with kids who go there and that could be a barrier for them that can increase your graduation rate from 24% to something a little bit higher than that? So what's the barriers to at least having a child care where we have all these other types of subsidies that could help with that?
Yes, I appreciate that. The biggest piece of it was that it was used by our students or the need for our students was on a drop-in, right. Students are coming in, they're bringing their child so that they can take a class on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:00 to 3:00. Unfortunately, that volume when you don't have people actually using the facility from 9:00 to 5:00 hours a week, that was not sustainable in terms of the cost for providing the care and what Kinder Care was getting to run that program. We just didn't have enough usage of it quite frankly. And I think it goes back to what we've been talking about in terms of actual usage, what that would look like and that's something that we're trying to assess right now. So that was one issue. Derrick can speak to the specific finances of doing that. But it really decreased in usage of our students, so it just became counterproductive for us to continue to operate it. It was several years ago. We're in a different day. We're in a different time, different student population. It might be more viable to do it now so we are looking at that.
Was it available from 9:00 to 5:00 to the students? Did they know that, that they don't just have to just drop their kid off while they're in class versus, you know?
Yes. But we find that -- so I'm speaking -- I wasn't here at the institution, so this is my understanding. We found that students more likely wanted to drop their kids off at a day care center that was closer to their home as opposed to bringing them to the school and then dropping them off, so that was kind of impacting the frequency or the need for the usage at the time.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Dr. Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. Please proceed with the remaining questions.
Okay. The other piece I wanted to mention is that we are applying for CCAMPIS grants, so that's an opportunity to provide support for our students. If we were to get that, they would provide support and funding for our students to be able to pay for or offset the pay for child care if they wanted that. So we are trying to address it in multiple ways in addition to looking into the child care center. I'm going to ask Dr. Jacobson to speak to the foster care initiatives.
Sure. And just to dovetail off of what Dr. Marshall was saying, on top of that with the visit to Harrisburg yesterday, we know that there is some state funding available to support student parents through what's called the PA Parent Pathways Program. And so, we are actively seeking that funding as well. And part of our trip up there yesterday and talking to our representatives was to be sure that they are advocating on our behalf, given the need you identified. In terms of our students that have experience in the foster system, we have a foster and care and connections program at the college, which is really just our way of trying to be very intentional about supporting that population. So that program is in partnership with the Field Center as well as the Achieving Independence Center. The Achieving Independence Center is where we're able to get referrals from former foster youth to ensure that we're connecting them to a single point of contact on campus, so that they're getting support with navigating, you know, whether it's just the college sort of bureaucracy, what happens when you go into a college, but also helping them to access any benefits that they might qualify for, both on campus as well as off campus. That program also provides training across campus to faculty and staff to ensure that they know the best ways to work with former foster youth as well, so ensuring a sensitivity and sort of cultural competency in those areas. The other piece as well is our PHA shared housing partnership that specifically targets those students as well to make sure that they have stable housing. And if they don't, that we're able to move them into stable housing through our partnership with PHA.
Sounds like you have a lot of wraparounds. I would love to -- and we don't have to do it now because we're at the end of our time -- get outcomes of all of the programming and successful graduation of this cohort and maybe any feedback you've had from them to see how successful are they. One of the big things when you're especially aging out, we've found from research that having a single point of contact that you mentioned, having a trusted adult in their life that they have built trust over time is critical in place of just giving training, how to access this, two entirely different things and I want to really have a trauma- informed approach to that, so we'll follow up on that. And I had a last question about our faculty.
I'll address that. So we have multiple loads for faculty. Most institutions have faculty loaded for 30 hours. Our faculty has an option. They can be loaded for less, 27, and we have some grandfather faculty that are even at a load, which means the number of hours that they're teaching is much less than at most institutions, community college institutions. But I will say that if faculty are participating in leadership, they receive release time, which is equivalent to one or more classes that they don't have to teach, so they're supposed to be utilizing that time to participate in the leadership administrative duties that they are working on and assigned to. In addition to that, they could possibly also be receiving extended time, which is overage compensation. All that said, we are looking at faculty leadership because I think it's more not necessarily about our process, but more about what is the number of hours that should be allocated or compensated for certain leadership duties as programs change in size, as accreditation needs change. The administrative duties possibly have been changing and they may not have had a compensation or release time has been looked at for several years to make sure that it's current with what is actually happening right now. And so, we have a faculty leadership committee that's being put together by administration and faculty to look at that, the compensation, the leadership, the duties and try to get to a place where it makes sense.
So basically, you're looking at the issue of overload. I'll have us follow up with you after this, after I've spoken with faculty because I've had some examples cited of how things have not worked, so I don't want to belabor the point. But clearly, you know this is an issue and we need to make sure our faculty are well taken care of. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. And last, but definitely not least, Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Thank you, Mr. President. I just really wanted to say thank you so much to CCP for having me as the keynote speaker at the Catto graduation program. It was a phenomenal ceremony, just really outstanding. And a lot of the graduates were the first to graduate from college in their families like myself, and it was really special. It was really very, very special. So I thank you for putting so much into it or investing in it. I certainly hope this is a program that's going to be around for a very long time and that you can expand it. And I'm a big supporter and fan. So I just wanted to say thank you to CCP and all your staff, your entire team who helped make it work. So thank you.
Thank you very much. Well, listen, thank you very much for your testimony today. And as always, we look forward to continue working in partnership with CCP as we invest in our young people. Thank you very much.
Any other questions or comments from members of the committee? (No response.)
Hearing none, the Chair recognizes Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson for a motion that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution before the committee today stand in recess until Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 10:00 a.m.
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution before the committee today stand in recess until Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 400. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. This committee stands in recess until Wednesday, May 6th at 10:00 a.m. Thank you very much, everyone. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 4:00 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. ________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL