COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, April 24, 2024 10:10 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILMEMBER NINA AHMAD COUNCILMEMBER CINDY BASS COUNCILMEMBER KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMEMBER MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILMEMBER JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILMEMBER KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMEMBER JIM HARRITY COUNCILMEMBER RUE LANDAU COUNCILMEMBER QUETCY LOZADA COUNCILMEMBER BRIAN J. O'NEILL COUNCILMEMBER NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMEMBER ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMEMBER MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMEMBER ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMEMBER JEFFERY YOUNG, JR. BILLS 240179, 240180, 240181, and 240182 RESOLUTION 240193 - - 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
This is the public hearing and public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bills Nos. 240179, 240180, 240181, 240182, and Resolution No. 13 240193. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the roll.
Councilmember 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Harrity. (No response.)
Present. Thank you. A quorum of the Committee is present and this hearing is now called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the title of the resolutions. 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Bill No. 240179, an ordinance to adopt the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Bill No. 240180, an ordinance 6 amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," to provide for an increase in the tax that the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia is authorized to impose on real estate; and amending Chapter 13 19-1300, entitled "Real Estate Taxes," to establish an equivalent reduction in the tax rate for the City real estate tax; and making technical changes; all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 240181, an ordinance 19 to adopt a Fiscal Year 2025 Capital Budget. Bill No. 240182, an ordinance 22 to adopt a Capital Program for the six Fiscal Years 2025 through 2030 inclusive. Resolution No. 240193, providing for the approval by the Council 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. of the City of Philadelphia of a Revised Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia covering Fiscal Years 2025 through 2029, and incorporating revisions with respect to Fiscal Year 2024, 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.
Today we will continue 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 2025, a Capital Program and a forward-looking Capital Plan for Fiscal Year 2025 through Fiscal Year 2030. This morning we will hear testimony from SEPTA and the District Attorney's Office. This afternoon we will hold public testimony on the FY25 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. budget. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first witness to testify.
The first person to testify is Leslie Richards, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager for SEPTA. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Is it okay if I bring up our Philadelphia Board members to sit with me as well --
I want to first and foremost, Ms. Richards, thank you for being here today. And just state your name and title and please begin your testimony. 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Sure. Good morning, everybody. I'm Leslie Richards. I'm the General Manager and CEO of SEPTA, and I really appreciate this opportunity to discuss SEPTA, our activities as well as our funding needs with you. So Council President Johnson, Transportation and Public Utilities Committee Chair Driscoll, who I hope will be joining us, and members of City Council and other guests, as I had already stated, I'm Leslie Richards, CEO and General Manager of SEPTA. Joining me are SEPTA Board members Michael Carroll, who is the Deputy Managing Director for Philadelphia's Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Systems, and Deb Mahler, Senior Advisor to Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker. I'm also joined by members of the SEPTA team from various departments. Here I represent more than 9,100 SEPTA employees, and it's my honor to have two SEPTA front-line workers 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. joining me today, Bus Operator Carlton China. Carlton, just please raise your hand. And Maintenance Custodian Jasmine Hoaksa (ph). So Carlton is a 25-year exemplary employee for SEPTA, who has spent his entire career operating out of our Frankford District, and Jazz is a 13-year SEPTA employee, currently works as a maintenance custodian at Snyder Station on the Broad Street Line. They both represent thousands of other SEPTA employees who work tirelessly every single day under very difficult conditions to serve our customers and the region, and they are a source of pride for SEPTA and they are a source of pride for everybody who calls this region their home. So if I could just ask for a thank you for all the work that Carlton and Jazz do every day. 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. - - - (Applause.) - - -
We're pleased to be included in the Mayor's annual budget proposal, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to testify today to highlight how these funds will allow SEPTA to better serve our customers and support the City's comprehensive safety priorities and clean and green initiatives. City Council has been indispensable over the past year, particularly the first four months of 2024, and I'm very thankful for your leadership and partnership on so many important SEPTA initiatives, including efforts to secure critical state funding, the redesign of our bus network, Bus Revolution, the City's participation in SEPTA Key Advantage, the creation of the Zero Fare pilot program, the passage of camera-based lane enforcement 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. legislation. Nowhere has SEPTA's partnership with the City been more valuable and vital than with respect to customer and employee safety and security. Indiscriminate gun violence like the horrific incidents involving SEPTA buses in early March of this year cannot stand -- that cannot be the normal of what we are experiencing, and I cannot tell you how meaningful it has been on behalf of SEPTA customers and employees for me and Transit Police Chief Lawson, who is here with me as well today, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Mayor and Police Commissioner Bethel and City Councilmembers to strongly and unequivocally condemn these incidents and coordinate with law enforcement on apprehension and prevention. Last week, SEPTA released its Fiscal Year 2025 operating and capital budgets. SEPTA's operating budget is funded through subsidies from local, 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. state, and federal governments, the fare box and other revenues. The City of Philadelphia's $133 million contribution under the budget proposal is a vital part of SEPTA's annual budget. billion in state operating funds. million capital contribution represents one percent of SEPTA's total Fiscal Year '25 capital budget and will support a total capital program of approximately $922 million. Funding from the City of Philadelphia is even more important this year because it will match critical additional transit investment that Governor Shapiro proposed in his state budget. When I testified before Council last year, I warned of a coming fiscal cliff, the risk of service cuts and fare increases once SEPTA's one-time federal 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. COVID emergency relief funds were exhausted. That day arrived this month, and SEPTA now faces annual budget deficits of $240 million or more beginning on July 1st of this year. The Governor's funding proposal would provide new operating funding for transit agencies statewide, including 161 million for SEPTA. The Governor's budget reflects the important work of the Philadelphia legislative delegation and this Council to carry our urgent funding message to Harrisburg, and I really thank you. I've seen many of you in Harrisburg doing just that. Rather than being forced to dismantle service as the City prepares to welcome the world in 2026, new state funding, coupled with continued local match funds and SEPTA's efficient and responsible budget practices, will provide operating budget certainty through 2030. With funding in place, SEPTA's 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Fiscal Year 2025 budget will not raise fares or reduce services. SEPTA's budget will fund implementation of the bus network redesign and increase Regional Rail service. SEPTA's budget also invests $72 million for safe, clean, and secure initiatives. We're doubling the levels from just three years ago, including funding for 40 more police officers, 30 more safety professionals, and 100 more cleaners. The capital budget proposes a 14 billion 12-year program that will enable continued investment in infrastructure state of good repair, station accessibility, and vehicle replacements.
We thank members of Council and other City leaders for highlighting the role SEPTA plays in the lives of every Philadelphian and how SEPTA's success is the City's success. What you and your customers are now seeing is a SEPTA 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. system that is growing. We're providing 700,000 daily trips and reaching our highest ridership recovery rate since the start of the pandemic. You're seeing a SEPTA that is safer with 60 transit police officers hired in the past months, helping to 9 drive down serious crime. I hope you all 10 saw the headlines that in this first 11 quarter, we are 45 percent down in Part 1 12 crime. Huge. 13 SEPTA is cleaner and becoming 14 more so as a result of new personnel and 15 a top-to-bottom restructuring of our 16 cleaning program. 17 SEPTA is more affordable, with 18 no fare increase since 2017 despite inflation and new fare programs and options that make SEPTA's service more affordable and convenient for City residents and those traveling with children. SEPTA is modernizing, advancing a strategic plan that redesigns our bus 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. network, reimagines the Regional Rail network, and transforms our trolley network to make travel more efficient and connected. And SEPTA is accountable. We have more transparency with information and data measuring our progress, putting more tools in the hands of our customers and employees on updated websites. But don't take my word for it. Come see tangible examples of SEPTA's improvements across the system. And I've seen many of you at these locations. We have our newly reconstructed Drexel Station at 30th Street and the debut of our new SEPTA Metro wayfinding at 13th Street Station. It's our first example of a model station of deep cleaning and hard maintenance. The current project at Tasker-Morris Station is getting us closer to our goal of full accessibility on SEPTA metro. Our newly installed full-length gates at 69th Street and 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. stations to follow in Philadelphia will help address fare evasion. And tomorrow at SEPTA headquarters, we will be retiring our very last diesel bus in our regular fleet and welcome our first fuel cell electric bus toward our zero emission fleet transition goals. I want to close by updating Council and the public on the status of the first comprehensive redesign of our bus network in SEPTA's 60-year history. The public meetings held in coordination with City Council were considered by the SEPTA Board in May -- will be considered by the SEPTA Board in May. So thank you again for the opportunity to be here this morning. I look forward to continuing to work with all of you to advance SEPTA's priorities on behalf of our customers, your constituents, and the communities we all serve, and I welcome any questions you may have.
4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Thank you very much for your testimony. I just have a couple questions before I relax my time to the members. First, I want to start off by acknowledging Fran Kelley and Wendy Harvey Green. So I just want to thank them for always answering the phone, rather it's during the week, on the weekends, keeping me updated on everything that's going on as relates to SEPTA here in the City of Philadelphia. So I just want to acknowledge them, because they definitely are an asset to your team. I want to know more about the Virtual Patrol Unit. Give me an idea of how much is budgeted in this budget for that particular unit, how it will go about -- how you will utilize them in terms of the operations around public safety, and then also more about the partnership with the Philadelphia Police Department. How are we prioritizing what areas that we are deploying your manpower 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to make sure we have safe corridors but, most importantly, safe transportation hubs around the City of Philadelphia? Like, for instance, I'm from South Philadelphia, but I know at Broad and Olney a whole lot goes on, right? So it's just like a no-brainer that that would be like a strategic area to pay attention to. I'm not from West Philly, but I know everything takes place at 52nd and Market, right? So how are we going about strategizing and working with the Philadelphia Police Department? And I know crime is down 45 percent. Sometimes it don't feel that way, right? And so I want to get an idea how we're utilizing our resources to strategically target those areas. So the virtual patrol and then also how we're working in partnership with the Philadelphia Police Department.
Sure. I'm going to give an overview. We have our Chief 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. here today, who I'd also like a chance to comment. So our virtual patrol is new. We've developed it over the last couple of years. It's part of our $72 million investment and safe and secure, several million going to that program. We have hired and we've looked -- the Chief and his team have done a great job of connecting with retired law enforcement and others that have experience with law enforcement to look at those cameras on a regular basis. We have over 30,000 cameras, and this is a good way for us to have eyes and ears in as many places as possible. Of course we don't have 30,000 sets of eyes that are looking at these cameras at all times, so that's why it's important for us to have people who have the right experience looking at them. And we -- in use with the Transit Watch app, with our employees radioing in when they see anything that concerns them, 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. obviously our riders and others can use the app, and that is really where we can be strategic and we can be strategic in pulling up certain scenes. We can be strategic in identifying where certain hotspots are so that we can make sure those stations and those vehicles are watched on a more regular basis. Again, our Chief has done an excellent job, and while I could tell you how we're working with Philadelphia Police, I'd prefer that he tell you how he's working one on one with Commissioner Bethel.
And real quick, before the Chief come up, could we talk about the virtual patrol. Now, there was an article about a system that we had operating at one point in time, camera related, and somehow it was disabled or we didn't use it regarding a contract or so forth. Can you elaborate on that particular topic or do I need to go have 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. my staff pull the information from the Inquirer as a refresher?
Sure. Sure. Yeah. So pardon me. Sorry. I understand. So, yeah, we ran a pilot, initially a six-month pilot, which we decided to extend to 12 months, with a firm, a local firm in Southeastern Pennsylvania called ZeroEyes. And we were very intrigued to see if this would work on our system. They have developed a technology that can identify when a gun is out in the open, and it was designed after certain mass shootings. Particularly we were given examples at school campuses, at business campuses where often the shooter would have the gun out sometimes minutes prior to a shot going off. 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. And so obviously every second counts, every minute counts, and we thought if we could identify somebody carrying a gun on our system, obviously our virtual patrol could take a look and our police officers could get there. Unfortunately, our cameras are old. We have analog cameras, and while they have really helped the Philadelphia Police identify, they've helped our DA be able to prosecute with good evidence, as far as the AI algorithms and how they use the back office and the analysis, it wasn't a good fit. It also wasn't a good fit on how someone carries something on a school campus and a business campus doesn't also correlate. We're going to continue conversations. It just wasn't worth us investing in this type of technology without seeing the results that we wanted to see, but we'll continue doing that. And we are now investing that money in 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. other initiatives that the Chief can elaborate on that are showing direct results to reducing crime and reducing violence on the system.
Thank you, Leslie. CHIEF LAWSON: Good morning, Council President. So I've spent 31 years in the SEPTA Transit Police organization. That has helped me to establish a lot of good relationships with our counterparts in the City of Philadelphia. And we're very lucky in that Commissioner Bethel, from the very beginning of his administration, has brought us into the fold and given me an opportunity to work very closely with his immediate team in establishing some priorities, one of the biggest ones being around school safety. And so we have worked closely on developing some corridor plans between the schools and the SEPTA facilities, establishing a partnership with the City 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. on escorting buses of school kids into terminals, and we're working together on that. And then as we establish the priorities, we kick them down to our staff to do the same exact thing at a local district level among all the police districts in the City. I can tell you that we haven't had this good of a coordinated effort with the City in a very long time, and that's a credit to Commissioner Bethel and his staff. You talked about virtual patrol. I want to touch on that. So that was a new group that we developed last year, and we planned on that group at a time when we were having a lot of trouble staffing police officers. So we brought in a team of civilians and we targeted retired law enforcement, because we wanted that kind of effort, that knowledge to bring in. And so we brought in a group of individuals who would patrol our system just by camera, and the 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. advantage that they have is that they can pull up multiple stations at a time and have over-watch now in a larger area of SEPTA than our cops can even have in person. What we have seen now, having staffed this for a year, is an unbelievable success rate in a couple areas, right? So those folks are now getting out ahead of our patrols as police are moving throughout SEPTA and identifying problems that they can direct our police to. It could be homeless encampments setting up. It could be large groups of juveniles kind of congregating. Trouble tends to follow that. So they're getting out ahead of that and directing police to where we need to go. We think that's certainly having a positive effect on crime reduction. The other thing that they're doing is, folks that commit crimes on SEPTA, they always return. They're 4/24/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. always using SEPTA to get around the City. These folks are identifying a lot of criminals that have hit us for crimes on SEPTA. We're now taking a lot of criminals off the street. Our arrests are up through the roof for the first quarter of the year, and I give that team a lot of credit for that.