COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BUDGET - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, March 6, 2007 10:20 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILWOMAN CAROL ANN CAMPBELL COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN FRANK DiCICCO COUNCILMAN W. WILSON GOODE, JR. COUNCILMAN WILLIAM GREENLEE COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN BRIAN J. O'NEILL COUNCILMAN JUAN RAMOS COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILMAN DANIEL SAVAGE COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO RESOLUTION 070128 - Resolution providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia of a Revised Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia covering Fiscal Years 2008 through 2012... - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2
Good morning, everyone. Sorry for the delay. This is the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole. I would ask Mr. McPherson to please read the title of Resolution No. 8 070128. MR. McPHERSON: Resolution 10 070128, providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia of a Revised Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia covering Fiscal Years 2008 through 2012, and incorporating proposed changes with respect to Fiscal Year 2007, which is to be submitted by the Mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to the Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement, authorized by an ordinance of this Council approved by the Mayor on January 3, 1992, by and between the City and the Authority.
Thank 3 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 you. Ms. Wilkerson. Do all of the Councilmembers have a copy of Ms. Wilkerson's testimony, the revised form? (Yes.)
Good morning. Welcome. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good morning. I'm Joyce Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to Mayor John Street, and with me is Dianne Reed, the City's Budget Director, and Mr. Vince Jannetti, Acting Finance Director for the City. I appreciate the opportunity to present testimony in support of the Administration's proposed FY08 to FY12 Five-Year Financial Plan. This Five-Year Plan builds on the work of many men and women who work behind the scenes in departments across the City, and I want to thank them all. This is a Herculean effort that everybody 4 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 pitches in to accomplish, and I want to acknowledge their work and I appreciate all of the support they've given over the years. Once again, we've asked our departments to do more with less in developing the budget. City departments asked for 95 million more to spend and we gave them only 7 million. Our managers, as always, have responded creatively, figuring out new, more efficient ways to conduct business as the City attempts to fund tax reductions, absorb rapidly increasing healthcare costs and county-related obligations. As this Five-Year Plan makes clear, our resources are being spread critically thin. Philadelphia has experienced a dramatic recovery from the fiscal reversals of the early 1990s and the recession in the early part of this decade. The recession culminated in the negative $46 million fund balance in 2004, FY2004, which was quickly followed by a $96 million fund balance in FY05 and 5 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 a $254 million fund balance in FY06. As the chart that I've included in my testimony shows, with the exception of FY04's negative fund balance, we've been able to maintain fund balances both during its tenure and over the life of the proposed Five-Year Plan. It's a remarkable feat when you consider that over $3 billion is projected to have been removed from the tax base for the '01 to '12 period, the impact of the post 9/11 recession on state and local governments and the soaring costs of healthcare, energy and labor relations awards. Unlike the last Five-Year Plan that the Rendell Administration proposed, we do not have assumed savings. And if you'll remember, it was the practice to claim $60 million in unspecified future government efficiencies. PICA no longer allows us to do that and so this Plan does not have that flexibility. The FY08 to '12 plan, the City's sixteenth, describes in detail the 6 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 City's continuing commitment to the following areas: maintaining fiscal health; implementing neighborhood transformation; promoting economic development; providing high-quality public education and comprehensive, coordinated social services; and enhancing public safety and quality of life. Over the last seven years, Philadelphia has been a city in transition. Neighborhoods long abandoned are experiencing a renaissance. Contaminated industrial sites along the river are being redeveloped as mixed-use communities with waterfront amenities, and population loss has stemmed, as long-term residents remain and suburbanites reverse the exodus. The local economy is transforming from industrial to knowledge based. Over the last seven years, the Street Administration through strategic investments in neighborhoods, education, tax reduction, social services, economic 7 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 development and more efficient and strategic government operations has sought to initiate and sustain this transformation. Philadelphia's residents and businesses are continuing the momentum. Government in the coming years, though, must renew the commitment to transformation. A priority of this Administration has been and will remain tackling core citizen needs, revitalizing neighborhoods in decline, strengthening schools, ensuring public safety and high quality standard of life in every community and, to the extent possible, reducing the local tax burden. There have been substantial successes since the beginning of the Administration.
Since 2001 when the Mayor unveiled the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative to revitalize neighborhoods as thriving communities, we've removed nearly 275,000 abandoned cars from City streets. Nearly 80,000 vacant lots have been 8 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 rehabilitated and 5,000 abandoned and dangerous properties have been demolished. For perhaps the first time in decades, neighborhoods with properties customarily below market value have been commanding prices competitive with more traditionally market-rate locations. Another implication of the success is when we put bid packages out now, about percent of the properties 12 are taken out by the owners of the 13 properties because the owners have an 14 interest in rehabilitation, when at the 15 beginning those properties would have 16 been demolished. 17 The success of the NTI effort 18 has also demonstrated by the growth in 19 property values across the City and in 20 the Real Estate Transfer Tax revenue, which tripled, from 77 million in FY01 to 236 million in FY06. The Children's Investment Strategy, which involves the combination of City funding and support obtained 9 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 through leveraging other government funds, has enabled an unprecedented investment in children. 2 billion. This is summarized in more detail in the Children's Report Card and includes things like the federal dollars we leveraged, the funding that we provide to the School District. So it's a roll-up of all dollars that we make available. This funding has increased from more than five percent annually. It concentrates in two key categories: prevention, with a 65 percent growth, and intervention and crisis services, with 60 percent growth. There are several positive indicators among many where the return on this investment has been significant, as highlighted in the 2006 Children's Report Card, which shows a decline in child abuse and neglect cases 10 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 and a reduction in the use of foster care, lower rates of teen pregnancy and the incidence of lead poisoning among children. The motto "online, not in line" is guiding our efforts to use digital technologies, and our goal for digital government efforts is to simultaneously cut costs and improve services. After more than a twofold increase in transactions, from 30,335 in FY05 to 78,000 in FY06, the number of unique visitors to the City's website is expected to skyrocket to 4 million users in FY07. The Water Department can swiftly pinpoint the location of water main breaks by reviewing online streaming video footage of pipeline connections. Inspectors from L&I can complete and file 21 field inspections by means of handheld devices, while administrative back-end applications process these communications and generate fees, permits and reports. The Records Department has converted 11 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 previously microfilmed land records into an online system, implementing E-recording and, in FY06, initiating an E-notarization project that can now complete deed transactions in hours, not days. And perhaps our most ambitious IT effort, the goal of having wireless Internet access throughout Philadelphia, took a big step forward in December when EarthLink completed the "Proof of Concept," a 15-square-mile test area, which stretches from North Philadelphia south to the edge of Chinatown and from the Delaware west to parts of Strawberry Mansion and Hunting Park. The fully completed project will cover all Philadelphia's 135 square miles and require up to 5,000 signal boxes. The build-out is expected to be completed in the first quarter of '08. The speed of wireless broadband will be at least 20 times faster than dial-up. The City's commitment to a 21st century infrastructure that bridges the digital 12 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 divide has catapulted Philadelphia to international prominence rightfully recognized for its innovation.
One of the greatest testaments to the value of the Administration's strategic investments in improved services, streamlining government and the quality of life for all Philadelphians has been steadily increasing citizen satisfaction with the quality of City services across government functions. Results from 1997 to 2006 satisfaction surveys show continuing improved satisfaction with the services considered the most important by survey respondents: law enforcement, trash collection, fire protection and street repair. In addition, health, water, parks, library and recreation services have received increased satisfaction ratings in '04, '05 and '06. Seventeen specific service areas from the "Taste of Philly Tap" to the helpfulness of library personnel and the quality of after-school programs hit 13 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 all-time highs in 2006. At the same time, the Administration has committed to a program of responsible tax reductions and has supported moderate tax cuts efforts every year. FY08 is the thirteenth consecutive fiscal year of wage tax and business tax rate reductions. 9 million. From '92 to 2000, 319 million was removed from the tax base. 56 billion will have been removed. 45 billion is estimated to have been removed. As shown in the chart below, the fund balance of the Administration's last plans are substantial given the context of decreased revenue and increasing criminal justice and social service costs. And I want to take your attention back to the chart on when you see almost a sea wave of tax reductions. This is money that we did 14 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 not end up spending to deliver services to the residents of Philadelphia for strategic investments or for other critically needed services. It was instead an investment in stimulating the City's economy. While the Administration's commitment to reducing the tax burden, unique among the nation's cities, will improve the City's competitiveness, the City also works leaner and meaner than it did in 2000, and the promise of renewed interest in City living and employment is being realized. While we celebrate our successes, we must at the same time be vigilant in addressing those problems that threaten the fabric and the quality of life of the City. So despite our significant successes, the Administration recognizes there are equally significant challenges. The cost of Prison operations, fueled by growing inmate population, and the rising cost of inmate 15 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 healthcare consume an ever-larger share of City resources, as do costs associated with increasing number of homeless persons in Philadelphia's streets and in its shelters. Perhaps most challenging is the rise in gun-related violence and homicides over the past two years, which threaten the progress we've made in making our neighborhoods safe and livable communities. While serious crime may have declined, the recent surge in homicides and gun violence in our City and the fear it has created is unacceptable. In response, we have developed several targeted objectives in FY06 to address these challenges. In perhaps the most sweeping initiative in many decades, the City has submitted a request for over $100 million more in Needs Based Budget funding from the state, in support of expansion of prevention services to children and families, keying off curfew and truancy programs as a way to make 16 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 sure at-risk youth were being reached.
The requested funding is needed to support expanding after-school programs to serve 27,000 more truant children and curfew violators; tripling of the number of children and their families receiving school-based case management services, from 5,000 to 15,000; to provide more conflict resolution education and violence prevention programs, such as the Intensive Violence and Delinquency Prevention Programs to serve 30,000 youth and more intensive services in the Adolescent Violence Prevention Partnership program, targeted to youth 10 to 15 who are considered to be most at risk. Following on FY07 initiatives -- hiring 200 additional police officers, continuing youth and adolescent violence prevention programs and cracking down on truancy -- Operation Safer Streets plans to include video surveillance cameras, training 1,000 volunteers to teach conflict resolution in churches and 17 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 places of worship and schools, recruiting block captains and town watch members, City-sponsored job fairs, support for ex-offenders through creation of additional one-stop shops, stepped up state and federal lobbying for stricter gun laws. In the coming months, the City will work with the Governor and the Philadelphia delegation to assure more adequate funding for these programs. If funding is not received, elimination of prevention programs will be considered on a case-by-case basis. The City must find ways to stem an increasing inmate census. In January 2007, census hovered around 8,700, which is a 1,950 increase over January 2000 population. That's a 29 percent increase, adding approximately $172,000 per day to the cost of Prison operations. The Prison budget has grown from 131 million in FY2000 to 194 million in 2006, a 48 percent increase driven by higher staffing costs and increasing inmate 18 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 healthcare costs. Since the spring of 2006, the City has been exploring more than options to curb census growth. A 5 November 2006 study by the Temple 6 University Crime and Justice Research 7 Center has provided additional insight 8 into the factors driving increases in the 9 census. Subsequent to the City's initial 10 formulation of preliminary census 11 reduction options, a lawsuit challenging 12 the constitutionality of conditions at 13 police detention facilities during the 14 summer of 2006 was filed. 3 million, providing additional hygiene 19 items to prisoners and develop a 20 mitigation plan. The City will continue to work with criminal justice officials to develop ways to manage the inmate census. 3 million per year in services for ex-offenders, a million from the City's 19 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 General Fund and 300,000 from Community Service Block Grant. The funding is targeted to the opening of three one-stop centers to serve inmates who are released from the Philadelphia Prison System each year. The first center opened in Southwest Philadelphia in February 2007. In FY08, the Mayor's Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness begins its fourth year. As such, the Office of Supportive Housing will continue to move the plan forward with several priorities. OSH will decrease the emergency housing census and the average length of stay by implementing a successful intervention strategy modeled on the nationally recognized Hennepin County, Minnesota Rapid Exit Program. In addition, with an FY07 $1 million allocation from the Housing Trust Fund as a base, OSH will seek to expand its rent subsidy program aimed at maintaining families in their own housing in the community, as well as implementing Breaking Bread, a 20 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 partnership with the Mayor's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, to move food distribution indoors. 9 has been added to expansion programs in FY08. Since 9/11, it's imperative that cities take appropriate steps to make sure that they are prepared to handle any disaster or catastrophic event.
Philadelphia undertook a comprehensive review of our preparedness and we are now implementing the findings. To adequately staff the Office of Emergency Management, $1 million in General Funds will initially be required in '08 to develop detailed operational disaster response plans, continue to implement the public education and outreach campaigns, conduct training exercises for first responders and build partnerships within the community and private sector. At the same time, we're 21 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 working with our regional partners to ensure the entire region is coordinated and prepared. As stated earlier, under NTI, thousands of buildings have been demolished, more than 12,000 units of affordable and market-rate housing have been built, and 13,000 more are planned or under construction. Our next step in transforming neighborhoods is restoring commercial corridors. In October, the Mayor signed an ordinance authorizing the issuance of $150 million in bond proceeds to support ReStore Philadelphia Corridors. In '08, funding will be made available for such purposes as street lighting, pedestrian lighting, street paving, public signage, sidewalks, crosswalks along commercial corridors. While we address our challenges, it would be imprudent not to sustain the momentum we've already created in improving the quality of life. Through the Cultural Corridors program, 22 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 this comprehensive strategy is to position arts and culture as a central part of Philadelphia's identity. And we have recently briefed or discussed with Council the Commercial Corridor program, so I won't go into that in detail. The City embraces the expansion of the Convention Center as an economic engine. Construction is projected to generate over 3,700 construction jobs and permanent jobs. This Plan reflects $15 million in annual support for the Convention Center contingent on conditions and negotiations not yet completed. With the realization of a $96 million fund balance in '05 and $254 million fund balance in '06, Philadelphia experienced a dramatic recovery. The City's commendable recovery is the result of many factors, notably strategic investments, tough cost reduction decisions and the fruition of the promise 23 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 of 12 years of sustained cuts to wage and business taxes. The City is currently projecting a positive fund balance of $171 million at the end of '07. The Five-Year Plan projects fund balances exceeding 45 million at the end of each fiscal year, in line with the thresholds required by PICA. However, we must remain mindful of our major tax revenue sources missed projections in '02 and '03, contributing to three consecutive operating deficits despite difficult measures such as hiring freezes. Recent news has slowed national economic growth, and downturns in the markets could quickly return us to the condition we found ourselves in a few short decades ago. Although tax revenues have been strong since FY04, growth has been centered in the volatile realty transfer and business privilege tax areas. At the same time, the wage tax, representing half of all tax collections, is slated for significant cuts through 2015. Cuts 24 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 are estimated to be in excess of $50 million in '11 and $50 million plus in FY12. Moreover, structural financial challenges will continue to present obstacles to sustained fiscal health in the future and require vigilant fiscal prudence: a weak tax base, high tax burdens, escalating costs, high service responsibilities and low state financial support. Census figures indicate that while Philadelphia's population decline has at least slowed since 2000, a large portion of the population remains economically disadvantaged. And although we have improved statistics in the area of high crimes, the homicide rate increases.
One of the things that the Five-Year Plan does in a really excellent way is -- and I encourage people to read it -- is discuss the burdens that the City has to absorb, because we also have county functions. A lot of times the 25 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 City is compared to other jurisdictions where they don't have county prisons to maintain. They're not saddled with the burden of over $100 million annually of maintaining a court system. But those are the kinds of things that we have to support off of our local tax base. They're the kinds of things that make the City non-competitive with other jurisdictions. And I invite you to read that part of the Five-Year Plan. In addition to the structural challenges, the City is burdened by high-cost items such as labor and energy costs. In FY08, there's a four percent salary increase for the workforce. Wages rise by $62 million. By contrast, all employee benefits increase by $86 million. One out of every four General Fund dollars will go to employee benefits in '08. Utilities and fuel, which were an area of savings in the '90s, are expected to grow by 12 percent during the next Plan period. As in previous Plans, 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the Plan does not reflect wage increases beyond those previously negotiated, and any wage increase must be funded through decisions made by the Mayor and City Council in response to settle agreements and awards. In FY05, the City's decision involved a layoff. In '06 and '07, the City has appealed the decisions of Act 111 interest arbitration panels with regard to health and welfare benefits. No salary increases are reflected in '09 to '12. As early as 2007, all four major City bargaining units are covered by contracts as of early 2007. All the unions are covered with contracts that are expected to expire in July 2008, although the next Administration ultimately will negotiate the new contract. Initial contract proposals will likely be made before the end of 2007. Philadelphia's pension plan, like many defined pension plans across the country over the last five years, has experienced a perfect storm, one formed 27 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 by lagging economic performance, poor stock market returns, record low interest rates and the fact that employees enter retirement earlier and live longer. In '03, in an effort to manage the impact of the fund performance on the General Fund, the City shifted its fund contribution to the minimum municipal obligation level, which decreases the contribution in the short term but increases the long-term costs of eliminating the unfunded liability. However, by moving to the MMO funding, the City avoided $245 million in costs from '03 to '06 and will avoid 421 million in costs from '07 to '12. Otherwise, in order to balance the Plan, the City would have to choose among critical City services, eliminating almost 1,200 positions, or foregoing wage and business tax cuts or increasing taxes. A return to the full funding policy or an additional unplanned decrease in earnings assumption in '08 28 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 would require the City to consider these alternative measures. 75 in '07, bringing the rate closer to the national median rate of percent. Even with these 8 policy adjustments, the portion of the General Fund revenues allocated to pension bonds, pension and health and medical obligations is projected to increase from 432 million in '03 to more than $1 billion in FY12. The rapid growth in employee health benefit costs, which is largely outside the control of the City policymakers, due to the prescriptive role of interest arbitration panels, represents a significant fiscal constraint. 3 million increase in employee benefit costs significantly outpaces revenue growth, reducing the proportion of resources available for other spending. Creative cost-cutting and revenue-generating initiatives and tight 29 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES.
070128 spending controls will need to be maintained to balance the budget in the out years of the Plan. To this end, the City will continue some revenue-generating and cost-saving initiatives discussed in previous plans and continue to pursue the most efficient and effective ways of providing government services. The Plan assumes a million from the Coordinated Street Furniture Program, an outgrowth of recommendations contained in the '06 strategic marketing plan. The City issued an RFP in December 2006 for the design, installation and maintenance of street furniture amenities, including transit shelters, pay toilets, newsstands, honor box corrals and advertising panels. Proposals are due in April 2007. Street furniture amenities will be provided and maintained at no 23 cost to the City in exchange for exclusive right to advertising. The City will continue to use 30 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the surplus property sales initiative in FY08. Sales of City surplus property are expected to generate $6 million in '07 and an additional million in '08. As 6 part of this initiative, three requests 7 for proposals were recently issued for 8 large parcels of land near the airport, as well as a long-term lease for the Love Park Garage. 5 percent reduction in positions, saving 10 million per year, for a total Plan impact of $39 million. A total of 30 million in savings from health insurance reform is assumed in the FY08 to '12 Plan. The Plan projects health insurance costs growing at 9 percent annually. The City plans to reduce out-year costs through several strategies. First, the City will continue to negotiate aggressively with its medical insurance provider at each annual renewal and bid out coverage, as appropriate. Secondly, the City will 31 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 attempt to come to an agreement with its unions to revise employee health plans that are more consistent with typical market practice. The City will explore additional cost-cutting strategies, such as enhanced employee health management, which includes disease management programs for employees with certain health issues, wellness programs, such as smoking cessation and weight management programs, and employee consumerism education programs. Since 1999, the real estate market has seen dramatic increases in value in many locations throughout Philadelphia. Low mortgage interest rates and increased investor confidence in the City have contributed to increased property demand and value. The City's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative has also contributed to the citywide increase in property values through its strategically targeted investments in neighborhoods. Property assessments have 32 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 not kept up with this trend. BRT plans to assess properties at 100 percent of market value in the near future. Full valuation will result in a more transparent system, where assessment growth will closely track trends in actual real estate market values. The Administration supports the move to full valuation. It represents an important new element of the City's overall tax policy strategy, reflecting the Administration's recognition that tax reform must address structural inequities as well as rate reductions. Research suggests that currently high value properties in the City are generally under-assessed as a percentage of their actual value, while lower value properties are generally over-assessed. Full valuation will increase the accuracy of property assessments in Philadelphia, thereby improving the fairness of the real estate tax for City taxpayers and reducing the regressivity of the current 33 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 system. The City has embarked upon and will continue technology-based initiatives designed to cut costs, simplify administration processes, and improve service and productivity.
After evolving over a five-year period from a work order system to an Oracle-compatible billing system, Project Ocean will be completed due to the advent of a government accountability structure, bridging the involvement of MOIS, Water Department and Revenue Department. 9 million productivity loan in October 2006, the Personnel Department and MOIS have begun replacing the City's 30-year-old personnel database and paper-based manual employee transaction system with a new enterprise-wide HRIS system. The first phase of the project has been initiated in '07 with a dedicated project manager and a governance structure ultimately accountable to the ITGB, which is the 34 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 City's Governing Board for all IT projects and a steering committee of cabinet members, to ensure that the project is completed on time and on budget. Completed modules will include an employee database; a position management system, featuring job descriptions and improved budget controls; and advanced benefits management, which includes flex benefit plan administration. Today, the City's telephone service is provided by a vendor at a significant annual cost. Through the use of voiceover Internet protocol technology, which can route spoken conversations over the Internet and City Net, the City will reduce the dependency on conventional vendor-provided telephone service and replace much of its old tech internal and external voice communication infrastructure. The City has estimated that 5 million could be saved annually through voiceover Internet protocol, starting in FY10, for a total Plan impact 35 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 of $15 million. The City is strengthening its impact to work leaner and smarter into FY08. As indicated earlier, we cannot afford to increase the size of the City government to inefficient levels and we cannot afford any additional tax cuts beyond the current cuts in the Plan without providing for offsetting revenues. And the challenges are growing. We are currently analyzing the potential impact to the City of the proposed federal and state budgets, which could have significant direct and indirect negative effects on the General Fund based on changes to the Community Development Block Grant and other programs that Philadelphia depends on. SEPTA's ongoing financial crisis, if entailing a substantial increase in the City's contribution, could pose additional risk to the City's Plan. Negative outcomes at the federal and state levels would require us to pursue 36 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 alternate contingencies to maintain the fund balance. Finally, there's nothing additional for the School District in this Five-Year Plan. The Administration has been working with the Commonwealth to get a better sense of what's going on with the School District funding, and until that time, we won't be proposing any additional support. I want to thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony in support of the proposed Five-Year Plan. I would be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Thank you very much. I would like to set the guidelines from the beginning. Each Councilperson will be given five minutes for questioning on the first round and then we will take it from there. Ms. Wilkerson, during the Fiscal 2007 General Fund budget 37 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 deliberations, the Mayor agreed to proceed with the following City Council initiatives in return for the restoration of economic stimulus programs: the Promoting Philadelphia and Innovation Philadelphia, as well as the increase of approximately $19 million in pension payments. Can you tell us if and when the City hired additional police officers as we had agreed upon for the FY07 budget.
The City has begun the hiring process. Officers begin coming online this spring. Do you have the exact dates?
I think in March, in this month, we should see the first set of graduates coming out. This is Dianne Reed, Budget Director.
I'm sorry. You say "coming out." That means 38 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 that they are in the Academy and will be graduating?
Pedro, do you have the numbers on how many are coming out in each class?
Good morning, President Verna. Pedro Ramos, Managing Director. We have 112 recruits graduating on March 12th and 110 recruits graduating on June 15th.
And I believe we have 150 enrolled as of February 12th, with a graduation date for September. 39 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 And the number there is 150 in that February 12th class. And I believe 116 planned to start in April. I'm just glancing over at Deputy Commissioner Gaittens to make sure I got his notes correct.
It was also agreed to that we would hire additional staff at a salary value of $1.5 million for the health centers. Have we done that?
We have not hired all the positions. We are in the process of hiring, and I can get you a written report that details -- that gives you the details on what the challenges have been with filling some of the positions. I don't know if Mr. Ramos wants to...
We'll supplement with detail, but I can tell you in 40 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 general that a major challenge has been the process of recruitment and hiring. A number of positions authorized back in the summer remain unfilled. And we have a batch of other positions that came up at the beginning of this calendar year that are authorized also unfilled. But even the July positions that were authorized, I think maybe as much as a third of them are still unfilled by virtue of the hiring process itself not effectively getting those recruited employees.
Is that because people are not applying for these positions?
Well, we're trying to do a couple things, in general. We'll be happy to provide more detail, more detailed testimony later. There are two things. One is reviewing the classifications themselves to see whether we've become too uncompetitive in certain areas. The other is making sure that 41 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 we're staffing personnel in that department and flowing position requests on a regular basis so that they don't get sort of batched up and held up given the delay in hiring for those types of roles.
Did we ever hire the additional staff for the City morgue? I mean, that was, I think, $120,000; was it not, Councilman?
I don't know whether that's -- there are four positions, two of which have been hired thus far.
Madam President, point of information. 42 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
What were the positions that were filled, the two that were filled?
So the only two that need to be filled are the two that were pressing in the discussions that we had. Thank you.
But didn't we ask for two additional staff members last year?
I believe that was the number. What I heard from the Health Commissioner is that two positions were filled. I don't believe that those were the two that were the most pressing for us in the missing persons discussion that we had the year before last.
Thank you, Councilman. And I know that the next is 43 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 something that all of the Councilpeople are interested in. We were supposed to hire additional maintenance staff in the Recreation Department at a value of $750,000 and we also inserted an additional $250,000 for materials. Can we be informed as to what, if anything, the Administration has done on that?
Council President, nearly every one of those positions, of which there were about 16, has been hired. I think they have a complement of 14 at this time.
And is that number reflected in the out years for the Five-Year Plan?
We had zeroed it out, but we have restored it at a half a 44 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 million dollars.
In the maintenance staff. How about with materials?
I don't have the detail on materials, but I know they have been spending from their General Fund funds for materials.
It was budgeted and they have been spending. We would have to get you the exact amount.
I think that's been eliminated, from what I was able to determine reading.
Last year, the Administration reflected the agreements with Council in the '07 budget. We did not carry it throughout all five years of the Five-Year Plan. 45 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
I believe, Ms. Wilkerson, on some they did, on others they did not.
That's right. The Police, we carried it through. It reflects as much as anything the pressure on the Five-Year Plan. By the time you hit '11 and '12 in the Five-Year Plan, we're having to extract $50 million extra to support the wage tax reductions, and we have gotten no growth, no substantial growth, out of the property taxes, and it's just a matter of resources, constrained resources.
Okay. I think as we go forward we would like to know what, if anything, was done with the '07 before we go into the '08. Also an issue last year was the restoration of the five engine and ladder companies at a cost of $3.5 million.
Pedro Ramos, 46 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 Managing Director. The short answer is that the deployment -- the redeployment never happened, although we were calling it a restoration in budgetary terms. So you can see it as the restoration happened or the redeployment never happened, but it was the outcome sought by Council.
Thank you. Another issue was the installation of $100,000 worth of countdown clocks at various City crosswalks. Did we ever do anything about that?
Streets is keeping count by locations. So the countdown devices were planned for 40 locations, ten of which have been done thus far of the 40. So about percent, I assume. 22
Within the next six 25 months. 47 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
And we had also asked that the Managing Director's Office establish a Benefit Bank to assist City residents in applying for federal and state assistance. Where are we on that issue? I believe it was $500,000.
This was -- we were -- I'll get the amount verified. I know that we have a contract with -- I believe the Office of Reentry has a contract with the Benefits Bank.
Would you provide us whatever information you can on that, please.
And did the Clerk of Quarter Sessions ever get the additional staff that she was requesting at a cost of $150,000?
Those positions were in the budget at a level of 121, and as of about a week or so ago, she has 115 of those filled. But all of the requests 48 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 that she has put through have been approved. She had about 113 positions at the end of last fiscal year, at the end of June.
I think we were asking that she get additional staff and I notice that what is being proposed to us for this year, they're actually going to cut her. I think what's being proposed for FY08 is 114.
Yes. The Clerk of Quarter Sessions was one of the many departments that was included in the 2.5 percent cut, which saves nearly $11 million in the budget. It allows the Plan to balance. The only departments that were held harmless from the 2.5 percent position reduction were the uniform departments, the courts and prisons.
I think that when the Clerk of Quarter Sessions came in to testify last year, 49 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 they said that they would be able to collect much more revenue if in fact they had the staff that they needed. They were very, very short on staff. So it's like giving them $150,000 in one hand and taking seven positions away with the other hand.
Yes. It's a difficult situation -- I'm being reminded that they asked us to take $50,000 of the money that Council gave them last year to use for equipment, because they didn't actually need all the money that was given. I would like to also add that one of the things that's happened during this year and at the end of last year is that some of the processes over there have been streamlined so that it's a less manually driven process as part of the alignment with the state's new case management system for the courts. So she's made a lot of progress.
Well, 50 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 she'll be in testify and we'll certainly clarify that issue with her. I have many other questions that I'd like to ask, but I certainly don't want to dominate the hearing. At this time, the Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.
Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, Ms. Wilkerson.
One question. When is the Mayor's Educational Task Force expected to make its recommendations?
We expect that report to be completed this month. I don't have an exact date.
A critical piece is -- everybody is trying to get a better handle on what's going on with school funding, and we've been working 51 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 closely with the Commonwealth trying to extract information from the District and put it into a model in which everybody has confidence, and that has taken longer than anybody anticipated.
Who actually is responsible for the recommendations in the end?
The recommendations in the end? The Task Force is making recommendations.
I mean, is there a vote that's taken or is there someone chiefly responsible for writing the recommendations? How does that work?
There's a Task Force. It has Committee Chair. They are supported by consultants. They have gone through a process involving community meetings, a lot of public input. They have conducted polls of the public trying to assess citizen satisfaction. At the end --
I guess 52 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 specifically what I'm asking is, if the Administration and the Task Force anticipates a need for increased funding on the local and state level, who is going to be responsible for that decision in terms of how much money is needed on the local and state level?
I think it will be recommendations made by the Task Force. I think the Mayor ultimately will make a decision about what it is that the Administration proposes in terms of additional support. We don't have it within the four corners of this budget or Five-Year Plan. So we'll be coming back to Council if in fact there's a substantial commitment, because it will involve legislation.
But in terms of the report itself, the Task Force or the subcommittee will make the recommendations?
And in terms 53 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 of the Administration's participation in the Task Force, I'm not going to ask you what the recommendation is yet. I will just ask, is there anticipation that the Administration will use the fund balance for additional funds or a millage shift?
I don't have an answer for that. There is not -- with the revenues we have on the table now, there's not enough within this budget or Five-Year Plan to provide substantial additional support. There would need to be additional revenues generated if there were going to be a substantial commitment, additional commitment made to the School District.
So the answer is fund balance rather than millage shift? I'm not sure. My question was, I'm sure there's been some thought as to what can be done in addition to asking for state funding. It was my understanding that there was going to be a need for more local funding. In 54 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 fact, I attended the press conference announcing the Education Task Force, and it was mentioned that there would be a request for more local funding. I guess my question is, I'm sure some thought has gone into it, considering the report will be released soon. It actually was supposed to be released before now. Was the thought to use some of the fund balance or was the thought to do a millage shift?
Well, I think there are a couple of things. One, if we ever began to really engage in a contemporaneous reassessment of our properties, we would have substantially more dollars going to the School District. The School District, because it gets 58 percent of the real estate tax, has been hemorrhaging quietly because we haven't had reassessment. And that figure could be as much as -- I can get you that number, but that's a huge number that the School District is 55 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 cheated of because we haven't had any assessments. Any time you have properties that are assessed at 30, 40 percent of their actual value, the School District is missing out on a lot of money, in addition to the City being starved of the resources it needs. And so the Administration has always supported moving to full valuation, capturing the value as it's available, protecting individuals that cannot afford to pay. So we would -- some of it is going to, I think, at some point come through the property tax. I think that there may be a need for additional tax revenue. Within this Five-Year Plan, we cannot afford to -- the fund balance is basically all spent by the end of this Five-Year Plan. There's only $40-some-odd million available. PICA makes us reserve that in the event that PGW doesn't repay. So there's no fund balance out there to spend for the 56 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 schools. That money is all supporting basic City services. So to the extent that it's not there in property reassessments, there would need to be additional revenue generated.
Okay. Thank you. I understand the answer to the question. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.
Thank you. Sort of following up on that, on of the Five-Year Plan, at the bottom of the page under Committing City Resources in Support of Public Education, you stated "the proposed full valuation project thus is critically important to the School District." Can you explain what you meant by that?
I meant tracking the actual market values more 57 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 closely. As market values have been going up in neighborhoods across the City, we've largely had no increase, no 5 reassessment. There hasn't been a citywide reassessment to capture any of that value probably for four years, four or five years. We need to go on and do that. In addition, we've ended up with a system that is very unfair. When you look at -- the Reinvestment Fund is doing a lot of research about values in the City, and when you look at their map where they say the people are who are over-valued, under-valued, it's like a patchwork quilt. It reflects the unfairness in the system we have. So for two reasons: We need to have a fair and transparent system and we need to begin to capture value that would come through reassessing properties across the City.
I'm sure this will be discussed later, but do you have any sense of where the full 58 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 valuation project might be at this point?
The full valuation, they have largely completed their IT installation. One part of the project was the CAMA system. They were doing a whole new software system. They're working now on populating all the various fields, filling in the number of bedrooms in a property, how old the property is. They've got to fill in all those data points in the new system before they'll be in a position to turn out numbers. There need to be conversations with and have been some conversations with BRT about doing some kind of statistical reassessment if in fact they're not ready in the near future with their new computer-supported system, because the City can't continue to miss out on all that revenue. It's starving the -- it's having an impact on the schools. It's having an impact on the City's ability to support its core 59 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 operations.
Okay. What concerns me is the fact that they raised this --
There will be somebody else, right? It seems that this issue was raised prematurely, unless you were trying to get the public to begin to accept the idea that this might come in the future, because it doesn't seem like they're ready to even implement the program.
I think the issue was raised -- I don't remember if it was first raised by the Tax Reform Commission, but was certainly something 60 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 that the Tax Reform Commission raised. I think BRT projected that this project would have been completed by now. It is probably running a year, year and a half behind schedule. But I think it in good faith projected that it would be completed by now. And so it's wanted to get the new system up and didn't want to divert resources from the new system to put them out on the streets to do a reassessment, because the people were needed in order to support the new system. But I think we can't afford to wait much longer. We're just missing out on too much revenue.
Do we have an Executive Director of the Board of Revision of Taxes? Do we have a replacement for Mr. Glancey?
There was a new person yesterday, and I don't remember 61 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 her name.
Her. This is interesting. Thank you. On of the Five-Year Plan you mention the recycling of accrued taxes and fees paid to the City when abandoned properties are condemned under eminent domain. Can you explain how this recycling of taxes works?
These are the properties condemned in connection with NTI. The liens and the taxes go -- some portion of the liens and the taxes go back into the NTI program to be rebudgeted for NTI activities. This is an agreement that I believe was approved by Council. I believe it was -- Eva Gladstein can give you more detail on that.
Eva Gladstein, Director of Neighborhood Transformation. This is an agreement that was signed by a number of City departments with the Redevelopment Authority through 62 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 which a portion of the outstanding taxes are recycled back into the program. It is managed and monitored through the Redevelopment Authority and the Office of Housing, and the resources go back into acquisition of properties through the NTI program.
Well, how are these properties acquired and how many of the properties have been given back to the Redevelopment Authority?
We can get a report on how much we've generated through the recycling program. The Councilmembers identify properties for acquisition when eminent domain happens. It's the liens associated with those properties that get poured back in. But we can get you a report on the activity under the agreement.
It's not a lot 63 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 of money. I believe for '06 it was a little bit over $1 million and we're projecting maybe a maximum of 3 million, but we'll get you the actual details.
Councilwoman, I'm sorry. Your five minutes are up. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.
Thank you, Madam President. I raise questions, too. I have the map in my hand that's in our Five-Year Plan and the one we received in our briefing packet last week that also deals with full tax valuation. And my question is, as my question was then, if we can have a map -- it's on the Five-Year Plan -- and we know who is under-assessed, who is over-assessed, then why can't we straighten that out and then come back and talk about full tax valuation? Obviously we've done the 64 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 surveys, we've done the studies, we know who is who. So I don't understand why we can't straighten this out and then come back and have this discussion.
This is not a BRT map. This is a map generated by the Reinvestment Fund and -- well, it's generated by the Reinvestment Fund. I think that a lot of what needs to happen is within the purview of BRT. It does not require any action by the Administration or City Council. It's simply something that needs to happen, and it needs to happen sooner rather than later.
That's fine, because I'm happy to have some of mine go down. Fine, I agree, but to talk about full tax valuation when we're not clear on this not being -- we admit that people -- we don't have it now, and people are taxed differently across the City. So if we know that, then why don't we straighten that out and then talk 65 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 about it? I mean, we don't hear talk about the millage rate, as my colleague just mentioned. We're told we should accept full tax valuation, but we don't get the rest of the information. We don't get what's clear. We don't get it straight. We don't talk about the millage rate, what that really means. So we don't have any information, which is why Council supported legislation, because the citizens are saying of the City, We're afraid that our taxes are going to be raised. How do we know they're not? Because we still don't get bona fide, solid information about the assessments in our area so that we have something to tell the people who send us here. That's my only -- and I know that's not just you, Ms. Wilkerson. I know that -- anyhow, that's a problem. That's a problem. We want a clear, concrete map, if you say this isn't it. We want to know who is taxed, how, where, 66 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 and we want to have a discussion on this whole millage issue before we're asked to consider it. And that's my statement about that. I'm happy to entertain any response that you may have. The other question -- and, Madam President, this is my last question -- on of your testimony, Ms. Wilkerson, in the first paragraph, you mention, quote, "The largest Plan savings in '08 is a 2.5 reduction in positions, saving 10 million per year." So, again, we're back to this issue of jobs, who is being cut, where are they being cut, what positions are being cut, and we really would like some information on that, because we're having a hard enough time, whether it be biosolids, whether it be housing, to get past these issues, and we would like to move forward together, the employees of our City and our City departments, and not have to go through an issue again where the citizens of our City say 67 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 they're losing their jobs. So can you give us more information with regard to that issue?
When we go to departments and tell them that we need for them to show either revenue or savings, they have some flexibility to show savings in Class 100, Class 200. And there are certain departments where we go and say, We don't want any Class 100 cuts. As Dianne testified, we don't take cuts in the uniform, we don't take cuts in the prisons. But what we can do is give you just a one-page sheet that shows where the personnel reductions are being absorbed so you have an exact head count where you know where there are position elimination by department. We'll get that one page to you.
Thank you. That will be helpful. Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome. 68 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 The Chair recognizes Councilman Ramos.
Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, I just want to make a correction to a statement that I made earlier concerning the funding question over at the Medical Examiner's Office. During those hearings that were in the Fiscal Year '06 budget when we questioned the Medical Examiner about what was it that they would need so we wouldn't have another Niecey Jefferson case that laid in the morgue for over two years before anyone realized that she was there was that they will need to add two pathologists, and I heard from the Health Commissioner, Ms. Carmen Paris, that in fact they have hired one and that they're seeking to hire a second person. So for the record, I just wanted to make that correction. Ms. Wilkerson, on , the last paragraph, I concur with this 69 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 sentence that starts with the -- it is the second sentence of the paragraph, "Results from '97 through 2006 citizen satisfaction surveys show continuing improved satisfaction with the services considered the most important by survey respondents," and I concur that trash collection has been -- we don't get in my office a whole lot of complaints about trash collection. Fire protection, our Fire Department is probably the best, in my view, the best Fire Department in the country, and street repair. But in the area of law enforcement, though I am a witness of the fine work that our police officers do every day in protecting us, I haven't seen any survey that has indicated that people are very happy with law enforcement. Did you put this in the context of other aspects of law enforcement as well in reference to whatever survey was done where you saw that people were very satisfied with our law enforcement? 70 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
Because we equate law enforcement -- I think every day people equate law enforcement with police officers, safety versus enforcing L&I laws.
Police services has been higher than national norms for several years. From Fiscal '04 to '05 general satisfaction with the police was 71 and a half to 72.6 percent satisfaction levels, while in the nation --
Yes. These are 1,100 Philadelphia residents, equal numbers from each councilmanic district. So it's a super sample from a statistical reliability point of view. The numbers did go down in '06 with all of the publicity about homicides. The survey took place in August, September time frame -- 71 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
And the reality. But people certainly were sensitive to the information, so that the satisfaction level in the 2006 survey did drop to 65 percent. But it has been very high.
We will get you the information. We usually do the surveys around July of every year. Like Dianne says, they're super surveys, so we're sampling each part of the City. We always try to make it better to make sure that with recreation centers, for example, we get enough information from people who are using recreation centers or after-school programs, we're getting enough information from people who are actually using after-school programming. But we'd be delighted to send around the information, because it is interesting. We ask everything from how do you like the libraries to would you rather have tax reduction or services, 72 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 and it's interesting seeing what people respond.
So in the broader definition of law enforcement, I believe in the response of people that were surveyed, but in the area of safety, I would suspect that specifically people will respond negatively, because all the surveys that we all have seen in this City, people are very, very concerned about safety and this law enforcement aspect, although we know our police officers are working very, very hard out there to protect us, but the reality that we're going through right now is what it is. So I just wanted to know if you were just limiting this to safety, and if so, I wouldn't concur with that. But if it's in a broader definition, is our rec centers safer than they were, I don't know. I had a problem with the rec center 60 feet from my doorstep all of last summer. So I wasn't that happy with 73 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the rec center. But the community, we have kind of like come together. We have come together and tried to handle that. That problem has improved substantially. So thank you. So I understand this was in a broader context. Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Madam President. Ms. Wilkerson, on your testimony, you refer to something that got quite a bit of media coverage in the Inquirer and a lot of conversation internally. It's Project Ocean. Could you take us through Project Ocean and specifically discuss how Project Ocean -- the relationship between the City, lawsuits, the settlement. I want to hear about the settlement pretty much with Project Ocean. 74 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 So could you just take us through what happened and how much money we actually lost at the end of the day, because, again, the media reports were it was approaching $18 million that we were about to lose. Obviously a lot of money was in there for licensings and et cetera. So the real figure to me, I don't know that figure, and today I'd like to know where this Administration, where this City is with Project Ocean and how much money we have spent and what we did to come to some conclusion here, because you indicate that it will be completed by when?
Before we get out the door, we will be able to issue bills using the new customer billing system. I want to ask Terry Phillis to come up. Terry is the head of MOIS. I don't know if everybody has met Terry. Terry has a long, long, long history. He comes from Cleveland, Ohio. He's my "homie." 75 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 But one of the things that Terry brings to the table is experience having implemented a customer billing system. Those are always a challenge to implement. Almost half of them that are attempted across the country don't go well, and we had a project that was very much off course. But Terry can tell you where we were, how much it's cost and where we expect to end up.
Thank you. Welcome, for lack of a better -- what is your last name again?
Thank you. I've lived with Project Ocean since I walked in the door here, so I feel very comfortable in talking about it. You have asked quite a few questions. How would you like me to --
Well, what 76 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 I'd like you to do is explain. I think we all know what Project Ocean is. What I want to know is that we read -- we learned that we spent a tremendous amount of money and Oracle walked on us and we had to threaten a lawsuit and then there was some settlement back and forth on dollars to get Oracle back on track. It was a real boondoggle from what I understand, because people left, ownership was part of, I understand, the problem. So I'd like to hear today how much money did it cost the City of Philadelphia to salvage Project Ocean and what actually happened at the end of the day. I understood and it was confirmed that Oracle said they didn't want anything more to do with it because of some internal issues. Just tell us the story about Project Ocean. I don't want to read about it in a newspaper.
Okay. Project Ocean was a project that was conceived to 77 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 build a customized solution to a water billing system for the City of Philadelphia because the City of Philadelphia at that point in time, about four years ago, felt that the requirements that were necessary for a water billing system were so unique that that's the only way it could be done, is to build a customized solution from scratch. Oracle was engaged to do that, and the amount of money that was spent on that particular project was in the range of $17 million. A significant portion of that was spent on what I would call infrastructure upgrades, and that was to build the platform that it would run on, which is hardware for MOIS. It was for licensing issues. It was for building a cleansing and a data transition set of software that would allow you to take the Legacy data into the new billing system. That portion of the investment was not totally lost and is being reused as we 78 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 move forward. The real problem with Project Ocean was really shared by two groups of people. One was Oracle and the other one was the City's management of that project. We did not have a good project management structure in place and I think it would have failed no matter what the product was that was being envisioned at that point. When I took over this project, what we looked at is what was the likelihood of going to court with Oracle and suing them for non-delivery of what we asked for. It was determined with the ITGB, the IT Governing Board, and with other people in the City that the best opportunity for the City was to enter into a settlement with Oracle, because we shared in the failure of that project. We met with Oracle over a couple-month period where we worked through the efforts of what was spent, what was recoverable, what they could 79 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 contribute to a settlement and what the City was looking for. The end result of that was that we were given several things that would allow us to go forward with the water billing system and not have to go back and look for additional funds. The settlement included a billing system that we could buy that would be out of the box, because over the four-year period, the development in what's known as a COTS system, commercial off-the-shelf software, had grown to the point that it met 96 percent of the City's requirements for a best-of-practice billing system. That doesn't mean that all the unique situations outside of the billing system, which is business practices, were best practices, but they were the practices to support the Legacy billing system. It was recognized that that would have to change. The first part of our organization was to bring the Water 80 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 Revenue Department, the MOIS Department and the water billing department together to discuss the past and to discuss the future as to how we could put together an organization that would give us a chance for success moving forward. And I am happy to say that Commissioner Nancy Kammerdeiner, Commissioner Bernie Brunwasser and myself met and actually negotiated a settlement with our legal team with the Oracle Corporation. It's been very successful in doing that. So we got a billing system as part of that settlement which was of our choosing. We looked at three different billing systems at that point. We picked the one that we thought would be the easiest for the City to implement and met the needs of getting a billing system in quickly. We also got $1 million in consulting free from Oracle, and this is where we would get experts that we could bring into the City to help us with our Oracle platforms up to a million dollars. 81 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 1 million. 5 million in development costs that were never invoiced to the City. They were development costs that Oracle had in the pipeline but had never delivered to us.
We got forgiveness of $650,000 in unpaid invoices that we never paid. So the financial settlement allowed us to, number one, get a billing system that we felt we had an excellent chance to implement. 5 million. We expect that implementation to be completed before the end of this year. So far we are on project and we are on budget to do that. And just as a minor point, we just finished last week moving Legacy data from the old billing system into the 82 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 scrub programs that we had, delivering it to the new billing system and actually generating a Philadelphia water bill, not in the right format, just a single water bill, but we actually have a water bill 7 for a Legacy customer that we provided out of the new billing system.
Well, it's good to hear. Thanks for rescuing this project and everyone involved, because it was certainly something that was going to be a significant issue here in this Council, and everyone involved should be -- working under the gun, I'm sure, was tough, but I'm glad you got it all together and represented us well.
Thank you very much. I can't underestimate the cooperation of the three departments in working together. It has made a huge difference in the project.
At the end of the day, are we still friends with Oracle? 83 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
Yes, we are. In fact, I just talked to them yesterday and they're providing some consulting services right now.
Terrific. Well, thank you very much. That's what we need.
I think Terry deserves a huge amount of the credit. I think one of the major challenges has been taking technology within the City that was very fragmented and trying to integrate it. When we came in, we had five different GIS systems, mapping systems, within the City, and NTI -- we spent probably $5 million of the NTI money trying to create a coordinated GIS system. But it's a real challenge when you have each department with its own IT experts doing, when we came in the door, doing their own thing. And we keep referring to the IT Governing Board. We now have cabinet members that sit every two weeks trying to make sure that when 84 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 we launch projects, we have the right team in place, and Terry has been a real driving force in making sure that we've asked the right questions, that we've populated the management team in the right kind of way so we don't ever run off course. We're not going to be perfect moving forward, but we certainly have a template for trying to assure that we don't make the same mistakes again. And I think that some of the projects that are coming out of the chute now have only happened because we asked the right questions up front. We make sure that the right people are at the table that were managing our consultants appropriately.
Well, thank you. And, Terry, thank you for being straight about it and telling us exactly how it went and what we were able to salvage from a deal gone bad. Again, 85 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 thank you. Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome, sir. Ms. Wilkerson, on , you mention various risks associated with the City's pension fund and you state, quote, "However, policy adjustments such as decreasing the fund earnings assumptions and moving to the FY03 MMO contribution level will mitigate future risk." Can you explain how going to the MMO, which is significantly lower than the City's funding policy, mitigates future risk to the pension plan?
It should say by going to the minimum, we avoid risk to the budget. I think the pension plan would be better off if we were paying more. I think by lowering the earnings assumption we protect the City against falling further behind, but it's still very much a pension plan that is in 86 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 trouble. There have been recent reports analyzing the pension programs of the major top 55 largest cities. We're right there near the bottom, if not at the bottom. We're only 53 percent funded. And that's why the Administration was up here testifying in opposition to the pension COLA bill. We think that -- we understand that retirees experience hardship, but don't believe that taking the control off the COLA program is the appropriate way to go, in large part because we've got to be focused on trying to build up the pension fund and thought that taking the limitation off us was the wrong way to go.
Thank you. On of the Plan in the PGW section, you state that PGW has been legally released from making its $18 million payment to the City. I don't believe that this is an 87 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 accurate statement. Can you show us the amendment to the management agreement that legally relieves PGW from making the payment?
That's a misstatement. That's not an accurate statement. The management agreement in fact requires that PGW make the payment. Mr. McPherson has reminded me that that's appropriate, that's as it should be. The City then can grant it back to the company, to the extent that the company needs it for its operations. We will in the final plan correct that so that it's stated correctly and make sure that it's reflected that way throughout the Plan.
Okay. And the Plan assumes that PGW will not make the $18 million payment in Fiscal '09, '10, '11 and '12. By PGW not making the payment and the City not granting it back to them, what is the impact to their debt service coverage calculations? 88 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
We will make that correction. It helps the company with its debt coverage ratio. We did not reflect it accurately in this Plan. Before the final Plan is submitted to PICA, we will change it so that the payment and the grant back is reflected appropriately.
As policy decision-makers as to what is and what is not included in the budget and the Five-Year Plan, can you explain your rationale for the following position adjustments and describe the process you used to make these adjustments? They are the Health Department reduction of 85 positions in 2008.
Let me just give you some policy, some -- when we began putting the budget together, we look at the services, we look at the revenue and then go to the departments and ask -- tell the departments that we need for them to identify with a dollar 89 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 figure and ask for them to come up with strategies for either raising additional revenue or achieving savings, and they can achieve that savings in Class 100, Class 200, with the goal though of preserving department services, core department services. And then it is the Budget Department that goes out and actually engages in the departments, and Dianne can talk to you a little bit about the kind of conversations that go on with the various departments.
The Health Department was one of the many that were included in the 2.5 percent position reduction. But so you know, with the increases that were given by Council, the budgeted position level for this year was 748 positions. As of the last week in February, they had 628 people on staff, which happens to be the same number that they had in June of the previous year. So that we gave them the 2.5 percent dollar reduction, which was a million 40. 90 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 They came back to us with a staffing proposal level of 663 positions. They did also ask for 121 positions in addition to that, which was one of the large ones for the justification request above the budget call. But the final budget in brief does include 663 positions, which is 35 above their current level.
We are working with the Health Department to make sure that their core services in fact are being delivered, but one of the things that has become very sobering is, we ask departments for cuts and they come back to us and say, Cuts? We need more. They wanted $90 million more. They didn't want to have cuts. They wanted to have $90 million more in order to do the core work of their departments. And that's a one-year number. I think that we are rapidly reaching the point that we don't have sufficient revenue in order to even do 91 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the core functions that people expect of this government. We will have -- the reason I put the chart in my testimony is, we have $3 billion, $3 billion that we didn't spend. We invested it. We invested it for good reason, but it can't go on forever. And the tax reductions are becoming more aggressive in '11 and '12. They jump up again even higher in '13 and the out years. When we go to these departments, they have done an incredible job finding efficiencies. They continue to do an incredible job finding efficiencies. They reorganize. They change the supervision ratio. Some of the initiatives they come up with are supported. We've come here and had other ideas not well received, and so we haven't taken advantage of opportunities for savings, but we're rapidly reaching the point that none of the departments has adequate revenue. Fleet is down 25 percent. The Fleet personnel number is 92 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 down 25 percent. So none of these cuts are easy cuts. When we go to departments, we know they're going to be difficult. We know there are going to be things that don't happen. And it reflects a strategy that we ought to be revisiting on a year-by-year basis, but we don't. We have the tax -- the wage tax reductions locked in, I think, until 2015. So it's hard for all the departments.
Well, I don't know what positions are being reduced, because last year we heard that in some of the health clinics people had to wait six months for an appointment. Now, are these individuals that we're cutting part of that clinical process? Will people have to wait another six months?
We will be doubling back to work with the Health Department to make sure they're not Class 200 savings. I am not satisfied that we 93 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 haven't done an adequate job looking for non-personnel-related costs. But by the time you get to '11 and '12, you're taking $50 million out in just a year. It has become a real challenge finding adequate resources. We've put more money into police. It is appropriate spending, but when you do that, the burden -- and you protect all these departments and hold them harmless, it becomes a real substantial burden on the departments that have not been protected. And so there are cuts in this budget that are painful.
Councilwoman, if I might add, in the citizen survey, we did ask people about waits, not waits for appointments this year but we did ask them about waiting once they got to the center, and the number of people who wait fewer than 15 minutes actually increased and the number of people waiting more than an hour went down, while overall satisfaction with the health centers 94 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 continue to rise and the majority of people -- because we did ask for the first time this year "did you wait about as long as you expected to wait," and the majority of people, over 60 percent, said either it was about what they expected or actually shorter than what they expected. So what people hear anecdotally and what the public-at-large is responding is somewhat different.
But to wait six months for an appointment is the issue. It's not once they get to the appointment that they wait a shorter period of time. It's how long they have to wait to get there. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.
Thank you. In the survey did they say that -- you said that they didn't wait as long as they thought they would wait; is that what you said?
Did they ask that -- I'm trying to figure out the question I want to ask about that. There's something missing in that question. Did they have any expectations otherwise?
They always knew they would wait, so they expected to wait. So they waited a shorter time.
I think we all agree that a six-month wait is too long, that when you don't expect much then and you get a little bit, I guess you're happy that you got a little bit. And that shouldn't be our standard, but unless we identify additional revenue sources or unless we -- and that could either be through additional tax revenue, it could -- when we have our asset sales, when we bring properties and we begin 96 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 balancing and we'll come and say, The property is worth 3 million, but there's a better use for the property, so we don't get all the $3 million that we might want to have, when we make those individual decisions, they build up and they end up being reflected when we go to departments and say, We need for you to take a two and a half percent cut. It's been going on for a long time and it's beginning to have a real negative impact in departments, and there will soon come the day when Council will need to revisit some of these tax cuts. We think we've come up with a budget and a Five-Year Plan that preserves the tax cuts, but the Cohen tax cut was moved back to the following year. The wage tax cuts become even more aggressive in FY13. We will reach the point that a two and a half percent cut won't get the job done. There's some real fundamental challenges in this budget and in this 97 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 Five-Year Plan that we're going to need to tackle, and that's before we even begin to try to take on things like additional school funding or SEPTA. We don't yet know what the state is going to say is our responsibility under full funding for SEPTA. We have additional social services that we think could help us break the back on some of this crime cycle going on, but that takes money.
The Mayor requested to move his budget address until after the Governor submitted his budget to do concerns on the state funding for human services. That being said, the City's DHS budget is being increased by 85.2 million, or 14.4 percent. Was this increase in funding included in the state's budget?
No. We are in a situation similar to a situation we encountered a few years back when we're going to have to work with our state delegation to get funding for our 98 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 prevention programs, get the kind of funding that we need, and we're confident -- we may not get all that we want. We're confident that we will do better than we did in the Governor's budget. We know that the curfew centers are working, the truancy initiatives are working, some of the other prevention programming that we're doing is working, and so we intend to fight for it. We didn't get what we wanted to see in the Governor's budget, but we're confident that by working with the delegation we can do better.
Well, what experience have you had in the past in working with the state delegation on the funding that you need from the state?
That's ongoing. Have you had any progress through the years?
Yeah. I forget 99 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 whether it was '05, '06. Where's somebody old here? Julia Danzy is old. She'll come to the microphone. I meant she has a long history with the City.
Good morning. Julia Danzy, Director of Social Services. Actually, just in our last year with the state when they were cutting our TANF funds and we were -- it was 45 million and they were only going to give us 15, we were able to advocate with them and we got that money restored, which increased -- and they also took away the criterias by which we could expend that money, so it allowed us the opportunity to continue with some of the initiatives. As it relates to the current one, usually every year how the state operates is that they always know that they've underfunded, and they also know that they're also going to have appeals. We right now have an appeal in to the state based on the fact that last year 100 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 when we submitted our budget for the AVRP initiative, they only funded us for half a year. We've demonstrated that indeed we -- and they funded us for half a year because they said that we couldn't possibly get that done within the year. Well, we did that. We did the full year of it. And so we have an appeal with them on that. And as tradition has been, after the end of the state's budget, our period, they always go back, because counties under-spend, because counties make the decision we're not putting up any more money no matter what you, state, have allocated for us. Once that is done, they come back, and for usually Philadelphia County, Allegheny County where we're usually the ones that are above our level, they then address our appeal, and we tend to usually get at least 85 percent of what we have positioned our appeal basis on. So we have every confidence that while we certainly probably won't 101 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 get the 85 million back, we will get a certain percentage of that money back from the state.
What do you think PICA's feeling is about including this in your budget?
What we end up supplying to PICA is a plan for how we would -- what we're not going to do if the funds don't come through.
That's right. The Mayor is very committed to these programs. These are a priority, and so we're involved on an ongoing basis at the state level, but at the end of the 102 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 day, if the funding doesn't come through, we go to PICA with a plan, showing them what we want to do.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Thank you, Madam President. Good morning still. Could you tell me how many people are served yearly by the health centers? Do we have a total number on the number of people that actually come through the health center doors?
Good morning. COMMISSIONER PARIS: Carmen Paris, Health Commissioner. We have about 100,000 103 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 individuals coming in.
Of that hundred thousand, how many are adults? COMMISSIONER PARIS: It's about 80/20, 80 percent adult, percent 7 children. 8
And do you 9 know from your statistics how many are 10 repeat visits? It's not 100,000 people. 11 It's 100,000 visits representing how many 12 people? 13 COMMISSIONER PARIS: It's 14 100,000 patients, sir, representing about 15 325,000 visits a year. 16
So the 17 visits are 325; it's 100,000 people. 18 COMMISSIONER PARIS: That's 19 correct. 20
Have you been able to break down the cost either monthly or annually for those hundred thousand people? COMMISSIONER PARIS: Individually per patient? 104 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
Yes. Can we figure out a way to quantify the actual monthly or yearly cost for each person that we're serving in the center?
Yes, average cost. COMMISSIONER PARIS: We don't have an average cost per patient. We have an average cost of what we get reimbursed by Medicare and Medicaid per patient.
And how much does that fall short of the actual cost of the service? See, what I'm trying to get to is, when you go into a normal doctor's office, there's a cost associated with his or her time in dealing with you and they bill, I guess, the insurance company if you're insured appropriately. They'll always haggle over whether it's enough money they're being reimbursed, but I 105 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 would like to try to get a handle or our arm's around what it actually costs us. And I assume you break that down by salaries and benefits of the people dealing with them and all of the utilities of keeping the center open and running the center. I just think it would be interesting to know with that hundred thousand population what we're spending a month vis-a-vis a private healthcare coverage. Are we way out of whack, are we way under, that kind of thing. COMMISSIONER PARIS: We will be very happy to get the details to you. What happens is, we offer different services. So for prenatal, for example, could be anywhere between 800 to 600 a session. So we divide that in different ways. But we will be more than happy to get that to you broken down by adult and --
If you could break it down by people who come in 106 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 with colds as opposed to people who come in for prenatal. I assume the mental health is segregated because of CBH? COMMISSIONER PARIS: It's different.
So those folks are not coming into the health center for CBH or are they? COMMISSIONER PARIS: Well, we have a couple of health centers where we provide mental health services, but there's a separate contract for that and they bill separately. But for our services, we will be able to provide you with what initial visit -- the cost for an initial visit, a cost for a treatment, a cost for podiatry, a cost for prenatal, for all the services that we provide.
Because I would like to try to do some comparison on a monthly basis of what an average person pays for an HMO as opposed to what we're spending monthly. What was the other -- I'm 107 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 sorry. I had a senior moment. It just went out of my head.
I have a follow-up question for the Commissioner.
Thank you. Commissioner, my question is -- and this gentleman is not a senior, so I don't know why my colleague is saying those things. At any rate, my question is, we've been through times where we were kind of caught up with people wanting dental treatment and doctors treatment and times where we're maybe a month behind in services. Is the issue for health centers an issue of employees 108 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 working there or an issue that we don't have enough centers if we maximize our employees to take care of the population? COMMISSIONER PARIS: It's a combination of several issues. One of them is, of course, the demand because of high number of uninsured and uninsurable patients that we service. It's a combination of the chronic diseases that they present with. It's a challenge of what the Managing Director talked about earlier, which is hiring the people, nurses, for example, and pharmacists and so on, to work at the centers.
So we had enough employees, could we handle the population we see and not have long waiting lines? COMMISSIONER PARIS: Well, there's also the facility challenge. We have but so many exam rooms and we have but so many -- they're but so big. We certainly right now as a request of the Managing Director, we're looking at how 109 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 can we work with potentially flexible schedules, when is it that the patients want to come, when is it that we can offer better service, would they want to come -- if they're open in the evening, would they come and so on. We're looking at ways in which we can be creative in terms of deployment of the staff that we already have. We're doing that right now, ma'am.
One last question and then I think Councilman Kenney remembered his question. My last question is, when people come for medication, whether they are insured or not, can they get it without -- I know that they may have to be processed to get on somebody's plan. Can everybody get their prescriptions filled? COMMISSIONER PARIS: Yes, ma'am. Every health center patient that comes in and gets a prescription from our physicians will get medication free of charge. 110 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
Thank you. COMMISSIONER PARIS: I'm sorry. I just wanted to add something that the Chief of Staff just reminded me, and it is that in all of the options that we have right now and all the different opportunities that we have right now, we're looking at the prescription for Pennsylvania from the Governor as one that will offer hopefully some options, positive options, for the Health Department.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman.
Thank you. Councilman, while we're on the Health Department, can I just ask one question, please. It had been rumored that the building of the health center at Broad 111 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 and Lombard was going to be sold. That was a rumor that's been circulating in the community. Can somebody tell me if that is a true rumor or is it false.
I'll have Joan Schlotterbeck come up. It is a true rumor. COMMISSIONER SCHLOTTERBECK: Good morning. Joan Schlotterbeck, Public Property Commissioner. The answer is that it is up for sale and we're very close to beginning negotiations with the Trust.
What Trust? COMMISSIONER SCHLOTTERBECK: The Johnson Collection.
Explain the whole -- the site is not all one site. COMMISSIONER SCHLOTTERBECK: Actually, we own a portion of the site and the Trust owns the other portion. So we're combining the two properties because the value will be greater and 112 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 we're making one sale, and we're going to acquire the property. The City of Philadelphia is going to acquire the property from the Trust to control the site.
But the Johnson Trust owns probably a third of the site. The City owns the balance of the site. I think we had a lease with the Trust that expired in -- COMMISSIONER SCHLOTTERBECK: That's correct.
-- in '08. COMMISSIONER SCHLOTTERBECK: Yeah. It expires June of '08.
And so we were having to make a decision. The City for a long time, though, has been looking at that site trying to determine whether that was the most appropriate site for a health center or could we find a better facility to provide health services in that part of Philadelphia. And so with the '08 date coming up, we made the 113 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 decision to acquire the back part, the Johnson Trust part of the site, so that we could consolidate the site. It increases the value of what the City already owns, and then would propose probably disposing of the site, relocating the health facility. There are a number of different Health Department functions that they're looking at perhaps consolidating into a better location, a better facility. And those -- we can brief Council. When Public Property comes, they can come back and brief in more detail.
Do we have the monies to obtain the portion we do not own?
How much will that cost? COMMISSIONER SCHLOTTERBECK: We haven't even begun negotiations.
But we've had appraisals done. 114 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 COMMISSIONER SCHLOTTERBECK: We have. They've had theirs done and we've had ours.
Okay. And I would appreciate being apprised of what's going on there, because I've heard from my constituents who have a great deal of concern about their relocating that facility. COMMISSIONER SCHLOTTERBECK: Okay.
So I would appreciate being informed as you go along, please. COMMISSIONER SCHLOTTERBECK: Sure.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Miller.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. 115 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 I just want to pick up on the health center question. I have a question. How many patients does the health centers actually have? How many people have you served? COMMISSIONER PARIS: We have -- Carmen Paris, Health Commissioner. We have approximately 100,000 patients that we see yearly at the health centers.
1,100 Philadelphians were surveyed in the citizen satisfaction survey, which is a super sample, because a statistically valid sample is only 385, but we were looking for representation for councilmanic districts and so you need a bigger survey the smaller the area is, so that's why we have 110 per 116 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 district.
I guess the question is, you wanted to know how many people who used health --
You know, 11 Health Center No. 9, which is in 12 Germantown, you've been reporting 13 actually since I came here ten years ago 14 that that had an increased number of 15 people that are working part time without 16 health insurance. So I was actually 17 wondering how the results fared with people when you said that people are actually not waiting as long as they anticipated or they anticipated a wait, how that kind of fits into what happens at Health Center No. 9, because I've always been told that you have an increased load there at that particular health center and I was wondering had it 117 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 improved.
Councilwoman, we will get back to you on that, because we actually this year for the first time have from the vendor Council district by district analysis of results for all the areas that we've always asked for in the City as a whole.
I was also wondering how long is the wait time for prescriptions, because there's been an issue there also. COMMISSIONER PARIS: I would like to address that. At least for prescriptions, I just looked at the numbers. There has been a significant increase in terms of -- positive increase in terms of the turnaround for prescriptions at Health Center 9, and last week I was looking at them and we have a turnaround of within hours for 23 a prescription filled. And you are 24 absolutely right, we had a time that it was almost two weeks for a prescription. 118 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 So we're very pleased with that significant improvement.
Okay. That's good to hear. The other question I have is regarding the management of the prison population. Somewhere I read that Temple University has come up with ways -- 10 I'm looking for my page -- or 20 11 suggestions on managing the prison 12 population. 13
I want to ask 14 the Managing Director to come and comment 15 on that. 16
Good afternoon. 17 Pedro Ramos, Managing Director. 18 There are, I think, two 19 different things that you're referring to 20 in your question, Councilwoman Miller. One is a study done by Temple University, a professor named Dr. Goldkamp. He has done a study of the prison population on behalf of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee. The Criminal 119 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 Justice Coordinating Committee is a group chaired by the City Solicitor that involves the City criminal justice departments as well as the independently elected offices that are part of the criminal justice system, such as the courts, the District Attorney's Office and the Public Defenders and Clerk of Quarter Sessions. All the players are part of that. That committee had come up with a set of, at one point, 14 recommendations for managing the prison 15 population. I'd say about 17 or 18 of 16 them relate to things that are outside of 17 the Administration's control. They 18 really are about long-term efforts -- 19 short- and long-term efforts that involve 20 most often the court system procedures. 21 On the City side, there were a number of 22 recommendations, which we'd be happy to 23 either by briefing or by supplemental 24 testimony brief Council or individual Councilpeople on the Goldkamp study, as 120 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 well as brief you on the individual initiatives. To give you a couple examples, on the part of the courts, Judge Fitzgerald led an effort to speed up the process by which dispositions happened in the court. On the City side, a lot of the effort -- we supported, I believe it was, the Public Defenders' efforts by providing them more resources. With, I think, two or three additional people they believed that they were able to process more people who really would be out of jail but for the process. So they were able to -- they received supplemental funding from the Budget Office to staff up to get people out of jail -- who were supposed to be out of jail out of jail faster.
Okay. So you're going to give us either a written document or a briefing, you said?
Yes. We can do one or both of those, whichever you'd like. 121 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
Okay. Pretty much along the same line, can we have a list of who is actually running some of the youth violence prevention programs, AVRP, YVRP? If we want to refer somebody, I mean, I do know a couple places, the more popular places, like PAAN or Integrated Town Watch, but there are other people that have these programs going on. I think we need a list of who they are so that if we want to refer someone there, we can do that.
I'm looking over at the Director of Social Services, Julia Danzy. I think we should be able by the end of tomorrow to get each Council office a resource list. It's a good thing for you all to have.
Right. And also I know that you're doing new truancy centers -- not truancy; curfew. I get them both mixed up, but they both go hand in hand. And I know that I believe there's going to be one in our 122 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 district. I know where the one is in our district. The Mayor keeps saying he wants to have more truancy centers. Where are those going to be located? Are they going to be throughout Philadelphia? Because I guess one of the questions I have is this: The one that's going to be in my district they're calling the Northwest Center, but it's not in Northwest. It's really in Nicetown. So I just want to make sure that there is one that's put up in the Northwest that's going to serve the Northwest, or is that the only one that's going to be around in the 8th District? I need to know that. So where are they going to be?
Councilwoman, the plan is to ultimately have 12 curfew centers spread out over the City. The first curfew center where the pilot was started in South Philadelphia in the Dixon House in the 1st and 17th Police Districts has been going on --
And I 123 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 must say -- I don't mean to interrupt you, but that has been a huge success.
I know. Everybody keeps saying that, and it's really great.
Thank you. And that's been going on since August. We are about to -- and we've been working on a group of four more, I believe, but we're ultimately going to get to 12, we hope, by the end of this fiscal year, by June 30th. We are working now in North -- actually, we're working in Southwest, East, Northwest and North, and I note that you took issue or had a comment about how we described Northwest. Those are the other areas we're working on now. Two of them will be -- the next two are rolled out in the next two weeks, I believe. We now have selected sites and are still recruiting some volunteers, but I think by the next two, two and a half weeks we're rolling 124 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 those out. And then we'll be rolling out the other two as we start the process of again meeting with community leaders and following the steps we did for Dixon House for each of the additional curfew centers until we get to 12. So there's still a fair amount of the City that we are going to reach that we have not yet begun.
Okay. Can I just sneak in one more question? I did hear the bell.
And this is actually back to prisons again. What exactly are the one-stop centers going to do for the ex-offenders? I know that lots of inmates maybe while they're in prison they've lost their driver's license and things like that. Will this 125 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 center actually help them with those kinds of things?
Julia Danzy, DSS Director. The one-stop centers are set up to provide a comprehensive one-stop-shop process for our ex-offenders. Traditionally, our ex-offenders when they leave prisons, some may be homeless, some may have no resources about job, they may need to continue their training efforts or just need connecting with services and they're kind of at their own devices. With our centers, which we have one now that is on Woodland -- I think it's kind of 54th and Woodland Avenue. And as the Managing Director said previously, we plan on two more. Where an ex-offender will come there and they will get assessed in terms of what their needs are. They will then be either connected to where they can get the service or within the center itself. We have mental health there, we have probation there, we 126 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 have some of our provider agencies there who are actually going to begin to put them into job training and then get them connected with job sources. We have a link with our shelter system, as well as trying to now develop resources where rather than just moving them into our shelter system, because that's not what we really want to do, that we would be able to get them linked with homes. What the other thing we're doing in working in concert with the prisons is starting before they even leave, because many of our ex-offenders, one of the big issues is the disconnect with family members, because they've kind of burned those bridges. And so we're trying to begin before they leave out to work with the family. Because a lot of times families, if they know you're going to be working with them, are willing to let them come back home, so it allows us to at least have a point, a base, for them to begin to get some assistance. 127 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
And this assistance will be provided to any ex-offender, not just a newly released, correct?
Any ex-offender. We're working with the state. We've had involvement with them, and they are interested in even maybe having someone of theirs even at the center. But we are connecting with all of them, yes.
Okay. And so the other two hopefully will be more centrally located than Woodland Avenue.
Yes. It is our desire -- as you know with, unfortunately, most of our services, everyone wants us to help them, but nobody wants us to put the help in their area. But we are looking now as to where we might be able to locate the other services.
That is a huge, huge challenge. We have programming like 128 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the FIR programming that deals with substance abuse for people coming out of the prisons. We have more programming we could conduct if we had some place to do it. But maybe part of what happens is neighborhoods become more valuable, we don't have as many old warehouses people don't care about. It is extremely difficult for us, our providers, to find any place for any kind of facility, whether it's a halfway house, a FIR property.
And so it has an impact. It means that somebody coming out of prison doesn't get the kind of programming. And it's not because we're not prepared to deliver it; it's just we don't have any place to deliver it. And I don't know whether we all get around the table and come up with a process for it, but this is getting -- this is creating a real challenge for a lot of 129 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the social service programs we operate.
Right. And you know that District Councilpeople are very familiar with that problem, and maybe your suggestion to get around the table and come up with a process might be helpful rather than someone applying -- we have people that go buy a building and then try to force what they want on the neighbors, and that doesn't work. That just doesn't work.
We need to change something about that, because we're at a real impasse now.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.
Thank you very much. I've been very much interested 130 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 in trying to find alternate ways to pay for some of our capital needs rather than borrow money. I have two questions and both are related to $30 million. One is, a few years ago --
-- when this Council was asked to approve a $30 million borrowing for the renovation and expansion of the Central Library, we suggested that PICA funds could be made available for this purpose, but the Administration through Ms. Reed made it clear that it was not an eligible use of PICA dollars and, therefore, we could not do that. Why now two years later it's okay and the thing to do?
If it was expansion, a substantial -- probably the majority of the Library's plan is for expansion. The PICA dollars can't be spent for expansion.
Vince Jannetti, Acting Finance Director. 131 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 That's correct, Councilwoman. The bond funds that were earmarked for the Central Library were for the expansion portion of it. We did $10 million of that, of those funds, was for engineering and architectural services.
Before you go on, that's not what I'm talking about, the expansion. There was a whole discussion around the infrastructure, the current conditions at the library. Specifically, Councilman DiCicco and the President raised a lot of issues about that, and it was suggested that we use some of the PICA interest money for the repair of the existing library and we were told that that was not -- because it was not a safety issue, those dollars couldn't be used. It wasn't about the expansion. It was about what you're talking about here, using some of the money for our own facilities.
I'm not 132 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 familiar with that. I know that the Mayor had a number of feelings about this money, that it ought to be used for extenuating circumstances. We now are up against a spending deadline on the PICA interest earnings and have proposed a number of projects. Ten million of what we -- 9 million of what we propose to spend would in fact go for existing library improvements. We propose money for police stations, money for fire stations. There's also a police warehouse property. I think there are like 188 people who work there, evidence and other things. That building is in deplorable and unsafe condition. It doesn't have basic fire safety systems in place, and so we're proposing funding for that. Altogether there are $40 million. Those projects are detailed in the Five-Year Plan.
I'd suggest you go back to the testimony of April 27, '05, which lays out the entire 133 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 discussion by this Council around the dollars, those PICA interest dollars, that could be used for capital infrastructure improvements and it was stated in there that it was not possible and at one point Ms. Reed said that the PICA money could only really be used for a building that was in existence at the time of the legislation in 1992, and she was reminded by Mr. Kenney that the existence was 1907. Further in the testimony -- I mean, we just got beat down about trying to use other alternatives for funding and particularly around the PICA interest money and we were just told that it couldn't be done. When I read the Five-Year Plan that you could -- oh, okay. You had a legal opinion that it couldn't be used. So one of the problems we have -- at least I have -- is what kind of feedback we get when we ask questions or we have other alternatives for funding projects or paying for our 134 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 needs and then we get shot down like we shouldn't use that possibility, and then you come back the next year and you say, Well, we're going to use it this year. So what happened?
I'm not familiar with the opinion. I'll get back to you on that.
Because it becomes a credibility issue for me in terms of when we ask can we do something, it doesn't -- we don't get the support. And the same thing is with the $30 million that we put forth from the unanticipated 2006 General Fund surplus for capital improvements dealing with the issue of pay-as-you-go rather than borrow money, and the Mayor let the bill become law without his signature, but now we see that you put it back into the General Fund. And we want to know, what is the rationale and is the Administration taking the position that an accounting policy takes precedent over the 135 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 legislative intent of this Council.
At the time the Mayor returned the legislation without his signature, he indicated that there were concerns raised about Council on its own creating a class that did not previously exist, a class -- I guess an 800, Class 800, in the Council budget. It was an issue raised late in the day by the Law Department, and that was communicated then. In any event, the Mayor is not prepared to spend the $30 million. If the 30 million is spent on capital projects, the Plan we have conveyed is out of balance. We end up -- I guess we would end up at FY12 with $15 million. And so what the Plan does provide is for the money to lapse back that is, I guess, policy.
The $30 million moves out of the General Fund. I mean, 136 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 it's just spent money. The fund balance is no longer 250. It drops down by 30. So it's just money out of the Plan.
Well, it was 30 more than you anticipated when you projected your fund balance last year. It was in excess of what you anticipated.
But that's not a static. That's never static. I mean, we get arbitration awards that come in millions more than we anticipate. The City's health benefit costs come in more. You get orders out of the court telling you to make changes in how you do business. The cost of gas goes up. I mean, it's just a very -- it's never a static picture. And when we go to put together the Five-Year Plan, we give our best estimate on what revenues are going to be. We give our best estimate on what expenses are going to be. It can't be held to exactly what was in one of the previous Five-Year Plans.
Why didn't 137 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 he just veto it, then? If all of that documents the rationale for not spending the $30 million, he just probably should have just vetoed the bill. But that's --
So what if we had last year decided to propose or put into the budget the $30 million of PICA interest money? What would happen then? You're coming back now saying, We couldn't use it then, but now we can use the money. So what changed?
We didn't know that we were going to have a prison census that was rising, so --
No, but you said that you couldn't use the money because the standards for describing the emergency were too high and you couldn't meet the standards, so we couldn't use 138 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the surplus money. But now we're going back, we're using it for fire, police and -- fire and police.
I want to have a chance to review the legal opinion with the City Solicitor.
You said you had a legal opinion. I don't know if you had a legal opinion or not.
I have to get better information on that. I can't respond.
I would like to have a response as to -- the response you gave last year --
Yeah. 2005 when we proposed it and now in 2007 when you are proposing it, what's the 139 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 difference.
27th. I have some more questions, but I need to go. Let me just ask you one question about in the Five-Year Plan on , you state OSH, Office of Service to the Homeless -- is that it -- will decrease the emergency housing census and the average length of stay by implementing a successful intervention strategy modeled on the nationally recognized Hennepin County, Minnesota Rapid Exit Program. Can you tell us how this program works?
Dane (ph) Edmonds, Director of the Office of Supportive Housing. The program actually is a pilot 140 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 program that isn't operational as yet, but the intent is that as we have --
In Philadelphia. So we have created a model and we are soliciting for the organizations that would actually administer the program in setting up the guidelines for operation. But the concept is that as homeless families present themselves in our intake center and are placed in shelter, that we would very quickly place them back into housing in the community and that we would provide them with either case management but, in addition to that, with a provider who would help them identify housing, help cover rental subsidy to help cover the cost of housing. Really looking at a pilot program if we provide all of those supports to folks in the community, are they more apt to be able to move on a faster track into more independent housing as opposed to placing 141 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 them into shelter and having them become dependent upon the shelter resources. And we're actually working with the University of Pennsylvania to do an evaluation of the families that we place in the diversion program compared to families who are placed in traditional shelter to see what the differentials are and who are more likely to be successful.
This is a program that has been successful in Minnesota and so we want to look at it here in Philadelphia as a way to rapidly move families out of the shelter system back into the community.
You are coming back to testify during your department?
We'll have more discussion about that later. Thank you very much.
Thank 142 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 you. I only have two questions and then we'll continue. On of the Plan, you state that $11.02 million in PICA funds are requested to construct a 47,000-square-foot 224-bed certified juvenile detention facility on the Philadelphia Prison System campus. What is a certified juvenile detention facility?
Pedro Ramos, Managing Director. I'll probably be joined by the Prison Commissioner, Leon King. We currently have certified juveniles at the prison. There is a building that is referred to as Mod 3 that is in need of complete renovation. The plan is to essentially redo Mod 3 and move the juveniles out of the prison into Mod 3, move the adults that are in Mod 3 out of Mod 3 back into the prison. And in addition to improving the space, it 143 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 also takes less adult space when you -- because juveniles have to be held in lower ratios and more separated from the adults, so it gives us more capacity for the juveniles and frees up more than the number of spaces left behind by the juveniles when we move out. So it's really fixing existing space and reconfiguring people inside the prison.
So actually they will not be relocated at another section of the City; they're going to stay right in that campus area?
Okay. Can you tell us what the projected cost of this facility will be?
The total scope of the project is approximately $14 million, $3 million of which would come from Act 71 funds. 3.25 would come from Act 71 funds.
I 144 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 believe that there are other sources also, aren't there? Isn't PICA providing?
Okay. Can you tell us what the status of the new Youth Study Center is?
The Administration has transmitted legislation and we are hoping and expecting that the legislation for the new Youth Study Center would be introduced and passed. At the same time, the City is pursuing and in negotiations about an intermediate or transitional site for the youths that are currently at the Youth Study Center in the event, the likely event, that we would need some space between the time that we leave the current Youth Study Center and occupy the 145 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 new building.
Can you tell us how we propose to pay for the new Study Center?
Council President, it's Vince Jannetti, Acting Finance Director. The new Youth Study Center would be financed with a bond transaction.
What size would that be? What size bond would that be?
And what funding is included in the 2008 146 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 budget and the proposed Five-Year Plan?
Let me just repeat the question of the Council President. Your question was what amount is budgeted in Fiscal '08 for --
In the budget that we're considering and the proposed Five-Year Plan.
The debt service for the facility would be -- I believe it's $3 million in '09 and about $6 million in '10 and '11. And if that facility is built, part of the lease payments would be reimbursed to the City through state funds.
All right. And is this in the proposed Five-Year Plan?
It 147 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 is? Okay. The Chair recognizes Councilman Clarke.
Thank you, Madam President. I'm sorry. I was caught by surprise. I thought I was a little further down on the list. Thank you. Good afternoon. I have a couple of questions, one centering around the truancy centers and the other around the video surveillance program. I don't know if you need anyone. I guess you may need Mr. James possibly for the surveillance.
The MOIS team will answer the surveillance question and the truancy we had Mr. Ramos, the Managing Director, answer.
I'm sorry for designating your speakers. We get a little carried away every now and then.
Yes. I want to talk about truancy first. Just generally, have we built structurally in the Five-Year Plan funding in place to accommodate hopefully a number of facilities across the City, and can you kind of tell me where we are with that? I understand the initial one was very successful and people kind of got excited, and then I understood that we had some problems in our solicitations, that they were not moving as quickly as possible.
Councilwoman Miller had asked a similar question and I'll try to give the same answer. I'll try to be consistent. But I think we have -- we're 149 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 in South Philadelphia, as you know, in the Dixon House.
In East Division, mostly 25th District, we're ready to go. We're about two weeks away from opening our doors. In Southwest, we're ready to go, about two weeks from opening our doors. In North, we're close. In Northwest, we're close. And then in addition to those, we plan on doing up to 12 citywide. With respect to the ones that are sort of being RFP'd now --
For the first set I mentioned, East, Southwest, that's within two weeks. For Northeast, North and West, it's probably -- I think the timetable is about four weeks away. We have not yet selected the sites for -- I know for sure we have not selected the site for the North Philadelphia site. 150 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
Are there numerous applicants for the North Philadelphia site?
I believe there are. Director Danzy, the question is whether there are multiple responses to the RFP for the North Philadelphia site.
Yes. There were actually two that were submitted for the North, and we are in the process now of completing -- in fact, we've kind of done our review. We have one part of it. We're working on the other part. It's the logistics of where we will actually put the curfew center.
In terms of the selection process, is it weighted 151 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 heavily towards the ability of the organization to deliver the services, the location? I mean, how is that in terms of criteria?
It's a combination. First of all, the area is determined by we're looking at the statistics as it relates to youth violence and particularly the shootings and the crimes, homicides, that are going on in the area. That becomes our first driving piece of where and why we've chosen certain areas to go to first, although as the Managing Director said, the ultimate aim is by July to have across the City 12 curfew centers. So that's the first thing. Then as far as the providers themselves, there are several things we're looking at. One, the relationship within the community, because --
I'm sorry. Not to cut you off. On the first one, so is there essentially a pre-determined 152 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 geographical area --
-- for the applicants to respond to in terms of location?
Police district, right. And then once we issue for that particular area, one has to be a provider who is working in that area. It can't be someone who is somewhere else and they want to put a center there. Two is, what kind of relationship do you have with the other organizations in that area, because it's important about having linkages, because a key piece of this initiative is community involvement, volunteers. And so you have to have relationships where persons in the community see you as an organization that they work with, that they're willing to volunteer. So 153 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 that's -- and you're having a history of having worked with youth.
In terms of the site, is there a certain criteria associated with the physical plant? Should it be a certain size and in a particular corridor, commercial corridor, or should it be -- is it publicly owned, privately owned?
Right. It's not necessarily whether it has to be a commercial or residential corridor, although you know how that goes. But the overall piece is that it must be adequate size so that -- because we project that we've had as high as perhaps kids at 18 one time to come in. It was one of those 19 times they were kind of all coming from a 20 party. But we always want to project out 21 to at least that number that you can 22 accommodate. They can have adequate space. Even though they are continually going home as parents pick them up, you want to have enough space. You want to 154 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 have a separate room where perhaps staff can have meetings. Because the volunteerism and the thing of which I think the Council President attests to in terms of it working there, it works for two reasons. It works because it is making an impact on the parents and the children to be responsible by curfew, but it's bringing the involvement of the community together. So they cook and they do things, so we want that kind of space.
Either I'm going to have to cut my questions short or your answers are going to have to be shorter, because the bell rang, but I'm hoping that the Council President let's me get to the second question.
And I'll give you a short one. 155 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128
Actually, I guess I'd better go to my surveillance issue. One last question on the truancy. So there's no prohibition on publicly owned facilities?
If indeed there is the ability for having the right insurance and the fact that it doesn't hold any inordinate liability to the City.
In other words, because we're contracting with an agency, technically while we're doing the service, it's that agency who is responsible for anything that happens at that curfew center. So if a young person happens to get hurt on that facility, we want to make sure that this is not going 156 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 to be something that comes back and the City is then going to be sued or have some cause to be concerned about --
Councilman, I think the issue being described by Director Danzy is that for most respondents with their own sites, if they are providing service within their building, within their gym, part of what comes with that is their responsibility, their liability for the suitability of the space, for any injuries on the space and things like that, and when you have us as -- when the City is the one providing the space under somebody else's direction, then we just want to make sure, the Law Department will want to make sure and Risk Management, that whoever is managing and controlling the space is responsible for what happens within it.
I mean, they would be required to have, I'm assuming, required to have some sort of lease arrangement with the City having 157 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the appropriate insurance rider, regardless of whether or not it's a municipal building or private building.
It's a little more of an issue when it's somebody else insuring our building, our space, but I assume that those insurance arrangements are out there for a price.
Okay. Thank you, Ms. Danzy. I had a brief question about surveillance, kind of get an update. Good afternoon. DEPUTY JAMES: Good afternoon.
We recently passed a $5 million transfer ordinance 18 that was signed into law by the Mayor, and I believe that in Fiscal '08 there's a proposal to put approximately 1.5 in the budget for surveillance cameras. Can you kind of tell me briefly where that money would go, the 5 million and subsequently the 1.5, kind of walk us through the process of what we get. 158 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 DEPUTY JAMES: Sure. Good afternoon. Joseph James, Deputy CIO for the Mayor's Office of Information Services. Good morning -- good afternoon rather. The budget as it's constructed right now, there is the $5 million that was part of the mid-year transfer, which was approved and put into the current '07 budget, and there is in the '08 budget $1.5 million also for video surveillance. As part of the testimony that I gave on the mid-year for the $5 million, the current program is to use a portion of those fundings to put together the right staff augmentation to do the planning so that we can get an RFP out on the street as soon as possible so we can get to the actual deployment of cameras. Currently, we have a steering committee that is in place and a project team that is also in place and a project manager in the Mayor's Office of Information Service assigned to moving 159 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 that effort forward, and currently, our goal is to have an RFP out before the end of this month of March, and the anticipated time frame is to allow the vendors appropriate time to respond, which was probably going to be about 30 days to get response and move forward to negotiate and have an award. Our goal is anyway to have an award in place by May, depending on our ability to negotiate.
May what? DEPUTY JAMES: Well, part of the issue that we have about giving you exact dates is, when we did the original planning last year for the video surveillance camera, we went through sort of an elaborate process to kind of gauge the marketplace and see the number of vendors that are out there that might want to supply a solution for us. We received over 21 responses. We assume 160 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 that a majority of those 21 responses would be responding to whatever RFP we put out on the street, and since that time, we probably read about six or seven other major companies who are also moving into the video surveillance market. So we think there's a quite exhaustive list of people who would want to respond, and we need the amount of time for us to evaluate that and to give you a specific date and say that we could move through that process --
Early May, mid May? DEPUTY JAMES: Well, our goal is as early in May as possible, and then the time to make an award, negotiate and have a contract in place going through our City process so that we can actually start to see cameras deployed in June. And, again, our intent is try to have the cameras starting to roll out in a time frame that it would be out and in the neighborhoods before summer recess when 161 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the kids get out of school.
And the bid solicitation document will be done end of March? DEPUTY JAMES: We're trying to have it out before the end of March. And we have also, in working with our team, representatives from various departments, we're compiling an initial list of prioritization of sites based upon the Police Department list, and we have a list that we're compiling from the Streets Department and also from the Office of Emergency Management, and we're trying to compile that list so that we have an idea of once we start deployment where we need to prioritize our efforts, where we need to deploy those cameras as quickly as possible.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome. 162 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon. Councilman Clarke has addressed a number of questions I had around the curfew centers. But you used truancy centers and curfew centers interchangeably. They are two different things; are they not?
No, we didn't use them interchangeably. The Councilman asked about truancy centers and from his question it sounded like he was asking about curfew centers, which he was.
Okay. The curfew centers and the roll-out or anticipation of them is contingent on the $100 million from the Needs Based Budget we're anticipating from the state or not?
No, it's not. Like I said, we're going to be going after that money aggressively. This is -- the truancy and curfew centers are 163 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 a priority. There will be other things we won't be able to do, but we will do the truancy and the curfew centers.
What's the status of the 100 million? What are the prospects this year?
If she covered it in detail, I can read testimony later. What is the status of the teen centers? Any more online for this fiscal year?
The Recreation Commissioner is making his way up to the microphone.
And while he's coming up, is there any connect or connection of the dots between the teen centers, the curfew centers and the truancy centers?
And Julia Danzy is making her way up to address that. 164 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 COMMISSIONER RICHARD: Hi. Good afternoon. Vic Richard, Recreation Commissioner. There's a teen center being retrofitted right now in the far Northeast at Disston Rec Center in Ms. Krajewski's district. There's another one at just about the physical plant that's almost complete in South Philadelphia in President Verna's district at Vare at 26th and Morris. Those two are scheduled to come online full service this summer. The one at Disston we're accepting delivery on the infrastructure as we speak, and the physical plant at Vare is just about done. We do have some others that are on the wish list in the pipeline but aren't funded as of yet.
Given the City's efforts to have systems again to talk with each other, what is the relationship or connection, if any, with those teen centers and the truancy and 165 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 curfew centers?
One of the things, Councilwoman, that we are planning to do -- in fact, we're doing now -- every youngster we get in the curfew center and our -- you know about our AVRP program, because that's another piece that's wrapped up in that, and our young people who are coming to us with truancy, we are ensuring to do an assessment of every one of those youth and engaging with them to get them connected with programs. One of those key programs would be our teen centers. We have in our budget for this year even to put some staffing with the teen centers in connection with DHS so that we can provide the kind of services -- we're talking about mental health -- by putting in some mental health components there, because we know that's a key area where we can service our young people, that they will go to those teen centers.
Sure. 166 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 Health Department -- well, I did hear in the testimony that the curfew centers have some link or connect with the Police Department, correct?
So now to the Health Department, could the Health Commissioner come forward. Please speak, if you would, to any relationship, connection with the Police Department or L&I when it comes to stop and go's. You recall we had hearings around the need for more inspectors visiting stop and go's because of the menace they are in the community with kids hanging out at them all hours of the evening and night. Did you state in your testimony that you simply don't have enough inspectors at this time to handle the need for those stop and go's to be inspected on a more regular basis? COMMISSIONER PARIS: The only establishments that the Health Department actually inspects are those that has food 167 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 preparation on it.
Is that the same as sanitarians? COMMISSIONER PARIS: Yes. But the stop and go's, I'm not familiarized with the fact that they do prepare food.
That is true. Revealed in testimony -- I guess that was before the holiday -- in a resolution introduced by Councilwoman Marian Tasco the issue arose that because there were an inadequate number of sanitarian inspectors, that may be a contributing factor to the nuisance that stop and go's are after hours. Young people hang at stop and go's. They hang there for reasons that we know aren't healthy. I need to know, is there a relationship with the Police Department? Does Health have a relationship with the Police Department or with L&I around the issue of stop and go's?
So those 168 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 worlds don't --
I don't think the Health Department is linked into that. Let me ask L&I. COMMISSIONER PARIS: Yes, it's L&I.
The question is are we coordinating among City departments, is L&I working with the Police Department and to the extent there's a Health sanitation worker in a stop and go, are we working to try to make sure that kids aren't hanging out in these facilities and get diverted to the right kind of programs.
That's precisely it. Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLVIBILE: The Police Department when we have hearings --
Please identify yourself. 169 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 COMMISSIONER SOLVIBILE: I'm sorry. Robert Solvibile, Commissioner of Licensing and Inspections. Good afternoon. The Police Department and L&I -- when there's hearings or a problem with a stop and go, Dominic Verdi's group, the Nuisance Task Force, coordinates with the Police Department to find out the number of complaints received. We've met with personnel in the Police Department about stop and go's where there's shootings, and then we would try to do enforcement. That's basically the coordination now. As far as Health Department, I'm not sure of any coordination with them.
But if there were children at the stop and go's, then the Police Department is very involved in making sure that those kids end up at the curfew center.
Exactly. They are then brought to the curfew center. And, 170 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 in fact, we are moving now to become even more aggressive in any of those facilities that are in those areas that they're harboring youth, either when they should be in school or when they should be adhering to the curfew, that they also become sanctioned in addition to the youth being brought to the appropriate points.
And that's consistent with the new curfew law. So that is the duty of L&I for the sanctions or whom?
I want to correct something that was just said. If it is an area that's served where there's a curfew center, children are brought to the curfew center. Otherwise, the Police write a curfew violation and then refer the information over to DHS. But if there isn't -- obviously at this point there's one live curfew center and you 171 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 don't have curfew violators from all over the City being taken there. What happens now is the referral from Police to DHS. So L&I might take -- it might be a complaint to L&I that gets L&I to the nuisance stop and go, bringing Police with them, and if there are underage kids there, involving the DHS in the writing of the violation. And the review of the curfew violations, all curfew violations are reviewed by DHS. They're made aware of all of them.
I see. The bell has rung. So I will revisit my question with the Health Commissioner after I've done my homework from the last hearing, because I need to review the testimony where it was -- the revelation was if you had more inspectors, then that would somehow aid L&I in what they're doing and thus definitely not eliminate but move towards having fewer young people outside of those stop and go's. So I'll do the homework and then I'll 172 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 revisit that question with you when your department comes before us on its own. I have additional questions, Madam President, and I'll wait until my turn.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Savage.
Good afternoon, Mrs. Wilkerson. On the Five-Year Financial Plan, you mention that you will be creating a landbank to facilitate development. Can you explain how the landbank will work?
Is anybody here from Housing? One of the things that we've been working on in NTI is -- one of the underlying strategies was try to figure out what the land inventory really is and get parcels of land positioned for redevelopment. Historically, what the City would do is, a developer would come 173 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 in and say, I want that vacant lot, that vacant lot, that vacant lot, and we would begin a process to acquire the land. A lot of times with condemnations in particular it can take almost a year to acquire the land. So you'd have a live developer and have to begin a very protracted acquisition process. The thought behind the landbank was to get properties through as much of the acquisition and disposition process as you can so that when a developer knocks on the door and says, I want to do a development, you can just convey the land. So that was the thinking underpinning it. It's something that had worked in Cleveland, was very successful. It was a best practice we wanted to implement here. We've done a lot to -- we've taken some steps towards that end. We have worked on reorganizing our housing agencies. We think they will function more efficiently. We support a lot of 174 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the work now with technology. For the first time in a long, long time, probably decades, the City is probably in a position to know where the vacant land is in the city just because of the IT projects we've undertaken. We're working on developing streamlined disposition policies to support what we do. There are conversations still with City Council about exactly how far in the disposition process we'll go to have parcels poised for actual transfer. Council has made it clear that before anything gets transferred out of the public inventory, it has to come back to City Council for legislation, but we wanted to get it as close to that point as possible so that when developers come, we're not beginning a year, year and a half process.
I understand that Councilwoman Campbell had to leave and she had a question that she 175 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 wanted to ask. I understand that video cameras have been installed in Wynnefield and there was a public announcement about the cameras. Apparently, the cameras are not being monitored and she feels very strongly that people in that community now have a sense of false protection. Can somebody address that and tell us when the cameras will be monitored and should people know?
Pedro Ramos, Managing Director, with Joe James from MOIS. First of all, the City's current pilot does not include any cameras in that part of the City. There are cameras, I believe, that are owned by PCDC that there have been some discussions about whether the City would take on responsibility in the future for those cameras. There have been some discussions from them, and other organizations have also sought to have 176 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the City take on administrative and overall responsibility for cameras. We have been in the process that Joe James referred to earlier, been trying to put those such requests in some kind of framework that makes sense for our plan going forward. So we have not made a decision about whether we would -- the conditions under which we would want to take responsibility for cameras currently bought or committed to by agencies outside of the City Administration. Joe, is there anything else? DEPUTY JAMES: That's right. That's correct.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, I had some conversation with some of our police officers. Apparently there's two types of technology for these surveillance 177 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 cameras. There's one that's monitored in the police vehicle on the laptop and there's other that goes back to police headquarters. From what I'm hearing, the ones that are in the police cars aren't very well received by the police officers. They're so busy there's just not the opportunity to -- could you describe what I'm trying to express to you? DEPUTY JAMES: Sure. As I talked about last year, when we started the initiative shortly after the voter referendum, we went through a phase of deploying about cameras, and of those 17 cameras, eight of them were deployed to 18 what we call POD-type cameras, which are portable over digital surveillance cameras, similar that's been deployed in Chicago and in Baltimore. Most of the cameras that we have deployed are your traditional cameras that are on poles connected by fiber. They go back into the City's 178 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 network and we're able to transport that video to the police headquarters for them to monitor. The POD-type cameras, these portable cameras, are not networked. They are self-sustaining cameras that are mounted on light poles and they're probably more identified by the blue strobe light that most people see them flashing all the time. Those cameras were designed to work with a portable laptop unit that would allow a police officer to be able to go out to a scene in proximity to the cameras and through line and slight be able to retrieve that video from that camera to the laptop in the police car. Part of the whole purpose of doing the pilot is, we wanted to look at kind of lessons learned and what was the best practice, and we found out that in most cases because you had to be in such close proximity to the camera to retrieve the laptop video, it really wasn't as 179 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 effective as an officer basically standing at that intersection, because you didn't have a lot of distance that you could be, feet maybe top. So that 6 became one of the read-outs from the 7 pilot as while these are nice and they 8 have a very visual impact in the area 9 where they're deployed, they're not very 10 useful to the officer, and today the 11 current solution is not networked into 12 the City's network. We are currently in 13 a next phase of developing a solution to 14 allow us to transport the video from 15 those PODs the same way we do the other 16 cameras into the City's network so we can 17 retrieve them at the police headquarters. 18
Councilman, I guess 19 I would add that they're probably -- Joe 20 responded to your question in terms of 21 two types. There are probably three 22 types of cameras, because you're familiar 23 with the third type that's not mentioned 24 here. One is the pan/tilt/zoom, which 25 Joe mentioned, which are the ones you 180 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 manipulate. Second, the fixed cameras like you would get at an ATM machine, let's say, where it's just shooting in one direction all the time. And the third would be what people refer -- can mean a lot of different things, but people refer to them as smart cameras, those that are programmed so that when something unusual happens, they record or they zoom or do something like that. So part of the effort that's being led with the help of project management and the expertise in MOIS is to look for those -- to match up those types of technologies with the different types of public safety needs that you have and the different levels of effectiveness for each of those types of cameras. There's a Department of Justice study that talks about sort of the effectiveness of cameras that we'd be happy to share, and those are being matched up now. Now that we've got some 181 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 experience with the different types of cameras and know a lot more about what's worked and not worked in other cities, going back now to all the different stakeholders, starting with the Police and saying, Now that we've got some of this experience, we've got some new knowledge, what's the smartest way of using cameras to get the biggest impact on public safety. And we're very -- and the fact that the City is building a wireless network now, frankly, is fortuitous because we believe that in the end, it will enable us to do much more than we would otherwise be able to do. It might take some tweaking of the arrangement that we already have and what we expect in the build-out of the current or other vendors, but the ability to do it in a wireless way rather than having to pull fiber for each and every camera will let us just make those dollars go a lot further.
Madam 182 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 President, may I take 30 more seconds?
I know you'll count. You mentioned in your conversation about the blue lights, the flashing blue lights. They're a double-edged sword. They make it look like a combat zone. I've had people say to me, What's going on? They don't really know why those blue lights are flashing. Obviously it's to let the bad guys know that that's a camera-controlled location. But it's kind of -- I was at around Broad and Erie the other day, and really it looks scary to see all these blue lights flashing.
People have different opinions as to that. A lot of people like the flashing blue cameras. The idea behind that when you read some of the research on this is that if you're going to affect the behavior of a 183 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 prospective criminal, part of the calculus is that the criminal has to know that the cameras are there, be afraid that they're going to get caught.
And that the consequences will -- and it assumes that somebody is rational and sober and making that type of calculation.
You can imagine what a tourist must wonder if they're going through those areas or driving through those areas. And I will keep my commitment. I went over 30 seconds.
Well, is there any other way to do this? If you're talking about the smart technology, could the blue lights light when there's an incident? Because it really is a little much to go to an 184 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 intersection and see all those lights. DEPUTY JAMES: I think what you're seeing, Councilman, is a point in time where we've taken a pilot to see what type of experience so you can gauge that. And like the Managing Director said, we've had a number of different types of comments. Some people find them very positive, some people find them somewhat distracting, and I guess the comment that, Do you need to have that on all the time. And I think as we move forward, we're going to take advantage of that information and figure out. Like in Chicago, they have it connected to something that it is more alarm based, so that it's a reaction that's precipitated that causes the light to flash. And I think we need to look at it. And most of the cameras that we do have just have a solid blue light and they're very small and non-descript and most people don't even notice that they're even there. So it's really kind of a gauge. 185 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 We're trying to see what kind of reaction we are getting. So it's somewhat intentional.
Germantown Pike is a strobe light. DEPUTY JAMES: I understand at Germantown, but if you go to 7th and Girard, it's a solid blue light.
There may be cases, Councilman, which you, I think, would agree with if, for example, you're trying to stop short dumping, then you might want a very conspicuous, flashing, screaming camera to let people know that if they're short dumping on that avenue, they're going to get caught.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.
One 186 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 question, Madam President. Does the Managing Director's Office still have this program wherein you bring in currently enrolled college students interested in government with hopes that you will transition them into government, particularly that -- well, they would be college students.
We continue to participate in the citywide internship program.
That Personnel, I think, leads. We do that. This coming year -- and we'll be talking about it more in testimony, but happy to talk about it now, too -- we have started a public interest fellowship program in partnership with the Personnel Office, targeting people that are finishing up graduate programs in public policy or social work for people that want to work in government and have studied government. And it's a -- for this first 187 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 year of that public interest fellowship, which we call Destination Fellowship, we're hoping to be able to bring about five people into that program and give them a pretty structured experience in the government.
So I will look forward to hearing more about that, because specifically what I'm interested in is what the City is doing to hold on to young professionals between the ages of and 34, what kind of connect are we 14 making with Merrill Levitz and her outfit 15 and what she's doing for the young 16 professionals group. 17
The only exception 18 I would take, Councilwoman, is I would 19 include 42 as young. 20
But, in fact, the 25 effort that I just mentioned, Destination 188 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 Fellowship, is fun and good for the City, not just because it's a new effort to bring in -- to keep people interested that have studied government and are interested in government, give them a way into the government, but what makes it even more special, I think, is that the whole thing was really imagined, planned, conceived by a group of people in the age category that you just mentioned that work within the government already, a pretty unique group of go-to people in the government, right down to the website. They worked at Merrill Levitz's group.
They're on the new issue website and they're linked back to each other, and they really did create a buzz about this new public interest fellowship and it shows. I think they are justifiably very proud of that work. And we're doing some things informally, too, in terms of sort of brown bag 189 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 lunches, which we would probably want to formalize some more. But working on this public interest fellowship was a nice way of starting to organize and involve folks like that. I think it's also incumbent upon each of us in management positions in the government to -- I mean, I think part of being a manager is looking out for the professional development of your folks.
That's generation of leadership. That's exactly right. I am very much interested in that. So if you would please forward to Madam President any details, information about that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome. Are there any other questions from members of the Committee? (No response.)
Seeing no one, this Committee will stand 190 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 in recess until Tuesday, March the 13th at 10:00 a.m. Thank you all very much. (Committee of the Whole adjourned at 1:40 p.m.) - - - 191 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on March 6, 2007, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)