COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING AND PUBLIC MEETING BEFORE THE COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Thursday, May 27, 1999 9:05 a.m. - - - BILL 990307 - An ordinance authorizing transfers and appropriations for Fiscal Year 2000 within the Grants Revenue Fund and the Director of Finance Provision for Other Grants to the District Attorney. PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JOAN L. KRAJEWSKI, Chair COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILMAN ANGEL L. ORTIZ COUNCILMAN RICHARD T. MARIANO COUNCILMAN W. THACHER LONGSTRETH - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 2 5/27/99 APPROPRIATIONS - Bill 990307 I N D E X Dean Kaplan, Budget Director. . . . . . . . . City of Philadelphia Al Toslovsky, DA's Office . . . . . . . . . . Charles Basselet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Information Systems Manager, DA's Office 3 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE P R O C E E D I N G S
Good morning. The Committee on Appropriations is now in session. Will the clerk please read the bill.
Bill No. 990307, an ordinance authorizing transfers and appropriations for Fiscal Year 2000 within the Grants Revenue Fund and the Director of Finance Provision for Other Grants of to the District Attorney.
Good morning, gentlemen. Please state your name for the record.
Good morning. Thank you. I'm Dean Kaplan, the City's Budget Director, and I'm here this morning to offer testimony on Bill 16 990307, which makes FY 2000 budget appropriation transfer between departments in the City's Grants Revenue Fund. I'm accompanied on my right, your left, by Rob Dubow, who's the City's Deputy Budget Direct and also Chair of the Productivity Bank Loan Committee; and on my left, by Al Toslovsky (ph.) from the District Attorney's Office. Passage of this legislation is requested in order to allow the District 4 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE Attorney's Office to receive a $1.5 million productivity bank loan that was approved by the Productivity Bank Loan Committee in April. This loan will be used for an office automation project, which is expected to generate a variety of benefits and improvements in service delivery: It will enable the DA's office to computerize witness subpoenas, provide assistant district attorneys with direct access to court listing information, and capture discovery electronically; It will allow them to create an automated brief bank, which will allow them to not have to rewrite arguments for appeals and other cases on an ongoing basis, and rather use well-written arguments from prior cases on similar grounds; It will allow them to improve planning and management through the collection and analysis of standard case disposition statistics; And it will improve communications with victims, witnesses, and other City agencies. We, as you will recall during the budget process, we had had extensive discussions 5 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE here in Council and elsewhere about the District Attorney's need for an information technology upgrade, and I believe that we have reached a broad agreement that this package will allow the DA to substantially upgrade their capacity and improve this crime fighting capability. With that, I will conclude my comments. Obviously, I'd be happy to answer any questions, and Mr. Dubow and Mr. Toslovsky are here as well to go into more detail. But I believe that both my testimony, and more specifically, the DA's testimony provide a fair amount of detail as to the project elements and purposes of the project.
I just wanted to know, how old is the computer system?
Good morning, Councilwoman. Al Toslovsky from the DA's Office. There are different components, obviously, of the system with different ages. But, for example, our main file server is three years old and obsolete; and worse, the wiring from our data center to most of our floors in the main office is eleven years old, the cabling, and it's causing us some technological problems now. We 6 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE have 600 employees and of those, only 158 have computers capable of handling Window-based software.
Thank you. Are there any other questions? Councilman Nutter?
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm sorry, I didn't your catch name.
Okay. You said your main file server is three years old and it's obsolete already?
So we have to replace your main file server every three years?
Okay. How is it possible that in three years, your main file 24 server could be obsolete already?
Well, if I may, I have 7 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE with me Ed Flood from our office, who's our director or administration; Charles Basselet (ph.), who's our director of information services. This is -- I don't know the answer to that myself, but I'm sure they do.
I'm sorry. Charles Basselet, information systems manager for the DA's Office.
Pull the microphone a little closer. Our sound system is about 50 years old and it was obsolete 49 years ago.
Okay. The main file 18 server is three years old, it was purchased in 1996. The technology has moved across that much, that if we were going to purchase -- if we wanted to keep pace with what's going on today, we need something at least twice as fast to support 600 users. And basically that's the --
All right. So you need it updated based on a fairly significant 8 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE increase in the number of people who will actually be using it.
Okay, that's a good answer. In terms of the generation of statistics, and I don't know what the -- are you the -- you're the chief information person for the DA's Office?
Yes. We have a computer committee which meets regularly, and they give me their list of things that they want to be able to do in the office; and generate statistics is one of them.
So within the committee, if somebody makes a decision that you want to generate certain reports --
-- they make that decision and pass the request on over to you. You then generate the reports.
And what kind of reports will you be able to generate as a result 9 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE of this productivity bank loan?
What we're looking to do there, Councilman, is -- I know that I've been at several budget hearings where you've asked for certain types of statistics, and this will give us the ability to generate those. We'll be able to, for example, to capture case dispositions, even by types of charge, and those are the type that we don't -- we can't generate now.
Okay. Well, based on that testimony, then what I would ask is if you could forward both to the Chair and to the Council President on an annual basis as a part of the productivity loan in your request today, if you could get us an annual report on the number of arrests, prosecutions, and the disposition of those prosecutions, whether it's resulting in a guilty, not guilty, plea bargain, ARD. And you would then be able to tell us, because you have access to other systems or information, you would be able to tell us the race and gender of both the victim and the defendant; is that correct?
Excuse me a 10 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE moment. I'm sorry, I missed it. Are you requesting that, Councilman?
Well, would you please see that the Chair receives that.
-- be given to the Chair and to the Council President.
With respect to the way our system's going to be built is, in order to avoid recoding a lot of information that's already coded by the court, what we're doing is, we're now working, trying to solve the system with the court to download from their database all the initially captured information. So in answer to your question, if it's captured now by the court, we will be able to do that.
Okay. We assume the court knows who might be coming to the court that day, that it might be a man, it might be a 11 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE woman, they might be black, they might be white, they might be 20, they might be 40. I mean, they generally who's going to show up in court every day, right?
Yes. But your question is not whether they know it but whether it's captured in their database.
And it is captured in their database, then we will capture it.
Okay. And then you might be able to share, as a part of that, any information regarding defendants and their locale, either by zip code or by police district, or something along those lines, right?
When you say "locale," are you talking about where they live or where the crime was committed?
From what I know of the court database, I don't know that the location of the crime would be in there, but their address certainly would be.
Okay. And off of 12 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE the address, you'd be able to get a zip code.
And then you'd be able to provide statistics based on that.
And the other thing we could provide is, although we wouldn't tell you the exact location of the crime, there is a police district control number --
Right, okay. Now, you feel confident that you'll, one, be able to do this; and, two, be able to fulfill the commitment that you're making here 13 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE today?
Yes. The only issue as far as your statistics, obviously, we can't start generating them until we're fully operational.
Okay. So somewhere into the next fiscal year, and on an annual basis, the fiscal year ends June 30th or whatever the year is -- probably sometime in the fall of that same calendar year -- you'd be able to produce such a report?
Yes. If we're talking about the fall of 2001, I think the answer is yes.
Okay, all right. You anticipate what, it's going to take a year to get --
Yeah, I think it's going to take us a year to do this project, Councilman.
Okay, all right. If you have any problems, if you could be sure to get either back to me or to the Chair 14 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE of the committee to let us know what difficulties you might have, if any, with regard to this request, I would appreciate it.
Okay. One last question. Mr. Kaplan, is it my recollection that this issue was discussed back at budget time, and this is the same productivity loan that was declined, if not refused, by the District Attorney's Office back in February or March, where there was a reluctancy to push forward on a productivity loan back at that time?
I have to tell you that I don't remember. It's all a blur now. But the-- I think that the productivity bank loan was, you know, part of a larger package. And, obviously, there were a number of positions taken on both sides as to who would accept what when.
And I think, clearly, by the -- certainly by the end of the budget process, 15 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE we were in a group, broad agreement that this would be the way to proceed.
Okay. I just remember -- my recollection is, when this started, the response was that a productivity loan would not work for the District Attorney's office and, therefore, there was less interest in pursuing that as opposed to a straight infusion of cash to essentially pay for bodies.
I think that there was some reluctance on the District Attorney's part in that they were unclear that the -- specifically the repayment portion of the loan would be difficult for them to meet, and once we sat down and met with Mr. Toslovsky and other people on the staff, I think we were able to agree that, in fact, we would be able to put together a structure that worked for them. And then I think it was able to go forward.
I think the Law Department had used the same process to upgrade their computer system, and I think you were trying to explain that the DA's Office would be able to take advantage of the same opportunity. 16 /99 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
Thank you. Are there any other questions? (No further questions at this time.)
There being none, that concludes our public hearing on Bill 10 No. 990310 (sic). - - - 17 5/27/99 APPROPRIATIONS PUB. MEETING
And now we will go into our public meeting. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that Bill No. 990307 be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation, and a further recommendation that the rules of Council be suspended so as to permit first reading at our next session.
All those in favor? All those opposed? (None opposed.)
That concludes our Appropriations meeting. Therefore, Bill No. 19 990307 will be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and with a suspension of rules so as to permit first reading at the next session of Council. Thank you. (Adjourned at 9:20 a.m.) - - - 18 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Thursday, May 27, 1999, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS BILL NO. 990307 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter