So if we had an up-to-date materials management system -- and I made some phone calls to various industry utilities that operate entirely different than you just described, that the purchasing departments, procurement departments, know usages, know reorder points. So apparently the system that government operates by is not of the same standard or sophistication that many private sectors use.
No. We have at the current time decentralized the inventory managements back to the operating departments. There are many major companies that have elected to decentralize particular processes back to operating departments. At the present time we are in a decentralized mode. And it is the responsibility of every one of our operating departments to determine their needs, to maintain adequate inventories, and 460 BILL 980003 to submit the requisitions to us when they need to reorder products. We are not -- we do not have a fully 100 percent automated system, where Procurement has the pulse and the inventory records of every item that every department uses.
Mr. President, before we continue, should we allow Mr. Roundtree to submit his testimony?
I think he should go now. MR. JAMES A. : Good afternoon, Mr. President, and the members of City 461 BILL 980003 Council. I am James Roundtree, and I am Deputy Finance Director and Executive Director of the Minority Business Enterprise Council. This afternoon I also have several staff members with me. I have Candace Hitchcock, who is our Deputy Director of Operations; Ms. Valerie Moe, who is the Certification Coordinator; Mr. Charlie Thorpe, who is our Public Works Service, Supply and Equipment Coordinator; and Mr. John Macklin, who is our Legislative Affairs and Regulatory Coordinator. The Minority Business Enterprise operating budget for 1999 request is $852,270, which is an increase over the Fiscal Year '98 Operating Budget of $827,920. The increase in the Operating Budget is a result of a 3 percent wage increase. The Minority Business Enterprise Council is charged with the task of administering the City of Philadelphia's anti-discrimination affirmative action, and purchasing policies under the Executive Order 193, and formerly under Chapter 23 17-500 of the Philadelphia Code. On December 31, 1997, the following legislation of the Minority Business Enterprise 462 BILL 980003 Council, Chapter 17-500, expired. This legislation was enacted in 1982 to promote and encourage the economic development of minority, women, and disabled business owners for participation in the city's contracting process. The inclusion of minority, women, and disabled businesses was monumental and triumphant in the city contracting. It became the goal of the city government that the city's taxpayer dollars be spent with all viable business in and around the Delaware Valley. Although the sun has set on Chapter 14 17-500, we continue to operate under the Mayor's Executive Order. In contrast to 17-500, the Executive Order is established to provide equal access and opportunities for all businesses in city contracting. It ensures that city funds are not used directly or indirectly to promote, reinforce, or perpetrate discriminatory contracting processes. The MBC has drafted revisions to Executive Order 193, which were submitted to the Finance Director and the Law Department for their review and comments. 463 BILL 980003 The draft revision includes an update to the MBC's current name and services, including the inclusion of MWB certification standards, personal and professional service contracts, the extended contract monitoring economic development, as well as a clarification of the agency policies on joint ventures with DBE firms. Our vision of the future is turning networking and outreaching, as well as compliance, into real opportunities for the city and the region for disadvantaged business enterprises in our community. In June of 1996, the city retained a consultant to conduct a business utilization study to examine the contracting policies of the city, and describes our agency. The study is in its final stages, data reconciliation and verification. Currently, the focus of the study is conducting data sampling to fine tune the statistical analysis. Based on the findings of the study, we will try to provide new legislation to the city for governing the city's MBE, WBE, and DBE programs. 464 BILL 980003 With a staff of 18, the MBC responds to the needs of the city departments, sister agencies, private business community, and the DBE business owners to ensure exclusion and diversity in contracting activity. For the past few years, the MBC has successfully conducted monthly workshops on how to do business with the city for new businesses and firms currently certified, but unsure of the process. Our last workshop drew over 80 respondents and included participation from the city's Procurement Department and the Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation. These are just a few of our highlights for our last Fiscal Year.
MBC is in the final stages of linking to the Procurement Department through the special procurement evaluation enhancement database system, which will allow the MBC to monitor all phases of the contracting process on Public Works, service, supply, and equipment contracts through an automated data system. The MBC has worked very closely as a 465 BILL 980003 team member with the construction managers on the One Parkway project. We are actually monitoring the construction and employment of that activity on the project. We have helped the owner achieve 30 percent combined participation for minority and women, disadvantaged business firms over the contract dollar value. And to date the combined contract employment work force for minority and women has reached 72 percent during the demolition and environmental removal activities. In November, the city's Water Department, the Municipal Authority, the Water Revenue Bureau, and the Department of Revenue signed a multi-million-dollar contract with a company called ITRON to purchase and install, operate, and maintain meters, 480 new meters, in Philadelphia residential homes. The Minority Business Enterprise Council played a key role as a member of the city's team by establishing minority, women, and disabled business partition ranges and employment participation goals for the MRI installation. As a key fact, all of the 466 BILL 980003 installation of all of the automatic meters are being done by a local certified minority firm, and to date they are ahead of their schedule. Two minority/women businesses are providing customer services through a call center for ITRON, and ITRON's warehouse tenant fit-out work was completed by a local MBE certified, minority disabled, disadvantaged business corporation. The improvements and the achievements that MBC has seen over the last four years will continue to expand into the next millennium. The agency will find new and innovative ways to improve and further increase the participation of minority, women, and disabled business participation in contract opportunities for the city. This concludes my testimony. Thank you very much for allowing me to share the MBEC's achievements and goals for the future. I will be happy to answer any of your questions.
Thank you, Mr. President. 467 BILL 980003 I have a question for the Procurement Commissioner. Maybe you can help me answer a question that's been raised numerous times to me, and I don't have a good answer. I assume we purchase vehicles in northern New Jersey because of some state contract that we piggyback with? I understand all of our police cars in the recent years have been coming from northern New Jersey, when dealerships here in this area are not eligible for that? Could you explain, please?
Sure. We procure -- realize, we must award our bids to the lowest responsive responsible bidder. We cannot isolate and select Philadelphia businesspeople for awards. I mean, we have been through that before. Police cars are acquired through the Procurement Department in two methods. One is through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, what they call the piggybacking contract, and the other portion is through competitive bidding. And it so happens that in the competitive bidding arena, and also, I believe, in 468 BILL 980003 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's piggybacking contract, the low bidder has consistently been a New Jersey Ford dealer who specializes in fleets, in fleets for police departments and state police. And our state police cars that we see, our Pennsylvania state police cars, were acquired through this agency at the New Jersey dealer, as most of our City of Philadelphia police cars are. Some of our other police vehicles have been awarded through contracts -- I believe there is a Ford dealer in Philadelphia who has received some awards, because he was the lowest responsive responsible bidder. But we cannot go and select and pick a Ford dealer in the City of Philadelphia and make an award.
Give me an example of lowest bid. In other words, if a dealer, the northern New Jersey dealer, came in $10 per unit less than a Philadelphia dealership, you would award that deal to the northern New Jersey?
The law requires us, 469 BILL 980003 if that dealer, that New Jersey dealer, comes in $1 lower than the Philadelphia dealer, and they are both responsive and responsible, we are not permitted to award to anyone other than the low bidder, even if it is a dollar.
If a dealer in the middle of a prairie someplace had no operating expenses, compared to a dealership here in Philadelphia, you can't take that into consideration, that the business in Philadelphia is operating with more overhead than the business in the middle of a prairie?
What you are talking about is known as preferential -- local preference. We are not permitted to use anything that would indicate local preference and give a local company an edge, and reduce his price or whatever, because he happens to be local. I agree with you. It would be my preference to award it to local people, but the law doesn't permit us to do that. The only time we can do that is if it so happens that the bidders are tied. It is then the Procurement Commissioner's decision to make an 470 BILL 980003 award. And the few times that that has happened, I have always, of course, awarded to the Philadelphia dealer, to the Philadelphia company.
What if one of those businesspeople were a minority; how would you deal with that?
It makes no 10 difference. Unfortunately, again, the law is clear. The lowest responsive responsible bidder must be awarded the contract.
And that has to be changed at what level? The state level?
That would be a combination of the state law and the Philadelphia City Charter. It is predominantly in the Philadelphia City Charter. At one time there was -- and this is before our time, before 1992 -- there was an attempt to recognize what is known as local preference with a percentage, and that failed. And I know the Mayor, we have had discussions, he would prefer to award -- and many 471 BILL 980003 times we had discussed us awarding -- contracts to local people, even though they were just a little bit higher, but we're not permitted to do that. If we could change that, more power to you. That would be a step in the right direction.
You can imagine, Commissioner, I am sure you hear it more so than we do, it is constantly when you are out in the community and the business meetings, that they are very, very concerned about the fact that we do business outside of Philadelphia, when they are trying, many of them, to survive, and we are buying six, seven hundred cars a year from a company in northern New Jersey.
I certainly can appreciate the problems. But one of the answers that you might want to give them is, if we did make local preference, we are then subject to what's known as retaliatory measures by the other states. For instance, if we award to a Philadelphia company who happens to be higher than, let's say, a Jersey company, and that company then 472 BILL 980003 goes to New Jersey and says, look what Philadelphia is doing to us, then the State of New Jersey and other New Jersey people might not do business with Philadelphia companies who go over there. So we could help one company in Philadelphia, but hurt another one, because they have lost business from Jersey.
Commissioner, just my final point. Every dealer pays Ford Motor Company, if we are talking about a Ford product, the same amount of money for the vehicle.
Is the problem that our businesses here in Philadelphia don't know how to bid on a police car? Are they greedy? Are they bidding too high? Is there something that they need to learn? Have you ever had a workshop or some way to teach people? Are they making mistakes? I know the bidding process is complicated, in many cases. Is there a way, is there a person that we could send these people that are unhappy 473 BILL 980003 with the process to Procurement to understand better how to do business with the city?
I have had many discussions with the local Ford dealer, Pacifico. Kerry Pacifico is a friend of mine. We have spoken about that many times. I know his sales manager in charge of fleets. We have talked about that. The difference is that there are certain companies, this company in Jersey, Warnock Ford, who is geared, who their whole business is major fleets. They operate in a manner differently than Kerry Pacifico. Now, Kerry Pacifico, they have won some bids, some Ford Broncos, or whatever, they have. But, believe me, I know Kerry Pacifico, I speak to him. And whatever help I can give to them, I do. But the moment of truth is when that envelope is opened, and his car is 20,100 and the other guy is 20,000 even, and we have to award to that.
Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. That's helpful. 474 BILL 980003 Thank you, Mr. President.
The Chair recognizes Councilman DiCicco. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon, Commissioner. Is it safe to say, then, when an RFP, the bid is returned on a particular item or items, all things being equal, that consideration would be given to the Philadelphia company, meaning if the bids are exactly the same and the performance would be equal to a Jersey firm, that we would give consideration to the Philadelphia firm?
If the bids come in and both companies are what we call responsive and responsible, and if both bids are identical in dollars, the Procurement Commissioner then has the right to make the determination as to who he will award to. At one time they had a process where they flipped a coin. I have stopped that. And the Procurement Commissioner will now make the award, and he invariably will make the award to the local dealer. Because that's to the city's benefit. 475 BILL 980003 Because I look at that. And I know that if the prices are the same, and we are dealing with a local company, they are paying substantial taxes which are coming to us, which, in effect, will reduce the price. So when it is tie, we can do it. Any other time, we can't. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Which brings me to my next point. One of the other considerations, I would assume, from a business standpoint, that why sometimes the Philadelphia companies, let's say the Ford dealership in this instance, may not be able to compete with the price of the Jersey firm is because of some of the encumbrances that we have in ways and means of taxes and so forth in the City of Philadelphia. So we, as elected members of City Council, need to continue to look for ways in which we can accelerate the reduction of the Business Use and Occupancy Tax and other taxes which inflate the price of the item or materials that we would be looking to purchase, to put us in a more competitive position with outside -- meaning out of the 476 BILL 980003 county -- companies, dealerships, what-have-you?
You are absolutely correct. And that's why, in my view, it is so important for the city to be able to tax the out-of-city companies for business that they are doing in Philadelphia. When Warnock Ford sends in 200 police cars into Philadelphia, they, at the present time, are not paying Business Use Tax, Business Privilege Tax. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: And wage tax.
Forget the wage tax. But the Business Privilege Tax. For every car the Philadelphia dealer has to pay three mills, or whatever that happens to be, where the New Jersey dealer doesn't pay that. So his costs are a little bit lower. So, again, I urge you and encourage the Finance Department, whoever is working on it, that it is very important to have these taxes on other out-of-city companies who ship products into our environment. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: You answered the 477 BILL 980003 next question I was about to ask. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you very much. Any other questions? Gentlemen, thank you very much. Risk Management. JOSEPH R. PERRELLO: Good afternoon, Council President Street and members of City Council, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Joseph R. Perrello, Deputy Director of Finance for Risk Management. Here with me today is Jane Lewis, Director of Claims; Barry Scott, Director of Safety and Loss Control; Debra Lawton, Contract and Insurance Manager; and Susan Robinson, the division's Financial Analyst and Administrator. We are here today to request your approval of our FY '99 budget of $1,482,418. This increase represents a small Class 100 increase of $9,153 from the current budget. To elicit your support, I would like to highlight some of the division's accomplishments and initiatives. 478 BILL 980003 The mission of the division is to use all the professional expertise in claims management, employee disability, insurance contracts, and loss control to mitigate and reduce the total cost of claims to the City of Philadelphia. In this record, the Safety Unit focuses on reducing the frequency and severity of claims against the city. They have established safe practices acts and investigate and respond to health and safety concerns of city employees and the public. Some of our most noteworthy accomplishments in this area are the environmental and air quality studies that the unit has accomplished; the safe driver program that the city is implementing, which will reduce the number and cost of accidents involving city vehicles in the coming years; the driver verification program, where, in conjunction with the Personnel Department and the State of Pennsylvania, we are now verifying the valid driver's license of city drivers; and the drug and alcohol program that we have initiated for city employees who drive commercial vehicles. Our Employee Disability Unit provides 479 BILL 980003 quality medical care, case management, and rehabilitation to employees injured on the job. In doing so, we have reduced the medical cost by an average of $7 million a year since 1994, substantially reduced both numbers of pay days lost and no duty days for city employees, and stabilized previously skyrocketing annual costs of workers' compensation benefits. These achievements resulted in the city receiving an award from the National Publication on Insurance and Risk Management as having the best workers' compensation program in the country in 1997. Our Insurance Contracts Unit manages the various city and authority insurance programs and provides oversight to some of the agencies and authorities that need risk management assistance. We have reduced the overall city's cost of insurance by more than $5 million, while enhancing insurance coverage. We have created a personal automobile program which provides the city with flexibility, in that individual employees can now use their personal cars for city business without incurring additional 480 BILL 980003 insurance costs. We have greatly expanded the deal of DBE firms in both the city's and the authority's insurance programs, and we have arranged special needs insurance programs for special event firms and also for volunteers acting for the city. The unit also manages the city's wrap-up construction insurance programs, which reduces the cost of construction insurance for the city and enables small disadvantaged firms to participate in programs that they would otherwise be prohibited from participating in. Our claims unit focuses on fair and prompt settlement of liability claims against the city. We have initiated a quick response program for claims involving immediate need situations. 5 million in the last four years for people who have done damage to city property. And we are now implementing an anti-fraud program, which will discharge fraudulent claims against the city.
In helping us to accomplish our 481 BILL 980003 mission, you will help us to free up dollars that would otherwise be spent on claims, to be redirected to the city, but put to more beneficial uses. We thank you for your time, and we would be happy to entertain any questions.
Thank you, Mr. President. In the first part of your testimony, you say that you want an increase in your budget of $9,153.
I am wondering how you can justify that amount? I notice on the last page of your testimony you say that you feel that you have been effective in saving the city money that would have otherwise been spent on claims and claims-related issues. Do you have any estimate of how much you have saved the city that might justify this $9,000 increase?
In the insurance area 482 BILL 980003 alone, we have saved over $5 million in insurance premium costs. And we have saved a smaller, but like number, or helped the authorities and agencies throughout the city save a smaller but like number, on a percentage basis. Our workers' compensation cost, as we have mentioned, just for the cost of the medical care, we have reduced by $7 million a year over four years. That's roughly 30-some-million dollars that we have saved the city. The city's outstanding liabilities for workers' compensation benefits were about $210 million, when the division took over in 1994, and now we are down under $100 million. So there is a hundred million dollars in savings that we have been able to save for the city in outgoing year benefits. We could go on about trying to define the savings that are generated from claims that don't happen. But when we have an effective Safety and Loss Control Unit, which we have under the leadership of Mr. Scott, we are actually preventing claims and reducing the number of claims, as 483 BILL 980003 indicated by the fact that we now have less than 100 people throughout the city, of a work force of almost 30,000, that are on no-duty time. And that's a terrific, you know, percentage for that basis. Similarly, we are getting people back to work quicker. And here again, they are numbers that can't be quantified because you are still in the Class 100 budget, but there is more productivity by the fact that people are being put back to work sooner.
So bottom line, over 100, maybe several hundred, million dollars?
Yes. And we are looking for, basically, $9,000 to cover the 3 percent increase in the union contracts.
Well, it is impressive both reading your testimony and what's in the Five-Year Plan. You have done a great job.
Thank you, Mr. President. 484 BILL 980003 I just have a couple of questions. One is, on of your testimony, you mention that you have insurance that will help community groups with special events coverage. How will the groups know that? When they apply for that special events packet, is that in there? How would they know? We get parades every year, for years and years and years, and I never knew that you had this.
Our basic response to that is, we just put this program into effect in the last year, really within the last few months. We have been working on it for several years. The problem arose because there are many, many celebrations and events that the city puts on, and the city has standard insurance requirements that are fairly stringent for some smaller firms to participate in. So we felt a way to solve that problem, to eliminate the restrictions for some of these small firms, was to put together a citywide program that these firms can participate in at a very discounted insurance cost. 485 BILL 980003 And we are now in the process of trying to go out, through the Special Events Committee, which meets monthly on all upcoming special events, to publicize this, and to publicize it also through the Mayor's Office and the Recreations Department.
My other question would be, when you talk about developing a method for nonprofits to get broad liability insurance or general insurance, how close are you to completing it? I think you said this is a new project that you started on?
Yes. This is a new project that we are working on now with several brokers. The initial program, or problems that we have had -- and we have been looking at this program also for a number of years -- is that we had to find sufficient interest within the insurance community to help us develop this program. It has almost been like crying in the wilderness trying to get somebody interested. Because we are not talking about large volumes of 486 BILL 980003 premiums here. But the fact remains we have many, many, many needy not-for-profits in the community that need to have help with their insurance. Their insurance costs are overburdening, and we have to reduce those insurance costs. And what we are trying to do is create a mechanism where the city can put together one master program and have all these not-for-profits subscribe to it at a much discounted rate. And we hope within the next six months, we will be able to have a program like this up and running.
What are the results of your drug testing of city drivers, and when are you going to expand and test other people?
I would like to defer this to Barry Scott, our Director of Safety and Loss Control.
My name is Barry Scott. I am the Director of Safety and Loss Control, Risk Management Division. The program for testing our commercial motor vehicle drivers has been very 487 BILL 980003 successful. The program includes random tests, post-accident tests, tests for reasonable suspicion, and followup testing. We have been successful in a number of ways. Number one, we have had a relatively low percentage of positive tests on our random test basis. This is something that has been very encouraging to us. We have done an extensive program of education with our drivers, to make sure that they are aware of the testing program and why we are doing the testing. We have had good success in terms of getting drivers through treatment and back to work.
Thank you. I have one more question. On you say the division of corrective medical reevaluation and reemployment programs. Can you describe the aggressiveness of that whole piece? Are you like a bill collector, hammering away at people to get back to work?
I would be happy to answer the first part of the question, then I will 488 BILL 980003 defer to Jane Lewis, our Director of Claims, to handle the second part. The first and foremost piece of the employees' disability program -- and we focus on this every year with our testimony -- is that the most important part of our job for injured employees, injured on the job, is that we get them high-quality professional medical care. If you want to look at it from strictly a dollars and cents standpoint, that is not our preferred way to do it. We would rather look at it from a humanitarian standpoint. But even looking at it from a dollars and cents standpoint, the philosophy would always be, take care of the employee right the first time, rather than have to treat him a second or third or fourth time for the same injury. And now I would like to turn it over to Jane Lewis.
My name is Jane Lewis. I am Director of Claims. Really, the way that I would describe the shift in terms of the aggression is, under the old program, we focused on what people couldn't do. 489 BILL 980003 You know, you are out of work, you can't work. Now we really trained our doctors to look at what people can do. Okay, you can't be a police officer, but that doesn't mean you need to sit home. So we have trained our doctors to look at, say, okay, what can they do, how much can they lift, how much walking can they do. And then we hired a bunch of vocational rehabilitation specialists. And we have them interview the employees or, if the employees are unwilling, looking at their work history, their employment application with the city, and to come up with sort of a profile of the skills that they could do. And then those vocational rehabilitation people try to match the physical abilities of the employees with their vocational profile, and then look at available jobs within the city to say, okay, how can we get this person back to work. So it has really been a key change in the way we approach the whole program. I would like to say everybody has 490 BILL 980003 been happy about it. Some employees may not want to come back to work. We have been very aggressive. We have made job offers in over 300, almost 400 cases now. A few people here and there are showing interest, more aren't. But, in general, the response has been good for the people who never left the city, our employees who are on light duty. And there are a whole bunch of categories of employees involved. But we really think it has enabled the employees who want to come back to work to come back to work. And just because someone has been gone from the city a couple of years on workers' comp or pension, doesn't mean we don't want to bring them back. So if they approach us, and they want to come back to work, we will work with that employee to try to bring them back.
Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Councilman 491 BILL 980003 Nutter.
Mr. Perrello, it is still early in the budget process, so I can rehabilitate myself at a later point in time with other people. But for the moment, I want to express my support for your request. I have enjoyed tremendously working with you and members of your staff, almost as much as I have enjoyed working with the City Solicitor and her people. Your group I have found to be creative and willing to go the extra step in a number of situations that I have been faced with out in the Fourth District, whether it was a disastrous water main break, or other flood kinds of conditions, people with trees falling on various parts of their property, and a number of other instances. The program that was mentioned a little while ago with the not-for-profit insurance program, we had occasion to discuss that privately, because of an interest by some groups in another part of my district. So the Risk Management Unit, I think 492 BILL 980003 of the few units that do get created in government, and certainly the ones that I have had contact with, I think in a very short period of time has more than earned its keep. I have enjoyed working with you, support your request, and look forward to working with you again in the future. And I do appreciate what you do.
Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Perrello, I think I would like to go back to what I think is great, something you have implemented, is the recovery of damages to city property. I am just curious. The obvious departments would be the Police and Fire that would capture a license number or an incident report. Fairmount Park Commission is one that's -- do we 493 BILL 980003 have a relationship with Fairmount Park going yet?
You do? On my way to work, I noticed that a car, a vehicle, lost control and damaged a beautiful stone wall on Bells Mill Road, crossing over the creek. And I am wondering if we have gotten sophisticated enough to go back to the police department. There are thousands of dollars worth of damage to this city property. Would Risk Management do an investigation, or do you have resources within the Police Department to do a little bit of Columbo work and go after the person that caused this damage? Because the information may be on a piece of paper somewhere, but you have to know it. Could you just describe how the process works?
Yes, Councilman. We have an ongoing relationship with the Police Accident Investigation Division. In fact, we go over to AID weekly and 494 BILL 980003 go through every file that they have on a new accident that is reported to the city's AID Department. And we then follow up on every accident which we feel there is a possibility for recovery. We also deal with the Water and the Streets Department to find out any street signs or any water hydrants that have been damaged. And we will continually look for more ways and better ways to find more damage to city properties, yes.
Now, you just mentioned accidents that are reported to the Accident Investigation Unit. The number of accidents that are reported to the Accident Investigation Unit have decreased because of personnel issues. The accident that I just described to that wall on Bells Mill Road, AID may have never been involved if it didn't involve serious injury or a fatality. Does Fairmount Park know, would you speculate or would you know, that if Fairmount Park knows that they should come to you -- because they have to have stone masons go out there and spend a week to reconstruct that wall -- do they know today 495 BILL 980003 that there is a possibility of some recovery through Risk Management? That district manager in that area, does he know that this may be something that he could recover if the police who were summoned to the scene -- and they were -- gave them or gave you the information to go get them?
We still depend primarily on AID for this information. However, we do work, as I said, directly with Streets, Water, Public Property, and Fairmount Park to get every information that they are aware of so that we can proceed.
Through the Chair, just curiosity here, would you see if that particular incident that I described to you, you even know about?
Okay. My next question is something that I guess I will be asking Barry, as long as I am here, is the committee that is supposedly trying to get the various utilities together on ditch restoration. 496 BILL 980003 Every time I hit a pothole or, not a pothole, but a construction site that's left in an improper way, where it is not filled properly or a barricade is not on a ditch that the Water Department left or the Streets Department left, I think of you, Barry. And then I talk to the various operating departments. And they say, "Well, I think there is a committee like that." Where are we with that in trying to fix the problem? Because I feel bad for people that hit a hole, damage their cars, and it is really our fault. And then when they come back to Risk Management, they get this story that they are only liable for, you know, $500 in damages to their vehicle. It could be a very, very severe situation, and very expensive for a person, especially an insurance claim. Where are we with trying to make this situation better?
First of all, Councilman, I have to thank you for asking the question, because now Mr. Scott owes me some money, 497 BILL 980003 because I told him you were going to ask the question.
And that is a good reason for you to have an increase in your budget, to get that working.
Thank you, Councilman. We have been doing a number of things in the area of ditch restoration since we have last talked about it. The Streets and Water Department supervisors in the field are meeting on a regular basis. And that's something which started specifically under the Ditch Restoration Task Force aegis. Those meetings have been going on to improve coordination between Streets and Water Department about ditches. We have done a lot in the area of plumber's ditches, as well. The process of accounting for ditches has improved greatly. There has been approved billing for backlog of ditches for overpriced and oversized ditches. That accounting process has gone through. There is an administrative 498 BILL 980003 adjudication process for people who have problems with that. That process has gone through. So we are better able to track down people who are doing ditches improperly. In addition, there is work going on with the utilities to coordinate the information about ditch location. The Utility Technical Subcommittee of the Streets or Maintenance, Highway Maintenance Committee, has been working to share information on a computer basis about their geographical information systems specifications. So that information about work that the utilities are planning to do, in terms of their future work, can be also coordinated with the future work of the Streets Department, in terms of resurfacing streets, the Water Department as a utility in terms of doing their work is also getting their information. The city is acting as a conduit, actually, to hold all of that information together about where those ditches are going to be dug, and so that the turnaround about the repair of those things are handled well. 499 BILL 980003 The Streets Department will be talking, to a significant extent, you know, in terms of their budget testimony, about the things that they can specifically use in terms of improving their internal process in terms of response. Generally, those are the kinds of things that have been going on in the ditch restoration area since we have last talked.
Barry, the situation is that it is not just our Streets Department, Water Department. PGW, PECO Energy, the cable companies, the steam company, they are all equally responsible for leaving work sites in a condition that is not acceptable, at least to me, and I am sure to you in many cases. The same way with open inlets. I mean, I go through some of our neighborhoods where you find a milk carton crate stuffed in where a lid is missing. And I feel so bad when I walk through some of these neighborhoods. A person with poor vision could walk right into one of these open inlets. And weeks and weeks and weeks. It got to the point where some of the 500 BILL 980003 neighbors stuck a police barricade in, sticking into the inlet. And I said to myself, some poor citizen who walks into that has to get seriously injured, if not killed. So I would hope that this thing could get revved up a little bit, and all the departments come up with a process. You know, PGW runs around drilling all these little holes in the street to test for gas leaks, they leave them that way. So it really upsets me. And don't take the bet next year, because I am going to ask this question again. Okay? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.
Any other questions? Thank you very much. The Law Department. Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with a brief statement.
Good afternoon, Council President Street, members of City 501 BILL 980003 Council. I am Stephanie Franklin Suber, City Solicitor.
Does anybody have any questions? I am just teasing. Is that a brief statement?
May I introduce the members of the Law Department joining me today? With me today at the witness table is Christopher Lane, our Director of Administration and Management. And also joining me are several of the Law Department's managers: Donna Mouzayck, who is our Chief Deputy City Solicitor for the Claims Unit; Carlton Johnson, our Chief Deputy City Solicitor for the Civil Rights Unit; Cynthia White-Winters, Chief Deputy City Solicitor for the Tax Unit; Anne Barden, Divisional Deputy City Solicitor for Labor Relations; and Cureley Cole, our Divisional Deputy City Solicitor for Code Enforcement. I am pleased to have this opportunity to testify today in support of the Law Department's Fiscal Year 1999 operating budget request. I can appreciate the length of City Council's day in conducting the various hearings, and I will briefly summarize the Law Department's 502 BILL 980003 budget request. The Law Department requests a total of $32,756,813 in all funds for Fiscal Year 1999. This represents an increase of $630,729 over our estimated Fiscal Year 1998 obligations. The justification for this request is detailed in the formal testimony that has been distributed to City Council. I would be happy to entertain any specific questions at this point. Or, at Council's pleasure, I can go into more detail and highlight the various requests per fund and get into detail with regard to the Law Department's accomplishments over the past Fiscal Year.
This may never happen again. If I could have your attention, the committee will stand in recess until tomorrow morning, Wednesday, February 18, at 9 o'clock a.m., 503 BILL 980003 at which time we will start with the Managing Director's Office. (Hearing adjourned at 3:40 p.m.) - - - 504 C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Tuesday, February 17, 1998, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE _____________________________________ DEBRA A. WHITEHEAD, RPR 505