Thank you. I've got a question about this process. Let's say you want to enclose your porch.
And you first need to find out if the zoning would permit that to occur; is that correct?
I want you to identify all of the permits that I'm going to need. I first need a zoning permit, correct?
Now I want to build something so I need a building permit.
I want to put lights in there, inside that porch so now I need an electrical permit also.
I'm curious as to 56 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 why we even need an accelerated permit process. Is L&I -- how many people -- how many people are employed in that permit issuance unit?
Well, it breaks down by numbers, by the various units, just as you mentioned the permits. So that we have approximately a dozen engineers who are doing building plans review. We have -- when we're talking about zoning, I believe we have about eight people doing zoning review. We have just two people doing electrical permit review. So that the number of people vary in the process. And the amount of time it takes varies, depending on the amount of activity that's going on in the City in terms of how many people are applying for permits. To give you an idea, in the last year, we issued a record number of permits in the City of Philadelphia for recent time -- notwithstanding the fact that people would think that there's not a lot of building activity going on because you don't see a lot of high-rise construction but 57 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 we're having a tremendous building boom in the way of rehab and renovations and alterations. So there is a tremendous amount of work there, and what people are trying to do with this accelerated permit is, they want to get their work underway quickly.
What I'm concerned about is -- any manager of a corporation, if you're busy, you hire additional people, you bring in -- you deal with the situation. So if you're busy to make the citizens that are in a hurry to get something done, pay additional monies to get it done, to me, the operation needs to be analyzed to see if it's staffed properly. Has it been done?
Yes. We -- this is a measure basically that says that by allowing overtime to our employees for the peak periods 58 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 when people have this need to get this work done quickly, we can avoid hiring large numbers of additional people who, in slow periods, would not be necessary in the organization. So the question is -- it's a way of trying to get through the peaks without having to unduly burden ourselves in the valleys.
Is overtime and Licenses and Inspections fairly available throughout the Department? Or is this going to be an area where people will be making a significant amount of overtime that do this particular function? These people, I assume they're professional engineers?
So I'd like to ask 59 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 the Chair, I'd be curious if I could ask L&I to provide to the Chair how much money we're talking about in overtime to carry out this accelerate process because it may justify additional people. I'm not suggesting that that's the case.
But the question I guess is, is it cheaper to pay the overtime or to bring on the new employee? And I think the answer's probably obvious.
Well, no, it's got to be cheaper to pay overtime than it is to bring in new employees.
No, it's cheaper because when you bring on new people, you have to pay benefits, you have to --
If you have 60 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 professional engineers making 100,000 in overtime, you don't know that.
What's the average rate of pay, base pay of your -- the people working in this division?
The engineering staff of the Department typically are making approximately between 60 and $65,000 a year.
Base pay. If you add in fringe benefits, you're talking about another roughly another 35 percent on top of that, so we're talking about each engineer would cost us roughly in the vicinity of about $85,000.
I wasn't aware that a professional employee that worked for the City was paid overtime by the hour, I didn't know that that was a practice.
There's a special provision in the civil service regulations that allows these engineers to get paid at a straight-time rate; they do not get time and a half, they get a straight-time rate. But, yes, they are being paid. 61 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760
I'd still be curious. Again, I understand that in most cases, it is better to have people work overtime, especially at a straight rate, but I'm still curious of the oversight of that department because I think some day we're going to read in the newspaper that we've got engineers in the Department of L&I walking out of the door with a $125,000 paycheck because of an accelerated program.
That's why I don't read the newspapers; I listen to the radio, Fran.
Councilman, I can tell you, this program's been operating in the department now for a number of years. Typically, our engineers, on average, are getting somewhere between about 15 and $20,000 a year in overtime compensation for doing the plan reviews. The other people, the zoning people and the electrical people, who are not quite as high paid, are getting slightly lesser amounts. But our people are getting a substantial amount of overtime because there's a 62 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 substantial demand for this program.
And it's a select group. There's other people in L&I that, I assume, get zero or very little overtime.
Yes. John Campbell and I have not earned overtime in years. 8
Mr. Feldgus, do you 13 have any estimates on how many of these you 14 anticipate doing in the course of a fiscal year? 15
Last year, the Department 16 did in excess of 2,000 accelerated plan reviews. 17 It generated almost $900,000 in revenue to the 18 City of Philadelphia. So that the demand is 19 there. 20 To me, quite honestly, this is a voluntary program that people can avail themselves or not avail themselves of. We let the public know, for instance, if they didn't get an accelerated review, how long it would take for building project to move through. 63 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760
-- that it was in his or her best interests to make the accelerated review payment. In addition, notwithstanding whatever these engineers or nonprofessional people may make, it's not like they're not working or they're somehow taking advantage of the system. There is an additional expense to have this review, they make what they make, they're generating legitimate overtime. And if number were 10 to $20,000, your own testimony is is that their base salary is up at 60.
With benefits pushing you up in the 80-90 range, and there's no 20 way in the world you're going to have a person hired for the $20,000 in overtime expense, in addition to the additional revenues that you're generating by having people pay for this in the first place. So -- okay.
Can I ask you a 64 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 question. Is this provision or is this available for people in the surrounding suburban counties, do you know? I mean, if I'm a contractor and I'm doing work in Montgomery County or Bucks County, can I go in and, for a fee, expedite this process? You're unaware of it or you're --
I'm really not unaware of it. I know we've had a number of jurisdictions, surrounding counties as well as other cities, talking to us about our program because it's worked so well. Using this program, we've been able to get out major construction jobs in less than a week, and that type of a turnaround time is like unprecedented for most cities. So we've had a lot of people talk to us, but I don't really know who's implementing it.
And, secondly, the people who are taking advantage of this for the most part are not individual residential homeowners; these are contractors, bigger jobs, people who are willing to pay the extra money to get the work done quickly. This is not Mary and Joe Smith trying to get their deck put on their house. 65 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760
That's correct. Mostly it's large contractors who have big jobs, who have large amounts of money invested, interests costs, financing, everything they have going on so that they want to get their work underway very quickly.
Councilman Nutter says, "Unless Mrs. Smith is driving her husband nuts to get the deck up." (Laughter.)
When the Department of L&I is busy and the process is backed up, are there times when Mrs. Smith wants the deck permit and there's an extended period of time for Mr. and Mrs. Smith to get the permit for their deck?
Do you think that the manager of that organization would authorize overtime so that the homeowner or the business person wouldn't have to pay, just based on the way we do business, that if a person's been waiting 66 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 for a permit and it's because two people, three people are out with the flu, that overtime's authorized to get the permit process moving. Do you ever do that?
In the past, we've really had a very limited ability to use overtime prior to this accelerated program. Generally, the answer to your question is that backlogs build up. Prior to the current administration, unfortunately, we were taking anywhere from seven to ten weeks to issue many of our building permits. That was for big jobs, little jobs, any jobs. This program has enabled to us cut that down, both with the people who want the accelerated route, and also the small jobs because, remember now, with this overtime and accelerated program, a lot of these large jobs, 2,000 of them in fact, moved out of the stream, and this allowed all of the other jobs to move along quicker. So that right now, typically somebody coming in for this small job is benefitting by the people going into the accelerated program. 67 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 They're not paying the money; the accelerated people are, but everyone months along quicker now.
That's very good point, that's a positive point. Is there anything that suffers based on the fact that you've got people now instead of working a 40-hour work week in many cases, what's the average overtime hours that a person is authorized to work? Is 8 hours more a week, 16 more hours a week?
Well, does that affect the performance of that employee to do the -- or is this accelerate group just a -- I've gotten some phone calls that the way the accelerated program works affects sometimes the operation of the Department of Licenses and Inspections internally. Are there problems with morale or people complaining that some folks get overtime and others don't? 68 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760
I don't think we have a real problem with that. There may be some people who have been mentioned that. You know, you're always going to have those kind of petty jealousies and things of that nature where some people may say that somebody else is making a lot of overtime, why can't I make it? But the reality is I don't really see that we've had a problem with it. Yes, I would agree with you that we are putting a lot of demand on some of our engineers to work these long hours. By and large, again, we have to -- it's a voluntary program on both the parts of the employees and the people who are participating. If one of the engineers -- and we have a couple who have basically said, "I don't want the overtime," then they don't do the work. So the people who are in the program are voluntarily working in the program. And from that standpoint, we have really not had much in the way of morale problems. The attendance of this group of employees has been extremely good. They are professional people. Their leave records would 69 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 bear out the fact that they're professional people. Their sick-leave usage is always very low so that we're not seeing any burnout, we're not seeing any real problems. But he fact of the matter is that we do have this group of people who are working a lot of hours.
One last concern. With the accelerated review process, there is -- from the community perspective, a person takes out a permit, there is, I believe, a 30-day time period during which someone could file an appeal to the Board of L&I Review about that particular permit. Mr. Feldgus, you seem concerned.
I'm puzzled, I don't know about that. If somebody has a problem --
If the Department issues a permit, an aggrieved person has the right 70 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980760 to file an appeal with the Department about that particular permit, if they think you issued it in error or --
Well, they have a general right to file for any action taken by the Department.
Exactly, correct. The only thing that ever concerns me about the accelerated review process is that you somehow possibly cut down the ability of people to know what's going on, and you essentially, because of the general backlog usually in getting permits, you could, in fact, possibly cut down the window in which people get the opportunity to have information and file their appeal in a timely fashion. It's not -- I'm not making any charge today, there's nothing for you to do about it, I just want to make it known for the record that it is a concern with any of these accelerated requests. I mean, I'm going to support the request here today, but there is a potential for impact on the community side.
Theoretically that would 71 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980795 be true.
Thank you very much. Any other questions? (No questions.)
Is there anyone else here to testify on this bill? (No response.)
The last bill is Bill No. 980795, which is an ordinance amending Bill No. 960591-A, approved March 26, 1997, which is ordinance adding a new title to The Philadelphia Code that, upon enactment of other ordinances, will contain all of the technical codes governing the construction, occupancy, use, and maintenance of premises, buildings, and structures in the City. Those technical codes now appear in The Philadelphia Code as "The Building Code, Electrical Code, Fire Prevention Code, Plumbing Code, Housing Code, and Property Maintenance Code." And enacted within the new title, uniform provisions governing the 72 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980795 administration and enforcement of all those Technical codes, all under certain terms and conditions, by correcting certain printing errors in the bill, under certain terms and conditions Please identify yourself for the record.
Again, I'm John P. Campbell, Legislative Regulatory Affairs Manager for the Department of for the Licenses and Inspections. Bill 980795 was drafted and prepared at the request of the Law Department. There were some printing errors in the bill and then collating errors that were sent to the mayor for signature so that the bill that was actually approved by this body and what the mayor actually signed was something different. And this was discovered recently when the Law Department was in the process of upgrading or redoing General Code and came across the area. So this is just cleaning it up.
The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter. 73 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980795
Isn't it true that this is really the stadium bill for the City of Philadelphia? (Laughter.)
Isn't it true that within the provision here there is reference made that allowed for the building of two stadiums in the City? Isn't it true? I demand an answer to that question right now. (Laughter.)
All right. Anybody else to testify on this bill? Any questions for these witnesses? (No questions.)
Is there anyone else to testify on this bill? (No response.) 74 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Bill 980795
Seeing none, that will conclude our public hearing, with the exception of Resolution 980675, which will be held to the call of the Chair. - - - 75 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Public Meeting
We are now in a public meeting. And the Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell for a motion on Bill No. 980640 with a suspension.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that Bill 980640 be reported out of committee with a favorable recommendation and for a suspension of the rules so that it can be heard in our next session of Council. (Duly seconded.)
Moved and seconded. All in favor? There are none opposed. Bill No. 16 980640 will be reported out of this committee favorably, and a request will be made for a rules suspension to allow for first reading at our next session of Council. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Nutter for a motion on Bill No. 980552, with a rules suspension.
Mr. Chairman, I move that Bill No. 980552 be reported out of committee with a favorable recommendation. I 76 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Public Meeting further move that the rules of Council be suspended so as to permit first reading at our next session of Council. (Duly seconded.)
Moved and seconded. All in favor, aye? There are none opposed. Bill No. 9 980552 is reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation, and a request will be made for a rules suspension to allow for first reading at our next Council session. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Nutter for a motion on Bill No. 980646.
Mr. Chairman, I move that Bill No. 980646 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. (Duly seconded.)
Moved and seconded. All in favor, aye? There are none opposed. Bill No. 25 980646 is reported out of this committee with a 77 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Public Meeting favorable recommendation, and a request will be made for a rules suspension to allow for first reading at our next Council session. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Krajewski for a motion on Bill No. 980760, with a rules suspension.
Mr. Chairman, I move that Bill No. 980760 be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and with a suspension of rules as to permit first reading at the next session of Council. (Duly seconded.)
Moved and seconded. All in favor, aye? There are none opposed. Bill No. 17 980760 is reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation, and a request will be made for a rules suspension to allow for first reading at our next Council session. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 980795.
Mr. Chairman, I move that Bill No. 980795 be moved out of this committee with a favorable recommendation. 78 12/1/98 L&I Committee - Public Meeting
And a request that the rules be suspended. (Duly seconded.)
Moved and seconded. All in favor, aye? There are none opposed. Bill No. 10 980795 will be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation, and a request will be made for a rules suspension to allow for first reading at our next Council session. That concludes the business of the Council Committee on Licenses and Inspections. The Council Committee on Public property should convene shortly. Thank you for your attendance. (Adjourned at 1:08 p.m.) - - - 79 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 Tuesday, December 1, 1998, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS BILL NO.'S 980640, 980552, 980646, 980760, 980795 and RESOLUTION NO. 980552 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter