Committee Hearing, April 9, 2008

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BUDGET - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, April 9, 2008 10:30 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN W. WILSON GOODE, JR. COUNCILMAN WILLIAM GREENLEE COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO BILLS 080022, 080154, 080155, 080156, 080157, 080160, 080161 and 080168 RESOLUTION 080173 - - - 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. This is a continued public hearing of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bill Nos. 080022, 080154, 080155, 080156, 080157, 080160, 080161, 080168 and 080173. The first department to testify? MR. McPHERSON: Is the Free Library of Philadelphia. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Mr. McPeak, we do have copies of your testimony, so if in fact you would like to abbreviate them, we will give the stenographer a copy of the testimony, which will be transcribed in full. Oh, I'm sorry. Mayor Goode, I understand you would like to speak.

Just for a few minutes.

Please. 3 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Good morning, Council President Verna and members of City Council. I am W. Wilson Goode, Sr., Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Free Library of Philadelphia. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you this morning before Dr. McPeak discusses the proposed 2009 budget and to thank you for City Council's support to the Free Library. With your backing, the Free Library of Philadelphia is in very, very good shape at this time. We serve pre-schoolers, job hunters, teenagers, literary enthusiasts and many, many more who take advantage of the wide range of materials, programs, services that we offer. Last year, nearly six and a half million people walked into one of our 54 branches to check out a book, log onto a computer, attend a program or hear an author speak. The Central Library itself hosted over one million visitors, a level not reached since the Depression. 4 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Many visitors come to the Library for our collections, which include nearly eight million items. Books and magazines still represent the majority of materials, but new formats are also moving fast as well. The Free Library now offers 150 electronic databases, downloadable books and video DVDs and more, all to respond to the changing interests and needs of our borrowers, who number just under a half million. Also in demand are for computers. Last year, there were over one million uses of the Library's 750 public PCs. The Library is the largest provider of free Internet access in the region and is wireless in every single branch. Programming is also a critical part of the Library's service. Every day hundreds of children flock to their local branch to participate in LEAP, the largest drop-out after-school -- drop-in, the largest drop-in after-school program 5 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. in the City. The largest drop-in after-school program in the City. Attendance reached 285,000 last year, an increase of nearly 60,000 from the previous year. Both children and adults enjoyed the Philadelphia Book Festival in 2007, which drew 25,000 people to the area in and around the Central Library. This year festivals scheduled for May 17-18 promises an equally impressive turnout. The Library's lecture series is renowned for the caliber of authors it attracts and has become a required stop for top authors. One Book, One Philadelphia's selection drew 850 enthusiasts. Over 25,000 people attended 125 lectures last year. The Free Library also extends beyond the walls of the 54 branches. The award-winning Book Aloud, which last year reached 20,500 parents and caregivers, is now offered at four public housing sites 6 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. so that more children have the benefit of this school readiness program. One Book, One Philadelphia, the annual collaboration with the Mayor, had 550 community partners this year and held 180 programs, the majority of which were held outside of a library. Seventy-five hundred copies of this year's book were distributed, including to every high school in the City. The Free Library impact is widespread and it has real meaning. It touches lives from the very young to the citizens. I wanted to come by, Madam President, just to thank you and City Council for your support of the Library over the past years, and I hope that it will continue. I wanted to share those statistics with all of you, because it is important, I think, that you know how impactful the Library is in the lives of so many people in this City and what 7 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. difference it makes from students to adults to senior citizens, that those who are struggling to make it, those who don't have access to computers. All of those are very, very important. So I wanted to just come by in my last year as Chair of the Board of Trustees just to thank you and all of Council for your enthusiastic support for the Free Library. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and we thank you for all of your interest and dedication to the Free Library. Dr. McPeak. DR. McPEAK: Good morning, Council President Verna and members of Council. I am Joseph McPeak, Interim President and Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, and I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Free Library's proposed Fiscal Year 2009 Operating Budget. And I will abbreviate, 8 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. as requested. I'll read the first paragraph, our mission, and then abbreviate succeeding paragraphs. The mission of the Free Library of Philadelphia is to provide all segments of Philadelphia's diverse population a comprehensive collection of recorded knowledge, ideas, artistic expression and information in a variety of media, including current technology; to assure ease of access to these materials; and to provide programs to stimulate the awareness and use of these resources. In this expansive role and with its wealth of resources, the Free Library is well positioned to play a meaningful role in the achievement of the six goals in the Five-Year Plan. In particular, we have a strong track record in the areas of education, jobs and economic development, and look forward to enhancing these efforts in the coming year. Education and literacy are core 9 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. functions of the Free Library. You will note in a number of programs that we provide to children and teens which have been very successful and have an impact throughout the City, but may I also add that we also are the home for the Mayor's Commission on Literacy, which provides technical assistance to literacy providers, who themselves provide classes throughout the City of Philadelphia in literacy and job preparedness and GED, and those classes are provided, again, throughout the City, including in of 15 our branches. 16 Job training and preparation 17 and economic development are also important to the Free Library of Philadelphia. And I may say along with the career programs that are provided at the workplace and at our branches, we also, as I am speaking now, are providing our Annual Job Entry Fair at the Central Library on the Parkway where we'll have 21 employers and expect an attendance of 10 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. 1,000 job-seekers. And that's happening right now as I speak. The Free Library also provides assistance to a number of electronic databases, which are mentioned in my testimony. These databases help start-up businesses and also folks that are trying to prepare for tests, anything from a GED to civil service exams up to the LSAT. Of course, the Free Library is a key player in the revitalization of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Renovations to the existing 1927 Beaux Arts Central Library are underway and will include serving as a visitor's center for all institutions in the Parkway. The construction of the New Parkway Central will bring renewed attention and visitors this spectacular place, and we're hopeful that groundbreaking will take place in December 2008. Now I'll turn to the budget. The proposed budget for the Free Library for FY09 is $40 million. 11 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. While this represents a one percent decrease, it can be achieved through the implementation of various efficiencies that we believe sincerely will not affect service. And, actually, these efficiencies have been achieved during FY08. So what we have reported to you are things that were already underway this fiscal year. They include an audit that occurred on our General Information Department, which moved work from the librarian class to the library assistant class. And I may say, this request came from the bottom up, not from the top down. It came from the librarians.

We worked it out with the affected unions, both Local 2187 of AFSCME, Local 2186 of AFSCME and Local 696 of AFSCME, worked it out, finally have come to the point where the work has been allocated properly, but the result of that allocation is a $189,000 savings in salary. There is also -- we also during this year underwent an assessment of our 12 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. collection. There's been a transfer from periodicals, magazines, journal articles, from the print format to the electronic format. In subscribing to those electronic formats, we had a duplication in services. We reduced our periodical subscriptions. That will result in $114,000 in savings. We've also found another $100,000 savings as a result of an efficiency in our contract for leased computers. Those prices have gone down, and as a result of that contract and maintenance contracts accompanying those computers will result in $100,000 savings. The Free Library currently has four professional service contracts valued at $279,000. Software services are provided by an Asian-American MBE-certified vendor. The contract is valued at $32,000. , a local non-profit organization, of $40,000, and two other 13 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. contracts are with for-profit agencies awarded according to the City's contracting procedures. Looking forward, the Free Library will effectively manage its personnel budget to ensure that all 54 branches remain open and staffed. And I want to reassert that again. With the personnel budget that we have now and which we worked with last year, we can keep all the branches open six days during the school year. And I can report further on that if you wish, Council President, but we believe that we are committed to providing that service and with the personnel budget, we will be able to do that. We're also looking to expand our service to the non-English-speaking populations in the City, and this we'll be doing by adding foreign language collections in the branches, which have effected changes in their ethnicity, and we'll also be looking at different kinds 14 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. of programming as well. The Free Library is proud of the high marks it receives from its users and, in keeping with the Mayor's commitment to customer service, has identified three standards and means of redress. One, if a branch is temporarily closed due to renovations or building problems, returns will be accepted at any location and fines will be waived. Two, electronic information requests -- we get a lot of e-mail requests -- will receive an immediate acknowledgment and full response within two business days. Three, all pre-school groups that request a library visit and literacy orientation will be scheduled within two weeks. If this is not possible, Library staff will visit the pre-school center. So the Free Library looks forward to continuing to employ its many resources for the benefit of the 15 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. residents of the City, and as an institution, we offer a wealth of information, programs and highly skilled staff that are available every day at the branches, over the phone and increasingly electronically. We strive to maintain our consistently high remarks on customer service while identifying new strategies to promote education, learning, jobs and economic development. And I thank you.

Thank you very much, Doctor. As you know, this City Council has been restoring funding reductions to the Library for many years. I see that the Administration is reducing your funding in Fiscal 2009 by $403,000; is that correct? DR. McPEAK: That is correct.

Your testimony implies that this reduction will not have any operational impact on your department. Can you let us understand how that is possible? 16 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. DR. McPEAK: Yes, I can. And, actually, these were, as I noted in my testimony, these were actually efficiencies that were occurring during FY08. When we were asked -- as you all recall, there was a three percent and five percent request that all departments were made. We identified efficiencies that we were already undertaking. We put them on the table to move the City forward. I mean, I believe as a manager that you always look for efficiencies, but you try to do them without impacting on service, obviously. So that as I mentioned in my testimony, the first -- and these are real dollar numbers. One hundred eighty-nine thousand dollars is the difference between salaries for librarian II's, ten librarian II's in General Information, a library supervisor II, which is an EP-22. I can give you -- I mean, I can work this out for you, if you wish. And what we did was, we took a 17 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. library supervisor II, replaced it with a library supervisor I. Slight salary savings there. And then the remaining positions moved from a librarian II to a library assistant II. The Department itself has moved. And, again, as I said, this was a bottom-up request. As a matter of fact, one of the persons that was writing the annual report was a shop steward for one of the affected locals. So they were saying their professional skills were not being used in this department anymore. The reason was twofold. One, the first desk as you walk in is basically a greet and directional desk, but they used to rotate what used to be our card catalogue and provide readers advisory assistance. We've changed that hallway into a large computer sign-up center. So what people do there is, they're now signing up for computers in that hallway and throughout the library and also cuing up. Our 18 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. library assistants assist them with that and also with the simple function like downloading discs. So librarians, truthfully, didn't like doing that, so they came to us, brought it up in labor-management. We started moving library assistants in. Local 696 said, Hey, you're moving library assistants in to positions where librarians are working. So then we had to do an audit, because both locals were affected, and the result of the audit was library assistant II worked with one library supervisor I. Result of savings, $189,000. On the $114,000, we had a -- we reviewed our serial -- I'll try not to use this technical language. It's periodicals, magazine subscriptions, mostly academic journal subscriptions in our Central Library. We subscribe to a service called JSTOR, which provides the electronic format. We had a duplication in services. As a result, we actually 19 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. cut back 165,000. The request was three percent. We got the three percent. That's 114. The balance of that goes into our collections. So actually we have more than -- we actually cut more than 114. A hundred thousand dollars is the lease of computers throughout our library. That contract has been reduced. The cost has gotten cheaper, computer costs have gotten cheaper.

Doctor, can you tell us how many vacancies you currently have? DR. McPEAK: We have 16 vacancies. We are funded -- our total 17 funding is 821. It's 730 on the General 18 Fund and the balance is in Grants, and we're right now at 18 vacancies total in our system, and ten are in the pipeline. So I guess eight would be the real answer. That represents, I guess, about two percent or something like that of our workforce.

Is it 20 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. your intent to hire the 18? DR. McPEAK: Oh, yes. Yes. It's just that is the process --

Are they included in your budget? DR. McPEAK: Yes. Yes. We have 730. Are we okay? I'm sorry. Yes, we have 730 on the General Fund, 101 on the Grants Revenue. Last payroll we were funded at -- and I have that here -- 722, I believe, on the General or somewhere around there and the balance in the Grants. So we have -- we are budgeted for --

So you are actually losing nine positions, which seems to be satisfactory with you? DR. McPEAK: No. No. 21

Can you check? Do you have the detail budget, a copy of the detail budget, 7? (Witness approached witness 21 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. table.)

So you're actually losing, as I see, the nine positions. Section 24, . DR. McPEAK: I apologize.

That's okay. DR. McPEAK: We are reducing the allocation in the Grants Fund, not in the General Fund, and we're okay with that, because right now we're funding at 40 positions in General Library instead of 50. Yes, we're okay with that.

Are you looking at ? You were budgeted 739 in '08, and for '09 it's 730. DR. McPEAK: Our target budget was at 730. That's what I've been working with. So we lost the nine actually last year, yes.

So you don't intend to -- DR. McPEAK: And we've been able to maintain our branches at six-day 22 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. service at the 730.

Doctor, can you tell us how many emergency closings has the Library experienced this fiscal year? DR. McPEAK: Yes. I have that information, Councilwoman. We've had through -- this is through March. We've had a total of 926 hours of closing. Eight hundred and seventy-eight of those were due to buildings, unforeseen buildings problems, power outages, utility problems, breakdowns of HVAC that were not anticipated. And the balance of that -- for staff shortages, the balance is 47 hours. That's people not showing -- it's usually like a morning coverage where someone -- there's not enough people in the morning to open, so we open it an hour later or so.

So it's 47 hours? DR. McPEAK: Forty-seven hours for staff from September -- from July, I 23 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. mean, until March.

And, again, you're saying that the reduction of nine full-time employees, in all probability, will not be for emergency closings in the upcoming budget? DR. McPEAK: No. I do not see that as reducing that significantly, Councilwoman, to be honest with you, because it's a systemwide thing and it pops up. You have six people in a branch, two people are sick, somebody else is on vacation. Now you can't open until you move somebody to another branch, or somebody is late. So that's basically how that happens.

Doctor, can you tell us if you're currently experiencing any water issues at the various Library branches, and, if so, what are the problems? DR. McPEAK: Yes. There's one branch in particular in South Philadelphia, our Donatucci branch, which 24 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. has had a serious roof problem, and it really -- the way rain works, as I understand it, is that some rains it happens and some rains it doesn't. But we know there's a problem with the roof. That being said, we know there's a problem.

And I do understand that that library because of the roof problem, many of the books are being destroyed? DR. McPEAK: That happened on one occasion. The children's books were destroyed and replaced. We have -- should I proceed? Capital Programs Office is in touch with us and they're putting it out for emergency bid.

When do you think they're going to do that; do you know?

My name is Bill 23 Fleming. I'm the Administrative Services Director for the Library. I'm in touch with Capital 25 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Program over an emergency letter bid. That's happening as we speak. I expect to have a contractor and a scope of work within 90 days.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Greenlee.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, everyone. DR. McPEAK: Good morning.

Thank you for all you do for the libraries and, under the circumstances, I know not exactly unlimited funding. Just a couple questions, Dr. McPeak, if I could. I was glad to hear about the branches staying open the six days during school years. And what is considered a school year? When do you start that? DR. McPEAK: We start October through June. 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

But I know I got a question one time, a little concern. Is there a reason why you start October and not September? I mean, I know it's only a few weeks. DR. McPEAK: It's usually the schools. We start our school visits in October as well. The schools usually aren't ready for us in September. They want us to come in then. So that's basically -- it also bridges us after the Labor Day holiday as well.

Got you. The hours, are they basically the same in all branches or do you fluctuate considering the area? DR. McPEAK: The hours in most of our branches are Monday to Wednesday 12:00 to 8:00, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10:00 to 5:00 or 10:00 to 6:00, around that area. There are nine branches in our system that have 10:00 to 6:00 hours.

Because I 27 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. had heard about a couple of them. Some people are concerned because they don't have night hours. But I guess is there some safety issues? DR. McPEAK: Safety is one of the issues, but one of the things, if I can also mention too, is also usage. Some of those branches were cut back because we found nighttime usage was low, whereas we could have the daytime hours to reach out to the schools, so the more daytime hours. That being said, there are branches that we're looking at in terms of activity. As activity grows in an area, we're looking to see if we can extend hours in the evening. One area I'm thinking of is Kensington there where we have some stores --

That's one where it was raised. DR. McPEAK: They have some stores down the area there, but right now they're still closed at 5 o'clock. 28 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

I see. Because I'm wondering that's how those things -- you wonder what comes first. If nothing is open, is that why nobody is out? I know it's a tough call. I know maybe do you work with like community groups and things like that in the area? DR. McPEAK: Yes, we do. And that's one particular branch where we are working with them.

Great. One other question. You mention about your job training, preparation, economic development. That's all great. I just was wondering about one group. And I know it's a group that Mayor Goode has worked with over the years, and you may be working with them, but I just was wondering. The whole ex-offender/reentry programs, do you have any direct connections with them? DR. McPEAK: Yes. We are about to make a connection with the new head of the Mayor's Reentry Program. 29 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Mr. Cuie? DR. McPEAK: Mr. Cuie. Haven't done it yet.

He's a little aggressive. You'll -- DR. McPEAK: I have reached out, but I'll tell you, I have -- this is really a secondary thing. We are reaching out to Big Brothers and Big Sisters as well to try to get them involved in -- what we want to do -- I'll talk about our whole initiative. Basically, we think everybody in Philadelphia should have a library card, and we're starting with the schools. We're working with the School District. We're working with the Archdiocese and the charter schools, but I also met with a gentleman from the Youth Study Center right across the street, and we're also reaching out to Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and next is the Mayor's Reentry Program. We think this is -- we don't 30 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. want to leave behind the population that may not be thought of.

Because I think that's a key group, because a lot of them may not have access to computers, for example. DR. McPEAK: Absolutely.

And that whole job training thing obviously is important to that group. By the way, last question on library cards. Roughly, what percentage -- do you have any estimate on what percentage of the population has a library card? DR. McPEAK: Yeah. We got to do a better job. I've just done an analysis of that. We're about 30 percent market penetration. To my mind, we need to do a better job and that's why we've started this initiative.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. 31 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.

Thank you very much. Good morning. All of us received this report from Friends of the Free Library. In it it referenced a one percent cut, which you've just mentioned staffing, and it talks about materials. Let me ask you what efficiencies are. There's a projected cut on efficiencies. What are efficiencies? DR. McPEAK: The efficiencies were -- I can address materials specifically or all three of them, if you wish.

Thank you. Please. DR. McPEAK: I'll do all three.

Thank you. DR. McPEAK: The first one involved an audit of the work performed 32 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. at our General Information Department at our Central Library where the work was reallocated from librarians to library assistants. That occurred in conjunction with work with the unions. What happened was, it was a bottom-up request. Librarians found that their work was no 9 longer -- their skills were no longer being used in that unit, and the reason was, we had transferred a lot of that work to the computer sign-up function. If you're in our Central Library on our second floor, that whole hallway is now computers. It used to be the card catalogue where people provide readers advisory. They don't do that anymore. Now they're helping people sign up for computers and get their computers. Library assistants do that. What we did was, the librarians complained about it, to be quite frank with you, both in labor-management venues and in venues with me when I used to be the head of the Central Library. We 33 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. started moving library assistants in to do the work and actually Local 696 complained, because they said, Hey, librarians are doing this work and you're putting us in here. So what we did was, got an audit done as a result, and the audit came out as a library assistant II function, with librarians moving to branches in other departments. Now, we've just gotten that audit completed beginning of this past year. We just have a library assistant II list now. So we're about to fill those positions. When we fill those positions, it will result in the salary savings of $189,000. There were between ten librarians and ten library assistant II's essentially, is what that is. In the materials, what we've done -- what we were doing this fiscal year was, we were evaluating our periodical subscriptions, academic journals, which can be expensive. What we've also done is subscribe to something 34 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. called JSTOR, which is a service that puts all those journals in an electronic format. We had a duplication of services. We had them electronically, which is what all the students prefer. We also had them in paper. So when the Mayor had requested this three to five percent, we were already doing that. It actually yielded us saving $165,000. One hundred fourteen was put on the table. That was three percent. The final one was our computer leases, which computer costs have gone down. We know that the cost of the upcoming contract is going to be actually a little less, $85,000 less, but our maintenance contracts are going to be less as well. So that gave us the hundred thousand dollars. So these were all things we were already doing. We didn't do anything more than what we were already doing. 35 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

I heard you just say to the President that you were dealing with those libraries that need repair in terms of roofs and other kinds of issues. DR. McPEAK: Yes.

In keeping with that, I acquired through reapportionment St. Georges Library. I know it's kind of been on hold. It was on the -- first Public Property had it, we thought, to be sold and then it was back to the Library, and when the Mayor was Councilman, he had appropriated $80,000, I understand, to do something there. Would you check on that and let me know what the status is? DR. McPEAK: Yes.

And another issue that I wanted to ask you about is library hours in the evening, in terms of the libraries really need to be open in the evening, and I think that most of us would support it. We don't 36 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. know what it would cost, but it's very difficult for -- I mean, libraries need to be open in the evening for students to be able and seniors in the community to be able to access them. But we need them open until 7:00 or 8:00 or so. We know that there's an issue out there, but we believe that in terms of crime, we, as a Council -- I'm sure I can speak for everyone in this regard -- are willing to work in terms of safe corridors or Town Watch groups or whomever we have to, our Police Department, in order to make sure that we get the kind of protection we need. But within communities, we really need our branches open as well, and we would ask that you consider that and likewise get back to us. DR. McPEAK: Yes, Councilwoman, I will.

I think you talked about materials. You talked about vacancies. I talked about 37 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. library hours, efficiencies. So I guess you've gone through my list. DR. McPEAK: Thank you, Councilwoman.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Dr. McPeak. DR. McPEAK: Good morning.

You referenced in your testimony four professional service contracts and some other contracts, and as part of this budget process, we have been reviewing formally with each department their level of minority participation. Can you tell me why your participation is only at 11.5 percent? DR. McPEAK: I can give the dollar numbers and then I can move the 38 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. question over to my Administrative Services Director, if you don't mind. As I said in my testimony, the total of the four professional services contracts were valued at $279,000. The one MBEC is $32,000 for software. So that $32,000 -- we're doing it by money amount. So that gives you the 11.5. It's not by participants. It's by money. And the other contract is with Project H.O.M.E., a local non-profit, which is not an MBEC. The other two contracts, one of which I know is an agency that works with dunning and notifying people for their overdues and collecting fines. That agency has to -- what they need to do is get into our data in our integrated library system and pull it out. They have to be what's called Sirsi certified. Sirsi is our integrated library services. So my hunch is they're the only show in town, but that's my belief. They're the only ones that do that, but I think that's why we have that 39 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. one.

Why is that your belief? DR. McPEAK: Because the Sirsi certification, they're a library industry kind of thing and I think they're the only ones that work with our integrated library system. I can verify that for you, sir. I don't want to say that without verifying it, but that, just to be honest in trying to reveal to you what I believe, I believe that's that case. But I would certainly verify that for you. The rest I'm not aware of, so I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Fleming.

Councilman, Bill 19 Fleming, Administrative Services Director. We don't have a lot of contracts in this area from year to year, but one contract that has started to be recurring is the Unique Management contract. It's about $175,000. It makes 40 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. up the lion's share of the $279,000 that we have in this category. As I understand -- well, our library catalogue software, so to speak, is Sirsi. It's proprietary and is the industry standard for libraries. It's all over the country and I don't know how much further, but they're one of the only games in town. In order to follow up on some of our fine issues for patrons who have materials outstanding beyond the allotted period, in the past we had generated our own notices to patrons and weren't very successful. It would cost us a lot of money to do this internally, a lot of postage and a lot of staff time. We went outside to the industry and found a vendor who could work with the City with the Sirsi system. Now, under the new -- and that turned out to be Unique Management. And how we were able to contract with them was, we worked with the City's 41 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. procurement process and posted it on the City website, and they were the only firm that bid and the only firm that actually met the requirements to be able to work with the Sirsi system. Other than that one contract --

That is one contract.

That is one contract.

You have other contracts.

We have three others. I think Dr. McPeak referred to Empower. That's an Asian-American firm. That's $32,000. Another contract for network support, I believe that's an individual, PJ Dever. We contracted with him. That's not much more, around 32,000. And we have another --

My question is, why is the level of participation for disadvantaged businesses what it is, not what your contracting process is. 42 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Can you tell me what amount of contract dollars were spent in Fiscal Year '07?

Well, we do have contracts for maintenance. If you want those included, they're the ones that the City bids out for all City agencies.

My question was, can you tell me what amount of contract dollars were spent in Fiscal Year '07?

I'd have to get back to you with that information.

I can actually tell you, if you'd like.

Okay.

It's over $500,000. I think $551,000 were spent last year. And do you know what level of disadvantaged participation it was last year?

It was probably similar to what it is this year. I don't have the exact number. 43 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

No. 3 Actually, last year it was 3.32 percent.

Again, we abide by the City's rules on how we get our contracts. We post it to the City's website and ask that they bid.

Each department that comes before us tries the same thing, says basically they take the lowest responsible bidder. What I've asked each department to do, since you identify what services you want to be bid, since you're involved in the bid process, to whatever extent possible, to identify qualified disadvantaged firms for utilization. And basically the point I've made with each department is, essentially, we can't reach a goal of 37 percent participation for disadvantaged businesses when you have departments with participation levels of 11.5 percent or even worse the year before, 3.32 percent. If it is not possible in the case of there only being one bidder, I 44 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. can understand that, but there are other contracts, and we will never reach the citywide goal that we're trying to reach unless we hold each department accountable. And I have had this conversation with the Chair of your Board and encouraged him to pay more attention to it, but I wanted for the record also, as a matter of being fair, to raise it with you as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Councilman Jones.

Good morning. DR. McPEAK: Good morning.

How are you? DR. McPEAK: Very good. Thank you.

Good. I'm interested in your online services to citizens, but particularly to school-age youth. Could you kind of describe how that works and what is 45 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. available online? DR. McPEAK: School-age, did you say, Councilman?

Yes, sir. DR. McPEAK: Yes. We have a number of databases. I'm going to call on staff in a minute on this that will flesh it out for you more, but I'll give a general idea. We have databases available not just simply in the library, but at home as well with your library card. These are databases you'd have to pay a significant amount of money for otherwise if you didn't have that library card. And what they are is, they are anything from homework help where you have online tutors, you have tutors that could be anywhere around the country that help you out between 2:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. in the afternoon to help you with your homework. It's interactive. It's like a chat box. We have that -- and, actually, I've seen them. They'll send you graphs. 46 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. They'll send you everything over the computer and they'll walk you through your assignment. We have anything from that to like the scholarly databases and history and research databases that you can get into where you can get not only articles, but you get full text. You can download and print a text of an article for yourself. So we run the whole range for students from interactive homework help to all the way to research databases and everything in between.

Are all or some portion of your physical library books online? DR. McPEAK: Yes. We also have something called eBooks, and many of those -- that's a separate service, but, yes, and somebody -- Anyone know the number on that? Anybody know the number of eBooks? I may have that for you, but 47 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. it's thousands, sir.

So there are thousands of books online? DR. McPEAK: Yes, online. It's eBooks. And I may have that with -- 14,425.

I'd like, Madam Chair, a list of those to be distributed to Council. Are there plans to -- how many physical books are within the Library system? DR. McPEAK: Books, I know in the -- I'd have to get back to you the firm figure, but I'll give you a rough idea.

Round up. DR. McPEAK: Books would be somewhere around four to five million, and that's systemwide. The Central Library has maybe about two million of those.

Has the Library a plan for downloading, scanning 48 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. those books to make them available online as well? DR. McPEAK: And actually right now there are services that are doing that for us and we're subscribing to. That's probably the most cost efficient way to do it, and that's how we're proceeding. But we are looking to partner with Consortia. They're academic libraries. And there's a buzz right now from an agency called PALnet, which is the agency that oversees a lot of the academic and public libraries in the Pennsylvania area, and they're looking to partner -- to get collections to partner to participate in an electronic download. But right now until that happens, our most efficient way is subscribing to other services that are already doing that.

How many schools -- better yet, is there a way to track how many young people and from where actually use this service, school 49 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. age? DR. McPEAK: I believe so. I know that we break library cards down by age, so I'm just going to -- I would have to get back to you with our IT people, but I would think you could do that, but I'm not absolutely certain. Well, then I'm being told no. 10 I guess it's because of whatever the -- in terms of us, we can track our borrowers that way, but I'm assuming it's because of whatever service we're linking into, they may not be able to track.

Well, just as a thought -- and this is a gentle nudge, compliment, pat on the back, if there is such a thing, that I think this is exciting. I had an opportunity to travel to Jordan and their online learning process would make us look like we were backwards. Because of distance, because of other issues by way of safety, they committed a lot of their public resources to online learning. To the 50 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. degree that Philadelphia and other municipalities can start to move in this direction in a major way, I think we keep pace with other entities around the world, global competition, particularly for our public school and private school students to be competitive in a global economy, number one. So as a goal, I'd like to encourage you to have a marketing campaign for getting a library card -- DR. McPEAK: Yes.

-- within our schools. It's a useful piece of identification. It's a useful piece of an empowerment tool through education. That's number one. Number two, we need to market a little bit to those parents through the Home and School Associations, through the principals, and the way that you do that is to find out who is using them and who is underutilizing this valuable resource, and in so doing, kind of encourage them to do so. 51 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. I know you and online libraries are replacing the physical job responsibility for the Encyclopedia man, who used to come around to households to sell us antiquated books, even though the books are important, but online is the way that people are receiving their information. So for us to have a strategic plan that moves library cards into the hands of young people, I think it's in concert with this Administration's effort to stop the dropout rate, to increase the number of citizens that have post high school diplomas and degrees, that you are integral in that process. So if it isn't measured, it isn't managed. I'd like you to measure who is using it, how many people are using it, and then create a marketing effort to get more people to utilize this valuable resource. DR. McPEAK: Absolutely. If I could add to that comment, I will say that we are already engaged with the 52 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. School District of Philadelphia with the goal of every student has a library card. We're also engaged with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, charter schools and private schools. With the School District, what we're trying to get done right now to make this efficient is, we're trying to merge the databases. There are privacy issues that we have that we think we can overcome, but we have a commitment from both the Free Library and the School District to make that work. So you will be hearing about that shortly, we're hoping very soon. So that I'm in full agreement of what you're saying. It's wonderful. And I appreciate your enthusiasm on this, because this is really great stuff. The one problem that we're hearing, the measuring. You see this is -- and I hear what you're saying. If we can measure our users through the library card, through the borrowing, but we've got to 53 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. find a way to get the people who provide the databases to us -- and, again, I don't know the technical stuff well -- to pick up that data as well for us by age, and then that will get that -- we'll conquer that final number.

My only comment is the marketing part through the Home and School Associations. It is critical to engage the parents of the students to be as involved, as motivated to use this learning tool as the students are. Through that, it gives positive reinforcement to the classroom experience and to the educational opportunity that teachers and schools provide. So marketing to the parent is as important as marketing to the student. So that one of the biggest challenges I hear at Home and School Associations is that, I can't help my child with the homework, and, therefore, they aren't empowered enough to be the parents they could be. So I think this is their help. 54 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Homework Hotline can give parents a helping hand with that. So I would encourage the marketing of that. DR. McPEAK: Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Councilman Rizzo.

Good morning. Thank you for being here today. DR. McPEAK: Good morning.

Can you give us an update? You know there are in the past lots of controversy, investigative reports on R-rated videos, computer access. Could you just give us an update on your efforts to make sure that videos on DVD or whatever that aren't getting into the Library? I hope there's some scrutiny. I know that there's a lot of conversation about oversight or -- I forget the organization that's involved, but what are you doing to make sure that 55 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. DVDs and other access to pornography on the computers is not happening in our system? DR. McPEAK: I'll try to address these in a number of ways, step by step for you. In terms of library card registration, we'll start with that. As you know, Councilman Rizzo -- and you were very instrumental in this. And I'm going to try to get this correct -- that parents have to sign to agree to allow children to have an open-access card. In other words, parents have to agree -- this was, I believe, part of the agreement with City Council. So that is a first step. In terms of the purchase of our materials in general, we have no 20 pornography. There's no pornography in the Library. There are R-rated videos. There probably are books that some people might find parts of it offensive, but we select everything according to reviews. We do not select things willy-nilly. So 56 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. everything is part of a professional review, with the idea that there are some positive value in this material. Not that there's just some negative element there that might bother somebody, but there's some overriding positive value. That is the guidance through which we select. In terms of computers, all our computers are filtered as part of the SEPA Act, so that you can't access to things that, I guess -- whatever the industry determines is pornographic, you can't get to. And that has changed our environment dramatically.

Is "R" right now the highest rating that we have in the system? We have no X-rated, do we? DR. McPEAK: No, no, there are no X-rated.

So "R" would be the -- DR. McPEAK: Am I correct on that? 57 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Yes. Thank you. I want to talk to my staff to make sure that, yes.

One of the comments -- I've gotten some -- not complaints, but just people talking. When a person takes a DVD from our library, when they return it, if it's damaged or they had trouble reviewing it, it skips, it locks up or whatever the terms are, is there a little feedback card? It's a shame to receive it and it's defective and then give it again to someone. DR. McPEAK: We should be able to -- I'll get -- we should be able to do that, sir, so I have to --

But do we -- DR. McPEAK: We usually take it off the shelf if the person reports it.

But how would you know? DR. McPEAK: Well, yeah. They would have to report it, otherwise we'd 58 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. have to screen them.

It might be nice to have a way of marking it when it's returned that it's defective. Because there's nothing worse than getting a DVD that right at the best part it becomes defective. Even Blockbusters or the other places you have that trouble, but I heard from some people -- one person told me that it's rare that they don't get one that somewhere during the experience of watching the video that there isn't an issue. Do we ever occasionally -- is there a device that they can be put in to check for their quality before we reissue them? Again, I'm just trying to make the experience a good experience, and I don't know how many complaints you get. You can't beat the price, so not many people are going to jump up and down and want their money back because they had a problem. But I think it would be nice to know that a person that's taking a video 59 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. out -- I try my best, even though I don't use a lot of libraries, if I run into a problem, I'll put a yellow sticky on it and say "defective" so when they get it back, they see it. DR. McPEAK: If it's reported defective, we take it off the shelf. But our problem is, we are reactive. Someone has to tell us, This DVD skips in this place. Then we don't put it out again. But if we're not told, then it's back on the shelf and then somebody has that bad experience again.

Maybe a card inside the box that if there is any issues with it, that they could check. And I assume the intake process is to open it and -- DR. McPEAK: Yeah. The only thing we do on intake is, we open it to see that it's there. We don't view it. Again, if we're told, someone says, Oh, I watched this, it was a lousy experience, it skipped, we don't put it back on the 60 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. shelf again.

Right. But it might be nice to have a comment card inside the video, the DVD, that when it's open to see if it's there, an employee would spot the card with a comment on it and that would tell them that this one either -- I don't think we should just take them off the shelf based on a comment, because it could have been their technology, but we ought to have something in our organization to plug it into to say it's good or it's bad. And I think the commercial stores have the ability to do that. We should, too, because it would be a shame to throw one away if it's not a problem with the disc. DR. McPEAK: Very good point. Good point. We'll follow up.

So we should be considering that. DR. McPEAK: Very good.

Thanks. Thank you, Madam Chair. 61 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

You have to also calculate how much that's going to cost, Councilman Rizzo.

I'm sure the Library can figure it out.

I don't know if we do that when you take your video back to Blockbuster, you know. They don't have a comment card. Thank you. Any other questions from members of Council? (No response.)

Thank you so much for your testimony. DR. McPEAK: Thank you. My pleasure. MR. McPHERSON: The next department is the Civil Service Commission, then the Personnel Department. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Good 62 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. morning and welcome, my dear friend, Reverend Warren. How are you today?

Fine. Good morning, Madam Chair, in the absence of President Verna, and City Council. I am Repsie Warren. I'm Chair of the Civil Service Commission, and I have with me today Celia O'Leary, who is Deputy Personnel Director, and Deborah Beatrice representing our administrative service cluster, and I'm here to present testimony in support of the Department's 169,209 Fiscal Year 2009 Operating Budget request. Our Fiscal '09 proposed budget contains 142,647 in Class 100; 24,500 in Class 200; and 2,062 in Classes 300 and 400. Our Fiscal '09 budget is unchanged from our Fiscal '08 estimated obligations. Now, in accordance with the Home Rule Charter, the commissioners ensure the application of merit principles to public employment. We 63 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. approve or disapprove a large variety of actions affecting Civil Service employees. These include the establishment and updating of job classes and pay rates, residency waivers, personal services contracts, Civil Service regulations and exemptions from the Civil Service. A great deal of our time is also spent performing another major role of the Civil Service Commission; that is, hearing and deciding on Civil Service employees' appeals of personnel decisions. Most appeals are regarding dismissals, suspensions of more than ten days, demotions, oral examinations, denials of requests for leaves of absence and claims regarding injuries-on-duty time. We provide an unbiased review of such actions and support the Mayor's goal of achieving ethics in government. In the first eight months of Fiscal Year 2008, the commissioners received 100 appeals and issued 83 opinions and orders 64 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. resolving appeals. With this budget, Chairman and members of Council, the Commission can continue its important work of assuring the preservation of the Philadelphia merit system as mandated by the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter. At this time, I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding the very important function of the Philadelphia Civil Service Commission.

Thank you so much, Reverend Warren. How many staff members staff the Commission?

Commissioners? We are one short. There's supposed to be three. I'm glad you asked that question. We have been short of a commissioner for one and a half years. There are only two of us.

And there should be three? 65 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

There should be three.

Who breaks the tie when you disagree?

Well, I do, the Chairperson.

So you're the majority of one.

It's a split decision, you know, but usually we try to come to some consensus. Yes, we try. Even if we have to leave it for a day and revisit it at another time, we do try.

How many staff members do you have?

There are two. We have an administrative assistant and a secretary, and, of course, an administrative counselor, who aids us in helping to go over -- just be there, you know, to help us to review the cases.

So most of the cases that you review in your duties here under your mission, the work is 66 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. pretty much done by the Civil Service Department?

That is correct.

And then they refer -- you have to approve the upgrading of job classes, but the work is done by the Civil Service Commission?

No. Let me inject here. Deputy Commissioner for Personnel is here, and, of course, Department of Personnel is responsible for overlooking the pay rates and the changes that should be made, and then they bring them to us for our approval or for our input.

All right.

Yes, but that is their job. That is the function of the Personnel Department.

Thank you. During the budget hearings for Fleet Management, we were told that Personnel reviewed and updated the auto mechanic classification and that they are still having extreme difficulty in hiring 67 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. auto mechanics, that the School District and SEPTA have a higher salary than the City. Can someone explain how you review for classification and pay be done?

Yes. We have someone on staff that can address that for you. MR. McANALLY: Good morning. Michael McAnally for the Personnel Department. Councilwoman, the Personnel Department will conduct audits. We will interview the employees, document all their job duties, revise the job classification. We then conduct an internal pay evaluation where we compare the pay rate for automotive mechanic with our other civil service classes in order to ensure that we have an internally fair rate of pay, and then we will also conduct a market survey to determine if we have -- if we're offering a competitive rate of pay. For automotive mechanic, we 68 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. compete against employers other than the School District, and the School District's -- their workforce for auto mechanics is very small in comparison to ours, so they're not our main competitor. Our main competitor will be other local private automotive companies, car dealers and car repair companies.

So if you have difficulty hiring an auto mechanic for the Fleet Management, which oversees the City vehicles, and you're finding difficulty doing that basically because of the salary, what would be your next action? Would you appeal to the Civil Service Commission to upgrade the salaries so you can get someone? MR. McANALLY: Yes. If our determination was that our pay rate was too low, we would appeal to the Civil Service Commission and ask for a pay increase. We have increased the pay for those classes recently and we've also instituted two bonus programs for 69 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. automotive mechanics. We pay an annual bonus for automotive mechanics who have professional certifications and we recently instituted a referral bonus program for mechanics in Fleet Management, where if they refer other mechanics who are hired and who pass the probationary period, they're eligible for a cash referral bonus.

Well, I understand that even with all of this, they're having a problem recruiting a mechanic. Do you have any idea what the problem might be? MR. McANALLY: No, I don't.

Would you confer -- I'm sure you will confer -- with Fleet Management to kind of figure out what might be done to address this issue? MR. McANALLY: Yes. Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you. 70 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Any questions? (No response.)

Any other testimony? (No response.)

Thank you all for your testimony, and we appreciate and hope you get a commissioner soon. We'll ask for the Personnel Department now.

Thank you so very much. Have a good day.

Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Celia O'Leary. I'm the Deputy Personnel Director. We had hoped that the Personnel Director would be back from medical leave, but, unfortunately, she won't be back for another couple of weeks, so I will give the testimony for our department.

Okay. Thank you.

This testimony is 71 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. in support of our annual budget request of $4,732,808 for Fiscal Year 2009. We use these funds to support our mission, which is to support all the City agencies in recruiting, selecting, developing and retaining a qualified and effective workforce through which the six core goals of the City can be achieved. As you know, most of what our work does is providing candidates for employment through the Civil Service process by which we create eligible lists. This year we're supporting this goal through two major initiatives, one of which is establishment of a web-based job application system. This will be installed on April 28th. We're very excited about it. It will allow us to compete with major job search engines such as Monster.com, HotJobs and CareerBuilder, and it will allow our applicants to log in online and apply through that vehicle, in addition to the normal paper process, because we're very 72 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. conscious of the digital divide and we don't want to disenfranchise anyone, but we think this will aid a certain segment of our applicants in applying quickly. We also are interested in using e-mail notification to kind of speed up the hiring process, and this is the first vehicle that we've been able to install to support that goal. We are also in the middle -- well, not in the middle. We're actually in the home stretch of installing our new Human Resource Information System, which Council approved funding for in the fall of 2006. We've been working on it ever since, and it will come up this Memorial Day. And it should help us greatly reduce the resources consumed without processing paper-based at the moment employment transactions across the government, but it will also help us by immediately identifying job vacancies the minute they occur. That's been a problem in the past and this will be a great leap 73 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. forward for us with the installation of that software. You have their written testimony. The other major goal of our department is also to control the increasing costs of health benefits. You have some information there about what we've done last year. We're going to continue to work with the Finance Department to control costs where we can. This coming year we're looking into enhanced employee health management as a way to perhaps reduce the increased costs by reducing utilization through promoting employee wellness. That's pretty much our summary. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer it.

Sure. We have some questions because during the course of our budget hearings, there's been a continuing discussion about the number of vacancies in the various departments. Can you explain why these 74 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. departments are having problems filling vacancies? We heard, Well, it takes a long time, and we ask, Well, what can we do to streamline the process. So could you help us out? (Witness approached witness table.)

Good. Mr. Agostini is here, because we actually just kind of discovered a reason for the problem yesterday.

A problem for the difficulty in filling -- the time it takes to fill a vacancy?

Yes, Madam Chair.

You got an answer?

I'm going to try to give you one. Steve Agostini, Budget Director. As I'm learning the process here, what Celia mentioned and what we 75 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. were talking about in response to the original question regarding Recreation positions and how those were being funded, there seems to be a mismatch, and let me see if I can explain this clearly. When we put together our plan for the budget, we have an estimate of the number of positions that can be funded with the dollar levels that are available to the department. The department or the departments have another list that doesn't necessarily conform to that one, and it is a list of all of their authorized positions. There are many instances when the departments will send a list to Personnel that request the filling of positions even though they do not have budgetary authority to fill those positions. And what's happening currently is that Personnel has been caught in between the two where they are attempting to be responsive to departments, departments have not 76 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. necessarily checked off with us on which positions need to be filled, and so there is an expectation that positions, for which there are no dollars, will get filled. We then in the Budget Office have to go back and say to departments, Hang on a second, we need to be sure that you're funded. You will be getting a response back from us -- we're still drafting this -- the Council will be, on the Recreation situation where they mentioned they had approximately 57 vacancies, I believe, and what they actually have funding for is approximately of those 17 57 vacancies. There is a long list that 18 they have asked Personnel to work on in 19 the past for which they do not have 20 funding. In those areas where you have 21 been asking, I think, I believe Streets, 22 perhaps Fleet -- 23

L&I. 24

-- L&I and 25 Recreation -- 77 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Police.

I'm sorry. The last one was?

Police.

Yes. We have been looking at those, and we are committed to meeting on a regular basis to be sure that we're working from the same list. I'll let Celia comment on her end and then as you have questions, we're here to answer that for you.

Okay. Thank you very much.

We actually have eligible lists in existence for 575 classes, and there are 1,100 job titles in the whole government. So we have active lists for half of the jobs. As Steve mentioned, though, we had communication disconnects between what a department actually needs and will act on and what they're asking us to produce an eligible list for. 78 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. So I think there's been a certain amount of misallocated resources in my department because of lack of adequate information about what was actually needed. Thankfully, with Recreation, the two job titles that Commissioner Carapucci identified as critical, we have large eligible lists for. So they can hire tomorrow.

Did he know that?

He knows as of yesterday.

He sat with us. We talked for about 45 minutes yesterday to be sure that he understood what the lists were. Celia's office, Personnel, has indeed been putting together the lists, but as she said -- and I can't emphasize this enough -- if departments are asking her to fill positions or go through the process of creating lists for positions for which they have no funding, it misallocates her resources, it 79 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. misallocates the Department's resources and now we're sort of off on a chase to try and fill positions for which you have no funding, and then everybody in that process gets very frustrated, which is not the way we should be doing this.

Could you tell us what job classifications we have difficulty recruiting for?

Recruitment difficulty, Mike. MR. McANALLY: We have recruitment difficulty for --

Thank you, Mr. Budget Director. MR. McANALLY: We have recruitment difficulty for several of the medical classes, nursing classes, pharmacist classes. We regularly test for these jobs, but there is just a shortage of the employees nationally. We have recruiting difficulty for some skilled trades jobs and we have some recruiting difficulty for some 80 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. information technology, engineering and other scientists type jobs. But for the majority of our jobs, we do not have difficulty recruiting. The City offers a very competitive compensation package, very attractive worklife balance opportunities, and the work itself is very attractive. For most of our jobs, we have in excess of candidates and we do not have a serious recruitment problem.

I guess your new online recruitment or --

Yes. We do have a web presence, if you go to www.phila.gov/personnel, all our opportunities are listed online. We've tried to make hot links so people can readily determine what's open for application at any one point. Mike's team actually just created career ladders, which we're going to post online, which are -- we have someone with a graphic design background, 81 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. so they're very interesting to look at, and we're going to post them online, and folks who are looking for a job can determine the great career opportunities with the City government. So if you are a college graduate, we have a career ladder out. If you're a graduate with a high school diploma, we have a different career ladder. And we are sharing that with Lori Shorr so she can help us get the word out to Philadelphia high schools and local colleges the attractiveness of opportunities with the government.

If a department sends you a request for a position that they've been approved to fill and if you don't have an existing list for that position, how long would that process take to fill that position from the date that you are notified that you need to recruit?

It varies. We have some requirements for notification of candidates that make it impossible to 82 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. make it an immediate turnaround. For example, we have to give them two weeks notice to report to a test. We have to provide a two-week-ahead-of-time notice for approval or disapproval to allow for appeal processing. Our goal has been to have a turnaround from announcement to list date of 75 days on average, but depending on what kind of assessment a department wants, it may take more time. If you want a two-part test, a written and an oral to assess different skill-sets, it will take longer. So in view of that, what we try to ask the departments to do is tell us in advance. We run two planning sessions with every department, one time in May for the upcoming first and second quarter of the fiscal year and we do it again in November. And I have the manager of this process sitting here. In case you have any specific questions, Delores is here. But the idea there is for them 83 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. to tell us what job classes do they want a list for in the upcoming period so we can start early enough, so that when their vacancy occurs, we have a list and so we can set expectations on the part of the job-seekers when we plan to fill it. So we've been attempting to get around the issue of how long it takes. But if we're surprised and something happens and we have to slide it in when we've already allocated our resources, it can be perceived as taking a long time from the date we're notified that a vacancy happened and we need to generate an eligible list.

How does one access information about employment opportunities with the City if they do not have a computer? Where do they apply? In the old days they could apply down in the office on the courtyard, but where do they go now?

We do have an application center in the Concourse level 84 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. of the MSB. We also send paper copies of our job opportunities announcements to community groups. I believe every Council office gets it, the Library. Every Library branch has a copy of this and they post the paper copy. So if there is a digital divide issue, we're hoping we're getting it out through paper media as well.

Do you get many requests for waivers for some of the positions that we recruit for? MR. McANALLY: For application fee waivers or residence?

Residence.

I'm sorry. We get requests every now and then from a department who is experiencing recruitment difficulty and they'll request a waiver. There are 104 active waivers right now, which is about five percent of the job titles in use in the government right now, have a waiver. We think that's adequate right now. 85 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. MR. McANALLY: Yes.

I mean, when we get pressure we can't get enough applicants, we open a discussion about a residence waiver.

And the resident waiver requires them to eventually move into the City?

Yes, ma'am. There are four waivers that do not require an eventual move in. Those four are in the Medical Examiners' Office. They're pathologist, deputy medical examiner and so on.

All right. Councilman Rizzo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning.

Good morning.

I want to pick up where the Chair left off. Could you provide to the Chair those residency waivers. And would you tell me the 86 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. part-time doctors that work for the Health Department, in many cases they have residency waivers, correct?

Yes. They don't have indefinite waivers, though.

We've had some for decades, from what I understand, working for the Health Department. Do they get benefits?

Part-timers do not get benefits, no. 13

Part-time doctors get no benefits?

They do not.

So would you provide to the Chair -- you said there was 105 waivers?

One hundred and four waivers in existence right now.

In the whole City?

Yes. Class waivers, yes.

I'm sorry? 87 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Not people, but job classes that have a waiver associated with it.

How many people?

It's a moving target, so I would have to get it for you.

Do you have a ball park?

It's generally about 30 people.

Thirty people?

Yes.

And you'll provide that to the Chair?

Yes, sir.

I want to go back to could you explain how you plan to implement the legislation of the residency requirement for police officers?

How we planned 88 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. it, sir?

How do you plan to implement that, to start recruiting police officers that don't live in the City?

Well, the Police Department is taking the lead on the recruitment effort. The Personnel Department actually only has 30 percent of the human resources in the government. Two-thirds of the people doing human resources work in the departments. So recruitment efforts are one of the things that's really delegated out to the departments, because they know where the professional associations are and so on. So the Police Department has a very extensive recruitment team working on recruiting. You've probably seen their website.

But don't you interact with -- don't they have to flow through you to be hired?

Yes, sir. They 89 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. send all the applications to us, and we're in the process of putting them in.

So how do you understand the residency waiver, that they can recruit a police officer anywhere in the United States of America, but they must move in after six months?

Yes.

There's a resistance to do a similar with the paramedic issue. We have 111 vacancies for paramedics. I can't imagine you not bringing that up. If that's not critical, what is? Why are we not -- and could you explain to me if the Fire Department did not want to do a permanent waiver of residency, could you authorize them to do one, two, three and end it?

The Civil Service Commission authorizes it. We would not normally do it over the objection of a hiring authority, though.

Well, 90 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Commissioner Lloyd Ayers didn't like when I used the word "resistance," and with 111 vacancies and not to figure out why or fill those positions, there's got to be an answer. And I think we're going to get it.

Councilmember, after the discussion that you initiated on this topic, we are reviewing that internally and we have a response to your question that is attempting to reconsider some of the things that we brought to your attention, that you've brought to our attention. So if you would be patient with us, we have a response that -- I have a draft. I think I've either signed off on it yesterday or the day before that is coming your way that sort of lays out what we would like to do in response to your question. And fundamentally, we understand that it's something -- it's a tool that we should be looking at using in order to fill those very critical vacancies. 91 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

So the Civil Service Commission is the one that authorizes the -- do we have them coming here today? We already had them. Okay. The Civil Service Commission authorizes the waiver?

Yes, sir.

Do you know maybe from your knowledge, have they ever issued just a temporary waiver for a period of time until they satisfied the hiring requirements?

Certainly.

They have done that?

Yes.

Okay. I'll be anxious to see, but that, Budget Director, is a good signal that there are at least some conversation about filling those positions from outside, if it's necessary. I'm big on hiring as many of our locals as we can, but when we run into those critical situations, it's 92 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. important that we do what we need to do here. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilman Goode.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually don't have any questions. I just wanted to, for the record, thank you for your responsiveness to my recent information request. It was extremely helpful. I just wanted to say thank you.

You're very welcome, sir. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your testimony.

Thank you. MR. McPHERSON: The next department is the Human Relations Commission.

We'll take a five-minute break. Thank you. (Short recess.) 93 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. Would you like to introduce yourself and begin your testimony?

Yes, ma'am. Councilwoman Tasco, thank you very much for your forbearance. We appreciate that. And to the other assembled Councilpeople, thank you also for the same. My name is Nick Taliaferro. I serve as Executive Director of the Commission on Human Relations, which also places before me the responsibility to serve as Executive Director for the Philadelphia Fair Housing Commission. At the table with me is our Chief Human Resources Person, Angela DeShields, and also our Information Officer, Mr. Jack Fingerman. It's my pleasure to come before you today to represent 35 of the finest public servants that the City of Philadelphia maintains in our office, and 94 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. our charge is to investigate and to enforce the rules and laws concerning civil and human rights in the City of Philadelphia and also to investigate and enforce matters of fair housing as it is listed in the Code, The Philadelphia Code. In doing so, we investigate complaints about discrimination in the workplace, civil complaints between neighbors, civil complaints between individuals. We also have educational endeavors that cause us to reach out to individuals for the purpose of preventing strife and tension between groups, and we do mediatorial intervention work as well, among other activities. Our budget for this year stands at $2,186,091, and that is unchanged from the previous fiscal year. We intend to involve ourselves actively in the matter of public service by proactively seeking public safety. For the last 25-plus years, the Commission on Human Relations took the 95 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. tact that we should be behind the scenes, sort of in the shadows, supporting entities and organizations while not being quite as out front and proactive. At this point, we want to launch some measures that we would consider to be proactive for the purpose of promoting peace, harmony between groups and between races and between ethnicities. We want to be able to help to support healthy and sustainable communities by fostering mediation seminars and workshops that would lead people to become closer to their neighbors. In this world where people are closer to individuals online than they are to the person next door, we feel that we have to encourage people to reach beyond the borders and limitations that they have in their own hearts and minds to become true neighbors, one to the other. We also want to see if we can create a resurgence of ethical 96 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. considerations. Empathy, which is a part of being ethical, is at the heart of creating a compassionate society. A lack of empathy is at the base, Dr. Stout says, of what some might call social pathology, which creates the violence in society in which we live. So we want to proactively seek to do that. We have several initiatives that we will be launching to those items. Finally, we wish to see an increase in our services by having a 14 percent increase in the number of cases 15 that we close and resolve, both in our Compliance Division and in our Community Relations Division; a ten percent increase on mediation and intervention services by being more active in some of our schools and some of our community groups. We wish to become accountable to the City by becoming involved actively in the CityStat reporting program. And last, but not least, to see a 20 percent increase in our intake of customers. 97 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. There's a little difficulty created by that because we have moved recently and people are having a difficult time simply finding us in our new location, but we are going to have an aggressive campaign and public relations outreach so that people might know who we are, understand how to reach us, and one of the ways we intend to do that is to beef up even more our new online website that allows people to file complaints online without having to come into the office.

I won't presume to read the report to you, those of you who have this. We would like to make available to Council our recently released annual report, which hasn't been given to our commissioners yet, but this will help to flesh out our mission and our mandate even further. And we now open ourselves to any questions that might be asked.

Where is your new location? 98 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Our new location is at the Curtis Center at 7th and Walnut, third floor, south. It's a relatively healthy-sized building.

Let me ask you a question, a couple of questions. On of your testimony you talk about generating activities and you talk about the possibility of a contract with HUD if the Charter would provide for that.

Yes, ma'am.

What Charter requirement would you need, have you asked for it, and what would this program provide?

Thank you for asking that question. What this speaks of is achieving the status of being called substantially equivalent, which means that we can enforce or investigate charges equal to what the federal government may do. Now, that will allow us to enter into a contract relationship 99 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. with the Housing and Urban Redevelopment Office of the federal government. They would refer cases to us. That contract comes with a flat fee, which I listed here in the report, and then it comes with a per case stipend. So every case that we close we'll receive funding from the federal government acting in their behalf. Currently, we cannot do that because we cannot levy the fines that they require. The Charter will not allow us to do so. That's the main sticking point right there. But we requested during the previous Administration and I believe it just got held up a little bit, but we are renewing our request to make the alterations so that we might be substantially equivalent and that we might be able to enter into a contract relationship with HUD in that basis.

Now, are your caseloads -- do you handle certain categories of cases within the City that 100 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. are not federal cases? Would the federal government refer local cases to you? How would they determine what cases to give to the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations?

If I might enlarge upon that just a bit, there are three levels within the City that function in this area. The federal office typically refers cases to us that occur within the jurisdiction of Philadelphia. There's also a state office. Now, the state office has a larger staff and they levy larger fines and the federal office levies larger fines. Many times it's a matter as to who wishes -- where the complainant may wish to go. It is known that the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations tends to work a little bit quicker, that we get on cases, we tend to close them a little quicker. We manage them, I think, a little bit more 101 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. efficiently. A case in the federal government might take you three years sometimes. It may take us one year. And so it's according to what the person wishes to do, but any matter of civil rights or discrimination and any of the qualified cases, any of the protected classes, we can handle and we do handle.

So you are talking to the new Mayor and his Administration about the possibility of positioning yourself to qualify for this contract?

Yes. We requested a meeting, not only for that, but there's a need for us to round out our commissioners. We're lacking one commissioner and perhaps two on the Human Relations side and we're lacking three commissioners on the Fair Housing side, which actually puts us in a position where we could be challenged legally, because there are only five commissioners 102 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. and we're functioning actually with two.

Okay. Well, I'm pretty sure they're going to move to fill those positions soon.

I sense that they'll be filling quite a few positions.

Let me just go to of your testimony where you talk about the sustainable communities. What outreach do you have to the various communities in terms of achieving this goal?

The Commission on Human Relations is a bicameral approach to trying to create justice. One is our Compliance Division, which allows us to handle complaints concerning discrimination in the workplace, places of public access, some cases which become quite famous or infamous, as the word might go. But the other one is our Community Relations Division. Now, we only have six Community Relations Division representatives, 103 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. including a deputy director and a supervisor, but each of those representatives is tied into each police district serving on the Police District Commission there, and they are also connected to the vast majority -- there is almost a phone book-size list of agencies that these commissioners work with. What the intent is, the intent of the agency is to foster a real strong interconnectedness between groups within communities so that people might be aware of information and also that they might be able to synergize their efforts and resources that will allow them to address problems more efficiently. Typically, we have done that by meeting with them, staying in the background. But we are launching a couple of initiatives, one -- and I'll breathe it here first -- is our Philly TACT Program, TACT being an acronym of tolerance, acceptance, celebration and 104 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. togetherness, where the notion is to foster and nurture events that will bring people intentionally together to work across relational lines. We really believe that we're in a historical time where two items that used to be definitive in America, your race and your gender, while they're still persuasive and influence, they're not definitive anymore, because clearly, you can become president of the United States as a woman or as an African-American, and we think that this is a great time for us to have the kind of dialogue that will allow us to reach across lines and proactively and intentionally find ways to build real consanguinity and unity in communities and relations. Philly TACT is one of them. On the 19th of April, we're working with the Lutheran Theological Seminary to produce a symposium called Renewing the Village: Decreasing Violence in Our Society and Its Impact on 105 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Young People. We're serving with them as partners to get the faith community to tie into existing City programs and other neighborhood programs that work toward anti-violence. The idea is to try to hardwire connections between these agencies. A lot of these agencies, as you know, don't know that the others exist and they feel that they're out on a lonely island working by themselves. So we're proactively partnering with people to produce the kind of synergies that would lead to a greater level of efficiency and operation in our grassroot community groups.

I think that sounds like a good effort, and I strongly urge you to -- with the various neighborhoods throughout the City that are transitioning, new people are moving in, there is a need for you to reach out in those communities to help neighbors understand each other and come together, 106 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. particularly in my area up around behind the old Sears site. There's certainly a wide-ranging melting pot of different groups that could -- I mean, there's not a lot of strife, but it certainly would be helpful to have some communication or connection or meeting or group program up there to help neighbors work together and more effectively. Not that they don't, but when a neighborhood is transitioning, you need someone there to help that community with that transition. And without leadership, there seems to be tension at times when there's no support from the City to help with that whole issue of transitioning.

Councilwoman, if I might, and it has to be intentional. It can't -- it's not going to happen accidentally. People are prone to be homogenous. We tend to flock together with the birds of our own feather. And it really has to be intentional. We have a diverse staff. We 107 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. have people from as far as Moldova to Puerto Rico. We have a diverse staff, and we intend to intentionally try to engineer within our society the type of coming together that pushes us beyond tolerance. We're working -- one of our partnerships that we're seeking to achieve is with WHYY to begin a series of discussions and colloquiums called Beyond Tolerance. The word has been that we have to have tolerance in our communities, but none of us would stand before a minister to be married and have the minister say to our wives or husbands, Do you promise to tolerate your mate. We have to do more than tolerate. We have to celebrate and accept and then really move toward a working togetherness, and that's the kind of passion that we want to reengineer into our agency, to lift it from waiting for people to come in to complain to actually proactively going out and fostering the 108 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. things that we desire.

I agree with that wholeheartedly. Thank you. Are there any questions? (No response.)

Thank you so much for your testimony, and I will be in touch with you.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

So we can work something out. Thank you. This Committee will be recessed until today at 1:30. (Short recess.)

The Committee of the Whole is now back in session. I believe the next department to testify? MR. McPHERSON: Is the Community College. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Good 109 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record, welcome, and proceed with your testimony. MR. McELHATTON: Good afternoon, Madam President. My name is Daniel McElhatton.

I'm Stephen Curtis, President of Community College of Philadelphia.

And I'm Al Piscopo, President of the Community College of Philadelphia Foundation.

Thank you. MR. McELHATTON: Madam President, I appear today on behalf of the Board of Trustees of Community College of Philadelphia and I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge those trustees who have taken time out of their day to come here today and attend. The trustees who are here today to support the Mayor's budget and Council's review of the recommendations, our former 110 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Board Chair, Rhonda Cohen, is here; Board member Varsovia Fernandez; Board member Al Murphy; former Secretary of Labor and Industry, Board member, Johnny Butler; Board member Jeremiah White; and Board member Dorothy Sumners Rush, who served with distinction on the Philadelphia Board of Education. In addition to Mr. Piscopo, who is Chair of our Foundation Board, we are also joined by Lorina Marshall-Blake. And I thank all of those Board members for joining us here today. Community College is not just the main campus at 17th and Spring Garden. It is not the West Regional Center, nor only the Northwest Regional Center or the campus in the Northeast. It is not just the 30,000-plus folks that we serve each year. It's not only the hard-working and dedicated faculty, administration and support personnel who keep the College running day to day, year to year. It is all of those components 111 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. and much more. The College is all of us, those of us who live and work in the City, citizens and businesses alike. Those of who you are elected to serve this City are also an integral part of the life of Community College. Those of us who volunteer our time and are charged with the civic responsibility of ensuring a better place for education for generations to come, this is our college, your college. The phrase that the College adopted several years ago to reflect our mission is that we provide the path to possibilities. No other institution, no 17 other institution in this City of higher education can make the claim in the same way. Mayor Nutter has, through his budget recommendation, included a substantial increase in the funding for the College. This is clearly a reflection of his continuing and increasing commitment to Community 112 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. College of Philadelphia. I would hope and urge that your agreement as a Council and a recommendation of these budgeted amounts is an acceptance by Council of our collective roles in expanding and widening those paths to possibilities. The Board is deeply appreciative of all of your prior support and urges your continued support and commitment to the Community College of Philadelphia, our college, the college of the City of Philadelphia. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. Doctor.

Thank you. I'm here on behalf of the College today to ask specifically that City Council support Mayor Nutter's proposal for an increase in our allocation next year of $4 million, and I'd like to talk just briefly about the significance of that recommendation and what it does to 113 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. benefit students, what it will do to benefit students. In at least the last five or six years as I've had the opportunity to speak before you and to testify, I think there's been a consistent thread in what I've said, and, that is, that when it comes to funding and specifically the City's ability to provide funds to the College, the most dramatic impact has been on our students, and I have pointed over and over again to the increasing cost of education for students everywhere, but in this case for students at Community College of Philadelphia. Over the last six or seven years, the City has been unable to adequately provide major increases in funding, and what has happened in that time period, as our normal costs have gone up and in a number of cases as we take in more students in a given year, that burden has been basically shifted to our students. 114 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. While we remain the most affordable option into higher education in the City of Philadelphia, and we're supposed to be, we also have some other distinctions. We have the highest tuition of any community college in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and we range from to 40 percent higher than 10 our sister institutions. What it costs 11 to attend Community College full time for 12 a year is 50 percent higher than the 13 national average for community college 14 students across the country. And as 15 we've indicated in prior testimony, we 16 are often serving those students that can 17 least afford some of those increases. 18 I've been very gratified that 19 in the last two years City Council has 20 taken specific action along those lines and both last year and this year City Council approved an additional $1 million for our budget, most of which we passed on directly to students to try to address that cost of education issue. And I 115 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. think you all know that we provided to students a tuition credit on their bills, and it at least helped dampen a little bit the increases that they were experiencing, particularly over the last five or six years. Mayor Nutter's proposal for next year takes that one more step forward. In essence, his proposal would allow the City's increase to cover not only its share of the normal increases that we experience in our budget, but also the students' share of those normal increases, which is a fancy way of saying we will not have to raise any tuition or fee for students in the coming year. That couldn't come, in my mind, at a better time. Nationally, as well as locally, there has been tremendous concern about the impact of rising tuition costs, the rising costs of going to college, and we happen to be at a moment in time when the state of the economy, I believe, has put even more 116 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. pressure on students, on parents, on families when it comes to starting college or continuing in college, particularly in light of the increases that are out there in tuition and fees. So that major change for us, it will be the first time in almost years 9 that we will not have raised tuition and 10 fees, and we are very grateful that this 11 kind of investment on the part of the 12 City is going to be able to attend to 13 what has been our number one priority, 14 reducing the impact on students of the 15 cost of going to college. 16 There are several other steps 17 that we also think will allow both the 18 College and the City to build a more 19 comprehensive partnership as we try to 20 benefit the City's residents, and I'll give you several examples. We're already in talks with the Mayor's Office.

We would like to take a small portion of this money at least and turn it into free training for City 117 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. employees in departments with whom we do not currently have a relationship. Over the years, there are probably several City departments that we regularly work with to train their employees, technical training, soft skills training, management/supervisory training, but the majority of departments, for a variety of reasons, including cost, we've not been able to work with. This is a chance, from our point of view and I think from the City's point of view, to expand that relationship, and we intend to have the City identify some departments with whom we are not currently working and we will provide training based on what the departments indicate they need up to a certain dollar amount for free. I am hopeful that that's going to lead us to a different kind of relationship in which the College can be much more of a principal trainer for City employees, and it doesn't work that way 118 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. currently. We're also entering into discussions with the City about ways that we can support the City's efforts to attract and retain businesses. And, again, I think I've said this in this forum in the past as well. Those cities, regions, states that are viewed as models of workforce and economic development as a matter of course bring their local community or technical college to the table when they're talking with a company they want to attract, for example, because the local community college is the source of training for the potential employees. We're setting up now a series of meetings with the appropriate members of the Administration to have just that kind of discussion so that we can be much more of an asset that the City can call on as it's seeking to attract or retain businesses. And then the last concrete 119 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. example I'll give you, Mayor Nutter has called for a doubling of the number of residents in Philadelphia who have a college degree, and we think we have a role to play in that as well. And this investment is going to permit us to really move forward with some efforts that we've had underway for a while. We're going to try, over the next three to four years, to produce another thousand degree-holders on top of the numbers that we're generating right now. We're going to do this in several ways. One example, there's been a group in the City identified by a number of organizations, the Workforce Investment Board and others, that do not have college degrees but already have some college credits. We're going to try to build an incentive program for those that are at least halfway toward an Associate degree; in other words, have about 30 credits that they could transfer into our institution. 120 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. We're going to provide some incentives, with the goal of having them enrolled part time or full time, but every semester -- it probably won't take longer than two years -- until they have that Associate degree. We think that's one very tangible way of starting to move some of the City's residents toward that credentialed status, something that will help their own possibilities in terms of employment and the like. So those are some of the specific ways we think that the investment of the City is going to be very tangible and very real for us going forward. Again, we appreciate the support City Council has provided in the past. We ask your support of the Mayor's recommendations for the coming year, and would be glad to answer any questions that we can about this or other items.

Thank you very much. 121 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. The Chair recognizes Councilman Jones.

Yes. Thank you. Mr. President, it's good to see you again, and I want to thank you and your staff, particularly Lynnette, for the recent tour of a rookie Councilman and seeing the treasure, the Philadelphia treasure, that is Community College. It is heartening to know that you're an integral part of the Mayor's plan. We talked about it briefly, but the Mayor put his money where his mouth was, which was to increase the appropriation to Community College, weaving that into his plan to increase the number of Philadelphians with college degrees and to reduce the number of dropouts in Philadelphia. But I am encouraged by some of your workforce development plans, particularly training of staff. I understand and I want to put 122 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. on the record that you defer tuition payment for people who are recently unemployed and allowing them to make a career change or sharpen their skills, and I just wanted you to elaborate on that for a moment.

Yes, sir. I'll be happy to. For about five or six years now, we've offered a program for displaced workers, as you've suggested. We call it Opportunity Now. We will give any resident of the City of Philadelphia who is laid off from full-time employment and can document that with a letter from their company, we will give that resident a free first semester in terms of tuition. You still have to pay for your books and pay for some fees, but we do waive -- it's not deferred, that they have to do it later. We simply waive the tuition for any number of courses up to 12 credits, which is our definition of full time. It's our intention there to try 123 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. to fill what we perceive as a gap. That person in many cases was not considering going to college at that moment. In fact, many more of this particular group of students already have a college degree than is usually the case for students that come to us. We always have ten to percent that come with a Bachelor's 10 degree, but this group has an even more 11 credentialed background. But they also 12 don't qualify for financial aid at that 13 moment, because they had an income coming 14 in and their last tax return will show 15 that. So we're trying to bridge that gap and give them an opportunity to either acquire some new skills or, as you suggested, to actually change direction completely. We think it's been a successful program. In many cases, they turn around very quickly and move back into the workplace or, in some instances, transfer to another institution. They may wish a Bachelor's degree or a 124 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. different Bachelor's degree, but about a quarter of those students stay with us and actually move on a different career path. So we think that's part of our responsibility as the only public institution of higher learning in the City, and it's a program that we have felt strongly enough about to maintain it during this period.

I would encourage you also to keep a working relationship with -- and I know you do -- with the public schools in designing real curriculums that lead to real jobs through an educational pathway. One of the things that we tend not to do is, we create an environment for academics and then create an environment for real jobs, and sometimes the two don't meet. The more closely we design curriculum to match and meet the skill-sets needed by employers, the better for real jobs at the end of the educational experience, 125 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. and I want that kind of interaction to continue. My final question before my time runs out is that I'd like to know about whatever physical expansion plans you might have, particularly in the 4th Councilmanic District, even though you may not or may have one. We're recruiting you to have an outlet there, but if not, I'd like to hear about the other plans around the City so that average Philadelphians can actually access your university, your college.

Well, the principal expansion plans at the moment are focused on the main campus on Spring Garden and the Regional Center up in the Northeast. We've been able to get permission from the state and, with that, an approval for funding, because they will provide 50 percent of the funding, for an expansion in both places. At the Spring Garden site, it will allow us, in addition to a whole 126 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. range of things that I won't mention here, to redo some significant space, and I'll give you a workforce example since you mentioned that earlier in your previous question. We'll be completely redoing our Culinary Arts Program. They'll have brand new kitchens, brand new capacity. We'll be able to take more students. They'll have a demonstration kitchen for more public kinds of lectures and meetings, things that we don't have in place right now. We'll be able to renovate space for at least six to eight other academic programs and curricula. At the Northeast Regional Center, we'll be doubling the size, approximately doubling the size, of the campus. It is our most crowded site, but we already plan to open a center for small business development there and we'll be adding several new programs, and my recollection is biotechnology, health services management and computer forensics, I believe. These are things 127 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. that we already have, but we don't offer at that campus.

I would be interested if they're the top five career paths that Philadelphians have. One would be healthcare. I hear a lot about the green jobs and wanted to know if in fact your engineering curriculums and career paths for Philadelphians to be able to take advantage of those types of jobs of the future, life sciences and the like.

We do. We constantly keep track of where the principal industry pathways are. You are absolutely correct, life sciences is the number one sector, and we have a number of healthcare -- programs for healthcare professionals, biotech program, biomedical technician training program and so on. So we do try to match up in the other sectors as well. We also have introduced, as an example, a new program that is a program 128 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. of the future in GIS, geographic information systems. We're looking at the technologies that will be used going forward and what can we do to prepare our students for those kinds of pathways. So we try to attend to that very carefully.

I don't know if I can put my arms around this one, but the whole notion of the creative class. Is there any curriculum designed for anything -- it's a curriculum that I think is a little more broad than specific green jobs, but is there any thought given to that?

We have programs that would fall into that. I think that's an area that we're going to keep looking at going forward. Even in -- oh, let's go back to the life sciences example for a moment. There we've tended to look at programs that lead to developing practitioners, but now we have gone the management route, health services management. We'll try to do 129 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. that in some other areas, like arts. We're strong in some of the arts areas, but I think there are some -- music and sound technology, as an example. That's a relatively new curriculum. So, again, I think we're matching up in the way that you want, but I do think there is some room for growth there.

I just want to thank you again. You and your staff have been value added to the City of Philadelphia, and want to continue along that path in going into the future. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome. It's good to see you here, and I'm certainly sure that this environment is 130 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. better than you've experienced in the past years you've been here and certainly having the Administration sort of call the shot before you have to ask. So I think that's great. And certainly having worked in higher education with Bennett College, certainly what we give is truly not enough, because it requires much more, but I think this increase in your budget without a hassle sends a signal that certainly -- Council, we have always been supportive of you.

You have.

But having the Administration look at you in a different light and be supportive is encouraging to us, too. I just have probably two questions. One, how are we doing at Godfrey and Stenton, which is in my district?

We're doing very well. Going back to the previous question, we have permission right now 131 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. for the two new construction projects I mentioned, but in the next several years, we expect to move forward with requests to the state for that campus. We still have one floor to build out in one of the buildings and we need additional parking. So we have our facility plan in motion and we'll be moving forward in all of these venues.

Okay. And you'll certainly share that with us?

Yes, ma'am.

Because you'll probably have to go to Zoning.

You bet.

Marion Johnson certainly has to know. The other question is, do you track your graduates of Community College who advance to four-year institutions? Do you track the rate of graduation for those students? Do you have the ability to do that?

In some cases, 132 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. yes. An institution like Temple University will share with us regularly in the aggregate, not individual names but in the aggregate, how our students are doing. And I'll come back to that example in just a moment. There are some other institutions that will do the same. Not every institution at the moment will give us those data, so I can't answer the question in some cases. But using Temple as an example, Temple is committed to transfer. About 45 percent of its undergraduates are transferred students. We are certainly the largest source, but, in fact, they come from other area community colleges and so on. Each of us knows, based on the data we get from Temple, what the average GPA is for our transfer group -- we'll talk about Community College of Philadelphia for a minute -- the persistence rates, how many graduate and that sort of thing, and we know it in 133 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. comparison to the other groups. So that to be candid, seven or eight years ago if you looked at the GPAs, our students wouldn't have had the highest GPA when you looked at the transfer groups. When you look now, our students have the highest GPA of any transfer group. It may be that much more (indicating). I'm not saying it's all A's versus all B's. But that's important to us, to know how we stack up, are we actually providing the kind of preparation that will allow them to achieve what you're asking about, the baccalaureate. The last data I saw -- I have not seen this one for a couple of years now, but the last time I saw a percentage for graduation, 12 percent of the graduating class at Temple came from Community College of Philadelphia.

Okay. I guess it sounds good. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam President. 134 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Clarke.

Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

A couple of quick questions. I've actually had some preliminary conversations with my good friend, Lynnette, about some issues that I wanted to talk to you all about at some level of specificity on curriculum. I want to ask you a question. Because of the, I guess, flexibility of Community College, because it's essentially a local college that gets primarily local students, when you talk about crafting or you think about crafting your curriculum, do you take 135 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. into account the forecasts of potential job opportunities or job growth in the City or the region? I actually heard you when I walked back in the room. You were talking about life sciences, and that was kind of the conversation I had with Lynnette, about the fact that there's a significant increase in building, particularly in the West Philadelphia area, providing life science job opportunities once that whole West Philadelphia campus gets built out, and I've always been concerned that we were not necessarily targeting our strategies for our graduates from high schools and from junior colleges to take advantage of that job growth on a local basis. Temple University and others to some degree, because it is a relatively high residential population college, but they're kind of getting away from that, and University of Penn primarily draws people from all over, so they don't 136 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. really target their curriculum for the local. Do you give that any thought about -- and I actually in a further conversation, I want to come up with a strategy to talk about what's the likelihood of the job growth or job opportunities locally and will we be prepared to make sure that our folks in the City of Philadelphia take advantage of that.

I think the answer is absolutely yes, and I think it aligns with what I was trying to say to the earlier question. I think by definition community colleges, not just ours, but community colleges in general are just as you described it, they have to respond to the local conditions. Everything you said is correct. Ninety-eight percent, or whatever the figure is, of our students are from Philadelphia. When they graduate, it's 80-some percent that stay in Philadelphia and 90-some percent 137 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. that stay in the Philadelphia region. They're not leaving. It is one of the strengths of a college like ours. We're not part of the brain drain. We're just the opposite. So that means, by definition, whatever programs we're offering have to relate to the opportunities that exist in the community. So my answer is a resounding yes, we do take that into account. We do look ahead. You can't always figure everything. In the time that I've been here, we incorporated a new program, Printing Arts, and then the industry changed within about three years. I mean, we couldn't anticipate that. And it became so computerized and so many other things, they simply didn't have the number of jobs anymore, and we actually had to retreat on that one. So it's not that once in a while you don't have as much information as you'd like, but in general, 138 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. absolutely. Particularly in the key areas -- we keep mentioning life sciences, but it's because it is such a huge area when it comes to this region, and that goes beyond just Philadelphia or Pennsylvania, the tristate region. We track the percentage of vacancies that our graduates fill. We track the salaries that our graduates get. We try to anticipate the number of openings we think will be required. Even with that kind of matching of data, though, again, there is limitations. In the allied health areas, for example, one of the limitations is the availability of faculty. So many of them can make more in the workplace than they can teaching, by far. Another is the availability of clinical sites. For all of the allied health programs, part of the curriculum is the field work that takes place in a hospital or in a healthcare setting. Well, everybody is looking for those. 139 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. It's not just us. It's every other community college, it's University of Pennsylvania, it's Jefferson University or whatever. So that becomes another element. So the answer to your question is yes, but I'm also trying to say there are other factors that may or may not make it easy to expand, for example, what your capacity is. It's not automatically because you know there's an even greater need, that you can immediately generate more seats.

Okay. MR. McELHATTON: Councilman, if I could also add, at the Board level, this is an issue that is very, very important to the Board and that we constantly are in discussions with the Administration about how do we make sure that we are posturing the College in the best possible position to take advantage of those opportunities, and we have heard and we have encouraged the dialogue from 140 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. the Administration through Steve and others, through the School District of Philadelphia and now we've also expanded to the Archdiocese to have a dialogue so that we see what the skill-sets are that might be coming up through the system, and in the dialogue with the workforce community, we know what is expected to be out there. So we are very concerned at the Board level on that precise issue and I think we monitor it and we encourage it.

You must have been a Councilman before, because you kind of answered my next question before I got to it

May I add just one other comment, though? MR. McELHATTON: Different century, Councilman.

We also keep in touch with what's going on in the industry in other ways. Every one of our career and technical programs has an 141 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. advisory committee made up of people from the field. We want to know ahead of time where the field is going, and, again, part of it has to do with -- part of your question has to do with the number of jobs and so on, but another part is what's the level of expertise that's going to be required as technology evolves and so on and so forth. We also have relationships with the Workforce Investment Board, other organizations throughout the region. We work cooperatively in some cases around specific initiatives. But I'm back to your data question. It also means we have sources of data that we can get on a regular basis as well.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll look forward to having that further discussion, because I've actually talked to a couple of CEOs from some of the hospital-related institutions and they talked about making sure that we can 142 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. provide opportunities on an entry-level basis, and they thought that it may best be addressed in Community College.

Good.

So I'll talk to you about.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. I would just like to make a statement, that as long as I've been here, which is a long time, this Council certainly has been very, very supportive --

Yes, you have.

-- of Community College and truly appreciate the work that you do. We have often led the charge to restore --

Yes, you have.

-- monies into the budget, and I am 143 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. delighted that the Mayor has given Community College -- I'm not going to say what it is -- the appropriation he has for this year, and I think that hopefully we'll be able to do that increasingly year to year, if it's at all possible. But we truly, truly appreciate the wonderful work that you do at the College. And I see that Councilman Rizzo is trying to cut me short, so I'll acknowledge him. Okay. You're up.

I could never do that, Madam Chair. In just following up on your conversation with Councilman Clarke, do we have any relationship with the corporate sector where we do in-service training, like PECO Energy, what I'm familiar with? Is there any services you could provide to train some employees in areas that they may have need for training? 144 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Absolutely, and we do that all the time. The Workforce Development Division of our college is called Corporate Solutions and they engage the business sector in a variety of ways. One, we do customize job training, and we -- and it doesn't have to be a big company like the one you just mentioned. It can be a smaller company as well. But we provide that kind of training across the City for a variety of types of companies. We also provide access for companies, with some exceptions. It's not in the service arena, but beyond that, we can provide access to guaranteed free training monies from the state, and we can facilitate a company's getting that money to help with their training needs. We have found that more and more companies are looking not only for the short-term customized training of the kind that you referenced, but want their employees in general to be more highly 145 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. educated and more highly credentialed in order to meet the future challenges that they see in whatever their particular industry is. And so many more companies are going the tuition reimbursement route, are looking either to send their employees to us for a degree or in at least two cases we actually go to them and provide a full degree on site, and then in some other instances, there are organizations where we'll provide at least some coursework for them on site. Credit courses I'm talking about. So it's a variety of things, and, yes, we engage in all of those.

That's good to hear. How about a very basic service that I'm thinking of? Many people that come into the workforce change from one career to another and they have a blue-collar job for many, many years and they want to transition. And a perfect example, I just had a person after many years of working for a repair facility, 146 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. she was a technician, wanted to -- it was getting kind of tough out there and she wanted to transition into office work, and she asked me where could she go to learn computer skills, which today if you don't have them is a killer. Is there a way -- what do you offer over there to have some computer training?

Everything that person needs. Absolutely. Again --

What's the commitment? In other words, describe the curriculum. How many days a week or nights, or how does it work?

Well, we have to see exactly what that person is looking for. There are individual courses. There are courses for credit that you can apply toward a degree. There are non-credit courses that are just teaching you the skills. Again, we customize that. Individuals come to us with all 147 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. kinds of goals in mind. It may be the next Microsoft Office Suite comes out and they simply want to become more fluent in that. We'll do a short-term course for that. It may be that, as you've described, there's a real change that's desired. That may involve, honestly, getting on to a degree pathway in order to get a much larger set of skills in order to change careers. But that is exactly what a community college is all about. We offer a whole variety of paths. We have people, counselors, advisors and others, that work with the students. In our Career Services area, we have the ability to test the strengths, the interests, the expertise of an individual to see what other careers might be a good match. I mean, there are all kinds of services we provide in that way.

Let me just say it again. This person just wants to come from having no computer skills to 148 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. the ability to function in an office to prepare a letter, to send an e-mail, to do those things. Is there a course where the people watching this that might say, You know, I'd really like to learn to have some additional computer skills. If they contact the College, there is most likely a program where they can go from no skill to a little bit and then develop their own or continue education at Community College?

The answer is yes. But if that person were sitting here next to me, I'd also say, You need to understand that in the workplace, the expectations these days are more than just putting a letter on the computer and doing the things that you described. You're expected to know databases, you're expected to know desktop publishing. There are other things -- the world has changed, and I think we try to provide the bigger view of that and a whole array of skills that will help that person. 149 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. It's not just typing the letter.

That's good. It took me six months to figure out my BlackBerry, so I have compassion. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.

Yes. I just happened to look at the testimony and your PowerPoint. I noticed that your minority-owned businesses, your contracts for professional services, supplies -- professional services and supplies and other services decreased in minority-owned participation from '06 to '07. Could you give me an explanation for that, and also why is the percentage so low?

Well, first, when it decreases, sometimes that's simply a matter of what contracts are available in a given year. You don't have the next 150 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. year, which is the current one. It's not completed. We've doubled that number and that percentage this year, and one reason was that a long-term contract was up for renewal and when it was bid out, a minority vendor got the contract for our copiers across the campus. That's a four-year commitment that that person will have. So sometimes it depends upon when contracts are up or renewed. I agree with you, the number is lower than we want it to be. We have in place a set of strategies to increase that. Every other year we hold a minority vendors fair, and that is a source for finding other vendors that may not be on our radar right now. In fact, in this doubling that's taken place this year, one of the referrals came from the African-American Chamber of Commerce. So we're looking for that kind of opportunity. We do require our buyers to 151 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. investigate for every bid what potential sources there might be for minority vendors. We ask typically that there be at least three bids for a contract and at least one of them be a minority vendor. So we put in place procedures and strategies that we hope are going to move that forward and, in many cases, do. And this year is a case where it has moved forward. The women-owned has been consistently moving up as it turned out, as you look at that. Some of the opportunities that exist with us are also really construction related. We don't do that all the time, but you heard me say earlier that we're about to enter in the next few years a period of construction. There's been five or six years where we didn't have any construction like that. And as an example, our Board -- and this is an area -- Mr. McElhatton can tell you this, too, but the Board is also asking us to report on this kind of information 152 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. as well. But we've just chosen by bid the underwriter for the bonding, and one of our conditions was that we wanted the opportunity to give some significant portion of the bonds through a minority underwriter, and the winning bid -- it was by far the lowest bid, and we are bound to take the lowest responsible bid -- committed to 40 percent of the bonds being done through a minority underwriter, committed to using minority counsel for the underwriting. So we try to incorporate a variety of opportunities. That will not show up this year. That will show up in another year. So either now or further I can go through with you in more detail what we do, but we're trying to increase the opportunity for minority vendors and women-owned vendors to have access to what we have. MR. McELHATTON: Councilwoman, 153 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. if I could also respond, almost every time -- and I say "almost" because we may have missed one or two -- that a contract for services or a construction management contract comes up, our Business Affairs Committee in their reports will detail to the Board the minority participation recommendations and the representations of those contractors. That is an issue that is discussed every time the Board has that issue, and we constantly are encouraging the administration to expand the opportunities for that. For example, in a construction management contract that was just approved last week or the week before by the Board, the construction manager made a recommendation that there be a series of prime contractors, not one prime contractor, so that the bonding requirements would be significantly less for minority or women-owned enterprises, and that expands the pool of opportunity -- the pool of applicants for 154 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. the opportunities. And it's that kind of aggressive action by the administration and I think prodding by the Board that will push those numbers along.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from members of the Committee? (No response.)

Seeing none, I thank you all for coming in.

We thank you. MR. McELHATTON: Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you. MR. McPHERSON: SEPTA is next. (Witnesses approached witness table.) 155 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.

Good afternoon. My name is Joseph Casey. I'm General Manager for SEPTA.

Mr. Casey, we do have a copy of your testimony, so if you would like to abbreviate it, we will make certain that the stenographer has a copy, and that will be transcribed in full.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council President Verna and members of the City Council. Again, my name is Joseph Casey, General Manager of SEPTA. With me is Frances Jones from our Government Affairs Office and Richard Burnfield, our Chief Financial Officer. 156 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak about our $63 million 2009 Operating Budget request and to provide highlights of the Authority's initiatives and milestones achieved over the past year. With the passage of Act 44 of 2007 and the creation of the Public Transportation Trust Fund, SEPTA now has dedicated and predictable funding sources. This legislation immediately stabilized our budget for 2008 and provides financial stability needed to build and enhance service for our customers and the region. Responding to customer demand is very important, given our steady ridership increases over several years and the strong growth trends we continue to see. Since the beginning of this fiscal year, transit ridership has increased four percent and 12 percent on the regional rail. This is positive news, but we are seeing an increased 157 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. overcrowding on some of SEPTA routes as a result. Now with the ability to address these issues, we can now take action to enhance service. For example, in February, service was increased on the Market-Frankford line, one of our busiest routes, by percent, with more rush 10 hour and mid-day trains. This fall, 65 11 additional bus and rail service changes 12 are planned to address overcrowding and meet the needs of growing employment, retail and residential markets. And by building early morning, mid-day, evening and late-night service improvements, we can make SEPTA more accessible and convenient for customers and riders. After years of seeking the solution for transportation service for school children, working cooperatively with the School District of Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania, SEPTA introduced a weekly transit pass program for 50,000 of the students in the City of 158 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Philadelphia. This represents about a six percent increase of the prior year. Feedback from school officials indicate a four to six percent increase in attendance since the start of the program. With the organization on solid footing, now is the time to begin a new chapter for SEPTA. I am committed to focus on the fundamentals of our business, providing safe, reliable, convenient and comfortable services for our passengers. I believe we can improve the value of public transit services to the City by making customer service and courtesy, cleanliness, communication and convenience our first priorities. Thank you, President Verna and members of Council, for the opportunity to provide testimony today. I look forward to working with you, Mayor Nutter and his Administration, including Rina Cutler, Deputy Mayor for Transportation, to address SEPTA transportation issues. 159 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. I understand Council has proposed a resolution to hold separate public hearings on the safety of public transportation. SEPTA looks forward to attending and testifying at this hearing. At this point, I'll be happy to answer any questions Council may have.

Thank you very much. I would ask members of the Committee to refrain from asking questions regarding the safety issue, because tomorrow a resolution will be introduced calling for public hearings. So with that, the Chair now recognizes Councilman Greenlee.

Thank you, Madam President. Just generally, Mr. Casey, I want to say I appreciate all of the quick responses you and certainly Ms. Jones. She and I have talked to each other for many, many years. She obviously has aged much, much better than me, but I just 160 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. generally appreciate the responsiveness, and particularly as the President alluded, with the resolution that Councilman Jones is going to introduce tomorrow and a number of us are co-sponsoring, I appreciate the information you got back to us right away on that and we look forward to that hearing. Just one general question. I'm glad to see your plans to expand service starting in the fall of '08, and particularly you talk about the off-peak hours, if you will.

Yes.

I was wondering the general criteria you use in determining those changes. Obviously the overcrowding thing, I guess, is kind of an obvious one, but I'm thinking in a certain -- in another direction, every once in a while I hear from folks in, I guess you would generally call it, the Northeast part of the City. 161 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Yes.

That they almost don't even think about using SEPTA because they just don't think it meets their needs enough, particularly in that off-peak hours. Northeast has changed a little bit and some of the residents, some jobs are up there along the Boulevard, whatever, but because they don't think there's enough service. So there wouldn't be the overcrowding problem, I guess, but there would be -- there will probably be the need if there was additional service. I know that's a little harder to sort of get a handle on, but I don't know if maybe you talked to some of the employers up there. You know where I'm going with this?

We do. Part of the criteria is to look at people complaints or suggestions for additional service. That has happened in the last two years. Again, this is just our proposal. We 162 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. will have public hearings on these services, and if people have alternatives for additional services, we'll be glad to listen. But a lot of the services we have, if they cut off at 7 o'clock at night, people have complained because it wasn't convenient for them, because they work later, et cetera. So we added late-night services. And the same thing for the weekends. It wasn't convenient for them to the weekends, so we added weekend services. But we're willing to listen to any public suggestion for increased service.

Because I'm thinking sometimes that's -- again, some of the people that work up there, some of them live up there, some don't. Some of them come from somewhere else. But often times they don't have a lot of money. We all know what gas is and cars are these days.

Most of the times 163 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. the employers call us because they know it's an issue for their employees and they approach us to revising a service to serve their business.

Okay. Well, it certainly seems like you're on top of that. So thank you. Thank you all again very much. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Jones.

Good afternoon and welcome, Mr. Casey, to the City of Philadelphia.

Thank you very much, Councilman.

We are going to introduce a resolution tomorrow to talk about the specific issue of safety, which will give us enough time and you enough time to prepare and for us to focus specifically on the mutual concern 164 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. that the City has along with SEPTA. I want to focus my questions on a couple of things that you mentioned in your testimony by way of increased ridership and crowding and, therefore, the allocation of new and additional cars and/or buses to those routes, and wanted to know what your methodology was for the selection and also which ones were selected.

Councilman, a lot of the overcrowding is based from our operations people, from our operators that are riding the buses where they're informing us that there's overcrowding. One of the criteria that we use, in addition to complaints we're receiving from our customers, one of the things that we're faced with at this point is capacity issues. I wish I could allieve some of the overcrowding now, but we simply don't have enough buses during the peak period. Now, we have a current bus 165 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. order on place. Buses will start being delivered in August, and at that time, between that and mid September we'll have sufficient buses to expand the service at that time. Rather than retiring some of the old buses, we'll keep them in service. So that's why we're not doing it now and doing it in September.

So at the point that you make those determinations, will Council be made aware and the respective districts?

As far as the services?

Yes.

I have a list of proposed services now. We have public hearings in the first week in June on all service enhancements. But I have a whole list, and they're pretty much throughout the City.

Okay. A couple of things. One, in the Great Expectations meetings that were 166 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. performed, they went around the City, different sections of the City, talked about specific topics. One of the topics obviously was mass transportation and, ergo, SEPTA. Within that, a couple of interesting observations I made as a new Councilperson. One, people use the analogy and use the examples of Washington, DC and New York as transit-oriented cities, and when it came to Philadelphia, it was kind of felt that there was -- we don't engage transportation, we just use it. And that was a comment that if you could put your arms around that comment, that somehow transportation just overlapped their lives as opposed to being a part of their lives. How do we make it more user friendly in general, one; and, two, engrain it into -- as opposed to getting in the car and going shopping, how do I get on the bus and take that to go shopping? 167 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

Well, again, I was looking for the future and I mention the school passes, and I thought that was a great way to introduce the new kids rather than taking -- using the token and using it periodically, to have a pass that you would have unlimited uses forever. So my way of thinking, we have a new generation of people that will be accustomed to using transit for all purposes. But you mentioned convenience, and, again, part of the thing that we're looking at, it wasn't simply convenient for everyone to take transit to do shopping during the weekends, et cetera. And that's part of our proposal, to increase the convenience to make it more acceptable for people and make it more easy for people to use transit to do their chores during the weekends, et cetera.

The use of shelters and signage is one of the issues 168 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. that came up in those Great Expectations, making -- and I know -- before Frances tells me that Public Property owns the shelters, I do know that, for the record. But when we start talking about the integration of signage, if we have technology that can tell us where an automobile is at any particular time, why can't we use that same technology to tell commuters how far a bus is away and what time it will arrive? And why can't that be integrated into a signage system that kind of let's people know, hey, there's traffic, there might be a five-minute delay on this route, or even better, you might want to consider taking the alternate route which is over here. And that technology exists. That signage also, which we will talk about maybe tomorrow, can be used almost in an AMBER Alert style to let commuters also know about dangers. So I want to know what our plan strategically is to take the signage that 169 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. we take for granted in our subways and kind of modernize it to make it an integrated part of our information systems.

That's a good point. Currently, we have GPS on all our buses. We monitor their on-time performance. In the future we have a plan, so someone can go on the Internet to check where the bus or train, the next train is.

Not --

And the following step is to put that out in the stations and potentially the shelters. (Bell rung.)

But I will tell you, some of the other bus companies around the nation that have done that have turned it off, for a variety of reasons. It wasn't working. But we will still investigate that, because we think that's critical for our customers.

Thank you, 170 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to your new position as General Manager, and I appreciate your coming to Council to meet with us as soon as you came on board.

Thank you.

I do agree with Councilman Jones that it seems that our transit system has not been promoted as user friendly, but we got to have a bus, so let's just put it out there, let's put some transportation on the street, but to integrate it into the life of our citizens, I'm encouraged that you want to do that. Just a point of information. I 171 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. hope on that list, Frances Jones, is the transportation from the Lower Northeast to Cheltenham Mall, because that was the question we got. You got it on that list?

For new service?

For new service. We asked about that some years ago.

Currently, it's not on the list, but it is one that is under discussion.

Okay. We have the Lower Northeast, Rising Sun, Adams Avenue and East Oak Lane, and those people, those individuals want transportation over Cheltenham Avenue to two malls, the Cedarbrook Mall and the Cheltenham Mall, and then that will save them on gas, but there's no public transportation to get from one side to the other. It would be -- because there's a whole -- and I think we may be in discussion with Cheltenham, because 172 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. they're working on a trend, and I think that's in the discussion stages, too.

The business improvement district?

Right.

Yes.

All right. Thank you. Don't forget it. The other thing, I want to just go back to your testimony where you talk about the passage of Act 44. Could you give us a little more detail in terms of that Act and what it really does and how does it sustain you for years to come?

Well, Act 44, in the past we used to be a line item in the state budget, and year to year we were relying on the Pennsylvania Legislature to give us an increase in funds. Act 44 provided where most of the funds come from the state sales tax and there's a built-in growth to those funds, and that's one of the reasons it has built-in growth. Number one, it gave us what we 173 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. needed, but it also built in growth for the system.

Okay. That was a good thing. Thank you. That's all I wanted for the record. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.

Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, Mr. Casey, Ms. Jones and the other gentleman at the table. Can you tell me what the status of the lease/leaseback agreement is?

Recently, we reinstituted conversations with the City Solicitor's Office and had preliminary discussions on that, but that's as far as it is right now.

Not to be 174 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. funny, but I wasn't interested in the conversation. I'm interested in whether there is an agreement, because there was an agreement that expired December 31, 2005. Then there was a two-year agreement that extended that, which expired December 31, 2007. So are we actually under agreement or not?

My understanding, it was extended to the end of this year, 2008.

And when was that done?

I don't know, but I can get you that information.

And who made the decision?

For SEPTA I know who made the decision. I'm not sure. I assume it was the City Solicitor's Office.

The original lease/leaseback agreement had to be approved by Council; is that correct? 175 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

I believe so, yes.

So at what point do you expect that Council should be involved in discussions or negotiation with the lease/leaseback agreement? I mean, at the end of the day, there are different branches of government. This is the legislative branch of government, and we essentially own, I'll use the term, roughly half of the infrastructure, which technically is not under agreement at this point. It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. For instance, when we talk about any number of different things, we own the franchise rights, we own the Broad Street Subway, I believe, but we own half of the El. We own any number of different things that could be revenue generators for the City if we choose to change the agreement in some way. I don't see how we move forward into the future under a new Administration. I became fully aware of 176 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. the fact that the last Administration did not want a new agreement. They didn't want to take on that responsibility. And if this Administration doesn't want to take on that responsibility, at some point Council has to, I think, intervene in the process. Because we approved an agreement in 1968. It expired three years ago. We are not in agreement, yet we own half the infrastructure. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

If I can ask -- Rina Cutler is in the audience, if I could ask her to follow up on that and give you the status of where it is. SEPTA has their own Board to report to, and after we reach an agreement, we'll have to have that agreement approved by our Board, and similar to the Administration, I assume they have to bring that to Council.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. 177 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Clarke.

Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

I want to ask you a question about contractual discussions between Unisys, SEPTA/the City and where we are as it relates to our ability to use SEPTA's infrastructure for the City's video surveillance program, because I'm getting conflicting reports.

SEPTA is more than willing to deal with Unisys as far as using our infrastructure. They have not yet told us exactly where they want to put it. My understanding is, there's a site meeting next week to visit where they and to identify where they want to put the cameras, and based on that, 178 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. they'll design -- they'll put together a design and we'll accept that approval.

Is that the information you're getting from your people?

That's the information I'm getting. There's a meeting next week.

There's actually a meeting today.

There's a site meeting. The engineers are actually going out with our engineers and visiting the site and determining the actual location where they're going to put the cameras.

So the issue is relating to our contractual relationship -- and I say "our" because SEPTA is an agent for us in that respect -- relating to the size of the cameras, the interference with SEPTA signals and all that involves.

Or even where 179 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. they're going, yes.

Is all that resolved?

Well, that's what they're making the site visit for. They're going to determine exactly where the cameras will go.

And you anticipate that this should be done -- because SEPTA is the last agency. We got an agreement with PECO. We're finalizing our agreement with the Housing Authority, and SEPTA has been the hold-out in finalizing this agreement, and we really need to be able to --

Yeah. We didn't know where they wanted to put the cameras, and I think that was the problem. And, again, they came to us, and we're going to have a site visit next week with our engineers.

Okay.

That's the information I'm -- 180 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.

I'm going to accept that answer from you because I'm sure that's what you were told, but Councilmembers, particularly in our respective districts, were given briefings on where the cameras were to go quite some time ago, and if Unisys hasn't shared that information with you, then that's quite amazing.

Okay.

I'll have to find out why they didn't do that.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Jones.

Someone that you will know, Councilwoman Tasco, Gordon Linton, was in my office today and gave me a quote, which I wanted to share, and it is that, Public transportation is the 181 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. invisible resource that only becomes visible when it doesn't occur, and I agree with that. It's the thing we kind of take for granted. SEPTA is requesting a $63 million allocation from the City of Philadelphia; is that true?

That's correct.

Has there been a strategic plan done that you can share with us on how you're going to spend that?

Well, it's part of the operating -- it supports our operating budget. Our operating budget is $1.0 billion. The $63 million matches state funds, and state funds have to be matched on a 15 percent basis.

Yeah, I got that part, but I'm talking about a strategic plan. As we start talking about issues of safety, as we start talking about capital improvements, as we start talking about replacement of 182 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. vehicles, I kind of want to put my arms around or heads around a strategic plan that talks about what I previously mentioned, transforming our city into a commuter town. That incorporates green plan, that incorporates a whole wide view of what we should be doing.

Okay. The $63 million contributes to our operating budget. That provides the day-to-day services. It also provides the -- anything involved in running SEPTA on a day-to-day basis. We also have a capital budget plan that has the current -- the 2009 budget expenditure for capital projects, but also has a projection in future years, and that details the projects that we will embark upon and also vehicle procurement and other issues, and that's subject to separate budget hearings.

Okay. In your testimony, , Paragraph 6, you talk about a $710 million initiative to 183 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. reconstruct six stations, guideways and signals and communication systems. As of today, is that project still on budget?

Yes.

And --

As of today, yes.

Are they on schedule for completion?

We believe the guideway will be completed by this calendar year, and the only thing remaining will be 63rd Street Station. But after the guideway is completed, there will be no more shutdowns per se, and, again, we expect 63rd Street to be completed by next spring.

Could you say that again? Because the 153,000 people that are in my district are very concerned about that completion date.

It is on schedule and we're looking at next spring for 63rd Street Station.

I wanted to 184 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. have that on the record. One of the questions that I got from one of my constituents was that you guys issue a day pass, and as we start talking about making mass transit a part of our lives, he asked me to illustrate this day pass and ask the question, why is there a limit of eight rides as opposed to unlimited rides as other cities do?

Rich, you want to answer that?

As part of the fair collection system, we have just recently issued a request for interest for a new fair collection system. As part of that we will look at all fair instruments, including the day pass, but that's certainly a good point about the limitation on the number of rides per day and we will take a look at that, Councilman.

You issue TransPasses to, I think, 50,000 public 185 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. school students?

Yes.

Are they available to all students or a portion and are they also available to private school students?

We sell them to the School District. They distribute to the people that qualify for them under the Pennsylvania guidelines, and that includes both public and private schools.

Okay. The Concourses, I understand that you, PATCO, Center City District have entered into a new agreement. Could you define for this Council that agreement and what plans are for the Concourse?

The agreement provides for the day-to-day cleaning of the Concourses from 8th Street to 18th Street. The City of Philadelphia and SEPTA pulled our resources to enter into a contract with CCD. I believe PATCO was part of that also, and CCD now does the 186 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. day-to-day cleaning of the Concourse. And if anyone has been there recently versus last year, there's a marked difference in the way that that Concourse is maintained. It's quite an improvement.

We'll reserve further questions about the Concourse under the public safety portion of review. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First, an observation. I like cars, I like trucks and buses, and I'm kind of a person that pays a lot of attention. I think the fleet is really impressive. It's hard for me to believe that a big city bus system can have the 187 4/9/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. cleanliness. You always used to look at the UPS trucks and say, boy, I've never seen a dirty one, even in a snowstorm, but I think you guys really need a compliment on the appearance of our fleet.

Thank you very much.