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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 --
-- of Community College and truly appreciate the work that you do. We have often led the charge to restore --
-- 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?
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. Are there any other questions or comments from members of the Committee? (No response.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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?