Budget — Health Department / Dept. of Innovation & Technology (DOIT)

    2:01PM Mar 15, 2024

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    Morning. Elder serve

    we can start today. Okay, switch it up. All right. All right. Good morning and happy Friday to everyone. We will not call it the call to order our budget finance committee the expanded committee for the purposes of our budget hearing. If the clerk will please call the roll.

    Councilmember Scott Vinson. Council member for a door hold a third council member Leticia Johnson present councilmember Gabriela Santiago Romero present. Councilmember Mary waters.

    Present

    councilmember Angela Whitfield Callaway present. Councilmember Coleman a young second. Council President Pro Tem James State Council President Mary Sheffield president, you have a quorum present Madam President.

    All right. Thank you so much. We will now proceed with our budget hearing for the Detroit health department and those who are here for our hearing can join us here at the table.

    Morning, Good morning. To you. Good to see you all to thank you and through the chair council president to all city council. We are the Detroit Health Department. My name is Denise fer razo. I'm the chief Public Health Officer for the City of Detroit.

    I'm Iris Taylor. I'm the administrator Iris Taylor. I am the clinical administrator for clinical services.

    Good morning everyone. My name is Christina Floyd and I'm the Deputy Director of Public Health for the Detroit Health Department.

    Okay, what we'd like to do is make sure that the presentation is available you also know if somebody can promote Christina to we'll wait for a moment. While we are pulling that up. We're really excited to be here today. We're going to share a little bit about what we've done over the last year provided our accomplishments. We'll discuss our program highlights. Spent a little bit of time letting Detroiters kind of know how we provide our services through our community awareness program, give an update on our respiratory illnesses, and then we'll get into the FY 25 budget. So Christina, when you're ready, we'll get going. You should also have the presentation in front of you as well.

    We do have a copy and she has been promoted to share her screen and if a clerk wouldn't remember her Hall has joined us as well.

    clerk was oh nope. There we go. All set. So at the health department, we begin every meeting with a pause and reflection on why we're here. And it's a reminder that we continue to serve our residents and so our mission is to address public and population health priorities of Detroiters, and our vision is to create healthy communities where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. And so I want to make sure that we we remind folks again, why we're here and through our mission and our vision. So we'll now get into just a few updates beginning with the ceasefire last year we move ceasefire under the Health Department, which I believe was a very wise move, because we continue to state that gun violence is a public health issue, and there certainly has been a lot of positive activity over the last year. We've added new members, many of our members received new jobs. In Detroit. We've increased our visibility through our street outreach, our custom notification and our Collins. But as we step back, we realized that we need to adapt and we should consider a new strategy. ceasefire is 14 members and they're spread across the entire city, but honestly we have spread them way too thin. And what we'd like to do is concentrate them on one specific area within the city of Detroit, which gives us greater coverage similar to our CBI programs, which you all know has been phenomenal in the city of Detroit. And so what we'd like to do is follow a similar model. We've requested $211,000 in this year's budget to help us meet that need. That will give us six additional outreach members and $25,000 for program supplies. Again, ceasefire has been such a major positive impact in our community, but it really is time for a new model. Along those same lines is our behavioral health 313 Hope program. It's a very small and mighty team and they are charged with going out into the community and providing outreach, education and training each week we get a dashboard. It's a SOS surveillance system. And it shows us where overdoses are occurring in the city. On average, there are approximately 35 to 40 overdoses in our city. And the data allows us to pinpoint where we should be going in the city to deploy free Narcan, to gas stations to hotels to liquor stores. And over the last year our team has distributed 6000 Narcan kits, which means lives were saved. We conducted over 50 outreach events and we trained almost 1000 community members the city will be getting a large sum of money for the opioid settlement dollars and the health department will be getting about $400,000 We plan to use that money to increase our Narcan access. We're going to purchase Narcan vending machines and place them in high risk area kind of high traffic area will also include other harm reduction items such as fentanyl test kits, HIV test kits and also pregnancy test kits. We're also going to use the funding for marketing educational campaigns, and we're going to increase our team by three FTEs. So our Maternal Child Health Division is very important in the health department as well as in our city across the nation. Every two minutes, a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth. So let me say that again. Every two minutes. A woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth in this is a sad reality. Maternal Mortality is a priority within the health department and we have a team that meets every month and they review cases of women who have died up to one year postpartum and they identify gaps and services that could have changed the outcome. And we really want the healthiest pregnancy possible while also reducing infant mortality. And that's why sister friends is such a very important program. In the last year, we have served nearly 300 Women 180 babies were delivered 143 Were full term and 41. We're at a very healthy weight. Along with that as our reproductive health services program. This is offered through our eye decide clinic. We offer contraceptive options, STI testing, treatment and also breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings. And this is helpful to protect the sexual health of both teens and adults. We are out in the community we are very visible. We have participated in almost 60 community engagement events, including a dpscd We've disseminated targeted client focused storytelling messaging all across our social media channels. And we've also engaged a youth council advisory board. These are young people who are really passionate and they let us know what we should be doing in the community. I included a slide about the environmental health team so I think there's a lot of confusion about what our environmental health team does. But they inspect more than just restaurants. They are inspecting our childcare facilities, our public swimming pools, they're in hotels and even our marijuana businesses and they keep Detroiters safe by providing food safety. Education, responding to complaints and offering input on health issues. In the last year we've had a little bit of a challenge with with hiring. We are now budgeted for 17 inspectors. There are currently five vacancies and the positions are still in recruitment. In fact in the last week, we have offered three reoffer letters have been generated. And so we're hoping that those folks are hired and finally I want to give a quick update on our respiratory illnesses. It's more than just COVID it is now the big three which is COVID-19 flu and RSV and we continue to ensure that Detroiters have equitable access to both testing and vaccination. In the last year, there have been 13,589 cases of COVID There have been 3340 influenza cases and seven cases of RSV and we're sharing this data to highlight the importance of continuous investigation and surveillance in order to protect our community. We continue to monitor schools, nursing homes and shelters. We have organized almost 50 community events so we are still out in the community. We are still distributing PPE to our most marginalized communities in order to provide surveillance. So there's always a question every year about you know, we still don't know where the Detroit health department is and our response has always been, we are located at 100 Mac right across the street from Whole Foods. But still there are residents in the city of Detroit that don't know where we are. But we are very visible in the community and we have been more intentional this year about delivering high quality messaging through our social media channels. We produce over 1.8 million impressions and last year, we have 30 billboards that are all throughout the city. And we had been over 600 radio spots. We're also promoting our services in the queue line as well. But public health really works when we go beyond the four walls of the health department and when we're out in the community. And so here's some quick examples of us out in the community. Just a few months ago, it was radon Awareness Month and although we had test kits available at the Detroit health department, we wanted to go where people are, which is at the rec centers and so we put all of our radon test kits in the rec centers and were over 1000 Detroiters were able to get those free radon test kits. Thanks to Councilmember Callaway for the second year in a row. We have provided breast cancer screenings through our mobile unit downtown for our Detroiters. We're also we're in the community distributing Narcan as I mentioned at gas stations at hotels at trap houses. We're out there, making sure that Detroiters have access. And then just recently, we had our second annual block party where we invited all the residents downtown to where the health department is located and we had all of our services available for our Detroiters. So people may not know where we're located, but they certainly know where we are. And now let's get into the budget for FY 25. Our entire budget is approximately 43 point 4 million and that's divided into four different categories. So our general fund budget is $11.8 million. And that includes our personnel and non personnel cost for administration, operations, environmental clinical services, behavioral health, etc. We also get state block grants and that's for local public health. That's for our WIC programs, vision and hearing, etc. We also get about $14 million from federal grants and that's primarily our Ryan White program. And then we do get a few service revenue, service fees and revenues from our environmental health licensing. Which is approximately $3.4 million. This next slide is just a kind of an overview of the budget by appropriation so it shows our total number of FTEs which is approximately 247.5. Our staff cost which is 19 point 7 million, our non staff costs which is 23.6. For a total summary of again 43 point 4 million.

    So would you have a couple of new initiatives this year already mentioned our ceasefire program again, to summarize this $211,000 will be helpful as we expand ceasefire and concentrate it on a specific area within the city. And we'll be adding six TAS workers and we'll also have 25,000 or so for a program supplies. Our second program is the Patagonia which is a EHR, it's an electronic health record. And we are adding 75 new users and that will allow us to increase our case management and other needed referral services for a couple of our programs, which includes lead prevention, vision and hearing maternal child health and also behavioral health. And finally this year per the ordinance the Detroit health department gets 2% of all marijuana tax revenue, which is approximately 40,000 And we plan to use this for a evidence based program called too good for drugs. It is a six week school based prevention program designed to reduce risk factors associated with substance abuse. We're also going to have a parent education session and also Youth Ambassadors. So that concludes the presentation for the Detroit Health Department. I do want to leave you again with the quote that I shared earlier that every two minutes a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth. So that means in the last 10 minutes we have lost five of our women. And this is just a reminder that we have more work to do in our city and health department. This team, we are committed to advocating for our community. Any questions?

    All right, thank you so much for the presentation and we appreciate the work that you do in the department as well. We've had the opportunity to partner with us every time for our community initiatives, you always come out and provide access for Detroit residents so we appreciate that. Um, one thing that I did not hear mention was just mental health overall. There's no mention of how we're providing services for individuals who are experiencing mental health crisis or just learning how to cope methods of meditation, breathing seminars, town halls just about mental health in general and I think the health department can lead in that effort. I know we have you tried weighing integrated health that you know really resumed this assumes the responsibility of most mental health services in our city but I would love to see the health department play more of a proactive role around just talking sometimes about mental health. I know there's several counselors or or therapists who may even offer their time you know, pro bono if there was some type of hotline or something that people can call in and speak with a counselor but just having more dialogue and conversation about mental health. Can you speak to any money in the budget for that or just to direct the department's efforts around mental health in general?

    Absolutely through the chair to the chair. Mental health is our behavioral health 313 Hope program and so if you look at slide number five, I can just briefly recap the high level initiatives, but we provide community outreach. We provide training sessions and engagement. That's mental health. We're out in the community providing training on trauma informed care, we're in the schools we're in the churches, so it may not necessarily be called mental health, but behavioral health which is all encompassing. We don't provide direct mental health kind of therapy services. We rely on our community based partners such as D when and they have been incredible. We provide a lot of referrals directly to them. So I believe strongly that we are leading the way and we can certainly do more. But our budget allows us to again, provide outreach, education and training. I'd also like to note that the opioid settlement dollars will allow us the opportunity to hire three additional FTEs. That's one case manager and also two outreach workers and that will allow us to expand our reach in the community.

    Okay, so as the proposed six FTE is

    now it's a total of three additional FTEs with the opioid settlement dollars. Again, one case manager and two outreach workers. Okay.

    And then the 416,000 for behavioral health services where it is where the mental health component is housed. Yes,

    that's where the opioid settlement dollars okay,

    okay. Um, I wanted to also ask about the

    children's special health care services outreach, if you can speak just a little bit more to that program. I didn't hear you touch on that. And I see that there is seven FTE designed and roughly about $756,000 assigned to that initiative. Can you speak to that a little bit more?

    Through the Chair through the chair, our children's special health care services focuses on over 2100 chronic illnesses for children zero to 26. Now, that ranges from asthma, sickle cell anemia, and other childhood chronic illnesses, their outreach to not only schools but also medical providers, as well as parents who are in need of the services.

    Is this a new initiative for this? Okay, it's been okay. Okay. All right. Well, what I would like to do a portion that is related to the behavioral health services that deals with our mental health trainings and outreach I would like to add that portion to our executive session just so that I can continue to work with you or to get more information to see how we can better support the work around mental health. So if there's no objections, are there the motion please like to add that portion to our Executive Session? All right, thank you that will be added and we will now move to questions from colleagues and we will start with councilmember Callaway. Thank you, Madam

    Chair and good morning, everyone. I have been in communication with you Miss Roscoe regarding the increase in the syphilis rates across the country. I don't know if I provided you the information but you did. Respond. But what is our plan of action? Because the numbers are continuing to increase across the state and of course, Detroit is leading the state in terms of the numbers. But I didn't see anything in your report related to syphilis, knowing that it's continuing to rise. And then also the money from opiate opiate, you've said that that is going to be $400,000. Do you know what the money will look like in terms of the settlement, not the settlement, but the mind that we're going to be receiving marijuana sales, because I know that it was reported last week that they are going to start distributing that money? Will any of the mural one of money come directly to the city and to your department?

    Are you aware of that and

    do you know how much

    thank you for your question and welcome, chair. So first question for syphilis. You're absolutely right. Detroit is leading the way. In fact, in the last 90 days, there have been 95 cases of syphilis. The highest prevalence is among the 31 to 35 range. And out of all of those 95 21% of overall cases are again in the 31 to 35 range. Since that time, we have launched a media campaign to let Detroiters know that this is affecting our community. In addition, we are highlighting and reminding Detroiters that we have a very competent, nursing clinical team that's providing syphilis testing, right here at the Detroit health department in partnership with Wayne State University. We also have again in partnership with Wayne State, a STI clinic where we're offering syphilis testing there. So again, our media campaign is really helpful in addition to reminding Detroiters about our community testing that's available on my both of our clinics.

    Okay, um, and then my second question was, thank you for that. I haven't seen any of I haven't heard anything in the media. I haven't seen any billboards regarding syphilis. But if you go to other communities, I was just in DC, and they have buildings, billboards out there telling you about where you can go and get help. And like a graph showing you how it's on the increase, but I haven't seen that here. And this is not gonna say it's an epidemic, but it's a crisis. And I just would hope that we can do a better job of letting folks know that we are aware of it, and these are the resources that we have to offer you to address it. That but the marijuana, I asked you about that the money that we're going to receive from, I guess the state from the sales or

    so in my presentation I alluded to and you can go to that slide on the budget highlights. The Detroit health department is getting 2% of all marijuana tax revenues, what is approximately $40,000 And so we plan to use that $40,000 That funding for a youth prevention program, again, which I highlighted so we can go back to that slide if you'd like and, you know, we would love to partner with you. If you would like to learn a little bit more about that, but we're excited about that funding, it's really going to help us to provide awareness in our community. Okay,

    thank you very much. And I don't have a question, but I'm looking forward to working with you on the information that you sent me about syphilis and what we can do in terms of partnering and not on that, especially in our high schools, even though you gave us that that number between 31 and 35. We still have a lot of younger people under 31. We're also contracting the disease as well. Thank you Madam Chair. And thank you Miss Roscoe.

    Thank you member Calloway. Councilmember Durham.

    Thank you Madam President. And good morning to you Dr. Ron, Fer rosow And your entire team. You guys do an amazing job. I am thankful for the partnership that we have often. You've come to health fairs in the district personally, and done many community events, even with a lot of our residents that we've seen you and and so I appreciate that. And outreach in the community I think is really vital. I wanted to touch on one of the key points that you talked about, which was maternal child health. I can't help but notice a decrease in funding, particularly for staffing. And my question behind that, is that adequate as we talk about pushing maternal health forward? Do we need more staffing? Do we need more funding in this budget to ensure that we're getting where we need to be? Obviously I'm a new parent got a son. My wife is the greatest of all. Time, because I had a chance to witness her through that pregnancy and even delivery. And I often think of the women that don't have access to the resources that she had or somebody that may be by their side to help get them through pregnancy. So do we need more funding for staffing? I mean, because that was a general concern of mine. When I looked in the budget, I know you guys are having your spread thin so you have to spread it across obviously. But if there was an opportunity, and counsel could put more money in this budget for staffing, would you guys be able to utilize that to expand the program, hire more staff and just improve the rates here in the city of Detroit?

    Thank you for your question. And through the chair. One of the things that we have learned in public health is that we know how to do a lot with little and under the leadership of Dr. Iris Taylor. She's able to modify and adjust staff in order to serve our community. So I'll let her respond to that question. But based on my assessment of the budget, it is efficient.

    To the chair we often have partners in the community that we connect with, and the Our region is through those partners. And we are able to enhance the services we provide by continuing not only the networking, but coming together to decide where the priorities are and where we should address them in the community.

    And with that, I appreciate that. I know you guys do much with little. We want to help you do more with more. And so I would like to make a motion madam president to put in the executive session of maternal child health for our health department.

    Any objections? Hearing none, that action will be taken.

    Thank you, Madam President. And my second question just revolves around something near and dear to my heart as well. Last year, we work to put in funding for members of our disabled community when we talk about improving health outcomes for members of our disabled community. I can't think of a figure off the top of my head. I know we've had discussions about that how to best roll that out. What does that look like is something new, obviously, but I know you guys have already been wrapped around. Can we talk a little bit more about how we're reaching out to our disabled community, letting them know what's available for them from the health department and working to increase those healthy outcomes for members of our disabled community.

    They're the chair and member Dr. Hall. Thank you so much for that question. Yes, that funding was able to spearhead we have one outreach worker, that's also supplements grant that we also have through the state and they have been able to do a lot of outreach, but cross jurisdictional as well with city partners. As well as advocates within the IDD population. And they have gone to, as of now, over 40 outreach events, but there's still a lot more to go. And so we have our plan in place for the remainder of this fiscal year to be able to do more a provider profiling with our both pediatricians primary care physicians and other specialty clinics.

    And thank you in that same vein, I appreciate that. We've heard that that of their outreach from some of the groups that belong to our task force as well. But want to add to that as well, and why outreach workers great. I've worked in outreach before though, and that is a difficult job. Because you are spread very thin, you're all over the place and they're more interested groups than you can possibly imagine. And so with that, Madam President, I'd also like to make a motion to put any executive session for the health department funding increased funding for healthy outcomes for disabled residents in the city of Detroit.

    Great Hearing no objections that actually will be taken.

    Thank you, and thank you all for all the work that you do. I see you all out all the time. Dr. Taylor two, there's a real stalwart in our community. But thank you ladies for everything that you do. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you, Mr. Hall. Council member waters.

    President So good morning. Director that warning. All right. Okay, so I mine is just centered around environment, environmental health. So I'm just want to ask you what sound tools are used to monitor the environment and health of Detroiters? This would include air quality, noise, pollution, blight, water quality, lead and dumping by other municipalities, businesses into the Detroit River, truck traffic etc. Do we have any tools to monitor those kinds of things? And if we do not what resources would you need in order to do that?

    Thank you for the question to the chair. Through the Chair to Councilmember waters. Great question. So we partner with Eagle eagle is a kind of state regulatory body and they provide authority over air pollution under state law. We also work with bee seed and also eagle to resolve any complaints that we may receive from residents regarding air pollution or truck truck pollution. Christina is over our environmental health team and so she will respond to what we're doing with the Gordie Howe international project and also the Detroit air quality health assessment.

    Thank you again through chair to member waters. We are able to partner with the University of Michigan on our phase two of the Gordie Howe Bridge Project, which does focus on air quality for neighborhoods around the construction area of Gordie Howe. We also look at where both those families who have stayed and those who have been relocated, but the tools that University of Michigan utilizes there are several ones that they have put in place within that area. Another project that they have also helped deseed with is the air quality monitoring either Atlantis or in other areas that have been known for either high traffic or air pollution reports. So we certainly support the work that all of those agencies do with recommendations, as well as any type of epidemiological data that we can provide.

    Okay. Thank you Do you believe the environmental wellness monitoring of that should be centralized

    thank you for your question. We have a lot of thoughts about environmental health. We'd love to sit down with you in a kind of chat with you, you know with with public health we provide recommendations to our city departments such as B seed water department, but we'd love to have the opportunity to sit down with you and share our thoughts.

    All right, well, in closing, let me just say this, you know, we will see or hearing from people on the east side about the smells and the tastes, things that are going into their lungs. And I know that eagle says that they've done what they there's nothing toxic. That's what they're saying. But, but I think we need to engage the community a bit more. Because I know they're serious when they say that they're still smelling things and tasting certain things. And so we have to be concerned about how it's affecting their health. And they've been saying it pretty loud and clear. And so I hope that that's something that you can just take another look at maybe you can ask him what is the thing they smell what is it that they believe that they're tasting, you know? Because we need to demonstrate that that we care and we can't just go and say you know what eagle has done there's nothing toxic so leave it alone. Know It. If you're smelling something, it's hurting you some kind of way. I just I just don't know what that is.

    I like to respond to that and through the chair. We have just launched a community health assessment about two weeks ago and it is a very simple survey no more than 15 questions. It's available now on our website. And we're asking you to short here's what's important to them. That shows that we care. And once we tally up the responses, our goal is 10,000. Then we'll conduct focus groups we're able to sit down with them directly to say, tell us what's concerning to you. And then from there, we can build programs based upon their needs. It's one thing for the health department to tell them what's important, but that doesn't work. We know that it's best when we sit down and we hear directly from our residents. So I agree with you that we still have some more work to do. Thank you.

    Madam, I didn't mean that you did that you didn't care. I'm just talking about we all have to show them demonstrate that we all care. All right. Now please don't take it personally. Thank you Thank you.

    Thank you member waters member Johnson.

    Thank you, Madam President. And good morning to you all. Thank you so much for the presentation. It clearly shows the areas of focus of the Health Department, and I know last year we were looking at how do we expand that? How do we continue to grow from pre bankruptcy right when the Health Department provided many more services to residents in the city. And so to piggyback off of the line of questioning that member waters just asked. As you all know, we are always concerned and wanting to make sure that we're supporting residents around the Lantus plan and I'm sure any industrial plants throughout the city because our residents are dealing with emissions with air pollution, whether it's coming from these industrial plants, the number of demolitions that we've done in the city of Detroit, you know, all of that is is impacting our air quality. We saw with the wildfires that were coming from Canada, in the summertime and so I am wondering if the department has considered or completed any community education and outreach about indoor or outdoor air pollution and its impacts and how people can protect themselves. We put in, I think it was a total of $400,000 into last year's budget with the intent of providing air purifiers for residential properties throughout the city of Detroit to help address that.

    The chair to Councilmember Johnson, thank you for that question. Like I stated before we do work closely with BC who focuses on indoor air quality and also when we have our environmental health specialists who again focus on the outdoor for not only restaurants, but any other type of businesses that they will inspect we also want to make sure that we have the necessary tools. I do believe the air purifiers were not necessarily with the health department. But we did support outreach work for those who were in need. Who had questions about particular program that did have air purifiers.

    So in in response to that I'm not sure that the air purifiers landed in any department. And so I'm not really sure where they would have landed and that was one thing that was extremely disappointing for me. But as we look at asthma rates, even though the city of Detroit may not be number one anymore, which to me doesn't necessarily say that we're doing something better. It may mean that some other cities are doing things that are a little worse. That put them at a higher rate of residents with asthma than Detroiters. But my question is still to you all, is there any anything that you are doing or able to do to share with community the impacts of air pollution on them and how they can mitigate that themselves or if there's something that we collectively need to do? So? Yes,

    all of that. There's certainly an opportunity for us as the health department to provide education but also partnering with B seed who is out in the community doing this. They're doing this work. I don't have the answer to your first question regarding where those air quality machines are. I will find out and I will get back to your your team because I don't have the answer to that question.

    So let me clarify. The air monitors I'm aware of where they are in District Four. In last year's budget, we put in two pots of money essentially for air purifiers to be provided to residents in industrial areas. Still Lantus on the east side was one of them. Those are the dollars that I'm referring to that have not been utilized. And I've seen Mr. Corley may have received some information perhaps from the administration and wants to chime in.

    All right, Mr. Corley. President.

    So it's our understanding. BC read that the money for the air purifiers was sent to HR D, which is baffling to me. But B C's budget hearing is next Wednesday. At two o'clock, so it'd be wonderful to raise these questions again when they when they come before and thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,

    Mr. Corley. And so my second question is about one member Dr. Hall talked about infant mortality rates. I'm not sure if you all have seen the the news about ascension and ascension, reducing the the number of just their whole OBGYN healthcare and the support the number of doctors that they have and all of that. And so I wonder if you all work with if you partner with any of the hospitals in the area, because of our infant mortality rates, to just kind of share the negative impact that has on black and brown people in the city of Detroit because of them closing up. We've already seen a number of hospitals that closed in the city. So it's becoming even that much more difficult for black and brown women to get the necessary support. To have healthy pregnancies and healthy children. Do you all partner with Can you speak to that? I know the work that the health department does, but I think it takes for us to have partners throughout the city of Detroit, where Detroiters have access to these physicians. To be able to address any personal challenges that they may be having.

    to the gym. One of the networks that we participate in is in Region 10, which is Oakland Wayne in Macomb County and specifically for the Detroit area. We partner with all of our providers in the community to not only look at access, but to develop recommendations around the practices within those those providers so that we do deal with infant mortality in particular, as well as maternal mortality.

    So is are you able to and I know that it's a private institution, but are you Are we able to really urge and encourage them to understand the the the effect of a reduction in OBGYN physicians throughout the city in an ad I'm really focused on Ascension because I know that this is happening throughout the ascension health care system. But is there anything that we can do to really help them to understand how detrimental that can be for Detroiters?

    I think through advocacy and we've done so impart with our partners in not only advocacy to the state into the legislature but directly to the individuals responsible for the ascension system to express our concern around access to care.

    Thank you and if there's anything more that you're doing with ascension, particularly, that that is in District Four and provides a lot of support to residents in the district. I would love to work with you all on that.

    Thank you.

    Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you, Councilmember Johnson, President Pro Tem tight.

    Thank you, Madam President. And good morning. Thank you, Chief fer for being here. You and your team. Want to start off by saying I know a number of years ago I challenged the city of Detroit through the health department to declare not just me, but I know that council presidents will declare gun violence as a public health issue. And it was determined it was said that it was going to happen we didn't see that movement. It's clear that that movement is happening now and I appreciate the the willingness to work with us the willingness certainly to work with the members of the community to ensure that we do all we can to not just look at gun violence. solely as a issue of criminality, trauma, personal life experiences and other things are involved when we start talking about a gun violence. So again, I appreciate that and look forward to continuing to work with you. As we further the effort. I also want to thank you in advance. We've been having conversations about our mental health initiative, our campaign that we're working on and in addition to the efforts that you have, we are partnering in developing a community mental health survey as well. So that will be in tandem. Looking to roll that out sometime after the budget period. So again, all good news in those areas. Thank you so much. Do have questions and a number of folks have asked or who have indicated that as a result of the floods you know, from a number of years ago that mold has created so many issues within their household and within their bodies. But has there been any outside of any federal or any third party entity has there been any investigation analysis of this concern that has continued to be brought to this body through public comment and emails and just commentary out in the community? Has there been any investigation or an analysis, if that's true, how it's affecting our community and what we can do about it. If that is the case?

    Thank you for the question. And through the chair, we know that mold is widespread. It is in our community, it's probably in this building. That is because mold is again, it's it should be dealt with as particularly our community it should be dealt with as a home repair and inspection issue and that's under our B seed and HR D department. So if there is mold that exists within a community within a home, then our HR D addresses that issue and Dave Bell and Scott Ray are handling the case. They're handling that issue you're absolutely right. Again, we certainly need to do more. And under the direction of HR D and BC they're handling that.

    Well just say just from a structural perspective, that certainly makes sense. But are we analyzing to determine if those numbers are spiking for any particular reason? To because again, we get the calls and we're working with a nurse who's saying that now it's they're starting to see mold in bloodstream and that is a challenge that is concerning mold in in ears that may prevent or cause hearing loss and things of that nature. So it's not so much just the technical aspect of the housing that the folks are living in. But what can we as a city do outside of giving folks tickets or going back because if it's a private owner who lives at a home if the mold is inside HRD BC, more than likely would not come in contact with them. And so people need the tools of course outside of the government coming to give them a ticket on something that's harming them inside of their own home. So just again, if I can just kind of repackage that question is, how is the Health Department looking at this issue that is certainly has has emerged and is front and center at least for this particular body. It just does not go away and it continues to grow in terms of the expectation that we as a city do. More in that particular area to help people, not just ticket them, not just cite them, but to help them better understand what to look out for and when they should go and get additional testing. And it's not just necessary, you know, my nose is running. I just maybe I just needed to go and take some medicine and it just doesn't get better. What are we doing to help people better understand how to protect themselves inside of their own homes. With this particular issue,

    or and to the chair, again, public health, we're about prevention. We've created a really comprehensive flyer through our environmental health team that shows what you should do if mold is present in your home. I'm not going to have my office give you those copies, but it really outlines again, what you should do how you should clean your home. And that is an educational tool that we have provided to

    residents. Definitely want to see more about that because we have not seen it in our office and want to I'm sure everybody would like to partner with you on that because it is again a major issue that continues to come before us. And as we start to work on remediating the mold itself. We also need to to your point, protect folks or get to the point of prevention before it even gets to that that space. My other question is we have right now know the American Red Cross has declared a blood supply emergency at this point and I know similar to city council, everything health related people are expecting the health department to do something about right so we talked about speed bumps, that's our responsibility. We talked about, you know, homelessness, people are coming to us so we get it all. You're getting it all as well. So just asking the question, what is our how are we as the city involving ourselves in this emergency critically low? They say what I'm hearing 20 This is the lowest that we've been in 20 years and in communities like ours, we already don't donate enough and you know, folks who needed blood need us for blood at the hospital. For something as simple as a car accident. Or if you have issues internally within your body just a bump or bruise can create the need for for blood and Lord knows it can go above and beyond that. So what are we doing, if anything, or maybe there's something that we can do to now assist in increasing the critically low emergency is Red Cross it low blood supply that we have in the city of Detroit state of Michigan and within this country?

    Thank you for the question. And through the chair. There's a lot that we can do. There's a lot of opportunity for the health department to partner with the American Red Cross to help them to develop blood drives in our community partner with churches and with community groups. We work really well with our community partners. And if Red Cross is listening, we're happy to partner with them. We can certainly reach out because you're absolutely right there is a limited supply of blood within the city of Detroit within the state of Michigan and also nationally, and we would we would like to help make a difference in our community.

    I will again we're my office. We're working on trying to identify the best way that we can involve ourselves in this we've had some of the speakers come out to our meetings. But that clearly is not enough and we need more firepower. So working alone with the Health Department. I think we can further the efforts for certain. It's very obvious looking at the research that black communities just do not donate at the levels that we should and unfortunately, it has not improved and it's only getting worse post COVID. So we really need looking at the demographics of the city of Detroit. We need a real heavy push in that direction. And again, looking forward to working with you and your team to help further this effort to increase the blood supply within the city of Detroit. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you President Pro Tem tait Member Santiago Romero.

    Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming in today and for giving us an overview of what you're working on. I am sure you know the question I'm gonna ask this the question that I receive all the time where our group with the Detroit ID we did allocate 308,000 roughly a million dollars last year for the relaunch to include two FTEs as well. So if you wouldn't mind sharing with the public where we are in relaunching the program? Absolutely.

    Through the Chair, we are excited to announce that the contract has been signed. We're waiting for city council for your approval. Once that's obtained, we'll be able to operationalize the Detroit ID program in two locations, the 100 MAC location of the Health Department and the patent recreation centers, so if you haven't seen it already come across your desk. It will be so that we can relaunch this is a great opportunity for our residents. It's been dormant for about a year, year and a half. And again, we're excited to launch in partnership with you and your department.

    Thank you. I appreciate that. And residents are excited there's a list of them ready to to to reengage so thank you so much for working with us and for meeting the needs of undocumented community who is really looking forward to x and this acts of the this as well as many other Detroiters really grateful for my colleagues asking the questions around mental health. This is a lot of questions that I asked last year during the budget process but understanding that I believe a lot of the services are provided through the county and we partner with them so understand and grateful for council President asking that we do more. So I'll focus my questions on on the line of questions that my other colleagues asked around environmental justice and making sure that we have healthy air quality. I've been working with you trying to figure out ways to collect more information, more data, because we don't know what kind of protections to set in place if we don't know what's going on. So I wonder and I know we partner with U of M. But I wonder what would it cost either monetarily or partnership wise to have an annual impact study to to be able to collect data every single year? To be able to measure the state of our of our air and where it is today, where it should be and what our residents need in order to protect themselves. We need information so that we're able to them put the policies and the budgets in place for those protections.

    So you're the chair I'll have to get back to you on that. But what I can share with you is that we have a partnership with the University of Michigan for the Detroit air quality and health assessment, and that's particularly focused on the Delray community. We already have health assessments in place. I believe they'll be completed in the end of March 2024 of this year. I'm happy to look at offering that assessment city wide. Thank

    you to the Chair. Thank you. I think that's needed. We're seeing more industry. This is not just a D 64 issue. We just had a whole press conference in D one the other day, about about industry in our city. So I think this should be thought through should be systemized, wherever every year we are evaluating where we're at and what we need to do moving forward. So thank you for that. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you, Council Member

    and member Yeah.

    Thank you, Madam President. Good to see everybody here from the health department. The questions I want to ask is one, Detroit has one of the lowest if not the lowest life expectancy in the country and in the state. just want to know specifically what are we doing to increase the years of life expectancy that's more competitive within the state of Michigan, the rest of the country

    there's so many factors that are relevant to when you talk about life expectancy. So some of our programs are addressing pieces of it such as healthy maternal healthy babies with maternal child health focus, reducing STIs those things that are determined it said in fact, life cycles, but specifically a program around life cycles is something that we would have to have a conversation about Okay.

    And I just want to say before I ask my second question, I'm assuming that also assumes gun violence and things of that nature as well. You know, I'm not the kind of mirror the CDC. Okay, that's no problem. Secondly, I want to ask I'm in Wayne County Jail, I think scene number, maybe like more than 70% of the people that are in there have mental health issues. And part of that was because in the 90s, there was a massive closing of mental health facilities and I just want to know, has the Detroit Health Department done an actual analysis of what impact they had because I know that you know, helped to have the reason why we mental health, having more mental health facilities and state issue and having state license and things that nature, but I just wonder how they actually done an impact. What that has happened, what impact that has had on the city, Detroit, on the mid on the mental health of the city, and is that intergenerational? Did that follow? You know that they had children, they had children, they have these mental health conditions that probably could have been treated. If we had those adult mental health facilities stayed open. And what the financial impact of that is.

    Thank you for the question. And through the chair, we have not, but there's certainly an opportunity for more of a broader analysis. Of how trauma has affected our community. And as I mentioned, some time ago, we are launching a community health assessment. We are going to be asking Detroiters what's important to them. And then from there, we'll be conducting focus groups where we'll get into more you know, a little bit more detail where I'm sure that we'll be able to come up with an analysis but no, that has not been done, but it's certainly an opportunity.

    And we'll talk about I'm done after this. I just wanna say, talking about that the health care impacts. Does that also include what the pandemic has had, in terms of mental health in the city, Detroit?

    Absolutely. Do the chair. That's because that's one of the reason why we're launching the survey. Our last committee health assessment was in 2018. And so it's really time for another one. A lot has happened since the pandemic. There's a lot of trauma, still affecting our community and we want to get to the bottom of that, to determine what additional resources we should be providing. And this analysis This assessment will help us get there. Thank you.

    All right. Thank you, Councilmember young, any additional questions? All right. Hearing none, that will conclude our 10am budget hearing for the health department and we appreciate all the work that you all do and looking forward to the continued work. Have a great day thank you.

    You will now move to our next hearing which is the Department of innovation and technology.

    Okay, good.

    Day. All right. Good morning. Art Thompson. Good to see you.

    Good morning. Great to see you guys.

    The floor is yours for you to begin.

    Thank you. Thank you if I could, your presenter Okay, great.

    I'm being promoted as panelists now. Okay, thank

    you. Perfect. We have a short slideshow to show you guys just in regards to do it kind of our year in review in our highlights. As we kick off this budget cycle. All right. Thank you, Mike. So again, Department of innovation and technology i Mr. Thompson, Chief Information Officer for the City of Detroit. With me today is Mike homart, deputy CIO and chief technology officer as well as a Robert Nylander, Director of Public Safety it so just to kick us off, really wanted to express the great work that the team has been doing in the IT department. Just kind of to kick us off looking at some of the highlights as we look over the past year. You know, we we have a very large following with improved Detroit. We did a very large refresh and relaunch of that application, just increasing the ability to do new categories as well as just innovating and helping drive up some analytics. We have retired several legacy systems. This is kind of something to brag about, because you will get Detroit you know, the reputation before I got here was we had legacy systems. We had mainframe still. Really being able to retire legacy systems since I've started here. My predecessor, it really helped us increase our security posture off also help with cost savings, and then system reliability. It's very hard to keep the legacy systems up and running. We also launched a citywide MDM or mobile device manager. For people who have city issued cell phones. What we're going to start doing is just better security posture with those cell phones. So we're excited to get that launched this year. We also have seen some new hire onboarding process increases. So that was a big, lean project for our team where we saw a drastic improvement from 53 to 88% of people who started with the city had their equipment had their logins were able to access resources on their first day. We also saw a large software expanded for enterprise applications. Obviously, we're seeing an increased demand in technology. And one of my big things is to make sure that we centralized and we're using similar platforms. Just jumping to some additional sorry, next slide. We've processed over 51,000 tickets with 78% of those closed on the first call, averaging three minutes and six seconds to answer those and get those tickets closed. We also saw a process of 84,000 digital workflows so E signature electronic signatures and have refreshed over 300 workstations, eliminating over 54% of devices that were over four years old, reducing our legacy software support costs by $43,000. And also keeping just current refreshing and migrating people to Windows 11. We also had a touch earlier, just that legacy hardware refresh again, keeping the city of Detroit updated and current. We also deployed body cameras to every individual officer. We used to have a pooled model where everyone would just come and check in now we actually don't share those resources anymore. So they are assigned and each officer has their own body camera, which was a big, big feat for everybody. We also in the 911 system, again, one of our most critical functions here servicing the public in emergency situations. We're upgrading that system from analog so old, you know dial up phone system to digital ages, so it'll actually increase some of our redundancy. Give us some additional capabilities there.

    Next slide. present society row you do not have a coupon right now.

    Yeah, we were aware of that we thought that we could lease proceed and listen and that response. She just ran to the bathroom really. Thank you. So Carly, thank you.

    We've been enrolled 193,916 individuals in the ACP. So the American connectivity program that leads the nation by not only percent of eligible residents, but also a number of total residents who signed up for the program. So very exciting there. We also launched an interactive digital equity inclusion map, just expressing some of the opportunities for individuals to have

    Alright, do you mind saying what ACP yes I'm

    sorry, American connectivity program. So that was the Affordable Internet program. We launched cyber security awareness training, and this is something that I'm very excited about because, again, one of our biggest strengths in cybersecurity is every single person who logs onto our computer. So as we increase and educate everybody, it's a very exciting thing. Very great thing to be able to educate all of our staff and continue that education. We also launched the city certified tech hub. So again on our digital equity platform, that team has been really working hard to make sure that we created standards and we really help lift people's opportunity to access technology. We've made advancements in cybersecurity toolings just because of my paranoia with cybersecurity. There's questions happy to answer them, but I leave it vague just because of the sensitive nature of that. And then we've just seen continued GIS growth and departmental projects. You know, we do a lot with each department making sure that they have proper mapping, blight remediation, tools, speed, hump maintenance, plotting all of that information for street maintenance. So a lot goes into GIS here in the city and very proud of that. Especially, you know, we've had a very huge success with our Detroit Streetview project, where we take imagery of the city as a twice a year like almost

    twice a year. Thank you.

    Madam President. Sorry to interrupt. You do have a quorum. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Clark.

    Just kind of to touch on this upcoming fiscal year budget. Some of the reasons for the budget increase for FY 25. We're seeing a larger investments in cybersecurity. So that comes from a personnel and software standpoint, so very excited this year. This on our body earlier approved the launch of a or the new position of a CISO with Chief Information Security Officer. That role previously was split between myself and then my deputy, where it really needs that full time attention. It is just getting more and more scary when you look at cybersecurity as a whole. We're seeing an expansion in public safety data storage. If you look at body cameras again now having one per officer. If you look at our building security, we continue to make sure that we uphold safety and so though those expansions in that do require us to store some data for longer periods of time. enterprise software increases this is just what we're seeing across our industries. Software is just getting more and more expensive. Unfortunately, it is not breaking down and cost. Do it coordination and funding of public safety. Radio refresh. So we're going to take lead on that and make sure that we're able to refresh and equip all of our departments with radios, and make sure that they have the latest equipment, and then increased telecommunication costs again, as we expand our footprint in technology, one of the big demands is of course, internet. Everyone needs internet well. The speeds the demand that we have continues to grow, which is a good thing. I like utilization of technology. So but we do really take serious cost savings, and we continue to try to reduce as many items as we can and make sure again, as we look at Enterprise software's it's a great way to consolidate and cut costs. But continuing to reduce legacy hardware is very important to us, just helps us from support maintenance staff time, also reliability. And then we also this past year were able to have a reduction in contractor labor costs by $335,000, something that we have continued to do since we started the department innovation and technology. So again, just trying to make sure that we leverage as much as we can with resources and move away from contractor help. We also were able to reduce our mail and print operations by over $300,000. Obviously, we don't print and mail as much as we used to, but that is something where we're trying to continue that and cut down on those mailing costs. And then again, we're trying to increase automation and really rely more on data that we have here on hand and see how we can automate and create efficiencies that turn into financial savings. One of the things that I I want to address and touch on and we will continue to do is really trying to focus on it outreach and getting more and more businesses in loop more and more businesses participating in our bid processes. So we have scheduled outreach events that we partner with several departments on and try to encourage our partners to register and really just stir up a lot more excitement about opportunities here within the city of Detroit. We're also very active from a leadership standpoint and staff standpoint. In various it events. You know, I went last year to the Minority Business Summit. We're very active in our own city of Detroit, black tech Saturdays. Great, great group there. So trying to make sure that we're out in the community as well and stirring up some excitement. We also have team members that volunteer as mentors and board members to help improve our ecosystem here in the city. With technology. We also always always, always worked with OCP to make sure that we are following the procurement guidelines but then also bringing new businesses in and helping them go through the process and encourage them to be ready for success when we do have bid opportunities. We also encourage suppliers who are looking to expand and grow to come here to the city of Detroit. It's a great place for business and we want to continue to push that from IT standpoint as well. And so we have had some success of three businesses off the top of my head that I know for sure have opened offices here in the city. And then we encourage you know all of our resellers who are large and may not be looking to rope locate, relocate to partner with local businesses and give local businesses the opportunity to become experts in you know any type of licensing support or products that they can to help boost some of these small businesses here in Detroit. Looking at our additional plans for this next fiscal year, again, it's top of mind for always when I come to this table, I want to be cybersecurity. It is something that is very scary, something that I'm very passionate about and something that we have to stay on top of that will continue to be my main focus is keeping information from the public information for all of you safe and keeping our security posture strong. How do we do that? Well, we increase our vendor management policies. I've worked very hard with law to make sure that we have really good contractual language around our agreements and technology. Again, I touched on that earlier that cybersecurity awareness training. People are our strongest assets. It really means the world if I can educate and train people not to click that suspicious looking like if anyone's trying to give you anything free, it's probably a scam. Increase our response capabilities, and then hire Ciseaux again that is a very big step for the city, something that many large cities already have in place. So I'm very thankful for this on robotic giving us that opportunity. We're going to continue hardware refresh as we refresh computers, laptops, PCs. It is very important to stay on top of new technology and make sure everyone has what they need to be successful here. We're gonna see the migration to Windows 11. So kind of something exciting for me is staying on that advancement with technology, Windows 10 has kind of gotten its shelf life. It's been around for a while so we're excited. We're gonna start migrating more and more people to Windows 11. As I touched on earlier, again, device management, we're going to roll that out citywide stronger policies, yes, it may make it a little bit more challenging, but the goal is to protect everybody with any means we can increase data governance, again, that's going to be just a lot about education. And policy, to help us maintain good posture with best data practices. We're gonna continue to grow our GIS and do our projects around mapping and sharing information and data. Contract consolidation and standardization. Again, a great way for us to maintain security is look at Enterprise software's, you know, the one in two departments that may have a software it's separate from another group, it really makes it hard so we want to consolidate maintain good good technology practices and structure, strengthen policies around technology, and then as always, you know, do it will respond to any city Detroit needs as it relates to technology. And that is our presentation for this morning.

    Thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation and all the work that you in the entire department. You all do daily for us. Shout out to Amber back there who does a phenomenal job and to all of the staff within do it. We truly appreciate the work that you all do. Thank you. All right. We'll go straight now to our questions from colleagues and we'll start with member Johnson.

    Thank you, Madam President. And good morning. Thank you for the work I know we see you all on a regular basis in iOS. And I'm a little hesitant to ask the first question because I know how hyper focused you are on cybersecurity. Are there any provisions within the current budget for exploring or implementing AI technologies? If not, Could you outline the considerations or barriers hindering the integration of AI? And are there plans for future assessments or investments in that area?

    I will answer that, yes. All of the above. You know, I'm very excited about AI. It's a huge technology advancement and what we did this year was really looking at policy procedure and strengthening our posture as it comes to AI. We do have some great use cases that are coming down the pipeline that we're pretty excited about. Rob and Michael take both over to you to talk about your perspective areas. But yes, for sure we are exploring AI we do have a policy that's in draft that I'm very excited about. And I think we are really setting ourselves up to be on the forefront. We've also joined a nationwide coalition of cities talking about AI best practices and policies. So we are very active in that space. And so Mike, I'll kick it over to you then Robert, if you guys want to touch on some of the projects you have coming Thank

    you. So the group are mentioned, which is called the GOV AI Alliance, that it's a group of over 60 cities and counties across the nation, large jurisdictions primarily that are working together to build frameworks, reusable policies and best practices. We were one of the founding members to work, work with that group. So we're, we're working with them actively to get the guide grid guardrails in place. AI is very cool and can do a lot of things just like computers. You can get really efficient and do things very fast, but it can also do things wrong really fast too. There's a lot of biases built into the AI models. There's a lot of challenges, we need to make sure we've got the right guard rails as we're moving ahead. That said there's some very simple tasks that that AI should be able to help us with. I'm very active hrs got a game where a program called the employee resource groups. I am the executive sponsor of one of the groups I believe are the executive sponsor of another group. I participate in the energies. I think it's very good for our workforce and the whole team. I'm working with HR and I proposed to them starting an AI erg. So we're looking to this calendar, your kickoff in AI ERG to give employees that aren't involved in technology that might just be curious, or they have a passion for it. But their job has nothing to do with it. Let's get all these resources together. They can help us vet some of these use cases they can bring us some use cases. So we're really looking at how we can embrace this, but do it in a safe, safe manner. Or Robert.

    I'm thrilled that you're at one that fast that we're looking through with DPD is there. As we just mentioned, though, that we actually are given by the cameras to 2500 officers so one of the things now As requested, review those body cam video for all the officers. So that's gonna be RFP that's going out real soon that's going to address that issue. So there's no way physically that we can hire enough people to review by the camera 2500 officers working 24 hour shifts. So we're going to look at is trying to find software applications that will review on and was scoring based off of different factors that we DPD will address and then give that information to a supervisor within DPW to address issues applies to maybe happening within their procedures and issues. So that's one of the things we're gonna address within DPD that's coming so thank you.

    Thank you. That's very interesting. I'm glad it's something that you're looking into because I was a little nervous thinking about your perspective on cybersecurity but glad it's something that the department is looking into. The other thing I want to talk about is I had a meeting with Christine Burkett. And she had me so excited about digital equity and all of the work that the small team is doing. Can you talk about some of that and when people will see more of it rollout? Because I think it's very exciting. I think we it's a great way for us to bring more technology jobs to the area and to really ensure that we have a populace that is well trained and well versed on technology. Absolutely,

    yes. So very exciting. area and Christina has been a great addition because, you know, I'll be honest, I took the very technical approach. When I first took over that arena, you know, looking at how we do fibre to every home how we can do a large open access network. And Christine called me out. She said, You know, we're leaving the people behind and focusing too much on technology. So Miss Burkett has really taken the lead and making sure that we're able to educate and help train people. So she actually we have weekly courses on basic digital literacy. We're partnering with WC three, to expand that program, and really partner with the community college to see how we can train more and more people. We're taking on more interns to help us really strategize and look at that and then targeting a lot of the public schools. To see how we can partner with them as well. But you know, we've got so many great projects along digital equity. If you look at we're partnering with the GSD department, redoing all of our recreational centers for basic digital literacy capabilities. So one of the exciting things we did this year was launched the tech hub Initiative, where we have city certified tech hubs. So that was a big thing for us. Because if you look at how we did in previous years, we kind of had a few computers set up and it was like okay, people have the opportunity go here and use them but now we really structure eyes and standards and structure around that. So we have minimum qualifications that are needed. So we have eight currently. So we're going to look to expand that as well as look to expand a lot of the opportunities that we have with our philanthropic partners. We've got the digital Equity Act, dollars coming down the pipeline, so grant more grant opportunities coming up soon. So very excited about that. And we are going to continue those efforts because we we feel they are extremely important, as you said. Absolutely.

    Excellent. Thank you for that. And as as we look to the future of continuing that work in in support and education in the community and training. I hope that if that this is not a program that falls by the wayside because we do not get grant funding so as you a whole think about future budgets. I think it's extremely important just to ensure that there are dollars within your your departmental budget if need be in order for this to continue because I do see it as a way for the community to increase incomes for residents so that we can start to see our poverty rates decrease and not as a result of folks leaving the city but because we have access to higher income paying jobs. And lastly, the I just want to mention that the Affordable connectivity program ends in April. And so I am looking forward to all of the work that you're doing steel giving residents in the city of Detroit access to affordable technology and connectivity. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you Thank you, member Johnson Member Santiago Ramiro.

    Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for this overview. I will follow up on member Johnson's comments and excitements around the tech hubs. I've also met with Christina and for me, what it's sparked interest in is how do we use these tech hubs to do research and collect data? So I mentioned this with her and we just talked about the negative health impacts that we're seeing with industry and quite frankly, with climate change as well. And just wondering, have there been any conversations about utilizing this these tech hubs, not just as a space to learn more about tech but as a space to be engaged? Research, collect data. Learn how to decipher the data that then is shared with elected leadership, people that are making decisions about how to make our neighborhoods safer, cleaner and healthier. Yes,

    through the chair, one of the one of the most important things I think about digital equity is focusing on the telehealth the opportunity to really give people who may not understand or may not know, the opportunity to have those health and human services, you know, at the click of a mouse, you know, it doesn't have to be in person anymore. That's not the only way to get the services. So we have we've engaged Henry Ford, about kind of how we kind of tie in with them. One of my big concerns and kind of why we're going to slow walk that is just making sure that we maintain privacy to elevated standards. You know, it's hard for me to carve out a room and say, you know, this is a telehealth room, you know, and so you would go and have that privacy and have that opportunity. But it is something that Christina and I continue to really try to tackle because I think there's a huge opportunity there with telehealth, it's just how do we want to educate people which I think is the easier of the two but then provide resources so they can get that privacy and get that care to kind of drive it home. So we are trying to educate and teach people but we do have a little bit of ways to go in regards to that privacy aspect through the Chair. Thank

    you. Didn't I consider that with the tech hubs, but that makes sense. We're Milan to thinking was around. Residents doing air monitoring residents testing their soil testing their dust that might be on their cars in their homes, residents actually going out using technology to do the testing that universities do just to support the local initiatives that might be going on here or the city itself. And then and then that to me also just sounds like a really wonderful way to engage them in, in health in public health, in thinking about furthering their education as well. So that's really my line of thinking. But we should also make sense I think this is really an opportunity to think broadly. So just wanted to plant that seed and hope that we can continue those discussions. It's something that I'm really excited about. I think it'd be really helpful for the work that we're trying to do. And then that could support with prevention, you know, further education for residents that might be in these impacted areas. My other question I have a lot I'll send over the ones that I can't get to but you mentioned that we're going to be expanding categories on improved Detroit's Can you share a little bit what that expansion is because I have a list of myself. Residents are asking if we can report fugitive dust idle trucks. I even wonder if we can report wild life there is a swan that was recently, you know, seen by DPD that they couldn't do anything about can we report it with the state? I'm not sure like expands the alerts. But what does that list of expansion look like for improved Detroit. So

    most most the things that we tried to make sure that our independent improved Detroit are things that we can actively control monitor and respond to. So one of my favorite examples and this is a shocking one to me is sidewalk repair. Right. It is something where it would be great if we could have the residents go in and report that you know, there's an issue with the sidewalk and then we'd go out and triage it and fix it fast. Right, you know, within two weeks. Unfortunately, that's not always realistic, right. You know, it's not something that we always had the maintaining control on. So we are trying to make sure that we add things where we have that actionable response. So I do think your point about you know, reporting for animal control, essentially, you know, maybe is that something where we can get them involved in there and expanded to there. That is a great opportunity that I didn't think of but I will start making a note you did okay. Thank you. You know, where we could definitely see that expansion. So I think that's a great one. You know, we definitely tackled this year looking at you know, blight cleanup, how we track that and get those categories in there as well. So we've seen some expansion there, specifically. And then you know, banded vehicles sorry. So things like that. So kind of really focusing on blight and things that we can react to

    through the Chair, if you wouldn't mind sending us the list currently of what those are. I'm sure I can just go through the app myself. But if you wouldn't mind sharing that list. That'd be really helpful. And just a last comments talking about our talking about ai ai terrifies me. I want to be honest, it terrifies me. I'm trying to stay away from it, but I know that I can't. So I appreciate the the initiatives to to engage as more in this technology. One idea that I have is if we are going to utilize AI technology, is it possible to use it on our websites where you can have a chat box essentially, where maybe you just type out a few issues that you might be having and then the AI can generate the phone numbers. I would say more than 50% of the calls that we receive in our office are just resource looking for the right point of contact looking for the right departments, where what if we were able to and of course this would never take away the need for someone to call investigators and information. But if it was it would be possible to do some kind of chat that says you know like, tree just fall in my house and then three things come up where you can just call them because right now you got to search a little bit through the website. It does come but you gotta search a little bit more. Where if you can use a technology maybe that'll help the their frustrations in searching. Absolutely. Yeah.

    Mike I know you haven't answered it.

    Yeah, that is one of the best use cases that a lot of organizations are starting with, even in the private sector. The ability to respond to FAQs in a personalized manner that where the normal pre canned FAQ might be hard to find and get through and you're going through it and go Well that doesn't really fit me. Right, right. So that is one of the best that is one of the use cases. That's very, that's a great place to start. So yeah, one

    of the one of the things that I really wanted to tackle as we look at AI is I have like you have fear right? There is what we call a lot of fog. So we put a lot of information into AI and then it brings back results that may not always be consistent or strong. So my my plan was to test that out first internally, you know, I want to make sure that we are weeding through some of those opportunities and making sure that we see that kind of variable internal to our resources, because I want whatever we push to the public to be better polished. So I do think that that is probably the first public facing thing that we will do is really look at improving the website. How can we give people the navigation experience or you know, improve that experience on the webpage and direct them better, better, faster, quicker. So you know, I think that is the perfect place to start, as Mike said and definitely I think this next year we'll we'll explore that and hopefully can get that off the ground pretty quickly.

    Okay, all right. Now, I just have more thoughts like can we talk to the computer and they can talk back and navigate the website any field I'll stop there. Thank you Madam President.

    Okay, Council Member Santiago Ramiro. Council President Pro Tem take Thank

    you Madam President. Thank you, Director and your team for being here. Literally every question I think we're gonna get and I'm waiting just waiting till number young gets here is going to be regarding a guy because he is the expert. On his body as it relates to the stats and demographics and things but I mean, remember Santiago Romero really touched on the question that I had regarding utilizing AI for customer service issues. I mean, we certainly don't want to get into a situation where we're trying to replace you know, human jobs with technology, but it should be human jobs working with technology. And I think that will make us all more more efficient and, and I believe was member Johnson, who talked about how it could be potentially integrated into the secret C code quick fix, or what do we call it improve the tripe? That's it and probably try it. Um, I may have missed it and I apologize because of that. But are we talking about having it integrate with SeeClickFix or because right now the way that it works, it's very manual, extremely manual, even when it comes to the department's responding. How do we, you know, again, we started talking about low level introduction into AI being utilized because I like others. It is exciting but extremely terrified. Yes. For me. So talk to us again, and I apologize. Ben mentioned it, but I may have missed it.

    You're perfect, sir. No, I think kind of as a councilmember Santiago Roberto pointed out I think looking at the website, I think is the perfect place to start and where I plan to publicly face and start our AI experience. You know, one of the things that I'm really hoping is that we have a rollout of AI that makes people not feel like they're using AI right. We want to take away that fear when they're able to go to our web page, use AI and experience it and and then say, oh, yeah, I went to Detroit's website, I got the answer and life was good. Oh, well, how was the ai ai experience we were gonna what AI, that's the kind of experience I want to kick off with and start with. So that's probably where we're all start. The integration with applications such as improved, improve Detroit SeeClickFix makes it a little bit more challenging just because we're relying on them. To be open to that interface and that capability. So I think we're gonna look more towards that first. Just because improved Detroit is such an out of the box experience. We literally customized the app from a branding perspective. And then we do a lot just to make sure on the back end that we're improving our city responses and how we triage and answer those responses. I will say that it probably isn't one that we'll see very quickly. Right now. For SeeClickFix and AI integration.

    Okay, but for website what was the timeframe look like? Just so I can keep my ears and eyes open and assist as well? If need

    be? Yeah, um, well, let me be honest. So let me let me work through kind of how we're going to roll this out internally. I would ask that I get probably I would say, Mike, what are you comfortable with? I don't want to say the number I'm thinking

    we're very early in the process. We don't even have the framework or the guidelines. So we're trying to get the framework and guidelines together. Getting something launched this calendar year would be aggressive and pushing it. Okay. So just just I mean, you've got to build your own language model. You've got you can't use the public lying, which models because they're too easily polluted. And they already have a lot of biases. So you've got to build your own model. You've got to do that process.

    Can we do that?

    That's what the hackers are you I mean, literally, I can I can Yeah. are using AI to write attacks. And then the cybersecurity companies are using AI to detect the attacks. I mean, it's like the old radar detector and police radar. I mean, it's it's a back and forth, so it's not going to be this calendar year on the website. Likely we're working through it, but but there's a lot of building blocks to do it right. We only have one chance to do it right the first time and doing it wrong. The first time isn't anything any of us want to be associated with.

    Do we have any examples from around the country where there are municipalities that are air quote doing it right? Birth

    part of that coalition? Yeah. So um, San Jose has been been leading and doing a lot so they're who organized this and brought together other large jurisdictions that aren't and I know that people have through different events. So we're out there reaching with them and we're talking at conferences and through calls with them. But so there are cities doing very good things that would it be good if

    I can be specific about the customer service the the website course because I know when I go to Amazon similar to your your your response. You may not even know what the AI because it's conversational. It really hits on the question that you ask and if not, then it takes you to an actual person. Is there any municipality that's doing it that we can kind of look at and go man, it'd be cool. We have that and maybe we can integrate some of the things that they're doing and not just as a collective looking at everything, but that narrow focus? Yes,

    I will say the two that come to mind that that I'm in very close contact with are San Jose, as Mike said, but also the city of Boston. Those two really kind of took the lead and really pushed the envelope and were some of the first municipalities that I saw out there. So definitely, I've been talking a lot with Boston Ciseaux. Just about how they're protecting it, what their policy entails, and how their success is going. It sounds like it's a little early for them to give me good feedback when I talked to him last month. But you know, I think I would say probably q3 this year. Both of those two are ones that I'm watching closely that I think you're gonna have some good information and you can tell me you know, this is how we started aren't here's the success failures to look out for so that we can not make those same mistakes. And to

    be very clear, we will work with the the municipalities that are succeeding and copy. Okay, we don't have pride of authorship, we're not going to have to invent it ourselves. Okay, being an early adopter of some of these means you're incurring a much higher expense. You're not getting certain other things done unless you've got a much bigger budget, and you're exposing yourself to risk. So we're gonna we're gonna be a second tier adopter, but we're going to learn from these other and one of the amazing things about the public sector is the different jurisdictions share information and insights very openly. So we will, with their blessing adopt technologies that are succeeding I

    mean, I'm just looking at a headline right now and it says McDonald's closes amid global IT outage that's today. A headline it says that McDonald's customers across the world have been forced to temporarily close McDonald's restaurants have been forced to temporary clothes and other branches around the world reported a widespread technology issue that which means customers cannot pay for food. So technology certainly is not perfect. All right. And we talked about a global organization like McDonald's having a massive challenge like this. So I certainly want to make sure we get it right. But we want to continue to push to get to that point where we can be more efficient as well. Thank you for that. The other question I have is regarding div debt but what's your touch point on div debt?

    So we worked very close with Treasury. It makes sure that you know we're able to bring enhancements and expand the payment capabilities that we have here in the city. So I would say you know, we check in and we try to make sure that we're coordinated with Treasury to make sure that everything is in sync and they're meeting some of our needs as well.

    One of the major concerns I have one is that the information in terms of the locations on website or where the did that div that a kiosk are located is outdated. That's incorrect. I've gotten that. Surprisingly recently, a few times from folks should have brought it to you but here we are, my apologies. The other thing is in terms of the service charge of processing charge, that can reach up to some time 20 plus dollars, and that becomes a concern. I know that you know pretty much no matter where you go if you are having a credit card transaction, there's that service charge for that is pretty steep based on the conversations that I've had with multiple folks and you know, getting within that short period of of time. Is there anything that we can do one to and I know it's a challenge because it's a private company reduced that service charge for our customers, our residents, their customers, but then to better educate folks on the fact that if you do pay with this credit card, how steep for some this this service fee can be and what the other options are, look, you can pay by credit card, you can go out to a div that location pay with the card, that's going to incur a 20 Something service charge or you can pay here. You still gotta leave your house, pay here at this location and that number is eliminated. I mean, I don't know what what that solution is. But it has come to me over the last couple of weeks and I've been very surprised. I could maybe because time people are paying bills and I'm interacting with them. But any any talk about that any thoughts about I have a conversation I

    have not heard you know, obviously refreshing technology making sure that we're improving is something that we talk about often and looking at the footprint I have not dove into those service fees. So if I may take that as an action item, sir, I will personally get back to you because I would love to take a deep dive in better understand how that structure is so that I can come back to you and say you know, this is what we found. This is what the issues I see. And then I can work on a path to improve that because I have not heard that complaint before so I definitely do not mind looking into that certain circling back.

    I don't I don't hold it against you because I just heard about it myself as as of late but it's come fast and furious by a number of residents. So look forward to having an additional conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you.

    Thank you, President potentate councilmember waters.

    Thank you Madam President. I'll be quick. There is a $1.2 million increase in the centralization of telecommunications. What's that about?

    So the 1.2 and Robert I'm gonna ask you to jump in here. Please help me if I misspeak. But we are seeing just growth in our communications a lot around the city. If you look at our internet services, we're providing internet and more locations but we've also expanded that what's called pipeline essentially, to where locations that we do have we may have been paying for one gig of internet so very fast internet but as we expand and see more people utilizing those sites, We've expanded and

    now we have essentially a 10 gig in a good 10 gigabyte pipeline. So we've increased a lot of our communication opportunities with a lot of these programs, and Mike, I'm sorry, Robert, if I missed anything, please expand on those additional areas. That was just playing for me. Thank you to the chair hours playing that perfectly. And what we have done is we've expanded especially on the public safety side, what we're seeing is they're requesting more and more videos. Everybody knows it's a large because some are bandwidth, watching at home and all that we've had to do is expand the amount of data data pipes that we have to our police precincts, all of our public safety locations. So that's been the main threat, one of the biggest threats for those increases. Okay, all right. Thank you. So then my second question is, Is that Well, first let me just say I'm very happy that I was part of that. Whole digital equity piece, my first year secured a million dollars for for that, um, we chair a literacy Task Force and so that, you know, I know that a lot of people who do do literacy around the city, and I thought, well, what can can our contribution be? So I thought about you do it. If and I want you to tell me if this will work, and maybe we have to be more specific about it with you later. But for literacy, all of it I'm talking reading, I'm talking financial, and I'm talking digital. What if we had just a a link on our website, you got to build the website out. And then we can list all of our partners in each category along with their contact information, because that's one of the big issues we have here in this city. The whole literacy issue now you're probably saying, Well, you know, people who need the help problem, and I gotta go to the website. That's possible, I don't know. But at the same time, that could be somebody who knows how to use a computer but can't really read or need some financial literacy. So I think that would be the importance of, of such a site to be able to connect the community as a whole. So I want you guys to take a look at that. Let me know what type of what you would need in order to create something like that. And, and so, Madam President, I'd like to just put that in Executive Session motion. All right, any objections? Hearing none that action will be taking. So I don't know if you want to respond to it or not. But I wanted to get that out. Yes. No, Mike, and I would love to add, you know, I think I would love to sit down and meet with your team. I'll bring Christine as well. Because I do think that there's some opportunities where on our current digital equity inclusion, my page, we list some digital resources, but I think you're right, we can expand that and give people that opportunity because maybe they do come to our website for basic digital literacy. But then they say, Well, you know, I need to understand how to do financials or something better. And so why not create a one stop shop and give people that opportunity? So no objection. I love that as a takeaway, and I definitely think we can partner and help increase awareness. They're fantastic that that's, I was gonna add on that. I think it dovetails into a lot of things such as job search skills, resume skills, all these different things. To help lift up the citizens. I think having a central place for that is very great idea. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you so much. Councilmember waters in most of my questions have been asked already. Didn't want to just lift up again, the affordable connectivity program and remember Johnson briefly mentioned it and I know that it will be ending soon. And as you mentioned, Detroit, we lead the nation in enrollments with over 193,000 residents who are relying on that service for affordable connectivity. So what's the long term plan here when that phases out? Do we foresee that we will continue that what can we do to support to make sure that residents have affordable access to internet? Well, one of the biggest things that I definitely can always use your guys's help in as advocacy. You know, as things get to the federal level, it's so important for us to continue to issues letters of support around programs and really help drive those programs home and try to push them forward. So that is something that we continuously do is advocate for these programs to continue. Behind the scenes. I will be honest, I am not too popular with our telecommunication providers because I do a lot of voicing and disruption around my displeasure with costs of internet. You know, I'll be honest, I think it's outrageous. You know, a lot of people are left behind, not by choice but by this being a necessity and a necessity that they just can't afford easily. So I am my team. It's not just me my team is out there advocating and pushing back in fighting for this to continue at the federal level. But I would say is you guys meet with telecommunication partners, because I know for a brief stint, they were going around me and they didn't want to talk to me. But the same message right. You know, the Internet Essentials was a great program that one provider had but it was still an expensive site. I want to say it was 40 or $50. For basic internet, like, that's a start, but it's not enough. And I'm going to be frank, it's ridiculous. So I think so much is behind the advocacy power that you guys have that you know if there's meetings that you want me to come to and I can pound the table and be the bad guy, I don't mind. But that is so extremely important. And then when we do hear about good programs and offerings, I would love to partner more and spread that word through your guys's office because I do think that your reach is much greater than mine. But that is somewhere where you know we're trying to push forward and really, really drive home. But I have not feeling great on the federal side that they're going to pass the extension. So a lot of it is really trying to try to help push that. So all right, thank you and I know we've done a resolution before and we'll you know sponsor another one and hopefully work with our representatives who are in Washington around the importance of this program. But in that vein is well I know that there was a long term goal of installing fiber optic optic lines in every home city why to help with lower cost and I know we started off in one community to help Village neighborhood where are we as for identifying other neighborhoods throughout the city of Detroit and expanding that that service so that we can help lower costs and more competition, etc? Yes, throughout the city. Yes, thank you. So one of the biggest things that we're doing right now is partnering with one of our philanthropic partners and looking at redesigning our our feasibility study. So when we originally done our feasibility study, we mapped out taking fiber to every household in the city of Detroit. It was a great aggressive plan that would have cost us over a billion dollars. And so when we really started to dive into how that can be sustainable, we're not able to make that happen quick enough. To be honest, you know, it is something that would take us 10 to 15 years to build out with a lot of assumptions around us being able to make it financially create a financial model where we're able to grow it and you know, it then helps self replicate and the costs just weren't landing where I want them to be or where they needed to be. So we've kind of reengaged a partner to look at what a hybrid system would be. So something that would be both wireless and wired to help us really look at how we could do something a little bit more economical, but still provide that opportunity for expansion. So that feasibility study, it was kicked off about a month and a half ago. So we're working with them right now doing a lot of tours of the city trying to map out how this would look like. So it is something where I'm back at the drawing board trying to see how we can make this realistic to be honest Do

    you foresee us knowing sometime this year, what possible neighborhoods or zip codes would be next to receive this hybrid kind of, I guess, installation of where we're going to move forward with? Yes,

    so definitely this year we will have that feasibility completed. I'll be honest, my target of where I asked them to start is looking at some of our areas that are in need financially a little bit more than others, so that we don't just kick it off in wealthy areas obviously. So we will have that study done this year, and really be able to look at, you know, financially what we need to go after and how we can be more aggressive to get funding that is more in line.

    Okay, great. And then within the budget I would we find the digital equity and inclusion, just overall money that is being spent on that I just see the one position but is it just relying on grants that are coming through or were within the budget does it reflect the overall money that is being spent for?

    Yes, currently, it is in the office of the CIO. So where the position is, and then yes, we do utilize a lot of philanthropic and grants right now because there's such a high opportunity with grants we have tax that opportunity for most.

    Okay, good. I think one of the questions that Mr. Corley had in his questionings was there was no revenue listed for it. And so that's being all tracked through the grants department or just where's the revenue coming in for it through grants being tracked that yes,

    we report all that through the grants, because my understanding we've never been a revenue generating department. So we've always kind of put that into the grants department and work through grants to kind of help us bring in those dollars. So it's not something that I've accounted for in our fiscal but is

    it a way for us to see like, I would like to see how much is being spent on digital equity, equity and inclusion or the grants that are coming in through your department that are separated from overall grants as a whole.

    I will, I will take that away as an action item to figure out how we hold that through. Because I know a lot of the philanthropic dollars come through our various partners like connect 313 where we have the Rocket Mortgage classic. And all of those dollars come through that organization that we benefit from that city doesn't actually receive those dollars. So I think, you know, I can definitely work with grants to figure out how do we break that apart as a separate line item. But I think the bigger challenge for me is how do I get that philanthropic dollar reflected as a city benefit as opposed to a city wide effort?

    All right, thank you. Any additional questions? Hearing none, thank you so much for the presentation, and if there are no objections, or may I have a motion to also add the affordable connectivity program to our closing resolution motion. All right, Hearing no objections that will be added. And we appreciate the presentation and the work that you guys are doing. Thank you so much. That will conclude our budget hearing. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. colleagues that will end our budget hearings for this morning and we will stand in recess.

    Until

    1pm. Everyone have a great break, restroom break and lunch break. We'll stand in recess until 1pm